Cozumel S.E.A.

Cozumel S.E.A. Web site pages and text--DRAFT

[This is a short technical writing sample, and it suggests that space where information systems and noema-noesis collide. For these reasons, plus the declaration that "this space exists," this piece is included here.]

Introduction

The pages are written roughly as a thread in both languages. You ideally go from the first to the contact page. But you can also enter anywhere and get information and a link to the contact/inquiry page.

Decision to be made: Whether to have the English or the Spanish as the first text on a page. With one exception (see below), I suggest English in that with this site, you are trying to attract English speakers who want Spanish.

Manifest (in thread order)

index.html (welcome)
about.htm (about S.E.A.)
cozumel.htm (about Cozumel)
englishintro.htm (learning at S.E.A.)
spanishintro.htm (learning Spanish)
courses.htm (courses and rates)
contact.htm (information and e-mail form)
thanks.htm (message sent)
links.htm (advertisers, etc.)
cuisine.htm (Josefa's gig)
sendlink.htm (to a friend)
error.htm (message or other error)

For consideration. Members area for learning materials and interaction (blog?).

---

index.html

ES [target is on the same page]

Welcome

Cozumel Spanish, English Academy (S.E.A.) is a small, private language school located in the town of San Miguel on Cozumel Island, Mexico. Minutes from the clear turquoise waters of the Caribbean and in the center of town, where tourists cease their wanderings and you can experience the colors, flavors and pace of local Mexico, we teach Spanish and English to students of all ages and levels.

S.E.A.'s professional staff, all friendly native speakers using communicative teaching methods, will help you maximize your abilities while making learning a language in Cozumel truly enjoyable.

If you are looking to learn Spanish or English while visiting Cozumel, one of Mexico's treasures, welcome. Explore this site. Your inquiries and interests[link to contact] in joining us for a course will be met with courtesy and friendliness characteristic of an international staff that warmly embraces this island paradise, Mexican culture and cuisine, and teaching and learning languages.

[testimonial if available]

Continue/continua >>> About S.E.A.

[translation of this page]

Continue/continua >>> About S.E.A

---

about.htm

About S.E.A.: Principals, Philosophy, Prices!

Clare Turnbull and Arnon Gilboa [text needed].

Together Clare and Arnon believe that "Good language skills come from good experiences and the will to learn." Along with their staff, S.E.A. works with you to provide language skills you can use.

S.E.A. offers quality instruction at a price that anyone can afford. But we don't sacrifice quality in order to offer great prices. The school strives to be a good community citizen. Instead of focusing primarily on profit, we prefer to focus on providing you great service and a great experience. That way everybody is happy, and you'll recommend us to your friends![send-link link]

S.E.A. offers standard and custom courses at the school and other locations on the island. S.E.A. has a limited number of affordable rooms for rent. Meals at the school can be arranged. We can also recommend other accommodations from moderate to expensive.

[testimonial if available]

Continue/continua >>> About Cozumel

[translation of this page]

Continue/continua >>> About Cozumel

---

cozumel.htm

ES [target is on the same page]

Cozumel

The town of San Miguel de Cozumel is as Mexican as it gets. This authentic atmosphere along with our Caribbean island's assets are what bring tourists back year after year. Locals say that once you visit Isla de Cozumel, it's hard not to return.

+ Warm, white sandy beaches; crystal-clear indigo seas; romantic Mexican nights; world-class hotels, restaurants and nightlife.

+ World-renowned fishing, diving and snorkeling; archaeological sites dating back thousands of years; a great tropical climate . . . and lots of water sports.

In this tranquil retreat, there is nothing better than an extended stay to acquire or improve English or Spanish--two of the world's most spoken languages.

Map, Isla de Cozumel (Yucatan area)
Map, San Miguel and S.E.A (city and school location)
See also, activities and attractions in Cozumel[best link needed].

[testimonial if available]

Continue/continua >>> English at S.E.A.

[translation of this page]

Continue/continua >>> English at S.E.A.>

---

englishintro.htm

English version below. [target is on the same page]

[translation of this page here--Spanish first on this page!]

Continue/continua >>> Spanish at S.E.A.

Cozumel S.E.A.: English

[testimonial if available]

Come learn with us! Our philosophy is: "Good language skills come from good experiences and the will to learn."

* We at S.E.A. are a small, friendly team of professional native-speaking teachers.

* We believe that the more you speak, the more you will learn and be able to use your language skills in real life situations. S.E.A. instructors use active methods and proven group work techniques to get you speaking as quickly as possible.

* At S.E.A., we use our own specially developed curriculum that includes role playing, games, quizzes and audio to develop your reading, listening and conversation skills. At the same time we teach you the grammar you need.

* We offer both Spanish and English at S.E.A. We regularly have mixed language conversation groups. You can discover another culture informally and personally. Come prepared to use the skills you learn, and have lots of fun!

[testimonial if available]

Continue/continua >>> Spanish at S.E.A.

---

spanishintro.htm

ES [target is on the same page]

Cozumel S.E.A.: Spanish

[testimonial if available]

In addition to the S.E.A.'s philosophy and advantages of taking a course with S.E.A.[link to page above], Cozumel is the perfect place to enjoy a peaceful retreat and experience one of Mexico's hidden treasures. It is also perfect for learning Spanish.

We believe that the more we can help you speak and practice in different day-to-day situations in Spanish, the more you will learn and retain. The locals are friendly and have plenty of time to help you with your Spanish. The island is small enough so that you won't get lost, and it is safe. We can give you all the ins and outs! In just a few days you'll have your favorite taco stand and feel like a local.

We will teach you Spanish in a fun and natural way. Our method is the communicative approach, and it has been demonstrated worldwide to be one of the quickest, most effective ways of learning a language. You can even spice up your learning with S.E.A.'s home cooked Mexican meals.[link to cuisine description]

Continue/continua >>> Courses and Rates

[translation of this page]

Continue/continua >>> Courses and Rates

---

courses.htm

Courses and Rates

S.E.A. English courses are usually ___ weeks in duration and are scheduled to begin and end with the same dates as the local school terms. We accommodate one or more participants by ability level, and, as appropriate, according to age. Prices begin at ___ Mexican pesos per clock hour.

Spanish courses for one or more participants can begin at any time and last as long as desired. Prices begin at ___ Mexican pesos per clock hour for groups and ___ Mexican pesos for individuals.

Custom and offsite courses are quoted based on specific requests and requirements. Please inquire if interested in a custom course.[link]

[testimonial if available]

[table in EN and ES together with prices]

Continue/continua >>> Contact

[translation of this page]

Continue/continua >>> Contact

---

contact.htm

Cozumel Spanish, English Academy
#648 Av. Juarez entre 30 y 35Av.
Cozumel, Q. Roo 77600
Mexico
Phone: +52 1 987 111 9785
E-Mail: cozumelsea at yahoo dot com [written like this to deter e-mail harvesting]

Isla de Cozumel (Yucatan area map)
San Miguel and S.E.A (city map and school location)

Use this form to contact us.

Full name:
E-mail:
Phone:
Course you are interested in:
Is this a custom course?
yes/no
For how many people?
Adults___
Children (14 and under)___
Approximate start date:
Need assistance with accommodations?
yes/no
Message:
Security Code: [to prevent e-mail bots]
Send button

---

links.htm

[text and image links plus what S.E.A. can do to assist with accommodations, text needed]

Continue/continua >>> [link to contact.htm]

---

thanks.htm

Your message has been sent. Thanks for contacting S.E.A. We will get back to you shortly.

To find out more about Cozumel and our advertisers, please see our links page.[link]

---

oops.htm

Oops. Something went wrong. Please, go back to the previous page by using the back-button in your browser, or use the navigation links on this page.

---

cuisine.htm

[text needed]

---

sendlink.htm

[this is a new window allowing the user to send S.E.A.'s URL to someone]

Ever the prism

Walking and hiking have been lifelong passions. I delight in seeing what there is along my way and what might be around the bend, or down that narrow street. Sometimes the briefest encounter or experience appears to signify something other. As I have practiced seeing, I can now sustain the meditation for longer periods, even a day. What may be one of life's delights from nature or nurture, it is now often intentional, almost a way of being and, let it be said, becoming.

A tract

I met a guy on the trail I was crossing. I asked him what was down the way he had come.

"Oh," he said. "There's a little stream."

He asked me where I came from. I told him I had left the trail down in the meadow near where the cars were parked. I was headed up to the ridge. No comment as he kept his pace.

As he disappeared from view, I asked him not to tell anyone that I didn't always follow the trails. He cautioned me to be careful.

I continued straight up through the woods to the ridge. After a while, I saw daylight at the crest. A bit winded, my heart reminding me it had once before rebelled, I skirted around and reached the ridge via a gentler incline.

Another view rewarded me as I emerged from the woods.

Look, look again

Back then in the central Rockies, south of Leadville, I think. Either before or during the time I was considering further formal studies of some sort. On the trail in and out of the wilderness, at what could not be the same but we would say roughly was the same point, I stopped and looked up at an outcropping with a tall evergreen to the right of it, low lying scrub to the other side continuing down the slope for a short ways. I was not looking for something, merely looking. If I took five paces ahead or backwards, the object of my gaze changed, and changed again with one pace, and again with the slightest change in the angle of my head.

Reality really is such an elusive thing.

I often stop now and pick a point or feature some distance away. Whether on a trail or because of some urban scene, any really. The exercise confirms we know nothing and everything and no one or no two can have it exactly same.

