NewsScan Daily, 21 September 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 21 September 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Chicago's New Surveillance System
       AOL Offers Second Level of Security
       Web-Based Radio Service From Microsoft
       Big Jump in Internet Advertising
       Swiss Police Arrest Ten Over Child Porn

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: Mystical Experience
       Mailbag: The World As We Find It

CHICAGO'S NEW SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
     Chicago is installing a network of surveillance cameras that Mayor
Richard M. Daley has said will make Chicago citizens much safer. Chicago
official Ron Huberman says, "What we're doing is a totally new concept. This
is a very innovative way to harness the power of cameras." Emergency center
dispatchers will be able to tilt or zoom the cameras to watch suspicious
people and follow them from one camera's range to another's. But ACLU
spokesman Edwin C. Yohnka worries: "With the aggressive way these types of
surveillance equipment are being marketed and implemented, it really does
raise questions about what kind of society do we ultimately want, and how
intrusive we want law enforcement officials to be in all of our lives."
Huberman's response: "The value we gain in public safety far outweighs any
perception by the community that this is Big Brother who's watching. The
feedback we're getting is that people welcome this. It makes them feel
safer." And Mayor Daley notes: "We're not inside your home or your business.
The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys." (New
York Times 21 Sep 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/national/21cameras.html>

AOL OFFERS SECOND LEVEL OF SECURITY
     AOL has become the first major U.S. online business to offer customers
a second layer of security, which it will make available to subscribers for
$1.95 a month in addition to a one-time $9.95 fee. The system uses a
matchbook-size device displaying a six-digit log-on code that changes every
minute; it requires that the second password be entered in order to check
e-mail or access such services as calendars, stock portfolios and AOL's Bill
Pay. Gartner analyst Avivah Litan estimates that no more than 5-15% of AOL
subscribers will sign up initially but says that "you have to start
somewhere." (AP/Washington Post 21 Sep 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37700-2004Sep21.html>

WEB-BASED RADIO SERVICE FROM MICROSOFT
     Microsoft is testing a Web-based radio service that allows users to
hear commercial-free versions of their favorite local radio music programs.
The service will cost subscribers $30 a year. Microsoft builds its versions
of the local stations by licensing playlists from the various local radio
stations through Nielsen Broadcast Data System, an independent group.
Analyst Phil Leigh of Inside Digital Media warns the radio industry that
it's getting a wake-up call: "Radio stations are seriously challenged with
tech obsolescence." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 21 Sep 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9720819.htm>

BIG JUMP IN INTERNET ADVERTISING
     Internet advertising revenues jumped 40% in the first half of this year
mainly as the result of the growing popularity of keyword ads tied to search
results. Pete Petrusky of the New Media Group at PricewaterhouseCooper says
that an advertisement associated with a specific search appeals to
advertisers "due to its innate relevancy, the simplicity of the results and
because advertisers can determine more precise response rates." (AP/USA
Today 20 Sep 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2004-09-20-net-ads-up_x.
htm>

SWISS POLICE ARREST TEN OVER CHILD PORN
     Swiss police have arrested 10 people and carried out about 400 searches
in a massive nationwide operation against international child pornography
networks operating in Switzerland. Swiss Federal Police say they seized
large quantities of material including computers during the ten-day swoop,
which was prompted by investigations into child porn websites in the United
States. Another 120 countries are concerned by the probe, which follows on
from a similar international operation in 2002. (The Age 20 Sep 2004) Rec'd
from J. Lamp
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/20/1095651235601.html>


*****

FLASH CARD
     "The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds.
Ordinary people find no difference between men." (Blaise Pascal)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE
     Anthropologist Margaret Visser argues that mystical experiences are
rare but real: 
     "People have always, apparently in all cultures, conceptualized the
world as participating in, or expressing, or actually being a tension
between a series of opposites: big and small, high and low, same and
different, hot and cold, one and many, male and female, and so on. No sooner
has a culture organized its system of contradictions than the mystics arise.
They steadfastly, and often in the face of great danger, assure their fellow
human beings that they are wrong: what appears to be a contradiction in
terms is merely a convention, a point of view, a façon de parler, no matter
how self-evident it may appear. These are people who believe and convince
others that they have been lifted out of this world and have seen a greater
truth: the opposites are, in fact, one. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus can
say, 'The way up and the way down are the same.' Or: 'Step into the same
river twice, and its waters will be different.'
     "Such mystic realizations (up and down are one, sameness and difference
coincide) have to keep occurring, both for the sake of truth and for the
necessity of realizing that neither our senses nor our thinking faculties
have access to, or are capable of encompassing, everything. ('The last
proceeding of reason,' wrote Pascal, 'is to recognize that there is an
infinity of things beyond it.') For all the outrage and bafflement with
which the pronouncements of the mystics are greeted, we remember their
words; in time we learn to appreciate and value them. In our own day,
physicists have been talking like mystics for some time: expressing physical
reality, for example, as conflating space and time, or declaring that waves
and particles (lines and dots) can be perceived to be 'the same.' The rest
of us are only beginning to take in what they are saying."
     [See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865476403/newsscancom/ref=nosim for
Margaret Visser's "The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and
Meaning in an Ordinary Church" -- or look for it in your favorite library.
Note: We donate all revenue from our book and media recommendations to adult
literacy programs.]

