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"But the crash raises the disturbing possibility that aviation may well long be plagued by a subtler menace, one that ironically springs from the never-ending quest to make flying safer. Over the decades, airliners have been built with increasingly automated flight-control functions. These have the potential to remove a great deal of uncertainty and danger from aviation. But they also remove important information from the attention of the flight crew. While the airplane's avionics track crucial parameters such as location, speed, and heading, the human beings can pay attention to something else. But when trouble suddenly springs up and the computer decides that it can no longer cope—on a dark night, perhaps, in turbulence, far from land—the humans might find themselves with a very incomplete notion of what's going on. They'll wonder: What instruments are reliable, and which can't be trusted? What's the most pressing threat? What's going on? Unfortunately, the vast majority of pilots will have little experience in finding the answers."

In a broadcast by Monocle Weekly  (25 minutes in) this week mention was made of the work of Radio La Colifata based in Dr. José T. Borda Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Barracas, Buenos Aires. 

A Google search brought up an English language piece  For 91 Days in Buenos Aires from which the following excerpt is taken:

"Dr. Alfredo Olivera was still a psychology student when he dreamed up the idea for Radio Colifata. By putting inmates in charge of a radio station and letting them tell their stories, many benefits could be realized at once. The inmates would gain a sense of autonomy, allowed to talk about whatever they wanted with the assurance that people around Buenos Aires would be listening. Those who hear their stories on the radio might come to the realization that not all asylum patients are dangerous lunatics, bolstering the reputation of mental health. And by giving the patients a voice, Radio La Colifata would help restore sense of community which is lost by being locked away."

As the blog points out: Colifata is lunfardo for “amiable crazy person. Lunfardo being a dialect of the lower classes in Buenos Aires.  According to the Monocle broadcast this term is meant by the language community to be used in an endearing way.

What fascinates me is the psychological welfare aspect attributed to this broadcasting for the patients in this mental institution.  How true are the words when you consider them in the light of social media activity for the wider population using Facebook, Twitter etc. 

So the borrowed paragraph from above could perhaps be rewritten in the following way:

"By putting people in charge of a facebook page, twitterfeed and letting them tell their stories, many benefits could be realized at once. People would gain a sense of autonomy, allowed to talk about whatever they wanted with the assurance that people around the world, near and far w[c]ould be listening. Those who hear their stories on the radio might come to the realization that not all people are dangerous lunatics, bolstering the reputation and understanding of people around the world. And by giving the people a voice, the internet would help restore sense of community which is lost by being locked away."

One final point comes to me from the above creation.  The difference between "would" and "could" is the difference between the masculine and the feminine.  That needs further teasing out............

Dubai School of Gov Arab Social Media Report, “Civil Movements: The Impact of Facebook and Twitter,” May 2011 post.ly/3syZf

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You have to wonder what will happen to social identities of and within a nation with the increasing emergence of mobile money?

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