Waiting for Superman
I want people to feel as though this is the most important issue of our time. It is possible to give every kid a great education and they can do something about it. Driving by and worrying is not enough. Unless each one of us takes a step to make change, our schools won’t get any better.
-Davis Guggenheim, director of Waiting for Superman
A much-anticipated documentary premiered January 22nd at the Sundance Film Festival. Waiting for Superman (incidentally, the name of a Flaming Lips cover I love, but I digress) examines the crisis of public education in the United States through multiple interlocking stories – from a handful of students and their families whose futures hang in the balance, to the educators and reformers trying to find real and lasting solutions within a dysfunctional system. Directed by Oscar-winning Davis Guggenheim (of An Inconvenient Truth fame) and supported by an impressive cast of characters including Bill Gates, Geoffrey Canada (founder of the fantastic Harlem Children’s Zone), John Legend and Michelle Rhee (the chancellor of the D.C. public schools system), the film is meant to be a call to action for public schools the way An Inconvenient Truth was for global warming.
The film examines efforts by innovative educators to turn around failing school systems in Washington, D.C., Harlem, Los Angeles and other places where many schools have come to be known as “dropout factories” and “academic sinkholes”. It isn’t trying to prove that the public school system of the United States is in crisis – that’s been fairly well-documented, despite increased spending and the promise of politicians that no child will be left behind. We spend more money per student than any other nation in the world, but the test scores of American students have fallen from near the top to rock bottom among developed nations. Sure, money is always a problem, but by no means is it the only one. Waiting for Superman argues that teachers are the solution to our country’s education problem. Decades of research and test data indicate that the primary factor determining a school performance is not its budget, physical plant, curriculum, student population or income level of its district. It is teaching.
The main premise of Waiting for Superman is that improvement in our school systems requires major improvement in both our teachers themselves and in the way they are treated. It “requires demanding our teachers get deep in the trenches, be allowed to be flexible and innovative, persist, and to be held accountable.” Some of the main culprits identified as holding schools back are self-interested education bureaucracies and teachers unions, and the ways they prevent administrators from getting rid of poor instructors. One particularly irritating practice brought up is the $65 million-a-year “Rubber Room” in which bad New York teachers draw full salaries while waiting idly for the school district to prove misconduct charges. The film proposes a teacher compensation model based off what Michelle Rhee is already working on in Washington D.C. – a system that evaluates teachers based on a combination of their students’ test scores, academic gains, and classroom observations from third-party evaluators. The system would reward successful teachers with a higher salary while flushing out ineffective ones and weakening tenure. Charter schools (schools that receive public funding but are free from many of the rules and regulations that apply to regular public schools) are identified as the future of our education system. Guggenheim offers hope by looking at education reformers and schools that are already reshaping the culture and refusing to leave children behind.
No matter what your political beliefs, this movie is important because it brings the issue of our country’s education system to a level that everyone can understand — telling them how it works and why they should care. When values become shared, when an issue becomes personal, when a large group of people starts to get it — this is the catalyst for innovative solutions and changes to actually occur. Not having seen the documentary yet (Paramount plans to distribute it in the fall), I can’t offer my opinion on the exact changes that these educators want to make to the system. I can, however, offer my opinion that things need to change and that it needs to be a group movement; it’s impossible for a few revolutionary teachers to change a system on their own that’s been around forever. There are thousands of children in our country who, despite promises that they won’t be, are being left behind and are desperately in need of a Superman (or two or fifty). Hopefully this documentary stirs the souls and the hearts of the people in this country and makes them believe that it is possible to give every kid a great education.
Drawing on Thoughts … Thoughts on Drawing
They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words … “ Nowhere is that more true than in the case of the following chalk-talk with renown designer and illustrator Milton Glazer. Here, Glazer, Fulbright Scholar and founding partner of the celebrated Push Pin Studios, discusses the codependent relationship between drawing and thinking while sketching a portrait of William Shakespeare.
In his book, “Drawing is Thinking,” Glaser suggests that all art is a form of meditation and that drawing is “a primary way of encountering reality.” He addresses societal reticence around the arts and the individual’s resistance to drawing (“Oh, I can’t draw … my drawings look like they were done by a 3rd grader … “) as missing the point, asserting that the value in drawing is not about “making things look accurate,” but rather drawing is a way of “becoming more conscious of what one is looking at” and “expressively interpreting the world. “
Comments on Glaser’s theory hearken back to the cave drawings of primitive man,
“ … art started as a way of noticing things, focusing on them, fixing them in our minds, … that when our ancestors drew animals on the walls of caves, it was a kind of sympathetic magic … If they could draw them, they knew them, and they could control them. “
Fast forward to the digital age, where Michale Sankey discusses the effects of changing nature of “visual literacy” as it applies to education and curriculum design,
“In contemporary western culture, particularly the youth culture, visual mediums and genres are becoming increasingly popular at the expense of other mediums, in particular the written word (schirato & Yell 1996). Others suggest that the constant bombardment by visual images from so many quarters is already shaping [the youths] lives, influencing their attitudes and tuning their responses. As media simulations become more popular and persuasive they will increasingly encroach upon life experience to the extent that new senses of reality will be formed and media representations will in fact become our first order reality (Walker & Chaplin, 1997).”
New York Times Weekend columnist Brad Stone (1/10/2010, p. 5) observes that his three-year-old daughter’s world view and life will be shaped by myriad technological advances and gadgets, “ … digital books, Skype video chats, … toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone … she’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.”
Stone goes on to discuss current research which suggests that “the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development.”
