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Tag Archives: Technology

Back to My Future, Forward to the Past

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Marriage, Mount Vernon New York, Movies, music, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Work, Youth

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Back To The Future (1985), Back To The Future Part II (1989), Capitalism, Clean Air, Climate Change, Coping Mechanisms, Coping Strategies, Food Security, Future, Hoverboards, Innovation, Invention, Luddites, Matter-Energy Converters, Michael J. Fox, Microchips, MRI Machine, Nuclear Fusion, Past, Present, Racism, Replicators, Settler Colonialism, Technology, What Ifs


Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly on a hoverboard in 2015 in Back To The Future Part II (1989), screen shot, January 1, 2015. (http://youtube.com).

Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly on a hoverboard in 2015 in Back To The Future Part II (1989), screen shot, January 1, 2015. (http://youtube.com).

Happy New Year, everyone! It’s 2015, and the fictional year from Back To The Future (1985) has become reality. Yeah, right! There are no hoverboards — at least, ones that actually work, anyway — we still drive with internal combustion engines, and Whites still only vote for folks of color when they are truly desperate for some elusive change.

For me, though, 2015 confirms the reality that time really is an illusion, as I’ve spent time over the past thirty years imagining what life would be like in 2015. That imagining started in ’85. At fifteen, I could barely wrap my head around the idea that I could live to thirty years of age, much less that I could make it to forty-five.

Truly, that’s what growing up poverty and with abuse did for me. It created the impression that life was cheap and short. Dating, marriage, a kid, being a father, working on a third career? Heck, I spent so much of my life at fifteen constructing a sound track and a reality beyond my everyday circumstances, just to get by! I lived vicariously through my Mets and Giants especially. My conscious mind provided little space for constructing a reality based on my circumstances or the natural progression of a modern American life.

Collage of me at 15, 30 (with my wife), 40 (with my son), and 45, January 1, 2015. (Donald Earl Collins).

Collage of me at 15, 30 (with my wife), 40 (with my son), and 45, January 1, 2015. (Donald Earl Collins).

Gradually, I had to let go of most of my coping strategies in order to at least live for a better future, not just imagine it full of new technologies. I had to begin to place myself there as a whole person. It helped that I spent most of the 1990s in grad school and as a freshly minted professor teaching graduate courses in education foundations. Both helped me in looking at the past in order to understand my present and push for the future I wanted. Despite the betrayals and my mistakes along the way, I made it to thirty, mostly as the person I wanted to be.

Still, like most people, I have baggage. I have the kind of baggage that’s actually easy to ignore, and even easier to bury so deep into one’s mind and spirit that it would take the power of a flux capacitor to unearth. In writing about portions of my past over the years, I’ve dug up all of those haunts and demons, some of which I wish I hadn’t known existed in the first place. Writing about myself has been painful. But having a clear and complete understanding of every layer of onion from my past going back to 1969, and 1974, and 1976? It clears the air, even as it has induced five-alarm-fire headaches.

Beyond me, myself, and I, it has been absolutely necessary to live in the present, to find joy in both small and big moments, especially around the people in my life so near and dear to me. From my son’s first steps to his discovery of sarcasm, from watching my wife’s labor to receiving my first royalty check for Fear of a “Black” America. All of it was more significant than a new car, a better cut of steak, a fragrant glass of wine, or the latest version of the iPhone.

A Philips MRI machine at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden, February 12, 2008. (Jan Ainali via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

A Philips MRI machine at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden, February 12, 2008. (Jan Ainali via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

Speaking of our devolving material culture, I can’t help but make this observation now that we’re in 2015. We spend so much time and effort exalting ourselves over the latest technological innovations, the next version of some new piece of gadgetry. Seriously, when was the last time a new invention came around that truly transformed our lives writ large for the better, that was transformative in every way possible? The iPhone? Please! Phones have been around since the 1870s, and mobile phones since the 1970s. And, I don’t think the tens of thousands of Chinese factory workers really enjoy making these gadgets for our benefit. Flat-screen HD TVs? Gimme a break! The TV’s been here since the 1920s, and adding clarity with hundreds of channels has just make the size of its “vast wasteland” that much bigger.

Face it folks. There hasn’t been a major technological breakthrough since the inventions of the MRI machine and the microchip in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Personal computers, Google Chromebooks, Fitbit trackers, electronic fuel injectors, the Internet and those millions of apps? They are all derivatives of technologies that are as old as I am.

Let’s credit Apple and Microsoft and Google for new innovations. But we haven’t had any major breakthroughs worthy of Back To The Future. Hydrogen-fuel-cell and nuclear fusion technologies? They remain somewhere between a limited experiment and a pipe dream. A matter-energy converter so that we can stop growing and killing our food? We’ve barely discovered 3D-printing, and that’s still years away from everyday usage. Technology that can scrub the air of greenhouse gases without killing every living thing on the planet at the same time? Someone’s buried it somewhere.

