Archive - May 2004

Date

blogging vs. journaling

I've been keeping a journal since I was 17 (basically my entire adult life!). So this blogging thing seems redundant sometimes. Often, though, it seems like trying to keep 2 journals, because I obviously can write some things in my private little notebook that I wouldn't want to put here on the web. I value being transparent and open but there are limits. hah.

Also, the fact that this is syndicated on indyblogs has made me happy but also put a different feel on writing stuff. I feel like there is a definite audience of which I need to be conscious, and a larger audience. For example, there are a lot of uncomfortable, controversial things about Indymedia, both locally and globally, that I have been thinking about and discussing with others, but that I can't really voice here.

Meanwhile I keep losing my pens, my really good pens that make it a pleasure to write in my journal....

What am I doing, I guess I'm just providing excuses for why entries both here and in my journal have been few and far between...

sigh.

non-profit IT consulting for non-profits

I'm finally doing a little paying work, and it's for something I can get behind ethically for once, the
Collaborative Technologies project/group.

CollabTech is a relatively new project of Free Geek, the non-profit computer recycling/rebuilding/educating organization here in Portland. Read more>>>

really great article by Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut has always been one of my favorite writers. Such a wonderful way, he has, of mixing the humorous with the horrible. He just wrote a great little article called Cold Turkey for In These Times, about our current predicaments. (thanx 6rady)

bolivia videos

I've been and will be super busy this week, not only because i've finally found some paying work but also i've been rushing to finish some videos about Bolivia in time for a an evening of talks and videos on Saturday called Bolivia In Crisis. One video is brand new and based on footage I shot when I was there in December. Another is from last February, made by Bolivia IMC which I was given a copy of by Libertino of Uruguay IMC, to which we are adding a voiceover translation. Then there's one from Argentina IMC, and another by a trio of gringos who I don't know much about - I got their film, called "No Se Vende El Gas" from a Colorado State University student who I met in Cochabamba.

All of this is to raise money for our project to send computers to Bolivia. So I hope lots of people show up... ok, gotta run... busybusybusy...

Starsky and Christ

So I hapened to be listening to NPR's Marketplace just now and they had a little story about how The Passion of the Christ is the most popular illegally downloaded film on the internet right now, and how this popularity will surely lead to the making of a sequel. The commentator then suggested Hollywood would put out Starksy and Christ, since audiences liked Starsky but not Hutch. The guy went on to explain a little defensively how he only was thinking such crazy thoughts that others might think blasphemous because he lives in LA, and that's just how Hollywood types think. I found that the
idea is not new.

The most interesting thing about this, and otherwise I wouldn't mention it, is that before that segment on the radio show, during a break, an OPB announcer gave the warning that the next segment contained 'material that might be offensive to some listeners.' I listened to the whole segment and the only other stories were about Martha Stewart's show going on hiatus and a piece about skin creams that didn't really do anything to help with wrinkles.

So, it must have been the Christ thing that they were warning people about. Are there REALLY people out there, NPR listeners, that would be offended by that story? And was that something that just Oregon Public Broadcasting decided to do, or did all NPR affiliates make that announcement? Very strange.

The story behind Abu Ghraib

Very interesesting article in the New Yorker by Seymour M. Hersh about the secret intelligence program in the Pentagon that led to the abuses in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

I'm sure it's all true and none of it is very shocking, but it's fascinating to read how these things come down the chain of command, how and why these things come get out of control, etc.

The one thing that bothers me is something that bothers me in the news all the time - way too many anonymous sources. Virtually all the meat of this story is quotes from an unnamed "former intelligence official" and an unnamed "Pentagon consultant." What is going to stop Rumsfeld from just saying "that's all lies?" My pessimisstic feeling is that even after this expos

John Kerry

I've been enjoying this site called JohnKerryIsADoucheBagButImVotingForHimAnyway.com. There are some good essays there. Though I kind of think the over-use of the words whose root-words are "douche" as insults are unneccesary and sexist, the sentiment is right where I'm at: Kerry is not a very good choice for president, but I'm going to vote for him. The difference between him and Bush is probably even less than between Gore and Bush, but the difference is non-negligible, and small differences can translate to big effects for opressed people around the world.

How to Get Out of Iraq

The Nation has published essays by 11 different authors about why and how the U.S. should get out of Iraq. About time somebody did that. I of course was against going into Iraq but I have had a queasy mixed feeling about the 'Get Out of Iraq' movement lately. I haven't been able to articulate or see any good articulation of what should happen there and how just up and leaving would do any good. But some of these writings speak to that pretty well.

my trip presentation

My show at the KNOW the other night about my trip to south america went really well. There was a good turnout and we earned a lot of money for the Computers for Bolivia Project. Well, not a lot compared with how much we need, but it was something. Read more>>>

hoisted by my own

ok i'm mostly just posting this because i said if i didn't post for a few days i would have been apprehended by government security forces. Nothing of the kind, I've just been crazy busy (or maybe they just want you to think that).

All the busy is a good busy, but I can't help thinking it was avoidable. I'm giving a presentation about my trip to south america tommorrow, but I procrastinated on preparing for it - capturing the video and audio, etc. So I've been scrambling to do that. I think I procrastinated because, I think, I felt uncomfortable about looking at all that footage, for some reason. I found it difficult to do. Perhaps because those electronic representations are so far from the real experience. I don't know.