Mr. Soy Boy

A Sound Geek's Look at The World Cup

2010-06-20T20:31:00.003-04:00

This is what a sound geek's mind drifts to during uninspiring stretches of World Cup matches: To my ears, the Vuvuzela drone centers slightly sharp of a B-flat. Within the manufacturing tolerences, there is a tonal drift up to about a B. For the $1 it costs to make them, I'm guessing they don't do quality assurance and hand-tuning on each one. This is probably a good thing: I shudder to think what would result of a stadium full of these blasting a precise frequency of say 390 Hz. The sympathetic resonance would probably flatten nearby structures of that resonant frequency.

This it also he reason it is so annoying. Slight detuning can be a very useful in music - the natural variations in intonation from the players in an Orchestra gives the sound a richness, and the tuning drift of analog synths is a large part of their charm and warmth.

However, with this degree of detuning relative to one another, a stadium of vuvuzelas yields this smear of frequencies that together give you a cacophony more like a car horn or a busy signal - think two adjacent tones on an out-of-tune piano.

Texas Board of Education Should Be Added To Some Required Lists

2010-05-23T03:49:00.009-04:00

Just when you thought the intellectual rigor of our country couldn't sink any lower, we have Bible-thumping dentists and real-estate brokers are determining the science and history standards for millions of kids nationwide. The Texas Board of Education has locked in the de facto education standards for our country with their textbook guidelines for the coming decade.

Because Texas buys the most books, the 3 major textbook manufacturers will these standards nationwide so the rest of the country gets dragged along in this idiocy. Thomas Jefferson has been expunged from a list of the country's great thinkers, and writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. have been removed from recommended reading lists. The roles of minorities and women in the struggles for civil rights and suffrage are downplayed (it was surely just the benevolence of the ruling white males that brought these about, no?).

I hereby propose the following: School boards from all other states should immediately add the 9 majority-voting members of the Texas School board to the list of this country's greatest morons. Maybe at least *their* names can be remembered for generations to come.

Who needs health care anyway?

2010-01-22T16:22:00.002-05:00

Looks like healthcare reform is on track to be watered down to the following: 1) A lucky dozen uninsured people will be allowed to pay full price to become insured and 2) Insurers will be required to provide everyone either a free desk calendar or a mousepad.

Thank you, dysfunctional political process!

Domu Calls It A Day

2009-11-18T15:27:00.003-05:00

[NOTE His own sites are rapidly disappearing, so I'm re-posting this for those who missed his original farewell to the music industry earlier this week ]

The End

It's over. I can't go into the personal reasons, but of course will leave you some explanation as to how I got here. It feels a bit like walking away from a life of crime or the Mafia. I am Carlito, I have finally made the break from the old dangerous way of making a living. I just hope Benny from the Bronx doesn't shoot me as I am boarding the last train out of here. The point is that I am no longer Domu. He is a character, always has been, and as of Friday 13th November 2009, he no longer exists. Neither does Umod, Sonar Circle, Bakura, Yotoko, Rima, Zoltar, Blue Monkeys, Realside or any of the other names I put out music under. I am cancelling all my gigs and not taking any more. My hotmail is closed, my Twitter is closed and my Facebook is closed. If any of you want to talk to me and know me well enough to have my mobile number then that is still the same, and please feel free to call any time. My other email address I mail from occasionally is still open to tie up any loose ends.

I had started to change, for the worse I am now sure. My confusion was growing, my insecurity and bitterness getting out of hand, a lack of creative direction and focus were leading me somewhere very dark. I have felt so depressed by all of this. Believe me I have searched my soul long and hard this year to find the reasons again why I do this, but I can't locate them. Too much of 'me' is mixed up into all of this, and no one should ever give so much of himself or herself to a job. I once believed in all of it, that I made and played music for a certain type of person, for people who didn't want to adhere to the 'normal' way of life, the free thinker, the independent or open minded type who was bored of the genres, the staples, the blueprints or the formulae. The underground. But I just don't truly believe I am needed in this battle anymore. It has been passed down to another generation, who are doing it their way, and I have no desire to try and edge in and start proclaiming to be fighting a fight that is no longer mine. I am a 31-year-old man. I can't claim to be holding a torch up to something that meant so much to me at 15. At 21, maybe. But now, after ten years going full time, I think I have said all I had to say. My creative light has dimmed. Maybe because I started so early, who can tell? But I feel satisfied that this is it.

I have had an amazing time. I've travelled the world, drank and partied and made a decent living out of entertaining people throughout all of my 20's. I met some incredible people in cities I never dreamed I would visit, shared my thoughts and collected wisdom from a huge range of deeply profound and lovely people. But I have also met some real arseholes, and I could feel I was becoming one. Playing records I wasn't sure I liked to people who had no idea who I was. I had gone cold, cold to the music, to the reactions and to the point of it all. I was changing what I thought I liked, so that I would be liked. I am not a chameleon. I am not Madonna, I can't stay abreast of the current styles and keep changing with it just to stay in fashion or retain some kind of credible status or career. I have had my moment. If you know me well, you would have sensed a change in me over the last two years. I have always suffered with problems of confidence, but I know that's not why I am throwing in the towel. I feel like I have to change so much of what I think is 'me' to carry on. What I believe in, how to talk to people, how to behave. I just don't think I can be so arrogant and harsh to stand out anymore. There is so much noise out there that people have to shout louder and louder to be heard. And for what? I am beating myself up over something I no longer believe in for an income that is stressfully patchy and more often than not, very low...

