I just called Steve Kukar. He saw the olive tree. Like a doctor who has terrible news to tell a patient, he delivered his words as softly and as gently as he could. The olive tree is alive, but it is suffering. It will always be crippled.
It is like the Grail King. Only a miracle could heal it in full. Yet even then it will never be whole again. It is crippled and aging. It shall never be a young tree again. It is too old, and too frail to recover to what it once had been. The lightning-scarred central trunk and canopy will never see glory days of youth again.
The term for the green I saw is called “latent growth.” Steve was very bittersweet as he explained. There will be a “little puffball,” as he described it, but structurally, the tree will never be able to healthily recover its trunk and limbs. Not like a new, healthy tree.
When you have latent bud, the new growth is not strongly attached. This growth is coming off the cambium layer. The shoot-offs will grow so far, and then have a tendency to fall off. The structure of such a tree can never be very strong.
These latent buds are caused when you make a drastic cut. The tree, in desperation to live, shoots out its last growth. All the other tissue above the place where I saw the green growth is dead. Thus it will struggle to live. To keep getting a little bit stronger, but never will be a strong tree.
Eventually, Mountain View Forestry will opt to take it down. To replace it with a new, healthy tree. So, for now, treat this tree as entering the “hospice” stage of its life. It is not dead, but it could be dead and gone any day.
Fortunately, we treasured the spirit of the tree in photographs and video. It is not a figment of my imagination, or, I suppose, an olivement of my imagination, since it is an olive tree, not a fig. Franklin and Harshi saw it. Steve saw it too. Perhaps you will see it before it is gone. Sit against its trunk so it knows it is loved and will be loved after it is past.
As a final note, congratulations to Steve. He’s now the new Park Supervisor for Mountain View. Best wishes, and thank you for checking in on our gentle, patient olive tree.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Shea Stadium R.I.P.
Shea Stadium, another icon of my childhood, is facing the wrecking ball.
Today was the last day of Shea Stadium. I feel like singing Say Goodbye to Hollywood. In fact, I will. In elegy.
Perhaps Shea put a bit of a whammie on the ol’ Metropolitans today. They lost in the last innings to the Marlins, ending their hopes for the post season 2008. Shea said, “If I’m going down, I’m taking you all with me!” A bit of a Samson-esque twist. The temple took the hero down. Perhaps it was angered after having the grass of the outfield trimmed so low for so long, Delilah.
“Say goodbye my baby.”
I almost made reference first to another old Billy Joel song, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway). It must be coming true. They didn’t even give Shea that long to live. The song talks about how they picked the Yankees up for free.
An odd tangent. Christie’s real last name was Hudson, and she attended Palisades High School, but we’re talking Pacific Palisades. Her names were like the River we all knew and grew up by. Yet she was a girl-next-door you really didn’t meet too often next-door in NYC. You can, however, probably catch up with their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, next appearing at the Highline Ballroom, Oct 2, 2008.
She has a lovely song, “Come Home to Me Do.” It reminds me of Shea today.
R.I.P.
• My Grandparents & My Father
• The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
• The Concorde heading out of JFK
• Green Bus Lines
• C.B.G.B’s
• The Hedgehogs
• Shea Stadium
• West End Games
• SPI
• The Ram’s Horn Diner
Still Here
• My Family & Friends
• The United Nations
• The IRT
• The Statue of Liberty
• The Frick Collection
• Central Park
• Saturday Night Live
• Beach Channel High School
• Junior High School 180
• Public School 114 Queens
• The Empire State Building
• The Compleat Strategist
New
• My Nephew, Connor
Today was the last day of Shea Stadium. I feel like singing Say Goodbye to Hollywood. In fact, I will. In elegy.
“Movin’ on is a chanceThe new Citi Field out past Shea already looms, like a death star near Alderan. Soon it will send out an electric bolt of condemnation and the Stormtroopers of destruction will begin to dismantle the old world I had once known. Yet the team is going to their new digs.
You take any time
you try to stay
together.”
Perhaps Shea put a bit of a whammie on the ol’ Metropolitans today. They lost in the last innings to the Marlins, ending their hopes for the post season 2008. Shea said, “If I’m going down, I’m taking you all with me!” A bit of a Samson-esque twist. The temple took the hero down. Perhaps it was angered after having the grass of the outfield trimmed so low for so long, Delilah.
“Say goodbye my baby.”
I almost made reference first to another old Billy Joel song, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway). It must be coming true. They didn’t even give Shea that long to live. The song talks about how they picked the Yankees up for free.
“They said that Queens could stayQueens is staying, yet Shea will be gone soon. Like Christie Brinkley splitting with Billy Joel. The Mets are divorcing Shea Stadium. News at 11.
They blew the Bronx away
And sank Manhattan out at sea”
An odd tangent. Christie’s real last name was Hudson, and she attended Palisades High School, but we’re talking Pacific Palisades. Her names were like the River we all knew and grew up by. Yet she was a girl-next-door you really didn’t meet too often next-door in NYC. You can, however, probably catch up with their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, next appearing at the Highline Ballroom, Oct 2, 2008.
She has a lovely song, “Come Home to Me Do.” It reminds me of Shea today.
“Something happenedShe’s singing to me “Come home to me do.” Like New York herself. So I am planning on coming home for Christmas and New Years this year. To catch up with “my” city. To see the icons that stand still, and to pay homage to those now past. Now she’s singing “For All My Days.” I’m getting totally nostalgic for New York.
To a dream
That I had long ago
I can’t say when
And I don’t know why
It ever had to go...”
R.I.P.
• My Grandparents & My Father
• The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center
• The Concorde heading out of JFK
• Green Bus Lines
• C.B.G.B’s
• The Hedgehogs
• Shea Stadium
• West End Games
• SPI
• The Ram’s Horn Diner
Still Here
• My Family & Friends
• The United Nations
• The IRT
• The Statue of Liberty
• The Frick Collection
• Central Park
• Saturday Night Live
• Beach Channel High School
• Junior High School 180
• Public School 114 Queens
• The Empire State Building
• The Compleat Strategist
New
• My Nephew, Connor
Pete’s Rap for the Day
For dixiedevil,
Yo, baby. Word to yo' moms. Schools is in. Petah is the teachah. Doncha know?
Today's lesson is brought to you by the letter "R" as in rap, and the number one, as in "Won," as in "we won #1 on the charts." Rap-a-tap-bap-a-bee-bop-a-beat-box-of-rap. *Old* *school*. Not yo' ol' schooled white-bread pap.
Straight from the streets of NYC direct to your frontal earlobe. Zap!
I grew up in New York City during the rap revolution of the Soul Train / Disco era. Reggae music from Bob Marley and other Caribbean singers was socially influencing the black community. Tribalism was in. I was part of the tribe from NYC. Subway tokens and public school. To me, Soul Train was rockin'. American Bandstand was too-often bland. Disco and club-scene music was rapidly evolving and devolving into other types of music, from New Wave a la Devo and Cyndi Lauper to Punk a la Clash and The Ramones. MTV was born. You also had the oddball nearly beat-poet abstract lyricist-eclectics like Talking Heads. Music was the talk of the town. Talk was the town of NYC. And rap was the street beat.
For rap you can actually enjoy, check out the ancient and perennial wonderful "Rapper's Delight" from 1979, and then the edgy 1983 cocaine-addled "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" from Grandmaster Flash.
Then check out anything by Run DMC or the Beastie Boys for just stupidly fun music.
I remember my sister cranking up the tune and dancing: "Cane! Sugar! Cane! Sugar!" I liked the music, but worried about the social phenomenon of drug addiction. We were all pretty young and innocent. AIDS was just getting talked about. Crack was just starting to hit the streets.
You'll notice the music video for White Lines was done by a then-unknown film student Spike Lee, and his young actor friend pal Lawrence Fishburne.
Eventually the song became re-popularized by that British boy-band Duran Duran in a 1995 re-release.
In the dance of life, Sugarhill Gang taught me this, “If your girl starts acting up, you can take her friend!” It sounds a bit surprising, yet really, it's just time to dance and have some fun.
In that vein, I had another session of "The Talk" last night, you can read in my journal on OkCupid.
Yo, baby. Word to yo' moms. Schools is in. Petah is the teachah. Doncha know?
Today's lesson is brought to you by the letter "R" as in rap, and the number one, as in "Won," as in "we won #1 on the charts." Rap-a-tap-bap-a-bee-bop-a-beat-box-of-rap. *Old* *school*. Not yo' ol' schooled white-bread pap.
Straight from the streets of NYC direct to your frontal earlobe. Zap!
I grew up in New York City during the rap revolution of the Soul Train / Disco era. Reggae music from Bob Marley and other Caribbean singers was socially influencing the black community. Tribalism was in. I was part of the tribe from NYC. Subway tokens and public school. To me, Soul Train was rockin'. American Bandstand was too-often bland. Disco and club-scene music was rapidly evolving and devolving into other types of music, from New Wave a la Devo and Cyndi Lauper to Punk a la Clash and The Ramones. MTV was born. You also had the oddball nearly beat-poet abstract lyricist-eclectics like Talking Heads. Music was the talk of the town. Talk was the town of NYC. And rap was the street beat.
For rap you can actually enjoy, check out the ancient and perennial wonderful "Rapper's Delight" from 1979, and then the edgy 1983 cocaine-addled "White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" from Grandmaster Flash.
Then check out anything by Run DMC or the Beastie Boys for just stupidly fun music.
- Rapper's Delight (an NYC song animated for SF)
- Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang) - (Live Concert Footage) - longer version
- Rapper's Delight @ Wikipedia
I remember my sister cranking up the tune and dancing: "Cane! Sugar! Cane! Sugar!" I liked the music, but worried about the social phenomenon of drug addiction. We were all pretty young and innocent. AIDS was just getting talked about. Crack was just starting to hit the streets.
You'll notice the music video for White Lines was done by a then-unknown film student Spike Lee, and his young actor friend pal Lawrence Fishburne.
Eventually the song became re-popularized by that British boy-band Duran Duran in a 1995 re-release.
In the dance of life, Sugarhill Gang taught me this, “If your girl starts acting up, you can take her friend!” It sounds a bit surprising, yet really, it's just time to dance and have some fun.
In that vein, I had another session of "The Talk" last night, you can read in my journal on OkCupid.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Pledge of Interest & Concern for the World
Draft 0.1 is up for review. Please let me know what you think.
-Pete.
-Pete.
Andrei Hasn't Got Back to Me Yet
My post under the Razumijen project today is the letter I sent out to Andrei Codrescu, the Romanian poet-writer who often makes commentaries for NPR.
The same issues then as now: thoughts of peace in the Balkans. The Out of the Darkness walks. Flowers in the Cracks contributors like Tatiana. A bit of sober thought dosed with wry humor.
The same issues then as now: thoughts of peace in the Balkans. The Out of the Darkness walks. Flowers in the Cracks contributors like Tatiana. A bit of sober thought dosed with wry humor.
A Tree Grows on Rengstorff
I spend more time marveling at what I've already found... what have you found? about life?I found an olive tree that was declared dead in Rengstorff Park, in Mountain View, California. It was declared dead in June, 2008. The County Clerk gave the people of the community 30 days to "speak now or forever hold their peace."
-h
In September of this year, I walked past that tree, and it was alive. Green twigs filled with olive leaves sprang up from the roots. Up the trunk. From five to fifteen feet, I could see green, green, green.
Dead tree? I found the sign fallen to the grass below my feet. Huhn. Looked alive to me.
A miracle had obviously occurred. I needed to tell someone this tree was alive again.
Perhaps it was only "mostly dead" like they said in "A Princess Bride." Miracle Max had obviously worked his charms. It had taken from June to September for the tree to bloom again.
"You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
This was a pretty good one, Max!
So I called the City of Mountain View, and eventually got ahold of Steve Kukar. An Arborealist for the city. I said there might be a problem with the upper canopy. Perhaps some problem with the xylem or phloem. He was amazed that I knew what xylem and phloem were. Sure, I paid attention in high school biology.
But he's the expert. He promised to check out the tree. See if it could be saved. Maybe it might still need to be taken down. It wasn't a healthy tree, for sure. A spindly little thing. A single trunk like a twisted lightning bolt of wood frozen in time. Yet maybe he will save it.
I wasn't even looking for it, but that was what I found. Walking in my world, as the Green Knight.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Happy birthday to Connor!
I got a text page this morning. I have a new nephew. Happy birthday, Conor!
One day after my own 44th birthday. A miracle!
Apart from having any children of my own, that’s about a nice a gift as you can hope for. In fact, for some people this is preferable. I get a new family member without having to change the diapers!
Congrats and all my love to mom & dad. Hope you are both resting well and joyful. Blessings on you all, especially to Aedan, the other lil’ tyke! You’re now officially the “big boy.” Play nicely with baby.
-Pete.
p.s. My good regards to all the families out there, to all the single parents, to all those who care for the children, and all the parentless families especially. Special hellos to my African brothers Peter Kithene of Kenya and Peter Nyok of Sudan.
One day after my own 44th birthday. A miracle!
Apart from having any children of my own, that’s about a nice a gift as you can hope for. In fact, for some people this is preferable. I get a new family member without having to change the diapers!
Congrats and all my love to mom & dad. Hope you are both resting well and joyful. Blessings on you all, especially to Aedan, the other lil’ tyke! You’re now officially the “big boy.” Play nicely with baby.
-Pete.
p.s. My good regards to all the families out there, to all the single parents, to all those who care for the children, and all the parentless families especially. Special hellos to my African brothers Peter Kithene of Kenya and Peter Nyok of Sudan.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Happy birthday to meeeee!
Today I am 44. Go me!
• I bought a new weatherproof Olympus SLR camera today. I can use it for Flowers in the Cracks, the Global Understanding Institute or for whatever general personal purposes I desire.
• Celebrated at midnight with Harshi!
• Logged into WoW and said hi to a few friends. I don’t play the game any more. But it’s good to catch up with people.
• Today I will be filming The American Dream with Franklin and Harshi in Rengstorff Park.
Lots going on!
-Pete.
• I bought a new weatherproof Olympus SLR camera today. I can use it for Flowers in the Cracks, the Global Understanding Institute or for whatever general personal purposes I desire.
• Celebrated at midnight with Harshi!
• Logged into WoW and said hi to a few friends. I don’t play the game any more. But it’s good to catch up with people.
• Today I will be filming The American Dream with Franklin and Harshi in Rengstorff Park.
Lots going on!
-Pete.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Meeting Dick Bolles @ Apple Store, Palo Alto
After hearing about this legendary fellow for decades, I just met Dick for the first time myself at the Apple Store last week in Palo Alto, California. Marci was there with him.
Nicest guy you can hope to meet. Really sweet to see him and Marci so in love, too! They were getting their iPhones taken care of.
After I bid them farewell, I went across the street to Borders, Inc., and got me a brand new copy of "What Color is Your Parachute? 2009."
My thanks and best wishes to you, Dick and Marci! Hope to meet you again in coming days.
By the way...
Happy belated 80th birthday, Dick!
• Let’s All Wish Dick Bolles (”What Color is Your Parachute?”) Happy 80th
Nicest guy you can hope to meet. Really sweet to see him and Marci so in love, too! They were getting their iPhones taken care of.
After I bid them farewell, I went across the street to Borders, Inc., and got me a brand new copy of "What Color is Your Parachute? 2009."
My thanks and best wishes to you, Dick and Marci! Hope to meet you again in coming days.
By the way...
Happy belated 80th birthday, Dick!
• Let’s All Wish Dick Bolles (”What Color is Your Parachute?”) Happy 80th
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Poppies, And The Flower of England
I wrote a post for the Legio X Fretensis blog, “Poppies, And the Flower of England” which directly applies to the artistic themes of Flowers in the Cracks.
