Point. Click. Type.

Watch this video. Then go vote, dammit.

2008-11-03T19:31:00.001-08:00

I love Rachel Maddow. I love Barack Obama.

2008-10-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

I love this interview:

Here's the second part:

Find your polling place

2008-10-26T13:47:00.001-07:00

I'm not a fan, I'm a citizen

2008-10-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

I sent a video created by MoveOn.org to a friend the other day which I thought was pretty funny. She didn't find it very funny. She thought that "Obama fans" were becoming overzealous and "acting like the only sane and cool and acceptable view on earth is to support Obama and everyone else are idiots."

Yup. That pretty much sums up my view!

The video that started the discussion is designed for Obama supporters who for whatever reason may not make it to the polls. Here's a version I received, customized for me:

I think this video is a brilliant tactic! Millions of new voters have registered to vote and it's critical that each one of them actually go out and cast a ballot. The 2000 and 2004 elections were very close--whether you believe that illegal voter suppression happened or not, the Florida and Ohio vote counts came down to just a few thousand ballots statewide--just a handful of votes per precinct. Thus, that one voter who meant to go vote but went and did the laundry instead, actually could have had an impact the election results. The video is designed to be somewhat of an antidote to the "my vote doesn't matter, it's just a drop in the bucket" mentality that has historically plagued the American electorate.

As far as the zealotry of the Obama crowd, I for one think it's warranted. Not because Obama's so great but because this election is so important and the difference between the policies and tactics of the two sides are so great. I'm not alone in this opinion and it's not blind hero worship. Take a look at the generally sober New York Times. This is how they begin their endorsement of Obama:

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation's future truly hangs in the balance.

This country and the world are in the throes of huge changes. The global economy and ecology are in crises. The economic crisis dominates the headlines, but the ecologic crisis is arguably even more important. Obama's policy position actually approaches solutions to both: green infrastructure building. It's not a complete solution, but it's a start. McCain proposes tax cuts for the wealthy, the same trickle down economics that have failed most of the country for the last 30 years, and "drill baby, drill." This is not a low stakes election. These candidates are not the standard tweedle dee and tweedle dum.

I'm not a fan, I'm a citizen. I take citizenship seriously and I believe that it is my responsibility as a citizen, a patriot, and as a member of the human species to act in the best interest of my country and my planet. So, I get a bit excited about these things. If we don't act individually and collectively to change the direction of our nation and the world, our kids will not be better off than us, and our grandkids may witness the end of life as it has been known by the whole of human history. I'm not exaggerating. While grossly under reported, the mainstream press is reporting on occasion that climate change is happening even faster than most scientists predicted.

Will Barack Obama save the planet? No. Not on his own. But John McCain's policies are virtually identical to George Bush's and you can see where that's gotten us. I think we could use a few more zealots. This shit is important.

Oh, and by the way If the World Could Vote, I think we'd have a lot less to worry about in terms of the impact of a single ballot. It'd be a landslide!

Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism

2008-10-19T10:59:00.001-07:00

Disaster Capitalism

Aya de Leon!

2008-10-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

They jigginglin' baby!
Go 'head baby!

Go Aya!

Notes on a New Asian Century

2008-10-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Christine Loh is speaking now...

Here are my notes, assembled on the fly:

The right to development is non-negotiable. China is growing fast and it has the right to grow. Yes, it is a quarter of the world, but is only a quarter of the world. A great deal of the population is in poverty and those people want and deserve a higher, more modern standard of living.

In America, we're moving from things to meaning because we already have things. Some people don't yet have things. Development is non-negotiable, but it isn't only material and can't be only about moving things around. So how do we engage in sustainable development and what does it mean? Many Chinese villages with no electricity. 90% of China has electricity (but it may not yet be affordable.) Distributed energy (solar and wind) is a must.

Water is also a primary concern. And the glaciers that supply water to all of IndoChina are at risk.

Freedom of political speech and enforcement of existing laws are still challenges.

US and China relations. We're the biggest emitters on the planet. The US is well-positioned--we're much further along on the development curve. China needs to do lots of basic things in the poorer regions of the country.

We need to redefine development, quality of life, and prosperity.

Ok, I'm done with note taking--I'm just going to listen.

Looking for answers...what can we do?

2008-10-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

So what's the solution?

Basically, don't buy or use furniture.

At least furniture made in California. Or made to California standards. (See my previous post on toxic furniture.)

Ok, that's impossible.

Sandra Steingraber says early puberty doesn't only mean higher risk of cancer. Anxiety, suicide, depression, unintended pregnancy are also risks for early maturation of girls. Early maturing boys tends to accrue benefits like leadership and good grades. We have the longest childhood of any mammal. As young children we have a great deal of cognitive plasticity. We are designed to learn, particularly before puberty. Abstract thinking comes later, but mind body learning happens before puberty. So what does it mean for girls when childhoods are shortened? We're hijacking the well-being of our girls. Now toss some race and class on that little nugget. You get the picture, and yes, it's pretty depressing.

So what can consumers and producers actually do?

MBDC has a green chemical database which labels a long list of chemical inputs into industrial manufacturing with red, yellow, or green environmental rating. This Cradle to Cradle Design Protocol would be really useful if it were used broadly by furniture manufacturers. At the GSB, I worked with 3 classmates on a project to examine the impact of changing the chemical ingredients in a chair manufactured by Herman Miller. The bottom line of that study was that the switch to safer inpu saved the company money, fostered innovation, added to the marketability of the chair.

There's lots of information out there for consumers on this topic. It's pretty tough to avoid the toxic chemical ingredients, but at least we can educate ourselves.

Read Mark Shapiro's book Exposed to learn more.

Take a look this site, for a list of actions consumers can take:

Womens Health and Environment

Peggy Shepard of Columbia University has done some great work around environmental justice and the intersections of race and class and environmental toxicity. There are differential impacts on the accumulation of toxins and harms across race and class. Duh.

An audience member mentioned heavy metal chelation therapy as something to learn about if you've had a heavy metal exposure.

Basically, we have to change the rules.

More stuff that sucks

2008-10-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

Asthma, brain cancer, autism, mental retardation, early onset puberty and more nasty things we don't want our kids to suffer from are on the rise.

The legally acceptable levels of lead and mercury have changed of the years. And, as the science gets better, we're learning that for some chemicals there is no safe threshold.

Here's some stuff that sucks that we should get out of economic circulation immediately:

Lindane
Mercury
PBDEs
bisphenol-A

Learn more here:
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment
The Institute for Children's Environmental Health

And now the lawyer...

2008-10-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

The premise of the Toxic Substances Control Act is that most chemicals are safe.

Health and safety data are not required before a chemical goes on the market.
The burden of proof is on the government--they have to prove that a chemical is unsafe.

The science is beginning to show that most chemicals are unsafe. Chemicals are designed to do something. In fact, they are useful because they do something. They are reactive, not inert. So they probably do something when they interact with living systems.

The rules need to change:

Prove things are safe before they go on the market
Put the burden of proof on industry

Kid Safe Chemicals Act does both of these things and will be before Congress in 2009. The
Green Chemistry Initiative from California EPA is also a good thing. DTSC authorization is before the California legislature. It's a comprehensive approach rather than a chemical by chemical approach.

Yes we can and may it be so!

Furniture and Toxicity

2008-10-18T17:02:00.001-07:00

Dr. Lipsett gave a talk which went something like this.

PBDEs are similar to PCBs and PBBs (which are banned) and dioxins.

PBDEs were in wide use in the 1980's and not since (?), but they've been doubling in human tissues every 3 to 5 years. (Ok, I'm totally unsure of this point. I'll circle back to it later.)

PBDE's are hormone disruptors. They're bad. And they aren't tested as carcinogens. California Technical Bulletin 117 requires the furniture pass a flame retardance test--the filler can't ignite after 12 seconds of open flame. Guess what. The flame retardant is toxic. And it bioaccumulates. In breast milk.

The amount of this stuff found in fat tissues of women in California were literally off the charts. Horrifying. The data compared California girls to girls in Ohio and they were 2 to 3 times as high. And about 200 times kids in Germany. Holy crap.

I'll finds some links to real data and add them here.

Toxics and Human Health

2008-10-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

Vulnerable means being susceptible to physical injury or assault. The most vulnerable are children and the unborn. They aren't just small adults. They physiologically and culturally different. They lick stuff. They run around, and get winded. They'll touch anything and eat most things. And the science is beginning to show that today's babies will have shorter lifespans than today's adults. Obesity is a huge factor. Toxics include junk food!

Sandra Steingraber: Living Downstream, and Having Faith
Dr. Michael Lipsett: Air quality standards
Joe Booth: Legal Director of xxxx, and a biochemist
Elise Miller: Initiative for Children's Environmental Health

Is the average age of puberty for US girls declining? The earlier puberty starts, the higher the risk for breast cancer as an adult. Sandra Steingraber did a huge review of the literature and it's available on breastcancer.org. The answer, is yes. The 1970 median age for onset of breast development was 11.5 for breasts and menstruation at 12.8 years. Now it's 10 years old for white girls and 8.9 years for black girls. Menarche is about the same. Thus the start point s earlier and the pace of puberty (time til first ovulation) is slower. Estrogen without progesterone for a longer period of time is basically what happens.

