About this talk
At TEDxPSU, Ali Carr-Chellman pinpoints three reasons boys are tuning out of school in droves, and lays out her bold plan to re-engage them: bringing their culture into the classroom, with new rules that let boys be boys, and video games that teach as well as entertain.
So I'm here to tell you that we have a problem with boys, and it's a serious problem with boys. Their culture isn't working in schools. And I'm going to share with you ways that we can think about overcoming that problem. First, I want to start by saying, this is a boy, and this is a girl. And this is probably stereotypically what you think of as a boy and a girl. If I essentialize gender for you today, then you can dismiss what I have to say. So I'm not going to do that; I'm not interested in doing that. This is a different kind of boy and a different kind of girl. So the point here is that not all boys exist within these rigid boundaries of what we think of as boys and girls. And not all girls exist within those rigid boundaries of what we think of as girls. But, in fact, most boys tend to be a certain way, and most girls tend to be a certain way. And the point is that, for boys, the way that they exist and the culture that they embrace isn't working well in schools now.
How do we know that? The 100 Girls Project tells us some really nice statistics. For example: For every 100 girls that are suspended from school, there are 250 boys that are suspended from school. For every 100 girls who are expelled from school, there are 335 boys who are expelled from school. For every 100 girls in special education, there are 217 boys. For every 100 girls with a learning disability, there are 276 boys. For every 100 girls with an emotional disturbance diagnosed, we have 324 boys. And by the way, all of these numbers are significantly higher if you happen to be black, if you happen to be poor, if you happen to exist in an overcrowded school. And if you are a boy, you're four times as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD -- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Now there is another side to this. And it is important that we recognize that women still need help in school, that salaries are still significantly lower, even when controlled for job types, and that girls have continued to struggle in math and science for years. That's all true. Nothing about that prevents us from paying attention to the literacy needs of our boys between ages three and 13. And so we should. In fact, what we ought to do is take a page from their playbook, because the initiatives and programs that have been set in place for women in science and engineering and mathematics are fantastic. They've done a lot of good for girls in these situations. And we ought to be thinking about how we can make that happen for boys too in their younger years.
Even in their older years, what we find is that there's still a problem. When we look at the universities, 60 percent of baccalaureate degrees are going to women now, which is a significant shift. And in fact, university administrators are a little uncomfortable about the idea that we may be getting close to 70 percent female population in universities. This makes university administrators very nervous, because girls don't want to go to schools that don't have boys. And so we're starting to see the establishment of men centers and men studies to think about how do we engage men in their experiences in the university. If you talk to faculty, they may say, "Ugh. Yeah, well, they're playing video games, and they're gambling online all night long, and they're playing World of Warcraft. And that's affecting their academic achievement." Guess what? Video games are not the cause. Video games are a symptom. They were turned off a long time before they got here.
So let's talk about why they got turned off when they were between the ages of three and 13. There are three reasons that I believe that boys are out of sync with the culture of schools today. The first is zero tolerance. Kindergarten teacher I know, her son donated all of his toys to her, and when he did, she had to go through and pull out all the little plastic guns. You can't have plastic knives and swords and axes and all that kind of thing in a kindergarten classroom. What is it that we're afraid that this young man is going to do with this gun? I mean, really. But here he stands as testament to the fact that you can't roughhouse on the playground today. Now I'm not advocating for bullies. I'm not suggesting that we need to be allowing guns and knives into school. But when we say that an Eagle Scout in a high school classroom who has a locked parked car in the parking lot and a penknife in it has to be suspended from school, I think we may have gone a little too far with zero tolerance.
Another way that zero tolerance lives itself out is in the writing of boys. In a lot of classrooms today you're not allowed to write about anything that's violent. You're not allowed to write about anything that has to do with video games -- these topics are banned. Boy comes home from school, and he says, "I hate writing." "Why do you hate writing, son? What's wrong with writing?" "Now I have to write what she tells me to write." "Okay, what is she telling you to write?" "Poems. I have to write poems. And little moments in my life. I don't want to write that stuff." "All right. Well what do you want to write? What do you want to write about?" "I want to write about video games. I want to write about leveling-up. I want to write about this really interesting world. I want to write about a tornado that comes into our house and blows all the windows out and ruins all the furniture and kills everybody." "All right. Okay." You tell a teacher that, and they'll ask you, in all seriousness, "Should we send this child to the psychologist?" And the answer is no, he's just a boy. He's just a little boy. It's not okay to write these kinds of things in classrooms today.
So that's the first reason: zero tolerance policies and the way they're lived out. The next reason that boys' cultures are out of sync with school cultures: there are fewer male teachers. Anybody who's over 15 doesn't know what this means, because in the last 10 years, the number of elementary school classroom teachers has been cut in half. We went from 14 percent to seven percent. That means that 93 percent of the teachers that our young men get in elementary classrooms are women. Now what's the problem with this? Women are great. Yep, absolutely. But male role models for boys that say it's all right to be smart -- they've got dads, they've got pastors, they've got Cub Scout leaders, but ultimately, six hours a day, five days a week, they're spending in a classroom. And most of those classrooms are not places where men exist. And so they say, I guess this really isn't a place for boys. This is a place for girls. And I'm not very good at this, so I guess I'd better go play video games or get into sports, or something like that, because I obviously don't belong here. Men don't belong here, that's pretty obvious.
So that may be a very direct way that we see it happen. But less directly, the lack of male presence in the culture -- you've got a teachers' lounge, and they're having a conversation about Joey and Johnny who beat each other up on the playground. "What are we going to do with these boys?" The answer to that question changes depending on who's sitting around that table. Are there men around that table? Are there moms who who've raised boys around that table? You'll see, the conversation changes depending upon who's sitting around the table.
Third reason that boys are out of sync with school today: kindergarten is the old second grade, folks. We have a serious compression of the curriculum happening out there. When you're three, you better be able to write your name legibly, or else we'll consider it a developmental delay. By the time you're in first grade, you should be able to read paragraphs of text with maybe a picture, maybe not, in a book of maybe 25 to 30 pages. If you don't, we're probably going to be putting you into a Title 1 special reading program. And if you ask Title 1 teachers, they'll tell you: they've got about four or five boys for every girl that's in their program, in the elementary grades.
The reason that this is a problem is because the message that boys are getting is "you need to do what the teacher asks you to do all the time." The teacher's salary depends on No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and accountability and testing and all of this. So she has to figure out a way to get all these boys through this curriculum -- and girls. This compressed curriculum is bad for all active kids. And what happens is, she says, "Please, sit down, be quiet, do what you're told, follow the rules, manage your time, focus, be a girl." That's what she tells them. Indirectly, that's what she tells them. And so this is a very serious problem. Where is it coming from? It's coming from us. (Laughter) We want our babies to read when they are six months old. Have you seen the ads? We want to live in Lake Wobegon where every child is above average. But what this does to our children is really not healthy. It's not developmentally appropriate, and it's particularly bad for boys.