Still, in medias res

A bus stops across the street.

From my bench, I become more attentive to the human landscape. It is as diverse as it is. Comparisons are meaningless. And I am the landscape. That I am as a different as everybody else believes they are is the only truth. And thus in one way the same. Some stand out, others pass me by without my registering more than that. It's a differentiated landscape. Attending to this not that is perhaps cellular and nothing else.

A restaurant named Joe's. By the bus stop. Seems ordinary enough. Enough to go unnoticed and go out of business. The building sits and sits. It was there when I was a child. What it does must have some resilient genes. They split and split. I guess Joe's is the same but in some way not.

from February 2, Wednesday, '06

Aying

I found myself in front of Lienard's brewery restaurant, where we had eaten the evening before. I looked around in the cold and decided my stop was a bit further on, down the street and the first left, about a hundred yards. I considered a detour around the Bavarian church to the stop, but I wasn't sure of the exact time of the bus. So I proceeded directly to the stop. I passed by the little grocery store on my left and saw that the seasonal bulk-trash pickup was probably today--a dated light fixture was in the pile with the dusty bulbs still in it. Something to go over a wooden Bavarian kitchen table or dining nook, I guessed. I got to the stop and checked and rechecked the schedule. The bus was due there just before nine. It was just after eight. I had time, so I decided to walk to the next stop, according to the schedule one minute away by bus. It was at the Gasthof zur Post, Peiss. I walked down the right side of the street and my leg brushed a bit of someone else's pile of throwaways. I then crossed to the left side. There were pastures coming up I knew, and the right side was not appealing. As I walked I passed by fences and driveways. There were recyclables now in evidence. I saw one pile of bottles, mostly wine and sekt. I thought this household drinks quite a bit. But then I thought so did I, if you were to count the bottles I tossed in the recycling bin. After I had passed the last dwelling on the right, I found the pastures, and there were horses or ponies in the distance. I remembered them from two days before. I had seen them from the bus, standing all in a group facing one way. I had wondered why. About half way along the fields, I turned around and walked backwards a few steps, taking in the skyline of Aying, thinking I may never be here again. I did that twice and thought finally that the skyline from this vantage point was unremarkable. The small horses were in the field at the back, standing around. Three were horsing around, perhaps a kind of who-is-in-charge-around-here kind of game, with a few nips that did not seem to take or hurt. They settled into the cold. Next to the sidewalk two of them stood silently, facing where I had come from. They didn't notice me, but I noticed one. His penis was hanging out. I thought this might be cold for him, and discerned that he must have been airing it out, to get rid of bugs or sterilize it somehow. He and it didn't move. I got to the main road and turned left into Peiss.

Peiss

The first building I noticed on my left was Gasthof zur Post. It was an Italian restaurant. I had hoped it or something would be open so I could get out of the cold. I wasn't wearing my long johns today, the first day in about a week. I thought corduroy trousers would be enough. They were, but it was cold and my leather coat was getting colder. Good for wind but when it gets cold, it comes through. I saw the bus stop on the right hand side of the road, on the sidewalk which was banked by ice and dirty snow from the road. I crossed the street and checked and rechecked the schedule. Yep, I was one minute beyond the last stop, but that was about an eight minute walk. I considered going to the next stop, but that might have been beyond the town limit of Peiss and on the road to the next village. Too uncertain, I thought. So this would be my boarding point. I walked up and down the sidewalk for a few minutes, to keep warm and to scout for some place to shelter from the cold. The stop was in the shade. On the other side of the street, in weak sunshine, was a very large pile of trash. A driver from a truck on my side of the road had apparently exited, and wanted to inspect the throwaway piles. He was across the street with some kind of electronic device in his hand. He polked around and moved to the next pile, returned to the first, put back what he had found and crossed the street and got into his truck. A farmer, perhaps, then came from behind the Gasthof and deposited small pieces of finished wood onto the pile and disappeared from whence he came. A window opened on the second floor of the Gasthof and a woman threw out a large box carefully which landed open-side up below. She disappeared. She reappeared several times and dropped bedding into the box below. She then came out the side door, and with a little difficulty carried the box somewhere. I stopped watching and thought the church behind me might be open. Shelter again. I looked for a light inside, but saw what I thought was ice on the inside of the glass. I didn't venture the entry path to the side door. I thought it unlikely was open. I checked the time, probably, and decided to walk. Walked past the church and past some light industry to where the road forked, about two hundred yards. I started up the road to my left, but it looked like it ended within sight. I considered it for a minute, turned around and followed the main road down toward some railroad tracks. I saw a man get out of his car, parked on the right. He walked toward me and entered the driveway to a house being built. He was in work clothing. I continued down the road towards the railroad tracks. As I approached, the barrier came down announcing an approaching train. I stopped as if a car--I did not approach the gate but waited and looked around. A car or two approached from the other side, the road there being a long stretch through a snow covered field with woods in the background some distance away. It was very quiet. I looked left, to a wood building, smallish, which appeared like a station. And then right. There was a building on the track with a platform stuck onto it. That must be the station, but it looked more like a home. The train, actually an S-bahn, came and stopped at the platform. I noted the end stop Kreuzstrasse. I knew this train and realized this was one stop beyond Aying, my usual disembarkation point, on its way to the end of the line, my second usual disembarkation point. It silently started on its way and there were sparks between the overhead electrical wires and the carriage on the train which took the electricity and turned it into locomotion. The crackle and snap of these blue sparks continued and captured my view as the train passed me and disappeared down the way to its next station. The gate lifted and I turned toward the station and walked past the house and platform. It had a shelter on the other side of the house. I continued walking back to the main road, a circle from the bus stop I planned to board my bus from. Rounding the corner with the stop in view, I noted in the cold shade, all iced up, a sports car. I didn't recognize it from a distance. As I approached I was able to see, a Smart roadster. Nice looking. I wanted one then and there, but it looked so cold. I continued to the bus stop and tried to figure out where exactly the bus would stop. Before the sign in a cleared place in the road, or after it where there was a crosswalk? I decided to stand right next to the sign to make sure the driver knew I was a would-be passenger. He would stop and I would quickly move to where he wanted me to board. I paced up and down a bit, as before, and when out of position, the bus approached. I retreated to my station at the sign. He used a cleared spot before the sign. I quickly boarded and paid. He said something to me, and I had to admit my German was a bit bad. He acknowledged my plight and I handed all my change at his urging. My fingers were frozen and I could not easily separate what was needed from what I had. He took the needed amount, the machine issued a ticket, which he handed to me, and I took a seat. I was the only one on the bus. Once seated, he started on his way again. We left Peiss and I sort of lost myself in the fact that I was so cold but hadn't really realized it. We left the main road to make a stop in Aschbach a very little settlement I was familiar with.

Aschbach

Inge had lived here, oh, perhaps twenty years ago and I had visited her. That was when she told me that when coming in late and she was asleep, I should make noise and she would know I was home. Coming in quietly made her fear the worst somehow. The stop approached. There was a building under reconstruction on my side of the bus. On the boarding door side, a man was there with a walker. He was quite helpless looking, and I wondered how he would board the bus with that thing, or would he? Would he possibly leave it there on the street? There was no one about to pack it up or set it aside. A car approached him from the rear, but the woman driver just sat in the car waiting for the bus to stop and let the passenger on. She was apparently on her way somewhere else. The bus stopped; the man very slowly boarded with a forearm-support cane or crutch. And the walker was left outside on the street. The man slowly paid. His bus pass had apparently expired. He then took a seat, ever so slowly. The bus continued on its way back to the main road. At the intersection we took a right and soon were on our way down the hill into Feldkirchen. My stop was coming. And not knowing if there would be more passengers to pick up, or there was an obligatory stop, I pressed the button signaling I wanted to get off. The feeble man did the same. And after the bus had stopped, we met at the exit door. I got out first and waited to see if I could help. He slowly stepped off the bus, and as he did so, he took my hand or arm, that fog again [memory lapse], and stepped onto the ice on the sidewalk. He said something and I looked at him. He had a disheveled look. He wore a grey coat, open at the front. And his hair needed combing. I said good bye and went on my way past the optical shop and around the corner on the road to Westerham, my destination, about 1.5 kilometers away.

Feldkirchen

I walked straight down the street, a main street of Feldkirchen. I looked into the distance and knew that a turn in the road took me along the main road connecting the two villages. The prospect of walking that again, as I had two days before, did not interest me. Traffic and not very interesting. I remembered a limited access road parallel to the main road but bordered on both sides by fields and a school and soccer fields. I didn't quite remember where it started. So I kept going straight into a neighborhood where I knew a couple. I hoped they wouldn't see me. Too much explaining to do if they did. Where I had been. Why hadn't I visited for so long. And so forth. I kept going straight even though promising streets went off left and right. At the apparent end of the road, it took a little jog to the left and straightened out into that restricted road that went between the fields. A small sign said Westerham, 1 km. My morning hot chocolate had turned into a urinary emergency. I walked just so far that I could not be seen from either village nor the school yard which was filled with children. There, just beside the devotional stop, I took care of that business and then continued walking. I met a jogger, about my age, coming my way, and I noted pretty good for an old guy. He passed me and I walked on. Then I turned around to see Feldkirchen, much as I had for Aying. The jogger was not too far from me and he was walking. I approached Westerham via a short residential street. There were very nice expensive houses I had seen before. I knew where I was.