...I'll leave you all with this. Life isn't the X-Factor. No one has a God given right to his or her dream or ambitions coming true. I have worked hard and had some great luck. I followed some opportunities, squandered others. I have no regrets, other than not stopping when I knew I should have done this time last year. The only thing you have to guide you through your life is your instinct. Sometimes the right decision isn't the easiest, but between your conscience and your intuition you will find the answer. Please listen to it. It's you.

Pointing Backwards, Indeed.

2008-10-07T13:47:00.004-04:00

[I had meant to post this the other night, but better late than never - C]

""Say it ain't so, Joe…There you go again, pointing backwards…" Sarah Palin's overly-crammed brain was aching to unload these canned Reaganesque quips at some point during the debate.

It is understandable that her handlers would program them into her limited arsenal. They were emergency generic punch lines just waiting to be delivered in lieu of substance-- a diversionary device like a flare or a smoke bomb to be used in case of an unanswerable charge from Biden. Do whatever it takes to keep the focus off your party's disastrous record on nearly every issue.

Never mind how we got in this mess. Pay no attention to the past. How dare you bring up the record we're running on (while we're simultaneously trying to run from it)? We can't learn anything from history. If it didn't happen in the last 5 minutes, it's ancient history…our slate is clean. Everything is new and unprecedented. I call do-overs! Mulligan!! I am the great and powerful Oz!!! Umm…what was the question again, Gwen?

I imagine her car mechanic tells her "No, don't tell me about your car's symptoms or the service records…that's all in the past. I'm sure we're dealing with some utterly new problem unique to your vehicle. I'll just get to fixin' the problem…"

Sometimes there's a reason for the blame game. It does matter as to the causes of global warming, avoidable wars and financial meltdowns. It matters because you can't address the cause if you don't even know what it is. Treatment is much different whether a headache is caused by encephalitis or a hangover.

Even Palin understands this on some level because, (miracles aside), she realizes that sex is the overwhelming cause of pregnancy. She determined that the cause of her daughter's pregnancy was not the failure of abstinence programs. It was caused by unprotected sex with a boy and therefore needed to be solved by a ceremony involving a shotgun and a preacher.

Common Sense is so overrated - Chauncey Canfield - Open Salon

2008-10-03T03:42:00.000-04:00

Common Sense is so overrated - Chauncey Canfield - Open Salon

USS George W. Bush - a joke continues.

2008-10-02T01:52:00.011-04:00

There is a joke email making the rounds among Republicans...3 new naval vessels are supposedly being launched and the email shows pictures and describes the specs. The USS Reagan is (appropriately) a massively expensive behemoth--a war hawk's wet dream of a floating city-sized arsenal. The USS Clinton is an unarmed slow ship made of recycled materials docked in Canada whose only mission is to appease. Finally the USS Barack Obama is simply shown as a rusty sinking boat teeming with refugees from Cuba (theapparent implication: he has dark skin, so is from the third world?) . Priceless. Ah...such trenchant wit.

Anyway, you get the picture (I'm not going to drive traffic to these sites, but Google "Three New Navy Ships" and you'll find some variant of it on every right wing blog).

I got to thinking...wait a minute--they're missing a ship in this lineup! You know the guy--that funny-talking guy they were so into for 8 years. I had more than a little fun imagining what his Naval namesake might look like:

USS George W. Bush [Crusader-class]

This ship (nicknamed "The Decider") is estimated to cost in excess of $700 Billion dollars. However, since it is entirely funded by off-budget [read: perpetual crisis] dollars, the true cost could exceed 3 Trillion dollars in payments to Halliburton and Bechtel with no-bid contracts.

The sheer weight of this vessel -- 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons -- has lowered the standing of the US in the world...literally. It has physically sunk the North American continent nearly four feet, causing New Orleans to disappear beneath the Gulf of Mexico. The USS Bush is equipped with onboard shadow prison cells complete with the most modern enhanced interrogation techniques...enough to take all of the Abu Ghraib and Gitmo detainees and many more. Operating in International waters allows the crew to skirt those "quaint" Geneva conventions and saves the taxpayers money currently spent flying prisoners to Syria for extraordinary rendition. Its enormous cargo holds can carry enough democracy to administer freedom (by force feeding or, if necessary, via other orafices) to foreign societies around the globe.

