My comments at NYTimes Opinionator blog:

"No Quiet During the Storm"

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/no-quiet-during-the-storm/

Thanks to commenter, Jenny (comment #16), which I repeat for emphasis:

Why is there absolutely no coverage in the Times about the unlawful, violent arrests of journalists covering the RNC protests?

Or the SWAT team-like, pre-emptive raids on lawful protesters and journalists over the weekend? This is a HUGE civil liberties story.

Here’s a link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Yes, why IS there no coverage???

Amy Goodman, an accredited and widely respected progressive voice from Democracy Now, was arrested with two of her crew while trying to cover this travesty.

http://freepress.net/

Sign petition here: Take action at: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=281

We have become Iran, China, Russia. If the same thing were happening in Bejing, Moscow or Teheran, the main stream media, our great "Fourth Estate" would be shouting from the mountaintops about the denial of basic human rights.

Our "Fourth Estate" has largely abdicated its former honor in favor of the slinking mien of the lackey of the "Ministry of Information"...

"No Quiet during the Storm" -- a misleading headline if there ever was one.

I assumed that here finally the Times would report on the neo-fascist police action taking place in St Paul.

PREEMPTIVE ARRESTS of amateur videographers? Professional Journalists???

What country am I in???? This is an insult to all Americans, a vile insult to the Constitution, and a massive dereliction of duty on behalf of both the "Fourth Estate" and the Constitutional Officers, whether Fed, State or City who are allowing this police action.

High School Politics at the Highest Level...

Oh, and by the way, Sarah Palin's drama queen entrance is having exactly the effect planned. Firstly, to foment delirious outrage amongst liberals, progressives and anyone who's actually paying attention. That creates a perfect backdrop to distract and deceive...

As Bob Herbert notes in his excellent column today:

Palin is the latest G.O.P. distraction. She’s meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign — the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions. Willie Horton was a distraction. The chatter about gays, guns and God has been a long-running distraction. And we all remember the Swift-boat campaign.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/opinion/02herbert.html?em

Palin is not an attempt to gain PUMA Hillary voters, but an extremely calculated and targeted bait for the evangelical 'influencers' who would have sat this one out, because they are disgusted with both Bush and John McCain (McSame).

Please see George Lakoff's sharp and clear analysis here:

Lakoff: Palin Appeals to Voter Emotions -- Dems Beware http://www.alternet.org/election08/97193

The initial Democratic response to Palin indicates that many Democrats have not learned the lessons of the Reagan and Bush years.

Fortunately, I think the Democrat who does matter, Barack Obama, DOES get it.

So, onward. It's going to be a great season...

I'm optimistic that the Repuglicants will swing wildly and never connect. May Gustav be their prophet.

Go Cubs! gObama!

Join Parlortricks! http://www.eiotx.net/mailman/listinfo/parlortricks *****************************************************************************

Peter Fraterdeus Exquisite Letterpress http://slowprint.com

New! SlowPrint Newsletter! Signup: http://tinyurl.com/slowprint Current: http://slowprint.com/slowprintnl

Please take four minutes NOW to help preserve the People's Freedom from Government Surveillance. The House is voting this afternoon on the FISA Reauthorization "compromise".

While I'm a political moderate, at least in terms of what I think is possible, given the history of human self-government, I am absolutely disgusted with the current capitulation being engineered by the Congressional leadership on the issue of the (p)Resident's illegal wiretapping, and the illegal collusion of the giant Telecoms allowing this to take place.

I highly urge every Parlortricks reader (and every concerned citizen!) to have a look at the urgent update from Moveon.org (below), and CALL Senator Obama's office and tell him to stiffen his resolve against such a deal. (Last October he said he would support a filibuster against it)

Senator Barack Obama
Phone: 202-224-2854

Senators Feingold and Leahy are as outraged as I am about this, and I think our Nominee must come down on this question with a very strong statement that it is NOT time to turn our backs on the Constitution.

The ACLU, EFF, and many other groups have been working for months to defeat this, only to have the Democratic "leadership" -- in particular Rep. Steny Hoyer (see Greenwald article reference in MoveOn footnotes below)-- undermine ongoing efforts to define and determine culpability in the question of ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE of Americans, and the COLLUSION of the major telecoms in this matter.

