The Parable of the Amusement Park

My brand of Quakerism is designed like Oaks Park, an amusement park in Sellwood.  Some rides have criteria, for safety reasons, like you need to be "this tall" (a ruler is shown).

In Quakerism, which is a way of doing business, as well as worshiping together, the "rides" are the "committees" as well as other activities / events.  Committees meet on a schedule. 

Besides "rides", we have other "games" and "amusements" which some may say sounds un-Quakerly but this is an analogy.  Sometimes I use "the circus" as a metaphor for Friends, or "the carnival" (from which culture the word "geek" arises).

"Membership" is not a criterion for going on or not going on rides, with the exception of the process called "becoming a member" (usually once per lifetime, like birth and death, although if you count transfers, then more often).

You may become a lifetime member of Friends, and that's one way of showing your commitment.

You may resign your membership when it's time to move on, either because you or your meeting thinks so (separations may be amicable, not closing any doors, or may be more abrupt yet open ended), or when you think membership in a given meeting might be less representative of your ideal park-goer, your preferred brand of Quakerism, and so you revert to original non-member status (the game posits "non-member" for newborns, but the "birthright" reflex might well be there, and in both parents).

You may dream up your own scenarios, about how one's membership might ebb and flow.  For some people, the chapters turn not around membership (as a concept), but around which meeting (as a place). Whole meetings disappear (we don't always talk about that), and members of those, not making a transfer... yet another way to simply fall through the cracks, as in any bureaucracy (so many have no nationhood, on this United Nations Day).

Perhaps you think your meeting's membership lacks imagination and stubbornly prevents new rides from being installed, ones the kids would love.  So you turn in your badge, your card, without surrendering any of your "inward weapons" i.e. you're not leaving the park, nor even dropping your ideas for new rides.  You become more active than ever, sounding less hypocritical when you blame the members, who have agreed, after all, to be held accountable.

A visiting member from another meeting might only consider a transfer if the new meeting had similar practices around marriage.  A given meeting might be well advised to be up front about its marriage practices when clearing new members, either newly convinced attenders (convinced to become members), or members of other meetings, looking at possibly transferring.  Don't take for granted that all meetings play by the same rule book.  Meetings differ in character.  If you're concerned about your meeting's character, consider showing up at Business Meeting and playing a role.  Ride the rides.  Do the work.  Participate.

True, you might be more effective if officially based elsewhere (overseas?), even while participating here.  Perhaps some meeting has a "secret membership" status you can obtain, until it (the secret meeting) comes out of the closet as a new Meeting, fully formed (if members can have "closed committees" then maybe non-members can have "secret meetings"?).  Or maybe there's a Swiss bank for Quaker memberships.  Or perhaps that's all happening within your own meeting (or in your own mind (where things can get complicated)).

For this reason and other reasons, people resign and take up membership in different meetings (or they don't, or they resume membership, come back from retirement, in the meeting from which they earlier resigned).  They'll say they're moving out of town but sometimes it's about not getting along with their meeting.  They find a new meeting that more suits them.

Although it's called "a transfer", it's also a process, or a ride.  One becomes a new member of the new park, and rides the "becoming a member" ride.  If practices are different in the new meeting, that may take some getting used to.  Some more degenerate meetings may have whole rooms or basement closets blocked off, "restricted to members only", a perversion of what it means to serve and spread joy.

If you're a member, you're a card carrying, bona fide, certified Friend; it says so right on the label.  Other participants in the life of the Meeting may choose not to brand themselves in quite that way, perhaps to spare other Friends the trouble of knowing about other affiliations, none of which are unrespectable, let us stipulate, but labeling oneself a member of a specific meeting just might not fit the bill.

Say there's another amusement park you belong to, and people there will feel betrayed of you make Oaks Park a spiritual home, as if one could not have two bases.  Maybe you're not able to use your legal name and don't want to dupe Quakers into granting membership to some alias.  Yet you wish to fully participate and the people in your meeting want you to as well.

Some of them know of your circumstances and understand why you cannot be public about some religious affiliation.  Yet the business is important and you want to see it done well.  You have skills in that area.  You're someone to consult.

The business might go differently were you to withhold your participation, however fortunately you see no reason to do that (pull back) since, as a non-member, you nevertheless have equal access to the decision-making process, committee service, the rides.  You know how the money is being spent.  You know what goes in to making up the various teams, planning the various activities.

Even if you're not a member, none of the rides are denied you in my park and you're a full participant, you're just not card carrying, whatever your story.  And that's OK.  Becoming a "member of Oak's Park" is just one way to register and demonstrate support, one of many ways to contribute to the life of the Meeting.  Having members is a benefit, helps the park, as long as the institution of membership does not get out of hand and out of control.

Historically, a "member" was more like a "block" in football, bulky not with mass (though maybe with that too) but with "social inertia".  You had title, ties, landholdings, and therefore could not be messed with to the same degree as most "little people".   Early Friends were bullied a lot, as they tried to stand up to the recognized authorities.  Their fortunes changed when their closet admirers started coming out of the closet.

Giving members some more powers on paper helps satisfy the state that there's a way to single out culprits should a legal case arise. A service (valuable) performed by members is they make themselves culpable. This doesn't mean non-members are insensitive to their risk taking. Members are a front line, protecting some of the more fragile / hidden Friends (more private) with their public-facing (sometimes intimidating) presence. Members give "a face" to the enterprise.  -- from my Facebook profile

In joining Friends as an overt member, you were signalling that this Society was not to be messed with.  You were taking a stand by putting a lot on the line, but were perhaps already privileged enough to be able to pull it off.  Eccentric, maybe, but not to be denied your freedoms, not to be committed to some state sanitarium or penitentiary for some "crime".

Other Friends in contrast, just as committed, but unlanded, not socially privileged, might conceal their participation in case the boss would find out, which could lead to being fired.  Being a member of a "Peace Church" while working in a military setting might be less effective than asserting one's command and control responsibilities in a manner that seemed Friendly.  Declaring membership would not be strategic, would force hands that shouldn't be forced.  A more delicate touch may be needed.  Such a "closet Friend" should not feel less included, less a participant, in the Friends tradition.

