Briefly back to the philosophical

Interrupting my in-progress poem Two Souls, I want to make a more-than-mental note of a couple ideas brought to my recent attention. Each hearkens me back to the series of posts I began a few months ago (and unfortunately dropped due to distractions) regarding the necessity for a new 21st Century Ethos.

I'll try to incorporate both into the continuation of that discussion, which I hope to pick up again very soon.

First, there's a very interesting article in June's Wired Magazine, which features a discussion of the New New Economy. The article is called "The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online." Its title is sure to provoke a negative response from Americans who for sixty years have been taught to recoil at the mere mention of the "S" word. Getting beyond that first reaction, it's very much worth reading for its examination of the new forms of social media and how they are creating a greater tendency toward and preference for collaboration and collective action.

The next idea that caught my fancy is the concept of Biocentrism that a friend referenced in a Tweet last week. Below is a passage pulled from Wikipedia that lays out the main points, but I encourage you to read the full article on Biocentrism:

According to Robert Lanza biocentrism has seven principles.

1. What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An "external" reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities but rather tools of the human and animal mind.

2. Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another.

3. The behavior of subatomic particles, indeed all particles and objects, is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves.

4. Without consciousness, "matter" dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state.

5. The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The "universe" is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self.

6. Time does not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe.

7. Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our animal understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus, there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.

Too much information running through our Web?

I take time out from endeavors of the creative kind, to issue a brief rant....

The title of the following article from February's Wired may seem counter-intuitive, but that's exactly why it's such an interesting read:

Clive Thompson on How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge
... After years of celebrating the information revolution, we need to focus on the countervailing force: The disinformation revolution. The ur-example of what [Stanford Historian Robert] Proctor calls an agnotological campaign is the funding of bogus studies by cigarette companies trying to link lung cancer to baldness, viruses—anything but their product. ...

Click the title to read the whole piece; it's worth it. It's also a concept I've been talking up to my friends for several months now: giving people easy access to wrong information is just as harmful as blocking their access to the real kind.

There's been a tremendous proliferation of sites and e-mail blasts dedicated to spreading rumor, innuendo and out-right lies in order to attack the innovative ideas that threaten the profits and outdated worldview of the status quo.

There's more of a need than ever for a healthy public skepticism, and the ability to filter authoritative news sources from manipulative ones. Without that, we may find ourselves retreating into a new Dark Age. Speaking of which, I'm overdue for another of my philosophical posts.

Eye on the future

My friend JD left a very thoughtful comment in response to the post on my recent feeling of disequilibrium. He rightly challenged me on something that I should have never done: portray a personal opinion provoked by individual circumstance as a universal truth.

Contrary to what my statements may have implied, I am not opposed to spirituality. It's a trait that I believe lies at the core of who we are. I do have serious objections to organized religion, which I feel uses our innate inclination toward spirituality to control rather than free us. Most major religions were created under much different social circumstances than we have now. They have, in my opinion, become so intertwined with the status quo that they can't help but oppose any movement toward legitimate social change.

Of course religions aren't the only entities standing in the way of our progress. Corrupt governments, greedy corporations, and unaccountable financial institutions have also proven quite capable of making out very well while keeping us running in place. We're facing a worldwide economic meltdown, while these various mis-leaders play Nero and fiddle on amid the destruction.

I suggested to JD, half-seriously, that it might be interesting to have a dialogue to find common ground between my penchant for chaos theory and his belief that there is an organizing force in the universe. Going even further, I'd actually like to begin that conversation with a series of posts on the question: How do we arrive at an ethos for the 21st century? I'd also love to broaden it out to as many of you as would like to participate.

People around the web have been discussing the Law of Attraction for some time now. It's usually done within the context of attracting a mate or making money. I like the concept, but not the customary application. What if, however, we used the same method (listing out the characteristics we're attracted to) to conjure the future we want for our society?

I've long been an advocate of the idea that we get the future we imagine, and I hope this series of posts will be a small first step toward conjuring the future I want for the world. The ideas I'm going to discuss are in no way original. They are the synthesis of years of reading and conversing, and I'll borrow heavily from sources to which my memory can't manage the proper credit. If you know of a book or website that goes into much more details on these subjects, please do leave a comment.

This is of course very ambitious of me, and I'm not delusional enough to believe that I have a monopoly on the truth. It would help greatly if people fill in the gaps where needed, especially those with expertise in the areas discussed. In an ideal world, I hope there's even occasion for all of us to meet up face-to-face and have a more robust conversation. I know that things will only change with a groundswell of activity at the grass-roots, and the first step toward that could be finding a way for people from around the world to get together and talk about what we need.

Here's a short list of posts that came directly to mind, which I'll try to tackle over the next few weeks:

• Seeking to resolve not exploit contradictions
• A respect-based economy: removing the corrupting influence of the profit-motive
• Divesting ourselves of unnecessary things
  
• Openness, transparency and collaboration
  
• Grass-roots, direct democracy
• A non-anthropocentric universe
• One mind: piecing together the mosaic

These are meant to be wide-ranging philosophical essays, as you can tell. I'm sure that the posts will take the form of me thinking out loud, and I expect to be challenged often when I stray too far from other people's experience.

Before I dive into it, I might just take a stab at the "law of attraction" game on a much more personal level and try to solicit your help in identifying my ideal new occupation. Oh, and there will still be the weekly poems and drawings to keep us amused and distracted.

We'll return to our regular programming after this brief political message ...

I'm just back from my trip to help Barack Obama carry Ohio (which he did, in case you didn't see the news), and I wanted to very briefly share a few thoughts on the experience.

Four of my friends and I traveled from the electorally secure city of Chicago to Cleveland, a toss-up territory on the shores of lake Erie. There we met our good friend Katy, who had been helping to organize the campaign in the area for five weeks. A rough-around-the-edges group of guys dubbed the Chicago Boys and the Chicago Crew, we were welcomed enthusiastically and immediately put to work out in the neighborhoods.

