this ain't livin'

Paper Police | 26Mar07

Apparently the Chronicle is now turning to readers to provide advice on editorial policy. This, of course, paves the way to some truly choice insight; be sure to read the comment thread below the entry I linked to with care, so that you can marvel at the state of decline that the English language has reached.

Like other newspapers, the Chronicle is facing some major changes if it wants to survive. A lot of the editorial, news, and features staff have blogs now to keep up with the tide of information which is suddenly, readily available. The limitations of a paper paper are becoming apparent as today’s breaking news becomes tomorrow’s old hat, and, as a result, the paper is struggling to set new boundaries. Responsibilities and journalistic ethics are changing…or are they?

As the editor points out in this blog entry, the Internet has really changed the way we view information, especially information about people. Try Googling yourself: when I Google my first and last names, in amongst the garbage I can find an account on a social networking site, an acknowledgment on a wedding registry, and a book review. You can even find a bona fide picture of me. Of course, I also find a number of entries related to a sports figure who also has my name. My full name returns only two results, both referring to me. Using just my first and last names, it would be difficult to find that much information about me…and I like it that way. For people who are less cautious, though, the Internet has certainly put a whole new spin onto employment references, and would make some plots of books and films seem rather implausible in the modern world. There’s a reason I don’t throw my name around lightly. I much prefer being an international women of mystery.

So what happens when you agree to let the newspaper use your image, and then get upset because it shows up in search results for your name? This is what the editor is agonizing over in this article. Should a newspaper remove your image or name from the online edition if you object to it? I say no, except in rare circumstances which can be evaluated on an individual basis by the paper’s staff.

Let us say that I am walking down the street on a rainy day wearing some festive rain boots, and a reporter stops me and asks if I am willing to be interviewed and quoted in the Chronicle in an article about the return of the rain. I agree, talk to the reporter, and allow my photograph to be taken. I sign a release indicating my consent. The next day, I see my picture in the paper, captioned “San Francisco Resident Starshine Defenestrate Jones is enjoying the return of wet weather.” There’s not too much objectionable about that, now is there? I agreed to be interviewed, my name is spelled right, and I am not misrepresented.

If, on the other hand, the photograph is captioned “A San Francisco welfare mother waits in line at Social Services,” I would object, because although the picture was used with my consent, I would have been grossly misrepresented. I would expect the newspaper to print a retraction in the print edition, if the image had made it to print, and I would expect the caption to be adjusted in the online edition. Yes, someone using a cache might see the erroneous caption, and that is a bummer. But that’s life. It does seem reasonable, though, to ask the newspaper to correct an error.

In a third instance, where the paper uses the image without my consent, it is a bit of a slippery slope. If you are out in public, you run the chance that you will be photographed. If an image of me appeared in the day in pictures, or as part of an article, I don’t think I would object unless the accompanying text was inaccurate. A caption like “Festive rain boots in San Francisco” is pretty vague and unobjectionable, and the most likely caption, because that’s all the paper knows about me. If the caption said “an eager rain lover waits in line at the Apple store,” I might request a change because the caption would not be accurate, and I would hate to think of anyone recognizing me and thinking that I would purchase an Apple product. However, in general, the paper is cautious about images like that, choosing to err on the side of caution and minimize identifiers. I might be riled because the paper used my image, but I don’t have much of a leg to stand on, seeing as how my rain boots and I were in a public space.

Of course, the question in the article is not about erroneous content, its about whether accurate content can/should be removed/altered at the request of the individual concerned. Personally, I think that the answer to this question is no, unless the presence of the content constitutes a threat to the life and well being of the person depicted, or it was published without that individual’s consent and was not a matter of public record. If your image is published in the paper with your name underneath it, the implication is that either you agreed to the publication, or you are such a public figure that you can be readily identified from your image. Life’s a bitch. If your image is published without your name, but with a vague caption, that’s because you were out in public and doing something that a reporter thought was newsworthy. If you don’t like the idea of that sort of thing, don’t go out in public, or be boring when you do.

If your name appears in print attached to factual information, it suggests that the information is in the public record, or you disclosed it. Ethically, reporters need to identify themselves and secure permission. The Chronicle’s reporters are not running around conducting unauthorized interviews and publishing them. It sounds like a lot of the instances illustrated in the article are cases of regret, and the lesson here is not that newspapers should censor themselves, but that people need to think carefully before consenting to publication of their images or words. If someone asks you for an interview, or for permission to use your words, think about the impact that the interview might have if someone was searching for you on the Internet. Do you really want a potential Craiglist date knowing that you oppose seal clubbing? You have the right to refuse, and no reputable paper will use your name without your consent…unless, as I say, it is a matter of public record.

