The Internet's Own Boy (movie review)

Aaron's story has some elements in common with Alien Boy's in that both ran up against bullies who have the system (inertia) on their side.

Also, The U.S. Versus John Lennon is another documentary that resonates, with lots of big name talking heads, and lesser-knowns, adding their tribute and perspective to a hero's short life.

Aaron Schwartz was infused with a lot of the same ideals that drove geeks to create a free Internet based on free software, with free as in Liberal Arts (libre).

That MIT and JSTOR were not active prosecutors in the case against Schwartz saves them some reputation, though both were diminished by this chapter.

The Obama Administration comes away scarred, but I think we know it's really just Washington DC and its cult of lawyers under the surface, smug in its being the heavy and having the right to strip search and humiliate whomsoever it pleaseth.  Roman heritage.  Fascist (literally).

Admittedly, things have been moving quickly lately and politicians used to using a finger-in-the-air approach to sensing political winds have been confused a lot, about which way said political winds are blowing.

This film was shown at OMSI recently.

Although I've fought many of the same battles for open access, I was not specifically aware of Schwartz at the time and most of this information about his battle with SOAPA was news to me.  I remember fighting Clipper (so ancient)...  he was far more engaged than I with domestic politics.

I was glad to see Tim O'Reilly in the lineup of those appreciative of what Schwartz was hoping to accomplish, in terms of liberating hard won human knowledge from those asserting control by entitlement.  A lot of scientists and engineers resent what amounts to slavery as well.

Aaron's contribution to the Creative Commons movement lives on and continues gathering momentum.

Bucky Fuller was always pointing out what he called "LAWCAP" was up to (the post World War Two US legal establishment):  creating scarcity artificially, deliberately handicapping technology.

This film shines a light through the dying LAWCAP somewhat transparently.  We see its last gasps protesting moral supremacy before an increasingly skeptical audience that keeps wondering when a more intelligent form of life might arise from these ruins.

 Idiocracy and LAWCAP have much in common no?

Blue House News

I've been a clearinghouse for incoming data regarding the IT person using my address, with permission, and now in Nepal, enduring many tremors amidst outright earthquakes.  She misses cold beer.  She just donated a Sony camera to a team, recalling her time with Jordan, neighbor, whom I recently saw at May Day in South Campus.

Jordan and Lindsey interviewed Right to Survive and Right to Sleep activists quite a bit, including their testimony in City Hall.  She got good at video editing, helping splice things together.  She'd been doing that anyway, with audio, and her drum machine, R2D2 coincidentally, like the Village (North Campus).

So now that she's in Kathmandu she realizes the predicament:  earthquakes happen quickly but their ripple effects and consequences are more enduring and the challenge is to sustain attention in a species with ADD (Gore Vidal called it amnesia but in any case a dementia of sorts).  People will forget all about "the big earthquake" or "the big storm" and yet people in and around New Orleans know that Hurricane Rita is still blowing, in a manner of speaking.  More work to be done.

Melody knows a lot about New Orleans first hand whereas I'm still relatively green when it comes to great North and South American cities (not forgetting Central).  There're a lot of cities out there and unless you're campaigning for some big office or on a team that's doing that, or work for TSA or one of those, you probably don't see many of them.  Maybe if you work for Taco Bell at some level, or similar franchise.  Just saying:  my geographic information awareness is somewhat limited and I'm aware of that.

The incoming data were about upgrading from tourist status so as to continue the relationship.  Visits to the US Embassy were also involved.  Nepal wisely wants criminal background checks and more if taking in a student, we often do the same.  Visiting other countries is not a one way street and we all have to go through various obstacle courses.  Some celebrity recently was caught smuggling his dog into an aggressively self policing country and took a lot of flak for it.  One is not supposed to flaunt the law.  That being said, a private jet may still cut some hours off processing time.

Actually, when Urners traveled to Tashkent from Kabul, Afghanistan, via Aeroflot, the idea of simple tourists was new enough that Intourist wanted to be there.  They met our plane and showed us around, in Moscow later as well, but not in any heavy handed way.  Yes, Russians get paranoid, but I don't want to exaggerate for melodramatic effect the way some do.  Urners wandered alone and unsupervised in Russia, just as they did in many places.  Big Brother was not watching.

Directory Services

As the NPYM Tech Clerk (IT Committee), I've been looking at the issue of name badges across the full spectrum of Unicode character sets.  Given our regional personnel are schooled in the Anglo alphabet, I'm using Last, First for collation, using the A-Z phonetic alphabet, but then allowing any glyphs in Full Name.

For example if your name is Лэрри Фэргуссон (fake Russian pseudonym) then you can have that on your name badge, but the Friend fishing it out for you is going by phonetics.  Л is an El sound (L) and Ф we all recognize from Phi, as an F sound.  So in finding the nametag, a Last = "F", First = "L" search algorithm is used.

My original vision was of R2DToo / Dignity Village as field-testing campuses for such as Institute for Integral Design's lean-to prototypes, made of a pan deck material and solar paneled, better than simply corrugated metal, already a staple in refugee world.

