Thursday, December 30, 2004

The Irony of War

I read the news today, oh boy!



In the garden is no ear
Anonymoses Hyperlincoln
12.30.04

With the left hand we hurl millions to fund the healing,
With the right hand we hurl billions to fund the killing.
The earth rocks in the cradle,
the inbalancing cradle.

Oil-drunk hawks do everything to heat up the earth,
facilitate its end...
Hiroshimized by water.

Global warmers see their fruit
layed out on beaches
set to flame by loved ones

then cheer as numbers rack up,
rack up in Iraq.

How hot is a MOAB?
Will Nature counter by bombing us
with ice?

Why do I fear
this is only just the beginning?

So soft and peaceful here.
In the garden is no ear
to hear the cries
of a billion
suffering
souls.




May the victims of this tragedy, and their friends and families, find peace, strength, patience, solace, wisdom and magnanimous love and charity. And may we, in our gardens, vow to make their suffering meaningful. This could literally be a watershed moment in world history. We can say no to War for all time, and say yes to helping people live better, more peaceful lives.

In the magnanimous outpouring from around the world, we see, as we knew we would see, that everyone has a heart. We are all better off, and we feel better about ourselves, and indeed are intrinsically better, when we act upon our higher natures.

But the suffering this time is so vast, and will certainly get much worse. By showing them that their suffering, and our response to their suffering, will make for a positive change in the way the world's people relate to one another, and that, indeed, we can set ourselves on such a corrective course...who knows? Maybe it can help alleviate some of the pain.

God help us all.

An anti-war Conservative speaks out

'Staying the Course' Won't Do
by Patrick J. Buchanan

[excerpts from AntiWar.com]
In the aftermath of the suicide bombing of the Mosul mess hall, we are being admonished anew we must stay the course in Iraq. But "Stay the course!" is no longer enough.

President Bush needs to go on national television and tell us the unvarnished truth. Why are we still there? For some of Bush's countrymen, there is a sense of having been had, of having been made victim to one of the great bait-and-switches in the history of warfare.

The president, his War Cabinet, and the neocon punditocracy sold us on this war by implying Saddam was implicated in 9/11, that he had a vast arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, that he was working on an atom bomb, that he would transfer his terror weapons to al-Qaeda. We had to invade, destroy, and disarm his axis-of-evil regime. Only thus could we be secure.

None of this was true. But the president won that debate and was given a free hand to invade Iraq. He did so, and overthrew Saddam's regime in three weeks. "Mission Accomplished!"

That was 20 months ago. What is our mission now? When did it change? With 1,300 dead and nearly 10,000 wounded, why are we still at war with these people?

The president says the enemy is "terrorism" and "evil," and we fight for "democracy" and that "freedom" that is "God's gift to humanity." All very noble.

But why should Americans have to die for democracy in a nation that has never known it? Democracy in the Middle East is not vital to our national security. For though the Middle East has never been democratic, no Middle East nation has ever attacked us. And should we catch a nation that is supporting terror against us, we have the weapons to make them pay a hellish price, without invading and occupying their country.

The only nation in the 20th century to attack us was Japan. And Japan lashed out, insanely, in desperation, because we had cut off her oil and convinced the British and Dutch to cut off the vital commodities she needed to avoid imperial defeat in China. We were choking the Japanese empire to death.

We might all prefer that Arab nations be democratic. But that is not vital to us. If they remain despotic, that is their problem, so long as they do not threaten or attack us. But to invade an Islamic country to force it to adopt democratic reforms is democratic imperialism. If we practice it, we must expect that some of those we are reforming will resort to the time-honored weapon of anti-imperialists, terrorism – the one effective weapon the weak have against the strong.

...

Before addressing his countrymen, the president needs to ask and answer for himself some hard questions. Who told him this would be a "cakewalk"? Who misled him to believe we would be welcomed as liberators with bouquets of flowers? Who led him into a situation where his choice appears to be between a seemingly endless guerrilla war that could destroy his presidency, and walking away from Iraq and watching it collapse in mayhem and the massacre of those who cast their lot with us? Why have these fools not been fired, like the CIA geniuses who sold JFK on the Bay of Pigs?

It is not just President Bush who is in this hellish mess. We're all in it together. But the president needs to know that if he intends to use U.S. military power to democratize the Middle East, Americans – 56 percent of whom now believe Iraq was a mistake – will not follow him.

Finally, the president must answer in his heart this question: Exactly how much more blood and money is he willing to plunge into a war for democracy in Iraq, and at what point must he decide – as LBJ and Nixon did in Vietnam – that the cost to America is so great that we must get out and risk the awful consequences of a mistaken war that we should never have launched?

(Thanks to Rob Urban for referring me to this article.)

Der Spiegel: "Bloggers at Front Line of Relief Efforts"

[excerpt]
If you want to find out more information about this week's tsunami of biblical proportions in Southeast Asia and how you can help the victims, the best place to go is a new blog in the Indian Ocean region that's compiling everything from requests by organizations seeking donations to victim lists.
Blogs are at the forefront of the tsunami recovery effort. While traditional media drags awaiting publication, and government hotlines jam or go unanswered, bloggers have hopped into the fray, providing needed information to relatives desperate to find loved ones and those hoping to join the rescue efforts. One of the best sites out there is
the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog set up by students from New Delhi, a Sri Lankan TV producer and Internet junkies in the region. It offers everything from fascinating tsunami facts to emergency contact numbers to humanitarian relief organizations. Plus it tells you how to donate money from wherever you are.

(via Glenn Reynolds)

Deadliest Tsunami in History

D A T E - L O C A T I O N - D E A D
2004, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, etc. 150,000+ w/millions suffering today
1883, Krakatoa, Indonesia 36,000
1707 Japan Up to 30,000
1896, Sanriku, Japan 27,000
1755, Lisbon, Portugal 10,000
1933, Sanriku, Japan 3,000
1960, Hilo, Hawaii, and Pacific Islands Over 450
1979, San Juan, Colombia Over 250
1946, Hawaii 173

Learn more about the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake & tsunamis - from Wikipedia

[excerpt]
The 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake of moment magnitude 9.0 that struck the Indian Ocean off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia on December 26, 2004 at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time in Jakarta and Bangkok). It was the largest earthquake on Earth since the 9.2-magnitude Good Friday Earthquake which struck Alaska on March 27, 1964, and the fourth largest since 1900 (tied with a 1952 earthquake of 9.0 magnitude in Kamchatka). Tens of thousands were killed by tsunamis of heights of up to 15 m, which flooded coastlines between 15 minutes and 10 hours after the quake, causing one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history.
The multiple tsunamis struck and ravaged coastal regions all over the Indian Ocean, devastating parts of
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and other countries. Deadly tsunamis struck as far away as Somalia and several other countries on the east coast of Africa, 4,500 km (2,800 mi) or more west of the epicentre. Global ripple effects were so widespread that wave fluctuations passed into the Pacific Ocean and caused tidal disturbances in North and South America.
The plight of the affected people and countries prompted a widespread
humanitarian response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.


Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Billionaires, cough it up!

Tat tvam asi...

I am not even a billionaire, and yet I somehow feel empowered to tell each and every one of them to cough it up. Helping victims of tragedy is a growth industry which has suddenly been exponentiated by the forces of Nature, and is likely to occur again and again and again. Some day Nature may find you, and no wall of money will keep you afloat. This is perhaps the worst tragedy in human history. And it has only just begun. Where is your blank check? Your infinite credit line? Want to be a hero and not just inclusionary? Looking for an opportunity to extend noblesse oblige? Sure, the less fortunate can, and are being philanthropic. But time is key. This is your chance to evolve your true worth.

Cough it up. Give it all away. Do something human.


Relief and information links can be found in wondrous abundance at Iddybud, American Street, The Southeast Asia Earthquake and Tsunami site, Emergency Action Blog, and others.

