On 2002-02-19 16:08, alan wrote:
All of us who live in the United States have been totally immersed for all of our lives in the largest propaganda/psychological warfare campaign in history...its called advertising. Modern(post WW2) advertising comes directly from the psychwar research and practices of WW2, the people who worked for the allied side went into Madison Avenue after the war and there has always been a huge amount of interaction between the two endeavors.
Its possible for a person to get clear of alot of the conditioning that we have been given (or are you completely free of the desire to buy stuff that you don't need?) but, like a fish surrounded by water, most people don't notice that they're being bombarded with manipulative messages.
"Hey, consumers, its your patriotic duty to go shoppin, max out your credit cards, and tell Osama bin Laden to poke it in his eye. God bless America!" :smile:
Also, regarding people who live in much less media-saturated environments such as Afghanistan, think of them as people whose immune systems are much less ready to deal with propaganda than ours may be. What seems laughable to us may be much more persuasive to someone in another culture. Hey, isn't that one of the objections of these fundamentalist groups, that America is undermining their cultures with our consumer culture?
Thank you, I feel much better, my ranting is done for the moment.

When you are constantly bombarded by advertisements, you become immune to them, or at least I did. You become able to instantly filter out BS. Being bombarded by advertisements through email and phone is just horrible. There is nothing wrong with advertisement, per se, but it is done excessively.

I watched the MTV special in which teens and young adults from several nations asked Colin Powell questions. Powell did answer each question very well. When asked about Iraq, and the children dying there, he remarked that the Oil For Food program gives billions to Iraq annually, but Saddam has used the money on himself, so it is Saddam's fault that this is happening. On some of the questions, these people had a "This is BS" look on their face.

Right now, the rest of the world is not buying the propaganda of the Bush Administration. Even in very friendly nations such as the UK, Japan, and South Korea, Bush has been scathed.

I have to admit that I totally bought the propaganda of Bush in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. I was ready to do my patriotic shopping. But after a few days, I began to come back to my senses, and was able to think rationally again.

Kool-Aid is an American drink. The rest of the world does not drink it. The phrase "Axis of Evil" is not going well over the rest of the world. A new war against Iraq has practically zero support outside of America and Israel. Afghanistan was enough. There is no evidence that ANY of these three nations support terror. However, there is plenty of evidence to support that Saudi Arabia supports terror. Evidently, Bush cannot fool the rest of the world. His wargasm has lasted long enough.

madscientist wrote: "A new war against Iraq has practically zero support outside of America and Israel. Afghanistan was enough. There is no evidence that ANY of these three nations support terror. However, there is plenty of evidence to support that Saudi Arabia supports terror."

There most certainly is. Does anyone actually believe that 19 Saudi nationals blew up 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil without ANY involvement of the House of Saud? HehyeahRIGHT!!!

What we need to do, once the Afghan mess is reasonably under control, is to send in the CIA to incite a pro-democracy grass-roots revolt against the Saudi dictatorship. Given a bit of luck, the revolt will spread to other regimes -- Syria, Iran, Iraq, etc. -- that are ruled with an iron fist.

With the Arab world then focused on the real problem -- the ruthless tyranny of their own unelected leaders -- perhaps the terrorist threat against America will implode from within, at its source.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin Parker '59 on 2002-02-19 19:00 ]</font>

I somehow think that nothing short of a Nagasaki bomb will pursuade the Islamists to give up thier craziness. The Arab culture is steeped in paranoid schizophrenia, compulsive lying, fear of the West,pathological conpiracy theories and hated of the West for its material success. They also hate Israel in ways which know no bounds. The West is partially responsible for this by propping up all of these mullah and sheiks in power and appearing to condone Israeli brutality against Palestine. It's more than that, though. There is so much hatred in the Middle East that the hatred is metaphysical in nature. The only thing that would satisfy the likes of Bin Laden is if everyone converted to his brand of Islam. Even if all the terrorist organizations were dismantled tomorrow and all the kings replaced with parliaments, prime ministers, and presidents there would still be a tremendous problem. Iran is actually a democratic republic. One doesn't have to explain how they hate America so much.

I've been considering the notion of our Crisis being a combination of Civil War II with WWWIII. The Gray Champion we need must be a Pathleader of Peace. An ex-flower child perhaps? Obviously Bush does not fit. The Missionaries pushed the U.S.A. into the superpower role-now we need Boomers who will lead us away from that. And we need someone who can build bridges within our own society.

On 2002-02-20 10:15, Tim Walker wrote:
I've been considering the notion of our Crisis being a combination of Civil War II with WWWIII. The Gray Champion we need must be a Pathleader of Peace. An ex-flower child perhaps? Obviously Bush does not fit. The Missionaries pushed the U.S.A. into the superpower role-now we need Boomers who will lead us away from that. And we need someone who can build bridges within our own society.

I agree. At this point in our development, war is more harmful than beneficial. I guess that's why Europe has been peaceful since WWII.

How would the Chinese react if we were to deny them their enemy? With detente? One problem-Muslim terrorists. But the best strategy may be homeland defense rather than a crusade abroad.

On 2002-02-19 00:10, pindiespace wrote:
It would be very interesting to look at the founding of utopian communities during past Awakenings, and adjust the Red/Blue for population -- and see if there's more to it than an urban/rural split.

Those interested in the origins of the Red / Blue split might try "The Cousin's Wars." This starts with the English Civil War as a royalist / high church / rural / agricultural faction against parliament / puritan / urban / small industrial faction. The early colonies did not feature division of church and state. Thus, the Puritans went to New England, while the royalists went to Virginia and the south. Meanwhile, every time there was a war in Germany, there was a new wave of immigration to Pennsylvania and the old north west. Depending on who lost the war in Germany, the refugees were sometimes liberal, sometimes conservative.