So what do we do? We need to meet them where they are. We need to put ourselves into boy culture. We need to change the mindset of acceptance in boys in elementary schools. More specifically, we can do some very specific things. We can design better games. Most of the educational games that are out there today are really flashcards. They're glorified drill and practice. They don't have the depth, the rich narrative that really engaging video games have, that the boys are really interested in. So we need to design better games. We need to talk to teachers and parents and school board members and politicians. We need to make sure that people see that we need more men in the classroom. We need to look carefully at our zero tolerance policies. Do they make sense? We need to think about how to uncompress this curriculum if we can, trying to bring boys back into a space that is comfortable for them. All of those conversations need to be happening.
There are some great examples out there of schools -- the New York Times just talked about a school recently. A game designer from the New School put together a wonderful video gaming school. But it only treats a few kids. And so this isn't very scalable. We have to change the culture and the feelings that politicians and school board members and parents have about the way we accept and what we accept in our schools today. We have to find more money for game design. Because good games, really good games, cost money, and World of Warcraft has quite a budget. Most of the educational games do not. Where we started: my colleagues -- Mike Petner, Shawn Vashaw, myself -- we started by trying to look at the teachers' attitudes and find out how do they really feel about gaming, what do they say about it. And we discovered that they talk about the kids in their school, who talk about gaming, in pretty demeaning ways. They say, "Oh, yeah. They're always talking about that stuff. They're talking about their little action figures and their little achievements or merit badges, or whatever it is that they get. And they're always talking about this stuff." And they say these things as if it's okay. But if it were your culture, think of how that might feel. It's very uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of that kind of language. They're nervous about anything that has anything to do with violence because of the zero tolerance policies. They are sure that parents and administrators will never accept anything.
So we really need to think about looking at teacher attitudes and finding ways to change the attitudes so that teachers are much more open and accepting of boy cultures in their classrooms. Because, ultimately, if we don't, then we're going to have boys who leave elementary school saying, "Well I guess that was just a place for girls; it wasn't for me. So I've got to do gaming, or I've got to do sports." If we change these things, if we pay attention to these things, and we re-engage boys in their learning, they will leave the elementary schools saying, "I'm smart."
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Secret Life of Dogs
New scientific studies regarding dogs and how dog and humans relate to each other. Domestication, nature-nurture, learningskills, love, attachment, science and other interesting topics relating to dogs and humans are shown in these vids.
A surprising theory is put forward: Dogs are wolfes genetically but they differ from wolfes in an important way. Dogs are child like in the way they relate to human beings, that is the reason we love them so much and the reason they love us back. Dogs are immature wolfes!
Which countries match the GDP and population of America's states?
Which countries match the GDP and population of America's states?
IT HAS long been true that California on its own would rank as one of the biggest economies of the world. These days, it would rank eighth, falling between Italy and Brazil on a nominal exchange-rate basis. But how do other American states compare with other countries? Taking the nearest equivalent country from 2009 data reveals some surprises. Who would have thought that, despite years of auto-industry hardship, the economy of Michigan is still the same size as Taiwan's?
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Loging in China
LiAn Lodge from forest key on Vimeo.
Li-An Lodge is an ethereal place located among spectacular rice terraces in an ancient Chinese village. The lodge is built entirely out of wood by the traditional Chinese technique of tongue and groove without a single nail. The photos alone of this magnificent place are enough to convince anyone to book a room especially since photos are taken by renowned photographer and Li-An Lodge owner Keren Su. Unfortunately, photos did not have a central role on the pervious Li-An Lodge website and, consequently, the breath-taking natural environment and Mr. Su's photography expertise were not given due justice.
With buuteeq photos play a pivotal role across all marketing materials. The buuteeq BackOffice has an easy to use Photo Gallery for organizing and inserting photos into various slideshows and articles for the website. Photos can be uploaded quickly and easily then cropped, arranged, given titles and short descriptions which enhances Google search. The homepage slideshow showcases large, compelling photos and ensures that guests receive the best first impression possible of the property. Photos appear just as clear and brilliant on the Li-An Lodge Facebook page and dedicated iPhone application which can be downloaded from the Apple iTunes Store. With buuteeq the LiAn Lodge now has a website that takes full advantage of the exquisite photography so guests can fully grasp the grandeur of the property and its surrounding environment.
Yangshuo Mountain Retreat from forest key on Vimeo.
The Yangshuo Mountain Retreat is located on the breath-taking Dragon River in China in a tranquil environment away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Over several years the hotel's website had grown into a colossus, full of interesting articles on the region, activities, food, culture, and the major tourist attractions of the Yangshuo and Guilin areas which are red-hot tourist destinations in China's booming tourist market. However with this breadth of content a really big design challenge emerged that made the information hard to navigate for guests and could be frustrating to use--contrary to the peace of mind and relaxation that are key brand ingredients of this beautiful hotel.
The primary design challenge was the need for a clear information architecture that would organize the layout of the information on the website so that it would be better looking and easier to use. With the new design it was important to highlight certain areas of the site so guests could find the information, get room and location information (two key selling points), and along the way appreciate all the extra content without it distracting from the key goals of promoting guest reservations.
buuteeq clients may initially wonder how the buuteeq DMS can build them a website that’s as unique as their property, especially with a hotel like the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat which had so many custom pages of rich content that they wanted to preserve. The answer is that the buuteeq system coaxes hotels towards great information architecture, while still allowing highly customizable content with the hotel's own brand. Every page reflects the personal style of the hotel and the system organizes the pages in a way that makes sense to the online shopper. With Yangshuo Mountain Retreat's new buuteeq powered website all of the unique content of the old website has been preserved, but with a much easier to use and understand presentation that looks gorgeous.
The company helping independent hotels with the awful name
We sit down with the founder, Forest Key, to learn more and get a demo of how it's helping hotels out.
Get more out of golf with GameBook
GameBook is the first ever live scoring golf app for iPhone and the only one where you can follow friends’ games in real-time. Check out all the amazing possibilities that GameBook creates.
What is Zoho Books?
What is Zoho Books?
Zoho Books is an online accounting application that gives you complete visibility of your finances and helps you manage the money moving in and out of your business. Zoho Books can simply be defined as "accounting for rest of us". You need not be an accountant to mange your business and make informed financial decisions.
Leo Laporte on Regis and Kelly - 1/18/2011 (HD)
A video of Leo Lapore on Regis and Kelly showing off gadgets from the Consumer Electronics Show held earlier in the month.
iPad Camera Connection Kit Review by Terry White
Terry White reviews the NEW iPad Camera Connection Kit for iPad, which allows you to download images from a memory card or your camera directly into the iPad. He even shows a tip for Compact Flash users! This video is in support of the written review to appear at terrywhite.com soon!
Video – How Lexar Makes Its Memory Products
Lexar: How We Test
A peek inside the Lexar Quality Labs (LQL) to see how we test our cards for reliability and durability.
Lexar: iPad Demo
Lexar Director of Marketing Jeff Cable demonstrates using the new Lexar Multi-Card 24-in-1 Reader with the Apple iPad.
Water on the Table (Bullfrog Films clip)
A film by Liz Marshall
Water On The Table is a character-driven, social-issue documentary that explores Canada's relationship to its freshwater, arguably its most precious natural resource. The film asks the question: is water a commercial good like running shoes or Coca-Cola? Or, is water a human right like air?
