Calendar Dates

No NFL for me this season, as in football, not forensics league.  Athletes in the latter guild I salute as "second to none" in my pro-student rant on Math Forum today, taking issue with some LA Times journalism.  Just another citizen, sounding off.

Sampling the Python buzz, if pycon.org.ir wants a pointer from ir.pycon.org, all they need do is ask.  I've been informing PSF about some of my ventures, both in trucking and no-fast-food.  us.pycon is sold out by the way. I got in under the wire with a promo.  I've paid full price for van / hotel.  This will be your typical Silicon Valley sojourn.  I haven't attended a Pycon since Chicago.  I'll be in Philly the week before.

We'll probably do movie night again at Blue House.  Melody has a sequel to Yes Men I didn't know about.  The DVD on Reverend Billy was truly eloquent and I sung his praises on WikiEducator.

Pycon, for those who don't know, is a brand of Python circus or conference, pioneered by Steve Holden, the current PSF chairman.

I started attending Pycons in Washington, DC, at George Washington University.  You'll find quite a few blog posts from those.  One year, a Pycon was just starting when I found out my wife had cancer and I flew home immediately.  She joined me for the next one.  We commemorated her death after the first in Chicago, with me and the two girls driving all night from O'Hare to Indiana, Pennsylvania.  I missed the two in Atlanta.

OSCON is also rolling around again and I've been reviewing talks.  Really high caliber stuff.  I'm looking forward to again joining.  Will I make the one in Newark?  I have to ask about the next staff meeting, and whether there's a conflict (I'll do that on Facebook).

:: storyboarding new infrastructure ::

Synergetic Democracy

We may not think of ant colonies as democratic.  We've decided they have "a queen" in some cases and that colors everything.  A Bugs Life captures a consciousness.  Ants live in monarchies.

Of course that's a rather irrational chain of "reasoning", somewhat of the kind Danny Oppenheimer says you'll find if you pull any "ant" aside (say an undergrad at Princeton) and send him through Danny's lab at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs.

What you'll find are things like:  if the subject / ant / village idiot sits in a chair that leans slightly to the right, literally, then their political views are measurably slanted the same way.  Flaming liberals tone it down and sound a tad more like William F. Buckley when right leaning.  Lots of silly circuits like that.  An ant is a primitive creature and mostly just says "duh" when asked to explain its reasoning.  Return it to the hive though, and the miracle of self organization continues to unfold.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into in going to this event, but sort of knew, because I'd been at this tap room at McTarnahan's (a HQS) for a similar Connie-organized Princeton Club of Oregon event some years back.  I'd replied some weeks prior that I'd be bringing one guest, not knowing whom that would be.  When push came to shove I decided to try Facebook, offering to pay the admit fee for whomsoever wanted to join me on short notice, just a few hours before showtime.

Buzz Hill stepped up to the plate.  He's an avid Facebook user and believes in the power of social media and networking tools to transform the ant colony.  He thinks humans are at their best in conversation, different from taking orders, engaging in transactions, or bombing one another.  The new media, like some of the old ones, are fostering transformative forms of interaction, especially in promoting conversations -- Buzz's brief.

Dr. Oppenheimer was right there in the middle of the room.  I introduced Buzz and myself as frequent attenders of meetings at the Linus Pauling House, with Linus Pauling being a proud son of Oregon and yadda yadda.  Danny's and Mike Edward's tome, and the event in general (an opportunity to hear about and buy a book) was taking me back to Mike Satin's presentation at Powell's on Hawthorne.  Had Danny ever heard of that book, I wanted to know.

Buzz and I drifted on back to the beers (he just had diet Coke) and I asked if his smart phone could get us to Satin's book on Amazon, so that when we drifted back to the author we could have a Part 2 discussion of book marketing and how it's smart to visit a few other book web pages when buying, as Amazon pays attention to that and alerts more browsers to the "also bought" option (might be Democracy Despite Itself, our focus this evening).

Danny thinks that even though the individual ants behave in irrational ways that key of metaphors and precessional cues, ala George Lakoff, there's still feedback and participation and the phenomenon of self organization.  Democracies are more robust regardless of how weakly the voting piece might be performing.  You could disconnect all the levers and just randomly toss people into office, but as long as the people felt some sense of responsibility, they would behave more as stakeholders, which means a "sense of the meeting" (Quaker talk) would guide them to support the colony in a push-come-to-shove world.

I bought the book, it's only the next morning so I won't claim to have read it yet.  I checked the index for Bucky Fuller and Ludwig Wittgenstein, something I almost always do for "sweep of history" kinds of books, plus the latter was a philosopher of language and I wondered if psychologists were picking up on that at all.

Couldn't there be some ants, seemingly even more irrational than average, that served as a source of cues.  I was thinking of so-called "opinion leaders" or "movers and shakers".  Danny claimed he used his powers as a psychologist only occasionally and in a benign manner, had only rarely been "tricky" in an almost magical way.  But not everyone has those scruples, or thinks exercising psy-powers is a bad thing.  They feel it's their way of contributing to a democracy -- thinking of spin doctors here, some better at it than others.

Connie said this was the 2nd best attended Club event ever.  My table mates were as one might expect for Princetonians and their others, well traveled and cognizant of world history.  We talked about Japanese prison camps and people we knew who'd been in them.  I mentioned knowing some Japanese with American prison camp experience as well.

The gentleman next to me had had a career in teaching at private secondary schools, ending up at Catlin Gabel.  We talked quite a bit about the Black Mountain contingent there among the faculty.  I'd joined that cabal on a couple of Thanksgivings having tracked them down through my study of Kenneth Snelson's work among others (some Freudian overlaps there).

A lot of memories came flooding back, which is part of the fun of conversation.

Joseph, who found my hat that time greeting me upon arrival, accepted my funds (these events just break even).  Since finding my hat (again missing) and realizing it was by Paul Kaufman, he had made contact with Paul, mentioned my name, and had a hat custom made.

Tim's mom Lori was there, from a class behind me.  Todd had mentioned she'd be there on Facebook, interleaving with Buzz and I on my wall / profile.

Dr. Oppenheimer didn't say a word about ants by the way, that was my resorting to metaphor, with the example of literal ants.  Vote for me.

:: from buzz's smart phone ::

Memorable Meetups

Twas my distinct pleasure to join a party of earnest high school teachers in a meeting with the PSU Middle East Center at Tarboush this evening.  I showed up late, given other pressing engagements, but one of the teachers, from Lincoln High, had decided to stay on and have a real dinner (this is a top notch Lebanese restaurant).  I joined in with Dr. Tagrid Khuri, who had invited me to this event and whom I'd not seen for quite a long time.

We all had our stories to tell, our adventures in that part of the world.  Dr. Tag, as she is affectionately known by a large Arab-speaking community, has the most up to date experience, being Jordanian (currently) with plenty of reasons to visit friends in Amman.  The high school teacher and I hadn't been to the Middle East in a long time.  Not counting Egypt, the last time I was in the Jerusalem area was when Bobby Fischer was contending with Boris Spassky for the title of world champion at chess.  That was a long time ago, I think those still living might agree.

Next, I adjourned to Greater Trumps for a meeting with Synchronfile, if metonymy may be permitted.  As usual, the futuristic gadgets were on and ablaze, at least for part of our meetup.

Trevor is a serious scholar and top ranking Esozone type here in Portland.  His interest in the restoration of Dymaxion Car 2, the model for the newly minted Dymaxion Car 4, a project undertaken by Lord Norman Foster, has been more than just casual.  Not atypically, Trevor expressed his admiration and respect for Joe Moore, another independent scholar doing valuable work.

