Peter Corless

I Must Learn to Walk Again

2010-01-05T03:12:00.001-08:00

Upon the climbing switchback path
Rising to the apt-named Goat Rock Trail
Listening to my heart's rhythmic math
Repetitiously inferring that life is frail

Yet resolved enough to keep its rapid beating
Over dirt and stone and gnarled grey root
Catching sight through trees of sunlight fleeting
I soldier upwards with plodding boot

Shedding barefoot I carefully climb to stand upon the boulder
Looking down from lofty bluff to somewhat face my fears
Yet soon enough we slide away and again my pack I shoulder
Gazing at this setting of the orange sun I feel in full my years

As I followed down into the placid dusk a thought came to me then:
If I do seek to truly love, I must learn to walk again

Armistice Day, Veteran's Day

2009-11-08T10:28:00.001-08:00

This was posted by me as a comment to another journal on OKCupid. The writer wrote about Veteran's Day, and made what I considered a few minor, yet specific errors in her otherwise well-written essay.

First error: "The holiday was established as Armistice Day in 1918 to honor soldiers who have served this country in the Air Force, Army, Marines and Navy."

Second error: "It’s not a day of remembrance, but of recognition."

I thought I'd put my comment here in my journal as well. First, to give paragraph breaks. ;) Secondly, so others who read my own journal may see where I stand on the issue.

~~~

Just a point of historical correction. The first Armistice Day was declared in 1919 by Woodrow Wilson to commemorate the end of the war. As the years went on, Congress decided to formalize the purpose of the Holiday, and passed an Act of Congress. As Wikipedia puts it: An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday; "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'."

It was only after World War II and Korea that Armistice Day changed in meaning, from the dedication to world peace, to the commemoration of Veteran's service. In a way, I believe that this disenfranchised many people, such as the civilian contributors to wartime efforts, and those that strive for peaceful outcomes -- to ameliorate present conflicts and prevent future ones. If we returned to the original intent, then the vast majority of the world, civilians and soldiers alike, can feel invested in the cause of the day.

Lastly, I must correct this point of yours. For it is a day of remembrance. Indeed, around the nations of the British Commonwealth, it is still called "Remembrance Day," in commemoration of the Armistice and those that fought and died to achieve the peace that follows war. To remember, they wear the red poppy, symbolizing the fallen soldiers, strewn like flowers on the field.

Call me a traditionalist, but I believe that we should all remember that 20 million died in the First World War. 72 million in the Second World War. And, especially in the latter conflict, and to the present day, it is the civilians who suffer the vast majority of casualties. A mother huddled in a house, sheltering her children from the onslaught around her, knows the same -- if not greater -- threats and fears of battle as any soldier. All-too-often she and her children suffer the same fate the soldiers do. Armistice Day is now called Veteran's Day. Yet truly recall and reflect this year on the origins of the holiday, thank you.

~~~

This is not to disrespect the contributions and sacrifices of anyone in uniform. Indeed, anyone who knows my past will know the work I have done in analysis and commemoration of military history. Yet so long as we segregate the holiday to honor only those who wore a uniform (about 10% of the U.S. population), it bifurcates our populace, with the majority of the civilian population seeming only to mark the day as one of increased shopping discounts. How do we ensure that all people would reflect on the dangers of our world, and those who strove, and still work to keep us safe from them?

Ninety one years ago on this 11th of November was the original Armistice of the Great War. There was not a Second World War yet. Indeed, they had hoped that it would be the "war to end all wars." Sadly, there would be no "peace for our time." And through this very day, chaotic, violent wars are still being fought in dozens of conflict zones spanning both hemispheres. What can we do between now and the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice, the 11th of November 2018?

For me, and for some certain friends of mine, we are returning to an original intent. We are personally referring henceforth to the day as Armistice Day. Not out of spite to any veteran, but to remind all -- civilian and military -- that the origin of the national, indeed, global holiday was to ensure that we never again commit our nations to the horrific destructive methods and ends we, and our forefathers, sought in the past. That we seek a world where the amelioration and end to such horrors is a goal and an ethical standard we all must commit ourselves to.

So how about you? Would you support returning to the original intent of the holiday, and to call it Armistice Day? Should we specifically commemorate the uniformed veterans only, or should we consider the entirety of those involved -- civil government as well as military, those who serve in NGOs, the war correspondents, the peacemakers and the peacekeepers, the civilians and refugees. Can we use this day, once per year, to honor all those who suffer from war, and those who contribute to the cessation of hostilities. Can we commit ourselves, united again to the cause of world peace?

Wasteland Wandering

2009-11-05T21:40:00.000-08:00

I walked under sun from El Alamein to Benghazi
Upon paper-dry chips and hard cubic faces
Caught in the barrens no man survives
But camels and bedouins and novelists

November is come past these sixty seven years
Of long-forgotten ribcages and burnt up boots
Failed crumbling attacks and Devil's gardens
All I could think of were the trees of Palermo

Yes, you left me to die without letter or love
What less should I expect from Fata Morgana?
Qattara swallowed me up then spat me out whole
That salty leviathan of vast dessication

As I sat and thought of your just-past birthday
Wondering if you would forgive all my bloodshed
The stars rose and the world turned frigid
With a shift in the phases came the British offensive

Right before me a shell took off his leg below the knee
Yet behold, unscathed I have no such crippling excuse
Why I never returned was due less to Allied assault
More instead to the cowardice bred from absolute failure

Ten years later in a sunset darkened cafe in Messina
I saw you beside that American from the broad boulevard
Who had deftly avoided Kesselring and captured your heart
Orders were clear to make a new retreat back to Cyrenaica

For all the twenty five pounders that thumped the horizon
Enduring crushing commands I strove so hard to trump
The inexorable advance of time in its long, drawn-out turns
I never truly suffered more or wished to die

Until the moment I watched you kiss him

About this poem

This poem was inspired by recently watching the movie El Alamein and by the West End Games boardgame I worked on decades ago, Desert Steel. It is informed through the knowledge gained by research on the North African and Mediterranean campaigns via innumerable books, magazines, movies and simulation games. A tip of the cap and bow is also due to T.S. Eliot and the Arthurian authors of the Grail legends. And, of course and ultimately, it was inspired by the historical deeds of hundreds of thousands of individuals who suffered through the Second World War conflicts in North Africa and Sicily.

Oh Good Heavens!

2009-10-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

I just looked at the calendar, and realized how many months it has been since I've posted anything to my blogs. I've been busy over the summer, and am now employed full-time as a CAHSEE Specialist at a charter school in San Jose. It's good work!

Aside from that, I've shelved and delayed a lot of my plans for the Global Understanding Institute and Flowers in the Cracks. Partially due to some organizational disappointments. Also due to exhaustion in getting the new job!

Even so, I have plans to eventually get them going. So no worries with that. Life is nearing a new equilibrium, so I feel more comfortable coming up for air here.

I've been more active in Facebook than here recently. I believe I'll spend a bit of time going back over my Facebook posts and links and see what I can bring over here.

Where I Have Lived: 107 West Tremont Avenue

2009-05-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

View Larger Map

I've lived here, from c. 1965-1970.

Before that I lived for a brief time on Shakespeare Avenue, though I am not sure of the address there. We always just called the house "107." If you ask people in my family, that's still what we call it. "Remember 107?" Yeah.

We loved that house!

Fire by BART Tracks Suspicious

2009-05-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

The San Jose Mercury News reports that the two-alarm grass fire by the BART tracks was deemed suspicious by assistant fire chief Andy Smith.

The two photographs I took of the fire were uploaded to the Your Views section of the San Jose Mercury News:

Union City Fire 2 - 17 May 09

Union City Fire - 17May09

Please rate them!

-Peter.

Union City Fire Near BART Tracks - 17 May 2009

2009-05-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

Smoke pouring over the barrier wall lining the BART tracks near 11th and D Streets in Union City, California, 6:00 pm, 17 May 2009.

UNION CITY, CA (17 May 2009) - Peter Corless - Just before 6:00 pm, a tall plume of dark smoke could be seen rising over Union City in the East Bay between Decoto and Whipple Roads. The source of the flames was a stand of trees lining the BART tracks near 13th and F Streets.

Flames cresting over the heights of the neighborhood houses consumed the eucalyptus and cypress trees lining the west side of the tracks. The barrier wall near the tracks served as a firebreak, but there were gaps in the wall where chain link fences exposed brush that could serve to spread the fire.

Homeowners on the east sides of the tracks near the intersection of 11th and D Streets doused the bushes near the barrier wall with buckets of water and garden hoses, in attempts to keep the fire from jumping over to threaten their clustered housing units. Crowds gathered on all the lawns to see if the fire would be contained or further endanger their neighborhood.

Within minutes, police and fire units were on the scene. The fire had burned down a long row of trees and advanced north and south through the trees along the tracks. However, the center of the fire had already shown signs of burning through its fuel, leaving charred trunks of blackened trees smouldering.

Flames rising over the barrier wall lining the BART tracks near 11th and D Streets in Union City, California, as seen from near Railroad Avenue, 6:02 pm, 17 May 2009.

So Predictable!

2009-03-26T07:59:00.001-07:00

In the news: Mathematical model to forecast divorce

A British mathematician, James D. Murray, observing couples for but 15 minutes together, has created a sort of "Voight-Kampff" test to determine whether a relationship is humanly natural and likely to live on for a long while, or, like artificial replicants, are doomed to suffer a shortened life.

How can he tell? How people deal with each other in casual conversation. Humor is part of it. Conflict management and resolution styles are also part of it. Our different relationship styles, when compared with our partner's, will determine whether we are good long-term matches for each other. You can read Dr. Murray's presentation to the University of Minnesota in November 2004 online.

Fascinating work. Something we might wish to reflect upon as we flirt, posit and compare notes on romance!

Enjoy!

-Pete.

Spring Approaches

2009-02-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

The darkening dusk of evening
So peaceful on a President's day
The light in the window leavening
Letting winter chill fall away

Spring approaches yet not quite
Water freezes after darkening dusk
Or in the shadows of low-canted light
Flowers wilted within wet withered husk

Yet spring approaches once again
That is the promise of the year
Triumphant blossoms remember when
It is proper for their ilk to reappear

Blossom in your heart as lilies do
Like lilacs and cherry and the rose most fair
Yet abide until the winter's through
Until the chill has left the air

Sit with me in the wan sunlight
Endure the coldness of the season
Ponder the flowers in struggling plight
How most fragile life shows nature's reason

Logic implicit in the strength of flowers gentle
Shows how we may thrive remaining most elemental

Valentine's Salvation

2009-02-14T12:36:00.001-08:00

Cover my cuts in balm of love
Wounded and embarrassed by failure
Burned and charred by ashen end
Buffeted by rebuffed attention

Valentine then looses the dove
And through miracle most peculiar
Puts a heart to gentle mend
Though the softest-worded mention

"You are loved," and "I love you."
Recognition of each other's worth
Eases pains and ends the grief
That impales the strongest on ire's spike

So hearts may freely beat anew
We seek across this networked Earth
To crown counterparts with floral wreath
And share our souls with those alike

Be my fond darling, and I'll truly be yours
I love you my brothers, my sisters, even more than myself
Dearest mother, or father, or fair sweetest child
Valentine's salvation thus sacredly heals

Though generous love we manifest cures
The best elixir found on any alchemist's shelf
Whether passionate, silly, or modest and mild
This balm is best applied as each party so feels

Thus may you find a good doctor on this day's anniversary
And may Valentine himself tend your heart's garden nursery

2nd Iranian Literary Arts Festival, SF, 5-6 February 2009

2009-02-04T10:02:00.000-08:00

Poetry about heart's love, healing life, and a homeland

30 years ago, the United States and Iran had the nationstate equivalent of a lover's quarrel. The divorce was terrible. As in such things, it was the children of Iran who suffered, and many were forced to leave home. Yet slowly, over time, the diaspora of Iranians around the world have used their beautiful language to help heal many of the old wounds and make sense of the world.

Belonging, the collection of Iranian poetry from around the world produced by Niloufar Talebi and her colleagues at the Translation Project, is an exquisite bi-lingual collection of such expressions. With English and Farsi on facing pages, the book is a visual depiction of the mirrored, reflective mind maintained the international Iranian community. Thinking of their new homes, and remembering their homeland.

The title is an imperative towards harboring a heart of bittersweetness: Be Longing. And a recognition of that conditional feeling of inclusiveness: Belonging.

The collected poetry comprises a sensuous world remembered and imagined, filled with lemons and oranges, romantic flowers, dull drab days, novelties of life in the Western world, old fondnesses of Iran, matter-of-fact realities, scathing ironies, and infinite personality quirks.

The free festival event this week, in partnership with the San Francisco Public Library, promises to bring the black-and-white words on a page to full color and lively bloom. Hope to see you there!

-Pete.

25 Things About Me

2009-01-30T15:32:00.001-08:00

This is cross-posted from Facebook.

Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people [in the right hand corner of the app] then click publish.)

1. I keep a toy hobby horse in my car, named Bucephalas, named after the horse of Alexander the Great. It was awarded to me for playing the role of Gareth Beaumains, a character based off Arthurian myths in an online roleplaying game.

2. My name is mentioned as an inventor on six U.S. patent awards. #6,721,793 (2004), #6,728,773 (2004), #6,885,999 (2005), #6,959,289 (2005), #7,031,943 (2006), #7,426,495 (2008). However, after filing these patents, I transferred positions within Cisco and then was laid off in 2001 before they could be further developed or turned into industry standards.

3. During my undergraduate stint at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, an article featuring me appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. It was about the growing ubiquity of computers on college campuses. My mother was quoted as saying, "Kids today take to computers like ducks to water!"