It is not known if it is actually sea-worthy, since the design was entirely faith-based. Political ideology concerns overrode all design recommendations of so called "experts" -- the physicists, mechanical, naval and materials engineers with their fuzzy "math" and "reality-based" science. This intelligently-designed ship has real small town values and, in fact, was fully assembled in place at an actual small town in rural landlocked Nebraska. These simplistic "common-sense" ideas sought to make the hands-off operations ot the vessel "idiot-proof". However, during unmanned test runs over an 8 year period, a mentally-challenged simian operated the prototype unsuccessfully with universally catastrophic results

The vessel's low-slung decks allow it to be operated almost completely in stealth. One tradeoff inherent to this design is that it yields an extremely limited view of the surroundings. From such a short-range perspective, the vessel's obscenely high fuel consumption is not seen as a problem, since cheap, plentiful oil is expected to be available forever and ever. Even in normal operations, a nearly impregnable "bubble" surrounds the commander's quarters making it nearly impossible for communications from the outside world to reach them should a change of course be neeeded.

Standing orders are to have it operated by loyal political appointees only. People with Naval experience and elite "knowledge" need not apply. The commanding philosophy of the ship will be to jettison of all naval regulations and international standards -- by "getting government out of the way," these true American heroes aboard can act from their gut from all times, doing God's work. Voluntary compliance with Constitutional protocols is allowed, but not encouraged.

This vessel specializes in reactionary missions--continually responding to situations with historical precedence, yet were completely unforseeable by anyone. By removing weighty traditional post-mission planning facilities, the USS GW Bush was designed to quickly attain full speed -- careening headlong into conflicts (alongside its stalwart fleetmate, the USS Cheney) before anyone has time to think. Significant cost savings were achieved by eliminating navigational systems, which were deemed unnecessary. This leaves the decision entirely with the states as to which dark-skinned oil-rich country is to be invaded next. Interestingly, it is the horrific wake of this ship which has proven to be particularly devastating to the environment and the global economy. As such, many nations no longer want anything to do with it and have denied it entry to their coastal waters.

David Byrne + Brian Eno New Release: First impressions

2008-09-09T03:38:00.003-04:00

Listening to their first collaboration in over 2 decades, it is quite apparent that this is no "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" but I freely admit that I'm predisposed to enjoy whatever these two musical heroes of mine create. I set aside some time to spend with their new release and here are my impressions.

"Familiar, yet fresh" would be my short take on it after first listen. Their combined musical vocabulary continually evokes elements of solo efforts as well as various eras of Talking Heads (particularly "Little Creatures, my least favorite release of theirs). "Strange Overtones" is my far and away favorite...as solid a track as anything Talking Heads ever released. Overall Eno's bleeps, drones and sawtooths are wedded to updated beats which occasionally diverge into the afrobeat, but more often tread into a gentle country shuffle. Nothing earth-shattering or revolutionary, but still a worthy base for his partner to latch onto. Byrne delivers his unique lyrics in a voice that is alternately plaintive or snarled through clenched teeth. His voice, as we've heard on his numerous solo albums, has matured and strengthened mightily since his early nervous adenoidal spazmodic tics, and yelps.

The two of them obviously had fun putting this together and the results are intriguing, but safe. Overall this is a solid listen I"m looking forward to digging into further. 4 of 5 stars.

Sen. Ron Wyden's great video short

2008-04-17T17:54:00.000-04:00

This is another reason I love Oregon...Senators like Ron Wyden working tirelessly on this type of issue:

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Campaigns do tell us something after all - Community Writers Blog - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:43:00.000-04:00

Campaigns do tell us something after all - Community Writers Blog - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

Why Oregon? - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:40:00.000-04:00

Why Oregon? - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

Making history doesn't make it right - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:39:00.000-04:00

Making history doesn't make it right - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

End the nightmare of Gitmo - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:38:00.001-04:00

End the nightmare of Gitmo - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

What if everybody behaved like U.S.? - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:38:00.000-04:00

What if everybody behaved like U.S.? - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

A healthy skepticism - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:36:00.001-04:00

A healthy skepticism - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

Feedback loops, crowd behavior and other craziness - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-16T01:36:00.000-04:00

Feedback loops, crowd behavior and other craziness - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

Letters: Hey, Obama boys: Back off already! - Salon

2008-04-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

Letters: Hey, Obama boys: Back off already! - Salon - Editor's Choice Response

Random thoughts on an election - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-15T10:55:00.002-04:00

Random thoughts on an election - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

Move now toward a post-oil economy - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

2008-04-15T10:54:00.002-04:00

Move now toward a post-oil economy - Opinion - The Oregonian - OregonLive.com

What is this? Portland "Jazz" Radio show flips expectations

2008-03-05T13:44:00.001-05:00

Willamette Week Discussion with DJ Santo of KMHD Portland on his weekly show "Something Different" which has been turning heads and gaining new listeners since it's debut in 2006.

read more | digg story

Support "Net Neutrality" - Oregonian Opinion

2008-01-03T17:53:00.000-05:00

Support "Net Neutrality" - Oregonian Opinion

Posted by The Oregonian December 08, 2007 08:00AM

Categories: Chauncey Canfield, The Oregonian's Community Writers

When broadband internet arrived in Washington, D.C., back in 1998, I was first in line to sign up. I loved the zippy performance and the fact that my provider kept lowering my monthly charges, even as it tripled the speeds.

Upon arrival in Portland last year, I was dismayed to find my broadband choices were limited: Qwest or Comcast. I felt like I had gone back in time: much higher prices, uploads at the anemic speed I had nearly a decade ago -- 20 percent as fast as my prior service.

