Portrait of a Revolutionary Technically Produced Hallucinations Are on the Way

.... 2 | TUESDAY,JANUARY 27, 2015 INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES page two

IN YOUR WORDS Quantifying Impact of Microsoft’s HoloLens Portrait of a revolutionary Technically produced hallucinations are on the way. We need to ask ourselves if we the divisions really need a device which will put imaginary objects on top of and inside of in France actual views of our living rooms and backyards? I personally find ordinary reality confusing enough as it is now. HoloLens is currently less than meets the eye (forgive the pun). As it gets developed, its big applications will not be in video gaming, but in surgery, warfare and space travel. We are being enslaved and dehumanized by our machines, and the Celestine smarter they become, the greater our Bohlen enslavement and our dehumanization. ROB L777, CONWAY, S.C. LETTER FROM EUROPE Right now here in Germany there is a war going on in automotive. Everybody wants the biggest screen in the car, the best apps, PARIS France is divided in two, at the fastest uplinks and so on. The suppliers least so said Prime Minister Manuel Valls in an unusually explicit speech of the technology (Microsoft, Google, Apple) last Tuesday. Not just divided but, as he also want their share by introducing put it, separated by a ‘‘territorial, so- advertisements to —let’s say —nav cial, ethnic apartheid.’’ screens. That could become quite Those words came as a shock for a distracting, I believe. Now imagine some TV country that, a little more than a week ads character (like the Green Giant) strolling earlier, had rallied by the millions in a through the virtual extension of your living show of solidarity after a rampage by room. Even worse, imagine what would Islamic extremists. Mr. Valls’s speech immediately set off a virulent debate, happen if you enter the kitchen! Dozens of which he later admitted was his inten- ad-characters fighting for your attention, tion. It is important, he said, to have your camera-equipped on-line glasses ‘‘the courage to call these situations by analyzing what you already have in the their own name.’’ freezer and ‘‘suggesting alternatives.’’ But to take the debate forward, MARTIN, GERMANY France needs facts, and facts are sorely lacking in the decades-long discussion Terrorism suspect shares diary about integration, discrimination and French national identity. Questions Everything about this case illustrates how about race, religion and ethnicity re- shameful the behavior of the United States main forbidden in the national census has been since 2001. Enough already. and are formally restricted in surveys Stop torturing, stop imprisoning for conducted by government-sponsored decades without trial. Stop being so researchers. paranoid about terrorists that we break Questions So who is divided from whom? Who every law and civilized ethic, and maybe we about race, belongs to which will stop giving recruiters for terrorism so religion and France? Those ques- much easy fodder for their recruitment. ethnicity are tions would seem to T. L. MORAN, IDAHO forbidden in be a natural starting the census. point for the discus- See what readers are talking about and sion France is trying leave your own comments at inyt.com to have. Without reliable answers, the country is left with a range of wobbly estimates about, say, IN OUR PAGES FIGHTING FOR A of the Italian photographs of still-lifes the number of Muslims —afigure that CAUSE The Centro grapher Tina like wine glasses, depending on the source oscillates International HeraldTribune Internazionale di Modotti (1896-1942). folds of fabric or from just over four million to six mil- Fotografia Scavi Silvana Editoriale flowers. Around lion, a significant difference for a total 1915 Attack on Egypt Imminent Scaligeri in Verona, has published ‘‘Tina 1927, she joined the population of 66 million. LONDON A despatch from Cairo to the Italy, offers a retro- Modotti,’’ the cata- Mexican Commu- And yet for the moment, these ques- ‘‘Daily News and Leader’’ says that air spective through log for the exhibi- nist Party and tions are not on the table, according to scouts report that everything is ready March 8 on the tion. Her early plat- began to incorpor- Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, president of artistic and political inum prints were ate social content France’s data protection agency. ‘‘It is for the advance of the Turkish army trajectory of the life close-up photo- into her work. not a subject that has come up,’’ she upon the Suez Canal excepting the ar- told reporters from the Anglo-Ameri- rangements for the transport of heavy can Press Association of Paris on guns, for which a system of tramways is Wednesday. being laid with the utmost speed on the The taboo against collecting data on soft desert soil. A general survey of the race, ethnicity and religion stems from a situation seems to point to the delivery Constitution that refuses to make dis- tinctions among citizens presumed to be of the blow immediately north of the Bit- equal, and equally French. Some leeway ter Lakes, but the movements of the in- is permitted —for instance, in establish- vading army are likely to be greatly im- ing country of origin, or even nationality peded in many directions by flooded of parents, categories that some com- areas. plain do nothing more than separate the French from the ‘‘less French.’’ 