What is The Message?

Posted 13:40 by Mark Federman permanent link
Fraud by Design?

Ahhh, American ingenuity. Is there anything it can't do? Most people have heard the stories floating around about the potential for votes being incorrectly registered, and potential tampering with the Diebold voting machines. But this detailed exposée is the first complete explanation I've seen. Apparently the problem is not entirely with the voting machines themselves, but with the central vote tabulating machines - the machines to which all the votes are sent (2 million at a time, apparently) to be counted.

By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.

Whether you vote absentee, on touch-screens, or on paper ballot (fill in the bubble) optical scan machines, all votes are ultimately brought to the "mother ship," the central tabulator at the county which adds them all up and creates the results report.

The central tabulator is far more vulnerable than the touch screen terminals. Think about it: If you were going to tamper with an election, would you rather tamper with 4,500 individual voting machines, or with just one machine, the central tabulator which receives votes from all the machines? Of course, the central tabulator is the most desirable target.

Apparently when attempts were made to bring these faults to the attention of both California election officials and Diebold executives, they refused to hear or see the evidence.

Part 2 of the article describes how it's done. Apparently multiple sets of vote tables are kept within the tabulator system. By entering a two-digit code into a hidden location on the system, these multiple vote tables can be decoupled and then surreptitiously manipulated without any trace. Bogus votes can be entered, and existing votes can be changed, prior to the machine being set back to "normal." How could this happen?

Black Box Voting has traced the implementation of the double set of books to Oct. 13, 2000, shortly after embezzler Jeffrey Dean became the senior programmer. Dean was hired as Vice President of Research and Development in September 2000, and his access to the programs is well documented through internal memos from Diebold. The double set of books appeared in GEMS version 1.17.7.

Almost immediately, according to the Diebold memos, another Diebold programmer, Dmitry Papushin, flagged a problem with bogus votes appearing in the vote tables. The double set of books remained, though, going through several tweaks and refinements. From the time Jeffrey Dean was hired in September, until shortly before the Nov. 2000 election, GEMS went through over a dozen changes, all retaining the new hidden vote tables.

For four years, anyone who has known how to trigger the double set of books has been able to use, or sell, the information to anyone they want.

The other two parts of the article answer some fundamental and contingency questions about this incredible security exposure in the upcoming U.S. election. According to the article, the upshot of it all is something one would expect from a Hollywood thriller or a third-world country: By using the Diebold tabulating machines as they currently exist, there is no way to verify that voting results have not been tampered with in such a way as to change the outcome of the election.

All told, it makes one long for the days of hanging chads.
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Posted 21:23 by Mark Federman permanent link
Walter Ong: From Homer to Hip-Hop

Christianity Today has a great, but brief, biography of Walter Ong, one of McLuhan's most famous students.

For Ong, human history has seen an evolution from primary orality (the initial stage which used to be known condescendingly as pre-literate) to the onset of literacy with chirography (script writing). The world of primary orality is holistic, while chirographic culture is more analytical but also more alienated. Oral culture places primary value on the sense of hearing while chirographic culture has a bias towards the visual. Drawing on the work of the classicist Eric Havelock, Ong notes that "Plato's entire epistemology was unwittingly a programmed rejection of the old oral, mobile, warm, personally interactive lifeworld of oral culture (represented by the poets, whom he would not allow into his Republic). … The Platonic ideas are voiceless, immobile, devoid of all warmth, not interactive but isolated, not part of the human lifeworld at all but utterly above and beyond it."

Actually, Ong isn't entirely right about this, as our own scholar, Twyla Gibson has found. Twyla's work, that we have begun to publish elsewhere on the McLuhan Program website, "straightens out a few kinks" in the theory of the Toronto School of Communication, to which Ong contributed with his famous 1982 work, Orality and Literacy. Twyla explores the roots, branches and contemporary leaves of this subject with her course this fall on Comparative Orality and Literacy, open to any graduate student at U of T, Thursday evenings from 17:30 to 20:30.
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Posted 14:45 by Mark Federman permanent link
The War on Free Speech

This is just so egregious an act as to boggle the mind. Imagine the U.S. Justice Department attempting to censor the Supreme Court, especially when the Court's comment concerns using national security as an excuse to stifle all dissent. The excerpt in question:

The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent.

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Posted 12:38 by Mark Federman permanent link
Growing Interest in Democracy as Conversations

Over at Voices Without Votes 2004, Peter reports that yesterday was "Our Biggest Day Yet."

