The Breaking Time

Off to Gotham

I'm heading off to New York City for a few days to unwind and explore. Much more to come when I return.

Ram breaks it down

Because you never entirely grow out of Saturday morning cartoons.

The climactic battle between Rama and Ravana in the Indo-Japanese the Legend of Prince Ram, an anime version of the classic Ramayana (that enough Rams for ya?)

Cultural globalization is foolishly assumed to go all one way: the US (or West) foisting its culture upon the blushing virginal, innocent societies of Out There. Of course, all cultures are hybrids -- and increased flow between them doesn't just go one way. Anime is a perfect example of that: it's spread far out of Japan to become pervasive in India and the U.S., even replacing more traditional Disney-esque styles here. Not a bad thing entirely.

A very different cinematic version of the Ramayana is Nina Paley's brilliant Sita Sings the Blues, which Asheville was fortunate to have at the recent film festival. It's a bold experiment in more ways than one and might end up being the first audience-financed film ever. More is revealed in my Coilhouse interview with Paley.

The Children are our Future

There is no caption

(via the superb riotclitshave)

Fire and Ice

Every Friday, I will feature a different poem that relates to the themes of the Breaking Time. This allows me to both highlight some oft-forgotten and devastatingly beautiful work. Also, journalism usually keeps me very busy on Fridays, so it allows me to get a post up without too much labor.

Today's entry was inspired by the caption to this striking picture from Zoetica Ebb. Here's Robert Frost, with one of the only memorized poems that's stuck with me throughout my life:

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction Ice
Is also great
and would suffice

Johnny Got his Ray Gun

Time to fight the pirates with lasers!:

In 2004, for instance, Carafano suggested using "directed energy weapons to protect critical infrastructure." America's "power plants, transportation hubs, and telecommunications facilities [are] becoming increasingly vulnerable to precision missile attacks," he warned. The solution: "directed-energy weapons (DEWs), which include lasers, microwaves, electromagnetic pulses, and high intensity radio frequency waves."
--
And now, Somalia. In his latest WebMemo, "Pentagon Should Battle Pirates and Terrorists with Laser Technology," Carafano is disappointed that "the Pentagon is still reluctant to field these weapons because they cannot achieve the power and mobility the military thinks it needs for many battlefield missions." But fighting pirates don't require high-powered lasers, like the THEL.
Less-potent lasers "would be effective for addressing a range of threats." The weapons "could, for example, disable the engines of small boats." Or they could "detonate shoulder-fired missiles before they strike their targets." Or they could "trigger IEDs [improvised explosive devices] from a safe distance before they threaten passing convoys," Carafano offers. Why, there's practically nothing the ray guns can't do.

No, apparently not. Of course, it's entirely possible that the pirates would simply move to different tactics.

This is a classic case of "when all you have is a hammer" ism and technophilia that pervades a certain type of conservatism. While spotting the "next big thing" tech-wise in warfare, as in any other field, plays an important role, there's a repeated assumption that the latest sci-fi weaponry will give the elusive magic victory over the enemy du jour. Of course, the Big Gun is also a deus ex machina that conveniently allows the preservation of the current status quo against the forces that threaten to tear it apart. No need to adapt! The death ray will save us!

If you want a prime example of this thinking, read anything Jerry Pournelle has written. Or, better yet, read Chris Hables Gray's dissection of sci-fi war fantasies.

This is not new: it's a mentality that goes back easily through the Cold War. One would have thought that the lessons of Vietnam or the USSR's collapse would have taught them a few things, but apparently not. Despite vastly superior technology, the US lost in Vietnam and an ongoing (and massively expensive) search for TEH SUPER WEAPON didn't end the USSR: economic and social factors did. The US military still have better tech and Iraq's not going so well either.

It's interesting that no one's yet considered some time honored (and much cheaper) solutions to piracy: bribery or recruitment. Probably because they don't require bad-ass laser guns.

The Old College Try

49 States Flunk College Affordability test

A new ranking of college affordability gives 49 of the 50 states F's. But while there's no doubt that college has gotten painfully expensive, a closer look at the data behind the numbers shows there are still some educational bargains out there.

For example, the report showed that students in Tennessee pay, on average, the least for a year of college—just 13 percent of their families' income, according to "Measuring Up 2008: The National Report Card on Higher Education," the study released today by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. In some cases, of course, students get what they pay for. Some of the low-cost schools don't perform well on standard measures such as graduation rates and consequently are not highly rated in U.S. News's "America's Best Colleges" rankings. But parents in states such as Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina have the opportunity to send their children to highly ranked public universities without beggaring themselves.

