ISEPP took the risk of inviting an industrialist versus an academician to address the Portland lay public, an audience reminiscent of Wittgenstein's Vienna by some accounts. Speakers like to unveil stuff in Portland, as do movie people. Several in our circle had known David Cox from their shared high school (same school as Tara's, and formerly a business school before joining the public fleet, accepting that charter).
Pfizer, and one extrapolates to other pharmaceutical companies, is seeing vast wastelands of useless patents in fields were the name of the game is to learn science, meaning one needs a culture of openness and open data (a true society). You can try to play lip service to those ideals, and get away with it for awhile, but then the physics of the inevitable kicks in and you realize you're stalled and/or slipping backwards, forgetting your science, your know-how. That sense of an impending dark age provokes an avoidance reflex.
Fortunately, we're surrounded by evidence of great civilizations, including some very recent ones, such as the Apollo Project, which put humans on the moon. More to come (in the pipeline and/or incubator right now).
The giant project to decipher the genome has yielded big data for sure, but the statistical correlations with diseases are relatively slight, giving subtle clues as to mechanisms. What you need to find are concentrations of shared diseases and find correlations there.
The individuals should be enrolled as responsible medical team members, to an MD level in specialty i.e. with respect to their own condition (MDs licensed to practice on people besides themselves are not permitted such narrow self-centeredness).
Dick Cox encouraged us to begin the ascent to a more enlightened society, not out of some altruistic do gooder sense so much as a need to get on with the business of learning science and really finding drugs that work. We just don't have that many yet and the side effects are killing us. Drug company people take drugs too, have an investment in being smart about self-administration. Some top researchers have first hand experience with the diseases they treat.
DNA research has opened plenty of doors, but to walk into this new world of medical science we have to be free and open with medical records in a way that doesn't miscast either government, industry or insurance as ipso facto "the bad guy" i.e. there are legitimate get-the-job done configurations that aren't interested in wasting anyone's time on scandalously poor ethics or impossibly wasteful and/or ineffective treatments.
There's too much ignorance about the body and how it works, about nature, to squander precious lives on soap operatics and melodrama. Dialing back to preventative therapies is still the best approach, but that means seeing the tendencies, knowing the signs. When you're preventing, you're preventing against, which means the diseases have shown themselves. This is more of an Asian attitude perhaps, in that you're not looking for "cures" so much as negotiated settlements, tolerable equilibria, steady states.
Happiness, including on into old age, is legit to pursue, and not just because the US Constitution says so.
At the dinner afterward, I asked if I were one of the bad guys per his model, in that I was in the business, at least until recently, of purging case records of identifiable traits, i.e. I was into anonymizing and pseudonymizing major data sets. Yes, I was a bad guy. He used the word "encrypt" but I don't see myself doing that so much as rendering petabytes of case data innocuous as a public good, e.g. not subject to blackmailing purposes or leading to divorce action because of revealed details in peoples private lives.
However, we've detoured into a technical footnote as the allegiance between medical sciences and free open source computing has only just begun, yet has been one of those exponentially more relevant curves. Many people have no problem being up front with their identity when presenting with various diseases and will not mind having their DNA fingerprint a part of the public record.
Those less interested in helping science in that way will not be coerced into doing so as protecting record privacy and security also relate to integrity i.e. if the data gathering models are not themselves clear and public, then the outcomes data will not be trusted -- could be just someone's faked / randomized noise, for sale at high prices.
The ability to authenticate to trusted sources needs to be part of the model as well. But then banking is not a complete stranger to these issues. Bank your genome. Consider it yours (whom else would it belong to -- nature herself maybe as you're her baby) and perhaps some of your income might come under a kind of "thanks for the memories" in the chart of accounts (i.e. thanks for the samples, the records). Pay people for being who they are, what a concept. That's usually more applied to horses these days.
I'm expecting some of the upcoming conference events on my calendar to give me more of a sense of Big Data and medicine. I'd say Pfizer is definitely not alone in thinking Portland has a role to play in designing the data collection centers and sharing the data. The local buzz matches the global in this case. Something like Google Earth but for the body, built with filters so you might see different demographic cross-sections... such public goods with pro versions might be one outcome of the upcoming data crunching and visualizing era.
People with exotic diseases have much to teach us and should not have to worry where their next meal is coming from as medical science works with its students -- as long as they don't mind cafeteria food (we hope there's a Food Not Bombs like end of the spectrum, fresh and vegan, with some of the healthier patients doing their own prep and serving). The Global U will have better and more humane infrastructure as we shluff off the old snake skin. To be continued.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Wanderers 2012.2.14
Lynne Taylor is here talking about her paintings, water colors.
The Internet domain name stuff from a previous meeting is still on the board. Linus Pauling House.
It's "two dog night" (Nirel has one in a bag, helping with her daughter's move), and Blueberry (a veteran attender).
Shomar is missed. I was thinking about David earlier, thinking we should have dinner.
The first painting represents the new hadron collider at CERN and the particles they seek.
The second has lots of nanotubes and DNA and stuff.
We have two bottles of double dog dare (cheap wine on the table).
Lynne's paintings have frequently featured as covers of ISEPP programs, handed out at the concert hall (usually the Schnitzer downtown).
We have some visitors tonight, first timers.
Tomorrow I'm giving a talk on the Bucky stuff at Quakers, having dropped the ball earlier.
One of our guests had been on Ken Kesey's bus that day. She was later a college English teacher, wrote poetry.
Her cousin, also present, was a career fireman with Portland's fire department.
Craigmore Creations has move out, taking the fancier table and chairs. We're using the standard institutional folding tables with an assortment of chairs, some stackable.
We talked about Henk Pander and his show.
David called last night. We talked about Nick Espinoza whom he knows, an inventor of "glitter bombing" -- a Blue House topic conversation sometimes. Speaking of acting up activists, I hear Tre might be campaigning for Mayor.
I was writing about democracy again today, on the Wittgenstein list, mentioning DemocracyLab.
