Happy 2024!—Let’s Give a Shout Out to Technology

by Guy Heston

To celebrate the holidays we decided to treat ourselves to two nights at the Fontainebleau, the newest hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. At 63 stories it is the tallest building in Las Vegas and a swell joint that I highly recommend. It is also a decidedly high tech joint.

Being a senior, I try very hard to accommodate and appreciate new technology. When we moved from our 100 year old house where the light switches were a simple matter of up for on and down for off, I eventually learned the intricacies of our new house where the light switches (I guess I really shouldn’t call them switches), are mini-control panels, and can be remotely controlled from your phone. I have gotten used to and appreciate them.

But our room at The Fontainebleau threw me for a loop. There were control panels everywhere. I first noticed there wasn’t one of those plastic door hangers where you advise the staff you either want your room to be serviced or not. No, there was a control panel where you chose “service” or “privacy”. If you chose privacy, a little red LED light came on outside the door. So far so good and saving the planet from more plastic waste.

Then there were the control panels for the lights and drapes. Did you want all of the lights on or all of the lights off? Just the bathroom lights on? Dimmed lights? Bedside lights? The bedside control panel slightly resembled an I-Pad, and my favorite option was turn everything off so I could rest in peace. I never did figure out how to turn the bathroom lights out, so I just closed the door and tried not to feel guilty about wasting energy.

And then there were the drapes that seemed to have a mind of their own. I swear to you I did not touch anything, but twice they decided to close on their own. Luckily, I found an option on one of the control panels that had three options for the drapes—“Drapes Open,” “Drapes Closed” and “Drapes Stop”, plus the same three options for the sheers. I really wanted the drapes to stop messing with me but figured the drapes open was the better option. Viola! The drapes reopened to our view of The Strip. Twice.

And there was this little gizmo on the coffee table in the shape and approximate size of a bow tie. The Fontainebleau is bow tie themed, right down to the carpet. But as I sat there staring at it I wondered what this gizmo did. I eventually figured out each side of the bow tie had q-codes for the restaurants, bars, etc. So the days of the little printed booklet with hotel information are apparently numbered. I’ll get over it.

The high tech telephone vaguely frightened me so I just left it alone and figured if there was an emergency I could just press “O” and shout “Help!” I never did figure out how to activate the hotel internet and decided two days off the grid might be a blessing in disguise. It was.

Turns out I am not alone. Brian Merchant of The Los Angeles Times in his December 28 column, “Smart and Dumb Devices: A List of Grievances”, summarized readers’ gripes about technology. Comments were offered about Waze, Ring, keyless entry systems, self checkout and so forth.

I suspect most of the comments were from seniors.

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Why do we have all these Christmas things?

If you are anything like me you have enjoyed the sights, sounds, events and traditions of Christmas time  without giving much thought to how these things have come to be.  Let's take a few minutes to consider some of the history behind this annual festival and how it shapes today's and tomorrow's world.

Religious origins

To begin with what should be obvious:  Christmas is an English language word to denote the festival of the birth of Jesus of Bethlehem during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus.   Other languages use other words.  Navidad is Spanish for the same event; in Italian it is Natale, German-speakers will say Weihnachten, with the French it is Noël, and there are numerous others.  Greek was widely spoken in the Empire, especially in the eastern regions where Christianity first took hold, and was a type of lingua franca for the next fifteen centuries; notably, the Greek word for savior is Khrīstos (as rendered for our contemporary English-speaking convenience).  The first reference of a Khrīstos mass occurred about one thousand years ago.  Centuries before, by the year 336 the Christian bishop in Rome had selected December 25 as the date to recognize the birth of Jesus.  No evidence -- whether secular or religious -- of the validity of that or any other date has been found. In any case, it was an inspired choice by positioning a celebration of the growing religion of Christianity near to the long-established and popular festivities of Saturnalia for the winter equinox.

Yule log

The yule log tradition dates its beginning to long-ago European cultures, probably prior to the Roman Empire.  Its origins can be found in pre-Christian festivals celebrating the winter solstice.  So, yes, it can be said to have roots in pagan culture.  As an accessory to the Medieval European Christian celebration, the yule log is traditionally a very large piece of wood placed on a hearth of suitable size, first fired on Christmas Eve and rekindled each of the twelve days of Christmas.  As the centuries passed the use of the hearth for providing warmth declined, and with that change the dragging of a large hunk of wood into the house became needlessly onerous and impractical.  However, we can thank the creativity of 18th and 19th century French bakers for the continued existence of the yule log in its contemporary form as a dessert -- the bûche de Noël.  Vive la France! Variations include the Bismarckeiche ("Bismarck oak") in Germany; the Italian tonchetto di Natale; and the Vietnamese bánh khúc cây giáng sinh ("Christmas tree log cake").

