"There is no such thing as an antiwar film to a US Marine"

Holy Baudriard, Batman. Soldiers in Iraq appear to have learned how to decorate a military encampment by watching reruns of M*A*S*H.

Bisy backson

I've gone beyond so busy that I'm only posting links to YouTube videos all the way to so busy that I'm posting links to old posts of my own.

Cuteness and punk rock

Equinox

I plan to spend the day looking for balance ....

Anniversary

Five years today.

I have neither the time nor the inclination today to outline the numberless Iraqi dead, the almost four thousand American dead, the thousands more American soldiers maimed in mind or body, the war crimes, the erosion of our armed forces' strength, the lost mystique of our intelligence services, the strengthening of al Qaeda and Islamist jihadism, the unrecoverable loss of American credibility, the corrosive effect on our whole political culture. I'll just give you this piece from the Financial Times about the money: Iraq war costs inspire shock and awe.

Six months before the start of the US led-invasion, Larry Lindsey, then White House economic adviser, estimated that the war in Iraq could cost as much as ^$200bn.

The claim, which cost Mr Lindsey his job, was dismissed as baloney by Donald Rumsfeld, the then defence secretary whose own estimate was ^$50bn to ^$60bn. Andrew Natsios, head of the Agency for International Development, estimated the reconstruction of Iraq would cost the US ^$1.7bn (€1.1bn, £849m).

These estimates have proved to be what the war’s critics say is just one of many grievous miscalculations. The Iraq war will be five years old on Tuesday, and serious estimates suggest it will be, with the exception of the second world war, the most costly in US history. Two academics estimate the government is spending ^$12bn a month in Iraq, while the Joint Economic Committee of Congress says the war has so far cost a US family of four ^$16,900, a bill that could rise to ^$37,000 by 2017.

The most conservative estimate of the war’s cost comes from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, whose remit limits its analysis to US government spending. Up to September 30, the end of the 2007 fiscal year, it says ^$413bn was spent on Iraq. From then until the end of 2017, it calculates overall spending on Iraq and Afghanistan at ^$570bn-^$1,055bn, depending on how quickly troop numbers are reduced. If three-quarters of the budget is spent on Iraq, the ratio of recent years, future direct budgetary costs would be a further ^$428bn to ^$788bn.

Interest payments on debt raised so far and attributable to the Iraq war would cost ^$290bn up to 2017, with a ­further ^$131bn to ^$218bn ­covering spending over the next 10 years. This would bring the US government bill until 2017 for Iraq to ^$1,300bn-^$2,000bn.

That's right. More than a trillion dollars.

If you had a trillion dollars, what would be the first thing you would spent it on?

Google Sky

Today I think of what Galileo would have given to have access to Google Sky.

Spitzer

Despite being crazy busy with work and meshugass the last couple of weeks, I've stumbled into a few reports about this tiresome Eliot Spitzer sex scandal thing. It's evidently everywhere. Blah blah blah, famed breaker of prostitution rings spends thousands on call girls, blah blah blah. I didn't care until I saw this comment from Dragon Lady Flame.

2) Do I think Spitzer was a hypocrite? Maybe. I've thought over and over about what was going through his head. Did his urge to punish johns come from a deep-seated guilt? Did his dogged work against prostitution rings also arise partly from that deep-seated guilt?

2a) I doubt it. Why? Because, as was best summed up by my friend Zach (who once interned with Spitzer), "the hooker rings he busted as an AG were more of the human trafficking variety than the $5000/hr variety." In other words, the prostitution that Spitzer cracked down on was closer to rape / abuse / sex slavery than it was to a white, educated, English-speaking American citizen freely consenting to have sex for money. And, of course, the johns he thought deserved punishment were doing something a lot more analogous to paying for rape than paying for consensual sex.

Whoa.

I don't have to get my feminism on and rant about how consent is not that %&*@!! difficult a #*&@!! concept because she's done it for me.

The papers, TV, etc. are treating this case as if it's all about insane hypocrisy — he brought down prostitution and yet patronized prostitutes! gasp! — when a minimum of reflection will show that Eliot Spitzer was not patronizing the kind of prostitutes whose activities he aimed to take down. There's a huge difference between (a) an illiterate downtrodden woman whose pimp beats her, rapes her and takes all her money ... and (b) Ashley Alexandra Dupré. There's a world of difference. Eliot Spitzer was patronizing the second, not the first — and it really says something about how fucked up Americans are, that everyone seems to think that patronizing the second is practically the same as the first.

