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23 March 2008
Sense and Consequence - Redux II
It never ceases to shock and to bewilder me when people act against sense and against the very data presented before it to warn against such acts in the first place. Clearly, there are minds, there is evidence, and there are paragons of brilliance very much alive. And yet, the asinine folly and sheer stupidity runs rampantly at the consequence, detriment, harm, and loss to 'Joe Public'.
Why?
Why, when we know better.
Why, when we are advised better?
Why, when we are warned so fervently by our past?
Why, when the ghosts of tragedy abound, do we continue to feed the cesspool of our society's dysfunction?
Why, when we have such great examples to follow, do we continue to choose so precipitously and so wrongly?
Think I am exaggerating? Well then, let us just take a 'peek' at our economic sector:
Open up the papers, turn on the weekly business reports, and it is clear that stupidity abounds. If we believe the reports today, our economic state is:
1) in a 'downturn' (although the 4th Quarter 2007 reports positive economic growth) and
2) falling to a 'recession' (although it is too premature to declare so, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research's definition of a recession that there must be two consecutive quarters of economic decline) marked by
a) the sell-off of Bear Stearns (although this was more a manipulation/bullying of the hedge fund fiasco fueled by power and greed run amok),
b) 'rising' unemployment (although the National Bureau statistics claim the opposite),
c) 'crashing' housing market (although after coming off a 'boom', this could be a natural progression to this characteristically cyclical market),
d) fluctuating currencies (although that is the historical nature of the world currencies), and a
e) cascading snowball that is our world financial markets as the societe generale and credit suisse sort out their scandals and the asian markets 're-adjust' their 'positions and positioning'.
In the face of all this (premature, gossip-manipulated) press, thank goodness for the remaining vestiges of truth qua sense via Ben Stein (a must read: Ben Stein's "Making Sense of a Scared New World," The New York Times, 23 March 2008). It is rather unfortunate that it should require such a sovereign mind as Stein's to have to assemble, categorize, present, and publish the data - yes, the actual facts - before us, and with such brilliance that any 'lay person' can grasp with absolute clarity...
Stupidity fueled by 'herdism' and manipulation is here to stay, but at least we have warnings and little bastions of 'truth' to provide light in the darkness, thereby enabling us to identify the cesspool as such.
Kudos, Ben Stein.
Shame on you, 'watchdogs' - ahem, SEC, the Fed - for knowing well the Milken scandal, the technology crash, the October Black Friday - and persisting rather than deterring. Shame on you for creating SarbOx and not acting on it, not furthering it, to impress upon the call for transparency and disclosure...
There is far too much licentious manipulation fueled by (capitalist) greed at the expense of 'Joe Public' - JP who is the hardworking backbone holding up the economy with his grueling Monday-Friday 7 a.m. - 8 p.m. routine, busting his hump, fighting out the rat race, only to be bullied, trampled, and herded like a hypnotized fool. Shame on you for beating him down and stealing his future...
In a capitalist economy that cattle calls the masses to effect a 'snowball' of loss and deception, why not wrestle the megaphone away and declare a 'snowball' of individuality backed by sense, data, and truth qua facts?
In more ways than one - hyphenation - and this is the haiku:
one - truth,
one - de-hypnotize,
one to break the herd,
one - potentiality,
one - hyphenation, please...
...and if not hyphenation, then why not begin with the original idea - the think...
Think for your self,
think for your truth,
think for your potentiality,
and you will be one step closer towards your individuality and freedom from the mental enslavement of herdism...
...and more importantly, to your truth qua voice in action, and towards change,
towards effective difference.
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15 March 2008
Sense and Consequence Redux
There is an episode of Seinfeld where he goes to pick up a rental car with Elaine and learns that the car rental place does not have his car. He explains to the Rep that she knows how to take reservations but does not know how to hold reservations - the whole point to the reservation in the first place.
Joking aside, Seinfeld makes a point.
Adding to the cesspool of moronic, asinine, corrupt, irresponsible behavior spurred and fueled by capitalist greed, yet another senseless 'accident' occured today at 2:15 p.m. EST in Manhattan's Upper East Side (between 51st Street and 2nd Avenue). Accident? I should say, 'killing' because that is what it really comes down to:
Despite multiple violations and what many passersby even deemed 'unsafe', a construction site with an 'unstable' crane continued to stand until the crane crashed into a building killing four people, thus far.
What is the point of a violation if it goes unanswered? What is the point to a violation if it is ignored and leads to death(s)? What is the point of SAFETY VIOLATIONS if it fails to protect the public safety?
It is one thing to dispense violations - the whole point is to correct them - and if they are left uncorrected, the construction company, architect, and project manager(s) should be assessed heavy punitive damages.
