Sublime and Ridiculous

Some things are so odd they’re beautiful. This is one of those things: The Top Ten Ugliest Couches In The US

I think Sandra Blake Boles’ couch is the best of all of them, because it goes on forever. Imagine sitting in that corner, with ugliness stretching off in either direction beside you, seemingly forever.

Originally, this was going to be a comment on one of GoinHome’s ‘blogs, but it took on a life of its own, and now here it is on my ‘blog.

One of the deals with the ‘antiglobalization movement’ is that it doesn’t exist as that. I don’t know many people who think we should close our borders and trade only with ourselves, and that there should be no transnational corporations. Folks who believe that are tremendously naive, or not very bright, or both.

No, talking about the ‘antiglobalization movement’ is like talking about the ‘pro-abortion movement.’ Bad taxonomy. Most folks that I know who are concerned about globalization want to take political and cultural power away from corporate concerns, not to keep them from trading and making a profit. The global economy *could* be a good and wonderful thing for everybody, if we design it right. However, as it is, it’s all about centralizing profits and resources at the expense of everything valuable.

Also, I know people who live in the woods, are totally off the grid, compost their own human waste to feed their gardens, and so forth. Those are the people who are walking their talk. I personally don’t have the guts to try something like that.

I also know folks who make an effort to buy local organic produce, frequent stores that sell fairly-traded merchandise, and so forth. That’s good, too, because making those purchases pushes sustainability ever further into economic profitability.

I also know folks who talk a lot about these issues, but who wouldn’t know a compost bin if they fell into it. That’s fine, too, because everyone’s got to learn, and you can’t learn if you don’t talk about it.

One of my favorite shirts is from The Gap. It was assembled in Hong Kong, probably by sweatshop workers. However, I bought it at a thrift store for $3. Does my shirt count as a symbol of capitalist oppression in the third world or a symbol of using what’s around you to make something better? It’s wool. I’m warm.

See, there’s such a thing as unrealistic expectations, and I think that’s the main problem facing the sustainability and environmentalist movements in the US. There are a lot of folks who want everyone to be ashamed of their ways, but really, shame isn’t a very sustainable motivator. You can’t expect a person to give up their culture at the drop of a hat, simply because that culture is brought to them on the backs of slaves. (And make no mistake, that’s what consumption is for us in the US: culture. And that’s where it comes from: slaves.) Lively public debate is good; lively public lynchings of people who wear Nike shoes is not (though that does give me an idea for some street theater…).

I recently read a book called Natural Capitalism which really opened my eyes and blew my mind. It says that the problem isn’t greed, especially since greed is so much better a motivator than shame. The problem is design. We design our industrial and economic systems in a way that rewards waste with profit. We design our governmental systems as ways to concentrate more and more power in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Approaching the world with a better plan instead of a wagging finger wins over more minds, and towards that end, we need better designs for a sustainable lifestyle, economy, and social order.

It’s Not Unpatriotic To Say This Either

Columnists Fired After Criticizing Bush

“Publishers at both dailies would not say if the columns led directly to the firings, but they appear to have played central roles, especially at the Texas City Sun, where Gutting wrote, among other things, that Bush on Sept. 11 “was flying around the country like a scared child seeking refuge in his mother’s bed after having a nightmare.”"

White House Whitewashers

“Sept. 27, 2001 | WASHINGTON — On the same day last week that “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw sat down to interview former President Clinton, executives for the program received unexpected phone calls from senior communications staffers at the White House, expressing disappointment about the decision to spotlight Bush’s predecessor.

While not asking the network to refrain from running the interview, they expressed the feeling that the Sept. 18 interview with Clinton would not be helpful to the current war on terrorism.”

This is an odius trend. The White House is very quick to label its critics as unpatriotic or insensitive to the nation’s needs. Newspapers, it seems, are eager to silence any criticism so as not to find themselves in the administration’s sights.

It’s Not Unpatriotic To Say This

Flying Pork Barrels – The airline bailout enriches stockholders at the expense of taxpayers.  by Steven E. Landsburg

“So, what does the airline bailout accomplish? One thing and one thing only—it enriches the millions of people who own airline stocks at the expense of the millions of others who don’t. And in the process, it undermines the very principles that we uphold and our enemies want to destroy.”

MacXangaTools

So I have a Mac, and one of the things I do is program Macs. And since there’s no real Mac support for xTools on Xanga, I’m writing a thing I’m calling MacXangaTools. It uses the email-a-blog feature of Xanga Premium to do its work.

