I’m in DC this week, arguably the command center for the world’s most powerful military, the epicenter of geopolitical power (for now), a city where “war” is just another word for Monday morning. Like it or not, our cultural (some would say human) fascination with war is endless. While the average American would likely be hard pressed to name 10 elements in the periodic table, thanks to the US media and recent election cycle, most could easily tell you that we’re spending $10 billion per month to fund the war in Iraq and that General Petraeus likes oatmeal for breakfast. Now that we’ve elected a new Commander in Chief, what sort of wars will the leader-elect of the free world have to contend with? For better or worse, this week’s Friday Five covers different visions of the future of war.

Mind Wars

War has always been a boom time for science.  Since WWII when the military establishment and academia first got cozy, scientific advancements have flourished in the wake of war.  Government support of science has led to breakthroughs in war technologies (think: sonar and the atomic bomb) but also benevolent ones, such as penicillin and the Internet.  In Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, Jonathan Moreno explores the military applications of neuroscience, providing a tour through some of the most provocative research that’s making the brain the most popular object of national security attention, including:  wearable robotics, smart drugs, “neural prostheses” and “rapid onset brain-targeted bioweapons.” Moreno covers both near and long-term technologies, painting a broad picture of how future wars may be fought, and importantly gives focused attention to the ethical dilemmas that these new technologies will create.

CyberWars

In May, seven NATO nations backed a new cyber defense center in Estonia, the ex-Soviet state which last year faced weeks of denial of service attacks on its internet infrastructure. The move marks new territory for NATO; as cyber-skirmishes increase, geo-political alliances must write new rules to deal with these emerging forms of conflict.  The playbook is wide open: should cyber-bullets be considered weapons of mass destruction? What constitutes collateral damage online? This New Scientist article takes a look the battleground of the future: cyberspace.  

Non-Lethal Weapons

Is the term “non-lethal weapon” an oxymoron on the battlefield?  Wired.com’s “Danger Room” blog reports on the development of a combination sonic  blaster/laser weapon that when deployed, would blast off a deafening and blinding combination of light and sound, or in military contractor lingo, a “psycho-acoustical event.” A new wave of such non-lethal weapons which ‘distract and disorient’ are on the horizon, touted by military experts as essential tools in peacekeeping missions and civilian-heavy battle zones.  Check out the Danger Room blog for more on ‘what’s next in national security’.  

War of the Nerds

In 2005 the secretary of the Air Force penned a vision statement for the future in which he vowed that the Air Force would “fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace.”  That statement was the force (no pun intended) behind the establishment of the service’s newly-formed Cyber Command, and its chief, Brig. General William Lord, is looking for a few good geeks to recruit. This Wired article (“Welcome to Cyber Country, USA”) offers a behind-the-scenes look at the new command whose mission is to prepare for a future where computers are weapons.  Says Lord: “We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future.  So if they can’t run three miles with a pack on their backs but they can shut down a SCADA system, we need to have a culture where they can fit in.”

Water Wars

India.  China. Pakistan.  Uruguay. Turkey. Iraq. Nevada. This is just a short list of the places that are hotspots for future (and in some cases, current) water conflicts, the threat of which has been heralded by academics and policymakers for years. Blue Gold: World Water Wars takes a different look at the source of these future conflicts. Based on the book, this documentary film looks at the privatization and commoditization of the world’s water sources by both corporations and countries.  Following the fight for water rights around the world, the film asks: is water a commodity or a human right? The answer today, of course, is both.  But by 2025, when more than two billion people are expected to live in water-stressed countries, perhaps the more relevant question is: what will it be in the future?  

Which is more iconic New York: the Empire State Building or a band of dirty pigeons?  While visitors to the Big Apple may or may not experience the city through its architectural landmarks, it’s a pretty sure bet that any trek through Mnahattan will involve an encounter with a pigeon or two (or fifty).  Abecedarium: NYC capitalizes on the city’s eccentricities by creating a map that reflects on the history, geography, and culture of New York City through 26 words. Make that 26 unusual words. Words like Georgic (”a poem to agriculture”), Kermis (”a festival”) and Welkin (”the vault of heaven, the sky”).  Each word is mapped to a location in New York and connects to an original video, picture and/or audio track that both describes the word (helpful, in case you’re lost on what “umbel” means) and shows it relationship to the cityscape.

The result is a multimedia interpretation of the city as seen through the eyes of a dictionary. For instance, Holus Bolus (”all at once”) includes a video that seems to feature a day in the life of a flock of NYC pigeons while Audile (”one who thinks in sounds rather than visual images”) reveals a sound tour of the city, a sort of urban symphony of honking cars and street rappers.