Westerham

I passed between the two apothecaries on either side of the short street that intersected with one of main roads through the village. How did they each stay in business all these years?

The opening

At the time, it was unclear to me why this day interested me so much, and why it was and is so vivid. A personal narrative, but without compelling content for an audience? To tell a story, but what was the story?

And today, as I put part of that day here, I know why. The reason is embedded in this piece, this place, today. And it had its reason for being then, and a different one now. A sense of home. This never dies. Something also about love and a prism and how circular logic just seems to be enough and all that can ever be required. To return home, to the center and the accustomed ways of doing and being: There is fulfillment and all is well with the one in a treasured corner of private spaces no one else can see just the ways you do.

This piece as a whole should also be self evident. Words are but refractions of lights from within, forever partial knowledge--sparks really--in the articulate world of named things. Watch for them, catch them, they are gone.

Culturus resilianus

From a history, 1909

The architecture of Mexican cities is often of a solid and enduring type, especially the buildings of older construction; and many of these date from the time of the earlier viceroys. All public buildings and ecclesiastical edifices are of this nature. The modern buildings have, in some instances, followed out the same style, eminently suitable for the country, but others have adopted a bastard and incongruous so-called "modern" type, copied from similar structures in Europe or the United States, where pure utility of interior has been clothed with undignified exterior of commercial character, marking a certain spirit of transition in its inhabitants. This is partly due to the ruthless American industrial invasion, which, whilst it has valuable elements for the country, should not be allowed to stamp a shoddy modernism upon the more dignified antiquity of environment. This tendency, however, has not yet had time to show itself, except in a few instances in the capital. Nevertheless, some portions of the City of Mexico have already been spoilt by the speculative Anglo-American builder, who has generally called himself an architect in order to perpetrate appalling rows of cheap adobe houses or pretentious-looking villas, made of the slimmest material and faced with that sin-covering cloak of tepetatl, or plaster "staff." Even some of the principal streets of the capital have been disfigured with hideous pretentious business structures, for which the Anglo-American element, whether in fact or example, has been responsible. If the Mexicans are wise they will sternly refuse to adopt much of steel construction or of "staff" and corrugated iron covering imported from the north, but to limit their buildings to native materials of stone or brick and their elevation to two or, at most, three storeys. The skyscraper is at home in New York or Chicago; in Mexico (or in London) it is the abomination of desolation. In San Francisco the outraged earth endeavoured to shake them off a year or so ago in an earthquake! An attractive feature of Mexican houses is the flat roofs, or azoteas. These are often made accessible from the interior and adorned with plants and flowers, and even the heavy rain-storms of certain regions do not seem to influence this type of construction or demand the rapid watershed of the gabled roof. During the time of the conquest of the City of Mexico these azoteas formed veritable coigns of vantage for the Aztecs, who poured down a hail of darts and stones upon the besiegers.
--Charles Reginald Enock*

2007, just before Thanksgiving

He appeared briefly in a bar frequented by Americans. It was said he had a very, very rich girlfriend. He was shortish and good looking, well dressed and groomed, "our kids are grown." Somehow thus, he had time for "a project" backed by monied partners and his own measures of success up north. He spoke quickly, words flowing in complete and correct sentences replete with substantives and carefully chosen qualifiers. It was sometimes difficult to retain what he said; only great effort caught the ideas and nuances as they quickly filled then vacated the hollow between him and speechless audients. He talked of building American homes, the existing construction was of such poor quality. Local stone was soft and quick to crumble under the slightest skirmish with a hammer and chisel, the preferred local method of demolition. They would import granites and more from Brazil and elsewhere in South America. They would bring in Polish and Czech installers for tile, most assuredly the best in this trade in the world. Superior steel structures would arrive from the States. As with Florida circa 1960s, this place would boom, and today's boomers would only flock here to modern US design and standards. He and his visionaries would build and they would come, more than have already.

One such subject, having made the choice to settle, or seasonally migrate, can be described as an outlier, living "in the hood" instead of the sometimes pretentious north- and southwest neighborhoods closer to the sea and the tourist and town center. He proudly ushers expat visitors to the roof terrace sunken ever so slightly into the gabled roof, allegedly the first in town to peek over its flat-roofed neighbors some twenty years ago. He contracted for the property just before Wilma. Closing the purchase and taking up residence required but one task, evicting the meter of water that Wilma had left. Dry soon afterwards, the house had easily withstood the thinkable worst nature can wrest. It was built by its previous owner, Mexican.

As to the developer from up north, he appeared not to have had a drink. He left the bar before nice-to-meet-yous. No one thought to counter at the time with Mayan pyramids you can still see today, nor did they recall his mentioning a groundbreaking.

__________
* Enock, C. R. Mexico: Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development. 1909. A Project Gutenberg EBook released April 2, 2007 [http://www.gutenberg.org, EBook #20959].

How our days (and nights?) come to be

To begin

The American philosopher Don Ihde suggests that intuition does not necessarily tell us that the planet Earth revolves around the sun. What anyone can see is that the sun moves across the sky to make our days. He contends we hold a myth about experience.

The given is that you see the sun rising and setting and intuitively take as given the solidity of the earth, which any fool can plainly see that the sun is rotating around the earth. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this is not a given at all. The question is: How is the context situated such that seeing the sunrise and set is taken as an intuitive thing? What I have to do is dream up a thought experiment to show that you can perceive this differently. I have some clues to this end. This is a myth about experience that has been holding steady for centuries, which I think is simply wrong.*

A precis: It is not a given that the Earth is a solid (round?)and revolves around the sun. What makes us think this is so, other than "scientific fact"?

Here interviewed in 2000, Ihde may have sorted the myth out by now and come up with his thought experiment. He may also have ignored for some reason when it was thought the world was flat, thus having to avoid creating a thought experiment altogether. Without benefit of any of these insights, or myths, here is an entry for the challenge about how we can intuitively grasp the solidity of our Earth and how our days come to be.** See if it works as you follow a naive observer who employs his or her senses and a little intuition, a little reason, and a little imagination. Rule for the exercise: Much of what we know or can discover from other scientific disciplines that explain natural phenomena is out of bounds.

Intuition is the sense that an observed something is true without thinking much about it. When we sense that something is true, we are also thinking and have all the faculties available to us to assess our intuitions. A bit of reason and a dash of imagination are two of these, and they need not be set aside once an intuitive grasp of things takes hold. We ask almost in the same moment as the light bulb flashes, how does what has come immediately to mind measure up. Such is the method attempted here.

Introduction

If we can re-create what the shape of the Earth might be through a kind of direct, "uninformed" experiencing, we can conjecture along with Ihde that intuition tells us that the Earth is other than solid in the sense of round and whether the sun or the Earth moves. The starting point is what "any fool can plainly see" as sketched by Ihde.

Such an inquiry can lay the foundation for how an idea came to be, as well as whether or not this one is a myth and wrong as is the contention above. If we have a belief about experience that has lasted centuries and is in error, we ought to know about it.

This exploration relies on perceptions without preconceptions or knowledge external to the thing itself. Set aside whether or not the claim is valid that we take as given the matters suggested. This way we can sort through if not subtract accretions to get at a phenomenon itself--what it is we are looking at and how we are looking at it. Variations of simple, "reduced" perceptions from a baseline should tell this tale.

Baseline, "what any fool can plainly see"

A person sits on top of a hill. S/he can see three hundred and sixty degrees around. There are horizons as far as the eye can see with features in the landscape and on the horizon that are stable. A tree there in the distance, a mountain over here, and so forth.

Each day the sun appears as if on its own and rises above one horizon, travels across the sky, and disappears below the opposite horizon.

When our solar observer changes hills, the sun's course appears the same. S/he also feels no movement of the ground from which s/he is making these observations.

S/he concludes that the sun moves and the ground from which observations are made is stationary.

This Baseline is what anyone can see and is the starting point for the experiment. It consists of not all that we can see. For example, we can see the moon and the night sky. But these are excluded from the given, the challenge as set above. In addition, although the following are not the only perceptions possible, or the only direction that variations from Baseline could take, they might lead to a New World. But let's not get the chariot before the horse before taking a spin.

Variation 1

Our solar observer looks in every direction. The horizons all around make a circle. S/he sits in the middle of this circle. When s/he changes hills, s/he is still in the middle of a circle.

The horizons continue to appear the same distances away, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, but the landscape and the features on the horizons differ depending upon which hill. Now a different distant mountain where the tree was, and where there was a mountain, there is but a thin line separating land from sky.

The observer concludes that the surface on which s/he sits is circular and flat and extends without measure in all directions with different surface features.

Variation 2

Our observer sits in the middle of a circle on the flat, extensive space we will now call the Earth.

S/he knows that objects in the landscape appear bigger when closer and smaller when distant. (After all, s/he has changed positions (hills) and found differences in landscape features.) The sun as it rises and sets is larger than at midday.

Trusting perception, the observer concludes the sun is closer to the Earth morning and evening and farther away midday.

S/he concludes the round, flat, extensive Earth is moving in relation to the sun, coming closer to the sun at dawn in the east and then moving away till midday, and then closer again at dusk in the west.

Milestone

If the Earth is not moving and is moving in relation to the sun, which is it? Does the sun, not the Earth, move to create our days? or is it the other way round? Given these simple perceptions, it does not seem from everyday experience that it can be both. One of these variations, Baseline or 2, helps define what is and is not the phenomenon of Earth/sun movement as it effects our days. Something needs to hold steady, that is to be invariant, in order for our observer to proceed and "know" the answer.

