Look at the wee beasties!

Best protest sign ever

2011-04-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

Spotted at the Power Shift march in Washington DC a couple weekends ago:

What a joke

2011-04-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

This has got to be my favorite piece of political commentary so far this year:

One of the many reasons why it's amazing that Haley Barbour is supposed to be taken semi-seriously as a presidential candidate is that he's basically the governor of a failed state. (Among the other reasons are his appearance, voice and career history.)

Supplied by Alex Pareene, writing for Salon.

All jokes aside, though... Oh right, we're talking about Haley Barbour. You can't really put all jokes aside when talking about Haley Barbour because that dude IS a joke.

Seriously, Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, has the highest poverty rate, and has the lowest quality of life. The state also has a horrendous child welfare system. According to Mother Jones:

The child-welfare system was so broken, advocates said, that it all but ceased to exist. Barbour and the appointees overseeing the child-welfare system, the suit alleged, "knowingly allowed [Mississippi's] system to collapse, leaving Mississippi's most vulnerable children defenseless."

So it was hard not to appreciate the irony when Barbour recently bragged: "Americans United for Life, I am proud to say, named Mississippi the safest state in America for an unborn child."

Hahahaha. What a dick.

Once they're out of the womb, Barbour could give a shit less about the children of MIssissippi. Why? Because then they are no longer useful to his culture warrior approach to politics. No solutions, no vision, no leadership — just exploitation of cultural wedge issues like abortion. Why actually govern when you can just play off of people's basest fears and frustrations to get elected? That's how Barbour clings to power, and that's how the entire Republican Party clings to power, as well. They're all a big fucking joke. Too bad the joke is on every single one of us who live in America.

Fly to Jesus, brother

2011-02-11T15:08:00.001-08:00

Lost one of my best friends a year ago today. Wherever you are, buddy, hope you're having a better time than you did here on Earth. Miss you.

Good god

2011-02-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

That's gotta hurt.

©AP/Domingo Botan--Spanish matador Julio Aparicio is gored by a bull during a bullfight in Madrid. (He survived.)

Note that you can actually see the bull's horn sticking out of the dude's mouth. Yeesh.

Implied spaces

2011-01-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

I saw this video today and thought it was pretty interesting:

The article on NPR that introduced me to the video says, "Brains, you may not realize, make arbitrary assumptions to keep our world intact. Sugihara knows exactly where those assumptions pop into place."

This reminded me of Implied Spaces, a really terribly written novel by a fellow named Walter Jon Wiliams that has stayed with me nonetheless. I was fascinated by an idea presented in the novel: The titular "implied spaces," which are portions of manmade planets where ecosystems or types of terrain give way to one another — or, more accurately, the liminal zone in between these different spaces. There is no code to tell the planet what to put in between spaces, just what goes in the spaces themselves, hence you get the "implied" spaces.

Williams doesn't really explore these implied spaces in much depth, he just describes them as mostly empty, barren or jarring features of the planets and uses them as a metaphor for the corresponding liminal zones in the technologically-tweaked brains of a post-singularity humanity who can come back from death by simply uploading their latest mind-dump to a new body. There are thus many liminal zones in people's memories, and even in their very existence — the time between their latest backup and a particular body's death, the time between death and rebirth, the time between rebirth and the next backup of their brain, etc. But the book mainly deals with how a sinister force exploits those gaps in people's super advanced techno-minds to brainwash a bunch of people, and the intergalactic warfare that (I'm sure you can imagine) is provoked by these nefarious actions.

I say this knowing exactly how nerdy it will sound: I'm real into the idea of liminal spaces, ever since I first learned about them in a book of literary theory. I like that Williams' novel was about someone exploiting liminal or "implied" spaces in a future people's brains, just like in this video Sugihara exploits the liminal zone — the no-man's land between perception and reality — in our modern brains.

Can't wait for the Mist Giant vinyl?

2011-01-14T12:12:00.000-08:00

The debut EP from Silent R Ecords recording artist Mist Giant drops April 1st.

What's that? You can't wait that long? I know how you feel, the 12" vinyl is going to be pretty sweet, especially with the cool laser etching on side B. I hear there is going to be a limited edition run of clear vinyl, too!

Well, you don't have to wait to hear the tunes, thank god. You can get them right now over at MistGiant.bandcamp.com for the low, low price of whatever the hell you want to pay.

Can't wait to see Mist Giant live? You're in luck! (At least, if you're going to be in SF on March 7th or at SXSW.) There are Mist Giant shows coming up here in SF and at SXSW.

Full disclosure: Mist Giant is my band, in case you couldn't tell.

Robert Reich's assessment of Obama is right on

2011-01-08T14:10:00.000-08:00

Former labor secretary, current UC Berkeley prof Robert Reich was asked by the NYT what he thinks of Obama's economic policies so far. Reich's response includes what I think is one of the most concise and accurate assessments of the current state of American politics I've read:

[T]he public is being sold a big lie — that our problems owe to unions and the size of government and not to fraud and deregulation and vast concentration of wealth. Obama’s failure is that he won’t challenge this Republican narrative, and give people a story that helps them connect the dots and understand where we’re going.

I think the article is pretty poorly written, as if the writer couldn't decide if it was a profile of Reich, a feature about liberal economists' criticisms of Obama's economic policies, or a report on the state of the broader national economic discourse, so he just did a half-assed job writing all three at once. But it's worth reading: "Obama the Centrist Irks a Liberal Lion".

Look who it is!

2010-12-22T14:33:00.001-08:00

Yes yes, that's me and my very own band, Mist Giant, in a feature profile video on my very own local music site, WiretapMusic.com. Shameless? Perhaps. Do I care? Not at all.

We definitely did not try very hard to look "cool" for this video. Oh well. This is definitely who we are. Enjoy!

Riggins wisdom

2010-09-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

Keep your guard up. Stay angry.

Figgins wisdom

2010-07-24T02:28:00.000-07:00

No monkeyshines
No lollygagging
No sassback

The day just got shorter

2010-03-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

Literally. The day just got shorter because of the earthquake in Chile. Luckily it wasn't by an appreciable amount, because I can't spare it. But this is fascinating nonetheless:

The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted the Earth's axis and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.

The change is negligible, but permanent: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

A large quake shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.

When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates. And the rotation rate determines the length of a day.

What he said

2010-01-30T16:09:00.000-08:00

Krugman gets it right, as usual.

After Massachusetts, Democrats were looking for leadership; they didn’t get it. Ten days later, nobody is sure what Obama intends to do, and his aides are giving conflicting readings. It’s as if Obama checked out.

Look, Obama is a terrific speaker and a very smart guy. He really showed up the Republicans in the now-famous give-and-take. But we knew that. What’s now in question isn’t his ability to talk, it’s his ability to lead.

If you haven't seen the videos of President Obama taking the Repug leadership to task at their own retreat, they're well worth it: here and here.

Copenhagen's bike-friendly streets

2010-01-05T16:01:00.000-08:00

I was in Copenhagen for most of December, and was amazed at how many folks ride their bikes there, even in the snow and sub-zero weather.

This video (via StreetFilms.org) shows a lot of the amazing technological innovations the city has implemented to make cycling safer and easier. It also has a few shots of the so-called "cargo bikes" — front-loader bikes that people in Copenhagen use to transport everything from their groceries to their kids. I found them to be very funny.

The numbers speak for themselves: 37% of daily commutes are done by bike in Copenhagen; while 55% of all trips in Copenhagen are made by bike.

This is exactly why I'm a member of the San Francisco Bike Coalition — if they can do it in Denmark, we can sure as hell do it here! Of course, in Denmark the most they do to lock up their bike is a little bolt that goes between the spokes of their rear wheel. That's what tripped me out the most — in San Francisco your bike would be gone in 5 minutes if you don't secure it to something. But I still think that with the right city planning, we can get to Copenhagen levels of bike riding.

Drowned rats

2009-12-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

World leaders are scurrying to the Copenhagen airport like rats fleeing a sinking ship. You’d think they were all in the Maldives right now or something, and they could see the water closing in over their heads (if you’ll permit me to mix a couple metaphors).

I hope there are two main takeaways from this fiasco:

1. We coordinated, we organized, we messaged, we demonstrated, we protested. It ultimately fell short, but we came together in unprecedented numbers and forged a global coalition. That’s a victory in and of itself. Let’s redouble our efforts. Only the most massive global public outcry the world has ever seen is going to push our bought-and-paid for politicians to take real action.

2. Like Naomi Klein just told the folks at the Fresh Air Center, it’s time to “take the kid gloves off with Obama.” As an American who gave not just my vote but my time and money to Candidate Obama, I feel betrayed by President Obama. He has sold us down the river on too many important issues, but none more important than global warming since all the others will be irrelevant in the face of runaway climate change.

Two years of planning, two weeks of negotiations, and all we got was a worse than half-assed deal cobbled together in the last two hours. You could say I’m feeling kinda down. Down, but not out. Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown – these people were never going to save us anyway. We will save ourselves.

This post originally appeared on Greenpeace International's Climate Rescue Weblog.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Being a Head of State at the Copenhagen Climate Talks

2009-12-16T03:25:00.000-08:00

The head of the web communications team at GPI writes an awesome blog that he describes as "a glimpse behind the scenes at Greenpeace and a repository for lessons learned and experiments in online activism and social media."

He wrote a completely amazing post about how a simple, declarative statement such as "All countries agree to phase out nuclear power" can become something so convoluted and mangled throughout the negotiating process that it means very little and achieves virtually nothing. Something like this: "[All countries agree to {consider adopting plans to} {develop multi-stakeholder approaches, with the aim to {take measures to} {have instruments in place to} phase out {inter alia, where possible} nuclear power.]"

Go read the whole post, it's an instant classic and it will tell you pretty much all you need to know about how these types of negotiations work.

Oh yeah, by the way

2009-12-13T10:39:00.001-08:00

I'm in Copenhagen covering the UN climate summit for Greenpeace. It's been totally exhausting but thoroughly exhilerating. I would love to be updating this blog, especially with pics and videos, but there simply isn't time. We're talking 16, 18 hour days here. So just follow my Greenpeace USA blog, and the Greenpeace International climate blog (technically I'm working for GPI right now), to get the full scoop.

I will post a couple videos here though, cuz they're from yesterday's 100k strong march on the convention center to demand climate justice. I was super proud and inspired by the Greenpeace contingent. We came STRONG. Here's a couple videos, one of the GP contingent of the march in general and one of my favorite float, this puppet master float we had.

Htown elects openly gay mayor

2009-12-13T10:29:00.001-08:00

Becoming the largest city in the US to do so! Who'da thought Houston would be breaking barriers for LGBT people. But, there it is.

Joe Vs. Joe

2009-12-10T05:09:00.000-08:00

I'm currently in Oslo covering the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for Greenpeace International, but I felt compelled to take a break from my busy blogging schedule to blog about this.

I do not like Joe Lieberman. I think he's emblematic of everything wrong with our political system in America. I think he's an arrogant, self-serving, bought-and-paid for corporate shill, and nothing more. He is one of the chief obstacles to passing health care reform in the Senate, and he's threatening to stage a one-man filibuster to protect his corporate allies in the insurance industry. Yet in 1995 he actually drafted legislation to stop just such abuses of the filibuster. The man is just as hypocritical as he is narcissistic, it would seem.

Go here to send Lierberman a message asking him to grow a conscience and actually represent the people who elected him rather than the rich corporations who are buying him off.

"Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here."

2009-11-30T09:34:00.001-08:00

Just read Michael Moore's open letter to Obama re: the war in Afghanistan. Powerful message, right on the money as always, from Michael Moore:

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

...

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Totally agree

2009-11-21T15:12:00.000-08:00

Had no idea this was happening until I read about it in AMERICAblog, but happy to live in the city that has taken this step first:

Don’t have your cat declawed in San Francisco, or West Hollywood, or you could face fines up to $1,000 and six months in jail. This month, the city by the bay became the first major metro area in California to outlaw the veterinary procedure, and was soon joined by Santa Monica, Berkeley and Beverly Hills. Los Angeles is expected to enact the ban next week.

"It’s a form of animal cruelty," San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, a major supporter of the ban, tells PEOPLEPets.com. "It would be unconscionable to ignore that fact."

I am very proud to say that Ross Mirkarimi is my city supervisor — voted for him twice now. He's spoken at a few local Greenpeace events, including a rally outside of a Chamber of Commerce meeting last week.

The day after that rally we did a floating balloon banner inside the Chamber's conference at the ritzy Fairmont hotel. Check this out:

Free live Pixies tracks!!!

2009-11-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

You gotta cough up an email address, and it has to be valid, but otherwise completely free live tracks from a show The Pixies played in Paris. The tracks are meant as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the classic album Doolittle, which the band is playing in its entirety on their current USA Doolittle Tour.

Final tour wrap-up

2009-11-03T16:33:00.001-08:00

Sadly, this is my last post on the ship tour. I’m back in San Francisco. The tour wrapped up in the Cook Islands on October 21st. We ended the tour by hosting an “open boat,” where a couple hundred locals and tourists got the chance to tour the Esperanza, and by holding a press conference to inform local journalists about what we accomplished out on the high seas.

We also met with some folks from the Ministery of Marine Resources in the Cook Islands. It was a pretty exciting meeting for all of us, because just the week before we had busted the Koyu Maru 3, a Japanese ship we caught fishing in Cook Islands' waters illegally, as you might recall. The Cook Islands has started a formal investigation of the vessel with their counterparts at the Fisheries Agency of Japan, and this is sure to knock Japan down a peg at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting this December, as they've enjoyed a squeaky-clean record until now.

The tour was a really amazing experience for me and I thought I’d share a few last videos.

We saw an abundance of amazing marine life, including dolphins, whales, flying fish, seabirds, and more. Here’s a video of a baby whale shark we encountered one day:

Our helicopter, Tweety, is an invaluable tool that we use to scout out the open water, document pirate/unlicensed fishing, etc. I went on one early morning heli flight to search for another two Japanese longliners, which we suspected might be fishing in the Cook Islands' waters with their sister ship the Koyu Maru 3. We didn't find them, but I put this video together anyway because I think it's interesting how a heli flight gives you a whole new perspective on just how small the Espy really is in relation to the deep blue sea:

Lastly, I shot this video tour of the ship, which is pretty self-explanatory:

Oct. 24th 350 event on the steps of the Sydney Opera House!

2009-11-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

I was on my way back to the States after the ship tour when Oct. 24th rolled around, which just so happened to be the largest day of climate action in history. I was lucky enough to be in Sydney, Australia. The event there was amazing, right on the steps of the iconic Opera House. I shot some video to share:

That’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore, Sydney’s first publicly elected female Lord Mayor, you see speaking in the video.

The culmination of the event was a group of people spelling out “350” with blue umbrellas. I got this shot of them while they were still organizing the umbrella-holders, but you can still make out the numbers pretty well:

Here’s me doing an obligatory tourist shot with the crowd and Opera House:

High seas action

2009-11-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

I have been a bit remiss in wrapping up the ship tour here on LookAtTheWeeBeasties, so allow me to do so now.

We spent the last few days of the tour in high seas pocket number 3 (see a map of the high seas pockets here), looking for fishing vessels that are threatening the future of the Pacific. We had absolutely no problem finding them.

On Thursday, the 15th, we found a Taiwanese long-liner, Kai Jie No. 1, that had no license to fish in the waters of any Pacific island countries. This does not make it illegal for them to be fishing on the high seas, since these waters belong to no particular nation, but this is one of the main ways fishing fleets get around the regulations that Pacific island countries are introducing to better manage their tuna stocks.

We spoke with the captain of the vessel and explained that what he was doing was decimating the tuna stocks that Pacific island nations rely on and asked him to pull in his line. When he refused, we took action. We went out and, using a special contraption designed by our fitter from the first leg of the tour, Jono, to hold the line up out of the water, we went down the long-line and removed the bait from their hooks.

I shot this video of the action, in which our resident marine life expert, Gabe, explains more about the process:

This ship may not have been a pirate fisher in a legal sense — though it was operating in an area known to host a lot of the region’s illegal fishing — but it was certainly plundering the Pacific. That’s why we’re trying to shut down the four high seas pockets to all fishing.

The next day we spotted yet another unlicensed Taiwanese long-liner fishing on the high seas. It might seem fairly unlikely for us to come across so many ships in an ocean as vast as the Pacific, but when you consider that these ships are part of a massive fleet of more than 1,300 long-liners — and that’s just the Taiwanese fleet — you begin to realize how big the problem is and why we keep encountering them.

Again we went and spoke with the captain, passed him information about our campaign and the science showing that Pacific tuna stocks are in bad shape, and asked him to stop plundering the Pacific. He also refused to haul in his line, as you’ll hear our translator Tan-chi tell us in this video:

Riding along to speak with this captain had a pretty big impact on me. As you could see, the captain of this ship was quite an agreeable guy who seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. He sat and read our campaign materials for several minutes. I thought he looked very sympathetic, for lack of a better word, when he sat down and read those campaign materials (despite the fact that he first snapped at the crew who had lined up on the ship's railing to watch us and speak to us).

The captain was even very hospitable towards us: when we refused the grape sodas he offered after reading our literature, he insisted we take them so vehemently that he actually threw them onboard our boats.

All of which made me realize: This guy is not our enemy. Neither is his crew. He is just a guy like me, trying to get by but — albeit with a job that I would not call easy by any means. So I want to be very clear in making this distinction: We are not trying to set ourselves up in opposition to this hard-working captain and his crew.

If anything, I'd say we're on this guy's side, in a manner of speaking. As Tan-chi translated for us in the video, the economics of the situation make it impossible for this captain to stop fishing and head back to port. And that’s what we oppose and are trying to change. You can read more about this situation — the vicious cycle of fishing in the Pacific and the diminishing returns these vessels are producing as Pacific fish stocks grow more and more depleted — in this blog by Karli, our onboard campaigner.

Whales!

2009-10-17T17:13:00.001-07:00

That title is totally misleading, because you will probably be expecting whale photos, whereas you will not in fact find good pictures of whales in this post. This morning, however, the ship was SURROUNDED by them. Seriously, you could see spouts in all directions. We were steaming right through a pod of sperm whales, it was incredible.

We launched the boat and our photographer and videographer tried to get them on tape, but I heard it was difficult for them. I'll check and see if they got anything good, but in the meantime I thought I'd post a couple pics I took.

It's really hard to photograph whales from the ship, unless they come right up to us. This is the best pic I got:

Yeah, that leaves a lot to the imagination. Sorry about that.

Gratuitous sunset blogging

2009-10-17T17:00:00.000-07:00

Behold:

Click on 'em if you want to see bigger versions!

And just for good measure, I thought I'd include a sunrise image. I promised a fellow Greenpeacer, the Oceans campaigner who got me on the tour in the first place, that I would wake up and watch the sunrise at least once. Well, I did, and it was cloudy. Still made for a pretty nice photo though, eh?

Filming them filming us

2009-10-17T16:38:00.000-07:00

So I went quiet for a spell there, mostly because we were in transit for a few days, going to a point about 100km off the coast of the Cook islands where we picked up some journalists from Australia's Channel 7, apparently the most-watched news channel in Australia.

I like this meta-photo of them filming us:

After we picked up the journalists, we went back out to the high seas and resumed the hunt. The girl you see on the phone there is Tan Tan (or Tan², as she some times writes it to save space), our Chinese/Taiwanese translator. She is at that very moment speaking with the captain of a Taiwanese pirate fishing vessel. The captain refused to haul in his lines and quit plundering these waters, so we went out and removed all the bait from his long-line. My blog on that action is still working its way through the Greenpeace protocol, so I'll just leave it at that and let you check out that post later.

In the meantime, please enjoy, with my compliments, this photo of a totally amazing sky, with the Esperanza in the distance. This was taken from our inflatable boat "The Suzy Q" during said action:

A heli ride, a buoy on the high seas, and the moons of Jupiter

2009-10-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, I'm not going to try and spin some fantastic connection between those three, other than the fact that they all were part of my day yesterday.

It was a long day that started at about 06:30 when one of our onboard campaigners, a Kiwi named Karli, came and woke me up by asking, "How quickly can you be ready for a heli ride?"

"Very quickly!" was my response, naturally.

I jumped out of bed, threw my clothes on, ran up to the campaign office to get my camera, and was out on the heli deck 4 minutes later. I got video of take-off and landing, which I'll edit up and get someone on shore to upload to Vimeo for me. But for now, you may content yourself with these shots:

Here I am looking super tough in my heli gear.

Our pilot, another Kiwi, named Donal.

Here's the Esperanza looking very small and lonely way off in the distance. This was one of the things I was looking forward to the most on the heli ride: This ship has been my entire world for the past couple weeks, but it's a fairly large ship so I don't feel too cramped. Going up in the heli, though, gave me a sense of just how small the ship is compared to the vastness of the ocean.

Here's the Espy looking a little less small and lonely as we approach to land.

The purpose of this heli operation (of course we refer to them as "heli ops," cuz we're that cool) was to look for this Japanese ship that is not licensed to fish in the waters of the Cook Islands, but was doing so anyway. We did not find that ship, unfortunately. But we did spot a little yellow buoy floating in the middle of the ocean.

So when we got back to the ship, we launched one of our Zodiacs, loaded it up with the diving gear, and went to have a look.

Here's the buoy. Looks harmless enough, but this could be a marker for a fish aggregating device, a long-line, or some other really destructive fishing gear.

One of our divers, a Brazilian chap named Gabriel, about to go snorkeling to have a look at the buoy and what it's attached to.

Turned out the buoy was just attached to a line about 15 - 20 meters long, not a FAD or long-line at all. We hauled it up onto the boat and brought it back to the Esperanza anyway, as it was essentially just a piece of trash floating in the ocean.

This trip was still totally worth it however, because I got to go snorkeling in the Pacific. It was amazing just how clear and blue the water was. Seriously, if a shark had come by, we would have seen it coming a mile away. It's incredible. We were about 5 miles from the ship at this point, so we didn't even have that obstructing our view whatsoever.

The rest of the day went by as normal — answering emails, editing photos and videos, etc. That night, however, we were lying in wait for that same Japanese fishing vessel, as we thought they might have come back under cover darkness, when they assumed we'd have given up and gone away. So there was a need to be extra vigilant, and I was asked to be on watch from 20:00 to 24:00. At first I thought it would be boring, but then I stepped out on to the bridge wings and looked up.

It was a very clear night, so clear you could see the Milky Way. So clear, in fact, that with the aid of our high-powered binoculars, I could actually see the moons of Jupiter. I wish I could have taken photos, but of course they never would have come out. Guess I'll have to keep that view all to myself.

Never did see that Japanese ship, in the end. Still a hell of a day though.

Whale Watch

2009-10-08T16:55:00.000-07:00

As I sat in the bridge one day on my regular whale watch duty, I pulled out the trusty digital camcorder and shot this quick pan across the bridge windows. This is pretty much what I spend two hours a day doing — staring out at the open sea. It's quite relaxing. I usually don't sit inside though, there are "wings" off of the bridge, and I usually do my watch out there.

Whale Watch on the Esperanza from Mike G on Vimeo.

Of course, I have never seen anything on any of my watches. Aside from the occasional flying fish or seabird, that is. Once when I wasn't on watch I did see a couple dolphins swimming in the distance, so all I could really see was their fins occasionally breaking the water. I also saw some whales spouting waaay in the distance once — actually, we were woken with the news: "Good morning! It's 7:30, and there are whales off the bow!"

I didn't get to go out there and swim with them, but our photographer did:

He wasn't thrilled with the shots he was able to get, but I think they convey the general idea. That being: the photographer is one lucky bastard.

Swim stop!

2009-10-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

I had an hour left to go in my daily watch duty when the captain came to tell me it was time for a swim stop. My first one! Yeehaw!

Swim stop is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. During a slow day, we cut the engines, open the pilot door, and jump out into the blue, blue ocean. I could go on and on about how cool it was to swim in the middle of the frickin Pacific, with no land in sight, but I'll spare you. The pics speak louder anyways (click them to view larger versions):

We also rigged up a diving board and rope swing from the heli-deck, of which I got some good video. One of our engineers was doing flips off of the diving board. I'll post the video whenever I manage to get it up on the net.

It was a pretty amazing experience, I have to say.

Take a dive around the Espy's hull!

2009-10-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

This is Freddy:

Freddy is our chief engineer. He narrated a video for me that was shot by our videographer, Wooly (whom you all met in a previous post). Wooly wanted to test out the dive camera, as he'd heard it was shooting grainy videos (turns out he just had to take it apart and clean all the salt out), so he dove down around the Espy's hull while we were still in Vanuatu. I thought the footage was pretty amazing, so I asked Freddy to narrate it for us, to let us know what the heck we were looking at. And then I posted it up online.

Have a look:

Esperanza hull dive from Mike G on Vimeo.

We've left Samoa

2009-10-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

We spent about three days off the coast of Samoa, but are now back on the high seas and returning to our campaign to defend our oceans.

We actually were not asked to do a whole hell of a lot in Samoa. In fact, Samoan authorities were taken by surprise when we arrived so quickly. We were there a little more than 24 hours after the earthquake and tsunami hit. The Samoans were not at all prepared for the disaster — in fact, the minister in charge of the relief efforts had only been sworn in two days prior. That meant that they weren't quite prepared to make use of what we had to offer. But in the end I think we still managed to do a lot of good.

Mostly, they needed our helicopter. Our logistical coordinator, an Aussie named Matt, and our helicopter pilot, a Kiwi named Donal, spent nearly the entire three days on the island. Matt was in their emergency response operations center helping coordinate relief efforts, while Donal was flying all over the place delivering supplies and checking on small villages with no other means of contacting the outside world. For the first couple days, ours was the only helicopter on the island.

Here on the ship, we pumped well over 1,000 liters of fresh water into collapsible jugs and sent them to shore. Donal spent a lot of his time delivering this water to various villages, as most of the fresh water delivery system was swept away by the tsunami. Samoan authorities said that this very likely helped keep several people alive while they were waiting for a steady stream of relief supplies to come in from elsewhere.

Each of these jugs holds 10 liters, and this was just one of 3 loads we sent to shore.

Loading the jugs into one of our inflatables. And yes, I put the camera down after this and helped with the loading.

The boat heads to shore, loaded down with water.

After a couple days of drifting offshore and boating water in, we came alongside the port in the capital city of Apia and gave several barrels of diesel to the Samoans. They'll use the diesel for chainsaws, to cut open houses where people might be trapped, and to remove felled trees, to open roadways and clear debris. They'll also use the disel in vehicles delivering supplies around the island.

The Esperanza at the port of Apia. I took this pic from the port itself, obviously — the only time I set foot whatsoever on Samoan ground. (But hey, I can say I've been there.)

The crane lifts a barrel of diesel off the deck of the Esperanza.

The crane operator, Flavio, a Brazilian, is our bosun (head of the deck crew).

First mate, Oli, and Ron, a deckhand and my bunk-mate, load the barrels onto a Samoan truck.

Australian and New Zealand military forces arrived to help with the recovery, so we put in calls to American Samoa and Tonga, but both said they were okay and did not require our assistance. So we're back out on the high seas now.

I have to say, though I wish we could have gone ashore and helped, I'm still pretty proud of what we did. No one on this ship hesitated for a second to help out — in fact, we were all really eager to go ashore and help, if they'd have let us.

And Greenpeace as a whole did not hesitate either. We immediately broke off our campaign and headed straight for Samoa even before we were officially asked to come help, and various Grenpeace offices made several thousand Euros available to us to do whatever we could. And unlike many other organizations that came to deliver supplies or offer aid, we didn't send a single photographer or videographer to shore to film ourselves doing it. We're environmentalists, but when disaster struck we dropped everything and acted first and foremost like human beings looking out for our fellow man. That made me damn proud.

So I guess I'll close with this shot I took, which I quite like:

We're in Samoa to help with disaster relief

2009-10-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

We are currently drifting off the coast of Samoa, and have been offering any and all assistance we can to those affected by the tsunami in Samoa. When we heard the news, we immediately put in a call to Samoan authorities and altered course so we'd get there as quickly as possible. We arrived last night and are now working with emergency response teams here to provide whatever aid we can. Read more on my Greenpeace blog.

We are in what's known as Western Samoa, as opposed to American Samoa. Both were hit pretty hard, but Western Samoa was able to fast-track our entry.

I've been in the bridge with the captain all day helping with communications, but we're likely to be here for several days and there's every chance I'll still go ashore and help there. Turns out ours is the only helicopter on the island, and so far that has been the most useful bit of aid we could offer, though we've also taken several hundred liters of fresh water ashore as well, as their water supply appear to be contaminated.

Sorry I couldn't say anything before, but we didn't want to put this news out there publicly until we were sure we'd be able to help.

Check out that blue, blue water

2009-09-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

Click the image for a larger view.

The smelly boys' cabin

2009-09-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

Genevieve asked me about some of the basics of ship life, and I had intended to talk about that kind of stuff here, but then just sit down and let whatever's on my mind spill out. So here goes:

Some people have awesome sleeping quarters, with only two folks in their cabin and a desk to work at. I, however, am in what has been dubbed "the smelly boys' cabin" — so named long before I came along, I swear.

The view from the doorway into the smelly boys' cabin.

It's a four-man cabin. I share it with Ron, a deckhand from Fiji; Wooly, our Australian videographer; and Ginam, our Korean translator. Ginam speaks very little English, so he pretty much doesn't follow any of the routines of the ship (he was also very sick until about yesterday). Ron is a good guy, he was one of the first people I met back in Vanuatu because he and I were hanging with the head of the campaign, Lagi, who I met up with when I first got there (Lagi is also Fijian, so Ron was staying in his hotel room, hence I got to know Ron).

Here are the smelly boys' bunks, I'm on the top right, Ron is below me, Wooly has hung that black towel in front of his bunk on the upper left, and Ginam is below Wooly:

David Woolford, aka "Wooly," is an absolute rip. He's a professional videographer who has been on over 20 Greenpeace ship expeditions, though this is his first time on the Espy. He also works as a cameraman for Australian news and TV. Wooly's a super funny and personable guy. He never lets being a grown-up get in the way of a good joke, but he's also extremely professional, very good at his job (the media officer onboard the ship told me that Wooly has a very good reputation), and a pleasure to work with. I've been working on a lot of videos, so I've been working with Wooly a lot. He's definitely one of the people I get along with the best on the ship.

We're woken up every day at 7:30, breakfast is continental style, and then from 8:00 to 9:00 we do chores. You have to sign up for the chores, and there aren't enough to go around, actually, so if I haven't signed up for one that day I either try to help someone else or go sit outside and drink my tea. Here's where I like to sit and do that:

I have signed up to do the toilets a couple times, as my colleagues back on shore told me that was the best way to earn the respect of the crew (it did seem to work). Other chores include laundry, cleaning the hallways, cleaning the mess, etc.

After chores I usually go up to the campaign office and check my email (I'm still at least responding to my regular email, even if I'm not doing much work for GPUSA), write blogs, post blogs, etc. I actually spend most of the day doing this, hence I spend most of my days indoors. Which is a shame. So I get outside as often as I can, just take a stroll around the deck outside. I could sit and watch the ocean forever.

Lunch is at 12:00. At 5:00, which is almost religiously referred to as Beer o'clock on the ship, we knock off for the day and head down to the lounge. Then at 6:00 it's dinner time. After that, we all just kind of lounge around, watch movies on the LCD screen in the mess, or on a projection screen in the lounge. I spend a lot of timing reading, too, of course. So far I've read A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge and 2010: Oddyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke.

I've only got one book left, but thankfully there is a small library onboard. I haven't looked around it too extensively cuz that's also where the computer for general crew access is, meaning there's almost always someone in there and I like to give them privacy.

I'm hoping they have some philosophy books in the library. Being in the middle of the ocean is making me philosophical. That, and Johnson, who I mentioned in a previous blog post, is a philosophy and theology student, and he and I have had some nice philosophical discussions, mostly about Kierkegaard and Sartre.

We're okay!

2009-09-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

You might have heard about the tsunami that hit American Samoa and some neighboring islands earlier today. Just wanted everyone to know that we're okay.

Tuesday times two

2009-09-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Today is our second Tuesday in a row. We crossed the international date line last night, setting us back a day. Which means I'm back on the same day as all you landlubbers back in America, and am now just four hours behind the Pacific time zone.

I may be back close to American time, but I'm still nowhere near America, as is made abundantly clear by the very international crew we have onboard. My unofficial tally gives us:

3 Fijians
1 Papua New Guinean
1 Solomon Islander
6 Australians
1 New Zealander
2 Filipinos
1 Chinese
1 Korean
2 French Canadians
1 Argentinian
1 Ecuadorian
2 Brazilians
1 Mexican
1 Netherlander
1 German
1 Dutchman
1 other American (who has lived in London since the first Bush got elected)

Here we are all assembled at the "muster station," a.k.a. the heli-hangar, for the (don't read this part, Gen) abandon ship drill, which we had on the very first day at sea. Safety first.

Here's a better view of the heli-hangar. (Click on any of these images for a larger view.)

Several different versions of English are spoken onboard this ship, but one thing common to many of them is ending all of their sentences with "yeah:" "Dees ees a good idea, yeah?" "I have been sailor for 16 years, yeah?" "I tink dat bird is a member of deh boobie fam-uh-ly, yeah?"

Everyone has dealt with all the time changes and seasickness differently. Our medic swears that Asian and Islander people get way more seasick than Europeans and folks from the Americas. He thinks it's a genetic predisposition. Bearing his assertion out, our Korean translator has not left his bunk for more than 15 minutes this whole trip.

Another guy, Johnson, our Papua New Guinean activist onboard, was pretty violently ill for the first couple days. Then last night he appeared in the mess and got himself a heaping plate of food. We all cheered loudly for him. He finished the whole plate, and I snapped this pic of a very happy Johnson immediately afterward:

That right there, friends, is photographic evidence of the fact that getting over seasickness is pretty much one of the greatest feelings ever.

High seas sunset

2009-09-29T00:46:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned I was going on whale-watch. Basically, it's exactly what you'd think it is: Sitting on the bridge, scanning the horizon, looking for spouts of water. It's kind of choppy out there though, so spotting spouts would be difficult.

Since we're in transit, we'd like to document as much as we can of the amazing marine life to be found out here in the high seas. Which of course means we're all stoked to hopefully see some whales.

I didn't see any whales, needless to say, or the title of this post would have been something like "I SAW SOME WHAAAAAAALES!" I did however see a couple flying fish. And a type of seabird known as the "boobie." (I also got to listen to the first mate, who is French Canadian, talk about "deh boobie family" at length, which was pretty awesome.)

So yeah, just as I was reaching the end of my watch, I stepped out and noticed this going on:

Not what you'd call a straight up, one-to-one trade for seeing whales, but, mmm, yeah, I'll take it.

I'm on a boat!

2009-09-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

Ahoy, mateys. I’ve been on the high seas for a few days now. Life as a sailorman has so far treated me okay – except for the first day, when I tried to eat dinner, got two bites in, and realized food was NOT a good idea.

We’re “in transit” right now, heading from Port Vila, Vanuatu out to the high seas, where we aim to highlight the pillaging of the oceans by commercial fishing fleets. It’s pretty unconscionable – these guys know they’re violating the law (in some cases), know they’re fishing at unsustainable levels (in most every case), and know that their actions today will most likely mean no tuna tomorrow, but they just don’t care. They gotta get that dollar.

Vanuatu was absolutely gorgeous. Did some swimming in the harbor, some kayaking, even jumped off the heli-deck of the Esperanza a few times (yep, that’s “heli” as in helicopter – we’ve got one, and I’m gonna ride in it).

We steamed out of Port Vila Harbor a few days ago. Since we’re in transit, there isn’t much action. I’m shooting photos and videos, and will share as many as I can. Video is tough though, because there just isn’t the bandwidth here on the ship for me to upload videos of my own. Which totally sucks, cuz I really wanted to make a bunch of videos that Greenpeace wouldn’t necessarily want to post. But I will shoot as many “ship life” type videos as I can for use on my Greenpeace blog, so hopefully you can see some of those. And if not, I’ll just have to upload them once I get home — in a month or so. Alas.

You still gotta admit that it’s pretty cool that we live in an age where I can even update this blog at all, given that I’m in the middle of the South Pacific. This data had to travel 36,000 kilometers up to the satellite and back down to Earth again to get to Blogger’s servers. Cool, huh?

So for now, no video. In the meantime, content yourselves with this goofy looking picture of me sitting just above the heli-deck:

As you can see, the water is INCREDIBLY blue. Even my colorblind ass can tell that the water is an amazing color.

Food is decent, people are great, and I’m on whale-watch starting now, so I gotta go! I’ll write more and post more pics later.

It's all about racism

2009-09-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

I keep saying this, and feel very strongly that it's true: The major motive behind the Teabaggers, the national healthcare protesters, and all of the Republican opposition to President Obama's agenda is racism. It's pretty plain to see, and it's finally a meme catching on in the mainstream media. Here's Olbermann interviewing Markos Moulitsas Zuniga about Jimmy Carter coming out and saying just that:

Coupla collabs and a brief rant on national healthcare

2009-09-08T15:53:00.001-07:00

I've been on vacation in Ireland for the past couple weeks, checking out plenty of the local pubs and hearing plenty of local trad music. I can't count how many times I heard "Galway Girl". It kind of came to define my whole experience in Ireland.

As it turns out, the song was written by Steve Earle and recorded with traditional Irish musician Sharon Shannon. An interesting collaboration, to be sure, between an American country artist and an Irish traditional artist.

So anyway, here I am at my first day back at work and I came across another interesting collaboration I thought I'd share.

R.E.M. has teamed up with MoveOn.org to produce a video in support of national healthcare. To me this is a huge issue. I do think that global warming is the more pressing issue, but if Obama can pull off universal healthcare he will have completed the New Deal and proved once and for all that the Republican anti-government platform is utter horseshit.

That is why the right wing is fighting universal healthcare, folks. They don't really object to universal healthcare — pay attention to their arguments, you won't hear any substantive criticisms against everyone having access to health care, because there are none to be made. All you hear are lies about "Death Panels" and immature, nonsensical insults hurled at Obama like "fascist" or "socialist." This is the last gasp of the racist Republican Party. If universal healthcare goes through, the modern Republican Party is done for, and they know it.

Anyway, the R.E.M. song is pretty good and the video is moving, check it out:

Music + Activism + Greenpeace

2009-08-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock (Aug. 15 to 18), Treehugger.com has been running a series of articles about the spirit of protest born in the 60s and how it has shaped activism today. I wrote a brief history for them about the role rock musicians have played in Greenpeace activism over the years, starting with the benefit concert by Joni Mitchell and James Taylor that started it all, up to today when Anti-Flag is helping us organize young punk rockers at the Warped Tour.

One thing I didn't touch on in the piece that came up in my research, which I think is really awesome, is that Allen Ginsberg was an "early advisor and mentor" to Greenpeace. I'm a big fan of Ginsberg's poetry, so it made me pretty proud to find this out, and I thought I'd share this picture of Ginsberg reading "Plutonian Ode" at a disarmament rally back in the 70s.

I'd also like to give a little plug to the fantastic book in which I found much of the info for the Treehugger piece as well as both pics you see here on this post. It's by Rex Weyler, a journalist and one of the first Greenpeace activists, and it's called Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World.

Here's a little taste of the many photos awaiting you on the Treehugger post. This is my personal favorite: Jerry Garcia playing to a sold-out crowd at a Greenpeace benefit concert right here in San Francisco, on Pier 31, in front of the Greenpeace ship James Bay:

The story of how this benefit concert featuring the Jerry Garcia Band came about and was pulled off in just five days is pretty fascinating. You can get a bit of it from my Treehugger post, but you'll have to pick up Rex Weyler's book to read the whole thing!

Photos © Rex Weyler

This post originally appeared on Greenpeace.org/USA.

New Radiohead track

2009-08-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Available for download on RCRD LBL now. It's called "These Are My Twisted Words" and it's a pretty lo-fi, ambient little number. Not a radical departure from what they've done before, but a pretty damn cool track — like everything they've done before.

I love me some Radiohead, by god.

My blog on Treehugger.com in defense of direct action

2009-08-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

So last week we did an action at Hewlett-Packard's headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, where we re-branded HP as "Hazardous Products" because of their continued delay in phasing toxic chemicals out of their products.

Surprisingly, we caught a decent amount of flak for it, especially from some fellow environmentalists. I think that's because they are mostly the types of "environmentalists" who sit around reading and writing blogs, maybe following some top enviros on Twitter, perhaps they have even changed their light bulbs to CFLs and drive a Prius. In other words — calling themselves "green" but not really doing shit other than what's easy for them to do.

I'm not saying people shouldn't do these sorts of things — on the contrary, every bit helps. But if you're not familiar with non-violent direct action (NVDA) tactics or environmental campaigning, you probably shouldn't be commenting harshly on what other folks are doing and letting the world know just how little you understand about campaigning.

Anyhoo, I wrote a little post on Treehugger, which had posted a poll asking if these types of non-violent direct actions constitute reasonable means of communication for adults. Fairly loaded question, but I was still surprised by the results, which initially were pretty negative about Greenpeace's tactics. Though of course in the end the poll results ended up very much in support of our action.

Okay, I'll save it. Check the post for more.

"Global Warning," by Rhys Darby

2009-07-27T13:42:00.000-07:00

This was put out by Greenpeace New Zealand and Rhys Darby, of Flight of the Conchords fame. It's part of a climate campaign GPNZ is running called Sign On. Video is pretty funny, and the site is neat too. Check 'em out!

Jon Stewart melts my heart

2009-07-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's funny even though it's so regrettably true...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Jon Stewart Jizz-Ams in Front of Children - Cap'n Trade

www.thedailyshow.com

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Political Humor

Joke of the Day

United Breaks Guitars

2009-07-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Whether or not you like country music, you gotta appreciate this video. This guy, Dave Carroll, witnessed United Airlines baggage handlers throwing his $3500 Taylor guitar around when he was flying from Chicago to Nebraska for some shows. When he got to his destination and pulled out his guitar, it was busted. For the next year or so, dude got the total runaround from United's customer service, until they finally just flat out refused to compensate him in any way. So he vowed to write, record, and film videos for three songs all about how United sux.

The first video, "United Breaks Guitars," is online now, and has almost 3.5 million views so far. Suck it, United.

It's funny cuz it's true

2009-07-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Obama is not providing the leadership he promised

2009-07-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

Obama is playing politics on several of the key progressive issues — gay rights, the environment, national health care — that he talked a good game on during the campaign last year. We elected him because we though he was a leader, turns out we just got a savvy politician.

So Greenpeace hung this banner on Mt. Rushmore to urge him to be a leader.

Working on this project was very exciting. Also, I personally got two media hits out of it, one via Twitter, and the other (in the Christian Science Monitor, no less, who praise our social media strategy!) via a blog post. Aw yeah.

Amy Winehouse + singing fish = hilariously good times and a new Greenpeace campaign

2009-07-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not making that up. See:

Download the flash player

Fluffernutter

2009-06-22T09:35:00.000-07:00

Just watch... and laugh.

Seen today's International Herald Tribune?

2009-06-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

A very special edition of the International Herald Tribune has hit the streets today. It's dated "Saturday, December 19, 2009" — the day after the UN climate talks end in Copenhagen — and it reports the news we're hoping to see that day. Check it out:

(Click the image to view the online version of the paper; click here to download a low-res PDF.)

Personally, I'm especially fond of José Chingu's piece on the Amazon. (Because I wrote it.)

Bay Area venues under siege

2009-06-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

All ages clubs in the Bay Area are under attack from state regulators at the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC). At issue is a regulation — that is not even part of state law and has never been enforced before — stating that all-ages venues have to get half of their revenue from food sales. And of course these being venues, that isn't always feasible.

This SF Chronicle article spells it out:

Bay Area natives probably can recall their first show at the Fillmore, one of San Francisco's most famous music halls and the site of performances that span generations of music - from Jimi Hendrix to The Roots. These days, music fans might go to Potrero Hill's Bottom of the Hill club, the Tenderloin's Great American Music Hall or Cafe du Nord in the Castro.

Those venues could be forced to close, owners say, if the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, better known as ABC, continues to impose rules that club attorneys argue are legally questionable and often unrelated to booze or safety issues.

Those are absolutely some of the finest clubs in the city. The Great American Music Hall in particular is one of the most beautiful venues in the world, at least in my opinion. I've seen everyone from Neurosis to Explosions in the Sky and Joanna Newsom there, and the time I got to play there was one of the highlights of my life to date.

From the standpoint of a 7-year resident of San Francisco, it would be tragic if these clubs shut down. It would certainly lessen the appeal of this fantastic city.

And on another tip: Where the hell do these nosy ass bureaucrats get off trying to make life harder for small businesses in these economic times? Talk about tone deaf and heartless.

This video explains the case well too (or in case you can't read):

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcbayarea.com/video.

The Great American Music Hall is asking folks to email the state legislator interviewed in the video, Mark Leno, and "let him know that you support all-ages clubs in their fight against the ABC." Email him here: senator.leno@senate.ca.gov.

The venue is also asking people to buy their "Rock-n-Roll is not a crime" shirt (pictured above) to help defray their considerable legal fees resulting from this nonsense. If you live here in the Bay Area, stop by the GAMH box office to pick yours up — and if you don't live here but want to help out by buying a shirt, email here and arrange to have one shipped to you.

Personally, I'm buying eight. I'll do anything to keep these places in business. I wouldn't recognize this city any more, or feel nearly as comfortable in it, if these places were gone. They're bona fide San Francisco institutions.

This video is totally dope

2009-06-03T09:23:00.001-07:00

If you wanna take action to save the Amazon: www.greenpeace.org/everystepcounts

My new show on BTR! Plus, musings on political music (I couldn't help myself)...

2009-06-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

Well, my new show is actually just my old show, Bay Area Music, with a new name and a slightly new format. We're calling the show Wiretap Music on BTR cuz I brought in my partner in running WiretapMusic.com, the Bay Area's music resource, to help DJ my show. Her name is Olivia Parriott and she extends the reach of my show even deeper into the scene.

If you didn't catch the first ever Wiretap Music on BTR show, click here and check it out. We featured an interview with Bonfire Madigan, an inspiring musician who is equal parts activist.

As a web editor at Greenpeace and musician myself, I am impressed by just about anyone who melds the worlds of music and activism. People criticize groups like Rage Against the Machine for putting their politics into their music, but to me that's asinine. Not being political is a stance with political implications all the same.

There's a really cool project here in the Bay Area called ArtfulChange.org that I think is doing cool stuff. I got me one of their t-shirts, yeah boy.

So check out our first Wiretap Music on BTR show for the interview with Bonfire Madigan and check out WiretapMusic.com if you want to see the full interview/profile video that Olivia made.

And remember to listen locally!

What are the limits of sound?

2009-05-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

There's a great remix of TV on the Radio's "Shout Me Out" up on RCRDLBL.com today, check it out: "Shout Me Out (Willie Isz Remix by Jneiro Jarel)".

The remix takes the track in a very interesting direction, stripping the beat down to a playful hand-clap minimalist vibe, and adding in a bunch of trippy noise bursts. RCRDLBL's "MP3s of the Day" email newsletter is so worth it, for little gems like this.

PLUS, when I went to stream the track (it's not downloadable, unfortunately, I'd sure like it on my iPhone), I noticed this quote from TVOTR's Dave Sitek in the band's bio: "A lot of bands have something to say," explains TV On The Radio producer/multi-instrumentalist David Sitek. "We have something to ask."

Brilliant.

My first Change.org guest blog

2009-04-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be guest blogging once a week at GlobalWarming.Change.org, basically on behalf of Greenpeace, but also more broadly on the topic of global warming activism. It's a pretty exciting time to be part of the movement, so I'm stoked to be writing about it on this new venue.

My first post actually doesn't have anything to do with Greenpeace, it's about Tim DeChristopher, the guy who bid on and won over 22,000 acres of Utah land that was being auctioned off in a fire sale at the end of the Bush Administration. Some of the land being auctioned off — to companies who wanted to drill for oil and natural gas, the absolute worst kind of corporate looters and pillagers — was close to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. So DeChristopher stepped up and did the only thing he could to stop the shameless looting: he messed up the whole damn auction, winning several parcels he wasn't going to buy, driving up the price on others, and basically calling attention to what a horribly crass move this was by the Bush Admin.

The good news is that Obama's Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, basically invalidated all of the leases won that day, because the process used by the Bush Admin to select and lease off the parcels was so shady. The bad news is that DeChristopher is still, incomprehensibly, being charged with two felonies and slapped with over $800,000 in fines — for messing up leases that are no longer valid anyway. Pretty bizarre, and rather unconscionable.

But this is a huge opportunity for the grassroots movement in this country to show how strong we are. We'll step up and defend what's right, and we'll deal with the consequences. When brave activists like DeChristopher stand up, we'll get their back. We're determined not to let the powers that be continue to rape and pillage this planet. The best way to demonstrate that determination right now is by supporting DeChrsistopher and his legal defense fund. Go to his site now and donate.

Imagining a clean energy future

2009-04-23T10:03:00.001-07:00

I really dug this action pulled off by my colleagues in Chicago yesterday. They affixed six fake wind turbines to a bridge in downtown Chicago, as a way of helping people image a clean energy future. Really cool idea, I think. This is what our cities will look like in the future, and to me it's beautiful. Hopefully more people saw that yesterday.

Outside Lands, I may attend you again despite myself

2009-04-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last year's Outside Lands was pretty great — I mean, Radiohead played the first ever night-time show in Golden Gate Park to open up the fest. Know what I mean? That can't be bad.

Except, it sucked. It was SO damn packed. It was madness. I almost got in a fight with this fat dude just for walking past him — I mean, he tried to lock his arms out to his sides and prevent any more people passing him, so I pushed past him, which is what pissed him off. But still. It was way too fuckin crowded. And of course the sound cut out all together — more than once — during Radiohead's set.

Despite all this, it was an experience I'm glad to have had. I mean, Radiohead, in the park, at night, as I mentioned. But I didn't want to go back this year, cuz, man, I hate crowds.

Then I saw the lineup for this year...

I mean, damn. Sure, you got a vanilla headliner again (Dave Matthews Band; Tom Petty headlined last year, as did Jack Johnson, which I found less than impressive), but Pearl Jam and Beastie Boys are pretty solid, if way past their prime.

And of course the headliners aren't even who I'm excited about. TV on the Radio, Mastodon, Deerhunter, and Silversun Pickups are easily four of my favorite bands out there right now. Throw in old stalwarts like Ween, The Mars Volta, Thievery Corporation, Modest Mouse, and Q-Tip, and shit, you've got one hell of a solid show.

Damn you Outside Lands! I don't want to spend another $200+ on you!

Luckily, I don't have to. If I learned anything from last year, it's that you can hear just fine from outside of Outside Lands. Sure you can't see, but I couldn't see shit from inside either. So I'll be catching all these sets, and I won't be dealing with those crowds or blowing a couple hundred smackers.

Take this survey

2009-04-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

I attended an event at City Hall last night, and it made me pretty nervous to lock my bike up in Civic Center. I thought to myself, "In this day and age, why the hell can't we develop a better lock, one that isn't easily snipped by bolt cutters or unlocked with a Bic pen?"

Well, turns out someone is doing just that. I got this in an email from the SF Bicycle Coalition:

A team of graduate students at the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco (one of the world's only schools dedicated entirely to environmental and social sustainability) is working to combat the ongoing scourge of bike theft by developing a hi-tech bike security product that goes beyond the traditional bike lock approach. Your survey information will be used in the design phase of this new bike security device.

Take this survey and help them design the bike lock mechanism of the future! Based on the questions in the survey, it looks like they're considering some sort of system that integrates with your cell phone to alert you when your bike is moved without your authorization. Cool!

Teabagging: The sensation that's sweeping the nation

2009-04-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

R.I.P Tom Kennedy

2009-04-13T11:55:00.001-07:00

I didn't know anything about Tom Kennedy until this morning when I read this Laughing Squid post. But it turns out I basically was there when he died.

Me and Genevieve were having a picnic on the beach with a couple good friends when we noticed the commotion over by the water. We saw people carry a guy out of the water, and then the EMTs arrived. That was about all we witnessed, in truth. Of course a huge crowd gathered, but we elected not to join them. Glad we didn't. Not sure I could live with knowing I treated a man's death like a spectacle.

Turns out he was a real cool guy. Fuckin sad, man. R.I.P Tom Kennedy. Looks like you had a lot of people who loved and looked up to you, so I'm sure you're being mourned in high style.

George W. ice cream flavor

2009-04-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

This is good shit (h/t AMERICAblog):

Ben & Jerry created "Yes Pecan!" ice cream flavor for Obama. They then asked people to fill in the blank for the following:

For George W. they created "_________".

Here are some of their favorite responses:

Grape Depression
Abu Grape
Cluster Fudge
Nut'n Accomplished
Iraqi Road
Chock 'n Awe
WireTapioca
Impeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
imPeachmint
Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker... Swirl
Heck of a Job, Brownie!
Neocon Politan
RockyRoad to Fascism
The Reese's-cession
Cookie D'oh!
The Housing Crunch
Nougalar Proliferation
Death by Chocolate... and Torture
Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
You're Shitting In My Mouth And Calling It A Sundae
Credit Crunch
Mission Pecanplished
Country Pumpkin
Chunky Monkey in Chief
George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate
WMDelicious
Chocolate Chimp
Bloody Sundae
Caramel Preemptive? Stripe

My favorites include "Cluster Fudge," "WireTapioca," "Impeach Cobbler," and "Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker ... Swirl."

Ars Technica is spying on me

2009-04-10T15:44:00.001-07:00

I kid, I kid.

But seriously, this post might as well have been written for me.

First off, it's called "Prepare for ludicrous speed: Ars reviews the 8-core Mac Pro." They titled a Mac review with a Spaceballs reference (you can watch a video of where the reference comes from here). This appeals to the Mac fanboy in me, as well as the 10-year-old in me (because the real 10-year-old me watched Spaceballs like 50 times).

Then the writer goes and mentions Greenpeace while discussing the green credentials of the 8-core Mac Pro! Here's what he had to say:

You've probably noticed Apple's new-found love of green. Their ads and new hardware are all touting the reduction in PCBs and other harmful materials, all of which is intended to keep them off of Greenpeace's naughty list. Say what you will about Greenpeace dogging Apple the way they did, but it's clear that consumers care about the environment. If Apple's going to retain their position as a computer for those who care about more than pinching a few pennies, then they are going to need all the bragging rights they can get. The new Mac Pro box reflects this position...

Mac fanboys have been pretty harsh on Greenpeace for going after Apple. They pretty much think Jobs is God, and they won't stand for any criticism. But this quote is telling: The writer acknowledges the widespread Mac fanboy disdain for Greenpeace's targeting of Apple, but also signals that Greenpeace was essentially right to pressure Apple into going green. (Which, of course, we absolutely were.)

Thanks, Ars Technica, for a stellar review! Now if only I could afford the 8-core Mac Pro on my Greenpeace salary...

"Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter"

2009-04-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is just cool. I don't mean to condone the violence or anything — far from it — but I love the fact that web tools like Twitter and Facebook are being appropriated as means for organizing in the 21st Century.

Flash mob protests = Brilliant. The web has changed everything, including how we get our news. It's about time it changed how we protest too. The street protest is pretty much dead, or at least it was. In the 60s and 70s when it was guaranteed to get you on the nightly news &mdash and people still actually watched the nightly news to get their news — it was a useful tactic. Bush dismissed tens of thousands of war protesters across the country as a "focus group," and the news media basically let him get away with that. That's because these protests were your typical, predictable street protests and the media saw nothing else in them that was worth reporting on.

The protests in Moldova, like the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and the massive immigration protests here in the US in 2006, used Twitter, Facebook, and SMS heavily as organizing tools. And they seem to have made a far deeper impression than they would have had they not used these tools. Flash mob protests aren't predictable. In April 2006, thousands of immigration protesters took to the streets in places where you would not expect it to be a hot-button issue: Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota. That certainly was not predictable either. These tools allow us to widen our reach and distribute our message like never before, and they're reshaping the street protest and keeping it relevant.

Teabagging party!

2009-04-09T09:29:00.000-07:00

As a really clever way of protesting Obama's stimulus spending (cuz, you know, how dare he use our tax dollars to help Americans instead of waging imperialist wars and invading foreign countries?), conservatives are holding "Teabag parties." I won't try to explain their logic (actually, I'm not sure there is any logic behind it, just blind hatred and bigotry), but suffice to say the conservative leaders orchestrating this Teabag movement think they're carrying on in the fine patriotic American protest tradition of the Boston Tea Party.

Ah, conservative movement in America. You're so adorably out of touch.

Anyhoo, you have to watch this video. Andy Cobb is responding to their call:

Radio appearance to promote the Wiretap comp/release party

2009-04-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

I'll be on Pirate Cat Radio around 7:00PM PST tonight!!! If you're in the Bay Area you can tune in at 87.9 on the FM dial.

Not in the Bay Area? It's cool! Tune your browser to PirateCatRadio.com!

I'll be spinning some tracks from the Wiretap Music Presents Covers Compilation and promoting our CD release party this Thursday.

A message to world leaders

2009-04-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

"Genre" fiction my ass

2009-04-06T16:30:00.000-07:00

I think sci-fi is one of the most important literary forms around. It's often pejoratively termed "genre" fiction, and thus lumped in with the likes of bodice-ripping romance novels (read: very low on the artistic merit scale). But to me, in this day and age, any work of art that helps us envision the future of mankind and the role of technology in that future is a service to humanity.

As proof that sci-fi is intellectually and scientifically valuable, witness: Nine Words You Might Think Came from Science but Which Are Really from Science Fiction  . From the Oxford University Press blog, no less. Some dude even wrote a book all about it, Brave New Words. You can check that out at the above link as well.

Fossil Fool CEO gettin punked

2009-04-03T18:42:00.001-07:00

This story, the NYC part, made me laugh.

SXSW wrap-up

2009-03-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

Well, SXSW is over. It was exhausting, I must say. But it was fuckin fantastic, so I ain't complainin'.

I missed out on a lot of the action because I had so much work to do in order to put on the Wiretap Music CD release party for the compilation we're releasing on April 14th. The party went down on March 20th on Austin's East Side, at The Art Project, a really rad up-and-coming gallery/studio. You can hear some choice cuts from that show on my Bay Area Live program airing today!

Of course, when I say I missed out on a lot of the action, I mean that I only saw like 40 or 50 bands that week, instead of a couple hundred. So it's relative.

I was there for all of BTR's showcase, no doubt! Head over to BreakThruRadio.com to check out the recordings my fabulous DJ colleagues have put up from the BTR SXSW 09 showcase, especially Bay Area boys Lemonade!

Giving them hell

2009-03-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

The past eight years were rough, man. I remember very distinctly the feeling when George W. Bush got elected. I remember wondering what atrocities would be committed, wondering if I'd even recognize my country after he was done with it. And aside from the fact that he didn't install himself as supreme fascist dictator in perpetuity, I gotta say that most of my fears about the Bush Administration were validated. He really and truly was the worst president ever in every way possible.

But it's a new era. I don't advocate that we fight dirty, cuz that would put us on the level of the Bush Admin and the rest of the American Taliban: conservatives, corporatists, and the Religious Right — the free-market and religious fundamentalist fanatics that were the Bushies' chief backers and enablers. I don't advocate lying, manipulation, or violence as tactics. We can't operate under the assumption that the ends justify the means, like they do. But we gotta play for keeps all the same.

The American Taliban will do and say anything to build and preserve their power. And they're getting desperate. We've got them on the run, at least for now. But that doesn't mean they're any less dangerous. We need to be prepared to fight fire with fire. We can't let them drag us back into the Dark Ages, as they're so intent on doing. We gotta push them, willing or not, into the 21st century. We can't wait for them to "get it" or try and convince them that we're right and they're wrong or waste time building "bipartisanship" with folks who are on the wrong side of history.

It would seem the progressive movement gets that and is gearing up for the fight. Now is the time for us to press our agenda and make durable changes that can't be easily undone in order to secure a sustainable, happy, and healthy future for all.

Gay activists have realized that "The time for saying please is over" (h/t AmericaBlog).

Commenting on the largest civil disobedience on global warming in U.S. history, a colleague of mine recently explained, "We’re done asking nicely."

I'm glad we're done asking nicely. But we also need to be prepared to stand up for ourselves. We can't shy away from this fight. The American Taliban wants to secure the future for themselves and their way of life. We want to secure the future for the Earth and all its creatures. Our ends must not be used to justify abuse of power, violence, or corruption. But they certainly justify fighting like hell.

If people want to be on the wrong side of history, leave them by the wayside. What we're fighting for will benefit them in the end as well. We'll create a better tomorrow with or without them.

It's on, bitches

2009-02-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

I'm putting on a SXSW this year! And my band is playing! Along with a lot of other fanfuckingtastic bands. And free beer. Be there or be somewhere else.

Scatterbrain Jamboree 2009!!!

2009-02-10T09:00:00.001-08:00

Scatterbrain Jamboree 2009 is nearly upon us, folks. I'll be playing with my band Black Paintings on Saturday, the 21st. Proceeds are to benefit the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, so you can feel good about drinking in the middle of the day! Starts at 3:30. We'll probably play around 6:00 or 7:00. A map to the venue can be found below the flyer.

View Larger Map

Enviro rights

2008-07-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

We've got to get rid of rights that provide for corporate personhood and codify the rights of the natural world to exist into law. Ecuador has just drafted constitutional language doing just that, which will become law when their new constitution is ratified. Read more.

It's been too long

2008-06-11T14:57:00.001-07:00

I blog for so many other folks I kinda stopped blogging for myself. That's gonna change right here and now, by god, even if I simply provide links to the many interesting posts I write elsewhere.

I wrote a post on my Greenpeace blog about Radiohead's green tour, of which I am quite fond (the band, the tour, and the post).

Also, if you're in San Francisco you can catch me on Pirate Cat Radio tonight at 6:00 pm discussing the greening of the music industry. 87.9 FM on the radio dial. Ya dig?

Velocity Matters

2008-01-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

This NYT piece about what’s been called “Google’s assault on Microsoft” is a really good read, mostly because it does a good job of outlining the concept of “cloud computing.” Google has bet at least a sizable chunk of the farm on cloud computing, and if their gamble pays off it will mean that the way we all think of and use computers will undergo a major transition.

Essentially, Google has begun offering software online that Microsoft has always kept firmly chained to the deskbound PC. Because Google Apps, which is what the company calls its suite of email, instant messaging, calendar, and text document and spreadsheet editing software, exists solely online, it resides on a multitude of servers that are accessible from any number of devices. In other words, the software and hardware you use for your computing needs are as nebulous an entity as the clouds. You will be as free as the clouds, too, as opposed to stuck at your desk where your PC exists. It promises to be an epic business battle, one that we will all be aware of on at least some basic level, as it will play itself out very publicly in the marketplace.

Google, of course, is on to something, despite the protestations of Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s business division. Raikes says his company has loads of market research that proves Google is being arrogant and brash in thinking they can force such a transition on the software market.

On the contrary, Google is just astutely anticipating the current trends in technology. This is a business war, of course, but it has implications for more than just how we work, so I think it’s important to look at larger trends. To whit: People don’t just sit at home and listen to music any more, they take it with them everywhere they go on their iPod, just as they aren’t content to send email or IM their friends and colleagues from their personal computer, they want these functions on their Blackberry or iPhone so they get their messages no matter where they are.

People are on the move and they want their software to keep up with them. Google is trying to guess what form software-on-the-go will take. They may be wrong and they may be right that Google Apps is roughly it, but at least the company is mobile enough to change quickly if they need to. Microsoft, on the other hand, has to wait for their next product release, then they have to evaluate that release, and start another two-year development cycle to respond to the new demands of the market.

A long time ago, before computers, and even before books, people got most of their information from tribal storytellers. People would go to a communal space and hear stories that informed them of their culture, their history, their identity. Books, audio recordings, and TV have taken over as the chief way people get this kind of information today, and all of these formats require us to be alone in our houses, or at least secluded in a cozy chair at the café, while partaking in the culture that surrounds us. This has always struck me as quite the conundrum, one that is solved by the Internet.

I think we are coming to a phase of our culture where we need to come full circle, to reconnect with some of the fundamental aspects of our existence on this planet. That is the real promise of the Internet, and that is essentially what Google is trying to anticipate. I’m not saying I’m pulling for them over any other corporate entity, just that they seem to be actually attuned to the zeitgeist better than Microsoft’s legions of market researchers. I think that anything that gets people to congregate and experience the world communally is a good thing.

So-called “thin clients” are another trend toward communal computing. We waste a ton of energy while our computers are on but not actually computing. So the thinking is that if we create thin clients, devices that do no processing of their own but instead allow you to send and receive data from some shared processing center, we will not only conserve energy but reduce the amount of materials we use. According to a post on the blog WorldChanging from a while back, “Sun Microsystems is trying to push the world towards systems like this; they say existing thin-client systems use a tenth of the power and reduce raw material usage by a factor of 150.”

The NYT quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying “Velocity matters,” and basically sets it up as the guiding principle of Google’s product development. I quote it mostly because I like the phrase. But also it’s fairly poignant: As the software industry adjusts to the realities of the demand for products in today’s marketplace, velocity certainly does matter. Not only in how quick companies bring products to market, but also for those products themselves. If they don’t have the velocity to keep up with consumers, those products won’t go very far.

It’s also relevant because the Earth will be in increasingly bad shape if we keep consuming energy and raw materials the way we have been. The velocity with which we respond to this situation matters. Only by coming together to solve this problem communally will we ever really be able to solve it. Interesting, then, that a chief solution to the problem might very well be bringing people together to share their computing power communally.

Rick Rubin and the Future of the Music Industry

2007-12-18T12:50:00.000-08:00

There was a very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about Rick Rubin. He’s a fascinating man in his own right, but the real crux of the piece was whether or not the music industry could be saved from itself.

Rubin is a pioneer. He produced and helped launch the careers of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, the Geto Boys, and LL Cool J, and in doing so brought hip hop to the attention of the music industry. At the same time, he was producing Slayer and Danzig, including such classics as Reign in Blood, Seasons in the Abyss, and Danzig’s first three albums. Later in his career, he discovered System of a Down and produced most of their albums, and also helped revive Johnny Cash’s career while producing the Man in Black’s last five albums. The labels he has founded – Def Jam, Def American, and American Recordings – are responsible for too many legendary recordings to name.

Yet Rubin tells his interviewer: “‘I have no training, no technical skill – it’s only this ability to listen and try to coach the artists to be the best they can from the perspective of a fan.’” I have never known much about Rick Rubin personally, except that he had worked with a ton of great bands. I assumed he was an engineering wizard, to have risen to such prominence as a producer, and think it’s really quite interesting that he essentially reduces what he does to being the ultimate fan.

Given his track record of consistent innovation, it was an especially adroit move on behalf of Columbia Records to hire Rubin as their new label co-head. Apparently it wasn’t an altogether easy sell, either, because Rubin had sworn never to work with Columbia again after an album he’d produced for Neal Diamond, 12 Songs, which Rubin was especially proud of, suffered heavily in sales because Columbia’s corporate paymaster, Sony, had decided to load it with DRM software that doubled as spyware. (I told you this article was interesting!)

One of Rubin’s first accomplishments at Columbia was to convince them to “go green” and stop using plastic cases for all of their releases. For an industry that is completely out of touch with the present and mired in a vicious rear-guard action against the future, it was a nicely symbolic if inadequately small bit of acquiescence to the reality of where music is heading.

Of course, no one knows exactly where the music “business” is going, but everyone agrees that the majors seem bent on securing their profits even at the expense of allowing themselves to become completely obsolete. The actions of the Recording Industry Association of America have been thoroughly pilloried enough that everyone is aware of its crimes. Few people with half a brain still have any respect for the labels that use the RIAA as their attack dog against all those nefarious file-sharers that are “destroying” the music business. How does Rubin propose to pull Columbia out of this quagmire?

To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, [Rubin], like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”

Obviously there’s a lot that would have to be figured out to put this system in place. There will be many complexities to such a system that Rubin does not touch on, so it will not be anywhere near as simple as he describes it. But a virtual library does have its attractive points, such as the idea that all your favorite music will be on one universal platform and you can listen to it anywhere you want. Also, as a musician, I like the possibilities this would give me to put out my music however I choose: I could upload every show my band plays, for instance, and my music would be available to my audience as the ever-evolving entity it is, as opposed to something static that I recorded at one point in time.

It’s certainly an interesting idea, but several issues raise themselves immediately, the most important being: Will people be willing to pay a subscription fee for digital copies of music, even if that money grants them access to a virtual universal library, rather than continue to freely share music digitally with their friends and online peers? I assume that, like with TV shows, hard copies will still be made available to those of us who insist on such archaic things. If CDs are available, how can the RIAA stop illegal file sharing altogether and force everyone to pay a subscription fee? It seems like they can’t, not without continuing to sue every starving student and single mother who “steals” music from them, a practice that is the single biggest factor in ensuring their steady path into obsolescence.

But Rubin does say, after all, that the iPod will be obsolete in this future industry. Are the major labels, in fact, thinking about not making CDs and vinyl albums at all?

Without the option of hard copies being available, you will inevitably have two distinct music businesses develop: The majors who only put their stuff online because that’s the only way they can squeeze the money out of it; and the independent artists who won’t play that game and still love and cherish the recorded artifact as much as the exposure and convenience of digital file sharing, free or otherwise. This would, again, ensure that the major labels remain the province of the mainstream, while all the true innovation continues to happen under their radar – in other words, a type of limited obsolescence, but obsolescence all the same.

I mean, sure there’s big money in Hannah Montana CDs, and the teeny-boppers who listen to that kind of thing are also entirely likely to buy into a subscription model because they don’t buy hard copies of music anyway. But if the majors insist that their artists cannot release CDs of their music, what self-respecting independent artist of today is going to agree to sign to them in the future? This is what I mean by limited obsolescence: the majors will only be able to continue serving up mainstream pop crap, not the kind of innovative music Rubin has a knack for producing.

This could actually be a great thing: Let the majors cater to the teeny-boppers, which is pretty much what they do best anyway, and let everyone else figure out their own way forward. I’m kind of liking this subscription model more and more…

Looking on unemployment's bright side

2007-10-15T15:59:00.000-07:00

Sci fi has always been my chief fascination/obsession. It must've all started with Star Wars, but The Transformers and Voltron definitely did their part when I was still but a wee lad, as did Spaceballs and Flash Gordon. By the time I was reading chapter books it was, naturally, Frank Herbert and Arthur C. Clarke. Those two carried me through college (with a little help from David Lynch and Stanley Kubrik, of course). Orwell was a titan in my universe as well (I prefer Terry Gilliam’s take on 1984 to Michael Radford’s, but was enraptured by both).

I started off as a computer science major at UT-Austin but eventually decided that studying English was a better way to qualify myself for a career writing for video games, which was how I had decided to sustain myself while scribing my own SF masterpieces. I worked on my first manuscript in Austin for a couple years after college while writing business information for a website by day. I moved out to the Bay Area about five years ago, where I finished my first novel.

I also got my Masters degree in English from San Jose State University, where I had the privilege of being the teaching assistant for an undergraduate course on sci-fi literature. I taught a whole new generation of sci-fi geeks both Orwell and Clarke! (Herbert didn’t make the cut, though the professor had thought long and hard about that decision, he assured me.)

My novel has yet to see the light of day – it’s really just the first of a four-part series, naturally – but I did manage to finally land a job writing for video games. For the past year and a half I’ve been working at Perpetual Entertainment, and among other duties I had the honor of writing various feature articles and press announcements for Star Trek Online, an MMO being developed by Perpetual that is set entirely in the Trek universe. I really was pretty much in heaven, until another game the company was developing got axed and they laid off half the workforce, me included.

I have plenty of free time now that I’m unemployed, which is pretty cool because I’ve been wanting to finally finish Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn series for a while now, and I’ve been re-watching all of the Firefly DVDs ever since I heard the latest rumors that a Serenity sequel might actually get made. Now I can do both.

musings on the NOFX show of 01/31/07

2007-02-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

NOFX
Strike Anywhere
The Departed
01/31/07
Slim’s, San Francisco

When NOFX took the stage they immediately told the sold-out crowd at Slim’s that they were tired and didn’t want to be there. But of course no one took them seriously. The Bay Area-based punks have kinda made their careers out of not being serious, in fact. NOFX shows are always a boisterously good time, and this was just the first bit of the sarcastic banter that makes their shows completely unpredictable and as funny as they are rockin. Hell, the band has as much fun at their shows as anyone else.

That’s because they do things entirely their own way. From their music to their shows — even their record label, Fat Wreck Chords — they’ve never bothered catering to anybody else’s expectations.

Far too many punk bands do seem to cater to some accepted definition of punk. Another local (but lesser-known) group, The Departed, opened the night with a solid set of generic three-chord punk. Their style seemed to play well to the masses, but it lacked anything like originality or volatility. They broke up the monotony at one point by playing a song that was reminiscent of the more layered indie-punk of Sleater-Kinney, but, after that, frontwoman Michelle Lockneck told the crowd they were going to “pick the pace back up.” Apparently, she meant they were going to continue churning out different variations of the same standard punk tune.

Now, if you’re really into punk then I can see how you’d like the Departed. They’ve got great energy on stage (and in the crowd after NOFX’s set, dancing to the house music), and drummer Nikki Stix carries a jaunty but propulsive beat with ease. I’ll be the first to admit that I am unfair about any music that I perceive as generic or pedestrian. What was really unfortunate for them, however, was that a video of a Dead Kennedys show was playing between sets. Jello Biafra’s hyper-manic stage show and the endless stream of stage-divers were a demonstration of the raw energy and power that punk once attained to. And, unfortunately, the Departed just didn’t measure up to that. They kinda got blown off the stage…by a DVD. Or at least would have, if the sound to the DVD had been turned up. Still, even without sound the Dead Kennedys were a lot more intriguing to watch than the Departed.

To be fair, few bands could measure up to the intensity of that Dead Kennedys show. Hell, NOFX didn’t either, in some ways.

Neither did the next supporting act, Strike Anywhere, who are nonetheless aptly named: them boys are damn near combustible on stage. They projected a fierce energy, jumping around and playing a much heavier and dense version of punk than the Departed. But still, they weren’t really offering anything that various other bands, like AFI and Strung Out, don’t already offer, which sort of negates any “outsider” status, a necessary component of punk, IMHO.

Whoever made the choice to play the Dead Kennedys video—whether it was the Slim’s staff or NOFX—made a grave error. Punk was supposed to be all about anti-establishmentarianism and outsider art, and at the time this video was shot, the Dead Kennedys come off as being punk as fuck, if only because they clearly are just doing things their own damn way. Right next to Biafra’s extreme animation, you’ve got Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray in the background meekly playing along. (Which makes me wonder how they ever earned themselves nicknames. Don’t you have to have character to get a nickname? I guess they’re much more interesting off-stage.) But hey, Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray were doing their thing, in a band where defying the status quo appears to have been the primary goal. And that’s what matters most.

The most impressive thing about the DK performance, though, was how they extended this anything-goes ethos to include the audience: the band’s complete acceptance of fans coming on stage, chugging their fists, knocking into the musicians, and then leaping back into the crowd was incredible.

The reason I say NOFX didn’t measure up to the intensity of the Dead Kennedys show is this: about halfway through their set, one single guy somehow got onstage, and not only was he not permitted to stage dive, but security guards quickly and roughly escorted him offstage.

That’s pretty damn lame.

But, to my mind, NOFX make up for it in many, many ways. And after all, if that’s not their thing then fine, it’s their show. For me, listening to singer/bassist Fat Mike’s satirical, sarcastic, and frequently hilarious lyrics (which have a lot in common with Jello’s, actually), more than makes up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to get onstage and do a swan dive onto the concrete floor. And NOFX’s stage presence may not be as rowdy as DK’s was in their prime, but NOFX makes up for it with a presence quite possibly unique unto themselves (at least I’m not aware of any other band that could pull it off), as well as an inventive musical style that draws equally from punk, reggae, ska, and hardcore. NOFX is a true champion of the DIY ethic and a torchbearer of the outsider punk tradition.

As they launched into a reggae-fied version of “We March to the Beat of Indifferent Drum,” guitarist/trombonist El Hefe affected a Jamaican accent and hollered, “Jamaica, Jamaaaica.” Fat Mike wasn’t having that, though. He stopped the song and told El Hefe to do the intro again, because they were recording a live album that night and he didn’t want that on the record. When someone in the crowd apparently took issue with Fat Mike stopping a song that had already been started, he told that person, “We can do whatever we want.”

In fact, that’s exactly what NOFX has always done. Stopping songs that you’ve already started is supposed to be a cardinal sin in musical performance. NOFX doesn’t care; that wasn’t the only song they stopped.

While in the crowd, I heard some dude complaining that “they talk too much between songs.” This is, of course, another bit of music industry “wisdom:” Talking too long between songs supposedly loses your audience. This is a bit of wisdom that NOFX flouts mercilessly at every show, though. I don’t know what that dude was talking about: the between-songs banter—mostly between Fat Mike and El Hefe—is just as worth the ticket price as the music. And of course that dude was pogo-ing along with everyone else a few short minutes later.

NOFX may not allow stage-diving, but they engage the crowd more than any other band I’ve ever seen. For instance, at one point, as El Hefe laid into his trombone to start a song, Fat Mike stopped him.

“Stop! Stop! Look at what that girl is doing!”

El Hefe stopped and looked.

“Whoa,” he said, “that’s means your father didn’t give you enough attention when you were a kid.”

I guess they embarrassed the girl, because after the song El Hefe noticed she was gone. By the end of the show, however, she was back, mostly because El Hefe went out of his way to assure her: “We were just having a laugh at your expense.” (He meant it in the best way possible.)

Another girl asked Fat Mike to say “Happy Birthday Amy.” When he figured out the girl making the request was Amy, he led the band into a quick rendition of their song “Happy Birthday, You’re Not Special,” even throwing Amy’s name in and mentioning several times that she’s a crackwhore.

Okay, so I guess that maybe you had to be there. And yeah, Fat Mike and El Hefe really are kind of arrogant dicks at times, but it’s all in good fun. You get the feeling that these are old pals just hanging out, shootin the shit, playing music. It just so happens they hang out on stages with sell-out crowds watching them. Though they can be a bit cocky, the guys of NOFX can’t be accused of taking themselves too seriously. There’s also plenty of self-deprecating humor going on.

When someone handed Fat Mike a joint, he took it and raised it to his lips. Two crew-members and Fat Mike’s wife rushed on stage—for a moment I thought another dangerous, nihilistic crowd member was attempting to—horrors!—STAGE DIVE!!! But no, they were just there to take the joint away, though they looked more like they were mauling Fat Mike. “They let me have alcohol, coke, and ecstasy all tour long,” he immediately quips. “But apparently no marijuana. Good lookin’ out, guys.”

Fat Mike also told a story about a guy who flew in from Minnesota to attend the show the night before, and afterward invited them to go golfing the next morning. But he warned the band not to dress too weird because they were going to a ritzy country club and he didn’t want them to cause a scene. So, because they really wanted to play this course, the boys of NOFX put on their best golf duds and showed up to play. But the guy that had invited them had apparently been partying all night long, and ended up ODing on the second hole.

“His heart actually stopped beating. There were two fire trucks and an ambulance. EMT’s right there on the second hole. We played through though,” Fat Mike assured us. “It was a really nice course.”

Then they launched into “Whoops, I OD’d.”

Which brings me back to the music. NOFX ripped through crowd favorites like “Lineolum” and a cover of Rancid’s “Radio,” as well as several songs from their new album, like “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (which the band allegedly banned MTV from playing) and “Instant Crassic.” From the raucous, rockin’ punk tunes to their laid-back, reggae version of the Rancid song, NOFX pretty much nailed it all.

The true root of their individuality as a band is the fact that they resist any easy classification as just a “punk” band. What punk guitarist other than El Hefe, for example, would launch into a quiet, pretty version of “No Woman, No Cry” while the second guitarist is having technical problems?

Though a lot of Fat Mike’s lyrics aren’t meant to be taken seriously, some are exceptionally sincere and meaningful. Channeling the same contempt for the mainstream music industry that the Dead Kennedys were notorious for, NOFX played their song “Dinosaurs Will Die,” which lays out their vision for making music: “Music written from devotion not ambition, not for fame/Zero people are exploited there are no tricks up our sleeve/We’re gonna fight against the mass appeal/We’re gonna kill the seven-record deal/Make records that have more than one good song/The dinosaurs are gonna die and I do believe no one will cry.” Indeed, there were no teary eyes in the crowd that night.

Just in case there were any doubts left about where NOFX stands in relation to the establishment, they closed with their song “The Idiot Son of an Asshole,” an ode to the president.

Yeah, so you may as well find out now: I take Science Fiction WAY too seriously

2007-01-12T00:24:00.000-08:00

After hearing about Larry Niven's Ringworld from several other sci-fi-heads, and reading about it on the backs of many sci-fi books I've read and enjoyed, I figured it was about time I read it. But, like the time I finally read Stranger in a Strange Land, I was disappointed to find a lot of sexism mixed in with some really fascinating concepts and at least mostly decent writing. Heinlein may have had an excuse (albeit a lame one) because Stranger in a Strange Land came out in 1961, before the feminist movement forced sexists to obey certain measures of common decency. But what's up with Niven, who published Ringworld in 1970? Did he incubate in some kind of feminism-free zone?

At one point, when the cast of heroes in Ringworld all set off on a dangerous mission, Niven writes of the female lead: “Teela stood behind [the men], safe for the moment in the ring of fighting, looking worried, like a good heroine" (319). I mean, he's not even being sly about his sexism. Why, you might ask, was Teela taken on the mission in the first place? Because she's a good fighter? Or a skilled pilot? Or maybe even a knowledgeable scientist? Nope. Turns out she was bred to be lucky. Apparently, along with lots of men to do the real work, you need lots of luck in outer space, moreso than extra fighters or scientists.

Now, it's possible I missed something and Niven was in some way parodying or otherwise playing off of readers' expectations. But I don't think it's likely. The only other female character is a prostitute.

The interesting thing, though, and the thing that gives me pause, is the way he describes Prill's profession.

"'Boredom can be dangerous when a ship takes years to cross between worlds,'" she explains. "'The ways to amuse must be many and all different. To be a ship’s whore needs knowledge of medicine of mind and body, plus love of many men, plus a rare ability to converse. We must know something of the working of the ship, so that we will not cause accidents. We must be healthy. By rule of guild we must learn to play a musical instrument'" (328).

For some reason, this description reminds me of the character Inara from Joss Whedon's Firefly. Inara's a prostitute, but portrayed more or less in a favorable light--prositution in the future is apparently a noble profession.

But notice Prill doesn't say that prostitutes have to love many men and women--only men are provided with their services. In fact, there are no male prostitutes. The only reason women are even brought along is to pleasure the men, who need the distraction from doing all the important work so they don't go crazy. Now, to be fair, Firefly never mentions male prostitutes either. But still, there's a dignity to Inara that Prill is lacking. Inara at least gets her own ship.

Plus, Niven is guilty of writing the most horribly unsexy description of sex EVER: "Louis rolled onto his back, and Teela impaled herself as she straddled his hips. They looked at each other for a long, brilliant, unbearable moment before they began to move” (165, emphasis mine). Yeesh.

I mean, yeah, I'm taking this far too seriously. But damn. When it comes to female leads impaling themselves like good little heroines should, someone's gotta say something.

Edition of Ringworld cited:
Niven, Larry. Ringworld. Del Rey/Ballantine, 1970.

Why is no one talking about this?

2006-10-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of talk about Bushco launching a "pre-emptive" strike against Iran to try and save the Republican majority in Congress. If Bushco is shortsighted and narcissistic enough to launch an attack on Iran, no doubt that would be a major disaster for the entire world. But frankly it doesn’t seem entirely likely, unless they stage some Gulf of Tonkin-type event to claim that Iran started it.

I for one am far more concerned about Bush and Rove’s inexplicable optimism about the November elections and the prospect that they are optimistic because they are planning on stealing several elections to retain control of Congress. Unfortunately, it seems it will be all-too-easy for them to do. .

I've seen no mention of the possibility that Bush and Rove are planning on rigging elections, and yet it seems so obvious that they would stoop to that level. Oh wait.

Clintons on point

2006-09-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Whenever I debate with a Republican or conservative friend or family member about politics, I never have a problem pointing out just how awful GOP leadership has been in the Bush era. But where I always get stymied is when my sparring partner finally pulls out their trump card: "Well, all the Dems and progressives ever do is point out what everyone else is doing wrong. What's their plan?"

I’m typically forced to admit that Dems and progressives have not really offered any plan, that they've simply offered opposition as opposed to alternatives. This, to me, has been the most frustrating point in what’s passed for the national debate for the past 5 years, as well as the biggest obstacle to ousting the GOP. Everyone was pointing fingers, but no one was offering alternatives.

No matter how much Dems and progressives rightly point out the many faults of the current administration and the sycophantic disgrace of a yes-man GOP congress currently occupying Capitol Hill, unless Dems and progressives are offering some kind of viable alternative plans or strategies there's no reason why anyone should vote for them instead of the GOP. Sure, dissatisfaction with the incompetent and avaricious bunglers who have hijacked our federal government may be enough to defeat the incumbents, but do we really want to rely on that? More importantly, can we afford to?

Given the fact that Dems are all-too-often thoroughly tepid in their criticism—especially in the sense that they continually debate the GOPers on the terms set by the neo-conservatives and the Christian Right, whose agenda has permeated and poisoned our national debate for the past half decade, rather than reframing the debate in a way that demonstrates how horribly skewed and dangerous the neo-con/Christian Right/GOP agenda truly is—there's no reason to expect dissatisfaction will lead to the ousting of the incumbent congress and/or administration.

That's why I'm so thoroughly heartened (and, honestly, so pleasantly surprised) by the actions of the Clintons in the past week. I'm not saying Bill and Hillary are immune from criticism--obviously they've got their share of flaws. All Dems have really failed to capitalize on the weakness of the GOP heading in to this election cycle, but if they follow the leads of Bill and Hillary they could mop the floor with these Republican thugs. First you've got Bill tearing Chris Wallace of Fox News a new one. Clinton defends his actions against the criticisms that he didn't do enough to capture bin Laden, saying "at least I tried" and pointing out that the Bush administration had 8 months before 9/11 to prevent terrorist attacks on our soil and did nothing. By not sitting back and admitting defeat but actually taking the fight to the propaganda machine, Bill sparked off a debate that has been long in coming and has been covered extensively in the national press. What I find particularly inspiring—but under-reported—is that Bill puts Wallace in his place for parroting GOP talking points in asking why, as president, he didn’t do more to put bin Laden and al Qaeda “out of business.” Clinton tells Wallace: "you didn't formulate [the question] in an honest way" and argues that the question in and of itself is a perfect example of Fox News' partisan bias. "You people ask me questions you don't ask the other side," Bill tells Wallace. He also asserts that the "right-wingers" who now criticize him for not doing enough criticized him during his presidency for the measures he did take to pursue bin Laden, claiming he was “wagging the dog” over a non-issue. It's about time someone as visible as Clinton voices frustration—on a national news service—with the fact that the Current GOP administration has gotten a pass from the media. Bill even goes a step further and calls Wallace out for not doing his job as a member of the mainstream media and thus, in theory, a watchdog of the public interest. It's also nice to have the hypocrisy of the current administration and congress being pointed out: They’re not nearly as interested in fighting terror as they are in doing whatever is politically expedient at the time.

Which brings us to the statement Hillary read at a press conference on Tuesday (9/26). Hillary says what is apparent to everyone whose interests are more vested in the well-being of the world than the fortunes of the GOP: the Bush administration and the incumbent GOP congress "may not have a plan to complete, successfully, the mission in Iraq, but they do have a plan to win elections here at home." She goes on to point out that "the Bush-Cheney administration has stretched our military to the brink, stretched the facts to fit their ideology and stretched the patience of the American people with rhetoric instead of results," and that "the Republican-led Congress has failed to engage in meaningful oversight of the Bush administration's Iraq policy." Her statement was occasioned by the meeting of the Democratic Policy Committee that sought to craft a new strategy for conducting the Iraq quagmire. It's about time a highly-visible Dem—as well as presidential contender—comes out against the diversionary tactics of the Bush administration and holds the do-nothing-but-rubber-stamp GOP congress responsible for enabling the most disastrous foreign policy ever implemented. It's scary how short-sighted and self-serving the Republican party has become. "The stakes are too high to let them take such a low road," Hillary says, referring to the incumbent administration's attempts to wag their show-dogs through the November elections while failing to come up with any substantive or effective policy in the current legislative term. The failed policies of the Bush administration have jeopardized the safety of the entire world, not just our country, and not just the political fortunes of incumbent legislators. We need to elect real leadership in November of 2006 and November of 2008, and until now there has been no one even having a real debate in which that leadership could emerge.

Thank you, the Clintons, for finally starting a real debate, the first one we’ve had in more than 5 years. And thank you Democratic Policy Committee for finally making moves to craft substantial alternatives, rather than just shooting the fish in the leaky barrel that is the Bush administration and the congress that has become little better than a propaganda apparatus for that administration. I'm no Democrat, but it is very encouraging to see any Dem finally fighting back, not just with talk but with plans and strategies, too. But speaking of talk, let's hope Bill's fiery refusal to let Wallace's conservative talking points frame their discussion gives the rest of the Democratic party a kick in the ass, because there's still a lot they need to do and not a whole lot of time left to do it in. Let's hope Bill's tough talk and the DPC's hearing on Iraq leads to actual, substantive policy positions and a progressive agenda for the Democratic Party.

Resist not the new

2006-08-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

Mark my words: Pandora is the way of the future. I’m not making a prediction on the prospects of that company, mind you. I’m simply claiming that soon, all media will be web-based.

Resist not the new, as Emerson advised. If you open your mind, it will refine and raise your outlook on life on this planet. But there is a lot of resistance, and I personally get frustrated with those who retard the pace of the transition to digital culture. There is so much potential we have not unlocked.

Record companies know it, and they’re fighting it tooth and nail – but to no avail. Soon enough, someone, some band, somewhere, will come up with the “business model” that will take advantage of the web in ways the brick-and-mortar establishment has never dreamed of, and the traditional record company will be a thing of the past. It’s happening already. We all know it, we've all seen it, and I don't feel like I even need to document that fact.

TV networks know it, too, and have embraced the Internet to a degree, at least to the point that they host exclusive content on their websites in conjunction with news reports and other programming. Of course, millions of bloggers, as well as sites like Alternet.org and the Indy Media network, have already changed the way we receive our news. But I think that, some time soon, the TV as we know it will be obsolete. Your computer’s monitor and your TV will be one and the same. You will tune in to websites, not TV stations; and when that becomes a widely accessible and accessed medium, there will be a drastic increase in the number of people making their own home-made programming and hosting it on their own television sites. Naturally, you’ll still get the corporate-made schlock; the corporate TV entities will, above all, find a way to continue making money. But imagine the possibilities of unlimited websites offering programming that is truly inspired, not market-tested into sterility. Personally, I don’t watch TV because there is very little on TV that I want to see. Star Trek fans have the same problem these days, and they’re using the Internet to remedy that situation.

The publishing industry is starting to feel the digital heat, too, and there is quite the debate going on about the future of books. On one side of the debate, you have those who are excited about the prospect of digitalizing all knowledge, likening a project to assemble an online “universal library” that is already underway to the great library at Alexandria. Others, like John Updike, see this as the lamentable death-knell for the world of books they cherish so deeply. But even if every book ever written is digitized and available for download or digital search, that doesn’t mean anyone has to stop buying and reading hardcopies. I have a hard time understanding Mr. Updike’s concern. Sure, the bookselling industry will have to readjust, and, regrettably, it will probably be the smaller, independent stores that bear the brunt of the readjustment. But I, for one, certainly won’t stop buying hardcopies – I love books and I love reading and collecting them. On the other hand, as a literary scholar, I look forward to the day that I can perform digital searches of any text I am interested in studying. The implications for the types of research that will be made possible are truly wondrous. It’s only a matter of time before new word-based art forms arise that make use of the Internet to create texts impossible with print and paper. So far, though, the best example of the formats the Internet makes possible is non-artistic: Wikipedia.com, perhaps the best, most thorough – and thoroughly fascinating – encyclopedia man has ever made (and people who claim the information on Wikipedia is not reliable are wrong).

The video gaming industry is the perfect example of why people are wrong to oppose web-based technologies rather than embracing them. Rather than fight or resist the Internet, video game companies rushed to embrace it – Origin put out the wildly successful title Ultima Online, an online addition to a long-running, single-player PC franchise, as early as 1997. Today, massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs as they’re now more commonly called, are the juggernaut of the video gaming industry. World of Warcraft has millions of subscribers. Single-player console games still do a respectable business, but the opportunity to play in an open-ended, persistent-state gameworld with any number of other people is an Internet promise fulfilled, and it has certainly paid off for Blizzard.

There’s no reason why the music, publishing, and TV programming industries can’t invent ways to capitalize on the technologies the web makes possible. Ironically, many of the companies who are putting up the fiercest fight against those new technologies are the ones with the most resources at their disposal with which they could be developing the newest blockbuster technology. Perhaps they are hoping that they can continue to squeeze every last drop out of their current business models while someone else develops the new technologies, which they will then swoop in and purchase. The music industry has certainly been doing just that – witness the fate of Napster, and the latest developments in the lawsuit against Kazaa. The recording industry has co-opted these sites rather than develop their own vehicle for online sales and marketing. Let’s hope this trend is soon reversed. We need more creativity and fresh ideas and less rear-guard maneuvering when it comes to embracing the future.

Which brings me back to Pandora. Not only are Pandora’s musical offerings far, far more diverse than any other single radio station, but they have established partnerships with the goal of integrating their Internet radio station into actual radios and other types of electronic devices. Just like your old TV, your old radio will soon be obsolete, thanks to the Internets.

Doubleplusungoodspeak

2006-08-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

You gotta hand it to the Repugnicans: They are masters of doublespeak. The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire was not a day old and Bush was already using it to lay the groundwork for starting yet another war:

"Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks," Bush said.

As he sits there proud as a preening peacock because a cease-fire has finally been announced, Bush is welcoming the end of the hostilities out of one corner of his mouth and stoking anti-Iran sentiment with the other. I'd be impressed with his subtly nuanced speech if the implications weren't so bloodthirsty.

I agree that a "sustainable peace" should be everyone's end-goal, but to use that as a justification for prolonging the conflict, as Condi and Bush repeatedly did, is just heinously unconscionable. Couldn't we have stopped Israel from killing mothers and their babies while we work towards that sustainable peace? Hezbollah was firing missiles, of course, but the drastically disparate death toll is a good indicator of how dangerous those missile attacks really were. And what's more, is there no such thing as "being the bigger man (or woman or country or what-have-you)" any more? Of course Israel should defend itself, it's madness not to; but as everyone can see they were not merely interested in "defending" themselves. Israel wants revenge. Bloody, bloody revenge. Their tactics were more commensurate with a dictatorial regime engaging in ethnic cleansing than a super-powerful state defending itself from a far-less-capable enemy. It seems as if, when they say "sustainable peace," what Bush and Condi mean is Israel lives and everyone who opposes them dies. That's one way to achieve peace, I suppose.

The Repugnicans aren't even trying that hard to mask their doublespeak any more, either. Witness: How did they cast Lieberman's primary loss? To quote press secretary Tony Snow, the sound bite of the day seemed to be that "if you disagree with the extreme left in [the Democratic] party they're going to come after you."

I thought the official Repugnican line was that Democrats were spineless flip-floppers??? Now all of a sudden they're rabid ideologues? I'm incredulous about the fact that Repugnicans can get away with characterizing the results of the Connecticut primary as a witch hunt, when it really amounts to the Democrats doing some much-needed house-cleaning — thoroughly democratic house-cleaning, too. The people voted, and a majority voted for Lamont. Where's the witch hunt? Oh, right, the people behaved in a way that can't be described as "cowed in fear" or "supplicant to Emperor Bush." How could we have expected him or any of his cronies to recognize what actually happened? They wouldn't know democracy if it wrapped itself around their crusty members and died.

I'm actually ashamed as an American living under the Bush regime that the Repugnicans blatantly and purposefully misread the democratic process in action as anything less than the process they tout so highly and are so keen to spread across the globe. Why does anyone take them seriously? Even more importantly: How can anyone believe in the Repugnicans when they stand for absolutely nothing? Because words alone do not make a philosophy, you must follow through with actions. And at every step, the Repugnicans' actions belie their flowery, well-crafted, carefully-marketed words.

These people don't want fair access for all, they want power for themselves. Hence they'll even denigrate what they supposedly exalt higher than anything (save God, of course; they're all pious, pious men of God, naturally) if it serves their partisan purpose. Hence they brokered a peace deal only for the "political capital" they acquired — which they instantly spend trying to start another war. Hence when democracy happens in their own country, it is characterized as evil because it threatens the Bushies' power.

How many innocent people have died for the Repugnicans' great "Get Out the Democracy!" drive? I don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but if we were trying to spread democracy to them, we should have at least let them vote on whether or not they wanted to be smart-bombed, or gunned down at a roadside checkpoint, or raped and murdered by our troops...

Oh yeah, and speaking of doublespeak, when Bush says he's doing everything he can to protect our nation, it's just more empty rhetoric. We are not safer.

Cavorting Wee Beasties

2006-08-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

According to Wikipedia:

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (October 24, 1632 - August 30, 1723), "was a Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft, Netherlands. He is commonly known as 'the Father of Microbiology.'"

Van Leeuwenhoek was the first person to ever observe microorganisms through a magnifying lens. He referred to them as "cavorting, wee beasties" and "animalcules." I find both terms to be utterly fantastic. The fact that van Leeuwenhoek came up with both of them instantly endears me to him and makes naming this blog in his honor completely worthwhile.

And then I came across this bit of his writing:

My work, which I've done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a craving after knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therewithal, whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof. - Anton van Leeuwenhoek, from a letter dated June 12, 1716

In that spirit, I give you the Look at the wee beasties! blog. Thanks for visiting.