The Mesosphere

Creative Writing.

2011-10-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

I started writing about California when I moved back (to Santa Cruz, in August 2011).

Just what I saw. And taking photos.

This is probably the best blog I've done:

here.

This blog has moved

2011-02-12T21:55:00.001-08:00

I do love this blog but have moved on up to the Wordpress in the sky:

www.hannahmiller.net.

The Dangerous Adventures of the Internet in Space, a cartoon

2010-12-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

It's a funny cartoon about the FCC trying to make net neutrality rules and forgetting about space!

Click here for larger image or PDF. It's pretty detailed.

I had a lot of fun this week playing around with and learning Twitter (it was a good week for that). I haven't had a lot of time to really mess with it in the past but insofar as clumsy, beginning-of-a-new-era-of-information-organization, toddler-pointing-at-something-and-saying-'RED' tools go, it has promise! Follow at: http://twitter.com/#!/hannahmiller215

NOTE: I am moving most of my online content (including this here blog) onto HannahMiller.net, now hosted at hannahmiller215.wordpress.com until 2 months from now when Wordpress is no longer trendy and I have to move all my stuff again to the next big thing. As Kay sighs in Men in Black: "I have to buy the White Album again!?"

That means all incoming links are still going to hannahmiller.net but not to Wordpress, which screws up my communication with other sites...if anyone knows how to deal with this problem, email me.

NOTE: My email is also new: hmiller430 at gmail.com. Had to close golden.notebook because Google thought I sent out too many emails during the 2010 general. Yeah.

This Time, It's About the Music.

2010-11-14T07:57:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, Monday, November 15, is the Prometheus Radio Project's National Call-in Day to pass the Local Community Radio Act.

For ten years, the radio pirates of Philadelphia and their cohorts all over the country have fought to pass this law, which would give the completely stale form of FM radio a total reset. This bill, two Senators away from passing, would create thousands of non-profit, community radio stations from Hawaii to Maine. We could even have little low-power radio stations here in Philadelphia! Just think. Ogontz FM. Forgotten Bottom Radio. The Voice of Bridesburg.

If you've ever driven across any part of this beautiful country, and turned off your damn Ipod, and tried to find something on the dial that really made you jump, and wondered where all the music had gone - well, then please come by tomorrow to the basement of Calvary Church at 48th and Baltimore, for an hour, to make calls, 10 to 4 pm.

----------

PROMETHEUS RADIO CALL IN DAY - NOV 15 - 10 - 4

We need your help! Last chance this year to pass the Local Community Radio Act!

ALL HANDS ON DECK! This is our last big chance to pass the Local Community Radio Act this year and open up the airwaves for thousands of new community radio stations across the country. With your help, we could win this by the end of the year. We are so close!!

Please come by the Prometheus office for an hour to eat some pizza and make some calls to ...our supporters and friends around the country to ask them to call their senators.

When: Monday, Nov. 15 from 10am - 4pm (one hour shifts if you can)

Where: Prometheus Headquarters at the Calvary Church on 48th and Baltimore ave (ring the doorbell on the side door on the 48th st. side)

Why: This is it! We are down to the wire, it is do or die, the last big chance this year to pass the Local Community Radio Act.

Click here to sign up for a shift!
http://www.helpersignup.com/viewsheet.php?type=2&sheet=5855152fbdac3dec426a3a1eac8e32e0

How to restart your life, or: H2O

2010-10-07T22:54:00.001-07:00

Want to hear something spooky?

Time is working differently for me, these days.

My sense of time and what it is and what it represents has changed remarkably in the last five months, since I left DC and decided to shake off all that rattles. Time does not move ahead ploddingly forward like it always has, or fly by. Time seems to have slowed down significantly. I savor it now. And sometimes – and this is really cool, it doesn’t happen very often… when things are really humming, it seems sometimes like time were moving backward.

As if I were getting younger. Which I actually think I am. After getting really old really fast, it now seems like I am living my life in reverse.

I used to be in the habit of getting through unpleasant episodes by saying to myself, just hang on Hannah, this will all be over soon. But I stopped. How could I wish away a part of my own life? It’s like wishing yourself a step closer to death. It doesn’t matter what is happening to you, it doesn’t matter if you just lost someone or if you are miserable or angry or frustrated, it doesn’t matter where the pain comes from or how it hits you, it is your one own beautiful glorious stupid life.

About four months ago, I realized that I had been terribly mistaken about the value of this hamster wheel ladder of success bullshit that had taken me to DC in the first place. I wish I had figured this out earlier, and not wasted ages 30 to 34 trying to prove I-don’t-know-what for I-don’t-remember-what-reason. But hey, I’m lucky, it could be a lot worse. Some people spend their whole life panting with their little rodent haunches on the wheel.

I quit my job, got rid of my apartment, and then one weekend began to give away my stuff. I started very causally with the VHS tapes, then it started really gaining steam, and just started dumping appliances out on the sidewalk.

The world I had chosen to enter was just awful. A whole city of political unprofessionals, waiting to speak in the meetings in their assigned order – it made monsters of normal, soft human beings who should have been playing the timbal somewhere.

Watching the progressives was extra depressing – these people sharing the same ideals, pushing each other aside, breathlessly claiming credit, lining up in the great factory production line of hackneyed sayings and stale ideas, a giant writhing mass of bodies all trying to manipulate each other. The only possible reaction I could have to all of this was, naturally, to want to move to the opposite side of the country, hide somewhere in the redwoods, write a book, get a medical marijuana prescription, and learn how to convert cool old diesel Volkswagens to run on honey and wisteria.

How do you restart your own life? How do you shake it all off like it’s a bad dream? And how, especially, do you do this when a large part of what you want to shake off is your nasty, annoying, immature, selfish needy weirdo younger self? And how, especially especially, are you supposed to do that when you had to make all of your beginning mistakes in public?

My family moved around a lot when I was young, in search of happiness in anonymity. It’s the frontier mentality: the crazy people who leave the small town because they are tired of being talked about. It is much harder to recreate your own life in the same place as your old one, while hanging out in the same place, and doing the same work.

It is my new mission in life: to be in politics, and do it right, and not accumulate the barnacles on my personality. The nastiness, the control, the anger, the spite.

POWER! Power power power! You just don’t know where it’s going to come from, and you never know what it’s going to do – or what it’s going to do to you. It comes out of the ground, I think. Often this force that blows through you does you damage – wears you out, throws all sorts of shadows on you, warps your personality. Fighting all the time, fear, anxiety, it’s a plague.

I am trying to be as simple as a conduit as I can be, from now on. There is no choice, really. I think I will be the river channel I have always wanted to be.

