What’s going on in Middletown

Absolutely nothing.

No, ok, my flight came in ok, obviously. I flew red eye. I’m all exhausted. I feel whiny, so I’m going to whine. I hate flying red eye, but flying in the heat would have cooked my bass guitar. You can only fly dogs red eye in the summer, cuz they get cooked too. If it will kill a dog, it will kill a bass.
My house is cleaner than I remember. I think some of my friends may have done some cleaning after I left. I can’t remeber. I haven’t done anything today but sleep and look in vain for my pillow. There was brown rice in the cabinet, so soon I’ll be eating some rice. Where has my pillow gone? There’s also food in the fridge… soy milk and something unidentified. All from last May. But not my pillow!!! bah! Did i bring it home with me?? Did somebody borrow it? Why did I not toss the soymilk, the egss and whatever the green fuzzy thing is/was?
The bugs here are loud. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow, I’m cleaning my room and the fridge (at least it’s not as bad as spring break) and doing a bit of laundry and making sure my bills are all paid and the next day, I’m going to nyc.
my houseplants seem to be dead, except for my cactus. this is why i keep a cactus as my sole plant. i can neglect it and it doesn’t die. and chicken doesn’t eat it. wow, i’m probably never going to see chicken again. (that’s my ex’s cat. she’s a freaky beast. spooky as hell. nurses on her tail. attacks houseguests. scares ellen. she’s, um, great. she hasn’t attacked me in years tho.)
I hate flying red eye. I hate connecticut. ok, i don’t hate connecticut. this year should be better than last year. (i think i got married one year ago today, but i’d have to go look at paperwork to be sure.) This time, it will be the second anniversary of my momther’s death and not the first. and i already know people. and i’m not going to have a marriage fall apart. but it’s going to be cold again and i’ll prolly still have some culture shock. i dunno. i really didn’t want to come back at all, actually. but i know it’s good for me and i don’t want to be a quitter. and i’ll have a very valuable MFA which will open up a million doors for me and i’ll be able to move back to berkeley and live among the bobos. …. or got to more school! The question of what to do with my life after grad school is becomming more pressing. I’ve been thinking of applying to Columbia. I talked to a grad of there and he said it was great. But as Jim Newman said, when’s the last time you heard of a composer with a PhD? (technically, it’s a DMA, but yeah.)
I don’t know how much I love california or how much I hate what happened to me last year. But I came back, so I’m not a wuss. I just woke up. Haven’t eaten anything except for the rice i’m now consuming. horray for dry goods. i was hoping to find tv dinners in the freezer, but they all died in the spring break disaster.
I’m going to stop prattling on about nothing. Homesick already, but what do you expect? The summer went so fast. I didn’t get to see half the people I wanted to see and I didn’t really accomplish my goals. I finished (well, it needs editting) only a string quartet and played no gigs. I think my cousin dying threw me off. Didn’t care about stuff for a while after that. At least I don’t have many relatives left to die off. There should be peace on that front for a while. Hopefully.

Where do I see myself in 5 or 10 years

Berkeley. (ok maybe new york or europe, but let’s say berkeley or oakland). With a kid. yeah really. i have a dog. having a kid can’t be that much worse. you can take kids a lot more places than you can take dogs. plus there are day cares and boarding shcools and summer camp. and let’s say teaching. i’m going to be teaching musical things to college types. not very exciting, maybe, but i’ve been risk-adverse lately. except that breeding is prolly more risky than most other ventures. i dunno. it seems like if you just have one kid, you can take them with you most places. the only children i’ve known have all been very civilized and some of them are well-travelled.
in 54 minutes, i can go back to sleep.

todo listyness

well, i did all my errands except the computer padding. i faxed my tax documents off only to find out that the reason the irs decided that i owe them like three thousand dollars (ack) is because they never got my 2002 return. they owe me money from 2002, which is good. anyway, i had to drive down to los gatos to refile for 2002. this is why it’s good to either have a tax accountant or to use turbo tax which keeps files around. i mailed the return, but they never got it. anyway. i got to see my dad yesterday, which is nice. didn’t expect to. i must go off and get padding for my computer so it doesn’t get trashed like mitch’s did.

