Your government officially approves of torture and indefinite detention.
I used to worry about being called a bleeding heart liberal. You know, I rather be that than a cold-hearted conservative. Jesus wants us to torture - I don't think so. My belief deep down is that, somehow, this will come back to haunt those pricks willing to destroy the constitution in order to protect the most pitiful president this country has ever had.
Incredible. Where is my country?
Am I the only who finds this a little annoying towards the end? BTW, I think the eagle wins.
I spent the day at a conference about the importance of play and, by default, gaming. All guest speakers were quite interesting and enjoyed myself until the last question and answer period. Then it struck me: what a luxury it is to talk about games.
Let me back up. The speakers included Shawn Rider, a down-to-earth gamer and former instructor currently working at PBS, who provided a great general overview of the field of game studies. Laurie Taylor, from University of Florida, who discussed gender representation in games. Dr. Taylor's discussion, like Shawn's, provided context and prompted quite a bit of commentary from the gameplayers in the audience. She began the project of laying out the problems of gender, race, and (to a degree) ethnicity representations both in the games themselves and the media about the games.
The final lecturer Julian Dibbell, of "A Rape in Cyberspace" fame, spoke on what he called Ludocapitalism and goldfarming in networked online games (MMOs to those in the know).
During the panel question and answer period, an emeritus Economics professor sitting next to me raised a number of questions about real world implications of games. The initial question, if I remember, was regarding the lack of any critical review or mentoring that happens when a young person consumes the narrative in a game. The panel response was that the game as medium is not unlike the novel to which I countered that we learn to evaluate novels critically in school but are left to our own devices with video games.
As the conversation progressed, the Economics professor made a statement, in response to something Dibbell had said about how wide-spread gaming culture was (hence his thesis that play is to the 21st century economy as steam was in the 19th century), to the effect that games are, in essence, the toys of a mere few.
I asked Dibbell if he went to the villages in China. He explained that the countryside is where many of the virtual sweatshops and goldfarming firms are popping up. I didn't pursue it further but I should have called bullshit on that.
Here's where I stand. Let's set up the picture:
~ 50% of the global population live in urban areas
~ 45% of the people in the world live without basic sanitation
~ 20% live without clean water sources
~ 15% are going hungry (this includes people in all continents on the globe)
only 10% have received a secondary education
here's where it gets interesting:
only about 10% of the world's population owns a computer with only 2.8% actually having internet access.
50% of the people in the world live off of less than ~$2 US/day
Um, I think a sizeable chunk of the world's population could careless about games. Thus I would posit that Ludocapitalism is but one form of SplinterCapitalism (if Dibbell can create neologisms so can I, dammit). Anything goes in order to preserve power. Material goods are there in all their oily splendor and that reality is very Old School Capitalism.
While I would like to see creative production in the digital era be supported and grow with a healthy dose of play (Homo Faber meets Homo Ludens), my excitement about the potential of gift economies and of anarcho-communism as their underpinnings, is often watered down with day-to-day evidence that Capitalism is feisty beast who will not go away. One result, perhaps, are the statistics above.
But that is immaterial as is, Julian Dibbell will tell you, much of what we trade these days. Yet to do so is a sign of extreme wealth and luxury.
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/poverty/edocuments.htm
http://www.unicef.org/sowc06/
http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/povmap/ds_info.html
A shady lawn stretches out in front the administration building at the University of Idaho - a reminant of the original campus designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of Central Park in New York.
Maybe it is that New York connection that made it a interesting place for a 9/11 memorial. This morning the lawn was covered in 3000 minature flags.
That's quite a number of flags. In fact, I assume that was the desired affect. The small multiples (as Edward Tufte calls them) work in a number of ways:
- a visual rhythm is produced through the repetition of colors and symbols
- a reference to graveyards is made with row upon row of headstones
- a certain 'wow' factor is achieved as our visual field is consumed with little flags
It is not my goal to critique someone's display (although I did wonder what 100,000 little Iraqi flags would look like) but I sort of wondered if this mode of presentation - in particular the use of small multiples - actually works against the idea of it being a memorial. We lose the fact that each flag really represents someone.
Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial is powerful in part because every single name is written on that wall. Other displays (sometimes during protests) have used props to remind the viewer that the numbers represent actual people.
Regardless, it is interesting that someone felt compelled to sit on the grass and plant each flag by hand.
These photos of hurricane Katrina are breathtaking. I really like the images like this one where the calm sky is being overwhelmed by ferocious clouds. Click on the image to see more in the photoset.
At one point in my life I had a friend who carelessly admitted to me that she thought that I was like a cartoon character both in appearance and action. Now, I am not quite sure if you understand the ramifications of such a statement. For me, it seemed to throw my life into disarray. Young girls and boys (I must’ve been maybe 13 or 14 at the time) are, I’m sure you remember, often unsure of themselves as so much of their character is formed and transformed by an internal dialogue shaped in large part by social interactions - especially those with the opposite sex.
Like the vestibular system, the interior dialogue that the pre-teen has with him or herself helps maintain social balance and forward momentum. If the system is pulled or pushed too far, the result in a sort of destabilization and, more often than not, the need to grab onto something. Quick.
I never seemed to be able to properly stabilize myself and, instead, I think I sort of began to embrace the notion that I was in fact a cartoon.
What does that mean? On the surface, I guess, it is a simple adaptive measure developed in part from the fact that, like my gen-x peers, I’ve watched way too much television. But how convenient it is to daydream like Ralph Phillips. Or simply be my default character, that goofy vulture from Bugs Bunny. (I am convinced that that is how I must be perceived most of the time)
I am not divulging this to elicit sympathy or pity but it has become a bit problematic. I look at my peers who can command a classroom. I see the years of training, the intellectual fire, and, most importantly, a well-crafted reputation being built before my eyes. Then I go to speak and facilitate and do all the things an instructor or mentor is supposed to do and in the back of my mind there is that damn singing frog who only performs in private - never at the pivotal moment. That’s me.
I don’t know what to do. I am embarrassed to admit that this is becoming more of an existential crisis at this point. Why can’t I escape my own mental model of myself?
The immaturity involved in sustaining such idiocy is staggering. Yet I am fully cognizant of my own role in this game. While I am convinced that everyone struggles to upright themselves after the vicious push and pull of adolescence, I still wonder if others, out there, circumscribe themselves so narrowly through the media they consumed.
I guess I will go along with it until I can find an alternative mental model. In the meantime, there is always the mid-century cartoon renaissance to keep me stabilized.
While this concept still uses the very dated desktop metaphor, I find the additional use of touch screen and the 3D effects very nice. I'd like to see more.
That whistling has got to go!
Dennis's shout out to Olberman highlights a week of rising voices and a political inversion that is becoming apparent. This inversion is something that could've happened earlier if only more people had had the courage to come forward (people in positions of influence) and protest.
My shout out goes to Rocky Anderson, the mayor of Salt Lake City who spoke in direct reference to the administration's spin happening at the American Legion conference in Salt Lake. A portion of the speech is here. For a write up about Rocky Anderson see this article in The Nation.
When the national momentum shifts, the inversion is possible. While it is pretty clear in a meta-reading of recent polls that a majority of those polled are weary of our government, it frustrates me to no end that we've had to wait for this inversion.
I can't decide whether it is a popular course to take and, if so, if we should tone down our celebration of those now dissenting voices. Where, for instance, are the 20 year olds whose lives could be most impacted by our foreign policy and our reckless fiscal practices and the aftermath that they will inherit? Why aren't they on the streets? Or are they quietly dissenting online? Logging in to some progressive myspace to plan the revolution? I doubt it.
The proof will be in the pudding. What will the congress be and how will it act? Will they be the counter balance to the administration? Will the GOP figure some way to tweak the election results in their favor?
And what about Iran? How will that come to play? It seems that there are so many things in play. I am somewhat pessimistic. But then again Olberman's Murrow moment and Mayor Anderson's unabashed progressive populism do ignite hope and, with any luck, we will see the celebrations spread. Come November.