Why? Obesity. Chubbier girls go into puberty sooner than lean girls. But lean girls are also going into puberty sooner than they used to. Why? Psycho-social stress is also a trigger. TV, breastfeeding in infancy? Chemical exposures? All are factors bt causility is still unclear. Chubby girls watch more TV and breastfed infants grow up leaner.

Neroendocrinology. The hypothalamus and GRH are at the heart of hormonal orchestration of sexual maturation. This process has to be elastic and maleable--lots of bodily and environmental signals are involved. Here's an interesting one: light at night, as in light from the TV screen my be impactful! Yikes!

The Design Charette

2008-10-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

350.org is all about branding the number 350 into the minds of people. Reminder: 350 is the number parts per million of CO2 which can exist in the atmosphere. Currently, to our peril, we're at 387. They're getting churches to ring 350 bells, ride 350 blocks on 350 bikes, and oodles of other stuff. Check out the site.

What are the ideas from the audience?

Plasma spark plug (look for it on Youtube) water-based tesla spark effect--like a steam engine
"Green at home" yard signs--make conservation visible
Give CFLs instead of bottles of wine when you visit folks
Price signals--low and middle class folks can't be made to b ear the burdening
Climate All-stars Conference
Solar Richmond
Measure T in Richmond--use oil company profits to create green jobs and clean energy
If People in Atlanta
Climate Interactive to teach people about climate the way it works and why to save it

What motivates you individually. Me? I want a green clean planet for my kids. Remember what motivates you, and get back to work! We can't compromise, so we have to create the political pressure to change local and global policy. We have no choice.

Presidents Climate Action Plan--David Orr

2008-10-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

Orr and team outline what thenext president must do in the first 100 and first 1000 days of his administration. The first thing to do is push energy efficiency. The presidential powers in this regard are specific and enumerated. Somewhere. In the mean time, three things to note:

The news will get worse before it gets better.
Obama will need a constituency to push him to be something new (not move to the center.) We must be CITIZENS, perhaps for the first time.
We have to battle for policy in Washington while we simultaneously make real and measurable change at the hyperlocal level.

This challenge is the heroic work of the human species. This is our finest hour.

Changing the Political Climate

2008-10-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

Large scale climate initiatives. How can we make change happen fast enough?

The conversation will be in design charette format, with a panel of speakers:

David Orr, Oberlin University
Gilian Callwell, Liz Butler: 1SKY
Billy Parrish

One of the panelists just quoted my friend Holmes Hummel. "It's time to stop, drop, and roll." Take a look at the video below and go to http://www.1sky.org

Greg Watson: 12 degrees of freedom

2008-10-18T12:04:00.000-07:00

Greg Watson discussed "Twelve Degrees of Freedom," Buckminster Fuller's concept that nature works omni-directionally and we always have twelve options at every choice point.

Linear thinking is not what Bucky was talking about. He was talking about whole systems wisdom:

Closed systems
Feedback loops
Synergy: emergent properties
Interconnectedness
Complementary
Cradle to cradle design. There is no "away" to throw anything

Bucky talked about the trimtab factor. Use leverage--a small trimtab turns a bigger rudder which turns a large ocea going vessel. Watson gave some really great examples of using trimtabs for social change. An early farmer's market in Massechusettes and the Dudley Street project which transformed a neighbor b using immenent domain (!) to allow community residents to rebuild their community with their own vision of sustainable development.

Then my battery died and I had to go analog. I'll transcribe my notes later later later.

Stop thinking. Do Something.

2008-10-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here's the number you need to know. 350. 350 parts per million of CO2 is all we can tolerate as a planet. Currently we're at 387. This is an emergency. RIGHT NOW.

Take action:

Text : "INVITE" to 69866

Respond with your email address.

This is a test of the Bioneers Emergency Broadcast system.

Sign up and get Obama (or McCain, should he win), to go to Poland engage in global treaty-making to curb worldwide carbon emissions in December of 2009.

Hopefully David Orr will be in Obama's Cabinet

2008-10-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

But just in case he's not, maybe Barack Obama is reading my blog!

The human condition is pretty funny, the way David Orr puts it initially, put then it starts to look pretty grim again. According to a source I can't cite, but David did, we have about 7 years to start the deflection of CO2 in the atmosphere downward. We've got to move quickly from 22 tons to 2 tons of CO2 per person in the United States.

It's all documented online. Mr. Obama, please read this today:
http://climateactionproject.com/

Mr. Future President, climate and energy policy are security, economy, health, and equity policy. We need a Green New Deal right now. If you and Congress start on January 20, 2009 and use your entire first term to green our infrastructure, you just might have time to save us from ourselves. Ask Van Jones if you're not sure how to get started.

A few things from David Orr to note:

Clean coal is bullshit.
Carbon sequestration is bullshit.
The best way to sequester carbon is to leave the coal underground!
Don't take the tops off of mountains, but windmills up there instead.
Nuclear power is a very expensive way to boil water. And it's ridiculously dangerous.

And Barack, you've been a lecturer in Constitutional Law, so you probably know this. The rights of posterity are protected by the Constitution. Maybe you could put a few advocates the seventh generation on the Supreme Court!

Oil shockwave?

2008-10-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

Holy crap.

If scarcity is the model rather than abundance, things look pretty grim.

Read about a nightmare scenario in the paper of record.

I hope David Orr has something more uplifting to say!

Shark skin, butterflies, and biomimetic genius

2008-10-18T09:36:00.002-07:00

"Quieting our human cleverness...respecting nature's guidance"

Janine Benyus is a brilliant scientist and evangelist of biomimetic and beautiful design ...and she just walked on stage with an iPhone. :)

Ok, back to the substance of things.

She notes that as the market falls, the old paradigm is falling. She was flying over Iceland (literally, in a plane) as it was going bankrupt. But she looked down from the window of the plane and saw an abundant land. Nature is abundant. Nature is abundance.

Western industrial culture is catching on and using the designs offered by nature. And the Biomimicry Guild is writing a new book listing 2100 great ways to mimic nature to solve some of the world's most pressing problems. Thank goodness! Here are just a few:

Dyesol: Leaf inspired thin-film solar
Whalepower: Wind turbines with better turbulence management
BioPower: Learning how to harness wave energy the way kelp does
Scientists at Yale are working on eel-inspired electricity
Shark inspired thermoelectric effects
Bioluminescence inspired by jellyfish
ARUP: Termite inspired cooling for buildings
Regen Energy: Bee inspired energy management
Cornell: Root inspired water distribution for buildings
The Land Institute: Ecosystem inspired agriculture
Ecosystem inspired economy: Learn from the food webs of a mature forest--who eats who? Nothing is lost.

And so many more examples! Life is hugely abundant! We are not bankrupt yet!

How to be a biomimic:

Quiet human cleverness.
Listen to nature.
Emulate nature.
Say thank you. Save the habitats that inspire.

"Life's most innovative design is that it creates conditions conducive to life."

And there's a really awesome web site forthcoming from Benyus and E.O. Wilson: www.asknature.com. Check it out in November.

And tuck in your kiwi.

"Thank you for being well"

2008-10-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

Chief Oren Lyons offered an opening blessing to the conference and reminded us of the value of unity, the power of the good minds, and that the Iroquois Nation's champion lacrosse team is really really good. He asked us to know who we are, know that we share blood, and know that we should vote for Obama.

Interim thoughts on thinking...

2008-10-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

I'm waiting for the first speaker, Janine Benyus to take the stage...

In the mean time, here are some thoughts on thinking that I thought the last time I came to Bioneers. Tell me what you think in the comments!

First, a quote from my favorite book, to frame my comments:

"The central insight of the Santiago Theory is the identification of cognition, the process of knowing, with the process of life. Cognition, according to Maturana and Varela, is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living networks. In other words, cogintion is the very process of life. The organizing activity of living systems, at all levels of life, is mental activity. The interactions of a living organism--plant, animal, or human--with its environment are cognitive interactions. Thus life and cognition are inseparably connected. Mind--or more accurately, mental activity--is immanent in matter at all levels of life.

This is a radical expansion of the concept of cognition and, implicitly, the concept of mind. In this view, cognition involves the entire process of life--including perception, emotion , and behavior--and does not neccessarily even require a brain or a nervous system."

---The Hidden Connections, Fritjof Capra, pg. 34

Of course I woke up thinking about this and I think that what Capra and those other guys are saying is that the fractal dimensions, form expressing function, in the structure of proteins, are an epistemology in their own right. A way knowing. One could argue that the mind is an emergent property of the brain, but why limit the nervous system to just the brain? My friend Falco, and I agree that the body knows more when the body is in motion. That is, we have conscious access to more information--"I'm hungry. I want to eat arugula with pecans, apple, and avocado"--when we're healthy, active and stimulating the entire body and not just the the brain.