While I am a strong supporter of Obama's candidacy, it would be a serious undermining of his credibility on civil rights and constitutional issues were he not to reject this "Telecom Immunity"

I highly recommend Glenn Greenwald's series of posts at Salon.com (See MoveOn footnotes below)
Greenwald has been reporting on this issue for many months now, including the numerous times it was thought that public pressure had killed the threat.

However, we see now that just like Count Dracula, these things can arise from the dead unless there's a very dramatic stake put through its heart.

It's time to kill the FISA Capitulation Bill once and for all.

NOTE: Please CALL YOUR SENATORS AS WELL AS OBAMA.
While the House may have already voted, the Senate is the final barrier to this bad law.

Tell Obama (and your other own Senators if you're not from Illinois) that there is noever a good time to turn your back on the Constitution.

Thanks for caring.

Peter

PS, you may very well get voice-mail at Obama's number. I did when I called a few minutes ago.

Just leave a short message, saying you are a supporter of his candidacy, and a constituant (if you are in Illinois), and that you are outraged by the potential Democratic capitulation regarding Telecom Immunity in the FISA reauthorization.



Today's MoveOn.org statement is here:
Yesterday, some congressional Democrats cut a deal to let companies that helped President Bush break the law off the hook. Barack Obama's promised to oppose such a bill in the past. Can you tell him we're counting on him to stand strong against "immunity" for lawbreaking phone companies?

Senator Barack Obama
Phone: 202-224-2854


Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday it was announced that some congressional Democrats cut a deal with President Bush to give a get-out-of-jail-free card to phone companies that helped Bush illegally spy on innocent Americans.1 Senator Russ Feingold says the "deal is not a compromise; it is a capitulation."2

Barack Obama took a bold stance on this issue last year, vowing to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."3 We need him to announce that he'll continue this strong position when the bad "deal" is voted on in the Senate.

Can you call Senator Obama today and tell him you're counting on him to keep his word and stand strong against immunity for lawbreaking phone companies?

Senator Barack Obama
Phone: 202-224-2854

Please help us track our progress by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FSIL_2&cp_id=759

These companies helped the Bush Administration illegally spy on the emails and phone calls of innocent Americans. By giving "immunity" to these companies, all lawsuits brought against them by civil liberties groups would be thrown out of court. That means we may never find out how far Bush went in breaking the law. And once it's done, it can't be undone.

Supporters of today's deal say it doesn't guarantee immunity—it just kicks the issue to a court to decide. But that's deceptive. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) points out:

"It gives [Bush's] attorney general the power to decide if cases against telecommunications companies will proceed. The AG only has to certify to the FISA court that the company didn't spy or did so with a permission slip from the president. A note from the president is not a legal defense. Allowing phone companies to avoid litigation by simply presenting a 'permission slip' from the president is not court review."4 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group working with the ACLU to hold these companies accountable, adds, "whatever gloss might be put on it, the so-called 'compromise' on immunity for phone companies that broke the law is anything but a compromise...no matter how they spin it, this is still immunity, period."5
President Bush and the phone companies know that the facts are against them. A judge appointed by President Bush's father already wrote one opinion finding that "AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal."6

But we'll never know how far their illegal actions went unless we fight back now. Can you tell Barack Obama you're counting on him to keep his word and stand strong against immunity for lawbreaking phone companies?

Senator Barack Obama
Phone: 202-224-2854

Please help us track our progress by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/call?tg=FSIL_2&cp_id=759

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Adam G., Patrick, Ilyse, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
  Friday, June 20th, 2008

Sources:

1. "George Bush's latest powers, courtesy of the Democratic Congress," Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com, June 19, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3820&id=12919-1021210-C9I7Bbx&t=5

2. "Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold On the FISA Deal," Statement of Senator Russ Feingold, June 19, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3822&id=12919-1021210-C9I7Bbx&t=6

3. "Obama Camp Says It: He'll Support Filibuster Of Any Bill Containing Telecom Immunity," Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central, October 24, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3828&id=12919-1021210-C9I7Bbx&t=7

4. "Facts on the Senator Kit Bond's (R-Mo.) FISA Proposal," June 13, 2008 http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spying/35652res20080613.html

5. "Prepared Statement of Eff Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston on Immunity 'Compromise,'" Electronic Frontier Foundation, June 18, 2008
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/EFF_bankston.pdf

6. "Targeting Steny Hoyer for his contempt for the rule of law," Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com, June 17, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3821&id=12919-1021210-C9I7Bbx&t=8

Peter Fraterdeus
Exquisite Letterpress
http://slowprint.com

Strange how Eros moves us,

in paths bright and dark,

from ecstasy to despair.

