NewsScan Daily, 7 August 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 7 August 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Software Engineer Guilty of Helping Terrorists
        Google's AdSense Offers Self-Service Model
        Shielding Privacy in the Era of Phonecams
        Microsoft Mouse Shows Off Smooth Moves
        Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Get Me In with Your Cell Phone
        'Flash Mobs' Swarm European Cities

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Sadness, Refinement, Brevity
        Modern Life: Dr. Mike Writes About 'A Master Of Meditation'

SOFTWARE ENGINEER GUILTY OF HELPING TERRORISTS
Software engineer Maher "Mike" Hawash, who unsuccessfully attempted to 
enter Afghanistan to fight against U.S. troops, has pleaded guilty to 
aiding the Taliban and has agreed to testify against other suspects in 
federal court, before grand juries and before any potential military 
tribunals. Hawash will serve at least seven years in federal prison, and 
his attorney said Hawash had decided to cooperate fully with the government 
in order to obtain a sentence less than the 20 years he was facing had he 
not agreed to testify. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 7 Aug 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6474967.htm

GOOGLE'S ADSENSE OFFERS SELF-SERVICE MODEL
Google' AdSense self-service ad sales program enables smaller businesses to 
participate in the search giant's successful search-term-targeted 
advertising model. Companies can sign up and within 24 hours they'll 
receive code to paste into a Web page. Google then examines the page to 
determine relevant ads for it and the companies share any ad revenues 
generated. "Small sites have a lot of content pages and didn't have a way 
to reach advertisers," says a Google product management director. "Six 
weeks ago, we told publishers they can sign up online for AdSense, a 
program for publishers or Web sites to serve targeted ads on content pages… 
It's aggressive and it's generous to the publishers." The program has 
proven popular. "Google is a virtual salesperson for us," says one 
satisfied customer. "… Google sells advertising for us while we sleep at 
night, and we make several thousand dollars extra a month, every month." 
(CNet News.com 6 Aug 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5060917.html?tag=fd_top

SHIELDING PRIVACY IN THE ERA OF PHONECAMS
In Australia, the government of Victoria has called for a national 
taskforce to tackle inappropriate use of mobile phone cameras -- such as 
the unauthorized publishing of children's photographs on the Internet, and 
the use of mobile phone cameras in changing rooms. Victoria's Attorney 
General explained: "The fact is that a number of photographs have been 
taken without the permission of those involved, and have been placed up on 
the Internet on sites that have links to voyeuristic sites, sexually 
explicit sites. There are gaps in the laws at the moment dealing with these 
matters, and because of the nature of the Internet, there needs to be a 
national approach." (Australian IT 6 Aug 2003)
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,6873846%5E15319%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html

MICROSOFT MOUSE SHOWS OFF SMOOTH MOVES
The latest model of Microsoft's mouse will feature wheels that tilt as well 
as roll, enabling users to scroll from side-to-side as well as vertically 
without resorting to on-screen navigation bars. The device will be 
especially handy for people viewing large documents or spreadsheets that do 
not fit neatly into the screen's space. The new mice, which are slated to 
hit the shelves September 3, will also allow users to switch between open 
applications by pressing down on the scroll wheel instead of using the 
keyboard. (BBC News 7 Aug 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3131453.stm

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME, GET ME IN WITH YOUR CELL PHONE
Major league baseball is developing a plan that would let fans who buy 
tickets online use their Internet-enabled mobile phones to flash bar codes 
for scanning by handheld devices at stadium gates. "There'd never be a 
piece of paper," an MLB official says: "It's all about saving time. 
Americans don't like to stand in line. And it's a device-happy world." More 
than 20% of MLB tickets, excluding season tickets, are sold online. (USA 
Today 7 Aug 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand/2003-08-06-hiestand_x.htm

