July 2008 Archives

There are concerns being raised about translating the research invitation to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). My friends and colleagues composing the Translation Team (!) are encountering the challenges of linguistic rotation. I am borrowing the technical term, rotation, from matrix algebra. (Disclaimer: four decades later I begin to learn math!)

Which should I write first: the metaphor (a three--by-three matrix) or the data (the questions and concerns)? Let's go with the data.

Immediately the question was raised, "Why translate at all?" Alongside the deep philosophical implications (which I need another few decades to work out) are practical concerns. Isn't the effort to generate a "single" invitation in twenty-three languages rather absurd?

• unnecessary?
• the production of more work?
• impossible?
• just a nice gesture?

Possibly. Depending upon one's logic, certainly so; given an alternative reference frame, however, perhaps the benefit, in the end, will be worth the trouble. Crafting the translations has, actually, been a bit of trouble - not just time and effort, but a source of some consternation. Three versions have been completed to date: Bulgarian, Romanian, and Polish. A few potential translators have dropped out because of the terminology: as much as I try to explain what I aim to do in plain language, a few conceptual/theoretical terms keep sneaking in: words that are obviously labels for something, a shorthand way of referring to a specific set of knowledge or kind of experience, a code that stands for or signals something more, something else, something beyond what a dictionary provides.

Part of my rationale, going in to this study of simultaneous interpretation in the European Parliament, is that this is always the case. One of the intriguing dynamics that I hope to explore is the way people generally know (in every day use) that words can mean different things at different times in different contexts. This inherent flexibility of language is what makes, for instance, a double entendre possible. There simply could not be two simultaneous meanings for a word or phrase without language having the capacity to mean more than one thing - even in one utterance at a specific time in a given context with particular participants under whatever situational and cultural rules apply.


Somehow, though, when the topic/process of interpretation comes up, this rich capability of language "to mean" many things seems to become a liability - even a problem. Whether or not we want to reduce language's ability "to mean" in general, the discourse about meaning when a translation is involved (the things people say about it) shows an attitude that wants to impose some kind of confirmation or guarantee that only one meaning will be allowed. Even trickier, a moral element often comes into play: not just any (of the usual or probable) discrete/unique meanings, but The Right One.

The specific problem with my invitation letter is jargon. Maybe I am being too stubborn in wanting to provide MEPs with enough information to suffice as "informed consent," but there are bureaucratic procedures and ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. I do not anticipate in any way that harm will come to someone by talking, confidentially, with me about their views about and experiences with simultaneous interpretation (SI). Really, what I want to learn is when, how, and why do people make the choice to go with an interpreter (and then how skillful are they in the use of this communication process), and when, how, and why do persons choose to use a lingua franca, trying to forego interpretation. The "people" and "persons" are, in this case, Members of the European Parliament. I am assuming that

a) the choice between SI and a lingua franca is a real option: i.e., interpreters are available and lingua francas are known, and
b) the choices made by MEPs are indeed representative of "people" in general, although in this case actually of Europeans in general, or - even more precisely, of the choices that would be made by the citizens of the MEPs respective countries if they were in similar circumstances.

The dilemma of the official invitation is that it serve to entice MEPs to want to talk with me! I do, quite sincerely, believe that there will be tangible benefit to those who agree to participate, at least in heightening their awareness of language choice and (ideally) the relationship between their language use and how influentially they help design policy. Meanwhile, the official invitation also must fulfill the ethical principles of informed consent. I want the MEPs to say, "yes," and arrange an interview; I need them to have some basis of knowledge about where I'm coming from - even if it is only enough to ask a question! So, in the invitation, when "co-productively," "voice," and "action learning" are used by me, deliberately, in order to establish boundaries and set trajectories, I think it is totally permissable that a given language may or may not have a readily-equivalent way to handle the task I want these words to accomplish. My thinking is based on a logic of simultaneous interpretation as an ongoing, continuous, complex process of making meaning together (paraphrased from the textbook I am currently using to teach Interpersonal Communication).

