Sharp Tools - Words

Chow Yun Fat + twin Deagles = WIN

 2:37pm jyeo: other news: I saw bulletproof monk because it was free on my cable box thing
 2:37pm jbz: oooh that was awful
 2:37pm jyeo: little known fact about movies:
 2:38pm jyeo: if chow yun fat is filmed from below dualing twin deagles in a wide arc over people's heads,
 you say: "Shit, why is chow yun fat dualing twin deagles in a wide arc over everyone's head?"
 2:38pm jbz: hahaha
 2:39pm jyeo: and then you go find out why by watching the movie, no matter how bad you know it's going to be.
 2:39pm jbz: This is quite true.
 2:39pm jyeo: dude, tell me I'm wrong
 2:39pm jyeo: just try
 2:39pm jbz: Because Chow Yun Fat + deagle(s) = WIN
 2:39pm jyeo: because I'm not, and that's why you watched the movie too
 2:39pm jyeo: I know it is
 2:39pm jbz: it totally is
 2:39pm jbz: no question about it

I don't know how I feel about this.

I just ran across this story about a white intellectual woman 'losing her innocence' and her 'love affair with Harlem.' How? She was mugged in front of her favorite jazz dive by a black man that she knew - and nobody in the club or on the street would help her or give statements to the police.

I'm not sure which is stronger - my feeling of disbelief that this woman lasted this long without such an event occurring, or my feeling of annoyance at the 'oh my goodness even *I* have been affected and I'm so tolerant!' vibe it projects.

It's made worse by her litany of hints - the man who mugged her was an ex-con who learned hairdressing in prison, so she'd made an appointment with him. The second visit, she's 'sure' he stole her wallet, so she didn't go back. When she ran into him outside the club, he threw her to the ground and 'ambled' off with her handbag.

For fuck's sake.

I'm not even going to comment here, I don't think, right now. There's just so much ridiculousness in this story that I don't know where to start. Lady, this is New York, fuck that it's Harlem. Your behavior is so bizarre to me as a New Yorker (screw my race) that I just can't even figure out whether I feel sympathy for you, pity, or sheer disgust.

Damn subconscious.

In the year I've had my iPhone, I'd dropped it (like, really dropped it a decent distance onto a hard surface) maybe three times. I don't use a case, just keep it in my pocket; I like the phone's sturdy-yet-slim form factor, and cases ruin that. Most also make it harder to get to the phone's controls. Finally, when carrying a bag, I have a phone holster on the strap with a closing cover - and phone cases make the phone too big and/or 'grippy' to slide into the holster properly.

Anyway. My point actually has little to do with that. What's annoying me is that since I wrote my blog post explaining how I'm not going to buy a new iPhone, I've dropped the thing four times.

Subconscious wish-fulfillment is such a bitch. I'm NOT buying a new iPhone, self. Not until there's a 32GB+ storage option. GET IT STRAIGHT.

Fiction, friction and place

I recently started participating in the online Critters Workshop. I submitted the story that just went by here on the blog for its turn in the upcoming queue, and began buckling down to write at least one crit a week while aiming for two. I won't bother to explain Critters - check out the website, it's fairly simple.

This week, I read the book Mirrored Heaven by David J. Williams. It's a cyberpunk first novel, with lots of combat and highly stylized prose.

Then, today, I checked Daniel Keys Moran's website and noted that he had posted a new chunk of the as-yet-unpublished 'Trent the Uncatchable' novel The A.I. War. I read it, devoured it really, and re-read it several times.

These three different events resonated. While reading Mirrored Heaven, I felt myself falling into critique mode rather than reader mode. I suspect that it's to some degree because I wasn't all that enamored of the writing, but mostly because I'd been reading SF to crit it for a couple of weeks straight (I read most of the stories available on Critters even if I didn't crit them). In my head, I was fairly harsh; I fired off imaginary salvos regarding language, technobabble, and plotting.

After that, I ended up reading The A.I. War, which naturally led to rereading chunks of The Long Run which is one of my favorite SF novels.

Then I reread chunks of the novel I keep claiming I'm working on, and cringed.

I know that it's impossible for me to actually evaluate my own work, and that that is why critique-circles are so effective. I just know that I waver between enthusiasm for my stuff as I'm writing it and sheer cringing embarrassment when I later re-read it in an attempt to get working on it again. This is why so many of my stories tend to stop and not start up once more; because that 'refamiliarization' process usually goes so very badly wrong.

I don't know. Part of me wants to think that what I've written is no worse that (and in some few ways, better than) Mirrored Heaven, and that got published. On the other hand, that book has, despite its technofragmentation, more of a structure than I have; its characters, despite being somewhat interchangeable, are nevertheless more readily identified as to motive and makeup than mine. There's part of me that says "this book was once just like yours, but the difference is it absorbed more work and then got finished." Part of me retorts "but if you can't learn to plot past basic structure and Everything2-sized chunks, it won't matter how much work you put in."

How much of this is actual self-evaluation, and how much of it is trying to hold up my favorite SF prose as a 'pass bar'?

I'm not sure where I stand at the moment. I'm also on antidepressants again, which has had its customary effect on my writing - the tap has run solidly dry, SLAM, no exceptions. Still, I'll keep trying. I'm arguing with myself whether I should first replot, then rewrite; or whether the hundred-eighty pages I have so far are enough of an investment that I should try to simply mold them further towards what I think the book should be.

What should it be, though? That's the question I have little trouble answering when writing small bits, and ever so much trouble answering when looking at the whole.

Blah.

Self-pity, with sparkles of talent

Ironically, I wrote a sentence today that I really like, while describing to someone why I never finish novels and stories and such:

Things tend to peter out, and I find myself wandering in a gritty urban desert, dowsing for closure.

As I told bobbobbob, I'd be proud of it if it wasn't so fucking true.

Oh yeah: Happy fucking Valentine's Day. Now fuck you.

Hydrogen/Gas Combustion and Dreams (with guns)

I was reading again about BMW's Hydrogen 7 and it struck me - I wrote a story back in 1996 about a hybrid vehicle which shared gas and hydrogen combustion in the same cylinders. What's more, I posted it on the web, too.

I've spent a lot of time there, yes.

I write a lot for this other website that I sometimes talk about. It's either in its death throes, or thriving; quality is either in the crapper or stellar; we can't agree, those of us who hang out there. Some of us are obsessed with numbers, despite exhortations to the contrary. This, for example, is an image of the stuff I've written for that site:

Each colored pixel is an article; time is along the X axis, the most recent contributions farthest to the right. The 'reputation' (or 'score' or whatever) of the writeup, as judged by other denizens of the site, is the Y axis. If the writeup has been 'cooled' – given extra-special-useless Gold Star awards by fellow users, which mostly serves to emphasize the writeup for a time by placing it in a 'cool list' on the front page – it's in red, with the size of the halo indexed to the number of times it's been so awarded. If it hasn't, it's blue. Daylogs (entries written under the current date, treated as diary entries and usually subject to less harsh voting) are in green.

What this graph tells me, most of all, is that I've written nearly 1500 articles for the thing, creative writing and 'factuals' and stupid in-jokes and games alike. While it's kept me saner than I otherwise would have been, just imagine what I could have done with that time and effort had I turned it to, I don't know, selfish ends. Of course, then I probably wouldn't have been able to do it.

Ah well.

For those of you who hang out there yourselves and are curious, this was generated from here. More E2 trivia: according to Those Who Know, that little blue pixel high up on the left is AFAIK currently the highest-rated article on there without a C!. Heh.

Keith Laumer, Bolos and Foreshadowing

Heh. So I picked up a copy of The Compleat Bolo for a buck last night, and was leafing through it in nostalgia...and I came across a story I'd forgotten - Rogue Bolo from 1986. One where a new Bolo (sci-fi's first self-aware tank series) is being activated. The project is so super-sensitive that anyone who even looks like they might disagree with it is stuck in Imperial Detention Camps to prevent them from disrupting it.

Why is this funny?

The Bolo is being built in Imperial America. By the Emperor George I.

Nice.

Two hundred and twenty-nine years since the Declaration

...that announced the nation of my birth. On this day, in this place, where I spend so much time and energy in frustration and anger, I want to spend one day addressing every American who reads this.

Welcome, sir or madam.

We are countrymen. What that means, and what it is worth, I cannot say. What our country means today in the world, I also cannot say. All I can say to you is what it means to me. Those of you who are not American, and who (in the words of a poster at The Agonist "watch, bemused" - we apologize for the interruption in the regular programming of internecine Snark, and beg your indulgence. Regular uncivil discourse amongst the colonists will resume shortly.

