The result was a march from San Francisco famous gay district, Castro, to City Hall, along Market Street. I caught up with the rally just as it ended the top of Market St and got some pictures of the march and the subsequent speeches in from of City Hall. You can see them below as a Flickr feed.

I don’t have all the speakers names, although I have pulled together a few, at the bottom.

The speeches were pretty good. About the importance of equality, about the US legal system, the hard work and courage of a few, and the main message that this was a win but the issue will inevitably led up the courts and it would be a long fight.

The mood was pretty jubilant – at one point, walking and round the corner of the Plaza to City Hall, with Karen Carpenter’s What the World Needs Now blaring out from the speakers, you felt a big lift of joy. I love it when you get that feeling of being alive and important things happening around you.

Anyway, some of the many speakers:

Dennis Herrera
S.F. City Attorney

Eva Paterson
President, Equal Justice Society

Kate Kendell
Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights

Geoff Kors
Executive Director of Equality California

Kamala Harris
San Francisco District Attorney

David Campos
Board of Supervisors, SF

Last night I saw the makings of an extraordinary sunset and jumped on my bike to Venice to get some snaps. Here’s one and under that, a Flickr feed of the rest:

Continue reading ‘Sunset in Venice’

Actually, Jonny asked me to take some snaps of them rehearshing to stick up on their blog, which I did and I thought I’d also put one or two up here (you can see them all here).

I also knocked up a poster for this big gig they have in Merida at the end of the month with Cuarteo LatinoAmericano – who are, apparently, the big boys when it comes to string quartets in Mexico.

I’m no big classical music fan. In fact I know almost nothing at all about classical music. But the piece they were practising when I took the snaps was lovely – written by Javier Alvarez and called Metro Chabacano.

And, as luck would have it, the Latinoamericano quarter have their version of it, complete with video up on YouTube – to which, a link below.

[youtube]qTA4nouHxjc[/youtube]

Anyway, that then is my friend Jonny’s string quartet (his day job is lead cello in the Yucatan Symphony Orchestra), and here be my snaps of them in action, as well as a copy of the poster I made (I got 100 copies printed up and we handed them to people as they left a Symphony Orchestra concert on Saturday).

And that’s it. Oh, hang on, need one of Suzanne…

I’ve only just got Net access after three days without so I am filtering through emails etc etc, and have to get on with other stuff…

Actually this was ten minutes of blissful relaxation forced on me as I had to wait for my room in Cascadas de Merida to be cleaned. I wish I could have stayed in the hammock all day but my brain is buzzing with ideas for my Sex.com book so I have to get on…

That’s it really. Apart from the fact that the more I think about the iPhone, the more I think that this is one of Jobs’ cock-ups. He is insisting – as he always does – that Apple (read: Steve Jobs) has complete control over what happens with the phone. No third-party stuff, no APIs.

I’m also sick of soppy, fawning American journalism. And I’m bored of pointlessly bitchy and unpleasant bloggers. I get the distinct feeling the Mexican philosophy of life is seeping into my skull.

What else? There is a car wash next to where I’m staying. But it is so Mexican that I have walked past it a dozen times and not even noticed. It is also a car wash on a street that only about 20 cars go down per day. I think the owner did this on purpose. You see, it’s only a car wash when he’s in the mood for washing cars. Otherwise it’s just a half-painted wooden gate.

Not that there isn’t time for some political intrigue. I went to a 60th birthday party out very, very close to the cenotes I visited only two days before. Elizabeth is a very pleasant Englishwoman who plays violin in the Merida Orchestra and has bought a plot of land in the stix, which she is doing up and uses as her weekend retreat. We went there for a bbq.

I had been there for a few hours when Jonny turns up and says that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is giving a speech in town – just five minutes drive away. Of course, being English, it took five to ten minutes to extricate ourselves from the party to go check it out – by which time Mr Lopez Obrador had already moved on. Although left behind was a little temporary booth that was signing up the local villagers to his “parallel government”.