It began with a methodical canvassing of suburban Parma to tip the minds of those who hadn't yet decided and to motivate those who had. It ended, in the last few hours before the polls closed, with a mad dash through the streets of an impoverished area of Cleveland to make sure that everyone there had exercised their right to vote.

There are many stories to tell (and I'll gladly share them with anyone who asks me over the next days, weeks, months and years), but no amount of words can adequately capture the whole experience. Most memorable was that shared moment as the large group of local volunteers and staff nervously watched the returns around TVs and computer screens on Tuesday night. First came the news that Pennsylvania had gone to Obama, and shortly after that the giddy announcement that Ohio was also projected in our column. 

As more states were called with the closing of polls in the Midwest, we all began to realize what we had accomplished. I'll never forget the tear-streaked faces mixed in among the smiles as Obama secured the needed 270 electoral votes. Handshakes, hugs and kisses abounded as a tremendous wave of emotion washed over all of us in that office -- a scene that I'm sure was played out in countless places across the nation. 

There was a tinge of sadness that we Chicago Six couldn't be home for the big celebration in Grant Park, but it was more than compensated for with the sheer joy of watching Obama's acceptance speech at a local bar surrounded by a group of committed community organizers (and yes, after much serious dismissing of that occupation at the Republican Convention, there was some vindication here). 

Although Obama's victory is a very big, progressive step for our country and the world, it is in many ways just the first foot forward on our long and very challenging journey together. Amid the many positive memories we bring back with us from Ohio, there are also the bracing ones of naked racism discovered in some homes whose doors were opened to us. It is a reminder that there are still minds stuck in the rut of antiquated ideas, and we need to reach out and pull them into the future.

That said, this election proves that most Americans are tired of the empty ideological debates and the childish name calling. They're sick of the politics of a past where race and religion were used to divide and distract us from the tasks at hand. Beyond its already well-documented historical significance, Obama's victory is the triumph of a politics of pragmatism. We have much to do, and we can no longer afford to shunt those responsibilities onto future generations.

Individually, we need to do the hard work of organizing the communities where we live. Members of a thriving democracy don't wash their hands of their responsibilities after visiting the voting booth every four years. They dirty those hands digging in to make sure that the people we've elected are keeping the promises made to uphold the constitution and protect the public interests. Let's use this moment to come together as a nation to guarantee that this truly is the fulfilment of that long-sought and hard-fought dream of a society where we're all judged based on the content of our character.

The Conformist: Grasping at shadows

I just watched Bernardo Bertolucci's stunningly beautiful adaptation of Alberto Moravia's Il Conformista (The Conformist), and was struck by the timeliness and timelessness of its tale — one man's misguided compulsion to fit in and his pursuant descent into the abyss of self-denial.

It's a film that is at once absurdly comical and heartbreakingly resonant. With the help of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, Bertolucci visually captures the dissonance of a man trapped between light and shadow. Released in 1970 and set in 1930s Italy, its themes echo concerns ever current in the writings I encounter in my varied journeys through today's mainstream media and blogosphere.

The story's anti-hero, Marcello Clerici (played perfectly by Jean-Louis Trintignant), is motivated by the guilt of an assumed childhood crime and, more importantly, the need to atone for the self-perceived sin of being "other." His self-inflicted punishment is an embrace of the dominant fascist ideology and the trappings of a "normal" life — religion, marriage and family.

Clerici, ever conflicted, curries favor with murderous masters and takes on an assignment to seek out and destroy a "subversive" former teacher. Professor Quadri's escape to exile in free Paris was a contradictory double betrayal to Clerici — offending the patriotism of his fascist overlords and stoking a sense of abandonment from his idealized past.

Using a non-linear narrative, the film begins with the onset of a final chase that will end with Clerici as trapped spectator to a macabre and horrific climactic scene. He can do nothing but stare stiffly and dispassionately from a car window at the tragedy that unfolds before him.

Between that start and its seemingly inevitable conclusion, we skip along with Clerici through the shadowy memories of the events that lead him down this slippery path. Below I've posted the clip where he first meets Quadri again in Paris and recounts his professor's lecture on Plato's Myth of the Cave. It's one of the film's critical moments and a telling metaphor for our own time.

The gift of giving: helping to end hunger

My sister Lisa and her family (Chris, Nick and Matt) passed on a really neat Christmas gift yesterday. They made a donation in my name to Heifer International, which is an organization dedicated to ending world hunger.

Heifer's interesting strategy involves creating a positive feedback loop in which the affects of the seemingly small drop of a single gift ripples through a impoverished village's social circles and beyond.

The money from my honorary donation will be used to give a flock of chicks to a family, whose diet and income can benefit from the eggs laid. In return for the livestock and training, the recipients promise to share their new knowledge and their animal's future offspring with other families in need.

It sounds like a pretty noble effort, and you can find a lot more information about their mission and strategy on the organization's Web site. I'd like to see similar efforts spring up to share the gift of more modern technologies with impoverished communities as well, so that they can not only survive but thrive in an increasingly computer connected world.

Photo Caption: In China, a boy poses with Heifer provided goslings which bring the family eggs for better nutrition and extra income.

Copyright: Heifer International

Desperately mal-adjusting to X-mas

We're a week out from that day of sanctified profits when we pretend to honor a preachy manger-born prophet who railed against rich folk ... have you done your shopping yet?

There may be heated arguments in some circles about the "true meaning" of Christmas, but if you tally the popular references to Christ's anti-materialistic message versus mass media's bully-pulpit pushes to purchase your way into paradise, you'll understand the holiday's real significance to this country.

