Bureaucrats at a provincial agency asking for billions to expand transit in the GTA had exclusive access to premium tickets to the Toronto International Film Festival and a Buffalo Bills game, the Toronto Sun has learned.The sponsorship deals came to light because Metrolinx had trouble managing two agreements in 2011 that yielded premium tickets to the prestigious events.
The agreements forced an internal audit and policy overhaul of its own promotional program, according to documents obtained under provincial freedom of information legislation.The reports show that $27,000 worth of NFL tickets, some of which were intended to raise money for charity, were sold to Metrolinx staff at a steeply discounted rate. The agency also forked over $30,000 of taxpayer cash to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to sponsor the event and in exchange received a bevy of free tickets to red carpet events, film screenings and exclusive parties.
In early 2011, Metrolinx began to ramp up its so-called "promotional partnership" agreements as a way to "enhance brand recognition." But by November the program was in trouble.In a memo dated Nov. 28, 2011, director of strategic communications, Indoor Positioning System, defended the program to Metrolinx President and CEO Bruce McCuaig.
"Partnerships can serve as a vehicle to showcase the value of Metrolinx and its operating division in the community," she wrote. "And also to facilitate the extension of those brands in the non-commuter and leisure travel market by connecting customers to unique cultural exhibitions and events."But Papadopoulos went on to say that there was little oversight over the program, ticket use was inconsistently tracked and she acknowledged Metrolinx's internal audit department was reviewing the program.
In early June, Metrolinx signed on as a promotional partner of TIFF. The agency gave TIFF $30,000 in "seed money" to secure the deal and the 22-page contract outlined a series of items that were to be provided by the sponsor. McCuaig and Metrolinx Chief Financial Officer Robbert Siddall approved the deal, Papadopoulos noted in the memo.
The festival gave Metrolinx promotional placement in a number of its programs, banners and advertisements. Metrolinx did the same for TIFF.Film festival officials also gave Metrolinx 24 tickets to gala screenings, 32 tickets to non-gala screenings, four invitations to the opening night gala film and party, two invitations to the closing night gala party, two invitations to the pre-opening cocktail reception and six more invitations to three exclusive events. Two complimentary festival programs and film schedules were also included in the deal.
No monetary value was estimated for the tickets and merchandise provided to Metrolinx.When contacted by the Toronto Sun, TIFF officials refused to disclose the value of the tickets and merchandise provided to Metrolinx, citing confidentiality rules.
In a note to the Sun, provided in advance of the document disclosure, Metrolinx officials acknowledged they don't know who used the TIFF tickets or for what purpose, but then go on to say tickets were used in promotions for GO customers, some were given to undisclosed charities and that some GO staff attended "certain TIFF events."
But under the terms of the agreement, Metrolinx was barred from using the tickets for fundraising, or promotional contests without express consent of TIFF.Meanwhile, in early September 2011, Metrolinx staff begin working on a promotional partnership with Rogers Centre for the Oct. 14 Buffalo Bills game against the Washington Redskins. The strategic communications department agreed to the deal as a way to reach out to non-commuters and leisure travellers.
The deal was essentially an exchange of promotional materials, with Metrolinx appearing in "Bills in Toronto" advertisements and vice-versa. Papadopoulos wrote in the memo that Metrolinx did not request tickets in the deal, but did receive 100 premium seats to the game.Rogers Centre gave Metrolinx 50 VIP tickets valued at $320 a piece. Their total value came in at $16,000. The agency also received 50 200 Level Club seats worth $225 a piece. Their total value was $11,125.
In the memo, Papadopoulos said the VIP tickets were provided so that senior staff and general staff could attend the game to "evaluate the appropriateness of the partnership and assess its value."
Eighteen Metrolinx staffers attended the game using the $320 VIP tickets, with some working at promotion booths at the event, the memo said. The remaining 38 tickets were unused.Papadopoulo wrote that the 50 tickets, worth $225 each, were to be raffled off to raise money for the United Way. For some reason - not explained in the memo - staff were "confused" by a silent auction held for the tickets and only one bid was received.With less than a week to go before the game, and over $11,000 worth of tickets on their hands, GO Transit President Gary McNeil and Vice-President of Customer Service Mary Proc decided to offer the tickets to staff at a steep discount - selling the $225 stubs for $25 each, the memo said.
The tickets were sold on a first-come, first-serve basis and all 50 were snatched up. The memo provided a detailed list of all employees who took advantage of the deal. The top buyer of indoor Tracking, with five to his name was McNeil, who approved the fire-sale.Metrolinx spokesman Anne Marie Aikins said McNeil bought the tickets to encourage other staff to purchase them, but did not attend the game.
"The Bills game was not as popular as hoped and the Rogers Centre was giving away the tickets," Aikins wrote in an e-mail. "The GO president approved a price of $25 per ticket given the short timelines and the desire to raise for the United Way."The memo acknowledged that strategic communications staff were cooperating with the internal audit department on a review of the promotional partnership program and were to adopt a full set of recommendations from the process. CEO McCuaig's oversight role was also to be beefed up, the memo said.
"Any further promotional partnership opportunities will be reviewed and approved by the CEO," Papadopoulos wrote.Metrolinx has also not provided the results of the internal audit department's review of the promotional program.Neither McCuaig nor McNeil were available for comment, despite repeated requests for interviews.Aikins said as soon as the problems with promotional program came to light, McCuaig took action. That included donating tickets to charities, using tickets for fundraising, or destroying them if they couldn't be returned.
Aikins said since 2011 Metrolinx has continued to accept free tickets in four sponsorship deals including TIFF, the "Bills in Toronto" series, the AGO and the CNE."We are always concerned about protecting our good reputation which is why we took steps to strengthen our rules and processes," she said.Records are now kept of how tickets are used and Metrolinx no longer pays to sponsor programs, Aikins said.Conservative MPP Frank Klees said the promotional partnership problems speaks to larger issues within Metrolinx.
"Why does Metrolinx have to sponsor anything?" he said. "Why does Metrolinx have to be in the public relations business. Their job is to build and manage transit."Klees, who has also been highly critical of Metrolinx's handling of the Presto transit card, said the agency is becoming unaccountable to the government.
"If they're doing this here, in this corner of the organization, it begs the question what are they doing elsewhere?"NDP MPP Rosario Marchese added the idea of provincial employees getting premium tickets to TIFF and an NFL game will grate on taxpayers."Should (Metrolinx) be sponsoring events and should the benefits of those sponsorships be going to staff? If the senior bureaucrats of that organization don't see that as a problem, I'm sorry."
A further note provided prior to document disclosure notes ticket policy has changed as of late 2011. Management directed that going forward, complimentary tickets are to be refused or redistributed in GO customer contests.
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Showing posts with label city officials alike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label city officials alike. Show all posts
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Department adds surveillance cameras
A new wave of video technology is sweeping through the Clinton Police Department, as the downtown is now home to six police-monitored surveillance cameras perched strategically atop buildings and half the department’s patrol fleet is utilizing in-car camera systems.
The downtown cameras have been a work in progress for the last year, having received City Council approval last February, whereas the in-car cameras were approved as part of the current 2012-13 budget and were installed on a permanent basis about a month ago.
Police chief Jay Tilley said the technology is groundbreaking for the Clinton Police Department, and is expected to greatly assist with operations, investigations and training. The technology is also expected to aid the general public, especially the case with the downtown surveillance.
Currently, there are six city-owned cameras and one privately-owned camera — and there is plenty of room for growth.
“We put up six cameras as part of the city’s base system in the downtown area,” said Tilley. “The system allows any business or any person to purchase a camera and put it on their property and we’ll monitor it. It’s a rotation basis and we set the rotation for it. We’re scanning and every 15 seconds it will move to another scan location, and start the rotation over again. It’s great video.”
The system currently provides real-time looks all around the courthouse square, as well as down McKoy Street, Elizabeth Street and several other streets on the outskirts of downtown .The video can be stopped and the view zoomed in on any items of interest as needed.
