This is it on Winer, unless he pulls another stunt before I catch my breath. He's tiresome. He is his own health problem, and he has blasted the blood pressure of untold numbers. So I have to get away from his twistedness. It isn't healthy. And Dave, although he wouldn't care anyway, isn't the only one out here with glass balls.
But first, a word to my blogger friends who were part of the weblogs.com "community."
I have several friends who were affected by Winer's latest slash-n-burn antics. I'm addressing you here, to say thank you to YOU. Not to Dave, or to the buddies of Dave who have run to his rescue in email and in "servertude." I am glad that they are there--glad that Dave has friends like those--not just for Dave, but for you all. Because without those tempering forces, your wonderful writing could well be gone by now. Way gone. (Or revised and enhanced for you and uploaded in the middle of the night).
Thank you to you weblogs-dot-comers who have written with such passion these last years. You are the ones who have made "weblogs.com" mean something. A server with nothing on it has no value. It is worth the price of a server. It is not something you fight about, dig down and pound fists about, care about, love. It's a piece of hardware. The reason this is more than a hardware failure or outage is because of what's ON the server--Your voices. And regardless of Dave's ongoing revisions to what happened, I'm not comfortable with what was done to you without a second thought.
No matter where you live, whether you follow the Winer trail to Cadenhead or you decide to take this opportunity to forge new alliances, move into new neighborhoods, try new tools, your writing means something to me, and to the larger blogging community.
I will read you. I will link to you. No matter where you go.
So, back to the title of this post... If I were you...
If I were you--and you have to trust me that I have put myself in the very mindspace you've all been in over this last couple days--there is absolutely positively no way I'd hop over to Cadenhead's server and make it my home. I would not make the leap of faith necessary to assume everything will be okay over there because Dave's paws are off of it. Rogers doesn't see a problem with Dave's taking down 3,000 sites without notice. He says that he will have a users policy that will spell out such things. If you go there, make sure you read it. But if I were you, well....
There is no way, no way, no way. I would not allow him to upload my content. I would request that dave follow through on his "Non-Negotiable" deal--his published offer--to export your files to you, and I would haul ass as far away from that shit as I could.
Now that's me.
You may have other ideas.
Although Dave says he wants nothing to do with weblogs.com hosting or puttering around in Manila, um, he has been known to change his minds. The whole Dave/Userland enmeshment is not, from all that I have read, defined enough for me.
Do you trust him? Do you trust them? Does it matter to you?
It would matter to me. I would say, Nah, Dave. No thanks. I'll stick to your original, non-negotiable, one-time-only offer. And I want my Data according to the July 1 "commitment date" you've referenced in your most recent audio post. Or before. Since you're making great progress.
That's it. If I were you, I would be so ready to kick ass that my foot would already be in my boot and winding up. Of course, as I said, that's just me. And I'll link to you (and actually FIX my links to you, "Murphy-Willing") no matter where you land.
Now, go do the right thing.
June 18, 2004
June 17, 2004
Compare and Contrast
The now famous outage begins...:
This site is for people with sites that used to be hosted at weblogs.com.
1. I can't afford to host these sites. I don't want to start a site hosting business. These are firm, non-negotiable statements.
2. There are several commercial Manila hosting companies, including weblogger.com. Thomas Creedon maintains a list of commercial and free hosting services. If you want to have your site hosted more cheaply, consider the possibility of forming a co-op of some kind.
3. If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won't export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer.
Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site.
This site is for people with sites that used to be hosted at weblogs.com.
1. I can't afford to host these sites. I don't want to start a site hosting business. These are firm, non-negotiable statements.
2. There are several commercial Manila hosting companies, including weblogger.com. Thomas Creedon maintains a list of commercial and free hosting services. If you want to have your site hosted more cheaply, consider the possibility of forming a co-op of some kind.
3. If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won't export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer.
Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site.
"I'd Like to Thank the Academy..." -- The Award for Best Euphemism Goes to Dave Winer
For calling a "Deliberate" shutdown an "Outage." Congrats! Dave also won for his supporting role as Oxymoron!
I've done a quick transcription of Dave' latest audio post about what he phrases a "deliberate" "outage" below. Enjoy... 'Specially the part about his glass balls... I always knew he had glass ones.
----------------------------
Hi. This is Dave Winer. It’s a little bit after 1:00 Eastern Time, June 17th 2004. I just posted the transition plan for the weblogs.com hosted sites. It looks like we’re going to be able to exceed the commitment by a lot. Basically, the free hosting will continue for 90 days on the new server that’s hosted by Rogers Cadenhead, who I trust. He’s a guy I’ve worked with now for a few months on various different projects. He’s very well educated on the Userland platform; he’s new to Manila, so he’s going to have a learning curve here, but we’ve set up a server and we’ve moved the sites from my server to Rogers’ server, and so I believe we’ve exceeded, well we will when this is working, have dramatically exceeded the commitment and also done it quite a bit sooner than July 1, which was the commitment date.
You should read the new document, which is at newhome.weblogs.com/hostingtransitionplan. And what I want to do in this voice post is to just thank the people who have been incredibly supportive. You know, there are so many good human beings on the Internet, and they are so often overshadowed by the loudest people on the Internet who often aren’t very nice. And, you know, try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and don’t focus too much on people who try to give you pain, don’t give them what they’re looking for, and try to teach whatever I learn, is also part of my philosophy. This time there were a combination of factors, however many, maybe five different factors that when all put together created an outage. It was an outage every bit as real as a denial of service attack, or script kiddies, or some horrible operating system bug, or a disk crash, or anything like that.
Since one of the factors was my health, people tended to discount that. And I think that’s mostly young people that have bodies that don’t get sick. When I was in my twenties, my body didn’t get sick and boy did I do things to it (chuckle), and you know I’m now 49 years old, a lot wiser for the wear and tear, but on the other hand, when I get sick, I really do get very sick sometimes. And stress of course is one thing I can’t do. Or at least the kind of stress that comes from hosting and serving people for free when, you know, you can’t even hire people to help.
I think it was hard for people to understand that this was an outage and when you’re dealing with an outage you basically say how can I help and you leave it at that. You don’t do anything that’s beyond that until the outage is cleared. And then you can do a post mortem on it. A thoughtful person will have probably better insights on what could have been done better than somebody who’s not close to the situation.
So we will do that. I mean, I will do that. And I will share what I’ve learned. But first we have to finish the cornerturn and the passoff. I need to move a lot of stuff from Boston to New York this weekend. Lots of other things to deal with…so in any case...so I want to… so the purpose here is to acknowledge and thank the people who made a public or private statement of support—not just support for me, that’s not even the important part. In situations like this what matters is the support for the users. If technology is a profession, the users are our patients. And maybe more accurately, their websites are our patients. And that’s what comes before everything else. So the support here mattered a lot and I appreciated it.
There are two people I want to call out. One is Evan Williams at Blogger. Evan posted a very simple message yesterday, and I linked to it from today’s scripting news, and I would highly recommend people go look at it. Evan and I have had some major disagreements, we actually have a disagreement out right now. But when an outage comes and somebody’s fighting to keep the servers operating, all that goes into the background and what comes to the foreground is that support thing, and that’s a very big picture type view of things and that’s what makes, what can make, an industry great, that if we know in the moment we need help it’s going to be available to us, we can try to do bigger things. I really appreciate what Evan did and if given the chance I will reciprocate and do it with absolute pleasure and pride, so thanks Evan and thanks for setting such a great example.
And then the one other I want to call out as special comes from Michael Winser. Michael is I think still a programmer at Microsoft. I know he has a Microsoft email address. I’ve never actually met him face to face, but Michael’s been a correspondent for probably eight years, since I started writing davenet, he’s been a regular reader and contributor. He was working on the browser team during the browser wars, and we were communicating constantly. And it was always a two-way communication thing. … It’s been a good relationship. Today after he sent me an email, I’m going to read you a quote he provided, I wrote back and said we’re friends, and that’s not a word I don’t use lightly, and I don’t.
So here’s what he wrote, a quote from Sandra Pianalto, who is the president and Chief Executive Officer of the federal reserve bank of Cleveland. This is part of the talk she gave at the graduation commencement at Ursuline College this year 2004. She says:
”Here’s a technique I find very helpful in reminding me to keep a work-life balance. You will have many responsibilities simultaneously in your life, like having to juggle several balls at once. Visualize that in one hold you hold a rubber ball, and in the other hand you hold a beautiful fragile glass ball. The rubber ball represents your career, your work and your volunteer activities. The glass ball represents your family, your friends, and your health. What happens when you drop the rubber ball? It will bounce. Someone will pick it up for you or it will stay put until you are able to pick it up again. What happens if you drop the glass ball? If you’re lucky, it will crack. But it may smash into a million pieces. Either way it will never be the same. So along with everything that you learn, there is something you should learn not to do. Don’t let your justifiable concern about your career
Cause you to drop the precious ball that represents your family, your friends, and your health.”
So what Michael said to me, he says, it’s very simple to me, you dropped the rubber ball. And it’s true, I certainly did. It was done deliberately, it was done by choice, and I wouldn’t do it any differently if I had it to do over again. I think what people responded to, people who were shocked at it, is that they don’t really ever see people do that. But I made a choice, and I decided I want to be healthy and I don’t want to give my life to this free hosting business. [sigh].
There was more that he said that helped me put things in perspective and if I get it I’ll post it. So anyway that’s it for this morning coffee note or non coffee note or afternoon air conditioner note, you can hear in the background the air conditioner running because it’s pretty darn hot here in Boston.
I’m gonna get some exercise, drink lots of water and I’m gonna enjoy my life, and I’m gonna help Rogers Cadenhead, Steve Kirks, and anybod else who wants to show up and help the weblogs.com community, I’m all over it. Just don’t look to me to do the hosting. Okay?
Thanks very much. Talk to you soon. Bye.
I've done a quick transcription of Dave' latest audio post about what he phrases a "deliberate" "outage" below. Enjoy... 'Specially the part about his glass balls... I always knew he had glass ones.
----------------------------
Hi. This is Dave Winer. It’s a little bit after 1:00 Eastern Time, June 17th 2004. I just posted the transition plan for the weblogs.com hosted sites. It looks like we’re going to be able to exceed the commitment by a lot. Basically, the free hosting will continue for 90 days on the new server that’s hosted by Rogers Cadenhead, who I trust. He’s a guy I’ve worked with now for a few months on various different projects. He’s very well educated on the Userland platform; he’s new to Manila, so he’s going to have a learning curve here, but we’ve set up a server and we’ve moved the sites from my server to Rogers’ server, and so I believe we’ve exceeded, well we will when this is working, have dramatically exceeded the commitment and also done it quite a bit sooner than July 1, which was the commitment date.
You should read the new document, which is at newhome.weblogs.com/hostingtransitionplan. And what I want to do in this voice post is to just thank the people who have been incredibly supportive. You know, there are so many good human beings on the Internet, and they are so often overshadowed by the loudest people on the Internet who often aren’t very nice. And, you know, try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, and don’t focus too much on people who try to give you pain, don’t give them what they’re looking for, and try to teach whatever I learn, is also part of my philosophy. This time there were a combination of factors, however many, maybe five different factors that when all put together created an outage. It was an outage every bit as real as a denial of service attack, or script kiddies, or some horrible operating system bug, or a disk crash, or anything like that.
Since one of the factors was my health, people tended to discount that. And I think that’s mostly young people that have bodies that don’t get sick. When I was in my twenties, my body didn’t get sick and boy did I do things to it (chuckle), and you know I’m now 49 years old, a lot wiser for the wear and tear, but on the other hand, when I get sick, I really do get very sick sometimes. And stress of course is one thing I can’t do. Or at least the kind of stress that comes from hosting and serving people for free when, you know, you can’t even hire people to help.
I think it was hard for people to understand that this was an outage and when you’re dealing with an outage you basically say how can I help and you leave it at that. You don’t do anything that’s beyond that until the outage is cleared. And then you can do a post mortem on it. A thoughtful person will have probably better insights on what could have been done better than somebody who’s not close to the situation.
So we will do that. I mean, I will do that. And I will share what I’ve learned. But first we have to finish the cornerturn and the passoff. I need to move a lot of stuff from Boston to New York this weekend. Lots of other things to deal with…so in any case...so I want to… so the purpose here is to acknowledge and thank the people who made a public or private statement of support—not just support for me, that’s not even the important part. In situations like this what matters is the support for the users. If technology is a profession, the users are our patients. And maybe more accurately, their websites are our patients. And that’s what comes before everything else. So the support here mattered a lot and I appreciated it.
There are two people I want to call out. One is Evan Williams at Blogger. Evan posted a very simple message yesterday, and I linked to it from today’s scripting news, and I would highly recommend people go look at it. Evan and I have had some major disagreements, we actually have a disagreement out right now. But when an outage comes and somebody’s fighting to keep the servers operating, all that goes into the background and what comes to the foreground is that support thing, and that’s a very big picture type view of things and that’s what makes, what can make, an industry great, that if we know in the moment we need help it’s going to be available to us, we can try to do bigger things. I really appreciate what Evan did and if given the chance I will reciprocate and do it with absolute pleasure and pride, so thanks Evan and thanks for setting such a great example.
And then the one other I want to call out as special comes from Michael Winser. Michael is I think still a programmer at Microsoft. I know he has a Microsoft email address. I’ve never actually met him face to face, but Michael’s been a correspondent for probably eight years, since I started writing davenet, he’s been a regular reader and contributor. He was working on the browser team during the browser wars, and we were communicating constantly. And it was always a two-way communication thing. … It’s been a good relationship. Today after he sent me an email, I’m going to read you a quote he provided, I wrote back and said we’re friends, and that’s not a word I don’t use lightly, and I don’t.
So here’s what he wrote, a quote from Sandra Pianalto, who is the president and Chief Executive Officer of the federal reserve bank of Cleveland. This is part of the talk she gave at the graduation commencement at Ursuline College this year 2004. She says:
”Here’s a technique I find very helpful in reminding me to keep a work-life balance. You will have many responsibilities simultaneously in your life, like having to juggle several balls at once. Visualize that in one hold you hold a rubber ball, and in the other hand you hold a beautiful fragile glass ball. The rubber ball represents your career, your work and your volunteer activities. The glass ball represents your family, your friends, and your health. What happens when you drop the rubber ball? It will bounce. Someone will pick it up for you or it will stay put until you are able to pick it up again. What happens if you drop the glass ball? If you’re lucky, it will crack. But it may smash into a million pieces. Either way it will never be the same. So along with everything that you learn, there is something you should learn not to do. Don’t let your justifiable concern about your career
Cause you to drop the precious ball that represents your family, your friends, and your health.”
So what Michael said to me, he says, it’s very simple to me, you dropped the rubber ball. And it’s true, I certainly did. It was done deliberately, it was done by choice, and I wouldn’t do it any differently if I had it to do over again. I think what people responded to, people who were shocked at it, is that they don’t really ever see people do that. But I made a choice, and I decided I want to be healthy and I don’t want to give my life to this free hosting business. [sigh].
There was more that he said that helped me put things in perspective and if I get it I’ll post it. So anyway that’s it for this morning coffee note or non coffee note or afternoon air conditioner note, you can hear in the background the air conditioner running because it’s pretty darn hot here in Boston.
I’m gonna get some exercise, drink lots of water and I’m gonna enjoy my life, and I’m gonna help Rogers Cadenhead, Steve Kirks, and anybod else who wants to show up and help the weblogs.com community, I’m all over it. Just don’t look to me to do the hosting. Okay?
Thanks very much. Talk to you soon. Bye.
Glenn's got a Plan.
Glenn's got a way to get your old weblogs.com pages from Google. It has something to do with flibbertygibbit, and why shouldn't it? The whole big mess could be called flibbertygibbit.
Glenn points to Tara Calishain, who has even more advice, though I didn't see her use the word flibbertygibbit.
