Dagens citat – the golden rose

Judson Jerome, i hans The Poet and the Poem, Writer’s Digests Books 1979, s. 351:

I have heard that, before Franco, there was an annual Catalan poetry contest, the prizes for which were awarded on the steps of the cathedral in Barcelona. The third prize was a silver rose. The second prize was a golden rose. The first prize was, of course, a real rose. The poet’s most difficult wrestling with his soul is learning never to be envious of the golden rose.

The Guardian Project – privatlivsbeskyttelse for smartphones

Det er oplagt, at mens smartphones er “smarte”, repræsenterer de et tilbageskridt for borgernes retssikkerhed og privatliv – udstyret med en sådan kan vi ganske enkelt overvåges og lokaliseres overalt, til hver en tid.

Dette er så meget mere ærgerligt, som en sådan håndholdt computer faktisk let kunne designes, så al dens kommunikation var anonym og krypteret – hvilket ville gør den til vores privatlivs måske ultimative værn.

Jeg har ikke set nærmere på det endnu, men The Guardian Project lader til at være et stort skridt i den helt rigtige retning:

While smartphones have been heralded as the coming of the next generation of communication and collaboration, they are a step backwards when it comes to personal security, anonymity and privacy. The Guardian Project aims to create easy to use apps, open-source firmware MODs, and customized, commercial mobile phones that can be used and deployed around the world, by any person looking to protect their communications and personal data from unjust intrusion and monitoring.


click to learn more about our mobile apps

The Android operating system created by Google provides an open-source, Linux-based foundation on which this project is building. From sleek, stylish smartphones to large format e-book readers, Android provides the most creative, functional and open platform on which to base this type of work.

The combination of Android and Guardian will create the most secure, trustworthy, mass market consumer smartphone solution for improving the privacy of our daily lives. Whether your are an average citizen looking to affirm your rights or an activist, journalist or humanitarian organization looking to safeguard your work in this age of global communication, Guardian can help address the threats you face.

Anonym browsing, krypteret kommunikation, og så videre. Så mangler vi bare at anonymisere kommunikationen med GSM (eller udvikle en fundamentalt anonym erstatning), og vi kan blive ved med at bruge smartphones uden at tænke mere på overvågning eller privatliv. Som det er i dag med iPhones og Googles mange “fortæl os hvem du er og hvor du er”-features, kan det hurtigt blive lidt bekymrende.

Meget dårlig behandling og diagnosticering af kræft i Danmark

Dette er konklusionen i en videnskabelig artikel i British Journal of Cancer: Alt for mange danskere dør af kræft, og det diagnosticeres senere end i andre lande. Ville væsentlige offentlige figurer  som Jakob Ejersbo og Tøger Seidenfaden have levet længere, hvis det ikke havde været for Danmarks forældede sundhedsvæsen, der gør alt for lidt ud af diagnosticering og tidlig behandling? Det er der i hvert fald meget, der tyder på:

Background:

Denmark has poorer 5-year survival rates than many other Western European countries, and cancer patients tend to have more advanced stages at diagnosis than those in other Scandinavian countries. Part of this may be due to delay in diagnosis. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the initiatives currently underway to reduce delays. […]

The findings from the EUROCARE studies suggest that Denmark, like the United Kingdom, has poorer 5-year survival rates across a range of cancer types than other Western European countries (Sant et al, 2001; Karim-Kos et al, 2008; Berrino et al, 2009; Verdecchia et al, 2009). Mortality rates from cancer are also high in Denmark (International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2007). These findings led to a major public debate and a sense of disappointment regarding Danish efforts to control cancer. As a result, a National Cancer Steering Group was established in 1998, chaired by the National Board of Health with representation from all relevant specialties. National Cancer Plans were developed by this steering group in 2000 and 2005, which analysed the possible problems and made recommendations in relation to prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Cancer incidence in Denmark is relatively high, reflecting lifestyle factors, for example, a relatively high prevalence of smoking (44% of the population in 1987, and 34% in 2000 were daily smokers) (Ekholm et al, 2006). As a result, initiatives were launched to reduce smoking, increase exercise, promote healthier diets and reduce excessive exposure to ultraviolet light. A cervical screening programme had been running for several decades. Following the Cancer Plan in 2005, a national breast cancer screening programme was established. In 2008, a decision was made to set up a colorectal cancer screening programme, but this has not yet been implemented. To improve treatment, necessary but politically difficult decisions had to be taken to concentrate cancer-related surgical procedures in fewer hospital centres (Gøtrik and Hansen, 2001).

