Williams and Grief

Williams is a source of celebration for me today in the video below, showing the wonderful bell ringers.

It's also a source of grief. My friend Zach (a Williams '10) was found early this morning in MS with foul play suspected. Life is precious, y'all.

Awesome things that people do

Totalinarianism

Reddit discussion of the latest catching fire movie is generally positive - Jennifer Lawrence and several other cast members (Stanley Tucci!) get props, and the pacing/camera work is well regarded. There's also a valid point that the film really lacks a solid a memorable soundtrack compared to other blockbuster trilogies (now four movies, reflecting that learned Hollywood behavior that fans will pay twice to see more screentime).

But this post is about dystopia. The Hunger Games books tell us that this is obvious - that there are stormtroopers, and riots, and freedom signs and songs. We see fences and barriers withholding the outdoors - explicit limitations of freedom that our protagonist has already discarded in learning her hunting.

That's now how these things start. One of these days, someone is going to make a film that parallels the experience of Nazi Germany before it was Nazi Germany - when so many Germans looked around, constantly waiting for someone - anyone - to pull their country out of the lunatic direction it was taking. The process wasn't immediate, and it was based in WWI's resolution, but it also happened to an educated society. I'm not suggesting that anything similar might happen, but instead that the potential for that still exists in humanity - that we have not purged ourselves of cruelty and malice, even as we strive for the good.

It is easy to hate and harm; all of Effie Tricket's makeup shouldn't disguise or distract us from that fact.

Gettysburg

No idea what they are saying but this is my kind of jam

I had an idea!

The website twitch.tv facilitates online content creators "streaming" themselves to audiences sometimes in the tens of thousands. This is the future of TV/the internet, as content will range from full ESPN-style productions to one-man shows supported by monthly $5 subscriptions.

These shows feature some level of collaboration in the form of a "chat" - a hivemind spectator of many voices and reactions that flow together in a single stream that can't be entirely absorbed.

But just as we moved from television broadcasts to two-way communications, so must these conversations. Google Hangouts don't catch on because we are all busy and we don't know people in the group video-chat way - we all have our own networks that don't translate cleanly. But group video chats, put together on the basis of topics, are going to start coming. Imagine:

• Live videochat rooms for those watching sports games
• For those wanting to discuss the day's news
• For those wanting to discuss professional developments in a given world

 These rooms can be private or public, but unlike podcasts they need not be edited, because the point isn't to have a show, but to host a conversation - just like every lunch table around the globe. Imagine coming home to a familiar apartment and hopping into a room for fellow activists. Instant networking, possibly.

I also think there are avenues for monetarization, butam not sure about those. I just know that it's coming, and I think it will be pretty neat!

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

(thanks Poetry Foundation): Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

C.S. Lewis, on Friendship

Quote For The Day - The Dish:

“In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one cares two-pence about anyone else’s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history…That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague, or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.

Hence (if you will not misunderstand me) the exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility of this love. I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which gave value to survival,” – C.S. Lewis

What "actually matters" and what actually matters

Madison Updates:

• A few Fridays ago, I had one of those ubiquitous nights that felt very "American"....I suppose. 
• I drove straight from work on Friday to a soccer game at an indoor field. Organized sports are the best way I've found at getting and keeping my heartrate up, but for the first time I played with a team of "free agents" - I actually joined up last minute when they sent out an e-mail call for more guys on Friday nights.
• Next up, I went to a gathering of friends I joined more than a year ago that play board and video games regularly together. I'm pretty sure I lost every game, but that was fine - the games aren't what actually matters.
• Last up was karaoke - in a bowling alley, with a big group of all ages, sexes, and races. There were bad "parties lights" spinning around with no discernible rhythm.
• I read a lot about (and experience in part) other cultures from around the globe, and despite my many frustrations with the US, there is something fundamentally wonderful about these events and the ease with which we support so many different endeavors. It's safe to become fast friends here, and that's good for building social networks (and having the courage to break old ones when appropriate).
• Winter is coming. I am not pleased, except for the fact that the Sing Off is coming with it!