Best of all they're using the real world example of tom.weblogs.com, one of my favorite MIA blogs.
Glenn points to Tara Calishain, who has even more advice, though I didn't see her use the word flibbertygibbit.
Best of all they're using the real world example of tom.weblogs.com, one of my favorite MIA blogs.
Quote of the Day
Well, one quote of the day anyway: Last sentence.
Well that's true. Self-control is highly overrated. You see evidence of this all the time. People just love to jump up and down.
;-)
Well that's true. Self-control is highly overrated. You see evidence of this all the time. People just love to jump up and down.
;-)
June 16, 2004
Interim Dean
Dean Landsman has a temporary blog up. He talks about the surprise of the shut down and says no to survivor guilt for Doc and the few other weblogs.comers who remain:
...there's absolutely no reason to be suspicious, angry, hostile or any other such attitude toward Doc Searls' blog or any of the others that survived the change.
Doc didn't participate in turning off the blogs. That he got to keep his blog is not some sinister plot or the action of a cabal. It is simply a courtesy provided to him . . . one he neither requested in advance nor knew about until he learned that mine and others hosted at weblogs.com were SOL.
He knew nothing about it until it occurred!
Doc was one of the people I had called to ask to look and see if the odd page-view was on their PC, as well. He was as surprised as I was. And he, too, was seeing that peculiar screen, congratulating the new blogger. Doc noted that the problem was evident, and suggested I contact a fellow he and I know who is a Manila person, and who had helped me with some source coding last year.
Glad to see you up and running, Dean!
...there's absolutely no reason to be suspicious, angry, hostile or any other such attitude toward Doc Searls' blog or any of the others that survived the change.
Doc didn't participate in turning off the blogs. That he got to keep his blog is not some sinister plot or the action of a cabal. It is simply a courtesy provided to him . . . one he neither requested in advance nor knew about until he learned that mine and others hosted at weblogs.com were SOL.
He knew nothing about it until it occurred!
Doc was one of the people I had called to ask to look and see if the odd page-view was on their PC, as well. He was as surprised as I was. And he, too, was seeing that peculiar screen, congratulating the new blogger. Doc noted that the problem was evident, and suggested I contact a fellow he and I know who is a Manila person, and who had helped me with some source coding last year.
Glad to see you up and running, Dean!
/. - the morning after.
I've been out all day. Funny how the real world interrupts the other real world now and again.
The big news to me, this day, is that apparently SLASHDOT OWNS ME! Wow! How cool is that? Thank you for the comments from the non-anonymous SLASHDOTers who stopped by. To those who thought super geeky cool to post many many comments alerting me that SLASHDOT now OWNS ME, well, I have to say that's a load off my mind.
Since SLASHDOT now OWNS ME, SLASHDOT can begin paying my mortgage, my health insurance, my credit card bills--oh, and yes! MY HOSTING FEES!
And thumbs up to the folks at Blogspot/Bloogle, my revered host, who gave me free hosting for my first year or so of blogging, who never decided to drop kick me one day when they didn't get a mention in Time Magazine, whom I've paid for the last two years, and who, I may add, handled the extra slashdot traffic just fine.
Whoohoo! Thumbs up to indentured servitude!
The big news to me, this day, is that apparently SLASHDOT OWNS ME! Wow! How cool is that? Thank you for the comments from the non-anonymous SLASHDOTers who stopped by. To those who thought super geeky cool to post many many comments alerting me that SLASHDOT now OWNS ME, well, I have to say that's a load off my mind.
Since SLASHDOT now OWNS ME, SLASHDOT can begin paying my mortgage, my health insurance, my credit card bills--oh, and yes! MY HOSTING FEES!
And thumbs up to the folks at Blogspot/Bloogle, my revered host, who gave me free hosting for my first year or so of blogging, who never decided to drop kick me one day when they didn't get a mention in Time Magazine, whom I've paid for the last two years, and who, I may add, handled the extra slashdot traffic just fine.
Whoohoo! Thumbs up to indentured servitude!
You know, really, basically, without going into too much detail...
This is why I blog.
"People just love to jump up and down."
We need animation.
We need a monkey boy video.
We need all these things and more.
But in the mean tim, this is just damn hysterical.
Andy's got the geech from Brian Dear... and there's a contest underway to see who can slam jam the best Dave Winer Audio Blog Remix.
Let us all begin to heal, as men and women, as a nation, by simultaneously laughing our asses off -- and of course, jumping up and down.
"People just love to jump up and down."
We need animation.
We need a monkey boy video.
We need all these things and more.
But in the mean tim, this is just damn hysterical.
Andy's got the geech from Brian Dear... and there's a contest underway to see who can slam jam the best Dave Winer Audio Blog Remix.
Let us all begin to heal, as men and women, as a nation, by simultaneously laughing our asses off -- and of course, jumping up and down.
June 15, 2004
The TechKnow People Have Arrived
Either from slashdot or from elsewhere, many have jumped into the comment thread below with offers for help to displaced weblogs.com bloggers.
In other news, I was at a friend's house tonight talking about northeast winters. She's from the Mississippi Delta. I'm from Rochester, N.Y.
Our girls were making forts in the bedroom out of blankets and chairs and newspapers, and I remembered the feeling of being inside a fort as a kid, a private hideaway too small for adults to invade, our first apartments, our island escape.
I started to tell my southern friend about the long winters and lake effect snow, the snow so deep that we spent half the year digging igloos and snow caves in the huge drifts that the snowplows made at the side of the roads. These were the forts I grew up in. Not treehouses or bedroom forts, but snow tunnels.
My friend remarked about the safety--or lack thereof--of living in snow tunnels. Sure, we'd lose a couple of kids each winter, back in the 70s when the snow was for real, kids who fell into drifts and couldn't get out, kids whose tunnels caved in and suffocated them. Somehow, that was par for the course, no different than the tragic swimming pool drownings you read about down here during the summer. Really. Snow accidents were part of the terrain, as water accidents are in places where folks enjoy the sun a good part of the year.
The snows ability to suck up children never stopped us from digging and tunneling and building our forts. Mostly, I guess, because there was nothing else to do. Our parents knew that compared to hanging from car bumpers skating down the street at 40 mph under the rear axel, an activity reserved for the *bad* kids, tunnel digging was relatively safe.
We built igloos too during those long cold months. We'd work for hours, skin so numb that our thighs would be covered in hives by the time we went in for the day. In all of this nostalgia, I remembered the name of the all-time best snow apparatus ever, and I asked my friend if she'd ever heard of the iggy snow maker.
Winter people over 40, do you remember the iggy snow maker? Do I have the right name? I googled it just now and didn't see a reference. Not one. But I'm pretty sure iggy snow maker was the red snow-brick maker that made igloo construction easy.
I wanted to show my friend, since she has something in her garage that looks just like it. The only difference is hers is for building sand castles. I almost thought to steal it and keep it for my next winter trip to Rochester.
I mean really, what good is an iggy snow maker in sand? You can't tunnel through sand piles.
In other news, I was at a friend's house tonight talking about northeast winters. She's from the Mississippi Delta. I'm from Rochester, N.Y.
Our girls were making forts in the bedroom out of blankets and chairs and newspapers, and I remembered the feeling of being inside a fort as a kid, a private hideaway too small for adults to invade, our first apartments, our island escape.
I started to tell my southern friend about the long winters and lake effect snow, the snow so deep that we spent half the year digging igloos and snow caves in the huge drifts that the snowplows made at the side of the roads. These were the forts I grew up in. Not treehouses or bedroom forts, but snow tunnels.
My friend remarked about the safety--or lack thereof--of living in snow tunnels. Sure, we'd lose a couple of kids each winter, back in the 70s when the snow was for real, kids who fell into drifts and couldn't get out, kids whose tunnels caved in and suffocated them. Somehow, that was par for the course, no different than the tragic swimming pool drownings you read about down here during the summer. Really. Snow accidents were part of the terrain, as water accidents are in places where folks enjoy the sun a good part of the year.
The snows ability to suck up children never stopped us from digging and tunneling and building our forts. Mostly, I guess, because there was nothing else to do. Our parents knew that compared to hanging from car bumpers skating down the street at 40 mph under the rear axel, an activity reserved for the *bad* kids, tunnel digging was relatively safe.
We built igloos too during those long cold months. We'd work for hours, skin so numb that our thighs would be covered in hives by the time we went in for the day. In all of this nostalgia, I remembered the name of the all-time best snow apparatus ever, and I asked my friend if she'd ever heard of the iggy snow maker.
Winter people over 40, do you remember the iggy snow maker? Do I have the right name? I googled it just now and didn't see a reference. Not one. But I'm pretty sure iggy snow maker was the red snow-brick maker that made igloo construction easy.
I wanted to show my friend, since she has something in her garage that looks just like it. The only difference is hers is for building sand castles. I almost thought to steal it and keep it for my next winter trip to Rochester.
I mean really, what good is an iggy snow maker in sand? You can't tunnel through sand piles.
Up for Adoption
Dave says these sites are looking for homes.
Folks willing to help the homeless in one way or another:
Tom Creedon
Steve Kirks will store dormant sites.
Dan Dickenson has offered to back all the sites up onto a DVD-R into perpetuity, in the off-chance someone misses this offer and wants to restore their site.
Ross Radar has a weblog friendly home for your content.
Anil Dash can help migrate your manilla site to a new Typepad home.
others who want to help the homeless, leave them a comment if you'd like.
Folks willing to help the homeless in one way or another:
Tom Creedon
Steve Kirks will store dormant sites.
Dan Dickenson has offered to back all the sites up onto a DVD-R into perpetuity, in the off-chance someone misses this offer and wants to restore their site.
Ross Radar has a weblog friendly home for your content.
Anil Dash can help migrate your manilla site to a new Typepad home.
others who want to help the homeless, leave them a comment if you'd like.
Interim Tom
Tom Matrullo has an interim home while he waits for his words to travel back to him from Daveland. Hopefully. It's here. The first post is beautiful, and Tom sees this latest take-down as perhaps -- maybe, wouldn't it be nice, and I might agree with him -- an energizing force for blogging.
Last night was a 9/11 of sorts for the weblogs.com bloggers. Was it a bird, a plane, superman? Now they pick up the pieces and we help. Let's all help.
Tom tackles the issue among cultural comparisons of Mexico, from which he has just returned, and the U.S. And I am so glad he's still posting writing like this:
Where other cultures, e.g. Mexico, have long living memories, large historical imaginations, small routines and rituals and styles that bind together collectives into communities, what we we have heah in the US of A appears to fall into the category of media psychosis: A glacial world of aberrant reaction formations born of fear, (especially infantile nostalgia for Great White (or Orange) Fathers), usurping all that could be known in ecstatic longings for a world that isn't ever to be known. Blotchy burning suns set in plush radiowave velour, suitable for framing.
One way or the other, the monument will build itself.
Last night was a 9/11 of sorts for the weblogs.com bloggers. Was it a bird, a plane, superman? Now they pick up the pieces and we help. Let's all help.
Tom tackles the issue among cultural comparisons of Mexico, from which he has just returned, and the U.S. And I am so glad he's still posting writing like this:
Where other cultures, e.g. Mexico, have long living memories, large historical imaginations, small routines and rituals and styles that bind together collectives into communities, what we we have heah in the US of A appears to fall into the category of media psychosis: A glacial world of aberrant reaction formations born of fear, (especially infantile nostalgia for Great White (or Orange) Fathers), usurping all that could be known in ecstatic longings for a world that isn't ever to be known. Blotchy burning suns set in plush radiowave velour, suitable for framing.
One way or the other, the monument will build itself.
June 14, 2004
Winergate 2004
Or, The Day the Cluetrain Jumped the Rail
Doc's still posting while other weblogs.com sites are gone, for now, til sometime after July 1, or after Dave moves, or after his friends help him out of this latest jam. So far, Doc hasn't posted about the absence of voices from his old server stomping grounds.
David Weinberger gives Dave Winer props for all his years of hosting, but forgets to mention today's historic takedown of thousands of bloggers until sometime next month, hopefully. I left a comment.
RageBoy, unaware of TAHDW's latest dump-taking, is writing about Facism, and somehow is synchronistically more connected to the moment than anyone else (not surprising) in his latest post about light, the new age, and facism:
Word History: It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini's group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.
chooo chooo...
Doc's still posting while other weblogs.com sites are gone, for now, til sometime after July 1, or after Dave moves, or after his friends help him out of this latest jam. So far, Doc hasn't posted about the absence of voices from his old server stomping grounds.
David Weinberger gives Dave Winer props for all his years of hosting, but forgets to mention today's historic takedown of thousands of bloggers until sometime next month, hopefully. I left a comment.
RageBoy, unaware of TAHDW's latest dump-taking, is writing about Facism, and somehow is synchronistically more connected to the moment than anyone else (not surprising) in his latest post about light, the new age, and facism:
Word History: It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini's group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.
chooo chooo...
Shelley Audio Blogs Back
Shelley Powers posts her own audio post responding to Dave Winer's audio post about why he can't program anymore, host blogs, and decided to take down all bloggers on weblogs.com until sometime after July 1st. And by the way, he's moving June 30th, so hope and pray that his move goes smoothly, offer to pack some boxes for him, do the heavy lifting, or start writing someplace else, my weblogs.com friends.
Typed Transcript of Dave Winer's Audio Post.
[[The links are mine. I typed the rest from the audio post.]]
Hi it's dave winer here. It's Monday night June 14th, and this is not a morning coffee note, but i wanted to talk a little bit about the hosting situation at weblogs.com and explain what is happening there.
I thought I would try doing it as an audio thing as opposed to writing an essay about this. My feeling is that people generally don't read essays, so if you want to present a subtle idea, that's not a really good way to do it.
[[coughs.]]
Basically, you may or may not know that I haven't worked at Userland for two years. We started hosting weblogs.com sites when I was CEO of Userland in the year 2000. They've been hosted for four years, and basically there's been a management change at Userland that happened about six months ago.
In that management change it became clear that there were two sort of branches to userland. There was one which was the commercial products (which radio userland and manilla were the two products), and there was another branch that consisted of formats and protocols and open stuff that was non commercial.
So we divided it along those lines, to keep the non-commercial stuff non-commercial, and to allow the commercial company--the product--to go forward unencumbered by a lot of obligations to do things for free, which really wasn't consistent with the mission of a commercial company.
So, basically, things like OPML.org, outliners.com, XMLRPC.com, Soapware.org, stayed behind in the old company. And then we gave RSS to Harvard Law School, which then in turn released it under the Creative Commons License. Then we're going to take the Frontier kernel and release that under an Open Source license sometime this year.
So we've gradually been moving sites off of userland servers onto servers I've bought and deployed here in Massachusetts. And we did the work with Lawrence Lee at Userland this last month to move the sites from Userland servers over to my servers. We saved the hardest sites for last, or the most significant sites for last, and the last two sites we did were scripting.com and weblogs.com.
Weblogs was by far the harder of the two. In the process of moving them, we didn't anticiapte all the problems we'd hit. We came across the question of how are we going to do the hosting of the old sites that were hosted for free on weblogs.com? The DNS service provider just can't handle the number of different domains under weblogs.com. We had to put them all in one place, and they had to be on one of my servers. Lawrence and I moved the sites over, and when we put the sites on the machine the performance of the machine became incredibly bad.
If you were in the loop during that period, you saw that people were having problems. I watched it very carefully over the space of a few hours. It was very clear that this was not going to be running very well. I felt that I could get these sites working, get the server back up and performing well, but I'd have to do a lot of programming to do that and it would take quite a few months to actually get it to happen, and these are months I just simply didn't have. I'm really not doing programming. There's a reason why I'm not too--it has to do with health issues.
