bLogos

Tribe.net is temporarily unavailable.

barnaby — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:49:23 GMT

The latest version of Firefox has a new autocomplete feature when you manually enter a URL in the address bar. When it suggests a URL for you, it displays the cached page name of the URL, based on the most-frequently visited page at a particular domain. For example, if I always go to the New York Times Film Review page, when I start to enter "nytimes.com" the browser will fill in "nytimes.com/films" and display "New York Times Film Reviews". Well, when I start to enter "Tribe.net" in the address bar, Firefox helpfully displays "Tribe.net is temporarily unavailable", since that's the most common page I retrieve when I visit this domain.

The Troublesome Mr. Pound

barnaby — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:15:34 GMT

I've been chewing on Ezra Pound off and on for maybe ten years now. I'm as intrigued by his genius as I am repelled by his conspicuous failings. Specifically, his severe failings of character loom larger and larger the more I study him, and I find the Cantos to be fundamentally misconceived. Rather than exploding into true cosmopolitanism, his eclectic fascination with languages and translations led him into an extreme form of idiosyncratic solipsism. As far as I can see, the reader of the Cantos has only four options: 1) Reproduce Pound's piecemeal, eclectic philology, 2) rely heavily on commentarial literature, 3) enjoy the poems without comprehending them, or 4) let them be. I'm gradually settling on 4, with an increasing sense of resentfulness that he made so many absurd demands on his reader. It's not clear to me that the Cantos are more profound than Paterson, for all their obscurity. It seems to me that Pound somewhere forgot that the primary function of language is to communicate. I had a fresh shock recently reading through Pound's letters and realizing what a savage bully he was. Kenner's otherwise-excellent "The Pound Era" gives little sense of the degree to which he routinely bullied, insulted, and cajoled friend and enemy alike, or his colossally disagreeable egotism. Having said all this, I wouldn't trade Exultations or Lustra for anything. In a more human frame of mind he wrote: Come, let us pity those who are better off than we are. Come, my friend, and remember that the rich have butlers and no friends, And we have friends and no butlers. Come, let us pity the married and the unmarried. Dawn enters with little feet like a gilded Pavlova, And I am near my desire. Nor has life in it aught better Than this hour of clear coolness, the hour of waking together.

Ode to the Cat

barnaby — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:24:32 GMT

by Pablo Neruda (superbly) translated by Ken Krabbenhoft There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, pep. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished and proud: born in a state of total completion, it sticks to itself and knows exactly what it wants. Men would like to be fish or fowl, snakes would rather have wings, and dogs are would-be lions. Engineers want to be poets, flies emulate swallows, and poets try hard to act like flies. But the cat wants nothing more than to be a cat, and every cat is pure cat from its whiskers to its tail, from sixth sense to squirming rat, from nighttime to its golden eyes. Nothing hangs together quite like a cat: neither flowers nor the moon have such consistency. It's a thing by itself, like the sun or a topaz, and the elastic curve of its back, which is both subtle and confident, is like the curve of a sailing ship's prow. The cat's yellow eyes are the only slots for depositing the coins of night. O little emperor without a realm, conqueror without a homeland, diminutive parlor tiger, nuptial sultan of heavens roofed in erotic tiles: when you pass in rough weather and poise, four nimble paws on the ground, sniffing, suspicious of all earthly things (because everything feels filthy to the cat's immaculate paw), you claim the touch of love in the air. O freelance household beast, arrogant vestige of night, lazy, agile and strange, O fathomless cat, secret police of human chambers and badge of vanished velvet! Surely there is nothing enigmatic in your manner, maybe you aren't a mystery after all. You're known to everyone, you belong to the least mysterious tenant. Everyone may believe it, believe they're master, owner, uncle or companion to a cat, some cat's colleague, disciple, or friend. But not me. I'm not a believer. I don't know a thing about cats. I know everything else, including life and its archipelago, seas and unpredictable cities, plant life, the pistils and its scandals, the pluses and minuses of math. I know the earth's volcanic protrusions and the crocodile's unreal hide, the fireman's unseen kindness and the priest's blue atavism. But cats I can't figure out. My mind slides on their indifference. Their eyes hold ciphers of gold. (from the anthology "Ode to Common Things")

