Emerging Media As Technological Smorgasbords: The Grid Is Us...

Emerging Media As Technological Smorgasbords: The Grid Is Us There is an extensive array or variety of internet appliances that are being spawned and added to the host of other technologies that have come up in the last twenty or so years to date. It is very important and fascinating to see the profusion of all these gadgets, and their enhanced uses and technical feats and interconnectivity.

It is also important to know what it is they do and how they do it. Added to this, is the most important fact that they are altering, changing, pacifying determining and redirecting how we network, talk, behave, plan, asses, learn, think and perceive and receive the world through these gadgets, and how we are affected and effected.

Internet appliances, for example, are tasked to function on specific devices containing embedded computers and connectivity to the Internet. They trade the functional generality and computational power of desktop computers for low cost and ease of use. The term, Internet Appliances, Applies to a range of products-from low-cost general purpose network computers to cell phones and microwave.

These include: PDA: A hand held device that communicates via two-way wireless networks. This personal digital assistance promises to organize the information we use everyday: phone numbers, appointments, lists, addresses, etc.

Web Terminal & Virtual JAVA Machine: A desktop device optimized for browsing the Web and executing load-on-demand JAVA programs. Similar to diskless workstation.

ISDN Video Phone: A desktop device primarily intended for making video phone calls, but also allowing the recording and retrieval of video messages and clips. Voice mail will be replaced by video mail.

Internet-enabled Equipment & Appliance: Ovens, VCRs,Video Cameras. Automobiles(dashboard & internal monitoring), and HVAC are just a few examples.

Here are some of the advances that have taken effect thus far: VCRs have now become remote webcams; Microwave Ovens are now somewhat remotely programmed to cook dinner; Smoke/Intruder Alarm check on your home while your out of town; Automobiles today are designed to allow your mechanic to check out the engine while you are using it; Cellular Communications Device allow one to browse the web using your cell phone; Network computer lowered total cost of computer ownership; Pacemaker/heart monitor will allow medical technicians to adjust your pacemaker/heart monitor whilst you have it on you.

These emerging technology are going coming out with 'desktop applications built with easy to use solutions', will be able to 'give access to your enterprise information from your desk and through the world', make easy to 'remote' data collection; enable dynamic communication across your organization and Wireless connectivity; and, increase your ROI by investing in the latest technology; RFID (real Time Supply Chain), Barcode capture/AIT and Wireless Technology.

These services - Workstations, Web Apps, Mobile Devices and Emerging Technologies are integrated

to improve our Organizations Information Technology(IT)..In the process of our consuming and utilizing these new and emerging technology they alter and change our behavior, thinking, organization and knowledge in the way they afford us access, speed, efficiency and in the process we acquire new ways of seeing, learning behaving and thinking and talking...

From convergence to virtualization, form narrow casting to ultra high speed broadband connections, the information technology industry and the profusion of technological gadgets is in constant change. These emerging technologies scan the horizon to help its users adapt to changing technology and go through with ease in understanding the ambiguous regulatory environment.

These new technologies use Computer Vision technology which enable new Touch light applications in gesture UI, video conferencing. The incoming new generation of cell phones have a bigger screen and a portable pad for pone button. These phones are called 'Fastap'-enabled equipped with a new user interface, Bluetooth, a Megapixel camera, and a micro SD card slot. It has slick buttons and a variable voice quality; meanwhile it offers innovative Celltop application; Wireless Interface: conference capabilities; Internal Antenna; caller ID; Speakerphone; Short messaging Service; Internet Browser.

The description of the cell phone above is not a sales pitch, but a concise listing of what these gizmos are packaged like and with what features and their network offerings and connectivity. What they have is their ability to increase out dependence, thinking, behavior, communication, networking and learning.

It is important to appreciate what these emerging technologies are designed like and crafted to do.

They miniaturize our lives into a gadget that covers all the areas we would have had to try to cover in a myriad activities into one gadget. This gadget is technological in nature and it extends us in all sorts of direction and immerses us into the Electrical Computerized Cyber world and lifestyles.

Then there are people like Steven Woods says that : "We want to reduce the Computer's stranglehold on cognitive processing by embedding it and making it work more and ore like the natural environment. It is too much of a technological device now, and we haven't had the technology to truly integrate a high resolution display in artifacts that have organic shapes: Carved, flexible and textile,like you coffee mug."

A Queens Computing Professor Roel Bertegaal, who is now developing prototypes of these "nonplanar" devices, in an article titles "New Computers change shape, Respond to Touch" says: says:"Not only will they take on flexible forms we've never imagined -- like pop cans with browsers displaying RSS feeds and movie trailers -- computers of the future will respond to our direct touch and even change their own shape to better accommodate data, for example, folding lie a piece of paper to be tucked into our pockets."

Dr. Vertegaal further states: "What we are talking about here is nothing short of a revolution for human-computer interaction." He compares our current use of flat, rectangular to the 19 century satiric novel. Flatland. A romance of Many Dimensions, about people who live only two dimensions and are narrow minded. He say and suggests that: "I think that computers are very much like that today.

"You are essentially looking at a tiny tunnel into a flat online world, and that causes people to think in a two dimensional way. 'Flatland' interfaces are incredibly limited compared to natural 3D ones."

Some of the projects carried out by the Queens University's Human Media Lab have in June of this year "hacked together a controller for a Phillips 'lumative shirt'.

"The controller uses a solenoid acuator controlled by an Arduino board. Inputs are capacitive touch sensors connected to conductive fabric sewn into the shoulders of the shirt. By touching the left or right shoulder,friends can operate a back and forward image browser on your T-shirt. We believe that this to be the world's first truly interactive T-Shirt."

Steve Baker says that: "People put out personal data every time they click on a website, change the RV channel, shop, or talk on the pone. In his book, 'The Numerati,' Baker explores ways mathematicians and computer scientists are using information to predict- and possibly manipulate consumer behavior." He offered some 10 technological developments that will hit mainstream: 1. Magic carpet: Researchers at Intel Corp. have come up with linoleum kitchen tiles wired with weigh sensors connected by radio signals to the Internet. They can measure not only the weight of people going about their business in the kitchen, but they can also determine the length of their strides and distribution of their weight. They are also designed to monitor elderly people, and send alerts if increased wavering signals the risk of a fall.

2. Citysense Is there a lot of action in your neighborhood at 3 a.m.? Sense Network's Citysense allows users to look at cellphone usage patterns to gauge the flow of foot traffic in a city. What's more, by studying urban movements, Sense can sort users into behavioral "tribes" -- people who follow similar patterns, from neighborhoods to night clubs. So, if the dots congregating down the street are red or blue, it might be lively -- but not for your tribe.

3. Face recognition It's been a sci-fi standard for generations -- show the photo of a face to a machine, and it comes up with a name. Digital spies, of course, would love to use such technology to identify every face in airpots. That's still far away, But for hobbyists, simple face recognition will help sort out who's who in the family photo. Google's Picasa is already offering a version of this technology. New beards must cause problems. And forget about twins.

4. Supermarket smart carts A decade after failed attempts to computerize shopping, supermarket chains in the United States, Germany and South Korea are rolling out new smart carts. The idea: Shoppers swipe their loyalty cards and a suggested shopping list pops up on the screen, based on their historical patterns. If this works, markets could offer shoppers customized discounts. The challenge will be to convince shoppers that sharing this data is worth the benefits -- and that this trove of information won't be sold to marketers elsewhere.

5. Nano-wired helmets The Pentagon is experimenting with helmets wired with nano-sensors. The idea: if a soldier is wounded, first responders will be able to download details of the impact -- and it's likely consequences -- as soon as they arrive on the scene. How long before this technology moves into football helmets.

6. Newscred

Newscred is a site that tracks and analyzes the credibility of news organizations and blogs -- as ranked by readers. Fine, you might say. But what if readers on right and left trash the reputations of media they don't agree with? Newscred has to adjust its algorithms for such behavior.

7. Travel-time maps Why measure miles? New cartographers at Google and elsewhere will be cooking up new generations of maps that combine a variety of data. A site called Information Aesthetics in London compares housing prices to travel time and driving to public transportation One glance at that kind of map, and you may see that you are farther from work than you thought.

8. Dragon Runner 'ThrowBot' The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are laboratories for a new generation of robots, including the "ThrowBot," a cheap 8-pound unit that rolls around dangerous territory, capturing information Look for these data-sweepers to show up in American cities, maybe in sports stadiums. They're the fourwheeled emissaries of the surveillance society.

9. Compulsion TV Imagine a TV that allows you to click on an image -- a woman's bracelet, her sweater, her shoes -- to reach the item's e-commerce site. This is Internet marketing brought to Tv and DVDs. Many of us wouldn't click even once. But it could be a breakthrough for the home shopping set 10. Mopeds Who said emerging technology couldn't be re-emerging? In the oil crisis of the '70s, Americans bought a half-million of these low-power motorbikes with pedals. With oil prices up, moped could make a comeback for all those potential cyclists who would appreciate a push up the hills. Gas mileage for mopeds routinely tops 70 miles per gallon.

These are some of the emerging technologies and their application and usage as envision by Baker.

It is interesting to note that these technologies are intertwined with our central nervous system to the extent that we are not only wired, but are having a computer grid, through all sorts of gadgets,be gridded into our consciousness, awareness, thinking, behavior, work, houses,communication,learning and coping with life itself.

"It is important that we understand the promising emerging technologies through the lenses of their creativity and creative inquiry and learning. There is a proliferation of emerging technologies throughout the world and this article cannot cover them all.

"Maybe in the next deposition of technologies that are emerging and affecting and effecting our being, thinking, behavior, networking, learning, using, living-i.e., try to cover as many facets of life, living, thinking and improving our humanity and our perceptions, and at the same time understanding clearly how this new techniques and technologies are morphing into our existence and if whether this is good or bad for us.

"I think as we get to know about what came before, what's coming and what will be in the future will help us better know them and use them better and to our advantages. The problem here is that they come ready to serve our need and deeds; they already have programmed in them as to what they can do, and we adapt to that technique and programming.

"This is where I have a problem with our current technologies. We buy and use them according to what they promise us they can do. We become transformed based on the offerings that come with our gadgets. We o not come to our new technologies with what we want them to do for us. We come to them in their own terms as to what they can do to transform some things we need transformed, communicated, adjusted, monitored, viewed and so on."

Some of these technologies are: Robotics; Biometrics; Voice Recognition Devices; Disposable Technology; E-Books; New Audio Media; Nanotechnologies; Flexible Computing Devices; Biotech; Digital Health; Eco-friendly Products; Electronic Clothing and Accessories; Embedded Technologies; Emerging Technology/Engineering; Home appliances; Home Healthcare Products; Intellectual Property; Personal Electronics; Personal Safety and Security Products; Robotics; Social Networking; Sports Electronics; Wireless Communication Consumer Electronics; Audio; Computer Hardware and Software.

Lastly we have a Hoverpod, a new Skycar. Chris Jablonski says that, "It uses a proprietary centrifugal fan that allows for the creation of an extremely compact craft with VTOL capabilities and high lifting efficiencies. The Entecho Hoverpod's core IP is an odd enclosed-rotor flight technology that requires a disc-shaped aircraft with passengers or payload in the center...

"Totally VTOL and with a small footprint, perhaps the Entecho Hoverpod might deliver as a practical and affordable personal flight solution. The manned vehicle is about 5 feet in diameter and can travel up to 75 mph, seat 3 passengers, and is currently designed to fly at an altitude of only around 5 feet -- still greater that a conventional hovercraft, allowing it to pass any terrain.

"Our technical world not only creates these feelings spontaneously, it develops them with malice aforethought for technical reasons and by technical means which, in their action on the human being, reinforce the structures of that technical world. The words might be taken to pertain to the integration of all men into a brutally technicized environment. Modern society has moved toward a mass society, but the human being is still not fully adapted to these new forms.

Material techniques usually result in a collective social form by means of a process which is largely involuntary. But sometimes it is voluntary; the technician, in agreement with the technical data, considers a collectivity a higher social form. For example, the purpose of advertising technique is the creation of a certain way of life.

In this case, it is much less important to convince the individual rationally than implant in him a certain conception of life. The object offered for sale by the advertiser is naturally indispensable to the realization of this way of life... Now, objects advertised are all the result of the same technical progress and are all identical type from a cultural point of view.

So that, advertising, which is founded on massive psychology research that must be effective, can "put across" the technical way of life. Anyone who buys a given object participates in this way of life and, by falling prey to the compulsive power of advertising, enters involuntarily and unconsciously into its psychological framework.

One of the great designs of advertising is to create needs; but this is possible only if these needs correspond to the ideal of life that man accepts. In the meantime, advertising goes about its task of creating a psychological collectivism by mobilizing certain human tendencies in order to introduce the individual into the world of technique.

Advertising affects all people and its goal is to persuade the masses to buy. The inevitable consequence is the creation of mass man, and in the end, for all the technological advancement and how it is advertised to the consuming masses, we end up becoming the grid and are the grid, in the broader sense of the meaning of the word.

Today, our cultural body is made of media. Mediating technologies are fibrous matter holding society together. We are the grid because the communication, unlike chemistry or biology, is behavioral process. The role and effect of media are not as predictable as the result when two chemicals are mixed at a certain temperature in a laboratory.

Communications involves human beings and society, not physical elements undergoing experimentation in a laboratory. Technique, to Ellul, is "a 'blind' force, but one which unfortunately seems to be more perspicacious than the best discernible human intelligences.

Ellul's insistence that the technical phenomenon is not a determinism is not weakened by the enumeration of five conditions which are said to be "necessary and sufficient" for its outburst in the recent past, since the sufficient conditions for conditions(for example, the causes of the population explosion) are not ascertainable."

Ellul states: "The inertia of the technical phenomenon guarantees not only the continued refinement and production of relatively beneficial articles such as flush toilets, and wonder drugs, but also the emergence of those unpredictable secondary effects which are always the result of ecological meddling and which today are of such magnitude and acceleration that they can scarcely be reconciled with even semistable equilibrium conditions of society.

"Nuclear explosions and population explosions capture the public's imagination; all indices of modern technological culture are exploding, too, and are potentially just as dangerous to the continued well-being of society, if by well-being we understand social equilibrium."

Some peoples cautious reasoning has prompted some people to see the output of the media not as a reflection of raw, unmediated reality but rather as a social index of attitudes and feelings. As Virginia Woolf elegantly put it, 'newspapers are tin sheets of gelatin pressed nightly on the brain and heart of the world'.(Woolf) Many people actually see the media as responding to general impulses and prodding of the users and consumers of media and technological gadgets. With the new emerging social media, we become the media grid in our uses of the gadgets and we ultimately become the grid, and this has caused disequilibrium for the human being seeking to adapt to his new technological and social communication milieu.

Ellul states: "Our technical world not only creates these feelings spontaneously, it develops them with malice aforethought for technical reasons and by technical means which, in their action on human beings, reinforce the structures of that technical world." And Robert Ley adds: "The only person who still remains private individual is who is asleep." These words may be referring to the Nazis, but they are not limited to that. They pertain to the integration of all men into a brutally technicized environment.

Convergence of Humans and Technology New Media and Interactivity

In the distant future will humanity ever merge with technology? Close attention should be paid to the fact that when talking about robot people technology, nor the technology of lights and clockwork technology, but one should think of it as any invention of man.

In these time of technology changing and proliferating so fast, changing buildings, phones, cars, networking, communication, behavior, thinking, Health, learning, political thoughts and conceptions, it is hard to keep up with all the changes taking place, but noting a few areas that technology is effecting and affecting, we can have a peek at the window into the future and maybe better prepare ourselves to live and survive in it.

The creation of mass man has ultimately created a mass consuming society with the help of advertisement and the evolution of technique within the mass splurge and constant new offerings of technical gadgets. Until we control our media and technology, we really do not know for certain what the future holds for us. We only hope it is for the better for human development and edification.

On this issue above, Erin A. Meyers writes:"I have been considering new media in a broad sense this semester, for a variety of reasons, and these are some of my ideas. The umbrella term "new media" has been used to refer to a wide range of media platforms and technologies. But the vast array of platforms makes it somewhat confusing to really think through exactly what new media are, and indeed, what's so new about them.If Netflix streaming is clearly a new media platform, does that mean that Netflix home delivery is not?