I think that the Chronicle should have a firmly stated editorial policy on this issue, because I will not think of them as a reliable newspaper of record if readers are allowed to manipulate factual content. I value my privacy greatly, which is why I do not engage in private or compromising acts in public. It is not the Chronicle’s responsibility to clean up my messes, nor should it be. I feel like most of the examples cited had to do with people who were up to no good and feeling guilty about it. Tough. If I choose, for example, to solicit a prostitute in the Tenderloin and am photographed in the process, I don’t see how I can object to that photograph appearing in print. I was in public. I was doing something interesting. Of course the newspaper is going to publish it…and given the age we live in, so are a dozen other people who happened to be there with cameras and phones.

If you’re doing something naughty, it’s up to you to do it in a way that will not attract attention.

Jealous Tomatillo | 26Mar07

A neat feature on independent record stores around the Bay Area.

Will lengthening the school day improve American education? I don’t think it will, if workplace performance is any comparison. Americans work more than any other nation on Earth…but we aren’t terribly efficient. Why should that system work in schools?

Debt is a growing problem in the United States. It would be nice to see some controls on predatory lending.

An unfinished Tolkien novel is going to be published in April. His son, Christopher, polished up The Children of Hurin, which is set before Lord of the Rings. Neato!

Could another Gore campaign be in the works?

An interesting feature article on a member of the Oakdale Mob, one of the reasons I don’t go to Hunter’s Point. Ever.

Which is better, tea or beer?

The New Yorker has a great feature article on interpreters in Iraq.

On Psychology | 25Mar07

When we first returned to the United States from Greece, I was forced to meet with a child psychologist to be placed in school. The idea was that during our little meeting, he could assess my mental abilities, and then route me into the class I was most suited for. This being an era of greater trust, the child psychologist and I met alone while my father sat outside reading The Iliad.

The first part of our meeting went rather well, as it consisted of me putting together a puzzle, matching various shapes to each other, and putting blocks through holes. The psychologist took notes while I thought about lunch.

The next part of the meeting was our interview, and this is when things started to get a little rocky.

“Who are your friends,” the psychologist asked.

“Well,” I said, carefully, “my best friend is Anna. But I also like to play with Yannis, Aristeides, Dimitrios, and Eleni.”

“Ah. And what do you do?”

“Sometimes we play in the back yard. When my father is not working, he takes us up to the castle. We also like to go out on the fishing boats,” I said, in the casual mixture of Greek and English that we used at home. “When the carousel at the beach is working, we ride that. And on Saturdays, we go to Church. Nikolos says that the priest uses wine from Turkey in the services, but Evadne says he is lying.”

“Ah. Do you, er, like to go places with your parents?”

“Sometimes my father and I take the ferry to Athens. The last time we went he bought me honeycomb and we went to the Acropolis.”

The conversation went on in this vein for some time, as I patiently explained daily life in rural Greece to the psychologist, rattling off lists of my friends and what they did. I talked about the spring lambing, fishing with dynamite, visiting the Roman hot pools on Corfu. He took copious amounts of notes, and seemed a bit dense to me.

Finally, he called my father in.

“Well,” he said, “I think your daughter is basically as intelligent as other people her age. She certainly has a lively imagination! But she does have some communication difficulties and you may want to consider taking her to a psychologist to work on that.”

“Communication difficulties? Really?”

“Well, she uses a lot of made up words, and has some strange nicknames for her friends.”

“Ah. Yes. Well, you see then, I think it may be you that has the communication difficulties,” my father said.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you see,” my father said, gently ushering me to the door, “she speaks Greek, and you don’t.”

The child psychologist was sputtering as the door opened onto the bright August day, and he followed us out onto the porch while my father opened the door of the Volvo for me.

“But…wait,” the psychologist said.

My father turned politely in his direction, with the utterly disinterested expression that he reserves for conversations with the truly stupid.

“Is there a problem?”

“But…I mean…you didn’t disclose that in any of the…I mean, how was I…”

“Well,” my father said, “why didn’t you try asking her? Or was the obvious question ‘do you speak a language other than English’ absent from your little checklist of questions?”

And with that, he slid into the car and we drove off to go get lunch at Goody’s.

Lugubrious Citron | 25Mar07

The Principal of a Connecticut high school cancels a controversial school play about the war in Iraq. Way to stimulate dialogue.

A food bank dumped tons of unwanted donations in the Southern California desert. A photographer spilled the beans, so to speak…and the material would probably have been left in the desert if the media hadn’t jumped on it.

Should food bloggers be more responsible about how they review restaurants? The Internet can be an ugly place sometimes, especially for new chefs.

Stop the Big Brother State is a short animation about the changes modern society is undergoing…and the long slide down the slippery slope of being a police state.

A neat visualization of the distribution of wealth in the United States.

The UN has voted to sanction Iran more extensively.

