Taxi Cab Learning
Last night I had a bit of an awakening, or, you could say, I came to a realization. And it came from a source that always seems to give good advice: a taxi cab driver.
Cab drivers are usually very smart guys: they are in the car all day either listeningto the radio of talking to passengers, hearing other people's stories. Cab drivers--at least in the Washington-area--are also usually immigrants. And being an immigrant, is a life experience that imparts a great deal of knowledge about the world. Not only do immigrants have an experience outside of this country, they also, with few exceptions, come from a country with greater hardships than the United States. They are smarter than you think.
"Where to?" the driver asked me as I sank into the worn back seat of his well-used Ford Crown Vic.
"Tulula," I said. That's the name of a bar and restaurant not too far from my house.
"That's it?" the driver replied. He was hoping for a better fare than the six dollars I'd give him for the one mile trip.
"Sorry, man," I told him. "But that's as far as I can afford to go." I have a habit of telling cab drivers lots of information about myself, so I didn't hesitate to tell him that the economy has me in a vice, and I can't really afford long taxi drives, let alone expensive dinners or high bar tabs.
I then told the driver that I was a writer and I was looking for work. That started a discussion about the power of the pen.
He told me, "It's stronger than the gun. You can do anything with that. Convincing people is a powerful."
I guess I had never thought about writing in that light before, especially with the declining state of the journalism industry, where paying for words has become antique and where newspapers are laying-off journalists by the bucketful.
But hearing it from a cab driver made sense to me. He was right--the pen is a powerful tool. The pen can topple governments, create uprisings, literally change the world. But it has other, less radical, purposes too. Being able to tell a good story has the power to turn ears, to entertain, to attract. Telling a good story with words isn't something that everyone can do, but everyone likes a good story.
I was inspired by that driver.
"Turn around," I told him. "Take me home. I want to write."
"No," he said. "Go out and see the world and see what happens. Then come back and put it on paper."
"OK, I will."
The cab squealed to a halt in front of Tulula and I handed my new friend six dollars.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
"Don't Call Attention to it! Or, Let's Tell the Whole World:" Media Coverage of Media Irrelevance.
Jon Hemmerdinger
February 21, 2009
You might think mainstream media outlets would avoid highlighting their own demise. Why call attention to your own dwindling relevance?
But more and more, the media seem to cover the very changes that threaten their lives: the forces of citizen journalism and the decline of city newspapers.
The prevalence of citizen journalism is witnessed every time major news breaks. It happened in the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, when hostages sent twitter messages of the ordeal.
Twitter users are also said to have broken the story of the US Airways flight that glided into the Hudson River.
"There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy," tweeted one witness from a ferry boat on the scene.
Most recently, citizen journalist Anthony Trigilio posted online video on YouTube of the fire and mayhem following the crash of Continental flight 3407, which plummeted from the skies above Buffalo on Feb. 12.
But as citizen journalism has grown, so too has the mainstream media's coverage of the phenomenon.
The twittering Mumbai news breakers were highlighted in the Dec. 2 Los Angeles Times piece, "Mumbai news fished from Twitter’s rapids," by David Sarno. "Once a way for friends to keep each other updated on daily routines," writes Sarno, "Twitter is now looking more like a legitimate medium for short bits of information."
In a Jan. 16 blog called "Can a Tweet be a Scoop?" The New York Times called attention to the twitter-user who was among the first to make known the U.S. Airways crash.
And shortly after the Buffalo crash, the Buffalo News posted a story on it's website called YouTube and the Crash, in which a Buffalo News reporter interviewed Trigilio about his experience as a citizen journalist.
"Everybody seems to have their own little onsite-reporter-thing going on," Trigilio said.
It seems the mainstream media is covering the very forces that have caused the industry so much heartache in recent years.
There are other examples.
In a Feb. 11 article in The Wall Street Journal titled, "Why You Don't Want to Die on a Sunday in Detroit," Jeffery Zaslow examines how Detroit may be affected when the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News reduce home delivery of the newspaper to three days a week next month.
Here's another similar recent example. On Feb. 5, NPR ran a story called, "Imagining a City Without It's Daily Newspaper," which looks at how a city—Hartford, Conn. and the Hartford Courant are the examples used—would be affected if the city's daily newspaper ceases operations altogether.
And though the NPR story makes a good point of telling why newspapers are important to society, the story doesn't hide from the fact that newspapers are in decline. The first graph reads: "Financial analysts say they expect some big dailies to fold, perhaps as soon as this year."
But though it may seem odd for the media to cover it's own problems, maybe this is a good sign for the industry; perhaps these are examples of the media beginning to accept the changing world of the news. Maybe that's first step to adapting.
Or, maybe it's reverse-psychology: stories about dwindling relevance might actually prove that traditions news companies are more relevant than we think.
Jon Hemmerdinger
February 21, 2009
You might think mainstream media outlets would avoid highlighting their own demise. Why call attention to your own dwindling relevance?
But more and more, the media seem to cover the very changes that threaten their lives: the forces of citizen journalism and the decline of city newspapers.
The prevalence of citizen journalism is witnessed every time major news breaks. It happened in the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai, when hostages sent twitter messages of the ordeal.
Twitter users are also said to have broken the story of the US Airways flight that glided into the Hudson River.
"There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy," tweeted one witness from a ferry boat on the scene.
Most recently, citizen journalist Anthony Trigilio posted online video on YouTube of the fire and mayhem following the crash of Continental flight 3407, which plummeted from the skies above Buffalo on Feb. 12.
But as citizen journalism has grown, so too has the mainstream media's coverage of the phenomenon.
The twittering Mumbai news breakers were highlighted in the Dec. 2 Los Angeles Times piece, "Mumbai news fished from Twitter’s rapids," by David Sarno. "Once a way for friends to keep each other updated on daily routines," writes Sarno, "Twitter is now looking more like a legitimate medium for short bits of information."
In a Jan. 16 blog called "Can a Tweet be a Scoop?" The New York Times called attention to the twitter-user who was among the first to make known the U.S. Airways crash.
And shortly after the Buffalo crash, the Buffalo News posted a story on it's website called YouTube and the Crash, in which a Buffalo News reporter interviewed Trigilio about his experience as a citizen journalist.
"Everybody seems to have their own little onsite-reporter-thing going on," Trigilio said.
It seems the mainstream media is covering the very forces that have caused the industry so much heartache in recent years.
There are other examples.
In a Feb. 11 article in The Wall Street Journal titled, "Why You Don't Want to Die on a Sunday in Detroit," Jeffery Zaslow examines how Detroit may be affected when the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News reduce home delivery of the newspaper to three days a week next month.
Here's another similar recent example. On Feb. 5, NPR ran a story called, "Imagining a City Without It's Daily Newspaper," which looks at how a city—Hartford, Conn. and the Hartford Courant are the examples used—would be affected if the city's daily newspaper ceases operations altogether.
And though the NPR story makes a good point of telling why newspapers are important to society, the story doesn't hide from the fact that newspapers are in decline. The first graph reads: "Financial analysts say they expect some big dailies to fold, perhaps as soon as this year."
But though it may seem odd for the media to cover it's own problems, maybe this is a good sign for the industry; perhaps these are examples of the media beginning to accept the changing world of the news. Maybe that's first step to adapting.
