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- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:43:42 PM -

Another change with far-reaching consequences will be constant, ubiquitous recording. At 56 kbps (decent for voice recordings), the sounds of a day of human life can be entirely recorded in 600 MB — that's about one CD (yes, we're ignoring silence and sleep). One year at 128 kbps would require merely 480 GB of storage, so a 100-year lifespan would fill 46 TB. Ten years from today, a 50 terabyte disk will be common, cost less than $200, and fit in an iPod. We'll record and have access to absolutely all our conversations (and we'll need the equivalent of personal Googles to index it and search through it). Future generations will also have access to it. Imagine being able to listen to all of Aristotle's lectures, live. Or witnessing the conversations surrounding the Declaration of Independence. Or hearing the varying accents of several generations of your ancestors, as well as recognizing peculiar expressions running in the family.

On a more prosaic level, lying will be somewhat more complicated. Honesty and virtue will soar. Lifetime video/holographic recording would follow soon enough. People will be more self-aware. Vice and crime will be in trouble. [Jinn of Quality and Risk]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 1:59:34 PM -

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Dr. Menlo, a contributor to Exquisite Corpse, and a blogger, now offers music for the revolution. 

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:10:02 AM -

I heard yesterday a rumor that we'd be at Code Red by Friday. We're merely Code Orange right now. The likelihood we'll feel terror is high. Paranoia is policy now. Stuff that would have been front page news three years ago is passing quietly by.

We're in diplomatic meltdown, and I believe this war we're already waging will have unintended consequences all over the place, most of them bad. It can get like that when you're hellbent on performing a lesser evil for a greater good.

I'll have more to say about the mess soon enough. Meanwhile, I'll point to the thoughts of Michael Ventura, Eric Olsen, James Fallows, Hal Crowther, Mitch Ratcliffe and others as the day goes on.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 3:04:09 PM -

Creating a Culture of Ideas. Ming the Mechanic points to Creating a Culture of Ideas: "Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. [...] One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture (national, institutional, generational, or other), the less likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. [...] Our biggest challenge in stimulating a creative culture is finding ways to encourage multiple points of views. Many engineering deadlocks have been broken by people who are not engineers at all. This is simply because perspective is more important than IQ." [Universal Rule]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:39:03 AM -

Whose behind the attack on liberal professors? Fine article by David Johnson, a fellow of Commonweal. Seems that the same names keep coming up. Johnson, if he keeps snooping, could make a real nuisance of himself.

The small closely knit group of billionaire right wing funders that David and Commonweal have brought to light is itself only one piece of the picture. The "4 Sisters" are highly organized, well funded, coordinated, and effective. Below the radar screen, though, are many thousands of small foundations and donor advised funds established by right wing "small town big shots" partly at the behest of financial advisors who "sell" these tools because they create pools of assets to be managed. That wing of the party is equally virulent, but less focused, strategic and effective. They are, I think, what Bush Senior meant by "The Thousand Points of Light."

All this "Wealth Bondage Philanthropy," large and small, also ties in with the Bush theory of "devolution," pushing social services down the needy via private foundations and often Evangelical churches. You can imagine the kind of cold comfort and tough love poor black people will get from these right wing foundations and red neck churches. The end result is philanthropy as naked power, contemptuous of the people, contemptuous of "the dead hand" of democratic government, contemptuous of  academic research. "If you need a job, kiss my boots at the office," as  Candidia Cruikshanks says, "and if you need a handout, kiss my boots at the foundation. You want Justice! Call my man Ashcroft, and he will hurry right over." Mind forged manacles, anyone?

When academics write about "gift culture" as an alternative to capitalism, I have to laugh. Friends! Favor trading, gift trading, and logrolling networks, among natural and non-natural persons of wealth, are how this country is run, from the top down. The giving circle is closed, Dave Johnson, and you are not in it. Keep trying, though, you just might figure it out.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:18:00 AM -

From 1976 up until 1979, Grovski Carbunkle hardly knew a sober moment. "I have gone over this so many times with my therapist," said Grover in his famous Playboy interview from 1979, only weeks after drying out. "Losing the Muppet Show gig was like some kind of affirmation for me of all of my worst insecurities at once. It was as if the whole world was telling me 'You are not good enough, Grover. You are only a children's show character, Grover. Go back to Queens and die a slow death, Grover."

