blog take two

Why hello there!

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly because I've been busy with work and other work and working on other things. But it's good to be back. This is the first post of the rest of my life, and I'm thankful for that. But I'm also confused...

Did you ever have a moment where you were struck by the enormity of how utterly strange the world seems? I mean, it's gotta be some sort of joke, right? Maybe you've had this gestalt while waiting in line at a public restroom. Or perhaps as you stood in an elevator and watched several others stare at the little Captivate screen. You may have even had the moment staring at your likeness in the mirror - you know that it's human, and yet this being in the reflection appears so alien to something inside of you.

We've been around as human beings for a couple of million years! And we've evolved to what? We've risen above what?

Start with the physical plane on which we exist, which to my best guess is a ghetto in space-time where we believe that there are three dimensions when in actuality there are closer to ten or maybe two, depending on who you ask. Other dimensions weave in and out of our limited existence in the form of bridges both subatomic and infinite. Add to that the notion that embedded within this slop is some sort of consciousness, allowing physicists to account for the uncertainty principle. And don't forget the 99% of it that we can't see or classify and to which we've attached the label "dark." Time in this ghetto only appears to advance in one direction, and yet we are housed in shells that decay over the years (one of my favorite professors, Roger Fisher, once told me that "getting old ain't for sissies"). The mind is infinite, but at any moment it can be snuffed out by a blood clot. We have many emotional states, situated intelligences, and personalities, but this gradually (and then not-so-gradually) decaying frame of ours gives us a semblance of oneness. We rely mostly on information embedded in our surroundings, scaffolds that are essentially energy in a form we can interacted with and could just as soon be something completely incomprehensible to our limited conception of reality. We exist as vast heaps of trillions of cells working in relative harmony, allowing us to interact with these surroundings, and through our actions, we create information, or entropy, which is proof that we existed and some physicists believe will be replayed for all of eternity when the universe collapses. We never think about any of this. We live by a few routines (movies, work/physical exertion, eating, gossip, and sexual politics) and close out the rest from conscious consideration.

Ever feel that there's something strange about all this? Just think! Millions of years and yet the best most people can do after a movie is leap to their cell phones and exclaim, "it was amazing, you gotta see it, the ending was incredible," or "that was strange, I didn't get it, it was too slow"? Millions of years and we find our mates through either algorithm-assisted screening or randomized false pretense performed in privately-provided public spaces (such as barnes and noble)? Millions of years and the average person at least in our neck of the woods spends 10-14 hours a day staring at one kind of screen and then another and holds out hope that meaning can be found in the arrangement of the pixels? Millions of years and yet when some of us find ourselves with some time on our hands that has not already been claimed by toil and trudging things about, we have absolutely no idea how to use it? There are a billion things that we could be doing, if only we could maneuver through the infinite possibilities and potentials with some sort of perseverance.

The human condition seems so limited at times, and yet our circumstance is so profound. Why the disconnect? Even in Manhattan, where anything can happen from the mundane to the terrific to the terrifying, most of what goes on seems scripted. Those who ask for money on the subways even have prepared speeches. So I tend to my own rituals, in which there must be an answer, some clue as to what this is all about. It is true that what we do not know approaches infinity, and the more that we are aware of this, the more paralyzed we feel. We use rituals as veritable landcruisers to take us across the multiformed abyss of a thought, a field, a teaming mass of life in a drop of water, a city, an ocean, a fold in spacetime. And through those rituals, like heating a pot of water and forming a mini-cyclone in a glass as we pour our tea in the morning, or standing in line for some sugar, water, and fatty cells and watching time grind to a halt amidst the swell of the morning rush, we can contemplate infinity and eternity from a vantage point that is infused with some sense of security. But why have these rituals not led us as a collective to higher states of consciousness after all of this time? Is the relatively recent phenomenon of drawing artificial boundaries between "nature" and "society," by which we claim some semblance of mastery over the cosmos, just no match for what evolution has imprinted on our minds, the text splattered across our cognitive maps of most of the known universe that reads, "here there be monsters"?

It seems that the limited physical plane in which we act out our daily routines offers us faint hints or whispers of the infinite, of that which really matters. What does it mean that after millions of years, the bridges are so hesitantly lain and most care not to tread on them?

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Soundscapes

Some of you may love hip-hop. Like me, you may be elated that De La Soul recently decided to abandon major label support and release their masterpiece. You may marvel at the infinite creative potential of a single funk tune from decades past such as "More Bounce to the Ounce." Do you recall how in the early- to mid-1990's, an entire nation's youth danced to this song, not even knowing that it existed? Take the music from its origins in Zapp, loop the first nine seconds, slow it down, pin it up against Cool and the Gang's "Jungle Boogie" at strategic moments, and have a couple of former boy scouts from Brentwood, NY trade boasts, one with a speech impediment, and you have "You Gots to Chill" by EPMD (Erick and Parrish Making Dollars):

"I be the personal computer informational rap
Like the B-I-Z my pieces will make your toes tap
I format the rhymes, step by step
Make them sound def
to maintain my rep
Prepare to come off
In case of a diss
Don't worry about a thing
Cause we can do this
Cause we can turn the party out just be standing still
Make the ladies scream and shout
While the brothers act ill
Take total control of your body and soul
Pack a nine in my pants for when it's time to roll."

Speed up "More Bounce" a tiny bit, add reverb, a Yes guitar lick every 16 bars, and Brother J speaking about the Blackwatch movement and the red, black, and green, and you have "Heed the Words of the Brother," by X-Clan:

"Great blackness brought from the Genesis
We'll exist till Armageddon is a witness
The originals built the earth
Why must there be aggression to learn a basic lesson?
Quite majestic, stern within reality
A juggernaut when you tamper with mentality
Or with a crown, extension and dimension of a brain cell
Bringing hell to the sellout
The ever-tangled web we weave
Always trying to obtain, no attempt to achieve
Descendants of kings and queens act like jesters
Never potential
Quarter of the measure
Jealousy
of what are we
becomes tendency
for their thievery."

Loop 4:04-4:08 of "More Bounce"'s high-pitched wail and the bassline, skip it rhythmically, deconstruct a whiney tone several octaves higher during the chorus, and pass the mic to a simple-minded pimp, and you have MC Breed's "Ain't No Future in Yo' Frontin'":

"This sound hard
Somethin funky people gone dance to
Give the record a second and a chance to
Hittin people like a scene of amazement
While they slippin back my feet is planted in the pavement
Crumple I could never do
So now I'm lookin dead at you
What are you gonna do
You're listening to the knowledge of a scholar
You say how Breed, tell em how I holla
I'm the E-double, and I proclaim my name
Straight up, good game, peeps all gangs
I'm like a rhino runnin through the roughest pack
They figure I'm a trigger happy brother so they step back
BREED, the microphonest, who lasts the longest and who's the strongest
It ain't a game it's plain to see
You're listening to the sounds of Breed and the DFC."

This endless take on "More Bounce to the Ounce" lasted for years, spanning east coast, west coast, expansive gangsta rap and claustrophobic east coast hip-hop alike. Then, a few weeks ago, De La Soul unleashed "Relax." See, in hip-hop, imitation is a form of flattery. For example, MC Breed, above, called himself the "E-double," which was actually Erick Sermon's nickname when he was with EPMD and made "You Gots to Chill." In "You Gots to Chill," Sermon also says "Relax your mind, let your conscience be free and get down to the sounds of EPMD." In turn, De La drop "Relax," complete with sample of that line during the chorus, an inverted "More Bounce" beat, and a loop of the few seconds before the splice used by MC Breed. As De La trade "relax your mind"'s with the sample, it just works. As Guru once said, "the rhyme style is elevated, the style of beats is elevated," but it's still More Bounce to the Ounce...and something completely different at the same time. And then you progress to "Wasn't for You" and other classics, and all is right with the world.

There are two primary reasons why people won't listen to hip-hop: they can't hear the lyrics for what the artists are trying to communicate, or they think the sounds are too repetitive. I actually believe that the latter is a source of strength for the art form. To prove it, let me invite you to participate in an experiment. If you want to understand why people live for this music, purchase Mayday's "Nothin." Load it onto your mp3 player, and press play. The song rises to its feet from a deep slumber, bass drops stretching, hand claps shaking off the hours of stillness, a distant guitar chord morphing into a random-walk keyboard, reverb slinking in and out of this seemingly barren landscape, until the beat drops.

There's something about a steady 808, bassline, keyboard progression, and dueling, obscure treble samples that lulls you into a peaceful ponderance. The music gently hovers you above the known world, a presiding mind, and the continuity of it all gives your mind a canvass upon which to weave complex thought tapestries. Inverse biomorphic concretism. There's nothing like it. Instead of the elements of a piece, at first seemingly disparate, snapping together in the mind in a moment of gestalt, the monotony slowly deviates from itself in how it's perceived, meaning every time you hear the beat, it's not entirely the same as when you last encountered it.

Mayday enters the stage, singing the chorus, and then he begins:

Nothin's really real
Nothin's what it appears
Nothin's what I feel
When I'm wiping the tears
Nothin is somethin here
An inner space where the gravity is gone
Where the weight is not so strong
Far
Still it all amounts to nothin
Nothin in your ears
Nothin I can do to not disappear
Nothin is somethin here
So I repeat and dissect the prior years
Smokin weed drinkin beers
Gettin numb, let it breathe

And then the bass meanders, and you breathe easier. Your mind is more alert, filled with images and concepts. You begin to listen to the song in your headphones as you walk down the street. As you slink into a chair at the end of the day. As you drift to sleep. The world seems different as the beat plays and shifts and weaves through your mind. It is your drug. And its only known side effect is the desire to hear it again. I've known people to leave their apartments in the middle of the night, before there were mp3's, in search of a friend with a particular beat. They could not sleep without it. I admit I have shared this addiction and I'm not ashamed of it.