It’s more than likely you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, but Andres Lopez Obrador is an intriguing political figure at the moment. In Mexico’s July presidential election, it was neck-and-neck but the more right-wing candidate Felipe Calderon ended up winning. Lots of people smelt a rat, especially with overtones of the Bush Administration’s election fudging in which it is now a specialist.

[Update: I forgot to note that the reason I know about this is because during Calderon's inauguration there was actual brawling in the Congress between politicians. The BBC as ever provides footage and background online if you're interested.]

Lopez Obrador is a left-winger and seemed representative of a whole continental shift to the left-wing and in favour of the poor over the big companies. Just look at South America at the moment – Lula winning by a landslide in Brazil in October offering to narrow the gap between rich and poor; Chavez has just won again in Venezuela and made a point of talking about socialism, nationalising various industries and made some political capital by mocking George Bush again; and then you have Morales in Bolivia – possibly the most left-wing of the lot – and also determined to give the poor what they deserve.

In fact the only country not piling over to the left wing is Colombia – and that’s because of the civil war and not much else.

Anyway, the balance of likelihood is that Lopez Obrador did not win the election but clearly he felt it was his time and so has refused to take defeat gracefully. He is determined to keep stirring up trouble and has, it seems, gone on a massive recruitment drive in the villages to build up his political base. He has also, I read today, started a TV channel to broadcast his message because he claims there is a media bias against him.

And you know what, I’m sure there is. But I’m also certain Lopez Obrador is on a hiding to nowhere. The parallel government, the public claims of media bias, the TV channel – this smacks of poor political judgement and rampant egoism. He can’t hope to seize control of Mexico so stirring up trouble will only cause the serious political players in Mexico to doubt his worthiness.

Besides, the US government is never going to allow a left-wing government to take charge of Mexico if it can possibly help it. It’s far too close for comfort. If the US government is prepared to intervene in elections in Venezuela, you can bet it is willing to do a whole lot more in its neighbouring country.

You have to wonder as well whether it is really worth Lopez Obrador’s time giving speeches in Cuzama – it is a tiny, tiny town, no more than say 200 residents. He spoke for 22 minutes apparently. None of these people have any money either, so at that rate, and assuming he converts every one in every village he visits, he will have to speak non-stop for years before he can even hope to win at the ballot box.

It was interesting to see – and I wish I’d caught the speech – but it doesn’t strike me as a winning strategy.

It also seems that most people think Felipe Calderon is a good choice (admittedly from a few news reports and a very small sample of people I have spoken to about it, and only in Merida). Yes, he is more pro-business and right-wing than Obrador but he is also, it is said, a very smart economist who is determined to build up Mexican industry.

Mexico it seems is suffering from having its traditional cheap labour costs being undermined by China and India – like every other country in the world.

There remains a massive poverty problem in Mexico, combined with an upper political rich class – just like in most South American countries, and perhaps Lopez Obrador thinks the other leaders like Chavez and Lula can provide a useful route to a more equitable society. The thing is he can only try if he is president and it looks less and less likely that that is going to happen.

Both of them made mention of my paella (I note with sadness that only one was interested in the actual recipe however). Now this was a tremendous paella, there’s no doubt about that, but I suspect that there may be a few people out there that don’t want to know about my lunch and so I am going to highlight here an easy solution to the problem: separate RSS feeds.

I have the blog set up so that you can grab individual automated RSS feeds and so avoid having every post appear if you subscribe. I will stick the links below so at least people have an option. Of course, if you want to continue to know a little too much about my life, feel free to stick with the main RSS feed. I don’t mind in the slightest.

• Main blog feed
• Internet feed (includes all ICANN, IGF and Nominet stories)
• ICANN feed
• IGF feed
• Nominet feed
• iPod feed
• Journalism feed
• Oxford feed
• Photos feed
• Podcast feed
• Sex.com feed
• Technology feed
• WSIS feed

You can subscribe to as many or as few as you like.

