Move Over, Gutenberg

Today I'm thinking about technology; I'm considering the ways in which technology both links and divides us. I'm not thinking specifically about social networking sites (though I am sure that many a psych Ph.D. dissertation has been written on just that topic in recent years), but instead I'm thinking simply of access to (or lack of access to) information and what that access or lack thereof means for human society.

This afternoon, my sister and I met her husband in mid-town Manhattan for lunch and then decided to enjoy some ridiculously delicious cupcakes in Bryant Park. As we sat at a table chatting and enjoying our indulgence, a gaggle of teenagers paraded by us, cell phone cameras a-flashing in the direction of one teenager in particular who seemed to be being crushed by his throngs of adoring fans. My sister's husband asked one star-struck fan who she and her crowd were following, and she responded (with obvious annoyance at our lack of celebrity knowledge) that they were following Timothy Delaghetto -- just like that, all one word. Hmmm, we thought. Are we in the presence of some wildly famous person that we are too uncool to know about? Immediately, my sister's husband used his Blackberry to google this Timothy Delaghetto, and we discovered that he is an up-and-coming "Asian hip hop artist." Ok then.

While it would be difficult to argue that having instantaneous access to this sort of basically useless information is going to give us some kind of leg up on the rest of human society, I think that having access to information of any sort does, at the very least, separate people into categories: those who can be in the know and those who can't. I am wholly convinced that 90% of the apps available on the iphone basically give useless information -- where the nearest Starbucks is located, the title of the song currently playing on the radio (Shezam!), who the best-selling Asian hip hop artist is (ok, I don't know if they have an app for that, but I'm willing to bet it's out there or soon-to be, judging by the apparent popularity of Mr. Delaghetto). However, it's that 10% of useful information that iphone/Blackberry/Droid users can access immediately that does give them that leg up, such as when the next train leaves Port Authority or which way is west -- I needed both of those pieces of info today, and, as I am smartphone-less, I was forced to do the old-fashioned thing and Figure It Out. So, one way that technology separates us now is into People Who Can Find Out Faster and Easier and People Who Can Find Out Still Within a Reasonable Stretch of Time and With Only Slightly More Effort -- not such an enormous difference, in my view.

But, while smartphones may still be luxuries that not every human must have to survive, I think that internet access at some point in the day is a mandatory requirement for full and successful participation in our society today. After our cupcakes in the park, my sister and I headed over to the mid-town branch of the New York Public Library this afternoon (the place where Carrie and Big were supposed to wed in the first Sex and the City movie! Ahem....I mean, the place where one can find access to 15 million books and visual media and witness stunning architectural design and feel intellectual power pulsing through the air). Here, we got to see one of the 48 surviving Gutenberg Bibles, which was on display with a plaque noting that scholars generally agree that Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1440 was "the greatest achievement of the second millenium." If the printing press was revolutionary because it allowed wider access to information, how do we even begin to understand the impact of the worldwide web?

I just finished reading Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, her account of an undercover assignment as a low-wage worker in America's restaurants, hotels, and Big Box stores. She paints a moving portrait of what it means to live hand-to-mouth and work 70+ hours per week, but because she did her investigative reporting in the late 90s before internet access was a staple in every middle-class household, her book doesn't touch on what it means to be without internet access. I'd love to see an revised edition in which she comments on this huge difference that separates 1998 from 2010. The other day, as my husband spent hours comparing NJ car insurance quotes online, and I spent hours researching my choices for a primary care doctor, I wondered how on earth someone would one go about finding affordable car insurance or setting up one's healthcare plan without the internet? I realize that the telephone still works for these tasks, but the hours on hold alone would be enough to drive even the most bargain-conscious shopper or the most health-conscious individual to just sign up with one of the first two or three organizations found. So, technology also divides us into Those Who Have Options and Those Who Take What They Can Get With the Time They Have to Get It.

I think the coolest thing about the New York Public Library is that any library card-holder can borrow a laptop for several hours at a time and get free internet access within the library. While borrowing a laptop to use within the confines of the library is not as convenient as owning one and having internet access in the home, at least it's a start. It's a recognition by a well-respected public institution that the division between Those Who Have Options and Those Who Take What They Can Get With the Time They Have to Get It is one that is just too big to accept if we want to continue to call ourselves a democratic society. There are certainly civil rights issues at stake within the issues surrounding access to technology, and I can only hope that more schools, city halls, courthouses, and other tax-payer funded institutions follow the Library's lead.