'FLASH MOBS' SWARM EUROPEAN CITIES
The "flash mob" craze, where groups of fun-seeking young people congregate 
at a moment's notice, perform some silly activity, and then quickly 
disperse, is taking Europe by storm. The fad started in Manhattan in June, 
when a group of more than 100 people converged on a Macy's department store 
and proceeded to besiege bemused sales clerks with queries about buying a 
"love rug" for their "suburban commune." Quickly following were flash mob 
events in Manhattan's SoHo area and Central Park. The phenomenon then 
crossed over to Rome, where 300 people mobbed a music and book store asking 
for non-existent titles, and last Friday in Berlin, 40 people gathered in 
the middle of a busy street, pulled out their cell phones and shouted "Yes, 
yes!" and then applauded. "Bill," the self-proclaimed inventor of the flash 
mob concept, says, "I called ours 'inexplicable mobs.' For some people, it 
is purely funny. For others, it is social -- they like being out with 
people. For others, it is political -- just getting out in the streets is a 
political act. I personally like it because it is aesthetic -- I love 
seeing all the people come together, seemingly out of nowhere." But Howard 
Rheingold, author of "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," warns that 
the concept could become politicized. "So far it is harmless fun -- a 
harmless way to experiment with a new form of technology-enabled collective 
action. But the same technique of using the Internet and mobile phones to 
organize collective action was used to bring down the Estrada regime in the 
Philippines and to tip the Korean election toward the ultimate winner, 
President Roh. All mobs have potential for danger." (CNN.com 5 Aug 2003)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/04/flash.mob/index.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that 
we can solve them." (Isaac Asimov)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: SADNESS, REFINEMENT, BREVITY
      Author Joshua Cooper Ramo calls attention to this touching Haiku 
tradition;
      'In the middle of the fifteenth century in Japan, a time when the 
kingdom was both at its most isolated and, to Japanese eyes, most perfect, 
a strange tradition emerged: composing haiku as you died, at the very 
moment of death. Perhaps it wasn't so surprising. Japanese culture had 
become obsessed with the relationship between life and art. There was an 
increasing belief that the two should never be separated, that a well-lived 
life was a work of art. Was it surprising that some Japanese poets wanted 
to try to weave the two together, to make a little tatami of life and art? 
What better time than at the moment of death? After a lifetime of study, 
could you be beautiful in three lines? Could you be perfect? Could you 
reduce it, all of it, your life, down to seventeen syllables?
                          Farewell ... I
                          pass as all things do
                          dew on the grass.
      So it all awaited you. Special inks were mixed. A brush of the rarest 
hair was prepared and left lying near your bed. The softest rice paper was 
fetched. All this lay waiting for your last moment. The Zen monks who 
collected the death poems looked for two virtues, two marks of beauty. The 
first was awa-re, a sense of the sadness of things passing, the way birds 
at dawn sing like mourners or cherry blossoms fall like tears in the 
spring. The second virtue was mi-yabi, an attempt to refine oneself. 
Everything about the poems -- their sound, how they looked on the page -- 
was meant to evoke this attempt at refinement, at compactness.
                                                 ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006FCSI/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Joshua Cooper Ramo's recent Time magazine cover story "The Five Virtues 
of Kofi Annan" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all 
revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

