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Modern technology is being driven by Capitalism. Some may consider that a good thing. After all, it brings us new drugs to combat diseases, more fuel-efficient motor vehicles, better ways to communicate over long distances.

That’s why, three months ago, I purchased the latest cordless telephone system from Panasonic.

DECT 6.0 technology is supposed to be more efficient. It operates at frequencies less likely to clash with other applications, like wireless routers and microwave ovens. Unfortunately, unlike analogue cordless phones, the base station constantly emits pulses of microwave radiation at full power, whether the handset’s in use, or not.

It was round about then I started to develop background headaches. Nothing too drastic. Just a sense my head was full of wet cement. It came and went. Sometimes the ache covered my whole cranium. At other times it was specific to forehead, neck, or behind an eye.

I’ve never been susceptible to headaches, and given the time of year and a slight tendency towards nasal discharge, the whole issue was put down to seasonal allergies.

The new phones worked well, but there’d always been a slight voice delay – about a half second, or so – ever since the Adams’ household converted to a VoiP setup two years ago. One got used to it, though it was rather disappointing to find the new DECT 6.0 technology didn’t cure the problem. Still, the phone looked good, parked on its smart silver base station, on one corner of my desk in the den.

The headaches got worse over time. Not drastically so, but I started waking through the night with one, and it was still there in the morning and persisted all day. Eventually, my wife began muttering the ‘doctor’ word. It was then I began researching on the internet.

Now, let me say straight away, I’ve always considered people who complain of ill effects from power lines, TV’s, and almost all other electrical appliances on the planet, to be a bit nutty. Not mental, you understand, but certainly on a par with those who claim insemination by aliens.

Despite some degree of evidence suggesting phone radiation is possibly disruptive, if not downright dangerous, there’s an equal amount suggesting it isn’t. In fact, certain researchers have intimated it may actually be beneficial by preventing brain tumors. These studies are a little suspicious, however, given that they were funded by the phone companies.

There’s an interesting article on DECT 6.0 baby monitors by a UK group called Powerwatch, which seems to suggest that babies suffer sleep disruption and distress when this type of monitor is in the room:

Over the past five years we, with the help of parents, have measured a variety of baby monitors and the DECT pulsing ones seem to be far more disruptive of the infant’s sleep and state of contentment (causing restlessness, irritability and crying). Wired ones and the plug-in ones (that use the electricity wiring to communicate between units) do not seem to cause the same problems. The older type of analogue ones, that are still available from a number of brands, seem OK if kept at least one metre from the cot / bed. We have had various reports by parents that their babies did not sleep well and cried a lot when they used DECT monitors but were ok when no baby monitor was used. When they then tried a cheaper analogue monitor, the infant then slept as well as they did with no monitor.^[1]

A paper published in the Journal of the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine in 2006, by Don Maisch, a Tasmanian consultant well known in this field, also suggests ill effects from such DECT 6.0 devices:

A major difference between the older cordless phone and the DECT cordless phones is that the DECT phone’s base station continuously emits pulsing microwave radiation at full power as long as the base station/charger is plugged into the 240 VAC wall socket. This means that the base station, usually placed on a bedside table, or on a work desk, is broadcasting a 2.4. or 5.8GHz transmission (in Australia) regardless of whether the handset is charging in the base station cradle or being used 300 meters away…..

…..Soon after DECT phones were first introduced in Europe, mainly for use in office buildings, concerns were raised over possible health effects. One of the largest white collar trade unions in Europe, the Swedish Union of Clerical and Technical Employees in Industry, issued advice to its members to take steps to minimize their exposure to DECT because the system always operated at maximum power and there was insufficient research on possible long-term health effects…..

……The German Federal Radiation Protection Agency (Bundesamt fur Strahlenschutz – BfS) has expressed concerns over DECT phone use. They stated in a January 2006 press release that a DECT cordless phone is often the strongest single source of microwave radiation in a private home. To prevent possible health risks the Agency recommended minimizing personal radiation exposure (if a DECT phone is used) by placing the base station in a place where you do not spend much time, for example a hall. For the workplace the Agency specifically advised to avoid placing DECT phones on work desks and called upon manufacturers to redesign the phones to include a feature of power output control, so that the power output during a call would be adapted to the distance of the handset from its base station. This would allow phone use only to the level of power necessary to keep the communication going and power would be down while on standby and connected to the base station/charger……

……of course the industry manufacturing DECT technology say that there is no conclusive evidence that DECT technology is harmful. This is true, especially considering that the technology is being developed and marketed well before any relevant research on possible long-term health effects……^[2]

Last week, the local Social Security office was being fitted with the latest digital phone system. A friend of mine, who works there, got chatting with the guy in charge of the installation. He was quite adamant the latest scientific reports clearly prove the dangers of cell and cordless digital technology. he told my friend there were even instances of people who’d developed cancer in the thigh from regularly clipping a cellphone on their belt.

Of course, it’s all hearsay. The truth is that technology has advanced far quicker than the ability of researchers to test its long-term effects. This is true for most aspects – drugs, food, even – in some cases – entertainment.

