January 2006 Archives

Well, I received a serious question back about this three-month old blog and it's relation to/interaction with privacy laws that govern confidentiality between teachers and students. (How strong are these, anyway? When do they get used?)

I meant the post as a joke with/among my colleagues, yet there is an edge of challenge to my students as well. I haven't scoured the posts back in time, but it does seem some rather offensive things have been said. A recent post critiques the blatant sexism, objectification, and rudeness that's been exhibited by some. Meanwhile, a student has also sent thoughtful comments on how teachers receive good evaluations.

Perhaps the site will evolve from a competitive forum countering the equally problematic Rate my Professor.com into a useful public sphere for the discussion of pedagogy? Or it might just degrade again. Or flux between extremes...

I've been reading Orhan Pamuk's novel, Snow. Imagine the jolt of recognition when I saw the story about his arrest and subsequent trial, reported in todays NYTimes, A Way Forward for Turkey. His novel grapples with the precise forces and laws that have now impinged - most forcefully - upon his life.

The editorial in the Times uses this freedom of speech case to leap to larger context, as a means of framing the politics regarding Turkey's ascension to the European Union. Interestingly, one of the issues regards Cyprus - I saw a presentation on this last December by one of this year's European Field Studies participants. She was focused specifically on the border between Greek and Turkish Cypriot and the interactions and flow of people back and forth across it. I'm sure there must be some analogies to be made between the on-the-ground realities there and the abstracted political maneuverings of various groups for national power.

Rate Your Students arrives to compete with Rate My Professor.

Tracked from Alex' amusing post on the subject. He got it from Dan's Revenge of the Profs.

These are "broadly" research-oriented blogs in the area of blogs and politics.

i blog speaks in the royal "we" but a very quick glance at the last handful of posts shows they are all from wainer.

Hmmm. wainer is also the poster at reslog. This one is mostly articles, and here's some on the logic of groups that might be timely!

David Brake looks like he's tried to do something similar to what I wish for - a group blog among peers & colleagues in the media department at the London School of Economics. He seems to be the only one posting.... :-/

Aha! A sample of an "upper-level Communication course" integrating student assignments: iGenerations. :-)

And I see a professor, Alex Halavais, taunting his peers and students. That's the style I seem to approach asymptotically. :-/

This wiki of the American Political Science Association was listed in the AoIR wiki. It invites projects, apparently not only by members? The APSA website appears very academic, not activist, oriented.

There's also a wiki for electronic theses and dissertations. Might be a good resource for us grad students, eh?

and here's a wiki research blog.

This fall there will be a conference close by - in Boston: Wikimania 2006. Two other conferences and a count of current wiki researchers is provided here.

Found this site off museumfreak's de.lic.ious feeds. Joined up.

Carlos has been doing this for awhile! Some of his most popular "wants" - "Drink more water" (shared by 3726 people) and "Learn to cook" (shared by 1701 people). His blog, FastJoe.com, is fun. :-)

Truth or fiction? This fictionalized memoir, The Ruins of California is posed as fighting to protect the truth in opposition to presenting fiction as a memoir embellishing the truth.

Paul Loeb wrote earlier this month to encourage a filibuster of Alito: Extraordinary Circumstances Indeed.

The Daily Kos posted Kerry's declaration of support. The Washington Monthly is less sure but thinks it is at least worth the effort. CNN (!) recounts the build-up to today's "showdown".

The magic number for the Democrats/those opposed to Alito is 41.

I finally read Wittgenstein's Poker, a book that's been on my shelf for far too long. What I most liked about it is how readable it is: one does not need any background in philosophy to enjoy the story, which does a nice job detailing the battle of ideas at the introductory level.

The poker incident is presented as a symbolic enactment of the clash in philosophy between two schools of thought: Karl Popper's embrace of problem-solving rationalism in the form of a principle of falsification - "I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer the truth" (240) vs Ludwig Wittgenstein's linguistically-generated puzzles, "what many in the [Vienna] Circle misunderstood was that Wittgenstein did not believe that the unsayable could be condemned as nonsense. On the contrary, the things we could not talk about were those that really mattered" (158).

These philosophers followed (and to varying extents) diverged from the analytic philosophy of Bertrand Russell.

The best undergraduate student paper in last fall's 4-credit course, Introduction to Mass Media, was written by Laurie Goodman on Intelligent Design.

