Tech Book: PW Talks to Kevin Kelly 

PW talks to author and Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly about what  technology wants from the book business
 

By Craig Morgan Teicher
 Nov 01, 2010

 In his new book, Kevin Kelly, author of What Technology Wants puts forth a unique view of technology as a living, evolving entity, which he calls "the Technium." The Technium, he notes, wants to grow. It wants to improve. And it will use people as its agents—willing or not. What Kelly hopes to show in What Technology Wants is how to go with the flow—how to learn from the Technium's desires, and to benefit.

Kelly has been in the inner circle of the tech world for a long time. Before cofounding Wired in 1992, he wrote and edited for the Whole Earth Review, eventually becoming its editor. The Review was a journal of “unorthodox technical news,” Kelly says, doing groundbreaking reporting on technology trends, such as virtual reality, work that eventually led Kelly to other pursuits on the cutting edge of technology. Today, he maintains a number of blogs and resources at KK.org, including Cool Tools, which surveys useful tools of all kinds, ranging from things like the Gator Machete Junior to GotLogos, a Web site that lets you create instant personal logos. He also maintains a busy consulting and speaking schedule.

With publishing approaching a technological crossroads, we caught up with Kelly, who has been spending the year thinking and writing about e-books—as well as reading them—to talk about his new work, the effects of technology, e-books, and the ways that publishing has historically resisted, and slowly accepted, technology’s advances.

It seems as if we caught you at a good time—not only do you have a new book, What Technology Wants, you’re dedicating the next year to thinking about e-books. Can you talk a little about that?

I’m really happy with what Penguin has done with What Technology Wants. And as an artifact, it’s beautiful. But this is probably my last paper-native book, because the attention has fallen elsewhere. That’s basically the only reason—because people, young people especially, are spending more and more of their time on things that are happening on screens, and if you want to reach people, that’s really where you should be looking. It’s not for a lack of love for books, it’s just necessary because the center of culture has moved. So I’m thinking about what that shift means, and, I have to say, I don’t have a magic formula. I’m like everyone else. I think it’s very uncertain what this future will actually look like and how it works. And while it’s no surprise to anyone that things are changing, what I think is kind of surprising is that, after 20 years of talking about it, it’s finally happening.

What kinds of things are you thinking about and exploring?

I’m thinking about what remains of a book when you take away paper. I’m pretty sure there’s something there—that the concept of a book exists outside of paper. The issue, though, is not how people are going to enjoy books. The issue is more about business models. For readers, this is the best time in history. There’s never been more selection, more media types, or quality books. There’s never been more backlist books available. This is a high point for readers. For publishers, though, it is a low point, as their businesses are in transition.

But I’m very optimistic, because in my research, money follows attention. Wherever attention flows, money follows. So, I have no doubt that if it is screens that are getting attention, money will flow to screens. The question is, of course, what models—will it be advertising-based, which is fixed around attention, or an app-based thing, which the iPad seems to suggest is viable, or maybe a subscription model, which Netflix has proven works for movies? I expect it’s going to be all of the above.

Another one of the big questions is who will get that money, as traditional industry roles change.

Yeah, yeah—but I want to emphasize that for at least 20 years, this whole perplexity has been there. It’s really nothing new. I do think there are a lot of functions publishers won’t be handling anymore. But I don’t think publishers and labels and studios are going away. There is a financing aspect which I think is still necessary. And there’s also curation, and finding young, new talent, and bringing it forward and saying, “This work is worth paying attention to.”

I did a calculation, and I figured that you could take every single bit of music that has ever been recorded, and you could fit it onto a six-terabyte disk now being sold on Amazon for $600. But once you have everything on your disk, the question is still: what do I listen to next? So I think the role of publishers in guiding attention and cultivating talent is necessary and is valued, and that people in the long-term will pay for that.

Certainly, everyone who got that six-terabyte disk full of music would listen to it in different ways, so you’d need curators to create a shared experience that people could actually talk about, yes?

Right—and there’s not going to be a single filter that will move you through it; there will be many. There obviously can be collaborative filtering done by the mob, by the hive-mind. Culture needs aggregators, like an Amazon or a Netflix. And I also think that there will be these, agencies, I want to call them—the publishers, studios, and labels of the world—to work with artists, that get things done, even if they aren’t necessarily the ones who are distributing the actual works. I think publishers have to get out of the distribution business in a certain sense and get more into the content-enabling function, where they’re partly helping to finance stuff and making things come about in a high-quality way. Distribution is out of their hands now.

I’m curious to know what you think about the various devices that we’re reading e-books on. Do these things seem to you like transitional devices?
Yes, and that’s actually a very good word for them. I believe they are transitional devices. First of all, I’m a relative pluralist in the sense that I really do think that we’re moving away from the kind of industrial economy that fostered a lot of the uniformity, with sort of one business model, one builder, and preferred methods of manufacturing, value chain lines, and all that stuff.

I think this sort of network-oriented, webby economy that we have coming will mean that there’s more than one business model for e-books. I don’t think we’re going to converge on a single e-book format, and all the e-readers we have right now are just hinting at the different directions that they can go in. I also think there’s going to be more types of devices because different people read differently, and there are also going to be different kinds of books, and not just say, a fictional narrative vs. a textbook, but kinds of books we haven’t even invented yet. To me, that’s the most exciting part—all the new forms of books that will be made possible by technology.

What do you think of the iPad?

