In response to numerous inquiries, the privacy wall is gone. It was never an exclusionary measure but a personal deterrent. Nonetheless, there’s been some close interest in reading this thing, so here it is. It’s still not going to be active per se, and may still be deleted, but for now the archive is available.
Ignorance
Posted in personal, tech with tags hiatus on December 6, 2011 by CCLast night the emotional wave broke, and it had been cresting for weeks. I cried a bit – not as much as I should have – and talked a bit and then got a bunch of work done. Slept soundly for over eight hours. I feel much better, much more healthy and much more clear-headed. As such, this blog is going on hiatus.
The blog won’t be available. It won’t be updated. It won’t be deleted forever, but it won’t be functional. It’s become an obligation – neither a pleasure nor a practice – and no longer really reflects what I say, think or write. Looking at personal notebooks, their content may as well have come from a different person. And I like that person much more. They’re much more open-minded, much less paranoid, and far, far less bitter and cynical than the average content here.
Personas, habits of mind and presentation, grow old very quickly. They restrict how we think, what we can know, and how our world comes about.
I don’t know how to use the internet well. I was much more intelligent with it a few years ago, and then started slipping – taking it for granted and not paying attention to what it actually offers. This just feels stupid. It is not the appropriate relationship to have with such a fascinating and important technology. So off we go!
Be well!
Oh.
Posted in news with tags defense bill on December 2, 2011 by CCThe incoming 2012 National Defense Authorization Bill has generated a lot of press under the radar, and for seemingly good reason:
“The key phrase, according to my reading, is: “A person who was a part of or substantially supported […] associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” With Libya, we saw Obama select a definition of “hostilities” from the War Powers Act that fit his preference for not seeking authorization for military action from Congress. Political protests are disruptive and hostile by definition, so what’s to prevent a President (Obama or future) from twisting this language to detain political protesters in the same way Obama twisted the language of the War Powers Act? Similar questions ned to be asked of other language in this section, e.g. “substantially supported,” “associated forces.”
Keep your eyes on this one. Historically, it’s not without precedent, but those precedents always appear during some of the darker histories.
I am thankful for…
Posted in personal, stuff 'n' junk with tags awwww, gratitude, thanksgiving on November 24, 2011 by CCFamily: biological, punk, leather, Dharma…categories are useless. We’re a misfit bunch to a one, and I love you. Cheers.
The Times
Posted in books, personal, writing with tags chills, more more more, robert greene on November 23, 2011 by CCIf you’re counting years and not actual birthdays, I just reached thirty. And, if you mark Hallowe’en as the end of the old year and beginning of the new, this one arrived with so much momentum it’s hard to wrap the mind around. I can’t speak for the rest of you but hope this season is bringing you all you may need.
The birthday itself is less important than its significance as an evaluation; yearly shifts, personal change and general influences all seem to occur more broadly than any timeline can encompass. You try to pinpoint a beginning or end and find only a color, shifting hue. But the days we choose to acknowledge such patterns take on their concentrated importance. It’s telling that much of the birthday-lunch conversation concerned death. Appropriate memento mori.
There’s so much to say! Every recent post has quickly escalated beyond coherence and then I’ve had to leave the computer. This may be a confidence issue, an inability to write in focused bursts online. But there’s also just so much coming into the picture. As Owen M. said in a recent conversation, his recent work “feels like it began when he was 19” – a single, cohesive piece stretching more than a decade. I would say the same for the material that continues to fill notebooks and eat brushes. Fortunately, it becomes more cohesive with age, and far less daunting as a unified point of expression.
You want to hear about Buddhism? I’m reading Robert Greene, having found one of his books serendipitously. It advocates cold strategy and seems antithetical to the basic Buddhist tenants of compassion, etc, etc. I’m wary of the influence Greene may have (personally, let alone elsewhere), but strategy is necessary for moving through the world. Your actions cannot have any power behind them unless you first claim that power; this is true for the most compassionate actions as well as politics or finance. Aikido is slowly teaching me this, patiently and muscularly, teaching the body how to behave with strength and empower the related ideas. Greene lends to this process a certain chill of clarity – and nothing invigorates me like fresh cold air. But one must be careful with such exposure, must temper it with warmth and heat.
Branford Marsalis on Students Today
Posted in art, pure genius with tags art school confidential, branford marsalis on November 18, 2011 by CC
I had spent just over a month at the School of Visual Arts, in lower Manhattan, when Jerry Saltz’s article appeared in the Village Voice. All of us new, young, hip freshmen devoured the Voice each morning of its publication, sitting on painting stools, waiting for class to begin. The World Trade Center had been rubble for three weeks; people were still burying themselves in whiskey and bullshit while others listened closely to hear the silence created. Bus-stop posters urged us to keep shopping.
Saltz was describing a recent exhibition of graduate students’ work, held in a hip Chelsea gallery. Somewhere towards the end of the article, he said that “Art schools are preparing students for thirty-month, rather than thirty-year, careers.” In the School’s illustration program, each graduating-class portfolio for the last five years had looked identical.
This is also completely apropos the vigor of the “directionless” Occupation movement.
From the Oakland PD:
Posted in love, news, you liked that you're gonna love this with tags occupyoakland on November 1, 2011 by CCReposted from KQED, who checked in:
“We represent the 645 police officers who work hard every day to protect the citizens of Oakland. We, too, are the 99% fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families. We are severely understaffed with many City beats remaining unprotected by police during the day and evening hours.
