two-tierd internet service

So technically at this point in my evening I should be responding to other people's blogs, but I just thought of something that totally pisses me off and will have a huge impact potentially on advocacy and community organizing online.

On MPR about a week before this class started I heard that there is a push for internet companies to begin to regulate the amount of websites a person may has access to in the future. The basic premise for those not familiar with this concept is that internet companies will charge companies a rate (supposedly pretty large) in order for their site to be able to be accessible quickly and easily by consumers of that internet company. So companies like google, e-bay, etc. who have enough $ will be able if not really willing in order to maintain their market niche. However, non-profit organizations who may already struggle to maintain a website will be pushed out by the fact that their site will load too slow or may not even load at all. This will be a huge hinderance to small businesses and agencies and may discourage web development for these organizations.

This is where I think the government needs to step in to prevent this insane idea that will only benefit internet companies and no one else.

Here is a website that speaks more to the topic:
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=957

The luxury of blabbing in the blogsphere

One of my classmates hit the nail on the head in the discussion board stating that people in poverty may not feel computers are a priority especially if they don't see it as is a tool for them or somehow useful. I truly believe that this viewpoint amongst low- income families is slowly changing, but it could take several years. The question that is hanging out there for me is "Are people really better off with personal computers in the first place?" Yes, computers give us more access to information quickly, they help us in research projects and keeping in touch with friends. However, I know I spend a lot of wasted time on the computer. I sometime brag to friends how little I watch T.V. I tell people that information with pride, but you know what? My T.V. time was replaced by the internet. I don't play games or surf porn, but I can't really account for a lot of the time I am online. I know I e-mail quite a bit and look up news, but those 2 things combined make up less than 50% of my online time. So knowing this, how can I promote a technical tool that interferes with true (in person) social networking, causes eye strain in small children (http://www.tifaq.com/kids/aoa-children_vision.html), causes carpel tunnel, is more than likely becoming the alternative babysitter (TV being the first) for many families, and allows very easy access to a lot of negative things such as the above mentioned porn.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to limit computer access to anyone except maybe child molesters out there who are on disney.com as I type. I just wonder if all this technology is really good for our society. In terms of our organizing class, I really think it is a good tool to reach out to many people, but the valuable in-person connection is lost. This concerns me a great deal. Our culture could see a huge paradigm shift in the coming years- it is happening already. Some teens are spending huge amounts of time online and not really learning how to connect with peers in person. I can understand this- the internet is safe in a way because it is so anonymous. You can belong to a world where you can make yourself up and/or hide away. Whatever you desire. You can find sites where you won’t be judged and if you are you can always find a new chat room or site that you can feel you belong. This is harder in the real world. I struggle with all of this so much. I don’t think this technology belongs only to those who can afford it, but on the other hand, I am worried about a future where everyone is online, connected 24-7 and very little face-to-face social interaction occurs.

Just a thought on community organizing online

I have now been in attendance of several online classes and have read articles, other people's thoughts about online organizing, etc. At this point, I have developed a theory of sorts- this may change as I learn more, but here it is for now. The internet and all the current technology that is available is the most useful for the people who are leading organizing efforts to gather new information, ideas, and reach out to other organizers in who are doing similar work. This could be social work professionals or leaders in a neighborhood or community, but the power of the internet is not far reaching enough YET for most organizers to use it as an effective tool for outreach to the masses. The PEW article along with Crandall's article really reiterate how I feel. People with money have better access to technology. Not only that, but people in higher socioeconomic classes more than likely have had more exposure to technology as well. As social workers we have been told time and again to start where our clients are. As I am taking this class, I just keep having this image in my head of a very ambitious social worker out there online trying to organize a community event and failing miserably because he/she was overly eager to get into the technology age and the people he/she is working with are just not there yet. I think moveon.org and some of these other politically driven online orgs are successful because their target groups are 18-50ish people with computers and money. They know that is who their audience is and it works, but that is not our audience as social workers. So I am very eager to learn more about the technology divide and am looking forward to our speaker on Thursday.
One of my classmates hit the nail on the head in the discussion board stating that people in poverty may not feel computers are a priority especially if they don't see it as is a tool for them or how it is useful in some way. I truly believe that this is slowly changing, but it could take some more years. The the question that is hanging out there is "Why is this so wrong?" Yes, computers give us more access to information quickly, they help us in research projects and keeping in touch with friends. I know I spend a lot of wasted time on the computer. I sometime brag to friends how little I watch T.V. I tell people that information with pride, but you know what? My T.V. time was replaced by the internet. I don't play games or surf porn, but I can't really account for a lot of the time I am online. I know I e-mail quite a bit and look up news, but that those 2 things combined make up less than 50% of my online time. So knowing this, how can I promote a technical tool that

