KUNGPOWVOODO

Kodachrome

2012-02-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

Kodachrome 2010, a short film that marks end of the product, shows you why pictures made with the film look so distinctive.

KODACHROME 2010 from Xander Robin on Vimeo. via Laughing Squid

I'm late to Kodachrome's farewell (manufacturing ceased in 2009 and processing ended in 2010), but coming across this short documentary seemed like reason enough to pull together a few snaps and other links.

credit: Ansel Adams via Fortune

credit: George Eastman House via The Atlantic

credit: unknown via Vintage Everyday

credit: unknown via Grapehouse

credit: Walker Evans via Fortune

credit: unknown via Grapehouse

credit: Mike Roberts via Fortune

The CBS News Morning Show's story.

The Daily Mail offers more a reporterly send-off here, including the obligatory Paul Simon song.

The Daily Kos assembles pre-WWII Kodachrome photos from the Library of Congress and the Charles Weever Cushman Collection here.

Photographer Steve McCurry shot 800,000 Kodachrome frames over the past four decades; Vanity Fair slide shows his last roll of the stuff here. And Kodak interviewed him about his transition from kodachrome to ektachrome here. Finally, National Geographic is there when he reconnects in 2002 with the subject of one of the most iconic Kodachrome photos ever.

Breaking Bad's POV shots

2012-01-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

A compilation of point-of-view shots from the TV series Breaking Bad with a lovely soundtrack from Jonathan Elias.

via Laughing Squid via MetaFilter

p.s. Breaking Bad Valentine's Day Cards

The Groove Sketchpad

2012-01-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

The Groove Sketchpad app ($5) is part of Native Instruments' line of iMaschine music sequencers.

via Technosoul

The power of this pocket-sized studio is impressive, but my excitement is tempered by the demographics of iPhone owners and the current width of the digital divide. Not to say this is a bad time to be beat maker (or a maker of anything digital); it's just worth noting that gadgets considered ubiquitous or essential to some are still luxury items for others, if not out of reach.

The Sketchpad review below is less entertaining than the one above but easier to follow. For more on sequencers in general, click here.

1/24/12 Update: another Apple-based "machine" that looks cool.

DM1 - The Drum Machine for iPad - By Fingerlab from Fingerlab on Vimeo.

I like being able to fire people (read: oops)

2012-01-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

Having seen the attack ads aimed at former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (R) during the 2010 California senate race, it seemed inevitable that Mitt Romney would face similar tactics during his presidential run and be prompted to defend his record at Bain Capital.

Mr. Romney is not making this task any easier for himself. Yesterday, while explaining his views on health care policy, he said, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." Uttering this line as many voters are struggling economically was like adding a spike to the club with which he was going to be beaten eventually.

When clarifying his remarks, Mr. Romney stressed the context in which he was speaking—the "people," in this case, were insurance companies. It's difficult not to extend the context, however, to include his belief that corporations are people. Rhetorically, it's tough to imbue corporations with human rights one day and then suggest to voters they can be callously dismissed the next.

Capitalism requires creative destruction, and now Mr. Romney owns both sides of that equation.

Personal technology in 2012

2012-01-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

Dig the flexi-screen.

24

2011-12-30T11:20:00.000-08:00

Earth's history on a 24 hour scale.

Source: G-100 Introductory Geology at University of Wisconsin via this isn't happiness.

NYT's Cascade Tool

2011-12-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

The R&D Group at the The New York Times Company has created Cascade, a tool for tracking the impact of a story or post across the web.

NYT Labs - Cascade from Lucas Black-Dendle on Vimeo.

Via Future Journalism Project. For more about the R&D Group see the Neiman Journalism Lab's tour.

3rd & Mission, San Francisco

2011-12-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

Looking south on 3rd Street from Mission Street in San Francisco, 1961 (top) and 2011 (bottom)

Taken 50 years apart, these two photos are almost unrecognizable as the same block. A close look at the blonde brick building on the left allows you to make the connection.

I'm not sure why I get such a kick from these 'then and now' comparisons. Imagining how the past became the present must generate a little spark to the brain each time two dots are connected. And once your head is filled with pictures and stories and trivia, walking down that street is like walking down ten streets at the same time and any one of them can present itself, depending on your mood or what's happening.

(Thanks to OldSF.org for developing a fantastic tool to explore a large portion of the San Francisco Public Library's photo archive. The story of how their project came to be is an example of the volunteer spirit that makes the internet awesome.)

So what the story behind 3rd Street's transformation? How was this neighborhood south of San Francisco's financial district, one filled with rooming houses, pawnshops, bars, cafes, and parking lots redeveloped into an area of museums, fine hotels, large-scale retail, a convention center, a public garden, and a few pockets of affordable housing?

The SF Redevelopment Agency's summary of the 87-acre project seems rather flimsy. An historically rich account can be found in Rebecca Solnit's Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (see Map 12 and accompanying text, pp. 85-90).

Photographs from Ira Nowinski's No Vacancy and Ben Pease's map are folded together with Solnit's beautiful prose, including perspectives from Jack London, who was born near 3rd & Brannan in 1876, and Jack Kerouac, who lived near 3rd and Howard and worked at the trainyard at 4th and Towsend for spell during the 1950s.

To the left: a slice of Pease's map detailing the neighborhood's buildings and uses in 1960. Clicking the audio/media tab of the UC Press page leads to a podcast interview with Solnit and UC Press Art Director Lia Tjandra about Infinite City.

The Dissident

2011-12-18T16:29:00.000-08:00

"The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin -- and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."

-Vaclav Havel (5 October 1936 - 18 December 2011)

Via shake things up via fuck yeah eastern europe

More Havel: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty obit [video]; Tavaana interview [video] about being a dissident; text from the July 1995 speech The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World; and his wikipedia page

Ice Cube & The Eames

2011-12-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

I may be one of the few residents of San Francisco that maintains a deep fondness for Los Angeles. That's why I'm glad to see L.A. (and a small slice of its design history) shown some love from Ice Cube in this PST video. Hat tip to the LA Times on Tumblr.

Ice Cube should be the next Huell Howser. I'd love to see this turned into a series.

Cost of college

2011-11-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

Tuition at U.S. colleges and universities is climbing quickly and students are struggling under unprecedented levels of debt. The notes below touch on some of what's behind these trends.

More people are attending college
According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), college enrollment is at a record level and will continue to rise through 2019. Last year, 20,550,000 students were enrolled in post-secondary education (14,895,000 at pubic schools and 5,655,000 at private institutions) compared to a total of just over 12 million in 1980. (See the right-hand side of this NCES table for more detail.)

The enrollment of women and 'non-traditional' students (those older than 25) is expected to grow at a faster rate than other groups. Federal and state financial aid is often less accessible to students over 24 years old.

The growth of private for-profit colleges, such as The University of Phoenix, is also considerable. While these companies serve just 10% of the student population, those students account for 47 percent of student loan defaults, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Less money coming from states
As enrollment grows, many states have trimmed funding for their 2- and 4-year institutions. These cuts are likely to be more painful as federal stimulus spending dries up. Higher ed is particularly vulnerable to cuts from legislators because lawmakers know universities can raise funds through tuition increases. By shifting the revenue-generation burden to schools, legislators insulate themselves from the direct political backlash that accompanies cutting other state programs or raising taxes.

Incomes are flat but tuition is rising
Since the 1980s, many households have seen their inflation-adjusted income remain flat. However, over the same period, the college tuition has increased at a rate much higher than the consumer price index (inflation).

The rise in tuition even outpaces the rise of medical expenses. Financial aid has increased over time, but not enough to make up the difference, according the College Board.

How do students get by?
Students borrow the money they need. In 2010, student loan debt surpassed the nation's credit card debt, but unlike credit cards or mortgages, student loans are near-impossible to escape through steps like bankruptcy. And keep in mind, any loans parents take out to cover expenses while they kids are in school are not reflected in the tally of student debt.

Most of the stats cited above are aggregate figures. To truly understand the trends, identify problems, and conceive of solutions, it would be helpful to look deeper within those figures. Are cuts to public educational occurring in some states and not others? Which demographic segments within the current pool of 20 million+ students are taking on the greatest amount of debt? Are the greater-than-inflation tuition increases happening across the board -- at private and public institutions? at for- and non-profit schools? and in all states?

What to do?
It's hard to say, but I was intrigued by a couple of ideas mentioned in this talk between Glenn Loury from Brown University and Walter Russell Mead from Bard College. These ideas go beyond how the cost of educating our population will be paid for. They touch on using technology to improve the efficiency of higher ed and changing the way credentials are earned by students, referencing France's le bac exam as a possible model.

Resources:
The press release and fact sheet for Obama Administration's "Pay as You Earn" plan for student loan relief announced on October 25, 2011.

The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers this guide to addressing student loan debt.

PBS's Need to Know offers 5 things you ought to know about student debt.

The Project on Student Debt is an initiative of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit independent research and policy organization dedicated to making college more available and affordable to people of all backgrounds. The Project on Student Debt produced this video to explain for the government's Income-Based Re-payment Program.

Illinois State's Grapevine project has published annual compilations of data on state tax support for higher education since 1960, including general fund appropriations for universities, colleges, community colleges, and state higher education agencies.

For government stats on all things education, visit the National Center for Education Statistics website. If you can't find what you're looking for, write them.

2/8/12 addition from LA Times: National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys says that more than four-fifths of bankruptcy attorneys have seen a notable jump in the number of potential clients with student loan debt.

Littlefeather speaking for Brando

2011-11-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

March 27, 1973: Sacheen Littlefeather declines a 'best actor' award on behalf of Marlon Brando for his performance in The Godfather.

Brando's statement.

Episode 5 of the documentary series We Shall Remain provides a good account of what was happening at Wounded Knee in 1973.

Media consolidation (2011)

2011-11-24T21:07:00.000-08:00

Blogger Frugal Dad breaks it down and lays it out for us.

Source: Frugal dad

The History of the English Language

2011-11-23T00:49:00.000-08:00

On a related note...

Gladwell & Gopnik on Texting: The Death Knell of Culture? from 92nd Street Y on FORA.tv

Poem Written on a Hollywood Back Street Sunday Morning

2011-11-21T20:55:00.000-08:00

by Jack Micheline

The clothesline in the backyard waves in a light rain
Nine birds sing on the telephone wires
I love and I hate
So intertwined in my foggy brain
I have traveled too much
drank too much
dreamt too much
sang too much
loved not enough
I have not been trained to kill
Nor do I kneel to my contemporaries
Nobody owes my anything
Nor can I write love letters
Man will never be big enough
brave enough
humble enough
he is a frightened nerve at the end of a stick
he is forever hungry, lost, frightened soul
love me, he says, the poor bastard
I am Federico Garcia Lorca
Francois Villon
Charles Baudelaire
Vachel Lindsay
Marquis de Sade
I am a boxer in the 9th round
A horse in the stretch
A naked man howling at the sky
A poor poet dreaming of suicide
An anarchist making bombs
My bombs are poems that cut at eye sores
I have been imprisoned by a mad dream
The flowers say hello
So does the dog and sky
Even the rain that comes down on my head blesses my heart
I have been paid off by my gift of poetry
This heat of creation
Hey world I give you
beauty
anger
madness
a wild dance
Some poems written on scrap paper
Hey world I got light in my brain
Hey world I want to sell light
Sell light Man!
What are you crazy or something?
Who's gonna buy light?
you're no electrician
you got to write dirty stories about cunt and sex maniacs
about guys who jerk-off and carry shit in paper bags
you got to write about hang ups, losers, touts, nymphomaniacs
No!
No!
No!
I look up at the sky, the birds have gone, flown away
An ambulance races down Vine Street
My pants are ripped
I got a sore ass
I'm gonna write Carl and tell him I love him
And Bob
And Charlie
And Harold
And Sam
Tell 'em all I love them
Fuck the suicide
It's too dramatic
I'm gonna learn to write love poems
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!
Yes!

February 23, 1969

San Francisco Mayoral Election 2011

2011-11-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

This entry was originally posted on 11/9/11 and the tables below have been updated to reflect the elections final results.

The unofficial (but unlikely to change) results of yesterday's mayoral election in SF are in: Interim Mayor Ed Lee held off 15 challengers and retained the post to which he was appointed by the Board of Supervisors 11 months ago.

Voter turnout (33.8%) is shaping up to be near the lowest of any San Francisco mayoral election since at least 1975. I suspect it was lower than pre-'75 races, but the City's website does not go further back than that.

Lee's total votes as of Thursday, 11/9/11, (68,721) included all ballots that marked him as a 1st, 2nd or 3rd choice under the San Francisco's ranked-choice voting system. John Avalos will be the runner-up, accumulating 43,554 votes. The remaining 44,751 ballots will not be reflected in the final tally.

The fact that Lee will garner considerably fewer votes than many of the second place finishers in previous SF mayoral contests did not stop Lee-booster Willie Brown from declaring Lee "the people's choice."

~~NOTE: 2011 results not finalized yet.~~ UPDATE: the results have been finalized.