Snake, by D. H. Lawrence

barnaby — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:08:39 GMT

A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there. In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree I came down the steps with my pitcher And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me. He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough And rested his throat upon the stone bottom, And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, He sipped with his straight mouth, Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, Silently. Someone was before me at my water-trough, And I, like a second comer, waiting. He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do, And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do, And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment, And stooped and drank a little more, Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking. The voice of my education said to me He must be killed, For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous. And voices in me said, If you were a man You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off. But must I confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the burning bowels of this earth? Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured? I felt so honoured. And yet those voices: If you were not afraid, you would kill him! And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more That he should seek my hospitality From out the dark door of the secret earth. He drank enough And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken, And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black, Seeming to lick his lips, And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream, Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face. And as he put his head into that dreadful hole, And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther, A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole, Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after, Overcame me now his back was turned. I looked round, I put down my pitcher, I picked up a clumsy log And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter. I think it did not hit him, But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste. Writhed like lightning, and was gone Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front, At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination. And immediately I regretted it. I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. And I thought of the albatross And I wished he would come back, my snake. For he seemed to me again like a king, Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld, Now due to be crowned again. And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords Of life. And I have something to expiate: A pettiness.

Bruce Shneier: The War on the Unexpected

barnaby — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:49:31 GMT

visit his Blog for a version with active links: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html November 01, 2007 The War on the Unexpected We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested -- even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats. This isn't the way counterterrorism is supposed to work, but it's happening everywhere. It's a result of our relentless campaign to convince ordinary citizens that they're the front line of terrorism defense. "If you see something, say something" is how the ads read in the New York City subways. "If you suspect something, report it" urges another ad campaign in Manchester, UK. The Michigan State Police have a seven-minute video. Administration officials from then-attorney general John Ashcroft to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff to President Bush have asked us all to report any suspicious activity. The problem is that ordinary citizens don't know what a real terrorist threat looks like. They can't tell the difference between a bomb and a tape dispenser, electronic name badge, CD player, bat detector, or a trash sculpture; or the difference between terrorist plotters and imams, musicians, or architects. All they know is that something makes them uneasy, usually based on fear, media hype, or just something being different. Even worse: after someone reports a "terrorist threat," the whole system is biased towards escalation and CYA instead of a more realistic threat assessment. Watch how it happens. Someone sees something, so he says something. The person he says it to -- a policeman, a security guard, a flight attendant -- now faces a choice: ignore or escalate. Even though he may believe that it's a false alarm, it's not in his best interests to dismiss the threat. If he's wrong, it'll cost him his career. But if he escalates, he'll be praised for "doing his job" and the cost will be borne by others. So he escalates. And the person he escalates to also escalates, in a series of CYA decisions. And before we're done, innocent people have been arrested, airports have been evacuated, and hundreds of police hours have been wasted. This story has been repeated endlessly, both in the U.S. and in other countries. Someone -- these are all real -- notices a funny smell, or some white powder, or two people passing an envelope, or a dark-skinned man leaving boxes at the curb, or a cell phone in an airplane seat; the police cordon off the area, make arrests, and/or evacuate airplanes; and in the end the cause of the alarm is revealed as a pot of Thai chili sauce, or flour, or a utility bill, or an English professor recycling, or a cell phone in an airplane seat. Of course, by then it's too late for the authorities to admit that they made a mistake and overreacted, that a sane voice of reason at some level should have prevailed. What follows is the parade of police and elected officials praising each other for doing a great job, and prosecuting the poor victim -- the person who was different in the first place -- for having the temerity to try to trick them. For some reason, governments are encouraging this kind of behavior. It's not just the publicity campaigns asking people to come forward and snitch on their neighbors; they're asking certain professions to pay particular attention: truckers to watch the highways, students to watch campuses, and scuba instructors to watch their students. The U.S. wanted meter readers and telephone repairmen to snoop around houses. There's even a new law protecting people who turn in their travel mates based on some undefined "objectively reasonable suspicion," whatever that is. If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security. We need to do two things. The first is to stop urging people to report their fears. People have always come forward to tell the police when they see something genuinely suspicious, and should continue to do so. But encouraging people to raise an alarm every time they're spooked only squanders our security resources and makes no one safer. We don't want people to never report anything. A store clerk's tip led to the unraveling of a plot to attack Fort Dix last May, and in March an alert Southern California woman foiled a kidnapping by calling the police about a suspicious man carting around a person-sized crate. But these incidents only reinforce the need to realistically assess, not automatically escalate, citizen tips. In criminal matters, law enforcement is experienced in separating legitimate tips from unsubstantiated fears, and allocating resources accordingly; we should expect no less from them when it comes to terrorism. Equally important, politicians need to stop praising and promoting the officers who get it wrong. And everyone needs to stop castigating, and prosecuting, the victims just because they embarrassed the police by their innocence. Causing a city-wide panic over blinking signs, a guy with a pellet gun, or stray backpacks, is not evidence of doing a good job: it's evidence of squandering police resources. Even worse, it causes its own form of terror, and encourages people to be even more alarmist in the future. We need to spend our resources on things that actually make us safer, not on chasing down and trumpeting every paranoid threat anyone can come up with. This essay originally appeared in Wired.com EDITED TO ADD (11/1): Some links didn't make it into the original article. There's this creepy "if you see a father holding his child's hands, call the cops" campaign, this story of an iPod found on an airplane, and this story of an "improvised electronics device" trying to get through airport security. This is a good essay on the "war on electronics."