Or, is an oPhone the same sort of new media as Netflix? Each technology serves a different function, But the potential spaces of overlap (using your iPhone to watch streamed movies as opposed to using it to make a phone call or send a text) makes, I think, a precise definition of "new media" pretty challenging.

The new technologies are so varied and can be harnessed for many different purposes. Though the technologies that have reshaped everyday communication and media are viral to our understanding this new category, but, what's new so new about new media are the way the technologies enable user to interact with information and each with each other.

These interactions are tied to how the technology functions or what it makes possible (e.g., the iPhone lets you make phone calls, text, surf the web, etc., through its digital platform) but also to how individuals actually use that technology in their everyday lives.

What's so new about new media,then,is the fact that users can be both producers and consumers of content(even if that production is limited to a very small audience). Although the iPhones or Twitter are considered as new media, we should also consider how older media forms have transformed to meet the demands of our new media.

The new media, then, offers new sorts of ways to think about and engage with "old media." To this point, McLuhan gives us the picture of the nature of these new technologies when he says: "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media with which men communicate than by the content of the communication. All technology as the property of the Midas touch; whenever a society develops an extension of itself, all other functions of that society tend to be transmuted to accommodate that new form; once any new technology penetrates a society, it saturates every institution of that society. New technology is thus a revolutionizing agent.

"We see this today with the electric media and we saw it several thousand years ago with the invention o the phonetic alphabet, which was just as far-reaching an innovation -- and had just as profound consequences for man. The electronically induced technological extensions of our central nervous systems, are immersing us in a world-pool of information movement and are thus enabling man to incorporate within himself the whole of mankind.

"The aloof and dissociated role of the literate man of the Western World is succumbing to the new, intense depth participation engendered by the electronic media and bringing us back in touch with ourselves as well as with one another.

"But the instant nature of electric-information movement is decentralizing -- rather than enlarging -the family of man into a new state of multitudinous tribal existences. Particularly in countries where literate values are deeply institutionalized, this is a highly traumatic process, since the clash of the old segmented visual culture and the new integral electronic culture creates a crisis of identity, a vacuum of the self, which generates tremendous violence -- that is simply an identity quest, private or corporate, social or commercial."

We are also made effective entities of inefficient of stagnant social, but progressive social whole that occupy space and time, over and over again. Below we take a look at the grid and its effects and affects on the in multiple social settings and ecologies.

We Are Virtually in the Grid We are the grid, even if we do not think so about ourselves because, one way or the other, we are conforming to the cultural dictates of the new and emerging media, and we are in a hurry to dump the old ways or willing to be numbed from acknowledging it. In so doing, we are, in plain view, becoming and allowing ourselves to be enslaved by technology, and cannot even grasp that we are in the act of doing so and are eager to ride pell-mell into the technological virtual world.

Even if the new technologies are offering us ways to think and engage the new media, we are merely extending our already extended nervous-system-like-existence of which we are already one with its grid. In this case, the propagation of the knowledge of human beings, his tendencies, his desires, his needs,his psychic mechanism, his automatisms as well as knowledge of his social existential reality(Ellul), "Thus technique has managed to dictate its own brand of culture, and suppress the cultural knowledge that had brought man to that point of modern, efficient refined technology and its embedded techniques.

It is interesting to note that McLuhan's analysis of the History of Western Cultures in that what it expeditiously does is to displace people as the chief causes of change. McLuhan is not a Humanist because Humanists stress the primacy of humans as the focus of attention in such matters and questions.

They look at seeking the causes of history in the texts and social movements of the time, in the political structures, in the global conflicts over the diminishing basic resources, and so forth.We thus begin to consider those that help us understand how we arrived where we are, why we believe what we do, why the national borders are as they are, why the distribution of wealth is as it is, and so on.

McLuhan's vision of the role of technology in these questions is that it subtly shapes the 'environment' in which events it occurs. We are different beings by virtue of the way in which

technologies are not mere add-ons to ourselves. McLuhan writes: "Tonybee considers that although all of the oriental societies have in our time accepted the industrial technology and its political consequences: on the cultural plane, however, there is no uniform corresponding tendency."

"This is like the voice of a literate man, floundering in a milieu of ads, who boasts, "Personally, I pay no attention to ads." The spiritual and cultural reservations that the oriental peoples may have toward our technology will avail them not at all. The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance."

He saw cultures as affected by technology via the impact on social structures, but also by the ways in which it changes us in a more personal fashion. The moulding influence of technology on culture, then, is profound. It certainly needn't offer a complete explanation to any question we ask, but is far more important a factor than we commonly understand.

Technology may not determine culture in many ways (what,of value is done with it, for instance), but by its nature and influence on people, technology will "shape and control the scale and form of human association and action."

Gridlock Ecology We should take note that whenever we talk about gridlock, there are other areas, or ecologies, if you will, that are part and parcel of the gridlock narrative of this Hub. Wildwell writes the following about Transportation gridlock: "Oil's greatest effect has been on transportation. Without doubt this sector has been changed the most by cheap, readily available oil.

"Around 70% of oil goes directly to he transportation sector and nearly 50% is used by cars. As it turns out, cars are a hopeless machine for moving around the cities (or even going to them) -- by virtue of flow, parking and accidents and ann that good at energy efficiency.

"So, apart from looking at alternatives fuels, its worth taking off those car-based rose colored spectacles, and look at what's been happening around the world. Imagine the race between the hare and the tortoise, while that 1.5 ton 11mpg personal monster appears to be an example of sexy consumerism, in the real world those that can get to work quicker, more easily and using less energy are ultimately going to win the race..."

Wildwell further makes concrete what he is alluding to that, "Traffic congestion, already costing Americans $63.1 billion a year, is only getting worse, according to a new report from the Texas Corporation Institute [TTI]. Factoring in today's rising fuel prices adds another $1.7 Billion per year. [...]

Annual delay per peak period (rush hour) traveler, which has grown from 16 hours to 47 hours since 1982, A number of urban areas with more than 20 hours of annual delay per peak traveler, which has grown from only in 1982 to 52 in 2003, Total amount of delay, reaching 3.7 billion hours in 2003, and Wasted fuel, totaling 2.3 Billion gallons lost to engines idling in traffic jams

"Two schools of thought opine that we should build more highways or we must encourage more people to mass transit. The first option sounds tempting (assuming you have the space) and sits well with the oil companies, car makers and all the pimps of the highway lobby.

"And there is a great deal of political opposition to alternatives. The absolute maximum highway capacity is 2,000 vehicles per hour(VPH) on grade separated freeways per lane, with various diseconomies of scale using ramps as they fight for space down to less than 2,000 VPH for the whole highway. If those 2,000 vehicles have one person in them they are extremely inefficient at getting people around urban areas.

"This compares to new rail lines in China moving 100,000 people per hour, with 99% punctuality record. Some cities were built before cars or in topographically restricted areas -- so mass transit has had to the way. Fast and efficient mass transit means that less than 10% of households own a car."

Man Extended by Social Gridlock Ecology Lost Motorcyclist writes: "Most people think they know what gridlock is,but I want to go over it agains because it happens to highlight one of the most important principles in civilization, and if we can solve gridlock, we could solve any human problem. Let's start with the basics. On a crowded city, such as New York which happens to be laid out in a grid, traffic will occasionally come to a complete halt in a feedback chain reaction.

"Imagine a city block which has an intersection at each corner, when traffic is heavy. Now imagine what happens at one of those intersection when the light turns red, but some cars are stuck in the intersection blocking their progress. Immediately, more cars become blocked behind them, and if the line stretches back to their previous intersection, then that one also becomes blocked the same way, and the chain reaction will now occur in all four corners of the block.

"And with one city block completely stuck, neighboring blocks will also get stuck the same way. That is what we call gridlock. In principal, gridlock can happen in places other than a grid. Apparently these traffic James are hard to break up.

"The root cause of gridlock come down to human nature," writes Lost Motorcyclist. "Each independent driver is trying to get trough the traffic as quickly as possible. So they amy make a decision which superficially may help them get a little further. But their decision blocks another driver, and the feedback from that eventually blocks the entire traffic flow for the whole city."

The psychology of this is very interesting, because even if you explain to each driver how to act in order to ensure the free movement of traffic, where they themselves will be stuck for hours.[We create and grid and we become the grid -- locked up and stuck... my paltry two cents] . In short, moving ahead is not always wise if you want to keep moving ahead.

Other Ecological Environmental Extensions like politics, economics, and war also suffer from gridlock mentality. This is the kind of 'self interest' that gives temporary advantage to one person while starting the chain reaction that brings down the whole system for everyone.

"Think of economic banks, that get spooked by economic news, and withdraw their loans to protect their own interests, which shuts down those borrowers' business, which in turn lay-off employees,who in turn withdraw their money from the banks, thus driving the banks out of business anyway.

The circular chain reaction always comes back to the beginning of the problems and then spreads further. This gridlock mentality applies to a military occupation, where soldiers are torturing and killing innocent civilians to get information which ends up having a negative effect with more civilians turning against the occupiers until they finally have to give up.

A small advantage one minute, which is torturing the rebels in order for the regime to "stay safe".

But the advantage in temporary security turns millions of people against the occupiers, and the war is lost(Vietnam, etc) "Terrorists are aways trying to find ways to enhance 'gridlock' effect against the occupying forces.(Lost Motorcyclist).

Emerging Technologies and the Girded Grid Virtual Traffic as an Extension of ourselves In the final analysis, emerging technologies and the spurious coming into being to users of their gadgetry and other technologies are clogging the market and the consumers are left bedazzled and bamboozled. People never get to know their technological toys, then new one come up just as sophisticated as the old one, but in a new ways, and they are also becoming smaller and smaller, newer and smarter.

The social media applications have been credited as the first social networking too to really make a connection with culture. It facilitates for all kinds of topics. Social media is a broad term which mainly refers to t he constellation of websites who's content is produced by uders, and these users develop communities and enertes conversation between its membership. These social media include: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and other blogging platforms, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, Delidcious, Reddit, and much more.

The interest in social use of social media is because of the possibility of the conversation that take place on social media properties and very powerful tool for generating publicity about business or public interest activities, through techniques such as bookmarking, blogging, photosharing and messaging. There is a lot of interconnective inter activity that is promulgated and made possible by these social media platforms. At this juncture, I will use statistics from Pingdom to give a sense of the breadth and depth of the Internet up to 2009: E-Mail 90 trillion - The number of e-mails sent on the Internet in 2009 247 billion - Average number of e-mail messages per day 1.4 billion - The number of e-mail users worldwide 100 million - New e-mail users since the year before 81% - The percentage of e-mails that were spam 92% - Peak spam levels late in the year 24% - Increase in spam since last year 200 billion - The number of spam e-mails per day(assuming 81% are spam)

Websites 234 million - The number of websites as of December 47 million - Added websites in 2009 Webservers 13.9% - The growth of Apache websites in 2009 -22.15 - THE GROWTH OF IIS websites in 2009 35.0% - The growth of Google GFE websites in 2009 38.4% - The growth of Nginx websites in 2009 -72.4% - The growth of Lighttpd websites in 2009 Domain Names 1.73 billion - Internet users worldwide (September 2009) 18% -- increase in Internet users since the previous year 738,257,230 - Internet users in Asia 418,029,796 - Internet users in Asia 252,908,000 - Internet users in North America 179,031,479 - Internet users in Latin America/Caribbean 67,371,700 - Internet users in Africa 57,425,046 - Internet users in the Middle East 20,970,490 - Internet users in Oceania/Australia Social Media 126 million - The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse) 84% - Percent of social network sites with more women than men 27.3 million - Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November 2009) 57% - Percentage of Twitter's user base located in the United States 4.25 million - People follow @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, Twitter's most followed user) 350 million - People on Facebook

50%-Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day 500,000 - The number of active Facebook applications Images 4 billion - Photos hosted by Flickr (October 2009) 2.5 billion - Photo uploaded each month on Facebook 30 billion - At the current rate, the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year Videos 1 billion - The total number of videos YouTube serves in the US(November 2009) 12.5 billion - Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the U.S.(November, 2009) 924 million - Videos viewed per month on Hulu in the US(November 2009) 182 - The number of online videos the average internet user watches a month (USA) 82% - Percentage of Internet Users that view videos online(USA.) 39.4% - YouTube online video market share (USA) 81.9% - Percentage of embedded videos on blogs that are YouTube videos Malicious Software 148,000 - New zombie computers created per day (used in botnets for sending spam, etc.)

2.6 Million - aAmount of malicious code threats at the start of 2009 (viruses, trojans, etc.)

921,143 - The number of new malicious code signatures added by Symantec in Q4 2009 The statistics above were provided by Pingdom and are used here to highlight the traffic on the internet and to give a sense of how huge and deep is the Web. We are in the grid and are the grid.

The number of people on the Web is growing daily and so are the emerging new technologies which have what McLuhan would call a numbing effect on the users who are trying to keep up, and the speed and rapidity with they are churned-out and the public given unlimited and unfettered access to them.

Gridlock comes here in terms of people scuttling to keep up with the new gadgets as they hit the marketplace at blitzkrieg speed, and that this type of change demands that the users keep up with the techniques embedded within these new gizmos. There is some unitary consciousness that is being created by the workings of the Internet as observed above.

The numbers tell us that there is something working her in unison like it never did before; human beings are connecting and communicating with each in even larger and within a myriad of ways that are offered by the Internet. It would be proper at this time to see what McLuhan has to say about

this phenomenon. The Internet, wherein he enables us to wrap our minds and understanding of the Ways of the Internet and its inner-workings -- i.e., its effects and affects on us.

McLuhan informs us thus: "Our very word 'grasp' or 'apprehension' points to the process of getting at one thing through another, or handling and sensing many facets at a time through more than one sense at a time. It begins to be evident that "touch" is not skin but the interplay of the senses, and "keeping in touch" or "getting in touch" is a matter of a fruitful meeting of the senses, of sight translated into sound and sound into movement, and taste and smell.

"The 'common sense' was for may centuries held to be the peculiar human power of translating one kind of experience of one sense into all the senses, and presenting the result continuously as a unified image to the mind. In fact, this image of a unified ratio among the senses was long held to be the mark of our rationality, and may in the computer age easily become so again.

"For it is now possible to program ratios among the senses that approach the condition of consciousness. Yet such a condition would necessarily be an extension of our own consciousness as much as the wheel is an extension of our feet in rotation.

"Having extended o translated our central nervous system into electromagnetic technology, it is but a further stage to transfer our conscious ness to the computer world as well. Then at least, we shall be able to program consciousness in such wise that cannot be numbed nor distracted by the Narcissus illusions of the entertainment world that beset mankind when he encounters himself extended in his own gimmickry.

"If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness? Translation is thus a 'spelling-out' of forms of knowing".This is what we call 'mechanization of the global collective consciousness,' as McLuhan attested to.

McLuhan writes: "Any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios and equilibriums among the other organs and extensions of the body. ...These media, being extensions of ourselves, also depend upon us for their interplay and their evolution.

"The fact that they do interact and spawn new progeny has been a source of wonder over the ages. It need baffle us no longer if we trouble to scrutinize their action. We can, if we choose, think things out before we put them out. In other words, the greatest school had been put for human use before it has been thought out..

"Now, this is especially true of our media. They are put out long before they are thought out. In fact, their being outside us tends to cancel the possibility of their being thought of at all. McLuhan in seeking to understand many media, the conflicts from which they spring, and the even greater conflicts to which they give rise, handed out the promise of reducing these conflicts by an increase of human autonomy.

"We have reached a [certain] point when each stick of chewing gum we reach for is acutely noted by some computer that translates our last into a new probability curve or some parameter of social science. Our private and corporate lives have become information processes because we have put our central nervous systems outside us in electric technology."

We have discussed throughout this Hub how we are part of the electrical and technological grid.

What we learn from McLuhan is that when we invented the technologies that we are using today, we "extended ourselves" and that these extension create a shift, a change in our real space and time, and that,it would important that we should be cognizant of what we are doing.