The Field Museum is out and about online. Use the links listed below to catch up with us on your favorite sites and add us as your friend. You'll be able to know right away about special events
LANCE GRANDE, PH.D.
Dr. Lance Grande's research covers many aspects of fossil and living fishes, including the early development of North American freshwater fish fauna. Over the last 25 years, Lance has led more than 20 field trips to collect fossils from Fossil Lake, a 52-million-year-old lake bed in Wyoming. Thanks to his efforts, The Field Museum currently boasts the world's largest and most extensive fossil collection from the Green River Formation.
Learn more about Lance’s fossil fishing in the 52-million-year-old Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation by watching the video below.
For more information on fossil fishing with Lance, visit
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/expeditions
DON'T FLUSH DON'T TRASH
Waterlife
Directed by Kevin McMahon
Produced by Kristina Mclaughlin, Michael McMahon, Gerry Flahive (NFB)
Waterlife tells the epic story of the Great Lakes by following the cascade of its water from northern Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, through the lives of some of the 35 million people who rely on the lakes for survival.
Water On The Table is a character-driven, social-issue documentary that explores Canada's relationship to its freshwater, arguably its most precious natural resource. The film asks the question: is water a commercial good like running shoes or Coca-Cola? Or, is water a human right like air?
The Field Museum is out and about online. Use the links listed below to catch up with us on your favorite sites and add us as your friend. You'll be able to know right away about special events
LANCE GRANDE, PH.D.
Dr. Lance Grande's research covers many aspects of fossil and living fishes, including the early development of North American freshwater fish fauna. Over the last 25 years, Lance has led more than 20 field trips to collect fossils from Fossil Lake, a 52-million-year-old lake bed in Wyoming. Thanks to his efforts, The Field Museum currently boasts the world's largest and most extensive fossil collection from the Green River Formation.
Learn more about Lance’s fossil fishing in the 52-million-year-old Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation by watching the video below.
For more information on fossil fishing with Lance, visit
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/expeditions
DON'T FLUSH DON'T TRASH
Waterlife
Directed by Kevin McMahon
Produced by Kristina Mclaughlin, Michael McMahon, Gerry Flahive (NFB)
Waterlife tells the epic story of the Great Lakes by following the cascade of its water from northern Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean, through the lives of some of the 35 million people who rely on the lakes for survival.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Strait talk
Strait talk ep 3
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
Detroit River has a high water flow of 210,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), a medium water flow of 184,000 cfs, and a low water flow of 170,000 cfs, respectively, with a 2.9 ft drop from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
The Detroit River puts out about 370,000,000 foot pounds of force per second. Strait Power is looking to harness this.
Strait Power is a patent pending concept used to harvest energy from flowing water. This concept, born from Michigan native Anthony Reale, can provide a new industry, and power to the motor city.
With Detroit leading the way in this hydroelectric concept, it can again show the world how to empower its people, carbon free.
Strait Talk ep 2
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
Detroit River has a high water flow of 210,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), a medium water flow of 184,000 cfs, and a low water flow of 170,000 cfs, respectively, with a 2.9 ft drop from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
The Detroit River puts out about 370,000,000 foot pounds of force per second. Strait Power is looking to harness this.
Strait Power is a patent pending concept used to harvest energy from flowing water. This concept, born from Michigan native Anthony Reale, can provide a new industry, and power to the motor city.
With Detroit leading the way in this hydroelectric concept, it can again show the world how to empower its people, carbon free.
Strait talk
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
Detroit River has a high water flow of 210,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), a medium water flow of 184,000 cfs, and a low water flow of 170,000 cfs, respectively, with a 2.9 ft drop from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
The Detroit River puts out about 370,000,000 foot pounds of force per second. Strait Power is looking to harness this.
Strait Power is a patent pending concept used to harvest energy from flowing water. This concept, born from Michigan native Anthony Reale, can provide a new industry, and power to the motor city.
With Detroit leading the way in this hydroelectric concept, it can again show the world how to empower its people, carbon free.
Detroit River January 8, 2011
Downbound Canadian Coast Guard Ship Griffon, CSL Assiniboine, John G. Munson, Canadian Coast Guard Ship Samuel Risley. Upbound American Mariner
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
Detroit River has a high water flow of 210,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), a medium water flow of 184,000 cfs, and a low water flow of 170,000 cfs, respectively, with a 2.9 ft drop from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
The Detroit River puts out about 370,000,000 foot pounds of force per second. Strait Power is looking to harness this.
Strait Power is a patent pending concept used to harvest energy from flowing water. This concept, born from Michigan native Anthony Reale, can provide a new industry, and power to the motor city.
With Detroit leading the way in this hydroelectric concept, it can again show the world how to empower its people, carbon free.
Strait Talk ep 2
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
Detroit River has a high water flow of 210,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), a medium water flow of 184,000 cfs, and a low water flow of 170,000 cfs, respectively, with a 2.9 ft drop from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
The Detroit River puts out about 370,000,000 foot pounds of force per second. Strait Power is looking to harness this.
Strait Power is a patent pending concept used to harvest energy from flowing water. This concept, born from Michigan native Anthony Reale, can provide a new industry, and power to the motor city.
With Detroit leading the way in this hydroelectric concept, it can again show the world how to empower its people, carbon free.
Strait talk
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
Detroit River has a high water flow of 210,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), a medium water flow of 184,000 cfs, and a low water flow of 170,000 cfs, respectively, with a 2.9 ft drop from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
The Detroit River puts out about 370,000,000 foot pounds of force per second. Strait Power is looking to harness this.
Strait Power is a patent pending concept used to harvest energy from flowing water. This concept, born from Michigan native Anthony Reale, can provide a new industry, and power to the motor city.
With Detroit leading the way in this hydroelectric concept, it can again show the world how to empower its people, carbon free.
Detroit River January 8, 2011
Downbound Canadian Coast Guard Ship Griffon, CSL Assiniboine, John G. Munson, Canadian Coast Guard Ship Samuel Risley. Upbound American Mariner
Testing a shark-inspired hydropower turbine
A new turbine inspired by the mouth of the basking shark was recently tested at the University of Michigan's Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory. It could potentially serve as a safer and more environmentally-friendly way to power remote research camps in Alaska, where U-M researchers involved in the North Slope Initiative go each spring to monitor the ecosystem. Read more about it at LabLog at http://tinyurl.com/4825tqm
What is Strait Power?
http://straitpower.blogspot.com
Strait Power is a hydroelectric solution without the dam problem.
The goal of Strait Power: Redefine the motor of the Motor City.
The State Of Wikipedia (Video + Infographic)
Wikipedia just celebrated its tenth birthday. As a self-proclaimed fan of the site, I wanted to share with you this video, made for the occasion as Wikipedia enters its second decade.
The ‘State Of Wikipedia’ video is part of the ‘State Of’ series made by interactive agency from JESS3, and is narrated by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.
Today, the English Wikipedia now stands at 3.5+ million articles (up from roughly 500,000 in March 2005), and more than 17 million across all languages.
No matter what you think about Wales, the foundation or the site, that’s an impressive feat.