It seems really great for magazine articles, and I am reading books on it, too. But it’s a little heavy for me for ideal book reading. But for article reading, or for a couple of hours, it seems really great. It’s also very good with photos and stuff. I’m really having a good time with it. It has a very smooth prose experience and people seem to be willing to pay for apps on it, and that suggests that there’s a business model for books that are really sweetened for the iPad. With its interface, the color, and the ability to be kind of connected to the rest of the world, there’s a sense that you can maybe do things with books other than just straight black-and-white text. And we now have evidence that people are willing to pay for books. I like the Wired app, for example, and [it] has done very well in terms of money. I feel intuitively that the iPad is something that can be conjured with and built upon.

How about the Kindle?

I think for a first step, they’ve done really well. I think in the long-term, they have to broaden their vision of what a book is in terms of how people interact with it. I’m a little frustrated with the Kindle because I can’t yet do all the things I want with text. I work with text in terms of extracting. I want to be able to easily manipulate it, move [it] around, e-mail it, forward, all this other kind of stuff. And that’s not quite there yet with the Kindle—or with the iPad, by the way. Some of the fault there lies with publishers. Some people really get kind of hysterically paranoid about people messing with their texts and afraid that it’s going to get away from them somehow. I think the inventors of these devices are aware of this and really want to do more, but are constrained by publishers who are afraid of what might happen if texts become too liquid.

You said this would likely be your last print-originating book, but I wonder what you envision for your next book—a discrete text that doesn’t change? a text that partly lives on the Internet and partly as discrete text? 

I think the answer is all of the above. I believe there will be authors who continue to write, say, mystery novels that will for a lot of people be very satisfying. People are still painting with oil paints, even though that’s not the center of culture anymore, and if you look at the number of oil paintings or painters, there’s still a lot of them. I think there will be very traditional stories, textual stories told for a long time. At the same time, I’m looking forward to a new kind of book, where moving images or graphic visualization is an integral part. And there will be documents like Wikipedia and other things that are completely in flux, that are constantly morphing and changing and there is no definitive version. All these things are happening right now. 

To what extent do you think publishers have been evolving with technology and to what extent do you see them resisting it?

From my perspective, I would say publishers have been resisting far more than they’ve been cooperating. But again, this is not new or a surprise. All these changes have been resisted for more than 20 years. We have had 20 years to actually prepare and innovate and change the business, but all along publishers have been fighting these changes until the last minute, when they can no longer resist it.

Part of that is because the early experiments didn’t make money right way. But that’s not how innovation works. And I think they’re still resistant over this idea of how to protect copies of things. In my view, the copies are just completely valueless at this point, and they have to let the copies flow. Once they do that, then they can begin to really move into the new era and capture, generate, and create some new value. But as long as they hold onto this idea that copies are precious, they’re just resisting change.

You write in the preface that you try to keep technology at arm’s length, though it sure sounds like you are surrounded by a lot of technology. Can you talk about some of the things you see technology empowering or changing?

One of the things that I think has really been kind of fun is that we’re really exploring the power of sharing, and what that can really be when amplified by technology. We’re really exploring how far this can go. And in every case, we’re finding out that it can go a lot further than we think. When Wikipedia started—it was called Newpedia at the time—I was trying it out and I really didn’t think it had any chance of working. It just seemed to me theoretically impossible. But now it works, and I think that is an example of how trying and engaging with technology is really the only way to evaluate it. 

I tried Twitter. It didn’t work for me, but I am aware that it works for other people, and it may work for me later on. But it’s not necessary to do all things. I think with e-books, I’m trying stuff, and it may work for some people, it may not work for others, and that’s fine. I think we’re starting to realize that you have to be able to say “no” to some technologies, to learn how to try something and give up and not feel bad about it, but also not to try to block or inhibit other people from using or trying technology that may work for them.

As a technologist, any advice or observations you’d offer the book industry?

If I had to give some advice, first, I’d tell publishers to look to where people are spending their attention, and that’s where you want to be. Second, look where people are doing things for free. Because you can then explore what starts for free and try to make something valuable. And third, let the copies go and work on producing something that can’t be automated or copied easily. That’s where the value is. 

It takes a leap of faith, but I believe this is sort of like the food pyramid. At the bottom is always user-created stuff, and that produces a platform, a kind of chain of stuff so that these higher, charismatic, longer-living entities can survive. Without that kind of bottom, it’s really hard to have the other things. If we think about what are the great things that will last over time, it’s not going to be those funny YouTube clips. The things that take effort and intelligence to produce are the things that will survive for a hundred years. 

So, don’t be distracted by all this stuff being produced that may not involve you, the publishers. I think there’s a tendency to cringe that there is all this user-produced stuff, and it’s all free. That stuff is a necessary part of the ecology. It does not diminish the value of what you produce. In fact, it increases your value.

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Bill Withers Has Ruined Everything.

 

This was what kicked off all the problems...

I went to see the Soul Power film and after that the blog ran dry for a few days. Everything failed the "Bill Withers Test" (is it 50% as good as Bill Withers? No? Not posting it). I was so excited about it I put on an event because I felt everyone had to see it. I eventually got over this, but then I went to see Still Bill at the BFI and it all began again.

Now it keeps coming back in waves - sometimes I just can't post so and so's latest project because it's failing the BW test and I know I won't be listening to it in 6 months let alone 30 years. I've been listening to Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall which is a true masterclass in, well, class. Bill is without question one of the greatest songwriters of all time, who made music without compromise, broke rules, and can make you cry in under 0 to 10 seconds. If you send me music, I would really appreciate it if you could take the BW test for yourself before you do. Thanks.

