spacetropic

saturnine, center-right, sometimes neighborly

April 29, 2006

Postmodern Sibling Rivalry

Bear with me. It's complicated.

My daughter and my stepdaughter were thrown together by circumstance at a tender age. They’re united by the fact that their parents divorced and remarried, and now the Spacetropic household consists of a postmodern and mostly non-dysfunctional Brady Bunch helmed by two thirtysomething Gen-Xers with a wry sense of humor. Belly up to the table kids! We’re having chicken nuggets and a big helping of irony for dinner.

Except now the balance has shifted ever so slightly. My former spouse and her new husband just had a baby girl. We’re all on pretty good terms (to the point of babysitting on occasion) so congratulations and best wishes were the natural sentiment from my household.

But not my stepdaughter. The past nine months had been spent hoping for a boy. Another junior female anywhere in the picture is a potential rival for sisterly affection, and this new baby, even though she’s currently the size of a grande chimichanga, has the added credibility of being a “half” instead of a “step”. So my stepdaughter, age 7, fears the emotional estrangement of my daughter who is 10.


A week has passed since this picture was scrawled in a fit of fearful anger on our driveway following the news of this baby’s delivery. My stepdaughter's hot angry tears have been replaced by a grim acceptance, and even an acknowledgement that the infant is cute, and probably not about to do anything interesting any time soon. Their girlish world of book bags, movies, dress-ups, and inventive hairstyles isn’t about to be disrupted by interlopers. But with my daughter creeping up on early adolescence, we’re all in for some potentially rocky adjustments in the next couple of years. Little does the seven-year old suspect the magnitute of that looming change - and I'm dreading it myself.

If you see me on the driveway with a box of Crayola chalk it’s because I’m working through my emotions.

April 20, 2006

Information and Transformation (Part 2)

So after only two weeks, Tom Callinan, the Editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer has decided to give up blogging. He reasons that the effort takes away from his "day job" running the newspaper, and furthermore, instead of helping to build an online community he is mostly just giving a forum for impolite, often anonymous people who attack him over the paper's editorial policy.

Certainly Callinan's "Letter to the Editor" blog served as a lighting-rod during its brief period of activity. Many commenters used the opportunity to take the newspaper to task for deciding not to cover certain candidates or pet issues. Others questioned the paper's lack of journalistic "digging" when it comes to passing along the press releases or PR efforts of others.

My first inclination was to have sympathy with Callinan on the topic of anonymous commenters. They, like some of the "named" commenters, felt entitled to use his blog to force discussion about sidebar topics. I don’t have much respect for this tactic, since it amounts to hijacking Callinan’s audience by waving their arms his front lawn, so to speak, instead of setting up shop down the street with their own blog. (It’s much harder task to earn 25 regular blog readers than the anonymous complainers and sycophants who reload through-out the day to spar back and forth, as I’ve learned with Spacetropic.)

But Callinan’s handling of this issue was inept. He first vowed not to take on the off-topic or abusive commenters, then broke that rule immediately, and then announced he would moderate comments – before finally giving up entirely. This hesitant inconsistency calls into question his judgment, which would seem to be the most important quality for an editor. Blogs, like any other form of media, benefit from some kind of steady, constitutional purpose which guides the content. If you’re going to run a forum for vox populi, do it wholeheartedly. If you’re going to offer take-it-or-leave-it posts, go with that instead. If you're going to blog about your cat, your corporation, or Constitutional law - pursue these topics avidly.

Callinan missed a chance to create a medium by which editorial decisions could be thoughtfully explained and put in context - where some of the insider aspects of the newsroom could be articulated. For a man who proudly took credit for a late-career degree in new media convergence he sure couldn't see the possibilities. And the absence of candid communication from legacy media powers like newspapers gives much more credibility for those who claim that their policies for disseminating information are strictly agenda-driven. And in a city like Cincinnati this agenda, in contrast with a Left-leaning national media, amounts to “keep your head down and shut up” conservatism - the worst kind of conservatism in my book – a stagnant, unthinking complacency with the status quo.

Instead of throwing open the doors to critique and participating in the dialogue, Callinan skulked away. Instead of picking a few key battles and sticking up for his decisions he chose to be intimidated by his antagonists. Instead of circulating among the army of Davids he retreated behind the temple walls - where the seismic shift in the information economy towards speed and transparency can be only temporarily ignored.

Note that Callinan’s blog, linked above, has been removed entirely from the Gannett site and returns a “page not found” error. But thanks to Google cache the exercise in indignity has been preserved. Note too that this post is also appearing (with non-substantive changes) at the Cincinnati Beacon, where a lively debate in the comment section may be reasonably expected.