Fuck the ALF

barnaby — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:05:17 GMT

Why I use laboratory animals A UCLA scientist targeted by animal rights militants defends her research on addiction and the brain. By Edythe London Los Angeles Times November 1, 2007 For years, I have watched with growing concern as my UCLA colleagues have been subjected to increasing harassment, violence and threats by animal rights extremists. In the last 15 months, these attempts at intimidation have included the placement of a Molotov cocktail-type device at a colleague's home and another under a colleague's car -- thankfully, they didn't ignite -- as well as rocks thrown through windows, phone and e-mail threats, banging on doors in the middle of the night and, on several occasions, direct confrontations with young children. Then, several weeks ago, an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the work I have been doing to understand and treat nicotine addition among adolescents informed readers that some of my research is done on primates. I was instantly on my guard. Would I be the next victim? Would the more extremist elements of the animal rights movement now turn their sights on me? The answer came this week when the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for vandalism that caused between $20,000 and $30,000 worth of damage to my home after extremists broke a window and inserted a garden hose, flooding the interior. Later, in a public statement addressed to me, the extremists said they had been torn between flooding my house or setting it afire. Maybe I should feel lucky. Having come to the United States as the child of Holocaust survivors who had lost almost everything, I appreciate that perhaps "only in America" could I have fulfilled my dream of becoming a biomedical scientist, supported in doing research to reduce human suffering. But it is difficult for me to understand why the same country that was founded on the idea of freedom for all gives rise to an organization like the Animal Liberation Front, a shadowy group identified by the FBI as a domestic terrorism threat, which threatens the safety of researchers engaged in animal studies that are crucial to moving medicine forward. I have devoted my career to understanding how nicotine, methamphetamine and other drugs can hijack brain chemistry and leave the affected individual at the mercy of his or her addiction. My personal connection to addiction is rooted in the untimely death of my father, who died of complications of nicotine dependence. My work on the neurobiology of addiction has spanned three decades of my life -- most of this time as a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health. To me, nothing could be more important than solving the mysteries of addiction and learning how we can restore a person's control over his or her own life. Addiction robs young people of their futures, destroys families and places a tremendous burden on society. Animal studies allow us to test potential treatments without confounding factors, such as prior drug use and other experiences that complicate human studies. Even more important, they allow us to test possibly life-saving treatments before they are considered safe to test in humans. Our animal studies address the effects of chronic drug use on brain functions, such as decision-making and self-control, that are impaired in human addicts. We are also testing potential treatments, and all of our studies comply with federal laws designed to ensure humane care. While monkeys receive drugs in the laboratory, they do not become "addicted" in the same sense that humans become addicted. Still, we are able to see how changes in brain chemistry alter the way the brain works -- knowledge that is vital to the design of effective medications. My colleagues and I place a huge value on the welfare of our research subjects. We constantly strive to minimize the risk to them; however, a certain amount of risk is necessary to provide us with the information we need in a rigorously scientific manner. Since the incident at my house, our research has gotten a lot of attention. Some anti-smoking groups have raised questions about the fact that our work was funded by Philip Morris USA. Is it moral to allow the tobacco industry to fund research on addiction? My view is that the problem of tobacco dependence is enormous, and the resources available for research on the problem are limited. It would, therefore, be immoral to decline an opportunity to increase our knowledge about addiction and develop new treatments for quitting smoking, especially when teens are involved. Few people are untouched by the scourge of addiction in their friends or family. It is through work like ours that the understanding of addiction expands and gives rise to hope that we can help people like my father live longer, healthier lives. Thousands of other scientists use laboratory animals in other research, giving hope to those afflicted with a wide variety of ailments. Already, one scientist at UCLA has announced that he will not pursue potentially important studies involving how the brain receives information from the retina, for fear of the violence that animal rights radicals might visit on his family. We must not allow these extremists to stop important research that advances the human condition. Edythe London is a professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences and of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Emily Dickinson

