Texts and Phonys

I seem to have missed the boat on the text messaging phenomenon. I don’t know why, I love new techy ways to communicate. I attribute my dexterity on a computer keyboard to countless hours spent on AIM in middle and high school. I was one of the first people back in 2002 to have a cell phone without a landline. I even signed up for Facebook right away – admittedly mostly because it helped me get good notes from cute girls if I skipped class. But I haven’t come around on texting.

Texting has some useful applications to be sure. Sometimes talking just isn’t practical. It can be rude in some situations, or impossible with too much ambient noise. Mass texts save 15 individual calls and texts will auto send if a phone regains service for even just a couple seconds. Those are all good reasons to use a text message. They’re quick and to the point, couple lines, and you’re done.

Moving down in order of usefulness are the text conversations. Often 20 minutes are spent writing what could have been said in four. Sarcasm, inflection, and all the other subtleties of the spoken word are lost too. People end up using too many capitals, too many emoticons, too much punctuation, and too many initialisms. (I looked that word up, its real) It takes longer, its less personal, and there’s no positive attributes.

Descending the list of Usefulness we bottom out and pass into the realm of Totally Useless and Down Right Insulting. Most texts I happily ignore but these ones are so frivolous and inane I can’t help but get fired up about them. These messages ask general questions that are clearly involved enough to warrant an actual conversation. Sending a text like that usually means one of three things. 1) Someone thinks I’m so primitive that I answer complex questions in the few lines of a text message. 2) The sender is not smart enough to realize that they’re asking a complex question. Or 3), which is usually that case – The sender just doesn’t care. That’s fine, they’re not required to care, but don’t ask me to spend time texting back when there is minimal interest in my response.

Holden Caufield would have hated the text message. It’s the ultimate Phony Enabler. It lets someone who really doesn’t care feign for a bit as if they do. Case in point - I recently received a text that asked “How was your bike race?” I won’t bore you, the reader, with details but obviously there’s a lot to report from a 3 hour race. Weather, course description, opponents – all things that make it far too involved to respond via text. Maybe the sender didn’t care about any of that and just wanted to know what place I got. That’s fine, its nice of them to take any interest at all, but if that’s all they want to know just ask that or check online, it will be posted in a couple hours. Another friend of mine got a text from her brother asking “How’s life?” That’s a pretty broad question for a text. If someone wants to know how my life is call - let’s talk, let’s hang out, let’s have some personal communication. If you don’t care, don’t insult me by trying to pretend you do.

Don’t get me wrong, there are several good reasons for texting and those are fine. Not my first choice, but I can understand. I’m not so egotistical or self important to think people need to always call me. I do however despise insincerity.  All too often text messages are the result of someone being phony, and that makes me hate the entire genre of communication. 

Personal Profile: Framebuilder Mark Nobilette

Is there a passion that can completely dictate the life path of someone? For Mark Nobilette it was bikes - plain and simple. Walking up to the Nobilette shop, essentially a two-story cube, is rather unimposing. One would never suspect that inside this building magic takes place - tubes of metal are turned into beautiful and functional works of art. The only tip-off is the bike outside that just screams “frame builder” (high-end steel frame, Campy groupo, and a Nite-Rider) and the faded sign over the door. Once inside it is hard to find a place to set anything down. Bike frames cover the place: hanging from the wall, in jigs, on display stands, everywhere. Light music keeps the mood mellow and bike posters plaster the walls. It’s the perfect asylum for someone crazy about bikes.
Nobilette got his start in a frame building class hosted by the famed Eisentraut bicycle company in 1973. As the class concluded he was offered a job at the company based on the talent shown in his first frame – one that still hangs, although dusty, in his shop. Located in California, Eisentraut offered Nobilette the chance to hone his building skills as well as begin a short but fun racing stint. Getting his start on the Turin/Eisentraut squad he flew through two classes of racers, peaking as a Cat 2. He raced with legends like Tom Ritchey and Mike Moale for teammates, before finishing his career for Velosport/Berkley. He eventually moved to the Chicago area where he co-owned a bike shop and expanded his custom frame building business until 1992 when he moved to Colorado. Once in Colorado he focused his efforts on his frames, selling though local shops and bigger dealers like Colorado Cyclist. His circulation peaked around 150 frames a year, although he prefers doing only about 75. Nobilette also subcontracts for many larger companies such as Zinn, Racermate, Rivendell, and, back in the golden age, Morgul Bismark.
Some wonder what would compel a person to spend his or her life building bicycle frames. It doesn’t pay well, wielding isn’t the most glorious job, and very few people ever know of you. For Nobilette as well and many other builders it’s a love of bikes, a talent in art, and a passion that spans both. Art has always been the primary motivator for Nobilette, he tries to do something new and artistic with each frame. Whether it is an aero, race frame, or a stylized, custom drawn lug set, each bike has its own soul. While expanding his horizons artistically, he also pays homage to the classics. As Schwinn (the renowned American bicycle manufacturer) went out of business, Nobilette snatched up two full tube sets from them. Not just an ordinary tube set, these tubes belonged to what has been called “the most successful American racing bike of the 20th century” – the Schwinn Paramount. Nobilette shows off his first Paramount frame with great pride and his reverence for the bike is apparent.
One of Nobilette’s bikes stands alone when it comes to art – the Spiderman bike. The bike was built up from a set of hand designed lugs to make a beautiful steel road bike. Once completed it was sent to the painter’s with no instructions. What came back was a red and blue finish; with black paint on the lugs that Nobilette concedes do “look kind of web-like.” A perfect incarnation of a Nobilette frame since Mark himself owns the first hundred installments of the comic “except number two,” he adds with a touch of distress.
While no one is sure of what the future holds, Nobilette is fairly certain that his holds more bike frames. Whether subcontracting for larger builders or expanding his horizons on long-haul racers, the wielding torch isn’t likely to lose its spark any time soon. While he knows that he “probably won’t do too many more racing bikes” and that in general the time of the steel bike is over, Mark Nobilette will continue building beautiful custom bicycle frames for as long as he is physically able. 