This phenomenon could only raise questions around Glaser‘s dynamics of drawing and foster an increased impact on what our own Cecily Sommers describes as our “associative fluency” – taking in information in multiple ways (seeing, hearing, moving) – a mechanism which serves as the foundation of creativity and innovation. The act of drawing or dancing or interacting with digital media (?) opens new pathways in the brain, shaking things up and creating opportunities for new connections to form. Until the age of eight or so, children are able to learn and absorb large quantities of information, forging extensive neural networks to handle the massive influx.
Conversely, over time, under-trafficked neural connections, thought processes and information that see little action, are unceremoniously closed down. Eventually the adult brain winds up using only the most well-trodden neural pathways as a short-cut default system (read: old people stuck in their ways). It continues to be our challenge then, to maintain ample neural capacity such that we are able to “encounter our reality” with resolution and vigor… lest we find ourselves in the cross-hairs of a virtual Wooly Mammoth with only a sharpened pencil to our name.
An Almanac of Human Emotion
“I believe in technology, but I think we need to make it more human. I believe that the internet is becoming a planetary meta-organism, but that it is up to us to guide its evolution, and to shape it into a space we actually want to inhabit—one that can understand and honor both the individual human and the human collective, just like real life does.” – Jonathan Harris
Four years ago, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar set out with a lofty goal – to create a database of human emotions on the Internet. Twelve million feelings later, the two have put together the We Feel Fine project, which includes one of the coolest Web sites I’ve seen in awhile and an extraordinarily beautiful book that was recently released. (Most of which is available to read online!)
The two artists and computer scientists wrote an algorithm that scrobbles the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling,” essentially harvesting human emotion by recording the full sentence and context in which the phrase occurs and identifying the polarity (happy, sad, giddy, etc.) of the specific “feeling” expressed. Because the blogosphere is full of metadata, it is possible for them to extract rich information about the posts and their authors, from age and gender to geolocation and local weather conditions, adding a new layer of meaning to the feelings. Exploring this huge stockpile of information from the viewpoint of 6 different movements — Madness, Murmurs, Montage, Mobs, Metrics and Mounds — has resulted in an ever growing portrait of our culture’s collective emotional landscape.
Some of the fascinating results? Moods hit rock bottom on the day that Michael Jackson died. The high-water mark was the day President Obama was elected, when the word “proud” was all over the blogosphere. People in New South Wales consistently feel far more awful than the rest of the world. Women are far more likely than men to verbalize their feelings. Human beings get happier as they get older. The most frequently expressed emotion on the Internet is feeling better.
We Feel Fine does a dazzling job of turning the big, bad, cold-feeling World Wide Web into a warm, passionate portrait of the individual human and the human collective. I browsed through the book for approximately 30 seconds before mentally adding it to my Christmas list. It’s beautiful. So here’s to exploring the ups and downs of everyday life in all its color, chaos and candor, and here’s to human beings feeling better than fine.
Michigan Looks Through the Future to the Past
Ahhh, the romance of old country roads. Wherever you are in America, “The scenic route” takes you through the heart of small towns and main streets with long stretches of country in between.
If you’ve ever been stuck behind a tractor on a 2-lane highway, you already know that this path is not built for speed. Which is precisely why these old heritage highways may be the perfect roadways for electric vehicles. Whether by Smart Car or scooter, the idea is to go slow and enjoy the view.
In the home state of Detroit, Kate Gallagher – project manager for the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission – has a plan for breathing some life into the state’s old country roads and small towns. The idea is to plant charging stations along these roads and establish “green highways.” Gas-powered rides are welcome, just be prepared to go at a more leisurely pace.
For the electric car market to keep growing, the problem of infrastructure (charging stations) for long hauls has to be addressed. If Kate Gallagher has her way, she’ll have succeeded at paving a path to a more sustainable future, while reclaiming a piece of the past.
[via Time]
Feel the Burn
“If you want someone to do something, I would not begin the sales pitch with, ‘It’s in the middle of the Nevada desert in August.’” – Jon Stewart
As unexcited as my favorite Mr. Stewart was about the prospect of spending a week at the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, about 50,000 people would vehemently disagree with him. Each year, “burners” of every age, class, nationality and profession make the trek to the harsh conditions of the desert to be part of an experimental community, which challenges its members to express themselves creatively and be completely self-reliant. What exactly is Burning Man? That’s the big question that lacks a succinct answer.
It’s been called Las Vegas on acid, a pagan festival, a Woodstock for the 21st century and the largest outdoor art exhibit in the world. In the most primitive of terms, Burning Man is a festival where tens of thousands of people come together to transform the barren desert into a fully functioning city, complete with an infrastructure, post office, movie theater and coffee shop. When the week is over, participants completely dismantle the city, following the festival’s “Leave No Trace” policy; the goal of which is to leave the area around them in better condition than before their arrival to ensure their participation does not have a long term impact on the environment.
Burning Man doesn’t have a single focus, and is instead governed by 10 principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy.
Translated: There is no Internet, no cell phone service, no advertisements and no corporate logos. (An interesting concept for me, the advertising-major-Internet-addict.) There are no cash transactions…everything you need is bartered for. There are, however, bicycles decorated with flowers and bells and sequins and lights. There are huge art installations that range from a 10 foot watch that symbolizes an evolutionary clock to a huge interactive encyclopedia to a bio-tanical garden that harvests human organs and body parts until they’re ready to be “trans-planted.” There are theme camps, psychedelic lights, overall chaos of the best type and for many festival-goers, there is “Burning Man Shock,” a state of happiness, euphoria and freedom which sets in while attending Burning Man, after one has conformed to ‘normal’ life for too long.