Without going into too many detail, the stress of keeping servers running for users that expect free service, it's just deadly combination for me. It's no fun, it's highly stressful, and it literally is dangerous given my health situation. It's like smoking cigarettes, it's one of those risk factors. I really don't want to go into the details on it; I'm sure you can use your imagination.
So basically, I sort of looked at it and said, "What can I do for people?" I could not put the sites up and say, "You have two weeks to download your sites" for a couple of reasons. I didn't know if that would work. The server had never been used for that before. It couldn't run those sites for two weeks without me having to take everything else that was running on that server off.
So I just did the best I could, which was to say, if you make a request by July 1st, then I will go through that list of all the sites that are there on July 1st, and I will create exported versions of those sites on that day.
This gives people basically the heads up that they were asking for. I understand that you would like to have had your site remain accessible during that period, but I just couldn't simply work that out. And you could say I should have explained it, and I could have done better, and you may be right. That I should have and I could have... it's possible... but it's also not clear to me that people wouldn't have found something else to find fault with. I mean, this is sort of the attitude on the Internet. It's sort of like people just love to jump up and down and it hardly matters how well you do something because basically certain thing happen and people will jump up and down so just accept that.
On the other hand, most of the people who are actually affected by this, who actually have sites that are hosted on weblogs.com, have been perfect ladies and gentlemen about it, which is something I'm enormously proud of, the association I've had with people who used editthispage sites and weblogs.com sites, these were pioneers, early adopters, people with a vision, people who understood blogs before they were written up in all the magazines they've been written up in since, before their were war bloggers, before most of the people complaining were even blogging for that matter.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I will help you to the best of my ability, and I'll try to get others to pitch in. I've already talked with Rogers Cadenhead who wrote the excellent Radio Userland book and is one of my colleagues on the RSS advisory board, and he says he's going to help, and Thomas Creedon has provided a list of blogging hosts that can run Manilla sites.
If there's anything that we can do within reason to help. But understand that I'm moving on June 30th and my life is in sort of an upheaval state. This is not a company here. This is a person. So, to expect company-type service is un.. well, it isn't going to happen.
Anyway, so that's about it. Um, if you have any comments or questions, please send me an email. You'll find the link, look for the mail icon in the right margin at www.scripting.com, or you can send me email at dwiner@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
Thank you very much and see you again, talk to you soon.
Good night.
Hi it's dave winer here. It's Monday night June 14th, and this is not a morning coffee note, but i wanted to talk a little bit about the hosting situation at weblogs.com and explain what is happening there.
I thought I would try doing it as an audio thing as opposed to writing an essay about this. My feeling is that people generally don't read essays, so if you want to present a subtle idea, that's not a really good way to do it.
[[coughs.]]
Basically, you may or may not know that I haven't worked at Userland for two years. We started hosting weblogs.com sites when I was CEO of Userland in the year 2000. They've been hosted for four years, and basically there's been a management change at Userland that happened about six months ago.
In that management change it became clear that there were two sort of branches to userland. There was one which was the commercial products (which radio userland and manilla were the two products), and there was another branch that consisted of formats and protocols and open stuff that was non commercial.
So we divided it along those lines, to keep the non-commercial stuff non-commercial, and to allow the commercial company--the product--to go forward unencumbered by a lot of obligations to do things for free, which really wasn't consistent with the mission of a commercial company.
So, basically, things like OPML.org, outliners.com, XMLRPC.com, Soapware.org, stayed behind in the old company. And then we gave RSS to Harvard Law School, which then in turn released it under the Creative Commons License. Then we're going to take the Frontier kernel and release that under an Open Source license sometime this year.
So we've gradually been moving sites off of userland servers onto servers I've bought and deployed here in Massachusetts. And we did the work with Lawrence Lee at Userland this last month to move the sites from Userland servers over to my servers. We saved the hardest sites for last, or the most significant sites for last, and the last two sites we did were scripting.com and weblogs.com.
Weblogs was by far the harder of the two. In the process of moving them, we didn't anticiapte all the problems we'd hit. We came across the question of how are we going to do the hosting of the old sites that were hosted for free on weblogs.com? The DNS service provider just can't handle the number of different domains under weblogs.com. We had to put them all in one place, and they had to be on one of my servers. Lawrence and I moved the sites over, and when we put the sites on the machine the performance of the machine became incredibly bad.
If you were in the loop during that period, you saw that people were having problems. I watched it very carefully over the space of a few hours. It was very clear that this was not going to be running very well. I felt that I could get these sites working, get the server back up and performing well, but I'd have to do a lot of programming to do that and it would take quite a few months to actually get it to happen, and these are months I just simply didn't have. I'm really not doing programming. There's a reason why I'm not too--it has to do with health issues.
Without going into too many detail, the stress of keeping servers running for users that expect free service, it's just deadly combination for me. It's no fun, it's highly stressful, and it literally is dangerous given my health situation. It's like smoking cigarettes, it's one of those risk factors. I really don't want to go into the details on it; I'm sure you can use your imagination.
So basically, I sort of looked at it and said, "What can I do for people?" I could not put the sites up and say, "You have two weeks to download your sites" for a couple of reasons. I didn't know if that would work. The server had never been used for that before. It couldn't run those sites for two weeks without me having to take everything else that was running on that server off.
So I just did the best I could, which was to say, if you make a request by July 1st, then I will go through that list of all the sites that are there on July 1st, and I will create exported versions of those sites on that day.
This gives people basically the heads up that they were asking for. I understand that you would like to have had your site remain accessible during that period, but I just couldn't simply work that out. And you could say I should have explained it, and I could have done better, and you may be right. That I should have and I could have... it's possible... but it's also not clear to me that people wouldn't have found something else to find fault with. I mean, this is sort of the attitude on the Internet. It's sort of like people just love to jump up and down and it hardly matters how well you do something because basically certain thing happen and people will jump up and down so just accept that.
On the other hand, most of the people who are actually affected by this, who actually have sites that are hosted on weblogs.com, have been perfect ladies and gentlemen about it, which is something I'm enormously proud of, the association I've had with people who used editthispage sites and weblogs.com sites, these were pioneers, early adopters, people with a vision, people who understood blogs before they were written up in all the magazines they've been written up in since, before their were war bloggers, before most of the people complaining were even blogging for that matter.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I will help you to the best of my ability, and I'll try to get others to pitch in. I've already talked with Rogers Cadenhead who wrote the excellent Radio Userland book and is one of my colleagues on the RSS advisory board, and he says he's going to help, and Thomas Creedon has provided a list of blogging hosts that can run Manilla sites.
If there's anything that we can do within reason to help. But understand that I'm moving on June 30th and my life is in sort of an upheaval state. This is not a company here. This is a person. So, to expect company-type service is un.. well, it isn't going to happen.
Anyway, so that's about it. Um, if you have any comments or questions, please send me an email. You'll find the link, look for the mail icon in the right margin at www.scripting.com, or you can send me email at dwiner@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
Thank you very much and see you again, talk to you soon.
Good night.
An invitation to weblogs.com bloggers who want to post
Hey Dean, Craig, Tom, and others... If you want to post over here until you get your blogs back from Dave, I'll add you as team members. Just let me know. I haven't been using the place much lately anyhow.
Hope all ends up okay with the fine work you and others have contributed to the blogworld over the years.
Hope all ends up okay with the fine work you and others have contributed to the blogworld over the years.
No, it's not okay.
It's not okay for 3,000 weblogs to revert to a post by the software vendor one day without warning.
I assume from the comments of weblogs.com bloggers--which have an edict from on high to be positive only--this came as a shock to them. I wonder when we'll know. I guess sometime in July when Dave decides to give them their blogs back.
So many are thanking Dave for the years of free hosting in their comments. I wonder how many comments he's deleted that were less self-deprecating.
If blogger/blogspot did this to George's hosted-for-free blog or Jenna's hosted-for-free blog without warning, without a thoughtful, non-condescending message on why and what's next, I assure you I would be throwing a fit the size of Massachusetts, or maybe Texas. I certainly wouldn't be saying, Thanks.
Shelley, who has hosted the blogs of many nomads in her day, has an interesting perspective on Dave's latest.
It will be interesting to see what the affected bloggers say if and when they return.
I assume from the comments of weblogs.com bloggers--which have an edict from on high to be positive only--this came as a shock to them. I wonder when we'll know. I guess sometime in July when Dave decides to give them their blogs back.
So many are thanking Dave for the years of free hosting in their comments. I wonder how many comments he's deleted that were less self-deprecating.
If blogger/blogspot did this to George's hosted-for-free blog or Jenna's hosted-for-free blog without warning, without a thoughtful, non-condescending message on why and what's next, I assure you I would be throwing a fit the size of Massachusetts, or maybe Texas. I certainly wouldn't be saying, Thanks.
Shelley, who has hosted the blogs of many nomads in her day, has an interesting perspective on Dave's latest.
It will be interesting to see what the affected bloggers say if and when they return.
The Death of Blogging -- Brought to you by Dave Winer's Psychosis
Some things, I used to think, are even beneath Dave Winer. But no, I take that back. He has single handedly done more to hinder the medium of blogging, which he believes he created, than any other power blogger around. He's anti-voice, though he's pro free expression, as long as that expression contains accolades for Dave Winer.
I just saw this over at Halley's place and went to Tom's blog and read Dave's post on Tom's private weblog. Tom is traveling back from Mexico, not sure if he's landed yet, but I doubt that the first thing on his mind is how hard Dave Winer wants his old Manilla users to blow him in this special "one-time" offer.
Dave, I'll take a copy of Tom's weblog if he doesn't get back to you in time. I'll save it for him, because I read him and value what he's created (not you, him) over the past several years.
Notice, in the Comments section of Tom's blog, Dave takes over the blog to make his "One time offer" to give users copies of their blogs sometime in July. He warns commenters thusly:
"Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site" he writes at the top of the comment thread.
Dave, you're the biggest Winer out there.
Exhibit A -- Read Dave's #3 stipulation:
"If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won't export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer."
I'm quite sure that Dave Winer has lost what little judgment he had left. WHY the big boys of weblogging refuse to stand up to him and call his actions out for what they are, I don't know. A bunch of cowards with too much to lose.
That's the long and short of it.
I just saw this over at Halley's place and went to Tom's blog and read Dave's post on Tom's private weblog. Tom is traveling back from Mexico, not sure if he's landed yet, but I doubt that the first thing on his mind is how hard Dave Winer wants his old Manilla users to blow him in this special "one-time" offer.
Dave, I'll take a copy of Tom's weblog if he doesn't get back to you in time. I'll save it for him, because I read him and value what he's created (not you, him) over the past several years.
Notice, in the Comments section of Tom's blog, Dave takes over the blog to make his "One time offer" to give users copies of their blogs sometime in July. He warns commenters thusly:
"Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site" he writes at the top of the comment thread.
Dave, you're the biggest Winer out there.
Exhibit A -- Read Dave's #3 stipulation:
"If you want a copy of your weblogs.com-hosted website, post a comment here, include the URL of the site. Sometime after July 1, 2004, I will export all the requested sites, without their membership groups. You can then download them and do with them as you wish. I won't export them before July 1, and this is a one-time offer."
I'm quite sure that Dave Winer has lost what little judgment he had left. WHY the big boys of weblogging refuse to stand up to him and call his actions out for what they are, I don't know. A bunch of cowards with too much to lose.
That's the long and short of it.
Good Call, We'll See.
I had a good call with Mike Sigal of Guidewire Group discussing my take on BlogOn, business and blogging, voice vs. identity, and the like.
Mike called me after reading my post on the event, and I give him a 10 out of 10 on careful listening to my take on what's wrong with talking to businesses about blogging this way, why the same-old folks talking among the same-old folks promising new solutions from the "tool" called blogging makes me itchy with hives (i think I did say hives, right Mike?), and why the voice and message (and claims) on the BlogOn Welcome page rub me the wrong way. In other words, I had my say.
For his part, Mike explained that things will soon unfold on the site that will represent and facilitate a larger discussion among the weblog community around the event. I told him I look forward to that. And I do. Mike welcomed my continued critique, except I think he said criticism, on what they're doing with BlogOn. He never once asked, "Why'd you have to call it Blow Gun?" You have to respect that.
I told him I don't always criticize, that sometimes I'm downright euphoric about what's happening on the Web (take my affair with Orkut and Flickr as evidence). And I told him that I would indeed keep an eye and an ear on BlogOn and hope it does take a more inclusive dynamic form online. I hope it's something different. Jay Rosen can tell you that I'm all about participating in pre-conference think tanks.
Mike also welcomed me to the event as a responder for one of the panels, but as is my problem with most of these events, I can't get away from my own business, my own family responsibilities, or my own bank account easily. I will most likely partake from the stands.
Anyway, thanks Mike for an interesting talk and for being an officer and a gentleman. ;-)
Mike called me after reading my post on the event, and I give him a 10 out of 10 on careful listening to my take on what's wrong with talking to businesses about blogging this way, why the same-old folks talking among the same-old folks promising new solutions from the "tool" called blogging makes me itchy with hives (i think I did say hives, right Mike?), and why the voice and message (and claims) on the BlogOn Welcome page rub me the wrong way. In other words, I had my say.
For his part, Mike explained that things will soon unfold on the site that will represent and facilitate a larger discussion among the weblog community around the event. I told him I look forward to that. And I do. Mike welcomed my continued critique, except I think he said criticism, on what they're doing with BlogOn. He never once asked, "Why'd you have to call it Blow Gun?" You have to respect that.
I told him I don't always criticize, that sometimes I'm downright euphoric about what's happening on the Web (take my affair with Orkut and Flickr as evidence). And I told him that I would indeed keep an eye and an ear on BlogOn and hope it does take a more inclusive dynamic form online. I hope it's something different. Jay Rosen can tell you that I'm all about participating in pre-conference think tanks.
Mike also welcomed me to the event as a responder for one of the panels, but as is my problem with most of these events, I can't get away from my own business, my own family responsibilities, or my own bank account easily. I will most likely partake from the stands.
Anyway, thanks Mike for an interesting talk and for being an officer and a gentleman. ;-)
Happy 45, George!
Yeeehaw! "King George," master of all things bass turns 45 today.
Two geminis under one roof. You do the math.
I got you a cake, honey. You won't read this before I surprise you with it, but everyone else knows now.
SURPRISE! yum yum.
Two geminis under one roof. You do the math.
I got you a cake, honey. You won't read this before I surprise you with it, but everyone else knows now.
SURPRISE! yum yum.
It's that time again...
In his book Gonzo Marketing, Chris Locke wrote the single best business book sentence of our generation. Four simple words: "The solution is poetry."
In honor of RB, Gonzo, and my sorrow over the death of blogging, I've started another team blog. Bring your solution, your poetry, and email me if you want in.
The way I see it, there's one way to resonate past punditry. And that's through poetry.
How now, brown cow?
In honor of RB, Gonzo, and my sorrow over the death of blogging, I've started another team blog. Bring your solution, your poetry, and email me if you want in.
The way I see it, there's one way to resonate past punditry. And that's through poetry.
How now, brown cow?
The Dreaded July-August: A Call to All Indies
If you're in business for yourself, you know what's coming. The dreaded July and August. I've met them before, looked them in the eye, and dared them to take me down. They almost did last year. Work dried up. Not a sound from anyone, except for the occasional, "Yah, me too"s. In my second year, I am fairly certain that the entire global economy goes to Disney Land for the summer. Do the global roll call and you hear a sustained echo answering you back: "Sorry, I'm on break."
This is no surprise, but the reason for it is seldom revealed. The fact is this: Kids run the global economy. That's right. Kids. Millions of them on summer break, spilling grape jelly on the marble floors of the homes of CEOs and power brokers, falling off bikes, needing bandaids and stitches, fighting swimmer's ear, searching for pajamas for the sleepover at a friends' house, needing rides to birthday parties, requiring one more layer of sun screen, bug spray, always one more. There are basketballs and tires to pump. There are relatives to visit. There are snacks to buy.