Meet Milo The Virtual Boy: Cloud-Sculpting The Mind of a Synthetic Human
…demos Milo, a hotly anticipated video game for Microsoft’s Kinect controller. Perceptive and impressionable like a real 11-year-old, the virtual boy watches, listens and learns — recognizing and responding to you.
The demonstration begins with an explanation of how Milo is constructed. A combination of the following three elements allow Milo to exist:
1.A Kinect Camera
2.Artificial Intelligence developed by Microsoft
3.Emotional Artificial Intelligence built by Lionhead Studios.
Milo moves through a synthetic environment predicated on User-directed biofeedback/body gestures: no mechanical controllers are necessary. Unfortunately, Milo’s introductory learning curve [which is integral to the "game" leveling system] involves inherent gender bias: if you’re a girl, your initial game variable is a Butterfly whereas if your a boy, you’ll be presented with a Snail.
The demonstration goes on to illustrate how Milo’s face is comprehensively AI driven. His facial movements include blush response, nostril “flare” size [indicating stress], “body matching” [causing neuro-linguistically driven facial alterations] and responses to verbal cues. Peter then describes how Milo’s personality development is predicated on a Cause-and-Effect dynamic. This causality is showcased via 3 examples:
1.The User can choose to direct Milo to squash a snail: if the User does it will effect “…how Milo develops”. The specifics of the verbal stimulus employed including how the User vocalises [specific phrases and intonations] all contribute to a database that informs and effects future interactions.
2.The User teaches Milo to skim stones over the surface of a river [skewed gender stereotyping is again evident here].
3.The User choosing to clean Milo’s room: Milo’s recognition of the User’s beneficial intervention and verbal engagement promotes sustained developmental interaction based on [what Peter terms] “deep psychology”.
This “deep psychology” [or what is described in synthaptic terms as "augmentology"] encourages a User’s empathy loadings. This in turn allows such games to shift towards complex experientially-defined engagement. These games surpass the hollow reinforcement of contemporary Social Games such as Farmville: instead, the User “levels up” by knitting fictionalised engagement with personality/identity construction and personalised growth variables. The element of cloud-directed learning [coaching synthetic humans whose social and chronological development depends on "crowdsourced" input] creates enormous opportunities for instruction and feedback via these types of “Reality Gaming” systems [highlighted here by Seth Priebatsch]:
Pediatric Adventure
“Aaaarrrr ye ready?” the hospital technologist growls, handing the patient a black-felt pirate hat. “Yer pirate ship awaits, Cap’n.”
The child draws the hat to his head. Skull-and-crossbones sneer through the waiting room, as if proclaiming, “I’m not just a patient. I’m a pirate.”
The 7-year-old’s mother holds his hand as they walk to the CT room. She assures him that he’s going to have a great adventure. They’ve come here— Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC—to have his sinus cavities scanned.
As the mini-swashbuckler nears the room, a set of brown planks extend into the hallway, leading to his ship. Soon there is crisp blue water beneath and the subtle smell of coconut in the air.
“Welcome to Pirate Island,” a nurse says, as the boy enters the room.
On this day, Duncan Auer is a pirate.
Duncan’s boat is actually a specially decorated CT machine. The exam bed has been made to look like a hull. The CT tube: a wooden steering wheel. The water and planks below: brown and blue decals on the floor. The coconut smell: an aromatherapy scent—piña colada—churning from a black vaporizer in the corner.
Watch the video
Go behind the scenes with with the designers of GE’s Adventure Series™.
There are seven other rooms besides Pirate Island, whose themes include a jungle, a campground and an underwater fantasy. They are part of a pilot GE Healthcare program called the GE Adventure Series™, developed in partnership with Children’s Hospital, to help reduce stress in children undergoing imaging scans. The series is currently not commercially available.
“Children are very cooperative,” says Duncan’s mother, Liz Auer, who works as a preschool teacher. “If you can use your imagination and encourage [kids] to use theirs, you can make any experience into something that can be fun or, at the very least, relaxing and not stressful,” she says.
And while all the decals, costumes and role-playing may seem at once whimsical as well as obvious. They are not.
Monday, January 17, 2011
What does it take to build the best iPad interface?
I look at a lot of iPad apps and there are very few that get to a really great interface. http://www.955dreams.com/ History of Jazz' app is one of those examples. Really nice all the way around. What did it take? I sit down with the team to learn more. Their app is currently rated five stars and is high on the best selling list.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Google Science Fair Experiment - Extended
Introducing the world's first online global science competition, the Google Science Fair! Google has partnered with CERN, LEGO, National Geographic and Scientific American to create a new kind of online science competition that is more global, open and inclusive than ever before. Students aged 13 - 18 from around the world are invited to enter and compete for awesome once-in-a-lifetime experiences, scholarships and real-life work opportunities. Sign up today at google.com/sciencefair.
Google Science Fair 2011 - Opening Event (over an hour)
Keen On… Tim Ferriss: How To Turn Your Body Into A Startup (TCTV)
Tim Ferriss is one of the world’s leading transcenders of limitations. Best known as the author of the 2007 monstrously successful self-help guide The 4-Hour Workweek, a #1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller that has accumulated over 1000 reviews on Amazon, the Princeton-educated and globe-trotting Ferriss is also a legendary bodybuilder, life hacker and re-inventor of the physical self.
According to Ferriss, modern man is driven by two great fears:
1) Too much email.
2) Getting fat.
So it’s no great surprise that Ferriss’ follow-up to The 4-Hour Workweek is The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman, which gets released tomorrow. While his first book was a guide to overcoming too much email, Ferris’ latest work is a guide to overcoming the limitations of the physical body. It’s a hacking guide to the body – a book which encourages us to treat our bodies as entrepreneurial start-ups that require continual innovation and reinvention in order to fully realize ourselves and, of course, lose weight.
For those of you with sexually demanding girlfriends or wives, The 4-Hour Body should easily provide the ROI on its $27 cover price. As Ferriss explained to me when he came into the TechCrunch studio, not only is his new book a step-by-step guide to becoming super-human, but it also offers a detailed anatomical and logistical guide about to how to give women 15-minute orgasms (clue: focus, focus, focus – and no kissing.)
Essential reading, indeed. No doubt, The 4-Hour Body will emulate the 4-Hour Workweek as the #1 book on both men and women’s bedside tables this Xmas.
Ferriss on The 4-Hour Workweek
BlackBerry PlayBook Demo
Check out our exclusive up close and personal demo of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with RIM's Julian Dolce, Platform Lead of the QNX team.
Joe Scarborough, Glenn Beck Feud Erupts
A war of words erupted between Joe Scarborough and Glenn Beck on Tuesday, after Scarborough said that Beck was delivering a "vile message to Americans every day," and Beck said that Scarborough could never back up his assertions with facts.
Scarborough spoke on Tuesday's "Morning Joe." He was talking about his hope that amped-up media rhetoric would cool down in the wake of the Arizona shooting, and he used Beck as an example:
"I have a lot of family members that listen to him and watch him and are frightened by the things that he says every night with his chalkboard...my mom and a lot of other people like her that watch him every day start to believe if they hear every day, every day, that there's this guy in Washington D.C., this black guy that hates all white people and he wants to take your money . . . and he wants to destroy the country you grew up in. You feed that vile message to Americans every day, it's going to have an impact."
