Josh Wolf In Jail

Er, I just found out about this and am rather sketchy on the details. In late 2004 when I was thinking about learning more about video, I met a young guy named Josh Wolf whose enthusiasm and dedication to becoming a documentarian was almost overwhelming. I quickly decided that running around with a video camera was not something I felt like doing at the time, so I only hung out with him and his fellow camera-geeks a few times. So now, apparently, he is in jail for contempt-of-court because the judge wants him to change his mind about handing over footage of a demonstration (turned violent) to the feds. This is quite in line with the feds constantly obsessing with chasing dissenters. On the face of it, this seems wrong to me, and this SF Chronicle column seems to make the case quite well.

To spell out for people what's wrong with this picture---if journalists have to hand over their outtakes and their notes and negatives, if every camera--even a journalists's camera--at every protest or gathering automatically becomes federal property, nobobdy will talk to us, and nobody will let us take pictures of their gatherings and videotape their opinions. And it's not because people know they're doing something illegal. It's because people know that even legal things can be held against them, and they don't want to have to deal with the incovnenience of being on a mistaken no-fly list or proving their innocence. And if journalists are not allowed to check things out and write about them, independent of the government, you, the citizen, won't know anyone else's side of the story.

I can't say I knew Josh terribly well. I only met him a few times, mostly in loud bars where everyone was awkwardly talking about their camera-size and editing software. But he was a kind and patient explainer of technical details, and even so kind as to worry that I had become ill or something when I stopped hanging out. So I hope things work out with his legal battles. Here's a blogpost from his mom, and here's a Huffington Post article.

Awesome! My Superhero Diagnosis! And Other News!

Your results:
You are Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman 90% Spider-Man 80% Superman 80% Supergirl 70% Robin 60% Green Lantern 60% Batman 55% The Flash 50% Hulk 50% Catwoman 45% Iron Man 35%

You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...


Aw shucks. I was barely hoping for Catwoman, but I guess I'm not quite villainous enough. The description here seems calculated to appeal to 9-year olds. The kind whose fallback Halloween costume was frequently "magical princess." Though that was usually because I could never remember to ask for blood and teeth for a vampire.

From Kevin "Iron Man" Powell.

In other super hero news: On Saturday I was presented with a can of Muscles in Heavy Syrup (to be consumed, along with the can, when needing super strength) from the Brooklyn Superhero Store. I've decided to save it for emergencies. But when the emergencies come--I'll be ready!

Yesterday I was delighted to be given a just-because gift of "Superman, the Dailies: 1939-1942" from a friend who's also a reporter and who remarked on how much more central Clark Kent and Lois Lane's journalistic careers are to the plots. Superman's also a bit of a of a jerk, and not in the wackily insane ways carefully preserved on Superdickery.com, but in a more realistic and therefore scary way---he intimidates criminals into talking with little cause (though of course he's always right), and frequently arranges matters to make sure Clark Kent gets a scoop, even if that's slightly suboptimal morally. Nevertheless, the comics are still thoroughly delightful, especially the simple art. I've carefully loaned it to the art director for the day so that I actually get some work done.

Scott just showed me this interesting site, girl-wonder.org. Filed away for future investigation!

Awesome! Aloo Tikki in the Financial District

I knew that one of my work-hood sandwich shops, EatCetera on Market, was either owned or operated by desis. There's an older uncle and his two kids who are super friendly (as are the Latina & Latino cashiers), and there's a chicken Biryani which I can't eat, of course. I usually go for the salad bar, the hefty avacado sandwich on Dutch crunch, and the bananas. But they have finally heeded my frustrated cries to heaven for some real Chaat in the Fi-di. I have often asked the operators of Vik's in Berkeley to open more branches, but they always shake there heads and say, "so much work!" I think they like to be warehouse purists, even if the warehouse now has tiled floors and real tables. So now EatCetera has ventured into the breach with Aloo Tikki for a dollar. (Aloo Tikki are the lightly fried spiced potato patties. ) Not bad! Spicy, not as fried a crust as I like, and the tub of chutney's more sweet and less sour than I'd prefer. But for a dollar, that's a good deal. Tomorrow I'll try the samosa. I just told Om--too bad he now mostly works at home.