This logic of simultaneous interpretation is different than the traditional logic of written translation. A written translator (especially a professionally trained one), seeks to establish a record for all time. The intent of the translation is not to participate in an immediate give-and-take, but rather to cement a particular viewpoint or story into a permanent fixed form. A simultaneous interpreter however (especially a professionally trained one), is seeking to adapt fluidly within a moving situation whose players are themselves in flux. A previously written text does not change, one can come back to the exact same words as often as one wants, from the gut instinct of first reading to the reflective analysis provided by situating a sentence (as the turning point in chapter three, for instance) in relation to the entire novel. A spontaneous interpretation works in concert with interlocutors to create endings that are not necessarily pre-determined, because they have literally not yet been said - the conversation is underway and can evolve.

So, this is a long explanation to get to the notion that those pesky technical terms could simply be left in English: to be explained later. Equally well the attempt can be given to render them as faithfully as possible in the logic, diction, and grammar of the target language. Either way the possibility of a conversation about what those terms mean is laid open. Without including them at all? I can assume, from the beginning, that the people I am going to meet and talk with will not understand - and use this as a reason to exclude these terms; alternatively, I can accept that they probably won't understand the terms but are capable of doing so, with a bit of effort on both our parts.

It turns out that I am, indeed, stubborn for the latter.

It is not often that one gets to participate in the precise phase of transition from someone's former life to a future one.

There are no photos. The transition is undocumented. Except for here. Maybe somewhere else, too, but you're on your own to fix location and pin down time. You'll fail, of course. Time passes, the moments go. Some cycle back (most, actually, repeat in endless iterations with minute changes in variables) but certain times, special times, are unique in their unrepeatability.

Area 3 (not to be confused with Area 51) provided the backdrop for my return to Point Judith. (If it was not the precise scene of the crime, it was nonetheless crucially involved.)

After pitching camp and checking out the surf, we ate lunch, engaged miscegnation, plotted a plan to surf, and prepared to consult the heavens. Jupiter was going to be in opposition, and I had brought some spiritual tokens with which I hoped to dispense. How perfect could that be?! Jupiter, the largest planet, would be closest to Earth, therefore appearing huge : a fortuitous celestial coordination (why not?!) for letting martial bonds go - the idea of hucking a certain medicine bag with assorted precious stones into the sea was proposed, a goldfinch went wild with song.

I had a bit of trouble with the wetsuit, and balance, and staying above water (!) but a couple of waves caught me (!!), so I was able to experience the sensation of riding a wave. WOW!

I did, indeed, huck those ancient stones (toppling instantly from my precarious perch). I so love to look cool! ;-)

Moreso, however, I just learned to appreciate water, especially water in the form of the sea. Its potential as metaphor, and its sheer physical power. I wrote about surfing as an example for my students' introductory assignment: writing about something exciting that they have just recently learned. I'm pleased with the strategy - what tremendous diversity has been introduced into the class as foundation!

Heavy talk with friends, lately - about the ethos of the age being caught up in urgency and crisis, possibly such that we fail to recognize the sweep of history and our complicity with trends we would ethically not choose if we were aware of the relation between our immediate, daily lives and how the simple things we do, moment-by-moment, actually compose larger historical trends.

The NYTimes published a piece on the infamous Milgram Experiments (social psychology) earlier this month, posing the question: would you pull that switch? The article details some new findings that help to understand both the context (why were - and are :-/ - so many people willing to cause pain to others?) and the range of individual reasons for responding to the context as they actually did.

Contextually, subjects were disoriented by the unfamiliarity of the situation, and they were rushed - put under time pressure. The combination of uncertainty and urgency resulted in disorientation - with its obvious (if undetermined) influence on decision-making. This may be a stretch, but it brings to mind some audience reactions to "The Dark Knight" last night, in which people laughed at moments that seemed produced to disturb, while missing designed moments of humor. It struck me as a delayed reaction caused (possibly) by the frenetic pace of volatile action. Similar dynamics occur in interpersonal interactions too, for instance, when people laugh upon hearing awful news - a miscued reaction because of the awkwardness of the situation.

