Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/26/amtrak/
I am so excited. I haven’t rode a train in years. Being in one of the front cars, I swear I can hear the sound of what I believe to be the beautiful putt-putt of the train’s diesel engine.
The leg room is astonishing! Trains, being the wonderfully fuel-efficient devices that they are, have less to gain by packing us in like sardines. To serve more passengers they only have to add another car. For an airplane or a bus to do the same … well they can’t do the same!
And that, of course, is why trains are superior. Nowadays even trucks ride trains, in a sense, for the long-haul. There are modular containers which can be stacked on trains and ships and placed on trailers for local delivery. That’s just cool.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/23/all-aboard/
This section was written Sunday evening on the Pilot.
I was waiting on Green Street for the bus to take me to the train station. A campus bus called the Illini pulled up and I nodded my head “no” to save him the trouble of stopping. He stopped anyway, pulling the door open.
“What bus are you waiting for?”
“Green.”
“That one aint running anymore.”
“I need to get to the train station. Any suggestions?”
Clearly this was a difficult request. He hopped on the radio and asked about another bus.
“You can catch the yellow. It’s up there. Hop on.”
I rode with him a block towards Wright. He stopped in front of the Union to pick up a group of students.
“See that bus up there?”
“Ya.”
“That’s the yellow – he’s waitin’ for you.”
“Thanks!” as I took off running in front of Everett to catch up with the bus resting at the Wright Street shelter. As the doors opened I looked at the driver and tried to explain myself.
“The other guy sent me.”
“That would be Chip.”
“He’s a great guy!”
“Yup.”
Yup
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/23/brittle-fries-and-free-source/
The snow was falling very prettily as I walked home this evening from buying soap, deodorant and washcloths at Walgreens.
My mind is blank right now. Maybe I should read History. History set me asleep today. Foul portents.
Dinner tonight included chicken tenders and french fries. They’ve got the funky new lard-enriched fries like at Burger King. I’m not eating fries any more. I mean, I like a fry that’s not limp, but not brittle either. Yuck! I prefer limp to brittle but Americans seem good at settling for second best.
Ai!
There was a long line throughout dinner, people waiting on their fried foods. The cook came out and said that they only had two “fry-o-laters” with which to make the chicken and french fries, and so that we should all send email to the powers that be to get them newer, better, or more “fry-o-laters”
Whatever that thing is.
Oh, coolest news of the day: Netscape is releasing their source code!
Means two very important things to me. The first is that we can get the bugs outta Netscape and make it the way we want, adding customizability and porting it among platforms. It also means that Microsoft’s competitor is about to enroll tens of thousands of hackers throughout the world in it’s effort – people who work for free! If you’re gonna give your product away for free, you might as well have the community develop it for free. Linux and FreeBSD demonstrate that this philosophy actually produces a pretty damned fine product.
Or, even looking at things from the point of view of desperation, if the man is gonna run you down, you can do a lot worse than just giving the technology away and thus give the victor a rather hollow victory .. because now even if Netscape will be going out of business, there will still be a competing product out there. Makes me feel right patriotic to the freeware movement.
And grateful to Netscape for giving the community it’s hard-won gift in it’s totality.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/15/compaq/
Mom’s buying a new computer. A Compaq. My single greatest misgiving is that the memory system on there seems very non-standard, and despite Compaq’s promise of ass-kicking performance, I’m wary of it’s limitation of 48M of RAM, in an apparently proprietary format. But then, mom’s not much of a power user, the price was damn right, and in the worst case it’s not hard to replace a motherboard. She bought the system mail-order from Milwaukee, WI. No sales tax that way.
I payed bills today, and am now broke. Maybe I shouldn’t buy that harddrive I wanna get off Inspector’s Gadgets when I get back to town? I thought today that the beauty of credit cards is that you can spend money that you have not yet earned. Well, I know I’m in line for the money, about $300 or so … it seems kind of extravagant but I’m telling myself the most important use is supplying stumpy with enough space that it can keep a directory of FreeBSD source code and track -stable or maybe even -current if I feel bold. With source in hand, I can learn a bit more how the system works you see?
I can also amass more mp3s.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/15/technicalities/
Grandma is now online, dialing in to EnterAct with a term program called “Black Night” and reading her email with pine. “But ‘q’ is what I type to start Quick Mail at work!” It will take her awhile to get the hang of things through a shell. Luckily I have her password and stuff so I can wander in and set things up for her when need be.
As we were leaving her work at the University of Chicago, I remarked that this was the second occasion I had to be on a college campus during my vacation. The nice thing about college campuses being, imho, a good number of attractive women my age. I wasn’t particularly revelrous, if that is even a word, recalling my earlier occasion to be at Northwestern to attend a memorial service for Marcus Marinho, an EnterActer.
I knew Marcus very little, but he seemed like a good guy. This was affirmed over and over again as friends of his spoke of his good nature, his helpful attitude toward things. I didn’t feel such a loss, except for the fact that I don’t get a chance to know him. His comrades felt a very deep loss, which I could only barely grasp, I think. After all, he was a great guy, and what’s most jarring perhaps, was that he was young, and the fateful car crash in California that took his life was something people don’t normally expect from someone in their twenties.
