Our Week in Indy

Indianapolis surprised me with its vibrancy.  We had a blast, and I was too busy to blog, what with seeing The Dictator, The Avengers, and hanging out in Ben Davis high school, where we overwhelmed their wifi -- made it hard to get work done, but then helping chaperone and chauffeur Cleveland Cannibals was also work of a fun kind.

Hannah and Izzy, our other two team members besides my daughter, Ben, assistant coach, and myself comprised our group.  I rented a commodious jeep from Budget (my donation to the cause) which I also used on a side trip to visit Earlham College in Richmond, some 70 some miles to the east.

This was my first time to attend a National Forensic League national tournament, Tara's second (last year's was in Dallas, next year's is in Birmingham).  This interesting race of young people makes speech and debate its core sport.  They talk to walls (a form of practice).

We had our own partially overlapping scenarios, mostly sticking together, not always making it to forensics events.  Participants get knocked out of the running in droves as only a few can get a trophy and perhaps a cash prize.  The Hood River team got that far, 7th in their category.  Tara, a Lincoln-Douglas champion, won a plaque and had the satisfaction of being among the top 50 or so, making it through eight rounds -- even better than last year.

Coming from Portland, we're used to book stores.  The abandoned Borders leaves a big hole in downtown Indianapolis.  We've lost them everywhere -- people mostly cyber-shop for packaged media these days, plus we're immersed in a TV and movie culture more than in one of voracious readers.  Portland. with its Powell's, stands out from the crowd in that respect.  We did find a used book store inroute to the airport though, and I bought The End of Racism and My Life So Far, Jane Fonda's autobio.  I studied them both on the journey home.

Actually, that's wrong, I got The End of Racism at a Hastings, on my way back from Richmond (driving that jeep on I-70), following directions from the Earlham College bookstore lady.  She'd looked up The Psychopath Test for me, as Tara had browsed it in the airport and was curious to read more so texted me to maybe snag a copy.  I was on the parent tour of Earlham when the text came in (myself and another prospective with her mom -- our guide from Kazakhstan, and a psych major).  I also spoke with Carol (mom) and Julie (sis) around this time, outside by the cemetery.

There was more of New Orleans here than I'd expected.  Indiana was a "free state" in the Civil War and at the center of downtown is a tall monument to that effect.  Our party climbed the stairs to the top of it.

We also met the Hood River team there in the evening, after which Tara and Izzy went off to hang out with them in a different hotel while Ben and I downed some beers and checked out Sacha Baron Cohen's latest nuttiness.  Poor Hannah had a migraine and was sleeping it off in our base camp.  We'd had dinner at Spaghetti Factory that night, Italian the night before (where we'd been served by a spaced out and apologetic waiter).

The Lincoln Financial Group, Ronald Reagan Foundation, and a host of other sponsors, are behind a good show here.  Unlike OSCONs, frequented by older after-college career-minded types, colleges and universities have their booths at this conference.  Reed College was prominent and we hung out with "the Reedies" some of the time, including for an authentic creole dinner at Yats.

NASA was also present, on stage, now at the Convention Center where we'd adjourned after three days at the high school.  The international space station was a focus, including of the final round of public policy debate.

Neither White Castle nor Steak 'n Shake have made it this far west, to Oregon, so we had to sample those.  The latter was a hit, an impressive operation I thought, for what it was.  The former is a part of the lore (Tara has been a student of the fast food industry).

We had a night at the Indianapolis Zoo as well, courtesy of NFL, where Alexia joined us by text message.  There were sitcom aspects to this trip.

We transited through Chicago both ways on United Airlines, which appears to have absorbed Continental (keeping the tail colors) when I wasn't looking (so much to keep track of).  Tara pointed out that even if the United brand was kept, that needn't correlate with the backoffice shape of the merger.  So true.

Izzy was on to a program in Providence (Rhode Island) with Ben, an amiable young decorated soldier, on his own ticket through DFW.  We left Hannah at PDX awaiting pickup by her dad, while Tara and I rode the Max and bus 75, well after midnight, back to Blue House where we live.

:: we talk to walls ::

Another Big Day

The big days are flashing by quickly these days, accelerating acceleration.  Tara finishes her high school career and turns 18 only two days apart, however we're celebrating the birthday a day early, so Carol can still make her flight to the AFSC retreat at Pendle Hill.

I'm at the Hawthorne Powell's looking at a long queue in my inbox.  Nevertheless, I finally found the time to photograph Polymorf this morning, a rare geometric toy.  I have an interest party asking to see more details.

Portland Public Schools has a creative way of working with the seniors' need to all-night party the night of their graduation.  It provides a fleet of buses and chaperones the occasion, returning them to their high school parking lot at 5 AM the next morning.

Tara and two friends arranged a pickup by SMS (text messaging).  As the chauffeur, I tend to be on call more than some other parents.

Elizabeth Braithwaite and Chris Cradler joined me at Memorial Coliseum for the ceremony.  Carol used the special seating for mobility impaired.  Alexia and her friend found good seating also.

The high schools do not all format their ceremonies the same way, as Liz and Chris were discussing, having seen the subculture at Grant.  Alexia went to Grant as well, and I was at her graduation, with her mom.  Of course we think about Dawn at these times.  Grant had used Memorial Coliseum this year as well, and was just ahead of us in the queue.

The graduation program had an insert boasting of the big name schools and scholarships some kids had been awarded.  Tara had elected to fade into the woodwork on this one.  She also opted out of "full IB", having plotted her course carefully and consciously, running key decisions by others for peer review.  I trust her process, as they say / said in est.

I appreciate the logistics of Portland Public Schools.  A lot of awards and recognition went to faculty and staff last night, not just students.  Real institution building occurs.  The expressions of loyalty to the nation is touching as well, though I don't think hanging Cascadia's flag would be inappropriate either.   Our alliance is strong, even if WDC can be pretty frustrating sometimes (like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Main).

Twenty One Guns

Yes, you could say I'm being slightly sardonic, as Nick was quite far from expecting military rituals.

However this is a use of firearms that I, as a Quaker, can respect. We honor a person and their service. I will have much more to say about Nick as time goes on. Salute.

Against doctor's orders, Nick braved the Seattle folk arts festival and reported to Johnny Stallings that he had a blast.  He was not eligible for dialysis, having bucked the establishment, and returned by Amtrak in an exhausted state.  Last time he was this low energy, I took him to the ER.  This time Johnny Stallings took him home, meeting the train in Vancouver, WA.

Nick and Johnny called the on-duty nephrologist about whether to move up the next dialysis appointment, but Nick was too exhausted to want to deal with a consultation and chose to wait for the next regularly scheduled appointment.  He expired soon thereafter, though I do recall chatting by phone.  He sounded pretty good.

He'd been weakening though.  Bob Quinn, Johnny Stallings and I compared notes on his decline.  We're happy he got to Seattle and immersed himself in music, taking his dulcimer in an especially ordered soft case.  He died on Walt Whitman's birthday, poetically enough.

