The Thomas Chronicles

***Update Below***

Good ole’ Google, in addition to imposing internet censorship on China and perhaps unknowingly on other countries, is going a bit too far with their maps. I don’t know if I blogged about their “Street View” feature when it was first rolled out in San Francisco and Las Vegas; if I didn’t I should have.

What they are doing is insane. I can see my parents’ neighborhood in Houston from the adjoining street. This kind of intrusion into one’s privacy is unconscionable whatever anyone says. I know someone is going to say that it doesn’t infringe upon personal liberty because you can only see houses from the outside. This, I submit, is beside the point. Everyone who has watched real TV these past few years knows that a person behaves differently when observed as opposed to when he is not.

An apt analogy for this kind of phenomena is the Panopticon. No, this isn’t a fancy digital do-hickee. This is the name of a type of prison.

In this prison, as the structural theory goes, no inmate has any privacy whatsoever. The structure is so arranged to where all the cells are facing each other in a circle. One inmate can see what another inmate is doing on the other side, and the other inmate can also see him as well. Most importantly, however, is the center guard tower, which monitors and sees everyone. This the panoptic effect where, as the theory goes, inmates would behave better if they know with certainty that they are constantly being observed without cessation. The Panopticon tower sees them, if not their own fellow inmates.

Like a disobedient child under the observation of a strict school teacher, this Panoptic Eye constricted the behaviors of the inmates for fear of being disciplined.

And if I remember Jeremy Bentham’s essay correctly (it has been eight years ago), this psychological tactic worked brilliantly in the modification of inmate behavior. It made them more malleable.

Can’t it be said that Google with their “Street View” feature and other such programs are doing much of the same thing on a mass nationwide level? For people scoffing that such a thing can’t be done, who think this is much to science fiction in tone and manner, they can take a long hard look at Britain. Far from just implementing these intrusive cameras, in true Orwellian fashion, they have given them voice and speech, with an authority figure behind the camera issuing commands.

However, issuing commands to unwitting pedestrians to throw away their trash in the trash cans isn’t the main thrust and purpose of these talking cameras. Like the Panopticon, it’s main purpose is to assure you that someone is watching, and so, you had better behave yourself. The fact that Britain now has live people behind those cameras berating itinerant pedestrians simply lends it more teeth, but give cameras a voice box isn’t entirely necessary.

This tyranny of the seeing eye makes prisoners of us all.

Update:

I found this tidbit off the Drudge Report tonight. It’s an article from Britain talking about their latest expansion of the CCTV talkie cameras in Norwich Park.

“We want CCTV because it means people will use their parks and aren’t frightened to be there,” added Mr Bremner. “People are asking for it. We have surveyed the whole city and the response is incredibly positive.

“We are not in a police state, we are in a democracy and people understand we are doing it for their safety. This will help make these places safe.”

Although critics have likened the new talking system to the nightmare vision of the future George Orwell wrote about in his novel 1984, many people believe the advantages are worth it.

I think it is the measure of England’s moral and intellectual bankruptcy that they cannot see the tyranny in this. The justification for the implementing this tyranny is so mind-blowingly facile, you have to double take, re-read it and pinch yourself to make sure this isn’t some bizarre Twilight Zone dream. The British gave up their liberties just so that can feel nice and safe, as though a disembodied voice will stop a murder, a robbery or make a prig less prig-ish.

Obviously it won’t. What it will do is to tyrannize otherwise decent people, and shred any hope of privacy. The loud speakers will berate you publicly for leaving a candy wrapper on the ground, but it will be powerless in the face of a violent crime.

Indeed, I’ve been hearing reports here and there of the police completely ignoring a person shouting up to the cameras for help in desperate matters. If there were police nearby, they’d just drive by, and the person in desperate straits might as well rule out any action taken by that person behind the camera. In effect, these cameras prey on the average citizenry while the criminals still do what they’ve always done since time immemorial. Breaking laws.

And it seems America is going full speed in the same direction. Virtually overnight, these CCTV cameras have popped up in cities all over the United States at street intersections. I don’t recall us ever voting on the measure as a people; either on the national level or city level. It seems the decisions have been made for us by judicial and legislative fiat.

And the lack of protest on this matter in the land of Liberty is deafening.

I’ve yet another little tidbit to talk about. As I said previously, I’ve recently been listening to radio broadcasts, but in the course of my search for old time radio, I discovered that someone has done a podcast for Plato’s Republic… in its entirety! It’s been roughly nine years since I last read the Republic, and I discovered that the arguments and reasonings are just as insightful and profound as when I first read it. Perhaps more so, not least because I am not the same man I was when I first read it. Needless to say, I pounced gleefully into it arms and legs and all.