Or, maybe it's reverse-psychology: stories about dwindling relevance might actually prove that traditions news companies are more relevant than we think.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Path to Becoming a Journalist. Part 1
I just had this wonderful idea that I would catalog the journey that I have taken from a job in human resources sales to that of professional journalist. The only problem is that my journey started over a full year ago, so I have missed-out on reporting all of the interesting and crazy and scary things that have happened to me in the last 14 months. I won't try to recap it all, but i will provide just an outline of the last year, both for the selfish reason that I want a record of it and just in case anyone else might want to read it (though I doubt it).
I've always been a writer. I've always been a writer. I've ALWAYS been a writer. I was a writer when I was barely able to write the entire alphabet. I used to scribble stories in pencil on those wide-ruled pages that they gave kindergartners to teach them how to write letters. I remember one story was about big, mean, dragon-like creature that crept into little boys bedrooms in the dark of night to scare them. Funny a kid's imagination.
I continued to write all through middle school and through high school, where I actually wrote a really good poem called "Evening Watch," which I am still crazy about and which still pretty much expresses most of the emotions that define me.
But that's not what I am writing about. I am writing about writing, and the poem that I wrote in high school was some damn good writing, and for that I was proud.
I wrote all through college, too. Got a degree in history and creative writing, and promptly got a job in sales.
Seven years later I decided it was no use hiding from the fact that I was and always will be a writer. But how does one get into writing? I had barely picked up my pen in years, with the exception of a few brier periods of creativity. I didn't know where to start, and how someone could make a transition from sales to making money at writing. I knew how to write, but the business was just so alien.
I enrolled at Georgetown University in the fall of 2008 at the age of 30. In January of 2009, I started classes, exactly one week since having knee surgery. It was snowing that first day of class, and I was hobbling through slush on crutches, wincing in pain, with a metal brace on my leg. I made my way up to the doors of Walsh Hall, which is just across the street from the basement bar, The Tombs. I took the elavator to the third floor, and found my first class: Covering Other Cultures.
I just had this wonderful idea that I would catalog the journey that I have taken from a job in human resources sales to that of professional journalist. The only problem is that my journey started over a full year ago, so I have missed-out on reporting all of the interesting and crazy and scary things that have happened to me in the last 14 months. I won't try to recap it all, but i will provide just an outline of the last year, both for the selfish reason that I want a record of it and just in case anyone else might want to read it (though I doubt it).
I've always been a writer. I've always been a writer. I've ALWAYS been a writer. I was a writer when I was barely able to write the entire alphabet. I used to scribble stories in pencil on those wide-ruled pages that they gave kindergartners to teach them how to write letters. I remember one story was about big, mean, dragon-like creature that crept into little boys bedrooms in the dark of night to scare them. Funny a kid's imagination.
I continued to write all through middle school and through high school, where I actually wrote a really good poem called "Evening Watch," which I am still crazy about and which still pretty much expresses most of the emotions that define me.
But that's not what I am writing about. I am writing about writing, and the poem that I wrote in high school was some damn good writing, and for that I was proud.
I wrote all through college, too. Got a degree in history and creative writing, and promptly got a job in sales.
Seven years later I decided it was no use hiding from the fact that I was and always will be a writer. But how does one get into writing? I had barely picked up my pen in years, with the exception of a few brier periods of creativity. I didn't know where to start, and how someone could make a transition from sales to making money at writing. I knew how to write, but the business was just so alien.
I enrolled at Georgetown University in the fall of 2008 at the age of 30. In January of 2009, I started classes, exactly one week since having knee surgery. It was snowing that first day of class, and I was hobbling through slush on crutches, wincing in pain, with a metal brace on my leg. I made my way up to the doors of Walsh Hall, which is just across the street from the basement bar, The Tombs. I took the elavator to the third floor, and found my first class: Covering Other Cultures.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Science of Persuasion
http://www.searchmagazine.org/November-December%202008/full-politicalbrain.html
Political speech can frame elections, but how does it work in the brain?On the sweltering summer afternoon of August 28, 1963, under the watchful eye of the Great Emancipator himself, Martin Luther King, Jr., ascended the stage near the Lincoln Memorial and faced a crowd of two-hundred thousand.
It was his “I Have a Dream” speech, and for sixteen minutes King held the crowd transfixed. He spoke simple words and short phrases, delivered with a trance-inducing, soft-then-loud cadence. The speech was emotionally riveting, and when King was through, an entire people’s struggle and a vast nation’s hypocrisy were exposed. Civil inequality had nowhere to hide.
Henry Marsh, the first African-American mayor of Richmond and now a State Senator from Virginia, was in Washington that day. “When Dr. Martin Luther King spoke,” said Marsh, seventy-four, “it was a feeling of vindication. It was emotional because of the many sacrifices that led to Dr. King’s march.”
Almost exactly forty-five years later, Marsh felt those feelings again — vindication, hope, optimism. This time he was at Mile High Stadium in Denver, and Barack Obama was speaking.“They both grasped the moment,” said Marsh of Obama and King.
Great speech can move nations and change history. It can ignite revolution, spread peace and reconciliation, and even inspire hatred and war. It also wins elections.But why are some politician’s messages so powerful, so persuasive? And why do some messages excite, invigorate, and endure, while others are forgotten as soon as the microphone drops?
It turns out that there’s science behind persuasion, and recently, with modern techniques, scientists have actually seen what is happening in the brain. What they’ve found is surprising, even counter-intuitive. Effective persuasion — the ability to convince — has little to do with facts. What changes minds in politics is far more basic.
Luke Conway, a professor of psychology at the University of Montana, studies complexity in political speech. Conway found that politicians’ ideas get simple when they are running for election. His conclusions come from studies including an examination of the four State of the Union addresses of forty-one presidents in their first terms. Conway found a pattern. American presidents’ ideas are most complex in their first State of the Union address. In other words, their ideas are nuanced and often open to others’ points of view. Subsequent addresses, however, are less complex. The last address — the one prior to potential reelection — has the simplest ideas. Conway’s studies, though still underway, suggest a relationship between simplicity and persuasion. “This could be why candidates typically get simpler as elections approach,” said Conway. “Because simplicity sells.” Likewise, Conway’s research suggests that complexity and ambiguity don’t inspire. “No one marches to rallying cries that say ‘I may be right, I may be wrong, let’s dialogue,’” said Conway.
It turns out that simplicity is a common trait in the messages of other successful historical leaders. Peter Suedfeld is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and has studied revolutionary leaders in China, Great Britain, Cuba, Russia, and the United States. Suedfeld’s research shows that successful revolutionaries are often those with the simplest message. “Those that were straightforward and put things in simple language were successful,” he said. Suedfeld is careful not to imply that simplicity leads to political success — his data doesn’t show that directly. But, his research does suggest that simplicity usually does precede success.But it’s not all about brevity. Successful persuasion is also dependent on framing, says George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Lakoff, facts by themselves have little ability to persuade. Rather, it’s the way politicians frame facts that leads to persuasion.
To explain framing, Lakoff discusses the government’s recent $700 billion deal with Wall Street. Some politicians framed the deal as a “rescue,” others, a “bailout.” But there’s a big difference in the two terms. A “rescue” is positive, implying heroics, bravery, and benevolence. A “bailout,” on the other hand, is negative; it feels like a reward to those who screwed up.Done right, framing injects values into issues. The two examples above generate the conflicting values of benevolence and self-sufficiency. Do we value rescuing fellow Americans in financial need? Or do we value the free market and leave failing businesses to fail?