In a Capitalist society, the need to feed the engines of commerce is always urgent, but with year-end profits hanging in the balance and a house-of-credit-cards economy in need of a holly-jolly jolt, this year's bell ringing is more desperate than ever for a booming X-mas season.

Hence big-ticket consumables are especially shown to be the true proving grounds of love. You can't demonstrate your rock-solid commitment to a partner better than with a big shiny diamond neatly ensconced in velvet box. A relationship can only happily be driven forward when predicated on the acquisition of a luxury automobile.

All you slackers out there reluctant to over-stuff already debt-ridden accounts will just have to settle for dysfunction and counseling, because your happiness is already compromised. It's your patriotic duty to bury yourself neck deep. Don't pay attention to the rising, roiling financial waters starting to tickle your ears.

The Santa siren call to consume is at its most conspicuous these waning days, and if you're like me, you're counting down the minutes until the barrage of advert-chiming messages finally reaches its end. It's become pretty apparent that I'm particularly maladjusted to this year's fetishistic festivities as punk-rock lyrics fill my heathen head rather than the Christmas carols traditionally piped-in.

People often ask me what poets I read for inspiration. Truth be told, I find most of my influences in the lyricism of modern music. This particularly shining example from LA's X perfectly captures the state of my desperate mind as the holiday clock keeps ticking.

It's not the most comforting Christmas message, but you'll get used to it just like those treacly little jingles.

We're Desperate
by X

I play too hard when I ought to go to sleep
They pick on me because I really got the beat
Some people give me the creeps

Every other week I need a new address
Landlord, landlord, landlord cleaning up the mess
Our whole fucking life is a wreck

We're desperate
Get used to it
We're desperate
Get used to it
We're desperate
Get used to it
We're desperate
Get used to it
It's kiss or kill

Coca-cola and a Motorola kitchen
Naugahyde and a tie-dye t-shirt
Last night everything broke

We're desperate
Get used to it
We're desperate
Get used to it
We're desperate
Get used to it
We're desperate
Get used to it
It's kiss or kill ...

Hello kimchi kitty: Science's mad take on lol cats

Each hyped advance in the fields of genetic manipulation and cloning is sure to spark intense ethical debates, both internal and external. Today's story of a Korean team unveiling eerie, kimchi hued cats will receive an equally polarized public airing (see Korean scientists produce kimchi-colored kitties from Reuters).

The media's argument is usually framed as a confrontation between science's relentless forward march and religion's unbending moral obstructionism. Unfortunately, in this simplistically inclined world where everything is reduced to black-white, either-or categories, more nuanced interpretations are doomed to abide in a limbo of inconsequence.

I'm someone who falls into that conflicted, middle gray space. I believe that, when properly wielded, the cutting edge of modern technology can slice through the most stubborn obstacles to progress. In order to accomplish that, however, there needs to be a coherent, altruistic, and compassionate social vision driving the decisions of what research avenues we travel.

Right now, most science is conducted in the service of a corporate master whose sole guiding principle is the flowing of greater profit into narrower channels. All technical knowledge uncovered is kept as a tightly guarded secret — a new tool to be locked away in a strong box and only pulled out for very limited uses. Never mind that it was most likely forged from some form of publicly funded research.

In such an environment, we see the misapplication of science. Choices are made to leverage discoveries into market opportunities rather than social improvements. We get designer pets targeted at niche buyers with disposable incomes, rather than indispensable genetic therapies for patients with physical illness and financial limitations. When medical benefits are discovered, they'll most likely be rationed and sold only to monied elites.

Those of us who challenge the dominance of a "money makes the world go around" ethos are usually condemned as wild-eyed dreamers. We're classified as hopeless romantics to our faces and misinformed, crazy lefties behind our backs. Echoing the sentiments of David Bowie below, I'd rather be counted among the mad few than the sane multitude when faced with such absolutes.

Note: Image above of the cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland drawn by John Tenniel (1820-1914) in the 1866 edition.

All The Madmen
by David Bowie

Day after day
They send my friends away
To mansions cold and grey
To the far side of town
Where the thin men stalk the streets
While the sane stay underground

Day after day
They tell me I can go
They tell me I can blow
To the far side of town
Where it's pointless to be high
Cause it's such a long way down

So I tell them that
I can fly, I will scream, I will break my arm
I will do me harm
Here I stand, foot in hand, talking to my wall
I'm not quite right at all ... am I?

Don't set me free, I'm as heavy as can be
Just my librium and me
And my e.s.t. makes three

Cause I'd rather stay here
With all the madmen
Than perish with the sadmen roaming free
And I'd rather play here
With all the madmen
For I'm quite content they're all as sane as me

(Where can the horizon lie
When a nation hides
Its organic minds
In a cellar...dark and grim
They must be very dim)

Day after day
They take some brain away
Then turn my face around
To the far side of town
And tell me that it's real
Then ask me how I feel

Here I stand, foot in hand, talking to my wall
I'm not quite right at all
Don't set me free, I'm as helpless as can be
My libido's split on me
Gimme some good ole lobotomy

Cause I'd rather stay here
With all the madmen
Than perish with the sadmen roaming free
And I'd rather play here
With all the madmen
For I'm quite content
They're all as sane as me ...

Z: Documenting a political assassination

I've just discovered a DVD that upon first viewing entered my pantheon of favorite flicks. Filmed almost 40 years ago now, Costa Gavras's award-winning thriller Z is essential viewing, with social insights that still resonate. It retells in fictionalized form the story of the 1963 assassination of Greek progressive politician Gregoris Lambrakis.

Tension filled with a camera constantly in motion to capture the sense of an impending explosion, it's a movie fueled by righteous indignation. There are moments of surprising humor as well, and the faux warning at the end of the opening credits gives us a clue to the director's irreverent attitude:

"Any similarity to real life events, persons dead or living, isn't by chance. It's intended."

