Yesterday, watching the evening news on PBS, I heard this really dim-witted fellow from some misleadingly named organization called something like "numbers-usa" debating the "immigration issue." He made the seemingly obvious claim that since we are short maybe 20 million jobs and that "illegals" now hold 7 million of the jobs that exist, we need to kick them out so that we citizens can reclaim those 7 million jobs. This guy clearly knows numbers only in the way that a flimflam artists does. It's a talent, but one we should watch out for.
Then my otherwise intelligent friend was marveling at the very evident fact that dual income families are now struggling to maintain the standard of living which used to be common when only the men were working. It feels as though there were some kind of conspiracy to dilute the wages of working people. Some kind of OK women, if you want to work, go for it. We'll adjust. Um, yeah, I thought this much was obvious. These two matters are not disconnected. Hello!
The idiocy of the anti-immigrant comment is that this economy is "designed" such that some percentage of the workforce is out of work. That doesn't mean that there is some designer, any more than do the results of natural evolution, no matter what the crazies say. It just means that there is no set number of jobs, such that kicking someone out of his might free it up for you. The issue is systemic. As with food and water and energy, it's usually not the quantity which causes shortages, it's the distribution. The appearance or especially the fear of shortage allows prices to spike. That serves somebody or some class of people that ain't you or me.
A pretty good clue for what's up with immigration is that when you dig, you are as likely to find that it was the right wing which wanted the cheap immigrant labor as it was the liberals who wanted to afford every soul a human chance. Pitting workers against desperate "illegals" does a pretty good job to push the price for labor down. Ditto women.
But these arguments play because we're angry and we seem to need some target for that anger. Someone who doesn't look too familiar in the mirror.
And so some grand artificial debate gets played out over our heads, without our ever having a chance to find where the game is fixed.
Like the healthcare debates; it helps the criminally kleptocratic insurance industry (executives, owners, not workers) when the left side calls for government to just take it over. That energizes the teapartiers, who - probably sensibly- recoil in horror at the notion of civil-service healthcare. So no one imagines what could be accomplished if we were to have some sensible regulation of insurance as we already know it.
Like what if there were severe penalties for not paying legitimate claims? What if there were a time limit to pay, and what if the price for uninsured were required to be identical to that charged the insurance companies? What if the providers were required to get pre-authorization for payment, the client were completely off that hook, and the subsequent negotiations and arguments were required to take place between and among the experts? I think that's been tried around the world, and it works pretty well.
What if, furthermore, the patients weren't somehow taught that it is their right to feel entitled for treatment for whatever sort of "off" they feel. What if drugs were not deployed as a cure for the stresses of poverty or of warfare? What if we didn't all crave endless medical testing against terror at various what-ifs as encouraged by advertisements from the drug companies? What if those ads were made illegal again?
Well, apart form the absurdity of attempting to put the genie of information back into its bottle, there is reason to think that all the decisions shouldn't really be in the hands of the doctors. Sometimes they might be motivated to call for more tests than you yourself would if fully informed. They're fighting the insurance companies right now, and have to make up for their losses somehow. The system seems stacked against us even as the sides seem to be warring against each other. Coke and Pepsi. Microsoft and Google. Democrats and Republicans. They need each other. But even more, they need us to think they are opposed and in competition.
Drug companies seem to spend, naturally enough, the most money on issues which might require constant medical intervention. Viagra and Lipitor and things like Prozac are the perfect drugs, compared to useful things like antibiotics which might be used once in a while and that's it. Where overuse creates more problems than the drug can solve, but also where the excuse is somehow "out there" that it's we who use them too much. Forgetting that it might be our feedlot meat production system which creates many of the problems. That with bacteria, it should never be about eradication, but more about a kind of ecological balance among the organisms always present in our bodies and environments. By and large, "we" do what we're told within the limits of our education, intelligence and information. I know I'm not one to second guess my doctor, unless there's a really good reason to do so.
The distortions get created from and by the very same sort of motivated misinformation that the racist fellow used to cover his actual fear of difference. I'm sure he's even convinced himself that all he really wants are jobs for his fellow Americans. Drug companies don't want us to know everything about what they're selling - they speed up the voices magically when forced to fill us in. They refine and expand the unreadable print.
Government doesn't have to be populated by geniuses to provide the same sort of intervention to the public discourse - the balance to the body politic - that antibiotics might provide to the individual human body gone out of whack.
It serves someone's purpose to suppose that the problem is that the regulators now are not so clever as those they regulate. That the germs are smart; the terrorists are smart, that the bombs we need are smart bombs, that each of us only wants to get for ourselves what the least of us, the Bernie Madoffs, want to get for themselves. And morally, he is the least among us. Not a one of us would do what he did against his fellow Americans even if we had the chance.
I for one don't really imagine that the folks who work for the NSA are at the cutting edge of cybercriminal investigation (I have inside information). I doubt the government actually has the most computing power, and if it does, I doubt it's as cleverly deployed as the stuff arrayed in the private economy to measure my desire. I worry that dullards in government service will become overeager in their enforcement, just like the FBI did under J. Edgar, knowing which direction their promotion would come from.
So, too much power is no good answer. But there ought to be a way to release the creative energies of the private marketplace without allowing the predators, always, the upper hand. There ought to be a way to allow the financial markets to do their thing with the efficiency of money flows without always presenting those geniuses with that much temptation to dip into the flow for themselves. You don't have to be a genius yourself, you just have to get the sense that your work is valued, secure, amply rewarded against its difficulty and risks. Something we no longer really provide to our civil servants.
And another thing! Wouldn't you think the capitalist system would prefer a mobile work force? How about a nice regulation limiting the drag on mobility now guaranteed by regionally limited and company-connected health insurance. It's almost as though "they" want you to remain enchained. Or pitted against the great unwashed masses of "illegals." Vagrants. Homeless. Border crossers.
Come on, let's get a clue. This isn't as difficult as we're making it out to be.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Oil Blowout!
This will not come across right. You will think I'm some sort of Pollyanna, and who knows, maybe I am. But I hear of the oil slick down toward New Orleans, and I think something along the lines of OK, cool, Mama is finally getting up to dance. She's reminding us who's in charge here. Of course, that's after I run through my feelings of dread at what it is that we've unleashed. What were Oppenheimer's words? "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
I have the feeling in the face of this oil blow that I do while sailing and the weather clearly asserts how puny I am. This oil blow terrifies me, even while it thrills me that humans are being shown how small we are. How incapable to contain all contingencies.
I don't really give a whole lot of credibility to the Gaia hypothesis on most levels; that the earth can be considered a unitary living organism. Or in particular, that it/she might be conscious. But then again, the notion of a conscious God is poppycock to me too. Since, for me, what can consciousness mean if not a kind of dialogic awakening, resulting, through language, from multiple minds conspiring. (I won't bore you just now with more Julian Jaynes.)
Sure, I've wondered about a kind of dialog between heaven and earth, but the trouble is that while consciousness is dialogic, language, the substrate for consciousness, requires a lot more than two for the dance to get started. There has to be a whole community.
And if there are other planets alive, well then they are communicating in language which won't be picked up by puny man's technologically based receivers. But surely the Earth is alive It is more than a single organism. It has co-evolved with life, and just as my mind is neither fully responsive nor responsible for everything that befalls it, the Earth reflects us back. It makes no more sense to wonder whether the Earth is dead or alive than it does to wonder whether the me I was a second ago is dead. The earth also, is still becoming, and we shouldn't be so sloppy with our categories.