If you have any doubts about the power of this medium, you need simply stick around for verse two of "Nothin'." If you aren't choking back a tear by the end of verse two, before the chanting begins with "Mayday, save me," then you are a hopeless case or have no soul. The world is vast, and perhaps another genre will suit you. But hip-hop is not in your blood.

You should listen to "Nothin'" for the first time not knowing the lyrics, but I reproduce them below for your records:

Rhyme-wise, I drew the figure eight
There's nothin I regret nothin I won't make straight
She told me save those tapes
Cause my life is logged in 'em
Hidden within the words
Buried inside the rhythm
I said "sure,"
Not knowin that's the last we'd speak
She fought it hard
But eventually just chose to sleep
Back to nothin
But somehow somethin lingers behind
Imprinting my mind
Broken bloodline
Time
And I can still see her there
Cooking in the kitchen
Feeding us with all her care
But now there's nothin there
It vanished into air
So will I
Say goodbye
Let her go
Let her die
Mother please don't cry.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

This one's for the men and women of the corporation

I want to take this moment to pay tribute to men and women of the corporation.

The book, that is.

Yes, in a couple of months, we'll hit the 30th anniversary of the book, Men and Women of the Corporation. Winner of the C. Wright Mills Award (ooh!). Dubbed "a bank of candles in the dark" by Dust Cover Reviewer #1 (aah!). Written by the Class of 1960 Chair in Business Administration at Harvard Business School (stop, it's too good!). And let's not pay short shrift to Front Cover Top Reviewer: "I cannot think of a better guide to the inner workings of the modern corporation."

Now that we've properly vetted this major work, let's peer inside to find out what people were thinking about the Corporation (its men and women) way back when. Gather 'round, children! Hear what MAWOTC has to say about:

Secretaries:

"The first fact about the several thousand secretaries at Indsco [a pseudonym for an "industrial supply company"] was that they were all women, except for two men at headquarters who were classified as typists."

Their bosses:

"When bosses make demands at their own discretion and arbitrarily, choose secretaries on grounds that enhance their own personal status rather than meeting organizational efficiency tests, expect personal service with limits negotiated privately, exact loyalty, and make the secretary a part of their private retinue, moving when they move - then the relationship has elements of patrimony."

Bosses vis-a-vis secretaries:

"The boss's status determined the power of the secretary...Higher up, secretaries' power derived from control of bosses' calendars."

Rogue secretaries:

"To take initiative without taking over the job, then, marked a fine line the more ambitious secretaries walked. They ran the risk that the more they did or the better they did, the more threatening they became to bosses and Indsco."

Incompetent bosses of secretaries:

"A man who is sloppy will not only expect his secretary to compensate for his sloppiness but will inevitably suggest that her neatness and capacity for organization are proof of a tidy, and therefore limited, mind, while his sloppiness is the sign of unfettered creativity."

Wives (an entire chapter is devoted to this topic):

"Because corporate wives were generally seen to be content to operate behind the scenes and to be ambitious for their husbands rather than themselves and because they made use of social rather than intellectual skills in their hostess role, the image of women that emerged for some management men from knowing their own and other wives reinforced the view that career women were an anomaly, that they were unusual or could not really be ambitious, or that their talents must be primarily social and emotional rather than cognitive."

Sexual fantasizers of corporate women and the wives who love them:

"Several saleswomen at Indsco felt, rightly or wrongly, that they were the targets of the sexual fantasies of male peers. Some said that men used them to taunt their wives, e.g., by making innuendos about going out on a sales call with one of the women. For this reason, may saleswomen felt it important that they establish good relations with the wives, giving women an additional task men did not have. Wives, in turn, not themselves directly participating in the work world, could fear what would happen when their husbands worked with women as peers, such as the Newton, Massachusetts policemen's wives who protested the hiring of policewomen, giving as one reason the sexual potential of long shifts shared by men and women in patrol cars."

Tokens:

"If one sees nine X's and one O:

X X x x X X O X x X

the O will stand out. The O may also be overlooked, but if it is seen at all, it will get more notice than any X. Further, the X's may seem more alike than different because of their contrast with the O. "

And more on Tokens:

"One of Indsco's most senior women...was among the five women celebrated at the civic lunch for outstanding women in business. A series of calls from high-level officers indicated that the chairman of the board of the corporation wanted her to attend a lunch at a large hotel that day, although she was given no information about the nature of the event. When she threatened not to go unless she was given more information, she was reminded that the invitation had come down from the chairman himself, and of course she would go. On the day of the luncheon, a corsage arrived and later, a vice-president to escort her. So she went, and found she was there to represent the corporation's "prize women," symbolizing the strides made by women in business. The program for the affair listed the women executives from participating companies, except in the case of Indsco, where the male vice-presidential escorts were listed instead. Pictures were taken for the employee newsletter and, a few days later, she received an inscribed paperweight as a memento. She told the story a few weeks after the event with visible embarrassment about being "taken on a date. It was more like a senior prom than a business event."

You may be laughing at the matter-of-factness of these excerpts, or the obviousness (and in other instances, sheer ludicrousness) of some of the gender relations problems that they encapsulate, but this book was earth-shattering when it came out. And the book now comes with an Afterword focused on "The View from the 1990's," about such challenges as "The Empowerment Problem: The Female Service Army" and "Dilemmas of Diversity" ("But the next step up from tokenism - skewed groups in which several more O's are present although X's still dominate - can create even more problems - backlash, resistance, complaints of 'reverse discrimination.' Research shows that dissatisfaction and tension are greatest in groups in which there are several women or minorities...").

Seriously, the book offers an interesting, Weberish account of the structural determinants of behavior within an organization. Even though some of it is overly deterministic, its insights into how the organizational structures that used to be commonplace for the American worker (hierarchical, vertically integrated, stable monoliths like the pseudonymous Indsco) severely limited opportunities for women were long-overdue when MAWOTC rolled off the presses. So pick up (or, if you're getting a Ph.D. in org theory, dust off) a copy today. You just might learn something. About your sexist piggish self.

Oh, and did I mention that it was written by a woman?

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

The Man by the Door Will One Day be Your Boss

I love how subway ad campaigns just drench you in product these days. I was on a subway (sorry; the "T") in Boston and the entire subway train was a series of colorful Tide ad wraps, reminding us how incredibly dirty everything was. I had this desire to strip naked and run about the cars, screaming "There's something in the clothes!" But I refrained.

Now I'm in New York, and the daily ad soak continues. Even the government gets in on the fun - some days, it's all security, all the time. Terrorists, take note: There are 16 million eyes in New York. And if they see something, their owners are going to say something (apparently that doesn't go equally for men who decide to get their grind on with daily commuters when the subway reaches capacity at about 9:45 a.m. - the Village Voice even has a "Best of NY" category entitled, "Best Place to Be Groped"). There's also a common reminder that the MTA has some sort of emergency preparedness video on-line. You can check it if you're bored at mta.nyc.ny.us. And I'm definitely going to check out Front Lines: Rebuilding the Rails After 9/11 at the New York Transit Museum.

But the craziest ad campaign of late goes to u-r-connected, which is really a sneaky set of posters designed to get you to go to a website of the same name, view some intriguing text about how truly linked all of us are ("There is a theory that anyone on the planet is connected to any other person through a chain of six people - no one is a stranger for long"), and then answer a series of survey items (example: I am: (a) my work, (b) the sum of my experience, (c) my future, (d) my contribution). Your selections take you to a page which tells that you resemble one of six main characters on the new ABC drama, Six Degrees.

The ads are interesting. I like the two that span the middle of each car. One of them says, "The Man by the Door will One Day be Your Boss," while the other intimates, "The Girl Across the Aisle is Flirting With You." So not only did TV execs take forever to move past the fact that six degrees has been reworked to death in film and finally exclaim, "fuck it, we're going with a show called Six Degrees," they also had to use it as a vehicle for peddling base stereotypes.

And there is no theory which says we're all connected through six people. When Milgram sent postcards to hand-picked subjects and asked them to return them to a target either in Massachusetts or the Midwest, sure, 80% of the successfully delivered cards were sent through four or fewer contacts, and nearly all traveled through six max. But Milgram's research notes reveal that 95% of the letters FAILED TO REACH THEIR TARGET. Similar results can be found post-mainframe computer, even though success continues to be achieved in six or less most of the time.

There's a phrase for the fact that this misconception, which permeates our culture and influences our behavior, lives on: herd mentality. How apropos for a subway ad campaign.

By the way, I took the survey. My new buddy is Whitney. And I'm pleased to report that I'm two degrees of separation from Osama bin Laden. But I have no idea where he is.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Are you Rapture Ready? (in praise of an index)

As if you needed any further reason to tread lightly on my blog, let me talk to you about religion.

God works in numbers.

We see it in the appearance of fibonacci sequences in nature, such as in the branching of tree limbs or the arrangement of a pine cone. A fibonacci sequence occurs after two starting numbers, where each following number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, as in 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 43, 55, 89, 144. Consider, for example, a bee population: If a female bee lays an unfertilized egg, it yields a male bee. If the egg is fertilized, it hatches a female. Therefore, a male bee (1) has one female parent (1), a female has (2) parents, the mother had two parents and the father had one parent (3), and the two grandmother bees each had two parents while the grandfather bee had one (5).