While the content on the main site is curated by the project’s directors, users can contribute their own interpretations and experiences of the words on the site’s blog.  The contributions range from the quotidian to the quintessential: posts related to Georgic include a video of the greener side of the east village and an ode to the Park Slope food co-op.

Running notes from Pop!Tech ‘08.  For more posts, see the Pop!Tech blog.

photo: Kris Krug 

DR. GARY SLUTKIN, CeaseFire

Dr. Gary Slutkin asks: can put violence in the past, like we once did smallpox, by thinking about it differently? 

Specifically, by thinking of urban violence not as a moral or policy issue (that is, what’s “right and wrong”), but as a public health one.  Slutkin suggests that “violence is an infectious disease”; that it operates like a virus, following the same epidemiological patterns as health epidemics such as AIDS and tuberculosis.  He should know: Slutkin is an epidemiologist and physician who spent ten years in Africa on the frontlines of infectious diseases. Today, he’s the Executive Director of the Chicago Center for Violence Prevention. CeaseFire is the Center’s anti-violence campaign uses a public health approach to reducing shootings and killings.

If violence behaves like an epidemic, can it be cured?  Slutkin proposes that at the minimum the spread of violence can be contained (and perhaps halted) by applying the same tactics public health officers use in dealing with disease outbreaks: first: interrupt the transmission; then change social behaviors and norms. CeaseFire employs a team of “violence interrupters” - outreach workers (many of whom are ex-offenders themselves) to personally intervene and stop violent acts in the community on a case-by-case basis. Combined with a vigorous PR campaign, the aim is to ultimately change social norms - in essence, to make violence as socially unacceptable as, say, smoking.

Sound impossible?  Perhaps.  But as he points out, we once thought curing the plague was impossible too.  That was because the cause of the plague was invisible - a bacteria, inside a flea, on a rat.  By identifying the “etiologic agent” (the root cause) and making it visible, we have a better chance at finding a cure.

photo: Kris Krug

ERIK HERSMAN, Ushahidi

Erik Hersman understands the power of “making the invisible visible.”  Hersman is one of Pop!Tech’s first Social Innovation Fellows, and like most social entrepreneurs, his work is a reflection his favorite things: Africa, technology and maps.  Raised in Sudan and Kenya, Hersman is rabid techie, a web developer who writes two tech-related blogs (AfriGdaget and WhiteAfrican) and an avid map collector. He begins his talk by saying that he was born of two cultures, but lives in neither. In reality, his cultural vertigo likely fuels his ability to see opportunity where others see crisis.

Following the post-election violence that engulfed Kenya earlier this year, Hersman and fellow Kenyan bloggers created Ushahidi (the name  means “testimony” in Swahili), a website that allows users to report incidents of violence via a mobile phone text message or email.  Reports were posted to a map, creating a near-real time record of events throughout the country.   (MB note: I first wrote about Ushahidi here).

Part of the brilliance of Ushahidi is that gives voice to the myriad of stories that would otherwise be missed by the mainstream press, but its ultimate aim is more than simply a platform for citizen jpurnalism- the goal is to crowdsource crisis information. With funding from grants and a prize money from a handful of prestigious awards (including NetSquared and Knight-Batten), the plan is to build Ushahidi into a free, open source mapping tool that acts as not only as an archive, but also as an early warning system, detecting crises before they happen.

photo: Kris Krug

ERIC DAWSON, Peace Games

Slutkin and Hersman suggest that violence is not only a disease, but one that can be visualized and mapped in real time.  But the question remains: how can it be stopped from beginning in the first place?  Eric Dawson, another Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow, has an idea: teach kids “peacemaking” as a skill.  Dawson starts his talk with some sobering statistics - American children today will have witnessed 100,000 acts of violence on television before they enter the sixth grade.  His organization, Peace Games, offers a K-8 curriculum that teaches kids how to become not just victims or witnesses of violence, but peacemakers who are able to diffuse it.  The underlying theory is that violence is a learned behavior that, gone unchecked, can lead to greater acts of violence. In contrast, Dawson thinks that the skills of peacemaking can also be learned.  His goal is to have Peace Games taught as an integral part of the curriculum, alongside math and science.And it seems to be working: he says that schools that use Peace Games see a 60% reduction in violence and a 75% increase in socially peaceful behavior.

