Well, this is really great news. A Chilean judge has indicted former dictator Augusto Pinochet. It's an amazing step for human rights but I find it incredible that he is only being charged with 9 kidnappings and one murder, connected with the infamous Operation Condor. I'm sure there's some legal reason why it's easier to convict him for these crimes than for the thousands of others he was responsible for, but it's still pretty insane.

Let's hope it actually goes to trial, and that the trial does not get cancelled because of Pinochet's supposed senile dementia. He apparently gave a lucid interview with a Miami TV station, so he seems fit to stand trial.

This evening I saw the new Werner Herzog film "Incident at Loch Ness." It is really really really great. It's the story of Herzog shooting a film that goes very wrong. I will not say anything else about it, because that would spoil it, except that it is very postmodern. If you haven't seen it, go, a soon as possible, and do not read any reviews or anything else about it, just go, before you know too much and your experience is ruined forever.

This wonderful "game" called "Tropical America", by OnRamp Arts in Los Angeles, is a visually and aurally beautiful interactive history lesson, spiritual journey and electronic poem dedicated to the struggles of Latin America. You register on the site and then guide a character around, accomplishing little tasks and talking to other people and creatures, occasionally being asked to make choices and answer questions. It's not a game in the sense of the hyperactive sensory overloads brought to us by Nintendo and company. It's more of a meditative and deliberate process that brings gentle lessons. It's so very
well done, too, a series of beautiful woodcuts come vividly to life.

I just had one of the stranger experiences in my career as a freelance computer consultant. I've been doing, now and then, little things for a local union local (heh), and talking with them about doing more. Today I came in just to go to a meeting that they were having with a rep from the company that wrote the software for their membership database and hosts the server it runs on. They're unhappy with it, but whenever they have questions they haven't felt like the guy was giving them the real deal. So my job was to just sit there and ask a few intelligent questions, provide a sanity check, and just make him uncomfortable. And it seemed to work. They said, afterward, that he was more helpful and forthcoming than he ever has been before. The fear that they may be hiring me, or anybody else, to do what his company does (and there's no way I easily could, or would want to, anyway) made him more cooperative.

What I kept wondering, and what I finally asked was, why doesn't the international union come up with a database solution that fits all the locals needs? why does each local have to reinvent the wheel everywhere? They agreed, it was silly, but evidently it's not a priority with this union. In fact, maybe all unions are like that, I don't know.

Anyway, I'm happy to be of assistance, but it sure felt weird.

Just found an interesting site about bilateral trade agreements. There's more information in one place than I've ever seen about all the different free trade agreements, separate from the WTO, that are being agreed on. They are all between unequal sides, mostly U.S. and some smaller, weaker country or countries, or the EU or Austrailia and some smaller, weaker, countries, except for China-Thailand, and even that is a pretty unequal relation. But anyway, bilaterals.org, what a great information source...

This is a silly thing, a sort of geeky pet-peeve complaint. So take with a grain of salt. Anyway, I've had this poster sitting on my desk for the last couple weeks, it's a flyer for this film screening for a group called PDX Books to Prisoners. I was actually going to try to go to the screening, which is called Born In Flames. Maybe that's the name of a film, I'm not sure, but it looked interesting, despite the linguistic error that I am about to mention. But I didn't make it to the event, so I took down a copy of the poster afterward, because it bothered me so much and I wanted to be reminded to write about it

My gripe is this: The poster has 4 equations which, at least 3 of which are obviously false. It has the following lines:

INJUSTICE =
RADICALISM


REPRESSION =
ARMED STRUGGLE


PATRIARCHY =
FEMINIST ARMY


BORN IN FLAMES =
REVOLUTION

My problem with this is that they're misusing the equals sign, such that their statements end up saying exactly the opposite of what they mean. They mean to assert a set of causes and effects, it looks like. What they really mean by "=" is "leads to" or "results in." But in math "=" means "is the same as." It does not mean "causes." So their poster is really saying "Injustice IS Radicalism," Repression IS armed struggle, Patriarchy IS Feminist Army," etc, which of course is not true. I don't know exactly what Born in Flames is so I can't say whether the fourth equation is false or not, though it probably is.

Maybe I'm just too ingrained in a math/science background, but I was actually confused for a minute when i first read the poster. Huh, I thought, are they being ironic? oh! they mean "repression LEADS TO armed struggle!" okay!

It's a silly thing to complain about but these are the kinds of things I notice a lot. I wish people were more careful with their language and their graphic design. Language means things we often don't intend unless we are very aware.

The other day someone mentioned a big Indymedia conference in Austin in February, and I looked it up and sure enough there it is, February 18 to 20. Sounds pretty cool. We need more events where people who are isolated in their own little collectives get together and compare notes, specifically about the indymedia tactic. I feel like there is a lot of re-inventing of the wheel, and mistakes being replicated....

I was planning to be in the Southwest again anyway at that time. Maybe I'll go. I think it would be wonderful to be there and meet a whole bunch of IMCistas from all over the place. As usual whether I go depends on whether I can afford it. I now have about 5 trips I want to make in the next 4 months: Chiapas for Spanish school, D.C for J20, D.C. in March for the final AFTA showdown, and the Collage Conference I've been invited to at U of Iowa at the end of March. And now this. Not to mention the fact that I want to move, probably to Tucson.

If you're planning on going, leave a comment, please.

Very good article about Bolivia in the "Rabble News" site, which I'd never heard of before (not affiliated with the anarchogeek Rabble - at least I don't think so. heh.)

Anyway, the article is a good and hopeful look at political change in Bolivia and centers around an interview with Oscar Olivera of the Cochabamba Guerra del Agua.

As timing would have it, speaking of hopeful, tommorrow (sunday) is a big election in Bolivia, and this article in the Financial Times suggests that Evo Morales' MAS party is going to do really well, at least compared to the more moderate parties. Things just keep staying interesting in Bolivia.

Today we're doing web radio to cover the AFTA ministerial and associated protests in Tucson, Arizona. Here in Portland we've got an 800 number and we're taking calls from activists on the street in Tucson and talking to them about what's happening there.
And of course anyone else could call in and offer their insights on free trade agreements and resistance to them.

the number is 1-800-939-7973. And you can listen to the stream here.

Woke up at about 5 and couldn't get to sleep again. Many would assume this is insomnia but I got plenty of sleep. I don't need a lot. Plus, I read in a book about Taoism a little while ago that the best way is to rise with the sun, it's the natural and healthy way. It wasn't quite sunrise yet, but still, in this time of year when there's only about 8 hours of sunlight it's good to be awake during as much of it as possible. For me, at least. It's nice how quiet it is in the very early morning, too, before anyone else is up.

Wow what a mundane post. oh well.