...actual distinct voices speaking in my mind? Or is it just the weblog of James Lindenschmidt? Here you can see me wrestle with this and other questions, while spewing forth my writings, opinions, and hallucinations.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

 

And they're just now getting around to this?

Finally, it appears, Chernobyl is getting a box to put it in. It's one of the largest structures ever built, a hangar-shaped arch 35 stories high, designed to completely seal in, for 100 years, the 200 tons of uranium and one ton of plutonium that are still in the core of Chernobyl.

Ummm, pardon me, but it's been 16 years?!? And we're just now getting around to this? Here's my favorite passage from the piece:

'The new shelter will not "contain" the core's radioactivity but will be weatherproof.'

Ummm, yeah, sure. Weatherproof is good. But the fact that Weatherproof is an improvement is pretty scary.

^ posted at 9:26 PM

 

Nietzsche as Educator

This is a transcription of a post I made to the Nietzsche listserv recently. It has to do with education and Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

From owner-nietzsche@lists.village.Virginia.EDU Fri Dec 27 21:40:28 2002
From: James Lindenschmidt <jwl@maine.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Nietzsche as educator
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 21:39:21 -0500

Perhaps I should be clearer. At the beginning of the prologue, Zarathustra wants students and/or to "share his wisdom" with the masses. By the end of the prologue, he realizes that companions rather than students are a better goal. So Zarathustra undergoes a change of heart in this area.

And I agree with you that not seeing students as equals make Z an unfit teacher. I believe Zarathustra's final realization regarding pity is relevant to this problem. Despite everything, at the end Zarathustra still has pity for the last men, which places him in a hierarchical relation with them. It is only when Z overcomes this pity -- simultaneously overcoming the hierarchy between them -- that he can see the way.

Insights are valuable, even if they cannot be taught, or even expressed, because they affect the one with the insight. Even if the insight would never affect anyone else in the same way, they have value for the thinker. Insight, I would argue, is an experience; experience and articulation of experience are different things entirely. In the same way, insight and articulation of insight are different things entirely.

Regarding Nietzsche as a teacher, who knows. I've not read commentary by any of his students when he was a professor at Basel. But if, on the other hand, the function of a teacher is to prod and to inspire, then there are few teachers as capable as Nietzsche.

James

The entire thread is available in this archive.

^ posted at 12:44 AM

 

T.N.B.C. 2002

This is priceless. Written by Lee Hall:

T.N.B.C. 2002

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land,
not a critic was stirring, for stirring was banned.
A thousand brown prisoners, snug in their cells,
all held without charges or tinsel or bells;
and mamma was wrapped in the national flag,
while we sang ".Where there's never a boast or a brag."
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the TV I flew like a flash;
I then watched "Survivor" and reruns of "Mash."
The fireworks, exploding above the new snow,
gave a luster of objects to people below.
When what saw my wondering eyes in the flashes:
a miniature George Bush and eight tiny fascists!
Their jerseys were blue and said "WORLD DOMINATION";
I knew right away this was not just claymation.
More rapid than eagles the warlords they came,
as the little Bush whistled and called them by name:
"Now, Daschle! now, Ashcroft! Now Strom, don't relent!
On, Poindexter, Rumsfeld! on Henry and Trent!
To the top of the globe, while the crowd's at the mall,
nowbomb away, bomb away, bomb away all!"
His sack had a war game for each girl and boy;
his pocket, four billion from just Illinois.
Far up on his high seat the driver did mount,
with more massive weapons than Kofi could count.
And then, I heard sounds from away off somewhere,
the booming of bombs that were bursting in air.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
down the chimney old Dick Cheney came with a bound.
He said not a word, nor disclosed his location;
he wiretapped my house in the name of the nation.
Then holding the strings of his little Bush puppet,
he went to the chimney and quickly rose up it.
The sleigh was still running, but Dick didn't hurry;
gas guzzlers, it seemed, were no longer a worry.
He popped the champagne and exclaimed as he served it,
"The world is now ours, and GOD DAMN, we deserve it!"

^ posted at 11:39 AM

 

empathy sympathy

I've known for years that I am an empath (warning: bad HTML alert). But I never really did anything about it. It was more like, "oh cool, I can feel what others feel." For a long time I wondered if it was just a form of compassion that I had. Either way, I never really did anything about it, nor did I attend the ways in which being an empath affected my emotional existence.

But the work I've been doing with my wife in strengthening our relationship has brought this issue to the forefront. When people around me, particularly people I am intimate with and care about, are angry, I get angry. I sponge up any emotion around, especially negative emotion. And this can lead to problems, particularly if the person nearby handles anger differently than I do.

When I get angry, my reaction is to discover the source of the anger, and resolve that conflict as quickly as possible. My wife, for example, handles anger very differently, and she resents anyone going into problem-solving mode for her. But when she gets angry, and then I get angry, and then I go into problem-solving mode, the anger gets worse. And then my anger gets worse. And so on, and so on.

That's just one example. The point of this entry is that I have learned a lot about myself in the past 24 hours. I need to cultivate techniques to deal with my empathy, so that I can more effectively control the amount of energy I am picking up from others. Doing so will help my own emotional health tremendously. And it will help my relationships, particularly the relationship with my wife. I am so lucky to be in a relationship with someone who works so hard at being the best person she can be. Life feels good right now.

^ posted at 11:13 AM

 

Yule 2002

This year's Yule celebration had a transformative effect on me. I felt like a shaman, perhaps for the first time. I went out to the edge, glanced into the abyss, and have now returned. I wrote this the morning after the Yule experience, as I was trying to assimilate it all: "I'm still putting out the embers as I lie here in bed."

Leading up to the ritual, I had been resonating with God energy more strongly than I ever had before. During the ritual, it was my privilege to call the God. The fire pit was full of firewood, skillfully arranged by Mark. I had my drum in my arm, and I began to walk in a circle, deosil, around the firepit. Luminaries had been placed in a lane leading from the Shield's home to the firepit. The ritual was timed so that the God would be called and the fire would be lit right at the moment of sunset. A few people told me they liked my incantation, so I'll reproduce it here (though I improvised it; this is from memory and it may be inaccurate).

"From the womb of the Great Mother I call the Sun God, the male half of divinity, reborn on this the longest night of the year."

I then began a simple heartbeat rhythm on the drum. That was the cue for Mark to light the fire. He did so, and it went up quickly.

"It was a few short weeks ago that you showed the ultimate strength and compassion with the ultimate sacrifice. We now show our strength and compassion by sharing our energy with you in rebirth. Gather your noisemakers, friends, and help awaken the Sun God."

Everyone began to walk in the circle around the fire, adding to the gradually increasing heartbeat.

"We walk for you.
We drum for you.
We sing for you.
We heal for you.
We shine for you.
We burn for you."

By this time, the fire was burning well -- Mark's skill was true. Last year's Yule tree, brown and brittle, went up quickly, shooting sparks of long-dried resin exploding into the already darkening sky. The Yule fire was the central focus of the ritual for me. The endurance to stay up and tend the fire was in me; it felt symbolic of the ability to muster the skill to do anything I set my mind to.

I had many Yule realizations this year. Many of them were actually reminders. I was on the edge in many ways; it was a very shamanic experience for me. The night was one of extremes: cold/hot, dark/light, community/solitude. Many things drifted in and out of consciousness as I stared at the glowing embers, the heat dancing playfully and relentlessly from limb to flame to coal to ash. In some ways I hesitate to even describe them; it is easy enough to lose sight of the difference between experience and articulation of experience; it is especially difficult when talking of religious or shamanic experience. But with that in mind, here are some descriptions of some nuggets of insight I received that night.

The birth of the God is a time of passing, the passing of darkness. In Wiccan mythology, the God, conceived as the male half of divinity, the Yin to the Goddess' Yang, dies at Samhain (Oct. 31st, the day of the dead). This night begins the dark time, which lasts until the God is reborn at Yule. From now, the days shall grow ever longer until Litha. This lengthening of light gives us hope, for although the winter will be long and harsh, the spirit of the God is alive in the world. The seed has been well sown, and as soon as the sun is strong enough, life will once again grow. It is inevitable, and just a matter of time. The cycle moves, spiralling ever onwards, and it doesn't stop. It never stops.

