Why The Internet Is Beginning to Suck

The internet used to be a place where you could find practically anything. More importantly, it used to be a place where you could find what you were looking for, whatever it was, and Google was a fantastic help in your search. But Google seems to be Googling the life out of the Internet.

I don't know if anyone else has search engine issues, but it appears to me that one now only finds what Google is paid to make you find, rather than what you are looking for. Located in the UK, no matter how much I want to find businesses related to my field (I'm a professional voice over) in Hong Kong or Abu Dhabi, UK results relentlessly appear. Why? The point of the internet is that it isn't bounded by borders or limited to geographical location, yet still my search results always seem to be guided ever so subtlety by where I may be at any time. 

Do you remember when YouTube really was about YOU? You could find just about anything on it and post just about anything on it. Then Google happened and the rules changed. What we thought were real life events and people was actually corporate advertising masquerading as real life. What we thought was a place that facilitated freedom of information and expression became loyal to corporate obligation and consumer advertising then subject to litigation and copyright infringement. There is hardly any YOU left in YouTube, and nothing seems to have replaced it as a place for folks to do their thing. Why is this?

The Internet was powerful because it was a communal collective. It was made up of everyone who used it. But its potential for profit has led to all the independent fragments being gobbled up by corporate monsters. Hence the Internet has become centralised. Let's face it, how can you refuse a huge payday as a small business owner, like Facebook's Zuckerburg  or YouTube's Hurley? But as the people cave in, the Internet becomes smaller and less of what it was meant to be. Less of what made it a powerful tool. Sometimes we don't even know when it happens. Nowadays, the Monoliths design their products to appear like boutiques and small creative thinkers - only to purvey a prescribed profit driven agenda that we happily(?) fall for. 

Perhaps we don't fall for it - but it's beginning to feel like we don't have a choice. As corporations appropriate all the cyber-estate and make profit the prime motive of the Netscape, we are left to the mercy of the few. They make rules we have no choice but to follow. Or we succumb to the design and accept it as the only option relinquishing our freedom to create, break boundaries and plumb the depths of Cyberspace.

If not for the continual search to monetize the net, we could be enjoying it in all its piebald, multifaceted, multi-collective glory. And indeed, the demand that the internet should enrich the already dominant media firms seems to be a fait accomplis. But we should stop and ask why their profit must take primacy.

In venting my frustration about the hijacking of the internet and ineffectual search engines, a friend suggested that I conduct more research in order to input more specific search terms, in order to get more targeted results. Only problem is that research is likely to be conducted on...ya. Vicious Circle complete.

Parents: The Greatest Deterrent to Child Rearing (Next to Kids)

My wife and I have always had the same feelings about kids even before we were married: we love everyone else's, but are happy they are...everyone else's.

Now if fate would have it that we have kids (please no) we would love and cherish them, but at present we haven't been hit by the deep need to reproduce that some are apparently overwhelmed by at some point in life. In fact, the more we see others with their kids, the less we want them.

Now we know some awesome parents, and their kids are brilliant. But they all say the same things when we ask what this whole parenting thing is all about. First there's a huge sigh, then 'it's a lot of work', 'it's 24/7', 'you'll always be tired', 'they can drive you crazy', 'you can't take your eyes off of them' and such. Then after all the disclaimers they add (as an afterthought) 'Oh, but no, yea, it's fulfilling. Gosh, so fulfilling', after which the child breaks something, slaps them in the face or vomits on the carpet. Yum, yum.

After many such testimonies, I'm absolutely convinced that there are no good reasons to have kids. I took an informal survey and asked a general audience why they had kids or what good reasons there were to do so. Some actually said it wasn't fulfilling, just interesting. Others said kids made you want to be 'a better person'. Some joked they make good 'remote controls' when the batteries die and can be great sources of income if you get them working early.

I know all the respondents to be upstanding people who are/would make great parents. They admit easily the challenges of parenthood, not so easily the benefits. But the common thread was a deep love, devotion and concern. Something I consider to be a lifetime prison sentence rather than a 'reason' to have kids. The idea that one would be tethered to this creature by an almost painful love is terrifying to me. The potential for disappointment seems endless, what with all the crazy people running around the world who are undoubtedly someone's children. One day, they might be mine! 