MAILBAG: THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT

BREACH OF DUTY
Re: < http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11307>
   Come now, Greg -- surely in the Land of the Lawyer you can find someone
to offer you a "no win, no fee" suit against the University for violation of
personal privacy, un-warranted exposure to criminal opportunity etc. etc.? I
would have thought your Alma Mater clearly had, and indeed still has, a very
simple Duty of Care regarding the information you gave them at their
request. It could well be that Duty has been breached. When did you hand
over the information? To whom? For what purpose? Under what conditions? Was
it that you could not embark upon your studies unless and until you handed
the information to their care and subsequent use? Times and technology may
change, but responsibility for the care and confidentiality of original
documentation AND ANY COPY THEREOF probably doesn't.
   Return to simple Common Law, and your case could well be sound. What they
"say" and what the reality "is" may well be different. Is there a local Law
School? Why not give them an interesting debating point, and consider acting
upon the result. (Scott Pollard)

LIBERTY WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11319
     I agree 100% with what Muhammad says. For the record, I'm 55 and have
spent all my life in the UK -- just in case anyone wants to know what
perspective I have. What we have now -- thanks to successive waves of
"professional" politicians -- is [untrammelled, personal] liberty without
the associated responsibility. (John Law)

TALISMANIC BELIEF
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11191
     It's funny that you had this item about fundamentalism. I was just
reflecting on my own experiences with Christian fundamentalism over the last
10 or so years, and had realized the following. Christian fundamentalism
ironically offers an effective repudiation of the common armchair assertion
that one needs God in order to have morality. When it comes to Christian
fundamentalism as one encounters it in one's neighborhood or workplace, one
is pressed very powerfully to the view that "God" is no guarantee of
morality. In fact, the very opposite is in evidence often enough to present
a disturbing spectacle: People with a fingernail grip on the moral
underpinning of meaningful and mutually rewarding interpersonal
relationships are often fundamentalists. Their version of "god" in fact
affords them a divine right to remain ignorant of shockingly basic mores,
such as honesty with oneself and with loved-ones in everyday communications.
I'm personally aware of a few Christian fundamentalists who believe that
it's bad to lie because God hates liars, yet consistently lie, presumably
because their "salvation" has given them a blank check. The idea that it
might simply be wrong to lie isn't even a blip on these peoples' screens.
I'm serious. I'm pointing all this out for a reason: Ms. Armstrong cites the
shooting of doctors who perform abortions. I trust that somewhere in her
lengthy text she spends some energy studying this other "slow burn" -- yet I
dare say more important -- negative aspect to fundamentalism; the divine
hedge against the necessity of facing moral reality, in a manner not
terribly dissimilar to, say, heroin. And, as addicts learn eventually, you
can't snow reality forever. I have a name for this; I call it the
"talismanic" aspect of fundamentalist belief. And, lest you think I'm just
one of those Christian bashers, I'll inform you that I know my New Testament
very well and am perfectly confident that the Christ depicted there survives
this ilk quite tidily. The Biblical Jesus directly anticipates and addresses
this issue a number of times.
     As usual, thanks thanks thanks for your newsletter! Amen! (Ron A.
Zajac, Dongshih, Taiwan)

AN INDIAN BEHIND EVERY BUSH?
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11309
     There is nothing surprising about the Indians trying to be everywhere
for outsource business. It is simply carrying abroad a widespread domestic
practice. Under the Indian government rules, a purchase that is too small
for the tendering process requires at least three price quotations. The
clever businessmen create dummy firms (known as ³letterhead firms²), prepare
higher quotations in their behalf and submit them along with their own. The
colluding officials, for a hefty cut, accept the fictitious quotations
without any verification and give orders to the real ones. When the foreign
clients will find an Indian behind every bush, so to speak, the word will
spread very soon and the outsourcing business will start evaporating.
(Muhammad Abd al-Hameed, Lahore, Pakistan, [email protected])

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