April 24, 2001
Revisions to the Metaphor Project
Available 4/01 by e-mail on request
"Media Wedge Kit"
The Metaphor News #3
- Expanded Project Descriptions
- Two new workshop models: Visioning Plus and Story Kernels
- Expanded Metaphor Sources List
- Workshop Improvement Suggestions
- Criteria Checklist for Tweaks and Metaphors
- Tweaks Dissemination Master List
February 4, 2001
For more on strategic questioning see Steve Gunther's page on it which has a Fran Peavey article plus strategic questioning stories.
Several new quotes added to the Co-Intelligence Quotes page.
January 2000 article by six abortion pro-life and pro-choice who participated in Public Conversation Project dialogues for over five years.
The Innovations in Democracy Project website....including:
Participatory Deliberative Democracy. The idea of 'government by discussion' appeals to Elizabeth Meehan, a political philosopher from Northern Ireland, in her essay "Reconstituting Politics: Democracy Unbound".
Philadelphia II/ Direct Democracy. Is it possible for America's citizens to simply take back their power to rule themselves, without asking anyone's permission? Former Alaska US Senator Mike Gravel believes it is, and offers this ambitious, sophisticated plan to do just that.
The Real Utopias Project. Some utopian visions are not as far-fetched as they seem. In fact, some social experiments we might think of as utopian are already underway, and worth some careful attention from academics and citizens. Especially intriguing is their study of Empowered Deliberative Democracy -- examples of popular government in which ordinary people exercise active voice over important decisions that affect them, through discussion, debate, and collaborative exploration.
Plan for a Healthy Democracy is a project to synergistically combine two randomly-selected citizen deliberative bodies -- one, a Citizens Panel of 12-24 citizens, the other a "Televote" audience of 600 -- to pass informed public judgement on an issue, a ballot initiative, a slate of candidates, or the performance of elected officials.
Citizen Councilor Groups. This proposal suggests officially appointing volunteer citizens to gather in small study circles in their homes, workplaces or public gathering spots to study and discuss issues of concern to public officials and then advise those officials on those issues.
And lots of articles on voting: >> The Voting Game is a workshop designed to provide a hands-on non-judgemental experience of five voting systems. Participants vote for the same slate of fictitious candidates, using each of the systems, to see how the results differ. >> Voting mathematics. It turns out that elections with more than two candidates can get rather complicated. It is really easy to get an unfair result using apparently good methods. This article explores how five voting systems work -- Approval Voting, Borda count, Pairwise Comparisons, Plurality, and Plurality-with-elimination (also called Instant Runoff Voting). >> Voting reform. Rob Richie, Executive Director of the Center for Voting and Democracy, reviews a number of Electoral College reforms, including Instant Runoff Voting, and the allocation of electoral votes by congressional district or by Proportional Representation.
January 15, 2001
New Democracy Projects including
New Rules -- THE site for local economics.