Both candidates in the 2008 presidential race used framing. McCain used his foreign policy experience to frame himself as a protector of America. Obama, like Sarah Palin, used his “outsider” image to frame himself as the candidate for “change.”Framing is not a bad thing — at least not usually. Voters should focus on values, said Lakoff in a Huffingtonpost.com blog. “Since they don’t know what the situation will be in a couple of years, it is rational to ask if a candidate shares your values, if he’s saying what he believes, if he connects with you, if you trust him, and if you identify with him.”
But, though framing and simplicity are important, they are really a means towards the most powerful tool of political persuasion: emotion.Drew Westen, a professor of political psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, is the author of The Political Brain, which examines the role of emotion in American politics. Westen’s message is simple. “If you want to win hearts and minds, start with the heart.”
Westen and his colleagues conducted studies of the brain to examine how partisanship influences reasoning. To do this, Westen gathered a group of devoted Democrats and a group of devoted Republicans prior to the 2004 presidential election. He showed each group contradictory statements made by John Kerry and contradictory statements made by George W. Bush. Then, subjects rated the degree to which they saw a contradiction.
It’s important to note that the contradictions that Westen chose were glaring. Anyone not under the spell of partisanship could easily see them. The partisans, however, were blinded. For the most part, Democrats only saw the contradictions of Republicans and Republicans only saw the contradictions of Democrats. Westen conducted similar studies about partisans’ opinions on the impeachment of President Clinton and the 2000 election controversy.
From his studies, Westen found a few things. First, partisans don’t listen to facts, and their opinions are difficult to change even with hard evidence. Second, political opinions are generally not based on fact at all, they are based on emotions. In The Political Brain Westen writes: “The results showed that when partisans face threatening information, not only are they likely to ‘reason’ to emotionally biased conclusions, but we can trace their neural footprints as they do it.”By “trace,” Westen means using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what’s happening in the brain. The researchers found that subjects confronted with negative information about their party or candidate initially feel the unpleasant emotion of distress. It doesn’t last long. Very quickly, the brain uses faulty reasoning and false beliefs to counteract the negative feeling by reaching a false conclusion. The brain then produces positive emotion — a reward for having reached an illogical decision.
The bottom line, according to Westen is that the “the political brain is an emotional brain.”
Westen and his colleagues are not the only ones to study the relationship between emotion and persuasion. Russell Granger is the president and chief executive of ProEd Corporation, a Maryland-based productivity-improvement firm that offers lessons in persuasion. He also has a degree in psychology from Lafayette College and authored The 7 Triggers to Yes, in which he discusses persuasion methods.
According to Granger, the study of persuasion started with the ancient Greeks. “They realized it was needed in that crazy new form of government called democracy,” said Granger. “You couldn’t get anything done without having the power to convince others.”
Granger knows his history. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric, a collection of three books on persuasion. Aristotle knew that emotion and the appeal of the speaker were part of persuasion. But, according to Granger, Aristotle thought the best path to persuasion was though logic and reason, which he called logos.
Aristotle didn’t have the convenience of twenty-first century science. For nearly two thousand five hundred years his theory went unchallenged.
Then came neuroimaging.“Now we can see live, in real-time, blood, neurons, and oxygen flow in the brain,” said Granger. “Aristotle had it backwards. Emotional triggers give us persuasion.”
According to Granger, it all involves the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass in the brain’s limbic system that’s responsible for emotion. It’s here that sensory input goes first for requests for decisions or actions. If we are emotionally connected to a topic, a decision might be made immediately. The process is called cognitive heuristics, or a cognitive shortcut. You might call it a gut reaction. Regardless, it’s a process where emotions — not facts — are used to make quick and painless decisions.
Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, also studies cognitive heuristics. According to Cialdini, the phenomenon helps humans with daily functioning by letting us make decisions with our emotions when we don’t have all the facts. “It allows us to make good choices without having to get smart,” said Cialdini.
Decisions, however, are not always made in the amygdala. If we don’t have an emotional gut reaction, the information passes to the prefrontal cortex for logical evaluation. According to Granger, using logic to make decisions is literally painful, producing the same brainwaves as are produced when we immerse our hands in cold water or solve math problems. It’s so strenuous, said Granger, that the brain uses 300 percent more calories than when making decisions in the amygdala.
Here’s the point: Whether they know if or not, politicians should appeal to the emotions of voters. Once they do so, voters will form emotional connections with candidates, and voters’ decisions will be made in the amygdala, not the churning prefrontal cortex. Such connections are so strong they can last a lifetime.That brings us back to the 2008 U.S. presidential election and how candidates courted voters.
From Westen’s studies, we know that partisans already have emotional ties to their party and their candidate. For these voters, it’s too late to change: Republicans can’t convince Democrats, nor will Democrats convince Republicans. For one thing, this means that candidates should never fear offending those with whom they will never agree. Candidates should concern themselves, however, with making emotional connections with undecided voters. That means avoiding complexity and nuance, using facts and statistics sparingly, and, above all, showing humanity.
Republicans have historically excelled at emotion. That’s part of the reason, says Lakoff, that both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were elected. More than their opponents, Reagan and Bush were emotional, charismatic, and likable. They led with values. McCain followed the same path, evoking emotion by framing himself as a war hero, Washington maverick, and protector of America.
Despite all the science, however, Democrats have historically struggled with emotion, running campaigns instead that are based on policies, issues, statistics and facts. According to Lakoff, that’s largely the reason Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale lost to Reagan, and why Bush beat Al Gore and Kerry.
As Westen explained, “When Democrats make an appeal to a small strip of cortex in the front of our brain, they are ceding the emotional circuits.” Obama, however, has been different. He has authenticity, sincerity, and can connect and communicate with voters. There’s no better example than Obama’s nomination speech, the one that gave Senator Marsh the same emotion he felt when he heard Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s also, by Lakoff’s analysis, how Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 nomination race.But, according to Westen, Obama focused on issues after that speech. Westen saw it in the first presidential debate. “You could have grafted Dukakis’ face over Obama’s,” he said. “Only two times in 90 minutes did he refer to real people.”Lakoff agrees. “Obama needs to be Obama again, the inspiring figure who gives us hope, not the dull policy wonk.”
If Obama does that, it will seem the Democrats have finally learned what Republicans have known for decades. It’s a lesson that Westen summarizes best: “Sometimes leadership isn’t about moving to the left or moving to the right, it’s about moving the electorate.”
Jonathan Hemmerdinger is a journalist and reporter from Arlington, Va.
Political speech can frame elections, but how does it work in the brain?On the sweltering summer afternoon of August 28, 1963, under the watchful eye of the Great Emancipator himself, Martin Luther King, Jr., ascended the stage near the Lincoln Memorial and faced a crowd of two-hundred thousand.
It was his “I Have a Dream” speech, and for sixteen minutes King held the crowd transfixed. He spoke simple words and short phrases, delivered with a trance-inducing, soft-then-loud cadence. The speech was emotionally riveting, and when King was through, an entire people’s struggle and a vast nation’s hypocrisy were exposed. Civil inequality had nowhere to hide.