Note: these are running notes from Pop!Tech ‘08; for more posts, see the Pop!Tech blog.  I stopped liveblogging conferences (for why, see In Praise of Slow Blogging); however, I’ll have more complete (and perhaps coherent) reflections up this week. 

FRANK WARREN, curator of the world’s secrets 

Frank Warren collects secrets.  One day he printed up a few hundred self-addressed postcards, handed them out to strangers in Washington, DC and asked them to send him their secrets.  Four years and 250,000 secrets later, what started out as a community art project has turned into a hobby, a vocation and ultimately, a profession.  Of the thousand or so cards he receives each week, Frank posts a handful to his blog, PostSecret.  The blog is voyeuristically addicting; the secrets are painful, funny and profound.

While many of the secrets expose past deeds, some reveal hidden desires.  In December 2006, Frank posted this card:

Soon after, he received this email:

Sent: Sunday, December 3, 2006 8:22 AM

This Saturday evening I will be waiting for you too. This invitation does not mean that I want to do anything or talk during the movie. But when the darkness leaves the theatre, perhaps we will look into each other’s eyes, smile, decide to get a cup of coffee and share a conversation over what we just saw.

-waiting with a white hat

That email led to the creation of a PostSecret fan site called The White Hat People, which encourages people going to the movies alone to wear a white hat, and thus meet each other.   

PostSecret hits a collective nerve because it represents the paradox of the digital age: the ability to be publicly anonymous. (Or anonymously public. You choose.)  By revealing our innermost secrets to the world’s largest audience, it offers an opaque veil for the truth: one that is both staunchly impersonal and profoundly intimate. As a public confessional, perhaps Post Secret offers relief, if not absolution, by releasing people from the shackles of secrecy.

LAURA WATERS HINSON, on “radical forgiveness”

Imagine that you have a secret to confess. Now imagine that your confession is very public, and very personal. And that your crime isn’t cheating on your spouse, but that you killed your neighbor?  That you chopped off his hands and feet, until he slowly bled to death in front of you.

Is there an arena to talk about - and seek forgiveness from - such unimaginable crimes? That’s the basis of As We Forgive, a groundbreaking documentary film by Student Academy Award Winner Laura Waters Hinson that explores the human capacity for forgiveness in the most extraordinary of circumstances - the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide. 

In 1994, over the course of one hundred days nearly 800,000 Tutsis were killed by the Hutu militia and sympathizers, making the Rwanda tragedy one of the most horrific genocides in history.  As the country slowly edged toward peace and rebuilding, the new government was faced with an overwhelming backlog of genocide cases. Approximately 120,000 genocidaires were crammed into Rwanda’s prisons; it was estimated that it would take 100+ years to prosecute all of the cases.  In 2003, in an effort to decongest the prisons and promote reconciliation, President Paul Kagame ordered the release of some 40,000 prisoners back into the community.

They were free, but many remained prisoners of unending guilt and shame.  A number of religious organizations (including Prison Fellowship, which is featured in the film) have established “reconciliation programs” in an attempt to reintegrate murderers with their communities. As We Forgive explores this concept of “radical forgiveness” through the stories of two women who come face to face with the men who murdered their families, and are asked to forgive them.

Rwanda has pledged never to forget the genocide; memorials scatter the country, including this rural church (pictured above) in which 10,000 people were slaughtered.  The bodies of the victims were left in place as they died, and today the skulls and bones of the victims remain on display as a visible testament to the horror that engulfed the country.

But is forgiveness possible?  This is the backdrop to Laura’s talk at Pop!Tech: as she takes the stage she notes that “In 1994,all that was abundant in Rwanda was scarce. The scarcities were too many to count - trust, security, hope, peace … and people.”

While not everyone agrees that Rwanda has embraced forgiveness, As We Forgive is a haunting, provocative and ultimately inspiring film that asks the question: in an age of conflict, what does justice really mean?

David Letterman has the Top 10 list; Billboard counts down the most popular songs of the week. So we at FringeHog, being compulsive list-makers ourselves, created the FringeHog Friday Five, an almost-regular weekly feature in which we showcase five links (websites, blogs, videos, etc) that offer different perspectives on “the future of” a particular topic.  Some topics are serious; others are things we just think are cool. We like to think of it as a weekly starter-kit to the future.  Enjoy.

FringeHog Friday Five: The Future of Robots

For nearly fifty years, robots have captured our collective imagination.  From Rosie, the arthritic robo-housekeeper in the Jetson’s to Robin William’s emotionally available Bicennential Man to every guy’s favorite cyborg assassin, the media has played to our fascination with all things humanoid.