I'm totally fantasizing about EatCetera meeting with such wild success that it provides a full line of Chaaty goodness, a la Kal Ho Na Ho, but for now I'm just thrilled to get a real spicy snack around here.

I read the news today, Oh boy. . .

Sorry about the blog silence. I realize it sounds tacky, but I was actually somewhat demoralized by the sudden and rather unexpected outbreak of war in the Middle East. To put it mildly, I'm not a big fan of bombs or disproportionate violence. The realization that's stuck with me for the last few days is that by the time the bombs start falling, it's kind of too late to really do much of anything except be horrified and angry. We spend so much time and energy recoiling acutely at the horrors of war, and it's hard to come up with a good "diet of daily action" to carefully, regularly nurture the peace.

So anyway, here's a little bit of what I've been reading: Cyrus Farivar is right on top of this stuff, with a Wired News article about Beirut bloggers and posted a letter from a friend of his studying there. Matthew Yglesias has been doing a lot of commentary. BoingBoing recently posted this all kinds of writing blog, which is by an Israeli-Canadian named Melly who flew back to Israel to be with her family in Haifa.

I've done some very shallow Google/Wikipedia research to come up with a following list of peace groups in no particular order. Please note that I am not vetting or endorsing these, since I don't have time or resources to investigate them quiet yet, but they may prove a useful starting point for those of you who are interested:

Gush Shalom, an Israeli group

Bat Shalom, another Israeli group

Tayuush, another Israeli group

Forum for Development, Culture & Dialog, a Beirut-based group which is the interim contact for

The Arab Partnership for Conflict Prevention and Human Security

The International Solidarity Movement, which appears to be both Israeli & Palestinian, and has quite a long history according to its Wikipedia article

The Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence, based in Bethlehem.

The Initiative for Inclusive Security, formerly known as Women Waging Peace, appears to be international, as does

Nonviolence International.

There's also Seeds of Peace.

The Tomorrow Party of Egypt looks promising (Wikipedia article), though its leader has been sentenced to hard labor.

Quakers rock.

Ethan Zuckerman has some wise and timely words on the repercussions of everyone focusing on the Middle East:

In total, it’s likely that, over the past decade, at least forty times as many people have died directly or indirectly from violent conflict in central Africa as have died in the Middle East. With forty times the violent death toll, you’d expect to hear a bit more about conflicts in central Africa - instead, Congo, Uganda and Sudan rank #1, #2, and #3 on Alertnet’s list of “forgotten emergencies.” . . .I mourn the deaths of everyone killed on both sides of the current conflict in the Middle East and I pray for a speedy end to the conflict, followed by negotiations that lead to progress, not a resumption of conflict. But I also pray that elections go smoothly in Congo, that they augur progress towards stability… and that somebody outside of Africa notices. Far be it from me to suggest that anyone stop reading the newspaper. Let me suggest an experiment instead:

When you read a story on the Israel/Lebanon conflict, assign yourself some homework: a story on the ongoing conflicts in northern Uganda, DRC or Sudan. You won’t find many on Google News - you’ll need to lean on AllAfrica.com or Global Voices. If you find yourself interested in the role of minerals in the DRC - critical to understanding the situation, IMHO - I recommend Global Witness’s reports on the region. You’ll likely find the news confusing, complicated, incomplete and unhelpful in forming your opinions about how Central Africa can move towards a peaceful future. And that, oddly enough, is a useful first step.

A post well worth reading in total. With that let me point to an excellent Christian Science Monitor series Ethan blogged previously about Africa's peacemakers.

Take Care Bombay

Blasts rock commuter trains of people going home, news courtesy of the Mutiny. It's a city I've only met as a layover, but know well as a character in my mother's funny tales and many, many movies and books. The gateway to India is at the top of my destination list, and the Maximum City shines on despite rain and chaos. My prayers and wishes for the Mumbaikers. Keep an eye on India Uncut and Ultrabrown for updates.