Matt, as always, had words of bardic wisdom for the occasion. Near morning, we were standing together at the fire pit, the last two to tend the fire at sunrise. We were walking around, looking for a place to see the sunrise, and he pointed to several features of his land. One was the tops of the trees, and how they had arranged themselves in such a way as to compete for the rays of the sun. At that moment, I could see the trees actively competing for the sunlight in a conscious way; they knew that sunrise was imminent. Even on the shortest day of the year, when the sunshine is weakest, the trees can feel the sun's power. They reach for it desperately, extending their intertwined limbs, poised to catch the first crack of photons that zoom past.

The totality of the entire night struck me at that moment, when the first rays of the sun washed over my face, reflecting off the tears rolling down my cheeks. Watching the trees reach out to catch the sun reminded me that the fundamental pattern of life, the endless cycle of birth, consumption, growth, slowing, death, and rebirth, is the same everywhere. From this perspective, time means very little. What triggered this realization was watching the tree branches reaching out to the sun, standing in the very field where Matt and I had countless times reached out to catch a football or a frisbee earlier that summer. As above, so below.

I was also re-acquainted with my tarot deck during the night. My cards came alive for me again. I had forgotten that the cards can move if you look at them in the right way. I had given Nikki a promise of a reading on her birthday a few months back, and I finally had a chance to fulfill it. I was not in a place to give a conventional reading; the shamanic mood was too strong. I ended up looking through the cards, face up, and pulling out the ones that spoke. I put those cards in front of Nikki and she picked them up one at a time. She, too, was enthralled and could see the cards move. They spoke to her, and she listened. She said it was a good reading.

What we define as important is completely arbitrary. So we may as well choose our importance in a way that cultivates spiritual awareness and harmony with the universe.

^ posted at 5:44 PM

 

The Two Towers

I saw The Two Towers last night. It was, of course, amazing. It was also surprisingly different from Fellowship of the Ring. The biggest difference seemed to be the scale of the movie. Part of the charm of the first movie was that it focused on a dozen or so characters, really developing them well. In TTT, the focus seems to be on the big picture. We don't get as much characterization, and the focus is on larger battle scenes. The scope of Tolkien's story is getting larger. This is not, in itself, a good or a bad thing, but it demands a different style of moviemaking. The Two Towers is different in that way; it has a completely different feel from Fellowship.

Additionally, the filmmakers have taken a few more liberties with the story, deviating -- in some cases signficantly -- from Tolkien. I'll spare details. None of them are fatal, though. TTT is still an amazing film.

And the technology of filmmaking in this case is breathtaking. The battle scenes have set the new standard (making things like Braveheart look feeble). The Ents look amazing. Gollum was stunning, by far the best CG character I've ever seen. Makes Yoda in Attack of the Clones look pathetic.

All in all it was a very enjoyable film. The best thing I can say about it is that it was part 2. No more needs to be said.

^ posted at 12:12 PM

 

Twelve-Year Cycles

East Asia measures time in twelve-year cycles. Given the mystical overtones of many of these Asian philosophies, I couldn't help but think that I am undergoing massive change. I am 33, I and I distinctly remember vast changes at 21. I was living in Columbus, Ohio, and joining my first real adult community. I was changing spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and politically; all these changes were radical and fundamental.

I think I may be upon another such time of change. The abundance of hope that I currently feel after the haze of hopelessness of the past several months and the fiery catharsis of the past few days has allowed me to attend other long-neglected emotions. Anger, for example, is one of these emotions. There has been an abundance of unattended anger in my home over the past several months. Since the weekend, we have dedicated significant energy to learning how to handle anger when it arises. One good resource has been Thich Nhat Hanh's Anger, which emphasizes the Buddhist principles of compassion and mindfulness as a way to skillfully deal with excessive anger. My biggest questions lately have been: in what ways do I perpetuate anger? Which patterns do I cultivate that contribute to the anger around me?

I feel fundamental change afoot. I suspect I will emerge from this period, in retrospect, affected in an equally profound way as the changes 12 years ago.

^ posted at 3:05 PM

 

Hope

Hope is a wonderful thing. It was an amazing weekend, after a very trying end to last week. But I've emerged into this new week with more hope than I've had in a long, long time. The work has just begun, and this is a good thing.

^ posted at 6:50 AM

 

Get the nine-year-old dope pushers

Apparently in Florida, two nine-year-olds were arrested for possession of marijuana, one of them with intent to distribute. It raises a few interesting questions. The crimes they are charged with are automatically felony offenses, because they involved Schedule 1 drugs on school grounds. I wonder if mandatory jail time holds for nine-year-olds? Or perhaps these Vile Evildoers (I can't believe a nine-year-old would help the terrorists by selling drugs!) will be tried as adults. After all, any kid should KNOW that pot is evil and unnatural and must be wiped out. After all, it's not like cannibis grows in a field or something. No, wait ...

^ posted at 2:25 AM

 

Bin Laden's "Letter to America"

I think it's important to understand Osama Bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the terrorist attacks. Not to condone them, but to understand why they happened. There was recently published a letter to America, supposedly written by Bin Laden himself. It's funny, but Osama Bin Laden's "Letter to America" eluded the mainstream American press. Go figure.

It's an interesting read, a strange combination of antiglobalization (disguised as antiAmericanism), anti-semitism, and fundamentalist Islam. When reading it, I'd go, "Good point. Yup. Good point. OH NO! That's so wrong. Yup. Right. Nope." Perhaps his most interesting point is his indictment of the American people:

3) You may then dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:

(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.

I find this passage interesting because if the American people were to actually exercise the power referenced here, then most likely few people in the world would be so angry at America. There would be no motive to attack America. In other words, it seems to me that the very fact that Bin Laden's argument is not the case is largely responsible for American atrocities. Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I truly believe that if most Americans knew what was done in the name of "freedom" and "American interests," they would be horrified. But most Americans remain happily ignorant. It is, in many ways, a phenomenon that reflects a realization I had today:

The amount of optimism I feel about the world is directly proportional to the size of the blind spot I cultivate.

^ posted at 1:15 AM

 

On Thanks Giving

I wrote something for Thanksgiving this year. With everything going on in my family, I wrote it with an ear toward my sister. I include it here.

I don't need to remind you that this Thanksgiving is very, very different from all the ones that you and and I have experienced in the past. It is different for both of us; I will be in Maine after all, and you will be in your hospital room, though we both are lucky enough to be spending it with loved ones. So because I cannot be there with you, and because writing is a habit for me nowadays, I thought I'd write a bit--some thoughts, a meditation, a prayer--on Thanks Giving. May this letter find you well, and in a place to read it.

It is appropriate to think carefully about thanks. The word "thank" comes from the Old English word thancian, which is also the root word for "think." So at one time in history, "to think" and "to thank" were close enough in meaning that the same word was sufficient to cover both ideas. This similarity lingers in modern language; the phrase "how thoughtful," for example, is used to describe someone expressing thanks. So why is there a relationship between thought and gratitude, between thinking and thanking?

To be thankful is to be thoughtful. Thankfulness requires mindfulness. That is, one cannot be thankful for something unless that thing is in one's mind. Thankfulness requires attention. Furthermore, this attention must be focused on the here and now; one can only be thankful for the real. Thankfulness does not apply to fanciful dreams, fairy tales, or what ifs, it applies to experience. It makes no sense to be thankful for future experience, since one cannot know what that future experience will be. It likewise makes no sense to be thankful for what we wish we had, rather than what we have. One can only be thankful for that which is in, or has been in, one's experience, either in the present or in the past.