4. I just bought energy saver light bulbs for my apartment.

5. The hat I often wear, with the Eye of Horus embroidered on it, was gotten in 2006 at the public performance in San Francisco for the Martin Luther King, Jr. day festivities, following the Freedom Train ride up from Palo Alto.

6. Kathy is the most common name of women I have been romantically involved with. There have been five so far.

7. There are seven completely full bookshelves in my living room, two more in my room and the hall, and two new ones that I got last year that I need to shuffle books into.

8. I privately commemorate, when I am mindful, 11:11 am to recall Armistice Day of 1918, and 11:11 pm to pray for peace in our future.

9. My favorite constellation is Orion.

10. I own a kalimba. I got it at a Renaissance Faire in Califormia one summer along with an audio tape of African music. The best I can play on it is the theme of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 4th Movement.

11. Beside my softball glove on the shelf is an Incredible Patent Picker Move Maker Machine from the 1974 Parker Brothers boardgame The Inventors.

12. I own a complete modern English edition of the 1086 Domesday Survey conducted by King William. I once wished to use it as the basis of an Arthurian roleplaying game.

13. When I dropped out of my Aikido and Kendo dojo, I left all my bokken there as a gift for others to enjoy. My teacher, a sufi, warned us all, years before 9/11, that there were terrorist training camps across the world which would one day attack the U.S. He said his training was preparing us for that day.

14. Other than a bent and bruised pinky or toe as a kid, which I never had x-rayed to be sure, I have never broken a bone in my body.

15. My favorite bakery in the world is Lord's Bakery on Nostrand Avenue at the diagonal junction with Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn. I always try to get a chocolate chip cookie there when I go back to New York City. The service is often brusque, but the buttery taste of a good fresh cookie is worth it! Even though it is on Nostrand, I call the place "Lord's of Flatbush."

16. My first job in California was at ComputerWare, doing technical support on the Macintosh. The year was 1989. It was my first taste of Silicon Valley California culture. Odwalla juices and warm hugs replaced Manhattan's caffeine and suits-and-ties. I really liked the difference.

17. I write poetry for women I have never met, often inspired just by seeing their profiles on online dating sites or interacting with them via Internet roleplaying games.

18. I own a pair of Roman caligae (sandals). The longest I ever walked in them was a weeklong hike along Hadrian's Wall from Newcastle to Carlisle in England, in 2006. My feet were blistered for a month.

19. I keep a jar of the fortunes I get from fortune cookies on my shelf.

20. While I have been a millionaire in the past, since I lost my fortune I feel like I am a nicer guy. I was a bad stress case. I dropped 50 lbs too. Had I continued on living the way I had before the NASDAQ downturn, I could have been dead of a heart attack by now. So in a way, I believe losing all the money helped save my life and returned me to being more "myself" again. If I ever get that sort of riches again in my life, I'll keep it all in perspective.

21. I often keep a passport-sized copy of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution in my back pocket. I also keep a copy of a world atlas in my laptop bag.

22. Years ago I came to realize my mind spawns more creative, humanitarian and technical projects I would like to accomplish in my life than I will ever get done at the present rate. Even so, I've founded a few companies, worked with some nascent non-profits, and still gamely want to do more if given half a chance.

23. We kept a parakeet (actually a budgie) when I was growing up, named Petey. I always treated "Petey" as the budgie's name, whereas mine was "Pete" or "Peter." Even now when people call me "Petey," I want to reply with a chirp and squawk.

24. I loved the first, original three Star Wars movies. I cannot stand the recent ones.

25. Oregano is my favorite spice to add to food. I especially like it on tortellini.

What Do I Look Like?

2009-01-30T14:19:00.000-08:00

I was asked by a person in the Philippines what I looked like presently. Here’s a photo that Franklin took of me last year during the 2008 Campus MovieFest.

Since then, my beard grew out even more. It needs a good trim!

Happy Birthday Jackson

2009-01-28T14:15:00.000-08:00

Hey, Jackson Pollock.
Why did you break the rules
Making painters’ tarpaulins
The ideal of modern fine art?

Now it was impossible
To draw a good foot
For Mrs. Darvin
And be taken seriously.

Ah well, thanks too, you know.
For showing that the raw energy
Of creative expression
Is what people value most.

Like atomic explosions
Genetic recombination of photons
Even before Watson & Crick
Spoke the laws of biochemistry.

Somewhere in the recesses
Of my Colliers apartment
Is my own Art Students League medal
As meaningful to me as the Nobel prize.

During Odysseus’ voyage, the WPA
Gave you each day your daily bread
While each night you drank it away
Into the oblivion of Depression

Rising up on the engines of Jung
Borne aloft by an angel camouflaged
With nose art of mad dribbling paint
Guernica cried out, and then the world

That was when you threw book at the floor
“God damn it, that guy missed nothing!”
Yet life was not escaping you either
Except through methyl and methylene fumes

Probably sufficient to make first dance forgettable
But a knock on the door
Re-introduced you to romance of the sort
That only from death do-you-finally-part

Blitzkriegs shattered Europe and Asia
Yet all the while you two remained a neutral power
Until the fateful explosion of Oppenheimer
Ended the war, even on Long Island.

There in October, the Bessarabian and you
Began a resistance and revolution of your own
Three years after the wartime exhibit
Had made you and Lee Bohemian comrades-in-arts

Get rid of the labels
Get rid of the titles
Get rid of the intentions
Just look and let the image emerge

Get rid of the demons
Get rid of the bottles
Get rid of the cigarettes
That’s where we aesthetically diverge

Hey, Jackson Pollack
You had it all before you
At the age of forty-four
When you got into the Olds

Ruth’s Zowie and Metzger
Didn’t know what hit them
Neither did you
When your own painting stopped

Spattering yourself on time’s tragic canvas
Discovering incidental causality of a tree by the road
Departed at forty four by eight-eleven fifty six
Leaving shocked Lee in the proverbial lurch

Now I’m forty four and reflecting on you
Raising an ice tea in a toast of your life
Hoping there’s peace in the place where you’ve gone
Pondering abstractions of form on this Earth.

The light is remarkable outside the clear glass
Sitting amongst beauty and café conversation
A tree black and brown in the corner of view
Reminds me of organic chaos with a pattern implicit.

Horus’ eye gazes blinding eternal
From the hat off my head on my bag on the table
You broke the priest’s hieroglyphs
And paid the price of heresy.

Hey, Jackson Pollock
Thanks for the alchemical madness
That shattered expectations
And made people finally think

For themselves.

Vanity!

2009-01-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

I decided last year to get an IMDB.com profile.

Earlier this month I wrote in eulogy for Patrick McGoohan. Though I am a free man, I am also a number. Many numbers, actually.

Henceforth, I, Peter Corless, am also to be known as http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3177242/.

I appeared in two short videos last year: Franklin Pham’s The Rehearsal (Canaan Project/Positive+Funk), and Three Cups of Tea for Global Understanding (Global Understanding Institute).

The former was awarded as a finalist from San Jose State University’s Campus MovieFest 2008. The latter won second place in the 2008 Mountain View Reads contest. This year, we have more plans for more films. Documentaries. Analysis. News. Opinions. Fantasies. Fictions.

Is this shameless self-promotion? Yes. Though in a way, it is actually quite humbling. Because the IMDB resumes are not really the same things as a regular celebrity profile. I had to pay to put it up there. I had to “prime the pump” of celebrity. I also registered in IMDBpro.com to put the information on these films into IMDB.com. However, though The Reheasal was shown in a few venues (SJSU, San Francisco Sundance Kibuki Theatre), and Three Cups of Tea for Global Understanding made it to community television (KMVT15 in Mountain View), neither title has made it into IMDB.com yet. Maybe one day!

It is my own way to help move forward the issues addressed in these films. If I need to put my face forward as a speaker for these movements, by process of marketing I need to become a celebrity. A spokesperson. An actor, with a cause.

Hopefully before too long, my STARmeter will rise. People may pay attention to my work, my causes, more than me. I might attract fans. Hey, I might even get paid! Yet moreso, the ideas I espouse might cause social changes in the world, producing results I would be pleased to look back upon some day in the future.

For now, my hope is to simply generate interest. To “market” the idea of Global Understanding, Positive+Funk, and the Canaan Project. And more ideas, like Flowers in the Cracks too! To put myself forward as a creative principle, and to hopefully get people to react to the “buzz” our community is beginning to create.

Vanity. Is it vain to strive towards these ideals? Franklin’s desire for social justice, peace, and sober acceptance of truth. Carlos’ desire for distributive justice and democracy. Harshi’s desire for us to get beyond sectarian hate so that love can bloom. Theresa’s desire for simple acceptance, health and happiness for us all. Michael’s desire for a sustainable economy and ecological life, even as our economy crashes down around our heads. Photographers capturing the light before it fades. Musicians and poets raising their voices even after the sun goes down. Scientists and writers, who are quite sure it is not just all in their heads.

I am awash in a sea of friends, each of whom has trials and tribulations, their triumphs and joys. People all over the world, each with their own story. Yet so many of us facing the same common crises and conflicts.

Vanity? Our struggles are not in vain. Even if no one understands what drives us — not even ourselves at times — we struggle for reasons. Purposes. There are implicit goals and desires for us. Outcomes waiting our efforts to manifest.

It would be vain to think I did not have an effect on the world. A false self-denial that should not be confused with humility. That would be a vain shattering of the mirror. Throwing a brick at it so I don’t need to look at myself. It would not change the fact that others can see me for who I am. And they are asking me to step up to the microphone of the stage of life right now. They want me to speak. They want to hear what I have to say.

Conversely, it would be vain to overstate my significance to the world. For I am only one voice of 6.7 billion in the world at this present point in history. If I raise my voice, it is only in reflection of the tremendous tapestry of events that has led us to this point in time, and which I see occurring in the world around me, leading towards our future.

Last year, with the founding of the Global Understanding Institute, and with the making of these modest movies with Franklin and others, I committed to put forth myself as an advocate. To lead. To be of service. To be a friend. As a protagonist in a screenplay of life.

All the world’s a stage and I am a player upon it. The curtain is of destiny is drawn for us all.

So, to everyone out there who feels that same impending sense of epic drama in the world, let’s learn our lines, and head onstage. It’s time. Let’s break a leg!

At this time... At this moment...

2009-01-20T11:31:00.001-08:00

moar funny pictures

The Inauguration Speech

2009-01-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

Here is a document to be reflected upon.

“With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.”
— Barack H. Obama, 44th President of the United States

Inauguration of Barack Obama

2009-01-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

I have been watching the following people flow into the stands over CNN.com:

Al & Tipper Gore
George Herbert Walker & Barbara Bush
Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter
Hillary Rodham & William Jefferson Clinton

They just panned back to show the huge crowd. It is amazing. They estimate it at around 2 million people.

The Bush daughters?
The Obama daughters Malia and Sasha... to a huge round of applause.
Laura Bush & Lynne Cheney

As I am watching the events, I saw someone take a photo of the Obama girls as they walked down the hallway. In return, Malia Obama pulled out a camera to take her own picture of the events.

Michelle Obama
George W. Bush & Dick Cheney in a wheelchair.
Joe R. Biden, Jr.

And now, Barack Obama is approaching down the hall, with Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein in front of him.

A friend of mine on Facebook wrote that he “thinks Dick Cheney looks like Dr Evil in his wheel chair.” To which I replied:

Definitely James Bondian. He needs a white Persian cat on his lap. "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die...!”

Here he comes:

Barack H. Obama

I am listening to NPR while CNN shows the video. They noted John Lewis is standing in the crowd. 400,000 people came by subway alone.

Online, CNN is being utterly silent. No voice over. No comment. Those of us on Facebook are keeping the narrative.

Dianne Feinstein (D-California) is introducing the event. She is speaking about this is the product of non-violent democratic processes. How this is the turning point of change.

Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church now steps forward. Controversially chosen, He begins with “Everything we see, and everything we can’t see…” and credits it all to God. He, like Dianne Feinstein emphasises the “peaceful transition of power.”

Aretha Franklin is coming forward to sing “My Country Tis of Thee.” That’s when I couldn’t keep the tears of joy back any further. After she finished, the bells rang out.

Senator Robert Bennett then stepped forward to explain the giving of the Oath of Office to the Vice-President Elect. The Justice came forward. Joe Biden stepped forward. Joe Biden knew his lines. He had practiced this beforehand, and was eager to speak the words. He finished with an easy smile and a handshake, “Thank you, Mr. Justice.”

Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, and Gabriella Montero play now for the assembled crowd. John Williams arranged the piece. It was based on the old Shaker dance song “Simple Gifts.”

Barack Hussein Obama came forward and, with all the eyes of the world on him, flubbed his lines. He had to have a section repeated to him. But in due time he got it all straightened out.

The 21-gun salute began then. And the crowd went wild. I gave a virtual Facebook hug to my sister-in-law.

Barack Obama came forward and began to speak. “On this day...”

Tuskegee Airmen were in the crowd. The camera returns to the new President. Barack’s words were tough and progressive. During her father’s speech, Malia snuck in a few more people. To the leaders of foreign nations, he says, “Your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you can destroy.”

“What is required now is a new era of responsibility…”

After the crowd cheered, Elizabeth Alexander, a poetess, came forward to recite, “Praise Song for the Day.”

Of all the words to arrest me, were these, “Repairing things in need of repair.”

Joseph E. Lowery then delivers the Benediction. The elder gentleman speaks airily and raspily. Yet his tone speaks of a life-long orator. “...and none shall be afraid.” He finishes with a rousing, "Say ‘Amen!’” The crowd obliges with laughter.

I sing along with the Star Spangled Banner. “…and the home of the brave!” With that, the game begins! The Presidential party begins to stream out of the stands. Kids dance arm-in-arm. People cheer for the cameras. By 9:43 AM Pacific time, the cameras of CNN finally cut to a commercial.