How about this:
If a site gets a violation, shut it down. If it is clear to a passersby that a site is unsafe, shut it down. (Neighboring residents even joked about the site, expecting an accident to happen any second as they prudently decided to cross to the opposite street to avoid potential harm.) Correct the violation(s) then - and not until then - let the construction proceed.
That site was not just an 'accident waiting to happen', it was a site of ocular bureaucracy, 'passing the buck', negligence, cheap neglect and irresponsibility to say the least.
Today so much attention is focused on 'celebutardism' and political sex scandals. What about infractions that are left unanswered to the detriment of innoncent lives?
One death is one too many. A life lost can not be replaced, must not be overlooked, and should not be left unaccounted.
For what happened this afternoon, shame on you Manhattan.
Shame on you Scott Stringer (Manhattan Burough President) for knowing about this and failing to act. Your pointless rhetoric and inaction perpetrated these murders.
Shame on you department of buildings.
Shame on you architect, construction company, project manager, and crane company.
Unfortunately, the greater shame here is it will not be the first nor the last time this happens...and we are so proud of the ongoing rebuilding, renovations, and construction around the city...
Progress, indeed...
Hyphenation paradox, redux...
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2 March 2008
X of X. Sense and Consequence - Education, Censorship, and Hyphenation
Currently, there are two overarching trends at odds with each other. There is the trend towards expanding the horizons and possibilities of potentiality and there is the countertrend towards closing doors to hope, education, and our future advancement. Don't believe me? Here are some real examples:
Expansion - Trend
1) Google recently announced the debut of "a free service designed for high-tech neophytes looking for a simple way to share information with other people working in the same company or attending the same class in school. With only a few clicks, just about anyone will be able to quickly set up and update a Web site featuring...pictures, calendars and video from Google Inc's YouTube subsidiary" (Michael Liedtke, "Google Unveils Tools to Set Up Web Sites," San Francisco Chronicle, 28 February 2008).
2) Interactive sites and iPods are making it easier to learn foreign languages, according to a recent article (Anne Eisenberg, "Languages less foreign, thanks to Internet," San Francisco Chronicle, 24 February 2008). In other words, through our electronic technologies, we are mediating an effective change to our learning abilities, especially as it pertains to languages. Whereas the best immersion for language learning is through direct contact and practice, e-technologies can mediate the same experience with successful results.
If only we could apply this to general education and to research and development...
3) International scientists headed by Harvard biologist, Edward O. Wilson, are working on building a Web site (Encyclopedia of Life) as an online Book of All Species (Carl Zimmer, "The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required," The New York Times, 26 February 2008). It is expected to include in excess of 1.77 million pages within the next decade.
Contraction - CounterTrend
1) "Parents at Woodin Elementary in Bothell are questioning why their neighborhood school with a growing enrollment and a successful English-Spanish immersion program has been slated for closure as the Northshore School District seeks ways to make up a $3.4 million budget deficit" (Lynn Thompson, "Parents question closure plan for Woodin Elementary in Bothell," The Seattle Times, 29 February 2008). If the plan goes through, about eight hundred (800) students at six (6) elementary schools will be reassigned. This disruption will result in a $700K savings.
2) "California State University East Bay has fired a math teacher after six weeks on the job because she inserted the word 'nonviolently' in her state-required Oath of Allegiance form" (Nanette Asimov, "Quaker teacher fired for changing loyalty oath," San Francisco Chronicle, 29 February 2008). Whereas school districts accepted her modifications, Cal State East Bay would not. The university's attorney, Eunice Chan, explained Cal State's reason: "Modifying the oath 'is very clearly not permissable'...'If she'd just sign the oath, the campus would have been more than willing to continue her employment.' " (Ahem, narrow-mindedness where such things have no place...)
3) "The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, one of the nation's largest student loan operations, announced...it would suspend making federal-guaranteed loans starting early next month" (Jonathan D. Glater, "A Lender Halts U.S.-Backed Student Loans," The New York Times, 28 February 2008). Some of the factors going into this decision include: "Congress reduced subsidies to lenders in the federal-guaranteed student loan program. In addition, investors have recently shied away from purchasing securities backed by student loans, making it more costly for the lenders to raise the capital they need."
4) Recently, the New College of California has lost its accreditation, signaling its impending close and a loss for all its students (Tanya Schevitz, "Agency rescinds New College's accreditation," San Francisco Chronicle, 28 February 2008). The school is described as a "progressive alternative to traditional higher education, offering credits for life experience and unique programs like a master's degree in activism and social change." With roughly thirty faculty and thirty instructors, the school offered programs in law, psychology, and teacher credentialing, among others.