And you know about the Golden Ratio (1.618), which is the result of the ratio of the sum of two quantities to the larger of the quantities, over the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller. We find it everywhere in nature (from galaxies to the human form to crystals to sea shells) and in man's pursuit of the sublime through his art forms, leading the German intellectual Adolf Zeising to declare the Golden Ratio:

[A] universal law in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form.

And let's not forget how the physical constants that govern our existence, 26 in all, seem at least at first glance purposefully tweaked for the emergence of life forms with moral agency. Here's one of many examples: Want a universe populated with stars, the givers of life as we know it? Well, no such luck if the fine-structure constant (a function of electron charge relative to the Planck charge) were different, or if the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger. If that were the case, hydrogen would fuse too easily and diprotons would become stable, rendering the concept of a star unthinkable. While it is true that the argument is tautological and only suggests that life as we are able to imagine it would not have formed, you have to marvel at the precision with which our existence is fine-tuned.

I'm not an intelligent design fanatic. I do believe, however, that if you're going to follow evolution, as I do, then you have to come to terms with the fact that evolution itself is directional. And evolution is the only example in the known universe of a process leading to the emergence of new, more complex, more intelligent, and more organized arrangements of matter, that can increasingly cooperate for mutual benefit. Why the push toward higher levels of consciousness among living things? Is it random?

Something to think about the next time you align your phi-proportioned frame with the earth and hold the phi-proportioned veins in your hand to your phi-proportioned face so that you can gaze past the fibinacci-branching trees with their phi-proportioned leaves, up toward the (scarcely allowed under any circumstances other than our own) sun, and take in the phi-proportioned chemicals which lead all several trillion cells of your body to feel a slight calming effect, and wonder why you feel at home in the universe even though you're just lying on a tiny vessel spiraling endlessly according to the golden ratio in a galaxy of other improbable stars.

Then you can ask yourself why the great books of the creator, if there is such a being, were written in numeric languages such as Greek and Hebrew, and why among many other coincidences, the word for humankind, Adam, equals the number 46. And why 46, the number of Adam, or the number of humankind, equals the number of chromosomes that dwell within the nuclei of the trillions of cells of our bodies.

If there is a God (I lean toward yes as you can tell), and he does work on a universal tapestry with numeric paints, than I bet he's pretty pissed at those who distort numbers in His name for their benefit. Like the clowns over at RaptureReady.com. Nearly twenty years ago, they created a site whose purpose is to let us know that Jesus Christ will be returning soon, there's still time to repent, and that they (the creators of the site) have a good sense that the end times are upon us. Whether Jesus is coming, or even if the "rapture" that the site professes to believe in is real, fantasy, or indeterminate (it's doubtful whether it is even discussed in the Bible), is beyond the scope of my silly post. But the site is very popular (9.5 million hits!), mirroring the staggering popularity of the Left Behind book series, which with the help of Christian bookstores and Walmarts has sold more than 63 million copies. Its primary tool for scaring us into God's loving arms, so that we, too, can avoid being "left behind" when the rapture hits, is the Rapture Index. The index is the result of a crude scan of the week's events, which are translated into a numerical measurement of the confluence of Bible prophecies thought to be linked to the start of the next dispensation and the fulfillment of God's covenants with His chosen people.

The index contains many categories, which I provide for you, Dear Reader, just in case you wanted to be on the lookout (or as President Bush says, "vigilant"): False Christs, Occult, Satanism, Unemployment, Inflation, Interest Rates, The Economy, Oil Supply/Price, Debt and Trade, Financial unrest, Leadership, Drug abuse, Apostasy, Supernatural, Moral Standards, Anti-Christian, Crime Rate, Ecumenism, Globalism, Tribulation Temple, Anti-Semitism, Israel, Gog (Russia), Persia (Iran), The False Prophet, Nuclear Nations, Global Turmoil, Arms Proliferation, Liberalism, The Peace Process, Kings of the East, Mark of the Beast, Beast Government, The Antichrist, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Wild Weather, Civil Rights, Famine, Drought, Plagues, Climate, Food Supply, and Floods.

The numbers assigned to each category are adjusted frequently, accompanied by one-line explanations for each change. Examples include "Satanism: In England, Satanists are believed responsible for a series of sickening 'satanic rite' attacks on farm animals," "Debt and Trade: The US federal budget deficit has declined - minus 1," and "Mark of the Beast: The US Patriot Act has failed to get enough votes for extension."

What does the index number (presently holding steady at 154) mean? Dunno. We are told, though, that the index hit a record high on September 23, 2001 (hmm...) and was at a low on December 12, 1993. So I guess you could spend an afternoon googling events of those dates and come up with why the number hit 182 in September, 2001. How arbitrarily frightening! There isn't much of an explanation on the site for that date, other than a few hints, such as "Beast Government: With America knocked out for the week, the EU was left as the acting super state" and "The Antichrist: The major act of terrorism against the US creates perfect setting for the Antichrist to come in and work his magic."

But I do recommend the "frequently asked questions" page, which provides plenty of poorly-worded talking points (e.g., "Is the Pope the antichrist?" [unlikely, because "the antichrist will be accepted by the Jews as their messiah"]; "Will the antichrist be a homosexual?" [possibly; he will have no regard for the desire of women, for he shall magnify himself above all]; "I am afraid of the end of the world: What should I do?" [guess what the answer is?]; "Since Israel controls Jerusalem, is the "time of the Gentiles" over?" [not until the massing gentile armies are defeated]; "Do things like protecting endangered animals and the environment really matter?" [yes!]; and "what makes conspiracy theories so appealing to some folks?").

It's frightening how an evangelical, who must understand the Bible's warning not to place your trust in those who claim to know the time of Christ's return, could promote such an arbitrary and simple-minded tool for the ill-informed. Don't think that a measly index on a single website matters? Why don't you spend ten minutes on the site's Message Board. Read what people are saying every day in response to world events. Take in how intensely giddy or forlorn they get when violence flares or things don't seem to be progressing according to plan. There's an army of Christian soldiers out there, and many of them are already marching as to war to the beat of RaptureReady. And they love it when terror strikes, children die, and soldiers, both uniformed and civilian, mass on borders and in shantytowns across the Middle East. The site makes a mockery of God's work and should not be taken seriously.

At least the site explains why the index is not used to set a specific date for Christ's arrival: "A couple of years back, one participant [on the message board] threatened to kill himself after he thought he'd missed the rapture."

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Life mimics marketing

Let me take a break from brooding to share a little slice of New York randomness with you. I love this city - the produce store with the gray cat that wanders the aisles, which sits lovingly below my apartment on the corner; the highrise across from me with bars on every window on the 18th floor (Spiderman, be warned!); the beach volleyball court in the middle of Central Park; the lobby of the natural history museum, with the physically impossible display of a sauropod skeleton rearing up on its hind legs to defend her young from an allosaurus attack; the free Wi-Fi in the parks; and even the eerily smart city-bred children (one of them asked her mother this morning "why is the prostitute working when it's light out?" - so cute). Every day, I wake up, knowing only some of what will happen before my very eyes. It's exhilarating. And it's why I could never live in the 'burbs.

But on with the anecdote! It was a late Sunday evening, and I was in midtown, around 53rd Street, at Oxford Cafe, the deli. They were closing, but I was undeterred. So I walked up to the counter, and there before me was a slew, nay, a sea of sandwiches, panini's, quesadillas, and salad ingredients. I was dumbfounded. What do I order? I stood there, and the looming micro-kiloton nuclear test in Korea, President Bush "the decider"'s failure to decide what to do about ten different pressing matters, my headache, and the fact that Imogen Heap has (still!) yet to reply to my open letter (see my September 15th post) faded away. I was about to leap past two billion people on this crazy rock called Earth and join the ranks of the well-fed. And there were options. How do I choose?

Suddenly, I realized that a very kind-looking store attendant (owner?) and a man who might have been her husband were standing in front of me, just past the warm glow of the food display. I apologized, and quickly ordered a chicken parmigiana panini, which the woman began to prepare. As we stood there silently staring at each other, a commercial began to play on the radio. It went something like this:

(upbeat piano licks and steady, 80's-style rock anthem drumming)
"Bud light presents, Real Men of Genius (Def Leopardish singer repeats: Real men of genius)
Today we solute you, Mr. Indecisive Food Orderer Guy (Mr. Indecisive Food Orderer Guy!)
You approach a menu like a CPA approaches an audit
There's not an appetizer, entree, or ingredient that escapes your scrutiny (what's the soup de jure?)
Carpaccio or calamari, halibut or ceviche, these are incredibly important decisions that need to be made, sometime before sunrise (cockadoodledoo!)
No matter, because when the food finally arrives,
You spend the entire dinner wishing you got what everybody else did (I got entree envy)
So crack open an iced cold Bud Light, Mr. Indecisive Food Orderer Guy,
Because today's special, is You (Mr. Indecisive Food Orderer Guy)."

She smiles knowingly, and I nod my head in repentance. And even though we're from completely different worlds, and our paths may never cross again, for that one moment, we get each other.

Too bad I don't drink.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

You only hate me because my PDA is black

Did you ever notice how the speaker on the back of a Blackberry is the spitting image of a Decepticon logo? The 8703 in general, with its angular shape and overall boxiness, is very Transformeresque. But what would it become if the machine were to leap from its holster on my belt and actually transform [insert transform sound here]? I imagine it linking with five other Blackberries to form UltraMessage, a towering anthropomorphic figure set to do battle with the evil Treotron.

