For the story, check out Scrutiny Hooligans
Monday, November 07, 2005
Sunday, November 06, 2005
The Science Of The Night
I touch you in the night, whose gift was you,
My careless sprawler,
And I touch you cold, unstirring, star-bemused,
That have become the land of your self-strangeness.
What long seduction of the bone has led you
Down the imploring roads I cannot take
Into the arms of ghosts I never knew,
Leaving my manhood on a rumpled field
To guard you where you lie so deep
In absent-mindedness,
Caught in the calcium snows of sleep?
And even should I track you to your birth
Through all the cities of your mortal trial,
As in my jealous thought I try to do,
You would escape me--from the brink of earth
Take off to where the lawless auroras run,
You with your wild and metaphysic heart.
My touch is on you, who are light-years gone.
We are not souls but systems, and we move
In clouds of our unknowing
like great nebulae.
Our very motives swirl and have their start
With father lion and with mother crab.
Dreamer, my own lost rib,
Whose planetary dust is blowing
Past archipelagoes of myth and light
What far Magellans are you mistress of
To whom you speed the pleasure of your art?
As through a glass that magnifies my loss
I see the lines of your spectrum shifting red,
The universe expanding, thinning out,
Our worlds flying, oh flying, fast apart.
From hooded powers and from abstract flight
I summon you, your person and your pride.
Fall to me now from outer space,
Still fastened desperately to my side;
Through gulfs of streaming air
Bring me the mornings of the milky ways
Down to my threshold in your drowsy eyes;
And by the virtue of your honeyed word
Restore the liquid language of the moon,
That in gold mines of secrecy you delve.
Awake!
My whirling hands stay at the noon,
Each cell within my body holds a heart
And all my hearts in unison strike twelve.
~~ Stanley Kunitz
Age
Most explicit--
the sense of trap
as a narrowing
cone one's got
stuck into and
any movement
forward simply
wedges once more--
but where
or quite when,
even with whom,
since now there is no one
quite with you--Quite? Quiet?
English expression: Quait?
Language of singular
impedance? A dance? An
involuntary gesture to
others not there? What's
wrong here? How
reach out to the
other side all
others live on as
now you see the
two doctors, behind
you, in mind's eye,
probe into your anus,
or ass, or bottom,
behind you, the roto-
rooter-like device
sees all up, concludes
"like a worn-out inner tube,"
"old," prose prolapsed, person's
problems won't do, must
cut into, cut out . . .
The world is a round but
diminishing ball, a spherical
ice cube, a dusty
joke, a fading,
faint echo of its
former self but remembers,
sometimes, its past, sees
friends, places, reflections,
talks to itself in a fond,
judgemental murmur,
alone at last.
I stood so close
to you I could have
reached out and
touched you just
as you turned
over and began to
snore not unattractively,
no, never less than
attractively, my love,
my love--but in this
curiously glowing dark, this
finite emptiness, you, you, you
are crucial, hear the
whimpering back of
the talk, the approaching
fears when I may
cease to be me, all
lost or rather lumped
here in a retrograded,
dislocating, imploding
self, a uselessness
talks, even if finally to no one,
talks and talks.
Robert Creeley
When Creeley died at 78 on April Fool's day this year, I sent this to Edwin. He did me the enormous honor of thinking it was mine, right down to the bottom where Creeley's name appears. Sometimes, it's impossible not to love someone. Even if one wanted to not. And I certainly didn't!
Saturday, November 05, 2005
The Man Born to Farming
The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?
~~ Wendell Berry
- Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer, Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will he fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.
- Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of "quality control'': you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.
- Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence,
- Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers. and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.
- Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions?
- Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
- Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.
Wendell Berry --> HERE
Friday, November 04, 2005
13 TACTICS
-Saul Alinsky
Here are Alinsky's rules for tactics taken from his book Rules for Radicals
Always remember the first rule of power tactics:
Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat. It also means a collapse of communication.
The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.
The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.
The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
The sixth rule: A good tacit is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.
The seventh rule: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like going to church on Sunday mornings. New issues and crises are always developing and one's reaction becomes, "Well, my heart bleeds for those people and I’m all for the boycott, but after all there are other important things in. life — and there it goes.