"Whenever we invent we are extending ourselves through the new technologies, and that we neither have time to adjust and get to know our creations, fully. As noted in the issue discussed about Gridlock, one can see that in our creating cars, we got caught in the glut of these new mechanism and now they are taking too much of our time, energy and jamming us in the spaces they fill, and subjecting us to the technological inventions of our making.

Making my comments above much more cogent and even more clearer, McLuhan instructs thus: "The electric light ended the regime of night and day, of indoors and out-of-doors. But it is when the light encounters already existing patterns of human organization that the hybrid energy is released.

Cars can travel at night, ball players can play all night, and windows can be left out of buildings.In a word, the message of the electric light is total change. It is pure information without any content to restrict its transforming and informing power."

McLuhan thinks that all "students of the media should mediate on the power of this medium of electric light to transform every structure of time and space and work and society that it penetrates or contacts, he will have the key to the form of the power that is in all media to reshape any lives they touch.

"Except for light, all other media come in pairs, with one acting as the content of the other, obscuring the operation of both. It is a peculiar bias of those who operate media for the owners that they be concerned about the program content of radio, or press, or film. The owners themselves are concerned more about the media as such, and are not inclined to go beyond 'what the public wants' or some vague formula. Owners are ware of the media s power, and they know that this power has little to do with "content" or the media within the media."

Politics of Gridlock and Dysfunction On the other, America is undergoing a huge change as an industrial and military power. This can be seen in its political system which is beset and bereft with gridlock that undermines the country and its inhabitants badly. Ever since Obama took the reins of power America has become polarized and gridlocked helplessly. One can see the 'sluggish economical recovery of the economy, the loss of jobs, the scale of the soaring deficits.'

Looking at the congressional budget office's projections, that even Senators say that if they do not do anything about it this country will like Greece, with the exception that America does not have the European Union to bail the US out. Senior military officials bemoan the fact that the single most threat to national security was the American national debt. Timothy Garten Ash writes: "Switch on your television, or turn to the politics pages of your newspaper, and one's heart sinks.

But if you ask what will be the biggest geopolitical story of the of the 2010s onwards is that China is rising and America is struggling. When 2020 comes around, the US will have had to find a way to put its house in order. If you want to feel optimistic about America's chances of renewal, go to Silicon Valley. For a downer, look to Washington.

"The struggle for America's recovery is the battle of the iPad against the filibuster. In Silicon Valley, you see everything is still inspiring about American society: innovation rooted in science and

intellectual freedom; entrepreneurs and risk-taking venture capital exploiting that innovation commercially; a dynamic, open society that attracts the brightest from everywhere - Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Africans.

"If you ask the people around the world what they most admire about the US, their shortlist is likely to include, beside George Clooney and Julia Roberts and Denzel, the iPhone, Facebook, Twitter or google. Yet, What it is that makes American politics so depressing? They are both polarized and gridlocked. Change in the Silicon Valley happens at the speed of science fiction; in Washington, at the pace of Brezhnev's Society Union."

Ash contnues to inform us that:"For instance, a bill to help out America's job-generating small businesses with modest government-backed loans was stuck in the Senate for months -- a victim of the procedural rule which means that the minority (currently Republican) can block legislation by the threat of filibuster unless the other side can garner 60-vote "supermajority." A growing number of American(80% according to the Gallup Poll) believe that their congress needs recall and that their government is dysfunctional.

Ash says: "There are several aspects to this dysfunctionality. There is what I call the politics of cultural distraction. Millions of air hours are devoted to arguments about gay marriage, abortion, homosexuality or, most recently, the planned Islamic center blocks from the World Trade Center in New York," [the national budget battle, tax cuts for the rich, and more cuts in the poor's programs, taxes, payroll cuts/taxes and extension of unemployment benefits and the whole bit -- my addition].

The newly elected Tea Baggers are the one who are assiduously working hard to make sure that, 'Obama fils in all his efforts, that he should not have a second term- and they are willing to handcuff the economical growth and in the process make the poor suffer more, and the rich become richer.

Ash informs us thus: Then there is a strident, partisan polarization of the cable news networks, with Fox News roaring from the right, MSNBC shouting back from the Left, and CNN flailing in the middle.

There is the shameless gerrymandering, politely called "redistricting". At a recent event organized

by Google, a former chair of the Republican national committee, ED Gillespie, explained that winning control of local houses of representatives in individual states is also important, because it helps when it comes to "being able to draw the district lines in a way that is more favorable toward our party". Not even the pretense that democracy is meant to have a level playing field.

All these exacerbate the dysfunctionality. But the most immediate pressing problem is the combination of institutional gridlock and the lack of cross-party cooperation, each reinforcing the other. The present political situation turned out that the Republicans won the House of Representatives and installed some recalcitrant Tea Bagger who are are calling the shots within the Republican party.

The Republicans did not win the senate, and have to date presented Obama with a gridlocked government and have given America the Brezhnevite gridlock and delay, as averred by Ash above.

America's decline is China gain and prosperity. According to Ash, "There are no huge changes in the whole political system, no cross-party co-operation to simplify the country's absurd tax code, redirect the budget to the need of nation-building in the US, nor limit the power of money in American politics, the rules and change the procedure in the Senate - making one wonder if whether America can ever be reformed...

We are immersed within the technological smorgasbord, and thus have become girded within the

grid that we end up being extended by its techniques and information and formation tendencies. The way the new technologies are emerging and have created a virtual world of interactivity and interconnectivity, the consumers and users of these gadgets have somewhat real, or imagined, and created a gridlock-like feeling at the speed with they are churned and made accessible to the rest of us.

As said when discussing the vehicle gridlocks, it is pointed out that we should be responsible regarding the actions that we take when in traffic; and as McLuhan has warned, we should think out what ever we choose to throw out the as our extended selves, so as to have a chance to mull over our creations, and thus forego the numbing aspects and effects that these technologies bring to bear on us, and try to manage to exert some control over them. We are all logged onto and into the girded virtual grid and political upmanship...

Technology As An Environment; The Medium as The Message and Messenger Themes From The Environmental History Of Technology Media (technology) always must be understood as an extension of human mind-body. This is a broader definition of a medium than is usually meant, since it applies not just to communication but every technological innovation starting with language(from oral tradition-a la Ong). By altering the relationship between our self-system and the environmental systems within which we live, we unintentionally cause changes to both ourselves and the environment.

Because media are extensions of our minds and bodies, we shape our tools and then our tools shape us... We have created a computer which works best with the Web: the computer is our body and the Web is our mind-the communication that takes place is an extension of our sense, mind and bodies which we extend virally as we have an extension of us through our nervous system in our physiological metabolism and mechanism.

So that, in the final analysis, clothing extends the skin, shoes extend soles and the feetWheels anther automotive extend our legs; whilst phonetic literacy extends eyes and the mind; that, in the end, electric media extends us akin to the our nervous system in our bodies.

We tend to 'clog' these systems, whether they be in our bodies, minds, computers or the Webhighways and by-ways; the electric grid or any space where were directed and dictated to by technology, and technique in an environment it is embedded in, we are the grid entrapped within the gridlock.

The body, with a gridlock within its functions, breakdown-and one gets hospitalized or sees a doctor; our technologies crash, whenever we clog the Web(this part I am not still sure how it works), and in turn, our traffic jams on the highway, clog the high ways, by-ways and the extended arteries and secondary roads that in the end nothing moves, man-hours consumed stuck are irreplaceable.

In effect, as extension os our mind and bodies, our use of media technologies changes us psychologically, socially, spiritual and intellectually. It also conditions us to accept and have a rearview mirror viewing of the world. This backwards looking and forward peeping sets us up for a gridlock in a myriad ways. Fro instance, the immediate sensory environment -- the context within which things are experienced -- is itself very difficult to experience because "it saturates the whole field of attention so overwhelmingly."

Also, extensions of the human mind-body result in new relationships between our perceptual and

bodily capacities, disrupting our self-system and giving rise to auto-protective measures, i.e., numbness(psychic anesthesia, emotional dissociation, PTSD ...Our use of technologies easily becomes addictive, and as it clogs "our everything" [so to speak], in order to protect the whole nervous system.

If one were to try and cut off or censor the Web, it has a way of circumnavigating that 'block' and find another way around it. Just as our natural reaction is to safeguard the whole nervous, because we try and block out psychic dissonance of the new media environment by absorbing ourselves in sense of control offered by the new technologies The environmental effects of technological innovations "Enhances", that is, what the new medium does improve, make possible or accelerate in us in our using and interacting with it; "Obsolesce" in a sense we notice that it is that is pushed aside or obsolesced by the new medium; Reverse pushed to the limit of its potential, their new form will reverse it original characteristics.

- For example: automobile: enhance speed, obsolesces horse and buggy; retrieves nomadism, and reverses it into gridlock; - Cellphone: enhance voice and increases mobility and flexibility, whilst it obsolesce the phone booth and house phone, which tend to keep one stationary, and the cell phone reverses the freedom of being in a leash, as explained; - Just as Capitalism: it enhances liberty (of trade), obsolesces community responsibility; or, retrieves hunter-gatherer patterns, but reverses abundance into starvation and scarcity.

Technological Process of Imbalance, Ecological Instability, System Slippage and Gridlock Many people who consider themselves to be modern assume regarding the neutrality or the intrinsic goodness of technological development, have obscured the cultural sacrifice man made in leaving and developing from Oral society, which had then established a balance with the environment; i.e., a balance with the environment, also a harmonious internal balance of sensory experiences, a stable economic and political order, a deeply immersive involvement in the world.

Literacy and symbolic consciousness generally, spreads out awareness past the present into the past and future, along and also into abstract possibilities which empowers us while at the same time, blocking, impoverishing, and dimming down our human potential. This occurs in the following manner described below: Depression, mental illnesses, apathy, drug addictions and other compulsive-obsessive behaviors occur in "civilized" or 'modern' societies, i.e., societies suffering from a continuous process of uncontrolled explosion/implosion, creating perpetual dissonance and atrophy and entropy. Some technologies that are involved with our current civilizational disequilibrium with the world are: - phonetic literacy and typography, automobiles, paper/digital currency system, electricity, Internet, Television, Radio, Phones(from land line to Cell phone), totalitarian agriculture; - certain ideas about: development, what it means to be human, to be happy, to be in control, to be alive . The ills of technology have nothing to do with being not natural, but have much to do with the introduction of perpetual dissonance, entropy and disequilibrium which humans try to process into

an even-keeled equilibrium.

Electric media do not merely extend ones sense, but they extend the entire nervous system, therefore extending self-awareness or consciousness past the body-defined self... We are now trying to understand the infinite ramification of the Technological and information societies while we still have time and ability to affect its development and our own development through it.

A key difference is he tension between the Self as a disembodied, placeless cyberanimal which simple processes information and the self living as a disconnected entity and needing to be connected: this is a balance between being challenged by technology and being in control. Thus, technology presents us with a problem: how do we avoid narcissus narcosis in the use of the new technologies.

Well, the way I see it, we seem to be overcome, swamped and swallowed by the fast and emerging and converging technologies and their technique embedded gizmos that it is really going to take a strong will than we can imagine to wean ourselves off this quicksand and gridlock of this tech/gadget environ which is moving us apace with its dictates, and not ours in any form one may see or understand it. At this present state and stage, we are really Gridlocked within the Media/gadget environs.

Americans Fed Up With Constant Political Gridlock United States Governmental Gridlock Mim Hall reported in the USA Today that: "WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress care more about their own re-election campaigns than about the nation's economy. Leaders in the House and Senate spend all their time battling. The White House won't take charge.

"A pox on the lot of them.

So say many Americans after weeks of watching political wrangling over how to cut spending and whether to raise taxes as part of a deal to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2 so the federal government won't have to default on its loans for the first time.

"They're screwing up right and left," says Steve Watson, 57, a self-described conservative Republican from Delta, Utah. "We've got to clean house and put new people in there with new ideas.

All they're doing is arguing among themselves and not getting anything done."

STORY: Low ratings for Obama, Congress on debt talks Ann Perry, 70, a liberal Democrat and retired teacher from Chester County, Pa., says, "They're worried about getting re-elected ... and it's costing us."

News from On Politics Less than three years after voters heeded Barack Obama's message of "change" and nine months after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives amid voter concern about government spending and the economy, Americans express profound disappointment with their political leaders.

As Obama and Republicans continue to debate how to handle the debt and future deficits, the GOP is taking the hardest hit with a job approval rating of 28% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. Obama's approval rating: 45%.

Obama shouldn't rest easy. Americans overwhelmingly are appalled with what they see in Washington. Half of those polled say Obama and Congress are doing a worse job than their predecessors at managing the nation's problems. Democratic Congress members have a 33% approval rating.

"They can't get on the same page, and I don't know the answer," says Bill Gwynn, 65, of Powder Springs, Ga., a life-long Democrat who says he usually votes Republican now. "But something better be done quick, or this country's going right down the crapper."

Carey Lefkowitz, 32, a self-described liberal Democrat who supported Obama in 2008, says he blames the Republicans for the unfolding fiasco -- but he's disappointed with Obama for compromising on extending Bush-era tax cuts for top earners this year.

"I want my president to go out there and have the [guts] to stand up for what's right," Lefkowitz says. "I'd like to hear him set it straight with the American people."

Charlene Lewis, 60, a Democrat from Vincent, Ohio, blames no one but the Republicans, specifically House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Lewis says she has a sister who counts on government programs to pay for her kidney dialysis treatments, and she can't abide the notion that entitlements such as Medicare could be cut while tax breaks for the wealthy stay in place.

"Boehner should realize who he's working for," Lewis says.

John Ross, 71, a moderate Republican from Tavares, Fla., also pinned the problems on his own party, complaining that the anti-tax Tea Party faction has scuttled efforts to reach a compromise on spending and taxes. "The Tea Party Republicans are Republicans first and Americans second," he says, "and it's a shame."

Even the Dalai Lama got into the act Monday, chiding lawmakers. Speaking on NBC's Today, the Tibetan spiritual leader said that when a nation is "facing crisis," political parties must become "secondary."

"It is not the interest of this party or that party," the Dalai Lama said. "It is a national sort of interest. So (they) must work together."

Gridlock ... Back "Gridlock" took a bit of a hiatus during the presidential campaign, but today, we are back. Why not blog during the most engaged political moments of the cycle? Well, campaigns are times of combat, not times to figure out how to get things done. Ideally, we talk about solutions, but it was clear from early on that this was not going to be a campaign about reckoning with our big problems or addressing systemic defects in government.

There was a moment when it looked like the Republicans had put some big ideas on the table about entitlement reform -- that is, when Paul Ryan was nominated for VP -- but Romney distanced himself so quickly from this that it is as if he realized Ryan had a communicable disease a couple days after selecting him.

Anyway, the election was about "who cares about your problems the most," "who resonates the best with the middle class," "who will create the most jobs [as if a president actually has the power to do this]" and other matters. Big issues were discussed at their most superficial level -- who gets the next round of tax cuts and how big will they be -- but that is about it. "Gridlock" didn't have much to offer to this campaign that was not available from many other sources.

But now, all the problems that existed before the election are still here, the players are pretty much the same, as is the balance of power. The president has been ratified by the voters, so he is a more powerful figure than he was before, but congressional leaders also believe their approaches have been ratified as well. Nonetheless, as Lincoln said in his second annual message to the Congress, "As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew." Hopefully, "Gridlock" can contribute to debates we are surely going to be having in the "stormy present."

Who Will Be "Grand Bargaining" For Them?

As Washington re-focuses on issues of taxes, spending and debt, I can't shake the images I saw while helping to get out the vote in some poor, mostly African-American neighborhoods in Durham these past couple of weeks.

I'm ashamed to say that I visit these communities far less than I should, and I am mostly inspired to do so every four years when I am encouraging their residents to cast a ballot in the presidential race. Even so, it is a humbling experience. Too many ramshackle homes, too many kids with nowhere to play, too much poverty. I asked a friend one day how his canvassing was going and whether people were home during the middle of the day. "Yeah," he said, "people are home because they don't have jobs."

Over the next weeks and perhaps months, Washington will be filled with talk of trillions in tax cuts or increases here and there. Slimming deductions. Broadening the base. Trimming 'domestic discretionary spending.' Saving the Pentagon from the dreaded "sequester." There will be the illusive chase for the grand bargain affecting virtually every government program on the books.