1965 Fiery Suicide in Vietnam Patrick Simon, a researcher at the National Institute of Demographic SAIGON A 17-year-old girl drenched her- Studies, has been repeatedly frustrated self with gasoline and burned herself to by what he sees as a fundamental con- death today [Jan. 26] as a political tradiction —on the one hand, repeated protest against the government of references to race, ethnicity and reli-

Premier Tran Van Huong. The protest PHOTOGRAPHS BY ARCHIVIO FOTOGRAFICO CINEMAZERO IMAGES, FONDO TINA MODOTTI gion in the public debate, and on the suicide —the first of its kind in South other, the absence of quantitative in- Vietnam since October, 1963 —took A LIFE OF TUMULT tivities in Russia Mexico City (1928); struments to measure the populations place at Nha Trang, a coastal city 200 Tina Modotti pho- and Spain and took an Easter lily everyone is talking about. tographed political few photographs. In (1925); Mella’s ‘‘If we want to understand the situ- miles north of Saigon, during an antigov- events alongside 1939 she returned to typewriter (1928); a ation, we need statistics,’’ Mr. Simon ernment demonstration. The suicide oc- bullfights and cir- Mexico City, where sombrero with ham- said. ‘‘We have a problem that is not in- curred shortly after two terrorist bombs cuses and was ex- she died in 1942. mer and sickle dependent of the political approach to had exploded at an annex of the Ameri- pelled from Mexico Clockwise from top (1927); and two fish- the whole issue. The question of statis- can military advisory headquarters in for her political ac- right, some of her ermen mending tics is just one element among others.’’ Saigon, injuring one Army officer but tivities in 1930. Dur- Mexico photo- nets. She was bur- Mr. Simon ran into opposition several causing little damage. ing the next decade graphs: Julio Anto- ied in Mexico City. years ago when he was preparing a she dedicated her- nio Mella, the Cu- The poet Pablo landmark study, ‘‘Trajectories and Ori- Find a retrospective of news from 1887 to self to revolutionary ban revolutionary, Neruda composed gins,’’ an examination of France’s di- 2013 at iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com and anti-fascist ac- on his deathbed in her epitaph. verse populations based on 22,000 inter- views that were to be conducted in 2008 and 2009. One question — ‘‘How would you de- scribe the color of your skin?’’ — had to Joe Franklin, an enduring television personality, dies at 88 be pulled from the survey after France’s constitutional court ruled in 2007 that researchers could pose only questions BY JAMES BARRON if., or Corpus Christi, Tex., and talk to like a zoo,’’ he said in 2002. ‘‘I’d mix Mar- program when the radio personality that sought ‘‘subjective’’ answers. The everyone in town. He may have been ex- garetMead with the man who whistled Martin Block hired him to choose the re- collection of sensitive data, such as reli- JoeFranklin, who became a NewYork aggerating, but whatever the number through his nose, or Richard Nixon with cords playedon Mr.Block’s‘‘Make-Be- gious affiliation, can be authorized by institution by presiding over one of the was, it was impressive. And although he the tap-dancing dentist.’’ lieve Ballroom’’ on WNEW. Mr. Block ar- the French data protection agency if the most compellingly low-rent television never made the move from local televi- Mr. Franklin claimed a perfect atten- ranged for Mr.Franklin to go on the air respondents give their explicit consent. programs in history, one that even he ac- sion in NewYork to the slicker,bigger dance record: He said he never missed a with a program called ‘‘Vaudeville Isn’t Mr. Simon’s research among 18- to knowledged was an oddly long-running realms of the networks, he was recogniz- show. Bob Diamond, his director for the Dead.’’ After stops at several other sta- 60-year-olds revealed a Muslim popula- parade of has-beens and yet-to-bes in- able enough to have been parodied by last 18 years of his television career, said tions in the 1950s, Mr. Franklin settled in tion in France of 2.1 million, which Billy Crystal on ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ that there were a few times in the days at WORin the mid-1960s with his ‘‘Mem- when extrapolated to the entire popula- OBITUARY and mentioned on ‘‘The Simpsons.’’ of live broadcasts when the showhad to ory Lane’’ program — ‘‘that big late- tion produced a total of 4.1 million. That What came to be considered campy start without Mr. Franklin. But Mr. night stroll for nostalgiacs and memor- is far lower than the numbers typically terrupted from time to time by surpris- began as pioneering programming: the Franklin always got there eventually. abiliacs,’’ as he described it. thrown around, which are drawn ingly famous guests, died on Saturday in first regular program that Channel 7 And he alwaysseemed to have agim- After his television showwas can- mostly from such unreliable statistics a hospice in Manhattan. He was 88. had ever broadcast at noon. WJZ-TV,as mick. He celebrated his 40th anniversary STEPHEN CHERNIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS celed in 1993, Mr. Franklin repeatedly as country of origin (for instance, Steve Garrin, Mr. Franklin’s producer the station was known then, had not on television by interviewing himself, us- Joe Franklin in 2006. He said he had hosted tried to cash in on his fame and his col- French citizens of Algerian origin are and longtime friend, said the cause was been signing on until late afternoon being a split-screen arrangement. ‘‘I got a more than 300,000 guests on his show. lection of memorabilia. In 2000, he lent not necessarily Muslim). prostate cancer. fore the premiere of ‘‘Joe Franklin — few questions I’m planning to surprise his name to a160-seat restaurant on The argument against collecting eth- A short, pudgy performer with a sand- Disk Jockey’’ on Jan. 8, 1951. myself with,’’ he said before he began. Eighth Avenue at 45th Street. Eventu- nic or religious statistics is that they papery voice that bespoke old-fashioned Soon celebrities likeElvis Presley, Had he asked himself,he could have cist. In that book, he denied an anecdote ally it became a chain restaurant with are essentially discriminatory, leading showbusiness razzle-dazzle, Mr.Frank- Bing Crosby and John F. Kennedy were told viewers that he was born Joe Fort- that appeared in manynewspaper arti- Joe Franklin’s Comedy Club in the back; to divisions in society. But nobody lin, the star of ‘‘The Joe Franklin Show,’’ making their way to the dingy basement gang in the Bronx. He explained in his cles about him: He had met George M. later the restaurant and the comedy denies that discrimination in France was one of local television’s most endur- studio on West 67th Street —aroom memoir, ‘‘Up Late With Joe Franklin,’’ Cohan in Central Park when he wasa club closed. And in 2002, he sold some of exists anyway: Racial or religious pro- ing personalities. He took his place be- with hot lights that was ‘‘twice the size written with R.J. Marx, that his press teenager. That led to a dinner invitation his memorabilia at auction. filing as practiced by the police, hous- hind his desk and in front of the camera of acab,’’ Mr. Franklin recalled in 2002. materials had long said that he had been from Mr. Cohan, who let him pick a re- He continued to do a late-night radio ing agents and employers has been day after day in the 1950s and night after He booked Woody Allen, Dustin Hoff- born in 1928, ‘‘but I’m going to come cording from his collection and take it show, on the Bloomberg Radio Network, well documented. night in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. man, Barbra Streisand, Bill Cosby and clean and admit that my real birth date home —orso the story went. It never almost to the end. Mr. Garrin said Mr. Now even Mr. Valls is talking about In 1993, he said that he had hosted Liza Minnelli as guests when they were was March 9, 1926.’’ happened, Mr. Franklin wrote in ‘‘Up Franklin’s Tuesday showwas the first ‘‘two Frances.’’ The next step, Mr. Si- morethan 300,000 guests in his more just starting out, and he hired two other By the time he was 21, he had a new Late.’’ scheduled broadcast he had missed in mon says, is to gather reliable informa- than 40 yearson the air. Another way to young performers, Bette Midler and name, aradio career, apublicist and a But areal invitation to pick records more than 60 years. tion on how, and why, France is divided. have interviewed that many people Barry Manilow, as his in-house singer too-good-to-be-true biography inven- was his big break. He had been the writer would have been to go to Riverside, Cal- and accompanist. ‘‘Myshow wasoften ted, he wrote in ‘‘Up Late,’’ by apubli- for the singer Kate Smith’s 1940s variety Ashley Southall contributed reporting. EMAIL: [email protected]