So as a soldier, you don't necessarily carry a card, claiming membership.  You support your meeting in other ways, perhaps from a distance (and in Cyberia, what is distance?).

One day, a group of Oak's Park members maybe got it into their heads that it's their exclusive privilege to ride some of the rides, and until you become a member, you have no access to said event, activity or amusement.

True, not everyone gets married.

Not everyone chooses to take this or that workshop.

But to actually bar / prohibit non-members from riding particular rides?  That wasn't part of the original design in my book.  Oak's Park would go broke in a day with such a philosophy.

A member is someone who is saying "this amusement park is good enough for me" as in "I am at peace here" or "I could die here".

A non-member may be in a different orbit, but part of what makes the amusement park a valuable experience for park goers is its equal treatment of members and non-members (including members of other parks).

The fact that some people become card carriers, public to the world about their affiliation, get the tattoo, is not a signal to the others to stop coming or to go away, or to stay out of Quakers "internal affairs" as if they were somehow second class, being judged as such  It's not as if recruiting new members were the whole point of having an amusement park or an art museum, with all the big rewards at the end of that tunnel. "Becoming a member" is just one of the rides, one of the rituals (like getting tattooed).

What Quaker theology is not:  joining Quakers as a member is about saving your soul, with attenders second class lurkers who are wondering about becoming saved and see membership as their ticket to gaining salvation.  Again, that's not what Quakers believe.

Quakerism, as a practice, is about being effective in the world by taking seriously the dogma of the Light within each person.  We are led by the spirit rather than by individual ego.  If we remain attentive to that spirit, we will find ourselves in greater unity than most ordinary business meetings might achieve.  We find ourselves in the same conspiracy, synchronizing trans-personally (supra-personally).

True, attenders are in many cases our next members in the making, at their prime in terms of inquisitiveness and wanting to run integrity checks, test institutions, develop their talents and skills, learn to work in groups, seek consensus, trust the spirit.  All very valuable.  Withholding such learning experiences is not what Quakerism is about.  The park's aim is to be generous with its many safe simulations, models for the workplace and government.  There's an eagerness to share.

For a meeting's membership to deny these opportunities to attenders to participate on some committees would be a grave perversion of the design.  Beware of meetings that close Nominating and Oversight to non-members on principle, or won't let attenders on clearness committees, including clearness for membership.  I'd consider resigning if I were in that position, where a meeting had degenerated in that way, and then stay active, as an attender, to achieve a more intelligent structure.

Having more of your life ahead of you means now is a good time to learn from the simulations, which is what rides are in many case (Property, Program, Children, Care & Grievance... Weddings, Deaths). 

Having access to all the rides is how they / we become convinced they /we want to be members (and continue to rub shoulders with all the great attenders who bless the meeting, at all levels of service).

Denying a person access to a ride on condition of membership is arm twisting in a way most art museums could not afford either.  Members may get a discount, but discrimination against attenders would rule out most of the tourist traffic, from whence future members will come -- a descending / degenerating spiral that would kill the art museum in question.

Celebrating membership is one thing.  Members-only parties or committees is another.

Get too cliquey and focused on membership and you'll forget your public, your fans, your next generation, the people your meeting should treasure and welcome.

Keep your rides open to be enjoyed by all, and you'll get your best people.  Focus on safety and quality of experience, not who wants to carry a card.

You have a Nominating Committee.  Evaluate people on their merits, attending to who expresses a leading, put also thinking about wall flowers.  The opportunity to serve comes in many forms.  People join committees just to get to know each other better.  What better way to learn about people than to do business together?

Have both members and attenders on this Nominating committee and don't worry too much about which is which when seeking to nurture the meeting.

An experienced activist attender with plenty of experience with Friends and their ways, both in your meeting and elsewhere, might make a brilliant clerk.  Never overlook attenders when it comes to filling top positions.  Make rotation work for everyone.  Experienced members will always remind one another of this responsibility.

Don't pass any rules that would forbid that from happening.  Keep your Business Meetings empowered to consider all options.  That's the design I urge, when discussing Together Friends.

"There is Silence, and there is blah blah rant rant."  
-- old Quaker saying

A Short Rant

In my view people are way too nice about Mumps, i.e. M, the computer language.

Yes, it was a breakthrough in its day, and the VA still uses it, and yes VistA, an open source medical records project, uses it.

To me, that means VistA is not really that great of a gift.  People want to be nice about it, not say "but M is butt ugly" or anything so disrespectful.

This is how civilizations die (did Jared Diamond already say this?):  they get too polite to have a sincere public discussion of anything.  They become semi-paralyzed by "correct speech".

Americans reassure themselves by sounding rough and tumble on the radio, but mostly within the confines of a recognized "padded cell" called politics or political discourse, safely neutered and mediocre (thinking of so-called "rant TV" with its "ranter shows" ala Fox Network).

The political sphere provides a "safe ranting zone", a bubble , a theater, whereas more technical STEM topics are relegated to "the fringe" (not safe for nor accessible to the average ranter -- more X-Files in aspect).

I understand UC Davis helps train up new M programmers (check archives, math-thinking-l).

Building Bombs (movie review)

A chronicle / documentary regarding the ongoing criminal activities of various rogue elements, way worse than meth labs in many dimensions.

Giving the DEA jurisdiction over the DOE's traffic in uber-toxins might make some sense, but the EPA and FDA are currently responsible.  They're doing next to nothing though.  DC does not actually contribute much to the management of North America, one comes to find out pretty quickly.

Bureaucrats tend to be more part of the problem than a part of the solution, given their conditioned-reflexes are so entirely obsolete.

Universities have an opportunity here as many idealistic young are eager to be involved in monitoring and cleanup.  That's to be a major focus of engineering from here on.

Outsourcing bottom-wiping might be what Americans need to do though.  They're being starved for relevant training, yet being charged high tuition.  Eloi.  Defenseless.

I hope Iranians appreciate the lessons of this (rather old by now) film.  Don't follow the Americans down that path.  They made a wrong turn awhile back and have lost their way.  Help lead the world in a more positive direction.

My Philosophy of Art

Artists are hungry for feedback, even if not in the live performance business, and even if they don't read every review or reply.