And among the number of his comrades was most of EnterAct, which closed for the day so everyone could attend. I could tell that they were each grieved in some way, but they seemed to be taking things pretty well. I liked the chance to get together with all of them. We went out to a restaurant in Evanston, and sat together, seventeen people at a table, like a great extended family, and I a cousin come to visit from afar. I knew most of the people there, but some were new faces. I felt comfortable with everybody. It was nice to see Mike, Elyse, Tracy, Jim, Jess, Juan, Charlie and the others. I’m even more interested in working there now, having been reminded of what a good group there is that I could so easily be a part of.
I just sent Tracy my resume. Mike said they need people in the Network Operations Center.
Of course, if they find out that due to a brain fart I typed rm /etc/* the other day they might try to keep me away from the Unix systems. Moshen was helpful in my crisis when he told me that he had once accidentally nuked /etc himself on his own system.
For the unenlightened, that command kills off the important system configuration files. That kills a system, basically, if you don’t know what you’re doing. Luckily I’m half competent enough to have pulled my shit out of the fire even without backups to fall back on. As backups go though, I was lucky to have sasquatch at my disposal, and doubly lucky that it’s running the same, or near-same version of FreeBSD as stumpy here.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1998/01/04/swaraj/
I’m reading in The Essential Gandhi
by Fischer chapter 15, titled Gandhi’s Message to All Men
and just a few pages into the chapter I’m struck with a strong disagreement.
Up until now, I agree strongly with Gandhi’s arguments for strict adherence to purity and non-violence. When you are gentle, and compelling in the face of an oppressor, when you yield materially without resistance … well, what’s the aim of a bully? Generally, a real bully enjoys the struggle some.
Dad told me of a story which convinced him that there was power in non-violence … he had pissed off a bully who told him that he was going to be beaten up after school. After consultation with a friend of his who was in fact a gun-nut who later entered the Air Force, dad wrote a note for the bully and met him after school for the big showdown.
The bully struck him, and following his friend’s advice, dad did nothing to stop him, or strike back. The bully got one lick in, which didn’t hurt dad too bad. But there was no struggle to keep the bully occupied.
Dad’s letter to the bully consisted something of “I’m sorry for you, to be embarrassed in such a manner.” Despite his fears, dad didn’t get his ass kicked after all, he merely got one strike at him.
Turn the other cheek.
At this occasion, the power and appeal of Dad’s non-violence was that the cruelty, terror, unjustness, whatever negative adjectives you can use to describe the bully’s wrongful aggression, were starkly illustrated to Dad, the bully, and onlookers … what’s the point to fighting an enemy who is not in it for the fight? Says Gandhi, “They say ‘means are after all [just] means.’ I would say ‘means are after all everything.'” What is the end that justifies the mean of bullying? Of unwarranted aggression?
It is harder to see the evil in violence when it is construed as a means to an end … violent revolution, war … other examples I can’t think of just now … what if they held a war and nobody came? Gandhi would ask such a question, and I envision in my mind a country surrendering to an invading army, offering no resistance … why fight, when in the end justice will prevail anyway? Assuming, for the sake of example, we’re not dealing with Hitler and instead just mere territorial greed, if the country being attacked can absorb and then overwhelm the invader with … righteousness, love, truth … and so soften the invader as to purge the enemy therefor of the bad things which caused the invader to invade in the first place, and come to regret and hope to rectify these actions, well then is not everyone better off?
The collapse of the Warsaw Pact, all those totalitarian regimes, the reformation of Taiwan, are all beautiful examples of the fatal flaw of an unjust and oppressive system: it’s being run by humans. Humans tend to want to be pretty moral creatures, setting things right, atoning for their past transgressions, that sort of thing. The braver ones, the Mikhail Gorbachevs, the past leaders of South Africa, that leader in Taiwan that Ian told me about … they’ll actually go so far as to say “Look, this is wrong, let’s try to set it right.” These are the truest reformers, because they have the ability to simply maintain the status quo to their benefit, but they instead endure great material loss and put a lot of under-appreciated effort into doing the right thing.
How many times must the cannon balls fly, before they’re forever banned?
The thing that tends to be scary about the modern world though, is that humans are less and less employed in the means … it is easier to see the inhumanity of war when soldiers are charging at each other with fixed bayonets, staring each other in the eye and keeping a question on their own humanity open. It is a harder thing to do when you are dropping bombs on people, particularly big bombs, bombs affixed to missiles which can cross the globe and annihilate awesome amounts of life at the push of a button.
But then, it’s humans that have to build the machines, humans that have to push those buttons. And you’re better able, I’ve found, to build and operate complex gadgets when you’re acting out of rationality and not emotion.
