December 2004

Thu Dec 02 11:15:00 PST 2004

If you doubt that assertion, then please explain why the name “Budrus” doesn't ring any bells.

Budrus is a Palestinian town whose inhabitants have been waging an ongoing struggle against the Israeli plan to build the apartheid wall through nearby lands and cut the town off from the olive groves that form part of its traditional lands and a big part of its economy. The struggle has been waged nonviolently, and with the cooperation of Israeli peace groups.

The struggle has also been completely ignored by the mainstream Western media, which has allowed the Israeli army to be brutal in repressing it and escape international condemnation. Contrast with suicide bombings, which do get international attention.

Despite the lack of international coverage, the resistance in Budrus has been amazingly successful all things considered. The wall's planned course has been moved to preserve access to some of Budrus's lands. But not all of them, and the lack of international coverage means Israel could easily change the location back with impunity.

Or consider the case of Rachel Corrie. That did get attention, because she was an American. Palestinians have died in similar nonviolent attempts to defend homes from destruction, and nobody takes notice. And much of the attention Rachel got in the US was decidedly hostile, mocking her sacrifice. Consider this little gem.

Press coverage and international sympathy are two key cornerstones in nonviolent struggle. Remove them, and the whole edifice collapses or is at least seriously undermined.

In a world where suicide bombings work in ways where nonviolent methods are not allowed to work, is it any surprise that some people choose to employ other tactics?

For some stories on recent events in Budrus, look here, here, here, here, and here.

comment on this link to this

Sat Dec 04 23:13:40 PST 2004

Recently I've been noticing some extremely annoying behavior in vim after typing the O command. Sometimes, the damned thing waits several seconds before actually creating the blank line, thus giving the impression that the command wasn't entered. A justified one, since the current Mac keyboard provides poor tactile feedback. So I hit O several more times, and end up with a line of O's. Or I think I've fat-fingered some bizarre keystroke and hit ESC several times, only to be rewarded by the new line suddenly appearing amidst a flurry of beeps. Ewww.

Vim has been out for, what, a decade now? And they still haven't been able to get the basics of screen updating coded properly. What's wrong with these people? It's not as if ASCII screen updating is a difficult task — there's literally thousands of editors out there that do it correctly.

To add insult to injury, the % command is broken; it doesn't work on angle-bracket pairs. Makes editing HTML real, er, fun.

Well, ranting won't fix my problems. As predicted last spring. installing nvi did.

comment on this link to this

Sat Dec 04 23:28:06 PST 2004

The logical companion to the Museum of Communism would be a Museum of Anti-Communism. Wherein we could have virtual exhibits such as

• The invasion of the newly-formed Soviet Union by the Western powers in World War I, which helped foster security paranoia and anti-Western sentiments in that country.
• The role anti-communism played in the spread of fascism prior to the outbreak of World War II. (Chamberlain appeased Hitler because he was a fellow anti-communist.)
• Anti-communist mass murderers, such as Gen. Suharto of Indonesia.
• How anti-communism did more to undermine freedom in the West than Communist parties and movements there did.
• Anti-communism and the oppression of Latin America. How liberal or social-democratic Latin American movements were undermined using the pretext that they were “communist.”

Calling one side “good” because of its less-oppressive domestic politics and lower body count is like calling Charles Manson a great humanitarian because he himself never personally killed anyone and his “Family” killed fewer people than Ted Bundy did.

comment on this link to this

Sun Dec 05 13:11:45 PST 2004

I finally got to see the (in)famous Craig Rosebraugh in person when he did a book reading, lecture, and Q & A session at Powell's Books last Thursday. (Yes, at Powell's. Once again, the self-proclaimed “radical” went capitalist instead of supporting a worker's collective bookstore. More on this below.)

I will say it was somewhat anticlimactic to see someone in person after reading about him all this time. Turns out the media does a good job of catching him in the poses and expressions one might stereotypically associate with someone of his background. In person, he seemed surprisingly diminutive, soft-spoken, and thoughtful. He's been letting his hair grow, so he no longer has the shaved-headed look he has in most establishment media pictures.

