Viral Knowledge

I Still Live

2009-11-18T19:54:00.002-05:00

I have a new article that's running in the Internet Review of Books. And, since that has the link to this in it, I figured I should probably put something up so people knew I was still alive. But...what to write...Oh. Links. That'll do.

Watch this. It's a show called "The Guild" and it's about online gaming. I find it funny.

Then, go here. This is Stephen Fry. If you know him, you know why I'm sending you. If you don't, then just go and trust me. You can buy me a drink sometime for the knowledge.

And the last part was a passing nod to "Black Books," a British TV show with Dylan Moran in it.

I'm full of the references this evening.

School Days, Fool Days

2009-09-08T16:01:00.002-04:00

I did borrow that title from an animated TV show. It's on Cartoon Network, Adult Swim to be specific. Anyway...

It's been a very long time. I'm now back at work, back at school, and already there are a few things that are concerning me in the world at large.

First of all, what's this nonsense about the potential for H1N1 swine flu vaccinations to become mandatory? Not on my watch! Or at least given that I'm utterly powerless in the matter, not IN me! I don't care whether it's mandatory or not, give me at least three generations of decently healthy kids who've had it before I start taking any kind of "mandatory" vaccination. I'm happier with Obama, but don't think I've forgotten the fearmongering, surveillance, and out right manipulative lying that the previous administration put forth. I've no intention of taking anything on face value that they put forth.

The fact that the conversations I've had with my sister point to the fact that Obama may be the antichrist are irrelevant to my decision. Absolutely irrelevant. (Take above statement with a grain of salt)

Second, the bloody chicanery over the speech that was given today to school kids. I really hope that any of the right wing, nigh-on fascist individuals who were getting themselves in knots over the speech read it, and had one of those "Oh S***" moments, and realized they were acting like morons. You want to get mad over a speech? Fine. You want to hate the president (something you told me...what, four years ago that I should be imprisoned for? Yeah.), Fine. But before you open your mouths to complain, read the damned speech. Was it talking about how kids should grow up to become Democrats? Was it telling the young that they should go out and get involved in a homosexual marriage, get an abortion, and turn all the guns of the world into a giant ball of garbage, all in the same day? No. It was telling kids to do your best and stay in school. If you want to ban that free speech (oh wait...wasn't that what you did want to do when your guy was in office anyway?) then come after me next. I say that stuff all the time.

There's a saying in the computer tech jargon that I love so much. Substitute the word speech for manual, and you'll get the gist. My advice to all of the [fill in whatever term you use to try to call yourselves now that really means right wing]-ers is this:

RTFM

Before you start whinging on.

Back From Camp

2009-06-15T20:00:00.003-04:00

I am officially back from camp now, or as some of us who went have taken to calling it, "back to the real world." There are many stories to relate, though I'm questioning whether this is the venue for them. Perhaps I'll try to "compile" them into one long...thing. We have tales of strange parents, stranger kids, how I almost forswore the life of a teacher for one of an ascetic, and how I had an idea of how to reconcile this new rash of human rights idealism with some actual course work. So...that's coming up.

Only 5 more "proper" days of school left, which I find very good. Student Council elections will be happening tomorrow and I'll have to maintain democratic ideals of a free and unbiased election. After that, I have only the end of the year festivities and then onwards to summer.

Reading this summer: Mark Thomas, Noam Chomsky, IRB review books. I'm eager.

An actual update...

2009-06-04T16:04:00.005-04:00

...rather than an article. In the news of the day, and to keep myself on a cycle of actually updating a blog for some longer period than a week (know that this is actually perhaps the longest continuous one I have ever maintained, and certainly the only in recent history) my Mark Thomas books came in at the book store today. An interesting sidenote to that story was the exchange I had with the clerk while ordering them. It went something to the effect of:

"I'd like to order a book please."
"What's the title?"
"'Belching Out The Devil'. If you need the author's name, it's Mark Thomas"
"Oh...that sounds like an awful title. I don't like the sound of that one...."

And then she began to read from the bloody website that describes the book! That doesn't sound too damning, I know, but remember in my non-online existence I'm an employee of the town near where I'm at as the following excerpt for the book I am wholeheartedly desiring is read nice and loudly by a slightly older woman.

Coke adds life, says British comedian Thomas, except in all the places where it brings death. The author, a pop-culture presence across the pond-when he started, he writes, "you didn't have to fuck a footballer or eat kangaroo penis on a reality show to appear on TV"-offers plenty of witty, humorous lines, but his purpose is serious.

I looked around rather sheepishly and nodded that yes, that was the book I wanted to read, thank you. I'm rather proud of my resolve that I pressed on to order the other one, titled "As Used on Nelson Mandela" and shows the author on the cover holding a lovely assault weapon.

You know that thing that's been buzzing about in the news for a while now, about how the government can take a peek at your book store purchases or your library checkouts? I dread to think what some profiler would do with mine sometimes.

From here until next Friday, the posting may be spotty at best. I'll be going down to the camp with the lower grades for a time, and dearly as I love it I'm not sure my Blackberry can handle the strain of the length of stuff I yammer on about.

Here, go read the Internet Review of Books while I'm gone. And if it's been updated before you've read this, go and read it again.

Cheers

I Wanna Tank (aka A Letter to the DoD)

2009-06-01T16:42:00.004-04:00

(If the concept of satire is foreign to you, click here)

Dear DoD,

In looking over my tax records, it would seem I have contributed a great deal of money to programs that are related to national defense and security. Proportionally, more money is spent on national security than ever before. Now, I realize we had an attack eight years ago, but come on now; we both know that just the absence of another "bad thing" happening doesn't prove efficacy.

Now I know you're not spending all of that money doing crazy things. I mean, I was going to spend a tax refund on a new television, but I'm sure you guys are much more intelligent than that. You wouldn't be spending it on outfitting surveillance units just to watch the people you're supposed to be protecting, of course. Oh, and also if you were, there's that whole matter of directionality. Trying to watch everyone doesn't work (ask England).