barnaby — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 03:20:46 GMT

I died for Beauty--but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room-- He questioned softly "Why I failed"? "For Beauty", I replied-- "And I--for Truth--Themself are One-- We Brethren, are", He said-- And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night-- We talked between the Rooms-- Until the Moss had reached our lips-- And covered up--our names-- (449)

An Idealist Poet Responds to the Passionate Poem of a Friend

barnaby — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:17:21 GMT

Between and among the sinew colonnades that lift the flesh cathedral sings empty air, blue crystalline mirror of sky's perfect mind, drapes the flesh in blue. This is figure to your ground - (life's ship cruises lanes that climb the horizon like a cat; mast lolling listless on the tide's beating drum, the watery breath of the moon) - the air is my harbor. The incandescent air, made awake by the solitary albatross, hanging between blue and blue. There is no distance, There is no unity. *** (c) Barnaby Thieme, all rights reserved

Where Cracks a Sphere

barnaby — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:47:26 GMT

by Noe Venable It had all been temporary. The soaked bed, temporary. The clinging garden, temporary. The wounding arrow, temporary. You are a child of the world, she told herself. Not the lone wave, but a small gulp of ocean. Not a held breath, but a sip of atmosphere. (Let three raw winds unbuckle my shoulders, I’ll twist like a screw, bore out into the night, where cracks a sphere is born a world as death turns on the light.)

Something needs to change at BRAF

barnaby — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:44:06 GMT

from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/19/MNTJRFGB6.DTL&hw=burning+man&sn=001&sc=1000 From fiscal years 2001 through 2005, the Black Rock Arts Foundation raised $296,620. Of that, total grants sent to artists totaled $82,307. The remainder was used for fundraising, administrative and program costs. For comparison to similar charities, Charity Navigator measured the Black Rock Arts Foundation against 341 organizations that list their mission as distributing funds to various public and cultural issues. Of those charities, on average, 65 percent of their budgets went to grants. At Black Rock Arts Foundation, 27 percent of its budget went to grants. The person who has received the most from the nonprofit is Burning Man's most well-known artist, David Best. In 2003, the Petaluma-based artist received a $15,000 grant from Black Rock Arts, which at the time was by far the largest grant doled out by the organization. That same year, four other artists split the remaining $3,250. In 2004, Best joined the board of directors, working three hours a week to help find artists and projects worthy of the grants. "We needed to have an artist on the board," Harvey said. "It was a good idea." But in 2005, while acting as a director, Best received $10,200 from the board to build the Hayes Green Temple, a popular city attraction that was set on Octavia between Hayes and Fell streets. According to then-executive director Pritchett, the organization was approached by the mayor's office, which specifically requested a Best temple to coincide with World Environment Day. Pritchett said Best recused himself from the vote, but her colleagues were aware his involvement would give the appearance of conflict. The foundation was on a tight deadline from the mayor's office, Pritchett said, and in the scramble didn't consider declining the offer or steering it to another arts nonprofit. "In this case, David accepted no personal benefit," Pritchett said. "It was a project that fit us, and our mission, perfectly." According to nonprofit consultants, artists who applied to Black Rock for grants that year had no idea a director was also eligible for funding. "Even if he recused himself, it doesn't look good for a board member to benefit from an organization he's a part of," said Ken Goldstein, a South Bay nonprofit consultant. "The other donors are expecting there's a fair process for doling out the grants."