I have a lovely sense of inevitability about it. I have a lovely sense of inevitability about everything, actually. Very few people get to start their life over again anew, which is what I am doing now. Completely different. No more bubble gum. No more disrespect. No more NOTHING that does not make the soles of my feet feel good. Everyone should follow these rules. All the time.

I’m even listening to early rock and roll, that’s how young I am becoming again. I am listening to Chuck Berry and early Beatles and the Beach Boys. It is like those opiates at the base of your spine but, instead, you can dance.

So yeah. I have to find a new place to live. I have to find a job past November. I have to replace some of those appliances. I have to buy a really good stereo with really good speakers. Hardwood floors with really thick rugs.

I don’t really know what’s going to happen, although I do know one thing: the next segment of my life is going to be so much better than the last segment that there will be no comparison whatsoever.

Right now I am organizing a statewide conference on Saturday, Oct. 16 in Harrisburg for the Marcellus Shale grassroots movement across the state. That’s a five-year campaign to protect our incredibly beautiful state from being poisoned by the most powerful corporations on the planet, the multinational oil companies. I don’t know whether I get to work on that fulltime, but it's my kind of fight, and it's definitely the most incredibly complicated multilevel puzzle I have ever seen, the kind of thing that will keep me challenged for years. After Congress, the PA state legislature seems adorable.

And I tell you, this one’s going to be a doozy. It's going to have all sorts of far-reaching long-term effects that I can't even begin to predict now. Party registration. Campaign finance. Zoning law. Pretty much the Philly casino fight times one million.

And it's visceral. It's going to be the people of Pennsylvania standing in front of their homes holding shotguns and growling ‘get your asses off our land’; and when I say I have a sense of inevitability, I will say now, this one feels like when you are inside, and there’s a great windstorm rattling the windows, shaking them so bad you think they are going to break, and you know that all you have to do is reach up and unhook a tiny little rusty metal latch and the wind is so powerful it will knock open all the the windows with a roar.

That's how I feel about this one.

And so I guess this is why I learned to campaign, after all. Thank god there turned out to be a reason for all of that.

It should be fun. Now GO PHILLIES!

Look What We Have Done

2010-05-20T10:23:00.001-07:00

This is the ocean on fire.

----

I have been given my writing prompt, finally, in the serendipitous manner in which real writing prompts are given - by the great Chance Williams, my co-worker and dear, dear friend. "You should explain how truth happens," he says to me. Just like that.

Truth is happening to me, now, without me having anything to do with it other than simply asking it to show up. I am leaving a lot of things behind - my job, my assumptions, most of my belongings, which I am blissfully selling or giving away at an astonishing rate. I have finally grown up - that is, realized very deeply that I am going to die someday, and that to waste any further time than is necessary on the unending battle over resources would be to show the gift of my own life the most intolerable disrespect.

So, wow. What an assignment.

To explain how truth happens.

Reply comments

2010-04-28T18:42:00.001-07:00

Stream of Consciousness Blog Entry

2010-03-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

One of the best ways of learning about what's going on with yourself - I mean, what's REALLY going on with yourself, meaning the things that you don't even know about yourself that are percolating in your own mind - is to sit down and write about something completely different. Usually, interesting stuff just floats up from your own unconscious like so many chunks of ice.

The older I get, the more comfortable my own brain gets with the idea of communicating the real Hannah to the (and I say this with all hilarity and affection) busy-bee bullshit rule-following hamster-running-on-a-wheel boring-as-hell ambitious business-card-flinging Girl-Scout-civics-lesson penitent guilt-ridden half-a-calorie-counting serious-as-a-heart-attack Metro-Stations-of-the-Cross work-ethic conscious mind that has made my life a living hell since adolescence, but I haven't got back to the garden yet, so until that day comes, I will have to work at it to nudge the doors of perception a little opener.

CONSCIOUS MIND: But, but..? Are you sure that's a word, Hannah? "Opener"?

UNCONSCIOUS MIND:

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!

OF COURSE IT'S A F____G WORD!

HOW THE HELL ELSE

ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO GET SOUP

OUT OF A CAN?

--------------------

I was always really impressed by Burning Man. I never went, but wow! It's not just the sheer logistical nightmare and wonderment of it. It's not just that I love art that is created only to be destroyed. It's not just the barter-only economy. It's not just the lovely tank top I have with their lovely slogan "Joy Is a Form of Protest," brought back as a gift from my lovely ex who probably went to look at drugged naked women spray-painted in tiger stripes.

The real thing that blows my mind about Burning Man and the whole culture is that it's really a gigantic pagan ritual that has sprung up as a result of and commentary on the carbon combustion age. We are all Burning Men. It's a ritualistic and cultural expression of the fossil fuel economy.

I wish I were more familiar with it so I could draw out this argument in depth, but the only other think I can think of in the same category is that town in India where they ceremonially burn Santa Claus. Which is not all that different, really, and perhaps more meaningful since cremation is kind of the industry standard there.

I find it almost unfathomably creepy and horrible that our civilization is entirely powered by burning the remains of beings that died millions of years ago. We're literally burning our ancestors. We are powering these millions of cars and all those blinking little appliances in our homes and apartments on fossilized dead bodies.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that the implications of this practice are massively destructive, from the degradations imposed by the extraction industries, through the pollution caused by refining and shipping, and then the release of carbon dioxide in combustion, which has already started the greatest man-made environmental disaster in human history.

They should have known from the beginning that there was going to be some kind of devil's bargain with petroleum. It's far too powerful. Human beings aren't supposed to be whizzing in and out of cities in giant tanks of steel at 70 mph for their daily commute. Human beings actually really shouldn't ever go 70 mph an hour in their life. (Except on a train, IMHO).

There is very little of our daily life that corresponds to the way that human beings have lived for millennia; at least in the United States, most of the country's physical landscape has been completely reordered around this. Not to mention the mountains that we are currently being leveled, or the fracking pumps injecting radioactive water 8,000 feet into the ground to crack open bedrock so gas can escape. That's just baaaaad voodoo.

Links:

Award-winning new documentary on fracking and the oil and gas industry, which is coming to mess with PA very soon: Gasland (screening in Philly on April 10).

CAN YOU DO THIS WITH YOUR TAP WATER? from JOSHFOX on Vimeo.

Democratic candidate Joe Hoeffel is the only candidate in the Pennsylvania Governor's race to call for a moratorium on gas drilling/fracking wells. (New York already has, considering it far too dangerous.) His position is here.

The Oil and Gas Accountability Project at Earthworks.

And of course, love to Greenpeace, the organization that made me a liberal by canvassing my house when I was 12 or 13. The canvasser showed me photos of dead elephants and burning rainforests, and I got very upset, gave her all my allowance, and the next day canceled my subscription to the National Review. Never let anyone tell you that going door to door doesn't work.

