Category: Culture

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Connecting

Casting Call: Liberal radio needs and Ann Coulter

Sheila Lennon sent reader questions, including what I wrote about Outrage Radio last week to the Outrage folks, and has published their response. Regarding my comment, the voice of Outrage, James Linkin continues on a recent theme about language being co-opted by politcs, writing:

In no particular order: We are all prisoners of language. The turmoil of political discourse over the last decade or so has contaminated the traditional labels on the political spectrum, and frankly, I think that’s mostly a good thing. I think we should distinguish between Southern Republicans and South Park Republicans, for example. But in the end, we have to use a word or phrase to contrast us with the right-wing pinheads that have dominated talk radio up to now. Even the word ‘outrage’ doesn’t say enough.

The grim side of the language turmoil is that right-wingers co-opt the language for the purpose of deception: Clear Skies Initiative, No Child Left Behind, partial birth abortion, tax relief, you name it. Our objective is to shed a little light on these subjects, with the appropriate tone.

As for the Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio, perhaps that could be you. Send us a photo.

I could add to this and say that we might also want to distinguish between Southern and Northern Democrats, but after yesterday’s election and the recent Confederate Flagate, I doubt there are any Southern Democrats left.

James Linkin was also kind enough to drop a note in my comments.

I appreciate Sheila forwarding my comment on to Outrage, and am grateful for both Mr. Linkin’s responses. But regarding the possibility of me being the Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio, why, I’ll have to decline, though I am most sincerely grateful for the suggestion.

You see, I can’t be the Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio for any number of excellent reasons. First, I’m not blonde; not even from a bottle, blonde. I’m also not hip or glamorous or fashionable, and nothing I wear is worth more than twenty dollars. New.

(The last time I wore a short, leather skirt, Nixon was still President.)

Career wise, Ann has astutely divined that terrorism sells, and writes best-selling books about traitors and the enemy within (and the enemy without, and the enemy over there, and the enemy over here, and the enemy in our wombs, and the enemy in space, and, well, I digress.) I have never once written about an enemy of the people in any of my books. Well, not unless you want to include my books about Microsoft technology.

Ann has met and had her picture taken with all sorts of famous people. My greatest claim to fame is that I’ve managed to piss off 80 out of the Technorati Top 100 Webloggers, several members of the W3C, and I think a significant portion of people in Boston and San Francisco. Why else do you think I’m in St. Louis?

Most importantly, though, and the real clincher about why I can’t be the Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio: In my last 10,000 words of writing, I only mentioned the word ‘patriotism’ once.

However, I don’t want to let this wonderful opportunity slide by without sharing it with my weblogging sisters. I think what we need here is a “Why I should be the Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio” contest. To enter all you need to do is write a weblog post (or email if you’re not a weblogger), telling the Outrage Radio folks why you think you would be an excellent Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio.

If you have a photo then by all means post it. If it’s of you in a short, leather skirt, extra points. We should also insist on an audio recording of your voice, just to make sure that you don’t sound like a screech owl. However, if you’re blonde enough, and look good in that skirt, I imagine that your voice could be dubbed in.

Since this is a political talk show program, you should demonstrate that you know something about current affairs, and by this I don’t mean what’s happening with J-Lo. Though I hate to discrimate on the basis of war versus non-war bloggers, since this is liberal radio, you ladies with the “I (heart) Bush” on your pages need not apply. Sorry, Glenn, but this means you, too.

Just think: someday when you’re rich and famous, and most likely blonde, you can look back at this moment and this post with fondness, knowing that it was here, in weblogging, that you got your big break.

Go on babies. Show them what you got.

Categories
Culture Places

Dixie Land

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I wrote last week about visiting the Johnson Shut-Ins, trying to get some photos of unusual rock formations. This was my first visit to this part of the state, heading southwest rather than my usual northwest.

It was a great day with cool weather but clear skies. As I drove South from St. Louis on I-55, I marveled at all the parks I passed along the way – fresh adventures, and I hadn’t exhausted all of the parks in my usual hiking territory. I tried to make note of them as I passed, but there were too many.

From I-55 I took US Hwy 67 to Framingham, and from there I needed to take Route W. Missouri has all of these back country routes that they’ve named after the letters of the alphabet, and it makes it hard not to miss them – they all look alike. Why couldn’t the state use something like “Missouri Arcadia Highway” or “Iron Road”, for Iron Mountain through which it traverses.

Route W was a beautiful 2-lane road in excellent condition, with hardly any other cars on it that day. As expected in the Ozarks it was hilly, and curvy, and green – even in the late fall, there was still green along side the road. I went through one small town, can’t remember the name, and a road crew was working on an old iron bridge that looked like it had been around forever. The men all wore uniform outfits of white t-shirts and baggy blue jeans, brown leatherwork boots and bright orange work crew vests and hats. One of the lanes was closed and as the sheriff waved me through, I couldn’t help staring at the men because to a person they all had brown hair, mustaches, and mirror sunglasses. The only difference between the men was height and build.