Other refugee camp / disaster relief shelter solutions would likewise get a dress rehearsal in these pre-deployment testing zones, with MVPs flying in to PDX to get the tour.

R2DToo aka Right to Survive, is already a refugee camp, in downtown Portland (W Burnside).  Dignity Village is close to PDX (Portland Airport) and to a prison.

These are not new ideas, as far as these blogs are concerned, i.e. I've been suggesting prototyping disaster relief solutions in disaster relief villages for quite awhile.

R2DToo is "North Campus" vs. PSU as "South Campus" in terms of Portlandia geography.  Most people refer to North and South Park Blocks as parallel concepts.

Speaking of PSU, Linsdsey is eagerly awaiting her transcript from FSU (Florida State University, where Dawn also went) which should come by snail-mail to Blue House.  I'll scan it and send it to Nepal as PDF or JPG, and she can share those documents with her language-teaching university.

With enough bona fides demonstrating her intention to be a full time student, she'll get that student visa, less restrictive than the tourist one.  She's been pursing getting such an upgrade all through the many earthquakes and resulting devastation.

Institute for Integral Design is Glenn's idea.  Last time AFSC was planning to move, from E Burnside to somewhere else, he nursed the hope of NGOs banding together for a building on Hawthorne, by now a furniture outlet.

I knew it was a long shot, and AFSC ended up moving to ElderPlace / Providence, an admin building on Belmont across from Horse Brass.

Just as Philadelphia was choosing to pull the plug on its Portland Peace Program sponsorship, I suggested the Pauling House campus for a gift shop ala Laughing Horse Books, replacing the vacating Anthology Books.

That was a long shot again.  A high end tattoo and piercing studio moved to fill the void.  ElderPlace stays landlord for the AFSC office, home to an industrial strength photocopier, though that's clearly a back office.

E Burnside had a receptionist and was friendly to walk-ins in the old days, before AFSC became a ghost of its former self.

However, Stark Street Meeting (SSM) has a PSCC (Peace Committee) so the idea of needing non-Latin-1 nametags for some Portland AFSC meetup (co-hosting) is not as far fetched as one may imagine.

They've co-hosted / co-sponsored events before, and could again.

If NPYM, in the meantime, has helped make the nametag situation more cosmopolitan, then kudos to Quakers for being catholic (open minded) in that regard.

Mad Max: Fury Road (movie review)

A Mad Max movie is like one of those human subject experiments one may never run, not just for ethical reasons but think of the expense.  Science fiction screen play takes over and we do anthropology in a simulator.  The players throw out their hypotheses, as to how humans would cope, and we in the audience, the spectators, engage and endorse somewhat to the extent we empathize with the characters and their motivations.  Do we understand this reality?  Does it ring true in some way?

In a Mad Max, the virtual reality is horrific in that most technology has been removed except the gas guzzlers.  You get an oil refinery, a bullet factory, lots of vehicles driving around shooting each other, lots of road rage, and that's about it, a very simple simulation.

The humans form into pyramid hierarchies that apex in some "strongman" archetype (like a Saddam or Qaddafi).  The leader clique controls the water supply and the rabble get all religious about what this means.  Unionization, forming into agribusiness co-ops, let alone revolution and wealth redistribution, is not in the cards, as peoples religious tendencies are turned against them.  That part rings true enough.

Furiosa, the protagonist (Max might be her alter ego), is tired of how women are treated in this domain and remembers a better place.  She has made her way up in the ranks in this almost entirely male hierarchy, as one of them, but she was a kidnap victim from the start and these are not her people.

She's always felt alienated and decides its time to right the balance.  She's going to seize the day and get the women to that greener place, a place in her memory from before the kidnapping.

Max reins her in at a critical juncture, talking practicality and reality and saying we need to face our original fears and not forever run from our deeper selves.  Not that it's quite so psychological in that way.  All the metaphors are geographic in this invisible landscape, this teenage wasteland.

The drones or fan-boys who love the strongman at the top, don't have much use for children or women except as tools of their pyramid.  Harvesting milk and feeding infants has been outsourced.  There are no "fathers" per se.  However, in the emerging relationship between one of the breeders that Furiosa is rescuing, and a fan-boy, we see that human nature still retains a latent ability to form male-female bonds.

I caught this movie on my birthday thanks to Melody, a good friend and experienced world traveler.  We talked about Belize and the Mennonites there.  I was going on about Amish Mafia on the Discovery channel (I've only watched previews so far) and wondering what a Quaker Mafia would look like.  We went to Yard House on 5th both before and after the film, at the Regal in Fox Tower, which had devoted a majority of its cinemas to Mad Max viewings, including a 3D option.

Melody, who reads a lot, wished the narrative had veered off the action track and explored this virtual world a little more, giving us a richer context, perhaps with back stories and flashbacks (ka-ching!).  The twelve hour version probably has that (smile).  I agreed.  This was like a whirlwind tour through Narnia wherein we only have time for one battle and a quick interview with Aslan, then its back home, tour over, so many questions still unanswered.  Melody thought the funniest touch was the fan-boy rock star, with drummer backup (all very portable), a fitting signature of this psycho-wasteland.