So here's what I'm proposing. I've been wanting to take a vacation up to Maine for a while now, but those roads are just too damn potholey, and rough. I think you could make up a little of the money I've been paying by letting me borrow a tank. Doesn't have to be a brand new one, or even a modern one. Hell, I could stand for you to remove the ammunition. Don't mess with the gun's outsides though; I want to do what you guys do and scare the hell out of people. Can't blame me for emulation, right?

Anyway, let me know what you think. Oh, and if I hit anyone don't worry at all. I'll say that they were a terrorist. Promise.

Internet Review of Books - "Quiverfull"

2009-05-30T21:04:00.004-04:00

This is the review that is going to be going into the June issue of the Internet Review of Books. I just finished it, so it's largely unedited, but I wanted to get it up on here. This book scared me, actually. The full title is Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement. (6/1/09 - replaced the previous version with the one that is actually going to appear. I decided to remove the old one and edit in the new one so it wasn't repetitive and didn't take up too much space on the front.

It's a strange thing how sometimes what may appear to be laudable in one context becomes tainted, reconfigured and repackaged in such a way that you're no longer comfortable with it. For example, I believe there there is some fundamental calls for a higher order of respect that is due to a lady from a man. It might be old-fashioned, but those ideas were instilled in me very early. Hold doors, let the lady go first, and all of the other qualities were reinforced frequently. I just do those things under the spirit of politeness, not out of some fundamental inequality. I'm perfectly assured that she could open the door, or not go first and there would (by and large) be no problem with that.

But I did think of exactly those things when I read Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce. What happens when you are involved in a world where, under the guise of politeness and biblical stringency, one begins to control the entire life of a woman, calling it the duty of women to submit? This book answers that question, and the answers alternate between the horrifying and the depressing.

First of all, I need to express some bias. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm a lapsed Catholic who has thought about, read about, or listened to nearly every religion or spirituality there is. I am prepared to show any belief respect, and any practitioner respect until they show me that they're not prepared to reciprocate. I also have a long libertarian streak in me, and it has a tendency to raise the hackles when I hear about someone being oppressed by any kind of dictatorship, whether it's in a country or whether it's in a home. The challenge in this particular review is going to be to maintain my objectivity on the subject, and limit the comments to the text.

Conveniently, this brings me around to the initial point that caused me some concern. I have a bit of leeway, as I'm just reviewing, but it seemed to me that there was not even a semblance of objectivity in Joyce's book. It was very clear from the beginning that there was going to be none, as well. In discussing the quote by one of the patriarchy movement's authors ("Ideas have consequences") she speaks of the movements response to the problems occurring in society today.

"...But they also mean a more general point: an all purpose "I told you so" to a society that has embraced, even to a limited extent, modern notions of women's autonomy, broad definitions of family and love, and a high valuation of individual rights and fulfillment that, as they see it, can threaten the good of a community at large. When the lumbering conventional wisdom of centrist politics gets around to registering the effects of these ideas - sexual revolution ideas, in short - Weaver's [the author being referred to] fans smile ruefully: they could have told you that feminism would lead to nothing good."

I have to confess that my criticism of a lack of objectivity is not a strong one, and it was simply intended to point out that if you are expecting such, you are not going to find it within these pages. Instead, you're going to hear stories that are deeply disturbing, especially when we see how close this country came to a world in which the "right wing" (a place where many of these ideas have a home) continued to dominate culture at large.

It would do to mention, at least in basic terms, what the beliefs of the patriarchy movement are. First, and foremost, the belief is one in the utter supremacy and instructions of the bible, which is to be followed absolutely. As a result, and citing the stories of Genesis, a woman's place is in submission to her husband. The prevailing notion is that she is not equal, but rather created as helper and follower. Trying to do jobs outside the home (except as last resort) is to be strictly forbidden, attempting to espouse any interpretation of events is denied, and it seems like the by-words consist of "seen and not heard" in the public arena. To define terms more thoroughly, the title of the book is derived from the name of a term used to describe one particular "packet" of thought within the Christian patriarchy movement. The Quiverfull set of ideas specifically relate to children, but they are a part of the larger patriarchy movement and are tied (I would argue inextricably) to it. Quiverfull families cite Psalm 127:3-5 as the basis for their beliefs on the practice of procreation.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD:
and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man;
so are children of the youth.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:
they shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. KJV

As a result of their interpretation of this, there are to be no preventative measures to children being born, up to and including non-"treatment based" abortive measures. Any notion of "family planning" that does not begin with and end with the idea of "the more the merrier" is absolutely forbidden. This aspect of the Christian Patriarchy leads to some ideas that make up the core of the movement. First, that every woman in the movement is considered a "fountainhead" for the soldiers of a vanguard of Christ (I'm tightly paraphrasing), and one day through their efforts the "faithful" will just outnumber those who are not. Also, it implies a very basic differentiation and stratifying of women in the Christian Patriarchal community. The tacit statement is if you can have children, you'd better be; if you are having them, you're wonderful; and if you can't have them, you are not a worthy part of the community. With the inescapable interweaving of those two concepts (Quiverfull, and Christian Patriarchy), there are some very real, and very frightening thoughts that exist in the world at large. The fact remains that I believe Joyce subscripted one part of her title in reverse - the Christian Patriarchy is her discussion point, Quiverfull philosophy is a part of that.

If those seem painful to any of you reading, I don't blame you. Frankly I've never considered myself much of a feminist reader or writer, but I had a hundred moments when reading this that I considered renouncing the connection I have to a gender, simply because of these forced situations. I, and I suspect others, cannot agree with any "divine law" that turns one person into an indentured servant, while the other gets absolute power. That is utter folly.