5) Last year, Morocco banned access to YouTube. Last spring, it was Thailand that banned access to YouTube. In January 2008, Turkey joined Morocco and Thailand and also banned the video site. On 24 February 2008, Pakistan joined Morocco, Thailand, and Turkey by banning access to the video site (Sadaqat Jan, "Pakistan Blocks YouTube Video Access," San Francisco Chronicle, 24 February 2008).
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So what is the problem with countertrends and why this wave towards closure?
Precisely because the US hails itself as the bastion of freedom, equality, and guaranteed civil liberties (no matter how illusory the facade) and because it perpetrates continued acts in line with non-democratic nations freely exercising censorship and tight controls over its populace, it is an outright indignity to continue living the sham by maintaining the pretense. Call a spade a spade and interject some common sense here:
With all the progressive strides we continue to achieve, there is no reason nor room for us to continue our foothold in the past, let alone sprint backwards a few leagues for each half-step forwards.
Take in point the following:
In 2005, The Seattle Times published an article asking the US why it can't be more like Finland (Robert G. Kaiser, "Why can't we be more like Finland?," The Seattle Times, 25 September 2005). Indeed, Kaiser makes great points:
"Finland is a leading example of the northern European view that a successful, competitive society should provide basic social services to all its citizens at affordable prices or at no cost. This isn't controversial in Finland; it's taken for granted.[...] If we Americans are so rich and so smart, why can't we treat our citizens as well as the Finns treat theirs?"
Suspend disbelief about Americans being "so smart" and set aside the debate about the poor quality of the US educational system, and the case Kaiser makes becomes compelling.
If America is supposed to be free, equal, and abundant with opportunity and hope, then why are we so free to be equal prey to such blatantly counter-democratic policies, legislation, and corruption?
Why do we so freely steel any opportunity of hope and equality from ourselves and our future?
Kaiser goes on to provide a 'report card' of Finland, as of 2005:
1) The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland ranked Finland's economy as the most competitive in the world.
2) Yale and Columbia's 'sustainability index' ranks Finland first to be able to protect the natural environment over the next several decades.
3) The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed statistically that Finland invests more of its GDP in research and development than any other country except Sweden.
4) Transparency International's global survey reported Finland as perceptually the least corrupt country in the world.
5) Finns read newspapers and borrow library books at rates as high or higher than all other countries.
6) Finnish fifteen-year olds score first in the industrial world on comparative tests of their academic abilities.
7) Finland trains more musicians, per capita, than any other country.
If you think these statistics are exclusive to 2005, think again.
Every three years, fifty-seven (57) countries administer the Pisa exam to fifteen-year olds to measure proficiency in math, science, and reading. In 2008, Finland again ranked smartest in the world (Ellen Gamerman, "What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?," The Wall Street Journal, 29 February 2008). To understand possible factors for the high scores, Gamerman cites the Finns' love of reading as well as the fact that they are more self-reliant.
Compare this to the herd mentality that was the basis of the Bikhchandani-Hirshleifer-Welch 'information cascades' theory of 1992 (Robert J. Shiller, "How a Bubble Stayed Under the Radar," The New York Times, 2 March 2008) and the disturbingly poor levels within the American educational system, and it becomes increasingly obvious, if not embarrassing...
By the way, one of the most fundamental Finnish values is " 'to provide equal opportunities in life for everyone' " - and Finland is a lot closer to upholding this value in truth and in practice than the US ever has, thus far. If equality of opportunity can be effected and is proven to be viable, tenable, and sustainable, and we have an excellent paragon as a model, there is no reason we can not follow suit and make good on our facade.
Why not cast aside the sham and back our ideology with substantive praxis?
Until we do, America as the 'dream of a promised land' is nothing more than a dream, flimsy, fleeting, and ephemeral...
...and so it is to Langston Hughes to remind us what happens to a dream deferred...
Hyphenation, please. There is no reason to close the doors on hope...to suffocate the imagination...
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2 March 2008
IX of X. Sense and Consequence - The Sociological Imagination
In Bernard Phillips and David Christner's essay, "Manifesto for Deep Democracy: Social Science Transforming Society," they write of the problems of this century, explaining that "efforts to solve problems have often led to worse problems" and the "overall situation appears to be increasingly problematic as fundamental problems continue to escalate". Problems they list include everything from pollution to income disparity to the general fear of our future survival and that of our next generations.
Their solution?
Through a combination of "extraordinary language", "deep democracy", an evolutionary worldview, and the scientific method, they propose a paradigm for a solution to the current crisis:
"Indeed, with language and the scientific method the human being has the capacity for infinite development, as illustrated by the continuing development of scientific knowledge. This incredible potential applies to each of us as individuals, just as it applies to the institution of science within society."
Phillips and Christner identify the "bureaucratic way of life" as the principal culprit for all these problems. Not only is it "at the heart of escalating problems" but also it "is powerful enough to trump the broad ideals of the scientific method....as a result scientists remain unable to penetrate very far into the complex problems that they face at this time in history."
