Archive for the ‘Celebrity’ Category
Celeb visualisations: Calling @stephenfry to explain voting systems
Stephen Fry (pic: Wikimedia sharealike)
The US-based Fair Vote site makes the very valid point that some attempt at civic education needs to be done in advance of any proposals for electoral reform. It particularly concerns the actor Richard Dreyfuss who makes one or two pithy points on the subject:
“Don’t call it ‘civics’ because ‘civics’ is easily the most boring word in America,” Dreyfuss says. “Call it what it is: political power.”
If Gordon Brown is serious about a public debate on this matter, perhaps this is another role for celebrity? A creative way of visualising an issue is one thing, but nothing can get issues accross as effectively as … well … Stephen Fry (let’s be specific, shall we?).
He may be coming almost ubiquitous now (he’s even stepping into Humphrey Littleton’s shoes on ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue‘ – a step too far perhaps?) but I suppose that it’s yet another job for him?
We know what you don't want. Now what DO you want?
Ming: The unacceptable face of British politics? (pic: Click for Flickr attribution).
The Guardian’s Catherine Bennett is right to be worried about the impact that a climate of hypercommentary on personal tics will have on politics:
“With the internet demanding ever-improving performance skills from its principal actors, Westminster can only become less hospitable to people who look more like Menzies Campbell than Ant and Dec. Unless, that is, they can produce an official ugliness pardon from Simon Cowell and his authentic, travelling freakshow.”
But, if this is the case, what kind of elected representitives are we going to be prepared to tolerate in the future?
Over on the Personal Democracy Forum (which proudly declares that ‘technology is changing politics’), we see Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill explaining how Twitter helps her to keep it real:
“That’s really why I do it. I think it keeps me in the discipline of not being afraid to say things that may not be perfect, that may actually offend, that may actually truly reflect what I’m thinking and why.”
Senator McCaskill’s example strikes me as being very close to being a priestly ambition – someone who is constantly begging the civil variation on the question ‘What would Jesus do?’ Read the rest of this entry »