Yet despite early predictions of a robotic assistant in every home, today the closest you can get to an electronic maid is a stubby vacuum cleaner that bumps into furniture.  But that hasn’t stopped us from pursuing the idea - and the ideal - of perfecting a robot made in man’s image (but with batteries).

Can we make the leap from dust-sucking dials to sentient citizen?  ABI Research predicts that in the next decade people will be willing to spend as much for a multitasking humanoid robot as they would for a new car and that the personal robot market could balloon to $15 billion by 2015.

Most of that growth is happening in the east. There are nearly 950,000 robots in operation worldwide; almost 50% of these are in Asia, a third in Europe, and 16% in North America. Japan is investing upwards of $37 million in the Humanoid Robotics Project (HRP) which aims to bring to market robots that can operate power shovels, assist construction workers and care for the elderly. In South Korea, the robotics industry has grown about 40% a year since 2003; officials are building two robot theme parks at a cost of $1.6 billion as well as developing a robot ethics charter to govern the ethical treatment of robots.  The US, for its part, has a robotics caucus in Congress with um, two members.  You do the math.

But the future of the industry hinges not only how much money is being spent, but how.  Cultural values will play as big a role as the available technology in developing future robots. While the US and Europe have focused on using robots for automotive and military purposes, Asian countries are comfortable - even eager - to adopt robots as an integral part of daily life, opening the door for machines to play an increasingly social role in society.

What role will robots play in business and society? From violin-playing androids to sexbots, this week’s Friday Five takes a look at the future of man’s new best friend.

Love, Sex and, uh, Robots

The title pretty much says it all: in this thought-provoking book author David Levy tackles a ménage à trois of topics: the future of machines, the future of sex, and the future of sex with machines.  In Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships Levy proposes that in the coming decades love with robots will be as normal as with other humans.  Before you roll your eyes at the suggestion of “sexbots”, consider the depth of love - and lust - we have for our cars, iPods and other gadgets. While Levy’s ideas might seem absurd today, considering the revolutionary rate of advances in artificial intelligence, he asks questions that may need to be answered sooner than we think.  

Toyota’s Violin Virtuoso

This charming (yes, charming) video showcases Toyota’s plans to take its expertise with factory robots to new heights via a 5-foot robot playing a flawless rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance” on a violin. Toyota has said it wants to draw on its knowledge and innovation in the field of automobiles to accelerate the development of robots that “make a contribution to society”, aiming to put robots capable of assisting humans into use by the early 2010s. 

Because otherwise, it’s just a naked vacuum

Given our anthropomorphic attachments to our devices, it’s no surprise that MyRoomBud, a company that designs costumes for the Roomba vacuum cleaner, is a hit.  The company sells a range of outfits designed to dress up your Roomba, from lady bugs to leopards to the $10,000 Snowy the Polar Bear outfit.  MyRoomBud’s website boasts that the company was “started by kids, built by kids, and is run by kids” - a generational distinction which also explains why it created SLoomba, a virtual Second Life version of a Roomba.  Welcome to the new Barbie.

Android Science

Last year Hiroshi Ishiguro made headlines when he built a robot twin of himself.  Dubbed “Geminoid HI-1″, the silicon-based replica of the professor is regarded as one of the most realistic humanoid robots ever created.  In this New Scientist interview Ishiguro discusses the benefits of a robotic twin (he can teach classes remotely using his twin and can smoke cigarettes without anyone knowing) and the emerging field of “android science.”  (Note: New Scientist requires registration; this Scientific American article also discusses Ishiguro’s work.)

The Robots Among Us

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle asks the question: if robotics technology now stands where computing did in the ’70s, what can we expect in the future?  While I’m not sure it gets around to answering the question with any degree of imagination, it does provide a good overview of the business and science behind the robotics industry.

As an update to this Friday Five post, two more interesting links about the future of cities:

Lagos La Vida Loca

Lagos La Vida Loca is a 15-minute video by Current TV about Lagos, Nigeria which provides a graphic glimpse into life in the one of the world’s largest megacities. In 1950 Lagos was home to 300,000 people; today it is the world’s largest megacity with somewhere between 12 - 20 million residents (there are no official population statistics) and an estimated 6,000 people arriving every day.  Often dubbed the “New York of Africa” Lagos provides a glimpse into the future when by the year 2030 two of every three people on the planet will live in an urban environment.  If you want to know what the future looks like, watch this.

