February 13, 2007

S'prise, S'prise

Yesterday we discovered that our new kitchen hood - consisting of a fan with a speed control, a light with a dimmer, and a timer - needed to be rebooted.

Rebooted!

Wow, a kitchen hood that can do, much less needs a software reboot.  That's pretty amazing.

But not so amazing as this fact: ICANN's self-emasculating ombudsman has established a blog!  Against this, a range hood that can be rebooted becomes unremarkable.

Is this blog going to be sequence of excuses?  If so, it has certainly gotten off to a good start.  Will it be a mirror of the ombudsman annual report - a glorified litany of trivialities leavened with excuses why nothing real was done to redress ICANN's institutional disregard for its own rules?

And yet ICANN's own board members - people who's fiduciary duties contains an element of responsibility to consider the effects of ICANN upon the public interest - continue to feel institutionally constrained from interacting with the public.

Board members are supposed to be the real ombudsmen.  They are supposed to be making inquiries into the activities of ICANN and unlike a hired ombudsman are legally empowered to do so.  But no, ICANN's board acts more like a panel of worthies who have aged into passive somnolence.

My range hood has a reset button.  Where's the reset button for ICANN?

Posted by karl at February 13, 2007 10:11 AM