The AFroNaut Bloggeth

Drupal Coding Lifeline

2011-09-16T08:57:00.000-04:00

dpm(get_defined_vars());

That little bit of PHP is an absolute lifeline for module and theme coding in Drupal. If you need to know what variables are available in a given context, that's what to use. Works in .tpl.php files and in .module or .inc files, especially where hook_theme may be in use. print_r and var_dump are of course reliable standbys, but time and time again, dpm() has rescued me from hours of very painful head banging against desk.

Far better explanations and listings of Drupal debugging tools and their usage are both here

- http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/blog/02-10-2007/hugely-useful-hugely-undocumented

and here

- http://blog.anselmbradford.com/2009/03/14/2-invaluable-drupal-development-tips-list-all-available-variables-and-backtrace-a-page/

If You Liked "Exit through the Gift Shop"...

2011-03-19T23:37:00.000-04:00

Make sure you check out the following:

Bomb It
Style Wars
Wild Style
Downtown 81

Great documents of the origins and legacy of graffiti art.

Feed Your Face - Get Your FB Page's Status Feed into Your Own Website

2011-03-19T22:08:00.000-04:00

Needed to get facebook page's feed into a site. Here's how:
Get latest status from facebook fan pages in PHP (part 2: multiple entries)

Much thanks to Lenny Urbanowski's blog.

From Palm to Droid - the final move

2010-11-20T16:01:00.002-05:00

Finally moved my addresses from my Palm to my Droid today. Some fits and starts, but ultimately got there. Basically I exported the addresses from Palm Desktop to a CSV (http://kb.palm.com/wps/portal/kb/common/article/36288_en.html), then imported the CSV into GMail Contacts (http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14024).

The export was easy at first glance. Enter the Address section of Palm Desktop (old version used with Centro, so non-WebOS). Select all contacts in the address list then select Export... from the File menu. You may be prompted to show hidden data which likely, you'll want to do if you're migrating fully from one platform to the other.

With the export was complete, I opened up the CSV in OpenOffice Calc. Of course MS Excel, Google Docs or even Lotus 1-2-3 will do. I found that the data came over without column headers. It may be that there was a selection to include the headers in the export that I missed. In any case, I spent about 15 minutes labeling the columns and doing some necessary cleanup of the data export (moving misaligned/misassigned data into appropriate column, deleting empty columns, etc.).

Saving the cleaned up spreadsheet as separate file, I went back into GMail and followed the contacts import instructions (More Actions - Import Addresses, choose local file, click OK, click Import). Worked like a breeze. I even got a message that duplicate addresses were merged automatically. Woohoo!

Reviewing the uploads, it looks like any fields that weren't recognized or couldn't be mapped directly to an existing contact field were added to the notes field and labeled with the header from the CSV. This happened with most of my addresses. In the CSV street address, city, state, zip, etc were each in their own fields. Likewise, Palm Desktop allowed for multiple addresses (work, home). In the CSV cleanup I'd created separate Home labeled fields and Work labeled fields. In the end it looks like the Home City and Home State, where present, were loaded successfully to the contact's address field. The street address and work address info where present, was dumped to the Notes. Likewise for birthdays (which I'd labeled "Date of Birth) and custom fields.

Of Bits and Paper

2010-08-23T00:43:00.002-04:00

I am watching the documentary When the Moors Ruled in Europe. I marvel at the facts presented in this account of Europe's history from the Dark Ages through the Renaissance, and am struck by the documentary's relevance at this point in America's history.

The fact presented early in the documentary that most struck me was that one of the most transformational influences that Muslims brought to Europe was the introduction of paper-making. At the time, vellum and parchment were difficult and expensive to produce and therefore rare. Likewise, the prevailing culture held literacy as the province of the privileged anointed few. In this context, the ability to produce paper inexpensively amounted to nothing short of a revolution. And this technology was brought by a culture that believed in the democratization of literacy and learning. The intersection of technology and a new way of thinking transformed life in a way that allowed light to begin to shine through the clouds of the Dark Ages.

In today's context where we find ourselves debating the merits of a free and open internet against those who seek to impose a caste system of access, this piece of history resonates deeply. Especially as we see in elements of our society a resurgent wave of bigotry and xenophobia being fired scattershot at all Muslims, we would do well to remind ourselves of how and where are cultural heritages are deeply intertwined, and with them, our shared fate. As fundamentalism on both sides of the divide fight against the very ideas of enlightenment, scientific curiosity, exploration, and understanding, we need to revisit the lessons and gifts that the early Muslim emigres brought with them to the land of the vandals, instead of seeking to vandalize their culture, and with it, our own.

The Freshest Kids - a review

2009-06-06T10:42:00.003-04:00

The Freshest Kids is a true and vivid history of Hip Hop. To many people, breakdancing died an embarressing death in the eighties as a played out fad. To many people like me, when the commercial fad ended, we were still amazed to see its heartbeat continue however faint in its hollowed out husk, only to see it come roaring back to life. In my case, at the Chinatown Y in Boston, where a group of Asian, Black, Latino, and a smattering of White kids were busy adding hand springs, flips, and other acrobatics to the traditional windmills, backspins, and body rockin.

The Freshest Kids puts 2 and 2 together, showing but 4 the the strength of the artform, its rough and ready roots, and the heart and soul of its originators, Madison Avenue might well have won the day. But all things that are hard fought, well-crafted, and elemental are indeed enduring. So it is with the B-Boys and B-Girls, God bless them all.

A story of the human spirit, it reminds us to be inspired by kids, their creativity, ingenuity, and explosive power when you remove the shackles of pretense and oppression in its other other pernicious forms. Because these kids with less than nothing, took only what they brought with them and made something that reaches through space - across the world to people and places they'd never seen - and time - back to ancestors they never knew they had. They truly are and ever will be The Freshest Kids.

GOP Legislators Fought Pandemic Preparedness

2009-04-28T12:40:00.002-04:00

The tyranny of small(-minded) government...- @~When David Obey (D-WI), a longtime champion of pandemic preparation, included $900 million for that purpose in the stimulus package, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans. The Republicans essentially succeeded: the Senate version of the stimulus included no money whatsoever for pandemic preparedness.

read more | digg story

Filemaker Table Joins - FINALLY!!!

2009-04-15T22:31:00.015-04:00

I've been searching high and low for any way to perform a table join in Filemaker using a foreign key relationship without using a blasted portal! With a little bit of ingenuity and a lot of brute force, I finally found a way. I'm hereby declaring April 13th forevermore Victory over Filemaker Day! Here's how I did it.

Say you want to list organization affiliations on a given contact's record and you have two tables:

organizations: with the fields - organization_id(PK) and organization_name
contacts: with the field - organization_id(FK)

To display a list of organization names on the contact record:

Create a layout based on the contacts table.
Go to Manage... in the File menu and in the Relationships view (looks like an ERD or schema) link the contacts:organization_id field to the organizations:organization_id field.
Now go to the Tables view and select the contacts table.
Select the contacts table and add a calculation type field: calc_organization_names.
For the calculation, insert the following formula which will take the matching organization names based on the table relationship and replace the line feeds with a comma:
- Substitute ( List ( organizations::organization_name) ; ¶ ; ", ")
- You may use a calculated field in the formula, e.g. if you wanted to concatenate organization_name with organization_city.
- NOTE: Unfortunately cannot combine fields directly within List() function (with multiple fields the first field's values get listed followed by the second, and so on).
Click OK to save the database changes then return to the new contacts layout.
If it wasn't added automatically, add the newly created calc_organization_names field to the layout.
If you already have the appropriate data filled into the tables, you should be able to see the comma-separated organization lists as you browse through your contacts.

For me this was a huge victory because finally it meant getting Filemaker to behave more like a proper database as opposed to the kneecapped desktop-based monstrosity I've come to know over the years. Being forced to use this on projects instead of the real SQL databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, mSQL, Oracle,...), this comes at nothing less than sweet relief!!! (Sweeter relief if I didn't have to use Filemaker at all, but that work's in progress. One step at a time.) Thanks to my colleagues who've put up with my ceaseless bellyaching about Filemaker over the past few months.

...but what the heck. One more rant for the road:

The Foreign Key Relationship is basic database functionality. It shouldn't be SOOOO hard to find out how to implement this properly on anything calling itself a database. Yet for all my searching I found absolutely no documentation pointing to me a solution that didn't involve portals which lock it into a stupid scroll box in layouts, hamstringing further use of the resultant data.

So short of buying a Filemaker book that may or may not have the answer I needed, paying for a training class or one of those infernal pay-as-you-go help forums I was stuck coming up with the solution above k-solo. Yes, that makes me a cheap bastard, but it's the principal, dammit!

SQL's been around since the 70's and is a de facto standard for relational database interaction. If you produce a product that mimics a relational database, then pay your developers properly, give them a few more Red Bulls and let them make it work the way a database is supposed to. Or at least document it properly so these basic functions aren't hidden! Cute quirky history with Apple aside, obfuscation doesn't equal value!!!

getting drupal's big picture

2009-04-09T23:34:00.002-04:00

The Pro Drupal Dev book is great. Halfway through having learned about modules, nodes, hooks, menu items, etc I was having trouble pulling together the big picture: how do all these make a site?

Took a step back and thought about a target site archetype: sections, pages, page types, page sections/modules. Mapping the site out this way, creating a page taxonomy (page types and their content components) I was better able to relate to the nodes I’ll need, modules, and even admin behavior and permissions (what should be enabled/disabled, and for whom).

This will help a lot as I go forward with the reading (will probably be revisiting a few chapters) and will probably be revisiting this (both the notes I took and the exercise itself) several times in the near future.

See more progress on: learn drupal

Support a Music Revolution - Ardour.org

2009-03-22T12:50:00.014-04:00

More importantly, keep someone doing good in the world out of the kindness of his own heart from having to quit his altruism altogether.

Ardour is an Open Source digital audio workstation. Think ProTools, FL-Studio (formerly known as FruityLoops), ACID Pro and other home to professional studio production tools. Now think FREE as in beer and speech. The tools above range in price from $200-$2000 per license. Ardour is an industrial strength tool, that's free AND runs on a similarly free operating system - Linux (something those other clowns DON'T do).

As Ardour's creator put it, when you buy a car, the hood isn't welded shut. Likewise with Ardour, except you don't have to pay anything for it. You download it, you install it, you own it, and it's TRULY yours. Tinker with it, install it anywhere you want as many times as you want, upgrade it for free, copy and share it with all your friends. ALL of them! Let's see Microsoft offer you all that!!

Huh? What's that? You don't make music and you don't use Linux, so what does this mean to you? Think of a kid with an old used hand-me-down computer running a free operating system (Linux) who uses a beat-up hand-me-down guitar and this free audio production software to make beautiful music that will finally blow all the nauseating crap you hate off of the airwaves once and for all.

It's a dream, I know, but that can't happen if the developers can't afford to support it, upgrade it, and keep it solid and competitive. Doing that is a fulltime job that Ardour's creator and contributing developers do for free. All they ask is a dollar and a dream...a dream of better software, a dream of better music.

In Pencil

2009-03-21T23:42:00.010-04:00

We write our lives in pencil.
Press firmly with our good deeds.
Press gently with mistakes.
Let the errs be soon forgotten,
That the good shall take their place.
And there they'll be remembered
'Til the paper fades away.

~AFN. 3/21/2009

Problematic Post-ing

2009-02-22T13:12:00.015-05:00

The New York Post's recent editorial cartoon associating the shooting of a chimpanzee with the authorship of the economic stimulus bill is problematic on several levels.

Since the dawn of the Atlantic slave trade, Black people have been categorized through “science”, religion, and social morés as being sub-human: something more akin to apes, than Homo sapiens. It was this classification among others that was used as justification of chattel slavery that brought Africans to the Americas and other parts of the world. As supposed non-humans, we were not to bear any rights justified for humans let alone the landed gentry of a “free society”. It was thereby taken for granted that we were subject to capture, enslavement, and subsequent trade; and that we were to be used as a disposable commodities, abused, killed, or discarded at the society's whim.

Undermining this fallacy and blank hypocrisy was chief in the grueling transformation of social consciousness undertaken by the abolitionist movement. Challenging this archetype ultimately led to the passage of the Slave Trade Act which ended the United Kingdom's slave trade and lead to the much later abolition of slavery in the United States.

Sadly it did not end there, as shown through a continuing century-plus of Jim Crow laws and other racial subjugation in the form of segregation and social stigma. The Post's tone-deaf editorial cartoon and it's subsequent luke-warm apology demonstrate how this pernicious association continues to play out even to this day.

Granted, the cartoon in part lampoons the recent police shooting of a pet chimpanzee in Connecticut. However as the dialog balloon tags the violent act of the shooting (implicitly justified) with the writing and passage of the stimulus bill (implicitly unjustified) it takes on a sinister tone if not one of outright incitement. The message is simple. Resolve political disagreement through violence. Coupled with the racial overtones and the fact that we have unprecedented numbers of Black Americans holding high office and appointments (including President Obama and members of his cabinet) the message goes beyond sinister to a vicious call for the deletion of 400-plus years of social progress.

I would expect any newspaper, even The Post to hold itself to a higher standard. The press was nicknamed the fourth estate for its role as steward and guardian of democratic ideals. The Post's negligent eye, and self-serving extenuation demonstrate its opposition to those ideals where its interests are involved. I can only hope that with the era ushered in through President Obama's election, we will also see the demise of this irresponsible brand of journalism and the institutions that support it.

How to take a hike

2009-01-25T22:52:00.001-05:00

"Taking a hike is the best (and first) thing I've done so far this year!!!"

How I did it: The key to taking a hike is preparedness. Know your destination. Dress appropriately and bring along some gear that may be helpful or at least fun.

I looked up several potential destinations in my local area. I found several helpful sites, local and national that pointed me in the right direction, which I'll list below. The beauty of looking up potential destinations is that it also gets you really excited about finally going. No I can't wait to go again and have plenty of options for when I do!

Being that it's still winter in New England, I took a look at a few sites discussing winter hiking and being prepared for them. My three biggest take aways from those were:

dress warmly
stay hydrated
don't get lost

Wasn't sure I was actually going to go until yesterday evening. So I decided on an easy one: The Cliff Walk in Newport, RI. I guess folks would consider it a walk more than a hike, but navigating ice sheets covering the path, scrambling down boulders to take a shot closer to the water's edge, and a section of the path that's more boulder hopscotch than "path" a winter's hike maketh. Suffice it to say: check!

The beauty of the Cliff Walk is that this activity is a two-fer. I went on a hike AND took pictures at the beach during the winter. Check and check! Well I'll actually now have to go take pictures at the beach in spring summer and fall to truly call the second one a check, but you get the idea.

Anyway, as I said before, the whole adventure has gotten me primed to go on several more hiking adventures over the course of the year as I'd hoped it would. Great goal, and cheers to anyone also planning to do it!

Lessons & tips: Here's what I wore for my winter hike:

hot chillies long johns (just the pants)
t-shirt
turtleneck
cotton sweater (overkill once I got going but helpful later in the day)
microfleece zip-top sweater
"army" cargo pants - (great for holding my digital camera, extra film and usuals: keys, wallet, phone)
Kinco WarmGrip work gloves - better for taking pictures w/o having to take gloves off
microfleece hood - never needed to pull up the hood, but it doubled as a scarf and stayed out of the way better than a regular scarf
basic comfy hiking boots - mine are a pair of 5-year old Rockport XCS's

Here's what I carried for my winter's hike (note this was a photo-excursion as well):

1 full 700mL Nalgene bottle - with water...this time ;-)
Hot Fingers Skiing and Snowboarding gloves - just in case. They're bulky and I never needed them so they stayed in the backpack.
1 35mm SLR camera
1 extra roll 24 exp 200 asa film - I'm from the old school...
1 digital camera - ...but I'm all about learning new things!
- also note: phone doubles as handy camera/camcorder. see posted photo
Road map - in car for getting down to Newport (just in case)
Google Map directions to Cliff Walk starting point - I luv Google Maps for the phone (http://www.google.com/mobile/default/maps.html) as long as you only check directions at stoplights!
Extra change: for emergency calls and tolls ($4.00 round trip to Newport)
Back pack - gotta carry that stuff around somehow

What I wish I brought:

SD card for my digital camera
Extra batteries for my digital camera
Trail map/guide - would have been nice to see the full extent of the trail before hand and know a little bit more about the sights along the path. I felt like an idiot having to ask about the Vanderbilt mansion (The Breakers) which is one of Newport's biggest attractions!