Z is an exceptional piece of filmmaking that presents its narrative with compelling energy and striking images. In the course of recreating the real life murder, cover-up and investigation, the director intercuts flashbacks that give added insight into the main characters' backstories. The performances are uniformly amazing by actors portraying persons both sympathetic and sinister.

Released in 1969, at a time when the US was experiencing its own bit of military inspired social turbulence, Z went on to become one of the top grossing foreign films in American history. I can well imagine that the political sensibility of its tragic hero, a pacifist senator, hit home with the youth of that period (and still will with our own). His deceptively simple beliefs are amplified through the town square from loud speakers as the players in the murder drama to follow take their places on that stage:

A cannon is fired, and a teacher's monthly salary goes up in smoke. ... Around the world too many soldiers are ready to fire on anything moving toward progress. ... Even imagination is suspect yet it's needed to solve world problems. ... We serve the people and the people need the truth. The truth is the start of powerful, united action.

Why would such sentiments provoke a violent response? Because they represent ideas that threatened the status quo. Greece was fumbling its way toward a modern democracy and the ongoing political struggle challenged the powers that were. More interested in protecting their privilege than safeguarding rights or promoting social progress, the military cracked down on those advocating for such change.

Their tactics may sound eerily similar to those of present day regimes ... local, national and global. Espousing the need to rally behind god and country, they denounced diverse ideologies as bankrupt and politicians as universally corrupt. Claiming a moral superiority informed by their faith, they rejected science and intellectualism. Believing nationalism is the highest good, they renounced all things foreign.

Z is a very artful attempt to shed light on what took place in Greece in 1963. The perpetrators of that crime tried to spin events to exonerate themselves and perpetuate their world view. They recognized the importance of controlling the social narrative, and governments to this day try to manipulate media toward that end. Artists will always play a unique role in countering that misinformation, and that's precisely what this film does.

Unfortunately, even when their lies become transparent, those in power often wield enough judicial levers to shield themselves from punishment. In keeping with that reality, this story doesn't have a very surprising ending. Thanks to Costa Gavras, however, the assassins couldn't escape the damning judgement of public opinion so easily.

Appreciating the caustic wit of Randy Newman

In the first of two very different November 28th birthday tributes, I offer a tip of the hat to singer, songwriter, and film score composer Randy Newman. I've always appreciated the biting sarcasm of Mr. Newman's lyrics, and his 1972 album "Sail Away" ranks among my all-time favorites.

I've referenced two songs from the record in previous posts (see Praying for rain and other idol pursuits and Let's drop the big one now), and below I present a video clip of his live performance of the title track. It's a typically twisted narrative take on a glossed over view of the legacy of American slavery.

Having spent his formative years in the two LA's (Los Angeles and Louisiana), Mr. Newman definitely has a unique perspective on our national identity. It's a compelling contradiction of love-hate that openly embraces small town generosity while pushing away the bigotry and closed mindedness.

Disowning ideas: Toward a remix logic

Is it possible to own an idea? Do creative thoughts spring fully formed from nothing, like a mature, wise, and armed Athena emerging from the head of Zeus? Do artists and writers ever work in isolation, or are they always part of an ongoing conversation across centuries and borders?

These are the questions I've been pondering after reading two recent articles about the legal quandaries surrounding art in a digital age. Due to its economic foundation, ours is a society that promotes the mythology of super individuals whose genius towers over the twin streams of time and culture. Ideas are made proprietary — aloof intellectual properties that disown the legacies and contributions of the antecedents and contemporaries who nurtured them into existence.

As technology advances, skills and knowledge are becoming more widely distributed. It's easier than ever to borrow, remix and reshape and that's creating a change in the collective acceptance of shared culture. Rather than denying a creative lineage, the new millennial artists openly acknowledge their concurrent sources of inspiration. Here in the U.S., mash-ups are most common in the world of music, but in Japan the pop taste is flavored Manga.

In November's Wired, there's a very interesting piece describing the extra-legal détente that exists between the big Manga publishing houses and the underground dojinshi fan culture that takes their comic book franchises in new, unexplored directions (see Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex). Observing an "unspoken agreement" they call anmoku no ryokai, the publishers don't crack the copyright whip on the amateurs as long as the fan tributes maintain small runs, and don't cross the line into plagiarism or go too far in their re-imaginings.

As the article's author astutely observes, it's a concession both parties are willing to make rather than entangle themselves in an antiquated legal system designed for a "read only" rather than a "read/write" culture. The Manga franchises benefit from the extra attention the dojinshi bring to the homaged stories, and the underground is used as a test market and proving area for the next generation of Manga writers.

This week's edition of the Chicago Reader documents two domestic parties less reluctant to take the plunge into that murky interface between art and law. Israeli artist Yaacov Agam is suing the owners of a downtown skyscraper to keep them from re-displaying his sculpture Communication X9, which they repainted (see Restored or Wrecked?). Agam contends that the company hired to return the stainless-steel piece to its original vibrancy botched the attempt.

The restorers faced no small task — there were 1,410 different colors to reproduce — but I'm not interested in judging the quality of their work. What I consider newsworthy is the distinction being made between ownership of the individual, physical piece and the artist's right to control the integrity of the sculpture's original image. Agam argues that because of the alleged bad paint job, the object is now no better than a cheap reproduction.

What Agam defends is an abstraction of the piece as it was first conceived. Despite my general inclination to side with an artist fighting for a vision, it strikes me as naive to expect anything we release to the world to survive its journey unchanged. If the colors of the sculpture had degraded to the point that they needed to be restored, how was the sculpture any more authentic in its previous shabby state?

Certainly what Agam objects to isn't the cultural remixing of his ideas, but a court's too rigid interpretation of his "property" rights might discourage just such a thing. Considering the legal system's propensity to look backward rather than ahead when pronouncing its judgments, the Manga model of court avoidance may be the best creative option right now.