It also applies the Global Understanding movement, and the issues it wishes to address between 9/11 and 11/11 of this year, 2008.
More on that another time.
-Peter.
It also applies the Global Understanding movement, and the issues it wishes to address between 9/11 and 11/11 of this year, 2008.
More on that another time.
-Peter.
Google AdWords Make No Sense
I keep looking at the Google AdWords that I am getting. Today, it is “Terrorism.” A lot of Terrorism links.
What is odd is that this misconstrues my intent. I wish not to make people think about “terrorism” so much as a sense of peace, security and normalcy.
Google, you are failing to catch my intent.
I sat in Red Rock Café the other night with a brilliant young gentleman from Google. I showed him precisely the sort of common misconstrual AdWords provides. The lack of specificity and the oddball nature of what it shows based not on what I was writing about presently, but based on prior writings.
There is much to be desired in the present state.
I also talked about some ideas on how to revolutionize the AdWords experience, which might require some partnerships with other well-known .com businesses.
For now, I leave as a challenge to my fellows at Google to make these AdWords more contextually appropriate for the point of what I am trying to get across.
Tonight I also sorted through a great number of photos I had stored in my phone. Getting them up onto my computer, and trying to sift through years of snapped shots without archiving them or uploading them.
I’ve uncovered some “forgotten treasures” of the past two years. Good stuff!
What is odd is that this misconstrues my intent. I wish not to make people think about “terrorism” so much as a sense of peace, security and normalcy.
Google, you are failing to catch my intent.
I sat in Red Rock Café the other night with a brilliant young gentleman from Google. I showed him precisely the sort of common misconstrual AdWords provides. The lack of specificity and the oddball nature of what it shows based not on what I was writing about presently, but based on prior writings.
There is much to be desired in the present state.
I also talked about some ideas on how to revolutionize the AdWords experience, which might require some partnerships with other well-known .com businesses.
For now, I leave as a challenge to my fellows at Google to make these AdWords more contextually appropriate for the point of what I am trying to get across.
Tonight I also sorted through a great number of photos I had stored in my phone. Getting them up onto my computer, and trying to sift through years of snapped shots without archiving them or uploading them.
I’ve uncovered some “forgotten treasures” of the past two years. Good stuff!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Notes for 9/12, the Day After
Today I had quite a productive day, in non-traditional ways.
Worked on my historical epic motion picture project:
• AD 1066: One Year in History You Will Never Forget
The story of the Year 1066. Many people may remember me talking about this around 1992-1994. I took a six week vacation to Europe in May-June 1994 to walk the battlefields of Stamford Bridge and Hastings, and visited Norway, England, and Normandie. I wanted to see it for myself. (I also took side trips to Wales and Ireland that year with my brother John.)
Later in the day, I helped a pair of folks who needed a good friend right now in their lives. Their stories are their own, so what happened specifically remains private. I shall say this: they both burst into tears. Tears they had needed to release, and had no one else to share them with. I was glad to help them both, yet it was clear that we needed to work together more, and just be good friends for now, to get past the crises facing them. God is putting challenges in front of me where the needs of someone else far outweigh my own desires in terms of urgency and heart-felt import.
I wish I could say these issues were “work related” as part of the Global Understanding Institute. In a way, they are. Yet these are very private, very personal issues, feelings and circumstances.
This evening, I went over to the house of long-time friends from Carnegie Mellon University. I keep wanting to spell it “Carnegie-Mellon,” but they expunged the hyphen long ago. We watched old 1997 episodes of the Al Yankovic show (produced by Dick Clark). Then we went up to YouTube to look at his music videos.
It is amazing genius to see how close Smells Like Nirvana was done compared to the original Smells Like Teen Spirit. I still laugh when he sings “blargle nawdle zouss...”
Our conversation over Al Yankovic then turned somewhat reflective when we spoke about Kurt Cobain’s suicide. That was April 1994. About the same time I was planning my trip to Europe for “1066.” While I was considering making an epic movie about the year that saw the death of so many thousands in a war to control the fate of the future, a brilliant, talented, yet physically and emotionally pained young man decided to take his own life.
Tonight I keep thinking about the Out of the Darkness walk on the 27th of September. I’ve raised only $200 so far. Please, if you read my blog, donate to this cause. I truly want to change the world with Flowers in the Cracks and the Global Understanding movement. To do so, I’ve had to open my own heart and my mind and my spirit in so many ways. I’m asking everyone around me to likewise open their hearts, minds and spirits to those who are suffering and in need.
Help turn even one soul from bleak hopelessness towards hopeful self-assurance, and from foul destructive darkness towards the restoring joy of light. Thank you.
Worked on my historical epic motion picture project:
• AD 1066: One Year in History You Will Never Forget
The story of the Year 1066. Many people may remember me talking about this around 1992-1994. I took a six week vacation to Europe in May-June 1994 to walk the battlefields of Stamford Bridge and Hastings, and visited Norway, England, and Normandie. I wanted to see it for myself. (I also took side trips to Wales and Ireland that year with my brother John.)
Later in the day, I helped a pair of folks who needed a good friend right now in their lives. Their stories are their own, so what happened specifically remains private. I shall say this: they both burst into tears. Tears they had needed to release, and had no one else to share them with. I was glad to help them both, yet it was clear that we needed to work together more, and just be good friends for now, to get past the crises facing them. God is putting challenges in front of me where the needs of someone else far outweigh my own desires in terms of urgency and heart-felt import.
I wish I could say these issues were “work related” as part of the Global Understanding Institute. In a way, they are. Yet these are very private, very personal issues, feelings and circumstances.
This evening, I went over to the house of long-time friends from Carnegie Mellon University. I keep wanting to spell it “Carnegie-Mellon,” but they expunged the hyphen long ago. We watched old 1997 episodes of the Al Yankovic show (produced by Dick Clark). Then we went up to YouTube to look at his music videos.
It is amazing genius to see how close Smells Like Nirvana was done compared to the original Smells Like Teen Spirit. I still laugh when he sings “blargle nawdle zouss...”
Our conversation over Al Yankovic then turned somewhat reflective when we spoke about Kurt Cobain’s suicide. That was April 1994. About the same time I was planning my trip to Europe for “1066.” While I was considering making an epic movie about the year that saw the death of so many thousands in a war to control the fate of the future, a brilliant, talented, yet physically and emotionally pained young man decided to take his own life.
Tonight I keep thinking about the Out of the Darkness walk on the 27th of September. I’ve raised only $200 so far. Please, if you read my blog, donate to this cause. I truly want to change the world with Flowers in the Cracks and the Global Understanding movement. To do so, I’ve had to open my own heart and my mind and my spirit in so many ways. I’m asking everyone around me to likewise open their hearts, minds and spirits to those who are suffering and in need.
Help turn even one soul from bleak hopelessness towards hopeful self-assurance, and from foul destructive darkness towards the restoring joy of light. Thank you.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
9/11 2008: Episode ”n”: The End of the Day
I have too many notes and memories to record before the final minutes of 9/11 2008 come upon me. Some final thoughts for the five minutes til midnight:
• Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years” is playing on KFOG
• It was a great day, with moments of sublime joy.
• I wrote a poem for the day.
• I had a real life Grail Quest.
• I pet some dogs.
• I adopted a plant.
• I furthered my career.
• I talked to some friends over the phone.
• I hugged other friends.
• I helped a friend in great need.
• I talked to someone to get help for a family in need.
• I took time to take stock of my life.
• I took time to sing and pray.
• I got to enjoy time with friends.
• As midnight turned the day to 9/12, Jackson Brown is singing out the day with “Rock Me On the Water.”
I only had one wish that was not fulfilled:
• Lloyd LaCuesta never called me back!
We’ll have to see if we can get to meet by 11/11 of this year. Hopefully we’ll get the movement started for Armistice Day. Pray and work for peace in the next two months! Let’s do something worth Lloyd’s air time.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement for my efforts this day. I will get the rest of 9/11 posted over the next day or so. There are more stories to tell.
-Peter Corless.
650-906-3134 (mobile)
petercorless@mac.com
• Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years” is playing on KFOG
• It was a great day, with moments of sublime joy.
• I wrote a poem for the day.
• I had a real life Grail Quest.
• I pet some dogs.
• I adopted a plant.
• I furthered my career.
• I talked to some friends over the phone.
• I hugged other friends.
• I helped a friend in great need.
• I talked to someone to get help for a family in need.
• I took time to take stock of my life.
• I took time to sing and pray.
• I got to enjoy time with friends.
• As midnight turned the day to 9/12, Jackson Brown is singing out the day with “Rock Me On the Water.”
I only had one wish that was not fulfilled:
• Lloyd LaCuesta never called me back!
We’ll have to see if we can get to meet by 11/11 of this year. Hopefully we’ll get the movement started for Armistice Day. Pray and work for peace in the next two months! Let’s do something worth Lloyd’s air time.
Thank you all for your support and encouragement for my efforts this day. I will get the rest of 9/11 posted over the next day or so. There are more stories to tell.
-Peter Corless.
650-906-3134 (mobile)
petercorless@mac.com
9/11 2008: Episode 9: “Woke Up, Fell Out of Bed...”
A Day in the Life
The Beatles wrote “A Day in the Life” back in the 1960s in a far more innocent time. Yet the song sustains in the minds and imaginations of so many because of it’s initial levity, its profundity, and it’s famous lengthy orchestral crescendo and finale, with the long, long, long sustained note of the piano at the end.
In the progress of the song through it’s “upbeat busy part,” the protagonist, “Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.”
Here’s me before arriving at the third part of that musical phraseology. Ironically, this is not me now, but me from c. spring of 2006. It has taken me this long to finally feel motivated enough to drag this picture from my phone to my Mac, and then, to post it on the web. I think I want to include it in my dating profile so women get a bit of “truth in advertising.” Yep! That's me having a bad hair day. Or, actually, what I look like when I towel dry getting out of the shower. It is my self-portrait entitled “Yarr!”
What motivated me to post this picture? 9/11. For the sake of this project, I’m cleaning out the images in my mobile phone built up over two years. Dragging and dropping them into folders. At least initially sorting them. I have more objectives today than just this. Yet it is an example of the sort of humor and sublimity life can have when “I went into a dream.”
After falling asleep before, I was awoken at two times. I had my alarm set for 10:45 AM Pacific (1:45 PM Eastern). Yet nearly precisely at 9:00 AM (Noon Eastern) I was awoken by my friend from Cambodia. He is still having problems paying his rent, and wondered if he could stop by. I told him sure, if he came by at 2:00 pm. He’s found a little bit of day work, but not enough of it to cover September’s rent. It is September 11th. He knows he is late. His landlord is very aware of this too.
Today we have to decide how he will cover September’s rent. Do I loan him the money? If I do, what terms do we agree to? Ben Franklin reminds me, “Neither a borrower or a lender be.” Yet if I do not do this, Ben, what happens to my friend? Moreover, what happens to his daughter? Do they become homeless? This is a big problem. It requires legal services. Foreign language services in Lao. Far bigger than I can solve personally. We have a couple of government services to call this afternoon when my friend drops by at 2:00 pm.
Then I went back to bed. Slept for 90 minutes, approximately, and then got a call that said I had been awarded “free technical support services.” Except that the “free” services required me to pay for shipping. And pay a recurring charge for an ongoing subscription to their services.
I asked them if they would give me the free service they offered for free. No additional charges. No shipping costs. No additional subscription. They immediately wrapped the call and hung up.
It is amazing how “free” suddenly mushrooms into “fee-for-service.” No truth in advertising.
Yet this is the “land of the free” — the customer’s favorite price — and “the home of the brave.”
After being woken up this second time at 10:30 AM, I decided I was up for good. Not a lot of sleep, but enough for the day. And the day was entirely different than before.
Those low-lying clouds that turned the night sky as dark chocolate-orange as a bar you would buy in a candy section from last night had dissipated slightly, but remained to give the sky a white, luminous glow. As the sun progresses up in the sky now, at 11:17 AM, the white is slowly giving way to blue as the clouds further burn off.
Yet there is a sort of soft-glazed nostalgic glow in the air. I thought it was just my glasses, so I cleaned them. Yet it is apparent when a picture is taken. I’ve taken two photos here which I’ll bring over to show. That’ll take a few moments, so pardon me as I get it sorted out. Time will pass. Hopefully the results are worth it.
Here is one image, of the day outside my window. See how white the sky looks? It looks humid. Hazy. Cars glide softly down California Street a block away. The day is much crisper and sharper now than this image shows.
11:30 AM Pacific Time (2:30 PM Eastern)
Historically by this point, the FBI was confirming to CNN this was a terrorist attack.
2:00 PM Eastern, George W. Bush boarded the plane from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. He is heading to the SAC Bunker at Offutt AFB.
Andy Card said, “The right thing is to let the dust settle.” Andy? Know what? In 2008, I don’t think the dust has settled yet for some people.
Yet for most of us it has. Thankfully. We can be grateful the vast majority of us 305,124,620 estimated Americans were not at Ground Zero today, celebrating the loss of a brother or sister, father or son, mother or daughter, husband or wife, friend or lover.
Let’s consider one objective comparison of loss. How does the war in Afghanistan measure up to the domestic crisis of cancer?
Cost of War
The September 11, 2008 attacks resulted in 2,974 dead. 24 missing and presumed dead. 19 hijackers (Wikipedia).
That loss was approximately 1 out of 100,000 Americans.
It also resulted in the loss of 586 additional Americans in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, and another 375 other foreign nationals, for a total of 961 dead. Not including native Afghan civilian and government losses.
The cost of the war in Afghanistan, separate from the DoD budget for operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the world, is $172 Billion from 2001 to FY2008.
That is approximately $24 Billion annually.
If one divides the cost of the war across the US lives lost, that is either $47 million spent per casualty (if one includes the US casualties suffered in Afghanistan), or $57 million spent per casualty (just looking at the dead and missing from the 9/11 attacks).
If one also includes the thousands of injured checked in to hospitals for the attack, one can easily justify doubling the number of casualties, thus halving the per-victim cost. There were at least 2,100 people checked into New York hospitals by 3:55 pm on 9/11, with 200 in critical condition. That still makes the cost of the war approximately $23 million to $34 million per direct victim.
Cost of Cancer
In comparison, cancer will kill an estimated 565,650 people in the US this year (Reuters).
That loss will be approximately 185 out of 100,000 Americans. 90-185 times the casualty rate of 9/11.
The US government budgets about $4.75-$5 Billion annually to the National Cancer Institute.
Dividing $5 billion amongst the estimated people lost annually to cancer, the US government is spending $8,839 per victim annually. Even if we multiply that value by seven, to show what we would spend over seven years, that would be $61,875. Yet then you have seven years of cancer deaths to factor against that.
In other words, we spend far less money per year than a typical American would spend on a decent car, like the Saturn Aura, for hundreds of thousands of cancer patients, than we do of the nation’s treasury buying the equivalent of an F-18 Hornet for each victim of 9/11.
This is not to dishonor those who died. This cannot dismiss or lesson the personal grief of anyone. Nor does it take into account the indirect accounting for the economic shock to the country, the depression of those who were exposed to 9/11, or any of the other intangibles. Then again, neither does it take into account the economic, psychological or spiritual losses suffered by the victims of cancer or their families, friends and employers.
It is simply to frame the issue objectively. Seven years later. To measure how we have responded to one issue that costs lives of Americans in an acute crisis, versus another issue that costs lives of Americans on a chronic basis.
More Calls Before Noon
My friend Gordon Mullin called me. We know each other from Saint Jude’s Episcopal Parish in Cupertino. We spoke about how life is going. Forgetting things and remembering things. Making sure we scheduled correctly for the day. Tonight I’ll meet with Gordon to talk, and then we’ll go to Choir Practice.