From Quinn, with a little help from his friends:

Nick Consoletti, Ph.D. passed away May 31st in his home. He was an original and courageous soul who lived a life of integrity in a unique fashion. Those who knew Nick admired his exuberant and generous spirit. Early on, Nick was influenced by the teacher Krishnamurti, whose message he took to heart when he said that it is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society. Nick chose knowledge and wisdom above all else. He read widely but was particularly influenced by David Bohm, Gregory Bateson, John Cage, and R. Buckminster Fuller. Nick's own degree was in the philosophy of whole systems. He was an accomplished  musician and poet, who traveled with his Mac laptop to coffee shops and cultural events from San Francisco to Seattle. It seems fitting that he passed away on Walt Whitman's birthday. Nick had just  returned from his beloved Folklife Festival days before he passed away. He leaves a trail of friends along the West Coast, (and indeed around the world) a stepmother, and a half sister in Massachusetts. Nick will be sorely missed.

AFSC Program Committee Meeting

Fortunately I have good hearing and am tuning in most of what's going on in the other room.  Carol (my mom) is running the meeting.  I'm being more the deck hand / stage hand for this one, as there's not much space and there's quite of bit of logistics involved, what with projecting, conference call, Middle Eastern food from Hoda's etc.  Eddy Crouch did a lot of the leg work to get this one organized.  She's the event director I'd say.

I've spent a lot of time in this house on East Burnside, but not recently.  I've not sat in this front downstairs office since my last meeting with Dan (I was showing Lindsey around -- she ended up volunteering with Laughing Horse Books and Video Collective for many reasons).

When ESI (then Electro-Measurements, Inc.) gave Quakers their building (sold it for one dollar goes the story), there was a stipulation that AFSC could stay there as long as it liked.  In my early childhood, AFSC was the office you walked through on the way to the meeting room, now the social room.  However, the AFSC found this house on East Burnside and moved there.  Arthur Dye fits in here, as a previous regional director.

After I returned to Portland in the mid 1980s, I was groomed by Paulette Wittwer to gradually assume the editorship for Asian Pacific Issues News.  In many ways, that chapter ended when the Compact of Free Association (COFA) was finally enacted (the election was restaged until it came out right), and Pelau joined the other occupied states in the region in submitting to "Fourth Reich" / Business Plot authorities (a lingering / dying LAWCAP), who insisted on their right to park their WMDs anywhere in tropical paradise.

LAWCAP, studied by AFSC under the heading of NARMIC is what Medal of Freedom winner Bucky Fuller credited with hijacking the USA in the post FDR era, forcing us into a Cold War with former allies in order to keep the profitable wartime economy going.

Congress teamed up with a new kind of soldier-bureaucrat (e.g. McNamara's crew) in dividing the pork among the 50 states.  A jet fighter the Pentagon might not really need for strategic reasons might still be needed for employment reasons.  Likewise those bases around the world.

Post WW2, coherent military moves took a back seat to more twitching "head bit off" activities, such as basing soldiers in Saudi Arabia after spazzing out in Kuwait (was Gen. Schwarzkopf like Gen. MacArthur, with less civilian resistance? -- Eisenhower had been a general, which gave him the guts to fire that guy).

Bush Sr. only just managed to avoid disaster that first time (an attack against Baghdad), but the Idiocracy still wanted its day in the sun, and Bush Jr. had no way to contain the neocon bozos other than to give it a ridiculously comic spin, given the corroded state of DC's system of "checks and balances".

Congress had caved, too weak and corrupt to steer a responsible course in the wake of 911, while the UK had Tony Blair.

The military is a jobs program, first and foremost, mostly for guys.  LAWCAP moved that obvious reality from spoof status, an "Iron Mountain" distopia, to an "everybody knows that" fact of life, through just a few short presidencies.  The greed behind war profiteering became legitimized as the Beltway Junta settled in for the long haul.

Back to the present, the AFSC would like better access to the same data the military has in terms of opt in versus opt out rates, among high schoolers.  Shouldn't that be public information, another polling result? Currently the program is opt out, while the military services have a default blanket invitation to come onto school campuses -- unlike in Afghanistan where this would be regarded as a provocative and reckless act.

This open campus policy makes more sense within the USA itself, as the USA is a militaristic society that shows signs of wanting to eradicate any democratic institutions that might frustrate its most belligerent players.  Schools are a good place to showcase your true colors.  If you're a bully, you know how to kick the schools around, make them kowtow.

Anyway, these are very far from being official minutes of anything.  I'm more just musing, recalling.

Eddy mentioned AFSC was supportive of Occupy but I don't know if she means the move to celebrate our Islamic / Arab Spring heritage e.g. in the form of Muhammad Ali.  His principled defiance of authorities in the Viet Nam chapter makes him a great American hero.

Gen. Smedley Butler is another big name around Occupy Portland (if you've been paying attention at all), given the Bonus Army connection.  He joins Bayard Rustin as another "speaking truth to power" type person.  Self respecting military (e.g. Col. Fletcher Prouty, Gen. Eisenhower) are and were highly suspicious of Business Plot / LAWCAP motives and many of them have given us their support, logistical and otherwise.  There's nothing in the Constitution that says we can't treat LAWCAP as an enemy.

Churning Out New Dogmas

Wanderers 2012.5.16

David DiNucci is holding forth regarding his newly published book on scalable planning.  His focus is giving people concepts and language for planning activities that take place in parallel.

Planners have been grappling with such problems for a long time, with operations research kicking in around the time of World War 2.

The logic is supposed to assist computer programmers who are increasingly looking for ways to maximize / optimize jobs / tasks.  His language is deliberately generic, not too focused on either hardware or software.

Holden took off early this morning for Chicago, doing the legwork to get OpenDjango off the ground.

Yesterday, John Driscoll and I had a meeting about fractals and the systems stuff he's doing, at Common Ground.

The reason I was late this time, and sat in the naughty chair (not really, it's an especially nice chair and Glenn helped me plug in), is I was watching the making of the movie Ghosts, wherein Michael Jackson tries to get inside the skin of someone who looks like our Buzz.  Jackson intimates he's been using this gringo suit as a gad about around town sometimes, a way to get away from the stares.  Kinda like scuba.

David Tver asked if I wanted to talk about Quakers in the wake of Duane Ray doing something on Mormons.  This is for some other group, not Wanderers.  I expressed a willingness.

Insider Gossip

I've been seeing indications that the popular press is becoming more aware of Iran's PR / diplomatic initiative.  They say it's not about building nuclear weapons, or winning the right to do so, but about standing for peaceful / civilized uses of the technology and questioning the right of arrogant superpowers to lord it over others with their arsenals.

Iran has joined the Countdown to Zero campaign in other words, at least in this computer model.

Since that's a campaign with deep roots in WDC as well, it's becoming easier to fast track the "bomb Iran" crowd into retirement circuits.

The XY-dominated hierarchies need a lot of such fast tracks just to help more qualified XXs gain positions of influence, so this becomes a women's rights issue as well.

Such changes in the background will be reflected a little bit in the foreground if the past is any guide.  Those hot and bothered pundits who've been calling for bombing get to mug for the video anthologies that go around, of shrill talking heads who role model what is worst and weakest in people.