And to his friends and co-workers on the set of "Sesame Street", it seemed that Grover was dying a slow death, by his own hand. "He'd come in looking like hell," said Ernie in a recent interview. "Sometimes with a drink still in hand or a hooker draped around his neck, snapping at everybody. It would take make-up 2 hours to get him looking halfway decent, during which time he invariably fell asleep." But despite this, Grover's work didn't suffer- intead he worked harder than ever and came up with some of the most brilliant material of his career. This was the time during which "Super Grover" was born. An album was released in 1976 called "Grover Sings the Blues" which was well-received, and another in 1978, "Sesame Street Fever" featured a disco-dancing Grover on the cover and shot to the top of the charts.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 10:39:54 PM -

"Zaprudered into surreal dimensions of purest speculation..."

Raoul Duke
4 Abbascombe
Worth Matravers
Swanage, Dorset BH19 3LG
UK

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 7:44:38 PM -

Karma Hit by Dogma

The Vatican released a document Monday that was six years in the making. Titled, A Christian Reflection on the 'New Age', the 90-page booklet addresses everything from healing crystals to channeling in an effort to clarify the differences between Christian theology and the New Age movement.

Here you see the key presenters, Pontifical Council for Culture president Cardinal Paul Poupard, right, and Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald, President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, who perform miracles daily in managing to pronounce their own job titles.

The document stresses that much of the New Age phenomenon is driven by marketing books, therapies, and crystals, and it notes some consider New Age just a label "for a product created by the application of marketing principles to a religious phenomenon."

[The Raven]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 11:11:50 PM -

I think I just had a bad flashback-

Psychedelic Republicans. New trading cards: Psychedelic Republicans. Is this for real?... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 6:44:04 PM -

Eric Boehlert’s Friday Salon article about the irrelevance and demoralization of the Democratic Party over the war also reflects a real dilemma for the anti-war movement.  Despite congratulating ourselves with polls that show most Americans do not want a unilateral war, and doubt the war is necessary, basically most of us in the movement have accepted that war is inevitable.

What does this mean?  First, despite our increasingly strong rallies, marches, and demonstrations, we are not stupid, and we believe that Bush will attack Iraq in the near future, either with a fig-leaf of approval from the UN, or without it if there are any security council countries willing to pay the price of opposing Caesar.

So the rational for the rallies, besides expressing our deep disgust over bombing innocent Iraqi’s, becomes an exercise in raising the political cost.  But this is a double-edged sword.

The idea is that if Bush goes ahead in isolation, with many people visibly against him, and then things go wrong—let’s say Americans are attacked in Kuwait with chemical weapons, and in a single day several thousand Americans are killed—Bush will bear the blame for the disaster.

But who wants to be in a position of benefiting from this horrible scenario?  It is a no win situation.  If there is disaster, Americans whom we all want to see safe and at home, will be destroyed.  If there is no disaster, Bush will claim victory, and those who questioned the costs of the war will be further marginalized.

We need to recognize that our enemy-- the right wing junta that has taken over the country and is taking over the courts-- is strong, powerful, and in a narrow sense, popular.

So our opposition has to start with the idea of building a majority.  This is why the marginalization of the democrats is so devastating—because there is no hope for building a majority when they accept their role as pygmies—biting at the heels of the republicans, but afraid to take them on directly.

This majority will be built on common good and self-interest, not morality and justice.  But to create a new sense of common good and self-interest, we need to radically change the framework of “politics”. 

For example, we need to challenge the notion that corporate needs come first. Why should we not guarantee six weeks vacation to every worker.  Why should we not guarantee health care for all.  Why should we not guarantee housing for families by the government, if a last resort.  We don’t need to live in the Hobbesian world of all against all simply because that is the world in which corporations thrive best.

In the anti-war movement, we need to broaden our demands to much more than simply not bombing Iraq.  When we can tie the lack of basic security at home—lack of economic security, lack of personal safety, the climate of fear—to the pursuit of wars and military domination abroad, then we will have our majority, not simply against militarism, but for a more humane and person centered society.  That will be a campaign that transcends the present day democratic party, and the upcoming war with Iraq.

- Posted by Richard Chlopan - 9:42:52 PM -