San Francisco Mayoral Election Turnout

Year	Registered	Votes cast	Turnout
2011	464,380	~~157,026~~ 197,181	~~33.8~~ 42.7%
2007	419,598	149,465	35.6%
2003	466,127	253,872	54.5%
1999	467,294	228,247	48.8%
1995	425,969	193,913	45.5%
1991	425,316	215,751	50.7%
1987	380,852	153,720	40.4%
1983	371,005	170,628	46.0%
1979	378,232	196,341	51.9%
1975	302,344	200,804	66.4%

San Francisco Mayoral Election Results

Year	1st	Votes		2nd	Votes
2011	Lee	~~68,721~~ 83,954	~~43.8~~ 59.8%	Alavos	~~43,554~~ 56,337	~~27.7~~ 40.2%
2007	Newsom	105,596	70.6%	Mecke	9,072	6.1%
2003	Newsom	133,546	52.6%	Gonzalez	119,329	47.0%
1999	Brown	131,983	57.8%	Ammiano	89,428	39.2%
1995	Brown	107,500	55.4%	Jordon	82,173	42.4%

2011: Ranked-choice, instant run-off. The updated figures reflect the tallies after 12 rounds of RCV. 2007 & 1983: No run-off election needed

Prior to 2007 SF mayoral elections were an open field like yesterday's contest, but if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a run-off between the two top vote-getters would be held about a month later.

Sources:
Election results by year (1995-2011) http://www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=1671.
Voter turnout (1960-2010) http://www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=1670.

Billy Bragg: Ideology

2011-10-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Billy Bragg wrote 'Ideology' 25 years ago, but (sadly) it's as fresh as ever. It was the 4th track on Talking With the Taxman About Poetry.

Stop copying me

2011-10-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Flavorwire compiled examples of music videos that are influenced by/steal from other sources; Beyoncé-related examples are below. This discussion—where to draw the line between inspiration and theft—spans all forms of art and isn't an argument than can be easily settled. As a consumer of culture, I'm not as interested in the legal squabbles and 'gotcha' comparisons as I am in tracing influences and being led to material I might not have found otherwise.

I appreciate the case fair use advocates make (liberal copyright rules encourages a more vibrant culture), but I also sympathize with lesser-known artists who have their style/moves/riffs/words lifted by mega pop stars. The artists who give credit to their influences (and compensates them when appropriate) are due more respect in my book than those who continue to profess their originality despite evidence to the contrary. Below are a few clips that explore the topic further.

Everything is a Remix is a four-part series; three sections are finished and the final episode is due soon. Donations to the production are accepted here.

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix parts 2 & 3.

Can I get an 'Amen'? Following the path(s) of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969, Nate Harrison contemplates what impact sampling is having on culture and commerce. This video was produced in 2004.

A lot of wisdom has been dropped from dudes sitting on basketball rims. You can hear some more at the beginning of this compilation of dance moves. "Aint nobody here the best b-boy... People were probably doing this shit thousands of years ago... All we're doing is manifesting shit at a different time."

Beyoncé Billboard Awards performance (2011) and Lorella Cuccarini performance (2010)

Single ladies, I believe you know Bob Fossee...

More than any other form of expression, dance seems to be the most difficult one over which to exert some sort of ownership. Beyoncé has acknowledged the influences on in her Countdown video, but that doesn't seem to satisfy everyone.

* * *
Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -Paul Gauguin

Good artists borrow. Great artists steal. -Pablo Picasso

To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic. -Pablo Picasso

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture. -Andy Goldsworthy

Bad Banks on LeShow

2011-10-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

On the October 2, 2011 episode of LeShow, Harry Shearer's interviews Yves Smith, a financial expert w/ experience at companies such as McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, and Sumitomo Bank. If you appreciate the smart and straightforward perspective Elizabeth Warren brings to credit- and debt-related issues, you must listen to Smith's insights into the U.S. and European banking crisis. She's the author of ECONned and the blog Naked Capitalism. Her earlier conversation with Shearer about U.S. housing foreclosures ("the new F-bomb") is also worth checking out.

* * *

LeShow has earned a regular spot in my podcast rotation. The weekly radio program occasionally centers on an expert like Smith or perhaps a jazz musician; more often, however, it consist of Shearer reading choice excerpts from the week's news. He's a satirist (not nearly as broad as you'll find on the Comedy Central "news" programs), and has a knack for highlighting details or entire stories that have been given short shrift in the popular press. Two of his regular features are called "The Buried Lead" and "News from Outside the Bubble." KCRW describes the show as a "romp through the worlds of media, politics, sports and show business, leavened with an eclectic mix of mysterious music." LeShow is broadcast on many NPR stations and available on the internet and via podcast.

In addition to LeShow and his roles on The Simpsons, Shearer produced The Big Uneasy, a documentary film about levy system in New Orleans (his adopted home) during hurricane Katrina.

Bad Lip Reading

2011-10-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Bad Lip Reading is nice example of KPV's second definition.

3 artists

2011-04-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

There's plenty that distinguishes Vik Muniz, JR, and Ai Weiwei from one another, but what connects them in my mind is their ability to make large-scale, politically interesting art that retains a highly personal quality. Each has an activist streak and a desire to effect change outside galleries and museums.

Waste Land is a documentary about Vik Muniz's collaboration with several people who scavenge recyclable material in Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest trash dump located outside Rio de Janeiro.

Muniz and his crew work with the recyclers/models to create large mosaics which are photographed and auctioned off, the proceeds benefiting each model or an organization connected to that model. The story of how folks earn a living at Jardim Gramacho is, on its own, worthy of your attention, but add to that the impact of Muniz's intervention in the their lives and the film becomes extraordinary.

TED Prize winner, JR explains how his 'sidewalk galleries' evolved into a wish to change the world in the clip blow. In 2009 he told Beaux Arts Magazine, "I want to try to create images of hot spots such as the Middle East or Brazil that offer different points of view from the ones we see in the worldwide media which are often caricatures." The result of JR's TED wish is the Inside Out Project.

Ai Weiwei is an artist and activist from China whose output includes sculpture, installations, photography, architecture, not to mention his prodigious blogging and tweeting. Frontline's short documentary, Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?, provides an excellent overview of his art and activism, particularly how he organized an investigation into poorly constructed school buildings following the Sichuan earthquake. (Why PBS doesn't enable users to embed clips baffles and frustrates me.)

A week ago, Weiwei was detained by authorities in Beijing as he was attempting to board a flight to Hong Kong; as of today, his whereabouts are unknown. Before his arrest, Weiwei described his work and the challenges he faces as an artist in China in this clip.

Take This Hammer

2011-02-25T18:15:00.000-08:00

Shot in the spring of 1963, this film features James Baldwin's reflections on race in America while he tours San Francisco. It includes conversations he had with residents in the Bayview-Hunters Point and Fillmore Districts. The San Francisco BayView featured the film in a post earlier in the week.

Much of the anger expressed by locals in Take This Hammer shouldn't come as a surprise: in 1963 SF's Redevelopment Agency announced its plan to raze 60 square blocks and displace 13,000 residents, a large number of them African-American, not to mention national headlines of racially-charged bombings and riots in the South. Keep in mind, the MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had yet to occur.

The film may seem low budget by today's standards, but I enjoyed seeing a bright, sensitive, passionate social critic like Baldwin speaking about issues while he's actually present the community he's discussing.

Baldwin's jujitsu-like handling of the term "nigger" in the film's final scene contains a practical kind of wisdom that is still valuable today. This transcript begins at the film's 40:30 mark.

One of the great American illusions, one of the great American necessities, is to believe that I, the poor benighted Black man whom they saved from the elephant-ridden jungles of Africa and to whom they brought the Bible is still grateful for that.

And people say, in many, many ways, not only in the South, all over this country, in effect you should be grateful. Even slavery--they released you from that. You’re no longer dodging tsetse flies in some backward country.

While I know this, and anyone who has ever tried to live knows this, that what you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own fears and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you; I’m describing me.

Now here in this country we have something called a ‘nigger’, who doesn’t in such terms, I beg you to remark, exist in any other country in the world. We have invented the ‘nigger’. I didn’t invent him. White people invented him.

I’ve always known, I had to know by the time I was 17-years-old, that what you were describing was not me, and what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it, so it had to be something you were afraid of and you invested me with.

And if that’s so, no matter what you’ve done to me, I can say to you this, and I mean it, I know you can’t do any more and I’ve got nothing to lose. And I know, and I’ve always known, and really always, that’s part of the agony, I’ve always known that I’m not a ‘nigger.’

But if I am not the ‘nigger', and if it’s true that your invention reveals you, then who is the ‘nigger’?

I am not the victim here.

I know one thing from another. I was born, I’m gonna suffer, and I’m gonna to die. So the only way you can get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that... I was personally more important than anything else, anything else. I learned this because I had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the ‘nigger’ is necessary. But he’s unnecessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. I give you your problem back. You’re the ‘nigger’, baby, it isn’t me.

Background on Take This Hammer: here.

Photos of protests in the Fillmore District against Southern segregation: here.

The People Speak

2011-01-27T16:39:00.000-08:00

Historian and activist Howard Zinn died a year ago today, 1/27/10.

The People Speak is a film inspired by his essential books A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States.

Noam Chomsky said, "Howard Zinn's People's History molded the perceptions and conscience of a generation by bringing from the recesses of history those unknown and remarkable people who were often its most influential agents. In this new film we can hear their voices, and the messages they offer to us about the path to a better future, a most rewarding experience."

The film includes appearances by: Matt Damon, Marissa Tomei, Viggo Mortensen, Josh Brolin, Danny Glover, David Strathairn, Benjamin Bratt, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, Rosario Dawson, Sean Penn, Sandra Oh, Kerry Washington and others. Music contributors include Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and John Legend.

Here's the beginning of the Bill Moyers interview with Zinn just before the film premiered on the History Channel in 2009. The complete conversation is available here.

Henry Miller's Bathroom

2011-01-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

Henry Miller covered his bathroom walls with images--sculptures, paintings, photos of those he admired and, of course, a touch of porn. Miller rattles off the stories behind many of these pictures in Tom Schiller's short documentary Henry Miller, Asleep and Awake (1975).

Preview (1:59)

Henry Miller, Asleep and Awake (34:32)

If you're looking for a serious or academic look back on Miller's life and work, this isn't it. Asleep and Awake is a free-flowing monologue of reminiscences with a few hokey moments. Miller was in his early 80s when the film was made and hearing him causally free-style in his bathrobe and gruff Brooklyn accent will be fascinating for any devotee.

Oscar Grant Dollars

2011-01-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

The Oscar Grant Dollars were inspired, in part, by British suffragettes who stamped the words 'votes for women' into pennies during the the early 1900s. Of course, the chief motivation behind this project was Mr. Grant's death at the hands of a BART police officer two years ago.

The line between security and tyranny is a fine one, and justice requires close and continuous attention to it. The Oscar Grant Dollars put into circulation around 1/1/11 are intended as a non-violent reminder of that idea.

Bay Area residents: politicking and law suits might be the most effective means to bring about change and maintain good police policy. Keeping Mr. Grant's death in mind will only reinforce the importance of such efforts. About 100 bills like the one above have been distributed across the Bay Area in last couple days.

The benefits of money has as medium: it's widely circulated and valuable; people aren't likely to throw it away. If anything, they're likely to spend it, spreading the message. As for this technique: it's peaceful and anyone with a dollar and a sharpie can do it.

Money is one of the oldest forms of mass-produced propaganda. (If its was a purely utilitarian tool, it would look like Monopoly money, don't you think?) If you want to send a message to the state, why not use the state's megaphone?

* * *
I'm grateful for Oakland Local, a non-profit news site focused on discussion and diverse viewpoints around key issues of interest to Oakland, for its coverage. Update: ColorLines, a news outfit interested in racial justice, received a nice reaction to their Tumblr post about the bills.

* * *
On a related note, TURF FEINZ and YAK films recently released this mesmerizing video. I especially like the slow-mo puddle jumps toward the end.

Eat, Rap, Puke

2010-09-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

Joaquin Phoenix, a.k.a. JP, announces his retirement from acting and seeks recognition as a rapper in I'm Still Here, a film that was, until recently, presented as a documentary. Director Casey Affleck confirmed the film's fictitious nature roughly a week after its release.

The Trailer

On the outside looking in (and cringing)
Rumors that Phoenix’s public persona had been an act since 2008 circulated during the film's production and are addressed in the film itself. This question—how authentic is celebrity news and reality TV?—seems to be near the heart of the project, but I'm Still Here doesn't investigate the topic as much as revel in its own hoaxishness. The film is a long candid camera segment propelled by JP's cringe-inducing courtship of Diddy, but, unlike the television series where the audience was in on the joke, I’m Still Here makes sure everyone except JP’s inner-circle is an outsider.

The film’s critique of media is, well, undecipherable. No insights are offered into how show business manufactures ‘reality’. If a Hollywood insider decides to make a genuine documentary about public relations and its influence on the entertainment business (as well as news and politics), please save me a seat in the front row. And if someone makes a Pennebaker-like film about Diddy, I’d probably see that, too. But enough about docs... I'm Still Here isn't one.

Rock bottom
I saw the film prior to Affleck's admission and wasn't bothered by the still-undetermined hoax question. I didn't care if the actions were real or staged. Phoenix (or the character he was playing) had invited a tremendous amount of ridicule upon himself while pursuing a more personal form of artistic expression (or so he claimed), and that was enough to garner my attention and sympathy. As far as I knew at the time, JP had either fallen off the publicist-charted path or he had intentionally jumped off it. Either way, I was intrigued by the experiment.

In addition to his debauched personal behavior, Still Here charts JP's progress as a rapper. Each public appearance earns Phoenix scathing comments from professional and amateur commentators, and many of those clips make it into the film. Watching the final blows being delivered by Diddy and Letterman, I wondered what JP's reaction would be to hitting bottom. The trailer (embedded above) suggests that JP was on a spiritual journey, but this pretense goes unfulfilled. The character makes no attempt at redemption; when JP hits bottom he mostly just lays there.