Which brings me around again to the weather; manifestations of what often gets called fate. The toss of dice beyond anyone's control, except for God's if you want to raise things to that level of abstraction. We can regard this oil blow as a regrettable accident, with no meaning other than what we make of it. But if you follow that chain far enough, there is almost nothing about our existence which can't be traced to accident. At some point its "meaning" comes from outside your puny self.
And so it has suited me to wonder if oil cannot and should not be regarded as a gift from earth to man. Ecologically minded people like me tend to be horrified when we learn the extent to which our current capitalistic and poisonous diet is actually oil based. From the fertilizer to the pumping of water from the ground, to the plowing and transport and refrigerating and drying, there is as much oil as input to our food chain as there is to our transportation industry. And at least as many outflow points, therefore, for greenhouse gaseous emissions.
We're horrified by the warfare, by the money power, by the straight up raping of the earth accomplished for what There Will be Blood demonstrated so clearly must be a game of greed and self-aggrandizement, inevitably to the point of utter desertification of the earth, the self, the soul. Rosebud.
We're horrified by the poisoning of our bodies by the corn sweeteners, the soybean economy, the concentration of energy production into the hooved animals we consume with such lusty gusto. And most of all we're horrified by the immiseration of so many otherwise intact and self-sufficient cultures and peoples beneath the unleashed Halliburton empires of rapacious global capitalism.
But, you know, just as I was taken aback the other day to hear someone voicing a cogent caution about the impact of all this new (only about 100 years) radioactive energy we swim through: The power grid, the radio, the television, the cellphone, the WiFi, WiMax interconnected super-saturated world of communications and power distribution technology for which, as anyone who's grabbed rabbit ears knows, our bodies make really good antennae: just as I was taken aback by that seeming paranoia, I'm sometimes taken aback by the presumption that we must engineer our way out of the predicament we're in.
My thought was simple; do you really think this occult effect which might be doing something at our cellular level, and who knows, might even be tweaking our propensity for cancer, and might have some subtle effect on our moods; do you really think that impact can hold a candle to the solar power of the actual human communication which rides on all these waves?
Hasn't the impact of that drowned out the other stuff in some kind of inverse of the proverbial drop in the ocean? Hello people, we're globally interconnected now by all this electromagnetic radiation which powers our communications technology.
Or like when people study paranormal interactions between mind and matter, isn't it enough of a miracle that I can apparently will my hand to pick up tools and impact literal mountains of matter, even before I deploy the petroleum-powered engines at my disposal. Have we really become so numb to the miracles right before us?
All of these wonders descend from Earth's gift of oil to man. We have squandered it, surely, and there are some among us who are as bereft of soul as Bernie Madoff. Who would make of it a magnificent tomb. But the majority of us by far do not mean harm by our actions. Harm is caused by their collection and concentration - these petty actions - and by proxy when we allow those who speak for us to aggrandize themselves upon our meager wants.
Anyhow, I'd say Earth has had about enough of our uppity oil-sucking ways. I'd say we put a drill right into her heart and she's bleeding and we'd better start paying attention. But that doesn't mean we have to disavow all that we've done as though it were the result of evil, devil guided mankind.
There is a lot of expanded consciousness riding on the gift of oil. Most of it engendered by the likes of mass mediated communication, leading right up to and including Facebook, which I hate to say, has given me quite a few new and important connections. Ones I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Let's put a diaphragm over top that gusher just as quickly as we can. If oil is still lighter than water, then we should be able to suck the oil out the top. It's a kind of opposite to putting a band-aid on the wound, but the concept's identical.
Then let's let the Earth heal a bit. Let's dial back our proxy aggrandizement, individually and one by one. I know I am not even remotely interested in some fanciful mansion on a hill. I'd rather live in civilization, and leave the hilltops for picnics. I enjoy walking to the extent that the city affords that luxury. And I do enjoy how much I can get accomplished, even socially, from right inside my home. No time wasted commuting. No life threatening challenges against fate on the highway. And hopefully some smallish fraction of oil use compared to turning the key of my car.
I have the feeling in the face of this oil blow that I do while sailing and the weather clearly asserts how puny I am. This oil blow terrifies me, even while it thrills me that humans are being shown how small we are. How incapable to contain all contingencies.
I don't really give a whole lot of credibility to the Gaia hypothesis on most levels; that the earth can be considered a unitary living organism. Or in particular, that it/she might be conscious. But then again, the notion of a conscious God is poppycock to me too. Since, for me, what can consciousness mean if not a kind of dialogic awakening, resulting, through language, from multiple minds conspiring. (I won't bore you just now with more Julian Jaynes.)
Sure, I've wondered about a kind of dialog between heaven and earth, but the trouble is that while consciousness is dialogic, language, the substrate for consciousness, requires a lot more than two for the dance to get started. There has to be a whole community.
And if there are other planets alive, well then they are communicating in language which won't be picked up by puny man's technologically based receivers. But surely the Earth is alive It is more than a single organism. It has co-evolved with life, and just as my mind is neither fully responsive nor responsible for everything that befalls it, the Earth reflects us back. It makes no more sense to wonder whether the Earth is dead or alive than it does to wonder whether the me I was a second ago is dead. The earth also, is still becoming, and we shouldn't be so sloppy with our categories.
Which brings me around again to the weather; manifestations of what often gets called fate. The toss of dice beyond anyone's control, except for God's if you want to raise things to that level of abstraction. We can regard this oil blow as a regrettable accident, with no meaning other than what we make of it. But if you follow that chain far enough, there is almost nothing about our existence which can't be traced to accident. At some point its "meaning" comes from outside your puny self.
And so it has suited me to wonder if oil cannot and should not be regarded as a gift from earth to man. Ecologically minded people like me tend to be horrified when we learn the extent to which our current capitalistic and poisonous diet is actually oil based. From the fertilizer to the pumping of water from the ground, to the plowing and transport and refrigerating and drying, there is as much oil as input to our food chain as there is to our transportation industry. And at least as many outflow points, therefore, for greenhouse gaseous emissions.
We're horrified by the warfare, by the money power, by the straight up raping of the earth accomplished for what There Will be Blood demonstrated so clearly must be a game of greed and self-aggrandizement, inevitably to the point of utter desertification of the earth, the self, the soul. Rosebud.
We're horrified by the poisoning of our bodies by the corn sweeteners, the soybean economy, the concentration of energy production into the hooved animals we consume with such lusty gusto. And most of all we're horrified by the immiseration of so many otherwise intact and self-sufficient cultures and peoples beneath the unleashed Halliburton empires of rapacious global capitalism.
But, you know, just as I was taken aback the other day to hear someone voicing a cogent caution about the impact of all this new (only about 100 years) radioactive energy we swim through: The power grid, the radio, the television, the cellphone, the WiFi, WiMax interconnected super-saturated world of communications and power distribution technology for which, as anyone who's grabbed rabbit ears knows, our bodies make really good antennae: just as I was taken aback by that seeming paranoia, I'm sometimes taken aback by the presumption that we must engineer our way out of the predicament we're in.
My thought was simple; do you really think this occult effect which might be doing something at our cellular level, and who knows, might even be tweaking our propensity for cancer, and might have some subtle effect on our moods; do you really think that impact can hold a candle to the solar power of the actual human communication which rides on all these waves?