 

 

 

'Jesus had HIV' sermon sparks South African fury

By Mohammed Allie BBC News, Cape Town

HIV still carries a stigma in South Africa’s townships

"Today I will start with a three-part sermon on: Jesus was HIV-positive," South African Pastor Xola Skosana recently said in a Sunday church service.

The best gift we can give to people who are HIV-positive is to help de-stigmatise Aids ”  —Pastor Xola Skosana

• Zuma reveals he is HIV-negative
• SA vows to treat babies with HIV

 

The words initially stunned his congregation in Cape Town's Khayelitsha township into silence, and then set tongues wagging in churches across the country.

Some Christians have been outraged, saying he is portraying Jesus as sexually promiscuous.

HIV is mainly transmitted through sex, but can also be spread through needle-sharing, contaminated blood, pregnancy and breastfeeding.

However, as Pastor Skosana told those gathered in the modest Luhlaza High School hall for his weekly services, in many parts of the Bible Jesus put himself in the position of the destitute, the sick and the marginalised.

"Wherever you open the scriptures Jesus puts himself in the shoes of people who experience brokenness. Isaiah 53, for example, clearly paints a picture of Jesus who takes upon himself the infirmities and the brokenness of humanity," he told the BBC.

He is also quick to emphasise that he is using the metaphor to highlight the danger of the HIV/Aids pandemic, which still carries a stigma in South Africa's townships.

"Of course, there's no scientific evidence that Jesus had the HI virus in his bloodstream," says the pastor, whose non-denominational Hope for Life Ministry is part of a growing charismatic movement in South Africa.

"The best gift we can give to people who are HIV-positive is to help de-stigmatise Aids and create an environment where they know God is not against them, he's not ashamed of them."

'Mock Christ'

There is often reluctance to find out one's HIV status

 

But Pastor Mike Bele, who officiates at the Nomzamo Baptist Church in nearby Gugulethu, said most clergy in Khayelitsha and other Cape Town townships are strongly opposed to associating Jesus with HIV.

"The subject of my Jesus being HIV-positive is a scathing matter," he says.

"I believe no anointed leader with a sound mind about the scriptures and the role of Christ in our lives would deliberately drag the name of Christ to the ground."

For Pastor Bele portraying Jesus as HIV-positive means he becomes part of the problem, not the solution.

"The pastor needs to explain how it came about for him to bring Christ to our level, when Christ is supreme and is God," he says.

Pastor Skosana has fortunately got the country talking”  —Siyabulela Gidi

 

 

"There is a concern that non-believers would mock Christ and try to generalise Christ as opposed to the powerful force we believe him to be."

But Pastor Skosana, who has been in the ministry for 24 years and lost two sisters to Aids, argues that religious leaders have to play a much bigger role in combating the spread of the pandemic in South Africa where more than 5.7 million people live with the virus - more than in any other country.

And he concluded the last of his three-part sermon by taking an HIV test in front of the congregation - after which 100 churchgoers followed his example.

"The message to the church is that it is not enough for us to give people food privately and give them groceries, we must create an environment that's empowering because most people who are HIV-positive will not necessarily die of Aids-related sickness but more of a broken heart, out of rejection," he says.

'Fear and ignorance'

Amid the controversy, Reverend Siyabulela Gidi, the director of South African Council of Churches in the Western Cape, has come out in support of Pastor Skosana, saying his standpoint is theologically correct.

HIV in South Africa

• 5.7m carry Aids virus
• 18% of those aged 15 to 49 HIV-positive
• 460,000 receiving ARVs(estimated in 2008)
• 350 000 deaths due to Aids (estimated in 2007)
• 1.4m Aids orphans

Source: UNAids/WHO/Unicef epidemiological fact sheet, 2008

 

"What Pastor Skosana is clearly saying is that Christ at this point in time would be on the side of the people who are HIV-positive - people who are being sidelined by the very church that is attacking him," the Anglican priest says.

"Pastor Skosana has fortunately got the country talking, he's got the world talking and that is what theology is all about."

Outside religious circles, Pastor Skosana has also received support from Aids activists.

"The pastor's sermon takes away the stigma that HIV is a sin and that it's God's punishment," says Vuyiseka Dubula, general secretary of the powerful Aids lobby group Treatment Action Campaign.

"To associate Jesus with HIV is powerful, particularly for those who go to church. Now people are starting to think: 'If Jesus could be HIV-positive who am I not to have it even if I go to church?'"

Jan Glazewski, a professor of marine and environmental law at the University of Cape Town who has been HIV-positive for 25 years, wrote in a letter to the Cape Times newspaper that he identified with the idea that God was on the side of the poor and marginalised.

South African townships have been the worst affected by the HIV pandemic

 

"The pastor's metaphor gives strength to us all," he said.

"In aligning Jesus to HIV, his sermon has prompted an outcry as well as expressions of anger.

"This is because of fear and ignorance."

It is this fight against fear and ignorance that Pastor Skosana is determined to continue.

"The more we talk about it in our pulpits, the more we ask people to test voluntarily in the church the better.

"One of the most powerful things we can do as a church right now is to say Jesus was and is HIV-positive."