another code word

war on terror

Bush said, “We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.” Look, he’s telling us what he means. We’re struggling against people “who happen to use terror as a weapon.” Sounds like the key point in the “war on terror” isn’t “terror” after all. They just “happen to use terror as a weapon.” So our war is really with “ideological extremists.” But not just any “ideological extremists.” We’re friends with Christian fundamentalists and the vatican and lots of other kind of extreme ideologies. We specifically at war with “ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies.” Ok, so what is a “free society?” That itself is a code word. Remember the cold war? East against west? The free world against communism? The free world is made up of free societies. If they’re in binary opposition to communism, free societies must be capitalist. captialism = freedom. “Free world” and “free societies” mean capitalism. Both those phrases are used. We’re stuggling against ideological extremists who do not beleive in capitalism and who happen to use terror as a weapon to shake the conscience of captialist countries. Oh no! Communists! But how do we define communism? The state department says you’re a communist if you put the needs of people before the needs of multinational trade. Maybe they’re ideological extremists who don’t want to be neo-colonies of the west. They’re opposed to our foreign policy that sees them as just part of our supply lines. We might feel bad about that from time to time. It could sake out conscience. We’re at war with ideological extremists who don’t believe in neocolonialism . . . [and] try to shake the consience of capitalist countries. These guys sound less perpplexingly evil all the time. It sounds like they might have legitimate greviences that could be addressed, so that they wouldn’t have to use terror as a weapon. Maybe there’s some solution aside from killing all of them. Afterall, if use violence as a first resort, aren’t we sources of terror?

No, because of what that definition doesn’t say. Using terror to shake the conscience of non-capitalist or non-colonialist states is a-ok. As long as you beleive in “free societies.” Nuclear weapons are ok as long as we’ve got them. Using terror as a weapon is ok as long as we’re doing it. Terrorism is defined as attacking non-military targets with the intent to changing the mind of a people. Or really any attack designed to change the minds of non-compatants. Like “shock and awe” was designed to um, shock and awe the folks in Iraq so they wouldn’t want war and maybe would just throw Hussein out for us. The CIA has blown up many non-military targets while trying to assasinate somebody or trying to change people’s minds. The contras attacked clinics under our bidding, trying to change the outcome of an election. But we’re not at war with our own terror. It’s in the service of neo-colonialism.
I’m not just being silly. What Bush said is a straight-up admission that some terror is ok and some is not and really depends on who is doing it and what their movitves are. Fighting our foreign policy of corporate dominance is specifically not ok, and that’s what we’re at war with. People think Bush is stupid, but the depth of information that he’s providing here suggests that he’s not, he’s just akward. You can’t be that dumb if your dad was head of the CIA

NYC / My Life

Bay Area activism to infuse N.Y. /
West Coast artists travel to Big Apple for GOP convention