Artists will go to the museum or gallery featuring their work, and mingle, anonymously, listening for comments.  That's an accepted practice.  Movie directors, actors:  same thing (visit an installation incognito to get a sense of the ripple effects).

In this sense, an art installation or showing is like one of those psychological experiments, like that famous "computer in a wall" in a poor neighborhood in India, an experiment to see what street urchin kids would do, a somewhat Charles Dickens meets H.G. Wells story (of course they played with it, taught themselves skills).

In this sense, art is a two way street:  the artist shares with an audience, and the audience shares back, reflects, responds.

Inspired by Trevor Blake and his series of magazine covers (Struggle!), I want to make a glossy series of magazine covers:  Social Engineer.  Happy pretty people, in various (presumably work-related) settings, with titles of articles, a price tag.

"Does this really exist?  Haven't I seen this somewhere?" -- a first audience reaction.  "Is this what they read at Facebook?"

Looks pretty innocuous, like IEEE, but the name is provocative, as it's what they used to frighten children with:  this'd what it'd be like if the Communists took over (we'd have "social engineers").

So getting a read on the audience would help gauge the lasting impact of the Cold War (the lasting effectiveness of its propaganda).

I wonder if Social Engineer should publish a special NATO edition.  Food for thought.

Mixing It Up

I experience a fair amount of continuity between say Crystal City in DC and The Pearl here in Portland, thanks to the overlapping cast in our Python Nation (a "ghost state" i.e. "virtual").  The Djangocon crowd sloshes about.  I'm always meeting new principals.

However, I've certainly been meeting a lot of new people lately.  Yesterday I was lucky enough to meet up with Alan Potkin and his friends and family, out in the suburban west.  He's through here quite infrequently.  His daughter and brother were there too.  Amazingly.

I was Alan's best man at his wedding to Kati in Bhutan.  Thimphu is really built up since then, coming closer to Thailand in its global face, yet maintaining its own threads of culture.

I said good bye to Lindsey's mom at the bus stop this morning.  Lindsey was escorting her back to PDX International, to have a little more quality time.  I wish them both my best on their respective adventures outside of Portland.

Alan showed me some more 360 inside shots of old temples.  These were in Thailand I think.  Alan has specialized in digitizing off the beaten track sites, some still in use.  The new tablet, one of Apple's, was very up to the job of letting us sit on a couch and look around in these worlds.

Melody was in the back yard by the time I got home, also meeting Lindsey's mom, a Florida farmer, and to me reminiscent of Dawn's dad's side of the family in Pennsylvania (e.g. Aunt Betty).

Melody has ventured pretty deeply into Southeast Asia in her day.  She's also veteran of Burning Man, and a vegan.  She was also one of the housemates here in Blue House for some months.

My cousin, the ER doc, shot down here in her new diesel Passat (VW) to some dinner and catching up.  She was finishing a gun safety class so we talked about whether my sponsors would go for such training.  I've been OK with it, citing William Penn who carried a sword for a number of years.  The ethics are much like those of the mom & pop martial arts shops, who say the true master never needs to resort to the melodramatic stuff.  InshaAllah you never use it for other than entertainment purposes of which medical doctors might approve.

We also discussed the unbelievability of role models such as House, M.D.  Yes, viewers know they're fiction, but just like Mr. Rogers had a problem with superheroes, so one might argue these fictive cop, doc and lawyer shows are a vicious racket.  Junior grows up in a bubble, suffocated for lack of reality.  Which I guess is where "reality TV" comes in, like those "over the shoulder" cop shows where the camera crew is "embedded" (or is robotic).

However, leaving it to some schools to offer training in firearms safety etc., is tantamount to leaving other schools free to not so partake.  The luxury of attending a facility that is as gun free as it is second hand smoke free should not be out of reach.  Whole islands could abide by these rules, Okinawa for example, although it's hard to think of that many Asians giving up cigarettes.

Diversity Statement

Фонд Программирования Python (Python Software Foundation) и
международное сообщество программистов Python приветствуют и поощряют
всех участников. Наше сообщество основано на принципах взаимоуважения,
терпимости и взаимопомощи, и мы стараемся помочь друг другу следовать
этим принципам. Мы хотим, чтобы наше сообщество стало по-настоящему
разнообразным: кто бы Вы ни были, с каким бы то ни было опытом, добро
пожаловать к нам!

With thanks to the Python Software Foundation members list.

Scatter Brained

I've been disciplining myself to keep track of my toys in conjunction with this leather satchel I carry around, but that discipline broke down yesterday apparently.

The new Nikon Coolpix has been a joy, purchased in March of last year.  The last picture I took with it:  Sick Jokes (a collection) and my quad shot latte, at Fresh Pot adjacent Powell's on Hawthorne.  Presumably I threw it back in the satchel at that point.

However there's no indication (so far) the camera ever made it home, although that's where I went next.  Maybe it'll turn up.  Probably it went to the same Negative Universe as my Paul Kaufman hat.  I find it disturbing when I can't put my finger on just when and where the sleight of hand occurred, me that dupe of my own legerdemain.

I still have the Olympus Stylus as a fall back.  Those 14x zoom shots and richer colors will be absent from the Photostream for awhile, looks like.

Actually, I'm so attached to this camera that, finding it on sale for only $207, I grabbed another (free shipping).  If I find the other one I'll make it, or the new one, a gift to someone.

I learned from Math Forum that Dr. William Thurston has died at age 65.  He was one of my professors at Princeton, for honors calculus.

From a Gothamite

"Gotham" is supposed to be "any city" as you know, but there's that "Goth" right in the name, and the Dark Knight might be portrayed as a goth comic in some ways (yes, I'm referring to Batman, see post below).  But then "Gotham" fades into "metropolis" as in "metropolitan" which tends to mean any concentrated urban area, a CBD (central business district) especially.

The word "business" is fun as it contains "bus" as in Magic School Bus, or that bus on a motherboard that conveys data, perhaps in parallel.  In the urban center, things get "bussy" (pertaining to buses and business).

