This morning at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Brian Lehrer show is being broadcast live as we act as breakfast-eating studio audience. The first guest is Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. Lehrer introduces Pawlenty as the Republican’s Obama – young, smart, charismatic and a party leader, who was considered a front-runner for McCain’s running mate.

Pawlenty admits that he didn’t get the result he would have liked in the Coleman/Franken recount, “but the process was fair.” The problems, he says, weren’t with the voting process but with absentee ballots – rather than seeing interest groups encourage people to abuse the absentee ballot problem, he argues that we’d be better served with limited early voting.

Framing Pawlenty as a likely frontrunner against Obama, Lehrer asks how he governor thinks the President is doing. He concedes that Obama inherited a tough situation, but worries that the federal government has allowed spending to get out of control. “They’re not even trying to balance the budget anymore.” Asked whether this spending is necessary for stimulus, Pawlenty argues that most stimulus money isn’t directly benefitting the economy. Asked whether Minnesota considered refusing stimulus money, Pawlenty points out that Minnesota is 5th lowest recipient of federal money.

In reference to the future of the Republican party, Pawlenty concedes, “the Republican party’s in a rebuilding year. We need draft choices, maybe some trades…” Lehrer wonders whether the Republicans simply need some new ideas – Pawlenty’s new idea is a very old one, nuclear power.

Lehrer points out that perhaps Pawlenty’s most radical idea is “unallotments”, unilateral actions by the governor to eliminate spending approved by the legislature. “This has been aroud since 1939, and we believe we’re on solid legal ground,” he says, but concedes that there are likely to be some lawsuits from public interest groups.

Pawlenty is here to talk about educational innovation. Lehrer asks whether Minnesota would sign up to a national educational standards test that’s indexed against an international standard. Pawlenty’s hesitant about signing up, because he’s worried about federalization of education, but he concedes that there’s a problem with state-based standards. He favors a voluntary standard, not a federal mandate. Lehrer quipps, “Republicans don’t like federal standards because they’re federal. Democrats don’t like them because they’re standards.”

Te heart of Lehrer’s show is a conversation about digital natives and how a new generation is using the internet. The discussants on stage are legendary game designer Will Wright, University of Washington learning expert Dr. Patricia Kuhl and my colleague John Palfrey, author of “Born Digital”. To frame the conversation, Lehrer calls on four high school students at the Ideas Festival as visiting scholars. They tell the audience that they spend hours online a day, at least half on social networks, notably Facebook. One sees a difference between how she uses the internet – a quiet, isolated process – and how a sister from Ethiopia does, favoring personal contact over online.

Lehrer asks John Palfrey whether digital natives are a different species, as one reviewer of his book suggests. He admits that “digital natives” is an uncomfortable term, one that he and Urs Gasser tried to reclaim in the book. He argues that it’s a population, not a species – digital natives are based on access, not just on their generation. He’s especially interested in gaming, because it has a “flattening effect”, crossing socioeconomic groups.

There is, he argues, an emerging global culture of digital natives. And there are common problems for digital natives, problems of privacy and safety. Asked the impossible “a good thing or a bad thing” question, JP suggests that the internet and computers are incredibly powerful tools for creativity, enabling kids to do things that parents find literally unbelievable. On the downside, he worries that kids could get a less good education online because they don’t have navigation skills to find the information they need. This could lead to a problem of “driving a larger digital participation gap.”

Will Wright sees “a tidal wave of change” in how people are using technology, moving into a different way of thinking. Digital natives are surfing the top of the wave. Educational users know they need to be riding the wave, but might be in the middle, while others are being washed over. His games, he concedes, are influenced by a constructivist approach to education. Kids connect to the things they’ve made, and revel in the ability to create.

The students in the audience seem to agree. While none play Spore, they’ve all played Sims, and they admit that they enjoy the building creation aspects, as well as the ability of bringing digital characters into conflict.