The power divide does not work either. I will forego a direct quotation here as it amounts to an entire chapter in Joyce's text, but I'll attempt to give the shortened version. A husband and wife are having marital problems. The husband is behaving madly, accusing the wife of fictional affairs, committing acts of verbal abuse, and other acts of cruelty. Eventually (it's terrifying that I had to write eventually there) the wife goes to her pastor, a person who, ostensibly, is trained to handle problems of a spiritual or emotional nature. She is told that it is her "lack of submission" that is causing her husband to falter, and that she should "try harder." She is made to take on certain written agreements that are notarized by other "leading families" of the church. These agreements read like a contract of war and state that the wife shall not talk about the husband disparagingly to anyone, for any reason. She shall follow his words in all instances. She is told that her options are to leave in shame and embarrassment from her community, or sign. She signs, in tribute to the power of a human spirit to be captured by the hypnotic sway of a voice that promises answers. The violence, abuse, and danger occurs more, and more, and finally in a state of absolute desperation, the wife returns to the pastor. The pastor yells at her, denounces her, and tells her she is sinning; that she is a "Jezebel." This accusation points to a biblical passage on that figure, but also means something more in the context of the Patriarchal movement. Though Eve was burdened with the "original sin," it is Jezebel for her rebellion and attempts at dominance THROUGH a man that ranks her as such anathema in the community that follows this belief.

It does not end there. Breaking any expectation of privacy that is to be expected between a spiritual leader and his congregation, their preacher told the entire congregation about the wife's failure. The community turned against them. They were persecuted for the mere fact that the wife wanted to get away from an abusive situation. Angry letters began to flood in. Phone calls were made. Persecution in return for belief, hatred when compassion was looked for.

This book was a difficult one to get through. It will be even more difficult when we consider the sense of scale of the population involved. The numbers, according to Joyce, while small are growing. She suggests that the increasing number of home-schooled children, while not always members of a Patriarchal movement, provides some benchmark as to the number of children being born into communities that will function exactly this way. To give a sense of scope as well as scale, one of the doctrinal messages of a patriarchal church was signed by Mike Huckabee. One of the most frightening ideas, especially to anyone who lives in absolute terror of anything that calls itself "Fundamentalism," is that the idea of the Quiverfull means two things. The first, numbers are going to swell until the more liberal thinking of us find ourselves outnumbered by sheer mass. The second - a quiver tends to have a very specific use, and that is almost universally martial. The ideology is a declaration of war.

The stories within are frightening, but as philosophers from Nietzche to Green Day (I'll reserve judgement on their philosopher status...) have said, one needs to know what you're up against when you're trying to make a change in the world. Frankly if it ever came to a point where the dominant ideology was the Patriarchy, even as a male (who in the cosmic coin toss came out on top, it seems) I would seek a new place to live. Either that or be considered a heretic. On that spirit of submission, I would like to offer to the Patriarchy movement one parting shot that I am sure they will appreciate, if only to cement the role in this psychodrama that I'd be only too happy to play.

"Better to reign in hell, than serve in Heaven"

Holocaust Discussions, Insomnia, and British Comedians

2009-05-29T17:59:00.003-04:00

Today in school...

We had a presentation by a woman who had been involved in the holocaust. She was not directly involved, but her parents were in the concentration camps. I suppose it was inaccurate to say then that she wasn't directly involved, but she herself was not in the camp. Anyway...

We heard the entire presentation, and by and large there were no problems so this isn't going to devolve into some longwinded rant on that particular topic. Instead, I wanted to actually talk about the aftermath. Going to take me a bit to get there, though.

I listen to CDs at night as I'm going to sleep, because I struggle with insomnia and it helps. I tend to listen to one of two things - either drumming CDs (I'm not picky about authenticity) or comedy albums. As most people know I'm an anglophile and I really like British culture. It's something I've had and I affect little bits and pieces (you've probably noticed the "u"s in words, etc.) so I tend to download British comics.

Well, a few weeks ago, I downloaded Mark Thomas. The album was called "The Night War Broke Out." I listened to it, off iTunes, and I'll confess the reason I downloaded it first I will say in my purest form of Anglophilia; "British accent; brilliant!" Then obviously I listened to the thing.

It did nothing for my insomnia.

Instead I stayed up for the full duration listening. This was hysterical, and insightful, and politically acute. Admittedly it was United Kingdom politics, but it was as applicable here. So then I downloaded Dambusters. If you have not heard that (and I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven't) you need to go to this link and read:

http://www.markthomasinfo.com

If you don't get moved by that CD alone, you're not a human being. And it's a bloody *COMEDY* album! That happened to be the one I was listening to last night before I woke up, and it's topics include the Illsu Dam and the Kurdish discrimination and genocide. It was a very appropriate way to get into the day.

And that brings me up to my classroom, 9:40 (and again at other regular intervals - I have to do the same thing five times over the course of the day - it's part of the job).

"First of all, class, are there any questions? I know we didn't get every question you had for our speaker answered, and I'll do my best."

They asked some questions. "Why didn't she just leave?" "Did she have the tattoo?" "Could she ever go back to Poland?" and many other questions even more astute. Then I decided that I had to ask them a question in return.

"Could this [the holocaust] ever happen again?"

Their answers ran a huge gamut. Of course it couldn't happen again, no one would allow it. People today are more intelligent; they wouldn't hate someone just because of their religion. One of them, which I'm going to paraphrase here, said something to the effect of: "It could happen, but it'd end very quickly because people would step in and stop it."

I listened to it all, and they looked back secure in their answers. I paused, and finally told them to go home and search for words. I told them to search for Burma, Darfur, Colombia, East Timor, the Kurds, Ghana, Bosnia, Herzegovina. Some of them were places where THE SAME THING had happened in recent history. In some places, it was happening as we spoke.

One of the kids, after she had managed to pick her jaw up off the table said, with absolutely heartbreaking earnestness, "Why? Why don't we stop them?"

Frankly I wasn't sure whether I wanted to come out and tell her that in most of those cases it was probably just too profitable for our country to NOT help. I know where they were coming from, thinking that this country should be the "knight in shining armour." It's something that you kind of get drilled into your head pretty early.

I didn't leave it gloomy though. I told them something that I was actually pretty proud of. I'm going to type it from memory in here, as best I can. I'm going to retype it as a quote, but...that's not 100% accurate since I might take a little license here and there.

"What can you do? Well, you need to read. You need to read the news that comes from everywhere. From this country, from other countries. Google is wonderful; it will translate things for you. I'm an English teacher, and I have to believe that words are powerful. Sometimes you'll hear that words are unimportant; it's only actions that matters. And that's true. But actions grow in the mind, and the mind makes decisions and decisions is what makes us act."

I then passed around the chart by Gregory Stanton that I found on wikipedia (I'll put in the link) and told them to pay attention to the first three items. These were items that could be found in our own anti-bullying discussions.