___________________________________

BBC News website readers from around the world have been sending their reaction to this story. Here is a selection of their comments:

Jesus came to identify with people in their brokenness and need. It is a good thing to try and bring HIV/AIDS into the open and remove the stigma. Christians who are living with the virus need the support of their brothers and sisters in Christ. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - not just those with HIV/AIDS - and all need the grace of God which can transform their lives. Bev Bhaskare, Johannesburg, South Africa

This pastor has lost touch with moral goodness. Of all the very relevant and appealing examples, it remains incomprehensible to me why he chose to take this route. I don't wish to judge a servant of God but this metaphor leaves a sour taste. Otsile Oscar Motswagole, Gaborone, Botswana

I wholly applaud what Pastor Skosana is trying to do. For those who like everything neat, literal and sanitised, then his message will be a problem. However the gospel is all about God coming down utterly to our level so that He may lift us up to His. Jesus would never disassociate himself from anyone with HIV, just as He bodily embraced those with leprosy. However, those who are indignant should worry that Christ may disassociate himself with them! Peace on Pastor Skosana. Rev Richard Sherlock, Woking, UK

I don't really feel that portraying Christ as HIV-positive is the right approach to de-stigmatising the virus. He is not just a person but a divine being. People should try and respect that fact and stop politicising religion. Jude Ejike, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

I quite agree with Pastor Skosana. Yes Jesus took all our sins on himself, for it is our wounds that he bore (Isaiah). He became human to identify with sinners, the marginalised and the despised of the world in order to liberate us. This image of an HIV Jesus is most appropriate - we should all identify with our HIV sisters and brothers to help them lift up their heads and believe in love and life. Bernard Mallia, Rumbek, South Sudan

As a Christian living in America, I'm reluctant to comment too much on what resonates with Christians in other cultures, but I'm hesitant to affirm this pastor's metaphor. Yes, Jesus ministered to the sick and cared for the downtrodden, but that was NOT his ministry, nor was he on the "side" of the HIV-positive, as if those who are HIV-negative are spurned by Jesus. Jesus' point was to set an example for Christians living today. We are to reach out to the "HIV-positive" of the world, regardless of whether or not we actually have the virus. Lucas, Chicago, US

Exciting stuff - maybe this will help people at least to talk about it. I live in east Africa, and I can see that bringing the Church into the issue of AIDS has helped whole nations deal with HIV in an amazing way. If South African Christians will also embrace the HIV-reality as much as they embrace Jesus, then we will see those figures of how many are HIV-positive decline to a tenth of what they are now, just as they did in Uganda. Antony Elliott, Kigali, Rwanda

He was bruised for our transgressions. Jesus is portrayed as the bearer of man's suffering, and this includes modern-day ills, such as HIV. The direct connection may rub some people the wrong way, but the message is that he cares for us all. Eric, Nairobi, Kenya

Tomas Puts Haiti on Red Alert

— By Mac McClelland

| Tue Nov. 2, 2010 3:06 PM PDT

Today, Haiti officially went on red alert—not for the cholera outbreak apparently imported by Haiti's UN peacekeeping force, MINUSTAH—which a lot of Haitians already don't love—but because of tropical storm Tomas. 

The late-season storm is projected to intensify into a hurricane and make landfall on Friday, with winds and rains beginning today, and authorities are warning people that they may have to evacuate. They are not, however, telling them where they all might evacuate to, since a million people already live under little more than plastic sheets after January's devastating earthquake. 

A series of hurricanes in pre-quake 2008 Haiti killed 800 people. This weekend, Tomas killed at least 14 people in fully functioning St. Lucia. Read how many people in Port-au-Prince died when it rained for 10 minutes when I was there in September. Aid groups and the UN are scrambling for extra supplies like rope and tarp, but there's little they can do for the ultravulnerable in the camps. 

One of my new Haitian friends made fun of me when I texted him yesterday expressing concern for his well-being, texting back that he'd be fine: he'd gotten an extra case of vodka. He lives in a house in the mountains like the rest of the wealthy, but is well aware of the conditions in the displacement camps. And every light shower knocked out the power at even my fancy hotel during my two weeks. Still, my friend said, "Come on, you guys need to lighten up"—"you guys" being Americans and/or the media, I guess. I do hope he's right that we're getting all worked up over nothing. But I have my grave doubts. 

________

Mac McClelland is Mother Jones' human rights reporter, writer of The Rights Stuff, and the author of For Us Surrender Is Out of the Question: A Story From Burma's Never-Ending War. Read more of her stories and follow her on Twitter. Get Mac McClelland's RSS feed.

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VCVaile Yesterday 08:09 PM

I grew up in South Louisiana ~ I understanding hurricane watching, understand sitting out hurricanes in unexpected and less than ideal shelter ~ alone with small children, candles, battery powered radio, bottles of water. And looking back I am struck by how much better off and safer I was. The barn was sturdy, built to withstand hurricanes, the water clean, and I had a place to go back to when it was over. Grow up with hurricanes, you don't panic but you do respect the destructive force ~ and always hope they go somewhere else.

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Methuselah Today 04:05 PM

I grew up in Galveston, and fully comprehend and respect the deadly power of hurricanes. I shudder to think of what a direct hit would mean to these people.

Galveston and the coastal cities in Texas are flat and low, and can be scoured clean by storm surge (see Hurricane Ike). Mac, with what you know about the topography of the island and the locations of the tent camps, what can we expect if Tomas makes a direct hit?

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JanieT Today 04:50 PM

This video gives one an idea of what the camps look like, it was taken in March 2010 and briefly shows what it is like when there is rain- see:

 

Sean Penn, Camp Prepare for Big Hit From Tomas

Emily TroutmanContributor

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Nov. 3) -- Sean Penn's relief organization is already reeling from cholera-preparedness efforts and a micro-storm last month that wiped out hundreds of tents, including its headquarters at the densely populated camp at the Petionville Golf Club.