Joe Hoeffel for Governor of Pennsylvania

2010-02-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

"Of course I'm endorsing Joe. He's the only one who can take the heat."

- Democratic Committeeman, Bucks County.

It is often said that 'politics is the art of the possible.'

But in my experience, I have found that there are huge differences of opinion as to what, exactly, is possible - how high are our goals and ideals, and how hard we should to fight to achieve them.

There are some leaders whose definition of the word 'possible' are truly expansive, and truly visionary. And luckily for us, one of them is running for Governor this year: former Congressman Joe Hoeffel, from the township of Abington, Montgomery County, PA... and with your help and strong support, he can be Pennsylvania's next Governor.

County Commissioner Joe Hoeffel is a pro-labor, feminist, pro-environment progressive who has been running against Republicans in Republican-majority Montgomery County for 32 years, beating them, and then working constructively together to forge consensus. In this, he is very rare.

During his three terms in the U.S. Congress, four terms in the PA legislature, and three terms as Montgomery County Commissioner, Joe maintained a voting record that earned him a 100 percent approval rating from the Sierra Club, 97 percent from the AFL-CIO, and 100 percent from Planned Parenthood. The first bill he passed, in 1978 at age 27, instituted campaign finance reform in Pennsylvania. Joe is a principled, ethical, passionate leader who has been tireless about standing up for what is right, and because of his popularity in the Philadelphia suburbs - the 'swing area' in most statewide elections - he has by far the strongest chance to beat the Republican machine in November.

Donate and volunteer today. Even donations like $20 or $50 add up - donate today. Joe needs your help gathering signatures as well to get him on the ballot... to tell your friends, to hold house parties. Early support matters the most!

Joe wants to return to Harrisburg to enact policies that would fix our ongoing budget crises and imbalances in order to make our economy stronger and produce jobs, protect our forests and waterways from the ravages of gas drilling, and stop the Stupak-style erosion of womens' rights to reproductive health. Joe's policy proposals and endorsements are posted here. Please call the campaign office to help Joe or if you have any questions: 215-302-2010.

Thank you!

Hannah Miller

Monday, Feb. 15 in Philly: The Bills Are Too High

2010-02-04T17:31:00.000-08:00

The Bills are Too High:
Community education and support on rising costs of gas, electric, cable and internet - our basic utility needs.
Monday, February 15th from 6pm - 8pm
Tuttleman Learning Center room 105 at the intersection of 13th and Montgomery
Philadelphia, PA
www.mediamobilizingproject.org

The Bills are Too High is a community educational event and support on the increases in the costs of basic utilities that are affecting our city and state. In a city where unemployment has climbed over 10% and nearly one and four live in poverty, paying the bills is a struggle for many of us. From electricity, to cable, gas, and internet, federal and state actions are making it harder every day for Philadelphians to meet our basic needs.

The beginning of this year marked increases as high as 40% in the electric bills throughout Central PA. Jan 2011 will see more increases for all those in the Philadelphia area served by PECO/ Excelon because of deregulation.

With Internet and Cable major companies like Verizon and AT&T are pushing federal law makers to allow discrimination of content on the internet, a move that would make the internet more expensive for everyone.

Along with this Comcast is looking to buy NBC/Universal. From past experiences of deals like this such a move means less channels for viewers and higher monthly bills.

And many people going through the winter without heat were almost kept in the cold because of a lack of funds for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). More funds were distributed but the program is under extra stress because of the economic down-turn.

Through out the evening there will be support to sign up for LIHEAP and other utility benefits, take action to make cable and internet affordable, and a listening booth to share your own story.

The Bills are Too High will take place at Temple University Main Campus, Tuttleman Learning Center room 105 at the intersection of 13th and Montgomery, on Monday, February 15th from 6pm - 8pm.

For more information, email bmercer@gmail.com.

Fun Propaganda!

2010-01-31T15:51:00.001-08:00

Rip! a Remix Manifesto is a great documentary for anyone who has ever downloaded anything for free and kind of wondered whether they should be worried about copyright - and even more so for mashup artists, which I didn't even know I was, but I am myself! I saw it at Argus Fest in Denver, a series of cool documentaries shown in cafes there.

Here is a great section. (can get the whole thing here):

The art of Ricardo Levins Morales:

This is one of the artists in the clip above, Negativland, who happened to make a piece on Pay TV Versus Free TV (this one's for my media justice buddies):

And if you've already watched the clip from Rip! from above, here is the Open Source Cinema animated clip:

Infrastructure Campaign Blues

2010-01-24T21:32:00.000-08:00

Across the spectrum of those who work for progressive issues and candidates (climate change, civil rights, Hoeffel for Governor, etc), there is a special little corner of those of us who work on what I call ‘infrastructure issues.’

What we do affects the outcome, in some small way, of the rest of the fights. What we do is to try to change the framework of rules that govern the flow of money and influence and power (and, in my case, the flow of information) that, in turn, decide which voices get heard in all the other debates.

It sounds like it would be understood as important, but unfortunately, to care about infrastructure reform, or to understand why it is necessary, requires a deep understanding of how the American political system works and a desire to work on obscure issues, both of which do not often simultaneously occur. The types of reforms I am talking about span from voter enfranchisement, to media democratization, to campaign finance reform, to public finance of campaigns, and reform of the redistricting process itself.

We toil somewhat in obscurity, and these issues are generally some of the hardest to organize on, because they require fairly extensive political education. Most folks already have their issues, and at best, what we do is seen as secondary. I had been meaning to write about this for a while, but my hand was forced by the very grievous injustice perpetrated upon the American people this week by the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United. The American people – and all those who live here, citizens or not – deserve so much better than they got this week.

I work on the same floor of a Dupont Circle office building as the headquarters of Common Cause. They are my friends. Bob Edgar brings in coffee cakes for the staff. On our floor, Common Cause is known for their amazing holiday decorations.

Campaign finance reform was one of the first political causes I ever cared about, before I had even ever worked in politics or covered elections. The Media and Democracy Coalition, for whom I work, comes out of the same lineage, and I remember, after about 7 months of organizing on media reform, how amazed I was that Common Cause had managed to build state chapters – state chapters for an infrastructure campaign! It seems almost quaint, imagining a time when Americans still felt that they had enough control over their own government to go to a Common Cause chapter meeting about how to change it. It’s one thing to do that in Philadelphia, it’s another thing entirely when it comes to Congress. There’s a poster on the wall in the Common Cause offices: EVERYONE IS ORGANIZED BUT THE PEOPLE – John Gardner.

I’m an organizer, and the apathy on the part of the American populace is so overwhelming at times.