10 films that Everyone Should See

barnaby — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 04:21:37 GMT

These movies are not only tremendous from an artistic point of view, they're also incredibly entertaining. All the Real Girls - David Gordon Green City of God - Fernando Meirelles Five Easy Pieces - Bob Rafelson Lone Star - John Sayles Gosford Park - Robert Altman The Age of Innocence - Martin Scorsese Do the Right Thing - Spike Lee Sherrybaby - Laurie Collyer Master and Commander; The Far Side of the World - Peter Weir Princess Mononoke - Hayao Miyazaki

Vulcan Freedom Fighters

barnaby — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:14:29 GMT

You owe it to yourself to check out Vulcan Freedom Fighters. No matter how many times I listen to their album "Stardate Unknown", I keep learning new things about myself, and about the world. http://www.vulcansrock.com/

Leonard Cohen

barnaby — Sun, 20 May 2007 21:36:14 GMT

And when we fell together our flesh was like a veil I had to draw aside to see the serpent eat its tail.

Jerry Falwell 1933-2007

barnaby — Wed, 16 May 2007 05:33:10 GMT

Courtesy of TMZ.com.

History Repeats Itself

barnaby — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:18:39 GMT

From Book II of the Church Committee Report investigation into intelligence abuses of US civil rights in the 1970s. 1. The Lesson: History Repeats Itself During and after the First World War, intelligence agencies, including the predecessor of the FBI, engaged in repressive activity. 1 A new Attorney General, Harlan Fiske Stone, sought to stop the investigation of "political or other opinions." 2 This restraint was embodied only in an executive pronouncement, however. No statutes were passed to prevent the kind of improper activity which had been exposed. Thereafter, as this narrative will show, the abuses returned in a new form. It is now the responsibility of all three branches of government to ensure that the pattern of abuse of domestic intelligence activity does not recur. 2. The Pattern: Broadening Through Time Since the re-establishment of federal domestic intelligence programs in 1936, there has been a steady increase in the government's capability and willingness to pry into, and even disrupt, the political activities and personal lives of the people. The last forty years have witnessed a relentless expansion of domestic intelligence activity beyond investigation of criminal conduct toward the collection of political intelligence and the launching of secret offensive actions against Americans. The initial incursions into the realm of ideas and associations were related to concerns about the influence of foreign totalitarian powers. Ultimately, however, intelligence activity was directed against domestic groups advocating change in America, particularly those who most vigorously opposed the Vietnam war or sought to improve the conditions of racial minorities. Similarly, the targets of intelligence investigations were broadened from groups perceived to be violence prone to include groups of ordinary protesters. 3. Three Periods of Growth for Domestic Intelligence The expansion of domestic intelligence activity can usefully be divided into three broad periods: (a) the pre-war -and World War II period; (b) the Cold War era, and (c) the period of domestic dissent beginning in the mid-sixties. The main developments in each of these stages in the evolution of domestic intelligence may be summarized as follows: a. 1936-1945 By presidential directive -- rather than statute -- the FBI and military intelligence agencies were authorized to conduct domestic intelligence investigations. These investigations included a vaguely defined mission to collect intelligence about "subversive activities" which were sometimes unrelated to law enforcement. Wartime exigencies encouraged the unregulated use of intrusive intelligence techniques; and the FBI began to resist supervision by the Attorney General. b. 1946-1963 Cold War fears and dangers nurtured the domestic intelligence programs of the FBI and military, and they became permanent features of government. Congress deferred to the executive branch in the oversight of these programs. The FBI became increasingly isolated from effective outside control, even from the Attorneys General. The scope of investigations of "subversion" widened greatly. Under the cloak of secrecy, the, FBI instituted its COINTELPRO operations to "disrupt" and "neutralize" "subversives". The National Security Agency, the FBI, and the CIA re-instituted instrusive wartime surveillance techniques in contravention of law. c.1964-1976 Intelligence techniques which previously had been concentrated upon foreign threats and domestic groups said to be under Communist influence were applied with increasing intensity to a wide range of domestic activity by American citizens. These techniques were utilized against peaceful civil rights and antiwar protest activity, and thereafter in reaction to civil unrest, often without regard for the consequences to American liberties. The intelligence agencies of the United States -- sometimes abetted by public opinion and often in response to pressure from administration officials or the Congress -- frequently disregarded the law in their conduct of massive surveillance and aggressive counterintelligence operations against American citizens. In the past few years, some of these activities were curtailed, partly in response to the moderation of the domestic crisis; but all too often improper programs were terminated only in response to exposure, the threat of exposure, or a change in the climate of public opinion, such as that triggered by the Watergate affair. http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIb.htm