But seriously, what's with the dirty looks when you walk onto a subway carrying/using a Blackberry? My friend Cyn doesn't think I would get the same reaction scrolling through a PalmOne. Is it a symbol of elitism (even though I didn't buy it; my employer did)? What am I communicating to others when I use it in public? Have some of you shied away from doing so to avoid the stigma?

And what's with Opinionistas eschewing the device when her site presently carries no fewer than three Blackberry ads?

Linking work Blackberries to personal cell phone numbers: thoughts?

Why is the number of Blackberry subscribers the same as the number of people in prison in the United States? Crackberries indeed.

What will homo sapiens look like generations from now, given the trend toward keyboards optimized for "thumbing"? It's interesting how the last major phase of our evolution involved freeing our limbs from the demands of walking on all fours and the emergence of fine motor skills, made possible in large part by the opposable thumb.

Can you believe that they were going to call it a Strawberry? The small keys reminded a branding agency consultant of the tasty fruit. Why Blackberry then? "Straw" was rejected as "slow-sounding."

I firmly believe that Blackberries and other distractions have one clear impact on our society - the death of the public intellectual. You know, people like Lewis Mumford or Jane Jacobs, who were widely read, skilled in multiple disciplines (Jacobs for instance fancied law, poli sci, zoology, geology, and econ), curious about everything and anything, and not afraid to go traipsing about the city in search of their next groundbreaking insight. Do you think the men and women who might walk in their footsteps really have the time to compose massive tomes that span aeons in a quest for truth, when they must incessantly check e-mail and re-enter their PINs as their Blackberries switch to lockdown mode every hour?

Anyway, in my opinion Manhattan is best experienced with the help of GoogleMaps Mobile. True dat (double true!).

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Sheltering in Place (of SOP's and freedom)

Here's what would happen if my office building were successfully attacked by terrorists:

Security is breached. Charges are placed at strategic points where structural integrity is weakest (they did their homework). Explosions ring out from below. Some of my colleagues try to close out their laptops so that they can remove them from their docking stations, just in case everything turns out fine. But we really don't have enough time to think. We have laminated cards that tell us where to meet should we find a way out of the building, but a point of rendezvous seems a bit silly at the moment. One employee is frantically searching for instructions on his Blackberry by scrolling through the text in the "Help" function. I slam open the drawers to my desk, searching for the orange pouch that my employer gave us on our first day. The walls begin to collapse around me...I can't see...and then...hours later...I wake up. Dust, bits of paper, and slabs of concrete and steel are everywhere. I hear the hiss of electricity sputtering from some wires nearby. It is mostly dark, but there's enough light for me to get my bearings. Miraculously, I still have my evacuation kit. I open it. There is a sheet of paper. It reads

"CONGRATULATIONS! On your purchase of the World Prep Personal Evacuation Kit"

Somehow, I don't feel so lucky.

Ever wonder what's inside one of those emergency pouches? Well the secret is out:

1. A whistle (Made in USA!) that warns you "this is not a toy and should be kept out of reach from children." Sitting amidst the rubble after an attack, it's heartening to know that "this whistle is very loud and confined use may cause hearing loss - use ear protection"

2. A Mainstay emergency drinking water bag (4.225 fluid ounces) that's "Easy to use...Anytime...Anywhere - bus, auto, home, marine." Be sure to field test the bag before use by squeezing it. "If air or water escape, replace." Brought to you by Survivor Industries (Bottled who knows where)

3. A May Day emergency survival blanket that "retains 90% of body heat" and gives "complete thermal protection from rain and snow" (Made in China)

4. A Light Stick by Northern Lights, Inc. that boasts "exceptional quality and value" but is also a "choking hazard." "Do not drink," we're told (Made in Taiwan)

5. A COBY CX-7 AM/FM radio, complete with Dynamic Bass Boost System to really bring out those funky basslines while you're waiting for help to arrive (Made in China)

6. A heavy duty aluminum flashlight (Made in Taiwan)

7. and a NIOSH-approved particulate respirator. Two, actually (N100 and N95), so make an educated guess at the diameter of the particles that you're breathing in and don the more appropriate mask. (Point of manufacture unknown - probably made by 3M)

8. food. Just kidding! No food. Not even a PowerBar.

Considering my evacuation kit, our escape plan, and our nation's security efforts of late, I oscillate between thoughts of comedy and tragedy. But one thing is clear: the response to 9/11 gives us a case study of how crises will lead those in positions of authority to define a problem in a certain way and then develop standard operating procedures (SOP's) to deal with it. Somewhere along this path, the average citizens or the "non-experts" of our society are locked out of the decision-making process, and left to simply follow the newly-minted SOP's. It's usually too late to question or tweak these emergent SOP's, once they're set in motion.

Think about how much of your life is carried out without thought - traveling to work, what route you take, preparing food, the routines that you follow throughout the day at work, the forms you fill out, what you consider entertainment, how you go about interacting with certain people in certain settings. Yes, a good portion of your existence could be lived out nearly unconsciously. This, in one respect, is a good thing: we need to save cognitive energy for the moments that are unexpected, and for our efforts to creatively shape the future in a way that will give us more life and a better chance of finding meaning and fulfillment in it. But regulatory organizations such as those charged with keeping us safe operate the same way - much of their behavior is habitual - they exhibit similar patterns of behavior when faced with a given stimulus, without explicitly selecting them over other possible responses. The scary thing about this is that these institutions, or groups of ideas that were meted out long before we had a say about the decisions made or even the objectives that drove the decisions, point to a less democratic future as SOP's accumulate. And the habitual behavior of, say, a federal agency, is not governable by rational deliberation.

Think for a moment about the Department of Homeland Security, a sprawling heap of 22 federal agencies charged with keeping us safe. It's fighting a war, not on terrorism, nor against Islamic fundamentalists, but "terror." Such a concept is about as far as you can get from our real situation. For while our reactions to what our enemies might carry out in the future are far more powerful than anything that they can dream up in a bunch of pimped out caves, "terror" has an infinite number of root causes. Many of which fester solely in our own minds. But no matter. We're fighting a war on terror. And how? With bureaucracy. SOP's. Many of which we have very little understanding. But they're in place, and occasionally, during a drill or random bomb scare, or following our government's receipt of "credible evidence," we see bits of them in action. Like the Homeland Security Advisory System. Each threat level (red, orange, etc.) triggers an endless array of actions by federal and state agencies. For example, a given threat level may result in systemic forced searches of all vehicles near airports without probable cause. The constitutionality of most of the actions triggered by this system has not been tested in court. And we really wouldn't know where to begin in challenging such a web of SOP's, most of which still exist only in the shadows.

Even Tom Ridge believed when he left his post that the threat levels were essentially without merit. And many other elements of the Department's response have been laughable to date, such as its failure to spend R&D funds on airport screening methods (and actually rerouting funds for explosive detection to cover budget shortfalls). And we all know about the Department's Katrina response. But bureaucracies are not about being effective. They're about self-perpetuation. Their formal structures are ceremonial in nature, designed to ensure legitimacy in the eyes of the general public rather than effectiveness. And the primary tool for their self-perpetuation is the expansion of SOP's. The organizational theorists Meyer and Rowan describe the process of bureaucracies seeking legitimacy, or "confidence in structural elements," as occurring through "avoidance, discretion, and overlooking. Others are delegation, professionalization, goal ambiguity, elimination of output data, and maintenance of face. They contribute to an aura of confidence within and outside the organization. They maintain the assumption that people are acting in good faith." And while the general public is led to believe that the Department is acting in good faith, what are we told to do? Do we have an active role in helping to protect our homes? No. We are told to "go about our lives," even to "shop." We are essentially told to remain passive. Let the SOP's self-execute. Like a veritable Paul Klee painting of a twittering machine. Stay put. Don't question. We're from the government and we're here to help.

Why should we be so concerned about the homeland security SOP's that have been thrust upon us? The institutionalized responses to "terror"? Well, there are places in America that have had decades of experience with disaster, and for whom the SOP's of emergency response have solidified to a frightening degree. Take Norco, Louisiana, for example.

