The Map is the Identity

Not long ago I heard a story on “Morning Edition,” the National Public Radio news show, on the order and identity that GPS and maps are now bringing to the Kenyan slum of Mathare (in Nairobi), and on the lives of a group of people there who have formed The Spatial Collective. Give it a listen here — but when you do, keep in mind Alfred Korzybski‘s (d. 1950) much-quoted statement that the map is not territory. Continue reading “The Map is the Identity”

Comfort Zone

rrr_author-photo_credit_suna-leeWhile listening to the radio on the way home from work the other day I caught an interview with Rachel Renee Russell, author of the bestselling series of adolescent novels, The Dork Diaries — the fictional diaries of a 14 year old girl. What caught my ear was the point at which the interviewer brought up the fact that she is African American while her teenage protagonist is not. Russell replied: Continue reading “Comfort Zone”

Tenuous Connections

MennoniteIn “The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia,” a story that recently ran on Vice.com, Jean Friedman-Rudovsky reports on a series of rapes that took place in Manitoba Colony, Bolivia, as well as the reaction of the community. According to the story, some men were breaking into houses, drugging, and raping women who—apparently because of the drugs—could not remember the event. Continue reading “Tenuous Connections”