So, there is the matter of complicity - a rather unconscious going-along-with the zeitgeist (or, for some, a conscious embrace of the spirit of the times - for all kinds of reasons), and then there is the matter of compliance. Expressions of pain, per se, were not usually conclusive in convincing switch-pullers to stop. This is what is used to illustrate that the obedience factor is such a deep component of human behavior, and - more subtly - "demonstrate[s] individual differences in perceptions of accountability." (In my imagination, it is not hard to extend this to all the ways in which we - the relatively privileged - turn away from the cries of the relatively un/underprivileged. Pain - especially that of others - is insufficient as a motivator.)

However, "the demand by the subject to stop [is now identified] as the turning point." People who disregarded this were going to continue, no matter what - their conception of authority/authorization/responsibility/accountability simply ended at the "fact" of the social scientific structure. Those who did stop - whether sooner or later - exercised some personal judgment, "decid[ing] that the learner's right to stop trumped the experimenter's right to continue."

The phrasing of this interests me, particularly in my professional role as teacher, and even more specifically as a teacher interested in cultivating critical thinking skills, using non-standard pedagogies and experimenting with the boundaries of student expectations concerning what a college class is supposed to be. There is power in this position, and I use it - intentionally, deliberately, yet - I hope - with compassion for how challenging it is to have the common or usual disrupted in service of a goal that can only be presented in amorphous and ambiguous terms.

Related information at "Psychologists find a way to replicate Milgram's classic obedience experiment."

Meanwhile:

On June 24, 2008, the FCC passed some historic legislation (Florida Deaf Network), a corporate PR release was repeated by the Deaf Network of Texas, and all kinds of other folks. I didn't locate too many variations on the report, or much follow-up discussion on this topic, although I did locate

• info on some legislation in Congress concerning improved access on the internet (which would be cool)
• a critique of Obama providing segregated media for the Deaf community (not so cool)
• some non-corporate info on The FCC Rule and Order for TN and Emergency Access
• and a federal announcement posted on the FCC's Disability Rights Office homepage.

Toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook

~ and it was a blast: beautiful (the Deerfield River below the Shelburne Falls Potholes Dam), with bouyant company (a total of thirteen), only one lost car key. :-(


Nearly every conceivable delay possible occurred. Nonetheless, spirits stayed high and humor ruled the day. "Can we get on the river and then solve all the problems known to man?" asked Genti while we waited for the last person to visit the restroom before finally heading to the river some 2 1/2 hours after the scheduled departure. The water was sweet, the nicotine thick, the schmoozing delightful. Water monsters tried to nip some derrieres, capsizing was kept to a minimum, rescue proved available when required.

Mishaps continued, more-or-less, throughout the rest of the adventure: a bit of backroads wandering, lengthy provision of a mosquito banquet in which Belgian jokes apparently ruled the day, and a very late dinner - at locations revised and undisclosed. Personally - and I do mean personally, in reflection upon how impatient I would probably have been in days of yore - I was so impressed with the flexibility and grace shown by all. (I know I'm not supposed to be mushy, here. Sorry. Sortof.)

You've all taught me so much - about how to live, and about how to be with people. Thanks. :-)

All I wanted was some help with creating a database and an introduction to creating animation.

I was too slow to capture the half-dozen police officers arrayed around the entrance with automatic weapons out. While I was digging the camera out of my bag, commands were yelled and they charged in; by the time I had the scene in focus shots were being fired inside (rubber bullets, I presume).

(We went to work in the library, instead.)

A few hours later (on the basis of a social contract, because "If I put it in print, Steph will find a way around it just to prove a point" - can you believe someone said that about me?!), we headed out for exercise and our reward. Not that our journey there was without incident, either!

Did you think I was kidding?! How could anyone possibly chart the contours of conversation transversing the loop of henley, gender disparity of toilet facilities in India, insectology, the xprize, social network etiquette and tipping the hybrid? What neural groove formed in the discussion of a joint investment (Where? Whachusay?) as we hurtled from a hill through a pirate's den to the launching pad at eastworks? I want a Free Spirit Sphere! No no, a massage account! A well-stocked pond to measure mental health changes over time beginning with adolescent male reading strategies! (Recommendation: one Complaint Storage Room, with an endlessly-repeating tape of a successful escape from Guantanamo Bay.)