What I wish I'd done before I set off:

Remembered the items listed in the preceding section
Double-checked the film in my SLR - wasn't loaded properly on the first half of the walk, so wasted roll and opportunities. But first time I've used it in years so it was nice enough to have it around my neck, let alone actually try to take some real pictures with it.
Packed extra socks - may sound stupid, but if for any reason your socks get messed up on a hike (wet, hole, porcupines), you gotta keep your feet happy.

I texted friends last minute the night before to see if anyone else wanted to come along, but all in all, I'm glad I did this one on my own. I got to spend 3 solid hours out there, just me and the waves and the winter sky. It was a beautiful day. I'll definitely enjoy the company on future hikes, but all in all, glad that today was all mine.

Resources: Sites about Hiking and Trails in RI:

Sites About Hiking in Wintertime:

It took me 1 day.

It made me invigorated

See more progress on: take a hike

There's more to the HeliOS story

2008-12-12T15:24:00.002-05:00

After a teacher put a kid in detention and confiscated the Linux CD's he was handing out when that kid was demonstrating a Linux computer donated by the HeliOS project, then contacted HeliOS claiming that handing out software free-of-charge was probably illegal, public outcry at Slashdot and Digg followed. Of course, there's more to this story...I was impressed with this story because it exemplified the term "learning moment". And it resulted in the type of real learning, both technical and social, that work with Open Source uniquely brings.

read more | digg story

Election Day - III

2008-11-05T01:56:00.002-05:00

A New Hope...
11/5/2008

Yes we can...yes we did...and yes, we have only just begun!!! This is a day that I did not think I would see in my lifetime. And I gladly eat those words and sentiments whole. With approx 65% of the voting population represented we have not simply made but mandated the choice of Barack Obama as our president-elect. Know that this is a victory for America by Americans from all walks of life, truly representing the America that is and that we hope her to be.

I can say for my part I will hold my head higher tomorrow knowing that my country and my home has chosen to reaffirm the democratic ideals which we hold sacred, and demonstrated the commitment to uphold them, to renew them, and to make them even better than they were when handed down to us. God truly continues to bless us all.

Election Day - II

2008-11-04T12:35:00.004-05:00

I Came...I Saw...I Voted
11/4/2008

Well, got my Dunkies and got to the polling place right at 6:55a. A little line had formed outside the Veterans Club as we waited for the doors to open. The group there was somewhat mixed. Some seemed to know each other or were simply politely chatting. I kinda stuck out. Only guy above 6 feet, among other things ;-) But among those not chatting there seemed to be a quiet tension. A sense of purpose that they seemed to want to talk about but feared brining to light. That's certainly how I felt.

The polling station opened a little late, so unfortunately no "in and out in 2 minutes" like the old timer in front of me reminisced about when the clock struck 5 after. I was about 20th in line, but quickly became 7th in line when it split between A-L and M-Z. Lucky break!

The lady checking names took about 3 minutes to find mine. Par for the course when you're also a tall (formerly) skinny guy with a funny name. I handed her my registration card to make it a little easier. It wasn't. Oh well.

Something on the ballot reminded me of a poster I saw on designforobama.org that read, "Don't trust Zapf Dingbats". The thing about it was the logo, the same five pointed star I've seen on the McCain posters and commercials (since he picked Palin anyway) was there on the ballot next to "Democrats" in the Straight Ticket section at the top of the page. The logo next to the "Republicans" selection was the miniaturized eagle and shield combo with lightening bolts and flamethrowers, etc. Don't trust Zapf Dingbats indeed! Wonder whose idea that was? Imagery's a powerful thing. I wondered how many older voters that may throw off on both sides of the ticket. Just to be on the safe side, I went to the Presidential Election section and filled in my line for Obama and Biden. Not a moment I'll soon forget (sorry to rub it in Agz) .

I would however like to forget that I nearly jammed up the voting machine by letting the corner of my folder get sucked in a bit when I fed my ballot sheet through. A more than gentle tug got it free. Shoulda put down the damn coffee. Such an addict.

The highlight was when the woman walking out next to me said: "Make history. Check that off the to do list." I gave her a hale and hardy amen, then scooted off to work, blasting People of the Sun the whole way — a not-so guilty indulgence.

Go vote!!! And watch the dingbats.

Election Day - I

2008-11-04T06:31:00.002-05:00

Election Day
11/4/2008

I forgot that I forgot to set my alarm back an hour. So when I set my alarm last night and saw it set to 8am, wondering why the hell I'd set it so late, it didn't occur to me that resetting it for “6:45”, I'd actually be up at 5:45 am.

I said my prayers, for Barack, for his family, for the country and for us all. I thought of my grandma. Told her picture about what's going on today. I wished that she and all my grandparents could be here to share this historic day.

I'm not sure what the polls will be like. It's 6:30 now. Thinking I might be on the early side for my polling station. But going to go ahead now and make a move to the polling station. With a quick Dunkie's stop first.

Obama On Grandmother And Campaign: "Bittersweet"

2008-11-03T20:17:00.001-05:00

I don't often cry these days, but today I cried. To see a man fighting through his own tears to share his grandmother's story and to inspire us to fight on her behalf and the quiet heroes like her, I cried.God bless you and your family, Senator Obama. We are with you.

read more | digg story

Steven Petrow: Joe Biden's Tears Remembered

2008-10-14T23:38:00.001-04:00

Character isn't just a word or a resume checklist. It's the sum of an individual's lifetime that occasionally condenses to a single moment. This would be one of those moments. Please read the full post.

read more | digg story

Health Care Destruction

2008-10-06T12:58:00.001-04:00

So...McCain wants to do for our health insurance what deregulation did for banking. Hmmm. Good to know.

read more | digg story

Fund-a-mental Case

2008-09-18T21:30:00.001-04:00

As Fiore's cartoon shows, McCain may believe in the fundamentals, but he's certainly not trained in them. He says so himself! Maybe his hockey-mom will have some pointers for him. After all, didn't she win a merit badge in fundamentalism?

read more | digg story

Now You SEC Me, Now You Don't

2008-09-16T20:34:00.001-04:00

Naked Short Selling exposed!!! This is the 2nd most important broadcast you'll listen to all year. It may not make you feel sexy but it'll sure leave you feeling naked. The most important broadcast to listen to this year is right here:http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

read more | digg story

From Whence Came the Chickens Roosting on our Banking System

2008-09-15T22:38:00.001-04:00

This American Life's episode "The Giant Pool of Money" which could also be entitled "The Anatomy of a Lending Crisis". Hear how a loosely regulated financial industry has managed to bring the worlds markets to their knees using the voices of all involved: home buyers, storefront lenders, and Wall Street titans now struggling to survive.

read more | digg story

RNC Self-Flagellation

2008-09-06T13:59:00.001-04:00

...or should I say, self-flatulation?

read more | digg story

9 Lessons Learned about Creativity at Google - STVP EdCorner

2008-07-03T14:27:00.001-04:00

Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google, shares nine lessons learned about fostering creative ideas and innovation based on her experience developing highly successful Web applications at Google. - From the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture Series at Stanford University. The series is one of my favorite podcasts. And this one is probably my favorite episode thus far.

read more | digg story

More Than a Sound Bite, This Clip Has Some Teeth

2008-06-19T22:20:00.003-04:00

A Barack Obama supporter quizzed on the street has drawn a million views on YouTube.

AFroNaut's Note: Derrick is a friend of mine I've known since school. For the bit that was intimated of an insider "controversy" the accompanying article, I'll let you know, he's an intelligent and seriously talented man who damn sure is nobody's stooge. That video was Derrick being Derrick, pure and simple.

Go get 'em, bro!! Thanks for doin' us proud!!! :-)

Transcript: Barack Obama's Speech on Race

2008-03-18T21:40:00.002-04:00

Indeed, the pen IS mightier than the sword. And may one day overcome centuries of our collected hurt. Read, and then listen to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia on Tuesday on the role that race has played in the Democratic presidential campaign. Here, a transcript of the speech, titled "A More Perfect Union."

read more | digg story

Quick Food Review - Ka-Me Honey Soy Ginger Noodle

2008-02-25T14:47:00.003-05:00

I was in the ethnic aisle at Shaw's grocery store the other day and saw a bunch of boxed microwavable Asian cuisine dishes. I thought I'd grab a few and try them out for lunch at work. Hey, it beats Ramen Noodles. Though, there is actually a comforting styrofoamy reliability with Ramen Noodles that you leave venturing into the wild uncharted corners of prepackaged microwaveable lunch.

My first test subject is Ka-Me Honey Soy Ginger Noodles. On the good side, it has a nice neat package, a la takeout restaurant carton. It was very easy to prepare: empty the noodle and sauce/veg packet into the carton and heat.

On the down side, the cooked noodles are packed together in a brick in their little baggie. The sauce reeks when it's fresh out of it's own foil/plastic baggie. Almost like it's hermetically sealed to keep the elements safe from it, and not the other way around. It seemed like there'd be more vegetables and other edible knick-knacks in the sauce mix, but nothin doin. I also thought there'd be tofu. No such luck. I guess the only soy is in the sauce itself. So for the 220 lbs that is me, it really wasn't filling enough to call it lunch. Afternoon snack perhaps, but not lunch.

It did actually taste pretty good after all. The sauce turned out to smell and taste much nicer warmed up than it did cold out of its silver space suit packaging. And for precooked noodles, they actually weren't disgusting. Because it fell short on contents, I'm giving it a C.

Jon Udell's Interview with Gardner Campbell

2008-01-14T12:06:00.001-05:00

Discusses Campbell's concept of digital imagination and how the Internet impacts the creation and sustaining of a learning community beyond the boundaries of the classroom and institutional walls.

read more | digg story

Yes, You Do Need Cartoons to Read!

2008-01-11T13:30:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd pass along, a very interesting blog post about the infantilization of the modern newspaper: http://blog.amitaietzioni.org/2008/01/you-need-cartoo.html. Dr. Etzioni makes some great points and I sympathize with his view. However, I did have some thoughts in response which I posted in his comments section and have included below. But before you read my comments (or at the very least, right after) pleas check out his original post.

I'm 34 years-old, an on-again/off-again news hound, and an avid comics fan. I remember being shocked when the New York Times first printed a color photo on its page 1 and thinking "this is the beginning of The End." Likewise with the Wall Street Journal started including color on its pages. And so it was an end of sorts. The end of intransigently stodgy institutions. Even these titans would have to kowtow to the Internet Age.

I mourn that loss for nostalgia's sake - the idea I held when I was (more of) a youngster that The Times and The Journal were papers I would come to read as a "grown up". Little did I know then that I wouldn't even be reading the actual "papers" but the electronic facsimile thereof. And for that very reason I welcome the change. Most of my communication with my dad these days surrounds the NYT articles we forward to each other via email throughout the week. Thus the makeover of these dusty old juggernauts doesn't simply serve a cosmetic purpose, but a functional one, as it brings their formidable presence to bear on what was seen (and is by some still seen) as a lightweight medium. Note that the parent companies of The Times and The Journal respectively undertook infrastructure changes that were extremely costly in time and money to produce their new "looks". From that, I can only presume that the changes were to adapt to the advent of the Internet and not for appearances alone.

Finally, I submit that comics are not infantile in and of themselves, but are in fact an equal, if not higher form of written communication than print alone. The content of a lot of products within the comics medium can be and is extremely infantile, but the form itself is one that has been crafted throughout the history of written communication (literally, history itself). There, I've said it. But for an expert treatment of this premise, I refer you to Scott McCloud's seminal work, "Understanding Comics" (http://www.scottmccloud.com/store/books/uc.html).

Truthfully, I would insist not only that you should read it, but also the producers of the very same publications you pooh-pooh above for being too "comics"-like. I think what you'll both find is that a true understanding of the comics form could substantially increase readability and generative comprehension of news and other topics of importance. Further you'll see why the mere window-dressing of colorful pictures and stacks of bold headlines simply result in lousy newspapers and worse "comics". McCloud's follow-up to "Understanding Comics" called "Reinventing Comics" (http://www.scottmccloud.com/store/books/rc.html) discusses the lessons of the comics medium, applying them to new media and information systems such as the Internet. Too much to cover here, and I've butchered what little I did. So I leave you in Mr. McCloud's capable hands.

Single Serving Popcorn

2008-01-05T22:02:00.000-05:00

I empty my single serving bag of microwave popcorn into the crisp white cafeware cereal bowl awaiting on my kitchen counter. And I flash back to a linoleum counter from 30 years earlier. 30 years ago, when popcorn making was itself an event.

In the early days, I remember the excitement of the silver Jiffy Pop container first placed on the heated stove. The explosive percussion of superheated kernals smashing tin, followed by the Openheimer bloom of aluminum foil, buttery puffed kernel fallout contained safely therein.

I remember later when we first brought home the popcorn popper. An orange domed UFO worthy of the proudest Martian explorer. It inspired years of the most rigorous disciplined scientific research that a gang of pre-adolescent kids could muster. Our mission, to pop the elusive perfect batch. Enough corn oil to fill up to the inner ring, there was no talk of canola oil nee rapeseed. Add enough kernels for the oil/kernel mix to extend to the outer ring. Those were merely the basics.

The alchemy began where Oster's or Kitchenade's or Hamilton Beach's instruction booklet left off. Heat oil then add kernels or andd oil and kernels together? When to unplug it? Switches or automatic shutoff, you ask? Hah! When do you flip the dome? What dome cover to use? (A newly cleaned Kool-Ade lid always seemed the best fit, but after 3-4 uses became slack and pointless.) And what of those slots at the top of the dome? Lay down chunks of butter to melt and drip through during popping? Maybe pre-melt then pour through the top? Or melt and mix in after the dome is flipped? Salt before butter, or butter before salt? Margarine, you say? For popping maybe but topping? Never.

Countless questions, and layers of mystery beneath them. In the time it has taken me to write these few words, I've already emptied my bowl save a few pieces of kernel shrapnel. No layers of mystery. No unpopped kernels of truth below for wonderful tooth-shattering crunches later on. No crowd around the dome digging in for seconds, thirds, and fourths as the mummy, the werewolf, or the creature from the black lagoon terrorizes us through the tv glass for the umpteenth Saturday afternoon. Just me, in my apartment, settling in for the my latest Netflick to stream over the wire and into my solitary laptop screen.

Single serving popcorn for a single serving movie screening.

Those old popcorn poppers were probably spectacular fire hazards. And who knows whether that superheated orange plastic will pay us off with gastrointestinal cancer of one form or another within the next 30 years. Somedays, our popping results were pretty dodgy. Others, they were downright inedible. The smell might linger around the house for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the week. But there is one thing that sadly seems certain. The best popcorn days are now behind us.

Gangster America

2007-12-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Spoiler Alert: I discuss some background about the feature film American Gangster of which you may not be aware before seeing the film. I myself wasn't fully aware of it, nor that the film dealt with it so, I wanted to forewarn readers who might wish to see the movie and enjoy finding out for themselves the many levels this excellent movie traverses.

There are a number of films this year being touted as Hollywood's reaction to the war and political crisis in Iraq and here at home. Most notable among these perhaps are Lions for Lambs, Rendition, and Charlie Wilson's War. The films critics and commentators probably will not and as of yet have not included on this list is Ridley Scott's American Gangster. Starring Denzel Washington, American Gangster is the story of Frank Lucas, heir apparent to Harlem organized crime leader Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson. Lucas would establish a heroin distribution network that outstripped any existing in the U.S. at the time, baffling New York police, federal narcotics enforcement, and competing organized crime operations.

