Getting the News from Egypt

Congratulations to the people of Egypt who changed their government through largely nonviolent protest! They are an inspiration to the world.

This is a reflective post about the way I have been getting news and information about Egypt.

My main source of news has been NPR. Listening to All Things Considered, On The Media, Fresh Air and occasionally the hourly news updates, I learned about the protests from well-trained journalists and experts. Most of the interviews on these shows were with academics or people who have had direct experience in Egypt. Accessible interviews with scholars are one of the things I value most about NPR. I think our tax dollars should certainly support this important form of news analysis distribution. (Please sign the petition at http://pol.moveon.org/nprpbs/?rc=fb.taf.alt.5 if you agree.)

Democracy Now! has also had intensive live coverage of the events. I tuned into the program a couple times this past week to get up to date information and listen to interviews with experts. Senior Producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous gave reports from a studio near Tahrir Square. Though I didn't tune into any live video, I think Democracy Now! was webcasting live from Cairo.


Similarly, Al Jazeera English had a live video-feed from Tahrir Square through its website. I'm tuned there now. They are analyzing the role of social media in the Egyptian revolution and reading Tweets.




Yesterday, I went to the New York Times website to look up an arts and culture review, and I was sidetracked by an article on the latest news from Egypt.

This morning, I turned on my TV, which is almost always tuned to Channel 1, NHK. This is where I heard of Mubarak's resignation (辞任). After some local news and the weather, the broadcast turned to an analysis of the events in Egypt. With a table discussion of journalists and Egypt experts, they discussed Mubarak's resignation and the events of the past three weeks. One reporter explained the role of facebook in the revolution using a cartoonish diagram in the shape of a pyramid with hieroglyphic-type symbols. (Charts and graphs like this are typical of Japanese TV and news.)

On gmail, my friend's status read "LOVE TO THE EGYPTIANS!" I chatted her, and she sent me a website with translated protest signs from the revolution. She found it on a friend's facebook site, and my partner told me she was getting most of her news about Egypt from friends' facebook posts.

The importance of the events in Egypt and the quality of the media coverage of the revolution gave me pause to stop and think about where I get my information. These sources generally confirmed and corroborated the basic facts of one another, and I took comfort in receiving mostly valid information from these well-established news organizations. The images from each source, however, differed slightly. For example, Democracy Now! showed graphic images of the wounded. They also featured an extended speech in English by a physician who had been at the forefront of the protests and was encouraging his fellow demonstrators to proceed fearlessly. NHK had images and voices of individual protesters, who appeared mostly angry to me, but the commentators said, "They look so happy, don't they?" (嬉しそうですね！）(Am I socialized as an American to find images of Arab mobs scary and angry? I'm no Islamaphobe, but I should be aware of my own social conditioning. I really did find the people's facial expressions angry, even if they were voicing their happiness and excitement about Mubarak's resignation.) The image which will stick with me for a long time is the overhead view of Tahrir square overflowing with protestors. The website of translated protest signs featured portrait-like images of the signs and people holding them. I was struck by the variety of faces, from a cosmopolitan-looking young woman with a headscarf and sunglasses to a middle-aged man with a dark, wizened face, a lazy eye and several scars. The images of "cool" young Egyptians taking pictures with their cell phones and gathering in the streets also seemed to predominate many of the Western sources I tuned into.

Finally, the languages of the coverage also caught my attention. Most of the media from NPR, Democracy Now! and the New York Times was in English, including interviews with protestors and experts. There was little or no Arabic. NHK, however, used footage of the protestors speaking in Arabic with translated subtitles in Japanese. These are some of my observation about how these various media sources painted the story with their own news-brand's shade of truth.

No Helipad in Takae, Okinawa!