It's summer, and even the Husbands and Wifes of Power in Business find it impossible to *not* spend time with their kids. What started as a fad is now a mandate. This is when the powerful schedule family trips, take the vacation they rolled over from last year.
For me, July and August are when all of my clients forget that they have a strategy, decide that September will be here soon enough and there will be budget to blow through before the end of the year.
For 8 weeks, they forget that they'll ever have another performance review. They forget about getting ink. They forget that anyone might visit their Web site and wonder why nothing's new. They forget they have a boss, because She's on vacation with the family. They like to meet for drinks. Have company picnics. They don't care much about invoices, especially about paying them. They let projects drag through the lazy days and weeks of summer -- the same projects that would have *had* to be completed overnight any other time of the year.
And so, for you, for me, for those of us working without a net on the Net, we say, here goes nothing. Hi there Summer. Hold on tight. The autumn deadline panic will come all in good time. The business will come back when businesses come back. Be patient, go the pool, and enjoy your own kids. Treat them well because the children are in charge of the market.
Just don't spend any money, because come August, you're going to need it.
This is no surprise, but the reason for it is seldom revealed. The fact is this: Kids run the global economy. That's right. Kids. Millions of them on summer break, spilling grape jelly on the marble floors of the homes of CEOs and power brokers, falling off bikes, needing bandaids and stitches, fighting swimmer's ear, searching for pajamas for the sleepover at a friends' house, needing rides to birthday parties, requiring one more layer of sun screen, bug spray, always one more. There are basketballs and tires to pump. There are relatives to visit. There are snacks to buy.
It's summer, and even the Husbands and Wifes of Power in Business find it impossible to *not* spend time with their kids. What started as a fad is now a mandate. This is when the powerful schedule family trips, take the vacation they rolled over from last year.
For me, July and August are when all of my clients forget that they have a strategy, decide that September will be here soon enough and there will be budget to blow through before the end of the year.
For 8 weeks, they forget that they'll ever have another performance review. They forget about getting ink. They forget that anyone might visit their Web site and wonder why nothing's new. They forget they have a boss, because She's on vacation with the family. They like to meet for drinks. Have company picnics. They don't care much about invoices, especially about paying them. They let projects drag through the lazy days and weeks of summer -- the same projects that would have *had* to be completed overnight any other time of the year.
And so, for you, for me, for those of us working without a net on the Net, we say, here goes nothing. Hi there Summer. Hold on tight. The autumn deadline panic will come all in good time. The business will come back when businesses come back. Be patient, go the pool, and enjoy your own kids. Treat them well because the children are in charge of the market.
Just don't spend any money, because come August, you're going to need it.
June 13, 2004
90-Year-Old Gerald Ford Dies - Nation Says, Tough Doo Doo.
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 13, 2004 -- Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States, died late Sunday evening at the age of 90 from natural causes. Sources say wife Betty was at President Ford's bedside at the couple's home in Ann Arbor, Mich., when he died, shortly before 11 p.m.
Sources close to the family say that the President, who served from 1974 to 1977, had been recuperating from pneumonia and had insisted on attending President Reagan's memorial services last week with the other living American Presidents. Speculation has arisen that attending the Reagan memorial events may have been too much for the ailing President.
"Now what the hell are we supposed to do?" asked one White House source, referencing the recently-completed period of national mourning for President Reagan. "We just closed the banks, the libraries, shut down the whole government -- people aren't even back to work yet! Are we supposed to do this whole shebang again? What timing. We're at WAR you know."
Customers at Tom's delicatessen in Washington had mixed reactions when told of the news.
"Well, I think if they just get him in the ground quick, we'll remember them both at the same time, and since they're both republicans, that seems pretty fair," suggested Ted Nielsen from nearby Herndon, V.A. "No sense closing down the country one more day for another dead President. Besides, he was clumsy and he didn't look as good as Ronnie. He couldn't act for shit either."
Margie Wilson sees it differently. "CNN's been war-war-war since 9/11," she said. "Me? I like to break up the monotony of war with a good two-week memorial fest, topped off with a romantic hillside burial service. It's the least we can do to honor our dead presidents. And those who've died in the war. And, well, everyone else who's dead too. For goodness sakes, our dead are national heroes. Really, who knows better than the dead what our country needs right now?"
The passing of Presidents Ford and Reagan raises the issue of the aging crop of Presidents: President Carter turns 80 this year, while President George Bush Sr. marked his 80th birthday today by skydiving in front of thousands of onlookers at Texas A&M University. It appears only President Clinton will escape a funeral within the next five to ten years.
"I was sorry to hear about Gerry," President Clinton said. "And Ronnie," President Clinton said again. "And the thing that really blew me away was that Ray Charles died, and you didn't hear jack about that. You know? Here you have dead Presidents, and, now don't get me wrong, I was a President, but you see we're representatives of the people, and we are paid as public servants to do our jobs. And we have done our jobs. President Reagan did his job. President Ford did his job. And I did my job. But NOT ONE of us could blow like Ray Charles. Not one of us had the soul, the hot ache from the pit of the gut like Ray did. Shit. Awe, shit. Ray's the one I'll miss the most."
June 11, 2004
Reagan and My Money
He eliminated the social security death benefit for children of deceased parents when I was 18. Not much, but I needed that $300 a month for college, and my father worked and paid social security throughout his short adult life, not thinking he'd die at 36, no life insurance, leaving a widow and three kids behind. Thanks, Ronnie.
He capped the low interest student loans I needed to pay for college in the early 80s, so that I couldn't borrow any money for my junior and senior year. Thanks, Ronnie.
He blew interest rates through the roof, so that some of us who had to borrow money 20 years ago are still paying it off.
And, I'm assuming since the mail lady hasn't come today, in his last moments in the public view, he's delayed the check that was supposed to arrive today -- money I need -- by probably two additional days.
I had no fondness for him as a President. I didn't know him as a man.
Bye.
He capped the low interest student loans I needed to pay for college in the early 80s, so that I couldn't borrow any money for my junior and senior year. Thanks, Ronnie.
He blew interest rates through the roof, so that some of us who had to borrow money 20 years ago are still paying it off.
And, I'm assuming since the mail lady hasn't come today, in his last moments in the public view, he's delayed the check that was supposed to arrive today -- money I need -- by probably two additional days.
I had no fondness for him as a President. I didn't know him as a man.
Bye.
June 10, 2004
Oh for the love of Pete--Now we've got BlowGun?
Apparently no one told these folks that blogging surpassed the "hot trend" category last year and is now on its way to passe-ville. Well, at least blogging the way they understand it. Really, someone should have clued them in that blogging is dead (long live writing).
DIG, if you will, exhibit A, also known as the intro page, which attempts to jazz up conference attendee wannabes and speakers. Okay. I am a cunning linguist myself, and I understand that the writer is trying hard, if badly, to create in his or her readers an ultra-orgasmic state, or at least a longing for this brand new, hot-so-hot trend called blogging.
For instance, the welcome message urges us to take advantage of this fast-emerging technology and the unique language it uses.
Unique language? Oh no. Oh dear. I've begun to perspire.
But there's more:
Yet, despite this phenomenal growth, no one company has prospered from blogging or social media. BlogOn will show you why this day is imminent. The real question is: Who will be in position to ride this new wave?
no one company has prospered?
why this day is imminent?
who will be in position to ride this new wave?
Well, for one thing, people who can WRITE, or at least have something meaningful to SAY.
The Blogon (Pronounced Blow Gun by the common folk who already speak the unique language known as pigeon-bloggish) people are urging you to LEVERAGE ! AND QUICKLY!
They want you to understand and harness this gathering disruptive phenomenon.
[[what's a gathering phenomenon? anyone?]]
That's right--rein it in. Harness it, capture the power and use it to sustain your competitive advantage. Sure: Harness, which in business speak is kin to leverage. Believe me. I wrote the book.
Best of all, you will notice that all of your favorite (mostly self-proclaimed male) A-listers are speaking at BlowGun, except at this conference they are called leading bloggers.
One of my favorite absurd claims of the BlowGun folks is that the conference will enable you to Discern for yourself the difference between vision and hallucination among key players.
Well, I don't know for sure who the "key players" are, but I sure as hell am hoping that this whole BlowGun thing is a hallucination.
And while we're at it, I'll take hallucination over business vision any day of the week.
I have to wonder: when will a conference come along that Our Regular Representatives decide NOT to attend--not to give credibility to? When will they say, "naw--this sounds way too goofy" to the kind of anti-voice crap mantra bullshit this page reeks of?
When?
Someone, load the blow gun and shoot me now.
Shelley?, Stavros? Anyone?
DIG, if you will, exhibit A, also known as the intro page, which attempts to jazz up conference attendee wannabes and speakers. Okay. I am a cunning linguist myself, and I understand that the writer is trying hard, if badly, to create in his or her readers an ultra-orgasmic state, or at least a longing for this brand new, hot-so-hot trend called blogging.
For instance, the welcome message urges us to take advantage of this fast-emerging technology and the unique language it uses.
Unique language? Oh no. Oh dear. I've begun to perspire.
But there's more:
Yet, despite this phenomenal growth, no one company has prospered from blogging or social media. BlogOn will show you why this day is imminent. The real question is: Who will be in position to ride this new wave?
no one company has prospered?
why this day is imminent?
who will be in position to ride this new wave?
Well, for one thing, people who can WRITE, or at least have something meaningful to SAY.
The Blogon (Pronounced Blow Gun by the common folk who already speak the unique language known as pigeon-bloggish) people are urging you to LEVERAGE ! AND QUICKLY!
They want you to understand and harness this gathering disruptive phenomenon.
[[what's a gathering phenomenon? anyone?]]
That's right--rein it in. Harness it, capture the power and use it to sustain your competitive advantage. Sure: Harness, which in business speak is kin to leverage. Believe me. I wrote the book.
Best of all, you will notice that all of your favorite (mostly self-proclaimed male) A-listers are speaking at BlowGun, except at this conference they are called leading bloggers.
One of my favorite absurd claims of the BlowGun folks is that the conference will enable you to Discern for yourself the difference between vision and hallucination among key players.
Well, I don't know for sure who the "key players" are, but I sure as hell am hoping that this whole BlowGun thing is a hallucination.
And while we're at it, I'll take hallucination over business vision any day of the week.
I have to wonder: when will a conference come along that Our Regular Representatives decide NOT to attend--not to give credibility to? When will they say, "naw--this sounds way too goofy" to the kind of anti-voice crap mantra bullshit this page reeks of?
When?
Someone, load the blow gun and shoot me now.
Shelley?, Stavros? Anyone?
June 09, 2004
June 08, 2004
in 2001 I saw it this way
"I'm meeting folks I wouldn't know unless we happened to win their business one day. Great people. SMART people. With really good ideas about blogging, kids, what makes marketing work and not work, why some companies suck to work for--stuff like that. So as this (so far) loosely-knit group of really cool people takes shape among organizations (hell, we all work somewhere--this Internet's an expensive addiction) a very important cross-organizational culture begins to emerge. We understand each other. We know the secret handshake. It's powerful. It is already amazing me. I'm so glad I caught the train."
--me, Gonzo Engaged, October 2001
"It ain't over til it's over, but it sure feels over."
--me, today.
--me, Gonzo Engaged, October 2001
"It ain't over til it's over, but it sure feels over."
--me, today.
and the survey says....
I've written nearly a half million words on blogger since 2001.
If I had a dollar for every word
I'd have probably spent it on good coffee and fancy-pants shoes for jenna by now.
I am starting a reparation movement for bloggers.
Starting immediately the Greater World At Large (GWAL) owes each of us
a dollar per word.
It's a reasonable rate for writing as fine as this.
Motherfuckers.
Swear words are half off.
It's a special offer.
Today only.
A half million words.
How many of them
meant something?
I think
every single
one.
If I had a dollar for every word
I'd have probably spent it on good coffee and fancy-pants shoes for jenna by now.
I am starting a reparation movement for bloggers.
Starting immediately the Greater World At Large (GWAL) owes each of us
a dollar per word.
It's a reasonable rate for writing as fine as this.
Motherfuckers.
Swear words are half off.
It's a special offer.
Today only.
A half million words.
How many of them
meant something?
I think
every single
one.
June 03, 2004
.
Fahrenheit 911 trailer: here.
Doctors without Borders - 5 staff killed in Afghanistan: here.
MSF has been active in Afghanistan since 1980, through the Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban regime. The politicization of aid underway since the fall of the Taliban, condoned by the international community with the tacit acceptance of many non-governmental organizations, has proven dangerous for humanitarian organizations and has undercut Afghan’s access to assistance that is truly needs based. Security has deteriorated and humanitarian agencies have increasingly become targets of attacks aimed Western presence.
Stay tuned for Afghanistan II, coming to an Iraq near you.
Doctors without Borders - 5 staff killed in Afghanistan: here.
MSF has been active in Afghanistan since 1980, through the Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban regime. The politicization of aid underway since the fall of the Taliban, condoned by the international community with the tacit acceptance of many non-governmental organizations, has proven dangerous for humanitarian organizations and has undercut Afghan’s access to assistance that is truly needs based. Security has deteriorated and humanitarian agencies have increasingly become targets of attacks aimed Western presence.
Stay tuned for Afghanistan II, coming to an Iraq near you.
May 31, 2004
got better got worse got better got worse
new brand of feeling shitty over here. from the worst stomach flu I've hand since I was 11 years old to feeling better enough to work the "holiday" to feeling shitty again with a sore throat and ouchy ear.
who wants to know all this? none of you if you are smart.
suffice it to say, or don't suffice it to say, but blogging just isn't helping me feel any more better than shitty. It's a responsibility that I don't feel responsible for anymore. I saw that gary had closed up shop (for a while?) this eve and went, well shit. Gary. Our Gary. An identity crisis of sorts, he says.
Anyone who knows how he feels, say heeeey. throw your hands in the air wave em round like you just don't give a crap.
Of course you do. Unless you're stitting out here just stroking it for your own get-off, you have to know what Gary means.
He's one of my bros, you know. Turner and Golby for starters, and Paynter and MOCC and more. We who started back in the era of the RB dare, whether it makes senes or not, whether it sounds sappy and weird, we're brothers and sisters and we can no sooner separate our geneology than identical twins can. We ebb and flow pretty much at the same time. some of us. we do. whether we're vibing off of one another's writing, or whether it's a natural cycle that doesn't much care how we feel about it, we ebb and flow together.
gary ebbed. i'm ebbing.
so here I come back to say I'm hoping to be around when I feel better, but folks we gotta do better out here. we gotta get it back. what's "it"? JOY. The joy of it. Harder and harder to find. There's no joy left here. not for me, not now.
Shelley wrote about it too. death and famon and flood and war and punditry. all the things we were running away from.
No, this isn't supposed to be one of those "Ah, we were so cool back then" posts, or one of those "I'm quitting" posts, but fuck if we weren't and fuck if I wouldn't like to.
and my damn ear hurts too.
who wants to know all this? none of you if you are smart.
suffice it to say, or don't suffice it to say, but blogging just isn't helping me feel any more better than shitty. It's a responsibility that I don't feel responsible for anymore. I saw that gary had closed up shop (for a while?) this eve and went, well shit. Gary. Our Gary. An identity crisis of sorts, he says.
Anyone who knows how he feels, say heeeey. throw your hands in the air wave em round like you just don't give a crap.
Of course you do. Unless you're stitting out here just stroking it for your own get-off, you have to know what Gary means.
