Les said, the better II

*faint*

mac mini. works with mac or pc peripherals. those kids that used to carry around hard drives and memory sticks to work in the lab are now going to carry computers in their backpacks.
steve Jobs is sometimes completely birlliant. it looks like a toy, but it has a real processor and a real hard drive. the extra-nifty one is faster than my laptop and has a bigger hard drive. ram only goes up to one gig, but it’s certainly fast enough for all sorts of audio crunching. one of those plus an mbox would be very respectable. This will be great for multimedia labs that don’t want or need new keyboard, etc. they just want more power.
damn

my friend said
public performance gets chicks.
try poetry she said.
what a stupid idea.
but then
so stupid
why am i standing here?

she said
even poor public performance works
I guess that’s my
Saving grace
don’t need to look confident
ok to mumble

she made a resolution
she said
to look out for number one
i’m too nice
she said

if there’s one thing the world needs
it’s less kindess
i said
and more
poor public performance

Due to various drama in my life last year, I never saw the third LOTR movie. The first two, I saw midnight, the opening night on the gigantic IMAX screen at the very geeky Sony Metreon in San Francisco. One of the pre-movie commercials was for Microsoft. The audience booed. Somebody yelled “go Linux” Cheering ensued. There was cheering for the opnening credits. Oh, we were geeky fans. And somehow, I missed the entire phenomenon for the last movie.

I went and rented all three DVDs. The first two movies really lost something being shrunk down from gigantic iMAX projection to Cola’s teeny TV. Well, it’s not a teeny TV. It’s perfectly reasonbly sized for a television. It’s just dropping a lot of detail off the movies. Alas. I’m not sure that I want to see the third movie for the first time on such a tiny format. I’m hoping that somebody who reads this has a gigantic TV and loves LOTR or at least tolerates it and says “come watch it on my TV!” I know of a very large projection screen in Connecticut, but I dunno, want to watch the movie noowwwww.

Requisite pseudo-academic deconstruction

I made a pledge or something not to go watch any more violent movies. I don’t want to encourage that sort of movie making because I think it contributes to violence in society. I made an exception for LOTR because the movies are so beautiful and I loved the books so much as a child. But LOTR is violent and has some disturbing social messages. They are at war with evil itself. Sound familar? Actually, because of the various factions involved, it’s more of an axis of evil, rather than a single evil.
On the one side is Gondor and the white City with it’s white tower. In the white city, there live noble people, skilled guild-members, farmers (well, just outside the city) and buccolic, suburban red staters. Opposing Gondor, there is the black tower. It is industrialized, filled with sub-human workers with dreadlocks who want to do away with the white city’s way of life. They work in factories. Not that I’m detecting any sort of sub-text. Evil is at war with civilization itself. The axis of evil hates freedom and wants to stamp it out.
Some of this was in the book. The book has some disturbing bits about how folks from the south (or perhaps the global south) work for evil. They’re swarthy. The main point of the book was opposition to mechanized warfare and anti-fascism. It was a reaction to the horrors of WWII. Some of this is still in the movie. The good guys have the ultimate weapon, but it’s too horrible to use, even agianst evil. Because any ultimate weapon is, itself, evil. I wish that message would filter more into the public discourse. Also, the acceptance of fate and the strength of ordinary people to enact change are both nicely included.

Geek

I’ve noticed the movies have changes somewhat since I first saw them. I’m very glad the Ent Moot got added in. It was a shame it was ever missing. A voice-over of Gandalf saying to look for him in the East on the fifth day also seems to have been added to the second movie. When I first saw it, there was this long battle and they good guys were losing, but then they rode out into the battle to face certain death and suddenly a fourth army appears and I was thinking “who the heck is getting into this now?” And then I thought, “Oh yeah! Gandlaf! I forgot about him!” It made me feel engaged in the movie. So I think they should take the voice over out because it seems like the charecters in the movie had forgotten too.

Some of my readers are music people and some are non-music people. This post is for both groups. A few years ago, NPR did a series called American Mavericks. It’s about the sort of music that I do, explaining the history of this sort of stuff in the Unites States, starting from the Colonial era. The series is accessible, entertaining and very informative. It is possible to stream them from the American Mavericks website. all the programs are an hour long. I’ve been listening to one nearly every morning. I feel very informed. It’s cool. And it was made in San Francisco, so it’s got a nice west coast sort of perspective on music that I’ve been missing in school. So if you want to know about this kind of music or you want to know where I’m coming from, this is a good thing to listen to.