See The Fall, Wall-E, remember Matt. Think, fools! No no, that's depressing, never mind. Let's get back to the duct of Galini.

I will be interested to know how things unfold for Professor/Interpreter Eric Camayd-Freixas, "Immigrant of the Day", for whistle-blowing on an oppressive criminal prosecution against agricultural migrant workers. My curiosity regards him as an individual, interpreting as a profession, and the complicated ways institutional meanings are made among persons interacting with each other through various languages.

"The questions they asked showed they did not understand what was going on," Professor Camayd-Freixas said in an interview for the NYTimes. The video accompanying the printed text details some of the evidence by which the defendants (read, human beings) were denied voice.

The detailed disclosure by Professor Camayd-Freixis struck a chord with Helly, who describes "working within the Hong Kong legal system to achieve justice for domestic workers. Although there are legal processes in place that should protect migrants as well as citizens, in reality, the protection of the law is far weaker when applied to migrant populations." This is also the case for the American Deaf Community (who are domestic citizens). Interviews (unpublished, 2005) with Turkish immigrants in Germany attest to a similar phenomenon, there. I am also reminded of the Ukrainian interpreter who broke role during a television newscast to inform the deaf public about a political coup.

"Interpreters, just like judges and attorneys, have an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the process," [Isabel Framer, a certified legal interpreter from Ohio who is chairwoman of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators] said (NY Times article). "But they don't check their ethical standards at the door." Indeed, we do not, however, pressure to conform to the dictates of established professional conduct is both subtle and overt: interpreters (at their/our respective level of labor) are also subjected to institutional "injustices against those simply trying to work and survive." Notice the language used to position Professor Camayd-Freixas' actions: An interpreter crosses a line and sheds light, he takes "a brave stand" - positioned in the face of or against an incredible legal onslaught, he "has taken a risk."

"Apprehending people who are in the country illegally is one thing but to corner these same people to force them into criminalizing themselves so that it can be publicized that these people are a threat to national security is beneath the integrity of this country." Latina Lista

Voices from a Raid is a video featuring first-hand accounts (in Spanish, with English subtitling) from a different raid earlier this year. The video opens with an excerpt from a speech by Barack Obama about the necessity for all Americans to participate in creative solutions to the dilemma of illegal immigrants. "It's a difficult task to be an Interpreter, to have to bite your tongue and not speak out, to attempt to right a wrong, especially when it involves the civil or human rights," writes Tony Herrera, predicting that an argument will be developed that the proper, ethical choice would have been for Professor Camayd-Freixas to recuse himself. The first blogpost about this story is titled, Sign Here or Starve: The Truth About Postville, Iowa - a direct comment on the coercive tactic of gaining guilty pleas in this case, but also reminiscent of the professional line interpreters are demanded to tread: witness only, reveal naught! "What, asks Evelyn of the Hispanic Business Forum, and I agree we need to explore deeply, "is the purpose of laws?"

I am intrigued that the text of the NY Times story by Julia Preston has been posted to a Marxist listserv: "Translator: Guatemalan meat-packers were railroaded into prison." Not only academics, also law professors are following the unfolding. This matter of making a decision on the basis of non/un-understanding is serious - especially at the level of law - whether one is creating policy or implementing it.

Another first-person account was posted at la vida:

• Immigration Raid - 390 People Detained in Postville, Iowa (May 17)


• Day One: The Day of the Raid (May 18)


• Day Two - At the National Cattle Congress (May 20)


• An overview of the rest... (June 20)

Several sources seem to be post the text of Professor Camayd-Freixis full account, without adding analysis or commentary, such as ALIPAC.net.

The new UMass Journalism Department weblog documents the disturbing trend in hard news staffing/investigative journalism, linking to an article that contexts the decline of trained journalistic staffing in the age of technological expansion. The embedded example of the linked reference source is powerful and poignant, but while an individual Palestinian enacted terror in Jerusalem, the Israeli military held an entire Palestinian town under curfew in an attempt to minimize civil protests against more construction of the wall.

I received an email Monday: "Urgent!!! International Support Needed In Ni'lin." An email report yesterday from the Ni'lin Popular Committee Against the Apartheid Wall clarifies that the curfew is over but not - as claimed by an Israeli military spokesperson - because of negotiations or mutual agreements concerning the issues at stake.