Only a millionaire? You can make yourselves useful too. Give what you can.
...
Iddybud sent this article on one way to give:
North Carolina Philanthropists are coughing it up...
An emerging philanthropic trend: the 'giving circle'

The Blogs & Music that Healed the World

We are living in Kuhnian times. Revolutions are happening by the hour. Blogpolitics is already ancient history, even while having a much greater future. Now blogs are tying together newspapers, artists, musicians and such that can and should be marshalled to create, very rapidly, a vast amount of financial and informational relief.

Newspapers can give free advertising for a Tsunami Aid concert, featuring local, national and world acts, which is then carried over blogs, with links for charitable giving. In exchange, the blogs can carry an ad for the newspaper, bla bla bla. Work it out. It's for a good cause. And an urgent one at that.

Tsunami, Blogs and The Philanthropic Class

Towards a Poor Theatre

TSUNAMI

These seem like end-times. The eschaton. Amerigeddon. There are locusts in Egypt, trihurricanes, megaquakes, floods, brothers killing brothers, death on a mass scale.
Howard Zinn and others have suggested that America become a "humanitarian superpower", and what better time than the present? The big natural event that could unite all people...has occurred. Are we mobilizing? Are we going above and beyond the proverbial call of duty? Or are we giving lip-service, and tossing out a few painless dollars?

And what are "painless dollars"?

PAINLESS DOLLARS

In order to support my life of heady leisure, I sometimes do work for a well-to-do family here in town. Some of it is painless, but some of it is quite painful. It is impossible that my pay causes any pain whatsoever to the payer, and the other day, I was ruminating on how it would be if people exchanged pain for pain. Pay 'til it hurts. In equal degree. Wouldn't that be nice! So 10k for a day's work makes you cringe? Well carry these barbells to the attic, and then let's talk.

My New Year's wish is that people start considering such matters, and, at least occasionally, act on it.

THE PHILANTHROPIC CLASS

Speaking of pain...I have noticed that, in America, the truly philanthropic class, as strange as it sounds, are the poor. The poor will give their entire fortune that another may live, and then trust that they will somehow get along without it. Who, in the upper stratophere even gives 'til it hurts? No one, that's who!

I am reminded of the story of Indra and the Ants. The ants will be king, and the king will be an ant. What is full empties, and what is empty gets filled.

But who lives like this...other than the poor?

MICROPHILANTHROPIES

It is good to give. Brings good karma. And many poor folks would like to be able to help when others suffer much greater tragedies, such as in the case of tsunami. And yet, there may not be an easy way for them to participate in global relief. This is where microphilanthropies come to the rescue. Who knows? The totals may well exceed that given by those with means. Recall Dean and MoveOn, and how they were able to generate massive funds for good causes...a dollar here and a dollar there.

BLOGS

BlogAid. As I said after the election loss: Just because we lost, doesn't mean we cannot still do things. Well, here's something to do...and fashion it after a flashmob, or Ed Cone's instaconference. Time is of the essence.

An enterprising blogger can create a portal for bloggers and non-Bs to... give 'til it hurts. Maybe even have a quick tutorial on Paypal, or some other useful e-payment system. Networks, such as the Street can tie in with ProgBlogs and other groups and networks.

If ever there were a place where bloggers are needed...it is in the heart of the inundation. Cannot a flashmob of sorts convene at ground zero and offer their blog up for bulletins?

Will someone create an aggregator for ground zero blogs?

GROUND ZERO BLOG AGGREGATOR

We need one.

Some places to give.

(Originally published on The American Street)



UPDATE

Kevin Hayden of American Street popped me a note, and shared these links where you can help:
Regarding several things Dave's written recently...

On Giving:

There are several groups already underway.

BloggerCorps
An explanation:
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2004/12/bloggercorps_ha.html
The site:
http://www.bloggercorps.org/

I'm at a fledgling level of involvement here. Because of the tsunami, we've discussed setting up a blog (temporarily titled Emergency Action Blog) which will be set up for emergencies across the globe. A crisis in your country? (Or state?) We'd quickly set up an aggregate newsfeed using media sources in the the area, blogroll any agencies and relief organizations working the area, and let people from the area blog about what's going on and what's needed. With the bandwidth to meet the demand.

(More at bottom of this list)

Global Voices Online
Draft Manifesto
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/wiki/index.php/Global_Voices_Draft_Manifesto
Site:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/


CivicSpace Labs
A continuation of the Dean-motivated technology build. It seems to be more a platform than an activist group, but it has sponsored I Do and a couple of others:
I Do:
http://www.idoin30seconds.org/
CivicSpace: http://www.civicspacelabs.org/

Strengthen The Good
An unusual one, its interests can only be described as eclectic, as they find local micro-causes around the world, advertise it on their blogs and raise funds for them. Among some I've seen: one that raised money to pay funeral expenses for child murder victims, books for schoolkids in the Czech Republic, etc.

Many of its members are Righty bloggers, so it may be a good way to fraternize and develop dialogues. I joined this last summer but have never followed through (The election took too much effort)
http://www.strengthenthegood.com/
Alan Nelson of Command Post set it up.

Project Apollonia
Provides grade school level books to Costa Rican schoolkids.
http://www.projectapollonia.org/

Omidyar Network
Don't know much about this but they have an impressive list of partners
http://www.omidyar.net/


Bottom of This List
No group by this title, but it circles back to BloggerCorps, because I think several of the same folks are involved in the two below:

Worldchanging.com
About:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000106.html
Site: http://www.worldchanging.com/
They apparently helped set up the Tsunami blog
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001821.html
The Tsunami Blog: http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

Emergency Action Blog
As noted in the first entry, this is the project that got underway in the past 48 hours. It'll be designed to handle future relief coordination activities, within a few hours of an arising need. Worldchanging, BloggerCorps members - and me - are involved in this. And there's a mailing list.
http://eab.smartcampaigns.com/

Individuals involved: Besides Rebecca MacKinnon, others include the following, but there are more on the email list, so this isn't all-inclusive.

Nick Lewis of the Progressive Blog Alliance is heavily involved, and likely is a better source of info (he has tech skills to match his aims; I do not.)
Nick:
http://nicklewis.smartcampaigns.com/
PBA: http://pbahq.smartcampaigns.com/

I also suspect it was a comment I left on his blog that got me onto a mailing list about all this stuff. So if you're interested in any of it, he's the person to approach.


Other people involved (some real heavyweights)

Joi Ito
http://joi.ito.com/

Aldon Hynes
http://aldon.livejournal.com/ and http://www.orient-lodge.com/
and bio: http://www.orient-lodge.com/index.php?q=node/view/8

Jon Lebkowsky
bio:
http://www.weblogsky.com/about.html
site: http://weblogsky.com/

Ah, the promise of technology!
http://www.munnecke.com/blog/archives/2004_11.html#000201

Anonymoses welcomes The Solar Bus and PeaceBike


Gary Beckwith's Solar Bus

Tad Beckwith's PeaceBike
About PeaceBike

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Marshes of the Cradle

Paradise Lost?
What should--or can--be done about "the environmental crime of the century"?
by Christopher Reed
(from Harvard Magazine)

Five thousand years ago in the Mesopotamian marshes, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in southern Iraq, the Sumerians began history. They devised an irrigation system and built an agrarian society, banding together the children of hunter-gatherers in the world's first cities—Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Lagash, Larsa—on the edge of the marshes. From their cradle of civilization, the Sumerians brought forth writing (as well as the wheel, maybe, and much else fundamental) and carved into clay tablets the epic of Gilgamesh, which describes the Flood. Here, many say, was the Garden of Eden (although the latest scientific thinking suggests it was at a spot now at the bottom of the Persian Gulf).
MORE

Monday, December 27, 2004

Desperate Housewife, Nicolette Sheridan, sheds towel & inhibitions for Football star


Sheridan and Owens with jungle fever

Not to be bested by Janet Jackson or Lindy England, Nicky Sheridan corners the football star in a locker room, and races naked into his arms...on national TV!