Variation 3

Our observer imagines the Earth moves. S/he is on a flat surface which moves up and down (vertically) to bring the sun closer to and farther away from the Earth.

This explains the larger and smaller sun, but not its movement, that is its appearance and disappearance on the opposite sides, east and west, of the flat Earth from the vantage point of the hill.

Variation 4

Again assuming the Earth moves, our observer imagines s/he is on a flat surface which moves to and fro (horizontally), or perhaps as a pendulum, and finds this also won't suffice for what is observed.

Variation 5

If the flat surface moves up and down or to and fro with a wabble, this also does not account for sunrise and sunset. If it spins as a disk, this too does not account for the movement across the sky above.

Milestone

Variations three through five are outside of a assumptionless explanation of the Earth v. sun movement. They do not constitute the observed phenomenon. The Earth "must" move and that does not vary, but how?

Variation 6

Thinking still that the Earth moves, our observer imagines s/he is on this flat surface, a kind of disk or plate, which revolves counter to the path of the stationary sun. The Earth in the west rises so far as to hide the sun and gives hiatus to the up-side where the observation hill is, and as the eastern edge comes round and takes its position at sunrise where the western edge was, the stationary sun appears again to signal another day.

This explains the closer and more distant sun during the course of the day. Although the flat Earth is extensive, at fairly predictable points on the edge it appears closer to the sun. The disk that is the Earth is not so wide as to come closer to the sun at midday. Its width comes closer only at two points, dawn and dusk.

The Earth's edge-over-edge tumble in relation to the stationary sun also provides a convenient explanation for night. When the sun is shining on the "bottom" side, the sun is blocked by the flat disk that is the Earth where the observer perhaps sleeps on the hill. But as noted above, night is not specifically within the horizons (excuse the oblique pun) of the phenomenon of Earth's solidity and what, it or the sun, moves. An intuitive grasp this may be that we are trying to validate, but it is one based, as many intuitions are, on partial and bits of information. We are not yet ready to add a bit of the night's secret.

Milestone

The world is flat like a disk of indeterminate thickness and it revolves edge over edge as against a stationary sun.

This is the first part of the problem of one, the solidity of the Earth and two, its, or the sun's, movement. It can be apprehended by a naive observer. And this suggests an intuitive grasp can conclude that the Earth is a solid and moves, or revolves, and the sun does not. But what of the solidity--roundness--of the Earth? It is flat and circular thus far.

Variation 7

Our observer starts on the flat, extensive surface in the middle of a circle. If s/he follows the setting sun west each day, the sun stays at a distance as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, or eventually there is an impassable body of water revealing that same distance between observer and observed. If s/he walks in the direction of the rising sun in the east, s/he experiences the same.

If the sun is always the same size at dusk and dawn and remains a constant distance away, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see, this gives our observer pause for thought. The edge of the Earth must be the same distance away regardless of travel toward it this way or the reverse. A flat Earth does not suffice as a simple explanation for this perception. The size of the sun at dawn and dusk preclude an infinitely extensive surface. A round Earth might suffice.

Our observer notes that the horizon over the distant waters comprises about one half of the horizon of a circle from the vantage point of land's end. This is the same on both ends (edges) of the disk-like Earth along the east-to-west path of the sun.

Our observer also notes again that the distance to the watery horizon and the bigger sun, as-far-as-the-eye-can-see away, appear constant.

The conclusion given these observations is that the Earth is circular, flat land which extends to water, or seas, which have an edge or end in view of the nearness of the sun at dawn and dusk. But that sun remains a constant distance regardless of approach to or retreat from it.

The observer sits a constant distance from the hill or land's end to the horizons and the sun. The sun must be very, very large if it appears so big at dawn and dusk where the horizons end, for both the land and sea extend that constant distance. But the size of the sun at horizon does not appear to change from that now distant hill behind one from the vantage of land's end.

Our careful observer imagines the water is the same water east and west in that the half circles must join consistent with the Earth's observed flat circularity. They come together to form horizons beyond land all around.

If the hill were high enough or one could fly like a bird, presumably one could see the land surrounding the hill with water in the distance surrounding the land. Unfortunately, there is no such hill and aided direct experience--an airplane--is not available.

Alternatively, the sun's constant size at dawn and dusk regardless of approaching it from either direction, where it appears and disappears, suggests a round not flat solidity.

Alternate Variation 7

If the Earth moves in relation to the sun by rotating, the bodies of water would be the same, making the Earth not flat but extensive as a sphere. Following the sun across the water and "over the edge" would lead to where the sun's path meets the land again.

Experience has shown that to follow the sun is complicated because of the water. You need a boat and perhaps navigation instruments for a precarious voyage. Both of these are technologies beyond naive observation where immediate grasp is the object, supported by simple reasoning, rudimentary perceptions, and a smidge imagination. Not much more. It should suffice that the seas are the same from joining the two half-circle horizons above.

It seems also the forces or material that would hold the water to the surface when the Earth upends itself cannot be a part of this discussion. However, naive perceptions exhaust not.

Variation 8

At land's end, our observer picks up a rock and lets go. It drops to the ground. Tries it again. Same result. Throws the rock out to sea. It drops and sinks out of sight. Our clever observer takes some water in hand and lets it go. It drops on the ground or falls back from whence it came.

The conclusion is that what goes up must come down, or some such more elegant formulation, which leads to . . .

Milestone

If rocks and water and observers are drawn back to the surface of the Earth somehow and that is their rightful place at rest, perhaps the Earth is round not flat. That is, beyond the horizons (the edges of the perceived flat surface), the waters are the same around a sphere that is the Earth. This is in addition to being the same waters as far as the imaginary eye can see from a hill high enough to observe the island of land in the middle of a circle of water.

Our solar observer is "learning" and becoming self confident, and completes the final seeing from a naive stance.

Variation 9

Days appear approximately equal in duration. As the Earth sphere revolves along the "path" of the stationary sun, the duration of a day's length on the hill is needed for dawn sun to appear again. The halves of the horizons such as seen east and west with bodies of water must connect on the underside, thus making two semi-spheres one.

A Conclusion

Although the variations from Baseline could continue and perhaps confirm, deny, or refine the above, it seems the intuitive experience, in this reading of Ihde's challenge, means that we are ready for thought experiments which might lead to other, perhaps different conclusions. Other than this . . .

It appears the sun is stationary, contrary to first appearances. The solidity of the Earth is not as it first appears either, a flat circle or disk with a variety of surface features including water. The Earth is more like a sphere with matter and water attracted or attached to it, moving in relation to the sun. The Earth also has horizons east and west, but these are not ends or edges really. The Earth revolves such that our days are the result of the cyclic appearance and disappearance of the stationary sun on our horizons.

The myth of experience as Ihde has presented it is that one, the earth is solid, most likely spherical in shape, and two, the Earth moves in relation to the sun to account for our days. The myth of experience that may have been wrong for centuries has yet to be elaborated and shown incorrect using a kind of naive observation, at least given the elaborations imagined here. Variations in perception from a Baseline through deepening insights not foreign or external to the observed thing itself do not yet constitute a misperception, not a myth about experience. An intuitive grasp of things appears to conform to the given that Ihde considers mistaken.

The next poignant question is, "How is the context situated such that seeing the sunrise and set is taken as an intuitive thing?" That is, how is the context of sunrise and sunset other than as reduced here? Great question still. Science and myth validate and interpret primal perceptions, or so an argument can be made. But perhaps Ihde has a thought experiment for us to follow and examine before we introduce how different ways of knowing put their spin on the Earth, or sun.

This is the conclusion to a bit of I-oriented perceiving without benefit of the object-seeing sciences or technology. The discussion or exploration arose from what Ihde refers to as a myth of experience, which is that we immediately apprehend, not necessarily in this order, one, the Earth is a solid, round?, and two it--not the sun--moves to cause somehow days, and nights. If this is indeed a myth about experience, what then does naked perception, or experience, reveal? What do we immediately apprehend or understand or conjecture without the benefit of physical or astronomical science, or for that matter myth? The above is within the realm of possibilities for this primary, perhaps primal, perceiving. A kind of intuition or immediate grasp of things. And the challenge continues to beckon contenders to discover a New World in the interest of demythifying ourselves. Have at it.

_____
* http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/ihde_interview.html
** Ihde's words and sentences have been unpacked here into an exploration involving a hypothetical set of first order deductions from observations without a number of nuances and assumptions we would normally take for granted when speaking today. If there is an error in understanding Ihde's intent, it is solely this author's, and due apologies are hereby extended. In either event, the exercise may prove instructive in what it attempts but may fail eventually to accomplish. And for this, Ihde should be credited.

James: Jim

James arrived at the university just before classes started in October and was gone by Christmas. Two or three years later, I saw him twice on separate occasions near Jungmanova Square. He didn't see me, nor was it easy to catch him to have a word. His stride determined. His pace steady. I could have, but thought better of it. I had the same disease, and by that point my symptoms had become worse, yet the opposite of his.

We shared an office, kitchen, and living quarters in a building called simply H. It also had a library down- and classrooms upstairs where we taught.

