Monday, October 1, 2012
Just in Time for Halloween
This is the third black widow spider I've found on our property within the last month. The first one I spotted was crawling across the kitchen floor one evening. This one (below) had set up shop in the backyard next to an old brick barbeque.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Who Handles History?
Who controls the recording and access of historical information in the world (on Earth)? In other words, which people and/or organizations have the most influence over what information is recorded, where it is stored, and for how long, and who has access to this information? The easiest and simplest answer would likely be that human historians and universities do. I would imagine that with widespread use (in the 21st century) of digital recording devices, wireless Internet, and digital media, it is much more difficult to say who is capturing what.
There is very likely a tremendous amount of overlap in what is being recorded since so many people will be capturing the same events from very similar perspectives. This also means it should be more difficult for any one organization, institution, or movement to dominate or control information flow (as well as access and use). Censorship should be more limited (or at least more difficult to perform under these circumstances); the breadth and diversity of information available to people around the globe should be increasing. In some ways this seems to be the case; there are hundreds of millions, indeed, trillions of (electronic) media files probably in existence right now. And yet I still see a homogeneity to all of these media files, much as we did before the existence of the Internet and computers. There are a handful of major "influencers" of thought and culture, and everything else that is not oriented with the ideas or culture being promoted by these influencers--all other ideas, values, activities, plans, concerns and so forth--exist on the fringe or in the crevices of the bulk of the enormous repositories of information of all types.
As long as humans have had language, we have all been able to act as "local historians" by simply observing the world around us and remembering what we experienced. For thousands of years this was the main form of human historical recordkeeping. Technology has certainly extended this ability, but regardless of how we record information for posterity, the methods and decisions for what and why we choose to capture for historical records are still greatly influenced by our values. At this point, one of the burning questions I still have is this: what are the fringe records or what is the fringe history for the last 1000 years? In other words, what has been omitted from "official" history (human history, i.e., the activities of humans on Earth during the last millennium) in recent centuries and by whom? We often say and hear that history is written by the victors, and I do believe this is usually the case, but what of the histories of the "losers"? Where/how can we find these? History should be a collage of multiple stories/perspectives--no version will reflect exactly what actually occurred, but it will hopefully prevent future people from having such limited views of what happened so as to draw false conclusions. As we also often hear, "those that don't know their history are doomed to repeat it."
There is very likely a tremendous amount of overlap in what is being recorded since so many people will be capturing the same events from very similar perspectives. This also means it should be more difficult for any one organization, institution, or movement to dominate or control information flow (as well as access and use). Censorship should be more limited (or at least more difficult to perform under these circumstances); the breadth and diversity of information available to people around the globe should be increasing. In some ways this seems to be the case; there are hundreds of millions, indeed, trillions of (electronic) media files probably in existence right now. And yet I still see a homogeneity to all of these media files, much as we did before the existence of the Internet and computers. There are a handful of major "influencers" of thought and culture, and everything else that is not oriented with the ideas or culture being promoted by these influencers--all other ideas, values, activities, plans, concerns and so forth--exist on the fringe or in the crevices of the bulk of the enormous repositories of information of all types.
As long as humans have had language, we have all been able to act as "local historians" by simply observing the world around us and remembering what we experienced. For thousands of years this was the main form of human historical recordkeeping. Technology has certainly extended this ability, but regardless of how we record information for posterity, the methods and decisions for what and why we choose to capture for historical records are still greatly influenced by our values. At this point, one of the burning questions I still have is this: what are the fringe records or what is the fringe history for the last 1000 years? In other words, what has been omitted from "official" history (human history, i.e., the activities of humans on Earth during the last millennium) in recent centuries and by whom? We often say and hear that history is written by the victors, and I do believe this is usually the case, but what of the histories of the "losers"? Where/how can we find these? History should be a collage of multiple stories/perspectives--no version will reflect exactly what actually occurred, but it will hopefully prevent future people from having such limited views of what happened so as to draw false conclusions. As we also often hear, "those that don't know their history are doomed to repeat it."
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