Sunday, December 26, 2004

FOX: A False Balance

"A false balance is an abomination to the Lord." - Proverbs, 11:1

And to those who are always preaching Armageddon, the Bible says this:

"A man of understanding sets his face toward wisdom,
but the eyes of the fool are on the ends of the earth." - Proverbs, 17:24

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Welcome Woody to the blogosphere



Please welcome my old friend, Woody Williams, to the blogosphere. He is an extraordinary artist and composer, and has been for decades. He is available for concert and DJ venues. Here is where you can find him.


This is the Info Page, which has links to the History of Electronic Music and other edifying phenomena.

Charlotte: Hitched to Everything

A great blog from Charlotte with a message for the season...

(well, actually Stribley is aboriginally from Perth, Australia)
[EXCERPT from Hitched to Everything, by Robert Stribley}
As I read it, that poem ties in with the implicit theme of this blog--or at least the name, I've chosen--which I've never taken the time to elaborate on. John Muir was likely referring specifically to nature when he said it: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." But I intend the theme to be even broader: philosophically, religiously, naturally, universally.

However you want to read it, we're all hitched together. Democrats and Republicans, hippies and hipsters, men and women, believers and non-believers, businessmen and homeless people, single mothers and Baptist deacons, Americans and Frenchmen, Westerners and Middle Easterners, gays and straights, Yuschenko and Yanukovych, flower arrangers and day traders, dogs and cats, the PHD candidate and the unschooled, bullies and submissives, the fashionable and the frump, priests and petty criminals, the married and the single, movie stars and children in their school play, introverts and extroverts, elephants and insects, the poet and the illiterate, black and white, gym bunnies and couch potatoes, the eldery and the newborn, North Koreans and South Koreans, congressmen and trial lawyers, the loved and the unloved, Protestants and Catholics, dullards and debutantes, Muslims and Christians, pacifists and terrorists. No, they are not all the same, but they are all hitched together.

Like it or not, believe it or not. It's true. It's sometimes a thing of horror, but it's always a thing of beauty.

I often have to remind myself that it's true. But maybe that's what's worth remembering during this season.

A welcome message indeed!



Susan Crawford picks up on the Greensboro Phenomenon

[EXCERPT]
Here's an idea: how about (in addition to replicating the paper online, which is a valuable resource) having an entirely different community site that is branded separately but relatedly. That might help management relax. Then aggregate blogs, hold forums, have polls, have very-local-weather reports, review movies, have the best possible community events calendar, create (simple, low-barrier-to-entry) virtual worlds, assign stories collectively, have photo contests, whatever. But in a slightly different voice.
One model I like is the Time Out New York offline setup. It's got the voice of an informal blog, with regular columnists, plus all possible information about all possible events. It's overwhelming, but I can imagine that the online Greensboro version might have a more manageable amount of information. Time Out Greensboro plus The Aggregated Voice of Greensboro -- with revenue coming only from large concerns placing listings. No subscriber fees or "premium" content that's hard to get to -- the friendly craigslist model
.

about susan crawford



Friday, December 24, 2004

A Happy Holiday greeting

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!


This animated greeting was created by an old friend from Massachusetts, Tom Priest. Tom and I helped each other in the first days of the WWW, each showing the other new tricks and tools, and each inspiring (I hope) the other to keep with it. We both are still with it. Only he has actually evolved, whereas I backed my truck into a mudhole. :)
Feel free to drop him a note. May you all (both) have a wondrous holiday season.

-anonyMoses

Speaking of friends...

The holiday season always makes me think of friends new and old...

While reading Lenslinger' hurricane tales, I was reminded of Hurricane Hugo, and a couple of friends who had covered it, from Charleston...ground zero.

Roger Mellen covered it, as producer of a Charlotte TV News division, and Rob Urban covered it for the Charlotte Observer. Their reports were hair-raising and wondrous. I would not have wanted to do it.

Years later, Mr. Urban would be awakened by yours truly and told that the WTC had been it, and that he better get up. We were in Manhattan. Upper East. Nice place!
Just not that month.

And just like with Hugo, Rob raced toward the maelstrom.

The path from Hugo to 9/11 was also quite interesting. After leaving the observer, he and his lovely wife, Laura Zelenko, got on with Bloomberg and became bureau chiefs in Prague for a few years, and later Moscow for another few years. Stupidly I never visited...except to meet them in Amsterdam and Paris.

I hope to see them here today or tomorrow. Yay!!

I lost touch with Mr. Mellen sadly, mostly due to having fallen for a little lady, who absorbed my attention. But while we did hang out, he was a most gracious host, with marvelous music and quite a culinary gift. Patti Smith's "Dream of Life" remains a favorite.

Thanks to the Internets, I have been able to locate this maghificent gentleman, who is now Visiting Assistant Professor in Journalism and Coordinator of the Electronic Journalism at George Mason, and working on the PhD. Electronic Journalism. Hmm...
I wonder do he blog?

He is not unlike his picture.


Roger Mellen

Roger Mellen's website

Guess I'll have to pop him a note!

Your friends are your treasure


Graziella Patrucco de Solodow


"Your friends are your treasure", a good friend said to me the other day as we were talking about friends and my relative lack of material treasure. I could not agree more. One reason I love the internet is that you can locate old friends with whom you may have lost touch. Such is the case with the artist above. Back in the mid-'80s, Graziella was illustrating a children's book I was working on, while creating masterpieces for Caspari. She had to move to New Haven before we finished, but even to think now that she would do such a thing only reiterates the point my friend made earlier.

You can see some of her work here and here.

Treasure your friends over this holiday season. Treasure your treasure.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

anonyMoses presents:

The letter "M".

Greensboro: The Seminal Event

Reprinted from 8/04

THE LEGEND OF THE PIEDMONT BLOGGERS
as told to Anonymoses Hyperlincoln III

Once upon a time, there existed a man, and the man was a cone. But not that kind of cone. He was a Cone. And this was, decidedly, a good thing, for tis better to be a surname than to live in Surinam, and both are far better than being a shape...unless, that is, that shape is not unlike that possessed of your humble narrator and guide, Anonymoses the Archon.

At any rate, this good Mister Cone was talking to a good mister David Hoggard, and it occurred in their joint mind, that Buberian I-thouness that transcends time and space, to, maybe, create a happening, yes, and one centered around blogging, and bloggers, as they had suddenly become the stewards into whose hands the fate of the world had been entrusted...strange though it may seem at first.

And sure as eggs is eggs, their vision became reality, and their reality drew crafty and deipnosophical blogsmiths from throughout the land...which of course ends at Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee. Some carpooled from our beloved capital, Raleigh, wherefrom my own grandparents hailed. Others came from that great center of culture, and home to America's first public university, Chapel Hill. And yet others came from lowly Charlotte, home of NASCAR and ketchup consumption*.

Most, however, came from their beloved Greensboro...named for collard greens, since everyone there ate them with great relish and sound. Well, let me amend that to read, "pretty good relish". I never really understood why it should be cooked with pork parts. Probly goes back to Isaac or sump'm. Hell, ask them! I'm from Charlotte! We got Wendy's!

And speaking of "got Wendy's", I got wind the other day that the mighty Piedmont Bloggers were taking their show on tour, and that they were, in essence, a new model for society, partly based on the knowledge gained at Black Mountain College, but coupled with all that the Internet can bring to bear upon the issues confronting bipeds in Bushworld.

There is even talk of a radio and television network, along with movies, broadway shows, the Beijing Opera, Dai Rakuda Kan, Live from the Roof of the White House, and other marvelous venues, but need we have anything to do with them? No. So why do I bring them up?