Please use this letter as a template to send a message to the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, John Roos. You can send your message here: http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/info/tinfo-email.html

Dear Ambassador Roos,

As a U.S. citizen living in Japan, I am deeply concerned about the events in Takae, Okinawa. The construction of six helipads in Yambaru forest is threatening the sovereignty, way of life, and natural environment of the people of Higashison, Takae and the surrounding areas. Despite three years of protests by the residents, the Okinawa Defense Bureau, the Japanese government and the U.S. government have forced the construction of the helipads. This expansion of the U.S. military presence in Okinawa is both unnecessary and damaging to U.S./Japan relations, as well as to America's international image.

Similarly, please make it a priority to find a solution to the Futenma Airbase issue which will address the environmental, social and political concerns of the Okinawan people. Though the helipad issue in Takae is not as well known, it is equally distressing.

Please work with the Okinawa Defense Bureau to stop the construction of the helipads immediately. I ask you to take all steps in your power to defend the rights of the people of Takae and the citizens of Okinawa. Thank you for your consideration, and best of luck in your efforts.

Sincerely,

Learn more about Takae in English here:
http://www.fpif.org/articles/postcard_fromtakae
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hansentoteikounofesta09/20110103
http://nohelipadtakae.org/files/VOT-english2010Oct14.pdf

More posts about Takae coming soon!

「オルタナ・クール」ロックス！| "Alter-Cool" Rocks!

(English below)

「オルタナ・クール」は沖縄オルタナティブメディアのUSTREAM番組です。今見ています。USTREAMを使うのは初めてです。このメディアが大好きです！聞く、見るだけではなく、チャットで質問などコメントができるので、本当に楽しいです。

僕には今日の第５回「オルタナ・クール」の番組がすごいと思いました。なぜかと言うと、僕が好きで興味がある話がたくさん起きていた。例えば、サンフランシスコで色々な平和活動していたオガナイザー桃原淳（すなお）さんはアメリアカと日本の文化を比べたり、沖縄の過去と現在文化を説明してくれました。そして2時間目は高江のヘリパッドの問題については「高江がたいへん！24時間座り込み＠沖縄県庁前」を実行した二人 (大城永子（ひさこ）さん　森岡理歩歌（りほか）さん) がインタビューしてもらいました。つまり沖縄アルタナティブメディアをすごく尊敬しています。

一時間目はちょっと音質の問題があったが、２時間目は結構直りました。そして高江ヘリパッドの問題に関係ある米軍の「オスプレー」という攻撃ヘリコプターの映像と那覇の24時間座り込みの動画が放送しながら同時USTREAMで見せました。これはかっこいい機能ですね！ツウィターから来たチャットもいっぱいあった　(でも僕はファスブックでつながっていた）。USTREAMの危ない所は見ながら、注意散漫の可能性が高い。メールを書いたり、ブロッグをしたりすることをしていました。夕食も見ながら食べて、チャットでも書き(過ぎ)ちゃった。だが、色々な関係あることを同時にやるのはそんなに悪くない。（後でmultitaskingというポストをしましょう。）USTREAMはテレビの世界を本当に変われるみたいなことと思います。

"Alter-Cool" is a USTREAM program produced by Okinawa Alternative Media. I just finished watching their most recent webcast. It was my first time using USTREAM. I love this medium! You're not just listening or watching, but it's really fun because you can ask questions or comment via the chat stream.

For me, this fifth edition of "Alter-Cool" was awesome. So many things that I like and are interesting to me were brought together in the discussion. For example, Sunaoko-san, an organizer in San Francisco who has done various peace activities since the early 90s, compared American and Japanese culture, and discussed some of the differences he's observed in past and present Okinawan culture. The second hour was about the Takae helipad issue. It featured an interview with two of the people (Hisako-san and Rihoka-san) who helped stage a 24-hour protest in Naha (Okinawa's capital city) in support of the citizens of Takae. In short, I really respect Okinawa Alternative Media and what they are doing with this program.

