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Global Voices’ Advocacy section has published a guide to using blogs in activism. Download it today - for free! - or help translate it into other languages.
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links for 2008-01-31
links for 2008-01-30
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Which Caribbean nations are likely to join Dominica in coming aboard Chavez’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA)?
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Videoblog highlighting aspects of everyday life in India
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Initiative started by a group of US-based Kenyans in response to the post-election crisis. First on the schedule: a benefit concert featuring Les Nubians and others. (Via Ory)
Ashraph - recent works
(clockwise from left) “Robber Talk” (detail), Ashraph, “Jumbies” (detail),”Band of Indians”, “Band of de Year?”
Ashraph, my friend of more years than either of us likes to remember, opened his latest exhibition yesterday evening at the National Museum in Port of Spain. The striking works riff off ideas about the past, present and future of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival traditions and art forms in the oblique and frequently surprising manner typical of Ashraph’s work.
The show runs until February 10, so if you happen to be in Port of Spain these next few weeks, don’t short-change yourself by missing it. For a preview, see my Flickr photoset.
links for 2008-01-29
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Super Google maps visualisation of Global Voices posts and their points of origin using Yahoo Pipes for geo-coding.
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The ins and outs of real estate transactions in Cuba
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The three trips I have planned for the year so far will take me 16,016 miles and create 6,384 lbs of CO2 emissions. And yours? (Via Juliana)
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“There is a popular belief that in Brazil the year only starts after Carnival,” write Paula Góes. Does this remind you of any other country?
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El Oso points out this morning that WordPress founding developer, Matt Mullenweg, has bought himself a Trinidad & Tobago domain - ma.tt. Get it?
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“This website attempts to walk you through the long and diverse history of a particular aspect of human endeavour: The translation of ideas, stories and concepts that are largely textual and/or word based into a visual format, i.e. visual communication.”
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Fascinating documentary about typography and global visual culture.
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Some inspiring examples of how popular web-based tools are being used by environmental activists.
links for 2008-01-28
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Nikipedia on the future of Guyana, in light of the recent massacre of 11 innocent people by an infamous criminal don.
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Video podcast by two art historians who contextualise great works of art.
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Trinidad and Tobago’s Table of Precedence lists the 33 highest officeholders in the land. Currently at #8 is the Catholic Archbishop, but not for long…
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A dizzying array of events, including a screening of “Atonement”, in the magical setting of the Diggi Palace. Next year for sure?
links for 2008-01-26
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RConversation: What is “Asia” and what is “Commons” anyway??
I’ve often wondered whether Creative Commons would fly in Caribbean nations. In this post, Rebecca reviews some of the issues around introducing CC in Asia. Food for thought. -
IgnoreAll: The One-Click Facebook Cleanup Tool - ReadWriteWeb
Hallelujah! -
Virtual Yardy
What would an epistolary novel look like in 2007? Perhaps like Geoffrey Philp’s “Virtual Yardy.” Only one “chapter” so far, but stay tuned. . . . -
MediaShift . Before and After::How Google, Wikipedia Have Changed Our Lives — For Better and Worse | PBS
Jennifer Woodard Maderazo explores the notion of research in the age of the internet. “While it’s great that I can get instant answers to any question under the sun and read books online for free, I am also feeling unchallenged and reliant on this type
[Video] Belmont
Click on the image above or one of these: Quicktime | Flash
Here I go again attempting to make something out of material gathered with no particular purpose in mind. Under other circumstances I’d have used a tripod and locked the shot, but the 9 still images which make up this presentation were taken hand-held. The presentation itself was created in minutes, completely in iPhoto.
The location is Norfolk Street in Belmont, a district of Port of Spain, Trinidad, where I was last night taking photos and video of the La Fantasie art project. I selected the building mainly because it was directly across the street and because of the glow from the two fluorescent light fixtures which highlighted the texture of the metal door, but it also happens to be the constituency office of the People’s National Movement, the ruling political party of Trinidad & Tobago.
See a larger version of the video at Caribbean Free Video, where I’ve begun archiving all the stuff that moves.
This also happens to be my submission for Semanal - Week 4!
links for 2008-01-25
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Haiti/DR genealogy resource.
