Art
Information
My mind is in a fog these days, so instead of staring blankly into nothingness, I decided to share this fragment of an unfinished story:
Information is a curious thing. It is but one stage in a unique evolutionary process which takes place entirely in the human psyche. Its relationship to knowledge and data is critical. Data is raw and incoherent, virtually meaningless on its own: the numbers of a bank account; the name of a person; a residential address. Information is what results when related data are strung together logically: the bank account belonging to this particular person who lives at that particular address. Information, in turn, becomes knowledge once consumed by the human mind. Our struggle as humans is to acquire data, assemble it into information, and exploit the knowledge that results.
In an age where data compilation is measured in milliseconds and information travels halfway around the world in a heartbeat, the quest for power ends where the accumulation of knowledge begins: with information. Those who control critical information – the location of a rare plant with untapped medicinal properties; the segment of DNA responsible for cancer; the names of men and women who can get the job done – wield authentic power indeed.
But information cannot exist in a vacuum. It is an electrical force writhing with a life seemingly all its own, weaving its way in and out of billions of intricate human relationships. It is the cure-all with which we heal ourselves, and the poison by which we die.
Captain Mike
I love watching Holmes on Homes, a pseudo-reality TV show about overhauling botched home renovations. Mike Holmes’ superhero-style self-righteousness would probably make me vomit if I didn’t find it so entertaining. Listenting to his mild mannered diatribes on shoddy workmanship is just as fun as joining in on his condemnation of crooked contractors.
With his square jaw, buzz cut, and barrel chest, you can easily imagine our hero wading into a throng of sub-contracting evil-doers, vanquishing them with a Kryptonian two-by-four, and leaving them bound in drywall tape until the authorities arrive. All he’s missing is a red cape and tights. Hapless home owners across suburbia can sleep easily knowing that Captain Mike will protect them from their own bad judgement.
Arabian Superheroes
I read an article in Saturday’s Globe & Mail about AK Comics, an Egyptian comic book publisher credited with introducing the first genuine Middle Eastern superheroes. The creator, himself a fan of venerable American icons such as Superman and Wonder Woman, felt strongly about creating an Arabic pantheon of heroes to emulate Arabic values of peace, justice, and cultural pride. Driven by compassion and morality, each of AK Comics’ four superheroes endeavor to protect the innocent from extremism and injustice.
Aside from a renewed love of comics, the story about AK Comics interests me because it serves as yet another reminder that the likes of Osama Bin Laden or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi do not speak for the Arab world. Growing readership for stories about a nonpartisan superheroine named Jalila, who defends the “City of All Faiths” from extremist violence, suggests that the values gap between “us” and “them” is just as fictional as superheroes are.