It is not the story of Frank Lucas himself however, but its backdrop that warrants American Gangster's inclusion in, and placement at the top of the aforementioned list. It is the America of Vietnam and Nixon. An America still reeling in the wake of the civil rights struggle and the upheaval of national Jim Crow and international Jim Crow in the form of colonial rule. It was also an America led by an individual who by accounts of close advisors as well as his own audio recordings was perhaps the most powerful, drug/drink-addled paranoiac of the modern age. A man whose attempted heist of the U.S. presidency would precipitate his downfall. America was a gangster on foreign shores being led by no less than a gangster.

Through Lucas' story, we are reminded of Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, who wrote I was a racketeer. A gangster for capitalism. We are haunted by the warnings of former President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower who stated in his farewell address we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. Lucas' ascendancy to dominance of the Eastern U.S. heroin trade was facilitated by the U.S. military presence in southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict. In that way, legitimized gangsterism opened the path to more nefarious gangsterism. Exchange Abu Ghraib for Harlem housing projects, water-boarding for no knock warrant, BlackWater for Special Investigation Unit, War on Terror for War on Crime. Where war-making ends do war crimes begin, or is war-making itself the war crime?

The irony of Frank Lucas' story lies in its conclusion. The heroic efforts and character of Richie Roberts, New Jersey Detective and co-prosecuter in Lucas' case, ultimately brought Lucas to justice. Despite the years they spent as adversaries the two found more in common with each other than their respective peers. They bonded, and together uncovered and brought down one of the nations biggest police corruption scandals. Strangely enough, Robert's first case as a defense attorney would be that of Frank Lucas, defending Lucas against the very crimes for which he'd originally prosecuted him.

I hearken back to the whistle-blowers of the late 90's and early 00's. Their own steadfast integrity, crises of conscience, or both, coupled with herculean struggle called to account some of our country's most powerful organizations including Enron, WorldCom, big tobacco (ironically featured in another Russel Crowe film, The Insider), and the FBI. It is a parallel I can only hope and pray continues into our present day as another gangster presidential administration winds to its own conclusion. If only that means we too will conclude our collective chapter as American Gangsters. That the Lucases and a Roberts, or other Insiders within us will come to the fore. Maybe then can we finally enter our own second act and call to account the gangsters whom we as a nation - in politics, business, military, religion and other global affairs - have ourselves supported and/or created.

A Screed of Blogs: Collective Nouns Revisited

2007-12-01T13:08:00.000-05:00

In honor of James Lipton's appearance on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me. Lipton wrote the classic compendium of collective nouns An Exaltation of Larks. Mr. Lipton, here are my submissions should you ever decide to do an update:

U.S. Politics

Congress-persons: A lout of congress-persons.
Democrats: A simpering of Democrats.
Environmentalists: An ostentation of environmentalists (my apologies to the ostentatious-ostentation of environmentalist peacocks everywhere).
Lobbyists: A usurpation of lobbyists.
Polls: A babel of polls.
Republicans: A bluster of Republicans.
Senators: A quibble of senators.
Voters: An exasperation of voters.

World Politics

Allies: A fluster of allies.
Contractors: A fusillade of contractors.
Dictators: A scrotum of dictators.
G8 Leaders: A crust of G8 leaders.
Opposition Parties: A squelch of opposition parties.
Peace Accords: A phantom of peace accords.
Summits: A fog of summits.
War Crimes: A roost of war crimes.

Media

Blogs: A screed of blogs.
Bloggers: An excretion of bloggers ;-)
Internet Porn: A tumescence of internet porn.
Medical Experts: A quack of medical experts.
Podcasts: A tympany of podcasts.
Previews: An molestation of previews.
Pundits: A carbuncle of pundits.
Reality Shows: A desperation of reality shows.
Talking Heads: A bobble of talking heads.

Chicken Curry Inna Hurry

2007-11-05T15:23:00.000-05:00

HA! No such thing, SUCKA!!! But, I give you my best effort at remembering my mom's curried chicken recipe straight from Trinidad & Tobago (by way of London, Lagos, Brooklyn, Nashville, Detroit...)! It has served me well in impressing dates, cheering friends, and smiting enemies (...with the 'itis!). Enjoy this rendition. If I had any readers, I'd worry that some of you would comment on how your mama has a better recipe and blah, blah, blah, but since I know that you're not out there, eat a habanero fool! Love, peace, and curried chicken grease!!!

Curried Chicken (serving 3-4)

Ingredients

1 whole cut up chicken (bone in) – if leaving skin on, try to use less oil: better with skin off
2-3 tbsp yellow curry powder (Avoid the “generics” – Durkee, Spice Island, etc.. You want de real ting, neh mahn! Go to your local “ethnic shop” – Indian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, SouthEast Asian, or whatever passes in your area these days – and get what they’re selling. No, if you live in Weymouth and the shopkeep's from Holbrook, that doesn't count!)
0.5-1 tbsp ground cumin
2-3 celery stalks chopped or celery seeds
4-6 Idaho potatoes – skinned and cut into 8ths
1 red pepper chopped
1 yellow pepper chopped
Chopped white mushroom (optional)
1 tsp. of habanero or scotch bonnet pepper sauce or 1 whole habanero or scotch bonnet pepper (optional)
1 whole medium onion chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic (crushed) or 2-3 tsp. minced garlic
1-2 spring onions
Optional Seasonings: Thyme, marjoram, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, chives, salt, paprika, red pepper, bay leaf (?-maybe 1)

Instructions

Prepare ingredients listed above (cut, chop, skin, dice, grind, etc…)
Pre-season chicken with: Worcestershire Sauce, 1 tbsp curry powder, 1 tsp ground cumin, onion powder and/or garlic powder, light celery salt, and optional seasonings.
Place in container seal and shake around a few times.
Preseason up to day before, leaving seasoning chicken in fridge.
In large pot, heat oil (olive or canola or whichever) just covering bottom of pot.
Ready when piece of onion or celery dropped in sizzles immediately.
Add garlic and celery to the pot and heat in until you begin to smell them strongly.
Depending on size of chicken and amount of oil in pan, add 2-3 tbsp. of curry powder and 1 tbsp or less of cumin to heated oil and stir in thoroughly with oil (until mostly dissolved, oil deep yellow, and you smell the spices).
Add the onion, red pepper, yellow pepper, mushrooms, and optional seasonings and mix thoroughly.
Add chicken parts to heated oil.
Stir frequently.
Watch for chicken pieces to turn mostly white on outside.
Meanwhile: Boil kettle full of water.
Add cut potatoes to pot.
Add up to 2 cups of boiling water.
Stir ingredients together and watch sauce thickness. Want it to be gravy or thick soup-like, not thin. If too thin, add potato, or mix cold water and corn starch, potato starch, or wheat flower to thicken.
Add whole habanero or scotch bonnet to curry.
Fish out when just beginning to soften. Keep a sharp eye out! DO NOT allow the pepper to burst, otherwise it will ruin dish.
If using pepper sauce, add by the drops, stir in and taste frequently to make sure not adding too much.
Taste frequently, adding pepper, salt or other seasonings to adjust taste to your liking.
Cook partially covered for 10 minutes.
Check chicken and add time if not yet cooked through.

Goes well with:

Fried plantain (like frying French fries. – until golden brown each side)
Curried Chick peas – roughly same steps above:
Reduce the ingredients in accordance with size of can of chick peas.
Skip pre-seasoning and habanero/pepper sauce steps.
Drain can of chick peas before adding to oil!
Plain white rice
Okra and rice
Boil rice with 1-2 chopped okra per 2 cups rice, and pieces of ham (ham w/bone preferred if available) and pepper to taste
Roti – you’ll have to buy this from a shop. There may be some Trini’s in your town if you're lucky. Maybe not. We're everywhere...just like us Nigerians. (Wait a second. Did I just refer to myself in the second person, plural? Separately? Twice? What would that be, the fourth person triplicate???)
Curried string beans (see chick peas).

Bon apetit!

A Special Reminder to ALL Bloggers...

2007-09-05T14:42:00.000-04:00

Through our scientific genius, we have made of the world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make of it a brotherhood.
- Dr. Martin Luther King

Buy an iPhone, Kill a Kitten

2007-07-30T16:21:00.001-04:00

The iPhone craze with an Open Source viewpoint. Questions whether we are witnessing a new technological epoch or simply the results of staffing a well-funded marketing squad. Some of its points are known to many in the Open Source community and others remain in dispute. The dialog in the comments section is what's truly compelling.

read more | digg story

Free Your Mind, and Your iPhone Will Follow: an open letter

2007-07-13T21:48:00.000-04:00

I wrote the following in response to an email I just received from freetheiphone.org c/o freepress.net. I applaud their efforts to pressure Apple and the FCC to play fair with the release of the iPhone on a proprietary network. Supposedly we own the telecommunications bandwidth and the companies are just renting, but for the past 6 years at least, it's felt like it's the other way around. As I said, I applaud their work thus far and I urge you to take the time to read up on the issues. But as you'll see below, I implore freepress/freetheiphone both that it's time we made our own game and instead let them play catchup.

Apple will continue to work with proprietary software and make sweetheart deals with whomever they choose as it suits their interests and those of their shareholders. As Microsoft didn't feel the pinch until Linux came along and exposed the naked emperor, Apple will sit on its pedestal meting out its favor to those who prostrate themselves until something puts the magnifier to its nethers and reveals that indeed there is no there there.

I give you, OpenMoko: http://www.openmoko.com/

Take REAL action. Create a fund to hire developers full time to make this a project real working reality - one that works with all GSM/GPRS networks globally, that is not enslaved to iTunes, MusicMatch, or the other media mongers, and that transcends whatever bandwidth the FCC (Federal Communications Cyndicate [sic]) seeks to control.

You must leave the matrix to fight The Matrix. With mindfully dedicated backing Neo1973 (http://www.openmoko.com/products-neo-base-00-stdkit.html) can be that red pill.

I endorse your efforts to reign in the FCC and return them to service of the people, for the people, and by the people. Michael Powell is gone but his ghost yet remains. Exorcise him and the rest of the flunkies from all our airwaves and bandwidth!

As far as Apple and others like them are concerned, corporations are no longer beholden to the people who issue their charters and allow them their 14th amendment "right" to operate as citizens (http://www.thecorporation.org/), Thus, like any torch wielding mob does to unrepentant sociopaths, you've got to hit 'em where it hurts. Hit 'em hard. Then bite it off. I know a mad little window smashing penguin that'd be awful proud.

Yours,
The AFroNaut

Auntie Virus 2007

2007-06-06T17:07:00.000-04:00

My dad just asked me what the best Anti-Virus software is now. "No %&#@$! clue," says I. (Not in so few words of course). Anyhow, I did some searching and found a buncha useful links that will help him make an informed Anti-Virus decision. The smartest one always being: wrap your tool, fool!

The following are the latest Top # Lists for Anti-Virus Software (in no particular order):

The only other thing I'll add is that most of the sites above have a shopping section where you can do your own side-by-side reviews and see what other folks using the given products have to say about them. You can purchase the products through some of these sites, but they should also include links to the home pages of the software companies or products themselves. What do I use?

I'm cheap, they're free, and they do what I need them to so far. I particularly like ClamWin/ClamAV because they are Open Source, and their philosophy is that the internet is safer when everyone has high quality anti-virus tools. If you do download, give 'em a donation. May I suggest what you would have paid to renew your old Norton or McAfee license?

Schilling v. Bonds...part 1

2007-05-18T01:00:00.000-04:00

The best thing about sports is that it gets everyone around the water-cooler sharing recaps and opinions on the latest happenings on and off the field. And there is no shortage.

Rather than add to the dogpile that is this particularly stinky episode between the Red Sox's Curt Schilling and the Giant's Barry Bonds, I'll just point you to my two favorite postings on the subject so far:

Okay okay. I'll add my opinion. Curt Schilling's a boob. Francona is right. Long live Big Papi!

P.S. Schilling's still a fucking boob!

Destroy the Draft...

2007-05-17T19:22:00.000-04:00

...and replace it with something better.

I've been thinking about lifelong dreams and how to achieve them. Some of them, you can keep quietly to yourself, and through your own hard work, see come to fruition. Others, need the power of the whole cosmos to make it happen. Draft for Peace. I feel like this is one of them.

Why is it, that the only opportunity has to serve one's country, get trained, fed, clothed, and paid for it is through the military. There programs and organizations like The Peace Corps, AmeriCorps/CityYear, and TeachForAmerica. But neither individually nor combined do these programs have the span, the reach, nor the spending of the U.S. Military.

To think that when men and women were drafted for WWI and WWII, it wasn't just to serve as soldiers. Farmers were drafted to grow crops. Workers were drafted to build ships, vehicles, armaments, and other wartime supplies. So that the draft was not defined solely to place men in the battlefield.

I got to thinking. Why can't there be a similar selective service, draft, and for that matter full-fledged service corps to serve our society's needs and obligations (to democracy, social justice, and liberty) domestically and globally during peacetime? Is it only when our government fails - vis a vis failed foreign policy that creates the necessity for war - that we can find the funds, resources, and wherewithal to mobilize people to action?

Why is it that there should be any shortage of manpower to renovate schools, to update public utilities like bridges or sewer systems, to maintain a park, or sweep up a sidewalk? Why should non-profit public service organizations struggle to find willing capable individuals to help with projects or even operations?

I bet if you asked a young person if they would like to get paid to learn logistics and communications and give them the choice between implementing for civilian support (disaster and recovery, public events, recreational safety) versus battlefield support, the majority would choose civilian support.

The demand I'm certain is there. Where are the opportunities? Where is the communication and coordination that internet connectivity has enabled? I'm not the first person to have thought of this. The existence of the Peace Corps, Doctors Without Borders, and CityYear speak to the need for such citizen service. However, the recruiting, development, and maintenance of a standing citizen service corps is until now and for the foreseeable future no match to that of the military's.

Yet when we talk of defending Democracy, we immediately think war, guns, tanks, fighter jets, battleships, bombs, and waves upon waves of young soldiers. Yet the defense of Democracy takes place every day in civilian citizen actions, that far outnumber and outstrip any actions taken in aggression. This is what separates Democracies from Military Juntas and Dictatorships, yet to look at the investment our government and our economy makes in military aggression you would think that we as a nation defending a junta or oligarchy instead of a democracy.

Why do we fight? When there is so much work to be done? Soldiers do what they can, and in the desperate situations we place them in, they do what they must. But hammers are near useless with a phillips head screw. And it's plain to me that we are desperately short on phillips head screw drivers. And if that's the case, what really is there left for a tank or a gun to save?

Double the Standards. Double the Fun.

2007-04-25T23:44:00.000-04:00

It seems that in the wake of the Don Imus dust up, an ongoing town meeting has been making the circuit across the media spectrum. Subject of this public referendum? Why do black rappers get a pass for insulting black women with offensive language while white infotainers like Imus are publicly cowed, forced to make apologies, then summarily shit-canned? Well, I guess Chuck D truly is prescient. His pronouncement that rap is the ghetto (read: Black people's) CNN has been seconded and carried. At least that's what I'm hearing if the talking heads at EVERY news organization from Fox News to NPR have been asking the question "Why does Imus get in trouble and Snoop Dogg doesn't???" And if that question sounds to you more like a self-pitying whine than a genuine intellectual curious query, then sister you ain't alone.