Now, the actor-turned-camp-manager and thousands of others are bracing for more heartbreak. 

Weather forecasts predict Tomas, a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane, may reach the southern coast in the next 48 hours and move from south to north across the entire country. Tonight, the government of Haiti is expected to announce an evacuation of all coastal and low-lying areas, as well as an evacuation of all camps, even those within the Port-au-Prince urban area.

Emily Troutman for AOL News

Sean Penn, seen here taking a call at the refugee camp at Petionville Golf Club, is preparing for the arrival of Tropical Storm Tomas.

Shelter is still scarce here, despite all the relief efforts since the Jan. 12 earthquake. An estimated 1 million people still sleep and live in tents.

Penn spent part of this busy morning meeting a shipment of emergency medical supplies at the airport, while staff began to deconstruct the temporary cholera isolation unit they set up just days ago. Big tents of any sort -- schools, churches, play areas -- will not withstand the 40- to 75-mph winds that are predicted.

Officials with nongovernment organizations and charities say the government has been in meetings today negotiating over the terminology of their announcement. Shannon Costello, a spokesperson for the Jenkins Penn Haiti Relief Organization, called it a "mandatory" evacuation. But, as in other countries, there's no real way to make people leave. And many here have nowhere to go. 

The Jenkins Penn organization made arrangements for about 150 disabled and vulnerable residents of the camp to take shelter in a temporary school. For the other estimated 60,000 to 70,000, they are on their own.

"We're going to speak frankly today," Penn, the camp manager, told AOL News, "and let people [in the camp] make big, grown-up decisions for themselves."

His comment reflects the reality on the ground here; there is very little to be done in terms of protecting people. Though international aid groups and U.N. officials are in almost constant meetings this week, there is so far little action on the ground. 

The U.N. conducted a multi-agency, mock-hurricane exercise four months ago, which was widely considered a failure. In particular, communications were the major vulnerability. If local radio station antennas and cell phone communications go down, mass coordination will become impossible.

Haiti was pummeled by three major weather events in 2008 that killed almost 800. There are few or no hurricane shelters in the country, and 90 percent of schools along the earthquake path collapsed. Thursday, at Petionville Golf Club, the organization will send community leaders into the camp with bullhorns to announce news of the evacuation. 

The organization is very hesitant to make the announcement itself, in case people in the camp interpret it as a top-down decision by foreigners to kick them out. The United Nations, among other international organizations, is encouraging no more distributions of shelter materials in camps after the storm. 

They are advocating a neighborhood-based approach to distributions, which might encourage more people to go home. Many of the estimated 1,300 camps in Haiti started as spontaneous settlements but are now attracting people who want to receive free goods and services like clean water, health care and education. 

There are no official numbers to estimate how many people are genuinely in need of shelter, but some say the numbers are much lower than 1 million. People in camps will make life-or-death decisions this week based partially on whether they are willing to leave behind their tarps, and whatever small piece of normalcy they've carved out for themselves since the earthquake.

Pastor Jean St. Cyr was taking down his large tent church in Petionville Golf Club this morning. He said his message to his 700 parishioners probably won't change much after the storm.

"You can't better this place," he said. "It can't be bettered. I tell people, listen, we're in a tent city, but we have to be kingdom-minded. Go out, do what you were doing, try to get your life back."

>via: http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/sean-penn-and-camp-in-haiti-prepare-for-...

____________________________________________

Experts: Did UN troops infect Haiti?

Wed, Nov 03, 2010

The head of Nepal's mission in Haiti, Lt. Col. Krishna, second from left, and Prakash Neupane, deputy chief of the MINUSTAH engineering section, left, walks by pipes coming from latrines that lead to septic tanks that crosses a canal that leads to the Artibonite River at Nepal's U.N. base in Mirebalais, Haiti, Sunday Oct. 31, 2010. A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 300 people in Haiti matches strains commonly found in South Asia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday, intensifying the scrutiny of a U.N. base that is home to recently arrived Nepalese peacekeepers, built on a tributary to the Artibonite River. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

 

Researchers should determine whether United Nations peacekeepers were the source of a deadly outbreak of cholera in Haiti, two public health experts, including a U.N. official, said Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the strain of cholera that has killed at least 442 people the past three weeks matches strains found in South Asia. The CDC, World Health Organization and United Nations say it's not possible to pinpoint the source and investigating further would distract from efforts to fight the disease.

But leading experts on cholera and medicine consulted by The Associated Press challenged that position, saying it is both possible and necessary to track the source to prevent future deaths.

"That sounds like politics to me, not science," Dr. Paul Farmer, a U.N. deputy special envoy to Haiti and a noted expert on poverty and medicine, said of the reluctance to delve further into what caused the outbreak. "Knowing where the point source is — or source, or sources — would seem to be a good enterprise in terms of public health."

The suspicion that a Nepalese U.N. peacekeeping base on a tributary to the infected Artibonite River could have been a source of the infection fueled a protest last week during which hundreds of Haitians denounced the peacekeepers.

John Mekalanos, a cholera expert and chairman of Harvard University's microbiology department, said it is important to know exactly where and how the disease emerged because it is a novel, virulent strain previously unknown in the Western Hemisphere — and public health officials need to know how it spreads.

Interviewed by phone from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mekalanos said evidence suggests Nepalese soldiers carried the disease when they arrived in early October following outbreaks in their homeland.