Dr. Kuhl is asked how computer gaming is affecting learning. She mentions that there’s an enormous amount of learning that happens in informal settings, implicit learning, rather than through explicit, classroom learning. People learn an enormous amount from reading each other’s intentions – it “feeds the social brain”. Kuhl is running an experiment on language acquisition, seeing how 9 month old children learn second languages. She’s got graduate students who are native speakers of Chinese and Urdu. They play with one set of children for 12 in person sessions. Another set hears the second language on television, a third on tape. She then does brain studies to see whether brain centers are activated by the sounds or words of the language. Kids who learned in person show the same patterns as native speakers of these languages – kids who watched TV or listened to the tape showed no effect. “Under age two,” she says, “don’t put the kid in front of TV to get them into Harvard.”

The scholars in the room tell the audience that they watch almost no television – one admits to being a Top Chef fan. John Palfrey addresses the issue of multitasking, suggesting that most digital natives are watching television while doing homework and using the Internet. Palfrey tells us that “multitasking” isn’t a word kids identify with. He prefers the term “task switching”, moving rapidly between different activities. Students at Harvard Law, he tells us, are often switching between note taking, Twittering, answering email. Those who are focusing on something other than the class – checking email – don’t learn as much, where as those who are using the laptop to research and participate often learn more.

Brooke Gladstone offers a question from the audience, worrying about the lack of in-person connections in virtual environments. Dr. Kuhl acknowledges that the research isn’t definitive, but reminds us that “People need people to learn.”

In the closing “conversation” today at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Charlie Rose interviews former Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and James Baker and current deputy secretary James Steinberg. The conversation, unsurprisingly, begins with the recent protests in Iran.

Secretary Baker saw the protests as encouraging, despite the violence against protesters. The protests were fueled by dissatisfaction, and they may be exposing that the Iranian government is less of a theocracy, and more of a hardline military and security government. This might give us options we otherwise might not have, but we don’t have much we can do on the ground. “I’m the only person here to serve in a Republican administration and I think President Obama has handled this just about exactly right.” In Hungary in 1956, “we called people out but weren’t in the position to help them.” We don’t want to make the same mistake in Iran. And we cannot be the whipping boy for the Iranian government.

The violent crackdown can’t stop us from talking, Baker argues. During the Cold War, the Soviets were “equally committed to doing damage to the US, to wiping us off the earth… and we talked to them for forty years.” He gets strong applause for the line, “You don’t need to make peace with your friends, you need to make peace with your enemies.”

Secretary Albright notes, “For a long time, I thought Iran had won the war in Iraq. That may have shifted. Iran, as Persia, wanted to be regional hegemon.” In their confusion of what they’ve done, she argues, they have changed the dynamic of the whole region.

It’s comfortable to say that we’re never going to deal with this government, but not very helpful. The problems are practial – who do we talk to and about what. And the possibility that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons is a genuine national security problem.

Steinberg acknowledges that the most powerful aspect of the Iranian protests “is that the protests were made in Iran – it wasn’t somehow protesters implementing outside policy.”

Baker suggests that the US has options other than doing nothing. He references “sanctions that really bite, financial sanctions,” and then intriguingly reminds the audience that the US still has thousands of nuclear weapons. “We’ve got all these nukes, it doesn’t take but twenty seconds to reaim ‘em at Iran. We need to let those hardliners know – they may be flaky and crazy, but they don’t want to be blown off the face of the earth.”

Albright notes that it’s a mistake to equate protests in Iran with certain historical precedents. “The people seeking freedom in Europe were pro-American. That’s not what we see in Iran. People want to be noticed, but not necessarily embraced by the US.” She notes that the past embrace of Iranian politicians has weakened them.

Steinberg is clear that the US isn’t reaiming nuclear weapons any time soon. “There’s no question we can deter them. But our fear is Iranian nuclear weapons as a shield, not as a sword,” allowing Iran to take aggresive action in the region without fear of retaliation. And if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it’s likely to provoke other countries to acquire them.

The conversation shifts to Israel, and Steinberg points out that the US is making preliminary overtures to Syria, engaging to a new degree. Baker suggests that Syria is critical because it has influence with Hamas. He remembers a conversation with Syrian officials in the past – he asked whether Syria could get Hamas to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist in exchange for the Golan. He believes Syria will do it. The trick may be finding ways to talk to Hamas indirectly – he recollects talking to Palestinians who were obviously speaking for the PLO, but maintaining the fiction that the US doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Albright reminds us that Hamas is so powerful because they actually provide services – we need to acknowledge that they’re more complicated than just a terrorist organization.