In any case, this passage struck me this morning as I closed in toward the end of Book One, and I’m going to use this as the starting point of my observation:

Instead he asks to be paid for it, because the man who is going to practise his craft well, never does or orders what is best for himself, when he issues orders in accordance with his art, but always what is best for his subjects. For this reason, it seems, potential rulers must be paid in one of three sorts of coinage: money, or honor, or punishment for refusing.

What are you saying, Socrates? said Glaucon. The first two modes of payment make sense, I suppose, but what the punishment is I don’t quite see, or how a punishment can even be a payment.

You mean that you don’t understand the nature of this payment which, to the best men, is the greatest inducement of all to take up the reins of power? Of course you know that ambition and greed are held to be, and indeed are, disgraceful?

I do, he said.

This, I said, is why the best men are not willing to rule for the sake of money or honor; they don’t wish to be seen openly demanding payment for service in government; that would earn them the name of hired hand; nor do they wish to earn the name of thief, by dipping their hand in the public till. Not being ambitious they do not care about honor. As a result of all this, a yoke of compulsion and penalty must be laid upon their necks, if they are to consent to rule. And this, I imagine, is the reason why willingly seeking office, when one might have waited to be compelled, has been deemed dishonorable. For the essence of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to end up being ruled by one worse than himself. The way I look at it, fear of this bad result makes the good take office, whenever they do, and then they approach it, not as something good or in the expectation of enjoying themselves, but as a necessary evil since they are unable to foist off the chore of ruling on anyone as good or better than themselves. Indeed, if there were a city entirely peopled by good men, we might well find men would contend as eagerly to avoid public office as they do here to obtain it. In that place it would become quite clear that the nature of the true ruler is not to look after his own interests, but rather those of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another, instead of being put to the trouble of conferring them all around. So I am about as far as it is possible to be from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger.

(the emphasis is mine)

I remember a historian remarking once how in the early years of our Republic we had this very same ethos in politics. As a matter of fact, this is one of the main reason why Aaron Burr garnered the disapproval of many of his contemporaries. For this unacquainted with Burr, he was the disgraced former Vice President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson and who fled the United States after his infamous duel with Alexander Hamilton.

Since the founding of our country all the way to the Civil War, it was thought unseemly for men to actively lobby for political office. You didn’t campaign for President, your peers chose and elevated you into the national limelight because of your many accomplishments. Consequently, ambitious men kept their aspirations to themselves. What earned Aaron Burr the disapproval of his peers, perhaps even more than his constant philandering, was how he actively lobbied for the Presidency when he and Jefferson was tied in the Electoral College. If I remember the story correctly, Jefferson retired back to Monticello and awaited the verdict, while Burr stayed in tried to persuade and gather votes in the House of Representatives. This smelled of rank ambition, and people noticed.

Well into the early 20th century the rank and file of America regarded political ambitions and politicians in generals as closely akin to prostitution. As the quote above from Socrates pointed out, a city of good men would have trouble in finding candidates for elected offices. They’d all be unambitious and wouldn’t have aspirations to elected office.

Contrast this with our current politics where men and women claw over each other for even minor offices. It’s clear that we are not in short supply of ambitious men and women. The good men, content in their homes are not out burning up the campaign trail.

We may, in fact, have a great many good men in our midsts, but good, unlike evil, are not as conspicuous and it rarely draws attention to itself.

I would dearly like for us to return to that ethos where ambition is shunned. But I believe we are sailing into the End Times, and gleaming white virtue doesn’t seem to be its defining characteristic.

I’ve talk to a few people who watched this movie, and they universally panned it. From the jittery camera direction to the “amaturish acting”, quite a few of my associates roundly dismissed the movie as a queasy thrill-ride version of the Blair Witch Project, whose infamy in camera jittery-pokery was, and still is, legendary. I believe ‘nauseated’ is the term. Among them, I was of the minority opinion. But then again, for readers of this blog, this should come as no surprise.

Like my compatriots, I could have done without all the shaking and hair pulling and screaming hysterics. It was a sensational movie to begin with. How much more sensational is a thirty story beast rampaging Manhattan? However, I think the movie provides invaluable insight, if you have the eyes to see it.

First of all, if you go see this film and want to derive anything meaningful from it aside from the obvious, you must accede to the premise of the story off the top without question. Know that you are going to get wobbled out of your membranes and jolted until something falls out. That’s just a given. Two is to approach this with an open mind and not treat it as just another scary monster gore-fest. At least, this is how I tried to approach this movie.

When I left the theater, I was dazed but not because of the shaking camera. As a Christian, I looked at that movie and thought, “Is this how people are going to react when calamity befalls us as it surely will?”