Mnemosyne, by Trumbull Stickney

barnaby — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:47:13 GMT

It's autumn in the country I remember. How warm a wind blew here about the ways! And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber During the long sun-sweetened summer-days. It's cold abroad the country I remember. The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain At midday with a wing aslant and limber; And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain. It's empty down the country I remember. I had a sister lovely in my sight: Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre; We sang together in the woods at night. It's lonely in the country I remember. The babble of our children fills my ears, And on our hearth I stare the perished ember To flames that show all starry thro' my tears. It's dark about the country I remember. There are the mountains where I lived. The path Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber, The stumps are twisted by the tempests' wrath. But that I knew these places are my own, I 'd ask how came such wretchedness to cumber The earth, and I to people it alone. It rains across the country I remember.

the birds, by Charles Bukowski

barnaby — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 02:13:43 GMT

the birds the acute and terrible air hangs with murder as summer birds mingle in the branches and warble and mystify the clamour of the mind; an old parrot who never talks, sits thinking in a Chinese laundry, disgruntled forsaken celibate; there is red on his wing where there should be green, and between us the recognition of an immense and wasted life. ...my 2nd wife left me because I set our birds free: one yellow, with crippled wing quickly going down and to the left, cat-meat, cackling like an organ; and the other, mean green, of empty thimble head, popping up like a rocket high into the hollow sky, disappearing like sour love and yesterday's desire and leaving me forever. and when my wife returned that night with her bags and plans, her tricks and shining greeds, she found me glittering over a yellow feather seeking out the music which she, oddly, failed to hear.

Wise up, fuckos

barnaby — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 04:31:18 GMT

Boston, take note.

Gonzales says the Constitution doesn't guarantee habeas corpus

barnaby — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:29:51 GMT

Attorney general's remarks on citizens' right astound the chair of Senate judiciary panel One of the Bush administration's most far-reaching assertions of government power was revealed quietly last week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified that habeas corpus -- the right to go to federal court and challenge one's imprisonment -- is not protected by the Constitution. "The Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas,'' Gonzales told Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17. Gonzales acknowledged that the Constitution declares "habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless ... in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.'' But he insisted that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.'' Specter was incredulous, asking how the Constitution could bar the suspension of a right that didn't exist -- a right, he noted, that was first recognized in medieval England as a shield against the king's power to dispatch troublesome subjects to royal dungeons. Later in the hearing, Gonzales described habeas corpus as "one of our most cherished rights'' and noted that Congress had protected that right in the 1789 law that established the federal court system. But he never budged from his position on the absence of constitutional protection -- a position that seemingly would leave Congress free to reduce habeas corpus rights or repeal them altogether. Gonzales did not propose any such drastic rollback and devoted most of his discussion to fending off senatorial attacks on a law signed by President Bush last October. That law included a provision stripping federal courts of authority to hear habeas corpus suits by noncitizens classified by the government as "enemy combatants.'' Specter and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Judiciary Committee chairman, are sponsoring legislation to undo the restriction. But critics on both ends of the ideological spectrum said the attorney general was claiming a broader and more chilling power. "This is the key protection that people have if they're held in violation of the law,'' said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor who has criticized the administration's actions on civil liberties. "If there's no habeas corpus, and if the government wants to pick you or me off the street and hold us indefinitely, how do we get our release?'' Chemerinsky was joined by Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and former Justice Department official under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. If Gonzales' view prevailed, Kmiec said, "one of the basic protections of human liberty against the powers of the state would be embarrassingly absent from our constitutional system.'' Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said this week that Gonzales stood by his remarks but was asserting only that the text of the Constitution does not guarantee habeas corpus. The attorney general recognizes, Roehrkasse said, that the Supreme Court has declared "the Constitution protects (habeas corpus) as it existed at common law'' in England. Any such rights, he added, would not apply to foreigners held as enemy combatants. Habeas corpus was recognized in English law at least as early as the Magna Carta, in 1215, and perhaps earlier. In the United States, it refers to bringing a prisoner's case before a federal judge, who has the power to order the government to release anyone who is being held illegally. It has become an issue in Bush's efforts to hold military captives at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with little or no access to civilian courts. The Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that that those prisoners could file habeas corpus claims in court, rejecting the administration's argument that inmates held outside the United States had no such right. That ruling was based on the court's interpretation of laws passed by Congress and did not discuss whether Guantanamo inmates had a constitutional right to habeas corpus. The distinction is potentially crucial, because Congress, in the law signed last October, prohibited federal courts from reviewing habeas corpus suits by Guantanamo prisoners or any other noncitizens held as enemy combatants. The law's validity depends on whether the Supreme Court concludes that the prisoners' constitutional rights are being violated. The issue of habeas corpus came up during last week's hearing when Specter asked Gonzales how a congressional statute could withdraw the right "when there's an express constitutional provision that it can't be suspended and an explicit Supreme Court holding that it applies to Guantanamo alien detainees?'' The court ruled only on the right to habeas corpus that was created by statute, Gonzales replied. He then asserted that the Constitution does not contain any express right of habeas corpus, only "a prohibition against taking it away.'' The issue extends far beyond Guantanamo. The Supreme Court has interpreted federal judges' powers of habeas corpus to apply to prison systems around the nation and the legality of convictions in state as well as federal court. For example, federal judges, who are appointed for life, regularly invoke habeas corpus when overturning convictions or death sentences of state inmates, overruling decisions by elected state judges. Bruce Fein, a former Reagan Justice Department attorney who has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, noted that the day before his Judiciary Committee appearance, Gonzales had denounced "activist judges'' and advised them to stay out of national security matters. Gonzales' comments to the committee on habeas corpus, Fein said, contained a message that "Congress doesn't have to let them (judges) decide national security matters.'' "It's part of an attempt to create the idea that during conflicts, the three branches of government collapse into one, and it is the president,'' Fein said. What Gonzales, Specter said Excerpts from the exchange between Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 17: Gonzales: There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There's a prohibition against taking it away. ... Specter: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The Constitution says you can't take it away except in cases of rebellion or invasion. Doesn't that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there's an invasion or rebellion? Gonzales: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn't say every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas. Doesn't say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except... Specter: You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General. Source: Senate Judiciary Committee transcript http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/24/MNGDONO11O1.DTL