Fellow Americans:

Our country is becoming increasingly polarized. Bile and rancor sear both sides of the debate. Frustration runs rampant. All I can try to do from my position is assure you of one thing. I, personally, do not blog my choleric, frustrated rants because I 'hate America.' I don't hate my countrymen serving in our armed forces. Nor, I assure you, do any of my friends who rant as well. On the contrary, we are frustrated because our love for this country has run afoul of what we see as a profound misstep in the path - and we feel powerless to correct it, or even influence the way our country walks, when the only responses we see from those currently in power are blithe assurances that either nothing is wrong, or (worse) that we ourselves must be sympathizers with those who 'hate us.'

Enough.

Today is our birthday.

Today is a time for fireworks, and grilling, and family. Today I would that I could share a drink with any and all who are or would be Americans, or would simply learn more of America as an American sees it. I would tell you all I could, and I would endeavour to listen with all my might. That is all, really, that I think we can do for each other right now - not just listen, but hear; not just talk, but speak.

Raise a drink with me, please - no matter where you are - to the Constitution of the United States of America. Raise a drink with me to those who would defend that Constitution and the Republic which its ideals have brought forth here on Earth - an idea which binds men. Not a fear which binds men, nor a power which forces them, but an idea which makes them kin - raise a drink with me, brother and sister.

Happy Fourth of July. Many happy returns.

Pace, Decisions, Software.

One of the illuminating things about working for Novell is getting to talk to people from around the company as they (or I) wander offices and locations. I don't do nearly as much of this as other people within the company, but I make up for it by being at least fifteen times as loudmouthed and opinionated as most of those I come across, plus ten times as willing to mouth off about crap that those on the receiving end of my bloviations are quite sure I have no credentials to be talking about anyway.

Recently, the topic of decisionmaking at Novell came up. (Woo! Here's my chance to get fired for blogging!) Fear not, I'm not going to get into specifics about products, organization, people, or anything like that. I'd like to talk about goals, stated and otherwise, and about what Novell is Trying To Do - since that has been a popular topic on blogs related to this company in recent months.

Let me make one thing clear at the outset of this post. I'm not a software engineer. Nor am I a project manager. Nor am I a corporate executive. My views don't reflect those of my employer. I don't have information that is not available to anyone who simply reads the trade mags (at least, not about the stuff I'm talking about). Furthermore, I in no way affect policy (thank whatever you hold holy). So there. I'm an Op. I make shit work, mostly. Sometimes I break it. Sometimes I get up at 3 am and haul my lazy black ass into the office because a server has gotten lonely and decided it needs to feel loved, or because some user has done something that we in the biz call 'stupidwrong.'

I rant about the state of Novell and its Linux strategy from the POV of someone who has now worked within Novell-the-corporate-structure for about eighteen months, and who has worked with Linux the thing and community (note I don't say product) for about seven years. I've worked in IT, part and full-time, for around fifteen years. That's not a claim to Superior Understanding; that's just a statement of my point of view, so you can decide for yourself if you are going to lend these words any credence. I can't tell you to do so; you have to make that decision.

Back to the point.

In any case, I see the tension as follows. Novell is an Old World Software Company. It was the epitome of Old World Software company. It lived and thrived on measured, managed, release-cycle engineering, with Managed Customer Expectations and predictable upgrade revenues. Shipping product on time? Much more important than fanatic attention to detail. Appeasing the stockholders? Absolutely critical. Who were and are the customers that need to be kept completely happy? Large, conservative enterprises - financial institutions, etc. - with conservative, enterprise buying habits.

Not all of this has changed. The latter, for example, is still true. But there's a tension, now. The declared future of the company rests on Linux. Linux is not something that will sit still long enough for you to shoehorn it into your corporation's familiar release cycle. Nor is it something that will permit you to ship it raw to keep the customers happy.

This is not because the final market is so very different. After all, we're not expecting (as I see it) to keep Novell alive by forsaking the enterprise customer! We're planning - and working like bees - to make the enterprise customer stable, productive and functional by utilizing the New Hotness that is linux, rather than by locking them into the death spiral of Netware. Don't take that as a slam on Netware - everything dies. Entropy, you know. Netware is a Grand Veteran of the software industry. In any case, the problem is that Novell isn't there yet. We're working to prove ourselves to our customers and to the industry that we can pull this off. I think we can. The problem is that this means that there is an incredible spotlight on the things we are doing right now - and that products that are being released now matter more than ever.

Couple that with the fact that the Linux world doesn't work like the old software world. The Linux world (I know, there's no such thing as 'the Linux world' - how about 'the new Sofware industry? Nah, no better...I'll keep trying) is one where the community watches, reads, dissects, comments, blogs...everything. No-one is immune. Open Source software, for better or worse, has a concomitant ecosystem of very smart and very dedicated people who spend a great deal of time, sometimes with motivations that 'classic corporations' do not understand, evaluating, testing, improving, commenting on and 'policing' software. Not only software - moves made in the business world that in the 'old' software industry only 'industry analysts' and stockholders would care about.

Plus, the community listens to them - not always, and not unanimously. But linux as a whole, and its uptake and use, can be swayed by the response of these watchers.

In this context, the 'old world' attitude of 'the release cycle matters because stockholders need to see a product out before year's end' is not as important as getting it right. A mediocre product, at this point in our business, is not a simple low point on the release cycle - it's an amplified perception problem. Problems that are being caught in early QA testing yet not being fixed, or being passed over due to limited time in cycle are signs of decisions which are perfectly proper in old world engineering. They are absolutely fucking lethal if carried over into the changeover period.

If cycles aren't adjusted to handle product polish, if design constraints are not mediated or adjusted to take into account the fact that these products are designed not to add 'incremental functionality' but to introduce skeptical conservative users and hyperattentive Linux commentators to a Whole New Way of Novell, then all the work, all the effort, all the Culture Change, all the money in the world won't make this happen.

In some cases, these things are happening. Sometimes, there is a sense that we're performing for the world. Sometimes there is not - there's a sense that we're doing the 9-to-5 job. This difference knows no facility or geographic boundary. It doesn't map to which business unit people are in. It doesn't map to how long people have been at Novell. But it's there, nonetheless.

You can probably guess which side of that difference makes me absolutely fucking crazy sometimes.

Political theater and the dance of faces

First things first. If you haven't yet, please read my previous post since this post concerns it. I'll wait.

Okay? Okay.

Really. I'm serious.

Wow. That was fairly awesome. I'm going to assume you've watched the C-SPAN video, RealPlayer craptastic though it is. There is some fascinating stuff going on in there, and I don't even follow these guys much. For it to be that evident means some severe armtwisting and the like has been happening. Where to start?

Let's start with the tone of the room. The Dems are looking fairly feisty. This is to be expected; this week has seen some of the worst polling numbers for Bush and Co. so far, if not the worst, in terms of popularity. The Social Security overhaul is meeting severe resistance not only from Democrats but from Republicans as well, to the point where the normally secretive Karl Rove has been seen giving television interviews about it. Polling on Terry Schiavo indicates that the American public thinks the GOP rushed in too fast in many cases, and many of the weaker congressional Republicans are feeling the pinch. Perhaps due to all these indicators, despite their two-vote gap in the committee, the Dems are here to play. Joe Biden looks at ease, if fired up; he is passionate in tone and manner but his speech and mannerisms don't look forced. Kerry is much much better than he was during the campaign. When he's not forced to stick to issue lists and talking points, his speeches don't stagger around, and he's a much more linear speaker in both tone, pattern and physical affect. Sarbanes is (perhaps actively) exemplifying the confused grandfatherly meme - 'just explain this to me, please?'

In general, they appear to be well prepared, with a game plan. They are handing off to each other, they aren't stepping on each others' issues or hotbutton points, and they're well staffed up.

Lugar, in contrast, looks awful. He's sitting straight up, with absolute minimal body motion. There's a quarter-smile pasted on his face, and he's sweating. I'm not sure what is going on with him. The remainder of the GOP are hard to read, because with the exception of Chafee, Hegel and Allen they appear to have their backs to the primary C-SPAN camera. They're not talking much. The Dems are getting fired up about Bolton.

The initial attempt, by Biden, to get the hearings closed, fails. There is a deal of speechifying by Dems including Kerry eloquently defending the need to protect both the nominee and those presenting 'allegations'. They are rebutted by Sen. Allen (R-Va?) who speaks quickly about open government. Lugar moves to vote immediately on Sen. Biden's motion to close the hearings, prompting mutterings of disbelief from the Dems as the Reps all vote in line to keep the hearings open. Sen. Biden defuses further acrimony by pointing out the Committee rule which requires closed hearings in the event those hearings might 'damage the professional standing' of anyone involved...but he's smiling! So is Kerry!

My take: that was a setup. The Dems absolutely want all information on Bolton in the public domain. They want every opportunity to read every allegation and reiterate every negative piece of testimony on open camera - so there is no political reason they'd want the hearings closed. The GOP reacted reflexively and instantly to their proposal, with Lugar moving so quickly that no-one even had time to protest before he called the vote. He was even prepared with a precedent (from 18 years in the past!) where the chairman had stifled discussion on a closed-session motion; he apparently expected discussion on a closed-session motion and wanted to stifle it to try to hurry the main vote along. It looks like the Dems trapped him on that one, using his desire to hurry the procedure to guarantee open hearings.

There is much presenting of allegation and charges by the Dems in an attempt (apparently) to appeal to those Reps who are not voting on pure partisan lines to consider the nominee's character. They know they only have to flip one, and they're working hard. Lugar tries several times to call for an immediate vote, at one point stating flatly that he has ten Senators who 'are going to vote for the nomination to move to the floor.' Sarbanes shuts him down at least twice, noting that the Senate recessed until 5pm specifically for this debate, and since it's only 10 of 4, what's the point of having the vote? Why not have the debate? Lugar is looking even more uncomfortable; he's got both hands flat on the table in front of him, and he's not turning his head. He's looking around only with his eyes, and he's sweating. This is really interesting. Biden is leaning forward, back, around; Kerry is pensive, then interested, etc. The reps are mostly looking dutifully bored. One (Chafee?) looks somewhat worried, actually

At around 20 after 4, there's a bombshell. Sen. Voinovich (R-Ohio) apologizes for not being in prior sessions with John Bolton present (excuse?) and then states that he's heard enough in today's information alone to feel very uncomfortable voting for John Bolton; at the least, he won't vote to move the nomination to the floor. Boom. The room behind the table gets much more animated. Lugar starts to stutter more. At the same time, however, something very interesting happens - he suddenly relaxes. His hands leave the table. He begins to smile openly, and grin occasionally. His neck begins to work, and he begins using his hands and arms demonstratively. In short, he starts actually emoting - it looks either like he'd been waiting for this or like a gigantic weight has been removed.

This is pure inference, but it reminds me of my own behavior when a deadline is finally irrevocably past; the sort of flip 'ah well, no matter' attitude. Spinning it into a scenario, it looks like to me he has just realized that he has failed to Do His Job, i.e. get the nomination out onto the floor by 5pm today. It's not going to happen. Voinovich has seen to that, and it's not Lugar's fault, really; Voinovich defected (must figure out how/why). So at this point, it's back to business as usual. They start negotiating when to resume hearings and how long to delay the vote.

Barack Obama, in his first statement, acknowledges his junior status and while asking for education on procedure from Lugar manages to get in a zing re: 'what happens if we deadlock, Mr. Chairman?' Nicely done. He's very urbane and smooth, looks relaxed and fresh, and Lugar is still sweaty, rumpled and stuttering, comparatively.

Aha. DailyKos has it. Voinovich is only 2 years into a 6-year term; he's going to outlast Bush no matter what, and he won sixty-something percent of the vote, with Democrats crossing to support him. In other words, he's more popular in Ohio than Bush is.

Conspiracy theory from the same source: maybe he knows something about the Ohio election. Hahahahaha!

Wow. This has been a fun day of observatory parliamentary procedure.

Surreality tax

I can't remember who I was talking to about this, so if it was you, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to steal the idea. But I would be *so* up for paying a surreality tax. That is, a small fee paid to my municipality, or actors therein, by which my day would be made a bit more surreal. Think of that awful movie without the danger or 'intruding into people's lives' or 'personal nature of the intrusion.' A perfect example can be found here. Why the hell don't I live in NYC so I could be involved with this genius? Oh yes, because I'll never be able to afford to live there again, that's why. Sigh.

Lessons learned

The more eyes, the better. This makes me upset that I don't own some form of cheap camcorder. That impulse, in turn, makes me think about the balance of privacy, anonymity and public responsibility. On the other hand, if I want to be anonymous and maintain my privacy, I should be smart enough to not be walking around near large public functions like the Republican National Convention. I object to always-on, government-controlled surveillance of public places. However, I support the right of citizens to record the agents of government doing their job in order to maintain a check on their behavior, because (as this story clearly shows) sometimes those checks are vitally necessary.

101 Years - A life as long as the telegram. Godspeed.

George Kennan, author of the famed-in-international-security Long Telegram and hence one of the framers of the U.S. side of the Cold War, has died at his home in Princeton, N.J. at the age of 101. Of the great deal of verbiage I have been made to read in the field, Kennan's has always struck me as some of the clearest and most strikingly well-formed, serving to convey structured ideas with precision.

I hope that if ever I find myself in as influential a moment and position as he came to in 1946 and 1947, I rise to the occasion with even a tenth the aplomb and wits he managed.

MMMMM-hm.

Note: I wrote this several months ago for this other website I sometimes lurk on. I just re-read it, though, and wanted to post it here, under my own name.

-----

The refuge from modern stress that is the black barbershop has received recent adulation in various media. Not least of these is the film Barbershop, a surprisingly good (in my opinion) take on the institution which concentrates mostly on setting the scene and doesn't drape too much external plot over the course of events which cover a single day.

I was in fact raised in Upper Manhattan, but not Upper (or Eastern) enough to patronize a black barbershop while growing up. Plus, my dad is nothing if not completely un-Black in phenotype. That, plus the strained race relations of the Harlem area in the 1970s meant that his taking his son in search of one might have been a bad plan despite the fact that I had hair so curly as to form mini-dreadlocks of its own accord, and a markedly darker skintone than he. As a consolation to me in my later years, I realize that he managed to take me to a worthy substitute which, while not serving as the neighborhood social center the black barbershop can, certainly contributed to my diverse ethnic exposure during my formative years.

In any case, back to the black barbershop. Many years later, my younger brother's son is turning two years old. They live in Washington, D.C. - in the area known as Dupont Circle which, before the gentrification and gay culture renaissance it experienced in the early 1990s, was nice and run-down. As my bro and I are walking over to 'get him a haircut' before the party, I get to marvel at one block of 14th street in particular. This block has (at one end) an enormous Whole Foods market, gleaming and new. Across the street, there is a new huge condo development, with associated advertising. Next to the condo, however, in the middle of the block, is a skeezy, painted-brick front bar ('pub,' my ass) with iron bars over the windows and hand-painted signage, which marks the perimeter of said upscaling. Across the street from that, next door to the Whole Foods -

...is a black barbershop.

We head in. There are five stations, three of which have barbers at them, and three or four folks seated along the wall (which, I should note, has nothing to do with whether they're waiting for a cut). My bro heads for a station in the back and negotiates a quick trim. I'm left standing in the front, marveling at the zillion-layer-brown paint on the frontage and brick; the flyblown and grilled front window, with 'BARBERSHOP' in elaborate, almost circus capitals painted on it.

"What I do you fo', young man?" The speaker is the barber with the front station - traditionally, the 'new man.' He's perhaps in his mid seventies. I stutter something about just being with my brother, and wave about helplessly for a second. He sees the opening.

"Give you a neck shave, den? Trim th' beard?"

I'm done. "Sure." I seat myself in the chair, and my barber snaps the cloth around me expertly. He is no newbie. Inside of ten seconds, he's got the chair adjusted, my head tilted slightly back, and the electric razor in his hands.

"How close you want it, boy?" (I should note I have gray hair in said beard and hair, but am beginning to realize how comforting it is to be addressed as the young guy).

"Oh, up to you, boss." This is the correct answer, I learn from his solid nod, lower lip pooched out in concentration. He turns my head back and forth once, surveying, and starts in with the razor, using short but confident strokes. No overlaps, no hesitation, a steady rhythm.

The radio tied to the shelf between my station and the next (honest, a radio; half a boom box, a handle and single speaker, antenna canted) is playing Robert Johnson, which I can certainly appreciate. At the moment, Robert is crooning about the hounds following him, and the barber next to us (who is in his sixties) says something about "Dat's good stuff, who dat?"

There is - horror - a shock of disbelief. My capillotomist misses a stroke. Doesn't make a mistake, mind, but interrupts the rhythm. Covers by switching blades and looks over his big-ass square glasses at the offender next door. "'Who dat?' God Damn, boy, what the hell you talkin' bout? You got hit on de head as a chile?"

"Aw, shut up, Curtis, don't you be goin' on about knowin' all dat. You only nine years older'n'me, nigger, don't be puttin' nothing on, takin' nothin' off-"

"WHO DAT? Dis man jus' said who dat," he announces to three waiting patrons, all of whom shake their heads in unison and on cue. "Who dat. God damn, Leroy, I swear." He continues to cut my hair, and I risk it.