I’ve gotten it to be adequate for my own personal use, but it’s got quite a few quirks. It’s not ready for distribution to the real world at the moment. So if you want it, give me some inspiration to continue removing the quirks and smoothing the kinks. If you don’t, I’ll be smug and know that I’m the only person in the world who has it.

Comment away.

One of the mistakes I commonly make is to assume that other people know what I know, or that they’re working under similar assumptions. So I’ll back up a little bit, on this whole civil rights versus safety from terrorism thing.

Tuesday (yesterday), a final draft was marked up for the new “Mobilization Against Terrorism Act” (MATA) also known as the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). Here’s the second draft. This is the new legislation that our new Attorney General wants, so that he can tap our phones, read our email, and give the President the ability to surveil anyone he damn well pleases. Essentially, we’ll have a KGB.

Now, it’s nice to have a KGB if you want to ferret out terrorists. But it sucks to have a KGB if your society is founded on the notion of individual liberty and freedom. And it especially sucks to have a KGB if the Attorney General is John Ashcroft.

So when I ask if it’s right to toss our individual liberties aside for something we might call ‘security,’ I’m not talking so much about whether it should be legal to carry box cutters on airplanes. I’m talking about the Attorney General directing Congress to enact laws which absolutely contradict the spirit of the US Constitution.

Congress has been giving the administration everything it wants of late, because they’re terrified of appearing unpatriotic. So, since they’re terrified, they will no doubt end up signing away fundamental rights; how patriotic is that?

Here’s a link to some more opinion and fact: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/20010919_eff_wiretap_pr.html

Use It Or Lose It

Just_Margie says: “Sadly, I think our civil liberties will be the first thing to go during these weird times.”

This inspires in me a question: What, exactly, is different now than before 9/11, in terms of threats to national security? Before 9/11, it was possible to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. The possibility for destruction by terrorism remains as high now as before, even though the government wants to assure us that it isn’t. We weren’t in any *less* danger before 9/11 simply because we were *ignorant* of that danger.

So what has changed? My answer: We’re frustrated and angry and fearful. We’re awake to the kind of suffering the rest of the world has been going through all this time.

Which brings me to my point: How is it that throwing away our civil rights out of fear and frustration amounts to anything good?

Serious, Real, and You Need To Know About It

Remember, once upon a time we had civil rights? Well, check this out:

http://securityfocus.org/news/257

Hackers face life imprisonment under ‘Anti-Terrorism’ Act

Justice Department proposal classifies most computer crimes as acts of terrorism.

By Kevin Poulsen
Sep 23 2001 11:00PM PT

Hackers, virus-writers and web site defacers would face life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under legislation proposed by the Bush Administration that would classify most computer crimes as acts of terrorism.

The Justice Department is urging Congress to quickly approve its Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), a twenty-five page proposal that would expand the government’s legal powers to conduct electronic surveillance, access business records, and detain suspected terrorists.

[...]

As a “Federal terrorism offense,” the five year statute of limitations for hacking would be abolished retroactively — allowing computer crimes committed decades ago to be prosecuted today — and the maximum prison term for a single conviction would be upped to life imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal justice system

Those convicted of providing “advice or assistance” to cyber crooks, or harboring or concealing a computer intruder, would face the same legal repercussions as an intruder. Computer intrusion would also become a predicate offense for the RICO statutes.

DNA samples would be collected from hackers upon conviction, and retroactively from those currently in custody or under federal supervision. The samples would go into the federal database that currently catalogs murderers and kidnappers.

Media Log: 9/24/01

The other day I rented three movies. Over the past few nights I’ve watched ‘em.

The Italian Job

Pure escapism. Early Michael Caine, in a heist/car chase movie featuring three Austin Minis being driven through malls and museums and the sewer system of Milan. The Britain vs. Italy nationalism, the automotive fetishes, and the oversexed hero make this not just a guy movie, but A Guy Movie. Great ambiguous ending.

Quatermass And The Pit

More escapism. ‘Quatermass…’ was originally a British four-hour made-for-TV movie from 1958, shot and broadcast live. My local independent video store is cool enough to have both the original and the Hammer Studios remake, which was released in the US as ‘Five Million Years To Earth.’ I’d rented the TV version a few months back, so I got the Hammer version this time.

An excavation crew for a new subway line find a strange metallic craft in the clay under London. Is it an unexploded V-bomb from WWII, or does it have more mysterious origins? (Yeah, actually, it could. And though other SF has posited alien origins for human ability, none are quite so creepy as this flick.)

This movie is just about the best thing Hammer made.

Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

I’d just like to point out an excellent essay on tompaine.com.

http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/09/21/3.html

The essence of the article is to ask a simple question: How can you win a war against a methodology like terrorism? Answer: You can’t.