We move into a rapid tour of hotspots around the world. Asked about whether the US should restrict air strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Steinberg steers the conversation to nationbuilding. “We’re not going to do nationbuilding – we’re going to allow Afghans to build their own nation.” Baker’s got a different plan – he suggests we should pay off and “flip” members of the Taliban, suggesting that this is a common local practice and will be well-received.

Albright has no easy answers for Pakistan, but has a great line: “I think Pakistan is everything that gives you an international migraine.” She lists problems including corruption, its location, its interconnection to other conflicts, and notes that we’re at a point where we can’t even succesfully deliver humanitarian aid and support to the Swat Valley.

The topic of Russia inspires spirited conversation. Albright notes that in her past trips to Russia and nearby countries, she sees a huge mistrust of the US. She feels that they’re deeply worried about US influence in the “post-Soviet Sphere”. We need to make it clear that NATO isn’t against them, and we’ve got an added complication with missle defense: “I personally wish we’d never gone towards missle defense. It’s hard to persuade the that the missles and NATO aren’t against them.” Albright notes that the new generation in power in Russia, people in their forties, are anti-American for the most part.

Charlie Rose leads the conversation to North Korea via China. Baker reminds us that China owns us, or will soon. “If we don’t do something about our current account deficit, we’re going to be in big trouble.”

Steinberg sees increasing distance between North Korea and China. He believes that the recent provocative acts have been a shock to China as well. “The Chinese are worried about destabilizing North Korea, but are fundamentally committed to seeing the de-nuclearization of North Korea.” They see it as a threat to them – if the program continues, it’s going to change the face of Northeast Asia.

Our world tour includes a quick stop in Europe – though none in Africa or Latin America – before we move on to health care. This quickly turns into a conversation about the difficulty of bipartisanship. Albright offers multiple diagnoses, including the zinger, “With due respect, the Republican party is not exactly functional.” Baker offers a practical suggestion. Given the hatred between Republicans and Democrats in the House, bipartisan initiatives actually need to be written by the President.

Asked about the future, Baker predicts that the US will still be the preeminent power in the world in twenty five years. We’re not falling behind, he tells us, but others are catching up in part by embracing our models. But he worries about our financial future. Albright reminds us that we’re a nation that doesn’t like to go it alone and predicts a future of state to state partnerships. And Steinberg is silent, perhaps because it’s easier to be opinionated on this topic when you’re no longer in office.

Anna Deveare Smith holds a conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, who was the inaugural poet at President Barack Obama’s election. Smith notes, “When I heard she’d been asked to compose a poem for the inauguration, I hollered out loud, but I wasn’t surprised.” Smith has brought three poems for Alexander to read, and invites her to pick one – she selects “Absence”, an excerpt from an epic poem about the Amistad, a slave ship that is seized, makes its way to Connecticut, and where US authorities declared the captives on board free Africans, not slaves and property of the Spanish. Alexander’s poem imagines the voyage from the captive’s perspective, the blue notes that come from moaning. It closes:

“in the absence of women in the middle of the ocean
there is no deeper deep, no bluer blue”

Asked about the official role of inaugural poet, the transformation of poetry into a new form of language, with the authority of its inclusion in an inaugural ceremony, Alexander reflects, “Poetry isn’t meant to resolve everything – it’s meant to open us up. And official language doesn’t have the power to do that.”

Alexander is heavily influenced by poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and she says, “Gwendolyn Brooks is the bard of the south side of Chicago. She’s the one who should be delivering the poem, because she’s from Obamaland before it became Obamaland…” How do you write a poem for a mall that used to be a slave market? Looking at a stretch of grass edified by Walt Whitman? How do you put this moment in a timeline?

She reads the inaugural poen, “Praisesong for the day“. It’s a praisesong in the West Africa tradition, but it doesn’t invoke Obama. Alexander sees this as a continuation of a campaign that invited people to look beyond the candidate, towards us, to the movement. A praisesong that served one person wouldn’t be true to the moment.

