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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.
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Daily Blah for... Monday, February 06, 2006
From the Archives: The Mick Jagger Visa
Holy cow, what happened to this blog entry from summer 2004? Did it never get published? Apparently not, since it's still sitting in my drafts folder, and it seems I did publish an entry immediately afterwards that talked about "the Stones fan," which must have confused any readers actually paying attention. Anyway, it certainly deserves to be published; especially in the last paragraph, it's a nice little record of the post-9/11 paranoia of the first Bush term. And it's appropriate timing, since I'm about to go back to England for my green card interview at the U.S. Embassy in London. Let's hope I end up dealing with people as nice as the Stones fan.
Today's Daily Blah comes to you from a postmodern hotel room in Toronto, where I'm awaiting the return of my passport from the American consulate. Knock on wood, it'll be ready this afternoon with a brand new O-1 extraordinary alien visa stamp in it. "Ah, the Mick Jagger visa," said my friendly interviewer at the consulate. He proceeded to give me a potted history of the O-1; the Stones were about to embark on one of their American tours and applied for H1-Bs, but the bureaucrats had run out of 'em (H1-Bs are numerically limited, thanks to US anxiety about letting too many talented workers into the country). It took an act of Congress, creating the O-1, to let the Stones play. "We've had Sir Mick in here a couple of times," said the interviewer, warming to his subject. "Nice guy. We bring him in at night, of course. Last time he was here, we took his fingerprints twice, and he said, 'why twice, mate?' Quick as a shot my supervisor replied: 'so we can sell the second set on eBay.' He laughed and said he didn't mind, so long as he got a cut."
I laughed myself, of course. It was quite a relief to be talking to a human being at last, even if it was a dizzyingly surreal conversation with menacing overtones of fingerprinting all foreigners. The morning had been one of wearying security paranoia and cattle-like lines; everything I'd dreaded since making this appointment months ago. You'd think when the INS approves you for an extraordinary alien visa, that would be the end of the matter. But no, that would be too easy. Bureaucrats would be out of jobs. You have to go present yourself at a consulate outside the US for the actual passport stamp. Before you can do that, said consulate sends you a letter with an intimidating list of requirements, some of which you cannot hope to fulfill. (How on Earth am I supposed to prove financial ties to the UK, for example? I haven't worked there in eight years.) This letter also warned that, post 9/11, the consulate wasn't able to process the visa stamp in one day any more. This came as a nasty shock, as I'd already booked my nonrefundable ticket, returning tonight. (The Stones fan said he'd see what I could do; hence here I am knocking on wood.)
Further heightening my anxiety this weekend was this highly disturbing tale from a Guardian reporter about being handcuffed and sent to a Guantanamo-like detention facility for not having the proper journalist visa. I challenge you to read this article and not think something has gone terribly wrong within the Homeland Security apparatus. Journalists are not constricted like this in any other country in the developed world; how ironic to see the US placing itself in the same category as countries like Iran and North Korea. The US, as the American Society of Newspaper Editors says, has "lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe." It is starting to treat its friends (and potential friends) like viruses, swarming us all with antibodies.
You see it in little ways; you see it in the faces of the subcontracted security guards, who puff their chests out and stare down at each applicant as if they were Osama bin Laden. You see it in the fingerprinting machines and terrorist mugshots stuck up next to glossy tourist posters. You see it in the overprotective procedures and repetitive paperwork. America is starting to close up like a clam, and nowhere is it more obvious than in the middle of an otherwise eminently friendly global city like Toronto. Thank God that human beings are still occasionally part of the process; at the end of the process you're chatting with a Stones fan, even if he is on the other side of bulletproof glass.
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