A good way to scratch that holiday shopping itch

As you may have heard or seen from the flood of media coverage, today is Black Friday — the traditional kick-off to the Holiday season's shopping frenzy, not the 1869 stock market crash. The retailer fueled drumbeat to instill mass buying hysteria should be particularly loud this year with the various negative national economic indicators putting Wall Street (and foreign investors) in a Grinchy mood.

Strong anti-consumerist that I am, I usually do my best to avoid contributing in any way to the commercialization that has hijacked this festive time of year. I stay far away from the mobbed shops and malls, and I keep the TV set unlit to stave off the barrage of jingly ads and the inevitable local news coverage of gift-rage stoked stampedes.

Of course, retreating into isolation with my fingers placed firmly in ears doesn't do much to reverse these social trends. My unspent dollar is a token gesture in the face of the onslaught of cash thrown at the objects of extravagant waste we've made the season's most enduring legacy. So, this year I'm flowing with the zeitgeist's wave and taking a different tack.

Rather than fighting the surging urge to spend, I offer up a better way to drop those dollars for holiday gift giving. It's an opportunity to double the impact of your present. Not only can you give a child you love a really neat laptop, but you can help contribute to improving the lives of the less fortunate around the world.

It's a program called Give One. Get One. and for $399 you can purchase the new XO Linux-based laptop for the kid of your choice and have another one donated to a child in a developing nation. The networked, wireless laptop has an innovative, durable design plus loads of cool applications, all built on an open-source foundation to encourage users to dig into the inner workings.

You have until the end of the year to take advantage of this unique offer from the One Laptop Per Child Foundation. The organization has a very interesting mission: "To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves." Giving kids in less advantaged countries the tools to learn, connect and contribute to a shared future is a good way to promote the true spirit of the holidays.

Thanksgiving: a personal accounting

I have to confess that by nature I'm not very good at giving thanks. I tend to focus on the things personal and social that need to be corrected or improved rather than those that have fallen into a well-functioning complacency. Today is a day to overcome my disinclinations and count the many blessings I've received.

First and foremost I am grateful for the caring and supportive nest of family and friends that I've been lucky enough to settle into. Thanks to this little enterprise of blogging that circle keeps expanding, and although the acquaintances may be virtual and physically distant they are very real in the encouragement and hope they've provided.

I count myself privileged for the opportunities I've had. Thanks to the happy circumstance of the place of my birth, I've enjoyed the freedom to pursue educational and cultural resources that most in the world don't have access to. It's also much easier to concentrate on intellectual and spiritual growth when our physical well-being is not threatened by the lurking menace of poverty and disease.

It may not always seem that way, but I'm also thankful for these crazy turbulent times into which I've been tossed. We're a society and world in flux, and that appeals to the writer in me. Our suspenseful story is arcing toward a climactic resolution, and the outcome is very much still in doubt. I hope we can author a new world where the privileges and advantages that I've enjoyed are spread out much more widely.

Never Follow: Losing faith in leaders

There's been a strange negativity in the air lately, at least in the bubble of activity that surrounds me. Maybe it's following me around, infecting those around me like a spreading virus, contaminating each of us with a tense vibe, injecting hostility in the meekest among us. I'm overtaken with the compulsion to challenge every opinion, every thought, every single word thrust at me.

It could be the holiday season, which is already in full swing propagandizing the need for continual conspicuous consumption. It could be the impending election year, which is being forced upon us before the calendar even flips to 2008. Whatever the cause, I have an overwhelming urge to unleash a Edvard Munch-like scream (as depicted in the artist's painting on the left) .

I won't deny the fact that I've always felt an outsider in this society. As a child I imagined myself from another world, dropped on this Earth to observe the strange behavior of the locals before being airlifted out to report back my findings. The fact that the values and ideals held up to me as models for personal behavior never jived with the operating principles of the government and businesses that control our lives certainly contributed to that alienation.

I've been searching my whole life for someone to trust. I want to give myself to a cause or an organization that will put me to work for real change, but I inevitably find myself forced to choose between corruption and marginalization. This system of ours has an indefatigable capacity to absorb and transform all resistance to serve its own purposes.

I'm stupid and stubborn enough to keep butting my head up against society's well fortified walls. One day, the collective impacts may weaken them enough to cause it all to come tumbling down on me. Until then, I'll remain an isolated voice shouting into the gale-force winds, cupping my ears to catch the faintest peep of a response, hoping to find those equally lost in the maelstrom who also refuse to go along just to get along.

Never Follow
by Naked Raygun

Follow me
I'll take you there
You needn't think
You needn't care
On the way
We'll find some others
Baptize with lies
And make them brothers

No I will never follow
I will never follow
Your truth diseased and hollow
No I will never follow

Forget your thoughts
Forget your will
Tell that voice inside
To just keep still
If it gets to be too much
Just turn your eyes away
The free individual
Is from a bygone day

No I will never follow
I will never follow
Your truth diseased and hollow
No I will never follow
I'll be your destroyer
Your world's great annoyer
I'll be your destroyer
No worn propaganda for me

Follow me
I'll take you there
You needn't think
You needn't care
We all go gentle
Into that good night
There'll be no more raging
Against the dying of the light

No I will never follow
I will never follow
Your truth diseased and hollow
No I will never follow
I'll be your destroyer
Your world's great annoyer
I'll be your destroyer
No guns, knives nor lawyers
No I will never follow
You can't take my will away
My dreams will never say die

Praying for rain and other idol pursuits

In a brilliant demonstration of true political leadership, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue cast aside all pretense at worldly solutions to the state's water crisis and threw himself down before God in hopes of divine intervention (see Georgia governor leads prayer for rain from the Los Angeles Times for the details of his plea). Adding to the irony of the strange event is the fact that the rain-seeking pol's first name is Sonny.