“‘Love’ is the one word we probably won’t hear President Obama say.” We might misrust him if we heard it a lot – it’s not a politician’s word. She quotes “Work is love made manifest”, and the room struggles to remember who the quote is from. “Kahlil Gibran,” someone yells out. “Good. I wanted it to be Gandhi, but I was worried it might have been Britney Spears.”

I’m a bad blogger today, but a good conversationalist. Aspen isn’t bloggable in the same way as a conference like TED or Pop!Tech – we’re in a large music hall without wifi or power, and I’ve got the only laptop out in sight. And I’ve been spending less time transcribing sessions and more catching up with old friends.

But fortunately I ducked back into the “tent” to catch the end of a talk I’d really wanted to hear, a dialog between Secretary Madeline Albright and scholar Hernando de Soto. De Soto is a proponent for property rights. He argues that a key towards economic development is ensuring that people in the developing world can document ownership of their houses and land. This is critical for economic development – in the US, most entrepreneurs fund their businesses based on mortgaging their houses. You can’t do this if you can’t document your ownership…

Secretary Albright connects these issues to the problem of failed states. “Failed states come about when we don’t know who owns things, who’s in charge, or who’s responsible.” It sounds absurd to push for property rights in a place like Darfur, she tells us, but that’s how we prevent state failure and a critical piece of recovery from crisis situations.

De Soto observes that much of the world’s agricultural production is being produced by a small set of nations – the US, China, Canada, Australia – the breadbasket of the world. There’s far more space available in Latin America and Africa, and countries like China are now acquiring huge swaths of land in Africa, as are companies like Unilever and Hershey. (Or Daewoo in Madagascar.) People argue that property rights are a right wing concept and that we shouldn’t be emphasizing them in the developing world. But if we don’t, De Soto argues, we’re going to end up with an African continent owned by large corporations with no rights for the current landowners. This may sound like a right-wing movement, but it’s the way we give people sufficient rights that we don’t end up with peasant insurgencies like the Shining Path.

Albright suggests that we need to consider the role of women in property ownership, including inheritance and property rights. The interlocutor (whose name I didn’t catch, alas) references the participation of women in the recent street protests in Iran – they’ve got more at stake and less to lose than the men do.

DeSoto argues that it’s easier to grant property rights than we think. You’re giving poor people what they’ve already got – “Law is already there in a semotic stage.” He tells a story of visiting with the Indonesian government after spending a vacation in Bali. The government asked him, “How do we find out who owns what? We want to avoid another revolution.” DeSoto’s advice – take a walk. Every two hundred yards or so, a different dog barks. “There may be no records, but the Indonesian dogs know where the borders are.”

We might also look towards models that have worked before. In Colorado, in days past, if you cut down enough trees, you’d have a legal claim to the land. DeSoto tells us, “There’s practice, then you codify it.”

I’m at the Aspen Ideas Festival and still trying to get a sense for how this conference works. I arrived late last night and spoke in one of the early sessions this morning, along with Brooke Gladstone and Clive Thompson. Good fun, but it means I’ve only experienced the conference as a speaker, not as a guest.

There are competing sessions during lunch, and I passed through a standup routine by Louis Black to make it into the basement to hear George Dyson talk about Darwinian critic, Samuel Butler. The Butler in question is a somewhat obscure Victorian figure. He wrote novels, translated, and engaged in a fierce, lifelong debate with Charles Darwin. Dyson tells us that George Bernard Shaw observed that a man who managed to alienate both Darwin and the church wasn’t goint to make a lot of friends.

Dyson sees a lot to like in Butler’s view of the world. When Butler fled England – and a debate with his father over the value of baptish – he found himself in New Zealand and was fascinated by a telegraph line that connected a harbor and the town of Christchurch. The experience of being able to transmit news to town that a ship had been sighted radically changed the life of the town, and Butler reflected on the development in a way that anticipated much of the contemporary internet, including e-commerce. His observations were wide-ranging, including reflections on the possible evolution of machines, including the idea that machines might reproduce through humans, much as humans use biological subsystems to reproduce. His critiques of Darwin focused on the question of how Darwinian processes actually came about. He ended up postulating a form of intelligent design that was bottom up – based on the motivations of cellular and molecular mechanisms, rather than on a top-down intelligent designer. In his work, Dyson sees anticipation of Dawkins and the idea of the selfish gene.

