Category: Culture

Categories
Connecting

Meet me in St. Louis

Woo, boys and girls, but I’m a hot property today.

Not only do I have an invite from Ev to attend a Blogger party with several thousand of his closest friends, but I also received a geniune, semi-personal, group email from Tim O’Reilly–yessir the O’Reilly man himself–to attend none other than Web Conference 2.0 this fall. Unfortunately, I don’t live in California so I can’t make the Blogger party. And I don’t have a couple of thousand dollars to register for Web Conference 2.0, so I’ll have to pass.

But if I did, I’d be truly A Listin’, on my way to the brass ring, boys and girls. Yes, indeed, I would be gold. Pure gold. If you’re nice, I’d let you kiss the hem of my low rider boot cut black jeans.

But since I can’t attend the Blogger Fest or Web Conference 2.0, I thought I would see about bringing the A List here to us in Missouri. Dave Winer has decided to stay in the States this summer and look for a place where the vote is undecided; to apply his vote where it would be most useful. Why, I just can’t think of a better place for Dave than right here in beautiful St. Louis.

Just think, Dave: This is the birthplace of Mark Twain himself, as well as the starting point for the Lewis & Clark expedition to the West. It’s not exactly the population center of the country, but it’s only a few hours away.

We’re less than a day’s drive from New Orleans, San Antonio/Dallas/Houstan, Chicago, Denver, Oklahoma City, Baton Rouge, Kansas City, Louisville, Indianapolis, Columbus, and various other cities I can’t think of right off hand; most of which are located in states that are swing states.

And there’s a thriving St. Louis blogger group that’s getting together this weekend for blues and brew on Friday, and bowling on Sunday. Not to mention that this year is the 100 year anniversary of the 1904 World’s Fair, which served as inspiration for the movie, Meet me in St. Louis; they’ve even built a replica of the World’s Fair ferris wheel for celebrations this summer. But the bigger event is the celebrations for the 200 year old anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition.

The country’s two largest rivers meet and greet here, and riverboats still ply the waterways. North and South each have a foot here, as does East and West. No other state blends all aspects of this country as Missouri does, and I’ve lived in a goodly number of them.

Cost of living is low, food is great, people are friendly, state is pretty, music is classic St. Lou blues, we have the last Victorian walking park in the US, the Arch, significant historical and literary roots, and it isn’t California, New York, Washington DC, or Boston. We be fresh meat. Just ignore the fact that both Rush Limbaugh and Ashcroft came from here. Or don’t ignore it–take the fight to their territory.

And if you’re nice, we’ll even see if we can’t throw a tornado or two, just for you, Dave.

Categories
Connecting

Hear the crying

First published April 2002 and so apropos today. When two year old pain can sound as fresh and relevant today as then, we as a people are failing our lessons.

“I want silence more than anything. I want everyone to shut the hell up so we can all hear the crying. I want everyone to dip a finger into the deep pool and taste the blood.

LISTEN TO ME. It doesn’t matter who’s right. Let me say that again: Right now, it doesn’t matter who’s right. Stop with the screeds. It doesn’t matter who’s right.”

Jon Carroll San Francisco Chronicle, 4/16/02

Categories
Diversity

Web two, oh?

I find myself in agreement with Dave Winer and Marc Cantor about O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 conference, but maybe not for the same reasons.

I don’t have a problem with a more traditional presentation format, but Web 2.0 sounds, frankly, closed door and elitist. It seems like Tim O’Reilly is forgetting his open source, just plain folks roots.

What is it lately with events where we have to ask to be invited. Google has started this with both Orkut and Gmail, then Movable Type with the 3.0 beta, and now O’Reilly with this conference. Request an invitation frankly sounds like Oliver crying out, “Please sir. May I have some more?”

I don’t want to have to ask for an invite and then magically get one because there’s “room” (i.e. the event holders decide that you would add class to the event), or not (because we’re classless). If people want an invite only event, have one. I think these events do nothing more than promote the same *Upper One Hundred that always get promoted around here, and therefore the results of these events are highly suspect–but at least that would make more sense than Request an Invite

I can also see that the female/male speaker ratio follows the rigidly set and now infamous O’Reilly conference guideline of 10% women. However, in previous conferences, I have given O’Reilly the benefit of a doubt that if women aren’t applying to be speakers, it’s not the conference presenters fault if there are no women.

