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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
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"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Looters and Shooters
It's easy, in the emotional aftermath of an event like Katrina, to sound like a tough-on-crime conservative. Horrific tales of looting have prompted even some of the most civilized of my friends to declare: "they should just shoot them all." No, I argue back, they shouldn't. Not just for the sake of the rule of law, but for the safety of innocents. Simply put, adrenaline does bad things to people with a gun in their hands in scary situations. Malcolm Gladwell made this point very well in Blink, with reference to the Rodney King beating and the Amadou Diallo shooting. When your heart rate spikes above a certain level and the fight-or-flight hormone kicks in, your head is buzzing so much you can't even hear properly, let alone make an informed instant decision about a suspected criminal -- no matter how many years of law enforcement experience you've had.
Another appropriate case study, provided by a historian in Sunday's Chronicle, is what happened in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Mayor Eugene Shmitz signed an order declaring that looters should be shot on sight by military and volunteer forces. And of the nine men we know were shot over the next few days, six -- six! -- were not looters. They included a Red Cross worker, a playground superintendent, a UC Cadet, a police officer and a man carrying a chicken.
Did Shmitz' order save more lives than it cost? We'll never know. Did it put the enforcers in dangerously split-second situations that they regretted for the rest of their lives? No doubt. Should we, 99 years later, having watched any number of movies with Mexican stand-offs, know better? Absolutely. Do guns kill people? No -- panic, a thumping heart, adrenaline and ammunition kills people.
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