And, I was surprised to hear the names of one of my fellow Wesleyan grad students mentioned in the program I’m listening to!! They just talked about the Toby Twining ensemble! I think they gave him a bit more time than they even gave Anthony Braxton. Wow. Although this isn’t shocking when I think about it, cuz Toby is fairly brilliant and writes really cool stuff.

Dear Sentaor Boxer,

I am writing to encourage you to oppose the nomination of Judge Gonzales to Attorney General. Torture should not be the policy of the Unites States. This morning, I heard Gonzales refuse to condemn torture on moral or legal grounds. He should not hold any position of power anywhere and certainly should not be the next Attorney General. Please represent our Blue State by voting no on Gonzales.

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,
Celeste Hutchins

In related news, Boxer is objecting the the certification of Ohio’s electoral votes. As you may recall from Farenheight 9/11, having a senator join an objection is key. go Boxer!
Not working on thesis . . .

• Amnesty International
• Move On
• People for the American Way (link contains background information and analysis)

Some organizations have decided to focus on lobbying Gonzales to renounce torture because they do not think that they have enough support to stop his nomination. Contact your senators and tell them to vote no on Gonzales.

This morning, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Judge Gonzales steadfastly refused to legally or morally condemn torture. He refused to say that the US should not engage in torture. He refused to say that other countries should not torture American citizens. He would not say that torture was illegal or wrong. Gonzales was deeply involved with a Department of Justice memo that laid the legal groundwork for interrrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay’s US-run prison camp. The non-partisan Red Cross called those techniques “tantamount to torture.” Those memos are also implicated in the torture and abuses that occured in Abu Ghraib. The memos state that questioners may inflict pain on detainees as long as the pain is less than the pain of death or organ failure. Should a questioner kill somebody or exceed the alloable levels of pain, it would only be torture if the questioner meant to kill the person, cause organ failure, or exceed pain thresholds. If a representative of the US Government beat a prisoner until that prisoner’s kidney was destroyed, it would only be torture, then, if the assailant meant to cause organ failure.

These memos are no longer US policy. They were recently withdrawn, probably in preperation for Gonzales’ nomination. Recent news reports indicate that he was not the author of the memos, however, he admitted to Senator Kennedy that he was deeply involved int heir drafting, meeting with the authors several times to discuss the leagal opinions expressed in the memos.
Gonzales’ history shows he supports torture. His present answers indicate that he has not decided to condemn the practice. He cannot condemn the practice, because of his past involvement, he would be condemning himself. It used to be a no-brainer for anyone to stand in front of the Senate and condemn torture. It used to be especially a no-brainer for anyone to stand in front of the senate and condemn foreign governments torturing American citizens. Call or email your senators and tell them to vote no on Gonzales. (Your senator will have offices in your state with local phone numbers as well as an office in Washington DC.) We cannot allow a supporter of torture to become Attorney General. One of your senators may be on the Judiciary Committee. It is especially important to contact comittee members. (Comittee members representing where some of my blog readers live include Diane Feinstein D-CA, Ted Kennedy D-MA, Charles Schumer D-NY, and Arlen Specter R-PA)
Please pass this information on and encourage others who condemn torture to oppose Gonzales.

v. – to beg for help on a blog. [source blog + beg]

Anybody in the SF Bay Area want to briefly lend me a step ladder?

The United States is preparing to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial, replacing the Guantánamo Bay prison camp with permanent prisons in the Cuban enclave and elsewhere, it was reported Sunday. The new prisons are intended for captives the Pentagon and the CIA suspect of terrorist links but do not wish to set free or put on trial for lack of hard evidence. . . ..
The Pentagon has built a new 100-cell prison on Guantánamo Bay, known as Camp 5, and plans to ask Congress this year for $25 million to build Camp 6, a 200-bed version. The two jails are intended for suspected members of al-Qaida, the Taliban or other extremist groups who are unlikely to go before a military tribunal because military prosecutors lack proof. . . ..
Some CIA detainees have been subjected to “rendition” — being handed over to U.S. allies, such as Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan, that agree to hold them secretly to extract information. The practice has been criticized by human rights groups as an endorsement and indirect use of torture. The CIA reportedly proposed building its own permanent prison, but the plan was rejected as impractical.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/03/cia_detainees/index.html?source=RSS

