Samuel Morse is rolling over in his grave because of town hall meetings in Santa Fe. Really! I read it in the paper.
April 27 is the day Samuel Morse was born. An artist, inventor and innovator, Morse is most well-known for Morse code, the “dits” and “dahs” system of telegraphic communication he developed alongside Alfred Vail that turned rhythm into letters.
Morse has been dead since 1872, but his April birthday is still seen as important to contemporary society and modern technology. Last year, the quirky and gigantic internet company, Google, modified its sometimes playful home page to be an homage to Morse.
After all, Morse was a contemporary of Heinrich Hertz.
Like Hertz, Morse helped pave the way for Guglielmo Marconi and Nikolai Tesla, if you like, as well as the development and eventual ubiquity of radio. On those developers’ shoulders rests today’s extraordinary and unwieldy communications network.
Two overriding factors mark the current lay of the land first marked by those early pioneers. The first is tremendous interconnectivity, allowing for an unprecedented level of information exchange, and attendant advances in media, health, science, activism and overall human understanding. The second factor is the stunning level of corporate control of this interconnectivity.
In Santa Fe, we apparently misunderstand both. City government has been lackadaisical, to say the least, about encouraging new infrastructure to allow better broadband internet connectivity here. A cursory glance at the city’s fabric of scientists, artists, government bodies, colleges and businesses indicates the ready advantage of investing in improved communications infrastructure but, somehow, the political will is too perpetually distracted to focus.
The recent debate surrounding Santa Fe’s telecommunications ordinance—a routine ordinance that sets provisions for protecting aesthetics, property values and public input in municipal contracts with telecoms—has been guided by the anti-corporate sentiments of a small group of activists and their tagalongs. The activists are concerned about (unproven) health effects of wireless and cellular transmissions. They interpret the congressionally mandated Federal Communications Commission rule against municipalities considering possible health effects when drafting telecommunications ordinances as sure signs of corporate collusion. It’s a conspiracy worthy of the tea party.
Not only is there good rationale for barring local government bodies from getting all willynilly with their subjective ideas about health, activists’ suspicions are totally misguided. Want to stick it to telecommunications corporations that rake common folks over the coals? Start by empowering the FCC, not crying foul.
The Obama administration has in FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski an undeniable ally of social justice and public welfare. Genachowski has made it clear that the United States desperately needs increased broadband connectivity and has made it his chief priority. However, he’s currently having his ass handed to him by Comcast, AT&T and the extremely conservative Washington, DC, Circuit Court of Appeals— entities that appear united in their determination to kill net neutrality, aka federal regulation against corporate censorship of the internet.
Santa Fe’s confusion about who the enemy is has been exacerbated by so-called “reporting” that appears to be more sensationalist than accurate. In a March 10 SFReeper.com posting, SFR Staff Writer Corey Pein notes The Santa Fe New Mexican’s willingness to hype controversy over facts regarding debates about electromagnetic radiation. More recently, an April 8 article in the New Mexican by Julie Ann Grimm opens by claiming, “The federal government does not want cities to talk about possible health or environmental consequences from the growing number of wireless antennas.” It’s a wild misrepresentation of the truth for a news article.
Ironically, activists hoping to prevent increased Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity in Santa Fe are lapping up these intimations of government conspiracy in an effort to get…the government to protect them.
Grimm was reporting—and I use the word loosely—on an April 8 “town hall” meeting cohosted by the Santa Fe Alliance for Public Health and Safety (a generously named anti-Wi-Fi group) and City Councilor Miguel Chavez. Never mind that it’s somewhat inappropriate for Chavez to co-host a meeting with other special interest groups—telecommunications corporations, for example. The media’s treatment of the meeting as legitimate discourse on an ordinance that is fundamentally unrelated to the concerns expressed is appalling. Worse, it contributes to ineffective government.
Santa Fe blogger Steve Stockdale, writing on his Discern This! blog, notes both the meeting’s incredible bias toward a specific agenda and the New Mexican’s failure to accurately report the facts.