We can all feel glad we're not them.  A primary function of television is to help us feel superior to most who go on it, especially "opinion makers".

President Obama has been aware of this rift, but then so is any president confronted with a mutinous Beltway Junta that's about keeping Gitmo open, and not just for BP executives who might more belong there.

The USA is supposed to just shut up about its desire to not be the imperialist puppet slave of those accustomed to having their way through force and threat.

These junta people tend to be loud, armed, and not particularly interested in any feedback.  At least half of them are privately employed mercenaries who, if caught behind enemy lines, will try to involve the CIA in some way (ala the crack cocaine dealers in LA, who used the war against Nicaragua as their cover).

The rest are college grads with cubicle jobs or corner office jobs, who submit analysis sometimes.  They may have traveled and gone to fancy academies with high tuition.

Again, the safest path, when doing diplomacy, is to remind people that WDC is just one more city (on the east coast, so behind the times, closer to Europe), not even a state, and the Beltway Junta should not be mistaken for the White House, which it surrounds and besieges.

We'll still get Gitmo closed one of these days, when it's not controlled by Retirement City and cruise ship wannabes.

Gotta Have Coffee

Lindsey and I chatted about the philosophy behind her song by this title, while biking back from DMV.  A few seconds of that song had made it into Occupation Nation (see previous blog post).

I thought that was apropos, given Occupy the Ports has to do with world trade and what counts as fair versus exploitative.  The equations are multifarious.  That's what the self interested great pirates were about, before they became great computers or whatever we're using today to keep track.  Books, other records.

Anyway, she puts more bite behind it when times are bad and things are heading south (in the sense of "wrong way").  That's no time for goofing off.  Whereas when things are going well, hey, why not kick back and have some fun, have some coffee?

That's somewhat the ethics for her.

We also talked about the tea party connection, and how switching to coffee was a patriotic act in the face of the UK's tea practices back then (talking Revolution).

DMV was moving quickly today.  We took our number and were called to the counter after scribbling as fast as we could on various forms (three in all).  I phoned home to ask Melody to check the odometer (197K plus). Lindsey was letting go of her stake in what had been her escape pod from Savannah.

This Nissan took over for the Subaru (Razz) after the latter's demise.

Walker had become zealously anti peak oil waste and was driving herself to walk a tough talk.  Rather than just let it rust, she invested her asset towards gaining a more settled home life (space in the Blue House), but for herself chose the bicycle as pretty much her only mode of self conveyance, a good move health wise as well.

For awhile we collaborated on a music venture, with me as chauffeur / roadie, earnest dork anthropologist from Princeton, taking it all in.  But she wanted to find a stronger social justice angle.  Actively discouraging driving was part of it, so my job fell away, plus I was never that high on her totem pole to begin with.

Not having taken the same vows, I continued to pay maintenance and insurance, while enjoying free access to the public roads.  I did scale way back though.  I think more in months per tank than in miles per gallon these days.  Getting work that did not require much driving was a missing puzzle piece that came along.

Melody is all but moved out per long term plan; it's not technically the first of the month yet.

JenQ has also folded her tent.

Gypsies are on the move again, will continue flitting through.  Or shall we say Elvyn folk.  None will go far I hope.

We zipped back to quarters from DMV, where Lindsey harnessed the dog for a walk.  I had a late lunch engagement with Steve then went bouncing around again.  Have wifi will work (within the neighborhood -- I don't shoot away all that often, though I do that too, usually only for short intervals).

Quakers have gotten mixed up in the coffee trade themselves.

Multnomah Meeting sent a delegation, my daughter among them.

Last night Tara and I had home made pasta carbonara at the Holden residence.  Patrick, now with Nike, came by for dessert, after Tara's departure.  He was rightly incensed that a little humor in his posters would not be tolerated and the science fair was canceled to teach him a lesson.

Elementary school attracts certain personality types, caricatures really.

Yesterday Lyrik had live jazz.  Nature Boy, one of their tunes, was by an unknown from Colorado, his only hit really.  That and Little Prince were early childhood themata.  They'd likely blend as a cartoon.  I was also into kachina dolls.

Children spontaneously express the archetypes, that's Jung 101, Freud too.

Occupation Nation (movie review)

:: by B Media Collective ::

This is one of those edit/recombine jobs I used to dream about before the Web, when back in Jersey City at PWS 284 (what I called my personal workspace).

Download from sources, remix / value-add, and upload.  That's what people do.  That's what this movie does.

Today's video editing equipment makes that a lot easier.

Take a lot of Dominic's videos from the Laughing Horse collection, run them through a blender, and dollop in healthy doses of recent footage from the Occupy camps, and you've got a basic clay.  Shape it to tell more of a story, and you've got a movie.

That sounds really critical but I'm actually somewhat a fan of video collage, as a still life collage maker myself.  Fast cuts are OK with me.  I appreciate the bandwidth.  I recommend 2:01 to 4:01 as a great sampling, so reminiscent of a Rev. Billy video, I couldn't wait to show it to Melody (she'd missed the first 20 minutes at the opening showing -- a town meeting somewhere).

But it helps to already know a lot of history.  Same as when listening to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire.  In particular, it helps to know about the Spanish Civil War and the world wide movement to have more local control in the form of worker owned co-ops.

That might be called "communism" or "socialism" in some necks of the woods, but in Oregon we're more likely to think of Burley (no longer a co-op) and Tillamook.  Fascists in Europe moved quickly to put down the 99% in Spain (with Hemingway a witness) but Oregon is pretty far from fascist centers, including from WDC (somewhat strait-jacketed by looney tunes "corporate persons" in this chapter).

Also, the Bonus Army chapter:  there's some good archival footage here.  Again, Portland figures in, as OPDX Park was also the Bonus Army's staging ground (45:10 - 46:10).  Smedley "fighting Quaker" Butler was a hero both times.

JenQ, currently occupying mom's office (with permission -- Carol is away), gets to tell us what Food Not Bombs is doing in the early hours of OPDX (29:40 - 30:18).  Later, FNB moved to a separate tent in Beta Camp.

Lindsey, another housemate, sings Ya Gotta Have Coffee to the camera (53:38 - 53:51) during Occupy the Ports (the movie is chopped into segments).

Good job, B Movie Collective, getting a lot of the action into perspective, and in time for Spring of 2012.

My own work since Occupy has been working with teachers, other characters, on an Occupy STEM initiative, curriculum writing designed to shake more people out of complacency and/or apathy.

On the other hand, for newcomers, it's more about turning the page and moving on from the 1900s and its nightmares.

We don't want the 2000s to be colonized exclusively by those suffering from 1900s reflex-conditioning and/or PTSD.

Faster responders with more apropos reflexes, good intuitive sensibilities are in the pipeline, many of them recruited from Occupy camps and now on more global circuits, looking at lots of problem situations, reporting back to meetings e.g. at Pauling House or whatever.

Speaking of the Pauling House, good job Lew Scholl for rendering Julian's Alpha Helix for Google Earth.

Graywater LLC

Suffering from black & white views? 

Give us a call. 

We'll help you gain a more nuanced vision.

