Posted 12/14/2002 05:26:25 PM
Daily Times - UNSC is inherently tyrannical

If there is a characteristic which unites all human societies, past or present, it is surely an inordinate fondness for violence. Those who can force others to submit to their demands will do so until they meet a greater force.

...The paradox of governance is that a state which is sufficiently powerful to protect the weak against the strong is also sufficiently powerful to crush the weak.... Indeed, the ultimate restraint upon the violence of the state is the violence of its citizens, who might seek to overthrow it if it abuses its powers. The great innovation introduced by democracy is that it permits us to remove the monopolists of violence by non-violent means. The great problem with democracy is that it permits us to replace them only with another set of monopolists.

...The UN Security Council, which is the body charged with the enforcement of international law, is inherently tyrannical. It is tyrannical because, while it asserts a global monopoly of violence, we cannot peacefully remove and replace it. The veto powers possessed by its permanent members are a constitutional guarantee against reform: no change can be made without the consent of those whom we would seek to change. No one, at the international level, guards the guards.

...As America’s economic mismanagement reduces its global dominance, we could demand a security council which permits a better balance of power between nations. Tackling the permanent members’ constitutional veto is trickier; requiring, perhaps, a sustained revolt by many of their citizens. But these solutions must be sought, for without them there can be no just war, and no just peace.

Posted 12/13/2002 10:18:08 PM

Wired 11.01: The First Cloning Superpower

China is pouring money into stem-cell factories and organ farms.

...(this) laboratory is one of three I visited in China where researchers are investigating interspecies clones. And I can also say that this experiment would be illicit if not completely illegal in the United States and most of the developed world. But in China it's all legal, every bit of it...

Posted 12/13/2002 08:20:30 PM

i found myself listening to an exegesis of Dead Poet's Society this afternoon--a very serious exegesis; life and death.

Sar, Ayesh and i were watching, Young Indiana Jones chapter 18 this evening. a tribe on an island somewhere in the vicinity of Java had stories of ghosts that demanded that the tribe's young engage in mock battle until one child died. this was an action that the tribe engaged in to gain favor with the ghosts that had influence over disease, crop production and human fertility. the warrior ideal of the tribe and the stories that helped them deal with their life anxieties came together to form a social system that from our couch seemed barbaric to the two young ladies in the room. we discussed how this tribe was living out expectations and boundaries that came from the stories that they were living within.

the world of the Dead Poets was inhabited by literary ghosts. the world of the island natives was inhabited by oratory ghosts. the specters of oration and its manuscript form have given birth to the visual ghosts that inhabit my world and that of my children. we all live by the models we employ in the flow of the stories we tell--and more and more, as evidenced by Indy and Mr. Keating, those stories are mediated by film. our cannon of metaphor and hero, once the provenance of the epic poem or the Sunday sermon, is now, in many respects, the shared text of cinema. this is not the death of the speaker nor the closing of the book, rather it is the hyper convergence of oral narrative and written form.

everything changes when the definition of literacy changes.

Posted 12/13/2002 08:15:03 PM
Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution
via sotto

Posted 12/13/2002 08:01:04 PM
via dwavehed Technical Difficulties

Posted 12/13/2002 09:07:26 AM

gravatt is planning a Boston trip to see CPM and the new Derrida film. he asked about a Derrida reading list. here are my suggestions for someone wanting a semi-approachable way into the Derrida corpus:

short book: On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness

essay: “Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority”
available in On Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice
and it appears as essay number five in Acts of Religion

essay: "Differánce"
available in Deconstruction in Context

the best book about Derrida that i have yet read:
The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida by John Caputo

Posted 12/13/2002 06:54:12 AM

Pocket PC shatters $200 price barrier

i remember when Michael Dell said that he would not get into the PPC market until he could over-deliver and under-price his competitors. Four years later he has done it. the $199 Axim is a full-powered PPC 2002 PDA. add a keyboard and wifi and you have a pretty cool computer on the cheap. the usefulness of a PPC is still up for debate, but for some reason they have always fascinated me.

Posted 12/13/2002 06:51:35 AM
The Register

Rational's proposed sale to IBM (and Microsoft's potential counter bid) and MS's ruminations about a Borland bid will take two well regarded companies and immediately emasculate their defining value: independence. can no company stay independent? is the new final corporate lifecycle step acquisition by one of the world creators in the industry?

independence makes the revenue growth that public companies are now expected to have each quarter difficult when a techinal organization hits certain phases of the enterprise lifecycle. this may be part of the drive to merge. another piece of motivation is the obvious payday a merger guarantees for the C-level execs and original investors.

time will tell if independence in the tech world is viable. it certainly frightens me to think that it might not be. what happens when IBM has revenue that exceeds the GDP of most EU countries? how are relationships of power recalibrated when MS has embassies in all UN nations and is a regular at Davos? driving revenue is as oppressive a governing force as imperial expansionism. the age of corporate governance is already upon us and i don't like what i see.