So, extend that out a bit. The mind is emergent of the entire body--the brain, central nervous system, the peripheral nervous system, the musculature, the bones, the breath, and even the environmental context of the breathing. Taking it further still, the mind emerges in non-human primates, mammals, and vertebrates clearly. All of these creatures have a demonstrable capacity to seek that which they need to survive and to "know" on some level or another how to get it. The also have a demonstrable capacity to suffer and I find it interesting that what I know of Western philosophy is that the moral ought is defined by the capacity to suffer rather than the capacity to survive and thrive. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I think it's fairly easy to extend the mind to all motile creates. But what about the lettuce in my salad? Does it know? "If broccoli screams in the forest, but no one hears its cry...." I think that by broadening the definition of cognition, of knowing, to mean capacity to survive, thrive, live, grow, in a dynamic environment, then the anwer is yes, my lettuce knows and broccoli screams. And all life is an act of cognition. Capra goes on about self-generating and self perpetuating networks, you should definitely read the first four chapters of the Hidden Connections to get that.

Live! From Bioneers!

2008-10-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

I'm posting from the Main Tent of the Bioneers conference. I opted for the cheap seats so I'm sitting in front of a large screen where the action from the conference center is being projected. That puts you at least two levels of abstraction away from the action, but no matter, truth resonates.

On Sarah Palin and White Privilege

2008-09-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

Tim Wise unpacks Sarah Palin's invisible knapsack of white privilege:

"White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay."

Check out the full post on Redroom.com

Wasilla's own emails details of Palin politics

2008-09-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

I received a link to this post from a friend. (Hi Tyrus!) I'm re-posting it here without permission. It's an informative and thoughtful email sent by Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla, Alaska -- a politically active stay-at-home mom with lots of first hand knowledge of Sarah Palin's political history. Palin has been largely sequestered from the press by her handlers. American citizens need to know who she is and how she operates. This is the most detailed information that I've seen to date. I have no confirmation of the veracity of any of it. Maybe the professional journalists will step up to their duty and sort out the info below but in the mean time, behold the power of the blogosphere.

"I have known Sarah since 1992..." (Updated, 9/9)
Posted by Alaska_Politics
Posted: September 4, 2008 - 12:11 pm
We'd appended an update from Kilkenny at the end of her original post.

From David Hulen in Anchorage --

The e-mail below has been bouncing around the Internet since Sunday. It was written by Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla - stay-at-home mom, letter-to-the-editor writer and longtime watcher of Valley politics. She's a registered Democrat. She was one of the delegates to the Conference of Alaskans in Fairbanks back in 2004. Her bio from the conference is here.

She e-mailed this letter over the weekend to family and friends Outside, and (despite her request not to post it) it went viral on the Internet very quickly, showing up on blogs and Web sites all over. Since then, Kilkenny has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails. She said she stayed up until 3 a.m. last night answering e-mails, and found nearly 400 new ones waiting when she logged on this morning.

It's posted here with her permission.

***

Dear friends,

So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last 2 days that I decided to write something up . . .

Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only 2 things in common: their gender and their good looks. :)

You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

Thanks,
Anne

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
*"Hockey mom": true for a few years.

*"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since.

*"NRA supporter": absolutely true

*social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

*pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

*"Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

*"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

*political maverick: not at all

*gutsy: absolutely!

*open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

*"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

*fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

*pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

*pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

*pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008

***

Dear Readers,

As I write, it has been more than a week since the email I wrote to friends and family about Sarah Palin began to ping-pong around the country. In that time I’ve received over 9,600 emails. I’ve lost track of the number of journalists--maybe 3 dozen?-- who have challenged me to provide sources to substantiate all that I mentioned in it. I have cooperated fully with everyone, providing all the information anyone has requested, and offering all the help I could.

It is a strange thing to have your words echo back to you from around the world. If I were to write my email today, I would make the following changes.

1) If I could change one word, it would be the word “hate”. I said Sarah Palin hated me. That was inappropriate. I should have said that Sarah knows that she lost my support when she sought to remove books that she didn’t like from the library.

One of the great things that America has given the world is the tradition of irenic debate: the understanding that we can agree to disagree, that there is a difference between disagreeing and disliking. I failed to demonstrate that important concept when I used the word “hate”. Sarah has always been polite and gracious to me in public. I don’t know how she feels about me, and it was inappropriate for me to use that ugly word to describe her feelings.

2) I wrote: “While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed.”

I should NOT have written “. . . because the Librarian refused . . . “ . I should have written “ . . . .after the Librarian refused. . . . “

3) If I were to write my email today I would add that I have no recollection of what specific book titles Mayor Palin wanted removed from the library, or if she even named any. There is a list of books out there; I know nothing about that list! It looks bogus to me.

4) I wrote: ““PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since”.

This appears to have been a somewhat inaccurate statement. Sarah Palin has referred to herself as a “PTA mom” for so long that I just assumed it was true. Having been active in PTA since 1996, I assumed that she was an officer before that. Even McCain, when announcing her as his running mate, referred to her executive experience in PTA. But the Alaska State PTA office says it has no record of Sarah Palin ever having been a PTA board member; they do record that she paid dues.

5) I wrote: “Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.”

I should have capitalized “native”, as in: Eskimo, Inupiat, Athabascan, etc.

For your information, I do not have a website, and I don’t blog. So if you see my name out there attached to anything besides my original email and this, it’s somebody else trying to smear me.

The response to my email has been totally unexpected and amazing. I am SO impressed and heartened! My inbox is full of story after story of generous, courageous, everyday people who have made personal sacrifices for the common good: stories of quiet courage. We are a nation of unsung heroes!

And ours is truly a Christian country. It is obvious to me that people are really trying hard to practice the Christian faith that they profess. I am so pleased by the thoughtful, respectful arguments that people have put forward for why they have chosen one ticket or the other. The vast majority of the people out there reject the Karl Rovian politics of personal destruction and wish that campaigns could be free of “spin” and “image”.

I am pleased to know that the overwhelming majority of the readers of my email found the information helpful.

Dozens of journalists have researched what I have said. They have found nothing else to be inaccurate.

Anne Kilkenny
September 9, 2008

Al Gore's Moon Shot

2008-07-19T16:29:00.001-07:00

The guauntlet has been thrown. Al Gore is challenging the United States to move to 100% renewable sources of electricity within 10 years. We can do this. I hope the country is listening. Take a look:

Jumpin' the Broom

2007-12-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

Wow. I haven't blogged since February! No matter. I happen across this clip and I just had to share it with anyone and everyone who happens across this blog.

Enjoy!

Pillowfight!!

2007-02-14T23:54:00.000-08:00

I LOVE San Francisco. Tonight I attended my first flash mob, and oh it was a good one! Someone somewhere had the brilliant idea to send around an email yesterday telling folks to gather at Justin Herman Plaza at 5:45 pm and to come armed. My boy Kei forwarded it to me, much to my delight.

When the clock on the Ferry Building struck 6:00 pm, people unleashed a primal battle cry and pulled pillows out of knap sacks and from under jackets and charged into the center of the plaza for a 4000 person pillow fight! And it rocked!! I swam in and out of the melee over and over swinging the $1.99 pillow I picked up from the Walgreen's, squealing in delight and knocking people over the head. I pulled out of the crowd to catch my breath and snap a few pictures with me cell phone. Then I waded back into the sweaty cloud of hippies, businessmen, Japanese art students and feathers to do it all over again. It was like a stinky dream sequence. I loved every second of it!

This just in:

Video footage from Kei throwing blows in the heart of it all. More accurately, Kei was just spinning about, camera held high, while the blows of fluffy love showered down upon him. PILLOWFIGHT!!!

A Quote Supreme

2007-02-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

The Marriage Equity Project

2007-02-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

Last night Maya and I had the pleasure of participating in the commemoration of 3rd anniversary of same-sex marriages conducted at City Hall in San Francisco. We were invited by Maya Scott Chung of the Marriage Equity Project to create a panel for a quilt, celebrating gay marriages and advocating for the right to marry with the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual couples. It was a wonderful event and a great reminder of the context in which the simple, personal love that Maya and I share is complex, public, and political. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the issue, it's pretty simple. Hetero marriages are recognized in every state in the union and confer 1,138 rights and responsibilites while California domestic partnerships only confer about 300 rights and protections. Under the law, gays and lesbians are second-class citizens. Furthermore, the whole issue of gay marriage has been used by the Republican right as a devisive wedge issue to distract Americans from, oh little things, like the war in Iraq and the spiraling costs of health care.

In my last post I announced that I'm truly excited about Barack Obama's candidacy for the presidency. I'm still very motivated to work to get him into office, but I must say that I was disappointed to read that he believes "that marriage is between a man and a woman." He does a great job of pointing out that the isssue of gay marriage is devisive distractory deployed by the right to keep Americans from considering more important national issues. But as usual, the political is personal and for many gays and lesbians, the right to marry is as fundamentally important as the right to, oh, little things, like deciding who you fall in love with and who you want to build a family with. Is there any more important issue than the right to legally safeguard your family?

Good Morning America

2007-02-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning excited about Barack Obama.

For the first time in a long time, since 1992, in fact, I am motivated to participate in politics beyond the ballot box. As an idealistic college student I worked hard on the Clinton Gore campaign and was thrilled when they won the White House. Since then however, the petty politics of fear and fundamentalism of the Bush era have left me disengaged and disinterested in politics as usual. I vote in every election and I always have an opinion about what's good for the country but I'm inspired this morning to move beyond coffee table conversations and my own single vote. I want to be a part of this movement to move a man of vision into the White House. I want to engage in this national conversation to bring sane and well-reasoned hope to Washington. Good morning America. I am glad to be here.