Free at Last!

2009-01-19T20:34:00.001-08:00

moar funny pictures

What a Week! Martin Luther King, Jr. Day + Barack Obama Inauguration

I thought I'd have some fun with the idea of the advance of civilization. It is amazing how far our social progress has advanced, and how far our English skills have slipped.

Please forgive my momentary bit of humor.

I can barely contain my joy at the prospect of the first black U.S. President. It is an event centuries in the making. Millions have marched, suffered, and died so that we might see this day come to pass.

233 years since July 4, 1776, when Thomas Jefferson asserted “all men are created equal.” Indeed, the more full quote is, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
145 years since September 22, 1863, the day President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated, “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”
143 years since the December 6, 1865 adoption of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which upheld Lincoln’s executive order via legislation which formally abolished slavery in the nation, stating, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
140 years since the July 9, 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, granting citizenship to all persons born within the United States (regardless of race), “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
138 years since the ratification of the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on February 3, 1870, which granted Congress the right to uphold the voting rights of all citizens declaring “the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
128 years since the March 1, 1880 decision of Strauder v. West Virginia, in which the U.S. Supreme Court, by a vote of 7-to-2, determined that state laws excluding black persons from juries solely on the basis of their color was unconstitutional, violating the 14th Amendment, desiring “to assure to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights that under the law are enjoyed by white persons, and to give to that race the protection of the general government, in that enjoyment, whenever it should be denied by the States.”
99 years since the February 12, 1909 formation of the Niagara Movement, which led to the 1911 foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), whose purpose is to “Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.”
54 years since the May 17, 1954 issuance of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the landmark ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court which declared the de jure segregation of schools based on color unconstitutional.
45 years since the August 28, 1963 speech of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. before the Lincoln Memorial, in which he declared, “I Have a Dream!”

There have been far too many events which have led to this present moment than one can account. Treat the above as indicative of the scope of the history involving the march towards racial equality, and not its depth. Likewise, do not confuse the progress we have made as the final triumph in the march to judge persons based on the content of their character, and not on the color of their skin.

Even as we prepare to inaugurate Barack H. Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America, there are millions of persons around the nation beholden to racial hatred and xenophobia. A curious article and survey conducted by CNN in December 2006 highlights the problem: we may have turned a blind eye to bias in ourselves. Up to 80 of Americans may harbor racist tendencies that even they would not recognize in themselves, as per a study from the University of Connecticut, while only about 12-13% of Americans personally admitted they had racial biases.

Yet we also have no dearth of quite unapologetic, overt racism either. The Southern Poverty Law Center counts 888 active racial hate groups across the United States. In “liberal” California alone, there are no less than 80 such groups.

If you are interested in taking action, go to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and join your voice to their pluralist, tolerance-engendering countermovement, Stand Strong.

It’s now Inauguration Day on the east coast. Sleep well, Mr. Obama. The hardest work of your political career starts tomorrow!

”I am a free man!”

2009-01-15T08:31:00.000-08:00

(CBS/AP) Patrick McGoohan, an actor who created and starred in the cult classic TV show "The Prisoner," died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness. He was 80.

“I am a free man!”

This was the inimical quote of the character referred to as “Number 6.” No more fitting epitaph applies to Patrick McGoohan.

At a time when the Cold War was far less egalitarian, far less romantic, and far more notorious than anything depicted in a James Bond movie, The Prisoner was a spy series based out of the imagination of McGoohan and his colleague, George Markstein. The 1967 surrealistic mystery series was far closer to the social commentary and satire of George Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four than it was to the glamorous James Bond of Ian Fleming.

In fact, McGoohan had already set a very different tone in his earlier series, Danger Man, which was known in the United States as Secret Agent Man. That 1964-1967 series kept itself “professional.” A lot less killing, and far fewer sexual escapades for visceral thrills and titilation, than the Ian Fleming series. Through trained in boxing, McGoohan had no personal penchant for depictions of violence.

Wikipedia notes, “McGoohan insisted on several conditions before agreeing to do the show Danger Man: all the fistfights should be different, the character would always use his brain before using a gun, and, much to the horror of the executives, no kissing. They hired him anyway.” The Trivia section on the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) notes, “Patrick McGoohan was adamant that Drake live up to a higher moral standard than the likes of James Bond. As a result, the character rarely becomes involved with women (beyond mission requirements), and rarely kills anyone - in fact he almost never carries a gun.”

McGoohan had in fact turned down the roles of both James Bond, and Simon Templar of The Saint. He wanted to pursue something of his own imagining. Thus the story of the resignation of “Number 6” from his life of covert operations was an analogy of McGoohan’s resignation from the omnipresent and controlling European production company, the Rank Organisation.

The concept of burying covert operations and operatives was alluded to in the opening segments of the U.S. series of 1966, Mission: Impossible, “As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.”

Our “free, democratic” governments were in reality doing things that would utterly shock or outrage the public and world. This was quite well-known. We were admitting by this dramatic conceit our leaders would lie to us to keep us safe from the truths they created. They’d carefully hide the evidence and dissemble the facts.

Patrick McGoohan decided to make his next television show about one such covert operative, who needed to be disavowed. Hushed up. Put out to pasture. Watched. How do you hide what you’ve done? How do you retire a man who knows too much? Unlike the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock thriller with James Stewart, The Man Who Knew Too Much, about an accidental encounter with the world of covert assassination, the protagonist of The Prisoner does not stumble into his knowledge. It had been his profession.

McGoohan’s charcacter is a secret operative who quits his day job. He wants to get out of the business for unstated reasons, though it is obvious he is not happy with his work any more. Angry in fact. He is not allowed the possibility of a regular retirement, and thus the character is transported to the Village where he can be safely watched and monitored.

The Prisoner was filled with surrealistic elements. From the large-wheeled bicycles and eerie landscapes of the Salvador Dali-like credits, to Rover, the large ballon that retrieves wayward runaways, to the edgily-discomforting smiles, fashions, furnishings, and other oddities of the Village. It was a rebellious series, set in the real world, yet apart from it. A metaphor appropriate for many people who, at the time, felt trapped by the heavy-hand of intrusive governments bent on imposing social order by violence and deprivation of liberties and lives if need be.

Watching it as a child on television in re-runs, I was struck by many foundational elements of the show. Ethics, hypocrisy, wit, color, psychology, freedom, anger, calmness. Science fiction. A fiction about unpleasant truths. It was a heroic yet everyman struggle against oppression. The spy-versus-spy craftiness of those who sought to set, or burst through, the boundaries of freedom.

One could see the false polite smile of the triumphantly powerful. In return, the silent yet unmistakeably defiant slap in the face of the powers-that-be. It was over-the-top, and clearly hyperbole—a warning of how the world might turn if we let it become so. The shape of things to come.

McGoohan went on after The Prisoner to do other work, yet that series became the pinnacle of his career. I was very pleased to see him in Braveheart, where he played King Edward Longshanks to steely-eyed dramatic perfection, though much of the movie was dross and historically inaccurate.

Throughout his career, he projected a gravitas to his person, yet limned with a gentlemanly wit and charm. He had a boldness and presence which was not just limited to the roles he played on screen. Long after his passing, he will remain one of the world’s unforgettable presences.

Mr. McGoohan, if you are reading over my shoulder, I have but one thing to say to you today:

“Be seeing you!”

Get Well, Steve Jobs. R.I.P. Ricardo Montalban

2009-01-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I have written anything on my own personal blog. And this is a sort of odd reason to post a new entry.

While I generally do not comment about specific business leaders or celebrities, there are two people who I wanted to make note of today.

Steve Jobs, recovering from pancreatic cancer, has taken a leave of absence from Apple for medical reasons until June. Steve, I wish you the best for a recovery, and my best wishes for your family this year. After your “April Fool’s Day” revolution, begun in 1976, and your championing the invention of the Macintosh, which was released twenty five years ago, you deserve a nice break from all the hullabaloo of Silicon Valley. You know, I fondly recall making some nice artwork which showed up well on the Lisa, and banged out my first manuscripts on an Apple IIe and an Applie IIc. My personal career in the arts, in gaming, in publishing, business, and my adventures in life would not be possible without the innovation you and your cohorts helped birth into the world.

Ricardo Montalban, the ever-optimistic-about-love Mr. Roarke of ABC’s 1970s television series Fantasy Island, and the “superior being” Khan of Star Trek, and the nemesis of James T. Kirk in the movie The Wrath of Khan, has died at the age of 88. A true romantic, he died a year after his wife of 63 years Georgiana Young. They married in 1944, at the height of the Second World War. IMDB.com has a fitting review of his storied career. One bit of trivia: his first film was the 1942 war picture Five Were Chosen, with Victor Kilian and Howard De Silva. Rest in peace.

Santa's Little Helper

2008-12-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

I am a happy and proud uncle today.

The Once and Future Green Knight

2008-12-13T12:38:00.001-08:00

I am working today to get GreenKnight.com back up and running. I still have the domain name registered to me until 2010, but the old site is gone.

Part of my goal is to rebrand Green Knight. Rather than just be “Green Knight Publishing,” I am going to change it to Green Knight Enterprises. I even got a new bank account change to reflect that, and plan to go through with a new Fictitious Business Name filing for a Sole Proprietorship in 2009.

Green Knight Publishing was a great idea, but the reality of the marketplace hammered me. I cried quite a bit when it all fell apart. Tears of loss, yet also happy tears. I had done something I had always wanted to do. Even if it failed.

Since the market meltdown of 2001, when I departed from Cisco Systems, lost a fortune as the stock price tumbled, and then saw the 9/11 attacks, I have mourned the world that could-have-been. In another, better, kinder world, Green Knight Publishing went on to win awards, publishing games about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We would have, by now, a staff of dozens of people, and would be involved in books, games, software, educational products, television shows and movies.

In another kinder, gentler world, I would have gotten married by now to a wonderful wife and had some kids.

Yet the past decade has been far crueller and less forgiving than I would have hoped. Some measures of success eluded me, and to be honest, I collapsed into the overpowering depression that followed the financial, professional, and personal shocks of 2001.

Each year since then has been part of a road to recovery. Today, the stone being laid upon a stone is the recuperation of GreenKnight.com. In 2009, this domain will be put forth once more, with a rededicated mission for Arthurian entertainments, and engendering an evergreen sense of chivalry in the modern world.

My best season’s greetings to everyone!

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

Mumbai Attacks & Wikipedia

2008-12-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

I have been extremely committed to documenting this specific global event on Wikipedia. The information is coming forth day-by-day, and all of it has great implications for world peace.

Beyond what I have been able to document on Wikipedia, because of its rules about Neutral Point of View (NPOV), and other firm and fair guidelines, I have been writing more editorial and personal observation on the Global Understanding Institute’s blog.

False Flag Claims for Responsibility for the Mumbai Attack - the concern I had here mostly was the lack of tolerance of the mention of the false flag allegations against the Israeli Mossad. It was expunged repeatedly and swiftly in the name of preserving the world from misinformation, as per WP:FRINGE. Yet such kneejerk removals, I felt, were ignoring the fact that there were and are false flag assertions circulating about Israel. We can pretend they do not exist, but that does not mean that others are not disseminating such information. Nor does it mean that conspiracy theorists would not buy into such thoughts. In fact, speedy deletion only raises the spectre of “proof” of conspiracy via censorship. In any regard, the caveat I wrote was itself censored, citing ugliness.
Responsibility for the November 2008 Mumbai attack - This article has gone through a few renamings. Originally it was called "Deccan Mujahideen," as per the name given to the alleged organization that claimed responsibility for the attacks. Then it was changed to “Responsibility for the November 2008 Mumbai attack.” Now, it was renamed “Attribution of...” rather than apparently assign responsibility. Which is fair enough. Yet what is interesting is how others have maintained how any group named “Deccan Mujahideen” cannot exist. At all! It seems reasonable to me: a splinter cell of LeT, trained specially for this attack, and not wanting to be connected to LeT, ISI, or Al Qaeda, would select a separate name to specifically disassociate themselves from their well-known associates. Perhaps this rogue group had a particular goal in mind, and came up with this name as a “working title” for their project? Does it mean they do not have historical ties to other organizations? Absolutely not. We all come from somewhere. But what really sticks in my mind is the virulent denials and adamant demands. “It cannot be!” “It must be!” The certainty of various “experts” and pundits based on prior experience, partial knowledge, schematically-rigid psychological paradigms, not to mention their apparent and implicit desires and, of course, a good dash of hidden agendas. Even I myself have certain resistances to some considerations, and all-too-willingnesses to buy other lines of reasoning. Yet I do try to double- and triple-check my sources and keep an open mind. As far as I am concerned, though there are a lot of leads pointing in certain directions, the case is still open.
The Mumbai Attacks - This was the first article I wrote as soon as I got done with my Thanksgiving celebrations. I felt that I was on to something vital when I wrote about comparative means to achieve social justice — contrasting the (mostly) peaceful protests in Thailand, which toppled a government, to the deeds of a few violent non-state actors in Mumbai. I also felt it was vital to talk about the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, and its principles of Understanding, Wisdom and Knowledge. I felt it was vital, in response to the definitely inflammatory and terrorist activities, to call for sober reflection, and to seek a deeper sense of justice than what immediate demands for vengeance might wreak.

Last night, Harshi and I strategized about a possible person-on-the-street interview/poll project. He is planning to go back to Mumbai and his hometown of Nagpur, Maharashtra, in central India.

I wish I could say I understand precisely why I am so engaged in this particular terrorist activity. For me, it is even more compelling to deal with than 9/11. Perhaps in a way, 9/11 was too close to my heart. As a native New Yorker, it was too painful for me to consider. There was too much grief, and too many voices pouring in on the topic. People on the ground had a better grasp of the situation.