Hasn't the impact of that drowned out the other stuff in some kind of inverse of the proverbial drop in the ocean? Hello people, we're globally interconnected now by all this electromagnetic radiation which powers our communications technology.
Or like when people study paranormal interactions between mind and matter, isn't it enough of a miracle that I can apparently will my hand to pick up tools and impact literal mountains of matter, even before I deploy the petroleum-powered engines at my disposal. Have we really become so numb to the miracles right before us?
All of these wonders descend from Earth's gift of oil to man. We have squandered it, surely, and there are some among us who are as bereft of soul as Bernie Madoff. Who would make of it a magnificent tomb. But the majority of us by far do not mean harm by our actions. Harm is caused by their collection and concentration - these petty actions - and by proxy when we allow those who speak for us to aggrandize themselves upon our meager wants.
Anyhow, I'd say Earth has had about enough of our uppity oil-sucking ways. I'd say we put a drill right into her heart and she's bleeding and we'd better start paying attention. But that doesn't mean we have to disavow all that we've done as though it were the result of evil, devil guided mankind.
There is a lot of expanded consciousness riding on the gift of oil. Most of it engendered by the likes of mass mediated communication, leading right up to and including Facebook, which I hate to say, has given me quite a few new and important connections. Ones I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Let's put a diaphragm over top that gusher just as quickly as we can. If oil is still lighter than water, then we should be able to suck the oil out the top. It's a kind of opposite to putting a band-aid on the wound, but the concept's identical.
Then let's let the Earth heal a bit. Let's dial back our proxy aggrandizement, individually and one by one. I know I am not even remotely interested in some fanciful mansion on a hill. I'd rather live in civilization, and leave the hilltops for picnics. I enjoy walking to the extent that the city affords that luxury. And I do enjoy how much I can get accomplished, even socially, from right inside my home. No time wasted commuting. No life threatening challenges against fate on the highway. And hopefully some smallish fraction of oil use compared to turning the key of my car.
Springtime in Buffalo
It's been beautifully sunny and chilly for a few days. Just in time for warmer days now, I've finally figured out how to purge the air out and get heat back into my old VW. My timing isn't always perfect. But I'm getting ready to leave town, and with 300,000 miles on her, I want to be sure that air in the cooling system isn't a sign of something worse.
The dealer thought the heater core must be clogged, but I found out that the dealers all think that. All on my own - with help from Samaritans on the Internet - I discovered that if I purged the air I would get heat. I struggled for just a minute with mistrust for the VW shop. You know, where you nurse the assumption that they were just trying to sell me the expensive procedure to put in a new heater core.
In the end, I opted for open questions. After all, they're the ones who helped me get the car this far. And "advisors" on the Internet are as often people taking advantage (although I couldn't tell how in this case). Anyhow, I did find out that this is one among several notorious weak points in the VW design when I chatted with the guy who runs the shop today. They're going to do the power purge for me tomorrow morning, no charge! I'm happy.
All the other manufacturers are benefiting from Toyota's woes now. They built their cars to perfect Consumer Reports specs, but it turns out that there are other things which can go wrong when you over-engineer. Do we just enjoy the fall of the too big? Not too long ago, I ran into a friend who owns my identical VW, and he considers his a lemon. He would never get another one!
I guess I overlook the weak points and find myself pleased with the overall package. I like VW's emphasis on sound basic materials engineering. Lots of little stuff might go wrong, and even cause a catastrophe with the big stuff, but if you keep it from going that far, the car is built to last forever. That just wasn't true of a Toyota I once owned.
But, to each her own. I know my car has a Nazi pedigree, but I don't root for anyone's downfall, no matter what their difference from me.
Everyone seems to know who they hate these days. I was lucky enough to watch the Sabres beat the Bruins at the Arena in their second-to-last game of the season. It was a thrill which spilled out onto the street beyond the last-minute rule-challenging glove-flying exclamation point fight on the ice. The thrill was marred only slightly by "let's go Buffalo" horn tooting drivers who yelled "where's a Bruins fan to run over?" out their windows. Hey, it's all in sport.
Before that, I'd tried to make a clever point when New Orleans won the Super Bowl, about how only sudden disasters get sympathy from the crowd. Although New Orleans, and the nation, had prepared for Katrina by neglect over many many years, the actual event defined our generosity as a nation. Just as it contributed to bringing down a presidency. Just as Haiti's earthquake brought out the best in us, even though we couldn't be bothered for so many years while the ramshackle disaster waiting to happen got put together.
I used the analogy of the frog in the slowly heating kettle. He likes the hot-tub, and by the time he realizes it's getting way too hot, his energy is sapped and he's cooked. Despite the wooden carvings I walk by each day on Elmwood, left over from our great October tree-smashing snow storm, Buffalo's emergencies are all slow motion. Nothing to bring out the best in the crowd of people making fun of us.
But still, the other day, riding my bicycle back from watching the big orange ball drop off the Peace Bridge (along with maybe half a dozen others) at the start of Boom Day festivities, I rode past that home-makeover house on Massachusetts Ave. There's a sign out front which looks like a for sale sign. I was slightly outraged until I realized it was just the builder exercising bragging rights. There was something to cheer for, wasn't it, even from the rest of the country. Extreme home makeover, Buffalo edition.
Boom Day, chicken wings, wide right, we make lemonade from the lemons handed us. But we have water and power and infrastructure and beautiful surroundings and are the very setting for the whole "if you build it they will come" idea. Nice thoughts while leaving town in search of a job.
The dealer thought the heater core must be clogged, but I found out that the dealers all think that. All on my own - with help from Samaritans on the Internet - I discovered that if I purged the air I would get heat. I struggled for just a minute with mistrust for the VW shop. You know, where you nurse the assumption that they were just trying to sell me the expensive procedure to put in a new heater core.
In the end, I opted for open questions. After all, they're the ones who helped me get the car this far. And "advisors" on the Internet are as often people taking advantage (although I couldn't tell how in this case). Anyhow, I did find out that this is one among several notorious weak points in the VW design when I chatted with the guy who runs the shop today. They're going to do the power purge for me tomorrow morning, no charge! I'm happy.
All the other manufacturers are benefiting from Toyota's woes now. They built their cars to perfect Consumer Reports specs, but it turns out that there are other things which can go wrong when you over-engineer. Do we just enjoy the fall of the too big? Not too long ago, I ran into a friend who owns my identical VW, and he considers his a lemon. He would never get another one!
I guess I overlook the weak points and find myself pleased with the overall package. I like VW's emphasis on sound basic materials engineering. Lots of little stuff might go wrong, and even cause a catastrophe with the big stuff, but if you keep it from going that far, the car is built to last forever. That just wasn't true of a Toyota I once owned.
But, to each her own. I know my car has a Nazi pedigree, but I don't root for anyone's downfall, no matter what their difference from me.
Everyone seems to know who they hate these days. I was lucky enough to watch the Sabres beat the Bruins at the Arena in their second-to-last game of the season. It was a thrill which spilled out onto the street beyond the last-minute rule-challenging glove-flying exclamation point fight on the ice. The thrill was marred only slightly by "let's go Buffalo" horn tooting drivers who yelled "where's a Bruins fan to run over?" out their windows. Hey, it's all in sport.