"Little Superstar"

2006-09-27T20:31:00.001-07:00

But can they do this in Franklin County?

Franklin (County)

2006-08-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

God I love Ohio.

Googlezon

2006-08-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

If I'd written the post below in 2003 and turned it into a really good video, it might look something like this:

Googlezon

Vox Machina

2006-08-17T22:29:00.000-07:00

Everyday, actually two or three times a day, particularly savvy bits of spam seep through the multiple filters between the bad guys in the Ukraine and my eyeballs. I use the Ukraine here as a proxy for all of the spam making machines in the world. My mind is but a self-reflexive series of heuristics; maybe I'll tell you more about this particular proxy in another post.

Anywho, these messages get past the filters on both the stanfordalumni servers and the gmail servers. Judging from the sheer number of messages which land directly in my spam folder and never cross my retinas, these filters generally do a pretty good job. However, particularly slippery missives seem to slide through even the tightest of machine nets, though the spamtastic patterns are easy enough for a human to catch.

First, the sender's name is always a standout. Yesterday I received messages from Bella Broussard, Connie Dougherty and Christie DuBouis. My real world mail correspondents tend not to adopt the nomenclature of burlesque stage stars. The other obvious identifiers of these messages are the wildly poetic text and the inevitable attachment which I dare not open.

For example, Bella Broussard sent the following, under the subject heading "Methane Publicity":

"He backed them out of their stalls and began harnessing. Don't put it off too long or I may not be there. Said ‘twas goin’ to blow the lighthouse out to sea, or somethin’ like that. His mental speculations were engaged with matters much more personal and intimate."

Google tells me that the sentences are mismatched pieces of text lifted from Joseph C. Lincoln's 1924 novel Rugged Water. The novel is publicly available on the Internet. I assume that someone, somewhere in the Ukraine no doubt, created a 'bot to scour the web for long passages of text which match a certain format--say dialogue or lots of commas or something and then wrote a script to tie these strings together into passages that are random and poetic enough to be indistinguishable from a legitimate human-to-human email. Attach and advert for a 419 scam or worse yet, attach some malware, and the bad guys are off to the races. Some fraction of fools will respond and the spammers make enough money to cover the cost of sending the messages and a handy profit to boot. But this has been going on for ages. What I find interesting about vox machina, the voice of the machine, is that machine-generated text is everywhere, and it’s sounding more and more human. It’s all over the ‘net, intermingled with earnest blogs, corporate marketing messages, online petitions and truly hideous Myspace pages. With time, as the programmers get smarter and the costs of producing spam, link farms, and new and as yet unimagined types of machinespeak fall lower and lower, it will be completely indistinguishable from human language.

Here's an example. Today I was doing a little research on the Yorùbá god, Changó. Again, my mind is but a self-reflexive series of heuristics. I might get back to my fascination with the Orishas another day. Anywho, I went to my favorite source of all things, Wikipedia, where the encyclopedia entries are compiled and edited by the people, for the people, in a sort of open-source epistemology of the bored and altruistic. As I was reading the Changó entry, which was of course cobbled together by a gang of at least superficially unknown who evers from where ever, I came across this phrase:

"In further apatkis Shango goes in search of Aganju, his father..."

Apatkis? What's that? I typed "define: apatkis" into Google, my other favorite source of all things, and it returned no results. Nothing. Impossible! So I kicked out to a wider search of simply "apatkis" which returned a scant 210 results. I'm morally opposed to browsing past the first page of any Google search, but the results returned on that first page were telling enough. Three of them included the phrase "In further apatkis Shango goes in search of Aganju, his father..." and the other seven spewed the wild poetics of the machine with phrases like "a 350 wedding place cards clocked and operated by its apatkis newspapers" and "Massiel reached its apatkis of 90 mph over the franco-manitoban Gran Pacific."

So here’s the trouble:

I still don’t know what “apatkis” means and my primary source for all the information in the world, outside of the infinite loop of my own mind, is both the source of the question and the answer. Moreover, both the question and the answer may in fact be the nonsensical rant of the machine or the first few words of the dawn of a new breed of intelligence. I can’t tell the difference, is Wikipedia vox populi or vox machina? Four thousand years from now when archeologists are digging through the detritus of the present era, will they be able to discern Moby Dick from the machine? Maybe the machine will be the one doing the digging!

The Power of Good

2006-07-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I indulged in all manner of goodness. I started the evening off with Dave at farmerbrowns, a new neo-soul restaurant in the 'Loin. We split an order of fried chicken and a Carolina pulled pork sandwich. I had several cool and refreshing watermelon margaritas while Dave drank beer from a mason jar. Clearly the goodness started early. Next we headed over to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to catch the opening of Sampling Oakland. We were each inspired to promise to put crayola to canvas as soon as possible.

Now here's where it gets really good. We left YBCA and walked around the corner to 111 Minna to the launch party for GOOD Magazine. Now I was already excited about this because for a $20 subscription to the magazine, I get 6 issues of GOOD which fits perfectly into my monosyllabic magazine strategy (Dwell, Wired, Seed, Make, and now, GOOD!) But that's not all folks! GOOD used the new math to pass along that same $20 to the charitable org of my choice. I chose Creative Commons. And the magic didn't stop there. I also gained admission to the magazine's launch party which had an open bar! How great is that? I know you're already overwhelmed with goodness, but you'll never believe who was saddled up to said open bar. None other than Al and Tipper Gore. That's right. I partied with the vice president. We chatted for a bit, and I told him about my zealot-like prophesying. He was amused and I got the sense that he'd definitely heard it all before. Good!

Earthquake!

2006-06-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

I thought it was a dream of an earthquake that shook me from my sleep early this morning, but apparently it was the real thing. Of course, no report of an earthquake would be complete without using the word "temblor," so here you go: The 4.7 magnitude temblor rattled the Bay Area ever so slightly at 5:24am.

Check out the maps!

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Oakland from Heaven

2006-06-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

Actually, it's Richmond California, but I like the idea of an angel's-eye view of Oaktown. I snapped this a few minutes after take off on the way to Europe last Halloween. A few seconds later and you would have been able to see my digs on the Lower East Side of Lake Merritt.

technorati tags:moblog

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Kai's walking!

2006-05-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

Just a Little Bit of Apocalypse to Make the Medicine go Down

2006-05-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

So here's my prediction. Gore in 2008. That's right. Al Gore. Hillary is unelectable, Barack Obama would get shot, but Gore's got a new movie in the theaters. Folks, it's gonna be Gore.

It'll go down a little something like this. The film will be the sleeper hit of the summer, March of the Penguins style. It's already getting early buzz and film festival prizes. The hopeful are rallying friends who aren't the least bit interested in climate science to see it. The press is priming the pump--just take a look at the covers of Time, Wired, and Vanity Fair. This summer the masses will begin to become atuned to the state of the climate, with a little help from the media engine.

Simultaneously, in the American southeast, some small bit of apocalypse will come crashing ashore, Katrina style, and the film will be referenced again and again. The reality of the science will become palpable to the people, finally. Gore will tell us that he told us so. And all the while, he will insist that he's not running for office. The reluctant non-politico politico will operate outside of the confines and constraints of a presidential run and in so doing, become the only electable canditate. He'll be seen as a rogue who speaks freely, a champion of the left, a new leader who will shun the mantle of the presidency precisely because he values his freedom. He'll be perceived sort of an Anti-Arnold. Unlike Das Gubernator, he'll use his celebrity to actually lead, rather than to simply win an office. Well, for a little while anyway. After a long hot heat wave of a summer and a little Class 5 pummelling, our nation will rise up and cry out and demand that an unfettered man step up and lead us out of an annhilation of our own making. Gore will heed the cry and he will stride boldly from the red carpet to the White House!

You heard it here first!

Of course, there's still the problem of the Congress and the reality of entrenched business interests that are opposed to environmental regulation. But, at least our newly elected president will be facing the right direction.

Slumber Party!

2006-04-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

I'm having a slumber party with Dave and Jung as I type. It's AWESOME. Mac to Mac networking, wedding website creation, workplace badge swapping, and soon--karaoke. It's amazing what you can do on a weeknight in Palo Alto with Jungernaut and the Dave.

Been around the world....

2006-03-03T11:33:00.000-08:00

And I-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi, I can't find my baby...

Ok, so I've only been around the country. You can tell I drove out from Ohio to California once--check out all those drive through states! Bryce and I had a blast. Camels and Chocolate drops the whole way!

create your own visited states map

Taping up my girl

2006-03-01T10:50:00.000-08:00

On the way to work I blew the seam out of the crotch of my jeans. No, I don't know how. Maybe climbing onto the Amtrak required more denim dexterity than I could muster? Anywho, I just suffered the embarrassment of sitting through two meetings with an uncomfortable breeze blowing betwixt my nethers and then walking into the bathroom with a scotch tape dispenser in hand. I don't even want to imagine what my co-workers made of that. Now I'm walking around with 14 strips of tape holding my pants together. They make a crinkly noise and chafe my inner thighs when I walk. God help me if one of the strips gets loose and lands sticky-side-to-my-girl. Dang.

