Posted: 30 October 2013
“We think of government as a kind of vending machine. We put in our taxes, and get out services: roads, bridges, hospitals, fire brigades, police protection … and when the vending machine doesn’t give us what we want, we protest. Our idea of citizen engagement has somehow been reduced to shaking the vending machine.”
Tim O’Reilly, TechCrunch, quoted by Gavin Newsom in Citizenville
Posted: 2 November 2013
“With the explosion of social networking, smartphones, and apps, we have the tools available right now, in our hands, to transform government. We just have to have the courage to use them.”
Gavin Newsom, Citizenville, “The Collaboration Stage”
Posted: 4 November 2013
“The government’s delay in implementing new technologies is a big problem, but it’s not a new one. The sad truth is that the history of government is a history of technophobia. Sixty years ago, as President Roosevelt was delivering his fireside chats by radio, Congress was passing laws attempting to keep microphones off the congressional floor.”
Gavin Newsom, Citizenville, “A History of Technophobia”
Posted: 6 November 2013
“Bureaucracy was a hot term 90 years ago. It helped us to prevent graft, patronage and corruption. … I’m in the center, I push whatever it is out to you, and you’re a passive recipient, isolated from others. It’s a one-way model. In education, it’s I’m a professor, you’re a student. An empty vessel. In politics, it’s You vote, I rule.”
Don Tapscott, quoted by Gavin Newsom in Citizenville, “A Fleet of Wright Flyers”
Posted: 9 November 2013
This morning, I woke up to an alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy with rates set by the Utah Public Service Commission. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by Springdale’s town government through an agreement with the National Park Service.
After that, I watched TV news on a FCC regulated channel along with some interviews on CSPAN and finally watched a weather prediction that was based on information provided by the National Weather Service in NOAA using satellites designed, built, and launched by NASA.
I watched all this while eating breakfast that was made of food inspected for safety by the US Department of Agriculture and took a pill that was determined to be safe by the Food and Drug Administration using a clock that was accurate due to standard clocks maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory.
I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile on roads built by the Utah Department of Transportation in cooperation with the Federal Department of Transportation while stopping for gas with quality inspected by the Environmental Protection Agency using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve bank. I stopped to mail a letter that will be delivered by the US Postal Service, passing by a school operated by the Utah Department of Education and the Washington County Board of Education.
While I was away from home, I was reassured that my house would be safe from fire and or theft due to the efforts of the Rockville/Springdale Fire Department and Springdale Police Department and was more safe anyway due to the standards created by federal building codes and Springdale building inspections.
When I returned home, I logged onto the Internet that was developed using research grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and logged onto a Fox News forum to post messages about how socialism is bad because the government can’t do anything right.
Based on an Internet Meme quoted by Gavin Newsom in Citizenville, “National Government Coming Out Day”
Posted: 14 November 2013
When people are frustrated, and angry, and mad, and a lot of them have legitimately gotten the shaft, if you look like you’re sharing information and you trust people to draw rational conclusions, your chances of getting to a good outcome are lots better.
President Bill Clinton quoted by Gavin Newsom in Citizenville, “Let the Sunlight In”
Posted: 16 November 2013
Whenever there’s an opportunity for people to post comments anonymously, the discourse invariably sinks to the lowest common denominator of name-calling, insults, and flame wars. People become their worst selves. Civility falls by the wayside. When that layer of privacy is eliminated and people are forced to stand publicly behind what they say, civility returns.
(At Kinesava.com/ZiCC, you have to post under your actual name.)
Gavin Newsom in Citizenville, “We Want Our Cookies”
Posted: 27 January 2014
A closed system preserves the status quo. In the information economy, information is power. And those who have power are naturally reluctant to give it up.
Vivek Kundra quoted by Gavin Newsom in Citizenville, “Living in a Glass House”
Posted: 10 February 2014
Guest Quote from the Springdale Library Book Discussion Book for February
Regulators do not regulate effectively, legislators do not legislate boldly, policy and decision makers do not make wise choices, and corporations do not budge from their bottom line if citizens do not show up, speak up, and take action.
Chip Ward, writing in Canaries on the Rim
And I plan to ride a bus , furnished by the Senior Citizens group and later eat a lunch which is also made possible by Senior Citizens (thanks ReNay sp.). But there is another subject I have been turning over in my mind as I ride said bus. We bus riders are seeing every day deer, Mothers with their off spring . It’s a thrill. But at the same time I see rifles. We all know what that means. Is it right to protect the deer in our back yards ? Or should we teach them to “run like hell”? As I talk to different people I hear different thoughts. I’d like to know some of your thoughts.Lena
Gzaaang!! Great boomerang from one subject to something completely different. (Government services to animal rights.) In case someone else reads this, it’s posted in reply to the 9 November 2013 quote.
First, the senior citizens bus is another example of a service that doesn’t really cost much but makes a huge difference in people’s lives. I wonder about whether we have our priorities right when we think we can’t afford this, but we can afford 25 billion dollar aircraft carriers. (The USS Gerald Ford was christened last week.) But this site is about ZiCC and I doubt that the USS Gerald Ford can make it up the Virgin River.
My mother … (Everyone knows that Lena is my mother, right?) … makes a valid point and it’s one that I tend to agree with. It’s also an example of something that I don’t think I can do much about. Roxy and I are vegetarians and we like having Bambi around to look at, not to kill. At the same time, I know that I’m not going to change many attitudes about that. Historically, man has been the most successful predator on Earth. (See this month’s Scientific American cover article.) We don’t do that, but other people do and their rights are the same as ours.
I’m just glad that if Bambi stays in the Park, he’s relatively safe.