Dad proferred some of his doubts about the Oklahoma City bombing … if Tim McVeigh was that freaking bonkers … a patriot that would indiscriminately blow up people … how capable was he of the planning required to build and plant that damned bomb? While I really don’t know all the details, the fact that he was so easily caught, while smelling of some government conspiracy, is also symptomatic of sloppy work. It’s one thing to build a big bomb and kill people with it as a loner. It’s another thing to do that really well. All the kids that were killed in the pre-school? A sign of mental competence would have been to check beforehand … like those guys at the World Trade Center, who rented an easily-traceable truck, leaving even the serial numbers on the vehicles … these are not people thinking clearly.
Luckily, it takes a great deal of effort to build something as complex as a nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, bombs have gotten a lot cheaper, because even though it takes a lot of clear minds and steady heads to build them, and a decent government capable of assembling the effort, the governments that have pulled it off weren’t good enough that they lasted so well, and the integrity of Russia’s stock-piles are in great question …
Anyways, back to being invaded … what do you do when a well-organized, well-tuned and strong terror machine is knocking on your border? You know, the Third Reich or something. They think you’re not even human. While non-violent swaraj has a chance of working, it’s more likely, I might tend to think, that by the time your good feelings overwhelmed the enemy, the numbers of people killed would not justify it. That’s assuming good triumphs in the end in any reasonably timely fashion … as effective as we are now at the arts of mind-control, propaganda and the like, it’s quite possible for at least an extended period of time to manipulate and control most of the population’s thinking and morality to suit your own ends. A human’s greatest strength is it’s ability to communicate good ideas … while high morality is a good idea, if the oppressor does a good job of eliminating those with the good ideas … well … self-sustaining. With time such a system could theoretically weed out any human intentions toward the good idea – nightmare scenarios like 1984
.
I’ve clearly been thinking about this too much. But there’s times when you must take the great bravery it takes to stand up in non-violence to face the wrath and hatred of those you are trying to overcome through virtue, and there are times when you’ve got to take the great bravery it takes to reject this idea and out-muscle the opposing force, often with guns, weapons, civilian casualties, untold amounts of human suffering.
While my greatest sympathies would tend towards the side of non-violent and virtuous action against the foe, I also support the idea that violence would sometimes be the better course of action. The right answer to Hitler in Europe, and Tojo in Japan, was I think the one we delivered.
I think that anyone who takes up violent action though, should take it up with the greatest humility possible. These are extreme situations … when you are going off to hurt or kill others for the greater good … you should acknowledge that suffering and always interrogate yourself and feel true to your conviction that yes, this is the best way.
And you should do the job right.
I agree with World War II. I am heartened even more with the doctrine of total victory … if something is that evil that you must enforce violence against it, then you better be damn sure that fucker is eliminated. Nazism? Just say no, all the way … the system of barbaric conquest that was in place in Japan? Get rid of it!
That humility comes into play especially when I think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Towards the end of total victory, we inflicted awesome violence upon those cities. I think that America generally does feel somewhat ambivalent about that action. I think it is healthy that we continue to question the wisdom of that action … that reveals some humility on our part regarding the action we took.
We went all the way in World War II because we believed we were doing the right thing. We were firm in our convictions.
We failed in Vietnam, and I think too we failed in the Persian Gulf against Saddam Hussein, because we did not have a full moral conviction behind our actions. In Vietnam, we sunk to humiliating levels of inhumane barbarity in fighting the enemy … if you are going to kill, you should do so acknowledging the full human dignity of those you kill. Ultimately the greatest price you will pay is the bad feeling of having had to kill a person, or several people, in the case of combat … unless you are damn certain you are doing the right thing, you can’t do this honorably, and the only way you can achieve the end of surviving is to get even more fucked in the head … we didn’t believe in what we were doing, and we failed to retaliate after Tet, I understand, because we didn’t truly believe in the war, and lacked the conviction it would have taken to see that carnage through.
We failed in Iraq, I think I can say. Yes, by the standards of warfare, we did really well and kicked lots of Iraqi ass.
By the standards of swaraj, or human struggle, we failed. We liberated Kuwait back to it’s royal masters, but when push came to shove, when George Bush saw those pictures of carnage on the highway of death, he couldn’t stand it. Instead of the total victory that we stood for in World War II, we collapsed when faced with this moral dilemma. We did not push to Baghdad and rid the area of Saddam Hussein because we felt remorse at our own actions. They were undertaken for material benefit – oil, International prestige, and not for any great motivation on the part of the people involved. We chickened out.
Perhaps that George Bush sat on that popularity, doing nothing with it … maybe he was overwhelmed with what happened? He couldn’t stand the pain we were inflicting .. he didn’t believe in it because it was wrong, and he got really weirded out after the war as to his ability to really act right.
Well, that’s pushing it … but …
I opposed the war. The day before the bombs began to fall I participated in my first protest. We marched from Lincoln Park down Lake Shore Drive and into Daley Plaza. I was full of great conviction then, shouting “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war!” I sincerely believed and continue to believe that without the violence, which is now used by Saddam to justify himself, that he would have collapsed more readily under the more humane and oppressive weight of sanctions and a huge fucking Army waiting out in the desert for him, with great patience, for him to fall. As the stand-off continued, I heard more reports on the radio of small signs that Saddam’s control was being eroded. It would have taken a long while … it took a long while to sit out apartheid, but in the end, quiet pressure won out, and fewer people lost their lives in armed conflict.