The remainder can be found at my IGF photo gallery/archive at kierenmccarthy.co.uk/photos/igf/. If anyone has any questions or queries, please email me at: kieren [at] thiswebaddress.co.uk.

All pictures here are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial- ShareAlike 2.0 Licence

That means that you are free to use the pictures for non-commercial purposes so long as you give me a credit. If you wish to use any image for a publication, newsletter and so on, or if you need a high-resolution version (professional quality, Canon EOS 20D, 3504px by 2336px), please contact me. I will charge according to the National Union of Journalist’s pricing chart.

Where do you start with the IGF?

Well, as good a place as any is the man that has put a year of his life turning what was no more than a vague blueprint rapidly negotiated as a compromise in Tunis in November 2005 into an international conference that has been heralded as an “outstanding success” — Mr Markus Kummer.

I don’t pretend to understand how the United Nations works, but I do know that taking responsibility of the IGF was in career terms a big gamble for Markus. It was an entirely untested method of multi-stakeholder dialogue, the terms were incredibly vague and everyone and their dog had a different idea of how it should be set up and run.

There was a huge number of people watching the IGF, many determined to push their particular agendas, and more than a few willing it to fail. When Markus told me 12 months ago that he was concerned a year was a very short period in which to organise such an event, I wasn’t sure I believed him. Having followed the process, I am now surprised he managed to do it at all. That he did, with a serious lack of resources, and was still relaxed on the Saturday lunchtime before the conference – as the pic above testifies – demonstrates his remarkable resilience.

Not to be outdone, Chengetai Masango – the other man in the IGF’s permanent secretariat – even remained calm when I prodded him to shift the entire IGF2006.info website onto the UN’s servers just hours before the conference opened proper, and despite having 1,000 more pressing issues. I never heard him moan or raise his voice, even when the pressure was more than most people could bear.

It was hosted at the Divani Apollon in Vougliameni, about 10 miles south of Athens.

Right on the beach. Not that anyone managed to actually get on the beach for five days. A large number of attendees stayed on for the weekend after the conference. Like an idiot, I assumed everyone would do the same as they did at the World Summit in Tunis and head off straight away, so I was on a 4am bus to the airport on Friday morning, having left a few compatriots in Athens city centre at 3.15am (I have no pictures of that event, although I fear there are some).

The main room started being fitted out on the Sunday – it had been used for a wedding reception on the Saturday night. This was a hell of a job,which included installing translator booths, cabling, screens, TV cameras, seating and so on.

There was some controversy when the security people said they were only comfortable with 800 people in the main room (the Greek prime minister, various other ministers, and a large number of other important officials and heads would be in the room).

There were 1,500 attendees and so a system to distribute passes to the opening ceremony was rapidly drawn up and implemented on the Sunday – much to alot of people’s irritation.

The room was packed (the empty seat you see in the pic above was mine). Although coming from India – where crowding is an everyday part of life – the man in ultimate charge of the event, Nitin Desai, felt a few more people could have been crammed in. I think he was right – it would have made for an incredible atmosphere.

Before that though, there was the flag-raising ceremony – where the hotel was officially designated United Nations territory. Anyone in the building was therefore under the protection of the UN – something that on occasion proves to be quite important.

The chairman of the meeting, Greek transport minister Michaelis Liapis, was there in casual clothes and with some Greek delegates, alongside the UN staff, and the whole thing was running smoothly.

A final relaxed meal for the UN staff at the restaurant just over the road from the hotel on the Saturday saw alot of greeting of old associates as the academics – and some government officials – had arrived for the GigaNet all-day conference in the hotel on the Sunday.

Everyone was in good spirits, with Nitin Desai telling a few interesting tales – all of which I missed while trying to persuade the waiter to bring me first a menu, and then take an order, then produce the food, and so on…

The opening day saw increased security.