When we are feeling thankful, and when we wish to formalize our thankfulness in a social setting, we speak of "giving thanks." But when we give thanks, what exactly are we giving, and to whom are we giving it? We could also say that to give thanks is to give thought. When we give thanks, we bring whatever we are thankful for into the forefront of our minds. When we give thanks, we give our attention. We choose to spend time thinking about and appreciating the object of our gratitude.

A very wise person I know taught me that "Life is full of choices." Note the words used here; it does not say that life occasionally presents us with choices" or "we sometimes get to make choices in life." Rather, life is full, and it is full of choices. Therefore, anything that does not involve choice is not a part of life. Life is full of choices. We have a choice about everything that happens in life; at the very least we can choose how to respond to anything that happens. Where we find ourselves in life from moment to moment is always a result of choices that have been made in the past; some of these choices were ours and some were not ours. In other words, where we find ourselves, in every moment, is partially under our control and partially not under our control. Each of these moments build upon previous moments, upon previous choices. Who a person is, at any particular moment, is the sum-total of all previous choices and experiences that person has experienced. Each moment in life is the outcome of all previous moments.

So when we are thankful for something before us--a beautiful sunrise, say, or a smile from a child--then we must necessarily also be thankful for everything that has happened in our lives up to that moment. For if this past had been different, our present circumstances would also be different, and we would not be experiencing the beautiful sunrise, at least not in the same way. One cannot be thankful for something in experience without also being thankful for the circumstances that led up to that experience.

But the reverse is also true, and this is perhaps the bitterest pill to swallow where thanks is concerned. If we reject an experience as unworthy of thanks, then we must also reject everything that has happened in our lives up to that moment--every sunrise, every smile from a child, every precious happy moment. For one cannot lament an experience without lamenting the circumstances that led up to that experience.

So perhaps you can see where I'm going with this. Despite the pain, the isolation, and the suffering, there is thankfulness to be found in your sickness. For it is the culmination of all your life experience up to this moment. And furthermore, your sickness in the here and now is that which will propel you into the future. The rest of your life, in all its richness of experience, with all the times ahead, happy and sad, is in the seed of this moment. Your sickness, in the here and now and onwards, is part of you and must be honored as such. From this moment onwards, your life will be in part defined not only by your sickness, but also by how you respond to your sickness.

Your task is to heal, and to become well. I urge you to use all the means at your disposal to do so. You are already under the finest care that Western medicine can muster. I understand you are also using alternative, non-Western technologies (such as Ev's healing touch) as well; this is a good thing. You have hundreds of people praying for you. But all of these things, while essential to your healing process, are the actions of others. They are not your actions. I urge you think carefully about what you will do for yourself during your healing process. While you endure the effects of the drugs and the other therapies you are undergoing, where is your mind? What choices are you making from moment to moment? How are you shaping your reality? How are you crafting your future with the choices you make in every moment?

This moment, like every other moment in our lives, is full of choices. These choices are what make our lives what they are. No matter how happy or how horrible our circumstances are, we always have a choice about how we respond to our circumstances. Our choices--our thoughts, our mental activity--shape our reality. You have proof of this in your current experience. Your stroke has changed your brain; as a result your mind has been changed, and your reality is different from what it was before. But the good news is that a blood clot is not needed to change the mind. It takes but a moment to change our minds, and when our minds change, reality changes with it.

I don't know much about leukemia, or about strokes. There is nothing I can say to you about these things. You have direct experience of them, I have webpages I've read. There is no comparison. But I do know that reality isn't something "out there," reality is something that is shaped by our interaction with it. But we must interact with the reality that confronts us, however happy or horrible. It does no good to wish reality was different, except with an eye toward changing our reality in the future. Only by fully accepting the present before us, by giving thanks for the reality that is ours, by embracing everything we are and have been, can we begin to create our future. Wellness, I suspect, lurks within this realization. Whatever your path, may you become well. I'll be pulling for you, and giving thanks for all of your progress.

^ posted at 11:48 AM

 

deltacollective

I've joined a discussion group over at LiveJournal called deltacollective. This group was started by a friend of mine in an IRC channel; the function was to discuss and brainstorm about ways to enact change in society/government. We've had some quite good chats online, and decided to put up a blog to continue our discussions in more permanent form, and to make them available to anyone who wants to see them.

Perhaps deltacollective will be interesting to you, feel free to check it out. One good thing about LiveJournal (as opposed to Blogger) is that people can comment, so interesting discussions can get going.

^ posted at 10:43 PM

 

A Long Week

I'm getting over the flu. It hit me hard; at one point I had a fever over 103. My lungs are still full of gunk and I have a headache, but I'm feeling much better than I had been. Time to refocus, I want to finish the writing project I'm working on (a piece about TCPA/Palladium, and more broadly the Intellectual Property crisis we are facing). Also, Matt and I haven't gotten together to play music for a couple of weeks, due to various injuries/illnesses of us or of family members.

Speaking of family members, I got this information from my dad about my sister's leukemia progress:

Lori is progressing but still has a long road ahead. The GREAT news is that she was able to be with Ava for about 15 minutes today. Don't know how often that will be able to happen, but the doctor said it was okay for today. Lori had another cat-scan today and there was nothing to indicate any further problems. EKG is good, too. She is getting up and walking more and is working with the therapists (physical and occupational) daily. She still gets nauseous at times and gets very tired easily, especially with the walking around. Doctors are 'predicting' that December 11th will be the date they feel she will be able to leave the hospital - just in time for her December 22nd birthday!!! She had her last injected chemo treatment yesterday in this round so hopefully some of the nausea will begin to lessen. Her daily blood counts are right where the doctors want them to be.

Lately there have been no surprises and that is a good thing.

Things are moving in good directions ...

^ posted at 10:25 PM

 

A Good Day

I spoke with my dad today. Apparently my sister had a good day. It turns out that the spot on her brain was a minor stroke, one they probably would never have known about had they not been looking at the brain. She's 2 days into her chemotherapy for the leukemia, and her prognosis is quite good.

Thinking positively (a little reality-creating here), it is possible that these doses of chemotherapy could positively affect her arthritis as well. Methatrexate (sp?) can be used to treat both leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis. So it's possible that she could emerge from this state of being feeling better than she has in a while.

The doctors say it will be a tough battle, and that she'll have her good days and her bad days, but they are very confident that this is all treatable, and that she'll be in remission in about a month. Beyond that, the cure rate is something like 80%.

Morgan and I took a long walk and busride today. We ran several errands. Then we came home, had dinner, and she wanted to watch the Phish video I checked out of the library. So we did.

^ posted at 1:44 AM

 

Reality Check

"It only takes a fraction of a second
To turn your life upside down."
--Steve Hogarth

My sister tested positive for acute leukemia today. We don't have many details just yet. She begins chemotherapy tomorrow. I'm feeling somewhere between dazed and numb, mostly thinking about my/our parents and her family (husband and 1.5yo daughter). I also know that one possible treatment is a bone marrow transplant, and as her only sibling I am most likely to be a match to donate marrow.

Though I love Maine, it sucks being so far away from them about now ...

^ posted at 1:11 AM

 

Electile Dysfunction

Like so many people, I'm almost completely disillusioned about elections. Normally there is no real choice, and most candidates come from both halves of the Single Party System in America.

But on a local level, I have some reason to hope. There were two candidates in my district for the Maine House of Representatives. One of them was a Democrat. The other one, however, was not a Republican. He was John Eder, a Green candidate. John ran an impeccable campaign, really building on the fact that, with no Republican opposition, there was a real opportunity for him to do something, since the "I would vote Green, but I don't want a Republican to win, therefore I will vote Democrat" factor wouldn't come into play.

John probably spoke to virtually everyone in our district; an achievable feat because Maine is not populous, and our district is basically our neighborhood. He came by my house several times. My response to him, usually, was "dude, you have my vote. Go expend your energy on people who need to be convinced."

Anyway, today when I went to vote, both John and the Democratic candidate were there. The Democratic candidate came up to me and said, "Hello, David Garrity," introducing himself to me. John Eder, on the other hand, shook my hand and said "Hello, James. Thanks for coming out today." In other words, the Democratic candidate used his name, the Green candidate used my name. Very telling.

