DAY 7-- Tutorial Task

• Sign an e-petition
• The e-petition I decided to sign was one that I found particularly relevant to my own personal situation; The Vehicle Registration 20% Increase.(http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetition.aspx?PetNum=1261&lIndex=-1)I had no issues signing this petition as it is one that affected me and I was therefore willing to sign it. This e-petition was located on the Queensland Parliament site.

• What is Barak Obamma up to today?
• The most prevelant issue that Barak Obamma is currently addressing is the Health Insurance Reform. He has delivered several speeches regarding this issue. An approach which he utilized to promote this issue was delivering a message that was uploaded directly onto his Facebook site via the link below.(http://www.facebook.com/barackobama?ref=pdb)The notion of cyber politics; a political presence on the web to promote campaigns, is one that is a crucial part of the Obamma campaign. His online presence does not stop at Facebook, as various links to his Twitter accounts and Myspace page and discussion Forums.

• Who are my Local, State and Federal RepresentativesLocal Representative: Gail McphersonState Representative: Steven RobertsonFederal Representative: Graham Perrett

• What do you think of the Australian Government’s plans to censor the internet (the so-called “Clean Feed”)?
• This internet censhorp is a plan that ALP endeavour to implement as mandatory in Australian. This differs from usual censorship products in that every internet connection in Australia will be subject to the filter (including schools, homes and corporations), rather than traditional software or network proxies which are typically used for organisation or home use.(http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/?tag=cleanfeed)I think that this censorship plan is wrong on several levels. Not only are internet companies opposed to this plan but Australians have demonstrated and indicated quite definitively that they are not in favour or such censorship plans. Moreover, these cencorship plans did not stipulate the content that would be banned which lends itself to the idea that this process is a slippery slope towards the government operating as a dictatorship rather than a democracy.

• Read the lecture and the readings, pursue a couple of the topics that you find most interesting and then post your blog with your well-considered thoughts about the theory and practice of politics.
• Cities as Machines
  The Shape of the City dictates the kind of lives that most peoplelead. The City in Bladerunner is avowedly post-modern,built up layer on layer but starting to lose its relevance - peopleare moving to the Off-World. Sometimes it is crowded, sometimesit is lonely - which is what cities are like: you can be anonymousin the crowd. It is LA; it is noir sci-fi; it is rushing intothe future unsure of its past, teetering on the brink ... of theocean, of the earthquake, of the race riots (consider Mike DavisCity of Quartz)... so it is hardly surprising that peopleare a bit edgy.
  Three non-exclusive alternatives:
  the city is a machine for living ... it creates human lifejust as humans create it
  the city is a natural thing, created by natural beings (humans)just as bee-hives and ant nests are created by natural beings
  the city is a living being ... a cyborg which combines humantissue with synthetic infrastructure. In the 1960s, a group of English architects designed a new typeof city. Their dream was of a city that built itself unpredictably,cybernetically, and of buildings that did not resist televisionand telephones and air-conditioning and cars and advertising,but accommodated and played with them; inflatable buildings, buildingson rails, buildings like giant experimental theatres with videocameras gliding like sharks through a sea of information, buildingsbedecked in neon, projections, laser beams. This project was calledArchigram and was detailed in a set of posters called ArchitecturalTelegrams.

• What place does censorship have in a democracy?
• The premise of a democratic society is directly contradicts censorship. The only censorship that should occur within a democratic society is one that the people elect themselves.