When I first heard about Imus's off-color (har-har!) comment, it steered me towards the ol' way back machine. I drifted back to the late 90's, back when our current president's dear old dad made the rounds on the news circuits deriding the "Welfare Queens", whose simpering gold-digging was sucking the lifeblood from our nation's T-bills. Their gaggles of bastard kids buying up Air Jordans and crack with food stamps. Their chinchilla coats worn to the welfare office to sign for their monthly checks and laugh in the faces of bedraggled case-workers who desperately pleaded for them to seek employment. The project palaces that beyond the graffiti-plastered piss-smelling hallways, held plush living quarters whose luxury Louis XIV had never even imagined. These nefarious welfare queens, these succubi, scourge of the government teats. They were not the white single parent women whose numbers were (and remain) far greater than the minority women populating the nation's welfare rolls. Of course not, nay. These women were the urban ghetto hordes descended from the slave plantations of the American South, the West Indies, and of Latin America. They had invaded our country with their questionable citizenship to shop, bank, walk, talk, eat, drink, and breath their lives away, all at the hardworking American taxpayer's expense. At least, this is what every segment discussing this on the nightly news and the evening news magazines sought to corroborate at the time with pictures that made it seem like only the swarthy urban poor bloated our overburdened welfare rolls.

Sure, old G. Herb Walker didn't call any of those women nappy-headed-hoes, but I guess back then, but I guess back then, folks were left with just enough room to draw their own conclusions. And if you look at the four year cycles of welfare reform rhetoric we've been subjected to since, he really left no room for guessing.

So maybe this just means that Don Imus's real mistake was not being President before firing off his missives. Or maybe that instead of going after something as demonic and loathsome as poor minority women struggling on public assistance to make a nasty oppressive life something more livable he instead went after young women (some of whom born of and raised by those in the aforementioned category) who are champion-level athletes, and who unlike their male counterparts have to make something real of their college degrees since multi-million dollar professional athletics and endorsement contracts await them at the end of their sophomore and junior years.

And even if Imus wasn't the president or the head of the RNC, why villify the man who isn't a real, truly responsible news media figure, but merely a source of bawdy entertainment sprinkled with commentary on current events and tacit nods from those in political power who time to time need to slum on shows like his to seem more like men of the people? Why harp on this poor soul making him lose his credibility and source of income and speaking platform into the cars homes and earbuds of millions of ClearChannel/Viacom/Sirius/XM public airwave consumers out there, when dastardly RAPPERS call not simply women, but Black African American Women People of Colors dirty words like hoes and bitches and a host of so many other naughty things that we dare not repeat except in gangster movies (gee, no paternalistic chauvinism in these choir boys!), college-panty-raiding comedies, public bathrooms, rest-stop bumper stickers, the in'ernets you've seen? Why should they get away scot free, their only punishment being to straighten up the house before the MTV Cribs camera crew arrives? Well, believe it or not, I've thought of several reasons:

Great Expectations. Once upon a time we could take an area of endeavor, say like news journalism and commentary, and say that we can expect the practitioners of said field to be held more accountable to antiquated ideas like professional responsibility and truthful reporting than say...hmm, let's see...popular music? Perhaps in this age of jaded cynicism, such perceptions would be deemed prejudicial if not simply naive. But if I had to bank $1000 as to the social acceptability of a given line in a popular rambunctiously-youth-oriented song than that of a talk radio program, perhaps it's the fogey in me, but I'd bet on the talk radio program. News radio, even talk radio, still depends on the FCC for use of its primary distribution channels far more than popular music. And moreso still than rap music which developed a long way away from the watchful ears of the FCC before breaking into the public airwaves. Considering it was roughly 3 generations back that issued the battle cry sex, drugs, rock and roll, it seems pretty funny to me that talk news programs seek to imply that expectations of an equal or greater sense of decorum should be placed on music (artists) as they are for talk/news (broadcasters). I hope they are expecting my reply that it takes huge balls for them to suggest something so self-serving.

Ignorant Assholes. They're not just for breakfast anymore. Nope, they are everywhere. In every field of endeavor. In business, in sports, in politics, in academia, in journalism, and yes, even in entertainment. Believe it or not, assholes have not yet seemed to overplay their hand. Nay, as a community, their currency, especially in the field of entertainment has only seemed to grow. The beauty of assholes is that they are equal opportunity. Doesn't matter how far you climb up the social strata they abound, and profusely at that. As for ignorance, one would think that the more one were educated in general knowledge and public manners required to hold conversations for longer than five minutes that the probability of wholesale ignorance would diminish at an equal rate. Naive optimism? Blind faith? Dumb luck? Maybe all three as it seems more than our fair share of talk radio personalities slipped through the cracks of what one would have assumed the simplest requirements of their chosen profession. And I put ignorance in there as a possibility, but was truly being generous. No one is so ignorant that they wouldn't realize that on talk radio, no matter how shock-jockey, would the expression nappy-headed-hoe be anywhere close to acceptable. No. This was strictly an asshole, move, because only an asshole could be so up on him or herself to believe that they could defy such basic rules of public decorum. And even if Imus were trying to sound street as it were, he was an asshole for thinking he, a half-century-old middle class white guy (Armenian? Yeah, whatever. He's white.), could pull off sounding street enough to say something insulting to a group of women he does not know from Adam, Eve, or the Queen of Sheba - all of whom were Black as it were.

Here's the thing that white folks often fail to understand and thereby make themselves look/sound silly when trying to act cool around Black people. Even with something as seemingly crass, vulgar, and uneducated as sounding hood or street there are rules, a vocabulary, and a usage of said vocabulary that if you have not been around long enough to truly observe it (because, no, the book has not yet been written that will teach you - sorry, no foreign service tapes either...I've checked) then you will sound stupid, and very likely say something stupid and possibly insulting. Likelier still, that in your effort to monkey street slang, you will seem condescending and therefore be insulting practicing this behavior by default. It's not that it's a no win situation. There are plenty of white folks who, like ANY and EVERY minority person you've ever seen in the United States, grew up within a dominant ethnic culture other than their own and tacitly learned it's mechanics and how to manuever within it. Thus that Don Imus and the rest of the dominant news media are not versed in the verbal sparring that takes place within urban and rural Black American culture and have neither the grounding nor ethnic credentials (by virtue of birth or experience) to pull off such sparring, is not the acute racial injustice so many people are trying to make it out to be.

It takes one to know one... One of the most basic comebacks of the playground insult games, whether or not you grew up calling it the dozens, or capping, or bagging, or just good old fashioned teasing. For me to call another Black person nappy-headed would be like me calling them darkie or thick-lipped. In American cultural parlance, these descriptors ceased a long time ago to be about actual physical traits and were instead fashioned into some of the many pejoratives used to refer to Black people. As I have distant white ancestry in my background, my hair isn't as kinky, and my skin isn't as dark as some Black people. But little does that matter where these particular words are concerned. They refer to what Black (Americans in particular) may consider the royal we. Therefore any Black person trying to hurl these as insults can be regarded as ridiculous. The trouble with white people saying such things is that it makes them sound hateful. Whether or not it actually insults me (far from, since I like my nappy hair, my dark skin, and thick lips), it does a whole lot more to make me despise a person who'd say that. If they mean it as an insult, then I feel sad and hurt that they have prejudiced themselves to judge me and therefore close themselves off to me socially because of who I am being a Black person (yeah, I could say just because of my skin but biologically and metaphorically speaking, my skin is a huge part of who I am and how I exist in the world, so far be it for me to use diminutive language in describing it). There's nothing you can really do about that. And it's problematic for them for you, and for society. And when you face a problem that you can't really do anything about (anything to fix, that is) you really get frustrated. At least I do. Alternatively, if the person is trying to be funny and familiar, then they've done exactly the opposite. Apart from the immediate affront of having someone try to act more casual and familiar with you than they really are (how many of us would walk up to a stranger, fake like you were going to knee him or her in the groin and shout Think Fast!!!? Not unless you're dumb as a brick or a huge asshole would you try to pull that one off. It's the same thing!). It's problematic because, here's someone who's trying to be clever who is showing complete ignorance and putting you in the terribly awkward position of telling him what he should know better. Again, frustration, which leads to anger which leads to a lot of Black people who simply say fuck white people mean it sincerely, and call it a day - which also frustrates the hell out of me and makes me more acutely aware of how fucked up this country can be.

Your kids hate you. Because of your stupid double standard that you think allows you to call women bitches and hoes, call any and all middle easterners potential terrorists, welcome to America! every white person with a European accent...basically all that stuff that you get embarrassed about when one of your older relatives does it around you and you can't correct them because their older and family...you should and more than likely will be ashamed of yourself. And if you're not ashamed now, then that shame kharma, when it comes around will hit you like a fucking freight train. The rule applies equally to rappers as it does radio personalities.

I think of Common and Kanye West. Two Chicago emcees. Fellow Mid-Westerners. Both in recent years have become highly outspoken about the use of gay-bashing language in hip hop. I say from experience that I go home and still hear the words fag, faggot, and homo used there for describing anyone or anything that's corny, stupid, or otherwise distasteful. I see it among Black and White people there equally. I try to tell folks, but most of the time I just cringe. Well. It doesn't surprise me, that Common and Kanye would be among the folks in Hip-Hop to start raising attention and awareness on the issue since like me, it's something that hit close to home with respect to our geographic culture. And they could see how the language shaped the attitude and therefore the callousness and ambivalence if not outright disdain felt towards gay people out there.

What am I saying? Your kids know better than you. The sons and daughters of your loins, of your soul, or of your soil. They know better than you and will be and are sorely ashamed of you when you fuck up. It doesn't matter whether you're a blinged out rapper or a boozed out shock jock even though your kids may still love you (if they do) you're ignorance is giving them plenty of reason to and plenty of fuel to want to disown you, and leave you in the nursing home stewing in your own crap-filled diapers when you need them most. So whine about what's fair and what's not but remember that you're playing yourself in the end. And when that end has been covered in pee and diarrhea for more than a couple hours that rash turns into a MRSA ridden bedsore pretty damn fast.

There's a lot more where that came from, but I've gotta fuckin' get to sleep. Don't feel sorry for Imus. And don't be so quick to think those rappers just get a pass. Chances are the one's whose songs you've actually heard whom you hate with a passion, most Black people hate with a passion too. Mostly because rappers that have outgrown the 3rd grade name-calling and girl-hating and toy-showing-off don't get radio/MTV-play, and we're stuck having a bunch of shitty, no-talent bastards represent a whole group of artists more mature and creative and skillful than they'll ever be. But unlike sports, who crosses the finish line first in the whimsical world of pop entertainment doesn't coincide except rarely with who has the talent. All the more reason why Don Imus can go to hell, since the women he saw fit to try to be cute with had proved their mettle in the one arena that wasn't as subject to prejudice as all the others they'll face in life. And there he goes, stealing their thunder of their accomplishment and salting their wounds with his bullshit. Way to go you wrinkle-assed fuckface!!! And no, Don, I'm not trying to be cutesy and familiar. I mean that from the bottom of my nappy-headed heart.

Let Your Google Calendar Evolve

2006-07-19T18:39:00.000-04:00

I successfully added my Evolution (desktop-based) calendar events to my Google calendar with a few very easy steps (see below). To see how to view your Google Calendar from Evolution, check out Johnny Jacob's fantastic tutorial Johnny [Life & Code]: Google Calendar in Evolution. Got me fixin ta git me summa them screenshots an' purty up my page. Geez, Johnny. Make the rest of us look bad, why don't ya!

;-)

Export Selected Evolution Calendar to Disk
1. In Evolution, under the Calendars button in the left hand navigation frame, highlight and right-mouse click the the name of the calendar you wish to export to google.
2. From the pop-up menu, select "Save to Disk".
3. Within the Save dialog window, select the "iCalendar format (.ics)" from the list of file types at the bottom of the window.
4. Enter a name for your calendar export file. **Be sure to append the file extension (.ics). Evolution will not add it automatically.
5. Select filesystem location easy for you to remember and click Save As.
Create and/or Select the Google Calendar to Receive Import
1. In your Google Calendar account, if the calendar you wish to receive the import already exists, skip to the next numbered step. If you do not have a calendar to which you will import the new calendar file (see step 5), follow the appropriate links or help instructions on the Google Calendar site to create your receiving calendar.
2. Click the "Manage Calendars" link at the bottom of the Calendars nav box in the left-hand navigation column.
3. Click "Import Calendar" tab (link)under Calendar Settings.
4. Click "Browse" button next to "Step 1: Select File" field and navigate to the calendar file you created in step 5.
5. Use the select box in "Step 2: Choose Calendar" to select the Google calendar to which you will import the new file.
6. Click "Import" button next to "Step 3: Complete Import". If successful, the page will refresh with a message saying "X events were imported into ______ Calendar". (not a direct transcription of actual message, but the gist of it nonetheless.)
Check Your Work
1. If successful, go to the Calendars box in the left nav and make sure that check box next to the calendar name is checked.
2. Click the calendar's name and navigate through the calendar to make sure the new "events" have been added. **I've noticed it can take a minute or two for new entries to update. Refreshing the page or switching your calendar view seems to refresh the page and reveal the newly added data.
Comments and Caveats
- I noticed that the times in my entries shifted back 3 hours. I'm on EDT and the site is hosted in the Pacific timezone. Google's import code is probably adjusting the time displayed to the server's timezones. It's the same data, just assuing that you want to see it in California People Time - CPT ;-)
- I haven't completely troubleshooted the transfers I've made so far, the items I have checked seem to have come over almost perfectly. There's some occasional wierdness in the formatting or character selection in the Comments section (e.g. a pair of TAB characters from Evolution were converted to lowercase letter "t" on import). Not sure if it's the Evolution export or the Google import that catches the blame for that one.
- Several events on my exported calendar were recurring (repeating over a given date range daily or weekly). I'm happy to note that they carried over into Google as recurring events. In which case you are able to update or delete one and Google will ask if you wish to do the same for the repeats.
- Finally, so far so good as far as all fields and event properties (e.g. location, show time as, privacy level...) appear to have carried over from Evolution to Google (individual and repeat events alike).
Additional Testing and Follow-Up
- Haven't tested this yet, but would really like to know what happens when you update your Evolution calendar, create a new export file, and import the newer file to Google. Does Google prevent double entries for the same event? Will it prompt you to overwrite (or not) the existing event with the event info from the latest copy?
- I have successfully made changes (e.g. correcting the event times) in the imported events. However, I have not tested uploading an updated event from Evolution to Google. Will Google do a "diff" between the data file and the data on their site? If so, will it choose the authoritative version automatically (which one)? Will it prompt you to choose? Will they give you an option to merge the data from both where possible?
- Finally, (as if you couldn't tell before) this is a workaround. Despite looking clunky and laborious in all its steps, I was surprised at how relatively quick, easy, and painfree the effort was. (For example: I still haven't managed to sync my WinCE smartphone to Evolution. <Wince!> indeed!).
  That said, the standard protocols and an API for Google Calendar already exist, putting the pieces in place for an update for Evolution popping up in our respective package managers in days, if not weeks. Should I be predicting wrong, then I challenge all the sharp hackers out there to turn away from Unreal Tournament and WoW for 10 minutes and bring your prodidgious grey-matter to bear on what would seem such an academic exercise in coding. Imagine, fifteen minutes of lightwork, and the love, admiration, cell numbers, IMs, MySpace pages... of the world will be yours. Think about it!

As always, Peace & Blessings.
(Now more than ever!)

Little Duck, Huge Flavor

2006-06-27T15:20:00.000-04:00

Little Duck, Huge Flavor: Review of: Little Duck Thai Restaurant; By: Alozie Nwosu; Rating: 4; Read review on Judy's Book.

If you're sick of Applebees and Boston Market for dinner, try out Thai Little Duck over on Granite Ave. Small and inobtrusive almost to the point of being invisible, this tiny humble establishment hides a formidable menu of tasty healthy delights to any and every palate.

If this would be your first adventure into the land of Thai cooking, then their Pad Thai is a great introductory dish (unless you have a peanut or seafood allergy). If your feeling particularly adventurous, give their spicy Tom Yum Noodles a try. Available as a soup as well as "dry" (without broth). Both styles are out of site. The running favorite for all to whom I've recomended Thai Little Duck is the Basil Fried Rice.