Here is where reporting gets tricky, huh? The intention to illustrate a very basic point plays into a much larger - and problematic - pattern, in which alternative perspectives on particular dilemmas are represented disproportionately. The fact of the created media/news statistic (a percentage of reports roughly "pro" Israel and a percentage or reports roughly "pro" Palestinian) perpetuates the majority-minority stances already rooted in historical trajectories, thereby centering the discourse on the most sharply defined edges of the conflict instead of - what I, personally, would like to see journalism do more intentionally - creating representations that allow people to shift from entrenched positions because alternatives are opened up.

Seriously in vitro, but not with an actual human being (alas), rather with potential for a new hermeneutic.

I started a Facebook group, Interpretation: An Action Learning Set. The membership is not intended to be exclusive although the primary function is mundane: basic written translation of a one page letter into twenty-some languages. If you want to help (do you know any official European Union languages? Know someone who does?), or are interested in spying (!), or otherwise participating in discussions during gestation, please let me know. :-)

There's work in the subfield of language ideologies on emergence theory (on the www, brief googling shows many ties to religion; not the angle I'm interested in and yet - the interrelation makes sense - the core principle of procreation is an obvious theological hook). I have much more reading and talking/listening to do, now, in keeping with my main mode of learning. The notion of (having been) impregnated has enabled me to make sense of the seemingly static mode of stasis I've been in for days....

One of my post-sailing-adventure musings is, what if I had read Longitude shipboard instead of The Telling? :-)

There's no way to know, of course, what would have changed or whether those changes might have mattered, in the end. Captain explained how sailors use the variety of sounds from gongs and bells to triangulate position in fog. "Can you really tell what direction the sound is coming from?" I wondered. "In general," she replied. So there you would be, unable to see sky or shore, listening. Moving (because how can you stop?), and listening. Straining to hear a hint of familiar sound, constructing a mental map against remembered ephemera, calculating where you must be (the reckoning?), and committing yourself to being there - fixed (dead?) - in that moment. Then, you would begin to move the boat in the direction your imagined memory suggests, calculating speed and direction by wind and current with no other reference point except a longed-for next sound.

Fog is an extreme version. (Definitions of "dead reckoning" describe the process of "estimating one's current position" and then "advancing ... based upon [other] known [facts of] speed, elapsed time, and course.") In lieu of clear vision, i.e., when one must estimate location, not only might audition take prominence, some neuroimaging research shows emotional perception is also affected.

Ok, yes, you caught me - I am making a big metaphorical leap: from the literal to the representational, from the physical to the symbolic. Loss of clear sight from conditions in the external visual environment or due to perturbations in the internal affective state are not exactly the same thing: but the physicality of impaired vision on knowledge of one's geometrical position in relation to other physical objects can have (I propose!) similar effects as an internal confusion about one's status, role, or relationship (to name a few social scientific categories) in relation to comparable "position(s)" of others.

Dava Sobel details instances in which, "Too often, the technique of dead reckoning marked [any random sea captain, pre-chronometer] for a dead man" (1995, p. 14). No one died on our journey (Thank god! I hear the Captain exclaim), but we definitely mis-fixed a few crucial reference points along the way, keeping corrective navigation in turmoil.

Discouraging as Anonymous' judgment is (a pal wrote, "hey, that "anonymous" poster was way outta line! What was that all about??!!), the solution presented by "Rocks and Shoals" (Articles for the Government of the United States Navy, 1930) imposes a severe lack of ambiguity on relative social position/status. While Captain Donald I. Thomas USN (Ret.) defends the justice meted out under the original document as "speedy and fair, with the rights of the accused properly safeguarded," he ultimately celebrates the code's demise. Presumably not only because he no longer had to listen to it being read out loud once a month, but because it was a source of abuse:

"We got the message loud and clear that we were expected to throw the book at the accused and leave leniency, if any, to [a particular Base Commander]. This well-understood command influence remained until 1951, when the Uniform Code of Military Justice came into being. One of its provisions was that "no Convening authority or commanding officer could censor, reprimand or admonish any court or member with respect to findings and sentence adjudged by the Court and may not attempt to coerce or influence action of a court in reaching its finding or sentence."

