As children we are all raised to be wary of “crying wolf.” The phrase, we’re told, comes from the story of a little boy who always cried out to the villagers that there was a wolf, and that they and their flocks were in danger, but each time it turned out that he was lying. One day the wolf came for him, but when he cried out for help, the villagers simply chuckled, saying “We won’t be fooled this time!” The wolf killed the boy, and we are supposed to learn that one only calls for help when one is truly in need.

I have recently been giving some thought to how this principle has played itself out in our modern technological age. On almost any electronic or digital or computerized device we find some sort of alarm or notification letting us know that the battery is dying, that the clock is not set correctly, or that we are at risk for one thing or another. But the same boy-who-cried-wolf principle works here as well, and what I’ve found is that technology providers and producers have ignored it to the peril of us all.

Let’s start with the most obvious and most banal example: your Windows System Tray (don’t worry, this is the only time I will discuss computers here). If you are using a Windows PC, you have a row of icons in the bottom right hand corner. Many of these are advertisements or nice status things, but some of them can be trying to give you vital information. When you are no longer protected from internet viruses for example, a bubble extends from an icon to warn you about the vulnerability of your system. Microsoft, particularly sensitive to the various security and safety problems with Windows, issues updates at least once a month, if not more often. They pop up an icon in the System Tray when such updates need to be addressed. The problem? So many different messages pop up so often, that in the last 5-7 years of supporting many levels of computer users, I have seen almost everyone say something along the lines of, “Oh, that’s always there – I just ignore it!” Our computers cry wolf, and we’ve stopped listening.

A few days ago I was doing some shopping downtown and I had brought my backpack with me, loaded up with my laptop, various peripherals and cables, some books, dvd’s, my iPod, etc. With each store that I walked into, I passed through a security detector meant to prevent shoplifting. In each case and at all three of the stores I went to, the detector went off and the store people waved me through, saying “Oh, it always does that!” Our security systems cry wolf, and we’ve stopped listening.

When a cancer patient goes into a clinic or hospital to get a dose of chemotherapy, they are connected to a machine that is meant to watch the flow of the IV to prevent the sorts of bubbles and other problems that crop up in frequent administering of IV medications. When there is a problem that needs the attention of a medical professional, the machines will sound a beeping alarm. The problem is, it beeps all too frequently – either it is way too sensitive or inaccurate, or chemotherapy procedures need to be reexamined. The result is that walking through the chemo wings, one will hear many machines beeping their alarms. The nurses ignore them, saying “Well they beep all the time – everything is fine.” Our medical appliances cry wolf, and we’ve stopped listening.

This trend is quite disturbing. At this rate, building alarms or notifications into any machine, from security appliances to personal computers to bio-medical devices, is probably not all that helpful anymore–we’ve simply stopped listening.

Anyone who glanced at the cover of the New York Times this morning might have noticed an eerie resemblance between the cover photograph and a recent much-maligned M. Night Shyamalan film.

Rohirrim

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, The Fountain, according to this interview with Ain’t It Cool News, still has no defined release date. Who is Aronofsky? He’s the young Brooklyn-born Jewish filmmaker behind Pi (1998) and Requiem for a Dream (2000), as well as the screenwriter of Below (2002). His new film stars Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, and is as he describes it, “a psychedelic fairy tale.”

Anyway, the teaser trailer is out and it’s totally trippy. Go check it out.

Do you know Donne? John Donne, that is. The late 16th century poet is probably the most popular of what has been termed the “Metaphysical Poets.” These complex individuals wrote complex poetry dealing with the vagaries of life, love, and death, and did so through a conceit, or an “extended metaphor with a complex logic.” The most common example of the metaphysical conceit is in Donne’s poem “The Flea.” Donne uses the idea of a mosquito bites and sucking the blood of both him and his beloved as a way of explaining the deep connection between them.

So what does all this college English crap have to do with Jack Black and Kyle G’s comic rock group?

Tenacious D’s best song is, almost unreservedly, a track called “Tribute.” In this great track, the dynamic duo employ a conceit where the song they are singing is the “greatest song in the world,” but wait, no it’s not, “but this is just a tribute.” As Shakespeare would talk about the inability to quantify love and just as Colleridge would talk about the inability to really understand God’s mercy, Tenacious D is admitting to the inability to really craft the “greatest song in the world” — all attempts will really just end up being tributes. Who would have expected Plato’s myth of the cave coming from this pair of “devil’s rejects”?

I find that very often the things I think are the most simple and straightforward turn out to be anything but. This has been the case with the pop-punk leaders, Green Day’s, most recent album American Idiot. Not to say that this was on the surface an overly simplistic album. The title may or may not have been referring to our beloved commander-in-chief, as was the case with Radiohead’s 2003 release, Hail to the Thief.

Then there was the cover, which pretty much reinforced the political undertones of Green Day’s release:

(in case you need me to spell it out for you, the minimalist silhouette of a clenched fist has represented radical revolutionary activism since the late 1960’s (if not earlier) and the heart/grenade and red/white contrast tells us the contents are concerned with the conflict between humanity and violence/war)

But what I really want to focus on is the song that has turned out to be the most effective and powerful on the album. I am talking about “Holiday” – track 3 on the release. Here are the lyrics, so we are all on the same page…

Hear the sound of the falling rain
Coming down like an Armageddon flame
The shame
The ones who died without a name

Hear the dogs howling out of key
To a hymn called “Faith and Misery”
And bleed
The company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives on holiday.