When the war started, I shut my mouth, and supported our soldiers. I may question the virtue, but wars aren’t won by consensus … if we’re going to do it with violence, then I will put my support behind it. That we failed to follow through though … Saddam Hussein is still fucking there! Some argue that eliminating him would cause a power vacuum … maybe Iran might get ambitious … maybe I’m a fool, but if one leader’s bad, and you remove him, someone takes his place … maybe or maybe not he’s a better leader. If you replace Saddam Hussein, you’re prolly trading up though … if that leader can’t hold Iraq together though … well, maybe we could do the right thing and acknowledge the truth that the country is pretty cobbled together and maybe a better solution is possible … hindsight is 20/20, possibly. Crystal balls are pretty murky though .. to not do the right thing on the chance that something bad might happen … that’s wrong.
I dunno. But the fact that there is so much opposition to sanctions, that we’d rather just forget about Iraq … we wish it’d just go away. We did wrong.
We should acknowledge the Allied casualties of war, but we should also try to repent for the Iraqis who died. I have believed this for so long … every Iraqi killed was a human tragedy. Every child that dies in Iraq now from lack of nourishment, whether it’s Saddam holding back or not … what the hell are we doing there now? Traipsing around, trying to coerce and cajole Saddam into letting us find his poison gases? We should either give up or strong-arm him the right way.
I dunno, and my arguments are getting emotional …
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/10/23/fanatics/
I just back from Quad and classes. There was yet another preacher out today. It was nice and warm this afternoon. Actually, it is still nice and warm this afternoon, as far as I know. The sun came out see, and that’s so valuable in October.
Anyways, this guy was wearing yellow signs on him, saying who all was going to hell. I had a hard time finding anything I fundamentally disagreed with him about, which was kind of creepy, though I didn’t stay long. He was saying the professors and all manner of people were a path to hell and the like, as they were more concerned with their own ends. Yeah, lotta people are missing the point, but I don’t see it as anything particularly terrible, even if it is disheartening at times.
What scares me now though, in retrospect, is the increasing number of these fanatics out there. This year especially, the upswing on our campus, at least, has been tremendous. Did I mention the other day the God Fleet of these guys, actually only a few adults and several younger kids who were carrying huge signs spread out on white sheets damning people to hell. They managed to chase a group of schoolchildren off the Quad by calling their teachers witches and encouraging them to not follow “the system”.
The sense of danger is prolly more from reading The Handmaid’s Tale than anything else, but you ever wonder that these people will continue to attract followers – I mean some of what they say is true, is of concern – namely that people aren’t really keeping their moral priorities straight and all, and that it is a strong negative tendency … I completely disagree with their nutty rhetoric that they see as the solution – basically a return to the crappy days when men were men and women were suitably cowed, and we were all fanatical followers of God and believed in Jesus … but they seem increasingly to disrespect our government, the system, and seem to be advocating that something stronger must be done.
I think any time we see people flirting with the cause of revolution, we need to keep an eye on them … and these people do seem to be getting around …
And no, they’re not popular, but how many Christians in this country? Catholics probably can’t be counted as possible comrades for these zealots, but there are plenty of fundamentalists, anti-abortionists, born-again weirdos, and the great mass of vanilla-flavored Christians that if they ever were nutty enough to put their government where their passions were that things could potentially get really really ugly and bad.
But I do have a great faith in the strength of our government, and it’s ability to adapt and respond to threats, ultimately getting a little better each time in the interests of all.
But then I’m also one of those God-forsaken Atheist Liberals.
And I publish my thoughts openly. the second that Christian Nazi we had on the Quad a few weeks back gets the chance to run the government and conduct public executions of Liberals, I’ll be on the first lists of folks who just gotta go …
If something like that ever did come to pass, it would mark an interesting turn in world history.
This time, it would be America in flames, and perhaps an economically depressed Europe trying to put it straight. Asia too. I wonder how Japan and China would react to a bloody revolution in the USA.
Definitely being overly speculative here, but it never hurts to be aware of possible contingencies.
I’m glad to see my imagination kicking in though. It’s been missed a lot since grammar school and high school
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/10/10/cisco/
Last night I went to a company presentation for Cisco Systems – the “Microsoft of the Internet” – an analogy which I am uncomfortable with as Cisco products don’t yet suck. In fact, I’m pretty fond of Cisco and am impressed with its energy. It’s a place I might consider to work at, though I’m a bit wary of living in Silicon Valley, if my understanding of California Suburban Sprawl is true. San Francisco, an hour away, might offer a nice home though.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/10/02/gandhi/
The first bullet hit Gandhi in the stomach. Instinctively he cried out, “Ram, Ram!” Two more shots cracked out. Gandhi stumbled, his spectacles dangling on one ear and his sandals coming loose. He was severely wounded; blood gushed from his abdomen and his breast and stained his spotless white loincloth. He folded his hands in a gestureful prayer, lifted them toward his audience, and then fell down, doubled up with pain. He was carried indoors, but all efforts to save his life proved vain. Thirty minutes after the dastardly attack, the tragic announcement was made in three words: “Bapu is dead.”