To counter the bureaucratic, they propose "deep democracy":
" 'Deep democracy' reaches beyond the political institution and has to do with our overall way of life within all of our institutions. Within the institution of science it calls for all of us learning to use the scientific method in our everyday lives. Within our family, friendship groups, religious groups and organizations, it calls on all of us to treat one another as equals...Within the economic institution it calld for effective efforts to end poverty and a halt to the worldwide increasing gap between the rich and the poor. This idea for deep democracy joins with the call within all world religions for seeing the individual human being as having ultimate worth, and treating her accordingly."
In what sounds more like mental agility than sociological imagination, they quote C. Wright Mills:
"The sociological imagination[...] It is the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self - and to see the relations between the two (1959:7)"
But where Phillips and Christner's article aligns with hyphenation theory is in their citation of Alvin W. Gouldner, from his article, "The Politics of Mind: Reflections on Flack's Review of The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology":
"The pursuit of...understanding...can not promise that men...with their everyday language and understanding, will always be capable of further understanding and of liberating themselves. At decisive points the ordinary language and conventional understandings fail and must be transcended. It is essentially the task of the social sciences...to create new and 'extraordinary' languages, to help men learn to speak them, and to mediate between the deficient understandings of ordinary language and the different and liberating perspectives of the extraordinary languages of social theory (1972:16)"
Indeed, hyphenation is liberation to truth and accuracy in accounting for the reality of our present. Technology and virtuality everyday effect electronically mediated lives that is part of the collective experience today.
Interestingly, Phillips and Christner incorporate Eastern philosophy (in 'careful' doses) to their paradigm, using deep democracy and karate as metaphors for an "East-West strategy in everyday life" and the equation of raised aspirations and fulfillment:
"Karate...can help us to understand some of the concrete implications of Buddhism and thus, help Western readers to understand how to employ an East-West strategy in everyday life."
Point of correction here and just plain courteous respect to Buddhists:
Phillips and Christner would do well to understand one thing if it is the only thing they understand about the East - you do not employ the East, nor its philosophy, religion, and thought to a strategy, just as you would the scientific method to an hypothesis. Buddhism in particular and Eastern philosophy in general, as well as Eastern precepts, are ways of life. They are a worldview qua worldview - as a vision through which to observe, act, engage, and to experience.
Thousands of years of knowledge against a couple hundred years notwithstanding, if you endeavour to take the East 'piecemeal' as you would any other Western thought, do not bother, because you only take away and transmogrify it into a sham and defile it in your careless 'action'...
Ironically, Phillips and Christner quote Alexander Pope that "A little learning is a dangerous thing" and they take nothing away from that. Why quote someone if you do not even heed their advice, and rather fall to the very error the quote warns against?
To learn a minutia about another culture and generalize that as the culture in toto - well, you do not need common sense to know that it is a big mistake, huge...and this is a significant part of the problem with America today...
"By keeping aspirations and fulfillment close together we point toward the East, and continuing to raise both of them we point to the West."
Of course, their fatal flaw here is their oversight in an entire culture and a body of knowledge spanning thousands of years - still with hidden scrolls and texts yet to be discovered - in an all too neat solution just as neat as their simplistic culprit - 'the bureaucratic way of life'...
I do agree with them in their call for "an alternative worldview" although I do not think their 'evolutionary worldview' is the solution:
"In our own case it is an evolutionary worldview that promises to guide all of us to narrow our aspirations-fulfillment gap, to help us make progress on our visible problems, and to enable scientists to move toward their ideals."
First of all:
Scientists have no use for 'ideals' as such. They deal in the concrete world of facts, reason, and method. Ideals belong to the realm of theory and philosophy and not the praxis required in science and scientific experimentation and research.
Second:
Narrowing the 'aspirations-fulfillment gap' is not the solution.
Interject some common sense here:
You want to achieve "A" but are prevented from doing so, so you redirect your aim to something else altogether - an ersatz fragment of "A" - rather than remove the obstacle.
This is nothing but nonsense and antiquated, to boot.
Again, common sense:
Anyone alive today must realize the magnitude of electronic technologies. E-technologies are omnipresent and they effectively mediate for the individual a transcendence over traditional limitations of time, space, geography, and normative dualities and obstacles. I have stated this in countless other blogs, but it is worth repeating.
Hyphenation is potentiality of potentiality and transcendence over erstwhile realities and normative assumed limitations. It is the current state of reality-virtuality that is experienced in a myriad of ways and simultaneously by individuals almost as seamlessly as breathing. It is the new language necessitated by our new electronic technologies and the new spheres of multiple reality-virtuality/virtuality-reality they mediate and that every individual utilizes in living experience. It is a clarion call to the doxa to account accurately and therefore, truthfully to the present to come one step closer to collective relevance in time, multiplicity, and direction...
