Craig Silva has taken the bit in his teeth and wacked back at my posting.
I won't bother to address the points one at a time. We both probably think
the other is off the mark about the same percentage of the time. But this
is not Tennis. Not set, match, point here. Just an on going struggle to
bend the process a little.

I will only address one issue, that being our relative myopia about the
progress we do make, and the leverage of knowledge. The Disney Campaign
(working to make Disney become a more honourable corporate citizen) has
recently posted documents pointing out that the CEO of Disney makes about
$97,000 per hour and the Haitian workers make kids pagamas for Disney earn
between 5 and 7 cents for making a pair. (The campaign kicks off in about
two weeks - for this Christmas season).

We are betting that our ability to move such information around as a
handful of bytes in this venue will be "worth more" in social process
currency than the high paid public relations flaks from Disney who were
quoted in the Wall Street Journal (fingers crossed no doubt) saying that
Disney was proud of its labour practices.

As for have communication technologies done more to stupify or democratize
the globe. While I lament the stupifying effects of commecial
communications as much as the next soul, I do observe that it was not
until about 50 years ago that the U.S. took the notion of civil rights
seriously (a lot of us got tear gased helping it wake up to that point -
it didn't just happen). In much less time the idea of human rights has a
foothold on the human mind. Did a virus do this? I would give more weight
to communications technologies. When 98% of the Caribbean population was
dying thanks to Columbus et. al. hardly anybody knew, or cared.

While many of us lament the lack of action when faced with Bosnia and
Rwanda, this lament is in terms of what we could do if we decided to rise
to the occasion, not how poorly we do compared to the past. The score card
for the past is not so great on this score. But then again, this is not
Tennis and we are not bystanders betting on the outcome.

History is made, it doesn't 'just happen' and some of the earth's mortal
souls would rather try making it happen just a bit better - even at the
risk of failing - than just sit on the side and place intellectual bets.

Those who say this way won't work usually stop there, they don't go on to
put alternatives on the table. It is a bit like a passerby telling a poor
farmer that his horse looks like a looser. In the absence of an
alternative you either plow the field with what you have, or try to live
off the back of someone else.

This _IS_ a list about how the internet might/could/can/would be used in
the service of health promotion. In that sense it is a bit like tennis,
when the ball is in one's court, the least one can do is give it one's
best shot. The information and communication technology (ICT) ball is in
our court. I guess one option is to walk off the playing field. But out of
courtesy to others, please don't stop at the food tent. The food is for
the players.

=== From ================================================================
Sam Lanfranco, Coordinator, Distributed Knowledge Project (DKProj)
   c/o YCHS 214 YL, York University, 4700 Keele Street, North York
   Ont, CANADA M3J 1P3 - FAX +416 736-5737, Ph. (York) +416 736-5237
Email: <[log in to unmask]> = <[log in to unmask]> = <[log in to unmask]>