Non-verbal Communication

One continuing difficulty with communication is in the fact that our mechanisms of conveying meaning lag behind the change in social behaviors and conditions. Coupled with the fact that almost every means of communicating becomes subverted by those who wish to deceive, it is sometimes a wonder that any meaningful exchange occurs at all.

Witness my experience of last night. I was returning home from my place of employment, and needed to stop at a bank branch to use the ATM. The time was around 12:30 AM when I pulled into the bank's parking lot. The night was dark, and cold, though not unpleasantly so. As I entered the parking lot, a young woman crossed my path and entered the bank, presumably with the intent of using the ATM herself.

Conventional mores suggest that it was my role to wait patiently, and use the ATM in turn after she had finished. There was little difficulty in me for that. However, what ought I do to signal my intent to do so?

As is habitual, I was dressed in black. Much of my outerwear is black leather, and the overall tone is somewhat quasi-military. My general manner of dress conveys a set of tribal signals, and makes use of certain ingrained archetypes to send preconscious signals of danger to many members of the mainstream culture. In short, I sometimes frighten people. There are certain reasons why I do this, and allow it to happen, but those reasons did not apply to this situation.

How then was I to convey that I had no intent in this situation to be dangerous? I lacked any intent or inclination to assault, rob, rape, or kill this young woman. I merely wished to use the ATM when she had finished her transactions. However, I was conscious of the suggestion that my intent was not clear.

Was I to follow her into the building, waiting some socially acceptable distance away? Or should I wait outside, knowing that doing so might be construed as "lurking in the shadows?" I decided to wait outside, underneath a street light, with my hands visible and a stance that suggested restful waiting; a stance hat was not poised for sudden movements. I offered her a "good evening" as she left the building, and moved slowly and with copious personal seperation into the building.

I hope I didn't frighten her. Doing so was not my intent.

My Hopes for the First 100 Days

If the U.S. wants to see the change President Obama has been making so much noise about, they must take some control of their government again.

However, many of the policy changes I wish to see happen were implemented by the previous administration under the aegis of President Bush's role as Commander-in-Chief. As such, I hope that Obama, again acting as Commander-in-Chief will alter them. I would like to see the Iraq and Afghanistan wars brought to a close as quickly as possible - the "First thing steaming home" strategy. It took about three weeks to get all of those troops to Iraq, and I would like to see if we can beat that record coming home. I understand Pres. Obama so far isn't headed in that direction, but if he wanted to, he could.

I would also like to see the U.S. imprisonment and rendition camps in Guantanamo and elsewhere closed immediately. Any perceived to be a danger in the future should be given over to their home countries for arraignment and trial. Any inmates who cannot be sent home should be offered asylum in the U.S. unless they wish to go to another country that agrees to take them. Again, not likely to happen that way, but Pres. Obama could order it if he wanted to.

Further, I would like to see President Obama ask incoming Attorney General Holder to investigate and, if necessary, ask for indictments regarding possible war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of federal laws against torture, and whatever charges might apply. I sincerely hope that Pres. Obama will not issue blanket pardons to anyone for the misdeeds of the earlier administration. Again, he may choose not to do so, but he need not go beyond the executive branch to do so.

So, I'd like to think I'm willing to support change, but change really can start at the top in many ways.

Emergency Exit

I was walking past the Macy's store in downtown Minneapolis (formerly Marshall Fields, formerly Dayton's). Lining the inside of the windows is a glossy, opaque, black sheeting. The black is opened up here and there to display store items: mannequins with the latest fashions, shoes, handbags, assorted consumer products.

Then I noticed the door. It read "EMERGENCY EXIT - ALARM WILL SOUND." The letters read from left to right when viewed from the street, and were positioned in front of the opaque blackness. The words would be reversed and unreadable from inside the building.

This then couldn't be an exit from the building. Is this, perhaps, the emergency exit from the bustle and stress of a modern urban center? Is it an emergency exit from a nation that is declining politically, crumbling economically, and terminally fractured socially? Or is this perhaps an emergency exit from a cold, cynical, and ultimately meaningless world?

Where does it go to?

I tried the door. It was locked. No alarm sounded.

At least it wasn't an emergency.

Roberts and Obama both flub the oath of office.

People who are nervous and excited, at one of the most important events of their lives often have trouble speaking or reading clearly. Especially in front of thousands of people in person and millions more watching via media.

So I'm willing to give them both a pass, and assume the oath is taken as required by the Constitution.

However, I'm going to predict that someone, somewhere, is going to throw a fit. Over the next few months, the "Obama can't be President" crowd is going to claim that because Barak Obama didn't take the oath of office as precisely required by the Constitution, that means he was never sworn in as President. Others are going to claim that he never took the oath, and so isn't going to be bound to it, and is going to become some sort of tyrant. Likely, a few will claim that Chief Justice Roberts deliberately screwed it up, so that Obama wouldn't be sworn in, or so that Obama wouldn't have to adhere to the oath.

I believe that to be nonsense. Eight years of the Bush administration have shown that in this country, the President will freely disregard the principles of the Constitution, its dictates and limitations. And the other branches of government will not call him on it. Obama doesn't need some contrived avoidance of the oath of office to do what he wishes.

I also strongly suspect that if Chief Justice Roberts intended to not swear in Obama, he would have explicitly refused to do so. There would be no reason to intentionally screw it up to set up some sort of legal wrangling - if he'd really wanted to, he would have said something like, "Senator Obama, I cannot in good conscience administer the oath of office today."