Evolutinary worldviews and multiple sum games are part of the erstwhile doxa. Maintaining the rickety structure of an outdated language to push for change is to call for help after you have been already rescued. Pushing forward blindly, you end up replicating where you are already in excess, and overlook where you are in tremendous deficit, further worsening the problem.
In effect, Phillips and Christner fall prey to what they caution against in the beginning of their essay, "efforts to solve problems have often led to worse problems".
One saving grace in their paper is in their conclusion:
"Yet we have faith in the infinite potential of us human beings."
Hyphenation goes a level above potential to potentiality of potentiality, a far more potent source of creativity that individuals are realizing, materializing, and mediating through electronic technologies and entrepreneurial creativity...
Indeed, it is potential at the core of our solutions and the individual's initiative to appropriate an effective difference for himself and his fellow man...
Overall, Phillips and Christner write a rather compelling methodology to combat the current social ills. The flaw in their call for transforming society is their failure in recognizing that society is transforming already and individuals are enabling their own 'aspiration fulfillment'. Beyond this, individuals are mediating their own transcendence over traditional limitations of time, space, and geography, and by extension, metaphoricallly surpassing erstwhile and obsolete limitations to creativity and imagination. Where Phillips and Christner write in terms of potential, hyphenation covers potentiality and accounts for the individual's ability simultaneously to juggle multiple spheres of virtuality-reality and reality-virtuality with seamless ease, speed, and agility.
We are at two very different levels of remove...the proper call here is to expand the dialogue and bring the doxa collectively 'on the same page'...
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2 March 2008
VIII of X. Sense and Consequence - the Atom, the Body, the Brain, and the Galaxy: Hyphenation Imagination Realized
In ever more amazing advancements in the atomic sciences, IBM scientists announced they are now able to measure the force required to push an atom (Kenneth Chang, "Scientists Measure What It Takes to Push a Single Atom," The New York Times, 22 February 2008). With this accomplishment, we will be better able to determine the parameters and possibilites of constructing structures and electronic components from individual atoms.
For critical data theft detection, a Princeton University computer research group found that by chilling computer chips with condensed air, they could freeze data in place. By so doing, they found how individuals can extract information from a frozen chip, even after a computer has been powered off (John Markoff, "A Method for Critical Data Theft," The New York Times, 22 February 2008).
From the atom to the human body, the art sphere is taking on 'presence', the new reality-virtuality, and the postmodern move away from duality in recognition of the blur (ahem, hyphenation). Ocular proof of this move is in the new show at the NY MoMA, aptly titled, "Design and the Elastic Mind" (Nicolai Ourousoff, "The Soul in the New Machines," The New York Times, 22 February 2008). From idea to motion-capture video technology to functional object, the human body is incorporated as a fluid, elastic chain in a global community network.
If only the doxa of the art world could influence the general doxa...
From body to brain, Don Goewey wants to help you re-wire your brain to "facilitate 'peak performance' by reducing stress endemic to the workplace" (Chris Colin, "Stressed at work? Re-wire your brain!" San Francisco Chronicle, 19 February 2008). Through a methodology of guided imagery to re-wire the brain's processing of stressful situations, Goewey aims to bring the individual from fear to peace. His method is called "ProAttitude" and incorporates his studies in neurology, cognitive behavioral therapy, positive psychology, humanistic psychology, and neuroplasticity to effect emotional and attitudinal shifts
From brain back to the greater body - the galaxial body - astronomers recently reported on the possibilities of solar system analogues in their search for habitable (human-friendly) planets (Dennis Overbye, "Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered," The New York Times, 15 February 2008). In effect, they are searching for realities not yet discovered...and this, this is belief in potentiality...
From the atom to the body to the brain to the galaxial bodies yet to be discovered, the common denominator is their effective potentiality and a creative imagination unceasingly materializing, realizing, and existing. The doxa of the art world, cognitive behavioral positive psychologists, astronomers, and nanotechnologists/atomic scientists are taking on the new virtuality-reality/reality-virtuality that is our presence.
It is about time the general doxa take note and follow suit...
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2 March 2008
VII of X. Sense and Consequence - Change and Effective Difference
Obama hails himself as a symbol of change and encourages American youth to be a generation of change...
..then again, his words may be more a touch of plagiarism than genuine and true effective difference...
And yet, his 'cult of personality' might just prove more sham than true charismatic leaders before him...
(See Kate Zernike's article, "The Charisma Mandate," The New York Times, 17 February 2008).
Fidel Castro's recent step down to his brother Raul represents more the stigma of needed change that is rather a lost opportunity. The reality Raul heralds unmasks the pretense and brings his subjects to expect empty promises...