Yesterday was one of the busiest days for Voices '04 since our launch. A total of 140 unique people visited the site. They clicked through 1,318 pages. This is great news. We're building momentum. Americans are reading the letters addressed to them. The discussion areas are active. Please do you part to help our site grow: Tell a friend about Voices '04 Write a Dear America or Dear World Letter Let's keep this movement growing. We only have two months left before the most powerful citizens in the world vote for their leader.

If you haven't visited yet and joined in the conversation, take a few moments to do so. Democracy is all about process and participation.
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Posted 17:43 by Mark Federman permanent link
Reading McLuhan Today...

I came across this observation:

The spectacle of brutality used as deterrent can brutalize. ... [I]t is obvious that numbness is the result of any prolonged terror... The price of eternal vigilance is indifference.
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, p. 30

Update: Bruce Schneier expands on this idea in an op-ed piece in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He notes,

European countries that have been dealing with terrorism for decades, like the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Italy, and Spain, don't have cute color-coded terror alert systems. Even Israel, which has seen more terrorism -- and more suicide bombers -- than anyone else, doesn't issue vague warnings about every possible terrorist threat.

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Posted 11:11 by Mark Federman permanent link
Even Lawyers Must Obey the Law of Reversal

Reversal: When a new medium is pushed beyond the limit of its potential, it will reverse what were its original characteristics. Into what does it reverse?

So, for example, if you take copyright protection, and push it beyond reason, it will reverse into no copyright protection at all. Case in point: The fabulous JibJab parody of Woodie Guthrie's This Land is Your Land. Rather than laughing along with the rest of us at the brilliant probe into both the societal changes occurring in the United States, and the current state of U.S. politics, the legal eagles for Ludlow Music decided to sue for copyright infringement. Enter the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose super-litigator, Fred von Lohmann, reports that "This Land Is Your Land has been in the public domain since 1973. ... the copyright in the song expired in 1973, 28 years after Guthrie published the sheet music. Ludlow's attempted renewal in 1984 was 11 years tardy, which means the classic Guthrie song is in the public domain."

A nice reversal if I ever saw one. Ludlow not only lost this suit, they also lost their ability to collect royalties from other people who would attempt to use the song for, say, commercial purposes. Copyright enforcement reverses into no right at all for Ludlow. Now, ...this song belongs to you and me!
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Posted 10:11 by Mark Federman permanent link
Those Who Repeat History are Doomed to Learn It

I didn't say this. Well, maybe I did (right near the end of the interview.)

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Posted 11:38 by Mark Federman permanent link
Making It Up As You Go Along

I'll admit it: I often make it up as I go along. Or rather, I derive a lot of what I say based on the interaction between what I observe and my understanding of the principles of McLuhan thinking. In general, the only ones who might get hurt in the process are my students, or those who happen to be sitting in my visitor's chair at the time.

But when police officers make it up as they go along, many more people and fundamental principles get hurt. Take this example from theologian and scholar, AKMA, who was ordered to stop using an open WiFi connection outside a public library.

A few minutes ago, a police officer passed the bench where I was sitting outside the Athenaeum, enjoying the mild temperature and the wifi signal, and he said, "Sir, you can’t use the Internet outside the library."

I said, "What?" (I'm pretty clever under pressure.)

The officer in question (whose conduct was entirely professional, firm, and calm behind those mirrored shades) solemnly assured me that in order to use the library’s open wireless signal, I had to be seated within the library...

"I did notice several other open signals in the area — am I allowed to connect to them?"

"Maybe if you had permission it would be all right, but it’s a new law, sir; 'theft of signal.' It would be like if you stole someone's cable TV connection."

I responded, "But this is a radio signal thing — it's not like a cable connection, it's like someone has a porch light on and I'm sitting on the bench, reading a book by their light. I'm not stealing their light. ... Is this a state law?" I asked.

"It's a federal law, sir; a Secret Service agent came and explained it to us."

"Look, I don't want to give you a hard time, and I'm very thankful that you alerted me to this, and I've done what you asked, but I'd be very surprised if there turned out to be a federal law forbidding my using an open wireless signal in a public place."

"Well, you can look it up, sir, and explain it to the chief. . . "

There are sorts of logical comebacks to this: What's the difference between using open WiFi inside the library and outside the library? (A: There is none.) If it's a federal statute, why is it within the jurisdiction of the local constabulary? (A: It's not.) And, how do you defend yourself against being arrested for a law that doesn't exist? (A: You hire the Invisible Man as a lawyer.)