During the first hour there was a little trouble with the sound quality, but it was basically fixed by the second hour. Also, a previously recorded video about the dangerous "Osprey" military helicopters and footage from the 24-hour sit-in/protest in Naha were broadcast during the episode. What a cool feature! And there were tons of comments on the chat from Twitter (although I used Facebook to connect). The dangerous thing about USTREAM is that there is lots of opportunity for distraction. For example, while I watched I was writing email and blogging. Also I ate dinner during the broadcast, then wrote (too much!) on the chat. But I don't think doing several related things at the same time is necessarily so bad. (Future post on multitasking?) USTREAM seems like it could really change the face of television.

Imagine All the People Without Internet

Imagine an internet blackout like the one in Egypt in your country. Imagine all the people without internet in America, Japan, Brazil, China, Korea, India, Nepal, etc. Imagine no access for a day, a week, a month.

If you're like me, you know it would be painful at first. But you also imagine it would come as a sigh of relief, a breath of fresh air. The world's largest library and a major source of instant gratification gone, all of a sudden? It would be earth-shattering for some, those of use whose dependence on the internet borders on unhealthy. But (re)learning how to use time, engage with other media-technologies (including human bodies), reading a book (for goodness sake! - and NOT on a Kindle [I get Kindle spam from Amazon like everyday...it's starting to kind of piss me off]) might do us good.

Inspired by the situation in Egypt, I tried to imagine what an internet blackout might look for me, you, it, us. Below is a feeble semi-literate (I was gonna say semi-literary, but it comes across as more semi-literate) sci-media-fi imagining of such a scenario.
________________________________________________________________________________________
You're sitting in your cubicle at 10:39, gchatting with Beth two rows down.

Beth Johnson says:

did you see the latest duck-trapped-in-a-coal-mine meme?

its hillllarious

ILMAO!!!


What would people do without the internet? I'll tell you what they'd do - they'd go insane! If people didn't have enough incentive to take to the streets and depose our government after it started an unnecessary war, imagine that all the computer screens in all the offices of America suddenly went blank. "Can't get any work done here, so let's take the day off." People would be jumping for joy, clicking their heels in the air... "No work today, the internet's gone away!" On the commute home, you try to tweet about it, but Twitter's down, too. "The heck with it," you'd say, "maybe I'll just start a conversation with someone next to me on the bus..."

"Twitter's down. Can you believe it?"
"I know, I tried to access my facebook an hour ago. I can't even get Farmville to work on my iPad!"

Maybe you'd swap stories about your days at work, learn about each others' professions and go out for a drink to celebrate your day off. You decide to duck into the local sports bar, because, as fate would have it, you both live in the same neighborhood and you're both baseball fans. Who woulda thunk?

In the bar, you make a shocking discovery: the TV has been shut down, too. The bartender checks the plug. The lights are working fine, what the hell could be wrong? The whole Comcastic media conglomerate must be down. He flips through all 800 channels, hope growing dimmer with each flick. Instead of the crisp, HD hews of warm static electric reds greens and blues, a cold dark screen stares back, more like a black hole sucking in your fantasy football dreams.

Another drink? Sure. Why not substitute one addiction with another? When you get home, Lauren is pissed off that you've been out so late.

"Are you drunk? It's only 7:30!"
"Didn't you hear, hon? The internet's down! It was cause for celebration. Plus I met one of our neighbors, Pat. He's an IT guy for..."

"You know you still have to put the kids to bed."

"OK."

"Hey daddy, we couldn't watch TV tonight. Could you tell us a story?"

"Once upon a time..." The words struggle to come out at first, but soon you're lost in a maze of characters and plot twists and triumphant endings. But the kids are asleep before you can finish. "Maybe I should write that down..." And just as you contemplate taking pen to paper for the first time since college, Lauren entices you to snuggle. And you forget that second life, that other skin of video, wire and cold metal hard drives, as you drift into deeply contented dream-filled sleep, thankful for your family and the warmth of your cozy cuddle buddy.