(See Anthony DePalma's article, "A Future to Wince At," The New York Times, 24 February 2008).
The recent Microsoft-Yahoo fiasco and impending hostile takeover of the former over the latter is a paragon of incompatible change...
On methodology alone, the duality between Microsoft and Yahoo is akin to that between proprietary rights and the open source movement. Indeed, it seems the "deep-seated mindsets" between the two companies are not only incompatible but also " 'completely at odds with one another' " (John Markoff and Matt Richtel, "Of All the Hurdles to a Merger, View on Technology Is the Highest," The New York Times, 18 February 2008).
Could there be no greater insult than announcing a bid for your company as little else than distraction? (See Verne Kopytoff's article, "Yahoo calls Microsoft bid a distraction," San Francisco Chronicle, 28 February 2008).
Can we really blame Yahoo for rebuking Microsoft? I mean, in true 'empire-like' fashion, Microsoft is said to be poised for a hostile takeover of Yahoo (Verne Kopytoff, "Microsoft ready to get rough with Yahoo," San Francisco Chronicle, 20 February 2008).
Incompatible change, in deed and in method...
So the question then arises about the nature, sense, and context - the 'island' in toto - of change...
I think there is a great error bandied about in language today that is increasingly causing socio-political and politico-social friction. The most apparent surrounds the use of change and the mistake that it is not change but difference and (in)effective difference that are at issue.
To address and to understand change, difference, and (in)effective difference, we must first look at our presence under the umbrella of hyphenation:
Reality today is the virtual and the real as one just as virtuality today is the real and the virtual as one...
Hyphenation accounts for change, (in)effective difference, and difference of the present, as it is the accurate language of presence - a presence appropriated by individuals for their self for the materialization of potentiality and realization of transcendence. In this manner, hyphenation exposes the fissures and incongruities between ideology and praxis, and more importantly, between the current and the assumed to be current.
The light shed here is in the praxis today faulty primarily because of the disjointed assumption of the current reality against the actual reality today. Utilizing dated, borrowed, and misappropriated language within the current vernacular and worse, to project our future is a fatal error...
Hyphenation is at once, potentiality, transcendence, effective difference, and holds accountable language to be accurate in accounting for this new reality and virtuality as multiple spheres of working and living experience.
It is about time that we take note and incorporate within the general doxa...
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2 March 2008
VI of X. Sense and Consequence - Public and Private in Virtuality
In "The dangers of blogger love," Joshua David Stein writes of conflicting delineations between public and private in the blogger world, especially as it relates to romance (New York Post, Page Six Magazine, 10 February 2008). He recounts an 'interoffice' affair at his prior job (Gawker), in which his girlfriend held everything between them and her life in toto as blogging domain whereas he held a distinction between public blogging life and his private personal life, as he states:
"I still felt there was a clear divide between the work me and the real me. For Emily, the work her was her."
Interestingly, Stein chooses to associate his work as his public identity and everything outside of work as his 'real' identity. Rather than a multiplicity of roles, he defines for himself a multiplicity of identities. This aside, I find equally interesting Emily's lack of boundaries - or lack of respect for boundaries:
"Not only did she love me, but I found out that she reads my e-mail."
Ahem. Mail, electronic or otherwise, is federal property. For her to read and/or intercept mail not addressed for her is still a federal crime, by the way.
Felony aside, I think the most telling explanation for Emily's behavior is in her question to Stein:
"Don't you know that private is public?"
Let me just interject a bit of common sense here:
Private is private and public is public. The respective definitions have not changed. The manner of their intermingling has, due to the recent mediations of electronic technologies allowing individuals to transcend traditional boundaries of time, space, and geography, as well as those of normative dualities.
To transcend is quite a different issue than to defile.
The manner of Emily's 'public' - everything private in which it is a "faux pas to actually discuss anything she had written" - is a rather sham public bordering more on voyeurism and exhibitionism. Public proper is all matters of public discourse. It is a discussion a la Habermas in the ideal and Arendt in the practical. (More importantly, it is a discussion for a later blog, although I did write on public and private in a prior posting...)
The point of the matter is the error when public and private are transmogrified and mis-defined when the duality should rather be voyeurism and exhibitionism. Emily was a exhibitionist and voyeur. Stein was a voyeur-in-denial.
Impersonality and interpersonality are similarly at the core of this duality.
To the realm of voyeurism - she illegally viewed his e-mail and they played a game of impersonal penetration and desire.
To the realm of exhibitionism - she blogged about her private thoughts and the intimacies of her emotions, feeling, and romantic exploits. She used electronic impersonality to mediate an interpersonality at a (safe) distance. On a different platform, he distinguished electronic impersonality with human presence and interpersonality without distance.
The point to all this?