It’s become so obvious for me during the last two jobs I’ve had. In one of the jobs I had in 2008 (it was healthcare reform), everyone believed that the healthcare system sucked, but felt powerless to do anything.

Now, in my current job, everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) HATES the media, hates almost everything about it, without any limit: the crappy radio, the lack of good information on television, the sensationalism, the reality shows, the high cable or dish TV rates, the portrayals of women, the portrayals of African Americans, the portrayals of any other racial minority, of seniors, of immigrants, of teenagers, of pretty much everybody except white male serial killers or plastic surgeons wearing sexily weathered J. Crew t-shirts, the fact their local newspaper doesn’t actually tell them what’s in the healthcare bill, the fact that games from their publicly-funded sports team sucking the tax dollars out of their nearly-bankrupt city are only available to paying cable customers, they pretty much hate EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MEDIA as it is now, with the exception of the Internet, which is facing an onslaught of pressure by people who are hellbent on ruining it like the rest of the media. And even with all that, all those grievances, they still don't believe they can change anything.

That’s how people feel about the campaign I work for now. They all already agree with how messed up everything is. It’s exactly how the American public feels about money in politics. It is universally understood, the need for campaign finance reform.

So where does the transfer stop? How is there universal agreement on what’s wrong, and so little hope that one can change it? How do we go from ‘core American value’ – the easiest thing on which to motivate a group….to waking up one morning to Citizens United?

On CSPAN radio the day that CU went down, I heard a commentator say, “this decision really highlights the loss of Sandra Day O’Connor from the bench, with her legislative experience.”

Yeah.

I haven’t read the decision, but the implication of this comment was that the rest of the Supreme Court did not think that corporate campaign contributions have an undue influence on Congress.

Yeah.

I do not know how you get to be a Supreme Court Justice without understanding such a thing, but there seems to be a failure in our educational system on that point. My friend on Facebook wrote today, “it’s okay, it can be overturned, remember, Plessy vs. Ferguson was overturned by Brown vs. Board of Education.”

There is that much sorrow. It is a death, especially when you think about the minor voodoo miracle it took to pass McCain Feingold in the first place.

There was a part in Michael Moore’s Capitalism that was hard to forget. It was the part about the Citigroup memo, leaked to a reporter in 2005, that outlined CitiGroup’s political sociology about globalization. I’ve linked to it here, but I just want to highlight the point Moore made in the movie: that CitiGroup analysts truly felt that the top 1 percent of earners in America were running the country again, and that there was only one last bothersome thing getting in the way: the fact that the American Constitution still guaranteed “one person, one vote.”

We are at a time of such great flux that it is hard to see the future. In a way, there might be something very real, and very good, coming out of this (and I don’t just mean it the way my dear friends mean it: as in, you have to smack your head against the concrete to wake up and fight again, etc etc.)

In a world where the media has so fragmented and exploded, in a way that devalues the word and overwhelms the Story itself, and where political advertising becomes more openly corporate (depending on transparency law), it’s possible that we might actually have to, out of necessity, return to the good old-fashioned form of political communication – talking to our neighbors and friends. Which is what people like me - who like talking - have been hoping for all along.

It has occurred to me that political communication online now, especially on friendship-networks Facebook – where you get your ideas and news from your friends – is not really all that different from community-based organizing, or even ye olde Philadelphia ward system. The apathy and trust levels have sunk so low that this is really the last space where political communication is taken at face value. To have all of this devalued might not be a tremendously bad thing at all. We'll see. I would really appreciate any thoughts you have.

Beautiful Things from My Travels.

2010-01-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

I travelled a lot in December, and have been greatly changed by it. I went to the Philly burbs for my brother's wedding, went to Amsterdam with a dear friend, came back to DC, then drove to Mississippi where we moved my grandfather into an old folks' home called Wellington Place...then drove to Tennessee to see my mother and sister...then went to Atlanta just to mess around.

Here are some of the beautiful things I would like to post here:

Painting: "Great Bridge, Sudden Storm at Atake" by Ando Hiroshige. There is a replica in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam because he liked it so much he painted his own version. I love this painting. If you could see detail, the little people on the bridge are rendered very expressively; they are kind of freaking out in their wet kimonos and running. It's very humorous and cute and it reminds us that, in the end, we are just little clueless fumbling human beings in a much larger universe.

BOOK: This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

It's about Paradise. I did not think that Aldous Huxley was as good as creating Paradise as he was at creating Hell. But I should have known.

I bought it at the Friday bookmarket in Amsterdam. They have a book market every Friday in the same place! It's what people do on Friday nights.

While in Atlanta I went to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change; there was much I did not know or understand until this trip, and it was fortunate I was there. I particularly want to read his last book, written in 1967. It also struck me how different it was for him and the SCLC organizing in Southern vs. Northern cities. (see below, a clip of King on nonresistance vs. nonviolent resistance.)

Listened to Indian music... a mix...

Listened to a lot of Miriam Makeba:

Two versions of "Wade in the Water" by Eva Cassidy:

Original gospel version:

Wade In The Water - n/a

And quite amazing soul-jazz rendition by Ramsey Lewis:

And since this post is getting a little too heavy on the God, here's a clip from Bill Maher's "Religulous," which was a hilarious movie:

Starting Anew.

2009-12-24T04:25:00.000-08:00

Shiva vs. the self.

It has recently occurred to me that I have been grievously mistaken about the proper way to conduct a human life.

I owe an apology to many people I have injured in my foolishness. I have been blind.

I am going to fix this.

Happy New Year everyone.

Giant Corporations Threaten Political Speech Online

2009-11-01T08:13:00.000-08:00

On Friday, the Media and Democracy Coalition stood with SEIU, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Healthcare for America Now, small business owners, Greenpeace, PennEnvironment, AFSCME, MoveOn, Change to Win, the Sierra Club, and many other groups in denouncing the regressive policies of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at its meeting in Philadelphia.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been fighting healthcare reform, climate change legislation, and President Obama's attempt to guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of expression online. I spoke to warn my fellow organizers - and all those concerned about freedom of speech - about the growing threat from the giant corporations that control the Internet, and the need to make net neutrality the law. My remarks are below; please go to SavetheInternet.com for more information.

Will the Birthplace of American Democracy Kill Freedom on the Internet?

2009-10-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, of Erie.

This is almost impossible to believe - but it's actually true.

About a month ago, the Obama administration announced its intent to write policy that would protect, by law, the freedom that has allowed the Internet to grow and flourish.

It's no joke that such protection is needed. Repression of the Internet by the corporations that control it has already started.

Last month, Apple told a healthcare reform group that they wouldn't carry a healthcare reform app on their AT&T network for 30 million iPhones because it was "politically charged"...

