The Language of Crime

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Life has been particularly engaging of late! I am taking on a lot of responsibilities at work and am learning the craft. I’ve also been fortunate to meet some amazing people recently; for it all, I am grateful.

Occupy Boston may be gone, but I’m still paying attention. Recently, rouge micro-trading software from Knight Capital Group briefly messed up the stock market. On the watch of Knight’s archetypical CEO, Thomas Joyce (57), the firm found itself in need of a $400M bailout. Knight, a leader in “market making,” has all the hallmarks of a sleazy financial services operator. If this story sounds familiar, you have probably read or heard about it, and that’s what I’m writing about.

As I followed the Knight story, I began to notice a certain similarity in the tone of the articles; Knight was blamed for errors, but never publicly charged with a crime, as is every petty criminal.

So, in homage to that sociology class I took back in college, I surveyed the coverage of the story. Starting, loyally, from the:

Knight Press Release : Technical Issue

Reuters : Error
WSJ : Snafu
FOX Business : Glitch
MSNBC : Glitch
NY Times : Debacle
CNBC : Debacle
Seeking Alpha : Malfunction

My sample size is admittedly small, but it’s pretty diverse and mainstream.

Something very important and very dangerous had happened. This event laid bare, or if you will, further exposed, the rigged nature of the financial services industry. And boy was it being hushed up. Criminal conduct is vast; whether with malice or recklessness, something had happened, and it needed to be contained. Containment of such explosive news begins with deliberate verbal soft-pedaling. “Gee-whiz” type language attempts to evoke empathy and chagrin. Accordingly, the exceptional, or infamous, is rendered common.

Who hasn’t ever made an error? Haven’t we all found ourselves in a snafu? And damn, who hasn’t experienced a technical glitch and/or malfunction? Heck, maybe we laugh about it all in hindsight. That said, I must reluctantly give the Times and CNBC the win here with debacle. Defined by m-w.com in context, a debacle is “a complete failure.” Ouch.

The bottom line with Knight is that, as the very least, there was a certain wanton recklessness that any first year law student could tell you was criminal. So to start, Knight’s criminal behavior was couched in familiar language. Who hasn’t made a poor choice at a restaurant, gossiped and gotten into a bind, or attempted to re-string a weed wacker? Such errors, snafus, and malfunctions are routine. That they do not evoke alarm is the point.

In other news: New York settles with Standard Chartered for $340M on money laundering charges while the DOJ nets $300K from Barclays for same. Both banks, though they acted in direct contravention of the laws of the United States, continue to do business with and with the countenance of the government.

Complete failure is for chumps. Define the parameters of the debate, set the tone, and amplify.

Well, I think I smell skunk; I suppose I’ve said my bit.

Take care,

~WD

SAST

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I dumped my Netflix streaming a while ago (went to DVD only) and got Amazon Prime streaming around the same time. One of the shows Amazon was featuring was the classic Hawaii Five-0. This gem, which aired from the late sixties up until 1980, was a favorite of my late grandmother’s. Through osmosis (annual summer visits to the Jersey Shore,) I too became a fan of this show. So I was pleased to find it available and in HD.

A lot of things strike me about the show, but don’t worry, I’m not going to go into all of them. Instead, I’d like to get a little more meta and talk about programming. The running time of classic Hawaii Five-0 episodes is 50 minutes. Each show has three commercial breaks (wipes). So if you sat down to watch the show for an hour, you’d have seen 10 minutes of commercials.

Okay, so that’s the setup.

Today at my gym, I decided to do the AMT, which is a freeform elliptical and is pretty intense. Although there is a great view out the window, it is obscured by a large personal entertainment center, mainly for network news and basic cable TV. Although they don’t have our local PBS station, WGBH, they do have MTV.

I cut the cord to cable in 2007. I’m not adverse to media, but I didn’t like how the large telcos were bundling and packing it through cable. The offerings and corporate attitude really rubbed me the wrong way; more is not always better. I still watch TV, just in better, and evolving ways. Except today I decided to watch MTV for a grueling half hour.

The show on was MTV’s True Life, a long-running documentary series that follows two young adults around as they make decisions and grow up. The theme of this show was, “I Might Disappoint My Parents.” One kid was poor, hispanic and from a single parent household; his issue was transitioning from DJ-ing for free to getting a paying job. The other kid was from a Persian family from Beverly Hills; he was writing a “memoir” about embracing American Life/LA Culture and rejecting his Persian heritage. This second kid’s parents, needless to say, were not thrilled with their son’s book idea; they were particularly irritated with his chosen cover, [below].