"The organism that is causing the disease is very uncharacteristic of (Haiti and the Caribbean), and is quite characteristic of the region from where the soldiers in the base came," said Mekalanos, a colleague of Farmer. "I don't see there is any way to avoid the conclusion that an unfortunate and presumably accidental introduction of the organism occurred."

Cholera, which had never before been documented in Haiti, has killed at least 442 people and hospitalized more than 6,742 with fever, diarrhea and vomiting since late October. It is now present in at least half of Haiti's political regions, called departments.

Death occurs when patients go into shock from extreme dehydration. The epidemic has diverted resources needed for the expected strike of a hurricane this week, and could spread further if there is flooding.

Suspicions that the Nepalese base could have been a source of the infection intensified Monday after the CDC revealed the strain in Haiti matches those found in South Asia, including Nepal.

But nothing has been proven conclusively, and in the meantime the case remains politically charged and diplomatically sensitive. The United Nations has a 12,000-strong force in Haiti that has provided badly needed security in the country since 2004. But their presence is not universally welcomed, and some Haitian politicians have seized upon the cholera accusations, calling for a full-scale investigation and fomenting demonstrations.

Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it is clear that the disease was imported to Haiti but that it is still not clear by whom or how. She said the epidemic will contain lessons for humanitarian relief work and disaster relief around the world.

"It has to be either peacekeepers or humanitarian relief workers, that's the bottom line," she said.

Mekalanos said researchers might be more aggressive in finding the source of the infection if the case was less sensitive.

"I think that it is an attempt to maybe do the politically right thing and leave some agencies a way out of this embarrassment. But they should understand that ... there is a bigger picture here," he said. "It's a threat to the whole region."

He also cast doubt on U.N. military tests released this week that showed no sign of cholera. The tests were taken from leaking water and an underground waste container at the base a week after the epidemic was first noted and processed at a lab in the neighboring Dominican Republic, U.N. spokesman Vincenzo Pugliese said.

Mekalanos said that it is extremely difficult to accurately isolate cholera in environmental samples and that false negatives are common. The Nepalese troops were not tested for cholera before their deployment if they did not present symptoms. But health officials say 75 percent of people infected with cholera bacteria do not show symptoms and can still pass on the disease for weeks. A spokesman for the World Health Organization said finding the cause of the outbreak is "not important right now." "Right now, there is no active investigation. I can't say one way or another (if there will be). It is not something we are thinking about at the moment. What we are thinking about is the public health response in Haiti," said spokesman Gregory Hartl. The Harvard experts said more conclusive evidence would be available following closer examinations of the genetic material in the strain. CDC spokeswoman Kathryn Harben said in an e-mail that the center will make the full genomic DNA sequence available when it is confirmed. "At some point in the future, when many different analyses of the strain are complete, it may be possible to identify the origin of the strain causing the outbreak in Haiti," she said. Farmer, who co-founded the medical organization Partners in Health that is a leading responder in the epidemic, said there is no reason to wait. "The idea that we'd never know is not very likely," he said. "There's got to be a way to know the truth without pointing fingers." ___ Associated Press reporter Colleen Barry in Geneva contributed to this article.

>via: http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/cb_haiti_disease_outbreak

Noisettes (occasionally written as NOISEttes to mark the difference in pronunciation from noisette- a cooking term meaning hazelnut-flavoured or hazel in French) are an indie rock band from London comprising singer and bassist Shingai Shoniwa, guitarist Dan Smith, and drummer Jamie Morrison. The band first achieved commercial success and nationwide recognition with the second single of their second album, "Don't Upset the Rhythm (Go Baby Go)" which reached number two on the UK Singles Chart in Spring 2009.

The band formed in 1996 when guitarist Smith and singer Shoniwa were attending the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, both of whom had previously been in the band Sonarfly. Drummer Morrison (formerly of Living With Eating Disorders, Willis, Six Toes, Jaywalk Buzz, Loden Jumbo and others) was recruited after Smith saw him performing on the UK television show 'Later... with Jools Holland' with his then band, Willis.^[1] The Noisettes quickly formed a reputation for being one of the rowdiest live acts in London.^[2]

Shingai Elizabeth Maria Shoniwa^[2] (first name pronounced /ʃɪŋˈɡaɪ/ shing-guy; born on 1 September 1981) is an English singer of Zimbabwean descent and best known as the vocalist andbassist for the UK indie rock band Noisettes. Her first name, Shingai, means ‘persevere’ in theShona language.^[3][4]

Shoniwa grew up in a South London public-housing estate; her father died when she was 11, leaving her to a single mother who had emigrated from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).^[5] The experience, Shoniwa says, absolutely informs her music. “Wanting to escape from reality can inspire the greatest and most trivial creative natures in people,” and “I think escapism is something that connects all of us. Everybody has their own little soundtrack, and I guess I’m trying to make my own soundtrack to my escape plan. I want people to realize that there’s so much more.”^[6] 

—Wikipedia

Live - New Pop Festival 2009

Tzynya L. Pinchback

Muse is a Clamor

Video poem & book trailer for "hussy" by Tzynya L Pinchback.

 

 

 

CONTEST: The Night
postmark deadline January 10, 2011

Co-sponsored by The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies
Judged by Susan Orlean

Creative Nonfiction and The Salt Institute are seeking essays about "The Night": It was a dark and stormy night; Strangers in the Night; the night sky; Friday Night Lights; things that go bump in the night; Take Back the Night; night owls; The Night Before Christmas; The Night Watch; The Night Kitchen; The Armies of the Night; The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down; prom night; date night; Good Night, Nurse!

Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information, and reach for some universal or deeper meaning in personal experiences. We're looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.

Essays will be judged by Susan Orlean, and Best Essay will be awarded $5,000 plus publication in the Summer 2011 issue of Creative Nonfiction. One runner-up will receive $2,500 plus publication online. For accepted applicants, contest awards can also be used directly toward Salt tuition.

Guidelines: Essays must be unpublished, 4,000 words maximum, postmarked by January 10, 2011, and clearly marked "The Night" on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. Author's name and contact information should appear in a cover letter, but not the manuscript itself. There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription--U.S. submitters only); multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. (though due to shipping costs, the subscription deal is not valid). Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information including the title of the essay, SASE and payment to:

Creative Nonfiction
Attn: The Night
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

The Cleopatra Literary Contest for Young Women

 

This literary contest is named after the inspirational Cleopatra VII of Egypt, who was an author of works about cosmetics, pharmacology and weights & measures. Established and sponsored by author Stephanie Dray, the competition is aimed at discovering and mentoring aspiring young female writers. In particular, the award seeks to foster new voices with an appreciation for women’s history.

A printable flyer is available to help spread the word.

Prizes

• Teen Category Winner:  Choice of $100 cash or a brand new E-reader, in addition to an award certificate, a month-long writing mentorship with Ms. Dray, a feature article in her blog and newsletter, and a critique from NY literary agent, Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates.
• Young Women Category Winner: Choice of $100 cash or a brand new E-reader, in addition to an award certificate, a month-long writing mentorship with Ms. Dray, a feature article in her blog and newsletter, and a critique from NY literary agent, Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates.
• Finalists:  Constructive feedback from publishing professionals, mention on Ms. Dray’s blog and newsletter, an award certificate, and a free book courtesy of contest sponsors.

Eligibility

• Females between the ages of 13-18 for the teen category
• Females between the ages of 19-22 for the young women’s category
• This is an international contest, so writers outside of the US are eligible

Themes

“Selene’s life is a lesson to us that the trajectory of women’s equality hasn’t always been a forward march. In some ways the ancients were more advanced than we are today; there have been setbacks before and may be more in the future.”

~Stephanie Dray

This year’s submissions must echo themes explored in Ms. Dray’s novel, LILY OF THE NILE, including, but not limited to:

The world of Cleopatra Selene Women in Ancient History Female Spirituality

Gender Roles Then and Now Survival vs. Honor The True Meaning of Home

Courage & Ambition Betrayal & Forgiveness Secrets & Deceit

Contest Rules

• Entrants retain all publication rights
• No entry fee is required; no purchase required
• Awards will be judged by published authors and publishing professionals

1. Short stories, essays, poems, and excerpts from novels and novellas are welcome, in any genre, as long as they focus on one of the themes listed above.
2. All contest rules must be observed and all eligibility requirements met.
3. Entries must be original English works. Plagiarized work will not be tolerated in any form, and entries cannot have been previously published or purchased by professional media.
4. Entries are limited in length to 2,000 words. No cover letter is necessary.
5. Send entries to cleopatracontest at gmail dot com with the subject header: Contest Entry
6. Entries must include the author’s legal name, a pen name (if any), valid mailing address, telephone number, email address, a word count, and the age of the author.
7. Entries should be included in the body of the email; please don’t include any attachments.
8. All announcements regarding this contest will be made via Ms. Dray’s newsletter, so entrants must join.
9. Entries must be received no later than 11 PM EST March 1, 2011. Semi-Finalists announcements are tentatively scheduled for May 1, 2011 and Finalists on August 1, 2011.
10. Only one entry per author and all entries must be the final version. No revisions will be accepted once the entry has been submitted.
11. Entries will NOT be judged by Ms. Dray, but by other published authors and industry professionals. The decisions of the judges are entirely their own, and are final.
12. Contest judges reserve right to close contest before the deadline if overwhelmed by too many entries, so get yours in early!
13. This contest is void where prohibited by law.

Additional Contest Sponsors include:

• Rosemary Clement-Moore, RITA award winning author of THE SPLENDOR FALLS
• Louisa Edwards, author of the well-received JUST ONE TASTE
• Gwen Hayes, author of the much anticipated FALLING UNDER
• Mindy Klasky, award-winning author of TO WISH OR NOT TO WISH
• Sarah MacLean, New York Times & USA Today Bestselling author of THE SEASON
• Rebecca York, New York Times Bestselling author of DRAGON MOON

The White Pine Press Poetry Prize was established in 1996 to enrich our literary heritage by providing a publication opportunity for U.S. poets. Manuscripts are screened by the editorial staff, and are then sent to a poet of national reputation, who makes the final selection. The name of the final judge is not revealed until the end of the competition. White Pine Press makes every effort to select judges who reflect the multicultural focus of the press. Additionally, we alternate between a male and a female poet each year as final judge. The competition opens for submissions on July 1st of each year. Manuscripts must be postmarked by November 30th. Mansucripts must be between 60 and 80 pages in length. Poems must be original, but may have appeared in magazines, anthologies, or chapbooks. Translations are not eligible. Manuscripts must be typed and should include a table of contents. The author’s name, address and telephone number should appear on the cover sheet only. Please include acknowledgments for all previously published work that appears in the manuscript. Manuscripts will be recycled at the end of the competition. If you wish to be notifed as to the winner, please include a self-addressed, stamped, business-size envelope with your submission. Manuscripts must include a $20 entry fee. Checks should be made payable to White Pine Press. The manuscript, along with a self-addressed, stamped postcard for notification that it has been received, if so desired, should be sent to: White Pine Press Poetry Prize P.O. Box 236 Buffalo, New York 14201 Should it be necessary to use express mail services that do not deliver to post office boxes, the manuscript should be sent to: White Pine Press Poetry Prize 5783 Pinehurst Court Lake View, NY 14085