Music

Christmas music -- both sacred and secular -- is so numerous as to be beyond concise description.  However, the brief carol "Silent Night" has a particularly touching origin:  On Christmas Eve of the year 1818 the young Austrian priest Joseph Mohr realized that his church organ was likely to be unusable due to water damage from a nearby flooded river.  It was his previously-written poem that became the lyrics for Silent Night when Mohr -- a skilled player of the guitar -- asked his friend  Franz Xaver Gruber to set it to music suitable for the guitar.  Gruber quickly accomplished this for a portion of the poem and the evening service included the guitar-strumming performance.  Humble beginnings, indeed, for a piece that has been translated from the original German into at least 300 other languages, earned a UNESCO Heritage designation, and can be found in a heavy metal arrangement.

Christmas tree

Honors are due to the peoples of Germany for creating the Christmas tree (although Latvia and Estonia both claim to have been first in this event).  Strasbourg -- now in France, but then in Germany -- is mentioned as introducing fir trees decorated with apples by 1605, and its Cathedral likely had a Christmas tree in 1539.  In 1554 the nearby city of Freiburg prohibited the felling of trees for Christmas uses because the practice had become so pervasive.  A Silesian duchess is known to have placed candles on Christmas trees in 1611.  The custom of using greens, such as tree branches, to decorate for various holidays was already common in Germany and other parts of Europe; expanding to the once-a-year use of an entire tree was probably an easy development for some folks.  But the use of Christmas trees spread slowly.  England and its American colonies delayed in adopting the Christmas tree practice.  It was not until 1840 that Prince Albert (originally from Germany) and Queen Victoria popularized the idea of having a Christmas tree.  It caught on in Britain and easily spread to the United States.

Those quirky and influential English

Long before the time of Victoria and Albert the English were remarkable for the extravagance and lengthiness of their Christmas celebrations.  In the centuries following the Norman conquest of 1066 those who were wealthy and fortunate hosted feasts and celebrations that spanned several days around Christmas.  (The pre-conquest Saxon/Danish/Norse population was predominately Christian, but was not known to have given much thought to Christmas-time celebrations.  The renowned Saxon King Alfred the Great of Wessex was devout and pious, but suffered from serious digestive problems and probably gave little thought to hosting lavish buffets.)  English Heritage describes medieval Christmas affairs with these observations:

Medieval people really let rip with twelve full days of Christmas festivities, reaching a crescendo on 6 January, 'Twelfth Night', when presents were exchanged. . .Medieval celebrations also combined the servants-as-masters antics and gift-giving of  Roman Saturnalia with customs belonging to the midwinter feast of Yule. These included the Yule Log (kept burning throughout the season), decorating houses with evergreens and eating richly decorated boar's heads, sometimes washed down with mulled 'braggot', extra-strong ale with honey and cinnamon, spiked with brandy.

Boisterous medieval festivities were directed by a Lord of Misrule, whose word was law. The Christmas games he ordered could be rough; among the tamest was 'Hot Cockles', where blindfolded victims had to guess who'd slapped them from behind. If the guess was right, the slapper became the victim. Blending devotion with drunken partying, medieval Christmases were also important state occasions, when kings ceremonially wore their crowns at feasts and lawgivings. . .Tudor Christmases were even more full-on than medieval, but were a tad less boisterous, at least at Court. . .This was also a time for plays (like Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'). . .

Fast-forwarding to 1645 finds England convulsed by civil war, with the Parliamentarians gaining the advantage over the royalty.  Puritans -- those who aimed to "purify" English society and religion by removing all vestiges of paganism, a portion of whom were the majority of settlers in New England -- discerned paganism in Christmas celebrations and so caused Parliament to officially declare that Christmas was not a holiday with religious services.  In 1647 Parliament banned all Christmas festivities and celebrations.  Popular feelings in favor of Christmas celebrations were supressed until 1660 when the monarchy was restored under Charles II.  The Puritanical inclination towards constant hard work and limited (or no) play was overcome by royal support of the natural human desire for occasional festivity.  King Charles is credited with reopening theaters and restarting traditions such as decorating churches with holly, sponsoring Christmas-oriented games, banquets and dances.  

