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Show Sunday, I t hruili y 1 1. 19 THE DAILY HERALD. Provo, Utah Page 11 'Edison Effect' timely, apt metaphor for presidential primary Bv AL GORE ' When Iowans gather at their party caucuses Monday night to .choose a presidential nominee, 2j?any will pause to honor the American hero born on that date, i Abraham Lincoln. But permit me to launch the ; birthday festivities one day early, because Sunday marks the ' anniversary of the birth of another American legend a hero whose ; spirit can also guide our last pres- idential election of the 20th centu-!rJ ! y. Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in a small village in Ohio. A childhood accident made it difficult for Edison to hear but from an early age, Edison could see the future more keenly than ! ; ! I ; any of his contemporaries. The fruits of his imagination fell regularly to the ground, often with such force that their tremors still rumble a century later. His first major invention was a stock market ticker, a brainchild that has now become a welter of computers, phone lines, and high-- ; tech terminals that spit out real-- i time information for investors ! ; . ' ; ; around the world. Edison's phonograph and his motion picture Vitascope gave life to today's CDs and VCRs, and left IbsonrationG a lasting imprint on American culture and world entertainment. And then, of course, there's the incandescent light bulb, Edison's signature achievement, which has become so ubiquitous that we appreciate its magic only when it's absent. But to scientists, Edison's most important breakthrough was a discovery that was more abstract, that never made him any money and that turns out to be extremely relevant to the next election and the coming century. During his experiments on the incandescent bulb, Edison discovered that by heating a filament, he could convert heat into light. Without fully understanding it, he had discovered thermionic emission electrons fly off the filament, carrying energy with them sometimes known as the The telecommunications bill that President Clinton signed on This discovery spurred the Thursday legislation that development of television tubes passed with overwhelming biparand radio tubes, and forged the tisan is another examsupport foundation of the modern elecple of this Edison Effect brought tronics industry. to Washington. Of course, vacuum tubes were The principle is the same: in the form eventually replaced by transistors, Inject a shot of heat which themselves have been sup- of robust competition and the intellectual electrons and complanted by integrated circuits. But as a political metaphor, the mercial energy will unleash. Edison Effect endures. For most But deny that initial dose of of this century, the federal governheat, and the electrons won't ment has helped heat the filabudge. ments of science in the hopes of Which brings us back to Monsparking energy and innovation it day's Iowa caucuses. Among the never directly intended and couldfundamental decisions voters will n't probably imagine. make during the 1996 election By funding basic science, the season is whether our leaders are federal government has fueled the committed to a public atmosphere innovations that eventually pro- that nurtures innovation and duced drugs that fight diseases, progress that stokes the condichemicals that clean up pollution, tions for new technologies, better and computer networks that shoot jobs, and a cleaner environment. across the planet. Woven into this decision are Government didn't select three national questions: Are we which innovations flew into the pushing back the frontiers of scientific knowledge? marketplace. It simply kindled the coils, Are we reforming government which permitted the most promis- in harmony with the Information ing innovations to leap outward Age? and into people's lives. And are we providing the Edi- son Effect. spark for private innovation? These are crucial questions, and how we answer them may well determine the route our country takes into the new millennium. So, in the early days of the Abandoning commonalities risky proposition By WILLIAM B. DICKINSON Our Native American guide at the Taos Pueblo looks to be a contemporary woman. She's a single parent and a semester short of a degree from a college in Colorado. Her English is flawless; her garb is .that of the ski slope, not the kiva. .;. Yet she has chosen to live as her -- ancestors did, without indoor flumbing or electricity. That's t required of those who stay in one d adobe apartment of the buildings that have been occupied three-tiere- .since 1450 A.D. Today, as then, she draws her water in a jar from the Rio Pueblo flowing down from the sacred Blue Lake high in the i Sangre de Cristo Mountains. She's one of a diminished num-be- r of her people still living within the crumbled ancient walls. Most : Taos Indians moved decades ago outside the sacred precincts to comfortable homes, single financed under a federal housing program. The lure of modern amenities is understandable. As vshe tells us, "It's tough to get up in the middle of the night during a "blizzard, climb down ladders and walk outside the walls in order to use a bathroom." Every year there are fewer neighbors. Most of