During the Revolution, these factions found common cause, but the British treated each region as a different strategic zone. The Civil War was another rural conservative against urban liberal conflict. The Cousins' Wars goes into pretty good detail on what colonies featured which religion, when where and why each wave of immigration came, what religious groups settled where, and how religious beliefs tied into political issues.

Things tend to get fuzzier after the Civil War and as people moved further west. Still, there is more to it than an urban / rural split. Immigrations often occured as the losers of a European conflict sought a new start. Groups of various nationalities tended to settle together, bringing political and religious baggage with them.

On 2002-02-19 16:08, alan wrote:
All of us who live in the United States have been totally immersed for all of our lives in the largest propaganda/psychological warfare campaign in history...its called advertising. Modern(post WW2) advertising comes directly from the psychwar research and practices of WW2, the people who worked for the allied side went into Madison Avenue after the war and there has always been a huge amount of interaction between the two endeavors.
Its possible for a person to get clear of alot of the conditioning that we have been given (or are you completely free of the desire to buy stuff that you don't need?) but, like a fish surrounded by water, most people don't notice that they're being bombarded with manipulative messages.
"Hey, consumers, its your patriotic duty to go shoppin, max out your credit cards, and tell Osama bin Laden to poke it in his eye. God bless America!" :smile:
Also, regarding people who live in much less media-saturated environments such as Afghanistan, think of them as people whose immune systems are much less ready to deal with propaganda than ours may be. What seems laughable to us may be much more persuasive to someone in another culture. Hey, isn't that one of the objections of these fundamentalist groups, that America is undermining their cultures with our consumer culture?
Thank you, I feel much better, my ranting is done for the moment.

I have to agree with Alan. If they set it up right, it'll work, to the degree such things ever work. Their effect on events in the end is usually marginal (though that can be important in close situations).

I expect more and more of this sort of thing as the 3T draws to its close, and the 4T looms.

On 2002-02-20 10:15, Tim Walker wrote:
I've been considering the notion of our Crisis being a combination of Civil War II with WWWIII. The Gray Champion we need must be a Pathleader of Peace. An ex-flower child perhaps?

Won't play. The Red Zone/Conversative factions will tend to reject people associated with the whole 'flower child/peace power/etc' movement by visceral reflex.

Obviously Bush does not fit. The Missionaries pushed the U.S.A. into the superpower role-now we need Boomers who will lead us away from that. And we need someone who can build bridges within our own society.

America doesn't really have the option of backing away from superpower status. If we do, some other power will step in to fill the vacuum, and the first thing a new 'usurper' monarch does it make sure the former monarch can't make a comeback. One of the few exceptions to this was when the USA displaced Great Britain as dominant power, and in that case the circumstances were almost uniquely favorable to a smooth, peaceful transition.

I suspect that the United States will emerge from the upcoming 4T either stronger than ever, militarily and economically, or in semi or total wreckage.

On 2002-02-20 10:44, madscientist wrote:

On 2002-02-20 10:15, Tim Walker wrote:
I've been considering the notion of our Crisis being a combination of Civil War II with WWWIII. The Gray Champion we need must be a Pathleader of Peace. An ex-flower child perhaps? Obviously Bush does not fit. The Missionaries pushed the U.S.A. into the superpower role-now we need Boomers who will lead us away from that. And we need someone who can build bridges within our own society.

I agree. At this point in our development, war is more harmful than beneficial. I guess that's why Europe has been peaceful since WWII.

Europe has been peaceful since WW II from a combination of military exhaustion in the individual nation-states, and a perception of futility.

After World War II, it rapidly became apparent that the United States and the USSR both dwarfed any individual European nation-state in power, military, political, economic, and cultural. The disintegration of the colonial empires was not something that Europe wanted, it was something that they couldn't prevent. If the national power had been sufficient to retain the empires, they would have.

Today, Europe has the luxury of being peaceful, because it lives, in practical purposes, under American protection. This carries costs, of course, in terms of self-respect, freedom of action, and world influence.

The real purpose of the European Union is precisely to enable the Europeans to throw somewhat more equally with the U.S. within the West and the world. It's been very effective in trade terms. The EU commands a lot of clout at trade conferences and economic sessions.

But world influence, in the end, derives much more from military power than economic power (though military power in turn hinges on economic might). If the Europeans want to draw equal with the U.S., that means in practice that they have to upgrade their military power, and a disputatious discussion is growing in Europe that may, down the road, lead to just that.

That's where the perception of futility I mentioned comes in. Individually, there's no nation in Europe that could stand against America in a conventional war. Germany is potentially the strongest individual nation-state in Europe by many measures, and it fell short of the mark in WW II. Britain probably has the closest thing available in Europe to the current American capabilities,
and they fall far short of parity in almost all categories.

Further, there is little realistic chance of any nation-state in Europe changing that on its own, and they know it. Thus, Europeans make a virtue of necessity and take satisfaction in their 'more peaceful, more socially evolved' status.

But collectively...that's a different story.
In theory, a unified Europe could match American power, and some people in Europe are quite well aware of this, and would like to see it happen.

On 2002-02-19 16:35, madscientist wrote:

When you are constantly bombarded by advertisements, you become immune to them, or at least I did. You become able to instantly filter out BS.

No offense, but I'd be willing to bet that an objective test would prove you (and I, and the rest of us) aren't immune. Resistant, probably, but not immune. Advertising works on subtle levels, and you can rest assured that if a commercial or advertisement isn't bring results in hard dollars, it doesn't keep running.

This has been demonstrated over and over: advertising works. It doesn't even have to work consciously, but it does work, as the sales figures prove.

Being bombarded by advertisements through email and phone is just horrible. There is nothing wrong with advertisement, per se, but it is done excessively.

I firmly agree with you.