Representatives of every group, organization, trade association, union, contractor, and business will be scrambling around the city trying to make sure their voices are heard and their interests are protected. My question is -- who will be "grand bargaining" for the people whose doors I was knocking on the past few weeks.

I'm all in favor of tackling our long term debt. I agree that we need a better tax code. We can't afford to keep spending so much money on health care. But I do think that when all is said and done, there has to be something in this bargain for our least represented, our most needy, and our oft forgotten communities. People from these neighborhoods came out to vote in droves -- they were a key part of the coalition that got the president reelected. There ought to be something in the "grand bargain" for them. There has to be something in the grand bargain for them.

Most of the discussion is going to be about cuts to government spending. But in the process, we ought to be adding something as well. I'm not an expert, but I'd say there has to be some type of jobs program for low income, semi-skilled workers, perhaps building infrastructure, perhaps renovating schools, I don't know. But we need something to pump money into these communities and help those who the great recession has pushed close to, or even into poverty.

The people who trudged out to vote, who stood on lines for hours, did so because they have faith in this president. He cannot move mountains. But he owes it to them to be their voice, to be their representative at the table as the deals that frame our future for the next decade and beyond are

being cut.

The Gridlock Illusion Regarding the 'manufactured' Gridlock in congress, R. Shep Melnick informs us that: "It is hard to find a news article on Congress these days in which the word 'gridlock' does not figure prominently. After months of tense negotiations, Congress and President Barack Obama barely avoided going over the "fiscal cliff" in January, and their last-minute agreement leaves many more months of inconclusive bargaining to come. The legislative branch has yet to revise a national immigration policy that pleases no one, or even to pass a stripped-down version of pathway-t-citizenship legislation that enjoys widespread popular support.

Everyone knows that Social Security is headed toward insolvency, and that the longer we wait, the harder it will be to fix the problem. But Congress after Congress has done nothing. Most important, almost everyone recognizes that in coming years we must both raise taxes and cut entitlements in order to avert fiscal disaster, yet Congress has taken no significant steps in that direction.

Meanwhile, its approval rating has slipped below 10 percent, to the lowest levels ever recorded.

The most common public response to these developments has been to blame our elected representatives for engaging in petty partisanship, to charge that they are beholden to "special interests," and to insist that all would be fine if our leaders would only listen to "the people." But "the people" are really a fractious and increasingly partisan lot, and in 2012 they sent back to Washington nearly all of the hyperpartisan politicians who had achieved such stunningly low approval ratings during the previous two years . As the political scientist Richard Fenno has pointed out, voters may hate Congress, but they love their own member of Congress. Consequently, most members run for Congress by running against it. Voters routinely reward individual legislators for engaging in behavior that regularly produces the collective action they abhor.

This pattern has led some scholars to conclude that the heart of our current problems lies in our institutional arrangements. Our unusually complex structure of government--one that combines separation of powers, bicameralism, and federalism--not only embeds numerous "veto points" in the legislative process, but frustrates accountability by making it nearly impossible for voters to know whom to blame or reward for public policy.

Our current discontents, particularly on budget issues, give new urgency to a critique of our constitutional arrangements that dates back to Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era. From the turn of the century through the 1960s, progressives and New Dealers insisted that our "horse and buggy" institutions were incompatible with the demands of modern government.

The result, they charged, was the "deadlock of democracy," which in effect meant that an unholy alliance of conservative Southern Democrats and Republicans in Congress could block the initiatives of liberal Democratic presidents.

"Gridlock" is the new term favored by critics who are frustrated with Washington, and it is used by people across the political spectrum, not just liberals. The triumph of this neologism over the more conventional descriptors "stalemate" and "deadlock" is not an accident. It reveals how criticism of our institutional arrangements has subtly shifted as government has expanded.

The term "gridlock" caught on in 1980 as a way to describe traffic congestion so severe that cars block multiple intersections, preventing movement in any direction. It quickly became the leading metaphor used to describe congressional politics after President Ronald Reagan's initial legislative victories in 1981.

It was at about that time that the United States began to feel the effects of what political scientist Hugh Heclo has aptly called "policy congestion." As the government does more and more, policies increasingly overlap, bump into one another, and, all too frequently, begin to contradict one another.

For example, "Energy policy," born in the 1970s, has grown into a motley collection of hundreds of conflicting policies and programs, some of which seek to subsidize or otherwise promote various forms of energy use and production that others tax and discourage. Similar contradictions are rife in welfare policy, health care policy, and what we now call budget policy--which includes virtually everything our enormous national government does.

The "stalemate" argument focused on the obstacles to creating an extensive regulatory and welfare state. "Gridlock," in contrast, refers to the difficulty of managing and coordinating the extensive welfare and regulatory state that we have somehow managed to build.

There can be no doubt but that the gridlock argument captures key features of American government. Who could deny that the Constitution establishes what civics textbooks call an "obstacle course on Capitol Hill" that makes it excruciatingly difficult to enact legislation on controversial issues? We should remember, though, that the Founders had good reason to make the legislative process so arduous.

James Madison was not enamored of every component of the Constitution he had helped to create-he was especially dismayed by the clause providing for equal representation of all states in the Senate--but he provided a sophisticated defense of the features that are commonly blamed for gridlock.

Making it easier to pass legislation, Madison observed, would increase the "mutability of the law."

The resulting "public instability" would not only undermine public confidence and weaken the United States internationally but would give an "unreasonable advantage" to "the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people."

But by providing an opportunity for a "sober second thought," bicameralism would reduce the possibility that legislation would be the product of momentary public passions or manipulation by political insiders.

Furthermore, by requiring very broad majorities to enact laws, the Constitution reduces the power of what Madison called "majority faction." By combining a lower house whose members serve twoyear terms with an upper house whose members enjoy six-year terms, the Constitution also combines responsiveness to current public opinion with attention to the long-term interests of the nation.

Moreover, by dividing the legislature into two parts and granting veto power to the president, the Constitution prevents the legislative branch--which "necessarily predominates" in republican government, Madison wrote--from "drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." In other words, it protects both judicial independence and presidential power.

Today's critics of the Constitution tend to be less skeptical than Madison was of simple

majoritarianism. From Woodrow Wilson a century ago to University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson today, they have argued that the greatest shortcoming of the Constitution is its failure to allow popular majorities to prevail. What about the danger of majority faction and tyranny of the majority?

Certainly no contemporary law professor can be indifferent to the plight of politically unpopular minorities. The unstated assumption of contemporary progressives is that this job can safely be left to the courts. Since we already have an activist judiciary, we can now tolerate an activist Congress.

Let Congress do more, then let the Supreme Court invalidate those portions of the law that five of the justices consider unfair.

The Constitution's critics also tend to assume that the dangers created by government inaction are far greater than those caused by rash, premature, or intemperate action. They express no concern about the "mutability" and "instability" that so worried Madison.

They tend to assume--despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary--that government's mistakes can be easily remedied. In reality, government programs create constituencies that are highly organized, acutely aware of the benefits they receive from government, and strategically placed to block substantial change. In other words, delays are often temporary, but mistakes last forever.

Inaction can certainly be costly but sometimes there are advantages to inaction. Consider the case of acid rain. It became a political issue in the 1970s, but Congress did nothing to address it until 1990.

For many years, this was considered a prime example of gridlock--just as congressional inaction on greenhouse gases is today.

But the regulatory scheme Congress eventually used to control acid rain, marketable emission rights, has proven much better at reducing pollution quickly and cheaply than the kind of commandand-control regulation Congress relied upon almost exclusively in the 1970s. In other words, delay produced smarter government action.

Political parties have long been the chief mechanism for building majorities that pull together our constitutionally separated institutions. For most of the 20 century, ours were internally heterogeneous "umbrella" parties that provided the building blocks for legislative coalitions without guaranteeing partisan majorities in either house of Congress. In the early 1990s, however, it was clear that our legislative parties were undergoing a sea change.

By the time the Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, party leaders in the House of Representatives had acquired powers that rivaled those of the famous "czar" Speakers of the House (Joe Cannon, for example) who had reigned a century earlier. Within the House, most of the "veto points" so frequently decried for promoting stalemate had been eliminated.

Today, the Speaker effectively determines which bills come to the floor, as well as the rules for amending and voting on each. Committee chairs, who once rose to power on the basis of seniority and exercised near-baronial powers, are now under the control of party leaders. Votes on important issues follow party lines. What the majority-party leadership in the House wants, it almost always gets.

During the presidency of George W. Bush, for example, Republicans briefly gained control of both the House and the Senate, and they rammed through a series of tax cuts and a major expansion of Medicare with virtually no support from Democrats.

Advocates of party government had assumed that stronger, more ideological parties would allow one dominant party to give coherent direction to the government as a whole. On occasion that is true.

But neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have managed to build resilient electoral majorities.

Indeed, as soon as one party seems to be gaining effective control of government, the voters revoke its mandate.

The 2010 election, which ended the Democrats' brief monopoly on power by giving the House to the Republicans, was just the latest manifestation of this dynamic. The same thing happened in 1994 and 2006. The public, it seems, is not enamored of either party, and prefers divided government to party government. In short, party polarization, once considered a cure for stalemate, now only seems to make the problem worse.

On the surface this combination of constitutional structure, partisan polarization, and a fickle electorate seems to create the perfect storm of gridlock. Before we despair, though, it would be worth taking a closer look at the extent of the problem. On many fronts, things are not as bad as they seem. Consider, for example, some of the steps the federal government took in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08: o In the autumn of 2008, Congress created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to address the subprime mortgage crisis. The Bush administration managed to push its proposal through Congress despite strong opposition from Republicans. o With only tepid support from the White House, Congress bailed out--and essentially took over--the federally created mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, adding $142 billion to the total bailout. o Several months later, the Obama Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve announced a plan to pump an additional $1 trillion into the banking system. o After providing billions of dollars to keep General Motors, Chrysler, and AIG afloat, the federal government played a central role in managing their downsizing. The government suddenly became the largest stockholder in three of the nation's biggest companies. o Even before the financial meltdown, Congress passed a $168 billion bipartisan stimulus package negotiated by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson.

The United States has responded to the financial crisis much more aggressively than has Europe, with its supposedly more effective parliamentary governments, and our banks are now in better shape than Europe's. Much of the TARP money has been repaid, and the auto companies seem to be recovering. Whether or not one approves of these policies, it is hard to describe the government that initiated them as gridlocked.

One could respond to the remarkable events of 2008 and '09 by saying that the American political system is capable of responding to emergencies, but not so good at fashioning policies that prevent them in the first place. So let's look back at the first seven years of the George W. Bush administration. Here, it seemed, was a recipe for stalemate.

The electorate was divided 50-50 in presidential elections, with Bush losing the popular vote in 2000 and eking out a narrow victory in 2004. The Senate, too, was divided 50-50 in 2001, and soon shifted to the Democrats when James Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP. The Republican margin in the House

after the 2000 election was only nine votes, the slimmest partisan margin in 50 years.

In the 2006 elections the Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate, and the country returned to divided government. Animosity between the parties (and against the president) ran unusually high. But consider what Congress accomplished during those years: o It passed the No Child Left Behind Act, the biggest change in federal education policy since 1965 and the most prescriptive federal education legislation ever enacted. o It created Medicare Part D, the largest entitlement expansion since passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. o It passed the Bush administration's tax cuts in 2001, 2003, and 2004. Together they constituted the largest tax cuts in American history. o Despite stiff opposition from Republicans, it approved the far-reaching McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. o It passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which CQ Weekly described as "the biggest increase in the regulation of publicly traded companies since the Depression."

A few of these laws received bipartisan support; passage of others relied almost entirely on Republican votes. While some of these policies might have been ill advised and excessively partisan, no one would describe the Congresses that produced them as "do nothing."

Foreign and defense policy rarely comes up in discussions of gridlock. Indeed, those who have complained most bitterly about legislative stalemate also criticized the Bush administration for acting too aggressively and Congress for delegating too much authority to the executive. Foreign policy during the Bush administration hardly looks like gridlock: The administration launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (in each case with congressional approval), announced a controversial new policy on "preventative wars," and established the equally controversial detention facility at Guant?namo Bay. Meanwhile, Congress established the Department of Homeland Security, enacted the USA Patriot Act, overhauled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and passed several pieces of legislation on the use of military commissions and the rights of detainees.

When one looks at the sweep of US foreign policy over the course of the 20 century--especially the pivotal role the United States played in defeating two vicious and expansionist totalitarian powers-our constitutional structure seems to have served us well.

The record of the Congress that convened in 2009 rivals that of any since the historic 89th of 196566. The 111th Congress demonstrates how partisan polarization can produce dramatic policy change when one party seizes control of the White House and both chambers of the legislative branch. While many of these enactments are well known, it is worth recounting them to indicate the range of congressional action: o Most important, Congress enacted a profound overhaul of the American health care system, extending coverage to 30 million Americans; imposing extensive mandates on insurance carriers, employers, and state governments; creating new insurance exchanges; imposing an array of new taxes, fees, and penalties; extending drug benefits; and making significant cuts in the Medicare

program. o Four months later, Congress enacted a 2,300-page law to create a new regulatory structure for the entire financial services sector and to establish a mechanism for "winding down" failing banks and brokerage houses. According to CQ Weekly, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act "touches just about every major piece of financial regulatory law of the 20 century." It created two new regulatory agencies, and required these and other agencies to produce 250 additional sets of regulations to govern the financial sector. o Soon after convening, Congress passed another stimulus package, to pump $800 billion into the slowing economy. The legislation included a diverse mix of tax cuts; an extension of unemployment benefits; grants to the states for infrastructure, education, and health care; and measures to encourage the development of clean energy.

o After decades of debate, Congress passed legislation authorizing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate the content and marketing of tobacco products. o Congress made major changes in the federal student loan program, and provided more than $4.35 billion for the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" initiative to encourage innovation in elementary and secondary education. o By repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Congress allowed gays to serve openly in the military. It also confirmed two Supreme Court nominees, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, by wide margins and without the threat of a filibuster.

On top of this, the Obama administration augmented the US military commitment in Afghanistan, the second major American war zone "surge" in recent years. It substantially increased American drone strikes against suspected terrorists. In short, 2009 and '10 were years of intense partisan animosity but not of gridlock.

To be sure, over the past four years Congress has failed to pass any immigration legislation. An omnibus, jerry-built climate change bill passed the House but died quietly in the Senate. The administration's signature health care legislation nearly failed for want of a 60th vote in the Senate.

If the Perils-of-Pauline story of the Affordable Care Act illustrates the difficulty of enacting major legislation, it also points to a shortcoming of the conventional gridlock narrative.

"Gridlock" is almost always used to imply that an obstinate minority is frustrating the will of the

majority. But in 2010 Obamacare was in grave danger because public opinion was turning against it.

If anything, the health care battle shows that the federal government is capable of taking dramatic action even when public support is shallow.

The stalemate/gridlock argument is misleading not only because it ignores so many accomplishments, but also because it focuses so intently on just one small part of domestic policy, namely passage of major pieces of legislation at the national level.

Lost in this picture are the daily decisions of administrators, judges, and state and local officials, as well as members of Congress engaged in the quotidian business of passing appropriations, reauthorizations, and budget reconciliation bills. Taken individually, these decisions might seem like small potatoes, but collectively they can produce significant policy change.

Critics of the Constitution overlook the fact that by creating multiple "veto points," our political system simultaneously creates multiple points of access for policy entrepreneurs and claimants.

Every "veto point" that can be used to block action is also an "opportunity point" that can be used to initiate or augment government activity.

Consider, for example, the problem of global warming. Neither Congress nor the White House has yet taken steps to reduce carbon emissions. But state governments have acted. Nine northeastern states reached an accord promising to reduce power plant emissions by 10 percent by 2020. In 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an agreement to curb global warming by capping certain emissions, declaring, "California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming."

More important, the Supreme Court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases. In response, the EPA has issued new rules that limit carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources. This is just the beginning of its regulatory efforts.

Given the structure of the Clean Air Act, it is unlikely that this will be a particularly effective or efficient form of regulation. But the worse the EPA proposal, the stronger the incentives for congressional action. After all, if Congress fails to act, the EPA's flawed plan will go into effect. As The New York Times reported, "Administration officials consistently say they would much prefer that Congress write new legislation . . . but they are clearly holding it in reserve as a prod to reluctant lawmakers."