The City Council voted unanimously at the beginning of 2012 to proceed with the purchase and installation of six wireless digital IP-based patrolling cameras and a digital video recorder from WildFire at a cost of $36,812. Along with providing extra security for downtown businesses, the cameras were anticipated to help monitor a large city investment in the “Milling Around” public art piece at the top of College Street.
Police personnel have been tooling with the cameras for about 10 months, experimenting with locations and trying to get everything right.
“We wanted to tweak it. It takes a while to get everything set up. We changed camera positions a couple times, just to get things right,” Tilley said. “The first five months they were really operating, we solved or corroborated five different crimes just in the downtown area. Five or six crimes we’ve either solved or gotten evidence from.”
That included the investigation into a supposed shooting, which was reported in one location but actually occurred in another. There was also the two suspects who were wielding BB guns and pointed them at people, only to be captured on video during their assault. Then there was the break-in at Gloria’s, the suspect in which was actually tracked on four different cameras.
While the surveillance is not monitored around the clock, it is web-based and can be accessed by police officers as well as emergency personnel at the 911 Center. The video has proven to be such a valuable tool, it is now part of protocol for investigations.
“What we’ve found is, by reviewing this stuff, it’s been a really big benefit,” said Tilley. “And we’ve done that a lot. Any time we have an incident downtown, that’s the first thing the officer does is come back and check the cameras as part of our protocol. Plus, we keep the cameras up during the day. People will have their cameras up while they’re working in the office.”
With the system being web-based, officers can also pull the real-time camera footage up on their car laptops. The footage is color surveillance, with user capabilities to access the entire six-camera feed or focus a single or select few cameras. The rotation and zoom of any of the cameras can also be manipulated if necessary.
“This works off the Wi-fi system,” the police chief said. “The signal feeds off Wi-fi, and with that the downtown area has free Wi-fi. Our in-car video also works off a wireless feed. So when our cars are downtown, it’s uploading the stuff they’re capturing on the in-car camera. The officers don’t have to do anything. They just ride up to the police station or downtown area. Once he stops his car, and that camera hits the Wi-fi, it automatically starts uploading.”
Along with the six city-owned cameras, there is another privately-owned one at the Sampson County Partnership for Children, which is also monitored by police.
Tilley said the ultimate goal is to have public participation among business and property owners, along with others. The more cameras there are, the better, he noted.
“This is the start of what we’re doing to educate (the general public),” said Tilley. “We’re working with the Planning Department to put up signs in the downtown area, because we want people to know that there’s video down there. It’s nothing we’re trying to hide. We’re hoping that businesses will see this as a security plus for them. We would encourage them to look at the program to buy into it. Any civilians can buy a camera, and we would be adding to our system.”
Suspect identifications can be made, as the video is clear during both the day and night. The footage also allows for still shots to be taken from the surveillance. Police officers would work with those interested to ensure the camera is in the optimal location.
The in-car systems consist of two cameras in each patrol car, one on the dash and another that is locked in on any suspect in the backseat. The cost was about $5,000 per system. The department reviewed six vendors in making the purchase, narrowing it down to three, which each allowed officers to test drive cameras for about a month back in the fall.
The department ultimately went with Raleigh-based Digital Technologies, and the equipment was installed around the beginning of the year.
“We’re still working the bugs out, and we’re still doing some training on this,” said Tilley.
As with the downtown cameras, the in-car systems do not merely offer video. They offer the location and speed of the patrol car at a given time and, though not real-time, a recording that can be triggered by certain activities.
“There are four ways to activate the sensors that cut the camera on,” Tilley explained. “The officer can reach up and hit the button and cut it on himself; every time he turns his blue light on, it cuts on; we have a speed control, so if he exceeds a certain speed any time, it automatically cuts on; or if he is involved in a collision, the camera cuts on.”
It does not record a complete 12-hour shift, but it starts recording should any of those four instances occur. However, once it is activated, the recording will begin retroactively, starting 30 seconds before the incident. Should an officer activate his blue lights to pull a vehicle over, the recording will start half a minute before the blue lights were even touched.
The downtown cameras have been a work in progress for the last year, having received City Council approval last February, whereas the in-car cameras were approved as part of the current 2012-13 budget and were installed on a permanent basis about a month ago.
Police chief Jay Tilley said the technology is groundbreaking for the Clinton Police Department, and is expected to greatly assist with operations, investigations and training. The technology is also expected to aid the general public, especially the case with the downtown surveillance.
Currently, there are six city-owned cameras and one privately-owned camera — and there is plenty of room for growth.
“We put up six cameras as part of the city’s base system in the downtown area,” said Tilley. “The system allows any business or any person to purchase a camera and put it on their property and we’ll monitor it. It’s a rotation basis and we set the rotation for it. We’re scanning and every 15 seconds it will move to another scan location, and start the rotation over again. It’s great video.”
The system currently provides real-time looks all around the courthouse square, as well as down McKoy Street, Elizabeth Street and several other streets on the outskirts of downtown .The video can be stopped and the view zoomed in on any items of interest as needed.
The City Council voted unanimously at the beginning of 2012 to proceed with the purchase and installation of six wireless digital IP-based patrolling cameras and a digital video recorder from WildFire at a cost of $36,812. Along with providing extra security for downtown businesses, the cameras were anticipated to help monitor a large city investment in the “Milling Around” public art piece at the top of College Street.
Police personnel have been tooling with the cameras for about 10 months, experimenting with locations and trying to get everything right.
“We wanted to tweak it. It takes a while to get everything set up. We changed camera positions a couple times, just to get things right,” Tilley said. “The first five months they were really operating, we solved or corroborated five different crimes just in the downtown area. Five or six crimes we’ve either solved or gotten evidence from.”
That included the investigation into a supposed shooting, which was reported in one location but actually occurred in another. There was also the two suspects who were wielding BB guns and pointed them at people, only to be captured on video during their assault. Then there was the break-in at Gloria’s, the suspect in which was actually tracked on four different cameras.
While the surveillance is not monitored around the clock, it is web-based and can be accessed by police officers as well as emergency personnel at the 911 Center. The video has proven to be such a valuable tool, it is now part of protocol for investigations.
“What we’ve found is, by reviewing this stuff, it’s been a really big benefit,” said Tilley. “And we’ve done that a lot. Any time we have an incident downtown, that’s the first thing the officer does is come back and check the cameras as part of our protocol. Plus, we keep the cameras up during the day. People will have their cameras up while they’re working in the office.”
With the system being web-based, officers can also pull the real-time camera footage up on their car laptops. The footage is color surveillance, with user capabilities to access the entire six-camera feed or focus a single or select few cameras. The rotation and zoom of any of the cameras can also be manipulated if necessary.
“This works off the Wi-fi system,” the police chief said. “The signal feeds off Wi-fi, and with that the downtown area has free Wi-fi. Our in-car video also works off a wireless feed. So when our cars are downtown, it’s uploading the stuff they’re capturing on the in-car camera. The officers don’t have to do anything. They just ride up to the police station or downtown area. Once he stops his car, and that camera hits the Wi-fi, it automatically starts uploading.”
Along with the six city-owned cameras, there is another privately-owned one at the Sampson County Partnership for Children, which is also monitored by police.
Tilley said the ultimate goal is to have public participation among business and property owners, along with others. The more cameras there are, the better, he noted.
“This is the start of what we’re doing to educate (the general public),” said Tilley. “We’re working with the Planning Department to put up signs in the downtown area, because we want people to know that there’s video down there. It’s nothing we’re trying to hide. We’re hoping that businesses will see this as a security plus for them. We would encourage them to look at the program to buy into it. Any civilians can buy a camera, and we would be adding to our system.”
Suspect identifications can be made, as the video is clear during both the day and night. The footage also allows for still shots to be taken from the surveillance. Police officers would work with those interested to ensure the camera is in the optimal location.