When operating at different tempos (qua Nietzsche), there is a fundamental fissure of disconnect between perspective. On a social level, this affects relationships and leads to social errors. On a political level, this effects misunderstandings more consequential as it relates to nations and the livelihood of such tensile, delicate, and vulnerable international political relationships. To wit, a misunderstanding of language today becomes a war stemming from fundamental misunderstandings of normative definitions and values tomorrow..
...of diplomacy, interpersonal and international...
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2 March 2008
V of X. Sense and Consequence - ACCS and FCC
With one of the most fundamental American rights - civil liberty - the consumer public is again compromised as recent reportings of legally sanctioned eavesdropping becomes imminent (David Lazarus, "Our civil liberties lose this round," Los Angeles Times, 20 February 2008). According to Lazarus' report:
"President Bush has been pushing hard to give the likes of AT&T and Verizon immunity for their roles in any past and future eavesdropping on the American people. Lawmakers left the matter hanging when they went on recess..."
The main problem here is not just the issue of eavesdropping and the horrendous encroachment on our privacy rights that this entails, but more so the key word - future -in this immunity.
So does this mean that these companies - and who knows what other companies - plan on eavesdropping on the American public in perpetuity and without consequence?
Furthermore, with private companies such as the American Corrective Counseling Services (ACCS) misrepresenting itself as the district attorney's office to "go after people who bounced checks" (ibid) and claiming 'sovereign immunity' in the process, the encroachment on the consuming public's civil liberties is further perpetrated.
So rather than accountability and transparency from our government and our public 'watchdogs', we are instead faced with bullying tactics and a reality colored more fascist/totalitarian than democratic.
America - the land of everything except the free...
Finland, please help!
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2 March 2008
IV of X. Sense and Consequence - FDA
Once upon a time actions came with consequences. With every decision made today, s/he will be held accountable tomorrow. As a sort of Taoist equalization, with every one there exists its other.
A beautiful tale of karmic justice, cosmic balance, and natural harmony...shattered in disarray today...
Outside the beautiful tale, everyone is held accountable except those with money, power, and connections. Never has 'greasepalming' been such a blatant slap in the face than with recent reportings surrounding the FDA:
1) In one of the areas most crucial to all humans - rich and poor - the medical sphere (the supposed great equalizer) is now becoming 'immune' from retribution, as if above all accountability. Unfortunately, this is a legal statute in the United States, as with a recent report that makers of medical devices "are immune from liability for personal injuries as long as the Food and Drug Administration approved the device before it was marketed and it meets the agency's specifications" (Linda Greenhouse, "Justices Shield Medical Devices From Lawsuits," The New York Times, 21 February 2008). Now this would not bear too great a consequence if we knew we could effectively rely on the FDA to qualify these medical devices.
Anyone alive and in tune to 'reality', (should) already knows s/he can not rely on the FDA. Even the FDA itself concedes "that poor management and scientific inadequacies have made the agency incapable of protecting the country against unsafe drugs, medical devices and food" (Gardiner Harris, "Justices Add Legal Complications to Debate on F.D.A.'s Competence," The New York Times, 21 February 2008).
In summation then, the public is barred from holding medical companies liable for faulty products and the federal agency in charge of regulating and ensuring quality controls of medical companies is incompetent and unable to do so. Or is it?
2) It seems rather that 'greasepalming' rather than incompetence is at the heart of the issue, as with the case of Bayer's Trasylol fiasco (by the way, shame on you, Bayer!).
Here is a general timeline of events:
1998 - FDA approves Trasylol to reduce bleeding. It is given to patients before they undergo heart surgery (FDA News).
26 January 2006 - the New England Journal of Medicine publishes a study of over 4,300 patients finding that heart bypass surgery patients administered with Trasylol doubled their risk of kidney failure requiring dialysis in contrast to those who did not take medicines to reduce blood loss (New England Journal of Medicine, 2006 January 26; 354(4):353-65).
February 2006 - the FDA issues a health advisory about Trasylol but does NOT strengthen the safety warnings on Trasylol's label.
March 2006 - another report finds the same conclusion as the NEJM study - that patients had higher rates of kidney problems thatn those taking alternative drugs before heart surgery to decrease bleeding (Transfusion, 2006 March; 46(3):327-38).
21 September 2006 - FDA advisory panel meets to reconsider the safety profile of Trasylol and makes label changes.
One week later, 2006 - Bayer releases its study on its drug involving 67K patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Those receiving Trasylol were at increased risk for death, kidney failure, congestive heart failure, and stroke.
25 October 2007 - Bayer issues a news release announcing new guidance to physicians and health care providers regarding the use of Trasylol after being notified that the BART Executive Committee halted the Canadian-based trial of cardiac surgery patients.
