I, Lower Middle Class

This month has been a difficult month. Financially, the holiday season has not been kind to me. Most of the situations have not been of my own doing, but rather have simply been unfortunate facts or been losses on other people's parts, and thus mine. Rather than passing blame, though, I've focused on seeing these situations as learning experiences.

Even though being a freelance graphic designer is not typically considered a lower-middle-class type job, I've been forced to consider alternative forms of income. Not because I can't find work as a designer, in fact (I have enough to keep me occupied and afloat), nor because it is not in demand. It is simply because the work I do is actually too expensive for most people. And even though I do not charge really what the lot of my work is worth (not to sound like I have a big head, but it's actually what most people close to me tell me personally), what I do charge does not really cover my cost of doing business in the long term. Yet, even if I did charge a more "typical" freelancing rate, I wouldn't probably be able to take on the kind of work I have already (it would be too expensive for most of my clients). It is a kind of catch-22.

Part of this is the economy, part of this is the nature of Tucson itself and the city's economic climate. Other factors may be part of it though—the fact that I am a relative newcomer; that I have, frankly, a limited amount of connections (though growing).

But whatever the case may be, I try not to dwell on those things. The fact that I am part of a subsection of economic society that I would call the "lower-middle-class" has allowed me a bit of time to reflect on how other people live, or are forced to live, with a different kind of standard of living, especially in terms of finances. I was shielded from the economic downturn back on the East Coast. Here, it is no longer the case. Now the odd realities of this subsection come to the forefront: it is easy to slip through the cracks of this country, which is not based on religion, nor democracy—yes, you read that. And I'm fairly convinced by it. Rather, the United States is based on Capitalism.

Is it really that far fetched?

Maybe it's too strong a statement. But it's just a strong statement, I think, when ones close to you cannot afford health insurance, yet are too "rich" to afford food stamps. Or your close friend, who is a diabetic, does not benefit from the current options for health insurance as they are, since they cost them about as much as the medication and doctor visits would alone. Only the obviously socialist and Unamerican health care reform plan would actually improve her chances of making ends meet—and thus, in her case, keeping her body functioning properly.

The logic of capitalism is so simple, it is enticing: those who work hard enough will succeed. Those who do not work, or are not successful at their work, will not succeed. It is a romantic ideology, and carries with it a kind of snobbery. It assumes that, regardless of how much or how hard a person's work is, if it does not succeed given the conditions, it deserves to fail. It hinges on that clause "enough", and does not define the end goal beyond the vague word of "success". And it turns a blind eye to the ratio of work between the one who can lift a finger to invest and the one who must break their back to make their family's bread.

This inherent blindness is something that I think is reflected in Michael Moore's latest film, Capitalism, A Love Story. Not that I put a lot of faith in Michael Moore and his work—some of his latest films I think have been the work of elaborate fact weaving as much as they have been muckraking. But this one, which I saw months ago now, is echoing strangely these weeks as I watch both myself and my friends struggling to make their ends meet. Some might blame them for being artists in a world that does not favor the artist as an economic entity.

Well, I'd say that's a very capitalistic response. And, instead of concede it, I'd rather blame that response with a second blindness—ignoring the inherent value of the artistic consciousness in a culture that is more and more starved for meaning. And if you're doubtful of such a starvation, just visit the spiritual self-help section in the closest bookstore. I bet it'll change your mind. That response to artistic culture in a capitalist society can be compared to the same mentality I heard once evoked by an American man, only a few feet in front of me, when I was visiting the Louvre in Paris. He said, while looking at the classic paintings of Greek heros and Old Testament prophets: "You'd wonder if they all must have been naked back then!"

I would have laughed if he had not said it seriously. He couldn't, or didn't try to understand why it was worthwhile to dedicate your time to understanding the visual beauty of—and that which is underneath—the human body. I'd wonder if he'd say the same thing if he was walking through the Erotica convention in Los Angeles, since, after all, "they're all naked." Funny, that most porn stars seem to make a great deal more money than most painters. By the laws of capitalism, pornography must certainly be more valid or "viable" than art. There's no question of what it does to culture, society, the play of gender roles and relationships. Odd, that many social conservatives are also fiscal conservatives. I wonder how those two schools of thought may inhabit the same brain, and suppose that they each can happily coexist. If the institution of marriage is in trouble, why not get rid of the porn industry, which harms so many male minds and female bodies, and, by any typical measure of social conservatism, obviously dissolves the values that hold society firm. Of course, industries like that are too profitable. One puts their money where their beliefs are, don't they?