Before that, I'd tried to make a clever point when New Orleans won the Super Bowl, about how only sudden disasters get sympathy from the crowd. Although New Orleans, and the nation, had prepared for Katrina by neglect over many many years, the actual event defined our generosity as a nation. Just as it contributed to bringing down a presidency. Just as Haiti's earthquake brought out the best in us, even though we couldn't be bothered for so many years while the ramshackle disaster waiting to happen got put together.
I used the analogy of the frog in the slowly heating kettle. He likes the hot-tub, and by the time he realizes it's getting way too hot, his energy is sapped and he's cooked. Despite the wooden carvings I walk by each day on Elmwood, left over from our great October tree-smashing snow storm, Buffalo's emergencies are all slow motion. Nothing to bring out the best in the crowd of people making fun of us.
But still, the other day, riding my bicycle back from watching the big orange ball drop off the Peace Bridge (along with maybe half a dozen others) at the start of Boom Day festivities, I rode past that home-makeover house on Massachusetts Ave. There's a sign out front which looks like a for sale sign. I was slightly outraged until I realized it was just the builder exercising bragging rights. There was something to cheer for, wasn't it, even from the rest of the country. Extreme home makeover, Buffalo edition.
Boom Day, chicken wings, wide right, we make lemonade from the lemons handed us. But we have water and power and infrastructure and beautiful surroundings and are the very setting for the whole "if you build it they will come" idea. Nice thoughts while leaving town in search of a job.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Trouble with Computers
Against my better judgment, I recently agreed to "help out" at a local non-profit which was having trouble with computers. It was pretty clear that there was some sort of infestation. I explained that I wasn't really looking to do this sort of work anymore, but agreed to help, setting a price that we could both feel good about - something like a quarter of the going rate - about what a gardener might charge.
The recommendations were easy enough, and the emergency patch up was smooth except for that one computer. There's always one, maybe the Executive Director's, maybe the volunteer workstation (in this case), but the general rule is that 90% of the issues/machines/whatever take 10% of the time, and then there is that 10%. This isn't a precise rule, but you get the idea. It gets called the Pareto Principle generally, and I find that I'm no longer the only person who seems to have heard of this rule.
The temptation is always to just get rid of the 10%, but the way it works is that it's the rule, not the machine, and so you pretty much have no choice about this. There will always be the 10%, just like work will always expand to fill the time available for it. It's why computer techs after the briefest trial by fire become really arbitrary and dictatorial about standards. Without them you spend 90% of your time getting nothing productive done. And when you're "helping out" with an unmanaged network for a not-for-profit, you know that going in, which is why I agreed to such a low rate.
Well, then the Executive Director, without so much as a nevermind, went ahead and ordered a Mac into the mix. Now if I had the dough, I'd definitely have a Mac for home use, but you can see what happens to the whole idea of standards. It just doesn't make sense in a network which needs to be managed.
Which got me thinking about how the trouble with computers is that they are both tools and desirable objects in and of themselves. That is to say that people want these things still, if you can imagine that, pretty much the way they want all libidinously invested objects, which is what capitalism is all about after all. If there weren't any of that sort of desire, we'd all drive Ladas or identical Beetles, and our computers would still be black and white and look like little file cabinets the way my first one did. Way back when the excitement was in the magic that this new tool could do, and not how it looked or felt.
Steve Jobs, of course, understands this about machines. You'd be nuts not to want a Mac more than a PC. It's just cooler, which is pretty much what cool means. Libidinous investment.
And even in the work place, people can't avoid playing with these attractive machines. Hell, a Windows machine is pretty libidinously invested these days too, especially after Windows 7. It's fluid, slick and cool, but still manages to do that within the "confines" of being more straightforward to deploy as a tool. But in an unmanaged state, it really still is an attractive nuisance for workers' free time, or for volunteers to play with, especially before broadband was ubiquitous in the home. This is why techs are so arbitrary and dictatorial about management and locking things down against being toyed with.
This volunteer computer today just plain defeated me. The more infestation I ripped out by the roots, the more that was revealed, lurking, being contained by the thing I'd ripped out. The thing is that many of the bits of what we in the business call "spyware" are themselves pandered as configuration assistants, spyware destroyers, and system tweakers. Everyone with a home computer has a favorite that they swear by. And sometimes the more the merrier.
I pretty much decided that this particular computer had a "root kit" by which is meant something so intertwined, as it were, "beneath" the actual OS that you can't even tell in principle that it's there and the only real remedy is a system rebuild. Which, in the absence of standardized setups and cataloged software licenses and media becomes a necessarily destructive process. You can see why I consider this gig to be against my better judgement.
But here's the thing. I can't go so far as to bemoan the capitalist system and what it does to trick us into relationships with our tools instead of what those tools can do for our actual work. I'm not a big fan of Amish furniture, for instance. I think it's ugly and represents the work of people who are doing it for God, or something extrinsic to the beauty of what they produce.
I think you can convince yourself that it's somehow beautiful, and perhaps sometimes it is, in the manner of naive untutored "vernacular" art. But frankly, I prefer the self-consciously beautiful stuff, even when it will obviously go out of style shortly. Anyhow, the Amish stuff confuses something about either the tool or the one who's meant to be pleased or both. You use basic tools to create objects which are themselves only meant to be purposeful. Yuch.
But there is no craftsperson on the planet, or artist I imagine, who doesn't form a kind of relationship with his particular tools. Tools are, not incidentally, those things which according to Marx, the capitalist system expropriates from the worker. Not only can't you form a relationship with your tools in the manner of a journeyman craftsperson once you work for the system, you can't select them or care for them, or become attached to them in any way.
I hope you see where I'm going with this.
Hell, maybe someday real soon, when all the work is in "the cloud" it really won't matter what tool you bring to bear on your work. Maybe you'll bring your own, the way I once did when I worked as a bicycle mechanic. The young turks I worked alongside made fun of me because my tools were all Craftsman/Sears which is all I could afford. But I have them still, and they served me well enough.
Anyhow the "knowledge workers" who use computers to get their work done are generally of the managerial class. They directly serve the capitalists, maybe like chambermaids or something. The "administrative assistants" who serve the managers have a much greater tendency to form something approaching an emotional relationship with their machines, calling them things like "'puters" or maybe even naming them. It must be part of what they look forward to each day.
And, of course, at the very top you get to use whatever tool you feel like using and the techs had better make it OK.
I have no real point here, except that it should be obvious to anyone that the PC (here I use the term to encompass Macs, probably smartphones, and certainly the iPad) exists at an interesting intersection in our history of labor. It is, in fact now, the universal tool and as such crosses boundaries between work and play, home and office, right along with its making those boundaries more porous and much less meaningful.
Anyhow, it's why I can't do tech work anymore; at least not on the level of PC support. I could easily enjoy guiding the work of others. I'd be arbitrary and dictatorial and insist that if workers were to use company machines, then they will have little to no choice about their configuration. At the same time, I'd be working to move all the applications into the cloud, for access from strictly sandboxed (insulated from whatever workers do with these things in their play-time) secure and company deployed browsers.
Then the workers could take their own machines home, like a company car say. Or maybe they'd just be responsible to bring their own tools to work. Well, it's a thought.
