I read the news today - Oy Veh!

Recent news stories have touched on the absurd "states' rights" hassle over evacuating endangered Haitians to where they can be saved because some states are reluctant to admit them.

Today's news is "U.S. Speeding Up Missile Defenses in Persian Gulf" and it doesn't take an economist to know that the latter moves right along, probably at a cost dwarfing the entire "Haitiian Rescue Effort".

The infrastructures needed to put in a likely-to-be-ineffective "Missile Shield" adjunct similar to, (but probably costlier) that needed for restoring water/food/health in Port-au-Prince.

We are very sick puppies, indeed. As we let our siblings in the Caribbean suffer, we pour concrete to send a message to Iran that can't possibly help them or us.

Love.

IdVU (Iglesia de Vida Universal)

IdVU (Universal Life Church has a very straightforward set of tenets all based on a rather simple base: "Do only that which is right"

IdVU is not an edifice, it is a growing part of our collective mind. Even Google is based on this version of a principle of physicians' oaths: "First, do no harm"

Objective: Eternal Progression.
Goal: A Fuller Life for Everyone.
Slogan: To Live and Help Live.
Maxim: “We Are One."

When I drove to Modesto (in the 1960s) and met with Kirby Hensley who founded IdVU and he ordained me as a minister, my views about religion were irretrievably altered. We are the largest batch of ministers of any religion on the planet.

The absurdity of most religions' attitudes is played with in Ethical, a chapter in my book. Being a Pope isn't hard, one just says (or writes or thinks) "I am a Pope in IdVU", so for example anyone reading this is herewith ordained an IdVU minister and has the power to be a "bishop" or a "cardinal", etc. You are also free to renounce your calling.

Love.

what a little century can do

"On Jan. 25, 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service."

We've come a long way, baby - but we still have a long way to go!

It was somewhat different from the impact of the trans-continental railway but it's fantastic what's been wrought, and through it all one unintended consequence has been the societal isolation of the deaf community. Bell's "invention" shut them out from much of the human interaction that has gone from a bevy of (mostly) women called "central" asking the ubiquitous "number, please" to electronic marvels that enable one to buy/sell money while walking down the street.

In the U.S. and much of the "developed world" there are probably more people with access to global communication than without it.

As we move towards universal connection, we must attend to inclusion of everyone in this "party line" - one through which it is almost trivial to videophone anyone on the planet.

I've been honored to speak to the people who have as their goal providing a true "Web4All" experience.

Hope to encounter some of you F2F (face-to-face) at W4A 2010 in Raleigh in April.

Love.

Distributed help desk

There are Websites that encourage answering questions from readers by other readers and some of them probably actually help with answers but they are so "dense" as to be not very usable/popular, even sometimes trying to monetize the process: "which way is it to the Plaza Mayor?" - "I'll tell you for a Euro." would never do in face-to-face solicitations for directions.

What if the process were more nearly global and instantaneous so that from your mobile device you could get help for just about anything from whoever participated in the "global help desk" network?

In particular getting tourist information (skip the hotel/restaurant ads, please) from someone in Myanmar about the Plazas of Madrid, etc. might be interesting because anybody, anywhere might: have the info; speak your language; enjoy sharing.

Most mobile smart phones have in effect the means of doing this and when they are as cheap/effective as Skype it will be feasible.

Love.

P2P revisited

Why can't we work out a simple way to send €5 as an email attachment?

Don't think of it as a monetizable opportunity, i.e. figure out how to profit from brokering such transactions as is the basis for eBay, PayPal, etc.

If we could do this we'd be on our way to a "peoples' bank".

Love.

Wednesday's geezer's full of rage!

I sent people a link to a snip on YouTube that was one of the most moving mass medium depictions of cross-disability cooperation. It was about three minutes from a network TV show called GLEE and this clip of the Haverbrook School for the Deaf performing John Lennon's "Imagine" for an audience made up (I presume) of the GLEE cast. This is the only screen shot now available because 20th Century Fox claimed copyright violations which made YouTube take it down. You can hear the sound track accompanying this screen shot but much of the effect is from the visual part.

The action started with the man (wearing tie) signing/singing the song then the girl who in the picture is standing by him starts singing along with the choir and moves into the group and is joined by all the cast + a guy in a wheelchair and they sing the anthem of peace/love as they learn to sign the words as well.

That the Studio saw fit to remove this is outrageous.

Love.

A more conventional "sermon"

I don't ordinarily use "scripture" as a basis for these but:

"And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

– Matthew 21:12-13

I am always reminded of this (by far my favorite view of Jesus the activist) because my long-time crime partner/mentor David "Buck" Wheat often said "the music business is in the hands of the money changers" and that is brought home really strongly by musings concerning the monetization of so-called "intellectual property rights" and their accompanying baggage: copyrights/patents.

The continuation of middle-persons 'twixt creators/purveyors/consumers of such things as literature and music is right nigh onto unbearable. Their near-destruction of peer-to-peer file sharing, etc. has turned art into commerce of a kind that allows obscene profiting by people who add absolutely no value to the undertakings.

