Government for the people by the people
If you hadn't heard already, there's a bridge naming contest going on which has some people upset. Upset because apparently the American comedian Steve Colbert has clearly demonstrated how stupid and ill thought out the local version of e-Democracy is.
Steve Colbert has already demonstrated the pitfalls of unleashing the the power of democracy on the internet, when he invited users to edit wikipedia. As soon as Colbert mentioned the bridge, someone should have just changed the game plan.
So the first round results are in and the 'Stephen Colbert híd' has 53% of the vote with a total of 17,231,725 votes. Now Hungary's population is a mere 10 million (take a basic knowledge test is you didn't even know this much), so the chances of him winning are almost certain. Particularly when you see that second place went to 'Zrínyi híd' with just over 2 million votes (6%).
The sensible thing to do at this point would be to make a statement about what this e-democracy effort was hoping to achieve and politely but firmly reject Steve's candidacy for immortality. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen.
Oh no, instead the vote now goes into a second round, which is even easier to vote on for non-Hungarian speakers. This time you do have to register, but I think even non-Hungarian speakers would be familiar with the form of registration required (email plus password) to coast this hurdle.
So the second round begins, which 'starts from scratch, to make it more exciting'. Ye, right. They have taken the top 25 placed candidate names from the first round and put them in an exclusive race to the line. So far what began as a lighthearted joke has turned into a full blown farce.
As of this morning the 'Stephen Colbert híd' has 64% of the vote, this is likely to increase as the thing builds momentum. But, that's not the worst, even 'Perl-Script híd' has 4% of the vote and is in third place. There are clearly a lot of bored hackers out there craving for attention. Which probably explains why 'Hacker híd' has 2% also. In second place there is of course that great Hungarian Jon Stewart with 13%.
My personal favorite is fülemüle, or 'nightingale', but it doesn't stand a hope in hells chance of winning. But then neither do any other Hungarians.
At least 6 of those last 25 shouldn't have gone forward for the final vote. It is fun, it's lighthearted, but it also shows that those in power don't understand the internet, e-Democracy or how to communicate with your audience. No, that's not surprising at all. But, Hungary is going to look (even more) stupid as a result.
The Hungarian word for today is szavazás for 'vote' or 'poll'. That bizarrely simple act through which democracy works and e-Democracy doesn't (and the power that was returned to the people in May 1990, from legislation introduced in October 16-20, 1989).
Update
As of this morning Colbert Bridge it is going to be. As predicted his followers are marshalling their increasing strength, so he how has 81%, with second place trailing somewhere around the 2% mark.
That much was predictable. There's an interesting take on this in nol (a pretty serious newspaper here):
Returning to the topic of our bridges in Budapest, in my opinion the Steven Colbert bridge would be a fitting name. Of course, we could ponder over our history and find some godfather (Zrínyi, Szent István), but a modern bridge requires a modern name. Colbert, on the otherhand, brings to mind the whole western world, with what kind of blindness we enter an endless war against terrorism, and how we sacrifice common sense to a dictated act that is clearly dangerous. We Hungarians are partners to both of those.
I voted for the Colbert bridge. Watch the video and join me!'
This is a complex message (one I don't happen to agree with), but at any level its meaning will be lost on most of those casting their vote.
e-Gov:The Universal Scapegoat
For most people (and the media) yesterday was spent putting together as many of the pieces of information about what actually happened on Sunday. Alongside all the personal accounts the media machine slowly cranked into gear following an unbelievable silence (which had been reported as a news blackout). The personal accounts really brought home the impact of the storm, but the news being gathered from those in positions of power, privilege and authority was and is unbelievable.
In short, they are asking us to believe that an email is responsible for it all. Yep, an unread email did it. Four people died, hundreds injured... all because someone (unnamed) sent an email to someone (unnamed) telling them important news (undisclosed) about a serious storm heading towards 1.5 million unsuspecting people, but that someone never read what someone else wrote until... there were bodies in the river.
Let's just play part of that last paragraph back: "...sent an email..." Sent an email?!
It's easy to blame technology and computers because they can't answer back and your average technologically challenged audience will mildly sympathise with you. But e-Gov is planned, implemented and managed by people (normally very well paid) for people. The contracts and sums of money involved are generally enough to compensate for inevitable risk. And yes, the sums are enough to demand that there is a clear audit trail for all transactions, so that the cause of problems can be found and dealt with (translate that as 'blame attributed and the people responsible called to answer for their actions').