"That's Robert Johnson, pops. Father of the blues. First recorded Delta Bluesman."

I can't see him, but Curtis (working on my neck) beams. "See? MMMM-hm. Dis boy knows, Leroy! Robert Johnson. Dis boy know his music."

Leroy isn't upset, but continues the argument, which I have come to realize is merely the same as 'conversation.' "Nigger, yo' sister done warn me you was an uppity mo' fo', MMMM-hm, yep, she did. I shoulda lissened, boy."

I realize, at this point (strangeness for a Northeasterner) that I am in the American South. It's funny to realize, sometimes, how far south D.C. actually can be. The hot air from outside ladles itself over my head as another customer enters, the air conditioner laboring wheezily atop the door. Greetings are exchanged; the newcomer takes up a ragged and ancient Playboy magazine from one of the green vinyl chair seats along the wall and settles in after mumbling to one of his neighbors. Curtis moves over to my cheek.

"Leroy, I cain't understand how you c'n not know yo' blues, boy. You be beltin' out dat shit ev'ry day, heah, singin' when we tell you t'shut it, MMMM-hm?"

MMMM-hm. The very phrase has settled into my head. I have to admit that I derive special sensory enjoyment from having a haircut or a beard trim, especially from a skilled barber. The touch of cold steel or swift electric will send a shiver up my spine, starting near my coccyx and dispersing rapidly upwards out my arms to my fingertips, and up my nape to the back of my skull. Unlike most shivers, though, it leaves me cool and dry, rather than nervous or sweaty, and each stroke will send the signal again. I have learned to remain perfectly still in a barber chair, the hum of the electric chattering its soft song into my ears as the teeth slide ever so lightly across my earlobes, or along my jawline. I don't sleep, but I'm not awake; the caress of the steel has my nervous system singing me to sleep in the chair. My consciousness hovers slightly above my body, well-tuned sensorium, and listens:

"MMMM-hm."

"...cuz we tol' his old lady that when she come in, remember?"

"MMMM-hm."

"...an' he didn't go anyway, stupid foo'. Hah. Heh heh heh. 'Member she come back in heah, after dat, lookin' fo' him wit' his shit in a suitcase? Wanted to throw him outta her house without gettin' her house broken throwin' stuff at him, dat foo.' "

"MMMM-hm, yup, hah."

The generic acknowledgement, it seems, a grunted but still liquid sound intended to convey the fact that the speaker is, in fact, listening despite being (to all appearances) buried intently in the latest Playboy, or the game of checkers that has sprung up on an unoccupied green vinyl seat along the wall. MMMM-hm. I can feel a laugh, one of those body-wiggling laughs of pure happiness, threatening to well up, but I sit on it firmly - it would only be misinterpreted.

"Hey, boy." Curtis appears to be addressing me, while swiping at my throat with an electric trimmer. I can't resist.

"MMMM-hm?"

"You evah heah Robert Cray live?"

I'm in. My MMMM-hm passes muster. I feel myself settle slightly deeper into the chair, relaxed, spoiled, home.

The neck shave, beard trim and a ceremonial pass across my 'fro with the scissors (just enough to elicit the shivers) and a spritz of Elixir across my head, and we're done. I pronounce it perfect, taking joy in Curtis' visible satisfaction, and ask how much. He realizes I don't know, and I watch his lower lip get sucked in and gnawed as he debates whether to sting me out of sheer reflex. I won't be offended.

"Four bucks?"

I nod soberly, hand him six, and escape into the world outside of bright lights, modern cars, Whole Foods, and find my bro (finished already) smoking one of the cigarettes his wife won't let him smoke in the house. He tosses it, stands, and we regard each other. He raises an eyebrow.

"MMMM-hm."

The laugh is enormous, and shared, and we amble off down the block, two men about our business.

Heh. And so it begins.

I've actually been waiting for this. One of my more personal problems with this whole process (the Eyes debate) has been the appropriation of the Civil Rights struggle by copyfighters - their comparison (either implicit or explicit) of their cause, methods, opponents, wrongs against which they fight and so on to those endured by the civil rights activists profiled by Eyes on the Prize. Although I have strayed over the line in suggesting this, I think, I've really tried to keep my mouth shut.

So, along comes a commenter and pretty much lays it all out for me. "Reverend Joe," thank you very much. Let's have a good look at your post, which does a good job of laying out the points.

Rev. Joe says:

That said, I would have had no philosophical issue with downloading EoTP from the DHB BitTorrent links that you, in part, got removed from the DHB website, had I the desire to watch it. I have to tell you, you harm your own case when you speak hypocritically about what the supporters of DHB's campaign are trying to accomplish, and also when you call them "theives" and "pirates". Is it just to call the people your Uncle chronicled "criminals" and "unpatriotic" because they broke the law of the land, unjust as it was?

Well, Rev. Joe, I acknowledge that I personally can't do much to stop you from clicking the download links. For the record, the only way I (in part) got those links removed from the DHB website was by conversing with Tiffiniy Cheng. I am not a decision maker nor a rights-holder of Blackside, Inc. Please be sure to get your facts straight. Any decisions involving lawyers, and any conversations involving lawyers, explicitly don't involve me, as I told Ms. Cheng at the beginning of our first (and every subsequent) conversation. Whether or not you believe that is up to you.

I "harm my own case" when I speak "hypocritically" about what the supporters of DHB's campaign are trying to accomplish, and call them "theives(sp)" and "pirates". Um, okay, I'm not sure how that's hypocritical, as I'm not out there copying stuff, but fine. As for it being just to call the people my uncle chronicled 'criminals' and the like, well, that's a whole other issue. First of all, it depends which people. He chronicled a lot of people, from murderers to preachers to folks that might qualify as saintly. Let's take the average protester. Perhaps the ones that took part in non-violent sit-ins. They probably wouldn't technically be 'criminals' but we could indeed call them guilty of misdemeanors, or whatever the penalty for trespass was - I don't know offhand.

My point is that what you call them is a technical term. It has nothing to do with moral justice. I, personally, *do* indicate that I feel what they are doing in this case is unjust. I do *not* feel that what the protesters did during said sit-ins and the like was unjust. If you read my entries, I did try to explain why.

The next paragraph is really my favorite:

You are entitled to your opinion of what "parts of copyright law" should be reformed, of course, just as the KKK is entitled to theirs about what "parts of segregation law" should be kept. Personally, I'd like to scrap the whole lot of copyright laws and start over. But when you insult someone for civilly disobeying a law *THEY* find to be unfair and think should be changed, invoking the name of your Uncle in the process, you're just being a hypocrite. And, if it's true your Uncle would be "fuming at" those downloads, then he was a hypocrite, too. It's fine if you want to say you disagree with our assessment that this part of the law is unjust and should be disobeyed -- but keep your insults to yourself -- or expect harsher ones in return.

Well! Refreshing! This really should fall under some modified form of Godwin's Law. At this point, we begin falling into what I can only assume are attempts to actively muddle the two struggles - civil rights and copyfight - both to vilify me and elevate the copyfighters. I find myself compared to the KKK in the first line. I'm sure that as a Black Jew, the KKK and I would have much to talk about. Reverend Joe notes that he'd like to scrap the entire copyright law and start over. This is perfectly valid opinion, one that should indeed be here - huzzah and more power to you, Rev. Joe. Thanks for your input. I wish you luck in your struggle to do so. I happen to disagree with you, but that's OK. "But when you insult someone for civilly disobeying a law *THEY* find unfair..." um, hold the phone. One of the key tenets of civil disobedience, as I mentioned earlier, was the maxim that it not deprive, harm or involve others in your action, or if so, does so to the minimum amount possible. That's not the case here.

Oh yeh, and what insults? 'Pirate?' 'Thief?' Okay, well, that might be an insult, I suppose, but it's a technical term, and if you say you're not, it's because we disagree on the actual law itself which, at the moment, is the law of the land - and which you acknowledge you're breaking. So 'thief' fits, technically. *I'm* the one who's been compared *somewhat humorously, I do admit) to the KKK. Man, I'd *love* to see their faces if I showed up at a meeting...shades of The Hebrew Hammer ("Shabbat shalom, motherfuckers!!!") Heh. Heh heh. Anyhow, call Tiffiniy - I'd like to think our conversations were carried on with the utmost civility.