While the festival comes across as a week of complete hedonism, what intrigued me was the sense of community among “Burners” that remains intact for the rest of the year, even after the festival is over, the Man has been immolated, and the city has been dismantled. What used to be just a wild, anarchistic week in the desert has evolved into cultural movements, arts celebrations, humanitarian organizations and quite a few businesses. Groups like Burners Without Borders, Black Rock Solar, the Black Rock Arts Foundation and over sixty Regional groups in 7 different countries support and promote community-based interactive art and civic participation year round. These Burners are involved in projects like Hurricane Katrina cleanup, neighborhood beautification, teaching communities how to install low-cost renewable energy and awarding grants to non-traditional artists. Many Burners choose not to go back to the festival to devote more time and energy to instilling the Burning Man principles in their own everyday lives and communities.
Considering Burning Man’s mission is “to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society,” they seem to be doing something right. And if dancing around a fire wearing a sparkly orange tutu in the middle of the Nevada desert in August leads you to that state of mind…more power to you. (And where can I sign up?)
The Human Life Experience
24 hours in the lives of 10 invididuals. No, this is not MTV’s version of The Real World…this is the actual real world. The Global Lives Project is an amazing video installation with a mission to reshape how people around the world perceive cultures, nations and people outside their communities by collaboratively building a video library of human life experience. Through a volunteer network of filmmakers, designers, architects, activists and institutions from around the globe, The Global Lives Project aims to take people out of their own realities and put them into the world of people they never would have known with experiences they would never otherwise see.
Participants in the project are carefully chosen by local teams armed with a set of criteria designed to avoid reinforcing existing stereotypes about the world’s regions and people. Through a process of elimination procedure, video subjects are chosen based upon world region, population density, gender, age, religion and income. To date, shoots have taken place in Japan, Lebanon, Brazil, Indonesia, India, China, Malawi, Brazil, Serbia and the US and subjects have ranged from a Brazilian hip-hop singer to an Indian postcard vendor to a San Francisco cable car driver. Each person selected is videotaped for 24 hours straight and selections from each shoot are combined into a constantly evolving, traveling video installation. The exhibit features ten separate screening rooms thatshow the unedited recordings of each subject with another room where visitors can see all ten screens at once. Floor to ceiling high definition screens and wireless headsets that track visitors’ movements through the exhibit, providing them with the corresponding soundtrack for their location, further immerse visitors in the scenes taking place around them.
As cool as the video exhibit is, it’s only a tiny part of what David Evan Harris, the project’s founder, has envisioned for The Global Lives Project. They just put out their first DVD with a photography book in the works. (Check out a few of the striking photos from the various shoots on their Flickr account.) Even more ambitious than that, Mr. Harris is working with educators to develop this project into content for classrooms of all ages around the world. He says that “with the momentum we’ve established, we’re hoping that Global Lives will grow into an online library of human life experiences.” It seems like a lofty goal to attempt to share the huge array of experiences the world has to offer but the momentum continues to build, based upon an apology on the website for server difficulties due to the huge spike in traffic the past week. Here’s to hoping the project continues to transform people’s understanding of the world around them.
Doing the Doggy Dance: The Next Nightclub Sensation?
Ok, probably not the next nightclub sensation, but you have to admit these puppies got groove! It’s Monday morning and I thought you’d all need a little pick-me-up. This one works for me every time. The hair, the eyes, those big flapping jowls – what’s not to love?!
[No puppies were harmed in the making of this music video.]
Well, We're All in the Mood for a Melody.
Music is an explosive expression of humanity. – Billy Joel
The past few years, veiled by the secrecy of night, street pianos emblazoned with the phrase “Play me, I’m yours.” have been appearing in cities across the world. Located in skate parks, industrial estates, laundromats, precincts, bus shelters and train stations, outside pubs and football grounds, the pianos are for any member of the public to enjoy and claim temporary ownership of. London was the most recent city to be hit with an influx of these mysterious musical instruments and the positive results have been overwhelming.
The 30 brightly decorated pianos scattered across the UK’s capital are part of an art installation by artist Luke Jerram, designed to act as a catalyst for strangers who regularly occupy the same space, to talk and connect with one another. Disrupting people’s negotiation of their city, the pianos are also meant to provoke citizens into engaging, activating and claiming ownership of their urban landscape. Along with creating a sense of unity and whimsy in the street, the installation serves a practical purpose by providing access to musical instruments to those who ordinarily might not have the privilege. When Play Me, I’m Yours was in São Paolo, Brazil, people traveled for hours just to play the pianos that are normally so scarce and precious that they cost a year’s income. After the 3 week installation is up, the pianos are donated to local schools and community centers.
Characteristically of the Web 2.0 world we live in, a website was created that allows people to upload videos and pictures of the various pianos in use across the city. The responses were overwhelming, ranging from a homeless man teaching the son of a street worker how to play to a duo who played 24 of the pianos in 8 hours to a massive crowd singing Hey Jude on Carnaby Street. I spent far too much time looking at these pictures and was amazed by the impact such a simple idea had on the demeanor of complete strangers on the street. Place a few pianos on the street here and there and voila!, detached passerbys normally glued to their technological devices transform into living, breathing human beings who sing and laugh and play piano and connect with both the people and the city around them. I love the idea of the fine arts being moved from private venues such as museums and concert halls to the public space (defined by Wikipedia as an area or place that is open and accessible to all citizens, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level.) where everyone reaps the benefits. What could happen to both urban landscapes and the way strangers interact with each other if there was enough funding to spread this project to hundreds of cities worldwide? Imagine.
