Violence

I just got home from an extended stay in my native Switzerland and came back to Harlem New York a week ago to a flurry of Google-Group messages from my building about a recent killing on our block and the aftermath thereof. Last night, a few minutes after I got home and after a day of seemingly peaceful block party a man got stabbed and bled to death in front of our building – it was 8 PM.

Violence is obviously something that finds you everywhere but we prefer to see it on the screen, not in front of our own houses or towards our loved ones and ourselves.

Violence perpetuates violence. But where does violence come from? Violence is a preemptive strike against fear. Fear of what? Fear of being ‘dissed’, or fear of being violated first; a verbal menace getting to the point where action needs to be taken to not lose face; a situation seemingly out of control being controlled by violence – on the street, in war, at home.

America has a huge tolerance for violence on the screen. I hear mothers tell me that they’d rather have their children see violence in movies, TV shows and video games than a naked body or an embrace. I could not disagree more.

Violence perpetuates violence. If children play violent games and watch overly violent shows that perpetuate violence as cool – no wonder there is such a lack of respect for other’s wellbeing. Especially if there is no parental guidance to make sure children understand what is real and what is not, and what the consequences of their (potentially) violent actions are.

I’d rather have children (and I have none) see a naked breast and an embrace on TV than violence.

The Cyber-Gap

The internet has opened doors to an unimaginable wealth of information, education and commerce opportunities; it has enabled emerging pro-democracy movements in Egypt and Algiers, has empowered dissidents worldwide and is closing geographical and physical gaps around the world.

The Internet is hands-down a great enabler. At the same time the gap between educated and under-educated, poor and rich, rural and urban, empowered and disenfranchised is growing – rapidly.

How are people around the world going to engage when they have no internet access? No access to on-line education, commerce, potential jobs and clients, information, social exchange, passing of ideas, or civic engagement? The more our world moves onto the internet the wider the gap becomes between the haves and have not’s of internet access and economic power.

To this day 70% of the U.S. population visits the public library not only for their reading and research projects, but also for their computer and internet use, according to departing New York Public Library president Paul LeClerc. (NY1 “New York Times close up” edition with Sam Roberts).

Within the thirty-four OECD states the U.S. has fallen from fourth place in 2001 to 15th place in 2006 in broadband penetration. (See graph) . Availability is one reason, pricing another. Where today Ireland and Switzerland are the countries with the best price points in the OECD for adding high speed internet to an existing phone line, the US is in the lower third of that list.

If we want to keep up economically with the rest of the world (Asia foremost and Europe) we have to make sure that all areas of the United States have access to broadband internet; and soon. The lost potential of talent and the education gap are too great to ignore.