The distinction is more than just important. It's crucial. Apparently, most Americans consider Ashley Alexandra Dupré to be just as victimized as your average street whore — or, conversely, they consider your average street whore to be just as empowered as Ashley Alexandra Dupré. The failure to grasp the difference is at the heart of much current commentary on this issue.

And while we're on the subject, I may as well offer a long reflection by a former escorts' booking agent which makes some sense of Mr Spitzer ... and offers a pretty bleak view of the human condition.

Archive

Of interest to my readers working in IT and suchlike fields of endeavor: David Gewirtz' article about the White House email archiving scandal. Here's the bit that hooked me:

Yes, boys and girls, the White House archives its email to PST files.

Hint: It involves the internet

Via Content Love, I have the answer to the baffling question, “What do these things have in common?”

1. K. D. Lang (or k. d. lang)
2. Oral sex
3. Olivia Newton-John
4. Rotary International
5. Pop-punk
6. Speedy Gonzales
7. Barry Manilow
8. Bonnie and Clyde
9. 4Kids Entertainment
10. Geordi La Forge
11. Spam
12. Truth

Go ahead, guess.

Big Day

The nice people at Volkswagen were kind enough to fund the creation of what may be my favourite 60-second film.

Arrr!

I've recently learned that Steve Jackson, the famous game designer, is a collector of Pirate Legos. Unsurprisingly, he uses them to play Evil Stevie's Pirate Game.

This is a game, involving elements of both roleplaying and tactical combat, in which grown men and women sit on the floor and push toy pirate ships around, going “Arrrr!”

Sounds great.

Y'know, my nephew has quite a few pirate Legos ...

Slums

Christopher B. Leinberger, writing in The Atlantic, writes about the coming decline of suburbs and observes how physically unprepared the 'burbs are to evolve into something more appropriate for the world of expensive oil we're soon to be living in.

Suburbia’s many small parcels of land, held by different owners with different motivations, make the purchase of whole neighborhoods almost unheard-of. Condemnation of single-family housing for “higher and better use” is politically difficult, and in most states it has become almost legally impossible in recent years. In any case, the infrastructure supporting large-lot suburban residential areas—roads, sewer and water lines—cannot support the dense development that urbanization would require, and is not easy to upgrade. Once large-lot, suburban residential landscapes are built, they are hard to unbuild.

The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments.

This future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing. Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up.

As the residents of inner-city neighborhoods did before them, suburban homeowners will surely try to prevent the division of neighborhood houses into rental units, which would herald the arrival of the poor. And many will likely succeed, for a time. But eventually, the owners of these fringe houses will have to sell to someone ...

James Howard Kunstler, as I mentioned a while back, calls this problem Peak Suburbia, and with the lending crisis growing ever worse, it's clear that this watershed has definitely arrived.

Candidates

Senator Obama may have the inspirational music—and it's worth thinking about what it means that as a candidate he's inspiring that flavour of enthusiasm—but Tina Fey makes the case for Senator Clinton with some mighty applied feminism.

Stairway

Ever wonder how the Beatles, circa 1964, would have performed Led Zeppelin's “Stairway to Heaven”?

Yeah, me neither.

Well, Beatles soundalike band The Beatnix have considered the question, and they have a pretty impressive answer.

Sock

I'm not quite sure how I found this.

Meditation & Violence
A short video, using sock puppet actors, focusing on two incidents within the life and times of Allen Ginsberg; (1) a segment for an appearence on Firing Line w/ William F. Buckley, and (2) a sound collage from the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, IL. with Ginsberg chanting over top.

It is vastly more entertaining than it sounds.

Infographics

The Song Chart Meme has a bit of a poor signal-to-noise ratio, but the successful efforts are impressive.

If you liked that there's also Qwantz' Bullet Points Song Meme which I've contributed to myself ... and, of course, there's the infographic-porn video for Royksopp's song “Remind Me.”

American music

I see that the Asylum Street Spankers are hitting the road again.

Austin readers: go to Momo's Friday night at 9:00 or the SXSW showcase at Esther's Follies on Thursday the 13^th.

San Diego readers: I'll be at their 10 pm show at The Casbah on Sunday the 23^rd.

Portland readers: They play the Aladdin on Saturday 29 March.

