Categories
People

Balance

Wood s Lot has been pointing to sites dedicated to rock art, such as Oasis Design a few days ago, and Ceprano Rock Arts. I have another site on rock art to point you to, Rock On, Rock On, created by Daliel Leite in honor of Bill Dan, the famous San Francisco rock artist. I’ve been chatting with Daliel for a few months now as the site has come together, sharing feedback and photos.

I asked Daliel why people balance rocks. He answered:

Human beings have been picking up rocks for a very long time. Some have used them to build absolutely stable pyramids designed to conquer time. Others would be tempted to balance a rock on the top of that pyramid, knowing that chance, a brisk wind, a slight earth tremor, or even an experimental poke by an incredulous observer will topple it over.

The art of Briton Andy Goldsworthy plays with this interation between “rivers and tides” of time, and his constructions have been the irresitible inspiration of many would-be balancers. In California, Jim Needham, “The Rockstacker”, has maintained a web presence and a Gravity Garden from his home on the Monterey Peninsula in recent years.

Far to the north, the Inuit of the Arctic traditionally build enormous stone figures of carefully placed boulders along waterways, announcing both their presence and their resourceful strength. Food may be found here, even shelter, say the stones — as long as they stand, so shall we.

Yet even the arid “balancing rocks” of the vast Southwestern deserts, perched in unlikely configurations, are merely frozen in their travel towards sand and sea. We know they could fall, should fall, will fall, in the fullness of time.

Balancing is play and it is work. It is dance and, for some, it is prayer. Human beings stand upright against gravity; balancing on slender legs; toppling over in the controlled forward fall called walking.

And then, of course, there is beauty in this craft. Each rock in a balance sculpture becomes perfect in its placement, its center of mass and gravity either directly above that of the one below it, or intricately interacting with others to share a mutual center, much as the Earth and moon orbit around a point somewhere between them.

You asked for some “philosophy”, Shelley, how’s this? Seeing the universe in a grain of sand; balancing all of life on the tip of a stone.

Daliel is balanced. Wood s lot is also balanced, eschewing an apostrophe and balancing a possessive among a plural, or is that plurals that are possessed, without the crutch of a wasteful, flirty, come hither character.

Am I balanced? I have never tried to balance a rock on end. I’ve never built a pile of rocks, layered one on top of another. I have skipped stones, flat beauties built for distance and tossed them at perfect angles across waters as still as death — but the stones have never traveled more than two hops. Never a third hop, that bedamned third hop.

I’m happy if I can just get through life, balancing one day after the other, without it all coming crashing down.

balance.jpg

Categories
Weblogging

Gone fishing

gonefishing.jpg

Categories
Political Weblogging

Vote for Whitey, he weblogs

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Harold Kurtz covered some of of the current buzz about the Democratic candidates, the California recall election, and even Bush’s recent speech. It’s a great recap of quotes from other publications, interspersed with humorous and pithy asides. More importantly, though, it highlights some articles worth following, such as a Salon article that’s worth a serious read or two by all the people who think that Dean’s election is in the bag because he weblogs.

Though you might need to sit through an ad to read it, the Salon article by Farhad Manjoo quotes people from the Dean campaign that are growing concerned that perhaps there is too much emphasis on Dean’s online presence. On TV, it’s beginning to look like his followers are primarily of a specific race, economic level, and educational background.

For instance, the article reflects concerns by Dean supports, such as Steve Chaffin, an unofficial coordinator for Dean in Ohio:

Chaffin … worries that because Dean has relied greatly on the Web as a campaign tool, the candidate’s message has not been widely received by “blue-collar people” and minorities. This concern, which has popped up repeatedly in the media, is shared by many other Dean supporters, including Richard Hoefer, a San Francisco filmmaker who believes that the campaign has been too “blog-centric.” Asked if he thinks there’s a homogeneity to Dean’s base, Hoefer responds, “You mean whitey?”

In some ways Dean’s campaign reflects the same audience I’ve seen at tech conferences and symposia – white, primarily urban, middle/upper class, white collar, professional, highly educated. The only difference from what I can see is that there is more equal distribution of men and women than in these other venues.

Some of this is leading to concern that Dean is focused too heavily on webloggers, and that would be a mistake. In St. Louis there are probably about 2000 webloggers, at most. Yet there are close to 250,000 registered voters in this city. Rather than reaching out to the 200,000+, is Dean’s strategy focused primarily on that 2000?