Moo Power
by ToastyKen

If you're a resident of Vermont, you can for just 4 cents more per kWh, get some of your electricity from dairy farms that burn methane from cow manure. Found this item via this /. article, where one commenter proclaimed the idea to be a complete load of BS. ;)

Wind-assisted Freighters
by ToastyKen



A German company has developed a computer-assisted sail system for large ships that uses computers to figure out the optimal route. It's supposed to be able to cut fuel costs by a third.

I don't really have anything clever to say about it. I just thought that picture was really cool. :) (Well, and this is related to all that cargo container post on this blog from before.)

Electric Cars

Ruchira tells us to go see Who Killed The Electric Car, a movie I also want to catch. The other day I caught a couple minutes of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on the radio; he was talking about health care but someone asked him about transport. He conceded that now he's driven around in a City chauffered vehicle, but that before he was driving an EV1 that he liked very much and misses. This is how I always hear about these cars, and the sheer oddness of taking away a product that tests well is so baffling that I'm looking forward to a serious explanation. One Word Changing blogger dubbed it an excellent murder mystery, while another shrugs and says the real story is who's rebuilding the electric car, citing, among others, the Wrightspeed that Business 2.0 featured a few months ago.

At some level, electric cars are a bit of a shell game. They still have to be charged, and most of our electricity still comes from fossil fuels--coal instead of oil. But powerplants can be more efficient than internal combustion engines, and getting the biggest source of greenhouse gases--the cars--ready and waiting for cleaner energy sources (solar, wind, nuclear, or carbon-neutral biofuel)would still be a big step forward.

Superman Returns

I went in with my expectations on the floor. First of all, the original Christopher Reeve Superman movies were my favorite childhood movies. That's just asking for disappointment. Secondly, it feels a little weird to be ancticipating a Warner Brother's film when I now work for yet another TimeWarner company.* Finally, the buzz was all bad. Bad reviews, changed directors, apparent cowering in anticipation of pirates, none of it boded well. Then Scotto emailed a bunch of us with this quote:

I saw the critic screening last night, and I have to say that the movie is a tapestry of missed opportunities. I was prepared to hate it, but the first half had such amazing moments that I ended up enjoying myself...until the second half, where it veered into the abyss and kicked my soul in the groin.

Wow, that's an intense mixed metaphor. So intense that when I shared it with editor Nancy Einhart, she said that while she had had no plans to see the movie, she was now kind of curious just to see what the hell that guy was talking about. In email discussion it has been permuted from "kicked my soul in the groin" to "kick my soul's groin" to "a soul-kick to the groin," with a slight detour to "kicked my groin in the soul."

A bunch of us decided we still wanted to see this move, and pledged to shield each other. Our expectations were further lowered by the horrible, horrible medley commercials, commercials for previews, and trailers that preceeded the movie at Jack London Square. And then, finally, the Warner Brothers logo (I woohoo'd 'Time Warner!' probably utterly confounding the people around us) and then---the music. The John Williams Music. I really need to find my copy of that soundtrack, because damn if it doesn't still get me after 20 odd years. I took a deep breath, and remembered to keep my defenses up. And I kept them up for almost three hours.

And it turned out no shielding was necessary. Our groins, atmic** or otherwise, were safe and unharmed. It was a pretty good movie. If I wasn't so busy and cheap, I'd even consider going to see it again with 3D bits at the Metreon. I liked it. I'll almost certainly watch it again on DVD.

In fact--besides being just fine, which was a major accomplishment, given everything it was fighting, it was actually sort of objectively interesting and good. I think the filmmakers decided that it was simply too much to try and replacethe legend of Christopher Reeve, especially so soon after his tragic death. And so Brandon Routh's characterization is greatly in homage to him. And that's okay this time, because he did it well, and it needed to be done once. Scott told me that the rumors were he looked just like Reeve, and I was highly skeptical, especially after the opening scenes. But when Clark Kent first appeared on the screen I actually said, "ah!" out loud. And that helped me forget that I was watching a new person, and just watch the movie, and get lost in it. The differences emergde, and I think they show great promise, but now was not the time to expand on them. I'm not totally sold, but I think Routh may very well make the role his own, in a good way.