At once soaring,

    wings lifting, graceful effort

    among the winds

And then, once again,

    folded under to plummet,

    as only a heart can fall,

    towards a frightening yet

    familar gloom.

In the atmosphere of desire

fly the raptors of love

sharpened talon and eye seeking

the vulnerable and careless heart.

Yet how often has this hungry hunter

become the prey, in turn, as the

surface of the mirror dissolves

and opens onto a different sky.

This set begins with the lovely air and two jigs I first learned on the whistle from Brighid Malone.
An raibh tu ag an gCarrig, continues with jigs, Morrisons, and Trip to Sligo, which then launches into some original composition and exploration in modulatory lightly dissonant space  (yeah, that's what it is...) before returning to an ancient lullaby...

Performed on the mahogany 1956 Martin 0-15, recording with Abletron Live 5  on  Mac Powerbook G4 and Digidesign mBox, Shure SM57 microphone. A bit of post-processing to separate channels and add a tiny bit of reverb.

The mp3 file is hosted here (download for iTunes)

Morrisons Set-23feb08.mp3

You should be able to play it right there on the page, or download it, either way.

Kindly forgive the rough spots, as this was a one-take test...
Indeed, the music.fraterdeus.com site is not ready for prime time, either, but it's a quick Plone 2.5 site which has the Plone4Artists Audio product installed, allowing for the cool features...

Obama's Campaign: An Emotional Escape Hatch from the Bush Era

Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com http://www.alternet.org/election08/77193/

and

Is a Liberal Renaissance in the Making?

By David Michael Green, AlterNet http://www.alternet.org/election08/77271/

--

As a young Cubs fan in 1969, I learned the hard way about leaning too hard into ones hopes and wishes.

Progressives are notoriously hard to placate, and even if Obama were to gain the White House, his time will be spent picking the incredible burden of ten thousand nits from the left along with the typical constant barrage of bullshit from the right.

Let's not burden our good fellow human with the curse of great expectations, but agree to first consider what we... I ... am willing to do to lighten his load when the time comes for leadership. When each and every citizen accepts the responsibility to lead by example and to help those in need, and to share the gifts of mind and nature for the greater good, we will deserve the boon of the finest leader the generation has to offer.

My darkest fear is that Obama will be too good for the country, the promise he offers becomes a sacrificial offering to the demons of selfishness.

On the flip side of all the optimism, I fear deeply for him and his family, including his Kenyan grandmother...

--

I find much of the commentary online to be miserably depressing. There are millions of people shooting from the hip, writing for the sheer idiocy of it.

In addition, while the supposed Hillary supporters bitch constantly about Obama, and how "the Obama groupies" are bad-mouthing Hillary, I have yet to find anywhere that this is actually happening.

I am extremely suspicious of anyone who posts ugly defamatory language about either Obama or Hillary. As a looong time internet user (since like 1984) it seems very likely to me that much of the vitriol is coming from 'agents provocateur' who are deliberately setting fires to start a flame war.

These people may very well be right-wing hacks deliberately fomenting antagonism in the Democratic camps.

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda. Education means teaaching people to see the reality around them, to undersand it for themselves. Propaganda is exactly the opposite. It tells the people, "You will think like this, as we want you to think!"

Education lifts the people up. It opens their hearts and develops their minds so that they can discover the truth and make it their own. Propaganda, on the other hand, closes their hearts and stunts their minds. It compels them to accept dogmas without asking themselves, "Is this true or not?"

The trouble is that this is not only a conflict of ideology. It is a conflict of tempo. The tempo of propaganda is feverish, nervous. It is the pace of television and radio. It is the pace of the newspaper headline, the cry of the vendor in the street. Whereas education goes at a slow pace. It is the pace of teachers talking with their students. It is the pace of a man reading by himself in a room. It cannot be hurried or speeded up and remain education."

What I want is your gentle voice in my ear

What I want is a fine friend at my side

What I have is a heart full of love

and loss and longing.