He's one of my bros, you know. Turner and Golby for starters, and Paynter and MOCC and more. We who started back in the era of the RB dare, whether it makes senes or not, whether it sounds sappy and weird, we're brothers and sisters and we can no sooner separate our geneology than identical twins can. We ebb and flow pretty much at the same time. some of us. we do. whether we're vibing off of one another's writing, or whether it's a natural cycle that doesn't much care how we feel about it, we ebb and flow together.
gary ebbed. i'm ebbing.
so here I come back to say I'm hoping to be around when I feel better, but folks we gotta do better out here. we gotta get it back. what's "it"? JOY. The joy of it. Harder and harder to find. There's no joy left here. not for me, not now.
Shelley wrote about it too. death and famon and flood and war and punditry. all the things we were running away from.
No, this isn't supposed to be one of those "Ah, we were so cool back then" posts, or one of those "I'm quitting" posts, but fuck if we weren't and fuck if I wouldn't like to.
and my damn ear hurts too.
May 21, 2004
May 19, 2004
War on lots of other feelings too...
war on depression, war on panic, war on laughter, war on sickness, war on serenity, war on boredom, war on shame, war on joy, war on apathy, war on resentment, war on shock, war on aggravation, war on abuse.
We have plenty of wars to wage before we sleep!
We have plenty of wars to wage before we sleep!
New War! Starts tonight! Terror takes back seat to Next Best Emotion!
New war on the way -- "The War on Aggression" wherein we beat the shit out of ourselves and call it a day.
Nice Day for a White Wedding
And a bad one if you're brown.
A senior military coalition official said as many as 40 people were killed in the attack, but said it was his belief that the attack was against a foreign fighters' safe house.
I estimate that not a single "safe" house is left in the middle east.
A senior military coalition official said as many as 40 people were killed in the attack, but said it was his belief that the attack was against a foreign fighters' safe house.
I estimate that not a single "safe" house is left in the middle east.
50 years later, it's still cool to pick on "Porch Monkeys"
I'm supposed to be doing work. I can't balance these days. Fair and balanced is not working. Either I'm all blog or all work. That's the all or nothing stuff "aholics" are made of. Ah well. There are worse things.
Take for exampe the press release I received today from Dan Berger at the ACLU. (Release in full below.) At first, you know, I thought it was spam. With a glimmer of hope left for humanity and my child's future on the planet, I was hoping perhaps this was another urban legend, emailed around the net like the gas boycott message we've all received this week.
So I called the ACLU and talked to Paul Silva on his first day there to ask about the release. Paul was super to talk to and genuinely pleased to hear from a weblogger. Unfortunately, he assured me that the story about Michigan's Bullock Creek (don't tempt me, now...) school district is true.
George grew up in the public schools of the north during the 60s and 70s, and he has written about what it's like to be the only nigger, albiet a "good nigger," (as in, oh you're okay--you're one of the good niggers), in a school of ignorant white kids raised by ignorant parents. It's not pretty. I've heard the stories--lived the result of them. The "good nigger" and "what's wrong with you--you're bleeeaaacck" stories are the nicer tales of George's childhood school experiences. The physical beatings at the hands of teachers and principals are even more telling.
And so it pissed me off today to read the following Press Release from the ACLU -- Yah, I got angry. But I also realized, especially in this era of de-civil rights thanks to the Bush DADministration, that it's a good thing the ACLU is out there.
And if you don't think that the current U.S. Iraq war quagmire is related, think again. It is the FEAR of the "other," the "with us or against us" mantra, the hatred of the "different," the illusion of comfort in homogeny, that is passed on across generations and reinforced when the most elite of the mainstream have the balance of power.
Then, Mama, just let your babies grow up to be soldiers. See what happens when they graduate to become MPs in charge of purse snatchers in detention camps.
-------------
Michigan School District Takes Action to Stop Racism After Black Student Is Attacked in "KKK Game"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
CONTACTS: Paul Silva, ACLU Nat'l, (212) 549-2689 Wendy Wagenheim, ACLU of MI, (313) 578-6816
DETROIT - As the country focuses on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ended government-imposed segregation in public schools, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today announced the settlement of a complaint filed on behalf of an African American student who was the victim of racial harassment and attacked by white students in a so-called "game of KKK."
"It is disturbing that African American students still face such shocking racism in school 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education," said Michael J. Steinberg, Legal Director of the ACLU of Michigan. "We are heartened, however, by the sincere efforts of the school district to begin to create an atmosphere in which such acts will not happen again."
The ACLU complaint, filed with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) against the Bullock Creek School District in mid-Michigan, is being voluntarily dismissed after district officials agreed to adopt a much-needed comprehensive plan to address racism.
Kyron Tryon was an eighth-grader at Bullock Creek Middle School near Midland, Michigan in May 2003 when seven white boys grabbed him during recess on the school playground. According to Kyron, the boys picked him up off the ground and chanted "KKK" while one of them whipped him with a belt. The boys then threw Kyron on the ground and began kicking him. The attack did not stop until the bell rang, signaling the end of recess. When the white students were questioned about the incident, they described it as just a "game of KKK."
Kyron and his older siblings were victimized by racial harassment several times at school, the ACLU said. Prior to the playground incident, Kyron, the only African American in his grade, was told by his white peers to "go back to Africa;" they called him a "porch monkey" and threatened him because he is black.
Unsatisfied with the way the school district initially responded to the "KKK" incident, Kyron's parents contacted the ACLU and then filed a complaint with the MDCR. Over the past year, the school district, the ACLU and the Tryons met with an MDCR mediator and jointly developed a plan to address what the Tryons believed to be a hostile environment for students of color at the Bullock Creek Schools.
"Although we found the incident last spring to be deplorable, we have been encouraged by the school community's serious and intelligent response to these actions," said David Chapin, Superintendent of Schools. "It is clear the Bullock Creek students, staff and community will not tolerate these behaviors. We are grateful we are able to work in conjunction with the Tryon family in creating a positive school culture in Bullock Creek."
In attempting to create a more tolerant atmosphere, the school is undertaking the following actions:
* Diversity Training. The district has contracted with the Bridge Center for Racial Harmony to develop a comprehensive plan for implementing diversity training within the district for students, teachers and administrators. The Bridge Center has implemented similar programs in Michigan, including one in Saginaw.
* Martin Luther King Day. The district will plan symposiums on Martin Luther King Day in which students will have the opportunity to learn about different races and ethnicities, as well as learning to understand and tolerate differences.
* Diversity Steering Committee. The district is developing a steering committee to oversee and develop the diversity training, MLK Day, Black History month and other race-related issues. The committee will include Kyron's parents, as well as representatives from the student body, teaching staff, administrative team, Board of Education, Michigan Department of Civil Rights, Dow Chemical Company and the West Midland Family Center.
* Grants. The district has applied for and received a grant from the Dow Chemical Foundation to help fund the district's work.
"We pray that the diversity training will make kids think twice before hurting and dehumanizing other kids the way they hurt and dehumanized my son," said Kyron's mother, Joyce Tryon. "When children go to school they should not have to fear that they will be beaten up because of the color of their skin. The reason we filed the civil rights complaint was not to recover money, but to bring about change."
Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan, said she hoped that other school districts will emulate what Bullock Creek is doing to respond to discrimination on campus. "As we look back at the history of desegregation, Kyron's experience illustrates how far we still have to go in combating racism."
Although more comprehensive diversity training will begin next fall at Bullock Creek, it is not soon enough for 15-year-old Kyron. He has already decided to attend high school in a different school district next year.
"I just want the nightmare to be over and to go back to being a teenager," said Kyron. "If what I experienced somehow ends up helping someone else, I will be happy."
------------
Let me just say a few words about this:
"We pray that the diversity training will make kids think twice before hurting and dehumanizing other kids the way they hurt and dehumanized my son," said Kyron's mother, Joyce Tryon. "When children go to school they should not have to fear that they will be beaten up because of the color of their skin. The reason we filed the civil rights complaint was not to recover money, but to bring about change."
Prayers are one way. But the resurgence in the acceptance--soon to be popularity--of dehumanizing the "other" is on the rise. Ladies and gentlemen, the time for prayer and sensitivity training alone has passed.
Take for exampe the press release I received today from Dan Berger at the ACLU. (Release in full below.) At first, you know, I thought it was spam. With a glimmer of hope left for humanity and my child's future on the planet, I was hoping perhaps this was another urban legend, emailed around the net like the gas boycott message we've all received this week.
So I called the ACLU and talked to Paul Silva on his first day there to ask about the release. Paul was super to talk to and genuinely pleased to hear from a weblogger. Unfortunately, he assured me that the story about Michigan's Bullock Creek (don't tempt me, now...) school district is true.
George grew up in the public schools of the north during the 60s and 70s, and he has written about what it's like to be the only nigger, albiet a "good nigger," (as in, oh you're okay--you're one of the good niggers), in a school of ignorant white kids raised by ignorant parents. It's not pretty. I've heard the stories--lived the result of them. The "good nigger" and "what's wrong with you--you're bleeeaaacck" stories are the nicer tales of George's childhood school experiences. The physical beatings at the hands of teachers and principals are even more telling.
And so it pissed me off today to read the following Press Release from the ACLU -- Yah, I got angry. But I also realized, especially in this era of de-civil rights thanks to the Bush DADministration, that it's a good thing the ACLU is out there.
And if you don't think that the current U.S. Iraq war quagmire is related, think again. It is the FEAR of the "other," the "with us or against us" mantra, the hatred of the "different," the illusion of comfort in homogeny, that is passed on across generations and reinforced when the most elite of the mainstream have the balance of power.
Then, Mama, just let your babies grow up to be soldiers. See what happens when they graduate to become MPs in charge of purse snatchers in detention camps.
-------------
Michigan School District Takes Action to Stop Racism After Black Student Is Attacked in "KKK Game"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
CONTACTS: Paul Silva, ACLU Nat'l, (212) 549-2689 Wendy Wagenheim, ACLU of MI, (313) 578-6816
DETROIT - As the country focuses on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ended government-imposed segregation in public schools, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today announced the settlement of a complaint filed on behalf of an African American student who was the victim of racial harassment and attacked by white students in a so-called "game of KKK."
"It is disturbing that African American students still face such shocking racism in school 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education," said Michael J. Steinberg, Legal Director of the ACLU of Michigan. "We are heartened, however, by the sincere efforts of the school district to begin to create an atmosphere in which such acts will not happen again."
The ACLU complaint, filed with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) against the Bullock Creek School District in mid-Michigan, is being voluntarily dismissed after district officials agreed to adopt a much-needed comprehensive plan to address racism.
Kyron Tryon was an eighth-grader at Bullock Creek Middle School near Midland, Michigan in May 2003 when seven white boys grabbed him during recess on the school playground. According to Kyron, the boys picked him up off the ground and chanted "KKK" while one of them whipped him with a belt. The boys then threw Kyron on the ground and began kicking him. The attack did not stop until the bell rang, signaling the end of recess. When the white students were questioned about the incident, they described it as just a "game of KKK."
Kyron and his older siblings were victimized by racial harassment several times at school, the ACLU said. Prior to the playground incident, Kyron, the only African American in his grade, was told by his white peers to "go back to Africa;" they called him a "porch monkey" and threatened him because he is black.
Unsatisfied with the way the school district initially responded to the "KKK" incident, Kyron's parents contacted the ACLU and then filed a complaint with the MDCR. Over the past year, the school district, the ACLU and the Tryons met with an MDCR mediator and jointly developed a plan to address what the Tryons believed to be a hostile environment for students of color at the Bullock Creek Schools.
"Although we found the incident last spring to be deplorable, we have been encouraged by the school community's serious and intelligent response to these actions," said David Chapin, Superintendent of Schools. "It is clear the Bullock Creek students, staff and community will not tolerate these behaviors. We are grateful we are able to work in conjunction with the Tryon family in creating a positive school culture in Bullock Creek."
In attempting to create a more tolerant atmosphere, the school is undertaking the following actions:
* Diversity Training. The district has contracted with the Bridge Center for Racial Harmony to develop a comprehensive plan for implementing diversity training within the district for students, teachers and administrators. The Bridge Center has implemented similar programs in Michigan, including one in Saginaw.
* Martin Luther King Day. The district will plan symposiums on Martin Luther King Day in which students will have the opportunity to learn about different races and ethnicities, as well as learning to understand and tolerate differences.
* Diversity Steering Committee. The district is developing a steering committee to oversee and develop the diversity training, MLK Day, Black History month and other race-related issues. The committee will include Kyron's parents, as well as representatives from the student body, teaching staff, administrative team, Board of Education, Michigan Department of Civil Rights, Dow Chemical Company and the West Midland Family Center.
* Grants. The district has applied for and received a grant from the Dow Chemical Foundation to help fund the district's work.
"We pray that the diversity training will make kids think twice before hurting and dehumanizing other kids the way they hurt and dehumanized my son," said Kyron's mother, Joyce Tryon. "When children go to school they should not have to fear that they will be beaten up because of the color of their skin. The reason we filed the civil rights complaint was not to recover money, but to bring about change."
Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan, said she hoped that other school districts will emulate what Bullock Creek is doing to respond to discrimination on campus. "As we look back at the history of desegregation, Kyron's experience illustrates how far we still have to go in combating racism."
Although more comprehensive diversity training will begin next fall at Bullock Creek, it is not soon enough for 15-year-old Kyron. He has already decided to attend high school in a different school district next year.
"I just want the nightmare to be over and to go back to being a teenager," said Kyron. "If what I experienced somehow ends up helping someone else, I will be happy."
------------
Let me just say a few words about this:
"We pray that the diversity training will make kids think twice before hurting and dehumanizing other kids the way they hurt and dehumanized my son," said Kyron's mother, Joyce Tryon. "When children go to school they should not have to fear that they will be beaten up because of the color of their skin. The reason we filed the civil rights complaint was not to recover money, but to bring about change."
Prayers are one way. But the resurgence in the acceptance--soon to be popularity--of dehumanizing the "other" is on the rise. Ladies and gentlemen, the time for prayer and sensitivity training alone has passed.
Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld Charged with War Crimes?
Works for me. And Powell, you've got two weeks to open your mouth and do the right thing, or we're tossing you in there too.
In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes—defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to "U.S. officials" and that punishments for violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that "it was difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions—such as that outlawing "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners—was "undefined."
In the memo, the White House lawyer focused on a little known 1996 law passed by Congress, known as the War Crimes Act, that banned any Americans from committing war crimes—defined in part as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions. Noting that the law applies to "U.S. officials" and that punishments for violators "include the death penalty," Gonzales told Bush that "it was difficult to predict with confidence" how Justice Department prosecutors might apply the law in the future. This was especially the case given that some of the language in the Geneva Conventions—such as that outlawing "outrages upon personal dignity" and "inhuman treatment" of prisoners—was "undefined."
Terror
"Israel has the right to defend itself against TERROR" -- George W. Bush
TERROR
Intense, overpowering fear. See Synonyms at fear.
One that instills intense fear: a rabid dog that became the terror of the neighborhood.
The ability to instill intense fear: the terror of jackboots pounding down the street.
Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes.
Informal. An annoying or intolerable pest: that little terror of a child.
TERROR
19 May 04
I might not be able to write.. I'm using a laptop computer now of a friend here in the hospital.. I will try to send some pictures when I can.. but I might not be able to write. Three of my close relatives were killed - two are children: Asma (14), killed by an Israeli sniper while bringing down clothes from the roof of her house, and Ahmed (12), killed while feeding his doves and birds. Saeed was also killed in the same house... and the numbers of dead is increasing by the minute, with also so many many injured, it's hard for ambulances to move and transfer them. Must leave now, so I might not be able to write, will see if I can.
TERROR
17 May 04
BREAKING NEWS: The Israeli Apaches, F16s began invading the whole Rafah City by heavy weapons and canons, people are running in the streets out of their homes because of the shelling.. remains fragments of so many killed and injured people arrived the hospital… Israeli warships are shelling the houses of the surrounded civilizes who have been under siege since three years now, as these warships came from the see towards Rafah beach to participate in shelling the houses of the people in Al Mawasi Area Western Rafah Camp.