A Scholar Talks

:: opening number ::

I showed up at the Unitarian Church prepared to enjoy Rabbi Michael Lerner and was not disappointed.  I did some speed reading in his book through the opening numbers and then pretty much listened in rapt attention, through the Q&A.

I surprised myself in electing to drive the taxi, which I rarely do off duty, not that it's a registered commercial taxi or anything.  This blog has its namespace.

The guy won me over when he went out on a limb and expressed his fondest hope, which was that statism would go away and we would finally start dealing with the planet's ecological issues in a more mature manner, more befitting this self-professed "sapien" status.  In the meantime, we could stay in the dark ages with some two state solution for the Israel / Palestine identity problem, keep it schizo.

Einstein had hoped for a similar scenario.  I noticed Michael didn't include Einstein in his index, and yet his fear-versus-longing analysis (we're each somewhere on the spectrum) is pure Einstein, through Bucky.  So in announcing his "no state solution", I thought Lerner was overtly joining the transcendentalist school, a mark of his spiritual progress.

The book is a winding tale from the crusades forward, to just a few months ago.

Lerner, like Kierkegaard, rejects the voice of the Objective Historian as a mask, and admits his bias up front: to tell the story in such a way that greater happiness might still be a possibility.  He's not about closing doors.

His message is a lot like the Dalai Lama's when it comes to happiness, so I could easily see why Bishop Tutu liked his book (the latter being a big fan of DL XIV).

In Lerner's view, we each oscillate between a dog eat dog hell and a heaven wherein people actually love one another and are adept at community.  Both world views are self-reinforcing.  He names them the right and left hand of God respectively.

Thanks for another great cue Suzanne, and bon voyage.

Lights, Camera, Action

Various scene changes are in progress.  Lindsey is methodically whittling away at her stash of accumulated treasures.  She kindly donated her Gulfstream pen collection to Blue House, along with a DVD on the G650, which I filed on the top shelf next to Torture Taxi, a Gothic tale.

Melody is wearing gas station looking overalls like from the movie eXistenZ, which she's seen, and agrees we should share with Lindsey.  Jen has been working hard too.  I don't always know what's going on as I'm part time in the MJ Chair of CompSci over at Open Bastion, either grading for OST or reading this new book on Wittgenstein and Weinenger, or some other treasure.  Not watching TV, that's for sure.

Dave Koski has been doing an interesting toon branching off the Richard Hawkins hypertoon at Grunch.net, involving that flapping tetrahedron (the opening sequence).  He'd unearthed Piero della Francesca's formula for the volume of a tetrahedron given its six edges, and whittled it down to one edge changing (f, for flap), the others set to the constant 2, as in 2 radii.

The two equilateral triangles flap in the wind, like butterfly wings or pointy book covers, with a shared hinge or spine.  When f = 2, we have our regular tetrahedron.  There's a parabola of volumes as all-but-f are held constant.  Derivations of P, Q and R modules (mnemonic: peculiar) were forthcoming, leading off into other areas (as hypertoons do).

These are the kinds of reveries to pipe to the Coffee Shops Network, to shared screens or laptops, from Youtube playlists, from secret sources (like with secret sauces).

One needs that bridging talent space found at Bridges (the conference) between art-math and science, and that includes the arts of computer programming and animation (anime).  Python.TV is a likely stash point if you want to check back.  Hypertoons were originally implemented in Visual Python after Hawkins encouraged me to enter a contest for an SGI workstation.

Tara is planning her scene change as well, with the so-called "common app" staring her in the face.  We both had to get government PINs to sign the FAFSA.  Parents of college aged North Americans get to wade through a new labyrinth hammered together in cyberspace, though it's probably different in the state of Canada.

I've got the Facebook scrolls for working with Friends, in addition to these journals.  Most my remarks on recent news, with citations to stories, are happening there.

If Pakistan renounces nukes and asks to sign the NPT as a non-NWS, that could undermine India's credibility as a moral leader in the West, where the Countdown to Zero campaign has taken hold with a vengeance.  I don't think that's likely at the federal level (in Pakistan) but the desire among young Muslim faithful to ban the bomb is quite sincere, and currently consistent with Iranian rhetoric, which is why some Christian recruiters have had to flip their position, even among the evangelicals (to be Christian and "for the bomb" just sounds moronic as a wine and cheese party line among officers, holds more water in like NATO's "worst-of-occupy" LoserVilles maybe).

DiNucci was jokingly accusing Nirel at Wanderers yesterday of getting her friend Julia psyched about Paris, the latter being a valued member of his humanist circle.  Also it sounds like Bader (who also knows Alex, part of this other circle) is off to Germany for a spell.  Scene changes everywhere.  DiNucci is fine tuning his book, almost finished.  He's caring for an elder so isn't traveling much himself.

I've connected Koski's recent studies back to Martian Math on Synergeo, which subject I'm slated to teach again this summer, for Saturday Academy.

Testing Math ML

This formula by Ramanujan is being rendered by MathJax. The equation was derived from the handwriting-to-MathML utility, Web Equation, and then hand edited a bit.  This formula served as a basis for our Python Pi Day contest last year, at OST.

 

${\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }=\frac{\sqrt{8}}{9801}\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }\frac{\left(4n\right)!}{{\left(n!\right)}^4}\left[\frac{26390n+1103}{396^{4n}}\right]}$

Right click on the equation and choose Show Source to look at the MathML.

In LaTex (I didn't need to edit this one): $$ \dfrac {1} {\pi }=\dfrac {\sqrt {8}} {9801}\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }\dfrac {\left( 4n\right) !} {\left( n!\right) ^{4}}\left[ \dfrac {26390n+1103} {396^{4n}}\right] $$ 
Ramanujan's crazy-making identities get mentioned by me a few times in this debate thread on math-teach.

If you're not seeing equations for one-over-pi, click here for a picture of this blog post to see what you're missing -- provided Flickr still exists.

Hectic

Glenn suggested the family condo homeowner's association might sue the linoleum company, over all that asbestos, which everyone has in their bathrooms.  Property values just dipped.  The banks should adjust their mortgages downward accordingly, like finding out there's a sink hole, like in Guatemala City, but the banks never do.  They'd rather we not blab with each other about property deficiencies, but in fact they can't stop us.

Speaking of which, the ceiling is still slated to go, just haven't figured out if we're going two-story.  This isn't the condo I'm talking about, but the Blue Tent (really a wood frame structure with lathe and plaster walls, wood siding), which has an amateur's 2nd floor deck, some pet project of former owners we'll never know.  We bought a neighborhood hand-me-down built in 1905 and felt lucky.  Yep, always lucky to be in America, no matter how they treat ya (spam up the wazoo, full body scans, pee checks, rigged elections... hardly what we signed up for as kids, so blame the terrorists right?).

Anyway, I'm ranting.  The bookkeeping pooter is still in eternal reboot mode.  That's not the end of the world but I want what's on those drives.  First step is to bust the dust bunnies and see if she recovers.  Before that though, I'm hooking up the Toshiba to the printer that only works with the other Toshiba that just up and died the other day, while we were watching.  No kidding.  Tara adeptly switched to the Ubuntu laptop and upgraded the heck out of it, but we're still down a machine and don't want to get Win7 when they're about to roll out Win8.

By the way, this LG phone they strong-armed me into getting, said use it or lose it on the credit, is the worst phone ever.  Tries to sell apps, freezes, just doesn't get it in general.  I'll get more specific with the model number when I get the time.  I'll not blame Verizon this time as they can't know some of their models from reputable companies are just plain junk really.  Who has the time to test them all?  Not the government certainly, oh no.