According to the article:

The danger that supporters appear most wary of is “preaching to the choir” – bringing the pro-Dean message only to folks who are already inclined to accept it. Indeed, Richard Hoefer calls this the biggest pitfall of Dean’s blog strategy. “I’ve been at odds with Dean for America because I criticize them for being too blog-centric,” he says. “I think they preach to the converted, and it bugs me because I think they’re missing the boat. I think Dean has incredible appeal to blacks, Latinos, minorities – but the message hasn’t gotten out there yet because they have been too focused on the blog.”

If the registered voters in this city follow along racial lines, 51% will be black.

Manjoo says, no worries, because the webloggers are on top of the problem. In fact, if there is one major criticism I have of the article, it is the authors constant rah rahing of webloggers, and how we’re aware of this danger and how we’re doing something about it. He writes:

The self-awareness of the potential shortcomings of Dean’s campaign is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from people as well-educated and affluent as Dean supporters tend to be.

Everyone in the audience who’s affluent, please raise your hand.

There is also an assumption in the article, and elsewhere, that once Dean bags the Dem nomination, the minorities and the women will fall in line, little ducks in a row; the good thing about the online presence is it’s attracting that most fickle of voters – white men:

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the proprietor of the popular lefty blog Daily Kos and a consultant to the Dean campaign’s Web efforts, says that even if Dean is failing to appeal to minorities now, they will come to him if he wins the nomination. Meanwhile, Moulitsas says, polls show that Dean is currently attracting a crowd that the Democratic Party has had trouble with in recent elections – white males. This is partly because of Dean’s use of the Web, Moulitsas says, but mainly because “he’s a very aggressive candidate in his speaking style, and the anger. Nobody wants a president that’s a wimp, and Dean sounds tough, he sounds like he’s ready to kick some ass, and I think that really fires men up.”

Well, shucks, son. If you want to talk tough, our man Bush dressed up in a pilot’s suit and landed on an aircraft carrier. I reckon his toy gun is bigger than Dean’s, what say?

If this is a typical Dean supporter speaking out, and this is the type of advice Dean is getting, he hasn’t rat’s tail’s chance in a room of rocking chairs of taking the election away from Bush.

I have some numbers for you:

Alabama 9
Colorado 8
Texas 32
Arizona 8
Mississippi 7
Kentucky 8
Minnesota 10
Louisiana 8
Indiana 12
Illinois 22
Missouri 11
Nebraska 5
Idaho 4
Alaska 3
Kansas 6
Iowa 7
Georgia 13
Oklahoma 8
Ohio 21
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 11
Utah 5
Wyoming 3

These are electoral votes for the other states. The quiet ones, the insignificant one. These are the states populated by people that quietly watch the debates in Washington DC, and the demonstrations in New York, and the protests in San Francisco and see the tongue rings and cluck their own tongues at the foolishness of these kids. These are states made up of blue collar and white collar workers, blacks and whites and native Americans and Hispanics and Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans and Arab-Americans. They’re Christian for the most part, with some Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish people. A Buddhist or two. Maybe. Even some folk with tongue rings, because it is a free country, son.

There are some webloggers here, but not as many on the coasts because the Internet just never had the impact here as it did elsewhere. These states count themselves thankful, too, as they watch California’s unemployment exceed 10% in some areas due to the Dot Com implosion.

These states don’t have the electoral punch of California or Florida or New York, but combined these states are enough to elect a president. Half these states with New York, or Florida, is enough.

I think of those yellow ribbons and American flags I saw in Kentucky, in the towns along the way, through Indiana and Missouri and I know that behind those doors are union members and blacks and women – traditional Democratic voters. I also know that while Dean is meeting with the white, educated, internet savvy males at a Weblogger Meetup in San Francisco (earning some more Internet bucks), Bush is speaking at a plant that builds bombs here in St. Louis, giving an uncomplicated speech that’s equal parts patriotism, anger, hope, and fear.

And Bush isn’t some governor from some tiny state that allows gays to marry (as they’ll see it) and has all those independents who betray their party (as they’ll see it); and he isn’t some weblogger who works at Harvard in Boston or a software company in LA. Bush comes from Texas, that’s about as American as you can get. He worked in his Daddy’s business, he believes in God and Country and he’s one of us, these people will think. Even though they might be union members and blacks and women, they may in the quiet of that voting booth hesitate over Dean’s lever; hesitate and move on and pull down the one next to Bush’s name because he’s a man more like them, though they can’t stand him, and really don’t trust him.