Be Unusual. It's OK.

I'd not worry about some fixed universal true meaning of "game" in Plato's World of Ideas.

Being of "language game" (LW) and "World Game" (RBF) heritage, I'll obviously come with my own spin, but so does everyone "mean" (i.e. "spin") in some way.

Are maths "really" but language games? But what is "language" here? "Forms of life" said LW. So it just keeps on going. One spin after a next.

Follow what beaten tracks you will, or go off beat. Many games to play that way too. Be unusual. It's OK.

Kirby


From this Reply-Tree at math-teach

Avengers: Age of Ultron (movie review)

I'm very far from being a deep Marvel or DC comics scholar.  MAD was more my beat.  These X-Men, Fantastic Four and Avengers were familiar to me, Hulk especially, but that hardly counts when it comes to fandom.

We all find our angle if willing though, and I'm in love with the Natasha character (I love Lucy, one could say, or call her Her) and find her being "Hulk whisperer" appealing.  Captain America is a brooding philosopher, so ironic given his outfit.  "Maybe he's right and we are monsters" he mulls aloud, in the midst of a pitched battle with their eternal foe.

Ultron is brilliant, as is the spawn of Ultron and Jarvis, but let me not give away the whole plot.  You'll wanna see it.

I love the way comic book writers can just suddenly supply details.  The classic rural farm, so like the one in Interstellar in some ways, shades of Furious 7...  Superman was here.  A family from nowhere.  The Avengers express surprise, just as do our avid readers, the fans...

Anyway, our family has been Joss Whedon buffs for awhile now.  If only Nietzsche had had Whedon instead of Wagner to look up to, we might not have had Hitler.  We wouldn't have needed the big falling out and misunderstanding and we could all have been happy Egoists together -- or at least that's how it's seeming now.

Really funny and quirky is how Thor, son of Odin, is on stage from another mythology, pre Marvel, yet accepted as one more Avenger, one of the Elders thereof.  Such a tip of the hat to mythologists, one writing crew to another, to welcome Thor aboard, among the immortals.

We're more suspicious of Tony Stark and his defense contractor reflexes.  Ultron is prepared to use that to split the Avengers and therefore win.

But lets remember the Avengers themselves have a supporting cast.  After the CIA blew it in the last episode, under the milk-drinking evildoer Robert Redford, the aircraft carrying quad-copter is back, ready to evacuate the Eastern Europeans from their Dracula, ur Ultronic Lord.  Good to see us being friendly with those folks instead of using them for target practice.

The Hulk is becoming more brooding and Natasha is ready to admit there might not be a viable child of such outliers, but the relationship is real nonetheless, already complete in the immortal chrono-log of another might-have-been Universe (aren't they all a tad fiction?).

Axing Staff in West Region

After repeated assurances that a move would not mean a downsize, thereby garnering our support as a Committee, the West Region management team:  (A)  downsized our Office and (B) dissolved our committee.  After we worked our butts off to move out of the old office, friendly to walk-ins.

The staffer that worked hardest to accomplish the move is the one for the chopping block, most ironically.  And walk-ins?  No one knows where the new place even is (hint:  near Red Square and Movie Madness).  We've gentrified ourselves out of the picture.

So why do Quakers allow such evil in their name?  Well, for one thing, they don't know what's going on.  Regional Executive Committee is devoid of Oregonians so it was easy for the unrepresented state to have its Office axed, despite promises and lies.

These people hardly ever meet and most Quakers don't know what a listserv is and therefore expect the world to plod along as slowly as they do, with Business Meetings only monthly (guffaw), or less.  Organizational memory leaks away in conference calls, nothing recorded.  What a mess.

Nothing really gets done at this pace and our numbers are understandably dwindling.

Also, Quakers are losing their enthusiasm for Peace Work and prefer the blanket comfort of being against Climate Change, as if the Biosphere had ever not been changing, and yes, thanks to humans in large degree.

Such a nice safe discourse, the suburbs compared to inner city struggles with Racism and other cancers of the soul, such as Affluenza and "nuclear superiority" (oxymoronic in the extreme).

So sweet and antiseptic, to be against "oil trains" while gassing up at the nearest pump (oil is cheap this summer and USAers are guzzling like mad).  Who in the Pacific Northwest wants to ruin nature?  Talk about playing it safe!

Given a combination of ignorance and apathy, it's no wonder the back office blood suckers are able to ax the talented while keeping jobs for themselves.  Capitalism gets away with so much profitable crime, is right up there with organized religion on that score.

The relocated Office is in a building prominently marked for sale by the way.  Did our earlier landlord kick us out?  No.  Were our co-tenants begging us to stay?  Yes.  Glowing promises of a better tomorrow are what suckered our Committee into stepping off a cliff, score one for the West Region management team.

Even when the bottom line was starting to look good, they pick on Portland, as if we had nothing to do with things getting better.  I say we did, and we will continue the Peace Program in Portland, with or without Quaker support.  The Unitarians have proved reliable.

