If you are surprised by the article below, you haven’t been paying attention…. heck. You probably shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer either. Which reminds me: If you need to be licensed to operate an automobile (US and Europe, anyway), why shouldn’t people be licensed to use the Internet?
| Election Day 2012 happened to fall on our weekly, mandatory class in Computer Applications. NYU professor Nancy Hechinger introduced her surprise guest speaker as, “Philip K. Howard, son of a minister, Founder and Chair of Common Good, a nonpartisan, nonprofit legal reform coalition.” She glowingly described him as a “controversial character because of his commitment to simplifying and thereby “fixing” the nation’s legal system, which is stifling America.” (It turned out that we were being read a branding statement.) With a big smile, we were presented with a silver-haired Jimmy Stewart-looking character engaged in a Quixotic campaign aiming to return the nation to, “regulation by common sense.” |
 While I do not possess Peter Parker’s “spidey sense,” I have seen caricatures of character before in including watching President Bush speak on the floor of the United Nations, selling the world on why we had to go to war.There is a calculated, cultivated look which exploits Hollywood-tested tenets that the public will be more likely to believe what an individual has to say due to their appearance, presentation, speech. Calculated and polished, I have met them when opposing the destruction of Southern California’s last wild river (won), routes of high voltage transmission lines through private and public lands (lost), and the destruction of one of the last native grassland habitats in Southern California (won).Within the first minutes of hearing him speak, it was as if I had been walking home and suddenly saw a rattlesnake in my path. Fascinating in presentation, potentially fatal in encounter: lobbyists are like that. |
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| In response to the one question I asked of a speaker this semester, I was humored with a dissembling, “I’m all for pollution!” In his next breath, Mr. Howard went on to say that corporations should be allowed to create their own self-regulating industry, “because they set the highest standards.“ |
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“Radiation is (already) in your bananas….” SoCal Edison spokesperson
Later in his presentation Mr. Howard cited an “outrageous fine” levied upon a restaurateur whose refrigerator was storing cheese at 40 degrees. He went on to ridicule the law as the food product was about to be, “put on a grill” (obviating the need for refrigeration to begin with?).
During 1999 seventy-five million people became ill from food related poisoning and another 5,000 died.
In between full recuperation and death from food-borne bacterial infections are a host of permanent and/or chronic effects.
The image on the left is that of Stephanie Smith, a 22-year-old children’s dance instructor, who ate a bad burger manufactured by the Cargill Corporation, contracted an E. Coli infection, had to be placed in a medically induced coma for nine weeks, didn’t die, and can no longer walk due to paralysis from the infection. Her medical condition indicates that she will require multiple kidney transplants. Ms. Smith’s medical bills are in the millions of dollars. Cargil was found liable and is paying for her medical bills.
Bacteria grow most rapidly in the range of temperatures between 40 ° and 140 °F, doubling in number in as little as 20 minutes.
Those who remember their high school biology classes already know this. There is a lot more to be said about the topic of food safety – all of it based on scientific fact, and common sense (for the common good). What is missing are MORE regulations to keep bits of glass, complex organic compounds, heavy metals, etc., out of our food supply chain. New laws with revenue-creating penalties and enforcement are what are required for new hazards foisted on an unsuspecting and trusting public by multinational corporations who use every manner of deception to increase their profit margins while minimizing their accountability.
Back to Mr. Howard and his introduction.
What we were not told was that the smooth-talking son of Appalachia is also a senior and founding partner in the law firm of Covington and Burling, LLC (1999 merger) and that their client roster includes every major American tobacco company, Halliburton, Southern Peru Copper Corporation, Chiquita International Brands, and Xe Services (formerly Blackwater).
Mr. Howard’s firm helped develop and coordinate the Whitecoat Project, an attempt to keep controversy alive regarding the dangers of passive smoking by hiring scientists to back up and attempt to give credibility to the tobacco industry’s point of view that second-hand smoke is not a health risk.
It is not difficult to imagine that Mr. Howard may be placing the interests of multinational corporations who pay his estimated at $665,000/year salary over the rights and best interests of the average citizen of the United States.