Henry Marsh, the first African-American mayor of Richmond and now a State Senator from Virginia, was in Washington that day. “When Dr. Martin Luther King spoke,” said Marsh, seventy-four, “it was a feeling of vindication. It was emotional because of the many sacrifices that led to Dr. King’s march.”
Almost exactly forty-five years later, Marsh felt those feelings again — vindication, hope, optimism. This time he was at Mile High Stadium in Denver, and Barack Obama was speaking.“They both grasped the moment,” said Marsh of Obama and King.
Great speech can move nations and change history. It can ignite revolution, spread peace and reconciliation, and even inspire hatred and war. It also wins elections.But why are some politician’s messages so powerful, so persuasive? And why do some messages excite, invigorate, and endure, while others are forgotten as soon as the microphone drops?
It turns out that there’s science behind persuasion, and recently, with modern techniques, scientists have actually seen what is happening in the brain. What they’ve found is surprising, even counter-intuitive. Effective persuasion — the ability to convince — has little to do with facts. What changes minds in politics is far more basic.
Luke Conway, a professor of psychology at the University of Montana, studies complexity in political speech. Conway found that politicians’ ideas get simple when they are running for election. His conclusions come from studies including an examination of the four State of the Union addresses of forty-one presidents in their first terms. Conway found a pattern. American presidents’ ideas are most complex in their first State of the Union address. In other words, their ideas are nuanced and often open to others’ points of view. Subsequent addresses, however, are less complex. The last address — the one prior to potential reelection — has the simplest ideas. Conway’s studies, though still underway, suggest a relationship between simplicity and persuasion. “This could be why candidates typically get simpler as elections approach,” said Conway. “Because simplicity sells.” Likewise, Conway’s research suggests that complexity and ambiguity don’t inspire. “No one marches to rallying cries that say ‘I may be right, I may be wrong, let’s dialogue,’” said Conway.
It turns out that simplicity is a common trait in the messages of other successful historical leaders. Peter Suedfeld is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and has studied revolutionary leaders in China, Great Britain, Cuba, Russia, and the United States. Suedfeld’s research shows that successful revolutionaries are often those with the simplest message. “Those that were straightforward and put things in simple language were successful,” he said. Suedfeld is careful not to imply that simplicity leads to political success — his data doesn’t show that directly. But, his research does suggest that simplicity usually does precede success.But it’s not all about brevity. Successful persuasion is also dependent on framing, says George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. According to Lakoff, facts by themselves have little ability to persuade. Rather, it’s the way politicians frame facts that leads to persuasion.
To explain framing, Lakoff discusses the government’s recent $700 billion deal with Wall Street. Some politicians framed the deal as a “rescue,” others, a “bailout.” But there’s a big difference in the two terms. A “rescue” is positive, implying heroics, bravery, and benevolence. A “bailout,” on the other hand, is negative; it feels like a reward to those who screwed up.Done right, framing injects values into issues. The two examples above generate the conflicting values of benevolence and self-sufficiency. Do we value rescuing fellow Americans in financial need? Or do we value the free market and leave failing businesses to fail?
Both candidates in the 2008 presidential race used framing. McCain used his foreign policy experience to frame himself as a protector of America. Obama, like Sarah Palin, used his “outsider” image to frame himself as the candidate for “change.”Framing is not a bad thing — at least not usually. Voters should focus on values, said Lakoff in a Huffingtonpost.com blog. “Since they don’t know what the situation will be in a couple of years, it is rational to ask if a candidate shares your values, if he’s saying what he believes, if he connects with you, if you trust him, and if you identify with him.”
But, though framing and simplicity are important, they are really a means towards the most powerful tool of political persuasion: emotion.Drew Westen, a professor of political psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, is the author of The Political Brain, which examines the role of emotion in American politics. Westen’s message is simple. “If you want to win hearts and minds, start with the heart.”
Westen and his colleagues conducted studies of the brain to examine how partisanship influences reasoning. To do this, Westen gathered a group of devoted Democrats and a group of devoted Republicans prior to the 2004 presidential election. He showed each group contradictory statements made by John Kerry and contradictory statements made by George W. Bush. Then, subjects rated the degree to which they saw a contradiction.
It’s important to note that the contradictions that Westen chose were glaring. Anyone not under the spell of partisanship could easily see them. The partisans, however, were blinded. For the most part, Democrats only saw the contradictions of Republicans and Republicans only saw the contradictions of Democrats. Westen conducted similar studies about partisans’ opinions on the impeachment of President Clinton and the 2000 election controversy.
From his studies, Westen found a few things. First, partisans don’t listen to facts, and their opinions are difficult to change even with hard evidence. Second, political opinions are generally not based on fact at all, they are based on emotions. In The Political Brain Westen writes: “The results showed that when partisans face threatening information, not only are they likely to ‘reason’ to emotionally biased conclusions, but we can trace their neural footprints as they do it.”By “trace,” Westen means using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see what’s happening in the brain. The researchers found that subjects confronted with negative information about their party or candidate initially feel the unpleasant emotion of distress. It doesn’t last long. Very quickly, the brain uses faulty reasoning and false beliefs to counteract the negative feeling by reaching a false conclusion. The brain then produces positive emotion — a reward for having reached an illogical decision.
The bottom line, according to Westen is that the “the political brain is an emotional brain.”
Westen and his colleagues are not the only ones to study the relationship between emotion and persuasion. Russell Granger is the president and chief executive of ProEd Corporation, a Maryland-based productivity-improvement firm that offers lessons in persuasion. He also has a degree in psychology from Lafayette College and authored The 7 Triggers to Yes, in which he discusses persuasion methods.
According to Granger, the study of persuasion started with the ancient Greeks. “They realized it was needed in that crazy new form of government called democracy,” said Granger. “You couldn’t get anything done without having the power to convince others.”
Granger knows his history. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Rhetoric, a collection of three books on persuasion. Aristotle knew that emotion and the appeal of the speaker were part of persuasion. But, according to Granger, Aristotle thought the best path to persuasion was though logic and reason, which he called logos.
Aristotle didn’t have the convenience of twenty-first century science. For nearly two thousand five hundred years his theory went unchallenged.
Then came neuroimaging.“Now we can see live, in real-time, blood, neurons, and oxygen flow in the brain,” said Granger. “Aristotle had it backwards. Emotional triggers give us persuasion.”
According to Granger, it all involves the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass in the brain’s limbic system that’s responsible for emotion. It’s here that sensory input goes first for requests for decisions or actions. If we are emotionally connected to a topic, a decision might be made immediately. The process is called cognitive heuristics, or a cognitive shortcut. You might call it a gut reaction. Regardless, it’s a process where emotions — not facts — are used to make quick and painless decisions.
Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology and marketing at Arizona State University and author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, also studies cognitive heuristics. According to Cialdini, the phenomenon helps humans with daily functioning by letting us make decisions with our emotions when we don’t have all the facts. “It allows us to make good choices without having to get smart,” said Cialdini.
Decisions, however, are not always made in the amygdala. If we don’t have an emotional gut reaction, the information passes to the prefrontal cortex for logical evaluation. According to Granger, using logic to make decisions is literally painful, producing the same brainwaves as are produced when we immerse our hands in cold water or solve math problems. It’s so strenuous, said Granger, that the brain uses 300 percent more calories than when making decisions in the amygdala.
