Change of adddress.
Well, I'm still working on it, but all the archives seem to be up at guavalog.wordpress.com. That's where to go for new posts too! See you there, beautiful blog people.
On Oprah in one, two, three...
"How do you channel surf with the mujahideen? I asked myself that question as I flipped from one show to another, trying to act casual. Politics was out. News was out. Anything that might show even a flash of skin was out.
Finally, I found Channel 1 from Dubai, and Oprah was on. OK, good, Oprah, I thought. No naked women, no whatever, she's not in hijab, but it's OK."
Flags are flying
Maybe you've seen the field of boots on a beach or in a park. They are part of Eyes Wide Open,
the American Friends Service Committee’s exhibition in which each pair
of boots represents a U.S. military casualty, and a Wall of Remembrance
memorializes the Iraqis killed in the conflict.
In the LA Times (War's Cost for All to See), I read about another commemoration of Iraq casualties, specifically Californians killed. "Whenever a Californian is killed, the governor has flags at the Capitol lowered to half-staff."
His concept of who is a Californian seems inclusive. "The governor salutes not just those who lived in California but service members who were stationed here as well. He has sent out more than 344 messages of remembrance so far..."
All that down time for the flags doesn't sit well with everyone. "He has taken heat from some groups that celebrate the flag, with members saying they find it demoralizing to see Old Glory flying at half-staff so much. The flags remain lowered for 72 hours after each death."
Demoralizing isn't the word I would use. Maybe enlightening, or perhaps heartbreaking. With a three-day period of flying the flags at half-staff after each casualty, I imagine it's the rare day that one can look up and see the flags flying high at the Capitol.
Random ruminations (repeated?)
#1 When I heard the name of the judge in the Moussaoui case - Leonie Brinkema (and this was quite a few times as the case drew to a close, just from hearing the news headlines), I think of a stop on the Long Island Rail Road called Ronkonkoma. I know, they're not even that much alike. But it's like an involuntary mental twitch. Probably because I like the sound of Ronkonkoma (Massapequa and Patchogue have their charms too, in my mind's ear anyway. I haven't heard them pronounced much by present-day natives of those locales.)
#2 Twice now the Little Tokyo branch has helped me out when a book I wanted was missing or checked out of the Central Library. Just a few blocks away, it feels new and light and airy inside. I think a previous post has some of my cell phone cam shots of the place. There's a view of St. Vibiana's bell tower from one window. I read the fliers on my way out and noticed one for a pilgrimage to Manzanar. Maybe I'll see it someday.
Of Mice and Men (and Magazines)
When I subscribe to magazines they end up stacked in unread piles on
the coffee table. One year I signed up for multiple magazines at once
and the many unread issues filled up the car trunk and one file cabinet
drawer at work too.
But when I come across them in waiting rooms, it's like finding unexpected treasure and I can't tear my eyes away from the glossy pages. The thought of subscribing to The New Yorker, for example, makes me feel like puking. But I still remember that time I went with someone to her doctor's appointment and sat by myself in the waiting room after she went inside, luxuriating in that magazine's excerpted first chapter of Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex.
My love of waiting room magazines extends to airplanes, which in a sense are really just large steel-reinforced waiting rooms in the sky, and their sometimes cheesey in-flight magazines.
While waiting at the auto service center, I picked up an issue of Time. It had a funny interview with South Park's creators. And a column called "Verbatim" with a quote that made me wonder...
"I have no animosity toward them at all," he added. "I've seen their little villages. They're dirt poor, poor as field mice." - Texan oil worker in Nigeria, on his militant captors following his release on his 69th birthday after being held hostage with eight colleagues for nearly two weeks.
Shades of Stockholm Syndrome? It's possible. But his words say and suggest more. Maybe there's some truth in that old saying about his home state - "Everything's bigger in Texas." Big trucks, big hair, big portions of food and big hearts with a bigger-than-average capacity for forgiveness?