A quote ascribed to Mr. Howard deals specifically with that pesky, over-complicated, full of rules, business regarding jury trials:
“If you let every case come down to the vote of the jury
you never know where you stand.”
Given the right to a jury trial is part of the United States Constitution exactly whose “Common Good” would be represented by the changes he proposes: the manufacturer of an automobile whose gas tank was known to explode on impact or the human being (or their estate) affected by tragedy: a corporation citizen or the real living-breathing citizen (unless killed by a product or process)?
Allowed to succeed, Mr. Howard’s agenda would allow multinational corporations, specifically big oil and big agriculture, to continue to exploit this nation’s natural and civilian resources without concern of business-changing reprisal.
Power outages, gas rationing, and other effects from Hurricane Sandy brought a number of issues to focus. At the top of the list is that the capital intensive, centralized model of power generation and distribution no longer works. It is antiquated, inefficient, not scalable, and ridiculously expensive to run and to maintain.
A better model for power generation and distribution has its analogue in the internet’s architecture of distributed networking. Wiring already exists to each point of
consumption. With approximately 1000 watts of solar energy striking each square meter of our planet’s surface, increases in efficiencies of solar and wind technologies, it is time to reinvent the model of the public utility such that it actually is a corporation which exists to serve the public.
This is not a model that OPEC, Halliburton, BP, Exxon, Shell, and others, want to see develop for every reason we can imagine – and probably a few others.
Foreign firms, hungry to cash in on the American energy boom, have invested nearly $6 billion in U.S. gas and oil drilling in the last few weeks. – cnn.com
Energy giants from China, France and Spain have snapped up stakes in fields in Ohio, Mississippi, Colorado and Michigan.- cnn.com
An ancient historical text on the use of poison in warfare outlined a simple strategy:
Poison the water, you kill the land. Kill the land and you conquer its people.
Once water from the earth is unfit for human consumption, how much will you pay for a drink of clean water?
The challenges surrounding that of the reliable, renewable, and safe production of energy is what we need to study and to understand. This is also exactly where Halliburton, OPEC, and other clients of Philip K. Howard expect us all to fail.
Click the image below to play Josh Fox’s (Gasland) incredibly important film.
Peter Terezakis
There was something about Philip K. Howard’s presentation this past Tuesday night which troubled me. Actually, there were several items which did not sound quite right.
I did some research and attempted to both look and read between the lines of his presentation. The first item that came to my attention was Mr. Howard’s place of employment.
Mr. Howard is both founding partner (1999) and vice-chairman of the international law firm of Covington & Burling LLP.
Covington and Burling is not a typical law firm. In 1919 it represented the Kingdom of Norway against the United States, employs over 800 lawyers, offices including one in Beijing, Brussels, London, Seoul, and five in the United States. In January of 2011, Covington & Burling LLP became affiliated with the Institution Quraysh for Law & Policy which has offices in Doha, Jeddah, London, and Riyadh.
Partners at Covington and Burling are said to earn $665,000/year. As a senior partner and vice-chairman, Mr. Howard’s compensation package may be substantively greater than that of other partners.
Money has its own momentum. The momentum of directed wealth possesses the power to change laws, policies, and history. Vast sums of money focused on an issue transform momentum into pure energy enabling water to run uphill, blue skies to become pink, and to alter what is best for a people to that which serves the interest of corporations.
“If you let every case come down to the vote of the jury you never know where you stand.” – Philip K. Howard
Given the right to a jury trial is part of the United States Constitution exactly whose “Common Good” would be represented by the changes Philip K. Howard proposes? The manufacturer of an automobile whose gas tank was known to explode on impact, the human being (or their estate) affected by corporate negligence, or oil and gas companies exempted from key environmental laws and regulations?
Who will lose when multi-billion dollar corporations are allowed to corrupt our government and have their way?
Peter Terezakis
ITP, Tisch School of the Arts
New York City
There was a time in my life when I thought a great deal about the nature of reality. During this period I read Gregory’s now classic, Eye and Brain while researching the relationship between the eye and the brain with respect to perception. Discovering R.L. (Richard Langton ) Gregory’s name in the list of essays was like seeing an old friend and piqued my curiosity.