To wander the roads of you...

With my fiddle and your stories

to the quays and mohrs and lachs

along the byways colored with autumn...

Is what I want.

(for someone special)

(23 Nov 2007)

This is my comment to this blog post: http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/men-and-women-different-but-equal-whats-the-problem

Culture, of course, is a product of the interaction of humans of all genders and all levels of intellectual capacity. It is also the social expression, at the most fundamental level, of primate behaviors which underlay 90% or more (has it been measured?) of human behavior.

It occurs, if one gains some distance from the idea of the implicit supremacy of the human animal, that male or female, humans operate pretty much just like other organisms, that is, they tend toward self-preservation, reproduction, and pecking order, in roughly that sequence.

Interestingly, the ancient Hindu thinkers describe exactly this, as these represent the first three "chakras" which are, in essence, those domains into which we channel our energies.

Of course, the next (fourth) chakra represents the network, the idea that what's good for the whole is good for me. This idea of transcendence, which is embodied in empathy and compassion-- the altruistic impulse-- also has biological roots, but in fact, can not be enjoyed without a certain loosening of the demands of the first, most primitive, and most divisive, focii.

Men and women, different? Not very much, in my view. Overly aggressive men are in large part a biological response to selection by women over tens of thousands of years.

Fortunately, men are beginning, at least in the West, to respond in kind to lower demands for physical strength, and more verbal skills. (Unfortunately, our worst are still as bad as ever)...

Give us a few generations, we're slow learners

:-)

(Times Select required to read the original,unfortunately)

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=50

The fact that the monothestic religions all purport to address 'doubt' (not atheism) in their dogma is not an argument which supports the treatise proposed (or implied) by Prof. Fish, which seems to be that atheism discounts the possible validity of religious writing by not crediting it with its own internal discussion. Perhaps a better analogy is that of the neurotic or schizoid personality who has to constantly argue with himself over whether to believe the voices in his head.

Man, if anything, is the only creature who assigns himself such self-importance in the universe so as to presume the ability to debate original causes.

Pure observation, as Lucretius wrote and Epicurus taught, dissolves the need or the desire for a single Author. The scientific method of reason and observation, although weakened by the often excessive egos of its apologists, is nonetheless that through which the most true expression of original cause may be eventually discerned.

All the rest is comfort against mortality... Pleasant enough, but fairy tales nonetheless. When these are magnified through the manipulations of alpha-male primate behavioral patterns into "Divine Writ", upon which all manner of evil may proceed unimpeded by love or reason -- THAT is the original sin.

http://www.fraterdeus.com/qmlqblog/archive/2007/05/12/a-short-visit-to-galway

A two hour train ride this noon down to Galway to see some water, then back to Tullamore on the 6:05

In four hours I met three memorable characters... the youngest perhaps about 60, by the name of Peter Mackew. I met him sitting along the quays drinking Guinness with his friend Santy, who is called Santy on account of his enormous white beard and mane....

They sat a ways up Mill Street looking over the old millstreams, where the flow of the River Corrib is divided with lichened granite, hewn stone walls covered with tiny flowers, ducks paddling, and the roar of the old spillway. I said, must be a good view from here, and sat down with them.

Peter said, with a wave of his hand, "Here's my garden... it is lovely isn't it" Santy sort of mumbled something... I learned that he doesn't speak at all, after a stroke, but nonetheless very communicative, offering observations (mummo mumo) with hand movements referring to the ducks, the rain, the people walking by.

After a while I pulled out the whistle and played a little something, a cappella (so to speak), not really a tune, but just how I like to play in such a scene... Santy applauded, Peter says "good man"... and Santy, being Santy, of course, gave me a gift...

A lovely white marble pebble the size of a fig from Galway Bay, I presume. Worn and warmed for who knows how long in his rucksack. They noted that having sat on the rain wet ground, I would also be carrying some Galway mud back to Tullamore.

--You'll be needing to get back to the station, we're walking that way. Santy saw some friends across the way, Peter said, he'll catch up, he knows where I'm going...

We walked up to the far end of Eyre Square in front of the station, to Richardson's Pub [1] where it was indeed my honor to buy a round for my street wise friend. Peter and I sat for an hour talking about the state of the world... and how it got this way. After a long chat, we parted ways with an exchange of addresses, and I wandered toward the station.