Meanwhile, I think we should disinvest the objectified female form a bit. Now that should be an interesting project. But seriously, this is where capitalism really does go too far. Because human value should not be determined by relative anything; wealth, beauty, intelligence. These things can be allowed to spread as much as is comfortable, but wouldn't it be cool if we could disentangle actual love from economic relations?? I mean, good luck with that and everything, but stranger things have happened.
The recommendations were easy enough, and the emergency patch up was smooth except for that one computer. There's always one, maybe the Executive Director's, maybe the volunteer workstation (in this case), but the general rule is that 90% of the issues/machines/whatever take 10% of the time, and then there is that 10%. This isn't a precise rule, but you get the idea. It gets called the Pareto Principle generally, and I find that I'm no longer the only person who seems to have heard of this rule.
The temptation is always to just get rid of the 10%, but the way it works is that it's the rule, not the machine, and so you pretty much have no choice about this. There will always be the 10%, just like work will always expand to fill the time available for it. It's why computer techs after the briefest trial by fire become really arbitrary and dictatorial about standards. Without them you spend 90% of your time getting nothing productive done. And when you're "helping out" with an unmanaged network for a not-for-profit, you know that going in, which is why I agreed to such a low rate.
Well, then the Executive Director, without so much as a nevermind, went ahead and ordered a Mac into the mix. Now if I had the dough, I'd definitely have a Mac for home use, but you can see what happens to the whole idea of standards. It just doesn't make sense in a network which needs to be managed.
Which got me thinking about how the trouble with computers is that they are both tools and desirable objects in and of themselves. That is to say that people want these things still, if you can imagine that, pretty much the way they want all libidinously invested objects, which is what capitalism is all about after all. If there weren't any of that sort of desire, we'd all drive Ladas or identical Beetles, and our computers would still be black and white and look like little file cabinets the way my first one did. Way back when the excitement was in the magic that this new tool could do, and not how it looked or felt.
Steve Jobs, of course, understands this about machines. You'd be nuts not to want a Mac more than a PC. It's just cooler, which is pretty much what cool means. Libidinous investment.
And even in the work place, people can't avoid playing with these attractive machines. Hell, a Windows machine is pretty libidinously invested these days too, especially after Windows 7. It's fluid, slick and cool, but still manages to do that within the "confines" of being more straightforward to deploy as a tool. But in an unmanaged state, it really still is an attractive nuisance for workers' free time, or for volunteers to play with, especially before broadband was ubiquitous in the home. This is why techs are so arbitrary and dictatorial about management and locking things down against being toyed with.
This volunteer computer today just plain defeated me. The more infestation I ripped out by the roots, the more that was revealed, lurking, being contained by the thing I'd ripped out. The thing is that many of the bits of what we in the business call "spyware" are themselves pandered as configuration assistants, spyware destroyers, and system tweakers. Everyone with a home computer has a favorite that they swear by. And sometimes the more the merrier.
I pretty much decided that this particular computer had a "root kit" by which is meant something so intertwined, as it were, "beneath" the actual OS that you can't even tell in principle that it's there and the only real remedy is a system rebuild. Which, in the absence of standardized setups and cataloged software licenses and media becomes a necessarily destructive process. You can see why I consider this gig to be against my better judgement.
But here's the thing. I can't go so far as to bemoan the capitalist system and what it does to trick us into relationships with our tools instead of what those tools can do for our actual work. I'm not a big fan of Amish furniture, for instance. I think it's ugly and represents the work of people who are doing it for God, or something extrinsic to the beauty of what they produce.
I think you can convince yourself that it's somehow beautiful, and perhaps sometimes it is, in the manner of naive untutored "vernacular" art. But frankly, I prefer the self-consciously beautiful stuff, even when it will obviously go out of style shortly. Anyhow, the Amish stuff confuses something about either the tool or the one who's meant to be pleased or both. You use basic tools to create objects which are themselves only meant to be purposeful. Yuch.
But there is no craftsperson on the planet, or artist I imagine, who doesn't form a kind of relationship with his particular tools. Tools are, not incidentally, those things which according to Marx, the capitalist system expropriates from the worker. Not only can't you form a relationship with your tools in the manner of a journeyman craftsperson once you work for the system, you can't select them or care for them, or become attached to them in any way.
I hope you see where I'm going with this.
Hell, maybe someday real soon, when all the work is in "the cloud" it really won't matter what tool you bring to bear on your work. Maybe you'll bring your own, the way I once did when I worked as a bicycle mechanic. The young turks I worked alongside made fun of me because my tools were all Craftsman/Sears which is all I could afford. But I have them still, and they served me well enough.
Anyhow the "knowledge workers" who use computers to get their work done are generally of the managerial class. They directly serve the capitalists, maybe like chambermaids or something. The "administrative assistants" who serve the managers have a much greater tendency to form something approaching an emotional relationship with their machines, calling them things like "'puters" or maybe even naming them. It must be part of what they look forward to each day.
And, of course, at the very top you get to use whatever tool you feel like using and the techs had better make it OK.
I have no real point here, except that it should be obvious to anyone that the PC (here I use the term to encompass Macs, probably smartphones, and certainly the iPad) exists at an interesting intersection in our history of labor. It is, in fact now, the universal tool and as such crosses boundaries between work and play, home and office, right along with its making those boundaries more porous and much less meaningful.
Anyhow, it's why I can't do tech work anymore; at least not on the level of PC support. I could easily enjoy guiding the work of others. I'd be arbitrary and dictatorial and insist that if workers were to use company machines, then they will have little to no choice about their configuration. At the same time, I'd be working to move all the applications into the cloud, for access from strictly sandboxed (insulated from whatever workers do with these things in their play-time) secure and company deployed browsers.
Then the workers could take their own machines home, like a company car say. Or maybe they'd just be responsible to bring their own tools to work. Well, it's a thought.
Meanwhile, I think we should disinvest the objectified female form a bit. Now that should be an interesting project. But seriously, this is where capitalism really does go too far. Because human value should not be determined by relative anything; wealth, beauty, intelligence. These things can be allowed to spread as much as is comfortable, but wouldn't it be cool if we could disentangle actual love from economic relations?? I mean, good luck with that and everything, but stranger things have happened.
Monday, April 26, 2010
And Now for Something Completely Different!
As a sometime worshiper of Random, the God of Reality (a real tosser!) I have no particular reading program. But I landed on this page this morning, reading the New York Times as I sometimes do. It's an editorial about the Boy Scouts, by Paul Theroux, an author I enjoy even though he sometimes comes off as a bit perverted.
I guess he was responding to some recent massive settlement against the Boy Scouts, U.S.A for some pedophilia among its masters. Some vague echo of the Catholic Church, with maybe a little bit of Nazi Youth thrown in. You know how those vectors go, right? German, Catholic, conclusion!
Well, tending a bit in the direction of 'Boy Scouts are Nazi youth' myself, I was happy to be reminded by Theroux of my own actual experience in the Boy Scouts, which was virtually identical to his. It was indeed a kind of revenge of the nerds, and we learned stuff which remains important to us still. I also did my share of lifesaving, as the result of Boy Scout training.
The thing he left out though, is that, in my case, we all knew, if we were alert, that the scoutmaster (R.I.P.) truly did want to molest us, each and every one. That didn't make us nervous, scared, afraid, nor our parents either, and I don't think they were all that clueless. And let me tell you, we did some things in our tents which would have tweaked the interest of any pervert I can imagine. I'm pretty sure all boys do.