Craig and crackers.
I went to hear Craig Newmark talk. Yeah, that Craig. The audience (which was packed) seemed really well informed, or maybe I was just really poorly informed in relation to them. Probably the latter, considering that I didn't know about the film 24 Hours on craigslist or that ebay had bought part (25%) of craigslist until audience members brought up these facts. One person asked a question about the mechanical side of the site. The answer involved Linux, Perl, blah, blah, blah if I know.
Someone asked an interesting question - why is Craig making more public appearances these days, after nearly a decade of being low profile? If you take him at face value, I guess he was just too busy earlier and/or didn't/doesn't really want much attention - he mentioned that his photo is not really easy to find on the site and that's intentional. (That last part ties into another comment of his about people who have taken on banner ads and pop-ups etc. - that they did amass much wealth but also need bodyguards now, and he likes not having to deal with those issues.) I would guess that increased publicity couldn't hurt his new media project either.
Finally, he was asked about important influences in his life. Among other things like the golden rule and trying to help others he mentioned Leonard Cohen - someone he considers his "rabbi" even though the man is a Buddhist. I had no idea who that was until I just looked him up. Interesting that a man who described himself throughout the talk as not being very cynical (he's trying, though, to "wear more black") and Pollyanna-like would note someone so seemingly dark as an important influence. Knowing how he feels about Cohen may provide sartorial context for that beat-poet era black beret Craig wears in some photos.
The talk was sponsored by Wired Magazine and Senseo. The magazine's current issue featuring little lego yellow people on the cover was available for free, and Wired's Thomas Goetz (dude looked like a very cute sixteen year old in a nice suit) conducted the interview. There was a Senseo machine at the reception, on display in the way that shiny Chevys are sometimes on display at the mall. I'm impressed by what I've heard about its foam-making capabilities despite not being a coffee drinker, but we didn't stay around to see if the Senseo would be raffled off or wait for Newmark and Goetz to make it out to the courtyard. Nor did I have crackers, sadly. The line for the savory table was just too long. So I snagged a diet coke instead (this was, admittedly, just a few hours after having heard of the reasons for Coke being banned at the University of Michigan.)
So, I guess some themes of his talk were:
- He's a nerd who likes to explain how his behaviors fall into the nerd construct as he exhibits those nerd behaviors.
- He's busy, often doing "customer service." Jim's busy too.
- Dealing with some of the scammers/abusers has made him slightly more cynical.
- Something about citizen journalism. Hey, it's not like I took notes (on anything besides the food at the reception).
Tookie talked.
A few days before his execution, Tookie Williams gave a cell phone interview. I read it the day before he was executed. It was the first time I read the names of the people he was convicted of killing.
Williams, 51, a cofounder of the notorious Crips street gang, has for 24 years maintained his innocence in the killings of Albert Owens, Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Yee-Chen Lee, in two separate robberies. But he has apologized for what he calls his own “despicable” conduct as a gang leader in Los Angeles during the 1970s and has written a series of books intended to deter young people from the gang culture he helped to create. -‘I Should Give Up?’ On the eve of his execution, Stanley (Tookie) Williams discusses his bid for clemency
After noticing that three of the names were Chinese, I wondered if there had been any public statements about Williams' case, one way or another, from that community. There weren't, although there were some comments made about why there wasn't any such statement.
Chinese Voices Absent in Tookie Verdict
Even the Yang family's long-time friend, Chen, said he opposed the Chinese community speaking out about Williams's clemency. Chinese Americans are still the minority in the United States, he said, and need to understand how to survive by avoiding confrontation with other ethnic groups. If the Chinese community opposed clemency, Chen said, it would be just a small part of the mainstream view that opposed clemency. Speaking out on the issue would not benefit the Chinese community, Chen told the Sing Tao Daily.
