Dateline — Berkeley, Calif.

Besieged foundation goes on the offensive

The pacifica foundation, the besieged owner of Berkeley radio station KPFA, has apparently stumped its critics with the release of a plan to transform KPFA into a high-end minority media outlet.

After a maelstrom of public protests incited by the firing of KPFA’s popular general manager, Nicole Sawaya, and culminating with the arrest of 80 protesters, the Pacifica Foundation may have stolen the opposition’s thunder with a strategic policy shift.

“While we cannot both adhere to the letter of the demands and keep KPFA afloat,” announced Lynn Chadwick, Pacifica’s executive director, “we are ready to implement a plan which, in the spirit of the protests, will make KPFA once again the most progressive voice in the nation.”

In a lengthy statement released to the press on Saturday afternoon, Pacifica announced that it would reorganize operations at its flagship station with an eye towards “establishing an updated model of progressive politics in the media … that is truly democratic.”

According to Chadwick, the audience of listener-supported KPFA consists primarily of white males over the age of 50. The plan outlined by Pacifica calls for an overhaul of the station’s hiring practices in an effort to up the number of minorities working on-air and behind the scenes at KPFA.

Programmers will also be required to develop shows that appeal to “a more racially and economically representative demographic.” Pacifica hopes to retain current listeners by simultaneously funding programs that cater to the tastes of the San Francisco Bay Area’s middle-class progressive community.

But protesters, some of whom are still camped in front of KPFA’s locked and boarded-up offices, believe Pacifica’s latest gambit is nothing more than a marketing ploy.

“They’re using diversity as a smoke screen while they proceed to censor one of the few remaining independent voices of dissent,” claims Garth Robeson, a station volunteer.

While Robeson and like-minded KPFA supporters are scrambling to discredit Pacifica’s latest initiative, some community activists are beginning to express optimism about the fate of the embattled station.

Ruth Ellis, director of the Oakland-based economic empowerment agency REACH, believes that if the community holds Pacifica to its promises, the station would better serve underrepresented communities.

“Despite their best intentions, KPFA has not changed with the times,” says Ellis. “I’ve heard a lot of talk about community radio, but how big is that community, and who belongs to it?”

Even if Pacifica is able to align itself with minority interests, the fate of KPFA will ultimately rest on its ability to balance the often competing needs of white liberals and the disenfranchised.

Dateline — San Francisco

High-tech verse on the verge of becoming high art.

They call it “meta-poetry.” In late night gatherings at brightly lit coffee houses in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, young “meta poets” assemble to do their thing. One by one, they take center stage and recite the allusive lyrics that are the hallmark of their high-tech verse:
Meta name equals keywords, content equals Alaska, Alaskan, Fairbanks, property, commercial, wilderness, unspoiled, Anchorage, real estate, properties, information, help, new, idea, tips, info, remote, hunting, Business, building, opportunities, Vacant, Land, lodges, campgrounds, lodge, resorts …

So begins Mandi Nolan’s three-minute oration “realtyalaska.com.” But unlike most spoken-word artists, meta poets do not author their works in the traditional sense. Instead, they comb the Internet searching for “found poetry” in lines of HTML, the code used to construct Web pages. What they are after is the long lists of “keywords” used by programmers to describe a Web site’s content.

Although hidden from most who browse the Web, this list of descriptive words and phrases is present in the source code of almost every site, and allows search engines to classify pages by subject matter. Search for the word vacation online, and a search engine will return a hyperlinked index of sites which contain “vacation” in an encoded list of keywords. The meta poets take their name and their material from these often whimsical lists, which are also known as “meta tags.”

“Everyone on the Web is searching for something,” says up-and-coming meta poet Steev Wobblie. “It’s in the meta tags that the Web is trying to tell us something, to fulfill the unconscious desires of our society.”

Whether or not literary critics agree with Wobblie’s assessment of the poetry behind the Web, the audience is listening. On Thursday evenings at Cell, an arts and media collective located in San Francisco’s Mission District, upwards of 50 young hipsters and more than a few graybeards convene to “upload” and “download” meta-poetry. The event has become so popular that organizers are planning a weeklong festival in the fall. An album of live recordings titled “meta name=poetry” is also in the works.