San Francisco readers: They're doing double shows, at 8:00 and 10:00 pm, at Du Nord on Friday the 4^th of April.

LA readers: The next day, they'll be at Safari Sam's in Hollywood.

Someone once asked me what kind of music they play, and I realized that I didn't have a good name for it. “Uh ... American music.” You'd recognize it. Like you might hear on “West Coast Live” or “The Prairie Home Companion” and think ooh, that's really fun.

(Oh, and Mr James McMurtry: it is only because of this that I see you're playing Momo's on Saturday, since I've been foolish enough to think that your website is a good place to find your upcoming showtimes. See to that, would you? I'm looking for an opportunity to fly to Austin to see you, and this woulda been a good time.)

Back on the air

OK, it's been forever since I've been blogging regularly, thanks to some serious distractions, as well as the fact that I didn't get my home internet squared away until a few weeks ago.

I sort of made a resolution that I wouldn't go back to regular blogging until I had my New San Diego Life squared away. And I'm not quite there yet: my apartment remains in a bit of a state of chaos, I have a whopping five hundred unread emails in my inbox, there are a number of errands I still have dangling that are really a higher priority than blogging. But in the meantime, I've been tucking away the occasional tidbit for use here once I'm back to daily blogging, and they're starting to pile up.

And I really miss blogging.

So. I'm back to once a day. To my Faithful Readers, I apologize for being away for so long.

I am ten years old again

Who can resist?

It's the music, right?

Endorsements

A couple of indecisive friends have asked my opinion about the forthcoming primary election.

First, a quick word for California voters baffled by the referenda on Indian gaming. The propaganda on both sides of this is unhelpfully blathery, but I managed to track down someone who knows what's actually going on. Basically, the casinos are going to happen, one way or another. The question is what the specific terms of the agreement with the State of California will be, primarily around tax revenue. If the referrenda fail, there will be another round of political negotiations, and the bottom line will almost certainly be a better deal for the state. Given that with California's deeply broken budget, we need every nickel we can get, I'm voting No on all four of 'em.

And then there's these candidates for President.

I want to start with some comments about John McCain, in case I have any readers who are tempted. I have an embarrassing admission about the Senator: I spent a few months in 2000 as a registered Republican so I could vote for McCain in the primary. I wasn't sure I wanted him to be President, but I was curious to see what would happen next. It's tempting for me to dismiss it now, but for a while there he really had fallen under this weird spell where he was telling the truth. The main thing was the role of money in politics, but it extended to a number of other things, as well. His record as Senator had been reflexively conservative, right along the Republican party line, but because he was having real conversations with journalists it looked like he was thinking seriously about some questions for the first time. Most famously, there was an incident where he was saying the usual stuff about opposing abortion, and a journalist asked him the old what-if-it-was-your-daughter question and McCain reflexively snapped “that would be different” ... and according to folks who were there, he paused, obviously having that waaaait a minute moment which what-if is supposed to provoke. He was evolving right in front of our eyes, and I respected that, and so I voted for him in the primary.

But while the press still love him because of that time, it turns out that what he evolved into was a monster. The Republican kingmakers kicked his ass with dirty tricks during those primaries, which is why he didn't end up the nominee. The Senator learned his lesson, and has spent the last seven years carrying water for the Bush administration. On his two signature issues—campaign finance reform and the use of torture—he's delivered some pretty good rhetoric (and gods bless him for that) but then he signed toothless “compromise” legislation. More significantly, he's one of those folks who just snapped on 9/11. It turned him into a bloodthirsty warmonger. He's been a cheerleader for the Iraq war from the beginning, the “surge” was his baby, and he routinely talks about a decades-long occupation of the country ... as well as attacking Iran, Syria, or anyone else he can get his bloody hands on.

Enough about McCain. The real question: Obama or Clinton?

On one level, this choice is an embarrassment of riches. They're both strong, electable candidates, and they're both very smart. Given the roster of lame Democratic contenders in the last few decades, this is heady stuff.

Both of them have policy positions that are pretty good. For the record, neither is the progressive policy wonk I'd really like; that was my man John Edwards, who was very serious about the problem of poverty in America and very forthright about specific policy details. But the press hated him, and he could only get traction among bourgeois White liberals like me. It's pretty bizarre that the antipoverty populist progressive only had rich White guys supporting him in this race, but then American politics is pretty bizarre all around. With that caveat, both of Obama and Clinton are still pretty good on policy, and there aren't terribly substantive differences between the two ... with one big exception.