It's not that Affleck and Phoenix aim high and miss; they were firing blanks the whole time. Phoenix delivers a vigorous and whole-hearted performance, but it isn’t in service of an idea any more mature than ‘look at me, look at me, is everybody looking at me?’

* * *

If you're still interested in con men, hitting bottom, or fictionalized documentaries, here are quotes from three films I’d recommend instead of this one.

"The basic idea is this: it's called a "confidence" game. Why? Because you give me your confidence? No. Because I give you mine." -Mike in House of Games

"Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!" -Tyler Durden in Fight Club

[First address to camera after his hang-gliding news report] "You're going to see a lot more of that sort of thing in the picture. I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more." -Tony Wilson, in the documentary-style feature film 24 Hour Party People

Dumb luck

2010-09-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

I receive countless inquiries about the meaning of "kungpowvoodo." (And by 'countless' I mean zero.) For those who find the formal definition wanting, here's a story of kungpowvoodo at work.

For almost two centuries, Spain has hosted an enormously popular Christmas lottery. Based on payout, it is the biggest lottery in the world and nearly all Spaniards play. In the mid 1970s, a man sought a ticket with the last two digits ending in 48. He found a ticket, bought it, and then won the lottery. When asked why he was so intent on finding that number, he replied, "I dreamed of the number seven for seven straight nights. And 7 times 7 is 48."

Via P.A.P. Blog via Michael J. Mauboussin's Untangling Skill and Luck: How to Think about Outcomes--Past, Present, and Future". Mauboussin's source for the anecdote was Stanley Meisler's LA Times article, "First in 1763: Spain Lottery—Not Even a War Stops It" (December 30, 1977, A5).

I believe that cyborgs are the future...

2010-08-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

...teach them well and let them lead the way. OK, perhaps we're not ready to sing inspirational songs about cyborgs yet, but they do occupy a special place in our imagination.

To be clear, robots are mechanism that can move automatically; androids are robots that have a humanoid form; and cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms, are beings that have biological and artificial parts.

In science fiction, cyborgs range from the Battlestar's alluring Cylons to grim dudes like Darth Vader, the Terminator, and the Borg. Often their aim is to make humanity more machine-like or destroy us outright.

These characters don't represent our fears about technology as is regularly suggested; rather, they act as stand-ins for humans who slavishly embrace a belief system or cause, especially one that interferes with our compassionate nature. In other words, it's the absence of humanity, not the addition of technology, that makes them villains.

Technology provides cyborgs with physical and mental prowess, making it impossible for humans to defeat them through physical violence alone. Vipers, phasers, and blasters are useful (and cool), but our heroes must also be psychologically/spiritually well-equipped in order to succeed. Sure enough, many of these stories conclude, not with a complete physical defeat of cyborg enemies, but with a cyborg breaking from an oppressive system and sometimes sacrificing themselves for humans.

In reality, tech-enhanced people fill an aspirational space instead of an anxiety-filled one. Their augmentations address disabilities and compliment their humanity rather than threaten it. This is why I suspect we will take to (or physically take in) cybornetic technology as it becomes more advanced and accessible.

I wonder how long it will be before technology reaches a point in which robotic body parts become an attractive alternative to what we're born with. I'm not talking about replacements for injured or missing pieces. For better or worse, I can imagine a time when we begin to trade in healthy features for 'enhanced' versions. What do you think? Does this sound believable or too creepy to come true?

Related video:

From TED: Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs--she's got a dozen amazing pairs--and the super-powers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height... Quite simply, she redefines what the body can be.

From EYBORG: Take a one eyed film maker, an unemployed engineer, and a vision for something that’s never been done before and you have yourself the EyeBorg Project. Rob Spence and Kosta Grammatis are trying to make history by embedding a video camera and a transmitter in a prosthetic eye. That eye is going in Robs eye socket, and will record the world from a perspective that’s never been seen before.

A heart for the tin man

2010-08-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

Generals and industrialists aren't the only ones thinking about the future of robots. More sensitive souls are considering the emotional impact these machines will have on us. For example, the Bristol Robotic Institute has developed the Heart Robot. This puppet-like bot mimics breathing and has a mechanism that feels like a beating heart.

"Does it make our world a much more emotionally sophisticated place when we're actually able to relate to our artifacts the way we relate to one another? Or does it make us value emotional and social relationships less because there are these artifacts that do it just as well and we can switch them off?"
BRI's mission is to understand the science, engineering and social role of robotics and embedded intelligence. Their multidisciplinary approach aims to create autonomous devices capable of working independently, with each other, or with us in our human society.

Looking for a few good robots

2010-08-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

I speculated about what a case for autonomous robots would look like in an earlier post, noting that having robots take the place of humans in life-threatening situations would be particularly persuasive. Since then I came across an account of the "Robot Rodeo" held at Fort Hood last year. Here's an excerpt.

Fresh off a tour in Iraq, Gen. Lynch challenged the attendees to show him some real robots. He told the stunned crowd there were no robots in Iraq--just things with remote control. He also said that he had lost 155 soldiers under his command in Iraq--122 soldiers--would not have died if the right robots had been there to help keep them out of harm's way. "I'm talking about a system that has a certain degree of autonomy," he said. [emphasis added]

Francis X. Govers III's article "U.S. Army Holds 'Robot Rodeo' at Fort Hood" appeared in the the January/February 2010 issue of Robot Magazine.

* * *Autonomous robots with the ability to drive vehicles or detect IEDs would be great assets in a war zone, but if autonomy is extended to armed machines, then we need to seriously consider everyone in which those machines will come in contact and the prospect of a deadly malfunction (example).

Six-foot extension cord

2010-08-25T13:57:00.001-07:00

The last ten seconds of this clip could save your life.

RoboResponsibility

2010-08-25T13:44:00.000-07:00

Two excerpts from from Annalee Newitz's column for Metro Active (10/27/07).

"In South Africa, a widely used anti-aircraft cannon called the Oerlikon GDF-005 suffered from what many observers believe was a computer malfunction that killed nine soldiers and maimed 15 in a training exercise. Its computer-controlled sighting mechanism went haywire, and the gun automatically turned its barrel to face the trainees next to it, spraying bullets from magazines that it automatically reloaded until it was out of ammunition. Many compared the incident to science fiction fare like RoboCop or Terminator, where military bots turn on their masters."

"The tragedy in South Africa could have been avoided if the engineers who designed that cannon had simply refused to computerize its sight. With a big gun, computer error can be far worse than human error. Any decent engineer would have known that failure in computer systems is inevitable and come to the conclusion that weapons should not be programmed to function autonomously."

This story brings a few thoughts to mind.

1. Some have advocated for a Hippocratic Oath for scientists. Determining where the lines should be drawn would be a challenge, but we manage equally difficult tasks in others fields; why not the sciences?

2. The creation of autonomous machines with the ability to kill will be justified by the idea that they will save ___ lives [fill in your nation of choice]. The decision to send humans or robots into harm's way is no real decision at all (who wouldn't chose robots?), but this question obscures the more fundamental question: is this violence justified in the first place? When a government (or any group) can kill without risking lives from their side, how much more likely are they to turn to violence?

3. Our current organizational/legal structures insulate individuals at the top and bottom from blame during war. Soldiers simply follow orders and leaders claim not to be responsible for the actions of "bad apples". (It can take years to peel back the layers of responsibility when bad apples are charged with wrong doing.) Adding another layer--computer error--confuses the picture further. As more of these machines are deployed, clarity on who is responsible for what they do becomes increasingly important. If they are put in the field by the U.S. government, then we (U.S. readers) share responsibility for what these machines do.

Shall we play a game?

2010-08-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

Play is a natural (some say necessary) part of human development, so it's not surprising that we enjoy putting robots through through play-like paces.

One example: the RoboGames features over 50 events, including combat, kung fu, basketball, bartending and painting. Humans remotely control the robots during some events but not all of them.

The 8th annual games will be Fri-Sun, Apr 15-17, 2011, in the SF Bay Area.
I've been to this event before and it has an science fair-meets-Ultimate Fighting Championship atmosphere. A lot of young people attend and participate. Some of the RoboContestants are designed by highly skilled engineers and cost thousands of dollars. Others are built by young hobbyist for nearly nothing.

It's hard not to be charmed by kids getting their science on, but my geeky giddiness is tempered by an ominous feeling prompted by what some of these machines can do. The shooting gallery competition, for example, is more carnival game than a war game (organizers even make a point of stating contestants should be firing ping pong balls or nerf darts, rather than projectiles that can cause harm), but this rule gives me pause.

7. The control logic may run on any platform, as long as there is no human control of the logic after the match has been started, i.e. a laptop or microcontroller can control the aiming/shooting. [emphasis added]

Programming a device to identify and hit a target on its own is as worthy of a gold medal as person who can accurately perform that task, but who can forget this scene?

RoboCop (1987)

KPV returns with RoboWeek

2010-08-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

You can checkout my earlier RoboPost here & here. The RoboStories that have caught my eye since then will be posted over the next few days. (What word doesn't sound better when proceeded by "robo"? )

"The Big Picture", part of the Boston Globe's website, covers news stories with photographs by adding informative captions to nice-looking images. They've covered a variety robot demonstrations within the last year or so. Below is a sample from parts one, two, and three of their RoboCoverage.

South Korean RoboActress (center) [detail]

BigDog, the RoboPackMule solider [detail]

Silkmoth head (resting on the purple-ish platform) + robot body [detail]

Human controls robohand with mind; feels what hand touches [detail]

Garfunkel and Oates

2010-03-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

Garfunkel and Oates has been likened to Flight of the Concords. It's true that both groups are clever, talented, song-writing duos, but while FOTC adopts an affable, if not naive persona, G&O has a sharper edge, presumably because they are from the streets.

The pair consist of Riki 'Garfunkel' Lindhome and Kate 'Oates' Micucci. Their songs are sweet, catchy and sometimes dirty. Word is they've been booked for an SNL appearance in the near future. If the samples below get you hooked, look for your next fix in the usual spots: youtube, myspace, itunes.

"i know this might be uncouth"

The google ad I got with this clip was about c-sections.

Educational Live Shows

"she hits up the jukebox and puts on Jim Croce"

"and like can lead to like-like and like-like can lead to love"

"too fat, too thin, either way you win"

Some of Kate's solo work.

Papa's got a brand new mag

2009-12-27T16:11:00.001-08:00

I like to read and I'm not adverse to new gadgets, but ebook readers (the Kindle, the Nook, and the like) have left me cold. Unconsciously, I must have been holding out for something similar to the demos below.

Sports Illustrated - Tablet Demo 1.5 from The Wonderfactory

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo

Thanks to MP for the Bonnier link.

Update 1/4/10: NYT blogger, David Carr, looks ahead to what sort of tablet offerings Apple and Microsoft might have in the works.

Armstrong's wish

2009-11-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

Religious historian and author Karen Armstrong dedicated her TED Prize wish to the creation of a Charter for Compassion, the website for which launched earlier this week. If you aren't allowed to wish for infinity wishes, then promoting compassionate behavior is the way to go.

Armstrong has called compassion humanity's best idea. It's often explained through 'The Golden Rule,' sometimes in the affirmative (do to others what you would like to be done to you) and sometimes in the negative (do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you).

While Christ advised followers to "render unto Ceasar the things that are Caesar's...," the Charter is purposefully political, particularly when referencing compassion's indispensable role in creating a "just economy." When U.S. President, Barack Obama, cancels a meeting with the Dalai Lama in deference to China and is then handed a peace prize, bringing a compassionate perspective to economic discussions is worthwhile endeavor.

Compassion may not have had much influence on economic talks in the past, but it has always been central to the world's largest religions. Even so, the idea of restoring "compassion to the center of morality and religion" won't be embraced by all in the religious community. For instance, one Christian commentator offered this explanation of why Jesus would not endorse the Charter.

You may be tempted to wash your hands of fundamentalists (and religion altogether), but let's not cede that territory. Collectively, religion still informs the actions of many, domestically and around the world. Secular humanists and the like would be wise to seek out and support the most reasonable voices in those communities rather than turn their back on the entire discussion or deride faith-based beliefs. In this interview Armstrong says, "We can either emphasize those that speak of exclusion, of distain, of hatred, and these are in all traditions--be they religious or secular--or we can emphasize those that speak of compassion, of respect for other people, of a quest for justice."

Which side are you on?

* * *Armstrong's life and work are summarized in this recent radio interview. NPR and PBS feature additional conversations with her. Her most recent book, The Case for God, can be sampled at audible.com. In this Foreign Policy piece Armstrong addresses such axioms as God is dead (no), God and politics shouldn’t mix (not necessarily), and God has been bad for women (yes).

* * *Love And Compassion Bring Us The Greatest Happiness by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Sirleaf's Daily Talk

2009-10-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

Daily Talk, a news service in Monrovia, Liberia, was brought to my attention by The Monocle. Alfred J. Sirleaf is Daily Talk's founder and managing editor.

A 2006 The New York Times article summarizes Sirleaf's motivation this way.

Mr. Sirleaf is something of an information evangelist, fervent in his belief that a well-informed citizenry is the key to the rebirth of his homeland, ravaged by 14 years of civil war. As the nation slowly comes back from the brink of annihilation, he said, he wants to make sure every Liberian can keep up with the news and play a part in the country’s young democratic government.

Herwigphoto has posted some pictures of Sirleaf's operation on Flickr.