We spent most of the evening going around the table. I brought one of the Pinot Noirs, and some cheese and crackers. I drank some coffee. Looked at pix of the newer stealth boats (still pretty secret).
The Internet domain name stuff from a previous meeting is still on the board. Linus Pauling House.
It's "two dog night" (Nirel has one in a bag, helping with her daughter's move), and Blueberry (a veteran attender).
Shomar is missed. I was thinking about David earlier, thinking we should have dinner.
The first painting represents the new hadron collider at CERN and the particles they seek.
The second has lots of nanotubes and DNA and stuff.
We have two bottles of double dog dare (cheap wine on the table).
Lynne's paintings have frequently featured as covers of ISEPP programs, handed out at the concert hall (usually the Schnitzer downtown).
We have some visitors tonight, first timers.
Tomorrow I'm giving a talk on the Bucky stuff at Quakers, having dropped the ball earlier.
One of our guests had been on Ken Kesey's bus that day. She was later a college English teacher, wrote poetry.
Her cousin, also present, was a career fireman with Portland's fire department.
Craigmore Creations has move out, taking the fancier table and chairs. We're using the standard institutional folding tables with an assortment of chairs, some stackable.
We talked about Henk Pander and his show.
David called last night. We talked about Nick Espinoza whom he knows, an inventor of "glitter bombing" -- a Blue House topic conversation sometimes. Speaking of acting up activists, I hear Tre might be campaigning for Mayor.
I was writing about democracy again today, on the Wittgenstein list, mentioning DemocracyLab.
We spent most of the evening going around the table. I brought one of the Pinot Noirs, and some cheese and crackers. I drank some coffee. Looked at pix of the newer stealth boats (still pretty secret).
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Yes Men Fix the World (movie review)
I recommend seeing both if you can deal with either. These films are great satire, but then the clowns are really high on that wire, which had better stay taut.
There's a Sesame Street air about the whole thing, a kind of lecturing to moral imbeciles. How does one get across a sense of top management?
Copy TV. Those newscasters are so good at pontificating -- there's a reason the preacher is in the pulpit.
The Halliburton disaster suits are especially rolling-in-this-aisles funny.
We watched it at Blue House, LW & M snuggled on the couch, me slogging through a standard workflow on the Air, chuckling along the way.
Dow tried to take 'em out, with the "cruel hoax" line (against the people of Bhopal -- I'd thought of that too), delivered perfectly.
That could have sunk 'em, and their only recourse was to head to Bhopal and hang out, actually get the reaction. Yes, some had wept for joy, but then understood the heroics, like the heroics behind that Other Tomorrow New York Times edition.
Shades of Sasha Cohen (another brave heart).
The guys express their fear levels in several ways, including during the opening credits. The fear of losing one's head, to the guillotine, for using it, is not empty paranoia when you really are about to address a few million people as the faux representative of an evil empire.
But then the real representatives have their fears too, in looking so greedy-inept with their lame form of faux capitalism (which is about using other peoples' heads, mostly -- Milton Friedman's especially if you can afford the look).
I understand the nightmare these guys live in. They win their battle over and over, keep making their point. But what really changes? The goal isn't winning then? It comes as a revelation. Conditioned reflexes don't change that fast and the three laws of robotics get broken left and right (positronic might have been better dontcha know (yes, an Asimov allusion)).
There's a Doppler Effect at work. Every event is also a potential time bomb, MIRVed to hit (have some impact) in multiple elsewheres in a chain reaction, leading to tipping points and avalanches. They teach about these patterns in Systems, at Wanderers, common as rain.
There's a Sesame Street air about the whole thing, a kind of lecturing to moral imbeciles. How does one get across a sense of top management?
Copy TV. Those newscasters are so good at pontificating -- there's a reason the preacher is in the pulpit.
The Halliburton disaster suits are especially rolling-in-this-aisles funny.
We watched it at Blue House, LW & M snuggled on the couch, me slogging through a standard workflow on the Air, chuckling along the way.
Dow tried to take 'em out, with the "cruel hoax" line (against the people of Bhopal -- I'd thought of that too), delivered perfectly.
That could have sunk 'em, and their only recourse was to head to Bhopal and hang out, actually get the reaction. Yes, some had wept for joy, but then understood the heroics, like the heroics behind that Other Tomorrow New York Times edition.
Shades of Sasha Cohen (another brave heart).
The guys express their fear levels in several ways, including during the opening credits. The fear of losing one's head, to the guillotine, for using it, is not empty paranoia when you really are about to address a few million people as the faux representative of an evil empire.
But then the real representatives have their fears too, in looking so greedy-inept with their lame form of faux capitalism (which is about using other peoples' heads, mostly -- Milton Friedman's especially if you can afford the look).
I understand the nightmare these guys live in. They win their battle over and over, keep making their point. But what really changes? The goal isn't winning then? It comes as a revelation. Conditioned reflexes don't change that fast and the three laws of robotics get broken left and right (positronic might have been better dontcha know (yes, an Asimov allusion)).
There's a Doppler Effect at work. Every event is also a potential time bomb, MIRVed to hit (have some impact) in multiple elsewheres in a chain reaction, leading to tipping points and avalanches. They teach about these patterns in Systems, at Wanderers, common as rain.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Journey of the Universe (movie review)
Once again, I wasn't sure what I was getting into. We wandered up to the 16th floor of the wrong building, finding a beautiful lobby, then entered 888 to make our way to what turned out to be a meeting of the State Bar (as in lawyers' guild). There's a subgroup or committee looking to improve the future -- "the only bar section in the country with a specific goal" or something like that.
At first I thought this was clever marketing, this Torporation (Torp) instead of a Corporation (Corp). The best way to avoid that "corporate personhood" stigma is to start up as a torporation instead, with torporate executives and so forth. "More benign than corporate persons, because they sleep a lot" was Glenn's joke. Anyway, it made a good skit in the theater of my mind.
Which brings us at long last to the movie. This had been on public TV I'm told (OPB), yet we were somewhat exclusive in getting to see it -- not clear on the details. Brian Swimme is the new James Burke and does a fine job in the microcosm / namespace of Samos (an island), where we've decided Pythogoras literally lived.