The in-car systems consist of two cameras in each patrol car, one on the dash and another that is locked in on any suspect in the backseat. The cost was about $5,000 per system. The department reviewed six vendors in making the purchase, narrowing it down to three, which each allowed officers to test drive cameras for about a month back in the fall.
The department ultimately went with Raleigh-based Digital Technologies, and the equipment was installed around the beginning of the year.
“We’re still working the bugs out, and we’re still doing some training on this,” said Tilley.
As with the downtown cameras, the in-car systems do not merely offer video. They offer the location and speed of the patrol car at a given time and, though not real-time, a recording that can be triggered by certain activities.
“There are four ways to activate the sensors that cut the camera on,” Tilley explained. “The officer can reach up and hit the button and cut it on himself; every time he turns his blue light on, it cuts on; we have a speed control, so if he exceeds a certain speed any time, it automatically cuts on; or if he is involved in a collision, the camera cuts on.”
It does not record a complete 12-hour shift, but it starts recording should any of those four instances occur. However, once it is activated, the recording will begin retroactively, starting 30 seconds before the incident. Should an officer activate his blue lights to pull a vehicle over, the recording will start half a minute before the blue lights were even touched.
Monday, January 21, 2013
'Index' Fingers at Sundance's New Frontier
For nearly a decade, Sundance's New Frontier exhibition has showcased projects that push the boundaries of film. "Our job is to stay abreast of innovations in storytelling," says New Frontier curator Shari Frilot. "As the media landscape changes, it's profoundly affecting how we tell our stories." As new technologies open fresh pathways for artistic expression and audience interaction, New Frontier projects explore the boundaries of what’s possible.
"Pulse Index," Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s 2013 New Frontier installation, uses digital sensors to invite audience participation. Projected on three walls, "Pulse Index" surrounds viewers with floor-to-ceiling photographs of fingerprints, each contributed by a person who visited the installation. The prints pulsate to the rhythm of the most recent participant's heartbeat, giving the installation an organic, low-key vibe. Audience members can add their own fingerprints by placing an index finger inside a custom-built sensor equipped with a digital microscope. As the sensor projects the new fingerprint on the wall, the oldest print is pushed off, creating, in Lozano-Hemmer’s words, an ever-changing “memento-mori.”
"Pulse Index" relies on its audience members' biological data -- heartbeats and fingerprints -- to create an aesthetic experience. While data seems like an unlikely starting point for a creative project, "Pulse Index" is part of a growing class of new media work that tells stories using statistics. As computers become increasingly capable of capturing, storing, and processing large data sets, artists and engineers are exploring how to best communicate that data, often in increasingly beautiful ways. The growing field of "data visualization" -- creating images that showcase quantitative information -- has advocates in fields as diverse as biology, mathematics, and design. Many of these visualizations use existing data sets. Aaron Koblin’s evocative "Flight Patterns" (2006) draws on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight tracking data to show the ebbs and flows of American travel over a 24-hour period. Other visualizations create their own data banks. Each day, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar’s "We Feel Fine" (2006-present) scours the Internet for sentences belonging with the words "I feel." The program stores these snippets and sorts them by emotion, location, and known demographics -- making it possible to see an image expressing how male New Yorkers felt last March, for instance.
While "We Feel Fine" engages with emotion in a cognitive way -- quantifying how many people "feel" a certain way at a given point -- "Pulse Index" uses quantitative data to create an emotional effect. Built using the heartbeats and fingerprints of recent visitors, some of whom may still be in the room, the piece has an immediacy and emotional intimacy that’s hard to quantify. The fingerprints, some stretched as large as floor-to-ceiling, bathe the room in a warm, welcoming light. Standing in the middle of "Pulse Index," surrounded by the softly glowing fingerprints of visitors who came before, it’s hard not to feel part of a spontaneous community.
Born in Mexico and based in Montreal, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has built a career at the intersection of art and technology. A self-described "electronic artist," Lozano-Hemmer has been tinkering with technological installations since 1992. His work makes him as welcome in scientific strongholds as the art world. Next year, in addition to mounting a solo show at Istanbul’s Borusan Foundation, Lozano-Hemmer give a keynote at June’s Eyeo Festival, a techie Mecca. In Spring 2014, he will be a visiting artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Rafael takes technology, disassembles it, and reconstructs it in a playful manner," said Julie Bourgeois, Lozano-Hemmer’s production manager. She describes "Pulse Index" as his poetic take on search and surveillance technology. Far less invasive than real-world tracking technology, "Pulse Index" personalizes the experience of fingerprinting, giving its audience power over the technology designed to track them.
In this way, "Pulse Index" has an element of wish fulfillment. Unlike government fingerprinting technology, "Pulse Index" has built-in ephemerality. The piece holds 10,925 fingerprints at a time, and the addition of each new print replaces an old one. As visitors cycle through the gallery, the piece changes, reflecting the makeup of its audience.
Visitor interaction is central to "Pulse Index"; Bourgeois calls it a "crowdsourced installation." The piece is participatory by design, exploring possible ways technology can engage audiences in the act of creation. Assembled from images of fingerprints submitted by on-site visitors, the piece is literally animated by its audience. "It’s interactive," said Bourgeois. "Without people, the artwork doesn’t exist."
Remember the time you liked Nickleback’s page on Facebook when you were all of 16? Or when you liked Chetan Bhagat enough to follow his page updates? You may not, but Facebook remembers all your likes, dislikes and check-ins. All of the data, the simple page likes have all been brought back by Facebook, packaged in a fancy, shiny new avatar called Graph Search.
What Graph Search does is simple. You can figure out what your friends like, where they dined last evening, TV shows your friends of friends have been watching or even single people who share the same interests as you without having to leave Facebook. Once you have Graph Search, simply through a string of keywords, you can find out information that you need on a more social level on the social networking website itself.
Excited yet? Or does this sound plain creepy? We took Facebook’s Graph Search for a spin to see what exactly it can do, or not. The first time you start using Graph Search, you will feel like a kid in a candy shop. There is just so much you would like to search for. Funny things your friends like, or maybe figure out great places to go or which movie to rent tonight but don’t know where to start.
I started off by searching for friends who stay in my city. ‘My friends who live in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India’ threw up results of more than a hundred friends. Friends' details were stacked one above the other on the left, along with additional details like where they work, the music they listen to and mutual friends. Facebook understands that I will probably need to fine tune the list and bring it down to maybe friends in Mumbai who hail from New Delhi. Graph Search is equipped with a refine tool situated on the right that helps you filter down your search to the hometown, gender, relationship status and even the school or college attended by your friends in Mumbai. Very stalkerish, right?
Relationship status has been something of a Facebook speciality. Ever since the feature’s debut, it has generally been considered to be somewhat of a status symbol to display one’s relationship status on the profile. The feature made an appearance on Facebook before it did on any other social networking website and searching for your single friends has never been this easy. What’s better is that you can refine the search with your likes and dislikes.
I left it to Graph Search to suggest single male friends who liked Metallica and let it work its magic. Poor, naive Facebook, with no intimation about why I suddenly felt the need to find ‘single males’ with the same taste in music, threw up results of siblings. Lesson no. 1: Graph Search is in beta. It has a long way to go with becoming more intuitive.
Tweaking some parameters, I asked Facebook to suggest friends of friends who lived in my city and liked Metallica. Not surprisingly, profiles of over a thousand men showed up. I opened up the refine tool further. To my surprise, the tool can help you get very, very specific with criteria likes school they attended, pages they are admins of, people you have interacted via comments earlier and whether or not they are friends with a particular friend.
"Pulse Index," Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s 2013 New Frontier installation, uses digital sensors to invite audience participation. Projected on three walls, "Pulse Index" surrounds viewers with floor-to-ceiling photographs of fingerprints, each contributed by a person who visited the installation. The prints pulsate to the rhythm of the most recent participant's heartbeat, giving the installation an organic, low-key vibe. Audience members can add their own fingerprints by placing an index finger inside a custom-built sensor equipped with a digital microscope. As the sensor projects the new fingerprint on the wall, the oldest print is pushed off, creating, in Lozano-Hemmer’s words, an ever-changing “memento-mori.”