Hipster Runoff: A Culturally Relevant, Totally Irreverent Blog
There’s something to be said about word vomit – when you say what you want to say without thinking through its consequences. In the immediate aftermath, you feel GREAT, but “telling it like it is” will get you in trouble. People rarely swallow blunt commentary in odorless, pill form, especially if its their essence that’s being attacked. Yet that’s what makes Carles, the voice behind the wildly popular Hipster Runoff blog, such an enigma. His daily tangents – delivered in twelve year old text-speak (i.e. NE 1 4 an alt party?) and excessive use of “quotations” – are well-aimed daggers directed at the heart of the overrated, brand-exploited, so-called “hipster” scene – precisely the population that makes up the majority of his fan base.
How does he do it? Nobody knows. In fact, no one even knows who “Carles” really is. Like a Banksy for bloggers, he just sort of showed up and started mocking the world. “I think I am just kind of like a link between ‘high level ideas’ and ‘people who only have a high school education,’” Carles told the Village Voice in February during an interview that took place entirely on instant messenger. He was explaining how his tiny mp3 review blog came to represent something much bigger. “I think that the ‘music criticism economy’ has changed somewhat in ‘the Internet age,’ though I don’t even really remember life before the Internet. There are always going to be people who appreciate high-level analysis, but I don’t think the generations after Gen-Y will have the intellectual capacity or even just the ‘ability to pay attention to something for more than 30 seconds’.”
Yet despite the short attention span of many HRO readers, the blog’s fame has continued to last well over 30 seconds. Carles has now debuted his own clothing line featuring shirts that say: “I am Carles” for $30. For $3,000, you can get a t-shirt delivered by Carles himself – a ploy that no one has taken him up on yet. Ironically (and intentionally), his clothing line is serviced by American Apparel, the queen of the hipster hen house when it comes to retail, and his t-shirt, designed with the universal proclamation “I am Carles”, further contributes to the mysterious collective identity of Hipster Runoff or Carles or whatever it/he is. It’s an identity that Carles has managed to create while trying to un-create and hate on so many other trends.
At face value, HRO is humorous, highly offensive, and assumed to be self-deprecating (i.e. you can only hate on hipsters if you’re a hipster yourself and most feel they’ve got Carles figured out in this respect). Magazine reviews have called HRO “enthralling” “terrorizing” and “bizarre”, but no one who knows him (I’m assuming someone knows him) has made the moves to out Carles yet. Enigma intact, the HRO keeps on blogrolling and its fan base keeps on growing and I have to say, that’s one brilliant marketing plan.
Village Voice requested a photo of Carles for their interview. This is what they got.
Baby Got Grammar.
Alexandra and Lizz like proper English and they can not lie. SiCk of u-tUBe commenterz wit p00r spellin and grammer habitz (u kno who u r), this sister duo decided to take a stand for syntax. Through a parody of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s smash hit, Baby Got Back, they take on everything from punctuation to cApSlOcK to the proper use of your. (“Sometimes your is possessive but other times it means you are.”)
Never fear, ladies. You’re not alone. There’s a small but devoted community of online wordsmiths who are also fighting bad grammar one misused semi-colon at a time. The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar is one of the most prominent groups, with over 15,000 members and a popular blog. (To me, Spogg Blog sounds like some sort of fungi you really don’t want to contract.) Red Pen, Inc. is another blog that encourages readers to submit grammar gaffes they encounter. Graduate student Bethany Keeley started The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks with thousands of humorous “examples.” One of my personal favorites is Kate McCully, The Grammar Vandal. Armed with a sheet of comma stickers and a Sharpie at all times, this grammar goddess roams Boston with the intent of destroying every syntax error that rears its ugly head at her.
Can grammar grassroots groups actually make a difference? D-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.
By the way, Muphry’s Law states that any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one error. Take it easy on me.
Coconut Rock
Boing Boing brought these coconut headphones to my attention by way of BBG and they are pretty much AMAZING! What if they only played hulu music? It got me thinking that one day when I’m a highly celebrated conceptual artist, I’ll have an exhibit of strictly headphones. The coconut ones will play hulu music, those made out of hand-blown glass will play only Rastafari and if you put on the gold velour ones and you’ll hear the high notes of Prince – you get the idea. Like a record player, sometimes it’s not about what you’re listening to, but what you’re listening to it with. If you DJ in a club with these – RESPECT.
America's Vampire Obsession Not Dying Anytime Soon
Vampires. They’re everywhere these days. Abstractly speaking, the vampire has been around as a remarkably fluid symbol for over one hundred years, standing for homosexuality, bohemianism and just plain evil. Alan Ball, producer of HBO’s successful vampire show True Blood, attributes their cultural resilience to the characters being a metaphor for any sort of disenfranchised, misunderstood group. While the blood-sucking prototype of today is still misunderstood, the line between vampires and humans keeps getting blurrier. Far from being demonic and evil, this new breed of vampires is controlled, charming and coming out of the coffin everywhere.