I'm in such a place now, one of those open inventory caverns, air conditioned, where people flock to take goods, to each according to her charge card allowance.  I conveyed a shopper here, from the bank, not by bus but by motorcar, in the 4-wheeler sedan I've called "maxi taxi" or "torture taxi" depending on mood and lighting.  She's an older Nissan, the successor to Razz, the raspberry colored Subaru.

Lloyd Center Mall:  I've posted from here before.  Back then, I was being cynical about the wifi and the nickle & dime me approach.  Nixon:  America's answer to communism.

Hey, I'll give a pro-capitalism speech why not?  First, let me explain how I tend to use the word "capitalism", even as I struggle to bring it back to everyman's way.  I think in terms of capitals, i.e. major cities, or mover and shaker places, hubs, key players.

Like when they say "London believes" in some propositions, as if cities could have beliefs.

"Portland agrees with Tehran" on some issues.  Phrases like that bespeak "capitalism".

Another meaning is "using one's head" as in "thinking cap" as in "being one's own boss in the 'what I think' department".

I'm in a vast (OK, big) mall, and people just help themselves to goodies.  Yes, they have to pay for them, sometimes (often) on credit.  But it's a layaway economy that one designs for oneself.  There's latitude for self expression.  You prefer the Ikea look?  That's fine.

There's a sense of choosing for oneself on a level it makes sense to offer choice, rather than a sense of having a thing meted out, preferentially awarded based on impossible criteria.

In a relative distopia, you'll never get that pair of shoes, because you're not allowed to just pay for them.

In a fixed price (same price for all), catalog-based economy, you don't have to do it for favors or quid pro quo.

You do it because you put your time and energy in, in some other way, in some faraway land.

You are not beholden.

You walk away from the merchant, goods in hand, not owing that merchant.   Now it's between you and Visa, and that's how you want it to be.  There's just a lot less karma, or lets say freedom to create your own karma.  It's back to Alaska or whatever, to one's own adventure's, not some state's, though you may be a state's agent.

That being said, I came here, used the free wifi, and moved on.  My intent was consumerist though: I was thinking to upgrade the phone, from this hand me down first generation Android.  But this branch of Verizon doesn't stock HTC 1x, just Incredible and Rezound, so it's out the door and off to a blogging place.

My shopper is shopping.  She doesn't always get to be in such a large metropolis, with its many charms and wonders.  Bridge Pedal was today.  I stayed home and caught up on some studies.  I also am reconnecting with Free Geek thanks again to Holden Web / Open Bastion, a great web of connections.

The Dark Knight Rises (movie review)

If you'd forgotten all previous Batmans and just walked in on this one, you may not remember how Bruce had fallen in with this cult in the Himalayas that plays "angel of death" to a moribund humanity. The theme, as always, is misanthropy.

Bruce is paradoxically a philanthropist, but he's enough in touch with the dark side to know why it wants Gotham to be gone. His own wasting away, in the wake of past trauma (PTSD) is taking its toll on Gotham psychically. He is thrown in a pit of despair and we dare him to climb out of it. He's just another sick and twisted little kid like all the others.

Like Pee Wee Herman for example?

There seemed to be some references to Occupy, but not many. The rich are always having that fantasy about the mob rising up, and batman films always feature Gotham going crazy, by design of some Dr. Evil type, or perhaps a dynamic duo of Evils.

Actually, it's a whole cult that's evil, with the Himalayan cult a kind of reverse Avengers, here to squelch, once and for all, a disgusting humanity, undeserving of God's love -- not forgiven, a narrative at variance with the Christian myth on the surface, but then Christians plan for an end of the world Judgement Day as well, so not that different really, more like Rosicrucians perhaps?

Law enforcement gets to be "the good guys" in Batman, which is how it's supposed to be. If you're on the police force and want to take your daughter to a film that doesn't demonize police, this could be it.  They bravely follow orders.

The guys in blue only fall down when they give up, or when they fail to rethink those orders and upgrade their performance with plot developments. The power of intuition plays a big role in bat space.  The commissioner and the bat are attuned psychically, the meaning of that beacon (the bat is awkwardly close to being the commissioner's "secret friend" -- he's somewhat lucky it's a mass psychosis or he'd have a hard time holding that job).

The reason Robin maxes out of the ranks, by way of detective (private eye), is he sees the blindness of "just following orders" as an only fall back.  There's a rule that you need to give the grunt on the ground, the man in the street, the woman salonstress, a strong sense of the big picture.  They're supposed to have deeper motives than "I just wanted to be a robot, so sue me" (the usual war cry at the war crimes tribunal).

There's the suggestion at the end that he (the bat man) has learned to become much more invisible than before. Bruce Wayne still alive was high profile, even when a waning millionaire or billionaire or whatever (the fall is as fascinating as the rise). Bruce Wayne as only seen by a chosen few is "back to the bat cave" in some ways.  The theme of Resurrection is just beneath the surface, after an ultimate sacrifice.

I guess I'm thinking the darkly gothic Batman, of all the superheros, is perhaps doing the most for a kind of old time Catholicism. He's a role model for all of those in the pits. He knows deep disappointment (like Pee Wee). He is our champion and our defender, little men and women that we be, the Gothamites, so looked down upon by those show off lofty Himalayans.

BuckyBalls: Consumer Ban

Consumers have been banned from buying Bucky Balls on the open market.  No, this does not refer to C60, the molecule, or its family, but to a toy that had made an earlier appearance under a different brand but was then marketed as "Bucky Balls".  These small, powerful, spherical magnets are a subject of study in STEM, or have uses as a lab / studio supply.  STEM labs often work with controlled substances, including live animals that might kill you if let out of their cages (Cabin in the Woods type places (Joss Whedon)).

Oregon is home to some companies that make very dangerous chemicals, whereas other extremely dangerous chemicals (EDCs) are just stored here.  You've heard of the NIMBY syndrome ("not in my back yard") -- well, Oregon is "someone else's back yard" to a lot of people.  Externalizing waste i.e. the true costs of doing business, is a way to avoid having an ecosystem come together, i.e. it's more a wealth prevention strategy (masked in short term profits).

Instead of "Oregon" (named for smelt?), I should speak of Cascadia more regionally, as Hanford, a major seepage site, detritus of the Manhattan Project (Ellsberg's Manhattan 2), has vented chem trails as well.

