Your government officially approves of torture and indefinite detention.

I used to worry about being called a bleeding heart liberal. You know, I rather be that than a cold-hearted conservative. Jesus wants us to torture - I don't think so. My belief deep down is that, somehow, this will come back to haunt those pricks willing to destroy the constitution in order to protect the most pitiful president this country has ever had.

Incredible. Where is my country?

Am I the only who finds this a little annoying towards the end? BTW, I think the eagle wins.

I spent the day at a conference about the importance of play and, by default, gaming. All guest speakers were quite interesting and enjoyed myself until the last question and answer period. Then it struck me: what a luxury it is to talk about games.

Let me back up. The speakers included Shawn Rider, a down-to-earth gamer and former instructor currently working at PBS, who provided a great general overview of the field of game studies. Laurie Taylor, from University of Florida, who discussed gender representation in games. Dr. Taylor's discussion, like Shawn's, provided context and prompted quite a bit of commentary from the gameplayers in the audience. She began the project of laying out the problems of gender, race, and (to a degree) ethnicity representations both in the games themselves and the media about the games.

The final lecturer Julian Dibbell, of "A Rape in Cyberspace" fame, spoke on what he called Ludocapitalism and goldfarming in networked online games (MMOs to those in the know).

During the panel question and answer period, an emeritus Economics professor sitting next to me raised a number of questions about real world implications of games. The initial question, if I remember, was regarding the lack of any critical review or mentoring that happens when a young person consumes the narrative in a game. The panel response was that the game as medium is not unlike the novel to which I countered that we learn to evaluate novels critically in school but are left to our own devices with video games.

As the conversation progressed, the Economics professor made a statement, in response to something Dibbell had said about how wide-spread gaming culture was (hence his thesis that play is to the 21st century economy as steam was in the 19th century), to the effect that games are, in essence, the toys of a mere few.

I asked Dibbell if he went to the villages in China. He explained that the countryside is where many of the virtual sweatshops and goldfarming firms are popping up. I didn't pursue it further but I should have called bullshit on that.

Here's where I stand. Let's set up the picture:

~ 50% of the global population live in urban areas
~ 45% of the people in the world live without basic sanitation
~ 20% live without clean water sources
~ 15% are going hungry (this includes people in all continents on the globe)
only 10% have received a secondary education

here's where it gets interesting:

only about 10% of the world's population owns a computer with only 2.8% actually having internet access.

50% of the people in the world live off of less than ~$2 US/day

Um, I think a sizeable chunk of the world's population could careless about games. Thus I would posit that Ludocapitalism is but one form of SplinterCapitalism (if Dibbell can create neologisms so can I, dammit). Anything goes in order to preserve power. Material goods are there in all their oily splendor and that reality is very Old School Capitalism.

While I would like to see creative production in the digital era be supported and grow with a healthy dose of play (Homo Faber meets Homo Ludens), my excitement about the potential of gift economies and of anarcho-communism as their underpinnings, is often watered down with day-to-day evidence that Capitalism is feisty beast who will not go away. One result, perhaps, are the statistics above.

But that is immaterial as is, Julian Dibbell will tell you, much of what we trade these days. Yet to do so is a sign of extreme wealth and luxury.


http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/poverty/edocuments.htm
http://www.unicef.org/sowc06/
http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/povmap/ds_info.html

A shady lawn stretches out in front the administration building at the University of Idaho - a reminant of the original campus designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of Central Park in New York.

Maybe it is that New York connection that made it a interesting place for a 9/11 memorial. This morning the lawn was covered in 3000 minature flags.

That's quite a number of flags. In fact, I assume that was the desired affect. The small multiples (as Edward Tufte calls them) work in a number of ways:

- a visual rhythm is produced through the repetition of colors and symbols
- a reference to graveyards is made with row upon row of headstones
- a certain 'wow' factor is achieved as our visual field is consumed with little flags

It is not my goal to critique someone's display (although I did wonder what 100,000 little Iraqi flags would look like) but I sort of wondered if this mode of presentation - in particular the use of small multiples - actually works against the idea of it being a memorial. We lose the fact that each flag really represents someone.

Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial is powerful in part because every single name is written on that wall. Other displays (sometimes during protests) have used props to remind the viewer that the numbers represent actual people.

Regardless, it is interesting that someone felt compelled to sit on the grass and plant each flag by hand.

i000765_big.jpg

These photos of hurricane Katrina are breathtaking. I really like the images like this one where the calm sky is being overwhelmed by ferocious clouds. Click on the image to see more in the photoset.

At one point in my life I had a friend who carelessly admitted to me that she thought that I was like a cartoon character both in appearance and action. Now, I am not quite sure if you understand the ramifications of such a statement. For me, it seemed to throw my life into disarray. Young girls and boys (I must’ve been maybe 13 or 14 at the time) are, I’m sure you remember, often unsure of themselves as so much of their character is formed and transformed by an internal dialogue shaped in large part by social interactions - especially those with the opposite sex.

