Marking Time

The UK government is attempting to introduce mandatory ID cards as part of its efforts to fight terrorism and crime in general. I have always been opposed to mandatory ID cards on principle but have often found it difficult to articulate why, beyond some half-hearted and vague mutterings about violations of civil rights.

Here’s an example of how, even with the best intentions, these things can go horribly wrong:

In the Netherlands, the effort at establishing a comprehensive population registration system for administrative and statistical purposes was completed even before the Nazi-occupation (Methorst, 1936; Thomas, 1937). In 1938 H. W. Methorst, who was then the director-general of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics and formerly also head of the Dutch office of population registration, reported on the rapid progress being made in the Netherlands in implementing a new comprehensive system of population registration that would follow each person “from cradle to grave” and open “wide perspectives for simplification of municipal administration and at the same time social research” (1938: 713-714). By early 1941 Methorst’s successor as head of the population registration office, J. L. Lentz, had quickly adapted this general “cradle to grave” system to create special registration systems covering the Jewish and Gypsy populations of the Netherlands. These registration systems and the related identity cards played an important role in the apprehension of Dutch Jews and Gypsies prior to their eventual deportation to the death camps. Dutch Jews had the highest death rate (73 percent) of Jews residing in any occupied western European country–far higher than the death rate among the Jewish population of Belgium (40 percent) and France (25 percent), for example.

The Dark Side of Numbers

Fergus Cassidy discusses media literacy in his column this week and makes the point that we really need to educate ourselves and our children on how to handle all the stuff that’s being thrown at us at the dawn of the information age.

It always struck me growing up that school was almost a TV-free environment. The teachers and the curriculum writers denied the very existence of a medium that was having a powerful effect in shaping the minds of their students.

So while we were busy learning how to analyse and decipher the great works of classical English literature we were left helpless without the tools to do the same for television.

Of course, we claim we are hitting only Mr. al-Zarqawi’s fighters, but anyone who knows ordinance knows that is a lie. The 500, 1000 and 2000-pound bombs we drop have bursting radii that guarantee civilian casualties in an urban environment. More, it appears we see those civilian casualties as useful.

William S.Lind

I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting, but I feel better having screamed, don’t you?

Ignoreland, R.E.M.

Bush-whacked after ten years of Republicans in the White House, R.E.M - the poster-boys of the alternative scene - produced Automatic for the People. It’s a dignified elegy to the death of American optimism with songs of loss, death, unfulfilled dreams and flawed heroes.

It’s also a work that they have yet to surpass. The albums that followed have been variable in quality to put it kindly. And they’re not the only ones. Eight years of Clinton has left the counter-culture lazy, inward looking, self-pitying, and self-obsessed.

Maybe four more years of Bush will wake it up.

An essential component of a good community-based website is community participation. That might seem obvious but looking at the websites of the four finalists of eircom’s Information Age Town competition you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Only one of the four finalists provides the means for members of the community to contribute to the site and actively seeks contributions from them. The other three are content to present the Irish Tourist Board version of their town to the world and seem almost embarrassed and afraid to let the members of the community be seen about the place.

The websites of Ennis, Kilkenny, and Killarney offer squeaky-clean and bland images of their communities that offer little insight into what’s really going on in these places. On the other hand, with its discussion forums and user-driven newspaper giving a warts-and-all description of the town, Castlebar looks like a very interesting place indeed.