Experienced Graywater dude (note Princeton shirt, cuffka) discerns relevant factoids.

Hugo (movie review)

On Facebook I mentioned this movie was better than I'd expected.  However, going in, I had few expectations, other than I expected a 3D cartoon, like where you have to wear glasses (or glasses over glasses).

Hugo would probably be something cute, like a Lorax, I was thinking.  Surprise:  not a cartoon, or not really.

The idea that films are deliberately illusions (which they are), like stage magic, is very much a core theme.  We celebrate that history, its characters, the worlds we get (like this one).  The killjoys are the ones who bring in the reality of killing machines.

The film is about healing, people recovering from war in various ways, which just reminds us of how wounding the war was.  Like losing your father suddenly, your best friend.

Those who have it hard end up teaching about how hard it can be, sometimes unwittingly perpetuating the nightmare.

I was sure that was Ali G's voice -- it all of a sudden jumped out at me.  Yep, Sacha Baron Cohen.  His character would get the girl if only he had more compassion for the orphans he hunts.  "Why do adults like torturing children so much?" the movie keeps asking?

Hugo is something cute, a boy mainly, but with lots of surreal parts.

The world they inhabit is just like the movies.  The clock tower from within, looking out, is like Big Ben, taller than anything within the Paris landscape save the Eiffel Tower.  Within and without need not jibe in the movies, a house of mirrors.

I came into this film straight from fantasies about city bus systems, Trimet's trip planner (which I'd tweeted about).  We rode in on the Max train.

Minutes later I'm watching a pulsing set of city circuits, trains galore, plus there was something in the previews about trip displays.

"Look at that gear thing" she said pointing up at some Trimet infrastructure, where the train's wire gets pulled (in front of Finnegan's).  Walking back the other way, after the movie, she called it a premonition (is there a post-monition?).

Almost a lucid dream, with Henry Sessions smack in the middle of it, as we were leaving the theater.  So much thinner -- seemed surreal.  With entourage...  Yeah, we should catch up guy.

Martin Scorsese directs, Johnny Depp produces.  This is no small time film I discovered.  One of the masterpieces.  Works great in 3D.

These kinds of wonders get postponed, damaged, when war times begin.  WW1 hurt the movies, WW2 hurt TV.  No wonder the true moguls in these media prefer war's simulation to the real deal.

Killer meme viruses are bad for the entertainment industry, hurt the circus.  Hence all the antibodies, the stronger immune system, even funnier clowns.

She asked the bartender to switch to PBS.  Transportation networks again.  Illuminated cities.

Spring Cleaning

 :: Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs
at St. David of Wales kitchen ::

I have my appointment with Nikki again, same as three years ago, to sort out the tax situation.  I'm claiming 1099 income in 2011, which is a pleasant change from 2009, 2010 during which I racked up a deficit on my SBA loan (since repaid), doing the coffee shops circuit, roadshow stuff.

That was all at a loss, net negative (in the red).

I got Friendly with Food Not Bombs and we learned to live off what others would throw away.  We got by on no dish TV and very little heat, and will probably live longer and prosper more as a result.

Others had it much worse.

Anyway the neighbors have HD and we never unplugged from the Internet.  Tara got a good public school education, thanks to Mr. Nims, Gonzo, and many others, dedicated pros.  Go Cannibals.

April 9 was a red letter day in that I finally got to meet, cook and serve with Keith McHenry, cofounder of Food Not Bombs.

He grew up in the national park system, having been born on base in Germany (Weisbaden, where Reggie Hyde and his family were from -- friends in Rome down the street).  I'm not surprised he thinks and breathes Logistics and does it well (including big time during Katrina).

Keith's level of management skill has not gone unappreciated.  Some Peruvian group, with hazy ties to IBM, interviewed him for hours.

He's like that advanced CEO you read about in management school, who mingles freely on the line, yet has overview and organizational memory.  Yes, some FNB servings feature table clothes.  Yes, biodiesel has been in the pipeline.  Yes, he's been offered use of airplanes.  All things I'd wanted to know.

As a long time target of negative scuttlebutt campaigns, he's been more successful than most.  FNB still has a great reputation, because it's a great idea and intelligently designed.  People can see for themselves what goes on at all levels.  What's not to like?

As I said in our meeting (St. David of Wales) what other charitable activity allows really well off people to dive in and reap the same benefits (develop cooking skills, eat fresh vegan, work out, do cardio, meet cool people, practice self organization) on an equal footing?

A community gets created where the 1% don't feel demonized, and the 99% don't feel they're being controlled.  The operations are quite transparent.  Rescuing perfectly good food from the compost compressors and taking joy in its preparation and sharing, with due attention to issues of food safety and sanitation, is hardly a stupid thing to be doing.

Boosts IQ and EQ both.

Working with FNB reduces cognitive dissonance by up to 30%, studies have shown.  Walking your talk in a philanthropic endeavor is a privilege not a burden.  One nets rewards, such as even better ideas for how to do the work.

Keith says Donald Rumsfield's maintenance guy has been active in FNB, when not working on the bomb shelter.

Philosophical Investigations

Related:

Link from Sean's list
Philosophy of Mathematics
Re: Influences
More buried writings...

Study Hall

The Blue House is in full swing as a study hall again.

Melody just screened a documentary about the Stonewall Riots in New York.  I caught most of it. Satya was in the basement providing an audience for the solo musician, working to blast through 11 minutes of continuous keyboard with no errors.  She made very few.

Satya watched a few minutes of Stonewall then took off, continuing the journey home.  Alex's mom (ASSK) is much in the news today.  The captain called me about that from his boat.  Patrick sent me a link.

The musician and Melody have now gone off into Joseph Campbell territory (more DVDs) while I've returned to the back office to continue with my own studies.

Tara had a good experience at Earlham and will be sealing the enrollment.  She has state championships coming up this weekend, me a judge (though not in her events).

SMAD (Sunday Morning Adult Discussion) was led by Mendel this First Day.  He discussed Lookism, putting a negative spin on the term (he's a skilled public speaker).  The term was originally coined by fat people fighting back.

As one of the fatter guys in the room, I spun a positive counter, pointing out how early Quaker focus on plain dress, no cosmetics, no titles, was precisely a look and feel, sending a message through dress and so on.  To communicate by appearance, costume, dress, is efficient, not necessarily empty vanity.

I cycled between Meeting and the Blue House quite a few times, twice forgetting my camera.  I wanted to have pictures of Bob Smith, a long time family friend and pillar of Multnomah Meeting, in my Photostream.  I have this practice of taking pictures of pictures at memorial services, been doing it for years.  Birthdays too of course.

Some of my conversations were on PHYSLRNR today, another listserv archiving at the University of Buffalo.  I say "another" because that institution pulled the plug on our GEODESIC after all those years, meaning some of my old hyperlinks are now just dead ends.  Such is life in the Wild West of the Internet.

Will I need to get a Kindle after all?  I'm tempted, knowing there's something on Python decorators I might read.

Probably some of my best writings today had to do with influences, though thanks to a crossed wire (as we say in neuroscience) I had Conway confused with Coxeter in one post.  I managed to patch that up, and still be happy enough with the posting.