Here’s the point: Whether they know if or not, politicians should appeal to the emotions of voters. Once they do so, voters will form emotional connections with candidates, and voters’ decisions will be made in the amygdala, not the churning prefrontal cortex. Such connections are so strong they can last a lifetime.That brings us back to the 2008 U.S. presidential election and how candidates courted voters.
From Westen’s studies, we know that partisans already have emotional ties to their party and their candidate. For these voters, it’s too late to change: Republicans can’t convince Democrats, nor will Democrats convince Republicans. For one thing, this means that candidates should never fear offending those with whom they will never agree. Candidates should concern themselves, however, with making emotional connections with undecided voters. That means avoiding complexity and nuance, using facts and statistics sparingly, and, above all, showing humanity.
Republicans have historically excelled at emotion. That’s part of the reason, says Lakoff, that both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were elected. More than their opponents, Reagan and Bush were emotional, charismatic, and likable. They led with values. McCain followed the same path, evoking emotion by framing himself as a war hero, Washington maverick, and protector of America.
Despite all the science, however, Democrats have historically struggled with emotion, running campaigns instead that are based on policies, issues, statistics and facts. According to Lakoff, that’s largely the reason Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale lost to Reagan, and why Bush beat Al Gore and Kerry.
As Westen explained, “When Democrats make an appeal to a small strip of cortex in the front of our brain, they are ceding the emotional circuits.” Obama, however, has been different. He has authenticity, sincerity, and can connect and communicate with voters. There’s no better example than Obama’s nomination speech, the one that gave Senator Marsh the same emotion he felt when he heard Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s also, by Lakoff’s analysis, how Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 nomination race.But, according to Westen, Obama focused on issues after that speech. Westen saw it in the first presidential debate. “You could have grafted Dukakis’ face over Obama’s,” he said. “Only two times in 90 minutes did he refer to real people.”Lakoff agrees. “Obama needs to be Obama again, the inspiring figure who gives us hope, not the dull policy wonk.”
If Obama does that, it will seem the Democrats have finally learned what Republicans have known for decades. It’s a lesson that Westen summarizes best: “Sometimes leadership isn’t about moving to the left or moving to the right, it’s about moving the electorate.”
Jonathan Hemmerdinger is a journalist and reporter from Arlington, Va.
Arlington Provides Refuge for Cambodian Culture
Arlington Provides Refuge for Cambodian Culture:
http://www.sungazette.net/articles/2008/10/01/arlington/news/nw915.txt
For Cambodian-Americans in the Washington, D.C., area, keeping traditional culture alive is a fight against long odds. The battle's fought, however, week after week at the Arlington Mill Community Center, where Cambodian-born parents bring their American-born children for lessons in their ancient heritage.The children come midday Sunday, shuffling into the center in richly colored, sequin-studded Av Noay, a traditional Cambodian dress. They're here to take classical Cambodian dance and music lessons and to understand their roots.Jonathan Dos, a fifth-grader at Carlin Springs Elementary, patiently holds two mallets above the dark hardwood bars of a curved wooden instrument known as a roneat ek. It's like a xylophone but has a rich eastern tone that fills the room as Jonathan plays. It's a simple tune, like a Cambodian version of “Chopsticks.”The instructor, Ngek Chum, watches his pupils while bowing a violin-like instrument called a tro.There's not a musical sheet in the room. “I use my ear,” Chum said.Most of the adults here arrived in the United States between the late 1970s and early 1980s - during or after the dark, genocidal era of Pol Pot's regime. In an effort to create a classless society, the Khmer Rouge directly or indirectly killed nearly 1.7 million Cambodians, one-fifth of Cambodia's population, between 1975 and 1979.Upon arriving in the United States, the refugees established “Khmer” communities throughout the country. Some 4,000 Cambodians live in the Washington, D.C., area.In a larger room across the hall from Chum's music lesson is Devi Yim, the Dance Master. Yim stands on tiptoe at the head of the class, her outstretched arms moving gracefully in large circles to music played from a stereo.Facing Yim for this demonstration of the Coconut Dance are 30 girls, some no more than five years old.Like the others, Yim has seen hardship.“They gave us three days to leave,” Yim said, referring to the Khmer Rouge order to evacuate Phnom Penh in 1975. Yim and thousands fled to the countryside on foot and at gunpoint.Yim, 5 years old at the time, was separated from her family and forced to tend rice fields in the countryside. Her brother was killed.
In the early 1980s, after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Yim completed her education and graduated from the Royal University of Phnom Penh. She first performed dance in the United States in 1990 on the invitation of the U.S government.“My country was still at war,” she said. “I decided to stay here.”Now she teaches the children what she learned in her homeland. “I want to keep my culture alive. That's why I do it every weekend.”Sara Say agrees. A former second lieutenant in the Cambodian Special Forces, Say has been performing in America since arriving in the early 1980s.Afraid their culture would be lost in the relocation, Say and 30 other refugees brought their dance heritage with them.Say, now a writer, drummer, and singer, lives and performs at local venues.“We must show them that we are from somewhere else in the world,” Say said referring to the children. “They have to learn what is their background.”It's a refrain heard again and again among the parents: It's important that the children know their heritage.Kathy Rafferty sits in a plastic chair in the community center while her adopted daughter, Grace, practices dance moves. Grace was born in Cambodia and brought to the United States by Rafferty at six months of age.Rafferty's not Cambodian, but she understands the importance of culture and identity.The dance lessons teach culture and help with identity, Rafferty noted. Her daughter “wailed at first,” she said, “but when the kids get older they really start to appreciate the lessons.”Another mother, Nalen Smith, watches Meghan, her 5-year-old daughter, perform. “My kids don't know the culture yet,” said Smith, who spent five years at the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp on the Thai border and lost her sister to a border-guard's bullet.“I bring Meghan to dance because I want to keep the culture alive,” she said. “It's not easy.”The littlest ones, like Meghan, are too young to understand. But they eventually learn. “After a while they realize that they have their own origins,” said Say.Victoria Yap, a Chinese-Cambodian-American, passes out four-foot peacock feathers to twenty children in the break room. They're about to practice the “Peacock Dance.”“They become the peacock,” Yap said, explaining the meaning of the ancient dance.Dance and music lessons, however, require lots of free time. And in America, free time comes at a premium.“We try to maintain our identity. But, we're busy,” said Poly Sam, 42, a Cambodian immigrant and survivor of the Khmer Rouge. Sam now is a broadcaster at Radio Free Asia in Washington.Circumstances don't always allow for culture to come first, he said.But though Sam embraces his heritage, he is also grateful for the opportunities America has offered him and his three children.“Being American is a good thing,” he said. “My kids will be successful.”