Due to a lack of zoning controls, the residents of Norco lived less than ten yards away from a petrochemical plant and two refineries. Accidents at these plants take place several times per month. When an accident occurs in a town like Norco, a series of routine responses are set in motion. The politics of risk management and communication in Norco proceed according to distinct ritualistic acts by government and industry officials. Information available to the public is limited. The Parish did not release a disaster plan detailing worst case scenarios for its facilities until January, 1999. By 1997, Saint Charles Parish had established three ambient air monitoring sites to collect measurements of air pollutant concentrations. However, these facilities are located far away from such facilities as the Shell Norco manufacturing complex (in Destrehan, Hahnville, and Luling), and measure a severely limited range of pollutants (only PM10 and ozone). None of the toxic pollutants that are produced by petrochemical plants or that would be of concern to residents during an accidental release are monitored by state or federal agencies. Nor are there any existing requirements under the Clean Air Act for monitoring toxic air pollutants. The Parish does not even play a role in environmental enforcement and compliance and is reliant on the state Department of Environmental Quality for such actions. Citizen complaints are forwarded to an Emergency Operations Center, which sends information to the state police who in turn work with appropriate state and federal agencies. So what happens during an accident? Below are two accounts of a recent accident in Norco, Louisiana:

Shell's account:

0800: over-pressure of a small vessel occurred at the resins unit at Shell Chemical
0815: event declared unusual and on-site emergency response team activated
0827: event upgraded to an alert level, which tells the DEQ and parish officials to assemble their personnel
0827-0850: nearby schools told to shelter in place due to the potential for flying debris from a rupture. State police notified. DEQ director called for a rerouting of busses to a high school outside the potentially impacted area. DEQ informs schools schools next to plant to shelter in place.
0935: state police arrive at plant
0945: a message is sent over an automatic phone line to Norco residents.
1005: DEQ officials arrive to take air samples and are informed that there was no release. DEQ officials decide not to take air samples.
1052: event is downgraded to an unusual event.
1140: an all clear is declared.
1500: fliers are distributed throughout the community

Norco resident's account:

8:30 a.m.: a cloudy mist descends upon residents of Washington Street in Norco, LA.
9:35 a.m.: a representative from Shell travels into the community warning residents to keep their doors and windows closed and to stay inside.
3:30 p.m.: another representative passes out fliers announcing that the emergency was over and there were no chemical releases to the community

There are subtle differences in the descriptions of an uncontrolled reaction in a batch resins unit at Shell Chemical by company officials and a resident. The militaristic set of responses in the first account is used by Shell officials to suggest that emergency response SOP's in place with the Parish and State worked as planned. It included steps taken to change the designation of the accident, escalating and de-escalating from "unusual" to "emergency" to "under control" and finally "all clear." A series of notification steps were taken to comply with regulations governing the facility's use of hazardous materials. DEQ officials responded to one of these calls, and declined to take canister air samples based solely on Shell claims.

While procedures were undertaken and documented by the relevant authorities, residents experienced roughly six hours of uncertainty, fear, and silence. What role were residents given during this time? As is standard practice under such circumstances, they simply responded to instructions given to them one hour after a "black cloud" was seen "walking" across lawns of the homes on Washington Street at 8:30 in the morning. "Shelter in place," they were told: seek the nearest building, seal off potential sources of air, shut your windows and doors, turn off your air conditioner (if you have one), and wait. The "duck and cover"-like qualities of this approach to emergency planning are striking. In a low-income community consisting of aging, dilapidated, wooden-framed homes, residents are given the impossible task of sealing themselves inside, and the disempowering task of remaining completely reliant on the assurances of officials, whose common refrain is to give an "all-clear" announcement or siren several hours after the start of an accident. Do nothing; wait for the signal; be passive.

Look to the places in our country where the SOP's of emergency response have been given decades to solidify. See how those who live there are stripped of any role to play in decision-making or in protecting their loved ones. Realize that we must question the legitimacy of bureaucratized response to crisis. And consider Tom Ridge's suggestion that in the event of a chemical attack, we should use duct tape in order to "shelter in place" a wake-up call for us all.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

The secret life of skyscraper penthouses

The Gathering

I work on the 40th floor of my building (that should narrow it down for you a bit!). My window overlooks much of midtown in two directions. This has given me ample fodder for a post. Here are some of the post topics that were considered and discarded outright: (1) Bird, it's a window, not the open air; (2) What could possibly splatter across half of my window up here?!; (3) Dear wind, be kind today; (4) Stealing bandwidth - it's lonely up here; and (5) Thunder: It really is God bowling a strike. But what really passes the time is gazing across at some of my skyscraper brethren and wondering what's the deal with the top handful of floors in each of them? You know, the ones that ask for a special key in the elevator, when they're even listed on the panel.

The first thing you notice at this altitude is how similar the landscape is to ancient Egypt. First, there's the Chrysler Building, the world's tallest brick structure (break out the champagne!). I always marvel at how buildings like this emerged so quickly on the NY skyline. In the case of the Chrysler building, we're talking four floors a week! But here's one for ya - the Empire State Building was built in TWELVE MONTHS. Think about that the next time you see a prefab Chipotle crawling to its feet in a parking lot near you. Anyway, the building's chrome spire is art deco, which was influenced by the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. The interior is decorated with Egyptian motifs (such as lotus flowers in full bloom on the elevator doors as well as hieroglyphics). But it's under the building's top floors, shaped like a stepped metal ziggurat, that things get interesting. The floors were first designed for Walter Chrysler's personal use. During prohibition, the Cloud Club took over the space, and opened its doors to invite the power elite into its smokey jazziness. People came up with mad ideas up there, like, hey, let's have a magazine and call it "Life." This was before that other building stole some of the Chrysler's thunder, so people really did feel like they were on top of the world. There was even a mural in the club showing NY as it would look from some perch in the clouds. And then of course the famous photographer Margaret Bourke-White used to crawl onto one of the gargoyles that jutted out 800 feet above the earth to take pictures. I mean, people got crazy up there. Now, they've removed the decor from the club and public observatory to make way for new tenants - who are these people and what do they want with our vantage point?

There's actually a cacophony of pyramidal styles and structures at the top of buildings near my office - who knows why...or what purpose they serve. And let's not forget the Four Seasons Hotel, which at 54 stories has been described as a "gigantic Temple of Dendur."

Then there's 275 Madison Avenue, a 40+ storey, glazed white brick building with a three-storey penthouse just a couple of blocks away (but it all looks close from up here). Called the "shadowless skyscraper" due to its sleek form, its penthouse was actually designed for shadowy executives of Philip Morris, who rode a separate elevator to their very own private greenhouse where they could brainstorm how to sell death to our children (and increasingly, the youth of other nations). But not anymore. Who, then, are the new phantasms hovering over New York as they move through the penthouse corridors? Laypeople like you and I aren't privy to this information.

Nearby is the Sony Building, its post-modern flare at the top in the form of a gigantic, curved cutout space that sometimes lets off a bit of steam. I like to imagine the structure as an endlessly churning amusement park ride for the citizens of the heavens. But underneath it are massive windowpanes covering several floors set apart from the rest of the building. The mounting mystery of these secret spaces is reaching a fevered pitch.

Then I spot another skyscraper, this one just in front of the Sony Building and adorned with a glass pyramid. On one side just below the pyramid, a large slab of the building has somehow been lifted, tilting at an impossible angle. Alas! From my window I can't tell what's inside. I stare at that building endlessly, half expecting that one day, an escape pod will emerge, jettisoned from its depths, possibly carrying the new illuminati to inhabit the structure's upper reaches. I watch in quiet wonder as it careens along the banks of the river Nile, past the brick and stone monuments to the dead, to whatever lies beyond.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

False needs and an invitation to crisis

Thank you, oh Random Thousand readers, for stumbling across my blog. I hope that you will return and get something out of my future rants. Some of you, I have noticed, are young professionals. Maybe recently you started a career in law for Behemoth & Leviathan LLP or one of its ilk. Well, I have one thing to say to you:

You are a slave.

Oh, they give you a semblance of choice: the dog gets to choose his own leash, for instance. The Blackberry Pearl is slim, with a form factor similar to the nano's. But alas! it has a camera, so maybe you'll have to leave it home when you go to court. The 8700 is fine, but does it have a plan with your former cell phone provider? What will the firm pay for? Etc. And the firm may tell you not to worry about facetime - work wherever you want! Again, the choice is yours. Wanna personalize your office? The firm will give you a budget to do just that. They're here for you, and they don't mind coddling their young when it comes to tangential things.

You may be expecting me to commence the lambasting of our true currency, the billable hour. You would be wrong. Slavery goes even deeper than that. Sure, it's difficult to self-actualize when billing 2300 hours a year for the Fortune 250. Do the math: that's 47 hours a week billed, not including the time it takes to travel, go to meetings, trainings, and office functions, commute, and engage in caloric intake. But I want to comment on something more sinister than the daily milieu of the young professional. For it is what keeps us in this grind that really scares me.

What ensures that we will spend far too many years behind somebody else's desk are false needs, the bread and circuses of our day. In short, false needs are the means by which advanced capitalist cultures limit the revolutionary potential of their citizens. The Roman Empire used to pacify its people by ensuring that the poor had an unlimited supply of wheat and access to circus games. Our society has substituted a broader array of control devices, that can douse the individual flames of the true needs of the poor and wealthy alike (such as creativity, genuine happiness, and freedom) in a torrent of false needs: needs that can only be satisfied by advanced capitalism and did not exist before this mode of production began. Consuming the products of pop culture, which is generated by an oligopoly of media companies, makes us "content" and more sedate, despite the difficulties of our lives. It also keeps us beholden to a limited set of sources of the disposable incomes needed if we are to continue to partake in the spoils of the extensive prosperity in which we dwell.

As we content ourselves with the results, we lose our ability to spot how consolidated media plays not to our needs but those of the multinationals who control the means of production. Consolidated media helps to shape our world to suit the needs of multinational corporations, through the processes of standardization and commodification. They create "objects" that we want instead of "subjects" that we consider, that if applied would hold the potential for new social orderings and interactions. We are manipulated to desire objects that are produced rather than the subjects of true liberation. The subjects of liberation are those that lead us to question our beliefs and our ideologies, a process that is muted by consumption and accumulation.

Thus, in an advanced industrial society like ours, those whose struggles used to lead to revolutionary thought are increasingly integrated into the existing cycle of production and consumption by the tools of mass media, advertising, and industrial management. This is accomplished by the satisfaction of basic wants, wants that are derived from grotesque mixtures of our human desires with desires manufactured out of thin air. By satisfying these wants, people are distracted from argument, the culmination of critical observation and analysis. Marcuse described the process as "Independence of thought, autonomy, and the right to political opposition" being "deprived of their basic critical function in a society which seems increasingly capable of satisfying the needs of the individuals through the way it is organized." Technology and machines surpass individuals in their political clout, because they are far more capable of increasing production than we are, through the manufacture of false needs. And as we run around trying to satisfy them, our ability to think critically withers away.