Anyway, I haven't heard any results yet. But I'm grateful to John Eder for running a great campaign, and I think he has a shot at winning. It would be very cool to be represented by someone like John (and Green).

UPDATE (11:37pm): John Eder has won district 31, 1627-808. Congratulations to John Eder and everyone who helped on his campaign. This is great news! Not only am I now represented by a Green, but this also proves that a Green candidate is capable of mobilizing a population and beating a Democrat.

^ posted at 5:48 PM

 

I just returned from the public library. While I was there, I saw a young student working, apparently, on an assignment for her school (I know this because her teacher came in, and I heard them talking about it). The student was, I'm guessing based on the way she was dressed, most likely an Islamic African immigrant. I hate to admit nosing into someone's private work, but I saw the first line of what she was writing. It said:

"The one job I wouldn't want to have is a police officer."

I thought it was a vivid statement about authority in America and around the world.

^ posted at 5:23 PM

 

Word Processing, Document Processing, and Text Processing,
or, Word-->StarOffice-->OpenOffice-->LyX-->LaTeX

I suppose like thousands (millions?) of others, I started doing serious word processing on a computer using Microsoft Word. (Actually, that's not quite true; I remember running PFS:Write on my old Apple ][e when I was in high school. But that was little more than a text editor). My first year in college, before I had my own computer and before I installed Linux for the first time, MS Word was the only real choice. It is powerful, and, after all, Everyone Else Used It.

But after I installed Linux on my home machine, I discovered StarOffice. It was basically a MS Office clone, though not nearly as polished or feature-laden. This was an earlier version, mind you; I think it was version 5.0. I began using StarOffice, though, and actually got the the point where I preferred its interface to MS Word. Then, of course, OpenOffice.org was released, and it remains my word processer of choice to this day.

However, by my third year in college (2000), I had pretty much stopped using word processors. I discovered a wonderful, but quirky, program called LyX. LyX required me to get used to a different way of thinking; it is a "document processor" rather than a "word processor." They classify their system as "WYSIWYM" (What You See Is What You Mean), not WYSIWYG. Documents written in LyX are organized by structure, and the computer takes care of all typesetting for you. For the novice, this means there is less flexibility, but it also means that you focus on writing, not formatting. Besides, the documents LyX produces are very clean. You can output your file to PostScript, PDF, and HTML, among others. This makes them very easy to share with other people. But even if you don't like the formatting, it's possible to roll up your sleeves, get inside the formatting engine (called LaTeX, more on that in a moment), and customize your document layout.

But in the end, LyX is just a user-friendly frontend for LaTeX, which is a very powerful, but somewhat cryptic, typesetting langauge. It's actually very similar to HTML in many ways. I ended up using LyX for the remainder of my time in school, even using it to write my undergraduate thesis. But I knew that eventually, I'd move to LaTeX itself.

I'm happy to say that this has now happened. I've spent much of the past week learning the basics of LaTeX, and I must admit, it's much easier than I thought. It's also very powerful, especially for larger documents. Many books that have been published, especially in science and mathematics, have been typeset in LaTeX. I'm using a wonderful program, part of KDE, called Kile. Kile, written by a French high school mathematics teacher, is a LaTeX editor. It has templates for most of the LaTeX commands, almost like having a LaTeX guru at your side while you learn the correct syntax.

Though LaTeX is in some ways more complex than using word, once familiar with it I will continue to be able to focus more on writing than on formatting. After all, with LaTeX, the computer takes care of most formatting. In addition, once I have a writing in LaTeX format, it can be easily converted to a variety of other formats for sharing, such as HTML, RTF, PostScript, and PDF.

But most importantly, LaTeX is Free software, which means that my data, my writings, will never be obscured from me by hidden, proprietary formats. My data will always remain Free.

^ posted at 4:08 PM

 

Free Thought and the Logic of Persuasion

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about my "Linux activism." It has occured to me that, despite the fact that I am passionate about my conclusion that using Linux is (in general) the Right Thing To Do, and that I talk about it with friends and family until I am blue in the face, I have thus far been unable to persuade a single person to try Linux.

To me, there are a few possibilities to explain this phenomenon. One is that my logic is faulty. Though I will always concede that it is possible that I am wrong, I do not seem to be wrong in this case. There are too many reasons to use Free software to manipulate our data: cost, freedom, power, stability.

Another possibility is that my method of persuasion is faulty. This one is quite likely. I'm sure I've annoyed more than one person with my Linux Rants. People in general do not want to be preached at, at least not the Freethinking sort of people who constitute the set of my friends.

But a third possibility was recently unconcealed to me. It is taken directly from Neal Stephenson's In The Beginning Was The Command Line, which is a very important and insightful piece of work:

There is no way to explain the domination of the OS [Operating System] market by Apple/Microsoft without looking first to cultural explanations, and so I can't get anywhere without first letting you know where I'm coming from vis-a-vis contemporary culture.

Contemporary culture is a two-tiered system, like the Morlocks and the Eloi in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, except that it's been turned upside down. In The Time Machine the Eloi were an effete upper class, supported by lots of subterranean Morlocks who kept the technological wheels turning. But in our world it's the other way around. The Morlocks are in the minority, and they are running the show, because they understand how everything works. The much more numerous Eloi learn everything they know from being steeped from birth in electronic media directed and controlled by book-reading Morlocks. So many ignorant people could be dangerous if they got pointed in the wrong direction, and so we've evolved a popular culture that is (a) almost unbelievably infectious and (b) neuters every person who gets infected by it, by rendering them unwilling to make judgments and incapable of making stands.

Morlocks, who have the energy and intelligence to comprehend details, go out and master complex subjects and produce Disney-Like Sensorial Interfaces so that the Eloi can get the gist without having to straint heir minds or endure boredom.

While tremendously insightful, this passage is of course simplistic. One cannot simply polarize a society into Morlocks and Eloi; these are not ontological states but rather are roles in which one participates. As Stephenson himself later points out, culture is far too complex for one individual to study and fully comprehend all of it, and yet everyone has an interest and an aptitude in some area of culture; therefore all people are to some extent Morlock and to some extent Eloi.

But I think this passage also reveals some of what is at stake in the Free OS / Proprietary OS debate. By using a proprietary OS, that user is allowing Microsoft to think for them. This is not the case with a Free OS such as Linux, because the code -- the "thoughts" of the OS -- is accessible to anyone who wants to look. In other words, proprietary software necessarily alienates its users from the workings of the computer; everything on the computer is mediated by Microsoft (if you are running Windows). Furthermore, Microsoft has only one interest in mind: to extract as much money as possible from its users. And one of the ways Microsoft ensures it gets lots of money from its users is by controlling and mediating their customers interaction with their information. One small example: what happens if you have an old document you've written in Microsoft Word, but no longer wish to purchase a copy of MS Word to look at it? You've essentially given control of your data, your ideas, your thoughts to a company that has nothing close to your best interests in mind.

Now as it turns out, this may be a bad example, because it is possible to read (and indeed repair broken) MS Word documents without a copy of MS Word. But these tools are a direct result of the Free software movement, and have arisen despite Microsoft's efforts to obscure the inner workings of their data formats (such as .doc).

^ posted at 3:41 PM

 

The Sanctity of Robert Johnson

I often borrow CDs and DVDs from my local libraries. This is often futile, since many of these CDs have changed hands so many times that some of them are unplayable, having absorbed 1,284 too many scratches on them. I went a few days ago, and saw Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings. The box was tattered, held together by industrious use of clear packing tape. It was obviously a very popular checkout, since Robert Johnson is (perhaps rightly so) considered the father of the blues, and therefore of all 20th-century popular music in the West. So I was worried that the CDs would be unplayable.

The CDs, however, are impeccable. They play perfectly. It's almost as if those who have checked it out in the past -- all of them, without exception -- have treated these CDs much more carefully than they normally do. I thought it was strange. But I'm pleased. So far, "They're Red Hot" is my favorite track. Good stuff.