Mark Sisson sums it up well in his interesting blog, “Mark’s Daily Apple”:

I’ll still recommend that people keep the cell phone usage to a minimum, but not to necessarily avoid brain cancer. Perhaps a better reason is that too often cell phones become prisons preventing us from truly engaging with the world. Time is ever moving, and technology is only going to progress – it may soon become a rare and precious moment that we’re able to dwell silently on our thoughts without wireless signal or electromagnetic field or peripheral cell phone chatter intruding.^[3]

Still, we all need a phone these days, so last week I connected the VoiP network to our old household phone wiring, dragged the ancient analogue corded phones out of their dusty box in the attic, and set one in every room. They work a treat.

The DECT 6.0 cordless phones have gone. So has the half-a-second voice delay; I can now talk to my father in Britain as though he were standing in the room next to me.

And that’s not all that’s gone: believe it or not, so has my headache.

^{[1] Digital Cordless Baby Monitors Powerwatch.org.uk}

^{[2] “Medical warnings needed on DECT cordless phone use” Don Maisch, August 2nd 2006 (NOTE: the pdf version of Maisch’s article was down when this was published. An html version has been substituted.)}

^{[3] “Cell Phone Health Hazard?” Mark’s Daily Apple.}

Filed under: Hot topic

Glenn Beck has a one man comedy show that tours the country, but there was no more spectacular comedy than the one performed recently at the biggest Madrassa on planet Earth – the inaptly named, ‘Liberty University’.

Glenn Beck was presented with an honorary doctorate in something religious, while hundreds of young, heavily-brainwashed, students and their parents looked on and cheered voraciously.

Beck’s greatest asset is his acting ability, particularly a talent to summon crocodile tears at a moment’s notice. In his opening remarks, Beck admitted he only ever attended college for one semester, then dropped out, blaming – through great displays of choked-back emotion – lack of cash, as the excuse.

In fact, Beck is an alcoholic and ex-drug addict, who by his own admission only kicked both habits a year before he was shoe-horned into Yale in 1996 by an influential friend, Senator Joseph Lieberman. The brevity of Beck’s foray into academia may have had more to do with his Attention Deficit Disorder, than any lack of hard cash.^[1]

Like most recovering alcoholics, Beck searched around for some spiritual hook to cling to, and was eventually drawn into the Church of Latter Day Saints. It’s surely a measure of the quality of his belief system that he could attach himself so readily to a church founded by Joseph Smith, a man who claimed to have been given gold tablets by an angel, and a pair of divining stones to translate them, but later gave them back so there was no evidence and no witnesses to this divine occurrence.

Despite a slender attachment to orthodox Christianity, Beck’s Mormon beliefs have not prevented him from amassing a fortune, much of it in gold. In keeping with all the great Christian evangelists of this nation he’s been quick to conveniently forget the saga of the camel and the needle’s eye.^[2]

Taking money from other people, while talking nonsense and spreading malicious lies, is one career that, in America, is almost guaranteed to invoke the god of financial success. Whether that god is the same one who sent his son to Earth to die for Beck’s sins, is open to debate almost anywhere except Liberty University.

Consequently, it no great surprise to find Glenn Beck on the rostrum this week. Liberty’s founder, the now dead – and likely gone to Hell – Jerry Falwell, said after the 9/11 attacks:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’ “^[3]

As a mentor for the vitriolic ejaculation of malicious crap, Glenn Beck could have none finer.

^{[1] Wikipedia, Glenn Beck}

^{[2] “In Pictures: How Glenn Beck Makes His Money” Forbes Magazine, April 26, 2010}

^{[3] “Rev. Jerry Falwell, leader of Moral Majority, dies at 73” Boston Globe, May 16, 2007}

Filed under: Snake-oil salesman

In the beginning was the tribe. And the tribe flourished and became great. In times of trouble, or concern, the tribe turned to the old men for advice, for the old men had lived long and were wise. They had experienced all the great world had to offer, both good and bad, and knew best how to deal with every eventuality.

When the young men and women of the tribe were in trouble the wise old men would speak to them in soft tones, explaining how best to overcome their woes. The wise men made rules for the young people of the tribe to live by, that their lives may be better and those of their children.

And the tribe flourished.

Then, certain of the young men rose up and said, “We do not need these old men to tell us how to live. They are old and weak, and we are young and strong. Let us run the tribe ourselves, and cast out the old men that they bother us no more.”

And so they persuaded the tribe to send the old men away, and the young men ruled the tribe. They changed the laws to suit themselves. They became greedy and stole from others of the tribe that they might become more powerful, until the tribe turned on the young men, saying, “We don’t want you ruling us, for you are uncaring of us, and steal from us that you might be rich and powerful and control us.”

So the young men made weapons and used those weapons to attack the tribe to control them. And the tribe scattered to all four corners of the Earth, to escape the greedy young men who would steal their possessions. But the young men went after them, to control them.

And the old men of the tribe saw what had come to pass, and nodded sagely to each other.

Filed under: Parables