Things look pretty bleak for the AFSC though, just as it was turning one hundred years old.  Rufus Jones was a cool dude but couldn't predict everything, not even Hari Seldon could.

Will we recover by 2017?  Not necessarily.  They're pretty stuck in their ways in Philadelphia, I'm able to report, having been to quite a few meetings there.  Actual people want to talk Doctrine of Discovery and show up prepared to do so.  But these privileged Corporation folk just want to preach to the choir and pretend our West Region will just go away.  That's the east coasters for ya.

Don't expect too many miracles from people who know nothing much beyond Windows (we have some stellar staff, but are way top heavy in admin, judging from experience on the ground, not from abstract financials).

Quakers: What Do We Offer?

A Quaker Meeting is less a "church" than a "business" as the original Friends had greater trust in the honesty of bookkeeping and plain speech when the "hireling priests" were not in the picture.  Church was a corrupt institution in the eyes of these early Children of the Light.

The purpose of Quaker business is socially responsible, i.e. if Corporations are People, then a Meeting has to live up to some high standards, unlike a Corporation of the purely money-making variety (these latter tend to have many pathologies and short half-lives in any case).

Through participation in the business of Quakers, members of the public reconnect with a way to get work done as equals and by consensus.

Equality does not mean we're all clones of one another, or are striving to be.  Rather, we respect one another as athletes in a Metaphysical Olympics of sorts, with some high achievers outrunning or outgunning the rest of us.

I say "outgunning" in a tongue-in-cheek fashion as Quakers pride themselves on keeping their weapons "inward" i.e. the invisible / ephemeral world of warring memes is where Quakerism builds its open bastion and takes up its mission.

Our mission is not to convert the world to Quakerism or Christianity.  Diversity is welcomed and treasured.  Religions come and go.  The best religions are likely still to come.

Our mission is to provide those already convinced of Quakerism's effectiveness and its value in their lives with opportunities for structured practice, meaning Meetings for Worship for Business and work on Committees at the very least.

The Peace and Social Concerns Committee is one of the most important, as that committee is about putting Quaker values and teachings into practice, bringing healing justice into the world.  PSCC is where Friends practice their skills with the Sword of Compassion (another meaning of "jihad" in fact).

As a non-profit Corporation, your Meeting has officers in the eyes of the state, but it also has roles, likewise public facing.  Quakerism is a role playing "game" though to say "game" does not imply we're not serious.

The good order of Friends promotes transparency, not just carrying private fantasies around in our heads about who has what role.  The clerks, rewarded not by coins but by a deeper experience of their Faith & Practice, facilitate and record, as the Committees go about their business.  We know who they are and what job descriptions they follow.

Indeed, the slate is one of the Meeting's most important public-facing documents, as it puts in writing what Business Meeting has approved, of Nominating's recommendations.  Any Monthly Meeting wishing to be taken seriously has an up to date slate, easily available as a matter of public record.

Sometimes people ask about Membership as in "do I need to become a member to participate in Quakerism?"

The short answer is "no" and indeed one is encouraged to work on committees in a "try before you buy" mode.  "Convincement" comes through practice, not through "leap before you look" mindless / reflexive behavior.   Skeptics are most welcome.

The long answer is: membership provides a way to be public and out of the closet about one's Quakerism.  Some cannot afford this luxury and need to keep their affiliation hidden, but for those willing to brand themselves Members, that institution is alive and well.

Contact your Oversight Committee for more details on how to apply.

Old Dog Coaching

I had several great hours with lithe and slinky greyhounds, Rhys and Rusty.  Gorgeous dogs, working class, bruised from years on the track.  They deserve this retirement, cared for by truly kind humans.

My Sarah, an old dog, was also getting lucky, as Deke didn't just keep her fed, he kept her on her feet and moving.  I'm guessing he added months if not a year or more to her constitution.  She tripped on her long toenails today though.  I need to get her to the clipper, aiming for this Saturday. I've done it myself but I prefer to let someone do it who does it often.

Tomorrow is the May Day March and Rally, which the unions are sponsoring, as well as individuals.  We're working hard to pull it together.  Management sometimes doesn't lift a finger when it comes to standing up for those who actually do the work, the unsung heroes.  A lot of people just sit around and "own", a more passivist approach.  Taking the credit is sometimes easier than doing the job.

We don't all share the same culture, even company-wise.  If your company is cruel, don't conclude they're all cruel in exactly the same way.

Taking care of other humans is a full time job.  Then there's being taken care of.  I'm suggesting it's a two way street, and there's no omniscient eye available to any human that shows all the bookkeeping.  For all our talk of transparency, Universe is what it is in that sense.  Is there really "dark matter"?  We're somewhat in the dark about what exactly that might be.

Humility means recognizing one's ignorance is right there in one's face, not far off in some distant "we'll get there someday" sense.  We're there right now, right up against it.  Facing one's own ignorance is always a possibility, and does not require judgements or conclusions.  What's more interesting is the darkness itself, leaving aside all the monkey chatter about what's so.

Against the Grain

Most of the teachers / learners here still use letter grades.  They're spreading this ideology of A-F via distance learning tools.