You might say, 'what about your parents, aren't you grateful they had you?'. Yes, I am grateful, but I wouldn't want to be them. They had 3 boys - now three men - and we all turned out pretty good (all between 35 and 40). But what a loooooooong wait they had! It is the kind of kid I was that makes me so wary of parenthood.  I always hear that your kids are you, only multiplied. I don't want to deal with me multiplied -  I already have to deal with me  times 1 every day! And that's enough, thank you very much.

Some thought I would make a great dad. That might be the most terrifying aspect about parenthood to me - what if I fail my children? What about the life-threatening delivery process? What if I discipline them too much, or too little? What if they die on me - or kill me for an early inheritance? Some folks say, 'ohh stop waiting, you'll do fine', to which I say, 'if you're gonna pay for 'em I can start tomorrow'. 

Maybe one day, if we are blessed (or cursed) , we will have kids. But for now, looking in from the outside we're really going to need a lot more convincing. Either that, or we get an unexpected 'gift' that we just have to unwrap whether we like it...or love it.

Haiti: Beware of Those Who Profit From Chaos

Quite frankly, chaos can work to the advantage of some more than others. I'm not speaking of petty looters and hungry quake survivors, but multi-national corporations and international human traffickers. 

Naomi Klein's theory, called the Shock Doctrine, would be well applied to Haiti's circumstance. Finding its ultimate incarnation in Bush and Cheney's Iraq War, this theory is about disaster capitalism - exploit disaster and  profit from suffering. The 2004 Tsunami enriched many who appropriated aid money and landed lucrative building contracts along the devastated coastline of Bangladesh.


Haiti will very likely be a target for First World economic colonisation. It may receive billions in aid that will be paid to First World firms to reconstruct the nation. Then, utilities will be privatised and sold to western companies - and the spoils will be divided. In the meantime, the people will continue to suffer while rich foreigners move in for the cushy jobs created by the global companies. 

Even now, hundreds of Haitian orphans are at risk of being sold to the highest bidder. No doubt, a better home with loving parents is exactly what Haiti's orphans need - but not through a black market trade in human bodies. And God knows who can exploit these children should they find themselves in the wrong hands.

Without being too paranoid I only raise the issue because it has happened before, and in the very recent past.

Haiti: Born to Bleed?

They'll come right through it. We've had dental clinics and we run out of Novocain. A Haitian will sit in a chair and you can pull as many teeth as you want. A Haitian can take pain because he's used to pain. That's their life.

Bobby Burnette, Love of Child Orphange Founder, Haiti

This is a statement from an advocate of Haitian welfare. Florida native, Bobby Burnette and his wife,  care for some 67 Haitian orphans in a well equipped picturesque rural area near the Dom Rep border, called Fond Paresien. It is an odd and frightening sentiment that may betray an unconscious mindset typical of the First World denizen. It is reminiscent of Barbra Bush’s musing that the Katrina dead are likely better off for the depravity and poverty in which they lived.

The terrifying implication is what this mindset allows and inspires in its possessor. How do the aforementioned orphan directors treat their wards given their attitude that Haitians are not just used to pain, but it is their lot in life? There seems to be no intent to change that lot, indeed it hasn't occurred to the Burnettes that people who suffer (even in preventable circumstances like anesthetic-free dentistry), should and do not have to live thus. It hasn’t even occurred to Bobby Burnette that people do what they must when they have no other choice or options available. Either live with the prolonged pain of a cavity, or the relatively short agony of extraction. Perhaps some are unaware that anesthetic is even an option.

The further implication is that as members of the so-called ‘Third World’ (perhaps poor and non-white too, as in the case of the American Katrina victims), this is what is expected of them and what, in essence, they deserve. This mindset may be perpetuated in part by how the media, through news coverage and entertainment, portrays the developing world and non-whites in general. The coverage of the earthquake's aftermath has included dead bodies and dying victims. One report showed a small child heaving her last breaths. One could argue that this stark reality will spur sympathy and urge action. But consider how similar tragedies – man-made or otherwise - are treated when they involve either First World or white victims.

How many dead were broadcast in the Finnish shootings, the Columbine massacre, the McVeigh bombing, the Iraq War and even the 9/11 tragedy? I can’t recall any, save the portraits of Saddam and his sons corpses paraded in the international media. I do not want to see the dead bodies of US soldiers or white people, but that is also true of the Haitians. The treatment of Third World tragedy seems so different to that of the First World. Mind you, dead black bodies were seen in the media post-Katrina, but no tearful montages showing the dignity of the victims thereof as is customary otherwise.

