[PHOTO] Queen's Park from a distance, 2008

Queen's Park from a distance, 2008
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

Taken at the interesction of University Avenue and College Street, south of the seat of Ontario's legislative assembly, in 2008.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the joys of portable music players and associated multitasking

Back in 2005, Andrew Sullivan--in what is surely just one gaffe among many--complained about iPods in the Times of London. Even though he himself confesses to being an iPod user, he feared that the iPod would destroy society.

What was once an occasional musical diversion became a compulsive obsession. Now I have my iTunes in my iMac for my iPod in my iWorld. It’s Narcissus heaven: we’ve finally put the “i” into Me.

And, like all addictive cults, it’s spreading. There are now 22m iPod owners in the United States and Apple is becoming a mass-market company for the first time.

[. . .]

Atomisation by little white boxes and cell phones. Society without the social. Others who are chosen — not met at random. Human beings have never lived like this before. Yes, we have always had homes, retreats or places where we went to relax, unwind or shut out the world.

But we didn’t walk around the world like hermit crabs with our isolation surgically attached.

Music was once the preserve of the living room or the concert hall. It was sometimes solitary but it was primarily a shared experience, something that brought people together, gave them the comfort of knowing that others too understood the pleasure of a Brahms symphony or that Beatles album.

But music is as atomised now as living is. And it’s secret. That bloke next to you on the bus could be listening to heavy metal or a Gregorian chant. You’ll never know. And so, bit by bit, you’ll never really know him. And by his white wires, he is indicating he doesn’t really want to know you.

[. . .]

We become masters of our own interests, more connected to people like us over the internet, more instantly in touch with anything we want, need or think we want and think we need. Ever tried a Stairmaster in silence? But what are we missing? That hilarious shard of an overheard conversation that stays with you all day; the child whose chatter on the pavement takes you back to your early memories; birdsong; weather; accents; the laughter of others. And those thoughts that come not by filling your head with selected diversion, but by allowing your mind to wander aimlessly through the regular background noise of human and mechanical life.

Over at Reason (yes, I know, but it's still a good article), Katherine Mangu-Ward pointed out that Sullivan's point isn't very new or original.

In blogging his horror, Sullivan joins a long line of worrywarts who have fretted about the cultural and political impact of portable music. But in The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness (Simon & Schuster), technology reporter Steven Levy argues that the ability to check out of the public sphere is one of the many virtues of Steve Jobs' minuscule machine. As the sociologist Rey Chow said of the iPod's predecessor, the Sony Walkman: "This is the freedom to be deaf to the loudspeakers of history. The Walkman allows me...to be a missing part of history."

There are parts of history that nearly everyone would be happy to miss out on. In New York's mayoral campaign of 2005, Levy relates, one candidate complained how hard it was to hijack peaceful pedestrians on their way to work when they have those white earbuds plugged in. "We have to come up with something to jam the iPods," he whined. But that's the beauty of the iPod. There's no jamming it. It's a self-contained unit, not reliant on a radio signal or even on the output of a record company.

Just as importantly, I'd like to point out that for me, at least, portable music players don't exclude the world. Whenever I go walking with my device, I don't shut out the world, I can't if I'm to walk safely or interact with other people. What I get is additional stimulation, another factor to enjoy along with the slant of the sunshine and the sight of other people and the rhythm of my feet. Multitasking's not something that humans do well, true, but who said that multiple stimulants are bad things? Walking along Dupont Street and listening to a Depeche Mode remix can't be a bad thing. Sullivan, I fear, projects too much.

(Besides, there has always been an "I" in music. Did everyone ever enjoy the same music in the same way? Silliness.)

[LINK] "Roma dead less remembered"

It's unsurprising that, as Inter Press Service's Julio Godoy notes, "Never again" seems to mean "Never again will Jews by killed by Germany and its allies".

A ceremony at Auschwitz Sunday to commemorate the half a million Sinti and Roma killed by the Nazis became a reminder of the threats these people continue to face across Europe.

Evidence of the threats came the following day with the murder of a Sinti woman in her home in Kisleta village in Hungary 230 km east of Budapest. Her 13-year-old daughter was injured in the attack. The police in Budapest say that at least 16 attacks on Sinti and Roma people have taken place in the last 12 months.

The Roma are a people who have migrated to Europe since the 14th century. The Sinti are an offshoot of this group living mostly around Germany and Austria. There are an estimated 12 million Roma and Sinti in Europe.

Sinti and Roma, popularly known as gypsies, are the largest ethnic minority group in Europe, and have endured racism and discrimination for centuries. The Nazis killed some 500,000 of them in concentration camps and in raids.

The Aug. 2 ceremony was held because on that date in 1944 Nazi forces killed 2,800 Sinti and Roma detainees – among them children, women, and the elderly - in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. They were brought in from the concentration camp Birkenau that was constructed to imprison gypsies.

Sinti and Roma delegates spoke at the ceremony of the significance of Auschwitz and Birkenau in the history of European racism against gypsies.