Vital research up close to nuke plants is a biomedical activity that only risk takers engage in, like Navy SEALs.  That tick of the Geiger counter may be your best signal to back away.  Or call it "eco-tourism" of as an extreme sport perhaps.  Like Mt. Everest, the study of externalized waste streams, as a field, a discipline, is riddled with the corpses of dedicated scientists.  Fukushima has contributed exponentially to the supply of recruits, many of them unwitting, feeling committed by fate.

One of the weak boundaries in STEM is between climatology, CDC style epidemiology, and EPA style studies of toxic waste (radiotoxins included). EDCs certainly alter the economy in a big way, as civilizations cope to prevent and/or deal with a major disaster, and/or many scattered deaths in the case of swallowed Bucky Balls (the magnets).  How does one avert one's eyes from these climatological effects and only focus on CO2 levels?  Aren't Hanford's and Johnston Atoll's chemtrails a fact of geological history?  I studied the latter when editing Asian-Pacific Issues News  (APIN).

Responsible management of controlled substances remains an elusive goal as organized crime typically competes with governments with investments in selling arms.  Escalation or continuous low grade warfare lines the pockets of various stakeholders, who also profit from the "illicit" (full of loopholes) trade.  The medical profession is traditionally overruled by the legal profession in this area, except in some categories.  With the right medical documents, one is entitled to STEM inventory, not unlike the governmental classification system for secret document librarians (a set of circuits sometimes short circuited, per Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers or as a result of blackmail, strategic leaks, inadvertent misplacement).

In the end, it's all well and good to ban "mindless consumers" from various forms of access.  Of you have a clear research need or medical requirement, that puts you in a different category.  Where small magnets are concerned, other toys have them and Bucky Balls circulate aplenty in the after market (not always by that brand), one more hazardous material that could endanger others or oneself if used irresponsibly, another poison.  Mindless consumers didn't know how privileged they were, until they lost that freedom.  Mindfulness is forged in relative bondage sometimes where those "bonds" may be relationships, commitments, obligations.

Wanderers 2012.7.25

Steve Holden and I were to present, post OSCON, about our sense of Open Source and so on.

What's up with the FLOSS revolution?  Whiter teeth?

As anticipated, I had to skip the first hour.  Per Facebook from the night before, I've been doing car trips to Union Station, connecting with Amtrak and Greyhound.

I'd also wanted to check in with Officer Walker at City Hall, where she's been undertaking logistics.  I shared that with the Quakers etc., Facebook Friends, in the context of updating my profile on several topics.

I came into the room to find John Taylor had joined us.  He's on a stint from Indonesia.  At age 77, he's semi-retired, looking for a landing spot, maybe in Portland, for himself and his soon to retire younger wife.

I'd helped John find temporary quarters while in town, after mom had offerred him Lindsey's storage studio, but I didn't think his head would survive the low rafters.

FNB seems to be in flux again, with SE chapter not always so alone.  I sometimes get inquiries whether the Quakers might offer their kitchen again, one day a week.  I'd certainly be game. but I'm not clear what the routine would be.

That was something Lindsey and I did together for a year, before we went our separate ways in that namespace.

Although I still play an administrative role as an anarcho-boss, I've been less of a fixture at Colonel Summers Park, and not just because of OSCON, Indiana.

I've sketched more FNB science fiction in the background.

My take on Open Source was it has become a recruiting tool in some ways.  If your company is not contributing something freely, of quality, then maybe your company has not much to offer?

Mine (ours) puts a lot of courseware out there for free, plus of course O'Reilly Media is behind OSCON itself, the Open Source Convention.

I gave the example of Conoco-Phillips and the graphics package it maintains, one of the topics at Europython a few years back.

But what what does "of quality" mean?  Do we recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance at this point (by Pirsig)?

I confess I've been saying some relatively uncharitable things about VistA, the medical records system from the VA.  I had a run in with MUMPS (the M-language) earlier in my career and I just can't bring myself to think anything MUMPS has much of a half life.

I say this as someone who has actively looked at the recruiting problem (how to get more M programmers?), made proposals (on math-thinking-l especially).

I'm not one of those who thinks that just because something is "open", it is thereby "of value".

Some of our group adjourned from the Pauling House to Pepino's down the street, for an outdoor eating experience.

I worked from then forward until the AFSC meeting.  We've been meeting monthly, with a bunch of us phoning in.  I've been hearing a lot of stories about the immigration situation.

When the French donated the Statue of Liberty, with its inscription about "send us your poor, your huddled masses", what was the assumed debt?  What was owed?

Did the New Atlantis at one point promise the world to always serve as a beacon of hope?

One could say that was a part of the Telos, a promised land archetype, a Next / Other World.  A New Jerusalem.  God had led His people to less godforsaken parts, less mired in past soap operas.

The USA operating system, now global, has a more closed feel about it, true, since Planet Earth is a ball.

She's not a "closed system" however, not in the thermodynamic sense.

We (as a species) have reason to hope for a breathable gas mix for some time to come.

Yes, I saw the stories about Greenland.  Brian came on strong, about the 97% melt off.  But the footnotes did not escape me.  We've been here before, in like 1889, and the ice record tells a story:  every 150 years or so.

But given how many other curves are out of rhythm, or apparently so, it's hard to interpret what we're seeing.

Climatology is properly a part of STEM, at least that much is obvious.

OSCON Day Two

Steve and I left the car on Senate Street and Maxed it, arriving before the doors opened.  O'Reilly knows attendance at an early morning plenary will be down the 2nd day, so the walls were rolled in, curtailing the space, yet still it was huge, bigger than many churches, if not cathedrals.  Yet here we were, the bazaar economy.

Mark Shuttleworth did the best keynote in the sense of most technical, introducing Juju and the direction Canonical has taken with their new desktop.  I went up to him during Office Hours (an Expo Hall service) and thanked him for the boost he gave to curriculum writing / programming, including mine.  The opportunity to hang out with Alan Kay, Guido etc., in person, for three days in Kensington, was fantastic.  That was some years ago.  He again mentioned his early fascination with Smalltalk based Squeak as a trailblazer environment.