Kachingle all the way

2009-08-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

I made an irrational purchase a while back. In October 2007 Radiohead released a collection of songs titled In Rainbows via their website. The propostion: pay what you want for the download, zero being an option. The novelty of a major act distributing their own album (instead of working with a label, like Universal, or a distributor, like iTunes) and allowing fans to set the price was so exciting that I paid £20 (about double of the typical .99/song). A large slice of that amount was in appreciation for the experiment, and I'm unlikely to pay that much for music on a regular basis, but the point is: I paid for something I could have gotten for free and I felt good about it.

Moving from music to news... Online news has been widely offered for free, but many producers are unsatisfied (or unprofitable) with ad revenue alone. As companies attempt to maximize how much their users will pay (directly) for content without turning them off, diminishing ad revenue and the relevance of their work, a new set of companies are suggesting users should have a say in setting the price for content. On some basic level, this idea appeals to me. After all, what's something worth? Whatever someone is willing pay for it and not a penny more.

Kachingle was the first of these companies to catch my eye. How does it work? You register with Kachingle and select the amount you're willing to pay per month for online content ($5 for example). As you make your way around the web, you click a Kachingle 'medallion' (icon) attached to otherwise free content you wish to support. At the end of the month, Kachingle divvies your fiver between the clicked-on content providers. The most visited sites would receive a greater piece of the action, and Kachingle would take a taste for their trouble. Obviously, content providers must be on-board with approach to benefit. I haven't seen what it would look like, but I imagine it would be similar to the rows of bookmarking/social networking icons that are attached to many articles now. This system hasn't been put into play yet; I assume Kachingle is attempting to line-up content sites to participate.

On the Media's Bob Garfield interviewed Kachingle CEO and founder Cynthia Typaldos. When asked why people would pay (modest amounts) for something they could get for free, Typaldos offers two reasons: consumers want the sources they enjoy to continue and they appreciate the recognition for their support.

This presentation plots similar outfits on a tipping-crowdfunding-micropayments-subscriptions matrix.

Market Players in the Crowdfunding Space prepared by Kachingle

Keep in mind these slides were prepared by Kachingle and the other outfits might categorize themselves differently. Check them out for yourself.

Contenture is "bringing freemium to the masses."

In a Moon declares "the future of micropayments is here. Support the sites you depend on, without lifting a finger. We do the work, leaving you free to read and create your favorite newspapers, blogs, and video sites online."

Journalism Online "is pioneering the effort to make the transition to a paid online model successful for publishers and easy for readers."

Payyattention is "a response to the crisis in journalism. We support quality journalism by linking readers and writers in a social network of micropatronage."

Sprinklepenny "enables you to support your favourite sites with tiny payments. You decide how much to spend per month – typically $5 – and we then distribute this to your favourite sites."

Normally, I'm anti-middleman, but I really like the idea of a service that recognizes that the number of sites I find valuable/worth supporting financially is greater than the number of sites with which I want to establish an account. Such a service would let my support effortlessly ebb and flow to sites that lose or garner my attention over time.

Back to music...How did the Radiohead experiment go? Data began to trickle out about a year after it launched. On one hand, more people downloaded the album for free than paid for it through Radiohead's site. In fact, the free downloads via Bit Torrent topped the free downloads from the official site. On the other hand, there were 3 million sales (CDs, vinyl albums, box sets and digital downloads), a figure that tops the band's three previous efforts, and only the last category was pay-what-you-want. Don't forget this was a self-distributed work, so the band's profit on each unit sold had to be higher than the traditional approach. Fold in the 1.2 million concert tickets sold, and it's hard to say the give-away was a misstep. Read more about the results at TECHDiGEST and Rolling Stone.

Paying for The WSJ

2009-08-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Via Nieman Journalism Lab

Alan Murray, Executive Editor of The Wall Street Journal Online, April 4, 2009
The WSJ is credited (and it seems rightly so) with creating a successful pay wall around select content. Its example may not be applicable to other services, though. It would be interesting to know how many WSJ subscribers personally pay for the content and how many subscribe through work. I suspect a large slice are reading on the bossman's dime. In general, if readers don't perceive a service as unique and professionally/financially valuable, then it may not rate the expense.

My take-away from this interview: news companies should stop insisting consumers pay for services that are currently free and create something perceived to be indispensable.

Profitable newspapers

2009-07-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Google the sentence "the business model for newspapers is broken" (in quotes) and you'll get 19,000+ results. This statement has become widely accepted as true, and it's now used as a jumping-off point for a discussion of what comes next for journalism. We may be moving too quickly, though. There seems to be plenty of value left in the newspaper industry.

This Advertising Age article from last February reveals that most daily papers are still making a profit, and it’s the parent companies that are posting losses because of high debt.

A few highlights:

“Not a lot of papers are operating at a loss,” said John Morton, the veteran industry analyst. “There are roughly 1,400 daily newspapers. We only hear about the top markets That leaves at least 1.300 papers out there.”

Publicly owned newspapers averaged an operating profit of 10.8% in the first three quarters of last year [2008], Mr. Morton said. That’s not the margin enjoyed by newspapers when they were monopolies, but it’s not nothing either.

The owners, on the other hand, are variously posting huge losses, at least on paper; watching their stock prices plunge; and crucially, struggling to make payments on debt they took on under projections that didn’t pan out.

Some owners even borrowed that money to double down on newspapers, which aren’t engines of growth even when their balance sheets are healthy.

...Take a look at Lee Enterprises, which operates papers primarily in midsize markets but reported an $899 million net loss for the 12 months ended Sept. 28. Its loss primarily reflected a huge acccounting write-down as the company adjusted its estimated value. It’s not that $899 million of cash flowed from the coffers just to make payroll and keep the presses running.

...In a similar fashion, McClatchy is freezing pensions and hunting another $100 million in budget cuts. The company, publisher of papers including the Sacramento Bee and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is struggling under more than $2 billion in debt, much of which it assumed in 2006 to buy Knight Ridder--doubling down on newspapers at a cost of $4.6 billion.

But look past the interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and charges such as severance; they matter, but they affect the owner’s balance sheet more than they reflect newspapers’ viability. McClatchy’s underlying newspaper portfolio just delivered a 21.5% operating profit margin.

Before Congress allows anti-trust exceptions for papers, or philanthropic dollars begin to prop-up news operations, let's not overlook this lesson: poor business decisions can break any model.

The wasted half

2009-07-13T01:11:00.000-07:00

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

This quip from department store pioneer John Wanamaker (1838-1922) has come to mind a lot lately. I'm wondering if the increasing sophistication of online metrics is providing the insight Wanamaker wished for, and, if so, is the 'wasted half' of advertiser expense/ad seller revenue being wrung from various business models? More specifically, I'm curious about the implications for the news industry. More to come...

Fukú Americanus

2009-06-28T22:20:00.001-07:00

When Sean San José from Intersection for the Arts told Junot Diaz that he wanted to adapt Diaz's novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for the stage, Diaz replied, "Good fucking luck, bro." Given the two had collaborated before, his comment seems more like a blessing than skeptism, or perhaps Diaz, who spent 11 years writing the novel, was hinting at the challenge ahead.

Fukú Americanus, directed by San José and Marc Bamuthi Joséph, centers on the lives of Dominican immigrants growing up in Northern New Jersy during the 1980s. The play retains the novel's mix of sci-fi, hip-hop, and historical references, but the book's violence is toned down on stage. The cast is strong, equally skilled during comic and poignant moments, and the play's short scenes look more choreographed than blocked, often flowing together with transitions provided by a narrator who doesn't appear in the novel, the personification of Fukú. (Think: a younger, funkier, vagabond-version of Our Town's Stage Manager.) Fukú, defined on the first page of the book as "the Curse and the Doom of the New World" is less menacing / more inviting as a live character. Early on in the play he delivers what might have been my favorite line of the evening, "There may be some of this you don't understand, but that's part of it."

Someone's story doesn't need to be 100% comprehensible for it to be worth knowing. I doubt any audience member walked in with perfect knowledge of the Diaz lexicon--it's that diverse. At various times, some audience members may have been clued in while others had sections simply wash over them. Most of the Spanish-language dialogue, for instance, was lost on me, but that feeling (being forced to look for meaning in context, tone, body language, expressions...) may have brought me closer to Oscar's experience--being a stranger in a strange land. That's what I think Fukú meant by "that's part of it."

For locals: the show has been selling out, and the run has been extended until July 12.

* * *

The Cast: Carlos Aguire (Yunior), Maria Candelaria (Moms), Vanessa Cota (Lola), Biko Eise-Martin (Fukú), Anna Maria Luera (La Inca), and Brian Rivera (Oscar).

* * *

For more: read SF Chronicle's preview, which included Diaz's "good luck" line.

* * *

From the SF Guardian review.

Act one of Fukú Americanus, Campo Santo's adaptation of Pulitzer prize-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, explodes across the stage like a Caribbean hurricane.... The second act...is less cohesive...and unlike the book, does not resolve itself in Oscar's ultimate tragedy, which is a little like ending Hamlet before the duel. Denied both his tragic end, and his triumphal devirginization, Oscar's role in this adaptation is less that of anti-hero, than one of hapless foil in the larger sweep of fukú's pitiless influence. (N. Gluckstern)

* * *From the NYT's review of Wao.

Junot Díaz’s Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West. M. Kakutani's full review.

* * *Diaz discusses the character of Oscar at the Sydney Writer’s Festival

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Junot Diaz

http://www.colbertnation.com/

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tasers

p.s. to the Colbert clip: The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic novel written in 1951 by the English science fiction author John Wyndham. Tiffids are a highly venomous (fictional) plant species and the titular antagonists of Wyndham's novel.

It's Harvey time

2009-06-26T02:26:00.000-07:00

The brink of Pride weekend is a good time to share The Times of Harvey Milk (1982), a documentary about San Francisco’s first openly gay man elected to public office.

After several attempts, Milk was elected to the city's Board of Supervisors in 1977. He and SF mayor, George Mascone, were assassinated a little more than a year later.

This Oscar-winning documentary preceded the Gus Van Sant drama, Milk, by 26 years. For those not familiar with California politics of the late 1970s (like me), these two films can act as a primer on Proposition 6, the 1978 initiative that intended to ban gays, lesbians, and their supporters from working in California's public schools. Watching Life and Milk, I couldn't help but compare the defeat of Proposition 6 in 1978 to the passage Proposition 8 in 2008. (Prop. 8 narrowed the definition of marriage to different-sex couples.)

The public debate on Prop 6 included long-form, televised debates; the Prop 8 race lacked such discussions and was dominated by political TV ads. Further, there wasn't a readily identifiable spokesperson, such as Milk, representing the cause of same-sex couples during the Prop 8 campaign. How much these factors influenced the respective outcomes, it's hard to say, but the differences stood out to me.

From Gallop, June 18, 2008

Gallup polling chronicles important changes in public attitudes about homosexuality and gay rights over the past quarter century. Americans have shifted from frowning on homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle and being divided over whether it should be legal, to now supporting gay rights on both fronts. At the same time, the country remains highly ambivalent about the morality of homosexual relations, and as a result, support for legalizing gay marriage lags far behind the less culturally sensitive matter of gays having equal job rights.

Kathy Kozachenko's election to the Ann Arbor city council made her the first openly gay or lesbian candidate to run successfully for political office in the United States (January 1974).

Sound off, 1, 2, Sound off, 3, 4

2009-06-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Highlights from the Craigslist Foundation Nonprofit Boot Camp 2009

All for Good. Google has provided this new org with a nifty gadget/widget for distributing volunteer opportunities around the web. It aggregates listings from many well-established sites. This effort seems inspired by, but not officially part of, the Obama administration's serve.gov. I'm not sure non-profits have had trouble recruiting volunteers in recent years, but these folks have their heart in the right place.

YouTube will try to connect video-makers with non-profits via the newly launched Video Volunteers service, another off-shoot of All for Good. Other YouTube benefits for non-profits can be found here.

Mozilla, the outfit behind the Firefox browser, is organizing a service week (September 14-21, 2009) and asking tech-savvy individuals to sign up to teach senior citizens how to use the web, install a wireless network at a school, refurbish hardware for a local computer center, etc. Non-profits and the like can register on the same site to receive such support. (No group has a better rep for friendly customer service than IT pros, am I right? Here's hoping the most smug and surly geeks sit this one out.)

NTen is a membership organization of nonprofit technology professionals that shares information, provides professional development opportunities, and conducts research. NTen partners with The Port, offering "social media solutions."

Computer Recycling Center. Teachers, community non-profits, plus Bay Area groups that serve foster youth and home-bound elderly can apply for refurbished hardware, available for the price of a reasonable service contract. For those looking to put their old gear to good use, CRC either places with it at a worthy site or recycles it responsibly.

The Boot Camp wasn't focused exclusively on technology, but much of what I took in was. After a full day of rah-rah for the geeks, I thought it was important that Ari Dar, the founder and executive director of Action Without Borders/Idealist.org, reminded attendees during the closing session that Rome was built before facebook and that technology is merely a tool, not the end-all.

The issue many of the non-techy, non-profiters were wrestling with seemed to be how much time, money, etc. should be invested in new tools as they continue to provide their core, often in-person services. Each org will have a unique answer to that question, if they have time to adequately address it. This year's Boot Camp was a star-studded infomercial for some of the shiniest tools currently available, but I found little guidance on how to evaluate the various opportunities.

Beyond camp
Groundswell, a book and blog, is a great resource for groups struggling with their 2.0 strategy. A number of talks by the book's co-author, Charlene Li, can be found online, if you prefer to watch rather than read.