I'm going to end this post by recounting, to the best of my ability, one side of a conversation that I overheard on the bus today, which amused me greatly, but also made me a little sad. I sat behind a guy of about my age, obviously coming home from a long day of work who was talking on his cell phone:

Guy: Yeah, Ma. I'm here.

Guy: Alright, it's on? Good. Ok. Now click on Firefox.

Guy: It looks like...a fire fox. Like a fox on fire.

Guy: No. It's orange. Maybe blue too.

Guy: Yes. That's it. Now click on it.

Guy: Are you double clicking?

Guy: Like, click-click -- real fast. With your index finger.

Guy: No -- the other one. The index finger that's on the mouse. Click-click.

Guy: Try it again.

Guy: Ok. Now click on the link on the homepage. It's in blue.  It has a lot of funny letters and numbers at the end...like a long line of funny letters and numbers.

Guy: You gotta work with me, Ma. Tell me what you see.

Guy: I'm not getting mad. I'm not...

Guy: (exhales deeply) My voice isn't annoyed, Ma.

Guy: No, it's not. I'm just....Don't get frustrated now, Ma. Why do you sound all frantic?

Guy: I'm not! I'm being completely calm,Ma!

Guy: Ok. Try it again.

Guy: Ma, listen to me. It might take a minute. It has to download.

Guy: What, 'download'? It's like retrieving information from another site.

Guy:  A site is a webpage. Like one page of the worldwide web. The Internet.

Guy: Well, not exactly like a book. But maybe kind of. Anyway, you don't need to know that now, Ma. Did it download?

Guy: Christ.

Guy: I'm not mad, Ma. I'm not mad. It's just that these are like the basics. Like stuff everyone knows.

Guy: I know! That's why I'm helping you!

Guy: Hello? Ma? Hello?

Guy: Damnit.(hangs up)

So, technology also divides us into Those Who Know How and Those Who Need to Know How. Unfortunately, this divide seems to fall along age lines, which is sad. This guy and his mom could be sending each other funny forwards or Youtube videos, sharing pictures and music, and generally connecting in more ways, but they aren't. Instead, they're fighting. Maybe I should have told him that the New York Public Library also offers free weekly technology-related courses, such as "Email I" and "The Internet I: The Basics!"

Teachers, like me, are constantly bombarded with pressure to "use technology in the classroom," and we are given so many instructions as to how and when we should use various sorts of technology with our students. The one question that never seems to be addressed, though, is why. I think there's sort of this circuitous logic at work that people are afraid to question: we should use technology because people use technology. For most people, though, this argument is not terribly compelling. Talk to us, however, about equal access, civil rights, generation gaps, and saving time, and we'll be all ears.

Moments that Broke the Monotony of a 3000-Mile Drive

Just outside of San Diego, California:
Him: I'm going to call my dad.  (Turns on Bluetooth.) CALL FRANK ADDICKS.

Voice of I-phone: Calling Frank A Dick.


Somewhere in the middle of Utah, listening to a long narrative country song on the only station that got reception:
Him: I don't get it. Did they abort the baby?

Me: I'm not sure...It sounds like it could have been a miscarriage.

(Silence. Both listening closely to the chorus.)

Him: Nope. Definitely abortion.

On the golf course in Grand Junction, Colorado:
Me: I don't think I can get it on the green from here.

Aunt MJ: Sure you can. Remember the power of positive thinking.

(I actually make contact with the ball, and it actually goes onto the green.)

Aunt MJ: See? If positive thinking can do that for your golf game, just think what it can do for the rest of your life.

Just west of Colby, Kansas:
Me: Look, honey! That sign says that this farm has a five-legged steer! And the world's largest prairie dog!

45 minutes west of Salina, Kansas:
A billboard advertisement reads: "Come to 'Yarns': The Second Friendliest Yarn Store in the Universe!"

Various other billboards in Kansas:
       "Jesus Saves."

       "Jesus Saves. Pornography Destroys."

       "Jesus."

       "Jesus is Lord."

       "Jesus is God."

      "Come to know Jesus."

      "Fear God."

      "Jesus is love."

      "Find Jesus."

      Giant depiction of Jesus with wheat as his staff.

      Giant depiction of Jesus on the cross.

      Giant depiction of Jesus bathed in light.