Right now, the rest of the world is not buying the propaganda of the Bush Administration. Even in very friendly nations such as the UK, Japan, and South Korea, Bush has been scathed.

Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, the viewpoints of those governments matter less than they wish they did. All of them together carry less weight in the world than the USA does alone.

I have to admit that I totally bought the propaganda of Bush in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. I was ready to do my patriotic shopping. But after a few days, I began to come back to my senses, and was able to think rationally again.

Kool-Aid is an American drink. The rest of the world does not drink it. The phrase "Axis of Evil" is not going well over the rest of the world. A new war against Iraq has practically zero support outside of America and Israel. Afghanistan was enough. There is no evidence that ANY of these three nations support terror. However, there is plenty of evidence to support that Saudi Arabia supports terror. Evidently, Bush cannot fool the rest of the world. His wargasm has lasted long enough.

He doesn't have to fool the rest of the world. In his own mind, I doubt he's trying to fool them (though I agree that the phrase 'axis of evil' was a poor one).

But either way, one of the things that this business is currently revealing in painful color is just how lopsided the power relationships in the world are. At the moment, if the UK, Germany, Japan, and the EU don't approve of what Bush is doing, it's somewhat inconvenient from the American viewpoint, but that's all it is.

Now, Saudi Arabia is a different story.

Also, the polls in Europe are showing the Bush plays far better to the public there than he does to the governments, for better or worse. Much of the supposed criticism and resistance has in Europe has more to do with the fact that most European nation-states currently have left-of-center governments, and they are uncomfortable with the right-of-center Bush (and American unilateral power in general).

If Bush is going to be stopped, whether that's good or bad, it has to be done inside America, because Europe and Japan can't do it.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-02-20 21:31 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2002-02-20 21:32 ]</font>

On 2002-02-20 21:14, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-02-20 10:44, madscientist wrote:

On 2002-02-20 10:15, Tim Walker wrote:
I've been considering the notion of our Crisis being a combination of Civil War II with WWWIII. The Gray Champion we need must be a Pathleader of Peace. An ex-flower child perhaps? Obviously Bush does not fit. The Missionaries pushed the U.S.A. into the superpower role-now we need Boomers who will lead us away from that. And we need someone who can build bridges within our own society.

I agree. At this point in our development, war is more harmful than beneficial. I guess that's why Europe has been peaceful since WWII.

Europe has been peaceful since WW II from a combination of military exhaustion in the individual nation-states, and a perception of futility.

After World War II, it rapidly became apparent that the United States and the USSR both dwarfed any individual European nation-state in power, military, political, economic, and cultural. The disintegration of the colonial empires was not something that Europe wanted, it was something that they couldn't prevent. If the national power had been sufficient to retain the empires, they would have.

Today, Europe has the luxury of being peaceful, because it lives, in practical purposes, under American protection. This carries costs, of course, in terms of self-respect, freedom of action, and world influence.

The real purpose of the European Union is precisely to enable the Europeans to throw somewhat more equally with the U.S. within the West and the world. It's been very effective in trade terms. The EU commands a lot of clout at trade conferences and economic sessions.

But world influence, in the end, derives much more from military power than economic power (though military power in turn hinges on economic might). If the Europeans want to draw equal with the U.S., that means in practice that they have to upgrade their military power, and a disputatious discussion is growing in Europe that may, down the road, lead to just that.

That's where the perception of futility I mentioned comes in. Individually, there's no nation in Europe that could stand against America in a conventional war. Germany is potentially the strongest individual nation-state in Europe by many measures, and it fell short of the mark in WW II. Britain probably has the closest thing available in Europe to the current American capabilities,
and they fall far short of parity in almost all categories.

Further, there is little realistic chance of any nation-state in Europe changing that on its own, and they know it. Thus, Europeans make a virtue of necessity and take satisfaction in their 'more peaceful, more socially evolved' status.

But collectively...that's a different story.
In theory, a unified Europe could match American power, and some people in Europe are quite well aware of this, and would like to see it happen.

Very true. I've tallied up the combined GDP of the entire EU, and added in the GDP's of the more 'western' of the Central European nations, and the total surpassed our GDP, though not by very much. So, as I see it, the main impediment to the EU becoming a second Western superpower is the perception of futility you mention, undermining even collective efforts in the direction of strengthening their military.

On 2002-02-20 22:21, jds1958xg wrote:

But collectively...that's a different story.
In theory, a unified Europe could match American power, and some people in Europe are quite well aware of this, and would like to see it happen.

Very true. I've tallied up the combined GDP of the entire EU, and added in the GDP's of the more 'western' of the Central European nations, and the total surpassed our GDP, though not by very much. So, as I see it, the main impediment to the EU becoming a second Western superpower is the perception of futility you mention, undermining even collective efforts in the direction of strengthening their military. Truth to tell, part of me would likewise like to see them do it, so as to take some of the burden off our shoulders. (If the 21st C. is going to feature the rise of a new superpower, I'd just as soon it be the EU rather than China, or at least as well as China.)
[/quote]

I'm of divided mind. As you say, a second Western superpower would share a common general cultural outlook and might make the load easier to carry.

However, I also note that the United States has fought two wars against the UK, two wars in which Germany was the foe, and a war against Spain. There's no guarantee that a fellow Western superpower would necessarily be all that friendly. Even at best, I suspect there would be a rivalry for control, especially given that the USA is used to being sole top dog in the West, and has been such for years.

To look back at the last Cycle for a moment, there are historians who think that the Washington Naval Treaty may well have successfully prevented war.

Of course, it didn't prevent a sea war between Japan and the West, but some historians think it might have headed off a sea clash between the USA and the British Empire in the 1920s. That's a minority position, but it's a serious theory.