New York in Black and White is a neat series of historical photographs of New York city. The changes are interesting to see.

New York has a dirty little secret: polygamy.

Triumphant Lychee | 24Mar07

American Apparel’s antics are in the news again.

Trans discrimination in Florida. Boys will be girls.

The cost of vaccines is on the rise…leading physicians to voice concerns.

Is it safe to prescribe psychiatric drugs to very young children? Perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at this common practice, although it is too late for Rebecca Riley.

This baby tiger is really cute. Check out the videos! Like a giant kitten.

Speaking of baby animals, Knut the polar bear is a media sensation in Germany. And is also really cute.

I promise I am not turning into cute overload.

But first, a baby elephant plays a harmonica.

Vulcan | 24Mar07

A friend of mine recently moved to the Vulcan, an artists’ collective in Oakland. Last weekend, I helped her bring stuff over, and last night, I hung with her there for awhile, and went to the awesome Thai restaurant on site. I have a feeling that I will be spending a great deal of time at the Vulcan in the future, because it is an awesome and excellent place. And, as I say, the Thai restaurant is really delicious. Normally I’d stick a food review in another post, but…just go there. The Tom Kha caused me to pause in utter silence for about a minute while I pondered the complex explosion of flavor that was going on in my mouth. Their sticky rice with mango is phenomenal. And you sit out on a little porch with a fountain and the air is rich with the smell of jasmine.

Driving up, the Vulcan doesn’t look like much. A few decaying warehouses, some colorful paint, the hint of a scrapyard. And then you start to realize that the warehouses are covered in a riot of flowers. That the scrapyard has amazing partially constructed fantastical machines that are normally only seen in the imagination. There’s a garden called Dogshit Park with a functioning piano in it. It’s allegedly in tune…I wouldn’t know, I have no ear.

Everyone who wanders by is uniformly friendly. They greet you, ask what you’re working on, comment on the weather, tell you where the party is. People hold doors open and invite you to visit their studios and pat each other’s dogs. It’s like a big friendly neighborhood of industrial artists, and every turn of the labyrinthine corridors reveals more amazing art, a hidden garden, some sort of crazy work in progress. I cannot get over the friendliness. You know how in small towns, everyone is supposed to wave and smile? That only happened in Caspar, growing up…and I had forgotten how much I missed it.

Something about it reminds me of my childhood in the Tin Palace. Lying in her bed, I looked up to the tin ceiling, and I felt suddenly young again. In the winter, I know exactly what it will sound like, the deafening roar of rain on the roof. I’ve lived in a number of places since the Tin Palace, and been to countless more…but walking through the doors of the Vulcan, I almost feel as though I am coming home. Of course people would greet me, because how could I not be living there? The building seems at once fantastic and utterly familiar to me.

I can see why artists form colonies. It must be awesome to be in an environment with other artists. When I’m up in the middle of the night working here, I go wander the Island to think. In the middle of the night there, I’ll bet someone else is up too. Right now, someone is probably sitting in the garden, drinking a beer, thinking about nothing in particular.

Will I live there someday? I rather hope so.

[Vulcan]

Crowded Theatre | 23Mar07

The Scarab and I went scavenging in the late afternoon recently, on a day when the evening was balmy and nice, and the sunset was so vivid that even the hoodlums skulking at the bus stop commented on it. While we were walking down Avenue N, I commented on my deep longing to get into the fire training school. It’s one of the few places on the Island that we have not penetrated, and it’s intriguing, and it is presumably filled with hot firemen.

We also have a fire station, which has a really sweet garden. But we were not at the fire station.

Apparently the gods were with us, because when we were walking along the north side, a gate had been left open.

At first we just peeped through it, but emboldened by the lack of humanity, we walked in.

The first thing we saw was this:

The Scarab’s dad is a firefighter, so I was kind of surprised when he looked at the structure and said:

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s probably for fire practice,” I said. “I’ll bet they set the inside on fire and then go put it out. The fake storefronts are for…realism?”

We ambled closer, and the jumble of material inside proved my theory.

We looked around inside a bit, and then popped out to peer around the grounds of the school. There are actually a whole bunch of structures in there which are clearly used for practice. I should start lurking around the school to see if I can catch them setting anything on fire.

I’m not sure who the school is for, exactly. Well, I mean, firefighters, obviously. But I do not know if it is affiliated with the City of San Francisco, or what, although the Internet suggests that it may be part of Cal Maritime Academy. Sometimes I see cars there, and I have been joking about leaving a note on their door:

“Dear hot firefighters. You guys are probably way too cool to use Craiglist, because you are busy learning how to fight fires. Would you like to go on a date sometime?”

Alas, just as we began to truly explore, a man with a cup of coffee appeared. We waved at him and then briskly hoofed it to the other side of the fence before he could realize what was going on. However, the adventure gave us hope for future exploration. I should probably just call and ask if they offer tours, but that would take all of the joy out of it.