I think, I hope, there were some connections that were made.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide )

Of Lawnmowers and Copylefting

2009-05-28T16:35:00.000-04:00

This article is going to be printed at the Internet Review of Books.

Spring has finally come, and with it all of the aggravations and annoyances that are part and parcel of that horrid season. As one typing from the perspective of an allergy sufferer, I can tell you that Eliot had it wrong by about thirty days - May is the cruelest month, breeding green pollen from angry buds.

Nevertheless, I'd like to take the opportunity to tell a story. As my students are reading "The Once and Future King" right now, I'll even go one step further and suggest that this has elements of parable, and satire (and if one of my students is actually ever reading this, you'd better know what those two words mean). It begins as you look out and see the grass rising like a tide up your outside walls.

You decide that you want to go out and purchase for yourself a brand new lawnmower. Not for you is the dull drudgery of the push-along lawnmower, nor do you particularly fancy another rider in the ubiquitous green, red or orange. You are at a point in your life where you require the very best lawncare appliance that money can buy. Arriving at the gardening center, you inform the overjoyed assistants of your new resolutions. They show you an immaculate creation, the lawn mower that the archangels themselves might ride as they mow the lawns of the heavens. A chrome and polished exterior that would look more at home in the pages of the "lifestyles of the appallingly rich" section of...well, the whole magazine would probably bear that title, frankly. This is no mere lawnmower. This is the grass exterminator, the template from which all other mowers are seen, as through a glass darkly. Enthralled, hypnotized even, you hand over "your money" (I will comment on my punctuation later) and cart your lawn starship home.

Using it, you are aware of the jealous, envious, and covetous eyes upon you and your new purchase. You ride slightly higher in the plush seat, setting your iced coffee into the cupholder (one of ten, conveniently placed!) and think, "I have indeed made it to the promised land."

Later on that week, your neighbour and best of friends, Cory (I use this name as homage) asks if he might borrow your conveyance. He wishes, if even for a moment, to experience the good life. As he is your nearest and dearest friend you agree. Smiling like a child being given not only candy, but the virtual golden ticket to the factory, Cory begins to ascend to the seat; a modern day Hilary scaling that mountain of luxury.

He is stopped, however. From seemingly nowhere, a van that is as green as the trees it passes tears down the road, and up the lawn towards you both, tearing up large swathes of grass in the process. Men climb out of the van, wearing green windbreakers, blazoned with the initials "LIAA" in large capital letters. One of them, marked as the leader by his speaking while the others remained silent, removes mirrored sunglasses and announces the party to be representatives of the "Lawnmower Industry of American Agriculture."

"What madness, this?" he shouts, upon seeing Cory mere inches away from positioning himself upon that mountain of comfort and opulence. "Do you not know that one, and only one, may sit upon that seat, from now until the end of days? We, the beneficent lawnmower industry have licensed this vehicle unto you, and you alone."

Taken aback not only by the sudden appearance of the before unknown group, but the strangeness of their speech, you respond calmly assured of some mistake, and respond in kind for reasons known only to yourself. "Nay, for surely I paid for this with mine own money, that I earned toiling day after day. I am entitled to do as I see fit with it. I am sorry you were misinformed."

The LIAA clad gentleman smiles avuncularly, in a patronizing manner that is able to simultaneously tell you that you are the largest fool ever to grace this earth, and that he bears a secret intelligence far superior to your own. "No, sir, you see, that is where you are mistaken. You merely have a license to possess that machine. It is a common enough mistake. You do not own this machine, no no no. You just have our permission to use it."

"Ah! Now I see the problem. You think this was leased, or rented. No, I signed not an agreement of that nature, but rather a bill of sale. This is mine as surely as the seed that created the lawn below us, or the hose I water it with. If my friend wishes to ride it, that is my own concern."

His grandfatherly visage cracking under such terror as irrefutable logic, the man says annoyedly, "Well well! How are we to ever sell lawnmowers again if you are lending them? Soon you shall be fruitful, and loan your fine machine to any and all who ask of it!"

Suddenly wondering exactly when it was that your local pharmacy ran out of antipsychotic medication, you look askance at the gentleman. "Surely you cannot be serious. If Cory likes this tractor, he will buy one of his own. Then, through my lending, you will have made a sale. How could you argue with such trade?"

The green clothed man looked as though he would momentarily dissolve into apoplexy. "Do you not know that this," he points menacingly at Cory, as if his finger alone were capable of delivering the death blow he desired, "abomination is an ENGINEER? The lowest of the low. My God, man, he will look at your mower, hear the purr of its engine, feel the slickness of its movement and he will make his own. He will copy it, steal it, indeed, make it belong to him!"

Upset at hearing your comrade maligned so, and being done with the conversation as it stood, you said "Could not anyone with enough time do so? This grows ridiculous, and you are no longer welcome here to continue."

At this, the LIAA man hears a chirp from his mobile which hangs upon his belt like a weapon. He answers it, listening, a smile of such pure and utter malevolence it drips like infernal syrup spreading across his lips. "Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all. Now, feel free to share your mower as much and as far as you please with the blessing of the LIAA."

All concerned departed to their respective locations. You on foot, Cory upon the borrowed machine, and the LIAA men in their van. The next day, you are awakened by a resounding explosion. A bedraggled Cory limps from the remains of what was his garage.

"Good Gods above!" he cries. "You'll never believe it. The damnedest thing just happened. Every lawncare appliance in my garage just exploded! Even the rake!"

"Your mower is fine, though."

Here, if this were a parable from "The Once and Future King", Merlyn would stop and act as explicator for the parable that was told. I'll don my wizard's hat for a moment (don't doubt that I have one!) and do some illuminating. The concept of licensing for a product that you yourself own is a a new reality, but not neccessarily a new concept. DRM, or Digital Rights Management, is the computer form of the idea of protection of the ever elusive "intellectual property."

Today, there are stark dividing lines between warriors on either side of the divide, and I have to confess there are some members of the hard and fast intellectual property advocate crowd who are marking me down on blacklists as you read these words, ready to come at me brandishing copies of relevant litigation and the dreaded (damned, even!) "Digital Millenium Copyright Act." As writers in the age of technology we are not marketing our words. We're marketing ourselves as writers of these words.