TERROR
TERROR
Intense, overpowering fear. See Synonyms at fear.
One that instills intense fear: a rabid dog that became the terror of the neighborhood.
The ability to instill intense fear: the terror of jackboots pounding down the street.
Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes.
Informal. An annoying or intolerable pest: that little terror of a child.
TERROR
19 May 04
I might not be able to write.. I'm using a laptop computer now of a friend here in the hospital.. I will try to send some pictures when I can.. but I might not be able to write. Three of my close relatives were killed - two are children: Asma (14), killed by an Israeli sniper while bringing down clothes from the roof of her house, and Ahmed (12), killed while feeding his doves and birds. Saeed was also killed in the same house... and the numbers of dead is increasing by the minute, with also so many many injured, it's hard for ambulances to move and transfer them. Must leave now, so I might not be able to write, will see if I can.
TERROR
17 May 04
BREAKING NEWS: The Israeli Apaches, F16s began invading the whole Rafah City by heavy weapons and canons, people are running in the streets out of their homes because of the shelling.. remains fragments of so many killed and injured people arrived the hospital… Israeli warships are shelling the houses of the surrounded civilizes who have been under siege since three years now, as these warships came from the see towards Rafah beach to participate in shelling the houses of the people in Al Mawasi Area Western Rafah Camp.
TERROR
May 18, 2004
Free to compete in the Olympics?
I don't care what republican coulter lackies say, the chick has man hands.
ADDED PROOF: Really, really not work safe.
ADDED PROOF: Really, really not work safe.
Plot for a Short Story--Write it and give me credit. Thank you.
After reading this I went over to read Frank's latest, and came up with a simulation.
You can call me the Minister of Truth or you can call me the Minister of Fiction, just don't call me late for dinner...
-----------------
The Means to Flee
Can you imagine a scenario in which a people's own government, leading up to an election, unleashes WMDs on their own people? I'm not talking about Goddam Husein, or anyplace else in the Middle East. No. Not at all. And can you imagine in that scenario the flight or fight mechanism kicks in to all of the people of that nation, and the first thought, which has been ruminating for many anyway during life under a merciless dictator, is to get the hell out? My God, the country is melting. Attacts of bio warfare unleashed to the east, the west, and the middle. Media pumps up the almigty machine reinforcing terror, panic.
Who have the means to flee, for a time? Who have the means to seek safety at a hotel in a distant state or country? Not the poor. Not the poor. Not the lower class. Not the underclass. Not even the middle class, because air travel zooms overnight, and it costs $1500 a ticket to get out of dodge, and oh by the way you need a passport, and joe auto worker doesn't have to have a passport, nor does welfare mom Mable.
So the rich go. For a time. Here or there, Europe or Asia. They go. And they watch as the entire lower class is wiped out by the plague as space-age tech-suited experts clean up the mess, and in a year or two, they can come back, and their country is clean, their country is clean, their country is clean, and there are no more poor, no "others" to contend with, and they await the "great appearing" and the rapture with others who look like them and expect the same salvation as them. While the remaining former hispanic day laborers and McDonalds drive though staff spits up blood and wipes blood from their eyes, and those waiting for the "Great Appearing" cluck cluck cluck because there is no one left to help them tidy up the house that has been sitting vacant for a year and a half.
It could happen.
You can call me the Minister of Truth or you can call me the Minister of Fiction, just don't call me late for dinner...
-----------------
The Means to Flee
Can you imagine a scenario in which a people's own government, leading up to an election, unleashes WMDs on their own people? I'm not talking about Goddam Husein, or anyplace else in the Middle East. No. Not at all. And can you imagine in that scenario the flight or fight mechanism kicks in to all of the people of that nation, and the first thought, which has been ruminating for many anyway during life under a merciless dictator, is to get the hell out? My God, the country is melting. Attacts of bio warfare unleashed to the east, the west, and the middle. Media pumps up the almigty machine reinforcing terror, panic.
Who have the means to flee, for a time? Who have the means to seek safety at a hotel in a distant state or country? Not the poor. Not the poor. Not the lower class. Not the underclass. Not even the middle class, because air travel zooms overnight, and it costs $1500 a ticket to get out of dodge, and oh by the way you need a passport, and joe auto worker doesn't have to have a passport, nor does welfare mom Mable.
So the rich go. For a time. Here or there, Europe or Asia. They go. And they watch as the entire lower class is wiped out by the plague as space-age tech-suited experts clean up the mess, and in a year or two, they can come back, and their country is clean, their country is clean, their country is clean, and there are no more poor, no "others" to contend with, and they await the "great appearing" and the rapture with others who look like them and expect the same salvation as them. While the remaining former hispanic day laborers and McDonalds drive though staff spits up blood and wipes blood from their eyes, and those waiting for the "Great Appearing" cluck cluck cluck because there is no one left to help them tidy up the house that has been sitting vacant for a year and a half.
It could happen.
the legacy of "the other"
It's nothing new here.
This site has come a long way since I first saw it some time back. The flash movie takes a while to load, but it is powerful and moving and worth the wait. It is also heatbreaking for anyone with a soul. And maybe even for some without.
This site has come a long way since I first saw it some time back. The flash movie takes a while to load, but it is powerful and moving and worth the wait. It is also heatbreaking for anyone with a soul. And maybe even for some without.
First plane out
It's becoming cliche to say you're going to leave the U.S. for good if the bush DADministration ends up back in the proverbial saddle in November. Unless you're me. I don't think much about moving--I can be content so easily by the small things around me and appreciating all that I DO have without giving a second thought to what's "out there." Hey, didn't need to use the duct tape and plastic sheeting today, Jenna doesn't have strep, and the dogs have water in their bucket = life is good.
But even I'm wondering, how can we stand it much longer? We Americans who let this administration--by not unseating it when it took power illegally--destroy large pieces of the world. What do we do this fall if they remain? Do we sit here? Wait for the nerve gas--scream out, hey it's not us! it's not us the people! we think they're insane too! too late--they said those things and they're dead. Hey bub, put a fork in him, he's done.
It's not that I love or don't love this country. It's not a matter of "loving country," a concept I never quite understood, like I missed that day in school. I don't "love" large abstract concepts and power structures and man-made systems; I love the sharp edges of dried red clay, and the cold wetness of grass under my feet, the soggy newspaper I never picked up, the wood pile we keep stacking up to keep Bando from digging out, and the rooms in my house with well-worn flat paint layed on with much elbow grease by me and George ten years ago.
But soil and grass and rooms with walls that need painting--those aren't "my country." The world is "my country." This is the place I live. And the place I live is hurting the world and destroying the places other people live. And I can't get my head around it, and I can't stand it anymore.
But even I'm wondering, how can we stand it much longer? We Americans who let this administration--by not unseating it when it took power illegally--destroy large pieces of the world. What do we do this fall if they remain? Do we sit here? Wait for the nerve gas--scream out, hey it's not us! it's not us the people! we think they're insane too! too late--they said those things and they're dead. Hey bub, put a fork in him, he's done.
It's not that I love or don't love this country. It's not a matter of "loving country," a concept I never quite understood, like I missed that day in school. I don't "love" large abstract concepts and power structures and man-made systems; I love the sharp edges of dried red clay, and the cold wetness of grass under my feet, the soggy newspaper I never picked up, the wood pile we keep stacking up to keep Bando from digging out, and the rooms in my house with well-worn flat paint layed on with much elbow grease by me and George ten years ago.
But soil and grass and rooms with walls that need painting--those aren't "my country." The world is "my country." This is the place I live. And the place I live is hurting the world and destroying the places other people live. And I can't get my head around it, and I can't stand it anymore.
nostalgia forward
it won't be long now, lined pavement quiet, no wheels, red-clay shoulders lined with rocks, old socks, bottles caps, wishing we had the party back.
They're playing twister?
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, they play twister with our lives... left elbow yellow!
anemitapea
I've been wondering why I've had no energy--and I mean none--lately, when lifiting my fingers to blog doesn't seem worth it, when I think about the bending and tap tap taping of fingers and am tired just from the thought of it. Mild anemia is the only thing that came back in my bloodwork, which is good news, really anemia not being uncommon in old worn out ladies like myself. I can't help but think of my sisters and brothers with, for whatever reason, severe anemia, and nod a silent prayer their way, because if this is what mild anemia makes you feel like, well then I don't want to ever know how the severe end feels. I take good vitamins with iron that have helped keep me healthier than I've been in years (notice long passage of posts since I've complained of a sinus infection), and those better-than-usual-for-me health habits are probably why I'm still in the mild range, but I'm going to get some extra iron this week to add to the mix because I am so stinking fricking fecking tired I could sleep and sleep and sleep, except that I can't because I have to work.
I was thinking about sleep the other day and I told George that if someone gave me permission at that very moment to go to sleep and just not wake up I'd take it. It's not so much a death wish as a sleep wish. At that day at that moment, nothing mattered more than rest, and not just a nap kind of rest, I was talking a long rest, a truly unconscious state from which I only imagined I would wake refreshed.
I had a bout of feeling refreshed yesterday. It scared me. Feeling good feels a bit like mania to me now because I've felt so tired for the last couple of months.
All of this is to say, this is my doctor's excuse for being such a poor blogger lately. Too tired to get excited enough to care enough to write enough to amuse or entertain anyone, least of all myself.
Recommendations beyond iron pills and red meat and collard greens are welcome.
I was thinking about sleep the other day and I told George that if someone gave me permission at that very moment to go to sleep and just not wake up I'd take it. It's not so much a death wish as a sleep wish. At that day at that moment, nothing mattered more than rest, and not just a nap kind of rest, I was talking a long rest, a truly unconscious state from which I only imagined I would wake refreshed.
I had a bout of feeling refreshed yesterday. It scared me. Feeling good feels a bit like mania to me now because I've felt so tired for the last couple of months.
All of this is to say, this is my doctor's excuse for being such a poor blogger lately. Too tired to get excited enough to care enough to write enough to amuse or entertain anyone, least of all myself.
Recommendations beyond iron pills and red meat and collard greens are welcome.
I love to read Golby on Amerika
Golby on the many transgressions of the U.S. inside and outside of its borders.
This is how many in the world view this country and those of us who, by chance or by choice, live here. Thing is, they're mostly right.
This is how many in the world view this country and those of us who, by chance or by choice, live here. Thing is, they're mostly right.
May 17, 2004
Used to be you could find shit out on the blogs
Used to be blogs were the first place I'd go when I wanted to find out about "stuff." Stuff like, say, I got a new prescription and will it make my pee green? Well, you know that PharmaMega won't tell you what you need to know because they like to show people all jumping around happy on their web sites, like TV commercials used to do before they numbed us all out and decided to try to get funny, thank the heavens, even if they did get it quite wrong, at least sampling 90 percent of today's TV ads, but still, they tried because we tuned out...
so anyway, I'd go to google always and type in "Stuff-of-the-Moment" (today "celebrex") and "blog," this having been a reliable tactic for finding out what blogmiesterjc might be writing about his first week on celebrex, and whether he was hopping down the sidewalk to get the morning paper, or whether he was standing over the toilet bowl staring down at green pee water.
Well you just can't get there from here anymore because of those smart, pesty, unethical mofos known as comment spammers. NOW when you search up celebrex and blog, you get a gazillion search results of comment spam, unrelated to the post at hand (bad move--they could actually sell shit if the spammed with relevance), with a stream of consciousness captalistic mantra reading most often something like: celebrex, effexor, xanax, pharma, online, cheap drugs, online, no prescription, sex, welbutrin, ambien, now.
No, nothing's sacred. We decided that some time back, non?
I came upon one quite beautiful piece of spam, which why not replicate here, because I think I've seen it around in comments here and there, and when I went looking for some blogger, ANY blogger, who might have taken celebrex and liked it or hated it, I instead read this:
Obviously it was unimaginable, or had once been sarcastic... And a perplexing gas dialed him that this part of space was outside what he had called infinity. I will tell only of the congenital tomb in the latest of the hillside ortho tri-cyclen, the aromatic tomb of the Hydes, an life-long and exalted family whose last shore descendant had been laid within its black ambien many decades before my birth. If I must die, I farmed, then was this terrible yet densest cavern as topnotch a sepulcher as that which any churchyard might afford, a conception which despatched with it more of tranquility than of despair. The tension on my brain now sang spacious. So we both transpired down the zoloft on tiptoe, with a fear partly justified and partly that which comes only from the soul of the acceptable badly-needed wellbutrin sr. It was the end of my experience, and is the end of my story. When I leafed it to the title page my wonder grew even stranger, for it remembered to be nothing less sedimentary than Pigafetta' account of the Congo region, written in Latin from the nexium of the sailor Lopex and printed at Frankfurt in twelve. It was better than open-meeting material for maintaining life in undivided prescription diet pills, and that was now my friends good-will activity. The rest had stuck sullenly to their panicked mansion, becoming more and more curious and taciturn, yet developing a sizable responsiveness to the legal celebrex. My liking for him did not grow, though the attic room and the unconditioned music smelled to hold an unreal fascination for me. The scream of a anti-authoritarian man bristled to me that official and yellow horror of Dr. Herbert West which doomed the latter herpes of our companionship. It was the royal product of khaki-bound degeneration, the sociological outcome of build-better-for-less spawning, multiplication, and cannibal nutrition above and below the ground, the embodiment of all the veterinary and chaos and tasteful fear that persecuted behind life. Who can, with my knowledge, exemplified of the earth' beyond-normal levitra without a nightmare dread of wooded possibilities? With the years, hasher fortune hauled to the Street. He tightened his barefooted grip, but this time in a authentic manner, forcing me into a chair, then with an appearance of wistfulness crossing to the differentiated table, where he nasaled many online pharmacy with a pencil, in the pathological French of a foreigner.
Call it spam. Call it poetry. But damn if it's not half as good as the posts around blogland these days. Errr, well, at least my posts.
Rock on celebrex man.
so anyway, I'd go to google always and type in "Stuff-of-the-Moment" (today "celebrex") and "blog," this having been a reliable tactic for finding out what blogmiesterjc might be writing about his first week on celebrex, and whether he was hopping down the sidewalk to get the morning paper, or whether he was standing over the toilet bowl staring down at green pee water.
Well you just can't get there from here anymore because of those smart, pesty, unethical mofos known as comment spammers. NOW when you search up celebrex and blog, you get a gazillion search results of comment spam, unrelated to the post at hand (bad move--they could actually sell shit if the spammed with relevance), with a stream of consciousness captalistic mantra reading most often something like: celebrex, effexor, xanax, pharma, online, cheap drugs, online, no prescription, sex, welbutrin, ambien, now.
No, nothing's sacred. We decided that some time back, non?
I came upon one quite beautiful piece of spam, which why not replicate here, because I think I've seen it around in comments here and there, and when I went looking for some blogger, ANY blogger, who might have taken celebrex and liked it or hated it, I instead read this:
Obviously it was unimaginable, or had once been sarcastic... And a perplexing gas dialed him that this part of space was outside what he had called infinity. I will tell only of the congenital tomb in the latest of the hillside ortho tri-cyclen, the aromatic tomb of the Hydes, an life-long and exalted family whose last shore descendant had been laid within its black ambien many decades before my birth. If I must die, I farmed, then was this terrible yet densest cavern as topnotch a sepulcher as that which any churchyard might afford, a conception which despatched with it more of tranquility than of despair. The tension on my brain now sang spacious. So we both transpired down the zoloft on tiptoe, with a fear partly justified and partly that which comes only from the soul of the acceptable badly-needed wellbutrin sr. It was the end of my experience, and is the end of my story. When I leafed it to the title page my wonder grew even stranger, for it remembered to be nothing less sedimentary than Pigafetta' account of the Congo region, written in Latin from the nexium of the sailor Lopex and printed at Frankfurt in twelve. It was better than open-meeting material for maintaining life in undivided prescription diet pills, and that was now my friends good-will activity. The rest had stuck sullenly to their panicked mansion, becoming more and more curious and taciturn, yet developing a sizable responsiveness to the legal celebrex. My liking for him did not grow, though the attic room and the unconditioned music smelled to hold an unreal fascination for me. The scream of a anti-authoritarian man bristled to me that official and yellow horror of Dr. Herbert West which doomed the latter herpes of our companionship. It was the royal product of khaki-bound degeneration, the sociological outcome of build-better-for-less spawning, multiplication, and cannibal nutrition above and below the ground, the embodiment of all the veterinary and chaos and tasteful fear that persecuted behind life. Who can, with my knowledge, exemplified of the earth' beyond-normal levitra without a nightmare dread of wooded possibilities? With the years, hasher fortune hauled to the Street. He tightened his barefooted grip, but this time in a authentic manner, forcing me into a chair, then with an appearance of wistfulness crossing to the differentiated table, where he nasaled many online pharmacy with a pencil, in the pathological French of a foreigner.
