Standing up to the Madness is an excellent read

May 2nd, 2009

Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary TimesMy labmate Tim sent me an email on Wednesday (April 15th) saying that Amy Goodman “Democracy Now! fame, and my heroin” [sic] was speaking on campus at noon. The place was packed, and it’s the best way I could have imagined to snap back out of the Qualifying Exam bubble I’ve spent the last several months in, and re-engage with the world at large.

One of the excuses for the tour is the paperback release of Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy and David Goodman.

Now that I’m a tenured grad student, I can actually allow myself to read for pleasure – guilt free! So I went to the library that Thursday, and picked up the hardcover, which came out last year.

What I liked about this book is what sets it apart from other political books of today. Amy and David don’t just provide us with a laundry list of wrongdoing by the Bush administration, congress, various governmental agencies, as well as highlighting some of the ongoing local struggles. Though the book is chock-full of such details, they are all provided in the context of a particular vignette. What’s more – instead of simply stating the problems, or providing an outline of the authors’ opinions regarding what course of action should be taken, the book highlights the work average citizens have already done to oppose injustice, censorship, racism, etc. One example is T-shirt “terrorist” Raed Jarrar, who wore a shirt with the words “We will not be silent” – written in both English and Arabic – a reference to the White Rose – and was forced to put another shirt over it because JetBlue customers were threatened or offended. With the help of the ACLU, Jarrar sued the TSA and JetBlue, who ended up paying $240,000 to settle the discrimination charges.

Like Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost1, this book is non-fiction that reads like fiction. Not because it is well-written, though it is, but because of the shocking realities of the content. Leadership cannot be taught, it can only be revealed. Standing up to the Madness gives us dozens of snapshots of the ongoing work of ordinary heroes.

  1. which, after I first read it in 2001 became my measuring stick for gauging the quality of non-fiction↩

Posted in Adam Hochschild, People, amy goodman, berkeley, books, david goodman, democracy, political discourse, review | No Comments »

Duopoly (or why I’m not voting for Obama)

July 4th, 2008

Let me ask you a question: Do you think that the two-party system is good for the United States?

I find it very difficult to engage in debates about national politics because the average citizen has so little influence over these matters. I think that it’s much more worthwhile to get informed about and involved in local politics, because that’s where someone like me can actually have influence.

Nevertheless my own answer to the question is that it’s probably not a good thing. There’s this high-dimensional landscape of issues that people care and have different ideas about – reproductive rights, gun control, immigration, education, social programs, the size of government, taxation, the list goes on and on. Yet that gets projected down to this one dimensional line with just “Left” and “Right” with optional “far” and “center” prefixes.

And, sadly, the common consensus is that on election day you have only two possible boxes to check. A single decision. One bit. 0 or 1.

The Democrats and Republicans are playing a small concessions type of game. They sort of shuffle around slightly to appeal to enough of those voters who aren’t already automatically voting for them. If you only vote for one or the other, they have no reason to change – they already have your vote.

Voters in safe rarely contested states, have the unique opportunity to vote their conscience without fear1. When I twittered about Obama’s support for the FISA Compromise, Philip, a disappointed California voter replied: “our voting system forces us to vote strategically and i’ll be voting obama .” This doesn’t make any sense to me! Obama will carry California. Democrats almost automatically get California2 .

So why give in? You’re not happy with the Democratic candidate3, the candidate who will carry California regardless of how you vote, yet you still feel unable to voice your disapproval in the electoral arena. David wrote: “I’m not going to throw away my vote on the green party,” but aren’t you just throwing away your vote to the democrats, instead?

The role of third parties is to emphasize new and different ideas, to bring folks who’ve given up hope back to the table, and to make the major parties shift in MEANINGFUL ways. Here are some great YouTube clips on the role of third parties in the US: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.

If you still have doubts about voting for a third party candidate and/or you live in a swing state – consider the votepact.org proposal: find a fellow kindred heart on the other side of the political spectrum who’s also unhappy with the candidate on their side, and together vote for a third party (fill out your absentees together over coffee).

  1. Electoral College: bug or feature?↩
  2. The only way the Democrats might not get California is if Arnold runs as VP for a moderate Republican, and that just is not happening this year.↩
  3. There are more reasons to not be happy↩

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Posted in choice voting, democracy, greens, political discourse, third parties | 1 Comment »

My first foray into the production of motion pictures

November 28th, 2007

I want to thank Curt Siffert for granting me permission to use his song “All Aboard (v2)” which you can download (for free) here. This is the first video1 I’ve ever made, but I’ve wanted to make films for as long as I’ve been writing2 (even before Sally said “Hey guys, I’m going to make movies!” and then did), so I’m glad I’ve finally started.

I put this together for a video contest here at I-house. You can see all of the videos for the contest here, the winner was Life At I-House, A Glimpse by KirstyandEliana.

  1. yes, okay, it’s more of a slideshow with an intro, but my brother Mike told me that Ken Burns would be proud↩
  2. creatively, which would be 1999 – warning: link contains some extremely cheesy content, including an early version of what evolved into this journal↩

Posted in People, berkeley, cinelerra, curt siffert, i-house, ihouse | 2 Comments »

Napoleon@Home – Distributed World Domination

October 13th, 2007

Napoleon@Home

I’m about to give this Lightning Talk at SHDH20.

Posted in berkeley, david p anderson, distributed computing, human computation, napoleon, napoleon@home, shdh, shdh20, technology | No Comments »

Weinberger’s talk and OLPC

August 8th, 2007

Here’s David Weinberger talking about Everything is Miscellaneous (the book I reviewed here and many others did here). The hour-long talk stands on its own and covers much of the book, though I don’t recommend watching it if you’re planning to read the book.

I went to Linux World Expo today and played with one of these upcoming One-Laptop-Per-Child project’s XO-1 laptops at the Creative Commons booth.
OLPC XO-1 at Linux World
Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid (cc)

While OLPC is a noble effort, I think it still feels like another example of trying to solve a problem with technology where technology is not the bottleneck. For example, I was bummed that they took away the hand-crank power-supply a while back because I think this severely limits who’ll be able to eventually use these. The UI and networking stuff is pretty novel, but my overall impression is that it’s too gadgety. I felt pretty lost in all just the buttons on the keyboard, but then again I only used it for 20 minutes and this wasn’t made for me. With that said, I’m not holding my breath, but it could be a great thing if this takes off. I say “could” because technology by itself just isn’t enough1. This is a point I keep coming back to again and again.

  1. A point the OLPC project acknowledges in their vision.↩

Posted in books, david weinberger, everything is miscellaneous, olpc, technology | 2 Comments »

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