Let's jump to the whole next section, where you claim 'Of COURSE it's about MONEY.' Um, newsflash...no, it's not. As I said, although you apparently don't believe me, I don't get any money from Eyes on the Prize. Although I realize you may have trouble realizing this, it is possible for people who own things (and that includes intellectual things) to have an interest in how those things are used. My uncle didn't make Eyes in order to make money, he made it in order to say something. This does not mean he was averse to making money from it when possible - but primarily, he made it to say something very specific for posterity. He was so concerned with the specifics of that message, he made sure there was a teaching plan produced with the film, a laserdisc set to be used with the teaching plan, a book designed to be a companion to the film, and spent innumerable hours of his life giving talks about the film and the surrounding history in the hopes that the story would be told and told consistently. One of the reasons he left the films themselves to his sisters was because they shared, closer than anyone else he knew, his experience growing up. They weren't and aren't filmmakers. They didn't know anything about running a film company. But they went through the same upbringing he did - the experience that led him, in his middle teens, to start thinking about making what would become Eyes on the Prize.

That consistency of message is not something that just happens and sticks around once the film is made. It requires a steward. Someone who decides what the film will be used for, and how. Someone (or someones) who will push for the film, and try to ensure that the film doesn't get appropriated for other fights, ones which (while important) are not the fights which Eyes on the Prize was made to commemorate.

It confuses me how someone who purports to be for a movement which claims to elevate the importance of information over money rights can't understand that there might be motivations other than money for trying to retain control of a work. Finally, this in no way involves 'lording it over the public.' I am the public. The entities my mother and aunt and their agents are negotiating with are not the public, some of them; some of them are. You appear to have this false dichotomy built up in your head where anyone who owns the rights to anything is no longer 'the public.' Strange. Where does it say that producing something means one must sign away one's membership in the 'protected class' of 'the public?' I am being honest, intellectually. I'm sorry if you don't think I am; that's your prerogative. But your sinmple refusal to believe it doesn't make it so.

Moving right along.

Next bit of irony -- you complain that: "even if it is legitimately impossible to identify who owns a particular clip (due to death, loss of records, etc. etc.) it may still be either impossible or prohibitively difficult to ever package, sell or publicly show any work containing that clip again - even if it is a five-second newsreel clip from fifty years previously."

Isn't this rich? Let me see if I can follow this ... you feel draconian restrictions and complete, no-registration-necessary control over everything from a scribbled doodle on a scratchpad to interview archival footage is BAD when it bothers YOU, the documentary maker / heir, but the same sorts of draconian restrictions on the PUBLIC, long after both the author and a meaningful period to exploit the work commercially are long expired, are GOOD policy, because it HELPS documentary filmmakers financially. Hmmm, I think I start to understand your motivations in this debate, finally.

Ha. Wow. I don't even know where to start. Okay, at the beginning.

The quote you offer at the start is me trying to explain some of the things I think are wrong with the system. WRONG. As in, agreeing with you. Next please. I believe in compensating owners for their clips. I don't claim to know what the proper balance is between their rights and the public's right to access them. I never have. That is, it seems to me, the question. I do believe that the creators of those clips have some rights, yes. I believe that in the event an owner can't be easily located ("orphan work") then there should be no restriction on its use, and it should be considered public domain - like a trademark, if no one steps up to defend. But that is all my personal opinion.

"Hmmm, I think I start to understand your motivations in this debate, finally." Oh good. I'm so glad! A day without elementary sarcasm is really a wasted day for me. My brain suffers without the challenge.

"But please don't tell us you're a crusader because you're telling people to steal his hard work."

Let me explain something to you if you're going to continue to engage copy-fighers in this manner. You open yourself to endless abuse with this kind of rhetoric. There is nothing going on in this controversy that involves stealing. As you may or may not be aware, stealing involves taking something away from someone who already owns that thing, so that they no longer have it. What is happening to you / your Uncle's estate is called copyright infringement -- thats what we call it when someone violates the U.S. Law that maintains an artifcial monopoly for one party over the copying of some creation by everyone else. Calling the people who do violate that law for non-commercial purposes "thieves" is about as accurate as call those who violated segregation laws "terrorists". And the motivations behind the two inaccuracies are pretty much the same, as well.

I didn't call them terrorists. Ever. Check carefully. Between that and the KKK accusation, where precisely are you coming from? Is this because of my name?

Anyhow you continue to make my point for me. I 'open myself up for endless abuse?' Great. As I said - the tactic here is to hijack Eyes on the Prize and then utilize both it and this debate as publicity mill for the copyfight debate - which drags Eyes on the Prize not only crosswise into the Copyfight debate itself (which is merely a muddling of its actual intent) but down into the debate level of, well, people like you, sir. And that, truly, is a loss for us all. It don't matter what happen to me, but I don't want this film dragged through 'endless abuse' from 'engaging copyfighters.' It has nothing to do with that.

So, "Reverend Joe," thanks very much for providing us with a timely demonstration.

Continuing with Prof. Madison

Professor Madison wonders if in fact the history of the Civil Rights movement that Eyes on the Prize chronicles really is available elsewhere, as I had averred in an earlier post. This is a fair question. Let me clarify my statement, as I have a tendency to write blog entries while sitting at home with a laptop underneath a cat, slugging coffee, angry and channeling the enraged spirit of Spider Jerusalem.

The facts are available elsewhere. The media may not be. That's why Henry put those clips in Eyes in the first place - because he found them to be the most powerful images of the times. Also, he and his colleagues filmed an enormous amount of original interview footage with dozens of participants in those turbulent times which makes up the rest of the Eyes films. The interview footage used in the final cuts of Eyes is certainly not available anywhere else.

However, I am not saying that efforts to make archival clips more readily available should be quashed. In contrast, I am all in favor of them. I'm not suggesting that they be ripped from the hands of their present owners, either! However, especially in the case of 'orphan' clips which were taken by large organization pool reporters and clips whose owners are no longer known, making access to those pieces of visual and audio history needs to be made easier. Note: not necessarily cheaper, but certainly easier. As an example - as I understand it (and IANAL!) even if it is legitimately impossible to identify who owns a particular clip (due to death, loss of records, etc. etc.) it may still be either impossible or prohibitively difficult to ever package, sell or publicly show any work containing that clip again - even if it is a five-second newsreel clip from fifty years previously. That's clearly (to me) ridiculous.

So in that sense, I am in agreement with the copyfighters. Free this media, and this history; 'free' it in the sense of making it easier for us the people to access and distribute it. I would note that Blackside is not in the habit of locking away history from the people; in fact, all of the footage and clips that were not used in the final cuts of the films were retained by The Civil Rights Project, Inc (the non-profit set up for the fundraising for Eyes and its associated projects) and have been donated to Washingon University, where the public and any filmmaker or student is free to access the collection.

As is usually the case, the information that is in Eyes is almost entirely duplicated in those clips. What is in Eyes is a particular assembly of that information - the 'art', if you will. When I speak of Eyes as being different from the history, this is what I mean. This 'art', work, and assemblage, which is qualitatively different from the history and information contained within. Sure, protest the orphan works copyright problem (and, in fact, DO IT NOW - the U.S. Copyright Office is soliciting public commentary on this VERY ISSUE RIGHT NOW! Commentary is due by March 25th, so put those writing and thinking skills to use for the good of us all!) - protest the fact that we can't re-issue Eyes without an onerous amount of nonsense involving fighting these extremely draconian protections for lost and someties nonexistent copyright holders. But please, don't lump in the living, breathing rights to the piece of art that is Eyes on the Prize with the 'orphan works' or with the five to sixty-second newsreel clips from fifty years ago that are the actual history which everyone seems to be so concerned about. Even the interviews themselves which Henry did - the interviews with figures yers later - the raw interview footage is nearly all available at Washington University. Go get it. Make your own version of Eyes. Make a mash-up. Tell us the history in your own fashion. He'd like that.

But please don't tell us you're a crusader because you're telling people to steal his hard work.

Commonsizing vs. Copyright II

Ah ha! I get to finally use the trackback feature. Thanks to The Madisonian for engaging. As Prof. Madison notes there:

...the argument really does turn out to be about copyright law, not just about fairness to Henry Hampton and his family. The argument for Eyes on the Screen (the campaign) starts from the premise that the copyright to the film may be owned by Blackside, but the real value of the film is the history, not the film. The history isn’t owned by anyone. Moreover, it isn’t just Blackside’s copyright that’s at issue; re-releasing Eyes on the Prize is complex, and the Eyes on the Screen campaign is arguably appropriate, because of copyright clearance issues that have to be resolved for material that the film borrowed from other sources. No one is necessarily a bad guy here. There are just an awful lot of people with irons in the copyright fire.

Here’s the tie to the basic copyright question: Is protecting these copyrights, including Blackside’s, the best way to ensure that the history is widely known? Or is commonsizing the film – long after it was first broadcast and distributed, and long after Henry Hampton’s place in film history was assurred – a better way to share that history?