I'm suggesting we all do more to map ourselves against a backdrop.  Construct your model of history and then fit yourself into it.  Make this a front burner project.  You have a role, and not just if you're a president.

Friday night I rode the bike to 23rd and Alberta and back to celebrate a birthday. After meeting on Sunday I rode 20 miles on EmoKid.  Tonight I bicycled to Food Not Bombs (hi Tre).  These are gestures suggesting I'm hoping to get in better shape for the spring and summer.  This is an established pattern with me.

The more programmed ordeals that would result in stronger skill building will have to wait a little more.

The "off your duff" curriculum is still unrolling (scrolling) and is in the early stages.  "Girl scout math" (as I call it in shorthand) features these Tarzania types I specialize in recruiting, doing all these "tom boy" activities.  They're civilians in my scripts, perhaps training to become doctors without borders.

Kids drawing programs (sketching themes):  tail fins for airplanes for organizations you think might need them (including new ones you invent); the museum / memorial grounds at Gitmo (use Google Earth to get some views) in light of plans to close it.

Stonewall was a Mafia bar in Greenwich Village NYC (one of several) that permitted people to be openly affectionate (slow dancing OK) with members of the same sex.  The police were always raiding the place.  Even cross-dressing was a crime.  During several days of uprisings, several corners were turned.

Talking heads included former Mayor Koch and NYPD as well as bar goers from that time.

Wanderers: Equinox 2012

We enjoyed another free ranging, somewhat informal retreat this equinox.  We included some new faces and noticed absences.

Some, such as Lindsey, made only brief appearances, flitting through.

Patrick brought his boy Spencer, our youngest.

We had three accomplished guitarists.

My own experienced encompassed Blue House happenings and the fact that Tara was at "nat quals" seeing if she could qualify for the NFL championship.  She was undefeated.  She managed to join us on the final day, for a discussion of snake species, their habits and splendors.

Axolotls and salamanders also featured.

Glenn's pad was a part of it too, a source of scholarship and a place to catch up.

Nirel has been enterprising with her Cuffka line, building equipment, inventory and skills.  She has maximized use of her digs.  Her practice is high level.  She is one of my teachers.

We had a visitor at New Zealand at Blue House, who accompanied Melody to an Alice in Wonderland party.

Terry joined us on the Saturday morning walk to the top of Mt. Tabor.

Gus from Silverton shared flyers for his upcoming talk on April 24 regarding Homer Davenport, the famous political cartoonist and Arabian horse afficionado.

We had the projector set up and watched quite a few Youtubes, other videos.

Lew Scholl shared pictures from his trips to Peru, and to Nicaragua as a part of Multnomah Meeting's delegation.

Considering Nomenclature

A respected member of Multnomah Friends has requested that we change the name of Oversight Committee on the premise that it's deeply offensive to some people who harbor memories of slavery.  Plus there's a question of whether slavery ever went away, including in this country, or just went into prisons and/or became wage slavery in other forms.

In comparing notes with some UK citizens last night, we agreed that "oversight" and "overseer" contain different connotations and moods.  The east coast Quakers have used "overseer" more and many have already retreated from that use.  I think marrying "overseer" with "tryant" makes some sense, as per the paragraph below which I sent out from the Blue House recently:

In particular, the fact that many have championed the cause of freedom against coercive overseers who would impress slave-draftees into military service, is a source of hope in many chapters.  Relatively recently, Muhammad Ali stood up against overseers of the Vietnam War and served as a role model for a growing underground of anti-war youth who are clearly not cowards nor afraid of a good / fair fight.  Islam put a damper on the lust for war then, as did Buddhism-Hinduism through The Beatles.  There's a rush to war again, with many of the same voices that encouraged a pre-emptive attack on Iraq again at the forefront.   

"Oversight", on the other hand, is maybe something we don't have enough of, although it's also a pun or double edged word, like "sanctions" (which means "punishes" and "permits").  An "oversight" is something missed, sometimes leading to hurt feelings, as the connotation is "out of negligence".  Should we call it "the Negligence Committee"?  Some Friends skeptical of the committee's performance might consider this ironically honest.

Yes, there's a sense of hierarchy or topography in the word, in the sense of some committees providing more overview.  Would "the Overview Committee" sound less like it's about holding slaves?

However the important point to make here is that Friends are expected to rotate through these committees, more like going from ride to ride at the carnival.  Sometimes you ride the Ferris wheel, a nice sedate image of what Oversight may be like (another image is "roller coaster").

I'm inclined to hold on to "Oversight" for backward (and forward) compatibility while meanwhile continuing to chip away at the whole concept of "race", which is 98% pseudo-science with an ugly past.  A racist is anyone who believes in races, which would be most USAers at this point -- an especially ignorant demographic in light of all the facilities they're privileged to have.  In terms of ratios, we're looking at a far from equilibrium biological phenomenon, likely to alter state in dynamical ways (chaos is like that).

I'm also against circulating this comforting myth that slavery has gone away, as if Quakers were really finished with their underground railroad business.

In terms of people taking offense, this is part of the new diplomacy where Diversity is concerned.  Those harboring some guilt complex are likely to find a shoe that fits in such an atmosphere, and begin issuing apologies on behalf not just of themselves, but on behalf of others as well.

What's true about guilt complexes is they often seek to involve others i.e. once one decides to fight a crime one sees oneself as guilty of committing, there's a tendency to not want others to "still get away with it". This is why the guilty tend to turn against their former friends and then run in packs, often whipped on by spin doctors (a kind of overseer) in the background.

Beware of the guilty, as they tend to attack in hoards from hidden positions -- like those rogue uber-coward drone people, who claim allegiance to a bankrupt nation kept on life support by their Beltway Junta.  They wrap themselves in the flag of "we the people" while confessing to and/or committing war crimes.  They carry brief cases to work and frequent think tanks.  Washington DC is full of these creatures, many of whom stalk the halls of government, imagining their own legitimacy, feeling entitled in some way.

I'm glad Quakers are having this nomenclature discussion, which has spread across several Yearly Meetings by this time.  The debate will impact the membership discussion as well, as some meetings have turned their Oversight Committees into Member Care committees, trading overview and integrity for a sickly cliquishness.  This is not a time to take the continuance of liberal Friends for granted.

Pi Day 2012

I didn't do anything special around Pi Day this year.  However I did mention the University of Havana's role in one of my meetings with a Pycon delegate.  cu.pycon.org is not yet spoken for, but I know Python is being used there.  With the liberalization of the Internet (thanks in large degree to software libre), come new freedoms for its user-developers.

St. Patrick's Day is coming up and the bloggers are making their usual point that Ireland didn't have snakes since at least the last ice age, and therefore St. Patrick's famous feat of ridding said island of snakes is at best a figurative accomplishment -- some say the Celtic druids are what the snakes symbolize.

March 17 is also when Dawn died.  We had a dinner in her honor a couple nights ago, near the Unity and Friends establishments -- with a focus on Unity's outdoor labyrinth (we didn't walk it, but we all were aware of it).

Might some readers of the Book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden story think this logo is offensive?  I plucked it from a web site in India, where snakes are associated with wisdom, perhaps going back to Chinese dragon iconography.