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Caribbean and West Indies genealogy and research
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Derek Walcott eulogises Elizabeth Hardwick. (Via Geoffrey Philp)
links for 2008-01-24
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The conference schedule, which includes David, Solana and me.
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Creators of video product presentations, tutorials etc in plain English, using paper cutouts.
links for 2008-01-23
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Download your 2008 soca chunes. Payment by PayPal et al.
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Interesting-looking web-based liveblogging tool.
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A real book beats Facebook any day, says El Oso.
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Lovely photoset of a December 2007 photo shoot featuring Belizean musician and Garifuna activist Andy Palacio, who died on January 19. (via Nikipedia)
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Anti-blog sentiment in Barbados?
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Another Andy Palacio tribute for the late Andy Palacio. This one also links to an audio interview.
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Turkey is looking worse and worse on Global Voices Advocacy’s “Access Denied Map”, a visualisation of web 2.0 censorship around the world
We have liftoff (well, sort of…)
I now have ADSL service. Passed by the computer a few minutes ago and noticed the DSL light on the modem was on, so I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, fired up the control panel and voilà — we were in business. And people tell me my smattering of geek skills count for nothing.
The battle’s still not over, though, as the service seems to be 256Kbps. The level of service I ordered was 2-megabit. A luta continua.
But at least now I doesn’t take me hours to send an e-mail.
(And kudos to Dustin of TSTT, who’s been completely responsive throughout the entire process).
It ain’t over till it’s over
I still haven’t received a direct response from TSTT on the matter raised in the letter I sent day before yesterday. I’m wondering, however, if I’m meant accept the sudden fast-tracking of my application for ADSL service (pending since October) as a response of sorts.
I’m still waiting for the service to actually be activated, though. I was assured yesterday that a technician would visit this morning, and I received a text message today just before 9am saying that things were in the works (at least they’ve realised that I appreciate being kept in the loop).
It’s 1219pm, however, and a technician is yet to darken my doorstep. I figure they’re probably drawing lots to see who gets assigned to visit the customer from hell. Which messes up my day completely, as I should already have been out of the house attending to various things, including having the computer I’m writing this post on serviced.
Flow Digital, where are you?
Technorati Tags: tstt, trinidad, trinidad+tobago, caribbean, telecommunications, consumer rights
links for 2008-01-22
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The Belizean musician and Garifuna activist Andy Palacio passed away this weekend, and the world is poorer for it.
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NPR pays tribute to Andy Palacio.
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The hazards of literary posterity: “roughly one thousand” errors found in a published transcription of the Notebooks! Interesting to contemplate how this changes in the digital age. (Via Nikipedia)
TSTT responds
Two phone calls this morning from TSTT in response to yesterday’s letter (and blog post), with promises that attention will be paid both to my request and also possibly to my now four month-old application for ADSL service (which is another story altogether). And as it turns out, the e-mail address to which I’d sent the first letter was one that the recipient does not check regularly. The unreliability of their service has also worked in TSTT’s favour, by setting my work schedule back to such an extent that I had no time yesterday to prepare a version of the letter for the press, which I shall now hold off on doing as the matter is apparently being dealt with.
I’m not cracking out the champagne just yet, however, as there is still no guarantee that all this will result in my bill being reduced, which is really the heart of the matter. Because reducing the bill of one customer would amount to an admission that they’ve been wrong, all along, to continue charging the same rates for a deteriorating service.
Ainsley suggested in a comment on yesterday’s post that I take the matter up with the Telecommunications Association of Trinidad & Tobago (TATT). “Might there be some consumer protection law that’s being broken?,” Ainsley wrote, “I bet your case is not unique, meaning that, if TSTT were to be found “liable” or in breach somehow, they’d owe a whole lot of refunds. That might be one answer to the poor service they try to mask daily by gazillions spent of public relations.”
It would all be so much simpler if TSTT had taken the lead and reduced the cost of the service at the moment when they acknowledged it wasn’t what it should be, as it’s not like they didn’t just declare a net profit of $124 million. I’m sufficiently cynical, however, to understand that this is not how things work. But I am also sufficiently naïve to keep blogging about it.