The narrative takes a bold move in that cave of his, suggesting we look at the imagination as like another eye (an imaginary eye), a wholly different way of seeing. Two other kinds of eye, including the water ball eye (what we also have) were discussed beforehand.
Anyway, as with most of my movie reviews, I somewhat assume the reader has seen the movie already -- backwards from most reviews, which read more like previews, but certainly a way to go: it's like we at least have this recording in common, so now lets share our takes / angles. Like a book club.
That was what this meeting was like: a focus group.
The organizers were honestly interested in getting some feedback, lawyers first. The group knew we had some scientists intermixed, including the identifiable physicist / cosmologist on the back bench, a credentialed authority (University of Chicago). So when it came time to relay impressions, it was stipulated we let the lawyers speak first, as this was, after all, a meeting of their guild.
One of those present suggest we raise our hands if we were lawyers, but the moderator immediately countered that this need not be revealed. Interesting culture, this.
Don talked about the movie Farewell (a spy movie) on the way back in his new motor vehicle, Glenn stuffed in a much roomier back. We'd had a good time.
Other Wanderers, such as Bob McGown and David Tver were there too (they both spoke).
I spoke as well, after the bar against non-lawyers was lifted. I was slightly self conscious when raising my hand, in geek costume (in my Python sweater-vest, army surplus jacket on the rack), especially of the leather cuffka, Nirel brand, about my wrist -- but I doubted it mattered too much (lots of people had styles).
My gray locks put me more in the "rounded elf" category and soon I had the entire room chuckling about how a lot of our dark side was missing. "If I'd been briefing a room full of ETs about what to expect upon encountering humans..." I suggested. But the film was upbeat, wanted us to feast on the images, not shield our eyes.
Shades of Koyannisqatsi and Winged Migration both.
Some of the lawyers present got more talkative with time. The physicist in the back was also diplomatic I thought, in requesting a moment to think. When the lawyers had been asked, they'd fallen into a profound silence reminiscent of a Quaker meeting, reluctant to have too easy opinions.
Gradually the ice thawed and opened the space for some real sharing. Lynne Taylor was there and spoke up before I did. She'd seen an earlier draft of this film at the Parliament of World Religions. She was eager for more of this genre.
There probably was some implicit tension in the film, as it used Samos as an integration point wherein to criss-cross psycho-spiritual and physio-scientific concerns.
Was this taking on too much of the role of the priest? Know-it-alls can be a problem.
I saw lots of hat-tipping to maternity and the child like nature of humankind, though the narrator was clearly an XY.
Several lawyers remarked on the interesting thesis that what set humans apart in an important way was their prolonged childhood and extended dependence on mothering, which translates into malleability / adaptability.
I will add my two additional cents: that the show closely adheres to cultural templates, as far as "television scoring" goes (following known examples), is to its credit.
Some of the latest state of the art images are shown in this frame, a visual feast is delivered. Having a frame stay familiar and friendly gives more room to the weird and strange.
Better to read the somewhat "cliche" or "formulaic" obeisance to convention as honest homage to admired prototypes / ancestors, in the language of film making and television. Why fix it if it ain't broke?
We're telling the greatest story ever told, that of the universe itself, and to take an "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" humble pie attitude is not a stupid move.
I thought of Universe too: "that which humans have expressed regarding the universe" (a kind of "shared poem" in RBF's lexicon).
That it all reduces to Pythagoras and number sets up a good vibe for simple storytelling (this is about passing the torch so memorability is key).
The final fade out on Europe is apropos. There's a deliberate Medittereanean flavor to all of this, an invitation to other regions to give it their own spin. Be bold, be regional, be place based.
We know that's an important ingredient in "gamefication" as well (to localize, in the form of some specific geography or vista, a world).
The film points to the future with some notes of hope, but doesn't really try to go there. I'd say it's more a summary of where they'd gotten by the end of the 1900s. It's an end-of-millennium piece.
Some of the next iterations will seem less cliche in some ways, as we're more disruptive of set mindsets (relic belief systems), or as nature is (not saying it's all about humans and their experience).
Down the road, maybe we'll see more about the transition from 90-degree to 60-degree-based thinking, more in harmony with nature, perhaps in the guise of East-meets-West.
On the way to the venue, we passed a by "fear panel", a public space LCD radiating fear into the room. Something about an extensive network of tunnels in the Persian vista. So? Are tunnels illegal all of a sudden? Sheesh.
How that commuter-TV based lifestyle serves people is beyond me. The amount of fear pumping through those veins, those urban capillaries, can't be good for a body.
So this is why we all wanted to get wired? So we could be afraid, so very afraid, in The Matrix?
Don't be a coward, kill your TV -- which might just be the "head channel" you're watching. Choose your channels wisely (use that "third eye").
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunrise (movie review)
I had little concept of what I was getting into, when Nick told me about some live cello music at the Hollywood Theater.
This turned out to be part of the ongoing silent films thread, this time featuring Sunrise by F.W. Murnau.
Fine musicians, in this case including Nick's friend Lori Goldston on cello, provided more "emotional bandwidth" as Nick put it.
At first I surmised I was watching a recent release, made to look like a 1920s pre-talkie. But later I realized we were watching the real deal.
The style of film making then is really quite different, creating a sense of surreality or other worldliness around the action portrayed.
Sunrise investigates a man planning to murder his wife in order to take off with a new interest, a woman from the city who smokes prodigiously and is of presumably dubious character.
The wife deserves better than this lout but there's no "good riddance" way out in this village.
After he bungles his murder attempt, the wife seeks to escape his clutches before he tries again, but is perversely seduced by his (sincere) sense of remorse.
They stumble in on a wedding-in-progress and he relives taking on a commitment to look after and protect his dyadic other, per the standard nuclear family contract. There's no possibility of a molecular family in this culture, with two moms and or two dads (this isn't Bhutan, with its above average happiness quotient).