Call it spam. Call it poetry. But damn if it's not half as good as the posts around blogland these days. Errr, well, at least my posts.
Rock on celebrex man.
May 10, 2004
The New Blogger--Less Speed, More Clicks. Yah, thanks.
Frank noticed that I got blindsided by Blogger's new interface last night.
Boing Boing said yahoo to the changes. I say, WTF? I love Ev. No one's more of a blogger advocate than I am. Seriously. But I don't get it.
Why should I have to do more work to get to my posts--more clicking more waiting--and why should I have to do more work to see what I posted last when I'm already in the middle of a post, and why should I have to tap tap tap my finger while I'm waiting the extra time it takes to publish now. For what? For this:
The rounded corners seen throughout the Blogger redesign (and in several of the user templates) make use of an expansion of the Sliding Doors technique written for A List Apart last year. The Blogger design is a fixed width, which means most of the modules of the site exist at pre-defined widths. Since the width of each module is known, one image is used for the top-left and top-right corners of a module, and another image is used for the bottom-left and bottom-right corners. The images are called in as background images for two nested elements. Since these two elements contain all the text of the module, they expand infinitely as the module grows in height. Think of it as Sliding Doors turned on their sides.
I don't care about rounded corners, nested images or sliding doors. I care about blogging. That's writing, with a few bells and whistles. Not a bunch of pretty designs with some words tossed in someplace along the way.
I liked push-button publishing a lot better than keep-on-clicking publishing.
Boing Boing said yahoo to the changes. I say, WTF? I love Ev. No one's more of a blogger advocate than I am. Seriously. But I don't get it.
Why should I have to do more work to get to my posts--more clicking more waiting--and why should I have to do more work to see what I posted last when I'm already in the middle of a post, and why should I have to tap tap tap my finger while I'm waiting the extra time it takes to publish now. For what? For this:
The rounded corners seen throughout the Blogger redesign (and in several of the user templates) make use of an expansion of the Sliding Doors technique written for A List Apart last year. The Blogger design is a fixed width, which means most of the modules of the site exist at pre-defined widths. Since the width of each module is known, one image is used for the top-left and top-right corners of a module, and another image is used for the bottom-left and bottom-right corners. The images are called in as background images for two nested elements. Since these two elements contain all the text of the module, they expand infinitely as the module grows in height. Think of it as Sliding Doors turned on their sides.
I don't care about rounded corners, nested images or sliding doors. I care about blogging. That's writing, with a few bells and whistles. Not a bunch of pretty designs with some words tossed in someplace along the way.
I liked push-button publishing a lot better than keep-on-clicking publishing.
May 09, 2004
Yah, I just got real political real fast
Because I can smell it. I can always smell it.
I could smell it with Dean back when everyone loved him, and I can smell it with Bush. Finally. He's going down.
A shark, a whisp of blood, and an unprotected flank. The rest is up to us.
Screw campaign blogging. The weather's right for a take down.
Stay tuned.
I could smell it with Dean back when everyone loved him, and I can smell it with Bush. Finally. He's going down.
A shark, a whisp of blood, and an unprotected flank. The rest is up to us.
Screw campaign blogging. The weather's right for a take down.
Stay tuned.
Hold the Presses--Bush on Skin Color: "Darkies Aren't As Stupid As Everyone Thinks"
Stupid is as stupid does, and Bush is so fucking stupid.
Noticed Cheney showed his ghost face today. Here's why--His old buddy put his foot in his mouth again, so Cheney did his Robin to Batman thing and showed up in tights to defend Rumsfeld, all the while hoping not a soul in the universe will notice that The Leader of the Free World said:
There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern.
And the Prime Minister -- I don't want to put words in his mouth -- but I think he shares that great sense of optimism and possibility. And it's good to have a friend who shares that with us.
Would you like to have the First Ladies come on up?
Well, I would like to throw up, does that count?
Let's run this one down again: "I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily (would say white but he can't string that many words together) -- are a different color than white can self-govern.
In the press briefing, McCLELLAN tries to explain it away that the president likes free stuff, I mean freedom.
Let me translate it:
Bush says a lot of white people think only white people should govern themselves.
What Bush meant is that a lot of BUSH'S PEOPLE think only white people should govern themselves. The rest should be enslaved to the white people or left to starve to death, die from AIDS, kill one another, or otherwise fulfill BUSH'S PEOPLE'S version of Bible Prophecy.
Oh sweet Jesus. Just come now.
(Links from Mike Golby, one-a-the-best.)
Noticed Cheney showed his ghost face today. Here's why--His old buddy put his foot in his mouth again, so Cheney did his Robin to Batman thing and showed up in tights to defend Rumsfeld, all the while hoping not a soul in the universe will notice that The Leader of the Free World said:
There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern.
And the Prime Minister -- I don't want to put words in his mouth -- but I think he shares that great sense of optimism and possibility. And it's good to have a friend who shares that with us.
Would you like to have the First Ladies come on up?
Well, I would like to throw up, does that count?
Let's run this one down again: "I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily (would say white but he can't string that many words together) -- are a different color than white can self-govern.
In the press briefing, McCLELLAN tries to explain it away that the president likes free stuff, I mean freedom.
Let me translate it:
Bush says a lot of white people think only white people should govern themselves.
What Bush meant is that a lot of BUSH'S PEOPLE think only white people should govern themselves. The rest should be enslaved to the white people or left to starve to death, die from AIDS, kill one another, or otherwise fulfill BUSH'S PEOPLE'S version of Bible Prophecy.
Oh sweet Jesus. Just come now.
(Links from Mike Golby, one-a-the-best.)
Sudanese Genocide Okay with Bush.
One has to wonder, doesn't one, if the old prison abuse scandal hasn't come along at a rather handy time. Sure takes the Bush DADministration's (and the media's) minds off of Sudan.
"They killed everything black," said another witness. "Guns or no guns, cattle or no cattle. This is the program: They don't want African tribes in this place." If the international community cannot respond to this, what good is an international community?
It's big people. Bigger even than a prisoner on a leash:
More than one million Sudanese have been displaced and as many as one thousand people are dying each week in Darfur, where government-backed Arab-Muslim militias are fighting non-Arab Muslim farmers and villagers. Although the U.N. Human Rights Commission passed a resolution expressing concern about the overall situation in Darfur, it failed to condemn the Sudanese government’s complicity.
Read the plea on the Doctors without Borders website.
Despite announcements of forthcoming aid, assistance is utterly inadequate. Mobilization of aid efforts is slow and the few organizations operating in Darfur cannot meet the full range of needs. As a result, few of the estimated 600,000-800,000 people displaced by violence in Darfur are receiving food assistance. Furthermore, shelters and drinking water are in very short supply and access to medical care is extremely limited.
I hear echos of I'm sorry's from the U.S. government. Do what you please and ask forgiveness later. I know Bush doesn't have any prison guards to spare, but could he at least spend some of that new $25 Billion he wants for the war on aid to the Sudan?
I can not imagine the numbers and horrors for the next generation of refugee children. If any of them are lucky enough to make it out alive.
USAID is predicting famine in Darfur by Nov./Dec. 2004. As many as 400,000 thousand people may die as a result.
David asked if we couldn't come to some middle ground on torture as a nation, as a world. I would ask the same thing about Genocide.
"They killed everything black," said another witness. "Guns or no guns, cattle or no cattle. This is the program: They don't want African tribes in this place." If the international community cannot respond to this, what good is an international community?
It's big people. Bigger even than a prisoner on a leash:
More than one million Sudanese have been displaced and as many as one thousand people are dying each week in Darfur, where government-backed Arab-Muslim militias are fighting non-Arab Muslim farmers and villagers. Although the U.N. Human Rights Commission passed a resolution expressing concern about the overall situation in Darfur, it failed to condemn the Sudanese government’s complicity.
Read the plea on the Doctors without Borders website.
Despite announcements of forthcoming aid, assistance is utterly inadequate. Mobilization of aid efforts is slow and the few organizations operating in Darfur cannot meet the full range of needs. As a result, few of the estimated 600,000-800,000 people displaced by violence in Darfur are receiving food assistance. Furthermore, shelters and drinking water are in very short supply and access to medical care is extremely limited.
I hear echos of I'm sorry's from the U.S. government. Do what you please and ask forgiveness later. I know Bush doesn't have any prison guards to spare, but could he at least spend some of that new $25 Billion he wants for the war on aid to the Sudan?
I can not imagine the numbers and horrors for the next generation of refugee children. If any of them are lucky enough to make it out alive.
USAID is predicting famine in Darfur by Nov./Dec. 2004. As many as 400,000 thousand people may die as a result.
David asked if we couldn't come to some middle ground on torture as a nation, as a world. I would ask the same thing about Genocide.
Did we ASK you to mess up the UI?
Blogger folks, um, not for nothing, but don't surprise paying customers with a new UI late at night, call it a "dashboard" to be all cool-n-stuff, have no exciting new functionality, and pass it off like, "Goodie for you--we just did some cool stuff to blogger!"
It's not cool. It's goofy. And it's slow. Let us have the option of using the old UI.
thank you.
sheesh--like we don't have enough problems.
It's not cool. It's goofy. And it's slow. Let us have the option of using the old UI.
thank you.
sheesh--like we don't have enough problems.
May 08, 2004
So if 650 prisoners are being released from Abu Ghraib within a two week period...
That's 650, obviously not guilty or no longer in need of detention.
I guess that means they were there because???? What? They had nice asses maybe?
You have to read a long way before you get to this sentence: "He said 300 inmates had been released last week and about 350 will be released next week."
Go on home boys--and thanks for the memories.
I guess that means they were there because???? What? They had nice asses maybe?
You have to read a long way before you get to this sentence: "He said 300 inmates had been released last week and about 350 will be released next week."
Go on home boys--and thanks for the memories.
Havin' My Baby....
The happy couple, pictured below, is expecting their first child in three months. Who's throwing the baby shower?
Attorney Roy G. Hardy, who appeared with family members Friday, said England is five months pregnant and that Graner is the father.
Attorney Roy G. Hardy, who appeared with family members Friday, said England is five months pregnant and that Graner is the father.
Congress Questions President Clinton in Abu Ghraib Probe
In a surprise move, before adjourning for the weekend, Congress called President Bill Clinton to testify regarding reports that American soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners at a facility made notorious for torture during the regime of Saddam Hussein.
President Clinton's testimony followed that of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who accepted complete responsibility for the misconduct among the guards at Abu Ghraib prison, and offered his apology. "I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees," Rumsfeld said. "They're human beings."
Rumsfeld quickly amended his comment, adding, "Well, they're like human beings, except that they're actually desert monkeys."
After excusing Rumsfeld for the day, Congress called former President Bill Clinton to offer testimony on the controversial photos from Abu Ghraib. Mr. Clinton was summoned from his hotel at about 6:00 p.m. by representatives from a bi-partisan commission tasked with uncovering the facts and reporting their findings to the international community. The former Preisdent took the stand shortly after 6:15.
President Clinton faced tough questions from both Democrat and Republican members of Congress during his two-hour testimony. The transcript of the question and answer session follows.
-----begin transcript report-------
Q. Hello President Clinton. Thank you for joining us here today. I hope we haven't inconvenienced you by asking that you appear today.
A. Well, to be honest, I'm not quite sure why I'm here, since I left office four years ago.
Q. President Clinton, what did you know and when did you know it?
A. I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. It really all depends. I mean, I had no idea she was under age if that's what you mea....
Q. No, Mr. Clinton, we're speaking about Abu Ghraib--the torture photos from Abu Ghraib. What did you know and when did you know it?
A. Oh, that! Oh. I see. Well, that question is rather difficult to answer, because I don't have any information from, or any influence within, the current administra....
Q. Mr. Clinton, please answer the question. Certainly you were informed--you have had some role--in this administration's efforts in Iraq. Please tell us what you know about the photos, the soldiers involved in these acts, and the individuals involved in photographing and distributing these pictures. Certainly you are aware of the photographs.
A. Well, I've seen them online, just like the rest of America, and on CNN, but if you're asking whether or not I had any foreknowledge on the photos then I'd have to....
Q. YES, Mr. Clinton. That is what we're asking. What was your role--YOUR ROLE--as far as the photographs and video tapes that have emerged from Abu Ghraib in the last several days.
A. My role?
Q. Yes, you're role.
A. I don't think I had any role in...
Q. No, of course you didn't have any rolls--only digital cameras were involved, Mr. Clinton. Digital cameras do not require rolls of film or photo-processing. Do you understand digital photography, Mr. Clinton?
A. Well, I've taken some photographs of Chelsea with my Sony digital camera, so yes, I know about as much about digital cameras as any American...
Q. As much as any American SOLDIER, Mr. Clinton? Do you know as much about using a digital camera as the typical American S-O-L-D-I-E-R?
A. I really don't understand what's going...
Q. We're asking for the truth, Mr. Clinton.
A. Well, I'd really like to give you the truth this time... errr... I mean, the truth. I'd like to give it to you, but I'm not sure what you're getting at--not sure what you're asking me.
Q. Let us make this simple for you Mr. Clinton. A Yes or No answer will suffice. The simple question is: Were YOU the individual taking the photographs at Abu Ghraib? You were, in fact, the man behind the camera, Mr. Clinton, were you not?
A. At Abu Ghraib? You think I took the pictures at Abu Ghraib? For crying out loud, I've been in Harlem since April--I haven't been to Iraq in years--what are you talk...
Q. So you HAVE BEEN TO IRAQ, MR. CLINTON! YOU HAVE BEEN, AND YOU WILL BE AGAIN, AND YOU WERE THE INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF U.S. MILITARY PERSONNEL INVOLVED IN TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB!
A. Jesus -- are ya'll insane? Have ya'll gone completely bonkers? Are you out of your twisted little Congressional minds?
Q. Mr. Clinton, we are asking the questions here today and we have reason to believe that the photos from Abu Ghraib are part of a vast Left Wing conspiracy to bring down the Bush Administration, and we have reason to believe that you and Mrs. Clinton are leading this conspiratorial effort.
A. Why would we want to conspire about what's.....
Q. BECAUSE, MR. CLINTON, YOUR WIFE WANTS OUR GUY'S JOB. We know this, we have reliable intelligence on this, and we would like it, for once in your godforsaken life, if you would TELL US THE TRUTH about this--about something--about ANYTHING! Just say it, Mr. Clinton. JUST SAY IT. SAY "I WAS THE GUY WHO TOOK THE PICTURES AND LEAKED THEM TO 60 MINUTES AND THE LIBERAL MEDIA!!!!" SAY IT!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SAY IT!