Octavia Butler, another great one passes

2006-02-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite authors and friends of my mind, Octavia Butler, died at 58 on Friday. She was a brilliant writer, a recipient of the Nebula and Hugo awards, and the only science fiction author to be awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Award. If you haven't read her work, do. Her near-future dystopias Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents paint woefully possible pictures of what our world could look like if trends such as global warming, religious fundamentalism, and class division remain on their current trajectories. She utilized the genres of science fiction and fantasy to discuss race, class, gender, and the human condition, and she did so masterfully.

The one thing I saw in the news that said something about the depth of her work is this clip from the Democracy Now! website:

OCTAVIA BUTLER: "I'm going to read a verse or two. And keep in mind these were written early in the 1990s. But I think they apply forever, actually. This first one, I have a character in the books who is, well, someone who is taking the country fascist and who manages to get elected President and, who oddly enough, comes from Texas. And here is one of the things that my character is inspired to write about, this sort of situation. She says:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.And there's one other that I thought I should read, because I see it happening so much. I got the idea for it when I heard someone answer a political question with a political slogan. And he didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there. And I wrote this verse:

"Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, maybe to say it almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and at last to embrace it because we've defended it." Read her work. You'll be better for it.

Blogligations

2006-02-23T21:47:00.000-08:00

I promised my friend Shani that I'd write more, so here's another wee posting from yours truly. It's gotta be quick though because I gotta go see my girl Kofy and her all blackgirl rock band SISTAS IN THE PIT in like 10 minutes. Ok, I gotta go get my head bang on!

Blasted organics!

2006-02-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

There's nothing worse than a moldy fungus. Just imagine my chagrine when I discovered that my hellof expensive organic oyster mushrooms had grown a layer of penicillin while awaiting their turn in the cookpot. Blasted organics! I just bought those mushrooms! Okay, I bought them on Wednesday and today is Saturday, so whatever.

My Saturday night supp is inspired by the stuff in my fridge: scallops, shrimp, a little bit of crab meat leftover from my Thursday night DIY sushi situation, oyster and shitake mushrooms and this little nifty little tool. I chucked the oyster mushrooms, typed the other stuff in the search box and landed here. I didn't have half the required ingredients or any past experience with Béchamel Sauce, but I have six wee tiny ramekins, so I decided to run with it. I made the Béchamel with soy milk, but I used a shitload of butter and the aforementioned creatures of the sea so I don't think this meal will appear in the Vegan Lunchbox anytime soon.

The entree is baking now; I'm pondering steamed green beans and swigging a Black Toad Distinctive Dark Ale. I'll post a picture when it's ready.

Ah, fine dining in the glow of my 15" Powerbook. Does Saturday night get better than this?

Two bridges and a pyramid

2006-02-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a quick "get back in the saddle" bike ride along the Bay. If you look closely at the pic, you can see the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the pyramid of the TransAmerica building. Ok, even if you squint, you prolly can't see it, but it's there,I promise!

Apparently I'm it again.

2006-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I tried to post this last night. It seemed to work and then it seemed to mysteriously disappear. Weird.

Tag, I'm it.

My friend Donna Jean tagged me, so I'm it. Here are my requisite lists of 3:

Three books I can read over and over:

1) Beloved by Toni Morrison.

"As soon as one strip of husk was down, the rest obeyed and the ear yielded up to him its shy rows, exposed at last. How loose the silk. How quick the jailed up flavor ran free. No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you. How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free."

2) The Hidden Connections by Fritjof Capra

"Cognition . . . is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living networks. In other words, cognition is the very process of life. The organizing activity of living systems, at all levels of life, is mental activity. The interactions of a living organism--plant, animal, or human--with its environment are cognitive interactions. Thus life and cognition are inseparably connected. Mind--or more accurately, mental activity--is immanent in matter at all levels of life."

3) White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty

"Kicking off their dime store flip-flops the two badly coiffed bullies marched through the sandbox without a flinch or a grimace. A little diaper clad boy waddled up, blew a kazoo tribunal, and heralded the dyspeptic duo: 'That my sister Fas' Betty and her bestest friend Vamp a Nigger on the Regular Veronica. They fixin' to kicks yall's ass.'"

Three places I've lived:

1) Italy (Naples)
2) Ohio (Dayton and Columbus)
2) California (San Francisco, Palo Alto, Oakland, Redwood City, Mountain View)

Three TV shows I love:

1) Lost
2) Little House on the Prairie
3) Extreme Makeover Home Edition (good lord)

Three highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I've never watched a single minute of:

1) The Office
2) Everybody Hates Chris
3) The Family Guy

Three places I've vacationed:

1) San Juan, Puerto Rico
2) Whistler, British Columbia
3) Aspen, Colorado

Three of my favorite dishes:

1) Mom's spaghetti
2) Zachary's pizza
3) I used to love al pastor burritos with no beans and extra avocado from Taqueria Cancun, but me and the al pastor don't mix it up too much these days

Three sites I visit on the daily:

1) http://www.gmail.com
2) http://donnatroka.blogspot.com
3) http://www.nytimes.com

Three places I would rather be right now:
*(with friends and family!)
1) NYC (in the Bat Cave and Harlem!)
2) Washington, DC
3) Forest Ridge

Three bloggers I am tagging:

1) bomboniera
2) tyrus
3) peaches

Back Again

2006-01-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

It's hard to come back to this after such a long absence. Where to begin? Shall I go back to the beginning again, pick up where I left off, or kick in with the now, as though that little tear in the space-time continuum never happened?

Back to the beginning again...

Well, 2005 is long past, but everyone loves a photo retrospective, even if it is late in coming. I started the year in the company of friends and loved ones. I remember that clearly. Then things get a little hazy. I do recall having sangria just before a ferry ride to San Francisco, some time in mid May.

After a few glasses of fruited wine, we crossed the Bay in a big boat, as the moon rose and the sun begain to set. In the city we enoyed a pelaton and a merry-go-round and assorted related and unrelated merriment. We had a devil of a time getting back Oakland though--KFOG held a free concert and all of San Francisco decided to ride BART simultaneously.

In June I headed to Pittsburgh for the annual Porter Family Reunion. Gramma Porterphine's children, grands, greats, and great great grands gathered at Penn State University, Mckeesport to remember and believe. I debuted my video documentary of the family history, as told by my eldest uncle, Cardie Jones. The video was about a half an hour long, but if you have 3 minutes and Quicktime, you can watch the first few minutes of the photo collage. Over the course of the reunion weekend two of my favorite people, Jared and Jasmine, commandeered my camera phone and composed several self-portraits. I like this one.

And what else happened in 2005? I went to Rohit's wedding. It kicked ass. There were all manner of festivies, including traditional dancing, mango ice cream, a few hours at a sports bar, and Rohit in a horse-drawn carriage. I love that guy. I think if Jesus were from India, he'd look something like Rohit on his wedding day.

Home is where the broadband is...

2005-11-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts of late. Since I moved to Oakland I've been "sharing" wi-fi with a neighbor. Unfortunately, that neighnbor up and moved. The network went dark and 6:33 am Friday November 11th. A moment of silence please.

*sniff*

I tried to get Comcast when I first moved into my loft, but to no avail. Several phone calls over several weeks and one visit from a wholly pleasant young man yielded no signal. This past Wednesday morning I spent 42 minutes failing to navigate Verizon phone trees and talking to operators who provide local phone service in New York--that got me nowhere but late to work. For my next trick I signed up for a local phone line from SBC with some small hope that I can parlay that into a 100 mbps stream with a week or two. I'm not convinced.

In the mean time I swallow wi-fi and espresso at Gaylord's, Jahva House (you gotta click the link at the bottom of the page) and Nomad. While it's nice to be out and about among the respectively queer, black, and green I'd rather be surfing the light fantastic at home where I can be all three in peace and foment my little revolution in my pyjamas.

I got an idear!

2005-11-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

I just got back from London, Paris, and Berlin. It was a business trip, and rightly so, I spent the vast majority of my time working. The first two days were in Berlin. I left the San Jose office at 11am and arrived at the Berlin office at 2pm the next day. The commute to work involved two days, two planes, and about two hours of sleep. Tuesday and Wednesday at the office entailed many small rooms with big white boards and pleasantly intoxicating marker fumes. But work aside, I did manage to learn a couple of things about the German culture.

In fact, the learning began even before I left California. I sent an email to the car company to tell them that I was joining the trip, and that they should be prepared to shuttle four people instead of three to and from the airport, office, and hotel. I signed my mail “Thanks, Monifa” and within a few minutes (so prompt, the Germans) I received a reply, “You’re welcome, Monifer.”

Interesting.

On our first night in Berlin our Deutsche colleagues took us out for traditional German fare at a lovely restaurant, Lutter & Wegner. I looked at the menu and immediately concluded that I was going to need to suspend my meat-free food guidelines for a few days. Steamed veggies simply weren’t to cut it. I ordered the Vienna Schnitzel and a heifeweissen. Vienna Schitzel. Vienna. I always thought that it was wienerschnitzel and that it was some sort of German sausage. Turns out that any schnitzel is breaded fried meat and this particular one is a pork cutlet served in a traditional Austrian style. So that explains it. That’s why the kid on Silver Spoons, little Ricky Schroder, would inevitably burst onto the set each episode and exclaim, “Hey! I got an idear!” Schroder. It’s a German thing. Now I understand.