Their faith in one another is renewed (or hers in him mainly), but then on the way home in the same row boat he planned to drown her from, a storm kicks up and it looks like he's lost her overboard, this time very much not according to plan. As omniscient viewers, we're positioned to judge him innocent (this time).
I found myself awed by the consistent look and feel of this film and thought just maybe I was seeing an all time great. The cityscapes are meticulously detailed, the trolley scenes superb.
Upon doing more research, I see other film critics share this view.
Nick and I adjourned to Columbia River Brew Pub, formerly Laurelwood, across the street. Then we bussed home so he could rest up before the journey back to Hillsboro. Since Tara had a driving class in Beaverton the next day, it made sense to do it this way.
Thanks to legislation passed in the Nixon Era, kidney dialysis patients are eligible for three visits a week. In Europe it's four, but with shorter hours.
Nick is aware of the research going on at ONAMI, as is his doc, but results from that effort aren't expected for some years. Nephrology is still in its infancy.
This turned out to be part of the ongoing silent films thread, this time featuring Sunrise by F.W. Murnau.
Fine musicians, in this case including Nick's friend Lori Goldston on cello, provided more "emotional bandwidth" as Nick put it.
At first I surmised I was watching a recent release, made to look like a 1920s pre-talkie. But later I realized we were watching the real deal.
The style of film making then is really quite different, creating a sense of surreality or other worldliness around the action portrayed.
Sunrise investigates a man planning to murder his wife in order to take off with a new interest, a woman from the city who smokes prodigiously and is of presumably dubious character.
The wife deserves better than this lout but there's no "good riddance" way out in this village.
After he bungles his murder attempt, the wife seeks to escape his clutches before he tries again, but is perversely seduced by his (sincere) sense of remorse.
They stumble in on a wedding-in-progress and he relives taking on a commitment to look after and protect his dyadic other, per the standard nuclear family contract. There's no possibility of a molecular family in this culture, with two moms and or two dads (this isn't Bhutan, with its above average happiness quotient).
Their faith in one another is renewed (or hers in him mainly), but then on the way home in the same row boat he planned to drown her from, a storm kicks up and it looks like he's lost her overboard, this time very much not according to plan. As omniscient viewers, we're positioned to judge him innocent (this time).
I found myself awed by the consistent look and feel of this film and thought just maybe I was seeing an all time great. The cityscapes are meticulously detailed, the trolley scenes superb.
Upon doing more research, I see other film critics share this view.
Nick and I adjourned to Columbia River Brew Pub, formerly Laurelwood, across the street. Then we bussed home so he could rest up before the journey back to Hillsboro. Since Tara had a driving class in Beaverton the next day, it made sense to do it this way.
Thanks to legislation passed in the Nixon Era, kidney dialysis patients are eligible for three visits a week. In Europe it's four, but with shorter hours.
Nick is aware of the research going on at ONAMI, as is his doc, but results from that effort aren't expected for some years. Nephrology is still in its infancy.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Looking Back
Outcomes research was hitting a peak in the medical world in tandem with the career of my boss, David Lansky. He was director of CUE when I got together with Dawn. He got me working on FORTRAN on this HP mini-computer, and before long I was in the operating theaters at night, debugging my point of care Visual FoxPro suite, named CORIS (the cath lab counterpart was named CLAIR).
Perfursionists stayed alert and interested, filling in my grids, a professional way to fill the time by feeding researchers useful numbers. Nurses entered some data. Paper forms went around later, for doctors to fill out. A picture of the surgery was developed in the data, as research numbers.
The reputation of the hospital, for doing outcomes research, was kept at a high level. Interesting work. Mostly heart related.
Perfursionists stayed alert and interested, filling in my grids, a professional way to fill the time by feeding researchers useful numbers. Nurses entered some data. Paper forms went around later, for doctors to fill out. A picture of the surgery was developed in the data, as research numbers.
The reputation of the hospital, for doing outcomes research, was kept at a high level. Interesting work. Mostly heart related.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Wanderers 2012.01.17
Pursuant to the previous installment, I did leave a follow-up voicemail with Tre, as he seemed truly distressed up that tree, not just playacting. Just climbing that thing was a feat, of circus quality. Add the red and blue lights, crowds, and you get the expectation of entertainment. We've seen this in cartoons, with people shouting "jump" and so on.
I wore my chauffeur hat again today (not literally, I have no special hat for when driving), picking up an MVP at PDX.
You might think, if we were truly a spiritual community, of this network of colored houses, this board game of assets (safehouses and so on), that our personnel would be rotating through retreat centers, heading off to meditations, disappearing on vision quests.
Indeed, that's how it is, and has been, for a long time. Dawn was far more active in her practice than I was, by so many measures.
Just today for example, two meditators from another house came by, in route by bike to their meditation center (a yurt in this case, at some higher altitude). Melody is away on retreat as well.
Now I'm at the Pauling House for a talk on Computability, Turing Machines, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and all that. One of the seniors, a professor by training, is holding forth. He's got his super duper unlimited registers machine with just four instructions, for defining computability.
We should not forget the Quakers have a meditative inward practice, sometimes labeled "unprogrammed" to distinguish it from a scripted service, or ceremony, led by a minister, teacher, pastor or rabbi.
Unprogrammed Friends are free to attend programmed services of course, and many do. There's no necessary either/or relationship between programmed and unprogrammed (a lesson that may apply to computability also).
A senior member of a meeting may minister informally, in an authoritative ("weighty") manner, both inside and outside the Meeting for Worship context. Indeed, a Meeting has its ritualistic aspects for creating a privileged space, a fact Dawn was adamant about recognizing.
I've been publishing some of my philosophy of mathematics around the Koski toons, taking off from the flapping 4sys (Gene Fowler). The Wittgenstein list gets a front row seat, not surprisingly.
I wore my chauffeur hat again today (not literally, I have no special hat for when driving), picking up an MVP at PDX.
You might think, if we were truly a spiritual community, of this network of colored houses, this board game of assets (safehouses and so on), that our personnel would be rotating through retreat centers, heading off to meditations, disappearing on vision quests.
Indeed, that's how it is, and has been, for a long time. Dawn was far more active in her practice than I was, by so many measures.