Frankly (relevant people, do not try to slay me for this, I'm making a point) I don't care if you copy this, click an ad, or call a friend over to read it. I don't care if you send this to every friend you've ever had, or would like to have (Don't spam though; cats are lovely but...God help me if I see another). The only thing I really care about is that you say that I wrote it, and that you continue to keep this version, and all others that are created from it, absolutely free to distribute. Sounds like a really cool idea, doesn't it? Here, go read this link, then come back; I'll wait.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

People really can do it, and make money doing it! I'll talk about that if the powers that be let me come back another time.

You're pretty far in this article now, which means you've spent a few minutes just listening to me. And there's a chance by the time that this gets on the internet, that I've never met you before. That, to me, is awesome. I won't get "high and mighty" and suggest some sort of intrinsic integrity as an artist here. I just think it's neat that someone wants to hear from me, and it makes me feel good.

Now what in all creation does this have to do with lawnmowers, you ask yourself. Here it is. You own a book. You're reading this (I presume) on the Internet Review of Books site, so I'm guessing you own a few of them. You've probably copied lines or passages of a few of them into your little moleskine notebooks, as I have. You've probably lent them to friends. And you've probably done the same with vinyl albums, CDs, Movies, etc. How, pray tell, does that change when you put the exact same media on a computer? Why? I still own the book. I still own the CD (in conceptual form). Who in this country would tell me I can't do whatever I want with my own property?

I've stopped feeling like Merlyn, and my hat is starting to become more like a stereotypical cowboy hat. I've become an extra in a Western, demanding the rights to my own property in the frontier. I'd best let you make your own decisions while I mosey on off into the sunset.

A few footnotes that I believe you may find relevant.

- In case it wasn't clear from the parable above, lawnmowers are media files (music, movies, even books) and the LIAA is...well...I leave you to your own devices there.

- The money that you're spending isn't even your own. It is the property of the government, and it's only really worth something because "they promise" it is.

- The name Cory is in reference to author Cory Doctorow who would and has said what I just did, only much better. His website is http://craphound.com

- I do credit Apple with the removal of DRM, but the industry is vicious and will find another way around this freedom to do what we want with our property.

- I have heard of programs that do exactly what my fictional lawnmower did (destroy other songs/movies/media files on your computer).

- I know nothing practical of lawncare

Between Standardized Testing and a Hard Place

2009-05-28T16:18:00.000-04:00

I wrote this several months ago regarding the state of education in this country. It's a topic that I'm particularly interested in, given my profession. It reads a bit like a manifesto, but I suppose that is the way of it.

This is an open letter to public educators, parents, staff, students, private educators, scholars, employees of any town, and all of humanity in general. The message I am going to speak is important enough that if you are capable of processing the words that I have written here, you are my audience. If you were taught, at some point in your life, to realize that the stark black marks upon the page have meaning beyond their appearance, you are my audience.

I write to you because we are in great danger, every single one of us - Not from the current and tenuous position we as a country hold in the world, not from the economy, and not from the hundreds of other very real threats we face. The danger I am speaking of is far more fundamental, far more central to the core of our beliefs as a community of intelligent, thinking citizens. I speak to you today of the erosion of the public education system, and I will say many things. Not all of you will be happy, and many of you will react in the ways that have become second nature to you now when you hear my words. Skepticism, doubt, fear, anger, distrust; these are the things what I say will undoubtedly be met with. Know that I do not blame you. I am not apart from you. I hear the lies of the politicians, those in power, as well as you do. We have every right to be skeptical. Do not turn your skepticism into deafness, though. When you stop listening, you stop thinking.

I write to you because we are in great danger as a people, and I write because we as a people, are posing a danger. Education as we know it is under attack from many angles, and the time has past for someone to stand up and say something, anything, to get people to look at all of the issues that need to be discussed. The time for passive "chat" is over. The time for meetings is over. The time for focus groups is over. Look at what we have created, audience, and realize that we need to change now. That change must come from all points, or none. There is no middle ground anymore.

I am a teacher. Those words should be filled with pride, and in the occupation and its great history I have nothing but. All too often, however, I have seen the attacks coming. I am going to share the with you, and let you make up your own minds. In the end, the most powerful thing any of us have is our ability to think, reason, and ultimately, to effect change.

The culture of schooling has changed. Older teachers remember the days when it seemed that parents and the community came into schools with solutions, with open arms, and engaged in a partnership. On the whole, parents would work with teachers, and see them as allies. Not only allies in getting their children through the school, and enriching their lives with learning, but as functioning and skilled members of the community. Over the recent years, that has changed. No group is blameless, and no group deserves all of the blame. Parents, your jobs are hard, and no one denies that. No one denies that your children are special, and that each one of them has something to contribute to school and the society at large. Teachers, no one doubts that your jobs are hard, and no one denies that you have a great many children to work with at any given moment. Both sides must realize that they are not being persecuted, and that belief must be grounded in reality. Parents, I appeal to you in this, see the danger we are in. We are not after your children, and you can trust what is said. Is a wonderful, productive, and mutually beneficial year with your child's teacher not worth the risk of a poor grade on a homework? A quiz? A test? Educators strive on a daily basis to be as fair as they possibly can, and no one is seeking to harm your child. You do not need to battle for every grade, because you are fighting for something empty. I know it is difficult to fight the fiction, but you are not fighting for something real when you demand an A rather than a B. You are fighting for the self-same marks on paper I described early, you are not fighting what is behind them. If a student does not know something, then you are not fighting their ignorance by fighting for a different grade. You are not combatting their lack of knowledge, you are merely combatting the mark that is written on a piece of paper. That is a hollow victory, if it could be called a victory at all. As I'm positive you as intelligent people can see, the propagation of ignorance is not a victory, but a tragic low-note in the history of humanity.

