Modern technology might have muddied the channels that connect us to our dreams and encouraged routines that are out of synch with our natural patterns, yet it can also lead us back. The industrial revolution flooded us with light, but the digital revolution might turn out to be far more sympathetic to the segmented sleeper.
Check It Out
Links to cool places or things.
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NC lawmakers move to make graffiti a felony
State lawmakers are moving to make repeat graffiti charges a felony. I have reported more graffiti in Raleigh than probably anyone (I am on a first-name basis with Raleigh’s graffiti team), however making graffiti a felony will not put the brakes on graffiti. It will, however, put more people in prison that honestly don’t need to be there.
As annoying as graffiti is, we do not need to make felons out of people for such a simple crime. A better approach would be to increase funding to the NCDOT and to municipalities to fund anti-graffiti efforts. That’s not seen as being “tough on crime,” though, and it also costs money. But hey, effective solutions sometimes require spending some money.
Graffiti vandals could land in prison under a bill, which received preliminary approve in the NC Senate, that would make repeatedly marking up buildings a felony.The state Senate gave preliminary approval in a 42-7 vote to a proposed law that expands and toughens graffiti penalties. A final vote is expected Wednesday in the Senate.
Current law covers statues, monuments and public buildings. Tagging public property is a Class 2 misdemeanor, with the stiffest penalty for five or more convictions two months in jail.
House Bill 552 would extend the protection to any property. The severity of the offense is stepped up to a Class 1 misdemeanor, with a minimum $500 mandatory fine.
Keeping Secrets — STANFORD magazine — Medium
WHAT IF your research could help solve a looming national problem, but government officials thought publishing it would be tantamount to treason? A Stanford professor and his graduate students found themselves in that situation 37 years ago, when their visionary work on computer privacy issues ran afoul of the National Security Agency. At the time, knowledge of how to encrypt and decrypt information was the domain of government; the NSA feared that making the secrets of cryptography public would severely hamper intelligence operations. But as the researchers saw it, society’s growing dependence on computers meant that the private sector would also need effective measures to safeguard information. Both sides’ concerns proved prescient; their conflict foreshadowed what would become a universal tug-of-war between privacy-conscious technologists and security-conscious government officials.
Underwater Test-fire of Korean-style Powerful Strategic Submarine Ballistic Missile | 38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea
The imagery and information released by KCNA would lead an observer to conclude that this recent test was conducted from the SINPO-class experimental ballistic missile submarine based at the Sinpo South Shipyard. This, however, may be incorrect … It would appear to be more reasonably in line with assessed North Korean capabilities, however, that the test launch was conducted from a submerged barge—possibly the one seen at the Sinpo South Naval Shipyard.
Seymour M. Hersh · The Killing of Osama bin Laden · LRB 21 May 2015
On Sunday, Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an account of the bin Laden SEAL raid that differs markedly from the official account. Hersh insists that Pakistan knew of the raid and that the Obama administration’s is a “lie.” Hersh’s reporting is now being called into question as he relies heavily on a single anonymous source.
I’ve been a fan of Hersh’s work, but these are extraordinary claims which demand convincing evidence. Unless Hersh can provide stronger sources I will have to wonder whether his account is trustworthy.
It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account.
Source: Seymour M. Hersh · The Killing of Osama bin Laden · LRB 21 May 2015
Folks don’t appreciate this
I mostly agreed with this McLean’s story about America Dumbing Down, until the author quoted Susan Jacoby’s nitpicking the word “folks.”
By 2008, journalist Susan Jacoby was warning that the denseness—“a virulent mixture of anti-rationalism and low expectations”—was more of a permanent state. In her book, The Age of American Unreason, she posited that it trickled down from the top, fuelled by faux-populist politicians striving to make themselves sound approachable rather than smart. Their creeping tendency to refer to everyone—voters, experts, government officials—as “folks” is “symptomatic of a debasement of public speech inseparable from a more general erosion of American cultural standards,” she wrote. “Casual, colloquial language also conveys an implicit denial of the seriousness of whatever issue is being debated: talking about folks going off to war is the equivalent of describing rape victims as girls.”
Whoa. Talking about “folks” is like denigrating rape victims? Hyperbole much?
Obama can be “the most cerebral and eloquent American leader in a generation” and still say “folks” in a speech. Bill Clinton is brilliant and also … well, a “hayseed.” Can he not say “folks?”
There’s nothing wrong with the word “folks.” Unless you’re an elitist, that is.
via America dumbs down: a rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking.
The world of threats to the US is an illusion – Opinion – The Boston Globe
When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.
In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.
via The world of threats to the US is an illusion – Opinion – The Boston Globe.
The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom
I had a few friends repost this on their Facebook pages, holding it up perhaps as an example of ideal parenting:
“If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”
Yep. I got that email last night after I posted my blog. I honestly had to laugh. Here was a stranger criticizing my parents. I tend to think they did a pretty good job. They raised three, well-rounded children. One is a successful HR exec, one is a journalist and the other is a doctor. Clearly they did something right. 😉 And let’s be real for a minute, it wasn’t all about a wooden spoon. It was about manners and respect.
Put me in the camp of the person who told this woman “If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”
There are better ways to earn respect than by beating your child. If you have to beat your child, you are doing it wrong. You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.
You know, maybe if we stop teaching kids that might makes right and that violence is a legitimate solution to a problem, we would have fewer domestic abuse issues, murders, riots, and maybe even wars. Maybe adults could try acting like adults and work a little bit at the parenting thing, rather than striking out like a three-year-old would?
I don’t hit my kids, I’ve never hit my kids, and the thought of hitting my kids makes me sick. And you know what? They are awesome. They can be frustrating at times because they’re kids, but they respect me because I model the kind of behavior that I expect from them. If my kids make a mistake, they don’t feel the need to be deceitful in an effort to escape a beating. The lesson we teach is to own up to your mistakes and fix them. They claim both their successes and failures.
My ultimate job as a parent is to teach my kids how to interact with the adult world. If my friends or coworkers don’t do what I say, I don’t go punch them in the face. I talk with them and sort things out. This is what grown-ups do. This is how we solve problems.
I’m sick of corporal punishment apologists blaming the “sparing of the rod” for a kid’s issues. If a rod is all you’ve got in your parental toolbox, you’re a poor parent. And it’s not just your kid who will suffer.
David Simon: ‘There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show’ | US news | The Guardian
More of David Simon.
America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.
There’s no barbed wire around West Baltimore or around East Baltimore, around Pimlico, the areas in my city that have been utterly divorced from the American experience that I know. But there might as well be. We’ve somehow managed to march on to two separate futures and I think you’re seeing this more and more in the west. I don’t think it’s unique to America.
via David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show' | US news | The Guardian.
David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish | The Marshall Project
Great interview of David Simon on the Baltimore police situation.
David Simon is Baltimore’s best-known chronicler of life on the hard streets. He worked for The Baltimore Sun city desk for a dozen years, wrote “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” (1991) and with former homicide detective Ed Burns co-wrote “The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood”(1997), which Simon adapted into an HBO miniseries. He is the creator, executive producer and head writer of the HBO television series “The Wire” (2002–2008). Simon is a member of The Marshall Project’s advisory board. He spoke with Bill Keller on Tuesday.
via David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish | The Marshall Project.