jer, uh...ME!

spring cleaning

2010-02-14T22:34:00.000-08:00

whew! this place is dusty! :o)

yep, still me

2009-06-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Still me--just a very very bright and handsome version of me...almost didn't recognize myself.

Hello youuuu. ;?)

am i still me?

2009-02-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

hmm...

and i thought Obama was a compelling speaker

2008-06-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

If you haven't caught Fareed Zacharia's new show on CNN yet, I highly recommend.

It is cleverly titled GPS for Global Public Square. Fabulous speaker and thinker, And while merely one voice and one perspective on global current events, a refreshing one with some insight.

Enjoy.

11 billion

2008-05-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

From Talking Points Memo:

Americans cut backon driving in March, compared to the previous March, more than in any single month since such record-keeping began in 1942. It was a 4.3 percent drop in miles driven, a reduction of:

11 billion miles.

("Day-amn!" say the staff at jer,uh...ME!)

[TPM continues]...I was doing a little more reading on this and came across this...from Time, circa 1947:

The average U.S. citizen completely ignores the regularity with which the automobile kills him, maims him, embroils him with the law and provides mobile shelter for rakes intent on seducing his daughters. He takes it into his garage as fondly as an Arab leading a prize mare into his tent. He woos it with Simoniz, Prestone, Ethyl and rich lubricants--and goes broke trading it in on something flashier an hour after he has made the last payment on the old one.

By last week, this peculiar state of mind had not only sucked thousands of American oil wells dry, stripped the rubber groves of Malaya, produced the world's most inhuman industry and its most recalcitrant labor union, but had filled U.S. streets with so many automobiles that it was almost impossible to drive one. In some big cities, vast traffic jams never really got untangled from dawn to midnight; the bray of horns, the stink of exhaust fumes, and the crunch of crumpling metal eddied up from them as insistently as the vaporous roar of Niagara.

the good doktor

2008-04-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

DOKTOR FAUSTUS

We were long since a great power, we were quite used to it, and it did not make us as happy as we had expected. The feeling that it had not made us more attractive, that our relation to the world had rather worsened than improved, lay, unconfessed, deep in our hearts. ... War then, and if needs must, war against everybody, to convince everybody and to win. We were bursting with the consciousness that this was [our] century, that history was holding her hand out over us, that after Spain, France, England, it was our turn to put our stamp on the world and be its leader; that [this] century was ours.

--Thomas Mann

ego deficit

2008-04-07T19:23:00.000-07:00

Man on th ra-di-o today said willpower is a measurable thing. The self-regulating activity of the ego or some such.

That point where you cave in and eat a whole bucket of ice cream is the point of ego deficit. Your reserves of willpower have been depleted, so you give up on Lent, or New Year's resolutions, or your diet.

Different things replenish or empty your tank, and there seems to be a finite pool such that if one thing takes away, there's that much less for all the other things.

Cool. And I always thought I went through these weird cycles where I'd slide into depression and fall back into old habits with no get-to-itiveness. Hmm, maybe not bad at all, just the body saying 'I need a break' I've run out of steam for the moment...

I am a little bit sad today

2008-03-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

September 27, 1942 - March 30, 2008

New Link added!

2008-03-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

It is only occasionally and quite by accident that a referral turns into a real find. In this case, William Gibson's (Billy, to those of us who claim to know him well) praise of John MacLachlan Gray was serendipitous (and accurate!).

I have made my way through most of two of this author's novels (one was left in Amsterdam, by accident, short of completion). It has been sheer joy.

I go on...

A few pence for Not Quite Dead or White Stone Day could hardly be better spent. I look forward to my next JMG read- if only I can get some schoolwork done in between! ha!

Until next time, gentle ghosts.

-j

Wot, me posting?

2008-03-18T22:19:00.001-07:00

Well, I am quite sure my extended vacation has successfully shooed away any reader except the nosey phantom.

Now I may return to my rumblings undisturbed. ;?p

-jer,uh...ME!

*whispered, so as not to disturb the cobwebs*

a map you can love

2007-06-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

Wonderfully fascinating website for maps of all kinds: strange, historic, fanciful... Truly A+ time-wasting fare.

what's in a smile?

2007-06-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

BBC online has a nifty video test to see if you can distinguish a false smile from a real one. At the end the researchers share their findings.

Then again, if you are the sort who would rather not go around opening Pandora's Boxes, it might be better to pass this one by. ;?)

creative writing 400

2007-06-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

how do i say this....this guy just took sci fi in another direction. incredibly, he's re-imagined the staples of the sci fi bookshelf in the chinese idiom and done it in the form of literary critique.

does he get an "A" in creative writing?

methinks i like this guy

2007-06-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Haven't waxed political in a little while (leastwise not in here). So here's a little nod to the Scooter Libby judge's footnotes re: those bigwig legal scholars who mobilized to write letters of support for libs in less than 72 hours. Thanks to Emptywheel by way of TPM.

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant.

The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics' willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.

the ear that sees

2007-05-17T17:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, gross image. But best I could think of to kinda sorta go with this article. Not really tho.

Wired has a nifty piece on how to develop new senses. It's cool stuff. Not creepy like, say, growing an ear on the back of a mouse to harvest for human transplants.*

*Jer, uh...ME's other selves haven't weighed in for a while and would just like to remind the management that were he say, a burn victim, he might feel very otherwise about Mickey Mouse ears.

very big numbers

2007-05-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

In a world where "million" has become so less impressive a number, it can be hard to wrap your head around what big numbers look like.

Here are some helpful images.

organizing for democratic renewal

2007-03-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

Marshall Ganz, an associate of Howard Dean (DNC Chair) , gives a short history of organizing in America over at TPMcafe.

Worth a read... Organizing For Democratic Renewal

how you doin'?

2007-02-15T13:41:00.000-08:00

Yeesh. Where do I start.

Hmm, January 12 I began my Master in Intercultural Relations. Two-week residency, classes with cohort morning, noon, night. Will repeat each semester, followed by furious reading and paper-writing. Thesis after.

Woof!

This is quite a different animal from my freewheeling days as an indepent Ed. masters student, taking one class a term.

Back from residency, or rather off to. I left the day after classes ended on a week-long trip to China. Training in Beijing for company I.T. staff. Everyone flew in to Beijing from the corners of the earth. Was wonderful. Stressful. Exhilarating. Stomach-churning. Satisfying.

Took all my 'powers', and was largely successful in the adaptations I brought to these diverse sessions.

Three duck dinners. The good, the bad and the ugly. Each new group of students went out to a duck banquet. Very cool. Very tasty. As nominal chairman of the whole shee-bang, I had a certain duty to attend all the meals. One duck dinner is a thrill, no duty required. Two is amusing. Three in five days is a chore. A fun chore, but definitely an obligation. I think my arteries are 10 years older.

Am back now in P-land and diving into homework.

As for posting? Well, I will try. Maybe look for me weekly more than daily. And email is always returned. :?)

Catch ya around,

jer

1-800-stick it to the man!

2007-01-05T14:41:00.000-08:00

I am starting a new label: conscious consumerism ...to track my comments on being a more intentional, conscious participant in the great soul-sucking economy.

This week: The secret price guarentee Amazon.com doesn't want you to use.

Here's how it works.

1. You swallow your distaste and decide you must purchase from Amazon because no preferable alternatives are practical.

2. You buy your widget.

3. Prices fluxuate all the time. If the price of your widget at Amazon falls during the next 30 days, you can recover the difference using their 30-day price guarentee policy.

Note: If prices go up, you do not have to pay anything (and presumably would not call anyway)

Note: This is not a price matching policy. If the widget costs cheaper somewhere else, Amazon doesn't care.

4. Call customer-service number: 1-800-201-7575; to get a human right away, dial extension 7—ask him/her about that 30-day price guarantee..

GOOD?

2007-01-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

Hear about GOOD magazine yet?

I caught a bit on NPR. Sounds cool if they manage to stay on the straight and narrow.

Here's the premise--

People (WE!) are starting to exercise our discretion more about purchasing organic, local, and other socially & ecologically responsible products.