Posted 12/12/2002 11:04:23 PM
sotto.org: December 12, 2002 Archives

Sotto likes his Mac.

i want the Amiga that will boot to CP/M.

btw, you can get the C-128 CP/M v3.0 code dated May 28th, 1987 here.

Posted 12/12/2002 07:57:24 AM
since i am not elon musk, heck not even andrew sullivan, and given that i am a single parent of two, i am about to go kiss The Man's butt. so, does any benevolent patron want to change the world before i sign my life away?

thought not. just checking. perhaps next time. alrighty then.

is the half or full windsor in vogue these days?

Posted 12/11/2002 09:37:31 PM

House of Mercy

Miller mentioned HOM on seven this week. i am impressed with the well written site and general tenor of this community. i wish i lived closer to St. Paul. well, actually, no, not really. i wish we all lived closer to Madrid or Marrakesh.

Posted 12/11/2002 09:07:30 PM

when i think of the phrase ancient-future i do not think of what others do, i guess.

one explanation of ancient-future that i read tonight centered around appropriating what one likes from "the Liturgical, the Reformed, the Evangelical, the Contemporary." to me, ancient-future is not about period eclecticism; choosing fun bits and pieces of past culture's spiritual forms and combining them in an institutional potluck of "cool."

to me...

ancient-future is the impossible meeting of a village hovel and open road spirituality among a predominately illiterate, disenfranchised eastern peasantry and the urban, organizational spirituality of a hyper-literate, privileged western elite.

ancient-future is a Way that goes back long before Nicea and demands a selling and giving, a cost accounting, a death, a rebirth, a following.

ancient-future is the way one goes about the what that we call the kingdom that is within.

but that's just me. i could be wrong. maybe it's all about "convergence" or (gag) being "adequately triune."

Posted 12/11/2002 05:23:36 PM

‘Smoking gun’ in church crisis?

if these documents can be taken at face value it seems that the Roman Catholic Church has less problem with adult-child sex then with scandal. how else do you explain THE POPE telling Catholic leadership to actively shield sexual predators by reassigning them to new areas if any scrutiny was paid to their molestation and penetration of children under their ministerial care???

the hubris of the Catholic leadership that is coming to light out of this scandal in Boston is astonishing. there is no justification for what has taken place. there is no statistical rationalization that says there are bad apples in every basket. there is no excuse. this mob-run organization has no moral authority when the children of its faithful are sodomized by "christ" and abused at the hands of his legal attack dogs when a call for justice is made.

bankruptcy is too good for the oppressors in this circumstance. let's do something with real Catholic precedent and get medieval on these assholes. we haven't burned anyone at the stake for a long time. hey, why not go one better and tie the proverbial milestone around a few necks and feed them to the fish at the bottom of Boston harbor? yes, that will have to wait.

in the eyes of America there is now only one functioning Roman Catholic commandment: cause no scandal.

Posted 12/11/2002 12:17:23 PM
Ayesha drew me a picture earlier in the week that i have sitting prominently on my desk. it is a picture of a girl with a big smile, shoulder length hair and a heart the size of her upper torso on her chest. she looks like she is waving. in the background are a number of hills with 11 crosses on them. at the top of the picture is a beautiful dark navy blue sky.

Ayesh ran up to me when she completed it and said, "Daddy, this is a Christmas picture for you!" i said, "Really, tell me about it." she enthusiastically said, "That girl is happy and there are, uh, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 people dieing on crosses for Christmas." "REALLY?" i said with a slight grin. "Wow."

she knows the Christmas story. she knows the Easter story. she knows that they are different stories. i am beginning to think that the corporate, militarized nativity ilk fucked with her head.

Posted 12/11/2002 12:01:27 PM
getting over what one could be to actually be something is perhaps the greatest single challenge in our day of options, reinvention and open possibility. being something is limiting. limitation is in the very nature of choice. we don't like limitations--making the choosing, rather than the doing, the challenge. our attempts at endless deferral are ultimately in vain. the impossibility of being everything one could be demands the decision regarding what one should be.

chose and let the challenge be in doing.

Posted 12/11/2002 06:45:43 AM
Anti-war protesters rally across U.S.