He mentioned some things that actually make me respect him more than I've tended to, things about his views being tentative and provisional and the search for explanations to be lifelong, for example. He also has apparently met with people who's property has been destroyed in ELF actions. And his organization Arissa has started doing something constructive and not obviously connected to seeking the limelight, transporting families of prisoners so they can visited their incarcerated relatives.

I can't remember the specifics, but he also touched on some things that revealed a surprisingly bourgeois mindset underneath the surface of über-radicalism. Which would go a long way to explain certain quirks in his behavior such as his willingness to be a capitalist boss-man and think of approaching Powell's first instead of the Laughing Horse Collective.

Regarding that latter matter, he is going to be appearing at Laughing Horse as well, thanks to the outreach done by one of our collective members. That's going to be on the fourteenth of the next month, and should last long enough to permit an extended Q & A session instead of an abbreviated one.

Despite the truncated nature of the Q & A period, some questioners (including yours truly) did manage to provoke him into a more passionate frame of mind. I didn't really perceive any overt desire to be a show-off or center of attention (something I've theorized about in the past). He did get testy with one interlocutor, but that person frankly deserved it. He interrupted Craig before he could give a complete answer and then tried to turn the Q & A session into a one-on-one interview between himself and Craig.

All in all, I suppose the more thoughtful and mild-mannered stuff could have been an act. But I don't think so.

comment on this link to this

Mon Dec 06 09:42:41 PST 2004

Monkey Boy's latest statements after the Jiddah bombings, that is. Note how all sentiments in favor of withdrawals are being painted as terrorist sentiments, and the issue is couched as to whether or not to let the terrorists “win” by getting out. Oh, please. Just because someone happens to agree with the terrorists that US imperialism should be opposed doesn't make them a fellow Islamic extremest.

Hitler's paintings of outdoor scenes indicate that he believed the sky was blue with white clouds. What a bunch of evil Nazi propaganda. The sky is orange and clouds are green. Anyone who says the sky is blue and clouds are white is taking Hitler's side.

comment on this link to this

Mon Dec 06 20:51:59 PST 2004

At least that's my definition of this blog.

I once thought that cold winters would simply never bother me. Then I spent two winters in a town in the Northern Rockies that, while frigid by continental US standards, still was positively mild compared to “Winterpeg.” After two years, I ended up in eastern Washington. The first winter seemed positively balmy — what were these crazy people doing, complaining about temperatures in the teens as if it was cold or something?

The second winter seemed, well, like winter. I had the misfortune of traveling to Wisconsin on a business trip. When I arrived, a cold front had just come through. The temperature was about three degrees Fahrenheit, with strong winds dropping the wind chill down to -20 or -30. I stepped outside and thought: “Why? Why would anyone want to suffer like this, when you don't have to.”

From eastern Washington, I moved across the Cascades to Seattle. I remember being floored on my first visit west of the Cascades at how the grass was still bright green in late November (and at my cousin's claim that it stayed that way all through the winter). It took nearly a decade for maritime Northwest winters to really feel cold, but now they do. I shudder to think what a Winnipeg winter would feel like.

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 08 12:37:24 PST 2004

I've often ranted (not here) about how liberals are afflicted with the desire to be loved by all people and in all circumstances. Turns out that back in the Sixties, Phil Ochs wrote a song about just that. Now if someone would just write a few new verses with more topical lyrics….

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 08 21:50:24 PST 2004

Basically, because New Age beliefs recapitulate too much of what I find most distasteful about fundamentalist Christian beliefs. Secondarily, because of a near-schizophrenic dishonesty about science.

The two are related. New Agers are fond of postulating into existence various “forces” and “energies” to provide some explanation for the mishmash of things they ascribe spiritual import to (astrology, crystals, tarot cards, etc.). It's not enough for it to be of emotional benefit for the person adopting the belief or practice; it's also assured to be literal truth that these things work as stated. Sometimes the ante is upped even further, and the word “science” is applied to the practice (this is especially common with astrology).

