Monday, February 3, 2003

The way reporters cover Web Services is exactly the way they cover space, as a political thing. This morning on NPR they're still doing round the clock "coverage" of the Columbia disaster. They're talking about whether it hurts or helps Bush's planned war on Iraq, they had a report on either side. [...]I think they missed the big one. How about teaching us something about space and the universe. Seems like the perfect opportunity. They say we wouldn't understand, but I'm not sure they're right. I think maybe they're just lazy. [Scripting News] I don't think they are lazy. I think they just don't get out of their offices and their prejudices enough. They see events from the perspective of their peer group, who live around and for influence, power, spin, who's in and who's out. The mass form of gossip. How could they understand what makes scientists, engineers, explorers, adventurers tick? They just focus on the superficial: influence, power, spin in science, technology, adventure. Sure human and social relations are important in any human endeavor. But they are not what the endeavor is about. Except for the press and for academic theorists of social construction. I see the same disconnect when they report on mountaineering or back-country skiing disasters. They talk about the supposed risks and present the people who do those things as weird for taking the risks, but they don't even try to get into what it may mean to those who do it and to those who may learn from it. Here's John Muir, again: When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness. I seemed suddently to become possessed of a new sense. 9:28:05 AM