Another problem to be tackled was that Danish cancer patients seemed to have more advanced stages at diagnosis than those in other Scandinavian countries (Association of the Nordic Cancer Registries, 2007; Berrino et al, 2009). This may have been due to bottlenecks at different stages of the clinical pathway with long waits from first symptom to start of treatment. The second Danish National Cancer Plan addressed these issues, recommending pre-planned, well-structured clinical pathways without unnecessary waiting times for investigations and procedures.

This paper provides:

  • an overview of the Danish healthcare system to help understand where delays may occur;
  • a brief summary of what is known about different phases of delay for cancer patients and
  • an outline of the actions currently being undertaken to reduce delays.

Det er da altid noget, at “in future, fast-track diagnosis and treatment will be provided for suspected cancers and access to general diagnostic investigations will be improved”, men for nogen er det nok lidt sent. Det er muligt, at vi danskere er vant til at tænke på det danske sundhedsvæsen som “et af verdens bedste”, men på nogle måder er det altså skandaløst dårligt og bagud. Det kan kun gå for langsomt med at få det rettet op.

Link: Delay in diagnosis: the experience in Denmark

Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!

Forfatteren Stephen King, som du måske har hørt om (hvis du ikke har læst nogen af hans bøger har du med sikkerhed set en film, der er baseret på én), har et indlæg i The Daily Beast, hvor han brokker sig over, at folk som ham ikke skal betale meget mere i skat.

Det er værd at læse, ikke mindst i lys af tidens hyldest også af en bestemt, afdød dansk rigmand :

Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don’t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children’s children. And what they do give away is—like the monies my wife and I donate—totally at their own discretion. That’s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don’t tell us how to use our money; we’ll tell you.

The Koch brothers are right-wing creepazoids, but they’re giving right-wing creepazoids. Here’s an example: 68 million fine American dollars to Deerfield Academy. Which is great for Deerfield Academy. But it won’t do squat for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where food fish are now showing up with black lesions. It won’t pay for stronger regulations to keep BP (or some other bunch of dipshit oil drillers) from doing it again. It won’t repair the levees surrounding New Orleans. It won’t improve education in Mississippi or Alabama. But what the hell—them li’l crackers ain’t never going to go to Deerfield Academy anyway. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

Here’s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party (which has become, so far as I can see, the only wing of the Republican Party): the richer rich people get, the more jobs they create. Really? I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy.

At the risk of repeating myself, here’s what rich folks do when they get richer: they invest. A lot of those investments are overseas, thanks to the anti-American business policies of the last four administrations. Don’t think so? Check the tag on that T-shirt or gimme cap you’re wearing. If it says MADE IN AMERICA, I’ll … well, I won’t say I’ll eat your shorts, because some of that stuff is made here, but not much of it. And what does get made here doesn’t get made by America’s small cadre of pluted bloatocrats; it’s made, for the most part, in barely-gittin’-by factories in the Deep South, where the only unions people believe in are those solemnized at the altar of the local church (as long as they’re from different sexes, that is).

I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.

Læs det hele!

Studenteroprør i Aarhus

Det var fanden gale mig også på tide. Arkæologi-studerende besætter chefgangen, læser vi på på Modkraft:

Omkring 50 studerende, fortrinsvis fra de klassiske fag (græsk, latin og arkæologi), satte sig onsdag eftermiddag til at læse på ledelsesgangen, mens bestyrelsen på Aarhus Universitet holdt møde.

Det skete i protest mod at blive flyttet til nye bygninger, hvilket ifølge de studerende vil betyde færre læsepladser og sammenlægninger af studenterrum.

– Det minder mig om min egen studietid, hvor jeg husker det som om, jeg næsten ikke lavede andet end at protestere, mindedes Michael Christiansen, bestyrelsesformand for Danmarks Radio og Aarhus Universitet, da han i en pause var kommet ud for at snakke med de studerende, der protesterede udenfor bestyrelsesmødet.

