Jackalope Down

The workhorse laptop wouldn't boot this morning, I have a number of theories, mostly revolving around hardware.

This is a blow, a set back, and partly accounts for my rant this morning, yakking with my friend Barbara, a Wanderer in California, looking after her mom. This is a slightly edited version, compared to the one that went out to subscribers. Sounds like I'm giving up, but more I'm just venting, cop to feeling demoralized after a lot of uphill. Daddy bear (see below) needs a walrus (not!).

I haven't tried booting off the CD yet, other tricks I should try. Right now, I'm supposed to be driving people around though, don't have time to obsess.

Barbara:

I agree with all you said, totally. Not sure why desert is your choice of teaching environment, except that few distractions and great sense of space. Make it desert in winter, not high summer, though. I assume you mean high Oregon desert, but it still gets scorching there.

And, of course, solids, shapes, graphic, geometric play. And always look to nature for elegant solutions to questions of form and function.

Me:

Yeah the desert part is maybe not required, just thinking about the XRL (extreme remote livingry) I want to see developed, lots in my blogs, with a focus on the Crooked River (dramatic site).

Probably the storyboard should be some private sector contractors collaborating with the feds on building something futuristic, the idea being that the feds still do futuristic stuff that's civilian i.e. this isn't a pork barrel project for Blackwater or other mindless thugs who just want to run the USA into the ground as a mercenary state, which is close to all its become of late, nothing admirable, can't even think about torture coherently (embarrassing to watch pundits, hard to stomach any TV with Washington DC thinking behind it, so pukey and awful).

The goal is to get some freedom to develop a different way of educating our young that's more generous with technology, explaining how things work, and more positive about where we might be going, i.e. isn't just global warming or war on terror 24/7, i.e. isn't so devoutly fear-based or pessimism-driven.

That's partly my motivation for having a large international component, sharing the desert facilities, other places, with overseas students. It'd be good PR for the USA, show we still have a brain of some kind.

Of course the fact that it's all in storyboard and I'm this single dad in Portland trying to lobby a new education system that pays at least some attention to my Medal of Freedom winning hero's approach to spatial geometry is more what's true on the ground, i.e. it's more last ditch and hopeless-seeming at the moment, given Washington DC still monopolizes TV with its drivel, making Americans look foolish and stupid for all the world to see (not talking about Obama, just about all the pundits who use that characteristic "know it all" authoritative TV voice but actually don't even know what A&B modules are, ergo don't know shit from my perspective, so shouldn't be speaking for anyone but themselves -- but of course that's just my bias against other think tanks that suck, dime a dozen, spoiled brats from hell etc.).

Mostly who gets the cool retreat centers in exotic remote locations are these fanatical religious groups, who collect private donations and then have a place to send their kids for higher level brainwashing. Then they go out and proselytize overseas. Or they go to mercenary camp and learn how to defend and offend against heathen who probably won't convert -- so OK to kill 'em then, the American way.

It's an ugly civilization and probably too late to turn it around, but I thought Oregon might make a last stand of some kind, before we sink into the slime of this dark ages forever. We had a fighting chance. I just want to leave that on the record, in case anyone thinks our fate was inevitable. We chose it, whatever it was. Looking back, we'll see what we chose. Unlike Brian, I don't think failure is foredoomed, just somewhat likely, given no 9th grader in Portland is learning anything about the geometry I care about (and a lot of other people too).