I'm back on Synergeo even after the big fight, which left a lot of us flocking to a different group (a Google one, no reflection on Yahoo! in terms of what we were fighting about).  A similar farce brought SWM back on board in Wittrs-Plus/Ex, Sean's station.  He narrated some of the haps on Analytic, the fighting there.  I was happy for the synopsis as I don't subscribe to Analytic nor really have the time.  Sean's station has been great though.  I've been posting about this fictive BBC broadcast they could actually pick up on if they wanted, based on a famous (if somewhat nefarious) book about the great master (the quintessential late millennium philosopher).

The Europeans seem to be getting all goofy given they can't figure out their finances.  Anything for a welcome distraction, like saber rattle at Iran.  Talk about a dysfunctional family.  I'm glad their footprint is confined to Washington DC in a lot of ways, a kind of containment.  North Americans are free to go about their business without having to fixate on what Euros are thinking.  We'll catch up on Youtube later.

In the meantime, I've been watching the Occupy Chile movement and understand they blame vouchers for some of their problems.  In a lot of ways, it's Chicago that's no longer obeyed, when it comes to macro-economics, but that back had to break further north first probably (talking neocons, remember them?).  "Allende couldn't hack it but Obama could" or something like that? -- too early to hatch a full blown narrative.  Anyway maybe Obama is for vouchers I can't remember -- time to tune in the elections a little more.

Once the Republicans snubbed the Governor of Louisiana by disallowing him time in the TV circus, I knew I'd made the right decision in killing my TV.  Dumbs ya down really bad, clinically.  Chomsky is right, Nader too.  Geniuses protect themselves better, develop antibodies.  If it weren't for the NFL (no, not talking football, duh) I don't think as many would survive public school, that's for sure.

Wanderers 2011.12.28

We were a small group this morning.  Per recent trends, we veered into an eatery, this time Tom's on Chavez / Division.  A lot of our focus was geographic, the LA area.

George Hammond was teaching chemistry at CalTech.  He would later join Wanderers meetings at the Linus Pauling House on Hawthorne.

He was married to Eve Menger, of Multnomah Monthly Meeting, and daughter of Karl Menger, whom I never met, but whose mathematics I cite sometimes.

Jon Bunce had played with the Shaggy Gorillas (minus one Buffalo Fish), a comedy troupe (mentioned herein).  He and Steve remembered some clubs, Steve the poor grad student, worked with Hammond.

During the meeting, I mentioned my "true Russian novel" motif again, for these blogs, a playful oxymoron ("true novel").  I also play with "Russian" quite a bit.

Speaking of which, at Tom's I explained about the genre of training film I'm envisioning, that explains aspects of capitalism in exquisite detail (better than you've usually seen) so that those coming to assist might have more empathy and compassion for its many types of victim.  We could dub into English, serve on Youtube.

The AFSC work camp idea grew out of the CO movement ("conscientious objectors"), when civilians had fewer service opportunities.  During the civil rights movement, the work camp became a way to compare notes across schools and ethnicities.  Some exciting work in diplomacy was going on in parallel.

I'm not saying we can turn back the clock.  Given today's miniaturized components, a "work camp" might be more like a dispersed affiliation of anarcho-bosses drawn together by a spiritual practice or sport.  Look at FNB for example:  urban based, not headquartered anywhere, chaordic (like Visa).

Alice in Wonderland (movie review)

This is a film about determinism, predestination, destiny, epiphenomenalism.

She's being swept along on fast forward, life overtaking her, drowning her will.  Time to hit pause, visit a wardrobe, race down a hole or whatever.  Check into a facility if you can afford it.

Being a star feels that way too, on the set, off, learn the scene, learn the lines.  Getting typecast, being born for such roles.  It ends in the pirate movie anyway.

The too big and too small is also about too fast and too slow.  And sometimes we do feel like the giants in some scenes, which could mean slow and oafish, but I'm saying so much older.

When you're a kid it seems especially pronounced:  we're off at the starting gate and then mature in different ways at different rates.  Sometimes it feels like they're all ahead of you.  James felt that way (thinking of a friend of ours).

I just want to say, a lot of imagination went into that, with the flashback built in, as the hero integrates and is reborn anew.  It's the archetypes adventure too of course.

The determinism is in the scroll or prophesy, with the dog giving one of the sternest lectures early on, about what is or is not predestined, and Alice having her strongest voice back, a dog like that being somewhat safe to tell off (unlike her mom).

Dogs hear a lot from us humans and their job is to just take it.  Some suggest inter-stellar affairs but that's always in the background among serious star heads.  Sarah-the-dog was on the couch at my feet.

The scroll shows faux Alice consulting the scroll, caterpillar making a pronouncement.  As the audience, we know Alice had those dreams, but our inner loyalties are conflicted as we decide whether we can take an older Alice into our hearts, through this vehicle.

From Alice's point of view, sure it'd be really easy to forget those dreams if they weren't in a universe that had made them a famous children's book already.  Her dad is kind and understanding, but the equivalent of grinning cats in parallel universes tend to fall by the wayside, lets face it.

We should empathize with her older self not immediately reconnecting with her childhood psychosis (psyche, crazy kid, goofy guy), her inner window in to a shared [mad] world, her private line. She's just remembering the "it's a dream" part from the earlier scene.

Audiences know more than the characters sometimes, but then don't really exist in some sense.

The twisted Alice videogame we had for Tara, the voice of the cat.  That was the cat, the cat and the hat.  Dr. Seuss doesn't just fade away in Tim Burton movies when you think about it.

The film succeeds because it doesn't try to do too much.  It tries to be the Disney film that shows our state of the art, with some of our best and most mysterious.  Depp is so used to getting made up as a scary bozo.

The vorpal sword needs to fight the Jabberwocky, we all see that coming, the scroll does not lie.  But what we don't expect also happens around the edges and warps the plot.  Who ever thought those two would become friends?  They know it's their fate at some level.

The dream is hard, is the hard part.  The feeling of expectation is palpable, when we all look back to the castle gate, expecting our hero.  She's under that pressure to perform.  That's life, it's cosmic.

The funniest scene is the dark knight (bad guy) coming on to the giant Alice, saying he really likes big girls.  That's too literally true here to not be hilarious at the same time it's on the scary side.

Shades of Spirited Away with the warring sisters and their castles.  A Disney callback to Miyazaki (yes, we're here too) who had to authorize the Disney dubbing.

We projected in the living room.  Walker took a break from recording with R2D2 (the drum machine).

Tara and I had gone to Movie Madness earlier.  Gattaca, Tara's top choice, was the one we watched before Alice, the one I was most desperate to see.  Both blew me away.

Dropping a Few Balls

I've just been making contrite phone calls, as in the thick of the action I dropped the baton at a certain place in the schedule:  I'd been invited to talk to the elders in my "church" (we don't actually call it that) about my world domination schemes (as a geek, I'm expected to have those) and about Bucky Fuller in particular, with whose plans I tend to dovetail mine.

Well, wouldn't ya know it that the bookkeeping computer would go into perpetual reboot at the same time as my brain.  Paralyzed with misconditioning, thanks to the Three Kings (thanks guys), I went pell-mell on Hawthorne buying up a storm, from the Dollar Scholar and the high end Tibetan shop a few doors down, Tara my adviser and accomplice, getting some gifts, and books by Asimov.

That was my karma.  My karma is my dharma.