Yet I feel the opposite for this event. Perhaps there is something in emotional distance—the ability to not take the attacks too directly to heart—that is spurring me. It is an event I can intellectually analyze without bursting out in pain and tears.

During Thanksgiving, I must admit I argued with a close friend over the impact of global events. It caused a terrible rift in my personal relationship. Yes, it was utterly ironic for me, trying to found an organization to deal with conflicts and crisis management, to get into a personal crisis and interpersonal conflict.

Even before this incident, I have had a deep conviction events around the world have and still could truly devastate what is going on here at home in the United States. The argument I had centered around this: my friend didn’t want to hear about it. Any of this. I felt my friend was trying to be too sheltered. Insular. Ignorant of the world.

I will agree with her insofar as we should all be responsible for what is here right in our own lives. Yet I also feel as if sometimes events of far greater import than our own parochial visions must take precedence and demand attention. Sometimes we are not even aware of how close a “distant” crisis is to us, unless we raise the matter to our attention for consideration.

Do I get preachy? Lecturing? Pedantic? Yep. I do. Not always. Usually, the more resistent a person is being, ingnorant and unconsidering the wider world, and the more important I consider that person’s opinion, the more I may press. Quite ungraceful of me. A bad habit. Yes, I’be been warned and chided about it plenty. Yet, I keep feeling there’s a reason I need to speak about such seemingly remote crises. Somewhat how Fiver in Watership Down needed to tell the other rabbits about dangers he foresaw, or sensed.

I am just three degrees of separation away from the event, via Harshi. As soon as he told me about it, I knew that things were going to be bad. Very bad. In Harshi’s own circle of friends, he knows two people who lost someone in the Mumbai attacks: one who lost a relative and another a former roommate.

The ties between India, Mumbai in specific, Pakistan, and Silicon Valley are very deep. The present situation here reminds me of the New York immigrant communities and their still-vital ties to Ireland, Italy, China, Greece or Russia.

I am not sure exactly where this personal quest and investigation is leading yet. In a way, I feel my hand is on the rudder of human events. My personal contribution to Wikipedia regarding the attribution of the 2008 Mumbai attacks may not be the same as a lead story in Time Magazine or front page of the Wall Street Journal, but it feels electrically powerful. What I have written helps shapes global understanding of the event. At times, I almost panic at the prospect. At other times, I am humbled or proud or simply staggered.

Aside my own personal role, my hope is that the truth comes out, and that the situation is dealt with efficiently and calmly by all properly-authorized parties. Whoever was responsible should face the rule of law. And a long-needed, frank, open, therapeutic discussion between India and Pakistan needs to begin at last. Both nations must also be able to look internally to their own failures and faults. Extreme nationalistic Saffronization in India. Extreme Islamic militancy in Pakistan. Corruption in both nations.

I’ve been concerned ever since the Kargil War that these two neighbors might get pushed by their own zealots and internal factions, egged on by external powers, into confrontation. A conflict between them could, theoretically, lead to nuclear exchange if everything went horribly. My inner voice speaks to me to document this event so any actors who were responsible are logically identified and exposed, so that the world can back down from the larger-scale worse outcomes, and begin to forge a vision for a better and more secure south Asia.

This is an event that can potentially shape a great deal of world history for the 21st Century. It is not going to be “over” any time soon. Matters are just now beginning to be discussed and investigated which took years or decades prior to the present crisis to evolve, and which will continue to evolve and have impacts on global politics and economics for years and decades to come.

Because of my recent opining, I was accused of having a “grandiose” sense of myself or of life in general. I will admit to a penchant for the forms and impact of epic poetry and drama. Yet I am merely an observer and documenter of events. And these are vital times to pay heed to, to document, and to speak out about. It is my assertion it is vital for each of us to consider and reify our own roles in unfolding global political and social situations. Am I right? Am I wrong? In a way, the decision is out of my hands. What I do feel surity about is this:

I intrinsically, instinctually feel compelled to be involved, concerned, and active in the world. Right now.

What are your thoughts?

-Pete.

Films of Note for 2008 - With Corless Content!

2008-11-19T08:02:00.000-08:00

For this holiday season, check out these two movies that feature yours truly:

Three Cups of Tea for Global Understanding won 2nd place in the Mountain View Reads contest. This 10 minute film explains how the Global Understanding Institute was a directly causal result of reading Three Cups of Tea, the New York Times bestseller by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. My thanks for all our viewers and supporters! This film will be shown on Mountain View Cable (KMVT15).

The Rehearsal, was a finalist for the Campus MovieFest (CMF) Western Regional Finals, under the category for the Elfenworks Social Justice award. We attended the screening at the Sundance Kibuki and the Grand Finale this past Sunday, and were able to speak for a few minutes about how and why we made the film, and what will come next. Congratulations and thank you to Franklin Pham, Harshi Lanjewar, Zaur Hasanov, all the narrators, artists of sound and visual images, and to everyone who, in five minutes, made the impossible possible!

While neither picture won top prize in its category, both were well-received and made it part-way up the hill of public recognition. These were the first formal films for both of us. While I had made a student video back in Beach Channel High School, shot a short movie at Carnegie Mellon as an undergrad, and did a podcast before for the Global Understanding Institute, this was the first time we had both entered a film contest for the public consideration of our work as an inspiration to social movement.

Both Franklin and I are now strategizing about the next films to lens and prizes to shoot for. How many frames per how many minutes and seconds, targeting our messages and our memes, our scripts and our themes.

Franklin is still working on a longer 20-30 minute interview-style movie, The American Dream. I am cooking up plans to do some documentary-style works on Armistice Day and the backgrounder video for the Global Understanding Movement and the Global Understanding Institute. There's also some video I'd like to do for 10 December 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

60th Anniversary Celebration - 10 December 2008 (United Nations)

For now, to get involved with celebrating the 60th Anniversary UDHR, see the United Nations’ own site for the event, join the Every Human Has Rights campaign and check out the Small Places Tour for Amnesty International.

So Much Life!

2008-11-13T16:43:00.000-08:00

Folks,

For all those whom I have offered myself, committed to, and been helping, my life is getting suddenly more full than even three people might be able to handle. Because of that, I am sure some of you are going to slip off the plate. If that is the case, and if you want me to be there at a special time for a special event, please just call me!

Tonight alone, I have way too many things to get done in the span of an evening. I still have pressing matters from the entire past month on my plate.

“Prioritize! Make your life simpler! Be efficient!” I can hear the 7 Habits People who keep tidy neat desks and lives chiding me. Given what is occurring in the world, and given what I am looking to accomplish privately and professionally, it is far easier to just chuck things out of your mind than it is to physically or logistically chuck them out of your apartment, car, or schedule.

So, again, please forgive me my lapses and longer-than-expected deadlines. Again, if you need me, just call.

The good news is that many things are in play in my life, which for too long had remained stagnant or fallow. For many years, life was “famine,” now it is “feast.”

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

$100 for Wikimedia

2008-11-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

Yay! Sue wrote to me! I had hoped she was going to. She’s the awesome new director of Wikimedia, the people who bring you Wikipedia.

From an objective view, I had to send her $100 for her time and attention span, which consisted of, basically, a form letter. If this was a romance, it would be like having to buy a date, or having to really wine-and-dine someone just for them to like you, I guess. Then again, she doesn’t know me from Adam. Not really. (C’est l’amour!)

Yet all of this is a very odd way of viewing the world. Are non-profits truly in it for the money? Well, they do have to “earn their daily bread” like the rest of it. And for many of them during this terrible time of economic crisis, they have to truly work and work hard for people’s support.

That was why I donated to Wikimedia. Because they do the good work. I hadn’t donated with the expectation of a letter from Sue, or that she’d really have any time for me at all. She’s working on a shoestring budget trying to hold Wikimedia together during a hard financial downturn worldwide.

I donated out of the goodness of my heart and out of my commitment for Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects to deliver critical communal knowledge and information to the world. If you want your own “letter from Sue,” donate to Wikimedia too!

Hopefully in the future, I’ll get to actually talk to Sue. I actually did have that as a plan. I would actually like to tie the work of the Global Understanding movement towards the free, public information sources of Wikimedia. Maybe even get something back from the Wikimedia organization. A join venture. An incubator project. A new vision for the world.

Perhaps the next time we speak, it will not be a purely economic exchange based on shared mutual principles. More ideological. Business in the broader sense. Public benefits. Goals and visions.

For now, though, I, the Green Knight, am relishing the first letter I got from Sue Gardner. It was a very nice letter! Here it is:

From: donate@wikimedia.org
Subject: Thank you from the Wikimedia Foundation
Date: November 12, 2008 6:30:32 AM PST
To: petercorless@mac.com
Reply-To: donate@wikimedia.org

Dear Peter,

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, I wish to acknowledge and thank you for your gift of USD 100.00 to the Wikimedia Foundation, received on November 6, 2008. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Your generosity helps ensure that the Wikimedia Foundation continues to make human knowledge free and accessible to the world. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest and most popular collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's top ten most popular websites. Our work is important: we are grateful you have joined with us to help make it happen.

Sincerely Yours,

Sue Gardner
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable corporation with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States. No goods or services were provided, in whole or in part, for this contribution. Tax-exempt number: 20-0049703

Onwards to adventure!

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

11/11 Armistice Day @ Global Understanding

2008-11-11T04:48:00.000-08:00

This day we are commemorating the 90th Anniversary of World War I. Please join us!

Either post below, or call me to participate.

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

2008-11-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

From Facebook:

[A friend] wonders how many centuries it will be before there's a female US president, and feels sure the rest of the world will not meet that with such approval. 3:20pm

Peter Corless at 3:29pm November 8

It will happen within the 21st Century. Remember the emancipation of slaves proceeded the suffragettes by some decades. But both worked hand-in-hand to get women the vote thereafter.

• 3 February 1870 - Black vote, 15th Amendment, barring racial discrimination

• 26 August 1920 - Women's vote; 19th Amendment, barring gender discrimination

Hence, about 50 years between the historical amendments to freedom. Thus look for the c. 2056 election cycle, if not well before. You could see it by 2012 or 2016.

Obama vs. McCain in Web 2.0 Social Networking

2008-11-06T12:35:00.001-08:00

I found this from Roz Savage's blog. A very cool little article.

-Pete.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

2008-11-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Sober Reflection on the Election of Barack Obama

2008-11-05T17:54:00.000-08:00

What are the chances that Barack Obama will be assassinated? Today I spent some time researching the good, the bad, and the ugly truths on the topic of Presidential assassination, and specifically looking at the threats posed to President-Elect Obama.

The American Dream: MLK, Jr., Barack Obama, Abiola. They all have a dream. Do you?

2008-11-05T14:23:00.000-08:00

Over at The American Dream Movie, please take time to review the speeches of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President-Elect Barack Obama. Then consider the emotional reaction of Abiola. She asks us to share our own dreams with her. What are yours?

This is Hilarious!

2008-11-05T13:32:00.001-08:00

Meri shared this with me on Facebook. I thought you might like it too.

Flowers for Barack

2008-11-05T13:18:00.001-08:00

Congratulations to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and all those who participated in this incredible election process. I wrote you a poem. Enjoy!

Three Cups of Tea for Global Understanding

2008-11-05T11:54:00.000-08:00

Please go to YouTube to watch and rate this video, so that I have a chance to win the Mountain View Reads contest for Three Cups of Tea!

If we succeed in making this the prize winner for 2008, I will take the $500 prize money and donate it to the foundation for the Global Understanding Institute.

Thank you so much for your support!

-Pete.

Corporate Bulemia

2008-10-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

The following was posted on the LinkedIn Cisco group. Yet it may just as readily apply for any company around the world. Those that grow unsustainably and then rapidly collapse, readily purging employees to survive. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Me and 10,000 of my closest friends were "given the package" in 2001. Then the entire world economy was shocked by the 9/11 disasters. Since then, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the loss of control of the economy have made sure that the stock prices of 2000 have never returned to Cisco.

Yet even before all those crises, Cisco had the layoff.

Cisco is not alone. Corporation after corporation grows beyond its bounds and lays off 10%, like Yahoo last week, or sheds 50% or more of their employees. Or implodes entirely and goes belly-up. Enron anyone?

What causes corporate bulemia? The gorging of 1,000 employees in a merger, only to vomit out 800 of them as needless "overhead." The binge/purge cycle of employees as "food" or "fuel" of companies.

Leviathan swallows all, like Jonah and the Whale. Are the lucky ones those who stay swallowed, remaining inside the corporation after such traumatic layoffs, stressed out to try to make up for the empty chairs and cubicles of entire teams no-longer extant, or those who are vomited forth, left bereft and shipwrecked on the shores of unemployment? "Should I stay or should I go now?" asked the Clash. Thus I ask you as well.

What causes corporate bulemia in the first place? What exacerbates it? Specifically focus on Cisco as a case study, or compare it to other employment experiences you have had. What can be done to make corporate growth and long-term employment more stable and wholesome?

HR theories, business school pablum, clever cybernetic diagrams, and ideal states may be readily tossed out the window. What really works? What is sane and rational. Really.

I'd be interested in your replies. If you would prefer to reply privately, my contact information is below.

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

Uncertainty of the Ocean

2008-10-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

Roz "You cannot NOT know it once you know it" (Quote re ocean wisdom from rower Mick Bird, after several glasses of wine on Friday night). via Twitter - 3 Comments 11:49am — Roz’s Twitter, spotted from Facebook

This is a moment of singularity. "Eureka!" "Wow!" "Woah, dude!"