To take another example, how did Congress manage to pass controversial legislation guaranteeing every disabled student a "free appropriate public education," complete with an "individualized education plan," provision of "related services," and a promise that each student would be placed in the "least restrictive environment"? The answer is that the courts acted first, suggesting (rather obliquely) that students with disabilities might have a constitutional right to an adequate education.

This forced state governments to spend much more on special education, which led them to demand that the federal government provide the money needed to comply with this federal mandate, which led Congress to provide both more money and more federal regulation, which led to more litigation and more federal requirements, which led to state demands for even more money, and so on. This is a vivid illustration of how separation of powers and federalism can produce not gridlock, but a game of institutional leapfrog that results in a steady expansion of government programs.

How did affirmative action--highly unpopular with the American public--become embedded in so many federal programs? Slowly, subtly, and at times surreptitiously, a long series of court decisions,

agency rules, and complex legislative provisions injected the presumption of proportional representation into federal civil rights programs.

How did the federal government come to set national standards for state mental institutions, schools for the developmentally disabled, nursing homes, and prisons? Largely through litigation and consent decrees negotiated by the Department of Justice.

Why has the means-tested Medicaid program grown faster than the supposedly sacrosanct Medicare program? After all, the former serves the poor, while the latter provides benefits to one of the most potent political forces in American politics, the elderly.

According to Lawrence Brown and Michael Sparer of the Columbia School of Public Health, part of the explanation is the shrewd incrementalism of congressional entrepreneurs such as Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who steadily added federal Medicaid mandates to budget reconciliation bills in the late 1980s.

The combination of state and federal funding and control over Medicaid, Brown and Sparer note, had the effect of "prompting coverage expansions during good times [the feds paid most of the bill] and deterring cutbacks even in bad times [every state dollar saved meant two or three federal dollars lost]."

Instead of promoting a "race to the bottom," our post-New Deal "cooperative federalism" has stimulated expansion of the welfare state. This effect is not limited to health care. The respected federalism scholar Richard Nathan has concluded that, "US federalism's dominant effect has been to expand the scope and spending of the social sector."

Those looking for evidence of gridlock in Washington might point to Congress's failure in 1998 to pass legislation imposing a large tax on tobacco products and limiting tobacco advertising.

Soon after that bill died in the Senate, though, state attorneys general reached a settlement with tobacco companies that included a $250 billion settlement--to be paid to state treasuries--and unprecedented limits on advertising, sponsorships, and lobbying by tobacco companies. Having lost narrowly in one arena, anti-tobacco activists prevailed in another.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission was criticized for regulating Wall Street too laxly, another state attorney general, New York's Eliot Spitzer, stepped into what he perceived as a policy void. When the Obama administration appeared too tolerant of AIG's bonuses, Spitzer's successor, Andrew Cuomo, took aggressive steps to expose the miscreants.

In area after area, the competition and multiple avenues of access created by the Constitution provide opportunities to prevail for those who seek to expand the public sector. Policy entrepreneurs have learned how to use these features of our political system to their advantage. As Representative Waxman, one of the most successful of these entrepreneurs, once put it, "Incrementalism may not get much press, but it does work."

In The Welfare State Nobody Knows (2008), political scientist Christopher Howard argues that the American welfare state is much larger than is generally recognized. We fail to appreciate its size because our welfare state provides benefits through so many programs (at least 77 separate meanstested federal programs provide assistance to the poor) and in such indirect ways (such as loan guarantees, refundable tax credits, and tax exemptions).

Our fragmented welfare state reflects our fragmented political system. As Howard suggests, we need to understand how our peculiar political system has produced a different type of welfare state, not simply keep repeating the mistaken claim that it has produced a small one.

At the heart of all serious political analysis lies Henny Youngman's famous response to the question "How's your wife?": "Compared to what?" At one time or another we have all been frustrated or even enraged by the delays, irrationalities, and complexities of our political system. If we were starting from scratch, no one in his right mind would give Wyoming, Vermont, or Rhode Island two seats in the US Senate.

The big question is, What is the alternative? Most critics seem to assume that the answer is parliamentary government. Not, of course, the unstable, factious, multiparty coalition governments one finds in Italy or Israel. Nor would they welcome the insulated, faction-ridden, and corrupt system of Japan, where a single party has dominated for more than 60 years.

Rather, reformers assume that we would naturally develop the stable two-or three-party Westminster-style parliamentary government found in Britain, Australia, and (at one time, at least) Canada.

My guess is that these reformers would have a hard time convincing most Americans that the British form of government is more democratic than what we have now. Who voted for Prime Minister David Cameron other than 34,000 members of his Witney constituency? What do you mean, ordinary people can't vote in party primaries--you intend to allow party bosses to choose the nominees?

Elections held whenever the incumbent prime minister finds it convenient? A powerful elite senior civil service without much oversight by elected representatives?

Significant movement in that direction would provoke a populist revolt in this country that would make the Tea Party look, well, like weak tea.

Do we have any evidence that parliamentary governments are any better at governing? The answer, I think, is no. The best analysis I know of is a Brookings Institution volume edited by political scientists R. Kent Weaver and Bert A. Rockman, Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in the United States and Abroad. At the risk of oversimplifying the book's careful analysis, let me note three of the editors' conclusions, which ring even truer today than when the book was published 20 years ago.

First, most of the problems facing the United States today "are shared by all industrial democracies." In particular, "problems with balancing budgets are ubiquitous. All elected (and most unelected) governments are reluctant to impose losses on pensioners . . . . Particular institutional arrangements do not cause these governance problems; they are inherent in complex societies and in democratic government."

Second, there are "direct tradeoffs" between institutional capabilities. The fragmented American political system "generates a lot of policy innovation" because it promotes "policy entrepreneurship from disparate sources." But this innovation "tends to be at the piecemeal level of individual programs rather than comprehensive, sector-wide policies." Unfortunately, institutional arrangements that are better at producing comprehensive reform are also "likely to create risks of policy instability" and to overlook interests not well represented within party organizations.

Third, the contrast between parliamentary and separation-of-powers systems "captures only a small part" of the differences between regimes. "Second-tier institutional arrangements" such as electoral

rules and norms established within legislative bodies "influence government capacity at least as much as do the separation or fusion of executive and legislative power."

If fundamental political change such as a shift to a parliamentary system is unlikely to produce significant benefits, and even less likely to gain public support, then it behooves us to focus instead on the "second-tier institutional arrangements" that are equally important and considerably more malleable.

Consider, for example, that today a single US senator can put a "hold" on a nomination or a piece of legislation because the Senate conducts so much of its business through unanimous consent agreements. Use of both senatorial holds and filibusters has escalated in recent years, often with serious consequences. Senate rules--even those on filibuster and cloture--can probably be changed by majority vote once obstructionism becomes too obvious and too unpopular.

In 2005, Democrats used the filibusters to block a number of President Bush's judicial nominees.

This led the Republican majority to threaten to pull the trigger on "the nuclear option," that is, to limit filibusters on judicial nominations. The result was a compromise: Democrats agreed to place holds on only two nominees if the Republicans would not change the formal rules.

A number of Democratic senators have advocated instituting further limits on the filibuster when the 113th Congress convenes this January. Democrats and Republicans alike have been the victims of senatorial obstructionism, and the Senate's reputation has suffered. As a consequence, rules that once seemed invulnerable might soon be subject to revision.

There are many other ways Congress and the executive can alter second-tier rules to increase our capacity to cope with the serious problems that confront us. For example, during the 1990s the socalled PAYGO rules (for "pay-as-you-go") helped Congress reduce the federal budget deficit by requiring that any new tax cuts or spending be offset by new revenue or by savings elsewhere in the budget. "Fast-track" procedures have helped temper parochialism in trade legislation.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission gave Congress a mechanism to reduce unnecessary military spending by shutting down the many congressionally protected bases the Pentagon considered outmoded. Legislation exempting budget reconciliation bills from filibusters has made the budget process somewhat more rational and majoritarian--and allowed the Obama administration's health care proposal to become law.

Conventional arguments about gridlock not only ignore our political system's capacity for major policy change, but imprudently focus our attention on constitutional changes that are neither feasible nor likely to address our present discontents. The gridlock metaphor tends to gloss over the fact that our political institutions are surprisingly good at innovation, but depressingly bad at coordinating the many responsibilities we have taken on.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in our inability to bring taxing and spending into line. Since 2000, Congress has done an excellent job of enacting tax cuts and creating new entitlements. But that has only made our fiscal problems worse. Imposing budgetary pain in a political system as responsive to public opinion as ours is extraordinarily hard. Making progress on this crucial task does not require systemic institutional reform, but, rather, adjustment of a variety of second-tier rules in order to focus public attention on the aggregate and long-term consequences of frenetic government activity.

Why Gridlock Is Good (If You You're A Progressive)

We also learn from Deepak Chopra the about the merits of Gridlock for a 'progressive ' sector of the American voting polity: "There is widespread lamentation over the current gridlock in politics. After a quick shot of elation for Democrats -- which I wholeheartedly shared in -- Washington went back to the status quo.

Commentators point out that the same players are sitting in the same seats. The chances for tax reform and a solution to immigration may have improved slightly, we are told, but with more than 50 Tea Party members in the House and battle lines drawn everywhere on ideological lines, the news isn't good for successful negotiations.

I accept all of that, but it seems to me that gridlock is good for the progressive side, and liberals shouldn't join the general lamentation. Gridlock is the political equivalent of a medically induced coma. Basic life functions continue while a critical disease runs its course. Being in a coma isn't good for anyone, but when the disease is worse, a coma may be the only way to return to health.

In Washington's case, the disease is right-wing reaction. Its effects have been dire already: drastic economic unfairness, the Iraq war, control of Congress by lobbyists, intractable ideologues infecting the democratic process, and a draconian war on drugs that has filled our prisons comparably to what Stalin did in the Gulag (according to Fareed Zakaria, America's prison population has quadrupled since 1980, almost totally due to drug convictions, and we now incarcerate people at 10 times the rate of many other developed countries).

To halt the spread of reactionary policies, gridlock brings a coma-like stasis. But the other part of an induced coma is that nature takes its course to heal the patient. That is happening, too. The reelection of President Obama held back the worst aspects of the right that Romney pandered to. It allowed four more years for demographics to continue to outnumber the Republican base (the party has already lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections). Less noticed but still good is the rise of a younger generation of Christian fundamentalists who do not share their parents' rigid Bible belief.

When all these forces have come to fruition, the state of gridlock should have run its course in 20 years, 10 if we are lucky. It took 30 years for the electorate to swing right, gradually driving out better candidates because they were unwilling to be vilified and face Willie Horton tactics. Ten years is only a fraction of that. Scorched-earth tactics didn't defeat Obama.

Good candidates may take heart and start to return. For the time being, the crystal ball isn't clear.

Human nature is stubborn, and there is no viable reason for the intractable right wing to cede power in Congress. They suffered pain in the last election, but pain doesn't create change, as history abundantly shows us. Situations that contain implacable divisions (Sunni vs. Shiite, Israel vs. the Palestinians, slave owners vs. abolitionists) don't heal; they fracture.

The good news for our body politic is that we have already broken the fever, but not in the way that Joe Biden called for when he foresaw the House accepting compromise after Obama won. They won't, just as the Republican Party won't become less radical through defeat. At best the two sides will lurch toward partial solutions with teeth grinding all the way. The rise of reactionary forces over 30 years has depended on legitimizing the worst in human nature, the side where irrational prejudice, resentment and fear are lurking. If we are honest with ourselves, each of us feels these impulses.

But the essence of progressivism is to resist the worst and nurture the best through idealism and fair-mindedness. By acting like an adult and never giving way to revenge, Obama has used the

patient tactic of leaning against a wall until it moves. He is counting on the electorate to wake up to its better nature. If he succeeds -- and I think he will -- Lincoln won't be the only president from Illinois who was a man of destiny. Obama is presiding over a shift in consciousness that will restore American uniqueness by curing us of a malady that was heading toward disaster.

Racial Prejudice and Media: Hall argues that the media's main purpose is to produce and transform ideologies. Hall defines ideologies as "those images, concepts and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand, and 'make sense' of some aspect of social existence [Dines & Humez, 2003, p. 89]."

Hall notes that ideology and language are distinct from each other and yet language is necessary to transform ideology by establishing new meanings through articulation. Individuals produce ideological statements in an effort to "make sense of social relations and our place in them [Dines & Humez, 2003, p. 90]."

As all individuals make ideological statements (which tend to just be descriptive statements), it is a collective process by which ideologies are transformed. This process is generally an unconscious one. Individuals identify with their ideologies and this allows them to discuss them.

The media produces representations of the social world. Our definitions for race are constructed through the media. These ideas are not uniform and are not limited to "a single, racist conception of the world [Dines & Humez, 2003, p. 91]."

Hall proposes two types of racism in media: overt racism (which occurs when the favorable coverage is openly given) and inferential racism (which occurs when events relating to race are represented in what appear to be a natural situation, such as a fictional television program). Hall also discusses the way races were first generalized and stereotyped in television and film.

Many of these "old movies" are still available for viewing and can influence interpretations and understandings of race. Current representations continue to contain traces of racial representations which lead to "multiple, conflicting interpretations [Dines & Humez, 2003, p.95]." Hall uses Barbie to describe how reality (in this case, the reality of femininity) can be manufactured.

Hall states that post-industrialization, globalization and migration have significantly reshaped our cities (2004). Cities are divided by "class and wealth, by rights to and over property, by occupation and use, by life-style and culture, by race and nationality, ethnicity and religion, and by gender and sexuality [Hall, 2004, p.2]." The boundaries and zones that are created overlap and blur into each other. However, people identify with their own neighborhoods (Hall, 1991).

Communication Theory: This model of communication stresses non-linear communication. The sender is an encoder who encodes messages that are sent to the receivers or decoders. The messages are effected by distortions and also influenced by other factors such as physical context, cultural context, education, the gender of the encoder and decoder, the role in society held by the encoder decoder and, as well, their ethics (Hall 1980) Definition of Encoding And Decoding:Encoding: The Act Of Producing The Message. Examples: Writing, Speaking, making a gesture.

Decoding: The Act of Understanding the message. Examples: Reading, Listening, Deciphering A Gesture.

The Process of Encoding and Decoding Is Never separate. These Actions always work together (Pierce, 2009) Hall's Encoding and Decoding model of communication states that: -the meaning of the message isn't determined by the sender -the encoder's message isn't transparent -the decoder doesn't receive the message passively ( Hall, 1980) According to Hall, the receiver may decode the message in one of three ways: -Dominant-hegemonic position The Decipher Identifies The Message And Agrees With It. -Negotiated Position: The Decoder Negotiates An Understanding Of the Message And Maintains A Neutral Stance -Oppositional Position: The Decoder Disagrees With The Message And Rejects It. Connecting this communication theory to blogging in the classroom: Information on blogging: -a website maintained usually by one individual, known as a blogger -the topic of the website is usually devoted to one topic that is regularly updated -entries ( known as posts) are displayed in reverse-chronological order -readers are allowed to comment on the posts -bloggers encourage readers to comment and begin a dialogue with them and other readers How are blogs used in the classroom: -a place to publish student work -as an electronic journal that students can contribute to everyday -teachers can post a question and students can respond by commenting -as a way to teach New Media techniques in the classroom

Connecting this communication theory to blogging in the classroom: Hall's non-linear theory of communication explains how messages aren't received passively by receivers but rather decoded and given meaning that is both personal and individual. Messages are sent back and forth between senders and receivers just as in blogging Culture as Public Pedagogy: The educational capacity of culture redefines public pedagogy -- the politics of power, the political nature of representation and social changes. Hall's theory analyzes how authority and power actually work in linking texts to contexts, ideology to specific relations of power, and political projects to existing social formations.

Public pedagogy for Hall represents a moral and political practice rather than merely a technical procedure. Hall's theory also provides the framework for work culture, students bringing knowledge with them, and how public discussions shape knowledge. Public pedagogy becomes part of a critical practice designed to understand the social context of everyday life as lived in relation to power.