Some of this seeped into Colonial America where it took root and survived the colonialist rejection of the monarchy.  Nor did it merely survive; it evolved and prospered.  Even as the English author Charles Dickens strongly influenced the development of new Christmas attitudes in Victorian culture, his popularity in America caused similar acceptance here.  The historical Saint Nicholas predates Dickens and the Victorians by many centuries, but the Saturday Evening Post and Coca-Cola images of Santa Claus and other similar manifestations of that quantum theory elf are contemporary lineal descendants of A Christmas Carol.

Both sacred and secular

These brief perspectives are inherently European and American in their heritage, and so can only acknowledge that there are also other Christmas experiences from entirely different cultures:  Shinto and Buddhist Japan, Hindu India, Catholic and Indigenous Latin America, Africa, Asia and even Orthodox Christianity.  

I think that what is common to all is this: Our own individual experiences, as well as those that are historical, show the events and activities of Christmas time as a fusion of both the sacred and the secular.  The product of that fusion is a flexible environment that helps us to communicate seasonal messaging to family and friends, provide others with some charity, enjoy the time with its frivolities and festivities and take some contentment from the hope that we each do our own little part to make the world a better place.

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Let’s Hear It for Infrastructure Maintenance!

 (By Guy Heston.)

Americans seem to take our infrastructure for granted. Turn on the faucet and here comes the water. Flick a switch and on come the lights. The gas company will make sure you are warm in the winter. We expect everything to work with nothing more to think about than paying the monthly bill, which we gripe about but pay anyway to keep the lights and heat on, and with precious little thought about what has to go on to make all of the infrastructure function.

We are making a mistake with this thought. Infrastructure requires ongoing investment and maintenance to keep everything working. It doesn’t happen magically, and if we don’t pay for it through our utility bills, taxes and programs to help those less fortunate keep the lights on, we will suffer the consequences—blackouts, worse floods and fire damage, roads in disrepair, more unhoused people because they can’t pay the bill and so forth. Yes, there will always be natural disasters such as the recent fire in Maui and Category 3 hurricane in Florida, but well built and maintained infrastructure can often greatly lessen the damage and heartbreak.

I worked in public transportation for three decades and was always amazed by elected officials’ lack of interest in infrastructure maintenance. I could always find federal grants to fund new buses, transit centers, customer amenities and the like, and it was a given that we had to have a public event to celebrate the arrival of new buses or the opening of a new transit center, where elected officials could talk about what had been accomplished for the community and show off shiny new stuff. Great photo opportunities for the press.

Maintenance of such infrastructure was another matter, and in my experience a topic that politicians found about as interesting as watching an egg boil.  When I would explain the importance of keeping up the infrastructure the taxpayers had invested in, slightly glazed eyes seemed to be the order of the day. There was even a rule (since thankfully modified), that federal transit funds could not be spent on maintenance. More than once I was told by an elected official that operational expenses for a new project was my problem, not theirs.

When each fiscal year I would draft our transit system's proposed budget, my first order of business was to talk to the maintenance staff. What do we need to keep things running? Resealed shop floors, reupholstering of bus seats, that sort of thing. Nothing sexy about it but kept things running in a good state of order. And for newly proposed capital projects I learned to ask how we were going to keep said projects well maintained. Some of them were cancelled because I didn’t get a good answer.

I was once asked to participate in a focus group on the strategic future of the California State University. The faculty members of the group, rightly so, talked about the importance of student outcomes and investing in faculty. When it came my turn to comment I said it was also important to invest in the maintenance of the 23 CSU campuses infrastructure. I proffered that we were sitting in a lovely classroom near the grassy, tree lined campus quad and that it took money to keep everything functioning so the faculty could teach and the students learn. Based on the quizzical looks I received you would have thought I had just landed from Mars. The faculty members looked at me with the interest of watching an egg boil.  I glanced at the chief facilities officer of the university who was also participating in the group and we exchanged slight smiles and kept quiet.

So here is my proposal. Let’s make our nation’s infrastructure maintenance glamorous. A newly resurfaced road with Beyonce dancing on it in a TikTok video? Barbie sitting in a bus with new seats and a refurbished engine (yes, well maintained buses are needed during an emergency evacuation)? Harry Styles showing off a new maintenance shop floor? I realize that none of this is likely to happen, but perhaps it is time to reimagine our nation’s approach to infrastructure and remind our elected officials that decide on the use of taxpayer dollars that maintenance may not be glamorous but is critical in everyday life and even more so when a natural disaster strikes. Well maintained roads, water systems, power grids,  public transit buses and the like keep our collective lives running.

Sexy, no. Needed, yes.

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