But the question for which there are only (previously) unthinkable answers is this one: What are the conditions under which police officers can accost and possible arrest law-abiding citizens on charges that don't actually exist in law, that would create untold hardship for the person in question, based on either a misunderstanding by the local police force, or deliberate misdirection on the part of federal agents?

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Posted 11:20 by Mark Federman permanent link
The Best Time to Visit? Ask Google.

The best time to visit the McLuhan Program is between July and December. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but it's fun... and some of the comments are even more fun.
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Posted 20:18 by Mark Federman permanent link
Top 10 Reasons...

And Tim Wu, ghost/guest-blogging for Lawrence Lessig has the top ten reasons the Supreme Court will likely hear Grokster.

Update: Wu dropped three from his original list. Between the current numbers 6 and 7 (that is now 10) were these tongue-firmly-in-cheek gems:
7. Stevens and Breyer deeply dig this stuff;
8. Scalia likes anything having to do with property;
9. Souter got his first computer last week.
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Posted 20:09 by Mark Federman permanent link
U.S. 9th Circuit Court to Content Owners: "New Technology is Always Disruptive to Old Markets"

Boing Boing has the announcement of the monumental 9th Circuit Court decision in the Grokster case, won by Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The decision essentially says that new technologies can be developed and deployed without requiring them to be enabled to detect potential market abuses. This is an important precedent, as it is a bulwark against many of the anti-innovation (pro-monopoly) initiatives that are wending their way through the U.S. legislative process. It ranks right up there with Betamax. As the court says:

Further, as we have observed, we live in a quicksilver technological environment with courts ill-suited to fix the flow of internet innovation. AT&T Corp. v. City of Portland, 216 F.3d 871, 876 (9th Cir. 1999). The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well established distribution mechanisms. Yet, history has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine, or an MP3 player.Thus, it is prudent for courts to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude.

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Posted 09:30 by Mark Federman permanent link
Grounded Business Ethics

McLuhan for Managers book cover
The Canadian Medical Association blindsided federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh when they called on "the Canada Pension Plan to end its controversial practice of investing in the stock of tobacco companies, saying it undermines public-health efforts." Radio commentary this morning cast the controversial issue as one of ethics vs. finanical returns to the pension plan. Dosanjh, despite his personal views, is conflicted. Little wonder, when he is trying to consider the issue against two distinct and separate grounds simultaneously.

A figure - what we notice - only has meaning when cast against some ground of dynamic processes - that we typically don't notice. Since the ground is dynamic, meaning changes over time, even for the same figure. In this case, the ground of financial considerations presented by fund managers, finance professors and tobacco farmers gives meaning that is irreconcilable with meaning derived from a ground of ethics. The result is not only unsatisfying to all concerned, but creates the necessity to indulge in a point of view that only hardens people's respective positions against their ability to observe processes and their effects.

A more useful consideration of this issue - and many issues that arise daily in business - is to complete the observations and analysis from the various grounds individually to determine the totalilty of effects relative to each - for example, the ethics of smoking that damages health vs. the ethics of impairing pension returns; the financial return of dividends and capital appreciation from tobacco companies vs. the financial costs of increased health care. For this sort of analysis, the Laws of Media are immensely helpful, as that cognitive framework enables both the clear identification of relevant grounds, and the enumeration of the totality of effects without the typical behaviour of resorting to points of view, entrenched opinion and claiming moral high ground.

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Posted 09:41 by Mark Federman permanent link
On the Brink of Democracy

At the break boundary, as McLuhan called it, between extension and reversal, at the point where reversal is about to evolve - and obsolesce - a current medium into a new one, is where the action is. And by action, I mean the tempestuous disruption, and sometimes even conflict, that accompanies profound change. Regular readers will know that one of the effects of pervasive proximity, about which I have written, is emergent transparency in government. Emergent transparency retrieves the ancient process of democracy in which everyone (okay, except slaves) participated and contributed to the discourse. We have seen numerous examples of this over the past few years, and we are also observing the "last stand" of broadcast politics, as the current Bush administration is repeatedly confounded by their attempts to control their message by controlling broadcast mass-media.

In Wired, this month, Lawrence Lessig has a short commentary that illustrates this point.

As media becomes more concentrated, competition to curry favor with politicians only increases. This intensifies during an election cycle. Networks able to signal that they will be "friendly" - for example, by ensuring that embarrassing moments from interviews won't be made available to others - are more likely to attract candidates for interviews and so on, than networks that don't. Concentration tied to copyright thus gives networks both the motive and the means to protect favored guests.