Several of the men saw me staring and tipped their hats. This is the backcountry of Missouri and these men’s mamas raised them to be polite. I tried to reciprocate the politeness by nodding back with slight, dignified smile, reminding myself that these men were not a raree show and to stop staring.

Not long after the workmen, I topped a hill and started passing what looked like some kind of farm supply company. Nothing unusual, except for a tall flagpole flying an old confederate flag. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. When you live in St. Louis, you sometimes forget Missouri’s civil war roots. Why, an estimated 1500 confederate soldiers had died in the battle of Pilot Knob, not but a few miles from my final destination.

I didn’t think much of the flag, or more of the flag then to think about its historic significance, until I passed another home in the woods and this one also had a confederate flag, but a much newer, more vividly colored one. And then I passed another house flying the flag, and then another, and then another.

I once wrote how disturbed I was by the homes flying the huge American flags with yellow ribbons in Kentucky. I think of them as examples of unthinking patriotism. Well, none of this exists in the iron country of the Ozarks, but I don’t believe what takes its place is an improvement.

From Route W, I had to take Highway 21 to reach the Shut-Ins. When I got to the park there were some people there, including other photographers. Normally I’d say hello and smile at folks, maybe chat about the view or the rocks or our cameras. That day, though, I kept my head down and found I couldn’t make eye contact with any of the other people. In fact, I found myself getting irritated with the people, the rocks, the water, and finally just left.

Of course, all of this surfaced this week with the uproar surrounding Howard Dean’s remarks about wanting to be “…the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” Oh my.

I know where Dean is coming from, though he sure can stick his foot in his mouth at times. It wasn’t that long ago that I and others criticized Dean for surrounding himself with east coast college educated liberals. Can’t get more uncoast and unliberal than trucks with confederate flags. But what is a white man from the North going to know of the confederate flag? Kerry and Lieberman, for all of their outrage, they don’t know about it either – except as some symbol of backwoods inbred hicks that pollute this great nation of ours.

(I think I’ll get that put on a shirt. “Hi, I’m a backwoods inbred hick from Missouri and I sleep with my gun.”)

Gephardt is from Missouri, so he’s probably seen a truck, maybe even one with a confederate flag. But what’s his response to this issue?

“I don’t want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” Gephardt said in a statement. “I will win the Democratic nomination because I will be the candidate for guys with American flags in their pickup trucks.”

So then we’re back to Kentucky, and home after home covered in American Flags and yellow ribbons. Or we’re back to a White House lawn, with Gephardt standing behind the President, promising his support for this war on terror in Iraq.

As for Clark, another man who might have seen a flag draped truck or two with his Arkansas background – cookie cutter responses with “NRA.” “Racially Divisive.” Basically it boils down to “Bad Mans. Pick me.”

I’m voting Democrat, but it’s damn hard at times. These men, they don’t have a clue what this is all about.

Along I-55 on the way home from my trip to the Shut-Ins, I passed a sign identifying that section of the highway as the Rosa Parks Highway, named for the black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white person during the civil rights movement. The reason for the highway being named after her is an interesting story.

Back in 1994, the Ku Klux Klan wanted to adopt that stretch of I-55 as part of the adopt-a-highway program. If allowed, a sign with the Ku Klux Klan on it would have to be displayed along the side of the road. The Missouri Department of Transportation denied the request, and the KKK filed a freedom of speech suit. Eventually the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the Ku Klux Klan, and its right to free speech. Once the Supreme Court refused to hear Missouri’s case, the KKK was free to become part of the program.

But you know, the folks of Missouri never were the type to just take defeat. The Highway Department, with much fanfare, renamed the section of the Highway that the KKK claimed, as “Rosa Parks Highway”. If the KKK persisted with their insistence on being part of the program, they would be cleaning The Rosa Parks Highway.

Missouri. God, you have got to love the folks here at times.

Back to the trip and the flags, those symbolic flags. Last week, the worst part of the trip and traveling past those confederate flagged homes wasn’t that the flags were some kind of symbol of the NRA or racial hatred, whicheveryoneisagainst. The worst part of the day, for me, personally, was when I saw all those confederate flags and thought about walking in those woods all by myself, and remembered those men and their mirror sunglasses – and I felt relieved that I was white and not black. The year is 2003 and it was the middle of the day in the middle of the United States and I’m driving in my car thinking to myself that I’m glad I’m white and not black. No wonder I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes at the park.

After all the shouting and finger pointing, that’s really the issue. And I bet if Dean, or Gephardt, or Lieberman, or Kerry, or Clark, or even President Bush for that matter, had been in the car with me, they would have been relieved they were white, too. At least, this is my hope. I’d hate to think I was the only moral coward around.