We didn’t have much time for tourism in Berlin. On our last evening we took a short walk to Checkpoint Charlie. The wall came down in 1989, but the food on the other side continues to suck. I had a salami cheese and mushroom pizza that was the envy of the rest of the table—they were suffering through soggy broccoli and low grade steaks. Thankfully, I was in my bed by 10pm. I was already severely sleep deprived by this point—jet lag and the furious pace at the office left little time for sleeping. My circadian rhythms refused to shift to the zeit of the reich. I had a 5:15am wakeup call, but my eyes popped open at 2:15 am (5:15 pm Cali time.) When the car service picked us up at 5:45 am for our flight to Paris, I was surly and confused.

Bioneers: Michael Ableman

2005-10-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Good food is the result of the passion of the people who love and work the land. Michael Ableman made this point well with slides of photos catalogued in his book Fields of Plenty. He talked about simple solutions, kids raised on kale, and families who have lived on the land for generations. He described grain share program for residents of San Francisco who buy whole grains—oats, wheat, millet, and the like—grown by a single farmer named Jennifer and some horses. Two of my favorite photos were of rooftop gardens in New York City and some wacky people who decided that a sheep dairy was a good idea. They make sheep cheeses that look like "moldy horse turds." Mmmm...horse turds. I also loved the images of black farmers who work with black farmers collectives. They drive their goods into Chicago for the Austin Farmers Market in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a grocery store. There’s a black farmers market here in West Oakland too, and of course, the People’s Grocery which drives an organic grocery truck around West Oakland trying to heal food poverty one block of tofu at a time.

Ableman says that those who know how to coax food from the earth are true leaders. I believe that. The passionate, beyond-organic farmers that he described are leaders pointing a way to a new future. Another speaker, David Orr, contended that ecological design points to two different futures: one, agrarian-based, simplified, and extremely local, and the other technological, prosperous, and fecund. I don’t see the conflict between the two. Why not build a world where there are small organic farms at the heart of every neighborhood, people work near where they live or telecommute frequently, mass transit provides comfortable and convenient transport, and the biological and technological ingredients of our world—from the plastics in our computer monitors to the toppings on our pizzas flow continuously in separate cycles of reuse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and why don’t we all just hold hands and sing. I type that with a sort of bitter sarcasm borne in the distance between utopia and reality, but there’s real power in song and Bernice Johnson Reagon told us all about it at Bioneers. More on her later!

Bioneers: Jeremy Narby

2005-10-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to the Bioneers Conference in Marin County. I might get to a few comments about affluent white hippies later, but in the mean time, I'll post some notes from the speakers and try to boil down their main points to just a few sentences.

The first speaker I saw was Jeremy Narby. He’s a slow talking anthropologist who aims to hold the scientific community in the same high esteem as he holds shamanistic communities around the world. Narby got his Ph.D at Stanford--mattafact he was in the same program as my dear friend Marcia Ochoa. He has lived in the Amazon for the last 15 years and has spent a good deal of time communing with the vegetable mind, sucking on tobacco paste with shamans. The basic gist of his talk was that nature, the source of life on the planet and everything that supports life in the world, is intelligent. He asserts that intelligence, intentional behavior and the capacity to know, may be a property of all forms of nature and may be fundamental to life itself. He talked about recent experiments with slime molds that can solve mazes and bees that can abstract that particular patterns result in reward, and stilt palms which walk about imperceptibly slowly foraging for sunlight, all possess a capacity to know and intend.

This area of study has caused some consternation in the scientific community; it’s been called an “awkward growth of knowledge.” It’s awkward because it requires humans to rethink our notion of intelligence, and step down from our privileged position as the only species who possesses it. We’ve got this silly idea that nature is everything in the world except humans and that humans are the only species that possess intelligence. Thus it’s conceptually difficult for us to even conceive of sentience beyond ourselves. Narby contends that it’s not nature that lacks intelligence, but our concepts.

I love my new neighborhood.

2005-10-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

I just posted an audioblog as I walked down the street in my new neighborhood. It hasn't arrived yet, so I'll re-cap the key phrases:

"...tight white pants..."
"...she hopped out of book-mobile..."
"...black cowboys riding horses in the street..."

This may not make any sense to you--I was there and I'm a bit baffled yet pleased. Too bad I only got one photo.

A cowgirl on mount at 18th and Adeline gave a brilliant speech about why William Bennet should be deported.

The End of an Era

2005-09-29T22:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight is our last night at 130 Holly Court. The Whisman Bruisers Varsity Yoga team is disbanding. We've dreamed up rock bands and book clubs, food free dinner parties, croquet tourneys, escandalos, and mathematical constants in this sliver of suburbia. Jung, Dave and I hosted guests from across the nation--exalted principals, mincing Republicans, babies, toddlers, and school aged children. We lost our lunch money to CKE in poker and we're still waiting for Shani to pick up her sleeping bag. Road weary commuters have slept on our couches and Joyce left her shampoo here. Kat knew where to house her all wheel drive safely and securely. Things happened at Whisman. We saved the universe, for the second time, in two days flat. "My name is Jason. What's your name again?"

At 130 Holly skipping, singing, and dance dance revolution were the rule rather than the exception.

Dave's at the hospital, saving lives or perhaps sleeping and Jung and I just did our final walk through. We lit candles and walked from room to room solemnly singing, "Loving you, is easy 'cause you're beautiful." We lit the fire place for the first time since the great toiletry melting of 2004. It's over. We're moving on.

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510....dammit Dave!!! You can't just keep going on your own!

Happy Birthday Donna Jean!!!

2005-09-25T02:43:00.000-07:00

Today, well actually yesterday because it's after midnight, is my friend Donna's birthday. She's really something special. She remembers everyone's birthday, even the kids she knew back in elementary school at St. Isaac Jode's (I don't think I spelled that quite right, but hey, I didn't go to elementary there.) Anywho, ("anywho"--I picked up that word from Donna back in grad school at Ohio State.) Donna's the bomb diggity. Happy birthday to ya! I hope you got my voice mail--Jung Dave and I were singing and skipping in Target today just for you!

Raider Nation

2005-09-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

Jung, Dave and I just got back from a long day in the Raider Nation. The Raiders took on the Kansas City Chiefs and we took on drinking copious amounts in the parking lot before the game. The tailgating was easily the highlight of the day--we grilled coconut shrimp skewers and pineapple slices and made cocktails out of root beer and Skyy Vanilla. We aspire to the level of citizenship of neighboring gaitors--one guy had on a Raiders chef hat and apron and was cooking an extensive meal for 20 on a propane grill. A 14-piece band was playing a couple of rows over. Good times were had by all. I think the Raiders lost.

A quick comment for Mr. Cheney...

2005-09-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

One man speaks for many and tells the Veep to go fuck himself.

Aaron Broussard indicts FEMA

2005-09-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

I've seen snippets of the Jefferson Parrish president replayed on CNN, but not the entire clip. Watch it here:

http://www.BradBlog.com/archives/00001798.htm

From the paper of record

2005-09-02T21:27:00.000-07:00

A Can't-Do Government

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 2, 2005

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's exactly what we get when the right wing cuts taxes and dismantles government. Bastards.

Kanye West on the Hurricane Relief Concert...

2005-09-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Live TV kicks ass. Kanye West just said, and I quote, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

He had a script and a teleprompter and Mike Myers standing next to him looking puzzled but after a brief tirade that was clearly improvised, but he quickly honed in on the truth. It was like he couldn't help himself. He just blurted it out: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

They cut to Chris Tucker backstage, long enough to get Kanye and Mike un-mic'd and away from the camera. A few minutes of Aaron Neville swinging sweetly and then a quick fade back to the tragic photos, soothing yet urgent voice over, and Hallmark music.

You'll have to watch this online, because as NBC rebroadcasts the concert, they leave in the initial tirade, but display a full screen "Concert for Hurricane Relief" logo and gentle harmonics over Kanye's declaration that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

Watch the unedited version here.

I gotta go buy his new record.

Michael Moore's open letter to Bush

2005-09-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

Read the whole thing here.

It ends like this:

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

Listen to the Mayor of New Orleans

2005-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

This is from early Friday morning. The federal response to this disaster has been shameful.

Mayor Ray Nagin lashed out at federal officials, telling George Bush and Governor Blanco to "get off your asses and let's do something, and let's fix the the biggest god damn crisis in the history of this country."

"Keep the animals at bay"

2005-09-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

Some bastard on CNN just said, and I quote:

"It was like lighting a fire in the wild, to keep the animals at bay."

He was describing what happened as night fell in New Orleans and they turned on all the lights on their news truck. A man had offered to pay him $30 for a gallon of gasoline so he could get his family out of the city.

What the fuck??

How the hell have news trucks been able to move about the city to utter racist bullshit like that? Why not scoop some of those people up and take them somewhere? Because they are afraid of "the animals?"

A reporter just asked Laura Bush, who is far more articulate than her husband by the way, what the world thinks about the fact that poor blacks were left behind as others were able to flee before the storm. She said, "That's what happens. The poor are the most vulnerable to natural disasters." At least she's honest. Emergency planners in New Orleans gaming "Hurricane Pam" last year estimated that 112,000 people in the city of about a half million don't have cars. That's about 20% of the city. They knew that these people, poor and mostly black, would be unable to evacuate the city in the case of an emergency evacuation. That's what happened. The poor were left to fend for themselves.