Just today for example, two meditators from another house came by, in route by bike to their meditation center (a yurt in this case, at some higher altitude). Melody is away on retreat as well.
Now I'm at the Pauling House for a talk on Computability, Turing Machines, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and all that. One of the seniors, a professor by training, is holding forth. He's got his super duper unlimited registers machine with just four instructions, for defining computability.
We should not forget the Quakers have a meditative inward practice, sometimes labeled "unprogrammed" to distinguish it from a scripted service, or ceremony, led by a minister, teacher, pastor or rabbi.
Unprogrammed Friends are free to attend programmed services of course, and many do. There's no necessary either/or relationship between programmed and unprogrammed (a lesson that may apply to computability also).
A senior member of a meeting may minister informally, in an authoritative ("weighty") manner, both inside and outside the Meeting for Worship context. Indeed, a Meeting has its ritualistic aspects for creating a privileged space, a fact Dawn was adamant about recognizing.
I've been publishing some of my philosophy of mathematics around the Koski toons, taking off from the flapping 4sys (Gene Fowler). The Wittgenstein list gets a front row seat, not surprisingly.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Meeting House Haps
meetinghouse tree
Wilderness Way was having their regularly scheduled meeting when Tre showed up at the Stark Street meetinghouse, rapping on the window.
He asked if they knew Kirby, which they didn't, but then, when he climbed the tall tree outside and started ranting, they decided to call Lew Scholl, clerk of property management, their contact person for Friends. The neighbors just called the police.
I was on EmoKid (the bicycle) heading towards some union hall on Foster & SE 64th when I got the call from Oakland, CA. It was Lew. Did I know Tre Arrow? He was in our tree at the meetinghouse.
I revectored the bicycle and showed up there promptly (in about 10 minutes). Lew called back Wilderness Way and let them know to expect me.
The fire department had already responded and the police had blocked traffic on Stark St. The police had their lifting device, like for fixing phone poles but fancier, positioned high up. Someone was up there interviewing Tre.
I was asked not to contact him on my cell phone while this was going on. I called Lew back to let him know it was a pretty big production, and then Melody. Then my phone died (battery out) so I couldn't call anyone.
For the emergency teams, this was no big deal (that's what the sergeant said), but I thought it was a bigger ordeal than a cat stuck in a tree at least. The truck needed to hoist the interview booth required quite a bit of support logistics.
They said they wanted to ascertain if he was planning to jump or anything. He was not.
Rick Seifert, our clerk, showed up and talked to the police sergeant in charge. They were already in the process of dispersing. Dusk was swiftly turning to darkness. Rick later journaled about the event as well.
The Wilderness Way people understood Tre's ecological message and were willing to shout up their moral support.
Ranters gathered on each side of the sidewalk, starting a polarized debate familiar around Portland. They shouted about taxes versus the environment versus jobs, stuff like that. OPDX has somewhat changed the political climate and there's lots of passion for change.
Thanks to the Internet, bike swarms etc. were poised to offer more support and to send up gear were Tre planning to stay there a long time.
Lindsey caught the events on Livestream pretty much as they were happening, at least towards the end. Twitter and cell phones had spread the word and she just randomly happened to be tracking, had no foreknowledge of Tre's plans.
Channel 12 asked me off camera if we Quakers had foreknowledge of this action. I assured her we did not.
Rick really hoped John Munson would be reachable, and called Carl and Marge Abbott for his number from the clerk's office, but found out John's off serving in the Peace Corps someplace (that had been his plan all along). John and Tre have had communications in the past. I know John more from AFSC work.
Anyway, the police understood Tre was not really breaking any laws. He's a well known guy around here, an activist, in Wikipedia and everything. He does stuff like this.
I assured Tre the Quakers weren't looking at this as criminal trespass or anything, and there was no contemplation of seeing this as a criminal action (people are allowed to climb trees in Oregon). I think that's what he expected from me (kind of a no brainer), and said he'd be down shortly.
He came down in the darkness (with occasional flashes and TV lights) and made some eloquent remarks to the cameras. Channels 12, 6 and 8 each had small news teams. People crowded around and listened to his message.
He said we were raping the planet and needed to love Mother Earth. He wanted to know why more people weren't moved to defend her. He was quite coherent and everything. He's good at what he does.
:: tre addresses questioners ::
:: sharing on Facebook ::
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Base Tours
As some of my readers know, I saw the Occupy camps as a recruiting opportunity.
Here in Portland, we specialize in disaster relief operations. The explanation for that is somewhat regional in that we live under the threat of impending doom, as a major earthquake is expected, if geology is any guide.
Another explanation is the pioneers who started coming here after the Lewis & Clark troupe were hardy campers and camping has never been far from the surface. That may be why Portland's was one of the largest Occupy demos, and one of the best organized.
The so-called Elk Club (the people who took the park and lived there in a demonstration community in the shadow of the Elk Statue) is rightly proud of its little window in the sun. We decided to end the demo before the eviction notice. When the evictors arrived, the A Camp kitchen and medical tents were already gone, as was the Food Not Bombs tent in B Camp.
You've probably heard of "eco-tours" (already popular) where tourists travel with experts in various aspects of ecology. They visit both hopeful cleanup sites and disaster sites. Hanford is of course on the list (there's already an interpretive center) as is OMSI (for a taste of Portland's science mindedness).
There's a different kind of tour I'll call "human rights tours" where you have these international groups coming through looking at the USA's prison systems. Of special interest are the holding pens for so-called "illegal" immigrants (per Anglo-Euro jurisprudence) and what work is performed there. The USA is known around the world for its prison-centric militaristic culture and many want to see it first hand, in some cases just to see what they're up against.
Recent meetings with PBI and Amnesty International folks etc., me wearing an AFSC / NPYM hat, have given me some ideas for steering the new recruits. The workshops will dovetail with the weapons inspector programs, a grad school major expected to be popular in this region, as a part of environmental sciences. The disaster relief and cleanup industry is already targeting visitation sites, with assistance from whatever agencies.