Under the Uniform Code, continues Capt. Thomas: "The administration of justice took on more of the characteristics of civil law; not surprising since it was drafted by members of Congress, many of them lawyers who had served in the Armed Forces during the War. Under the Uniform Code, greater latitude was given to peremptory challenges, and the finding of guilt required a two-thirds majority in all but capital cases." (There may be hope for me, yet!) I have no idea what Anonymous' invocation of the Rocks and Shoals was "all about," but the thought that someone I met wrote so starkly is a bit disturbing - I enjoyed everyone I met. And, still, I appreciate the food-for-thought. For instance (in combination with other sources of inspiration and some creative sentence-splicing),

"The zero-degree parallel of latitude is fixed by the laws of nature; [while] the placement of the prime meridian [for fixing longitude] is a purely political decision" (Dava Sobel, Longitude, 1995, p. 4).

I've been thinking quite a bit about the eighties feminist slogan, "the personal is political." I absorbed this ethos, and attempt to live its significance. After twenty-some years of practice I sometimes feel as if I'm close (the perception never lasts for long!) I triangulate my reference points broadly: from the interpersonal sphere of my friends, to the international relations such friendships draw me into, and this blog in-between. The third axis is time; that curious dialectic between the present and the future. More often than I prefer to acknowledge, my close-up aim fails because of interference from the past.

What obscured the facts? I think it must, at least in part, be how I look - not my generic appearance, but the particular expressions that cross my face, the movements my body makes when I am feeling awkward, uncomfortable, insecure. Or, conversely, when I'm confident, psyched, exuberant! Whatever internal emotion, mood or attitude inspires the viscera, despite whatever skills or talents I've nurtured, whichever socialized or conditioned awful habits I've tried to reconfigure - I must still be appear visibly only within a certain range of possibility. And that range is associated with every previous time I "looked" that way, and potentially even with other people who appear/have appeared similarly - whether for the same or different reasons, under alternative or familiar conditions.

Despite my ambition, I am a follower. I "follow" what I perceive, reacting when caught off guard, responding when my act has a little more room to maneuver into a way to fit together. It's impossible to establish a temporally causal relationship (first this, then that) - I am not attempting such linearity. I am trying to explicate how I get caught playing into roles (behaviors, actions, attitudes) that diverge from intention and desire. How is it, in other words, that I keep appearing in certain ways that invite responses which lead me to feeling unseen?

'Tis a puzzle, no? :-)

Mike said that, talking (to himself?!) as he entertained a couple of neighborhood girls by trying to figure out one of their toys.

Yesterday was full of tugs. I spent the afternoon and evening enjoyably, after taking a much longer time than usual to blog (and cook! shhhhhhh). Being on the periphery of two kidnappings with happy endings left me full of vicarious emotion. For the last three days I have been feeling a bit de-centered, as if there's "a disturbance in The Force" (!), or - as the new roomie said, I am "out of alignment" with myself. My thinking is slow, difficult; my self-consciousness heightened. I speculate that I'm experiencing fallout from being (now) in a timespace different than expected (on land rather than still at sea), or the process of absorbing recent life lessons, or the malaise that lingers from old wounds . . .

I know I don't have the jazzy hectoring tone considered most successful in writing on/for the web. The thing is, I don't want to play into that collusively heeyyy cowboy insider attitude that Jack Shaffer promotes. Yet, I appreciate that friends do (sometimes, smile) actually read the blog and (rarer still, hence precious) give me feedback on my writing. Building "indexes" over the past few days must have put me in a summative mood, because I carried that mode into writing about Alf's freedom instead of just blogging the moment. Perhaps I'm feeling it more necessary than usual to justify my existence (I got flamed!), to explain the reasons for my choices, or otherwise try to articulate how I perceive things going together? I am also prepping to teach, and I never (ever!) stop learning.