Darwin and Butler sparred throughout their lifetimes, though Darwin didn’t directly address Butler’s critiques – his advisory board, however, wrote ferocious criticism of his work, including a memorable passage where Butler is refered to with the drawing of a dog. Dyson worries that we dismiss his thinking, especially about bottom-up strategies of evolution, at our peril.

Asked who’s the most important critic of Darwin today, Dyson cited Carl Woese, who discovered Archaea, a new kingdom of life that includes extremophiles, life that thrives in deep undersea events in environments that appear unsustainable. Woese sees a great deal of genetic transfer across species within the Archaea kingdom – deeply separated orders or families might manifest large, similar sequences. This suggests a model of genetic spread that’s different from conventional Darwinian evolution. It might look more like the way languages borrow from one another. Woese – and Dyson – speculate that Darwinian evolution might just be one possible ways in which organisms share genetic information. It might be have been an earlier form of evolution, and perhaps horizontal genetic transfer, as we see in virii and in Archaea might be more common.

Dyson ends with a slide of his father, poking at eddies in a British stream. “You can poke an eddy with a stick and it will just reform. Perhaps species are like this – we somehow eliminate lions, but we see similar prey behavior in housecats. Maybe species are like eddies, emerging through Darwinian selection, through horizontal gene sharing… but the behaviors inevitably emerge.

Asked about his feelings on intelligent design, Dyson admits that he dislikes the dogmatic response the scientific community tends to have to the line of thought. Intelligent design, he says, shouldn’t be taught as a theory equivalent to Darwin’s, but no scientist should dismiss something entirely out of hand.

Dyson offers the idea that Richard Dawkins errs in believing that you need to be an atheist to be a good scientist. There have been many excellent scientists who are “dual citizens” of the world of science and faith.

The questions close with queries to Dyson about how science should be taught in schools. He remembers a science class where he and fellow students were given a year to study the Grand Canyon and try to determine how old they thought it was. They ran experiments to test erosion, built instruments to test mass, and generally learned how to do science. There were some parents who disliked the class – they pointed out that students didn’t learn much about grods. “But you were extremely well prepared to learn about frogs.”

The afternoon session at Aspen Ideas Festival today is a four hour “conversation”, involving a remarkable set of discussants. To give us a sense for gravitas, we open with “Fanfare for the Common Man”, played on timpani and brass. I guess this is to prepare us for speakers like Attorney General Eric Holder… who, unfortunately, wasn’t able to join us due to a dental emergency. (I’m not making this up.) Instead, we get the new Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in dialog with Bob Schieffer.

(A reminder for all my readers – I just try to get the notes down – there’s no implied endorsement of anything said or not said here.)

Oren was born, raised and educated in the US – he gave up his US citizenship to become Israel’s ambassador to the US. He explains that this is a long tradition in Israel – the United States forces people to give up US citizenship, not Israel.

Schieffer asks the Ambassador to comment on a rumor today, that Israeli officials have indicated willingness towards a freeze in settlements as part of a larger peace process. Oren won’t confirm this, and reminds us that Israel reserves the right to coninue to expand existing settlements, but doesn’t plan not to acquire new land for settlements. This is not, though, just a negotiation between the US and Israel – he reminds us that this is a negotiation towards the whole Arab world. If there were indications that the Arab world was starting to accept Israel, perhaps there’d be more willingness. He says that Israel is looking for “baby steps”: overflight rights, visas for visiting scholars.

Trying to explain why the settlement issue is so difficult, Oren says, “These are our tribal lands… You can’t say to jews ‘You can’t live in the land of your forefathers.’” On the other hand, “that right can only be qualified by the right of another people,” and he acknowledges that the Palestinians have rights to these territories. The hope is to find mutual recognition, comity, prosperity, a recognition of parallel, opposing claims to these lands.