Censorship in Photojournalism

In 2005 the Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for News Photography with several graphic and controversial pictures of the Iraq war. There were pictures of dead bodies, pictures of slain and dismembered corpses, and pictures of executions as they happened. This did not sit well with many Americans who were upset by the explicit level of detail showed in these photos and then published in newspapers across the country. The Pulitzer Prize only added fuel to the fire.
I would argue though that condemning these pictures for showing the way things are is like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. The idea that graphic images shouldn’t be shown is contradictory to the very core of journalism whose mission is to inform the masses. It is the job of news outlets to be in the action and report what is going on for the people at home. To attempt to soften the reality of what is happening would be to do a great disservice to anyone relying on the media for truthful objective information.
While the assignment asks for an analysis based on “a photograph” and I started by specifically mentioning a series, I would argue that the ethics of graphic photos in the news is based on more of a Kantalonian principle of universal norms than on an individual analysis of each piece of work. It is from this perspective that I purpose that no photograph be censored from release to the public strictly because it is too graphic in nature. Some people argue that a graphic picture needs to have more news value to be released but I would counter that as long as it has as much value as any other picture in the publication it passes the test. Granted, photos shouldn’t be published strictly for shock factor, but if they are of a significant news event, then they don’t’ need to be any better or worse to get in the paper.
The United States is made up entirely of a decision making body that needs to be informed about the real consequences of what they vote on. This country isn’t able to inform a select few people and let them make the decisions – as a democracy every single one of our citizens needs to be as informed as possible and if that means they must endure graphic pictures than so be it. As a country I think we suffer from the illusion of separation between what we vote on and what actually happens. We would be very angry if the President didn’t go to the World Trade Towers or take a tour of Iraq simply because he (or she in the future) didn’t want to see what was going on. How then do we, as the people that pick the president, justify being in favor of censoring or giving warning for graphic images?
Graphic, explicit photographs make an impression on people which is precisely the reason that some people don’t want to see them. They don’t want to know that people are being slain in the middle of a crowded highway. They don’t want to know that people are being executed on a city street in Siagon. And they certainly don’t want to know that the fire escape outside their window could fail and send them falling several stories to the street below. These are not realities that some people want to be confronted with, but it is a reality they should be aware of which is why all three of the above mentioned photos won the Pulitzer Prize.
Pictures are said to be worth a thousand words which is really just a metaphor for saying they can be very powerful and tell the viewer a lot about the subject. This is exactly what journalism is supposed to do. If a photograph is able to tell the story of the war in Iraq then publish it. If the emotion of a distraught parent at Columbine or the elation of a person being pulled off a roof in New Orleans can’t be described by even the best writer, show a photograph.
Its not the media’s job to decide what we as the public can and can’t handle. We deserve to see the pictures for the sake of being better informed, both simply for our own benefit, and because ultimately the public is responsible for making the decisions of the country. 

On Romance and Machines

While I was at the grocery store last week I witnessed a terrible tragedy. Granted this incident alone would not have constituted anything noteworthy, but it seems to be part of a growing trend that is quite distressing.
The incident was simple – I was standing in Whole Foods on Pearl Street trying to decide which type of honey I should buy and what in the world “agave” is. About eight feet to the left of me and looking at the cookie section, a man pulled out his cell phone and proceeded to dial. Upon getting his intended receiver on the line, his wife, he asked, “What kind of cookie do you like?” He then began to walk around the aisle until he found said cookie, picked it out, hung up the phone and went on his way.
I on the other hand stood there – stunned, confused, and heartbroken. How is it that this man could be married to a woman whose favorite cookie he didn’t know. Her favorite cookie! I mean, come on now, that seems like a fairly easy thing to remember and yet he hadn’t a clue.
I have observed recently the metaphorical rise of the machine. As more people have instantaneous communication with little effort, they don’t actually communicate. People write e-mail letters that aren’t really letters – they jam out a couple sentences before hitting the send button. I have more phone conversations that last three minutes than ones that last over 10, and kids have entire relationships over AOL instant messenger without ever meeting the person on the other computer. This one incident made it painfully clear to me – people may have more ways to communicate, but without making any of it personal it really doesn’t matter.