It's About Time

Here in Europe we’ve ended Daylight Savings Time (back in the States the big candy companies convinced Congress to wait an extra week in order to increase Halloween demand).  But each time I change my watch, I’m reminded how much the whole scheme just frosts my flakes.

Even the nomenclature gets under my skin.  Daylight Savings Time?  Doesn’t that second “s” seem erroneous?  When it’s time to walk the dog, it’s “Dog Walking Time”, not “Dog Walkings Time”.  But when it comes to saving daylight, it’s grammar that seems to “fall back”.  And what exactly are we “saving”?  There’s no more daylight, regardless of how we set our clocks.  It’s more like “Daylight Shifting (or ‘Shiftings’) Time”.  And now we’ve messed with things to a point where even the term “Standard Time” seems a bit off.  The U.S. spends the majority (about 60%) of the year in the summer configuration, so shouldn’t that be the “Standard Time”?  And the winter scheme could be called “Daylight Wasting (or ‘Wastings’) Time.”

And even if I overlook the fractured semantics, I’m not sure I buy into the daylight shifting logic.  If having an extra hour of daylight after work and school is a good idea, then let’s set our clocks accordingly all year round.  Why is it a good idea only in the summer?  If I remember my microeconomic theory (and I wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t), the Law of Diminishing Returns tells us that the extra hour of evening light is more valuable during the brief days of winter than in the languid evenings of the summer.

Here’s my bottom line: we measure time (and everything else) with units of our own creation.  But they only work if everyone understands (and agrees with) them.  So let’s stop confusing the issue by changing things just to alter our perceptions of an obviously unaltered world.  In the meantime, I propose that each April, the mile be temporarily reduced to 1,300 ft so that we can all drive 200 mph.

We’ll call it Fast Drivings Month.

Can I Really Be Upset About The Chilean Mine Rescue?

I’m not looking to start some sort of riot, but I’m a little torqued off about the hubbub surrounding the rescue of those Chilean miners.  Before you light your torch and grab your pitchfork, let me clarify my position: I couldn’t be happier about the rescue itself, and I have undying respect for the miners and everyone involved in their safe return.  But the way it played out in the media really frosts my flakes.

Between 1999 and 2002 my professional focus was trained solely on the Andean Ridge, an area as rich in natural resources as it is poor in, well, just about everything else.  Consequently, I am well-aware of the myriad problems surrounding the mining industry in that part of the world.  So as news of the situation at the San Jose mine hit the world headlines, I (perhaps naively) thought the bright Klieg lights of the international media would finally illuminate some of these long-festering dilemmas.  No such luck.  Even during the long weeks leading up to the ultimate rescue, no one seemed to find the time to discuss the social, economic or political stage upon which this global melodrama was playing out.  Nor do I recall any connections being drawn to the Colombian mine disaster which killed 73 people less than 60 days earlier.  (You probably don’t remember that one.  Apparently in the absurdist world of Andean mining, death is common, but not dying, now that’s news.)  There was ample time, however, to discuss the guy whose wife and girlfriend were squabbling at the rescue site, and the miners’ reaction to the Chile-Ukraine soccer game.  And I’m not holding my breath that anyone will bother to do any reflective post-rescue analysis.  Indeed, the whole ordeal has already become a ham-handed punch line.  I’ve heard/read this joke a half-dozen times in the last few days: “Those Chilean miners were offered to a trip to (insert person, place or thing to be mocked), and they asked if they could go back down the hole.”  So while you may see a handful of kids dressed as Chilean miners on your Halloween doorstep this year (“Just put the candy down this tube.”) it’s clear this story is already vanishing into the news cycle ether, soon to be replaced by some 98-lb starlet with a straw up her nose, a finger down her throat, and a house arrest bracelet on her ankle.

But my gripe isn't with the media.  They only feed us what we want to consume.  And (surprise, surprise) evidently our appetite for heroic rescues (and squabbling mistresses) greatly outpaces our taste for debating nationalized industrial policy.  But I fail to see why the two have to be mutually exclusive.  I guess I’m just frustrated that the intense, emotional narrative of the rescue hasn't amplified the fundamental issues with Andean mining industry, but instead just drowned them out.

Now that’s a real tragedy.

The Death of Nostalgia

I’m not some sort of Luddite (and if I was, a blog would be an awfully inappropriate way to publish my manifesto) or even a grumpy “we-didn’t-have-spellcheck-when-we-were-in-school” kind of Dad.  On the contrary, I love technology.  I think it’s great that more of the world’s information is available to more of the world’s minds.  I’m thrilled by the advances in alternative energy.  And I really love the fact that there’s a friendly voice in my car telling me exactly how to get to small Czech villages that I can’t pronounce without swallowing my tongue.  But I fear technology may be slowly killing nostalgia.

Don’t get me wrong, technology has done wonders for the business of remembering.  We live in a world where friends and acquaintances go from “I-had-forgotten-about-you” obscurity to “enough-about-your-@%&-farm” ubiquity in the speed of a mouse click.  And now that the Library of Congress is archiving every Twitter tweet, people in the year 2050 will have access to exactly what made them “LOL” on August 3, 2009.  But in order to be converted into nostalgia, these memories have to have some degree of commonality.  And that’s why I’m worried.

