Monday, February 12, 2007

Elections

Not wishing to get into politics here. But I couldn't resist sharing my good fortune of living in the Granite State during U.S. Presidential campaign pre-primary season. I missed Hillary this weekend but did manage to score a ticket to see Barack Obama this evening.

Speaking of politics, I also wanted to pass along a very good book I've started reading, Sidewalk Strategies by Larry Tramutola.

Sidewalk Strategies is all about local elections. Larry has 30 years of experience working on local political campaigns--and his consultancy concentrates on "public good" kind of entities like schools, hospitals, libraries, and more.

So be it local, state or national--elections and the political process are the bedrock of democracy in the United States. Of course, I'd like to say freedom of information and unfettered access to education through the public library is a deep stratum layer within this bedrock. But my gut tells me (no research results yet) that a generation younger than I may not see this bedrock as especially impressive or even very important to their daily lives. Why or why not?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That generation younger than you "may not see this bedrock as especially impressive or even very important to their daily lives" because they have lived their lives with so very much data flowing freely before and around them. "Freedom of data" is trumping "freedom of information."

And "access to education" is being trumped by "access to training," and by pooling our recent immediate experiences (ever see a cluster of members of that younger generation grouped around a computer sharing what they know [or only feel they know] about how the software or database works?). Nobody reads the manual any more, because there isn't a manual any longer. Give me a quick PowerPoint with a few bullet points! No time even for a workshop. Education? Forget about it.

No research results here, either, but that's what my own gut says at the moment.

P. Melanchthon