But unless I missed the call for papers earlier, it seems like the Web 2.0 speaker list is also invite only. Am I mistaken? If not then events such as these do much to promote technology and the Web as a genderless environment–genderless in this case meaning only one gender need apply.

I find myself getting tired of elitistism and “Request an Invite”. Events publicized such as these only serve to feather the nest of the people attending. “Oh look at us,” they say. “We’re the elite. We make the decisions. Give us your money, but you can keep your opinions to yourselves. If you want to matter, start a company and make a billion and we’ll listen.”

If we on the street doing the work, and buying the books, and using the tech, and keeping the companies running aren’t good enough, well, the Upper One Hundred can just take their little iPods and shove them where the sun don’t shine.

*Play on the term ‘Upper Ten Thousand’ used to designate the nobility in regency England

Categories
Diversity

I knew this one was coming

Surety be damned, the hell if I’m going to see women made the scapegoats for Abu Ghraib.

We’ve gone from this incident being one of frat boy behavior (and supposedly harmless) to blaming it all on women.

My first reaction is: Since when did President Bush get a sex change operation? Buck stops at the top, people. Buck stops at the top.

In some ways, this does reflect the issue of surety and twisting circumstances to an extreme so that a given ’side’ remains blameless. But we women shouldn’t feel singled out– the pundits are also blaming the Muslims and the Academic Left, too.

Personally, I blame the Australians. Damn Aussies, it’s all their fault. If they didn’t drive on the wrong side of the road, and throw around terms like ‘Bugger’ so much, this wouldn’t have happened.

They eat Vegemite, too. I mean, what kind of sick bastard eats Vegemite? But, not content with contaminating their own land, they send their actors and films and music and writing and culture to our country, and what’s worse, speak with a devastatingly sexy accent, which just lures in our youth (and not a few older of us, too), and then look what happens–good clean innocent American boys and girls pile naked men into a pyramid.

Bugger. Vegemite. Hugh Jackman. I rest my case.

(via Feministe)

Categories
Connecting

Zero to sixty in ten seconds

Mr. Allan Moult, my friend as well as my boss at Leatherwood Online is celebrating an important birthday tomorrow, tomorrow in this case being May 8th.

Allan is a journalist, photographer, a writer, an editor, and a very interesting person who has traveled more than most people I know. He is also a tireless defender of the natural beauty of Tasmania, and seems most happy when he’s out doors, in the wild he loves so much. As a digital birthday greeting, I thought I would post photos from today’s hike for him, interspersed with some philosophy appropriate to the occasion.

(By the way, today’s hike was several miles over some wicked nasty hills and I hiked it in 90 degree (that’s Blinken’ Hot in Celsius) temperatures. It’s reassuring to people like me and Allan and others of our friends who are no longer young pups, to realize that we’re not getting older, we’re going insane.)

three days climbing
this old heart
goes no further.

Loren Webster

Found on the Net: some ways to know you’re getting older:

1. Everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.
2. The gleam in your eyes is from the sun hitting your bi-focals.
3. You feel like the morning after and you haven’t been anywhere.
4. Your little black book contains only names that end in M.D.
5. Your children begin to look middle aged.
6. You finally reach the top of the ladder and find it leaning against the wrong wall.
7. Your mind makes contracts your body can’t meet.
8. You look forward to a dull evening.
9. Your favorite part of the newspaper is “20 Years Ago Today”.
10. You turn out the lights for economic rather than romantic reasons.
11. You sit in a rocking chair and can’t get it going.
12. Your knees buckle, and your belt won’t.
14. You’re 17 around the neck, 42 around the waist, and 95 around the golf course.
15. Your back goes out more than you do.
17. Your Pacemaker makes the garage door go up when you see a pretty girl.
18. The little old gray haired lady you helped across the street is your wife.
19. You sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay there.
20. You have too much room in the house and not enough in the medicine cabinet.
21. You get your exercise acting as a pallbearer for your friends who exercise.
22. You know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions.

“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old. ”

George Burns

“Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”

Groucho Marx

(Though my particular favorite is, “It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.”)

“Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.”

Charles Shultz

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ‘neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

Albert Einstein

“Everyone here who is damn glad you’re no longer 18–madly wave your hand!”

Shelley Powers

Happy Birthday, my friend.