http://www.sungazette.net/articles/2008/10/01/arlington/news/nw915.txt
For Cambodian-Americans in the Washington, D.C., area, keeping traditional culture alive is a fight against long odds. The battle's fought, however, week after week at the Arlington Mill Community Center, where Cambodian-born parents bring their American-born children for lessons in their ancient heritage.The children come midday Sunday, shuffling into the center in richly colored, sequin-studded Av Noay, a traditional Cambodian dress. They're here to take classical Cambodian dance and music lessons and to understand their roots.Jonathan Dos, a fifth-grader at Carlin Springs Elementary, patiently holds two mallets above the dark hardwood bars of a curved wooden instrument known as a roneat ek. It's like a xylophone but has a rich eastern tone that fills the room as Jonathan plays. It's a simple tune, like a Cambodian version of “Chopsticks.”The instructor, Ngek Chum, watches his pupils while bowing a violin-like instrument called a tro.There's not a musical sheet in the room. “I use my ear,” Chum said.Most of the adults here arrived in the United States between the late 1970s and early 1980s - during or after the dark, genocidal era of Pol Pot's regime. In an effort to create a classless society, the Khmer Rouge directly or indirectly killed nearly 1.7 million Cambodians, one-fifth of Cambodia's population, between 1975 and 1979.Upon arriving in the United States, the refugees established “Khmer” communities throughout the country. Some 4,000 Cambodians live in the Washington, D.C., area.In a larger room across the hall from Chum's music lesson is Devi Yim, the Dance Master. Yim stands on tiptoe at the head of the class, her outstretched arms moving gracefully in large circles to music played from a stereo.Facing Yim for this demonstration of the Coconut Dance are 30 girls, some no more than five years old.Like the others, Yim has seen hardship.“They gave us three days to leave,” Yim said, referring to the Khmer Rouge order to evacuate Phnom Penh in 1975. Yim and thousands fled to the countryside on foot and at gunpoint.Yim, 5 years old at the time, was separated from her family and forced to tend rice fields in the countryside. Her brother was killed.
In the early 1980s, after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Yim completed her education and graduated from the Royal University of Phnom Penh. She first performed dance in the United States in 1990 on the invitation of the U.S government.“My country was still at war,” she said. “I decided to stay here.”Now she teaches the children what she learned in her homeland. “I want to keep my culture alive. That's why I do it every weekend.”Sara Say agrees. A former second lieutenant in the Cambodian Special Forces, Say has been performing in America since arriving in the early 1980s.Afraid their culture would be lost in the relocation, Say and 30 other refugees brought their dance heritage with them.Say, now a writer, drummer, and singer, lives and performs at local venues.“We must show them that we are from somewhere else in the world,” Say said referring to the children. “They have to learn what is their background.”It's a refrain heard again and again among the parents: It's important that the children know their heritage.Kathy Rafferty sits in a plastic chair in the community center while her adopted daughter, Grace, practices dance moves. Grace was born in Cambodia and brought to the United States by Rafferty at six months of age.Rafferty's not Cambodian, but she understands the importance of culture and identity.The dance lessons teach culture and help with identity, Rafferty noted. Her daughter “wailed at first,” she said, “but when the kids get older they really start to appreciate the lessons.”Another mother, Nalen Smith, watches Meghan, her 5-year-old daughter, perform. “My kids don't know the culture yet,” said Smith, who spent five years at the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp on the Thai border and lost her sister to a border-guard's bullet.“I bring Meghan to dance because I want to keep the culture alive,” she said. “It's not easy.”The littlest ones, like Meghan, are too young to understand. But they eventually learn. “After a while they realize that they have their own origins,” said Say.Victoria Yap, a Chinese-Cambodian-American, passes out four-foot peacock feathers to twenty children in the break room. They're about to practice the “Peacock Dance.”“They become the peacock,” Yap said, explaining the meaning of the ancient dance.Dance and music lessons, however, require lots of free time. And in America, free time comes at a premium.“We try to maintain our identity. But, we're busy,” said Poly Sam, 42, a Cambodian immigrant and survivor of the Khmer Rouge. Sam now is a broadcaster at Radio Free Asia in Washington.Circumstances don't always allow for culture to come first, he said.But though Sam embraces his heritage, he is also grateful for the opportunities America has offered him and his three children.“Being American is a good thing,” he said. “My kids will be successful.”
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Apple fans get set for iPhone upgrade
Apple fans get set for iPhone upgrade
Jonathan Hemmerdinger, Correspondent
Last Updated: July 07. 2008 11:13PM UAE / July 7. 2008 7:13PM GMT
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080707/FOREIGN/746320401/1014/NEWS&Profile=1014
WASHINGTON //
Ever since Ray Basile bought his first Macintosh computer in 1999, he has been a self-described Applehead, a member of a cultish group of devotees of just about anything that Apple and its chief executive officer, Steve Jobs, think up.
And like the others in the “Cult of Mac”, Mr Basile can hardly wait for Friday, when Apple begins selling the second-generation version of one of the most celebrated pieces of technology to come along in years – the iPhone.
He will brave the crowds bound to show up at Apple stores nationwide to be among the first to upgrade.“I’ll be there in line,” said Mr Basile, who in his spare time runs a blog devoted to the iPhone, iPhoneSavior.com. “It’ll be like a worship service.”
When the first iPhone hit the market amid hoopla last year, Appleheads rejoiced. It was the Macintosh computer of the mobile-phone world: different in looks and operation than competing products, complete with a touch-screen, built-in iPod and internet browser. It was, in the eyes of those who bought it, and even many who did not, cool – a kind of anti-Blackberry.
“Think back to high school,” Mr Basile, 48, said in an interview, speaking on his first-generation iPhone. “All you really were after was inclusion. As soon as you have an iPhone, anyone will include you.“Everyone who walks by asks, ‘Is that an iPhone?’”
It took just 74 days for Apple to sell one million of the first model. Four million more were sold in the first half of the 2008 fiscal year, according to the company. Those sales – paired with the enormous success of the company’s music business, in the form of the iPod and iTunes – have contributed to the remarkable rebirth of a company that has long existed in the shadow of Microsoft and the dominant PC. Apple posted a record US$9.6 billion (Dh35.2bn) in revenue in the first quarter of 2008, the highest quarterly revenue in its history.
For all the hype surrounding the phone’s release, not all of it was good. The phone launched last summer with an initial, and exorbitant, $599 price tag, and could only be used on a single mobile telephone network, AT&T. Within a few months, however, a 17-year-old tech-savvy boy from New Jersey “unlocked” it for use on other domestic networks, and networks overseas, and soon iPhones were being used in China and Russia. The Washington Post reported that Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, was using one.
The 3G iPhone will be available in 22 countries on Friday. By the end of the year, Apple plans to offer models with eight gigabytes and 16 gigabytes of memory in close to 70 countries, although according to Apple’s website, the UAE is not among them. As in the United States, iPhones will work over only certain mobile networks.To believers, the iPhone is more than a phone. It, and other Apple products, evolved into symbols of fierce individuality, perfection of design and the potential of technology to improve the world. What is more, the iPhone elevates the “personal cool factor”, according to one blogger, and signifies membership of an exclusive club. Some have labelled the following a cult.
“It may have all of the nasty features of other cults,” Michael Malone, a technology journalist
who writes the Silicon Insider column for ABCNews.com, said last year. “But on the positive side, the Apple cult isn’t destructive. It’s a bit creepy … but look what we get in exchange.”
Which is why the launch of the new iPhone comes as something of an American event.
Mr Jobs confirmed the launch at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco last month, outlining a slew of new features. The iPhone’s new slogan is on Apple’s website: “Twice as Fast, Half the Price.” The eight-gigabyte model sells for $199 with a contract.
That is good news for Marissa Noel, who said outside the Apple Store in Arlington, Virginia, that she plans to upgrade her current model. It turns out she spends a lot of time there: in addition to her iPhone, she has purchased five Apple computers in the past year.“On every other cellphone to get e-mail you need to hit 10 buttons,” said Ms Noel, 28, of Washington, DC. “On the iPhone, it’s just one. It’s amazing.”