What do you do with a prisoner when you don’t have enough evidence to convict? Warehouse them permantently overseas, of course! It’s a great idea for stopping terror. And if it works for foreign terrorists, well, it will work for domestic ones too. And since anti-terror legislation has been used against street gangs, pornographers, credit card theives and others, we can expect to see any petty thief treated to all anti-terror laws. Or, you know, maybe just a suspected petty theif. I mean, just because you have absolutely no evidence isn’t a reason to release somebody.
Make no mistake. Today’s foreign pirsons are tomorrow’s domestic prisons. And denying people all sorts of rights sin’t going to build goodwill around the world. We could build goodwill by doing something like, I dunno, helping with tsunami relief, but I just heard the president on the radio this morning asking individuals to donate for relief effors. Meaning the government is planning on doing nothing. Soon, we’ll have to deliver our own mail. We might have to run our own indefinite detention prisons too, but there always seems to be enough money for military actions. On the one hand, maybe the generosity of individuals will help perpetuate the “americans are good people even if their government stinks” mythology. But somebody is bound to notice that we voted this guy into office.
So, Point 1: We used to claim the moral high ground by having all these ideas of rights and freedoms. We were the good guys because we prenteded to act like good guys. Now we’re just another side in a mean war, or, looking at fire power levels, the only real side in a mean war against the third world in general and the middle east in particular. The Geneva convetions are “quaint.” Now bend to our will or be torutured for the rest of your life.
Point 2: They came for the foreign muslims, but I wasn’t a foreign muslim, so I said nothing. It is only a matter of time before these programs of indefinite detention get expanded. Already, US Citizens have been detained, including Padilla. Non-muslims should care about what happens to muslims just out of concern for human rights, but there’s also a pragmatic element. Unless you’re a rich, evangellic, white Chrstian, you are an alien other. You are on a check list. Maybe you’re next on the list. For our own safety, we have to protest these things. We have to put a stop to it.

Update: Aljazeera Story on indefinite detentions in Gitmo

I donted money to Unicef and Doctors Without Borders and because of the way the tax code is structured this is actually money from the US treasury. I get to deduct the donation. The amount of government money is thus reduced as I get to rediect it as aid to to tsunami victims. On the one hand, you could see this as a democratic, popularly-controlled way for citizens to direct where relief dollars go. On the other hand, why the fuck do I have to do the work of my goverment? Bush can only scrape up $35 million for tsunami relief? Why doesn’t he cut some of the budget for his re-inaguration and send some of that money off to help people? He’s aleady been innagurated once. How showy does his second one have to be? I mean, I know he’s excited about finally winning an election . . ..

Unicef is run by the UN, which makes international and non-denominational. None of the money will be redirected to trying to trying to convert anybody to Christianity or any other religion. I think this is a good time to support as much internationalism as possible. Bush doesn’t agree. Bush has launched a coalition of the willing for tsunami relief. We just can’t play well with others can, we? We won’t do anything unless we get to be incharge. It doesn’t matter how little we actually bring in. Pocket change and only if we get to do it our way and tell everybody what to do. I’m sure somehow there’s weird attachments to the aid. We’ll rebuild schools, but only if they teach abstinence only. The arrogance of the US Government knows no bounds. We’ll screw foreigners. And we’ll also screw rich, white vacationers. Remember the good old days when at least some protected group of people could get something out of Uncle Sam? Ok, it wasn’t good. But I was hoping that equality would mean treating everyone better, not treating everyone the same amount of worse.
We had an opportunity to improve our reputation and do the right thing and help people and show the world we’re not evil, greedy fuckers. But that didn’t happen. Because we are evil greedy fuckers. Oh, sure, maybe you’re not. Was it Churchill that said that people generally deserve their government? Our government is evil, petty, greedy and vain because our nation is all of those things. I don’t want to have to be responcible for donating money for tsunami relief. I don’t want to have to manage my own Social Security account. I don’t want to deliver my own mail. I want a government that actually does something useful aside from bombing the fuck out of other countries.
Off-topic: why do people who think that Dawin is burning in hell and the evolution in no way explains anything in science think that Social Darwinism makes good domestic policy? If evolution doesn’t exist, why are we trying to kill off the weak? It’s like their slogan is Evolution is for the poor, not for apes! when the meek inherit the earth, they’re going to kick our asses.