And we forget that we went to law school for reasons other than the rush of the durable goods purchase, the supposed serenity that comes from sequestering ourselves in fenced fiefdoms with security gates and concierges, and the gentle caress of high thread count against our overfed fleshes.

Critics of Marcuse have asked how can the victims of false needs, those who are becoming "one-dimensional" in their modes of thinking, question their own condition? I believe that it takes an unexpected, external shock. A crisis. Something that you didn't expect to have happen to you, or didn't expect to hear or see. And it is through that crisis that a window on your condition can be opened, allowing you to question your life and renew your obligations to things other than yourself and your wants. Let me present you with a crisis right now.

What I want each of you to do is to click on the link below. You will hear and see a man on his death bed, so to speak. He is a great leader, and has infused the lives of millions with a revolutionary ideology. Watch his eyes change after he tells a crowd that they have some difficult days ahead. He knows that he is going to die. Death threats and attempts on his life are reaching a fevered pitch. But he is ready to be taken from this earth. He has connected his life with those of countless others, and through that connection, they are of a new mind and spirit. Hours after he utters the words that you are about to hear, he is dead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZwIg0SMbs4

Ask yourself if the contentment that you feel every time you bill a thousand hours and then fritter it away on junk can in any way rival the convictions of the heart that you just witnessed, and that you have let wither away from your own life.

Now get up and plan your exit strategy.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Good morning!

One of New York's great institutions is 1010 wins. Don't know what it is? Shame on you.

1010 kHz is the frequency. Wins is WINS, for International News Service. It's an AM radio station. It's been pumping news into the cerebral cortexes of New Yorkers since 1965. And before then, it was one of the first stations in America to broadcast rock and roll, opening shop in New Jersey in 1924. It was first owned by a department store, Gimbels. And then by the yellow journalist, warmongerer, and news emperor, William Randolph Hearst. And then by a media conglomerate, Westinghouse. It's arguably the most popular radio station in the country, reaching over 2 million people a day. When I was a child, my father, driving me around in his green, 1976 Dodge Dart, religiously set his watch to the time tone that could be heard every half hour on the station. I remember when I was eight years old and he showed me how to set my watch to 1010 wins ("Hold it, wait, there it is!"). Lucky for him, 1010 was also there to broadcast his beloved Yankees games. In fact, they were the first radio station anywhere to carry all of a team's games live (Mel Allen on the play by play!).

Everyone in New York can recite the station's slogans, first used in the 1960's: "All News All the Time," and "You Give Us 22 Minutes, We'll Give You the World." But what I remember most is the station's distinct teletype sound effect at the start of the broadcast. It was unmistakable, the militaristic tones of a teleprinter sending a typed message across a pair of wires during some long-forgotten battle of WWII. The French would be speaking German if it weren't for that device. The sound can still be heard on the station today. Hearing it now makes me feel at home in New York. Every morning for about forty years, it has rung out across the land, greeting the ears of millions with its slightly exhilarating, somewhat unnerving sense of urgency.

1010 wins also represents the turning of the tide against newspaper monopolists, who placed numerous restrictions on radio stations and tried to limit their foray into the news to the role of promotional tool. The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement changed all of that, and the station switched to full-time operation with power authorized at 10,000 watts. 1010 wins became an early experimental outlet for audience participation, using a Western Union wire to bring record requests to the attention of the station's DJ's in the pre-news era.

The switch to news followed a survey commissioned by Westinghouse that revealed that the most popular format for the news would be a "talking newspaper." The world in 22 minutes was here, a format that is interesting today, particularly given the fact that cable TV news has within the past five years settled into a "talking magazine" routine. The format should be patented as a business system, "a place on the dial where listeners could tune at any time of the day or night for the latest news at that very moment without having to wait for "straight up" or "straight down" or :55 or :25. " It is as regimented as the obnoxious teletype sound effects would suggest: headlines, weather, and traffic and transit on the 1's, repeating endlessly until its waves reach the darkest recesses of the universe. What makes this format special is that while it may sound like a loop of the same broadcast, the folks at 1010 wins vowed never to use a taped reading of the news or to reread the same copy:

"Every newscast will be different and up-to-the-second. If a particular story is developing rapidly, the new developments will be presented direct from the scene where possible. We will cover every important story from many angles - the reactions of important officials and the man in the street; analyses by our staff commentators; beeper phone conversations with eye witnesses. The emphasis will be on complete, continuing coverage of all the important news, all the time" - Ken Reed, Director of Programs and Operations

And so the 24-hour news cycle was born. In the 1960's. And you thought that it had something to do with CNN.

So I hop into a cab today on my way to work, and for five minutes, I'm taken back to that '76 Dodge Dart, heading off to school with my dad. Here's what I heard:

• the trademarked sound
• the slogan
• a reference to traffic and transit on the 1's with fast-paced blips in the background
• a blink ad for "The Prestigious Address of the Empire State Building"
• a headline about a home invasion last night at 16th Avenue and 54th Street in Brooklyn involving a white Yukon SUV, taking place in the middle of a Jewish high holy day
• a headline for another home invasion, this time in Nassau County. Hysterically, a victim, who was not harmed physically, says "We would leave our doors unlocked...I guess we'll be a little more cautious" (!)
• a story announced by a snippet from a man telling us "I hate cell phones" when they're used in public. "Life imitates art," says another. The story oddly ends as quickly and abruptly as it begins, with a third interviewee waxing philosophical: "People who air their dirty laundry on cell phones are just like the people that appear on reality TV"
• the weather: later in the day, "the clouds will break for sunshine." [I always loved how they phrased the weather!] "It will be breezy."
• a commercial for a local dentist: "Going to the dentist can be stressful." But Pleasant Dreams Dentists will make sure that you're "safely sedated." More importantly, "we won't lecture you." You'll leave with a "smile on your face and little to no memory of your visit" (yikes!). Of course, "this commercial is not intended as medical advice."
• a headline about a fire that caused "considerable damage"
• a headline about a "night of violence in the Bronx" - a stabbing is graphically described at 8:45 in the morning as a "knife to the groin" by an "unidentified teenage suspect."
• a headline about jury deliberations for the third racketeering trial of John Jr. Gotti ("the last line we can't repeat on the radio")

Good morning, New York! And take heart, for while some things in life are assured, like death, taxes, and Republican control of Congress, so, too, are the blissful sounds of 1010 wins.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Godzilla vs. the nth Monster - "weapons of horrible destruction"

As we get psyched for the invasion of Iran, it may be helpful to pause and consider the lessons of one of the only creatures on earth to have its own trademarked sound (see the audio in my profile). An April 2006 article in the New Yorker indicated that military planning efforts presently underway are based on the notion that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." We've heard this kind of argument before. But there are developments in the planning phase of war with Iran that are unique in the post-Cold War era. For one, U.S. naval aircraft have flown simulated nuclear weapons delivery missions, known as "over the shoulder" bombing, in the area. More seriously, the article claimed that prior to joining the administration, the current national security adviser, under-secretary of defense for intelligence, and under-secretary of state for arms control and international security were part of a think-tank that issued a report (which they signed) calling for the military to elevate the status of tactical nuclear weapons within the nation's arsenal. Now, the administration is thinking about designing and testing new nuclear bunker busters aimed at ensuring the destruction of high value targets such as the underground centrifuge plant in Natanz. A former senior intelligence official noted that "it's a tough decision. But we made it in Japan." What would the King of the Monsters he have to say about these developments?

Godzilla has had a storied career, culminating in a movie that saw him defeat the likes of Gigan, Zilla, Kumonga, Rodan, Anguirus, and Hedorah, among others, before returning to the ocean. He's fought a venus fly trap, a cloud of smog, a giant moth...even countless versions of himself (mecha-godzilla, spacegodzilla). To the untrained monster movie viewing eye, these skirmishes mask the politics behind the beast. The original, 1954 version, "Gojira," was shot to look very much like a documentary of war, punctuated by dead bodies, orphaned children, and radiation scars - it is longer and far bleaker than what we have seen on television in the states. Gojira was inspired by the director's witness to the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was Americanized by adding shots of the actor Raymond Burr, giving the illusion that he is interacting with important characters in the story as he journeys to Japan to investigate several ships burned and destroyed near Odo Island.

Not until 2004 was the original movie widely available here. Before then, the domestically licensed movie was a highly edited version from 1956, which removed most of the references to the United States' use of nuclear weapons, including testing of even more powerful versions after the war (such as a hydrogen bomb that shocked military personnel when its explosion sent fallout across a 7,000 square mile region in the South Pacific - a fact verified by the radiation exposure of Japanese fishermen traveling on the famous Fukuryu Maru). These deletions were symbolic of our broader self-inflicted amnesia about the decision to use nuclear weapons in Japan and its consequences (efforts to remove or whitewash commemorative exhibits at the Smithsonian in D.C. and the Bradbury Science Museum at Los Alamos are instructive). But the horrific images of the monster itself in the first Godzilla movie remained largely intact, giving Americans their first view of the freak of nature, its atomic power, glowing tail, and sheer size (over 160 feet tall in the first film) evoking the image of a mushroom cloud rising from the Japanese landscape (see pictures).