Since Mr Jobs’s announcement about the official launch, the online world has been abuzz with iPhone chatter. Bloggers discuss everything about the devices, including price plans, sales forecasts, the phone’s functionality, even whether to stick with the original colour, white, or the new black.
Other blogs are less serious, especially Mr Basile’s, which pokes fun at Apple fanaticism (despite being a part of it himself). “New York to Honor Steve Jobs with Historic Tribute for iPhone,” reads one of the latest postings by Mr Basile, a vice president of new media for a digital music and visual imaging company in Issaquah, Washington, a suburb 26km east of Seattle. The attached picture shows the Statue of Liberty cradling an iMac laptop computer over New York Harbor, the Apple logo atop its torch.
Apple’s success and cult following has bred a backlash too among those who find its devotees overly dogmatic and Mr Jobs something of an egomaniac. There is also some frustration among the so-called “early adopters”, those who bought iPhones in 2007 – at full price. Now, with a cheaper price tag, the phone’s reach will grow, and the club will become decidedly less exclusive.
Mr Basile suggests on his blog that the “elite status” that early iPhone users enjoyed will be threatened come Friday. Suddenly, anyone with an old iPhone will be “fatally out of fashion”. But not him.
Jonathan Hemmerdinger, Correspondent
Last Updated: July 07. 2008 11:13PM UAE / July 7. 2008 7:13PM GMT
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080707/FOREIGN/746320401/1014/NEWS&Profile=1014
WASHINGTON //
Ever since Ray Basile bought his first Macintosh computer in 1999, he has been a self-described Applehead, a member of a cultish group of devotees of just about anything that Apple and its chief executive officer, Steve Jobs, think up.
And like the others in the “Cult of Mac”, Mr Basile can hardly wait for Friday, when Apple begins selling the second-generation version of one of the most celebrated pieces of technology to come along in years – the iPhone.
He will brave the crowds bound to show up at Apple stores nationwide to be among the first to upgrade.“I’ll be there in line,” said Mr Basile, who in his spare time runs a blog devoted to the iPhone, iPhoneSavior.com. “It’ll be like a worship service.”
When the first iPhone hit the market amid hoopla last year, Appleheads rejoiced. It was the Macintosh computer of the mobile-phone world: different in looks and operation than competing products, complete with a touch-screen, built-in iPod and internet browser. It was, in the eyes of those who bought it, and even many who did not, cool – a kind of anti-Blackberry.
“Think back to high school,” Mr Basile, 48, said in an interview, speaking on his first-generation iPhone. “All you really were after was inclusion. As soon as you have an iPhone, anyone will include you.“Everyone who walks by asks, ‘Is that an iPhone?’”
It took just 74 days for Apple to sell one million of the first model. Four million more were sold in the first half of the 2008 fiscal year, according to the company. Those sales – paired with the enormous success of the company’s music business, in the form of the iPod and iTunes – have contributed to the remarkable rebirth of a company that has long existed in the shadow of Microsoft and the dominant PC. Apple posted a record US$9.6 billion (Dh35.2bn) in revenue in the first quarter of 2008, the highest quarterly revenue in its history.
For all the hype surrounding the phone’s release, not all of it was good. The phone launched last summer with an initial, and exorbitant, $599 price tag, and could only be used on a single mobile telephone network, AT&T. Within a few months, however, a 17-year-old tech-savvy boy from New Jersey “unlocked” it for use on other domestic networks, and networks overseas, and soon iPhones were being used in China and Russia. The Washington Post reported that Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, was using one.
The 3G iPhone will be available in 22 countries on Friday. By the end of the year, Apple plans to offer models with eight gigabytes and 16 gigabytes of memory in close to 70 countries, although according to Apple’s website, the UAE is not among them. As in the United States, iPhones will work over only certain mobile networks.To believers, the iPhone is more than a phone. It, and other Apple products, evolved into symbols of fierce individuality, perfection of design and the potential of technology to improve the world. What is more, the iPhone elevates the “personal cool factor”, according to one blogger, and signifies membership of an exclusive club. Some have labelled the following a cult.
“It may have all of the nasty features of other cults,” Michael Malone, a technology journalist
who writes the Silicon Insider column for ABCNews.com, said last year. “But on the positive side, the Apple cult isn’t destructive. It’s a bit creepy … but look what we get in exchange.”
Which is why the launch of the new iPhone comes as something of an American event.
Mr Jobs confirmed the launch at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco last month, outlining a slew of new features. The iPhone’s new slogan is on Apple’s website: “Twice as Fast, Half the Price.” The eight-gigabyte model sells for $199 with a contract.
That is good news for Marissa Noel, who said outside the Apple Store in Arlington, Virginia, that she plans to upgrade her current model. It turns out she spends a lot of time there: in addition to her iPhone, she has purchased five Apple computers in the past year.“On every other cellphone to get e-mail you need to hit 10 buttons,” said Ms Noel, 28, of Washington, DC. “On the iPhone, it’s just one. It’s amazing.”
Since Mr Jobs’s announcement about the official launch, the online world has been abuzz with iPhone chatter. Bloggers discuss everything about the devices, including price plans, sales forecasts, the phone’s functionality, even whether to stick with the original colour, white, or the new black.
Other blogs are less serious, especially Mr Basile’s, which pokes fun at Apple fanaticism (despite being a part of it himself). “New York to Honor Steve Jobs with Historic Tribute for iPhone,” reads one of the latest postings by Mr Basile, a vice president of new media for a digital music and visual imaging company in Issaquah, Washington, a suburb 26km east of Seattle. The attached picture shows the Statue of Liberty cradling an iMac laptop computer over New York Harbor, the Apple logo atop its torch.
Apple’s success and cult following has bred a backlash too among those who find its devotees overly dogmatic and Mr Jobs something of an egomaniac. There is also some frustration among the so-called “early adopters”, those who bought iPhones in 2007 – at full price. Now, with a cheaper price tag, the phone’s reach will grow, and the club will become decidedly less exclusive.
Mr Basile suggests on his blog that the “elite status” that early iPhone users enjoyed will be threatened come Friday. Suddenly, anyone with an old iPhone will be “fatally out of fashion”. But not him.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Where crime is considered history
This story is my first real piece of freelance work. It's about the Crime and Punishment Museum in Washington, written for a Middle East daily newspaper called The National. I wrote the piece for the Washington Bureau. Click here to view the original: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080604/FOREIGN/302438501/1014/ART&Profile=1014
Where crime is considered history
Jonathan Hemmerdinger, Correspondent
Last Updated: June 05. 2008 12:06AM UAE / June 4. 2008 8:06PM GMT
A patron fires off a few rounds in the "Old West" shooting gallery at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. Jacquelyn Martin / AP
WASHINGTON // The original court docket of Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer, shouts its verdict at visitors: “To be sentenced to DEATH BY EXECUTION”.Nearby is the gibbet-chain, a medieval torture device used to hang offenders. Also present is the “Old West” shooting range. A dollar will get you five shots – and sinister fun for the whole family.This is Washington’s newest tourist attraction, the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, a 2,600-square metre facility filled with historic artefacts and pop-culture memorabilia that illuminate America’s national preoccupation with its criminal past.