No code of honor was ever broken to my knowledge. I later learned that plenty of codes of unspoken honor did get broken among the jocks who weren't boy scouts, by a swim coach who likely admired my young body too. I'm glad I was clueless as to those goings on. Really really glad.
I was never tempted to drugs by some Pied Piper adult with charisma. I was never introduced to wine nor naked pictures in a magazine nor the mysteries of naked touch by any adults of my acquaintance. We skinny dipped, just like my Dad did right in high school which is the way gym was run in the good old days. (He was an Eagle Scout, something which never did interest me). But I came by my knowledge the old fashioned way, from my peers.
It was as much up to us kids to enforce the adult/child boundary as it was up to the adults. These days, with adults injecting themselves into nearly every moment of a child's life, how are the kids to learn a thing about "good boundaries?" Kids don't even ride bicycles alone anymore, and I think that's a fact worth mourning.
So, dear reader, the guilty party is probably the super parent who looks at you from your mirror. Thank God I'm a slacker. The Nazi youth is what's being created now by too many new rules about who can't and shouldn't and won't be allowed to do whatever.
That's the straight and narrow which provokes the deviant. Along with Paul Theroux, I guess I'm lucky to have been a member of a troop of slackers. But we sure did learn to canoe to hike to cook over fires, to swim to run rapids, to stay calm in emergencies, to make decisions according to a chain of responsibility. Our uniforms were slovenly. Maybe that's what protected us.
Happy Birthday Dad!! Thanks for leaving me alone so much of the time. Honest! I've found my own way out of the woods. Nearly.
I guess he was responding to some recent massive settlement against the Boy Scouts, U.S.A for some pedophilia among its masters. Some vague echo of the Catholic Church, with maybe a little bit of Nazi Youth thrown in. You know how those vectors go, right? German, Catholic, conclusion!
Well, tending a bit in the direction of 'Boy Scouts are Nazi youth' myself, I was happy to be reminded by Theroux of my own actual experience in the Boy Scouts, which was virtually identical to his. It was indeed a kind of revenge of the nerds, and we learned stuff which remains important to us still. I also did my share of lifesaving, as the result of Boy Scout training.
The thing he left out though, is that, in my case, we all knew, if we were alert, that the scoutmaster (R.I.P.) truly did want to molest us, each and every one. That didn't make us nervous, scared, afraid, nor our parents either, and I don't think they were all that clueless. And let me tell you, we did some things in our tents which would have tweaked the interest of any pervert I can imagine. I'm pretty sure all boys do.
No code of honor was ever broken to my knowledge. I later learned that plenty of codes of unspoken honor did get broken among the jocks who weren't boy scouts, by a swim coach who likely admired my young body too. I'm glad I was clueless as to those goings on. Really really glad.
I was never tempted to drugs by some Pied Piper adult with charisma. I was never introduced to wine nor naked pictures in a magazine nor the mysteries of naked touch by any adults of my acquaintance. We skinny dipped, just like my Dad did right in high school which is the way gym was run in the good old days. (He was an Eagle Scout, something which never did interest me). But I came by my knowledge the old fashioned way, from my peers.
It was as much up to us kids to enforce the adult/child boundary as it was up to the adults. These days, with adults injecting themselves into nearly every moment of a child's life, how are the kids to learn a thing about "good boundaries?" Kids don't even ride bicycles alone anymore, and I think that's a fact worth mourning.
So, dear reader, the guilty party is probably the super parent who looks at you from your mirror. Thank God I'm a slacker. The Nazi youth is what's being created now by too many new rules about who can't and shouldn't and won't be allowed to do whatever.
That's the straight and narrow which provokes the deviant. Along with Paul Theroux, I guess I'm lucky to have been a member of a troop of slackers. But we sure did learn to canoe to hike to cook over fires, to swim to run rapids, to stay calm in emergencies, to make decisions according to a chain of responsibility. Our uniforms were slovenly. Maybe that's what protected us.
Happy Birthday Dad!! Thanks for leaving me alone so much of the time. Honest! I've found my own way out of the woods. Nearly.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Drama King
King for a day!
So, I have this ghost story on my mind (I'm supposed to read it publicly tomorrow evening), boxed like a rose between these two thorny films, each of which proposes somehow to mark the beginnings of our modern history. The tales are each subject to endless interpretation and re-interpretation, foregrounding love or duty or what you will.
One is the story of China's unification under the first emperor of the Qin dynasty; China's first proper dynasty. I loved the movie Hero, testing out various narrative possibilities about what really happened to stay the assassin's sword. In that film, the Emperor is hero more than tyrant, having to shoulder the burden and deny himself for the sake of history.
More recently, I saw The Emperor and the Assassin, which focuses just a little bit more on the love story. The Emperor and his lover both might have longed for the days of their youth, when, without means for clothing or food, they at least shared honest love. Now the Emperor was in charge of killing hoards of people who had offended his office if not himself. All sorts of effrontery against the noble and historically necessary cause to unify "all under heaven."
The other story is of Tristan and Isolde, recently (well, by my timeline) made into a movie itself. It's almost spooky how similar these plot lines are; Tristan and Isolde are actually presented with the possibility for escape and must relinquish it, against the thrall of history. It's the same story in its way, but this time instead of 'all under heaven,' it's the warring tribes of England which must learn to work together under a single King.
(I'm still in the middle of V. for Vendetta, a kind of re-enlivening of the Guy Fawkes day tale, a hoiliday the students used to celebrate at that private school I nearly didn't endure for the year I worked there - the kids being that much more clever than the teachers to understand the symbolism of "tear down these walls.")
Then there is the ghost story, a tale I once translated from the Chinese of a time to parallel the so-called dark ages brought to life in that film version of Tristan and Isolde. The ghost story rehearses the power of love to bring back the ghost of a former lover from beyond the pale of death. This theme also saturates East and West.
It is my burden, right, to disentangle these traditions, hopefully in time to avert the seeming inevitable contest between, say, China and the U.S. as we butt heads over important things like freedom of speech and intellectual property law. But sometimes I wonder where's the difference among all this apparent similarity?
Well, for starters, the Chinese story depicted in the films I watched is purported to be actual history. It was written down as such, even though all scholars recognize the tension between narrative requirements and historical facticity. I guess academic historians these days discount quite out of hand even the radical possibility of truing to fact as regards our narratives of history. I think that's part of what post-modern means.
The story of Tristan and Isolde is regarded as outright legend, although you'd think, being that much more recent, that something about its "truth" might be discoverable. Have there never been any Kings in love? Henry?
One question which might get begged is what is the relative valence, East to West, of what it is we wish to regard as fiction, and what fact. It has long since become cliché that the West is obsessed with romance, while the East is, by comparison, practical. Here in the West, we need our beginnings and endings, and remedy eternity with the pleasant fiction of "ever after" in story and in religulous belief.
Where China cycles, and the East more generally accepts the idea that personalities and types and narratives just keep coming back around; the reuniting of ghost with lover neither more of tragedy or comedy, but a kind of exquisite blending of both.
How many movies lately play with these themes; moving time backwards, letting go from beyond the grave, truest love existing beyond the bonds of marriage, duty, honor, whatever it is, right on up to Jesus himself, which must keep a person from his personal right, in the face of duty to all humanity. This tension seems universal.