Her paper, Analyzing the Communication Strategy of the Intelligent Design Movement, applies excellent strategies of critique and mass media theories, concepts, and analysis.

More on the ID debate can be found at Intelligent Design and Evolution.

Read Hanson & Maxcy's excerpt of Lazarsfeld & Merton (1948) this morning for CMN455, and noted this critique as relevant to COM375: "Large numbers of people have acquired what might be termed 'formal literacy,' that is to say, a capacity to read, to grasp crude and superficial meanings, and a correlative incapacity for full understanding of what they read. There has developed, in short, a marked gap between literacy and comprehension. People read more but understand less. More people read but proportionately fewer critically assimilate what they read."

I'm considering this in combination with the Preface to How to Think about Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, (critiqued here by a member of the Parapsychological Association).

There is nothing harder than to critique your own thinking. My own thinking!

Maybe, just maybe? MoveOn.org is sponsoring a campaign to support the filibuster. This article explains why the real issue is consolidation of power in the presidency rather than abortion rights. CBS downplays support for the filibuster.

I just wrote to my Senators, Jim Jeffords and Patrick Leahy of Vermont:

Dear Senators,

Please reject the further consolidation of political power in the interests of only one of America's many constituencies by participating in and maintaining the filibuster against Samuel Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Effective democracy is founded upon the vigorous interaction of different viewpoints. Judge Alito's record indicates a viewpoint that coincides with that of other Justices already on the court; in other words, his nomination contributes to a consolidation of one ideology rather than fostering the diversity upon which America's proudest values stand.

The United States Supreme Court is the most symbolic enactment of freedom, independence, and the rule of law. It can only maintain its integrity if - within its own membership - it cultivates the freedom of interpretive choice based upon a wide range of independent ideologies. These ideologies must represent the broad range of cultural, social, ethnic and economic strata of the US citizenry, else the Supreme Court becomes merely a tool of a minority in power, rather than a judicial body vested with the interests of the nation as a whole.

Your courage in fighting for all Americans encourages and inspires me to believe that you will continue this good fight on behalf of deeper, more enduring values than the will to power.

Respectfully,

Stephanie Jo Kent

“My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.”

I'm preparing the syllabus for COM375 Writing as Communication. It's a required course that students love to hate. I can hardly wait! :-) Collaboration is well-underway in the Intro to Mass Media class I'm teaching at UNH: excellent initial round of online posts, and we've already solved a technology problem and have a student suggestion for curricular material. This is what I like to see!

There's a lot of good (sad/inspirational) stuff in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, especially as "performed" in the audiobook read by Judith Ivey.

Sprinkled with quotes of others' wisdom, such as St. Teresa: Saint Theresa said, "...words lead to deeds...They prepare the soul, make it ready, and move it to tenderness"; and Thomas Merton: ""We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves” (not the one quoted, but I like it anyway). The one referenced had something to do with civil war, and reflections of the character Siddalee on her own internal "civil war" between her "white mother" and the "black one" - something about the fear of being held in want of familiar love vs the fear of running through the fog searching for love...

Do you think that communication via email and other activities on the Internet are taking away from more direct interpersonal communication?
This new PEW Report on Family, Friends, & Community illustrates the ways Internet usage aids in major life decisions and maintains important relationships.

Some key points:

*email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network.

*internet users are more likely than non-users to have been helped by those in their networks as they faced important events in their life.

* 45% of internet users - about 60 million Americans - say the internet has played an important or crucial role in helping them deal with at least one major life decision in the previous two years. That is a 33% increase from a similar survey in early 2002.

An article about the survey: Web skeptics, take note: The sky hasn't fallen.

Info posted to AoIR listserv by Barry Wellman (one of the PEW Report authors) and Alex Kuskis.

I missed a fundraising dinner on Tuesday night :-( but understand it was compelling and that it's going to be "a hell of a fight to get Bernie elected."

Here's his website which currently features an article from The Huffington Post by David Sirota, "The Most Important U.S. Senate Race of 2006.

Sirota: "Make no mistake about it - the GOP and its Big Business backers are going to do everything they can to try to knock off Sanders. They have already recruited a multi-millionaire corporate executive who has pledged to spend $5 million of his own money to try to buy the election. And Sanders faces special challenges because he refuses to accept corporate PAC money." (italics added)

Steven Clift describes some lessons from attempts to generate openly collaborative citizen's media for "agenda-setting online spaces" of democratic action.