He arrived with nothing. He said by bus from Prague. He wore the same clothes every day, to the casual eye clean and pressed. His shoes betrayed no surrender to his malignancy. But for a missing tooth or two, he was nice looking, clean and well groomed. He mentioned an abdominal hernia twice, but said he didn't want to spend the money to take care of it. Eating string beans from a can seemed to help somehow. The housekeeper reported, somewhat astonished, that there was nothing in his room when she cleaned once a week.

No books either, no papers. Apparently he had published or was a kind of authority on interaction, a language specialist with experience at home and abroad. At a departmental meeting before the term started, he demonstrated a way to assess students, documented on a folded typewritten paper with nothing on it to identify author or origin. We adopted the technique and clutched copies of his instructions.

He did not prepare for his lessons. Just appeared in the office a few minutes before class, borrowed a book and perhaps a piece of paper, and left for his duties. Afterwards, unprompted, he recounted what had happened with his different groups, and we easily visualized what must have taken place. We were familiar with the materials and the obligatory lessons that supported them. We heard nothing from his students. Apparently he survived classes unscathed, or they did.

It was during the day in the office or in the hallways that he manifested the symptom all could see but none could understand or accept. He talked and talked at length, punctuated now and then by a question that became rhetorical--the uneasy listener had no time to answer. Incessant it was; then abruptly, as if on some small cue received via remote sensing, it would stop, and he would politely apologize and continue on his way. Always on his way somewhere. Sometimes he disappeared for a few hours. Or into the evening. He came and went frequently from the city, again by bus.

Other than the unexplained disappearances when not working, he seemed to like gatherings. Meeting his students in class. Departmental get-togethers. Mealtimes in the kitchen with other residents. But some gatherings didn't especially like him. So talkative was he, often about interesting but unrelated things, that the lesser and younger among us began to shun him. It is hard to piss off others in such a short time, but in confined spaces one can. And he did. Never impolite or offensive, it was only the ceaseless flow of words that got to people. He was soon the object for evasive action.

A larger gathering took place where the administration announced changes that affected those residing in H. He attended and observed without contributing. Afterwards, commenting on one of his countrymen, he told how he could imagine this one who claimed to be an insulted English gentleman. He said his indignation would have been more effective if he had slapped the rector with his lace glove after the perceived affront. We had a great laugh as he slipped into silence and left for somewhere.

I invited him to lunch to talk about managing what was hurting him. We worked out a system. If things got going in the wrong direction, I would signal and he would know what to do. But it was too late. The words continued to flow not ebb, and grate. And I was not always around to befriend a man in need of the compassion that perhaps only I could give.

The university found itself in a budgetary crisis. (Don't they all?) And something or someone had to go by the beginning of the next term in February. He volunteered. He said he had an offer in Prague. He mentioned a specific school or institute. No one tried to dissuade him. He donated his final salary back to the university, saying he didn't need it. And I guess he didn't.

A friend had bequeathed him a flat in the center of Prague. And an uncle was it?, had won a lottery, or he had, somewhere, perhaps Australia. There was plenty of money in a bank account he could use if he wanted to. His wife and child had been killed in a car accident.

Jim was a person, a subject made object by his own behavior. He didn't deserve it. And forgiveness for not treating him repeatedly as a person escapes those who behaved so, but for their own dis-eases. What this courtesy takes remains a mystery, though surely it takes empathy. But the subject human heart is frail; frailer still if trapped in the cacophony or silence that can mystify others who would have us be otherwise.

The second time I saw Jim after he left, he appeared older and frail. I have looked for him in Prague since, meaning to stop him and visit if he would like. I have yet to run into him.

San Miguel child

Senior demure

"If you can interact with the thing you are investigating in such a way that you can determine . . . that it is questioning you back, then you have something real."*

1

Imagine you are not from Mars and most days you still have your wits about you. You enter an establishment and suddenly you have no idea. Where are you? Why are you here? What is this place? Nothing clicks. Nothing makes sense. Mind a blank. Another one of those damn moments, hey?

Before the next logical step gains traction across your mind's slippery surface, or you can read the menu on the wall--number, item, price in three columns across, three rows down--a greeting promises to save your sorry face. Without your giving a hint of bewilder--'cause you've really done this many times before--you see the smile behind the counter as it begins to ask all the right questions in binary if distant fashion. You think, I can manage this.

Smile: "Burger or cheeseburger?"

"Cheeseburger."

"Everything on that [or not]?"

"Hmm. Everything."

"Lettuce and tomato?"

This is a binary question?

"Hmm. Yes."

"Mustard and ketchup?"

Let's break this one down.

"Mustard, yes. No ketchup."

"Soda, shake?"

Must be a variation of the classic binary form.

"Shake."

"Flavor?"

Clever answer needed.

"What have you got?"

"Chocolate or vanilla."

"Vanilla."

"Small, medium, or large?"

I'm getting the hang of this. Choose one of three. No brainer.

"Small, thanks."

Whew. I have my wits about me. I am hungry!

"Would you like fries with that?"

Fortunately, the smile behind the counter has been helpful, but appears as if from plastic planet unknown and apparently has limited wits. But no matter, right?

Now listen. Yes, senior moments do happen to people of all ages. Notwithstanding other challenges, most people can usually tell when they are on Earth in a burger joint in the US. Pretty difficult to lose a sense of the chapter you are reading and the page you are on in the circulinear plot that goes from hunger to not and then back again daily several times with almost clock-like regularity. The world is a friendly place, and should be, yes. But do you need help surviving daily routines in a landscape filled with chained commercial choices? a life filled with certainties about what to do and how to handle--the ordinary?

Given full knowledge and awareness of self and context, when asked if you'd like fries with that, you can politely think to yourself: If I had wanted fries, I would have ordered them. No, thanks, I know this is a burger place, I wanted a burger and shake. I told you what I wanted. I've ordered.

"No. That's it."

But do you understand what I have ordered?

She repeats for confirmation, as if commanding mission control, life or death in the balance. But she doesn't deliver her lines with that much critical mission intensity. Hmm. More like ho-hum.

"Yep, you got it."

You pay, get your food, eat it, probably too fast, leave, reach your car in the parking lot, get behind the wheel, and feel as if you have just ingested a heavy stone from some asteroid.

2

I am experienced shopper for food. Food has been an important staple my whole life. As far back as I can remember. I am pretty sure that before I can even remember, it must have been so.

I used to go with my mother to the Food Mart. She would hunt and gather what our family needed. I may have helped or just messed around. She paid and someone would help her load the paper bags into the back of the station wagon. I think I learned the grocery store routine and how to find things pretty early on. Like learning to speak my native tongue well enough to understand and be understood day in and day out now, come to think of it, for many, many years.. Came pretty naturally without lessons and teachers, and mostly without tests of my intelligence and training sessions for workaday survival skills.

During my single years and multiple marriages, I have shopped for food, mostly at Safeway, there being few other choices from the early 60s on in my part of the woods. Today I am regularly asked in the checkout line at this store if I found everything I was looking for. Huh?

I must be from Mars. So when did grocery shopping become other than a normal hunt-and-gather situation with the usual, nicely ordered and labeled dead flora and fauna to pick from? Because I am older, do I look lost or more stupid? unqualified to find what I am looking for and have been able to find for over fifty years? Has the stock become so replete and diversified that most of what I want is hidden from view?

Oh, they are asking the same questions of most everyone. Why didn't they ask the kids ahead of me in line? I guess they assume nowadays that all generations above three feet five need guidance if not direct aid. And I just thought those three employees on the aisle with the noodles and tomato sauce were demented, or illiterate,** when they asked if I was finding what I was looking for. What was I missing? What else was there to find besides spaghetti fixin's? Maybe this is the never land of the much, much more?

"How do you wish to pay for that?"

"Oh, sorry. Bit of a senior moment."

3

Buying a car from a dealer has always been a trip. For many years now the line has been, either early or late in the game, "What can I do to earn your business?"

Like I am going to be the employer and he is going to get paid by me for doing something I want to employ him for. This is to formalize a labor relationship I didn't bargain for. After all, I just want some transportation. And now I have to supervise this wannabe wage-earner? Do I have to withhold something so I don't get into trouble with the SS admin and IRS? Do I automatically contribute to his health plan and retirement, or can he opt not to have these? Surely he will want both.

I bought a new car a few years ago. I told the salesman what I wanted exactly: Simplest, least expensive model X you've got. He was young, and after getting my answer to electric windows or not, got the message. Not fully trained or automated, I guessed.

At the end after I had bought the car and was about to get in and drive away, he said I had not given him the chance to tell me all the great features the car had. I let him have his ten minutes. I drove away.

He is a goner. The next guy will get that spiel up front, and off to another planet we'll travel to the programming of?

4

Who is it who writes these scripts? What kind of supervisor makes each employee say the same thing? Are teachers educating kids or just training them? Is consumer culture and the products on offer so obscure that we have to be led from deciding why we are in a given place to what to buy, concluding the quest finally with the question of whether we got what we were looking for? Not only that, do we need to be told by the warning on the cup that the coffee is hot, in the restroom that it is hygienic to wash your hands before leaving, in the theater to turn your cell phone off--it will disturb others trying to listen to the music and the hear words spoken by the actors on the screen?

Plodding, frickin' didacticism re the self evident, hey?

Forget senior demure for a moment, which is not pointing out the bleeding obvious to the robot in front of you, the one with the inert matter between its anthropomorphized ears. If you still have your wits about you, regardless of your age, for fun, hack the program.

