Democracy News -

After four crazy months, we are sad to say that it is the end of the Why Democracy House?

It has been really hard and crazy work, and we have all had a lot of fun. 

This site will keep being up to date, but it will no longer be run out of a house in South Africa. However it will be as virtual and current and committed to being an online platform for discussion about democracy.

Also, there is an article about Why Democracy and the house in the South African weekly Mail and Guardian.

Much of the optimism we've had for the Why Democracy? films has been recognised in the media. Rave reviews are coming in from a number of papers. The Financial Times review is one of our favourites.

Friday night we had a big party at the STEPS International headquarters. Everyone was there and everyone had a good time.

Everyone had a good time and we were very greatful to Don Edkins who threw the party and Nick Fraser and Mette Hoffmann who came all the way from Europe to celebrate with us. 

Since the beginning of October, www.whydemocracy.net has had over two milllion page impressions.

We are taking it as an indication that people from all over the world are participating in the Why Democracy? experience. We are expecting much bigger numbers as the broadcasts continue over the next few weeks. Enjoy the site and make yourself heard in our forums.  

In our efforts to pump up the President of the world elections, we have e-mailed all the people that are nominated and we have gotten letters back from Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela's representatives, saying thank you.

In the last two days we have also spend a bit of time e-mailing people around the world - fanclubs, hateclubs, messageboards and forums. Informing them about our election. Now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the vote.  

Today Amy left for Rwanda, where she will be staying for a week and then after that she is going back to Germany to finish her masters. We want to thank Amy for all the hard work she has done. She will definatly be missed by everyone. 

We are on the air. Why Democracy? is launched today. Aired by 42 broadcasters, at 20 universities, with 6 different internet outlets. We are seemingly everywhere.

Yesterday, Stanley Fish wrote an article about us on his New York Times blog.

Read the full article.

On the 26th of September we held a screening for Why Democracy in New York.

It went well. Nick Fraser and Mette Hoffmann answered questions about the series and we showed Please Vote for Me.

Watch the 10 min. edited version of Please Vote for Me on MySpace!

Click HERE!

We already have more than 7000 viewers.

I cleaned our Why Democracy? del.icio.us-account today: The unbundled tags are as reduced as possible, the bundles include all currently relevant tags and the stumb-tags are deleted. Furthermore, the del.icio.us-Show Room is prepared for providing a neat Press Room about our project.

It seems everyone is watching Lars Ulrich answering the 10 questions on MySpace.

Check it out for yourself here.

We were last week sending out the DVDs with the Why Democracy? films for the University screening.

More than one hundred DVDs were travelling around the world to the Uni's Ambassadors!

Work never stops at the Democracy House!

Take a look at the Library, check the news and eatch the trailers of the films. The global broadcasting is about to come!

The Democracy House Blog has a tidy new outfit and Siyi and Erick are finally in the sidebar with a picture and a short description like they are online for all the other house members. I changed the picture and description of the so tragically passed away Democracy House mascot Congo, who died in a car accident month ago.

Siyi and Charlotte provided some great blogposts about the last week and the funeral service for Tamara's husband we attended Sunday morning. Pictures will follow for these entries. I also wrote a post about what it means, to be involved with Why Democracy? - a real experience.

Last week we were sending out the DVDs to the University Screenings. Ninety DVDs have been traveling all over the world for the Uni Ambassadors!

Work doesn't stop at the democracy house!
Take a look at our blog, flickr and watch the virals on YouTube!

CBC's Search Engine (whose host, Jesse Brown, was our guest blogger on Thursday) played a sound clip from Democracy House as part of its Mob Docs project about sounds of people using the Internet. The clip is about halfway through yesterday's episode, available in podcast/mp3 form here.

Salla and I entered in dates and times for these three networks, so the screenings page is now updated. Amazing to see where Al-Arabiya will reach -- Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, among others.

You can make your vote count in the voting room, by voting on Democracy vs. Capitalism!

If you'd like to discuss the topic further, our guest blogger Robert Reich and the Why Democracy? community are happy to join the debate! 

We modified the forum entry page so that you begin with the categories rather than the discussions. Also changed the text on the page to make it clear that reading the forums can be done without creating a profile, and that creating a profile (to join discussions) is really easy.

One of the most recent updates to our webpage has been the 10 questions category. Take a look at world renowned athletes, politicians and authors answering questions about democracy. Just click on the "10 Questions" link in the column on the left. Enjoy!

Salla, Erick and I got the broadcasters/screenings listings up to date this evening. I did my patriotic duty and personally added the CBC Newsworld listings. There are about 20 broadcasters (out of 45 or so), so there's still more to come.