Nigeria tribalism: a personal love story

My father's generation will never relinquish their tribalism, but my generation has thankfully learned to look forward

 

• 
• • Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 September 2010 15.00 BST
  • 
    

 

When I was 17, a tall, handsome doctor fell in love with me. He left Nigeria, shortly after, for his residency in America, and proceeded to prove how much he was still in love with me by dispatching mushy Hallmark cards every week – to my university during semester, and to my family home during holidays. Eventually, my father could bear it no more. He summoned me for a tête-à-tête. Along with his address, the smitten doctor always scribbled his name on the colourful envelopes, hence, my father could detect his tribe. "You must never get involved with a Yoruba man," my father warned. "They are wicked."

I didn't blame my father for those sentiments. Like most Igbos, he felt bitter and marginalised. And there was nothing much they could do except murmur and rant because they had already fought for secession … and lost. Even though the official verdict after the Nigeria-Biafra civil war was: no victor; no vanquished.

Throughout our childhood, my parents had regaled me and my siblings with a stream of "during the war" tales. Of the endless traffic when every creature in our hometown, Umuahia, was fleeing the imminent arrival of the Nigerian army. After hours of inching along and swallowing his thirst, my father reached for a rusty can lodged in the mud, scooped from a roadside puddle and drank. Of how my mother didn't have much to show for her years of schooling because the soldiers who invaded Oguta ripped her books to shreds. Of when the war ended and the then finance minister, Obafemi Awolowo, declared that each Igbo was to receive £20, irrespective of how much was in their accounts. Awolowo was Yoruba.

But something else happened after the war. Aware that venomous tribal sentiments were behind most of Nigeria's post-independence troubles, our government hatched an idea. Special schools in every state. These would be the best. Fees would be subsidised. They would also have a quota system that ensured as many tribes as possible represented in their enrolment. Therefore, children from the hinterlands of every region would have the opportunity to mix. Lured by the high academic standard on offer, parents rushed to register their wards for the super-competitive exams into the federal government colleges.

At 10, I left home to attend FGGC Owerri. Over the next six years, I shared the same dormitories, ate at the same tables, played pranks with classmates from various ethnic groups. I discovered that not all Hausas concealed daggers with which to stab Igbos, in their underwear; that not all Yorubas were cantankerous traitors. The curriculum also forced me to learn jaw-breaking phrases in strange Nigerian tongues. Outside language classes, speaking "vernacular" was banned. And during morning assembly, all 1,500 students stood erect and belted out our school anthem:

 

The guns of battle were all silent
The smoke of destruction blown away
The lips of war were sealed
And the scarring almost healed
When our school was born to herald a new day.

Nigeria, we all make thee a promise
To serve thee with strength of heart and brave
To build and not break down
Bury quarrels in the ground
So that those who died may not have gone in vain.

 

Eventually, the brainwashing was complete. Apart from when my parents referred to Abimbola as "your Yoruba friend", and Rahila as "your Hausa friend", I hardly remembered any differences between us. With this mentality, I applied to the University of Ibadan. Not only was UI widely acknowledged as "the first and the best", but it was far away enough from Umuahia to allow me spread my wings without parental interference.

My father went ballistic. UI was in Yoruba territory.

"They are wicked," he insisted. Plus, the city had a history of turmoil. Even my mother had fled UI, following the election riots of 1965, eventually completing her degree in the Igbo-dominated Nsukka University.

His advice went in my ear and did a U-turn right out. Like most teenagers, I was sure that my father knew nothing about life.

It turned out that he was right; Ibadan was the headquarters of spontaneous civil unrest. And since I was in the midst of many who never got the opportunity to attend a "Unity School" like I did, Ibadan was also my matriculation into the intriguing world of Nigerian tribalism.

I met Igbos convinced that everyone speaking Yoruba in the vicinity was conspiring against them. And Yorubas provoked whenever an Igbo dared to contest a school election. And Igbos deserting Yoruba girlfriends in favour of Igbo brides. And Yorubas horrified when offered an Igbo meal. It was all quite pitiful.

As Nigeria celebrates 50 years of independence from Britain on 1 October, I'm thankful for the privilege of attending a federal government college; of learning that we all are basically the same. I'm also more determined to keep the promise I made to my country all those years ago: to build and not break down.

The smitten doctor has never been back to Nigeria. Last I heard, he was expecting a child from the Yoruba wife he met there in America. Then, in two lavish ceremonies in 2009, my sister got married to a – gasp! – Yoruba man. With my father's approval!

Had the passing of time led him to finally forgive? Of course not. There really isn't much hope for his generation in terms of relinquishing tribal sentiments. Our only hope is our youth. My father was probably just so eager for his daughters to get married that even if either of us had dragged in an orangutan and presented it as our groom-to-be, he would have approved.

_________________________

Profile

Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is the author of I Do Not Come to You by Chance, a debut novel set amidst the perilous world of Nigerian email scams; winner of the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Africa). She lives in Lagos, and works with Nigeria's groundbreaking NEXT newspaper