The positive spin on snakes remains in the caduceus in Greco-Roman cultures, and as Athena's familiar.  But then some Christians tend to demonize Athena as a version of Eve, whom they consider somehow a cause of Man's downfall.


That's a blame-based interpretation of the Bible my version of Quakerism would not subscribe to, but this doesn't keep people from seeing West Point as some kind of Eve-centric cult (because of all the Athena motifs).

I find it natural, as many do, to associate the circle (back to pi day) with the image of a snake eating its own tail, the Uroboros.  This may also be taken as a symbol of the eternal return or eternal spiral.  These are not new ideas.

Pycon 2012 in Pictures

Music as Water

"Music like water" will be a paraphrase of David Bowie, with a screen shot in my slides.  That was from my Spotify meeting.  Tara and her peers appreciate what this company is doing.  It all started in Sweden, with a couple of friends wanting to stream music at a private birthday party.

Echoing Graham's talk:  what's "property" is fluid.  On Luna ("Luna Park" -- our moon), they'd sell you the smells of Planet Earth, but we get those for free here (duh) -- or used to.  I've not seen the biosphere without its layer of human industrial gases at any time during this trip.

That we've morphed the planet, beyond all recognition, like a Borg, is not debatable, whether the "climate" (chuckle, what's that?) has changed or not.

I'm in the chairman's suite at the moment, having just met Julie in-the-real for the first time.  I'm seeing light at the end of the tunnel with my queues.  This was not a paid-by-work conference.  I have only Ewa to thank for the promo, and Steve.

Would I have been here otherwise?  Maybe.  Parallel Universe talk, best to leave it alone ("other tomorrow" -- hello Trevor Blake).

What I saw today:  the guy who invented Selenium is well on his way to having a "magic fingers" with eyes, that tipples through your phone apps looking for bugs.  He controlled it with Python, as it played Angry Birds on his tablet and managed a decent (I thought -- not being a player) score.

As I was explaining to some of my colleagues, I'm busy losing my virginity in several dimensions here, such as in letting my Droid scan some garbage that led it to eat a 4.5MB application.  eXistenZ again.

A high point today:  I grabbed the mic after an ESRI guy called the Fuller Projection crazy.  This was after lots of reminders that the Mercator is nuts.  We had a jovial exchange.  He politely paused while I took a picture (ESRI has the Fuller Projection as an option), saying I'd put it on Facebook & Twitter (which is true).  Julie Steele (O'Reilly) tweeted the buzz, which I retweeted.

Congrats to Carl Trachte for the Community Award this morning, presented in absentia.

I'm pleased with the new Nikon Coolpix S8200.  It has a lot of built in intelligence, and as a guy with bags, swag, on the move, huffing / puffing, there's not all that slow motion time to set up a shot, use the gauges.  The approximations taken by the on-board algorithms seem pretty on target.  See what you think.

Work in the Service Industry

I admire the professionalism of the personnel and the high living standards to which I am treated, and not because I am royalty or especially entitled.  I'm just another paying customer taking care of business.

Glenn and I parted, talking global climate change and solar flares, as I boarded the 75 at Chavez & Hawthorne for Hollywood Transit Center and thence to the airport.  However, having watched eXistenZ again (movie night) I had lost a battle with my cell phone charger (I no longer saw it as being the right one) and left the Blue House with a dead Droid.

So instead of riding to the airport I jumped off in this new Mall City for some low density strategic shopping, Rev. Billy a role model, like when he buys that sweater, suits him.  No crushing through the doors in a panic for some stupid "deal".

I picked up a high zoom high megapixel camera, more later, and a new charger with built in buffer / battery for the Droid.  Got back on the next Max and resumed the trip.

I worked through a lot of my queue in Sacramento but still have a ways to go tonight.  I wanted to meet some of the Python MVPs, both on the ground floor and in Steve's suite.  I was not disappointed.

All in all, I have nothing to complain about at the moment.  As I reminisced with Steve, even though I've traveled a lot, it was under the aegis of my parents, my dad the trip planner in particular, and he was quite the smooth operator.  I was openly critical, but also admiring.  He knew his stuff.  We were the people to share it with him.

I feel I'm more disorganized and hit the TSA station like a cloud of loosely connected particles.  This guy came up to me with my postage stamps that had dropped.  I'd leaked coins as well.  A team helps me win.  Alaska Airlines still gives complementary wine on these short hops.  A high culture.

What do Pythonistas talk about at gatherings such as this, informally?  Just like everyone, we compare notes about life's journey and children are a big part of that.  We talk a lot about children, about parenting.

Not that I talk all that much.  I toted Naga this whole way, our PSF totem.  I have this newly embossed bag, done in Florida, with the stuffed / toy python inside.  Quite light and airy.  I also checked one bag for $20, well worth doing.  Again, the service has been excellent.  Alaska Airlines, the various airports, the drivers, the people helping me at the Verizon (charger) and Best Buy (camera).

My blog post on Pycon for the O'Reilly site is worth a link here.  Grandma and Grandpa O'Reilley would be amused and I think happy enough with this new incarnation.  The potato famine came up recently, where was that?  Tom's relatives came over as a result of that, or so goes the family story.

I brought (Over)interpreting Wittgenstein again, like on the trip to Philadelphia.  This book might actually pass for an anthropology of philosophy in some ways, and when I encountered has passages paying respect to Clifford Geertz, an anthropologist, I felt some happiness.  Wittgenstein and Geertz were both my heroes but I'd either forgotten or never known how much Geertz in turn admired Wittgenstein, took his thinking to heart in crafting his own style of rendering "thick description".

My Invisibile Landscapes series says "Hello Clifford Geertz" in one part, and was written closer to that time.

I consider myself to be in the service industry as well.  I work long hours, if odd ones.

Quakers and Nationalism

The AFSC has clearly bought into the nationalist model for organizing human affairs.  This has much to do with its history with the UN and the legacy of the 113 history of the British Empire, which gave rise to nationalism in its modern from.  Gandhi was a nationalist.  The split of India and Pakistan into separate nations, largely along religious lines, demonstrates the consequences of nationalism.  Now these are both nuclear weapons states, which would have upset Gandhi greatly.

Albert Einstein was more skeptical of nationalist programming.  He'd lived through the rise of German nationalism and saw how the Third Reich manipulated people into responding viscerally and emotionally to its symbols.  Humans are designed to process symbolically and to channel the archetypes by this means.  If an alchemy goes awry, the consequences may be deadly.  Ideologies channel energy and drive behavior.  If they're out of sync with the Holy Spirit or Noosphere (as some call it), nightmare scenarios may ensue.

Will humans a thousand years from now, a hundred years from now, look back on our 190+ national sovereignties as a passing phase / stage in evolutionary development?  A lot of us hope so.  However the picture is more nuanced in that one may conceptualize in terms of nations at the same time as one looks at other organs of governance on other levels.  As people continually point out these days, many a corporation has assets and annual budget exceeding those of some smaller states.  The 190+ states already share the stage with a number of other actors, including the world religions, with their own capitals such as the Vatican and Mecca.