Like the vestibular system, the interior dialogue that the pre-teen has with him or herself helps maintain social balance and forward momentum. If the system is pulled or pushed too far, the result in a sort of destabilization and, more often than not, the need to grab onto something. Quick.

I never seemed to be able to properly stabilize myself and, instead, I think I sort of began to embrace the notion that I was in fact a cartoon.

What does that mean? On the surface, I guess, it is a simple adaptive measure developed in part from the fact that, like my gen-x peers, I’ve watched way too much television. But how convenient it is to daydream like Ralph Phillips. Or simply be my default character, that goofy vulture from Bugs Bunny. (I am convinced that that is how I must be perceived most of the time)

I am not divulging this to elicit sympathy or pity but it has become a bit problematic. I look at my peers who can command a classroom. I see the years of training, the intellectual fire, and, most importantly, a well-crafted reputation being built before my eyes. Then I go to speak and facilitate and do all the things an instructor or mentor is supposed to do and in the back of my mind there is that damn singing frog who only performs in private - never at the pivotal moment. That’s me.

I don’t know what to do. I am embarrassed to admit that this is becoming more of an existential crisis at this point. Why can’t I escape my own mental model of myself?

The immaturity involved in sustaining such idiocy is staggering. Yet I am fully cognizant of my own role in this game. While I am convinced that everyone struggles to upright themselves after the vicious push and pull of adolescence, I still wonder if others, out there, circumscribe themselves so narrowly through the media they consumed.

I guess I will go along with it until I can find an alternative mental model. In the meantime, there is always the mid-century cartoon renaissance to keep me stabilized.

While this concept still uses the very dated desktop metaphor, I find the additional use of touch screen and the 3D effects very nice. I'd like to see more.

That whistling has got to go!

Dennis's shout out to Olberman highlights a week of rising voices and a political inversion that is becoming apparent. This inversion is something that could've happened earlier if only more people had had the courage to come forward (people in positions of influence) and protest.

My shout out goes to Rocky Anderson, the mayor of Salt Lake City who spoke in direct reference to the administration's spin happening at the American Legion conference in Salt Lake. A portion of the speech is here. For a write up about Rocky Anderson see this article in The Nation.

When the national momentum shifts, the inversion is possible. While it is pretty clear in a meta-reading of recent polls that a majority of those polled are weary of our government, it frustrates me to no end that we've had to wait for this inversion.

I can't decide whether it is a popular course to take and, if so, if we should tone down our celebration of those now dissenting voices. Where, for instance, are the 20 year olds whose lives could be most impacted by our foreign policy and our reckless fiscal practices and the aftermath that they will inherit? Why aren't they on the streets? Or are they quietly dissenting online? Logging in to some progressive myspace to plan the revolution? I doubt it.

The proof will be in the pudding. What will the congress be and how will it act? Will they be the counter balance to the administration? Will the GOP figure some way to tweak the election results in their favor?

And what about Iran? How will that come to play? It seems that there are so many things in play. I am somewhat pessimistic. But then again Olberman's Murrow moment and Mayor Anderson's unabashed progressive populism do ignite hope and, with any luck, we will see the celebrations spread. Come November.

This looks fun and, well, just in time...

Playing around with this little tool - which compares the number of blog entries that mention the provided keyword(s) - I found it somewhat humorous to compare food with personalities or disparate things...

Enjoy!

I thought it was interesting that during the interview with Ned Lamont when Colbert mentions friends of Israel (if I remember correctly) that Lamont follows a party line and remarks that Israel has a right to defend itself.

I like Lamont but find the Democrats and much of the left's uncritical and zealous support of Israel too much. While I am frustated with Hezbollah's provocation, I feel that Hezbollah's creation is in large part due to Israeli actions in the past.

That frustration with the favoritism for Israel in Middle East only fuels the very things that Israel and the United State hope to qwell. Especially when so many innocent people, in what this administration once touted as bastion for democracy during the Cedar Revolution, are killed or displaced. Why don't more thinking people on the Left realize that this is very dangerous, very sad, very wrong path we are taking.

Lipi sends along this article expressing the same frustrations. If you love peace, if you are a humanist, if you truly believe in progressive ideals then you cannot stand back and watch this happen. By mere inaction you become an accomplice.

The frustration that I have heard from many Arabs (we seem to forget that there are significant populations of Christian Arabs in Lebanon) and Muslims is often summarized in one word: justice. Injustice breeds so many ills. If we truly want change and peace it cannot be done through violence especially when one side in the conflict is so favored. Why is that such a hard lesson for people to learn? With growing sentiment against the war in Iraq why can't people make the conceptual shift to understand the same ideas about the failure of force as a measure to promote change applies to Lebanon?