De studerende er utilfredse med flytningen, da de mener, den vil betyde, at de vil miste læsepladser og føre til, at de ikke længere kan have deres eget studenterrum.

Dette kommer på et tidspunkt, hvor ledelsen på Aarhus Universitet har stillet sig selv i et meget dårligt lys som følge af omstruktureringen og en mildt sagt besynderlig håndtering af den tyske professor Linda Maria Koldaus kritik af forholdene på musikstudiet. Man kan kun håbe, at oprøret vil gribe om sig, og at flere studerende vil forlange bedre vilkår, bedre studier og fokus på det faglige frem for management og “branding”.

Tim Berners-Lee til kamp mod overvågning af Internettet

Den britiske regering synes, at efterretningstjenesten skal overvåge al internettrafik, herunder al privat trafik på alle sociale medier som Facebook, MSN og så videre.

Tim Berners-Lee, der opfandt World Wide Web og dermed nettet, som vi kender det i dag, mener, at en så total overvågning vil knuse enhver forestilling om menneskerettigheder. The Guardian skriver:

Tim Berners-Lee, who serves as an adviser to the government on how to make public data more accessible, says the extension of the state’s surveillance powers would be a “destruction of human rights” and would make a huge amount of highly intimate information vulnerable to theft or release by corrupt officials. In an interview with the Guardian, Berners-Lee said: “The amount of control you have over somebody if you can monitor internet activity is amazing.”You get to know every detail, you get to know, in a way, more intimate details about their life than any person that they talk to because often people will confide in the internet as they find their way through medical websites … or as an adolescent finds their way through a website about homosexuality, wondering what they are and whether they should talk to people about it.”

Tim Berners-Lee warns against web snooping bill Link to this audioThe British computer engineer, who devised the system that allows the creation of websites and links, said that of all the recent developments on the internet, it was moves by governments to control or spy on the internet that “keep me up most at night”.

The government ran into a storm of criticism earlier this month when it emerged that it was planning to allow GCHQ to monitor all communication on social media, Skype calls and email communication as well as logging every site visited by internet users in Britain.

Berners-Lee said: “The idea that we should routinely record information about people is obviously very dangerous. It means that there will be information around which could be stolen, which can be acquired through corrupt officials or corrupt operators, and [could be] used, for example, to blackmail people in the government or people in the military. We open ourselves out, if we store this information, to it being abused.”

He said that if the government believed it was essential to collect this kind of sensitive data about individuals, it would have to establish a “very strong independent body” which would be able to investigate every use of the surveillance powers to establish whether the target did pose a threat, and whether the intrusion had produced valuable evidence.

But he said that since the coalition had not spelled out an oversight regime, or how the data could be safely stored, “the most important thing to do is to stop the bill as it is at the moment”.

The intervention of the highly respected internet pioneer creates a headache for Theresa May, the home secretary, who has said she plans to press on with introducing the new measures after the Queen’s speech next month, despite concerns raised by senior Liberal Democrats. It will add to the woes of ministers mired in damaging battles over unpopular policy proposals on several fronts.

Berners-Lee was speaking to the Guardian as part of a week-long series on the battle for control of the internet, examining how states, companies and technological developments are challenging the principles of openness and universal access on which the net was built.

Berners-Lee has been an outspoken defender of the “open internet”, warning in 2010 that web freedom was under threat from the rise of social network “silos” such as Facebook, “closed world” apps such as those released by Apple, and governments’ attempts to monitor people’s online behaviour.

He said he remained concerned about the creation of “strong monopolies” but believed it was unlikely that internet giants such as Facebook and Google would enjoy their dominance indefinitely. “The battle lines are being drawn and things are in a huge state of flux, so it’s very difficult to tell, when you look at the world now, what it’s going to look like in a few months’ time.”

He said that throughout the history of the internet, people had been concerned about the emergence of apparently dominant giants, but they were vulnerable to smaller companies that could innovate more effectively.

In a coded reference to predictions that Facebook could in soon become, in effect, for most people, the internet, he recalled a “wise” colleague who pointed out more than 20 years ago: “It’s amazing how quickly people on the internet can pick something up, but it’s also amazing how quickly they can drop it.”

Link: Tim Berners-Lee urges government to stop the snooping bill