Listics

Chris Locke is off and running on a new engagement, blogging for NetSquared.  It’s full of all kinds of useful info about how to save the world and how to blow tin cans sky high with M-80’s and not lose a finger while doing that (hint: run like hell).

I was in the Kennedy Library parking lot a few weeks ago talking with Chris and the word "eleemosynary" slithered into the conversation.  Next thing you know he’s hard at work for the good of the world and Dervala is somehow also involved.  This HAS to be a good thing.

So, you go to the NetSquared blog, you register, and first thing you know you have your own associated blog through Drupal.  Shades o’ Doc Searls’ IT Garage!

Well, the real reason for this post is to see if I can get it linked through del.icio.us through the miscellaneous magic of tagging.  Everything, as we say, is mucilaginous.  I’m sure I can get a tag laid in that will place this like a post-it on the sidebar at NetSquared.

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"Strengthen yourself by confronting high waves and mighty winds!"

Man is the dishonest monkey, the ironist ape.  It’s little wonder that irony, the use of  words to create a contrast between literal and intended meaning, has driven so many otherwise earnest folks around the bend and into the maze of postmodern bullshit.  And, while the simple and the religious wallow in philosophy contrived out of late twen-cen grantsmanship and verbal posturing, the perverse liars, the evil doers if you will, have found their way out of the morass of Nietzschean rationalization straight to the ironic truth, which is that lies and liars dominate.  Moral structures and ethical codes are demolished before the simple conceit of deliberate and unabashed falsehood.

Was it any surprise that the dark prince of deceit, George W. Bush, played the trump "bucks stop here" card today? I don’t think so.  He’s a liar.  He’s so banal, that the only interpretation we can put on this is that his handlers have suggested he take the reins in order to keep control over the outlay of billions of US dollars for rebuilding New Orleans.

He’s willing to say he broke it as long as we let him profit from fixing it.

There is a common and fundamental understanding of why we need "government."  The onslaught of Katrina brought the issues front and center.  While I was incoherently thrashing out feelings through my blog, writing spotty posts, now ranting, then again avoiding the matter entirely and narrowing my focus to my own daily life, Ronni Bennett wrote a five part sequence she titled "We Interrupt This Blog."  It began like this:

This is a single-topic blog; we talk about getting older here. But
there are, on rare occasions, events of such magnitude that to ignore
them would be contemptible.

For a week, I have been glued to television - at first, awed by the
power of nature, then shocked by the extent of the destruction, aching
at the despair in the faces of the displaced left to fend for
themselves and finally, horrified at the indifference and incompetence
of America’s leaders.

My rage is barely controllable.

Follow these links to continue reading:

We Interrupt This Blog… Part 1
UPDATE: We Interrupt This Blog…  Part 1
We Interrupt This Blog… Part 2
We Interrupt This Blog… Part 3
We Interrupt This Blog… Part 4
We Interrupt This Blog… Part 5

As citizens of a nation state, we have been internally conflicted about criticism of our government in wartime.  Many of us have had ill feelings that we were ready to suck up in deference to the needs of the leadership and in respect for troops in the field.  Now we have reached a point where the "less government is best government" and the "greed is good" crowd will demonstrate the results of their laissez faire policies and practices.  This demonstration comes first at the expense of the people of the gulf coast, but ultimately it touches each of us.  This could indeed be a pivot point where our expectations of government are reaffirmed and our electoral process is recast as a contest to see who best can meet those expectations.  Or, the next election again could be government by business as usual.

danah boyd brings us a discussion of "Glocalization" in the context of Web 2.0.  Danah says,

…there is a global influence that is altered by local
culture and re-inserted into the global in a constant cycle. Think of
it as a complex tango with information constantly flowing between the
global and the local, altered at each junction.

During the boom, there was a rush to get everything and everyone
online. It was about creating a global village. Yet, packing everyone
into the town square is utter chaos. People have different needs,
different goals. People manipulate given structures to meet their
desires. We are faced with a digital environment that has collective
values. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in search. For example, is
there a best result to the query "breasts"? It’s all about context,
right? I might be looking for information on cancer, what are you
looking for?

To this I’d like to add the concept of the info-shed.  I’ll use Luxembourg and wholIy contrived data as an example.  I suspect — but cannot prove today — that most of the bits originating in Luxembourg stay in Luxembourg.  And that the searches, the retrievals to Luxembourg have a uniquely Lux-ish quality.   Luxembourg is an info-basin within its own info-shed.  There is probably a larger info-shed that is the EU, and the Brits may help fill a transatlantic basin, their traffic combined with Canada and the US.  Both of these examples reflect a pernicious assumption about language as a dominant force on the info-shed and I have only started to unwrap the concept.  I could be way wrong, in which case it will be back to slamming the post moderns and other productive activities for me.  More on this later…

It’s past time for nationalization of the coal and oil industries.  This article explains why.  Without a policy driven approach to the manufacture and consumption of fossil fuel products we will continue to suffer worse and worse storms, worse and worse droughts.  Mankind must cut production of greenhouse gases.

From Mike Neuman, Indymedia…

A group of citizens and clergy from Madison Zion Baptist Church will be sending 5 empty Van Galder buses to the Katrina hurricane stricken area on Tuesday to pick up 40 families and bring them
back to Madison, as early as Friday next week. Apartments have already been
found for the families, but monetary and other donations are needed to cover the
first 2 months of rent and provide basic house ware needs for the families.

Money/checks can be taken to the Dane County Credit Union (checks made
out to "Katrina Disaster Fund") today by noon. Clothing and house ware
contributions can be taken to Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 2024 Fisher St., Madison
(the sooner the better).

Through the volunteer efforts of Rev. Rick Jones (Mt. Zion Baptist Church), Rita Adair, Regina Ryhne and others, five empty Van Galder buses are scheduled to leave the Madison area community on
Tuesday, September 6, and return by the weekend with 40 homeless families from
the Katrina hurricane stricken area. Apartments have already been found for the
families and are being readied for use; however, rent money, clothes and house
ware donations are urgently needed.

Monetary donations are needed to
cover the first 2 months of rent for these families (until federal assistant
payments become available), to purchase sanitary supplies, diapers, bedding and
other living supplies.

Monetary donations - made out to the "Katrina
Disaster Fund" - may be taken or sent in to the Dane County Credit Union at 2160
Rimrock Road (near the Alliant Center).

Clothing and house ware donations
should be dropped off behind the new addition at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 2024
Fisher Street, Madison.

Call Regina Rymes 294-8667 for more information.