To continue, upon the idea of the benefits outweighing the cost, I am forced to ask a painful question. I know that parents, students, everyone want the best for the children of our society, of our world. Does it not become incumbent upon us as responsible adults to prepare them for it? Too many structures exist in our schools and in our educational system that have become abused, and denigrated to the point of near uselessness. We are attempting to prepare students for the real world, the world where jobs will not ask for accommodations, where professors will not put homework up in twenty different locations to make sure students get it. We are attempting to prepare them for a world where strangers on the bus will be eating peanuts, and where the doctors we visit will be using latex gloves. We are attempting to prepare them for a real world where sometimes there is only one chance. Sometimes the stakes are high, and sometimes there is no such thing as a retake, regardless of need. We have to stop the tide of accommodations in the schools as knee-jerk reactions to a problem, and think about their global impact. The more we create, the more we follow, the more we take away from our collective ability to handle the real issues, the dramatic ones that must be handled. I veer towards ideas that some are not comfortable with, but I am not writing to comfort you. I am writing to make everyone see what is happening, and we must all think about it before it becomes too late for the system to be saved. Rethink IEPs. Rethink restrictions. Rethink accommodations. Risks are something we should educate about, not insulate against. If we insulate against every risk, we create a society of people who will one day make decisions regarding our lives who are incapable of handling the responsibility.

Responsibility. It is a word that I used moments ago as a concept that I assumed all of my readers had a fundamental understanding of. Look around though, especially if you are a parent and are reading this within eyeshot of your children. Am I right? Should I assume that responsibility still holds the sway and power that it once did? There will always be those who buck responsibility, but it is becoming moment by moment, day by day, something that is far more systemic. Multiple redundancies, technology, and the increased dependency upon "retakes," "extra credit," and "excused absences," are making responsibility at best difficult to acquire and at worst unneccessary. Our children are smart. Our children are talented. Our children are, however, above and beyond all else, human. If they see an opportunity to do a little work, and get the greatest possible gain, they will do that bare minimum. Our urgings, our statements of what they should want to do come across as nothing but meaninglessly pedantic gestures. To say that a student wants to be "independent" in one breath, then excuse their absences and missing homework with a note in the next is an empty gesture, and the two ideas are so opposite one another that they becoming meaningless.

On the subject of teachers, we must realize that we are not blameless in this issue either. We took a responsibility, and I might argue a sacred responsibility when we took this job. We agreed that for a portion of the young people in this country's life, we would watch over them and act as their stewards in their quest for education and knowledge. We must recognize that there cannot be an "us against them" mentality. Ever. We must listen to the students we are responsible for, we must hear them, and we must know everything about them. To paraphrase from an inspirational pamphlet I once read, it is our interpretation, and it is our values that give meaning to those marks on paper. We make an "A" an "A" and we can just as easily make a "C" feel like an "A" and a "B" feel like a "D." That is power that is not invested in the letter, the letter is meaningless. It is our decisions, and the values we place on them that make them meaningful. We must stop thinking of the letters and the numbers as the sum total of scholastic life. The numbers and the letters are but a small portion in the overall picture.

The matter of numbers must force our attention to another topic, one that should be just as frightening as some of the other items I have mentioned. It goes by many names - "high stakes testing," "MCAS," "Standardized Testing," but every name suggests the same thing - an objective measure of student performance. I am not writing today with a political agenda to remove this type of testing. I think that like everything in education it requires a balance to look at its meaning. There are those, and we all know them, who frantically run to the grade reports when they are published and hunt through surrounding towns to see how "we" compared to "them." I say to you that that action is depraved, in ways that should terrify you to the core. You wish to gloat, or fear, the success or failure of another town, of other children? The only reason they are not your own children is because they are some miles apart. We need to look at those numbers as a part in a bigger picture. They are not, nor should they ever be, akin to the sports scores in a local paper. That is a travesty that should never be allowed by a thinking populace.

There are other issues, to be certain, but my job is drawing to an end here. Yours is just beginning. Do not clip this out of a newspaper. Do not email it to others. Do not read it to your friends, colleagues, or neighbours unless you are prepared to act. Unless you are prepared to stop being a part of the undifferentiated, the uncaring, the mass of people who think this "isn't their problem," you have no business continuing this document. For those of you that are with me, those of you who believe that it is time for a change, and that it is a change we can accomplish, then start today. Start now, and commit to the process. We will see that change that we want.

Internet Review of Books - "Devil May Care"

2008-11-01T19:56:00.002-04:00

My review of Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, writing as Ian Fleming as it appeared in the November 2008 issue of the Internet Review of Books.

Allow me to share with you my expectations when seeing a James Bond film. I time my trips to the theater, having carefully studied the optimal times when there are the fewest fellow film-goers. I buy a large popcorn, and a water (we must be healthy nowadays, after all), and take my seat. For a period of approximately two hours, I am entertained by explosions, car-chases, scintillating “Bond girls,” and gadgets. Upon leaving, I consider going into the nearest place where alcoholic libations are sold, and ordering a “martini; shaken, not stirred,” in my best Sean Connery accent. I am well aware of the anachronism there. My desire is to see a “super agent” who transcends the ordinary. I am a forensic television junkie, but sometimes I don’t want to hear that something is “implausible.” I want a world where people are able to have wrist mounted lasers capable of cutting through steel. My Bond movie ritual has been in place since I was able to see non-Disney films away from protective parents. I am a Bond veteran.

Sebastian Faulks, chosen by Ian Fleming’s estate to write an official James Bond installment on the 100th anniversary of Fleming’s birth, has written a Bond novel that I would not want to see as a part of my ritual. Gone is the Bond who is completely smooth with the ladies, never at a loss for retort or taunt, and so utterly sure of his actions that he is an inspiration. Instead, we see a Bond who is older, arguably wiser, and ultimately a bit more “realistic.” Despite his drastic departure from the “film Bond,” Faulks creates an entirely compelling novel, turning Bond for the first time in my experience into something other than a cardboard cutout, or a comic book superhero. James Bond, in the world Mr. Faulks has created, is just a man.

The story begins with a James Bond who is nothing like the roguish gentleman we have come to expect. His aging is not particularly graceful. Though Faulks does his best to cover the tracks, one cannot help but think that Bond is past his prime, regularly losing energy in some of the acrobatics that were his wont in generations past. Further, and most tellingly, his flirtations with his secretary, and one might argue common-law wife, Miss Moneypenny, are treated with the air of an old man flirting with a young waitress:

“You wait till I get back from Paris,” Bond said as he headed towards the lift. “Then I’ll give you cause for heavy breathing.”