April 18, 2006

My Mental Frontline Guy

Lately, more and more, I feel like I am living in an episode of Frontline from PBS. I'll be going about my daily business, and all of a sudden I'll feel somewhat disconnected - then the deep baritone voice of the Frontline guy will begin to narrate some aspect of my life. For example, I'll be at work, watching people struggle to change the cartridge on a printer, or conversing informally in a meeting room. Then my mental Frontline guy says:

Businesses in the new technology-driven economy create a demand for a new type of employee. Generalists and information workers have replaced the physical laborers and specialized tradesman of the industrial age.

Or he'll come at me with interesting, somewhat-relevant facts. Such as the other day, while at Easter services. I was absentmindedly observing the ambling, slow-motion procession of churchgoers - young and old, able-bodied and lame. Then wham:

According to 2004 Pew Research Center survey, over sixty-five percent of Americans report some kind of religious affiliation.

Perhaps this is the unintended consequence of swimming in the media firmament. Too many blogs, too many RSS newsfeeds, too many times when my wife slips the remote control from my fingers at 2AM, when I have fallen asleep in front of C-SPAN 3 watching congressional hearings. Call it Lyman's Dementia, a side effect of trying too hard to be relentlessly well-informed.

They should do a Frontline special about it.

April 13, 2006

Red Scare Herrings

During the protests ealier this week I checked out conservative radio for a few minutes.

The effort underway seemed to amount to de-legitimizing the immigrants and their cause by proving out the pedigree of the riot organizers. Marxists, Communists, and other variations of anti-capitalists from the far left fringe were supposedly involved in getting together turnout. Various anti-American signs and fringe sentiments were on display in the crowd (fastidiously documented by Rightie blogs). And other colorful characters like Ted Kennedy were seen leading the crowd in chanting -- once he got off the conference call that we can expect took place between leading Democrats and labor unions assuring them that every possible effort would be made to funnel new arrivals to their ranks following amnesty.

So this was the clever conclusion made by Limbaugh and others : Look, it has nothing to do with immigration. It's only about Democratic politics!

Of course it's about politics, champ. But the modifier "Democrat" hasn't fully been applied, at least not yet. It's about eight to ten million people who want full citizenship in America. Many of them may be predisposed to Democratic allegiances, but many are not, and to think of them as a unified block is foolhardy. There are also millions more American citizens who may have arrived in recent years from Mexico or South- or Central-America and who are carefully watching this debate to see who cares and what is said about the participants.

Even if the fringe groups played a role along the way -- we are simply not talking about hundreds of thousand of wannabe Marxists in Thursday's crowds. With Internet communications it's possible, even likely, that all kinds of spontaneous organization took place on the street - blogs, IM, email, you name it. And the fact that some moonbat political beliefs were on display among the signage proves absolutely nothing. I grew up in Washington DC and I know how any crowd that gathers en masse for any cause will also cause spinoff protests to form with un- and semi-related causes. The Flat Earth Society shows up at the Postal Workers Rally, just to cheat a few minutes of media time if possible. That's how it works.

So I'll repeat what I said earlier once more, with feeling: There's no way on God's green earth we are sending back eight to ten million immigrants. It's would be a practical impossibility to ship back even 5% of that number, and the politics of it would be played up like a heart-wrenching crime against humanity. The Democrats are several steps ahead in accepting this blazingly obvious reality while opportunistically pandering to the folks who will be given amnesty sooner or later, and many Republicans are stuck on stupid.

April 12, 2006

Information and Transformation (Part 1)

The leading newspaper in Cincinnati, the Enquirer, has made some forays into the blogosphere in the past two years. Various niche subjects have been given blogs: Sports, politics, art - even rollerderby and the Ben-Gals. The whole shebang is owned and operated by Gannett Inc., as we are reminded in the everpresent terms of service. A peek at their mission statement is revealing:
Mission: To successfully transform Gannett to the new environment. We will provide must-have news and information on demand across all media, ever mindful of our journalistic responsibilities.
Talk about a double-edged sword. Kudos to the big giant corporation for recognizing the new environment, as abstract as the notion may be, and also for identifying the need to adapt while remaining agnostic to media forms. And aren't we all in the business of "transformation", one way or another? For, me, as a Catholic, this has some reasonance as a seasonal thought, on the eve of Good Friday. But in the context of Internet-enabled communication many newspapers have been in the business of denial, even while the Romans arrive and roosters start crowing.

Except in this case the correct biblical metaphor has already been appropriated by Glenn Reynolds, and it's the "Army of Davids". Goliaths like Gannett seek to provide "must-have news and information" in a marketplace teeming with bloggers and alternative sources who share a very different set of tactical characteristics: They operate on a rapid cycle, cross all kinds of boundaries, and have a very different system for aggregating what's important. Thus the army of Davids - and they are positioned to have some leverage against not only traditional forms of media, but also against irresponsible government, global troublemakers, even social pathologies. (Look out! The Ben-Gals have slingshots!)