"Pulse Index" relies on its audience members' biological data -- heartbeats and fingerprints -- to create an aesthetic experience. While data seems like an unlikely starting point for a creative project, "Pulse Index" is part of a growing class of new media work that tells stories using statistics. As computers become increasingly capable of capturing, storing, and processing large data sets, artists and engineers are exploring how to best communicate that data, often in increasingly beautiful ways. The growing field of "data visualization" -- creating images that showcase quantitative information -- has advocates in fields as diverse as biology, mathematics, and design. Many of these visualizations use existing data sets. Aaron Koblin’s evocative "Flight Patterns" (2006) draws on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight tracking data to show the ebbs and flows of American travel over a 24-hour period. Other visualizations create their own data banks. Each day, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar’s "We Feel Fine" (2006-present) scours the Internet for sentences belonging with the words "I feel." The program stores these snippets and sorts them by emotion, location, and known demographics -- making it possible to see an image expressing how male New Yorkers felt last March, for instance.
While "We Feel Fine" engages with emotion in a cognitive way -- quantifying how many people "feel" a certain way at a given point -- "Pulse Index" uses quantitative data to create an emotional effect. Built using the heartbeats and fingerprints of recent visitors, some of whom may still be in the room, the piece has an immediacy and emotional intimacy that’s hard to quantify. The fingerprints, some stretched as large as floor-to-ceiling, bathe the room in a warm, welcoming light. Standing in the middle of "Pulse Index," surrounded by the softly glowing fingerprints of visitors who came before, it’s hard not to feel part of a spontaneous community.
Born in Mexico and based in Montreal, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has built a career at the intersection of art and technology. A self-described "electronic artist," Lozano-Hemmer has been tinkering with technological installations since 1992. His work makes him as welcome in scientific strongholds as the art world. Next year, in addition to mounting a solo show at Istanbul’s Borusan Foundation, Lozano-Hemmer give a keynote at June’s Eyeo Festival, a techie Mecca. In Spring 2014, he will be a visiting artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Rafael takes technology, disassembles it, and reconstructs it in a playful manner," said Julie Bourgeois, Lozano-Hemmer’s production manager. She describes "Pulse Index" as his poetic take on search and surveillance technology. Far less invasive than real-world tracking technology, "Pulse Index" personalizes the experience of fingerprinting, giving its audience power over the technology designed to track them.
In this way, "Pulse Index" has an element of wish fulfillment. Unlike government fingerprinting technology, "Pulse Index" has built-in ephemerality. The piece holds 10,925 fingerprints at a time, and the addition of each new print replaces an old one. As visitors cycle through the gallery, the piece changes, reflecting the makeup of its audience.
Visitor interaction is central to "Pulse Index"; Bourgeois calls it a "crowdsourced installation." The piece is participatory by design, exploring possible ways technology can engage audiences in the act of creation. Assembled from images of fingerprints submitted by on-site visitors, the piece is literally animated by its audience. "It’s interactive," said Bourgeois. "Without people, the artwork doesn’t exist."
Remember the time you liked Nickleback’s page on Facebook when you were all of 16? Or when you liked Chetan Bhagat enough to follow his page updates? You may not, but Facebook remembers all your likes, dislikes and check-ins. All of the data, the simple page likes have all been brought back by Facebook, packaged in a fancy, shiny new avatar called Graph Search.
What Graph Search does is simple. You can figure out what your friends like, where they dined last evening, TV shows your friends of friends have been watching or even single people who share the same interests as you without having to leave Facebook. Once you have Graph Search, simply through a string of keywords, you can find out information that you need on a more social level on the social networking website itself.
Excited yet? Or does this sound plain creepy? We took Facebook’s Graph Search for a spin to see what exactly it can do, or not. The first time you start using Graph Search, you will feel like a kid in a candy shop. There is just so much you would like to search for. Funny things your friends like, or maybe figure out great places to go or which movie to rent tonight but don’t know where to start.
I started off by searching for friends who stay in my city. ‘My friends who live in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India’ threw up results of more than a hundred friends. Friends' details were stacked one above the other on the left, along with additional details like where they work, the music they listen to and mutual friends. Facebook understands that I will probably need to fine tune the list and bring it down to maybe friends in Mumbai who hail from New Delhi. Graph Search is equipped with a refine tool situated on the right that helps you filter down your search to the hometown, gender, relationship status and even the school or college attended by your friends in Mumbai. Very stalkerish, right?
Relationship status has been something of a Facebook speciality. Ever since the feature’s debut, it has generally been considered to be somewhat of a status symbol to display one’s relationship status on the profile. The feature made an appearance on Facebook before it did on any other social networking website and searching for your single friends has never been this easy. What’s better is that you can refine the search with your likes and dislikes.
I left it to Graph Search to suggest single male friends who liked Metallica and let it work its magic. Poor, naive Facebook, with no intimation about why I suddenly felt the need to find ‘single males’ with the same taste in music, threw up results of siblings. Lesson no. 1: Graph Search is in beta. It has a long way to go with becoming more intuitive.
Tweaking some parameters, I asked Facebook to suggest friends of friends who lived in my city and liked Metallica. Not surprisingly, profiles of over a thousand men showed up. I opened up the refine tool further. To my surprise, the tool can help you get very, very specific with criteria likes school they attended, pages they are admins of, people you have interacted via comments earlier and whether or not they are friends with a particular friend.
'Index' Fingers at Sundance's New Frontier
For nearly a decade, Sundance's New Frontier exhibition has showcased projects that push the boundaries of film. "Our job is to stay abreast of innovations in storytelling," says New Frontier curator Shari Frilot. "As the media landscape changes, it's profoundly affecting how we tell our stories." As new technologies open fresh pathways for artistic expression and audience interaction, New Frontier projects explore the boundaries of what’s possible.
"Pulse Index," Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s 2013 New Frontier installation, uses digital sensors to invite audience participation. Projected on three walls, "Pulse Index" surrounds viewers with floor-to-ceiling photographs of fingerprints, each contributed by a person who visited the installation. The prints pulsate to the rhythm of the most recent participant's heartbeat, giving the installation an organic, low-key vibe. Audience members can add their own fingerprints by placing an index finger inside a custom-built sensor equipped with a digital microscope. As the sensor projects the new fingerprint on the wall, the oldest print is pushed off, creating, in Lozano-Hemmer’s words, an ever-changing “memento-mori.”
"Pulse Index" relies on its audience members' biological data -- heartbeats and fingerprints -- to create an aesthetic experience. While data seems like an unlikely starting point for a creative project, "Pulse Index" is part of a growing class of new media work that tells stories using statistics. As computers become increasingly capable of capturing, storing, and processing large data sets, artists and engineers are exploring how to best communicate that data, often in increasingly beautiful ways. The growing field of "data visualization" -- creating images that showcase quantitative information -- has advocates in fields as diverse as biology, mathematics, and design. Many of these visualizations use existing data sets. Aaron Koblin’s evocative "Flight Patterns" (2006) draws on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight tracking data to show the ebbs and flows of American travel over a 24-hour period. Other visualizations create their own data banks. Each day, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar’s "We Feel Fine" (2006-present) scours the Internet for sentences belonging with the words "I feel." The program stores these snippets and sorts them by emotion, location, and known demographics -- making it possible to see an image expressing how male New Yorkers felt last March, for instance.
While "We Feel Fine" engages with emotion in a cognitive way -- quantifying how many people "feel" a certain way at a given point -- "Pulse Index" uses quantitative data to create an emotional effect. Built using the heartbeats and fingerprints of recent visitors, some of whom may still be in the room, the piece has an immediacy and emotional intimacy that’s hard to quantify. The fingerprints, some stretched as large as floor-to-ceiling, bathe the room in a warm, welcoming light. Standing in the middle of "Pulse Index," surrounded by the softly glowing fingerprints of visitors who came before, it’s hard not to feel part of a spontaneous community.