Now, you know that if I tell you, I will also have to sell you an automobile. Oh you do! Good!

Well, I will tell you why I bring it up, but not until the fifthteenth chapter, by which time you will have completely lost interest, and the fact that I write it in Hittite makes it all the less likely that you'll find out that, indeed, I have forgotten why I brought this up. Product-placement, maybe. Or maybe the Armagnac. These things are yet to be discovered.

So yes, Piedmont Bloggers. Who were they again, Margie? Oh yeah. Archons of the Blogosphere. Big phucking deal. Bet ya caint say that on ABCNNBCBS!

No, Jethro. I cannot. And I'd rather YOU didn't either. Besides, I haven't told the good folks who have had the karma (I shant make value judgements!) to be reading these words of wisdom, that Collardboro, rather greensboro, (oops! should I capitalize upon the moment?) is the erstwhither home of one William Sydney Porter, if my memory joins me, or better known as the candybar, Oh Henry! ... and where a lot of people spilt blood during the Revolutionary War.

Now some time in between the two, this Porter feller goes and changes his name to "O. Henry" of all thangs, and proceeds to write some of the most clever and beloved stories in America's history. And he was from this great city where the initial meeting of the great Piedmont Bloggers held their meeting of the minds. And just look around at the results!

Heaven on Earth. And you thought it couldn't be done. Not in your lifetime. Not in your lazy, couch-potato, good-for-nothing lifetime. But there it is! And you cannot doubt your eyes. Or your president. Not since the Ashcroft Dictates were handed down.

"Ah! 'The New Dictation!'. Haven't had time to absorb that one, yet, Sahib."

So why bring it up? Again. Chapter 15.

*SUBJECT: Charlotte, N.C. - Ketchup Consumption CALL NO.: CR917 N87 1976-89REEL NO.: 4 VOL. NO.: 13 PAGE(S): 240

CHAPTER 2

And then it happened...

It was a warm Saturday August morning in Greensboro, North Carolina, and the sun was shining. Shiny, happy people gathered in an art museum and began sharing ideas, bagels and coffee.

Greeting each Piedmont Blogger as they entered the Sanctum Sanctorum, was Mister Cone, himself, looking much more awake than I felt, and a good deal younger and more sprightly than in his online portrait. David Duchovny with a beard, maybe. At any rate, he made everyone feel welcome, thus facilitating further introductions and conversations that seemed to not want to end...so it was eventually carried down the street and into a Thai restaurant on the groovy Tate Street...on which the author once lived lo those many years ago, and also where the blog conference was held. Do I hear the Twilight Zone theme?

No. It was actually Pictures of Matchstick Men. Very similar though!

And so it was that the brave Piedmond Bloggers forced their way into the mind of Anonymoses.

Chapter 3

So who were these other characters? You've only mentioned a few names. What are you, stupid?

To answer that question, I have devised a series of self-guided self-observational meditations, based on the poetry of Rumi and Spacius, only translated into Cobol, then back into Tocharian B, then transliterated into math symbols read by Steven Hawking. Well, not really, but I could! Instead, I turned to resident blogger-poet, Billy Jones, who was the master of virtual ceremonies. His skill set includes the ability to expand the size of a blog ten thousand fold. And he does it with his hands. Quite remarkable really, when you consider that in just one day, his productivity was 600,000%. And this is why he is not a lackbeard.

Chapter 4

Legend has it that Matt Gross had come down from blogger heaven to add gravitas, wit and guidance to the celebration, and I, for one, want to corroborate that would-be urban legend. And he was not only there, he was trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, cheerful, brave, and clean.

Matt was the man who is largely responsible for Howard Dean's meteoric rise early on, when no one thought he had a chance in Hell. And now he is helping to shape Erskine Bowles' campaign into a winning campaign. Matt has had a bright past, and is sure to have an even brighter future. I guarantee it.

Also adding gravitas to what was quickformed in weeks, and not in exotic Palo Alto, where BloggerCon III was to transpire at the lovely Stanford campus, or in the ancient halls of Harvard, two places known for attracting blognoscenti and the bloggerati, but rather in a mid-sized city in North Carolina which, although relatively unknown, promises to not always be so --and I smell victory -- was the great legend, Jerry Whatsisname? Just kidding! The one and only Jerry Bledsoe, author of many a 5-star book, and delighter and instructor of Carolinians far and wide, with his journalistic contributions.

And adding not gravitas, but a sort of levitogravitas, or gravitolevity, although properly called jocoseriosity, was the inevitable AND inimitable Bradford von Krantzenstein, or Brad Krantz for Bermuda short. And Mister Krantz was not long before he dropped the proverbial stinkbomb by insinuating that writing is not of worth if it not sold. But Mister Krantz perhaps deliberately left out the fact that a gift when converted into a commodity renders the bearer of the gift susceptible to losing that gift. Or as Schopenhouer warned, "writing for money has spelled the death of literature." But of course, the risible Mister Krantz was being his rascal self, and, his nudging was fuel for the group to rachet it up a notch. So we thank him for doing what he does best...get people to thinking. This is why he is one of the Legends of which I report.

Chapter 5

Two legends that didn't make it, and may not have even known about the Conference, since they didn't get my email in time, are Charlotte talk show host, Mike Collins, and the lovely producer of the show, Wendy Braatz...both of whom I only just met today, the day after the Convention, because they had an Open House at the WFAE studios, which bring such great things to Charlotte as "Charlotte Talks" and NPR. I had the added pleasure of hearing Michael Reno Harrell, who was entertaining the guests, and who graced me with the great ballad, "The Nickle", about a girl from Syracuse who comes South.

Mister Edward Cone might like to know that Mister Collins is not unlike Mister Christopher Lydon, whose respectable work he is already familiar, since he was once a guest on his A-list rolodex watch. No wait. Something like that, or suckmycat, if you are from the deep south.

Anyway, I told Mike and Wendy that I was going to convince them to interview Mister Cone, if he would be so kind, and maybe Misters Gross or Hoggard, should their hands not already be full -- not assuming, mind, that Mister Cone's hands are idle. Of course they are not, so lay off! It's just that he was the host of the most recent conference (unconference), and has the added advantage of having been interviewed before. Not that the others haven't mind. Oh, never mind!

Chapter 6

Among the blognoscenti was the good and young man, Jay Ovittore, who had to bear my calling him Joe, but whose forebearance was a deep well indeed. One of the younger Legends, Joe said to Anonymoses during post-prandial chit-chit that he had no interest in selling his ideas, but rather wanted to give them freely. Will this limit his abilities? I don't think so. And neither did (referring back to a previous conversation) Mister Cone or Ms Sinreich, both of whom actual do sell some of their work, but, because of their magnanimity, are not in fear of losing it.

Such magnanimity should be the coin of the realm, especially in the world of politics...which too often corrupts into just another way for someone to boost their wealth or power. But, as Lin Yu Tang, from his perch created by having been the only Chinese Nobel Prize winner, tells us: People are largely motivated by fear. The desire for wealth is but a fear of poverty. The desire for power is but a fear of impotence. The desire for Fame is but a fear of obscurity. And the desire for "Success" is but a combination of the three other fears...and a fear of failure therewith.

But Piedmont Blogger-politicians are not like this. They are fearless bodhisattvas guided by love and caring. Among the fearless bodhisattvas were Sally Greene, Jeff Thigpen, Mike Barber, Kirk Perkins, and Don Vaughan. But, as Gerry Goulder of Guilford GOP News, who is also a mighty Piedmont Blogger, points out:

Republicans are losing on the Internet. I attended the Piedmont Bloggers Conference this weekend. I may have been the only Republican political blogger present. Many local Democrat politicians were present, and they introduced me to a plethora of Democrat blogger web sites...Blogs increase participation, build a community, extend beyond campaign season, and build a strong bond between office holders/candidates and the voting public.