...two years ago, it was Verizon refusing to transmit text messages from NARAL Pro-choice America.

...and in 2007, in the most famous case of all, the Comcast Corporation blocked Internet users from sending the Bible.

As with most other good things that the Obama administration is trying to do, this has been lost in a flood of lobbyists, all arguing that having unchecked corporate power over the most vital part of our economy, political life, social networks, communication tools, reference libraries, and grassroots organizing would be really great for America. (I have cross posted a great piece by Jason Rosenbaum below explaining this in more detail).

Last Friday, 72 Democratic house members signed on to a letter agreeing with the lobbyists.

Among them were members from the great state of Pennsylvania, where American democracy was invented and the Bill of Rights was written - ensuring freedom of speech, freedom to assemble - all of the democratic powers that the Internet magnifies for millions more.

Here's who came out against the future of the Internet last week:

Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper
Rep. Chris Carney
Rep. Allyson Schwartz
Rep. Chaka Fattah
Rep. Tim Holden
....AND Representative Bob Brady - in whose district sits the National Constitution Center, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin's first printing press, and pretty much all of the intellectual and moral heritage we are so very quickly as a nation flushing down the toilet.

The rules being written now will shape the future direction of the Internet over the next 20 years. It either can remain a village: fun, chaotic, free, humble, an experimental and educational space ... or turn into something that looks much more like a suburban strip mall: soulless, commercial, and cold.

I believe that Congress wants to protect the Internet. But they have a lot of pressure on them right now.

And they need to hear from you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Crossposted at Fire Dog Lake:

A Very Odd Letter from Democrats and Telecom Lobbyists on Net Neutrality

A very odd letter from Democrats and telecom lobbyists on net neutrality
By: Jason Rosenbaum Saturday October 17, 2009 1:00 pm
On Thursday, 72 Democrats sent a letter to the Chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski. The letter concerns net neutrality, which, according to the Chairman, is set to be enshrined as the FCC’s official policy.

The letter is very odd, especially if you’re not well versed in telecom lobbyist lingo. It lays out “concerns” relating to net neutrality that really don’t make much sense.

The heart of the letter reads:

As the FCC embarks on its much anticipated rulemaking addressing the subject of “net neutrality,” we therefore urge the Commissioner to carefully consider the full range of potential consequences that government action may have on network investment. We are confident that an objective review of the facts will reveal the critical role that competition and private investment have played — and of necessity will continue to play — in building robust broadband networks that are safe, secure and open. In light of the growth and innovation in new applications that the current regime has enabled, as compared to the limited evidence demonstrating any tangible harm, we would urge you to avoid tentative conclusions which favor government regulation.

Clearly, these Members of Congress are urging the Commissioner not to adopt net neutrality standards. But the argument they’re making is very curious. They point to the innovation that drove the creation and adoption of the Internet and broadband technologies as a reason to keep government regulation out of the picture.

On the surface, this might be convincing. After all, the Internet has grown up just fine without these regulations, why would we need them now. That is, until you realize that net neutrality is already the de-facto law of the land.

Right now, we have net neutrality in deed if not word. The FCC has enforced the provision, too, as Chairman Genachowski explained:

We’ve already seen some clear examples of deviations from the Internet’s historic openness. We have witnessed certain broadband providers unilaterally block access to VoIP applications and implement technical measures that degrade the performance of peer-to-peer software distributing lawful content. We have even seen one service provider deny users access to political content.

And as many members of the Internet community and key Congressional leaders have noted, there are compelling reasons for concern about even greater challenges to openness in the future, including reduced choice in the Internet service provider marketplace and an increase in the amount of Internet traffic, which has fueled a corresponding need to manage networks sensibly.

The rise of serious challenges to the traditional operation of the Internet puts us at a crossroads. We could see technology used to shut doors to entrepreneurs instead of opening them. The spirit of innovation stifled. A full and free flow of information compromised.

Or we could take steps to preserve a free and open Internet, helping to ensure a future of opportunity, prosperity, and the vibrant flow of information and ideas.

I believe we must choose to safeguard the openness that has made the Internet a stunning success. That is why today, I delivered a speech announcing that the FCC will be the smart cop on the beat when it comes to preserving a free and open Internet.

In other words, the Internet grew up to be the amazing tool it is today precisely because net neutrality reigned. Recently, telecom companies have started to change that.

In this light, the 72 Democrats who signed this letter don’t have much of an argument. They correctly note that the Internet has grown up well in the open platform it was given, a platform that includes net neutrality. And then they proceed to argue against making these rules formal. It makes no sense…

…until you consider the lobbyists.

As Free Press notes:

The big phone and cable companies have launched an all-out assault on Capitol Hill to try to stop Net Neutrality. They’ve hired hundreds of lobbyists, spent tens of millions of dollars, and unleashed sleazy Astroturf groups to mislead politicians, distort the facts, and resurrect long-debunked myths.

The bad news is that these dirty and deceitful tactics appear to be working on a few people who should know better.

This afternoon, several dozen Democrats sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking them to walk away from their plans to protect Net Neutrality.

Their letter parrots telco talking points — which had to come from somewhere, and it certainly wasn’t from the more than 1.6 million people who have signed a petition in support of Net Neutrality.

This is a campaign by telecom lobbyists to block net neutrality from being preserved, using a false talking point about increased regulation. And yes, these Democrats really should know better, especially people like Jared Polis, who’s trying to have it both ways by defending this letter and saying he supports net neutrality.

It is because of net neutrality that we have blogs like this one. It’s because of net neutrality that we have Google, YouTube, Facebook, and all the other sites we take for granted every day. And there’s nothing wrong with the FCC making net neutrality a formal rule so this innovation can continue into the future.

Sign the petition supporting net neutrality and watch out for that telecom spin.

This Week in WTF is this?!?

2009-09-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

You know, I love it here. You know, I hate it here. You know, I am really lucky to be here and be doing this. You know, why the hell did I decide to get into politics. You know, I am lucky just to have a job. You know, I am cursed, I am cursed cursed cursed. You know, I have never been happier in my life. You know, I was so much happier when I was 22 and waiting tables. You know, it’s just going to get worse, all of it. You know, my life is going to get better and better every year until I die. You know you know you know you know no no no you don’t know. You don’t know anything at all. Anything. At. All.

1. Hospice. The word ‘hospice.’ WTF is this??!? Is this a made-up word? Is this another motherfucking made-up word? Is this a word that was made up to sound just a little bit like ‘hospital’ to avoid talking about the end of life? What kind of person would make up a new word like that? A lying word like that? What kind of person would make up a word to cover the truth? What kind of person would sin so fundamentally against the nature of language – that being, communication – that they would make up a word to avoid communicating?