Born in Mexico and based in Montreal, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has built a career at the intersection of art and technology. A self-described "electronic artist," Lozano-Hemmer has been tinkering with technological installations since 1992. His work makes him as welcome in scientific strongholds as the art world. Next year, in addition to mounting a solo show at Istanbul’s Borusan Foundation, Lozano-Hemmer give a keynote at June’s Eyeo Festival, a techie Mecca. In Spring 2014, he will be a visiting artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Rafael takes technology, disassembles it, and reconstructs it in a playful manner," said Julie Bourgeois, Lozano-Hemmer’s production manager. She describes "Pulse Index" as his poetic take on search and surveillance technology. Far less invasive than real-world tracking technology, "Pulse Index" personalizes the experience of fingerprinting, giving its audience power over the technology designed to track them.
In this way, "Pulse Index" has an element of wish fulfillment. Unlike government fingerprinting technology, "Pulse Index" has built-in ephemerality. The piece holds 10,925 fingerprints at a time, and the addition of each new print replaces an old one. As visitors cycle through the gallery, the piece changes, reflecting the makeup of its audience.
Visitor interaction is central to "Pulse Index"; Bourgeois calls it a "crowdsourced installation." The piece is participatory by design, exploring possible ways technology can engage audiences in the act of creation. Assembled from images of fingerprints submitted by on-site visitors, the piece is literally animated by its audience. "It’s interactive," said Bourgeois. "Without people, the artwork doesn’t exist."
Remember the time you liked Nickleback’s page on Facebook when you were all of 16? Or when you liked Chetan Bhagat enough to follow his page updates? You may not, but Facebook remembers all your likes, dislikes and check-ins. All of the data, the simple page likes have all been brought back by Facebook, packaged in a fancy, shiny new avatar called Graph Search.
What Graph Search does is simple. You can figure out what your friends like, where they dined last evening, TV shows your friends of friends have been watching or even single people who share the same interests as you without having to leave Facebook. Once you have Graph Search, simply through a string of keywords, you can find out information that you need on a more social level on the social networking website itself.
Excited yet? Or does this sound plain creepy? We took Facebook’s Graph Search for a spin to see what exactly it can do, or not. The first time you start using Graph Search, you will feel like a kid in a candy shop. There is just so much you would like to search for. Funny things your friends like, or maybe figure out great places to go or which movie to rent tonight but don’t know where to start.
I started off by searching for friends who stay in my city. ‘My friends who live in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India’ threw up results of more than a hundred friends. Friends' details were stacked one above the other on the left, along with additional details like where they work, the music they listen to and mutual friends. Facebook understands that I will probably need to fine tune the list and bring it down to maybe friends in Mumbai who hail from New Delhi. Graph Search is equipped with a refine tool situated on the right that helps you filter down your search to the hometown, gender, relationship status and even the school or college attended by your friends in Mumbai. Very stalkerish, right?
Relationship status has been something of a Facebook speciality. Ever since the feature’s debut, it has generally been considered to be somewhat of a status symbol to display one’s relationship status on the profile. The feature made an appearance on Facebook before it did on any other social networking website and searching for your single friends has never been this easy. What’s better is that you can refine the search with your likes and dislikes.
I left it to Graph Search to suggest single male friends who liked Metallica and let it work its magic. Poor, naive Facebook, with no intimation about why I suddenly felt the need to find ‘single males’ with the same taste in music, threw up results of siblings. Lesson no. 1: Graph Search is in beta. It has a long way to go with becoming more intuitive.
Tweaking some parameters, I asked Facebook to suggest friends of friends who lived in my city and liked Metallica. Not surprisingly, profiles of over a thousand men showed up. I opened up the refine tool further. To my surprise, the tool can help you get very, very specific with criteria likes school they attended, pages they are admins of, people you have interacted via comments earlier and whether or not they are friends with a particular friend.
"Pulse Index," Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s 2013 New Frontier installation, uses digital sensors to invite audience participation. Projected on three walls, "Pulse Index" surrounds viewers with floor-to-ceiling photographs of fingerprints, each contributed by a person who visited the installation. The prints pulsate to the rhythm of the most recent participant's heartbeat, giving the installation an organic, low-key vibe. Audience members can add their own fingerprints by placing an index finger inside a custom-built sensor equipped with a digital microscope. As the sensor projects the new fingerprint on the wall, the oldest print is pushed off, creating, in Lozano-Hemmer’s words, an ever-changing “memento-mori.”
"Pulse Index" relies on its audience members' biological data -- heartbeats and fingerprints -- to create an aesthetic experience. While data seems like an unlikely starting point for a creative project, "Pulse Index" is part of a growing class of new media work that tells stories using statistics. As computers become increasingly capable of capturing, storing, and processing large data sets, artists and engineers are exploring how to best communicate that data, often in increasingly beautiful ways. The growing field of "data visualization" -- creating images that showcase quantitative information -- has advocates in fields as diverse as biology, mathematics, and design. Many of these visualizations use existing data sets. Aaron Koblin’s evocative "Flight Patterns" (2006) draws on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flight tracking data to show the ebbs and flows of American travel over a 24-hour period. Other visualizations create their own data banks. Each day, Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar’s "We Feel Fine" (2006-present) scours the Internet for sentences belonging with the words "I feel." The program stores these snippets and sorts them by emotion, location, and known demographics -- making it possible to see an image expressing how male New Yorkers felt last March, for instance.
While "We Feel Fine" engages with emotion in a cognitive way -- quantifying how many people "feel" a certain way at a given point -- "Pulse Index" uses quantitative data to create an emotional effect. Built using the heartbeats and fingerprints of recent visitors, some of whom may still be in the room, the piece has an immediacy and emotional intimacy that’s hard to quantify. The fingerprints, some stretched as large as floor-to-ceiling, bathe the room in a warm, welcoming light. Standing in the middle of "Pulse Index," surrounded by the softly glowing fingerprints of visitors who came before, it’s hard not to feel part of a spontaneous community.
Born in Mexico and based in Montreal, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer has built a career at the intersection of art and technology. A self-described "electronic artist," Lozano-Hemmer has been tinkering with technological installations since 1992. His work makes him as welcome in scientific strongholds as the art world. Next year, in addition to mounting a solo show at Istanbul’s Borusan Foundation, Lozano-Hemmer give a keynote at June’s Eyeo Festival, a techie Mecca. In Spring 2014, he will be a visiting artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Rafael takes technology, disassembles it, and reconstructs it in a playful manner," said Julie Bourgeois, Lozano-Hemmer’s production manager. She describes "Pulse Index" as his poetic take on search and surveillance technology. Far less invasive than real-world tracking technology, "Pulse Index" personalizes the experience of fingerprinting, giving its audience power over the technology designed to track them.
In this way, "Pulse Index" has an element of wish fulfillment. Unlike government fingerprinting technology, "Pulse Index" has built-in ephemerality. The piece holds 10,925 fingerprints at a time, and the addition of each new print replaces an old one. As visitors cycle through the gallery, the piece changes, reflecting the makeup of its audience.
Visitor interaction is central to "Pulse Index"; Bourgeois calls it a "crowdsourced installation." The piece is participatory by design, exploring possible ways technology can engage audiences in the act of creation. Assembled from images of fingerprints submitted by on-site visitors, the piece is literally animated by its audience. "It’s interactive," said Bourgeois. "Without people, the artwork doesn’t exist."
Remember the time you liked Nickleback’s page on Facebook when you were all of 16? Or when you liked Chetan Bhagat enough to follow his page updates? You may not, but Facebook remembers all your likes, dislikes and check-ins. All of the data, the simple page likes have all been brought back by Facebook, packaged in a fancy, shiny new avatar called Graph Search.
