we are not human

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A touch of Walt Whitmania

March 22nd, 2010 · economics

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition.
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

-Walt Whitman, from "Song of Myself" (1881), section 32

Walt Whitman was largely accused of being lazy, he was fired from an editorial position due to this perception, he was considered eccentric for his "daily routine of apparently purposeless walks in which he absorbed metropolitan sights and sounds." That a person walking in the sun of the first day of spring with magnolias blooming gorgeously and swaying in the wind (my Saturday) should feel the need to do anything else is criminal. Whitman valued time in a way that was anathema to the age he lived in, just as he understood things beyond the scientific capacity of his day, just as we are only now beginning to understand these things.

I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.

One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
And I know the amplitude of time.

-section 20

The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety.

I do not call one greater and one smaller,
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?
I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,
All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation,
(What have I to do with lamentation?)

I am an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things to be.

-section 44

If we are going to create a sustainable future we must first begin to understand the amplitude of time, we must shift our perception to understanding that we belong to the earth and not that the earth belongs to us, that long after the last human being ceases to exist the earth will go on, in some way, with parts of us that are not us, as it has always. Getting over this mania of me and mine, regaining control of common resources we gave away to corporations which exhibit an orientation of short-term maximization that certain economists only imagine all people do, shifting democracy away from the next election cycle and towards direct participation by the people who have a stake in it—these are the great projects of the 21st century. Maybe this slow future is too slow, maybe we cannot re-imagine our future before it is too late.

In a way technology accelerates the perception of time, but it also allows us to connect with people in a way we never could before, it makes the everyday lives of people who are forced to deal with our outsourced environmental destruction and other horrors of global capitalism more accessible and immediate, and it breeds compassion and empathy ("For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" [Mr. Whitman]) and (hopefully) demand for a new way that truly values people and the world we live in.

I do suggest turning it all off on occasion in favor of apparently purposeless walks in which a person is allowed to merely absorb the sights and sounds of the beauty that surrounds us always, as it does, impossibly—the rosy blush dappling the precious skin of a pear, all texture and color and life—"a little fantastic, and fleeting, and out of reach" (Susan Orlean in The Orchid Thief).

magnolia bloom

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by this shoe,
Now I will have you be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

-section 46

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now,
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

-section 3

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.

-section 17

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InterNOT

March 16th, 2010 · Internet!

Apparently, googling 'facebook login' landed dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of misguided facebook users at a blog post about facebook connect, a service that allows users to log into external sites using their facebook accounts. Many thought they were at a newly designed facebook homepage and used the blog's comment section, which employs facebook connect, to express their discontent with what they thought was facebook's new design and frustration with their inability to access desired content. The site ended up adding a disclaimer instructing the confused on more reliable avenues to log into facebook, but the initial comments are really quite amazing--
#19: This is such a mess I can't do a thing on my facebook .The changes you have made are ridiculous,I can't even login!!!!!I am very upset!!!
#51: This sucks,why when something works and we get used to it,they have to change it and mess it up!
#54: Quit this carp and let me sign in!
#67: I HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK PAGE , IN FACT I HAVE STARTED TO VISIT IT LESS, BECAUSE IT IS A HASSLE
#72: The new facebook is ok
#81: im going back to my fuckin space u ass holes have to fuck up a good this !!!!! dumn asses
#100: All well and good but all I want to do is sign in and play My Farmville game now how do I get on.
I restrained myself to reading only two pages of comments, but there are 44 pages of possible comment gold!

I feel a palpable sense of loss that the Internet is no longer solely the realm of the technologically savvy at the same time that I embrace greater inclusion and the diversity of voices online. Is facebook connect just bad design? How can the Internet cater to an increasingly e-nept audience? One commenter initially avowed "I am going to delete my account (IF I CAN EVER LOG IN) as this SUCKS BIG TIME ! (#58)" before finding a solution she helpfully shared in comment #85: "for those of you that want to get in face book now just go to Bing..put in face book and search (or it will pop up) hit on face book login and it takes you to your password page...i did it....if this ever gets back to normal I will use the address bar from now on....." Is Internet illiteracy really so severe that people do not even know how to use the address bar or URLs? Facebook's fastest growing user demographic is women over the age of 55, and they, apparently, need help. My advice is, as always, "Get off the Internet!/I'll meet you in the street/Get off the Internet!/Destroy the right wing."

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There are no girls on ChatRoulette.

March 8th, 2010 · Internet!

ChatRoulette is "the newest craze on the Internet," at least according to people who don't spend nearly enough time online to possibly be able to report that. You've might have heard about ChatRoulette, which randomly pairs Internet users to chat with one another using video, audio, and text, helpfully providing a 'next' button to disconnect the current session and draw up a new chat partner. After making the rounds on various news outlets, including Good Morning America, The New York Times, et al., ChatRoulette made a refreshing appearance on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, where the voice of reason always overshadows media hype.

According to Stewart, "[ChatRoulette's] not a craze. The Macarena was a craze. This is an Internet site that will very quickly become a repository of 5% curiosity seekers and 95% free-floating dongs." In fact, that's what most reporters have found, warning viewers once again to vigilantly monitor the online activity of their children.