      "Adoption not abortion." (very popular -- we saw too many to count)

      "People who live in sin propagate sin. There is no 'gay marriage'."

Him: Kansas sucks.

Me: Amen.

Coming off of an exit ramp in Topeka, Kansas:
(Fireworks sound. The dog hurdles herself into the front seat and dives under the steering wheel, alternating jamming on the brake and the gas. I can't get to either pedal.)

Me: Oh my God! We're going to die!

(We don't die. I find the brake and we coast into a Burger King parking lot before we get to the upcoming intersection.)

10 miles from Chatham, New Jersey (final destination, for now):
Him: Moving back by your relatives is probably a lot like going to prison in the sense that the old prison adage probably applies: "Kick someone's ass on the first day, or become someone's bitch."

In Chatham, New Jersey:
We are currently living with my mom, my dad, my sister, her husband, 4 dogs, and 3 cats. Apartment-hunting is top priority.

Local Monuments: The Practice of Appreciating the Stars

"Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course...Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television." - Paul Hawken, Commencement Address, May 2009


On my last day in San Diego, I found myself busy running errands, cleaning, strategizing a way to pack the cars, and generally feeling equal parts stress and sadness. I decided to grab a quick lunch and picked up a sandwich, intending to eat it in the car on my way to my next task. But then I remembered the above portion of Paul Hawken's commencement address, which I had read only a few days before, and I pulled over.

If this was my last day in a city I love, I needed to see something in it. But what? There's so much to see! Funny how I've lived in San Diego for seven years and never once had that thought. In fact, in the last year, my husband and I have traveled to Sonoma and Seattle and Santa Barbara and Joshua Tree to sightsee. We never once thought to sightsee in our own backyard, although there is much of beauty to take in.

Perhaps because I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, the story of a young Mexican cook whose life intersects with those of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky, I decided to finish my half-eaten sandwich at Chicano Park, a local monument that is literally beneath the Coronado Bridge on the city side and, thus, a five minute drive from my front door, though I have never once been to see it.

The park is located in Barrio Logan, a historically chicano and Mexican-immigrant neighborhood, settled before the turn of the century, and it came about in the 1970s, after a nonviolent takeover of the land by the people of the neighborhood in opposition to Caltrans' plan to build a highway patrol parking lot on the space promised for the construction of a neighborhood park. Chicano Park holds the largest collection of outdoor murals in the entire country, and they depict various elements of chicano culture, history, politics, and spiritual beliefs; the effect is one of resistance to historical oppressions and neglect. There are depictions of Latino revolutionaries and visionaries, such as Emiliano Zapata, Che Guevarra, Fidel Castro, and Cesar Chavez, as well as depictions of artists like Kahlo and Rivera and Christian imagery of the Virgin of Gaudalupe and Mother Teresa. Perhaps the most striking image is of an Aztec warrior, wearing an elaborate headdress, carrying a decorated shield, and pointing north. 

For me, the fact that the murals are painted on the pillars of the Coronado Bridge, which was constructed to run right through Barrio Logan in order to offer Coronado residents and tourists the option to drive directly onto the island instead of relying only on the ferry to cross the bay, is the most inspiring part of the park. Instead of accepting its prescribed position as a second-class community, the neighborhood residents declared their beliefs, their cultural contributions, their history, and their worth on the very structure that sought to make these things invisible.

Through a little Wikipedia research, I learned that the bridge was only the proverbial icing on the cake in terms of the state and federal governments' transgressions against the people of the Barrio Logan community. The US military built a base at 32nd Street, effectively taking over all access points to the bay, and the state of California opted to build Interstate 5 through the center of the neighborhood, which encouraged the establishment of industrial sites within the neighborhood. But, nonetheless, on the day that I visited the park, children chased each other around the playground, a couple sat talking in the Mayan-style kiosk, teenagers skated on the sidewalk, a man read at a picnic table, and a girl walked around taking pictures of the murals and sculptures and statues and felt overwhelmed with inspiration.

I hope I don't forget the joy I found in seeing a local monument -- not only is it impressive to see beautiful things, but there is something uniquely and personally gratifying about knowing that you live in a place that values and displays such beauty, that offers it up, for free, to people who want to appreciate it. I'm glad that I am one of those people who had the chance to appreciate Chicano Park, and I plan to be one of those people who appreciates the local sights -- wherever local is for me -- from now on.