Even though I'll probably never capture the tone of our times, my mind resonated with resemblances to another angle of Caleb Crain's reflections on online literary style. In particular, he writes (and I insert comments):

I've kept a blog for several years (ditto), and although its readership is tiny (mine too), I of course notice when the hits rise and fall. (I should pay more attention!) I seem to get more readers when I post frequently, when I write about people or topics in the headlines, when I have been drawn into a conflict, and when I write something that speaks to a self-image that a group of people share. (Hmmm, it would be interesting to know if any such patterns are evident here in Reflexivity.) Over the years I've gradually revealed more personal details (we differ in this); I still reveal very little, comparatively, but enough to entitle me to say that I feel a tug there, too. Perhaps the tugs that I feel are a better data source, come to think of it, than my blog's underemployed hit counter. If I were to interpret those tugs, I would say that writing on the internet tends to be more popular when it satisfies the reader's wish to be connected--the wish not to miss out.

Funny - is Crain suggesting an internal (his own) or external (from others) tug to reveal more? Where (with whom) does the wish to be connected originate, and can it be cultivated as a social/relational force for institutional/historical change?

Only if we act on those wishes. :-)

Yesterday will be remembered fondly by many. I received the wonderful news from Maria Claudia:

Today there are photos on Facebook. Joy in the morning! I would say Alf does not appear any worse for the wear, but no doubt changes have been etched into his character after nearly five months in captivity. Although I do not know him personally, choosing to care has constituted some of my own always-in-process character, too.

The kidnapping of Alf and his girlfriend, Ana, occurred just two weeks before the beginning of the spring semester. I wrote:

"Violence creeps closer, no matter how hard we try to keep it at bay, no matter how thickly we deny that it could happen to us or those we love." (the bubble thins)

At the time, just two months back from visiting Israel and the West Bank, I imagined some parallels between FARC and Palestine, between the Colombian government and Israel. This view was refuted or met with silence: uncontinued. (Perhaps I could have remained more involved in the conversations that I did have access to?) I was not (and am still not) invested in proving such a claim, only in thinking through how violence gets perpetuated by unyielding stances on both/all sides. Uribe (for instance) is not without fault (no government is); and the people born into life with FARC are not essentially evil.

"...in the end it's the Colombian political will -- one, to make these steps, and two, pay for them -- that has made this happen," said ... a [US] deputy assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere."

That's from a story in today's NYTimes about the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages yesterday - a coincidence of timing reminiscent of Alf and Ana's capture at nearly the same time as a massive global protest against FARC was being organized on Facebook. I spent some days working through a range of thoughts and emotions: grim realities & the force of spirit , weird twist of synchrony , and hyperempathy. Somewhere in the course of all that I decided to invite students to consider involvement.

They were (understandably) confused (!), however they rose to the occasion with a series of blog entries about deciding not to attend. Meanwhile, I read Gabriel Garcia-Marquez (News of Kidnapping), considering the long trip home,

"trying to imagine a way out for the millions of Colombians who only want to go about their daily lives, rather than being pawns in someone else's brutal "game" for wealth and power."

Perhaps it is apparent (but maybe not) that I consider average Colombians to be representative of average human beings - the great grand masses of us subject to the machinations of gargantuan social institutions and historical habit. What befalls them could confound us, too, and certainly is representative of occurrences and happenings to normal, typical folk in most countries around the globe. And there are, indeed, more organized and increasingly large protests developing: persistence will win the prize!

Ana was freed the first week of March. I mused then about coincidences of timing in-and-at the swirling center . In this situation - the random/chaotic juxtaposition of my friends, my passions, my ambitions - synchronicity abounds! I name (by choice, for the purposes of design) such events as centripetal dialogic force.

Yesterday's headline, which I saw mere moments after reading Maria's glorious announcement, read: Colombia Plucks Hostages From Rebels' Grasp. I only know a few Colombians, but they have enhanced my life in a million ways. I agree with today's NYTimes' featured journalists, Simon Romero and Damien Cave,

Quoting from a Reuters article by Eric Auchard about Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, on "good, evil and monopoly fears":

When he first joined Google as CEO seven years ago, Schmidt acknowledged thinking the "Don't be evil" phrase was a "joke" being played on him by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Schmidt recalled sitting in Google's offices later in 2001 when an engineer interrupted a strategy discussion over a planned advertising product by saying, "That is evil."