Of course, no real scientific proof for these “forces” is ever offered, and your typical New Ager goes on the defensive when asked questions like: “What is the nature of these ‘energies’?“, “What mathematical formulas describe their interactions?”, “How would one build an instrument to detect and measure them?”, “Has anyone built such instruments?”, or “Has any peer-reviewed and independently-verified research been done on such things?”. Typically one is treated to a sermon on how un-enlightened and mainstream one is for believing in traditional Western things like science.

But note that they started it! It was the New Ager who first went into science-speak by postulating the “energies” in the first place! Science is simultaneously admired and envied for the credibility it can bring to a set of beliefs, yet contemptuously rejected because it can't in the final analysis vindicate them. They want the mantle of respect science brings without the burden of proof it places on those who make scientific claims.

Worse, all those beliefs in the powers of horoscopes, crystals, and dowsing rods strikes me as just a little bit similar to the fundamentalist Christian's beliefs in faith healers exorcizing evil demons, angels intervening in worldly affairs, the Earth being only about 6,000 years old, and so on. I encountered plenty such Christian stuff from other students in college in Utah.

It is, in other words, nothing new for me. Adopting New Age beliefs would simply be trading one set of faith-based beliefs with no rational evidence to back them up for another. Actually, it would be worse: since I've rejected the one set, it would be going back and re-enslaving my mind to another. No thanks.

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 08 23:13:13 PST 2004

First, intelligence is used to rationalize the class system. If you look at practically any explanation of IQ scores, you'll see different IQ ranges paired with examples of careers typical for each. The implication is that those are the appropriate places for those folks to be, and that they are getting the life that suits them. The existence of natural variability of mental ability is used as a pretext to justify all sorts of artificially-created economic inequality.

Second, there's actually more intelligent people than the system has at times had use for at the top of the hierarchy. In the past, this created problems for those at the top, as the more intelligent members of the proletariat used their intelligence to pierce the veil of lies used to justify the class system and then proceeded to organize against it.

The solution to this instability came in the form of white-collar professional employment. It offers careers that require an above-average level of intelligence, the compensation for which (while far less than those at the top reap) is significantly better than the norm. Instead of feeling motivated to undermine the system, the intelligent now tend to identify with it, since it offers them positions of relative privilege.

Moreover, they tend to get locked into their careers, so even if they wanted change, white-collar professionals have a hard time actually achieving it. The higher education system saddles them with college loans that require professional salaries to pay off. Once that's done, they're usually the heads of nuclear families. Now instead of it being a strictly personal decision, any relinquishment of salary affects the spouse and children as well.

Which brings us to…

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 08 23:27:51 PST 2004

While it's disciplinarian structure enslaves children, it's main function is actually to enslave the parents.^*

This is done by atomizing society into nuclear families that compete with each other for resources and privilege. Any failure of the parents in competing to the utmost of their abilities exerts a penalty on not just them, but their loved ones.

In effect, capitalism uses children as hostages in order to blackmail their parents into servitude.

* That's not to deny the secondary purpose of accustoming children to a lifetime of servitude and submission to the boss. But it's only a secondary one.

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 08 23:35:11 PST 2004

In searching (in vain, so far, alas) for some important documents I ran across some scribblings I had penned in the middle of the night over the past few years after receiving insights in my dreams. Before I recycled the papers they were written on, I decided to type the best of them in.

comment on this link to this

Thu Dec 09 19:16:03 PST 2004

A site that's true to my own heart.

And yes, Christmas is a capitalist holiday, not a Christian one. If you doubt this assertion, ask yourself why it's the No. 1 holiday of the year. Keep in mind that according to Christian doctrine, the most important holiday is the one that celebrates Jesus's resurrection, not his birth. So if it really was only about the effect of the dominant Western religion on society, Easter would be the No. 1 holiday.