Enter Tom Callinan, editor and vice president of the Enquirer, and a man with a storied career in journalism. He began his Letters to the Editor blog on the heels of news that one of the other Cincinnati.com blogs, Grandma In Iraq, was, it turns out, written by a public affairs officer in the U.S. Army. Needless to say there was a spastic eruption of anger on the part of local leftists, most notably the connoisseurs of outrage over at the Cincinnati Beacon. They demanded equal time for coverage of dead Iraqi babies and suggested that the editors of the Enquirer were serving as accomplices in the military's propaganda operation. Of course, nobody actually called into question the veracity of Grandma's reporting, but that’s a blind alley for people who have an agenda – in this case scoring a few points on the supposed corruption of “corporate media”.

So it’s rough time for an editor to jump into the fray, but nonetheless, lets hope Mr. Callinan has the wherewithal, patience and good humor to continue his efforts, despite his recent misgivings. Editors trade in the business of judgment, and the public is sometimes hungry for more detailed explanations on why certain items and conduits of information qualify as “news”. Having this discussion in a public setting using the new media may seem pointless at times – with all of the braying an noise that comes along with it – but we might all be enriched by the debate.

Coming up in part two on this topic … some ideas on transformation.

April 11, 2006

¡Viva America!

The immigration rallies that have taken place across the United States send a very clear signal to politicians and Americans that, regardless of how they got here, these folks are in this country and they have no qualms participating loudly in our civic process.

The practical bottom line is simple: There is no way on God’s green earth we are deporting eight to ten million people, regardless of how they got here, regardless of how anyone feels about the possibility. Call them illegal, call them workers, call them patriots. When it’s all said and done they are installed deeply in our economy and culture, and they came here for all of the same reasons as (most of) our ancestors. My own Irish forbearers were also called shiftless, lazy moochers who were diluting the culture during the 19th century and taking away employment that rightfully belonged to others. This ugly chapter of history has been mostly forgotten because subsequent events completely demolished those petty ethnic resentments and temporal tension in the labor economies of the day.

Some conservative blog I read recently contained the tired old trope that “if we can send a man to the moon” we can also evict millions of illegal immigrants. This kind of magical thinking is evidence of how far removed this debate has gone from reality. It’s also proof positive that the Democrats are going to hand the Republicans their own asses on this issue - even while ignoring their own union base. The politics are painfully simple when we have an economy booming along at 4.7 percent unemployment – regardless of Iraq and Katrina. And the politics become a no-brainer when viewed in terms of the long-term demographic outlook of America.

Border security is a problem and we need stronger enforcement. I can be convinced that recent arrivals need to be sent home and infrastructure needs to be added. But leaders in government can make these important tasks easier by accepting the political reality that our current immigration policy is comparable to the 55 mile per hour speed limit – stupid, impractical, and impossible to enforce. The questions are only about the future – where we go from here, and who gets leverage in the political debate.

Conservative moderates like myself should welcome people from cultures that place such a strong emphasis on family and religious observation. And we can also consider the example of Ronald Reagan – who never gave an anti-immigration speech in his life and granted amnesty for millions. And we should listen carefully for the true motivations behind these callers on talk radio and blog comments, with their sweeping ethnic conclusions and “these people” characterizations.

Doesn’t George W. Bush speak Spanish?

April 10, 2006

Indian Family Values

I'll admit - I didn't have the patience to sit through much of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... It's the largest-grossing Indian movie of all time - but to my Western eyes it still reckons like a cheesy Bollywood melodrama. The characters are prone to sudden musical numbers and dancing, and this, to me, can be a quite bracing experience in any cultural milieu.

But from the portion of the film that I was able to watch (and from talking to my wife, who was transfixed by the whole thing) - it's impossible to miss the hammering, powerful emphasis on family. Not the thrown-together, band-of-misfits family that is featured in American cinema (Lilo and Stitch, Ice Age 2) - but old fashioned Mom and Dad family. The type of family where two kids get married, the kids happen to be male and female, and they both eventually come to accept the importance of a positive, loving relationship with Mom and Dad (both male and female, incidentally). The primary religious traditions of India may not technically include the Judeo-Christian bible, but they take seriously the fourth commandment.

Any classical story structure involves tension, conflict, and resolution in relationships. Usually these are romantic forms, or ones that involve filial bonds - or often both. The vast majority of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, the historical plays) portrays squabbling between Mom and/or Dad and the kids. But having a look through the top-grossers of American cinema (Star Wars, ET, Titanic) we see parent-child relationships that are filled with cruelty, helplessness, and disaffection. TV shows like 'The Nanny' and Dr. Phil are a window into various permutations of mewling incompetence that passes for parenting. Both the cultural ideal and the practical reality of American families are problematic.