As far as it goes, the group, collective dynamics exemplified in the movie is SPOT ON. I’ve been to parties almost exactly like the one portrayed in the movie, although admittedly less posh, and the human interaction between the characters is pretty darn realistic. The halting semi-coherent speech. The desperate desire to have all the information about what’s going on while refusing to give any information to others. The psychotherapy relationship dramas. These characteristics are the traits of people thirty years old and younger.

On the flip side, also exemplified in the movie is the intense loyalty and bonds between the characters to where they would follow each other willingly toward death, even as an alternative is presented to them. This trait is also ubiquitous to my generation and younger, and by the way, it’s this generation that’s in Iraq right now.

But the main insight I derived from the movie is one based upon my faith’s assertions of the End Times. I think the monster in the movie is metaphor for the Apollyon and his hoard. The Bible describes these creatures as being scorpion-like, which I think is portrayed in the movie.

10And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.

11And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.

I think that JJ. Abrams used this scripture as the starting point of this movie and built the plot around it. Strangely enough, I haven’t seen another Christian seeing the connection between this movie and Revelation. Though of course, this movie doesn’t present the coming of Apollyon, the Destroyer, exactly as the Bible laid it out, but it has echoes. I’ll not analyze it more than this.

I’ll sign off tonight on a side note. Over the course of a couple of months, I’ve spoken to relatives and acquaintances in Houston and Los Angeles and everyone said they feel in their bones an impending calamity befalling our nation. I’ve seen this reflected in the anxiety we all feel about this current Presidential election and in the daily news reports around the world, as though we’re all holding our breaths, waiting.

I also find it interesting that for the holiday season this past November and December, we were treated to two apocalyptic-esque movies, The Mist and I Am Legend. And now we have Cloverfield.

What this ultimately means, who knows? But I don’t lightly blow off the collective anxiety and fears emanating from all corners of our entire nation. Something is clearly happening. I’m just not sure I know what that is.

And another thing…

For people who complain about Cloverfield’s wobbly camera action, I’ve got a question. What’s the difference between all the stomach churning “home video” feature of this movie and all the strobing, flashing, epileptic visual style of actions movies? To me, they are only a two degree difference between them.

In watching President Bush’s State of the Union address, the camera fell on Hillary Clinton sitting upright in her bright red dress. As always, she had on a smart businesswoman suit—I’ve never seen her in a dress; at least, not since Bill Clinton’s presidency— and her appearance was full of studied composure.

But as I saw her surrounded in a sea of Senators listening to President Bush’s address, I found her an inexpressibly sad woman. She had the gaze of a woman looking far off in the unknown distances, but she was also looking completely inward into herself—and she found herself wanting. Here was a woman, a powerful, influential woman, who was raised by an alcoholic father and who was married to a compulsively berating, unfaithful husband. Dick Morris said in one of his articles that Bill Clinton at one point tackled him to the ground and almost clocked him the day Morris had oral surgery. This is the man she married, and we must remember that we are electing a team to the White House, not just a person.

Hers is not a charmed life. Not by any means.

Without vivisecting the motives and psychology of Hillary Clinton, it seems like the only time when she appears alive is when she’s receiving the adulation of people. And when she’s not, when she feels her audience slipping from her, she becomes this weeping little girl holding the microphone in a New Hampshire diner. I find myself feeling very compassionate toward her, and I think we should all be praying for her. If she gains the presidency, she’ll need it. And if she doesn’t, she’ll still need it.

However, I still would not like to see her anywhere near the Oval Office. Her behavior is classic, textbook narcissism. I don’t believe she has the temperament and the stability and the strength of character to be a good President, especially at a time when we find our sovereignty being threatened.

Nevertheless, as she sat there with her faux politically neutral smile sitting uneasily on her lips, she suddenly seemed very alone, disconsolate… and if you think of where she began, where she was today was very sad, indeed.

I’ve been listening to vintage radio broadcasts for most of this week. Being a child of the visual age, television and mind-mesmerizing internet, I didn’t grow up listening to these broadcasts. I was much more acquainted with the antics of drug-addled movie stars and rockstars, with angry grunge music and Japanimation than I was with sightless faces and unfamiliar voices drifting through radio speakers.

I think what first drew me toward radio broadcast shows were audiobooks. Since I have this love of the written word and I couldn’t possibly read all the books I wanted to read, I thought I’d do it vicariously through audiotapes. Luckily for me, the public libraries are stacked to the gills with free, readily available audiobooks. Some of my favorite authors sat the library shelves just waiting to be heard.

Here again I was lucky, for instead of the authors reading their own works, these publishing houses hired actors and voice actors to read it in dramatic form. I found out later that authors usually have dull, monotone voices that could put you to sleep about just was well as they can write.