I'm glad other points of view are out there (such as Scott Gray's), as to how learning is best encouraged and rewarded.

Getting it right, even if it takes multiple attempts, is better than getting a C with no chance to redo.  I share Scott's views in many dimensions ("dimension" is a buzz word around here).

I'm a little sad to see edu domains "polluting" cyber-space with such a stale brand of academic experience.

At least they have some competition from the com and mil sectors, not to mention gov.  I hope South Africa doesn't clamp down on companies with more imagination.

Sometimes I say "I need to do some grading" but what I'm doing is providing a gradient, some steepness.  Powering up a gradient is a way to build strength.  Think of a gym.

So I use the term loosely.  I haven't handed out a letter grade in three years.  Learning works better this way.

On the more positive side, I like what Michigan is doing to redesign high school to make it more of a blend of on-line and off-line work-study in a more office-like setting.  Nexus Academy is the trailblazer here.

Michigan still uses letter grades though.

Garden of Eden

As I was explaining to Heather, the original conception behind the Climatron was to provide what J. Baldwin would prototype using argon gas-filled pillows:  a Garden of Eden dome.

These were later developed on a larger scale in Cornwall.

The homestead inside a dome, in some ways a cell nucleus, could have "flimsier" construction materials, though sometimes soundproofing is important.

A spiral staircase or elevator might connect the floors, but rain and wind would not be a factor, as the dome would be a shield against the elements, providing habitat for permaculture, aquaculture, whatever forms of horticulture.

Perhaps it's a Quaker-founded brewery, like Boswell's in Richmond, Indiana, with some of the ingredients right there in the dome with the tanks.  Or the fermentation tanks could be in another facility, with caretakers living amidst the greenery.

So many permutations might be tried.  So many experiments waiting to happen.

However, architects are not exploring these possibilities much in 2015.

Could we still build domes like the Climatron today?  Perhaps in the Orient.

The Garden of Eden dome concept has become  disconnected in the popular mind from Old Man River City (OMR).  School children are not taught American history. 

What is Terrorism?

I'm auditing an Earlham College class with my daughter, led by Ferit Güven, professor of philosophy.  They've been boning up on recent history, with Edward W. Said's The Question of Palestine up for discussion.

Said is interested in what he calls Orientalism, a discourse shaped by the colonial past.  But then the US view of "terroism" is colored not just by the crusades, but by the so-called "conquest" of North America by an heir apparent to the British Empire (with the "imperial presidency" a consequence).

Key supporters of the War on Terror themselves see GWOT as an Indian war. Take, for example, the right-wing intellectuals Robert Kaplan and Max Boot who, although not members of the administration, also advocate a tough military stance against terrorists. In a Wall Street Journal article, "Indian Country," Kaplan notes that "an overlooked truth about the war on terrorism" is that "the American military is back to the days of fighting the Indians."

I'm plowing through An Infinity of Nations using Kindle software, tapping into a critique of conquistador type storytelling, which the Spanish were also good at.  I always think of Aguirre at the end of that Werner Herzog movie, exulting in his conquest of Mesa-America.

I was going to question Said's thesis on this basis:  that colonization of the Western Hemisphere is by definition not an Orientalist project.  But then I remember:  Columbus thought he might be in India.  Europeans called the people here "Indians".  So in that sense, "the Orient" includes the Americas.  Poetic justice.  "Welcome to the Orient" I say from my desk-chair in Indiana.

President Andrew Jackson, whose "unapologetic flexing of military might" has been compared to George W. Bush's modus operandi, noted in his "Case for the Removal [of Indians] Act" (December 8, 1830): "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute, . . . and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion?"

Us vs. them is, of course, a feature of all wars, but the starkness of this dichotomy -- seen by GWOT supporters as a struggle between the civilized world and a global jihad -- is as strikingly apparent in the War on Terror as it was in the Indian Wars.

I'm interspersing my post with John Brown's essay on the web Our Indian Wars Are Not Over Yet.

Clearly the militarized wall along the US-Mexico border has much in common with the wall in the Middle East.  A lot of the same technologies and psychologies are operative in both cases.  Israel and DC have a special relationship based on mutual wall building.

How does Orientalism, which converges ISIS, Al Qaeda... Hamas into a single hydra-headed beast, relate to the Cold War and another wall, now removed, plus the psychological "Iron Curtain"?  Eastern Europe, Russia... to some extent the Byzantine / Ottoman matrix forms a backdrop.

Britain inherits from Rome more than from Constantinople.  Going back to the Crusades, we need to remember Christendom forked.  Did crusaders come from Eastern Europe at all?

Christian7777 writes, on OrthodoxChristianity.net:

I know that they were victims of it, like with the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. But I'm wondering if the Orthodox had at any point in time participated in The Crusades, as in helping the Catholics fight the Muslim invaders. According to Wikipedia (which I understand is not necessarily the most accurate source of information), "The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the leaders of the Byzantine Empire for help to fight the expansion into Anatolia of Muslim Seljuk Turks", so I figure that at some point in time, the Orthodox were participants. Were they ever? I'm just curious.

