Kennedy School

An MVP is zipping through, me in chauffeur mode, still on the clock with work, school related.

I've been shaping a new STEM talk with these folks, setting it apart from Common Core Standards in that it sticks together, doesn't atomize.  Our icosahedron is allowed to talk to our virus, is encouraged to do so.  1, 12, 42...  it's a start.  V + F == E + 2.  The unit tet is relevant.

Our rank and file tends to know more American history, which doesn't have to mean they're from around here.  In Martian Math we learn more about the Orson Wells / H.G. Wells nexus.  Some of the panic was delayed, because the show was taped and replayed in other locales.  The Martians invaded again and again.

I posted to the Wittgenstein list I found it important.

One day at a time, we're not that wide in our bandwidth, or have a lot of it devoted to other things, but in the rear view mirror there's a pattern.  History is the same way.  Sure it pays to have a crystal ball that's prophetic.  That's a truism ya see.  In any case it's harder to see the pattern in one's own time, because we have a lot of stuff going, many mirrors to check.

Some school districts advise teachers to have no Internet profile, to not have a cyber identity.  My response is teachers in any age should be role models and a lot of the burden shifts to celebrities and superheros when the teachers cop out.

On the contrary, it's a teacher's job to manage an on line identity (or several), to show how it's done.  The effect might be comic.  I'm not suggesting one only wear a serious face, when making waves in Cyberia.

Solstice Celebration

:: click picture for photostream ::

We're into the 2nd day of our 31st retreat.  That's four events a year:  both solstices and both equinoxes, times doing it for almost eight years.

David Feinstein came by, somewhat glowing (livid) over the poor quality of Python tutorials, but then computer science teachers aren't known for being the world's leading pedagogues, with some exceptions.  I wasn't defensive.  My stuff is hands on at least.  Some people mistake curling up with a good language book for practice.  Not that I'm against "reading about" but lets be honest about what we're doing.  You might pick up more of the flavor, and get some buzz words.

Stephen Hawking's talk went well we were told.  Terry was producing that in California this week.

Tara joined us for breakfast at Mt. Tabor Cafe, explaining her work on The Hill (OHSU) which involves studying a certain metabolic pathway in mammalian skin cells, involving Golgi bodies. Get a baseline, between normal and cancerous cells, then snip the pathway in both with some blocker DNA and measure the impact, something along those lines.

We dove head first into the J language, after breakfast.

So yes, the J language.  I studied it for awhile, and still think learning that, in tandem with Python, would be an interesting way to go.  They're quite different, which is partly the point.  As you learn one special case language, learn two for contrast.  I can believe, with the Lex Institute, that makes the absorption of both more efficient i.e. two is less than the price of one in some dimensions.

It works on the iPhone, Android in beta.  I got the console running on Mac OS, but not the GTK version, as I don't have enough permissions as the normal user or whatever.  I just haven't had time to climb the ladder in 10.7.4.  Make "teaching Kirby" a full time job for a million people, but then make it all open source and for the general public.  Looks a lot like it does, plus I get my invisible army, an ego boost, or at least a sense of being emboldened (helps sometimes).

David DiNucci came by later, our NASA-educated computer scientist, inventor of scalable parallel processing thinking.  Patrick Barton was by earlier, our Sandia Labs vet, put himself through Dartmouth etc.  We're an interesting crew, even when skeletal.  Not a big party.  Cold, gray and rainy.  Foregoing any alcohol.  Jon Bunce.  Bob, back in school.  I took some time out to welcome the Python trainer from Boston, working with Michelle, Selena and others.  We're having a Pythonista convergence this weekend, run by the XXs.

Lindsey (formerly with Computer Science Corporation) has been reading the Wall Street Journal fairly religiously and sometimes updates me on various stories, about stocks and bonds and the price of gold.  We've been talking about gold and silver for years by now.  I could use more documentaries about current events though (Syria etc.).  Romney too I'm sure. Make 'em for all of us.  Of course it might just be I'm not watching the right channels.  I've been there before.

Uncle Bill came through.  A young naval man who'd written a sophisticated poem about the USS Colorado -- spared Pearl Harbor (in routine repairs in Bremerton) -- had left Bill with it, and Bill had followed the gun of that ship, post decommissioning, to its new display site in Chehalis, the veteren's museum there.  He gave the poem to the museum, as having the most appropriate archive.  We're lucky when scholars do these advanced placement and sorting tasks for us, thereby strengthening our storytelling.

Jimmy Lott swung by while we were watching Rebuilding Indian Country, 1933 (the whole thing).  His family is out of town and he'd not been in the Pauling House before.  We watched some Youtubes of his son Harmony in comedy clubs in LA. After he left, we proceeded to screen a full length movie, Spielberg's Adventures of Tintin.  Those who made it this far adjourned to The Bagdad for a nightcap.

Sweet dreams, Wanderers.

Interdependence Day 2012

There's some dancing in the streets at the moment, but I'm holed up in a man cave somewhere, hewing through stones or whatever it is I do.

Doesn't mean I can't be there in spirit (so I'm joining), plus I'm scheduled to attend festivities later this evening.

See you in two, JenQ (she's leaving us for awhile).

Thanks for admin rights on the FNB page, that's awesome.

Much of my day was spent in Steve's apartment.  Michelle came through to help prep the place for this weekend's training (Python). The trainer is staying here, while the training itself is in another venue, and already sold out.  PSF grant monies are involved to pay for air fare (she's coming from Boston).

I've been chatting with Holden in the background about a coding class or classes that would pick up the home ec thread and weave in GST, while at the same time giving video editing geeks a skills practice setup.

In STEM, we tend to teach all subjects at once, so those solar rays fuel the photosynthesis of calories, which become your corn flakes, which fuel (as metabolites) those First Person Physics things that you do (never breaking the laws of science, which are exceptionless).

Coding already has many semantic overlaps with cooking, at least in English-American (Amerish).  Not only are algorithms called recipes, motivating cookbooks such as the Python Cookbook, but projects are ranked as to how "baked" they are, with "half baked" more like alpha or vaporware, all the way to mature fully baked projects (or call the products at that stage).

The PER community (physics education research) is a bit miffed that Google is pumping a mil into so-called EDI (explicit direct instruction) versus IE (interactive exploration).  A lot of research shows students benefit from the challenge of constructing their own reality (yes, I'm using buzzwords).  However, as I point out on the listserv [link to full text]:

Here's a compromise: remember Show & Tell? Students took turns.

That's where IE meets EDI: students are expected to perform by
delivering model lectures on various topics.

In geekdom, we call these Lightning Talks and we've bundled and
franchised these into "Ignite" events, e.g. Ignite Portland, Ignite
Austin etc. We even have Ignite.gov at GOSCONs.
http://goscon.org/ignitegovspeakers http://igniteportland.org/ (note
sponsors Jive and Urban Airship -- officially geekazoid).

Michelle was off to the Hackathon (all genders) whereas I was headed to Colonel Summers Park for the evening's festivities.  There's some overlap in our respective communities already.  Michael Jennings, Simon, Lindsey used to write Perl...  Speaking of which, we're thinking to have a Dynamic Languages group hug of a booth at OSCON.  The agiles need to stick together (sometimes).

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.