This morning I had an unusual
experience of riding the T (the Boston subway). This isn't the typical entry
describing atypical behaviour on public transport. The experience was unusual
because I usually don't take the subway. However, this morning I had to ferry
an ungainly plant from Jamacai Plain to my office at MIT. And the
interpersonal interactions were ... nice. Not too crowded, not too grouchy,
and everyone very engrossed in their reading. I decided to ask a woman about
her book, and she highly recommends the autobiography "Before Night Falls";
I'll check that out, I certainly enjoyed the film.
I've been doing a little research given I keep seeing unreferenced factoids about the threat of corporate crime compared to street crime. Aside from the two sources below, I recommend the psychological study "What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: Perceptions and Misconceptions of Harmful Behaviors Among Criminology and Criminal Justice Students."
Conservative figures from the United States suggest the financial cost of corporate crimes such as monopoly-pricing, bribery, illegal mergers, tax evasion and fraudulent advertising is 10 times the financial loss caused by robbery, burglary, larceny and auto-theft combined. Get Tough on Corporate Crime.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that burglary and robbery combined cost the United States approximately $4 billion a year. In contrast, white-collar fraud, generally committed by intelligent people of means, costs 50 times as much -- or $200 billion a year, according to W. Steve Albrecht, a Brigham Young University accounting professor and co-author of the book Fraud: Bringing Light to the Dark Side of Business.
The FBI reports approximately 24,000 street crime homicides a year. More than twice that number – 56,000 Americans – die each year on the job or from occupational diseases such as job-related cancers and brown and black lung disease. This does not include the health costs to the general public of corporate pollution. Shameless: 1995's 10 Worst Corporations
I've been geeking around with the site. If you type in
,text after any given URL you will get an ascii version of the page. If you
type ,rss after a recent URL you should get the syndicated version of the
site in RDF
Site Summary. I haven't actually seen it integrated into content yet, if
your site accepts RSS and you want to test it out, let me know!
Otherwise, Zinetown
Beantown 4 was cool as always, check out the photos. Also I was quoted
in the Globe today about the crazy construction happening here at Tech
Square: "And yet the people who work there often feel 'like a collection of
rats in a collection of holes,' as ... of the World Wide Web
Consortium colorfully puts it." Colorful, huh?
In slander's March 11 entry she notes that a typical punk response of dismissing mainstream pop fails to recognize the emotional import of Christina Aguilera because of the fans' context:
"... why believe that the ways in which we make meaning from punk rock are significantly different than the rest of the population? 'Songs immortalized' in memory because of their personal, circumstantial importance --because a friend killed herself with the tape in the deck, etc.-- can apply to what punk rockers dismiss outright as teen pop crap, but which is rife with that same kind of individual significance for others."
Ironically, her admonition to be "self-reflexive" qualifies the very behaviour we are opposed to: the "reflexive" dismissal of mainstream phenomena by punks. Or, perhaps it's the reflex to dismiss anything in name without understanding meaning.
If I step back and ask myself what should my reflexes be, I realize I've already answered this question: rely upon personal integrity instead of paternalistic authority; be eccentric and non-conformist; and always question and challenge.
People frequently rely upon their reflexes for ease: to turn away, dismiss, and discount. Perhaps "self-reflexive" means we need to do extra work: to question, reconsider, and understand.
Granted, in the contest of ideas and values on the field of mass culture victories are (unfortunately) achieved via kicks to the head, prompted by knee-jerk reactions. And those on the side of dissent and skepticism are better served by out-of-hand condemnation of mass media than its acceptance. But this is a holding action at best. And when confused with real reflection, it's a failure because we become the enemy we fear.
I know spring is arriving when a surly gang of greedy, grey, and scruffed pigeons flock and waddle around me as I eat my falafel by the food trucks.
An email to a colleague about a link to goatee:
I noted some references from your blog in goatee's logs. Thank you for the links, but would you mind changing that link under "W3C People" to my W3C Page? For the various sites I run I generally keep the identities distinct, and where there are links they are incidental and unidirectional:
pseudonyms -> goatee.net -> reagle.org -> w3.org/People/Reagle
This means if someone knows me in a personal capacity, I don't mind them learning about my job. Professionally, I like the black box abstraction of not knowing the religious, political, and personal opinions of my colleagues. If they do their job, and I do mine, we're set. (I find some folks' gossip and name dropping on their blog in the Web/XML context to be distasteful.) Personally, I find that references from the workspace hinder my expressiveness. Given goatee.net's accessibility, I sometimes find myself not writing what I'd like to, or the way I did when it was much more obscure.
Regardless, this desire for separation does not mean I dislike everyone I work with. I think some of them are fantastic people and I actually kick myself for not making more of an effort to be social — but being a sometimes-recluse is a generic failing of mine. I do like to make new friends, including folks from work, but I labor in my own mind to make this distinction between the personal and professional aspects of that relationship. It's rather silly even. For instance, I'm sending this email to you (at a personal email address) from a goatee address. I'm asking that in a list of "W3C People" you link to my W3C page. But I'd be happy with a reference to goatee in a different context.
I suspect I'm being too picky. Yes, I am being weird. But's that me@goatee ;) .
I said that snow makes me think of the past: a white veil drawn against the present. I wondered if it makes others think of the future? She said it does neither: it's just static on Channel Now. So we continued our disagreement with snowballs and laughs while running through silently white streets.
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