Hub2 - Virtual Urban Design

One of the more interesting questions about the future of cities is where (and how) virtual worlds and real worlds will intersect.  I recently met up with Emerson College professor Eric Gordon to talk about the future of urban design and what role virtual worlds will play in it. Gordon is the co-brainchild of Hub2, a project that’s using Second Life to help Boston residents to articulate visions of public spaces.  Earlier this year Gordon’s students created 3D immersive models of Boston’s Government Center, an urban space that is the absolute epitome of soulless city architecture.  (note: the above screen shot is from the press event where Boston’s Mayor Tom Menino received the keys to the virtual city).

The prototypes are the test case of a methodology Gordon’s calls “rapid urban prototyping”.  Traditional urban planning is two-dimensional and cumbersome at best: intelligible blue-prints are drawn up, groups respond to them, plans are redrawn again.  Gordon’s idea is to use virtual worlds as a platform to allow community stakeholders to interact in real time to collaboratively design an urban space.  Using a virtual world space as a blank canvass, for example, a community wishing to design a park can bring together planners, architects, engineers and citizens to decide how the park should be laid out simply by moving around virtual objects - a swing set, some benches, a water fountain. The three-dimensional virtual space not only creates  an enhanced sense of the design options, but also should also significantly reduce planning time and costs.   Read more about Gordon’s work on his blog, The Place of Social Media.

I asked my 6 year old nephew recently what he wanted to be when he grew up.  After considerable pause and reflection he said: “Well, I think I’ll either be a professional football player or a paleontologist.  Or maybe I’ll fix trucks.” Ask an adult the same question and the response is usually filled with self-absorbed navel-gazing.

It’s no surprise that the youngest among us often think the most imaginatively and optimistically about the future.  So it’s great to see a project that taps into the creative genius of children, at least in part. The “Fifty Forward: Metro Atlanta’s Futures Forum,” is a planning initiative to explore possible future scenarios for Atlanta via public forums to encourage people to think about the needs and goals of the region in the future. As part of the project a group of fourth and fifth graders were asked to think what the region will be like 50 years from now and to send a postcard to the future. Here are a few:

Tristan’s Postcard to the Future

We come in peace.

We are sorry that we polluted the sky and water.

We are also sorry that we brought aliens. But, we have new transportation like flying cars, hover boards and jetpacks.

Your pal, Tristan       

Eva’s Postcard to the Future

Dear Future,

I love the way you get around!!! It’s cool how the work buildings are connected. The monorail will help a bit with the traffic accidents, since it stops everywhere.

The future is really cool!

Your friend, Eva

Michael’s Postcard to the Future

Hey you in the future,

I think there will be slides to everything so you can get to places quicker. Do you like that future?.

Cars, space ships, anything you can think of ….all you have to do is ask, and it will be yours.

And, best of all, there is a “life” tree, so you never die.

Thanks, Michael

This fabulous video compilation of postcards and interviews with the kids should be required-viewing for every lawmaker (and not just in Atlanta). One can only hope that Atlanta’s decision-makers embrace exploring the future of their city as creatively as these kids.

“Design like you give a damn”; this phrase, borrowed from Cameron Sinclair, sums up the work of the five design activists featured in this FringeHog Friday Five. Each creates positive change in the world through architecture and design. Their projects are diverse, but they share common themes. All are open, collaborative, generative and DIY, the core values of the emerging era of design I blogged about recently called Designers R Us.

(1) Roberta Feldman is the Director of the City Design Center and UIC Professor of Architecture. She focuses on the practice of design in public spaces. One of the most innovative projects Dr. Feldman spearheads is “Design Matters: Best Practices in Affordable Housing”. Design Matters is the first Internet catalog of nationwide exemplary housing that is affordable for people with limited incomes.

(2) Brian Bell, founder of Design Corps , designs for the 98% of the population without architects. He calls it his dream job. In his book Good Deeds, Good Design he chronicles his work with architecture students who learn the social application of architecture through an internship program he started. The Shiloh Bus Shelter is one example of Brian’s Good Deeds, Good Design.

(3) John Peterson of Public Architecture would like to see his Day Labor Station deployed across the country. Peterson realizes the station is controversial, but says, “The design is based on the realities of the ways in which the day labor system operates, and responds to the needs and desires of the day laborers themselves, as clients”.The station is in the Design for the Other 90% exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The exhibition highlights efforts by designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world’s population not traditionally served by professional designers. Mr. Peterson has also founded The One Percent Solution , a Match.com for architects and nonprofits with the mission of strengthening non-profits through design.