He concludes by noting, "Concentrated media and expansive copyright are the perfect storm not just for stifling debate but, increasingly, for weakening democracy as well."

In this observation, we see that at least part of the impetus for politicians to accelerate copyright "reform" in favour of content owners concerns an aspect of self-preservation as well. Most high-office holders today have been steeped in the stock of broadcast politics. The effects we observed with the Howard Dean Experience are as disruptive to the business of politics as PCs were to mainframes, as email was to fax machines, and - you can include your own favourite analogy here. The tempest will continue for at least a few more electoral terms.

But take heart. As McLuhan reminds us, the effects precede the cause, and the effects are already here. They cannot be turned off, as our society has already changed and, once changed, cannot be "unchanged" - despite the best (or worst, depending on your ground) efforts of legislators. Just as our current parliamentarians and congress-folk were socialized in the television era, our future politicians are today being socialized in the era of pervasive proximity of instantaneous communications. And for the future of democracy, that makes all the difference.

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Posted 10:20 by Mark Federman permanent link
Extreme Democracy - The Book Online, The Experience Offline, The Message in Between

Thanks to boingboing, we have this link to a new book, Extreme Democracy. And when I say new, I mean new. First, it provides permanent links to pdf'ed chapters of a new book of essays, Extreme Democracy, edited by Jon Lebkowsky. About half the chapters are posted already, and include a preface by the producer of the Howard Dean Experience, Joe Trippi, and contributions from Joi Ito, Howard Rheingold, Stephen Johnson, Mitch Radcliffe, Ken White, and Clay Shirky. Second, the book deals with the changing nature of democracy in a massively interconnected world of pervasive proximity about which we often write. It speaks of the power of weblogs, naturally, but also the ways in which ordinary people can become engaged in the democratic process that ideally occurs long before a vote. It also describes the new ways in which people are taking the process of democratic activism "from the screen to the streets." I can only presume that later chapters will describe the effects of emergent transparency that is giving the traditional practitioners of broadcast politics heartburn lately. Finally, the book has made its debut as a weblog, with permalinks to the chapters, and comments fully enabled to create a discussion forum - a mechanism for the interchange of ideas, which, after all, is perhaps the most important aspect of the democratic process. I know what will be required reading - and thinking - for my students this winter!
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Posted 18:55 by Mark Federman permanent link
DICK CHENEY'S ALIVE!

This is fun.
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Posted 17:13 by Mark Federman permanent link
Paving Over McLuhan

In today's Toronto Star, columnist Christopher Hume reveals the city's intention to rename part of St. Joseph Street as "Marshall McLuhan Way." This was apparently at the impetus of one Bill Marshall, the founder of the upcoming McLuhan International Festival of the Future (in which we are participating, by the way - stay tuned for more news!) "So far, the U of T hasn't commemorated McLuhan even with a bench," Marshall laments. So what are we - chopped liver? As correspondent Jonathan Ferguson points out in a letter to Hume (on which we were copied),

I'm a U of T graduate student, and although I'm neither based at St. Michael's College, nor am I studying media, I still know that these statements are patently wrong. What about this sculpture that features McLuhan's likeness? (He's up there with Dante, Einstein and Shakespeare!) What about the plaque unveiled in 1990 to commemorate McLuhan's office at Sullivan House? Most importantly, what about the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto? How many people have university programs named after them? Well, at least Bill Marshall was right about the bench!

I'm with Jonathan Ferguson on this one. Bill Marshall, for all his good intentions, is misguided, I'm afraid. Marshall McLuhan is an iconic figure who is more often quoted than read, and for many who do read him, not often understood. The last thing we need is to iconify McLuhan further, so that future generations will think of him first as a strip of asphalt, rather than the the man who added "the medium is the message" and "global village" to our modern lexicon, and more importantly, to our repertoire of thinking. Think about it: Is a street the most appropriate tribute to the man who referred to the motor vehicle as "the carsophagus?"

Or, as McLuhan himself might have said, "Who gave the street this numb?"

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Posted 12:22 by Mark Federman permanent link
Life Imitates Art

Does anyone remember the movie Minority Report from a couple of years ago? The premise of the movie involved a concept they called "pre-crime," essentially arresting a person before they perpetrated a violent crime - in this case murder - based on his or her contemplation of the act. At the time, we examined the premise and the notion of "thoughtcrime," first popularized by George Orwell's 1984. Noting some of the initiatives of the U.S. Department of Justice and DARPA, like Total Information Awareness, and the implications of data-mining based airport screening (CAPPS II), we wondered how long it would be before pre-crime would be upon us.