To fix the problem, all that need be done is to shut down blogs and the internet. Either that, or open it up to all people, and encourage and facilitate its use. At least that's what my plumber tells me. And he has a master's degree. In Science.


Tuesday, December 21, 2004

American Street: "Meet Greensboro, NC : Blog City"

The American Street is showcasing Greensboro and the rise of alt-media. I know. I wrote it.
The article is called "Meet Greensboro, NC: Blog City...Age of Exuberance, Part Two, and can be found here.
I have invited them to come look at what is going on. Be nice!

NEW!

The discussion continues on Daily Kos.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Greensboro White Hot over Blogger Crisis

Greensboro is a powderkeg about to explode. But not over something silly like war and peace, Greensboro's uncivil war is over the future of the blogosphere. "This would have never happened if they didn't give us the blueprint paper and say 'design!' ". But they did, and now Greensboro is suffering.

In Surreal McCoy, Chap. 9, verses 14-17, we learn that "the causes of anger are never so great as the consequences.", and so we, at Anonymoses Humor Corporation, want to extend the greased hand of Peace to all the good bloggers of Greensboro (and they are all good), and bid they disarm for Nonny. Play nice. Enjoy this the birth of the second Age of Exuberance.

Read the gory details at Patrick Eakes: The Man with 64 Emotions.

Nervy Intelligence : Iddybud of the Blogosphere

Jude Nagurney-Camwell invents first anti-boredom blog

Don't just listen to me. This is what Jay Rosen of PressThink had to say:

Responding to Billy and others in Greensboro is PressThink reader Jude Nagurney Camwell, who also does a political blog for the Syracuse newspaper, where she's The Rational Liberal, and the nervy intelligence flows from her posts. This is from her personal blog, equally fine. Her observation tells us a lot about blogging and its strange sense of place. Remember, she's getting this from reading the blogs...

The people in Greensboro have such talent - and such heart! I wonder - is it something in the drinking water? Whatever it is, it makes you wish you were there.
It makes you wish you were there. Which suggets a connection between blogging and longing. If you were "there" in August you might have been invited to their local blogging
conference.


Read the entire article HERE.

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Don't forget to register for the draft!



ATTENTION ALL AMERICAN
MEN & WOMEN AGED 16-45:


Pursuant to Sub-Section 8, Paragraph C of Executive Branch Classified Directive #13334-P, dated 1 May 2004, the Armed Forces of the United States stand directed by President George W. Bush to accelerate preparations for compulsory induction of the adult non-homosexual population into active combat duty in the War Against Terror.

SIGN UP HERE

Megajesus '94: Before there were blogs

I first came online in 1994. There were no blogs. And I was not called Anonymoses. I was called Megajesus. It was the birth of the Age of Exuberance.

Now I am reviving Megajesus...as a blog, just for the purpose of archiving those early, heady days of the pre-blog web. Please don't take offence at the name. It was in my youth. Anonymoses is slightly less presumptuous.

There is not much up yet, and what is up will need editing. So far I have only posted stuff from 2001. May and June, to be exact. And it was simply my half of messageboard discussions. A little hard to follow, in retrospect, but somewhat reflective of the times.

It was fun to see Bill Gates and company, in '95, scrambling to catch up with the rest of us netheads, who had already realized where the future was heading. For years, I personally put in 12-19 hours per day, every day, building what would become the web as we know it. My specialty was content, and I had what Net Guide called a gargantuan website, giving me 5-stars for my edifice. Most people, at the time, only had one or two pages, and I had a network of 40+. Crazy stuff like "NAA: Nicotine Addicts Anonymous"...which I created to counter the lunacy of the Tobacco Company execs who all claimed it wasn't addictive. We now know better.

In lieu of blogs, writerly types would cloister around writer's groups, chatrooms, forums, messageboards and such. Most websites were gray with only an HR
or BLINK to give it nuance. The hyperlinks, of course, were the crux of the biscuit, though. W3 should still have a decent history of the WWW page, for those interested.

An early test of the power of the web came when I saw, online, that Oklahoma City had witnessed a bombing. Only later did it appear on TV or radio. Quite fortuitously, I had been researching a BATF messageboard, where a lot of nutcases would gather and talk about explosives and getting back at the government, and other nonsense. It was ghastly what some of these people were plotting, and I figured, after OKC, I would find McVeigh's footprints all over the place. There were many potential McVeighs...but after that fateful April day, most flew from the site, and probably wished they had never appeared there in the first place.

This was before talking points and easy spell check, and so the basic stupidity of these angry young men was easy to discern. They have since learned to copy and paste, and use spell check. The stupidity is still there, under the surface.

Anyway, I hope to be able, over the months, to recreate at least some of the gestalt of that creative time.

Now go eat....

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Anonymoses' novel (excerpt)

THE GREAT CHAIN OF CONVERSATION by Anonymoses
Dead Earth Society
A
group of yahoos from beyond the blue oasis of Mecklenburg had formed a group called Dead Earth Society which they claimed “provides a alternative to all the world’s bullsh*t.” They believed in a flat earth. They wanted all poets dead. And they thought the earth to be dead, and free for our taking. The Dead Earth Society had finally crystallized their ideas into a newly released book called “Yourn Kampf”, which promised to be the hick version of Hitler’s classic misanthropic exhibit-A.

To celebrate the publishing of the book, the Society has rented out Buford’s Fireworks Shack and were holding a bonfire, replete with hot dogs, marshmallows, and hand-wrapped baking taters, which you could toss into the fire and fish out later with a stick. If you don’t mind lobsterpicking minute boluses of edible starch from bituminous coal swaddled in blackened aluminum, you’re in for quite a culinary surprise.

I was there to cover the event for my blog, which was dedicated to such things. I called the blog “Southern Picaresque”, and it was pretty much true to the name.

“What’s so picturesque ‘bout dis dam place I don’t know…” said Susie Sue Tanner who had motorcycled in from Gaffney with her boyfriend, “Meatstick”, who had gone to take a leak behind the dumpster.
Shaking his wang as he walked, Meatstick, who had overheard our conversation, reiterated his bitch’s concern. “Yeah. You cawl dis picturesque? You outta see ire trailor community back in Gaffney. Now dat dair is some eye candy ryt dair. Don’t git no purdier dan dat.”

Adoringly, Susie Sue wiped the tobacco off the sides of his mouth, and gave him a big ol' bear hug. “Yeah, we liv’n in heb’m. Hell, the seb’m eleb’m zonely a pisspot away. 24 ires! Don’t git no more uptown dan dat!”

“An thair coffee. Shuuuweee! I’d crap a half mile in cubic parallelographs to piss my mornin lips across the warm oceans o’ dat sh*t, I’ll tell ryt nah!” Meatstick slapped his knee with one hand while gymastically mining boogage with his other, pinky extended as propriety dictates.

As in a swoon, my enthrallitude was bisected by the sudden tonitruation of conflatulence. And any scientist knows that conflatuation is strictly verboten around fireworks, as there have been incidents where smoking lounges have gone up in a puff after some Mexican beanfood produced an incidence of conflatulation, and coupled with the tight quarters, and faulty air circulation, produced conditions ripe for such a conflagration. And the flashpoint created a whoof! that could be heard for miles around. Dogs went nuts. Cats were no where to be found. Those close were rendered impuberal, hair flown south, by the shear heat of the blast. It was a wonder that the only people who died were those trampled in the stampede of fearful hominidae. Nothing worse than fearful hominids. Nothing to fear but fearful hominids. Fear creates enmity. The need to react. Self-control suffers. Stampedes occur. Unwise retaliations. Love does not retaliate. Fear is not love. John says, “Perfect Love casteth out all Fear.” We should cast out all fear-mongers.