The movie is basically set up as a 5-year later sequel to Superman II, but with everything shifted into current times. Superman has been away for a few years. The big deal is that when he gets back he (actually, Clark) finds that Lois Lane has a live-in boyfriend and a son. When I read this in reviews I figured it would make for annoying soap opera, but it actually gave shape and substance to all three or four characters (depending on how you count), and made for a surprisingly sympathetic, admirable Lois Lane. It also includes a Lex Luthor who got out of jail legally, and has an army of henchmen including the celebrated Kal Penn. The weird thing is that this time around Kevin Spacey's Lex is actually almost nice to his henchmen, and there is nothing dorky about them. They are intelligent, efficent, engaged, very creepy villains--sympathetic almost, and not because they're being bullied by Lex. This makes him more sympathetic as well, and makes the climax of evil much more gruelling.

It's visually stunning, as is to be expected from the director of X2 and The Usual Suspects. There were relatively few campy moments, though there was lots of iconic homage to the comics and the older movies, and lots of quiet little har-har we-love-this-old-joke moments. The action was also very much in homage, carefully updated but with a couple of major exceptions (and a lot of good use of water) not very surprising. The plot was kind of ripped off from a a classic science fiction novel by one of the great masters (I won't give it away, but maybe you should wear some sunblock) and the costuming and design was not terribly daring--Luthor et al got the best stuff there. But over all, I was happy, and I'm looking forward to the next one, which is always a good sign.

*Though TimeInc (Business 2.0) and DC Comics have absolutely nothing to do with each other as far as I can tell, which is too damn bad, because now that I work for a huge corporation, it would have been nice to feel like my colleagues include my first favorite reporter.
** In discussing this kick to the groin of one's soul, I realized we didn't have a good adjective for "having to do with the soul." It should be psychic, because Psyche really means soul, but it's come to mean mind. So I coined atmic, from Atma, the Sanskrit word for soul. Please share!

Cephalopod Sex on the Centimeter Severed Arm Scale

Hedgehog pointed me to this story in the Syndey Morning Herald, via MemeMachineGo:

The male blanket octopus faces a significant gender imbalance - he is just two centimetres long, while the female of the species can measure up to two metres. . . .This reproductive arm, known as a hectocotylus, is tucked away in a white spherical pouch between its other arms. When males mate, the pouch ruptures, the penis injects sperm into the tip of the arm, the arm is severed, and passed to the female. It stays there until used to fertilise the female's eggs, which can be weeks later. And while the human post-orgasm is sometimes referred to as "the little death", for the male blanket octopus the term takes on literal meaning. The male dies, but the female carries on, free to have sex with more males. "It's kamikaze sex, effectively," said Dr Norman. "They've found females with up to six male arms in the gill cavity.

It's old news (2003), but still so Cephalosexy. I like some of the quotes from this National Geographic article:

Imagine if your spouse was 40,000 times heavier and a hundred times larger than you. This is reality for the male blanket octopus, which was recently spotted alive for the first time off Australia's northern coast . ."Imagine a female the size of a person and the male a size of a walnut," said Tom Tregenza, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Leeds in England. . .Females have the odd appearance of a "big pink drifting blanket" said Tregenza, explaining the origins of the octopus's name.. . Such expeditions involve taking a boat to sea on moonless nights and suspending a diver up to 20 meters (66 feet) into the pitch-black water. The researchers then waited in the eerie silence and used torches as light sources in the hope of attracting interesting passers-by, said Tregenza..

The last bit sounds like they were actually hazing a young marine biologist who happened to get lucky! In more current Octopus news, Oregon State University has an opening for a charismatic midsize octopus to greet visitors.

Proud

I didn't make it into the City today, but I thought I'd say:





"I disagree. It's a debate about whether you think gay people are part of the human condition or just a random fetish. . . .Being gay is part of the human condition." Jon Stewart, debating Bill Bennet about gay marriage on the Daily Show.