No wonder we are so scandalized when our leaders betray true love. We are the ones who must turn it into lust, the way of all flesh, corrupted, scandalized, for the worms. They are allowed only our idealized version, and should know that true love is allowed only to Hollywood stars. Over and over and over again, until they get it right and then we'll elect them back into office, whee!!!
(Hmmmm, I wonder why Spitzer hasn't been talking to Hollywood. I think Palin may be onto something here)
So, I write, trying to evacuate each little blog snippet from any particular narrative trajectory, so that I can look back someday and find the one for my real life. Where will I end up? On the road? In Seattle? Duty bound to my own future? To that of all mankind? Although it seems clear now that I won't live to see the difference unless we really get a move on. I think I won't shut up yet. Well, I've made those kinds of lies before, in all sorts of different directions, so don't hold your breath. Damn, I think I got it backwards again, now who's Puck and who's Bottom?
So, I have this ghost story on my mind (I'm supposed to read it publicly tomorrow evening), boxed like a rose between these two thorny films, each of which proposes somehow to mark the beginnings of our modern history. The tales are each subject to endless interpretation and re-interpretation, foregrounding love or duty or what you will.
One is the story of China's unification under the first emperor of the Qin dynasty; China's first proper dynasty. I loved the movie Hero, testing out various narrative possibilities about what really happened to stay the assassin's sword. In that film, the Emperor is hero more than tyrant, having to shoulder the burden and deny himself for the sake of history.
More recently, I saw The Emperor and the Assassin, which focuses just a little bit more on the love story. The Emperor and his lover both might have longed for the days of their youth, when, without means for clothing or food, they at least shared honest love. Now the Emperor was in charge of killing hoards of people who had offended his office if not himself. All sorts of effrontery against the noble and historically necessary cause to unify "all under heaven."
The other story is of Tristan and Isolde, recently (well, by my timeline) made into a movie itself. It's almost spooky how similar these plot lines are; Tristan and Isolde are actually presented with the possibility for escape and must relinquish it, against the thrall of history. It's the same story in its way, but this time instead of 'all under heaven,' it's the warring tribes of England which must learn to work together under a single King.
(I'm still in the middle of V. for Vendetta, a kind of re-enlivening of the Guy Fawkes day tale, a hoiliday the students used to celebrate at that private school I nearly didn't endure for the year I worked there - the kids being that much more clever than the teachers to understand the symbolism of "tear down these walls.")
Then there is the ghost story, a tale I once translated from the Chinese of a time to parallel the so-called dark ages brought to life in that film version of Tristan and Isolde. The ghost story rehearses the power of love to bring back the ghost of a former lover from beyond the pale of death. This theme also saturates East and West.
It is my burden, right, to disentangle these traditions, hopefully in time to avert the seeming inevitable contest between, say, China and the U.S. as we butt heads over important things like freedom of speech and intellectual property law. But sometimes I wonder where's the difference among all this apparent similarity?
Well, for starters, the Chinese story depicted in the films I watched is purported to be actual history. It was written down as such, even though all scholars recognize the tension between narrative requirements and historical facticity. I guess academic historians these days discount quite out of hand even the radical possibility of truing to fact as regards our narratives of history. I think that's part of what post-modern means.
The story of Tristan and Isolde is regarded as outright legend, although you'd think, being that much more recent, that something about its "truth" might be discoverable. Have there never been any Kings in love? Henry?
One question which might get begged is what is the relative valence, East to West, of what it is we wish to regard as fiction, and what fact. It has long since become cliché that the West is obsessed with romance, while the East is, by comparison, practical. Here in the West, we need our beginnings and endings, and remedy eternity with the pleasant fiction of "ever after" in story and in religulous belief.
Where China cycles, and the East more generally accepts the idea that personalities and types and narratives just keep coming back around; the reuniting of ghost with lover neither more of tragedy or comedy, but a kind of exquisite blending of both.
How many movies lately play with these themes; moving time backwards, letting go from beyond the grave, truest love existing beyond the bonds of marriage, duty, honor, whatever it is, right on up to Jesus himself, which must keep a person from his personal right, in the face of duty to all humanity. This tension seems universal.
No wonder we are so scandalized when our leaders betray true love. We are the ones who must turn it into lust, the way of all flesh, corrupted, scandalized, for the worms. They are allowed only our idealized version, and should know that true love is allowed only to Hollywood stars. Over and over and over again, until they get it right and then we'll elect them back into office, whee!!!
(Hmmmm, I wonder why Spitzer hasn't been talking to Hollywood. I think Palin may be onto something here)
So, I write, trying to evacuate each little blog snippet from any particular narrative trajectory, so that I can look back someday and find the one for my real life. Where will I end up? On the road? In Seattle? Duty bound to my own future? To that of all mankind? Although it seems clear now that I won't live to see the difference unless we really get a move on. I think I won't shut up yet. Well, I've made those kinds of lies before, in all sorts of different directions, so don't hold your breath. Damn, I think I got it backwards again, now who's Puck and who's Bottom?
Saturday, April 24, 2010
New Digs
Well, I haven't moved yet, but since I was making a little bit of fun of the idea that peoples' ashes need to be respected, it seems appropriate that my bike ride today landed me in the cemetery. New digs indeed!
I wasn't sure that bikes were allowed, but that worry evaporated the first time someone whizzed by. Lots of folks were moving in today, and there were a lot of fresh openings. Some really beautiful mausoleums, lots with recognizable local names; a few like advertisements for the prominent businesses named after them. The coolest sculpture I saw was of leather-looking couches made of granite. They looked really comfortable, but I'll bet they give new meaning to the notion of chillin'.
I knew I would and eventually did find my grandparents' grave, and that of my uncle nearby. It had to be within sight of Red Jacket, where Granddaddy wanted to be buried. (I imagine he mentioned it once, and it somehow became his most ardent wish for death). All in all a nice wind-y ride.
Along the way, I toured the living mausoleums to days gone by. We have some really really fine mansions in this town, most still available for less than a small house elsewhere. One of the finest is occupied now by this alleged coke dealer and pimp who came here from Las Vegas. I used to have the blueprints for that one in my office, since it was supposed to house the school I once headed, but I think the founder pissed off the family and so it went to the preppy Proddy school, which sold it to, you know, the pornographer dude. There goes the neighborhood.
Of course, I couldn't resist going by the old school; gazing into what had been my office reverted back to a mansion now. Overall, the most powerful feeling I had was to hope that there wouldn't be some former students driving by to make me look as though I were part of the past too, patrolling the place like some kind of ghost. These students are remarkably attached to the place.
I guess I'm ready to check out, though. You know, I was really really angered by the governor of Arizona, giving her self-righteous spiel about how the Federal government hasn't done anything about the "illegals" living among them. As though this is the fault of the new administration she wants to tweak. As though there would be any way to establish "suspicion" of being illegal other than by profiling. Um, hello, that's what suspicion means. What the hell could seeming alien mean other from acting "different???"
But she gets up a head of righteous indignation and lots of folks will follow her, feeling invaded somehow, as if these border crossers weren't also leaving something behind. As if they really want to leave strong and deep connections with people, traditions, land, the burial grounds.
But when there's no economy, what are you going to do? I know Buffalo is holding out better than lots of places, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot of what gets called innovation here. We talk a good game, but mostly things are run by the folks who've always run them, and they're holding on tighter and tighter the less there is to go around. And, um, I would never want to be a member of a club that would have me anyhow. There's always some hidden codicil to the arrangement. A spot in some mausoleum. Spooky.
