The Danes are a brilliant people…ahem. They have now invented a technology that could prove to be very effective at taking the risk and size out of storing hydrogen for use in vehicles and other applications. Pehaps we could trade them for that island they want…
Yesterday I returned to academics after a thirteen year hiatus. I have been granted the privilege of auditing a graduate-level seminar lead by Dr. Arthur Kroker. Dr. Kroker is a widely acknowledged Canadian theorist, and, with his wife Mariloise, is editor of the venerable and now entirely on-line journal ctheory.
Six years ago a film took the pop culture world by storm. It was called The Matrix. Everyone thought this film was about the Internet and our virtual future. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Matrix was about the Body. The most important moment in the Matrix is the one that confused people the most. It is the moment when Morpheus and his followers locate Neo’s pod on the great biochemical power grid that supports the machine world.
Sitting in the room with the mirror, Morpheus offers Neo the choice of a red or blue pill. The pills are little trojan horse software programs. One would fix Neo so he can live a quiet life on the Matrix and not be bothered by the things that keep him up at night. The other will help him to “see how far the rabbit hole really goes.” In other words, it will free him from the Matrix and help him see the world as it really is. In the words of Morpheus, “The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.”
This was the key theoretical insight that drove much of cultural and political theoretical praxis in the nineties. The Matrix was the Foucauldian paradigm of power - not the power of violence and death at the hands of the King, but the power of dominant disourses and disciplines to achieve confomative compliance. As with the Matrix, deviance is dealt with as a programming problem. read more »
Apple fooled everyone today. The technology media was buzzing with pre-release news and rumors about Moto’s Rokr phone, which is underwhelming, to say the least. 100 songs. Big deal. I’m sure Moto will have more to say on the subject. It does sync with iTunes and can access the iTunes Music Store, but it is a lackluster opening salvo in what will undoubtedly be a fun contest to watch, as cell makers integrate more and more functionality around music into their offerings.
Apple’s real news - the iPod Nano - is a truly amazing little piece of technology. It is utterly tiny and holds 1000 songs. It is featherweight and solid state. And the coolest thing about it is it is a real iPod, not like the shuffle, which doesn’t have a display. This little thing has a color display. It appears to do everything the big brothers do, except maybe work with iTrip, iMic and the like. It holds your files, your audiobooks, photos, whatever.
This new iPod nano is one of those truly irritating devices. It instantly makes my 20GB 3rd Gen iPod completely “old”. It was holding its own against the 4th Gen iPods, but now its just yesterday’s news. iPod is dead. Long live iPod.
The unforseen consequence of the disasterous response to Katrina may be an emboldening of the mass media in the US. Long cowed by successful and relentless accusations of bias, chronic underfunding of investigative activities, and wider and wider syndication of thinner and thinner content, the US media has suddenly found a voice. They are speaking out repeatedly and forcefully on the subject of Katrina and its aftermath.
The US media has found a voice because of two main factors. The first rests on the utter irrefutability of the culpability of government in the disasterous handling of the Katrina’s approach and aftermath. To quote George Tennent, “its a slam dunk” for every reporter covering the tragedy.
The second factor is more subtle. US media outlets have shied away from commentary on political topics for years, preferring instead to stage mock debates between practised and polished spin-meisters from the two main parties. This saves them from any accusation of bias while allowing them to say they still broadcast opinion. It is a shallow and meaningless way to debate politics in the US, and it fosters a culture of dueling talking points. Not a conversation at all but dual soliloquays, never actually meeting. The shudder-inducing horror of New Orleans has shaken on-the-ground reporters to the point where their tolerance for these mock debates and talking points has snapped.
Washington - “For God’s sake, are you blind?,” a woman shouts at the head of the federal emergency management agency (FEMA), Michael Brown.
“You’re patting each other on the back, while people here are dying.”
The woman is not a victim of Hurricane Katrina. She is a reporter with US television network MSNBC who is so affected by the misery she has witnessed she can hold back no longer.
We hope these same reporters will retain their nose for bullshit and begin to gain back some of ground the lost by the fourth estate in the last decade. If this well-founded sense of indignance were applied to politicians’ empty posturing around other burning issues, the people would be much better served.
The tragedy of New Orleans is a harbinger of one future of our global society. Globally, we are on precisely the same path as New Orleans was, prior to the arrival of Katrina. From the BBC:
The Bush administration, together with Congress, cut the budgets for flood protection and army engineers, while local politicians failed to generate any enthusiasm for local tax increases.
New Orleans partied-on just hoping for the best, abandoned by anyone in national authority who could have put the money into really protecting the city.
Today we live in a world where the dreams of the 17th century Bourgeoisie are fully realized. Business takes place with limited fetters and Kings and government do not meddle too much in the affairs of commerce. If anything, they are on the payroll.
Today, by their own request, business plants the crops of the future - the future of our children and grandchildren - and our capitulation to the legislative and regulatory demands of business is the sowing of the wind that will reap the whirwind.
The business-driven policies of leaders like Bush - tax cuts, deregulation, market forces - this is putting out fire with gasoline.
The inaction and neglect that led to the disaster was caused directly - not indirectly - by policies taken to appease the short-sighted requirements and needs of business. Not all businesses or business people, but most, and certainly the wealthiest. The voices of the new generation of business people - ethical, green, multiple bottom-line - are but whispers in Katrina’s howl.
So let us now learn. The next time someone tells you that government should get out of the way of business, remind them of New Orleans. Remind them that New Orleans was destroyed because government caved in to the demands of business, and business leaders. Government cut taxes, deregulated, cut budgets and waited for the trickle-down most of them don’t believe in anyway. In the case of the US, government went to war to protect the interests of the status quo and its reliance on cheap oil.
It should be clear now that Government needs to lead business in the right direction, and that business cannot take place unfettered. The short-term priorities of quarterly reports, annual stockholders meetings and futures markets make business leaders unreliable ministers for our global congregation. Public servants need to be our minsters.
To make this transition we need to make public service a more respected profession than business. We can do this by getting serious about electoral reform, campaign finance reform, lobbying regulations and adequate compensation for elected and un-elected public servants. We can do this by reforming our polity so its inherent structure reflects the cycles and time-scales of the problems it needs to address, not the problems and time-scales of business.
And we do all of this by getting involved and demanding a better result than the response to Katrina.