The eight rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
The ninth rule: The threat usually more terrifying than the thing itself
The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. It should be remembered not only that the action is in the reaction and of reaction to the reaction, ad infinitum. The pressure produces the reaction, and constant pressure sustains action.
The eleventh rule: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. Mahatma Gandhi developed the tactic of passive resistance when he saw . he had no other resources than millions of poor illiterate followers. What else could they do but sit down and block streets.
The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying "You're right " we don't know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.”
The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it. and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that the organizer should always regard as universal. One is-that the opposition must be singled out as -the -target and frozen. By this I mean that-in a complex, interrelated, urban society, it becomes increasingly difficult to single out who is to blame for. any particular evil. .There is a constant, and somewhat legitimate, passing off of the buck. In these times of urbanization, complex metropolitan governments, the complexities of major interlocked corporations, and the interlocking of political life between cities and countries and metropolitan authorities, the problem that threatens to loom more and more is that of identifying the enemy. Obviously there is no point to tactics unless one has a target upon which to center the attacks.
The other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract such as a- community's segregated practices- or a major corporation or City- Hall. It is not possible to develop the necessary hostility against, say, City Hall, which after all is a concrete, physical, inanimate structure, or against a corporation, which has no soul or identity, or a public school administration, which again is an inanimate system.
Eve Of Destruction
The eastern world, it is explodin’.
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Don’t you understand what I’m tryin’ to say
Can’t you feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away
There’ll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
Take a look around you boy
It’s bound to scare you boy
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Yeah, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation.
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation
And marches alone can’t bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin’
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’
And you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
Think of all the hate there is in Red China
Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama
You may leave here for 4 days in space
But when you return, it’s the same old place
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace
And… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
You don’t believe
We’re on the eve
Of destruction
Mm, no no, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve
of destruction.
~~ by Barry McGuire
The Fourth Turning
| The Fourth Turning Click title for website for the book. I've had arguments with certain kinds of friends (Republicans) who insist that no one, I repeat, NO ONE, would work for anything but money. Or possibly glory. But with Open Source, what I am seeing is something completely different: working for the common good at one's own expense. When I first got on the web, I was looking for Medical information, and stumbled across a medical site that offers all information, free, plus a poster to hang in your office for Open Source. In case you are unaware, sources like JAMA cost. Don't pay, you're locked out of info. Then I came across Linux, and then Firefox. Something is moving among the youngsters. Something their parents know naught what of. This is the generation of the Millennials. Also, check out this website: http://www.millennialsrising.com/ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Thursday, November 03, 2005
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
By William Henry Gates IIIFebruary 3, 1976
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K, EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent, however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.
Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft
ON THE OTHER HAND
(Sorry: this was in an email, no link.)
As usual, though, it killed me that from each hour-long interview, we could air only a few sentences in the finished 8-minute segment. So I thought I'd share a greater slice of one of the transcripts with you, my Internet-savvy readers. The subject is Blake Ross, who began working at Netscape at the tender age of 14. By 19, he had co-created Firefox: a free, highly regarded, open-source Web browser that, in its very short life, has been downloaded 100 million times, in the process stealing over ten percent of the browser market away from Microsoft. He's now on leave from Stanford, where I met him in his studio apartment. DP: So what, exactly, is Firefox? BR: Firefox is a Web browser. Kind of a competitor for Internet Explorer, but made for the average person. Made for people who don't want to spend all day cursing at the computer. We want you to surf the Web without worrying about spyware, viruses, or pop-up ads. DP: And how were you, a bunch of volunteers, able to do this when the best and the brightest, highest paid programmers from Microsoft could not? BR: First of all, they dropped the ball. Internet Explorer hasn't been updated since 2001. And so when Microsoft basically disbanded the Internet Explorer team, the Web started to outpace the Web browser. We guide our development by what our users want, not by the dollar. You know, no other factors