I had little choice but to opt for Comcast's "premium" business-class service -- twice the price for half the speed of my prior service. Verizon tantalizes me with its speedy FIOS, but can't legally encroach on Qwest's territory.

As a full-time telecommuter and business owner, broadband Internet is not a luxury, it is critical to my livelihood. My music production company relies heavily on upload bandwidth to deliver weekly syndicated radio shows and other content to clients around the world.

With the U.S. trailing well behind Europe and Asia in broadband speed and access, our region is being placed at a further competitive disadvantage against other high-tech cities around the world, but there are deeper issues at stake.

It turns out Comcast doesn't even deliver the "Unlimited Internet" they advertised -- they've been caught disrupting traffic to the legal peer-sharing services I utilize to upload material. Speed is irrelevant if Comcast sabotages uploads to prevent their completion.

As the nation's largest cable operator (and second largest Internet provider), Comcast already wields tremendous media power. Do we really want such monopolies to determine which content and programming we can access?

By segregating traffic, Comcast could penalize startup competitors wanting to offer movies and TV via internet. Their corporate boards could stifle dissenting political opinions by blocking subscribers' access to specific sites.

I urge readers to support the "Net Neutrality" legislation in Congress to protect the open access and standards of equality that make the Internet so valuable a resource.

The health care equation - Oregonian Opinion

2008-01-03T17:30:00.000-05:00

Chauncey Canfield: The health care equation - OregonLive.com: Oregonian Opinion

Posted by The Oregonian December 29, 2007 08:00AM

Categories: Chauncey Canfield, The Oregonian's Community Writers

A baby is born with a congenital heart defect. Here's hoping his parents can maintain an unbroken string of medical coverage, because his ailment instantly became a "pre-existing condition" and is thus uninsurable. Similarly, if you wreck your car, you can't buy retroactive accident coverage the next day to pay for it.

The question no one seems to be asking is, "Why is insurance even part of the health care equation?"

Everyone is susceptible to catastrophic health issues from a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors, risky behaviors and random dangers. It is morally bankrupt to limit access to quality, affordable care because of the vagaries of one's genes or employment status, yet this is what our employer-based system of private insurance does.

Insurance was developed to lessen the financial consequences of uncertain risks by spreading those costs over a population. But we know that everyone needs regular preventive care, so why do we "insure" against something inevitable? We don't buy insurance for our water or grocery bill, so why should we for office visits?

Preventive care also saves the system money overall. One major medical incident can easily exceed the cost of a lifetime of checkups and office visits. However, with employers changing their insurance providers almost yearly, the odds are very low that any patient they provide "well-visits" to today will still be insured by the same company in 30 years. What financial incentive do these insurers have to keep other insurers' patients healthy in the long term?

This is a strong argument for a single-payer system -- where the same organization sees the big picture costs and benefits for all of the participants in a balanced system of preventive and catastrophic care.

Corporations (and their fortunate employees) are already paying through the nose for any coverage they've managed to get. Eliminating the redundant, incompatible paperwork schemes of hundreds of insurers would allow more of these health care dollars to make it to the providers.

Removing "insurance" from the health care equation and allowing all citizens to participate in this system is the ethical and economic right choice.

-- Chauncey Canfield

Embrace connectivity - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T04:36:00.000-05:00

Originally Published in the Oregonian Dec. 22, 2007

Embrace connectivity - Oregonian Opinion

Consider: Each generation considers the music of its youth as the apex of creative genius but almost invariably derides what follows as unlistenable garbage.

In much the same way, cultural observers throughout history bemoan how we're forever receding from some recent mythical golden age. "Things were simpler then," they like to tell us. "People were friendlier" and "Technology didn't run our lives" are prevailing themes we hear with increasing regularity.

We are seduced by these romanticized notions of bygone eras. A past -- even a mythical one -- can be reassuring and give one a sense of control in a world of increasing complexity and change. Alas, turning back the clock is not an option. Fortunately, the past was not as uniformly Utopian as it's made out to be; and the present is not as unavoidably bleak.

We forget how life in pre-industrial society could be brutish, nasty and short. We've rapidly evolved from a rural agrarian society to a high-tech world interconnected by instantaneous communications. This has had profound impacts on human relationships.

Perhaps the most dramatic change has been to our sense of community. Until relatively recently, people rarely traveled widely or left their towns, so exposure to other cultures was severely limited. Communities were tight-knit, but since they resulted entirely from proximity, they could also be very insular.

Contrast that with today's global culture, where people can freely move about (virtually or otherwise) to interact with like-minded individuals who share their causes and passions. From the environment to commerce, ours is a world in which everyone is increasingly interdependent on each other, albeit on a larger scale. Where folks used to raise a barn for their neighbor, people of today are mobilizing microloans to finance small businesses n Ecuador.

Change can feel depersonalizing or empowering. Sure, an e-mail is less "personal" than a letter, but it fosters interaction with circles of acquaintances worldwide -- something unheard of 50 years ago. I still chat with my neighbors, but I've expanded my circles of friends to other continents as well. As a result, I feel more aligned with (and invested in) my global community than ever before.