And as you may know, there's more to volunteer management than getting people to turn out. Not all activities are as simple as stuffing envelopes. If expectations on both sides aren't met, the two parties who just wanted to do some good leave unsatisfied, if not disgruntled. Idealist's Volunteer Management Resource Center could prove useful on this front.

* * *If you're looking for a volunteer opportunity, you might peruse Volunteer Match or Idealist for gigs all over, including the Bay Area. SF residents might have luck with The Volunteer Center, One Brick, or Hands On Bay Area. And ReServe, based in NYC, is doing some interesting work with highly skilled retirees.

Facebook fortune cookies

2009-06-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

A new feature on Facebook allows users to personalize their username/profile url. Users search for their preferred handle, and if it's not available, alternatives are suggested. It has become an oracle of sorts, doling out everything from practical tips to hard, cold facts. Given certain names are not available because someone else has secured them, this feature is a form of psychic crowdsourcing. My digital future isn't as rosy as I hoped it would be...

"Early adopters, those who rush to embrace new technology and functionality, enjoy greater freedom when selecting names, phrases, and concepts. Fair or not, this is seen as their right as today's digital pioneers," said Bankim Budhil, Professor of Media and Metaphysics, California Institution of Technology.

"By the time millions have registered, new community members have their decisions shaped by those who came before them. With mundane and obvious choices unavailable, these individuals are forced to look deeper into themselves for designations that reflect their true being. They must explore their soul as never before, resulting in greater self-awareness, wisdom, and compassion.” Given this phenomenon, and projecting the growth internet access and social media, Budhil predicts that such introspection on a global scale will bring peace to every living creature on Earth by the end of Summer 2037.

Thao at The Rumpus

2009-06-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended the first of what's promised to be monthly events for The Rumpus, a website focused on culture and based in San Francisco. The entertainment included readings of prose and poetry, animated film, and musical performances. Thao Nguyen's 3-song set was the highpoint for me. Her guitar playing is dexteritous and percussive, and its upbeat feel provides a compelling balance to her sometimes somber lyrics.

"beat my brow, beat my chest, beat the ones who love me the best"

Check out the beatbox intro...

"as sharp as I sting, as sharp as I sing, it still sooths you, doesn't it, like a lick of ice cream"

Thao often plays with The Get Down Stay Down; visit them on MySpace, if so inclined.

Studio 360 conducted this interview with Thao and her mom in Arlington, VA.

You should be able to learn of future Rumpus events here.

Care to step outside?

2009-06-08T23:56:00.000-07:00

From TED: the moral roots of liberals and conservatives (March 2008)

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies morality and emotion in the context of culture.[1] He asks: Why did humans evolve to have morals--and why did we all evolve to have such different morals, to the point that our moral differences may make us deadly enemies?

Haidt outlines five moral values that he believes inform our political choices: harm/care; fairness/reciprocity; ingroup/loyalty; authority/respect; and purity/sanctity.

He notes that both conservatives (those who value the familiar) and liberals (those who are open to new experiences) embrace the first two values. Conservatives, interested in preserving order, hold the last three in high regard as well while liberals are wary of guidelines that can be used to oppress others, even at the risk of chaos.

Rather than advocating one approach over the other, Haidt urges us to "learn some social psychology and step outside the moral matrix." By doing so, he says, we cultivate moral humility and are better positioned to bring about positive change. [2]

1. You can learn about your own morality while contributing to scientific research on moral psychology at yourmorals.org.

2. Haidt credits Sent-ts'an, c. 700 C.E., with expressing the deepest insight moral psychology. "If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease."

A note from a native son

2009-06-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.

-James Baldwin, Autobiographic Notes, Notes of a Native Son

Detanee abuse (pictures not included)

2009-05-31T22:26:00.000-07:00

As a result of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Defense Department agreed last month to release images of American military personnel abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The images date from 2001 through 2005.

A couple weeks later, the Obama administration reversed that decision, suggesting the issue be returned to court.

"The most direct consequence of releasing [the images], I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger. Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse." President Obama, May 13, 2009

Even if you accept the president's premise, he seems to greatly discounted the value of an informed public. Frankly, the temperature of future investigations concerns me less than the intensity of future oversight.

When we peacefully transfer power from one party to another, large portions of the governing infrastructure remain in place, including much of the intelligence and military apparatus. In fact, a new president relies on these individuals to provide the information necessary to do his/her job. In this instance, the White House seems to have sided with the people they work with, rather than the people they work for.

I'm interested in seeing these images released because the public outcry could lead to systematic reform, rather than punishment for a few low-level individuals.

Our recent history shows we falter as a country, morally and functionally, when the oversight of our publicly-supervised institutions is inadequate. That's been the case with the financial crisis, and the documentary below shows that even well-placed internal resistance couldn't stop abhorrent practices.

The film's blurb: Torturing Democracy (2008) relies on the documentary record to connect the dots in an investigation of harsh interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody - and points straight to the top. Timely and powerful, at its heart the film is about the rule of law - and how the government pushed it aside despite the fierce resistance of many on the inside.

The Torturing Democracy website, a collaboration with the National Security Archive at George Washington University, includes a timeline of key events; extended interviews; and the memos, legal opinions and other documents highlighted in the film.

Filip Spagnoli defuses the 'ticking bomb' defense of torture here.

Yield To Total Elation

2009-04-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

Achilles G. Rizzoli (1896-1981) was a San Francisco Bay Area native, a professional draftsman, and visionary artist.

By all accounts, Achilles Rizzoli was a devoted son and a competent employee. A work colleague described him as friendly but not sociable. He appears to have had no close friends and was a lifelong celibate who may have suffered from mental illness. The earliest article I found about him was written in 1992 by John MacGregor, who seems to have had access to his journals.

[Rizzoli] speaks again and again of his "confusion, inability to mobilize the mechanics of recording impressions automatically, for the most part dwelling in a sphere of shifting sand-like maze of colour, paste, light and sound". Such elaborate documentation of hallucinatory experience, in both written and graphic form, all carefully dated, is uniquie in the phenomenology of schizophrenia. ("A.G. Rizzoli: The Architecture of Hallucination", Raw Vision #6)

Every other source I came across points to A. G. Rizzoli: Architect of Magnificent Visions by Hernandez, Beardsley and Cardinal (1997). Many of the biographical details referenced below were gleaned from this book.

Only a few neighbors and colleagues took notice of his art during his lifetime. Nine years after his death, a sample of his work made its way to Bonnie Grossman, founder of The Ames Gallery. Investigating further, she uncovered over 40-years-worth of Rizzoli creations in his great-nephew's attic. In 1997 the San Diego Museum of Art launched a two-year traveling exhibition of his drawings that was accompanied by Architect of Magnificent Visions, the definitive study of the artist and his work. A documentary film, Yield to Total Elation: The Life and Art of Achilles Rizzoli, was released in 2000.

Symbolic representations, or "transfigurations" as he called them, made up the bulk of his visual work between 1935 and 1944. His depictions of people and events as mansions, towers, and cathedrals mix a variety of architectural styles including Beaux-Arts, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Renaissance, and Romanesque. The drawings are embellished with religious iconography and affectionate sentiments about the subjects, sometimes written in verse. On the first Sunday of each August between 1935 and 1940, Rizzoli hosted the A.T.E. (Achilles Tectonic Exhibit) at his home in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. Several of the pictures below commemorate the visits of attendees. Also featured below is the one of the plot plans for Y.T.T.E. (Yield To Total Elation), an invented world's fair-like expo.

Mother Symbolicly Represented (1935)

Mrs. Geo. Powleson Symbolically Portrayed (1935)

"In appreciation of the kindly interest they have shown in their visit to the A.T.E. during its first anniversary day, August 2, 1936."Larger version

The Primal Glimpse at Forty (1936)
"That you too may see something you've not seen before"
Larger version

Alfredo Capobianco and Family Symbolically Sketched (1937)

The YTTE Plot Plan (1938)
Larger Version

Shirley was a 6-year old kid from the neighborhood. (1939)
Larger version

"A Scholar and a Gentleman" (1939)
Larger version

"The Palace God is Building for Abraham N. Zachariah" (1939)

Assorted Images
* * *
Rizzoli focused his creative creative energy on writing prior to 1935. His self-published book, The Colonnade (1933) was billed as "Versified Fiction Romancing Total Love in Vivid Terms of Highly Entertaining Monumental Mediums." The effort generated little or no interest; 3,000 seal copies of book were found in his home after his death. His final creative undertaking was AMTE’s Celestial Extravaganza (AMTE = Architecture Made To Entertain), a journal of his visions, recorded in prose, poetry, and illustrations (1958-1977).

I found other good accounts of his life in this blog, this blog, and The Ames Gallery site. Newspapers that critiqued the '97/'98 exhibition included the SF Chronicle, SF Examiner, and the NY Times. Note to locals: the San Francisco Public Library offers archives of Raw Vision magazine, along with Magnificent Visions, and the documentary film Yield to Total Elation.

* * *
Related Images

Tower of Jewels, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915

Grace Cathedral, Nob Hill, San Francisco, built between 1928 and 1964

Coit Tower, Telegraph Hill, San Francsico, built 1933

Golden Gate International Exhibition, Treasure Island, San Francisco Bay, 1939

Rizzoli's former home, Alabama Street in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, 2009

SF Builder

2009-04-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

The current issue of Stop Smiling Magazine features an article about a self-taught architect from the Mission District, Timothy Ludwig Pflueger (1892-1946).

Like Chicago after the great fire of 1871, San Francisco was rebuilt from the ground up in the months and years following the devastating earthquake of 1906.... Influenced by Mayan and Asian art, as well as the early modern architects of his generation, Pflueger came to define excellence in San Franciscan Art Deco. His first job was at a picture-framing shop, but just as the construction boom was getting underway, he got a lucky start as a draftsman right out of high school.

Eventually he led many significant projects in the Bay Area, including Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Tower, the I. Magnin store (now Macy’s), the Castro Theatre, the Paramount (in Oakland), plus a variety of homes, schools, and cocktail lounges.

Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Tower

115 Sansome Street

Cirque Lounge (formerly part of the Fairmount Hotel)

Paramount Theatre

Pflueger's work has been compiled in Art Deco San Francisco.

Anticipating something wild

2009-04-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

Is it too early to be excited by the film version of Where the Wild Things Are? The adaptation of the book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak is directed by Spike Jonze and due out October 16, 2009. I've collected a few choice links below for those who want to geek-out with me.

Some are wincing at the prospect of a beloved book being warped on screen. I think any film that can pack the same speaks-to-you/stays-with-you punch as the book would be a feat. Maybe the film will fall short, or maybe it will stick the landing. Either way, I'm looking forward to it because I expect to see something daring, passionate and personal.

From an interview with Spike Jonze:

One of the things I was worried about is that the book is just so beloved to so many people. And as I started to have ideas for it I was worried that I was just making what it means to me, and what the book triggers in me from when I was a kid. And I’d be worried that other people were gonna be disappointed, because it’s like adapting a poem. It can mean so much to so many different people.

And Maurice was very insistent that that’s all I had to do... just make what it was to me, just to make something personal and make something that takes kids seriously and doesn’t pander to them. He told me that when his book came out, it was considered dangerous. It was panned by critics and child psychologists and librarians, because it wasn’t how kids were talked to. And it took like only two years after the book was out that kids started finding it in the libraries, and basically kids discovered it and made it what it is. And now it’s 40 years later and it’s a classic. So he said you just have to make something according to your own instinct.

In his acceptance speech for the Caldecott Medal, awarded for American picture books for children, Sendak said:

What is too often overlooked is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions...fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives... they continually cope with frustration as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

It is my involvement with this inescapable fact of childhood--the awful vulnerability of children and their struggle to make themselves King of all Wild Things--that gives my work whatever truth and passion it may have.

The remarks above were found in this article about Wild Things and child psychology.

If you wish to watch Sendak speak at length about his life and work, check out the interview he did with this Bill Moyers. It covers the Sendak's childhood, his fatalism, his faith in art, and the inspiration for Wild Things. Thanks to Dana Stevens from the Slate Culture Gabfest for sharing this link via facebook.

Through 2011

2009-03-31T15:07:00.000-07:00

Is the U.S. War in Iraq on its way to becoming a forgotten war? The current narrative seems to be: the 'surge' worked, we're pulling out, and now we can focus on Afghanistan (and Pakistan). Some may even be tempted to add "we won" into that mix.

Washington Post military correspondent Thomas E. Ricks offers a different perspective, noting the 'surge' fell short of its intentions and 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq (and in harm's way) through 2011.

Coconut Run

2009-03-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

If you're a nerd (gamer) and a geek (maker), then Coconut Run might be an appealing way to unwind after some intense Battlestar Galactica chat.

Never mind this is a promo for Johnson Controls, a company that uses coconut fiber in the production of car seats. The Flash-based game will satisfy your urge to tinker without requiring an advanced degree or risking electrocution (again).

Your task: build a cart that can efficiently deliver coconuts to a shedder. The quicker you cover ground and the less product you spill the higher your rating will be.

Your supplies: bars, balls, blocks, shocks, and wheels. The construction process is simple--the objects connect when overlapping. Engineers might snicker at the lack of an engine, but you will have to consider factors such as the weight of your cart and the speed you travel, plus the pros and cons of features such as larger/bouncy tires. The game's 'tips' are helpful when you're getting started and can be turned off once you know the basics.

The course is short but extreme. You'll face several opportunities to turn over, get stuck, or loose cargo. The graphics look sharp and have an appropriate drawing board-like feel.