Part of this sweeping cultural obsession can be attributed to Stephenie Meyer’s hugely successful Twilight series, four novels devoted to the romance between Isabella Swan, a mortal girl and her charismatic swain, Edward Cullen, who just so happens to have a penchant for blood. The series has sold 53 million copies, occupies the top four spots on USA Today’s Top 100 Titles of 2008 list and has been translated into 37 different languages. The first book was turned into a movie that grossed over $70 million on its opening weekend alone and helped shed light on how fanatical some of the books’ biggest fans, the cleverly dubbed “Twi-hards,” actually are. Stephenie Meyer has been called “the next J.K. Rowling” by Time magazine, a dubious title, as she is a self-admitted amateur whose rather clunky writing style has won zero praise from literary critics. The Twilight Phenomenon, then, is based around the story itself, namely around Edward Cullen, dream boy of Twi-hards everywhere. While perusing Barnes & Noble the other day, I was baffled to find an entire “Vampire Romance” section, full of knock-off series. Since when did this become a new literary genre? In addition to the book-world, vampires are appearing in several different types of media. HBO’s True Blood follows the co-existence of humans and vampires in a fictional Louisiana town. The Vampire Diaries is set to premiere in September on The CW and a remake of the film “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is in the works. There are rock bands, dolls, clothing, huge fan websites and hordes of people celebrating vampires everywhere. The full-blown cultural trend is here. The question, then…is why?
The most highly discussed topic in the United States the last two weeks has been the sudden death of Michael Jackson, a dominant figure in American popular culture and music since the 1980s. The artist behind Thriller, the world’s best-selling album, almost broke the internet when the news of his death first surfaced, and the media coverage hasn’t slowed since. 24/7 news coverage has discussed every detail of both MJ’s life and death and online forums for people to express their thoughts and emotions about the singer. Jackson’s memorial service today was broadcast on every major American network television station and is initially being estimated as the largest gathering for a deceased person in world history. For the first few days after his death, I was as fascinated as anyone by Jackson’s life and death but gradually became annoyed by the amount of Michael coverage in the media because in my mind, it was taking the place of bigger, more important topics. After my initial annoyance, I started thinking and realized that there has to be a reason why our newspapers, radios, televisions and computer screens have been so completely saturated with the King of Pop’s death. Yes, he was an amazing musician, but why are people so so focused on this one mortal man?
The exact answers to these questions depend on the individual asked the question, but the charismatic vampire figure and Michael Jackson have a lot in common. We as human beings are fascinated by the contradictions in their lives, of the battle between good and evil, the oldest archetype in the world. Vampires and Michael Jackson both have their light and dark sides – Michael literally as well as figuratively over the years. Physically, Edward Cullen wants to kill Bella for one taste of her blood. Emotionally, he desperately loves someone for the first time in his immortal life. Michael could go down in history as the best pop artist the world has ever seen, a singing and dancing phenomenon who stayed popular for four decades, but he, too, had his dark side which came out in the form of child molestation charges and an addiction to painkillers. Humans are intrigued by the idea that their hero, idol, lover or friend could possibly be a monster underneath all the outside charm.
The vampire and the departed pop star are both fantastically gifted and thus remote figures, but at the same time are ordinary boys/men who want to love and be loved. In life and in death, this powerful combination attracts us. The charming young vampires of today’s novels cannot age once they’re transformed. This has interesting parallels with Michael, himself a fantastical creature who essentially couldn’t grow up, or didn’t want to. Instead of dealing with his immense fame, he chose to seclude himself at Neverland Ranch, his property named after the fantasy island in the story of Peter Pan, the fictional boy who never grows up.
Entering into the fantasy world of these characters we’re so fascinated by allows us, as readers, to get temporary relief from the troubling political and economical issues of the day. A joke going around on Twitter at the time of Michael Jackson’s death was that Iran’s Ahmadinejad killed him in order to move the #iranelection down on the Trending Topics list a bit. I laughed at the time, but it is true that people want something that can give them a temporary reprieve from the unpleasant current state of the economy and world affairs.
MJ was known for his appeal to multicultural, multiracial and multi-ethnic audiences and vampire stories have the same draw. Twilight has been celebrated for its odd appeal to demographics other than the expected adolescent female romantics. A male friend of mine read Twilight and asked me if I thought he was as charming as Edward Cullen. Both these fantastical characters are engaging enough to cross boundaries and create emotional, unifying experiences for groups of people. They satisfy our need for heroes and something to believe in. Michael broke down racial barriers and paved the way for modern pop music. Edward Cullen overcomes his blood-craving tendencies because of pure, unwavering love for a human being. Vampires used to be the antagonist in fiction but our emotionally needy culture has gradually turned them into the protagonist, the trustworthy, gallant knights who embody what we’re looking for in another person.
There’s something in the vampire archetype – the fantastical, misunderstood outsider – that appeals to human beings on a deep, emotional level. They’re enigmas, but there is something very real and very human about their lives and individual struggles that strikes a chord with audiences of all different races, genders, ages and cultures. We want to be involved in their fantasy world, but we also want someone to relate to. This is why Michael, even in the grave, is getting a bloody lot of media coverage and why vampire stories are not going to die out anytime soon.
Cell phones can create hope or cause conflict
Your cell phone keeps you more connected than you think – and not always in a good way. Recently, the Enough Project and You Tube teamed up to launch their “Come Clean 4 Congo” video campaign to raise awareness on how your small electronics purchase could be fueling one of the deadliest wars in the Congo. The current death toll reaches 5.6 million (with 2,000 more dying per day) and 70% of the world’s rape is reported from the Congo. In order to fund their armies, the three warring militias take control of the lucrative mines and extract bribes from transporters, local and international buyers, and border control.
According to the Enough Project’s report “Can You Hear Congo Now?” The four principal conflict minerals are:
•Tin (produced from cassiterite)—used inside your cell phone and all electronic products as a
solder on circuit boards.
• Tantalum (produced from “coltan”, 80% of the world’s supply is located in the Congo)—used to store electricity in capacitors in iPods, digital cameras,
and cell phones.
• Tungsten —used to make your cell phone or Blackberry vibrate.