The tedium interposed by banks/insurers/publishers clearly stifles both competition and innovation and a system of usable/efficient micropayments is long overdue. The idea that Apple is propped up by charging a buck for a song and the composer gets a couple pennies is just criminal/unethical/immoral.

The original reasons that "publishers" got anything out of people accessing creative works were: they actually DID something; it was mistakenly thought that copyright would protect the creator and encourage innovation, etc. Neither of these has worked out: they don't "publish" anything tangible; they stifle innovation through monopoly.

If only Napster had included a way to send someone a penny when their stuff got shared, it would have brought an earlier demise of the blood-sucking privateers who pretend to be doing something useful.

We have a World Wide Web now and don't need to fatten a bunch of parasites who brand us as "pirates" to hide their own piracy. In another era those who actually did something for the artist might deserve compensation but the idea that for all time Irving Mills is listed as a co-composer on Duke Ellington's work is plainly absurd.

Love.

2010 curse list

Instead of predictions or resolutions I think I'll post my "hit list" for the year:

Software vendors who attach "upgrade notifications" to their products, amounting to giving the keys to thinly disguised "nuisance-ware"

Links within Wikipedia that lead to non-existent entries, urging you to start one.

Searches that yield bait/switch "offers" like "to read rest of article, subscribe"

Advertising interests that have taken over the Web and pretend to own it.

Web designers who still haven't even heard of accessibility.

Enough for the moment. My youngest son is 42 today and I'm 84 tomorrow - time flies when you're having fun.

Love.

In case you missed it...

Nick Dupree doesn't have a regular Wikipedia entry, just the "User" version. However his blog and in particular his YouTube version pretty much says it all.

I post this because it makes me imagine what would happen to our comparatively minor inconveniences with life if Nick were the "complaint manager" for the world. You've been having trouble finding a parking place so you walk into his office and he asks "what's your problem?" and in an instant his "no worries, mate" response fills you right up.

How we have checked our humanity at the door is, I must admit, troubling.

Love.

putting the "X" back in Xmas

There are a lots worse things to be than alone on Christmas day in Madrid.

I hear the fishing is great in Iraq, so for any servicepersons who enjoy angling...

So I'm listening to Louis Armstrong ca 1938 singing "I've Got the World on a String" and realizing that he was probably as high as I am as I look through the window at the no-off-days Chinese guy's store across calle de Seco and wonder why, as my "landlord" says we can't just celebrate every day as intensely as we do Christmas. I think maybe we are more in the joy of Xmas, the day when we realize just how absurd it is to be other than optimistic/Utopian as the days inexorably lengthen and the prospects are certainly rosier than they are dire.

We've all been on Bro. Dylan's Desolation Row at times but there's no profit in the actual blues - only the musical kind!

I am always surprised when I learn that somebody besides me reads these rants but in case anyone is "Mary Xmas" and let's look forward to many more.

Love.

More on hyperlink bullet-proofing

I have now "repaired" two link failures that required me to go to the Wayback Machine's archives. Whatever I did could have been automated in a routine of reasonable doability. The only human mind power I used was to select which archived piece was the one I intended and I simply chose the earliest. It could have been the one closest to the date I posted the link or...

This might put a burden on the Wayback Machine but I think it can handle it, if not there's lots of free storage space for such things.

In doing this I realized that I had bypassed the linked-to site's subsequent "forbidden" order and I wonder if I could use it to, e.g. get New York Times archives without subscribing to the NYT?

Love.

The Language Barrier

I get more perspective on human language as I'm staying afloat in a Sea of Spanish. I point to something at the charcuterie and read the little sign stuck into what looks like a smoked pork chop and gesture as to how thick to cut it and become addicted to chuletas Sajonias (chops, Saxon style) or the same meat without bone as filetes sajonias. Before long I'm getting slices of chorizo and other marvels.

Then I go to the pescador counter and prawns are called langostinos and mussels are mejillos and the tuna for my sashimi is atun, which he slices from a huge slab. The carniceria is less interesting because I still make a pretense at vegetgarianism.

The produce section has a really dazzling array of mostly familiar items, but of marvelous quality. A bag of Clementina tangerines keeps me busy for a couple of days.

The hashish is outstanding, the people are super-friendly and the women startlingly beautiful. I don't know how I missed knowing about Madrid all these years but I'm sure glad we found each other.

Love.

Rights - What Rights?

NYT: "On Dec. 10, 1948, the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Universal Declaration on Human Rights."

Subsequently the U.N. issued a "convention" which elaborated on the application of said "rights" to People With Disabilities. I hope it's not sixty years before we begin to take steps to demand those rights - above states' rights - for all humans.

As we march and shout in Spain "Derechos Humanos Ya!"

If you wondered what you would have done had you been a German in the 1930s when they took the crips and Gypsies away to test the gas chambers, now you can find out through self-examination. If you're into "I'm not a Gypsy so I don't care that they are all being murdered" then please stand aside so I can carry my sign and perhaps even bring legal action at an international level.

Love.

More DUH!

From a spam notice: "Now you can talk and drive without using your hands."

No info on how the Bluetooth drives for you.

I am struck by how late to the dance are legislators, etc. who pretend that they are just finding out that distraction is the danger, not just using one's hands or eyes.