[Treasure Island]

Reluctant Cow | 23Mar07

Technology does not prevent war crimes. Super cool article from wired about UAVs, soldiers, and “snatch squads.”

Daily life in Baghdad must go on…the BBC profiles a baker who makes some of my favourite Middle Eastern treats.

The battle over medical marijuana continues. I really struggle with this issue, because it is illegal on the Federal level, and I know a lot of people who refuse to acknowledge that. I think we should be lobbying to change Federal law, not being self righteous on the state level…because whether you like it or not, the Federal government is fully entitled to raid clubs and grow operations.

The University of Nebraska has politely told the RIAA to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Ahem. California universities? Are you really going to let Nebraska be cooler than you?

A dispatch from the row over the dismissal of eight Federal prosecutors.

A neat slideshow about foot binding. While I abhor this practice, I commend efforts to catalog remaining women with bound feet, so that we have a lasting record of this dark period in Chinese history. There’s also a good NPR story on footbinding.

I Can See Clearly Now | 22Mar07

So I finally broke down and got new glasses yesterday.

Those of you who know me personally were well aware of the need for new glasses, as my vision had deteriorated to the point where I couldn’t see the faces of people walking right next to me. While this was annoying, I was more concerned about my ability to drive safely, and decided that something needed to be done. I also figured that since I work on the computer, I should probably make an effort to take good care of my eyes so that I do not go blind.

I actually got two pairs of glasses.

Pair number one, which I am enjoying right now, is made out of “memory metal,” which is a fancy advertising term for “kinda unbreakable.” Basically, I can fold my glasses up into a little ball in my hand…and then they will spring back out into their former shape. I do not actually recommend doing this, because you could damage your lenses, but it is nice to know that my glasses can take a blow and come up fighting. I’m a little hard on glasses.

Pair number two…prescription sunglasses. I had been wearing transitional lenses which tinted automatically in response to changes in UV level. However, they never got really dark, and they would not tint in cars, because car windows have UV filters. So I think that they will make it safer to drive, and more pleasant to be out and about. The lenses are also pretty large…not quite granny glasses level, but big, so that my whole eye is protected from the bright, painful light. And I got them super, super dark.

I am really excited. When I put on the new glasses in the optometrist’s office, the woman started to ask me how they fit and tweak with them…but I looked around the office, enraptured, and said:

“I can see again!”

The blurry posters on the back of the wall were suddenly legible. I could read the safety warnings on the lens grinding equipment in the lab. I could read the street signs across the street. I could tell that it was safe for people crossing Pine Street to walk. It was literally like being plunged into a whole new world, and it reminded me of the first time I had my vision corrected, when I made this memorable statement:

“The trees have leaves!”

Walking down the street, I was filled with a sense of confidence and well being. I felt eagle eyed, peering down to Market and being able to see everything that was going on for the first time in months. Of course, my new prescription is so much stronger than my old one that it is taking some time to adjust. I’ve had the new glasses for about 24 hours now, and I am periodically switching them out with my old ones to let my eyes adjust. Right now, I’m wearing them…and not leaning into the screen, peering to see what is going on. I think my eyes will be accustomed to the change in about a week, which will be glorious.

I love it.

At any rate, I learned a couple of valuable lessons here which I thought I would pass on to readers:

1. Please get your eyes examined on a regular basis. Due to lack of vision insurance and general laziness, I had not had an eye exam since April of 2004! Although my eyes are extremely healthy, I certainly needed a new prescription. My vision is rapidly deteriorating, but it is still going slowly enough that I was adjusting to not being able to see anything. Had I gotten regular eye exams, I would have been a lot more comfortable.

2. If you are having trouble seeing, get your eyes looked at. In my case, it’s just that I inherited a crappy set of eyeballs from my dad. But vision problems can also indicate more serious health conditions, or the onset of serious optical conditions. Get someone to look at your eyes if they feel weird, and do not be ashamed to compare your vision with people around you; “normal” might actually be a poor level of vision. In addition to being good for you, it’s good for those around you; I think I will be a much more confident and safe driver now, for example.

3. I really need to clean the bathroom.

[new glasses]

Treacherous Arugula | 22Mar07

Hometown Baghdad is a great video series about what life is like when you live in a war zone. I especially enjoyed the “Forbidden Salad” episode.

Striking photography with stellar composition.

A strike has been authorized in the California State University system.

Doctors and drug companies are way more closely linked than some consumers realize. Is this a good thing?

An awareness video for body dysmorphic disorder which is astoundingly well done. I love it.

16 million Americans live in severe poverty, meaning that they make less than half of the federal poverty level.

A new look at the sun…beautiful photography, and a major scientific breakthrough.