Christmas, in fact, never amounted to all that much until the 19th Century, i.e. after capitalism and the Industrial Revolution had triumphed and was starting to crank out mass-produced goods at an ever-increasing pace.

comment on this link to this

Sat Dec 11 18:44:28 PST 2004

Been thinking about compiling a list like this for some time. “Cage” is a term originally coined by motorcyclists; click here for the definition.

1. “Slowness gives you right of way.” Don't bother checking for cross traffic at a two-way stop. Simply idle through the intersection as slowly as possible.

1A. Variant. Slowness excuses you from not yielding right-of-way: If you notice you cut a cyclist off when you blew a stop sign, hit the brakes and go real slow through the intersection. Who cares that you screwed up his cadence more then if you just blew the sign and didn't slow at all? You're big, you're slow, you're clueless and he'll just have to deal with it.

1B. Like 1A, but stop and pause in the middle of the intersection.

2. “Leap before you look.” If the near corner and the cross-street are clear, go! Only check the far corner once you're in the intersection. If a pedestrian is crossing, stop in the intersection and block it.

2A. Like 2, but as a result of entering the intersection while there's a traffic jam in the next block and not enough space for you to clear the intersection.

3. “Now I hurry, now I don't.” Floor it and cut in front of a cyclist like it's some big emergency, then forget what a gas pedal is for and idle along as slow as possible.

3A. Variant. “Cars are always faster than bikes.” Even where slowness is mandated due to traffic lights being synchronized at 15 mph. Any evidence to the contrary in your rear-view mirror is just an optical illusion. An old favorite on Yamhill St. downtown.

3B. Similar to 3A but involves a short distance to a stop sign and slamming on the brakes.

4. “What's that funny lever for, anyhow?” Don't signal when turning or changing lanes.

4A. “What's that funny click-click noise I've been hearing for the last five minutes?” Never bother canceling a turn signal.

4B. Like 4A, but then suddenly make the turn you've been signaling for the last five minutes.

5. “Silly cyclist, left turns are for cars!” No bicycle rider has ever in the history of the earth needed to make a left turn, so there's never any reason to let them ride anywhere but the right side of the street.

6. “Only cars belong on streets.” So It's OK to stop inside crosswalks and block them. Pedestrians have no business leaving the concrete of the sidewalk. If they want to visit a different block, they should drive a car like you.

6A. Variant. “Only cars belong on sidewalks at curb cuts.” It's OK to stop in the middle of those and block them, too.

comment on this link to this

Sat Dec 11 19:55:19 PST 2004

That was how I'd describe the blast of warm air that came aboard before the latest cold front hit. Yesterday's high was 61 degrees. I had been cutting back on the barefoot hiking because the ground was getting so cold and clammy it was starting to make my feet numb. (And once you can't feel what you're walking on, why bother being barefoot?) So it was just heavenly to be able to walk for 3.5 miles comfortably. As a bonus, there was lots of nice, soft mud to leave “calling cards” behind in.

As expected, it didn't last. It's back to forties and rain. But it was fun while it lasted.

comment on this link to this

Sat Dec 11 23:06:09 PST 2004

Detail of a menu in a Thai restaurant.

Second full line from the bottom, in case you don't notice it.

comment on this link to this

Sun Dec 12 18:29:16 PST 2004

Overnight I awoke to a strange sound: wind. Anything more than a light breeze is unusual in the microclimate of my neighborhood. Our strongest winds all come from the quadrant from south to west, and it is precisely those directions that the West Hills rise about 1,000 feet. The rest of the city can be experiencing a howling windstorm, and here in the lee of the hills there will be nothing more than gentle breezes.

The thought went through my mind that it must really be a vicious windstorm and I went back to bed. It won't be this neighborhood that has any significant damage.

This morning, the mystery was solved. It was a Gorge wind: cool, dry air from the deserts to the east. And my condo faces east, so I was feeling its full effects. Off I rode into the swirling storm of dried leaves and papers, fighting a vicious headwind all the way.