By this means, I think expanding travel opportunities for campers is in the cards. It's not "seen one seen them all" by any means. A given Elk Club veteran might start with some local visitations and then loop through a few more distance locations before returning to a local theater or meeting hall to deliver a report. We expect hundreds of such reports, becoming thousands as more become involved. Where the IAEA fits in I'm not sure, given it seems to have been banned from operating in North America (we have queries to State about this).
When monitoring a site, you need to camp out nearby, using whatever gear and sensing equipment the university has provided. How supply lines are managed depends on the scene of course. You might just use the local Wal*Mart, and / or you might need off road vehicles, perhaps electric (less noise, less footprint) to navigate to the kitchen. Some camps will grow a lot of their own food, perhaps with assistance from various biodome models (designed for permaculture).
The medical tent might need special equipment for over-exposure to whatever toxins had been determined to exist in this environment. GIS / GPS servers will be aggregating this data.
Outfitting all the frack sites with sensors is already jobs aplenty for an FDR-scale CCC. Anyone who thinks there's a shortage of work opportunities should think again. Foreign aid agencies, as well as church networks, have their role. I should draw on more contacts in Vilnius for more church involvement.
Here in Portland, we specialize in disaster relief operations. The explanation for that is somewhat regional in that we live under the threat of impending doom, as a major earthquake is expected, if geology is any guide.
Another explanation is the pioneers who started coming here after the Lewis & Clark troupe were hardy campers and camping has never been far from the surface. That may be why Portland's was one of the largest Occupy demos, and one of the best organized.
The so-called Elk Club (the people who took the park and lived there in a demonstration community in the shadow of the Elk Statue) is rightly proud of its little window in the sun. We decided to end the demo before the eviction notice. When the evictors arrived, the A Camp kitchen and medical tents were already gone, as was the Food Not Bombs tent in B Camp.
You've probably heard of "eco-tours" (already popular) where tourists travel with experts in various aspects of ecology. They visit both hopeful cleanup sites and disaster sites. Hanford is of course on the list (there's already an interpretive center) as is OMSI (for a taste of Portland's science mindedness).
There's a different kind of tour I'll call "human rights tours" where you have these international groups coming through looking at the USA's prison systems. Of special interest are the holding pens for so-called "illegal" immigrants (per Anglo-Euro jurisprudence) and what work is performed there. The USA is known around the world for its prison-centric militaristic culture and many want to see it first hand, in some cases just to see what they're up against.
Recent meetings with PBI and Amnesty International folks etc., me wearing an AFSC / NPYM hat, have given me some ideas for steering the new recruits. The workshops will dovetail with the weapons inspector programs, a grad school major expected to be popular in this region, as a part of environmental sciences. The disaster relief and cleanup industry is already targeting visitation sites, with assistance from whatever agencies.
By this means, I think expanding travel opportunities for campers is in the cards. It's not "seen one seen them all" by any means. A given Elk Club veteran might start with some local visitations and then loop through a few more distance locations before returning to a local theater or meeting hall to deliver a report. We expect hundreds of such reports, becoming thousands as more become involved. Where the IAEA fits in I'm not sure, given it seems to have been banned from operating in North America (we have queries to State about this).
When monitoring a site, you need to camp out nearby, using whatever gear and sensing equipment the university has provided. How supply lines are managed depends on the scene of course. You might just use the local Wal*Mart, and / or you might need off road vehicles, perhaps electric (less noise, less footprint) to navigate to the kitchen. Some camps will grow a lot of their own food, perhaps with assistance from various biodome models (designed for permaculture).
The medical tent might need special equipment for over-exposure to whatever toxins had been determined to exist in this environment. GIS / GPS servers will be aggregating this data.
Outfitting all the frack sites with sensors is already jobs aplenty for an FDR-scale CCC. Anyone who thinks there's a shortage of work opportunities should think again. Foreign aid agencies, as well as church networks, have their role. I should draw on more contacts in Vilnius for more church involvement.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Comic Interlude
:: occupation of world's smallest park, Mill Ends Park in Portland, Oregon ::
Sam was pounding the table today, saying we weren't ephemeralizing fast enough.
We were at Laurelwood Brew Pub planning a next gala event, in part a homecoming for those who'd been at RISD this year, for the SNEC event (yeah, insider jargon, I'm full of it).
On the ephemeralization front, Occupy is in the lead, taking over the world's smallest municiple park today, according to the Guiness Book of World Records. Hi Cameron.
It'll be a failure of capitalism this Xmas if we don't already have the action figure kits, manger scene scale (like toy army guys), with little anarchists with tents, little riot cops with vans.
Junior can line up the cops around the camp while the anarchists amass. Depending on political leanings, the narrative may go differently.
Some will put the baby Jesus right inside a tent (Food Not Bombs tent?), complete with straw, cute animals, and a few defectors from the 1% (the three Magi).
Others will have their policemen smash those dirty commies with gusto, MacArthur style (President Hoover as King Herod?), while mom & dad beam proudly.
Koski has been replying to Zubek on Youtube, sharing the war on Poly, where grown children are still grumbly-grumpy about Bucky getting a molecule named after himself 'n stuff, when he really didn't invent anything new.
How can you put a refrigerator in a dome shaped home anyway?
Gimme a break right?
I bet they talk like this at Harvard all the time (snicker, superior Princeton sniff).
Me to David (typo fixed):
This stuff about the fridge:I've been yukking it up on the Wittgenstein list too.
You should remind folks that many of the architects working with
Fuller came up with more conventional rectilinear "stage prop"
interiors, that would protect privacy, but not have to be weatherized,
as the surrounding dome was doing that. More efficient, by simple
back of the napkin computations. More green. More sustainable.
In fact, Fuller's designs were quite smart and his cultist followers,
e.g Kirby Urner, think the ambient culture just didn't have the IQ.
"It's Planet of the Apes around here" is his usual off-the-kuffka
remark (cuffka.com).