Hear the drum pounding out of time
Another protester has crossed the line
To find
The money’s on the other side

Can I get another Amen? Amen.
There’s a flag wrapped around a score of men
A gag
A plastic bag on a monument

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday

The representative from California has the floor

Sieg heil to the president gasman
Bombs away is your punishment,
Pulverize the Eiffel towers
Who criticize your government
Bang, Bang goes the broken glass, lads
Kill all the fags that don’t agree
Trials by fire seting fire
Is not a way that’s meant for me
Just cause, just cause, because we’re outlaws, yeah!

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

This is our lives,
On holiday

There are actually many interesting elements of this song’s lyrics, but the most interesting aspect IMHO is the double meaning of the term “Holiday.” If you’re American, holiday means one thing, but if you’re European, then it has an entirely different meaning in normal usage. Let’s go the dictionaries! Webster’s connects the word “holiday” to its etymology in “holy day” and refers to a “day on which one is exempt from work; specifically : a day marked by a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event” or “a day set aside for special religious observance.” The Oxford English Dictionary (UK) defines holiday as “an extended period of recreation, especially away from home.”

So in America holiday means a special, usually religious (even Civic Religion), day of commemoration, while in Europe it means a vacation. In this one word we can see the vast gulf that has grown between the religious America and the secular Europe, congeling this century with Bush, Iraq, and the highest levels of anti-American sentiment around the world in a long time (if ever).

I would argue that the song’s lyrics are meant to question the current state of devout patriotic nationalist religio-fascist militarism that has gripped America and has led us into the current state of quagmire in the Middle East. Indeed, this is our American lives “on holiday” — meaning wrapped up in the moral imperative of the “neocons” in power.

The band seems to understand the way that fans are interpreting their song. At the recent Live 8 concert in Berlin, when Green Day went to play “Holiday” Billy Joe Armstrong (lead singer) screamed, “This song is not anti-American, it’s anti-Warrrrrrr!” Not so sure about that, but whatever you say Billy Joe.

Here’s a more high quality photo of my adorable niece, Sari:

Originally uploaded by cindyg.

Witness my adorable niece at a recent wedding…

Spielberg is back. This time, though, it’s not with aliens or con men, but with the sobering real story of Israeli agents sent to assasinate Palestinian terrorists believed responsible for planning the 1972 murder of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, Germany. If you don’t know much about this, head on over to Wikipedia and read up on it. Also a few years back there was a terrific documentary made of this called One Day in September. Definitely go check that out for the whole story and historical background.

After being rumored to be way behind schedule and potentially unable to meet the awards deadlines this year, the trailer for Munich was released yesterday on the film’s official web site. Unfortunately it is only available in horrible low quality, which, together with the fact that many of the scenes are quite dark, makes for a less than optimal first experience with the film.

The New York Times covered the production of the film back in July, and you can read that here(caution:PDF). The article covers many of the reasons this film will be seen as quite controversial and may pit America’s most well-known Jewish entertainer against the very Jewish organizations he worked with on Schindler’s List and the Shoah Foundation.

So what about his movie will be controversial? Here’s the breakdown:

1. The movie is about the five Israeli Mossad (like CIA or MI-6) agents who were tasked with assasinating a list of Palestinians who were believed to have been involved in the planning and executing of the Munich massacre. Spielberg’s interest is in the conflict within this group over their actions and the internal conflict of the leader (Eric Bana) in particular. Spielberg wants to pose the question of what society justifies doing and why, and make us think about our values and ethics when it comes to responding to terrorist attacks (quite a timely issue for Americans).
2. The first problem people will have is that many will debate the validity of the internal questioning of the agents period. As the Times article discusses, there is a feeling on the right that those actions were undertaken with complete moral clarity and with a clear conscience and that for Spielberg to show otherwise is not only a betrayal, but also a complete falsehood.
3. The second problem is that many more moderate Jews, Israelis, or friends of Israel will be concerned about the effect such a movie will have around the world. As the Anti Defamation League (ADL) concluded about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, the film may not be explicitly anti-semitic, but the effect most assuredly will be. After all, this film will be portraying some of the most vile notions about Jews and Israel that exist around the world onscreen. Israel is made to seem all-powerful. The Mossad is evil and travels around the world killing people. All this coming from an “insider,” as Spielberg himself is Jewish. If people were worried that the Passion would spark anti-Jewish riots, they should be concerned about this film as well.

For my own part, I believe this film is important and timely, seeing as where we are in the “War on Terror.” I do worry about the last issue though, and it begs the question: As a liberal democracy, can we question some of the more difficult things we do in the name of our country or does that just lend fuel to the fires of our enemies?

Go check it out.

Erin, my fiancée, had the best reaction to this trailer — "Wow!"

Without any shred of doubt, I agree. Any doubts I had as to whether Peter Jackson could make us care about a huge gorilla vanished as I watched him blink in that first scene. Remarkably, the man who brought Tolkien's classic Gollum character to life to an extent that none had thought possible has done it again. It is absolutely astounding how much emotion they have been able to get out of Kong just in the shots in the trailer (which doesn't even really included much interaction with Naomi Watts). The scope seems just right, and they managed to convey the weight of the various creatures through camera, animation, and sound so we actually believe we are watching something that huge and heavy — and not just the wireframe animated skeleton that really exists behind the image onscreen.

Wow. Really.