Is the Internet melting our brains?

An interesting interview with Dennis Baron, author of A Better Pencil. The introduction includes this:

His thesis is clear: Every communication advancement throughout human history, from the pencil to the typewriter to writing itself, has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing for the medium that’s been displaced. Far from heralding in a “2001: Space Odyssey” dystopia, Baron believes that social networking sites, blogs and the Internet are actually making us better writers and improving our ability to reach out to our fellow man. “A Better Pencil” is both a defense of the digital revolution and a keen examination of how technology both improves and complicates our lives.

Porn squad

First posted here four years ago today. I’ve made a couple of minor edits.

The news item Recruits Sought for Porn Squad reminds NewMexiKen of one of the things I don’t list on my résumé. I’ve already served on an FBI “porn squad.”

About 30 years ago, a lawsuit was brought against the National Archives and the FBI for violating the Federal Records Act. The Archives, it was alleged, had allowed the Bureau too much independence in deciding which records to keep under the Act. As a result of the litigation, the Court ordered the Archives to exert much more oversight. In practice it was almost as if the Bureau couldn’t empty its wastebaskets without the Archives sifting through to make sure there were no valuable records.

Things began to pile up. Among the heaps were whole warehouses full of confiscated pirated copies of popular films and music, particularly in Los Angeles (that is, Hollywood) where I was the National Archives’ regional archivist. Ultimately I was dispatched to the Los Angeles FBI field office to “review” these tapes and affirm they were not legally records and that they could be disposed of consistent with the court order. I’d slap a cassette into the VCR, watch enough of it to attest that it was in fact just another copy of “Patton” or “The Empire Strikes Back,” sampling my way through endless boxes and palettes. Then I’d go back to the office and draft a document saying such-and-such was trash. The Deputy Archivist of the U.S. would sign the affidavit and file it with the court. We cleaned out a large warehouse this way. (Keep in mind that this was just bulk confiscated material. A sample was retained with the case materials to serve as evidence and to provide a historical record.)

[I was not, however, allowed to apply my sampling process to the confiscated cars in the FBI garage. Even then, L.A. drug distributors drove some fancy automobiles.]

It turned out about this time that there was a big bust of audio-visual materials in Honolulu and the FBI field office there was bursting at the seams with worthless junk. “Could I go out to Hawaii for a week and help them out?” “Well,” I said, “OK. If I have to.”

But, in Honolulu, the pirated copies of popular movies were interspersed with confiscated pornography — and in those days at least, the pornography the FBI confiscated wasn’t smut. It was animals and kids and stuff. So there I was in a darkened room at the FBI offices in Honolulu putting cassettes into the VCR and sampling enough to attest that it was in fact just another pornographic film and not a federal record.

Take it from NewMexiKen, there are better ways to spend one’s day than on an FBI porn squad.

Fort Caroline National Memorial (Florida)

… was authorized on this date in 1950. According to the National Park Service:

Fort Caroline

Fort Caroline National Memorial was created to memorialize the Sixteenth Century French effort to establish a permanent colony in Florida. After initial exploration in 1562, the French established “la Caroline” in June 1564. Spanish forces arrived 15 months later. Marching north from their newly established beachhead (San Agustin) the Spanish captured la Caroline in September, 1565. Nothing remains of the original Fort de la Caroline; a near full-scale rendering of the fort, together with exhibits in the visitor center, provide information on the history of the French colony, their interaction with the native Timucua, and the colonists’ brief struggle for survival.

Whoa! You mean the French and Spanish were here even before the English at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock?

21 September

Larry Hagman, who dreamt of Jeannie before moving to Dallas, is 78 today.

Leonard Cohen is 75.

Bill Murray is 59. Nominated for an Oscar for Lost in Translation, NewMexiKen still thinks Murray’s best effort was as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.

Faith Hill is 42.

Owen and Andrew Wilson’s brother Luke is 38 today.

September 21st is an important date in fantasy literature. Stephen King is 62 today. He was born on H.G. Wells’ birthday (1866-1946) and on the 10th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit (1937). The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media had a little about each of the three in 2007.

413 years ago today (1596) Spain named Juan de Oñate governor of the colony of New Mexico. 223 years ago today (1784) the nation’s first daily newspaper, the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, began publication. The Library of Congress has a little more about each.

20 September

Anne Meara is 80 today. She’s been married to Jerry Stiller 55 years. Miss Meara was last seen in Sex and the City: The Movie. And Anne Meara is the mom of Amy and Ben Stiller.

Sophia Loren is 75. Miss Loren was nominated twice for the best actress Oscar, winning in 1962 for La ciociara. The film was called Two Women in the U.S.

Hockey hall-of-famer Guy LaFleur is 58.

Rick Nelson’s twin sons Gunnar and Matthew are 42 today. Their dad was 45 when he died in a plane crash.

Author and political activist Upton Sinclair was born on September 20th in 1878.

“The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label.” — Upton Sinclair (1951)

Redux state fair post of the day

From 2007:

As the we noted here a few days ago, as Jeff Foxworthy says: “If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.’”

Here’s two of the four examples from the Alibi Blog:

Father to group of kids outside of the Monkey Man booth: “You will hold hands or I will fuck you up!”

Mother to daughter at the petting zoo: “Janessaaaaaaaaaaaa … you think you know everything, but you’re just a little shit.”

It’s like someone said, ‘[Punting] is what you do on fourth down,’ and everyone did it without asking why.

Pulaski [Academy] hasn’t punted since 2007 (when it did so as a gesture of sportsmanship in a lopsided game), and here’s why: “The average punt in high school nets you 30 yards, but we convert around half our fourth downs, so it doesn’t make sense to give up the ball,” Kelley says. “Besides, if your offense knows it has four downs instead of three, it totally changes the game. I don’t believe in punting and really can’t ever see doing it again.”