The usual picture, duh:
http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue22/ buckminsterfuller.htm
http://www.mydigitallife.co.za/index.php?option=com_ myblog&task=tag&category= buckyball&Itemid=29
(duh rectilinear as you like inside -- could be a city)
All this crap about the refrigerator is just teasing at recess, not
serious in any way. "Hey, your zipper's down!".
I'm something of a misanthropist when it comes to mean little children
that grew up to become mean little adults.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
POW Camps
A re-gearing may occur when a camp changes status. The Business Plot camps in the Occupy Iraq and Occupy Afghanistan movement have a POW flavor about them. Those caught in these so-called "face saving maneuvers" have become the cosmetology kit for Washington, DC.
As pawns of the privatized security industrial complex, active duty conscripts are prisoners of war-making institutions such as NATO. They are kept in a kind of limbo, akin to refugee status, with a minimum of human rights. The North Americans have developed a prison-minded culture, so spreading this non-democracy to overseas bases is actually just a matter of following the same playbill.
I ranted on the power of prayer in our Quaker adult discussion group this morning, talking about the integrity of a moral vision. This was somewhat in response to the neuroscientific jargon which some Quakers have picked up, part of a meme virus I'd trace to a murky liberalism, by some twisted path.
I also shared about David Koski finally getting to screen cast his work in a way that lets him stay in the environment he's most productive in, a home office setting. That's how my prayers are being answered of late too: in the comfort of the indoors, even though it's the great outdoors that I scheme about (in terms of bringing more interesting work to our state).
Tara came in second overall in the LD category, in the debate tournament just concluded.
I've been sharing about these events on Facebook as well.
I do agree with George Lakoff that people seem easy to program, a two edged sword. The jingo-jihadists who want more war strut out "Republican Guard" as a meme, and the two-stroke thinkers (lawn mower brains) get all fired up, perhaps because "Republican" is "our word" (makes 'em mad just reading about someone else using it).
Stoking hatred for the Pakistanis hasn't been working fast enough either, although WDC's professional hate-mongers have been at it 24/7. As more of this transparent saber-rattling goes on, it becomes easier to isolate the meme viruses to their sources, often tycoon types with out-of-control egos and no use for "checks and balances" -- lots of senile geezers who use their bank accounts to inspire awe among the sycophantic politicos.
OPDX is "bad for business" in the sense of serving with the non-aligned against the self-aggrandizing uber-powers. The camps we're story boarding are not for prisoners so much as for those willing to freely express their conscience by acting on behalf of the Global U, providing food services, sanitation, shelter. How these camps contribute to the betterment of humanity's condition is relatively easy to see.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Kicked Back
I'm in the Michael Jennings Chair of Computer Science, a welcome hand-me-down from a darling FNB couple. This chair was presented pre the Chairman's trip to Brazil, which so far sounds marvelous. They drug it up to the 3rd floor, not far from Hawthorne Theater. Holden chose wisely, among neighborhoods. Welcome to 97214.
I got to Wanderers too late to blog anything about the electric bicycle fashion in Portland. It's a lifestyle option some opt for. My electric ATV and electric snowmobile fantasies somewhat dovetail. Anyway, the speaker had departed well before I got there. Not complaining, as I was having a lovely time down the street, near Angelo's.
I'm back on the front lines of Math Reform again today, an old beat of mine by now, count me as one of the grays. Speaking of which, I was riffling through Powell's on Hawthorne and found an old copy of Everything is Under Control by Robert Anton Wilson.
I bought it for under $13 in part for nostalgia value. Under GRUNCH there's my website teleport.com/~pdx4d/grunch.html
I bought it for under $13 in part for nostalgia value. Under GRUNCH there's my website teleport.com/~pdx4d/grunch.html
Thank you RAW. The then owner of Teleport married a member of our Quaker meeting (I was at the wedding) and I later bought the domain grunch.net to continue with that work.
Glenn has just arrived, with Amber, his daughter. We're saying good bye to Steve, who departs for Europe tomorrow. Alex Aris came by after, meeting me at the bus stop, bidding our Chairman adieu before he fell asleep.
Friday, December 02, 2011
AFSC Banter
:: federated states ::
The new maps have come out, of the new AFSC regions, as devised for North American states commonly considered to be part of a single Federation. That means British Columbia is out, and Hawaii is in. Guam and the Marshall Islands, important foci in my AFSC work, do not seem to have much focus. East coasters especially are not known for their attentiveness to Pacific Rim details and affairs. We take all these maps with a grain of salt therefore. Philly, like WDC, has its characteristic thought patterns.
The timidity of Christians in general is a theme I'd like to take up. I think there's a desperate race to the bottom as each tries to "out meek" the other, in a bid to inherit the Earth. According to Apocalyptic renderings, "the meek shall inherit" meaning if you just keep your head down and do a modest amount of good, then you'll have your reward in Heaven, and perhaps even on Earth, God Willing (InshaAllah). Besides, who wants to be bossy? Just a comfortable "go along to get along" attitude is what most people call "liberalism" these days, and many Quakers would count themselves among them.
"Geek" rhymes with "meek". What if we beat 'em to it? "World domination" was our stated goal as well. Could the prophets have heard wrong, misplaced a syllable? Something for theologians to mull over perhaps.
At the other end of the spectrum, you have your "dangerous Quakers", but then a lot of those are far from Christian (Praise Bob), in terms of branding. These brands have not been well represented as there's a tendency to demonize, forgetting we're still talking about Friends of Christ.
Having a "Christ" outside of Christianity may seem a contradiction in terms, but then Friends are comfortably free of most doctrines and breezily point out that Christ himself was not a Christian, as if that settles the matter.
As an NPYM delegate, I'm supposed to help the AFSC keep up to date on what Friends are doing to fill the vacuum, now that Christianity has dropped the ball.
That's not my only responsibility of course. I represent different lineages. NPYM is an umbrella organization with many branches and sub-types represented. Unless you're intimate with the history, you're probably not aware of how many brands of Quaker there already are.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Fire and Ice: Korean War (movie review)
This two-DVD set was among the five documentaries we checked out from Movie Madness, for a small fee, due Saturday. We've already watched them all.