Daytime rendering by Phoebe Schenker & Margot Lystra

(4) Randy Hester is a Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental
Planning, University of California, Berkeley. His passion is sacred landscapes; site planning neighborhood design; environmental anomie; community participation; environmental justice; localism; community development, planning and design, place-appropriate economic development. To find out more check out his book, Design for Ecological Democracy

(5) Cameron Sinclair solves problems with architecture through the organization he co-founded aptly named Architecture for Humanity. His famous tagline and the title of his book, “Design like you give a damn,” encapsulate his mission. He uses architecture and design to solve world problems. His latest initiative is the Open Architecture Challenge . It is sponsored by AMD and the vision is to help enable affordable Internet access to 50% of the world by 2015.

I was camping last week in the White Mountains national forest, and like most urban-dwellers accustomed to the city’s soundscape, I was struck by how quiet the woods are. In fact, I became acutely aware of the noises around me simply because there were so few: the acoustic buzz of mosquitoes, a few scavenging squirrels, and a particularly industrious woodpecker that was apparently intent on developing the tree next to my tent into riverfront condos.

Like many, I’ve developed a relative immunity to most urban noise. Traffic, honking horns, emergency sirens are all part of the tapestry of city life. Yet according to the World Health Organization (WHO) such noise can actually be deadly, responsible for some 200,000 deaths in Europe alone.

Since 2003 a WHO working group has been studying the burden of disease from environmental noise. Their findings suggest that the long-term effects of exposure to noise such as long-term sleep disturbance and cardiovascular problems may account for 3 percent of deaths in Europe - typically in the form of strokes and heart attacks.

Governments, at least European ones, are starting to take action. According to a recent article by New Scientist, by the end of the year all European cities with populations over 250k will be required to have produced digitized noise maps showing “hotspots” where traffic noise and volume are greatest.

Such a cartography of noise is part of growing trend toward using sensing technology to “make the invisible visible”. Christian Nold’s Biomapping project is creating “emotion maps” of cities, using simple galvanic sensors to highlight and map community places where citizens feel stressed or excited. Similarly, the San Francisco Exploratorium’s Cabspotting project traces the patterns of taxi cabs as they travel throughout the Bay area, revealing subtle economic, social and cultural trends.

As our ability to ?make the invisible visible’ increases through the use of such collaborative cartography, how will our perception of - and ultimately our interaction with - our environment change?

FringeHog Friday Five: Humanization of Dogs

We’re kicking off something new on FringeHog called FringeHog Friday Five. The FringeHog Friday Five is a quick dip, (5 links) into a trend or idea we’re watching on our VERGE blog or through FringeHog Tags the World. Our inaugural FringeHog Friday Five is on the Humanization of Dogs/Pets. The links we’ve selected will give you some interesting examples of how we are humanizing our pets.

The humanization of our dogs and other pets has been gaining momentum for years. It is so ingrained in our culture that it takes an over-the-top example like Leona Helmsley leaving $12 million to her dog and nothing to two of her four grandchildren to get our attention. We think nothing of giving our furry friends human names. I stand guilty as charged, having three Pembroke Welsh Corgi rescues named Molly, Niles and Martin. We also assign human responses, traits and characteristics to our dogs. To some, pets are their babies. The humanization trend is peaking. I see hints that we’re moving on from the humanization to the objectification of dogs and pets. Think Paris Hilton and her pup Tinkerbell. Tink was Paris’ number one accessory for a while; used to complete an ensemble or simply embellish Paris’ persona.

With every trend there is a counter-trend and the one I find most interesting is the trend towards treating canines how they need to be treated, which isn’t like humans. Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer has built an empire out of teaching people not to humanize their dogs; and to instead to treat them like the canines they are. He has a devoted following and copycats are springing up. This is a counter-trend to watch.

FringeHog Friday Five: Humanization of Dogs/Pets
Pet Fashion Week took place in New York City on August 18^th and 19^th. Canine and human models hit the runway sporting couture garments designed just for the event. This might sound a bit over the top to some, but when you consider that the Pet Industry is a $40 + billion industry beating both the toy and the candy industries, you realize it should come as no surprise. Pet Fashion Week videos

Neuticles will salvage your neutered dog’s flagging self-esteem. They area patented testicular implant for your neutered dog.

Pet-tainment
A DVD to keep your pets entertained when you’re not around.

Cesar Millan, teaches people to treat dogs like dogs and in doing so you are giving them what they need.

American Pet Products Manufacturer’s Association
Great source for industry statistics and information