“People are fascinated with crime and punishment,”said Janine Vaccarello, the museum’s chief operating officer. “It’s about the chase. We want to be detectives too.”The museum – whose motto is “So Much Fun It’s a Crime” – boasts the 1851 revolver of James “Wild Bill” Hickok, the gun-toting icon of America’s Wild West, and the bullet-ridden Ford from the classic Hollywood movie Bonnie and Clyde, about the bankrobbing couple that terrorised the central United States in the 1930s.
Visitors can try outsmarting the lie detector, practice robbery in a game of “Crack-a-Safe” and feel the thrill of high-speed pursuit in the police chase simulator.In a country that is more violent than anywhere in the West, where prisons are overflowing with offenders, the museum leaves itself open to criticism that it glamourises crime.Museum officials dispute that. And the museum is in partnership with John Walsh, the host of the television show America’s Most Wanted, which has aided in the return of missing children and the capture of nearly 1,000 dangerous criminals.
Mr Walsh’s six-year-old son Adam was kidnapped and murdered in 1981.Since then, Mr Walsh has dedicated his life to protecting children. The museum houses the new set of America’s Most Wanted, where the programme will be taped monthly.Despite Hollywood’s influence, crime does not pay, according to the museum. “If you’re ever tempted by crime,” goes a recording of Frank Abaganale Jr, the legendary con man, “trust me, you’ll never win”.
Mr Abaganale, the subject of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, passed US$2.5 million (Dh9.2m) in bad cheques before serving time in French, Swedish and US prisons. His taped “lecture” is enforced by the stark, full-sized prison cell mock-up, a collection of crude prison shanks and “Old Smokey” the electric chair.Dennis Sobin, 64, a collector of prison art whose business card reads “Fine Art by Imprisoned Artists”, has a unique perspective on why Americans are so beguiled by crime. From 1992 until 2003 Mr Sobin was locked in a federal penitentiary for racketeering.
“We live in a society that was built on freedom,” said Mr Sobin, who learnt to play guitar in prison and now performs annually at the Kennedy Center’s From Prison to the Stage show. Mr Sobin answered questions on the museum’s opening day last month about its prison art display, which includes paintings by John Wayne Gacy, renowned serial killer.“People who violate laws epitomise the quintessential meaning of freedom,” Mr Sobin said. “We thumb our noses at power. That’s one reason the museum will do so well.”
Mr Sobin’s theory seems to make sense. Many criminals from America’s past have evolved into pop-culture symbols of romantic living, no matter how heinous their crimes.“At the time, people were afraid of them,” Ms Vaccarello said of Bonnie and Clyde. “But they were playful and in love and they carried a camera to photograph themselves.“There’s an attraction there,” Ms Vaccarello said.Which is why visitors are willing to pay the US$17.95 to get in the front door.
“I like the serial killer stuff,” said Lisa Doughty, 24, of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on a recent visit. She was referring to the museum’s exhibit on America’s most heinous criminals – mass-murderers with such nicknames as “Zodiac”, “Son of Sam” and “The Killer Clown”.She and her mother, Faith Hudson, 41, also fancied the prison cell.“Get in there,” shouted Ms Hudson, pointing her camera as her daughter scrambled on to one of the cell bunks. “Look like you’re trying to escape,” she said.
* The National
Where crime is considered history
Jonathan Hemmerdinger, Correspondent
Last Updated: June 05. 2008 12:06AM UAE / June 4. 2008 8:06PM GMT
A patron fires off a few rounds in the "Old West" shooting gallery at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. Jacquelyn Martin / AP
WASHINGTON // The original court docket of Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer, shouts its verdict at visitors: “To be sentenced to DEATH BY EXECUTION”.Nearby is the gibbet-chain, a medieval torture device used to hang offenders. Also present is the “Old West” shooting range. A dollar will get you five shots – and sinister fun for the whole family.This is Washington’s newest tourist attraction, the National Museum of Crime & Punishment, a 2,600-square metre facility filled with historic artefacts and pop-culture memorabilia that illuminate America’s national preoccupation with its criminal past.
“People are fascinated with crime and punishment,”said Janine Vaccarello, the museum’s chief operating officer. “It’s about the chase. We want to be detectives too.”The museum – whose motto is “So Much Fun It’s a Crime” – boasts the 1851 revolver of James “Wild Bill” Hickok, the gun-toting icon of America’s Wild West, and the bullet-ridden Ford from the classic Hollywood movie Bonnie and Clyde, about the bankrobbing couple that terrorised the central United States in the 1930s.
Visitors can try outsmarting the lie detector, practice robbery in a game of “Crack-a-Safe” and feel the thrill of high-speed pursuit in the police chase simulator.In a country that is more violent than anywhere in the West, where prisons are overflowing with offenders, the museum leaves itself open to criticism that it glamourises crime.Museum officials dispute that. And the museum is in partnership with John Walsh, the host of the television show America’s Most Wanted, which has aided in the return of missing children and the capture of nearly 1,000 dangerous criminals.
Mr Walsh’s six-year-old son Adam was kidnapped and murdered in 1981.Since then, Mr Walsh has dedicated his life to protecting children. The museum houses the new set of America’s Most Wanted, where the programme will be taped monthly.Despite Hollywood’s influence, crime does not pay, according to the museum. “If you’re ever tempted by crime,” goes a recording of Frank Abaganale Jr, the legendary con man, “trust me, you’ll never win”.
Mr Abaganale, the subject of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, passed US$2.5 million (Dh9.2m) in bad cheques before serving time in French, Swedish and US prisons. His taped “lecture” is enforced by the stark, full-sized prison cell mock-up, a collection of crude prison shanks and “Old Smokey” the electric chair.Dennis Sobin, 64, a collector of prison art whose business card reads “Fine Art by Imprisoned Artists”, has a unique perspective on why Americans are so beguiled by crime. From 1992 until 2003 Mr Sobin was locked in a federal penitentiary for racketeering.
“We live in a society that was built on freedom,” said Mr Sobin, who learnt to play guitar in prison and now performs annually at the Kennedy Center’s From Prison to the Stage show. Mr Sobin answered questions on the museum’s opening day last month about its prison art display, which includes paintings by John Wayne Gacy, renowned serial killer.“People who violate laws epitomise the quintessential meaning of freedom,” Mr Sobin said. “We thumb our noses at power. That’s one reason the museum will do so well.”
Mr Sobin’s theory seems to make sense. Many criminals from America’s past have evolved into pop-culture symbols of romantic living, no matter how heinous their crimes.“At the time, people were afraid of them,” Ms Vaccarello said of Bonnie and Clyde. “But they were playful and in love and they carried a camera to photograph themselves.“There’s an attraction there,” Ms Vaccarello said.Which is why visitors are willing to pay the US$17.95 to get in the front door.
“I like the serial killer stuff,” said Lisa Doughty, 24, of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on a recent visit. She was referring to the museum’s exhibit on America’s most heinous criminals – mass-murderers with such nicknames as “Zodiac”, “Son of Sam” and “The Killer Clown”.She and her mother, Faith Hudson, 41, also fancied the prison cell.“Get in there,” shouted Ms Hudson, pointing her camera as her daughter scrambled on to one of the cell bunks. “Look like you’re trying to escape,” she said.
* The National
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