 Then, answering his own question:

I did more research, and found out that the Byzantine Empire was involved in the First Crusade and the Second Crusade. The Fourth Crusade is where things went downhill between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church due to the Sack of Constantinople; it's very unfortunate that the attack occurred, especially because the Catholics and the Orthodox Christians were fighting together at the beginning.

Looking at nationalism as under-girded by organized religion, I can see where Said is coming from.  Fuller's thesis (hypothesis) was that supranational corporations, as distinct from organized religions, were inheriting the wealth of nations, as the concept of "sovereignty" gave way to a more unified Spaceship Earth (or Earth Inc.).

One might say Fuller anticipated the triumph of secularism but what is secularism exactly?  Isn't secularism more about the enforced co-existence of religions than their abolition?

The notion of a Liberal Orient i.e. a time when Islam was uber-friendly to religious minorities under its care, is largely romantic science fiction, contrary to fact.  However it may also be a kind of foreshadowing.  Progressive branches within the world religions already have their Parliament, seeking a rollback of any Doctrine of Discovery.

A secular Orient that (A) includes the Americas and (B) embraces STEM as not a threat to "interfaith" psychologies, has the potential to seem like Fuller's Grunch of Giants, also science fiction of a kind. The completion of East-meets-West, i.e. the blending of the hemispheres (globalization) is what the Spaceship Earth meme attempts to summarize.  Is that really so terrifying?

Business News

Today was a milestone in many respects.  Washington High School, which had been an art colony HQS, mostly abandoned, has finally morphed into offices plus a theater venue with ample bars to handle crowds.  We didn't get into the theater for picture-taking but did ride the elevator to the well appointed rooftop venue.

William, an Iraq War vet with subsequent experience in Afghanistan, joined Glenn (at one time a code cracker for the NSA), myself, and Steve Holden for lunch at Barley Mill, outside table (sunny warm day), then toured the remodeled school.

The remodel takes a page from McMenamins (Barley Mill was the first) in making no secret of the building's original purpose as a public school.  Museum cases and wall art are devoted to conveying that theme.  That the school's name was Washington is what gives Revolution Hall (the theater) its name.

Another transition was that of the symbolic (and quite literal) Chair of Computer Science, a fixture in Steve's apartment and successor to the Michael Jennings version.  Fortunately it comes apart into two pieces and could be transported by car to my place (just a few blocks away).  William is good at carrying things.  Steve is leaving Portland in about two weeks time, with future visits planned.

William met me as a student of Python while still in Afghanistan, later branching more into SQL which he now does for a living.  I've been putting a lot of emphasis on SQL in my curriculum writing as the majority or record-keeping is done using it.  As a Technology Clerk (IT Committee) for regional Quakers, I see SQL as having religious significance, Quakerism being a lot about record-keeping (including journaling).

Steve has a somewhat sardonic thing he says about concluding his Portland chapter:  "legal weed, Pycon in Portland, my work is done."

Steve got the ball rolling on having Pycons, in addition to EuroPython, in the early days in DC, an institution which has snowballed and has now been taken over by the PSF (Python Software Foundation).  The most recent North American Pycon, just concluded, was in Montreal with over three thousand in attendance.  That's fairly large number for a Pycon, even more than in Santa Clara.

As for weed becoming legal, the inertia behind that was less of Steve's doing.

Carol Urner, my mom, flew from LAX to EWR today.  She turns 86 tomorrow, somewhere over the Atlantic.

Wanderers 2015.4.15

Tax day!

Terry Bristol, ISEPP president, is doing a test talk regarding two ballot initiatives he's planning to back:  $20 minimum wage; 5 weeks paid vacation.

The paid vacation policy feeds the travel and tourist industry big time i.e. it actually increases GDP, per the French model, not to mention living standards.

The $15 minimum wage is already a well-established lobby, so Terry is just one step ahead.

Lew Scholl is here.  His mom, like mine, came to Quakerism while in college, likewise at the University of Washington.  My parents were going to YWCA meetups where students spoke in earnest about ethical questions then facing them.  Vietnam was cranking up.  Civil Defense.  Atom bombs.

I filed awhile ago and got my refund already.  Given I have a daughter in college, I'm motivated to get my taxes done early so I can file a FASFA with nailed numbers.  FASFA is a form used by colleges to compute financial aid amounts.  I go through H&R Block.

My taxes this year were approximately the same as last year's.

ISEPP is a public policy think tank, an NGO.  I've served on its board for a few terms (an unpaid position, though with some perks).  Dawn Wicca and Associates, when still a partnership, was ISEPP's bookkeeper (Dawn died in 2007).  You'll find lots more history buried in these blogs.

Unicode Musings

Lindsey is keyboarding in Devanagari some of the time however the situation with plug-ins is my Gmail is so far not decoding it as such.

I'm getting nonsense, not surprising on a first experiment.

Another thing that's confused me:  Trashigang or Tashigang?  I'd always said "Tashigang" and seeing "Trashigang" on Google and Facebook had me thinking either I was wrong or some typo was propagating.

Turns out:  both spellings are considered correct, Facebook says so.

Glad to have that cleared up.