That exception is the Iraq war, and what it means for America.

Senator Obama's story is that he was an articulate opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning. There's a touch of exaggeration in that claim, but only a touch; it's evident that he saw clearly that it was a bad idea, for all the right reasons. It's pretty clear that he will look to withdraw the US from Iraq as quickly as possible, and won't be pulling any other military adventurism as President.

Senator Clinton's story, on the other hand, is complicated. She supported the war early on, and evolved into a critic of it ... though a pretty tepid one. They lied to us. They conducted the war poorly. True enough, but even if the Bush administration's claims were true, and even if they had conducted the war intelligently, it was still both stupid and evil. Senator Clinton hasn't said that and I fear that she doesn't really understand it. This plugs into how as a Senator, she has worked very hard in a number of ways to overcome the unsurprising distrust of folks at the Pentagon, and carefully built a credible reputation as A Democrat Tough On National Security.

If I can wax feminist for a second, I believe that Senator Clinton has decided that, as a woman, she has had to overcompensate and act more-warlike-than-thou or face inevitable sexist criticism that “she isn't tough enough to be Commander in Chief.” Unhappily, she's probably right. So what I'm doing here is criticizing her for doing what she has to do to succeed in the face of a sexist society. My criticism is, in an important way, a further reïnforcement of sexism: damned if you do, damned if you don't. I don't feel real comfortable doing it.

But. Right now, A Democrat Tough On National Security is a serious liability, both as a President and as a candidate. We need a President who can rebuild some American moral credibility on the world stage in the wake of the Iraq war fiasco; we need to make Bush an aberration, not show that Americans are warmongers across the board. And the Democrats need a candidate who can tell the American people, who have soured on the war, that they will end this war and not get us into another one like it.

And this takes us to what is, ultimately, a style thing. It's tricky, and an embarrassingly important question in what candidate to choose.

The case for Senator Clinton is that she's a street fighter who can win the election in November and win legislative victories as President. Recall that George W. Bush, who pulled strings to avoid serving in Vietnam, defeated John Kerry, the decorated infantryman, by convincing people that Kerry was a coward. The Republican slime machine is inescapable and can attack anybody. This is the counter-argument to “Hillary has too much baggage.” By the time the Republicans are through, everyone has “baggage;” the Democrats could resurrect George Washington and run him as the candidate and the Republicans would find a way to manufacture “baggage” for him. If anything, this is an argument in favour of Clinton: she's the best-vetted candidate in history, and we can be sure by now that there's no new dirt to dig up on her. Even more importantly, after what she and Bill Clinton went through during his administration, there is no greater expert in the world in fighting that Republican slime machine than Hillary Clinton.

This is no small advantage. In my more pessimistic days, which are legion, I think tha the right thing for Democrats to do is to accept this process as reality and just get tough about fighting it. In which case, Hillary Clinton is near enough to being the ideal candidate.

Barack Obama is a very different answer to the same problem. His candidacy is a bet that the American people are sick of the Republican propaganda machine's nasty, polarizing effect on the political process, and that it's possible to rise above that process, to run as a voice of moderation, and win.

Clinton is the candidate of winning the game, Obama is the candidate of changing the game.

Obama's powerful “bringing America together” rhetoric—and his mushiness on policy—are both characteristic of this approach. What does Obama stand for? It's hard to tell, beyond changing the style of American politics. But right now changing the style of American politics is a worthwhile goal. The question is whether it will work, and I go round and round about that. It may be that Obama is simply naïve, and that the Republicans will find a way to slime him too and make his ploy impossible. But with a deeply unpopular Republican President and weak Republican candidates, this year may be the best opportunity we'll get to change the face of American politics. On the other hand, I said that last time, with Bush the unpopular author of unpopular policy, and he trounced a pretty strong Democratic candidate who just couldn't find a way to beat the Republicans' propaganda.

So Clinton is the safe bet, and Obama is rolling the dice and hoping for greatness. I think that this goes not only for the campaigns, but the Presidential administrations they would produce. It's easy to imagine the Clinton presidency: smart, pragmatic, moderately liberal, politically crafty, winning many small battles in Congress. It's very hard to imagine what the Obama presidency would really be like. Bold, effective new coalitions winning big victories that Americans want like ending the war in Iraq and fixing American healthcare? Or mired in political clumsiness in which very little actually gets done? Or something else? Who knows?