2. Lyrics. Lyrics being a lot harder than music. WTF is this?!?!? Why are lyrics so much harder than music? So our little cadre – the Impromptu Task Force to Inject Hilarity into Technology Policy – we have been writing some songs about broadband. So inspired by Mary Alice's AMC-side stylings, I get into my head the word ‘BROADband’ to the refrain of ‘Roxanne’ by the Police.

“Hey guys!” I say. “We should write lyrics to the Sting song…broad-band/You don’t have to turn on the red light/turn on the red light…walk the pipes for money...something like that!”

But what I discovered is, the lyrics don’t just follow. Writing lyrics is really really hard, especially if you already think of an overlay to a tune. We sat at Busboys and Poets on the last night of Knowledge Exchange and tried, and it was very difficult to do, regardless of the amount of red wine consumed.

“Broadband… you want to watch YouTube all night…”

“Broadband…it’s not a privilege it’s a right…ever since I knew ya, I want to download to ya…”

“I think upload sounds better than download.”

“Yeah, it’s dirtier. You know: I wanna UP load to ya (Marvin Gaye vocal thrust)”

“We can’t think about broadband as a prostitute. We should think about her as a prude, and she should spread her love with everyone?"

At this point, Dan opens a GoogleDoc of lyrics… but lyrics are still hard, WTF.

3. The incredible police repression at the G-20. WTF is this!?!

4. Elliot Smith, currently playing in the Big Bear café as I write this. Still, Elliot Smith. Still. WTF is this?!?!?

5. “Death!” said Lauren Townsend. “What is that? What is that?!”

6. The trailer for 2012. WTF is this?!? Another movie about the end of the world, with a black President. In the last shot of the trailer, the giant destroyer U.S.S. John F. Kennedy falls on top of the White House. WTF is this?!?

7. According to the Washington Post, the Democratic Party is having a hell of a time raising money from rich people because of the ‘extreme anti-business tone of the current administration and Congress.’ WTF is this?!?

8. Amalia Deloney’s passionate speech about communications rights and oppression of poor people under that bigass American flag in a hearing room in the Rayburn building. I think this is an anti-WTF is this!??!

9. Everyone in this coffeeshop has a computer on their table. Everyone. WTF is this?!?

10. Ship-to-shore radio. My grandfather - he was a Communications officer in the Navy for 8 years – he took my hand, and he put it over the two metal nails under his skin above his chestplate. “Feel that,” he said. “That’s the heart transplant.

“I’ve been through hell,” he said, and he stared at me, and I had never seen so far into his eyes. “Two wars. My friends, shot. I’ve been through hell.”

WTF is this?!?

Hannah

Gotta get back to writing!

2009-09-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

see more Lol Celebs

I gotta start writing more again! Too much stress, unfocused, too much to do, etc. I haven't even started guitar lessons yet.

Lest Ye Forget the Tale of the Zombie Budget

2009-08-17T02:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I got an impassioned email plea from a group called Save Our Safety Net. “The Washington city budget faces massive cuts that would do the worst damage to the poorest members of our community!” it said. “Call council and say that the city needs to raise taxes!”

The email had a laundry list of, indeed, last-ditch social service organizations that keep people from literally dying on the streets. It was horrible. So I, barely in the city a couple of months, did what I was supposed to do: went to the rally, lobbied city council. I signed the petition.

“You know, I just moved here from Philly,” I told one of the organizers. “We just went through this. Same horror movie: lost revenue, no political will to raise taxes, and so on.”

“How did it turn out?”

“Well, actually, it has been rather a miraculous thing so far. The community really came together, even altered the budget process itself. We ended up forcing the city to raise taxes with an administration that was never going to do it, through the most democratic process I’ve ever seen in a city government.”

“Wow.”

“Except that, despite the fact it started in 2008, it’s not actually done…”

The Philly budget saga has been going on three seasons now. Winter, spring, summer…and now, it threatens to stretch into the fall. There is a Republican state Senator in Pennsylvania named Dominic Pileggi whose greatest legislative achievement last year was blocking health care reform that would have insured 42,000 impoverished Pennsylvanians, and this year, starving the Philadelphia government by blocking approval of the sales tax increase that would keep the city operating. He should not be in public office at all.

I get very defensive of projects I have worked on. I am mad about this. Amnesia sets in really fast – and it’s been a busy year – but all you have to do it rewind to the chill dark of last December to remember the civic mood in Philadelphia when Mayor Nutter came out with the first pools-and-libraries cuts. I have never seen so many depressed progressives in my life. Really bad bar graphs in winter. That Obama/Phillies high wearing off reaaal fast, and those thirty seconds that Nutter had to prove to the grandmothers of West Philadelphia that he was going to be different from all the other mayors falling off the shot clock.

Remember that?

I was talking to a libraryista this week, and he was going on about Nutter pro-business grumble grumble nothing ever changes…and I realized that people are already forgetting everything that happened after that.

So I am going to sketch out a brief chronology to remind you:

- Mayor Nutter announces budget cuts
- Friends of the Free Library begin campaign
- Firefighters begin campaign
- Lawsuit filed to keep libraries open
- Mayor holds disastrous town halls where people show up, and scream at him
- Mayor holds PhillyStat, round two of town halls, where people show up again, I think these were a little more sedate.
- Coalition to Save Libraries formed, bringing together library advocates, community groups, and other endangered city services
- Bowing to pressure from Philadelphians, Mayor designs and then holds round three of town halls with facilitated process designed by the Penn civic-engagement DJs to take public input to design the city budget.
- Despite deeply ingrained and not unwarranted distrust of their elected officials, hundreds of people show up AGAIN to design the city budget in these fora
- Coalition to Save Essential Services formed, which was a different yet overlapping Venn diagram from the Coalition to Save the Libraries
- Library lawsuit successful, happy New Year!
- New branch of FFL forms in West Philly as a result of the organizing - I think there might be others. At any rate, many branches of this organization were strengthened by the fight.
- Mayor redesigns budget, including tax increases initially including sales and property tax increase.
- (here’s when I skipped town, so my knowledge of the remainder of the story is a little thin, and needs to be augmented)
- Philadelphians find out that property taxes = bad. Again, they take the time and make the effort to organize, go to city council, lobby, go to the umpteenth rally.
- City council hearings result in more participation
- City council cancels the property tax increase
- Mayor rewrites budget
- Mayor sends budget to Harrisburg. Dom Pileggi sits on it.
- Mayor calls for rallies to put pressure on Harrisburg and YET AGAIN AMAZING PEOPLE SHOW UP AND USE THEIR VOICES, including a bazillion social service organizations, taking day trips out to Media.
- …and this is the quick version.