“‘Deep breathing’ was the expression, James. There is a difference.”

“Or if you insist on splitting hairs I shall have to resort to something firmer. A good spanking, perhaps. So you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

“Really, James, you’re all talk these days.”

The lift doors closed before Bond could come up with a reply. As he sank through the floors of the building, he remembered Larissa’s puzzled face in the hotel doorway in Rome. All talk. Perhaps Moneypenny was right.

Fortunately for the reader, Bond is not actually all talk. There is still enough action in the book to keep the reader grounded in the reality of Fleming’s protagonist. The effect of weakening Bond as a character serves in turn to elevate the heroism of the plot. This is an “old wolf” struggling against a tide of youth, and still showing that he has the strength and tenacity to stay viable in that world.

No discussion of a Bond story can go very far without introducing the villain. The villain in this case is a rather insidious one known as Dr. Gorner. Gorner is a pharmaceutical mogul, both licit and illicit. His modus operandi is to addict his employees to various narcotics, thus creating willing slave labor. The ubiquitous malady that this villain suffers causes Gorner’s hand to appear exactly like that of a primate, or “monkey paw.” The astute reader will notice that this ailment alludes to the short story of the same name. To this reader, it seems like a hollow allusion, however, as there is no comparison or reference to the actual W.W. Jacobs text.

After bedding the female protagonist and saving the world, Faulks lets the story trail off into a looming “what next?” We are left with an unsettled feeling as to how long he can keep it up. One must wonder, certainly M must, how much longer James can hold the 007 title. The answer, Faulks hints at, is not as long as his fans might want.

Internet Review of Books - "Reunion"

2008-06-01T20:07:00.000-04:00

My review of "Reunion" from the June 2008 issue of The Internet Review of Books.

Creating a parallel narrative is a tricky procedure at best. For an author to create one story line and have it interest a reader for the length of the standard novel is a task, daunting in its own regard. To create two, however, is tempting fate. In Daniel’s novel, Reunion, he attempts to do just that. The story is told from two unique vantage points: Tom Knowles is a middle aged émigré from a small town in Massachusetts. He resides in Los Angeles, where he is an average (or below average, were he doing the telling) writer of screenplays. With one novel to his name, Tom Knowles is by turns dissatisfied and awkwardly exultant about his life in LA, a town described in glowing and authorial terms by Tom himself as the pinnacle of vapidity. When opining about the ease of canceling and rescheduling plans in the Los Angeles scene, one of Tom’s former classmates asks whether the cancellation calls are awkward. Tom responds, “Who calls?”

The other vantage point comes from TK Knowles—Tom at the age of seventeen. In this narrative, we are presented with a coming of age story that spans some of the darker and more turbulent times in American history. McCarthyism, JFK’s assassination, and the wars raging across the seas serve as a backdrop for TK’s youth. Arguably, the chapters which bear the heading “TK” are the more interesting. Teenage morality (or lack there of) plays a pivotal role in the youthful TK’s life. First dates, first kisses, and other more prurient firsts take on a nearly holy quality, as though these things belonged to some pageant of sacred adolescence. While some authors have a tendency to sanitize and through this elegize their created youths, Daniel pares down a significant amount of the artifice and shows us an adolescence more recognizable as our own.

The plot of the story starts out small, and seems, as one of the supporting characters might say, to grow exponentially. The reader is first introduced to Tom as he is traveling back to Weybridge, Massachusetts, to settle his mother into a nursing facility and attend his high school reunion. At this high school reunion, there is a lightning strike that sends the projection equipment into disarray and nearly kills our protagonist. It also puts this story on life-support. From here, the story spins out into a largely uncontrolled flight of fancy covering everything from time-travel to string theory. While I must confess I am not entirely understanding of string theory, I can say with certainty that the framework of the novel doesn’t support the wild notions that are dumped upon it.

It is there the parallel story line begins with TK as the archetypal small-town hero, with corresponding letter jacket, social problems, and quest for the opposite sex that sets this archetype into a place of its own. Shortly after the introduction, this football-playing clam digger becomes a hard-hitting social commentator in the school paper, writing his own column known as “Curb Feelers.” Starting out as a “sandbox” for TK to write his ideas and thoughts in, it quickly becomes a venting place for some of the oppressions caused by the “red scare” as it impacted schools. TK’s reporting ends with him running from a McCarthy-devotee truant officer intent on utilizing a night-stick for persuasion as well as federal agents.

With over half a dozen books to his name, one would expect fewer vagaries in the novel than are actually presented. This writing suggests a seasoned author trying to experiment with new forms and styles, and present a story that is patently different. While I can applaud this “scientific method” of experimentation, I might suggest a continuation of my metaphor: a good scientist always is able and willing to revise hypotheses. The hypothesis that forms this novel could definitely use some revision.

From a good premise, the story devolves quickly into an ill-begotten attempt to include nearly every genre into one. By the end of the novel, I was not entirely sure what had happened, where I was supposed to “be” in the reading of the story, or what the resolution actually was. Though the ride was enjoyable at times, it was enjoyable more for the clever tricks of prose that Daniel executed. When Tom Knowles returns to his hometown VFW hall for the reunion, he comments pithily, “that didn’t augur well; an evening of seeing ghosts would seem to call for stronger spirits.”

It is this reviewer’s opinion that upon seeing the ghosts of plot and form in this text, one would need the stronger spirits of cohesion and uniformity.

Internet Review of Books - "The Commission"

2008-04-01T19:52:00.002-04:00

My review of The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission as it was published on the Internet Review of Books in April of 2008.

I teach English to eighth graders, and one of the critical parts of my job is monitoring and critiquing social interaction. How students group themselves for a purpose is often fascinating, and the identifying characteristics of a “student grouping” are anecdotally known. Groups of individuals, seldom chosen for their abilities, come together simply because they are “good friends.” We’d like to think that after we walk out of those hallowed halls of middle school, this grouping ability gets better. As Philip Shenon proves, it doesn’t.