Moreover, many things that people consider depersonalizing, others find liberating. Nothing against bank tellers, but I like the impersonal ATM -- it works on my schedule, allowing time for other creative pursuits. The same goes for text messaging, online shopping and voice mail.

Modern society frees us from so many menial tasks and ancient hazards (i.e. diseases, starvation). Who says we can't seize the opportunity to engage in activities that enhance our community and human interaction?

Sometimes it's all a matter of perspective. Take the Internet, for example. To some, it's a cesspool of anonymous escapism and depravity. It also happens to be an unprecedented compendium of the world's accumulated knowledge -- a hub of unbridled collaboration where people engage with each other and explore their world in ways unimaginable 30 years ago.

Societies grow and change but there is nothing inherently depersonalizing about this. The choices are ours to make.

-- Chauncey Canfield

Pop quiz at Christmas - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T04:34:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the Oregonian, December 15, 2007 08:00AM

Pop quiz at Christmas - Oregonian Opinion

It's the holidays, so let the annual battles over religious displays and seasonal greetings begin. I thought I'd offer a quick Civics 101 refresher course to limit the grief and legal expenses.

Lesson One: If you want to say "Merry Christmas" to anyone and everyone around you, have at it. However, if your employer wants you to greet customers with a generic "Happy Holidays," you should a) abide by their wishes or b) find other work. The US Government and the Constitution have nothing at all - zilch, nada, zip -- to say about this.

Lesson Two: If you want to place a nativity scene on your property, knock yourself out. Same goes for your church.

Simple, huh?

So where does the confusion and controversy come in? Much of it stems from intentionally sloppy usage of the word "public" by right-wing alarmists trying to convince people of faith that practicing religion in public has become illegal.

Public can mean "open to the view of all," as in being seen in public, or it can mean "pertaining to a government function, or facility," as in public official or public park .

(Hint: The latter should not be involved with religion). To summarize:

Religious displays on private property, visible to the public? Sure.

Religious displays on Public property? No can do.

That's it, in a nutshell.

Bonus lesson for extra credit: A religious lobbying group set up shop in a D.C. rowhouse opposite the U.S. Supreme Court building. One year, they installed a tiny plastic creche on their property's front lawn, in proud symbolic defiance of the Justices across the street. They then staged a painfully earnest press conference about how they expected (nay, dared?) the jackbooted thugs from the government to swoop in and confiscate their display. Sadly for them, no one paid them any mind, (well, besides me and another bemused passerby). Incredibly, nobody from the nearby ACLU headquarters came by to sue them or kick it over, either.

Explain and discuss.

Class dismissed.

-- Chauncey Canfield

Believing our own eyes - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T04:26:00.000-05:00

Originally published in the Oregonian, Dec. 01, 2007

Believing our own eyes - Oregonian Opinion

I am fascinated by people who embrace the many advances of scientific discovery, but are quick to discount any studies which go against their preconceptions and beliefs.

Some of this is understandable. Since the dawn of history, humans have been served well by their senses to navigate their surroundings. We're predisposed to use anecdotal experiences as compelling evidence -- our "common sense."

However, we've long passed the age where simple unaided observation yields much new information of scientific value. Scientists now deal with subatomic and cosmic scale phenomena only observable by lab equipment. They model our climate on supercomputers, peer into our DNA, and discover planets billions of miles away. By combing through massive amounts of collected data, they discover patterns and correlations invisible to the casual observer.

To some people, such abstract findings are not intuitive and are therefore less compelling than what they already "know" to be true.

Others are uncomfortable with the theological implications of discovery and openly rebel against the modern world - witness the radical Islamic agenda to revert to some fabled pre-industrial age. Roughly half of Americans trust the pre-scientific pronouncements of long-dead biblical authors, believing that "God created the world along with all creatures big and small in just six days.*" Can you imagine people in 4007 A.D. relying on our current religious thinkers' theories about the moral causes of AIDS, droughts and tsunamis?

Regardless of the source of this abiding mistrust of science and its methods, there are real consequences.

Patients are ignoring evolutionary concepts - stopping their antibiotics once they "feel better" -- and deadly superbugs like MRSA flourish. Action on climate change is delayed by deniers who still distrust the overwhelming scientific consensus. Vaccinations, possibly the greatest advance in modern medicine, are now being rejected by misguided people -- putting themselves and others at risk for avoidable horrific diseases.

I honestly don't know what the answer is, particularly where the willfully ignorant are concerned. They tend to be immune to evidence and reason, at least until they need the latest "miracle" drug or their beachfront property gets submerged by rising oceans.

* According to a Time Magazine 2005 Survey

Tragedy of the commons - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T04:25:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Oregonian November 24, 2007 08:00AM

Tragedy of the commons - Oregonian Opinion

Atlanta's water crisis has pitted that parched city against the farmers and endangered species of adjacent states. Pollutants from China's booming economy rain down on the Pacific Northwest.

These are large-scale effects of what economists call the "tragedy of the commons."