If you really like the game, you might be frustrated by the inability to save a design or copy and paste simple elements. (Creating two tires the same size, for instance, takes more concentration than I'd like.) Most vehicles can be recreated in a few minutes, though, and the price is right (free).

Note: you cart's performance could vary depending your computer. Very similar designs performed 10 to 15 seconds slower on a 5-year old PC when compared to a 6-month-old Mac, impacting the efficiency rating. My quickest model turned out to be a cross between a dune buggy and a sports bike. Have fun.

* * *

More from KungPowVoodo
Cuddle up to RoboFuture

What we know about climate change

2009-03-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

Scientists and economists gathered this week in Copenhagen to discuss climate change. At the end of their meeting they posted six messages, one being Earth's climate is warming faster than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in 2007. The full report from this group is due out in June 2009. This and many other efforts are preparation for United Nations Climate Conference in December 2009, also set in Copenhagen. The goal of that meeting: finding a solution for global warming (see this Independent article for more on December's UNCC).

Earth's climate and human impact on it is a widely complex topic, and that's I'm grateful for Kerry Emanuel's book What We Know about Climate Change (2007). In a very slim volume, the MIT professor of atmospheric science explains the fundamentals of climate physics and climate modeling in a way that is both sophisticated and understandable. He outlines how we know for certain that human behavior is warming the planet, but he doesn't shy away from acknowledging the limitations of our best projections, noting "computer modeling of global climate is perhaps the most complex endeavor ever undertaken by mankind."

In an endorsement of What We Know, James Hansen of the NASA Goodard Institute for Space Studies says, "Emanuel's words are measured and authoritative. His book should help reduce the huge gap between what is understood by the scientific community and what is known by the people who need to know, the public and policymakers."

8-bit porn

2009-03-02T22:36:00.000-08:00

I understand the appeal of the 8-bit aesthetic. There was a time when a digital representations of anything, no matter how simply rendered, seemed cool and clever. For those of us who were young during the late 1970s and early 1980s, 8-bit art can still provoke nostalgic, heart-warming reactions.

JeanYves Lemoigne has subverted that feeling (or taken it to a new level, depending on your sensabilities) with these sculptures / photographs. Trying to remain open minded, I'm left wondering: Must we peel the panties off the feeling of being 9 years old?

Categorization

2009-02-16T14:28:00.000-08:00

Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, p. 15

The Internet, 50s-style

2009-01-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

Here's a brief history of the internet--from fear-driven project of the scientific, military, and commercial communities to a platform for just about everything. It's a bit dry and acronym-laden, but the spiffy graphics and Hitchhiker's-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-like narration improve its watchability.

We often focus on government's short-comings (poor construction of levies or a failure to adequately oversee banks), so it's only fair to remember how some governmental geeks accomplished something cool and world-changing, whether they meant to or not.

RoboHighlights 2008

2008-12-30T09:49:00.000-08:00

NewScientist has presented their year-end video round-up about robots. While some robo-efforts are inspired by nature or attempt to mimic natural behavior, many of these experiments actually fuse biological and technological systems.

Something to look for in stores next Christmas--the cyborg insect. Electronics controls their behaviour by interfacing with their nerves. The research is funded by the US defense research agency DARPA, which imagines future cyborg spies, according to NewScientists.

Plus, one from the archives. Robots inspired by animals.

* * *
Not cute (and/or creepy) enough for you? Check this earlier post.

Here comes the sun

2008-11-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

Thinking of U.S. politics, there were times during the last eight years when I was unable to find the evidence necessary to support an optimistic perspective, when I had to fall back to a state of hope, when I could only imagine how a more humane and just country would function. "Here Comes the Sun" was often the soundtrack to those daydreams.

Finally, one of those dreams is blossoming into reality: it seems likely that Barack Obama will be elected President of the United States today.

The serious concerns that will continue demand our attention are mounting, but if you're as pleased at the probable outcome of the election as I am, then I invite you set those concerns aside for a few minutes and enjoy a version of this song that suits your taste.

::Left to right: Richie Havens, The Beatles, Nina Simone
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say it's all right

Oil in the news

2008-10-27T23:58:00.001-07:00

Today's SF Chronicle included this front-page story: Low oil prices take wind out of renewable fuels.

Now oil costs less than half what it did this summer. Ditto natural gas. If prices keep dropping and stay down, future fuels like cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel will have a harder time competing. So will solar and wind power projects, which compete against power plants that burn natural gas. Public interest in alternative energy may dwindle as well.

The headline reminded me a passage from Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, a book written by two correspondents for The Economist. The authors spoke with Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caulfild & Byers, who put is own money into start-up firms developing cellulosic ethanol.

Khosla himself says that after he made his ethanol pitch at a recent Davos summit of world leaders and corporate titans, a senior Saudi oil official sweetly reminded him that it cost barely a dollar to lift a barrel of Saudi oil out of the ground, adding, "If biofuels start to take off we will drop the price of oil." (p. 256-257)

The Chronicle article goes on to describe increased demand for oil in China and India, a similar spike and drop in oil price during the 1980s, and new legalisation that may keep alternative fuel efforts afloat during the current dip. It also references the per barrel cost of oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the peak being $145.29 per in July 2008 and last Friday's close being $64.15. What article doesn't mention is the influnce of unregulated exchanges on this market.

Last month McClatchy newspapers ran this article: Did speculators use unregulated markets to drive up oil prices?

[U]nregulated markets account for about two-thirds of oil trading on financial markets, and they could be used to manipulate oil prices on the regulated exchanges that account for the remaining oil trading.

The finding that some speculators exceeded positions allowed in regulated markets is sure to spark debate about how much the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] knows about the markets it regulates, whether more stringent reporting requirements are needed and whether the government should require more disclosure from speculators and investment banks.

In a recent interview, CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton told McClatchy that his agency lacks all the tools it needs to gather market information.

"It's not responsible to reach conclusions about speculators based uponcurrent data," he said.

Apparently, even participants in the regulated markets are tough to keep tabs on. Two months ago, The Washington Post published this story: A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading. The Post detailed techniques used by firms to gain tremendous influence in the regulated markets.

The [Commodity Futures Trading Commission], which learned about the nature of Vitol's activities only after making an unusual request for data from the firm, now reports that financial firms speculating for their clients or for themselves account for about 81 percent of the oil contracts on NYMEX, a far bigger share than had previously been stated by the agency.

The article continues by supplying background on the unregulated markets referenced in the McClatchy piece.

The most successful of the private platforms was InterContinental Exchange, or ICE, founded by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a few other big brokerages in 2000. ICE soon opened a trading platform in London, allowing its founders to trade vast quantities of U.S. oil overseas without being subject to regulation.

The exemptions for swap dealers and the development of overseas markets allowed big brokerages to open the door for more hedge funds, pensions and big investors to move into commodities.

In the coming years, commodity investments by funds could grow to $1 trillion, veteran hedge fund manager Michael Masters said in testimony before the Senate earlier this year. In an interview, he said this trend could raise commodity prices for everyone in the coming years and "have catastrophic economic effects on millions of already stressed U.S. consumers."

The article points to the Commodities Futures Modernization Act as the enabler of these practices. "The law formally allowed investors to trade energy commodities on private electronic platforms outside the purview of regulators. Critics have called this piece of legislation the 'Enron loophole,' saying Enron played a role in crafting it." Antonia Juhasz, author of Tyranny of Oil, does a fine job of describing the 1999 passage of that measure in this recent Fresh Air interview.

When will you be angelic?

2008-10-12T22:23:00.001-07:00

Here's a 1956 recording of Allen Ginsberg reading his poem "America" in front of an audience. Commenting on his performance The Poetry Archive writes, "Ginsberg's irrepressible humour delights his audience even as his poem enumerates reasons to despair with contemporary American culture."

Ginsberg tightened the poem consideribly between that reading and publication. A recording of the final text can be heard on last.fm. The first version is a delight with plenty of humor, but if I had to choose... I prefer the later recording. I like its somberness, and each line strikes with the deftness of a sharply thrown dart. Even wild lines like, "My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana, millions of genitals, an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 m.p.h., and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions" are delivered with precision. Both recordings include one of the most touching closing lines in American poetry.

Mo' money

2008-10-06T15:11:00.001-07:00

This American Life has produced "Another Frightening Show About the Economy." That's the show's title, not my assessment.

Like TAL's hour on the mortgage crisis, the program features sources intimately familiar with the issues and conveys their insights in an accessible way. The highlight for me was the description of credit default swaps @ the 20:20 mark.

"Swaps" are like insurance for financial products, such as bonds. If you buy a $100 bond from Company X and want to make sure that investment is safe, you might by a CDS for, say, $2 per year, from Company Y, who promises to pay you $100 if Company X defaults on their bond. OK, now change $100 to $1 billion and and $2 to $20 million and you'll have a sense of the deals that were being made.

Why the funny name? If swaps are like insurance, why not call them insurance?

By using the term "swap" buyers and sellers of these products were able to side-step insurance regulations, allowing some creative, if not logic-defying, practices to flourish. For instance, it's possible to buy a swap that insures you against the default of bonds you don't own. In other words, it's like buying insurance on someone else's house. You're not protecting your investment at that point; you're betting your neighbor's house will burn down. The only limit on how many swaps could be sold was the willingness of buyers and sellers to take risk.

In the TAL program Andrew Ang from the Columbia Business School points out that the corporate bond cash market totals $5 trillion. The value of all the swaps insuring those bonds: around $60 trillion. As it turns out, the vast majority of swaps weren't insuring anything, they were more like bets.

These days it's not hard to loose track of how much money we're talking about. How much is $60 trillion? Two points of comparison: the annual U.S. Gross Domestic Product is $13.7 trillion, and the Gross World Product is about $65 trillion per year (2007 estimates).

Sure, not every company would default on their bonds. The amount owed would never approach the world's GWP, but the absurdity of such a system and the trouble it's causing was foreseeable and preventable. In 2003 Warren Buffett referred to these products as "financial weapons of mass destruction." Here's hoping the new, soon-to-be established systems that will define our future economy are built on a foundation of common sense.

* * *
I'm not sure what benefit there is for a guy who has never balanced his checkbook to attempt to understand money and the mess we've made with it. I guess there's a comfort to be had in insight, even if it doesn't give me any more control over what's happening.

When my apartment half-collapsed during the '94 Northridge earthquake I spent the next few nights sleeping on the floor under my couch which was turned face down so its back created a roof of sorts. This 'protected' me from falling plaster jarred loose by after shocks.

I put my TV on the floor, too, positioned at one end of the couch and tuned it to a local news station. This kept the tv from taking another tumble off its stand and it provided me with an industrial strength night-light. Following each late-night aftershock I would squint at the screen which quickly cut to the then-ubiquitous Richter-scale shot. Once the mini-quake's magnitude was reveled, I would doze off again.

Understanding (or thinking I understand) what's happening, taking it's measure, placing it in context, somehow makes a situation less frightening, even though the danger remains exactly the same. In other words, being well informed doesn't automatically make us less adverse to risk. There's a lesson there.

I can see now that my personal tendencies were as irrational as the practices of our largest financial institutions... The key difference, I suppose, is that any ill effects from my decision to remain in my apartment would have been limited to me, while the actions of a handful for corporations pulled the entire free market down around them.

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NPR’s new Planet Money podcast produces regular updates on the financial world on par with TAL’s longer pieces, and contributors to the The Baseline Scenario blog are taking steps to make the events understandable to lay reader.

This is how we do it

2008-10-04T23:04:00.000-07:00

Four days after the House rejected the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 the Senate passed a similar proposal ($700 billion for the Treasury to purchase, insure, hold and sell a variety of financial instruments), having folded plenty of tax provisions into the mix (estimated value: $152 billion).

Call it pork or a $152 billion spoonful-of-sugar-to-help-the-medicine-go-down; either way, the tax breaks for energy companies, rum-runners, racetracks, etc. appears to have prompted 33 Dems and 25 Republicans to change their nays to yeas. (View the roll call to see how your Rep voted.)

I'm not sure why this bailout/rescue plan is better than the earlier one. While there's a chance that some of the $700 billion will be recovered as acquired assets are sold, there's very little chance of making-up the revenue lost by those tax cuts. Beyond the bottom line, I'm concerned by how quickly this came together. Timing isn't really the issue, it's care. How many Reps do you think read the bill before voting on it?

Maybe I'm naive. Besides the scale of the bill and speed at which it came together, there may have been nothing unusal about the process we've witnessed over the last week or so. I recognize that no one likes to see how sausage gets made, but there's a point when a convoluted process--tying unrelated measures together--stops being politically expedient and begins being reckless. If you trace the origins of the legislation that either enabled the flawed financial practices to fester or shielded those practices from regulation, I suspect those policies were obscured within other bills, underwent little scrutiny or were barely understood by the reps who approved the measures.

Unrelated to the bailout, I came across this stat that provides a sense of scale to the crisis. Between 1948 and 1951 the U.S. spent $12.7 billion on the Marshall Plan, an effort to re-build Europe after WWII. In today's dollars, that amount would be about $100 billion.

* * *
If you're trying to reconcile the 9/28 and 10/3 votes, it's worth noting that one Democrat changed his vote from Yes to No, and one Republican who didn't vote intitally came down in favor of the bill on 10/3.

The letter to the Senate from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan advisory agency, approximates the impact of the various aspects of this plan on the federal budget and deficit.
* * *
I can't help it. This song keeps running through my head. It's distrubing as a soundtrack to politics-as-usual, but you have to admit, on it's own, it's catchy.