I'll be satisfied with either candidate, and contribute heavily to their campaign. And I think there's no dishonour in voting for either one.

But for me, I can't get past Hillary Clinton's tacit support for the Iraq war. And I'm ready to roll the dice and hope for greatness. I think we're overdue for it.

And. Seriously. A Black man named Barack Obama as President of the United States? Just try and tell me that ain't a victory worth voting for.

Protest

Warren Ellis has been following closely the recent series of spooky little propaganda videos posted on YouTube from the mysterious web anarchists Anonymous. The good people of Anonymous have taken exception to the Church of Scientology, and are initiating an anti-Scientology propaganda war.

The videos are incredibly compelling on every level—as crafty filmmaking, as propaganda, as cunning use of web technology. Warren Ellis observes ...

One of the things fascinating me about these video communications from Anonymous — aside from the obvious, an anonymous organisation of internet users communicating only through YouTube, which has implications and resonance of its own — is the sense of foreboding they manage to create. Contrast that to, say, the Yippies and the retarded gibberish they spouted every time they got near a camera. There’s a sense of control here, and, clearly, of threat.

The videos so far, which I encourage readers to check out:

Message to Scientology
Dear News Organizations
Call to Action
GLaDOS guide to february 10th

(I should observe here that Mr Ellis also links to a video from a major anti-Scientology activist who disapproves of Anonymous' approach.)

I bring this up because that last video has something of general interest to many of my readers, whether or not they care about the social effects of the web, Scientology, or film as an art form: the bulk of the video is an excellent guide to effective public protests.

I have a transcript of the complete rules for conducting an effective protest ...

These rules do not represent the writings and ideas of any one person. Rules may vary depending on your location.

The following video is intended as guide for Anonymous preparing to engage in their first real-life public demonstration. It will also provide a refresher for those of you who have experience with this modality of petition.

The purpose of the demonstration in a modern Western society is to convey a message to the public. In keeping with this objective, Anonymous has drafted 22 rules that Anonymous can follow in order to assure epic win and no loss of hit points on your part.

Rule #0: Rules 1 and 2 of the internet still apply. Your memes are not, at this juncture, something that the real world can appreciate. Although meme speak between fellow Anonymous is acceptable, focus on the target and keep it to a minimum.

Rule #1: Stay cool.

Rule #2: Stay cool, especially when harassed. You are an ambassador of Anonymous. Although individuals trying to disrupt your demonstration will get on your nerves, you must not lose your temper. Doing so will harm the protest and tarnish the reputation of Anonymous.

Rule #3: Comply with the orders of law enforcement officers above all else. Doing otherwise is harmful to the demonstration as a whole and may compromise your performance as a human being. Do not request badge numbers unless you are being treated in a very abusive manner, as doing so will anger officers.

Rule #4: Notify city officials. Most jurisdictions either have rules about public protests, or would prefer to be notified that they are taking place. Know the rules for your jurisdiction and abide by them.

Rule #5: Always be across the street from the object being protested.

Rule #6: In the absence of a road, find another natural barrier between yourself and the target of protest. Doing so will make it more difficult for individuals hostile to your cause to come and harass you.

Rule #7: Stay on public property. You may be charged for trespassing if you do not.

Rule #8: No violence.

Rule #9: No weapons. The demonstration is a peaceful event. “Your weapons; you will not need them.”

Rule #10: No alcohol or pre-drinking. Violating this rule may easily precipitate a violation of rules 1 and 2.

Rule #11: No graffiti, destruction, or vandalism.

Rule #12: If you want to do something stupid, pick another day.

These should be self explanatory. Violation of these rules during a demonstration will tarnish the reputation of Anonymous, harm the demonstration itself and leave you vulnerable to attention from law enforcement.

Rule #13: Anonymous is legion. Never be alone. Isolation during a protest marks you as a target for hostiles who wish to provoke an angry reaction from you and other hostiles. In keeping with this principle ...

Rule #14: Organize in squads of 10 to 15 people.

Rule #15: One or two megaphones per squad. A megaphone is helpful for maintaining the overall cohesion of a demonstration and spreading your message. However, too many will confuse the public and render you hearing impaired.

Rule #16: Know the dress code. Forming a loose yet reasonable dress code for protest members will help to maintain cohesion and get the public to take you seriously.