"For us Sinti and Roma, both concentration camps constitute a symbol of the affliction and death of hundreds of thousands of our relatives," said Roman Kwiatkowski, chair of the Polish Union of Sinti and Roma. "We, Sinti and Roma from all Europe, are united by the memories of the crimes committed by the Nazi dictatorship against our people."

[. . .]

The discrimination Roma face was evident at the Aug. 2 ceremony itself. The event was nearly cancelled after the Polish government withdrew a grant of 25,000 euros. It was saved by the Polish Jewish community.

"When I heard that the Polish government had withdrawn its financial support for the Sinti and Roma commemoration, I immediately picked up the telephone," Piotr Kadlcik, chair of Poland's Jewish community told IPS. "We cannot allow a moment such as the commemoration of August 2 to fall into oblivion." He called friends and organisations, and persuaded them to donate money for the ceremony.

[LINK] "Foreign Investment in Uranium Polluting Politics"

In another Julio Godoy report, activists claim that money from uranium and other mines is allowing the Nigerien president to tighten his grip on power.

The reform of Niger's constitution to allow president Mamadou Tandja to remain in power beyond his original mandate and even become president for life, was motivated by the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the West African country as a consequence of opaque foreign, especially French, investments in the local uranium mines.

[. . .]

Tandja, who has ruled Niger since 1999 and whose second mandate as president was scheduled to expire next December, defended the constitutional reform and the continuance of his term as an alleged "people's call" for his personal supervision of "all the important work that I started." This "work" is the foreign investment in uranium and other minerals.

According to official figures, more than 92 percent of Niger’s population voted in the referendum on Aug 4 to extend Tandja's mandate for another three years and also approved the constitutional amendment which will allow him to extend his mandate for life.

But, critics say, the real reason for these steps is corruption. The financial windfall that Niamey receives from foreign investments in the uranium, gold and oil fields, is enormous and tempting, according to several sources.

The French environmental group Sortire du nucléaire ("Phase out nuclear power") called the referendum "a coup d'état" and accused the French government of complicity with Tandja as Paris’s "silence condones the violation of human rights and corrupt practices" in Niger.

France, which has been exploiting uranium mines in Niger for 45 years, is the main foreign investor in Niger. Eight months ago, in Jan 2009, the French state-owned company Areva obtained a new concession to exploit the giant uranium mine of Imourarene, some 900 km north-east from the country's capital Niamey,

[. . .]

France, which does not possess uranium ore, completely relies on imports of the mineral to fuel its 58 nuclear power plants. The plants generate 80 percent of the country's electricity supply.

Other foreign countries investing heavily in Niger are the People's Republic of China, Australia and Canada. Niger, one of the poorest countries of the world, is the third largest uranium producer and is also rich in gold and oil. As of 2007, uranium exports accounts for 62 percent of exports by value and contributed 4.3 percent of government revenue.

If it forms only 4.3% of government revenue, it's open to question how it can play such a critical role in the Nigerien political economy, however. Right?

[LINK] Some Friday links

Readers might notice that instead of posting my weekly links aggregation in the morning, I chose to post in the evening. What do you think of this choice?

Anyway, let's get down to business.

• 3 Quarks Daily blogs about a worrying rumour that the founder of mercenary company Blackwater has been killing witnesses against him.


• Andrew Barton at Acts of Minor Treason questions whether or not the modern world's predilection for safety is good or paralyzing.


• Centauri Dreams reports on the search for fragments of the planetismal which hit Earth and so created the moon, a bizarrely large low-density gas giant, and evidence of a massive planetary collision a hundred light years away.


• Far Outliers comments on the extent to which Xinjiang has been only loosely held by China.


• Douglas Muir at A Fistful of Euros reports on the lawsuit lodged against a Greek journalist who documented a long history of complicity with Milosevic's Serbia and its atrocities, while Edward Lucas takes apart claims that rising HDI indices correspond to rising fertility rates.


• Hunting Monsters examines the problems facing the near-country of Kosovo.


• Joe. My. God lets us know that New York City coffeehouses are cracking down on WiFi users who just occupy space after their first cup.


• Language Log considers
  
• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Robert Farley reviews book examining Italy's disastrous performance in the First World War.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that the discrepancies in life exptancies between the United States and countries with socialized medicine can be more than accounted for by better habits among non-Americans.


• Slap Upside the Head announces that an Ontario political candidate who talked about the need to kill gay people was convicted of inciting hatred, and examines the claim of a Malaysian doctor that gay sex makes one more susceptible to swine flu.


• Spacing Toronto's Shawn Micallef reminisces about the old Toronto beach area of Sunnyside.


• Strange Maps features the first road map of the United Kingdom.


• Towleroad points to the Crazy of many of the opponents to Obama's health-care plan.


• Will Baird reports on a massive tropical storm on Saturn's atmosphere-heavy moon Titan.


• Window on Eurasia reports on a children's book driven by Tatar nationalism.