January 2008 - Bayer suspends marketing Trasylol until the FDA can gain a better understanding of the risks and benefits of the drug.
19 February 2008 - It is announced that the lives of 22K patients could have been saved if US regulators had been quicker to remove Trasylol (Ransdell Pierson, "22,000 Died Amid Delayed Bayer Drug Recall: Doctor," Reuters News Service).
29 February 2008 - Bayer announces its third quarter profit nearly quadrupled with help from a massive tax gain. As a result, it lifts its sales outlook for the year (Matt Moore, "Bayer's 3Q Profit Nearly Quadruples," The Associated Press).
Interjecting a bit of common sense here:
Bayer, what good is it if you kill off all your consumers just to turn a profit?
Eventually, if you kill us all, there will be no one to buy your products of death. You are supposed to help the medical industry, so what's up with the Dr. Kevorkian shenanigans?
Oh by the way, congrats on your 3Q profits, great to know you have no conscience!
3) In another sling at the FDA and the Agriculture Department is the case of the tainted meat being fed to federal nutrition programs including schools (Andrew Martin, "Some Tainted Meat Used in School Lunches, U.S. Says," The New York Times, 22 February 2008).
Just plain common sense here:
What kind of crazy 'nutrition program' is it that feeds children and the public tainted meat!?! Is this the message of our federal government - 'we will poison you' - do they really not care about us to such an alarming degree?
Democracy: the right to be poisoned by your own government.
So great, not only is the level of education severely diminished in the United States that we are an embarrassment to the rest of the world as we churn out incompetents unable to compete in the current marketplace, we have to add insult to injury by poisoning off these same children - our supposed 'future'.
With this future, really, we should just turn back...retreat!
Finland, just ignore us, please...
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2 March 2008
III of X. Sense and Consequence - HIPAA
In my 7 October 2007 entry, "Accounting for the Fissures of this Disjointed Reality," I wrote on HIPAA and the move by Microsoft to make a patient's medical information available online:
"Through HealthVault, Microsoft is planning to further this direction by providing "a secure, encrypted database" for the storage of an individual's "personal health record" (Steve Lohr, "Microsoft Rolls Out Heallth Records", The New York Times, 4 October 2007). Through its database, Microsoft "hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or...test results showing blood pressure and cholesterol levels." On this front, however, there is critical need for pause.
On 21 August 1996, the 104th Congress passed into public law the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to (among other things) "combat waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and health care delivery" and above all, "to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the information; to protect against any reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of the information; and unauthorized uses or disclosures of the information" (Public Law 104-191).
If the need for privacy of personal information and the handling of such information by medical and healthcare professionals were identified as so crucially necessary that a law and protocols with that law had to be executed into effect with the threat of legal ramifications if so violated, why would a proposed database against that law be so quickly proposed?
Although Microsoft explains that the database will be secure and encrypted, have we not learned the lessons of the agile hacker mind? There are countless cases and a cornucopia of ocular proof that information - especially on the net - is a 'sitting duck' in hacker territory. To offset the possibility of data corruption, Peter Neupert, VP of Microsoft's health group, makes the analogy to online banking that initially met with privacy worries and is today mainstream. I beg to differ.
There are still many who are justifiably hesitant to disclose their financial information online - can we say, "identity theft"? So no, banking is NOT mainstream.
Banking aside, if financial information is hacked into, it can be reversed and corrected. Banks and credit card companies anticipate hackers and identity thieves so much so that they have swift and effective protocols in place to correct the fraudulent activity. However, when personal information - health or otherwise - is hacked into, there is no corrective reversal. The information is the key. To disclose that information to anyone other than the patient or medical/healthcare professional it is intended for is the irreversable violation and infringement that HIPAA sought so painstakingly to safeguard."
The problems I pointed to were obviously tossed aside because AT&T and the state of Tennessee will "provide the country's first statewide system to electronically exchange patient medical information" (Erik Schelzig, "AT&T, Tenn. Create Medical Info Exchange," Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, 25 February 2008).
Oh, and not to overlook the problems of financial information being made available online, UC Berkeley's Center for Law and Technology just released a report ranking Bank of America as the top bank in complaints of identity theft (Deborah Gage, "Banks, phone copanies identity-theft targets," San Francisco Chronicle, 28 February 2008). Unfortunately, taking the second and third ranking on the list are AT&T and Sprint/Nextel, respectively. In summation then, AT&T is the second-ranked company with complaints of identity theft and AT&T is undertaking to have patient medical information available electronically in the whole state of Tennessee. For all those in Tennessee, be worried, be very very worried...
The direction and consequence of moving forward without respect to common sense is increasingly fatal compounded by the fact that it is occurring in every sector affecting the individual, his freedoms, his safety, and his right to life on this planet...take heed...
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