Wiki leaks and Mid-summer Podcast

A month had passed since the fourth. We seem to be on the downward slide of the BP leak, for which we can only be grateful. I've had a big pice of writing to complete since the night of the fireworks. It is a long essay on technology in the media. It proved to be harder than I anticipated. It took an extra three or four days beyond the time that I had budgeted. When I do a big piece, I have to struggle to keep all the ideas in consciousness as I work, which is not easy and makes me a slightly disagreeable person. However, at this point, I have a decent first draft completed. I will let it set and then return to it.

The big news of technology and media at the moment is the WIkileaks issue. At the moment, the material that they have been posting seems to be relatively minor but the protagonists are starting to raise the issues to a conflict over high principles. None of them has made a particularly good case for their point but first arguments are rarely the best. It is unfolding against the recent series in the Washington Post about the rise of the security state and the expansion of security clearances. It may be an important point in this discussion. We will see how event unfold.

I have posted a mid summer Podcast for you. Drop me a note when you have the chance.

DAG

4th of July

I am not that familiar with the songs from the band the Killers, which put me at a disadvantage last night. We were at a 4th of July Party where they were the principle entertainment. Their music clearly derives from the long seam of heavy metal with more than a few connections to the founding band of the MC5. At the same time, their lyrics, as best as I could hear, dealt with the more gentle forms of the male frustration that forms the principal themes of that genre.

A young mother was dancing near us. She clearly knew the music well and was enjoying herself. She her son, who was roughly 2 and a half, in her arms and swung him as she danced. He thought all the attention was a hoot and screamed with delight. Dad, who was probably a vet, appeared from time to time, to give his wife a hug and a reassuring smile.

The mother danced on and on. It appeared that this was her courting music, the sounds that reminded her of the time four or five years ago, when she and the young man in the crowd were developing their relationship and asking if there if they had the ability and interest to make a long term commitment. The sound was not the least intimate and the lyrics, as they occasionally burst out of the noise, dealt with ideas that shake the adolescent male: finding a place, trusting women, controlling the urges that permeate consciousness. But the music represented the time that they had met. They both had survived that time. Now that song spoke to them of accomplishment and progress.

I'm not sure that she would have better appreciated the evening if she had a fuller understanding of the song lyrics. We communicate some fundamental ideas by very simple means. By rhythm. By touch. By common experience. She danced and danced. Happy to be at the event. Pleased to share it with her son.