This has all been amazing. This actually all happened. Hundreds and even thousands of people worked very hard to make all this happen. The amount of learning that has gone on by so many people who had no idea what a real estate transfer tax was has been pretty incredible. It’s the kind of thing that changes a city forever. I tell people in D.C. how proud I am of Philly, that we decided as a city what the budget should look like, that we chose to come together and make sacrifices in order to keep homeless shelters and HIV treatment clinics open.

Just the effort required to make this happen is beyond belief, sometimes. Civic engagement is really hard and really time-consuming. People who aren’t political weirdos actually would rather be doing anything other than showing up to a town hall and talking about L&I; this shit has been going on so long, organizers have had to tear people away from Eagles, Sixers, and Phillies games consecutively. And they did it.

Comparatively speaking, our nation’s capital is completely disempowered. Its the capital of the richest country on the planet, and here we were in the DC office building at 13th and Pennsylvania, begging them to not cut the Grandparents Caregivers program! Apparently DC has, for the last 20 years, allowed national and multinational corporations doing business in the District to get out of paying a portion of their taxes. It was like Philly for many years.

“That’s ridiculous,” I told the chief of staff to my city councilman, Councilman Graham, Ward 1. “This is D.C. It would take the Apocalypse for Starbucks to close its stores in Adams Morgan.”

“For years, we couldn’t get anyone to build anything here,” he said. “Getting a Starbucks in your neighborhood – well, that’s when you know you’ve made it.” He smiled.

I was shocked at his assessment of his own district, and its potential power. Ward 1 includes Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, and most of the other really expensive real estate in the district. If there had been a bad financial history for the city in the past, there had been no recalculation since. The city government of Washington, D.C. is afraid. It doesn’t even get self-determination – they face a possible APileggaclypse every year with the federal government! Cities have been beat down for a long time, and even with Mr. Urban President, there are still gonna be a lot more bad bar graphs ahead until things change.

It’s time cities stopped being afraid. Cities just need to figure out a way to own it again. And soon.

----

The DC budget fight, which really just begun as a public campaign a month ago, is so differently aligned that the comparisons almost can’t be made. I will write them down eventually though, because there is something to learn. One thing that they do have that Philly lacks is a really smart policy thinktank – the DC Fiscal Policy Institute– that is an appendage of the federal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, whence came Peter Orzag. It’s one benefit of having the federal policy class here. There’s also a much more well developed local blogosphere here than in Philly - but with an equally bad digital divide, which still hampers organizing in both cities.

Mais…. ou sont les operatifs?

I’m going to get involved because I miss city politics. It’s the antidote to cynicism, the political space where one can best see the effects of good work – even if cities are the least financially capable, often, to accomplish their own goals. I feel terrible for all these kids on the Hill, little mites in a gigantic federal power structure that they can barely understand, let alone affect. A lot of the people who come here have no experience with local politics – they are often suburbanites, or come straight out of grad school.

There is no reason, really, that they couldn’t learn. And take it back when they go home later. That would really change things, long term.

The Future of America, and How to Stop It

2009-07-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

So I was on the Chinatown bus from DC to Philly last Monday, and I was reading a book called The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, by a guy named Jonathan Zittrain. It is one of those required reading tomes for most people who work in my field, and Zittrain is one of those required panelists that cycle around in what you could almost call a karmic wheel from one conference to the next – that is, could almost call a karmic wheel, were anyone ever to actually break the cycle of panelist death and rebirth, achieve nirvana, and be freed, in a blinding flash of light from behind a cloth-covered table at some convention center, the lav mic left behind dropping gamely into the empty seat.

Apparently, that has yet to happen.

The book is a great explanation of how the Internet works and what flavors it comes in; I suspect that there is going to be a really scary part about information control, commercialization, etc. later on in the book, that will spur me on to further action. But so far, I have only gotten to the fun parts, like the case of Captain Crunch. Before there were computer hackers, there were ‘phone phreakers’ – people who hacked the phone system.

This guy Captain Crunch was a man who spent years jerking at the skirts of Ma Bell, and whose greatest phreak was accomplished with a whistle found in a box of said cereal. The AT&T phone system was not digital, but analog, which means that you hacked something not with 100110010, but with actual sound. Captain Crunch discovered that these cereal-box whistles, when blown into the phone at the end of a call, signaled to the AT&T system that the line had been reset, and then was free to call anywhere in the world for free and talk as long as he wanted to.

So I was reading this book, and getting a little sleepy, and thinking about what I was going to do the next day at the Media Mobilizing Project, and maybe feeling a little bit of a smarty pants for being able to toss around this new term ‘generative network’ in some work context down the road – maybe even Tweet it in some adorable little bon mot – when I look up and see the enormous sign that says “HARLEM TURN RIGHT”. Then there’s one for BROOKLYN. Then if there’s any doubt that I am not actually in Philadelphia, there’s TRI-BOROUGH BRIDGE… and so on. And so on. It’s about 10 pm. Shit.

“Yeah uh Lauren, I don’t really think I need that place to stay tonight. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks though. I just…overshot my destination a bit,” I say, blushing and sweating into my smartphone. “Yeah. I got on the wrong bus and I’m in New York. Yeah, I’m such a winner.” Pakistani and Chinese families exit the bus en masse, secure in their own sanity and their survival instincts, warm, pudgy, holding white plastic bags of ingredients. “Yeah. I know. Well actually you are right. It is kind of a cool thing. Yeah. Hell yeah. I’d been wanting to come up here. I don’t have to be back until the morning anyway. I’ll just wander around!”

At this point the night turned into an all-night kaleidoscope, which runs through the wasabi peas I ate in the terminal, through a bar called the Redhead which served me the oldest cocktail in America, through the Bowery Poetry Club (I had no idea they still did that in New York), through a congee restaurant (congee is like Chinese grits), then the last few hours, where, as I end up doing over and over again between the hours of 4 and 7 in the morning whenever I am in NYC, I sit on the street with homeless guys, smoke cigarettes, talk, and watch the sun come up over the city.

There are more people living on the streets of New York now than I have seen in 15 years. They are almost all black men. They are lined up on the sidewalk in the Bowery in row after row of crumpled cardboard boxes like an IKEA warehouse of human beings. (Model # ANTHRO). “It’s just the recession,” one guy said to me. Fair enough. But New York is where all our sins come out in the wash, I think. It is the Empire State, after all.