What Graph Search does is simple. You can figure out what your friends like, where they dined last evening, TV shows your friends of friends have been watching or even single people who share the same interests as you without having to leave Facebook. Once you have Graph Search, simply through a string of keywords, you can find out information that you need on a more social level on the social networking website itself.
Excited yet? Or does this sound plain creepy? We took Facebook’s Graph Search for a spin to see what exactly it can do, or not. The first time you start using Graph Search, you will feel like a kid in a candy shop. There is just so much you would like to search for. Funny things your friends like, or maybe figure out great places to go or which movie to rent tonight but don’t know where to start.
I started off by searching for friends who stay in my city. ‘My friends who live in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India’ threw up results of more than a hundred friends. Friends' details were stacked one above the other on the left, along with additional details like where they work, the music they listen to and mutual friends. Facebook understands that I will probably need to fine tune the list and bring it down to maybe friends in Mumbai who hail from New Delhi. Graph Search is equipped with a refine tool situated on the right that helps you filter down your search to the hometown, gender, relationship status and even the school or college attended by your friends in Mumbai. Very stalkerish, right?
Relationship status has been something of a Facebook speciality. Ever since the feature’s debut, it has generally been considered to be somewhat of a status symbol to display one’s relationship status on the profile. The feature made an appearance on Facebook before it did on any other social networking website and searching for your single friends has never been this easy. What’s better is that you can refine the search with your likes and dislikes.
I left it to Graph Search to suggest single male friends who liked Metallica and let it work its magic. Poor, naive Facebook, with no intimation about why I suddenly felt the need to find ‘single males’ with the same taste in music, threw up results of siblings. Lesson no. 1: Graph Search is in beta. It has a long way to go with becoming more intuitive.
Tweaking some parameters, I asked Facebook to suggest friends of friends who lived in my city and liked Metallica. Not surprisingly, profiles of over a thousand men showed up. I opened up the refine tool further. To my surprise, the tool can help you get very, very specific with criteria likes school they attended, pages they are admins of, people you have interacted via comments earlier and whether or not they are friends with a particular friend.
Visions of our moody Sun
“It’s not enough to observe the Sun’s magnetic field throughout the course of a day. You need to to be able to observe it several times an hour in order to understand what causes a solar explosion, for example. So what we need is a very large telescope, that would provide us with detailed imagery four to five times more precise than what we have now,” says Bernard Gelly, an astrophysicist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
That’s the aim of the scientists working on an EU-backed project to develop a new solar telescope, that would help them better understand some of the Sun’s elusive physical and chemical processes.
“The quality of the pictures we get from the Sun is disturbed by the Earth’s atmosphere. Very often, we just don’t see clearly enough. That’s why the future European Solar Telescope will have what we call “an adaptative optics system” that will correct, in real-time, the deformations caused by the atmosphere,” says Manuel Collados, coordinator at the European Solar Telescope project at the Canarias Astrophysics Institute.
Researchers hope the new telescope, combined with existing ones already orbiting the Earth, will help forecast more accurately the Sun’s dangerous spats.
“We currently know what regions of the Sun are more likely to develop those sudden, huge eruptions and bursts of energy. We are even able to determine whether those eruptions will happen in one, two or three days. What we are currently unable to tell is when exactly they are going to take place, and how violent they are going to be,” adds Manuel Collados.
“The Sun produces energy through a reaction known as “nuclear fusion”. We think that this source of energy could one day become the answer to the energy crisis here on Earth,” says Héctor Socas Navarro, astrophysicist at the Canarias Astrophysics Institute.
“In principle, it is a clean source of energy, non polluting, and virtually unlimited. Major research projects are currently underway to try and reproduce that same energy source in reactors. If successful, this research could provide a vital solution to the current energy problems faced by humankind.”
"We're in a steady incline on our sales and listings, and that's really what we want," Jones said. "We want it to be a steadfast but slow growth; we don't want a spike and then a drop off the map. We're very encouraged this year. People were buying and selling all year long, even through the holidays."
Terri Covington, broker and owner of Covington Real Estate in Belton, said 2012 was a good year, even if it had its downtime.
"For our office, our sales have been up quite a bit from (2011)," Covington said. "The year in itself, we had a pretty good spring and then in the summer it was real flat, but it picked up back in the fall."
While experiencing some drastic changes, the market in Texas didn't experience the severe drops that parts of the nation did during the economic crisis, Jones said. According to the National Association of Realtors website, Texas has outpaced the rest of the nation.
"We never had the huge bust like California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio – a lot of states had a tough time," Jones said. "We fell, but not like them. Now we continue again to slowly rise."
Not only has Texas's real estate market done well, but, specifically, the market in Central Texas has stayed strong, which Jones attributes to location and strong economy.
"We have such a strong economy because of our marketplace," Jones said. "Our job market is good, we have industry, Scott & White is the biggest employer in the area."
She went on to say that because our area includes Temple, Belton, Killeen and Fort Hood that we have a little more stability in the job market than other places.
Location is another contributing factor to the stability of our market.
"I-35 has a great deal to do with it," she said. "That's how we get so much business to move here. Our prices are attractive even to the rest of the state. We're attractively priced in an attractive location."
All being said, both Covington and Jones are looking forward to what 2013 will bring. While rises and falls are always expected in real estate, both are optimistic about the year overall.
"I believe we're going to have a good year in sales," Jones said. "Things will be changing the most this year. I believe it is not longer just a buyer's market. We were there for several years. And sellers are not going to pay as many concessions as in the past. There's not going to be drastic reductions in sale prices. We have to educate the public to that. That will make, as we even out, both sides participate in the market more."
As with many others who look at the developments happening now and planned for the future, Covington said her optimism stems from the influx of business to the community.
"I feel like we're going to have a positive year (in 2013)," she said. "I don't see how we can't have a positive year with the amount of business that we've seen coming in and the excitement that is going on in our area. This is a great place and everybody seems to be recognizing that."
That’s the aim of the scientists working on an EU-backed project to develop a new solar telescope, that would help them better understand some of the Sun’s elusive physical and chemical processes.
“The quality of the pictures we get from the Sun is disturbed by the Earth’s atmosphere. Very often, we just don’t see clearly enough. That’s why the future European Solar Telescope will have what we call “an adaptative optics system” that will correct, in real-time, the deformations caused by the atmosphere,” says Manuel Collados, coordinator at the European Solar Telescope project at the Canarias Astrophysics Institute.
Researchers hope the new telescope, combined with existing ones already orbiting the Earth, will help forecast more accurately the Sun’s dangerous spats.
“We currently know what regions of the Sun are more likely to develop those sudden, huge eruptions and bursts of energy. We are even able to determine whether those eruptions will happen in one, two or three days. What we are currently unable to tell is when exactly they are going to take place, and how violent they are going to be,” adds Manuel Collados.
“The Sun produces energy through a reaction known as “nuclear fusion”. We think that this source of energy could one day become the answer to the energy crisis here on Earth,” says Héctor Socas Navarro, astrophysicist at the Canarias Astrophysics Institute.
“In principle, it is a clean source of energy, non polluting, and virtually unlimited. Major research projects are currently underway to try and reproduce that same energy source in reactors. If successful, this research could provide a vital solution to the current energy problems faced by humankind.”
"We're in a steady incline on our sales and listings, and that's really what we want," Jones said. "We want it to be a steadfast but slow growth; we don't want a spike and then a drop off the map. We're very encouraged this year. People were buying and selling all year long, even through the holidays."
Terri Covington, broker and owner of Covington Real Estate in Belton, said 2012 was a good year, even if it had its downtime.
"For our office, our sales have been up quite a bit from (2011)," Covington said. "The year in itself, we had a pretty good spring and then in the summer it was real flat, but it picked up back in the fall."