He skimmed over the letter I wrote about 9/11. As a busy guy getting ready for a trip, he doesn’t have time to focus his attention on 9/11, though he is aware of the day.
I wrote “too many words” as usual. I was accused of this at Cisco. I write too much. Too long. It is mentally demanding for people these days. We’re all busy. I was always reminded of that scene in Amadeus when the Austrian royal personage waved his hand and said to Mozart, “Too many notes!”
Yet Gordon’s not paying attention is actually a good sign. It means he is too busy to care to read the whole thing. It means that life goes on, and we are not sociologically as fascinated and gripped by the fear and trauma as we all were back then. During those first days after the attack, all someone needed to do was to show the image on the screen and we were all riveted. For hours. Over and over again.
The pattern was always hypnotic. Voice over. Impact. Explosion. Cut. Impact. Cut. Explosion. Cut. Close up. Cut. Collapse. Cut. Collapse. Queue music. Fade to face of Firefighter. Fade to American flag. Fade to black. Either that, or “more news at 11.”
It was a real event made super-real. Hyper-real. Unreal. Make no mistake: actual human heroism occurred that day. In thousands if not millions or hundreds of millions or billions of ways. In the planes. On the ground. Around the cities and communities affected. Across the country and around the world.
Yet after a while, the tragedies of 9/11 began to turn from what it was, actually, into what people wanted it to be for them, ideally and ideologically. Economically and politically. For the past seven years, 9/11 has been a battleground of memetic control over the fate of its historical and political interpretation.
Ads and marketing. Propaganda and polemics. The “possession” of 9/11 has been fought over by all sides, far more fiercely than any patch of ground. We’ve been warring over the meaning of our lives, of our families, of our communities and our denominations, and our country, our alliances, and our world.
This is why I never wanted to write about it before now. To talk about it publicly. It was alive. Raw. Spiritually resonant. Too much passion and unbridled fury. Too much irrationality and hatred came out. Too much stupidity uttered by the unwise and uneducated was accepted as “truth.” Too much malicious propaganda was issued by all sides for their own purposes.
Maybe Andy Card was right. The dust needed to settle. Yet there are differences between when the President of the United States of America needs to get involved in a national crisis, and when each private citizen, not elected to office, decides to take on responsibility and civic action. As a historian, as a philosopher, as a writer and author, I felt in my heart my time had not yet come. Until now.
It is now 1:08 pm. In New York on 9/11, 2001, by this time of day, 4:08 pm, there were over 2,100 people admitted to New York City hospitals. 200 were in critical care. Building 7 was now on fire. CNN was just starting to report there are “good indications” Osama bin Laden was involved.
I can’t recall what I was doing at that time in my real life that day. I only recall the phone call from my girlfriend Kathy that morning. The rest of the day is a blank for me. I suppose, psychologically, my own life didn’t matter that much. As in, other people needed to come first. I remember I tried to call family, yet didn’t get far. There wasn’t much to be done. That could be done.
There are likely things I have logged here in my computer as to how I spent the day and evening of 9/11 in 2001. Yet for now, I still need to “drag a comb across my head.” Time for some lunch and a good walk to Hobee’s and back. Time for some sunshine and flowers. To withdraw from memories of New York to the reality of California.
1:15 PM: The sun is shining brilliantly now.
The Beatles wrote “A Day in the Life” back in the 1960s in a far more innocent time. Yet the song sustains in the minds and imaginations of so many because of it’s initial levity, its profundity, and it’s famous lengthy orchestral crescendo and finale, with the long, long, long sustained note of the piano at the end.In the progress of the song through it’s “upbeat busy part,” the protagonist, “Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.”
Here’s me before arriving at the third part of that musical phraseology. Ironically, this is not me now, but me from c. spring of 2006. It has taken me this long to finally feel motivated enough to drag this picture from my phone to my Mac, and then, to post it on the web. I think I want to include it in my dating profile so women get a bit of “truth in advertising.” Yep! That's me having a bad hair day. Or, actually, what I look like when I towel dry getting out of the shower. It is my self-portrait entitled “Yarr!”
What motivated me to post this picture? 9/11. For the sake of this project, I’m cleaning out the images in my mobile phone built up over two years. Dragging and dropping them into folders. At least initially sorting them. I have more objectives today than just this. Yet it is an example of the sort of humor and sublimity life can have when “I went into a dream.”
After falling asleep before, I was awoken at two times. I had my alarm set for 10:45 AM Pacific (1:45 PM Eastern). Yet nearly precisely at 9:00 AM (Noon Eastern) I was awoken by my friend from Cambodia. He is still having problems paying his rent, and wondered if he could stop by. I told him sure, if he came by at 2:00 pm. He’s found a little bit of day work, but not enough of it to cover September’s rent. It is September 11th. He knows he is late. His landlord is very aware of this too.
Today we have to decide how he will cover September’s rent. Do I loan him the money? If I do, what terms do we agree to? Ben Franklin reminds me, “Neither a borrower or a lender be.” Yet if I do not do this, Ben, what happens to my friend? Moreover, what happens to his daughter? Do they become homeless? This is a big problem. It requires legal services. Foreign language services in Lao. Far bigger than I can solve personally. We have a couple of government services to call this afternoon when my friend drops by at 2:00 pm.
Then I went back to bed. Slept for 90 minutes, approximately, and then got a call that said I had been awarded “free technical support services.” Except that the “free” services required me to pay for shipping. And pay a recurring charge for an ongoing subscription to their services.
I asked them if they would give me the free service they offered for free. No additional charges. No shipping costs. No additional subscription. They immediately wrapped the call and hung up.
It is amazing how “free” suddenly mushrooms into “fee-for-service.” No truth in advertising.
Yet this is the “land of the free” — the customer’s favorite price — and “the home of the brave.”
After being woken up this second time at 10:30 AM, I decided I was up for good. Not a lot of sleep, but enough for the day. And the day was entirely different than before.
Those low-lying clouds that turned the night sky as dark chocolate-orange as a bar you would buy in a candy section from last night had dissipated slightly, but remained to give the sky a white, luminous glow. As the sun progresses up in the sky now, at 11:17 AM, the white is slowly giving way to blue as the clouds further burn off.
Yet there is a sort of soft-glazed nostalgic glow in the air. I thought it was just my glasses, so I cleaned them. Yet it is apparent when a picture is taken. I’ve taken two photos here which I’ll bring over to show. That’ll take a few moments, so pardon me as I get it sorted out. Time will pass. Hopefully the results are worth it.Here is one image, of the day outside my window. See how white the sky looks? It looks humid. Hazy. Cars glide softly down California Street a block away. The day is much crisper and sharper now than this image shows.
11:30 AM Pacific Time (2:30 PM Eastern)Historically by this point, the FBI was confirming to CNN this was a terrorist attack.
2:00 PM Eastern, George W. Bush boarded the plane from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. He is heading to the SAC Bunker at Offutt AFB.
Andy Card said, “The right thing is to let the dust settle.” Andy? Know what? In 2008, I don’t think the dust has settled yet for some people.
Yet for most of us it has. Thankfully. We can be grateful the vast majority of us 305,124,620 estimated Americans were not at Ground Zero today, celebrating the loss of a brother or sister, father or son, mother or daughter, husband or wife, friend or lover.
Let’s consider one objective comparison of loss. How does the war in Afghanistan measure up to the domestic crisis of cancer?
Cost of War
The September 11, 2008 attacks resulted in 2,974 dead. 24 missing and presumed dead. 19 hijackers (Wikipedia).
That loss was approximately 1 out of 100,000 Americans.
It also resulted in the loss of 586 additional Americans in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, and another 375 other foreign nationals, for a total of 961 dead. Not including native Afghan civilian and government losses.
The cost of the war in Afghanistan, separate from the DoD budget for operations in Iraq and elsewhere in the world, is $172 Billion from 2001 to FY2008.
That is approximately $24 Billion annually.
If one divides the cost of the war across the US lives lost, that is either $47 million spent per casualty (if one includes the US casualties suffered in Afghanistan), or $57 million spent per casualty (just looking at the dead and missing from the 9/11 attacks).
If one also includes the thousands of injured checked in to hospitals for the attack, one can easily justify doubling the number of casualties, thus halving the per-victim cost. There were at least 2,100 people checked into New York hospitals by 3:55 pm on 9/11, with 200 in critical condition. That still makes the cost of the war approximately $23 million to $34 million per direct victim.
Cost of Cancer
In comparison, cancer will kill an estimated 565,650 people in the US this year (Reuters).
That loss will be approximately 185 out of 100,000 Americans. 90-185 times the casualty rate of 9/11.
The US government budgets about $4.75-$5 Billion annually to the National Cancer Institute.
Dividing $5 billion amongst the estimated people lost annually to cancer, the US government is spending $8,839 per victim annually. Even if we multiply that value by seven, to show what we would spend over seven years, that would be $61,875. Yet then you have seven years of cancer deaths to factor against that.
In other words, we spend far less money per year than a typical American would spend on a decent car, like the Saturn Aura, for hundreds of thousands of cancer patients, than we do of the nation’s treasury buying the equivalent of an F-18 Hornet for each victim of 9/11.
This is not to dishonor those who died. This cannot dismiss or lesson the personal grief of anyone. Nor does it take into account the indirect accounting for the economic shock to the country, the depression of those who were exposed to 9/11, or any of the other intangibles. Then again, neither does it take into account the economic, psychological or spiritual losses suffered by the victims of cancer or their families, friends and employers.
It is simply to frame the issue objectively. Seven years later. To measure how we have responded to one issue that costs lives of Americans in an acute crisis, versus another issue that costs lives of Americans on a chronic basis.
More Calls Before Noon
My friend Gordon Mullin called me. We know each other from Saint Jude’s Episcopal Parish in Cupertino. We spoke about how life is going. Forgetting things and remembering things. Making sure we scheduled correctly for the day. Tonight I’ll meet with Gordon to talk, and then we’ll go to Choir Practice.
He skimmed over the letter I wrote about 9/11. As a busy guy getting ready for a trip, he doesn’t have time to focus his attention on 9/11, though he is aware of the day.
I wrote “too many words” as usual. I was accused of this at Cisco. I write too much. Too long. It is mentally demanding for people these days. We’re all busy. I was always reminded of that scene in Amadeus when the Austrian royal personage waved his hand and said to Mozart, “Too many notes!”
Yet Gordon’s not paying attention is actually a good sign. It means he is too busy to care to read the whole thing. It means that life goes on, and we are not sociologically as fascinated and gripped by the fear and trauma as we all were back then. During those first days after the attack, all someone needed to do was to show the image on the screen and we were all riveted. For hours. Over and over again.
The pattern was always hypnotic. Voice over. Impact. Explosion. Cut. Impact. Cut. Explosion. Cut. Close up. Cut. Collapse. Cut. Collapse. Queue music. Fade to face of Firefighter. Fade to American flag. Fade to black. Either that, or “more news at 11.”
It was a real event made super-real. Hyper-real. Unreal. Make no mistake: actual human heroism occurred that day. In thousands if not millions or hundreds of millions or billions of ways. In the planes. On the ground. Around the cities and communities affected. Across the country and around the world.
Yet after a while, the tragedies of 9/11 began to turn from what it was, actually, into what people wanted it to be for them, ideally and ideologically. Economically and politically. For the past seven years, 9/11 has been a battleground of memetic control over the fate of its historical and political interpretation.
Ads and marketing. Propaganda and polemics. The “possession” of 9/11 has been fought over by all sides, far more fiercely than any patch of ground. We’ve been warring over the meaning of our lives, of our families, of our communities and our denominations, and our country, our alliances, and our world.
This is why I never wanted to write about it before now. To talk about it publicly. It was alive. Raw. Spiritually resonant. Too much passion and unbridled fury. Too much irrationality and hatred came out. Too much stupidity uttered by the unwise and uneducated was accepted as “truth.” Too much malicious propaganda was issued by all sides for their own purposes.
Maybe Andy Card was right. The dust needed to settle. Yet there are differences between when the President of the United States of America needs to get involved in a national crisis, and when each private citizen, not elected to office, decides to take on responsibility and civic action. As a historian, as a philosopher, as a writer and author, I felt in my heart my time had not yet come. Until now.
It is now 1:08 pm. In New York on 9/11, 2001, by this time of day, 4:08 pm, there were over 2,100 people admitted to New York City hospitals. 200 were in critical care. Building 7 was now on fire. CNN was just starting to report there are “good indications” Osama bin Laden was involved.
I can’t recall what I was doing at that time in my real life that day. I only recall the phone call from my girlfriend Kathy that morning. The rest of the day is a blank for me. I suppose, psychologically, my own life didn’t matter that much. As in, other people needed to come first. I remember I tried to call family, yet didn’t get far. There wasn’t much to be done. That could be done.
There are likely things I have logged here in my computer as to how I spent the day and evening of 9/11 in 2001. Yet for now, I still need to “drag a comb across my head.” Time for some lunch and a good walk to Hobee’s and back. Time for some sunshine and flowers. To withdraw from memories of New York to the reality of California.
1:15 PM: The sun is shining brilliantly now.
9/11 2008: Episode 8: WYNC asks: How do you talk to kids?
“Seven years later, how do you talk to your kids about the 9/11 attacks?”WNYC is the public television station of New York City. If any media concern has the authority to put the question before the general public, it would be this station.
When I turned on WNYC, the BBC was reporting from Kabul. Apparently there is news today of conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Yet soon it wrapped, and the radio cut to WNYC broadcasting the events live from Ground Zero.
At 9:59 AM Eastern Time, all fell silent. A bell was rung. Brian Lehrer is telling me of seeing and hearing the disaster, from six blocks away.
After the moment of silence, he reminded all of the four most important times:
• 8:46 - the first plane’s impact
• 9:03 - the second plane’s impact
• 9:59 - collapse of the first tower
• 10:28 - collapse of the second tower
In the ongoing discussion, some people cannot help to burst into memories. The reporter acknowledged that time is moving on, and that children born now do not understand or remember what happened.
“There is only so much to actively perpetuate that memory.” — Arun Venugopal
Dr. Michael Cohen then addressed the issues of children exposed to the disaster, and how they respond to images versus how .
• Kids who watched it on television are impacted just as much as being there.
• Find out why they are asking.
• Ask questions of them before answering, “What did you see? What did you learn already?”
212-433-WNYC (9692)
So I called in. I am presently on hold waiting to ask my question.
At 7:06 AM Pacific, 10:06 AM Eastern, United Airlines Flight 93 went down in a Pennsylvania field.
Meanwhile, back in the real timestream, Dane, a clinical psychologist from the Bronx, asked if there were any ethnic differences. Dr. Cohen pointed out that the major difference in reactions from Hispanics was due to the plane crash in Rockaway later that year.
One point being emphasized is that death should not be the end of the story. To answer “What happened to me,” should start long before and long after the traumatic event itself. For children, to say “The planes hit the building. People died,” may be accurate, yet it is traumatizing. Make sure to emphasize the safety and security restored and new programs established since.
Colleen in Tewksbury, New Jersey called in. She doesn’t want to make her daughters, one of which was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, to be afraid of New York City. The Doctor emphasized preparing the children mentally, and likened it to tornado preparedness. It is a real danger, but the risk can be put in context.
By 7:20 AM (10:20 AM), they moved from the interview to talk on-the-scene about the families filing down into the “Pit.” They are throwing flowers into the ring, and then they file on up and out. The foundation of the Freedom Tower is beginning to be built though there seem to be a number of holdups.
Historically, I had gotten a wake-up call from my girlfriend Kathy Plamback. A few time zones ahead of me, like my friend Eli, she was already up and had seen the news. She called me and asked if any of my relatives worked in the Towers. She was talking to me on the phone when the towers collapsed.