Better the devil you know, then the devil you don’t.

Categories
Political

Admission

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I woke up this morning after listening to Bush, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld’s speeches in the last few days and I thought to myself, I don’t need to fight Bush’s re-election – he’s doing a good job of not getting himself elected all by himself.

After all, there’s not a one of us who isn’t aware that Iraq was no direct threat against the United States; that there weren’t stockpiled Weapons of Mass Destruction lying about; there was no need for such a quick dismissal of the UN process and even quicker entry into the war. We’re all aware that the post-war planning was based on assumptions that the Iraqi were going to be so happy to see us invade their country, that they would shower our soldiers with flowers and immediately set aside their deep religious differences and create a new and democratic governing order, quickly putting an untouched oil business in gear to pay for it.

And now, we’re hearing the price tag, 87 billion dollars. This is enough money to provide adequate medical care for every person in this country; enough to bring all of the closed schools back to their strength; enough to, well, do a lot of things that would have some positive impact here in this country. But we’ve invaded Iraq, and destroyed the infrastructure of the country at the same time – we have a responsibility so we have to foot this bill and listen to news about people getting killed, but I assumed that we’d be a bit peeved at the President for getting us into this mess.

And then there’s Ashcroft, with his traveling Tear Down the Constitution tour. After all, we’re a country that prides ourselves on our freedom and our privacy and any laws that would allow the FBI to search homes without notification, to obtain library records for people who are suspect, to hold people without due process of law, would surely not play in among the corn fields of Iowa.

From North Carolina, the Herald Sun wrote:

During an abbreviated press conference, Ashcroft, who provided individual interviews for television media but only a group interview for the press, avoided questions about the act’s effect on illegal immigration and the strain the act has placed on local budgets.

When asked about detentions of foreign citizens, Ashcroft said, “We don’t detain people without charges.” He then added, “I no longer supervise most of the immigration process. Most of those functions are now under the Department of Homeland Security.”

This sounded very much like Rumsfeld’s dismissal of not finding WMD in Iraq with stating that this was really the responsibility of the CIA, not the Defense Department. This was in addition to him saying that to criticize President Bush’s Iraq policy was aiding and abetting terrorism. Something to do with Somalia.

I would think that all of this, combined with the worst employment situation since the Depression and the worst deficit in history, would be enough to throw Bush out of office; but I bet I could sit down in any coffee shop, from sea to glorious shining sea, and hear from American after American defending Bush and defending our policy in Iraq and hear about how the economy is improving, we just have to be patient. Why? Because to do otherwise would be to admit our own errors.

The same members of Congress donned little American flag buttons and stood behind the President at the White House as good little Americans and provided blanket support for his actions.

Congress voted on the tax cut when any schoolkid with a calculator knew it would be economically disasterous.

We’ve forgotten the names of all the Americans detained without legal counsel in this country because of the war on terror.

Americans gave Bush a 78% approval rating of his handling of the War on Terror.

The same Americans believe, 2 to 1, that Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers act, thought there’s never been one iota of proof.

We rewarded our leaders for lying to us, we lied to each other, we lied to ourselves. We screwed up. Not just Bush. Not just Rumsfeld. Not just Ashcroft. We screwed up, and we’re not going to admit it.

When I visited smalltown Kentucky this last weekend, there wasn’t a store billboard that didn’t say “Support our Troops. Support our President”. There wasn’t a home that didn’t have a yellow ribbon, right next to that big American Flag. These are not stupid people who don’t know how to read, but these are people who believe, “My Country. Right or Wrong.”

And that’s who Bush, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft play to and that’s who the rest of us dismiss. We have a huge fight on our hands to prevent four more years of that Man in the White House.

Categories
Weblogging

Taboo topics

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I forgot myself yesterday and in last week’s weblog posts and broke the taboo of Unmentionable Topics. I wrote about Things that Just Aren’t Said.

Yes, I was critical of BloggerCon. I forgot that one shouldn’t mention anything critical of Blogger gatherings, especially those that involve so many of the weblogging illuminati. It’s just not done in Polite Society.

After all, everyone has their own religion, their own Gods.

Seriously, if people can go to this thing and they have fun, more power to them. There are other things of more interest to write about than to spend my time being critical of a gathering of people who want to get together and shmooze. Sometimes I forget that I’ve stopped metablogging.

Old habits are so hard to break.