The ride back was as easy as the ride out was difficult. As a bonus, the dry wind had blown away any vestige of fog or urban pollution, making the air crystal-clear. The light on Mt. Hood was absolutely glorious this afternoon.

comment on this link to this

Mon Dec 13 17:02:46 PST 2004

Of course, the Scottish antiwar movement really isn't like “that”… yet. Talk is cheap. We'll see if (and what) action follows.

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 15 23:18:43 PST 2004

On Wikipedia, that is.

Someone had the incorrect claim in the article on Portland that our own Forest Park is the largest city park in the United States. They probably did so unwittingly, as this misconception is extremely widespread (at least amongst Portland locals).

Forest Park is a very nice park, and is one of the reasons I like Portland so much. It's not, however, the largest city park in the USA. South Mountain Park in Phoenix is over three times larger (and twenty years older).

Argh! Just noticed that the City of Portland's own web site for Forest Park also propagates the myth. They've been sent a complaint. See what I mean about a widespread myth?

comment on this link to this

Mon Dec 20 17:52:44 PST 2004

That's what the video on this page should be titled.

And there will be no sympathy on my part to the “stop being such a preachy vegan” complaints. People should be willing to face the consequences implicit in their decisions. If you're squeamish about where your hamburger comes from, stop eating it.

Lots of folks whine about hunting being inhumane. At least hunters have to personally come to terms with the killing implicit in their meat, instead of sticking their heads in the sand and letting slaughterhouse workers do it for them.

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 22 21:59:21 PST 2004

… That I've been fighting gave me a chance to see just what buying Sudafed is like in the latest round of the War on Some Drugs. Answer: Not much different from before, with the exception that you have to ask the pharmacist who asks to see your ID. She took only the most cursory of glances at mine; no effort was made to record a record of the purchase in my name for posterity.

It's sort of a joke, actually. I could have easily used a low-quality fake ID and passed muster with the quick glance she gave. And it wouldn't be hard to make the rounds to all the drug stores and get a nice little stash of pills; given that they don't seem to take your name down, nobody would be the wiser.

I get the idea that the pharmacist was upset at having so many extra government-mandated interruptions of her work, and was acting so as to minimize the amount of her time devoted to being a pseudoephedrine go-for. Just moments earlier another customer had pestered her for the exact same thing.

And yes, I'm still worried that eventual end of all this will be the banning of pseudoephedrine sales.

comment on this link to this

Fri Dec 24 09:37:43 PST 2004

Looks like it's finally been decided in Gregoire's favor.

While this has caused an amusing flip-flop in rhetoric within the two camps, it seems to me that Rossi and the GOP don't have much of a leg to stand on. Consider:

1. The prompt and unanimous ruling by the state Supreme Court in favor of allowing King County to correct certain errors during its recount (and isn't that what a recount is all about?).
2. Even if the court had not ruled in Gregoire's favor, she would still been the winner of the hand recount, by a mere ten votes. (Would the GOP have politely conceded then? Somehow, I doubt it.)
3. The Washington Secretary of State (a Republican), basically thinks it's all over for Rossi at this point.
4. County auditors across the state — including ones in heavily Republican counties — also think it's pretty much all over.

comment on this link to this

Fri Dec 24 20:36:06 PST 2004

Oh the weather outside is crappy,
And I hope I didn't disturb your nappy —
There's eggnog here for you to sip.
Let it drip, let it drip, let it drip...

comment on this link to this

Sat Dec 25 19:19:40 PST 2004

Evidence has surfaced that Monkey Boy himself gave the green light to use torture.

As if it's any surprise.

comment on this link to this

Sun Dec 26 22:24:00 PST 2004

It was like hearing the plot from a cheesy horror movie when I heard the news about the monster earthquake (and monster tsunami) in the Bay of Bangal.

One thing that immediately came to my mind was: why didn't they warn people? From the sounds of it, the waves were completely unexpected (they were), and must have taken hours to reach many of the shores they washed up on (they did).