GOOD magainze trades on the idea that concerned people will want to know about businesses and products that are doing "good."

So, for a subscription fee, you get a magazine that exposes you to a greater circle of conscientious choices.

And the subscription fee is 100% donated to charity (you choose from a list).

Sound GOOD?

Hopefully. I am off today to pick up an issue at Barnes & Noble. I haven't found much goodness yet on their web page, so I am going to check out the paper copy.

I will let you know how it goes.

jer, uh...ME!

new ears resoluation

2007-01-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

Merry New Ye-ah!

Apologies for being gone so long. I shall resolve to post again more frequently this new year.

As I start thinking about all the resolutions I want to pursue this year, I am reminded that resolving to be a Ghandi or Mother Teresa like figure tomorrow is DOA.

No body (including me) is going to quit their live fora sanctified one cold turkey. Too much physical memory to can all at once. Too much pressure to be perfect.

I started out this blog with some poetry. The last line reminds us, "...and in small measures, life may perfect be."

The key is not to make sweeping resolutions to be better one time a year, but to make repeated, small commitments all year round.

As you resolve yourself, think about making it your intent to make a weekly resolution. If you fail, the next week offers a fresh chance at renewal and new success.

Benjamin Franklin, a rather productive fellow, organized his life around weekly cycles. Each week he would focus on one of his values to live by and emobdy.

What will be your focus this week?

Jer, uh...ME's focus this week: Organizing my clutter in office and home.

making ordinary things ordinary

2006-11-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

Why can't things just be made in an ordinary way anymore?

Why the death of appliances in favor of more complicated lives?

As I look into buying a new computer this Winter, most of my search is consumed with everything but the computer. Warranty, customer support, security, software...blah blah blah. For my computer to be any use to me for any length of time, I have to become enmeshed in all of this other crap. I have to be willing to give up some measure of my freedom, my peace of mind, my personal preference and always my anonymity.

And that's what they want.

Products don't just do what they do anymore. Ownership isn't a simple good faith transaction. Purchasing is merely the entry point into the global consumer network. It is the hook to reel you in.

When I seek to own, I am allowing others to have some ownership over my future life; in a very direct way, ownership of my identity and credit information; indirectly, onwership over my future buying decisions as I am steered by keeping my "stuff" current and usable while the market creates obsolescence pressure.

Electronics, clothing, food...all of these products offer the same lure.

Everytime I see a new housing development go up with a strip mall with the same stores and the same products, I see the power of being a participant in brand and ownership. In the macro, the companies I lend my business to turn those dollars toward ways of reducing competition, edging out smaller, local, independent producers and then ultimately telling me what products I will buy and at what price once the market is devoid of competitors.

The title of this post is taken from a William Gibson blog of this weekend. Making ordinary things ordinary is all about having to make choices to have ordinary things in one's life. And having to make an extraordinary effort to have that lifestyle.

It is all one, whether we are talking about eating locally to preserve a culture and lifestyle of local, artisinal foods and growers, or we are talking about buying a shirt that is made by someone whose goal is to make a shirt as it should be, not to make a simulacra of a shirt as cheaply and quickly as can be.

That may seem like an abstract idea until we step back and question what it means to savor a great meal or luxuriate in a soft fabric. When we step back and ask those questions about what kind of life experiences are satisfying, then we can start making conscious choices about how to enable them.

Here is what Gibson has to say and then follow the link to read about Loopwheeler shirts. The idea of them is very attractive. And I imagine the effort to own them, costly.

"MAKING ORDINARY THINGS ORDINARY"
posted 3:39 PM

I've never seen a Loopwheeler sweatshirt, but this tour of their manufacturing process has me sold.

Such a perfectly simple philosophy, yet how difficult (indeed, how splendidly impractical) it is to actually produce such "ordinary" things. But "ordinary" in this sense means something like "the things of which most other things have become simulacra". Almost all denim jeans, for instance, are now simulacra of "ordinary" denim jeans, which have become almost impossible to find (as new product). The simulacra-ization of jeans now means that the "distressing" process (faking the result of "ordinariness" + wear) probably takes longer than the actual manufacturing, something I find quite spooky. The downside of making something in the "ordinary" way is that the "ordinary" product winds up being quite expensive, by virtue of how genuinely difficult it is to make -- though still not as expensive as high-end "designer" products that we're expected to pay a great deal for by virtue of their supposed remarkable unordinariness. Yet the "ordinary" garment invariably possesses a higher literal unordinariness quotient. The odds of your finding the "ordinary" at the mall are nil, and there aren't even any Loopwheeler products on eBay today (I just checked).

was i just talking about engagement?

2006-11-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

The other day I was talking about engagement with neoconservatives.

This, from Senator Barak Obama, is more along the same lines.

...You can have the best agenda in the world, but if you don’t control the gavel you cannot move an agenda forward. And, when you do control the gavel, not only can you move an agenda forward but you can actually [move them]. I constantly see opportunities for collaboration across ideological lines to get stuff done. But you have to be the one who’s dictating how the compromises work. If it’s somebody who’s not interested in compromising who’s in charge, you can come up with all sorts of good ideas, and they’ll stiff you. If you’re the person who somebody else has to come to, you can actually engage, and that’s how, for example, we got the death-penalty reform. We set up the first videotaping of interrogations and confessions on capital cases. We were in the majority at that point, but I still reached out to all the law-enforcement folks, and we just sat down in a room. And that is, by the way, the most gratifying feeling in politics, for me: when you hit that sweet spot where everybody concludes that the law that we’ve just passed works and is going to make things better, and everybody across party lines has to confess that we’re probably better off with this thing than not...

So, I am not averse to reaching out to the fallen in political dialogue. As long as the gavel is in my hand, I at least can ensure fair debate.

Beliefs are beliefs, but what you believe about process is the difference-maker. If you believe in good-faith process that enables the best decision, the best law and the best government to emerge fairly, then you are in my way of thinking.

My hope for the Democratic Party is they won't run away from that idea. It is part of why they puff up with superiority, but it is also what makes hope in the political process possible. If both parties veer toward cynical governance, then 'the terrorists have won' as people are wont to say these days.

flattery: don't export your best peaches

2006-11-09T13:15:00.000-08:00

If you haven't figured it out by now, I do my best work when I am simply plagiarizing someone else' best work.

Or, if I am feeling not particularly lazy, I will use it as my canvas or reflecting pool. My own thoughts emerge take shape in social co-generation, so when blogging I just pretend these other amazing people are having a conversation with me.

Since they are pretending that I am in the audience when they write, I consider it a fair exchange.

My friend Patti over at 37days was talking about "don't export your best peaches."

And it reminded me of Sarah Hempel's blogging on eating locally.

In a literal way, eating locally is about tasting the goodness from your area instead of buying things imported from others. It is a goodness and it promotes many goodnesses.

Not exporting your best peaches is about cultivating goodness and beauty where you are. And learning to appreciate what is around you. Same themes.

For my own part, I love hand-made food. There is a pride and joy in making it. One controls the ingredients. And the sharing of it is a personal act of giving. I am giving you the vessel of my creativity, my skill and my caring.

Taste is more about scent and memory than it is about salt, sour, sweet, bitter and umami. Eating is more than simply about buying and swallowing.

Our sense of smell gives meaning to the combinations that flow over our taste buds. And our sense of place and communion gives us affiliation and belonging.

Eating good and well and locally becomes a celebration of who we are. (Try eating in any part of France or Italy without getting a dose of that!)

So value good food, give your patronage to purveyors of good food and lay your table with good food.

This Thanksgiving, remember that as we come together around good food.

And don't forget to brine your bird using the Martha Stewart 2004 recipe. With local carrots, onion, and celery it is a very. good. thing.

let's conspire...

2006-11-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

"My life,
You electrify my life,
Let’s conspire to,
Ignite all the souls,
that would die just to feel alive."

– Lyrics from the song “Starlight” by Muse

A ha, once more jer, uh...ME! is writing a paper for school. At some point I imagine I'll need to publish this stuff because I am becoming less enamored with laborious citation et al.