We don't need the conspiratorial interpretations today. Never attribute to malice that which is more obviously attributable to human failings.

Addendum to Hyperreality

For a brief time this summer, there existed a program on the Genesis Communications Network titled "the Ron Paul Roadshow". This program was hosted by Chris Moore and Linda Hunnicut from the "Ron Paul RV".

On the first day that this radio show went into production, the Genesis producer inquired if there was a bird of some sort in the studio. He was informed that the source of the apparent bird sounds was in fact Buddy, a small monkey of indeterminant species. Buddy continued to play a small part in the production of each episode of the Ron Paul Roadshow.

Much later, in a discussion at the Genesis studio, the subject of Buddy the monkey was broached. It was observed that there may exist a radio show of the "wacky morning" variety that would employ regular monkey noises. However, Buddy the monkey would not serve well on those radio shows, as he cannot be expected to perform on cue. Therefore, such a radio show usually would employ either a sound board (either physical or digital) with pre-recorded monkey noises, or a human voice simulating monkey noises.

This is an example of hyperreality. A non-physical monkey is experienced by an audience as more real than an actual flesh and blood monkey.

An Allegory of Rivers

Picture a rapidly moving but pacific appearing stream. It winds over the terrain, never ceasing its flow. As the stream flows over its bed, a careful observer notices that its surface is not completely even. Whorls, eddies, ripples and ebbs appear, disturbing the streams otherwise placid flow.

Underneath the surface, all is not so simple. The stream flows over a rocky bad, tumbling and jostling over rocks and logs. Currents bend around obstacles, and the entire stream is shaped by the form of its bed; it bends and twists within its banks. The stream is sometimes wide and shallow, sometimes narrow and deep, and always more complex than it appears on the surface.

Silt runs underneath the sunlight skin, the consequence of water's rubbing further upstream, a process visible only by its consequences. Fish dart here and there, their presence only guessed at by the flash of sun off scales as one surfaces momentarily. Their maneuvers take place in an environment alien and isolated from the outside world.

This stream is a human mind, its surface the visage exposed to the outside world. The whorls and eddies we may see are the consequences of submerged obstacles we cannot. The aim of counseling, then, is not to remove the rocks and logs and physical obstructions of the stream bed – that is too complex a task, and one will destroy the nature of the stream in the process. Only the dead are so uniform. Instead, it is the job of the counselor to help smooth and round the obstacles of the stream bed, so they cause less conflict and confusion as the stream progresses ever onward to a new horizon.

Taking it elsewhere: Iran and nuclear ambition

[Editor's note: I have been a follower of the Steve Jackson's Games corporate online forum for some years now. Recently, a conversation has been begun there that I'd like to add some outside commentary on. You can find the original conversation here.]

I believe there are a few key points that have been forgotten here:

1) Iran self-identifies as an "Islamic Republic". Its government is to a certain extent a representative democracy, albeit one whose candidates are all vetted and approved by the ruling Theocratic Guardian Council. In the late 1990's, that council was increasingly experimenting with permitting moderate, pro-western candidates to run and win elections. This was in response to thawing Western relations, and a growing educated, pro-Western, pro-secular young adult demographic within Iran itself.
This experiment with political moderation ended in 2002, with a return to hard-line, anti Western and pro-Ayatollah candidates, including current President Achmadenijhad. This backlash was almost certainly induced by President Bush's choice to include Iran in the "Axis of Evil."

2) President Achmadenijhad is not quite the nutcase that the Western and U.S. media portrays him as being. In nearly every instance where he has been demonized for threatening Israel (whose close relation to the U.S. is a matter much too large for this posting), a deeper inspection of the transcript of his remarks usually shows such threats in the context of a hypothetical attack by Israel on Iran. Responding to attack with a counter-attack, while damaging to world peace, is still usually considered the perogative of a nation-state.

3) Gas centerfuge enrichment of uranium is both a step towards development of nuclear weapons and a step towards a non-weapon nuclear power program. This sort of peaceful program is what Iran asserts it is pursuing (whether or not anyone believes it). Iran has been cooperating with the IAEA off and on, seeking the IAEA's certification that their program is peaceful. Unfortunately, with every period of saber rattling by the U.S., Western Europe, or Israel, Iran balks and halts its cooperation. It is entirely plausible that Iran is primarily intedning to move toward nuclear power, with the possibility of developing nuclear weapons as a reserve for if the believe themselves threatened with attack.

4) The current U.S. administration is the primary source of the claims that Iran is intending to develop nuclear weapons. As we saw in the run-up to the Second Gulf War, this same administration main any number of claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, a nuclear weapons program that -in retrospect- did not exist, and was asserted not to exist by the IAEA. In fact, as something of a snub to the U.S. and it's administration, the head of the IAEA was later named for a Nobel Peace Prize. In my view, the current Presidential administration (as of this writing, #43) simply does not have the credibility to make any sorts of claims.

So, the blustering in Iran's direction has the appearance of the consciuos villifying of an otherwise indifferent nation. That villification and following provocations are used to trigger a defensive response from that nation. Such defensive measures are used as a justification for further provocations, and as rationalization for already decided upon war plans. We saw all of this in 2003, and there is simply no reason to allow it to happen again in 2009.