I've got voicemails in with Sonya Pinney and Audrey Metcalf (cherished elders), apologizing and offering to do private interviews instead, if anyone wants to know.  Invite me again by all means.  What I get for being a space case sometimes.  I fight it, that absent minded professor thing.

How can one be mentally present yet have an absent mind, just not possible.  I prefer Buddhism's mindfulness trainings, in my striving to stay on the rails, however often I fly off them.

At least I got some gifts out the door in the game of spinning airplanes and transportation services.  It's a workout and juggling act, that's for sure.

Out with the electric boats last night, with Trish and the gang, noticing all the FedEx flights coming in, laden with Santaware.  The story going around teendom these days, thanks to Facebook etc., is that Rudolph and peers were all girls, as only girl reindeer still have antlers this late in the year.

Not sure if so, but makes sense in a way.

Like with chinlone (a sport), guys just would not have the patience for some crabby old guy in the back with a passion for chimneys.  Same in computer science.  The male egos only managed to grow really big once the ground had been prepared by the patienter sex.

Apologies again y'all.  I have my world dom / mir plan at the ready, when you're ready to audit.

Thanks to Leslie Hickcox for reminding me, inadvertently.  She's with Friendly Care and well knows how to deal with people like me (those who've misplaced their minds somewhere, or their wallets, or passports...).

I bought ten "splat rats" from Dollar Scholar.  I don't know how to rhyme those in the "five golden rings" song but then these were for Hanukkah anyway.  That's our main party this time of year.

We used to do Solstice more, but that's when I had Dawn to help organize things.  I dropped by Alex's (Lindsey and I walked over together) for good food and company.  Tara stayed home applying for college and reading her new Asimov books.

Mystic Ball (movie review)

:: burma night ::

I enjoyed a somewhat optimized venue for viewing this movie.  Alex and his friends had organized a Burma Night, spontaneously conceived the week before, and shared at this Nepalese Buddhist compound that shares the same block as the Linus Pauling House.

I somewhat jokingly introduced myself as being from there (the Pauling House), whereas it's not really a residence, unlike this place.

Appropriately, I've been in touch with John Driscoll of late, erstwhile denizen of the so-called Voodoo House (Santo Daime) I used to write about -- same zip code.  Old Portland homes lend themselves to becoming religious establishments.  Something about all that wood maybe.

So Burma has this pervasive pass time and sport called chinlone.  It's a lot like hacky sack in that you're trying to keep something in the air, cooperatively or solo, but in this case it's a woven hollow ball of rattan.  Alex, who was quite a good hacky sack player, assures us chinlone takes a whole different skill set (one which he doesn't have).

Greg Hamilton, the director and star of Mystic Ball, is a handsome world citizen (also Canadian), your archetypal Global U student.  He's very athletic and is a disciplined martial arts teacher in Toronto.  He sees some guy playing chinlone in the park and is mesmerized.  Something clicks.  The rest of the film traces his increasing obsession with this sport and how it draws him into the cultural life and mind of the Burmese people.

The story line is so simple and innocent, like a children's book.

This doesn't mean there's not a beautiful girl to offset the handsome man.  She's one of the best chinlone players in the country and performs solo.  She's ridiculously talented and a sweetheart.  Watching her in slow motion, kicking that woven ball, rivals any martial arts sequence.  The guys are good too, really good.

The room was a hubbub of interesting conversations.  As a somewhat large guy, I can't just "flit about" like Tinkerbell, but I did my best to tune in a number of fascinating threads, about Buddhism, Alex's coming of age stories, and remarks on the new movie about his mom (none of us had seen it yet).

My wife Dawn would have loved this community and I'm sorry she didn't live long enough to enjoy it with me.  She was serious about her practice, and loved sharing about the dharma (teachings) with her shangha (community).

Terry of ISEPP has this vision of how the Pauling Campus might one day encompass this whole city block.  He publishes the artist's conception of this campus in the various programs handed out at the Schnitzer.

These drawings predate the temple though.  It would make a lot more sense for any peace-focused campus to include this Buddhist HQS as a core campus institution.

The synergy with the Paulings, in terms of connecting their anti-nuke pacificism with a world religion of many branches, looks really propitious.

My Reincarnation (movie review)

This was a movie about family, somewhat reliving a dream for me as so much of it was set in Italy with people speaking Italian. That was my boyhood.

But the focus is a Tibetan diaspora family, which takes me back to Bhutan, and the matter of fact way in which reincarnation is dealt with there.

To top it all off, I met family by happenstance at Andy & Bax earlier. Alexia and David were shopping for esoteric sporting supplies. I was drawn there by rather strong visions and ended up going from army to navy in my surplus look.

With the new boots (Bogs) I look like some fisher fleet captain, maybe a lobster guy. I should wear this outfit on Meliptus. Anyway, we ended up all going for Thai food, Tara too, at the new place on 38th and Division (first time for us with the new owners -- good dishes).

I took a break after ordering appetizers to buy mice from Twin at Rose City Reptiles, for Barry-the-python, so even more of the family was included.

Back to the film: the son of the Rimpoche is not that easy with his reputation for being his dad's reincarnated uncle or brother or teacher, or one of those. He's just another Italian kid wanting that kind of warm Latin family, a dad more there for him.

But dad, a Rimpoche trying to keep Tibetan culture alive, has somewhat heavy responsibilities, in the sense of lots of people looking to him to not drop the ball. He'd been pressed into monastic service early, as a reincarnation himself, and had escaped Tibet when the country was invaded and occupied in the 1950s.

Dogzchen is an important lineage, including in Italy these days by the looks of things, in Russia too.

The son grows into a man, marries, has kids of his own. He works for IBM. He's a hard driving executive. The cameras don't follow him into his business life much. We talk to the dad a lot, who likes floating in pools. The years fly by.

Having a documentary made of oneself, somewhat in the style of the Up series, does have an impact. The family is self-conscious anyway though, so the addition of cameras doesn't seem that obtrusive. These are unpretentious people willing to make a lasting document with their lives.

Flash forward and the son finally decides to go with his gut and his visions and start practicing his Buddhism more. He'll let his dad be his teacher in this chapter.

What drove him to this decision? For one thing, the job stress is getting to him and he needs to trance out while driving just to stay sane around work. Then come the dreams again, like when he was younger. Pretty soon he's realizing he might be on the path to becoming a Rimpoche himself.

The expectation that this reincarnated teacher might someday return to Tibet, to a major homecoming and welcome, is never far from the surface.

One might compare it to the fictional Little Buddha (I just did), but it's a much more in-your-face documentary about the everyday messiness of life. It's a teaching, a lesson in keeping it real (with forays into the surreal).

The Buddha's story is alluded to, but we don't escape into the big budget mythographic portrayals with Keanu Reeves. Instead, we have a real, worldly family, of wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, siblings, children, grandparents, the whole nine yards. And lets not forget students, colleagues, peers.

We get older, we get sick, we get well, we die, then we get young again and start over. Did the subtitles get it right, saying "conscience" instead of "consciousness"? Would either work? Lucid dreaming plays a role (something Dawn was into too).

The human family has gotten a lot smaller all of a sudden, and a lot bigger. We number in the billions, yet the planet is so small.

I thought maybe the funniest line was when the reincarnated Italian-speaking Tibetan Buddhist community organizer IBM executive is trying to get things going in Moscow, and says: "why are you Russians so complicated?" Who's calling who complicated again?

Foray to Washington

Washington is our neighboring state, nowhere near Washington, DC if you're hazy on local geography. Ridgefield High has an impressive fleet of buses and gathers eligible teens from all over that area north of Vancouver. Yes, Washington has a Vancouver too, a continuation of the same I-5 corridor metro area snaking twixt here (Portland) and Seattle.