This blind-spot of the free market occurs whenever a group or individual exploits a community resource like the environment without paying the true costs -- dumping waste into a nearby stream instead of treating it, for example. The flipside of this concept is that someone acting unilaterally to protect a commons overpays for benefits that are reaped mainly by society; I could get rid of my furnace and appliances in an effort to save the planet, but at great personal discomfort.

George Bush wanly calls for voluntary reductions on carbon dioxide emissions, but corporations have the same incentives to comply as I do to wash and wax my rental car before returning it full of premium -- every extra penny comes out of my wallet, while someone else benefits. Moreover, since shareholders require corporations to maximize returns, a board of
directors could even be held liable if they followed Bush's voluntary reductions to the detriment of the bottom line.

Conservatives often rally behind issues of property rights, state's rights, and national sovereignty, despite the fact that many problems don't fit neatly within a geographic boundary like a farm plot or even a continent. Actions rarely happen in an economic or environmental vacuum -- nearby subdivisions run your well dry, CFC's destroy everyone's ozone layer,
today's international overfishing ruins future worldwide harvests. Therefore, we rely on jurisdictions larger than town, state, or even federal to address them.

The U.N. Secretary General has rightly called on world leaders to act decisively on climate change at next month's summit in Bali and reach a "grand bargain" between industrialized nations and developing ones. It is becoming clear that individual altruism and corporate do-gooders simply can't achieve the needed systemic changes in time. Market forces can only
work when these loopholes in the system are closed by globally-enforceable, predictable standards for all countries and corporations.

When ideology trumps information - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T04:23:00.000-05:00

Originally published in The Oregonian November 17, 2007 09:00AM

When ideology trumps information - Oregonian Opinion

This is not a joke: Recent Pew Trust and Annenberg surveys have found "The Daily Show" viewers to be more informed on issues and events than those of any other news source.

I find this to be a healthy development. The show fosters a healthy dose of skepticism in an age of credulity and fear.

Between the Bush administration's open hostility to science and popular media's need to fuel a "crisis of the week," being informed and somehow maintaining one's sense of humor are critical.

I concede that it is difficult to stay current on politics, economics, science, and world events. However, we've ceded this responsibility by becoming overly reliant on sound bites, making us more susceptible to manipulation. Not only are we easily duped into buying ineffectual products
and copies of "The Secret, we routinely overreact to insignificant threats (shark attacks), while underreacting to significant ones (impending water shortages), and our leaders react with counterproductive policies.

Fueled by the Internet, we find junk science and urban legends being given the same deference and general credibility as findings in peer-reviewed journals. Proof is unnecessary -- simply sow doubt with a fog of selective data and your conspiracy or crackpot theory can take root in popular culture.

This is perhaps the most damaging legacy of this Administration's war on "the reality-based community" (as one Bush adviser derisively put it): the notion that all facts and data are subservient to ideology and are therefore relative.

Political appointees have repeatedly excised inconvenient data and the conclusions of experts. When even government scientists can't be trusted to provide basic objective facts, no one is an authority. This breeds widespread distrust, powerlessness and further resignation -- if all
information is subjective and biased, why bother to stay informed or take the time to sift through competing claims?

Pakistani lawyers vehemently protested Gen. Musharraf's claim that the law is whatever he says it is. We should be equally incensed at this administration's ongoing claims that scientific reality is whatever they say it is. The issues our nation and planet face are too important to tackle with incomplete information.

Putting faith into action - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T03:38:00.000-05:00

Originally Published in the Oregonian November 10, 2007 10:00AM

Putting faith into action - Oregonian Opinion

My inner humanist nodded in agreement with some of Tom Krattenmaker's points in "Putting Faith Into Action."
His call for a humbler way for religion to insert itself into politics was a welcome change from the vitriol we've heard from James Dobson and others. Indeed, I share many of the ultimate goals Krattenmaker mentions and welcome this coalition's efforts to better humanity.

However, I am unconvinced by the religious grounding he uses to support the notion that this movement's gentler approach is inherently better than the negative example he cites (quoting Bible verses to support concealed weapons). He is simply advocating a less strident faith-based push toward different policy goals.

He concedes that sacred passages can't suffice as a sole basis for such legislation in our diverse society. I counter that claiming them as any basis at all puts him in the same awkward position of his rivals -- he is reduced to arguing selective interpretations of some purportedly sacred text.

This is why defenders of Church-State separation cringe at these religious incursions into matters of government -- there can be no objective arbiter between these competing unprovable claims. Krattenmaker has sifted through the Bible's endless self-contradictory directives, distilling those bits he agrees with to arrive at his theologically-suspect notion of what should be universally agreed-upon. It strikes me that what is considered "universal" is keenly tied to one's era, upbringing and geographic locale. After all, people throughout history have been convinced that advancing the "common good" calls for the killing of adulterers, infidels, sacrificial goats, etc. For people like Pat Robertson, this has meant broadly legislating morality.

It is telling that progressive commonality is found only when these intransigent theological differences are suppressed. The activist Krattenmaker spoke with was justifiably worried about religious beliefs being watered down. The case for religious underpinning grows ever-weaker with each piece of dogma (and group identity) one has to discard to arrive at some generically articulated "universal" sentiment. The "highest-common denominator" approach Krattenmaker praises sounds to me like a call to embrace the life-affirming and planet-saving principles of humanists everywhere.