I think the whole course of events so far does not bode well for the US or Israel. It is only when this mess is too far along and, as Lipi often tells me, we are paying $10 for a gallon of gas will most Americans wake up.

I worry a lot about it all when I try to sleep at night. At the risk of trodding on Dennis' territory I have to say that the recent events have clarified something for me and that is that we are all interconnected. We are really one. I don't want to be hokey but it seems that those in charge have the inability to see the consequences of their thinking and their actions. Utopia or oblivion? Start thinking about love not violence as an answer. Hokey, perhaps, but very powerful. Think love.

The images from Lebanon remind me of this piece but somehow the painting now fails to show the horrors of war to me. It seems too tame to me now. I could've chosen to post an image of a dead child pulled from the rubble in Qana to represent what I am talking about but it is too painful.

It is strange how, as a parent, every child is my child. You see the same eyes and the same expressions of fear. It is simply painful to see a dead child because it is your own.

Picasso's Guernica can't speak of these things in the same way. It is first and foremost an intellectualization of the horrors of war and then a visceral one. But one that ultimately says the same thing about the human cost of war.

Dennis Bennett, my most loyal reader (besides my wifey-poo...actually I am convinced you two are my only readers), has a new blog. What Dennis has created is the blog equivalent of licorice allsorts. Chewy politics dipped in little Buddhist sprinkles or surrounded by another chewy layer of smart progressive observations.

I am digging what Dennis has called "Daily Bliss" - small stories to highlight a Buddhist thought or to simply make you think. I spent an hour one day trying to make sense of one story. I sat there staring at my monitor then folded up the laptop and walked away. I guess when it starts to make sense to me, I will have made the journey. (Either that or found the Diamond Sutra Cliff Notes - Har Har Har)

I can't wait 'til Dennis folds baseball into this all.

DIAMOND SUTRA UPDATE:

from the British Library:

"Hidden for centuries in a sealed-up cave in north-west China, this copy of the ‘Diamond Sutra’ is the world’s earliest complete survival of a dated printed book. It was made in AD 868."

"The sutra answers that question for itself. (Greg's comment: Of course!) Towards the end of the sermon, Subhuti asks the Buddha how the sutra should be known. He is told to call it ‘The Diamond of Transcendent Wisdom’ because its teaching will cut like a diamond blade through worldly illusion to illuminate what is real and everlasting."

"The teachings of Buddhism are subtle and open to more than one interpretation. The ‘Diamond Sutra’ urges devotees to cut through the illusions of reality that surround them. Names and concepts given to both concrete and abstract things are merely mental constructs that mask the true, timeless reality lying behind them."

To see the Diamond Sutra in all its illusory glory click here.

DIAMOND SUTRA UPDATE 2:

I got to thinking. Doesn't some of the Diamond Sutra sound like String Theory?

New York Rooster

TIME has an article with 6 Keys to peace in the middle east. Without going off on the shortsightedness of the suggestions I decided to promote my own 6 Keys for Peace:

1.) Impeach Bush and Cheney for lying to get us into Iraq

2.) Recall troops from Iraq

3.) Close Guantanamo

4.) Support the Palestinian State to the same degree as Israel (and promote business development and International Peacekeeping forces in Palestine)

5.) Deal with so-called terrorists states in an open and honorable way (it may even require looking at the root causes of terrorism - I bet you'll find plenty of young, openminded, and rational people ready to be part of the global economy)

6.) Get over your racist, bigoted impressions of Arabs and Muslims

Bonus:

7.) Realize the rest of the world doesn't believe this is WWIII and the Second coming and especially don't want America to bring promote more bloodshed in the hopes of bringing both on

If you want to know what really prompted this entry read this article.

Israel's (and by proxy the U.S.) response to Hizbollah has been horrifying to say the least. I was surprised the mainstream media let Americans fleeing Lebanon report about the insanity of the air raids. While Hizbollah's provocation might have been an act of war it seems the Israeli response is too brutal if not a war crime.

There have been a lot of interesting visual artifacts outside of the usual spectacular images - not to mention that this is the 1st real "blog war" providing gruesome and vivid accounts from the war zone. Of the artifacts take these drawings warning people about the Hizbollah leader Nasrallah. The article calls it "clumsy war propaganda".

More hard-hitting are these illustrations by Mazen Kerbaj. Mazen so skillfully gives us insights into the frustrations, fears, and anger. The drawings, like so much from this whole series of events, are, I am sure, eye opening for many. I say to myself: "Here is a blogger and artist like me but someone made a decision that has inexorably impacted his life in a very real way." Could it happen to me?

Visit Kerbaj's blog for his updates and very real commentary.

click image for slightly larger version

We are back in the States but I had to post this.