Sarah Palin this week mistakenly called a democratically-elected president of a foreign state a dictator. In response, Hugo Chavez, who was in 2006 re-elected by a convincing 60% of voters, evoked Jesus, remarking, “Forgive her, for she knows not what she says.”.

So now you know the story: Chavez is not a dictator, he’s the popularly-elected leader of Venezuala. Palin didn’t know even this most basic fact about Venezuala, and yet felt qualified to threaten that country with sanctions.

The Associated Press’ version of this story does not once point out that Venezuala is a democracy. Without this significant piece of context, Palin’s innacurate assertion that Chavez is a dictator goes unchallenged.

The gaffe of Palin’s may be unclear to many readers, and the dismissive nature of Chavez’ comments may seem unfairly condecending and out of line without any clarifying statements.

Here’s the story, as it appears at this moment, (archived in full for purposes of criticism/critique):

Venezuela’s Chavez: Palin a pitiful ‘beauty queen’

By RACHEL JONES

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin a “poor thing” who didn’t know what she was saying when she called him a dictator.

Friday’s verbal attack was the latest in long history of creative insults by Chavez — but was not unprovoked.

In an interview with the U.S. Spanish-language network Univision aired Tuesday, Palin remarked that “through negotiations or sanctions, if necessary, we can pressure dictators like Hugo Chavez to make it clear that they cannot mess with the United States whenever they feel like it.”

Speaking at an event to inaugurate a thermoelectric plant, Chavez said he had heard of Palin’s remarks.

“The poor thing, you have to feel sorry for her,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Palin, he said, is “a beauty queen that they’ve put in the role of a figurine.”

Chavez said one must do as Christ did: “Forgive her, for she knows not what she says.”

Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s choice of Palin as his running mate surprised the nation and prompted questions about her qualifications to serve as vice president. The McCain campaign had no comment on Chavez’ comment.

Palin, the governor of Alaska, says she would take the lead as vice president in energy policy, overall government reform and working with families who have special-needs children.

This article will almost certainly be syndicated by hundreds, if not thousands of news organisations around the world.

If such careless journalism had occured on a blog or other social media, an early commentor would almost certainly point out the complete lack of context.

Unfortunately, the Associated Press’ traditional publishing model leaves time-consuming details like accuracy or clarification at the door. Readers are not provided with so much as an email address to offer comments or express concern.

The article will be read unchallenged and unedited by thousands around the world.

Participatory Media: 1
Centralised Media: 0

It’s my second week in Beijing and my Mandarin skills are slowly improving… I can now cheer for China or Australia in Mandarin; take a cab home completely in Mandarin (as long as we don’t chat and the driver can handle my accent) and explain on the phone to a cab driver how to get to my apartment in Mandarin, if friends want to come over (this has only happened once, but it felt great!).

If I want to learn a particular word in Mandarin, I’ve found a great site to use - it’s called nciku (en-see-koo). You type the word in English, and it will give you the various meanings of the word and the Chinese equivalents. PLUS it will ‘pronounce’ the word for you at the click of a mouse.

Vocabulary building

Best of all, nciku will remember all the words you’ve searched in a ‘vocab’ area (free registration required), which means you can go back and practice later. You can track your progress by checking off the words you know.

Read conversations as they happen

If you check out the site, be sure to look at the conversations section, where you can listen to Chinese conversations and watch the pinyin. Pinyin, the not-at-all-phonetic roman character version of Chinese is used in phrasebooks, but is next to useless if you haven’t mastered the pronunciation.

Like an interactive phrasebook

The themes section of the site has plenty of basic words, along with stock photos and the pronunciation in bot English and Mandarin. Unfortunately, this section doesn’t feature Pinyin, which is a flaw I hope the developers address in a future iteration of the site.

All in all, it’s a great resource… Worthy of adding to the list of resources I mentioned back over here a week ago.

TED Talks are some of the best speeches I watch. The speakers are innovators and leaders, dreamers and doers. The talks are recorded at the annual TED Conference and many of them are available to download free from ted.com.

Recently, I discovered one of the reasons the speeches are so good… TED’s organisers send upcoming speakers a stone tablet, engraved with the ‘TED Commandments”. Amy Tan in her TED Talk described the arrival of the TED Commandments as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”.

So I went in search of the TED Commandments. Thankfully Sue Pelletier points out that Rives was good enough to post a photo of the TED Commandments on his blog, shopliftwindchimes (scroll to 20 Feb). But you don’t need to settle for a photo, because I’ve typed them below:

1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Skae of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

How does an organisation with 1.9 million members in over 240 countries stay connected with its grass roots? It’s a challenge for Avaaz.org, the one year old organisation that is modeled on online activist groups like moveon.org and getup.org.au.

One way Avaaz attempts to stay relevent and connected was revealed in an email from Ben Brandzel, which was addressed to the group’s Sydney members:

“G’day! My name is Ben Brandzel, a new senior member of the Avaaz staff. I’m just wrapping up an all-too-brief stay in your beautiful city.

