AEI vs. the Academy on Gore

After the conversation in class today I came across this article that actually makes a direct link between the American Enterprise Institute (which I mentioned) and Gore. It seems that today a thinktank linked to the AEI launched a smear campaign against Gore to try to undermine all the positive publicity he received as a result of winning an Oscar. The AEI is heavily funded by ExxonMobil, a company that Gore singled out in his Toronto speech as being particularly cynical in its attempts to misrepresent the facts about global climate change. Presumably Gore has been saying the same thing at his other speeches too. Now ExxonMobil is fighting back but via its proxies (thinktanks, institutes, columnists, etc.).

The website that published the article I link to above is the Huffingtonpost, the most popular news blog on the web. It has a liberal editorial slant and Huffington herself is a key supporter of the campaign for a Gore presidential run. You probably know that the producer of An Inconvenient Truth was Laurie David (married to Larry David), also a Gore supporter and an occasional contributor to Huffingtonpost.

Arianna Huffington, Laurie David, the Academy, and Al Gore are on one side of the battle line. ExxonMobil and its proxies are on the other side. There could be a lot at stake: the American presidency and the climate of public opinion surrounding the climate change issue. In the long run, or perhaps medium-run, how this battle resolves could also have an impact on whether green technologies such as electric cars are promoted or whether they are "killed."

Web 2.0

here is a video my friend showed me on youtube. it was created by some anthropology students at a university in the states. its composition is pretty interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

An iPod Identity Crisis

Sometimes the struggle over the definition of the meaning of an artifact takes place within the arena of law. Here in Canada, the Copyright Board will soon consider a request by members of the music industry to define MP3 devices such as iPods "audio recording media" rather than playing devices. In other words, they want to argue that MP3 devices are equivalent to cassettes or CDs, not to Walkman's or CD players. They then want to have a fee levied on the sale of such devices to compensate artists and music labels for the illegal use of their music. So it appears that the iPod is having a bit of an identity crisis. As one observer put: “They're really getting quite existential here. They're asking the copyright board to look into the soul of an iPod and determine its true identity.” Check out the whole story in the Globe.

John Berger on the Bicycle

We're all very familiar with Pinch & Bijker's excursus on the "social construction of the bicycle." But what would a more phenomenological take on the bicycle be like? Here is what John Berger (who also writes about the photograph) has to say about his addiction to bicycling:

"Because you are on two wheels and not four, you are much closer to the ground. By closer I mean more intimate with. Take the surface of the road. You are conscious of all its possible variations, whether it offers a grip or is smooth, whether it's new or used, wet, damp or dry, where there's mud or gravel, where ruts are being worn - all the while you are aware of the hold of the tyres or their lack of it on the varying surfaces, and you drive accordingly.

Bends produce another intimate effect. If you enter one properly, it holds you in its arms, just as a hill points you to the sky and a descent receives you. And speed is of the essence. By this I do not necessarily mean the speed at which you are travelling. The reading on the speedometer is a small part of the story.

The fastness that counts most is that between decision and consequence, between an action and its effect - changing direction, braking or accelerating. Other vehicles may in fact react as quickly or more quickly than a motorbike, but a jet plane, a highly tuned car, a speedboat are not as physically close to your body, and none of them leaves your body so exposed. From this comes the sensation that the bike is responding as immediately as one of your own limbs - yet without your own physical energy being tapped. And this effortless immediacy bestows a sense of freedom."

The use of an old technology to restore a sense of immediacy that was destroyed by (slightly) newer technologies, like the car, the motorbike and the jet plane.

(For more about examples of some famous intellectuals' guilty pleasures, see this piece in the Guardian).