*hybrid open source software/websites
*real names for quality control
*limits on quantity per contributor

A peer group for online citizen activists might get going later this year.

is a graduate of UMass' Journalism Department. Her story was noted by the Poynter group's weekly watch on media.

"Our Jill details her personality, commitment, and personal courage. I've been wondering about courage, recently. One definition says to face danger or pain without showing fear, another says to face the same with self-possession.

The Christian Science Monitor is running updates in a blog-type format). Presently, no one knows if she's still alive or not. Is she aware of the infrastructure of support around her? She must be - such things don't materialize from nothing. Coverage has been extensive: Boston, a Marc Cooper blog entry with numerous links, a BBC story about the videotape shown by Al-Jazeera.

Sam's niece arrived earlier this afternoon and has been ministering to Sam nonstop since - ruffling his hair, pumping Pepsi into him, regaling him with stories of her recent exploits in the home of five (male) college students. Ahem! ;-) They're reminiscing about "vodika's".

Bill sends an email claiming Sam has always had "breathing problems" and it's about time they've started to improve. "When we lived together on Dravus in Seattle back in the 50's you didn't sound long for this world most of the time."

Luciano Pavarotti is on now; not quite on a par with the Dave Brubeck albums of yore.

Rescued from the pit of projective punishment! (It would be funnier to say "projectile" but the tense isn't accurate in this case. grin)

My roommate/landlord has agreed to a trial period of cohabitation as long as the cat remains generally confined to my room. Will my historic allergies explode? More to the point, will I implode - again :-( - under the pressures of circumstance? No. Done with that. Done with denial, too. At least, doing my best to be. :-/

Was encouraged to continue to embrace the sadness when I feel it AND stay open - that's the tricky part, isn't it? "Can I soften to love with full knowledge of the suffering I welcome in?" From Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood.

A new phd program in Org Science is opening at UNC-Charlotte.

posted by Anita to air-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 11

Yes, what is posted in a blog tells a lot about who you are and can invite a whole range of trouble. Teens and young adults may be less cognizant of these risks, an assumption that is unquestioned by this WAshington post article, which cites examples without qualifying (either rhetorically or statistically) how representative they are. Are young people as naive to the consequences as we were? When celebrities and folks we know reinvent their lives, why should we assume that the foibles of youth are irreversible?

When and how does one decide a risk is unreasonable? How compartmentalized must we be in order to protect ourselves from the ravages of a system without conscience and individuals lacking remorse? Under what circumstances can we begin to acknowledge the conditions of life/living that force us into deeper zones of protectionism and rarified self-interest and take collective action to try and change the trends?

Holly posted the link in air-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 11 and mentioned comments by Steve Jones

A special issue of the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia on Minority Languages, Multimedia and the Web might be worth a peek.

posted by D.J. to air-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 13

The 7th annual Association of Internet Researchers Conference (AoIR 7.0) will be in Brisbane, Australia, September 27-30, 2006. Hmmmm.....

There are a couple of articles that might be of interest in this online journal, especially if I manage to do more work with organizations and/or institutions.

posted by Suely to air-l Digest, Vol 18, Issue 14

Talked with Jesus Evil Kachina on my way to Boston yesterday evening and she asked what was new and "exciting" in my life. I had to laugh: I'm trying to stand up while life runs me over and she wants to know what's "exciting?" Well, let me tell you:

I picked up my pals "Just in Time" and "Very Private Person" who kept forgetting who was nagivating as the car moved through town on its own momentum. After a few scenic circles when we rediscovered where we were (!) we eventually found the new Korean restaurant where we had a yummy dinner. Then, my tourism continued. "Don't say we never took you anywhere!" announced VPP.

In the meantime we talked about the differences between postmodernism, poststructuralism, and critical realism. I'll post separately about that. There was a good bit of family history too. I made comparisons between the moral vacuum produced for a generation or three of Germans and Eastern Europeans during/after the Holocaust and the one produced in China by the Cultural Revolution. VPP talked briefly about her dad's family's internment experiences in California and her mom's family's (intended) short-term return to Japan for the children's education before the war began (near Kobe ; other family was in Hiroshima - the incineration of many family members was a known fact rarely acknowledged). The family was not able to return to the States when the war began; a fact that later isolated them from the Japanese-American community who had collectively experienced internment.