Then another explosion. Then another. And another. Then a series of explosions. Suddenly I could see that something had gone terribly wrong. A chain reaction of explosions erupted as boxes of fireworks submitted to the surmounting heat and fire. Chaos and confusion broke out. Hominids began panicking.

“Well, I ain’t staying around here!” I thought, and quickly ran back to my car and drove off. Ten Years After was playing on 95.7 “The Ride”.

“I’d love to change the world…but I don’t know what to do…”

“What am I doing? Once upon a time, I wanted to change the world, but I didn’t know what to do. Here I am in a situation where I can change the world, and I do know what to do. And yet I am driving away from the problem, not toward it…
“F*ck it.”
Changing the channel. “I’ll yell at Foolwell instead.”


Foolwell was a wingnut wacko, sometimes called “The Prick in the Balloon” because of his weird habit of air ballooning overtop festivals and such, and preaching the gospel according to Foolwell…which always seemed to emphasize the “giving him money” aspect. And one often wondered whether or not he had done what Ben Franklin once did, which was to insert his own bogus book into the Bible, print it up, as he was most able, and then argue points with people, then show the proof from the bible which he would then produce, then open to the Book of David, the Book of Jedidiah, or some other such concoction. Foolwell was not above such antics. In fact he might do it for purely selfish, financial reasons. Foolwell loved his Mammoney!
And now Foolwell had a radio show. Why it’s on now!

“My brawthers and sisters. Prey with me now that we might wunst and for awl end the scowerge of Liberalism from our Gawd-given Nation. And may the bell of Nationalism ring out on Tuesday in that voting booth, when you vote for every Republican in sight, and if you don’t know which ones Ima talking about dear sinners, please cawl in, or visit our website at dubya dubya dubya (Aw Gawd I cannot get enough of that blessed name!) then ya punch in Gawd’s 'Merkin Patriots dot com, and we’ll send you a list of people with whom you can trust. Good Americana stock. Men of bone. No Frenchifried girlie men or metrosexuals neither. Stout men. Meat eaters. Men who like sports and Nascar. Gawd’s kinda men.
So to help our cause I need you to help me. You see I have been a-tawkin' to Gawd and he told me that you can help me expand his voice by expanding his mouth, which is my mouth, since he talks through me, and the way you do that is... you pay for it. You stretch that mouth. You stretch open that wallet. And let Gawd out. Let Gawd outta yer wallets, good folks, good clean Christious folks, I know you wanna do it! Do it for Jaezus.
I’m praying now. Praying that you feel Gawd a-talkin’ to ya. And he’s a-talkin’ to ya. And he’s saying, he’s saying…I’m getting his signal now…he’s saying:

Ana nathrok, oefess bethod dathial thaienveigh.


My Gawd! What the...?

Suddenly commotion could be heard coming through the radio, and Foolwell seemed strange, disjointed, in shock.

A voice is heard, which sounds to be a voice in the control room. Undiscernable.

But I didn’t say that, Bobbie. I mean, it was coming through me.

Anonymoses was amazed that they hadn’t cut the signal. But he was even more amused by the fact that Foolwell, who professes to having God speak through him, totally freaks out when God actually does!
Nonny heard voices too, but they were from the deepest, most inbred backwaters of Appalachia. He thought back to that Emergency Room visit in Stumptown…overhearing talk of an implant.

Gomes: Polls tell us where we are, not where we ought to be.

While perusing the forums at Sojourner, I was pleasantly surprised to see my old professor, Peter Gomes, who had written a post about the Iraq War...

'Patriotism is Not Enough' by Peter J. Gomes

[EXCERPTS]
POLLS SHOW that most Americans, frustrated, alas, by the ephemeral character of the "war on terrorism" and still angry and confused about Sept. 11, 2001, want to do something. As we know, however, in angry, vengeful moments, the desire to do "something" is easily translated into the will to do "anything," and that "anything" may very well be the wrong thing. Bombing Iraq into oblivion as payback to those who have done us injury at this moment seems to me to be the wrong thing to do. Polls do not get at the truth. Thirty-five years ago, most polls showed significant majorities in favor of whatever it was we were doing in Vietnam, and eventually the majority in favor concluded that the minority opposed were, in fact, right. Polls simply tell us where we are, not where we ought to be.
The gospel, however, does tell us where we ought to be, tough, untenable, and difficult as that place may be. Love, justice, and righteousness are superior to wisdom, might, and riches. How often do we have to be told that? "And these are God's words," says Paul at the end of Romans 12: "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head." Don't allow yourself to be overpowered with evil: Take the offensive and overpower evil with good. That is what Paul is saying: Take the offensive: Overpower evil with good! Now that is a radical foreign policy. That would scare the bejesus out of a lot of people, to know that with all of our power we decided that we were going to overpower evil with good—and what a topsy-turvy world this would be! That should give all the hawks in Washington something to think about, that if they want us to be noticed, the world would notice us if we took seriously the idea of overpowering evil with good.

Friday, December 17, 2004

Some Ivy League Blogs

After I had been graduated from Harvard, my (then) wife had been accepted into the U. Penn doctoral program. As we had planned on living in Philadelphia, I figgered I may as well see if there were educational opprtunities that I could wrap my mind around. As it turns out, The Wharton School has, or had, a doctoral program called Social Systems Science (S3) which was one of the most innovative I had seen, and which was home to the very bright Russell Ackoff. Designing governments, macrosystems and such. Apopemptoclinicism, however, took hold, and by June of that year, the divorce had kicked in, thus sparing me from a lifetime of riches.

Here are some Wharton blogs, as well as a few others.

Philosophy of the Void
Wharton Tech Blog
Snapshots of Aileen's Brain
Experiences at Wharton, 03-05
Confessions of a Sheltered Mind
Vele's Thoughts
Wharton Diary Blog
Ivy League Portal


Monday, December 13, 2004

Paying it Forward...in Charlotte



Charlotte Observer journalist, David Perlmutt, has a series called "Paying it Forward", where he solicits example of people who do not pay a good deed back...they pay it forward.

This is based on the true story of a young lad who had come up with the idea of returning good deeds NOT to the person to whom it may be thought to be owed, but rather to three other people. And there are some criteria involved, like: the person must need the help.

There is an excellent movie on it, called "Pay it Forward", and which stars the new Bobby Darin, Kevin Spacey. The boy is played by that feller who can see dead people, and whose name does not end in Culkin. Although a sad movie, it is also redolent with meaning, and has sense spawned a movement.

HERE is today's offering by Mr. Perlmutt. And HERE is the Pay it Forward Foundation's website. For more info on the movie, see HERE.

In today's Charlotte Observer, a gentleman from Harrisburg wrote the forum and said:

Thanks for examples of `Paying It Forward'
I have really enjoyed the "Paying It Forward" series. With everything that is going on in the world today, it is wonderful to hear about such unselfish acts of kindness. This series stands apart from the rest of the news in that it offers a hopeful and positive perspective on the human condition.Thanks for taking the time and space to publish this series, and I hope to see more. Others are bound to be inspired by the acts of generosity that the Charlotte Observer has covered. My hope is that this will contribute to additional examples where local citizens find ways to "Pay It Forward." I know I hope to.
Steve Strother


Have a Story?

If you know of a good deed paid forward, reach David Perlmutt at (704) 358-5061 or dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com or write him at The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28202. WHEN GOOD DEEDS MULTIPLY



Shed a tear for Scott Peterson

On Mondays, my aging and beloved parents like to have their kids over for dinner and conversation. This is usually performed pretty early in the evening, or late in the afternoon, as that suit's my brother's schedule, and I am flexible.

This late afternoon found us all performing a rare task: Paying attention to the Scott Peterson trial. His recommended sentence was to be handed down. And so, by saying it was a rare task, let me also admit that I know very little of the case.