^ posted at 2:21 PM

 

The Problem of Rank and Spirit

This problem is related to the pessimism I have been experiencing off and on for the past several months. I am not usually gravitated toward elitism. I place my abundant hope in the potential of the human spirit to rise above itself (this is more or less a Nietzschean outlook). Note that this outlook implies rank -- in the language of "rise above" there is a hierarchy between two states of being, and one is preferred over the other. But, it seems clear that humans are capable of growth; indeed I would argue that this capacity for growth is what defines us as human.

One question from this is: what constitutes growth? How do we know when we are growing? I mean spiritual and intellectual growth. The simplest answer (which in many ways simply restates the question) is that we create ideals for ourselves, and moving toward these ideals is growth.

It remains difficult for me to deny that people (especially people in America, with which I am most familiar) are sheep. This is the basic problem I am trying to address, for this is an elitist attitude, and I am in general uncomfortable with elitism. It is perhaps the difference between description and prescription; in other words, yes, most people are sheep, but they don't have to be. People (or at least a person) will always have the potential to rise above the barnyard pen.

Then there are the people who do actively seek to grow, but in misguided -- or perhaps evil -- ways. Here I'm thinking of, say, George Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. This cabal is expanding their agenda, imposing it upon the world. And they will profit by it, no matter how much destruction they cause. However, their spirits are so undernourished that they cannot see the damage being inflicted upon the world. These massive blind spots allow them to work their evil without the pangs of conscience that would stop most of us. I can only hope that one day -- perhaps next week, perhaps on their death beds, perhaps in a future incarnation -- they will finally acknowledge the damage they have done, unconcealing it in their consciousnesses, and begin to overcome themselves.

I was talking to a close friend of mine a few weeks ago during the Iraq hearings in Congress. She said that she is able to maintain her optimism by remembering that every soul is on its path. Evildoers and those who would spread destruction have lessons they need to learn. They will learn them eventually, though who-knows-how-much destruction will occur before they do. I admire this view because it points out that everyone is on their path, which tends to quell elitist viewpoints. We are all indeed on our paths, it's just that some are further along than others. So the quesiton thus becomes one of time. If time is linear, then there remains a rank of sorts; those who are further along their path and closer to "enlightentment" have a higher spiritual rank. However, there is increasing evidence (in, for example, mysticism and modern physics) that time is not linear. Given that, rank as applied to spirit becomes meaningless.

^ posted at 7:58 PM

 

One less reason to boot into Windows

I've found a DVD player for Linux that works. It's called Ogle. I had been using xine, which works great for .mpeg and .avi files. But DVD playback was always choppy. With Ogle, things seem to be smooth as silk. So far.

Now if there were only Pro Audio Recording applications for Linux, I wouldn't have to use Windoze at all.

^ posted at 12:09 AM

 

Back from Vinalhaven

Vinalhaven was gorgeous. It's visible from the mainland, which I hadn't realized it would be. It's a pretty big island, and pretty sparsely populated. Of course, the population increases fourfold in the summer. By now, most of the summer residents have gone.

Things seem different on the island. Time seems to flow differently; people seem to have a more fundamental awareness of the difference between urgency and importance. This was illustrated to me when the return ferry was delayed. On Saturday, there was a storm, and the last 2 ferries back to the mainland were cancelled. Then, Saturday night, the power went out. It was restored to most of the island at around 7am, but the ferry terminal was still without power. As a result, both the 7 and 8:45am ferries were cancelled, since they couldn't lower the ramp from the dock to the boat. Finally, they did so manually, and we were able to leave on the 11:15 trip. Ironically, this was the one we had originally planned to take. But since we had awoken at about 3:30 and were up, we went down to take the 8:45. It turned out we had to wait for a few hours. It was a beautiful day, though; clear skies, fairly warm (~50 degrees), and lots of big, pretty waves from the storm the day before.

The employee at the terminal explained over and over what was going on, as new people came in to find out whether they'd be able to get back to the mainland. Most took it in stride; a few were pretty angry. These were (mostly) people who wanted to get their cars over to the mainland, which often requires that reservations be made weeks in advance. But those scheduled to go on the earlier, cancelled trips were given priority.

By the end of the day, I was very glad to be home. But it occured to me that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if "home" were an island off the coast of Maine.

I did have another great realization. This trip was the first time since our daughter was born (she's 5) that my wife and I have been away from her for more than 24 hours. She spent the weekend with friends. Though we enjoyed each others' company immensely, we both really missed her. I have a feeling that future trips will include her, at least as long as she wants to come with us. She will, after all, someday be a teenager.

^ posted at 10:57 PM

 

Where do North Atlantic Islands Stand With Being?

Still reading Heidegger. His question, "where does it (whatever is being questioned or investigated) stand with Being?" is rapidly becoming my mantra. Heidegger basically argues that Being itself is not absolute in the sense that something does/does not exist; rather, he says, Being has a sort of "dynamic range." In other words, that something is is given. The question is, how much being does it have? I'm thinking that the more I can interact with other Beings, the more Being I myself have. Productive, synergy-building relationships are a goal.

On another note, I'm going to Vinalhaven, an island off the coast of Maine, for a long weekend with my wife. It will be a sort of belated honeymoon for us, since we have rarely had a night to ourselves since our daughter was born. It's about a 90 minute ferry ride from Rockland, Maine, on the coast. It should be a good time.

No blogging this weekend...

^ posted at 11:14 PM

 

The Return To Philosophy

After taking much of the summer off, I've begun to re-read some philosophy. In many ways, getting an undergrad degree in philosophy is like taking a 4-year appetizer. In most undergrad classes, there isn't sufficient time to really treat a philosophical work with the attention it deserves. In addition, one usually takes 3 or 4 other classes, and one's time is limited. One of the benefits of not having classes now is that I can read whatever I want, and spend however much time on a text as I wish.

I at first tried to decide whether to read John Dewey's Art as Experience or Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. I'm not sure why, but I decided to go with Heidegger first. It's been amazing. Heidegger has an uncanny mind. He relentlessly questions Being, that is perhaps his greatest contribution to philosophy. This book begins with the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" and spends 50 pages analyzing the structure of this, the fundamental question of metaphysics. Here's a good passage about philosophy from that text:

"It is absolutely correct and proper to say that 'You can't do anything with philosophy.' It is only wrong to suppose that this is the last word on philosophy. For the rejoinder imposes itself: granted that we cannot do anything with philosophy, might not philosophy, if we concern ourselves with it, do something with us?"

^ posted at 10:40 AM

 

Information flow, spam, and advertising

I'm reading The Real Battle by Doc Searls. It's his report on the Digital Hollywood conference recently held in California. According to Doc, one of the main themes of the conference is the impact of the Internet and Digital Rights management upon Hollywood. As Lawrence Lessig (and possibly others) have pointed out, this is in many ways shaping up to be a battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley, that is to say, between the entertainment industry and the computer industry.

One of the problems with the broadcasting industry is that much money is made through advertising. But given the advance of technology, there are now many, many more networks and broadcasts than in the past. Therefore, the value of each one of them is smaller. In a paradigm where there are only a few stations (I'm only 33, and I can remember when there were 5 TV stations in the major city where I grew up), flow of information in the form of TV broadcasts were controlled by very few people. And now, with satellite networks, Internet radio, etc., almost anyone can broadcast.

As a result, it becomes more and more difficult to sustain an audience's attention during commercial breaks. There are so many other options to viewing commercials, most people would rather flip through one of the interesting programs rather than sit through a commercial. Now, a commercial is just another program, and nearly all of them suck.

^ posted at 2:09 PM

 

can you say DVD?

Since I got my DVD-ROM drive almost a year ago, I have never been able to get it to run right under Linux. Now, using xine, it works. This means that in less than one week using Linux Mandrake, I have been able to get more things working properly than in 3 years of running Red Hat and Debian.

Also, there is a program under Mandrake called urpmi (where do they get these names???) that does for Mandrake what apt-get does for Debian, namely making software installation effortless.