As your police officers, we are confused.
On Tuesday, October 25th, we were ordered by Mayor Quan to clear out the encampments at Frank Ogawa Plaza and to keep protesters out of the Plaza. We performed the job that the Mayor’s Administration asked us to do, being fully aware that past protests in Oakland have resulted in rioting, violence and destruction of property.
Then, on Wednesday, October 26th, the Mayor allowed protesters back in – to camp out at the very place they were evacuated from the day before.
To add to the confusion, the Administration issued a memo on Friday, October 28th to all City workers in support of the “Stop Work” strike scheduled for Wednesday, giving all employees, except for police officers, permission to take the day off.
That’s hundreds of City workers encouraged to take off work to participate in the protest against “the establishment.” But aren’t the Mayor and her Administration part of the establishment they are paying City employees to protest? Is it the City’s intention to have City employees on both sides of a skirmish line?
It is all very confusing to us.
Meanwhile, a message has been sent to all police officers: Everyone, including those who have the day off, must show up for work on Wednesday. This is also being paid for by Oakland taxpayers. Last week’s events alone cost Oakland taxpayers over $1 million.
The Mayor and her Administration are beefing up police presence for Wednesday’s work strike they are encouraging and even “staffing,” spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for additional police presence – at a time when the Mayor is also asking Oakland residents to vote on an $80 parcel tax to bail out the City’s failing finances.
All of these mixed messages are confusing.
We love Oakland and just want to do our jobs to protect Oakland residents. We respectfully ask the citizens of Oakland to join us in demanding that our City officials, including Mayor Quan, make sound decisions and take responsibility for these decisions. Oakland is struggling – we need real leaders NOW who will step up and lead – not send mixed messages. Thank you for listening.”
Here’s the link to the official posting on the OPOA website.
Go Google (Go-ogle?)
Posted in news, pure genius, tech, weapons, you liked that you're gonna love this with tags occupyoakland, occupywallst on October 30, 2011 by CCFrom their Transparency Report:
“We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.”
“Before gas goes into a crowd shield bearers have to be making no progress moving a crowd or crowd must be assaulting the line. Not with sticks and stones but a no bullshit assault. 3 warnings must be given to the crowd in a manner they can hear that force is about to be used. Shield bearers take a knee and CS gas is released in grenade form first to fog out your lines because you have gas masks. You then kick the canisters along in front of your lines. Projectile gas is not used except for longer ranged engagement or trying to steer the crowd ( by steering a crowd I mean firing gas to block a street off ). You also have shotguns with beanbags and various less than lethal rounds for your launchers. These are the rules for a WARZONE!!”
The Livestream Ended
Posted in chaos, news, you liked that you're gonna love this with tags occupyoakland, occupywallst, theawl, v for vendetta was not fiction on October 29, 2011 by CC“…the protesters left Snow Park and marched through the streets, turning unexpectedly (or as unexpectedly as a huge crowd can), confusing police, who were trying to split the crowd and start arrests. Then it came: hundreds of police officers, comprised of 15-17 different agencies including Palo Alto and San Leandro, in riot gear. I watched on the ABC livestream and read on Twitter as the police charged the crowd with “unlawful assembly” and warned that they had five minutes to disperse before they’d release a chemical agent. I watched as the crowd refused to move. I watched as the police pulled on their riot masks.
And then the ABC livefeed went dead.
My Twitter feed went crazy with reports of tear gas.
I refreshed the livefeed frantically. “This broadcast has ended,” it said.
ABC claimed that it ran out of fuel (see the caption under the image), so those watching quickly switched over to the CBS livestream…
Then the CBS feed turned into a picture of the Capitol.
To sum up: the only two mainstream media live-feeds switched off at precisely the same instant—the minute before fifteen police departments working together engulfed a peaceful group of protesters in tear gas.”
Entire thing at The Awl. Furthermore:
“Police brutality is… a phrase we know too well; part of what should shock us about it is the easy way it rolls off the tongue. But we’re used to shock by now; “shock and awe” is in our national lexicon and we’re no longer either shocked or awed by it. People observe, sagely, in comment threads across the Internet, that yes, sometimes the police use excess force, but this is what happens when people don’t obey police orders (however unlawful those orders might be). Honestly, what did they expect?
Those people tend not to know Oakland’s history with the police, or the police’s history with Oakland, they’ve probably never experienced anything remotely like police brutality themselves, and they also tend to let a winking cynicism about how the world works disguise their resignation and passivity. (I should know—I’m not too far from being one of them.)”
Axis Mundi
Posted in news, stuff 'n' junk with tags what i get for reading the news on October 22, 2011 by CCNot that I’m compulsively dualistic or anything, but it does seem that the world is tugging itself in two general directions right now: there are unexpected attempts to use late capitalism to share the wealth, such as pay-what-you-can restaurants and open-source software; and extraordinary attempts to accept the multifarious and contradictory world we live in as to allow us to keep living in it.
In an opposite direction are the increasingly reactive rhetorics spoken across the world – note how often “unemployed” is mentioned as damnation for the OccupyWallSt. participants – and accompanying desperate attempts to control everything possible (whether it’s from the top of the financial food chain or from the seat on the PTA roundtable).
I don’t worry that they’ll win – all binaries wind up resolving themselves in unexpected ways – but I worry that a great deal will be stupidly destroyed as the resolution plays out. And maybe that’s just the way of things.
‘Thoughts for the day,’ in the glare of the afternoon sun.
Anicca 