Month: March 2012

Who stood their ground?

The Trayvon Martin story has now developed into two narratives: one, that neighborhood watch captain trigger-happy goon George Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed 17 year old for being in the wrong place (at any time) or two, that Zimmerman, by carrying a gun in unlawful pursuit of an unarmed 17 year old, provoked the youth and killed him for being in the wrong place (at any time). 

In both of these narratives, who Stood Their Ground? The youth who refused to run? Or the chickenshit vigilante with the gun? The youth who fought back after being unlawfully harassed? Or a grown man with delusions of adequacy — and a gun?

The moral of this story is Stand Your Ground but Be Armed. We’re back full-circle to the Black Panthers enforcing their 2nd Amendment rights and the state of California (under Sainted Ronnie Reagan) signing gun control laws.

hey, I wrote some code

This is a shell script wrapped around a line of AppleScript that I can to put an OS X machine to sleep. I used at(1) to generate all the housekeeping stuff (paths and variables): the actual command is the very last line. 

#!/bin/sh
MANPATH=:/opt/local/share/man; export MANPATH
TERM_PROGRAM=Apple_Terminal; export TERM_PROGRAM
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/Users/paul/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent:776:1; export GPG_AGENT_INFO
TERM=xterm-color; export TERM
SHELL=/bin/bash; export SHELL
CLICOLOR=1; export CLICOLOR
TMPDIR=/var/folders/js/82lhv5lh8xn_1r006s6qx0g80000gn/T/; export TMPDIR
Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render=/tmp/launch-vpi61E/Render; export Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render
HTML_TIDY=/Users/paul/.tidyrc; export HTML_TIDY
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=303; export TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION
TERM_SESSION_ID=A236A172-44B1-4955-8B2D-3EEB9C1E2D52; export TERM_SESSION_ID
USER=paul; export USER
COMMAND_MODE=unix2003; export COMMAND_MODE
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/launch-kZWH3Y/Listeners; export SSH_AUTH_SOCK
__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0:0; export __CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING
Apple_Ubiquity_Message=/tmp/launch-q0RW5z/Apple_Ubiquity_Message; export Apple_Ubiquity_Message
LSCOLORS=ExFxCxDxBxegedabagacad; export LSCOLORS
PATH=/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin; export PATH
PWD=/Users/paul; export PWD
EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim; export EDITOR
LANG=en_US.UTF-8; export LANG
SHLVL=1; export SHLVL
HOME=/Users/paul; export HOME
LOGNAME=paul; export LOGNAME
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=launchd:env=DBUS_LAUNCHD_SESSION_BUS_SOCKET; export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8; export LC_CTYPE
INFOPATH=:/opt/local/share/info; export INFOPATH
DISPLAY=/tmp/launch-LrbuQi/org.x:0; export DISPLAY
SECURITYSESSIONID=186a5; export SECURITYSESSIONID
_=/usr/bin/at; export _
osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to sleep'

Living in the past

Imagine a future world, complex and technologically advanced, where children are forced to grow up ax previous generations did, with manual labor, poor sanitation, all the privations and risks that the present society was built to improve upon. The idea: that no one grow up without realizing why things are as they are, without entitlement or unearned privilege.

The conflict: this system is mothballed, decommissioned, and for awhile things are ok. But a sense of complacency creeps in, generations grow up feeling like they built their world, rather than accepting it as a legacy from thoughtful predecessors. The society is at risk of collapse when it is discovered that some people, families who were forced out of the mainstream, have been living in The Past, the old proving ground where generations came of age. They are tough, resourceful people who need nothing but may be the deliverers – if they are willing to take it on and if those who marginalized them can swallow their pride and ask.

Mechanica

An alternate future where war is waged by machines, by drones under the control of a sentient controller that monitors the borders and airspace of its host nation. Its neighbor states are similarly automated and any conflict becomes a stalemate, as no nation has an advantage. The controllers communicate amongst themselves to avoid surprises and needless loss of equipment. Even the ground crews are automated/robotic.

No contact between these nations is permitted. The drone forces control all travel and communication.

The conflict: There is resistance to this control. Some people want to visit other nations in the region but cannot. What happens when one side in a contested/patrolled area finds a human on the opposing side? The core principles of the controllers and each drone prohibit harming humans. But this human is using that rule and the fact that it can operate outside the understanding of the systems to upset the balance. It can only be detected visually.

Humans do not show up on sensors, the sounds they make are too irregular to detect, and they have jamming tools that broadcast false information. How do the other nations respond? Field their own human fighters? Remove the ban on harming humans? Can they agree to allow travel? Or are the reasons for banning it forgotten?

Accountability

In the wake of the midterm elections, how long do we wait for the new leadership to fix everything they think Obama has neglected?

The new session will begin in January 2011. I say we give them til April 15 (a date that reminds us that we own a piece of this enterprise). If we don’t like what we see, we start writing letters, emailing, and calling these public servants to find out what the hold-up is. Where are the jobs? Why is the deficit still so high?

They claim to have the answers: let’s find out.