Page 30 - Flathead Beacon // 3.23.16

LIKE I WAS SAYIN’
TWO FOR THOUGHT SAME TOPIC, DIFFERENT VIEWS SUPREME COURT NOMINATION
KELLYN BROWN
BACK TO BOOKS
TOO OFTEN I GO TO DINNER WITH FRIENDS and within that rst moment of silence or bore- dom, each person has their respective faces bur- ied in their phones – checking emails, social media pages and (in my case) sports apps. This continues until someone in the group acknowledges the disconnect and chimes in: “What are we doing?” We put our phones away, some sheepishly and others reluctantly.
New gadgets and software have changed the way many of us work, socialize and are entertained. Tech- nological advancements have essentially killed famil- iar items like the landline phone and compact disc and camera lm. Books were also expected to die. And, for a while, it looked like they might.
For years, the advent of the e-reader punished book publishers and bookstores alike. Borders, one of the largest booksellers in the country, led for bankruptcy in 2011 and liquidated its remaining stores, including its location in north Kalispell. Smaller stores also strug- gled and many predicted the end was nigh.
Instead, something else happened. Last year, 571 mil- lion paper books were sold, up from 559 million in 2014, which was better than the 501 million in 2014. Mean- while, e-books sales have stagnated and struggled to take more than 25 percent of the market share.
To me, this is welcome news. I prefer physical books and still write in the margins and highlight passages. I’m reluctant to lend my favorite titles over fears I may never see them again, and I believe an afternoon at a bookstore or book fair is one well spent.
Unfortunately, I can become too distracted by other devices and status updates to open many of the unread titles stacked around my house. Only once I begin read- ing, and I ip those rst few pages, that I realize what I’ve been missing. There’s an appeal to its deliberate simplicity, which is becoming harder to nd.
Whether it’s through a book, many of us in the infor- mation age are trying to take a break from the deluge of information. While technology has decimated compact discs sales, and streaming services begin to do the same to paid MP3 downloads, a small part of the market has grown: vinyl album sales, which in 2001 made up about zero percent of the industry.
“Vinyl record sales increased by more than 50 per- cent last year,” according to the Financial Times, “and represent more than 7 percent of recording industry income. Soon, maybe even this year, vinyl records will outsell compact discs.”
In turns out, listening to an album undistracted – without the option to easily ip to the next artist or song, has become novel. And half of those buying these LPs, according MusicWatch, are under 25, an age group that would barely recognize a world without iTunes.
Another way to eliminate diversions, and which has been written about at length, is ditching your smart- phone for a so-called “dumb” phone that is limited to making and receiving calls and texts. There is noth- ing drawing you to the device in your pocket except old-fashioned communication.
Logistically, dumbing down the small computer attached to your hip is impossible for most. It would be for me. But it’s encouraging that more people are look- ing for a reprise from the constant distractions in an increasingly digitized world.
It’s also encouraging that Amazon, the world’s larg- est online retailer, just opened its rst brick-and-mor- tar bookstore in Seattle, where it will sell once-doomed paper books.
BY JOE CARBONARI
President Obama has nominated Merrick Garland
to ll the vacant U. S. Supreme Court seat. The U.S. Senate must con rm the nomination for it to take e ect. The current court is ideologically divided as is the country. It is generally agreed that if Garland is con rmed the court’s balance, which has leaned conservative for the past few decades, will tilt in a more moderate-to-liberal direction.
To prevent that, Republican Senate leadership has determined not to move forward with the con rma- tion process. Their hope is that the political scene will change after this year’s presidential election, that they will win, and that someone more favorable to them will be appointed by the new Republican president. Donald Trump, most likely.
This same delay or destroy approach has brought us the political gridlock that has so poorly served us in the recent years and has led to our slow, unbal- anced economic recovery and the disillusionment and dissatisfaction that has built the Trump move- ment. It is more of the same.
Trump is a wild card. Who he might nominate, and what the results might be, is problematic and un-nerving to many.