Some people talk about Friends Center as the Quaker Vatican.  I like this nickname because it reminds us of non-national governance structures that have a global aspect.  Quakers need not be nationalist, anymore than they need brand themselves "Christian".  Like nations, religions are long-running PR campaigns, memeplexes, designed to manage human emotions and marshal behavior.

I'm interested in working with Quakers who are distancing themselves from Christianity partly because the Christian brand has lost so much of its luster in its service to nationalism and the goals of Manifest Destiny.  The institution of Pope, based in Rome, inherits from the position of Roman Emperor with the title of Caesar (Czar).

Christianity has worked hand-in-glove with imperial powers, of necessity, and absorbed much of the apparatus of nationalism.  To question the efficacy of nations, of dividing the world into a jigsaw puzzle of "nation states" is to think "outside the box" where many Christians are concerned.  It's taken for granted, to the extent that its resultant ills and pathologies are overlooked.  "Could the whole concept of 'nations' be sinful and against God's will?" -- that's not a question that gets asked much.

Moving away from nationalism does not mean strictly avoiding its core concepts ("when in Rome...") but it does mean brainstorming ways to reduce its influence.

Using world maps and globes that show no nations, or do so optionally as an overlay, is one aspect of the youth programs some Quakers have been working on.  Our Multnomah Monthly Meeting has a Fuller Projection in the childrens classroom.

Adult Quakers may have interest groups wherein a future without nation-states is contemplated, along with the question "how do we get there from here?".

Does this de-emphasis on the importance of nations put some Friends in conflict with the AFSC and its overtly nationalist programming?  Do we side with the AFSC and it's proposed "two state solution" for the Israel-Palestine conflict, or with Rabbi Lerner and his vision of a "no state solution"?  Clearly I'm more biased towards the latter solution, as are many religious leaders.  The nation-state "system" is too broken and psychologically immature for the long haul.  Humans will eventually outgrow it.

Corporation Meeting

:: Trip to AFSC / Philly ::

So here I am in Philadelphia at the annual corporation meeting.  I'm representing North Pacific Yearly Meeting. I also have long experience with the local (Portland) AFSC office, though not so much in recent chapters.

I was wondering if Hugh Thomforde would be here again this year.  He showed up just now at breakfast.  We did some catching up.  Hugh and I were part of the small clique of Quakers that met in Rome, Italy in the 1960s.  His dad worked for the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).  Now he lives in Arkansas.

Last year, we had a timeline about the AFSC around the breakfast room.  This year it's The Faces of Occupy.  Philadelphia's camp was right nearby and used the Friends building for bathrooms and a kitchen.  Hugh says Little Rock still has its camp going.  I showed him some pictures of from Occupy Portland on the Mac Air.  Then we moved in to Meeting for Worship.

Mom and I met at the Philadelphia airport last night and had a small meal of mussels and crab soup. This was behind the security line, so mom's carry-on, which US Airways had wanted to check, went ahead to the baggage claim area.  Recovering it from the office, where they said it would be, took some fussing, but it all worked out.

AFSC is a Quaker meme pool and switchboard, one might say.  It rises to the occasion.

Does this corporation have corporate personhood?  US law currently says it does, but Quakers have a history of considering lawyers and the law behind the times (look at immigration law), mired in superstition and obsolete thinking.  That's a perk of having a religion based on continuing revelation I suppose.  This is how new rules come about.

The AFSC has the word "American" as a first word, which suggests "America" has some role to play in Friends service.  In the obsolete world order, Americans saw themselves as helping the world be a better place.  These days, more of Friends' work is about educating Americans to be less destructive in the world.  As civilizations go, many of the North American ones are turning out to be quite militaristic and therefore frustrating and debilitating to many peoples around the world.

People "look up to" Americans a lot less than they did when the AFSC was first founded.  Working in a world that demonizes / vilifies Americans (USAers call themselves Americans) is more challenging in some ways.  As we move towards a Global University aesthetic, we learn to accommodate these twists and turns, to stay effective.

Mostly the AFSC needs to focus on its North American regions, of which there are four.  The rest of the world will be better off to the extent that Americans get their act together and stop being a drain on the world economy.  Helping peoples to avoid coming under the jurisdiction of American laws and lawyers is a worthy objective (remember the Bremer Edicts?). Many of their ideas regarding intellectual property, corporate personhood etc. are not conducive to human / humane development.

Importing better ideas from elsewhere is a top AFSC priority the way I see it, especially where alternatives to violence are concerned.  Occupy is one of those imports, to which USAers have added their spin (each city in a different way).  The idea that the USA has something valuable to offer is more back burner these days -- it does, but mostly USAers need to do their homework.

Friends are not uniform in their practices and expressions of belief.  The AFSC gets caught in the middle sometimes, as Friends project their fears and worries about one another's lineage onto their various agencies.  Many Friends have distanced themselves from the AFSC even as they have distanced themselves from other Friends.  This is not unusual for a religious tradition:  it forks and branches, not unlike software projects on Github or whatever.  Such is life in the big city.

Forest Grove

I'm with Dr. Nick Consoletti at Grand Lodge in Forest Grove.  We drove through a lot of Intel territory getting here.  Now we're both on the wifi, catching up, a working breakfast.  I Facebooked about some of it.  Medard has a blog.  Myopia versus Utopia is one of the posts.  Picture of Kenneth from 1959.  Lots of news from Synergeo, which I haven't been monitoring, having switched over to Koski's list for the most part.

I need to forward Tre's request to the Clerk, that MMM fund at least a portion of his budget for getting into the voter's pamphlet as OPDX mayor.  I use OPDX and PDX somewhat synonymously in this context, as the latter is the embodiment of the former.

In calling it the Blue Tent, I'm calling attention to the earlier Westward Ho! type would-be occupiers who made it this far.  They tended to be tough and self reliant, but also more tolerant and welcoming of other peoples, having suffered so much just to get here.

That accounts for some of our cosmopolitan ethics -- another New Amsterdam (unlikely to succumb to the Yorker types this time).  Friends have some of that anarchic flavor that Occupy Portland had going, with long experience at self administering, both regionally (NPYM) and globally (FWCC).

Alex and I had a wifi work meeting recently, both plying our respective tracks.  He was more into hardcopy actually.  That's when I forgot to mention about Tintin.  You might find Bader at such a meeting, if not away.  I'm still just learning how to use the new Air.  Costco after this, as Blue Tent needs restocking.

Sarah-the-dog had a play date with Sarah-the-corgi yesterday.  Walker has taken to walking Sarah and she's always welcome where Portland Energy Strategies is concerned (her anti-consumer based ethics, similar to Reverend Billy's, are fascinating to psychometricians, especially in Japan where the trend may be even more pronounced).

Ecovillages frequented by FNB style "girl scouts" will need to be tight ship operations to satisfy their owner-operators. I can well imagine more wasteful, less disciplined bases, such as the US Army might administer, coming under fire for their less-with-more waste stream.  Documentary film crews might compare them, in terms of training provided.

