I’ve been enjoying IT Conversations for some time now. It’s this great library of audio recordings (as well as some text) of speeches, interviews and commentary from the world of information technology. You can download the material individually or subscribe to podcasts, and participate in rating the various recordings.

Cool enough.

Here’s what I love about it: this is free. It’s a little like PBS, in that they do a quick pitch for their leading sponsor (Limelight Networks) at the start of each piece, but otherwise it’s just unfiltered audio feeds from a gaggle of volunteer contributors. And they’re becoming a kind of audio journal of record; if there’s an important event in the tech world, there’s at least a fighting chance that IT Conversations can take you (or at least your ears) there.

And here’s what it has me thinking: wouldn’t it be great if there was a Civic Conversations? Volunteers could attend anything from town hall meetings to political rallies to budget consultations, record them (openly and with permission) and then upload the results, tagged by issue areas, speaker names, date and location.

You and I, in the comfort of our homes and offices, could browse the results or monitor feeds that filter for our political passions and personal hobby horses. Discussion forums for each recording would let us carry on the conversation.

Anyone interested in making that happen?

I’ve just been comment-spammed from the IP address 142.22.186.12.

What’s interesting about that particular address is that it belongs to the British Columbia Systems Corporation… a division of your friendly provincial government. Eeep.

I’ve alerted the authorities. And I’ll keep everyone posted on developments.

Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling allowing provinces to sue tobacco companies for the damage they’ve done is just one more nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry. The developing world may be the promised land for nicotine pushers, but here in North America, it’s just a matter of time.

I can only imagine what it’s like for Big Tobacco executives. Knowing your days are numbered; seeing every week you’re able to stave off the inevitable as another small victory; feeling the cold darkness closing in on the margins of your existence as the end inexorably approaches…

Which, of course, is exactly the same kind of existence they’ve managed to secure for many of their customers.

* * *

On that note, here’s a request for media outlets. Every article I saw about the court decision was illustrated with a picture of someone smoking. But that’s not what the case is ultimately about; it’s about corporate profits, lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and stroke. It’s about the pain and suffering inflicted on individuals and their families, the toll that takes on our health care system and our economy, and who should take the responsibility.

Illustrating that with yet another photo of someone blowing smoke has been, if you’ll pardon the expression, done to death — and it misses the guts of the story. Next time, send your photographers to a cancer ward… or a graveyard.

About a month ago, after Pat Robertson’s on-air call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, I called for mainstream Christianity to repudiate the far-right extremists that have hijacked the brand. In an offhand comment, I acknowledged that a few brave souls were doing just that, but getting very little attention from the media.

What was missing from that post, of course, was any reference to just who those progressive Christian voices are. Big goof.

Well, let me rectify that right now, because I met one of them last week at Web of Change: Kety Esquivel, executive director of CrossLeft.

Kety has an astonishingly jam-packed background, from prison ministry to the Wesley Clark presidential campaign to Eastman Kodak — not to mention working in China and Ethiopia. And she somehow finds time to also serve as the communications director of Latinos for America, part of that shimmering cloud of online grassroots activism that emerged from the Howard Dean Campaign.

If you’re convinced that Christianity has shrunk down to the wizened vision of the Falwells and Robertsons of the world, CrossLeft will hearten you. Apart from their blog, a thriving crop of discussion forums and library of sermons, the CrossLeft site aggregates more than 200 sources of progressive Christian news, views and resources in a single news feed they’ve named StreamingChristianity.

Still feeling down? Check out the blogroll at the Progressive Christian Blogger Network. Turns out there are plenty of vocal, political American Christian activists who don’t look back on the Dark Ages with a fond sense of nostalgia. Nice to know that.

I’m seeing more and more references to the importance of a sense of place. Phrases like “a place-based approach” keep cropping up in stuff I’m reading, and it’s central to one of the projects I’m working on.

Now one of the coolest Google Maps applications I’ve seen yet has launched. Placeopedia does one tiny, simple thing: it lets anyone link a Wikipedia article to a particular place. (There’s a confirm-by-e-mail step that should weed out some of the more casual maliciousness that can crop up with this kind of thing.)

Okay, I lied. It does one tiny, simple thing and then allows people to do one big, potentially quite powerful thing: browse the results. You can go anywhere covered by Google Maps and see the clusters of little pushpins representing Wikipedia articles. Zoom in and out, and a text list on the right contracts or swells with the latest additions covering the area you’re looking at.

Still not cool enough for you? You can generate your own RSS feed to capture any link falling within any rectangle you care to define on the planet. Or you can link to a feed that will stream incoming links to your copy of Google Earth. (Say, when is that coming to the Mac, dammit?)

The Wikipedia — a completely open, community-maintained encyclopedia of everything — is one of the leading success stories of online collaboration. (It’s even being profiled in Esquire.) For countless people, it’s the one place where their writing makes a tangible difference, even if it’s an incremental one, and an opportunity to take part in building something bigger than ourselves. Placeopedia opens up one more avenue to make that kind of contribution.

Meanwhile, Google Maps is turning out to be far more than just a nifty new feature. It’s turning out to be the host of a giant ongoing innovation party, and everyone’s invited. Which makes me wonder whether they’re part of the reason I’m seeing that growing emphasis on sense of place…

…is Friday, October 7 at the Laughing Bean. I’d be delighted to see you there, and this time I’m offering bribes: mention this blog post, and your first drink’s on me. (That’s not as generous as it sounds. The Laughing Bean isn’t licensed. But it’s awfully good coffee.)

The show starts at 8:00 pm; seating’s limited and usually vanishes quickly, so call if you’d like a reservation – 604-251-5282. It all happens at 2695 E Hastings, 2 blocks west of Renfrew. No cover, but they do ask that you spend at least three bucks on their congenial coffees, tasty teas and delicious desserts.

See you there!

From my latest deluge of comment spam:

“you have a very talented and skilled writting.”

Wow. Coming from such an accomplished writter, that’s quite the compliment.

It’s hard to pull off humour in the middle of a pitched labour battle — the stakes are high, and earnestness has a huge gravitational pull all its own — but the locked-out CBCniks have done it.

Meet Tokyo Rose’s match, Contract Charlie:

“Contract Charlie”, an anti-union propagandist and CBC management true believer, began broadcasting his insidious patter via short wave radio soon after the lockout began in mid-August…. Is Charlie a pitiful traitor and harmless management patsy, or does he represent the tip of an iceberg of union revolt? Listen and decide for yourself.

The first Contract Charlie broadcast is a 700KB download, available at this link, and runs about two and a half minutes.

(Side note: Listening as a former teenage shortwave geek, I kept flashing on Radio Free Europe and Radio Moscow broadcasts from the bad old days of the Cold War, when each side figured their model of the world would emerge victorious if only they could send out enough QSL cards.)

(Hat tip to Tod Maffin.)