The meta-poetry scene gained national attention when one of its most celebrated poets, Denise Crusoe, was featured in The New Yorker magazine. Many consider her poem “collectorsnet.com/miles/ (or Miles of History)” to be one of the genre’s best. The composition, which is taken from a Web site for Civil War buffs, is as haunting as it is banal:
Meta name equals keys content equals Weapons, Firearms, Prints, Music, Song, Reenactors, Living History, Rebel, Secesh, Southern, Johnny, Union, Yankee, Manassas, States Regiment, Company, Fort, GAR, USA, Grand, United, SOV, UDC, SUV, SCV, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Wilsons Creek, Booth, Jeb, Stuart, Dug, Artifact, Battlefield, Minie, Howitzer, Fuze, Fuse, Shell, Shot…

Berta Isaksen, senior editor for the Kenyon Review, credits Crusoe with single-handedly elevating meta-poetry from underground performance art to a bona fide literary genre.

“Whenever contemporary language erupts into poetic form people get upset,” remarks Isaksen, “but Crusoe has created something truly inspired … with the technological code that inundates our culture.”

Others in the world of poetry have mixed feelings about the success of meta poetry. Although spoken-word performances and poetry “slams” have helped bring poetry back into the limelight, some aficionados draw the line at the reciting of computer code swiped from the Internet.

“Cut and paste as a mode of production will inevitably lead to certain insouciant vacancy,” assesses Christopher Neal, professor of comparative literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “Meta poetry is a fad, perhaps, but poetry it is not.”

Dateline — Palo Alto, Calif.

Proponents of smart car technology dream of a day when public transit is irrelevant

When vice president Al Gore visited Silicon Valley on his latest campaign swing through northern California, he made a special stop at the headquarters of Metrix2 in Menlo Park. The candidate, who has made urban sprawl and increased access to information technologies key elements of his campaign platform, used the engagement to lead the press corps on a tour of Metrix2’s latest project.

“Imagine bringing life back to our cities, rejuvenating downtown districts, and solving traffic gridlock all with one technology,” the enthusiastic presidential candidate mused to a crowd of reporters and high-tech business leaders. Posing in the front seat of a “smart car,” Gore announced, “that dream may well be possible thanks to innovations like IVMS.”

IVMS, short for Intelligent Vehicle Metro System, is an offshoot of the “smart highway” technologies which already enable commuters to pay tolls electronically and receive detailed driving directions from a computer. But unlike the systems which monitor and control the movement of cars on freeways, IVMS promises to synchronize traffic on congested city streets.

“We’re seeing a tremendous increase in urban traffic,” explains Metrix2 spokesperson Bill Barran, “and with this shift comes a greater demand for technologies that allow drivers to get more out of their cars in cities.”

According to Barran, cars equipped with Metrix2’s IVMS technology could practically drive themselves in the low-speed, high-density traffic typical of cities.

Existing prototypes of IVMS use a combination of digital maps, a global positioning system, radar, vehicle speed sensing, and onboard gyroscopes to maneuver cars through an urban grid. Its designers claim that this new technology could free drivers to talk on the phone, work at a computer, or simply rest while an onboard computer handles the steering wheel. In the near future a smart car with IVMS could even drive around the block while the human driver steps out to run a brief errand.

While such convenient features may make IVMS attractive to consumers, some critics argue that it would worsen rather than improve traffic conditions in urban centers. Bill Vaughn, a traffic management specialist with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation and Construction, believes IVMS is “a very big step in the wrong direction.” Vaughn contends that unless every single car in a city is equipped with an identical version of a system like IVMS, automated vehicles will be unable to cope with other drivers, resulting in continuous gridlock.

“We just don’t have the computing power to steer a car through city traffic,” says Vaughn, who adds that urban centers are also filled with pedestrians and other potential “roadblocks.” He also points out that while many large cities are trying to reduce automobile traffic, IVMS would produce the opposite effect by encouraging motorists to drive downtown rather than using mass transit.