While experiencing some drastic changes, the market in Texas didn't experience the severe drops that parts of the nation did during the economic crisis, Jones said. According to the National Association of Realtors website, Texas has outpaced the rest of the nation.
"We never had the huge bust like California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio – a lot of states had a tough time," Jones said. "We fell, but not like them. Now we continue again to slowly rise."
Not only has Texas's real estate market done well, but, specifically, the market in Central Texas has stayed strong, which Jones attributes to location and strong economy.
"We have such a strong economy because of our marketplace," Jones said. "Our job market is good, we have industry, Scott & White is the biggest employer in the area."
She went on to say that because our area includes Temple, Belton, Killeen and Fort Hood that we have a little more stability in the job market than other places.
Location is another contributing factor to the stability of our market.
"I-35 has a great deal to do with it," she said. "That's how we get so much business to move here. Our prices are attractive even to the rest of the state. We're attractively priced in an attractive location."
All being said, both Covington and Jones are looking forward to what 2013 will bring. While rises and falls are always expected in real estate, both are optimistic about the year overall.
"I believe we're going to have a good year in sales," Jones said. "Things will be changing the most this year. I believe it is not longer just a buyer's market. We were there for several years. And sellers are not going to pay as many concessions as in the past. There's not going to be drastic reductions in sale prices. We have to educate the public to that. That will make, as we even out, both sides participate in the market more."
As with many others who look at the developments happening now and planned for the future, Covington said her optimism stems from the influx of business to the community.
"I feel like we're going to have a positive year (in 2013)," she said. "I don't see how we can't have a positive year with the amount of business that we've seen coming in and the excitement that is going on in our area. This is a great place and everybody seems to be recognizing that."
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
A somber Christmas in Newtown
On the night of December 14, just hours after a mass shooting at the local elementary school ripped comfort and security away from the wealthy residents of Newtown, Connecticut, Elizabeth Cleary found herself alone in this small town’s Catholic church at 1 a.m. The teacher of 26 years clasped her hands and wept as she sat in her pew.
That evening, she found solace in a presence that she swears she could physically feel – and very nearly see.
“When I was here that night, there were these tiny candles,” she says. “There was no wind at all, and no breeze – but their flames were dancing. You can tell that their presence lingers for a while. And you can feel it when they let go.”
Since 2005, Pope Benedict XVI has called on Americans to resist materialism and reclaim the true meaning of Christmas: the celebration of the birth of Jesus, brought into the world ultimately to die for man’s sins.
That message is reverberating throughout Newtown’s churches, town halls and households this holiday season, challenging residents in their search for unattainable answers to why 20 of their children and six adults were brutally slain two weeks ago.
Their efforts to resolve the existence of evil in their perfectly manicured town through prayer, spirituality and stock symbolism have highlighted a uniquely American trend – that as the frequency of such mass killings has increased, reliance on religiously charged vigils has become predictably commonplace.
Reid Hettich, a pastor for 27 years at the Mosaic Church of Aurora, Colorado, had the unfortunate task of organizing a vigil in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting in a local movie theater that killed 12 people and wounded 59. He noticed that people only nominally affiliated with a religion turned to faith in his town after its people came under attack.
“Certainly, I think there’s an immediate spike in faith, and that goes away to some degree,” Hettich says. “But there’s a greater awareness that there just aren’t good answers, apart from belief.”
Just after the shooting in Aurora, he was surprised to hear from local government officials that they specifically wanted a prayer vigil, and not a non-denominational, candlelight ceremony – one still representative of America’s diverse faiths, but fundamentally religious at its core.
“There seems to be this recurrent trend in American politics that government and the social order rely on religious agreement,” says David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom. “And when there are tears in that social order, they turn to religion proper for the restoration of those fixtures.”
In Tucson, Arizona, where six people were killed and US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely wounded in a 2011 shooting rampage, religious leaders from across the spectrum came together to hold a prayer vigil – and found themselves gathering for yet another vigil this month to honor Newtown’s fallen.
“The frequency is going up, there’s no doubt about it,” says Dana Yentzer, pastor at Tucson Church International. “And I do wonder if the vigils themselves will lose their impact if that continues. But from a pastoral standpoint, I try to provide hope again, no matter what the circumstance.”
At root of concerns over the frequency of these vigils is a confounding theodical question: whether a benevolent, all-powerful, omniscient God should be listening in on all these calls for the killing to stop. One widely known expert on the role of religion in America notes that while this problem rarely bubbles into public debate, any country as wedded to rituals as the United States is must bear the consequences of defending them – namely facing tough questions.
“The central question is, if you keep having rituals like this, don’t you learn eventually that God isn’t stopping what’s happening? That evoking God is not getting the job done?” says Sarah Barringer Gordon, a history scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “And it may be the simple answer is that people just don’t think that’s God’s job.”
But this shooting feels different – at least to President Barack Obama, who wept at word of the news out of Newtown. Brushing away tears, he quoted scripture when ending remarks on the shooting at the White House; he opened with words from the Bible at a vigil two days later in Connecticut.
Returning to St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church on Christmas Eve, Cleary shed tears once more, genuflecting before turning to leave the Newtown refuge (though shooting rampages have not spared houses of worship; a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was targeted only five months prior). She leaves behind a manger empty of the baby Jesus – a potent polysemic image speaking to an absence of youth, or perhaps adequate faith, in Newtown, a place already saturated with symbolism.
In the wintered garden of the church, surrounded by teddy bears and toy angels endowed with all the suffering of their past owners, she calls herself disenfranchised with her religion, while still a compulsory participant.
“I don’t think you have to have faith to enjoy these vigils,” says Marleen Cafarelli, a resident of Newtown for over 30 years. “It’s about the community coming together to distribute the pain. It’s what we need right now.”
Indeed, if there were any one thing, it may just be community that separates this place – along with Tucson, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Oak Creek and Columbine – from the many other American neighborhoods that see similar crimes on a much more frequent basis.
At the firehouse down the street from Sandy Hook Elementary – where parents stood for hours waiting for their children, only to pierce the thin December air with echoing wails as they heard the worst – one fireman, Michael Reyen, looks wearily toward the door after a trying two weeks.
“Most everybody has gone to the vigils because it’s just part of the healing process, myself included,” he says. “But at this point, I just want to spend Christmas at home with my family.”
That evening, she found solace in a presence that she swears she could physically feel – and very nearly see.
“When I was here that night, there were these tiny candles,” she says. “There was no wind at all, and no breeze – but their flames were dancing. You can tell that their presence lingers for a while. And you can feel it when they let go.”
Since 2005, Pope Benedict XVI has called on Americans to resist materialism and reclaim the true meaning of Christmas: the celebration of the birth of Jesus, brought into the world ultimately to die for man’s sins.
That message is reverberating throughout Newtown’s churches, town halls and households this holiday season, challenging residents in their search for unattainable answers to why 20 of their children and six adults were brutally slain two weeks ago.
Their efforts to resolve the existence of evil in their perfectly manicured town through prayer, spirituality and stock symbolism have highlighted a uniquely American trend – that as the frequency of such mass killings has increased, reliance on religiously charged vigils has become predictably commonplace.
Reid Hettich, a pastor for 27 years at the Mosaic Church of Aurora, Colorado, had the unfortunate task of organizing a vigil in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting in a local movie theater that killed 12 people and wounded 59. He noticed that people only nominally affiliated with a religion turned to faith in his town after its people came under attack.
“Certainly, I think there’s an immediate spike in faith, and that goes away to some degree,” Hettich says. “But there’s a greater awareness that there just aren’t good answers, apart from belief.”
Just after the shooting in Aurora, he was surprised to hear from local government officials that they specifically wanted a prayer vigil, and not a non-denominational, candlelight ceremony – one still representative of America’s diverse faiths, but fundamentally religious at its core.
“There seems to be this recurrent trend in American politics that government and the social order rely on religious agreement,” says David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom. “And when there are tears in that social order, they turn to religion proper for the restoration of those fixtures.”