Thoughts on blogging and community organizing in the USA

This is my first non-Costa Rica related blog directly related to our class. I have some observations from blogging that can be correlated to online advocacy. I am aware that many people checked out my blog while we were away. The only reason I knew this, however, is because I got e-mails and spoke to people after my trip that said they followed our trip while we were gone and complimented me on the method and how much they enjoyed reading what I had to say. My mom tried to leave comments on the blog, but could not get a sign-in name. Many of my friends didn't even bother to sign up for various reasons. If I was trying to organize online and had the small number of posters I did, I would have thought I was not reaching any sort of audience and would be very discouraged. This is one of the bigger hurdles I see with online advocacy and we have touched on it in class. It is SO easy to be an online "looker" and never actively participate in the process. If it is complicated to sign-up or even the fact that people need to register may turn people away. I can see so many great applications for this technology, but I am struggling to look past the huge hurdles that need be addressed to accomplish the goals of any organizational effort. Also keeping in mind, that I love technology (esp. gadgets with buttons!), but I am also slow to embrace it for various reasons (financial, time it takes to learn, etc). Community activism is based on wide participation. I would like to know concrete ways to get people interested in participation and discussion and start to engage people who may come to browse and then move on.

More on Community Organizing in Central America

I read an article in the Tico Times (the only English newspaper in Costa Rica) about the use of the internet for community organizing in Nicaragua. Just in case you are geography challenged like I am, Nicaragua is the country just north of Costa Rica. Nicaragua is very politically unstable. I wrote previously on how people from this country go to Costa Rica for the low wage jobs working in the coffee bean fields, etc. Last month, a number of problems cumulated into a huge fiascal. A medical-worker strike took place with confrontations with police and takeovers of government buildings. An illegal hike in bus fare caused students to riot- throwing rocks through windows of passing busses, hijacking busses and other government vehicles then setting them on fire. The president of the country, on his way out the door after elections in 6 months, sat back and did nothing saying it was a municipal government issue. In addition, there is problems with the power company Union Fenosa. There have been power blackouts in recent times and the National Consumer Defense Network is working to do something about that. They are demanding discounts for blackout periods and are denouncing pricing policies of this company.
The NCDN who were organizing these protests turned to the computer and the use of mass e-mail to mobilize people. Few people in Nicaragua own a computer, but internet cafes are popular as they are in Costa Rica and many people have e-mail accounts. The NCDN are urging Nicaraguians to not pay their electric bills for April and May until positive change occurs. They sent out a mass e-mail to 6,000 inboxes on June 1. The article states that more than 25 people responded on the first day and wanted to know what more can be done to solve the problem. This is a very new concept in this country and the 25 responses which seem unimpressive in our world, is quite noteworthy in Nicaragua. There was no follow-up information in the article regarding actual participation.