9/11, 2008: Episode 7: Chaotic Interlude
6:33 AM: Daylight.
In 2001, the country was in a state of chaos. Planes were being forced to land as others were being held from takeoff.
The Secret Service was physically carrying Dick Cheney off for safekeeping in a White House bunker. Colin Powell, overseas at a breakfast in Lima with the President of Peru, abruptly asked his staff to “Go tell them we’re leaving.”
6:37 AM (9:37 AM Eastern): American Airlines Flight 77 hits the Pentagon.
In the present day, I am eating washed green seedless grapes from a colander. They serve as my breakfast. I want to finish eating a few of these, along with some bread, before heading out into the world.
I can hear the first birdsong of the morning at last. A long, sweet, full trill, almost like a musical gatling gun, followed by a rapid chirrup-chirrup-chirrup. Morning traffic is moving. A bus went by down California Street.
6:44 AM (9:44 AM Eastern): United Flight 93 is the last hijacked plane in the air. Crew are already dying. The plan to attack the hijackers is formed. Todd Beamer asks by 9:48 AM Eastern, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”
In 2001, the country was in a state of chaos. Planes were being forced to land as others were being held from takeoff.
The Secret Service was physically carrying Dick Cheney off for safekeeping in a White House bunker. Colin Powell, overseas at a breakfast in Lima with the President of Peru, abruptly asked his staff to “Go tell them we’re leaving.”
6:37 AM (9:37 AM Eastern): American Airlines Flight 77 hits the Pentagon.
In the present day, I am eating washed green seedless grapes from a colander. They serve as my breakfast. I want to finish eating a few of these, along with some bread, before heading out into the world.
I can hear the first birdsong of the morning at last. A long, sweet, full trill, almost like a musical gatling gun, followed by a rapid chirrup-chirrup-chirrup. Morning traffic is moving. A bus went by down California Street.
6:44 AM (9:44 AM Eastern): United Flight 93 is the last hijacked plane in the air. Crew are already dying. The plan to attack the hijackers is formed. Todd Beamer asks by 9:48 AM Eastern, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.”
9/11, 2008: Episode 6: Goat Story
5:51 AM: Bush gets to the elementary school. I go to shower.
6:07 AM: By 9:07 AM Eastern time, much has occurred. I have finished my shower in 2008. Yet at 9:02:54 AM Eastern, in 2001, the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, impacts 2 World Trade Center. Both the north and now the south towers are ablaze.
By 6:05 AM Pacific, 9:05 AM Eastern, as the President of the United States listens to the Goat Story, the most famous line of his Presidency is delivered to George W. Bush:
6:15 AM Pacific (9:15 AM Eastern): Airports are shutting down across the United States. Two more aircraft are still in the air hijacked. George Bush is finally finishing up listening to the Goat Story.
6:07 AM: By 9:07 AM Eastern time, much has occurred. I have finished my shower in 2008. Yet at 9:02:54 AM Eastern, in 2001, the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, impacts 2 World Trade Center. Both the north and now the south towers are ablaze.
By 6:05 AM Pacific, 9:05 AM Eastern, as the President of the United States listens to the Goat Story, the most famous line of his Presidency is delivered to George W. Bush:
“A second plane has hit the World Trade Center. America is under attack.”He continues to listen to the children’s story.
6:15 AM Pacific (9:15 AM Eastern): Airports are shutting down across the United States. Two more aircraft are still in the air hijacked. George Bush is finally finishing up listening to the Goat Story.
9/11, 2008: Episode 5: Early to Rise
Franklin Pham is already on a bus, heading to school at San Jose State University. The time is 5:40 AM Pacific.
NORAD was notified by the FAA something was amiss with American Airlines Flight 11. Nasty and Duff of the 102nd Air Fighter Wing are alerted and asked to scramble to intercept United Flight 175.
Meanwhile, Bush’s motorcade was en route to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota.
As he boarded his bus, over the mobile phone Franklin was glad someone else was here to go through the same process as he was facing. He kept cursing the box cutters. All it took was simple box cutters to accomplish all this. Yet he wants to use simple tools (possibly cameras) to start putting things back to right.
Me? I want to get a shower. Yet even as I typed this, the clock moved through 5:46:26 AM (8:476:26 AM Eastern), marking the precise moment of impact of American Airlines Flight 11 with the north side of 1 World Trade Center.
NORAD was notified by the FAA something was amiss with American Airlines Flight 11. Nasty and Duff of the 102nd Air Fighter Wing are alerted and asked to scramble to intercept United Flight 175.
Meanwhile, Bush’s motorcade was en route to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota.
As he boarded his bus, over the mobile phone Franklin was glad someone else was here to go through the same process as he was facing. He kept cursing the box cutters. All it took was simple box cutters to accomplish all this. Yet he wants to use simple tools (possibly cameras) to start putting things back to right.
Me? I want to get a shower. Yet even as I typed this, the clock moved through 5:46:26 AM (8:476:26 AM Eastern), marking the precise moment of impact of American Airlines Flight 11 with the north side of 1 World Trade Center.
9/11 2008: Episode 4: No Sleeping for a Disaster or a Friend’s Text Pages
I was just about to head to sleep when my 12-year old friend Eli sent me a text message to my Sprint Treo 650.
5:08 AM: “Hey heading to school.”
This is Pacific time. He’s two hours ahead of me. So he’s now heading out at 7:08 AM Central. He didn’t think to calculate this as 5:08 AM Pacific. He apologized, but... It’s alright.
In fact, it gave me reason to look at the historical timeline.
At 8:13:31 AM Eastern (5:13:31 AM Pacific), on September 11th, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 last communicated with Boston air traffic control. So at this point, there’s no rest for the wicked. The events of 9/11 would already be unfolding historically, 7 years ago this day.
At 8:20 AM, American Airlines Flight 11’s transponder stopped transmitting its IFF signal. That would have already been seven minutes ago. While Eli, my WoW friend Gourt was texting me about heading to school, I would have been distracted enough to have missed seven vital minutes.
At 8:26 AM, in 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 would already have turned 100 degrees and headed directly towards New York City. Even as I read the history and type these notes, I am struggling to avoid falling behind. It is 8:31 AM in the present day.
5:08 AM: “Hey heading to school.”
This is Pacific time. He’s two hours ahead of me. So he’s now heading out at 7:08 AM Central. He didn’t think to calculate this as 5:08 AM Pacific. He apologized, but... It’s alright.
In fact, it gave me reason to look at the historical timeline.
At 8:13:31 AM Eastern (5:13:31 AM Pacific), on September 11th, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 last communicated with Boston air traffic control. So at this point, there’s no rest for the wicked. The events of 9/11 would already be unfolding historically, 7 years ago this day.
At 8:20 AM, American Airlines Flight 11’s transponder stopped transmitting its IFF signal. That would have already been seven minutes ago. While Eli, my WoW friend Gourt was texting me about heading to school, I would have been distracted enough to have missed seven vital minutes.
At 8:26 AM, in 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 would already have turned 100 degrees and headed directly towards New York City. Even as I read the history and type these notes, I am struggling to avoid falling behind. It is 8:31 AM in the present day.
9/11, 2008: Episode 3: Darkest Before the Dawn
3:54 AM: Time for bed.Just got back from taking photographs of the quiet neighborhood. The sky overhead was orange-brown with illumination. Low, thick banks of clouds reflecting the streetlights from the Silicon Valley neighborhoods beneath. The pictures I took are ethereal.
In the few minutes before I go to sleep (I had hoped 4:00 AM Pacific time, 7:00 AM New York time), I came across an invitation to the 15th Anniversary party of a gay couple who will soon be celebrating their legal California marriage. I won’t be able to make it because I’ll be walking Out of the Darkness for suicide prevention that day. Yet I wish them the best.
It made me mindful of the accusations of degeneracy leveled at the United States by fundamentalist extremists of both the Christian religious right and Islamists. They may loathe each other theologically, yet they find each other allies in their mutual despite of homosexuality. Considering Islam permits multiple wives — a practical anathema to most American conservative Christians — one would hope their culture might be more understanding of recognizing and respecting unique cultural traditions and marriage customs. Lest others condemn their own practices in due turn.
Personally, I have studied enough cultures through history to be rather tolerant of whatever is seen as culturally acceptable, so long as everyone is being cared for interpersonally and societally, and no one is being abused in a relationship. In the past, Biblical kings kept hundreds of wives, and this was considered a “good thing.” Today, polygamists go to jail. Would they be permitted their religious beliefs, say, if they all were practicing Muslims? Overseas, yes. In the United States, “land of the free,” not so much.
There are many unorthodox marriages people manage and cope through on a day-to-day basis. Many familial structures work to some degree of functionality in real life, yet remain informal and unrecognized. Like gay marriage has been for a long while. Yet there have been “two dads and a mom,” or “two moms and a dad,” and similar non-traditional families for years and decades now. Divorce made the issue of "Dad #1 and Dad #2” more commonplace and, thus, familial relations became more convoluted.
Since the 1970s, the odds of having a step-mom or dad, and thus, step-siblings, has increasingly risen. Your birth mother and father may have split, and each may have gotten their own spouses. Some of them may even have gone through the divorce, remarriage, and children stage more than once. Others simply don’t even wait for marriage or divorce before they breed and give birth. Thus, the concept of what a “nuclear” family is these days is quite elastic.
So elastic that the thoughts of having multiple partners in a marriage would likely evoke a “so what?” from many people younger than 25 these days. Not that I am personally condoning or recommending such non-traditional family unions. For my own part, I believe it can be quite confusing and disconcerting for the adult partners in such a non-traditional relationship, never mind the stress and trauma caused to a child.
Yet the overall trend in Western society, and particularly in the United States, is towards a radically different definition of marriage than what is espoused by the most conservative of viewpoints. Demographics and majority consensus are just are not in step with their fierce declarations of “one man, one woman.” Especially as many teen mothers are finding “one woman, no man” to be typical, or even preferable.
4:53 AM: Done for now. Time for sleep. An hour later than before.I’m not sure why in particular my thoughts are revolving so much around marriage in regards to 9/11, other than the fact that I am still unmarried and would have wished that, if anything had changed since 9/11, it would have been to have established a happy little family. Since 9/11, I have gotten niece & nephews. My siblings are having children. Me? Not yet. Need more dates first.
I suppose I was also thinking about the proverbial “72 virgins in paradise” commonly referred to in regards to Islamic extremists. That definitely would be a non-traditional arrangement.
Tonight, as I wandered around in my thoughts, I came across the concrete-filled pipes that protect the utility meters for each of the apartments in my complex at 360 Chiquita. Something about the darkness of the night allowed my eyes to play tricks on me. Before I knew it, I had snapped my camera phone, and, to my eyes there was a reasonable facsimile of two towers, much like those standing in Manhattan 7 years ago.
Right now, it is darkest before the dawn. Let’s see what the new day brings.
9/11, 2008: Episode 2: My Letter to Lloyd LaCuesta
Hello Lloyd,
It was a true honor and a privilege to hear your voice on the other side of the line and realize — you were talking personally to me! You are a Bay Area hero and a local legend.
Here's the basics:
Your Mission for 9/11, 2008
Tomorrow, I would like us all, as interested and concerned citizens of the world, to photograph and record the world as it is now.
Wherever you are.
Whatever you are doing.
Smile.
Laugh.
Draw pictures.
Take photographs.
Take notes of the moment.
Celebrate the renewal of life.
Celebrate a new spirit of the day.
Cherish the moments and images.
Pray at 11:11 am and 11:11 pm.
Listen to the wind and the world around you.
Record your thoughts and feelings in words and images.
Consider how this day is different than the one seven years before.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when the Flowers in the Cracks can be found.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when we can engender Global Understanding.
- - - - - - -
The Day's Project: "Photos for Flowers in the Cracks"
• Flowers in the Cracks / Global Understanding - Take Pictures on September 11, 2008
Starting before dawn, I will get up and start photographing. I've also contacted Franklin Pham, the photographer and filmmaker. Along with a few others, we're presently convening in Books, Inc., to talk about the plans for tomorrow. An email has gone to others tonight around the country.
The letter above was sent today to Flowers in the Cracks and Global Understanding movement members, and to some of my friends, family, the Mountain View Voice, the San Jose Mercury News, and, of course, up to President Bush and VP Dick Cheney. I'll be very interested to see who responds and takes action!
Purpose
The entire purpose is to see how we can respond to "good news." It doesn't have the urgency or criticality of life-and-death as the 9/11 disaster. This 9/11 will be our life, captured in the moment. Can we rally to the same level of heroic contribution to our society? Can we turn the media's attention to how our lives have returned to normal? How flowers in the cracks have sprung back. How we have worked to heal the spirit of the country and the world. Where the cracks remain, and how some lives still struggle. Yet even those who struggle can smile if given a moment of reflection.
The purpose is to prove we can face terrorism, zealotry, polemics, sectarian misunderstandings and fear with nothing less than our good nature, our creativity, our good spirits, our prayers, our good humor, our enthusiasm to change the world, and our good graces. We can let the good news of the reality of today intrude on our busy, crowded American lives. We can also recognize and rise to the challenges we face on the days to come following this 9/11.
How to Get Involved
• Record your life tomorrow, 9/11 2008.
• Any Media: Photograph, Video, Audio, Draw, Paint, or Write Words
• Consider what has changed the most for you since 9/11 2001.
• Post your own photos on your own blogs or image sites (MySpace, MobileMe, Google, YouTube, etc.)
• Send an email to petercorless@mac.com
• Mark your email: "Photos for Flowers, 9/11 2008"
• Write a letter of your thoughts, and/or send a Web link of your results.
• If interested in volunteering for Flowers in the Cracks or the Global Understanding movement, please include the word "Volunteer!" in the subject.
• Enjoy your Freedom of Expression as guaranteed by the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Background & Additional Links
• Flowers in the Cracks - blog
• Global Understanding Institute - blog
• Global Understanding Institute - Web site
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights - United Nations
Thank you very much, Lloyd, for the call. Your voice on the other side of the phone alone made me walk on air. Tomorrow, if we get on the air, you'll see me flying to the sun!
Best wishes, Lloyd! Hope to talk to you more.
-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)
http://petercorless.blogspot.com
360 Chiquita Avenue #4
Mountain View, CA 94041
United States of America
Earth
7:31 PM: Update: Lloyd’s Reply!
Thanks Peter and good luck on the project
-lloyd-
Lloyd LaCuesta
South Bay Bureau Chief
KTVU TV
408-xxx-xxxx
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless
It was a true honor and a privilege to hear your voice on the other side of the line and realize — you were talking personally to me! You are a Bay Area hero and a local legend.
Here's the basics:
Your Mission for 9/11, 2008
Tomorrow, I would like us all, as interested and concerned citizens of the world, to photograph and record the world as it is now.
Wherever you are.
Whatever you are doing.
Smile.
Laugh.
Draw pictures.
Take photographs.
Take notes of the moment.
Celebrate the renewal of life.
Celebrate a new spirit of the day.
Cherish the moments and images.
Pray at 11:11 am and 11:11 pm.
Listen to the wind and the world around you.
Record your thoughts and feelings in words and images.
Consider how this day is different than the one seven years before.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when the Flowers in the Cracks can be found.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when we can engender Global Understanding.
- - - - - - -
The Day's Project: "Photos for Flowers in the Cracks"
• Flowers in the Cracks / Global Understanding - Take Pictures on September 11, 2008
Starting before dawn, I will get up and start photographing. I've also contacted Franklin Pham, the photographer and filmmaker. Along with a few others, we're presently convening in Books, Inc., to talk about the plans for tomorrow. An email has gone to others tonight around the country.