MR angiogram in congenital heart disease, technically known as Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Drainage, February 22, 2011. (Jccmoon via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

MR angiogram in congenital heart disease, technically known as Partial Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Drainage, February 22, 2011. (Jccmoon via Wikipedia). Released to public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

Perhaps that’s what has happened in my lifetime. That with the killing of millions from war, disease, settler colonialism, out-and-out racism practiced on a societal level, unbridled capitalism and the constant quest for the immediate big profit, we’ve killed those people. A Black kid who could’ve created a faster-than-light drive. A Palestinian girl who may have developed a food replicator. An affluent White boy steered toward Wall Street who may have once thought through the idea of carbon capture from the upper atmosphere. Apparently we have none of this, because we don’t want that future. We only want to imagine that future while wallowing in the -isms of our pasts and presents, minus any wisdom or understanding.

Racism Doesn’t Care What Year It Is

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, eclectic music, Movies, music, Politics, Pop Culture, Youth

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"And The Beat Goes On" (1979), "I Have A Dream" speech, "We Shall Overcome", Bigotry, Civil Rights Act, Individual Racism, Institutional Racism, Internet, James Byrd, Jonathan Ferrell, Laws, Marissa Alexander, MOVE, Oppression, Philadelphia PD, Racism, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Social Justice, Social Media, Sophia Stewart, Structural Racism, Technology, Television, The Matrix (1999), The Whispers, Trayvon Martin, Voting Rights Act, Wachowski Siblings, Yusef Hawkins


Joel Ward in celebration with Washington Capitals teammates after scoring game/series winning goal in Round 1 of Stanley Cup Playoffs against Boston Bruins (all while fans chanted racial slurs), April 26, 2012. (http://www.flightunit.com/).

Joel Ward in celebration with Washington Capitals teammates after scoring game/series winning goal in Round 1 of Stanley Cup Playoffs against Boston Bruins (all while fans chanted racial slurs), April 26, 2012. (http://www.flightunit.com/).

One of the many throwaway sentences I’ve heard and read for almost all of my life has increasingly driven me more nuts over the years. In response to a racist statement or incident, an interviewee on the air or someone writing a column will say, “It’s 1984!” or “This is 2006!,” with “and we’re still putting up with this?” or “and we’re still dealing with” racism or bigotry to finish the thought. It’s the one phrase you can expect anyone White, Black, Latino, Asian and/or American Indian to use when interviewed or with access to a public platform. As if the year in which racial injustice and bigotry manifests itself actually matters!

Seriously, did people think that marches, speeches and laws alone would end up killing the complex and morphing structure of American racism that’s existed for more than three centuries? Did we really think that singing “We Shall Overcome” and quoting Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech would allow individual Whiteness and hatred to melt away? Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 somehow supposed to end all race-based discrimination, even when fully enforced (of course, the federal government has never fully enforced these laws)?

Picture of Michael Griffith, killed by car after group of Whites in Howard Beach, Queens attempted to beat him and his friends with baseball bats on December 20, 1986. (Denis Hamill; http://nydailynews.com).

Picture of Michael Griffith, killed by car after group of Whites in Howard Beach, Queens attempted to beat him and his friends with baseball bats on December 20, 1986. (Denis Hamill; http://nydailynews.com).

Yes, we live in an ultra-modern age, where my generation and my son’s generation know more about the world, the universe and life than my mother and grandfather’s generations. But having more knowledge often means that we as humans tend to be more destructive toward each other before becoming wise enough to end that specific pattern of destruction. Or, as has often been the case in human history, until a new group comes along and topples one structure of oppression before implementing a new and sometimes kinder and gentler one.

To think about it another way, just because we’re technologically advanced and more scientifically driven doesn’t mean that humans in general — and Americans specifically — will act rationally and change their behaviors. Especially if it involves giving up an advantage — real or perceived — in the process.

Even though we invented the atomic bomb in 1945, it didn’t stop us from using it against the Japanese or racist White rednecks from beating to death Black veterans of World War II. Though we had television sets in nearly every American home in the 1960s, it didn’t stop Bull Conner from unleashing dogs and turning fire hoses on Black kids in Birmingham, Alabama, Medgar Evers from getting shot in Mississippi or Selma, Alabama marchers from getting beat up. And though we were poised to land on the Moon in July ’69, it didn’t mean that James Earl Ray wouldn’t take a moment to blow away Dr. King fifteen months earlier.

The first oracle from The Matrix (1999, 2003), played by the late Gloria Foster, February 9, 2014. (http://matrix.wikia.com).

The first oracle from The Matrix (1999, 2003), played by the late Gloria Foster, February 9, 2014. (http://matrix.wikia.com).

In my own lifetime, there’s been more of this lag between knowledge, self-interest and racism. From Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst in ’89 to James Byrd being beaten, chained and dragged behind a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas in ’98. From the Philly PD’s bombing of MOVE and the community around it in ’85 to Hurricane Katrina in ’05. Not to mention individual incidents and distinctions, like Trayvon Martin, Marissa Alexander and Jonathan Ferrell. As the ’70s hit by The Whispers goes, “And The Beat Goes On.” We have the Internet, social media, the ability to mobilize outrage and righteous indignation into demonstrations for human rights and social justice. But the human capacity to build oppressive institutions remains, as well as our capacity to hate.