Ask the girl behind the counter if she had been told to ask if you wanted fries with that. See what she says. Her answer might be something like, "Yes, we are told to say that." I whoa myself each time I hear this and consider what it might mean--like maybe there is indeed a big brother behind the scenes somewhere. Is he watching some monitor that uses that camera up in the corner? Plus, how will she and her children cope in the world she is creating?

Ask the cheeky checkout clerk at the grocery store with the ever-growing database of names and purchase preferences, since s/he now knows your name and you are fast friends, looking forward to seeing each other again, perhaps during your next GSSE (grocery store shopping experience): "I can see your name is Paul on your nametag. But what is your last name? I am filling up a database myself of [insert adjective] clerks I should know in the shops so I can [insert verb] them on the street. Oh, and by the way, what is the first and last names of your manager here? I need that information too."

The car guy is more of a challenge. After all you shouldn't have to talk to these guys too often. And with the Internet, maybe you don't have to talk with them at all. But if you find yourself found on the car lot darting between the chunky bits in stock so as not to be seen, and you are approached by the guy who has been stalking you since you set your tentative big toe on the property with the intent of not having to deal with a salesman at all--you just wanted to look--you'll need something to crack the Truman Show stratosphere. Prepare your hack ahead of time. Certainty of its use can almost be guaranteed.

"How can I earn your business?"

"I need a car. You're hired to find it around here somewhere for me. But there will be no stock options or health insurance."

If he says no problem, that they don't offer him those benefits here anyway, you've probably cracked the stratosphere. But my guess is he won't.

On second thought. You'd better not. There is surely a sign somewhere that demure is the prefer, and social hacking is illegal and likely to cause unrest, or at least disrupt the orderly flow of commerce.

Is the gene pool now in constant and unrecoverable entropy, sliding down or backwards? Are we under some mandate to make a replica of a plastic utopia some bright person dreamed up? Who is ordering this universe and has invaded US? Can someone answer me other than, "Yes, we are told to say that," which actually doesn't even follow from my question?

Okay, okay. Remember, demure. Damn moments, hey? So scratch that last question.

_____
* Don Ihde in a November 14, 2000 interview. http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/ihde_interview.htmlIncluded here to connect this writing to noematics. There are at least four variations of the demure.
** Language is at the heart of what is experienced and how. Thus this note that more and more, the continuous is being used for the simple present or past tenses in American English.

Lest hope

Little bird, little bird,
whisper me truth.
I've stormed the world
my self and seen none.

Little bird, little bird,
show me the trust.
Been stormed world o'er
in spite of self, none.

Little bird, little bird,
have me believe.
Storms and storming
I'm just not enough.

Hey, screech my deaf ear.
life feats and repeats,
we know, lest hope.
And call this help,
all will be well all,
as we take flight
in the fear that pervades
the now and pending storms.

Performative contradictions

I chanced upon the October 2nd Cancun edition of The Miami Herald. Actually, someone left it on the beach during their cheap off-season vacation, and I, a bigger cheapie, picked it up. I am here in Cozumel managing the world for as long as I can reign.

Edward Wasserman's piece on the Opinion page was entitled, "Can books fill the news media's gaps?"* His view is that "Great reporting--factual, richly detailed and burning with significance--belongs on the most powerful and most universally accessible channels we have for news . . . the Internet." In presenting this case, he says that newspapers have "largely" failed in supplying this kind of content, and books by journalists that do measure up fail in timeliness, or the content is packaged in an outdated technology. There is a growing dearth of book readers, I guess.

So here is a journalism guru who publishes an article in a newspaper citing failures or inadequacies in the honored medium while at the same time suggesting that the mainstream and most accessible and appropriate are elsewhere--not in print but online. This is a kind of performative contradiction, using the same medium to discredit it. In addition, is a journalism guru writing in a newspaper talking to average readers today, or fellow journalists or book publishers or blogophiles? I was not quite sure. Regardless, it is a curious message. (I am paraphrasing.) We--journalists--have largely failed you. You didn't get what we promised in newspapers and other traditional media, and most of you won't get it from our books either.

For some reason, I reacted. Something inside said respond. After all, I, an average reader, was reading his piece in a newspaper, which was being cast as irrelevant. Not totally so, but all the same.

Without length and breadth and depth, how will anyone encounter anything other than longish, well sourced and researched and organized texts written or spoken? If factual, richly detailed, and burning with significance is the gold standard regardless of delivery medium, you won't get that in bits and bites. You will and should get it in bytes, perhaps megabytes, whether on a screen, including the best of TV programming, or on the radio, or via printed matter, broadsheet or bound.

If people insist on the cell phone for their news, there is perhaps an object lesson. The phone is an intermediary at best, a medium to read or hear that which you should find out more. Newspapers can also be seen in this light. Read the latest summary, more than headlines but less than the gold standard. And then go online, or to books, wherever you can find the bytes required to be more fully informed. Newspapers may not conform to the standard they once aspired to but now they should to fit with the other media of our times. Instead of delivering factual, detailed, significant, newspaper journalists might focus on representative facts and details plus the possible implications of same, ending with, "Consult our online version or podcast for more, or see our Sunday, expanded news and analysis edition."

The literate, ready to hear what journalists and others write, is estimated to be eighty-two percent of the world's population. According to Internet usage stats though, those connected, and presumably literate enough to consume the news electronically, comprise less than twenty percent of the world's population.** The newest edge may be the Internet. But there is still room in the less-than-fully-electronically-connected world for newspapers, books, in-person commentaries, radio broadcasts, and so on.

That we have journalists' contributions to the library of books we need to read to understand current events may not be the failure of newspapers or how well paid the profession is, but may point to the failure of journalists themselves to deliver the facts in rich detail, burning with the self-evident or highlighted significance as close to now as possible. If this is the case, don't blame how the message is delivered but the substance or vacuity of the message itself.

The way to achieve the gold standard is for journalists to observe and describe meticulously and ask the best, most penetrating questions, reporting today's results without word-smithers, text abbreviators, or content deleters. If we need interpretation or translation of what is going on, the ones closest to the sources and the contexts they are reporting on can also supply these for our consideration--labeled as such.

The front page of the same issue of the Herald that presumably should qualify under Wasserman's standard had these headlines from top center to bottom right of the page.

• Rising tensions, violence in Pakistan
• U.N.: Urban crime scaring investors
• Putin eyes new post as country's prime minister
• Correa appeals for closure of Congress
• Holy Water

Without even looking at the content of the articles, books by journalists addressing any one of these in the next months or few years would still be timely. Except for the last headline, each asks what will happen next. Each has implications for regional and world affairs. Good job both in suggesting significance; and, if we are concerned or interested, we can look beyond the headlines to find out what the newspaper and other media can give us.

Timeliness of news is a relative criterion. For one, always there seems to be a lag between when a message is sent and the time the last person really hears it in its full significance. Taking time to report more comprehensively allows journalists to uncover and see exactly what it is or was without the interference of the immediate. Books serve to order and analyze the frenzies of the moment into synthetic, partial wholes that can be better digested and managed than today's partly boiled details that include the ultimately unimportant.

Passing judgment on the quality of these headlines and articles is also possible without the books journalists may or may not write. Haven't we had useful, timeless texts from other disciplines and professions that have addressed these same central issues of front page articles? Insightful observations from even before the time of [insert name of Greek or Roman writer, or default to William Shakespeare]? Gaining power or position, and keeping it, resorting to political, religious, economic means, was the talk of the town and as these articles evidence still is. These headlines continue a long tradition of interest in the stories of people and institutions that affect our lives.

Maneuvering to maintain or gain power has been in books non-journalistic, and they have shown rather consistently us the likely development and outcomes. Books are not dead nor are the Cliff versions to them we can find online, or in bookstores still. We can learn from history if we can access the messages and lessons and themes from sources plural, from high lit to low rant. And if steeped in the observations and wisdom of the past, plus either reflecting or reading reflections on these, we do not need to repeat ourselves today but rather surmount. We might use our deeper knowledge to manage modern instances of similar phenomena. At the most, knowing what we collectively knew can supply the recognition of the headlines as significant or not and help us quickly determine whether more and accurate details are required.

The faster societies and aspiring ones want it all now and relevant and applicable. Great for the ability to help understand and guide realities local and farther afield. But if we are too busy trying to consume and digest what is going on now, and focus only on the now, we will never be able to act with wisdom.

That quality of praxis comes from experience including, yes, the experience of consuming bytes of text. It involves thinking long enough about things to ask the penetrating questions. It also comes from being able to decode the languages that would confuse or obfuscate. To see with greater clarity surely is the corollary of Wasserman's benchmark. Clarity comes from knowing how to respond to the ebb and flow of themes and decisions that can take us, or not, to acceptance and respect of others, or to what is onward and upwards for those whose priority is action and what would be better.

An apology for education and a plea not to focus too much on only and always getting what is now and relevant and applicable? Positively. Knowing today's issues and voting or taking other action on them can be informed by history, ethics and philosophy, science, and other old as well as new and emerging disciplines that have as their complementary goal or standard, the ability to see implications, relate contexts, learn from experience, create better alternatives and choices. That is education, not some kind of just-for-me, I'm-informed-about-today solution. Journalism in the best sense is to report and to help us understand. And in doing this, journalists just don't cough up information. They also select and digest and interpret it by the very nature of the observations they make and the questions they ask, or don't. Without some sense of what it all means and where it comes from, daily news and book-writing journalists can't ask better, wiser questions.