I would respond as follows. Eyes on the Prize is not the history. The history is not the film. Rather, Eyes is one filmmaker's idea of a presentation of the history, in one medium. Its execution was the work of hundreds of talented people - I don't want to sound like I'm claiming Henry did it all by himself in a garret somewhere! The film came to be, however, because from the time he was a teenager, he worked towards building Blackside, building a team, and doing that movie with them.

As such, claiming that the importance of the history should grant rights to the people to appropriate Eyes on the Prize strikes me as a bit of an overreach. The history is there. It's available in all manner of places. However, my uncle and his colleagues did an awful lot of work to make it available and accessible in one place, and understandable and emotionally meaningful to viewers who did not live through it. That was their contribution. Claiming now that because the history they covered is so very important that their work should be available to all is somewhat akin to proposing a system of Eminent Domain for information and intellectual property. That's all well and good, but who decides? The mob? And using what criteria? If we take Downhill Battle's example, any group of activists with a website can suddenly then declare Eminent Domain on any piece of intellectual property that they wish, set up a website and a BitTorrent link, and have at it.

Let me approach this from another tack. Everyone keeps talking about how there are old clips whose ancient copyrights keep Eyes from being distributed to a new generation. Whether or not one agrees with this, let me point something out. Sonny Bono copyright extensions or not, Eyes itself was made only around eighteen years ago. Its rights rest not in the hands of Henry's descendants, but in the hands of his sisters - one of whom is older than Henry was. He passed away not due to old age but due to complications from treatment for lung cancer at an early age. So when you are advocating the distribution of Eyes, you're not just advocating the distribution of some fifty-year-old clip in contravention of the copyright laws - you're advocating the distribution of a piece of work which it took my uncle thirty years of his life to get made - and, were it not for lung cancer, he would likely be sitting here fuming at. This is not a dusty piece of should-be-public domain information.

If you truly think that Eyes on the Prize is so important that it should be freely available to anyone without recompense, then again, what is the motivation for the sponsors who originally supported Eyes on the Prize to do so again? What is the motivation for the filmmakers like my uncle, who work for pay and for art and duty, to do their jobs? Not out of fear for their legacy in years to come, but out of worry for their rights to their work if people can slap their work up on a website because someone has judged it 'too critical to let lapse' when they themselves are working to get it rereleased, without even asking if that's the case?

This isn't about money. This is about ownership, pride thereof, and control of one's creation. If Henry had had the money when making Eyes to clear the rights to those clips in perpetuity, you damn well better believe he would have. But he was operating on tight funding, and his choice allowed the movie to be made, aired and sold - if even for a limited time. His thinking was (from what he told me) that if the film was a success (and they didn't know if it would be) that later they could fundraise for additional rights clearances and re-issue the film. That's what is going on today, and that's what this protest movement is jeopardizing.

A spray of darker tone for the delectation of the sighted

The darkness is in matched cones, one forward and one back. Spumes of light and dark. What interrupted the quiet whispers of the pale thin winds then must have been a shock, too solid and too bright - and too soon accepted into the scenery. A night of jarring difference, perhaps, before a dawn of wonderment and awe, replaced by the next which was to bring only the same scene again, bereft of change.

For nearly a year.

Now, however, change has come, and it is curious - sniffing cautiously at the scene of this, its own one-time disturbance.

I have been transported, momentarily - the curiosity and inquisitiveness that made my distant ancestors come down from trees, till the soil, build cities, travel over the next hill - those qualities have suddenly liberated me across the scorched and freezing miles and embodied me in a clicking, whirring form of metal and plastic. I have come to see - and the view is wondrous.

It's unreasonable to be emotionally proud of a small machine, much less one I had no hand in building. But, damn it, I am, of both of them.

Keep rolling, little brothers. Keep seeing.

At least it's not just me.

After my previous entry, finding a reference to this incident in The Agonist just make me reach for the keyboard.

One 'good' thing about the current 'travel security' idiocy, I must say, is that it affects and angers a broad, broad spectrum of people. Take, for example, former Republican Congresswoman Chenoweth-Hage (R-ID). Described as 'ultraconservative,' this is someone I doubt I would share many positions with. Here, however, is something in which I can find instant identification with her. She was recently taken aside for an 'extra pat-down' at an airport security search under new TSA regulations. When she asked to see a copy of the regulation giving the TSA the authority to do this, that's when the fun started. The following is quoted from Secrecy News, the Federation of American Scientists project on Government secrecy. The content is, in fact, taken from The Idaho Statesman:

"She said she wanted to see the regulation that required the additional procedure for secondary screening and she was told that she couldn't see it," local TSA security director Julian Gonzales told the Idaho Statesman (10/10/04).

"She refused to go through additional screening without seeing the regulation, and she was not allowed to fly," he said. "It's pretty simple."

Chenoweth-Hage wasn't seeking disclosure of the internal criteria used for screening passengers, only the legal authorization for passenger pat-downs. Why couldn't they at least let her see that? asked Statesman commentator Dan Popkey.

"Because we don't have to," Mr. Gonzales replied crisply.

"That is called 'sensitive security information.' She's not allowed to see it, nor is anyone else," he said.

Now, I don't know Ms. Chenoweth-Hage, nor much about her. I don't know anything about Mr. Gonzales other than his quote above. However, I will say this: based simply on that quote, Mr. Gonzales is an indicator of a trend which is, to me, extremely disturbing. While I have no problem at all with the notion of my government having information which the general public should be unable to access for reasons of security, there is no defensible reason to this citizen that the content of a law or regulation used to restrict our behavior, most especially those used to limit our freedoms - of speech, of action, of travel, of association - should ever be hidden from the view of the public. The transparency and public accountability of our legal system is what holds our nation and our system apart from the very things we purport to fight and oppose in this world.

"Sensitive security information?" What the hell is 'sensitive security information?" The fact that they can do it? Well, no longer. The names and identity of those responsible for giving them that power? That would be exactly the reason these things cannot be hidden from the public eye. The 'criteria' for which people can be pulled aside for searches? Note carefully that the Statesman said that that wasn't what the Congresswoman asked for. And their excuse as to why? "Because we don't have to."

"Because we don't have to" is the excuse of thugs, dictators, and sociopaths. "Because we don't have to" is the excuse of people hiding behind rules they have gamed to allow them bad behavior. It is the whining cry of someone who knows they have done wrong but has found a way to avoid making it right. It is the puling of someone who cannot be allowed to exercise power over the average American citizen in the conduct of his or her daily life.

Please don't stand for this. There are ways to express your disapproval. Number one: don't fly if you can avoid it. Number two: write your congressional representative and express your strong disapproval. Number three: learn everything you can about the legal limits of TSA searches, and be sure not to let them trespass over the line. If a TSA employee transgresses the limits of legal or acceptable behavior, do what Penn Jillette did - call a cop, and make a report. Use the bureaucracy against itself. Jam the system. Don't be a sheep.

Back to the original point. There is hope, here. Things like this tend to create coalitions. Congresswoman Chenoweth-Hage may not (I say, again, may not, because I know nothing really about her) understand what it is to be pulled aside for 'random' extra security searches - not once for a humiliating pat-down, but twelve times out of the twelve times you have flown since 9/11, as I have. Why? Well, they won't tell me, because of course the criteria are 'sensitive security information.' Note that I have less of a problem with that than with her case, as I mentioned above! However, if the Congresswoman and I were ever to meet, and if she and I had in the past not had much of anything to agree on politically (this is pure supposition) well, then - the TSA has just given us something. They have given us something on which to build an alliance, and whether it is one of convenience or not is irrelevant - in politics, all alliances are of convenience to some degree. The point is, when people like Congresswoman Chenoweth-Hage, and Senator Kennedy, and Mr. Jon Gilmore, much more than people like myself, all start getting stopped at airports and pulled aside - well, then, we can hope that this small piece of common anger may contribute to bipartisan solutions.

Here's hoping.

Welcome to America, land of the free. Papers, please?

It's a pity, too - I was just starting to really like the Amtrak Acela service, touting it to my friends and acquaintances as a 'civilized' way to get up and down the Northeast Corridor of the U.S. Then they go and completely ruin the thing. This is one of those small things that makes my spine cold; it makes me wonder what I'll tell my children one day when they ask me why I didn't see it coming, or if I did, why I didn't do something.

I remember when the Republicans used to shout that Democrats and Liberals wanted to turn the Freedom Loving United States into the Socialist Paradise of the East, where you had to produce papers just to travel around your own country. Shocking. Where's that outrage now? Bruce Schneier wrote an essay recently on this form of 'safety check' in which he tore all manner of holes in it on simple logical, functional reasons, much less philosophical ones. There simply is no defensible reason to do this kind of thing except to 'make people feel like they're being protected' - when they're really not.

The ultimate ineffectual nanny state.