If there is irony in this life, I am in its clutches as I try to describe innovative thought in a constrained, ill-matched structurally, standardized sort of way.

I think I am actually losing my mind over it as I try to let my thoughts take wing while reigning them in and losing the essential point in the cramming of square pegs.

Alas. We all have such burdens. At least I am grappling with this one instead of a dull half-life without challenge.

That was supposed to make me feel better. :?p

I put up the Muse lyric above because it is the soul of what I am writing about with diversity councils and full-membership and action-orientation and representation and a million other details that are their own versions of bringing icarus back down to earth.

At the heart of this diversity thing, I am really just trying to be the co-conspirator to help electrify the lives of others and ignite passion.

Maybe I'll go down this musical path a ways as I get into my thesis. Seems like music strikes more deeply and quickly than just about anything else (chocolate excluded). How to bring it into the delivery of core feelings and attitudes around interculturalism. Hmm. I've got some reading and some listening to do...

bailing on the prez

2006-11-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

Neo Culpa

I found this article interesting for its direct interviews of neo-cons and their reflections on the defining neo-con event: Iraq.

Now, there's a lot to say on all sides of this and plenty of blame to share. They tend to lay it all at the feet of the prez and their own participation attains more of a stupified, "how did it go wrong?" air.

If you follow my political grumblings, you know my leanings. I think many of this crowd were the ones pushing pushing pushing, then trusting someone else would make it work. That same quality describes, I think, ideological thinking in general. It pushes, but it doesn't dwell on the mechanics.

These folks had big ideas lofty ones, in some ways moral ones if you just squinted hard enough, then averted your gaze while they ramrodded them through without the least whiff of moral compunction.

Some of the ideas themselves are interesting if one could 'just make them work' to paraphrase Kenneth Adelman.

What I want to know is - is redemption possible? On a human level, can people see the light? Can the cast down, once arrogant neo-cons apply themselves in different ways going forward? (or for that matter are they really once-arrogant, or is this some form of acting?)

These are arguably still people of some intelligence, with insights and perspectives. A great deal of collective experience. And with some scars. They could be cast away and relegated. That is certainly deserved. Or maybe there's some tempered wisdom. Some alchemical quality that is only attained by pride and fall that leaves one better able to see than even those who held a different, somewhat vindicated perspective.

Hard to say and hard for me to say. I've been selfishly wishing for them to get their comeuppance. But now that it is nigh, the other part of me still says the best way is to meet in the middle of the idea arena and bring along the God-like apprehension of Hamlet.

Are they really chastened? And can the chastened learn and accept being welcomed back into the area by onetime adversaries? Javert couldn't do it.

What interesting and thoughtful works we do do if redemption were possible and ego would accept it.

But I fear the modern political machine and the pride of the powerful will continue to keep people apart. Pride and humility do not go often together.

Well, I hope "my side" uses their time in the sun to take their ideas out for a spin. Maybe they will work a little better.

But I still think all ideas should go into the arena and be considered in good faith. (that's the problem...so little faith in or goodwill toward others today)

And in the end, that is what a big part of being a liberal means to me.

hooray for hubble

2006-10-31T10:00:00.000-08:00

Looks like the Hubble is going to get some love again.

And has not the Hubble become something like a beloved building? It's got character. An identity. Worthy happenings. And what a great name.

Hubble for prez!*

*the space telescope, not Edwin. I am pretty sure he no longer meets the qualifications to run. Though we could hardly do much worse...

brez for prez?

2006-10-30T16:44:00.000-08:00

I am not smart enough to add anything, so I will merely link to this essay by Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Here is the teaser from Steven Clemons' Washington Note...

"A sensible, enlightened treatment of what drives terrorism and how to confront it was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski in September 2002 in the New York Times, "Confronting Anti-American Grievances." It's worth reading..."

Excerpt from the Brzezinski essay: (read the whole thing here)

Missing from much of the public debate is discussion of the simple fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific political antecedent. That does not justify either the perpetrator or his political cause. Nonetheless, the fact is that almost all terrorist activity originates from some political conflict and is sustained by it as well. That is true of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Muslims in Kashmir and so forth.

In the case of Sept. 11, it does not require deep analysis to note -- given the identity of the perpetrators -- that the Middle East's political history has something to do with the hatred of Middle Eastern terrorists for America. The specifics of the region's political history need not be dissected too closely because terrorists presumably do not delve deeply into archival research before embarking on a terrorist career. Rather, it is the emotional context of felt, observed or historically recounted political grievances that shapes the fanatical pathology of terrorists and eventually triggers their murderous actions.

American involvement in the Middle East is clearly the main impulse of the hatred that has been directed at America. There is no escaping the fact that Arab political emotions have been shaped by the region's encounter with French and British colonialism, by the defeat of the Arab effort to prevent the existence of Israel and by the subsequent American support for Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, as well as by the direct injection of American power into the region...

new link

2006-10-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

Please follow the new link to experience Creating Passionate Users.

Groovy, eclectic, passionate.

Go forth and make passionate _____ in your life.

~ Me

:?)

giddy inside

2006-10-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

For the little boy in all of us...paintballing in a tank.

rebels vs. the empire

2006-10-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

Employees fighting the good fight against Walmart.

beat the clock

2006-10-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Howz your geography?

:?)

shiny balls of mud

2006-10-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

hikaru dorodango

"An artifact of such utter simplicity and perfection that it seems it must be either the first object or the last, something that either instigated the Big Bang or awaits the final precipitous descent into universal silence. At the very end of things awaits the hikaru dorodango, a perfect three-inch sphere of mud. At its heart: the unthinkable.”

~ William Gibson

Please go read what Patti Digh has to say about hikaru dorodango at 37days.

i am more interesting when i am writing

2006-10-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

You know, I am more interesting to myself and more stimulated when I am writing. Even when my work demands a certain amount of lonely reflection (especilly when!), writing is symbolic of reaching out to others and being social.

I hope I never become an anti-social writer. Someone who takes a laptop into the closet and taps away while no one is looking.

who wants to blog when there's so much to read?

2006-10-05T16:40:00.000-07:00

So much scandal to read, so little time to write. I imagine serious writers must close themselves off from such distractions to get anything done.

Thank goodness I've never been confused for a serious writer.

---

As this whole Foleygate thing has mushroomed, I am reminded of something a friend once told me. We were talking about criminals and the problem of parole.

‘Here are people with impulse-control problems, and little discipline. They get parolled and have to govern themselves, adhering to a stricter set of rules than those they could not live up to before. Is it surprising how often parole is violated?'

And then I think of legislators. Makers of laws, but most often left to police themselves. Righteous in the rule of others, but undisciplined and flawed in self-governance.

I am doing a certain amount of catching the innocent up along with the guilty. But then when the caucuses put self-preservation above self-control one cannot simply rail at the faceless body, impotent to vote down the individual member.

Individual virtue in legislators and their leaders can command loyalty only so long as the politician wields it and votes it.

The minute it is set aside for expedience it is an elective virtue and not native.

Interesting that “elect” is the root of election and selective. One can only hope more votes will be cast electively and selectively than blindly this November.

shiver me timbers

2006-10-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems I had so much fun talkin' like a pi-rate that I plumb forgot to post for a while.

So I'm back, from outta' space,
I just walked in to find you here,
With that sad look upon your face.

or in pirate--

Arrr! I be back, from way up yon,
I stagga'd to the rendez-vous,
But by yer look the loot's all gone.

Arrr....

arrrtful dialogue

2006-09-19T07:31:00.000-07:00

It be National Talk Like a Pirate Day.

That's PI-rate, not PA-rrot, ya lubbers.

Arrrr.....

more artful yet

2006-09-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

and this from Dahlia Lithwick--

I am willing to be persuaded, five years later, that provisions of the Patriot Act really do make us safer. But I am not persuaded by assertion alone.

How can I balance the security benefits of so-called national-security letters, or the subpoena of my library records, if the government refuses to disclose how that information is used and why?

If I am only weighing the curtailment of my civil liberties against the government's bare assertions that such curtailment makes me safer, then there is no real balancing to be done. And if that information is unknowable, am I not just balancing my own subjective sense of freedom against the president's promise that I am safer?