"It is like a bomb goes off in the room. Everything stopped. Everyone had a moral and ethical conversation, which by the way, stopped the product," Schmidt said.

"So it is a cultural rule, a way of forcing a conversation, especially in areas which are ambiguous," he said of how the mission statement works in practice at Google.

The desire to ritualize such a practice of communication illustrates the ethic of "start[ing] from the perspective of what [big, world-class] problems do we have"? This is an example of the political divide characterized by David Brooks a few days ago as "a little culture war" between ""the highly educated coastal rich .... [and] ... the inland corporate rich." It would be nice, somehow, to get away from a blanket condemnation of whomever can be construed as part of the latter group (Brooks doesn't do such a bad job of representing them - even if he does deploy inflammatory rhetoric at times), because we need them, too, to be part of the solutions we quite urgently need to be putting into place and action.

Wall-E was conceived in 1994 and born fourteen years later. That's a long gestation! One could argue that Wall-E was born "whole" - completely developed, a finished product, an artistic, aesthetic entirety in and unto itself. Notwithstanding the creative genius, technical sophistication, and pure brilliance of the hundreds of people who co-constructed the film, to deem it done would be a disservice to its communicative potential. Sure, the story is told with such self-deprecating humor one can readily overlook its grim source material. Heterosexual gender stereotypes persist, and the future appears predominately white - but these representations are mere gloss to the base commentary of global capitalism's devastating effect on the planet's ecology as it remains predicated on the twin engines of advertising and consumership.

I mused yesterday (on Facebook), about what A.O. Scott describes as the essential genius of all of Pixar's films:

"...this idea of an identity crisis - of a main character who is torn between the demands of his group identity and his own aspirations, ambitions and dreams." (Pixar's 4th Dimension)

My question, based on communication theory that privileges the ritual nature of communication as the primary shaper of our social (economic, intellectual, political) worlds, asked if Pixar is "determining the human condition for a generation or three?" To be precise, they are not doing this alone, but their reflection of our current situation (as illustrated in the consciousness concerning what makes us laugh at ourselves and each other) both acknowledges and reinforces other social trends. For instance, to what extent does Wall-E's clumsy and determined adoration for Eva, and Eva's haughty disdain turned affection, foreground the relational needs of people to belong and be cared for over the group needs of humanity to suck up and deal with the costs of conceding the direction of our future to impersonal institutions, such as war, law, finance, war, the profit imperative...

The interpersonal overlays the intrapersonal dilemma Scott argues is central to Pixar's successful main characters, whether they are natural rebels or reluctant heros, which is the necessity of

"finding a synthesis, or a compromise, a way of acknowledging who you are as a matter of where you come from, but also being able to express who you are as a matter of who you want to be."

In the background, unquestioned yet foundational to the story - and to our era - is the competitive quest to be a) Bigger n Larger than everyone else, bolstered by belief in a technological utopianism: we will design the machines that will save us. Unfortunately, rescue exceeds the human lifespan by several generations. Wall-E (with many more lives than a cat) displays a peculiar mix of curiosity and lonliness; not only is his directive to remove centuries of accumulated industrial garbage, his iconicity as a janitor is deliberately deployed to display an optimistic strand of pure dumb luck as the ultimate savior. He also lives out - tolerantly - the risks of examining objects closely: they tend to stick - often unfashionably so. This is how and why I suspect a pop cultural effect from Wall-E could be marshalled along with the many other contemporary strategies (overt and incidental) of innumerous people to alter some of the predictable trajectories of history.

Because here's the thing - despite everything Wall-E loves to dance! (Cute: hula-hoop and headphone vignettes.) (Dancing features prominently in friends' recent gmail status messages: "Where the Hell is Matt?" and "Chocquibtown - Somos Pacífico".) And he never takes himself too seriously - or at least, in seriously fulfilling his directive and embracing his nature, he copes with the inevitable fallout of various experimental attempts (balls, firehydrant). Pixar provides a personality template based on a way of being that has become popular, enshrining a cultural coping strategy we can turn toward the problems we face or use to mock them.

The thing is, whichever we choose, it's gonna take some time before we can measure the results.