The group United for Peace counted more than 120 planned vigils, acts of civil disobedience and marches in 37 states from Alaska to Florida. Protests were being organized by fax and over the Internet by anarchists and Communists, evangelicals and Quakers.

...About half of the 200 protesters demonstrating outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York were arrested for disorderly conduct, including clergy members. Across the country in Sacramento, Calif., nine were taken into custody for blocking the entrance to a federal courthouse.

“It’s my first time ever,” said Maria Cornejo, 41, a mother of four from Dixon, Calif. “That’s how important this is.”

Posted 12/11/2002 06:33:19 AM
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports
US seizes North Korean ship said to be taking missiles to Yemen

Iraq is 10% of the problem N. Korea is...
but we're going to engage in diplomacy with Pyongyang and military heavy handedness with Baghdad, hmm.

Posted 12/10/2002 10:39:34 PM
I Want a List

We're the collateral damage....
We pay for the carnage.

Posted 12/10/2002 10:11:14 PM
The Data Lounge via Darren

Researchers from the Barna survey asked respondents how they felt about evangelicals, born-again Christians, ministers, and other groups of people in society. According to the survey, evangelicals came in tenth out of eleven, narrowly beating out prostitutes....

Affirming results from other studies, the Barna survey also found the more highly educated non-evangelicals are, the less likely they are to have a positive view of fundamentalist Christians.

Posted 12/10/2002 01:59:18 PM

"god is found..." is an odd phrase.

i have often heard the religious immediately wax pseudo-philosophic after such words were uttered; for some reason having to remind us that god has never been lost. how cute. this interesting refrain, this felt need to speak for god, bewilders me. it places the speaker in a position of analysis rather than pilgrimage. it sanitizes the utter bloodiness of the finding entailed in the colloquialism.

the-finding-of-god is neither a childhood initiation nor the adult mirrors of these fundamentally shaping childhood events. our species cycles through known vocabularies, metaphors and social forms in the moments of geography, affiliation and expectation given. from the violence of birth, spawned in the mid-coital bliss of love, to the violence of non-existence, that overtakes the life that never finds a convenient time to end, the finding-of-god unfolds. just as one never possesses the life given and taken without ascent so that which enables all that is and is not is never found. in all our finding we never exhaust the inevitable unfolding and enfolding of the silent, vowel-less markings that signify that-without-significance by which all that can be signified is. G-d.

so in signification we press on in our small caravans. the throng hoping one day to arrive; even ready to do battle to quicken the mythical arrival of what has never been. among them a few with calloused heel, fixed brow and quiet heart walk in the very mystery the hoping seek to find. living, the-finding-of-god is, as that which is sought is not. the caravan travels and trades; laughs, wars and births and in this bazaar of the human those living the-finding-of-god become the very juxtaposition of the signified and that-without-significance.

"god is found..." let the oddity stand.

Posted 12/10/2002 11:03:19 AM

to exist between worlds:
these are the ones who, in their very being, create the space for peace;
who, on the stage of global politics, stave off conflict;
who, in the dark recesses of their own soul know both the inevitable and unnecessary machinations of war.
i am a stranger not just to my countrymen,
but to the world.
to exist between worlds...

Posted 12/10/2002 10:21:28 AM

Wrestling with Islam by David Warren
via Andrew Sullivan

David Warren gave a speech at Toronto's St. Michael's College at the end of November, 2002. David grew up in Lahore, Pakistan; as did i. his moving accounts of this "easy-going and splendidly unorganized" city are an engaging biographical entrée into his deliberations on our current global political situation.

despite our common Lahori heritage, i am fundamentally at odds with his political and religious perspectives.

1. David says that, "there is not now in Islam, and there has never been, any concept resembling the Christian notion of the separation of Church and State."

the separation doctrine is a very recent phase in the evolution of the Western practice of politics. the presumption that the separation of Church and State is morally, politically or in any other way an a priori superior approach to state formation and governance is rather myopic and self-serving to those in the West with a current predisposition toward the separation tradition.

there are and will always be other ways of political praxis. look at Iran. Iran is one of the best examples of a functioning, self-critiquing Islamic democracy currently in existence. under this evolving system the Jewish, Zoroastrian and Christian population of Iran have been protected. yes, there are substantial internal demands for reform and these add to the shape of the Islamic Democracy project currently evolving in Iran.

there are no perfect forms of government. even Western governments based in a strong separation doctrine are guilty of the structural oppression, utopian imperialism and domestic heavy-handedness that religiously based governments are often accused of.