And the story about a man and his technological invention survived as well - Dr. Serizawa's oxygen destroyer, which ultimately led to Godzilla's demise, was used in the movie to represent mankind's militaristic ambitions:

Dr. Serizawa: If my device can serve a good purpose, I would announce it to everyone in the world! But in its current form, it's just a weapon of horrible destruction. Please understand, Ogata!

Hideto Ogata: I understand. But if we don't use your device against Godzilla, what are we going to do?

Dr. Serizawa: Ogata, if the oxygen destroyer is used even once, politicians from around the world will see it. Of course, they'll want to use it as a weapon. Bombs versus bombs, missiles versus missiles, and now a new superweapon to throw upon us all! As a scientist - no, as a human being - I can't allow that to happen!

As we've learned to live with the bomb, the Japanese learned to accept and in some cases use Godzilla as a weapon of their own in many of the later films (in one movie released only in Japan, Godzilla travels back to World War II and helps the Japanese defeat the allied forces). And every time the fury that was unleashed by our use of nuclear weapons at the close of World War II, embodied by Godzilla, is edited out or allowed to fade, we lose an opportunity to consider the decision itself, and what it could tell us about our efforts of late to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. Barton Bernstein, a professor at Stanford University, located official estimates of how many American soldiers would have died in an invasion of Japan, the avoidance of which is one of the most commonly cited reasons for using the (at least first) nuclear weapon. Far from the one million lives that we were told the bombs saved, the estimate was comfortably below 100,000. By comparison, the two atomic bombs killed roughly 300,000 people, mostly women and children. So what really drove the decision? Was it a signaling exercise aimed at the Soviet Union? Did it have to do with the personal or financial ambitions of certain people or institutions involved with the Manhattan Project? What did the President know and when did he know it (for instance, there are some accounts that Truman was surprised to hear that the bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki)? Substitute present-day names and places associated with the push to develop new tactical nuclear weapons and use them against Iran, and you will realize that little has changed in the basic issues we face. Nor has the dominant discourse of American military might defeating new monsters with ever-more-powerful weapons (the common theme of American monster movies, which usually end with a creature's demise at the hands of a new version of an atomic weapon) given way in any noticeable fashion in the fifty years since the issuance of the Americanized version of Godzilla in 1956.

Godzilla teaches us that ideas left unexamined in the public discourse can awaken monsters far scarier than the enemies we initially perceive. That human beings can habituate to even the most powerful and destructive forces to appear on the horizon. And that a continual cycle of "bombs versus bombs, missiles versus missiles" can have unintended consequences - a "superweapon to throw upon us all." Let us remember Godzilla's cry as we, like the fabled beast, have a seemingly endless queue of threats placed before us.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Ideal First Date: Toxic Tour!

Are things going well with your buxom beauty and you're thinking of making a move? Feel that asking her to "coffee" or "dinner and a movie" won't cut it? I agree. Women expect far more than that these days. And we're competing not only with other men (and sometimes women), but images of what men might be like. I mean, when Sayid wanted to take things to another level with Shannon, he didn't say, "hey, let's go to the bunker and watch the orientation film." No, he said, "Come on, gather your things," and kept walking as she followed him to a makeshift tent. So you need to get creative if you're going to ask a woman out on a date. My suggestion? Take her on a toxic tour.

Toxic tours are organized by community-based organizations and non-profits to raise awareness of the dangerous conditions in which many of the nation's poor and minority citizens live, due to their proximity to industrial land uses. To help you plan your date, here's a travel guide to some of the nation's best tours:

3. Communities for a Better Environment Toxic Tours, http://www.cbecal.org/toxictour/pg1sec1.htm. The weather is mild but the nights really heat up as T Garcia takes you to some of Northern California's finest refineries, chemical processing plants, and brownfields. Your significant other will marvel at the personal accounts by real community members about their brushes with federal officials, contract workers, and flares so bright you'd think it was mid-day at three in the morning. If you have time, be sure to ask Denny Larson of the Refinery Reform Campaign to take you on a more personal, four to seven hour tour of what he calls the Bay Area's "most depressed, lowest income, highest unemployment community," Richmond. Stop by the Drew Scrap Metals Superfund site, the General Chemical railyard (capable of sending 25,000 residents to the hospital with a single oleum leak - ask Denny about July 1993), and the Chevron refinery. Revel in the more than 20 public housing projects built right next to the petrochemical plants. If you really want to impress your friend, mention how relieved you are that it's not December 1, 1991. Take in some local fare before heading over to Peres Elementary for a walk down memory lane. Those kids really know their evacuations!

2. Altgeld Gardens, Chicago, http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~wang/EJBaldwin/PCR/. Meet Cheryl Johnson at the office of People for Community Recovery, located on Chicago Housing Authority property on the south side of the city. The public housing development (perched on a landfill on the banks of a sewage farm) boasts ten thousand regulars, 97% of whom are black. Take in the embarrassment of riches that this toxic doughnut has to offer: 53 toxic facilities, including landfills, oil refineries, waste lagoons, cement plants, coke ovens, and incinerators (many unregulated!), and all in your backyard! Ask Cheryl about how her mother founded the first environmental organization based in a public housing development, so that her neighbors could have water and sewage service way back in 1986. People from all over the world have taken this tour, including your humble travel writer. Cheryl calls it a tour of a toxic doughnut "because everywhere you look, 360 degrees around us, we're completely surrounded by toxics on all sides." Ask Cheryl which of our nation's last two presidents has a firmer handshake. Take home a copy of David Pellow's Garbage Wars as a souvenir.

1. Norco, Louisiana, http://www.refineryreform.org/community_spotlight.htm (click on Take the New Sarpy, LA toxic tour). Meet Dorothy Jenkins, and gaze from her front porch upon the stunningly vast yet serene storage tanks, each holding 500,000 gallons of gas a few yards away. Pray for no lightning on your tour date. Talk to activists about the roots of the town as well as neighboring Diamond, both former plantations and the site of the largest slave rebellion in US history. Looking for a thrilling conclusion to your date? Head out with the local bucket brigade and take an air sample during one of the regular (at one point, an average of one per week) accidental releases at one of the neighboring refineries. Marvel at hundreds of acres' worth of monuments to our nation's addiction to oil - the pipes that crisscross River Road, the flares that can be seen from the highway as you approach from Baton Rouge, and let's not forget the noise! Hissing valves, roaring flares, PA systems, and clanking cars are some of the highlights of the tour. Be sure to stop at the Jr. Food Mart for a bite to eat and treat your loved one to something special at Bill's Dollar Store. The bayous are also steps away. Learn about the tours they used to give over in Diamond, a four-street neighborhood where some used to live several feet from a Shell Chemical plant. Like the tour in April 2001 whose guests included actor Mike Farrell, writer Alice Walker, poet Haki Madabuti, and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters. Ask about the high school's cheerleading squad and its quizzical use of the word "explode" in its cheers.

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Taking your love interest on a toxic tour will show her that you care about the environment and your fellow man, and that you have a slightly edgy side. Women love dating men who are a little dangerous. And in the future, if the spark between you and your new girlfriend feels like it's going to fade, you can always reminisce about "that time we strolled along the flares of New Sarpy...I wanted to touch the light, the heat I saw in your eyes."

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

Snakes on a Stealth - update!

Apparently, New York is not immune to flying wings - run for your lives!!!

Here's the proof that they were here:

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spyanks0915,0,5759427.story

...and a picture for the visual learners out there (thanks, Gothamist!)

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

An Ode to Imogen Heap (and the vocoder)

Dear Jennifer,

You told me that I've been walking, I've been hiding, and I look half dead half the time, and I agreed with you. Back when we were young, you told me to pay close attention. You asked me if I was in or if I was out. You only gave me 20 seconds to comply. But you wouldn't have heard me even if I had built up the nerve to leave my things behind as it all went off without me - you were always too busy writing my tragedy. Ms. Heap (may I call you Imogen?), I could always count on you - I've known you for but a couple of years but it feels like a lifetime. Remember that one night when you slyly told me to sleep here, you'd sleep there, but then the heater would be down again? You were so convenient. Imogen, the threat of your love is still in the headlights. Please be there, please be there.

Imogen Heap is an insanely talented songstress who is equally at home with sequencing and sampling (which she taught herself on Atari computers, a fact that I love) as she is with her diverse array of instruments (piano, cello, marimba) or just her gorgeous voice. She was already a smash in the UK when her music began to pop up on iTunes, and off to the stratosphere she went. Her most recent album, "Speak for Yourself," has dominated the electronic music chart on iTunes for about a year now, a testimony to the power of long-tail market demand. Electronica fans (a crude and often inaccurate term I know), remember when you had to find your music in that one CD rack in Tower Records or elsewhere that lumped together everything that wasn't pop, rock, classical, or "R&B/Soul (where even hip hop was tragically placed for a minute)"? D&B, house, two-step, trance, you name it - put it in the Electronica bin! But now that we live so much of our lives on the internet, long-tail demand is the norm. That's the theory that as we move to just-in-time manufacturing, smaller inventories, a greater diversity of sources for the sounds, tastes, and goods we seek, etc., the area under the asymptoting portion of our collective demand curves (the tail) is greater than under the steep portion, where we find the "blockbusters" and "top sellers" of old. This makes life more interesting and gives fans of artists such as Imogen Heap ready access to talent that years ago may not have seen the light of day.