I read “Recovery from Early Blindness” for ITP’s Applications Class and was alternately disappointed and offended by the near clinical disregard for the life of the paper’s human subject who had his vision restored through a series of surgeries. I was unable to relate to the frat-boy exuberance at having a “real live test subject” by which a number of philosophical and psychological theories could be vetted. The information within this paper was obtained by the coin of a man’s bewilderment, suffering, and eventual suicide. The excitement generated and experienced by a society which left a human being to fend for himself after a life-changing event was misplaced at best. While the sensationalism accompanying the successful operation(s) rightfully promoted the careers of key medical personnel, it also possessed a darker side. Throughout the readings and BBC interview, there was an element of thoughtless freak-show curiosity reminiscent of that which accompanied another English medical patient named Joseph Merrick.
Aside from the above, as I read this paper I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the best introduction to the work of one of last century’s better-respected experimental psychologists. Before getting to what was presented in “Recovery from Early Blindness” I’d like to introduce you to some of what I learned from reading “Eye and Brain” and then return to the “Recovery” article.
“Eye and Brain” helped me to begin to understand how easily the mind could be led to misinterpret physical reality through both example and explanation. I remember the book being slow reading as there is an inverse relationship between the impact of a visual phenomenon and the amount of text necessary to explain what you think you saw: the more successful the illusion, the more detailed the hypothesis presented to explain why our brain errs.
The Pogendorff illusion(1860) featured in his book (though not this particular illustration) is a good example. If you click the image you will open a Wolfram page with an abbreviated explanation:
Hold a piece of paper diagonally along the black line to see how it connects to the red, not the blue line. It’s hard to believe that what you are seeing is wrong even if it is a foot away from you.
Gregory’s “Eye and Brain” is populated with examples like the one above nested between theory and observation. His research contained a number of concepts which I have carried throughout my life. One is that contrary to the ego, the brain doesn’t always know the true nature of visually perceived reality. Another concept is a corollary to the book’s thesis: if information between the eye and brain may be subject to conditions which could create an optical illusion, it follows that communications between the brain and its other sensory systems may also be subject to creating illusory phenomena.
The definition and investigation of the mechanics of how and what we think we see of the world around us is at the very least, intriguing. The concepts are not restricted to neuroscientists and psychologists. An understanding of how the process of moving patterns of photons striking our retinas eventually imparts knowledge of the world around us possesses physical, psychological, and possibly even spiritual significance. If nothing else, this knowledge can increase our sense of awe, wonder, and respect for the amazing biomachines which we inhabit.
If you have ever wondered whether or not “The Big Lie” theory (apart from Orwell’s Animal Farm and advertising) possesses a counterpart in the physical world, the answer is “yes.”
Routing out the first great deception of life lies in understanding the physics of what occurs when photons impact sensing cells at the tip of your brain through what are essentially twin holes in your head: our eyes are holes which pass light from the world around us directly to our brains.
The issue is that this assumption is fundamentally inaccurate. The fact is that we assemble images of the external world within our eye and then translate that information such that we project what we see into a spatial volume outside and apart from us.
Light strikes the sensing portion of our eyes creating an image which arrives both inverted and reversed on the sensing region of the optic nerve (retina). This information is then reinterpreted by the brain to be “right side up” as well as flipped to be “right reading.”
Optical data is both inverted and reversed on the interior curve of the eye. • This image is under license.
Images consist of shape, shadow, color, tone, and location in space. What we see in an image may not on its own communicate information vital to the survival of the organism. Inferences regarding danger, proximity, safety, food, hot, cold, sharp, blunt, or useful, occur in the brain which processes visual data. From the battlefield, to the bedroom, and beyond, both eye and brain have evolved to help safely navigate our bodies through rapidly changing scenarios during the challenges of our lifetimes.
The eye is an incredibly complex extension of the brain. While we think that we are seeing everything in our visual field in sharp focus, the reality is that we are not. There is one relatively tiny area in the eye called the fovea which contains the cells which create the sharpest focus of our vision. Adjacent sensing areas do detect imagery but not with the same level of resolution. With a diameter of 1 mm the fovea (point of central focus located at the interior back of the eye) is hard wired to fifty percent of our visual cortex. Through rapid eye movements (saccadic eye movement) we are able to bring sharp focus to our visual world by rotating our eyes up to 500 degrees per second effectively scanning and painting what is in a our field of attention with detailed information.