My generation (and to varying extents, those before mine) was raised in a world of “broadcasting”.  A limited number of outlets pushed “one-size-fits-all” information to as wide an audience as possible.  We all fed from the same pop culture trough.  Consequently, we now have any number of common touchstones we can use to create nostalgia.  When someone born in the early to mid 1960s hears “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero”, (regardless of whether we liked it or not) it takes almost all of us to the same place and time.  On the other hand, future generations will increasingly live in a world of “narrowcasting”.  They’ll have access to exponentially more information, but they’ll get it individually: what they want, when and how they want it.  Consider television: once a mainstay of singular shared moments (The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, or the Bradys in Hawaii) it is now experienced in different ways by different people.  I’ll watch something tonight on cable, you’ll watch it tomorrow on TiVo, someone else will catch it next week on the internet, and another will just wait for the DVD box set.   In junior high, when my friends and I discussed the previous evening’s episode of Welcome Back, Kotter, we didn’t have to preface things by saying, “Spoiler Alert!”  To make matters worse, the whole concept of “past” is, well, in the past.  Kids today have the same access to “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero” as they do to the most popular current tune (that I’m not going to pretend I can name).  So, with everyone doing their own thing, and the past bum-rushing the present, I wonder what future DJs will play at future wedding receptions (“Everyone on the dance floor!  It’s Piano-Playing Cat!”)

Here’s my bottom line, in a nice nursery school allegory.  In one room is my generation, with a limited number of Legos from which to build our recollections.  However, most of our Legos fit with those of our friends.  In another room, future generations are playing with infinitely more Legos, but precious few of them work with anyone else’s.

Which room sounds like more fun?

Gargoyles

The cathedral in the Black Forest city of Freiburg is a lovely building.  It may not be as flashy as it’s cross-border neighbor in Strasbourg, but its gothic tower suitably lords over the historic streets and alleys of Freiburg’s altstadt (“old city”),  drawing tourists like moths to a porch light.  And filling the bug-zapper role in my summer patio allegory are the tourist trap boutiques and bistros that line the cathedral square.  So while my wife and daughters were prowling for souvenirs, the boys and I were left to admire the architectural splendor of this 13th-century edifice.  And then my son spotted something, high upon a nondescript side tower.  “Check out that gargoyle!” he said, with an excitement that the ornate wood carvings and stained-glass windows had been unable to arouse.

Now, it’s said that a shark can smell blood through a quarter-mile of open ocean, and that an eagle can spot a rabbit from a mile away.  And as impressive as they may be, these heroic feats of sensory acumen pale in comparison to the otherworldly ability of 10-year-old boys to find poop jokes.  For among the hundreds of sculpted adornments that hung on the building, he had found the only one that wasn’t facing the square.  It was instead presenting a different aspect to the assembled masses; a sandstone moon that hadn’t set in almost 800 years.

We happened to have visited on a clear, crisp, autumn afternoon.  I imagine that it’s only during a rainstorm that this drainage feature achieves the full (and largely off-putting) effect the artist intended.  Nonetheless, it instantly became the most interesting thing on the square.

Those of you expecting a diatribe on how an otherwise educational historical visit was sullied by junior high school potty humor are clearly missing the point.  Little things like this backwards gargoyle are precisely why we should take children to see these sites.  For example, after seeing the plumbing of this particular figure, my son is unlikely to ever forget the difference between gargoyles (wild architectural sculptures that drain rainwater) and grotesques (wild architectural sculptures that don’t.)  But more importantly, it allows him to share a snicker with 10-year-old boys from the distant past, and with 10-year-old boys for years to come.  That kind of connection can’t be found in a book. 

After all, there are many ways for a child to learn history, but spotting a rectal rainspout helps make history something a child wants to learn.

Blogs Are Not Good Things

OK, so now I have a blog.

I'm sure this is supposed to be a moment of great anticipation, and even a little excitement.  But my feeling on this launch are decidedly mixed.  Because I firmly believe that blogs are not good things.  Nor, however, are they bad things.  They're just things.

People have suggested I start a blog in the past, and I've toyed with the idea off and on for a few years.  But I kept getting caught up in the nonsensical zeitgeist (and the equally ridiculous backlash) that seems to swirl around the blogosphere.  "Blogs are great!" cry the proponents, "The wave of the future!"  They argue that if the Founding Fathers were alive today, they would be major online players.  "Not so!" respond the naysayers, "Blogs are lowering the level of verbal discourse, and drowning legitimate journalism in a sea of pedantic drivel and piano-playing cats."  Perez Hilton, they maintain, is not Thomas Jefferson.  The truth, of course, is neither of these.

A blog is a tool, no different than a hammer or a shovel.  Join me on an extended metaphor:  As I drive down the street, I may see a man with a shovel planting a tree with the local Cub Scout troop.  This is clearly a good thing.  On the next block, I may see man with a shovel bashing in the windows of an orphanage.  This is obviously a bad thing.  Down the road even further, I might see a baker using a shovel to precariously pluck cupcakes from the oven.  This, I estimate, is pointless, inefficient and weird.  A trip down the information superhighway can offer the same perspective.  I run into many blogs that are written by people I know and respect, people who offer insights I value and perspectives I'd otherwise miss.  I also find blogs that publish spurious facts and espouse ideas that I find abhorrent.  And, sadly, a growing inventory of blogs that seem to make no sense, and serve no purpose other than to clutter up my Google search results.

So why then have I chosen now to take up my blog/shovel?  I wish I could tie it to some lofty ambition, or bold philosphical calling.  But the truth is significantly more mundane.  My new job is more data driven than previous ones, and I'm not writing as much (and consequently not as well).  Furthermore, I miss the creative outlet that my old radio show used to provide.  So the plan is to use this blog to get a few things off my mind and off my chest, and maybe throw around the occaisional elegant turn of phrase, just to keep my chops sharp.  I'll let you decide if I'm planting trees or bashing windows.

I just hope I'm not baking cupcakes.