The Naked and The Nude

The country folk are aghast over Vanity Fair's publishing of naked bare back photos of Hanna Montana. Television gossip shows began creating a scandal last week. One blogger quoted by the The Times suggested "Bonfire anyone?". Yeah. They could do that, or they could just not buy the issue of Vanity Fair.

You, the Jury

The informative video played for our benefit yesterday morning stated a fact I can hardly forget: 95 percent of the world's jury trials occur in the United States. Or, put another way, nearly every other nation on earth employs an alternative system. One nation that still has jury trial system is Australia, a nation founded as a penal colony. We're in good company.

I received my notice a few weeks back mandating my involuntary servitude to the court. They promised a summons and jail time for failing to appear; interestingly enough, had I been indicted for shirking my civic responsibility, or for that matter, indicted for any crime at all, I would have been excused. Good, I wouldn't want to punish criminals with jury duty either.

The court does make every effort to accommodate jurors, compensating us for our time with a whopping $5 per diem. Or put another way, about two minutes of my time had I been charging by the hour. This I suppose was much less offensive than the lawyers sitting next to me. One of those fellows was excused from a trial (but not from service) because he knew the judge and went to law school with one of the attorneys. He had every expectation of being excused from every trial he was called to serve owing to his connections with the court. My guess is that the $5 per diem charge would normally pay for between 15 and 30 seconds of his time. Luckily, our crafty legislators created a loophole for our nation's court systems when creating the Fair Labor Standards Act, or more commonly known as minimum wage laws.

To serve on a jury, prospective jurors must enter the court buildings where upon entry, they are screened for weapons, photography equipment, and other prohibited items. Or more to the point, they are subjected to mandatory, unwarranted searches. Such a search is far different than a search to enter say Yankee stadium or an airport terminal. When entering Yankee stadium or an airport terminal, a person voluntary consents to a search; that is to say a person is voluntarily entering Yankee stadium or an airport terminal and thus consenting to the search. However, as a juror, the search is mandatory; to serve your compulsory service as a juror, you must submit to a search.

Before reporting for service, jurors are instructed to call into the court system for last minute instructions, such as the time to report for duty. On the recorded message, jurors are reminded they should wear "clothing appropriate for a court appearance." Further instructions prohibit clothing with writing or other messages. In other words, the court is abridging jurors' free speech rights.

During the instructional video played at the beginning of service-- a very patriotic production with lots of American flags and symbols of freedom-- the speaker reminds jurors how fair our system of trial by jury really is. Indeed, any system that undervalues labor, strips away constitutionally protected rights, and benefits individuals with a criminal past surely must be the fairest possible system. At least I for one am excused for the next three years.

Starbuck-alypse.

Best new word of 2008.

Pandora's Jar

Beginning in December of 2004, Google, in its ever expanding quest to index content, began scanning and indexing the texts of millions of volumes of books from partner libraries. Google allows users to search the database and identify those books relevant to their research needs. In one sense, the google book search project is not a new concept. Proprietary databases have existed for years. LexisNexis, a database of legal cases was founded in 1970, and by 1980 included news sources. Westlaw, a competitor, also began in the 1970s.

There are plenty of other proprietary archives such as JSTOR for academic papers, and open access databases like Project Gutenberg, a user created attempt to make available all out of copyright works. There are two main differences between Google's book search and these other projects. First, these other resources more or less cater to specific markets and set of users, not as Google does, offering up the vast contents of books to the world. Second, Google is much less interested in making available the texts they index and much more interested in making those texts searchable.

Publishers and some authors don't seem to comprehend the difference. Since the announcement of the project, the publishing industry has been suing to stop Google from indexing books under copyright which includes the vast majority of books. Book search is however, more about connecting a potential customer with a potential product. Book search will only display a short snippet of a copyrighted text and then offer a link to purchase the book. In short, Google Book search is and will continue to sell more books, mostly books that many users may not necessarily ever have found.

Google is not the only software giant attempting to catalogue the world's literature. Microsoft has their own version as well, and many large libraries, especially university libraries, have digitized their card catalogues. But all of these projects, and the proprietary databases as well, all have holes. Early texts often are overlooked due to the difficulty in scanning in delicate manuscripts. Proprietary databases are not linked together, so a research actually needs to search multiple databases no matter what.

But assuming Google and Microsoft prevail in their legal fights with the publishing industry, and there seems little reason to think they won't considering how little water the publishers' argument holds, it is quite reasonable to believe in a few short years, most modern writing, western writing, will appear in a search friendly databse, available for anyone to find.