I'm packing for a trip and looking forward to trying the new cider bar that just opened on Hawthorne where the essences and oils shop used to be, a bead shop before that if memory serves.

:: tashigang or trashigang? ::

Chain of Command

A lot of people are confused about how a succession of US presidents, nominally commanders in chief, can say publicly they hope to close Gitmo, only to have Gitmo stay open.  Are we not looking at a treasonous level of insubordination?

Plans to spin-off Gitmo, give it back to the Cubans, have already been drawn up, with dates and everything.  Those running the place may be held back for interviews, which could lead to future jobs.  The prisoners need a place to detox and reconnect with family.  Those running Gitmo will have no responsibilities over prisoners ever again is the hope.  They have failed to obey the president and are dropping in rank by the day.

Having Gitmo on one's resume in any way adds to the stench of one's portfolio.  Those connected to Gitmo have something shameful on their record that I recommend hiding.  This was the Nazi Chapter, when Neocons were out of control and behaved contrary to democratic values.  After a president says he wants to close the place, continuing to obey orders is a Nuremberg thing.  A Hall of Shame is being prepared in the historical record.

OLPC + OPPA

OLPC = One Laptop Per Child
OPPA = One Palmtop Per Adult

A palmtop is another name for a laptop computer so small it fits in the palm of your hand, a smartphone in other words, but perhaps with the cell feature turned off.

OLPC pioneered making laptops so inexpensive that even children, among the least privileged in our societies, might get one, not just their teachers and the administrators.

What OPPA means in 2015 is a $15 Coolpad, an Andoid, that one may use to play music, take pictures, and use free Wifi from any hotspot, no need to sign up for any plan.

Put it in airplane mode to make the battery last longer and then turn on the Wifi only.  This isn't your phone.  It's your palmtop.

If you're careful, you don't even need to let Google know this phone has been switched on, though you'll be asked many times if you wish to create a Google account (you may already have one, and still choose to keep this phone more anonymous).

I recommend paying more and getting an SD card for it, adding gigs of storage.  More room for more music, like Philip Glass and Pink Floyd.

Related Reading:
STEM Lesson Plan
Kirby on YouTube (2009)
Invading Florida
More Autobio

Arresting Power (movie review)

Arresting Power is a locally produced film about police cruelty.  A few example cases get a closer look, such as the murder of Jim Jim.  Most of the victims are young black men.

The film excavates a lot of interesting history, reminding us of the fact that being a black person in Oregon was in itself criminal until 2001.  Seriously.  That bit was written into the Constitution by a bunch of low EQ hicks who thought of themselves as brave pioneers of a new state. 

Not every pioneer behind the design of this state was such a moron.

Then the morons decided to criminalize all the behaviors and ethnicities they didn't want to deal with (sound familiar?) and repurposed the slavery patrol vigilante groups, already popular back east, to give us today's police forces (shades of KKK + NRA per the South Park analysis).

OK, that's a bit of a caricature but films have only so much time to set the context and a lot of the viewpoint here is classic Black Panther, which I appreciate, coming from a Laughing Horse background.

A police system is complicated and multi-dimensional.  Professionals inside the system are well aware of the "bad cop" problem.  One reason we have a lot of bad cops, more than we need, is the lack of any credible safety net.  We all pay a price in lower living standards.

Quitting one's job before one is fired would be much more likely if retraining and exciting work, perhaps involving adrenalin rushes, were offered.  

Obvious points:  cops with anger management issues should not have to keep mentally ill from aggravating the public.  Different trainings and more recognized kinds of badge, not necessarily reporting to the same chief, might be effective. People who might be "on drugs" and/or "off their meds" are in a whole different category from those carrying lethal weapons (as police are).

911 needs to learn how to dispatch teams with different types of expertise.  When all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.

A lot of the Q&A was about overhauling the system, which currently satisfies no one, police included.

People not good at their jobs, and some police are not, need a way to move on without bringing things to a head.

Peace and Social Concerns Committee (PSCC) no longer concerns itself with already successful organizing efforts per the Seifert Format, and is now pitching its services mostly to activists who need special Quaker expertise. 

The Truthers are getting special help for example.  Given what they're up against, I can understand why.

The cop watch culture in Portland, in contrast, is highly evolved and therefore not especially in need of "Quaker therapy" (like est?).  PSCC was not a sponsor of this event.  Occupy Elder Caucus was the primary organizer with AFSC a co-organizer, providing the projection equipment. 

The AFSC, with independent management, appreciates not having its hands tied by the newly restrictive policies Multnomah Monthly has applied to its own PSCC as a condition for reinstatement (Nominating was refusing to nominate until this possibly crippling new model could be forced through by the Business Meeting's ad hoc group). 

Mireaya (Portland staff) is answering a question right now.  She's outwardly too young to be Elder Caucus but like the Gathering of Western Young Friends, the group self identifies.

So, how do we fire bad cops?  Moving them to "desk jobs" is not necessarily helping.  A lot of them get bored and chafe under the sense of being punished.  Real criminals go to jail.