But, to quote The Oracle from The Matrix trilogy (1999-2003), not to mention Buddha, “Everything that has a beginning has an End,” right? Of course, that quote might well have been inspired by a story written by Sophia Stewart in ’81, whom the Wachowski siblings apparently plagiarized in making their multi-billion dollar films. Again, why does the year racism manifests itself matter?

Battlescar Galactica

02 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, eclectic music, music, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

"All Along The Watchtower", Battlestar Galactica (2004 series), Cylon Attack, Cylons, Divine Hand, Divine Intervention, Entertainment, Epic Story, Epic Tale, Extinction, Fandom, Human Condition, Humanity, Jimi Hendrix, Late Bloomer, Miniseries, Nuclear Annihilation, Reimagining, Revisioning, Technology, TV Series


Battlestar Galactica artwork, Season 4, October 12, 2008. (Halil Gökdal via Flickr.com/iTunes TV). Battlestar Galactica Prologue (2003)

I’m a sucker for an epic story in any form. A book, a movie, a TV series, even the occasional epic poem. It really doesn’t matter. I’m also a late bloomer, one who discovers the stuff of life late, but probably enjoys the stuff I discover more because it’s on my own time, without necessarily being part of a crowd or trend.

That convergence has hit me once again, at the ripe old age of forty-two, in the form of the revisioned series Battlestar Galactica (2003, 2004-09). I had planned to watch the original miniseries for this drama when it came out in December ’03, but with so many things outside the realm of then newborn baby Noah, writing and work that year, my watching Battlestar Galactica fell to the side.

I already had a lineup of shows to watch — Six Feet Under, Queer As Folk, Law & Order, CSI. I didn’t need a new thing on my screen, especially something that was based on such an old and goofy series from the ’70s with Lorne Greene, Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch. “What are they gonna do next, redo BJ & The Bear?,” I said to my wife when I first heard about the Battlestar Galactica miniseries in September ’03.

But as with so many events in my life, I stumbled on the miniseries, thanks in no small part to my wife. It was one late Friday night this past Easter weekend. I woke up about a quarter after three, having only been

Cylon Raider Scar screen shot, September 16, 2009. (Skier Dude via Wikipedia). Qualifies as fair use under US Copyright laws due to image’s poor resolution.

asleep about three hours, to my wife dosing off to the TV in our bedroom. I woke up to the sight of Cylon Raiders in flight, to a strange scientist seeing visions of either a skinny angel or his dead Cylon girlfriend, and Edward James Olmos playing the mercurial Commander Adama. I could tell in ten minutes that this series was way different from the Battlestar Galactica series of my ’70s youth.

The miniseries was on BBC America, so I watched it until 5 am, and then discovered that they had skipped two full seasons ahead to a random Battlestar Galactica episode. I was fully awake by then, so I went on Netflix to find the entire Battlestar Galactica series available on streaming video. I watched season one that day, and season two Easter Sunday and that Monday.

In fact, I watched all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica in six days. I found the story engrossing, the acting intense, and the series an in-depth exploration of the worst features of the human condition under the most difficult of stresses and circumstances. It was so unlike the original series that after a few episodes, I didn’t even think about the differences anymore. The story of a flawed, destructive race of humans fighting each other while fighting for their survival against their more destructive yet more rational creations. I couldn’t help but fall in love with the series.

After that week, I finally read and watched the reviews and the comments about the series. They fell into two categories. There were plenty of folks who refused to watch the new Battlestar Galactica on principle. They saw the recasting of Starbuck as a woman an insult, the ability to make Cylons as human-esque machines blasphemy, and the revisioning of these humans as ones with many of our worst features multipled by a factor of ancient Greece, Rome and Persia an abomination. Oh well! I never liked the original series, with its idealized version of humanity, with its archetype good and evil characters, and with its goofy atmosphere in the midst of potential extinction, the ultimate epic crisis (“All Along The Watchtower” notwithstanding).

The other group was just like me. Fascinated by the lengths to which the producers and writers for the show went to present humanity at its most monstrous, between violence, selfishness, lust, greed, avarice and strive. Mesmerized by the cast’s ability to explore our worst and deepest fears, to hold out hope against hope, to take us into the depths of despair again and again.

The battle-scarred Battlestar Galactica finally reaches Earth (orbiting over the horn of Africa, March 21, 2009. (http://graphic-engine.swarthmore.edu).

I had to watch Battlestar Galactica a second time, this time more slowly and deliberately. So, through the second half of April and first half of May, I watched again, to find something remarkable. Despite their deep flaws, many scars and scabs, and twisted minds, there was something noble and redeemable about these humans, about the Cylons. Even the fact that the Cylons were a human creation didn’t matter. And to top that all off with a divine hand, a guiding force as the prime mover for the 50,000 humans that survived the nuclear annihilation of their twelve planets by the Cylons.

That really is an epic journey. One that heals as much as it scars. The story of my life the past thirty years, not to mention a reference in three of my posts over the past month. A commentary on the state of humanity in the early twenty-first century. What more can a late-bloomer ask for?

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

Boy @ The Window: A Memoir

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