Ranjee Shahani
Mr. Gandhi
I just got back from a speech given by Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi, where he spoke of Gandhi’s legacy and ideas. The Levis Faculty Center was packed to standing room, with a second overflow room where video was available, where people were flowing out in to the hallway. I sat on the floor, just behind the venerable grandson of Mohandas, having volunteered my seat to a lady wearing a Sari.
The event was awesome. Mr. Gandhi spoke about Mr. Gandhi, his beliefs, his practices, yadda yadda … at the end he took questions. Given the saint-like quality of Gandhi, the air was quite reverent. Even those who asked questions with a tone critical of Gandhi’s politics seemed to be seeking some sort of truth. During the presentation itself the feeling was somewhat of a memorial service being held for our fallen hero. A few moments I was stirred nearly to tears.
Now I have the feeling of one who has attended an ad hoc Church gathering or the like. I feel reverent and thoughtful, and sad that the occasion has ended, but very glad that it had taken place.
IVC and CFC have sponsored a preacher named Cliffe to speak on the Quad this week. I am impressed with this fellow. I feel somewhat guilty, though the point I raised was valid and insightful, I asked Cliffe if Gandhi was bound for Hell. Gandhi, who lived his life in self-sacrifice, acknowledging and striving to overcome his weaknesses and faults. Gandhi who lived a very spiritual life and was careful to respect all as his brethren. Gandhi who knew full well the words of the scriptures, having read the bible from cover to cover, admiring the teachings of Jesus, but not accepting him as a personal savior. I asked Cliffe if this man, this pious and respected, though imperfect human, who strove to better himself by striving to learn truth, and conduct himself in honesty and love … I asked Cliffe, if Gandhi was in hell.
Cliffe could not answer.
He tried … he flubbed, saying that he really didn’t know what Gandhi was thinking the moment he died. I argued that he repeated aloud the name of his Hindu God, as he bled to death. But Cliffe was unwilling to cast Gandhi in to the lake of fire.
I think, while it is perhaps a “cheap shot” – though I didn’t really consider it that at the time, and I don’t think it is one now, that the question really confronted Cliffe with his own beliefs, and that he may even be thinking a bit now. Maybe not, but later in the evening when he ended his session, he walked over to me and shook hands, I failed to tell him that I do respect him, perhaps feeling vainly proud … but I think I shall pop up at IV large group tomorrow evening and pay my respects.
It is one thing to have good beliefs, and I respect many Christians for having them, but it is another to believe that yours is the one and only way. Christ may have said as much, but what credibility can we give the writing in the Bible? I’d be careful. They are accounts written several years after the fact, often through second and third-hand sources. Did Christ ever actually say that he is the one and only way, or is that an embellishment after the fact? And if he did say as much, what credibility has Christ? The assertion offered does run contrary to common sense. There are many ways to truth.
One gentleman offered a line for us to reflect on. I think it was that Gandhi had read that God is Truth. However, Gandhi had offered the Truth is God. Don’t quote me on that though.
Rajmohan was asked, what part he played in Gandhi’s legacy.
A hard question. He thought and delivered an answer I thought wholly true – that he was in himself a distinct person, with his own beliefs, that may differ from those of his grandfather in parts, and that he tried to live for the good of himself and others. I’m really doing very poor justice to what he may actually have said and the eloquence with which he put it, but the point was that he lived in his way, followed his beliefs, and tried to live right. He said that in that he felt he was honoring what Gandhi had fought and lived for so hard, and that in that way he was fulfilling the legacy as Gandhi might have wished.
I liked that observation. I’m an Atheist. I don’t know or care or have concern for God, but I do recognize that there are certain rules that I should follow, for the benefit of all. I realize a certain quality in life that might require self-sacrifice on my part. I realize that I’m imperfect, and should be honest with these faults, and try to correct them. I realize many things as I try to lead the life of a good and honorable person, as poor a job I might in fact do of it, I do try … I think that in this way I might best do well an honor for whatever privilege it is that has granted me life. There does seem to be something large and awesome with which we need to grapple. Maybe not, at least though I tend to think that we ought to try to do good by each other, and to keep that idea central to our beliefs and practices.
I’m trying to leave a good life. Without Jesus Christ. Without Mahatma Gandhi. I wish to honor these great ancestors which may influence me, in my own special way.
I’m feeling a runny nose coming on. *SNEEZE!*
“Gandhiji,” she began, “you have always stated that you would live to be 125 years old. What gives you that hope?”
The answer was short and startling: “I have lost that hope.”
“Why?”
Because of the terrible happenings in the world. I do not wish to continue to live in darkness and in madness. I cannot continue…” He paused and waited, thoughtfully picking up some strands of cotton and running them on the spinning wheel. “But if my services are needed,” he went on at last, “or rather, I should say, if I am commanded, then I shall live to be 125.”
Ranjee Shahani
Mr. Gandhi
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/09/24/fasting/
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the signs said,
The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisper’d in the sounds of silence.
