The Virtual Peace Garden

Not sure I’ve mentioned this book yet at all, but GROWN UP DIGITAL by Don Tapscott is an absolutely amazing read. I have been closely reading the text for a class review I have been working on, and the subject of the book is extremely relevant to everything that we are doing with these MEmorials. The bulk of the text deals with dismantling a lot of erroneous views concerning those “kids today.” We’ve all heard the stories about how spoiled they are, how lazy they are, and how ignorant they seem to be. But Tapscott proves with multiple studies done over the course of a decade or so that the opposite is true. The newer generation is constantly precipitating in technological activities, oftentimes simultaneously. Moreover, the net-generation (Tapscott’s term for the generation that grew up during the computer boom) is not spoiled; they are incredibly innovative and open to new ways of making money via the internet. Also, the net-generation is intelligent in a new way: They are able to adapt to virtually all sorts of different settings and technologies.

The overall point that Tapscott seems to be getting at is that the net-generation views all the technology around them not as tools, but as part of their environment. It is, in essence, the “air” they breathe:

While Net Gen children assimilated technology because they grew up with it, as adults we have had to accommodate it?a different and much more difficult type of learning process. With assimilation, kids came to view technology as just another part of their environment, and they soaked it up along with everything else. For many kids, using the new technology is as natural as breathing. (Tapscott 18)

Another startling observation that Tapscott makes in his book is that the net-generation is perhaps the most open-minded generation ever, one that no longer sees race to be any sort of issue at all. They are just as likely to have friends of a different color as friends of the same, according to Tapscott. He writes:

When I was a teenager, my closest friends were all white males who were of exactly the same age. Today, males aged 18-21 in the U.S. report that 20% of their best friends are more than two years younger; 33%, more than two years older; 49%, from a different racial and/or ethnic background; and 60%, from the opposite sex. What a stunning transformation! (Tapscott 33)

In reading Mauer's Proposal for a Monument to Lost Data, the part that he touched on that struck me as very true is the mourning of the data that is lost from our memories. He talked about the photo album and it made me think about how much money our society spends on trying to retain memories.

I am just trying to get URLs to imbed an image in my MEmorial.

Another interesting and relevant statistic that I stumbled across in reading THE WORLD WITHOUT US by Alan Weisman is one regarding cars and birds. Since cars and oil are the primary subjects within my MEmorial, I think this statistic will definitely be incorporated into my finished MEmorial:

In separate studies, two U.S. federal agencies estimate that 60 to 80 million birds also annually end up in radiator grills or as smears on windshields of vehicles racing down highways that, just a century ago, were slow wagon trails. High-speed traffic would end when we do, of course. (249-250)

Weisman further writes about another threat that he discusses concerning birds. Although I’m not sure how relevant this subject will be to my MEmorial, I am nonetheless intrigued and think that the facts are worth sharing:

Klem’s 1990 estimate was 100 million annual bird necks broken from flying into glass. He now believes that 10 times that many?I billion in the United States alone?is probably too conservative. There are about 20 billion total birds in North America. With another 120 million taken each year by hunting?that same pastime that snuffed mammoths and passenger pigeons?these numbers begin to add up. (250)

As I continue to gather statistics and environmental-related information for my MEmorial, I have no doubt that many (if not all) of these statistics will find their way perhaps into the front page of my MEmorial. The facts in and of themselves serve as a sort of MEmorial process, I think. At least, that’s the effect I am ultimately shooting for.

I have been emailing with Bryan Ripley Crandall, a graduate student at Syracuse who has been working with Lost Boys of Sudan in Kentucky since 2002. He shared with me a collection of videos he has bee working on this semester; the first is very much a memorial but also an anti-essay, dedicated to his friend James A'chek Mangui, told backwards. All these pieces, in one way or another, might strike you as an anti-essay; I hope you have time to check some of them out.

http://syracuselostboysofsudancowproject.blogspot.com/

I was listening to Sound Money tonight in my car and this story seemed very postmodern, McLuhanesque, Ulmeriffic, and almost cyborg-like. Right now the text of the story is incorrect, so you will have to listen to it. Israeli and Palestinian computer engineers are working together to create "A Free, Web-based Virtual Computer for Every Human Being." Mostly they work online. That is something Palestinians can do without having to deal with export issues.

Ulmer writes, as everyone is no doubt aware of by now, on page 48, “Select an organization, an agency, or other administrative unit that has some responsibility for policy formation in relation to the disaster, to be the nominal recipient of the consultation (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).” Since it is my MEmorial that deals specifically with the nature of the Nation’s environmental problems (i.e. people’s maltreatment of the natural resources of this planet), it occurred to me that I need to find the perfect agency to propose an attachment of sorts. So why not the biggest one of them all?

I am of course speaking about the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They have a wonderful site (http://www.epa.gov/) and can be further defined and explained as such:

EPA leads the nation's environmental science, research, education and assessment efforts. The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect human health and the environment. Since 1970, EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people. (http://www.epa.gov/)

I think in actually incorporating the EPA into my MEmorial, I will need to provide a link of sorts or maybe even an explanation of EPA’s mission statement on the front page of the MEmorial site. At least, those are my initial visions regarding precisely how I mean to appeal to an existing agency for help, so to speak. What I like so far about this agency is that it is a major one and therefore affords my MEmorial site many options via literal references. I know I need to research EPA a bit further before actually deciding on how to best reference this agency in my MEmorial, but I think I am least headed down the right path now.

I just watched the Nicholas Negroponte interview with Charlie Rose.
http://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/charlie_rose_interviews_nichol...

Bob and I have been working on adding to our MEmorial site. The toy car with the care bear on it is active now and will link to new material. We will be adding more to it in the coming days.

http://deadlyrace.blogspot.com/

In continuing to develop ideas for my MEmorial, since I feel it is yet incomplete, I stumbled on an interesting section in a book I’ve been reading for my MEmorial (i.e. The World Without Us). The passage deals specifically with an interesting matter related to the environment and cars that I hadn’t even considered: tires. Here’s what Weisman writes:

Being a single molecule, a tire can’t be melted down and turned into something else. Unless physically shredded or worn down by 60,000 miles of friction, both entailing significant energy, it remains round. Tires drive landfill operators crazy, because when buried, they encircle a doughnut-shaped air bubble that wants to rise. Most garbage dumps no longer accept them, but for hundreds of years into the future, old tires will inexorably work their way to the surface of forgotten landfills, fill with rain-water, and begin breeding mosquitoes again. (Weisman 164)

Weisman further writes:

In the United States, an average of one tire per citizen is discarded annually--that’s a third of a billion, just in one year. Then there’s the rest of the world. With about 700 million cars currently operating and far more than that already junked, the number of used tires we’ll leave behind will be less than trillion, but certainly many, many billions. (Weisman 164-165)

Tires . . . cars . . . oil. It’s all related to my memorial concept of raising awareness to people’s raping of the natural resources of this planet. Perhaps a tire or two would make for a good picture within my MEmorial as well. Certainly I would like to share what Weisman has written at the very least.