Word: civics
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...corporations responsible for the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster. "We're making the police earn their keep." Day-to-day life at Jantar Mantar is not much fun, she says. The public toilets are filthy, and the only available showers are at a nearby Sikh temple. The police and civic authorities "just want us to go away," she says, but the protesters are buoyed by the random strangers who stop by to offer money and support...
...maps, charts and other visuals. By presenting data in widget format, the sites are encouraging dialogue and jump-starting activism (blogs then spread their findings backed by the live data). In so doing, the sites are helping to illuminate subjects like revolving-door lobbying in ways that help motivate civic participation in the political blogosphere and beyond...
From John Edwards' haircut to Hillary Clinton's tear, Web videos have played a well-publicized role in generating buzz about this year's presidential candidates. As influential as those viral clips may be, though, a broader role is arising for so-called voter-generated content. Civic-minded techies are increasingly bringing Web 2.0 to political activism, developing new watchdog tools that open up congressional machinery for ordinary citizens to scrutinize and critique...
...political data isn't new. Year after year, fund-raising information has been emerging in steadily growing volume. What's new in 2008 is the usability of the information, the collaborative ways in which sites are linking data together and the degree to which the new tools are motivating civic activism. While Barack Obama's online fund raising may set new records and the Obama "Baracky" video may someday land in a museum, the long-term legacy of this presidential campaign season may have more to do with the monitoring of government's mundane details than with flashy fund raising...
...concept of tilling one's front yard is not a new one. In 1942, as the U.S. emerged from the Great Depression and mobilized for World War II, Agriculture Secretary Claude R. Wickard encouraged Americans to plant "Victory Gardens" to boost civic morale and relieve the war's pressure on food supplies - an idea first introduced during The Great War and picked up by Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain. The slogan became "Have Your Garden, and Eat It Too." Soon gardens began popping up everywhere, and not just American lawns - plots sprouted up at the Chicago County Jail...