journamalism
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Tuesday, August 10th, 2010The world is not gentle to the innocent, but no matter how it battered him, Tim Drefahl never let it win. Vanuatu offered solace for a while and, on an island ringed by an azure lagoon, there are people who will never forget his duty, his devotion, his love.
Strange Fruit
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010The purpose of this column is simple: I want us to stop beating, abusing and neglecting our women and to start loving, respecting and learning from them instead. And lest you expat men think yourselves exempt from this; you’re not. I’ve seen ni-Vanuatu women treated despicably by black and white alike.
If I seem angry, that’s because I am. I have encountered instances of children solicited for sex, fathers turning their wives out and taking up with their under-age daughters, dozens of cases of rape and abuse, and some acts of violence that would make your blood curdle.
None of these appeared in the news or even in the crime statistics. Few of them were ever dealt with under law or kastom. It’s as if they don’t exist.
No Silver Bullet
Monday, May 17th, 2010The recent prisoner escape has –quite understandably– raised emotions among Port Vila residents. Our collective inability to end this chronic threat has led many to call for drastic action in order to resolve the problem once and for all.
If only it were that easy.
NEWS FLASH – TVL, Digicel Merge, Announce Joint Venture
Thursday, April 1st, 2010In a move that stunned the telecommunications industry, Digicel Pacific and Telecom Vanuatu Ltd. have announced a merger, simultaneously unveiling a massive Internet project that could revolutionise communications across the entire Pacific ‘Ring of Fire.’
Jacky Audebeau, CTO of the new joint venture, to be named TeleDigiVanuaCel Ltd., announced the plan at a press conference at the Forari Mine site this morning.
“We’re confident that this joint venture will provide us with the resources necessary to utterly change the way people communicate throughout the Pacific region,” he said.
The plan uses the strong magnetic resonance found in magma chambers buried deep under the Earth’s surface. By inserting large antennas deep underground, the project aims to create signals by generating massive radio waves and transmitting them through these subterranean chambers at
nearly light speed.
Asked whether early work on this technology had anything to do with the recent increase in activity in all of Vanuatu’s volcanoes, Audebeau looked sheepish and muttered only that sometimes to have to break a few omelettes to lay an egg.
Human, All Too Human
Saturday, March 13th, 2010People often complain that the Law is impersonal, an uncaring instrument whose application too often punishes the innocent and allows the guilty to walk free. In practice, it is capricious and too often selectively applied. All of this is true, from time to time.
But the alternative is summary judgment and mob justice. Far too often, they’re driven by hysteria and a deep-seated desire to find a scapegoat in order to externalise the worst aspects of human nature that exists within all of us. A recent Daily Post story on the recent murders Lolowei village reports that villagers had long made use of the two accused poisoners to settle their own petty differences.
The very people who had commissioned these despicable acts were the brothers’ accusers and ultimately their executioners.
Global Village or Digital Island?
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010The PiPP report, “Social and economic impact of introducing telecommunications throughout Vanuatu”, offers numerous examples of the inordinate lengths that rural merchants go to just to keep stock on their shelves, putting paid (one hopes) to the stereotype of the indolent islander waiting patiently for the cargo to come. If it serves no other purpose, it is invaluable for this insight alone.
But there is a great deal more to it than that. The image it conjures up is not so much of new entrants to the Global Village as of residents of Digital Islands: While communication has improved –and social and economic well-being along with it– the distance from one island to the next has diminished only slightly.
Mobile telephony in and of itself is a boon in most regards, but without complementary infrastructure and services, it is of limited value.
Google, China and Anti-Features
Monday, February 1st, 2010Yet again, people are seeking technological solutions to problems that are social in nature.
So far, Internet activist Perry Barlow’s affirmation that ‘the Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it’ remains true. But with the increasingly evident willingness of corporate and government agents to create and use what MIT researcher Benjamin Hill terms ‘anti-features’, we may soon find that there’s nowhere else to route to.
Doubt
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009Most of the opposition to movement on Climate Change is economically motivated. Simply stated, those who stand to lose the most protest the loudest. There’s nothing innately wrong with that; honestly, one would expect no less. What’s upsetting is the dishonesty of it all.
They pretend to want a dialogue, they appeal to science, but they don’t ever admit that a satisfactory answer is possible. They demand godlike knowledge, even certainty, from all-too-human scientists. They pester and pester and pester and, when the scientists finally snap at them, they howl that they’re being persecuted.
They are specifically, deliberately opposed to the very dialogue they claim to be denied.
Rights and Wrongs
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009Bands like Naio and others in Vanuatu could benefit hugely from the free exposure that the Internet provides. (One can only hope that their exclusive sponsorship agreement with TVL includes some kind of ring-tone/website/online distribution provision.) But measures currently being touted internationally would make things harder, not easier for small acts like them.
There is increasing movement internationally toward what distributors have termed a ‘graduated response’ to file copying. If you’re caught copying online once, you get a warning; two times and there’s a penalty; three times and you’re out.
That’s a bit like revoking someone driver’s license, not for dangerous driving, but for driving on knock-off tires.
Good Neighbours
Monday, November 9th, 2009As Internet services become more common in Vanuatu, local businesses have been using it to supplement their normal advertising and communications channels. In their enthusiasm – and, it must be said, naivete – they’ve overlooked a few fundamental rules of good online behaviour.
Businesses and individuals (there’s no need to name and shame; they know who they are and, if you have an email account, so do you) have more and more often taken to sending unsolicited promotional and editorial emails to hundreds of Vanuatu addresses.
Regardless of their good intentions, these companies and individuals are spamming. In other countries, it would be illegal. Here, it’s a nuisance for virtually all involved.
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