The letter above was sent today to Flowers in the Cracks and Global Understanding movement members, and to some of my friends, family, the Mountain View Voice, the San Jose Mercury News, and, of course, up to President Bush and VP Dick Cheney. I'll be very interested to see who responds and takes action!
Purpose
The entire purpose is to see how we can respond to "good news." It doesn't have the urgency or criticality of life-and-death as the 9/11 disaster. This 9/11 will be our life, captured in the moment. Can we rally to the same level of heroic contribution to our society? Can we turn the media's attention to how our lives have returned to normal? How flowers in the cracks have sprung back. How we have worked to heal the spirit of the country and the world. Where the cracks remain, and how some lives still struggle. Yet even those who struggle can smile if given a moment of reflection.
The purpose is to prove we can face terrorism, zealotry, polemics, sectarian misunderstandings and fear with nothing less than our good nature, our creativity, our good spirits, our prayers, our good humor, our enthusiasm to change the world, and our good graces. We can let the good news of the reality of today intrude on our busy, crowded American lives. We can also recognize and rise to the challenges we face on the days to come following this 9/11.
How to Get Involved
• Record your life tomorrow, 9/11 2008.
• Any Media: Photograph, Video, Audio, Draw, Paint, or Write Words
• Consider what has changed the most for you since 9/11 2001.
• Post your own photos on your own blogs or image sites (MySpace, MobileMe, Google, YouTube, etc.)
• Send an email to petercorless@mac.com
• Mark your email: "Photos for Flowers, 9/11 2008"
• Write a letter of your thoughts, and/or send a Web link of your results.
• If interested in volunteering for Flowers in the Cracks or the Global Understanding movement, please include the word "Volunteer!" in the subject.
• Enjoy your Freedom of Expression as guaranteed by the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Background & Additional Links
• Flowers in the Cracks - blog
• Global Understanding Institute - blog
• Global Understanding Institute - Web site
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights - United Nations
Thank you very much, Lloyd, for the call. Your voice on the other side of the phone alone made me walk on air. Tomorrow, if we get on the air, you'll see me flying to the sun!
Best wishes, Lloyd! Hope to talk to you more.
-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)
http://petercorless.blogspot.com
360 Chiquita Avenue #4
Mountain View, CA 94041
United States of America
Earth
7:31 PM: Update: Lloyd’s Reply!
Thanks Peter and good luck on the project
-lloyd-
Lloyd LaCuesta
South Bay Bureau Chief
KTVU TV
408-xxx-xxxx
Sent via BlackBerry from Cingular Wireless
9/11 2008: Episode 1: Sprint Customer Service, Lloyd LaCuesta, the Day Before and the Month Ahead
It is 9/11. 12:34 as I look up at my clock. Time will pass as I type this message.
Ideal
Starting at midnight, step outside my door, and take some pictures of the stars. Think about the meaning of the stars, fate versus human choice, the meditative and contemplative nature of night. Consider the inspiration it provides, as the Greeks felt inspired by Urania, or how Schiller’s Ode to Joy asked us to seek our Creator beyond the stars. Reflect how all of this relates to our present world in the post-9/11 era. Walk around the neighborhood. Maybe be a bit ludicrous, a la Philip K. Dick, and go get something at the local 7/11 that somehow resonated with 9/11. Even if it was just the daily newspaper.
Real
I was on the phone with Sprint Customer Service for well more than a half-hour because VersaMail on my Sprint Treo 650 was not working. I was trying to send an email from my phone to Lloyd LaCuesta of KTVU, Channel 2. In the end, I got my emails sent off. Yet I stayed on the phone with Sprint to get them to open a customer service ticket for a problem with the Sprint Treo 650 VersaMail, and also, to get them to correct their Sprint Customer Service (*2) interactive voice response (IVR) system. It was like pulling teeth tonight, but in the end, I got Ticket # 17816784-080911. As that long string of digits indicates, it was now 9/11, 2008.
Wow! Lloyd LaCuesta!
I contacted KTVU Channel 2 on the afternoon of 9/10. My call log shows the call went out at 4:21 pm. They took me sincerely and seriously. I told them what I was trying to accomplish. I spoke the names: Flowers in the Cracks. Global Understanding.
I was asked some questions. I responded. What do people need to do if they are interested? Take pictures. Put them up on their own blog. Or send them to me by email. Alright.
KTVU took down my thoughts and said they’d pass it on to the powers-that-be to see if they thought it newsworthy. I gave them my cell phone number to contact me back. It felt solid. Real.
Then I packed my gear to go to Castro Street in downtown Mountain View. I had to go deposit a check at Wells Fargo, and then meet Franklin Pham and Harshi Lanjewar at Books, Inc. Franklin had recovered my lost notebook, and also had a very ludicrous encounter with a religious zealot on campus at San Jose State University (SJSU). It was time to share news and celebrate the day’s successes, as well as to prepare for the next day: 9/11.
At 5:16 pm my phone rang. I was sitting in the local Wells Fargo branch on Castro Street, getting ready to deposit my check to help fund the future of the Global Understanding Institute. It was none other than Lloyd LaCuesta.
He was a great gentleman. He listened to my story for 9/11, and what we were planning for Flowers in the Cracks. The power of that call, and Lloyd’s softspoken voice, are a dichotomy and a truth. His gentle familiar voice was speaking to me. He wanted to know what people could do. If they took pictures of 9/11, what should they do with them?
Lloyd had to head towards the airport, so he asked me to send him an email for follow-up. Post them on their own sites. Send me email where their pictures were posted. I’ll paste a copy of my email to Lloyd here for everyone to see in just a bit.
I was struck with the fact that, the ideas and the perspective I had to commemorate 9/11 had been deemed “possibly newsworthy.” Had we made the news? Not yet. We were, or are, a candidate for news. A candidate idea to change the world.
1:07 AM: Still Typing, Reflecting on the Day Before, and the Month Ahead
This evening as I walked to Castro Street, I called my brother Eugene in New York. He is facing becoming a father for the second time. The new kid is expected around the end of the month. I reflected how all of my nieces and nephews were born in the post-9/11 period. We spoke about how I am looking forward to my Out of the Darkness suicide prevention walk, on September 27, 2008.
I told Eugene I’ll be walking in my Legio X Fretensis Roman reenactment gear. If people ask me why I am doing a suicide prevention walk in Roman reenactment gear, I’ll make a bit of a history lesson of it, comparing ancient Roman attitudes towards suicide to modern philosophies and ethics, such as the Christian attitude towards suicide.
Christians suffer to live through the sort of shameful acts Romans would have committed suicide over. Because Roman ethics were based in “death before dishonor,” people took thier life when they felt they could not recover from a personal blow, whether physical, emotional, psychological or economic, delivered by fate, chance, circumstances, or their political enemies.
Yet because Christianity is based in forgiveness, in the admission of our errors, in taking responsibility for mistakes, in healing broken relationships, suicide is not a social necessity. We are suffered to live so that we can redeem ourselves from our poor situation. We have a chance to redress grievances with others, or to redeem ourselves for our failings. A whole different perspective!
Not that I mentioned this to my brother today, yet I also want to draw attention to the issues of suicide-homicide. For that is truly what the 9/11 hijackers were. People who were so bent on killing others, they did not care if they killed themselves.
To truly solve the problems facing our world, we have to convince people to give up suicide-homicide. It is not only Islamic terrorists. There are entirely US-born-and-bred disturbed persons, such as the shooters and bombers at our schools, our businesses, our places of recreation, our government offices, and at our churches.
Yet I needed to get going and deposit my check in the bank. I actually orbited the front door of Wells Fargo a few times chatting with my brother. At last, I headed in. That’s when Lloyd called.
After speaking with Lloyd LaCuesta while sitting at Wells Fargo, I walked down Castro Street and talked with my friend Molly. She had a sort of up-and-down day, which ended pretty down. Yet she was happy to hear about my enthusiasm. Over the afternoon and evening I also touched base with my friends Eli and Lorelei. It seemed like a lot of people were buzzing around to chat. There was energy in the air. With my phone buzzing consistently, I felt like a communications hub.
Getting into Books, Inc., I began a conversation with a brand new friend, Purima. We talked about our mutual stints at Clean Water Action, our hopes to join Environment California (one of the initiatives of the ever-pervasive CALPIRG) and, more generally, environmentalism and fund raising. Interestingly, there was a teller at Wells Fargo who had worked for Environment California a few years ago. We shared smiles and that spiritual, smiling “right on” of people who want to see the same cause succeed. Purima is the same way. Young, enthusiastic, and idealistic for our world.
Over the course of the evening, Purima was brought into the American Dream circle of Franklin and Harshi and I. As I typed up my ASAP email to Lloyd LaCuesta, I did very poorly at eating my dinner before it got cold. Franklin and Harshi meanwhile helped Purima solve a computer virus problem she had with her PC, and recovered vital files of her artwork.
She was interested in Franklin’s movie, and what we were doing for 9/11. I gave her a Global Understanding movement poster, and had her sign my atlas. She is from Chennai, India.
After a bit, I went to hear the author Aaron Greenspan read from his book Authoritas. He spoke about his education at Harvard and the controversy surrounding the foundation of Facebook. I asked a few questions after the signing. One of them was about the difference between the varnished truth of a friend of his, telling a fictional account of those days at Harvard, versus his work of non-fiction covering mostly he same events. He also talked about the issues of hype surrounding Facebook, when in reality, the economics showed the company was still losing money. A claim which may be hard to prove, given Facebook’s private corporation status.
I compared Aaron’s observations and situation to my recent essay on the Platonists, who preferred the unvarnished truth, versus the Sophists, who liked to polish the truth a bit. I asked who was likely to win. Aaron smiled and laughed, and said that the issue likely would not be objectively resolved in this century.
He signed a copy of his hardcover for me: “We’ll see if the Sophists win, but for now, hopefully they’ll have an interesting book to read. Thanks for coming! Aaron.”
When I returned, Purima and I spoke more, and worked together to launch a very basic, very simple website for Sardines Ristorante Italiano, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Nightly Jazz!) Sean at GoDaddy.com Tech Support was a gentleman as he walked us through a few hiccups in getting the site off the ground. Once we got underway, I was glad to show her how to get things done on the web “Old School!” Hand-cranking HTML made the evening feel very 1993 all over again.
We both committed to working together over the coming weeks to get it in better shape. CSS and all that. I’ll aid developing her web knowledge and graphics career. In return, she’s voluntarily committed herself into the ranks of Global Understanding. Quid pro quo, and extended reciprocity. Social dynamics in action!
2:06 AM: Time for a walk.
Sprint is taken care of. This essay is written. I’ll post the letter I sent to Lloyd LaCuesta explaining more what we are doing, and then go for that walk. Time to return to the ideals I had in mind for the day. Time to go reflect under the stars.
Ideal
Starting at midnight, step outside my door, and take some pictures of the stars. Think about the meaning of the stars, fate versus human choice, the meditative and contemplative nature of night. Consider the inspiration it provides, as the Greeks felt inspired by Urania, or how Schiller’s Ode to Joy asked us to seek our Creator beyond the stars. Reflect how all of this relates to our present world in the post-9/11 era. Walk around the neighborhood. Maybe be a bit ludicrous, a la Philip K. Dick, and go get something at the local 7/11 that somehow resonated with 9/11. Even if it was just the daily newspaper.
Real
I was on the phone with Sprint Customer Service for well more than a half-hour because VersaMail on my Sprint Treo 650 was not working. I was trying to send an email from my phone to Lloyd LaCuesta of KTVU, Channel 2. In the end, I got my emails sent off. Yet I stayed on the phone with Sprint to get them to open a customer service ticket for a problem with the Sprint Treo 650 VersaMail, and also, to get them to correct their Sprint Customer Service (*2) interactive voice response (IVR) system. It was like pulling teeth tonight, but in the end, I got Ticket # 17816784-080911. As that long string of digits indicates, it was now 9/11, 2008.
Wow! Lloyd LaCuesta!
I contacted KTVU Channel 2 on the afternoon of 9/10. My call log shows the call went out at 4:21 pm. They took me sincerely and seriously. I told them what I was trying to accomplish. I spoke the names: Flowers in the Cracks. Global Understanding.
I was asked some questions. I responded. What do people need to do if they are interested? Take pictures. Put them up on their own blog. Or send them to me by email. Alright.
KTVU took down my thoughts and said they’d pass it on to the powers-that-be to see if they thought it newsworthy. I gave them my cell phone number to contact me back. It felt solid. Real.
Then I packed my gear to go to Castro Street in downtown Mountain View. I had to go deposit a check at Wells Fargo, and then meet Franklin Pham and Harshi Lanjewar at Books, Inc. Franklin had recovered my lost notebook, and also had a very ludicrous encounter with a religious zealot on campus at San Jose State University (SJSU). It was time to share news and celebrate the day’s successes, as well as to prepare for the next day: 9/11.
At 5:16 pm my phone rang. I was sitting in the local Wells Fargo branch on Castro Street, getting ready to deposit my check to help fund the future of the Global Understanding Institute. It was none other than Lloyd LaCuesta.
He was a great gentleman. He listened to my story for 9/11, and what we were planning for Flowers in the Cracks. The power of that call, and Lloyd’s softspoken voice, are a dichotomy and a truth. His gentle familiar voice was speaking to me. He wanted to know what people could do. If they took pictures of 9/11, what should they do with them?
Lloyd had to head towards the airport, so he asked me to send him an email for follow-up. Post them on their own sites. Send me email where their pictures were posted. I’ll paste a copy of my email to Lloyd here for everyone to see in just a bit.
I was struck with the fact that, the ideas and the perspective I had to commemorate 9/11 had been deemed “possibly newsworthy.” Had we made the news? Not yet. We were, or are, a candidate for news. A candidate idea to change the world.
1:07 AM: Still Typing, Reflecting on the Day Before, and the Month Ahead
This evening as I walked to Castro Street, I called my brother Eugene in New York. He is facing becoming a father for the second time. The new kid is expected around the end of the month. I reflected how all of my nieces and nephews were born in the post-9/11 period. We spoke about how I am looking forward to my Out of the Darkness suicide prevention walk, on September 27, 2008.
I told Eugene I’ll be walking in my Legio X Fretensis Roman reenactment gear. If people ask me why I am doing a suicide prevention walk in Roman reenactment gear, I’ll make a bit of a history lesson of it, comparing ancient Roman attitudes towards suicide to modern philosophies and ethics, such as the Christian attitude towards suicide.
Christians suffer to live through the sort of shameful acts Romans would have committed suicide over. Because Roman ethics were based in “death before dishonor,” people took thier life when they felt they could not recover from a personal blow, whether physical, emotional, psychological or economic, delivered by fate, chance, circumstances, or their political enemies.
Yet because Christianity is based in forgiveness, in the admission of our errors, in taking responsibility for mistakes, in healing broken relationships, suicide is not a social necessity. We are suffered to live so that we can redeem ourselves from our poor situation. We have a chance to redress grievances with others, or to redeem ourselves for our failings. A whole different perspective!
Not that I mentioned this to my brother today, yet I also want to draw attention to the issues of suicide-homicide. For that is truly what the 9/11 hijackers were. People who were so bent on killing others, they did not care if they killed themselves.
To truly solve the problems facing our world, we have to convince people to give up suicide-homicide. It is not only Islamic terrorists. There are entirely US-born-and-bred disturbed persons, such as the shooters and bombers at our schools, our businesses, our places of recreation, our government offices, and at our churches.
Yet I needed to get going and deposit my check in the bank. I actually orbited the front door of Wells Fargo a few times chatting with my brother. At last, I headed in. That’s when Lloyd called.