• Gold—used in jewelry and as a component in electronics.
The Enough Project and YouTube’s call for filmmakers to produce a short, 1-minute documentary on how cell phone purchases are linked to the war in Congo is the first step is raising awareness on this issue. Most people have no idea where their cell phone materials come from and there is no legislation currently in place to reveal the origin of these supply chains.
Even though most of us already own a cell phone that was more than likely produced with some of these conflict minerals, there is hope. As soon as conflict-free phones are introduced to the market, we can switch to one of those, and then we can donate our old phone to Hope Phones. Hope Phones is an organization that works in collaboration with kiwanja.net, the Hewlett Foundation, and FrontlineSMS: Medic, to provide phones to health care workers in developing countries. For every cell phone donated, the money from trading in the old phone goes towards purchasing new phones for health care providers. By giving remote communities a cell phone, they can stay in closer contact with their doctors, receive better care, and cut down on the response time when a medical emergency arises. A $10 cell phone will give 50 families access to emergency health care. Cell phones, like everything, can produce both bad and good, but as long as we’re aware of both sides of the conversation, we can make it work things work the right way.
Cookies for Concrete
Yesterday, I was walking a beat through downtown Minneapolis when I stopped to observe a road construction crew that was in the process of re-paving 2nd Avenue. The huge concrete paver crawled down the road. Hard-hatted men worked to scrape off the manholes and move the concrete to areas in need and the sun beat down. I was in awe at the scope and efficiency of their endeavor. They worked without sweat, complaint, or intimidation at the enormity of their task and I felt as though I were in the presence of superheroes…Mankind is capable of creating some truly awesome structures to behold. I took a step back to marvel at the skyscrapers that surrounded me. Their stiletto silhouettes glittered in the sunlight, serving as further affirmation of all that we can accomplish when we put our minds to it. I smiled.
Just as suddenly as I was admiring our man-made ingenuity, I became exposed to another beautiful element of reality: human solidarity. In a matter of minutes, the workers from a local bakery shop had poured out into the street, side-stepped the wet concrete, and presented the road crew with upwards of seven different platters of cookies. It was an absurd scene. Cookies for concrete?! I watched as the road crew fumbled to handle these chocolate frosted delicacies with their concrete-caked, sun-baked hands and laughed. They were laughing too. In fact, in that moment, I felt like the whole city of Minneapolis was engulfed in glee.
Some of you might imply that I was witnessing a phenomenon known as “Minnesota Nice” but I know for a fact that this kind of sincerity and compassion is not a strictly Midwestern gene. We only have to take a step back and open our eyes a little wider to see that every day, everywhere, good people are coming together to solve a problem, support one another, and make a difference. Whether its food for peace, cookies for concrete, or locks for love, we’re pushing the future in a positive way. Dear Minneapolis, thanks for reminding me of that. 
Richard Branson Goes Hungry for Darfur
Richard Branson explains in a video blog why he has chosen to take up Mia Farrow’s fast for Darfur:
“We fast in solidarity with the people of Darfur because they do not have a choice. We fast as a personal expression of outrage at a world that has allowed the suffering of millions of innocent people. We fast because as we simply watched, Darfur’s defenceless people were forced into wretched camps where today they are facing starvation and disease. We fast because those in positions of authority who know what is right and just, could and should do more to alleviate their suffering and bring peace, protection, and justice to the people of Sudan.
We fast for Darfur’s courageous people —because we yearn for a world where human rights are respected and a life of dignity is the legacy for every man, woman and child.
Please join us and get involved in supporting the people of Darfur by going to www.fastdarfur.org and taking action.”
Branson told Entertainment Weekly that his decision to take up a three day fast for Darfur in the aftermath of the Sudanese government’s decision to expel 16 international aid organizations is “the first time I’ve deprived my stomach to get political change.” I commend his efforts and view his support of Darfur as a powerful move. I recently wrote an article on the sway of the hunger strike in response to Evo Morales’ six-day hunger strike for election reform. People often brush aside the efforts of famous people in working for social action – like its some kind of sideshow to their otherwise luxurious lifestyle, but I will not condemn anyone who cares in any capacity that they can. Branson’s three-day hunger strike is a commitment that encourages so many others because his influence is so widespread.
[Sidenote: Shame on you, journalists, for introducing Mia Farrow as "the former wife of Frank Sinatra and the ex-girlfriend of Woody Allen" in nearly every article written on Farrow's handing over of the hunger strike to Richard Branson. Aside from her former career as an actress, singer, and model, she should be recognized first and foremost by her status as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF and her tireless work in the conflict-stricken regions of Sudan and Chad. If I find it annoying that she's still being introduced by her former love life, I can't imagine how she feels. Give the woman some due credit!]
Girl Power in Government
This week is almost too good to be true in the estrogen kingdom!
* Iceland officially chooses Johanna Sigurdardottir as the world’s first openly lesbian woman prime minister – you go girl!
* The wife of Kenyan Prime Minister Odinga has announced her official participation in a “sex boycott” ordered to end the political feud that is currently paralyzing the Kenyan government. I imagine it was something along the lines of : “Sorry hubby, if you won’t put out for Kenya, I won’t put out for you.”
* Last but not least, the resignation of Justice David Souter from the Supreme Court has sent rumors flying that a female replacement is in the works. Finally, order in the court!
In Iceland, Johanna Sigurdardottir’s left-wing coalition is taking power from the conservative, independent party. The 18-year leadership of the latter, male-dominated party is widely regarded as being responsible for the country’s current economic collapse. Under Sigurdardottir, women are returning in high numbers to parliamentary positions. The Icelandic media has even identified their new government as the fourth strongest female power house in the world.