2. David's blunt statement that, "the Judaeo-Christian tradition runs almost the opposite way from Islam," and his ensuing discussion of the movement toward a Judaeo-Christian escape from tribalism and the neo-tribalism of Islam is so fantastically unaware of Christian history before the Latin-Hellenistic reappropriation of the Judahist Yesh'uah and the Roman/Orthodox Nicean theologically correct movement that an adequate response requires nearly as many words as his entire speech.

3. Justice or truth? Christ proclaims that there can be no justice in this world -- only in heaven. Every single one of Christ's parables hinges not on justice but on truth, and at the center of the Christian revelation is this uncanny statement, "That you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free."

David sets up what seems to be an either/or between justice and truth and Islam and Christianity respectively, but this is a setup with no conceptual basis. how can one generalize so broadly and still have anything to say? justice and truth are both key themes in all the Abrahamic traditions. trying to pit them against each other in terms of the preeminence of one over the other from tradition to tradition is meaningless. not even within particular traditions is this exercise fruitful. you can find groups within Islam that are mysticism focused, truth focused, justice focused, spirit focused (yes, i have met them), but all of these groups value all of these things.

4. Pragmatist vs. Metaphysician -- is that a critique or a complement?

5. For now we come to the real crux, the real contest between civilizations; one which I fear is unavoidable, and must lead over the coming years to terrible violence between East and West, between what is left of Western Christendom and what is left of Islamdom, after the ravaging both of us have taken in the modern, or I would say, post-modern world.

this pessimism, this doom mentality, runs strong among some Christians and it is baffling to me.

6.- 8. i got too tired to write any more on these last three points.

David says, But I will leave it here with the bald statement, that in their central teachings on the social questions of "how to live and what to do", Judaism and Christianity go this way, and Islam goes that. They are not "three of a kind" but rather, "two of one kind and one of another".

David's desire to link up Judaism and Christianity while marginalizing Islam is misguided. if two had to be banded together to the exclusion of the third (which i do not believe is necessary) those two would be Judaism and Islam.

i wanted to write more about this, but it is beginning to bore me so i will stop.

on a related note, Bush visited the Islamic Center of D.C. again today to deliver a speech. i must commend his consistent attempt to keep this from becoming a war of religions or civilizations; as many pundits have already declared it to be.

Posted 12/10/2002 09:29:22 AM

Lott apologizes for Thurmond comment

"All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches."
-Strom Thurmond, during 1948 presidential bid

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
-Trent Lott, at a party honoring Thurmond in 2002

"A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past."
-Trent Lott, in a written statement days after above comment in 2002

so, Lott, having joined the hallowed ranks of Falwell and Robertson in public rhetorical idiocy is seeking to repent of his momentary semantic return to the glory days of openly WASP, confederate, segregationist political banter by saying that his words were misunderstood, misconstrued or otherwise taken to imply a position that is no longer politically expedient. my question to goodoldboy is, "how can these words of yours imply anything other than a pro-segregationist stance?"

his response to this backlash is typical political-speak. Lott takes no blame save for poor word choice and he actually implies that his hearers are to blame--that it is only the "impression" of some who heard his words that is the problem in this situation. this is so typically Washington, across both major parties, that i ask myself why i am offended by it to such a degree that i am again writing about it.

from what i know of this situation it seems that goodoldboy is left with only a few legitimate positions to take.

1. he says that he had a few too many neat Scotches and in his, uh, "enthusiasm," misspoke by emphasizing something of deadmanwalking's political past that was not appropriate.
   
2. he says that he is a buffoon and really did not know what deadmanwalking stood for back in those happy white-man days of 1948
   
3. he says that he stands behind his comments and is a proud segregationist

what other positions can one take after making such a simple political statement? personally, i think the truth about Lott is likely a mixture of point 1. and 3. above.

one last thought on this. Jesse Jackson's call for Lott to step down because he is, "an unrepentant Confederate who cannot speak for all Americans," is simple political ignorance. the USoA is a REPUBLIC. representatives are elected by constituencies to speak for them *not* for all Americans. Lott should not step down because he can't represent all Americans--that is a non-republican (general sense) political position. rather, he should step down because the old codger has outlived his political usefulness. Mississippi, and the USoA, needs leaders who will admit to saying something stupid when they do so. during the next election cycle it is Mississippi who must decide who will represent the heritage and views of that historic state.

Posted 12/10/2002 08:33:35 AM

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: "What do you seek?"

"Enlightenment," replied Daiju.

"You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked.

Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?"

Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house."

