Evil Buzz

As a long-time and devoted gmail user, this news about Buzz is really disturbing. Do I need to change my primary personal email account? What happened to the corporate motto: Do no evil?

Unless you tinker withBuzz's settings, a partial list of your most-emailed Gmail contacts might beautomatically made public (see this post over at SiliconAlley Insider; it appears that contacts are made public to those whoalready had a Google Profile account before Buzz; also seethis excellent andvery angry post at CNet for additional background).

Yes, that's right: without you ever touching Google Buzz'sprivacy settings, the entire world may know who you correspond with (yes,including that secret lover of yours and that secret leaker in the WhiteHouse).

Nevertheless, I am extremely concerned about hundreds of activists inauthoritarian countries who would never want to reveal a list of theirinterlocutors to the outside world. Why so much secrecy? Simply because, manyof their contacts are other activists and often even various "democracypromoters" from Western governments and foundations. Many of thosecontacts would now inadvertently be made public.

If I were working for the Iranian or the Chinese government, I wouldimmediately dispatch my Internet geeksquads to check on Google Buzz accountsfor political activists and see if they have any connections that werepreviously unknown to the government. They can then spend months on end drawingcomplex social circles on the shiny blackboards inside secret policeheadquarters.

Overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Here's a quote by Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”

Bravo! So now when is Obama going to do the right thing? The thing he said he would do when he was campaigning for the gay vote and get rid of this ridiculous policy? As Mullen says, "it comes down to integrity."

Dolphins

I've been thinking about dolphins this morning and why I named my blog Dolphin Log, other than the fact that I've always felt an affinity for them.

Along the way, I found some lovely quotes:

"All animals except man know that the
ultimate of life is to enjoy it."
- Samual Butler; 1912

"There is something about dolphins.
It is difficult to put into words..."
- Mark Carwardine

"Diviner than the dolphin is nothing
yet created..."
- Oppian, Halieutica

"Listen to the voice of a dolphin,
and you shall learn the secret
to mankinds' survival: PEACE!!!"
- Mallory Watson

"Pushing through green waters
Symbol of joy
You leap from the depths
To touch the sky
Scattering spray
Like handfuls of jewels..."
- Horace Dobbs

A while ago I was asking people what kind of animal they would be, and here were some of the answers:

My aunt: a dog
My grandmother no doubt would be a giraffe
My mother: a rhino
George: a virus, so you can get inside and find out how things work
And for me, surprise, a dolphin because I'd like to be that smart and to swim around all day.

What would you be and why?

What does it mean to be Black in America?

Pundits are talking about Barack Obama not being Black. What does it mean to be black? As I think about this and read what other's have to say, it seems in the face of Obama, people are quickly readjusting their definitions. Being African-American is not enough, you have to be descended from West African slaves brought to the US. Are the pundits collectively redefining because Obama breaks the boundaries, including the assumed ones of class and power? For example, here is a quote from an article proclaiming that Obama is not black:

Not descended from West African slaves brought to America, he steps into the benefits of black progress (like Harvard Law School) without having borne any of the burden...
- Deborah Dickerson, Salon.com, Jan 22, 2007

Is Black really a class issue instead of a descent issue? Notice that Deborah Dickerson does not point out the reversal of Jim Crowe laws, which pertains to all African Americans, as evidence of black progress, but refers instead to Harvard Law School, which applies to a miniscule minority of Americans of any color. Although she does not say so explicitly, she's talking about Blackness as a Class issue. Yes, Class, which is something Americans don't like to talk about.

These questions come to me in vivid relief as I think about my brother and how he compares with Barack Obama. For those of you who don't know my family well, my brother, who sees himself as black, was adopted as an infant by my white parents.

Similarities between my brother and Obama:

• Bi-racial, half African descent, half European
• Raised by white family, at times overseas
• Both will be followed by security guards when they walk into a store
• Both will be pulled over more often than I will
  

The differences between my brother and Obama:

• Obama is white collar and has political power, my brother is blue collar and does not have political power
  

Other than the fact that pundits won't get on TV talking about my brother, on paper, my brother and Obama are alike in background except for their chosen career paths and subsequent rise in the socio-economic structure.

So, give me your thoughts - What is Black? Race? Ethnicity? Family history? Class? Some intersection of these?

Seize the Day - the Bell May Toll for You

Yesterday while I was on my way to work the bus passed an apartment building with yellow police tape around it. I glanced out of the window and saw a heavy body bag being put onto a gurney. My heart thudded. Someone right here died, not long ago, in some bad or mysterious way. What was I doing at the time, living life normally, casually, taking life for granted at the time when someone was in fear?

Later in the day, I checked the website of the Chicago Tribune and found out that a 46 year old man who had lived in a studio apartment for 10 years fell, or was pushed from his 10th story window, and was found dead at about 6 a.m.

My point in writing this is not to be morbid. Perhaps my point is trite: Carpe Diem. I found that yesterday was one of the most productive days I've had at work in ages. I was busy, happy, engaged. And in the back of my mind was this awareness of death, of the finite time we have on this plane. Even at that, our time may be much shorter than we think. So, live! Find the work that you are meant to do, whether that is teaching or cooking or parenting or being the best account manager you can possibly be.

Tribalism, Identity, Da Bears

Well, Da Bears, the Bears, the Monsters of the Midway have lost the Super Bowl! It's so sad.

I just finished reading a book called How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer and it made me think about identity in our post-modern, anonymous, urban/suburban world. I'm not a rabid sports fan, or Bears fan and yet I'm sad and disappointed. Do I identify myself as a Chicagoan and a Bears fan more than I realize? Is it part of what makes me me? Does it give me a group to belong to?

This afternoon, after all, I drank beer and ate BBQ pork with some of my oldest friends and some people I'd never met before and yet we shared in community with a common cause, common beliefs and common ritual.

I believe I am a rational, autonomous individual without need of tribal identity. Maybe I'm wrong.