We made it home! and thoughts on CR

After traveling 1 1/2 days through 6 airports, we have made it back to Winona as of last night! I liked visiting Costa Rica, but I really liked getting on the plane to come home. I have been asked several times now if I would move there and the answer is no. I cannot place my finger on the reason why, but it is not what I expected. I don't surf, so that aspect holds no appeal. The beaches we were at were nice, but fairly dirty- a lot of plastic washes up on the beaches and the sand isn't the nice smooth sand that I like so much. We met a lot of interesting people, but they were mainly tourists. I did not get much sense about who Costa Ricans (Tico/Ticas) really are. That is probably the biggest disappointment. It really is a tourist destination even though we were there as tourists a lot of the cool aspects of Costa Rica are lost because of people like us. It is a very small country that has become inundated by tourists. I got some reprieve from that in San Jose where the tourists are outnumbered except in our hotel. San Jose is a busy, crazy city and quiet tranquility can be found in their beautiful parks, but not really anywhere else that I could see.
The country is beautiful. The forests and hills and beaches are so different than Minnesota. The vegitation is so lush. I love the tropics. The Pacuare River was so stunning (above the water). I want to go back to Central America some day, but probably to a country a little less discovered and developed. I plan to learn Spanish. That would have helped tremendously. Not so much in day to day living because even if people did not speak English very well or at all, there was always sign language. The fact that I could not communicate with the Ticos changed my view on the trip a great deal. It also brought home the fact that Americans really need to develop a more global view. There is no excuse that most people here are not fluent in more than 1 language.
I would like to close with a cool piece of information I learned on our last day in CR. I had no idea, but Costa Rica abolished their military Dec. 1, 1948. To me that is amazing. I contemplated on the plane ride home how that could ever happen in the US. Sadly, I could not visualize it.
The current president of Costa Rica is Oscar Arias. He won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. He is now using some of the money from that to run a number of programs in CR. One that I read in the paper while we were these is to reduce the number of semi-automatic weapons in the country. It is illegal for citizens to own guns. However, the police force uses them. Arias is concentrating on destroying these weapons as he (rightly) recognizes they are not necessary. Arias is quoted saying "Security is established by other means, such as creating professionalism in the police force, not with weapons that kill." Four destruction processes have been carried out since 2001. 1,560 guns were destoyed in 2004 and another 3,614 were destoyed in 2005. There has been a problem recently where people have been stealing them from police departments and probably selling them (one police officer was caught with seventeen), so destroying them is a very wise choice. Arias is urging other countries to do the same. I hope the US follows another country's lead for once. It would be a refreshing change...

Whitewater rafting in CR

First of all, if there are any parents reading this blog, realize Josh and I are still alive (obviously) and doing pretty ok. I meant to take this time to write about community activism online, but unfortunately, we had somewhat of a near death experience, so I will write about that and then go to bed. We went rafting on the Pacuare River. It is ranked 5th or so in the world for rafting. The water levels are quite low at this time, so it is safer than other times of the year. Neither Josh nor I have whitewater rafted, though we have both canoed quite a bit. The rapids on this river range from class 1,2,3, and 4. Class 4 rapids are getting up there. Our raft had 6 people and a guide. Only one other person had ww rafted before and her experience was very different than this river. We got close to half way down the river and had successfully navigated a couple of class 4 rapids. Our guide was coaching us on an upcoming class 4. At some point during the beginning of the rapid, our raft went up a rock and dumped all of us off except our guide. I cannot even tell you what it feels like to be rushed underwater being pushed against rocks and trying to catch your breath. Our guides very carefully instructed us at the beginning what to do if this would happen. I listened. Basically swimming is a hopeless manuveur. You need to fight to keep your legs facing forward in the direction the river is moving. In the process, keep you head out of the water, keep your eyes open and your mouth closed. I kept my mouth closed as well as my eyes. Luckily at some point, with my paddle still in hand I was able to reach another raft just in time to hit a huge rock. I was hanging onto the raft and a very nice man helped me into the raft. After I caught my breath the first thing I wanted to know was what happened to Josh. All of us from the capsized boat were in the rescue raft except Josh. A few minutes later I saw him and our guide floating down the river in our raft. Josh was worse for wear than I was. He was pushed under water and was scraping along the bottom of the river. He has some scrapes and probably will be showing bruises in the morning. His leg was bleeding, but it could have been worse. Afterward we got the story from our guide how we tipped and then the rescue mission story from the people in the other raft. Josh lost his shoes, one woman lost her helmet. Everyone came out ok though a little shaken. We continued on down the river as we had no other option. The river was better after that though several individuals in the other rafts fell out now and again. We hit one more class 4 which pumped up the adrenaline, but we pulled through as a team and I am happy to say we are dry, at our hotel and the bed is calling both Josh and mine name LOUDLY! The woman who lost her helmet and her husband bought the disc with pictures and will be sending me a copy when they get home hopefully, so it will be good to see what we went through later down the road. There are no pictures of our big accident- happy about that actually.