- Dahlia Lithwick

artifice or artfully said

2006-09-18T16:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a short movie clip that captures the whole point of the torture debate.

I find it interesting that the pro-torture arguments tend to avoid acknowledging the power of other interrogation methods, labeled "soft" for their reliance on breaking the individual without torture.

I doubt anyone who ever went through a "soft" interrogation would describe the experience as pleasant.

And in this argument it doesn't matter that "soft" interrogation is more reliable. It is glossed over that to the extent that torture can break someone's will much faster, it is at the expense of reliable information. They tell you what they think you want to hear to end the suffering.

The assertions that "what if" we need immediate information to stop a plot are a bit disingenuous.

They whiff of television-drama.

In the real world, interrogation doesn't break up plots just seconds before they happen.

Surveillance, detective work and strong security break up imminent acts.

But then detective work is hardly a wedge issue that can be wordsmithed and spun to cling to a paper-thin margin of legislative control.

Such bad acts, such bad faith should be exposed and derided to its face.

muff 'n miff

2006-08-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

Picked up a muffin to nibble on and had to chip my way through the sugar cap on top.

Why do people do this?

I mean, I know why. But WHY?

Delicious muffin underneath. Loaded with nuts and fruit. Loaded with fat too.

And yet this is not enough virtue. The formula for sales must be:

1. Take good ingredients.
2. Labor to find the maximum taste & texture combination for the diner.
3. Lose faith in the product
4. Dump a bunch of crap on top that makes it catch the eye, but reduces the enjoyability of the experience and self-fulfills fear that product is less-than-perfect.

Nice.

I want to go to a bakery now. Just eat something right from the baker's inspiration. No marketing guy. No sales guy. No need for preservatives.

good burn

2006-08-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

Where others satisfy, she makes most thirsty.

~ Lazarus Long

How will you know your purpose when you encounter it?

Like a really good salsa, the further you go, the greater the burn. The only relief is to keep going. To stop is pain. Scovilles of pain.

Margaritas? Do not speak to me of avoidance measures, no matter how divine. Was any poet ever able to quench his fire without putting it out?

contemplative

2006-08-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

What is he thinking? With what elusive thought is he grappling?

This picture of my grandpa really describes how I feel in this time of big ideas and sense of purpose. Of a feeling of smallness before a monumental task. A tendency to feel alone with something I haven't been able to yet draw others into.

siic pic

2006-08-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Here are my awesome classmates and teachers from SIIC 2006

the wild geese are calling

2006-08-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

My mind has been racing ever since my return from SIIC.

I've been turning my newly milled lens on my world and everywhere I see new possibilities. Not simply random ideas, but new understanding of the energies and motivational forces.

I must sound like I'm full of it, but really it's been more unsettling than boastful.

An unintended consequences of seeing with greater clarity is having to confront my own choices with that same vision.

I'm most of the way through a degree in adult learning, but I know I don't really want to do it. Oh, I want to earn the credential and be more employable. I want to finish and prove to the heavens that I am worthy. But I've exhausted the true motivation in it.

I want to extend my thematic work, my electives, to keep developing as an interculturalist and educator. Not to slog through 'history of 20th century high school education' or whatever.

I made some choices as an undergraduate to finish off the degree within reach. To do the "employable" thing. And I've spent the last 10 years finding my way out of that mediocre wilderness and back into passion.

It seems as clear to me as the wild geese calling as they flew over my house this morning.

If I go toward my passion, it will be a life well-lived. Passion attracts. Passion instigates. Passion leads to things. So, if I can cling to that certainty in lieu of true courage, I am about to enter a very interesting time...

Stay tuned and ask me how it goes. --goosebumplies--

the pun that slayed me

2006-08-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

new link: please experience 37days

2006-08-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

One of my great excitements of attending these last two weeks of classes was meeting some terrific people and amazing thinkers (who are even more amazing feelers).

One of my new inspirations can be found over at 37days. Please go visit and chew on Patti Digh's blogging (pronounced "Dye"). There's some really tasty thinking going on over there.

37days

sorta saw it coming

2006-08-09T17:17:00.000-07:00

So I am back. And I am different. Ahh, but I am not the only changed creature. It seems my boss availed himself of the opportunity (in my absence) to retire and go into business for himself. Chicken. ;?p

I sort of saw it coming. Good guy, but worn down and been really checked-out for the last couple of months.

So the times they are a'changin'.

I think this will be a good thing (he says, inviting fate to take a steaming dump on his predictions). My kindled desire to change the energy around my team and in my business was going to come into conflict with boss-man's inertia. Now that our system is in flux, there is an opening to make some of those changes come true.

Here's hoping.

swollen memebrains

2006-07-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Just a little check in from the Summer Institute...

I am having a grand time this week. Lot's of new inputs to swell my brain. But more than just additional intercultural tools for my professional toolkit, I am undergoing some substantial mental growth.

Like sitting in workshop and feeling my brain actually putting pressure on my skull. I'm not getting smarter, but my pathways for making meaning are altering.

Heady stuff indeed.

It is exhilarating and unsettling and ultimately system-changing. Now the rest of what I think and do has to adjust to bring my self system back into equilibrium.

I stopped back into work yesterday afternoon after only 2+ days away and the place looked older. I felt like I was gone for a month or longer. I am seeing it through a new lens.

When I am totally back in another week, I won't really be back - it'll be a different place as I am in a different place.

I confess I am curious and energized in new ways, but I don't quite know how I'll relate to the same people at work.

Just as expatriates have a hard time reintegrating and just as it is "lonely at the top", I don't quite know who I will talk to about my experiences and about my readjustment.

Will probably have to reach out to the blogosphere.

edumacated

2006-07-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

Seems like I've been on this treadmill of education for a looong time. Lately, I've been in and out of many meetings and training sessions as we beef up our learning and diversity competencies around the company.

Tomorrow I get to kick off two solid weeks of...more of the same. :?)

I'll be attending sessions at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC).

A little bit bleary-eyed, but excited. In our own backyard (Forest Grove), several hundred professionals and faculty congregate and exchange ideas. It is about as fertile a place for growing intercultural understanding and knowledge as can be found.

Now, I have to figure out how to make some room in my brain for all the new learning. Guess I'll have to toss out some old information.

Uh, if I forget your name - please know it was for a good reason and just remind me one more time. As ever. ;?)

new links

2006-07-17T17:39:00.000-07:00

Got some new links up.

Epicurious is the place to find just about anything you'd ever want to know about cooking. I could just get lost in here and dream.

Iain Banks is one of the finest science fiction writers extant. But don't fail by boxing him in as a genre writer (as I, seemingly, have just done). He can dance AND sing as well. The proverbial "triple-threat."

And then there's Doonesbury. Which needs no introduction. It is occasionally (increasingly) near unbearable to think about what weak men can do to great nations when the people do not hold them to high standards. Where press are unwilling to question, humorists dare to tread.

on courage

2006-07-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

(I need to do some free thinking, so don't hold me liable for the direction of this meandering...)

[Unless you liked what he said]

{Or how about if it inspires them to some personal insight that confirms their own beliefs in a self-congratulatory, self-delusional epiphany?}

(What, like the way you're always impressing yourself?)

{Hrmph! I shall not dignify that!}

[I think he likes he likes to hear himself say, 'epiphany'. Like he's cultured or something.]

--@--

Whenever I take a fresh look at my values, there's this word "courage" that keeps popping up.

I guess because so much of what I see around me these days bespeaks an absence of courage.

To be sure, I have taken the easier road myself. Usually rationalized around what is the greater good vs. what is the most direct, moral course. (Ahh, when morals collide!) But when we interact with the wider world, we need mediators to help us understand:

Governments, representatives, journalism, public servants, etc.

There are lots of kinds of courage - the classic physical kinds, mental fortitude, faith...

The kind I long for is not a category, but an intention - to live up to our potential. To think of more than just our own little pile of gold. To believe in grand purposes and commit to doing better (Why is New Orleans a gaping pit? Where is our greatness that we have not the will to commit to fixing it, then finding the way?) Or to simply take more right paths than easy paths.