Paul Simon,
The Sound of Silence
I have eaten today, four pieces of rye bread and a rather mediocre french fry that I stole from Dave in a moment of mindlessness.
I’m not hungry either, at least not very.
Why haven’t I eaten?
I’ve been toying a while with the idea of fasting … it seems something truly … insightful? I don’t know quite what I expect out of it, but Gandhi advocated the fast as a tool that would help one attain spiritual enlightenment.
In the Order of the Arrow, “meager rations” are something an inductee will suffer during their ordeal … there seems something spiritual about hunger, I’m not sure what.
Hunger is not something we normally experience. At least, if we are hungry, most of us in the modern world, hell, most of us throughout the world, will eat something. What is it like to “go hungry”?
I don’t know.
You see, it’s a simple experiment … eat naught but two pieces of rye bread at the meals I’ve been at today, and drink water … simple, a sort of “purification” and denial of a physical pleasure. Much like clergy may take vows of celibacy … I’m not likely to do that any time soon, but I might try today a simple experiment with a short fast, and expand upon that if I feel there may be more value to pursue there.
I will break fast tomorrow at 1100h when I’m scheduled to meet Casey for lunch over at Busey-Evans.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/08/18/da-chief/
And Chief Illiniwek was the topic of discussion at dinner. I made a remark about the DIA being the same bit of the University that has the offensive mascot, and Brian and Anatoly sprung to his defense.
What, may you ask, is my beef with the chief?
As mascots go, he is in poor taste. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you conquer and pretty much destroy a people. Then you decide to honor that people by taking a symbol of leadership and spirituality, and have one of your own people dress in that manner to dance around at a football game. Honor? That seems disrespectful. I tried to make an argument, what if we were to use Jesus as a mascot? the pope? A rabbi? I implored of ‘toly that if the mascot were Jesus Christ dancing the Macarena and the majority of the 80% Christian population of our country were left a little offended if that might not be grounds for changing our mascot. He conceded that point. My next rhetorical argument was that why then did the same standard not apply when the offended group was an underrepresented racial minority … and he started to sound eerily Libertarian … the sort of attitude that if people can not defend their own, then there is nothing wrong with them getting fucked over.
That is not a positive attitude, might does not make right.
Anyway, I did not dissuade either of them, but I do believe given the food for thought, that our argument may have an effect on them. I was once in their shoes too, thinking that all this Chief-bashing was counterproductive and inspired by over-zealous political-correctness. But as I asked Goth Dan, how he felt about the Chief, he said “I think it’s dumb.” – It’s a mascot, er, a “symbol” in poor taste, that is kept around in large part due to institutional inertia.
And I have a fetish for fighting institutional inertia.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/08/18/mashed-potatoes/
So we took Mom out to Baker’s Square to celebrate her birthday. Turns out they stop making pies after 6PM, preferring to run out of pies instead of having too many … but it’s Baker’s Square! This was likened to McDonald’s not making any burgers after 6PM because they didn’t want to have too many. End result was the birthday girl couldn’t get her French Silk pie, and had to settle for the inferior Chocolate Cream. Our waiter was dumb also, but at least he forgot to charge for the drinks. I liked the busboy better, and gave him two dollars of what I might normally give the waiter, even though he stole my fork!
On a different note, I’m sick and tired of places that don’t have real mashed potatoes! I mean, it’s a restuarant, the place is supposed to be good, no?
Well most places sell reconstituted potato flakes and call them “mashed potatoes” and it seems wrong to me dammit! It’s dishonest. It’s an imitation of mashed potatoes and it doesn’t taste as good as the real thing. It tastes like fucking grits, and I aint no redneck grits-eatin’ southerner. I like my mashed potatoes like I like my hot breakfast cereal – hot and with a lumpy texture. Oatmeal’s good ’cause it’s got texture, it sticks to your ribs, keeps ya warm, makes ya feel filled, makes ya feel like a man. Now grits … or potato flakes, just don’t give ya the same feeling, all they give me is a feeling that I’m more likely to have soft bowel movements, and that doesn’t make me happy. No sir, mashed potatoes, and oatmeal, any day, a real man’s food, a real American’s food!
God bless America, Land that I love!
Stand beside her, and guide her,
To a plate with real mashed potatahs!
From one restaurant, to another, to the cafe-teria!
God bless Idaho, state where they’re from!
God bless America, my home sweet home!
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/08/02/bee-with-butterfly-wings/
It rained today. Monsoon season in Illinois.
I got wet walking from our NetDev Beckman upgrade to the CSIL meeting. Between the wet clothes and the extreme Air Conditioning I was freezing myself cold – silly cold!
So I walked home with a cold can of Coke in my hands. I was drinkin’ it. I went to recycle the can at a receptacle. I had to walk through mud. After gettin’ rid of my aluminum, I noticed a bee, stuck by his wings on his back, well her back, to the garbage can by water.
I don’t like bees, you probably don’t either. Gandhi said though that one should be kind to all living creatures, and I suppose I should try to respect that once in awhile. A Puff of breath righted the bee. I dunno if she could fly so well, but she was upright, and didn’t seem quite so distressed about being stuck in a very vulnerable position.