Once we know any thing, it alters and changes, as do all things. As does our memories and knowledge over time. Divide by Delta-t for change over time, factor in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. We may claim to know things, past, present, or predicate future. Yet mystery remains.

Also we are mere humans. We forget. So very easily at times. Many people learn truths and then go back to bed. Only those who are 100% robotic will remember everything perfectly. Others will drift back to the dreaming. For them it never was, or never really mattered.

That is why the ocean always surprises. It is as it has been for billions of years. Yet it is never the same.

As Clio knows, history is a magical, miraculous thing. We may have a great knowledge of the present and the past. Yet certain events may come along to alter facts or profundity of the past. Perhaps that's the value of the "cannot NOT know it." Realizations. New data. Mm!

Phase of the Moon

2008-10-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

Ever have that expression about uncertainty? Tonight is the New Moon. A time for changes in life. By the time you read this, I am uncertain what phase the moon will be.

Let's do a little experiment. Tell me what phase the moon is in when you look at it.

It tells me this:

The new, 28.7 day old moon, 0.8% lit:

Then it has some facts about the upcoming Full Moons and New Moons.

Full Moon (GMT)
Last:	Oct 14 at 8:04 PM
Next:	Nov 13 at 6:19 AM
	Dec 12 at 4:38 PM
	Jan 11 at 3:27 AM

New Moon (GMT)
Last:	Sep 29 at 8:13 AM
Next:	in 21 hrs and 14 mins
	Nov 27 at 4:55 PM
	Dec 27 at 12:23 PM

How I Met John Chambers

2008-10-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

This letter was a reply to Jim Morris, Dean of Carnegie Mellon West’s campus.

John Chambers is a good guy.

I've known him for a long while. We painted Costaño School in East Palo Alto long before it's modern renovation. Back in 1994, that's how I met him. We were painting the school - Betsy, John and myself.

Over a Tom Sawyeresque litany of brushstrokes, I said something to Betsy about my ongoing work with the Federal government and the special processes they require. She had taken over Canada from me, and I was informing her about DPAS-rated orders, DD250s and GSA schedules.

That's when John started to giggle. I wasn't sure why he was giggling. So I emphasized again how the Feds have a lot of extra paperwork other people are spared from filling out. Not quite sure why he was smiling so broadly, I asked, "Ever done business with the Federal government?"

And with that kid-like grin, in his unmistakable West Virginian accent -- almost-but-not-quite like the Pittsburgh accent -- he said, "Why yes I have."

We shared a smile, and there was an understanding between the two of us. That's when I remembered my manners, begged an apology we hadn't introduced ourselves yet, took time to exhange names and shook his hand.

He's sneaky like that. Doing good deeds. Giggling about things he overhears. Only then introducing himself.

:)

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134

Electoral Vote in 2008

2008-10-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

I love, love, love, love Electoral-Vote.com.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Watch this site.

Know this site.

Election after election, this site has the best aggregate analysis for the US Presidential Elections process.

The news may be tough at times to watch. Yet this is the place I have found the best state-by-state and national coverage.

The fate of the planet rests in this next election. 305,465,225 million Americans.

They will vote on many issues, including the fate of their neighbors. Because only those with the right to vote can cast their ballot on behalf of the disenfranchised. Right now, in the United States, the “land of the free,” we are growing the rate of disenfranchised people. Those unable-to-vote within the borders of the United States are somewhere north of 23-39.5 million people. This includes:

±3.9 million convicted felons
12.1 million legal permanent resident (LPR) aliens
7-20 million illegal immigrants, as well as…
123,000 - 3.5 million homeless and disaffected citizens.

One particular aspect to note are the 3.1 million US citizen children — those born in the United States to unauthorized immigrant parents. They by birth are “legal,” yet their parents and guardians are not.

Thus the range of undocumented Americans is very difficult to establish. It wasn’t so long ago that we thought the number was far lower. The undocumented immigrant population was thought to be only 5-6 million as recently as the year 2000.

The 2000 Census totally shattered that perception. The number was revised rapidly to 8.5 million. The US population count of 281.4 million was surprisingly off by 5-7 million people. That’s the equivalent of misplacing the entire Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Or everyone in the region of Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington.

The more the numbers are analyzed, the more we realize how complex the problem is, and the less sure we are of exactly how many people there are in the country. Or what we should do about it.

Yet, if we consider 23-39.5 million people living in the United States are unable to vote, consider your own enfranchisement. That’s anywhere between 7.5% - 13% of the population in the United States unable to vote. Your vote will count for yourself, and for these people also.

I always recall that rallying cry, “No taxation without representation.” This was what sparked our own American Revolution. The basic right to vote, and the value that vote has, and the ramification your vote results in — all of these are important, urgent issues. They can each easily become a major crisis in the coming century.

So this year, make sure to get out to vote. Consider what democracy is, and what it means to you, and to your neighbors, and to the world, here and now in the 21st Century.

Thank you.

-Pete.

p.s. Remember to check out Electoral-Vote.com!

Ads By Google Irony

2008-10-16T12:06:00.001-07:00

I posted my letter to Joe Biden. What came up?

Ads by Google Anti Terrorism. US Terrorism. Why Terrorism. Terrorism Acts.

Joe Biden —> Terrorism

The invocation of the US Democratic Vice Presidential candidate results in the word “terrorism” according to Google.

Guilt by association?

What an utterly useless piece of technology. Or a tremendously devious, clever bit of propaganda.

My Letter to Joe Biden, 16 October 2008

2008-10-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

On Oct 16, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Joe Biden wrote:

Peter --

Anyone who tells you this election is already decided is dead wrong. Let's not forget the 2000 election, when Al Gore was up by double digits in October.

The surest way to lose a race is to slow down with the finish line in sight.

We're taking no chances. We've planned the biggest get out the vote operation in history, and we need to make sure that every voter has their voice heard.

That's why we've set the goal of bringing in 100,000 new donors by Friday at midnight.

Your donation today will match that of a fellow supporter, encouraging them to step up and own a piece of this campaign.

Will you make a donation of $250 or more today and double your impact?

This campaign has fought for every inch, and now is not the time to take anything for granted.

To get out the vote, we need to knock on hundreds of thousands of doors and make even more phone calls.

This campaign has built the largest field operation in history, and we need to mobilize it in these remaining days to get every single voter to the polls on Election Day.

Because that's what it comes down to -- counting every last vote.

Make a matching donation today to make certain that when everything is on the line, we are stronger than ever:

https://donate.barackobama.com/promise

We've come too far to hold back now.

Thank you for everything you're doing,

Joe

Paid for by Obama for America
This email was sent to: petercorless@mac.com

To unsubscribe, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/unsubscribe

Hrm. Reality check? At first, I thought Joe Biden himself really did write to me. I mean, really.

Who knows? He’s a regular guy. He could have read my blog, or gotten my email from one of the articles I wrote for Global Understanding. Never know. Right?

But as I read it, I realized this was a form letter written on his behalf. Maybe he did write it. But I doubt he went to his email address list and pulled my name out specifically and sent it to me personally. It wasn’t really a reality check. It was a virtuality check.

The virtual Joe was ending up my real email box. Spam? Or an opportunity to pontificate?

When given a choice, since I was named after the first pope, I took the chance to proselytize. Here’s my letter to Joe Biden:

Joe,

Dude, here's your own reality check.

I just gave $100 yesterday. By debit card.

I gave some sort of similar amount already before. I also gave money to the DNC when they called.

So far, I am a "three-fer." There is such a thing as "donor fatigue" though. Perhaps you might want to stop going back to the well?

As me for my TIME. Not just my money.

You see, Joe (and Barack), I am self-employed, while drawing no salary. AT ALL. From ANYONE.

It has been this way since 2001 when I got laid off from Cisco Systems, Inc. I had plenty of savings and stocks at the time. Over the past seven years of the Bush Administration, I have had my own "Great Depression." My own startup businesses failed repeatedly. My own relationships ended not-so-happy as I would have hoped. I still have no children of my own. I still have no wife. I had a bit of struggling income, so I could put "self-employed" down and mean it for a few months in 2006.

Other than that? Not much.

Fortunately after leaving Cisco, I had some of my own money to fall back on. I did "alright" even as others have suffered even worse than me. I sold my house in 2001 after being laid off. I just slowly wound down my businesses and liquidated my inventory.

I have been waiting for the times to change ever since George W. Bush got into office. Times began to change earlier this year. When I saw Barack Obama campaign, I started doing a lot of new things. I am fired up. I am ready to go. I am already going.

However, I am STILL functionally "occupied but drawing no salary." Which means, I have business cards but no customers. I have expenses but no income. I am professionally busy but economically unemployed.

• No unemployment checks
• No disability
• No financial assistance
• No family or friends to bail me out

I am still putting the plans on a few different business operations. Tossing out ideas to see which ones I can get funded.

Where is the money in 2008?

Rapidly leaving my pocket.

To keep friends from going homeless. To help get a new administration into office. To pay for gas to go see friends who have lost their loved ones to cancer, or to help see those suffering from illness, or to sit on the board of a non-profit that is trying to get information to cancer sufferers and those who support them.

I have put my time and money into different causes, Joe. The environment. Suicide prevention. Clean technology. Public radio. My local church, where I sing in the choir and work with the teens.

Right now, I want to make a difference in the world. A change.

Is giving you $250 going to have an ROI for me? Really, Joe. Shouldn't I save that for my own rent? Food? Perhaps the salaries of a new part-time employee?

Do you NEED my money right now Joe?

What do you want it for? How would it be disbursed?

Why not I just keep it and spend $250, or the equivalent thereof, helping out the campaign?

That would be the equivalent of 12.5 hours of my time @ $20 per hour. I used to be worth $40, or, for other jobs, $100.

12.5 hours you can have. Freely! The $250 of capital? That's asking a lot now. At least until I get some better financial security behind me. Otherwise you are driving me towards homelessness just to get elected.

So, my suggestion is:

• Have these email spam-o-grams get personalized to recognize the up-to-the-minute contributions of voters, so you...
• Don't piss them off with form letters.
• Don't even send them if you have already been hitting them up in the past week
• If you have a reasonable feeling they are hurting really badly economically, or...
• Ask them for their time and energy if they feel, for whatever reason, cannot give money, or *more* money right now.

Meanwhile, Joe, my best hope for my new enterprises is the Global Understanding Institute. You should come and check it out.

http://GlobalUnderstandingInstitute.org

Last night after everyone else was asleep, I did an analysis of Barack Obama and John McCain's performance in their final debate. Interesting results. Not typical for debate analysis.

Joe, I am not asking for a handout. I am willing to work my butt off till all hours of the night to get work done.

But STOP hitting people up for more money when they are going flat broke. You need their votes now, Joe. Not their money. Votes are based on the voluntary garnering of FREE WILL, not burdening people with FINANCIAL COST.

Especially after I've given you three times already.

When we are in an economic hole right now, we need to be FRUGAL. Not keep throwing more money at the problem. Use brains. Email is free. Use it WISELY.

Engage people in social discourse. Take time to LISTEN to them. Not just ask for money.

You'll see me down at the campaign office, Joe. I did a lot of research last night on how the McCain campaign differs from the Obama campaign. Updated and added footnotes for Jeffery so he can fact check. Apparently they don't take my word for it. Hunh. Go figure. Apparently they trust my money "In God We Trust," but they can't trust that I'd do a good job doing fact-checking on McCain policy.

So far, they haven't paid me a red cent, either. So I'm not sure where the money is going anyway.

People are so wrapped up about the money of politics that they are sort of losing sight of the politics of politics. It's about votes. Not dollars. And hitting people up for too many dollars, makes their wallets close. Makes their smiles turn to frowns. Makes them feel like they are just being used.

Joe, don't just use me as your banker.

Tell me some facts. Tell me some figures. If I think you're doing a great job, if I know something specific I can help with, maybe then I'll take out my wallet.

However, I did get a good meal out of it last night. And the debate? Priceless! Best political experience I have ever had in my life.

I guess that was worth a $100 ticket. It was the show of a lifetime.

But please, try to find a way to not just "cold call" all your supporters Joe. Technologically recognize the contributions I made already. INCLUDING JUST YESTERDAY FOR $100.

Otherwise you'll come off like a spoiled kid asking daddy for money for more toys you don't need, while he's realizing the mortgage is going belly-up. And he looks around at all the toys you just opened and aren't playing with.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

Help me out, Joe. Really. Read this reality check in reply.

If you actually do. If this ACTUALLY gets to Joe Biden himself and he reads it?

Maybe then, Joe, I'd open that wallet and give $250. Because I want you to care, PERSONALLY, about what I am going through. And have gone through, and others like me in Silicon Valley ever since 2001. And across the country. Or, maybe, Joe, you'd read this letter, and you'd say, "No need, Pete. Put your wallet away. We'll find a way to do this on the cheap. Frugally. We don't REALLY need $250. Just show up to vote, and bring a few friends."

Until I hear back, Joe, you may find me now and then up at the Palo Alto office. Yesterday was my first day there. Finally found it. It's in a hole-in-the-wall. Drove past it a lot. If you come out here, please call me and I'll clear my day to chat to you or Barack.

Best wishes, Joe. Hope to hear back. Call me!

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

p.s. When you do take donations over the phone, please, PLEASE, have the courtesy to send a bumper sticker or a button or something substantial if someone requests it. Drove me nuts that they kept wanting my Visa card number, but they couldn't even get me a bumper sticker. The office took care of it yesterday. Very good people!

2008 US Presidential Debate Analysis

2008-10-16T03:28:00.000-07:00

In the most recent posting to the Global Understanding Institute’s web site, I did my best to put aside partisan politicking to analyze the speaking styles of Barack Obama and John McCain from a more pure, mechanical processing and study of their English language use.

