Alan Gutierrez

In response to Bart Everson’s post Ugly, I considered the following. In addition, it might be further consideration about the nightmare I had, where I’d found I’d returned to Michigan to live. A Michigan booster addressed me in the comments, and I’ve neglected to respond.

I have a very confused sense of place. I live in New Orleans. I cannot leave. I cannot live anywhere else. I had a conversation recently, where I was asked how long I plan to say in New Orleans. I said I plan to die here, so the duration is any one’s guess. The follow up was a request to give three reasons why.

1. I am unemployable anywhere else.
2. I have absolutely no means by which to leave New Orleans.
3. After two weeks in any other city I am profoundly depressed. Since living in New Orleans this is much worse, because I am aware of the depression.

Which is to say that I am trapped in New Orleans.

Yet, I am delighted to be trapped in New Orleans, since it gives me the sense of place, and an entitlement to that sense of place, that I did not have before.

There is no sense of place to which I can return, no place to return. I am from Detroit originally, but my family left in 1976 when I was four. If I say that I’m from Detroit, people in the know will ask, are you really from Detroit? Which is to ask, which suburb of Detroit do you come from? By taking part in the economic evacuation of the Motor City, I’ve relinquished my claim.

I am from Huntington Woods, a suburb of Detroit. A nice suburb, but there is no sense of place. It is lovely housing stock, but it is housing, only housing. There is no place to return, no place to visit. Scotia Park? Burton Elementary? I sat in the park across from my childhood home a few years back, and was concerned that I’d get reported for loitering.

Note: If you’ve forgotten the Series of Tubes speech, Jon Stewart does an excellent job of explaining Ted Stevens’ explaination of the Internet. A classic, you can hear the whole Seriese of Tubes speech on YouTube.

The following story does little for my confidence in the future of Michgian’s technology industries. It is a cause for concern for those of us tracking the decline of it’s manufacturing industries.

A man in Grand Rapids, Michigan was arrested and charged with a felony for checking his email from a coffee shop’s WiFi connection from the comfort of his parked car. The cringe worthy local news story casts it as human interest in Wireless (In)security — A wireless felony, while Ars Technia recongnizes it for the statewide humiliation that it is in Michigan Man Arressted for Using Cafe’s Free Wifi From His Car:

An enterprising police officer looked it up on the books, and based on a year 2000 reivision of a 1979 law, checking your email from an open Wifi hub in Michigan is considred computer tampering. The man is actually going to pay a $400.00 fine and do 40 hours of community service for this Michigan crime.

New Orleans has whole streets covered with Wifi from various providers, plenty of open hubs, and we’re establishing mesh and municipal Wifi networks. Our pedestrian streets have coverage from many different hotspots. In fact, do any of us even know if we’ve connected our current coffee shop’s Wifi, or the Wifi of the bar next door? People put up these hubs and don’t think about it.

The reactions of the denizens of Grand Rapids in the forums of WOOD are very different form the reactions of the savvy at Ars Technia who make such lucid comments as…

> This law needs to be challenged. A wireless access point is a radio transmitter. The Communications Act does not allow broadcasters to place restrictions on who may access their transmissions. The coffee shop cannot pick and choose who can use their public unsecured radio broadcast. It falls upon the shop owner to secure access if he wants only his customers to use his wireless network.

It is enough to make you cluck your tounge and shake your head and think, “Well, at least I don’t live there anymore. I don’t have to worry about this.” That can’t be something that Lansing wants a expatriot native Detroiter and nine year Ann Arbor resident to think.

Regarding the use of open Wifi hubs the Kent County procescutors office is stern.

> The next time you’re tempted, though, think of Sam Peterson. “People need to know that this isn’t legal and if you get caught there are some pretty serious consequences.”

Again, I don’t have to worry about this.

Laura from Ypsi~Dixit encouraged me to submit one of the comments in her blog to a humor magazine. Considering that she’s one of my personal A-Listers, this is a flattery compounded. Funny how we write our best blog entries in the comments of other blogs, though.

Yours Truly in the comments of ypsi~dixit: Men’s Studies Conference in Ypsi

When I was last in Ann Arbor, it struck me that this penchant for gender studies had something to do with how difficult it is to meet members of the appropriate sex.

The dating scene is as harsh as it is boring. It seems the only way to be alluring is to be aloof, to run hot and cold. Driving times factor into every encounter.

Gender studies in Michigan are more a product of two many lonely nights driving home from Clutch Cargos than any real pursuit of knowledge or understanding. A slow and meticulous licking of wounds.

It made Laura laugh. That makes me happy.

While you’re there, add Laura to your feed reader. You’ll love her blog if you live in Michigan, or if are an enormous geek, or simply a communications geek, or want a civic blogger to study.

Laura, like AAIO, has a gift for getting the ball rolling, half the content is in the comments, that last link, the civic blogger link, being an example of how she can start a discussion with a less than ten words.

XO Ypsi~Dixit. You’re on my A-List. Everyone should read you!