Having a genuinely united Europe as a rival would have some downsides. Their overall technology would match ours, something the USSR could never claim. They would have economic power at least in our league, something the USSR didn't have. Their natural resources would be considerable, their pool of skilled personnel large, and they would have a long tradition of stable governments and professional militaries.

Still, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Europe as the 4T comes on, and it'll probably happen here and there in fairly close synchronization.

On 2002-02-19 13:13, Jenny Genser wrote:
I agree with Kiff -- many of the dances were slutty.

In that case, I'm sorry I missed them! :wink:

On 2002-02-19 13:13, Jenny Genser wrote:

On 2002-02-19 12:30, Kiff '61 wrote:

The latter, Virgil. No doubt. And last night, even without the falls by the Canadian and Italian couples, was undoubtedly the most pathetic display of ice dancing ever seen at the Olympics. I thought the Lithuanian team, of the last several couples, was the only one worth watching. And they finished fifth.

It wouldn't pain me at all if ice dancing were kicked out of the Olympics.

Kiff '61

My seven-year-old daughter was wowed by the Israeli pair. Of course, she learns those songs that were the music in religious education.

I agree with Kiff -- many of the dances werer slutty.

It's unfortunate that I missed them, since I would like to be able to make witty, erudite, and informed commentary on their socio-biological and Generational implications. I must be sure to pay closer attention in the future. :wink:

On 2002-02-20 23:02, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-02-19 13:13, Jenny Genser wrote:

On 2002-02-19 12:30, Kiff '61 wrote:

The latter, Virgil. No doubt. And last night, even without the falls by the Canadian and Italian couples, was undoubtedly the most pathetic display of ice dancing ever seen at the Olympics. I thought the Lithuanian team, of the last several couples, was the only one worth watching. And they finished fifth.

It wouldn't pain me at all if ice dancing were kicked out of the Olympics.

Kiff '61

My seven-year-old daughter was wowed by the Israeli pair. Of course, she learns those songs that were the music in religious education.

I agree with Kiff -- many of the dances werer slutty.

It's unfortunate that I missed them, since I would like to be able to make witty, erudite, and informed commentary on their socio-biological and Generational implications. I must be sure to pay closer attention in the future. :wink:

I wouldn't say that the dance event was "slutty" as much as it was pretentious (the French and the Russians) and poorly performed (the Italians). I actually enjoyed the Canadians until they fell. And I'm constantly irritated that the American couple is so undermarked.

I'm pretty much fed up with ice dance. :razz:

Kiff

Society is looking at the future again and thinking about skyscrapers.
I think when we think about doing big things as a society and tooking towards posterity we are in a Fourth Turning.
It is also interesting that the WTC was a GI creation from the Awakening (the darling of the Rockefeller boys) while the Empire State Building was a Missionary creation (the darling of Al Smith) and was not destroyed.
Maybe Boomers and Silent will get over thier skyscaperphobia and build a massive new building in Manhatan, Chicago, or wherever.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0208/baard.php

February 20 - 26, 2002


For the Fallen World of September 12, Visions of a Vertical Future
Sky City Fantasies
by Erik Baard



n New York's last Dark Age?the late '70s?David Byrne sang as a Talking Head that he had to "find a city, find myself a city to live in." He was a Manhattanite then; he's a Manhattanite now. There probably was never a question. But today, as this city struggles to find itself after a terrorist attack, the future of the ultimate 20th-century declaration of place?the skyscraper?has fallen into doubt. Fear has hushed giddy chatter of record-setting skyscrapers from Chicago to India, and revered buildings like the Empire State have begun hollowing out as nervous tenants flee them?and some the city itself?before the other shoe drops.

Though the music, poetry, painting, discourse, and dance in which cultured New Yorkers take justified pride are rarely born in skyscrapers, we're forced to ask again what these steel, glass, and stone behemoths contribute to the life of this city. The atrocities committed by Al Qaeda magnified our awareness of the precious contents of what might appear at first as mere mountains starkly rising from the landscape. Look hard at the Chrysler Building with new eyes, and you can almost pick up the heat signatures of beating hearts?janitors from the Bronx and executives from the Upper East Side, secretaries from Staten Island and grad student temps from Elmhurst. It hits you that the spire isn't the point?skyscrapers are our most profound ingathering of human beings, the mission of the city.



Tokyo?s proposed Millennium Tower
A real, and potentially historic, threat is that fear will snuff out the first glimmerings of a new vision of skyscrapers incomprehensibly tall and massive, yet "green"?self-sustaining structures sheathed in solar cells, run through with wind turbines, recycling their water, and dispersing natural light with elaborate mirror arrays. The Ultima Tower. X-SEED 4000. The Bioclimatic Skyscraper. Sky City 1000. The Tokyo Millennium Tower. The Bionic Tower. The Hyper Tower. A whole "arcology"?architectural ecology?movement. These cities unto themselves would be home to millions of inhabitants who'd enjoy vast open-air wooded parks, giant waterfalls, and automobile-free neighborhoods high above the ground. Not biospheres to shut out a polluted Earth, but our best bet for preserving our environment from cancerous development. Hemp wearers might hate to hear it, but in terms of energy use and consumption of green space, a person living in Trump Tower is already doing the planet more good than an organic farmer in Vermont. A "Sky City" would take that truth to new heights.

"I think proposals for cities within a single building that seem outlandish at the moment are definitely going to come to pass within the next 25 or 30 years," says architect William Pedersen, designer of the anticipated next tallest building in the world, the World Financial Center in Shanghai. Pedersen tells the Voice that the challenge "is if you can bring the street up into the sky."

The biggest dreamers are looking amazingly far through the fog of fear.



buildthetowers.org

"I'm a bit worried about my Orbital Towers after September 11! However, multiple redundancy will enable them to survive?they will need that anyway to cope with the occasional asteroid," says Arthur C. Clarke of the kilometer-wide skyscrapers reaching from Earth into space, a project he envisions in his 3001 installment of the Space Odyssey series. Sir Arthur is perhaps the most colorful living futurist, having foreseen in 1945 the communications satellite and, later, notepad computers. NASA's on board with the rough concept, as it plans elevators to space to succeed dangerous rocket launches. Researchers developing robots, radically new materials, and nanotechnologies say they might foment a skyscraper revolution to blow our minds.

Right. Every artist has an opus in his head, and Sir Arthur's misfired predictions have included a few doozies. Meanwhile, Byrne isn't pining for a taller skyline. "Skyscrapers are the temples in the American religion. It is a religion that has found converts as far away as Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur, but it is a pretty empty religion at heart. Needless to say, there's a generous amount of male sexual anxiety involved as well, but don't tell that to the architects," Byrne says today, invoking the clich? of skyscrapers as cathedrals of capitalism.

But who looks at the Chrysler Building and thinks of a car company? The twin towers reflected off the night-darkened lower Hudson as the comet tail of Manhattan. "From 40 miles out at sea they would come up like spires over the horizon before you could even see the coastline. They were phenomenal," remembers F. James Wilson, chief boatswain's mate with the U.S. Coast Guard in New York. The great ones surpass their origins in a glance.



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Yes, skyscrapers are loudly American. Yes, skyscrapers are arrogant. Yes, skyscrapers have the charged sexuality of blatant totemic phallicism. That's why we love them. They are architectural swing, disciplined but exuberant. The two art forms fruited in the same cities?New York and Chicago?at the same moment; Cab Calloway came to New York from Chicago in time to unleash the jitterbug in the shadow of the newly minted Chrysler and Empire State buildings. America announced a new culture to the Old World, one that couldn't be dismissed as derivative, and for decades New York and Chicago relished the spectacle as they volleyed between themselves the title of the World's Tallest Building.



The base of Soleri's new WTC
illustration: Arco Design

Still, many urban planners feel they're sailing between the Scylla of soulless vertical gigantism in our cities and the Charybdis of suburban sprawl, with its monotony and automobile fetishism. Jane Jacobs warned against both 40 years ago in her ringing jeremiad, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. While she laments the bloodshed, she has derided the twin towers as having been "predators" that devoured public funds. Jacobs tells the Voice that skyscraper competition is "literally very childish, like children playing with blocks."

She sees a World Trade Center that, like many skyscrapers, was insidiously dehumanizing, a corporate version of the housing project. Ideally, skyscrapers prevent glum office boxes from eating up precious acres of pedestrian commons. "They free up space on the ground for things people want and need, like flowers and trees," comments Henry Guthard, chief engineer of the World Trade Center design for the architectural firm Yamasaki & Associates. Jacobs, though, argues the street-level plaza beneath the twin towers was a windswept absence overshadowed by stacks of anonymous cubicles.

Jacobs, who left Greenwich Village for Toronto a generation ago, wields tremendous influence still. Her arguments, coupled with security concerns and thin wallets, could add up to blander skylines. Duke University historian and engineer Henry Petroski posits that the pressure to not stand out?as a target or financial risk?could produce skylines "as flat as mesas."

There's a hunger for something more stirring. In posts to the grassroots http://www.buildthetowers.org, amateurs imagineered designs that yearn for the heroic.

Skyscrapers have never been just a fad. They've never faded to the margins?and probably won't?because in their American way they continue a much deeper tradition of upward striving, from East Asian pagodas and the ziggurats of Mesopotamia to the pyramids of Egypt, Central America, and Angkor Wat. The last standing shard of the World Trade Center stood as morbid testament to the cultural ties between foes at ground zero: Leading the eyes to smoke and nothingness were pointed arches, a legacy of Arab culture and engineering passed on to Europe.

The symbolic power of skyscrapers to put the world on notice is obviously still potent today. Asia has famously taken up the torch, with the twin Petronas Towers reigning as the world's tallest, albeit by a needle. They're seconded on that continent by the Jin Mao building in Shanghai. A plan for a Korean unification railroad would boast the world's tallest building as its golden spike, and other plans back-burnered by the recession could be revived in a few years' time.

Skyscrapers become the face of a city to outsiders, but do they inspire residents? Would David Byrne have become a Talking Head without the towers that defined True South for Manhattan? "Down El Paso way things get pretty spread out," he sang. "People got no idea where in the world they are./They go up north and come back south./Still got no idea where in the world they are."

Byrne didn't like what he saw out west, and the highway's daughter, the Internet, is a force for decentralization again. In a Wired magazine piece, Steven Johnson, Internet journalist and author of the new Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, asserts that breaking cities into nodes might cut our losses in the event of a chemical or biological attack, or simply another explosive one. He admires the "distributed density" of the "hill towns of northern Italy."

Johnson doesn't advocate satellite cities of office parks, or even the "garden cities" in which last century's New York planners dabbled. His thesis is that urban vitality can be birthed in hubs of 100,000 moderately neighborly people separated by parkland. New York started that way, in fact, and we're seeing smaller enclaves once again come into their own as artists and immigrants get priced out of Manhattan. Painters wander the wilds of Long Island City and Williamsburg, and Asian businessmen fly into Kennedy or LaGuardia and do business in Flushing without ever leaving Queens. But Johnson places a lot of faith in technology to weave together the creativity of these myriad street lives. Besides, it's a bit late for New York to revamp itself into vineyard villas. A single neighborhood here can exceed 100,000 inhabitants.



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Even so, it takes more than an East Village to raise a Byrne. The twin towers may well have fed off subsidies, but their impact flowed far beyond rent collections. The most talented people in business wanted to be near them, if not in them. If they were trophies, it was to New York's advantage to have such trophies, such lures, to offer. The salaries those workers took in, and the wealth they produced, poured into the city through taxes, restaurant tips to waiters who are really actors, gallery purchases, theater tickets, cash donations to nonprofits, and book sales. That all eventually gets recycled into cover charges at CBGB.