Scarborough also said that Beck was a "nobody" until Fox News chief Roger Ailes brought him to his network. "If Roger Ailes decides to kick him out of Fox News, he'll go back to the Glenn Beck he was before," he said.
Beck--and, especially, his radio sidekicks--responded later on Tuesday. Beck's co-host Pat Gray was the most outraged by Scarborough's statements.
"How do you know what Glenn Beck says and does," he almost screamed. "You moron. Joe, there's a reason that everyone you know listens to and watches Glenn's show, including your mom, and not yours: you suck!"
But Beck also had some words for Scarborough."Every day on their show you hear about how the Tea Parties are violent," he said. "What is the difference, except that one has facts to back it up and one does not?"
Obama Arizona Memorial Speech:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much. Please, please be seated. (Applause.)
To the families of those we've lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants who are gathered here, the people of Tucson and the people of Arizona: I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today and will stand by you tomorrow. (Applause.)
There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: The hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy will pull through. (Applause.)
Scripture tells us:
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
On Saturday morning, Gabby, her staff and many of her constituents gathered outside a supermarket to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech. (Applause.) They were fulfilling a central tenet of the democracy envisioned by our founders -- representatives of the people answering questions to their constituents, so as to carry their concerns back to our nation's capital. Gabby called it "Congress on Your Corner" -- just an updated version of government of and by and for the people. (Applause.)
And that quintessentially American scene, that was the scene that was shattered by a gunman's bullets. And the six people who lost their lives on Saturday -- they, too, represented what is best in us, what is best in America. (Applause.)
Judge John Roll served our legal system for nearly 40 years. (Applause.) A graduate of this university and a graduate of this law school -- (applause) -- Judge Roll was recommended for the federal bench by John McCain 20 years ago -- (applause) -- appointed by President George H.W. Bush and rose to become Arizona's chief federal judge. (Applause.)
His colleagues described him as the hardest-working judge within the Ninth Circuit. He was on his way back from attending Mass, as he did every day, when he decided to stop by and say hi to his representative. John is survived by his loving wife, Maureen, his three sons and his five beautiful grandchildren. (Applause.)
George and Dorothy Morris -- "Dot" to her friends -- were high school sweethearts who got married and had two daughters. They did everything together -- traveling the open road in their RV, enjoying what their friends called a 50-year honeymoon. Saturday morning, they went by the Safeway to hear what their congresswoman had to say. When gunfire rang out, George, a former Marine, instinctively tried to shield his wife. (Applause.) Both were shot. Dot passed away.
A New Jersey native, Phyllis Schneck retired to Tucson to beat the snow. But in the summer, she would return East, where her world revolved around her three children, her seven grandchildren and 2-year-old great-granddaughter. A gifted quilter, she'd often work under a favorite tree, or sometimes she'd sew aprons with the logos of the Jets and the Giants -- (laughter) -- to give out at the church where she volunteered. A Republican, she took a liking to Gabby, and wanted to get to know her better. (Applause.)
Dorwan and Mavy Stoddard grew up in Tucson together -- about 70 years ago. They moved apart and started their own respective families. But after both were widowed they found their way back here, to, as one of Mavy's daughters put it, "be boyfriend and girlfriend again." (Laughter.)
When they weren't out on the road in their motor home, you could find them just up the road, helping folks in need at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ. A retired construction worker, Dorwan spent his spare time fixing up the church along with his dog, Tux. His final act of selflessness was to dive on top of his wife, sacrificing his life for hers. (Applause.)
Everything -- everything -- Gabe Zimmerman did, he did with passion. (Applause.) But his true passion was helping people. As Gabby's outreach director, he made the cares of thousands of her constituents his own, seeing to it that seniors got the Medicare benefits that they had earned, that veterans got the medals and the care that they deserved, that government was working for ordinary folks. He died doing what he loved -- talking with people and seeing how he could help. And Gabe is survived by his parents, Ross and Emily, his brother, Ben, and his fiancée, Kelly, who he planned to marry next year. (Applause.)
And then there is nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green. Christina was an A student; she was a dancer; she was a gymnast; she was a swimmer. She decided that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the Major Leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. (Applause.)
She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age. She'd remind her mother, "We are so blessed. We have the best life." And she'd pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.
Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken -- and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness.
Our hearts are full of hope and thanks for the 13 Americans who survived the shooting, including the congresswoman many of them went to see on Saturday.
I have just come from the University Medical Center, just a mile from here, where our friend Gabby courageously fights to recover even as we speak. And I want to tell you -- her husband Mark is here and he allows me to share this with you -- right after we went to visit, a few minutes after we left her room and some of her colleagues in Congress were in the room, Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. (Applause.) Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. (Applause.)
Gabby opened her eyes. Gabby opened her eyes, so I can tell you she knows we are here. She knows we love her. And she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey. We are there for her. (Applause.)
Our hearts are full of thanks for that good news, and our hearts are full of gratitude for those who saved others. We are grateful to Daniel Hernandez -- (applause) -- a volunteer in Gabby's office. (Applause.)
And, Daniel, I'm sorry, you may deny it, but we've decided you are a hero because -- (applause) -- you ran through the chaos to minister to your boss, and tended to her wounds and helped keep her alive. (Applause.)
We are grateful to the men who tackled the gunman as he stopped to reload. (Applause.) Right over there. (Applause.) We are grateful for petite Patricia Maisch, who wrestled away the killer's ammunition, and undoubtedly saved some lives. (Applause.) And we are grateful for the doctors and nurses and first responders who worked wonders to heal those who'd been hurt. We are grateful to them. (Applause.)
These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, all around us, just waiting to be summoned -- as it was on Saturday morning. Their actions, their selflessness poses a challenge to each of us. It raises a question of what, beyond prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?
You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations -- to try and pose some order on the chaos and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we've seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health system. And much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.
But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized -- at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. (Applause.)
Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, "When I looked for light, then came darkness." Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.
For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind. Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future. (Applause.) But what we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other. (Applause.) That we cannot do. (Applause.) That we cannot do.
As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together. (Applause.)
After all, that's what most of us do when we lose somebody in our family -- especially if the loss is unexpected. We're shaken out of our routines. We're forced to look inward. We reflect on the past: Did we spend enough time with an aging parent, we wonder. Did we express our gratitude for all the sacrifices that they made for us? Did we tell a spouse just how desperately we loved them, not just once in a while but every single day?
So sudden loss causes us to look backward -- but it also forces us to look forward; to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us. (Applause.)
We may ask ourselves if we've shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives. Perhaps we question whether we're doing right by our children, or our community, whether our priorities are in order.
We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -- but rather, how well we have loved -- (applause)-- and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better. (Applause.)
And that process -- that process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions -- that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires.
For those who were harmed, those who were killed -- they are part of our family, an American family 300 million strong. (Applause.) We may not have known them personally, but surely we see ourselves in them. In George and Dot, in Dorwan and Mavy, we sense the abiding love we have for our own husbands, our own wives, our own life partners. Phyllis -- she's our mom or our grandma; Gabe our brother or son. (Applause.) In Judge Roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family and doing his job well, but also a man who embodied America's fidelity to the law. (Applause.)