I look forward to the day when Pride can be all party and no protest.

A Wookie Plays the Drums

I like the Gnarles Barkely Crazy single making the rounds of the airwaves. If you like Gnarles or Star Wars or both, you might appreciate this YouTube clip of the MTV Movie Awards, courtesy of Telstar Logistics. It's kinda crazy.

Relying on Dinosaurs
by ToastyKen

In the comments to the last post, badmash pointed out how much he liked Saheli's phrase, "I'll move my weight around myself instead of relying on dead dinosaurs."

Well, Saheli, that's because they're dead, silly. It'd make much more sense to have live dinosaurs move you around, instead:



Did you know? Brontosauruses emit Wi-Fi connectivity from their frontal lobes. It's a little-known fact!

P.S.: Yes, I know the proportions aren't right, but if I depicted Saheli at actual size, she'd be, like 3 pixels tall. :D Pretend it's a baby brontosaurus.

An Inconvenient Truth

On Saturday evening a bunch of us went out to go see An Inconvenient Truth. There weren't too many particular pieces of new information in it. I hadn't realized the extent to which the glaciers are melting. I hadn't really visually absorbed the extent to which the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has exceeded the levels of the last 650,000 years. I didn't know about the polar bears drowning because the ice is too thin to hold them. But it was still a useful exercise in being reminded of something we'd rather forget. 928 papers in the ISI index about human-caused climate change, and not a one that disagrees with the notion that we are causing dangerous changes to our planet. To me that's the most basic statement of why it's time to stop arguing and throwing the dust of manufactured doubt in people's eyes, and time to start changing things.

I recommend you go see it, if only as a reminder. I don't know if it can change someone's mind, but I've heard that the slideshow it's based on has done so in the past.

We need more reminders in our culture of inconvenient truths, and less sensitivity to having our faces rubbed in our derelicted duties. I'm as guilty as the next person. It never ceases to amaze me how even the most rationale of people--myself included-get utterly defensive when our contributions to pet peeves like climate change and the war in Iraq are pointed out to us. It's almost as if we are socially and mentally built to constitutionally oppose any kind of helpful feedback. Humility, thou art a difficult prize. And of course, in my experience, the people who posess the most humility need it the least.

It makes me wonder if perhaps we need to be able to look in the mirror, say, "God, you're awful," and mean it, and not collapse under the weight of such a statement. Bite the bullet, nod, and go, "Yep. Time to change." My whole life almost everyone from Mr. Rogers to my grade school teachers to college professors said, affectionately, "look in the mirror and say you're wonderful." Sure, sometimes that's useful. But admire yourself unconditionally? Approve of yourself unconditionally? That can't possibly always be good.

So here, I'll start it. I'm wasteful. I drive more than I should or even "need to" by relative California standards. I often leave the lights on. I buy bottled drinks even though I have a perfectly good Kleen Kanteen. Etc. etc. So then what?

Find a friend to get better with. I've been working with some friends to become a competent cyclist, so that eventually I'll move my weight around myself instead of relying on dead dinosaurs. My goal is to drastically cut my gas consumption by the end of the year, and eventually be able to move my self around to my routine destinations. It's slow, slow going, but it would be impossible going without a lot of help from my friends. In general this working-with-friends strategy seems like a good one. My friends encourage me. They cheer me on at all the right moments, and they take time out of their busy weekends to help me feel safe on the busy roads and answer my questions about my bike. It's not that they stare at me grimly and say, "Saheli, you are an awful person for burning so many fossil fuels," every time I bring it up. But neither do they spend too much time defending me to myself when I feel bad. Instead they listen, and when I ask for help with some countervailing project, they give it to me.

To me, that's really what friendship is really about. Hanging out, having fun, relating to each other, mutual admiration--these are all good things. But a card I saw recently had the quote that love is not staring at each other, but looking out in the same direction. "I got your back," implies "I'm going to go into this battle with you." My favorite wedding toast was from someone who said, "You know you're with the right person when being with them puts you in the direction of the best person you ever wanted to be." Less exactingly applied, I think that's a pretty good standard for friendship too. Partner-in-crime was always one of my favorite titles.