While Iceland is showing females that there’s strength in numbers, Ida Odinga, wife of the Kenyan PM proved today that there’s also strength in…um, well, you know…down there. Kenya’s Federation of Women Lawyers has been urging the wives of top ranking politicians involved in both sides of the stand-off to abstain from having sex with their husbands until a resolution is reached. “Women wanted to drive the issue home…they did it with a light touch,” Odinga spoke out on her decision to join the protest. Her response is fitting as she is well-known for being a woman of few words, but full of calculated action. In September of last year, she turned down the traditional $70,000 paycheck given to all wives of state for their “social responsibilities”, an act of grace that the Kenyan media praised very highly.
In the United States, all eyes are on the next Supreme Court candidate. The Daily Beast has laid out its list of top picks, not even bothering to insist on gender neutrality. Convinced that a democratic female has the highest bid, they have profiled Diane P. Wood, Sonia Sotomayor, Kim Mclane Wardlaw, Leah Ward Sears, and a few more to give you a peek at who may be in store. One look at their extensive qualifications and us women of the world can breathe a huge sigh of relief. Miss California, Rest In Peace.
Why Moldova Still Matters
These past two weeks, I have been sitting back and observing the aftermath of the Moldova riots with a more critical eye. Regrettably, as is sometimes the case with journalists who have the hots for a headline before they know what they’re getting into, I find myself wishing to retract my “Twitter Riots Take Moldova” post. It is a clear example of my wanting to “jump on the bandwagon” with the buzz behind the latest technology. In particular, I get excited any time a social networking tool manifests some form of concrete social action, but I may have OD’ed on that excitement too soon. I’m not sure the Moldova riots consitute positive social action as much as they represent a lot of very pissed off people living in what is ranked as the “world’s unhappiest country” and it is becoming increasingly clear that Twitter, although present, was not the fulcrum of the April 7th events.
In much the same way we must first suffer the consequences of partaking in a rounds of shots before discovering the wisdom behind slowly enjoying a beer, I fell prey to the knee-jerk reaction of journalistic fever. Knee-jerk reactions are not uncommon – (take internet guru Clay Shirky’s incredibly articulate apology to Amazon after the LGBT book de-listing drama, for example) – and it is often harder to detect in the digital world, being that the “need for speed” is tantamount to today’s news.
First, I must tip my hat to blogger, Daniel Bennett, who critiqued the error of my eagerness with his own commentary on the same day that I posted my Moldova entry. Bennett is a PhD student researching the impact of blogging and new media on the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism at King’s College in London and since checking out his link that day, I have found him to be full of excellent insight on the subject matter. We appear to share a mutual interest in Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and a PUSH 2005 Speaker. Zuckerman has been doing an extremely informative follow-up on the use of Twitter and other social networking tools during the Moldova riots on his own blog, My Heart is in Accra. He was also featured on NPR’s On the Media on April 17th, adding a technological lense to the events.
“My take on it at this point is that Twitter probably wasn’t all that important in organizing the demonstrations,” Zuckerman states. “Where I think they were enormously important is in helping people, particularly people in the Moldavan Diaspora, keep up with the events in real time.” Zuckerman also recognizes that social media tools were involved in disseminating information after the riots in regards to arrests and other issues and that it is even arguably being used as a channel of disinformation by others. As a person who shares a strong connection to the livelihood of a sometimes tumultuous Northern Ireland and as someone who has been arrested (as a reporter, mind you) at the RNC riots, I can definitely appreciate the value of social media tools being used for communication and organization in the aftermath of important events.
Whether (or when) we decide to call the Moldova uprising the “Twitter” Revolution is another story. Zuckerman loosely traces the food chain of this headline as originating from a UK Telegraph story which was then picked up by a highly-trafficked blog; eventually, Twitter and Moldova ended up on the front page of the New York Times the next day. Anne Applebaum, a columnist for the Washington Post, also offers a great critique of the Twitter flashpan. She suggests, “What we witnessed…was not a new kind of Twitter Revolution but, rather, a new kind of manipulated revolution; not an Orange or a Rose Revolution, but a revolution deliberately led astray. There were special circumstances, of course: It’s relatively easy to make people angry and get them to burn down government buildings in the world’s unhappiest country. Still, I predict this is a sign of more such “revolutions” to come. A scenario like this one is too good to waste on Moldova alone.” Twitter revolutions they may not be, but do they have the potential? We’ll see.
Mein Kampf: The New Business 101 Primer
As PUSH advocated at our 2005 conference feature “Lessons from Deviants” and more recently in our “Diamonds in the Rough” post, more often than not, there is a method to one’s madness and that method is worth studying. Indian business students have certainly caught onto this strategy, as demonstrated by the recent increase in demand for Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf. In the last six months, sales of the book surpassed 10,000 copies in New Delhi alone.
The owner of a Mumbai-based bookstore explained the phenomenon as such: “They [Indian business students] see it as a kind of success story where one man can have a vision, work out a plan on how to implement it and then successfully complete it”. In other words, however twisted that vision was, his business plan to execute it was not. The passage of time may now have finally afforded us enough distance to critically study the methodology behind Hitler, Goebbels, and others that created such an impressive force to be reckoned with… And the fact that Indian business students are the ones with enough savvy to recognize his logistical merit is a nice little jab of irony for Adolf. It just proves you don’t have to Aryan to be smart.