I'm sure his folks named him for either a happy disposition or childlike nature, not his ability to shed light. The causes of Georgia's drought are no doubt complex, and the desperate situation may incline the locals toward miracle solutions, but our elected officials should be addressing policy changes not supernatural entities. Georgia's, and the rest of America's, shameful misuse of resources might well deserve penance and the invocation of God's mercy, but the first step to forgiveness is always amended behavior.

For far too long we Americans have engaged in the profligate burning of fossil fuels; not caring about the repercussions of our selfish actions. The reckless disregard of our land, air and water is finally catching up to us. Decades of blackening the sky with our filth is disrupting weather patterns so that some get flooding while others get drought.

Casting economic development in the image of our true savior, we've built sprawling suburbs that replace filtering wetlands with impervious blacktop. As monuments to our vanity, preferring the semblance of a neatly ordered world, we've topped the earth with insatiably thirsty, well-manicured lawns. Bowing down before their new gilded idols, our politicians have sacrificed we constituents to the ravenous appetites of corporations and granted them as tribute the right to dump waste and toxins into our fresh water supplies.

Georgia is a good demonstration of the false pride of our old ways. What good is it to have big houses, fancy cars and booming digital TVs if we don't have fresh water to drink, or clean air to breathe. Governor Perdue may think he can fool us with a deathbed conversion to conservation, but we'll need to see more action and less self-flagellation.

I've always found it interesting that some people view prayer as a way to curry favor with God. There's a wonderful naiveté in the bargaining that takes place. These supplicants usually say they believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God, yet they think they can mouth a few flowery words and make an idle promise or two to trick their supreme being into granting a reprieve.

I'm not a religious man, but I do believe in a spiritual universe. The best way to praise the divine is through inspired, compassionate action not empty words. The first step is to rededicate ourselves to respect the creation that we've abused for so long. Then we can stop perpetuating our own selfish comforts at the cost of the world's suffering.

It reminds me of an old Randy Newman song, and although I don't completely agree with the singer's biting attack on the religiously minded, there's much truth in his criticism of those foolishly looking for change to come from above rather than from within.

God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)
by Randy Newman

Cain slew Abel, Seth knew not why
For if the children of Israel were to multiply
Why must any of the children die?
So he asked the Lord
And the Lord said:

Man means nothing he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest Yucca tree
He chases round this desert
Cause he thinks that's where I'll be
That's why I love mankind

I recoil in horror from the foulness of thee
From the squalor, and the filth, and the misery
How we laugh up here in heaven at the prayers you offer me
That's why I love mankind

The Christians and the Jews were having a jamboree
The Buddhists and the Hindus joined on satellite TV
They picked their four greatest priests
And they began to speak
They said "Lord a plague is on the world
Lord no man is free
The temples that we built to you
Have tumbled into the sea
Lord, if you won't take care of us
Won't you please please let us be?"
And the Lord said
And the Lord said

I burn down your cities — how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That's why I love mankind
You really need me
That's why I love mankind

Image: Praying Hands (Betende Hände) by Albrecht Dürer.

Developing a Singularity Complex

The desire to make connections is both a weakness and a strength of human intelligence. Unregulated, we can start to set up full philosophical systems of cause and effect that are based on coincidental occurrences; but reined in, our sometimes bold propensity for open-eyed dreaming can also lead to unexpected insights and breakthroughs toward new technologies.

It takes time and continued experimentation to separate superstition from science, and even then residual bits of either side of the duality may persist yin-yang like: enough science to lend a religion the plausibility to catch fire in the popular imagination, or enough superstition to propel theories down varied and unexpected paths.

My mind is probably more prone to false connections than most, but I'm a writer rather than a scientist, and art obeys a different, although sometimes intertwined, imperative. This is all a round-about preface to a discussion of the concept of an approaching technological singularity.

If you've seen science-fiction films such as The Terminator or The Matrix, or read books such as Neuromancer by William Gibson, you'll be familiar with the general idea. At the point that science develops an artificial intelligence that surpasses the capabilities of our own, the AI will be able to devise its own continually improving, thinking machines and we humans will become inconsequential to its further evolution.

Risking the label of blasphemer, in a sense it will be as if humanity gave birth to god; the creation of an entity that infinitely surpasses the limits of our own creative imagination. It's a literally awesome prospect, and one that re-awakens the mythical dread of our overstepping a dangerous threshold.

What will happen after this moment of planned human obsolescence is less clear. If you buy into the generally dystopic view of some futurists, then the birthed ultraintelligent machines may deem humanity a glorified virus that needs to be eradicated in order to safeguard progress. Other more optimistic soothsayers predict a rapid explosion of breakthroughs and a Utopian world where our most intractable problems are solved.

If we continue to build intelligent machines purposed for hate and destruction, the odds will favor the doomed side of that scenario. The military has been running advertisements lately that boast about its cutting-edge drones. The propaganda is spotted in TV sports breaks and tacked on to the beginning of films (I was forced to witness a Grindhouse style retro ad for the Navy's drones before American Gangster last night).

The military may try to convince us the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology has a noble side of safeguarding troops, but the true intentions to spy and kill are transparently clear. As we continue to program machines with a core purpose to destroy human life, it's hard to imagine that Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics will protect us from harm if the singularity does occur.

All inventions bear the stamped image of their creators. Where technology takes us will depend on the motivations behind its devising. I'd feel much more confident about our future if we could focus more on inventing systems meant to eradicate pollution, poverty, hunger and disease ... not each other.

Author Vernor Vinge wrote the essay "The Coming Technological Singularity" in 1993 and predicted the end of the human era some time between the years 2005 and 2030. Coincidentally the Dec. 21, 2012 end date of the Mayan Calendar falls neatly within that year range, but that may just be one more false connection. I hope by then we can figure out how to program machines capable of love and sympathy.

