A while back a couple Edge posts appeared on the topic of “code switching” (Merinda’s post is here and Monica’s is here). Listening to NPR this morning I heard a story on the NSA’s use of codewords for its various clandestine projects — how it follows longstanding conventions in writing them as one word and in all caps, like SHARKFINN, KEYSTONE, or DISHFIRE — and that made me think again on the topic of code switching. Continue reading ““They’ve Given You a Number and Taken Away Your Name””
Open Secret
On the way back from walking my dog this morning I caught the end of a radio story on the new documentary, “Open Secret”, which premiers tonight on Al Jazeera America. Seen the trailer?
Everyone but him seems to have known who his real mother was… So it got me thinking once again about how secrets work as identification practices — something that considerably presses the folk understanding of privacy as being, well, private. Continue reading “Open Secret”
Reduce, Reuse, Throw Away?
National Public Radio has another fascinating story on folk assumptions and the implications of classification. Heard it?
As the print version of the story opens… Continue reading “Reduce, Reuse, Throw Away?”
There She Is…
“[Nina Davuluri‘s] victory did inspire some disturbing posts on Twitter; people were upset that the honor was given to an Arab, which of course she is not. Supporters of the Miss American pageant were very upset themselves, and why shouldnt they be: all this racism was ruining their sexism.”
– Peter Segal, host of National Public Radio’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” (listen here)
Don’t Fence Me In
Need more data on how interior states and so-called private dispositions are actually products of prior, social, publicly observable and thus contingent situations that can be manipulated? Then have a listen to this recent radio report on how such a seemingly simple thing as posture is linked to research subjects’ reports of feeling powerful and how the way we stand or sit affects our behavior (i.e., people driving more aggressively when sprawled out in a large automobile). Continue reading “Don’t Fence Me In”
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
While 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”
What’s in a Name?
National Public Radio in the U.S. has a well-known correspondent named Mandalit del Barco — recently (and humorously) voted the best name in public radio. Her name is so well known to NPR listeners that the guys at “Car Talk,” a call-in car repair show, parody it — among the many other fictitious people who staff their show — in their closing credits, thanking their “inventory manager, Mandalit del Barcode.”
But what I find interesting is how she says her own name and what it says about our commonsense view of language and identity. Continue reading “What’s in a Name?”
We Can’t All Be Exceptional
National Public Radio — yes, I’ve been listening to it while driving to work in the morning and yes, I do contribute — has started a year long series on what they’re simply calling sacred music — listen to the first installment here. It’s on an actor in Hollywood — Ben Youcef (pictured in the middle, above) — originally from Algeria, who is also a muezzin (one who calls other Muslims to prayer). Continue reading “We Can’t All Be Exceptional”
Microbes and I
A radio report today was on the Human Microbiome Project, which (according to its own website), “is one of several international efforts designed to take advantage of metagenomic analysis to study human health.” What caught my ear in particular was when Lita Proctor, the director for the project, said: Continue reading “Microbes and I”