Rule #17: Cover your face. This will prevent your identification from videos taken by hostiles, other protesters or security. Use scarves, hats and sunglasses. Masks are not necessary, and donning them in the context of a public demonstration is forbidden in some jurisdictions.

Rule #18: Bring water.

Rule #19: Wear good shoes.

Following these rules will assure your comfort during the demonstration. Keep in mind that demonstrations may often be quite lengthy.

Rule #20: Signs, flyers, and phrases—have yours ready. Make sure that signs are large enough to read. Also ensure that the text on your signs and your phrases are pertinent to the target of the protest.

Rule #21: Prepare legible, uncomplicated, and accurate flyers to hand out to those who wish to know more regarding the motivations behind your actions.

Finally, Rule #22: Document the demonstration. Videos and pictures of the event may be used to corroborate your side of the story if law enforcement get involved. Furthermore, posting images and videos of your heroic actions all over the internet is bound to generate win, exhorting other Anonymous to follow your glorious example.

If you follow these simple rules, the success of your action is virtually assured. However, keep in mind that the success of the demonstration as a whole hinges on the good behavior of all those who participate. Ignore these rules at your own peril. Follow them, and victory will be yours.

We are Anonymous.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
And now, we are expected.

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

For more than a decade, I've been spamming people with this note every year. Now that I have a blog, I'm just sticking to re-posting every year. If you were here this time last year, read it again anyway.

Really. Take a few minutes. I think it's important ...

Most people have forgotten that at the civil rights march on Washington DC on 28 August 1963, Martin Luther King was not the featured speaker. He was not the icon of the movement that we think of today. He was a major player, yes, but there were others more famous, respected, and important at that time. The speech he gave --- the one you know --- changed that.

The importance of the speech is distinctively American. The United States, unique among nations, is a frankly artificial creation. France is the place in Europe where people speak French, but the US has no ethnic definition --- this place is full of immigrants who decided to be Americans, and their children. Japan is an island, but there's nothing natural about the borders of the US --- this place wound up a nation through a chaotic combination of war, purchase, legislative decisions, and (oh yeah) genocide. The US is an idea. Something we just made up.

This is why we have the peculiar veneration of documents that we do. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are the holiest of holies in our civic religion because they are made of words, made of ideas. Through acclamation over the years we have chosen a handful of other documents that tell us what the United States is, like Lincoln's Gettysburg address and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. In that speech, the power of King's rhetoric and ideas was so great that hearing it transformed our understanding of what the nation was about. I know, I know, that's a White guy thing to say: it's not like plenty of folks didn't know about American racial injustice. But on the level of shared understanding of shared destiny, King gave voice to ideas implicit in the American national promise that had too long been denied. And still are denied today.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.

Go read it right now. It will only take five minutes of your time. With no exaggeration, I think it's your duty as an American --- we have a lot of work left to do.

And while you're at it, take a little more time and read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I know you did it back in school. It's worth doing again.

And if you really want extra credit, go read what he said on the last full day of his life.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you ...

Resolutions

My old employer wishes us all a Happy New Year using a tool I worked on designing.

Pater familias

Ephraim “Frank” Korman
1929-2007
Scientist, teacher, father

Some of my readers know that for the last few years, I've been on “Dad patrol.” My father moved out to San Francisco to get away from the harsh weather of Washington DC and moved into a little apartment right across the street from mine. Sort of like a sitcom.

We have a family story about my g'g'great-grandfather on my father's side: he died in a terrible logging accident, crushed between two great trees he had felled that he was in the process of floating down the Dvina river to the mill. The interesting part: this happened when he was 87. Still working as a lumberjack.

We Kormans are tougher than we look.

But it turns out that we don't last forever. Just before New Years', my father was hit with a sudden high fever that apparently cut off oxygen to his brain for a few long minutes. I got to see him when his body was still breathing but his ruach was already gone. Three hours later, mercifully, his body gave up waiting for his spirit to come back.

Saturday my brother hosted a little memorial for him. Here's what I said:

The idea that I could say a few words to sum up either my father's life or my own relationship with him is absurd, but I find myself thinking of a story that comes as close as you could hope.

My father was drafted to serve in the Korean War. Horrified by the prospect of having to kill another person, he volunteered to be a medic, against the advice of other recruits who dreaded to be on the front lines, unarmed, with a big red cross-shaped target on their heads. He was accepted for medic training, and fortunately for his survival he was assigned to a M^*A^*S^*H outfit.