My second letter to TSTT Wireless Broadband
Perhaps if being online weren’t so central to my job it would be different, but the lack of reliable internet access at home is stressing me beyond belief. I never received an answer to my initial letter to TSTT, so I sat down today and wrote the follow-up posted below. It’s already been sent via e-mail to the main recipient and everyone on the cc list except TSTT CEO Roberto Peon, whose e-mail address I do not have, and will be dropped in the nearest mail box tomorrow morning. A version of it will also be sent to the local newspapers, who may well choose not to publish a letter asking one of their biggest advertisers to change its behaviour.
The audio recordings linked to in the letter have been edited to obscure the names of the support personnel, the code on my EVDO modem and my home address, and also to remove the extended periods during which I was put on hold and subjected to — of all things — a dirge-like rendition of the calypso “Portrait of Trinidad“. What wicked irony.
Update: Shortly before posting this I received a response from Francisca Jordan, saying that she had forwarded my letter to her EVP. Ironically, the e-mail I’ve written her in reply, thanking her for her kind and prompt attention to the matter, is now refusing to leave my inbox.
January 21, 2008
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Service, Billing, Payment & Enquiries
TSTT
52 Jerningham Avenue
Belmont
Dear Sir/Madam:
I am a TSTT Wireless Broadband customer. For this service, TSTT bills me TT$431.25 per month. TSTT personnel tell me that there is no guaranteed speed associated with this service, which does not seem reasonable to me, as sound business transactions usually involve clear expectations on the part of both the seller and buyer.
According to the TSTT Wireless Broadband web site, however, users of this service should expect to receive connection speeds of about 400Kbps to 700Kbps. (When the service worked properly, I used to receive average speeds of considerably less than this, but as the connection speed still allowed me to carry out normal internet-related tasks, I put up with it). And I would assume that TSTT expects that users should at least be able to connect to the service when they require.
Since November 2007, the service I have been receiving from TSTT Wireless Broadband has deteriorated dramatically, especially at my home in Diego Martin. When I do manage to connect to the service at all, I experience average connection speeds of lower than 70Kbps (measured using TSTT’s own Bandwidth Test), which rapidly dwindle to zero. Web pages take ages to load, if they ever load at all. It takes me several minutes to send a single e-mail. The connection itself cuts off frequently. As having reliable internet access is central to my job, the drop in the level of TSTT Wireless Broadband’s service has seriously affected my ability to work effectively. Yet in spite this dramatic decrease in the level of service, TSTT continues to bill me at the rate of $431.25 per month.
I have spoken several times to both TSTT’s tech support and billing departments about the problem, and both acknowledge that there is a problem with the service, as the audio recordings I have posted here attest. (I resorted to recording my telephone conversations with TSTT after an unfortunate encounter with a very rude tech support person). While I sympathise fully with the technical difficulties involved in correcting the problems with Wireless Broadband, I think it is grossly unfair that TSTT should continue charging customers at the same rate for a service that has clearly deteriorated. The sum I believe I actually should be paying works out to around $28.75 per month, as the following calculation shows:
431.25 x 70/700 X 20/30 = $28.75
(where 70 and 700 represent the actual and expected connection speeds, and where 20 and 30 represent the actual and expected number of days I receive connectivity).
I have not paid my TSTT Wireless Broadband bill since December 2007, and I do not intend to pay it until TSTT adjusts my bill to bring the amount I am being charged in line with the level of service I have been receiving since November 2007. Once the service returns to normal, I should be happy to resume paying the normal rates.
I look forward to hearing from you further about this matter. Please note that I shall be posting a version of this letter on my blog.
Sincerely,
Georgia Popplewell
cc.
Mr. Roberto Peon, Chief Executive Officer, TSTT
Ms. Camille Salandy, Head, Public Relations and External Affairs, TSTT
Ms. Francisca Jordan, Manager, Broadband Marketing, TSTT
Technorati Tags: tstt, trinidad, caribbean
links for 2008-01-21
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Nicholas Laughlin rounds up the blog commentary on the Barbados election at Global Voices.
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Only *partly* tongue-in-cheek article which contends that “Technology makes it more fun and more profitable to live and work close to the people who matter most to your life and work.”
links for 2008-01-20
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Radio dramatisation featuring Satyajit Ray’s Bengali detective Feluda, played by Rahul Bose.
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Technorati says Global Voices is the #90 blog in the world!