They want me to produce ID during random checks on an Amtrak train. Why? Not to prove that I'm not on a watch list, or anything like that, no no. They are "not intended to determine a person's identity." Amtrak claims these on-train checks are merely to ensure that "the person who's traveling with the ticket is the person whose name is on the ticket." However, these checks are being made "as a precaution against terrorist attacks."

What?

So my ability to travel inside my country, on one of the most eminently unhijackable modes of transport available, is now subject to 'random' (coughprofilingcough) identity checks that by design won't catch anyone who is intelligent enough to ensure that they actually use their fake ID to purchase their ticket.

That would include, what, any high-schooler who has ever successfully managed to illegally purchase alcohol, I would imagine.

So much for the Acela.

The highs and lows of America

Yesterday we reached up high. NASA flew the X-43 scramjet testbed at a speed of Mach 9.something, approximately 6,600 miles per hour at altitude - the highest airspeed ever reached by a jet aircraft. The scramjet is one of those technologies that might truly change the world again - imagine traveling from New York to Sydney in under two hours in a sub-orbital scramjet, for not much more fuel cost than a conventional jetliner trip. We're a long way from that, but in modern aerospace 'a long way' doesn't translate nicely into years - the Wright brothers to the Lunar surface was not so very many, after all.

Today, we seem to be reaching down into the depths. I see that the U.S. House of Representatives (Thank you Toby for correcting me) is considering amending its rules in order to allow members under indictment by their home states' legal systems to retain their posts in the national body. This is, as many have noted, a transparent 'thank you' to Tom Delay, who faces a threat of just such a penalty for his recent shenanigans but would (if the measure passes) be able to retain his Senate positions, a measure of payment for the recent Republican gains made during the recent elections from a grateful GOP majority.

This is not just disturbing, it is disgusting.

Without even going into a discussion of whether or not it would be proper for a Congressman to retain his or her positions in that situation, the very timing of this move, and the circumstances which surround it, stink of the worst kind of blatant and uncaring political 'machining' which I (for one) had thought confined to the histories of New York and Chicago ward politics, or perhaps the State Legislatures of more colorful history. I had assumed, especially given the lip service (for that is what it now appears to have been, and I am ashamed to have been taken in) that the GOP offered towards accountability and responsibility towards the system, ethics and leadership during their merciless pursuit of any and all minor transgressions (real and imagined) during the Clinton administration.

There are problems facing this country from without which defy our best efforts to date to solve them. There are problems within which beggar our resources. Handling these challenges will require not only wisdom, intelligence, perseverence and riches but a strong sense of what we as Americans believe to be right, held in each of our hearts. One of the amazing parts of the American system is that it works despite the fact (or because of the fact) that that vision of what is 'right' is not the same for each of us. What must be the same, however, is our commitment towards making things better for all, despite our differing opinions on what 'better' may mean. We have to agree that without our souls, hearts and minds, this experiment will fail.

This is where I take comfort when fights rage over religious beliefs, and over interpretations of the Constitution. I don't let it slacken my efforts in the struggles; not at all! That would be counter to the intent. However, I draw what comfort I can from knowing that that struggle, waged with words and printing presses and voices and even bullhorns and signs and, yes, lawsuits, is what makes us all win, because we don't fight it (mostly) with guns, knives, fists and clubs. We may hate, and some of us have become experts at mobilizing the hate, which is regrettable. However, no matter how close it has appeared to have come, that mobilization of hatred has not, to date, entered mainstream American political discourse as violence amongst ourselves - and to that small, tattered victory I will cling for comfort.

This is what makes the slow decline of our leaders' behavior even more repellent to me - leaders of both 'sides' if there can be said to be sides. In this particular case, the GOP majority (or a subgroup thereof) have decided to leverage the slim popular victory they have won, through whatever means legal or otherwise, moral or otherwise, divisive or otherwise, not for the good of the people of America, but for the rewarding of a crony by shielding him from due process. Mark that - not from due process of a 'blue state' even, or the 'national agencies' that the president seems to feel are full of 'disloyal' people - but from the efforts of his own home state to potentially enforce its laws against him. To, in fact, retain him as a national representative and officeholder, potentially against the 'will' of the Texas legal system - thereby disrupting the legal representation of the Texan citizenry.

This is wrong.

This is what must be stopped.

Couple this with a President who seems to be making more and more personnel and policy decisions based not on facts, on evidence, or even on argument but on 'personal loyalty' - and you have an administration of the United States Government, in both the Executive and Legislative branches, actively working to subvert the very principles on which the system was laid down.

I am a fervant believer in and defender of the United States, and of its system of Government. As such, I do believe that I would do whatever I was able to defend the President of the United States, his administration and the Congress from harm and to carry out their lawful orders, in the unlikely event I found myself in a situation where my actions mattered. As a consequence of being a patriot and defender of the United States, however, I am also a firm believer that it is my right and duty to point out and proclaim abuses and misbehavior on the part of those who hold those offices which I would and will do so much to defend - and thus, here and now, I mouth off.

I love this country. It's cheesy, but true. I weep for it, right now - I'm proud of it, I'm angry at it, I'm ashamed of it and more. I spend a great deal of time trying to determine what I can do to change things, a great deal of time not liking the answers I come up with (heh) and some more time mentally jumping up and down in frustration.

The Democrats lost the election. On the other hand, the Democrats have been so shredded by the recent turbulence in American political thought that it's hard to really even conceive of them as a coherent party, and the GOP obviously knew that. I do think that a large number of the people who voted Republican this past cycle are just frighteningly wrong about a large number of things; people I am ashamed to share my country with, and people I dearly wish I could make go away. On the other had, I also recognize that the large majority of those who voted Republican probably were simply those who felt that the Democrats didn't have a coherent thing to say, much less a better idea; and for whatever they felt about the GOP (like it or not) the GOP did have a single coherent message. Just because I don't like that message doesn't mean anything.

What to do? I think for one thing, the Democrats need to calm down a bit about the whole 'Red State Religious Right Conspiracy.' While there are no shortage of psychos in this country, and while Rove may have in fact won the election by mobilizing a fringe to tip the balance, that doesn't change the fact that the large majority of voters MOST LIKELY (<--note caveat; add 'I believe' to taste) are not radical conservatives, and are not 'blue haters' or the highly telegenic UberChristian psychopaths the media love to troll up and put on TV. They're just folks like us who didn't think our guy had it, is all. No big deal. But every time we mouth off about those few fringe nutjobs, and every time George Stephanopoulos puts one on television and lets him or her froth at the mouth on camera (yes, fuckwit, I'm talking about you) we go into a state of extended victimization where we suddenly believe that the only reason we lost is because the rest of the country is populated by people JUST LIKE THAT.

Bzzzzt. They're like us. A lot of 'em don't even like Bush. Hell, a lot of GOP politicians are heartily embarrassed by the microcephalic little pissant. But they won because that's their job, and because we, frankly, didn't.

So here's my assignment for myself. Not anyone else, because I don't have the authority to assign anything to anyone else (damn, I miss teaching). J.B. - think long and hard about what you do want this country to do, and how you want this country to do it. Think long and hard about what your liberal stance gets you, and what it might get other Americans, that is good. Think about how to explain that to them, calmly, carefully, and as politely as possible. Learn how to cheerfully accept their hostile answers when they tell you to fuck off, and just find another Red Stater to talk to - one who might be more amenable. Success equals Exposure times Kill Ratio. Don't think about how badly Bush is doing - they're smart, and they'll figure that out for themselves. Trying to talk about it just makes you condescending. Talk about what you can offer. Talk about what you and they can do together that the two of you can't do together under the GOP.

Talk about why you love the US. Talk about why they love the US. Talk about why they love where they live. Talk about why you like where you live. We're not that far apart, people. The Mason-Dixon line is important to you, J.B., because you're an arrogant, suspicious, mixed-race New Yorker. Admit it to yourself. Sure, you've been jumped a couple times when south of it, but maybe it's because of that, huh? Talk to people. Make them tell you why you should like the South, or West, or Midwest. Maybe you can tell them something about why they might like the Northeast - at least to visit.

A lot of people in the South and West voted Democrat. More could do it. Find the common ground. Come down off your fucking podium and drink the water.

Be an American.

Biting the hand that feeds...

I'd actually been idly wondering about this in the aftermath of the election, and happily for me, someone on the internet did it. Here is a brief look at which states receive the least (and most) federal funding per dollar they pay in federal taxes, and how those states voted. I won't spoil the surprise.

Tinker's Damn

This is a story, born of depression and a recent experience with broken bones. I've been noodling around with it, and it's at last in a state where I can show it without cringing too much, so here it is. I really see it as a Sin City style comic - to that end, someone may be kind enough to contribute art if they have time. We'll see. (note: the brackets are Everything2 links. If you're not reading this directly from my blog, which has a macro to handle them, they may show up oddly.)