-- Chauncey Canfield

Tech guru by day, musician by night - Oregonian Opinion

2007-12-27T03:31:00.000-05:00

Published in the Oregonian Nov. 03, 2007:

Tech guru by day, musician by night - Oregonian Opinion

As a recent transplant to the Pacific Northwest, I'm very grateful to The Oregonian for extending me this opportunity to contribute to the Op-Ed section of my newly-adopted hometown paper. Here's a short introduction to me and the perspectives I'll bring to this "experiment."

To a news-junkie with a technical bent, my IT job since 1994 has seemed a perfect fit: working in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill, seeing the political process and its players live and up-close. However, D.C.'s cost-of-living, toxic political environment, and post-9/11 bunkered mindset eventually took their toll, so my wife and I decided to trade coasts for a fresh start after our daughter was born. My employer agreed to a three time-zone telecommute, we sold our tiny pre-Civil War row house and headed west to Portland's Southeast Woodstock neighborhood last October.

I've lived and traveled all over the U.S. and abroad and absolutely love our new city, though being a newcomer admittedly imparts a rosier (no pun intended) view of what the region does (and doesn't) do well.

I am a lifelong musician and find Portland to be a great fit -- a place where my complementary passions of technology and music can intermesh particularly well in this age of digital production, online distribution and web marketing. I run a small record label, so I closely follow intellectual property issues, emerging technologies, the music industry and mass media.

I run an internet radio station called GroovePalace.com and I co-produce a weekly radio show Sunday evenings on 89.1 KMHD-FM.

I'll be tackling a variety of issues in my upcoming articles. I am a passionate defender of civil liberties and church-state separation. I'll focus on society's widespread scientific and mathematical illiteracy and how it allows hucksters, political leaders and the credulous media to mislead us, prey on our ignorance and spread irrational fears and hysteria. These distractions have broad implications as they divert attention and resources from solutions to actual problems we face.

I hope to enlighten and entertain the readers of these columns and look forward to your feedback and comments.

-- Chauncey Canfield

New Weekly Posts from my Oregonian Newspaper Columns

2007-12-27T02:22:00.000-05:00

I'll be updating this blog with my weekly columns in the Oregonian (Portland, OR)

You can comment there or on this space. Enjoy.

A Media Storm, Coming and Going as they Please?

2005-09-01T02:03:00.000-04:00

The horrendous events and tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina truly boggle the mind. I encourage everyone to donate to the National Red Cross to help the staggering number of victims out in this time of need. Many of these people are uninsured, and many of those who are insured lack flood insurance in their policies, meaning they have lost everything.

I keep seeing the reports from the region, and I really have to voice one major gripe. WHY DO THE EVENING NEWS ANCHORS HAVE TO BE LIVE ON-SITE ? DO THEIR BROADCASTS HAVE TO ORIGINATE FROM THE HEART OF THE TRAGEDY? This is utterly inexcusable. There is almost total destruction in New Orleans, and yet there’s Brian Williams (and I’m sure his counterparts on all of the other network are there, as well)…broadcasting from a makeshift downtown newsdesk with his freshly-scrubbed face and earnest looks of concern using the decimated city as nothing more than a live scenic backdrop. All roads in and out of the city are underwater, so when I think of the resources and logistics it must have taken to get him and his people in there, their trucks, their generators, their satellite uplinks, their support crew, their food, water, lighting not to mention a sizable security contingent (or even worse, diverting local police from search-and-rescue?) to protect them from the lawlessness that seems to be taking over the region, I want to scream at my television: “You are in the middle of a mandatory evacuation from a major disaster area, people are still losing their lives all around you, the authorities are telling people they must leave and are still scrambling to save the thousands still trapped there—So what the hell business to YOU have being there in the middle of all that—so you can sit behind a fucking desk?!!! The people trapped in this city have no power, no drinkable water, no food, no toilets, no transportation, and yet you have the audacity and apparent ability to freely go IN and function normally while so many others are desperate to get OUT. Since there is no place safe in New Orleans itself to stay, I’m assuming that he and his crew gets airlifted in and out to comfy lodgings well outside the area—using helicopters and other transportation resources that could have been much better-used to find survivors or deliver time-critical relief supplies. What kind of message does this send? Don’t take the evacuation talk seriously? If you are a celebrity and part of a news organization, the rules don’t apply to you? Let the poor folks below die in the toxic stew of contaminated water, but we’ll move heaven and earth if that’s what it takes to get our talent on the scene, We’ll be fine up here around the newsdesk. How’s the background light? “More San Pellegrino, Brian?”

I am not saying keep the journalists and camera people out—they are serving a vital function in communicating the extent of this national tragedy to the world, which helps direct relief efforts and donations, but in this situation why can’t the goddamn Network anchors broadcast from their regular location in NY or Washington and if they must, put a fucking picture of the destruction behind their desks instead of adding to the problem by being in the way and sucking up valuable resources from the region?