He means ever.

Sports Illustrated has the story on the coach that never punts. He doesn’t even have a punter on the team.

Aidan

AidanandMommy

Sweetie Aidan is six today — he was born during Hurricane Isabel in a hospital without drinking water. Above with his mommy last month in Baltimore Harbor (complete with warpaint residue from the National Aquarium). Below, from the bus on the first day of school last week.

AidanSchoolBus

America’s Best Idea

Beautiful photos. Download desktop wallpapers as part of a promotion for the upcoming Ken Burns series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.

Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature’s most spectacular locales — from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska — THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background — rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy. It is a story full of struggle and conflict, high ideals and crass opportunism, stirring adventure and enduring inspiration – set against the most breathtaking backdrops imaginable.

Six-episode series begins on PBS September 27th.

Thanks to Mark and Ah, Wilderness! for the link.

Sick of it

Why in America, with our immense wealth, should the poor get sicker and the sick get poorer? We have been promising ourselves a system of national health insurance for a quarter of a century. I am tired of apologizing year after year as we fail to achieve it. We have put a premium on conversation instead of coverage. America is the only industrialized nation in the world which does not provide basic health service as a universal right. As President, I will make sure that we do.

Morris Udall, 1976.

Yes, nineteen-seventy-six.

Charles Pierce, source of the above, has much to say on the topic, including this:

The political class in this country–politician and journalist, lobbyist and legislator, Republican and Democratic, Executive and Legislative — has made a collective decision to protect the profits of one of the least popular industries in the history of the Republic, to preserve the iron grip of corporate bureaucrats over the practice of medicine in America, and to refuse virtually without serious discussion to adopt measures favored by 77 percent of the voting public.

Amen. It’s enough to make you sick — if you can afford it.

North Dakota

Tower1

It doesn’t look like much in these photos — frankly it didn’t look like much in reality — but from 1963-1974 and from 1991 until this year this was the tallest manmade structure on earth. It’s the tower of KVLY-TV (originally KTHI-TV) of Fargo, North Dakota, located near Blanchard, North Dakota. It is 2,063 feet tall (629 meters).

Tower2

From 1974 until it collapsed in 1991, the tallest manmade structure was the Warszawa radio mast in Poland at 2,120.67 feet (646.38 meters). This year (2009) the Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates reached 2,684 feet (818 meters).

The KVLY tower is now just the world’s second tallest manmade structure. A few miles away is the third tallest, the slightly shorter KXJB tower, which we could see in the distance. (No other U.S structures are above 2000 feet.)

Missouri

That’s the Missouri River near Washburn, North Dakota, site of a replica of Lewis and Clark’s 1804-1805 winter camp. What other blog has brought you photos of America’s three longest rivers in the past month?

FortLincoln

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his wife Libby lived in that home at Fort Abraham Lincoln (near present-day Bismarck) from 1873 until 1876. It was from here that Custer led his invasion of the Black Hills in 1874 and began his fated trip to the Little Bighorn Valley in 1876. I have a closer shot of the house, but this is about as close as I like to get to Custer.

StandingRock

Further south along North Dakota highway 1806 is the Standing Rock Reservation. Above is a photo of the tribe’s handsome administrative services building in Fort Yates.

The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is situated in North and South Dakota. The people of Standing Rock, often called Sioux, are members of the Dakota and Lakota nations. “Dakota” and “Lakota” mean “friends” or “allies.” The people of these nations are often called “Sioux”, a term that dates back to the seventeenth century when the people were living in the Great Lakes area. The Ojibwa called the Lakota and Dakota “Nadouwesou” meaning “adders.” This term, shortened and corrupted by French traders, resulted in retention of the last syllable as “Sioux.” There are various Sioux divisions and each has important cultural, linguistic, territorial and political distinctions.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

There is a monument to Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) in Fort Yates. The monument marks the possible gravesite of the great leader. (There is some dispute whether his remains were removed.)

TatankaIyotake

TatankaIyotake2

Great words (click the photo for readable version).

Alas, the usually proud Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has done a poor job maintaining the site that honors its most famous leader.

All photos taken August 29th and 30th, 2009. Click any image for a gallery of larger versions.

The Referendum

Things to think about on The Referendum at the Happy Days Blog. What’s the Referendum?

The Referendum is a phenomenon typical of (but not limited to) midlife, whereby people, increasingly aware of the finiteness of their time in the world, the limitations placed on them by their choices so far, and the narrowing options remaining to them, start judging their peers’ differing choices with reactions ranging from envy to contempt.

Personally I think the Referendum begins at about age two and lasts until dementia, but then maybe my experience is stilted. I did attend 10 years of Catholic schools.

Redux post of the day

Ever had a job like Mark Twain once did, where no amount of money would be enough? From Roughing It, 1872.

I will remark, in passing, that I only remained in the milling business one week. I told my employer I could not stay longer without an advance in my wages; that I liked quartz milling, indeed was infatuated with it; that I had never before grown so tenderly attached to an occupation in so short a time; that nothing, it seemed to me, gave such scope to intellectual activity as feeding a battery and screening tailings, and nothing so stimulated the moral attributes as retorting bullion and washing blankets — still, I felt constrained to ask an increase of salary.

He said he was paying me ten dollars a week, and thought it a good round sum. How much did I want?

I said about four hundred thousand dollars a month, and board, was about all I could reasonably ask, considering the hard times.

I was ordered off the premises! And yet, when I look back to those days and call to mind the exceeding hardness of the labor I performed in that mill, I only regret that I did not ask him seven hundred thousand.