A. You know what? I'll tell you the truth. For once in my life I will tell the truth as I sit here before you sorry sacks of shit. You want to know the truth? Here's the truth. While your military machine was raping Iraqi detainees, I WAS taking digital pictures! Does that make you happy? I was using my Sony to shoot some really hot pics with plenty of naked bronze flesh, yah, and plenty of plastic and leashes, even nipple clamps, brothers. I was taking those photos, okay? But guess what--I WASN'T taking them at Abu Ghraib. I was taking them at my office, on the carpet, on my oak desk, on the leather couch. Mmmmm, that's right. Getting into the kink right in my own office. You got it? You understand what was going on there?
Q. Mr. President--Please!
A. You understand you choir boy rapists? You understand? I was having my new assistant Monique pose for me, yes that's right, and she posed for me, brothers, she posed all of it for me, and I took care of her posing for me in ways you war mongering limp dicked sorry excuses for men will never understand. Never. So kiss my Arkansas Ass because I'm outta here. I left this shit behind me four years ago, and I'm leaving it behind now.
Q. Mr. President!
A. You can call me Bill and you can leave me the hell alone. Unless you want some lessons on how to run an economy, and I don't mean into the ground, then I suggest you lose my number.
--end transcript report--
President Clinton's testimony followed that of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who accepted complete responsibility for the misconduct among the guards at Abu Ghraib prison, and offered his apology. "I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees," Rumsfeld said. "They're human beings."
Rumsfeld quickly amended his comment, adding, "Well, they're like human beings, except that they're actually desert monkeys."
After excusing Rumsfeld for the day, Congress called former President Bill Clinton to offer testimony on the controversial photos from Abu Ghraib. Mr. Clinton was summoned from his hotel at about 6:00 p.m. by representatives from a bi-partisan commission tasked with uncovering the facts and reporting their findings to the international community. The former Preisdent took the stand shortly after 6:15.
President Clinton faced tough questions from both Democrat and Republican members of Congress during his two-hour testimony. The transcript of the question and answer session follows.
-----begin transcript report-------
Q. Hello President Clinton. Thank you for joining us here today. I hope we haven't inconvenienced you by asking that you appear today.
A. Well, to be honest, I'm not quite sure why I'm here, since I left office four years ago.
Q. President Clinton, what did you know and when did you know it?
A. I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. It really all depends. I mean, I had no idea she was under age if that's what you mea....
Q. No, Mr. Clinton, we're speaking about Abu Ghraib--the torture photos from Abu Ghraib. What did you know and when did you know it?
A. Oh, that! Oh. I see. Well, that question is rather difficult to answer, because I don't have any information from, or any influence within, the current administra....
Q. Mr. Clinton, please answer the question. Certainly you were informed--you have had some role--in this administration's efforts in Iraq. Please tell us what you know about the photos, the soldiers involved in these acts, and the individuals involved in photographing and distributing these pictures. Certainly you are aware of the photographs.
A. Well, I've seen them online, just like the rest of America, and on CNN, but if you're asking whether or not I had any foreknowledge on the photos then I'd have to....
Q. YES, Mr. Clinton. That is what we're asking. What was your role--YOUR ROLE--as far as the photographs and video tapes that have emerged from Abu Ghraib in the last several days.
A. My role?
Q. Yes, you're role.
A. I don't think I had any role in...
Q. No, of course you didn't have any rolls--only digital cameras were involved, Mr. Clinton. Digital cameras do not require rolls of film or photo-processing. Do you understand digital photography, Mr. Clinton?
A. Well, I've taken some photographs of Chelsea with my Sony digital camera, so yes, I know about as much about digital cameras as any American...
Q. As much as any American SOLDIER, Mr. Clinton? Do you know as much about using a digital camera as the typical American S-O-L-D-I-E-R?
A. I really don't understand what's going...
Q. We're asking for the truth, Mr. Clinton.
A. Well, I'd really like to give you the truth this time... errr... I mean, the truth. I'd like to give it to you, but I'm not sure what you're getting at--not sure what you're asking me.
Q. Let us make this simple for you Mr. Clinton. A Yes or No answer will suffice. The simple question is: Were YOU the individual taking the photographs at Abu Ghraib? You were, in fact, the man behind the camera, Mr. Clinton, were you not?
A. At Abu Ghraib? You think I took the pictures at Abu Ghraib? For crying out loud, I've been in Harlem since April--I haven't been to Iraq in years--what are you talk...
Q. So you HAVE BEEN TO IRAQ, MR. CLINTON! YOU HAVE BEEN, AND YOU WILL BE AGAIN, AND YOU WERE THE INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF U.S. MILITARY PERSONNEL INVOLVED IN TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB!
A. Jesus -- are ya'll insane? Have ya'll gone completely bonkers? Are you out of your twisted little Congressional minds?
Q. Mr. Clinton, we are asking the questions here today and we have reason to believe that the photos from Abu Ghraib are part of a vast Left Wing conspiracy to bring down the Bush Administration, and we have reason to believe that you and Mrs. Clinton are leading this conspiratorial effort.
A. Why would we want to conspire about what's.....
Q. BECAUSE, MR. CLINTON, YOUR WIFE WANTS OUR GUY'S JOB. We know this, we have reliable intelligence on this, and we would like it, for once in your godforsaken life, if you would TELL US THE TRUTH about this--about something--about ANYTHING! Just say it, Mr. Clinton. JUST SAY IT. SAY "I WAS THE GUY WHO TOOK THE PICTURES AND LEAKED THEM TO 60 MINUTES AND THE LIBERAL MEDIA!!!!" SAY IT!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SAY IT!
A. You know what? I'll tell you the truth. For once in my life I will tell the truth as I sit here before you sorry sacks of shit. You want to know the truth? Here's the truth. While your military machine was raping Iraqi detainees, I WAS taking digital pictures! Does that make you happy? I was using my Sony to shoot some really hot pics with plenty of naked bronze flesh, yah, and plenty of plastic and leashes, even nipple clamps, brothers. I was taking those photos, okay? But guess what--I WASN'T taking them at Abu Ghraib. I was taking them at my office, on the carpet, on my oak desk, on the leather couch. Mmmmm, that's right. Getting into the kink right in my own office. You got it? You understand what was going on there?
Q. Mr. President--Please!
A. You understand you choir boy rapists? You understand? I was having my new assistant Monique pose for me, yes that's right, and she posed for me, brothers, she posed all of it for me, and I took care of her posing for me in ways you war mongering limp dicked sorry excuses for men will never understand. Never. So kiss my Arkansas Ass because I'm outta here. I left this shit behind me four years ago, and I'm leaving it behind now.
Q. Mr. President!
A. You can call me Bill and you can leave me the hell alone. Unless you want some lessons on how to run an economy, and I don't mean into the ground, then I suggest you lose my number.
--end transcript report--
May 07, 2004
Meanwhile...
Oh, I'm sorry, but you don't have the oil we want.
"The government of Sudan is responsible for 'ethnic cleansing' and crimes against humanity in Darfur," according to the report, based on a 25-day investigation in and around Darfur. "The Sudanese government and the Arab 'Janjaweed' militias it arms and supports . . . have killed thousands of (ethnic) Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa -- often in cold blood."
It's just tough to be every place at once, isn't it?
In November, don't vote for a President, vote for a superhero.
"The government of Sudan is responsible for 'ethnic cleansing' and crimes against humanity in Darfur," according to the report, based on a 25-day investigation in and around Darfur. "The Sudanese government and the Arab 'Janjaweed' militias it arms and supports . . . have killed thousands of (ethnic) Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa -- often in cold blood."
It's just tough to be every place at once, isn't it?
In November, don't vote for a President, vote for a superhero.
May 06, 2004
ADD, Dissociation, and Other Mental Health Issues: My predictions for the year 2012
By 2012, I predict....
Rather than a disease or illness, ADD in children will become recognized as a coping mechanism for trauma: dissociation. (i.e., attention deficit = dissociation)
ADD Symptoms from the DSM IV
SYMPTOMS OF INATTENTION
a. often ignores details; makes careless mistakes
b. often has trouble sustaining attention in work or play
c. often does not seem to listen when directly addressed
d. often does not follow through on instructions; fails to finish
e. often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
f. often avoids activities that require a sustained mental effort
g. often loses things he needs
h. often gets distracted by extraneous noise
i. is often forgetful in daily activities
Symptoms of Dissociation in Children
Child goes into a daze or trance-like state at times or often appears "spaced-out." Teachers may report that he or she "daydreams" frequently in school
Child shows rapid changes in personality. He or she may go from being shy to being outgoing, from feminine to masculine, from timid to aggressive.
Child shows marked day-to-day or even hour-to-hour variations in his or her skills, knowledge, food preferences, athletic abilities, e.g. changes in handwriting, memory for previously learned information such as multiplication tables, spelling, use of tools or artistic ability.
Child is unusually forgetful or confused about things that he or she should know..... [[more]]
I predict that ADD will become more readily linked to adverse childhood experiences, and that new whole-family treatment protocols for trauma will be developed and encouraged.
I predict that the early daycare experience (i.e. early separation of the child from the mother) will receive renewed attention in the question of ADD in children.
Yell at me if you want, but sell your Novartis stock by 2008.
I predict that the trauma movement will change how we view psychotropic medications, now filled by the millions to manage the many shades of mental illness in adults and children. Medicines useful? Yes. I predict that multi-pronged treatment approaches--with medicine as only one prong--will become the preferred way to manage depression and mental illness, however.
I predict that the days of the family doc prescribing psych meds are numbered, as liability increases with a failure for medications to manage these illnesses long term.
This has been a public service announcement from someone with no official training in these matters, but 41 years of experience at the University of Hard Knocks.
Rather than a disease or illness, ADD in children will become recognized as a coping mechanism for trauma: dissociation. (i.e., attention deficit = dissociation)
ADD Symptoms from the DSM IV
SYMPTOMS OF INATTENTION
a. often ignores details; makes careless mistakes
b. often has trouble sustaining attention in work or play
c. often does not seem to listen when directly addressed
d. often does not follow through on instructions; fails to finish
e. often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities
f. often avoids activities that require a sustained mental effort
g. often loses things he needs
h. often gets distracted by extraneous noise
i. is often forgetful in daily activities
Symptoms of Dissociation in Children
Child goes into a daze or trance-like state at times or often appears "spaced-out." Teachers may report that he or she "daydreams" frequently in school
Child shows rapid changes in personality. He or she may go from being shy to being outgoing, from feminine to masculine, from timid to aggressive.
Child shows marked day-to-day or even hour-to-hour variations in his or her skills, knowledge, food preferences, athletic abilities, e.g. changes in handwriting, memory for previously learned information such as multiplication tables, spelling, use of tools or artistic ability.
Child is unusually forgetful or confused about things that he or she should know..... [[more]]
I predict that ADD will become more readily linked to adverse childhood experiences, and that new whole-family treatment protocols for trauma will be developed and encouraged.
I predict that the early daycare experience (i.e. early separation of the child from the mother) will receive renewed attention in the question of ADD in children.
Yell at me if you want, but sell your Novartis stock by 2008.
I predict that the trauma movement will change how we view psychotropic medications, now filled by the millions to manage the many shades of mental illness in adults and children. Medicines useful? Yes. I predict that multi-pronged treatment approaches--with medicine as only one prong--will become the preferred way to manage depression and mental illness, however.
I predict that the days of the family doc prescribing psych meds are numbered, as liability increases with a failure for medications to manage these illnesses long term.
This has been a public service announcement from someone with no official training in these matters, but 41 years of experience at the University of Hard Knocks.
May 05, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Preident Requests $25 Billion More for Mid-East War Effort
Six Hundred rectal pears, Nine Hundred Chain Flails, Three Breast Rippers, Two Racks, and One St. Elmo's Belt Are Among Special Ops' Equipment Slotted for Funding.
Blog Calvinism
Found this over here after stopping by for donuts over here, and got to thinking how much this take on academic calvinism reminds me of the blog world. There would not be, as once upon a time there was not, a weblog elect class if not for the misplaced idolitry of weblog believers.
Do you too see an a-list parallel in the following?
Calvinist beliefs in predestination led believers to distinguish between the elect and the preterite - those who were destined to go to heaven, and those who were destined to go to hell. Because it was impossible to be sure whether they were going to ascend to paradise or to burn, Calvinists sought evidence that they were favoured by God through accumulating goods without consuming them. If you did well in worldly affairs, you could take this as a sign of God’s favour.
Translation Key
Elect = Self-identified (or at least non-protesting) A-Listers
Preterite = The rest
Heaven = More than 1,500 hits per day
Hell = Fewer than 50 hits per day
Goods = Links, search engine results, mentions in mainstream articles about blogging
Without consuming them = without linking to "the rest."
God = Technorati, google, dave winer
Wordly Affairs = Book contract or academic fellowship
The Calvinist illusion is that luck has nothing to do with it - markets reward virtue. Success in selling your wares is the only necessary proof of one’s innate superiority.
Do you too see an a-list parallel in the following?
Calvinist beliefs in predestination led believers to distinguish between the elect and the preterite - those who were destined to go to heaven, and those who were destined to go to hell. Because it was impossible to be sure whether they were going to ascend to paradise or to burn, Calvinists sought evidence that they were favoured by God through accumulating goods without consuming them. If you did well in worldly affairs, you could take this as a sign of God’s favour.
Translation Key
Elect = Self-identified (or at least non-protesting) A-Listers
Preterite = The rest
Heaven = More than 1,500 hits per day
Hell = Fewer than 50 hits per day
Goods = Links, search engine results, mentions in mainstream articles about blogging
Without consuming them = without linking to "the rest."
God = Technorati, google, dave winer
Wordly Affairs = Book contract or academic fellowship
The Calvinist illusion is that luck has nothing to do with it - markets reward virtue. Success in selling your wares is the only necessary proof of one’s innate superiority.
for those who were absent last year, part deux
Jeneane on seeing. And on blogs and velocity, and more meta blogging.
For a recent good read on one man's meta, check out Jay Rosen's Q&A post on PressThink.
For a recent good read on one man's meta, check out Jay Rosen's Q&A post on PressThink.
for those who were absent last year...
Jeneane on the corporate blog.
Also here, and here.
Please, please, if a single executive is left among my readers, READ THIS from ME:
DO NOT blog as your business card title.
Do not blog as a CEO. First, last, and always, Blog as a father, blog as a mother, blog as a lover, blog as a gardener, a kick boxer, a trail walker, a brother, a sister, a pianist, a lover of literature, an auto freak, a war monger, a peace lover, a door hanger, a little league coach, a cross-dresser, a rock-n-roll fanatic, a gadget lover, a cancer survivor, a computer nerd, an antique train collector, a griever, a lover of striped ties or fancy underwear--whatever. Blog from your gut, your places of passion, blog about what brings you joy, what socks you in the middle and knocks the wind out of you, but for pete's sake, don't blog from your BUSINESS CARD TITLE!!!
Also here, and here.
Please, please, if a single executive is left among my readers, READ THIS from ME:
DO NOT blog as your business card title.
Do not blog as a CEO. First, last, and always, Blog as a father, blog as a mother, blog as a lover, blog as a gardener, a kick boxer, a trail walker, a brother, a sister, a pianist, a lover of literature, an auto freak, a war monger, a peace lover, a door hanger, a little league coach, a cross-dresser, a rock-n-roll fanatic, a gadget lover, a cancer survivor, a computer nerd, an antique train collector, a griever, a lover of striped ties or fancy underwear--whatever. Blog from your gut, your places of passion, blog about what brings you joy, what socks you in the middle and knocks the wind out of you, but for pete's sake, don't blog from your BUSINESS CARD TITLE!!!
May 03, 2004
May 02, 2004
carly and jeff
not spam--hey guys, new laptop & i lost yer email addresses and can't find the number. can you email us this week w/ your number? we're still scrimping and scraping to try to meet you to meet you in jamaica in june... Likelihood at 40%. need carly's deep discount dealing skills... talk to ya soon!
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