The Cloud business is an evolved reiteration of the ISP business, with customers wanting more control over what's on their servers.  Juju is about porting ecosystems of connected applications between systems and designing their API interconnections using "charms".

My Quakers have converged at annual session by this time.  Although I'm an AFSC rep, I'm leaving it to Eddy Crouch to run the interest group and help manage the NPYM / AFSC interface.  Getting more Quaker services into the Cloud, education-related, sounds like an interesting project.  That might just mean a bookstore, branching out into access to archives.  History, timelines, biographies, scanned minutes, records, journals... a kind of archive.org for Quakers?  New branches could start an instance this way, by customizing templates.  New classes of Friend... (in the sense of types or species)... we shall see.

I'm in HP's sponsored talk on its Cloud services at the moment.  They've moved into the data center business more, following Amazon and others.

The Facebook keynote was also good.  The fact that so much hardware is still closed design has led to the same basic wheels being re-invented over and over with lots of incompatible variations.  Secrecy begets duplication and meaningless resource-wasting inconsistencies, such as train tracks with different gauges.

OpenStack on the software side has its parallel initiatives on the hardware side.  Facebook is supporting that.  Standardizations begets savings.  It's the old pendulum, between a tightly knit civilization and a more every-man-for-himself Wild West kind of place.  Oscillations occur.

To Tell the Truth

Anthropologists may question whether a form of government still based in theocracy can afford the same levels of hypocrisy as an oligarchy with democratic aspirations.  Of course I'm thinking of Iran and its official line that it's not lying about not wanting to break the NPT, but is rather intending to enforce it (in a coalition of the willing), to the point of global divestment.

I'd say global divestment is an official policy of many in the Pentagon for cynical military reasons:  wars used to accomplish something, maybe we could get back to that.  I think it's more a mind over brain thing, meaning "upgrades are possible", so going back to the old kind of "theater" may or may not be in the cards (not a given, despite Satan's fond hopes).

What swept the so-called West was "real politik".  I would refer you to CFR docs and the writings of Henry Kissinger to get a stronger idea of what that means.  One might call it Machiavellianism.  The job of politicians was not to communicate truthfully, which was handed off to journalism, which could be bought; the job of politicians was to say what was necessary to win the allegiance of key constituencies.

The constituents could know you were lying (open secret) as they did it themselves.  Lying was just another tense, like past perfect or future.  This was actually consistent with the linguistic turn in some ways, and Nietzsche's critique of the will to truth, of which he was justifiably suspicious (oppressive moralism wears the mantle of truth in various clownish guises -- this was pre psychoanalysis lets remember).  Theologists were given handicapped parking with the intention to grandfather them out as old school.  Iran, also Israel, are anachronistic to the extent clerics, rabbis, imams, any of those, are given undue influence.

In retrospect, we might agree this attack against one brand of ideologue by another, perhaps seen as realistic in the light of scientism, was not especially likely to result in a clear win for either side.  The religious have felt on the defensive, with secularism and democratism a real check on their power.  However the religious have some ethics and disciplines that keeps them viable.  The question is to what extent hypocrisy (disconnecting self characterizations from one's actions and intent -- relates to overall credibility and authenticity) is able to fly in these circumstances.  Does one side have an edge or stand to lose more if mouthing phony shibboleths?

The question is this:  if Iran is theoretically a theocratic state and is essentially telling the truth about its strategy, then when does it morph into a global champion of the NPT against defiant rogue states such as Colorado and other states allowing nuke weapons in storage, or in launch position, in their homelands?  Or have these states been colonized?  Do they really have much say?

Iranian weapons inspectors, somewhat inspired by Scott Ritter and other "just the facts mam" intelligence analysts, enlist for duty both at home and overseas, under the auspices of the IAEA and others, ready for duty in Australia, Chernobyl, whatever Restricted Zones of possible weapons contamination, sometimes amidst pristine natural beauty (a subject of ecotourism, other extreme tourism genres).

The teams are diverse, multi-ethnic, with some recruits from Reed College in Portland.

A career as an supranational pro-Earthian warrior is rewarding in itself.  Foil the Dr. Evil types.

The question facing Pakistan is whether to join Iran as another Muslim state with a Countdown to Zero agenda.  India has been asking for admission into the nuclear club under the terms of the NPT without making divestment of nuclear weapons its priority, turning away from any course Gandhi would have advocated.  Einstein would likewise have been for an anti-nuke weapons Israel.

We might see India's deterioration into having nuke weapons as evidence of the impotence in India's engineering caste and/or the relative moral immaturity of Hinduism. If Pakistan flips the switch, ala South Africa, and joins Iran in its leadership role, the contrast with the Islamic states will only be heightened.  "Islam is about ridding the world of nuclear weapons."  I would agree with that.

A youthful more hopeful movement is showing signs of wanting to go this route, as Occupy / Arab Spring spreads a Countdown to Zero message.  Reversing a lot of the eco-damage committed in the 1900s looks like ethical work, the work of healing.  The need for pro-Earthians is medical, as much as religious.  Science and engineering shake hands, are on the same page.

Abbreviations:
NPT:  Non-proliferation Treaty
CFR:  Council on Foreign Relations
IAEA:  International Atomic Energy Agency

Condors

I was on duty chauffeuring, drinking coffee at the base of the tram.  A guy zoomed up in his wheel chair.  "Is that a computer?" he asked, in child-like wonder.  Hadn't seen an Air before. I emphasized it was light weight (unlike its owner).

Then who should walk in to the scene but Brian Sharp, one of our Wanderers, but often remote, in central Oregon, and mostly contacting by list (Yahoo group).  We talked for awhile about this and that, then it was off to Providence, from OHSU.  Back to OHSU later.

Brian followed pilot projects to reintroduce the condors to North America.  They'd had a life here in Oregon, per records, but have long since died out.  Brian does not see a way to bring them back in our particular era; the problems are insoluble at the moment.  But he has been working on a book about what it used to be like, and why they once thrived here.  That book is due out soon.