After speaking with Lloyd LaCuesta while sitting at Wells Fargo, I walked down Castro Street and talked with my friend Molly. She had a sort of up-and-down day, which ended pretty down. Yet she was happy to hear about my enthusiasm. Over the afternoon and evening I also touched base with my friends Eli and Lorelei. It seemed like a lot of people were buzzing around to chat. There was energy in the air. With my phone buzzing consistently, I felt like a communications hub.
Getting into Books, Inc., I began a conversation with a brand new friend, Purima. We talked about our mutual stints at Clean Water Action, our hopes to join Environment California (one of the initiatives of the ever-pervasive CALPIRG) and, more generally, environmentalism and fund raising. Interestingly, there was a teller at Wells Fargo who had worked for Environment California a few years ago. We shared smiles and that spiritual, smiling “right on” of people who want to see the same cause succeed. Purima is the same way. Young, enthusiastic, and idealistic for our world.
Over the course of the evening, Purima was brought into the American Dream circle of Franklin and Harshi and I. As I typed up my ASAP email to Lloyd LaCuesta, I did very poorly at eating my dinner before it got cold. Franklin and Harshi meanwhile helped Purima solve a computer virus problem she had with her PC, and recovered vital files of her artwork.
She was interested in Franklin’s movie, and what we were doing for 9/11. I gave her a Global Understanding movement poster, and had her sign my atlas. She is from Chennai, India.
After a bit, I went to hear the author Aaron Greenspan read from his book Authoritas. He spoke about his education at Harvard and the controversy surrounding the foundation of Facebook. I asked a few questions after the signing. One of them was about the difference between the varnished truth of a friend of his, telling a fictional account of those days at Harvard, versus his work of non-fiction covering mostly he same events. He also talked about the issues of hype surrounding Facebook, when in reality, the economics showed the company was still losing money. A claim which may be hard to prove, given Facebook’s private corporation status.
I compared Aaron’s observations and situation to my recent essay on the Platonists, who preferred the unvarnished truth, versus the Sophists, who liked to polish the truth a bit. I asked who was likely to win. Aaron smiled and laughed, and said that the issue likely would not be objectively resolved in this century.
He signed a copy of his hardcover for me: “We’ll see if the Sophists win, but for now, hopefully they’ll have an interesting book to read. Thanks for coming! Aaron.”
When I returned, Purima and I spoke more, and worked together to launch a very basic, very simple website for Sardines Ristorante Italiano, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Nightly Jazz!) Sean at GoDaddy.com Tech Support was a gentleman as he walked us through a few hiccups in getting the site off the ground. Once we got underway, I was glad to show her how to get things done on the web “Old School!” Hand-cranking HTML made the evening feel very 1993 all over again.
We both committed to working together over the coming weeks to get it in better shape. CSS and all that. I’ll aid developing her web knowledge and graphics career. In return, she’s voluntarily committed herself into the ranks of Global Understanding. Quid pro quo, and extended reciprocity. Social dynamics in action!
2:06 AM: Time for a walk.
Sprint is taken care of. This essay is written. I’ll post the letter I sent to Lloyd LaCuesta explaining more what we are doing, and then go for that walk. Time to return to the ideals I had in mind for the day. Time to go reflect under the stars.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Flowers in the Cracks / Global Understanding - Take Pictures on September 11, 2008
Peace be unto you all!
Your Mission for 9/11, 2008
Tomorrow, I would like us all, as interested and concerned citizens of the world, to photograph and record the world as it is now.
Wherever you are.
Whatever you are doing.
Smile.
Laugh.
Draw pictures.
Take photographs.
Take notes of the moment.
Celebrate the renewal of life.
Celebrate a new spirit of the day.
Cherish the moments and images.
Pray at 11:11 am and 11:11 pm.
Listen to the wind and the world around you.
Record your thoughts and feelings in words and images.
Consider how this day is different than the one seven years before.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when the Flowers in the Cracks can be found.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when we can engender Global Understanding.
My thoughts on this September 11th
My proposition is to change history.
To restore history.
To make history.
Tomorrow is September 11th, 2008. It is the 7th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. There are children, like my niece and my nephews, and the twins of my long-time friend from college, and so many children, who have grown up in a world wherein an aura of suspicion and doubt of our world cloud the air much thicker and even more noxiously than the fireballs, plumes of smoke, and whirling asbestos-laden particulates that obscured the air of downtown Manhattan on that fateful morning.
Yet the children are joyful. Innocent. Happy. Playful. It is not they who stress over the world so much as the parents, bombarded as they are with patriotic or sectarian propaganda, real-time news, and real-life worries and stress from all sides.
How can we ensure, to the best of our ability, that such children’s simple joys last through their lifetimes, even as the hammers of strife, conflict, crisis and all-too-human cynicism try to darken their lives? How can we ease the stress felt in the hearts of those struck through by the trauma of the current world conflicts and crises?
My hope is by celebrating our Flowers in the Cracks, and by fostering Global Understanding.
This weekend, on Saturday, the 6th of September 2008, Franklin Pham led and directed the first scene’s shooting for his first film, The American Dream on the campus of San Jose State University (SJSU). It is a movie tied to the theme of what is real, and what is a dream. It is a movie tied to the legacy of 9/11. Franklin is both part of Flowers in the Cracks and the Global Understanding movement. His movie is an homage to the lives of those who died, and to those who suffered and still suffer. His movie is a balm offered to our world in pain, and expresses his commitment to and vision for natural ethical principles.
What is the dream we each hold in our hearts? How can we turn those dreams into something more real, more profound and happy than the harsh and cynical reality we each face when we look at the world around us? What is true, when we look into the mirror of our souls? I was utterly pleased and happy to help Franklin make his own dream — of being a filmmaker — become a truth, and a new reality. For one day, we shed cynicism to engender joy. We fought against a world of terror and tragedy by sharing our hearts, our minds, our laughter, our smiles and by making new friends.
This week and last, all sorts of ludicrous reality has been occurring around me. Movies and television series I am helping to make. Romantic smooches and chaste amor! An online game in the theorizing. Owls and starlight. The befriending of a homeless man. Helping a family in need. Having people I have just met devote their trust to me and call me “brother.” Working with clergy and business people. Seeing my heroes in real life, like Greg Mortenson, who wrote Three Cups of Tea, at the University of San Francisco. Tales of chivalry and romance. Tales of magic and miracles. Huzzah! is in the air. The Green Knight is back in the saddle.
As many of you know, I ran Green Knight Publishing 1998 - 2005. I let it lapse for a while there. Perhaps it is time to rebirth that business and domain name, and raise the shield and lance once again. To tilt at the windmills of our minds and hearts. For the past few years, though, I have wandered in my own Wasteland. I needed a break from Silicon Valley life. I needed my own time in the wilderness.
Beginning on Epiphany, in the year 2006, I began a few new quests in my life. The first was Flowers in the Cracks (flowersinthecracks.blogspot.com), which I began along with Ilona Leiberman. It is an artistic movement. The second began with the 2006 project Razumijen, which has expanded and resulted this year, in 2008, with the launch of the Global Understanding Institute (globalunderstandinginstitute.org, globalunderstandinginstitute.blogspot.com). The movement was begun around the same time as I was preparing my work on Razumijen by Karl D. John: Valentine's Day 2006. This year, we are taking it to the higher level, with plans to incorporate it as a non-profit in California, and hopefully, to spur a worldwide evolution.
Ironically, as I was typing this, I got an automated call from the director at Greenpeace. His welcome voice asked for my feedback. I think I will call him back. I'd like to speak to him personally. Then, shortly thereafter, still typing this, I got a call for a free home security system worth hundreds of dollars — if only I’d put a sign up in my front lawn. Now, if only I owned a lawn!
Then, the third call I got was from my friend Eli, who I played World of Warcraft with earlier this year. After I left the game, and the World of Warcraft, he remains a friend. Long after the peace breaks out, friends still remember you. He also told me about the death of his grandmother, about his relationship with his mother, and about the crush he has on a girl named Elizabeth. Eli is 13 years old. He's a great kid.
Finally, I got a call from Franklin Pham and Harshi, who are heading up to celebrate the end of the day at the local book shop, Books, Inc. on Castro Street in Mountain View. Franklin Pham is the writer, director and producer of The American Dream, a movie presently in production in San Jose and Mountain View, California. Harshi is the lead actor. Franklin found my lost wayward notebook. Huzzah! He's on his way right now to deliver it to me. Harshi and Franklin both laughed at how a huge crowd of people at San Jose State University shouted down a religious zealot on campus who was trying to pontificate and accuse everyone around them of being a sinner.
God, if you believe in him, is the world’s most ironic comedic director. Whoever is directing this day has just given me a number of thematic messages:
• Let's work together to create sustainable and secure environments.
• Let's remember our friends long before, and long after, any wars die down.
• Let's collectively try to ameliorate the pains and sufferings of the world.
• Let's keep in touch with our friends and our families.
• Let's make new friends and families too!
• Let's try to minimize religious and political intolerance in the world.
• Let's face even the most difficult of crises and conflicts with truth, trust, laughter and good spirits.
• Let's create and live out our dreams.
• Let's celebrate together.
One day, I will have that green lawn, and then, I can get the free security system. Or possibly not. I might feel secure enough just to have the lawn. I might be happy to let other people have their lawns, and for me to simply keep a few flowers alive in my apartment.
Why 11:11 on 9/11?
There are two special moments I wish to focus on tomorrow. Morning and evening. 11:11 AM and 11:11 PM. I wish these both to be moments of prayer and peace.
Between 9/11 and 11/11, we have two months to work towards armistice in the world. For it was on November 11, 1918, at 11:11 am when the guns were “All Quiet on the Western Front.” That was the day and the precise moment of Armistice.
Armistice Season
Beyond that, I wish to call for the establishment of a new ”Armistice season”:
The children of the world can learn many things this season, and in seasons to come. How to live in peace. How to ethically and morally consider the natural results of war. For the ends of peace are prosperity and creativity, while the ends of war are death and destruction. Prosperity or death. Butter or guns. A benefit or a peril for us all. For mothers and children, as well as for husbands and fathers. For widows and widowers. For those who are alone and without love and family in their lives. We can make choices when there is peace. We can consider what we wish to do about our world. Perhaps talk to our enemies. Perhaps find ways to make peace last more than 60 days. Or 60 years.
Between 9/11 and 11/11, we have two full months to engender a movement for Armistice in the world. This 11/11 will be the 90th Anniversary of the end of the First World War. The War to End All Wars. The Great War.
It will be the 89th Anniversary of the first Armistice Day, which Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11, 1919. Veteran’s Day is a United States specific holiday. Ironically, the movement to change the day to Veteran’s Day was begun by Al King, who in 1953 wrote to his Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the day for veterans of all wars, not just World War One. On May 26, 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower signed that into law.
As we all know, the armistice was surely temporary. It did not last. Humans find ways to come into conflict, to create crises where none existed the day before. There are no dearth of excuses to rain death.
The lasting legacy of the First World War was Armistice Day. The day where many around the world wear the poppy. In Europe, they are blood red, symbolizing the extreme deaths of an entire generation of young men and women sacrificed for nationalist patriotism and the enrichment of the few for the impoverishment of many.
Armistice Day, spiritually, is not the same at all as "Veteran’s Day." This is a modern redefinition of 11/11, born out of the post-World War II and Vietnam era Cold War legacies of patriotism. Yet to truncate the day to simply "Veterans" ignores the civilian price paid during the wars of the world. It limits the definition of acts of heroism to only those that wear a uniform. We know the truth to be broader and more universal than that.
Therefore, I ask for us to consider tomorrow a special day. The opening of a two-month window into the world to celebrate the renewal of peace. For this is what Armistice means. The season of the Grail Quest wherein war and strife give way to healing. The healing of the land. The repair of our buildings and our relationships. The healing of our hearts. The transformation of our world.
Human Rights Month
Between November 11th (11/11) and December 10th (12/10), I also call for the establishment of Human Rights Month. This is to celebrate, on December 10th, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is fitting for us to move from a period of honoring truce and peace, to then recognizing the human rights we should enjoy during the establishment of that peace.
This December 10th will be the 60th Anniversary of the passage of this historic document. It was inspired and written in great measure by the mind and heart of Eleanor Roosevelt and her colleagues at the nascent United Nations. Google it. Right now. Read it.
These are your rights. These are the rights of every person on Earth. We should take a month each year to measure ourselves on how we are doing in regards to guaranteeing these rights. And if we are failing as a global society, this should be a time to recommit to these ideals, and fix any problems we know we can. We can work to garnering the interest, concern, and requisite approvals and funding for the redress of any grievances. We can change our world for the betterment of all.
Thank You
If you have read this far, you have my thanks. Many others would have said, "Yeah, whatever," and hit delete or turned the page or the channel. Now consider your commitment to the ideals I have put forth. Consider your specific objections and differences of view. I am calling for your commitment and your own life energies to see my vision of the future become reality. Imagine I do get hit by the bus. Imagine, even if I survive, I cannot change the world alone. Help me. Carry on this vision to the world.
Talk to everyone you think can help. Artists. Children. Teachers. Parents. Neighbors. Friends. Your lover. Family. Your congressperson or boss. The ice cream man. Your clergy.
In advance, you have my thanks. Let's make tomorrow different than every other September 11th, before, or since!
My best to Eli and Elizabeth, and to you all!
Onwards to adventure!
-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)
petercorless.blogspot.com
Copyleft 2008 Peter Corless "It's Okay to Distribute, As Long as You Attribute!"
Your Mission for 9/11, 2008
Tomorrow, I would like us all, as interested and concerned citizens of the world, to photograph and record the world as it is now.
Wherever you are.
Whatever you are doing.
Smile.
Laugh.
Draw pictures.
Take photographs.
Take notes of the moment.
Celebrate the renewal of life.
Celebrate a new spirit of the day.
Cherish the moments and images.
Pray at 11:11 am and 11:11 pm.
Listen to the wind and the world around you.
Record your thoughts and feelings in words and images.
Consider how this day is different than the one seven years before.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when the Flowers in the Cracks can be found.
Reinvent 9/11 as a day when we can engender Global Understanding.
My thoughts on this September 11th
My proposition is to change history.
To restore history.
To make history.
Tomorrow is September 11th, 2008. It is the 7th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. There are children, like my niece and my nephews, and the twins of my long-time friend from college, and so many children, who have grown up in a world wherein an aura of suspicion and doubt of our world cloud the air much thicker and even more noxiously than the fireballs, plumes of smoke, and whirling asbestos-laden particulates that obscured the air of downtown Manhattan on that fateful morning.
Yet the children are joyful. Innocent. Happy. Playful. It is not they who stress over the world so much as the parents, bombarded as they are with patriotic or sectarian propaganda, real-time news, and real-life worries and stress from all sides.
How can we ensure, to the best of our ability, that such children’s simple joys last through their lifetimes, even as the hammers of strife, conflict, crisis and all-too-human cynicism try to darken their lives? How can we ease the stress felt in the hearts of those struck through by the trauma of the current world conflicts and crises?
My hope is by celebrating our Flowers in the Cracks, and by fostering Global Understanding.
This weekend, on Saturday, the 6th of September 2008, Franklin Pham led and directed the first scene’s shooting for his first film, The American Dream on the campus of San Jose State University (SJSU). It is a movie tied to the theme of what is real, and what is a dream. It is a movie tied to the legacy of 9/11. Franklin is both part of Flowers in the Cracks and the Global Understanding movement. His movie is an homage to the lives of those who died, and to those who suffered and still suffer. His movie is a balm offered to our world in pain, and expresses his commitment to and vision for natural ethical principles.
What is the dream we each hold in our hearts? How can we turn those dreams into something more real, more profound and happy than the harsh and cynical reality we each face when we look at the world around us? What is true, when we look into the mirror of our souls? I was utterly pleased and happy to help Franklin make his own dream — of being a filmmaker — become a truth, and a new reality. For one day, we shed cynicism to engender joy. We fought against a world of terror and tragedy by sharing our hearts, our minds, our laughter, our smiles and by making new friends.
This week and last, all sorts of ludicrous reality has been occurring around me. Movies and television series I am helping to make. Romantic smooches and chaste amor! An online game in the theorizing. Owls and starlight. The befriending of a homeless man. Helping a family in need. Having people I have just met devote their trust to me and call me “brother.” Working with clergy and business people. Seeing my heroes in real life, like Greg Mortenson, who wrote Three Cups of Tea, at the University of San Francisco. Tales of chivalry and romance. Tales of magic and miracles. Huzzah! is in the air. The Green Knight is back in the saddle.
As many of you know, I ran Green Knight Publishing 1998 - 2005. I let it lapse for a while there. Perhaps it is time to rebirth that business and domain name, and raise the shield and lance once again. To tilt at the windmills of our minds and hearts. For the past few years, though, I have wandered in my own Wasteland. I needed a break from Silicon Valley life. I needed my own time in the wilderness.
Beginning on Epiphany, in the year 2006, I began a few new quests in my life. The first was Flowers in the Cracks (flowersinthecracks.blogspot.com), which I began along with Ilona Leiberman. It is an artistic movement. The second began with the 2006 project Razumijen, which has expanded and resulted this year, in 2008, with the launch of the Global Understanding Institute (globalunderstandinginstitute.org, globalunderstandinginstitute.blogspot.com). The movement was begun around the same time as I was preparing my work on Razumijen by Karl D. John: Valentine's Day 2006. This year, we are taking it to the higher level, with plans to incorporate it as a non-profit in California, and hopefully, to spur a worldwide evolution.
Ironically, as I was typing this, I got an automated call from the director at Greenpeace. His welcome voice asked for my feedback. I think I will call him back. I'd like to speak to him personally. Then, shortly thereafter, still typing this, I got a call for a free home security system worth hundreds of dollars — if only I’d put a sign up in my front lawn. Now, if only I owned a lawn!
Then, the third call I got was from my friend Eli, who I played World of Warcraft with earlier this year. After I left the game, and the World of Warcraft, he remains a friend. Long after the peace breaks out, friends still remember you. He also told me about the death of his grandmother, about his relationship with his mother, and about the crush he has on a girl named Elizabeth. Eli is 13 years old. He's a great kid.
Finally, I got a call from Franklin Pham and Harshi, who are heading up to celebrate the end of the day at the local book shop, Books, Inc. on Castro Street in Mountain View. Franklin Pham is the writer, director and producer of The American Dream, a movie presently in production in San Jose and Mountain View, California. Harshi is the lead actor. Franklin found my lost wayward notebook. Huzzah! He's on his way right now to deliver it to me. Harshi and Franklin both laughed at how a huge crowd of people at San Jose State University shouted down a religious zealot on campus who was trying to pontificate and accuse everyone around them of being a sinner.
God, if you believe in him, is the world’s most ironic comedic director. Whoever is directing this day has just given me a number of thematic messages:
• Let's work together to create sustainable and secure environments.
• Let's remember our friends long before, and long after, any wars die down.
• Let's collectively try to ameliorate the pains and sufferings of the world.
• Let's keep in touch with our friends and our families.
• Let's make new friends and families too!
• Let's try to minimize religious and political intolerance in the world.
• Let's face even the most difficult of crises and conflicts with truth, trust, laughter and good spirits.
• Let's create and live out our dreams.
• Let's celebrate together.
One day, I will have that green lawn, and then, I can get the free security system. Or possibly not. I might feel secure enough just to have the lawn. I might be happy to let other people have their lawns, and for me to simply keep a few flowers alive in my apartment.
Why 11:11 on 9/11?
There are two special moments I wish to focus on tomorrow. Morning and evening. 11:11 AM and 11:11 PM. I wish these both to be moments of prayer and peace.
Between 9/11 and 11/11, we have two months to work towards armistice in the world. For it was on November 11, 1918, at 11:11 am when the guns were “All Quiet on the Western Front.” That was the day and the precise moment of Armistice.
Armistice: temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement between the opponents : truce.I wish to establish a new tradition:
http://www.Merriam-Webser.com/dictionary/armistice
Each day, at 11:11 am, we may pray for thanksgiving for the armistices we have found in the past. The making of truce, and establishing of peace between enemies. At 11:11 pm, before we go to bed, we can pray for peace in our world tomorrow.Rather than just a “Veteran’s Day”” we can remember our current active duty servicemen and women, and our veterans twice a day. We can pray for those who established the truces of the past, and pray for the success and well-being of those diligently trying to preserve the peace in the present and future.
Armistice Season
Beyond that, I wish to call for the establishment of a new ”Armistice season”:
9/11 - 11/11 = Armistice Season - A time between 9/11 and 11/11 when the interested and concerned citizens of the world would pray, talk, meet, learn and work for the end of war in the world.A time for truce. It is entirely natural. Historically, wars tended to peter out around this time of year in the northern hemisphere. People abandoned armies to go gather food for the winter. Harvest season. School season. It is a time when plowing, reaping and sowing is required for us to eat our harvests. It is a time when children should be returning to school, educating themselves about their world. It is a time for reflection on the fading of the final flowers of the year. When we could reflect on death in nature by the falling of the leaves. When we could celebrate the last of the migrating birds winging north, and the last green before the snows of winter fell.
The children of the world can learn many things this season, and in seasons to come. How to live in peace. How to ethically and morally consider the natural results of war. For the ends of peace are prosperity and creativity, while the ends of war are death and destruction. Prosperity or death. Butter or guns. A benefit or a peril for us all. For mothers and children, as well as for husbands and fathers. For widows and widowers. For those who are alone and without love and family in their lives. We can make choices when there is peace. We can consider what we wish to do about our world. Perhaps talk to our enemies. Perhaps find ways to make peace last more than 60 days. Or 60 years.
Between 9/11 and 11/11, we have two full months to engender a movement for Armistice in the world. This 11/11 will be the 90th Anniversary of the end of the First World War. The War to End All Wars. The Great War.
It will be the 89th Anniversary of the first Armistice Day, which Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11, 1919. Veteran’s Day is a United States specific holiday. Ironically, the movement to change the day to Veteran’s Day was begun by Al King, who in 1953 wrote to his Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the day for veterans of all wars, not just World War One. On May 26, 1954, Dwight D. Eisenhower signed that into law.
As we all know, the armistice was surely temporary. It did not last. Humans find ways to come into conflict, to create crises where none existed the day before. There are no dearth of excuses to rain death.
The lasting legacy of the First World War was Armistice Day. The day where many around the world wear the poppy. In Europe, they are blood red, symbolizing the extreme deaths of an entire generation of young men and women sacrificed for nationalist patriotism and the enrichment of the few for the impoverishment of many.
Armistice Day, spiritually, is not the same at all as "Veteran’s Day." This is a modern redefinition of 11/11, born out of the post-World War II and Vietnam era Cold War legacies of patriotism. Yet to truncate the day to simply "Veterans" ignores the civilian price paid during the wars of the world. It limits the definition of acts of heroism to only those that wear a uniform. We know the truth to be broader and more universal than that.
Therefore, I ask for us to consider tomorrow a special day. The opening of a two-month window into the world to celebrate the renewal of peace. For this is what Armistice means. The season of the Grail Quest wherein war and strife give way to healing. The healing of the land. The repair of our buildings and our relationships. The healing of our hearts. The transformation of our world.
Human Rights Month
Between November 11th (11/11) and December 10th (12/10), I also call for the establishment of Human Rights Month. This is to celebrate, on December 10th, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is fitting for us to move from a period of honoring truce and peace, to then recognizing the human rights we should enjoy during the establishment of that peace.
This December 10th will be the 60th Anniversary of the passage of this historic document. It was inspired and written in great measure by the mind and heart of Eleanor Roosevelt and her colleagues at the nascent United Nations. Google it. Right now. Read it.
These are your rights. These are the rights of every person on Earth. We should take a month each year to measure ourselves on how we are doing in regards to guaranteeing these rights. And if we are failing as a global society, this should be a time to recommit to these ideals, and fix any problems we know we can. We can work to garnering the interest, concern, and requisite approvals and funding for the redress of any grievances. We can change our world for the betterment of all.
Thank You
If you have read this far, you have my thanks. Many others would have said, "Yeah, whatever," and hit delete or turned the page or the channel. Now consider your commitment to the ideals I have put forth. Consider your specific objections and differences of view. I am calling for your commitment and your own life energies to see my vision of the future become reality. Imagine I do get hit by the bus. Imagine, even if I survive, I cannot change the world alone. Help me. Carry on this vision to the world.
Talk to everyone you think can help. Artists. Children. Teachers. Parents. Neighbors. Friends. Your lover. Family. Your congressperson or boss. The ice cream man. Your clergy.
In advance, you have my thanks. Let's make tomorrow different than every other September 11th, before, or since!
My best to Eli and Elizabeth, and to you all!
Onwards to adventure!
-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)
petercorless.blogspot.com
Copyleft 2008 Peter Corless "It's Okay to Distribute, As Long as You Attribute!"
More thoughts...
The following is a post reply to this article on Softpedia: Two Fanatic World of Warcraft Gamers Have Died Because Of WoW. In particular, I was struck by Comment #10 in the replies, which I shall quote here, in its entirety, spelling and grammatical errors, logical and ethical flaws intact:
Otherwise, you are free to not care.
The truth is that there are people who are a) not interested, and b) don't care about the well-being of themselves or others, in particular as it regards the effect of MMORPGs on psyches and lives.
We can encourage them to be interested or care, yet they are free not to, so long as their specific disinterest and dispassion does not through neglect or act harm others.
Why do I care? Because I am a game designer. I wish to help make the world a little more fun and encouraging for others. If even one person playing is not having any fun, the game has ended for that person. Death is the extreme way to end a person's fun in the world. I'd like for everyone to consider what it is we are doing to ourselves and each other, so we minimize such breaches.
why care about a idiot that can't hold his mouth shut about a wow gamer that have dies. ofc its sad, and i don't even like wow. but i will not start saying that i'm glad he died. but i'll tell you all one thing.If you are an interested and concerned citizen of the world who would want to prevent the death of a family member, a friend, your loved one, your next-door neighbor, or yourself, you might care.
wow, eq2, l2 and even Diablo1 and 2 have killed people. even counterstrike have. so, the fact that WOW kills isn't there. the fact that people get so inn to theyr "secound life" that they have to forget about RL to be the best online is around us.
try to understand.... people dies from everything, that MMO's takes 1 or 2 lifes each year is nothing compate to what um... lets say... compare to what bread do. or even water... water kills more people than anything else, coz water is in everything you eat. 99% of what you yea.
i'm sad that he died, but not to sad, coz we risk our life just living.
Otherwise, you are free to not care.
The truth is that there are people who are a) not interested, and b) don't care about the well-being of themselves or others, in particular as it regards the effect of MMORPGs on psyches and lives.
We can encourage them to be interested or care, yet they are free not to, so long as their specific disinterest and dispassion does not through neglect or act harm others.
Why do I care? Because I am a game designer. I wish to help make the world a little more fun and encouraging for others. If even one person playing is not having any fun, the game has ended for that person. Death is the extreme way to end a person's fun in the world. I'd like for everyone to consider what it is we are doing to ourselves and each other, so we minimize such breaches.
Whatever you reward...
This post is in reply to a forum posting on On-Line Gamers Anonymous, about the nature of the Addicting Design of WoW:
Liz,
You are hitting nails directly on the head here. These are some of the Rules of Game Design as I have come to know them:
1. Make it fun (Law of the obvious)
2. Whatever you reward you will get more of (jbash’s Law)
3. Be careful what you reward (jbash’s Corollary)
The sociological flaws here are in #2. The issue with WoW and so many other games is that they reward you for playing hour after hour. Rather than reward you for playing month after month.
Ironically, the time-intensive gaming leads to burn-out. Casual players drop WoW because they can't keep up with the Joneses. And even the top players burn out and end up at OLGANON.
What MMORPG designers need to learn is "pacing" and "tempo." You cannot sustain rockem-sockem action for too long or people begin to develop anti-social behaviors and maladaptions: PTSD, disassocations from real life, addictions.
There's nowhere near as many people who are this bad off from, say, playing golf. While some people get "addicted" to golf, the real-time limiting issues of tee-time, cost, geographic scope (the course itself , the distance between home, work and the course, and the distance between different courses) and, most especially, nature (time of day and weather) force players to pace their play. They'll continue to play as a healthy habit until old age. They'll likely put more money into it over the long term than WoW.
So why is Blizzard "forcing" players into an addictive playstyle and world?
Because, to be honest, they really didn't think about this when they began. Like many gamers they just wanted to make something "cool."
They never thought through the social impacts of a cool game from the beginning. They wanted "addictive" behavior from their inherent design, but never thought about long-term sustainability. Hence, the violated #3 above, by not being careful in how they designed their game for long-term sustainability.
Thus, WoW attracts many people, and then many people drop out. There is a burnout wave. Which only leaves the highly-addicted capable of sustaining play for those end-game features.
We see the same thing in surfing, where some people try it and never do it again. Others do it for a while then sell their gear. Only the very select top-end “surfing addicts” lose their jobs and take up surfing waves around the world. They lose themselves in their hobby. Yet the difference is that is, ideally, almost one of the healthiest habits on earth to pursue whereas the psychological damage done to an overly-addicted WoW player is far more severe.
Try to study the extreme sports markets -- those people looking for the Next Big Wave, or the Next Mountain Peak. See what is healthy and unhealthy between those sorts of "addicted" people. A mountain climber like Greg Mortenson can spend over 70 days attempting to climb K2 in 1993. Other teams to this day spend months away from family, neighborhoods and jobs to hit the tops of the most severe peaks and poles of the world. Real life-and-death experiences can occur. So far, no WoW raid required, as a pre-requisite of play, the on-hand presence of a real nurse or physician.
Yet there might be something about this which could be incorporated into the psychological-spiritual side of playing such games. How many guilds in MMORGs actually keep the equivalent of a "chaplain" or "human resources director" to talk to their players about their game play and addictions?
Perhaps something there might be sociologically adaptive.
Additionally, while we have a few people winning cash prizes from game play, the level of economic adaptivity for most games is minimal. The economic opportunity cost for playing WoW is incredible. It pays nothing, and it costs you the opportunity to interact with others in your family, your job, and your physical community.
While some WoW communities are the equivalent of primitive warrior societies, such as the immature groups of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys or the feral Lord of the Flies, or the maturely political Robin Hood’s Merry Men or Arthur’s Round Table, all these virtual societies come at a price of inattention to other communities and relationships in the real world.
Thus, the solution to this is to ensure that the needs of the game world do not equal or exceed the time requirements of reality. If a game is requiring 40-80 hours per week to “successfully” play, the game is broken. The only way a game would “work” at that level of commitment was if it was paying the equivalent of 1-2 full-time jobs, or was as satisfying as working 1-2 full-time volunteer commitments. In any regard, 80 hours is a “crunch-time” sort of schedule which is, over the long-term, unsustainable in any regard. Anything that is taking more than the amount of time that we ideally sleep in a week (8 x 7 = 56 hours/week) is too much.
What MMORPG designers need to design for is to enable people to have “sustainable” fun. Which is likely somewhere on the order of 1-2 hours per day, or 2-3 weekly blocks of 3-5 hours, or about 7-14 or 6-15 hours a week overall. A basic average of about 10.5 hours.