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Sitting in gin joints was at least one-half my life. Wherever the iron men were, there I was, too. Oh, you wouldn't see me. I'd be around, in the back, corner booth, near the john - you know the type. Couple of beers on the table, couple of shots, all of them clearly on my side of the line. The kind of glassware company that scares off any other sort. Doesn't bother my liver, of course; it's hard as a rock. Maybe harder. Still makes the head spin, though; still numbs pain like old Doc Holliday used to prescribe, they say. The waitress in here was easier to train than most; she just tipped me a professional eye and shrugged, then started bringing a shot and a beer every ten minutes or so. I think she's got a bet going with the bartender. Hope I don't cost her any tip money, though, because tonight, I'm working.

Object of my attentions comes through the door around ten PM. He's down on what little luck he has, and looks nervous on top of that. Has a couple of fast shots of Beam, looks to steady the nerves, then starts looking around the place. I ignore it; he isn't looking for me. Sure enough, his eyes light on me and slide right off. I use the time to wave my shot glass at the waitress who grins at the 'tender. She's probably got her money shorted on me. Oh well. She could've just asked; I wouldn't have lied to her.

* * *

The worst part is when they have to come and ask. I try to tell them that there's no reason they shouldn't; that in fact, it makes it all easier. But they don't listen, or don't hear. I'd been in a bar much like this one, in actual Pitts, when they found me. Was three of them then, literally hats in hands. The bar had been split pretty evenly between the old steelers and the yuppies; these guys had been so out of place they'd crackled. Working ironmen, from one of the small Japanese foundries that had set up shop in the bones of the old plants, using them to experiment and refine techniques; they were the lucky last of a dying breed, and they knew it.

Still, they had pride and family. That's why they'd come.

I don't hide from them. I don't make it easy, but I don't hide from them. If they need me, really need me, they know where I'll be - either near the University or near the mills, near what once was home. In a bar. Like this.

They told me about the man who'd come to town. He was Japanese, like their employers. He wasn't too flashy, but he had a job, and some money to spend. Worked at the plant, so he had to be OK, pulled a full shift and then some. Had some money to lend. Lent it out to a couple of the brothers in need, for the mortgage payments - the new boss liked to pay monthly, and the boys with jobs were still paying off the lean times. Our friend was willing to help. Union boy in Japan; said he was a Union rep, had some discretionary, wanted to spread good will and hoped to see good relations.

I winced. They hunched, knowing themselves for fools, but I nodded encouragement and bought beers.

So comes the day four, five of the brothers are a couple days behind on Shigei's payments, too. Then it comes out. He's Left Hand of the Neon Chrysanthemum - Japanese Yakuza. Yep, he's been looking for a toehold, all right. Still all friendly, though - says all he needs is their mortgages, they can live there for a rent one-half their old payments. Offers them leases and everything. Still, the brothers had some years and pride in those houses, and a couple of them balked, said they'd come up with the scratch. Shigei, he laughed, said sure, take a week.

One got it, One didn't. They found him on the shop floor with a spike through his heart nailing him to a drill press. Cops came in, interviewed everybody, shook their heads.

The next guy late didn't get the one-week extension. They found him spiked to a wall near the slag heap, perfectly through the heart.

So here they were.

I bought them more drinks, sent them home.

Then I went and got the gym bag.

The guys on the shop floor saw me coming through the familiar atmosphere of carbon combustion and tortured metal. Movement slowed in a dozen places, bar stock wavering on its way to diamond teeth while flat plate screamed a more bass note, easing its torment while the operator's foot came off the pedal slightly. I hunched into my trenchcoat, clutching my gym bag to me, and closed the familiar softwood door, the once-bright green paint fading around layers of tan and white into grimy wood grain where hands had worn it down.

Turning left along the wall, I touched the rack of plastic cards for luck (luck always) and kissed my fingertips automatically, even though it had been maybe nine years since I pulled a shift in the shop. A couple of the older guys, though, they nodded to me as I passed, and one or two clutched the bright plastic tags that hung round their necks as they caught my eye, I tried to meet their gazes but always failed, settling for a nod and hunch, scuttling (it felt) along the wall towards the next section, reflexively holding the bag. Most of them gave me my space, nodding and turning away. I might make it through, today.

Not quite.

The whisper came as I was reaching for the knob, almost feeling old, ridged glass in my hand with years of metal dust ground against it. Somewhere outside on Main, a klaxon wailed and a smelter disgorged with a familiar hissing scream that pulled at something deep inside me. I almost missed it, but the thunder from the steel died abruptly and it fell flat into the room. "Who's that, Ern?"

I twitched, hand already on the knob and turning, and another voice cut over in a growl. "Nobody, kid. That's nobody. Eyes on yer drill, dammit." I paused a moment, hoping my gratitude showed in the set of my shoulders, then pulled the door open and marched through.

I wasn't sweating, the shop had good AC; and I couldn't be crying, but my makeup was starting to run.

The second room was quieter, with the muted sounds of power. Hydraulics ruled here, not muscle; where before metal was cut, or drilled, or ripped, here it was crushed and pressed and stretched, science used not as weapon but as persuader. At the moment, there was only one man in it, and he was watching me as I closed the door. I turned to face him. He was probably around seventy, and I had known him since I was an infant.

"Hi there Timmy." His voice hadn't changed. A sad Irish seaman.

"Top of it, Gerry."

He looked me up and down, then shook his head. "Why?"

"Don't ask."

"I ask every time."

"You get the same answer every time."

"It's always the wrong one."

"It's the same as you'll get this time as well."

He limped over the the side of the room and slid a battered gym bench over to where he'd been standing. I moved to it and sat down, shrugging off the trenchcoat and dropping the gym bag on the asbestos-mat floor. I looked up before opening it. He was weeping, silently, but turned away when I looked up. "Your makeup's gone bad, boy."

"I thought it had." I removed a mouthpiece from the gym bag and set it on the bench, then set a fifth of bourbon next to it. The bourbon wasn't going to help me any more than it had Doc Halliday's patients, but the forms must be observed. I adjusted the bench so that my left arm rested comfortably on the machine next to me, then uncapped the flask and drained the bourbon in a convulsive shudder. Dropping bottle and cap back into the gym bag, I moved my arm so that my hand was resting on the work surface. I inserted the mouthpiece, rested my hand flat and examined my knuckles for a moment. No makeup trouble there; they looked worn but serviceable. Hadn't done anything hideous to my hands in months. I spread the hand out flat, the wrist resting over the edge, and nodded at Gerry where he stood by the door.

He turned away, his hand working on the wall.

The press came down.

* * *

My pigeon is still sitting at the bar. He's now had maybe five or six shots of the brown liquor, and now he's nursing a beer. I'm still running through glassware, watching the expectant grin of the waitress droop a little more with each round she brings me as I fail to fall over. Not my problem.

This is a serious steeler's bar. Not like the other night. Guys come in here shaking the dust out of their clothes, and that dust hits the floor with a clang. You can smell the coke and the burnoff on them when they come through under the old faded Stroh's sign with its cracked bell fifteen feet down the aisle past the house-wins pool table. I tried one game on it when I came in, but only the locals will know the hummocks and valleys in that shale; it could be a shag carpet over slag heaps and mine pits in the dark. I move my gaze away from the newcomers, who are heading for a table of friends, back to my own one-way pal. He's just looking at the drinker's friend behind the bar.

Curious, I move to the bar to order a beer, standing just next to him. Our eyes meet once in the mirror, and his look too interested - I look at myself, find a gleam beneath my hat brim, and duck away. The barkeep hands me my beer with a grin, genuine when he sees I'm not staggering. I tip him and take it back to the booth. When the waitress passes again, I order a fresh shot and tip her in apology for the breach of drinker's code.

When the noise level in the bar drops suddenly at the same time as the flat tinkle of the broken Stroh's chime sounds, I know they're here. No need to look. I smooth the leather of my gloves and swig the shot, wishing I'd gotten this one with ice, waiting. The alcohol stings my mouth, a sensation without a taste. Sharp rather than soft, because soft means pain. Time slips backwards again as my palate numbs.

* * *

Among the haze of pain and the complete lack of taste that was the football mouthguard's silicone compound, I could feel Gerry dragging me around on the bench. My hand flopped to the floor, but the pain was already so intense that I just shuddered slightly, enervated by the overload. He'd put my other hand up on the slab, spreading it out flat, and our tears were mixing on my face. I felt hot salt pushing aside the several spots of layered base, flesh tones running down my neck in rivulets of shame and lanolin. Gerry swung my legs up on the benc