One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21
by The Flaming Lips

Unit three thousand twenty one is warming makes a humming sound —
when its circuits duplicate emotions —
and a sense of coldness detaches as it tries to comfort your sadness —
one more robot learns to be something more than a machine —
when it tries the way it does —
makes it seem like it can love —
'cause it's hard to say what's real —
when you know the way you feel —
is it wrong to think it's love when it tries the way it does ...
feeling a synthetic kind of love dreaming a sympathetic wish —
as the lights blink faster and brighter —
one more robot learns to be something more than a machine —
when it tries the way it does —
makes it seem like it can love —
'cause it's hard to say what's real —
when you know the way you feel —
is it wrong to think it's love when it tries the way it does

Note: Image is an artist's concept of the cryobot and hydrobot from NASA.

Afraid to over-react: Is the Sky Falling in?

Honestly, it's not in my nature to over-react. I tend to be cautious in most things. I want everything to work out for the best. I try to be patient and let events resolve themselves before jumping to conclusions, but these are trying times.

It's hard not to feel a bit panicked by the clouds that are gathering on the country's horizons (see Fed Chief Warns of Worse Times in the Economy from the New York Times). The dollar is plummeting as foreign investors seek the safe harbor of more stable currencies. The housing market's overblown bubble is in full burst, and mortgage lenders have a hand out to the Federal government in hopes of a bailout of their improperly hedged bets.

Over-extended homeowners have little expectation of any help from Uncle Sam. The threat of inflation is mounting as the daily cost of basic services continues to climb, and the oil based economy feels the ripples of record breaking petroleum prices. State and local budgets are in perpetual crisis as federal monies are drained by an all-consuming war.

Most Americans don't offer more than a glimpse at the business page, but that's where all of the action is these days as the Federal Reserve Bank pours millions into the market to try to soothe the overheated minds of skittish money changers. The hard-pressed Chairman is doing everything he can to prop up an economy teetering on a foundation of self-deception.

We can't look for leadership from Washington, as our politicians have outfitted themselves in the rosy habit of Pollyanna; preferring to ignore the looming dark omens rather than suffer the fate of Cassandra (the image above is from a painting of the ignored Trojan seer by Evelyn De Morgan).

As we're abandoned by the top-down leaders who cast off their social responsibilities in favor of a threadbare government nakedly in service to their corporate masters, we'll need to build a new foundation from below. Before we can do that, we'll have to overcome the conceptual gaps keeping us from connecting with each other. It's time to trade in our aloofness and cynicism for compassion and hope.

Where I End and You Begin
(The Sky is Falling in.)
by Radiohead

There's a gap in between
There's a gap where we meet
Where I end & you begin
And I'm sorry for us
The dinosaurs roam the earth
The sky turns green
Where I end & you begin
I am up in the clouds
I am up in the clouds
And I can't
& I can't come down
I can watch but
Not take part
Where I end & where you start
Where you you left me alone
You left me alone.
X will mark the place
Like a parting of the waves
Like a house falling into the
sea

I will eat you all alive

And there'll be no more lies

Umberto D: Toward a social imagination

Continuing to test the accuracy of the recommendation algorithms over at NetFlix, I watched Italian film great Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D. It's a classic example of the director's Neorealist style, with its reliance on first time actors (Professor Carlo Battisti in the title role and 15-year-old Maria-Pia Casilio as his maid) and its dedication to portraying a gritty truth.

The story, on its most basic level, follows the pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari as he tries to figure out a way to pay his back rent and avoid the threat of eviction posed by his callous landlady. It's an indictment of that society's treatment of its elderly, a problem we're still grappling with as Western demographics take on darker shades of gray, but there's also a more universal criticism of an individualist outlook.

The director described his own film, which he dedicated to the memory of his father, as portraying the breakdown of communication that was occurring in Post-WWII Italy. It starts out in promising fashion with Umberto chanting for an increased pension amid a throng of fellow retirees marching on government offices. The protest devolves into a chaotic retreat when Italian soldiers run off the pensioners because they lack a permit, and Umberto is forced to find his own way, accompanied only by his always faithful dog Flike (who will steal the hearts of all the animal lovers out there).

From there we follow Umberto as he vainly tries to raise the money to stay in his home. Too proud to beg, the old man approaches former friends and co-workers seeking their understanding and a helping hand, but never charity. Each encounter ends in a failure to connect, as the men rush off to their private lives.

Maria, the maid, offers him what help she can, but, pregnant and unmarried, her own position in the house is tenuous. Forced to sell what little he has and even consider the imponderable possibility of giving away Flike, Umberto sinks into a deeper despair. Without spoiling the ending, I can say that De Sica doesn't offer us the type of tidy resolution we find in most Hollywood fare.

It's a very moving depiction of one man's battle against the pervasive selfishness that becomes contagion in a difficult economy; especially within a society that promotes individualistic pursuits over a sense of community even in the best of times. Umberto D, the movie and the pensioner, confronts a poverty of good will as well as that of material want. De Sica holds up a stark mirror to his time (and ours), and the harsh reflection met with some resistance among his contemporary Italians.

The moral and spiritual malaise that De Sica's film depicts arises in large part from the lack of a social imagination. The egocentric inclination of modern society often inhibits our ability to find common cause with the plight of our neighbors. Overly concerned with our own well-being, tricked into believing that prosperity is perpetual, we lack the empathy required to imagine ourselves in the same place as those experiencing more difficult circumstances.

As the cycles of life and the economy play out, we'll need to cultivate that capacity or we'll find ourselves wishing we'd paid closer attention to that most golden of rules: treat others with the same respect and generosity that you would expect from them.

L'Etranger: Avoiding an absurdist fate

Anticipating the anniversary of Albert Camus' birth on November 7th, I decided to re-visit his short novel L'Étranger (The Stranger) and its disturbing portrait of modern alienation.