Particularly with aging I notice that just distractive thought is dangerous as are tuning the radio, looking at your passenger, and a host of other activities, but what we are getting are rules against texting and in some cases using the cellphone while at the wheel.

They have in some places forbade putting a TV where the driver might watch, but the GPS has eased this ban on visual distraction, although one could use the navigator in voice-only mode, but it doesn't work all that well.

Just as we made progress with seat belts and drinking/driving we will have to address distraction per se. The SKI Study on elder vision includes: "aging significantly reduces the effective visual field under conditions of divided attention (white circles, red line), and coarse stereopsis (depth perception) is also greatly impaired." and "Older persons self-restrict their driving based on several aspects of their vision, but not on the basis of deficits on attentional fields (measuring divided attention performance — one of the most important correlates of accidents). Testing and education is therefore needed."

And all Department of Motor Vehicle testing agencies still use the primitive visual acuity charts that are actually pretty useless.

Love.

My Favorite App

For many years I've used a program called TuneIt! to tune musical instruments I build. It is also a lot of fun to use for ear training, voice control, etc. If you try it you will learn a lot about intonation with voice/whistling/instrument.

He will guide you to a free download for thirty days' trial. Even if you're not a musician it's nice to see the harmonic analysis of your voice, etc. parade across the screen.

Love.

Protesteth 2 Much?

On this day (NYT): "On Nov. 15, 1969, a quarter of a million protesters staged a peaceful demonstration in Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War."

While we protested the troops continued killing and dying for three more years.

In the current spate of U.S.-sanctioned murder-for-hire the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have essentially no human rights' enhancement excuse.

And after a while the futility of protest saps such activity, possibly because the invaders' losses are "only" a few thousand, although the "collateral damage" in Middle Easterners' lives is orders of magnitude higher.

Now the airplanes torching the area are unmanned, flown by computer gamers near Las Vegas and the ground level massacre is usually muted with most attention to the loss of U.S. troops to truck and suicide bombs.

The Freedom Fighters cum Insurgents have no "in memoriam" tributes on our TVs but the Americans (mostly quite young) are paid off with a few seconds of mourning by sad-voiced anchors.

Even electing a candidate promising to bring the troops home couldn't stop the warlords from continuing to bristle patriotically and continue to protect people in Wichita from potential terrorist attacks. Please tell the mothers of the kids struck by fragments of cluster bombs that in war "shit happens" and it's all for the best.

Love.

Goodbye to Goldendale

It is really strange/moving to be uprooting and relocating.

It's something I have done rather often dating back to my escape from "The South" in 1942 as I had all my worldly goods (except my beloved Lionel electric train) in one big trunk (which got lost by the railroad company) on my way to Boston by way of New York City.

This time is just as adventurous/risky because I will arrive in Madrid on Wednesday with no known place to sleep that night, although I'm pretty sure it will be OK and not require finding room at the inn.

I was just invited to give the welcoming keynote at the Web4All conference next year in Raleigh and all of this is becoming part of that talk. The years since the WWW conference in Santa Clara (WWW6 - 1997) at which the Web Accessibility Initiative was kicked off have been largely flooded with almost magical experiences and the flight to Spain seems a fitting companion to all the relationships I've formed since.

This will likely be the last sermon written in Goldendale and I may never return here but it has been an incredible time during which I learned to be "old".

As I am fond of saying "if I felt any better, they'd put me in jail".

Love.

Bah

On Sept. 15, 1963, four black girls were killed when a bomb went off during Sunday services at a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, in the deadliest act of the civil rights era.

On June 12, 1963 Medgar Evers was murdered.

On June 21, 1964 Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered.

Where were we?

I'm still not "reconciled" to these events and feel much like I do in other personal periods of grief. I cannot forget and probably will never forgive so I just avoid going to that part of the country, even though it has changed some. In fact, because I feel that I am living in a "rogue nation", I am moving to Spain as soon as possible.

Love.

A different 9/11

An earlier tragedy on September 11 still tears me up.

I wonder if some future "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" concerning American captors at Guantanamo will reveal some awful events that now are swept up in Bro. Cheney's "waterboarding isn't torture" assertions. I wonder if he will say, like his South African counterpart Jimmy Kruger, who in a speech touching on Steve Biko's murder that it "left him cold"?

Love.

Who's Human?

As I examined the failures of the U.S. Constitution's being amended with an "Equal Rights Amendment" (ERA) I realized that "piecemeal" elaborations of Human Rights via legislation like those passed to end discrimination for various diversities ("race"/ethnicity/gender/"disability") might be better served by a "Human Rights Amendment" (HRA).

The ERA was successfully opposed by women's groups.

The possibility of a HRA is problematic because we are torn by at least two distinct definitions of "human": Until it can breathe and pulse on its own, a fetus is just an elaborate part of a woman's body and survives with her permission; As soon as it is conceived, the fetus has all the protections of law that all humans enjoy.

Although we might find some solace in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it is clear  that "United Nations" was organized by and for the continuing dominance over humans by nation-states. However it does sidestep defining who's human. I wonder if it could be adopted today?

Love.