Overall, it’s an incredible low for public dialogue that has been aggravated by the City Council’s failure to prioritize broadband development and properly empower staff to initiate such development, which would include a professional and thorough telecommunications ordinance. If city staff had the tools and trust to do their jobs, the council (and specific councilors) wouldn’t wind up playing hero to a misguided and mediahyped minority.
In the spirit of Samuel Morse, and in case there’s anyone out there who can help, I’ll summarize with this message: — — —
Follow Zane’s World on Twitter: @Zanes_World
It is surprising that something which appears to be such a crucial, basic element of a vibrant, functional and economically healthy community could be held hostage and/or completely derailed by a small group of over-zealous activist (emboldened by shoddy local journalism and misguided city counselors). oh wait... that's how we do local politics here, HA!
This kind of surreal empowered activism is just one more in a long chain of issues that ultimately pit the small vocal self-serving minority against the benefit of the larger community. What they are promoting is more "Nanny Laws" that impede business growth and development, create more non-essential work for city government and reduce quality of life for people who actually want to, say, get cell coverage in the roundhouse, or connect our beloved tourists with free wifi to enhance the quality of their visit to our city.
This issue also directly impacts the quality of life in Santa Fe, the ability to attract and retain creative, innovative and effective businesses and individuals, the functioning of entire State government, should I go on here?
I respect that a small number of people have issues with electromagnetic radiation (despite most respectable studies which show that even those worst afflicted by EMR sensitivity can't identify correctly when they are actually being exposed), but I don't have EMR sensitivity, and neither does 99% of the rest of the population. So can we move forward with whats best for the vast majority of our citizens and our economy?
And not to be crass, well, maybe to be the slightest bit crass: it is your choice to live here, and if there are aspects of living here that negatively effect as a person, please move. There are some really wonderful places in NM with minimal electromagnetic radiation (please see: every non-metropolitan area in the state).
Fischer and Pein remind me of otherwise intelligent, but backward flat earth-believing people, where it comes to the health hazards of today's wireless technology. Might these two have been in the wrong camp when bad things like x-rays, asbestos, and tobacco smoking were first being debated?
(Unproven) health effects of wireless and cellular transmissions? Zane please get with it .. and, yes, I can AGAIN show you real scientific evidence against your assertions and even proof.
Zane told me a month ago that I was getting boring on this issue and I agreed that going around about it was getting old. But something as important as the health and well-being of our brains and bodies should merit our attention even if its 'entertainment' element is on the ebb instead of the flow.
The fact is this: Fischer and Pein have their minds so made up that it would take and act of God to open them up to seeing this issue objectively. And let's make note that even if someone is not an EMF hyper-sensitive that EMF is still slowly and steadily harming them.
I've been wanting to ask Zane this: have you ever been to a reiki or energy-worker professional here in Santa Fe or anywhere for that matter? Or how about you Corey?
Some such holistic professionals advertise their beneficial trade in the Reporter. Did you know that all disease, malady, and deformation begin as unwanted aberrations in our subtle energy fields? It's true. Did you know that clairvisuals can actually see these bad news precursors in the human energy field and do something about them before they become something as frightening and potentially deadly as a malignant tumor? .. like the ones caused by prolonged cell-phone useage on the same side of the head as where the cell user habitually placed their phone.
Knowing these things in the realm of subtle energy was a perfectly normal facet of reality and existence for many ancient peoples and societies who lived so much closer to nature than we do today.
Hey I can even get a kick out of reading an intellectual hick saying that wireless opponents are afraid of frying their chakras .. but in the end it is they who are nothing less than sadly uniformed when the most advanced and revealing science of our day now have sensitive subtle-energy instrumentation (beyond Kirlian photography) that proves the reality of the human energy field, subtle energy-meridans that accupuncturists work with, and, yes, even those new age-sounding chakras.
I'll leave you with some more references and please feel free to openly inquire anytime.
And Zane and Corey, please do us all a favor and review these (non-willy nilly and not-so only subjective) most revealing and informative papers and other info. Enlightenment is a good thing. thanks
Richard
Thanks for the mention of my blog. I continue to find additions to several posts, including "The World According to Arthur Firstenberg." There are now over 120 medical ailments and conditions which Mr. Firstenberg attributes in some form or fashion to electromagnetic radiation, radio waves, microwaves, etc.