When ID-iots Attack

2005-08-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

Intelligent Design proponents, a.k.a. “ID folks” [Hey, can we call them ID-iots?  I swear I just thought that up, but it has probably been used plenty  –ed.]  jump on any gap in the data or currently-unexplained phenomenon and hold it up as proof of science’s failings, even though that which is unexplained is the driving force and the source of science’s ever-expanding quest for knowledge and understanding.  Scientists find themselves on the defensive and are starting to keep their mouths shut because any such admission of uncertainty of will be taken out of context and used to undermine their research, or at least suck them into some bogus notion that there is, in actuality, a “controversy”

In their efforts to appear bias-free, most of the media gingerly cover the Intelligent Design controversy (I won't dignify it by calling it a debate) and will rarely fail to call ID proponents to task on the incredibly-obvious tactics being used.  For one, they are not held to any standards at all and can thus attempt to discredit rock-solid Theories without offering any sort of competing theory of any merit.  Science has to stand up to rigorous, even ruthless peer-review on a continuous basis, so scientists should be well-equipped to handle genuine skepticism and use it to refine and hone theories as new data becomes available.  However, in an environment dominated by those who fail to live in or even grasp the most basic scientific principles of the so-called “reality-based” Universe, all bets are off.   If someone really believes that the surface of the moon is made of cheese, and angels on your bumper prevent accidents, can you really effectively disabuse them of that notion by showing them spectroscopic data or traffic fatality reports?

Even worse, since advanced theories by their very nature require more detailed, often complicated explanations (which some scientists are all-too-happy to provide, which quickly overwhelms the layperson), after which the ID-iots throw their hands up in a triumphant shrug—“Such complexity obviously has to have come from some “Designer.”  The anti-science coalition has struck gold with the Bush Administration in power.  Science that supports their rampant pro-Corporation/Right-wing religious values/anti-environmental policies are freely quoted, while that which goes against it merely disappears from government reports, websites etc. (and the people who did the latter science find themselves out of jobs alongside those who tried to publish it).

Hunkered Down in Crawford, Divorced from Reality

2005-08-24T02:20:00.000-04:00

As Bush continues his 5-week vacation, avoiding Cindy Sheehan and issuing ever-more clueless proclamations on the situation in Iraq, it occurs to me that this is the sort of behavior you'd expect from a man of limited intellectual capacity and no curiosity--a man who was reared in a life of privilege, buffered from any sort of reality from day one. His born-again redemption from his alcoholism surely super-charged his faith-based Jesus complex that he can alter reality by sheer force of will--the notion that believing something should be so actually makes it so in his universe. If you surround someone like this with a cadre of power-mad idealogues who have the unparalleled ability to shield him from any opposing viewpoint, it is hardly surprising that he ends up having little, if any grasp of reality.

This explains an awful lot. By keeping their vacationing frat-boy in the dark about the details of "his" policies and their consequences (or for that matter life beyond the compound at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and his Crawford non-ranch), Karl Rove and Co. can simply choose friendly venues or fundraising events, trot out a Bush who fervently believes in his faith-based constructs. He can therefore talk very passionately (albeit in a limited range) using his sound bites and talking points, unfettered by pesky things like contradictory facts, scientific evidence, government studies, opinion polls, etc. This is the source of his "plain-talkin'" style--he really doesn't have to act like he's telling the truth: he either believes it outright, is too ignorant to know better, or he thinks that by believing in it, it will be so in his universe. It's also why he often has that frustrated smirk/nervous laugh/handwaving thing when he's trying to explain things to a skeptical audience or reporters. In his black and white world, it really is so simple, but the questioners are out of touch and just don't get it. If they'd only listen to him recite his little soundbite one more time, it would all be clear to them. It may not even be arrogance--I think it is truly inconceivable to him that someone presented with the same (limited) facts he has access to could come to any other conclusions than his own. Ah, the balanced life of the willfully ignorant.

A Bankrupt Morality

2005-08-23T23:07:00.000-04:00

"We owe them something. We will finish the task that they gave their lives for. " - George W. Bush , August 22, 2005

Think about it for a second. If the latest and greatest reason to stay the course in Iraq is because we owe something to the fallen soldiers--despite the inconvenient fact that the original premises of starting the war were utterly false--then the door has swung wide open for an Orwellian tautology that will keep us mired in this misadventure forever. If dead soldiers become the justification for staying and putting more troops in harm's way, then it follows that as more troops killed, the more imperative it is to stay and send more troops, because now we "owe it" to an ever-growing pool of fallen soldiers. I, for one, think it is obscene to value the supposed wishes of the no-longer alive over the actual lives of still-breathing servicemen and women.

Since dead soldiers can no longer express their actual wishes, who is Bush to assert that "they" would desire to "stay the course" especially if it means untold growing numbers of their comrades will join them in death? The silence of the fallen troops makes them blank canvases--powerful, if morbid, allies of an administration who would paint such simple jingoistic slogans on them to rally an increasingly skeptical nation behind a war that has gone horribly wrong.

If people uncritically swallow this sort of logic, we already have our answer to the question--"How do you ask a soldier to be the last one killed in a mistake?" The answer: "Just never admit to any mistakes, and just keep on sending soldiers to be killed, using the last one killed to justify sending in the next."