I languished there for about a few months, listening to stories being read by actors. I didn’t make the leap, or slide, into radio broadcast shows until one day when I picked a curious audiobook with the words “Don’t Panic” on it in large friendly letters. I’m referring to, of course, the infamous “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams with Peter Jones as “The Book”. Then I was hooked.

But enough of this piece of personal history. I wanted to write to you about this radio broadcast I just finished listening to yesterday with the great Orson Welles. He had the perfect voice for radio, you know. Deep, rich, sonorous as though everything he pronounced contained the profundity of Socrates, Cicero and all the Romantic poets put together. The man can hiccup on the air and make you rub your chin lost in reverie.

The particular one I listened to was the Orson Welles Radio Almanac 1. It aired during World War II, when our soldiers were slogging it out with the Third Reich in Europe. War permeated the airwaves and the mood of the country turned to the war effort in grim determination to win— at any cost.

And in this backdrop, Orson Welles thought he’d quote a few lines from Thomas Paine written in 1776 when we conducted our Revolution to sever our ties with monarchic tyranny. He didn’t read from a single, continuous piece from Paine, rather the made choice selections, snippets here and there, and he delivered it with all the gravity and weight he could muster.

This is my transcript of what he read:

I call not upon a few but upon all. Not on this state or that state but on every state; up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home countries and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now, is dead: The blood of his children shall curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy.

Look on this picture and weep over it. And if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes this not, let him suffer it unlamented. Where was there ever a war on which a world was staked till now.

When we view our world as it is and not as we would like it to be, and though what we see may frighten us, these words ring back to us and through us and becomes a kind of solace. These words have lost none of its potency but have grown through the annals of time; words passed down studiously from one generation to the next, and it carries with it the torch, bright and brilliant, of our American Freedom. May we forever keep it.

It’s these kinds of things that make you remember just how strange and hostile the world can be. To think, the metal thieves in the UK used to be a joke to us Americans. Thieves made a lucrative living stealing people’s doorknobs, metal lawn chairs, and other unlikely metal objects and sold them to dealers who then melted them down to create other things. To those aware of that strange wave of crime sweeping the UK, I don’t think we would’ve thought it would come here…

Undercover Op Leads To Cell Phone-Triggered Bomb
Improvised Explosive Device Offered For Sale To Undercover Officers

SAN JOSE, Calif. — By NBC11’s Garvin Thomas

San Jose and Santa Clara police chiefs announced Wednesday the results of a massive sting operation in their cities. Operation Meltdown, as the joint effort was called, netted investigators hundreds of criminals, tons of stolen copper, dozens of stolen cars and weapons, and in one case, homemade bombs.

A Fremont man was arrested in October as part of Operation Meltdown. He is accused of trying to sell the officers improvised explosive devices capable of being denoted remotely by a cell phone. During a news conference at San Jose Police headquarters Wednesday morning, police showed a video, recorded by hidden camera, of the suspect demonstrating the technology to officers by detonating a bomb for them.

Operation Meltdown was begun in March 2007. Undercover officers from both departments opened a fake metal-recycling business in the city of Santa Clara called Jose Clara Co-Op.

Within days, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said, customers started showing up offering to sell what appeared to be stolen copper. Over the course of the next year, the undercover officers purchased 14 tons of copper with a street vale of almost $100,000. Soon after the officers began buying the copper, though, Davis said visitors to the recycling shop started offering to sell other stolen goods. The officers eventually purchached 40 stolen vehicles and 74 firearms, including 21 assault weapons.

You can read the rest of this article here.

It’s been raining for four days now in Southern California. Severe hulking clouds strut about the sky and occasionally inundate us like surprise concentrated shots from a squirt gun. It would be rainless one moment and a deluge the next, like a kind of meteorological game of peek-a-boo I’d rather not play.

Then on my way to work today, I saw a sight I haven’t seen since childhood. A rainbow. An honest to God rainbow arching from horizon to horizon. It wasn’t the vague kind of color effects like the kind you see from a water sprinkler. It was clear, distinct; it had a definite form chiseled from the lumpy dark gray rainclouds languishing behind it.

Like a burst of hope, it flashed brilliant in the morning for only a minute. The rainbow spread open-armed from above the buildings of Manhattan Beach and it ended somewhere off into the Pacific Ocean.

Then, as sudden as it appeared, it dissolved in the faint morning drizzle.

I had stopped on the damp sidewalk with my umbrella shielding my head from the wispy flecks of rain on my way to work. I happened to look around and I noticed that only a couple of people had stopped to see it.

When it vanished, I turned and continued my walk to work. I felt like God was ruffling my hair and had given me a little taste of His Kingdom of Heaven, a morsel of delight.