Well, enough of this. I believe I have conveyed what is Wasserman and some further thoughts. I do not take issue with the guru but would only like to widen the scope a bit and extend his comments from an average reader's perspective. The minimum is--reading or otherwise consuming longer texts is not dead. If journalists early or late deliver, we will pick it up wherever or however it appears and examine it for what it is worth. Today's multimedia buffet includes the traditional as well as the latest and coolest. Different technologies serve different purposes. We are too clever to kid ourselves with the illusion of having the full story from either a newspaper or a Blackberry.

I am here on a beach in Mexico managing the world for as long as I can reign. Send another tourist with a newspaper to discard. More of Wasserman would be fine, and more words like those of Jonah Goldberg*** from the same Opinion page would be nice. (In fact, if you put Jonah's and Edward's pieces together from this issue of the Herald, we are getting somewhere with journalism as Wasserman would have it.)

Some of us are still around but not connected electronically 24/7, and we are still interested in today, relying in part on humankind's yesterdays and a storehouse of insights and lessons tacit or otherwise. We are interested in what could be tomorrow, in part because of deeper experience, performative contradictions notwithstanding. Newspapers and books and all the rest continue important. Internet servers serve; let them. For those who rely on other media, let them. And if Wasserman is talking to others in journalism, noting that they are losing ground to other delivery media, maybe an answer is to hone the niche better, especially with more careful observations, better questions, and less interference, which is another subject for another time.

I gaze over at the residents on the adjacent beach and realize they are among the majority. Am I committing my own performative contradiction here? Who is really the average reader or consumer of news? Regardless, let's not disenfranchise others now that they have their satellite dish and are coming to the table having their conversations about the convergence of the worlds they can now, perhaps for the first time, see and hear and read about. Factual, richly detailed, and burning with significance: A good standard any way we can get it.

---

Afterthought

From an interview dated November 14, 2000, the American philosopher/phenomenologist Don Ihde reports,

During a visit to Berkley [sic] a number of years ago, I decided to take a look at the bulletin board in the philosophy department to see what they were offering. As you know, they had a very large graduate program with some very eminent people. I looked at what was offered and found there were two courses that could have been termed historical. There was a course on Kant and one on Descartes. All of the other courses followed the rubric of living authors only.***

A prestigious institution weighs in on this issue. And here is an eminent thinker, who adds that by design he teaches his courses in contemporary time with electronic drafts and Internet-published works. The choice for now-only higher education course readings rests in part on the assessment that we "do" the disciplines better nowadays, and so it is better, perhaps more practical, to focus on the cutting edges. Ironically, today's philosophy sits atop the shoulders of people most know by name but perhaps haven't read or studied, Plato and Kant, for example.

My mentor, a highly respected educator with a national reputation, urged me many years ago to read the classic works in the field of education. I argued that I was a product of people who had read and applied "that stuff" on me. I wanted to forge ahead and saw the effort, and going back to graduate school, as a waste of time. That was then. And I did go back to school. (Been in it ever since!)

My "liberal education" bias today may be outdated. But then again, there are inevitable performative contradictions. Ihde and I, although clearly not even playing in the same league much less ballpark, have had the experience of dead teachers and masters who have helped shape our thoughts today. To deny or ignore these formative figures is to commit the contradiction, at least in our cases.

If starting only from now indeed embodies the best of the past, our loss seems to be the experience of first hand accounts of delight and discovery in their words. If modern thought is but a footnote to Aristotle or Plato, do we need to check the original sources from time to time for the freshness of their insights, the skills that can be learned from examining their arguments, the accuracy and novelty of what today's cutting edges claim?

__________
*Mr. Wasserman's discussion is richer than suggested here and worth a read.
** Figures are based on UN world population and literacy rates; Internet-population usage is as reported by Miniwatts Marketing Group.
*** Mr. Golberg addresses freedom of speech, noting in part that saying "I defend your right to say what I disagree with" is avoiding the more important issue of what it is you said.
**** http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/faculty/dihde/articles/ihde_interview.html

Student 2

Post-interview post, or progress along the greener-pastures fence

[If this writing space is a blog, this is a post. And when oral sketches or resumes don't convey the texture of things very well, a narrative might, noematics notwithstanding.]

Conventional wisdom says the grass is not greener--don't make a move. Stay in your pasture.

I have researched this hypothesis for years. Perhaps soon I will prove it one way or the other. I may also be able to answer the related question: Have I have caught up with the times, or have they caught up with me? These thoughts are not necessarily related. I should explain.

I just completed a phone interview with a company a world away. They called me, and with the mobile service at my end I didn't have to pay. Greener-pasture types, particularly those looking to work in the service of a vision, appreciate any breaks they can get wherever they are.

It came up during the interview that it would be possible to work at a distance. Echoes of dreams past and partial realizations--I recorded for my interviewer my strong interest in this possibility. And now that I have made it this far through the gauntlet toward legitimate employment again, I am anxious to talk with the decision maker for hiring at his earliest convenience. I can smell the green grass.

It has taken many miles and turns in the road to get to this point and see why at-a-distance is compelling for me, maybe an imperative. If you know there is a better and right fit for you and your skills but have yet to un-Earth the job, you might be interested in my indirect paths for doing so and a few of the milestones and bumps I encountered along the way.

First, if you have read or heard Barbara Ehrenbach on the plights of US worker-bees and career changers, know that this road I have travelled has had all the obstacles and potholes she has mapped in today's labor landscape. Second, if you have considered Thomas Friedman's flat world thesis and supporting illustrations, you will recognize my discoveries on his map. But enough prefacing.

In the early 1990s, I took my employees out to lunch. (I was practicing a management behavior.) Bogdan, an escapee from Soviet-era Poland who could never return before this point in history, always seemed to enjoy socializing on company time, and even better with lunch on the boss. I, a frequent European traveller and one-time resident of West Germany, liked to talk about world affairs. I followed what was going on in what was Czechoslovakia and Russia-allied Poland. Shipyard worker Lech Walesa and Solidarity and writer-dissident Vaclav Havel were familiar figures in The Economist issues I managed to devour during this period in my life.

At our employees lunch, I asked Bogdan, "What are you going to do now that you can go back to your country?" He replied, "What are we going to do?"

In this pre-Web era, that challenge led to my founding a nonprofit to support international and intercultural projects, recruiting consultants via listservs, arranging logistics via fax, and working out program particulars via e-mail. A goodwill tour to Bogdan's hometown of Wroclaw to teach some courses in Western business practices at an economics institute took place. And we also had talks on possible joint business ventures. After having delivered a series of not-terribly-successful courses, but having had promising business start-up discussions, and while on my way to visit old haunts and friends, I decided that the ideal life would be to live in Munich and commute into Poland and get this international and intercultural consulting stuff down better. Plus there might be a business or two I could start with the insiders I would meet. There was a living to be made and it was challenging and personally rewarding. I was and continue to be a student of cultures.

I returned to my home in the mountains of Colorado, and some people were talking about running their businesses as "lone eagles" from where they preferred to live, the physical plants, production, staff, and so forth located elsewhere. This idea appealed to me. I could keep my nonprofit going and do good works from where I wanted and where I might be needed. Idealists make good greener-pasture types.

Milestone one. A brave new world could be realized by working where you wanted using the tools already and becoming available.

All arrangements for my first personal Peace Corps mission of Polish (ad)ventures had been essentially successful. I told myself this bi-continental "space" where I wanted to be was possible, and I had experienced how temporary teams of consultants, future partners, and clients could meet our interests virtually and tangibly. I wrote a short article at the time noting how I had created an instance of a project-focused, virtual organization to deliver a one-off goods and services mission using modern communications technologies. And we delivered based on cross-border collaboration, not from a one-way/top down/here's-our-aide perspective. There was vastly rewarding work for those with interests and skills to share to create the new where it might be needed.

One thing led to another, and didn't. Personal and Polish plans got interrupted, and so the dream of being "world citizen" as envisioned did not materialize.

Milestone two. Unanticipated stuff always has to be factored into the best plans; or equally true, stuff just happens and we try to recover as best we can.

My connection to Eastern Europe and education had been somehow soldered into place with my business consulting trip to those clamoring for greater and greater acceleration along the transition highway, from central command and production quotas to democratic and market-driven inventories. I logged time in the Czech Republic and the former East Germany teaching the language and concepts new capitalists needed to know. I supported my students and stretched them. Using computers and the Internet to store and transmit learning materials was my signature. The virtual work and learning spaces intrigued me and extended and expanded my classrooms. And so as I learned and practiced this new specialty called e-learning, I started and completed my own graduate studies, at a distance, and, based in part on world-of-work and education lessons learned, I legitimized myself as a tech savvy, modestly travelled, culturally inquisitive training programs manager and educator.

Note what I was doing and how as mile markers if not milestones. I began supporting my students and clients via information and communications technologies as I was supported in the same ways for my own intellectual and career development.

In Germany, I had access to a wonderful English library. I picked up Ehrenbach's Harper's article about working at minimum wage. I found her story and observations fascinating. She was doing a kind of systems research by living and working in a new-for-her, not-so-green (in the sense of money) pasture, and reporting on and giving analyses of her experiences. I felt reinforced I was on the right track with my research and teaching interests, headed perhaps to my own greener parcel on this planet. I was the webmaster for a university institute teaching teachers cultural studies and how to use stand-alone and networked computers to support learning.