On a lighter note, JIT and I discussed sibling rivalries. He used to alternately gang up with his younger brother against the older, or the older brother against the younger. Case in point, the trans-ghost: a male wearing a woman's white dress who might "get" you for various infractions... my brother relished the rare moments he put one over on me and could glory in the last few seconds before his (perceived) impending death. :-)

Lee is up visiting Sam this weekend, she arrived Friday evening and will leave sometime later today. See her comment (in which - among other things - she corrects my confusing roses for carnations - Lou, now you have proof of my gardening "skill" grin). During my hour visit yesterday, she showed a bunch of slides from way way back in Sam's life. They were wonderful! We selected a few for me to upload here for you all to enjoy. I'll get to that this upcoming week.

Meanwhile, just before I arrived Jim Levinson was there and sang an Indian song for Sam. Jim was part of an Experiment trip to India many, many years ago - in fact Lou & Tom met Jim there, in India, not where they all live in Vermont! Small world 'tis. Jim gave Sam an "eternal good luck charm" that has a picture of Gandhi on one side and this inscription on the other:

Sam exemplifies this more than anyone else I know. :-)

My horrorscope from 12 January (brother's birthday!), read during museumfreak's visit seemed to set the tone for this month: see Taurus. (And then this week's tells me to slow down. More waiting?

Mass MOCA is awesome! I'm really glad museumfreak wanted to go, cuz it got me off my duff and actually there. I want to go back when the Amusement Park opens - we got to see the installation in progress. An updated version will be completed in June including visitor's comments. Becoming Animal has some cool elements (some are weird), my favorite single piece was Pseudanuran Gigantica by Brian Conley. The entire QM, I think I call her QM multimedia collection by Ann-Sofi-Sidén requires a second visit.

The Sears Man is acquiring some farmland in "southern country" and talking about removing himself from civilisation. He claims these questions about Northern intelligence will be part of his manifesto against the rest of us:

Have had two more opportunities to practice moving instead of sitting as I interpret. Both of these were with Deaf persons who don't do lipreading (the other two so far tend to switch back and forth between lipreading and watching the interpretation). I was anxious how it would go....maybe this method is only good for those in that in-between position of being able to get by without interpreters one-on-one but not in groups?

But no (!), both of these Deaf consumers said they felt more attentive, that it was better to follow the interpreter with their gaze and be able to see who was speaking, and that they felt more engaged.

Ben and I completed the Master's in Social Justice Education together, back in the mid '90s. It's good to see how far he's been able to take his work. :-) I'm wondering if it would be worth bringing his show to the Mass Communication class at UNH?

Sam's doing much better - out of pain, not on pain meds, responsive and interactive with me this evening. ;-) He loves the love coming from everyone - especially his Brazilian family, and good friends from SIT, not to mention those old college buddies. We talked a bit about his state of mind, and I'm pleased to report he's still set on living. :-)

Big grins at some of these: As I've Matured. Another of the biggest grins was when I explained to Paul the Proposer that it took me 20 minutes to figure out Sam wanted the oxygen mask off. We're all (I guess?) practicing transmuting frustration to patience and humor.

Sam seems to want to be listening to music much of the time. We listened to Josh Groban (I didn't cry until Vincent (Starry Starry Night, sigh - I'm such a sop!) and Johnny Adams. Sam also is really into touch, so if you can hold his hand he'll be happy. Giving squeezes for yes is also one of his main modes of communicating now. Sometimes he winks but these are occasionally hard to distinguish from regular blinking. Other times he actually nods or shakes his head. Some of the cues are so subtle as to be almost invisible, but if you confirm them you're good.

Want to know what made Sam laugh out loud? What to do when the neighbor's music is too loud.

His lovely yellow carnations from Christine are still going strong; and he enjoyed his visit with Pat immensely. With all of my inadequate psychic skills, I think Sam says, "Keep it coming!" :-)

Spent several hours yesterday afternoon/evening sitting with Sam, the "Buddha" as he's known among the nursing staff. His energy was lower in the afternoon, and I admit, I was shy to push him too much. Then Lou and Tom arrived and that was the end of that! Wine (not for Sam, yet - he got ice cream), Andrew Lloyd Webber, jokes from Jennifer....more ugly jokes about Sam too. :-) But Lou says Sam's looking better, even though he has a bit of edema especially in his left arm.