Laura just referred to her husband as "The President." I wonder if when she's at home, she says, "Mr. President, could you please pass the salt?"

...we've got to get to Wolf Blitzer in the situation room.

Sydney Blumenthal on BBC World Today

2005-09-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

I was dropping Jung off at the airport and happened to hear former Clinton aid Sydney Blumenthal on the BBC program The World Today. (The September 2nd 06:00 GMT program.) He described a list put together after 9/11 describing the biggest threats to the US. They were:

Another terrorist attack on New York City
A major earthquake in the Bay Area
Flooding of New Orleans due to a hurricane

The threat of hurricane and the threat of a levee breach were widely known by the appropriate government agencies and had been widely reported in the press. The Times-Picuyne, now delivered only online as its presses are under water, apparently did a series of stories about the scope of the threat a while back. But dear Mr. Bush said this morning on ABC that no one could have anticipated the breach of the levee. Idiot.

Blumenthal reported that funds that were earmarked for the Army Corp of Engineers, ostensibly to study and repair levees around New Orleans, were directed to the war efforts in Iraq. I'll post the audio as soon as I can get it. In the mean time, read this article by Blumenthal in a German newspaper:

"A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late."

black folks = looting

2005-09-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

white folks = eating

This is so fucked up.

Give help now.

2005-08-31T19:11:00.000-07:00

Give to the United Way.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. I just can't believe it.

Actually, I can.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

2005-08-28T22:56:00.000-07:00

I have no idea. Bryce, however, is in Israel and he's reading my blog. Check it out!

And a shout out to Demet in LA, and Jung who logged in from Miami. Bienvenido a Miami! Houston, DC, and Los Gatos in the house! Who's in Seattle? Bill G. is that you?

Gvisit is pretty cool--you can see where people are viewing your site. I'm assuming they combine an IP-geo match with Google Maps' Open API. There's no individually identifiable info though, so don't be scurred. Big brother is watching, but not very closely.

Some blogging basics

2005-08-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

Here's some basic stuff that my friend Shani was interested in. Maybe you'll like it too!

Ok, you can add photos really easily (with or without flickr) just hit that blue photo button up at the top of the window where you edit you posts. It looks like a little landscape and it's next to the spellcheck button. Just pick whatever pic you want from your computer and voila.

You can add links to your posts by clicking the little link button in the same row of buttons. So if you wanted to add a link Mariah Carey as Mimi, you might type "Mariah Carey (aka Mimi)" and add a link to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6559564/ and provide more info about her name change or whatever. You get the picture. I generally write my post and then go back over it and add links where ever it seems appropriate.

If you want to add links to your sidebar to my site, or anyone elses, it's kind of complicated, but not really. But no worries. You can add a little chunk of code to your template and it will show up. I'll try to explain it via email, but you may just want give me a call or read this.

Oh, and here's a few links to blogger help pages on cool stuff:

Use your phone to post audio to your blog
Posting via email
General Help

Have fun!!

What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas

2005-08-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

25 Mike and Demet
Originally uploaded by mreining.

Okay, I was playing around on flickr and found some of Mike Reining's photos. Interesting stuff. I searched for "GSB" tags and this one (of many) turned up. I add it to my blog and my little GSB corner of the world sees it, recognizes it, tags it, maybe even adds it to their own blg and the folksonomy grows. Very interesting.

One day in June

2005-08-25T23:22:00.000-07:00

the coolestwomen
Originally uploaded by nifamatic.

A few years ago, this photo was taken.

Happy Birthday Shani!!

2005-08-25T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is your payoff off for reading my blog!

bingeing on web 2.0 feeds

2005-08-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

So I've been trying to shut down for hours, but now that I only have 31 minutes of battery life left, maybe I will get some sleep. I've been on a bit of a bender with flickr and a few other fun new toys. The Personal Bee is a totally 2.0 way to keep track of what's hot--one day maybe I'll have my own bee, but in the mean time the public bees are pretty good. I'm running out of minutes, and I don't want to get out of my snug little hotel bed to get my power cord, so a few quick thoughts will have to do:

I want everyone I know to download Google Talk and call me immediately. I've had Skype for ages and I'm still walllowing in silence.

How does one get ahead in the blogosphere when all of your friends and colleagues are fully 1.0?

I'm awash in new things to explore, but top of list are wordpress and flock.

And thank goodness for bar camp. All the buzz on this anti-foo fest has led me to great reading on web 2.0 stuff.

End of binge. Need a new feed.

Poking the blogosphere

2005-08-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

I feel like an early adopter that's late to a party for the first time. Dang! Well I'm here, so I may as well pontificate. Or at least point out some good sites that explain what in the world is going on in the the blogosphere.

The Truth Laid Bear is all about tracking blog traffic. The ecosystem ranks assorted blogs based on the number of sites that link back to that blog. It's sort of a way to rank relevance, popularity and relative impact on the blogosphere. Point. Click. Type. is a lowly insignificant microbe. May the Nifamatic evolve into a higher being and global influence in short order. (Tangent: Did anybody read Ender's Game? Valentine and Peter took over the world at ages 8 and 10 using blogs to peddle political influence. The top blogs in the TLB ecosytem are far left and far right political pundit sites. That Orson Scott Card is one prescient Mormon.)

So yeah, Google's search algorithm uses a sort of similar page ranking to return relevant search results. (That's probably why Google bought Blogger a while back--to have a world of blogspots in house to inform and optimize their linking algorithms.) Anywho, an interesting characteristic of the blogosphere is redundancy. The number of times a meme is repeated (i.e. a site is quoted and linked to) the higher that meme bubbles up in the collective conciousness. And the harder it is to excise an idea from the public sphere. Censorship becomes an impossibility. Of course only a certain set of ideas ever make it to the cool blue screen, given limited access the means of production. But, my favorite open publishing site Wikipedia has a cool response to this. They're looking for people to edit pages on topics like Women's Studies and oh say, the entire continent of Africa.

Get on it people. If you're reading this, you're already way outside the mainstream. Get to moving your memes from margin to center. (Note: the preceding link goes to a woefully thin wiki on bell hooks. But notice the "edit" link in the corner. It's a great opportunity for one of you feminist professor types to Point. Click. and Type.)

Woohoo!!

Why can't I add this to my Netflix?

2005-08-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

In the Buff

2005-08-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

He said, “Excuse me miss, do you have a moment?”

“No,” I replied curtly, moving toward the escalator without breaking my stride.

“Do you wear your nails cut short? Natural?”

I hesitated for the briefest moment. How had the wisp of a Frenchman known? My hands were buried in my pockets reaching for warmth. Was it my locked hair? My plodding gait? My men’s clothing from head to toe that gave away my nails, cut to the quick and absent any chemical coat? I had to know. I stopped and squared to him. “Yeah?” I questioned.

“I must show you something amazing. You have to know.”

If I could type in a French accent, I certainly would, but you’ll have to use your imagination. He was slim and clad in black from head to toe—save of course, his burgundy apron. “Come, let me show you.”

I walked toward him, even as Marlene and Alonzo slid toward Banana Republic on the down escalator. Marlene looked at me quizzically and I told her I’d catch up. I was in the mood and the Frenchman needed to show me, something.

I walked to him and he took my hand. “You will not believe this.” Suddenly he was swiping vigorously at my thumbnail with a spongy block of spa-tool. He rotated the tool, varied his stroke, and made tumbling declarations in broken English about blood and oxygenation and then, just as quickly as he started, he stopped, holding my thumb tight beneath the tool. “Promise me something,” he demanded. I glanced up from my hand and fell into his earnest eyes. “Promise?”

“Yeah.”

“Do not faint.”

He lifted away the sponge—my thumbnail gleamed in the waning sun. I gasped! It was shining like glass, and tingling a bit, like it had been loosed from too weighty layers of self. Suddenly I knew age and youth and pulse and freedom.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

Fifty dollars later I trotted down the elevator with two bags of buffer, cuticle oil and lotion, and a bar of Dead Sea exfoliating sea salt soap. I had to know.

Songs of Whisman

2005-08-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

Later that day

2005-08-11T23:28:00.000-07:00

I stumbled onto this:

Live from the 101

2005-08-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

Totally

2005-08-10T21:23:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging in the presence of others this evening. Not a good idea, given that I'm immersed in the point, click, typing while there's perfectly good conversation right here in the room. Dave, Jung and I just returned from our new favorite bubble tea spot, Tapoica Express. "Suddenly I want some more!"

I had a watermelon icy with pearls, Dave had taro milk tea with pearls, and Jung boldly chose hot barley milk with no pearls. Hot liquid in those thin plastic cups seems like a bad idea. Seems to me that long chain polymers loose themselves more readily when heat is applied.

Jung just said, "I want to be one those people who just walks around and smells good." It's good to have aspirational goals.

Here's my aspirational goal: to create podcast out of a thirty minute unedited conversation with Dave and Jung. We crack ourselves up.