Posted 12/9/2002 08:26:54 PM
When our identity is in danger,
we feel certain that we have a mandate for war.
The old image must be recovered at any cost.
-Marshall McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village

Posted 12/9/2002 11:40:53 AM
Golublog

check out Golublog's Infinity Engine post (no perma link yet). this is an epic story of culture shock, civil unrest and the healing power of video games. i can testify to having similar experiences holed up in a basement on the Afghanistan border with Pakistan playing Civ.

Posted 12/9/2002 11:31:54 AM
via jim.brannen: I still don’t believe in formulas or Desire Machines

dude, i want w. david o. taylor's job... teaching a class on world religions and mucking around with art. damn, that's heaven. mucking is such a cool verb. i want to muck around with whatever i do.

Posted 12/9/2002 05:13:57 AM
Senator Lott: Segregationist or Idiot? (washingtonpost.com)

diabolical or just plain stupid? who cares. throw the idiot out. how can we continually reelect such a patent political rogue? this smile-and-ride-your-incumbency-into-multiple-decade-electoral-wins politician needs to be sent home. give him a lifetime pension, secret service and a congressional lapel pin. let him write his memoirs. just don't give him any say in how the country is run. of course, if this is what Lott's constituents want in a Rep so be it. people have their right to representation, but there must be better options out there...

Posted 12/9/2002 04:54:43 AM
CNN.com - 'Burning Bush' comment draws prison term

37 months in prison for a bad pun?

Posted 12/8/2002 09:58:00 PM
2600 NEWS:
PHOTOGRAPHER ARRESTED FOR TAKING PICTURES OF VICE PRESIDENT'S HOTEL

read this article.

if this man is credible the police state formally known as the USoA is clearly in full swing.

when you read about this horrifically unconstitutional situation, made possible by the repressive laws passed as the "USA-Patriot Act" by our spineless elected Representatives soon after 9/11, in tandem with the repression of free speech, association and travel that this government has openly carried out it is difficult to maintain that we are currently a Republic worthy of the liberty given to us by our revolutionary fathers and mothers.

now combine this insanity with the unbelievable revelations that we have a functioning secret court system and a soon to be over-funded Homeland Security Spy-On-Americans Agency and one is left with the distinct impression that we will either, one, never again regain liberty as we knew if prior to 9/11 or, two, spend the next few generations trying to undo the constitutional havoc unleashed by the two major parties in little more than a year.

i am shocked and sickened at the prospect of either of these options. i guess there is a third option. we could sit back and pretend we are safe and happily not consider the price of this false security.

Posted 12/8/2002 02:49:10 PM
the only way to clean your office is with a shot of Sauza gold in half a can of Monster singing along
to Tenacious D.

Posted 12/8/2002 12:08:02 PM
speaking of The Offspring, they are one of the bands on a new Ramones cover album coming out in a couple months. the other bands are Metallica, U2, Greenday, Rob Zombie, Kiss, Marilyn Manson and Eddie Vedder.

Posted 12/8/2002 11:55:29 AM
current mp3:
the.offspring::conspiracy.of.one

so, i went to a musical today. at a church. sar and ayesh were in it. they did great. nonetheless, i walked away dumbfounded at the theme. it was a Christmas musical... with a military theme. "what the hell?" i thought to myself. how does that not seem totally skewed to other people??? "am i really the only adult here that this seems wack to?" i thought to myself. anyway, after 25 minutes of as many battle songs and children in fatigues that they could cram into the service the odd juxtaposition of Jesus-in-the-manger and children singing about marching, crushing and winning came to a close.

i am very happy that my kids get to act and sing... they love it. yet, it becomes so laborious when one has to constantly unpack the oddity of the religious situation that is so often experienced at these christian corporations hosting events such as this. it is even harder when one has to do so at an elementary school level without coming off as overly negative. there is nothing sadder than a pre-teen cynic. i don't want to encourage that, nor do i intend to allow situations, such as the militarization of the nativity, to pass without a clear contrarian voice.

happy sunday.
happy sunday.
march 2, 3, 4.

Posted 12/8/2002 08:43:18 AM

the new seven is out.

this month is on alt.w. d.miller made a great point that no American wrote anything for this issues. it was good to have his voice of experience weigh in on it. honestly, while i really love the encounter, spectacle, involvement and eccletheatre of alt.w there is much about the "centres" approach that i have never enjoyed. it always felt like kindergarden to me. otherwise, i have enjoyed the bit of alt.w i have experienced. i wish i was at Vaux for the God is found in the shit eucharist bomb gathering. throwing chalices of wine always gets my attention.