Apparently, according to the meteriological office, the organisers haven't asked for a pre-event weather forecast for years. Sending an urgent email was 'their only available option'.
The lack of any news from the scene, tv reports or news coverage was apparently being due to cameras being rendered useless or them just being in the wrong place at the right time. Because of the panic the reporters felt they should hold back on saying anything, apparently surveying the scene all night and on until morning when they finally started to inform the public of their findings. I'd love to be present when the state TV comes cap in hand begging for more money for the public service they provide.
Perversely, you can watch the meteriological re-enactment of the storm played out at 15 minute intervals from the meteriological picture archive (time is recorded in UTC so you have to add 2 hours to get the local time in Budapest): 17h15 17h30 17h45 18h00 18h15 18h30 18h45 19h00 19h15 19h30 19h45. The police found out too late that trouble was on the way. The police knew by 20h40 that all was not well. There was some 20 minutes to act before the worst struck the 1.5 million oblivious crowd, but a crowd of that size would take at least a few hours to safely disperse. The police had had to find out from calls from their colleagues in Siófok about what they were about to get hit with. Meanwhile the head of the meteriological office had been furiously sending off urgent warnings since 19h39. Had someone acted, there was clearly time to avoid what then followed.
What is kind of worrying is the precision and force with which the storm hit the gathered crowd. Had the winds only been the predicted 80-90 km hour instead of the recorded 120-130 km hour then lives would not have been lost, trees would have stood and roofs remained in place. But the full force did hit the waiting crowd, when only a few kilometers away in Újpest the winds were only 40-50 km hour.
Damage will take days to clear as so far an estimated 3 thousand cubic meters of detritus (trees, branches, roofs and rubbish) now lines the streets of Budapest. A clean-up operation that will take 470 people and 50 machines days to complete. Although all of the Hungarian press is so far reporting the confirmed deaths as 4 (though the english language press report five), there are still many in a critical condition. One 15 year old is still fighting for her life.
So, your Hungarian word for the day is bunbak or 'scapegoat'. You will never learn a more useful and universally applicable word in Hungarian. Practically all day-to-day situations, conversations and life experiences call for its use. There are some days were it is practically every third word spoken. Learn it and rejoice that you are finally becoming encultured in what it means to be Hungarian.
Choose your 3rd child's sex by SMS
This story has me reeling. The cabinet - oh wise ones - have decided to ask the Hungarian people if parents should be allowed to select the sex of their third child. Now that in itself is a wild jump of optimism, but the best is yet to come. This campaign is to be conducted by SMS. My brain just freezes thinking about this. Is this a clever way to reach the text happy populace or a crass insensitive way of appearing to be with it, while not really having a clue what you're doing? You can probably tell by the structure of that last sentence that I've largely decided it veers towards the latter option. The campaign is to be run for 6 weeks according to the cabinet spokesperson, Laszló Boglár: Népszabadság Online: Sms-kampányt indít a kormány. And as the health minister, Rácz Jenö?, helpfully points out this question has ethical implications - he's kidding, right? This is why they have decided to ask the people - so they do know you're there. The options might be: 1. Text 101 if you want to: Make sure you can give birth to your very own barbie-doll, get to dress her in pink and share tips when she's older on how to deal with boys. 2. Alternatively text 666 if you believe: You're all going to burn, and the first option was just proof. Look, some things are great for texting, such as deciding on who gets voted out on Big Brother or which ringtone to have on your mobile. Messing about with DNA and X- or Y-chromosomes isn't one of them. Well it's nice to be asked, even if it is a deeply disturbing question. p.s. Since I wrote this yesterday the original article has fleshed out a bit. This now claims that 30 countries already allow the selection of a child's gender (mostly only in cases where there are other genetic justifications for doing so). I've scoured the internet for a source that indicates how many countries allow gender selection and haven't been able to find much. The best so far is an article on msnbc. The market price tag for a designer baby is about $15,000 by the way - I'll take 2 to go:
Lizette Frielingsdorf [has]... one MicroSort girl, Jessica, who just turned 2. "I call her my $15,000 baby. We felt like we won the lottery,"So, if you feel lucky and want to win your own lottery the official number set up by the cabinet is 06-30-444-444. Phone this and your vote will be automatically recorded. A good neutral source of information is always wikipedia, so you should try their content on sex selection.