Hey, I went to the Sabres game last night. It was a pretty big deal, although I feel toward all the hype the way lots of people must feel about ghosts. I mean, I'm into it and everything, and I did the screaming jumping out of my seat high five thing. But I felt askance, as though way too much was being made of what is really just a game. I especially felt this when the crowd roared for the shaking booty up on the big screen when the booty was right down in front of me and wouldn't have been shaking but for the screen.
Here, check it out:
Can't you just see where the megatron in the middle will someday soon become a hologram, with 3-D seeming figures. Maybe you'll be able to watch from inside the action, with all the music and cheering seeming just for you. Don't get me wrong, it was fun. Just not all that fun compared to other possibilities I can imagine. Especially considering the cost these days. And they screen you on the way in as though it could be as dangerous inside as, say, riding a bike on the streets is. Just a little creepy for the scale of the simulated mayhem.
Then there was this big glove throwing fight at the very end, tweaking the rules requiring that its instigator be suspended when the fight is in the last seconds. But it gave the crowd it's punctuation thrill. We went screaming into the streets, "Let's go Buffalo!!!" against a rhythm played on hundreds of car horns.
I'm not saying all these hyper-innovations are bad. I try to implicate myself with everything I say. I do have elaborate ways to say goodbye though, and that's for sure.
Well, moving on then. The car heat's back, the boat is gone, the belongings winnowed way down. Spring has sprung. You know the drill. Don't cry for me, I'm still on this side of all those ashes.
The thought I had was that the arena where the hockey playoff game was played was itself in fact a hologram, or microcosm if you will. The feedback loops for hormonal interactions were compressed, pretty much in the way that the radioactive materials are brought into proximity so that they can "go critical" and create heat or a bomb in a nuclear reaction.
I think that's what the marvels of information technologies is doing for the planet, really. It would be nice if we could cheer together without having to mark someone as the enemy. It would be nice if there didn't seem always to be the requirement for someone to hate, someone to be angry with, someone to act as scapegoat for what frustrates us.
It would be nice if we weren't holding on quite so tightly so something which indeed was once really really nice, but now it's time to move on. Move on in the direction of humanity, decency, bigger hearts and minds. Move beyond endless graveyards and meaningless ritual toward something more alive. Where people who once were loved live on in fact, through words or even pictures or videos that they participated in. These are the only meanings which really cross the boundaries of space and time. Eternity is meaning meant not symbols preserved. Well, if you were to ask me, which I know you're not, but that's what I'd say if you were to.
I wasn't sure that bikes were allowed, but that worry evaporated the first time someone whizzed by. Lots of folks were moving in today, and there were a lot of fresh openings. Some really beautiful mausoleums, lots with recognizable local names; a few like advertisements for the prominent businesses named after them. The coolest sculpture I saw was of leather-looking couches made of granite. They looked really comfortable, but I'll bet they give new meaning to the notion of chillin'.
I knew I would and eventually did find my grandparents' grave, and that of my uncle nearby. It had to be within sight of Red Jacket, where Granddaddy wanted to be buried. (I imagine he mentioned it once, and it somehow became his most ardent wish for death). All in all a nice wind-y ride.
Along the way, I toured the living mausoleums to days gone by. We have some really really fine mansions in this town, most still available for less than a small house elsewhere. One of the finest is occupied now by this alleged coke dealer and pimp who came here from Las Vegas. I used to have the blueprints for that one in my office, since it was supposed to house the school I once headed, but I think the founder pissed off the family and so it went to the preppy Proddy school, which sold it to, you know, the pornographer dude. There goes the neighborhood.
Of course, I couldn't resist going by the old school; gazing into what had been my office reverted back to a mansion now. Overall, the most powerful feeling I had was to hope that there wouldn't be some former students driving by to make me look as though I were part of the past too, patrolling the place like some kind of ghost. These students are remarkably attached to the place.
I guess I'm ready to check out, though. You know, I was really really angered by the governor of Arizona, giving her self-righteous spiel about how the Federal government hasn't done anything about the "illegals" living among them. As though this is the fault of the new administration she wants to tweak. As though there would be any way to establish "suspicion" of being illegal other than by profiling. Um, hello, that's what suspicion means. What the hell could seeming alien mean other from acting "different???"
But she gets up a head of righteous indignation and lots of folks will follow her, feeling invaded somehow, as if these border crossers weren't also leaving something behind. As if they really want to leave strong and deep connections with people, traditions, land, the burial grounds.
But when there's no economy, what are you going to do? I know Buffalo is holding out better than lots of places, but I'm not sure there's a whole lot of what gets called innovation here. We talk a good game, but mostly things are run by the folks who've always run them, and they're holding on tighter and tighter the less there is to go around. And, um, I would never want to be a member of a club that would have me anyhow. There's always some hidden codicil to the arrangement. A spot in some mausoleum. Spooky.
Hey, I went to the Sabres game last night. It was a pretty big deal, although I feel toward all the hype the way lots of people must feel about ghosts. I mean, I'm into it and everything, and I did the screaming jumping out of my seat high five thing. But I felt askance, as though way too much was being made of what is really just a game. I especially felt this when the crowd roared for the shaking booty up on the big screen when the booty was right down in front of me and wouldn't have been shaking but for the screen.
Here, check it out:
Can't you just see where the megatron in the middle will someday soon become a hologram, with 3-D seeming figures. Maybe you'll be able to watch from inside the action, with all the music and cheering seeming just for you. Don't get me wrong, it was fun. Just not all that fun compared to other possibilities I can imagine. Especially considering the cost these days. And they screen you on the way in as though it could be as dangerous inside as, say, riding a bike on the streets is. Just a little creepy for the scale of the simulated mayhem.
Then there was this big glove throwing fight at the very end, tweaking the rules requiring that its instigator be suspended when the fight is in the last seconds. But it gave the crowd it's punctuation thrill. We went screaming into the streets, "Let's go Buffalo!!!" against a rhythm played on hundreds of car horns.
I'm not saying all these hyper-innovations are bad. I try to implicate myself with everything I say. I do have elaborate ways to say goodbye though, and that's for sure.
Well, moving on then. The car heat's back, the boat is gone, the belongings winnowed way down. Spring has sprung. You know the drill. Don't cry for me, I'm still on this side of all those ashes.
The thought I had was that the arena where the hockey playoff game was played was itself in fact a hologram, or microcosm if you will. The feedback loops for hormonal interactions were compressed, pretty much in the way that the radioactive materials are brought into proximity so that they can "go critical" and create heat or a bomb in a nuclear reaction.
I think that's what the marvels of information technologies is doing for the planet, really. It would be nice if we could cheer together without having to mark someone as the enemy. It would be nice if there didn't seem always to be the requirement for someone to hate, someone to be angry with, someone to act as scapegoat for what frustrates us.
It would be nice if we weren't holding on quite so tightly so something which indeed was once really really nice, but now it's time to move on. Move on in the direction of humanity, decency, bigger hearts and minds. Move beyond endless graveyards and meaningless ritual toward something more alive. Where people who once were loved live on in fact, through words or even pictures or videos that they participated in. These are the only meanings which really cross the boundaries of space and time. Eternity is meaning meant not symbols preserved. Well, if you were to ask me, which I know you're not, but that's what I'd say if you were to.
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