Community Organizing in Costa Rica and stuff

Here we are back in San Jose our third leg of our trip. We are staying at a very cool hotel. $25 a night. Gotta love that! Sure we share a bathroom with other people, but we have been doing that for the last week and it is not even a thing. Josh and I are doing pretty well at living fairly cheap here. We are not eating as cheaply as we had planned, but that is mainly because we found this awesome restaurant called Fresco and ate there like 4 times. We tried to convince Rob, the owner, to come back to Winona to start a restaurant, but he really wasn´t interested. I don´t understand why. Oh the lack of surfing there is one of the bigger problems and then the snow... It was not Costa Rican food, but it was very close to gourmet and we were still paying $25 for 2 meals and drinks. Not bad at all.

I thought I would share some observations of some very grass roots organizing that I have observed since I´ve been here. There is a group that gets together (residents and hotel owners) to discuss crime prevention in Santa Teresa. It is not an unsafe area, but it is very well known that there is a great deal of small, opportunity-based property crime throughout Costa Rica. We were warned not to leave any valuables on the beach and to bring in our clothes off the line as name-brand clothing esp. board shorts get stolen frequently. The hotel owner, Kelly, told us that people really know what is going on in the area as the population is small. So when people are getting ready to travel (cash on hand) or if it is known they have valuables in their home, they become very vulnerable to break-ins. One example she told us about is a woman in the area is a photojournalist, with a lot of expensive camera equipment. Her house got broken into and many of the items were stolen. The crime prevention group is working to stop some of this type of thing from happening in the area. The police are of little help here since they drove through the town we were in approximately once a week and then leave.

The other community organizing I heard about was a group of shop and restaurant owners get together after soccer matches to clean up the area. It is a bad habit for local residents to litter and after the soccer games, the town is just a huge mess. The whole country is littered actually. It is quite sad because there is all this beauty, but the first thing that stuck out to me is how much crap is thrown all over the place. We are very spoiled in Minnesota, but I haven´t failed to notice how clean our state is when I travel through even compared to other parts of the US. I am very proud of this fact. My parents live in Tennessee and there is a huge amount of garbage in the ditches there. I find it very disheartening. It is more expected in less developed nations, but it doesn´t make me think any less of how far we have come in Minnesota and for the most part this is all based on community organizing.

After a 6 hour trip- 4 by bumpy bus and 2 by ferry, I am going to take a nap listening to the sound of the rain.

Its rainin' again...

Well, actually for the first time in close to 2 days it is NOT raining! Yesterday was crazy. It would stop raining for probably 20 minutes to an hour at the most and then downpour for quite awhile and stop for another 20 minutes or so and on and on. After a very lazy day of reading and knitting, Josh and I spent part of our 2nd anniversary at the internet cafe- well I spent 2hours there and he left me to flounder through trying desperately to get on my online class. The language barrier is a little bit challenging at times to say the least. The man working at the internet cafe could speak very little English and the computer I was working with was in 1/2 English, 1/2 Spanish depending on the site. It was very frustrating and I was online for 2 hours and never did get to attend the first class chat session. After waiting to hear back from my professor, we proceeded to finding a FANTASTIC, very romantic restaurant and had some excellent food and wine and relaxed. It turned out to be a great evening and then we walked home in the pouring rain. It was fun.

We were booked on a snorkling expedition for today, but the tour company was kind enough to cancel it and called us 1st thing this a.m. to tell us. The rain and wind probably made the conditions unsafe to travel by the boat we were supposed to take, but the water would have also been murky and we probably would have not seen much. Apparently, some companies would go out anyway, but then people do not get see any of the fish or underwater scenery. We are staying an extra night here in Santa Teresa and going out on Friday instead. We spent the day walking on the beach, reading, relaxing and meeting some people in our hotel. Tomorrow will be another day of pretty much the same.

The people who we have met on our trip have been pretty interesting. There are a lot of wandering souls out here in Costa Rica. Many just come down here with no timeframe to return in mind. They surf, hang out, try to find a small wage to sustain their very modest lifestyle, and then drift on to the next good surfing site. One guy who gave us a ride in his VW camper was from NY, lost his business because it was not sustainable through the aftermath of 9/11. He moved out to CA, wasn't happy, and bought that VW and drove it down. Yesterday, he left for Panama. He is just trying to sort out his life and figure out some direction. I think there are many more like him around this place we are staying. I hope they find what they are looking for...