I'm now officially a Mandrake fan.

^ posted at 3:35 AM

 

email clients

I have switched back to Kmail as my favored email client. Though I liked Ximian Evolution, I stopped using it for (mainly) two reasons. First, it had more features than I comfortably needed. It's just too much for what I need, which is just a simple email client. Kmail, on the other hand is simple, but very powerful. It has filters, which are a must.

The second reason I switched is purely aesthetic. I love the way KDE, and therefore KMail, look. Evolution is part of GNOME, but it is still based on GNOME 1.x (technically it's based on GTK, which is the toolkit for GNOME). So it just looked clunky compared to KDE 3.x.

So I'm happy again with the mail client. I tried Evolution, and it just didn't work for me.

^ posted at 8:18 PM

 

we have achieved CD audio

I got my system to play CDs today. There is a plugin for XMMS, my favorite music player for Linux, that allows direct-digital playback through the PCI bus. The plugin is called xmms-cdread and it's available as a Mandrake rpm package.

I've also been playing quite a bit with the cosmetic trimmings. KDE3 is awesome. Everything looks fabulous. There are theme settings that allow you to mimic Apple's OSX. Pretty nice stuff.

^ posted at 6:50 PM

 

sound and security

btw, today I got my sound card working properly. Also, my friend Mark helped me to secure my machine, making sure my firewall is working properly. While no computer anywhere is completely secure, I feel pretty good about my situation. It would be very difficult to crack my machine.

The sound doesn't work quite as well as I'd hoped it would. It turns out that my sound card doesn't have a place to plug in the audio output of the CD player. Most sound cards, like a soundblaster, have such a plug, but my card is designed for recording, not for playing CDs. Oh well. As a result, I can play mp3s, ogg vorbis, etc., but I cannot listen to CDs from my computer. Oh well. Perhaps it's time for me to get an actual audio CD player anyway.

I didn't really have to do anything to get things working. There is a program called alsamixergui (great names these Linux hackers get) that wasn't set correctly. Basically, I had the outputs of the soundcard completely muted. I knew it was a stupid user error all along. Yeah, right. Thanks to my friend Mark for helping me troubleshoot this.

By the way, my understanding is that the ALSA sound system is going to be a part of the actual Linux kernel in the next release. So hopefully, all this stuff will be automatic, and therefore less of a headache.

There is now no reason whatsoever not to give Linux a try. Mandrake 9.0 rocks. I'm totally impressed.

^ posted at 1:55 AM

 

ouch

Today we were at a homeschooling group that we go to regularly. They have a large, old house that they're remodeling. The back step was in not-so-good shape, and they've been talking about replacing it recently. Well, today I gave them more incentive to do so.

When I stepped onto the back porch with my right leg, it didn't stop at the floor, breaking through the rotten wood. I was wearing shorts, and my right leg was badly scraped in 4 places, each about the size of an index card. One of the scrapes is on my outer calf, one on my outer thigh, one on the top of my thigh, and one on the inner thigh down near my knee joint. Of course, these all have begun to scab over, so every time I move my knee it hurts like hell. In addition, I seem to have pulled a muscle or something in my left leg around my knee. It hurts to walk on.

Yikes. Don't mean to complain, but that's probably the most significant thing that happened to me today.

^ posted at 1:45 AM

 

Mandrake, anti-aliasing, and Evolution

I've been playing more with my new Linux Mandrake setup. It's really good. KDE 3.0.3 is stunning. The antialiased fonts look amazing. Plus, it's faster and (so far) more stable than KDE 2.2.2. I'm really enjoying this experience.

I'm also getting used to Ximian Evolution, a new and very powerful email client. It has a ton of features on it, including calendaring. It's very Outlook-like in that regard. It probably has more features than I need, but that's OK. It has very powerful email filtering capabilities; I get enough email that filtering is a must for me. Otherwise my inbox is a jumbled mess.

I still haven't had time to troubleshoot my soundcard situation. It's most likely something misconfigured in ALSA, or perhaps it is a problem with aRTs, the KDE sound server. I hope to solve that problem soon. Regardless, a friend of mine is coming for a visit next week; he's a Linux expert and has promised to help me solve the problem, if I haven't figured it out by then.

I miss my mp3s and ogg vorbis files!

^ posted at 12:57 AM

 

Debian gives way to Mandrake

Well, I finally did it. I wiped my Linux partitions and installed Linux Mandrake. I had been using Debian, but for several reasons I decided to switch.

The install was effortless. Linux has come A Long Way. Everything worked right off the bat, except for my soundcard. I have an M-Audio card designed for pro (24-bit) recording, and I have to use an alternative sound system for Linux called ALSA. I haven't yet been able to get it to work, although Mandrake did recognize my card and ALSA was installed. It's probably a minor tweak; I'm sure I"ll find it in the next day or two.

This version of Linux, and especially KDE 3.0.3 looks absolutely gorgeous, particularly after I downloaded and installed the Keramik, Liquid, and Acqua themes. I think I will like this. Everything seems to Just Work.

I'm sure I'll talk more about this soon; I'm still thinking of giving Red Hat 8.0 a try when it is released, supposedly on Monday. The Mandrake install is easy enough to replicate.

^ posted at 2:08 AM

 

Flaming Lips, and recording music

I haven't written in a while. I've been distracted by my music. Matt and I are working on recording some of our songs. We're putting our full attention into our music project. We have a good start. More soon.

I've been listening to the new album by The Flaming Lips called Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. The last album that hit me like this was Radiohead's OK Computer. It's fabulous. At the Flaming Lips website listed above, they have the entire album available for preview as a Flash presentation. First off, I applaud them for making their music available in this way. I'm sure it will increase album sales. Secondly, go listen to it. Now.

^ posted at 12:35 AM

 

a reading was sighted

My daughter read aloud for the first time today. It was really cool. She was so excited.

"I'm reading! I'm reading!"

It was a few words, but she clearly grokked the concept of putting letters together, creating words. Like her third circuit opened. We practiced some more today, and she wants to do more tomorrow. I'm following her lead.

^ posted at 9:46 PM

 

NYTimes: 'Linux .. may finally be taking off'

This article makes that claim. I agree. I think Red Hat 8 is going to be huge on the desktop. It's a gut feeling, but also, consider. For the first time, mature applications are available for virtually every need. KDE 3 is as solid as they come. GNOME 2 is quite nice. OpenOffice is the real deal. Evolution is better than Outlook. Mozilla rules. There are CD burners, mp3 rippers and players, and more. Yay, Linux.

^ posted at 11:13 PM

 

Need to fight pirates? Get some glue . . .

OK, it's time to follow up on my previous post about recent Intellectual Property stuff. There are a few articles that have come out in the past few days that are worth a comment or three.

First is the most, um, well I just don't know how to describe it. According to this story at the NYTimes (free reg. required, blah blah), Epic Records has come up with the stupidest solution ever to combat the Evil Music Pirates™. Apparently for the new Tori Amos and Pearl Jam CDs, they were worried about sending pre-release copies of the CD out to reviewers, because in the past the music has shown up on P2P networks so that people could download mp3s of the album before the release date. And, of course, they automatically assume that such practices Damage Album Sales, hurting the artists.

So their solution was, at least, creative. They decided to ship out the prerelease CDs inside Sony Discman players, with the lid glued shut. This is not a joke. And to further circumvent the more imaginative Evil Music Pirates™, they glued the headphone plug into the jack, so that a reviewer couldn't plug the player's output into some recording device (should I mention that an even more imaginative Evil Music Pirate™ would simply have to cut the cable and re-attach a new plug on the end? Nahh . . .) .

Now, there are at least several things wrong with this (do I even need to say anything? Really?). Number one, they are attempting to control the listening experience of the reviewers. Most reviewers have their own sound systems and probably like to listen to their new music on those systems. I know I'd rather listen to music on my own modest speakers in my system than almost anywhere else. I know the system well, I know how music sounds on it, and it is the space for my most intimate contact with the music. So if I were a reviewer forced to listen to an album through crappy 99-cent in-ear headphones, I probably wouldn't have as good of a listening experience. This position is reiterated by a music reviewer that the NYT interviewed in the article. But the bottom line is that I can't possibly see how this practice will help generate better album reviews, which in turn will generate better album sales. Epic is spending more money to make less money.