And in Gabby -- in Gabby, we see a reflection of our public-spiritedness; that desire to participate in that sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious, but always necessary and never-ending process to form a more perfect union. (Applause.)
And in Christina -- in Christina we see all of our children. So curious, so trusting, so energetic, so full of magic. So deserving of our love. And so deserving of our good example.
If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate -- as it should -- let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost. (Applause.) Let's make sure it's not on the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle.
The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better. To be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud. (Applause.)
We should be civil because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other's ideas without questioning each other's love of country and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American Dream to future generations. (Applause.)
They believed -- they believed, and I believe that we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved life here -- they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another, that's entirely up to us. (Applause.)
And I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us. (Applause.)
That's what I believe, in part because that's what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. (Applause.)
Imagine -- imagine for a moment, here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that some day she, too, might play a part in shaping her nation's future. She had been elected to her student council. She saw public service as something exciting and hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.
I want to live up to her expectations. (Applause.) I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it. I want America to be as good as she imagined it. (Applause.) All of us -- we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations. (Applause.)
As has already been mentioned, Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called "Faces of Hope." On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child's life. "I hope you help those in need," read one. "I hope you know all the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart." (Applause.) "I hope you jump in rain puddles."
If there are rain puddles in Heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. (Applause.) And here on this Earth -- here on this Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and we commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.
May God bless and keep those we've lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
Friday, January 14, 2011
iPhone Movie to Hit South Korea Theaters
iPhone Movie to Hit South Korea Theaters
An award-winning South Korean film director shoots a 30-minute movie using only Apple's iPhone 4. Video courtesy of Reuters.
An award-winning South Korean film director shoots a 30-minute movie using only Apple's iPhone 4. Video courtesy of Reuters.
First look: Steve Wozniak and the history of computing
The Computer History Museum, in Mountain View California, is opening a 25,000-square-foot exhibit, titled “Revolutions,” on Thursday. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, gave us and a few other journalists a tour of the new exhibit while it was still being built. Harry McCracken wrote up the tour and detailed more about each of the computers Woz explained at http://technologizer.com/2010/12/02/a… In the tour we went from Herman Hollerith’s punch-card tabulating machine through the Macintosh era.
More info:
The Computer History Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org/
Steve Wozniak web site: http://www.woz.org/
Steve Wozniak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevewoz
Steve Wozniak profile on CrunchBase: http://www.crunchbase.com/person/steve-wozniak
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tour of the new "Revolutions" exhibit at Computer History Museum
The "Revolutions" exhibit opens tomorrow at the Computer History Museum. What does it look like? Here's a quick tour. Along the way you'll meet an IBM Fellow, see Apple-co-founder Steve Wozniak, talk with Pong inventor Al Acorn, among other cool people.
Computer pioneers talk with the press
Today the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, opens a new "Revolutions" exhibit and to celebrate the opening several computer pioneers sat down for a QA with the press.
From LEFT,
Len Shustek is chairman of the board of trustees of the Computer History Museum
John Hollar, CEO of Computer History Museum.
Max Mathews, computer music pioneer..
Donald Knuth, software pioneer.
Steve Wozniak, co-founded Apple.
Al Alcorn, invented Pong
Steve Russell, inventor of first computer game.
Frances Allen, pioneered several computer languages.
The magic of software (interview with Word Lens inventor)
Have you ever seen magic? I have and once in a while I see magical software.
Over on Quora we were discussing just what software is magical, but here we have an even newer example: Word Lens, which translates Spanish to English (and vice versa) in real time on your phone.
Here the inventor, Otavio Good, talks about that “the magic comes out of video translation and no one else has done that yet.”
Now, this isn’t perfect, and in the interview you’ll see Otavio lays out why it isn’t, but I am more amazed that this works at all, than the fact that it doesn’t work in all situations.
Nor'easter Time-Lapse: Medford, MA by Jim Meegan
1.12.11 Nor'easter Time-Lapse: Medford, MA from Jim Meegan on Vimeo.
This time-lapse was shot in Medford, MA (just outside of Boston) during the Nor'easter on 1.12.11
I started it at midnight and left it running until 7pm.
The camera was set to take a shot every 2.5 minutes over the course of those 19 hours. I used AV mode on my Canon 7D.
The image sequence was conformed to 12fps and placed on a 24fps timeline with frame-blending enabled.
Overall very satisfied. Wish I caught the mess on the window sooner though. We got around 16" here, but only about 13" made it on to the porch I was shooting from because of an overhang. Obviously not as dramatic as the guy from Jersey who captured three feet, but that was just out of my control.
Music: Kevin MacLeod
China’s empty city
Billions of dollars have been poured into the construction of the new Ordos City, and real estate has sold like hotcakes, yet the city built for millions remains eerily empty, only inhabited by a few thousand construction workers.
The 1.5 million residents of old Ordos aren’t yet willing to move to the city without an economy, in addition to the fact that many have been priced out of the market by speculators. Is this China’s city of the future or a bubble ready to burst?
The Tucson Shootings, Civility And The New Class War Zone
The Tucson Shootings, Civility And The New Class War Zone
Paul Jay: Instead of using 'civility' to cover up reality, how about a people's civility intended to reveal it
Bio
Tyson Theron Slocum is Director of Public Citizen's Energy Program. Tyson works to highlight the significant financial costs and safety and security risks associated with nuclear power. Tyson covers the regulation of electricity, natural gas and petroleum markets, including commodity futures and FERC-jurisdictional matters to promote stronger transparency measures. Tyson was appointed to serve on the CFTC's newly created Energy & Environmental Markets Advisory Committee. Tyson also covers federal legislative efforts to address climate change, particularly the impact such programs will have on the ability of moderate- and low-income households to afford access to sustainable energy. Tyson is the author of numerous reports on these subjects, presenting his findings in testimony before the U.S. Congress.
The Tucson Shootings, Civility and the New Class War Zone
Every so often, a tragic event shreds a gapping hole in the fabric of the official American narrative. Then the political elite and their media do what’s necessary to smooth things over, to find some calming equilibrium, lest we think about things that should not be questioned.
This time it’s the shootings in Tucson, Arizona where six people died including Christina Taylor Green, a nine-year-old child who was born, in some kind of awful irony that connects the two events, on September the eleventh, 2001. She appeared in the book Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11 and it says something about what’s happened to America over the last decade that her life ends in such a heartbreaking and meaningless way.
Murdered along side Christina was Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court for Arizona, John Roll and five others. United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the intended target, was gravely wounded.
As we once again peer into the American heart of darkness, we see two nightmarish features of this country. First, it’s another alarming instance of a young man playing out his paranoid delusions with an easily available automatic weapon. The extent of the violent psychotic behavior spawned by our culture must be faced.
Also exposed, in all its hideousness, is the latest rise of a national political culture based on such paranoia, with one section of the movement wanting to refight the New Deal and the other, the Civil War. One wants a return to the unrestricted capitalism of the 19th century, while the other wants the unrestricted racism of slave society.