I've heard references to Sam's picture with Einstein before....I guess Tom took the actual photo of Sam standing next to a bust in DC. Does someone have this picture? I'm sure there must have been some surrounding context that makes this story such a repeater. Lou said Sam's pulse was steady and a bit slower than the previous day, so his heart's not working quite as hard as it was when he still had a fever. No fever now. But he slept alot, Tom stayed through a chunk of the afternoon, and two Pauls came by in the evening: Sam's longterm pal & neighbor Paul, and the recently engaged Paul. A festive mood filled the room. :-)

Tom told Sam he needed to stop with the ugly pills already. :-) He's awake and alert this morning, even though communicating is difficult. He's grinned, nodded, shook his head, eyeblinked 'yes', and squeezed my hand.

Elizabeth said this to me when we had dinner last week. And just now, museumfreak said, "He always sounds so lively in your blogposts."

Sam is lively. He always has been. Even at his most ill or frustrated, he invested his words, thoughts, and actions in LIFE and LIVING.

He was released from the hospital back to Eden Park this afternoon; feedings through the g-tube are working just fine. However, he has contracted an infection that is worrisome and the nurses have said, "he doesn't seem to be doing well."

I'll spend time with Sam tomorrow and - if he's awake and alert - read him any blogcomments and emails you send. I doubt I'll be as brave as Christine was and actually crawl in bed with him (!), but if I can sit across his feet like I did at Xmas it'll be a cozy way to convey the love.

The lazy bum! She's still sleeping. Going on 12 hours. Ok, ok, her trip's been rough and it seems more things have gone wrong than right. I'm familiar with that dynamic - although not regarding my own recent journey beginning December 24 and ending on January 4.

Nothing like using her as an excuse to write about me! :-/ Symptomatic of self-absorbed suffering? Awhile back, Shemaya quoted this line to me: "Pain is unavoidable; suffering is optional." Tell that to my stomach!

[end of digression] When the direction to look to find my car finally registered (!), and this young chickie walked over and opened the door, my first reaction was "she's cute!" :-)

This advice is given to one of the spouses in Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The book is both hilarious and intense. It captures an eastern European sensibility shaped by globalization and the Holocaust. At one point, I felt I could grasp - albeit momentarily - what the Holocaust did to a generation (or three) of people in Europe in terms of a moral/ethical fallout.

"He was a good man, who lived in a bad time."

The World Can't Wait aims to "drive out the Bush regime."

Actions are planned to protest the January 31 State of the Union Address and march on the white house February 4.

On January 20-22, the Bush Crimes Commission will convene again in New York City. They have "indicted the Bush administration on 5 counts:
1) Wars of Aggression,
2) Torture and Indefinite Detention,
3) Destruction of the Global Environment,
4) Attacks on Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights,
5) Knowing Failure to Protect Life During Hurricane Katrina."

The review I linked to regarding Everything is Illuminated describes one of the author's themes as "the saving power of love, and particularly of love as expressed in acts of remembering -- and writing."

It captures what I hope I am doing with a couple of personal writing projects as well as (surprise surprise!) this blog.

Haven't blogged about all the movies I've seen lately but it's been a nice run. Following are brief comments and links to reviews of Glory Road, Casanova, The Producers, and Syriana.

"Humorous is the only true way to tell a sad story," explains the Ukrainian interpreter in Everything is Illuminated.

There are some memorable passages about interpreting which I'll need to find a print copy to retrieve verbatim. I recommend the audiotaped version though, because the sound of the English produced by Alex is wonderful. :-)

The first line to really capture my attention was about family. The sense of it is that for members of your family you do things that you hate. A hard truth.

Or, the occult, meaning "hidden" or blocked from view. In terms of relationships, this is captured in the contemporary philosophical notion of intersubjectivity.

Mugwort (artemisia) can be used for strength, power, prophecy and healing (from The basis of magic in Harry Potter. Lest you distrust the source, Wikipedia agrees: "Mugwort was used from ancient times as a remedy against fatigue and to protect travellers against evil spirits and wild animals."

Mugwort is also known as common wormwood and has many wormwood relatives. Wormword has been used symbolically to denote bitter characters or realities, such as in The Light of Other Days, which I listened to on tape and continue to mull.

Sam's currently in recovery from the anasthesia (they had to put him all the way under), but they were able to insert the g-tube and all seems well.