Indeed. I’m going to be in CT starting on the 17th and probably in NYC on the 18th or 19th. As a protester, I’m supposed to wear “buisiness casual.” I don’t know if I own any kakhis. I may have to buy pants and some nice short sleeved summer shirts. Probably after I head east. I dunno. I’ve got too much stuff to haul back already. And there’s aproblem that my outgo is currently higher than my income. I’m expecting my spending to go way down once classes actually start, but in the meantime, I’m going to spend 2 weeks in NYC. I wonder if you can get buisiness casual from Bob’s Store. I got a new hat. It’s a panama hat, offwhite with a red and blue band, I think it looks appropriately convention-y. If I dress nicely enough, maybe I’ll be mistaken for a delegate… in drag.
I’ve heard rumors that New Yorkers hosting activists have some left-wong cachet. Or at least, I heard that my host for the convention has been telling her friends that she’s hosting activists. It makes me feel so… activisty. I need to find a group or something to be involved with, but I’m hoping to find something once I get there. Much like I’m hoping to find a place to stay between the 23rd and the 27th, but, of course, I could go back to Middletown and do some work or something.
Apparently there’s an installation in my living room….
I may be taking down my blog, or at least removing all the archives, but I’m not sure. I may have 15 minutes of fame. (nothing to do with what anything i’ve blogged. you can ask me about it in person, but don’t speculate in the comments, or i’ll delete them. i’m asking people who know (or think they might know) not to talk about it.). Obviously, everything I say on my blog is public, but I’m assuming that my current readership is generally sympathetic, which would not necessarily be true in the future. I really haven’t figured out if I should take stuff down, leave stuff up, or just stay officially anonymous. If you see stuff start disappearing, don’t worry, the archives will reappear at a later date.
Good attention / bad attention . . ..

Code Words

In American politics, key phrases pop up over and over again. They sound like they mean one thing, but to certain groups of people, they’re code words for something else. Here are three of them:

States Rights

States rights means segregation. when people fought for slavery, they fought for states rights. When they argued for Jim Crow, they argued for states rights. When they complained against Brown vs the Board of Eduction and against bussing, their rallying cry was states rights. This term has always been used by the right wing.
Now when the federal government tries to regulate anything, environmental or civil, it violates “states rights.” But when California tries to pass medicinal marijuana, the very pro-“states rights” administration swings into action, arresting everyone in sight. Because states rights means hurting the vunerable, not protecting them.

Culture of Life

This is an oldy-but-goody, one I hadn’t head musch since my Catholic days, but Bush used it when talking to the Knights of Columbus. NPR described the KofC as the largest Catholic lay organization in the United States. the are a fraternal (ie men only) organization dedicated to Christopher Columbus. Yes, that Columbus. That should give you an idea of their politics. As one of my friends in the clergy likes to say, there are a lot of Archie Bunkers in the Catholic church. He doesn’t think it’s what the Catholic Church is all about, I don’t either, but I quit rather than deal with it. Anyway, they invited Bush to speak as the president, not as a candidate, meaning that they don’t plan to invite Kerry to speak. The tape on the radio had the group chanting “four more years.” And this is what I don’t get about some people, especially, say, some angry white men. They have a choice between a guy who is a strong beleiver in a religion that says everyone in his audience is going to hell. All evangelical fundamentalists say terrible things about Catholics when they think they’re not going to be overheard. Bush probably calls them “papists” when he thinks his mic is turned off. Or they could vote for a guy who is actually Catholic, but they’re not even going to listen to him speak. Why do people consistently behave in a manner contrary to their own best interests?
So Bush talked about fostering a “culture of life.” What on earth does that mean? To Catholics, that’s a stance against abortion and the death penalty. To Bush, it’s just against abortion. Contrast this with the “culture of death.” No, that’s not pro-death penalty dropping bombs on everything that moves in the middle east. The culture of death refers to the homosexual “deathstyle.” (They’d call it that anyway, but as Fred Phelps speaks for a lot of homophobes when he says “thank god for aids.”) To Bush and apparently to the KofC a “culture of life” means fecundity. It means procreative sex only without the use of contraceptive devices. That’s what Bush said he was in favor of: Anti-abortion. Anti- family planning. Anti-gay.
And that’s how you can adavance “life” while murdering prisoners and people all over the world. Because according to the “culture of life” as advanced by Bush, human rights start before conception and end at birth.