Should Hillary Clinton win the presidency, her nomination might well be more partisan than Mer- rick Garland. To avoid that, the Republicans might well re-start his con rmation process and seat him prior to Hillary’s swearing in. That would make some sense. Let us hope that good sense prevails.
BY TIM BALDWIN
With Justice Scalia’s death, President Obama has
appointed Merrick Garland, a Harvard graduate and D.C. Circuit judge. This being a highly-controversial election year, the stakes are higher with this appointment.
Analysts say if Republicans don’t con rm the appointment, it will disenfranchise many because it will be viewed as a move for the Republican Party. Oth- ers say that Republicans should con rm Garland for fear that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she will appoint a justice more liberal than Garland.
Ted Cruz is capitalizing on this because he has Supreme Court litigation experience with much knowl- edge in jurisprudence. Rumor has it that Trump, who considers himself his most trusted advisor, would likely appoint his sister, Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Maryanne Trump Barry.
The Constitution has been interpreted di erently since before its rati cation. The Anti-Federalists deemed it a great source of potential evil. The Federal- ists deemed it a necessary evil. Since then, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution on thousands of legal issues, which is deemed a nal arbitration of those issues; and in some ways, it (like society itself) has changed over time.
Americans seemingly pay little attention to our power over Supreme Court rulings. Under Article V, USC, we can change the course of undesirable or erro- neous constitutional decisions. Yes, Supreme Courts are necessary to determine issues under the Constitu- tion, but their decisions are binding so long as the peo- ple allow them to be.
AMERICAN RURAL DIANE SMITH
OFF THE BEATEN PATH AT SXSW
I
This year SXSW was its usual banquet of technology invention and energy. Even President Barack Obama attended; the rst sitting U.S. President ever to do so. He spoke o the cu for 45 minutes about privacy, online voting, and civic engagement.
By now you might be asking – what does a high-tech confab in a big urban center have to do with rural and small town America? Plenty. For one thing, lots of the energy at SXSW was focused on technologies that are vital for those of us who choose to live outside big urban centers.
For example, food was a big SXSW topic this year. New technologies were highlighted that have a real chance of helping us decrease the amount of food we waste, grow our food more e ciently, and distribute food more e ectively. Since rural and small towns are often at the forefront of food production, creativity, and delivery, tech developments in these spaces are pretty important for us.
Remote education and healthcare tech were also a big focus. Don’t we all get that the more remote educa- tion and healthcare tech improve, the more attractive rural and small town residency becomes?
Self-driving cars? Yep, not too far away. Those of us who drive a lot (like most of us in y-over states!) might miss our windshield time, but we’ll also likely be among the most liberated by autonomous car technologies.
The opportunity for communities o the beaten path to be vibrant and prosperous depends in large measure on our ability to utilize the new technologies so vividly on display at SXSW. That’s not an outcome we should take for granted. It will require farsighted and thoughtful government involvement at the state, local, and federal levels to ensure that we continue to have the infrastructure necessary to participate. Sadly, “infrastructure” isn’t a concept particularly in vogue right now. But we can’t a ord to delude ourselves about all that’s required for a future that’s way more immi- nent than most folks think.
SXSW is where developers of drones, wearables, mobile apps, holograms, augmented and virtual real- ity capabilities all get together for a few days with lm- makers and musicians for inspiration, education, and a pretty accurate glimpse into the future. It’s not just about big city centers; it goes way into the daily lives of those of us living o the beaten path. This isn’t just super-cool progress; it’s good progress. Now, though, is our time to get ready.
RECENTLY ATTENDED THE SUPER-COOL SOUTH by Southwest festival, held in super-cool Austin,
Texas. South by Southwest (often referred to as SXSW or just South By) began back in the late ‘80s as a music festival and since then it’s grown like kudzu. The Austin festival has expanded to include nine days of lm, music, and technology and is full of panels, performances, and mind-bending innovations. SXSW has been so successful that it now also produces sepa- rate conferences on education, the environment, and entrepreneurship.
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MARCH 23, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM