silence – Wetmachine

Whether Obama Will Fight For Public Option Is Irrelevant. The Question Is, Will We?

Harold August 17, 2009 February 25, 2013"A Republic, if you can keep it", Tales of the Sausage Factory

Chris Bowers, as usual, hits it dead on in this piece on OpenLeft. While we may despair of the Democrats lack of spine, the question is whether we are willing to stand up and fight for our principles.

Opponents of the public option are willing to make angry calls, attend rallies, spend money like water to make their point. Why shouldn’t a rational member of Congress assume that they carry the majority if we cannot muster a tenth of the enthusiasm to fight for our principles?

Donna Edwards (D-MD) spoke at America’s Future Now in June. As the audience pressed their demands she responded “Look, I’ve been to a whole bunch of Progressive retreats. I know what the demands are. The question is whether any of you will actually make calls to members of Congress to try to make this happen.”

And now we find that the Obama Administration has taken the silence of the Progressive movement as a willingness to compromise. Why are we surprised? But the question is not whether Obama is a good or bad person, a traitor, a realist, a disappointment, or anything having to do with Obama. The question is, what are we going to do. As the Bible tells us:

It is not in Heaven, that you shall say: “Who shall ascend into Heaven and bring down the Word to us that we may hear it and obey.” Nor is it over the sea, that you shall say: “Who shall go over the sea and bring back the Word that we may hear it and obey.” For the Word is near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for YOU TO DO. (Deut. 30:12-14 )

As always, we must rely upon ourselves, not some imagined political party. How can we be betrayed if we will not even get up off our ass to fight?

Stay tuned . . . .

Being There

Stearns May 30, 2009 February 25, 2013Inventing the Future, workflow

We’ve all seen the cartoons of people sitting next to each other in silence and texting each other. I just picked up my daughter from a concert where she did exactly that.

At work, we meet for a few hours in-world at least twice a week. Usually at least one of us is in some other part of the world and a few at home, but sometimes we’re all in the same room with headphones on. It isn’t always better than being in the same room with someone, it isn’t always worse. It’s just different, although occasionally it isn’t even that.

For folks growing up with texting and ubiquitous computing, it seems working with others in a virtual world should not be an issue. But circumstances matter (context is king) in ways that I still don’t understand. I’m disappointed that even we are passing up some working relationships that are long distance even as we do others that are global.

Sometimes you text the person next to you and sometimes you have to get on a plane.

Newsom/Christie: Images to Sounds: Hear to There

John March 18, 2009 March 18, 2009General, My Thoughts Exactly

Over on his other, “real” blog, neutrino/hadron-class Wetmachiner David Newsom tells this charming story about how his book of photographs, SKIP, inspired somebody he’d never met to write a song cycle:

So, a little while back, I got an inquiry from a woman named Holly Christie about one of my pieces, “Blue Truck”. Turns out she’d been looking over Perceval Press’ web site, and she’d come across my book SKIP.

Anyway, she liked it, bought it, and we struck up a dialogue. As fate would have it, Ms. Christie is a singer/songwriter. One year later, thanks to the seemingly infinite generosity of the folks at Perceval Press, Ms. Christie has released a small collection of beautifully produced songs, inspired by SKIP, titled, “To Hear From There”.

It’s kind of amazing. Most times, we put these things out there and they’re met with silence, sometimes a nod. But, man, when they inspire others to take the painstaking journey that, say, producing an EP requires, well, you’ve gotta feel good.

Definitely worth a look. And follow the links to Christie’s site to hear the songs. Definitely worth a listen.

Judge overturns ISP provisions of PATRIOT act

Gary September 30, 2004 February 24, 2013General Exception, I Fear These Things

A judge has struck down a portion of the PATRIOT act which requires ISPs to hand over records on their customers and keep silent about the handover. The ruling means the FBI can no longer use National Security Letters to demand an ISP’s record on a customer without any sort of recourse.

The enforced silence is one of the more nasty aspects of the PATRIOT act… in fact, we covered one aspect of this earlier when the ACLU was prevented from discussing a lawsuit they filed against the NSL provisons of the PATRIOT act itself.