“I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security.”

this is code for anti-UN rhetoric. The UN is a secret plot to unite us into one world government and are flying black helicopters overhead. They want the power to veto US military action because weak and corrupt nations are jealous of our might and want to usurp our government and take over our country and they’re going to use the UN to do it. Why should we listen to any third world country? They don’t even have nuclear weapons.
ahem. Under Regan, we objected to the elected government of Nicuragua and started funding terorist attacks on non-military targets, like clinics and seed stores. We financed the mudering and terrorization of peasants, just like we’ve done for ages in South America. Yay Monroe Doctorine! Nicuragua recognized that it didn’t have the reources to fight the US army and adjunt militias and feed it’s country, so it launched a legal action in the World Court. The World Court ruled that the US had to stop bombing them. We ignored the World Court. Then the general assembly of the UN oassed a resolution saying it wanted countried to obey international law. We voted against it, as it was clearly directed at us, but it passed anyway by a huge majority. We ginored it and continued to murder Nicuraguans. Why? Because we will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. there was faked “evidence” that Nicurgaua might have imported Soviet Migs. then they could fight back! We’d better bomb them so they can’t fight back. You know, they were an evil regieme and had to be ousted (does this sound familiar?) They had WMD they could use against us. We had to act before they did. The UN told us not to, but we will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security.
That phrase means breaking international law, ignoring the UN and more recently, it means failing to pay our UN dues. When Kerry utters that phrase, most of scratch our heads and so, “ok. wouldn’t it be against the law to give other countries veto power? i’m confused. um, go kerry.” Anti-UN people hear, “fuck the UN. I’m with you guys. Go isolationism! Fear everyone.”

How Things Should Work

When I hit “save” in my text editor, I want it to save a revision of the document, in the file system, not in the document itself, like MS Word does. Then, if I want to look at an old version, I can back up to an older version. I hate it when I delete something and then miss it. Or change a text file of programming code and then my code stops working.
I want to be able to hit a button “publish” and get to pick what I want to do. this can mean that I save it to a CVS server. Or send it to a printer. This could mean that I publish it via an RSS feed. I would have many hierarchical feeds. For example, I could have an academic feed and below that have a separate feed for each class. Subscribers to my feeds could include my teachers, other people interested in my topics, and perhaps a shared class aggregator. I could also choose to publish it to my blog or to my website or wherever. It would do the right thing.
I would be able to attach tags to the document, like you can with gmail. I want to be able to tag academic papers by the class and by the school and by the semester. If I keep working on some document across multiple semesters, I want to be able to look at the final version for the fall of 2003 and then be able to look again at the spring of 2004. This would tie into the versioning system.
I want to be able to use the same text editor every time I want to edit text. I may enable or disable certain features, depending on context, like emacs loads different modes depending on what kind of file that you’re editing. If people want to sell me software, fine sell features, like people now sell VST plugins and photoshop plugins. Give me add-ons for my existing tools, but don’t replace them. When I edit pictures, I want to use the same editor every time. When I’m just futzing with my photo library, it’s ok if just the iPhoto tools show up for default, but I want to be able to use the GIMP tools too, without having to export the file, quit iPhoto, start GIMP, edit the photo, save it, re-import into iPhoto. I want to be able to use any tool with any data.

OSW

Getting it for OSX

pre-reqs

You need Tcl/Tk for Aqua, which is handily available pre-compiled. Get the version with “TclTkAquaBI ” and the start of the name. That distribution swings both ways. No, um, the BI stands for “Batteries Included.” It has some libraries that you need. Just because you have Tcl/Tk installed for running pd or whatever doesn’t mean that you have the BI version, so download it to double-check. If you get an error on starting OSW that you don’t have Iwidgets, then you need to go get the TclTkAquaBI. Don’t go download source or anything for iWidgets unless you enjoy driving yourself insane. You must install TclTkAquaBI before you compile OSW.
you also need Jack Tools
You currently need to download and compile the source of OSW in order to run it. Get the source via CVS.

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/osw login

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/osw co osw

cd osw/src/macosx
./configure
make
sudo make install
sudo make externals

Running it

Launch Jack Pilot, which came with Jack Tools. Click the “start jack” button. Then open the terminal and type “osw” at the prompt. Everything out to work.