In a vigilante sense, that future is now here. The Toronto Star has a story describing a group calling itself "Perverted Justice" that lures and entraps what they call "wannabe pedophiles." Members posing as young teens engage mostly adult chatters (although in at least one case, they entrapped a teenage boy chatting with an adult vigilante posing as a teenage girl) and, simply put, set out to deliberately ruin their lives.

While no one disputes the scourge that is pedophilia - and online networks of abusers are large and often sophisticated - this online vigilante group that has implemented pre-crime and meets out its own form of, indeed, perverted justice retrieves and reinforces that "wild west" image of the Internet. In doing so, it ironically gives credence to those who would have us believe that the Internet is a lawless place where both perpetrators and self-appointed judges, juries and executioners (a.k.a lynch mobs) have free reign. Where anarchy dominates, lawmakers feel compelled to impose order in the form of restrictions on technologies, usage, and access. We have begun to see the results in legislation that, as nominally unintended effects, restricts speech, innovation, property rights and fair use.

Remember - the most potent effects are those that change our underlying, hidden ground, the context that informs the way we interpret events and create meaning.

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Posted 12:10 by Mark Federman permanent link
Bush Means What He Says

We should be paying close attention those "Bushisms" - those humorous bon mots that fall from the President's lips like dew from a honeysuckle. As McLuhan reminds us, it is the jester... the clown... who gives us some of the most useful probes into the dynamics of our world. The latest Bushism is the wonderful - and oh-so-true - comment made at a recent bill signing: "Our enemies ... never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Today, the Toronto Star is running a story from Reuters that demonstrates just how true Bush's malapropism is. Apparently, the al Qaeda operative recently arrested in Pakistan - the one responsible for the recent Orange Alert and the posting of guards around New York's financial district - "was working under cover to help the authorities track down Al Qaeda militants in Britain and the United States when his name appeared in U.S. newspapers." It gets better, as

Washington has portrayed those arrests as being a major success. Security experts said they were shocked by the revelations that the source whose information led to the alert was identified within days, and that U.S. officials had confirmed his name. "The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defence publications. "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within Al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place? It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth." A source such as Khan would be among the most prized assets imaginable, he said. Rolf Tophoven, head of the Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy in Essen, Germany, said allowing Khan's name to become public was "very unclever." "If it is correct, then I would say it's another debacle of the American intelligence community. Maybe other serious sources could have been detected or guys could have been captured in the future" if Khan's identity had been protected, he said.

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Posted 14:56 by Mark Federman permanent link
All the President's Thoughts. There are some... really...

It started as an Onion story. Now, life imitates satire, more or less, as President George W. Bush seems to be writing a blog. That's my Bush...

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Posted 15:07 by Mark Federman permanent link
Do Borders Define Identity?

How do you define yourself? Better yet, how do others define you? A practical exploration of this philosophical and existential question is given by a Palestinian-Canadian (and to some, Israeli) sociologist Elia Zureik in an article published at openDemocracy, "Israel and me: enigmas of departure Elia Zureik."

This question of where do "I" stop and "You" begin is one that has multidimensional implications in our interconnected world. Does my digiSelf have a different citizenship/identity than my physical self? Is my physical self's citizenship/identity merely a projection of my digiSelf in fewer dimensions? Is this aspect of my identity an intrinsic attribute or an extrinsic assignation?

And, which embassy issues passports for Citizens of the World?
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Posted 11:54 by Mark Federman permanent link
Canadian Users' Rights Petition

Are you a resident of Canada? The Canadian Parliament is considering legislation to amend the Copyright Act, with the potential of introducing similar measures as those introduced by our neighbours to the south. While our Supreme Court has truly taken a world-leading role in providing the sort of balance that the Copyright Act (and indeed, the notion of copyright) intends, some of our parliamentarians have vowed to "fix" the problem (as they perceive it.) Digital Copyright Canada has launched a serious petition to be presented to Parliament during the next session. If you are proximate to downtown Toronto, you can come to the McLuhan Program at 39A Queen's Park Crescent to sign the petition, that will then be forwarded to the Toronto collection volunteer. Note that for a petition to be accepted by Parliament, the following conditions must be met:

The text of the petition must not be altered either by erasing or crossing out words or by adding words.
No other matter is to be attached or appended to or written on the petition, whether in the form of additional documents, maps, pictures, news articles, explanatory or supporting statements, or requests for support.
Each petitioner must sign his or her own name directly on the petition and must not sign for anyone else. Names should be signed, not printed. Signatures cannot be attached to a sheet (taped or pasted on) or photocopied onto it. If a petitioner cannot sign because of illness or a disability, this must be noted on the petition and the note signed by a witness.
The petitioner's address must be written directly on the petition and not pasted on or reproduced. The petitioner may give his or her full home address or simply the city and province.