It turns out that tsunamis are very rare on the Indian Ocean and that unlike in the Pacific Ocean, there's no warning system in place. Seismologists didn't even know who to call in the to-be-affected countries to raise the warning.

Though that doesn't explain why the warning wasn't raised to Thailand, which because of its coastline on the South China Sea is part of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System. They should have at least known who to call there.

comment on this link to this

Wed Dec 29 15:38:22 PST 2004

Pictures from the snow-and-ice storm in last January (left), and the aftermath of the phenomenal Seattle snowstorms in late December, 1996 (right). The snow in the latter picture is two feet deep even though a mild rain has been falling for six hours!

It does not appear that this winter will be having anything to compare. In fact, there's not even been much rain so far this winter, raising drought fears.

comment on this link to this

Fri Dec 31 10:36:56 PST 2004

Eyewitness account of the tsunami from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend:

This is [name deleted]. I am currently in Bangkok waiting for a flight I have cajoled my way onto. I am one of the survivors. With only scratches, bruises and infections I am fine. Everything I own (almost — a small plastic jesus doll made it through!) is gone. My house was wiped out, as were 3000 hotel rooms, around 600 other resident/vacation homes and almost all the business' in the area.

Our house was 150 feet from the beach that is THE hardest hit beach in Thailand. As water rushed into our house and then ripped open the second story wall, I leapt off our second story roof and swam and swam and swam, riding the wave deep into the jungle, as it destroyed building after building, ripping up trees and spinning diesel trucks into the air. All this with me in the center of it clinging to anything that floats and swimming to avoid the standing buildings or trees that crushed and impaled many others. The wave deposited me, a small Swedish girl and a 60 foot police cruiser (medium sized steel patrol boat — around 20 tons) 1 kilometer from the beach — in the jungle.

For the next 5 hours i set up a triage center and cared for dead and dying foreigners. Finally we got helicopters in, and I made my way back towards the main town. I found [name deleted] (my girlfriend) and collapsed. We had both assumed each other dead as the destruction was so massive. She had climbed a coconut tree, wrapped her arms and legs and held on. The water kept pulling the tree and her under, but it and she survived. That day I saw around 100 bodies. The next day, another 200, and the day we left there were cattle trucks full of rotting corpses being taken to Phuket.

After days of no news, dwindling food and water — a group of divers virtually kidnapped a driver to take us away. Every few hours someone had created a rumor that another wave was coming, or there was a gas explosion, or the Muslim rebels were attacking. None were true, but it caused massive panic and killed many more people. We were already under massive psychological strain, and this just made it insane. We ran.

My town is gone. There are probably 2% of the original buildings in a recognizable form. I am very lucky to even be making my way home. The U.S. government offered me a phone call, a toothbrush, a paperback book and a temporary passport. No hotel, no food, no flight home. I was told that I could take out a loan if I could list three people who would vouch for me at home. The process would only take a few days. I was alone, injured (superficially — but I sure did look bad), no possessions, no money and my government offered me a book.

I don't know who or what to acknowledge for my presence. That will take a lot of soul-searching. I am certainly among the luckiest people in Thailand right now. According to local news it looks like my town had a SURVIVAL rate of 60%. The support and questions about my well-being are appreciated and I will reply… eventually.

Please think of what you value. Look around, have you given a hug to someone recently? Anyone? If everything you had were taken away, who would you turn too? In the end it is each other, not the things, that make the world spin. I won't ever forget that.

Breathe

comment on this link to this

Fri Dec 31 19:32:04 PST 2004

It's been completely absent from the establishment media, but one thing that bears pointing out about the tsunami death tolls is that they're now roughly in the same ballpark as the estimates of the Iraq War death toll that were published in The Lancet a month or so ago.

Amidst all the wishes that more could be done to stop natural disasters we're basically powerless to prevent, it bears keeping in mind that there's human institutions busy creating manmade (and, hence, completely preventable) disasters.

comment on this link to this

Monthly Index for 2004 | Index of Years