The solution could be to just make flying the confederate flag illegal. But then there’s that free speech thing, and I’m not sure what’s scarier: the flags flying or the flags not flying because the government steps in. Open the door to that sort of thing and all sorts of bad stuff will start crawling out – like our current Attorney General, Ashcroft. You know, he’s from Missouri, too.

(The ACLU doesn’t have a problem knowing which is the better – they were the ones that filed suit for the KKK.)

The KKK dropped their claim on the Rosa Parks Highway, but then in 2001 applied to adopt another section of road. They’ve again been denied because the Highway department has instituted new rules that won’t allow groups to participate if they discriminate. When the KKK member applied and was asked whether his group discriminates, he answered, “Yes”. The issue is again heading back to the courts. Good thing there’s lots of civil rights worker names to call upon if need be.

As for the road the KKK wants to adopt, it’s in the Ozarks, in a place called Iron Mountain. A stretch of asphalt on Highway 21, near to some famous landmarks known as the Johnson Shut-Ins and Elephant Rocks.

Categories
Diversity

Bitches Club

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I swear I’m going to start a Bitches Club. And it’s not going to be for women only.

I’ve been researching the extent of offshoring in this country in the last week; I’m appalled by what I’m finding, especially offshoring as related to the technology field. The more I read, the more I find myself siding with the protectionists who believe we should penalize companies for moving jobs offshore, or for bringing in workers from other countries. But then I remember the great people I’ve worked with who were in this country on H1Bs from India, Russia, Vietnam, Australia, and other countries. I think about how much richer my life is, how much more open my understanding is, thanks to these people who learned a new language and stepped into a country and a culture where not everyone welcomed them.

I look around and see unemployed tech workers and I say to myself, we need to keep our jobs here, in this country; take care of our own. But then there are the webloggers from other countries who have forced me to think beyond my borders; who have screwed around with my vision and hearing, leaving me irreversibly damaged beyond Patriotic repair. People who just won’t let me think within the box.

Globalization is happening, and I’m not sure there’s anything we can do to fight against it. Or that we should. But too often corporations and countries invoke globalization and we don’t understand the implications – either the possible benefits or the potential for abuse.

It’s like technology: too many people just go with the technical flow without understanding what’s happening. Then something like a DDoS happens, and words like packet and SYN get thrown around and they haven’t a clue if something positive is being done to help them, or if someone is just yanking their non-tech chains.

I think that’s what defines a bitch to me. It’s not that you fight all the time; it’s that, at a minimum, you don’t accept what’s happening around you without at least trying to understand what that ‘acceptance’ means in the long run.

Tough decisions need tough talk and even tough actions at times . When the going gets bitchy, the bitches get going.

(I am going to die at a relatively young age from stress, aren’t I?)

Speaking of bitchy folk, Sheila Lennon introduces a new radio broadcast called Outrage Radio. What happens if you put Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Ann Coulter* through the Looking Glass? You get a new sport called Extreme Liberal Radio.

Sheila interviews the Outrage gang, and the responses show that amidst the passion, there might also be vestiges of humor. My favorite response back to one of her questions: “If you want a nanny, move to Sweden.” I hope this humor, and its associated perspective, continue because if I can’t handle conservatives who take themselves too seriously, liberals with flecks of foam at the corners of their mouth and a demonic gleam in their eyes also turn me off.

I hesitate when I see something like ‘liberal radio’, because I don’t think we can use labels like ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, or even ‘libertarian’, the same again. I know so-called warbloggers who are extremely liberal when it comes to social issues and internal politics. I know fiscal conservatives who are pro-choice. And there’s even a few libertarians who believe that maybe machine guns aren’t really necessary for deer hunting.

Today is a rich and complex time. It’s not the same black and white hat, good guy/bad buy world, and cookie cutter labels just don’t work. I hope that Outrage Radio goes beyond just being ‘liberal radio’, or why listen? We’ll already know what they’ll be saying.

*Speaking of Ann Coulter, where’s the Ann Coulter of Liberal Radio, guys?

Categories
Art Photography

The illusion of perfection

My last rock story. Today if only the sun would cooperate I could finish the photos of the mineral collection and finally put this show on the road. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth and I find looking at the last broken and browned leaves of Fall outside to be a soothing counter-point to immersion in such vivid greens and blues and pinks and purples, oranges and golds and clears.

I measured my pyrite cube and found that it’s not a perfect square that it appears. Still, it’s close enough that when I showed it to my brother years ago, he didn’t believe it was natural – how can anything in nature follow such perfect lines? Today through an understanding and study of fractals we know that there is more of a pattern to nature than is apparent to the naked eye.

In fact, crystals of a specific mineral usually grow in precise patterns that are known as the crystal’s habit, a primary identifier of the mineral. For instance, Vanadinite has a very distinctive habit and color that make it quite easy to identify.