Most of the folks on TV wanted Scott to die. And when the death sentence was handed down, there was cheering outside the courtroom.


Half of us had left the table and were staring at the TV as the verdict was reiterated with each "yes" of the jury, meaning "death".

There was no cheering in our house. There appeared to be watery eyes. I know my own were growing more brackish.

But why? I silently wondered to myself. Here's what I think. I think it is sad that there will likely be yet another death inflicted. It is sad that Scott parents have to suffer the shame and sadness at the second loss of the same son. It is sad that people cheer such events, which will only cause more suffering, and which is little more than hindbrain animality.

It is also sad to speculate that Scott may have done what he did because of some drug he was on, or was needing to be on, and going through withdrawal. We hear of younger folks on one of the lastest pharmaceutical "cures", who, upon taking it, or upon being withdrawn from it, do opprobious acts, often to family members. But even in these cases, few ever blame the drug. The lobby is too powerful; they spend too much money on ads and such.

So was Scott Peterson on one of these drugs? I don't know. It is not even my main point...which is that killing should never be something to celebrate. As the ancient "Book of Changes" says: "A victory is a funeral"...and should be treated as such.

It is sad that society seems to be coarsening and hardening, as I think it is a move away from Life. Sometimes shedding a tear is all that is necessary to re-soften the heart. Save the cheering for Sports.



Sunday, December 12, 2004

Benjamin Zander on Bill Moyers' NOW


Benjamin Zander

(excerpt)
David Brancaccio speaks with world renowned conductor Benjamin Zander on finding possibility in our lives. Zander and his wife, psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander, are the authors of THE ART OF POSSIBILITY, which coaches readers on transforming their professional and person lives.

More than this, Maestro Zander offers the wisdom of exuberance and possibility.
on PBS' "NOW"
Benjamin Zander's Web Site

Friday, December 10, 2004

Greensboro, NC: When John Lennon Was Killed

On the anniversary of John Lennon's tragic murder, we reflect on Greensboro: December 1980. The "Greensboro Massacre" is just one year old.
Lennon Era Comes to an end as the Reagan Era is born

On December 8, 1980 John Lennon died, killed by the bullet of a madman. It was the year Ronald Reagan became President of the United States. Hard to say which event brought more grief...
With the election of Reagan, suddenly there was a whole new breed of hominid strutting about, cocks-of-the-walk, in alligator shirts, lime slacks, hingeheads. The square was back, the 50s were once again upon us. And the hip world went back underground.

I was living in a house on Friendly Avenue right next to the greenway with David Grogan and Chuck Newman, and dating Lucy of Charlotte. She was talking classes at the university, whereas I was only auditing classes. Buddhism, Ballet and the Electronics Music lab. I was also helping Bil (sic) Poole entertain dance classes by playing piano, and occasionally other instruments. I can think of worse jobs.

Greensboro was a hub of creative and intellectual activity, just as it is now, only now it is centered around the illustrious embarrassment of riches, in the form of bloggers. And a good number of the remarkables were students and teachers at UNC-Greensboro, formerly a women's college. The predominance of women in the University area provided the proverbial seedbed for creative activity, and, as in all times when the world turns upside-down and mediocrity is given its turn, the creatives and progressives find one another and pour their suffering into more creative outlets.

John Jones was arguably the best host for serious gatherings. There, he and his friend, Maria Robbins, would host parties for Grogan, Newman, Lucy, Dayna, Chance, Eric, Jonathan Franzel, Fred and Stan, John Pope, and a few other worthies. John would cook up a mahvelous meal in his wok, and allow us to dig through his wondrous library of books and music. John got me up to speed on Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies cards" in a van trip to Atlanta to see Genesis at the Fox Theatre, and his music was along that line of European avant-garde eclecticism, although he did have Americans Steve Reich and Phillip Glass among his collection. Everyone had the great Nonesuch offerings. Bil Poole was also an audiophile, and yet his collection was more heavily leaning toward the jazz side of the ECM label, where one could find folks like Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber , Egberto Gismonti, and even George I. Gurdjieff, who really wasn't all that jazzy. Speaking of Gurdjieff, Eric (I forget his last name) was reading Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub" at my prodding, and even read it the requisite 3 times. We were all probably a little to young and inexperienced to get much out of it, but it was a moment. What can I say?

I sat in on Paul Courtwright's Buddhism class, who, one day, packed into cars and drove to Duke University where Edward Said was speaking on Orientalism, after which Paul treated us to dinner at an Indian restaurant, where he taught us the proper form. It was my chance to see the beautiful Duke University, or Mister Said, who sadly died last year. And sadly, some in our circle have since died, namely John Pope and Fred. May their memories live on...

At night, we could often be found on Tate Street, at Rosewaters, New York Pizza, or Aycock...where such great performances as the Beijing Opera would play. Tashi, a wondrous ensemble with Ida Kafavian, Peter Serkin, Fred Sherry and Richard Stoltzman, came that year, and I can still hear the final strains of Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" playing in my head. Local favorites were F-Art Ensemble and Glenn Phillips.

One of the fellers, and Lord help me with his name, started up a film class, which showed, among other things Bergman's "Persona", Renoir's "The Grand Illusion" and the avant-garde works of Stan VanDerBeek...who came and gave a talk.

While all this creative activity was going on, there were also seminars and discussions on the KKK-Communist "Greensboro Massacre", which has happened in Greensboro the previous year...strangely. Around the University one could hadly image even a fistfight. Rocky Horror, RocknRoll High School and the Life of Brian were more on the minds than violence.

It was a heady time. It was also the year that I found a big colorful oak tree on the campus, plopped down one fall day and read the whole of the Bhagavad-Gita. A day my life changed. Just like when Lennon died.

The morning John Lennon died, I was awakened to a decidedly 9/8 rhythm pattern, with which I immediately fell in love. Chuck was playing Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk", and it was my first taste of 9/8. So my day started off with a musical theme. By nightfall music would have a very different role. It will die.

And so, as I painted the bare walls of my little room on Friendly Avenue, lost in reverie, smelling the curry onion eggs Grogan was cooking up, I heard the words come out over the radio..."John Lennon has been shot". And with news of his death, spontaneously, people gathered for a candlelight vigil at the University.

The Reagan era had begun. The Peacenik-in-chief had been silenced. No more giving peace a chance, it was a time for greed and mediocrity and John Wayne.

Within months I would pack my backs and move up to Cambridge, where a lot of other folks also found refuge from the brutal Godzilla.

Greensboro Today

Those days in Greensboro are still among my favorite, and I am so happy to once again connect to the city, through such creative souls as Ed Cone, David ("Get outta here!) Hoggard, Matt Gross and Billy the Blogging Poet, as well as the other great bloggers working there, including Ruby Sinreich, Dan Romuald, Jay Ovittore, Ross Myers, Tara Sue, and many other great folks.

I often wonder if any of the old gang of '80 and the bloggers of '04 know one another, as I know they would find kindred spirits. Or if any of the bloggers remember any of the events I have described. If so...please comment profusely!

Lastly, in today's Charlotte Observer, I wrote a graf on Greensboro and the blogosphere, which went like this:

View from blogosphere: Charlotte behind curve
Blogs are the cutting edge of democracy, giving everyone with access to a computer the ability to publish, free of charge and without space restrictions. "Blog" was also the most popular new word this year and is now to be found in major dictionaries.Greensboro and the Triangle seem to have a better grasp of blogging's importance than we do in Charlotte -- hosting conferences and tying in with newspapers and universities.
The Observer might do well to team up with local bloggers in order to help empower the community with this important new skill. North Carolina has a strong presence in the blogosphere, but it can be made stronger still. The best way to predict the future is to create it.
-Dave Beckwith


Please also feel free to comment to the Observer about your own observations...