I mention Ridgefield High, home of the Spudders, because I was judging there last night, driving our car with Lynn Travis of Bridge City Meeting. Her guy Timothy was just on a first conference call regarding that "should we join FGC issue" that I'm not involved with. She sat in with me as "judge in training" (ironically, as she's the former college-level CRX contestant, and actual lawyer) in her first Lincoln Douglas debate.

Resolved: individuals are morally obligated to assist people in need.

This was the same resolution I'd judged at Clackamas High a few times the weekend before. I was getting to know the territory. My general impression is the neg has the edge on this one, or that the meaning of "morally obligated" is deliberately weaker than "legally", in terms of punishments. Then Lynn got to judge Congress, a whole different event that sounds like a real can of worms.

Meanwhile, Melody / FNB was assisting the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping at the Lloyd Center Mall. Security was busy barricading the doors, having plenty of advance notice. The Rev really looks like one (I've not met him) and Melody was in love with his sense of showmanship, which she shares.

This per the account I got after getting back from Washington, after 10 PM. Clearly she'd had fun, dressing up in a wig and doing a long running gag. Melody: "Just laugh at his jokes, and have his meals ready on time, as the good Lord ordained it." Lindsey: "That just sounded so real, I felt like I was in a trailer just now." These women, with long experience between them among the Righteous Forgiven, know whereof they spoof.

In the car on the way up, Tara was talking about some of the connections between the National Forensics League and the Ayn Rand Foundation, also Model NATO (vs. Model UN). Kind of corporate, she thought.

For Gonzo, our coach, whereas NFL is interesting and he much enjoyed going to National Championships with Tara and Griffin this summer, it's really state level he's focused on. That's the more open / democratic form, with lower barriers to entry, in terms of disposable income.

One can borrow pant suits and ties, do fund drives, develop a wardrobe (like in theater). Journeying all the way to Indianapolis (this year's NFL) is more a privileged persons game, those with money for debate camps, the whole nine yards. We got some help from BurgerVille, other sponsors.

We were joined in the judges room (the home economics classroom, 206) by a 25 year veteran retired debate coach who'd taken his California team to fame and glory, with lots of non-privileged youth. They were budgeting $50K a year by the time he retired, but it was up to him to raise it, and that became tiresome. The program died when he quit, and this was his first judging event in 25 years since then. LD was new, as was Congress. Tara is back there again today, her team continuing to compete.

Lynn recommends the documentary Resolved, shown on HBO, available through Netflix, for more insight into this culture. Maybe Movie Madness has it. Yep.

Elizabeth Braithwaite has also been kindly playing an important role in Tara's growing into adulthood. They've been practicing driving a lot. Eliz taught David pretty recently. Tara is signed up for formal classes as well, which Eliz is helping sponsor. She also arranged to get yearbook pictures. I am grateful for these ongoing relationships.

I'm continuing to monitor Bob Fuller's condition through CareCalendar.

Starry Night

Finding Oregon from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo

I got this link from City Hall, Mayor's twitter feed, and find it appealing on a number of levels. The idea of time lapse is set up in broad daylight, helping make the leap to starry night.

I'm reading Dava's book on Copernicus these days, and was reminded of that passage where the visiting acolyte gets a ride in some homemade Stellarium and only then realizes Copernicus is serious about his revolution -- it's not just a short cut to make the math easier.

Remember, in my high school math curriculum, you don't graduate if you haven't seen the night sky like this for real. Not just movies will count, though they go a long way in getting you somewhat oriented, in a simulation science.

Protecting Lawyers

:: pbi meetup ::

Lawyers tend to be front lines advocates for something called fairness. The idea of some rule of law, other than the monarch's, is quite alien in some regions of the world. Nepal for example, a Himalayan state not far from Bhutan. The transition to more democratic forms is not being easy.

My horizons were expanded by a young lawyer, Jit Man Basnet, a human rights advocate who stood by the disappeared in Nepal, until he was disappeared himself, held incommunicado while the generals denied he was in their custody. For 258 days he was held, mostly blindfolded, and in danger of being beaten if he said any words beyond the authorized three. Transgressions by his mates resulted in the entire group being punished.

We were hearing of these unfoldings at the Quaker meetinghouse on Stark Street. Peace Brigades International is celebrating its 30th anniversary. This nonprofit sends brave souls to stand witness to activists, many of whom would be or in some cases have been killed. The PBI volunteers themselves have so far escaped murder, if not injury. They extracted Jit from Nepal after deeming it too dangerous to escort him in his home country. He could write a book and be on the speaking circuit, and live to fight another day. That's the strategy being pursued.

PBI is somewhat like Friends Peace Teams, except the latter are more into providing a therapeutic process amidst feuding parties. That might be just the ticket today in Nepal, as so-called Maoists and the remnants of the Royal Army are supposed to integrate. After what amounted to a civil war, starting in 1996 and resulting in the end of the 200 plus year monarchy, getting these elements to combine will take an alchemy like AVP's. PBI fields guardians, people of conscience, in hopes that those undertaking elections, reforms, adjustments, might be allowed their freedoms per the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, for starters.

I found myself thinking back to A Spy for All Seasons for its forays into Nepalese politics. Had Bhutan's expulsion of ethnic Nepalese tipped the balance at all? Barry asked why the term "Maoist" had stuck. There was no agenda to create a single party system. The unfairly advantaged would still have their human rights as well, although those perpetrating the crime of torture and illegal arrest would find their names in the database of violators. Their identities would not be kept secret.

The discussion that followed was dominated by Barry (not Barry Redd of Wanderers, another guy), and included plugs for Greg Palast and his new book Vultures' Picnic, and for Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Actually, Amy Goodman is quite popular with PBI staff and volunteers, as is Amnesty International, which supports PBI work.

We talked about Occupy quite a bit. The problem of homelessness and poverty in the USA is not so often discussed in Nepal and it's an eye-opener to see how there's blowback here as well, against the selfishness of the brute force lawbreakers. Some people seem to not mind ruining it for everybody else. That Americans too have hopes for a brighter tomorrow, a better world, is news to some people who'd given up on any American dream having real meaning.

Double Feature

Tara has a cold this morning, while I'm playing hooky from Wanderers. I watched the tail end of Stupidity, and now The End of Poverty?

The former is somewhat lighthearted whereas the latter just grinds it into your face that humans and their wee brains are just not that great an animal, but they're what we've got to put up with. I need more est Training I suppose, so this circumstance just clears up in the process of life itself. No, it's not like I want to get rid of humans. On the contrary, I'd like them to succeed, in spite of themselves (a kind of revenge?).

"We insist on justice not charity..." "forgiving international debt" -- there's another one of those English inconsistencies. No one is being asked to forgive, and forget about getting your "money" back. Hey, Chalmers Johnson was just talking, I recognized the voice from the kitchen and came back to hit rewind, as a test of my voice recognition capabilities.

Think more about innocent human bodies burning whatever 100 watt bulbs worth of energy. That's all you can eat. As a body, you consume no more than the next guy, mas o meno. Yet all these gross statistics tell me as an American I'm burning mega-bucks per diem. That's not what my body is burning, which in terms of rice and beans is what a well fed person eats (and then some). So these mega-bucks have to do with control, not bodily intake. I can walk out the door, start a car, and leave the engine running, squandering petrol (a stupid act). I have the freedom to be really stupid.