One reporter assigned "to spin ChatRoulette's wheel" quickly runs into the site's "dark side." Stewart: "Yes, yes, 'the dark side.' The same 'dark side' that's on every Internet site. The bored, the perverse, and a random grandma with her first computer—the Internet's like Mexican food: every site's got the same ingredients, just in different combinations. But go ahead, investigate. I wonder what your reporters will find on this video-based anonymous stranger finder..."

The results are laughably predictable. The woman sitting in front of the computer connected to ChatRoulette quickly covers her eyes and reports that she doesn't want to repeat what she just saw, while back in the studio the anchor squeals, "I can't wait to hear what that was!" Stewart, deadpan and brilliant: "It was a cock."

He then pulls out a laptop and connects to ChatRoulette himself. After drawing up a number of random bored guys and mercifully blurred cocks, Stewart is also connected with a succession of reporters trying to break the ChatRoulette story. Keith Olbermann, who usually makes pointed criticisms of politicians on MSNBC, is hilarious as the straight man—
Stewart: "Olbermann! What are you doing here?"
Olbermann: "Bearing witness to the new era of communication, Jon. It is Orwellian, Sir, it is Big Brother, and Big Brother is none other than each of us. The Bush Administration's warrantless wiretap search society at T1 speeds, the surveillance state gone viral. At long last, Sir, have we no shame? Oh... I think one of us is supposed to take our pants off now."

Of course, Olbermann's satiric screed on ChatRoulette does contain a kernel of truth. Internet culture grew up in an environment of near total anonymity and freedom. As it moves to the mainstream, online activity is increasingly connected to real names and likenesses and that freedom is lost. Google's Buzz social networking service drew fire for automatically insinuating itself in people's private email. When it first rolled out, gmail users found themselves automatically and publicly following the people they had contacted most, but what if that was their mistress or abusive ex-husband?

In the early and more anonymous days of the Internet, forum posters and chat room participants were almost exclusively assumed to be male. There was possibly a gender gap in early Internet users (wasn't Sandra Bullock's character the only woman of chat buddies in 1995's The Net?) and many men pretended to be women online, but the idea that "there are no girls on the Internet" became so prevalent that it eventually fed into itself. People who asserted that they were female online were met with a barrage of insults and abuse (e.g. "Tits or GTFO," requests for "proof" in the form of time-stamped photos, etc.), so women often pretended to be men just to avoid harassment. On ChatRoulette this is impossible.

In contrast is Omegle, ChatRoulette's text-only predecessor (poised to take over the Internet just last year but now maintaining around 5,000 users at any given time). Without a webcam image, the entity on the other end of the conversation is labeled only "Stranger," and users have essentially no idea who they are chatting with. A corollary is that you can be whoever you want on Omegle. Or be yourself. Unburdening oneself to complete strangers online seems to be part of the appeal of Omegle. That and the complete absence of free-floating dongs, though, as with all aspects of the Internet, many users have found the potential for sex on Omegle.

The bored, the perverse, possibly a random grandma with her first computer. They're all on Omegle too. I asked a few people on Omegle why they talk to strangers online. Answers ranged from "it's complicated," to "You can yap about anything on your mind. (Me: what's on your mind? Stranger: Pie.)" A common response was some variant of "it can get quite steamy in here" or "to find interesting conversations, and maybe other things..."

One brazen soul started our conversation with "19 m with cam and horny ;)" When I advised him to get on ChatRoulette, he answered his own question "you think i find some naked girls there?" with "lol guess no." If the existence of live naked women in chat rooms has mostly to do with the fact that they are actually men, then no, you probably won't find any on a video-based service like ChatRoulette.

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A 15-year-old me dreams the dream

February 25th, 2010 · mortified

I just read Mortified--a comic excavation of the strange and extraordinary things we created as kids--so naturally I had to look through my own adolescent shame. Luckily, I destroyed all of my personal revelations, but I still have most of my school work. After being indoctrinated in the DARE program in junior high, in high school I took on the American dream:

Bree Sharp's ironic song "America" shows how media centered American culture really is. I think that my American Dream will be to do as little as possible to be reasonably successful. Naturally, I will have a lot of free time to do with what I please. Thus, television, radio, and other media outlets will become a major part of my life. It's too hard and expensive to do much of anything else. The first stanza in the song reads: "Radios / T.V. show / Fill my holes / With your goodies," because they will fill my holes. And, in my quest to be as lazy as lazy as possible, I think I might just "Sit back, relax, enjoy the war / From the living room." Because getting out and "enjoying the war" from any other vantage point would only mean more work. Like Bree, "All I know / Is my lonely soul / And the remote control." And that's all I ever will know.

Teacher's response: "Michelle, you write very well. Your paragraph is well supported with concrete detail." The URL from the lyrics printout is dansonscreekmusic.com, to which he noted "season premier Oct. 4th!"

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Harsh words for god

February 20th, 2010 · found

"Get it right and let the devil fuck your mouth with a razor dick."

to god found note
(click for larger version)

I have no idea why I pulled this note, dripping wet and stinking of tobacco, out of an ash can sitting outside a dive bar. I still puzzle over it. Is the note for Nicci or god? Who disposed of it? The sender? The receiver? God?

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