The post-Katrina report that came closest to dignity was one covered by Andersen Cooper. He interviewed a white woman who lost her house and all her possessions in the deluge. Cooper himself was brought to tears watching the sobbing woman scrounge for the remnants of her material memories. But he had no tears for the actual dead people. Somehow this white woman’s tragedy was worthy of more sympathy than anyone else’s. Wolf Blitzer contributed by observing how the victims were ‘so poor, and so black’ during the Situation Room’s coverage. That suggests a real sense of pity for the poor, disadvantaged and non-white – but no respect. There seems to be an association between colour, status and suffering – poor, non-whites are expected to suffer – they have for centuries, surely they, like the Haitians, are used to it by now.

Many have pointed out that the suffering of Haiti began long before this Quake, that it stretches back to the enslaved and self-emancipated Africans who founded the Nation, and the French masters who extorted the fledging country into almost irredeemable environmental and economic debt. Some claim that the abuse of the Haitians by the US and France continues to this day, more recently manifested in the illegal and audacious kidnapping of Jean Betrand-Aristide and his wife by the US military, and the high rotation of Haiti’s premiers. This makes Jonah Golberg's declaration that Haiti needs 'tough love' a little unreasonable. He argues that Japan and Switzerland, like Haiti, have few natural resources yet excel economically and socially. He goes on to say, 'Once the dead are buried, the wounded and sick healed and the rubble cleared, it's time for some tough love. Otherwise, Americans will just be back to clear the debris after the next disaster.' But he neglects to mention the part America has played in the perpetuation of Haiti's political, and by extension, social instability.

With terminology like ‘black on black violence’ and the Associated Press observing blacks ‘looting’ and whites ‘finding food’ after Katrina, one wonders about the cumulative effect of this kind of media coverage. Put that together with type-cast non-whites (Asians as terrorists and blacks as…blacks, for example) and we get a world in desparate need of change. It is easier, however, to change the channel than it is to change the world.

Reporting the News & Respecting Haiti's Dead

I was watching Sky News with Live Jeremy Thompson and the main story was, of course, the aftermath of the earthquake that took place 10 miles west of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. Not long into the broadcast images of the destruction were shown; the fallen buildings, the wounded and distressed plus 3 dead bodies.

There was no warning regarding the gruesome nature of the content of the report, and it came as a shock that such graphic imagery would be shown at 5pm. I don't know the official track record of reportage regarding such material with Sky News or the Western media in general, but it made me think about how choices of what is shown and when are made.

This might sound picky, but I feel that the broadcast of the dead, in this case, robs them of a certain dignity a dignity that, it seems UK and American soldiers  have - having never seen a dead body of any broadcast on TV. Don't get me wrong - I don't think these soldiers bodies should be broadcast out of respect for family and the dead themselves. But rarely, if at all, does one see the dead bodies of first worlders displayed in the international media for all to see. I can't recall seeing one dead body after the 9/11 catastrophe. I didn't want to see any - but that is also true for this disaster in Haiti. So what's the difference?

Does it have something to do with the nature of the event? Are the dead from natural disasters fine for broadcast, but those killed in violent conflict off limits? Apparently only black folks died in the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, also an acceptable image for the media as is the dead in Iraq and across Africa.

One could argue that there are simply more disasters in the developing world and so the appearance of more dead from the respective locales is only a matter of statistics. But I believe it has something to do with race and class. To be poor is to be overlooked - to be black is to be inferior. To be poor and black is to be pitied - but not respected. There seems to be a sense (and I sometimes see it in myself) that the poor of the 'third world' aren't 'like the rest of us'. They are more like animals - used to living in squalor and therefore not sensitive to pain and distress the way 'us civilised'  folks are. So, they can be treated differently from the more civilised and materially privileged.

If this incident took place in say Chicago, Paris, Oslo or London would it be dealt with in the same way? Likely there would be montages with touching music with crying and distressed humanity - dignified in the struggle to survive (not unlike the white flood victims who 'found' food during the aftermath of Katrina).

These musings may have no basis - but I do believe that with repetition and consistency, the subtleties in how stories and the subject matter thereof are treated have a deep impact on our perception of the world. We get used to certain groups being filthy, starving and fly ridden and other groups being clean, prosperous and dignified and become inured to the suffering of some and sensitive to the suffering of others. The suffering of Haiti began a long time ago, and this earthquake has highlighted the extent of the long existing poverty and only exacerbated the pain. In some indirect way, what we portray in the media, and how it is portrayed, helps to determine what we expect, and ultimately accept in the world.