When I was growing up, my father only told one story from that time in his life. He said that the only time after basic training when he held a rifle was on sentry duty, protecting the camp. He still didn't want to shoot anyone, so he pulled the bullets out of his M1 rifle and put them in his pocket.

My mother would always interject that had they caught him he'd have been court-martialed for sure, sent to prison, and given a dishonorable discharge.

Or, y'know, he could have been killed.

Guarding the camp with the bullets in his pocket. Fearless. Morally grounded. Totally irresponsible. That was my father.

---

Update: Okay, not totally irresponsible! My mother has more.

Solstice

From the ridiculous to the sublime:

Carol of the Old Ones

Midwinter

Uh

I know that I'm long, long overdue for some real posting, but I'm still having internet access trouble at home.

In the meantime, I offer you a work safe furry pornography Orangina advertisement, because for once I want to beat Warren Ellis to the punch.

In case you're worried

Yes, I am in San Diego, but no, I am not on fire.

That is all.

Data

So I'm spending this weekend packing all of my worldly possessions. Here you see a stack of boxes containing only data. If you exclude the furniture and my motorcycle, they represent about half of the mass of my things.

That's 40 boxes of text-only books, 6 boxes of comics, and 3 boxes of DVDs and music. Understand, these are things that have survived numerous purges, because I loved them, or knew I would refer to them again, or had such a hard time finding in the first place that I don't dare let them go now.

Each text only box contains about 40 books, averaging maybe 350 pages at 500 words a page. Converted to ASCII, the simplest way of representing text, that's roughly 1.5 gigabytes. I could fit that on the USB drive I carry on my keychain that I bought for about the price of a meal at a nice restaurant. It's also about half of what Google will store for me for free in my Gmail account, which is just a place for keeping email.

I know I had seven shelves of comics (plus some art books we can squeeze into the count). The complete run of Sandman fills about half a shelf. Sandman ran 75 issues of 25 pages (counting the covers) making 1875 pages. Uh, not counting the Annual, various little specials, and The Dream Hunters, so call it a round 2000 pages for Sandman. Double that, then multiply by seven shelves, and you get about 30,000 pages of comics. One could debate how much data you need to represent a comics page. Let's imagine a compression algorhythm optimized for the comics page (someone must have developed one by now, right?) and we might do a good job at maybe 200K. So that's about 6 gigs for the comics.

You can't quite fit that onto a keychain flash drive. It's a bit more than you can get onto a DVD, too, which maxes out at 4.7 gigs.

Speaking of which, I've got maybe 150 feature films and almost 20 seasons of network television on DVD. That's about 300 hours of TV and another 300 hours of features, at a little over a gig an hour, completely dwarfing my bulkier and much heavier other data.

I expect that someday I will show this post to the children of my neice or nephew, who will ask me something about how obviously I had access to the 'net when I made this post, since I posted it there. So why go to all of the trouble of carting around these heavy books that aren't indexed with metadata, aren't searchable, aren't available when I'm away from my apartment ... ?

I'll say something about how displays were crappy in those days, and lots of data still wasn't stored electronically, and there was still trouble with bandwidth, and blah blah blah. I suspect that I'll sound to this kid like one of those wild-eyed old men in a dystopian '60s science fiction movie, ranting about how real knowledge isn't found in computers, it's in books, I tell you! Books!

Then I'll tell the kid how when I was her age, my teacher would write on the classroom wall with a piece of rock. Really!

Where the heck I have been

Many friends and blog readers may have wondered why I dropped off the face of the Earth this last month. I owe apologies to a bunch of folks, with more to come because I'm still not going to be very available. I have had some good—but dramatic and demanding—developments in my personal life that have literally kept me from having a minute to spare. So, at last, here's the story ....

As many of y'all know, I have felt restless in my job for a while. For the past ten years I have worked as a consulting interaction designer at Cooper, the best consulting interaction design studio in the biz, winging my way around the nation and the world telling companies how to make products that don't suck. I love the work and my colleagues, but it has me on the road about 25% of the time, on a very irregular schedule. It's enough to be disruptive to my life and physically demanding. While I used to go on a work trip and bounce back from the jet lag, bad food, and hotel insomnia to force myself back into the gym, I'm not that young and resilient any more. I've been wondering how much more consulting I really have in me.