Oren served in the Israeli armed forces during the operation to move settlers out of Gaza. He talks about how difficult it is to remove people from their homes on land they believe they have a right to.

Schieffer asks about Palestinian reaction to the recent plan put forward by the Israeli Prime Minister – a recognition of a Jewish state, no right of return, and no joint control of Jerusalem. Orem asks us to back up – Israel is acknowleding a Palestinian claim to land, with a requirement that there’s a mutual acknowledgement in turn. Israel is demanding a demilitarized state – it will be allowed a police force, but the fear is that past attempts to allow Palestinian authorities to have weapons have led to attacks on Israel, particularly rocket attacks. And Jerusalem, he says, is not off the table – it’s simply only for the last stage of discussions.

Schieffer wonders why Jerusalem couldn’t be a shared, international city. Oren argues that international cities don’t work, and argues that the city wasn’t possible for jews until Israel took over in 1967. As for refugees, Oren wants to see refugees repatriated to a former Palestinian state, not to Israel, as it would change the Jewish character of the state. He reminds Schieffer that Israel has repatriated jews from around the Arab world who’d been expelled or threatened.

Oren draws a distinction between Palestinian groups seeking the elimination of Israel and a new generation who want economic ties with Israel. He points to security successes, with US forces training Palestinian police, which have enabled parts of the West Bank which had been closed to reopen. And he notes a changing tone in the region – Israel is no longer the enemy to Sunni states – it’s Iran, and Israel is agreed that Iran is a threat.

Schieffer asks point blank, “Will Israel tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran?” Oren sees “multiple existential threats” from a nuclear armed Iran. Not only is there the chance of a direct strike, there’s the possibility of transfer of the bomb to terrorist groups. Israel loses its ability to retailate for terrorism. And he argues that if Iran gets a bomb, other states will immediately seek them as well. “Israel will take whatever actions are necessary to protect its citizens from this multiple existential threat… Israel has the military means to defend itself under all conditions.” (This last line gets applause, perhaps because it’s an elegant dodge to a question of whether Israel has nuclear weapons.)

“The Gilad Shalit story tears my nation apart… the country that tears its heart out over a single soldier is not going to let a government threaten it with nuclear weapons.”

Asked about recent unrest in Iran, Oren says, “This is a regime that shows no compunction in killing its own citizens. It will show no compunctions in killing our or other citizens.” Israel is concerned that a “so-called moderate leader will emerge in Iran, and continue to support Hizbullah, Hamas and continue to seek nuclear weapons.” Only with a change in Iranian policy will Israel be comfortable.

Oren argues that great American leaders, including Jefferson, Lincoln and Wilson, were Zionists, and suggests that the US/Israeli relationship is like no other two-state relationship in history. As a centerpiece of US and Israeli foreign relations, it’s not going to change.

Oren ends on a light note, hoping that his next vacation can be in Riyahd. He wants to see a resolution to the settlement issue, a resumption of talks with the Palestinians, and talks with Syria, hoping that Syrian leaders will follow in the steps of Sadat and come to Israel. “The people of Israel have demonstrated again and again that when there is a sincere effort from an Arab leader, Israelis are willing to make enormous sacrifices.” He references Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt as an example.

There are countless ways to screw up a fragile democracy. Two aspects of the democratic process seem to be especially vulnerable – elections, and term limits. Recent events in Iran have reminded us that elections are surprisingly easy to rig if you’ve got adequate control of electoral commissions. (Ideally, you should never need to rig an election. With state control over media, it should be easy enough to marginalize opponents and consolidate the image of a strong executive. The mistake in the Iran elections may have been the televised debates, which established Moussavi as a credible threat to Ahmedinejad…)

And there are a lot of rigged elections. In Africa, we’ve seen recently seen a thoroughly corrupt Zimbabwean election leading to an uncomfortable power-sharing arrangement, a rigged Kenyan election leading to violence and a bloated power-sharing government, a massively flawed election in Nigeria being accepted largely because it didn’t erupt into violence. Even in Ghana, where the 2008 elections were rightly celebrated for providing a peaceful transfer of power (the rare and celebrated “double alternation“), some of my friends affiliated with the ousted NPP claim that the election was flawed, but their party stood down rather than risk Kenya-style chaos. (I have no way of validating these claims, but I’m fascinated that an election celebrated for its smooth running is being questioned by some participants.)