It's the irony of our culture, and how it plays out in those whose lives are less fortunate, or maybe just willing to make more sacrifices than the average. Yet at the same time, I realize that I am by no means unfortunate. In some places on this Earth, the machine I type these words on could feed a whole family for a year, perhaps. Just as I can't imagine living the life of a successful capitalist like Dick Cheney or Alan Greenspan, neither could a poor Sudanese woman imagine living the life I lead.

And there is another irony—the sad irony of our world. And as I remember how lucky I actually am, I'm thankful that this short stint in hard times can teach me what the value of ten, twenty, thirty dollars actually are. Hopefully the lesson will be strong enough that I can remember the way that other people must live, and that they cannot choose otherwise even if they wanted to (unlike me). Hopefully the rest of the world can gradually realize this—and it can put behind its comfortable, familiar ideologies of ethics and how economics "justify" it.

First Fusion Bomb Test Recordings Found

Another newsflash courtesy of Wired. Apparently, a retiree cleaning out an old safe at a geological observatory found recordings of the first fusion bomb test, which was carried out by the US in 1957. It would be the second fusion explosion in the solar system—the only other one being the one that started the sun.

The article is here.

The recordings, after the right permissions and phone calls, were declassified, and are now on YouTube, spreading through the world.

Not quite sure what to expect, I decided to watch the video.



I was eating a plate of spaghetti at the time, and stopped chewing mid-video. And here I am now, posting this entry. The fact that this is actually real, and is nothing more than a camera pointed at a building with a 10-Megaton bomb in it, gives me chills. I am totally against nuclear proliferation—but at the same time I can't understand how my country would ask other countries to get rid of their nuclear capabilities (i.e. Iran), while we refuse to get rid of our own. Sure, it's completely politically incorrect, especially for foreign policy matters—but out of principle I can't sit with us instructing the world to do something we won't do ourselves.

Frankly, it is frightening to think that any country could have this kind of capability—and that their first instinct would be to weaponize it. You would think that it would have been much more comforting or exciting to find decade-old videos of the first fusion-powered car or electric generator in some old University safe somewhere, rather than the same mechanism incarnated as a bomb. It's a shame that such a pioneering effort would also have to be so terrifying.

LED Tattoos. What would you use them for?

Another post courtesy of Wired. This one was just too good to pass up.

How LED Tattoos could make your skin a screen.

To quote:

New LED tattoos from the University of Pennsylvania could make the Illustrated Man real (minus the creepy stories, of course). Researchers there are developing silicon-and-silk implantable devices which sit under the skin like a tattoo. Already implanted into mice, these tattoos could carry LEDs, turning your skin into a screen.

The silk substrate onto which the chips are mounted eventually dissolves away inside the body, leaving just the electronics behind. The silicon chips are around the length of a small grain of rice — about 1 millimeter, and just 250 nanometers thick. The sheet of silk will keep them in place, molding to the shape of the skin when saline solution is added.

Check out the Wired article for a creepy yet awesome video from Philips that decided to make some future-casting as to what this would possibly look like—in this particular video, they explore the more… sensual side of the concept. I've re-posted it here:



Creepy? Maybe. But in my opinion, very cool. Aside from the cheesy and overcommercialized applications, such as turning one of your cheeks into an LED screen you can sell online as mini-billboard advertising. I really wouldn't be surprised if that happened. But of course, if it did happen, I would hope at least that more identity-related applications could be explored. Having images that shift and change according to an implanted device that can sense the chemical compositions in your bloodstream (a.k.a. your emotions) seems to me to just be novel. Human body language is complex and subtle as it is, but some part of the artist in me, which finds its home and lifeblood in self-expression, just thinks this is a great idea, actually. It adds a whole new dimension to physical and personal expression, which is one of many ways to express meaning and memory. Maybe that is actually why, if this existed, it is a tattoo I would actually seriously consider getting.

Of course, it's a can of worms too. I find it funny—things like this are just going to push certain aspects of our society until what we really value becomes more and more oblique. I've been considering lately how innately consumeristic American society is. Obvious? Yes—but down to its very core, I really think that the buck stops at profits. Beyond religion, beyond liberty—I think we really are the self-serving slaves of our own pursuit of wealth. If an answer to a question or a solution to a problem presents capital gain, it usually makes sense above most others. Why is that?

The ancient Maori were the ones who started tattooing, and that was back when tattoos were sacred and had meaning. They related to ancestry, personal milestones, challenges, and triumphs. For the American, would he or she actually find a celebratory, identity-related use for something like this, or would it just be another tool in the "pursuit of happiness?" Or a false display of meaning, like tattoos of the name of an ex boy or girlfriend?