Henry Giroux argued that Hall's work is refreshingly theoretical, contextual and rigorous. It opens dialogue but refuses any reflection on a position. Hall limits the sphere or form of political work such as working in public schools or in museums.

Hall suggested that before accepting any information from any social realm, source of the information should be authenticated based on reception theory. During Medieval Europe, paradigm of knowledge system was based on Platonic Philosophy. In postmodern era, paradigm of knowledge system is based on social, material and situated knowledge (social experience and interaction) [Strickland, 2007].

Therefore, cultural studies have bigger impact in shaping a broader set of discourses and social configurations at work in the dominant social order.

Due to new electronic media, hegemony will key driving force for social changes and knowledge.

Hall's considers social changes as a precondition for a politics that moves in the direction of a less hierarchical, more radical democratic social order. We live in a mixed, mongrelized work; our identity was formed in relation to the formation of a community itself.

Critique of the Theory:Cultural studies is not a unified theory.

Doesn't promote public interest.

Cultural studies lacks scientific method.

There is no agreement on method and validity.

Does not focus upon observing, describing, interpreting, and drawing conclusions but rather examines the role of representation in language, image, and text.Its field may be larger & complex.

Stuart Hall Encoding-Decoding Method and Theory As a cultural theorist, Stuart Hall critiques the practices of everyday life, particularly systems of meaning channelled through the televisual medium. From his analysis of television, Stuart Hall

developed a theoretical model to explain the influence of television broadcasts (advertisements and sitcoms).

Stuart Hall's called this theory the encoding/decoding model. The basic premise of Hall's encoding/decoding model of communication is that the media apparatus has an interest in production, circulation, distribution/consumption, and reproduction rather than conveying a message (Gurevitch, Scannell, 2003: 139). S Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model focuses on the ideological dimensions of message production and reception in a capitalist world.There is much validity to this theory, and it to understand it completely, one must be knowledgeable of Hall's Marxist background, and the implications of his concepts.

This essay will make the case for the utility of this model through an analysis of three Apple Inc. iPod advertisements via Hall's concepts, arguing that his production-reception model is a useful approach to understanding modern mass media messages, especially advertising.

In order to adequately understand the encoding/decoding model by Stuart Hall, it is necessary to draw connections to the basic foundations of this theory. To begin, Stuart Hall was profoundly influenced by Marxist theory, particularly ideas concerning the proletariat struggle against the bourgeoisie.

Hall's cultural theory is deeply rooted in Marxist theory with which he has translated the intent of media from its base intent of send-message-receive towards an alternative system of production, circulation, distribution/consumption, and reproduction (Gurevitch, Scannell, 2003: 139). In his autobiography, Stuart Hall explains that he was influenced by The questions that Marxism as a theoretical project put on the agenda: the power, the global reach and history-making capacities of capital; the question of class; the complex relationships between power, which is an easier term to establish in the discourses of culture than exploitation, and exploitation.

The question of a general theory which could, in a critical way, connect together in a critical reflection different domains of life, politics and theory, theory and practice, economic, political, ideological questions and so on; the notion of critical knowledge itself and the production of critical knowledge as a practice. (McGuigan, Gray, 1992: 100) Here, Stuart Hall explains the reasons why Marxism yielded an immense amount of critical analysis for him. He asserted that issues concerning: 1) power, class dynamics, the discourse of exploitation, 2) politics, life, economy, and 3) hegemonic and ideological ramifications towards production and critical knowledge resonated from the media. Understanding the relevance of why Hall utilized Marxism is crucial for the analysis of the encoding/decoding model.

Drawing the connection between Hall's theoretical origins of Marxism and the encoding/decoding model, one will receive an enhanced understanding of his theoretical conception of media discourse.

With the acknowledgement of Hall's Marxist background, the next step is understanding the

potential for his theory in today's televisual discourse .In the encoding/decoding model of media discourses developed by Stuart Hall, the meaning of the text is located between its producer and the reader (Hall, 1980). The producer (encoder) framed (or encoded) meaning in a certain way, while the reader (decoder) decodes it differently according to his/her personal background, the various different social situations and frames of interpretation (McQuail, 1994).

According to Hall, the meaning within a text is neither a fixed concept, nor a totally uncertain 'polysemy' (Fiske, 1986). Although Hall notes the polysemic nature of meaning in text, one must inevitably take a 'position'. Such a position is the balancing point in the process of dynamics of encoder and decoder, the result of tension between encoder's dominant intention and decoder's reading strategies.

According to this hypothesis, encoder is trying to transfer his / her version of a certain meaning based on his / her personal background and cultural perspective to the decoder, while the decoder will adapt this 'original' meaning into a 'new' version according to his / her background and particularities. In order to conceptualize this transference of meaning from encoder to decoder.

Once the intended meaning is produced, it is then followed by the medium of discourse, but "at a certain point, however, the broadcasting structures must yield encoded messages in the form of a meaningful discourse" (Hall, 1980: 130).

Through televisual discourse, meaning is decoded by the audience. Through this decoding process, the 'new' version of meaning may be consistent with the 'original' one, or be oppositional to it; however, in most circumstances, it is always a result of negotiation. Essentially, Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model has wider implications once the audience manifests their own meaning.

In order to conceptualize the implications of Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model and audience effects, three iPod advertisements will be deconstructed to illustrate three reading strategies that Hall asserts as 'positions' that decoders take.

Stuart Hall characterized three major reading strategies that, even with a polysemic underlying interpretation, are chosen by the audience in the decoding process. As an artifact to aid in this explanation of the decoding process, three iPod advertisements will illustrate the significance of Hall's three positions.

Firstly, when the decoder's position is near to the encoder's, he / she will interpret within the frame of the dominant code--the "preferred reading" (Hall, 1980: 136). The dominant encoded meaning in this advertisement is perpetual dancing through break-dance moves and other very difficult dance techniques. Essentially, the dominant intent of this advertisement is excitement, joy, and how one may experience a mind-altering temporary pleasure from an iPod. Although this reaction to music is unrealistic and many people in real life do not engage their music in random dancing on the street, Apple has instilled this pleasurable, almost innate response from musical enjoyment. When this advertisement was released, Apple Inc., in their annual report of 2001, reported that: "Net gains before taxes related to the Company's non-current debt and equity investments of $75 million, $367 million, $230 million, and $40 million were recognized in 2001, 2000, 1999, and 1998, respectively" (Apple Inc, 2001: 20), which elucidates the number of people who have decoded the initial meaning of the encoder.

The producer (Apple) professed (encoded) consumption of their product (iPod) and were then broken down (decoded) by the audience in the same way as the encoder intended, in which the high volume of sales on iPods is reflected by Apple Inc.'s 2001 Annual Report. Stylistically, In Figure 2 of Apple Inc.'s first iPod advertisement, there were no flashy colors, or exuberant contrasts but with had sophisticated dancing--a feature of Apple's iPod advertisements it would keep through many years afterwards.

Many years later, Apple Inc. formulated a new advertising strategy to excel enthusiasm for the iPod and increase sales (Figure 3[2005 advertisement]and Figure 4 [2006 advertisement]). As predicted, Apple Inc.'s Annual report in 2006 explained: "Net sales of iPods increased $3.1 billion or 69% during 2006 compared to 2005. Unit sales of iPods totaled 39.4 million in 2006, which represents an increase of 75% from 22.5 million iPod units sold in 2005" (Apple Inc, 2006: 55).

Once an individual purchases an iPod, their decoded purchases an iPod, the individual may meet individuals who also have an iPod and then proceed to dance with them. This is very unrealistic, although many individuals who succumb to this dominant-hegemonic position are led in this manner in order to purchase an iPod. Secondly, when the decoder's position is opposite to the encoder's, the decoder will create his/her own version of the message with a totally different intention; the decoder may read subversively and against the dominant meanings from an oppositional point of view (Hall, 1980: 137). When an individual is functioning under this position, Hall states that, "He/she is operating with what we must call an oppositional code" (Hall, 1980: 137). This will undermine the initial message and attempt to rationalize that it is an object that promotes mainstreaming, or a unified hegemony that Apple exerts to promote their iPods. In addition, another individual taking an oppositional position may consider that Apple Inc. is causing major environmental damages and poses a severe health risk. For instance, in an interview with an environmentalist, Giles Slade noted that: Steve Jobs came out recently and pretty much admitted that the iPod should be thought of as a disposable product. It is a slick, sleek thing, and you would never consider that it comes from a fundamentally dirty industry. In fact, the amount of toxins that go into an iPod is enormous. There are more than 68 million of these things out there, and they are full of cadmium, beryllium and lead.

And Apple has deliberately created them so they only last a year. The company has a voluntary takeback program, but how many people use it? They won't say. I am hugely personally disappointed in Steve Jobs. (Tyee Books) Here, Slade has asserted the negativity of iPod exposure and its long-standing impact on the environment. In a deeply disturbed way, Slade has transformed the initial meaning of Figure 2, Figure 3, and Figure 4 in a way that was contrary to Apple Inc.'s encoded meaning.

Thirdly, and in many cases, the decoder will adopt a negotiated position, which is to accept some aspects of the dominant meaning, but reject and alters others, to suit their understandings and goals. For example, an anonymous blog commenter who initially took a negotiated reading to the dominant code posted: My friend just gave me his old iPod and I began the investigation on how to change the battery. I couldn't believe that the unit is made so as the owner is not able to do their own battery replacement. Apple wants $100 to have the battery replaced? NOT! I'm glad I didn't buy an iPod and won't. Somebody is getting ripped and it isn't Apple. (MoPhos & Photos) This individual had clearly been skeptical about purchasing an iPod, favoring a waiting delay period

before he/she understood every potential bug in Apple's iPods. This negotiated reading creates a very skeptical audience who may or may not purchase the iPod. They may be persuaded by each of these advertising strategies slightly, but not enough to fully gain their cooperation with purchasing the iPod. Instead of looking directly at the advertisements and interest with the decoder may decide to look at the stylistic features, or the specifications of a particular model of the iPod and based on them, the decoder may decide to oppose purchasing an iPod or want to purchase them.

In this stage, Stuart Hall calls it the "a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations [abstract], while, at a more restricted, situational [situated] level, it makes it own ground rules--it operates with exceptions to the rule" (Hall, 1980: 137). The negotiated decoding strategy is oftentimes what the audience undertakes in order to completely understand the product they purchase, in this case an iPod. These three positions, as Hall has illustrated, function as an imperative decoding strategy that the decoders undertake. It is the intent of the encoder, in this case Apple, to utilize a predictive measure targeting individuals who decode in a negotiated position and oppositional position, especially. Apple Inc. is fully aware that decoders who undertake oppositional and negotiated readings exist and, subsequently, their advertising strategies will always change until they have fully persuaded the negotiator to become their product consumer and the oppositional decoder to become at least a negotiated decoder.

Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model is an imperative explanation outlining the intent of advertising strategists, such as Apple Inc. and their three advertisements deconstructed in this essay. Using Stuart Hall's model, the intent of advertisers becomes clear; advertisers are the dominant encoders of a messages only to be decoded by the audience in a seemingly clear translation from product to consumer. Although decoders may have multiple interpretations, argues Hall, they inevitably take a position in which he outlines three possible routes of decoding: 1) the dominant-hegemonic position, 2) the oppositional position, and 3) the negotiated position.

The intent of advertisers and their encoding strategies are maximizing wealth and continuing the means production, circulation, distribution/consumption, and reproduction. Through this process, positions may be confronted with the same encoded messages throughout many years.

This perpetuating cycle continues to further capital, to enforce the continuation of the product or service. In this sense, Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model proves a valuable utility for the analysis of advertisements, their intent, and the methods of decoding audiences take. It may also help us untangle the gridlock in the media today.

Internet Gridlock Video is clogging the Internet. How we choose to unclog it will have far-reaching implications.

We are Informed, at length in this part of the Hub about the Gridlock that has taken place on the Internet by Larry Hardesty in the following manner:

An obscure blogger films his three-year-old daughter reciting the plot of the first Star Wars movie.

He stitches together the best parts-including the sage advice "Don't talk back to Darth Vader; he'll getcha"-and posts them on the video-sharing website YouTube. Seven million people download the file.

A baby-faced University of Minnesota graduate student with an improbably deep voice films himself singing a mind-numbingly repetitive social-protest song called "Chocolate Rain": 23 million downloads. A self-described "inspirational comedian" films the six-minute dance routine that closes his presentations, which summarizes the history of popular dance from Elvis to Eminem: 87 million downloads.

Video downloads are sucking up bandwidth at an unprecedented rate. A short magazine article might take six minutes to read online. Watching "The Evolution of Dance" also takes six minutes-but it requires you to download 100 times as much data. "The Evolution of Dance" alone has sent the equivalent of 250,000 DVDs' worth of data across the Internet.

And YouTube is just the tip of the iceberg. Fans of Lost or The Office can watch missed episodes on network websites. Netflix now streams videos to its subscribers over the Internet, and both Amazon and Apple's iTunes music store sell movies and episodes of TV shows online. Peer-to-peer filesharing networks have graduated from transferring four-minute songs to hour-longSopranos episodes. And all of these videos are higher quality-and thus more bandwidth intensive-than YouTube's.

Last November, an IT research firm called Nemertes made headlines by reporting that Internet traffic was growing by about 100 percent a year and that in the United States, user demand would exceed network capacity by 2010. Andrew Odlyzko, who runs the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies program at the University of Minnesota, believes that the growth rate is closer to 50 percent. At that rate, he says, expected improvements in standard network equipment should keep pace with traffic increases.

But if the real rate of traffic growth is somewhere between Nemertes's and Odlyzko's estimates, or if high-definition video takes off online, then traffic congestion on the Internet could become much more common. And the way that congestion is relieved will have implications for the principles of openness and freedom that have come to characterize the Internet.

Whose Bits Win? The Internet is a lot like a highway, but not, contrary to popular belief, a superhighway. It's more like a four-lane state highway with traffic lights every five miles or so. A packet of data can blaze down an optical fiber at the speed of light, but every once in a while it reaches an intersection where it has the option of branching off down another fiber.

There it encounters a box called an Internet router, which tells it which way to go. If traffic is light, the packet can negotiate the intersection with hardly any loss of speed. But if too many packets reach the intersection at the same time, they have to queue up and wait for the router to usher them through. When the wait gets too long, you've got congestion.

The transmission control protocol, or TCP-one of the Internet's two fundamental protocols-includes an algorithm for handling congestion. Basically, if a given data link gets congested, TCP tells all the computers sending packets over it to halve their transmission rates. The senders then slowly ratchet their rates back up-until things get congested again. But if your computer's transmission rate is

constantly being cut in half, you can end up with much less bandwidth than your broadband provider's ads promised you.

Sometimes that's not a problem. If you're downloading a video to watch later, you might leave your computer for a few hours and not notice 10 minutes of congestion. But if you're using streaming audio to listen to a live World Series game, every little audio pop or skip can be infuriating. If a router could just tell which kind of traffic was which, it could wave the delay-sensitive packets through and temporarily hold back the others, and everybody would be happy.

But the idea that an Internet service provider (ISP) would make value judgments about the packets traveling over its network makes many people uneasy. The Internet, as its name was meant to imply, is not a single network. It's a network of networks, most of which the average user has never heard of. A packet traveling long distances often has to traverse several networks.

Once ISPs get in the business of discriminating between packets, what's to prevent them from giving their own customers' packets priority, to the detriment of their competitors'? Suppose an ISP has partnered with-or owns-a Web service, such as a search engine or a social-networking site.

Or suppose it offers a separate service-like phone or television-that competes with Internet services.

If it can treat some packets better than others, it has the means to an unfair advantage over its own rivals, or its partners', or its subsidiaries'.

The idea that the Internet should be fair-that it shouldn't pick favorites among users, service providers, applications, and types of content-is generally known as net neutrality. And it's a principle that has been much in the news lately, after its apparent violation by Comcast, the second-largest ISP in the United States.

Last summer, it became clear that Comcast was intentionally slowing down peer-to-peer traffic sent over its network by programs using the popular file-sharing protocol BitTorrent. The Federal Communications Commission agreed to investigate, in a set of hearings held at Harvard and Stanford Universities in early 2008.