This was the "freedom" Washington, DC still thought it had, back when we still believed in voodoo economics and took it seriously. Now WDC wears a dunce hat, is a moron, at least in my book, and we're free to wheel and deal with Asians, Africans etc. in ways that mostly bypass its failed circuits.

Thanks to the Internet and other tools (mostly asynchronous), we get to throw those "white papers" in the toilet where they belong and emancipate ourselves from slavish adherence to a relatively worthless, not STEM-savvy, curriculum.

I did get to Wanderers later, on my bike, in time for a few conversations (about end of life care etc.). Steve Mastin is going through the process that happens after a tree branch crashes through a city-campus home-office in 2011.

Now on: Total War by the BBC (coming full circle). Triple feature. Oh, and another one on Rosalyn Franklin (DNA: The Secret of Photo 51, NOVA), the principal discoverer of DNA's structure (lots of overlap in these last two, in terms of timeline). Aaron Klug, who figures in the virus structure story as well, is interviewed in this one.

J. Edgar (movie review)

Steve and I grabbed a 14, took in the Pioneer Square giant tree, as well as the underground mall (to which Steve had never been -- we didn't buy anything then), then we queued at Fox Tower to see J. Edgar, although more theaters were running Marilyn.

The film creates its own twilight zone, is deliberately "lucid dream" like, a kind of wake up call to remember history, remember the collective experience, the shared matrix. The fact that none of it looks quite right is embraced as an aspect of the dream world (remember Post Toasties?).

It's a film trying to look like a film, and in that sense it's honest. Towards the end, we learn from Clyde that much of what we've just seen is the stuff of comic books. The real history goes in the shredder. We make do with fantasy because, ultimately, fantasy is what we have to fall back on. Clint Eastwood isn't shy about making that point.

There's stuff you wouldn't show closer to the time. The evolution of forensics, crime labs, and the audience's stomach for CSI and pathologies has changed the nature of theater.

We're a far more sophisticated set of creatures today. Zooming in on a baby's skeleton is just more TV, whereas in the 1950s such scenes would have been too shocking for lay audiences.

Likewise the twisted sexuality of the various players is more ethnography, the blackmail tedious. Who cares if Mrs. or Mr. so-and-so kissed a girl or boy? When are we done playing recess? Answer per this movie: you really only grow old physically, inside we're just kids, and then we die.

The movie takes the view that it's giving Hoover a chance to tell his own side of things, but then the camera is telling a story well beyond Hoover's or anyone's abilities to deliver in real life. The omniscience of the camera is western civilization's signature religion. Who we get to be, in Plato's Cave, in the Greek theater, is as if an immortal. We become directors, more like Hoover himself.

The paranoias engendered by Hoover's paranoia form an echo chamber that has not died down. A random sweep of the web finds this author (Mat Wilson) seriously doubting Hemingway would ever have committed suicide. The FBI was to blame, had to be, just listen to G. Gordon Liddy.

Speaking of which, Hoover's reputed hatred of the CIA was only indirectly touched upon here, a rift which subsequent literature, e.g. Tenet's, has done much to repair.

Taking his date to the Library of Congress and bragging he'd invented the card catalog was kind of like his taking so much credit for fingerprinting and forensics and centralized databases containing personal health information (e.g. fingerprints). IBM was happening. SQL was on the rise.

These were the big wheels of the zeitgeist turning, the shared dream coming true. Hell, I've taken credit for hypertext the same way (me, Ted and Tim -- and Al), used to write to the Library of Congress about it, come to think of it, another weirdo with a mission, a freak of nature, roaming the wilds of DC.

We took the 14 back past Chavez to Angelo's where Lindsey joined us later. I wrote this at Open Bastion (a home office) a little later after that.

This was Civil War day in Oregon, meaning the two biggest name teams play against each other. Steve joined Glenn and I in an appropriately hot doggie sports bar kind of place, almost across from the Pauling House. The restaurant was packed with customers cheering loudly, sometimes on their feet.

Reality Based Economics

I won't be able to do justice to this one. Attendance was high. I came late. Trish and her son were already sitting on the steps (the back bleachers). I ended up poking my head in and out, even sitting on the floor in the adjoining space, shades of the telekinesis lecture.

However I did think of another analogy for Wanderers: we're like those taxi drivers who seem to know a lot, because we drive MVPs around, pick up lots of stories. Except without the taxis. Cue laugh track.

Barry the banker is sparring with our guest, William Daniels. Lindsey met him through OPDX.

I'm a chauffeur this evening, akin to a taxi driver. I'm actually running the car around, took it to Jiffy Lube today. Spent just shy of $200.

People have so many different ways of talking, don't they?

My MVP is Anna of Alaska. The fate of Thunderbird Academy was discussed. It's a middle college today and she's acknowledged as a founder, but it's not quite the vision she started with (or we did, years ago).

The talk concepts are big picture. I'd characterize the rap as Critical Path 101.

Next day, meeting with Anna: we discussed the software picture when it comes to managing student workflow in Alaska.

The State of Alaska does many innovative things with no obvious parallel in other states.

The lease back program on home computers and musical instruments is worth sharing about: the school pays you for the time you need using the equipment to do school work, effectively paying you rent for tools you own while you work with them on your homework.

City as Campus

The Mayor tweets (in part):

"RT @sarahmorrigan Seemingly, the City of Portland now has an official designation of #OPDX as an organized crime/gang/mafia. @MayorSamAdams @PortlandPolice

Portland's mayor is getting some idea, from his advisers perhaps, that OPDX is some organized crime vehicle, versus the self-organizing city / campus we know it to be, a City that Works.

There's a dark side to any metro area of course, any area with humans. This is a focus of our curriculum, especially when covering SQL and related technologies.

I'm in a gateway coffee shop using local library Free Wifi. Tara is interviewing for college in a nearby hotel (Embassy Suites -- in the old Multnomah Hotel building). I used the opportunity to check in with Mike D at Right To Dream 2, surrounded by a wall of doors at this point, to add some privacy and mitigate noise. The corner of Burnside and 4th, at the Chinese Gate, is pretty bright and busy a lot of the time.

People in this region want to demonstrate Rainbow Gathering style living, and to practice it. The withering academic circuits, inherited from the poorly designed 1900s instantiations, have not kept pace with student demand at the intuitive level, and the public conversation is starting to realize the extent to which Economics peddles bogus misinformation.

Just having many more threads and processes going is pushing omni-triangulation to accelerate. Lies don't survive cross-examination. Too many discrepancies crop up in stories riddled with holes. The financial world thrives on avoiding close scrutiny, even while closely scrutinizing.

Speaking of which, I posted a comment with Christian Science Monitor on the wimpiness of the IAEA. All this focus on "countdown to zero" in the so-called Middle East, with no corresponding actions in Colorado is a ridiculous imbalance that panders to egos in WDC. My Facebook stream, going out to lots of Quakers, is about this too.

Why be obsequious to those clowns?

I've been targeting Harvard for extra special rhetorical abuse. Think tanks should know when they're that far behind the times and do some reinventing. Too many jalopies on the road, especially "back east".

My reply (hyperlink added):

@MayorSamAdams #OPDX not gang/mafia more like university campus coincident with Greater Portland (Troutdale included). Good for > 99%.

Scrap Book (#opdx)

Tonight was fairly momentous in that Portlanders kept their Occupation non-violent past a city-declared deadline. A festive New Year's like atmosphere prevailed.

I had dinner with Chairman Steve at his place. He joined Walker for drinks at our favorite bar then they both came by my office to watch Livestream.

Lots of civic pride in keeping it civil, and a realization that these symbolic actions have changed in character in light of the new social media (perhaps the "social engineering" once feared? feared still?).