Five reasons the idea of moving the date of Carnival is patently dotish*
Saturday January 19th 2008, 5:18 pm
Filed under: Arts & culture, Notes from left field
Posted by: Georgia
Filed under: Arts & culture, Notes from left field
Posted by: Georgia
It had to happen sooner or later. A band of “Carnival stakeholders” putting forward the suggestion that Trinidad and Tobago’s age-old pre-lenten Carnival be moved to a more “convenient” date, in this case, “a fixed date in April”. At this point it’s simply an idea that was tabled at a meeting yesterday, and they say it will be debated at a symposium which is supposed to take place after this year’s Carnival. But they should save their symposium-organising money and use it for something else, because the idea is just plain absurd. Here’s why:
1. Messing with history is a bad idea. While the people who came up with this idea might not be aware of this, the thing that ultimately gives out Carnival its uniqueness and value and meaning are its historical roots, which also has to do with the time of year it’s celebrated. Without that we’d be indistinguishable from any other of the other latter-day Carnivals. (Also see Reason #4 below).
2. Whose decision is this to make, anyway? While the “stakeholders” who attended the meeting might represent some of the key players in the festival (ie Pan Trinbago, the National Carnival Bands Association, National Carnival Development Committee), and while the idea is allegedly to be debated, they couldn’t possibly believe they could ever be in a position to make a decision like this. Who owns Carnival? Whose festival is this to move? Who has a bigger stake in Carnival than the people of Trinidad & Tobago? That debate had better be thorough, genuine and completely transparent.
3. The newer aspects of Carnival that this proposal would benefit are of dubious benefit to the nation. I do feel sorry for the steelband movement. The leadership of Pan Trinbago (the organising body for T&T steelband movement) seems to be behind the idea, but they should know that they’re far less likely to benefit from the moving of Carnival than the people behind the numerous Carnival fetes, all-inclusive and otherwise, the leaders of the 6,000-person, $4,000-costume Carnival bands and the producers and performers of cookie-cutter soca music. Carnival in its present incarnation has given us a disposable music form, cheap, overpriced costumes, segregated Carnival bands, encourages misplaced financial priorities and very likely lowers the overall productivity of the nation during the first quarter of every year. And it will continue to do that whether it remains on the two days before Ash Wednesday or is moved to “a fixed date in April”? Short Carnival seasons like this year’s are probably very, very good for this country, as they give us the opportunity to spend a greater portion of the year focused on developing, thinking about and exercising our creativity in other areas (eg creating an education system that actually educates, reducing crime etc).
4. We already own the Carnival niche, it would be extremely foolish to throw it away. With a couple of exceptions, like between 1942 and 1945 (because of World War Two) and 1972, when it was postponed to May because of a polio epidemic, Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival has always taken place on the two days before Ash Wednesday. A pre-lenten Carnival in T&T is an entrenched idea that Carnival visitors keep on their calendars. (I’ll also point Pan Trinbago president Patrick Arnold, quoted in the Trinidad Express article as saying that “the shifting date often created problems for fixtures and other organisational headaches”, to the numerous web sites that list the date of Ash Wednesday for the next million years. He could also ask any religious minister). Now what’s to stop some other country from organising a competing festival on the proposed “fixed date in April”? Moving Carnival would be comparable to an airline giving up a valuable berth at Heathrow airport and a lucrative flight route. And that makes no sense at all.
5. Other places manage their pre-lenten Carnivals just fine. Are we so much dumber than people in New Orleans, Brazil, Venice etc that we can’t figure out a way to make this work?
*For a definition of “dotish”, see The Trini Dictionary.
Technorati Tags: trinidad, carnival, caribbean
links for 2008-01-18
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Interesting commentary on the circumstances surrounding IP protection and geographical indicator status for the “brand” “Kashmiri pashmina”.
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Trinidad and Tobago Express | Hanging Suspicion
BC Pires lays bare the absurdity of PM Manning’s plan of resuming hangings in T&T and the cynical response from the Chamber of Commerce
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Festival au Desert 2008 | Music | guardian.co.uk
Sounds and vibes from the 2008 edition of Mali’s Festival au Desert, courtesy the Guardian
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‘Vinyl has been eliminated’ | Urban | Guardian Unlimited Music
Jamaica, for years the world’s most prolific producer of vinyl, says good-bye to the seven-inch single.