MODERN LIFE: DR. MIKE WRITES ABOUT 'A MASTER OF MEDITATION'
      Dr. Mike Litrel is in practice at Cherokee Women's OB/GYN in 
Woodstock and Canton, Georgia, and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at 
Emory University School of Medicine. He lives in Woodstock, Ga., with his 
wife Ann and their two sons.
                                                 ***
      My Tae Kwon Do class usually ends with a short meditation session. We 
follow the instructions of Master Yong Jeong, a fifth degree black belt and 
life long student of this Korean martial art. We kneel on the floor, two 
rows of students, knees together, backs straight, heads tilted slightly 
downward.
      I am happy when we come to this part of the class. Part of me knows 
the importance of meditation to health, preparing the way for healing, or 
prayer. And the other part of me is happy to stop looking at my overweight 
body and balding head in the mirror.
      The goal of meditation is to clear the mind -- to rid oneself of 
extraneous thoughts. For me, a typical meditation might begin, as it did 
last week, with a thought about a slice of Johnny's pizza, hot from the 
oven only a few doors away. I might take another breath, and then 
reluctantly let this thought pass. Thoughts are like ripples on a pond. 
Allow the ripples to calm and witness what remains on the pond's surface: 
it is a reflection of God's Love.
      Meditation has a long history in the Christian Church, as well as in 
eastern religions. Many of the great saints of the Church were masters of 
meditation, and, intellectually, at least, it's obvious to me that 
meditation can lead the way to a stronger spiritual life.
      Unfortunately, I've never been very good at it. My problem, which 
dates back to elementary school, is that sometimes I just can't sit still. 
While my classmates sat quietly on the floor absorbing their morning 
lessons, I was continuously fidgeting in utter boredom, slowly shifting 
locations and insidiously oozing around them. My third grade teacher 
nicknamed me "The Blob."
      Sadly, even into my college years, sitting still remained a 
challenge. After successfully negotiating the required courses for a degree 
in Molecular Biology, I was appalled to find that my handicap could very 
well result in my first failure of a college course. With the typical 
insecurity of a pre-med student, I was obsessed with the question of how an 
"F" would look on my college transcript. I was certain the doors of medical 
school were closed to me forever. The class?
      Zen Buddhist Meditation.
      I was a student at Wesleyan University, a liberal arts college that 
emphasized "diversity." In keeping with the school's diverse, open-minded 
student body, I had enrolled in a religion course about Buddhism. After the 
midterm exam, my professor announced he was starting a supplemental class 
on Zen Meditation. I knew that meditation plays an important role in the 
martial arts, in which, despite the lack of any detectable talent, I have 
had a lifelong interest. But I was hesitant to sign up. My Buddhism course 
was confusing and I hadn't understood the midterm take-home essay question: 
"What is a mouse when it's spinning?" I hadn't understood my ten-page 
answer, either, but when I received an "A" and the comment "Brilliant 
Answer," I suddenly realized that if I wasn't quite enlightened yet, I must 
be pretty darn close. I raced to sign up.
      Seven o'clock the next morning found me facing my first hurdle to 
Enlightenment: the "Lotus Position." This is the preferred Zen sitting 
posture, and it requires you to place your legs in a position for which God 
did not design the human body. The first tenet of Buddhism is "All Life Is 
Suffering," and I believe it came about as a direct result of the first 
Buddhist attempting the Lotus position.
      Forget the Full Lotus. The Half Pansy was the best I could manage. I 
have always been inflexible, and even this "copout position," as the 
professor termed it, was excruciating. The only blessing was that after ten 
minutes of sheer agony, I eventually lost all sensation to my lower 
extremities. At the end of the session, I'd have to push myself over on to 
my side and manually straighten my legs so the blood could start flowing again.
      But the physical pain wasn't even the worst part. As I lay on the 
ground waiting for feeling to return to my legs, I was forced to listen to 
my classmates relate their out-of-body experiences. As the days wore on, it 
seemed that all of my classmates were regularly leaving their bodies to 
surf the Cosmic Ocean, reaching a state of Oneness with the Universe.
      I just wanted to be able to walk again.
      But just when I thought the class could not get any worse, it did. 
Allergy season came into full bloom. The enlightened professor had an 
observation he chose to share with us just before the next session. "I 
noticed many people sniffing during our last session. This is not 
acceptable. If your nose runs -- observe it. Observe the mucous dripping." 
With what I thought was admirable foresight, I proceeded to blow my nose. A 
few classmates laughed, but the enlightened ones, along with the professor, 
observed me with disapproval.
      It was during this session that I made two observations myself. One: 
Zen Meditation was very painful. And more importantly, two: no attendance 
sheet was ever passed around.
      Further enlightenment, I decided, would be unnecessary.
      For some reason, I decided to check in on the last day of class. The 
professor dropped a bomb. He announced before the session that although no 
attendance sheet had been passed around, he had "observed" who had missed 
class, and they, of course, were going to fail. I tried to adopt a facial 
expression that showed not guilt, but rather appropriate disapproval of 
such behavior. But as a grade-obsessed premedical student, I was panicked. 
But the professor went on. Since he was a fair person, a Zen Master of 
course, if anyone could offer him a good reason for their absence, he would 
consider passing them.
      So in my last official Zen session I abandoned all attempts to clear 
my mind, and instead concentrated my efforts on coming up with the perfect 
excuse. As the blood stopped flowing to my legs, my thoughts suddenly 
clarified. Maybe this "Zen Master" really has no idea who was here and who 
wasn't. Weren't his eyes half closed all the time? Maybe his "I'll listen 
to your excuses" was just some ploy to figure out who he should fail.
      So I kept my mouth shut.
      A few days later I was delighted to discover that, indeed, I had 
passed. "Superior concentration" was the professor's only comment. An 
understatement, as far as I was concerned.
      That was almost twenty years ago. Despite this earlier experience 
with meditative suffering, I'm grateful for the opportunity to try again at 
the end of each Tae Kwon Do class. No doubt Master Jeong is a Master of Tae 
Kwon Do. It's a humbling experience to watch him perform martial arts. But 
it doesn't necessarily follow that he's a Master of Meditation.
      There is only one true Master I think I have met on this Earth. This 
is a soul who has a natural ability to quiet the mind and to freely 
observe, unencumbered with the confusing thoughts that embroil the rest of 
us. I see this person almost every day -- although each time he or she 
wears a different face. It's the newborn that has finished crying and lies 
peacefully in his or her crib, eyes open, looking at light for the first 
time, breathing, breathing, a vision of Heaven still clear in mind.

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