These kids’ stories, as fascinating as they are, apparently didn’t leave much to be gleaned by MTV’s producers. It hit me at about 18 minutes into the workout; I’d been watching more commercials than the show. Reliable Sources (IMDB) say that the show is a one hour documentary. If that is so, I would hazard that the actual runtime is between 35 – 40 minutes. At best, you would spend 1/3 of an hour watching commercials. I actually felt like I was watching the commercial channel with bits of TV breaks.

While this simplistic observation does not factor in DVRs, it is nevertheless worth noting.

Classic Hawaii Five-0 : MTV’s True LifeBeware, Link!
Shogun : e-book
Magazine Article : tweet

I’m cool with technology, but I’m not cool with the shortening of the human attention span. When a TV show from a generation ago seems like a paragon of thoughtful storytelling compared to today’s interrupted life, I’m reassured that much is indeed amiss. I like good stories like I like good people; both take time. If only I could turn that TV aside and just enjoy the view.

~WD

Access

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These days I take the bus to go shopping. Today, the bus I was sitting on did not leave Maverick after it seemed that everyone had loaded on. Turns out, a man in a wheelchair needed to be loaded via the use of a special ramp that folds out from the floor of the bus. A painfully slow process ensued. The bus driver, herself quite overweight and apparently unfamiliar with the operation of the ramp, lumbered around the bus preparing the lift for use. Then, with a lot of beeping, the ramp folded up from the floor by the front door. Next, the bus driver went out and wheeled the man into the bus, positioning him just so and latching him in. Nobody on the bus was staring or acting visibly impatient; everyone, however, was watching. I felt bad for the guy because for him, the simple act of getting on and off a bus was a big ordeal; surely he didn’t relish holding up entire busloads of strangers at his coming and going. But I’d guess that pity is the last thing that man wanted from me or anyone.

The whole ordeal showcased how poorly we’ve done in America. First, why didn’t this guy, who was mobility challenged, have someone helping him? Unless it was a point of pride for him to travel solo, which it might have been, he would have benefitted from a hand. Second, why does the bus driver need to do this at a major transportation hub? Can we not afford to staff station agents who could help make such boardings as comfortable and efficient as possible? And third, what impact has the ADA had on smart transportation growth. To what level should the disabled be accommodated in public transportation? When do investments in para-transit pay off for all users?

I think these are all some tough questions that lay bare our priorities as a society. As we strive to build a better society from the shell of the one we’ve been bequeathed, perhaps we can start with the bus.

Landings

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It has been a few months since I’ve moved into my own apartment in East Boston. I’ve been pretty busy trying to furnish the place tastefully and develop a routine. While I finally feel like I have a place to call my own, I still don’t know very many people in my neighborhood. So I was pleased to find out recently that a nice guy that I’d met through the fall softball league was going to be moving in just a few blocks from me. Sadly, when he first moved in, I was in the middle of a nasty cold. Thankfully, by last night I was finally feeling better, so we were able to get together for a delightful dinner. While I was walking over to his place, I noticed a man sitting on a stoop near his apartment; it was cold out and the man seemed dejected and without anywhere to go. However, this being a big city, I didn’t’ stop or attempt to engage him.

I meet up with my friend and we went out for dinner. After dinner, I walked him home, said goodnight, and continued back to my place. About half way there, I see a young guy standing in the street looking down at the curb, and as I approach, I notice that there is a man lying half on the sidewalk, half in the street. I asked the guy what had happened, and he responded that he had just come across the man lying there, and had called 911. I asked if he was going to wait until help arrived, and when he said yes, I continued back to my apartment, passing a fire truck responding to the call en route. The sight of the man in lying there has stuck with me. His legs were on the sidewalk, and his torso and head were on the street, near the curb. I’m not sure if it was the same guy I saw earlier sitting on the stoop, but my gut tells me that it was.

I wonder what happened to him; how did he end up there, in that sad position, all alone. The street where he was lying borders Logan airport; he had come to rest not far whence jetliners ascended and descended daily in their mechanical monotony. Where was he from? Did he lose his housing at the end of last month? Will he be okay? Such are the sights that one does not see in the sanitized streets of self-segregating suburbia.

It was a melancholic encounter, for sure, but it forced me to reflect on what I have and what I have to give.