That's Real White Of You

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when the one voice of hope in a political campaign is a trial lawyer.

Now that John Edwards is gone, if you're poor, working class, a single parent, live in the wrong area of the country or just can't get a break, as far as this presidential election cycle goes, you're probably SOOL. While speaking kindly of him in tonight's debate, don't expect either of the Dems to really do much for the lower two thirds. The National Journal got some headlines and page views today with a headline that claimed that Obama was the most "liberal" Senator in 2007, ahead of Clinton. But it also noted "Of the 267 measures on which both senators cast votes in 2007, the two differed on only 10."

40% of the population of New Orleans lived in poverty during Bush years. Or rather, most of the Bush years, preflood that is before they drown or had to flee for their lives. But in the 8 years of the Bill Clinton presidency, 40% of the population of New Orleans also lived in poverty. Rhodes scholar, maybe, friend of the working man, I don't think so. That giant sucking sound of jobs heading south still can be heard. There has been less a war on poverty than a war on the poor.

Here are two different web sites that graphically display what is happening in this country.

The first is from a site called Social Explorer . This map displays poverty levels in the US according to the US Census in 2000. Go to the pull down menu on the top right and toggle the 2000 census. Then go to the middle menu and go to the Poverty.

Now compare it to this map from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

Where are the fallen heroes coming from? Poor areas in post industrial US. Towns and cities that saw their jobs and industries shipped off to where labor was cheap, laws where easy and profits for multinationals are high. Men and women who would have had good union jobs now see their only way into the middle class is to risk their lives in the military in exchange for an education. It’s called an economic draft. This is not to say that they are not patriotic and don't believe in what they are doing. Their fathers and mothers taught them to believe in the American dream. It is a dream most parents were able to realize by working overtime. That option isn't available for many in places like the small towns of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, upstate New York or any of the other states that comprise the Rust Belt. Those factories are now polluting the Yangtze. The rapidly truncated Appalachians never really shook their poverty despite the efforts in the 60's. There are parts of South Dakota and John McCain's Arizona that skirt third world status.

There will be lip service to the lower two thirds tonight but neither candidates will really be speaking to the working and the poor. They'll be talking to the contributors. Again.
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WWED (What Would Euripides Do?)

I've always been a technology buff. The formative influences in my youth were the polio vaccine, the Mercury Seven, pictures from Mars and deep-sea submarines. I can recall watching open-heart surgery on local television. It was shown late at night so as to avoid disturbing the squeamish but the image of a surgeon holding a beating, human heart in his hand will always stay with me. Good theatre should have a similar gee-whiz factor, either in production, performance or at best, a combination of the two.

While theatrical plotlines remain essentially the same (seven-count em, seven), science, engineering and the audience drive the technological advances in the theatre. Moving lights can produce millions of colors, hydraulics can move tons with ease and high tensile steels and alloys allow for scenery and cables of incredible strength. But the audience doesn't want to see a show about moving lights or scenery or flying people. It still boils down to telling a captivating story. And that human element can still trump technology.

A case in point is automated follow spots. They've been trying for years to find a way to allow an automated moving light to replace a human spot operator. Cheaper and flashier, theoretically you could put twenty spots on a single performer. Its been tried with rock and roll and more recently on a Broadway show. There are two major problems. Lag time and head fakes. Currently a performer carries tracking device that the unit tries to follow. The problem is processing time. Even in milliseconds, the time it takes for a signal to get from performer to processor to the motors is long enough to create a visible lag or jerkiness in the moving head. If you try to preprogram moving head for a point to point cross following an actor, well, unexpected things happen in live theatre. Even the fastest computer processing power will not react faster to a head fake or the suddenly reblocking of a scene than an stagehand who can decide, on the fly, to open the iris and follow the changes as best they can until the regular blocking is restored. Try that with software.

In the first Darpa Grand Challenge in 2004 the furthest an autonomous vehicle got was 7 miles out of the 150-mile course. In the 2007 Urban Challenge, this clip shows how unmanned technology mixed with human traffic . It did pretty well for the most part. For the most part. However imagine being the robot car being a piece of automation and the actors name is Taurus. Ford Taurus. The bugs for follow spots will be worked out.

One potential answer for follow spots may lie in joining facial recognition software in a unit such as High End Systems DL.2 with its built in camera and infrared sensors. By eliminating the need receive a signal from a homing device and introducing the process directly into the software, you may cut down on the lag time. Which could make automated follow spots a reality.

Do I want to hang on to carbon arc follow spots for the sake of job preservation? I would if, with their heat and foul odors, a carbon arc would put fannies in seats. If not, give the people what they want and give me a healthier work environment. Bring on the next deus ex machina. Since the Greeks, it’s always been about spectacle and the story. Why change now?