So instead of my usual wonkish, numerical meditations on what we can do to stop global warming, I say this--go out and be a good friend, and get good friends. If it's something that's really bugging you, talk about that. Let people you care about know that it's upsetting you, and that you want to change it, much as you would want to get healthier or be more efficient. I think that you will find that the people who want to help you--even if "only" with encouragement, which is so very valuable--are often the people who really care about you.

Stephen Colbert Gives a Commencement Speech

In the middle it gets a little sarcastic and satirical, Stephen Colbert the character rather than Stephen Colbert the guy. Straight funny, good stuff. But at the beginning and the end it's quite beautiful.

Lovelines I Like

I was just griping to ToastyKen about how much I can't stand LoveLine, the nationally syndicated call-in question-and-answer show about sex and relationships that's aimed at teenagers. It's gotten all kinds of press for being an effective educational tool, but it strikes me as puerile prank caller heaven, and I just can't see how it helps anyone. That's not what really bothers me about it. What bothers me is that it's on at 10 pm, Sundays through Thursdays, on my main radio station KITS Live 105.3. This is particularly frustrating on the rare times I have to drive on a Sunday night--at least, I think, I can catch SoundCheck, but no! It quickly gets supplanted by the boring LoveLine. I mean, when more do you need to rock out then when you're stuck driving after 10? This is my grudge against LoveLine.

On the other hand Ruchira just sent me a much more elegant Lovelines--a blogscraper that displays recently blogged lines of the form "i love --." Sarcasm, affection, triviality, passion, overenthusiasm--it's a taste test of the web's emotional spicing. Check it out but don't get hypnotized.

How Did I Miss This?!

Authorities say two separate Pensacola teachers apparently made the big bucks by accepting $1 payoffs from students wanting to get out of gym class. Their names are Terence Braxton and Tamara Tootle. I think Ms. Tootle must have been destined to appear in an odd news segment at some point of her life.

You might think that my titular question was an allusion to missing a two-month-old news story. But what I am really confounded at missing is the opportunity to bribe my way out of physical education. Scrupulous child that I was, that would have been awfully tempting. As it is I somehow managed to dance my way out of most P.E. classes.

I actually kind of regret this. I have no fond memories of the enforced Friday mile of seventh grade, but it was regular, and I did eventually get better at it. I've griped often about how adults end up doing less math in real life than they ought to because they did less math in school, but in all honesty that is probably even more true with respect to exercise. How to do a good crunch or sit-up is useful information that you don't want to be looking up every single time you need it.

The P.E.-averse brainiac is a staple of popular culture--if memory serves, genius Kid's avoidance of P.E. was a crucial plot point in Class Act--and the stereotype is that such children are simply lazy. Well, okay, I'm a tad lazy. But like a lot of other kids who shied away from PE, I've since also really enjoyed rock climbing, hiking, dancing, swimming, martial arts and soccer. It's always struck me as a little bizarre that P.E. is made as boring and routine as possible for younger children, who will have no appreciation of the need to exercise. I'm convinced that the combination of opportunities to look stupid and be made fun of with deathly dullness infected me with needless aversions. Eventually there are going to be Kumons and Sylvan Learning centers for kids who need to get motivated to play ball. It's a business opportunity for someone, but apparently not Tootle & Braxton.

Memorial Day

It's almost over, but I feel the need to observe it.* It has become the start of summer, a weekend of shopping, a day for barbecuing and sailing. It is supposed to be the day we remember the battlefield dead. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to have acquired much more gravitas in the last 4 years when we actually have known battlefield dead again. Here's a little reminder:

Iraq: 2689 Total Coalition Deaths, 2456 Total U.S. Deaths.
Afghanistan: 378 Total Coalition Deaths, 296 Total U.S. Deaths.