I'd been sparring with Cherlin, an OLPC guy, about North Korea in some thread and decided to back fill with some History Channel. Getting the North Korean point of view might take a Clint Eastwood (Korean version), but in any case I learned a lot about the American historians' point of view, colored as it was by the dizzying power of being a superpower, at least in its own head.
I'm tempted to say that Douglas MacArthur and Joe McCarthy were two of the worst things to ever happen to America, but then I temper my armchair viewpoint with the observation that both were products of their times and it's always within the power of the many to rein in the one, or should be, so blame the weak groupthink maybe?
Clearly those Main St. USAers weren't following too closely, as most are not today.
Who has the time?
Let Madison Avenue handle it (let advertisers pay for news, yeah good idea...).
The narrator relives the realization USAers kept having that they were not in charge of world events (such an alluring idea though). Blaming the OSS for "losing China" was as dumb as thinking Russia ("the invisible hand of Moscow") was pulling all the strings in China.
These simple mental models based on a smattering of loosely connected proper nouns just don't serve as reliable guides (don't constitute real thinking). People give in to ideas not because they're correct, but because they're easy to grasp, compact, even cute (the song of the sirens).
Would that intuition have a stronger hand eh?
By the end of the film (made around 1999), MacArthur has been reduced to a thespian. His final speech before Congress is squirmy / uncomfortable in its self-indulgent cliches, many of which he coined (so not cliches then, I realize).
Joe McCarthy was a terror, a bully, and Americans proved hardly able to corral this mad cow, because so infected themselves with their own "anti-communism". Was there any science in that rhetoric at all? Welcome to Planet of the Apes (1950s onward).
Sorry, I'm judging with hindsight and that always looks bad.
Good thing the American people started tuning out after awhile, rather than continuing to treat the Korean War as a spectator sport put on by generals in theater, like some kind of NFL.
That's just tasteless ugliness.
Watching humans blast their own infrastructure apart out of vengeful catharsis is just to watch the death throes of a pathetic species, another life form gone astray. One hopes to tune in later and find something worth watching.
Well made. Good footage. Tightly scripted. What a nightmare.
Speaking of Clint Eastwood, another documentary I got was a.k.a. Cassius Clay, a biography of Mohammed Ali that is rather deftly made given it's in the thick of things (in the midst of wars). It's a film that comes out boxing, dancing. Ali was smart to have this made at the peak of his career. Smart guy all around, a real dancer.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Esozone 2011
:: esozone 2011 ::
My main intent was to catch @mathpunk Tom Henderson in the act, and that I did. We were first introduced by Keith Loftstrom at a Barcamp (#4 in PDX -- I'd been at the first).
I arrived just as he was taking the podium and stayed on through the Duke of Yuke, which I found relaxing.
Dinner with Alex had been a blast.
Now I'm back at the scene but all has gone quiet.
Steve Holden, the Chairman of a small global dictatorship, a virtual state, and myself, an unassuming Minister, would qualify as MVPs in many a diplomatic circle, but our presence here is unannounced. I did not file a resume or advertise as a speaker, as I had no idea when the trip to Silverton would be over.
We came back by Hwy 214 from Silverton, through Woodburn, connecting with I-5 to Wilsonville, stopping at Fry's. Tara had been interviewing for one of her choices of college (I joined at the end), then I united her with her champion debate team (the one she started as a sophomore).
I fondled the Brother MFC scanner / copier / color laser, going for about $500 -- on the high side compared to the others, but so like what I have now... I tore myself away with Holden's help with a recharger for AA/AAA batteries, some of each, and a palette of Red Bull (sugar free), which Tara drinks also (a Taurus family), stocking stuffers (for a vestigial Xmas).
During our stopover at Blue House, I found Food Not Bombs cooking up a storm for the GA at Colonel Summers. That might be a small one, like Holladay Park was (on my beat).
I know what it's like to show up with enough vegan chili for an army, to find only a few skate boarders with their boy and girl friends (which is fine -- plus sometimes we bring live performers, other entertainment, and blend in).
The temperature may get below water's freezing point tonight. FNB was serving at the same site last night as well, but then we're troopers, were doing the same thing a year ago, and years before, even without an Occupation.
Esozone is on the edge of China Town, or Old Town as we call it. I parked just inside the Chinese Gate so Steve, a citizen of the UK, could see how America is dealing with its problems. Mike D is a skilled worker. I know him from Duke's Landing, one of our hubs (though more of a storage depot in this chapter).
One of the dudes at R2D2 (Right To Dream Too) said "you can take my picture: I'm native American but I not one of those who believes your camera will take my soul". "Only two thirds of it" I bantered, as I snapped the shot. Smile. That was earlier today, while waiting for Tara.
Tom: the general uses everything, the artist makes do with nothing. A sense of self is a temporary matrix holding all together, both convergent / divergent. When narrowly focused, as in a trance, we may lose perspective on what our role may be, in the bigger picture.
Apparently the camera was not recording, so the performance has vanished into our brains and blogs as it were.
The audience was engaged and nurtured I thought.
Silverton was a hoot. I thought of contacting Gus but we were there for such a short time, hanging out at one of the main downtown watering holes (after dropping Tara at Silverton High). We enjoyed two appetizers, a couple drinks, and shoved off, back to Portland (a hub or "base") and Esozone.
Off to a food pod for some occufood next, probably the one at the base of Hawthorne, near Lucky Lab, where I am now, by way of Helium across the street.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Virtual OPDX
click for larger view Per my intra Blue Tent memos, I think a mistake of some other occupants is to think the 1% controls with money.
There's money involved, but control is with spin, and the 1%, according to Bucky, are the ones most attuned to something he called "precession" (at which point we trail off, as apparently nobody knows what he meant by that -- the guy was just nuts right?).
On the Wittgenstein list, I make the point that our Jew of Linz had like superpowers in comparison to your average run of the mill Fortune 500 CEO capitalist, and yet he was an unemployed, houseless vet a lot of the time.
Who are these "giants"? "God only knows" right? Reminds me of our "great pirates" discussion on Internet Radio.
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