What are we told in the elite media is the problem? The lack of civility. Once again, a formulation that will provide that much needed calm, a solution that if we all try really hard, we can achieve. Let’s just all get along, and we will find that cherished equilibrium.
Certainly lets not talk about the fossils of the fossil fuel industry that pave the right populist way with tens of millions of dollars (read about the Koch brothers to start, but they are not alone).
These billionaires and their neo-con brothers finance and help organize populist politicians and movements that attract people who are legitimately alienated and legitimately angry with a big government that mostly serves big pools of capital. Capital for example, like that of the Koch brothers. Of course people taken in by all this wind up supporting one set of billionaires over the other, even against their own interests, but it’s designed to feel like a fight for personal liberty and freedom.
This right-elite sponsored ‘populism’ also deliberately attracts people who want simplistic answers and ways to vent their bile on easy targets. In one election the target may be gays, the other immigrants, Muslims and who knows, maybe some day they’ll make their way back to Jews, and always, that is always, a foundation of deep hatred and fear of African Americans.
Playing a support role in all of this, the Internet ‘paranoia business’ feeds the tortured psyches of the world, preying on panic, like the creature on Star Trek that drew energy by creating terror. In this case, it’s dollars these webmasters of fear want. Finding secret conspiracies is much more profitable than revealing systemic underpinnings of abuse, there to be seen right in front of our noses.
There are no direct ties that we know of connecting the alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner, with any of these movements. But the Sheriff of Tuscan put it well enough:
[Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik] “When the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates, and to try to inflame the public on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has impact on people especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with…”
So, are our politicians and mass media pundits discussing why the conditions of American life breed such mental illness and such vile politics? What do they say is the problem? What’s the solution?
Well, so far the answer is, as I said before, “lack of civility”. Our rhetoric is inflammatory.
Here’s some of what was said on the Sunday morning news shows just after the shooting:
Rep. Raul Labrador, on Meet the Press: “I just hope that we can have some civility and move forward”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, on Meet the Press: “I think members of Congress either need to turn down the volume, begin to try to exercise some high level of civility, or this darkness will never ever be overcome with light”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on Meet the Press:”… I agree, it's our responsibility to make sure that we set the right example and set the tone of civility…"
Donna Brazile, on ABC: “…I believe that we can return to civility. We can have debates, honest and strong disagreements on many of the major issues facing our country, but we can do it with civility”
Rep. Steny Hoyer, on Face the Nation: …in politics and in the media, in the public square, fashion our rhetoric so that it does not incite but informs and yes can differ but can differ in a way that is civil and consistent with our democracy’s efforts.
Here’s how scholar and cultural critic Benjamin DeMott answers all of this:
What is the real American malaise? Why is this country in trouble? Lately the leader classes have been floating a fresh answer to these queries, talking up a new “root cause” of national woes. Not race, not class, . . . Our not-so-secret malaise is,
in a pet leader-class phrase, the decline of civility.”
He said this in an article titled Seduced by Civility: Political Manners and The Crisis of Democratic Values, published by The Nation magazine in 1996. Now 15 years later, we get the same evasive answers at a time of even more serious national crisis.
While the far-right and neo-conservative elite mobilizes sections of the population for more war and a further weakening of constitutional and economic rights, the neo-liberal elite calls for bi-partisanship and civility.
President Obama said we shouldn’t prosecute the former regime, not to open up old wounds. Instead it opened the door to the resurrection of the Rove-Cheney gang, who lurk behind this growing far-right populism, pushing and seducing it towards their agenda. It won’t be long till the true Libertarians in Congress are either bent or marginalized and we are left with the bunch that ran the country into the ground under Bush.
The neo-liberal Obama Administration’s demand for civility and compromise is a clarion call to the whole elite: “don’t let our differences get in the way of saving the economic system”.
But as his administration works to save the very structures that created the financial crisis to begin with, that enrich the top 2% as even larger segments of the population fall into poverty, his far right opponents are preparing his demise, building a movement that will usher in a regime permeated with the kind of bigotry and hatred of government and collective solutions described by the Sheriff of Tucson.
Listen to Dick Armey, a former Republican US Representative from Texas’ 26th Congressional District, and House Majority leader 1995-2003. Now Chair of Freedom Works, one of the driving forces behind the Tea Party and the far right. He pays lip-service to the ideas of civility, but the message to his troops is clear:
Dick Armey, on ABC: “…this incident is no basis by which anybody who sees their duty to America to stand down from that duty, but to redouble it, perhaps with a greater degree of caution, and hopefully with a greater degree of civility. We've always wanted that, but still, nevertheless, we must do our duty and defend our liberties in this great country.”
The real question is what are the rest of us going to do. We’d better start by understanding that the lack of civil discourse and extremes of competing ideology is not the underlying problem, but a symptom of objective difference of interest. We’re not one nation; there really are at the least two Americas. We are ruled by an elite that can compromise with each other to “save the economy” or to wage a war, but shows less and less willingness to ‘compromise’ with working people and the poor. They want us to pay for the crisis, and they want us to be very polite about doing it.
Benjamin DeMott put it well: “‘civility’ is in fact a theater of operations - the classless society’s new class war zone.”
Instead of using ‘civility’ to cover up the realities of life, how about we call for a people’s civility intended to better reveal it.
We can start by telling the truth about the society we live in. Let’s examine with honest and uncompromising inquiry, the actual conditions of life in America, without fearing the words race and class. Let those who want collective solutions try to find some common ground with those who distrust big government - which almost everyone agrees serves the top 2% more than anybody else. Let’s agree that we value individual rights and freedom and understand that can only be meaningful in a more equitable society.
How about we answer this question: how can our schools and public health care system better intervene with students when there are obvious signs of psychotic disorders? What can we do to address the cultural, political, healthcare and law enforcement issues that have lead to so many mass shootings by disturbed young men? What policy would be in the public interest?
Let’s base the inquiry on a study of facts, evidence, and researched opinion, because like so many other issues facing us, lives depend on it.
If you’d like to join us in this inquiry, and yes, you want to keep it civil, please write us at contact@therealnews.com We will open up a section of the web site for people to submit their thoughts and proposals. We will interview experts and debate solutions. And of course, you can comment on this commentary in the space provided below.
Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
Paul Jay: Instead of using 'civility' to cover up reality, how about a people's civility intended to reveal it
Bio
Tyson Theron Slocum is Director of Public Citizen's Energy Program. Tyson works to highlight the significant financial costs and safety and security risks associated with nuclear power. Tyson covers the regulation of electricity, natural gas and petroleum markets, including commodity futures and FERC-jurisdictional matters to promote stronger transparency measures. Tyson was appointed to serve on the CFTC's newly created Energy & Environmental Markets Advisory Committee. Tyson also covers federal legislative efforts to address climate change, particularly the impact such programs will have on the ability of moderate- and low-income households to afford access to sustainable energy. Tyson is the author of numerous reports on these subjects, presenting his findings in testimony before the U.S. Congress.
The Tucson Shootings, Civility and the New Class War Zone
Every so often, a tragic event shreds a gapping hole in the fabric of the official American narrative. Then the political elite and their media do what’s necessary to smooth things over, to find some calming equilibrium, lest we think about things that should not be questioned.