But what is most striking about Imogen Heap's success is how her song, "Hide and Seek," has become a fixture on iTunes on the electronic music chart. It's been hovering around #1 also for about a year. Why this song? Yes, it was on that silly show The OC. But that doesn't explain its staying power on iTunes. Maybe it's the great lyrics. Here they are:

Where are we?
What the hell
is going on?
The dust has only just
began to form
Crop circles in the carpet
Sinking
feeling

Spin me around
again
And rub my eyes
This can't be happening
When busy streets
A mess with people
Would stop to hold
Their heads heavy

Hide and seek
Trains and
sewing machines
All those years
They were here first

Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before
The takeover
The sweeping insensitivity of this
still life

Hide and Seek
Trains and sewing machines
Blood and Tears
They were here first

Hmm, what'd you say, mmm, that you only meant well?
Well, of course you did.
Hmm, what'd you say? mmm, that it's all for the best?
Of course it is.
Hmm, what'd you say? mmm, that it's just what we need
You decided this?
Hmm, what'd you say, mmm,
What did she say?

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you
You don't care a bit, you don't care a bit
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs
Speak no feeling, I don't believe you
You don't care a bit, you don't care a, you don't care a bit
Oh no, You don't care a bit
Oh no, You don't care a bit
Oh no, You don't care a bit
You don't care a bit
You don't care a bit

Amazing, on so many levels. But I think the song continues its run because of the vocoder, which is the only "musical instrument" used in the song. Imogen Heap sings into a vocoder (or voice encoder), which is a speech synthesizer that records her speech, converts it to a series of numbers representing the frequencies of the waveforms produced by her vocal cords, and then uses an oscillator to recreate the frequencies. The result is simply stunning. Her voice is at once disaggregated and whole. Everywhere and nowhere. Raw and ethereal. Powerful and timid. Electronic and "unplugged." And the vocoder was the perfect instrument to use for a song about abandonment. Look at the song lyrics: crop circles in the carpet - where the furniture used to sit? oily marks on walls where pleasure moments hung before - where the pictures used to be? "You decided this?" The vocoder gives her voice the echo of a woman alone in her room, in her new world, feeling betrayed, but still strong enough to fill the space with her quiet resolve.

Surely long-tail market demand and the genius of artists like Imogen Heap will give us much more to ponder in the future...some of it hopefully in the form of vocoder-driven "electronica."

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

The Bridges of Nassau County

Far from existing in a neutral state, ready for use by various publics for good or ill, technologies often emerge ready to privilege certain political or social arrangements by their very existence. To find out how this might be true for a given technology, we must look beyond the instrumental use of the thing to the meaning behind its design and how it rearranges or holds in place other technological artifacts, human interactions, or ways of thinking. Take a striking example from Long Island, NY: the major public works projects brought to fruition by Robert Moses.

Much of the built environment that those who grew up on Long Island regarded simply for its functionality, the Long Island Expressway, the BQE, the roads heading to Jones Beach, among other elements, was developed or brokered by Robert Moses, the master builder (named New York City's construction coordinator in 1946) who influenced much of the city's planning for more than three decades. While we can stand back and admire certain projects for their utility and, in the case of buildings such as Lincoln Center, their beauty, Moses' biography, Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York demonstrates how some of their designs were also political in nature.

In general, Moses led the charge to encourage the suburbanization of the region, a process reliant in large part on his highway and bridge projects (other cities hired him to design freeway networks of their own starting in the 1940's). He mocked public intellectuals such as Lewis Mumford, who tried to point out the dangers in the trend toward a homogenized suburban living experience. In 1961, Mumford described postwar suburbs as

"a multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless prefabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every outward and inward respect to a common mold" - The City in History, p. 486.

Moses replied that "The little identical suburban boxes of average people, which differ only in color and planting, represent a measure of success unheard of by hundreds of millions on other continents" ("Are Cities Dead," The Atlantic, 1962, p. 57). Turns out Robert Moses had something particular in mind when he envisioned the "average people" inhabiting his suburbs, because he did what he could to make sure that they would be white families with access to automobiles. Have you ever driven under an overpass on one of Moses' parkways on Long Island? Notice how they rise as little as nine feet from the curb? This is because Moses wanted to discourage the use of mass transit, such as buses, on his highways. Buses, even back in the middle of the 20th Century, were about 12 feet tall. Not only did he design the overpasses to keep buses from venturing from low-income portions of the city to the suburbs, but they also made it difficult for low-income (disproportionately minority) families to reach Jones Beach. Moses also opposed adding a stop on the Long Island Railroad near the park that Robert built.

The distribution of cities, suburbs, and exurbs and those who live in them profoundly effects our social interactions, economic opportunities for the privileged and the underclass alike, and our political orientations (much has been written, for example, about how a surge in the creation of exurbs has facilitated continued Republican dominance while Democrats have made inroads in many of the nation's close-in suburbs). But what is not given as much attention is how something as simple as an overpass can stand for more than its functional role in a large-scale infrastructure project. More than a means of facilitating the movement of traffic, it stands for a social arrangement in the suburbs of New York. It's important to give more than a cursory glance to such mundane elements of the built environment, so that we may begin to unpack the values that they are trying to promote.

Innovations in urban design and their influence over our daily lives will be a recurring theme of this blog. What examples come to mind?

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence

The Crawl

Here we are, five years after the most significant attack on American soil in the modern era (the Japanese attack on the Aleutian Islands in June 1942 was important in that it might have diverted enough Japanese aircraft carriers to tip the scales in our favor in the Battle of Midway). I remember September 11th, 2001, as a day of sorrow, confusion, and misinformation (bomb at the State Department, evacuation of Stuyvesant High School) for much of the day. After we were allowed to leave work I ended up at a candlelit vigil, and then joined my sister at her apartment to watch what felt like endless amounts of television. I was therefore introduced to a seemingly minor shift in cable news programming: widespread use of "the crawl."

A crawl is a moving line of text at the bottom of a screen, that can provide continuous information while allowing pre-recorded or live programming to continue above it. September 11th marked the advent of near-ubiquity for the crawl on television news. Fox, CNN, and then MSNBC added the crawl to their coverage of the terrorist attacks in order to provide emergency information, even offering the crawl during commercials. Before September 11th, the crawl was used mostly in sports and financial news programming, with a notable exception being CNN's Headline News.

I remember sitting there in Cambridge in awe of the events as they unfolded, particularly some of the more outlandish claims moving along the crawl at what might as well have been breakneck speed; we'd see news of a bomb left in a locker in building x or some other development, and then wait for the entire crawl to reach the same point to learn additional information. Often, it was never provided; the story was in fact not true. This was understandable, given the enormity of what transpired in the early hours of September 11th.

What is less forgivable is how the crawl remained after the dust clouds settled. The major cable news channels continued to make use of the crawl, probably in order to keep viewers with ever-diminishing attention spans glued to their stations. (Of course, the crawl was no longer used during commercials, I guess for similar reasons to why volume control devices and TiVo are so vigorously opposed by advertisers.) While our younger generations are known for their ability to multitask and there are even arguments for why an endless stream of blips and bytes might improve certain kinds of intelligence (see Johnson's "Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter"), you have to be disappointed with how shamelessly the crawl has been exploited at times in the last five years. Plenty of what appears in the crawl offers very little in the way of news. For instance, Fox begins its crawl with the current Threat Level (Elevated, as per usual) and more recently has added the Airline Threat Level (Red - drop that Colgate Total right not!) to boot. Plugs for forthcoming broadcasts, the repetition of network slogans, and the like are now juxtaposed with television news captions, stock index windows, clocks, and bizarre elements (such as CNN's "Countdown to the Ceasefire" clock near the close of the most recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon) to create a verbal collage at the bottom of our screens, much of it repeating what we already know or can intuit if given the chance. News events, through the use of innovations such as the crawl, can be fed to us and dropped at ever-increasing frequencies, saturating and abandoning our minds at will. And while we sit there, imagining all of these boxes and lines of text across the screen as a veritable cornucopia of news sources, we forget that they are all controlled by a central authority (a network), which is managing news cycles and choosing how to brand those cycles as a product of one network rather than the others as much as it is reporting current events.

Which brings to mind the most important question regarding the crawl and its effect on society writ large: does it increase the passivity of television viewing? It is well-established that watching television over time will take our brain-wave activity into "alpha level," which Jerry Mander has labeled the mind's "most receptive mode." How does widespread use of the crawl make us, the viewers, more or less passive? Factors cited for why TV makes us more passive include (a) lack of eye movement due to our ability to take in all of the images without much active scanning of a small TV screen; (b) the flickering TV screen itself; and (c) the fact that images on a TV screen appear as a steady stream and cannot be taken out of the stream and contemplated. How do you think the crawl changes this standard critique of television? Particularly given the fact that we watch, on average, 4-5 hours of it per day? (full disclosure: I don't own a television right now, and have to make friends with those who do : )

I don't have the scientific answer to this question. And I do appreciate some attempts on September 11th, 2006 to improve use of the crawl, at least for the minutes following 8:47 a.m. during coverage on the cable news networks. Fox actually deleted the crawl when cutting to the memorial sites, MSNBC, even though it scandalously rebroadcast the Today Show from that fateful day, used the crawl only to indicate that you were watching something they like to call a "Living History Event," while CNN listed the names and home towns of those who died. But as the networks quickly regressed to use of their new toy long before the Today Show would have ended, I had to wonder whether this little stream of words and numbers was one of the little ways in which our lives took a wrong turn on September 11th.

Perhaps some of you were fortunate enough to be watching one of these stations this morning when for a moment the crawl disappeared - these days, I, for one, will take any additional room to breathe that I can get.

Vaya con Dios - brooding presence