a rose by any other name

barnaby — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:02:24 GMT

"Certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading, but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intensity to fall within [a legal] proscription against torture....We conclude that for an act to constitute torture...it must inflict pain that is difficult to endure. Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." - Jay S. Bybee, former Counsel for the Justice Department, now a judge in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Bush's speech, translated

barnaby — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:10:08 GMT

From Yahoo news: "'If we increase our support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home,' Bush said. But he braced Americans to expect more U.S. casualties for now and did not specify how long the additional troops would stay. translation: "By escalating combat, we will end the violence. And, by indefinitey committing ever larger numbers of troops, with no clear objectives and no end in sight, we will bring our troops home more quickly than if we didn't send them out at all. But many of them will have to die first."

HST on the 60's

barnaby — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:39:43 GMT

San Francisco is the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whaver it meant.... My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights - or very early mornings - when I left Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket ... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that.... There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.... There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right - that we were winning.... And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.... So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West., and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

This may be the coolest goddamned little person I have ever seen.

barnaby — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 07:17:32 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx-NLPH8JeM You will not be sorry.

from Dhammapada

barnaby — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 06:36:16 GMT

O let us live in joy, in love amongst those who hate! Among men who hate, let us live in love. O let us live in joy, in health amongst those who are ill! Among men who are ill, let us live in health. O let us live in joy, in peace amongst those who struggle! Among men who struggle, let us live in peace. O let us live in joy, although having nothing! In joy let us live like spirits of light! Victory brings hate, because the defeated man is unhappy. He who surrenders victory and defeat, this man finds joy. Disharmony is the greatest sorrow. When a man knows the solitude of silence, and feels the joy of quietness, he is then free from fear and sin and he feels the joy of the Dhamma.

deconstruction: a major pet peeve

barnaby — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:18:54 GMT

The term "deconstruction" is NOT a synonym for "analysis" or "criticism". If you criticize a movie, or a book, or a political statement, you are almost certainly not "deconstructing" it. "Deconstruction" refers to a form of textual analysis developed by the post-structuralists in France in the 1960s. This form of analysis is based on a radical critique of discourse, including the role of binary semantic operators in delimiting reference, and a sustained critique of what Derrida calls a "metaphysics of presence", which values existence over non-existence, figure over ground, et cetera.