Dave just said he has reflexes like a python. Who says that? It should be recorded for all to hear.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Berners-Lee on the read/write web

2005-08-09T14:34:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | Technology | Berners-Lee on the read/write web: "For years I had been trying to address the fact that the web for most people wasn't a creative space; there were other editors, but editing web pages became difficult and complicated for people. What happened with blogs and with wikis, these editable web spaces, was that they became much more simple."

And so there you have it from the man himself. No, Not Al Gore, but that other guy who "invented the internet."

This blog and every blog is if socio political import. So there!

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

2005-08-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

By the Time I get to Arizona

2005-08-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

Ok so Phoenix is naught but NASCAR and new construction. But Sedona, is something different all together. It's a veritable vortex of red rock, new age spiritualists, Christian churches, and egg shaped houses. And Jeep tours. Don't forget the Pink Jeep Tours.

Marlene, Alonzo and I are staying at a brand spanking new swank hotel called the Moulin Rouge. There are can-can dancers and surreal moments that look eerily like the surreal moments in Strictly Ballroom. I mean, wait, it's call the Sedona Rouge. It opened on June 10 and this weekend it's only 14% occupied. Translation: the sheets are still clean and the pillows are still fluffy. I'm walking around our room in my bare feet and I'm not getting that icky, "Eww, who's fluids are in this fluffy carpet?" feeling.

Yesterday I had an Ayurvedic wrap followed by a shea butter massage a the spa. Damn that was tasty. It was like being wrapped in sheets that had been soaked in steaming hot herbal tea and then, well, being massaged with shea butter. This is the life. Clearly I was born to lounge at four star resorts (only brand new ones) and pay people to rub me. Arizona is so much better than Public Enemy let on!

The Calming Glow of Being Bobby Brown

2005-08-04T12:28:00.000-07:00

I rode the bus instead of the subway on my last night in Harlem. The high points of the M60 line that night were the ghetto fabulous albino I shared the back seat with and the chromy rims on the Ford Festiva I spied on 110th Street. Otherwise it was just hot, stinky, and slow. Beers with Bill and Betsy were quiet and lovely, just like the two of them. Betsy tried to lure me back onto the M60 to get back to the other side of Harlem, but I told her I’d rather move slowly in the wrong direction than stand still waiting for that damn bus.

I dropped down to the 1 train and headed to 96th Street. The train screamed into the station like it was riding on the backs of an army of meth-fueled rats. I tried to not to visibly recoil from the noise and reveal myself as the small-town Ohioan I still am, somewhere under my delicate timpanics. I eventually made my way back to Mount Morris and fell asleep in the calming glow Being Bobby Brown. Clearly the stuff of dreams.

I spent the day memorizing Kai and battling Nelva in broken English for holding rights. I put him down for his nap and after one last trip to Uptown Juice Bar for a ginger apple aloe elixir, I headed to lunch with Nicole and her baby cousin. Then it was the E to the Air Train to the Jet Blue terminal to San Jose. Of course, I swallowed five straight hours of Trailer Fabulous, Master Blasters, and While You Were Out on the plane. I’m ready to spackle something. But first, a long shower. It’s amazing to me how many New Yorkers wear flip flops on the subway. It just ain’t right. The stink can wear on you, but the practically crawling grime? That requires more than a thin flap of foamy plastic. I’m glad to be home.

Get thee to Uptown Juice Bar

2005-08-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be in Harlem anytime soon and you have a penchant for tofu, take yourself to 125th Street and eustachian tubes are burning and I like it.

One day in Harlem

2005-08-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and read my friend Donna's blog and thought to myself, "Self, you need a blog!" I had one once but I didn't use it and promptly forgot the username and password. That digital field lies fallow, so, I sow another. Grow! Grow my little blog, grow!

I'm in NYC with Nicole and Kai until Wednesday. I just put the little bit down for a nap and Nicole agrees, I'm quite good at it. Maybe it's the zen of Nifa, or maybe it's my tig bitties, but 17 trips up and down the hallway of Nicole's brownstone and Kai Aubrey was down for some well deserved REM.

My Kai-care instincts have not always been this sharp. On Saturday Nicole left me on 125th Street with Kai and the stroller. My mission was to walk one and a half blocks down to the health food store to pick up vittles for the picnic. I managed to get down the street ok, weaving Kai past mangoes on a stick and bootleg dvds, but the tiny store was a bit of a problem. There were no less than four people standing in the doorway swilling ice cold shots of miracle tonic (not Noni, but something equally useful.) I'm pretty sure I took some skin off the vendor's ankles. Kai burbled with glee as we pushed past the crowd, but I was mortified. I was tasked with chips, tofu, and any generally portable potables I could round up for $20, but the stress of stroller navigation was too much for me. I grabbed two bean pies ("Bean Pie, my brother?") and made for the check out counter, knocking packages of Spiruteen to the floor as I gracelessly steered my young charge into one wall and then the other. I paid for the pies and made for the door--leaving the pies on the counter. I didn't get far of course, what with the walls being 3 feet apart and the stroller being 4 feet wide. The teenager girling the counter just followed me to the the door with a bag o' pies and a pitying grin. I grabbed the bag and a shot of tonic as I squeezed out the door. I felt a bit better--maybe there were a few miracles in the bottle.

The picnic in Central Park went well, despite my stroller steering inability. Tyrus, Douglas, Turtle, Donna, Jes, Nicole, Ebony, Yasmina, Marlowe and many lovely others joined us on the Great Lawn for assorted treats including cookies, cheese, wine, watermelon, bean pie, and ginger candy. Richard and Raul brought chicken wings and Ebony and Needra showed up with ice cream. It was quite the blanket-oriented soire. LaVonda, we missed you and I'm sorry that I left the directions on some other phone!

After the picnic, we three traversed the subway back up to Harlem and called it a night. On Sunday we walked to Yonkers (I swear we were walking for 18 hours). Ok, so we walked just to the other side of Harlem for the beginning of the Harlem Week festivities. We bought a bottle of wine from Harlem Vintage. I think Jai Jai, the owner, should open a West Coast outlet in Oakland. Nicole went home for shiraz and Six Feet Under and I went to Brooklyn for an adventure with Donna and Jes...

More to come from the 4-5-6 line....

Planet Hollywood

2004-10-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've been worrying about the polar ice caps a lot lately. As I drove across the Bay Bridge today to cast my ballot to keep the Terminator out of the statehouse and to keep counting Technicolor data points in a blindingly racist society, a theoretical physicist on KPFA confirmed that I am right to be worried.

See here's the deal: the ice caps are melting. That's right, the ice at the North and South Poles is rapidly (in geologic terms) melting. No seriously. Since the industrial revolution, human beings have been pumping carbon into the atmosphere at amazingly high and quickly increasing rates.

The increase in carbon in parts per billion in the last 150 years is higher than the change in the last 10,000 years. Yes, that's a problem. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and basically, adding more of it to the atmosphere heats up the world.

I'm no scientist, but fortunately for us, there are people who spend their whole lives thinking about this stuff and some of them even get Nobel Prizes for it. In fact, 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, signed a warning way back in 1992 stating that the way we're living right now, throwing shitloads of carbon (and lots of other nasty stuff) into the atmosphere, "could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand."

Union of Concerned Scientists . . .

See, it's not just about ice melting, it's about changing the pH of the oceans, and tampering with the narrow balance of acidity and base which supports life in the seas. It's about kicking a big hole in the bottom of the food chain, killing off phytoplankton and the other vital vittles that keep us perched precariously at the top of the pyramid. It's about low-lying coastal areas actually slipping into the sea. I mean, didn't an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea go under just a couple of years ago?

Read all about it...

What's next, Bangladesh? Holland? Oakland? So anyway, I'm listening to this radio program about the ice caps and I'm thinking to myself, "Self, does it really matter if a Nazi sympathizing, ass-grabbing, Pete Wilson fronting, sound byte spitting, comic book caricature of hypermasculinity becomes the leader of the fifth largest economy in the world?"

I wasn't quite sure if the answer to that question was yes, but I'd driven all the way across the Bay, spitting carbon particles out of my tailpipe the whole way, so I went ahead and voted (No, Bustamonte, No, No, in case you're curious) and climbed back into my car and flipped on KPFA.

On the way back across the Bridge, I discovered that yes, it matters. Even though the ice caps are melting and the Gulf Stream is shifting and ecosystems are changing faster than evolutionary adaptation can respond, it matters.

By the way, ecosystems are non-linear systems prone to large discontiguous leaps as inputs shift only slightly (that means that seemingly small changes, a few degrees Celsius here and there, can lead to really big changes, like entire ecosystems that have persisted dynamically and abundantly for tens of thousands of years dying off completely in less than a decade. With little warning.) It matters.

Why, you ask? Because that annoying old lady on KPFA pointed out that Orrin Hatch, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch, personal friend of Arnold, Orrin Hatch, who has used Arnold's celebrity magnetism to raise much money, has introduced a Constitutional amendment to allow foreign-born US citizens to run for President.

I swear I'm not making this shit up...

Will it move from the Senate and be passed by 38 states to actually change the constitution?

Will the American people actually vote for him if he's on the ballot for the presidency in 2008?

Will Conan the Barbarian become Arnold the President?

Go vote dammit. Small inputs have big impacts in non-linear systems, and we're all governed by the laws of physics.