:-)

Left a friend's after dinner this evening and encountered some kids running up and down the hallway. While the 2 year old wandered in (!) to the apartment (to be attacked by the killer cat), the three year old announced to me:

"Christmas is over."

"It'll be back next year," I said.

"OK," he responded, with the total assurance of a child not yet disillusioned by too much "reality".

Woodrow Wilson once described golf thus: "Golf is an ineffectual attempt to put an elusive ball into an obscure hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose."

How about a competition? Bowling is the futile attempt to throw an erratic ball into an unpredictable nest of pins with biomechanical precision impossible to duplicate. Real comedians have tried to be funny too.

I was delighted to arrive today and find Sam up and able to talk well enough that I could understand him without too many requests for him to repeat himself. I repeated everything back to him, to make sure I understood. When I was mistaken he would just stare at me in silence and then I'd guess, or not, and eventually he'd try again. He even snacked on the impractical treats I brought (brie, eggplant dip and tortilla chips): "I love it!" he said. :-)

We had a pretty intense conversation, going over his will, what he wants bequeathed to whom, where he wants his body donated, what kind of celebration he wants us to have in his honor and to generate closure on our relationships with him. More details forthcoming.

Looks like Sam will have a bit of surgery this Thursday to insert a g-tube; just to accommodate the challenges he has swallowing. He did have a fluid IV for a couple of days - had gotten dehydrated but "plumped up" real quick as soon as he got those fluids restored. This last round (of cold/infection and disease progression) took him for a ride, that's for sure.

Paul, the infamous fiancee, hung with us for a bit. He's a mechanic, and didn't think the mechanic's joke (following) was funny, but laughed at a bunch of the others.

that makes Brokeback Mountain effective in depicting so-very-human lives. So three of us concluded last night after a pal saw it and joined me and LB for a debrief. So many things are left unsaid, or are said with such a range of possible meanings, or are hinted at by body language and nonverbals...for awhile we discussed the possibility of actual dishonesty but decided that wasn't really it: the storyline develops out of the tensions of people doing the best they can in circumstances that have no precedent, for which they have no preparation or models, and for which there is not only no support but outright antagonism.

Bumped into a couple of colleagues yesterday and was telling them about the audiobook I just finished, "The Light of Other Days." However it happened, I mentioned the part about the past being immutable and one of them immediately shook her head in disagreement. "Just change the narrative," she said. Of course, I said, leave it to comm majors to disagree! There wasn't time then (we were going separate ways), but I want to pursue this a bit, because I don't think one person changing the narrative changes much of anything ...

NAACP wins on "nigger" in dictionary (email from La Wanza to the social justice listserv)

A Small Victory...A Giant Step (Thanks NAACP)

Kweisi Mfume made the announcement during a speech at Virgina Tech in the spring of 2001 "beginning with the next edition, the word nigger will no longer be synonymous with African-Americans. It shall be duly noted that it's a racial slur and not what African-Americans themselves are. Along with this, all racial and religious slurs will finally be indicated for what they really are - cruel and evil slurs too often used to degrade people."

history and etymology.

Brokeback Mountain lives up to the hype.

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

Note: 27 January 2006: he's a liar.

and

The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell.

This notion comes up in Clarke and Baxter's book, The Light of Other Days, which expands upon a short story of the same title by Bob Shaw written in 1966.

Parameter space is a notion in statistics; Clarke & Baxter apply it to physics and space/time. This link provides a couple of examples.

It seems a Henon Map is how one gets a visual.

An Amazon editorial review critiques The Light of Other Days for repeating material in other books by each respective author, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. My biggest complaint is how they use the storyline to show off their imagination with Michener-esque detours through future and historical time. That said, however, there are some intriguing elements to this story of the ultimate end of privacy - when everyone is subject to 24/7 survellance at any/every moment by whomever has the mass-produced technology to look.

The title comes from a poem about memory by Thomas More, which becomes the refuge of the old while the young become consciously (cognitively, psychically, intersubjectively) "joined", generating collective intelligence, perhaps a new form of being, and look to the future.

I've received a certain piece of advice regarding a certain situation consistently for the past several months (well, the last year plus, and if one wants to get really picky, the last eight years). "Wait."