Bye-bye bailout?

2008-09-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

Fearing voters would be displeased by a perceived "bailout" or believing the proposed legislation was flawed, the U.S. House of Representatives voted down a bill intended to stablize the finance system today. The vote was 205 to 228.

After a week of watching seemingly smart and certainly powerful people insisting something had to be done immediately, we're about to find out what happens when their warnings are ignored. Well, we can't say nothing is being done; the Fed is flooding the financial system with $630 billion as I type.

* * *
Naked Capitalism is a blog that clips choice stories about finance, etc. It's a more timely resource than the other items I linked to in the earlier post on this subject, and I'm finding their insights useful as the situation (d)evolves.

Want to grow up to be, be a debater

2008-09-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

At last night's presidential debate Sen. McCain suggested that Sen. Obama lacked an understanding of some aspect of foreign policy (eight times). Highlighting Obama’s relative inexperience is fair, but I didn’t appreciate the patronizing way he did it.

Obama did call McCain’s judgment into question several times, but I would like to see these qualities–-experience v. judgment-–put in even bolder relief. Most of what's discussed during a campaign isn't relevant to how someone would govern. Even when the issues are covered, I have to remind myself that a President doesn't make law, Congress does. Despite the popular 'decider' model of leadership, most of what a President accomplishes will be achieved through delegation. In general, I want a President who will appoint and surround him/herself with smart, capable people and posses the ability to synthesize wise top-level decisions. That trait (and the candidate’s jumpshot) will be my key considerations this November.

McCain's VP pick seems politically advantageous (for now) but hardly wise. If anything, he's putting his political aspiration's in front of the country's potential well-being.

* * *

Read the transcript or watch the video from the Friday, 9/26/08 debate.

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OpenSecrets.org is a nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy.

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This map from NPR is my favorite toy of the election season. It allows you to allocate electorial votes as you wish. Have a scenario in mind? If the McCain takes FLA and PN, what would Obama need to still reach 270? A blue OH, MI, and CO might do it. Check it out... I find it strangely therapeutic.

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Pixies' Debaser, featuring the lyric, "want to grow up to be, be a debaser."

Nationalize this

2008-09-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Last week the U.S. government took 80% of AIG in return for a $85 billion loan. This was after it siezed control of Fannie and Freddie, assuming responsibility for $5 trillion in mortgages.

I thought we won the cold war. As it turns out, it doesn't take an opposing superpower to cripple our economy. It's as if we left the shoot-out at the OK Caral and rode off, not into the sunset, but over a cliff.

If I sound flip as we tumble into the most dire economic crisis since the Great Depression, it's because I really don't know what's what. This weekend the White House sent Congress a proposal to buy mortgage-related assets from U.S.-based companies. If approved, it would represent the single largest allocation of funds in nation's history ($700 billion). When I read the full text of the proposal two sections, in addition to the price tag, caught my eye.

Sec. 3. Considerations. In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for (1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and (2) protecting the taxpayer.

Uh... how about reversing that order?

Sec. 10. Increase in Statutory Limit on the Public Debt. Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States Code, is amended by striking out the dollar limitation contained in such subsection and inserting in lieu thereof $11,315,000,000,000.

Cornell University's code collection reveals the public debt ceiling would be raised from $8.1. Why the $3 trillion bump, if we're only contemplating $0.7 trillion expenditure? (A little context: the annual federal budget is only $4 trillion.) How much more do we plan to spend?

* * *
Here are few pieces I've seen / read / heard recently that have helped keep me somewhat clued in.

The Charlie Rose Show (Monday, September 15, 2008)
A discussion about the crisis on Wall Street with Lawrence Summers, Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times Charles Gasparino of CNBC, Josh Rosner of Graham Fisher & Co. and Nouriel Roubini. Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest US investment bank, has filed for bankruptcy protection, stock markets and the US dollar have tumbled in reaction to Lehman's collapse. Watch the video.

Bill Moyers Journal (Taped Thursday, September 19, 2008)
Bill Moyers sits down with former Nixon White House strategist and political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, whose latest book Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism explores the role that the crumbling financial sector played in the now-fragile American economy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The Giant Pool of Money from This American Life (May 9, 2008)
I highly recommend this story for its accessibility. This program about the housing crisis was produced in a special collaboration with NPR News. What does the housing crisis have to do with the turmoil on Wall Street? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

Bubble and Bail by Kevin Phillips in The American Prospect (May 5, 2008)
For most of the 20th century, America manufactured things. For the past 30 years, though, it has chiefly manufactured debt. Here's how Wall Street, with the aid of both political parties, gravely damaged the economy.

Foreclosure Phil by David Corn in Mother Jones (July/August 2008)
Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

The Panic of 1907 per wikipedia.org
Also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic. The stock market fell nearly 50% from its peak in 1906, the economy was in recession, and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. Its primary cause was a retraction of loans by some banks that began in New York City and soon spread across the nation, leading to the closings of banks and businesses. The 1907 panic was the fourth such panic in 34 years.

Twelve pre-Great Depression "panics" as described on History Box.

California pop

2008-09-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget how many people live in California.

The California Budget Project's recent paper Planning for California's Future: The State's Population Is Growing, Aging, and Becoming More Diverse included this chart that highlights the size of CA's general ethnic groups.

Obviously, all states aren't listed above, nor does this list include every state with a population larger than New Mexico's. For a complete list the of populations in all states and territories consult this wikipedia page.

Looking at these figures I wonder how much attention, say, the people of Ohio will get from Presidential canidates this fall versus the time that will be spent courting Latinos in California. I guess that's why, despite what we saw in 2000, neither Dems or the GOP are really interested in direct national elections; it's easier for both sides to focus on slivers of fractions of counties in a handful of states, rather building a platform that appeals to the true majority.

Cuddle up to the RoboFuture

2008-05-25T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ready to be assimilated?

Robots are now filling roles traditionally played by pets, friends, and family. Have you seen the reaction people have to objects like Sony’s Aibo (puppy), Ugobe’s Pleo (baby dinosaur), or Japan’s Paro (baby seal)? Young and old (humans) adore these things, or, perhaps more aptly put: they adore the way these creatures help them feel.

Two years ago, The Boston Globe ran this headline: Elders finding love in a household machine--seemingly sentient robots can fill void, researchers say. Full Story.

This isn’t an entirely modern phenomenon. After all, we’ve been placing sentimental value on non-living objects for a long time. Some objects are even considered sacred. In those cases, the object's emotional value springs from our own knowledge or memories.

Today, animated objects are bringing more to the table: the ability to be an active participant in a new experience and to provoke our most cherished emotions. What does this tell us? Maybe our feelings are more important to us than what triggers those feelings. In other words, what’s meaningful isn’t an interaction with a living being; it’s that we feel delighted, surprised, needed, or loved.

Another way to look at this: an interaction with a robot is actually an exchange with another person or group of people--the creator(s) of the object. That interaction is simply facilitated by technology.

What’s next?
Some in this field are taking themselves a bit too seriously. One manufacturer, Ugobe, is making the case that their product is actually alive. The website for Pleo describes the range of emotions the robotic dinosaur displays: happy & curious, playful & lively, scared & surprised, and sad & vexed. From Ugobe's website:

Sad and Vexed
Leave a sociable Pleo alone too long or interrupt a game of tug-of-war and Pleo may become sad. How can you tell? That pleading call and forlorn look let you know that he's looking for a friendly pat or another chance to grab his favorite toy.
A forlorn look on its own seldom works for me these days, but with a some soft music and the right lighting Pleo may have more luck... But seriously, before dismissing this "it's alive!" talk as mere cheekiness, check out the tone of Ugobe’s “Three Laws” video and tell me if you think they're kidding.

P.S.
The crowd around the Pleo booth at a recent Maker Faire was so deep I could barely glimpse one. Well, at least Three Laws will be easier to remember than Ten Commandments, right?

* * *

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Kimura Clinic, and Brain Functions Laboratory, participated in joint research involving Paro, a therapeutic seal robot, and patients with Alzheimer's disease and other cognition disorders to discover the effect of the robot on improving brain function (2005). Read all about it.

Love and Sex with Robots by David Levy (non-fiction, 2007). Publisher's Weekly wrote: In this wide-ranging examination of the emotional and physical relations between humans and the inanimate objects of their desire, Levy first addresses the question of love with robots, and moves on to consider the mechanics of actually having sex with them.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick (fiction, 1968).

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (fiction, 1950).

* * *
Robots Dancing Like People

People Dancing Like Robots

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What does it mean when we program robots to act like us and then we act like them?

Pangea Day

2008-04-19T22:52:00.000-07:00

Back in the day (I mean way back), all continents on Earth were physically connected; today that landmass is referred to as Pangea.

On Pangea Day, May 10, 2008, starting at 18:00 GMT (11 a.m. PST), locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be connected for a live program of films, music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured were selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes. Each film is somewhere between 2 to 15 minutes in length.

In the U.S., Current TV will carry the 4-hour program live. A full description of outlets carrying the program, descriptions of the films, and activities related to the day will be available soon via Pangea Day’s website, which will also stream the event live.

The event was inspired by the TED Prize wish of film-maker Jehane Noujaim. She dreamed of a day when people around the world could share the same film experience at the same time.

To find a screening near you, click here. To view Ms. Noujaim’s 2004 film on media coverage of the current war in Iraq, Control Room, click here.

Anna Deavere Smith

2008-04-05T08:46:00.001-07:00

My last post touched on government’s role in addressing racial inequity, but since so much of political speech is intended to persuade rather than inform, it's worth seeking out non-political perspectives.

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress, playwright, and professor and perhaps best known for her recurring roles on shows such as the West Wing, but it's her work in the theater that makes her a national treasure. Two of her best-known plays deal with racially-charged events. Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and Other Identities is rooted in a 3-day riot that followed the accidental death of an African-American child who was struck by a rabbi's motorcade, and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 explores the riots that followed first trail of white and Hispanic police officers accused of assaulting motorist Rodney King.

Smith's technique—recording interviews with hundreds of individuals connected to the events, creating a script from the transcripts of those interviews, and then performing the remarks of every character herself—gives her work a documentary-like quality, and the viewer is left with an experience that feels intimate and near-comprehensive.

In this 2006 PBS interview, she encourages people "to step outside their safehouses of identity," a metaphor for collaborating with those from different backgrounds, and meet at the "crossroads of ambiguity." She goes on to acknowledge the inherit risks of such activity. For those not ready to make that leap, Smith's work can serve as an interim step. Watching one person masterfully portray multiple characters, some with diametrically opposed views of the same event, gives you the sense that understanding 'the other' is not only possible but a goal worth pursuing.

Highlights from the 2006 interview include her depiction of a real estate agent describing the scene at the Beverly Hills Hotel during the 1992 L.A. Riot and her version of Cornel West explaining the difference between optimism and hope. The video from TED below features four additional pieces, all worth watching.

A Sampler

Portrayed in this clip: Studs Turkle, Reporter @ 1:00; Paulette Jenkins, Inmate @ 6:00; Young Soon Han, Former Store Owner @ 12:20; Brent Williams, Bull Rider @ 18:40.
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In the mood for data instead of drama? Gallop regularly conducts surveys related to race and race relations in the U.S.

Not just with words...

2008-03-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia has been called "historic" by some. With the benefit of a day’s reflection, I wouldn't go that far.

I must admit, though, I can’t recall an instance that race has been discussed from such a high platform without the prompting of a video-taped beating, shooting, riot, or flood. For all who believe racial injustice persists in the U.S., it must have been satisfying to hear the topic discussed at length, without platitudes, by a viable candidate for the White House. And as a response to those who would smear Sen. Obama with the unfortunate comments of his former pastor, the speech seemed to hit its mark, especially the return to his personal narrative (an important component of any national candidacy).

The success-to-date of Sen. Obama’s candidacy is truly historic, but the occasion for these remarks, the deflection of political mud, won’t warrant attention 5, 15, 20 years from now. What politicians are in a unique position to speak to, and what the speech did not cover, is government's role/responsibility in addressing the inequities among races.

I don’t mean this as a criticism; I’m only pointing to a topic that could rise to historic levels: a policy speech, not about race exclusively but certainly inclusive of it, a vision for a new (and improved) deal, a great(er) society. I'm holding out for the plan that will address injustice “not just with words but with deeds” (as Sen. Obama suggested near the 28-minute mark of this speech). Those remarks, and the accompanying actions, could command notice for all-time.

* * *

NPR produced this story on the 75th Anniversary of FDR’s “new deal” speech, made at the 1932 Democratic Convention.

Listen to LBJ’s “great society” speech delivered on May 22, 1964.

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Denise Williams examines The Reality of Recent Religious Endorsements on AOL.

New dictionaries

2008-01-31T11:29:00.000-08:00

Xiaolu Guo's novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, tells the story of "Z", a 23-year-old woman who travels from rural China to London to study English.

Definitions open each diary-like chapter.

Definitions are succinct, clear, tidy; real life: not so much. Isolated and lonely in London, she looks beyond her pocket dictionary for meaning and enters a relationship with a man 20 years her senior. Months pass, Z's English improves, and her sensibilities expand with a multitude of new experiences ranging from attending a sex show to participating in her first family Christmas. While her communication skills develop nicely, fundamental concepts, such as love, still require some reconciling.

Guo handles the personal, cultural and political aspects of this story deftly and with humor. She instills Z with a sensitivity, cleverness and poetic streak that makes the book highly readable. This is Xiaolu Guo's first novel written in English; she’s also a film-maker. You can hear her speak about Concise in this NPR interview.