A few years ago, I was on a team researching a local politician, looking through the municipal records of his tenure in office. His career spanned about ten years. The tomes of municipal records each covered about six months of time; the books were more than five hundred pages each, and about the size of a newspaper. The municipality had records going back to the 19th century, had I been particularly interested in council meeting minutes from 1890. In all, identifying the relevant pages from the books took more than 50 man hours, just to cover ten years of information. The thought occurred to me: why is this not indexed by google?

New Jersey's Open Public Records Act requires all public records be accessible. Clerks and secretaries of government agencies are allowed to charge a small copying fee per page, but otherwise must fulfill all requests; they have seven days from the time the request is filed. During the course of my research, we could have simply filed an OPRA request, giving the municipal clerk 7 days to make roughly 10,000 copies for a mere $2,500. Such a request would have overwhelmed the municipal clerk, which is why ultimately I spent three days marking off the exact pages we needed copies of. How much simpler this would have been to do had the records been digitized and available online in a database that could be searched with Google.

To the chagrin of many New Jersey politicians more accustomed to hiding their deeds behind the veil of government bureaucracy, the Open Public Records Act did not bring undue financial hardships to the state's agencies. Government did not stop working under the weight of unfettered OPRA requests. Likewise, mandating the digitization of public records would cause little more trouble.

The process is largely a matter of linking existing hardware with existing software. In short, there are few obstacles, other than the political ramifications for corrupt politicians, to keep this information from being easily accessible in a searchable database. From the perspective of researchers, raw data like municipal meeting minutes could prove invaluable, if only it were freely available. In all likelihood, digitizing public records in the same way Google book search is cataloging library contents will be a common practice in the coming years.

The information age is upon us, and the digitization of all information, on demand, anytime, anywhere, will define the coming future. Digital archives are becoming so ubiquitous, hard copy libraries are shrinking. Thanks to LexisNexis and West Law, the traditional law library is in many firms nothing more than ornamental. JSTOR's archive of academic journals is so far superior to anything a single academic library could contain, many institutions are cutting back on journals in favor of paying for database access. Yet, while digital archives are physically smaller, more available, and easier to identify relevant information, the system is not perfect.

As the New Yorker hinted at in Future Reading -- available digitally of course -- all this digitizing may democratize information, but that doesn't speak to the accuracy of it. Anthony Grafton explains: "When Erasmus told the story of Pandora, he said that she opened not a jar, as in the original version of the story, by the Greek poet Hesiod, but a box. In every European language except Italian, Pandora’s box became proverbial."

In essence, with digital information, as a society, we run the risk that all information becomes Pandora's Jar.

The plot of Star Wars, Attack of the Clones, centers around Jedi Obiwan Kenobi attempting to unravel a mystery. A source tells him of a mythical planet. He first heads to the main library archive searching the database-- but can't find information on the planet he knows exists. The librarian informations rather curtly, if the planet isn't in the database, it simply does not exist. The answer is revealed by the simple mind of a child: the database has been altered.

In Orwell's brilliantly frightening 1984, Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth where he and his coworkers painstakingly update history. They remove photographs and alter magazines and newspapers to provide the correct and "accurate" history. When Orwell wrote 1984, the idea of "cut," "copy" and "paste" were not figurative, but in fact literal, physical actions. With digital archives though, editing and revising history becomes significantly easier. Cut, Copy and Paste is a matter of a few easy keyboard commands, or a few clicks of the mouse.

A complete digital archive of history, literature and science is a real possibility in the not too distant future. But such a record has the very real possibility of manipulation and alteration. Relying solely on a database like google book search might seem an easily solution to the arduous research process, but we also risk opening Pandora's box-- or jar as it may actually be.

The Bully

School yard bullying has been a headline getter for the last few years, especially since the Tina Fey movie Mean Girls highlighted the issue. Rockstar, the makers of Grand Theft Auto, came up with a game. There were articles in the weekly news magazines and on cable television and everyone was upset that the bullies had arrived on America's playground.

Growing up, I wasn't much for the popular side of the school yard. There were a good number of altercations between me and the bullies. Luckily though, I've always been rather tall and big and for the most part quite quickly put an end to those little squabbles. For the most part, these things were settled by the Bully and the Victim.

School officials never really want to get involved. There was a great deal of apathy on the part of the teachers in my elementary school, a bit of the 'boys will be boys' attitude. Perhaps things are a bit different on the school yard today, but I seriously have my doubts.

Part of this apathy is probably the fact that school teachers in this country are generally paid too little to care about anything other than the curriculum. Why should they care if a few ten year olds want to pick on each other? They don't. But that's not really what's at issue. The bigger issue is that society likes Bullies, that society wants Bullies, and in fact even encourages Bullying.

Society really likes the idea of bullies because bullies reinforce the authority of society's norms. Specifically, bullies encourage folks to conform to societies, and without that conformity, society's leadership would be powerless.