Plans for the Ultima Tower
illustration: Tsui Design and Research Inc.

Henry George, a political economist and populist who in the 19th century was twice nearly mayor of New York (Tammany Hall apparently made sure ballots in the first election wound up in the East River, and George died of natural causes days before a predicted victory in the second), would have reveled in our crowded streets, massive libraries, and especially our breathtakingly tall buildings. His landmark work, Progress and Poverty, tossed aside the squeamishness over the press of flesh with which Thoreau marked American philosophy, writing of the city, "Here are the granaries of knowledge. . . . Here intellectual activity is gathered into a focus and here springs that stimulus which is born of the collision of mind with mind."

Before the invention of the true skyscraper, George eschewed the land-grabbing sprawl for which a disapproving Lewis Mumford later generously coined the term "romanticism of the pioneer." After observing how an egalitarian gold-panning culture in San Francisco morphed into a divided society of barons and landless workers in a mere generation, George wrote that the only just tax is one on speculation. In George's view, a plot of land left vacant in Manhattan still rises in value, because it creates an artificial land shortage that drives rents up. Thus the landlord is imposing a hidden tax on his neighbors.

To correct this, George proposed that land be taxed at its full rental value, but that anything done with the land would be tax-free. That would provide an overwhelming incentive to build ever higher. "A perfect Henry George city might look from a distance like a huge pyramid interrupted by parks" with buildings that decrease in size as they recede from the urban center, says Michael Curtis of the Henry George School in Manhattan. George's influence is far greater today in Taiwan because the godfather of that island's government, Sun Yat-sen, was an early admirer, notes Curtis.

What seems to really offend Jacobs and Johnson is the top-down nature of skyscrapers. At street level, Jacobs sees the apparently chaotic web of relationships that becomes a city's sense of self as "organized complexity," while Johnson has popularized the principle of "emergence" for the digital generation. Both ideas are to some extent reincarnations of Adam Smith's "invisible hand," the molding of a greater society from individuals acting in their own interests. Even skyscraper advocates concede that this dynamism doesn't happen in deck upon deck of fluorescent-lighted boxes.



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But what, as architect Pedersen asks, if the street could be brought into the sky? We already live a vertical existence?at Rockefeller Center one can emerge from a subway, ascend to an underground shopping and dining concourse, and then ride an elevator directly onto an exposed street-level plaza at the foot of a skyscraper. Imagine the skyscrapers linked in a cat's cradle of pedestrian or conveyor skyways that themselves house shops, and you are suddenly living in a city defined as volume, not cardinal directions.

To take one example among many, Eugene Tsui's two-mile-tall Ultima Tower would have a base more than a mile wide with acres of parkland, and he wouldn't design a single studio apartment for its million inhabitants.

"It should be as if nature grew upward. I emphasize raw forms on each floor. Let spontaneity form how people live?let them create as they would. The whole idea is not to overplan such an environment," he explains. "Landscape an area and let people create a pattern of walkways through actual use, and then pave it." He imagines that human desire for change and assimilation would lead to the seeding of ethnic neighborhoods and shifting artists' havens. A funky Williamsburg on Level 132.

Tsui advocates "evolutionary architecture," the assumption that nature's fierce trials would spawn the most efficient systems. The term also keeps him mindful of the environmental mission of his new city. Before Johnson drew on entomology to validate "emergence," Tsui took lessons from termite mounds to design the Ultima Tower with minimal materials.

Jacobs isn't impressed. "The hanging gardens of Babylon do not satisfy needs for open space. They're boring . . . and there's not enough variety," she says. Even if Tsui prevents micromanagement from turning his city into a cruise ship, where the shuffleboard deck will always be the shuffleboard deck, the temptation in such a semi-enclosed environment would be to keep things tidy. In a "real" city, we're constantly reminded of our past, if only because we so relentlessly wear through the present. Wander down side streets along the waterfront, and inevitably your feet will fall on patches where the asphalt has peeled back to reveal cobblestones, the tubercled skin of the extinct city. Would a flaneur in the Ultima Tower be rewarded with that sense of place?

Of course, perhaps the biggest obstacle to grand ventures is the cost. "It's only fair to mention that ideas like these have not been built, and for good reason. It's not as if all we need is enough hubris to go ahead," Jacobs notes. She's right today, as she would have been in 1893, when the first half of the Monadnock Building went up in Chicago?a then remarkably tall structure at 16 floors, but made of masonry. With six-foot-thick base walls, it was an economic dinosaur before its doors opened. The steel frame and elevator were already germinating the Skyscraper Age. Flash forward: At this very moment, laboratories are cooking up new materials, omnidirectional elevators, and even nanobots that might one day construct towers atom by atom.

Carbon nanotubes, cigar-shaped molecules with atoms connected in a kind of hexagonal chicken wire, are 100 times stronger than steel, at about one-sixth the weight. "Individual tubes are the strongest, meanest damned thing going," says professor Richard Smalley of Rice University, who in 1996 shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work that led to their creation. And theoretically, "you could grow them from Earth to the nearest star." Anticipating Clarke's Orbital Towers, Smalley imagines that rather than building upward, architects might be able to hitch a central pillar onto an orbiting satellite and "drape a skyscraper down."

Just don't look for that anchor in Times Square. Though Western architects have led the vanguard in sky cities for more than a hundred years, the consensus is that such skyscraper dreams will be realized in Asia, where architects and engineers say crowding, cultural acceptance, and government backing may in this century drive humanity's most ambitious construction. Then again, maybe Tsui will get his Ultima Tower in New York Harbor despite the misgivings of Gothamites today.