Political Updates:

• The importance of hypocrisy
• Yes, the US practices espionage. No, we don't talk about it. Diplomatic practice is to pretend you don't spy while you do spy. For the record, I'm down with most parts of organized espionage EXCEPT for corrupting human agents.
• I can't figure out exactly what I think about Snowden. I do think Manning did something much more foolish.

Personal Updates:

• For a long time in my life I was someone that kept a fairly flexible schedule. I liked being able to "drop everything" for someone else. I find myself busy more and more these days - and it's a blessing, as well as something that makes me understand others that weren't as available what I might have wanted in the past.
• Ultimately, having good people in your life and enjoying their company (both friends and family) is what actually matters to me. I don't have to be in the same location as them, but weekends like this in DC are a big part of my happiness and I am grateful for them.

Anger in the Shutdown

I'm getting more and more angry at the piecemeal, partial funding bills that the government is passing amidst the shutdown. This is not governing. This is not budgeting.

It's not governing to fund only the parts of the government you need, or to rewrite the rule sin the middle of the game. The GOP is going the wrong direction - entirely - and the Demcrats aren't making that case. They need to make that case. They need to win this - and they are letting Republican congressmen vote to close down the government and then berate the park rangers that show up to enforce closed monuments, without promise of a paycheck.

This is wrong; flatly wrong, and I'm disappointed both in Washington for not making this case more clearly, and my fellow Americans for letting the hostage-taking GOP off the hook. We're failing ourselves, and no one seems to even realize it.

The Idiocy of the Shutdown, in 3 Acts: Map, Thought Experiment, Speech - James Fallows - The Atlantic

 I would write a post about this but James Fallows said it better:

The Idiocy of the Shutdown, in 3 Acts: Map, Thought Experiment, Speech - James Fallows - The Atlantic:

Thought experiment. Let's suppose it's the fall of 2005. Suppose George W. Bush has been reelected, as he was in real life. Let's suppose, also as in reality, the Senate remained in Republican hands. But then suppose that Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats had already won control of the House, rather than doing so two years later. So suppose that the lineup as of 2005 had been:

• Reelected Republican president;
• The president's Republican party retaining control of the Senate; and
• Democrats controlling only one chamber, the House.

Then suppose further that Pelosi's newly empowered House Democrats announced that unless George W. Bush agreed to reverse the sweeping tax cuts that had been the signature legislative achievement of his first term, they would refuse to pass a budget so that the federal government could operate, and would threaten a default on U.S. sovereign debt. Alternatively, that unless Bush immediately withdrew from Iraq, federal government funding would cease and the debt ceiling would be frozen.
In this imagined world, I contend:

• "respectable" opinion would be all over Pelosi and the Democrats for their "shrill," "extreme" demands, especially given their lack of broad electoral mandate;
• hand-wringing editorials would point out that if you want to change policy, there's an established route to do so, which involves passing new bills and getting them signed into law, rather than issuing "otherwise we blow up the government" ultimatums;
• no one would be saying that the "grownups in the room" had to resolve the crisis by giving away, say, half of the president's tax cuts. (Even though, to my taste, that would have been a positive step.)

The circumstances are the mirror image now. A party that within the past year has:

• lost the presidency by 5 million votes;
• lost the Senate by a total of 10 million votes;
• held onto control of the House through favorable districting, while losing the overall House vote by 1.7 million nationwide

... is nonetheless dictating terms to the rest of the government. This would have been called extreme and unreasonable under an imagined Nancy Pelosi House in 2005. It is extreme and unreasonable now.

The Story of the Shutdown

First, some obvious points: this is an unprecedented situation, in that the government shutdown has been forced because the party forcing has lost a constitutional challenge and cannot repeal the law
Now, there's a reason that Congress gets the power of the purse - the ability to starve programs by cutting off funding seems like its within Congress's purview. The problem in this case is that Congress isn't doing that - it's just straight refusing to function. It's not clear if furloughed workers will get their salaries back either.

However, this is much better than the debt ceiling limit being broken. The thought here is that the Tea Party interests can be managed - and that the GOP can wave the white flag at some point allowing government funding and the debt ceiling increase to go through.

What I don't think anyone has fully understood is how radicalized these politicians might be.