Good deed done.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/07/13/political-pot-pourri/
(Watch out, rant coming forth!)
I met a cool freak yesterday at the Union lab. You see why I like labs? We’re both here now. He’s a self-educated computer geek, and a writing studies sort. You see his web page he’s working on a collaborative writing CGI. I was walking past and saw Perl code, did a double-take, and we started talking.
Well, that’s nice. Yesterday was an errand-running day. I returned library books, renewing one by Frederick Pohl that I haven’t finished with. Then I took the bus out to Jewel, spending nearly $40 on groceries, which is more than I’d wanted to spend, but I made a really good haul, so I can’t complain. I’ll be eating well. I bought lunchmeats, cheese, and romaine lettuce for lunchtimes. I’ve settled on purchasing milk, eggs and bread at local convenience stores though. Perishables I go through quickly see? Anyways, I didn’t skimp on ingredients. The cheese is sliced deli cheese, cheddar and swiss. The romaine lettuce don’t seem so cheap either. I also stocked in some Peanut Butter and Jelly, the old standby.
What else? Some Turkey dogs for Mac & Cheese, some spaghetti sauce, and garlic bread … mm! That’s gonna be good. I picked up some Matt’s Fig Newtons as I like Fig Newtons. They seemed right tasty. I made a rule for myself though that I shall only buy one package of cookies per shopping trip. Their expensive and spoil my appetite for a real meal if I’m reckless. Ah well.
Ran into Mary and Phil, we did a little bowling. I caught sight of Asao there and it messed with my game some. I still missed her. Still haven’t figured her out either. Well, managed to get it off my mind pretty well. She seemed to be enjoying her self pretty much. Hard to tell, of course as I didn’t approach her and she tends not to be too expressive.
So, I been thinkin’ you know … about the American electoral process. It sucks you know? You can run out of money, and have to withdraw from an election. That means that to be elected to public office you have to curry favor with the monied interests, and that’s not representative. That and ya got all these lamers who refuse to vote because they just don’t see any point to it. Whoever wins, the results will be pretty much the same, since the Democrats act like lame wannabe Republicans, or so it sometimes seems. Just this morning I heard that the White House put out some document on their thoughts on the Internet, and it was concerned mainly with how commerce could take place, not so much with the human potential the thing offers. As well, old man Clinton was supposedly defending the Communications Decency Act … sheesh!
I remember in PoliSci 150 with Joe Miller. He talked to us some about Proportional Representation, the idea that instead of winner-take-all you kinda break the political spoils down into a certain number of representatives per party depending on what percentage of the vote they got. Each party could have a list of candidates they’d send, and however many the election entitled them to, that’s how many of that list they’d send to office.
I proposed in class that perhaps any state willing to try could easily enact a scheme like this with their House representatives. Say, Illinois has 30 folks or however many they send to the House of Representatives, but instead of picking those by district, they just throw them all in a big ol’ PR pot and depending what percentage of the state vote their party gets, that’s how many get sent to Washington. Joe got all upset about this it seemed saying that it would be bad for people to not be represented geographically, but the way I see it, it’s more what your ideology is, isn’t it? Especially if you’re an obscure “radical” like Joe.
Anyways, if yer worried about rural representation, then a major party would have to represent itself to rural constituencies for fear that they might lose that constituency to another, possibly third party. This would alleviate voter angst somewhat, I’d think, because partys could fill niche rolls for different ideologies and interests. Staunch environmentalists could vote green, say. Farmers could vote for Farm-interest parties. When you get to Washington then the special interests are more clearly marked based on the popular constituencies, and less on PAC or corporate monies. At least, that’s what I’d hope. To be a successful major party then, one would need to develop a platform that appeals in some rational manner to a wide array of newly-awakened popular political interests.
Well, no-one said I was ever an expert.
Another time, I believe, it was proposed that with technology and all, direct participatory democracy could be achieved. Well, we run into the problems of “mobocracy” and the fact that it take a lot of work to run a government. Well, I’d think to take PR to it’s logical extreme conclusion then, which I would think would be proxy democracy.
See, take mom for example. I’m a politics geek moreso than she is. she has better things to do. Sometimes she’s consulted with me on ways to vote, you know, which candidate? Well, why bother with that, when she could say, just give me or someone else whose judgment she respects proxy power over her single vote? This would maybe work again in a forum like a House of Representatives where at least there you are in theory representing the individual voices of several Americans. I could in turn assign my proxy to another proxy broker or whatever, who I can consult with on his decisions, which might in turn be selecting another broker, or direct representative perhaps. See, this way people have much more encouragement to be involved in the system. Anyone could be their proxy, so it comes more instead of deciding between two bozos more of deciding who your ideal candidate might be .. like shopping for a car. By assigning your proxy to someone you’re stating that you feel confident in the decisions they might make. It’s a far more personal fit than a normal election, so you put more effort, more political awareness and activity, in to making the right choice. At least, one would hope.