However, this decision seems even stupider from another perspective. Why does Epic believe that a Vicious Criminal Freedom-hating Terrorist Music Pirate™ would stop short of smashing the unwanted Sony Discman to retrieve the precious pearl-like CD contained within? Epic are assuming that just because they spent $50 each to send out the discmans, that their customers will see these glued-shut, electronic, Intellectual-Property-protecting CD cases as being valuable and will not damage them. But what good is a CD player that won't play CDs? These CD players only play one particular Pearl Jam CD. That does me no good whatsoever. Me? I'd smash the fucking thing and throw it in the trash.

Which brings us to the next question: who is paying for this debacle? 1000 Discmans for the review CDs at (about) $50 a pop -- is this $50 grand a recoupable expense for the artist? Will Tori and/or Pearl Jam be charged for this silliness?

The lesson here that the record companies need to learn is that they cannot control the actions of their customers. By attempting to assert control over what their customers do, they are alienating them. As a result, album sales are down, and CDs are more expensive than ever. It's getting to be almost comical at how shortsighted and desperate the record industry is. They are doomed. It's like the rich kid who had the really nice soccer ball and controlled the playground as a result, getting paranoid that his soccer ball is getting a bit dingy and dirty. Plus, there are now other kids on the block with soccer balls, and the rich kid is nervous, because he doesn't have something no one else has anymore, and he has no friends because he's pissed everyone off by being a selfish prick.

^ posted at 8:51 AM

 

Interesting things in my inbox

This article showed up in my inbox the other day. I have no idea who "Rusticus" is (apart from an ancient Roman philosopher), nor can I find this anywhere after a quick Google search. Regardless, it's worth reading, and is very very interesting. I think the author is right on the money. The parallels are scary.

When Democracy Failed
By "Rusticus"
Published free of copyright for 9/11/02 - pass it along

It started when the leaders of the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The government intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed.

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory rhetoric offended the aristocrats and the well-educated elite in the government and media.

But he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck, and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference. (1)

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built, (2) holding the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed in newspapers suitable for display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 5-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people and the police agencies would be re-restrained. (3)

Immediately after passage of the act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings.

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. Instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as The Fatherland. As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, including those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist sympathizers. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the fatherland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the Fatherland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments. His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at our disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against terrorists and prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was threatening them, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but finally a consensus was achieved, England approved, and Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The local government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators." (4)

Once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Fatherland. The regular release of news bulletins about the discovery of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent in the Parliament. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the beginning of the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this lesson in history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2003, is the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marius van der Lubbe's successful torching of the German Parliament building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of Hitler's successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, he was one of the most beloved and popular leaders in the history of his nation.

Most Americans remember his Office of Fatherland Security, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and Schutzstaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the Germany democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the German military and industrial complex:

"fas-cism (f�sh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face international financial and domestic political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity. Germany's response was to enrich corporations and the wealthy, privatize much of the commons, and create an illusion of prosperity through war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs like the WPA.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

Footnotes:

1) Historians still debate whether the Dutch communist Marius van der Lubbe, who set fire to the Reichstag, acted alone or was encouraged by the Nazis. The most recent research indicates he acted alone, as he had tried unsuccessfully to set fire to several other German buildings in the previous week, was arrested, and then released because the Berlin police decided he was mentally retarded.

2) The first German detention center was built at Oranianberg, within a month of the attack on the Reichstag.

3) This law was also known as "The Enabling Act," and most of the legislators who voted on it didn't have time to carefully read or debate it.

4) Adolf Hitler, speech at Koenigsberg (25th March, 1938)

^ posted at 5:56 PM

 

More music and Intellectual Property stuff . . .

Here are some links, and only links, for now. Commentary later when I have more time. This is all just ridiculous:

USA Today: Rights issue rocks the music world
New York Times: Epic Records Takes Steps to Seal Its Newest Music
Linux Journal: Broadcasters Oppose Net Radio Fees

Boy, that second one is seriously stupid. I can't believe it. More soon.

^ posted at 2:48 PM

 

The Evidence Mounts . . .

It's no secret. I don't like Micro$oft. Yet, here is another reason why. Microsoft Word has a flaw that allows crackers to steal your files. OK, fine. All software has bugs. The question is, what happens to those bugs? Here are some excerpts from the article that show what Micro$oft plans to do about the bugs:

• "The company said it will definitely repair the problem only for owners of the most recent versions of the software. That decision -- still left largely up in the air by Microsoft engineers -- may leave millions of users of Word 97 without a fix. All versions of Word are susceptible to the flaw, but the problem is most severe in Word 97. 'It's incredible to me that Microsoft would turn its back on Word 97 users,' said Woody Leonhard, who has written books on Microsoft's Word and Office software. They bought the package with full faith in Microsoft and its ability to protect them from this kind of exploit.' "
• "Microsoft said it is its policy to no longer repair Word 97."
• "A research firm reported in May that about 32 percent of offices have copies of Word 97 running."

Looks like Micro$oft has its customers best interest in mind, along with an unrelenting dedication to quality software. Not. Their solution? Upgrade your version of Word, at a cost of hundreds of dollars.

Better yet, switch word processors. Try OpenOffice.org, which is available for Windows and Linux, with Mac OSX in development, and is a free download (a few dozen megabytes, so make sure you have the bandwidth). Most likely, it does everything you need it to do, including opening Word documents. There are even cases where damaged Word files can be repaired by OpenOffice; just open your damaged .doc file in OpenOffice, save it again as a .doc, and in some cases the file will work again in MS Word. Sheesh.

^ posted at 12:50 PM

 

Nine-Eleven(tm), 2002

My mother sent me an email today asking what I was doing in memory of Nine-Eleven(tm). An interesting question, to be sure; today millions of people are ritualizing their mourning for that horrible day. Hopefully it will bring a sense of closure to them, particularly those who were directly affected by the attacks.

Unfortunately, however, I personally have no such sense of closure. I do not view the attacks of Nine-Eleven(tm) as a single, isolated incident. Though it is arguably the most dramatic bloody nose in history, I view it as yet another chapter in a very long, very tragic, and very unfinished story. It was neither the beginning nor the end of the story, though in retrospect we may view it as a crucial turning point.

So to return to the question at hand, here are some of the things I did today in memory of Nine-Eleven(tm).

I listened to some of the media coverage on NPR. I was most taken by the reading of the names, in alphabetical order, of all the victims. It of course took 2 1/2 hours to read; curiously this reminded me of commencement exercises at graduations.

I tried to imagine what a 16-acre, 6-story deep hole in the ground, covered with a fine grey concrete dust, would look like.

I tried to imagine what a 45-minute walk down 80 flights of stairs in the smoky darkness would be like.

I thought about how organized religion has severely damaged the collective human psyche. Organized religion inevitably leads to fundamentalism and fanaticism, and after all, the crimes of Nine-Eleven(tm) were committed by "religious fanatics." And perhaps even more alarming, our leaders are using rhetoric derived from fundamentalism, speaking in moral absolutes such as "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists" and "this is a battle of Good against Evil" and other such nonsense.

I thought about how money has become the ultimate idol; and about how capitalism is now the worst fetishistic organized religion of them all.

I thought about Ani DiFranco's new song, Self-Evident. and about how much shit she's going to get from ignorant people.

I thought about how "America's New War" looks an awful lot like America's Old War.

I thought about how I as an American am on the beneficiary side of the global economic imbalance, despite the fact that I exist all-too-near the federal poverty levels.

I thought about what it would be like to be so downtrodden, so depressed, so oppressed, and so ignored that flying a 767 into a skyscraper -- dying to make a point -- would seem like a good idea.