A Preview of A Global Dinner Party
This Monday, I had the opportunity to attend a test dinner of the Push Institute’s much-anticipated Global Dinner Party (now in its pilot phase) at the home of Sam and Sylvia Kaplan. The guest list included four lawyers (from corporate to entertainment to constitutional/security-torture-rendition, our mayor, a singer, a serial entrepreneur, a college student in need of a free meal/younger blogger (me), and others. The three-course dinner featured matzoh ball soup and salad, a Middle Eastern main dish, and chocolate meringue for dessert, but the conversation undoubtedly proved to be the main affair – so much that, I confess, I rather slacked off on taking notes. Like a good meal after a long day (when you don’t stop to wipe your face until you’ve cleaned your plate), I became so engrossed in the conversation that I did not pause to take notes for fear of missing the debate.
In our review of the evening, Cecily explained that “The aim of A Global Dinner Party is to bring people together over food and ideas, to share and challenge thinking about where we’re headed. We’re creating a 3-course menu of questions on topics such as energy, immigration, life expectancy, worldviews, exploration of space and ocean, morality, and other such juicy stuff. If the conversation broadens and inspires people’s thinking, all while having fun, then the dinner is a success. Ultimately, these are the kinds of experiences that ultimately impact how decisions are made — which is how change is made — and that’s what we’re after! Share a dinner, create community, and change the world — what could be better?”
Discussion for the evening focused on (which) factors that create a stable and robust society. I’m not sure that we arrived at any answers, though there was agreement that a malleable framework (ability to identify and adapt to change) was indeed a key aspect. Some thought that framework depends on the soft stuff of trust and community, while others leaned toward the hard stuff of social institutions, i.e. government, constitution, laws, banks, schools, health care, philanthropy, etc. It’s a chicken-egg/nature-nurture dialogue, but consensus wasn’t the goal, rather this group preferred to describe how a stable and robust society feels, looks, behaves. Terms used included safety, diversity, education, resilience, identity, production of goods and services, access to opportunity, common good, and leadership. Tom Wiese, my partner in the one-on-one discussion even argued that lazy people were an important aspect of society because the ambitious are motivated by others lack of action. – Interesting take!
The conversation then moved to encompass the benefits of our increasingly open-source government. With the introduction of interactive internet tools, more people are able to weigh in and hold sway. Nate Garvis of Target Corporations argued, “We have been suffering from a failure of creativity. We tend to throw the government and military at every problem. We use old tools for the new age when what we really need is more social innovation. The internet tools we now have allowed us to expand greatly in the world of social innovation.”
I could continue, but it doesn’t merit much for me to give you a play-by-play. It is our hope that every global dinner party will have its own unique face, but all will offer the opportunity to engage.
“The dinners are by design,” Cecily says. “It’s a way of humanizing ourselves.”
“I think we are surrounded by messages that drive us apart,” Nate adds. “We need to focus more on what we have in common and what better place to bring us all together than over the dinner table?”
We Are Not Alone…No, Seriously
The complete IMF World Economic Outlook was released this week with much anticipation and inevitably, disappointment as the conclusion was made that a recovery by next year is highly unlikely. With headers such as “Sovereigns Under Stress” and “How Did Things Get So Bad So Fast?”, we might as well add, “Oh Holy #$%@ What Are We Going To Do Now?!” Fortunately, astronomers at the the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (of England) gave us the answer on Tuesday: we can move. Where to? Your choice: Planet Gleise 518 e or Gleise 518 d. Neither has quite the ring to it as “Earth”, but they may very well be the next hospitable planet in our vicinity.
“This discovery is absolutely extraordinary, ” Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkley explained to the Associated Press. While Gliese 581 e appears to be too hot for life, it demonstrates that nature has made small planets similar to our own. (Gliese 581 e is only 1.9 times the size of earth, the first planet discovered closer in size to Earth than to Jupiter.) Many more planets are likely to exist in the “hospitable zone”, a distance from the sun that allows for water to be present on the planet. Gliese 581 d, discovered in 2007, also lies within this range. Research so far suggests that Gliese 581 d is a rocky planet, but the potential for a deep ocean, still undiscovered, is present.
Astronomers released their findings at this week’s European Week of Astronomy and Space Science. Gliese 581 e was first located using the European Southern Observatory’s telescope in La Silla, Chile. This telescope comes equipped with a special instrument that splits light in order to find wobbles in different wavelengths. These “wobbles” can then unveil the existence of other planets in other galaxies. Absolutely fascinating stuff.
The Do Re Mi Dance
I think we need more of this in the world today.
Mapping Where It's At
“The Geography of Buzz” study was recently unveiled at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers and it pretty much told us what we already know. Based on thousands of photographs nabbed from Getty Images since March 2006 of New York and L.A., the study shows that icons such as Times Square and Kodak Theatre are icons for a reason: people go there.
Yet the real question is: who goes there? The authors of the study judged the popularity or “buzz” of an event by how many images of pictures of the happening were posted. Since images are posted on Getty primarily for purchase, this would signify that a picture worth being posted for profit definitely held some kind of buzz. But again, who’s buzz?
Ms. Elizabeth Currid, one of the authors of the study, admits to this fundamental flaw when she says, ““There’s an economy of scale. The media goes to places where they know they can take pictures that sell. And the people in these fields show up because the media is there.” Fortunately, she also recognizes how to mediate (pardon the pun) this problem.
Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, blogs – these are where people are talking not for profit and well before the media has even caught on. “We’re going to see more research that’s using these types of finer-grained data sets, what I call data shadows, the traces that we leave behind as we go through the city,” she said. “They’re going to be important in uncovering what makes cities so dynamic.” The future of culture-maps? I think so.