In theory, you could then perhaps have several multitudes of representatives – small proxy holders. Well, it might get a bit crowded to implement. Of course, tele-whatever could be used for such folks to discuss the fate of their government, and act accordingly. But if you wanted to be more old-fashioned, you could make a cut-off, say … only the top 38 or whatever number of representatives you want get to go to Congress, with each of those representatives having their votes weighed in proportion to the number of voters they represent, the number of proxies they hold. Proxy holders who don’t have enough votes to make it to Congress have to select their most favored representative to assign their proxies to.
This might confuse the hell out of Corporate America, and other monetary contributers, as the system is very populist, a potential nightmare though, to implement! Imagine the paperwork.
But we don’t have to do this zaniness based on election cycle, eh? You know how a corporation works? Who owns the most stock controls the company, or who owns a significant proportion may sit on the board of directors? Well, say some fool starts making bad decisions, he starts losing his proxies. He makes enough bad decisions he’s outta office. The real power then, gets kinda defused in the larger intermediate proxy brokers who have much control over whether a candidate stays in office.
This also distributes the load of a representatives job. They’re responsible directly to a smaller group of proxy holders who trust them to be doing the job right. They can explain their decisions to this perhaps smallish group, and consult with these “wizened” leaders or whatever, who can in turn come around and address their proxy holders as to why the representative is making the calls he makes. Mr. Representative doesn’t have to commute so much to his district to be in touch with voters, his proxy holders give him the poop. And if they start acting too elitist or anything, of course they start losing their powers.
Fraud becomes much easier though. But then, perhaps, less likely, at least at higher levels, where you have a public trust that the media would be very interested in investigating, no?
Eh, I’m wacko.
NOTE – 19 February, 2002: I’m not the only wacko. And some folks take their own ideas more seriously. If this idea strikes your fancy at all, check out http://www.directrep.org/.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/1997/04/07/enter-ncsa/
Dannyman starts at NCSA, among numerous other cool goings-on.
Yah, well after English today, where we had a good discussion about Quentin’s section in Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” I wandered on over to ACB as scheduled and proceeded to start on my new job. I spliced my first patch cable today – that’s a 10 base-T connector used to hook a computer on to a network. I guess at least for now my workstation is a Macintosh, but with a little time I can make it useable, or hopefully “upgrade” to something better.
After that first lesson, we went over to ACB to lay some network cable for some Supercomputers that are being installed. Didn’t actually hook them up – I think that gets done sometime tomorrow. Those monsters are outrageous – something like 4G of RAM and some hundreds of Gigabytes of drive space. I saw a guy sliding a drive in to one of ’em, he told me it was a 9G Ultra-SCSI. There was a row in that machine of those. The memory, he told me, is installed in 256M SIMMs … and the machines come in pairs of units each with 32 CPUs. Neat! I wondered later what kind of memory cache those CPUs were treated to.
As I was helping place the cable under the floor – 100M fast Ethernet for now, to be augmented by 800M HIPPI cable later, I couldn’t help but flash over to the future sometime when Asao might be telling the grandkids something along the lines of “Back around the turn of the century, your Grandfather actually layed network cable for some of those ‘supercomputers’ they had at NCSA.” Who knows, maybe I’m a little over-psyched about playing a small part in a historical era. Someday though, I know these very same supercomputers that are so exotic today will seem quite quaint by the standards of a future modern day. I however, will be able to remember the old days when a computer with 32 CPUs or hundreds of gigabytes of storage would have been something to babble about.
After dinner, I got up to DCL where SIGNet conducted a tour of “Node 1” with Charley Kline. It’s an exciting place where cable of all kinds run thick. I understood a good deal, a lot of it was kinda mystical to me. Basically Node 1 is a little bunker where a great many of the Campus’ telephone and telecommunications equipment is routed. Basically a significant part of the campus’ “nervous system” … fascinating. Unfortunately though I accidentally hit the hidden button in my camera that causes it to panic and rewind the film, so no pictures, sorry. Chris should have some on the digital, though to be sure it’s not that visually fascinating anyway.
I’m actually pretty excited about my paper for Rhet 143 for a change. I got a C+ on the last one, which I kind of blew off as a pretty gay assignment. This one though I’d hope for an A. It’ll be on the web too don’t worry, so I’ll not bother to talk about it much for now. Just like to say that I enjoyed “Peer Editing” this morning in class. Actually, I should tell the TA that much, I think it’d do much for her in terms of … whatever.
Speaking of spreading the word of knowledge, I got some most excellent and thoughtful words from Matt Malooly. I agree with him most whole-heartedly. Here is a dude who has much the same beliefs as my own, only he can express them in a more coherent manner. All things in equal opposition, I’ve also been talking with Casey about her Religion, and was even questioned most insightfully on my beliefs by roommate Pat, who is part of the Campus Organised Christian scene. I appreciated his questioning, as for the time his intent was not at all to convert me or anything, but to get a genuine perspective on my beliefs. I was heartening.
Well, I could babble on forever about what a wonderful time I’ve been having of late, how I relish the increasingly busy schedule I face. Well, hey an occasionally Nihilistic guy like myself has to keep hisself outta trouble ya know! But anyways you readers gotta like occasional
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