I don't think anyone has absorbed yet what a fundamental shift this is. One of the key elements of Western "meritocracy" is that a fairly driven, intelligent working class student can make it to college. If they continue to be driven, they can get a degree, and then future success (in whatever field) is within their grasp. This was never absolute, of course, their chances were never as good as the rich scion on the other side of town, but over the decades since the 1930s, those odds steadily increased, thanks to a well-funded and robust system of universities and increased financial aid.

The result was one of those hallmarks of a golden age: the traditional near-monopoly of the rich on higher education decreased. This spurs innovation, decreases social discontent and overall makes ruling cliques less decadent.

No more, however. Burgeoning costs mean that there's more chance that those not born with a silver spoon won't get anywhere or won't get a quality education. At the same time, the changing nature of the job market has made a college degree much more necessary to get a decent job than it was 30 years ago.

Some personal experience:

When my parents went through the same school I did, times were often tight, but never desperate. After college, loans could be repaid steadily, but even on my mother's rural school teacher's salary, were never onerous.

Now, I'll speak up for Appalachian State. My alma mater is an extremely good school, especially for its size and location. I found the journalism professors (many driven there by market mentality infection of print media) there to be hard-nosed and whip-smart. The result was an extremely practical education that I continue to use every day. Additionally, its financial management had been extremely prudent and its tuition remained affordable. In other words, it's one of the best deals you're likely to find in the current era.

I still nearly starved.

Financial aid could only be acquired in loans or fairly minimal scholarships and students were faced with the stark choice of working to make ends meet or passing their classes. A friend of mine whose family lived in a shack didn't qualify for need-based financial aid. I made it, graduated and got a good education out of it, but it wasn't easy (loans are still my highest bill next to rent). I shudder to imagine how it is for those whose options were more limited. In some cases I don't have to imagine: all it took many times was one stroke of bad luck and their college dreams were gone.

Part of the problem is that a market mentality has started to cross over into things that markets aren't remotely capable at. Markets are excellent at making money, which is exactly what they're designed to do. Fighting your wars? Teaching students? Creating lasting art? Well there too they'll find a way to make money, but no promises about the results in any other area. I doubt it's a coincidence that California, the state that's hung on to public funding most tenaciously, is the only state that scraped by as remotely affordable.

To get closer to the point, this guts society of its brainpower in a drastic way. Intellectual types that might have used college as both an incubator and springboard find it more and more difficult to simply pay for it, regardless of drive or intellect. Held back in their careers, they become less likely to start a successful business, manage a nonprofit, become an administrator or run for office. Ruling cliques fall back on clueless upper class types (or sycophants) who often have more pedigree than sense. The results are clear to see, but Michael Brown personifies the type.

Furthermore, this creates an ever-growing pool of ambitious people who not only aren't invested in the current power structure, but actually have a grudge against it. Ask the ancien regime or the Romanovs how that works out.

At the same time, more intellectuals ready to take razor to the status quo isn't always the worst thing in the world. I expect the coming years will be very interesting when it comes to alternative cultures on all fronts. If you thought the '60s were cultural chaos, you haven't seen anything yet.

P.S. -- On an unrelated note, when one google's "college" on image search, the images are all of smiling, perfect students or raw orgies. This should not be surprising, but actually seeing it is another matter entirely.

The Breaking Time

May you live in interesting times
May you attract the notice of those in high places
May you find what you are looking for
-ancient Chinese curse

This blog is about the world around us: how it got this way and where it's going. It is named the Breaking Time because that is what we live in: a time when the old -- personalities, cultures, symbols, events, economies, social systems, countries -- are breaking into something new.

It is a time when we are viscerally reminded, in Pascal's words, that humanity is both "the glory and shame of the universe." Whether this is a curse or blessing depends entirely on what we make of it.

More specifically, I will write about everything from mysticism to sex, societal change to armed conflict, political power to trade.

I will write about all of the above, and more, because every last bit of it is connected. I will occasionally write about poetry, comic books, old quotes and assorted miscellany because it pleases me to do so.

There is one exception: I will shy away from technology, unless using it as a starting point to tackle something larger. These reasons are twofold. A) It's being done better elsewhere and B) It's been done to death. When tech is tackled, the Breaking Time will focus less on the gadgetry and more on the "why" and "wtf does it mean?"

I will sometimes take a devil's advocate approach, because I believe many tech dreamers/advocates/junkies have lost sight that their favorite grand machinery is driven as much as it drives.

I'm a working journalist for the Mountain Xpress, an innovative, high-quality altweekly. I'm also a contributor to the brash and beautiful Coilhouse, a blog/magazine and love letter to alternative culture.

More to come, about myself and the Breaking Time, very soon.

Until then, remember: there is no They, most lines are lies, most odds can be beaten, and, above all, ideas still have power.

Here's to tomorrow,

David Forbes