I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way."
~ Frodo Baggins

It seems that when you do the right thing, good things will happen. Cliche? Only to the extent of its confirmation.

So when I think of the intermediaries we rely on to help us, inform us or act for us I ask for some of this courage.

At this moment (and sadly most of the time) it is hard to know if our agencies of government are acting the way they ought to. When the pentagon is spending billions on public relations, when the executive contracts reports to surreptitiously report it's messages as their stories, and when we have a PR-driven "dialogue" with the public at which only pre-screen "loyal" American are allowed to attend and ask pre-screen (for loyalty) questions, one simply must wonder.

Who then represents us? Once upon a time, we though of the press as an agent of the people.

Well, that's a little more romantic than true.

How about a little journalistic courage? To tell the real story to the best of your understanding; To not worry about ratings or accusations?

Walter Pincus has a few words to this point. They are worth a read.

new addition to links

2006-07-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I've worked on the page. There's a new link you should run to - Barack Obama, U.S. Senator from Illinois

Is it dangerous to give your heart to a politician? If only we could woo him to Oregon.

Softly now...

-woo- -woo- -woo-

what is possible

2006-06-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

When I read these words I am reminded of what is possible. And what we fail to reach for when we don't realize that we have a moral right to expect more.

What would be possible if this guy was leading us?

One hopes.

be a verb

2006-06-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

I went to a short presentation by the King of Ghana this morning, King Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin. Really really cool.

He's leading Ghana into the future and making it a bright spot for development, education, health and the environment. Not just in Africa, but in the world. With a little bit of time and partnership, they will have quite a story to tell.

One of the things HM said that I connected with:

"You can't just live in this world being a noun. Sometimes you have to be a verb."

a little bit of good news

2006-06-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

Not much good news these days about a government that actually pays attention to our values.

This is a small bit of good news though. Maybe not directly for you or me, but for somebody. That's a start. A little more of that and we may start thinking about the good of all some day again.

my roof doth magnify the lord

2006-06-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

Was driving past a mega-church with a friend a while back (different friend than from the durian disaster).

We both ooh'd at the acres and acres of copper roofing on the monstrosity. The thing positively gleamed.

Can you see it from space? Well, at least God knows where that church is.

She said, "How can they spend so much on a roof?! Aren't there missions they could be funding???

I agreed and surmised the goal was to attract nearby highway-goers as they sped by at 70--

"Ooh! Shiny temple! Let's stop and go in, honey!"

Here it is up close.

Then I felt the words of the noble Magnificat swell and take song, "...My roof doth magnify the looooord!"

For just a moment, the acoustics in my '90 Accord LX were almost perfect. I wonder if I should add a copper roof... -snicker-

Well it was a moment for two high church loonies. We both cracked up.

:?)

singin' fool

2006-06-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

Went up Washington way yesterday with boss other trainers and learn-ded us a few things.

We all have high levels of yellow (Insights) energy, so we drove all the way singing songs.

Great car songs:

Gordon Lightfoot (If You Could Read My Mind! -- but it's ALL singable)

Clancy Brothers (Gypsy rover and other irish traditionals)

Jackson Browne (Runnin' on Empty, Staaaaaay just a little bit longer!)

Journey (Do-o-on't stop believin'....admit it, we all pretend we can hit the high notes like Steve Perry)

Talking Heads (so we can warble the low stuff like David Byrn)

Billy Joel (but MAN does he have a lot of tortured songs...)

Garfunkel and that other guy (Koda-chro-o-o-o-me...)

Eagles (But only if Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt get their time!)

----

What ones do you like to sing in the car / shower / anyplace you think nobody is listening but are probably wrong? :?p

if the roadies don't mind...

2006-06-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

So I am blogging to postpone (just a little bit lo-o-nger) work on my final paper of the term.

I may have to go get a soda in a minute, too. So many things to do...

It has been a fun class and one of the best. Most of my training seems to have taken the long road in reshaping how I think. This latest, while doing that too, also broke out into immediate application.

But.

It is a Sunday and the sun is shining. My porch is swept clean. My trees are sighing. My strawberries are growing so fast, I can practically hear them.

Or is that the sound of the squirrels munching on my strawberries I hear?

The little rodents made short work of my bulbs last year. Now they are nabbing my fruit just as it nears ripeness.

Squirrels [5] Jeremy [1]

One critter bit the dust the other day, cause unknown, and I buried it in my strawberry patch. Seemed fitting.

Squirrels [5] Jeremy [1] Strawberries [1]

I've never been a farmer, but now that I have a few square yards I feel a part of the fraternity. With all the pride and protectiveness.

I reckon that's enough avoidance of responsibility for now. More later... ;?p

don't durian

2006-06-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

My Intercultural Competence for Trainers class is wrapping up in two weeks and I've been having a blast thinking more intentionally about my diverse students and cultueral dynamics in my lessons.

Swollen with goodwill from this expanded awareness, I went to Uwajimaya with a friend.

This is a big pan-asian supermarket where you can find EVERYthing. We were just stopping by to find some tasty wafers.

Strolling down the candy aisle, I was tickled by all the variety. If you've been to this store or one like it, you know that the variety of flavors reflects the sheer vastness of the "pan-asian" region. We found straberry wafers and lemon wafers and vanilla wafers. But we also found more...experimental flavors.

One of these was durian.

----------

Durian is this amazing fruit. It's harmless unless you open it. Then you are in the middle of chemical-warfare. Really aweful stink. Never to be opened inside a home. Or on a train. If they ever weaponized this stuff, it would be even better crowd-control than pepper spray. Less pain, but more revulsion. Humane, but nasty.

“Signs forbidding durians on Singapore’s mass transit system”

(why no fine???)

But beyond the stink, deeper in, lie these wonderful pockets of total ambrosia. The whole point of durian seems that one must suffer a bit to appreciate the divine.

Clearly a "message" fruit is ever God made one.

----------

So we jumped at the chance to try out this exciting wafer.

Driving back in the car, we opened the package—

Waves of stench enveloped the cabin and we choked-laughed-choked at our folly. The wafers themselves seemed to have captured all of the aroma and none of the ambrosia.

Like skunk stink, it clung. Mostly to our airway membranes. Each time one or the other would exhale, the durian would come back up in full force.

We stopped for a Coke to wash it away. Durian overpowers Coke.

But worse, the carbonation...More burping. More durian recall.

So, if there was a lesson in this, it is that some fruit is forbidden for a reason.

Don’t durian.

:?)

checking in

2006-06-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

I've been distracted with a monster paper and a disturbing number of hospitalizations in my circle of family and friends, but I've got a few minutes, so let's play.

she likes it

2006-05-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Started #2 on baby food yesterday. She's been watching the rest of us from the bench for a while now, anxiously waiting to get into the game.

Her first outing was a little frantic (more food in the hair than down the chute), but she dove straight for the spoon to show us 'she got game.' Jacked up a few airballs and generally left a trail of mayhem. Most impressive mess.

Reminds me of the mess she made in the delivery room. Er, I'd better not tell that story again. I feel the rising ire of my beloved from 10 miles away.

How is it they know when you are telling stories you shouldn't be telling? *g*

da-aad

2006-05-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Figure it's about time I said something new about my girls.

M spoke her first word this morning. Said, "Da-aad" just as her sister would say it when coaxing me to get involved in some mischief with her.

This doesn't bode well-- her first line delivered right from the mouth of The Mouth, daughter #1.

Of course no one was present to corroborate the first word. And it was morning (I am not known to be mentally sharp early in the day. Eeeeey! No heckling from the peanut gallery about the rest of the day not being much different!).

I'll work on some cutie pictures to put up. More soon...

Al Gore wants to kill this little girl

2006-05-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

Al Gore wants to kills this little girl...by reducing carbon dioxide.

At first gasp I thought the "Carbon Dioxide is Your Friend" movement was a rip-off of The Onion (humorous fake news story artists that they are). Turns out not so.

Read for yourself and revel in the joy of being alive. The high you are on is probably carbon dioxide going to your head. ;?p

trust us, you are one of the good guys...