the j units find a use only during tribal .Ifites and feasts. A visitor cannot help but be rfioved by her devotion to the old -- ways. It is the same admiration one reserves for monks in cold cells practicing vows of silence. This woman keeps alive a cultural ' flame threatened with extinction. But an Anglo visitor should not this determined romanticize r' woman's search for spiritual conti most Taos For reasons, good nuity. Indians have chosen a path that leads to assimilation. Although there is an Indian school on pueblo property, many children are bused 'into Taos to public schools. The "Tewa language must be passed down orally, generation to generation no easy task. Intermarriage has been common since the days of Spanish colonization. Most employment opportunities exist elsewhere. ., t see tne laos rrueoio as a"metaphor in the growing national "debate over multiculturahsm in America. In what we perceive to be an increasingly impersonal and homogenized society, we seek to define ourselves bv race, reli gion, economic status, geographi Mm ... i 1 1 cal location, political beiieis, lan guage, musical tastes, even by the teams we cheer on game day. But most of us sublimate these sepa ratist tendencies, knowing that we must function in the broader soci ety for a common good. Until the common cause. Or look at some of the new town projects, such as Celebration, Florida, where the Walt Disney Company Guost Opinion some 20,000 over the next 15 to 20 years. The Economist (Nov. 25, 1995) describes this 49,000-acr- e project as "a haven apart" that or recreate "aims to create a sense of place that is lacking in the soulless 'edge cities' that have sprung up around America." Don't be surprised if this kind of enclave becomes the wave of our housing future. ed Our abandonment of the idea of commonality has an economic dimension. Malcolm Gladwell points out that the belief that the problem of poverty could be conand fronted, comprehended resolved shaped American social policy from the Progressive era through the New Deal and the Great Society of the 1960s. No longer. "The confidence that held sway for a century is gone," Glad-we- ll Mi writes (Washington Post National Weekly, Dec. With America's political and economic elite looking out for No. 1, it's no wonder that less powerful groups are looking for their own hidey-hole- s. Some find it in racial identity, leading, for example, to such extremes as a strike by black students at College of Holy Cross over the right to limit leadership of the Black Students' Union to students of African descent. The idea of a White Students" Union would be, of course, unacceptable. Other groups find it by clinging to the language of their old country, sometimes to the subordination of the English language. The irony of the bilingualism movement is that English is well on its way to becoming the world's common language. Some see the attack on English as but one manifestation of a broader offensive against Eurocentric origins of America's political, legal and ethical system. "For the most fervent of the multiculturalists, the enemy is nothing less than the Western culture in all its aspects," writes Conor Cruise O'Brien ("On the Eve of the Millennium," 1995). "When these people say 'Western culture's got to go,' they are calling for the departure of the only culture they actually have ... It is of living Kansas. Lawrence, I w 11-1- 7, 1995). Tellingly, the hot button in American politics today is the "flat a repudiation of the idea tax" that at some point there is a limit to accumulated wealth and a duty to share. Todav we are in danger of becoming what could be called cultural The Enclave Society. People are Perhaps there's a middle ground subdividing themselves, not just as that somehow will avoid the balkaexercises in nostalgia out as an nization of American society and outgrowth of fear and paranoia. tribal-lik- e infighting that could Survivalists hole up in me mounin the next century. us tear apart tains of Idaho. Religious cults pre- - Our at the Taos Pueblo guide nan fnr the end of the world at the strikes me as a special case, millennium. Even some of the less admirable as an individual but one we how extreme examples show of the last of her kind. The pueblo are losing faith m tne American already is peopled largely by dream of assimilation. because separate societies ghosts ' Consider the growth all across cannot endure. Value is to be found the America of "eated" communi in knowing and honoring the past, ties, characterized by expensive but only if it helps us work out our surrounded by and our future. dpndos or homes by present ff nces or walls and patrolled are William B. Dickinson is a freeThese private security forces. in lance writer not just architectural statements. confidence in They reveal a loss of if is developing a town that is expect- ed to grow from zero today to W to ff j. R. Alert Gift With Purchase Your free gift with any $40 purchase of Giorgio Beverly Hills: Red cosmetic bag with sponge, .2 oz. Eau de Toilette Spray and 1 oz. Shower Gel. Cosmetics !Z C IVI I A 1996 presidential campaign, let us pose these questions, and let us do so in honor of the man born today who embodied their importance. Al Gore is vice president of the United States. |