For all of the ‘social conditions’ that lead to ‘homelessness’, these mass encampments are very much a form of protest, perhaps not as political as Tent Cities, but defiant in their own way. If the city of New York – and our culture in general - is going to treat poor black men like trash, then these guys are out there on the street to confront it, parked underneath the pale hipsters laughing and scurrying by, their very presence saying yeah, if we are trash, then we are going to be here, we’re not going to let you forget it, we are going to be the wave of human trash that engulfs this city, engulfs the tourists, engulfs the financial sector until the entire island is buried under a tidal wave of human throwaways. Their very actions are a form of witness. All I can do is treat people with respect, and hear what truth they have to offer, since between 4 and 7 in New York, I am homeless too. I consider this a particularly important stop on my listening tour of the universe. No better place to really discuss healthcare reform - or the fate of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

At any rate, the guys I hung out with were way more worried about me (especially once they’d heard the story), and called me on my cell several times to make sure I got back to Pennsylvania. Survival instincts are hard to define.

The two days before, I had been in Detroit. I didn’t get to see much of it when I was there. However, I was fortunate enough to land in the tangle of leftie community organizers who are trying to cope with the massive shocks that the entire city is going through (and who had the political dirt).

I had no idea how bad it was. Detroit high schools have a 75 percent dropout rate. But from some of the problems and solutions I heard being discussed, it became clear to me that Detroit is very much a preview, a dress rehearsal of sorts, for the coming long-arc collapse of the American economy over the next 50 years. My lifetime. I don’t think I am over-exaggerating in any way to say that it will be the unique challenge of my generation to determine the nature with which we confront this coming storm – whether we remember and uphold values of community, sharing, love, and enlightenment, or if we descend into, even more than we already have, into selfishness, individuality, violence, and brutality. The immensity of this task is almost too much for me to think about, sometimes. I cannot say that I am not scared for us. But we have no choice. This is our home.

As pessimistic as this all sounds, I want to write this so I can hold up Detroit like a candle. I think there is a lot of darkness there, but I think what people are doing is kind. The spirit with which they are confronting their region’s economic cratering is to move towards their neighbors, not away from them, and it is centered on what is good in life.

If that is the epicenter, then I have hope.

Who knew? The Motor City!

NASA Releases First Images of Noctilucent Clouds

2009-07-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

Story here.

Allied Media Conference

2009-07-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was fortunate enough to go to the Allied Media Conference in Detroit.

There are a lot of conferences in this world, but I think this one is a bit different. It is probably best described as a spiritual experience packaged and arriving in the form of a conference. It is a conference where all the attendants feel - and verbalize - that their art is a form of responsibility towards one's community... folks who exhibit in their art love for the human race, via an unshakable commitment to truth. Everyone there was a teacher of some kind or another, and I was very fortunate to have learned from them. It was true generosity of spirit.

It has taken me a long time to understand that telling the truth is an act of love. For a long time, I thought that NOT telling the truth was an act of love; such are the conditions of so many families, and I think that silence is seen as something that makes the daily small brutalities of our lives supposedly easier.

I am beginning to realize that there should be no line between personal truth standards and popular media truth standards.
The media as it exists now can only be counteracted by an astonishingly brave and powerful and simply unending onslaught of truth - for every violent story they want to tell, we must tell 10 more that are human, and warm, and real. (E.g. the TV show "Nip/Tuck." - how many other stories are going to have to be told to counteract that show? "Transformers 2"? It's all massive cultural damage.)

Thankfully, it's happening. I want to talk about all of it, but right now I am tired and should sleep, and will just post something charming and funny and smart, made by a group of hypercool kids in New York City called Global Action Project.

It's the season finale of "America's Next Top Immigrant."

How to Document your Life, Part I.

2009-07-12T20:58:00.001-07:00

“I don’t understand the impulse other people have to document their own lives so much,” I said to a friend. “It’s ridiculous. These online photo sites and all this incessant scrap-booking. Why take all that time out of actually living?”

“When you’re older, it matters,” he said. “I don’t know, but... it just becomes more important.”

Hm. Yeah. It seemed too broad of a generalization. But I’ve been thinking about it since.
Documenting one's life. How does one document one’s own life? Does one, and how, and why?

How can one have the clarity, will, and insight to curate the permanent exhibit of one’s own story? And who are the museum goers?

How much is picture … how much is sound … how much is written?

When do you let others speak about you – and is the act of choosing your character witnesses dishonest?

And isn’t it what I am doing right now?

As I write this, I am sitting outside on a deck overlooking the inlet between peninsular Florida and Clearwater Island. It is night, 78 degrees, my feet are bare, and behind me is a string of lights in the shape of multicolored beach balls. If I wanted to document this particular night, it would be difficult. It sounds simple: I went to dinner with my extended family at a seafood restaurant in St. Pete’s two days before my cousin Jennifer (a wedding planner running her own wedding) is to marry the man to whom she is already married.

There is a large underwater iceberg of passive aggression and cultural conflict going on but those are not the things to document, for me. Such things make an ugly haiku. The things I would like to take down are: Lindsay ordering coconut shrimp, Mark telling me about the healing side of the financial services industry, Josh suggesting we go to Crabby Bill’s seafood restaurant on the night when Uncle Bill was, indeed, a little crabby, and no one making a crack about it at dinner; and the crickets, now, at night.

Most of all, I think I would want to tape the sound of the crickets.

My life is so salty and Ferris wheel and grainy and it speeds back into the past so quickly, like the wake from a ship. I am actually beginning to argue with the entire idea that one should document.

There is this polished stone fossil on my desk called an ammonite, an ancient cephalopod that swam around in the ocean that covered the Sahara Desert 350 million years ago. Now its remains sit on a desk in the office of the Media and Democracy Coalition on 19th Street NW. Whenever I get too worried about some burning question such as “Is the IPhone ‘Wanker’ app going to replace the old print business model for pornography?” all I have to do is look at that little curly petrified bastard sitting on my desk. And I breathe in, and breathe out, because sharing office space with something 350 million years old has a way of putting one's woes in perspective.

In Basin and Range, John McPhee writes about the behavior and psychology of geologists. One of the most amazing things in the book is this: most of what we know about the geological history of the planet comes from the corpses of the plants and animals that died and were preserved in the various layers of the earth. Their remains have allowed us, as humans, shuffling around with our little brushes and magnifying glasses, to discover which layer of sandstone is as old as the other - they move around too much to easily count. It takes the shape of a creature to match it in time.

The other completely amazing things McPhee writes about is the attitude that geologists develop toward time. Geologists, as an effect of their profession, become almost shamanic in their attitude towards time: they transcend it, in fact. Having to think, day in and day out, week after week, in scales of hundreds of millions of years completely alters their attitude towards the importance of their own lives...towards human civilization itself, he writes.

“In some ways, talking about (deep time) makes you know that your life is a blip, nothing,” one of the geologists says.

“But in another way... it's like you live forever.”

All Philadelphians Should Have the Internet. Period.

2009-07-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you Smithsonian, I got to see these guys

2009-07-05T20:07:00.001-07:00