2012 looks a lot like a convenient excuse for the Latin American diplomatic jet set to rack up their American Express rewards points while in Cartagena, Brasilia, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere. Looking through a less cynical filter, 2012 could also be an important opportunity to build strong, international coalitions that [...]

It was about five o’clock in the morning when Cindylu, with her sweet little voice — all chamomile and honey — says, “Oso, you should probably put some vaseline in your butt crack.” That’s when I knew I was in for more than I had signed up for. It all started back in late October [...]

I’m finishing up Clay Johnson’s The Information Diet, which I am enjoying immensely. I’ve been at a couple events with Clay, but haven’t had the chance to sit down and shoot the shit with him. From what I’ve seen and read, though, he seems like an immensely likable fellow. Which is to say that he [...]

Along with David Brooks, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Jad Abumrad, Kurt Anderson belongs to my select fraternity of idealized, intellectual American man-crush. So I was kinda, well, crushed when I read his cover story for this year’s Time Person of the Year. Like the rest of mainstream media’s coverage of social change in 2011, Anderson had [...]

Last Sunday Jorge Castañeda wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times Sunday Review warning Americans what happens when a country doesn’t have a middle class. Yesterday he extended his argument in an hour-long interview with Tom Ashbrook. Castañeda argues that economic inequality in general — and the lack of a strong middle class [...]

A few months ago I wrote a geopolitical analysis of the newly launched Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral network of reformers from governments and advocates from civil society organizations that are trying to expand the concept and implementation of “open government.” The reaction to this blog post was funny; at least it was funny [...]

My problem is the following: I get to a point where I have 7 or 8 drafts of ambitious yet incomplete blog posts that, if my to-do list is to be believed, will ‘soon’ be published. But my to-do list is not to be believed, not ever. And so these drafts sit and collect their [...]

What follows is a hyperlinked version of the weekly newsletter of the Information Program of Open Society Foundations. Next week Becky Hogge will take up the newsletter one again. You can continue to follow new editions at her blog. News Global Open Government Partnership launches in New York City Alex Howard interviews Maria Otero, US [...]

Unlike two years ago, this year I won’t have the time to summarize all the interesting presentations and discussions from the Ars Electronica Symposium. Isaac and I divided the day into two parts. In the morning we focused on countries that had already experienced some sort of revolution or mass mobilization. In the afternoon we [...]

That the earth cirlces around the sun was bad enough, but the real catastrophe confronting the meaning of existence and the existence of meaning was Darwin. Here we are by happenstance, it turns out, the sons and daughters of survivalism and sexuality. There was all of a sudden only one thing to set us apart [...]