Before I go, I’d love to have dinner with you, to talk about your experience with Avaaz, your thoughts about what we should work on next, and anything else that comes up.

Can you make it?

…Avaaz members are the heart and soul of our organization. But because there are so few of us staff and Avaaz members are all over the world, we rarely get to meet face to face.

So let’s use this opportunity to get to know each other, talk about how Avaaz can be the best it can be, and have fun while saving the world!”

The offer was limited to the first 8 people that replied - of which I was one. The dinner was a great opportunity to see just how diverse Avaaz’s member base is. Although 8 is a small sample, and focus groups have their limitations in terms of research, Ben did an excellent job facilitating a wide-ranging conversation that got to the heart of the concerns, passions and imaginations of those in attendance.

It’s a great model and if other organisations are doing it, I’ve never been invited! It’s definately more appealing than an invite to a focus group - more enjoyable and almost certainly yields better results given the relaxed and informal nature of the gathering.

Beads of sweat had begun to appear on Business Futurist Craig Rispin’s forehead. It was a combination of factors - stage lights; a heavy purple jacket; and enthusiasm. It was late 2006 and Rispin was holding court at the Last Thursday Club marketing event. A keynote slide on Second Life (SL) appeared on the screen behind him. Were these marketers even aware that SL existed? He feigned surprise when he was greeted by a sea of shaking heads. Of course they didn’t know. Here was yet another opportunity for connection and innovation and it was passing marketers by. Rispin hit his remote. A movie lifted from the internet began playing on the screen.

A woman’s voice introduced the crowd to Second Life, a world where anything is possible. A world that is built by its community; complete with its own real-world tradable currency, the Linden. 3D images of human-looking characters communicating in giant cities danced across the screen. It looked like a typical street scene in a busy city, until on of the characters leapt into the air and began to fly. Internet based; real money changing hands, human-like characters that can fly. “People spend real money in this thing?”, quizzed an audience member.” The speaker nodded his head. “There is a lot of money is in this thing, and major brands are moving in.” Behind Rispin, the video’s poster frame made the pitch: Second Life - Your World, Your Imagination.

It seemed bizarre to me. Was this really a vision of the future that excited people? Sitting at our computers connecting in a high-tech, low touch environment? In a nation with fast growing rates of obesity and depression, was remaining virtually motionless and physically isolated for long periods of time really what we needed?

Rispin impressed me and his speech on future trends was engaging, but I couldn’t match his enthusiasm when it came to virtual worlds. “I’ve got enough in my first life, thanks” summed it up nicely, and a quick search of the expression “First Life” on Google indicated these sentiments were shared by others. Check out getafirstlife.com for a one page parody.
My first life carried on without a 3D virtual world interruption for almost a year.

A few weeks ago, entrepreneur and event convenor, Vicki Prout began enthusing about the potential of  SL and virtual worlds via email. She was promoting an upcoming workshop she was convening on that very topic. Vicki doesn’t do things by halves, so she had decided to import Californian Second Life guru Dell Wolfensparger to run the program.

Since Craig has spoken back in 2006, millions more people had registered and tried out SL. Not everyone stayed, but some had, and there were thousands of active users doing business and having fun in this virtual world. As a communication futurist, it was time I went and explored.

Dell Wilberg and Teami Zeami stood in Venice having a conversation. They weren’t real in an analogue sense, but in a digital sense they existed. They were conversing. Dell Wilberg wore a cowboy hat and talked about the architecture around them. Teami Zeami, bald and handsome, listened intently.

Dell Wolfensparger and Tim Longhurst sat in a corporate training room on George St, Sydney. They were real in an analogue sense, but at this moment, they existed more digitally than in any other way. Dell wore a cowboy hat and tapped at a keyboard. Tim was bald, handsome and reading, preparing to tap back.

The training room was filled with a mix of communication and education professionals. In SL, we were each represented by avatars. I adjusted my settings to have my avatar look as much like me as possible, but most of the others didn’t bother modifying their avatars at this early stage. Our avatars were exploring Venizia, a ’sim’ based on the real world Venice that was designed by Wolfensparger.

Prior to entering the training room, it is fair to say that I was apprehensive about a game that appeared to have relatively poor graphics (I’m from the Xbox Generation) and that I guessed was designed to suck the money out of thousands of sedentary fools.

NOTE: This post is to be continued. It’s in draft form, but I have to go and do real world work… I thought I’d post it incomplete because I’d rather get this out there and finish it soon… In the next installment - how I spent my 16 hours in Second Life…

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Footnote regarding Craig Rispin: Soon after seeing him speak at Last Thursday Club, I met Craig at Australia’s futurist convention, Ausforesight, in November 2006. Our conversation quickly moved to the topic of how he was now able to take his ideas all over the world through speaking. He’s been a great friend and collegue this year and he has been a great adviser to me regarding my consulting business. Even though I’d describe him as a turbo capitalist and he’d probably describe me as a serial activist, we get along like a house on fire.