come into play except these features that people are asking for. So basically I go home and I say, "Hey, Mom, you know, what's still wrong with the internet? What's bothering you?" And she tells me. DP: You ask your mom? BR: Well, she'll yell at me. And I'll say, "Mom, calm down. What's wrong?" And then I'll fix that. DP: I wonder why Bill Gates's mom couldn't do the same thing? BR: Yeah (laughs). DP: How does the open source movement work, and what was your role? BR: Firefox is an open-source product, the result of tens of thousands of volunteers all over the world. People in Europe can be coordinating with people in the United States, can be coordinating with people in Africa. All putting the user input into this browser. It's really a global effort. My role, along with another teammate at Netscape, was--we looked at this Mozilla browser and we said, "We have great technology here. But nobody's using it. What's the problem there?" And talking to other users, we found out that it was just too hard for them to use. So we just stripped everything out of Mozilla. And we redesigned features and the entire user interface to streamline everything-- to make it as simple as possible. DP: So are you getting rich? BR: I'm not making a dime off of Firefox. But it's enough for me to get an email from a grandfather in Mississippi telling me that he can finally get on the Web and communicate with his grandchildren. Of course, Firefox itself opened up a world of possibilities for me personally. You know, I'm working on a start-up right now. It's much easier to get funded. It's much easier to get my name out there than it used to be. DP: What I can't understand is, when I was a teenager, I had more than enough other stuff like social life and learning to drive and going to school and everything else. How are you able to do something of this magnitude while you're 14, 15, 16? BR: Basically, I had to sacrifice any semblance of a normal social life while I was in high school. I just kind of gave up, you know, parties and going out with friends. All of it went toward this project. I think it's paying off now. DP: All of the people that we're talking for this story started in their early teens. And all of them made their marks in Internet-related fields. Is the Internet what's allowing very young people to achieve extraordinary things? Or could smart, ambitious people have made their mark in some other area at that young an age? BR: Yeah, the Internet is really the great equalizer. It really levels the playing field. There's absolutely nothing else stopping me from writing a great piece of software and just putting it out there on the Web for anyone to use. And it doesn't matter if it came from a 50- year-old experienced software developer or it came from a 19-year-old kid in California. If it's good software, people will use it. DP: Has your youth been in any way a liability? BR: I don't consider myself young! I'm worried about kids coming in and just totally replacing me. I'm actually frightened to see what the generation after me comes up with. The next generation is these kids that have grown up on the Internet. That are turning in their homework via email in first grade. DP: Isn't it true that part of Firefox's security reputation has to do with the fact that it is so small, that it's not worth these hackers to write an exploit for such a small market? Don't you think that when FireFox is 60 percent of the Web, the great eye of the virus writers will turn to it? BR: I think the eye has already turned to it, actually. We're speeding towards 60 million downloads note: the tally is now over 100 million]. That's plenty big enough base for any virus writer I know. So they're trying. They're just not succeeding. DP: Let's say your new start-up is a huge success. And you become the--you know, people are calling you the New Bill Gates. I've seen this in print. BR: Me too. DP: So what if you became the New Bill Gates? What would you do differently? BR: Actually, the funny thing is that people assume that I'm gonna be in the computer industry forever, and I'm not sure that's the case. I think I've got a couple more years in me in the computer industry. I've actually had these secret ambitions to write either films or novels. I think life's too short to do anything for too long.
Join a discussion of David Pogue's columns. This week's Pogue's Posts blog. Visit David Pogue on the Web at DavidPogue.com. |
WICH IS GOING TO BRING ME TO: THE FOURTH TURNING (NEXT)
* * * * *
. . . .she was on the receiving committee to meet Nelson Mandela in 1990 in Detroit. She expressed embarrassment that she had come, repeating: "He won't know me." When Mr Mandela glimpsed her he chanted "Ro-sa Parks, Ro-sa Parks, Ro-sa Parks" and then the two aged activists fell into each other's arms and rocked backwards and forwards.
* * * * *
Rosa Parks died penniless.
Looking over her life, it appears that she would only have had the one job, with Conyers, where she would have been covered by any kind of retirement (1965 --1988). It seems now that it was likely a part-time job. She was 52 when she started. She would have been 75 when she retired. One year before retirement she founded and worked for (likely without pay) The Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute For Self Development.
Raymond Parks was a barber, Rosa a seamstress. Both self employed. Neither likely to have paid any Social Security. I have a friend, my age, who mostly raised children and was self employed. She receives $27 a month from Social Security.
There are those who say Rosa should have been "helped" ~~ in fact, she was, by her church, by her landlord. But no one talks of the emotional cost of being the one who is helped. Charity feels lovely to those giving it, and pretty bad to those receiving it. Most decline to be on the receiving end if they can possibly help it. How uncharitable to those who wish to feel good about themselves.