Plus, a couple of years ago my father moved out to San Francisco to live in an apartment across the street from mine. Yeah, it's a bit like a sitcom ... except that he's had some trouble with his health, and I'm the man on the spot because my whole family is scattered among various different cities. I've had to devote more time and energy to his needs than I'd originally imagined, which is especially tricky given my irregular travel.

I've been working to find my father a place in an assisted living community, for his safety and comfort (as well as my own liberty and peace of mind) but it's been tough going with the many interruptions in my schedule.

So for a while now I've had an eye out for a new gig: something a little less demanding and a lot more regular, ideally downtown in San Francisco so I could walk to work and enjoy my beloved city. Though I've followed a few leads, nothing has panned out. My work portfolio is very strong, but it's also peculiar ... and of course the thing I'm best qualified to do is consulting, which is what I want to get away from.

About a month back, I flew down to San Diego for the day to meet with a guy I had worked with on a few Cooper projects over the years. He's a very smart executive who really understands my work, and ever since we first worked together he's tried to bring Cooper (and me in particular) in to work with every organization he's landed in. He is now CEO of a new company, Veoh, which is one of the companies delivering video over the Internet. We talk about what Cooper could do for them, and he says to me, that's great, but what I really want is to find a Director of User Experience, and I want it to be you. Come help us. Come help us fix television.

Okay, this is pretty much the opposite of what I would have wished for. It's not in San Francisco, where my father is. It's not full time design work as a craftsman, but managing a team, ambitiously “climbing the ladder.” It's not in San Francisco, where my soulmate is. It's not a little less work, but more. It's not in San Francisco, where my soul sister is. It's not in a thriving product company, but in the chaos of a startup. And it's not in San Francisco, my favourite place in the world, where like Tony Bennett I left my &^#@!! heart.

But.

It's a chance to tackle the corporate organizational problems that I've always said were the most important part of getting good interaction design. It's a chance to do it working with as design-attuned a CEO as I could ever hope to find. It's a chance to work on something that wouldn't just be another case study in my résumé, but something any future employer would have seen with their own eyes. It's a chance to work on a heck of an interesting problem. It's a chance to maybe ... just maybe ... walk away with a chunk of valuable stock. And it's a chance to maybe ... just maybe ... fix television.

How could I turn that down?

So I kept talking to the CEO: job description and logistics and money and all that. He wanted me right away.

I talked to my family about how we would handle things for my dad if I took the job. I talked to my soulmate and soul sister about whether we'd all go bonkers if I lived in San Diego. They all encouraged me to take the job. We found ways to make things work.

Naturally, I was on the road doing Cooper work in Canada, jet lagged out of my mind, while we were figuring this out.

I got back from Canada, took the Veoh job, quit my Cooper job ... and I've not had a minute to spare since.

I had to be back down in San Diego after just a few days ... during which time I still had obligations at Cooper to wrap up—not least a farewell lunch with my heroic colleagues who all dressed up in coats and ties for the occasion—in addition to packing for a week and a half in San Diego, and getting ready for the arrival of my family ...

... because my father was still recovering from surgery, and I was trying to get the paperwork squared away on the assisted living place we had finally lined up. My father wanted to stay in SF if he could move in to the new situation. So my mother and brother came out to handle his release from the hospital and bring the new place over the finish line. While I've been away, they've been using my apartment.

Meanwhile, I've been living in a hotel in San Diego, getting up to speed on a complicated business, wrapping up loose ends at Cooper, helping with Dad details by remote control, and trying to get the lay of the land to find a place to live in San Diego.

As I write this I'm waiting for a late flight back to SF so I can spend the weekend packing up all my worldly possessions, since I have to be in a meeting for my new employer in LA Monday morning, after which I'll be in San Diego, working and trying to land an apartment.

Because yeah, there it is, believe it or not I'm moving to San Diego.

Mind you, I'm not emigrating to there, I'm expatriating. I plan to spend most weekends in SF, visiting my father and friends and eating at Tí Couz.

Just as soon as the dust settles.

Congratulations, Al

He thought he lost the biggest contest of all.

This year he took home the Oscar and the Emmy. And now the most distinguished award in the world, the one they save for folks like Albert Schweitzer, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Elie Weisel.

People are saying he should run for President. But at this point, I think he's got better things to do with his time.