Hive Mind and Singularity as Religion

My favorite podcast these days is To the Best of Our Knowledge from Wisconsin Public Radio. The January 23 episode "Hive Mind" is a great example of the show's interdisciplinary cross-section of knowledge, ranging from biology to technology, religion and sci-fi. Segment 3, an interview with Jaron Lanier (credited as the "founding father of virtual reality"), caught my attention because Lanier describes the mentality engendered by web 2.0 and its creators as a religion. He refers to this new "digital religion" as "singularitarian" or "post humanism," and it might also be called "hive mind." I'd like to call it technologism. The "religion" is based on the notion that humans and computers/machines/digital technology are essentially the same, and will be merged into a singular mind, which will allow for the immortality of humans and machines. This is theoretically opposed to humanism, which focuses on our unique traits as humans apart from animals or machines. Humanists believe that we our unique type of consciousness allows us to use rationality to care for one another and solve the unique problems endemic to the human condition.

How are these new moral, ethical, religious or spiritual debates about technology related to the more general pop-culture secular zeitgeist of consumerism/capitalism/cosmopolitanism?

Perhaps one could argue that this popular culture, combined with the rapid proliferation of technology in daily life, have left individuals and communities with a variety of problems and questions. For example, globalization gives rise to a dissonance between identities. And Larnier argues that social media, such as Facebook, demand constant maintenance (especially among younger users) to maintain social identity. This leads to both cognitive and behavioral dissonance, mainly in the sense that we are increasingly confused about life's big questions and distracted in our daily lives.

The truth is that I don't know the answer to the above question with any certainty, and the speculative ramble here is just a draft idea that will likely continue to be refined through debate and discourse. Moreover, the debate surrounding technologism and humanism (sparked in popular consciousness through movies like Star Trek with the Borg and The Matrix)) will be part of an ongoing debate as humans face more and more difficult decisions about the appropriate role of technology in our world as long as our current environment (natural and technological) persists.

Mindfulness and Circuits

Since the New Year, two serendipitous irresolutions have been bringing me joy and revitalization. These happenstance gifts came at just the right time, finding me before I could find them.

First, a friend brought back a set of guided mindfulness meditation CDs by Jon Kabat-Zinn from the States and shared them with me. More accurately, it is a 4-CD set of audio guided mindfulness exercises, including "Body Scan Meditation," "Mindfulness Yoga 1," "Sitting Meditation," and "Mindfulness Yoga 2." I just finished up the fourth CD (Mindfulness Yoga 2), and it's been a pleasure to go through the CDs one by one, trying each of the different techniques. The approach is gentle, and Zinns voice is warm and soothing (to the point of somnolence...I've gotten drowsy and almost nodded off during 2 of the 4 sessions.) Though I've got a long way to go with incorporating mindfulness into my daily life, I really like this simple and user-friendly format. As my jazz teacher used to say in high school, the more you learn about something the more you realize you don't know. In that regard, I've learned that I mostly seek mindlessness by habit. But I have also learned that it's possible to be conscious of which behaviors encourage mindlessness and which allow you to fully embrace the present moment. Even after just four sessions, I notice myself becoming more aware of moments in my daily routine that I would previously have ignored. Whereas I used to consider mindfulness a dull chore, I've found some joy in watching my thoughts or my body or tuning into the sky for a few moments. So I'm slowly discovering that mindfulness can be fun.

The second chance occurrence was an encounter with a friend of a friend who is traveling around the world studying electronic music and art. Her blog is here: http://korilisa.wordpress.com/ Can't really begin to describe how "cool" her work is, except that I'm filled with admiration (and the slightest bit of envy ;) for her. She's also interested in educating people and sharing what she knows in a way that's both generous and patient. So it was through this encounter that I built my first electronic instrument (with substantial help and instruction from her). It's a basic oscillator with standard components. Yesterday, I embarked on my second adventure by going and getting some more parts and then copying this how-to video: http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_3167_build-synthesizer.html. Though I've been interested in pursuing this sort of project for a long time, I've never gotten anything off the ground. Then, with a soldering iron thrust into my hands and all the bits and pieces laid out before my eyes, how could I say no? It just happened, and now I find myself getting excited about potentiometers and capacitors, words that I thought were just techno-babel for sci-fi movies a couple weeks ago.