This was still an endgame, played to a win one might say (or one might not).

Global Warming

Richard Alley is an action figure scientist who gets to tell it like it is about global warming. He encounters a lot of denial and ignorance, which has worn him into a particular character, a lot like a Disney character but actually he's with PBS.

I hadn't realized Gus, one of our Wanderers, was a webmaster for the show. As first webmaster for BFI (Buckminster Fuller Institute) and Kenneth Snelson both, I felt some affinity, as an unsung hero. Lew, to my left, a sanitation engineer, put me onto a goldmine of Project Earthala stuff: the 50 machines we'll need.

I suggested we order today and start shipping to Nicaragua, of course alluding to a certain case being prosecuted against some villainous characters. Indeed, Lew had the right attitude: we would want to check that this was real and working equipment, and not allow for any switcheroo during shipment (or change of serial numbers, as appears to have happened to our all American friends).

We got to see some of the global warming TV clips ahead of most others, including the roller coaster one. Alley is a brave man, one of the bona fides needed for a TV personality in the big leagues (Lara Logan, Katie Couric...).

The Bagdad is on an exclusive circuit involving only some of the best science museums. You could say we were a focus group I suppose. We had some detailed paperwork to fill out for the NSF. OMSI was hosting (our science museum), with McMenamins supplying the venue and grub (I shared a pitcher of Hammerhead).

I put in time with FNB today, a serious attempt at mitigating fossil fuel use, and the tip of the iceberg when it comes to counter-intelligence against the Protestant "Waste Ethic" (was "Work Ethic" (guffaw)) and its hell-bent nature. Car head commuters everywhere, none of them compensating for the damage they do, never mind about the fancy underwear "day job" (snicker).

Anyway, his talk was effective, as I'm sure are the book and DVD. The science is essentially done for the moment. There's lots more to know, but the denial phase has nothing to do with that phase of the empirical process.

Now it's more a Darwinian process, like American Idol or Gong Show, for figuring out who gets to tell us our lifestyle is moronic and ugly. Bad news if you're in fashion, unless you've been planning for this day (many have, surprise surprise).

This guy is a candidate, certainly, and takes it well beyond Al Gore in saying what's inconvenient for some of the high inertia "personal fortune" types, who bet wrong and can't -- and don't have to -- admit it. They'll say that we "owe them" but we know that we don't.

Tara needed to work out and study. Carol is preparing for bird migration season (already upon us). OPDX is taking care of itself (Ty made a wicked good mushroom potato soap at SDW yesterday, Melody, new Catherine, Will, another family also on staff).

:: by of and for the occupants ::

Wanderers 2011.11.2

Today is action packed. Sam Lanahan and Mark Martin shared the floor at Linus Pauling House. The production values were impressive, as usual. My attention was somewhat divided as I'd become exercised over the inclusion of a lot of cruft on the Wikipedia page about Synergetics. I went ballistic on Synergeo.

Mark's solution to the Flextegrity problem uses like 29K lines of C++ and beaucoups differential equations. I think research in this direction will inspire more confidence among the 99%. I'd like to see Elastic Interval Geometry applied to this problem as well. EIG engines have much simpler guts and Gerald de Jong's commitment to writing beautiful code, in Java especially, has launched this new discipline on a promising track.

Mark pointed out that his solution uses quaternions, consistent with his claim that his simulation is like a gaming engine in a lot of ways (those use quaternions too, faster than matrix ops in many cases).

Wanderer and Friend Leslie Hickcox showed up in her Honda vehicle, partly on the promise of free chanterelles. Jim Buxton was being generous again. I hitched a ride, with computer and 'shrooms, to the Quaker meetinghouse on Stark Street.

A brainstorming session was in full swing, lots of Friends mixing with Occupy Portland players in small groups. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of Quakers' involvement, as I was learning from Lindsey's and Melody's reports last night (they're on break from FNB/PDV for R&R).

The Occupy Portland groups were varied in quality. I thought the group of all women, which mom and Leslie attended, was the most coherent in the summary session.

The thinking was rather nationalist in flavor, with discussion of Bhutan and Germany, but that's OK. People don't know how to talk about geography without these hooks. Besides, according to Chris Hedges, it's the 1% that are supranationalist in outlook (the Grunchies), whereas the hoi polloi 99% have no choice but to think within their Matrix.

We have Diversity people here, who feel highly offended by various things people say. The special talent of such folks is to have their sensitivities tuned up really high. One person started crying about all the run-ins with creeps, and why doesn't anyone do anything about it? Feelings of loneliness and abandonment I well recognize.

Like I had this guy shouting at me recently (no, not at this meeting), saying stuff about "old man" but I wasn't worried about it, as I'd been eldering him about terrorizing a driver. The car had stopped suddenly, not seeing him and his pal, almost hit them. The guy was now standing in front of the car going on and on (and on, and on) with a screaming rant, not letting it go, pinning the driver to the scene (reverse might have worked -- or caused an accident). I thought he was being too self-indulgent and told him so in so many words. The situation broke up and the car was able to drive off. I didn't mind trading insults. Shades of Italy.

My next meeting: Lyrik again. A hotel support shop, offers useful software at a decent price, but it's built in FoxPro and there's wheel turning about how to go forward. I've encountered this challenge before in college course registration software, and in truck routing software. An important sector of the economy is being abandoned by the parent, left orphaned, or at least that's how many feel. I could empathize once again.

I outlined a path using Django or some similar web framework, with an MVC architecture and ORM connecting to an SQL engine. Could be LAMP stack, Windows or OS X, I was platform agnostic. Not sure about BeOS or its successor.

So are any hand-held computers, so-called phones, doing Python these days? Nokia had one. As these are Quaker journals ("shhhh!" like a library), I don't have comments turned on. Just letting you know it's a topic I care about, in case you're interested in sending me links.

Halloween 2011 (2 of 3)

:: halloween 2011 ::

If you're going to a big (small, or medium sized) Halloween party this year, tonight is probably the night, as the real Halloween is on Monday, hardly a night to be partying, given the rhythms.

It seemed like at least half the people were in costume on Trimet tonight, hard to tell about the other half.

I looked "plainclothes" with my silvery hair, know-it-all glasses, black fatigue jacket (not really what it's called). No helmet though, so maybe not a costume. Had a cuffka though.

I wanted to scope out the Jamison Park operation, same as I'd done on Holladay. I got more out of the latter, in terms of work, food, and kudos for FNB (our Riseup list had been one of the planning vehicles). This maneuver felt more like a dodge, a diversion, a non-event, as we consolidated off camera.

Passers-by, mostly party-goers, were joking about the "1%" counter-demonstration they could stage, in spoof of the 99%'s. They could have champagne and caviar, and politely ding their glasses with silverware, repeating after the toastmaster in high GA style.

Some guy with a pizza was commanding the center, so clearly not an FNB operation in any case, though I did spy some familiar faces. Mostly I sat on a back bench near the horses, looking somewhat the part, then I got sidetracked taking pictures, didn't wait around to see what went down at the witching hour of midnight. I didn't want to miss the last 14 (timed it perfectly).

Earlier though, I did file my trailer report (CC a few others) sharing some details with the clan.

This has been an interesting learning experience, a rehearsal in a lot of ways (see below).

Koski phoned as I was heading to the bus. We've been experiencing more of the usual nerf brawls on Synergeo, a way of killing time given the world has no place for our little subculture. Gotta do something when you're in a petting zoo holding pattern, or whatever hell.