2006-05-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

"Trust us, you are one of the good guys...until we no longer think so."

This is the message your friendly government is now sending. Well, they say the first part, but to hear the second part you need to have the Bush-double standing nearby to mutter.

Link to ABC News getting skittish about wiretapping of reporter calls. Ahhh, smells like a better democracy through fear, intimidation and repression of dissenting voices.

Good times.

At least we still have the internet open and free...until the same phone companies who have happily gifted your call records to the NSA are granted a no-bid contract to own and operate. No doubt there will be a few proviso's about monitoring dissenting blog and email voices.

Only Quest refused to give its records to the Gov. Until there is evidence to the contrary, it sounds like Quest is the moral choice for phone service.

UPDATE: 5:26

Seems the press are all fahred up 'bout sump'n. This one didn't even wait a half-day to get hot.

Imagine that. I was wondering out loud about what it would take to get the press riled up. "Where is the tipping point?" I asked a friend. 'When do the injustices reach critical mass? I blathered something about when the water starts boiling around their rights.

Well now, looks like we got a reg-U-larr jee-q-zee! :?p

Should be an 78 RPM week for the spindoctors...

bday blackout

2006-05-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed not to post yesterday. My inner voices thought it might be self-congratulatory ro post on one's birthday. so I am congratulating myself today. on yesterday.

:?p

Had a good time. God some nice cards and a rosemary bush (yes, I get excited about weedy herbs). I shall name him Bruce.

I got a video game from pop. Been a while sice Atari and Commodore 64. Should be fun and intimidating. I am sure my 4 year-old will help me learn how to be whupped at video games by a 4 year-old.

I don't know how much time I will spend playing. Seems like the rest of my life is quite full. But I'll find some me-time at Saturday, 1am.

The best part was having loved ones around and getting to cook with and eat with them.

Weren't those keebobs good?!?

mindblowing salad

2006-05-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

I was raving about the salad we got from our catering service today. Combo of young mixed greens with topping options: blue cheese, walnuts, vinaigrette.

Our training coordinator said it should be good, the catering company advertised it as:

"Tarheel Salad"

mescalin

walnut

bleu cheese

vinigrette

(I wonder if they meant mesclun...)

chernobyl 20 years later

2006-05-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

Remember Chernobyl?

This well-written piece with photos is a worthwhile read.

It mixes fascinating information about the area with the ache of promise-gone-wrong, of crumbling civilization and people's connection to the land. even a poisoned land.

And though we've largely forgotten Chernobyl--for it's not news-sexy--we are reminded that it is merely a dormant volcano. The reactor core is still hot, waiting for the right conditions to come along again...

C for Cookie

2006-05-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

My admiration for V For Vendetta has found likeminded persons.

Here is a darling re-mix of the trailer using Sesame Street characters.

C For Cookie

happy birthday toooo meeee

2006-05-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I got an early birthday present.

Seems Lucas is re-releasing his original star wars movies on DVD WITHOUT the edits.

I'm not a huge-O movie ownership person anymore, but this I think I will get. overpriced though they be.

Other movies I'll be swooning over: Serenity, V For Vendetta

(What kind of movie year is this?!? THREE movies I'm going to get? Someone must be locked in on making my kinda flick.)

Colbert at correspondents dinner

2006-05-02T11:03:00.000-07:00

Stephen Colbert did the Correspondents Dinner last night. I thought it was interesting the AP hosts it (?) as AP seems to be less and less of a force in US news. Or at least as television news continues on a vector away from investigative reporting.

Colbert had a little fun with the gut vs. fact subject. His greeting to Antonin Scalia was also a funnier moment.

Here's a link to the video of Colbert's Speech.

port security informed

2006-04-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

I found this short blog on port security to be illuminating. The detail-oriented reader will want to look into more, but it seems that 100% container scanning isn't an unrealistic proposition.

I must say, inside my intuitive-driven head, I never imagined it would be that big a deal - but then the world doesn't always operate the way I think it should.

In this instance it seems Hong Kong does. I see a trip to Hong Kong in my future... :?)

this just made me smile

2006-04-26T16:47:00.000-07:00

This excerpt from another blogger just made me smile...

"The president is unpopular for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is probably Iraq -- in all its many manifestations. But a very big reason -- and one that suffuses many of the other reasons -- is a growing sense that the president and his chief advisors are dishonest, incompetent, cynical and possibly corrupt.

That's not great. But when you think about this coming election, and the stakes for the White House, you need to figure that that's all come about without any independent, let alone antagonistic or hostile, investigations into the key issues that have led to this souring view of the president.

Would the president look better after a new look at the Iraq intel bamboozlement that wasn't controlled by Sen. Roberts? How about an investigation into the executive branch side of the Abramoff scandal? What about a look into the Plame affair? What about the folks in Rumsfeld's office who knew about Duke's corruption but looked the other way?"

Props to TPM

praise be!

2006-04-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

Last week I was telling you about the William Cross lecture I attended at PSU: Transacting Black Identity in Everyday Life. It was an awesome 2 hours of discovery and realization that went by too fast. I was left asking, ‘how can I get in front of this guy again for a longer exploration of this topic.’

It was that powerful.

I am stunned, but thrilled to find Dr. Cross will be back in Oregon in July as a faculty member at the Summer Institute. He is teaching a workshop (#21) July 24-28 on the same topic—now expanded to cover how different racial and ethnic identities operate, adapt and relate in various settings.

There are very few events that I feel strongly enough about to grab people by the shoulders and exhort them to attend. This is one that must not be missed.

rage renewed

2006-04-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since my ire has boiled over at this administration. I've been on slow simmer, redirecting my energy to raising kids, but it is time again to say what I feel.

60 Minutes hosted a piece last night on CIA officer Tyler Drumheller.

The short of it is he was a central figure in the run-up to the war. He ran our covert operations in Europe-- He saw the bogus Niger-Uranium papers early on. He debriefed the Iraqi Foreign Minister on WMD. He wasn't a low-level analyst whose information was narrow.

The old news is there was no WMD. The old news is there were conflicting intel views. The new news is not surprising, but it is breathtaking.

Go check out the transcript of the interview and decide for yourself what you believe.

Why aren't impeachments proceeding? Republican-led committees who will never permit the truth to come out.

Where is the tipping point? Where does it become impossible to keep resisting what is so absolutely clear - the bad faith and the lies of this government to its people. before. during. after. now.

fun with Blogger passwords

2006-04-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Occasionally Blogger spells something funny with its randomized passwords.

Today I got:

boqyuse

"bo-q-z"

Paul Bocuse

book recommendation

2006-04-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

I had a good day yesterday. Good in an unsual way. In a 'something comes along that really affects you' way.

I attended a lecture last night for class: Transacting Black Identity in Everyday Life.

The speaker was Dr. William E Cross Jr. from City University of New York.

And I feel totally inadequate to describe how totally engrossing and transforming this short short 2 hours we had was.

I think the best I can do is to issue my high recommendation - in the way we may sometimes hand a friend a book we've read with high praise.

Whoever you are you will be better and wiser and more fulfilled for taking any opportunity you create to listen to this man speak. You will learn something about yourself. It is not his art at speaking, but the absolute beauty and power of the content of his thinking. Doesn't matter if you are particularly or marginally interested in the topic.

Keep your ears tuned and eyes open for his name: Dr. William E. Cross Jr. and for his subject - psychology, identity, personality, african-americanism.

Here's a link to his recent speaking engagement at PSU and his bio is at the bottom.

Go see! :?)

much ado

2006-04-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Please give it up for el corporal and his lovely wife. They gave birth to twins on Friday.

Most notably mamma carried for 38 weeks and delivered Pierce (6lb10oz) and Lawson (5lb10oz) happy and healthy.

Way to go T! :?)

No doubt there will be many stories of the two little guys that make it into future blogs.

shut up!

2006-04-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

I was in class last night. Dog tired. Bones tired.

And then something remarkable happened. While slouching in my seat, corpselike, I became aware the woman next to me had started talking and just wouldn't shut up.