As Clarke, a transplant from Britain to Sri Lanka, says, "There is no such thing as human nature. It's infinitely flexible!"
Reprinted for educational purposes only.

On 2002-02-21 07:22, Kiff '61 wrote:

I'm pretty much fed up with ice dance. :razz:

Then, let's not. There are plenty of other sports to muse about :smile: :

1. Men's Freestyle Skiing: Watching the end of that competition, ya had to feel really bad for Eric Bergoust, really good for Joe Pack, and very admiring of Czech Valenta for his chutzpa and record-setting jump. I was dazed when Eric crashed. Valenta and Bergoust both went overboard for it, and Valenta did it. I think his surprise quad jump threw Bergoust. (Plus, I really liked the insurance commercial that showed Eric's jumping growing up).

2. Men's Short Track: OhnoMania - I honestly began wanting one of those Hitleresque fake mustaches to wear on my chin. Then, when the Korean skater was DQ'd, and Ohno became Gold, I felt as if I was in a surreal moment. The instant slo-mo replay showed an ever-slight lane crossing and bump, and an exxagerated Ohno reponse. Maybe a clear but not convincing way to get Gold, and it tarnished it a bit for me. To paraphrase Costas, Ohno did know how to work it. OTOH, it seemed to me that overall, the Korean skaters work the edge of the envelope so well as to right and wrong, there's no need for steam to secretly open the letter. Big John must be a very unique coach.

3. Men's Skeleton (Shea Generations): I feel the most for Jack Sr. He is the Shea who didn't medal, and now that son has medaled, the media has been obsessed with only the direct connection between grandfather and grandson.

4. Women's Bobsleigh: This ended as perfectly as anything could have. I love it that the "other team" won out.

5. Women's Skeleton: I loved watching Parsley's genuine excitement of her teammate's Gold, even when it bumped her to Silver.

6. Women's Figure Skating (Short Program): Of course we'll see the Long tonight, but I have to say that I continue to find Kwan lacking. I know that her footwork and spiral placed her in front, but I enjoyed more the performances of both Sasha and Irina. (Sarah Hughes seems just a bit too gawky, or I find I'm aware of it at some points, like how her shoulders hunch --- I wanted her to take posture lessons???? I don't know..). My favorite performance, not caring who is World This Or That, was Sasha's. The way her back muscles rippled in her last spin. The way she did that aerial split. Her backwards glances. Her whole personna and talent.

I realize that Sasha's footwork may have been more basic, and that Irina only excels in the jumps. Yet, all everyone can say is how Sasha isn't world-ranked or tested, and that Irina moves slower and her choreography is less sophisticated, and how Kwan is "due" the Gold. These attitudes are what keeps Kwan fluttering above all so far, IMO. But I am not an expert at appreciating the technical aspects of the sports, I just coment on what how performance left me overall as an amateur viewer. And to the untrained eye, Kwan has not risen above what she was criticized for in 1998 against Lipinski (who was inspired and showed it). She has improved and she is very good, but it sounds like she has alot of pull in winning Gold because she "is due it".

I hope tonight proves that whomever gets the Gold convincingly earns it, without the weight of pre-conceptioned expectations. I hope the winners "are due it" because they DO IT tonight.

Kiff, I'll send it to you..... :wink:

Wow, Barbara, you've summed things up very well. I only have a few comments to add:

On 2002-02-21 12:12, Barbara wrote:

1. Men's Freestyle Skiing: Watching the end of that competition, ya had to feel really bad for Eric Bergoust, really good for Joe Pack, and very admiring of Czech Valenta for his chutzpa and record-setting jump. I was dazed when Eric crashed. Valenta and Bergoust both went overboard for it, and Valenta did it. I think his surprise quad jump threw Bergoust. (Plus, I really liked the insurance commercial that showed Eric's jumping growing up).

I wasn't too upset. Eric got his gold four years ago, and the Czech threw out the big trick and nailed it. Gotta give the guy credit. I did like Joe Pack, too.

2. Men's Short Track: OhnoMania - I honestly began wanting one of those Hitleresque fake mustaches to wear on my chin.

Me, too. :lol:

Then, when the Korean skater was DQ'd, and Ohno became Gold, I felt as if I was in a surreal moment. The instant slo-mo replay showed an ever-slight lane crossing and bump, and an exxagerated Ohno reponse. Maybe a clear but not convincing way to get Gold, and it tarnished it a bit for me. To paraphrase Costas, Ohno did know how to work it. OTOH, it seemed to me that overall, the Korean skaters work the edge of the envelope so well as to right and wrong, there's no need for steam to secretly open the letter. Big John must be a very unique coach.

I just hope that Apolo's next race is clean. Well, maybe that's too much to hope for in that crazy sport...

3. Men's Skeleton (Shea Generations): I feel the most for Jack Sr. He is the Shea who didn't medal, and now that son has medaled, the media has been obsessed with only the direct connection between grandfather and grandson.

Exactly. Is Jack Sr. a Silent? That may explain it. :sad: But I think he was enjoying his son's success, regardless.

4. Women's Bobsleigh: This ended as perfectly as anything could have. I love it that the "other team" won out.

Me too. :smile:

5. Women's Skeleton: I loved watching Parsley's genuine excitement of her teammate's Gold, even when it bumped her to Silver.

I'm enjoying these new events for women, because I think it shows, beyond any doubt, that women can be physically strong, competitive, and driven, and still remain real women, not hormone-laced freaks like we saw in the East Germans in 1976. I feel sorry for those East Germans; many of them were cogs in the commie machine and were manipulated into taking the steroids that made them look so unnatural.

