Concerning The Gadget

By Lissa Harris on Sat, Sep 22, 2007 2:06 pm

del.ico.us | digg it! | reddit!

print | email | 3 Comments

Four words, people: It’s a damn nametag.

Take a good look at the photo on A1 of the Globe this morning: clearly, Star Simpson’s Infernal Machine—variously described as “a glowing device with wires coming out of it,” “a plastic circuit board decorated with green LED lights and wires leading to a nine-volt battery,” and, rather irritatingly, “a piece of art”—is a star. The fact that it’s her name kinda makes the thing seem a little less deliberately boneheaded—not to mention, a whole lot less pretentiously precious.

I wonder: If it had spelled out “Hello, My Name Is Star Simpson,” scary wires or no, would the submachine guns have been called in at all?

Diversity bad! Blog comments good!

By Lissa Harris on Mon, Aug 6, 2007 5:56 pm

del.ico.us | digg it! | reddit!

print | email | 3 Comments

Great piece in the Globe’s Ideas section Sunday: The Downside of Diversity by CommonWealth magazine editor Michael Jonas, about some shocking, shocking research by Harvard prof Robert Putnam.

Seems Putnam—who has done a lot to develop the idea of “social capital”—has done some work that suggests that all else being equal, ethnic and racial diversity in a neighborhood tends to make people less trusting of their neighbors, less likely to vote and be civically engaged, and more inclined to “huddle unhappily in front of the television.”

This, despite the generally salubrious effects a little diversity seems to have on our creative processes and ability to tackle complex problems in groups. According to the article (I’m generalizing like whoa here), diversity at work keeps us sharp and creative, but on our own block it turns us into numb shut-ins.

Chewy stuff, this. At least, if you’re not inclined to:

a.) get out your special Speaking Truth to Power Stick (still encrusted with a few stray bits of Larry Summers’ scalp), smite Putnam soundly over the head with it, and resume smugly crocheting your socialist macramé potholders for justice, your brain still blissfully uncontaminated by ideas; or,

b.) crack open a Genny Cream Ale, wave a filthy Confederate flag in the air for attention, and declare that this just goes to prove every last blasted dadgum retard thing your pappy ever told you about Liberals, Fags and Ay-rabs is the gospel truth.

Seeing as reactions a.) and b.) usually comprise much of the blogosphere’s sustained thought on this sort of topic, perhaps it’s optimistic to think we could have a really good conversation about this stuff. But still, it’d be nice to know what Bostonians think of it. I’ve got a third-generation Southie friend who would probably agree with a vengeance that the neighborhood’s civic participation has gone way down as new folks have moved in and the neighborhood has diversified. On the other hand, my own neighborhood, Lower Mills, is fairly diverse in ethnic/racial terms, and in the year I’ve lived here I’ve seen far more of neighbors getting to know each other and getting involved with the community than in my white, college-kid-dominated former Cambridge ‘hood. (I’m well aware that n = 2 is not a good sample size.)

Well, the same story appeared in the International Herald Tribune—apparently the NYT Co. thought enough of it to syndicate it westah Woostah. And the IHT allows comments on stories—so instead of the Received Wisdom of Michael Jonas, we get a lively little discussion going on, with its share of stoopid comments, to be sure, but also plenty of fairly reasonable discussion of whether “social capital” is always an unqualified good, prescient questions about Putnam’s methodology, and the like. I feel more edified for having read it.

It’s so frustrating to see the Globe do stuff like this—good stories just begging for mob analysis and argumentation—and waste the opportunity to get a bunch of smart Ideas/Brainiac readers bloviating about it. It seems like the comment forums on Boston.com are more often reserved for idiot stuff like “View From the Cube” and celebrity bullshit—since when we need to know what Our Fair City’s resident fucktards want to name Tom Brady’s baby?