Why they can't survive now traces mainly to man-made substances in the environment that subvert their lifestyle.  Lead shot in animal carcasses proves toxic over time, but also the pabulum they regurgitate to infants:  these have more plastics in them, fragments of non-biodegradable things.  These tend to clog up digestive systems.  Not enough survive to make it a viable community.

Brian was recently back from a San Diego championship tournament wherein his soccer team was best in the over-64 class. He's run the circumference of planet Earth three times if you add up his frequent player soccer miles.

Another Goodbye

Lindsey brought her from Savannah, where she'd bonded with this already mature animal. Titty lived in the Blue House as an indoor cat, after Moon Kitty died.

 She was gradually transitioned to an outdoor lifestyle, which she seemed to enjoy for the most part, after learning to defend her turf, although an altercation with some other animal was a likely cause of death eventually, the wound going undetected for too long (she did not exhibit behaviors of someone in pain).

She lived a full lifespan for an outdoor cat. She was occasionally recruited for indoor service during the Great Rat War of 2011.  She had access to the basement studio through a tiny window during colder months.

She will be missed. 

Thank you to Joe Snyder for a veterinarian's advice, and to Pet Samaritan for the 9th hour consultation, where Lindsey and I took her yesterday on short notice. She died peacefully amidst expressions of affection.

The Big Fix (movie review)

This movie makes the case that BP has specialized in "bad boy" high risk game playing and has been rewarded in the past for recklessness.

The consequences of a cavalier and above-the-laws-of-nature psyche are still incalculable, but in the meantime we get some good X-ray snapshots of how the appetite for oil and its attendant sums of petrodollars, can deprive us of trillions of dollars worth of ecosystem assets, shortening many lives, human as well as nonhuman.

It's somewhat a repeat of the war of 1812 as the UK-Pentagon axis plunders and rapes North America, while the patriots drive their hippie (sometimes biodiesel) buses around, taking inventory of the devastation.

Great Britain has conquered what used to be considered more French territory.

Orlando is an outpost for British Aerospace and Guantanamo is where Her Majesty keeps the puppet US fall guys (the patsies) cynically undermining their own government (on paper not a monarchy).

Gitmo (which the movie does not mention) is a potent weapon against American democracy on both continents, a violation of the Monroe Doctrine.  But the BP-Pentagon has no way of shedding its imperialist reflexes.  That programming runs deep.  Puppets get used to their assigned roles.

The movie considers Huey "The Kingfish" Long as inspirational to these coastal peoples, colonized by an empire yet wanting to stay non-violent and democratic about it (having already won the Revolution).  The filmmakers have family ties to the coastal peoples themselves, although their accents are not as colorful as some of those interviewed.

The movie does a nice job of tying the story back to Iran nearer the beginning, and to Saudi Arabia.  The BP-Pentagon is ravenous for more fuel, if only to carry-out its fuel-happy plans to get more fuel.  Flying jets like that is great fun, especially on the 4th of July, with colored contrails.  If some people get ill as a result, just make them the enemy -- like Louisiana is now infested with insurgent ecoterrorists (many former fishermen) which BP will fund TV and universities to help us demonize as dirty oil-covered hippies.

Greg Palast is funny.  Lindsey cracked up at the "Frankenstein machine" remark, about how they just churn out another CEO when the last one has absorbed enough punishment in exchange for a compensation package. Other talking heads stake their reputations in various ways, carving out their positions.

From an emailed review:

The movie is ambitious in that a wife-husband team try to take in a grand sweep of history view.

They point out various semi-obvious things, such as the fact that the military machine runs on BP etc., so one can't expect much protection from the more violence-prone based in DC, UK etc.

The dispersant used to make the oil sink to the bottom is having consequences that are still being studied.  Big dead zones in the Gulf.  Many unknowns.

Lots of people sick from all the spraying (the atmosphere has changed).

What's somewhat amazing is how it's up to amateur non-scientist filmmakers to bring just about any of this to light, as the monied media have little interest in investigative journalism anymore.

There's a kind of born-yesterday innocence to the viewpoint, as if "corruption" were only just now being revealed. We need a better word for the fact that world history does not always unfold according to our imagined ideals. Of course it's a struggle to resist colonization and enslavement by one's fellow humans. We have a pattern of forcing one another to work against our own best interests. The right and freedom to pursue happiness? Really? Even for "little people"? What will they think of next?

What was est?

What was est?  This came up at a lunch meeting the other day, in that two of us had seen Transformation:  The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard.  You can watch it for free on Hulu.

In a nutshell, Erhard understood that our sense of integrity as human beings is very bound up in our need to be right about stuff.  That's just obvious grammatically (in Wittgenstein's sense).  Who wants to believe a lot of garbage and have wrong ideas about everything?  That's not cool.  We want to be suave, smooth, and knowing.  Or our need to be right takes other forms.  We'd like to have the most appropriate responses to others in need.  It's not a "bad thing" to wish for integrity and to defend that one has it.

Understanding that, the est Training provided an environment that challenged one to become unstuck, where decisions and beliefs had actually led one astray.  That's hard to look at, let alone admit, but the genius was having someone uniformly and in blanket fashion attack all belief systems at a metaphysical level.  Why do you suppose how you feel about something has anything to do with how things really are?  Why do you suppose your beliefs about things have anything to do with reality?  The trainer gives off a kind of extreme skepticism that anyone in the room really has a grip.  It takes a strong character to make hundreds of people wrong, but if you can pull it off in the right spirit (heh), you give even the most self-confident and self-secure an occasion to really question.  Why not?  Everyone else is, and you're not being singled out.  Everyone gets pretty much the same treatment.  The trainer makes everyone wrong.

Then towards the end of the training, the trainer (a different person that weekend anyway) switches sides, metaphysically speaking, and makes you right.  Now that you've had a chance to take a look, to make choices, you get to be responsible for what you've decided to keep, to hold onto.  That's something you've chosen now, more than something you've inherited or absorbed unexamined.

Of course in two weekends it would be impossible to look at every belief, assumption, character trait in that light, so it's more a matter of internalizing the process and contacting one's trainer within, a strong mentor or coach (in archetype) who is willing for you to let go of beliefs and attitudes that no longer serve you or add to the quality of your life or to that of the people around you.  This doesn't mean you've been defanged or rendered less dangerous.  On the contrary, when you see yourself as freely choosing your racket / act / role in the world, you may be willing to amp it up, because you sense it's making a positive difference.  Certainly Werner's crew was behaving that way and I didn't blame them.  They were on to something.