The answer to the riddle of movement in the image below resides in the fovea.
If you focus on one dot for five or six seconds, you should be able to stop the movement within the illusion. The movement stops when you hold focus. Allowing the eyes to scan the area at all sets the image spinning.
Visual perception may be defined as the result of the combined efforts of both eye and brain. The subject is fascinating, rich, complex, and overlaps a number of disciplines.
While “Recovery from Early Blindness” was the research which catapulted R.L. Gregory’s career into the forefront of his profession, the essay is out of context with both his later body of work and the significance of the research when it was first published. Reading “Recovery” forty years later, I was deeply unsettled by the way Mr. Bradford was treated by the operating physician, Gregory, and the social structure in which the subject lived and died. The relatively recent BBC interview with Gregory regarding Sidney Bradford confirmed an attitude that was more about discovery and less about humanity than I was comfortable hearing.
In “Recovery from Early Blindness” Gregory investigated and tested the responses of a fifty-two year old man who had his sight restored through corneal transplants. From a sighted person’s perspective the operation was a success: Sidney Bradford regained his sight in 1958.
The essay establishes that prior to the operation Sidney Bradford was happily married, employed as a machinist, able to cross streets by himself, and according to Gregory, possessed a high degree of self-confidence. After the operation Sidney was unable to hold any type of job, was fearful of crossing streets, became increasingly depressed, and committed suicide on August 2nd, 1960 two years after the surgery.
Once Mr. Bradford became sighted, he was subject to the same workplace standards as sighted machinists were held. Complicating the very real social pressures both in and out of the workplace, Sidney was unable to recognize facial expressions. He also could not identify the faces of his friends and recognized them only when they spoke.
I understand R.L. Gregory’s expression of scientific delight when his research subject expressed surprise at seeing a giraffe, amazement at the rich variety of colors in nature, failed to see depth in pictoral illusions and more. What I do not understand is how Dr. Gregory, the hospital where the surgery was performed, and/or the operating surgeon failed to provide lifetime counseling or assistance for their human lab rat.
This was a morbid illustration of, “the operation was a success but the patient died.” Though we should add, “slowly over time.” Bradford was not only bewildered and frustrated with his vision: he was also disappointed to his core.
| “His story is in some ways tragic. He suffered one of the greatest handicaps, and yet he lived with energy and enthusiasm. When his handicap was apparently swept away, as by a miracle, he lost his peace and his self-respect.We may feel disappointment at a private dream come true: S.B. found disappointment with what he took to be reality. — R.L. Gregory |
Not much remorse, sadness, or acknowledgement that as Sidney Bradford faded from the headlines the good doctors (and society) abandoned their science project to descend into a greater darkness.
Whether or not Sidney Bradford should have been afforded the consideration which research chimpanzees enjoy today is beyond the scope of this text. The greater question revolves around the ethical deployment of technology. Should technology be brought to bear to “correct” a situation just because it is possible? There are a lot of people who would say “yes” for any of a number of reasons. After reading about the arc of Mr. Bradford’s life, I am no longer certain that my traditionally bullish attitude toward technology is the only path forward.
There is a very real application of a kind of Newtonian physics at work then, now, and into the future. It is a law of action and reaction, of cause and effect. The law of unintended consequences exists and it applies to our families, the laboratory, the work bench, on and on; right through to the thoughtless words we sometimes utter. We are all are responsible for what we create and how it effects society and our planet.
Rest in Peace Mr. Bradford.
Peter Terezakis
ITP, Tisch School of the Arts
New York City
October 2012
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References in addition to those linked within document:
Recovery from Early Blindness, RL Gregory website
The Case of Sidney Bradford, RL Gregory interview
How do I look? RL Gregory, New Humanist, 2008
Recovery from blindness, Wikipedia
Richard Gregory. Wikipedia
Sidney Bradford, Wikipedia
To See and Not See, Oliver Sacks, New Yorker
Vision Seekers, Bruce Bower, Science News
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