With fifty minutes before the train, I had time for another Guinness, and turned the corner north of the station to see what options appeared. Murtagh Rabbitt's seemed a good spot to step out of what had become a steady soaking rain. Moments later I was talking to (or trying to understand the very softly spoken strongly Irish English of) an elderly fellow who looked at my beret and my fiddle case, and said, so you are against the nukes, eh? I display the traditional peace symbol on both, and of course, that "chicken foot" is originally the sign of the nuclear disarmament movement.

Eventually we talked about bees* (they are in the air, appropriately, Peter and I having covered this topic earlier), and oh, many topics, indeed. I, in turn, then had a pint of stout thanks to this old railway man, who worked for years on the London Underground. The bartender was French, young and beautiful, with her raspberry-fringed hair and strategically placed mole (how is it?). She reminded me that I've never seen Notre Dame. I've seen San Marco in Venice and the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, Notre Dame should be 'de rigeur'...

At five to six, your man and myself head for the platform, about four minutes away, only to find a long queue of day tourists waiting to get past the collectors. No panic... Made our way through the line, and onto the train, into the seats and within thirty seconds we're on our way...

P.J. (Patrick Joseph ) alighted in Athenry, with a sparkle in his eye...

*Bees, the wingéd one. Not a typo about beers.

[] http://www.galway.net/galwayguide/showyp.shtml?id=696 [2] http://www.athenry.net/history.html

You can continue to get Parlortricks, my occasional email publication... or manage your subscription, or even, if necessary, unsubscribe Sign up here http://www.eiotx.net/mailman/listinfo/parlortricks

Feel free to pass this along if you think it would interest a friend!

AzByCx DwEvFu GtHsIr JqKpLo MnNmOl PkQjRi ShTgUf VeWdXc YbZa&@ -:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:-*

Peter Fraterdeus http://www.fraterdeus.com http://www.galenaphotos.com Galena, Illinois http://www.alphabets.com

Photography Irish Fiddle Political Observation Philosophy Fonts Lettering

http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/03/lunar_refractio.html#comment-63688172

Non-overlapping magisteria, eh? This was Stephen Jay Gould's lukewarm suggestion for how religion and science could co-exist. Not sure I believe it in his case, but regarding the eternal dichotomy of time vs space, I don't believe it at all. As the line moves through a new dimension it defines the plane... If it refuses to move, it doesn't negate the reality of the new dimension...

Yes, poetry is sequential, as is all language, spoken or written, and painting is planar and spatial, as is all depiction in the higher dimensions. That a picture is worth 10K words is an interesting observation of the attempt of the one dimension to become the next. (Fractal space is the result of course)

What, at the root of it really, is 'thought', or more generally, consciousness? Is it sequential, a stream of thoughts with constant reference to memory creating an illusion of continuity through time? or Spatial? More likely transcendental, when we let go the reins and the sequence, and allow awareness of the vast interconnectedness of events and things and discrete actors and cosmic trends to flood the mind in an instant.... Yet, remaining is the sequential narration of the observer. Clearly the dichotomy is a convenient illusion. Nature knows no such hard and fast boundaries, she prefers the subtle gradation of fields to the illusion of separateness.

Strangely, the very questions regarding painting and poetry can be asked about typography VS graphic design. Typography is fundamentally linear (and in essence quite nearly monochrome), as it is fundamentally a representation of sequential language. I would argue that this is also, in the classical sense, Apollonian and of the nature of reason. Graphic design is fundamentally planar and spatial, simultaneous rather than sequential. Indeed, the rise of dramatic color and imagery appeals to the primary visual cortex and thence directly to the 'gut' reaction. I argued ( AIGA Journal 1996) [1] that the great appeal of grunge typography to advertisers is that it triggered the subconscious fear of being run over by a truck, thus assuring rapt attention and thus subliminal messaging becomes more effective.

There are many facets to this idea, but of course, I'm much more the useless philosopher, producing neither painting nor poetry ;-)

Thanks for the very interesting reading on this crisp March morn I hope your Equinox is lovely, and the same for the rest of the seasons! ciao! p

[1] http://www.fraterdeus.com/typeontheedge/ Some comments from students here http://www.advancedtypography.blogspot.com/ (thanks to Google!)