Germane to this article, however, is that (I am not making this up) Mr. Firstenberg claims that the first "victims" of what he calls "electrical sensitivity" suffered from what was then called “neurasthenia" that "was particularly common among telegraph, and later among telephone operators." Source from September 2001: http://www.goodhealthinfo.net/radiati...
Richarddean,
Some of us have been to and regularly use reiki and other holistic services... and yet, don't have any problems with wi-fi. When I was in California, the bulk of people I saw there had webpages and wi-fi themselves. So, clearly, not even all holistic practitioners are worried about the effects of wi-fi.
And to echo Povertywithaview, there are many fine non-metropolitan areas in New Mexico and other states where people who claim to have this sensitivity can go and live in peace. The rest of society need not be held back.
I say that as a migraine sufferer whose migraines are often triggered by fluorescent and LED light sources who has never asked that a town only use incandescent bulbs for her own convenience. For instance, using a table lamp at my desk with an incandescent bulb at work does wonders for blocking the subtle flickering of the fluorescents out.
I'm also left handed. Do I need to sue my company for not providing an appropriate number of left-handed scissors to reflect the percentage of the population who is also left-handed? Or, if I really just can't get by with right-handed scissors, just go and buy my own pair?
I have a severe gluten sensitivity. Should I ask that all gluten-containing products be banned from stores and restaurants in town for my personal safety... or should I just pay attention to the ingredients in food and ask waiters about what's on the menu AND even learn how to bake gluten-free stuff for myself?
Oh, and my aunt is dying from emphysema. When she goes out in public, should all the smokers within 300 feet have to stamp out their cigarettes or should we just ban tobacco altogether? ...Or could she and her nursing assistant just avoid areas where people tend to light up?
It's called adapting. From what I understand, we humans are expert at it.
If there is indeed a problem with EMFs, then there should also be working solutions. If there aren't, why don't you all get to the drawing board and do something about it instead of crying about how much pain you're in and keeping a town from access to a vital technology?
Or do you all just get off on being victims?
You saying that some of us have been to reiki / energy-workers and don't have any problems with Wi-Fi makes no sense .. and it is NOT 'clearly so' that not-so-many holistic practitioners are non-worrisome about Wi-Fi and EMF .. you have better go ask some for yourself .. and the fact of the matter is that many here and elsewhere do not want to rock the boat of the mainstream populace that pays them money for their services .. obviously many of them are copping out .. I've even had some of them tell me that they know that EMF and everyday electricity from our homes and wi-fi is bad for us but (like their cell-phones for example, are now a convenience that they aren't going to make themselves do with out .. anyway I'll leave you with this ..
see:
http://www.issseem.org/mission.cfm
http://www.issseem.org/storeaudio_detail.cfm?articleid=493
EMF: A Lethal Subtle Energy by E. Stanton Maxey, MD http://www.issseem.org/storejournals_detail.cfm?articleid=19
A Proposed Science of Human Energy Fields by Dr. Colin Ross
http://www.issseem.org/storeaudio_detail.cfm?articleid=631
Human Energy Fields: A New Science and Medicine:
http://www.rossinst.com/human_energy_fields_book.html
Also, btw .. Hands of Light ( http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Currents-Robert-O-Becker/dp/0874776090 ) is a book on subtle energies and the energy fields or bodies that we all possess .. people with psychic vision can read ones auras (or energy-fields if you prefer) and see the precursor-aberration(s) in the etheric human energy field 'before' it manifests in the physical as disease, malady, or deformation. (the many energy-workers and reiki professionals here in Santa Fe are too big of wimps to speak up on this issue .. but the know it) .. Hands of Light is written by Barbara Brennan - a former NASA atmospheric scientist who could sense subtle energies and see auras of plants, trees and people since she was a child (I know several people here in Santa Fe who went to her three-year school in New York City) .. and Cross Currents: the Perils of Electro-Pollution / the Promise of Electro-Medicine, btw, was written by scientific pioneer, two-time Nobel nominee Dr Robert O. Becker. - http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Currents-Robert-O-Becker/dp/0874776090