I got this idea first for the Clinton candidacies. I would just run the static analysis of Microsoft Word over speeches made by candidates. The results were often rather illuminating.

This year, I thought it would make for a good tool to study the linguistic styles of the two main front-runners.

Enjoy!

-Pete.

My Causes

2008-10-14T00:15:00.001-07:00

• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) - Walked the Overnight in San Francisco 2006, Walked Out of the Darkness 27 September 2008. Even after these walks to raise awareness and funds, I lost a friend to suicide in early 2008. And even now, suicide-homicide remains a key tactical obsession of the Taliban and Al Qaida fighters of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Pakistan. If we cannot change the mind of people to stay alive, they will pull the temple down upon all our heads, like the outraged Biblical character Sampson.

• San Jose Firefighters Burn Foundation - Silver commitment to purchase of 20 tickets @ $10 ea = $200; helps purchase new equipment for Valley Medical Center Burn Unit, plus a Campership program to allow children burn victims to spend time in the outdoors to recover from their injuries through natural activities.

• KQED San Francisco 88.5 FM - I pay for free public radio.

• KALW 91.7 Local Public Radio - I pay for even more free public radio.

• Greenpeace - Classified as a “terrorist” organization in some countries. Also has a seat on the United Nations General Assembly. Therefore, the only “terrorist” organization officially supported by the U.N. I have a brand-new blog there too, yet as a placeholder mostly to just pull people back to my existing blogs. Yet, apparently, I am now a Greenpeace Personal Activist, with a potential Network. I’d love to strike up a long and productive partnership with this organization.

• Clean Water Action - No human can live more than a week without this substance. Shy of “air,” and “a surface area to reside on safely,” both of which you can’t really live without for more than a few mere minutes, there is no more precious commodity for our collective survival than water.

• Environment California (part of CALPIRG, supported by Fund for the Public Interest) - Because California has a lot of environment, and I love to enjoy it.

• Equal Rights Campaign (part of CALPIRG, supported by Fund for the Public Interest) - Because we are all humans and should be treated as such.

• GAIA (Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance) - Dedicated to saving lives in Africa, these people are trying to stem the tide of human casualties caused by the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. In some countries, AIDS has only decreased because large swaths of the population have died off from chronic illness and eventual breakdown of their bodies due to the disease. The infection rate only went down because an entire generation of carriers of the virus finally died. Yet some are doing all they can to combat the virus through ABC programs: Abstinence, Be Faithful, and use Condoms. Others have tried to say “AB,” but when you leave out the “C,” AIDS has tended to come back strong. Ipso facto, condoms, though uncomfortable to address and politically touchy, actually work to save lives. GAIA needs help to keep policies and programs effective for the communities they serve. They need assistance to make sure they can do their jobs. Read more about the scope of the problem. Also know that this is not just an “over there” issue. AIDS is a worldwide program. So help them keep it from getting any worse.

• Mama Maria Kenya - A clinic opened on the shores of Lake Victoria to help the people of Kenya survive and grow and learn. I sang in the U2Charist for the benefit of Peter Kithene’s clinic, and I call him my brother. I sang the songs of U2 in a form of mass. I was the only male cantor in the group of performers. Not that I am particularly very good. Yet it was very good that I sang. Peter is the survivor of deadly disease and deprivation which nearly wiped out his whole family. He, as a boy, survived and became the head of his household at the age of 12. He saw how education was the way to escape from his condition. It was the key to unlock the chains of poverty over all his family and his village and the people of his nation. Now, he runs a clinic, to help keep alive other children and other mothers and fathers. So that others do not need to suffer the same crisis of life-and-death he had to face himself. I am glad that Peter calls me his brother. I wish some days I took him up on his offer to come to see him in Africa. If you go to visit him in Kenya, give him my best.

• Education Project for Sudanese Refugees in Northern Kenya - Peter Nyok is my Sudanese brother. He is working to afford school for orphans and very poor children in Sudan and Kenya. Peter is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. A Christian from the southern part of the country, he is very kind and yet very quiet. His English is not polished, yet his kindness very true. He is from Bor, four hours outside of Juba, downstream (north) of it on the Nile. The problems of Sudan as myriad. Many people know of the crisis and conflict of Darfur, in the west. Yet the southern, predominantly black ethnic and Christian spiritual south has come repeatedly into direct conflict with the Arabic/Muslim culture Khartoum government and community. Over 4 million southern Sudanese have been displaced, either internally or forced into exile. Peter is one of these people. The recent pirated Ukranian ship held in Somalia has a shipment of dozens of tanks bound for southern Sudanese rebel groups seeking to strengthen themselves against the Muslim Sudanese government of Omar Al-Bashir. Yet Peter is not involved with fighting anything or anyone but children’s poverty and lack of education. I bought a mobile sculpture of painted wooden birds. Look for his handcrafts. Invite him to visit. If we are to win anything, it should be the survival of a new way of life for these children, lived in peace, learning and wisdom.

• The Translation Project - Niloufar Talebi is my Iranian sister. Ever since seeing the play on words implicit in her volume of translations of Iranian poetry from around the world — BELONGING — I have been longing to better understand the psyche and spirit of the Iranian diaspora community. Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and even before that, when I first became aware of the SAVAK by way of a 1976 60 Minutes exposé on the problems in the nation of Iran, I have worried about U.S. and Iranian relations. Before the 1973 OPEC Oil Crisis, the United States had hoped to be Iran’s ally in opposition to a Soviet-backed hegemony over the Middle East. Egypt, Syria, Iraq — Nasser’s almost-potent bloc — fell apart and never formed a lasting United Arab Republic. Israel set aside differences with Jordan. I remember the SPI game Oil War as a boy. Iran and the United States were supposed to be allies. That is what that game taught me. We were supposed to all be allies. Yet disasters heaped on disasters. Lebanon imploded and then turned into a black hole, a carcass fought over between Syria and Israel. The U.S.-sponsored Islamic Middle East states, from Saudi Arabia to Iran, could not set aside their own differences. Internally each of these nations was trying to dictatorially form modern nation-states out of tribal organizations dating back centuries if not millennia. Iran and Iraq then went into a tooth-and-nail war as miserable and nearly as pointless and just as bloody as World War I. Poison gas was employed. Trench warfare. Yet also modern weapons far more terrible than what were known to the soldiers of the Marne, Verdun and the Somme. For some reason, the plight of Iran has always plagued me. While others provocate for war with Iran, I have always thought the greatest tragedy was that we understand them so very little. We treat them as aliens. The same in return. It is far too easy to misconstrue the Farsi. It is far too easy to brand us the Great Shatan. We are far more than mere caricatures. There is a deeper possibility for love between our cultures and our peoples. There is far more to be gained from cooperation in the 21st Century than from any horrific conflict. So when I heard Niloufar was to speak in Mountain View, at Books, Inc. on Castro Street, I knew she, and her work, were important. I showed up to listen to her. I went to hear her and the other performers of Icarus/Rise in San Francisco. I hope to meet with her again in the future. She is a refugee. She represents the voices and sensibilities of an international, cosmopolitan, modern community which is still also grounded in very ancient, tribal, and primal forces and beliefs. I believe she, as a poetess, and a translator of poets, has far more to tell us about the Iranian mindset than any politician. Listen to her, and you may come to understand what I mean.

• Obama/Biden - Barack is intelligent, sober, and thoughtful. Which is apparently why so many people dislike him. He acts civilized, and so people want to mock him for his speech patterns, his gestures, his very mode of being. For me, two smart cookies in Barack and Joe is the way to go. However, I wish they got me a bumper sticker. Really. They called up asking for a second round of money, after I had already given. “Where’s my bumper sticker?” How can you ask me for another $100 if you can’t even give me a bumper sticker? Somehow, Clinton/Gore knew how to do this well. I had that bumper sticker on my Toyota Corolla for years. My Saturn still is lacking the proper political branding for the season. Has been for months. Barack, call me to apologize if you can get me a bumper sticker. I won’t even ask for a refund for my donation.

• Al Franken - He’s not in my state. Yet I feel it is important to donate to him so he can win in his own state. He’s tooth-and-nail in his battle. I think Al is a genuinely decent guy, even if he comes off a bit smart-alecky and even smarmy at times. His books were the first blow from the left to really get intellectual and factual in the counteroffensive against the radical right-wing. Hence, I believe he is a good spokesperson for what I would call the “pragmatic liberal” agenda. The Jon Stewart Democrats. The Colbert Report demographic. The “nationalization of state politics” in this particular election race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman was cited all the way back in January 2008, when it was seen that 63% of donations for the candidates were coming from out-of-state. Yes, I am one of them.

• Democratic National Committee (DNC) - I gave, yet I’d have been really happy if they got me an Obama bumper sticker. I also want them to consider opening the party so it is non-exclusive. Allow people to vote in the Democratic primary and also the Green party primary. Exclusivity seems really passe, especially with smaller single-issue, or specific-portfolio-of-issues parties in the world. I prefer the Greens on a few specific issues. I even like Libertarians on specific issues. I might even be willing to say I admire a few Republican issues. Yet none of these parties can really say they “represent” my specific interests. The Democrats are just “close,” as in scoring at horseshoes. No ringers. And, sadly, still no bumper sticker.

• Global Understanding Institute - I am pouring a lot of money into my own cause. It is not filed as a 501(c)(3) yet, so I can’t in good conscience ask you for the same commitment as I have. Unless you really want to get involved. If so, then call me and I can work with you on how you can help out. The projects I am working on now are myriad and growing. Some of these are already known. Others are just now getting organized. Others we have not yet inked the project plans or budgets for.

Razumijen — Understanding the Dissolution of Yugoslavia, the Wars of Independence of the Western Balkans, and the Problems of Modern Irredentism. A peacemaking game project to posit how one can solve for the best possible resolution for the masses given a civil war grounded in intolerence, xenophobia, racism, sectarian and religious prejudice, social injustice, as well as an environment of global political and economic instability.
9/11 to 11/11, From Tragedy to Truce — Transitioning the mindset of the 21st Century from one of fear of terrorism and the victimization of 9/11, to one seeking Peace in Our Time, and the fulfillment of the legacy of the Great War, the “War to End All Wars.” This 9/11 will be the 90th Anniversary of the Armistice. Yet we, as humanity, are still involved in terrible and horrific wars claiming the lives of countless souls. This project seeks to change mindsets from accepting war as the optimal way to solve problems to mark it as an inefficient, insufficient way to redress grievances. If we are to avoid “9/11” in the future, whatever the disaster may be—a radical group with an atomic weapon, a cult which unleashes a gas attack in a crowded subway, a fouling of the nest of humanity—we must find a better way to listen to those howling in pain, ready to lash out, and to find a way to diffuse that anger and answer the implicit crisis they wish us to heed. The only way to prevent these crimes and disaster scenarios is to make other options — choosing life, direct conversation and engagement with one’s opponents, negociations — these must remain more attractive than apocalypse and armageddon. We must find a way to move from violence to armistice. Hence, to return to the original intent of 11/11, at 11:00 AM, when the report came back to Berlin: all quiet on the Western front. The peace following conflict. The resumption of civil life. This is the meaning of Armistice. This is the only way to win a war against terrorism: for understanding, tolerance, and peace to break out. We must work for that vision. So that by the centennial, the 100th Anniversary of Armistice, we can say “Mission Accomplished” and have it mean a whole order of magnitude more provident possibilities for humanity for the remainder of the 21st Century. Elsewise, we may face a World War III, IV, and possibly even V during this coming century to make World War I and II seem like small brush fires. The fate of humanity before us now is vital and the choice is ours.
Global Understanding Audio — This series of audio interviews present unique perspectives and reflects the views of various individuals in our society. Fame is not a requirement to be interviewed. Neither is achievement. Nor wealth. However, each person is challenged to present their lives in such a way so that their achievements to humanity and the world are seen as valuable. The good they do is the measure of their wealth. The old axiom about getting only 15 minutes of fame is dashed, because we will give at least a half hour up to an hour. So twice or four times the fame as others would give you credit for! Anyone can be interviewed for Global Understanding, yet when one considers their own life in the context of humanity at large, they must be able to answer a few questions: Who are they? What do they do? Why should anyone care? What are they interested in? What do they care about? How can others who are interested and care get involved too? Global Understanding does not leave global problems at the doorstep. It invites the listener to step through the portal, to engage with another human to better understand the world around us, and to begin the path to solving these crises and conflicts.
The American Dream — This film project is going to be released in different cuts and lengths over time. The first phased release from it is The Rehearsal, a Canaan Project Social Experiment, directed by Franklin Pham. This five minute film is dedicated to processing the losses of 9/11, and positing a new future for the United States and the world. This short film is, in a way, the first indirect artistic “child” of the Global Understanding movement. It shows the power of Global Understanding as a social, political and artistic movement. It was recognized at the Campus MovieFest 2008 as one of the top 16 entries of 128 submitted to the competition from teams at San Jose State University (SJSU).
20/20 by 2020 — This project is going to be rolled into Global Understanding. The proposition is to push for a 40% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) by the year 2020, comprised of (ideally) 20% solar and 20% wind energy production. California has already raised its 2020 RPS target to 33%, so to raise it to 40% as a stretch goal is not entirely out-of-the-question. 20/20 can also be viewed another way. Specifically for the transportation sector. 20/20 by 2020 thus further calls for an overall reduction of 20% greenhouse gas and carbon emissions, and a +20% Miles Per Gallon increase in fuel economy standards for vehicles. Right now, the US has wrung a 4.5% annual increase in vehicle fuel efficiency from 2011 to 2015. However, this does not raise overall cars-on-the-road efficiency by 20%, since many vehicles operating in 2020 may be decades old, conforming to far lower standards. Therefore, to achieve a +20% increase in MPG would require a radical overhaul of the auto industry to get older, lower-MPG vehicles replaced as soon as possible.