As we contemplate the global economy we hear the familiar refrains of why competition from the subcontinent is "unfair". They work harder for less money, they place a ruthless emphasis on education - they can go without the consumer comforts to which Americans are accustomed. But there is another factor – an advantage which used to be more prominent in Western societies: Indian people have a keen and deeply rooted appreciation of how close, traditional families make individuals and the culture itself so much stronger.

April 7, 2006

Get Out of the Kitchen

The average size of kitchens in America has more than doubled in 50 years, from 80 to 225 square feet. This, according to the Washington Post, may be contributing towards American obesity. Also from the article:
"There's something very romantic about the whole family gathering around the kitchen, this whole idea of hearth and home," says Aric Chen, a writer specializing in architecture and design. "But in the nostalgic era of hearth and home, you didn't have big bags of Fritos lying around, or giant Costco 24-packs of Kraft macaroni and cheese."
A visit one of these new construction homes in the exurbs will confirm this trend. The kitchen is the architectural centerpiece. It's usually a bright, open area adjacent to a large family room -- one which often contains the TV. In comparison my home, built in the 1930s, has a smaller kitchen relative to the floorplan, no "island", and one simple pantry closet. And, good greif, TV-watching snackers need to actually walk through other rooms to get there during commercials. (Thank goodness we have the signature BEEP BEEP on Fox's 24 to tell us when to return.)

Diet, nutrition - most of us know our behavior in these areas is the product of subtle cues reinforced during our growing years. But Americans should also be aware that marketers, corporations and even homebuilders deliberately tailor their products and services around our appetites. Next time you visit a large grocery store, study the floorplan relative to product placement. It's no mistake that you must always walk past the high-fat (and high-margin) products to reach staple items like milk.

Mass customization and marketing is endlessly fine tuning itself to our native American habits, good and bad. Which is why sometimes the most subversive act is simply to go outside and take a walk -- just like this guy.

April 6, 2006

Food Court Philosophy 101

May I help who's next?

This beautiful little phrase contains everything you need to know about our service economy. It's properly delivered with eyes rolled heavenward on a face that conveys boredom and disgust. It's extremely important for the fast food restaurant worker to avoid eye contact with the people standing before the counter - since this might send an improper signal about the person they think might be, in fact, next. And thus would be sewn the seeds of disagreement.

May I help who's next?

You see, the worker is impartial to who is actually next. He or she would prefer to avoid any dispute that might be caused by queues that are mis-aligned, or customers who are loitering nearby, waiting for their orders to be fulfilled. So everyone struggles to remember who was standing where at the moment they approached the Chik-Fil-A counter. And it creates a window of opportunity for the brazen, who can respond in the affirmative, duplicitously transcending their place in line.

May I help who's next?

The beauty of this question lies in it's ability to meet the demands of customer service while at the same time scattering responsibility to the wind. It's grammatically imperfect, yet there's an economy of language that is elegant, even impressive. It speaks to our identity in a production-based economy, as we roll forward without much regard to who is getting served. And there's something menacing here too - as if this phrase could be scrawled on the walls of a crime scene, or painted on the fuselage of a bomber to send a clear message to any potential international antagonists.

April 1, 2006

My Gary Bauer Story

Given all of the events of the past few years, few people may recall the race for the Republican presidential nomination in the lead-up to the 2000 election. But semi-lucid observers of the political process may remember Christian-values candidate Gary Bauer. He earned only a few headlines. Once he toppled backwards from a stage during a pancake-flipping contest. And in the final days of his campaign rumors surfaced of an ongoing game of hide-the-pickle being conducted with a saucy 27 year old assistant. These allegations help prompt an abrupt end his campaign.

I have my own memories of this crusading Christian. True story:

My plane had landed one day at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington DC. This was early 2002 - not long after this airport had reopened to commercial aviation traffic. During the tense flight I had managed to fall asleep, so after collecting my belongings I recall winding my way up the jetway ramp with that vaguely startled and confused feeling caused by waking up suddenly from a daytime nap. As the door opened out to the crowded terminal I saw him with his arms outstretched, a look of joy in his tearful face.

Gary Bauer was standing right in front of me.

And Gary Bauer wanted to give me a big hug.

The other disembarking passengers began to pile up behind me. I froze in place, terrified. It seemed unnatural and wrong to return his unwarranted embrace - but the man looked overcome by emotion. After a few embarrassing seconds a very old woman pushed her way past me and tottered towards Gary, into his arms. It took a few moments to properly cogitate the situation, but I guess it must have been his mother. (Reading his Wikipedia biography I can see he is originally from Covington, Kentucky -- so this would explain her presence on a flight from Cincinnati.)

No moral to the story – just a surreal and awkward incident.