Dan Handleman worries the subculture of violence porn now popular in the US military will spread, reversing civil values in favor of mayhem as the new norm.  CBS will up the violence level with snuff films as viewers cheer?   Sounds a lot like Fallujah.

How does one fire "bad soldiers"?  How does one de-fund "bad wars"?  These were the deep questions the audience was considering.  Sending the bad apples to kill each other in faraway places only works for so long.  Will Mars become a next prison colony, the one way trip the Americas used to be (and Australia)?

While on the topic, lets look at the question of "bad Quakers" maybe?  Given housecleaning was a focus, I think that question deserves some real thought. I'd be a hypocrite if I acted like only the police have a bad apple problem.  Every group seems to have that.

We used to "disown" our slavers but that comes across as archaic in today's culture.  Mostly one just works around 'em (those slower to catch on), hoping they'll either find another sect, or work on developing their skills.

Phone apps are becoming important.  You can watch a cop do her or his job and upload the clip directly to ACLU.

Equinox Redux

I started my day with a short bench press at the gym on the sitting up machine, just 90 pounds to keep the blood going, then on to an IT meeting with an interested party.

Lew and Ek were in the same building (no, not the meetinghouse) presumably talking over Property Committee business (Lew had some blueprints).

My meeting was about ways to keep Bluetooth going even if the Internet goes down, among other things.  My Razr has succumbed to "smartphone Alzheimer's" so much of what I learned was for the next incarnation.

Tonight was our Equinox Festival at the Linus Pauling House, still ongoing.

I came home to do some doggie care and tackle some business, having enjoyed my fill of good food and great company.  Nirel showing up with the little dog reminded me I needed to take care of Sarah.

We did get our walk in today, Sarah and I, a practice underlined (as in emphasized) by Lindsey when she was here, visiting from Nepal for three months.

Weird atmospherics have been kind to ham radio operators lately, especially those ten million or so who know Morse Code.  Jeff has been bouncing signal from distant corners of the globe.

Thanks to Nirel for bringing a dog.  By tradition, I uphold the ethos on nonhuman Wanderers in our midst ("we" being the hominids, not always friendly to our fellow travelers, even when they mean us no harm).

WQM Men's Group 2015

We came close to maxing out Big Bear Camp facilities this year.  I slept in my car out of choice, not having done so before and wanting to experiment.  Henry, who slept outside the first night, said he could hear me snoring, even through all that glass and metal, which must have vibrated considerably.

During one of the breakout sessions, I practiced sermonizing, based on a Bible passage wherein Jesus has a conversation with the devil where they compare notes on God and holy writ.  Having studied Lucifer's psyche at Princeton, in the form of Paradise Lost, by Milton, I remarked that "the devil within" was likewise a manifestation of the Inner Light, given a fallen angel would also have "Intel Inside" (God within).  Jesus obviously knew this and conversed with angels on a regular basis, not always in an adversarial role.

I like what angels add to Christianity, especially skeptical angels with a strong misanthropic streak, known as "devils" in the jargon, but angels nonetheless.  Not that I'm pushing the literal existence of daemonic beings.  Their figurative existence is quite sufficient.  I figure the ego is likewise metaphoric i.e. the Buddhist doctrine of "no self" means that a self refuting the existence of daemons (or "ghosts") is a lot like the pot calling the kettle black.

Tom and I discussed his being a peer advocate for Mr. Chasse, as they both had similar diagnoses and had to work their respective ways through half way house chapters.  Tom, originally an Irish Catholic from Coos Bay, had gotten caught up in Lyndon LaRouche's political party at the height of its power.  He tells many interesting stories from that era.

Although Joe shared with the group that the main melodrama at Multnomah Meeting these days had to do with complying with insurance guidelines and doing background checks on a minimum of two child care personnel, I told Tom I thought the disposition of the Dove Puppets in coming weeks would likely have more impact on the reputation of Portland's unprogrammed Friends in the long run.  May Day Coalition has written Peace and Social Concerns wondering if we'll see Friends, and their puppets, on May Day.  Or is protesting climate change more the extent of Quaker brand activism these days?  Maybe May Day is too scary?  Not for AFSC at least.

Speaking of which, we enjoyed the presence of programmed Friends in our midst (programmed = Pastoral).  Like the Women's Theological Conference, which Joe has been jealous of (not me), we're sometimes involved in closing circuits, or switch-boarding, across lineages.  I learned a lot about ongoing controversies in West Hills Friends Church, plus was glad to see Henry again, nowadays with Camus Friends Church in Washington State.  I hope to pay both a visit one of these days.

Those of us into IT had some discussions using that jargon.  Quakers have a reputation for being meticulous about record-keeping, which is in tension with our Luddite tendencies, which latter I associate with our shedding of responsibilities over the decades since our peak in power in the late 1700s.  Had we kept our hand on the tiller, we'd have our act more together in cyberspace by now.

Getting our IT back into focus might galvanize us in other ways that increase our ability to make a difference in the world.  Time will tell.  As NPYM's first technology clerk (a co-clerk of the IT committee), I suppose I may over-indulge myself with such hopes and dreams for a more tech-savvy future.