Bullies never pick on the kids that act like they act, do what they tell them to do, or wear what they tell them to wear. Bullies pick on the different kid, the kid with different shoes or different shirt or different name. The victims in this case learn to be like everyone else. Its much easier, particularly is a child, to blend in than it is to stand up to bullying or to ignore it (the advice frequently given to me when growing up). Society really likes it when people conform, and bullying is a method for producing conformity.

Further, bullying leads people to think the same way and to do as they are told. Bullies tell their peers to do something or think something. Anyone who disagrees with the Bully quickly becomes the victim and the target for the Bully's rage. Thus victims and non-victims alike quickly learn not to question authority or risk getting made fun of. Bullying is a tool that keeps members of society from question authority because the social lesson is "do as you are told, or else you will be bullied."

Society embraces bullying so much, we've come to expect it even as adults. Adult bullies are all around us. They are the over eager police who thinks a gun and badge means he can harass people, they are the driver of the sport utility vehicles, they are the people who cut queues at the bank or the grocery store. Society accepts these people because Society likes bullying.

Bullying is a tool society has embraced to socialize children into obeying authority Often the victims of bullying are the free thinkers, those who question authority, the philosophers, the artists. As long as there are those who question authority, society will produce bullies to quiet the free thinkers.

The Quotable Times

The Times amused us twice in two days. We thought that this was worth noting.

"Bonfire Night...is celebrated by building a fire around a homemade effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic perpetrator of the failed plot to blow up Parliament in 1605, and shouting happily as it burns to a crisp."

-- Trick or Treat? For Many Britons, the Reply Is Neither

"[when] Alessandra Conti, 16, and her classmate Michelle Palotta, 17...saw Ruehl for the first time at a mall in Paramus, N.J...[they said] 'Instead of being in Bergen County in the middle of New Jersey, we are on a street in New York, and that is where we want to be anyway — living in New York City.' "

-- Are We Shopping? Is This a Store

Please Remove Your Underwear

What's Next For Air Travelers?

The recent attempt by a few British citizens to detonate liquid bombs on board international bound airplanes set off dramatic security impositions on European and American airports. The thwarted attack came just in time to prevent the loosening of restrictions by the Transportation Security Administration.

For a moment ignore the fact that the potential bombers were stopped not by an actual security checkpoint at an airport, but instead by preventive investigative anti-terrorism. Indeed, recent events have proven one thing: security checkpoints will inevitably be breached through innovation and the best anti-terror tool is pre-attack investigative work.

The would be bombers found what amounts to a loophole in airport security; common household objects can be combined to create explosives. The result was a blanket ban on liquids which will likely continue during the foreseeable future. But consider just how safe the world thought they were on August 9th when everyone was carrying bottles of water and toothpaste and shampoo in their carryon luggage.

On December 21, 2001, no one thought twice about passengers bringing matches or butane lighters onto airplanes. Twenty-four hours later, Richard Reid attempted to light his shoe bombs using a match. Suddenly both became prohibited items. Passengers since have been allowed to bring matches, but not lighters onto airplanes. Gas lighters were about to be unbanned by the TSA largely because screeners were wasting their time confiscating tens of thousands of them each day.

Now the TSA has expanded the list of prohibited items. Assuming of course that the one reason airport screeners have failed numerous breach of security tests performed by government auditors and journalists, adding to the list of prohibited items will likely detract from screening efforts.

Airline travelers should not expect to bring baby chew toys with gels. Travelers with bad feet won't be allowed shoe inserts that contain gel. Liquids like bottled water, factory sealed or not, will also be banned. And now every flight will come with the odor of an Italian subway as deodorant will also be prohibited. The list of banned items is now so comprehensive that the next step will be to require passengers to incinerate their clothing before boarding a plane, at which point travelers would be given hospital gowns for the duration of their flight.

The bottom line is that no matter how "secure" airports become, terrorists will find a way to breach that security. If clothing was prohibited, terrorists would no doubt hide weapons in flaps of fat and body cavities. The point here is that security resources should be turned to preventing terrorism before terrorists even show up at the airport. As tight as security has been, security screeners were not responsible for stopping Richard Reid or the most recent bomb plot. Indeed, the government should cease wasting time and money on mundane screening restrictions which have proven over time to be grossly ineffective and instead divert money away from airport screening to intelligence services provided by the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

Law enforcement on the state and local levels should step up efforts-- sting operations that put the local meth lab out of business or the deportation of dish washers from local restaurants are doing nothing to make air travel more secure. Indeed, even efforts such as random bag searches on New York's subway system have failed to thwart terrorists. The big arrest that random bag searches yielded last year was one poor schmuck dumb enough to have a firecracker in his bag.