If you want to spend more time on your hobby than that, you could. If you want to spend less time on your hobby per week, you could. Some people might play for 5 hours a week at most — the equivalent of a long, leisurely golf game. Others might play for 20-40 hours a week. Yet in the 30-40 hours per week area, they really are pushing boundaries of lost opportunity costs for other elements of their life. Their leisure activity at that level of play begins to interfere with other possibilities.
At that level of commitment, the only way for it to be sustainable is if it provides some form of tangible or intangible credit or benefit to their lives. Such as either economic or educational.
My buddy at Cisco, jbash, taught me those two rules. I’ll clearly recall him saying those words: “Whatever you reward, you will get more of... Be careful what you reward.”
Cisco itself was not too careful about its reward system, or I would not have been laid off, along with about 10,000 of my closest friends in the year 2001. It is not only the virtual world which has a sort of “demographic bulemia” where we binge ourselves on attracting too many people too fast to a game world, or a workplace, or a metropolitan area, or an Olympic games, and then we need to shortly thereafter deal with the mess and aftermath of getting rid of the excess in a great disgorging of humanity. Some of the worst of these situations are called “layoffs,” “depressions” and “wars.”
Sustainable growth is required thinking for game companies to truly prosper and benefit their players over the long run. Blizzard should reconsider the fundamental of WoW, and redesign a lot of their game play from the ground up.
Or someone else should teach them a lesson in sustainable game play.
-Peter Corless.
Liz,
You are hitting nails directly on the head here. These are some of the Rules of Game Design as I have come to know them:
1. Make it fun (Law of the obvious)
2. Whatever you reward you will get more of (jbash’s Law)
3. Be careful what you reward (jbash’s Corollary)
The sociological flaws here are in #2. The issue with WoW and so many other games is that they reward you for playing hour after hour. Rather than reward you for playing month after month.
Ironically, the time-intensive gaming leads to burn-out. Casual players drop WoW because they can't keep up with the Joneses. And even the top players burn out and end up at OLGANON.
What MMORPG designers need to learn is "pacing" and "tempo." You cannot sustain rockem-sockem action for too long or people begin to develop anti-social behaviors and maladaptions: PTSD, disassocations from real life, addictions.
There's nowhere near as many people who are this bad off from, say, playing golf. While some people get "addicted" to golf, the real-time limiting issues of tee-time, cost, geographic scope (the course itself , the distance between home, work and the course, and the distance between different courses) and, most especially, nature (time of day and weather) force players to pace their play. They'll continue to play as a healthy habit until old age. They'll likely put more money into it over the long term than WoW.
So why is Blizzard "forcing" players into an addictive playstyle and world?
Because, to be honest, they really didn't think about this when they began. Like many gamers they just wanted to make something "cool."
They never thought through the social impacts of a cool game from the beginning. They wanted "addictive" behavior from their inherent design, but never thought about long-term sustainability. Hence, the violated #3 above, by not being careful in how they designed their game for long-term sustainability.
Thus, WoW attracts many people, and then many people drop out. There is a burnout wave. Which only leaves the highly-addicted capable of sustaining play for those end-game features.
We see the same thing in surfing, where some people try it and never do it again. Others do it for a while then sell their gear. Only the very select top-end “surfing addicts” lose their jobs and take up surfing waves around the world. They lose themselves in their hobby. Yet the difference is that is, ideally, almost one of the healthiest habits on earth to pursue whereas the psychological damage done to an overly-addicted WoW player is far more severe.
Try to study the extreme sports markets -- those people looking for the Next Big Wave, or the Next Mountain Peak. See what is healthy and unhealthy between those sorts of "addicted" people. A mountain climber like Greg Mortenson can spend over 70 days attempting to climb K2 in 1993. Other teams to this day spend months away from family, neighborhoods and jobs to hit the tops of the most severe peaks and poles of the world. Real life-and-death experiences can occur. So far, no WoW raid required, as a pre-requisite of play, the on-hand presence of a real nurse or physician.
Yet there might be something about this which could be incorporated into the psychological-spiritual side of playing such games. How many guilds in MMORGs actually keep the equivalent of a "chaplain" or "human resources director" to talk to their players about their game play and addictions?
Perhaps something there might be sociologically adaptive.
Additionally, while we have a few people winning cash prizes from game play, the level of economic adaptivity for most games is minimal. The economic opportunity cost for playing WoW is incredible. It pays nothing, and it costs you the opportunity to interact with others in your family, your job, and your physical community.
While some WoW communities are the equivalent of primitive warrior societies, such as the immature groups of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys or the feral Lord of the Flies, or the maturely political Robin Hood’s Merry Men or Arthur’s Round Table, all these virtual societies come at a price of inattention to other communities and relationships in the real world.
Thus, the solution to this is to ensure that the needs of the game world do not equal or exceed the time requirements of reality. If a game is requiring 40-80 hours per week to “successfully” play, the game is broken. The only way a game would “work” at that level of commitment was if it was paying the equivalent of 1-2 full-time jobs, or was as satisfying as working 1-2 full-time volunteer commitments. In any regard, 80 hours is a “crunch-time” sort of schedule which is, over the long-term, unsustainable in any regard. Anything that is taking more than the amount of time that we ideally sleep in a week (8 x 7 = 56 hours/week) is too much.
What MMORPG designers need to design for is to enable people to have “sustainable” fun. Which is likely somewhere on the order of 1-2 hours per day, or 2-3 weekly blocks of 3-5 hours, or about 7-14 or 6-15 hours a week overall. A basic average of about 10.5 hours.
If you want to spend more time on your hobby than that, you could. If you want to spend less time on your hobby per week, you could. Some people might play for 5 hours a week at most — the equivalent of a long, leisurely golf game. Others might play for 20-40 hours a week. Yet in the 30-40 hours per week area, they really are pushing boundaries of lost opportunity costs for other elements of their life. Their leisure activity at that level of play begins to interfere with other possibilities.
At that level of commitment, the only way for it to be sustainable is if it provides some form of tangible or intangible credit or benefit to their lives. Such as either economic or educational.
My buddy at Cisco, jbash, taught me those two rules. I’ll clearly recall him saying those words: “Whatever you reward, you will get more of... Be careful what you reward.”
Cisco itself was not too careful about its reward system, or I would not have been laid off, along with about 10,000 of my closest friends in the year 2001. It is not only the virtual world which has a sort of “demographic bulemia” where we binge ourselves on attracting too many people too fast to a game world, or a workplace, or a metropolitan area, or an Olympic games, and then we need to shortly thereafter deal with the mess and aftermath of getting rid of the excess in a great disgorging of humanity. Some of the worst of these situations are called “layoffs,” “depressions” and “wars.”
Sustainable growth is required thinking for game companies to truly prosper and benefit their players over the long run. Blizzard should reconsider the fundamental of WoW, and redesign a lot of their game play from the ground up.
Or someone else should teach them a lesson in sustainable game play.
-Peter Corless.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
No Carmen for Carmen
I met a woman named Carmen today. I remember my family had an ancient 78 record player, and somewhere when I was young, either between that or the credenza, where we kept Herb Alpert and Barbara Streisand, I recall listening to a recording of Bizet's Carmen.
Yet when I went shopping in WalMart today for music (yes, probably a mistake), they had no Carmen.
In fact, they had no Classical music.
None.
When the poor clerk tried to show me where the classical music section was supposed to be, they showed me collections of 1970s disco music, Hank Williams, and other rock, country and Christian bands.
I picked up three greatest hits albums: Ramones, Chicago and War.
Classical American music.
It's just not Bizet's Carmen.
-Pete.
Yet when I went shopping in WalMart today for music (yes, probably a mistake), they had no Carmen.
In fact, they had no Classical music.
None.
When the poor clerk tried to show me where the classical music section was supposed to be, they showed me collections of 1970s disco music, Hank Williams, and other rock, country and Christian bands.
I picked up three greatest hits albums: Ramones, Chicago and War.
Classical American music.
It's just not Bizet's Carmen.
-Pete.
1% Authorship
I wrote 1% (1 of the 100) of the entries in the Hobby Games: The 100 Best, published by my good buds at Green Ronin. It was an Origins Award winner this year (2008). James Lowder, former fiction editor of Green Knight Publishing, and good friend, asked me to write a game review for inclusion in the book. Because of my professional background and personal, we chose an Arthurian game: Shadows Over Camelot, by Days of Wonder.
• Hobby Games: The 100 Best, Review by Gerald Swick
I haven’t talked to Gerald since my days at West End Games back in the 1980s. Amazing how 20 years zooms past. How’s it going Gerald?
It is incredibly humbling and pleasing to share an Origins award with about 100-something-or-other of the best people in the gaming industry. 100 reviews, plus Jim and all the people at Green Ronin that helped make the book happen. Then again, you also have to include all the design teams of all those games. So now we’re talking well over 1,000 people. And, of course, millions of fans worldwide that have played these amazing hobby industry games. Dice, paper, boards, playing pieces, card decks... The basic non-electronic equipment of gaming hasn’t changed that radically since the days of ancient Rome, other than mass production, quality manufacturing, mathematical sophistication and artistic precision. Oh, and marketing. A lot of marketing.
Good going, folks!
-Pete.
• Hobby Games: The 100 Best, Review by Gerald Swick
I haven’t talked to Gerald since my days at West End Games back in the 1980s. Amazing how 20 years zooms past. How’s it going Gerald?
It is incredibly humbling and pleasing to share an Origins award with about 100-something-or-other of the best people in the gaming industry. 100 reviews, plus Jim and all the people at Green Ronin that helped make the book happen. Then again, you also have to include all the design teams of all those games. So now we’re talking well over 1,000 people. And, of course, millions of fans worldwide that have played these amazing hobby industry games. Dice, paper, boards, playing pieces, card decks... The basic non-electronic equipment of gaming hasn’t changed that radically since the days of ancient Rome, other than mass production, quality manufacturing, mathematical sophistication and artistic precision. Oh, and marketing. A lot of marketing.
Good going, folks!
-Pete.
Lost Notebook...
Oh Mnemosyne, forgive me!
Mnemosyne is the Greek goddess of memory, and mother of the Muses. If she were a Christian saint, she'd be the patron saint of reminding forgetful people.
I lost my business notebook this weekend after the filming of The American Dream. I lent it for use in the production, yet forgot to collect it after the filming. It is presently misplaced or, at worst, lost for good. Thus I may be a few days or even weeks behind getting some priorities accomplished. I may have even lost some ideas and records forever.
If you need something urgent from me, and I haven't gotten around to it, please contact me and remind me of what it was I owed you.
-Pete.
Mnemosyne is the Greek goddess of memory, and mother of the Muses. If she were a Christian saint, she'd be the patron saint of reminding forgetful people.
I lost my business notebook this weekend after the filming of The American Dream. I lent it for use in the production, yet forgot to collect it after the filming. It is presently misplaced or, at worst, lost for good. Thus I may be a few days or even weeks behind getting some priorities accomplished. I may have even lost some ideas and records forever.
If you need something urgent from me, and I haven't gotten around to it, please contact me and remind me of what it was I owed you.
-Pete.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Hire This Man!
This is my brother, Winh Dinh. He calls me “brother” naturally. “Ah! You know me!” he says. He's my cleaning guy.Anyone who knows me knows that I have lived with clutter my whole life. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. Depending on my roommates. Or my work environment. I like “busy.”
Yet I have been so busy that, after living here since the early 1990s, a lot has piled up.
Winh is helping me get everything straightened out. Physical space-wise. And in return, I am helping Winh get his own life straightened out. Financially. We're helping each other.
We’ve already got a strategy to wrangle my furniture and my collection of books, games, clothes and assorted detritus of living here. He’s already got his eye on his next job. It may be for you.
If anyone knows of a good paying job for Winh, either a day-job, or a recurring temporary or regular position, please give me a call. 650-906-3134 (mobile) or 650-964-4276 (home). Or email me at petercorless@mac.com. Only, please call too. I get a lot of email. I get a lot of calls.
I’ll take messages for Winh. He’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Friendship & Spam
From: Peter Corless [mailto:petercorless@mac.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 3:41 PM
To: {a lot of people}
Subject: Fwd: Friendship Day
A Friendly Halloooo! Or a Social Experimentation in Spam.
You decide!
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!"
I come here to praise spam, not to bury it. This is Friendship week.
This letter can be taken in a few ways. As an example of the phenomenon of spam in our lives. Chain letters. Yet also, it shows the kind of networking that has become de rigeur and easily possible in our modern society.
Everyone in the list has been emailed by me in recent times. Friends I haven't spoken to in years. Sometimes decades, who I recently fell in touch with again. A few of you I met only once in my life, or we may even have yet to meet. Yet, for whatever reason I consider you all friends and good people to know.
Part of what I am doing these days for Global Understanding (globalunderstandinginstitute.org) is to make us mindful of what we can turn to in order to deal with the problems facing the world today.
Most central to my heart are my friends in life. "Mi familia" in spirit, as well as my blood relatives. That spirit of being brothers and sisters in the walk of life.
So when I got this message from a friend I hadn't spoken to in a while, I thought I'd pass it along. Copy-and-paste of the original sentiments sent up the chain.
Note that any claims of National Friendship Week are, to date, spurious. The claims go back well over a decade of spam-o-grams. It can be annoying if you want to be annoyed. It can be fun if you like to have fun. It can be a joke if you get the joke. Each week can be friendship week. Each day can be "friendship week." It is always friendship week.
My thanks for being my friend! Hope to see you sooner or later in life.
-Peter Corless.
650-906-3134
p.s. I was thinking of putting together an email update about what is going on in my life, tied into my blogs, my work and all I care about. Probably sent out once a week to once a month. If you want to remain on an actual mailing list, get back to me. If you specifically don't want to be on the mailing list, let me know. Regardless, I'd love to hear from you all! Enjoy the day!
[ Long happy hug-filled chain letter deleted for brevity and download speed. Let me know by email if you want a copy. ]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 3:41 PM
To: {a lot of people}
Subject: Fwd: Friendship Day
A Friendly Halloooo! Or a Social Experimentation in Spam.
You decide!
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!"
I come here to praise spam, not to bury it. This is Friendship week.
This letter can be taken in a few ways. As an example of the phenomenon of spam in our lives. Chain letters. Yet also, it shows the kind of networking that has become de rigeur and easily possible in our modern society.
Everyone in the list has been emailed by me in recent times. Friends I haven't spoken to in years. Sometimes decades, who I recently fell in touch with again. A few of you I met only once in my life, or we may even have yet to meet. Yet, for whatever reason I consider you all friends and good people to know.
Part of what I am doing these days for Global Understanding (globalunderstandinginstitute.org) is to make us mindful of what we can turn to in order to deal with the problems facing the world today.
Most central to my heart are my friends in life. "Mi familia" in spirit, as well as my blood relatives. That spirit of being brothers and sisters in the walk of life.
So when I got this message from a friend I hadn't spoken to in a while, I thought I'd pass it along. Copy-and-paste of the original sentiments sent up the chain.
Note that any claims of National Friendship Week are, to date, spurious. The claims go back well over a decade of spam-o-grams. It can be annoying if you want to be annoyed. It can be fun if you like to have fun. It can be a joke if you get the joke. Each week can be friendship week. Each day can be "friendship week." It is always friendship week.
My thanks for being my friend! Hope to see you sooner or later in life.
-Peter Corless.
650-906-3134
p.s. I was thinking of putting together an email update about what is going on in my life, tied into my blogs, my work and all I care about. Probably sent out once a week to once a month. If you want to remain on an actual mailing list, get back to me. If you specifically don't want to be on the mailing list, let me know. Regardless, I'd love to hear from you all! Enjoy the day!
[ Long happy hug-filled chain letter deleted for brevity and download speed. Let me know by email if you want a copy. ]
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