Barran dismisses these criticisms as “outdated” and “provincial” and warns that most urban areas will not survive if they cannot adapt to the needs of the suburban motorist. Moreover, according to Barran, cities are precisely where automated driving is most desirable because of their inherently congested roads.

Boasts Barran, “We see most cities embracing IVMS as a more affordable and consumer-friendly alternative to public transportation.”

Dateline — Menlo Park, Calif.

“Employee” at computer company goes on killing spree: Sun Microsystems tests its defenses against a Columbine-type massacre

It could have been Columbine all over again. SWAT teams circled a sprawling campus. The sound of semi-automatic weapons punctuated the air. News trucks gathered in an adjoining parking lot. But when a “killer employee” opened fire at Sun Microsystems’ high-tech campus last Saturday night, the bullets were blanks and the SWAT team was composed of off-duty cops moonlighting as security officers for the Menlo Park-based computer company.

Simulating shootings to test security systems has become an increasingly popular response to the tragedy at Columbine High School. Across the nation, schools, and employers alike are staging drills to prepare students and staff members for invasions by armed intruders.

At Sun Microsystems’ isolated Menlo Park campus it was a typical Saturday night despite the fact that it was a holiday weekend. At 10:00 p.m., hundreds of employees were still at their desks. Dozens more had drifted to the company’s outdoor amphitheater to watch an impromptu pre-July 4th fireworks display.

But before the show was over, the real fireworks were happening on the ground. A “gunman” dressed in jeans and a T-shirt entered the amphitheater carrying two automatic pistols. He walked with deliberation through the gathered crowd and fired off 40 rounds before retreating to a nearby campus building.

Several “survivors” used their cell phones to call for help while others attended to the medical needs of the almost two-dozen downed employees. When a final count was made, it was ascertained that 14 people were “dead” and another eight “seriously wounded.”

Minutes later shots were heard in the nearby building. When the SWAT team arrived on the scene heavily armed officers evacuated the campus and secured the perimeter of the building where the “gunman” was holed up. Using office blueprints as their guide, SWAT team members infiltrated the structure via an air conditioning vent and ambushed their target. After tackling and disarming the “gunman,” an officer dressed in paramilitary garb gave the young man a hand up and asked politely, “I didn’t hurt you, son, did I?”

Despite the niceties, the exercise was far from over. Paramedics rushed in to conduct triage on the workers who had been trapped in the alcoves of the building’s central hallway. Other employees were coaxed out of offices where doors had been barricaded to prevent entry. By the stroke of midnight, five people had been declared “dead” and six others were carried out on litters to waiting ambulances. Personnel workers pored over staff records searching for next of kin information for the “dead” and “wounded.” Public relations representatives prepared and released official press statements.

Had it been an actual shooting rampage and not a company-sanctioned simulation, it would have been the worst workplace shooting in California history. In the end the official “death toll” set at 20, with 14 others reported “injured.”

Sun Microsystems security chief John Cashman, the architect of the elaborate drill, was generally pleased with the results. “Taking into account the extremity of the situation, I think we acquitted ourselves rather well,” the ex-FBI agent remarked. “This place is a fortress which makes it hard to get out as well as in. They don’t call it ‘Sun Quentin’ for nothing.”

Others were not so gung ho about the exercises. John Pacheco, who was in the amphitheater when shots first rang out, was less than enthusiastic. “Fire drills are one thing but having an entire SWAT team take over your workplace is totally creepy,” the product manager exclaimed. “But I suppose it’s not inconceivable that someone could lose it and start shooting up the place.”

Jennifer Lopinski, a human resources manager, took note of the reservations expressed by Pacheco and other employees. Though sympathetic, she insisted that the information gained from the drill outweighed any possibly detrimental effect on current employees.

Pointing out the alcoves in the central hallway where five “deaths” occurred, she said the company had gained invaluable information about how to lessen the impact of a shooting should one occur.

“Take the interior design of all building hallways. We equipped hallway alcoves with whiteboards to encourage employee interaction outside of their offices,” she explained. “But in a situation like the one we staged here tonight, those conversational areas became veritable death traps. I’m going to recommend we get rid of them.”