This time it’s the shootings in Tucson, Arizona where six people died including Christina Taylor Green, a nine-year-old child who was born, in some kind of awful irony that connects the two events, on September the eleventh, 2001. She appeared in the book Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11 and it says something about what’s happened to America over the last decade that her life ends in such a heartbreaking and meaningless way.
Murdered along side Christina was Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court for Arizona, John Roll and five others. United States Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the intended target, was gravely wounded.
As we once again peer into the American heart of darkness, we see two nightmarish features of this country. First, it’s another alarming instance of a young man playing out his paranoid delusions with an easily available automatic weapon. The extent of the violent psychotic behavior spawned by our culture must be faced.
Also exposed, in all its hideousness, is the latest rise of a national political culture based on such paranoia, with one section of the movement wanting to refight the New Deal and the other, the Civil War. One wants a return to the unrestricted capitalism of the 19th century, while the other wants the unrestricted racism of slave society.
What are we told in the elite media is the problem? The lack of civility. Once again, a formulation that will provide that much needed calm, a solution that if we all try really hard, we can achieve. Let’s just all get along, and we will find that cherished equilibrium.
Certainly lets not talk about the fossils of the fossil fuel industry that pave the right populist way with tens of millions of dollars (read about the Koch brothers to start, but they are not alone).
These billionaires and their neo-con brothers finance and help organize populist politicians and movements that attract people who are legitimately alienated and legitimately angry with a big government that mostly serves big pools of capital. Capital for example, like that of the Koch brothers. Of course people taken in by all this wind up supporting one set of billionaires over the other, even against their own interests, but it’s designed to feel like a fight for personal liberty and freedom.
This right-elite sponsored ‘populism’ also deliberately attracts people who want simplistic answers and ways to vent their bile on easy targets. In one election the target may be gays, the other immigrants, Muslims and who knows, maybe some day they’ll make their way back to Jews, and always, that is always, a foundation of deep hatred and fear of African Americans.
Playing a support role in all of this, the Internet ‘paranoia business’ feeds the tortured psyches of the world, preying on panic, like the creature on Star Trek that drew energy by creating terror. In this case, it’s dollars these webmasters of fear want. Finding secret conspiracies is much more profitable than revealing systemic underpinnings of abuse, there to be seen right in front of our noses.
There are no direct ties that we know of connecting the alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner, with any of these movements. But the Sheriff of Tuscan put it well enough:
[Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik] “When the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates, and to try to inflame the public on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, has impact on people especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with…”
So, are our politicians and mass media pundits discussing why the conditions of American life breed such mental illness and such vile politics? What do they say is the problem? What’s the solution?
Well, so far the answer is, as I said before, “lack of civility”. Our rhetoric is inflammatory.
Here’s some of what was said on the Sunday morning news shows just after the shooting:
Rep. Raul Labrador, on Meet the Press: “I just hope that we can have some civility and move forward”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, on Meet the Press: “I think members of Congress either need to turn down the volume, begin to try to exercise some high level of civility, or this darkness will never ever be overcome with light”
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on Meet the Press:”… I agree, it's our responsibility to make sure that we set the right example and set the tone of civility…"
Donna Brazile, on ABC: “…I believe that we can return to civility. We can have debates, honest and strong disagreements on many of the major issues facing our country, but we can do it with civility”
Rep. Steny Hoyer, on Face the Nation: …in politics and in the media, in the public square, fashion our rhetoric so that it does not incite but informs and yes can differ but can differ in a way that is civil and consistent with our democracy’s efforts.
Here’s how scholar and cultural critic Benjamin DeMott answers all of this:
What is the real American malaise? Why is this country in trouble? Lately the leader classes have been floating a fresh answer to these queries, talking up a new “root cause” of national woes. Not race, not class, . . . Our not-so-secret malaise is,
in a pet leader-class phrase, the decline of civility.”
He said this in an article titled Seduced by Civility: Political Manners and The Crisis of Democratic Values, published by The Nation magazine in 1996. Now 15 years later, we get the same evasive answers at a time of even more serious national crisis.
While the far-right and neo-conservative elite mobilizes sections of the population for more war and a further weakening of constitutional and economic rights, the neo-liberal elite calls for bi-partisanship and civility.
President Obama said we shouldn’t prosecute the former regime, not to open up old wounds. Instead it opened the door to the resurrection of the Rove-Cheney gang, who lurk behind this growing far-right populism, pushing and seducing it towards their agenda. It won’t be long till the true Libertarians in Congress are either bent or marginalized and we are left with the bunch that ran the country into the ground under Bush.
The neo-liberal Obama Administration’s demand for civility and compromise is a clarion call to the whole elite: “don’t let our differences get in the way of saving the economic system”.
But as his administration works to save the very structures that created the financial crisis to begin with, that enrich the top 2% as even larger segments of the population fall into poverty, his far right opponents are preparing his demise, building a movement that will usher in a regime permeated with the kind of bigotry and hatred of government and collective solutions described by the Sheriff of Tucson.
Listen to Dick Armey, a former Republican US Representative from Texas’ 26th Congressional District, and House Majority leader 1995-2003. Now Chair of Freedom Works, one of the driving forces behind the Tea Party and the far right. He pays lip-service to the ideas of civility, but the message to his troops is clear:
Dick Armey, on ABC: “…this incident is no basis by which anybody who sees their duty to America to stand down from that duty, but to redouble it, perhaps with a greater degree of caution, and hopefully with a greater degree of civility. We've always wanted that, but still, nevertheless, we must do our duty and defend our liberties in this great country.”
The real question is what are the rest of us going to do. We’d better start by understanding that the lack of civil discourse and extremes of competing ideology is not the underlying problem, but a symptom of objective difference of interest. We’re not one nation; there really are at the least two Americas. We are ruled by an elite that can compromise with each other to “save the economy” or to wage a war, but shows less and less willingness to ‘compromise’ with working people and the poor. They want us to pay for the crisis, and they want us to be very polite about doing it.
Benjamin DeMott put it well: “‘civility’ is in fact a theater of operations - the classless society’s new class war zone.”
Instead of using ‘civility’ to cover up the realities of life, how about we call for a people’s civility intended to better reveal it.
We can start by telling the truth about the society we live in. Let’s examine with honest and uncompromising inquiry, the actual conditions of life in America, without fearing the words race and class. Let those who want collective solutions try to find some common ground with those who distrust big government - which almost everyone agrees serves the top 2% more than anybody else. Let’s agree that we value individual rights and freedom and understand that can only be meaningful in a more equitable society.
How about we answer this question: how can our schools and public health care system better intervene with students when there are obvious signs of psychotic disorders? What can we do to address the cultural, political, healthcare and law enforcement issues that have lead to so many mass shootings by disturbed young men? What policy would be in the public interest?
Let’s base the inquiry on a study of facts, evidence, and researched opinion, because like so many other issues facing us, lives depend on it.
If you’d like to join us in this inquiry, and yes, you want to keep it civil, please write us at contact@therealnews.com We will open up a section of the web site for people to submit their thoughts and proposals. We will interview experts and debate solutions. And of course, you can comment on this commentary in the space provided below.
Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
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Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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