Source: icasualties.org

It is my belief that any community of large enough size needs a trained and professional group of people, ideally volunteers, who are skilled in the use of force and able to be called on at a moment's notice to deal with that community's defense. It is an ancient lesson of warfare that such a group of people must have some measure of obedience "in the moment" and leave decisions about the wisdom of such a deployment to commanders. It is a fairly modern but brilliant assertion that a community wishing to rule itself, with some combination of democratic and republican ideals, should make such a group submit to the will of the community government as a whole--the civilian command. And so we have an Army and Navy and Air Force and Coast Guard and Marine Corps: people who volunteer and promise to fight and risk death when and where our government asks them to, and to be as obedient as possible. If you believe in the American system of government, and you believe that it is working, and you believe that when your government asks you to risk death and homicide, it must be doing so for the necessary defense of your community as you conceive of it, well then, this pledge of obedience is quite awe-inspiring. So as part of that community, I thank you for it. I may disagree with many of your beliefs, and try hard to dissuade you from them, but let us say, I appreciate the commitment.

Now another set of you may quibble with my basic, underlying belief. Assumptions have to start somewhere, and that is where I choose to start mine. I do not wish to quibble about it now, but to move on and make the next point. If we are going to send people to other lands to die (and more importantly, to kill) it is our duty to make absolutely certain that we understand what we are doing, that we know why we are doing it, and that we have thought and intelligently dismissed every single reason why we should not. The fact is, we do not do this. We citizens spend too little time considering our foreign policy, our military budget and organization, our treatment of veterans, our war crimes, and the repercussions of our opinions on war and peace and international trade. We spend too much time watching TV and shopping. We've been invading countries and overthrowing governments to please a fruit company here and a timber company there for well over a hundred years, spilling perfectly good American blood and, more horribly, staining its honor with the blood of innocent foreign civilians and foreign democracy. The best that can be said of most of us is that sometimes we take the trouble to recognize our absurdity and laugh darkly at our horror while watching the Daily Show, sometimes we take off a busy weekend to go protest an invasion, and sometimes we pat a traumatized soldier on the back.

It is my humble assertion that the best thing you can do to support the troops and honor the dead is carve out some time from your busy schedule to be a better citizen and pay attention to budgets and foreign affairs from an American perspective. It is not enough to know that there is civil unrest in a given country--one must also know how American companies are acting in that country, and what wealthy or otherwise influential Americans have a vested interest in that country, an interest they might be more than willing to let American troops risk dying and killing for. It is not enough to know that we are going to spend this or that percentage more on the defense budget--one must also know to whom we are handing over the money, and how much more they stand to make if someone decides their equipment and their help will be required for American troops risking death and homicide. And it is not enough to know these things, one must make noise if one does not like the way these things are going, if one might, just might, think they are a bad use of resources and perhaps, even, immoral. Make noise or something more forceful, but surely we should not be silent.

In the mean time please remember that the dead lie there in obedience to our command, even if we give it sleepily and by proxy.

*Especially since I actually went to work today.

SAVE CODY'S

I have just found out that Cody's Books on Telegraph is scheduled to close in two months and I am beyond distraught. I went there on my first day in Northern California, years and years ago, visiting with my parents. I can still remember the bright sight of flowers in front of a bookstore. I've probably bought the overwhelming majority of my books there, and certainly almost all of my non textbook hardcovers. Almost every author reading I've been to was there. I've discovered most of my favorite poets there. When I was in college I would, for the sake of grades, avoid bookstores for most of the semester. When I handed in my last final, I would run straight to Cody's, money in hand, and luxuriate there for the rest of the day, carefully choosing and stacking my vacation treasure. I can walk up to the customer service people and babble about some book, neither title nor author in hand, and 95% of the time, they'll find it. When we started bombing Iraq I curled up in a chair upstairs and listened to Pico Iyer's soothing voice and prayed. I really, really don't want to lose it.

If you have any ideas, please let me know. Seriously.