The Commission is a book that is deeply frightening. Shenon has researched a world in which warnings of an imminent attack were ignored, decisions were made based on party-line politics and not facts, and, most disturbingly, a “good old boy” network exists that will protect any failings.

This “good old boy” network began and was imported to Washington from Texas with President George W. Bush. Shenon describes a standing Bush administration policy of “message discipline.” “This White House seemed unwilling to tolerate public dissent, so it was almost never heard,” according to Tom Kean, the commission’s chairman, “even if it left Bush’s aides sounding robotic and unthinking in their public appearance.” This unthinking and “unquestioned loyalty to Bush and his family” became an integral aspect of the post 9/11 reaction. The idea of loyalty above all else led individuals involved in the commission to avoid using their power to its fullest. Subpoenas simply were not requested; cooperation that was promised was not given, and not pursued. According to Shenon, the “circling of the wagons” at the White House imposed a gag order so stringent that it almost stifled independent and rational thought.

Commisioners of the group were told that they had to “stand up,” “have courage,” and not allow the investigating body to become a “runaway commission.” Commissioner Kean “wanted to assume that he was being told by the White House to ‘stand up’ for the truth and to show ‘courage’ in following the trail of evidence about 9/11” The truth, as Shenon tells it, was far different.

“When Bush’s aides told him to ‘stand up,’ what they meant was that Kean and the commission needed to ‘stand up for the president,’ not necessarily for the truth. The truth was secondary. ‘You’ve got to stand up for the president and you’ve got to protect him in the process. That’s what they meant.’ It appeared that a ‘runaway commission’ was one that issued a final report concluding that Bush and his White House bore some responsibility for 9/11. ‘That was their nightmare,’ Kean said later. ‘I think they never lost that fear.’”

The “cloak and dagger” meetings and discussions that the 9/11 commission was involved in were eerily reminiscent of the meetings that are described in parallel between the terrorist cells that planned the destruction. The private phone calls and conspiratorial tones of the commissioners and their staff were disturbingly secretive. It was the type of secrecy that contributes directly to the vast number of conspiracy theories that exist in the world today. When answers are not forthcoming from a central authority, or worse, that central authority seems to be misleading the public, people will come up with their own interpretations.

One of Shenon’s strongest accomplishments in writing this book was to capture the frustrations and true feelings of the individuals involved. This is not a historical text in which the characters are measured purely on the basis of their actions, but also on the investment of emotion in the task at hand. In describing the commission’s choice for an individual to lead the day-to-day affairs of the group, Shenon reports the feelings of Richard A. Clarke, late of the National Security Council.

“Zelikow? Philip Zelikow?...‘The fix is in,’ said Clarke. He knew and disliked Zelikow. Christ, how could anybody be so stupid? He wondered. Condi’s [Condoleeza Rice’s] friend?”

This ability to explain a story on levels that are easily grasped helps us make sense of the 9/11 Commission’s report.

Reading this book as I have been in the moments between my classes, I am struck with a new realization. The next time I put my students into a group and watch them find their friends, watch them neglect those who could actually function well in the group and ignore those they dislike even if best qualified, I am going to be inescapably drawing parallels to my government. The thought is deeply frightening.

Internet Review of Books - "Engleby"

2008-01-01T20:01:00.000-05:00

My review of "Engleby" by Sebastian Faulks as it appeared in the January 2008 issue of the Internet Review of Books.

Horror writer Stephen King says “good art should make you uncomfortable,” and by this barometer Sebastian Faulks’ novel Engleby is good art. It is a vibrant journey through the mind of a character who, though appealing, is more than a little disturbing.

The setup for the story suggests we are about to enjoy the most basic of murder mysteries, yet Faulks and his narrator would undoubtedly feel they were cheating us if that were all we received. Engleby delights in sharing his wit, as when he is mulling the possibility of joining one of his classmates’ social clubs.

"I think I'll join this society of hers. It doesn't matter what it's for because they're all the same. They're all called something Soc, short for Society. Lab Soc, Lit Soc, Geog Soc. There’s probably a knitting group called Sock Soc."

We follow Engleby from a relatively poor working-class family in London to a prestigious “ancient university.” We are treated to the exact details of Engleby’s transition from studying literature—literature students will appreciate Engleby’s various assaults on the subject—to studying the natural sciences.

Engleby has a love of cold hard fact and an unusually dispassionate ability to observe other people. Faulks’ prose reflects this. At one point, the act of drawing a cigarette from its case, and lighting it, fills nearly a full page. The normally banal action takes on an almost poetic significance through the time invested in it.

Trouble begins for Engleby when his friend and fellow student Jennifer Arkland disappears and he becomes a suspect.

His ability to analyze the subtlest of events around him is not what makes Engleby the interesting character that he is. Engleby is interesting because he is an extremely unreliable narrator. From the beginning, his frequent “losses of time” confront the reader at every turn: from his recollections of school days to events following social gatherings, the reader is aware that Engleby’s memory is not what it might be. But this narrator has a capacious intellect, which is important in advancing a plot I don’t intend to spoil.

Not only are we reading an unusual mystery, Engleby offers us “internal criticism.” He provides a running commentary on social issues, with topics ranging from the rise of folk music to the proper way to study Jane Austen. Faulks takes a unique approach in describing Engleby's plea to the reader not to pigeonhole this novel.

"Don't patronise me if you read this thirty years on, will you? Don't think of me as old-fashioned, wearing silly clothes or some nonsense like that. Don’t talk crap about “the seventies,” will you, as we now do about “the forties.” I breathe air like you . . . So don't patronise me. (Unless of course you have completely overturned and improved my world, bringing peace and plenty, and a cure for cancer and schizophrenia, and a unified scientific explanation of the universe comprehensible to all, and a satisfactory answer to the philosophical and religious questions of our time. In which case you would be permitted to patronise primitive little 1973.)"

The staccato rhythms of Faulks’ prose will appeal to those who believe “brevity is the soul of wit.” Readers will relish the descriptive textures Faulks achieves by stacking staccato line upon staccato line. Despite the morbid subject matter, readers will delight in engaging with Engleby. The novel is rich in detail and never disappoints.