The Nerd's Eye View

Folks, I was talking to my friend Stevie W, who is a stand up guy with a enlarged public service gland, and he told me that his company launched a contest for users to vote for their favorite non-profit. I'll let him state the rest:

The nonprofit with the most votes by June 4th wins some $$ (granted not a huge amount...we're a startup ya know) and some other useful stuff. The link is at http://www.givezooks.com/promos/i-give-a-zook.

Now you folks know me. I love charity and ESPECIALLY my favorite, World Action For Humanity. But you don't have to vote for my charity, you can vote for your own. I think awareness of non-profits means that everyone wins! So go ahead and vote, because democracy isn't just for bailing out the California state government.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 8:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

In 1987 my Dad was finally transferred back to the Sudan, from his posting in NY city. For 8 years he had worked at the UN representing the Sudan, and we lived and grew up in NY. It made perfect sense to have a subway, to not have a front yard, to only be allowed out of the apartment in the company of your parents and to eat hot dogs out of a cart that had dubious standards of health to say the least. This was the world I knew best, with its filth, its crime, it's muggy summers and slushy winters. So when the transfer came it was hard to wrap my mind around. We went to an airport that we had seen countless families away from, at the edge of the city that was home.

From there we flew across an ocean and a continent, and a sea and a desert to homeland we had been to only twice (and in the case of my little sister, never). It was hours before dawn on a July day when the plane landed, but we were wide awake. Our minds were reeling with apprehension at this new place; would they have GI Joe here, or McDonald's, and what cartoons would be on television? Even before we stepped out of the plane's doorway I felt the furnace heat of the desert outside elbow aside the air conditioned cool as it embraced us. At the threshold I looked down the stairs - no jetway - and then around, the sodium lights of the airport making everything a sickly orange. My parents rushed down the stairs and at the bottom a man (my mother's brother, who worked for the national airline) hugged my parents, then my brother and me. his beard bristled against my cheek and I felt overwhelmed by the moment. My mother started crying in what had to be joy, my father beamed and I stood there somewhat awkwardly and confused.

I wish I could say that the rest of the arrival was a blur, but it wasn't. The arrivals hall was dimly lit and had the air of an open air market. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the lines at passport control, with their desultory officers glancing up from bare, ink-stained desks. The people crowded around and pushed forward when a counter was vacated by the previous traveler. A scrawny cat walked across the baggage claim area where our bags took forever to arrive. The hall was lit by fluorescent lights that made everyone darker, but more washed out and more tired, exhausted as they waited for their turn through customs. There our belongings were removed one by one from our bags and a disinterested customs agent undid the packing that my mother had done over the past month. We managed to escape with some dignity and were out at my uncle's beat up red station wagon as the heat broke finally.

His house at the time was actually quite close to the airport as the crow flies, but getting there was an ordeal. The airport road was paved but one had to turn off at what seemed like a random point in the darkness and drive through a broad open field, following trails carved out by other cars - or perhaps this same car over many weeks and months. The house itself stood almost solitary, with the nearest neighbor visible about 30 meters away. It was surrounded by a wall taller than my father, it's formerly gray exterior mottled by fine, light brown dust. I could hear the high whine of what I discovered was a water pump. This sound would become very familiar over the coming months but I didn't know that then. My uncle's wife came out and hugged us, one after the other, and led us into the living room. Again my mother cried making me feel awkward. I looked around at the sparse uncarpeted space, lit again by fluorescent lights, a cooled with an overhead fan - the first I had ever seen. Behind me the adults chatted rapid fire in Arabic, which I was somewhat familiar with but not fluent in. I was tired, and disoriented and wondering how long we were going to be here. My brother and I were bundled away into a room with three beds and a large but flimsy looking armoire lined against the walls. As we lay there all the lights in the house went out and the whining of the pump stopped, outside in the living room the adults laughed, and I fell asleep fitfully. I was home, but I didn't know it yet.

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I recently got a surprising comment on one of my posts. It was from a stranger who asked that I write more about the Sudan that I remember and partially grew up in. It seems that this person is Sudanese but has not lived in Sudan and is curious as to what it was like to grow up there. Well, it's not very often that I get requests and frankly it's something that I do think about occasionally so I will try to pop out a post or two (and dig up some of my old posts that never made it). So be on the lookout folks!

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Now, I'm sure you're going to say "No one trusts corporations these days! Look at the outrage over the bailouts!". To which I reply, yes, there is some generalized mistrust of corporations but to a great extent that mistrust is bounded by the overt actions of those corporations. In other words, when the corporation leverages other means of influencing popular sentiment or public perception - such as advertising - it's generally transparent to the general population. Look to the two billboards above 8th street as an example, telling you to retool your 401k with the help of FinancialCo, and to "Get on the road to retirement! We'll guide you". This coming from a company in a sector whose value has dropped 60% in the last year and a half.

aside: In the movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character lives in a time when Mars has been colonized and there is a push on the part of the colonizing corporation to encourage people to resettle there. On Earth, the advertising for the Martian colony shows verdant pastures and happy, smiling people, content with their decision to be pioneers! All this is terrible slimy and heavy-handed. Now, contrast this, with the hawking of various wares in Minority Report which is much more subtle, but much more insidious. Step out one more layer and you realize that in predicting a future where advertising is much more pervasive, etc, they are actually pitching products to you in a much more pervasive way (ie as "entertainment"). Enjoy your Tab.

Now this nudging of the public consciousness is not as advanced as it is in our dystopian fictions, nonetheless examples of it abound. Beyond product placement in movies, music videos, concerts, sporting events, etc

Now, I'm sure you're going to say "No one trusts corporations these days! Look at the outrage over the bailouts!". To which I reply, yes, there is some generalized mistrust of corporations but to a great extent that mistrust is bounded by the overt actions of those corporations. In other words, when the corporation leverages other means of influencing popular sentiment or public perception - such as advertising - it's generally transparent to the general population. Look to the two billboards above 8th street as an example, telling you to retool your 401k with the help of FinancialCo, and to "Get on the road to retirement! We'll guide you". This coming from a company in a sector whose value has dropped 60% in the last year and a half.

aside: In the movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character lives in a time when Mars has been colonized and there is a push on the part of the colonizing corporation to encourage people to resettle there. On Earth, the advertising for the Martian colony shows verdant pastures and happy, smiling people, content with their decision to be pioneers! All this is terrible slimy and heavy-handed. Now, contrast this, with the hawking of various wares in Minority Report which is much more subtle, but much more insidious. Step out one more layer and you realize that in predicting a future where advertising is much more pervasive, etc, they are actually pitching products to you in a much more pervasive way (ie as "entertainment"). Enjoy your Tab.

Now this nudging of the public consciousness is not as advanced as it is in our dystopian fictions, nonetheless examples of it abound. From the product placement in movies, music videos, and video games to the studies commissioned by corporations to the lobbying efforts of those self same corporations in our local, state and national governemnts, we are constantly being influenced. Even more indirectly, advertising new drugs to, say, doctors opens an entirely door of influence on your person. So tell me, who do you trust?

Posted by Lo Fat Mo at 4:26 PM | Permalink