Last night, I stopped by the CTO's office coming back from PSU, and dropped off some Halloween stuff, authorizing Kuffka dot com on my Visa (same with Cuffka earlier). I like wearing either one (a joke: it's the same thing, just two names for one object, like in a Python namespace).

Speaking of Python, I graded about 95 "papers" today (all electronic, not tree pulp). I also answered a lot of student emails. A regular workday for me.

The next morning (October 30) I joined Jay Elder in representing Food Not Bombs at Coffee Plus, an SDW institution. I'd been on my way on my bike to Social Hour at Quakers, spacing out on this invite from Sara Fischer (I'm a creature of habit, on autopilot sometimes) when I got the cell call reminder.

I did a 180 and became an Episcopalian for the day, running into Clint Dodson, an old Friend, and joking more about Beanites. He'd been a ship's chaplain, is steeped in Christianity big time. I explained about my joining FNB cooking crews here sometimes.

Clint is quite interested in interfaith dialog, like with Buddhists, and seemed secretly please that our SE quadrant is known as "the Buddhist ghetto" in some circles (I'd not heard that exact phrase). That sounds exotic and fun, like "Little Lhasa" (a comeback to Bush Sr. staffers' "Little Beirut" -- all monikers for Portland more generally).

Jay did all the talking when our turn came to do a spiel. First though, was Oregon Food Bank, which had sent a volunteer. He and I got to talking, as I had a long history with OFB back when Patty was doing dispatch and allocations and stuff, and I was her dBase guy. I cut a lot of teeth working with that operation, learned a lot about food and food security issues.

As I was riding over to St. David of Wales, I was thinking my Grumpy T-shirt was inappropriate and planned to keep my coat on. Fortunately, SDW was selling its trademark "Got Ritual?" T in my size, so I grabbed one and did a quick change in a booth. First though, I did a little impromptu ritual myself, setting up this tableau and memorializing it with my camera:

That's my helmet, so this could be considered foreshadowing. I also got a shot in the mirror, later. I ended up wearing the jacket anyway though, rather than take off the Kuffka, which might have looked too menacing with the black T, worn by a relative stranger in their midst, albeit one with silvery hair.

Thinking about AFSC

I was interviewed last night by an NPYM person regarding my role as NPYM "corp rep", meaning I'm a member of the AFSC corporation as nominated by NPYM as a kind of "agency - meeting go-between" (yes, we say "laison" sometimes). I'm not the only corp rep from NPYM: we have four. My term goes until 2014. I've been in this role before.

Anyway, during that interview I wondered aloud if the role I'm playing with Occupy Portland is with my "corp rep" hat on, or not. I do forward some memos to an Occupation point person in Philly, but one could say I'm doing that on behalf of FNB, just updating a sister organization with commensurate interests and investments (an affiliate).

The AFSC traces its origins to providing refugee assistance after and during the first few world wars, and to "work camps", many of them alternatives to military service, organized as a way for Friends to provide relief and counter-balancing intelligence (they would put out fires a lot, sometimes by jumping from airplanes).

I'm seeing this heritage, of refugees and camps, coming together in contemporary situations, with the Occupation in particular, and am wondering if "camps" and "camping" should once again become the unifying AFSC theme in the following sense:

In addition to:

• refugee camps, and
• disaster zone camps, we have
• military camps (also known as bases) and
• prison camps (also known as prisons)
• farm worker and/or labor/mining camps, sweat shops

The character of an infrastructure may change.

A camp may start out as military, but as the troops come to feel increasingly prisoners of foreign and/or alien policies that don't respect them or have anything to do with their best interests, these bases become prison camps, complete with stoploss, other enslaving measures.

To escape these prison camps is to "go AWOL" and results in penalties. Yet to stay is to betray one's higher conscience and/or one's sense of better judgment.

The AFSC is very familiar with such cases (as is Amnesty International) and has been in routine communication with slave soldiers (many of them minors) for many decades, including troops who are actually in prisons (called that even by the tyrants).

A camp may start out with mostly "refugees", i.e. people with few prospects or assets where they came from, in search of a better life. Here's a quick comment from that Willamette Week article about Occupy Portland which I thought was pretty good:

I have read more than several journal and first hand accounts of living in remote and very populated mining camps in the second half of the 19th century. The mass of confined humanity, all with some purpose, little of which was actual mining, squeezed together on some forgotten draw or playa high in the mountains of the West. Someone starts a newspaper, and a committee forms to bring law and order. Gamblers arrive to glean whatever, and soon there are hired Chinese or Indians doing the actual mining until Irish and Welsh miners arrive to take away those jobs. Not for a share of the find, but for wages. Itinerant Jewish peddlers set up dry goods and hardware stores. And the "find" is found, and used up, and in less than a year or two, the burgeoning burg goes from zero to several thousand in population, and then back to a handful of hangers on. (posted by dude)

I think Quakers are often hardy types, with good outdoor skills, good camping skills, or else they may well aspire to become such.

AFSC should be our training provider, such that we build our logistics and collaboration skills around the world, in tandem with camp staffs (from many walks of life).

We should think more about "occupying" facilities that have turned ugly and criminal, and helping to transform them from within. We could declare Gitmo to be "ours" for example, and compete with the illegitimate chain of command that has been subverting commanders in chief since Bush, who also wanted it closed.

We'll work with the base personnel we already work with, per the prison camp scenario.

Finally, a prison may become something more like a school and/or rehabilitation center, providing skills training and networking opportunities. Many of those enlisted currently have prison records. Some are in service in exchange for reduced sentences.

The difference between a prison and a military base is often one of degree, ditto refugee camps, wherein the newly homeless may have nowhere to go.

Remember that guards are part of a prison and soldiers often view the surrounding population as their prisoners, in the sense of those whom they've conquered. That's not with reference to Iraq or Afghanistan of course, as in neither case have the military command structures managed to extirpate the indigenous civilian (aka "insurgent") processes (same as in America, at least in some zip codes).

Military control over Afghanistan is an oxymoron, as "military control" is but a euphemism for "uncontrollable impulses" expressed as violence. Use of outward violence is a breakdown in self-discipline, according to most seasoned experts in the martial arts. That's what every mom and pop storefront tends to teach, at least around this neighborhood, and on the TV show Kung Fu with David Carradine.

The AFSC could help military occupations become more civil, more like refugee camps, where expats are huddled, close to unemployed, but for the mayhem they're paid to create ("putting themselves in harms way" as they say, requiring more fighting to "stay out of harms way" i.e. the troops must be protected, why they're there, why we fight).

This would involve continuing the work we're already doing: supporting individuals of conscience who wish to disobey their imprisoning authorities and stop behaving like criminals.

This is what happened in Vietnam a lot. Many vets ended up as Quakers at the end of the day, still good at camping, and determined to not let it happen again (but it did, resulting in so many more POWs).

In a Nutshell

Q: I have yet to understand how we let corporations become people.

A: when Lincoln freed the slaves and said "you have full rights" the railroad companies said "hey, we want our full rights too" (corporations hadn't been real people either)

Excerpt from Math Forum:

> "OPDX campus", PSU ?? What are they?

OPDX is a temporary public simulation giving young
people opportunities to develop leadership skills and
to recompute the equations that govern our society.
They put their values into action, negotiate with city
and state authorities, run food and sanitation logistics,
face bitter cold. All in the heart of downtown Portland.
It's a bold project for which the surrounding universities
take little credit (and deserve less).

PSU is Portland State University which does have
a Systems program with some life in it, and a world
famous Urban Studies program (thanks to Dr. Carl Abbott
et al).