Though both of these life-projects are in their nascent stages, I hope they will continue to bear fruit well into the future. They go to show that a little giving, a small random act of kindness, can (potentially) go a long way.

Finally, I can't help but drawing a connection between the two, even if I'm grasping at straws. The brain (which one might safely call "the mind") is itself a set of enormously complex circuits. In comparison, the circuits that I'm fiddling with on my newly purchased bread board are so simple as to be totally negligible. But the connection is that, just like a series of simple circuits or simple wave-forms that are added together to make complex circuits and complex wave-forms for music, the brain's circuits can be rewired and integrated to form new cognitive patterns. I'm kind of grossly delighted by the idea of soldering the self, unhinging one part of the mind and reconnecting it to another. This is much easier said than done, and takes a lot of effort, conscious planning and especially mindfulness to execute. But there is a kind of joy in looking at one's life as a circuit experiment, taking each isolated module and forging new connections. Isn't that what meaning is all about? For example, if I take my morning shower and merge it with singing, I might create an opera in my bathtub. Or if I connect my beers with books, (http://www.beersforbooks.org), or video games with education, I might be able to put a new spin on my so-called "vices." To me, this is the excitement of the 21st century. The possibility of creating an infinite number of new networks to bring fresh and creative solutions to human problems. The remixing and reconnecting of networks is, hopefully, still in its infancy. Just as I've managed to mix (perhaps haphazardly) circuits and mindfulness in this post, so too can any number of different ideas be re-bundled to provoke innovation and creativity.

As acknowledged above, there is a long way to go, and I'm certainly getting ahead of myself. The results of this kind of experimentation could also have devastating consequences (think of the hippies!), which underscores the need for a contemplative process to guide powerful tools and insights. For now, let me just say thanks to those who have helped make my January meaningful. Love to you all, and I hope you're enjoying the present and nurturing the future.

Sounds of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Memorial Museum

I recently returned from a trip to visit family friends in Nagasaki with my sister. We had a great time: our friends were wonderfully generous hosts, and we packed in tons of sight-seeing. For the second time, I visited the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, a moving (disturbing and inspiring) experience. Upon entering the museum, I decided to make a mental note of the sounds I experienced throughout the exhibit hall, which commemorates the bombing and its aftermath. I divided the sounds into possible "tracks" for a recording, though they overlap as you walk through the museum. Here is what I noted:

1. Ticking clock. The first part of the exhibit highlights events leading up to the bombing on August 9, 1945.

2. Ominous music. Strings alternate between minor and dissonant harmonies. The next room commemorates the day of the bombing and the wasteland created around the epicenter.

3. Explanatory video. Accompanied by a 3D map of the city, this video explains the facts (historic and scientific) about the bombing and its immediate aftermath.

4. Tour guides (Japanese and Chinese). Two or three tour groups browsed the artifacts which document the effects of the bomb in different locations around the city. The intense energy at the hypocenter generated a massive blast of heat that caused stone tiles to blister and bubble, glass bottles to melt together, and shadows to be imprinted onto wooden houses and fences. Many of the deaths and injuries from the bomb were caused by severe burns, some of which developed much later after the attack. The long-term effects of radiation are also documented with explanations about various diseases caused by exposure, as well as a time-line of deaths caused by radiation-related illnesses. Tour guides give additional explanation to groups.

5. Survivor testimonials. Interactive TV monitors allow visitors to listen and watch survivors give their accounts of the bombing and make appeals for peace. My sister and I watched an account by a woman who was crushed in the rubble and suffered severe injuries. She spoke in Japanese, and we read English subtitles.

6. Museum closing announcement. The announcement was in Japanese, followed by English, accompanied by upbeat music.

One of the most valuable parts of the museum is a timeline of the nuclear age, which describes world events, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the spread of the peace movement worldwide. This is a great overview of the Cold War and anti-nuclear movement.

For more information about the museum in English, follow the link below.
http://www1.city.nagasaki.nagasaki.jp/peace/english/index.html