In my faster-than-light personal growth process (don't I wish: *sigh*), I've been tuning in to the moments and events that spark a desire to hurry. I had a crucial half-hour with Jesus Evil Kachina (a quasi!?! code name, in case you haven't guessed, Spanish pronounciation) in which it was ALL I could do not to explode with impatience. There was no reason for me to be in such a rush; but I felt it so deeply it hurt. Sitting that out calmly was a biggie.

I can recall way too many instances where I wanted to already be somewhere, or already engaged in doing something....that, or I was trapped by something in the past I couldn't quite let go. Either way, I've often not been "in" the present as much as I thought at the time.

I did submit one proposal to the Communication in Crisis conference - it's an updated version of the one accepted by Crossroads. I did not submit the radical one. It seemed too likely it would be misinterpreted as an attempt to hijack the event. :-( And, maybe it really is too big of a risk, to actually "do" post-modernism at an academic conference? Too big a leap for the genre?

Someday, somewhere, with some folk...we'll manage to pull something like this off. I hope. :-)

LB says his cat told him all this already but MY cat told ME a LONG time ago! ;-)

The globe-trotting evolution of the cat family describes how researchers have reconstructed "a series of at least ten intercontinental migrations in which cats colonized the world." Sadly, "most of the large cats are in peril."

I wonder if there'll be any similarites I'll recognize if I attend Arisia with the SF conventions I used to attend as a wee teenager?

Heather Dale sounds good!

It'll cost me $40 even though I'm a student cuz I'm over 25. C'est la vie!

Some of the movies look fun:

It Came From Outer Space in 3D 4 pm Friday or 9:30 pm Saturday
Aelita, Queen of Mars with live piano accompaniment 9 pm Friday

Spectres of The Spectrum 11:30 am Saturday

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 5 pm Saturday (this one's easily rentable, eh?)

Howl's Moving Castle anime 7 pm Saturday. Also rentable?

The Written Word looks intriguing but I'll have to be en route to work while it's being shown. :-( "This is a 1965 UNESCO documentary heralding a bright future for Nigeria led by its library system, a future that never happened. Written by poet and academician Andre Maurois, also author of some SF, this film is sad in that it shows a future that turned to dust only a few years later. In 16mm B&W, 21 min."

There's actually loads of anime.

I made a careless error the other night, a combo of fatigue and trying to hurry. This rushing thing is more and more in my face as an issue. :-/

I've tried to turn OFF the stupid trackback feature a number of times but it doesn't seem to stick, so I'm in a constant deletion battle with them. somehow, I'd flipped to the comment page and didn't realize it until I'd mechanically checked, deleted, and confirmed the delete of 20 comments spanning a three week period (17 December 2005 to 3 January 2006). I only had two backed up per someone's advice to another poor sucker.

I tried that moving-around-the-group style again today in a different setting with a bunch of people who weren't part of the first experiment. I'd just barely had a chance to explain it to my team and the Deaf person when the event got underway, so we all took the plunge. At break I asked how it was going:

It feels more natural," said the Deaf person, going on to explain that it felt better to look at the speaker and know that no one was wondering about whether or not they were paying attention.

Wouldn't you know it! neurophyre started it up last fall. And here I've been casting about, hoping!

I need to get back in touch with Radhika, too, about plans for the spring semester Intro to Mass Media courses we're trying to coordinate via freebie wiki's.

Raz sent the info on the UMass wiki by email to the comm-grad list.

I revisited the article I found after Shemaya mentioned the enteric brain to me. It’s densely biomedical, and I wouldn’t pretend to understand the actual chemistry involved, except that motility (the digestive action of the stomach and intestines) is linked to serotonin in some way. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that has a lot to do with mood. Again, I don’t understand the actual reactions that stimulate sensation, but what I’ve been thinking about is the frequency with which – in my darker moments of the past couple of years – I’ve had the impulse to want to cut out my stomach. Rich said something similar the other night, about sometimes wanting to take a knife to his gut.

I carried this fortune (from lunch with Hunju and LB the day before I left) with me the entire trip. In fact, the weather was incredibly mild. Between Buffalo and Albany yesterday afternoon there was rain, ranging from drizzle to downpour, with a brief period of actual hail but otherwise, no inclement weather whatsover. I thought it a nice symmetry that I drove through rain in NY both going and coming back.