In Tucson, Arizona, where six people were killed and US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely wounded in a 2011 shooting rampage, religious leaders from across the spectrum came together to hold a prayer vigil – and found themselves gathering for yet another vigil this month to honor Newtown’s fallen.
“The frequency is going up, there’s no doubt about it,” says Dana Yentzer, pastor at Tucson Church International. “And I do wonder if the vigils themselves will lose their impact if that continues. But from a pastoral standpoint, I try to provide hope again, no matter what the circumstance.”
At root of concerns over the frequency of these vigils is a confounding theodical question: whether a benevolent, all-powerful, omniscient God should be listening in on all these calls for the killing to stop. One widely known expert on the role of religion in America notes that while this problem rarely bubbles into public debate, any country as wedded to rituals as the United States is must bear the consequences of defending them – namely facing tough questions.
“The central question is, if you keep having rituals like this, don’t you learn eventually that God isn’t stopping what’s happening? That evoking God is not getting the job done?” says Sarah Barringer Gordon, a history scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. “And it may be the simple answer is that people just don’t think that’s God’s job.”
But this shooting feels different – at least to President Barack Obama, who wept at word of the news out of Newtown. Brushing away tears, he quoted scripture when ending remarks on the shooting at the White House; he opened with words from the Bible at a vigil two days later in Connecticut.
Returning to St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church on Christmas Eve, Cleary shed tears once more, genuflecting before turning to leave the Newtown refuge (though shooting rampages have not spared houses of worship; a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was targeted only five months prior). She leaves behind a manger empty of the baby Jesus – a potent polysemic image speaking to an absence of youth, or perhaps adequate faith, in Newtown, a place already saturated with symbolism.
In the wintered garden of the church, surrounded by teddy bears and toy angels endowed with all the suffering of their past owners, she calls herself disenfranchised with her religion, while still a compulsory participant.
“I don’t think you have to have faith to enjoy these vigils,” says Marleen Cafarelli, a resident of Newtown for over 30 years. “It’s about the community coming together to distribute the pain. It’s what we need right now.”
Indeed, if there were any one thing, it may just be community that separates this place – along with Tucson, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Oak Creek and Columbine – from the many other American neighborhoods that see similar crimes on a much more frequent basis.
At the firehouse down the street from Sandy Hook Elementary – where parents stood for hours waiting for their children, only to pierce the thin December air with echoing wails as they heard the worst – one fireman, Michael Reyen, looks wearily toward the door after a trying two weeks.
“Most everybody has gone to the vigils because it’s just part of the healing process, myself included,” he says. “But at this point, I just want to spend Christmas at home with my family.”
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Belton’s EOC gets first real test during flood
The heavy rains that rolled through Central Texas last week caused more of its share of concerns for Belton citizens and city officials alike.
Because of the rain, Nolan Creek swelled over its banks and brought memories of the devastating flood of September 2010, where numerous homes and businesses were damaged by the flooding of the creek through Downtown Belton.
As rain continued to fall and Nolan Creek began to rise, Belton city officials got a real-time test of their Emergency Operations Center located at the Belton Police Department.
"We did an action report after the last flood and we saw a lot of problems," City Manager Sam Listi said. "It was not a very effective operation. We didn't have any communication equipment and we decided, as a result of that, that we needed to do something different. The decision was made to invest a little bit of money at the Police Department to get a first class EOC set up, so we would be ready for the next time."
During the flood event on March 20, city officals (including Listi, BPD Chief Gene Ellis, BFD Chief Francisco Corona and Interim Fire Chief Bruce Pritchard) met at the EOC around 3 a.m. and began the process of assessing the situation.
"We were pretty nervous about it because we weren't sure how much rain was going to come, but from my standpoint, it seemed to flow a lot better," Listi said. "Having good and adequate communication was important."
Within a matter of minutes, 196 residences and businesses located in the Nolan Creek flood plain were notified of the potential danger through the First Call system and officials were able to direct the appropriate responses to flooded roads and evacuations.
"Even though the flood wasn't quite as bad, we were ready," Listi said.
Because of the 2010 flood, improvements were made to the BPD building for the creation of Belton's own EOC.
An area that used to contain a copy room and conference room was converted into the EOC, equipped with two televisions, a mobile data terminal, wireless capabilities and a specially designed hub (run off of the department's generator system) with ports for telephone access and Internet access.
Cameras were also added to the Police Department's mobile crime scene unit to give those in the EOC a view of what was happening outside.
"It's hard without the ability to see things," Listi said. "We faced that in the 2010 flood where we just couldn't really see what was going on.
"We had the eyes and ears (this time). We didn't feel deficient in terms of the information flow like we had in the past."
Ellis said the Police Department was a natural location for the EOC.
"The radio operations were already in the building and we had some of the infrastructure already in place," Ellis said. "We felt like we could adapt the building."
Ellis said the thought of a local EOC originally came about during the shooting attack at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009.
"We identified the need for an EOC Nov. 5, 2009," Ellis said. "The thought had always been that Belton would just use the EOC at the Bell County Communications Center, but the problem is when a disaster is regional, it's overloaded. For a local response, we had to have our own"
With the investments that have been made, city officials can almost instantaneously send information to people possibly affected by a disaster or emergency.
Although the EOC has proved effective in its first test, Ellis said citizens still have a responsibility to stay informed during a time of disaster or emergency.
Because of the rain, Nolan Creek swelled over its banks and brought memories of the devastating flood of September 2010, where numerous homes and businesses were damaged by the flooding of the creek through Downtown Belton.
As rain continued to fall and Nolan Creek began to rise, Belton city officials got a real-time test of their Emergency Operations Center located at the Belton Police Department.
"We did an action report after the last flood and we saw a lot of problems," City Manager Sam Listi said. "It was not a very effective operation. We didn't have any communication equipment and we decided, as a result of that, that we needed to do something different. The decision was made to invest a little bit of money at the Police Department to get a first class EOC set up, so we would be ready for the next time."
During the flood event on March 20, city officals (including Listi, BPD Chief Gene Ellis, BFD Chief Francisco Corona and Interim Fire Chief Bruce Pritchard) met at the EOC around 3 a.m. and began the process of assessing the situation.
"We were pretty nervous about it because we weren't sure how much rain was going to come, but from my standpoint, it seemed to flow a lot better," Listi said. "Having good and adequate communication was important."
Within a matter of minutes, 196 residences and businesses located in the Nolan Creek flood plain were notified of the potential danger through the First Call system and officials were able to direct the appropriate responses to flooded roads and evacuations.
"Even though the flood wasn't quite as bad, we were ready," Listi said.
Because of the 2010 flood, improvements were made to the BPD building for the creation of Belton's own EOC.
An area that used to contain a copy room and conference room was converted into the EOC, equipped with two televisions, a mobile data terminal, wireless capabilities and a specially designed hub (run off of the department's generator system) with ports for telephone access and Internet access.
Cameras were also added to the Police Department's mobile crime scene unit to give those in the EOC a view of what was happening outside.
"It's hard without the ability to see things," Listi said. "We faced that in the 2010 flood where we just couldn't really see what was going on.
"We had the eyes and ears (this time). We didn't feel deficient in terms of the information flow like we had in the past."
Ellis said the Police Department was a natural location for the EOC.
"The radio operations were already in the building and we had some of the infrastructure already in place," Ellis said. "We felt like we could adapt the building."
Ellis said the thought of a local EOC originally came about during the shooting attack at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009.
"We identified the need for an EOC Nov. 5, 2009," Ellis said. "The thought had always been that Belton would just use the EOC at the Bell County Communications Center, but the problem is when a disaster is regional, it's overloaded. For a local response, we had to have our own"
With the investments that have been made, city officials can almost instantaneously send information to people possibly affected by a disaster or emergency.
Although the EOC has proved effective in its first test, Ellis said citizens still have a responsibility to stay informed during a time of disaster or emergency.
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