Digital Culture Studies

In today’s NYT, the headline reads, McCain’s Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out. In the interest of helping clear up the controversy, yes, McCain is eligible, under section 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the child of two US citizen parents citizenship at birth, as long as one of the parents has resided in the US for any length of time prior to the child’s birth. One is a naturally born citizen as long as they are citizens at birth.

But it drums up controversy, obfuscates real questions about McCain’s fitness to lead, wastes time and energy, and is, in the end, another “McCain Has A Black Baby” story.

NYT, the better story is, why can’t McCain’s daughter Bridget ever run for president? As a child adopted internationally, she held citizenship in another country at birth, and while she is a US citizen now, she, and the other quarter of a million children adopted internationally into the United States, are not eligible for the presidency. Why don’t these citizens hold the same rights as their biological siblings?

Its called “getting your Google MD”, and you know you have done it - that late night search to diagnose yourself. This scratch, is it infected? That ache - sprain or break or strain, or cancer? Because all Google medical searches end in cancer, according to my own n=1 experiments. Hangnail, or …cancer? ACL issue, or….cancer? Migraine or brain tumour? Its cancer, always cancer in the end, with Google searches, but we do it anyway, and for the not squeamish and highly hypochondriacal, there are always Google image searches on medical ailments to help the diagnosis along.
But now Google is getting into the business of individual health on a very real basis, via our health records, by creating a system that will allow patients to access and transfer their health records to a google repository. While the official word is that these records will remain secure, as soon as I saw this I started wondering about the privacy implications. Fred Stutzman says it more eloquently than I:

Can I ever really give informed consent when I’m trading my health records, deeply personal and private information, for the measly tradeoff of what essentially boils down to online hosting of text files? Sure, I’ve already given Google my search and communication information, but they had to work for it. But my entire medical history just so I can access it when I want? And they can market to me with that information? This is simply too much to give away for convenience.

My own health service has a wonderful online component - I can see and track my test results, run simple charts to show change over time, and message my doctor for minor stuff and/or request refills online. Its convenient, and private, and gives me a measure of control over my medical history, and it isn’t hosted by Google. Accessing my records digitally in this manner is covered by HIPAA, but using a third party vendor like Google may be considered a form of opting out of the protection of HIPAA. I cannot help but wonder who will see those records at Google, how will that information be mined, and what will they do with it? After all, Google isn’t an impartial philanthropic foundation devoted to the betterment of society via technology, although that seems to be the stance most users take when they use the search engine, download the search bar, and link google functionality to their Firefox browsers.

How much does Google know about you, and about me, and where is the balance going to be - where is that thin line where what we give up to them, privacy-wise, no longer is enough for what they offer?

Microsoft Researchers make me cry. Yeah, Scoble, I am running Vista Business on an IBM laptop, so Microsoft researchers make me cry on a daily basis, at every boot-up.

I would never be able to spell the word definitely. Well, until this site came along. Sadly, with an URL like that, I doubt many people can just type it into a browser and go, because it is one of the 100 most mispelled words.

• The Color of My Words
• Silent to the Bone
• The First Part Last
• Romiette and Julio
• The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

I caught Lee Siegel on a late night chat show this week (daily show or colbert), talking about his new book, Against the Machine, Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. I haven’t read it yet - I have the library getting me a copy, via interlibrary loan for some light spring break reading, because watching Siegel talk about his feelings regarding internet use was frustrating, and I always love reading a book that makes me angry :)

There is likely more to his thesis, but the general premise in his interview is that the internet is isolating, and that we are conversing with people we don’t even know, hiding behind usernames, elevating the most banal of interaction to cult-status while the cyber-mob tramples down creativity, intelligence, and freedom. Internet users are like drug addicts, the best of themselves sucked dry by the half-life avatars they pilot through the vapid, commercial-driven construct of the web, blah blah blah….. it isn’t anything you haven’t heard a million times before, and while I could point to a dozen reasons why he is wrong, I will merely ask one question: how is being online any more isolating than reading a book?

We ought to ban books, really - its an activity that isolates our kids, encourages them to sit for hours, staring at the page, and they don’t know anything about the person who wrote those words they are reading. My God! The horreur!

ahem.

Perhaps Mr. Siegel isn’t the best person to critisize the internet, or how people use it. After all, he was suspended from the New Republic for creating a pseudonymous second log-in account in order to post in the comments section of his own New Republic blog posts, in order to make it appear as if he had great support among his readership. That second account, under the name “sprezzatura” was always quick to praise Siegel, and just as quick to excoriate Siegel’s detractors within the comments.

It is the very worst standpoint in conservative academic thought to insist that the masses are unable to adequately care for their themselves, and that better minds, such as Siegel’s, ought act as their cultural gatekeeper. The internet is killing society, but luckily, high-minded thinkers like Siegel are immune. It is the common people that cannot be trusted to use the internet. After all, when we do, according to Siegel:

“Perhaps your husband is, at this very moment, shut away in his office somewhere in your home, carrying on several torrid affairs at the same time under his various aliases: ‘Caliente,’ ‘Curious,’ ‘ActionMan.’ When he emerges from his sequestered lair, red-faced and agitated, is it because he has been arguing for moderation with ‘KillBush46′ on the political blog Eschaton, has failed in his bid to purchase genuine military-issue infrared night goggles on eBay, or has been desperately masturbating while instant-messaging ‘Prehistorical2′?”

(quote via Salon)

Moral Panic! Reefer Madness! Invasion of the Body Snatchers! Teh interwebs can haz cheezburger! I have more to say on the topic, including the delicious irony that Siegel, a man that rails against irony, was promoting his book on an ironic comedy program, but the joke was too obvious, and also, I need to go see what is happening in that lair of ours.

89 Second Jane.

….the first spoof site. 90 Day Jayne. And….90 Day Poop. You really don’t want to click that second link, mmkay?

The internet is inherently voyeuristic. On it, we watch people beg for money to pay their bills, have sex on camera, photograph what they eat as a way of breaking bread virtually with their online community. The act of web surfing is a form of combined voyeurism and identity creation - do you look like me, do your actions validate my actions, is my particular kink kinkier than yours, are my kids better looking than yours, is my dog smarter, my blog better designed, are you writing things on your blog that I wish I was writing on mine, if I link to you what does that say about me? What I post defines me, what I surf defines me, the very nature of the web is that we redefine who we are and what we believe as we consume it.

I am a voyeur - the ultimate lurker, I watch and read and wait, and try to make sense of what I see - looking for smaller patterns in the bigger web picture. And now I am not sure what i am watching, or what my culpability is in watching it, but according to her website, Jane is planning on killing herself in 90 days, and is inviting us, the voyeurs, to watch her chronicle her last 3 months of life.

I am no stranger to the insane amount of energy people put into garnering a little attention online, but the consequences of this game are much higher than normal. That Jane is in LA makes me suspect this is a viral marketing blog - either for an actress, an indy movie, or a game, but as always, there is the worry that it is real.  

• settle on a site theme that I don’t hate. Harder than it seems.
• figure out comment spam issues
• fix domain email problem.
• update links list
• drop in a few widgets

When will this happen? Ummm…….yeah. Maybe spring break? for now, it sits here being ugly.