UPDATE: What the hell? Ruchira is telling me she's not seeing my level of alarm anywhere else. The Fourth Street store is staying open, so people are nonchalant. WHAT THE HELL? The Fourth Street store is great if you're looking for stuff on art or textiles, or want hand crafted paper. Fine. I met Oscar the Grouch there and that was cool. I got an education about Nantali Finland by a cashier once. But there is NO COMPARISON with Telegraph. Former Presidents and Senators aren't enticed to Fourth Street. You can't pack a room with people interested in science policy at Fourth Street. The Fourth Street store wasn't bombed for stocking Rushdie. Howl wasn't written across the street from the Fourth Street store. Dustin Hoffman didn't stop Elaine Robinson on the bus on Fourth Street! You can't buy music at late hours near Fourth Street, or sell records, or rummage through vintage clothes, or get the best damn feta-almond-spinach-fuji salad in California! You can't go to an author reading and then grab take out and eat dinner under the stars in a Redwood grove, or off in a plaza filled with vendors! IT's NOT THE SAME!

I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but Fourth Street is Yuppie central. Now I probably qualify as something of a yuppie--though certainly not because of my wages--but that's the whole point. I don't NEED my whole universe to blandified into a well-designed set of tasteful, pleasant landscapes where everyone is just like me. Cody's on Telegraph is connected to the street. Cody's lets you loiter in the front and talk to people. Cody's lets street poets and homeless guys set up tables in front of the store. How many truly great bookstores--bookstores that great authors from all over the world carefully pen into their tour calendars--are so perfectly at the intersection of art, science, wealth, and poverty? I imagine there are some in Boston and NYC. I've always wanted to visit Powells--seriously, that's like the main reason I want to go to Portland. Well this is ours.

Update II: Non Berkeley-Friends who are trying be sympathetic and comforting have all kinds of sage observations about market forces and the nature of nostalgia. My initial reaction above reached into sentiment and nostalgia, but this is not a sentimental, nostalgic problem. It's not even about saving ambiance. This is a community disaster. Cody's Telegraph is one of a very small number of Bay Area bookstores that regularly hosts authors of new, cutting edge journalism, policy and science-writing. One knocked off the list will make the Bay Area one less plausible stop for a cash-strapped book tour, and non-trivially dents the chances that any given author will visit the area or spend a reasonable amount of time here. That means less opportunities to to be a guest on shows like KQED's Forum, less opportunities to be interviewed by local papers (and relate their writing to local issues), less reasons to speak at the Commonwealth Club or the World affairs Council. Less discussion. Less purchasing. Fewer books. Less journalism. Less democracy.

I really don't mean to dis the Fourth Street Store. I like it a lot and I've been to some very lovely literary readings there. I also like the new San Francisco store a lot. But you can't get to Fourth Street by BART, and San Francisco is very far away from a large portion of the Bay Area. Ten years ago I was a frequently broke, carless teenager who lived in Concord. Get rid of Cody's and you get rid of most of that teenager's opportunities to interact with the wide world of books and authors and adults who like to read about serious topics. I was lucky in that my parents are great lovers of books--if they wanted to treat me, they would take me to Cody's, and I'm sure if it had been necessary, they would have let me go to San Francisco. Not everyone is that lucky.

Cody's also anchors the street. Apparently Telegraph's increasingly unruly crowd is what's driving it out in the first place, but Cody's going will make the problem ten times worse. An abandoned Telegraph avenue is bad for the University--and I don't mean the dry institution that's often mismanaged by the regents, I mean the living community of people who work had to provide the best public higher education.

The owner, Andy Ross, doesn't seem to feel that this incarnation of the store can be saved, and I am sure he hasn't made this decision lightly. Right now I'm wondering about two options--can the store be moved to the Downtown Shattuck area, which has been experiencing a Rennaissance of book culture, and isn't quite as unruly? Or, can someone else buy the Telegraph store and keep it open?

The East Bay really should not lose its premier forum for the discussion of new writing, especially new nonfiction.

National Priorities

The war in Iraq is more expensive than signing and abiding by the "prohibitively expensive" Kyoto Protocol would have been, according to Cass R. Sunstein of the University of Chicago, writing in the Washington Post.