"Nightmare 9" from anonyMoses' POWWOWIRAQSI now available for free download




"Nightmare 9" is the soundtrack of a nightmare in Iraq.

I hosted it at a different server, located HERE. The other songs are located here. "Nightmare 9" pays tribute to "Revolution 9" by the Beatles and "Plan 9 from Outer Space". Hope you enjoy it. Great for headphones and freakouts!

Include your blog in the Blogrankings

Blogrankings is a new ranker of blogs. Get in early and rise!
(via Billy the blogging poet)

Thursday, December 09, 2004

In Praise of Bloggers

I love bloggers. Even red-spectrum bloggers are generally decent, reasonable people. And I must say that the blogosphere is a prana-rich and rarified gestalt, amid certain circuits at least, and to imagine being without the richness these blognoscenti provide is a loss too stupefying to witness, without Recalcitanto rearing his ugly head. So I shall thereby render it moot, mute, at least for The Time Bean.

But, as I consider how many bloggers I regard so warmly and highly, so to speak, if may be siebold, piebald, or dare I say it? Skewbald. There, I've said it. Well, these will just have to be taken in like syrup from a spoon, since all I know is shoot! I am with elation. And hope it's not mania. For every man in the land of the space of today knows that...you up one, you up the udder. And bad cream always races to the gulley...which, of course, makes me think of Tristan Tzara and perhaps even Andre (Bucky) Breton. Something about automatic writing. Cloaca of Consciousness. Martha Loofah & the Farty Feces. But that doesn't belie the source.

And as there is nothing more important than ending your paragraphs with meaningless non-sequitors, let it also be said that bloggers, rascals though they be, are, ARE, the steak of the ark. The wind-blown zephyrs of Truth. The eye of the potatoe. I mean "e".

In shorts, I want to hereby launch a new series, entitled "In praise of bloggers", with a special eye out for those bloggers that are destined to become future winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. I will have to drag out my prophet beanie.

Telltale Tail : The Long Tail wags ever harder

Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

(Via Ed Cone who says: "In this environment, blogs are the long tail and the N&R may be emerging as one of the players in the fat part of the curve. ")

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Download anonyMoses' new MP3, "Iraqalypse"



DOWNLOADABLE MP3
Anonymoses Music website



Can You Taste The Tears?

This is not the heartbeat of the Earth.
Can you hear the fear, can you taste the tears?
Can you smell the blood, can you touch the wounds?
This is the adrenalin rush of mankind at war with itself...
The death throws of a failed experiment.
Hope and despair living in the same body at the same time...
an impossible taskthat must be altered.
Otherwise, there will be merciful silence for the Earth in the end
and...no more children to build a future for.

~ Patty Ann Smith / Hope4America

Here is a wonderful new song of Patty's called:
"Before he went to War".

(Thanks, Patty! You never cease to amaze...)




The anonyMoses Open Window Dump

This is where anonyMoses, tiring of all the open windows he has accumulated which he wants to get back to but fears he hasn't the time or energy, transmogrifies the open windows (which are really closed) into links which he then transports onto the space below...


WHISTLEBLOWER AFFIDAVIT: Programmer Built Vote Rigging Prototype at Republican Congressman's Request!
CLAIM: Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) Asked Company to Create E-Vote Fraud Software!


More on the same subject from Blue Lemur

The 'blog' revolution sweeps across China

Progressive Society Blog archives





Support System of Blogpolitics: The Evolution of Cooperation

Read about the "Support System of Blogpolitics: The Evolution of Cooperation" as well as my column on "Pearl Harbor, 911: They were expendable" at The American Street.

Thanks!

David Beckham fathers Jesus, hosts wise guys


David, Victoria and Jesus Beckham with friends and hangers on.

Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar they are not, but that didn't stop Bush, Blair and the Duke of Edinburgh from crashing the Beckhams' "Shiny Happy People Party" -- which itself is catching on may soon be a major political force in the Theopolitical yuga to which we seem forever roodly hung upon.

Sunday, December 05, 2004

Joyce's use of the word, "blog" in Finnegans Wake

James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" has been credited for being a seedbase for the concept of hyperlinking, and thus the World Wide Web, but now we see that Joyce also talked of the blog. Well, sort of. This is a passage:

Finnegans Wake: Page 504
Part:3 Episode:14 Page:504

-- Booms of bombs and heavy rethudders?
-- This aim to you!
-- The tail, so mastrodantic, as you tell it nearly takes your
own mummouth's breath away. Your troppers are so unrelieved
because his troopers were in difficulties. Still let stultitiam done
in veino condone ineptias made of veritues. How many were
married on that top of all strapping mornings, after the midnight
turkay drive, my good watcher?
-- Puppaps. That'd be telling. With a hoh frohim and heh
fraher. But, as regards to Tammy Thornycraft, Idefyne the lawn
mare and the laney moweress and all the prentisses of wildes to
massage him.
-- Now from Gunner Shotland to Guinness Scenography.
Come to the ballay at the Tailors' Hall. We mean to be mellay on
the Mailers' Mall. And leap, rink and make follay till the Gaelers'
Gall. Awake ! Come, a wake ! Every old skin in the leather world,
infect the whole stock company of the old house of the Leaking
Barrel, was thomistically drunk, two by two, lairking o' tootlers
with tombours a'beggars, the blog and turfs and the brandywine
bankrompers, trou Normend fashion, I have been told down to
the bank lean clorks? Some nasty blunt clubs were being operated
after the tradition of a wellesleyan bottle riot act and a few plates
were being shied about and tumblers bearing traces of fresh
porter rolling around, independent of that, for the ehren of Fyn's
Insul, and then followed that wapping breakfast at the Heaven
and Covenant, with Rodey O'echolowing how his breadcost on
the voters would be a comeback for e'er a one, like the
depredations of Scandalknivery, in and on usedtowobble sloops off
cloasts, eh? Would that be a talltale too? This was the grandsire
Orther. This was his innwhite horse. Sip?


And at the beginning of one of the most famous passages of the book, we see:

Part:1 Episode:6 Page:168
Shem is as short for Shemus as Jem is joky for Jacob. A fewtoughnecks are still getatable who pretend that aboriginally hewas of respectable stemming (he was an outlex between the linesof Ragonar Blaubarb ant Horrild Hairwire and an inlaw to Capt.the Hon. and Rev. Mr Bbyrdwood de Trop Blogg was amonghis most distant connections) but every honest to goodness manin the land of the space of today knows that his back life willnot stand being written about in black and white. Putting truthand untruth together a shot may be made at what this hybridactually was like to look at.

More like blogger with the "-er" missing, but there nonetheless.

In his book, "The Media Trade"...

Tofts manages to set out in twenty pages why Finnegans Wake - the first literary text in which tv plays an important role - is the central text for the digital age. He shapes this conclusion, which is shared by Donald Theall and Marshall McLuhan, with the help of the usual suspects, like Deleuze and Derrida.
Finnegans Wake: the original media theory book, the moment at which print literacy converges with electronic digitization. The method of Finnegans Wake offers a hint of the ecology of meaning which will characterise the digital age, a glimpse ahead. It embodies the new ecology of sense implicit in the electronic, immersive experience of telematic cspace (Tofts’ 'metasignifier', in my opinion superfluous, which stands for 'cyberspace' as well as for 'space'), it is central to the aesthetics of the computer age.
MORE


His use of the word, "Anonymoses" is noted:


Part:1 Episode:2 Page:47
He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
(Chorus) Messrs. Billing and Coo.
Noah's larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton's monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
(Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
Give him six years.

'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
(Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
The largest ever you seen.

Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we'll have a free trade Gaels' band and mass meeting
For to sod the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and Danes,
(Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
And all their remains.

And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
(bis) That's able to raise a Cain.