There are more projects coming down the pike for Global Understanding. I also have other causes I support. Some of which I may even be forgetting! Yet this gives you an understanding of what sort of politics I support. Yes, I am Liberal. Specifically Green and progressive Democratic. Though I believe in a strong military, I believe you need to lead with “butter” (economic, constructive and productive means) long before you resort to “guns” (military, defensive and destructive means).

What are your favorite causes? What causes do you think I am supporting you would wish to get involved in? Which causes am I not supporting you wish I did get more actively involved in? What causes do I support that just drive you batty? Why in particular? How can we agree to disagree?

-Pete.

p.s. I will add more links over time. I just have to get some other work done. The time is 2:29 AM. Sleep well, folks.

The Rehearsal

2008-10-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Franklin Pham’s new short film, a 5-minute version of The American Dream, was selected by the Campus MovieFest (CMF) as one of the top 16 entries out of 128 films made by teams at San Jose State University (SJSU).

The Rehearsal from $kull C@ndy on Vimeo.

It was an awesome feeling sitting in the audience and watching our work show up on the screen. My own face amongst the dozens of others who made the picture possible. Garbage bag after garbage bag. Dozens of people. Voices. Faces. Stories. Lives.

For my own part, I was Bag 098: Peter Corless.

All of us working for a common goal and vision for a more positive future for the planet.

We are presently waiting to hear whether the movie will be selected to be put onto the AT&T mobile phone network. If it is selected, it will be downloadable to 60 million subscribers!

Write in the comments how this movie makes you feel. How it changes how you have thought about the past seven years. How it shapes your vision for the next seven years before us.

In the meanwhile, we all have more work to do.

Rock on, Franklin! Rock on!

-Pete.

p.s. If you want to get involved with the Global Understanding movement, or The American Dream movie project, and are willing to wear a garbage bag for an artistic statement and social purpose, contact me at 650-906-3134 or email petercorless@mac.com.

A Letter to the Cousteaus

2008-10-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

I saw photographs of Philippe Cousteau, Jr. standing beside Roz Savage at a recent event for Ocean Champions.

It led me to read up about what Philippe has been doing in recent years. Which led me to the fate of Calypso, and Alexandra's quest to help see the ship restored.

It also made it clear that the Cousteau Society web site is down.

It was like another 9/11 to me. A silent world, having another disaster. A fierce fight, which led to the downfall of a monumental human achievement.

The World Trade Center was a symbol to me of human civilzation. As was the Concorde, that bird of the sky that flew over my High School in Rockaway Beach, Queens. Now retired. As is the Statue of Liberty which stood in New York harbor. Still there. France and the United States. Intertwined. The Oceans. The World. The Calypso is similarly a symbol of my life. Ever since before I was born. World Without Sun won the 1964 Academy Award, the same year as I was born. I was only almost 3 months old when it was released, 22 December 1964. I'd like to see the Cousteau family to settle their disputes, so that children around the world can dream again about the oceans. Like I did.

• http://www.earthecho.org

My Conundrum of Gaming

2008-10-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

For the better part of the last decade, I spent time playing various games, from Skotos’ Castle Marrach, to Max Barry’s NationStates to Electronic Arts’ The Sims 2, to Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, to understand how and why people live in domestic peace and harmony, or what compels them to compete and kill each other.

“Conflict is good,” was the mantra of many people who ran Castle Marrach. Yet the conflict was also so uncompelling, tedious and wretched it drove away tens of thousands of people over the years.

Analogies flood my mind: if you pee in the Cheerios, very few people want to eat out of that bowl. You can only survive in a mosh pit for so long. Too many rats in too small a cage will kill and devour each other.

Why, I wonder, in a game which could otherwise be about a peaceful co-existence, humans seem unmistakably compelled to create dissonance and conflict. As if screwing it up is a biological, ideological imperative. And once they don’t like how the game is going, just destroy it all and start over. Apparently, such computer and Internet games teach us, if the glass is half-empty, drain it. Once it is empty, shatter it. Heaven is so boring. Let’s start a riot.

While dramatic conflict is necessary for the plot of a fictional work, in real life, we prefer challenges over conflicts, generally. You can challenge me in a test to see if I have paid attention in class. That I like. Yet I prefer not to hear arguments over what questions I may have gotten wrong, or how I could have done better, or how stupid I am. That I don’t like.

Not that I am not stupid. I am human. All humans do stupid things at least once in their life. Ipso facto, I am responsible for doing stupid things. To paraphrase Descartes via Mel Blanc, “I think. Therefore I think I am stupid.” At times we are.

Many computer games could be qualified as “stupid time-wasting distractions.” They often are. Other times they can be sublime teaching tools and methods for social bonding and recreation unparalled by any other human activity. Quite often they are both stupid and sublime at the same time. The Romans coined the term ludos, which is what they called a game. And they gifted us a word, ludicrous, which expresses a state like a game. Silly. Frivilous. Oddball. Weird. Playful. Fun.

I don’t believe games are an utter waste of time. Even if you feel they wasted your time, there are still many intangibles. Much personal value does depend on what one gets out of it. Fun, enjoyment, learning, social bonds, appreciation of the art, design and production of the game itself. The process of playing. The reflection on the final outcome and one’s participation.

Yet the game itself has an objective. It wants to be played. It wants you to play it. Playing a game is a sort of Darwinian imperative of the game itself. If no one plays it, the game is dead. Thus it seeks to propagate itself using human hosts possessed by belief in the value of the game.

Some games are not played any more. For various reasons. Most often, because they are just no fun any more. They do not provide sufficient rewards, or the rewards are not valued the way they once were, or the cost or input required to play them is felt to be too much to sustain.

Yet I come back to the basic issue: why do people create conflicts where none naturally exist? What drives people to disagree even on “easy” topics? Why do people pick and peck and poke and knock? How do we promote tolerance?

Much of the game theory I am considering for Razumijen as well as other games, is based in cooperative game play, or “coopertition” where players cooperate while they simultaneously compete in other ways. Pure head-to-head win-lose scenarios are less interesting to me than win-win, or, really, winner1-winner2-winner3-winnerN games, where at least everyone is advancing to some level, or is regarded as a winner in a different way. Everyone has to be able to have some fun, for instance. And the game should try to avoid making people feel bad about their play level. Not all humans are equal in skill or experience, yet we should cater to their emotions fairly, since they were, ideally, created equally.

Yet how can I create compelling games to elevate the experience, so people don’t just find it boring and go back to their first person shooters and their drone-like whack-a-mole slaughter-fests in their MMORGs?

Is happiness “boring?” What percentage of people will snort and cynically leave a game because it is not dystopic and cut-throat enough? There’s insufficient craziness, dissonance and darkness to make them “happy.”

The conundrum is that, because it is a game, one can do all sorts of things to make the game interesting. In the short term. Yet certain games, if one is exposed to them over longer-term play, begin to create chronic social disorders if the game and social theory behind the community is not healthy and sustainable.

So, staring me in the face is the prospect of creating board games and computer games with the long-term social health and well-being of the players in mind primarily, their happiness next, a fair bit of informal education tucked inside neatly so they don’t feel they’re being lectured to, and then... All the rest of the game.

Quite a conundrum, and I haven’t even had brunch yet.

The Olive Tree Suffers to Live

2008-09-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Shea Stadium R.I.P.

2008-09-29T13:33:00.001-07:00

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.

“Movin’ on is a chance
You take any time
you try to stay
together.”

The 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.

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 stay
They blew the Bronx away
And sank Manhattan out at sea”

Queens is staying, yet Shea will be gone soon. Like Christie Brinkley splitting with Billy Joel. The Mets are divorcing Shea Stadium. News at 11.

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 happened
To a dream
That I had long ago
I can’t say when
And I don’t know why
It ever had to go...”

She’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.

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

2008-09-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

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.

Rapper's Delight (an NYC song animated for SF)
Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang) - (Live Concert Footage) - longer version
Rapper's Delight @ Wikipedia

My college roommate, Todd Goldman, used to always sing, "Ho-tel, Mo-tel, Ho-li-day Inn..."

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.

Pledge of Interest & Concern for the World

2008-09-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

Draft 0.1 is up for review. Please let me know what you think.

-Pete.

Andrei Hasn't Got Back to Me Yet

2008-09-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

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.

A Tree Grows on Rengstorff

2008-09-25T13:44:00.001-07:00

I spend more time marveling at what I've already found... what have you found? about life?
-h

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."

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.

Happy birthday to Connor!

2008-09-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Happy birthday to meeeee!

2008-09-23T03:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Meeting Dick Bolles @ Apple Store, Palo Alto

2008-09-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

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

Poppies, And The Flower of England

2008-09-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Google AdWords Make No Sense

2008-09-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

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!

Notes for 9/12, the Day After

2008-09-13T00:58:00.000-07:00

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.

9/11 2008: Episode ”n”: The End of the Day

2008-09-11T23:54:00.000-07:00

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

9/11 2008: Episode 9: “Woke Up, Fell Out of Bed...”

2008-09-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

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.

9/11 2008: Episode 8: WYNC asks: How do you talk to kids?

2008-09-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

“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

2008-09-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

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.”

9/11, 2008: Episode 6: Goat Story

2008-09-11T05:51:00.001-07:00

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:

“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

2008-09-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

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.

9/11 2008: Episode 4: No Sleeping for a Disaster or a Friend’s Text Pages

2008-09-11T05:14:00.000-07:00

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.

9/11, 2008: Episode 3: Darkest Before the Dawn

2008-09-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

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

9/11 2008: Episode 1: Sprint Customer Service, Lloyd LaCuesta, the Day Before and the Month Ahead

2008-09-11T00:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Flowers in the Cracks / Global Understanding - Take Pictures on September 11, 2008

2008-09-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

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: temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement between the opponents : truce.
http://www.Merriam-Webser.com/dictionary/armistice

I wish to establish a new tradition:

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...

2008-09-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

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:

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.

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.

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.

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...

2008-09-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

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.

No Carmen for Carmen

2008-09-09T17:59:00.001-07:00

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.

1% Authorship

2008-09-09T17:31:00.000-07:00

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.

Lost Notebook...

2008-09-09T17:16:00.001-07:00

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.

Hire This Man!

2008-09-05T15:27:00.001-07:00

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.

Friendship & Spam

2008-09-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

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. ]

Pacificon Game Expo 2008

2008-08-29T15:25:00.000-07:00

Tonight I am heading to Pacificon Game Expo 2008.

• I got no games I am hosting

• I can pack some games in the car for open gaming.

• There's a LARP Saturday Morning that Cynthia Barnes wants me to sign up for.

• I’ll be meeting the prospective publisher of Razumijen for the to talk business face-to-face for the first time for lunch on Saturday, though we likely have met over the years, especially at Celebrate History 1998-1999.

• I have a few other obligations to juggle on Saturday and Sunday, including:

a D&D game in the East Bay Saturday afternoon-to-evening, and
a trip to the Alameda County Fair Grounds for the Scottish Highland Games for Legio X Fretensis, if I can make it.

My mind is awash in the fact that I am conceiving the structure for the Global Understanding Institute. The more I see it, the more it becomes clear there is a need not just for strategy simulation games, or a charitable and educational non-profit incorporated in the State of California, and more that there is a need for a new international, supernational, political movement for Global Understanding.

According to Merriam-Webster (M-W.com), Pacific means:

1 a: tending to lessen conflict : conciliatory
b: rejecting the use of force as an instrument of policy
2 a: having a soothing appearance or effect pacific breezes>
b: mild of temper : peaceable
3capitalized : of, relating to, bordering on, or situated near the Pacific Ocean

The Roman Latin etymology is “pax-ficus” which sort of means, oddly, “peace fig.” Perhaps if we all ate more fig newtons, or wore nothing more than fig leaves, or didn’t give a fig about fighting, we’d have less violence.

Pacificon means, approximately, “the state of peace/lessened conflict (pacific) with (con).” It is a good day to formally advertise and declare the Global Understanding movement has begun here in California, and to try to recruit others to the cause.

Mark your calendars for this historic date! August 29-30, 2008. At the convention of “the state of peace with.”

Yet the show proclaims itself the “Pirate King of Cons.” It is somewhat ironic the amount of wars and violent, lawless lives that are celebrated for entertainment purposes. Yet in simulating and understanding conflicts, we can hopefully learn how to resolve conflicts in the real world.

YMMV

As I move to this, I think about the amount of personal resistance and conflict I have gotten into in my own life with some people I thought would have understood what I was working towards in my life. Arguments of recent.

About girlfriends, or my current lack thereof. About religion, and the prejudices thereof. Or those prejudices held against another’s religion. About people who have been subjected to prejudice treatment in the past by others who then hold prejudices against my own beliefs, or their fears about what I may or might not belief. About 99% of their fears are utterly unfounded. About the consensus of what is true for all, or for many, or for oneself. About what makes people spitting angry, and how they tend to cut each other off in conversation.

I am no hypocrite. I have argued with the best and worst of them. Yet I have done what I can of recent to learn how to avoid arguing, or apologize. Yet in the past few months, I have been contacting some people from my past who I have lost contacts with, or broken commitments to, or who I have offended. Friends I have lost or nearly forgotten over 43 years of rushing headlong, stumbling and bouncing, walking relaxedly or tip-toeing through life.

The word apology means, basically, an explanation for an act. Contrition is when you are truly sorry. Of late, I’ve been quite contrite, and often apologetic for my own flaws. Since my layoff from Cisco in 2001, and since the folding of Green Knight c. 2004-2005, I’ve had a lot of time to be contrite and apologetic, at least internally. Yet things began to change in 2006 for me, and now it is 2008. I am doing what I can to righten and make straight that which I have bent or broken over the years.