The text of the petition is as follows:

To the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled
We, the undersigned residents of Canada draw attention of the House to the following:

THAT the Copyright Act is properly recognised as being a careful balance between the rights of creators and the rights of the public (including viewers, readers and listeners);

THAT the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously affirmed this view in CCH Canadian Ltd v Law Society of Upper Canada;

THAT digital technologies have recently given copyright holders the ability to upset the balance in the Copyright Act by preventing Canadians from accessing works for purposes that have been legally granted to them;

THAT the creation of original works is nourished by wide accessibility of earlier works, including a vibrant public domain;

THAT dissemination of cultural ideas requires that they be preserved in a form that is accessible to future generations; and

THAT historically consultations regarding changes to the Copyright Act have mostly taken place with creators, intermediaries and only some special users (such as educators and librarians)

THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to ensure generally that users are recognised as interested parties and are meaningfully consulted about proposed changes to the Copyright Act and to ensure in particular that any changes at least preserve all existing users' rights, including the right to use copyrighted materials under Fair Dealing and the right to make private copies of audio recordings. We further call upon Parliament not to extend the term of copyright; and to recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices.

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Posted 10:55 by Mark Federman permanent link
The Presidential President

This morning, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing a radio interview with former U.S. President Bill Clinton, given to CBC yesterday while he was in Toronto on his book signing tour. (Talk about an Elvis moment!) After nearly four years of a man who is a caricature of himself occupying the White House, it was refreshing to hear a plain-speaking, but insightful and substantive conversation with a world leader. And indeed, Clinton is still a world leader. During the nearly thirty-minute conversation, Clinton provided serious answers to serious questions, displaying his fluency and depth of insight into many of the problems of our contemporary world. As if any reminder was necessary, Clinton demonstrated why intelligence, wisdom, introspection and, yes, humility, should be a prerequisite for high office. Some highlights:

The biggest problem today, he said, is "DuBois updated": the problem of difference, the problem we have in living across the lines that divide us, along racial, economic, religious and ideological lines. We have a global economy, but there is no global economic policy, no global social policy. Clinton was highly critical of the current administration's policy of unilateralism, and withdrawing from international treaties and institutions that would serve to create forums for multilateral dialogue and mutual understanding.

A major issue relative to unilateralism and America's self-interest is that, in addition to expanding and supporting the Western middle-class, that he sees is essential to democracy and human rights around the world, we must work diligently to expand prosperity to people around the world to create more partners and therefore, fewer terrorists.

Regarding accusations of American imperialism, he noted that America is not imperialistic in the traditional sense of the word - using military power to occupy land and loot resources - but it is using its military and economic power to act in a way that is excessive. He says that we cannot run this unilateral strategy beyond a certain point, noting that it is simply impossible to kill all adversaries around the world. Sooner or later, politics must come in with its requirement for compromise and working together.

His biggest regret is America's - and the world's - inaction to stop the genocide in Rwanda. "I feel terrible about it," he says. "It's one of my deepest regrets." Clinton was the only world leader who went to Rwanda and apologized to the people, an act for which he was chastised by other Western leaders, and other American politicians. Seriously introspective, he admits ruefully that "we didn't even have a serious meeting at the White House" to discuss the Rwandan genocide or the world's response.

Clinton says that he judges any presidency according to two criteria: "Did we understand the time in which we governed and move things in the right direction? Were more people better off after we left office than before we took office?" Noting that, according to that rubric, he accomplished a successful presidency, he also pointed out that historians will consider and reconsider his two terms in office for years to come, and eventually pass judgement on his stewardship of the nation.

After the upcoming election, he plans to dedicate his life to the work that he has already undertaken - to continue to serve as a public servant, working in Africa, India, Latin America and elsewhere to create economic opportunities in emerging nations, to fight for medical care and needed medicines for those suffering with HIV/AIDS, and to provide education throughout the developing world. "I plan to spend the rest of my life to give back to America and to the world for the opportunity I had to live my dream."

Update: The link to the CBC's brief bio of Clinton, and the audio of the interview is here. (Thanks David)

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