It wasn't BitTorrent Inc. that had complained to the FCC, but rather a company called Vuze, based in Palo Alto, CA, which uses the BitTorrent protocol-perfectly legally to distribute high-?definition video over the Internet. As a video distributor, Vuze is in competition, however lopsided, with Comcast. By specifically degrading the performance of BitTorrent traffic, Vuze argued, Comcast was giving itself an unfair advantage over a smaller rival.

At the Harvard hearing, Comcast executive vice president David Cohen argued that his company had acted only during periods of severe congestion, and that it had interfered only with traffic being uploaded to its network by computers that weren't simultaneously performing downloads.

That was a good indication, Cohen said, that the computers were unattended. By slowing the uploads, he said, Comcast wasn't hurting the absent users, and it was dramatically improving the performance of other applications running over the network.

Whatever Comcast's motivations may have been, its run-in with Vuze graphically illustrates the conflict between congestion management and the principle of net neutrality. "An operator that is just managing the cost of its service by managing congestion may well have to throttle back heavy users," says Bob Briscoe, chief researcher at BT's Networks Research Centre in Ipswich, England.

"An operator that wants to pick winners and chooses to say that this certain application is a loser may also throttle back the same applications. And it's very difficult to tell the difference between the two."

To many proponents of net neutrality, the easy way out of this dilemma is for ISPs to increase the capacity of their networks. But they have little business incentive to do so. "Why should I put an enhancement into my platform if somebody else is going to make the money?" says David Clark, a senior research scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who from 1981 to 1989 was the Internet's chief protocol architect.

"Vuze is selling HD television with almost no capital expenses whatsoever," Clark says. Should an ISP spend millions-or billions-on hardware upgrades "so that Vuze can get into the business of delivering television over my infrastructure with no capital costs whatsoever, and I don't get any revenues from this?" For ISPs that also offer television service, the situation is worse. If an increase in network capacity helps services like Vuze gain market share, the ISP's massive capital outlay could actually reduce its revenues. "If video is no longer a product [the ISP] can mark up because it's being delivered over packets," Clark says, "he has no business model."

As Clark pointed out at the Harvard FCC hearing, ISPs do have the option of defraying capital expenses by charging heavy users more than they charge light users. But so far, most of them have resisted that approach. "What they have been reluctant to do is charge per byte," says Odlyzko, "or else have caps on usage-only so many gigabytes, beyond which you're hit with a punitive tariff."

The industry "is strangely attached to this one-size-fits-all model," says Timothy Wu, a Columbia Law School professor who's generally credited with coining the term "network neutrality." "They've got people used to an all-you-can-eat pricing program," Wu says, "and it's hard to change pricing plans."

Absent a change in pricing structures, however, ISPs that want to both manage congestion and keep regulators happy are in a bind. Can technology help get them out of it?

The Last Bit To BT's Bob Briscoe, talk of ISPs' unfair congestion-management techniques is misleading, because congestion management on the Internet was never fair. Telling computers to halve their data rates in the face of congestion, as the TCP protocol does, is fair only if all those computers are contributing equally to the congestion.

But in today's Internet, some applications gobble up bandwidth more aggressively than others. If my application is using four times as much bandwidth as yours, and we both halve our transmission rates, I'm still using twice as much bandwidth as you were initially. Moreover, if my gluttony is what caused the congestion in the first place, you're being penalized for my greed. "Ideally, we would want to allow everyone the freedom to use exactly what they wanted," Briscoe says. "The problem is that congestion represents the limit on other people's freedom that my freedom causes."

Briscoe has proposed a scheme in which greedy applications can, for the most part, suck up as much bandwidth as they want, while light Internet users will see their download speeds increase-even when the network is congested. The trick is simply to allot every Internet subscriber a monthly quota of high-priority data packets that get a disproportionately large slice of bandwidth during periods of congestion. Once people exhaust their quotas, they can keep using the Internet; they'll just be at the mercy of traffic conditions.

So users will want to conserve high-priority packets. "A browser can tell how big a download is before it starts," Briscoe says, and by default, the browser would be set to use the high-priority packets only for small files. For tech-savvy users who wanted to prioritize some large file on a single occasion, however, "Some little control panel might allow them to go in, just like you can go in and change the parameters of your network stack if you really want to."

Just granting users the possibility of setting traffic priorities themselves, Briscoe believes, is enough to assuage concerns about network neutrality. "I suspect that 95 percent of customers, if they were given the choice between doing that themselves or the ISP doing it for them, would just say, Oh, sod it, do it for me," Briscoe says. "The important point is they were asked. And they could have done it themselves. And I think those 5 percent that are complaining are the ones that wish they were asked."

In Briscoe's scheme, users could pay more for larger quotas of high-priority packets, but this wouldn't amount to the kind of usage cap or "punitive tariff" that Odlyzko says ISPs are wary of.

Every Internet subscriber would still get unlimited downloads. Some would just get better service during periods of congestion.

In order to determine which packets counted against a user's quota, of course, ISPs would need to know when the network is congested. And that turns out to be more complicated than it sounds. If a Comcast subscriber in New York and an EarthLink subscriber in California are exchanging data, their packets are traveling over several different networks: Comcast's, EarthLink's, and others in between.

If there's congestion on one of those networks, the sending and receiving computers can tell, because some of their packets are getting lost. But if the congestion is on Comcast's network, EarthLink doesn't know about it, and vice versa. That's a problem if the ISPs are responsible for tracking their customers' packet quotas.

Briscoe is proposing that when the sending and receiving computers recognize congestion on the link between them, they indicate it to their ISPs by flagging their packets-flipping a single bit from 0 to 1.

Of course, hackers could try to game the system, reprogramming their computers so that they deny that they've encountered congestion when they really have. But a computer whose congestion claims are consistently at odds with everyone else's will be easy to ferret out. Enforcing honesty is probably not the biggest problem for Briscoe's scheme.

Getting everyone to agree on it is. An Internet packet consists of a payload-a chunk of the Web page, video, or telephone call that's being transmitted-and a header. The header contains the Internet addresses of the sender and receiver, along with other information that tells routers and the receiving computer how to handle the packet.

When the architects of the Internet designed the Internet protocol (IP), they gave the packet header a bunch of extra bits, for use by yet unimagined services. All those extra bits have been parceled outexcept one. That's the bit Briscoe wants to use.

Among network engineers, Briscoe's ideas have attracted a lot of attention and a lot of support. But the last bit is a hard sell, and he knows it. "The difficult [part] in doing it is getting it agreed that it should be done," he says. "Because when you want to change IP, because half of the world is now being built on top of IP, it's like arguing to change-I don't know, the rules of cricket or something."

Someday, the Internet might use an approach much like ?Briscoe's to manage congestion. But that day is probably years away. A bandwidth crunch may not be.

Strange Bedfellows Most agree that the recent spike in Internet traffic is due to video downloads and peer-to-peer file transfers, but nobody's sure how much responsibility each one bears. ISPs know the traffic distributions for their own networks, but they're not disclosing them, and a given ISP's distribution may not reflect that of the Internet as a whole. Video downloads don't hog bandwidth in the way that many peer-to-peer programs do, though. And we do know that peer-to-peer traffic is the type that Comcast clamped down on.

Nonetheless, ISPs and peer-to-peer networks are not natural antagonists. A BitTorrent download may use a lot of bandwidth, but it uses it much more efficiently than a traditional download does; that's why it's so fast. In principle, peer-to-peer protocols could help distribute server load across a network, eliminating bottlenecks.

The problem, says Mung Chiang, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University (and a member of last year's TR35), is the mutual ignorance that ISPs and peer-to-peer networks have maintained in the name of net neutrality.

ISPs don't just rely on the TCP protocol to handle congestion. They actively manage their networks, identifying clogged links and routing traffic around them. At the same time, computers running BitTorrent are constantly searching for new peers that can upload data more rapidly and dropping peers whose transmissions have become sluggish.

The problem, according to Chiang, is that peer-to-peer networks respond to congestion much faster than ISPs do. If a bunch of computers running peer-to-peer programs are sending traffic over the same link, they may all see their downloads slow down, so they'll go looking for new peers.

By the time the ISP decides to route around the congested link, the peer-to-peer traffic may have moved elsewhere: the ISP has effectively sealed off a wide-open pipe. Even worse, its new routing plan might end up sending traffic over links that have since become congested.

But, Chiang says, "Suppose the network operator tells the content distributor something about its network: the route I'm using, the metric I'm using, the way I'm updating my routes. Or the other way around: the content distributor says something about the way it treats servers or selects peers."

Network efficiency improves.

An industry consortium called the P4P Working Group-led by Verizon and the New York peer-to-peer company Pando-is exploring just such a possibility. Verizon and Pando have tested a protocol called P4P, created by Haiyong Xie, a PhD student in computer science at Yale University. With P4P, both ISPs and peer-to-peer networks supply abstract information about their network layouts to a central computer, which blends the information to produce a new, hybridized network map. Peer-to-peer networks can use the map to avoid bottlenecks.

In the trial, the P4P system let Verizon customers using the Fios fiber-optic-cable service and the Pando peer-to-peer network download files three to seven times as quickly as they could have otherwise, says Laird Popkin, Pando's chief technology officer. To some extent, that was because the protocol was better at finding peers that were part of Verizon's network, as opposed to some remote network.

Scared Straight?

Every technical attempt to defeat congestion eventually runs up against the principle of net neutrality, however. Even though ?BitTorrent Inc. is a core member of the P4P Working Group, its chief technology officer, Eric Klinker, remains leery of the idea that peer-to-peer networks and ISPs would share information. He worries that a protocol like P4P could allow an ISP to misrepresent its network topology in an attempt to keep traffic local, so it doesn't have to pay access fees to send traffic across other networks.

Even David Clark's proposal that ISPs simply charge their customers according to usage could threaten neutrality. As Mung Chiang points out, an ISP that also sold TV service could tier its charges so that customers who watched a lot of high-definition Internet TV would always end up paying more than they would have for cable subscriptions. So the question that looms over every discussion of congestion and neutrality is, Does the government need to intervene to ensure that everyone plays fair?

For all Klinker's concerns about P4P, BitTorrent seems to have concluded that it doesn't. In February, Klinker had joined representatives of Vuze and several activist groups in a public endorsement of net neutrality legislation proposed by Massachusetts congressman Ed Markey. At the end of March, however, after the Harvard hearings, BitTorrent and Comcast issued a joint press release announcing that they would collaborate to develop methods of peer selection that reduce congestion.

Comcast would take a "protocol?-agnostic" approach to congestion management-targeting only heavy bandwidth users, not particular applications-and would increase the amount of bandwidth available to its customers for uploads. BitTorrent, meanwhile, agreed that, "These technical issues can be worked out through private business discussions without the need for government intervention."

The FCC, says Clark, "Will do something, there's no doubt, if industry does not resolve the current impasse." But, he adds, "its possible that the middle-of-the-road answer here is that vigilance from the regulators will impose a discipline on the market that will cause the market to find the solution."

That would be welcome news to Chiang. "Often, government legislation is done by people who may not know technology that well," he says, "and therefore they tend to ignore some of the feasibility and realities of the technology."

But Timothy Wu believes that network neutrality regulations could be written at a level of generality that imposes no ?innovation-?killing restrictions on the market, while still giving the FCC latitude to punish transgressors. There's ample precedent, he says, for broad proscriptions that federal agencies interpret on a case-by-case basis.

"In employment law, we have a general rule that says you shouldn't discriminate, but in reality we have the fact that you aren't allowed to discriminate unless you have a good reason," he says.

"Maybe somebody has to speak Arabic to be a spy. But saying you have to be white to serve food is not the same thing."

Ultimately, however, "The Internet's problems have always been best solved collectively, through its long history," Wu says. "It's held together by people being reasonable ... reasonable and part of a giant community. The fact that it works at all is ridiculous."

Three Keys To Breaking Government Gridlock Overcoming it is not a hopeless challenge. the trick is to look for issues beneath the surface Sometimes we get stuck. When action that would benefit the common good is inhibited by differences among individuals, groups, organizations or political parties, we call it gridlock.

The term of course, comes from a form of traffic congestion that sometimes occurs in cities with a grid-pattern street layout. Imagine we are experiencing congestion in an intersection. It is caused by the backup of traffic from an adjacent intersection, which is caused by a backup at another adjacent intersection, and so on. The engineering solution is not to focus on the congestion in our intersection but to go back to the root cause of the backups at those adjacent intersections.

In the public sector, we see gridlock in many varying manifestations--a city and county government that find it difficult to collaborate even when doing so would be in the interests of both; the federal government and states struggling to work out a simple formula by which states produce better results with less money while getting flexibility from the feds in how they do so; or two city department heads who block collaboration because of their mutual rivalry. And the list goes on.

So how do we overcome gridlock in government? As with traffic gridlock, the breakthroughs lie in unveiling and understanding the deeper issues below the surface. While the particulars will vary from one situation to the next, consider these three clues to discovering and dealing with the root causes of gridlock you may be experiencing. o First, gridlock is sometimes rooted in a competition over "winning" and "losing." We get stuck because, in this paradigm, success necessarily means that for one party to win, the other must lose.

The solution lies in changing the rules about winning and losing. For example, today we are conditioned to think that the debate over federal fiscal policy is a competition between Republicans and Democrats. Who will "win?" Because neither side can afford to let the other win, gridlock is perpetuated. We all lose.

Most Americans know this. Polls show they want the issue resolved. They are tired of having the common good be the loser. Could the definition of success be redefined? Could the voters decide to make the perpetuators of partisan gridlock the losers and those who sit down to work out a deal for the common good the winners? Could the media revisit how it defines this issue? o Second, gridlock can be rooted in what organizational behaviorists call "representative dynamics."

This phenomenon occurs when each constituency, organization or jurisdiction is represented by someone--a legislator, for example--to advance their interests. While representatives from differing parties might be capable of sitting down and working out solutions, their constituencies almost certainly will punish them for "selling out."

We see this in labor negotiations and jurisdictional conflicts as well as in our national fiscal debate.

"Getting primaried" has become a term of art in describing the power of intractable constituencies over their representatives.

The key to getting at this root cause is for the representatives to lead in service to the interests of their constituents rather than to follow their narrow positions. "interest-based bargaining" in which the two sides start with declarations of their interests rather than with specific proposals, is based on this principle.

In the partisan political realm, this means our elected officials would help us define our real interests rather than holding so tightly to the constricting narrow positions we have traditionally used as substitutes for those interests. It is much easier to find mutually acceptable solutions -- even to something as daunting as our fiscal challenges -- using such an approach, sometimes referred to as "win-win bargaining." o Third, we all fear change and usually avoid it if we can. Breaking gridlock often means that we have to change not only the way we define winning and losing and the way we authorize our representatives but also the way we think and the way we talk. It is not easy to get out of that rut.

Social science gives us some clues, however, and our literature is packed with examples and case studies of how to do this.

The key is building trust. In their book "Vitality: Igniting Your Organization's Spirit," my colleagues Mary and Chuck Lofy define trust as "a felt sense of safety." How can we make it safer to enact the changes that are in the interests of the common good? Are there ways to reduce the punitive behaviors that threaten those who would change? Are there safeguards that can be introduced that raise our sense of security? Is there a step-by-step approach that makes it easier for both parties to move toward the common good?

Gridlock need not be the preordained, ultimate state of things. Many cities and counties are finding breakthroughs in collaborating with one another. Many of the nation's governors have joined together to offer practical solutions to the fiscal challenges we face. School districts are working with community groups, businesses and their city governments to improve learning outcomes for kids. And in the Middle East, some Palestinians and Israelis are working together to build opportunities for peace. However large or small, these all are breakthroughs that are worth our study.

Gridlock Shuts US Government Due to government Gridlock, the US government has been shut down by the belligerent Republicans who are against Obama and also bent on destroying his legacy by demanding that the Affordable Care law be scrapped or dismantled. Up to 40-plus million stand to have a decent health coverage it has begun to unfurl today on 1 October 2013. We pick up the story as told by Rebekah L. Sanders and Erin Kelly who wrote: " With the government hurtling toward a shutdown Monday night, House Republicans scaled back their demands for delays in the nation's health-care overhaul as the price for essential federal funding. But Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama rejected the proposals as quickly as they were made, leading to the first shutdown of the federal government in nearly 18 years and setting off another round of the blame game between political parties.