This wasn't just an endless single topic kind of talking. It was, I would later gather, an ADD-induced stream of consciousness.

Every single thing the instructor said triggered some comment, annecdote, inspired personal example, innovation, analysis and synthesis....

Each thought would eventually burn itself out, and in a moment of dawning horror the speaker would peter out with a mumbled mantra, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!..." At the same time furiously scribbling on her notepad the very same phrase, writ large. bordered. red inked. traced over and over furiously. Shut up!

I watched this go on several times, feeling empathy and wanting to soothe the tortured soul with an, "It's all right, you don't need to be so hard on yourself. Just contribute on every 3rd question instead of every time."

At the same time it was fascinating. car wreck, flashing ambulance lights fascinating.

Over the course of the evening it started to drain on my empathy. This nice woman was enthusiastic. She was chatty. She was a pretty good neighbor at the table. She was probably reaching the end of her meds for the day and having a hard time focusing. And it was fraying my nerves.

Reminded me of something that happened in college...

Interlude

I'd seen something like this before. My roomie in college, second year. Good guy. Looked like Jackson Browne. Was easy going like Jackson Browne. But not early in the morning before his meds and late at night after his meds wore off.

At those times he became a quietly insistent paranoiac.

Didn't discover this until I invited him to join a game of "assassin" and his sub-surface tendencies erupted. Our room felt like a guarded fortress as he sought to avoid his own hunter. I was berated for minor lapses in security protocol which could let the barbarians in-- things like letting the door open more than a crack as I entered and left the room.

Finally, in an act of total frustration, total betrayal and I guess total validation of Ken's paranoia, I worked a deal with the guy who was hunting him (I was pretty sharp at this game and worked out all the hunters/hunted pretty fast). Joe, the comic book collecting, Hawaiian, pitiless killer popped through a thoughtlessly-left-open door I had egressed a few moments earlier and collected his contract on Ken.

Ken was a good guy. I said that, didn't I? Didn't even yell at me. Just wearily explained how I'd once more failed to close the door behind me and this time the unthinkable had happened. But at least he didn't have to worry anymore.

We consoled eachother.

So I am back in my class realizing what is going on. How do you help someone whose meds are wearing off to hold it together for another two hours?

I'll have a quiet conversation with the instructor and see if we can come up with some relaying techniques (i.e. talking stick) to support my neighbor.

It really pained me to see her attacking her own self-worth with those "Shut ups!"

slobber, drool...

2006-04-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

Nothing inspirational to report. I am just slogging through a couple of weeks of teaching back-to-back classes. Am the walking dead.

I guess I am excited about starting up the next class in my Masters program this week.

The combination of excitement and exhaustion should manifest in a mild catatonia with drooling of joy...

...of course these symptoms also match the classic signs of a recent observance of Cthulu. So use your own judgement as to which diagnosis to make. The worst that could happen is I'll want to eat your brain-- but then I'll be too tired to move, so the risk is probably low at that. -shrug- :?p

channeling Leonard Maltin: V for Vendetta

2006-03-29T17:05:00.000-08:00

found this review of V for Vendetta on the blog of one of my literary heroes, William Gibson. Let me say I heartily recommend the film. It is challenging, relevant artifice. And it is a voice against a sort of shadow of totalarianism that we can almost see if we squint and let our vision defocus.

"There are people who are going to hate this movie; people who donÂt like to think, the brain dead, the fools. Referencing the still unseen film, one member of a politically minded film forum was quick to declare: ÂYou canÂt make a movie about a terrorist now without endorsing bin LadenÂ. ItÂs that mindset, which has become so ingrained in all of us since 9/11, that makes V for Vendetta so unsettling. At times it almost feels like youÂre watching something forbidden, like youÂre seeing something you shouldnÂt be allowed to see. ItÂs shocking that a movie like this, especially in these times, ever actually got made. ItÂs even more unbelievable that it was made by a major Hollywood studio. ItÂs fun to accuse Hollywood of liberal activism, but you donÂt expect this kind of real filmmaking bravery from corporate America or a company like Warner Bros. ItÂs a purposefully uncomfortable film, one that will affect different people differently depending on what you bring in with you."

--Joshua Tyler, CINEMA BLEND

One can hate this movie for many reasons, but it is definitely not for those who want to be reassured that everything is fine.

For myself, I like the authors' comments in the graphic novel, penned in 80's England when Thatcher was prognosticating a conservative deathlock on government for the next century.

'This is a movie for people who don't turn off the news when the sitcoms and game shows are over.'

And one can love this movie for many reasons. It is well done. The Matrix brothers excel their opus and show their command of the art in the restraint of this film. It could have become cartoonishness so many times but rode the line without falling.

Natalie Portman performs with depth and rawness.

Hugo Weaving unleashes the talent of his voice as I have not quite heard before. It is magnified in how it must carry the main character and really the power of the whole itselfwithin istelf.

I wonder if many will understand how hard Hugo's performance is? How much virtuosity is in it. How so very few could ever try it and fewer still succeed. I doubt a typical Academy voter will get it. Maybe a few directors. I am glad for him.I don't go in for awards much, but I hope he get his acknowledgement for this work.

and so i'm back...

2006-03-27T17:47:00.000-08:00

And so I'm back,
From outer space.
I just dropped by to see you there,
With that sad look upon your face.

I see no one has changed the locks on me while I've been gone. Texas was nice. for not being Oregon. ;?p

Had a brain-busting good time learning about what rattles around inside peoples' skulls. With a little luck and some chicken bones I should be able to render a few insights to my customers with this new-fangled knowledge of mine.

thank you, my kami

2006-03-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

Am reading Shogun at the moment.

One of the words that pops up again and again in the book is kami. Characters invoke the kami or "guardian spirits" of their families. Well there are many kinds of kami, but it is the "guardian spirit" I like at the moment.

Writing like this with you, my invisible kami readers, is very comforting in turbulent times. You are out there, looking in on me from time to time and sharing a kind word.

It may seem an odd thing, but I don't really long for much more than the occasional comment that you already lend.

Instead of managing an onslaught of regular commentators, I can attend to each appearance. I don't have to dread the obligation of responding to an inbox full of messages. You remain rewarding little surprises in my day.

Well, so thank you, my kami. It is nice having you out there.

domo arigato gozaimashita

xbox

2006-03-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

I think I may have lost my inner child.

I have been offered an xbox that someone won (and has no use for) and I am a little dumbfounded by the thing.

Yeah, I guess I'd like to have it. But I'm a bit rusty on video game playing. Between work and home and school and kids and blah blah blah I don't know how much video-gaming I am going to do.

If I played anything it'd be one of those perplexing japanese games that doesn't involve shooting anything or solving boring riddles.

There's this one game where you roll a "magnetic" ball around, collecting household miscellany that stick to the ball as you roll over them. The ball of "stuff" just gets bigger and bigger and the scale of the game goes up from thumb-tack sized stuff to furniture...the bigger your ball gets, the bigger stuff you can roll over with it.

Just watching someone else play it was fascinating.

I confess, my greatest motivation with this game would be to roll over the cat. Here kitty kitty... ;?)

12 x 12 x 12

2006-03-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

To situation is: My job may be going away in 3 months.

The question is: Do I accelerate my Grad studies and dive into 12 credits for 12 weeks while holding up a 4-day work week of 12-hour days?

Seems like a pretty rough combo, but it gets me to "almost done." With luck I can finish my degree by the winter and be done. and more "employable."

I rounded out my undergrad under similar conditions. And I did it.

I will have no life. My posts will return to the quality of late-night hallucinations. It is do-able. Just.

mudsucked

2006-03-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I'll be...

Got a disturbing request from my boss just minutes before end-of-day on a Friday.

'Be prepared to start looking for another job.'

Nice message for a Friday. Feels rather like the tugging of a certain rug... But not entirely un-expected.

We are going through some re-focusing of our team mission, and could be the Powers don't want a staff of 6 doing some reduced amount of training. I am #3 trainer of the three we have, time-in-service-wise, though I will always be #1 in my book.

Nothing definite yet, but after 5 years in the same department and 4 years in the same job now may be a good time to enbrace entropy.