The only items that should be confiscated at airport screenings are firearms, knives, and sticks of dynamite. Confiscating shampoo, contact lens solution, and baby formula waste time and resources that could be better spent on counter intelligence. Terror plots are not stopped at airport gates. They are stopped in local neighborhoods where terrorists live, plot, and plan. Terrorism is prevented by vigilance and training, investigations and research. Compared to the long security lines, the expensive shiny x-ray machines, or the invasive rubber glove or a strip search, intelligence gathering may not be sexy or make headlines or even seem particularly pro-active, but in the end, the only proven strategy that effectively prevents terrorism.

That being said, we can only imagine what a long distance flight might entail now: smelly passengers unable to apply deodorant, crying babies denied their chew toys, angry old men with aching feet, and not enough bottled water to go around.

Babies as Accessories

What Happens When The Babies Go Out of Style? And Why Haven't They Already?

Suddenly its hip to be a parent. Maybe it was when Miranda on Sex and the City made it cool to be a Mom. Maybe the influx of urban babies is the result of folks finally understanding how suffocating raising children in the suburbs really can be. Maybe it was the rush of celebrity babies from Madonna to Britney. In either case, children are the latest fashion craze.

For instance, the once gritty neighborhoods of Chelsea have been overrun by strollers to the point where the gay community has taken to fleeing to parts of Harlem [Note to self: buy real estate in Harlem now]. Meanwhile, children have been causing a raucous wherever they go. The New York Times points to a bakery in Chicago where the owner was forced to put up a sign essentially warning children to shut the fuck up or get out. And some parents did.

It never seems to occur the new generation of urban parents that perhaps they should leave their children at home. Far too often, parents are under the impression that their child's shit doesn't stink, and that nobody minds that their child is wailing louder than the Sirens. Perhaps this is a response from the "me" centered generation that grew up in the 1980's. Unlike past generations of parents, today's young mom and dads never realized that having a child meant given up some of those simple pleasures-- like going out to eat or having the freedom to spend three hours shopping for a pair of new shoes.

Instead, parents are toting around their little poop machines and everyone else is expected to laugh and giggle at every adorable thing that comes spewing from the child's mouth.

The new generation of young parents are so self obsessed it is hard to imagine they decided to be parents for the right reasons. More likely, the new generation wanted to be parents not for the pure joy of child rearing, nor out of accidental conception, but because all their friends were doing it. Peer pressure has produced the next generation of American's brats.

But what exactly is going to happen to all these little tots when suddenly Mommy doesn't think it is so cute that her new blouse was ruined by sticky, candy covered fingers? Unlike a purse, or a pair of shoes, or a video game, when babies go out of style, they can't just be tossed into the nearest landfill [though be sure, someone will no doubt try that].

By the time today's toddlers hit their teen years, no doubt their parent's will have lost interest. And suddenly the children that were once dragged to every wine and cheese party and club opening their mothers' attended will be abandoned to discover the world on their own. Coke habit anyone?

Generations of the past have sacrificed and saved for their children. The great American dream, after all, is for each successive generation to be better off than the previous. Yet, today’s urban mommies are more focused on designer baby accessories than raising their children. Prada diapers would surely be a hot seller.

But the new generation has given up. Their money is for them, not their children. The luxury items they are buying are toys for themselves, not their infants. Indeed, the infants themselves are the toys of the young urban parent.

Perhaps though these toddlers will turn out okay. Maybe, abandoned by parents seeking personal gratification, the new generation will become self reliant. Perhaps even the counter culture of the next generation will embrace solid families and parenting. Perhaps, just maybe, they will understand the value of a babysitter.

Shitting On The Go

New York is set to install pay-per-piss toilets. Yum-o. The article notes the chronic shortages of public restrooms throughout the city. We have a better solution: legislate that people cannot be denied admittance to privately owned public restrooms. That is to say, make those "Restroom For Customer Only" signs go away. Sure, the au Bon Pain in Union Square has a longer line to use a restroom than there is a line for people buying tasty pastries, but if every establishment with a public restroom -- and that includes ALL sit down restaurants -- no single place would have a line, no one place would be inundated with shit from three million tourists.

Who's Watching You?

We knew there were lots of camera's pointed at us when we did simple things like go to ATMs. But now we're even more creeped out after seeing maps of cameras.

So we tend to dig maps and things like that, especially transportation maps. And so we like the idea of someone walking around cataloguing all the cameras in New York, but we also think if we had to do it, we'd shoot somebody.

Dublin is the New New York

Our potato eating ancestors missed out: Ireland is rich. Even the stodgy Economist declared Ireland had the highest quality of life in the world.

All is not well though: Suicide is up and folks drink like New Yorkers. The Irish are struggling to deal with all sorts of modern problems like the high cost of Starbucks.