Reflections from the air conditioned internet cafe

The weather:
The weather here is beautiful for the most part. It rained hard and long last night. Today has been very humid, but the temps are not higher than 90 degrees since we've been here. The sun is only out part of the day. This time of year is the transition season. It is the beginning of rainy season that will last through October. We were unclear whether we were in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, but as this is winter for Costa Rica, we must be in the Southern Hemi. So even though it is not hot, the humitity is causing us to sweat a lot! Luckily, I have probably lost 5 lbs in water weight and with any luck will lose 5 more before we leave.

The roads:
Wow- the roads here off the 2 or 3 main highways are aweful! It wasn't as noticible in the bus yesterday, but the cab we took today (we ended up taking because we missed the bus) proved a rough ride. Josh got a little sick and I think my neck and back are a little more out of whack than they were this a.m. So many potholes so little time. Average speed is 30-40 mph. A guy named Tim who we caught a ride from told us that they keep the roads bad on purpose to keep people away. Southern Nicoya where we are staying is pretty secluded, but it is becoming more and more popular. Unfortunately, development is inevitable here. Cost of land has risen tremendously in the last few years. I really hope the potholes stay.

Other random thoughts:
Ecotourism-yeah right!
Costa Rica is touted as an ecotourist destination in the US and probably elsewhere. It is a very developed nation an continues to develop. The tourist industry is huge. I am deeply concerned about some of the things I see as I'm here. The tourists where we are in the Nicoya Peninsula rent 4 wheelers and drive very fast. It is anti-ecotourism in the biggest way. I am not impressed. Not only that, but huge amounts of rainforests have been and are being torn down to put up massive resorts for people to stay. The coffee industry is huge here and again a large amount of rainforest is cleared to raise coffee bean. Some of you may know, but there is a push for shade grown coffee in the US so that the forests do not have to be destroyed to support our caffine addictions. Not only that but there is very little recycling here. I noticed that when I was in Ghana last year, but they are not nearly as developed at Costa Rica. The owner of our hotel is very environment conscious. She has to haul recycling approximately 50 miles which is no small distance when you realize how slow you need to drive to get there.

Interesting observation:
We were on a tour 2 days ago of a coffee plantation and the tour guide in sort of a bragging tone said (on two seperate occasions) that the Costa Ricans are well off enought that they don't need to work out in the coffee fields because it is very hard labor. So what they do is bring in people from Nicaragua (the country directly north of Costa Rica) and pay them very little money for hard labor. Sound familiar? Not only did he mention that fact dos, he went on to point out that the people in the fields were darker and looked different than people from Costa Rica. I realize there is racism and discrimination all over the world, but it was difficult for me to hear this blatant racism and on a tour at that.

Americanization:
The culture from the states has infiltrated here in a big way. A number of stores we were in had thecr prices marked in US dollars. US dollars are taken at every store. Many Europeans change their Euros into dollars instead of colones. I found out that in Panama (the country just south of Costa Rica) they don't even have their own currency. They only use the US dollar.

I really want to learn Spanish after this trip. It is on the top of my to do list when I return home.

For more information about Costa Rica go to: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cs.html

Hola from Costa Rica

Josh and I have arrived! We have actually been in the country for several days now. We spent one day exploring San Jose-the capitol. It is everything people told us it would be. Busy, a little dirty, but nice. We spent day 2 on a tour bus exploring Central Costa Rica. We were fortunate to visit a volcano and were able to see it. Apparently, many people are not so lucky. The visibility is not always so great up there. We also visited a butterfly sanctuary and took a boat ride down the river and saw some cool wildlife including howler monkeys in their natural habitat. We had a smooth and then mucho bumpy ride to Santa Teresa where we are now staying for 5 more days. We are on the Pacific ocean and can hear the waves from our hotel. There are a lot of surfer dudes hanging round with huge tatoos. It is a very laidback, causual place to be. It will be a good time to relax. A few interesting tidbits: We landed in Panama City as one of 6 airport of the day. As we hit the ground, the people on the plane all started clapping. It was hilarous. I really wish we did that in the states. We asked around and apparently that is not a common tradition. I was sad to hear that. As we walked around San Jose, we were constantly on guard. Josh and I almost got hit by cars on several occasions. Yielding to pedestrians is not required here. We have been using public transportation which is highly recommended as the drivers here are nuts.