So, I am covering my bases; keeping my options open; updating my resume; listening to the tracks; reading the tea leaves; checking the listings; being proactive; and looking forward to a stiff drink tonight.

On the plus side, I am going up to the mountain tomorrow to play in the snow, drink cocoa and maybe crack open a James Clavell book. Better take Noble House. Plenty thick...

hasta

chubby snow

2006-03-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

We are in the middle of a strange March snow.

Not a big deal to the eastern reaches of the country, I am sure. But around here it is odd and fun.

Big chubby flakes coming down. So big I can see them reflected in puddles, looking like the snow it "bouncing" when it hits the ground.

Also big enough to see higher up. Looks like a swarm of locusts. Or what I imagine a swarm would look like. Can't remember if I've ever been in one.

Dad? Any swarms over Riyadh when we were there?

life gets back out of the way

2006-03-07T17:41:00.000-08:00

Well, I said I bin bizzy, but really it's just normal life getting in the way of blogging.

That's maybe more comfort to me than it is to you, neh? ;?)

I finally have a few pictures from Christmas up. Naturally they feature the two most perfect little girls in the world.*

-shake shake- "Hmm, sounds like raisins..."

"I wonder if this comes in red..."

"Ho Ho, Now I am the most beautiful one of all!"

"Goody! It does come in red!"

*Even when they are being perfect little beasts! ;?p

been bizzy

2006-03-03T18:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry, been doing some rather longish homework the last couple of days.

I'll be back posting next week.

Hab a gut veekent!

(whatever the hell that spelling was supposed to mean)

politcal cartoon rorschach test

2006-02-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

Care to take the political cartoon rorschach test?

Some are great, others marginal - but worth it alone if you just get to the Howard Dean "screaming" cartoon.

At last, it all makes sense why the media turned on him so quickly. For shame, Howard Dean! For Shaaaame! :?p

Press "1" for Yes...

2006-02-27T16:57:00.000-08:00

Ever been trapped in automated-customer-service-phone-menu Hell?

Press "1" for Yes...

Well, maybe Purgatory is more accurate, but it feels like Hell. especially when you really, really need help.

Well, the same native human intellect that came up with such a brilliant idea has been used by another person for the forces of good* instead.

Not a new story, but a really really useful story...

Last summer, fed up with too many aggravating run-ins with awful customer service, Mr. English posted a blog entry that reverberated around the world: a "cheat sheet" that explained how to break through automated interactive voice-response systems at a handful of companies and speak to a human being. He named the companies and published their codes for reaching an operator — codes that they did not share with the public.

And here are the cheatsheets.

*jer,uh...ME!'s version of the "forces of good" involves ideas like: iTunes, pre-paid cash cards for iTunes, truth-in-advertising, consumer reports, ingredient lists as complex as a Tabasco sauce label...

the voices in my head

2006-02-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

Ahh, at last someone else knows what I've been going through.

The voices in my head are now telling me I must get home and spend some time with my wife and children...

but can we get Harrison Ford to come out of retirement?

2006-02-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

"I need the old Blade Runner, I need your magic."
-- Chief Bryant, Blade Runner

With wonderful, wonderful irony a robot replica of Philip K. Dick has gone missing.

Dick, whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep spawned the movie Bladerunner, wrote about "replicants" escaping and seeking freedom.

We can only wish Phil v2.0 a full life wherever it has escaped to.

Bon chance

passive-agressive pit bull

2006-02-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

...a co-worker was telling me about this dog she got that is really sensitive to correction.

Bad Fido!
Poop outside, Fido!
No sniff-crotch, Fido!

Any negative feedback you give this dog sends it into this deep funk that in turn causes the sender to regret having said anything in the first place.

...then she said the dog was a pit bull.

Whaaa???

I thought, 'They must be breading them now for passive-agression...'

one cold down, six to go...

2006-02-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

...well, I have survived the first cold of the season.

I must say, it was a glorious run for a while there - no illness from November through mid-February.

Totally unprecedented.

I am some sort of wierd receptor for every bug that comes down the road-- though strangely allergy-free...

Now that I am getting over the latest bug, what remains is to see if I repeat last year's string of several illnesses in succession.

One down. Six to go???

best of NPR: Overheard in New York

2006-02-17T17:49:00.000-08:00

Once and awhile, there's a story on NPR that makes me want to stay in the car after I pull into the driveway, engine off, lights off, a little guilty for not going inside immediately.

They call them "driveway moments" and always guilt me with them when it is time to donate again (which my wife absolves me from by making the donation herself - though I can't understand why-- I never hear her listening to NPR).

Overheard in New York

The gist: A couple of guys in New York started writing down snippets of conversations they hear in public places. Often quite funny, often profane (it is N.Y.). Whenever they are strapped for material, they go over to NYU and follow sorority girls. who evidently always are saying something bizarre or funny. sometimes both.

science fiction is us

2006-02-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting article by William Gibson, father of "cyberpunk" and a very insightful commentator on present history (as many accomplished sci-fi authors are).

When you read the things he says, you get a little closer to knowing the things that inspire and move me.

Or, if that's an uncomfortable proposition for you, then just enjoy him for the way he has with words. :?)

happy birthday oregon

2006-02-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

On this day, Valentine's Day 1859, the darling state of Oregon was born.

She is celebrating her 29th birthday for the 118th year running. But she doesn't look a day over 25.

No presents, please.

which sci-fi crew do you fit in?

2006-02-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

Here's another fun survey thingy. Answer questions and find out what sci-fi ship crew you'd fit on. Star Trek? Star Wars? Battlestar Galactica?

===============================

You scored as Babylon 5 (Babylon 5). The universe is erupting into war and your government picks the wrong side. How much worse could things get? It doesn't matter, because no matter what you have your friends and you'll do the right thing. In the end that will be all that matters. Now if only the Psi Cops would leave you alone.

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)

94%

Serenity (Firefly)

88%

Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)

88%

Moya (Farscape)

75%

Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)

75%

SG-1 (Stargate)

75%

Enterprise D (Star Trek)

69%

Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)

69%

Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)

69%

Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)

44%

FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)

38%

Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)

31%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

i am Curly

2006-02-13T15:22:00.000-08:00

I have been pained by my #1 girl's penchant for physical comedy (as she views it). To the rest of us, it is not so much comedy as being attacked and beaten with size-s hands.

WHY? WHY???

We are enlightened, kind parents. We make art and read together and laugh a lot. We explain spankings and reserve them only for capital crimes.

It can't be that the girl thinks it is okay to hit people. And yet she not only thinks it is okay, she thinks it is hillariously funny. Can't even conceive that the recipients don't find it that amusing.

The only way it makes any sense is if my life is some sort of Three Stooges sketch. and I am Curly.

off the grid

2006-02-13T14:53:00.000-08:00

Seems like a nexus of conversations has lately arrived at what it is to live off the grid.

As in: independent of the state networks that connect and control and track and decide so much for us (often contrary to how we would have it).

Energy. Phone. Taxes. City life.

There are books out there, and it can be done. Not easily, but there are still places and ways to live a "cash only" existence.

I am not sure I am quite ready for all those ways, but I do feel pangs of discontent about the way I have to compromise my private me to participate in society.

(That I am blogging is wonderfully incongruous with the desire for a more private life.)

I'd like to see computers that just did what they are supposed to do without all the gimmicks that are so evidently not about meeting my needs.

Computer as appliance vs. Computer as marketing machine

I'd like to see the Starbucks card and the pre-paid phone card morph into cash cards for whatever we want to purchase anonymously. You can plunk down cash or load $$$ on these little babies from another card and just pay as you go. No hoo hoo. No bother. Of course they are tracking transactions on the back end, but in a pure sense, why couldn't you buy a pre-paid cash card with no linkage to your DNA and personal shopping history?

Well, so...There is always cash. And stores. There are tattoo artists. Farmer's markets. There are fishing boats at the dock. There are money orders. There's barter. Family loans. Etc. Etc.

Maybe as the pendulum swings we'll start seeing "simple" as a product feature.

Better yet, we'll stop seeing product features.