And queues for conference badges.

But finally, it all kicked off with the star turns of the Greek prime minister, plus EC Commissioner Viviane Reding.

Plus, head of the ITU, Mr Utsumi; Egyptian communications minister Mr Kamel; Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Mr Sebban; and Executive director of Women’s Net Ms Primo.

And various Greek ministers, who all disappeared off with the Greek PM soon after he had given his speech.

Plus, of course, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn – co-inventors of TCP/IP the protocols that underpin the Internet and make it what it is today.

The Greek prime minister, Costas Karamanlis gave his speech.

As did Nitin Desai, who read out a message from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Utsumi gave a much-commented-on speech about Socrates which was another barely concealed promise to the gathered masses that the ITU would get the Net in the end.

Reding provided her usual blend of impressive rhetoric that left some in the room worrying how much she and EU officials really knew about how the Internet works.

And Vint Cerf talked about how he had never envisaged being on stage in Athens 30 years later when he and Kahn were drawing up the basic network protocols.

After a number of other speeches and a break for lunch, it was back with the “Setting the Scene” opening session – the full details of which were thrashed out with the 16-member panel and moderator Kenn Cukier just a quarter of an hour before.

It was experimental, and despite efforts to prevent the IGF from becoming just another row over the US government and ICANN, somehow it ended up with a long discussion about ICANN with its chairman Vint Cerf taking the floor from his front-row seat at one point.

And Cukier sharing exchanges with ICANN CEO Paul Twomey.

But the first session ended with everyone breathing a sigh of relief, and things were on track for the next day when the broad issues of Openness and Security would take place in the main room at the same time as a number of workshops covering a wide variety of aspects of the Net.

BBC World presenter Nik Gowing took the morning Openness session, marked by its faster pace and some argument when China’s official denied his government blocks Web content. That exchange provided the most headlines during the conference. Then it moved onto the Security session, again hosted by Kenn Cukier.

In the meantime, the workshops had started up.

There were 36 of them in total, the largest number covering the issue of other languages on the Internet, closely followed by discussions of freedom of speech and expression online.

Translators provided real-time translation in English, French, Spanish, Greek, Russian and Chinese in the main room and occasionally in the press conference room.

And the ever-trusty scribes, who are now as much a part of the Internet community as anyone else, put what was said up on screens in real-time, plus rapidly supplied transcripts to be posted online after the event.

While talking about the unsung heroes of the conference, there were also those on the IGF Advisory Board who, Nitin Desai pointed out at the end of the conference, had become more of a supporting organisation than an advisory group. Above are (left to right): Ayesha Hassan, Robin Gross and Adam Peake acting in their role as question takers and information organisers for the main moderator.

Another was Emily Taylor, pictured here with Janis Karklins.

And, of course, the two lynchpins, Avri Doria and Desiree Miloshevic.

The planned rooms for workshops had to be rapidly re-organised over night when it became clear more space would be needed. Two rooms were made into one, and the UN secretariat shifted into a smaller area to make room for a new workshop.

The next day started with a Diversity main discussion.

Moderated by Yoshinori Imai.

More workshops, the Access session, more workshops, and slowly a feeling of optimism started to grow over the conference as more and more people started talking to others and discovering commonalities. Early tensions started to ebb.

The Iranian representative was angry at what he saw as a slight on the first day, and was in a provocative mood the second day, but on the third issued a statement which amounted to a diplomatic truce.

And then the final day’s session. A summing up of the conference by Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer, followed soon after by a press conference where the forum was hailed a success, guaranteed a future and details were given about the next year’s event in Brazil.

Just before the Emerging Issues session, a petition from Amnesty International was handed over to Nitin Desai in the main room.

And lastly the Closing Ceremony. Where credit was given where it was due, and the meeting officially ended.

But not until there had been a kiddie photo-op, of course.

At which point, people got a chance to put their feet up for the first time in a while.