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Imaginationally, an illustrated dictionary, details the daily experiences of Creativity Explored artist, Michael Bernard Loggins. Maybe your life is simple enough to fit within the confines of Webster's, but his is not. Loggins is a verbal mix-master who knows what's what.

Imginationally is the follow-up to Fears of Your Life, a handwritten book in which Loggins chronicles his fears both great and small. Fears of Your Life was featured on This American Life and excerpted in Harper's.

The people's library

2008-01-21T15:11:00.001-08:00

The Library of Congress has added 3,000 images to Flickr, a Yahoo-owned photo-sharing web site. The images include color pics from the 1930s and 1940s and news photos from the early 1900s. All seem to be from the U.S. None have no known copyright restrictions. Flickr has created a special section within their site, The Commons, to house such collections.

The assembly of a B-17 tail fuselage. October 1942.

The LoC offers over a million pictures in its own online archive, so why join the rabble on Flickr?

As Flickr's blog reminds us, "many hands make light work." The LoC blog admits that tagging each of these images (adding descriptive key words to pictures making the photos searchable) would be a daunting task. The Flickr community will do this tagging for free, contributing hundred of person-hours to the archive in short order, and I suspect the LoC will be pleased with the results.

Syndicating the images on Flickr also allows the LoC to better fulfill its mission "to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people." According to Alexa, Flickr draws 50-times more visitors than LoC's site.

Librarians are smarties. While some may wince at displaying publicly-held photos on a for-profit platform, I applaud the move and hope other governmental archives and non-profits take note.

Update: The LoC has released a report on this project (12/11/08).

Twigs, berries, gods and goddesses

2008-01-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

I was introduced to Mithila painting at a talk hosted by the World Affairs Council in SF.

Women in this Indian region, south of Nepal and north of the Ganges planes, have been decorating their homes during communal rituals for hundreds of years using twigs for brushes and making pigment from clay, berries and dung. A picture is started by the oldest woman placing a red dot in the center of a wall. The most skilled artists outlines the principle figures, and younger girls fill-in the details. The Ethnic Arts Foundation writes, "These paintings, inside their homes, on the internal and external walls of their compounds, and on the ground inside or around their homes, create sacred, protective, and auspicious spaces for their families and their rituals."

Financially poor, these folks are heavily dependent on agriculture, leaving them vulnerable to droughts and floods. During an extreme drought in the 1960s, outsiders introduced paper to the community and encouraged local artists to expand their work to that medium, making their art transferable/sellable and providing them a weather-resistant source of income.

Unlike the collaborative approach used to decorate structures, each Mithila painting on paper is created by a single artist. In 2003, the Mithila Art Institute was established to school 25 local artists annually (including a few men) in traditional imagery and techniques. I'm not in a position to comment on the cultural impacts of personalizing the communal process for making art, but I will say that I find the work very satisfying. (Yes, the final picture below represents in the Twin Towers on 9/11/01. It reminds me of the Afghan war rugs that date back to the 1980s.)

* * *

PinkMango, based in SF, made the presentation at the Worlds Affairs Council mentioned above.

This CSU Chico site provides a nice online ethnography.

Raw Vision, a magazine about outsider art, features Mithila art in Issue #31.

No Country for Old Men

2007-12-28T17:56:00.001-08:00

Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men was published in 2005. The film adaptation, directed by Joel and Ethan Cohen, was released in 2007.

A meanness in this world
No Country, a story of extreme violence, set in a vast and quiet landscape, told in a deliberate and unadorned manner, reminds me of the title track from Springsteen's Nebraska (1982).

Both works open with a glimpse into the mind of a killer. The song's narrator says, "From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska / with a sawed-off .410 on my lap / through to the badlands of Wyoming / I killed everything in my path." No Country begins with Sheriff Bell's description of an encounter with a nineteen-year-old murderer. "He told me that he had been plannin to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again."

Murder in these cases seems to be end, not a means. Neither of these characters have a clear goal beyond killing and both lack remorse. When questioned about his motives, Springsteen's character offers this unsettling insight: I guess there's just a meanness in this world. McCarthy's killer admits his actions didn't involve any passion at all.

Interestingly enough, both have been captured and are minutes from execution when their stories are told. If both works ended there, they might leave the impression that 'good' can indeed conquer 'evil'. Thankfully, Nebraska continues to explore morally grey area (especially Highway Patrolman), and No Country's embodiment of evil, Anton Chigurh, is last seen not on his way to the electric chair but shuffling down a residential street.

Left to right: Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), Carla Jean Moss (Kelly Macdonald)

Call it
Good and evil are relative terms. What's good for some may be bad for others. For the sake of this post, I'll leap over the moral quandaries and lesser offenses and propose the purposeful destruction of human life ranks among the worse acts of evil. If you accept this, you may agree that No Country’s Chigurh tells us something about McCarthy’s view of evil.

Chigurh doesn’t behave like someone driven by greed, lust, or revenge. See the kidnappers from Fargo for more desire-driven bad guys.

Carson Wells, the character most familiar with Chigurh, describes him as "a peculiar man. You could even say that he has principles.” Vaguely demonstrated, Chigurh’s principles, along with his motives and any hint of his origins or future plans, are opaque at best. Chigurh seems to be part of the force alluded to in Sheriff Bell’s opening narration, including these lines that correspond to Chigurh’s first appearance on screen:

The crime you see now, it's hard even to take its measure. Not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand.

More than a threat to his own life, it’s the thing Bell can’t understand or protect others from that wears him down. As sheriff he must immerse himself in the deeds of Chigurh and others like him. Eventually, those details are more than he can bear; he feels over matched, perhaps justifiably.

Chigurh operates more like a force of nature—destructive, unstoppable, and incomprehensible—than a typical screen villain. Taking in the entire story, he’s certainly not the only destructive force at work.Violence in No Country builds and dissipates like a series of storms and we see how some men, moved by greed, voluntarily walk into that storm, fueling the tempest. Others, relatively innocent, are caught out by chance; some are swept away and some survive, through luck or cunning, perhaps to be done-in by storms that follow (see Llewelyn's death).

If it can't be eliminated through arrest and execution, evil takes on an elemental quality. It's everywhere all the time, making one feel perpetually vulnerable, a primitive feeling that prompts Bell to retreat. The film moves quickly over the sheriff's retirement, but the novel clearly describes his state of mind. “It was defeat. It was being beaten. More bitter to him than death.”

You can’t stop what’s coming
Does an ending where evil persists in the end make the work pessimistic? Perhaps. It’s upsetting to see such crime go unchecked, even if it is fiction. (Can you imagine Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment as simply Crime?) No Country is not morality tale or a story of redemption, though. It's about a man who lacks the ability to deal with contemporary evil. The title suggests Bell’s age has something to do with this. His models, the “old-timers” mentioned in the opening narration, including his father and grandfather, have become obsolete in a way. As discouraging as the idea of aging beyond ones effectiveness may be, I’m left with three not-entirely pessimistic thoughts.

First, the notion that age diminishes us is just pragmatic, especially in certain fields, and we would be smart to acknowledge it. Uncle Ellis, a former deputy who worked with Bell’s grandfather, provides this prospective from his wheelchair, “Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That’s vanity.”

Second, resistance to evil is an ongoing struggle. Each generation must dedicate itself anew. Successful or not, younger men like Llewelyn are better equipped to fight the likes of Chigurh. The realization that older generations can’t protect us forever shouldn’t be seen as discouraging; it should be taken as a call to action.

And lastly, the professional techniques of the old-timers may be inadequate for these times (“some of them never even wore a gun”), but their personal example can live beyond them and provide comfort to the most discouraged soul. No Country doesn’t end with Chigurh’s escape; in the final scene Sheriff Bell describes two dreams about his father. If Chigurh's actions left Bell confused and defeated, these dreams signal that hope remains. Watch this:

"And then I woke up."

Chigurh stirs our most primitive fears of being vulnerable and hunted. Bell's second dream also evokes primitive feelings but a different kind: a state of mind where light and warmth are significant comforts against "all that dark and all that cold." McCarthy's story brings us back to basics. Life may be nasty, brutish and short, but that shouldn't prevent us from caring for those within reach.

* * *

Most of this post focuses on the No Country's beginning and end. What about all that action in between? It’s mostly people doing cruel and unusual things for money. It’s probably not a coincidence that Bell’s first dream about loosing some money is all-but-dismissed in the scene embedded above.

* * *Charlie Rose interviews Ethan Cohen, Joel Cohen, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin about No Country for Old Men.

* * *The title for McCarthy's novel comes from Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium."

* * *Did you recognize Kelly Macdonald as Diane from Trainspotting? Given that role, her part in No Country, and her spot in the up-coming film-adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Choke, she is becoming the queen of films based on books boys like. Long live the queen.

Racecar By Mail

2007-12-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

How many indie band names can you find on your cereal box?

RBM's second album, Everything Wants to be Out Loud, drops 12/28/07.

The Chutes

2007-12-14T17:56:00.001-08:00

Between 1895 and 1902 a San Francisco amusement park called The Chutes occupied the area bordered by Haight, Cole and Clayton Streets, a spot just a few blocks from Golden Gate Park.

By that time, GGP had already become escape from SF's crowded northeast quadrant and was made accessible by a handful of independently run cable car lines that reached park's eastern border, then the edge of town. Capitalizing on the visitors delivered by the Haight Street trolley, The Chutes opened in November 1895.

c. 1895. Top of The Chutes, looking northeast onto Haight Street.

The surrounding middle-class neighborhood was just taking shape. The attraction was billed as a family-friendly locale and the sale of alcohol was prohibited.

The ride was 70 feet high and 300 feet long. The flat-bottom boats would hit the artificial lake going over 50 miles-an-hour.

The site eventually included an elevated railroad, a merry-go-round, an alligator house, a live theater and an exhibition hall. Within seven years, The Chutes outgrew its Haight Street location and moved to the Richmond (1902-1909) and then the Fillmore (1909-1911). The apartment building where I live now was built on a slice of The Chute's Haight Street location after the amusement park was re-located.

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Friends of 1800 provides an architecturally focused history of the neighborhood. For more on The Chutes' amusements, visit Historysmith.

You buy 16 tons and what do you get?

2007-11-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

When an event like the Oscars declares itself "carbon neutral" does that mean the lights and cameras are powered by renewable energy and the nominees arrive via fuel-cell buses? Not exactly... The "carbon neutral" label typically signals the purchase of "carbon offsets" that represent a reduction in carbon output from other entities. In other words, the event really hasn't changed.

Search the web for "carbon neutral" and you'll find to a bevy of outfits eager to facilitate these transactions while pocketing a little something for their effort. Think hippies with MBAs.

There's something not-quite-right about such a market, regardless of its good intentions. For instance, Business Week described the practice of selling offsets from projects that would have happened without additional contributions in its March 26, 2007 article, Another Inconvenient Truth. Such a practice hardly seems efficient.

Many outfits in this new industry bundle offsets, combining the carbon-savings from multiple projects into a single fund, making it impossible for contributors to know exactly where their cash ends up. It's also difficult to discern exactly how much of an individual's contribution is applied to carbon-reducing projects and how much remains with the broker. These transactions/contributions should be more transparent, welcoming scrutiny and inspiring trust, such as Kiva's approach to micro-loans.

I also wish these outfits would drop the "neutral" label. As a group, neutral is not the gear we're looking for. At this point, a bit of stunt driving is called for. Let's pull the emergency brake and 180 in the opposite direction in our electric powered whip. Validating neutrality at this stage contributes to a "good-enough" mentality that strengthens resistance to meaningful change.

Offset prices currently run $5 to $10 per metric ton of CO2. It sounds like a bargain, but I'd resist for now.

KungPowVoodo

2007-11-08T21:44:00.000-08:00

Kung•’Pow•Voo•’do (kəŋ•’pō•vü•’dü) n. [Am] 1. An image, object or idea sewn-together, esp. from scraps or disparate sources, and shocked to life. 2. The sensation of being mixed-up, misspelled or misunderstood, and, at the same time, momentarily invincible.

Every gun

2007-09-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children....

This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953. Full Speech.

Misplaced power

2007-09-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961. Full Speech.

Shake hands

2007-09-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

You want to communicate. All right, communicate! Use any and every means. If you expect the world to fall for your lingo because it is the right lingo, or even the left lingo, you are going to be cruelly deceived. It’s like the “pug” who goes into the ring expecting to get it over with quickly. Generally he gets flattened stiff as a board. He thinks he’ll deliver an uppercut or a swift one to the solar plexus. He forgets to defend himself. He lays himself wide open. Everybody who’s gone out to fight has had to first learn something about the strategy of the ring. The man who refuses to learn how to box becomes what is called, in the language of the ring, “a glutton for punishment.” Speaking for myself, I’ll say that I’ve taken all the punishment I could assimilate. From now on I use my head, my bean, as they say. I watch for opening. I do a little fancy stepping. I duck. I feint. I spar a bit, I bide my time. When the moment comes I let go with all my might.

I am against revolutions because they always involve a return to the status quo. I am against the status quo both before and after revolutions. I don’t want to wear a black shirt or a red shirt. I want to wear the shirt that suits my taste. And I don’t want to salute like an automaton either. I prefer to shake hands when I meet someone I like. The fact is, to put it simply, I am positively against all this crap which is carried on first in the name of this thing, then in the name of that. I believe only in what is active, immediate and personal.

- Henry Miller, The Cosmological Eye and Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

Small things

2007-09-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feel a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected it is necessary to take heart again and new courage.

For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

- Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother, Theo.