But if you look at Tristan Gale, Lee Ann Parsley, the bobsled winners, the speed skaters, and the Aussie who won the women's aerials, you see very pretty women who happen to be strong athletes. :smile:

6. Women's Figure Skating (Short Program): Of course we'll see the Long tonight, but I have to say that I continue to find Kwan lacking. I know that her footwork and spiral placed her in front, but I enjoyed more the performances of both Sasha and Irina. (Sarah Hughes seems just a bit too gawky, or I find I'm aware of it at some points, like how her shoulders hunch --- I wanted her to take posture lessons???? I don't know..). My favorite performance, not caring who is World This Or That, was Sasha's. The way her back muscles rippled in her last spin. The way she did that aerial split. Her backwards glances. Her whole personna and talent.

I realize that Sasha's footwork may have been more basic, and that Irina only excels in the jumps. Yet, all everyone can say is how Sasha isn't world-ranked or tested, and that Irina moves slower and her choreography is less sophisticated, and how Kwan is "due" the Gold. These attitudes are what keeps Kwan fluttering above all so far, IMO. But I am not an expert at appreciating the technical aspects of the sports, I just coment on what how performance left me overall as an amateur viewer. And to the untrained eye, Kwan has not risen above what she was criticized for in 1998 against Lipinski (who was inspired and showed it). She has improved and she is very good, but it sounds like she has alot of pull in winning Gold because she "is due it".

I hope tonight proves that whomever gets the Gold convincingly earns it, without the weight of pre-conceptioned expectations. I hope the winners "are due it" because they DO IT tonight.

Kiff, I'll send it to you..... :wink:

I really don't have much to add here. I have to agree with everything you've said. There is a possibility that Sasha could indeed do a Tara Lipinski and beat Michelle. But it would have to be very convincing. Let's hope it is as convincing as the Men's event was.

Kiff at the sports desk :smile:

And they say Americans are jingoistic. Apolo Ohno is getting threatening emails from South Korea:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/712948.asp

Maybe Bush got the wrong Korea on his "axis."

Kiff

Jill Bakken (woman's bobsleigh...gold!) was my daughters' friend and dorm-mate at college. You have never met a nicer, down to earth young woman. She has worked so hard for this ... struggling financially, never wavering. An amazing xer.

On 2002-02-20 21:05, HopefulCynic68 wrote:

On 2002-02-20 10:15, Tim Walker wrote:
I've been considering the notion of our Crisis being a combination of Civil War II with WWWIII. The Gray Champion we need must be a Pathleader of Peace. An ex-flower child perhaps?

Won't play. The Red Zone/Conversative factions will tend to reject people associated with the whole 'flower child/peace power/etc' movement by visceral reflex.

Obviously Bush does not fit. The Missionaries pushed the U.S.A. into the superpower role-now we need Boomers who will lead us away from that. And we need someone who can build bridges within our own society.

America doesn't really have the option of backing away from superpower status. If we do, some other power will step in to fill the vacuum, and the first thing a new 'usurper' monarch does it make sure the former monarch can't make a comeback. One of the few exceptions to this was when the USA displaced Great Britain as dominant power, and in that case the circumstances were almost uniquely favorable to a smooth, peaceful transition.

I suspect that the United States will emerge from the upcoming 4T either stronger than ever, militarily and economically, or in semi or total wreckage.

Once more I have to agree with you, on all points. There is no way I can see the Red Zone accepting a peacenik/flower child type as leader. At the very least you'd see a repeat of the Clinton years. As for your analysis of what would happen if we were to try to 'back away' from being a superpower, you hit the nail right on the head again. Were I the leader of said 'usurper' power, my first priority would be to bomb my predecessors back into the Stone Age, ASAP. To wrap it up, your prediction that we'll either end up stronger than ever, or in ruins, is right on the money, too. The thing that scares me in light of that prediction is that the Red Zone/Blue Zone division is so deep, and may well be unbridgeable. If it isn't bridged, it's not hard to guess where that would lead.

On 2002-02-21 12:44, Kiff '61 wrote:
Wow, Barbara, you've summed things up very well.

RIGHT! HAHAHA! [insert sarcasm smilie here]

:lol:

**snip snip**

Let's hope it is as convincing as the Men's event was.

Kiff at the sports desk :smile:

IT WAS! We just had the wrong MILLIE!!!!

:lol:

WOW! Sarah Hughes ROCKED, and she deserved it!

An eleventh-grade honor student from Great Neck Long Island...

To quote you - "Millies. Gotta luv'em!"

Sarah, Congratulations!

:grin:

Where it will lead is a division of the country into those zones. As someone who believes fundamentally that "small is beautiful," I don't think this would be a bad idea. Regretable to be sure, but in the end, perhaps better. Personally, as a flower child peacenik (or at least close enough to one for the folks in the red zone), I don't have much desire to continue to be in a nation corrupted and held back by the red zone, and I'm sure folks in the red zone feel the same. I wouldn't feel that way, if the red zone folks would grow up and change their attitudes, but as of now they seem fixed in concrete. So we may have to go our separate ways. We'll go forward with the rest of the world, and the reddies will stew and stagnate in their own world of the past until they come to their senses.

This would weaken America. So what? I don't share the red zoners' fears that America needs to be number one or things will go to hell because some dictator will take over. Most other developed countries are, in fact, more developed and enlightened than we are, in every conceivable way (because, of course, they don't have a red zone). So why should we who are politically more enlightened (i.e. we in the blue zone) feel that America has to lead the world?

Guess what? If you guys in the red zone want to keep the country together so we can be number one, how about growing up in your attitudes so we in the blue zone will want to stick around? How about realizing that your politics are neanderthal? How about realizing that some changes need to be made for the good of the country? How about electing some people other than right-wing fundies who are obsessed with making everyone the same religion and keep people behaving according to their moral codes, and with keeping the government from making the changes we need for fear it might mean higher taxes?