Many veggie dishes to choose from that are more than satisfying to a voracious carnivore like myself. Large portions for short money. The value can't be beat. You can get it take out or have it delivered if you live nearby. Go on in though. Even though it's small, the friendly faces serving and cooking are as satisfying as the delicious meals they provide.

On days that I get out of work late and don't feel like cooking, I bypass Wendy's, keep heading down Newport all the way down to "The Duck". Eat in, take home, or delivered: anyway you choose to get it, do yourself a favor and grab a Little Duck.

ERROR: cannot find -ldb1

2006-05-22T23:40:00.000-04:00

Caught the error above running 'make check' to install Glitter, a GTK+/Gnome news reader.

After some to-ing and fro-ing, I searched and found that this error referred to a missing libdb1.so "file" which in fact is a link file pointing to /usr/lib/libdb-1.##.so. This file is installed with Berkeley Database. What I found was that I had the "DB1" package installed, but not the "DB1-devel" package.

As I run SUSE 10.0, I ran my trusty dusty YaST2 Software Manager, installed the "devel" file (and the other DB packages - DB4, DB41, etc... for good measure). I made clean with "make clean" reran "configure", and "make check". Both worked smoothly. After that, "make install" installed Glitter to my system smooth as ever.

Hope this helps you if you ran into the same problem. Leave a note in the comments section if this helped your particular problem. Note what you were doing (e.g. installing program X) in case anyone else doing the same thing runs into this problem. Thx!

SavetheInternet.com

2006-05-08T12:51:00.000-04:00

Are our troops in Iraq getting wounded maimed and killed to protect our Democracy or a Kleptocracy? The cable and phone companies seem to subscribe to the latter. There are bills up for consideration in both houses of congress which will allow the big Internet service providers (the keepers of the trunk lines) to charge a premium for full bandwidth access to domains. Meaning?

The speed with which you get your websites, your email, browse your newsgroups, listen to iTunes, and watch YouTube videos? Forget it. Unless the hosts of the websites, email, newsgroups, etc. are willing to pay the premium, they will get a smaller bandwidth, therefore SLOWER access to the Internet. If you own a website. Guess what? Pay up or slow down.

We enjoy net neutrality. On the Internet, Fox News and Democracy Now! are at the same level as Grandmas-boring-home-movies-someone-please-shoot-me.com. It's the last bastion of democracy. Not simply national democracy, but GLOBAL democracy* (*offer invalid in China, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Utah).

Please go to savetheinternet.com, sign the petition, get the details, contact your representatives and senators, and tell Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) to go suck an egg. Don't let Bush and his whoring-family-values-gestapo-cronies louse up yet another democracy, PLEASE!!!

If You Wouldn't Hire a Fox to Guard Your Henhouse...

2006-05-08T01:19:00.000-04:00

...would you hire a rat to inspect your cheese? I think no. But apparently that's exactly what we've done.

Consider reports that since 2001 President Bush has made signing statements on over 750 bills passed by congress, including language that effectively nullifies the very intent of said laws. Check out these reports and share my blistering outrage:

Examples of the president's signing statements - Boston Globe, April 30, 2006

Executive Authority: How Bush redefines the intent of the law... - San Francisco Chronicle, May 6, 2006

Slate's Jurisprudence: Presidential Signing Statements - NPR's Day to Day, January 24, 2006

Expanding Executive Power via Signing Statements - NPR's All Things Considered, January 11, 2006

P.S. For all you smart asses out there, it's only my outrage that's blistering. All else is tip top. You freaks!

"The sleep of reason produces monsters"

2006-05-06T21:15:00.000-04:00

~Francisco de Goya

But the ongoing life story chronicled at kddallam.com shows a rare instance where the monsters brought on by the sleep of reason (and very wakeful greed and neglect) failed to completely triumph.

Katie Dallam is a remarkable woman for whom tragedy struck in the boxing ring in her debut match. Through the utter callousness and neglect of the referee, fight doctor, and fight organizers that fateful night, Katie faced a much more experienced fighter who doled out punishment over 4 and a half brutal rounds (which included 141 blows to the head) that could easily have sent her to a much too early grave but for the grace of God. Though the ruptured cerebral artery that the beating and slow response of the ring doctor and staff on the scene left her with did not take her life, it certainly shattered it.

A born fighter, having fought all her life from troubled childhood until that fateful night, she fought through what was certain death, and awoke from her coma thus beginning a much tougher fight for recovery. From the resultant traumatic brain injury she had to relearn all aspects of her life, from who she was, to how to take care of herself. Her frustrating war with words and recovering her verbal expression turned her towards artistic expression, which prolific during her recovery and rehab eloquently describe her inner world.

I found Katie's site and her story completely by accident (started looking up information about an upcoming fight, and eventually ended up here) and it couldn't have been a happier one. I stumbled across this site from simply looking up the date and card information of a women's boxing match taking place in Providence later this month. Drawn by the sexy allure of tough women, brutal yet feminine tomboys, I kicked around Google and the pages of wban.org until I quite inadvertently stumbled across Katie's website and her story.

Thus what started as idle post-workday browsing the web for titillation in the end brought me to one of the most incredible stories I've ever read. It brought me tremendous inspiration and hope. Read her story, look through her tremendous artwork and be inspired yourselves.

Missed Appropriation

2006-05-04T03:16:00.000-04:00

Note to Bravo Network:

It's not strong BLACK woman. It's strong black WOman.

Nuance and subtlety, my dears. Without it, what was elegant and clever becomes clumsy and just plain amateur.

In the latter, strong and black are peers. They accentuate the woman, the subject of the show, thereby driving home the irony and humor. In the former, the way your announcer says it, the woman, thus the person, is rendered moot. Black is now the subject. The show might as well have been titled Look at Me, I'm BLACK...no not really.

Let me say right now, it takes a brave comic, especially one who's not a Black Woman, to title her show Strong Black Woman. Complements to Kathy Griffin. I hope the special is as good as its title.

Bravo? Coach your announcer. Or better still, hire a strong Black woman...in fact, hire two. Then maybe you'd have understood the subtle genius in the setup and not flubbed it in the delivery.

Edgy humor done well is genius. Edgy humor done poorly is just fucking annoying.

In a word...

2006-05-04T01:19:00.000-04:00

truthtastic! Thank you Mr. Colbert.

Proof of Life

2006-04-20T14:56:00.000-04:00

When I saw the MTV news bulletin a week ago saying that Proof had been shot and killed the night before, I was struck dumb. I was just coming to learn how various friends from home were professionally, creatively, or socially connected to him. My first thought was on them and the loss of their friend, the loss of a cool person whom I might have had the opportunity to meet on my coming trip home. Juxtaposed to the cold passionless details of a news update, the sense of loss echoed. Then I thought of another news update I had heard not too long before.

When Jay Dee's passing due to kidney failure was announced, I was sad and hurt by life's seeming injustice. That a man my age would be taken down by an old man's disease. And the additional tragedy of a struggling community trying desperately to rebuild itself, losing such a talented member. But then I was oddly heartened. I dared to think that maybe a page has turned, and that Hip Hop's age of untimely deaths due to violence may have finally passed. That we would embrace the sadness and tragedy of Jay Dee's untimely passing and those who were otherwise inclined would come to value their lives and to value and respect the lives of others more. Maybe in the person of Jay Dee, God had sent Hip Hop a rainbow signifying the end of the violent flood.

Khary Kimani Turner, also a Detroit emcee-poet and a contributor to the Detroit Metro Times, tells of a Proof in the midst of personal transformation. He had begun to restore control over his affairs, mending fences with well-known rivals, solidifying his business endeavors, and reconciling with his estranged wife and mother of his children. In effect, he, like so many of us in our generation, had tired of an over-extended adolescence, and was truly crossing the threshold to adulthood. A line in The Desiderata reads "Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth." It's the folly of youth, with envy, acrimony, and guns formed the brutal mixture that halted Proof's transition before it could truly begin.

The Hip Hop catalog is dotted with paeans to our better natures, to peace, respect, and community. But alongside the bevy of more visible, and more popular songs, nearly pornographic in their portrayal of sex violence and consumption, these embattled songs and artists of substance ring hollow, even disingenuous. Pleading "Stop the Violence" on one hand, many laugh their way to the bank on the tired worn out backs of "fuck that bitch" and "blast that nigga!" Ironic that a once guerrilla industry fueled by bravado, defiance, creativity, independence, originality and authenticity, now rests contentedly cowed and neutered under the wing of a corporate-controlled music industry that had written it off as a fad thirty years ago.

So before "Self-Destruction II, The Payback" gets underway, I hope folks will take a minute to think about Proof's life interrupted. A bright guy, funny and sharp-witted. Straddling two worlds, and trying to reconcile them within himself: what to leave behind and what to take from either. A guy who's own choices and the choices of those he was with, on a night of relaxation and leisure, left him with no further choices and took him from our world all too soon.

Thinking about this, maybe folks will finally figure out that it will take more than eulogizing songs, newspaper clippings, mural pieces, and blogs like this to honor him. That showing their love and respect requires a deeper and more personal commitment. Like accepting and undertaking the transition to adulthood that Proof didn't get to finish. Tending to family, working hard, making peace with estranged friends and rivals alike, developing and sharing talent, growing up, and being a man. Then, if you wonder whether you've honored him properly, and the many others so carelessly lost before him, look to the lives of those who follow us, and there's your Proof.

error code -8075

2006-04-18T17:34:00.000-04:00

Have you been getting this or a similar message when you try to visit secured (HTTPS) websites? I was having this problem with Mozilla Firefox. Here's how I fixed it:

Select Preferences in the Edit menu.
Select Advanced from the Preferences window navigation bar.
Under the Security preferences group, select all the security protocols (SSL 2, SSL 3, and TLS 1).
Under Certificates/Client Certificate Selection, choose Select Automatically.
Under the Validation/OCSP section, select the Use OCSP to validate only certificates that specify an OCSP service option.
Click OK to close and save your changes to the Preferences window.
Close all of your browser instances (and quickstarter) and open a new instance.

I believe line item 5 above is what most directly affected the error message in question. The other settings that I think, but am not sure are associated to this problem. If you try this fix, leave a comment and let me know whether it works for you.

Recovered Some Much Needed Space

2006-04-04T21:20:00.000-04:00

Last night, fed up with seeing the root partition of my laptop (OpenSUSE on HP Pavillion dv4150us) nearly full at 93%, I decided to take some drastic action. I had ~18 GB on a couple left over partitions I'd created for installing secondary and test operating systems. I never got around to installing said systems (was gonna have another OpenSUSE install for testing upgrades, and an OpenSolaris install just for laughs), so killing those partitions (/secos and /testos respectively) was no big deal. Now the question was: what could I move off of the root partition, and more importantly, how could I do it safely.

Who Gets the Axe?

Well, technically, no one was getting the axe. But I did want to move the directory that was the biggest memory hog on the root partition OFF the root partition. Here's my partition setup after freeing the 18 GB mentioned above:

Device              Mount Point           FS Type
/dev/hda2           /                      ext3
/dev/hda3           /data                   reiserfs
devpts           /dev/pts              devpts
/dev/cdrecorder   /media/cdrw         subfs
/dev/dvdrecorder /media/dvdrecorder subfs
proc             /proc                   proc
usbfs            /proc/bus/usb        usbfs
/dev/hda5           /rescue                ext3 (unused)
/dev/hda1           swap                   swap
/dev/hda6        /tmp                   reiserfs
/dev/hda7        /var                    reiserfs

Now I needed to create a new partition, /dev/hda8, but before doing that, I needed the target directory so that I could determine the size. So being lazy, I went to the GNOME File Browser and simply displayed the properties of the main directories residing on the root partition. I also did a df from the bash command line, but this only gave me info for the partitions and not the directories themselves. Anyhow, here were the directories I had to choose from:

/etc
/bin
/opt
/sbin
/srv
/usr

It was no contest. /usr blew the others away by a mile at ~5 GB in size. Knowing this, I decided to create a new reiser partition at 8 GB and mount it to a new directory called /usr2.

The Old Bait and Switch

So now that I had the new partition mounted:

/dev/hda8        /usr2                   reiserfs

I needed to transfer the data from executing the following as root from the bash prompt:

/usr to /usr2.  cp -ax /usr/* /usr2

took care of that. Needless to say, 5.0G took a bit to copy, so I watched the progress in another terminal using:

watch df

Just a nifty way to refresh the view of the partitions about every 2 seconds to track the change in the new partition's size. Probably slowed the progress of the copy itself, but I'm an impatient masochist who insists upon watching pots boil. When the copy from /usr to /usr2 finished I did a diff -qr between the two:

diff -qr /usr /usr2

Any vet will tell you (as I quickly found out) a diff on two huge directories takes a buttload of time. In hindsight, I would instead select a few key subdirectories to compare unless I've really got a buncha time to waste.

A few minor differences between the directories (a handful of missing files and differing attributes), but otherwise, a-okay. Okay enough for me to risk the next step.

DDRR: Delete, Dismount, Remount, Reboot

Here's where I really got scared. Could I now unmount the new partition, copy /usr to yet another backup (like the now empty /usr2 directory), delete the contents of /usr, and mount the new partition to /usr? I wasn't sure, but I gritted my teeth and went for it, and...

...well? Here's the deal. All of the above worked fine. It was the rebooting that was the catch. I restarted my system and almost immediately got a fatal error. X couldn't start. Files missing. However, fear not! A login prompt requesting my root password was provided so that I could try to fix the problem and reboot. Beat that, Windo$e!!! Anywho, I logged in, checked out my /etc/fstab file and immediately saw the prob:

/dev/hda8         /usr2                   reiserfs ...

So the new partition was still mounting to /usr2, hence empty useless /usr directory hosing up the works. Simple fix in vi changed /usr2 to /usr. Reboot, and what the hell!?!? It actually worked!!!

Eureka!!!

Archimedes couldn't have been happier than I am. I'm now sittin' pretty with an extra 5 fat Gigs on my root partition, and /usr sitting in it's own 8 Gig partition. If I feel like it, I can even expand /usr to 10 Gig or more should the mood grab me. Yea!! I can start installing all kinds of Beta-ware again!!! The villagers rejoice, the kingdom is happy, and all is right with the world once more :-)

Upon Further Reflection...

Was this in fact the best way to go about this change? I really dunno. As you can tell from the story, I more or less winged it, and ultimately got lucky. If you are in a similar bind and see this as your only way out, I accept no responsibility for what may or may not happen. This would truly be an instance of the blind leading the blind. If there was a better way to have gone about the changes above, or at least some refinements you could recommend for the process I described, please leave them in the comments section. I thank you, and the hapless souls stumbling upon this site seeking guidence from my fumbling-stumbling-SysAdministrations thank you! Thanks and best of luck to all.

Judging a Film by Its Book Cover

2006-03-21T09:51:00.001-05:00

I wonder if studios know how tough they make it for themselves when their reps give you a survey before you walk into a theater. As soon as I get one of those creamy, would-be soothing sheets, my senses go on alert. My skin draws into goosebumps. The hair on the my nape goes on end. It asks me my sex. A woman yammering behind me distracts me for a second and I check female (MISTAKENLY). It asks me my age. Range. Ever since I was 3 I've been thinking of my age as a precise crisp number, not a range! What's with the trick questions!?! Race. Of course. Hollywood bastards. That way they know which opinions to put in the throwaway pile. Well at least they put "Black/African-descent", and not "African-American" like some stupid forms.

[Imagine the indignity of a Nigerian or Kenyan, just visiting the country and deciding he wanted to check out a movie, only to have a form shoved in his face that tells him he's "African-American." Who pulled the switch on my passport? Or think of the Brit or Italian national for that matter (yes, there are Black Europeans! Even a few whose forebears went there voluntarily!!)? Or how's this for mindbending: you're an Indian from Uganda. What do you say then? Huh? Or how pray tell should Theresa Heinz-Kerry answer on such a form? Didin't think of that one now, did ya??? Silly surveys, trix are for kids.]

But even this little entreaty cannot thwart the coming of my hypercritical self. Like some angry green giant of a movie critic lurking in my subconscious. Mild mannered Bruce Banner that I am would normally be amused momentarily with ridiculously huge mustard yellow polarized glasses. Even the stubby little pencil that comes with the form hearkens back to simpler days when there was nothing one couldn't do with a pencil. No stray mark was indelible. No mistake permanent. Alas, such bliss was only momentary. A palliative, soothing the conscious self to relinquish its hold as monster beneath secured glasses to their perch whilst thumbing the top of his ballpoint like some terrible inky detonator. This friends, was my tenuous grip on reality as I sat down to see the long awaited "V for Vendetta".

For me, two books-made-film have been the standard bearers for said genre: "Lord of the Flies" (the original black and white version), and "Fahrenheit 451". One could argue "Grapes of Wrath" or "The Godfather", and I know the Frodo for President crowd is out there gnashing its teeth in anticipation of locking down on my throat, lithe and tender like a goose. Sorry, Charlie. Get in line behind the "Bridges of Madison County" fans. This is my inch, and I ain't givin' it. Okay. One exception. "High Fidelity". But only 'cause it's John Cusack.

Needless to say, this raises the bar damn high. And 9 times out of 10, even the best (adapted) movies, are mediocre in comparison to the novel. Perhaps even more so with a graphic novel, because unlike a text novel where one must completely imagine settings, and faces, and actions, a graphic novel lays all these out with precision that defies the sharpest camera lenses. Hell, why even make a graphic novel into a movie? Good question.

Well, having eagerly anticipated and now seen "V for Vendetta", I can say why the adaptation is worth the effort.

1) Living parable. Science fiction stories are our modern-day parables. It draws together magic and wonder to warn us of our very mundane human frailties. The story of V is about creating freedom in a society that out of fear has forsaken it in deference to "security". And this was written in the 80's??? Taken as is, the story in its original form is as timely as ever. Well worth a (re)read, even after seeing the movie. However, there is something quite jarring when one sees news footage of the day, OUR day, cut into this fictional cautionary tale. And such a skillfully executed update infuses the parable with new lifeblood. Making a powerful message even more potent by connecting to the accepted and turning it on its head.

2) Flesh, blood, and tears. I don't go in much for movies with a lot of crying. I'll admit it. It scares me. I don't like to cry, and I find the weepy tearjerkers totally manipulative, and I leave them feeling violated. That being said, the most powerful scene in the movie and graphic novel involves Evey Hammond (played by Natalie Portman, "the actress that defines our age" said one WAY too enthusiastic moviegoer walking out behind me when the movie ended) reading a letter she finds in her cell and sobbing and kissing it when she finishes it. These were tears of tremendous sadness and an eternity of pain, but also of defiant and unconquerable love. Her tears are painful, wrenching, triumphant, and joyful. And to have such a scene played by a tremendous actress like Portman (yes, MagnoliaFan walking out behind me was right, but he should have come to that conclusion after seeing "The Professional", as any TRUE Portman fan would have...hah!) is like having a chiropractic adjustment administered to your heart. A visceral moment on paper given bone, flesh, and tears on an IMAX screen no less. My eyes mist and my heart swells simply thinking about it.

3) The Boom Bip. A dark mysterious figure emerges from the shadows. In an elegant frenzy of motion the villain and his henchmen lay thwarted in broken messy piles. We all derive a satisfaction from seeing the truly wicked get their comeuppance. Better still when this vengeance is served in digital surround sound stereo. The snapping of long bones, the swift cuts of the blade, the resonant thud of boot heel to sternum, a triumphant symphony of justice being dealt. One can always imagine using the freeze-frame images a graphic novel provides. But the wonder and magic of the samurai is in that split second pause between his killing stroke and his victims collapse where you can study his face transformed by anger, fear, determination, and possible death. Swiftness of motion, or the illusion thereof, and the power and fury of the bone-crunching deathblow are what make any action comic fan yearn for his favorite books to be made into films. Besides, what's an homage to Guy Fawkes without the thunderous, seat-rumbling, Parliament-leveling fireworks?

Final verdict. Go see it. Then I strongly recommend reading it. Both experiences will change the way you look at your surroundings, the way you breath the air around you, the way you share your life with others (or begin to if you haven't yet started). I have my gripes, of course, having read the book first. And having heard the author's (Alan Moore) own infamous misgivings about the production I didn't want to let Hollywood off too easy. But even in its shortcomings, the filmmakers succeeded where so many others have failed, and attempted and succeeded at things that neither directors, actors, artists, nor writers have dared try. And it's about fucking time.

Dog Eat Dog - Followup

2006-03-19T01:32:00.000-05:00

About a year ago I did some pretty exhaustive research on pet foods, their processing and how that effects what products one should choose for their pets. Since then, I've searched around and tried out a few, and here is a short list of some foods that your local pet suppliers or veterinarian may carry:

I had her on Natural Balance when she was a kitten (under a year; though they're always kittens to their daddys). Not too long after she turned a year old, my local PetCo started carrying Pet Promise, and at the sales person's recommendation (on natural/organic pet foods) I got some for 'Boo to give a try. Well, she's taken to it like a fly to honey, a wolf to bunny, and a golddigger to money. I've even munched a few pieces myself and found it oddly tasty (not nearly enough dried meat nuggets made for human consumption). Since I'd seen Castor & Pollux Organix, I'd wanted to give it a try, but being the most expensive of the three (~$18 for 6lbs) I figured I'd stick with the Pet Promise and DVP (both roughly six-dollars cheaper).

I've found all the products above at my local PetCo store. I'm sure any other well stocked pet shops would carry at least one or two of these as well. And of course, don't forget your local organic pet suppliers.

See V for Yourself

2006-03-17T21:40:00.000-05:00

The following are a set of links I passed along to a friend of mine about the movie V for Vendetta released today, to convince her and her husband to join me in catching it on IMAX tomorrow night. Hope it works on them. Give 'em a look and/or listen and let them work on you!

V For Vendetta movie site:
http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/

More on Moore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2004/07/22/moore/
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=1159

Not So Comics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A825149
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/comics/features/serious_comics.shtml

Moore Interviews
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1311408
http://www.readyourselfraw.com/profiles/moore/moore_vs_eno/chainreaction_eno.htm

V for Vendetta graphic novel
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0930289528/002-1673608-8025660?v=glance&n=283155

UnRule Britannia: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/netnotes/article/0,6729,588198,00.html
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/item.asp?item_id=19
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgi-bin/newhtml_hl?DB=semsimple&STEMMER=en&WORDS=gui%20fawk&ALL=&ANY=&PHRASE=&CATEGORIES=&SIMPLE=guy%20fawkes&SPEAKER=&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&ANCHOR=muscat_highlighter_first_match&URL=/pa/ld200506/ldjudgmt/jd051208/aand-6.htm#muscat_highlighter_first_match
http://www.bonefire.org/guy/gunpowder.php
http://www.britannia.com/history/g-fawkes.html

P.S. Here's my synopsis of my own reading, prior knowledge, and research on V as well as on Alan Moore (the orginal creator of V), his other works, and their adaptations:

V for Vendetta was originally a graphic novel by Allen Moore, famed for "From Hell" (an epic tracing his exhaustively researched history of Jack the Ripper and his links with the crown and the Masons), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (two volumes of a Victorian-era superhero team action. Move over Ben Grimm and Mr. Fantastic. Here come Alan Quartermain, Dr. Jekyll, and Captain Nemo!), and The Watchmen (probably one of the earliest comics to call into question the superhero archetype and deconstruct the genre as we, then, knew it).

V for Vendetta is the story of a dystopian futuristic England (circa 1993-1997) ruled by a fascist regime inspired by England's Thatcher/Torrie(sp) administration of the time. V is a vigillante with a mysterious past, most likely associated with human subject experiments in the concentration camps established by the ruling regime during its rise to power. His aim is to, a la Guy Fawkes' infamous gunpowder plot ("Remember, remember, the 5th of November), to usurp the iron-clad rule of the Norsefire Party ("Strength through Purity. Purity through Faith.") and its shadowy Leader.

The story was outright blasphemy written then during the height of ThatcheReagan Conservativism and has powerful echoes today for the BlaireBush NeoReligious-Conservative cabal. The tagline of the film is "People Shouldn't Fear Their Governments. Governments Should Fear Their People!"

It's directed by the Wachovski brothers, and rightfully so, as one of the sub-plots of the story was most definitely the inspiration for the story of The Matrix and the character Morpheus, shadowy avenging abolitionist angel of the first film.

Alan Moore, as with the other films based on his work, angrily recused himself from the production process. Though I thought the Hughes brothers did a fantastic job with From Hell, the same couldn't be said for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, tagged "LXG" by the studio and DC Comics. [*NOTE: I have not yet seen LXG, despite my sister's endorsement of it. She's a picky movie-goer too, but she hadn't read the comics. Once I can put my anger aside at its inclusion of a "grown-up" Tom Sawyer, I'll drag myself to the video store to rent it. Until such time I shall remain the angry impotently fuming little man that I am.] But being that it's the Wachovski brothers, I'm banking on Moore's frustrations coming moreso from what had to be excluded in the interest of running time, as opposed to overzealous studio editing rendering the story and its message into milquetoast pap. I for one, am keeping my fingers crossed.

Dear Senator Feingold...

2006-03-15T20:21:00.000-05:00

I salute you for standing up for the rights of Americans and opposing the culture of fear being cultivated by our executive branch and your Republican colleagues in our Congress. I am tremendously disappointed in my own representatives and your other Democratic colleagues who could have made this brave stand with you but kept silent.

I have a quote from Benjamin Franklin on my refrigerator in honor of his 300th birthday:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

I hope and pray that all serving the people in our government will emulate the courage, sense of duty, and honor of our service men and women - who are risking or have sacrificed life and limb overseas - before they squander our liberty and ultimately our safety.

God speed Mr. Senator.

Listening to...

2006-03-14T16:58:00.000-05:00

Habeas Schmabeas. This American Life episode featuring Jack Hitt examining the suspension of one of the bedrock principles of our American judicial system, habeas corpus - writ requiring the government to explain why it is keeping an individual in its custody (habeas corpus - Latin. having the body).

Hitt interviews lawyers, professors, journalists, military officers and two former Guantanamo Bay detainees to explore what the suspension of 350-year old doctrine means for the prisoners, our soldiers, our democracy, and ourselves.

In the intro, Ira Glass mentions that since some 200+ Guantanamo detainees none have not been interviewed in any American publications or other media. Way to go, thislife.org!

Music Is Fundamental?

2006-03-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

Check out the Phoenix article Pop Fundamentalism by Josh Kun. A fantastic read. Unfortunately my comment to the author/fellow-readers didn't keep its formatting so it came out as an illegible screed. So here's my comment with formatting:

[start comment]

I miss the days when religious or spiritually-driven songs spoke to power ("If you are a big tree, we are a small axe!", or "It's been a long, long time coming, but a change is gonna come. Oh yes it will."). Nowadays, with overt religiosity being the order of the day in circles of power, I hear someone outside the synagogue/mosque/pulpit invoking God's name, I check to make sure my wallet hasn't disappeared.

For my money, one of the best religious pop songs ever made was Black Sabbath's "War Pigs". Yeah, I said it! Check it out:

Now in darkness world stops turning, ashes where the bodies burning. No more War Pigs have the power, Hand of God has struck the hour. Day of judgement, God is calling, on their knees the war pigs crawling. Begging mercies for their sins, Satan, laughing, spreads his wings. Oh lord, yeah!

Who'd a thunk? The Right Reverend Ozzie nailed it! Of course this was before he developed the penchant for chewing heads of bats and pigeons. Nevertheless, "War Pigs" brings on the fire and brimstone a la Revelations, but points the flamethrowers at the true halls of power and the sentiments that fill them. And the lyrical gasoline burns as hot now as it did when they first wrote it.

Unfortunately, with Matisyahu and Madonna, they've taken on the soft targets (the consumeristic culture that butters their bread) and instead, fallen in lock-step or at least pander to those against whom their righteous pop fury should be unleashed.

Great article! You hit the nail on the head. When folks are so quick to point the fundamentalism finger at Islam, your article's an apt reminder that to see the mote in another's eye we must first remove the plank from our own. Thanks again.

[end comment]

iPod w/Linux: Woes and Triumphs

2006-03-06T21:35:00.000-05:00

As a Linux user who only recently hopped onto the iPod bandwagon, I've come to see us (Linux users) as the red-headed-step-children of the iPod community. In no way let this sound like whining. I was not only fortunate enough to get an iPod, but a VIDEO iPod and for FREE!!! Thanks to my brother's extravagant Christmas-time generosity, I can count myself among the iPod/MP3-player generation 2-3 years sooner than I would have on my own coin. A wise man would quit while he's ahead, but no one's ever accused me of being wise before, so why start now?

In my haste to get started, I downloaded just about every tool Google scraped up for me to use with the new technical wonder. From JPodder to iPodderX to Juice to gtkPod to Banshee to amaroK. And that's only about half of them. Long story short, some were vapor-ware, some were duds, and some actually kinda worked.

After some to-ing and fro-ing I settled on the combination of gtkPod and amaroK for my basic iPodding needs - moving existing music (cd's, gnutella, and other sources that shall remain nameless) to my iPod.

gtkPod cleanly and quickly synced the local audio files it could find to my iPod. The only catch was that it only found about 3/4 of my total music collection. Still not sure why. There are also some niggling little quirks in the interface that I won't get into now, but that frustrate the usability purist in me.

amaroK provides a very clean and professional looking interface with a wide variety of tools and options for syncing and playing and managing local audio files. My biggest complaint is that the syncing process requires a great deal of babysitting which is a pain when you're trying to sync most of your 1000+ CD collection. I'm still working on getting the remainder synced over and it's been a little tiresome. If anyone out there has advice, give me a shout.

Now when my iPod crashed a while back after all the experimentation I mentioned earlier, my iTunesDB got corrupted in the process. I believe it might have been jPodder that I used to build a new iTunesDB and start the recovery. I'll have to look back to make sure, as I might have just recovered an uncorrupted backup file, but I somehow remember having none, and nearly falling back to my roommate's PC as a last resort for salvation. In any case, neither of the other two mentioned could resolve this problem for me: yet another drawback of being held at arms length it seems, by the rest of the iPodding community.

Finally, I come to the iPod's most recent triumph, the video podcast. At Christmas time, the word was "Linux user? Sucks to be you!!" Now, I've found a client that for me, works for watching vid-podcasts locally. PenguinTV is a pretty sweet Python-based video-blog/vid-pod client for Morgan Freeman...sike! I mean for Linux. Once I installed PyCurl via YaST (OpenSUSE on my laptop) the PenguinTV setup ran without a hitch. Actually, just one hitch. You had to be logged in as or 'su' to root for the install to finish (directory permissions issue). But once I got past that, I was able to grab my favorite web shows, TikiBarTV and the This or That! Gameshow (starring my elementary school chum Julie Atlas Muz), and watch them on my laptop in no time. Can't wait to get home and try out Happy Tree Friends!!! Sadly, no word yet from the developers on iPod integration (synchronization in particular).

As I find new stuff or as new releases of the products mentioned above change significantly and overcome any of the headaches I'm still having (sync management, ltms support, video podcasts, etc.), I'll keep you posted...right here! Also if you've found something that works for you, feel free to contribute it to the discussion.

Passing of the Sower

2006-03-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

I'm extremely sad to report that on February 27th, Octavia Butler passed on due to a brain hemorrhage, secondary to a fall.

Octavia Butler was one of America's pre-eminant writers, a Nubella and Hugo Award winning science-fiction/fantasy writer, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient (the only science-fiction author to receive the award thus far), a pioneer in her field as a woman an African-American and a lesbian, and she was and always will be my hero.

I had secretly reserved hope that I would meet her in my lifetime.

I first encountered her work when an undergraduate on a particularly distracted evening of study. Sitting opposite the science-fiction shelves at the now defunct Hilles Library the spine of one book caught my eye in particular. It included a picture of a woman's face that also seemed part bird, part fish, and part cheetah. Opening the book and flipping through, the word "Agu" caught my eye. I recognized it immediately as an Igbo (West African language) name. I read on and saw more Igbo names and, and being that part of my heritage is Igbo, I was hooked. It was the first sci-fi I'd ever read that I felt included me.

It turned out to be Octavia Butler's Wildseed. I'd been in love and inspired with her words ever since.

Though she's a self-described "former Baptist" I wish Ms. Butler all of God's blessings, because indeed her courage, her creativity, and her work has been a blessing to me. God speed, Ms. Butler. Perhaps we'll meet in the next life.

Currently drinking...

2006-02-20T16:53:00.000-05:00

Without K.oS., there is only Chaos

2006-02-16T13:20:00.000-05:00

He who knows himself knows God

[Traditional saying of The Prophet Muhammad]

At exactly which point do you start to realize That life without knowledge is, death in disguise? That's why, Knowledge Of Self is like life after death Apply it to your life, let destiny manifest

[from Knowledge of Self (Determination) by Black Star]

Check out the fantastic work of Irshad Manji at http://www.muslim-refusenik.com
Peace and God's blessings to Irshad and to all who humbly seek peace, knowledge, and truth.

Note-Taker Zim

2006-02-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

Taking notes is second only to reading writing and simple 'rithmatic, in the skills one should master before finishing high school. Yet after 12 years of grade school, four years of college, 800 hours of professional development/continuing education, and a semester and a half of graduate school, I can think of only two lessons I had in note-taking: outlines and "bubble maps". So two fifty minute class periods to learn what two decades of academic life would ultimately hinge upon. Even the most callous and cold-hearted parent will check and make sure their kids figured out how to doggy-paddle after tossing them into the deep end of the swimming pool!

What's more, note-taking is a very personal process. It requires trial and error with different note-taking strategies and tools, and may eventually require some reflection on how you process best information (visually, spatially, rhythmically, etc.). Well, 20 years too late as I limp my way to the grad school finish line, I finally discovered the tool for me. Meet Zim.

Zim is a Perl-based "desktop wiki", a WYSIWYG tool that allows you to create a local set of wiki pages. If you're like most of the population and don't yet understand Nerdinese, check out Wikipedia and learn first hand the beauty and magic that is Wiki.

The hallmarks of wiki pages which Zim implements with tremendous simplicity are:

ease of editing
hierarchical organization
intelligent linking

The interface is as familiar as any other graphical text editor you've used, be it Text Edit on Windows, or GEdit or Kate on Linux. And it's even simpler than Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. It's two-framed interface allows you to see both the information and structure of the present document in one pane and the information and macro-structure of the wiki in the other frame. Don't take my word for it. Seeing is believing.

Zim's maintainer(s) describes it as a tool "intended to keep track of TODO lists or to serve as a personal scratch book." And I guess oxygen is just a gas that helps make breathing a little more comfortable. In my previous life, I used the computer to take notes for more conference calls and meetings than I care to remember. I've dabbled with a variety of desktop tools for note-taking, from Microsoft Word to Lotus Notes to Cold Fusion Studio in WYSIWYG mode. What sticks out most through these experiences is that they all SUCKED!!!

In this age where our browser bookmarks have supplanted our scrapbooks, and email and MySpace/Friendster/Blogger accounts our diaries, Zim is note-taking, reviewing, and archiving platform for the hyperlinked generation. It's by no means perfect, but even at humble version 0.11, Zim has transformed reading and note-taking from grueling chores, engaging and meaningful learning experiences. I feel like I read faster and more deeply with Zim open alongside my textbook than I did before whether taking notes or not.

Will Zim work for you? Maybe. It's more important that you take time to think about how you think, how you record information for later use, and simply what draws you to information (format, color, spatial arrangement...) then consider the tools available to you (analog and digital) from that standpoint.

The good thing about Zim is that you're not constrained to the linear constraints of a word processor, nor the physical constraints of pen and paper. As it becomes more important whether in class or at work to take notes that are meaningful, organized, easy to access and distribute, it's even more important to have a tool that suits your preferred note taking style.

Zim isn't the only such tool out there, nor is the wiki style the only alternative to vanilla-text editor note-taking or even the outline-friendly presentation tools. Freemind, and kdissert are Graphical Mind Mapping tools (think "bubble maps" or "concept maps") that are also excellent for recording and organizing notes and ideas. Consider these particularly if you find you are more visually or spatially oriented. Zim, Freemind, and kdissert are all free (as in "free beer" AND as in "free speech") but there are commercial tools available as well (see Microsoft OneNote, or Inspiration). There are also a number of note-taking strategies in addition to the ones mentioned above which you should peruse, especially if like me, you only got 100 minutes of note-taking lessons for twelve years of grade school.

Just remember, it's not about the money you spend, the quantity of information captured, or the who's who in using one system or another. It's about taking the time to find out what works best for you. I lucked out and found Zim. Take a look and see what you find.

Colds Are &#@%ing Useless

2006-01-28T22:24:00.000-05:00

All they do is make you tired and uncomfortable. Not bad enough to cause explosive diarrhea, febrile delirium, or other conditions both fun and useful. They are debilitating enough, however, to make going to work a living hell. Not so much, though, that you'll garner any sympathy from your boss and co-workers if you DO stay home. "Oh, he has a 'cold'" they'll sneer, as though you're actually at the Ritz Carlton penthouse suite, throwing a crazy swingers party with Burt Bachrach doing his thing on a revolving grand piano. Meanwhile you're busy judging the international all-nude tiddlywinks tournament with returning champions 3rd year running, the 1976 Playboy Bunnies. They might be a bit older but damn if they can't still tiddly them winks!

But God forbid that the cold hit you on the weekend. All that means is the day you woke up and decided to tough it out at the office, only to have your coworkers giving you mean looks, covering their noses, and spraying their desks with Flu-B-Gone when you walk by, you should've been home in bed watching reruns of "Love Connection." Makes you wish you did infect those co-workers, all healthy and smug with their strings of garlic and rosaries on their office doors to keep you at bay. Lick the rim of their coffee mugs when their not looking, I say.

That's why, this year I'm boycotting colds. "Snuff out the Sniffles in 2000-Sissle!" And as soon as I get over this damn cold, I'm sucking down all the garlic soup and echinacea I can get my grubby mitts on. Speaking of grubby mitts, my secret weapon: bright yellow rubber gloves. Pink-eye on subway poles be damned!!! You may get past the anti-bacterial hand gel and the infrared-motion-detecting Lysol Mist Master 3000, but the yellow rubber gloves will be your doom!!! You'll spot me from a mile away as only the foolhardiest among you will attempt to withstand my rubbery saffron might.

Truthfully, I have no such plans. Just wishful thinking. Or maybe it IS febrile delirium, in which case I've got dreams of giant marshmallows the size of my pillow to look forward to tonight, woo-hoo!!! No, instead, like every other poor sap out there with a scratchy throat, I will be grabbing my ankles and taking it from these microscopic cell-mates named Bubba-Joe. No recourse but hot tea and double-doses of vitamin C. But when did hot tea and vitamin C ever keep you from getting cornholed? I digress. Worse than anything, however, it's the weekend, so not even the "Price is Right" is on to lull me into a catatonic stupor leaving me to be painfully aware of the dry eyes, dripping faucet nose, and the mountain gorilla building its summer condo in my head. Take the weekend off will you? Spay this Barker!!

Playing with Blog Entry Poster for GNOME

2006-01-24T19:17:00.000-05:00

About two weeks ago I upgraded my purchased SUSE 9.3 Professional system to OpenSUSE/SUSE 10.0.

First of all, huge props to Novell/SUSE for turning their distro into a community-supported project. Having known Novell since my dad used their network in his office back in the '80s, it's great to see them restoring their former glory via the Open Source game. And SUSE being the first distro I purchased and actually got working on one of my own PCs (back in '99) I feel confident that this move will take what was a strong distro and make it stronger. Sure, Red Hat blazed the Corporate-cum-Community trail with their release of Fedora Core, but SUSE's not only stepped up but come up strong.

Case in point. I type this post on my OpenSUSE upgraded HP Pavillion dv4150 laptop(!!!) and will be posting it via the Wireless G connex I'm using here at boloco's inspired burritos (pretty damn inspiring, I might add). The upgrade was ridiculously easy. Far better than when I upgraded my roomies older HP and my sister's Dell with WinXP. Yisch!!! Terrible memories.

Anyhow, since the upgrade, I've been playing with different tools that came with the distribution. Having generally stuck to my workhorse tools (OpenOffice, Mozilla, Kaffiene, Thunderbird...) I've gotten more and more interested in pushing the system and software to its limits.

Which brings me to this Blog Entry Poster tool. I found it in the Applications > System > Configuration > Desktop Applet menu. Kind of a wierd spot for it, especially since I didn't see a second icon for it under the Internet or Office menus. It was about as hard to pinpoint on the web as it was (would have been) to find it on the desktop (had I actually been looking for it). But now that I've found it, it's a gem that I'll be keeping close going forward.

Setup was stupid easy. Select your Blog Site from the drop down list. Enter your blog account ID and Password. Hit the Lookup Blogs button and it pulls up a list of your blogs from the given account. Hit Close (wish it had the usual OK and Cancel buttons - but that's minor) and the Post Blog Entry screen pops up. Type as you would with any word processor and when you're done click Post Entry. After that, your ramblings are up for everyone to see!

I'm damn impressed. From my Googling, it looks like SUSE and Ubuntu Gnome install with the tool. If your distro doesn't have it, just go to:

http://www.gnome.org/~seth/gnome-blog/

and click Download in the upper right.

I'm diggin' it. The AFroNaut will definitely Bloggeth much more often. Check it out and enjoy!

Lo! Tolerants.

2006-01-16T15:34:00.000-05:00

Tolerance can mean all sorts of things. People develop tolerances to noxious compounds. Exposed to poisons in a diluted form over time, one's body can learn to handle these potentially lethal substances enough so a serious exposure will not result in death or permanent damage. The same goes for diseases, hence vaccinations. Yesterday we conquored polio, today we conquor...erectile dysfunction, and tomorrow, ...err...uh...polio? Of course there are some poisons, heavy metals for examples, that will screw you whether they get into your system all at once or gradually. Is that Flipper's menacing chuckle I hear?

Psychologically, those who dare may learn to withstand the minor irritants facing those living in proximity to other sentiant beings: the smokers who dare foul the air whilst relaxing your sandal-clad tootsies on a park bench; the oncoming ambulance making you pull over to the right even though you're 2 minutes late for bikram yoga; or the guy standing behind you in line with the crusty booger up his nose that makes a high-pitched whistle right in your ear each time he breathes in. With maturity we learn to foster the Zen mind towards these petty annoyances bringing us in harmony with our environment, our neighbors and ourselves. Om that, mother-$#@%&*!

In mechanical systems, high tolerance means that for a given variable, temperature, torque, friction, or other, the system continues to function even when the variable deviates greatly from a given standard. Hence the AK-47s ability to fire as reliably as it did when they first came off the line even after being buried in sand for five years. I guess that would make body armor a pretty sound investment, eh?

So I love it that on a day like today, the day we remember the life and sacrifices of Dr. King, so many folks audaciously proclaim the gospel of racial tolerance. It reminds us that we need not wax nostalgic for the days of bitter acrimony and misunderstanding that was crucible and backdrop for Dr. King's lifelong struggle, nor that we consider such struggle a relic of days gone by. After all, political correctness, our modern day guide to manners and civility, dictates that folks like me are to be tolerated. Poisonous and infectious are we, yet regular incremental exposure to us will bring the sanctity of immunity to John and Jane Q. Public. Deviants (from the standard) that we are, rest assured that our existence warrants little more attention than a petty, fleeting annoyance.

So to all of you tolerants out there who, today parade your true nature for all to see, I thank you for your honesty and courage. May pride and contentment fill your heart, may tuna fill your dinner plate, and may second-hand smoke fill your nose perpetual. From the other end of the park bench, this is TheAphro.

Note: Had you read this before, you may have noticed that I changed the last line. When I originally typed this, I was groping for a third metaphor for the last line (above). Suffice it to say that the metaphor I chose (sand and a certain type of weapon) didn't sit well with me. No one's commented to me or complained about it, so my decision to modify the line was all my own. I was seriously reaching as far as metaphors go, but more importantly I felt it implied a sentiment I simply do not hold, and wouldn't even want suggested. Having considered (and sometimes still considering) serving our nation's military the last thing I'd wish on any of our soldiers (yep, even the dickheads) is for their weapon to jam. The thought makes my heart stop. My views about our leadership and its chosen misadventures overseas are largely shaped by my feelings for our soldiers. The fact that current policies and their execution is at the expense of too many young men and women simply galls me. A friend of mine, my age, joined up recently, and has been training for the past year. Far from being a neo-con or a friend-of-W, his words to me before heading to basic were "folks like us have gotta be represented in the service. And those kids going in are just too young not to have folks our age helping them out." God bless you and all there with you G. Keep your head down, your clip full, and your chamber clean.

So, long story short, that's why I changed the last line. You gotta admit your mistakes to correct them. My apologies to you if you did read it in its original form and thought I might have meant something I didn't. Peace and blessings.

Star Wars III - The Phantom dilemma...

2005-05-14T09:37:00.000-04:00

...or how I learned to stop worrying and love George Lucas again...or not.
I can't decide whether or not to go see Star Wars III. I'll say this. When I saw Episode I, I was caught between crying, vomiting, and burning down the theatre. Three words. You guessed it. Jar-Jar Binx.

I know very few Black people who didn't writhing in anguish every time Jar-Jar appeared on screen, much less opened his mouth. You may count me among the writhing. I was also immediately struck by how the trade council sounded like an Asian stereotype, and how Anikan's slave master seemed like a horrible Arab or Jewish caricature.

I know, I know. It's just a movie, and a fantasy movie at that. In fact it's a fantasy movie set completely outside the context of America, Earth, and all the stupid prejudices, bigotry, and deep history of insults and injustices that have shaped American history in particular, and world history overall.

Believe me. All the physical writhing I did in my chair at the theatre was nothing compared to the mental and emotional writhing in my head as I reminded my bruised and battered psyche that it's a movie, it's fantasy, it's fun for kids. In The Matrix, Cypher had a point. "Ignorance is bliss."

Too bad I'm not ignorant. What's more, I don't think Lucas can rightly claim ignorance either. The fact that the best defense he's mustered for himself is that the flim is a fantasy totally outside Earth's context only tells me that if the story were placed within Earthly confines, people like me (and a lot more folks like him than he probably thinks) would then have every right to be offended. To add insult to injury, he angrily blamed critics and "the media" - which I suppose would include the humble blog - for getting all us good colored folks worked up over nothing is a patent insult in and of itself. I guess to Mr. Lucas, we are all just sheep with no agency of our own. Critics, he explains are not doers or makers, simply destroyers. So I guess it's the dumb leading the stupid.

Thanks, I feel a lot better now.

Lucas isn't the first to hurt me so, and he won't be the last. In fact it's largely because of the slings and arrows my heritage and therefore my ego have suffered at the hands of Hollywood that I'm determined to become a screenwriter. So artist to artist, and audience to artist, know that I have forgiveness in my heart, and forgiven so many before you.

With that, I most likely will go see Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, in the theatre. It actually looks like it will be a decent story this time 'round, finally worthy of the name Star Wars. Good art can sometimes transcend one's personal failings. Hopefully this episode will be that start.

And even if it doesn't, know that there remains in me the 4-year old who was indelibly changed by a film at the time inexplicably subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope.

Dog Eat Dog? - The Verdict Is 'Rendered'

2005-03-27T09:18:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine told me the other day that pet foods, including Science Diet, the brand I currently feed my cat, use “Animal Byproducts” produced from the rendering of any animal material, including euthanized pets. My immediate impulse was to do my best Charlton Heston impersonation: “Soylent Green...is PEOPLE!!!” Honestly, I cant remember whether I actually did it or not. Probably did.

Anyhow, movie impersonations aside, I was pretty freaked out. My roommate, who'd been very insistent that I use Science Diet in the first place, and who'd later given me the evil eye for coming home with a bag of Iam's, wanted (and still wants) to get the Science Diet in the trash faster than I could do a little web research to corroborate my friend's story.

Having hidden the bag of the corpus delectae up in my room I took my time sifting through articles that I'd Googled on the subject (keword search terms included in various combinations: “cat food”, euthanized pets, pentobarbital, rendering, byproducts). I got a mixed bag of hit results ranging from fanatics decrying the pet food industry, and fanatics defending the pet food industry, to alternative pet food vendors, vegitarean and vegan sites, and even som Christian websites. Needless to say, emotions run high on this subject, as one hates to think of dearly-departed Fido, ending up in newly-arrived Frodo's food bowl. And besides, YEEESH! The thought's just gross!!

Anyhow, I digress. Here's some of the information I found:

The tons of waste produced from meat processing has long been disposed of through rendering, a process in which discarded animal parts (including spinal and brain tissue – I'll come to the importance of that bit later) are heated at temperatures at or around 260 Farenheit. The rendering process results in:

animal fat: used in lubricants, cosmetics, polishes and other domestic and industrial products
tallow/grease: light protiens and lipids producing gelatin - used in pharmaceuticals, holistic medicines, candies (gummy bears/worms/etc....) - soaps, candles,...
heavy protiens: dried out to create meal found in pet foods and animal feeds (also source of controversy in Mad Cow outbreaks)
sources: http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/render_ed.html; http://animalcontrol.co.la.ca.us/html/pages/for%20the%20record/Rendering%20.pdf; http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0106-03.htm

Regardless of the source, all agree that the rendering practice has been around for ages, even since ancient Egypt (perhaps explaining some of the Rabbinic laws around kosher foods – Moses...Charlton Heston...do I see a recurring theme here?). The practice of feeding these animal byproducts to animals (as opposed to raw scraps from the kitchen or butcher, or dinner table leftovers) was used in dairy heards in increased amounts through the 1980's which is also the time during which Mad Cow Disease was first identified (see above sources).

Now the real freaky part is that there are rendering plants that accept euthanized pets - apparently over 200 nationwide. Besides the fact that these once were, or had the potential to be someone's loved one, domestic animals, especially older euthanized ones are today, a cornucopia of veterinary pharmaceuticals. Add to that the question of tag removal (plastics and heavy metals), flea collar removal (pesticides), pentobarbitol (mentioned earlier: the barbiturate used for humans as an anesthetic or sleep aid, used by vets to euthanize pets), and even removal of animals from the plastic bags before processing! In addition, many also accept roadkill from various municipal departments. Though this practice is not “condoned” by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, neither is it sanctioned outright. Perhaps it was easier in the days of Ancient Egypt, knowing that molesting cat or dog in any way (including rendering) could well possibly incur the wrath of Horus, Isis, or the entire pantheon. I'm sure the FDA would kill for that kind of clout.

As for pet food reviews, some brands were castigated, but often these were on sites actually selling their own “alternative” brand of pet food. Despite their own marketing wizardry, theirs and other articles made the same general comments. Articles cautioned readers to avoid products with unspecified meat ingredients such as: “animal meal”, “animal proteins”, “meat byproducts”, “animal fat”, etc... Using this advice to check the Science Diet Kitten ingredients, I saw only one offending item, “Animal Fat”, about a third to half of the way through the ingredients list. However, the first ingredient on the list was “Chicken Byproducts”. By and large, this is better than “Animal Byproducts” or even “Poultry Byproducts”. Though it still means that the food uses everything from the beak to the tail feathers, at least the beak and tail feather and everything in between is supposed to come from a chicken. Plus, a cat in the wild would do much the same thing. Process as much as possible before the hairball cometh. In general it sounds like the higher end pet food companies have their own livestock rendering facilities or only use products from facilities that render livestock exclusively (though this could still include horses). One scary notion however is that there is a commodities market that trades in various fats and tallows, so one could conceivably get a batch of processed giraffe or Fluffy and be none the wiser.

Despite the absence of a true indictment of any given brand or product the general advice went as follows:

Avoid the cheap stuff, generics and store brands in particular. A lot of bigger companies pass on their reject or otherwise unsold batches for repackaging through these non-brands.
Caveat Emptor: know how the labeling works – there's a 70% content difference between “Chicken and Liver Cat Food” versus “Chicken and Liver Cat Dinner”according to FDA labeling guidelines. It's the whole “Orange Juice” versus “Orange Drink” con game -or- “consumer marketing”. Check out the FDA Guide to Pet Food Labeling.
Read and know the meaning of the ingredients lists (especially to see whose byproducts are in use). You do that for yourself already, don't you?...DON'T YOU???
Slip some raw meat to your kitty or pup every now and again. Even some lightly steamed veg. Plenty of advice and recipes on fixing home brew pet food and treats available online.
Adopt, spay/neuter, and bury/cremate your lost loved one. The fewer number of strays and unadopted pound pets, the less we have to worry about them being euthanized and haplessly plunked into the (pet) food cycle. And though we hate to think about it, taking care of the remains yourself allows you and your pet to part with dignity.

There's a lot of information out there and a lot worth thinking about. Don't feel bad about being curious or suspicious. I felt a little silly looking into this issue so deeply, or even considering it an issue for that matter. My initial thought was that there are people who'd be lucky to even get what I feed my cat daily. And I realized, what I was saying. There are millions of folks in our own country who barely have enough to eat. And what little they do get to eat, are the scraps, the throwaways, the unsanitary, and the overprocessed. What we're feeding our pets has long been a reflection of what we feed ourselves. And these days, as Fast Food Nation and SuperSize Me, like Sinclair's The Jungle before them, have all shown that we process our food now more than ever, we can't take where our food (and our animals' food) comes from for granted. Mad Cow disease and Avian Bird Flu outbreaks are ominous reminders of that. What we think we introduce for efficiency and convenience supposedly advancing our food supply can very likely be to our detriment.

As for me, I'm satisfied sticking with Science Diet Kitten until the bag I have runs out. I'll be taking her to get spayed soon since she's only just old enough, so I'll see what the vet recommends, and check out the crunchy neighborhood pet store too. One of the handy things about this investigation was that one of the articles I read mentioned switching your pets brand every 3-4 months. That way, he or she won't be stuck forever with any one manufacturer's kooky ideas on what pet nutrition really is. Most of the high-end commercial pet foods I've never even heard of. So if I'm going to have to run to a pet store for these anyway, might as well go down to the crunchy neighborhood shop and see what the people who're much more serious than I am about their food have to say and sell. Despite the supposedly lower prices those giant pet marts sell for, there's no telling what I'm likely to come home in addition: kitty floss, kitty whisker wax, kitty after dinner mints... It's endless!

In the end, getting back to the sci-fi morality plays, I think Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, and the like have been onto something all these years. It's very easy for us to get comfortable, to not question, or simply avoid the things that don't quite sit well with us. Though it's one thing to be paranoid, it's another thing entirely to follow in blind faith, especially when the leader is not a prophetic messiah, but a profiting meshuggeneh. Though this heavy concern about pet food initially looked so much to me like our American “full-stomach-syndrome”, looking into this reminded me that our food supply is a sacred thing. There's no religion in the world I can think of that doesn't voice some concern about what we eat, how we eat, and how to regard our food supply: as a scarce commodity. And even with religion, despite its intermediaries, we are (or should be) personally involved in our own spiritual nourishment. Should we not do the same with our physical nourishment also?

Born Into Brothels: An Informal Education

2005-03-13T06:03:00.000-05:00

Probably one of the most well-deserved Oscars I've seen awarded in a long time. I was lucky enough to have gone to see it at the Kendall Sq. Cinema before the Oscar ceremony two weeks ago Sunday. In and of its own right, an excellent film, Born into Brothels runs the gamut of emotions, and challenges the viewer's notions of mores, innocence, and the power of education.

Chronicling filmmaker, Zana Briski's journey through the brothels of Calcutta to document the lives of sex workers, her subject immediately shifts to the lives of the children also living in the Calcutta red light district. Taken by their energy, curiosity, and engaging characters, Briski begins to teach a small group how to frame and compose photographs. She issues them small automatic cameras that the children then use to document their lives in the two crowded alleys comprising their forbidden world. This serves a dual purpose. The children, more adept in negotiating access to the inner-lives of the sex workers, clients, and other denizens of the Calcutta brothels, are better able to capture life inside the brothel than she was. Also, it propels her beyond her initial mission of documenting the lives of sex workers to taking active steps to help their children out of their desperate circumstances; ones that for several (the girls in particular) would result in their own entrapment into the skin trade.

The beauty of the film lies in Briski's humility. Unlike many fictional stories and documentaries of Westerner's visiting and observing the peoples of a developing land, she opens herself to the trials and frustrations that the children and their parents face in their dire circumstances. Her simple digital camcorder is unwavering as it records the joys and sorrows of her subjects, including herself. And moreso, in her humility, she shuns the center stage in deference to the children, allowing their pictures, their voices, and their actions to relay their individual and collective stories to the audience. And from them, she draws inspiration and an education on perseverance, and the capacity of the human spirit. Because for its many tragic moments, and overall tragic circumstances, the children remain children: laughing, playing, uncannily observant and creative, and despite all that besets them, full of life and dignity.

As educators, we witness a curriculum in action, rich with potential real-world outcomes. Not only do the children apply what they learn from Briski's coaching, but they also collaborate through interactive discussions, viewing and critiquing each others work. They talk directly and with striking maturity about the emotions their pictures convey and their rationale behind their pieces: selections of subject, setting, framing, lighting, angle, etc. They discuss the theory, apply it in the field, then revisit the theory to critique and learn further from their end products. Briski takes this a step further by inviting other photographers to teach a class and discuss the children's work with them, by setting up a gallery showing for local affluent art aficionados, and in an episode with all the theatrical suspense of a Hitchcock thriller, submits the work of one of her charges for entry to an international youth photography summit. One couldn't ask for more authentic performances of understanding and assessments!

The most transformative experiences for Briski and the children lay in her attempts to get the children into the local boarding schools. With the inherited stigma affixed to children of sex-workers, the schools were loathe to accept them. Even the hardest hearts in the audience tearfully succumb to the children and Briski's rollercoaster of triumphs and defeats as school after school finds reason to not admit the children. Even with potential admission, the children still face the obstacles of family that may wish for them to stay in the brothels, financial burden, as well as the fears and homesickness any 10 year-old would have in leaving their only home.

Born into Brothels serves as a persistent reminder of why I came to the School of Education in the first place. Briski, a photojournalist without formal training as an educator, armed only with a love for her art and the children with whom she shares it, provides the children with and herself gains transcendence over unimaginable odds. If in the heart in every educator there lay a Zana Briski, the world could truly be transformed. Until then, start by spending the 8 bucks and two hours to have yourself touched and transformed by these incredible children, Born into Brothels.

Cidade de Deus

2005-01-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

I had avoided seeing City of God when it was in theaters a couple years back for fear it would be too depressing. What a lame fuckin' excuse. I continue to hang my head in shame. Thankfully, I've grown up a bit since then, having gone to see Dirty Pretty Things in the theater (and a few times since on DVD) and plan to see Hotel Rwanda as soon as it's released. My roommate's Netflix queue has now allowed me redemption, as the City of God DVD arrived several days ago and I finally summoned the courage to watch. In doing so, I was richly rewarded.

City of God (Cidade de Deus) is the story of a ghetto (favelas) of the same name on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. The tale of the Cidade is told over three decades through the lens of favela resident Rocket (played incredibly by Alexandre Rodrigues), the narrator/protagonist/guide. Himself Afro-Brazillian, he eventually comes to tell the tale of his home-favela, not only to us but to his countrymen outside the favelas through the lens of his camera. Through the eyes of Rocket, life on the edge of paradise is replete with bitter irony, humor, tragedy, and every now and then, a miracle. The Cidade is a dark and empoverished lining to Rio's rich silvery-white cloud. The Rio of the movies is so often the exotic and picturesque backdrop to romance, mystery and glamour, featuring non-African and usually non-Brazillian characters. It is very refreshing to see the story told on the other side of paradise, in the voices and persons of the favela's neglected and forgotten residents (conspicuously more racially mixed than any American ghetto portrayed on film, television, or in the news).

Rather than moving scenery, the multitude of characters are skillfully crafted of heart, sinew, and spirit. In some cases, a seemingly incidental character resurfaces supplying essential color and direction to the story. At many points when I first viewed the DVD, I wanted to rewind to see exactly when some of these characters first appeared. In this way, the filmmakers achieved a masterpiece both in craft and content.

A number of reviews have criticised the film for its highly stylized imagery juxtaposed to brutal violence. I think what reviewers found most discomforting was not the presence of violence so much as the violence being executed largely by adolescents, some characters even as young as 9 or 10. The clever camera work and violent gunplay have been familiar friends to gangster tales since The Godfather. I think the fact that the film shows the horrifying reality of the young and impoverished as the footsoldiers and in some cases capos of the horrible enterprise gangster films depict. The tragedy and horror as depicted in the Cidade is that much more real, and by turn, the film's commentary about violence, poverty, and their intersection, a much more powerful and responsible one than any other film I've ever seen.

City of God was not the foreign language grief-fest a more cowardly AFroNaut had originally anticipated. It told its story with a deft combination of humor, tragedy, levity, pathos, and sobriety. I remember hearing an Asian film critic saying of Hong Kong films that the target audience in China, paying its hard earned cash, expects to experience the full range of human emotions in the two-and-a-half hours entertainment they've paid for. I and all others whom I've spoken to about City of God felt we'd definitely gotten our two-and-a-half hours worth. I think because of the nature of the tale, the levity became that much more a comic relief, and the tragic, that much more poignant. Don't deny yourself this rich experience. Most importantly, don't deny the children of the City of God (and the many cities like it, at home and abroad) of your witness to their ongoing struggle.

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God's Politics

2005-01-26T10:46:00.000-05:00

I've always chaffed at the mention of the religious right. Mostly because it invokes a distracting and misleading play on words. "Religious RIGHT???" How could a group labeled as "right" get it so WRONG? To me, what's referred to as the "religious right" represents more of a political body than anything driven by a moral ethic. I say this because the issues at the fore both for them and their adherents has more to do with power, especially political power, than ethics and morality.

I think this is why the recent interviews with Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and editor-in-chief of Sojourners Magazine, has struck such a deep chord in me. His recently released book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, discusses the co-opting of the language of faith in current national politics. And his discussion goes to the heart of the matter that I found so absent in the runup to our last election: morality, and Christian morality, has first and foremost been concerned with the condition of the poor, the disenfranchised, the helpless, and the needy. Left to the standards as reported leading up to the election, the test of your morality whatever your faith and especially of your worthiness as a Christian was whether you stood against Gay Marriage, and Roe vs. Wade, and whether you supported the Invasion of Iraq. In God's Politics, Rev. Wallis returns to the issues that, covered in 3000 verses of the bible, are central tenets to Christianity (and Judaism and Islam as well): poverty, charity, community responsibility.

I have yet to read Rev. Wallis' books but plan to very shortly. He's done several interviews from NPR to the Brookings Institue to The Daily Show on Comedy Central. What he's said in these interviews so far has spoken to me where I live. Our spirituality is our words and deeds. If there should be any shortcut or tip sheet to work from, don't let it be the voting guide given to you outside your local polling station. Let it instead be The Golden Rule: "As you do unto the least of these among you, so you do unto Me."