In the 11th hour, House Speaker John Boehner called for a committee to be formed between the House and Senate to work out a way to keep the government running.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rebuffed the overture, and House Democrats crowed that Boehner had rejected past offers to form a special committee.

Some Arizona voters, fed up with the stalemate in Congress, pledged to play a blame game of their own and punish both parties in the next election.

"I blame all of them: every senator, every congressman and the president. Our political leaders are no longer doing what they were elected to do," said Lynn McNerney, an independent from Peoria.

"They don't seem to care that while they're digging in their heels, they're hurting a lot of people."

During a long day and night at the Capitol, the Democratic-controlled Senate torpedoed the House GOP's third attempt to tie government financing to changes in the Affordable Care Act, this time delaying by a year a cornerstone of the law, the individual mandate that requires all uninsured people to purchase coverage by Jan. 1 or pay a penalty.

The same measure also would require members of Congress and their aides, as well as the president, vice president and the administration's political appointees, to bear the full cost of their own health-care coverage. The vote was 228-201.

Arizona's four Republican House members supported the measure, as did two of its Democratic members, Reps. Kyrsten Sinema and Ron Barber, who represent swing districts and joined only seven others from their party in bucking leadership. Sinema of Phoenix and Barber of Tucson have said they support some changes to the law, though not a full repeal.

Sinema said too many states are behind schedule on creating online marketplaces where families and individuals can find medical plans.

"It's not fair to punish people who don't have the information they need to make informed decisions," she said in a written statement. "A one-year delay of the individual mandate will ensure that Arizonans get that certainty."

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., who also represents a swing district and supported a one-year delay of the individual mandate this summer, did not advocate for it Monday night, nor did Arizona's two remaining House Democrats.

The Flagstaff congresswoman couldn't support the delay again because "this time around, the House GOP is playing games," Kirkpatrick spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson said.

Republicans "took this approach knowing it could result in a government shutdown that would hurt millions of Americans," Johnson said. "Rep. Kirkpatrick has been consistently clear that she wants to vote on a clean [continuing resolution]."

But US Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., said it's Democrats who have stuck to their guns, putting the paychecks of hundreds of thousands of federal workers and federal services, including national parks, at risk. Some critical parts of the government -- from the military to air-traffic control -- would remain open.

"The House is the one that keeps compromising," Schweikert said, minutes after walking off the floor from a vote. "We've engaged in lots of movement here, from a complete defunding of 'Obamacare' to a delay to now just a delay on the individual mandate."

He noted that Obama is promising to veto changes to the law despite already delaying parts of it himself, such as the mandate for businesses to purchase insurance coverage.

"What I'm seeing is a duplicity from the Democrats," Schweikert said.

That's not how Phoenix voter Michael Spillane sees it. The Democratic retired military veteran said a

small group of conservatives in Congress should be held responsible for a government shutdown.

"After 43 times of trying to defund [the health-care law] and after losing an election where the president garnered 5 million more votes than Mitt Romney did and Obamacare was front and center in that election, there's no other group to blame," said Spillane, 63.

Despite the government shutdown, the online health-insurance marketplaces provided under the Affordable Care Act were scheduled to open today.

Two major polls released Monday showed a majority of Americans felt the same way as Spillane.

About six in 10 Americans -- 63 percent -- disapproved of the way Republicans were handing the budget standoff, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll.

In a separate poll by CNN/ORC, 69 percent of Americans said Republicans were acting like "spoiled children" in the budget showdown. That compares with 58 percent who said the same about Democrats and 48 percent who said it about Obama.

"It's wishful thinking by Republicans that they're going to be able to blame [Democrats]," said Fred Lokken, a political-science professor at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno.

Still, there is political danger for incumbents in both parties, he said.

"The level of disgust that American voters have toward Congress has reached an all-time high," Lokken said. "They look at Washington, and they see a train wreck."

As lawmakers squabbled, Obama urged House Republicans to abandon demands he said were designed to "save face after making some impossible promises to the extreme right of their party."

Speaking of the health-care law that undergoes a major expansion today, he said emphatically, "That funding is already in place. You can't shut it down."

Boehner responded a few hours later on the House floor. "The American people don't want a shutdown, and neither do I," he said. Yet, he added, the new health-care law "is having a devastating impact. ... Something has to be done."

US Rep. Paul Gosar said his constituents want the law overturned and warned Democrats were "misreading the cards."

Arizonans such as Greg Thatcher agreed.

"I would blame Obama. He will not negotiate with the Republicans at all, so it's in his court. He just flat out said, 'No,' so it's his fault," the Chandler resident said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

In a related article, but this time looking at the effects and affects of this government shut down is an article by Erin Kelly titled "Looming Government shutdown could have wide-ranging impact": WASHINGTON -- If the federal government shuts down next week, a development that appeared increasingly likely Thursday, it could have a wide-ranging impact on Arizonans.

Whether it amounts to an annoyance or serious financial hardship could depend on how long the partial shutdown lasts.

If it's just a few days, most Arizonans probably won't even notice. But a longer shutdown could prevent people from receiving unemployment checks, getting passports, applying for veterans benefits, obtaining gun permits, visiting the Grand Canyon and applying for loans to pay for college, buy homes or help small businesses.

Many of the approximately 55,000 federal employees who live, work and spend money in Arizona would be furloughed without pay. Whether they would recoup those wages when the government reopens remains unclear.

Arizonans who serve in the military -- including those on active duty in Afghanistan -- would stay on the job without paychecks while the civilians who worked with them were furloughed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned of the impacts in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday as he urged lawmakers to avert a shutdown.

"If the federal government closes its doors, seniors applying for Social Security and veterans applying for disability could be forced to wait until federal workers return to their posts," Reid warned.

"Across the country, mortgage loans and small-business loans could be delayed. Members of the United States military could be forced to defend this country without even a paycheck as thanks.

And billions of dollars will drain from the economy every day the government is closed for business."

But House Republicans vowed Thursday that they won't simply accept the stopgap legislation that is likely to remain after Senate Democrats strip away a plan to dismantle President Barack Obama's health-care law.

And a sense of confusion settled over the House, both over how to avoid a shutdown and how to handle even more important legislation to increase the government's borrowing ability to avert a default on US obligations.

Short of votes, House leaders shelved a vote that had been expected this weekend on the debt-limit measure and gave frustrated GOP lawmakers few clues about what they plan to do to avert a shutdown.

Washington faces two deadlines: the Oct. 1 start of the new budget year and a mid-October date -now estimated for the 17th -- when the government can no longer borrow money to pay its bills on time and in full.

The last time the government shut down, for 27 days in late 1995 and early 1996, it cost the economy about $60 billion in today's dollars, Reid said. The cost to the government alone was about $2 billion in today's currency, according to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service.

Much of that cost was from the government winding down operations and then ramping back up when the shutdown ended.

So, why is Congress on the brink of doing it again? It comes down to an ideological battle over the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 health-care law better known as "Obamacare."

Republicans, especially those in the House, view the law as a massive government takeover of health care and want to repeal it and replace it with a plan of their own. That's unlikely to happen as long as Democrats are in the majority in the Senate and a Democratic president sits in the White House.

So, House Republicans have latched onto a spending resolution aimed at keeping the government open past Monday, when fiscal 2013 ends. Last week, they attached a provision to that resolution that would fund the federal government through Dec. 15 while stripping the Affordable Care Act of its funding.

The resolution passed the House and has been sent to the Democratic-led Senate, which is poised to pass a resolution today that keeps the government open but does not touch Obamacare. Most Democrats view the health-care law as crucial to providing affordable medical insurance to people who have none.

Once the Senate passes its funding resolution, the measure will go back to the House. House members will then have to decide whether to approve, reject or revise the Senate bill. If they reject it, the government will shut down on Tuesday. The same thing would likely happen if they sent a revised bill back to the Senate.

The gridlock stems from the fact that Congress has grown more divided as fewer moderates have been elected and more ideologically driven politicians on the right and left have taken their place, said David Rohde, a political-science professor at Duke University.

"The two political parties have become so polarized that it becomes harder and harder to produce a piece of legislation," Rohde said. "The price they are willing to pay for their ideology is huge -including shutting down the government."

Both parties are blaming each other.

"As they did in the '90s, today's radical Republicans have called for concessions they know Democrats will never agree to," Reid said. "The Senate will never pass, nor will President Obama sign, a bill that guts the Affordable Care Act and denies millions of Americans access to lifesaving health care. 'Tea party' Republicans have demanded the impossible and vowed to shut down the government unless they get it."

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., blamed the Democrats.

"The liberal media and the Democrats have demonized and mischaracterized this exercise of Congress' constitutional power over the purse as an irresponsible and futile attempt to shut down the government," Franks wrote in an op-ed in Thursday's Washington Times. "Mr. Obama is threatening to shut down the government, not the Republicans."

If the government shuts down, it would be a partial closure that exempts federal employees who are deemed essential to protect the health and safety of people and property. In Arizona, that includes Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexican border.

An estimated 59 percent of non-defense federal employees would be exempt from the shutdown and would go to work as usual, according to a USA Today analysis of 119 shutdown contingency plans filed with the Office of Management and Budget. Those plans were filed in 2011 when the federal government nearly shut down.

Agencies that don't rely on annual funding for Congress also would continue to operate normally.

That would include the US Postal Service and the Federal Highway Administration.

In Arizona, state officials are skeptical the shutdown will really happen because Congress has managed to avert several previously threatened closures at the last minute.

John Arnold, director of Gov. Jan Brewer's Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting, said he called state agency directors, "And everybody's dusting off their books on what to do."

"A lot depends on what the feds do and how long it lasts," Arnold said.

The many state agencies that use federal funds could keep operating in the short term, using cash on hand, Arnold said.

For example, Arizona's unemployment-insurance program is funded by local contributions from employers, so those dollars would continue to flow. But administration of the program is paid for by the federal government. So, it might be closed because there would not be anyone to run it if the shutdown was a long one, Arnold said.

Officials also were preparing for a possible shutdown of Arizona's signature natural attraction -- the Grand Canyon, along with other national parks.

Jessica Kershaw, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Interior, which oversees the parks, said the agency is making plans "for executing an orderly shutdown."

"This planning is consistent with what was done in previous instances where a potential lapse in appropriations was approaching," she said. "The specific details of those plans are still under development and review."

During the 2011 budget showdown, the agency planned to close all national parks, including the Grand Canyon.

An October shutdown would come after the park's busy summer season has ended and shortly before the North Rim begins winding down for the winter.

Still, the Canyon has averaged more than 350,000 visitors each of the past 10 Octobers. That's more than 10,000 people per day, and the biggest losses would likely come earlier in the month, especially on the first weekend.

Julie Aldaz, general manager of the Red Feather Lodge outside the park, said the lodge remained booked through the middle of October, though a shutdown is already creating problems.

"We have seen some cancellations, and that's what they say," Aldaz said. "It's scary because it's our last three weeks to make our income."

John Tatham, president of the Grand Canyon Chamber of Commerce, said businesses in the area have not received advisories about a closure. Many of the tourists at the Canyon this time of year are foreign visitors who probably aren't following the situation in Washington closely anyway, he said.

"In Tusayan, we're doing fine," Tatham said.

Arizona and the Grand Canyon served as an entertaining sideshow during the last government shutdown in 1995-96.

Then-Gov. Fife Symington marched to the Canyon with unarmed National Guard troops in a dramatic bid to keep the park open. Although largely for show, it did lead the Pentagon to warn that it might bring the Guard under its control.

Arizona paid $370,000 to keep a portion of the park open during the shutdown, though the money was ultimately returned.

Arizona travelers also could be affected by a shutdown in passport services.

An official with the US State Department said Thursday that the agency could not say how passport applications would be affected.

In 2011, however, it planned a wide-ranging shutdown. "For all practical purposes, passport offices will be closed for the acceptance of new applications," the agency said in a release at that time.

The impact of the potential federal shutdown at military installations in Arizona is uncertain.

"Right now, since we don't have word on what's going to happen, we haven't taken any actions," said Staff Sgt. Angela Ruiz, spokeswoman for Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

Base leaders are awaiting guidance from the Pentagon, she said.

As many as 900 civilian employees at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale could be furloughed, said Brig. Gen. Michael Rothstein, commander of the 56th Fighter Wing the base.

"We're going to coordinate with our higher headquarters up to the DOD [Department of Defense], trying to get down to a discreet name-by-name list of who would be furloughed if that were to happen," he said.

The specific number of employees who would be affected depends on how many are deemed to be essential.

Meanwhile, military personnel would continue to work and earn pay, but they wouldn't be paid until after the shutdown. Because Air Force personnel typically get paid at the middle and end of each month, they may not even notice an interruption, Rothstein said.

Republic reporters Mary Jo Pitzl, Ronald Hansen and Paul Giblin and the Associated Press contributed to this article..The Hub above has been about all types of gridlock, and we are now in the worse stage of the government shut down. More than 800,000 workers were told to stay home with no promise of their back pays. This shut down is going to have far reach effects.

It is ironic that this shut down has nothing to do with anything but an effort to destroy Obama's legacy and leadership. The racism that has reared its head through the Tea Baggers, has continued to fight(supported by the Koch brothers), that even if Obama is not going to run for presidency again, the effort to undercut and destroy his rule has continued without any distraction or stopping.

In the process of these acts being carried out by the GOP, the American people are the ones who are bearing the brunt of this dislocation. The GOP has been aggressively launching a political attack on

the government workers, and this is in an effort to undermine democracy and the rule of law and government assistance to the poor. Erin Kelly wrote the following article on this issue: "Update Whilst the world is watching, perplexed at the goings on within the American Government, the GOP has made another of their insidious moves. When Obama made the announcement that he was encouraging the people with insurances to leave them and join the ACA, the GOP made hay and created hillocks out of the the pronouncement.

The devious insurance companies began dropping the insured people(which the Obama administration called 'junk' and the reaction was massive. Seeing that opening, the Republicans and their Tea Bagger minions seized on the opportunity and attacked Obama.

Seem the political implication of the attack, now recently, Obama issued an apology for 'mspeaking. and now, the House(under Republican sway) has just passed a proposal that allows those insured to keep their insurances past 2014, with an eye towards defunding and repealing ACA. This was in line with the GOP's aims to get rid of the so-called Obama care, which, thus far, they had failed to repeal. Obama answered by saying that the proposal from the Republican House will be denied, and the GOP is setting itself up for the next fight.

It is important to note that the GOP has no other alternative plan to replace the ACA if they were to get their way. It is one of the opportunistic maneuvers that the republicans are trying to seize upon, and knowing that it will not be signed by Obama, have begun to make it an issue.

It is an issue so long, as for the Republican, it obscures much more important issues like Immigration Reform and Job Creation. So long as the attention of the nation could be focused on what the Republicans say is the declining of Obama's popularity, though they do not point out to their unfavorable and falling popularity with the American, they are nonplussed and chugging ahead making the scrapping of "Obamacare" their main priority.

Undergirding the repeal "Obamacare" wails from theGOP, is their total hatred and dislike of Obama as the American President and the fact that he is an African American who rules America. This smokescreen has made the FOP to be arrogant and to forge ahead with their failing strategy of doing away with the ACA which is ow Law. They even choose to ignore the fact that in the most recent election they lost dismally, and in their denial, try to refocus on the issue they have lost on-'repealing Obamacare,' and their devastating defeat in the most recent elections, as in the national election, wherein the American people sent them a message that they want the ACA to be implemented.

Without any new ideas and contribution towards a better healthcare program, the GOP is content with the gridlock and blocking of Obama's implementation of programs that help the middle-class and the poor of America.

Their arrogance presents and displays their dislike and hatred of Obama, not because he cannot govern, but because their Aim, form the time he took power, was to make Obama a one time Presidency, and that all that he wanted to do for the American people, even if it was the GOP's ideas, should fail and make him look bad.

Well, it seems like the computer glitches associated with the ACA launching since October 1 2013 are being managed and fixed, and by the end of November, as the Obama administration promised, we might begin to see some improvement, that by January, as they have predicted, everything will be flowing smoothly for new registrants.