Chinese-American Community Silent on "Tookie" Execution via The Asia Pages
Until reading that, I was under the impression that the U.S. has moved beyond that, at least enough for people to express their opinions in racially charged situations.
The day I interviewed Stanley "Tookie" Williams, Marian Liu
It was 2001, and I was still in college. I spoke with him by phone. We had problems connecting because my work phone wouldn’t take collect calls. On Death Row they can only make collect calls - and his book co-author Barbara Cottman Becnel, who was acting as our intermediary, told me that he was getting annoyed. They had to wheel a phone to his 9 by 4 foot cell. Great, I thought, I have a convicted killer mad at me.
I was really nervous knowing I was talking to someone who was on Death Row for killing an Asian family.
Becnel, who is called his advocate in 'I Should Give up?', seems to put an end to that interview after an odd but not really outrageous request from the interviewer. Her response is no less odd and maybe a bit outrageous.
For 24 years, you have disputed your guilt in killing four people. You’ve said it numerous times in this conversation. Would you say their names?
Pardon? [Phone appears to be cut off by prison. Silence.]
Williams’s advocate, Barbara Becnel, responds. ‘What kind of question is that? Either way he answers that, he’s f----ed. That’s a racist question.'
Comfort and consolation.
Leroy and Lisa Woods and their three young sons "were driving north on Central approaching 55th Street," Mr. Stearney said. "They'd just been to a McDonald's, and they had some food in the car." Joshua, Mr. Stearney said, was singing to the radio when his father heard a roar and thought a plane was taking off. The next instant he heard a boom.
Accident Investigation Looks at Where Jet Touched Down on Runway. I wondered about the 6 year-old boy killed last night when a plane slipped off the runway during heavy snow. Something so big - a Boeing 737-700 - as the instrument of death for one and only one human being, and such a small human being at that. I've known 6 year-olds light enough to require car seats.
To hear a few details about his final moments before what may have been a sudden, painful death, moments filled with a final Happy Meal and one last song to sing, is vaguely comforting. Maybe just because I want it to be.
From vaguely comforting to sharply discomfiting:
I still remember the thrill I got when I met my wife, my amazement that someone that gorgeous and sexy could be interested in me.
One of the guys I met over the summer, the nicest one actually, at the end of our first meeting smiled and said that he used to think that physical attraction was important. But now he believed that having compatible interests was what mattered, and he hoped that we could meet again. It felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. But it couldn't have hurt too much. I'm well-padded in that region.
Pwned!
The judge said it was unacceptable that preventable deaths continued in the 168,000-inmate system. He also told Schwarzenegger he should find money for emergency fixes "the same way you find the money to build a tent to smoke cigars" in the Capitol. The governor, a cigar lover, occasionally lights up in a tent outside his office because state law forbids smoking in public buildings.
November vigil.
A Pakistani earthquake survivor carries a child on his back on
Kaghan-Balakot road as he travels toward a relief camp in Balakot,
about 270 km (167 miles) northwest of Islamabad November 8, 2005. One
month after Pakistan's devastating earthquake, aid agencies are facing
a cash crisis as the threat of disease and death looms over vast
numbers of homeless survivors and a bitter winter closes in.
REUTERS/Ibrar Tanoli
Today was the one month anniversary of the devastating South Asian earthquakes.
http://www.yourdil.org/vigil/
http://www.saquake.org/
Millions are homeless in South Asia quake area as winter closes in, UN official says
Tonight when I went to my polling place (a fire station) to drop off my ballot, I noticed some maps on one wall away from all the activity. Being a map-lover, I gravitated towards them and spent some time looking at those detailed maps of the town and neighboring cities. One map had a letter taped to it, from another fire department addressed to this station's firefighters. It cautioned them to be careful when responding to calls from or near a certain house on Lemon Street, because the resident was suspected of storing explosive powders and building pipe bombs. So you know, you should take that trip to the polls on election day and vote - you never know what you might find out about your neighbors.