Written during one of the bleakest moments in Western history, when Europe seemed on the brink of falling under the brutal rule of Fascism, Camus' work is in form a sparsely worded crime story, but with content informed by a deeply dark philosophical argument.

Considered a quintessentially "absurdist" story, those who have read it will always remember its first lines, which speak to the narrator's apparent indifference:

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou puet-etre hier, je ne sai pas.
(Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know)

The unsympathetic voice is that of Monsieur Meursault, a man whose first name we never learn, and a character very difficult to understand. The events that flow forward from this pivotal moment of the announcement of his mother's death seem in some sense predestined, but that's an easy conceptual trap to fall into when listening to this retelling by a doomed man mentally retracing his steps.

Within the foggy recollections of his condemned mind, often more aware of the heat and monotony of the fateful moments that propel him toward his end, Meursault can't clearly discern his own motives and emotions. The people around him wait for him to react in a certain way, to feel and believe the things that imbue their world with order and meaning, but in his dedication to a kind of pure metaphysical honesty, he remains always outside those expectations.

Rejecting religion and social custom, he strikes more fear in the hearts of those trying him than the father-killer whose case is being prosecuted at the same time. The human mind can easily grapple with the concepts of good and evil, love and hate, guilt and redemption; but we all recoil from a moment's glance into the depths of utter ambiguity. Society prefers stereotypical villains with clear-cut or ill-willed agendas, rather than the more monstrous prospect of actors who force us to peer with them into the moral abyss of an uncaring universe.

Meursault finds significance in his memory of a Nurse's comments to him during the long and oppressive funeral march:

Elle m'a dit: "Si on va doucement, on risque une insolation. Mais si on va trop vite, on est en transpiration et dans l'église on attrape un chaud et froid." Elle avait raison. Il n'y avait pas d'issue.
(She said, "If you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church." She was right. There was no way out.)

It is that sense of hopelessness that pervades Meursault's story, and it makes Camus' novella a very uncomfortable read. In dark times, it's easy to fall victim to an alienating sense of powerlessness. I think it's Meursault's passivity throughout that condemns him, however, and not the fickle and chaotic workings of a meaningless world. The truly noble course to take is the one in which we pursue what is good and just, even without guarantee or solid expectation of success.

Sleepwalking our way through life, making only those choices that fall to us as we bounce from moment to moment side-stepping the obstacles that fate tosses in our path, will inevitably lead us to sadness. We can avoid succumbing to that black trap of meaninglessness by choosing instead to willfully commit ourselves to acts of love and compassion.

Meursault sees only a universal absurdity as he tries to accept the randomly cruel happenstance that led him to tragedy. I choose to believe that our world takes on the shape and meaning we creatively imagine for it. Hope and meaning are intertwined, and Meursault's life has lost both by the end of this tale. I don't know if that was Camus' perspective, but it's what I'll take away from the experience of reading his words.

Note: The English text used here is from the Matthew Ward translation of the book.

King of Masks: Old rules, new roles

Tonight I watched a wonderfully moving 1996 Chinese film called Bian Lian (King of Masks), from which my always interpretive mind was able to make some interesting social connections and distill a small dose of wisdom. I knew very little about the movie before popping the DVD into my player, as I added it to my queue based on a NetFlix generated recommendation, so I was very pleasantly surprised by it (chalk one up to the powers of collaborative filtering).

It's a visually striking and mentally provocative look at gender roles and the limits society places on some members' contributions, to its own detriment. Tradition has its place, but times inevitably arise when we have to break free of a blind commitment to old ways or get pulled down under their weight.

The performances are uniformly good, especially that of the young female lead (not to mention the well-trained monkey sidekick). My very cursory plot summary follows, so if you'd like to embark on the viewing experience with a similarly clean-slated perspective, come back to read the rest of this post later.

The deceptively simple story centers on an aging Wang who very proudly proclaims himself the "King of Masks" as he travels the streets of China performing his dying art of Sichuan — a combination of dance and magic that features a quick changing of faces via sleight of hand. The rigid social rules of his time demand that Wang only pass his craft down to a male heir, but because he lost his only son to illness at age 10 his legacy is endangered. Denied of the possibility for a blood relation, at his wits end, Wang seeks to buy a boy on the black market.

Even that proves a challenge in a society where males are prized and females discarded, but in a bit of seeming serendipity he chances upon an 8 year old child he thinks may be his apprentice. At first, Wang is very affectionate and encouraging to this heir apparent he tenderly calls Gou Wa (roughly translated to "Doggie"). When through circumstance he discovers that Gou Wa is really a little girl, forced to mask her own identity to avoid rejection, the story turns darker and Wang colder.

In his travels Wang befriends a famous actor named Liang who sings the female parts in operas, adding to the gender bending and role playing themes of the film. Liang is best known for his portrayal of a self-sacrificing princess, who upon death becomes the redemptive Buddhist figure of Bodhisattva. Wang takes Gou Wa to see Liang's performance in that role, and its a foreshadowing of her own part to play in Wang's life.

Through her extreme filial dedication and selflessness, Gou Wa overcomes Wang's chauvinism and proves herself a worthy heir to his art. The King of Masks is forced by misfortune to recognize that the only way he can salvage his legacy is by renouncing the outdated and senseless obligations of tradition, and embracing a new possibility informed by his love of Gou Wa: the Queen of Masks.

It may not seem that we have much to learn from a story set in the tradition-bound and superstition-clouded world of 1930s China, but The King of Masks is an elegant metaphor for the stark choice we too face. We have our own customs and attitudes that are shaped more by a slavish obedience to the past than the forward-thinking compassion necessary to preserve our highest ideals. We can continue to blindly observe self-defeating practices that risk a lost legacy, or we can break free of those limiting rules and redefine our social roles to encourage the greatest contributions from all of us.