This article about wireless access points that run linux is pretty interesting. Lots of semi-utopian (capitalist-utopian) ideas about what to do with the things. But the point is that they are what Cringely, the author, calls a "disruptive technology." Cell phones, personal computers, and the internet itself are other examples of disruptive technologies. Yes.

The thing he fails to mention is that disruptions caused by disruptive technologies are not always a good thing. Nuclear fission is another disruptive techology. The powered looms that spawned the Luddites was another. The list could go on. It's like the assumption that all change is good that so many new economy business gurus preached. uh uh....

It brings to mind one of my favorite Marcuse quotes:

"The traditional notion of the 'neutrality' of technology can no longer be maintained."
-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

(thanx matisse)

So I just found out about this rather promiscuous female blogger who worked in DC for a Republican Senator from Ohio. She blogged about her quite active sex life, juggling 6 different men. Not only did she fuck a lot of men in a short time but some of them were paying her to do it. Eventually she was fired, supposedly for "misuse of office equipment" (she posted to her blog from her office computer). Read more>>>

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.

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>>>

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)

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...

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.

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

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.

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.