Recent events suggest that we may need to pay close attention to the moment when leaders realize they’re constitutionally obligated to step down. It’s a legitimate concern in fragile democracies that a leader may be fairly elected, and may then manipulate the levers of power to remain in office indefinitely. (The running African joke about democratically-elected strongmen has the punchline: “One man, one vote, once.”) So many constitutions include strict term limits for executives. And popular leaders often try to ammend constitutions to allow them to rule indefinitely – Hugo Chavez proposed such ammendments to Venezuela’s constitution and was narrowly defeated in a referendum in late 2007.

Honduran president Manuel Zelaya is facing the end of his term in office and can’t currently stand for another term due to term limits. He sought a referendum allowing a constitutional change which would allow him to stand again. An hour before polls were scheduled to open, he was seized – in his pajamas – by military officers acting on a Supreme Court order and spirited off to Costa Rica.

That sounds a lot like a coup to me – the military has seized power and ousted an elected leader before the end of his term. On the other hand, the military was acting under court order, which leads to an argument that the presidential ouster was legally mandated. There’s been lively online debate on the topic of coup/no coup – readers on Reddit yesterday morning were greeted with an angry comment, “I am from Honduras. It was NOT a COUP” and a long comment thread debating events. The back and forth on the English-language wikipedia has been fierce enough that the Honduras page is currently protected from future edits (thought the Spanish-language page is not protected at present.)

While the Honduras situation is gaining some media attention – notably because both Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama have protested the events that have transpired – a very similar situation in Niger hasn’t moved beyond the back pages of the newspaper. In Niger, President Mamadou Tandja has been seeking an additional term in office, which has required constitutional changes via a referendum. The constitutional court ruled against his proposed referendum, and earlier this week, he declared he would rule by decree, dissolved the court that ruled against him and appointed 8 ministers who agree with his referendum plans. It’s not technically a military coup, as the military has stayed neutral… but an Nigerois opposition figure has called the situation a coup and been arrested for his troubles.

Mark Leon Goldberg, writing in UN Dispatch, asks “If a coup falls in Niger, does it make a sound?” While Tandja is earning brickbats from ECOWAS and from the EU, the story isn’t getting much play in international media. I can’t find evidence that Obama’s specifically condemned Tandja’s actions (BTW, I do not recommend searching for “obama niger” – it’s depressing, and won’t enlighten you on this story), and there certainly aren’t media pundits demanding an Obama stand on events.

It’s interesting to think about what democratic stresses attract international attention and which fly under radar. Protests in Iran were going to be front-page news, even before demonstrators displayed uncommon persistance and courage. Iran’s a founding member of the “axis of evil” – the Beatles of international media attention – a country that’s always red hot on attention maps. That Iran has a thriving blogosphere and a tech savvy population, many of whom knew how to evade the government firewalls that have been in place most of this decade, helped turn exciting, inspiring political developments into an international media phenomenon.

Other countries can have profoundly strange goings-on and healthy citizen media coverage, and won’t get a fraction of the coverage. See Madagascar, which has been in the throes of a deposed government, where bloggers have emerged as a key alternative to mainstream media. Or Fiji, where the military has been in control since late 2006, the fourth coup in recent years, and where recent restrictions on freedom of the press has been called “coup 4.5″ and turned bloggers into outlaw media outlets. We’ve covered both crises closely at Globa Voices, but we’ve not had the mainstream media interest we’ve received around Iran.

So why does Honduras get the Iran treatment, while Niger is ignored like Madagascar? Proximity? Strategic importance? (though Niger’s got massive uranium reserves – you remember yellowcake, right?) It’s not population – Niger’s roughly twice the size of Honduras. Expectation? Perhaps we’re sufficiently accustomed to African coups (Madagascar, Mauritania and Guinea in the past year) that Niger’s not a surprise.

Or perhaps all the pundits are still trying to figure out which one’s Nigeria and which one’s Niger…