Nature Boy

:: celine dion ::

:: afro blue jazz choir ::

:: kurt elling ::

Another OMSI Pub

I joined the OMSI Science Pub impromptu yesterday, knowing nothing about what it would be.  I grabbed a seat, saving the one next to me, and was going to Facebook "come 'n get it" but then thought to call Glenn and text Trevor.

Lew Scholl has been to these before and I'd texted him too.  As it turned out, Trevor could join me and our walking and meeting afterward was productive as usual.

This turned out to be one of two OMSI Science Pubs going on.  The subject was Biomimicry.  The speaker, Richard Louv, said he didn't do slides, or had done, but proved inept at using them.  "Not HTT material" I could hear the generals thinking (big emphasis on PowerPoint in that program) -- more like a late model boy scout.

They used to make fun of the fat kid at camp, and how everything was so much harder on the obstacle course.  Now we're all that fat kid (obesity rates where front and center in the OMSI slides), so we've toned it down quite a bit, so as not to offend ourselves.  

Teasing is the most politically incorrect thing you can do almost, especially where there might be hurt feelings involved. Unless you're trying to make it funny.  There's some tough screening if so.

Richard Louv sings a lot of the same spirituals we do around Portland, he was clear about that.  He hadn't lectured in quite this setting before:  so much booze (the event is held in a brew pub).  Being not from around here, he's maybe not quite so relaxed.

"What is nature?" is actually a good question, as to think vast cities are not natural is to be a little bit crazy, I have to say.  But that's OK.

Richard sounded quite apologetic for his profession's being so invested in pessimism and despair sometimes.  He was speaking of journalism.  The message he wanted to deliver was there's still hope -- something along those lines.

Looking Ahead

I just advised Koski to attend Bridges, as he was already leaning, and to get to the SNEC event about looking back at Black Mountain College, where Ken Snelson and a lot of the Catlin Gabel people went to school.  Asheville is near Hendersonville where I used to camp out in a trailer with the maternal gypsy grandparent (gypsy more in lifestyle then per "some secret" gene only gypsies know about).  I could potentially get there.  Gathering for Gardener is another one I always plan to attend.  Had I gone the first year I was invited, I could have met him.  Now I'm like Muhammad Ali felt about Ho Chi Minh: "if only I'd gone earlier, we could have met."

I mention Ho because I've again be revisiting that historical period, rereading about Nixon's secret bombings and the campaign against the dikes.  The idea that lying in the short term would not catch up with one was apparently accepted among the "real politik" crowd of the day, which is all narrated from a back stage point of view these days in that we see everything.  Here's Jane Fonda on her way into Hanoi, looking out the airplane window.

What is it she sees?

I couldn't put it down and it was only like $6 one of Indiana's few well stocked bookstores. I gratefully acquired it and went on reading to the end.  The bottom line is she's got a brave heart and her relationships with the young men of her generation helped keep some cultural cohesion going, whereas the Dr. Strangelovey types, Blue Meanies (many of them DC-based) had simply gone off the deep end and lost touch with humanity.  They'd been abducted in a bad way you might say, whereas our abductees generally benefit (insider joke).

The apartment on Chavez is starting to see more action, as the former chairman of Pythonia had intended.  Michelle has organized one of those PyLadies events where men are allowed by invitation as guests, but don't get to run the show or even collude to do so.  Sometimes women feel undermined by men, who compare notes behind their backs in mysterious ways, but then that feeling is mutual.

Coming to a balance within oneself is the age old wisdom on this one.  If you're up to something positive, then there's no real guilt in being "caught" in the act.  It's like when Santa Claus is tip toeing around the tree and the lights go on.  "Hey, just doing my job, gotta run!".  Who'd wanna get in his way?  Psychiatrists, sure, but who else?  Anyway, the trainer will pitch her tent at Steve's, who is off in Spain or somewhere.  He doesn't like to see perfectly good resources going to waste.  That's an engineer for ya.  We multitask for a living.

I found out about Catlin Gabel's ties to Black Mountain when I was extended an invitation to one of their Thanksgiving gatherings at the Oregon coast many years ago.  I met some dear people and later went with more family, namely Dawn and Alexia (Tara was not born yet).  I was later to enjoy more correspondence and visits with Kenneth Snelson himself, with whom I associate that college.  I forget when Thinking Out Loud came out on public television, but sometime after these Thanksgivings.  Lots of Black Mountain in there too, including interviews with graduates.

My mom tried to switch me to Catlin when I was little.  She was freaking out about New Math which just seemed too off the rails (not what she remembered from math class).  They must have had a different site back then, as I remember a large stone staircase (I went with her).

This was prior to our exodus from the US entirely and my transplantation into the British education system, in the context of Rome, Italy.  New Math wasn't really happening there either.  Rome was a lot about geometry though.  Those geeky Greeks had really been into it, and the Romans weren't half-bad engineers.

I'd climb the dome of St. Peter's to the copula with my friends, getting a sense the architecture.  I could see where a geodesic of whatever class would have its advantages.  Black Mountain was where Bucky drew enough strength to come up with working prototypes.

Walter Bauersfled and Alexander Graham Bell are sometimes cited for having dug deeply in the same soil that Fuller did later.  That's true, they did.

The Fuller School as a noospheric (and biospheric) story wherein great minds think alike thanks to some zeitgeist or Holy Spirit (the term used in Synergetics) -- which doesn't mean you can't have competing models and/or complementary approaches.  Logie Baird TV was not the same a Philo Fransworth TV.  Betamax is not Blueray.

I'm still connecting some dots with Earlham College as well.  Middle America (so-called by some) is ripe for more bizmo fleets in my estimation.  These need not be emergency vehicles in a big hurry to get anywhere fast.  Driving at speed limit is fast enough.  Bizmos need not be rushed, are more like gypsy caravans, on the move but not under the lash of some harsh taskmaster.  More like Quakers in some ways (unprogrammed).