This is the richest country in the world (for the time being). Would it be so much to ask that we simply let no one die penniless, and with their self esteem intact?
Lo Carb Cooking
Bacon Cheeseburger Quiche
Ingredients: 
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Combine remaining ingredients in mixer bowl and whip well. Pour mixture over beef "crust" and bake 40-45 minutes until top is browned and "set". Cool 15-20 minutes before slicing. This can be packaged in Ziplocs or plastic containers for meals quickly microwaved over the next 3-5 days. (Does not freeze well, though.)
Serves 6. 2 grams per serving.
Which is my little boy,
Which is he?
Jean qui pleure ou
Jean qui rit?
Jean qui pleure
Is mystérieux
With sorrows older than 'näg"pur
And all of the suns
And all of the moons
Mirrored in little silver spoons.
Jean qui rit
Is my delicate John,
The one with the Chinese slippers on,
Whose hobby horse
In a single bound,
Carries me back to native ground.
Which is my little boy,
Which is he?
Jean qui pleure ou
Jean qui rit?
Tennessee Williams
~~ In the Winter of Cities
As requested. . .
I didn't forget at all. . . . I've even eaten both. Abalone because my son was a skin diver (he got his Ph.D. out of Lawrence Livermore Labs); and Conch, because I visited a dear friend in Bermuda. Luckier than most, I think.
But, in fact, was looking for sea treasures that would fit in one's pocket. . . .
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Most Offspring Died When Mother Rats Ate
Genetically Engineered Soy
The Russian scientist planned a simple experiment to see if eating genetically modified (GM) soy might influence offspring. What she got, however, was an astounding result that may threaten a multi-billion dollar industry.
Irina Ermakova, a leading scientist at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), added GM soy flour (5-7 grams) to the diet of female rats. Other females were fed non-GM soy or no soy at all. The experimental diet began two weeks before the rats conceived and continued through pregnancy and nursing.
Ermakova’s first surprise came when her pregnant rats started giving birth. Some pups from GM-fed mothers were quite a bit smaller. After 2 weeks, 36% of them weighed less than 20 grams compared to about 6% from the other groups (see photo below).
| |
| Photo of two rats from the Russian study, showing stunted growth - the larger rat, 19 days old, is from the control group; the smaller rat, 20 days old, is from the "GM soy" group. |
But the real shock came when the rats started dying. Within three weeks, 25 of the 45 (55.6%) rats from the GM soy group died compared to only 3 of 33 (9%) from the non-GM soy group and 3 of 44 (6.8%) from the non-soy controls.
Ermakova preserved several major organs from the mother rats and offspring, drew up designs for a detailed organ analysis, created plans to repeat and expand the feeding trial, and promptly ran out of research money. The $70,000 needed was not expected to arrive for a year. Therefore, when she was invited to present her research at a symposium organized by the National Association for Genetic Security, Ermakova wrote “PRELIMARY STUDIES” on the top of her paper. She presented it on October 10, 2005 at a session devoted to the risks of GM food.
Her findings are hardly welcome by an industry already steeped in controversy.
For the rest: click HEREThis is especially important to remember if you take isoflavones. . . .
All Saints Day
The challenge of sainthood
is to go
where love takes me
.
—Prayer for Daybreak and Day's End, Volume II
From Blue-Collar Boys to Doo-Wop Sensation: A Band's Rise and Fall
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
The second coming of the Four Seasons in "Jersey Boys": from left, J. Robert Spencer as Nick Massi; Christian Hoff as Tommy DeVito; John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli; and Daniel Reichard as Bob Gaudio.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Click title for review. Go. Read it. Read all the audience reviews. Good. Now listen up all you New Yorkers (and those close enough to go see it), get your tickets NOW!
Good. Now I want to say something: John Lloyd Young ~~ I met this kid. He's nice as hell. Couldn't have told you if he could act, though. He was an understudy in the New Jersey production of Drawer Boy . He was also the theatre's bus driver for that run. (Bringing the actors out from the city, and taking them back after the play.)
That play wished to go to Broadway. Perhaps they made a mistake letting him be the understudy. . . .
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