I got out of Columbus a lot earlier than I'd expected, but I woke up unexpectedly eager to get on the road. Nothing for it, I guess, than to face the future that awaits. I finished listening to Other People's Children, which didn't plunge me into as much purging as I'd anticipated. The characters weren't so recognizable to me (or maybe I resist identification and accusation?), although I painfully recognized the theme of "separateness, and the heartbreak and diligence it takes to mold that into the togetherness of a family."

Kafka romanticized failure, and sadness,

so did Albert Camus: who "viewed a failure to act as a choice to surrender".

as well as Herman Hesse (actually a bit more positive about things; perhaps a good place to begin?), and Nietsczhe and Milan Kundera, one of whose novels was made into a movie: The Unbearable Lightness of Being....

We construct our own reality, right? So who's to say that reading these horrorscopes (a Lynchism, along with "brown-crusted outies" and other savory sayings) didn't set the tone for some deep thought and stimulating conversation?

Taurus: "This looks like a high-profile or soaring professional day for you. Get motivated and use this energy to promote your career or a business idea."

Gemini: "You will find communicating your thoughts and feelings to others is easy today. Let them know exactly what is on your mind."

Pisces: "You are at your intuitive best today. Tune into your subconscious for some enlightening information about a sibling or a peer."

IndyStar.com

So Dan described the European Parliament while asking me a bit about the research I'm trying to accomplish there. I felt a new level of clarity trying to explain what I'm looking at in the interpreting process, which I wanted to capture here....

First, all language use involves power - most obviously in political negotiations although also in interpersonal interactions. (We had a fun digression regarding couple's communication, grin.) There's a myth that people necessarily communicate better if they're using the same language, however people speaking the same language also miscommunicate and misunderstand each other. (Among some of us rather more frequently than others, frown.)

Hermux is a wise mouse. This children's story is fast-paced and an easy read, with a few moments of genius.

Mirrin, a painter who has recovered miraculously from blindness, generates images that are assumed to be cats, except no one believes in cats. "'There's a misunderstanding here,' answered Mirrin. 'I've never said that these are paintings of cats. I don't know who said that. But what if they were cats? We're taught as children not to think about cats. Never to speak about them. Never even to say the word. But we do think about them. And we talk about them. At least we whisper about them behind closed doors. The fact is that the idea of cats is real. It lurks in every one of us. It slinks about in the shadows. It stalks us on sleepless nights. It pounces when we least expect it. It toys with us when we're anxious. It bats us about when we're feeling helpless. And maybe you think it's obscene even to mention the idea of cats. But I don't agree. Being blind taught me one thing at least. Whatever we can see in the light, no matter how bad, is less frightening than what we can imagine in the dark.'" (p. 32)

"Some people you clap because they're done. There are different kinds of appreciation" (Ruth).

It took us quite a while to end up at the Varsity (described by Pridesource as a "low-keyed, butch, neighborhood joints popular with rugged guys") where we were greeted with, "Aren't you hot things?" I decided it wasn't us, actually, but the black supercharged ultra Buick we pulled up in.

According to Little Brother, whatever one is doing on New Year's Eve is what one will spend a lot of time doing for the next year. I was with friends, remembering the past, watching children play. Not bad!

On New Year's Day, I started the drive back east. I had a feeling the return trip would be harder than the outbound...the Korean acupuncturist kept emphasizing my tendency toward melancholy, because I'm "so sensitive." I'm feeling it. My friends saw it too, thinking I looked tired. Not physically, no, but emotionally and spiritually. "It shows." I know. But I think it's temporary, fallout from the return to family (after 13 years no less) and the stark evidence of socialization. There's no doubt where my "stuff" originates. :-/

Frances and Kathy regaled me with memories last night, camping trips, this person and that, who's doing what now, who's with who now, who's had a baby. They're still in touch with all the "groups" of my former life - a circle from college, UPS and other people associated with work, and the social crowd. It seems fitting to end my trip with these reminescences. Those were the people who knew me when I was brash and completely unaware that emotions were a figural part of human existence.

We hailed in the New Year on New York time - 11 pm here in Kansas City, fooling the kids who went berserk in a neighbor's front yard with poppers and pot lids, then toilet papered Frances' son's truck. "Payback", I heard, for a few parties when Robbie and his pals woke them up with partying.

It's been a trip driving around, vaguely recalling places from high school, how familiar this place feels and yet so distant in actual memory. Of course, there are specific events and conversations that come to mind, as well as subtle drifts of visceral memory - how I felt during this time of my life, with various folk, about certain situations. Wild.