I thought about how no one talks about how George W. Bush stole the presidency, and about how his "leadership" is even more fake than that of our other presidents.

I thought about how a blowjob and a disappearing cigar in the Oval Office seems so comically unimportant now, compared to the evil that takes place there these days.

I thought about the uncanny similarities between the USA PATRIOT Act and some laws passed in Germany in the 1930s.

I wondered if humanity would ever evolve beyond 2nd circuit primate territorial power politics.

I explained to my 5-year-old daughter that habitual argumentativeness is counterproductive and can only lead to anger and unhappiness, the very roots of violence.

I thought about how I am almost continuously conflicted between, on one hand, wanting to create my own reality, living my life as I wish in happiness, and on the other hand, of having to worry about the ridiculous political climate in the world. Do I ignore politics, be happier, and live in my world with my community? If so, how long will my community last if I don't stand up and do something about the insanity in global politics these days? Can I afford not to be an activist, put my head in the sand, and be steamrolled at time t in the future? Or am I just overly paranoid?

Either way, I personally feel more endangered by our government than by Evil Terrorists(tm).

^ posted at 4:43 PM

 

Iraq my brains, trying to figure out why . . .

So now the warmongers in Washington are trying to sell the idea of attacking Iraq to, well, to basically everyone outside the Oval Office.

Needless to say, many people think this is a bad idea. I tend to agree with that assessment. Why is Iraq such a threat now, when we've supported Saddam in the past, at the time when he was committing his atrocities? Why now, 15 years later, is he such a threat?

And perhaps most importantly, what does it say about our regard for the Iraqi people? We bomb the hell out of their country a decade ago in the Gulf War, then we impose serious sanctions which have virtually no effect on Saddam but starves the people of Iraq for 10 years. Now, a decade later, George W. wants to go back and finish what his daddy started.

Fuck the Iraqi people, in other words. The US Government could care less about them. They suffer for years, a decade of starvation will apparently be bookended by the most horrific bombings technology is capable of, all at the whim of power mongering, greedy bastards in the Oval Office.

There, I'm done. I got it out of my system. For now.

^ posted at 10:31 AM

 

Oh, Canada!

I applaud this story that says a Canadian Senate panel has urged the legalization of cannabis. Their conclusions are spot on; the report notes the following:

• The government should give amnesty to anyone convicted of marijuana possession under current or past legislation and erase their records;
• Evidence indicates that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol, and undermines the idea that smoking pot leads to harder drugs;
• Whether or not an individual uses marijuana should be a personal choice that is not subject to criminal penalties;
• Legalization would ultimately result in less recreational use of marijuana, the panel believes. It also would take a load off the criminal justice system and hurt organized crime;

People in Canada seem to be thinking clearly, their thought unencumbered by the ridiculous alpha-male posturing that we have to put up with here in the states. To make matters worse, the flow of accurate information about drugs is impeded by their actions. Sigh. It's issues like this that make me worry about the state of humanity.

^ posted at 11:39 PM

 

Free/Open Source Software in Governments

As a result of either market inertia, a reaction to draconian licensing schemes for proprietary software, or studies that recommend it, many governments around the world are turning to Free/Open Source software. Some are even legislating that all software used in government must be Free/Open Source. There is even a movement to do this in the USA, despite opposition from certain parties.

So what does all this mean? Should it be mandatory that software used in government be Free/Open Source? The Initiative for Software Choice people/lobbying group (funded mostly by Microsoft and Intel) argue that software should be chosen on its merits, and not categorically (ie, no proprietary software). Agreed.

So let's look at the merits of Free/Open Source software vs. proprietary software. Free software is generally more stable. It is generally more secure. It is based on a paradigm where, in Doc Searls' words, "no one owns it, everyone can use it, and anyone can improve it." Security flaws are fixed more quickly when they do come up. Free software costs less (obviously) than proprietary software. Free software allows smaller companies to make money in support contracts, rather than one monopoly banking way too much money at the expense of everyone else.

To me, this is a no-brainer. Combined, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office now cost more than the computer that runs it. That is just silly when there are Free alternatives that work just as well, and in some cases, better. Nowadays, $300 will buy you a very fine machine, and the new Linux distributions that are about to come out are just excellent.

^ posted at 1:56 PM

 

R. Buckminster Fuller: Consciousness Change Catalyst

I just finished reading the Introduction of R. Buckminster Fuller's book, Critical Path, and I can tell already that this book is going to be one of those life-changing books for me.

(Incidentally, other books I'd consider to be life-changing are, in no particular order, Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Whitehead's Process and Reality, John Dewey's Art as Experience, and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.)

John Dewey once said something to the effect of, "A problem, well-put, is a problem half-solved." In other words, the way in which a problem is invented determines what the best solution will be. WIth this in mind, Fuller's Introduction is the most well-put articulation of The Problem facing humanity that I've ever seen. Thus it is no surprise that Fuller's Utopian vision has compelling ideas with specific examples on how to achieve it.

For instance, Fuller believes that we could be operating in a post-scarcity paradigm. But because of gross inefficiency and lack of cooperation among people worldwide, it appears to most that scarcity of what he calls "life support" is the case. For Fuller, this perpetuation of the myth of scarcity is an economic problem:

"Those in supreme power politically and economically as of 1980 [when Critical Path was written] are as yet convinced that our planet Earth has nowhere nearly enough life support for all humanity. All books on economics have only one basic tenet--the fundamental scarcity of life support. The supreme political and economic powers as yet assume that it has to be either you orme. Not enough for both. That is why (1) those in financial advantage fortify themselves even further, reasoning that unselfishness is suicidal. That is why (2) the annual military expenditures by the U.S.S.R., representing socialism, and the U.S.A., representing private enterprise, have averaged over $200 billion a year for the last thirty years, doubling it last year to $400 billion--making a thus-far total of six trillion, 400 billion dollars spent in developing the ability to kill ever-more people, at ever-greater distances, in ever-shorter time" (Fuller, xxiii).

Fuller goes on to show how inefficient humans are in their generation, allocation, and use of electrical power. He suggests a worldwide power grid that would "advantage all without disadvantaging any." In other words, "it no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival. War is obsolete" (xxv).

Yet humanity continues to plod along its path of self-destruction. Fuller identifies two primary obstacles to overcoming this path: first, "humanity does not understand the language of science" (xxvii), and second, "the world's power structures have always 'divided to conquer' and have always 'kept divided to keep conquered' " (xxviii). I find these observations to be remarkably tied to the current Intellectual Property crisis we are facing. If information were able to flow freely, Fuller predicts humanity would somehow see the light and emerge into a quasi-Utopian, sustainable future. Perhaps he is right, but his more concrete predictions (by the end of the 1980s X will happen; by 2000 Y will happen, etc.) seriously underestimate either human stupidity or the might with which the power structures squeeze the general populace, or both. Time will tell.

^ posted at 1:55 PM

 

Jim, meet Bucky

"I find that our whole education system around the world is organized on the basis of the little child being ignorant. Assuming that the little child that's born is going to have to be taught, in a sense it's an empty container, waiting for information to be given to it from the grown-ups; and so the little child demonstrates time and again an interest in the whole Universe. A child is very enthusiastic about the planetarium. A little child will ask the most beautiful questions about total Universe, continually embarrassing the grown ups who have become very specialized and can't answer great comprehensive questions."
-- R. Buckminster Fuller

Many of the things I've been reading recently have made very positive comments about R. Buckminster Fuller. So I decided I'd check him out. But synchronicity must have been working today. I went to my favorite used book store in the world today, and sure enough, they had a copy of Fuller's book, Critical Path. So I picked it up.

After I got home, I went online and found a RealPlayer video of one of his lectures. The above quote was taken from that lecture. I haven't listened to all of it yet, but so far it's been a very nice summary of the "progress" of humankind up to the late 20th century.

His thoughts on education were mentioned almost in passing, but I find them to be right on the money. It's going to be fun reading this guy's work.

^ posted at 10:13 PM