However, the appearance of consistency and pattern in nature is really an illusion; a trick to make us think we have the answers. Just when we think we’ve found the key to understanding it, nature changes. We’re then left grasping at our tattered assumptions, gazing in bewilderment at our math where two plus two does not equal four. We learned a lesson about this from the sun this week – if something so primal to our lives can suddenly change behavior, what can we depend on? Do you feel your world rocked?

Barite can be clear and precise and ordered, and there is serenity in its clean, uncluttered lines:

But it can also be yellow and chaotic, with growth in every direction. Look at the following photo – how can we believe that the mineral that formed the elegant bit of clarity above is the same mineral that formed into the messy and inconsistent crystal shown below?

Still, if a crystal can have many forms and colors and shapes and textures, there is a finite limit to its variety. Dioptase will never be red, and molybdenite will always be metallic. It is this limit that now leads me to believe that one of my samples, a lovely bit of orange-red and clear crystals, may be a fake. I cannot find a mineral that matches the color, the weight, and the shape – all three.

By color it could be realgar, but the shape is wrong; by luster it could be spinel, but the shape is wrong; and by weight it could be rhodonite – but the shape and size doesn’t fit any of these.

It is driving me mad.

It’s a pity my pretty orange rock refuses to be classified, to fall into neat little patterns of mineral behavior: this color and this luster and this crystal shape and gravity. There’s no room in the collection for mystery.

Categories
Diversity

But young women don’t want role models

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Halley Suitt wrote at misbehaving.net about .NET developer Julie Lerman and her attending the PDC (Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference). Halley mentions the usual bad ratio of men attendees to women, which is not a surprise to any of us.

I wasn’t going to respond to Halley’s post, which was fine. But I could not let a comment Julie Lerman made go without response. First, to set the scene as to the skewed demographics of the conference (white/male, as usual) , Werner Vogels’ wrote:

The demographics are skewed not only for gender but also race and age. To dominant type: geeky white guy in the 20-30 year range and balding slighty heavyset white guys between 40-50. Hardly any African or Asian Americans. The presenters are almost all fit this stereotype.

I can agree with this assessment – it fits the conferences I’ve been to, and I’ve written about this in the past. To which Julie responds with:

Werner is right about the race demographics. You do have to discount the fact that it’s difficult for people from far away to get there. We know through INETA that there are huge .NET developer communities all over the world including places like Latin America, India, Malaysia, etc. As far as the age demographics, right again. But man, this stuff is exhausting and the older you get the harder it is to do. It is amazing to me how young so many of the “stars” of our little world are

(I did write a fairly scathing comment about this when I originally posted but I decided to remove it. I don’t think any comment is necessary. )

I am writing a very extensive essay on the technology profession, sparked in part by a thought provoking comment that Dori Smith wrote in comments at misbehaving.net:

Okay, I guess I’ll be the devil’s advocate and ask, what’s so special about getting women into tech?

I’ve been working with computers for over 25 years, and I’m at the point now where I don’t recommend that anyone go into this field, and particularly not women. The analogy I usually use is that of pro sports–if you’re going to get into the field, do it for love or for money, but don’t plan on it lasting as a lifetime career.

For love: it’s all you want to do, and it’s okay that either it’ll be a short-term paid gig or a long-term free gig. You do it because you feel driven to do it, and nobody better stand in your way. These folks (both male & female) don’t need any encouragement.

For money: you know it’s not a long-term proposition, but you’re okay with getting in, trying to grab the brass ring and make some serious dollars, and then getting out. These folks (both male & female) are going to pick tech or some other field based on how much money they think they can make in a short-time, and I (personally) don’t really care whether they decide that tech’s the answer for them or not.

But if you’re going to encourage women to go into tech, you need to make sure that they know that it’s a field just like, say, sports or modeling, where youth is always going to be more important than talent. They need to know that they’re picking a career where they’ll be unhirable once they turn 35 or have kids, or even worse, turn 35 *and* have kids.

This isn’t changed by getting more women into the field. This isn’t changed by a hot job market making employees more valuable (the Internet bubble made things worse, if anything). This is (imo) changed by getting rid of the self-destructive ways in which the field compensates employees, and producing more women graduates doesn’t touch that.

So, what’s so good about encouraging women to go into tech?

I apologize to Dori for copying the entire comment, but I thought it was a fascinating statement to make, and one worth discussion. I know that it stopped me cold and made me question a lot of my assumptions. More on this later.

I’m also writing several new essays for my For Poets sites on DDoS and weblogging’s impact on the openness of the Internet (and vice versa), which I hope to put out this weekend. Too bad it lacks the sexy shininess of all that way cool .NET stuff. *giggle*

Also almost finished with the rock show. Today. But first, I’m going on a hike. Have to keep these old bones moving, or they get brittle, you know.