I peeked through the fence and decided that my next career move would be straight for further qualifications in technologies and teaching where it was happening, the West Coast. I also wanted to practice what I was preaching, not unlike in a former life where I had trained managers and supervisors and then became one. Only a nine-month-long fence called a job search prevented me from assuming my duties in a traditional American post secondary institution as quickly as I had wanted. Barbara was probably correct in her assessments of the US employment market. But I somehow escaped the un- and under-employment abyss.

I became a webmaster at a multi-campus community college with one of my duties being to support teachers and the technology to take the traditional classroom online. My experience there was that no one knew what I looked like or where my office was. I was always accessible by phone or online. But I was almost invisible providing needed services and products. If I sensed having a face-to-face meeting or personally support a teacher or department with this new at-a-distance world, I would meet where they worked or taught. This partial realization of how to blend education and technology seemed to be working in academia.

Milestone. Where you think it is at is a moving target.

While in Prague in the mid 90s, a friend from California and I demonstrated voice over IP to a live multinational audience of educators from Eastern Europe. Later my friend would start a company to teach technology using the Internet and the latest e-learning tools. He invited me to become the e-learning director and technical helpdesk for his dot-com company. With the college, the new company, and me on board and on the same page, I moved to California to work at global headquarters, a rented office with two desktops, one server, and one employee. During this 24/7/365 job, I didn't skip a beat as the college webmaster and the e-learning resource "on campus." Once every three weeks, notebook and mobile phone in tow, I would return to my other physical office and meet with those who needed the touch part to get up and running with the tech part. Everyone was happy except me. I was unable to enjoy the new pastures.

Milestone. Ironically, there are physical limits to working virtually. Being accessible and responsible non-stop, round the clock doesn't mean you physically can be. (The key to success is you and not the technologies that permit you to extend and expand yourself.)

Now as a dot-com e-learning guru, I could not serve the needs of system administrators and instructors around the world each day. It was impossible, and keeping up with the changes in software versions and features we were using became overly complex and sometimes chaotic. We were suffering. Our firm was undercapitalized, and I knew where that usually led. And I saw in late 2001 the writing on the wall for the era. Sounding like one affected by a work ethic experienced abroad, I concluded I needed a vacation and a simpler work life.

The obvious destination would be Central Europe, plus Rome and Munich as personal treats. Just as with my move to California, I could service my only employer now, the college, at a distance. Throughout my time in California and on vacation, I responded to every inquiry and request plus facilitated Web and e-learning initiatives back on campus. Never skipped a beat. An Internet cafe here and there plus diskette or CD-ROM, I was good to be gone.

While in the Czech Republic, I met Milos, Czech, who worked for an American software company somewhere in the US, or located several places. I could never figure this out. Anyway, he was living well on dollars in his country. He had his family, leisure and work schedules, infrastructure, and programs in place. And he, with his employer, never skipped a beat. Now this is where I have been headed, I thought.

Hold that for a moment. Milestone formulating, but perhaps not on the order of two plus two.

Community colleges are among the most conservative institutions. I have worked for and studied them for years as administrator, adjunct faculty member, and incessant job applicant--they are particularly hard to break into on a full-time basis. Now that I have worked with and for them sufficiently, I have ceased my sap-plications. Few have found where it is at these days, but this is perhaps a personal assessment and not worth pursuing here. In any event, I, not being the brightest on the block, or perhaps having spent too much time in the former Eastern Bloc (living outside your culture changes your perspective in all but the most stubborn of cases), thought the college might like to stretch a bit. I was already three weeks off and one week on campus with accolades, without complaints. And I had kept it going while really gone, outside the country. Let's take this one more step, this sap thought. I would live in Munich for two months and return to campus in the US for three weeks. Two months again in Munich, three weeks on campus.

My proposal fell flat in the still/round world of those who held a vision for their college's future. This was late 2002. It was just too big a stretch, or the administration had other plans I was not aware of. In any event, like an errant child, I was summarily summoned to return to campus full-time. And I like to think in part because of my unorthodox ways, and places, of meeting my obligations, the college and I were destined to part.

Milestone. Early adopters may risk--sometimes their livelihood--if they get too far out in front. (Early adopters are a species of the greener-pasture type.)

I knew my instincts were somewhere right and my e-learning interests persisted, so I returned to the Czech Republic to take up the challenge of helping an American-style graduate school begin to work towards supporting their business students online. I would hone my e-learning/at-a-distance knowledge and skills, practice what was becoming a true movement in education and the world of work, and complete my studies of a mystery culture I had yet to unravel.

Corollary milestone. Studying cultures--countries or companies--from as inside as is possible is necessary. ("Ya gotta live and/or work in the pasture at least a bit to begin to understand 'em.")

My friendship and envy(?) of Milos continued. Ehrenbach's Bait and Switch came out, and I heard a podcast of her observations while on book tour. Scary stuff, I thought. Glad I have a secure job.

But the Czech Republic is not a place where this foreigner could make much money, especially as techie/academic. The graduate school closed my department in a year. Something about not being able to show a profit. And in short order, I returned to the US to try to get a real (i.e., well paying) job. I stretched my savings to two extended visits to my home country totaling over a year and a half, looking, should I say pleading, for work. I was turned down at every turn. What was it Barbara wrote about impenetrable terrain in the changed employment landscape?

I was feeling the pains of not fitting in with the employment conventions I was familiar with. To keep the candle lit, I taught off and on for a Czech technical university using a learning management system I set up and administered first for myself and then for others. Although this somehow met the at-a-distance work model I had known or suspected as a personal greener pasture, something was missing. There was more than a minor inconvenience. I was teaching part online and part in the classroom. I needed to be available for the neo at-a-distance learners. All that worked fine. But the learning was disconnected from the world of work that my students would face. Thus, there was little interest in the wonderful (for me) required courses I was teaching. They were almost all cultural studies courses. When you have students who don't want to be there in the first place, though, teaching becomes listening to your own echoes in a vacuum. Silence.

When you can't get a job, perhaps the first best thing to do is make one. I came up with an Internet business that seemed to combine all the stuff--at-a-distance, a bit of do-gooding, business, learning (mostly my own), income. It is called World Business Links (WBL) even today, and the idea was that companies would pay for advertising if it increased their Internet presence and search engine ranking.

I never met my Pakistani programmer in person, who outperformed my expensive stateside guy at less than a third the cost. He was great. My Denver one was the first Web programmer for this business. I met him in person, and he convinced me he was the man. He wasn't. So much for relying on face-to-face.

For several months I cleaned up what the Denver programmer did with the help of the guy in Karachi. It was a great cross-border/-time zone collaboration. And WBL was up and running, but I came to see with the wrong business purpose. Advertising by itself is fine, but there are so many other alternatives for meeting that need, businesses would likely not choose my little Web site. But all the same . . .

Milestone. Conceive of a worthwhile enterprise and you can work from anywhere. (And I still am. WBL just needs a bit more tweaking. And I will get to that shortly.)

I have concluded my job juggernauts to the US for now, and I have come to a more relaxed if decidedly foreign place, except for these two interviews for a job in my hometown in California, or at a distance from there. I interviewed first, by phone, same time zone as I was. The interviewer lived a stout commute from the corporate office, but I thought he could be calling me from the corporate office. He wasn't. The second interviewer was higher up on the ladder, a good sign, I thought. It didn't consciously cross my mind as the interview progressed, but he must have called from the corporate office. After all, one in his position must be accessible to other top management types for meetings and such. He called two time zones away and two hours from the corporate headquarters. It was at the end of this interview that he told me he had people in similar positions as the one I was interviewing for at various locations--around the US, if not the world.

I am here, and it is hot. And humid! Which means not necessarily a good place for a guy used to four seasons and white stuff, not sand, in the winter. But I am getting used to it slowly, getting in step with the pace here, and the weather will become milder I am told. The phone situation is quite reasonable as I referred to at the start of this piecing-together. Housing and food are great for the money. Internet is not impossible to nail down so that I can work again on WBL and perhaps at a distance in e-learning. This might be a great base of operations. A lone eagle stuck in a place like this working for the betterment of humankind and on his career path? Why not?

I hope the guy who makes the hiring decision contacts me by phone, fax, VoIP, e-mail, instant message, or podcast soon. I don't have a physical address, and it is becoming quite comfortable living, and working like this, some distance from the main office or campus or classroom. I won't skip a beat if I get the job. And I can really work here or there, under any given conditions. I have demonstrated I can do that. It doesn't really matter anymore. It just seems this is the pasture--not the physical one--worth breaking down the fence for, or going through one as I have been doing. After all, we have un-Earthed the Earth. It is a flatter world, that is we have taken our notion of place and space and equalized them in time for purposes of some kinds of work, and learning. And toiling in the fields of making learning accessible to more in more different ways is a good vision to have, still.

I have tried to test the hypothesis sufficiently to say, yes, work at a distance is possible and suitable and appropriate for some people and some work. Milestone for me and perhaps others. Perhaps it is time also to more fully realize the promise and possibilities of this brave new world for me. I think it is personally greener in many ways. And to be honest, I think I have caught up to the times, or they have caught up with me. I am ready for the next adventure.

Postscript

"Have you heard about that job you interviewed for the other day?"

"Should hear soon. They're a pretty fast-paced company."

"Is that really the Margaritaville Jimmy Buffet sang about?"

"Let's check it out after I post my comments on this student's essay. He will be looking for feedback when he wakes up his time."