Alternatives to Violence and PBI have much in common, as does the Amnesty International approach to preventative protection (don't wait for a tyranny to over-reach, move in early).  Our ecovillage school campuses, in being safe for diplomats' kids, also serve as channels of communication between estranged regions.  The situation might involve Ireland, or Utah.  Anna from Alaska on the Droid.

I just pre-ordered Edward Popko's new The Divided Spheres, in early draft of which I scanned in Magnus Wenninger's office.  He wrote back appreciatively, reminded me I'm in the book.

If your kid is Palestinian and needs a family visit, the bases network might be pressed into service on your behalf.  Stay close to the tarmac and don't tell the locals you're fomenting a family reunion.  Medical leave is an important aspect of serving one's community, including one's nation-state if that's the duty one signed up for.

Tonight is the Academy Awards.  I may find a screen somewhere.  Maureen wanted me to see The Artist today, but she didn't know about the ODEC training.  Good hanging with Bunce & Co. last night.  Lots of movie and TV talk.  Portland knows media, especially comics and animation (Dark Horse is here).  ToonTown, some call us.

Tintin's Great Adventure (movie review)

We didn't make it to a 3D rendering, all the better to compare apples to apples, when thinking of other illumined worlds (anime).  The movie asks, right from the top:  how do you like my Tintin?

Then the movie really shows off:  look what it can do with light.  Mirrors, magnifying glasses.  Serious students of optics captured a lot of it in their mathematics, and it didn't all leak away.  We use it to computer generate and share what's in our imaginations, as well as to prescribe lenses for ourselves.

The movie (a snaking twisting scenario, always fast moving) makes fun of his signature tuft of hair.

We get used to the character, comparing it with our memories of the comic book if we have any.

I do have such memories, as I'd poured over Tintin as I had Mad Magazine and many others.  Nestro made a deep impression as the butler.  Shades of Batman.

This new ability to animate worlds, based on characters developed by artists past, is a stellar direction in which to be pioneering.  There in The Avalon, I was seeing the state of the art unfold.  A couple o' geezers (as Jane Snyder calls us) in future-ville.

Then we played retro games.

I got the biggest kick out of being a long haul North American trucker, from a Japanese point of view (some of those trucks you just wouldn't see on a standard stint).

Captain Haddock was formative in my characterization of Captain Wardwell, and that forced me to keep looking at Tintin and deciding what I didn't like about him.  He's eerily action-oriented, this guy, in hot pursuit of his story. He's a story chaser, that's his raison d'etre.

One can't dispute he's good at his job, so he wins high marks for professionalism, if that's really what a journalist is.

One never reads what he writes for the newspaper.  They haven't invented TV yet, in that world.  He's like one of the first one-named celebrities, like Madonna, like Prince.  Everyone knows him, they say, in his home town.

Tintin reminds me of this girl Sintel in the Blender anime -- very single minded and agile in pursuit of goals.  Now that's giving him a lot of credit, more than I usually do.  Credit Spielberg and his crew.

Anyway, I'll be curious to check this out in 3D someday maybe.  Alex, you've gotta see this.  Avalon flashes by in the opening credits of Portlandia.  Consider it a tourist destination if from out of town and doing the off-beat "real Portland" tour.  Go at night, foggy is best, and savor the outdoor lighting.

State of Society

The practice in many branches of the Religious Society of Friends is to reflect on the spiritual health and/or unhealthiness of the meeting and capture some of the tensions, joys, anticipations, in the form of a write-up called the State of the Society report.

You can see where the US Americans might have copied, with their SOTU et al, or maybe we got it from the Iroquois originally, I don't remember.

After several hours of intense discussion, I released myself to walk down the street to inquire about San Miguel beer, a beverage from my young adulthood not often consumed in these parts.  Lo and behold, they had some, so I took it to Steve's place, where he was doing his usual international Skyping and guitar strumming (good to be home again -- he's been away in Minneapolis).

I've got a drive out the gorge tonight, further than Hood River, to fetch some young Quakers and return them to Portland safely.  I need to get out my maps and plot a course.

What we discussed is confidential for now, but of course we surveyed the timeline, pointed to various events.  The delegation to Nicaragua was important, as was our involvement with the Occupy movement.  We're also looking at many recent deaths and memorials.

This is an occasion for Worship and Ministry, and the Committee on Oversight, to get together and compare notes.  The annual joint meeting is written into the script, as is so much of our yearly routine.  We call ourselves "unprogrammed Friends" but of course that's a relative term.  We're all running programs, says the engineer within (who has truth within too).

Friends up here always ask for news from Whittier.  We keep tabs on one another that way.

Touchdown

This touchdown was in contrast to fumbling the ball last time, and forgetting my appointment to present at 3Ms, our noon time potluck for MMM oldsters, mostly (MMM being Multnomah Monthly Meeting).

I'm an oldster now myself, so this was also a welcoming.

A lot of us there went back a long ways, to being almost babies together:  Linda Holling, Lael Pinney -- these were my contemporaries, and long time no see.

Bob Smith was already an adult when I was a baby, and he was there too.

:: fuller, me, overlap ::

I'd listed my talk on the backs of five envelopes, an ironic gesture to a cultural meme (we're supposed to brainstorm on napkins more than envelopes, Kehrnan signaled his agreement).

Envelope One was about me, the inveterate browser, anticipating hypertext.  I loved Princeton's open stack libraries.  Those international schools left their stamp on my character as well.

The next envelope was about Fuller, the New Englander, expelled from Harvard, loving the Navy, going broke, getting better, the inveterate counter-culture contrarian.

Our overlap (next envelope), and the people I've met as a consequence:  Applewhite, Snelson, Koski, Chu, Kasman, DeVarco, Lanahan... Trevor.  A great ride.

Then looking ahead, how I brand a kind of Transcendentalist / Tantric blend, using LCDs with reveries (as in hypertoons).

:: recap, on ahead ::

We were moving in to Q&A.

Marion asked about shelter, Lew about buckyballs... lots of good segues.  About 25 - 30 of us.

I had lots of books, toys, artifacts, Barrel Tower (also the major Snelson retrospective in my collection).

Marty was there, knows a lot about transcendentalists I'm pretty sure.

A great group to be listening.  I'd packed 'em in, thanks to Sonya, various announcements.

I fumbled later though, in that I got Tara to her driver's ed session on time, but then she left her permit in the car, which I drove off to a wifi spot to work for two hours.

If I'd only heard my phone or checked my personal email (reasonable expectations) I'd have been able to get the permit to her in time.  As it was, she missed getting to drive.

I'd been scheduled to clerk Oversight that night and had made arrangements with Betsey to be late, but to be late on top of having botched the mission (ostensibly) left me a bit stressed, bent out of shape.

I raged at the fact that I couldn't see house numbers on a dark street in North Portland (looking for the meeting in a neighborhood I've never visited).  Never mind the satellite informed GPS device in my pocket, with illuminated maps -- I was too busy being a victim to actually use my tools effectively.

Still, a good day all in all.

I had another dinner with Alex, first in awhile.  He's been meditating up a storm, making use of some of the professional Zen facilities in the region.  The Pacific Northwest is a Buddhist nirvana -- even better if you like beer.

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 ::