Getting good with God, and with my fellow men and women, with plants and animals, with heaven and earth.

Peace on earth, goodwill towards men. That’s what I have on my mind and in my heart today as I get prepared to go to Pacificon. Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV).

In a way, Pacificon is like Christmas in August. Plenty of toys and games!

Yet this year, I’ll be a full adult, attending with a completely different level of interest.

I am open to the possibilities!

-Pete.

Legio X Fretensis

2008-08-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

At last, dusting off my life for the past two years, I got around to updating the Legio X Fretensis blog. It was an amazing coincidence that sparked my desire to update it.

A while back I gave Bob Garbisch a call. Left a message. I owe him another!

Busy Day

2008-08-24T01:18:00.000-07:00

Today I was very busy doing a few things:

• A super-secret media project! It is awesome. I am working with a genius. Fun too!

• Suicide Prevention: Out of the Darkness Community Walk

• Talked to a few kids today. I got an accidental call from a friend’s kid. We had a rather nice chat about cars. Earlier in the day, I got to make animals with my fingers, like a bird, a dog, and dinosaurs, for a 20-month old. We shared it over iChat video.

• Wrote an email explaining precession of the Earth’s axis.

Because of the Out of the Darkness walk, I spent much of the day researching and writing about suicide and suicide-homicide. I sent a message at last to the St. Jude's community. I will publish it here soon enough.

I am finally getting to a point where I am getting about as many emails inbound as I can answer reasonbly in a day. Tommorow is Sunday. I’ll do my best to use it as a day of rest!

-Pete.

1066: One Year In History You Will Never Forget

2008-08-23T22:44:00.001-07:00

I have been harboring the idea for a movie based on the year 1066 for a long while.

I went to Normandy, Norway and Britain in 1994 to research that historic year when England was conquered. It has been 14 years since I made that pilgrimage to Stamford Bridge and Battle Abbey, the actual site where the “Battle of Hastings” was fought.

It is time to start bringing some dreams to reality.

No Longer In Service

2008-08-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

No Longer in Service

We cannot complete your call as dialed.
Please check the number and dial again.
Alltel 54
We’re sorry.
You have reached a number that has been disconnected
Or is no longer in service.
If you feel you have reached this recording in error,
Please check the number and try your call again.

No matter how many times I dial the phone,
I missed my last chance to hug you hello
Or even, alas, to say goodbye.

My memories fade so fast
Mnemosyne has lifted them from me
So I do not need to bear them as a burden
Yet one by one, if I sit and think upon your face
The memories come back.

Of you with Jodi’s children
The trips with the kids in the van
Roving far and near
How your voice would squeak or rise or settle
Making clear the severity of what you faced
So one understood it just wasn’t something in your head
Your body was off-kilter
You needed help
And you got it
And you wanted others to get help too
And to realize what so many people face
Day in and day out
Not just any people
You.
Terry.
My friend.

Your delicate light hair, thinning at such a young age
Your nose, which I was always tempted to honk
Though I restrained myself
I was friendly enough, but…
I never honked your nose
I never said how much I loved your friendship near often enough
I was afraid to

You have my apologies
For I was inconsiderate
I never called you back about that project idea we had
Where I would dream up some brand-new technology
And you would use your writing skills to document it
And we’d put it on the web
And we’d patent it
And get rich
And be happy

Hey, Terry.
I have to ask.
Why didn’t you call me up?
I gave you my number too, you know
Any time, I said – day or night
I meant it.
I’d have loved a call from you
To hear from you
To listen to what you needed
To be your friend

Don’t you remember the June two-years’-past?
I walked the Overnight
From dusk til dawn I walked
Feeling my body pumping
Considering my own survival
For walking ten miles will tax a man’s body
At the age of 41

It was my own survival of the fittest
To get myself in shape
To push my limits
To lose some pounds
To get out of the apartment
To live a little more
And a little better

I marched for I had lost a friend from Carnegie Mellon long ago
Long before you made your own fatal choice.
Do you remember Molly?
The Southern Belle at the Beaux Arts Ball
Died just as the last dancers had crept to bed.
So very close to dawn.

I walked the Overnight so I might not ever have to know another Molly
To hear of the suicide of someone I loved
Or at least, had a crush on
Or even liked a lot

That was all part of what was driving me
When I marched off to the Danube banks in Croatia
And marched adventurously the length of Hadrian’s Wall
All to get in shape to walk that Overnight
For hope.

When all the walking was done
And I got to rest my blistered feet
It was a miracle and a joy
A fair amount of money raised for a good cause
To help save people like you

Apparently it was insufficient
For not that long ago
I had this tear-filled call from Jodi
She loved you like a sister.
Yet love was not enough
Ah, well.

So, Terry, you know what this means,
Don’t you?
You realize what you’ve started now?
Yep.
It’s true.
It’s also pretty simple.
It means:
We’ve got more walking to do.

Today’s walking is going to be fun.
Blue skies.
A sun so brilliant it shames any diamond sold
A walk with perky Jodi and her bubbly kids
At the County Fair in San Mateo
Terry, seriously -- you’d love it!

While you may now be no longer in service
I vowed to live my life that way
And so I must rededicate myself to serve
Those in need.
And do the best that I can.
And keep walking.

Meanwhile, give my best to Molly
I remember you both fondly and well
I hope you have both found
A finer, grander, peaceful place

In memory of Terry Young.

If you wish to help honor Terry, and to help all the others of the world in similar crises, please support me in the Out of the Darkness community walk, September 27, 2008.

A New Day Dawns

2008-08-22T05:42:00.001-07:00

It is 5:45 AM. As the day dawns, I have accomplished a great deal, and look at a great deal yet to accomplish. Forgive me world, for I shall need to sleep. Yet there is one more thing to be done before sleep takes me. And yet another. Through this all, I am content. I feel a profound sense of purpose. I am on an adventure, as I was on this morning two years ago when I took this photograph.

Video Too Dark

I wrote the above this morning, just as I shot the video in the early morning hours. I get into a different sort of mindset past the midnight and towards the dawn.

We shall have to see where it leads. At least for this morning, at 8:30 AM, to the Saturn of Steven’s Creek dealership!

8 Days Offline

2008-08-22T02:42:00.000-07:00

You may notice over history how I started my blogs during 2006, then stopped, and then in 2008 I started them up again. If you are curious as to what happened to have spurred such a change in my life, and why, please read my new “blogette” 8 Days Offline.

It’s the utterly epic, non-fictional tale of how I got unplugged, and then, when I got plugged back in, life looked was pretty much the same, yet was utterly and profoundly different.

Enjoy!

-Pete.

Pete on YouTube

2008-08-19T21:03:00.001-07:00

This was my first video for YouTube. It is for the Global Understanding Institute.

• globalunderstandinginstitute.org
• globalunderstandinginstitute.blogspot.com

Please let me know what you think.

Working on Global Understanding Institute

2008-08-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today I did work on the Global Understanding Institute, including launching the organizational web site:

• Global Understanding Institute Web Site (http://www.globalunderstandinginstitute.org)

And also posting an introductory video on YouTube:

• Intro to Global Understanding Institute (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYm17f0iRoc)

You can go to the Global Understanding Institute blog to read about what I am up to these days.

-Pete.

Renewal of Life and Light: A Single Light and Out of the Darkness

2008-08-18T01:24:00.000-07:00

I recently committed to support and contribute to two non-profit organizations.

The first is A Single Light. I wish to aid them provide clear information and referrals to various services for people affected by cancer. Nathaniel Montgomery is a leader, a passionate personality and driving force behind this non-profit. There may be some way Flowers in the Cracks can aid in art therapy for cancer victims. We'll have to talk about this in a future gathering. Or leave your comments about how our themes may help support each other.

The second is the Out of the Darkness community walk at Crissy Field in San Francisco on September 27, 2008. This walk is in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). My goal is to get $1000 in donations, to match what I raised for the 2006 Overnight. I have already garnered $200. In fact, I want to blow that goal away. Please contribute what you can to show your commitments for this cause.

Both of these charities poetically adapt the terms of light and darkness to represent hope and hopelessness in the face of life-threatening challenges. Both require significant personal commitment to overcome. To submit to and endure the necessary cancer treatments and possibly invasive operations, or to summon the day-to-day courage and desire to affirm one's will to live. The risks to survival are not a mere poetic figure of speech. Each failure or setback in cancer or suicide prevention or treatment results in a myriad of suffering: near-death traumatic experiences, chronic suffering, possible lifelong crippling, or a fatality.

Some Statistics

• The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates 1.34 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2004; these people joined an estimated 11.1 million Americans who are living with a previous diagnosis of cancer.

• The 2008 SEER report estimates a 40.35% lifetime risk chance of being diagnosed with cancer

• In the same SEER report, cancer causes an annual death rate of 189.8 per 100,000, and has a 5-year survival rate of 65.3%.

• A 2007 CBS study of 45 states who provided data disclosed 6,256 military veterans had committed suicide in 2005; moreover, veterans suffer a suicide rate double that of the general population (estimated between 22.9 to 31.9 per 100,000, vs. 8.3 per 100,000 for the general population).

• In 2007 active duty US Army deaths due to suicides (115 lives lost) were the highest rate ever recorded since the Army began tracking in 1980.

• A 2007 report by the National Police Suicide Foundation determined that on average per year, 450 police officers commit suicide annually; three times the average of 150 deaths in the line of duty.

• In 2007, there were an estimated 1,100 murder-suicides, according to the Violence Policy Center. This includes the proverbial “going postal” violent deaths in the workplace, the Columbine-style massacres in our schools and colleges, and the shocking shootings on our buses or in our places of worship. Yet even for all the sensational press coverage, true and grim statistics show 75% of such deaths occur in the home.

Hopefully we can shed more light on these serious incidents of suffering in our community. This year I had a friend commit suicide because of a confluence of medical and financial problems all compounded. I will tell you more about Terry in the future. For now, just know that I have lost someone personally to suicide this year. Likewise, I know someone who survived cancer in recent years, a pair of friends at church whose wives are undergoing treatment, another person who had a “false positive” test result for cancer, and possibly countless others whom I acquainted with who suffer in quiet and modest stoicism.

If they are ill, and I am healthy, I will walk for them. If you are busy, and I am free, donate to my walk. This is part of my commitment for Flowers in the Cracks, and that spirit of renewal and healing in the world.

My prayers and best wishes to anyone affected by these weighty health and mental well-being issues. If anyone ever needs to call to talk about these issues, or what Flowers in the Cracks can do to help ameliorate or alleviate suffering, I am at 650-906-3134, or email petercorless{at}mac.com.

Good morning to you all,

-Peter Corless.
petercorless@mac.com
650-906-3134 (mobile)

What do Al Yankovic and Ghandi's Passive Resistance Movement have in common?

2008-08-16T03:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight I saw Al Yankovic at the San Mateo County Fair. He was awesome! I went with a buddy, and then also met a college friend and his son. On the way in before the show I grabbed some information for my political interests. I found there is a Republican with the last name of Conlon (my middle name, from maternal lineage). I also watched a bit of a flower-arranging class. More on that will be reported in Flowers in the Cracks. I also spoke to electricians and insulation experts about solar power and energy-saving materials that leads into my 20/20 by 2020 thoughts.

Then the big event! I got some t-shirts. Sat down. Me and my buddy were all excited. I recall clearly how I felt instantly transported back to 1986, as the sound system played the pre-show tunes of Joe Jackson singing “One More Time” (“One more time, one more time, say you're leaving, say goodbye, One more time!”) and INXS singing “What You Need” (“I’ll take you, I’ll take you, where you want to be...”).

Then the lights dimmed and the show opened! We sang! We cheered! We were totally laughing and living it up. Around us, the mostly white-and-nerdy audience was enthusiastic, clapping a lot, but somewhat resistant to stand up and dance.

In fact, my buddy told me to sit down at one point. I did so, yet felt vindicated when seconds later Al himself asked everyone to get on their feet! Everyone was enthusiastic, at least as far as clapping and cheering, yet reserved. Withholding a bit. Staid. Passive. Resistant to moving themselves. I saw some other people on the far side of the room up on their feet and wondered why such enjoyment was isolated.

I mean, holy canole!!! It was a great show! The band was tight and polished! The video clips, especially with Kevin Federline, were hilarious. The musical segueways were as polished as the reflective wheels on Al’s Segway. My bud and I sang the lyrics we knew with a gusto! The encore of Albuquerque was awesome! My head was rocking back and forth like a dashboard bobblehead. I am sure people sitting next to me wondered if it was going to snap off my neck.

For those now eager to go see him live, one note: bring your cell phone.

We all gathered together afterwards and talked about a myriad of things over Italian sausages and Pepsi — subjects ranging from rental housing lawsuits to healthcare costs in America. On the way to the car, I ran into a couple I hadn’t seen since Celebrate History in 1999! Yet I clearly remembered the woman in the couple and even pointed her out to my buddy. She was in the Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild, and was indeed the woman who was the subject for Dr. Mesmer’s experiments in hypnotism as part of our 18th Century Salon. They have a nice little business now: starchytuber.com. Then, with email and phone numbers exchanged, it was off for home.

After I dropped my buddy off down near Campbell, I was still in a great mood and utterly not tired. So on a lark, I went to Alberto’s Night Club, on West Dana Street, off Castro Street in Mountain View.

Although I usually expect to hear salsa music when I go in, tonight the place was filled with the desi music of India. The place was like a massive Bollywood party! India turned 61 years old today. The “July 4th” of a different culture. Apparently Fridays are now Bollywood night! I blinked a bit when I was told the cover was $45. (More than the $30 price for a VIP ticket to see Al!)

I walked away a bit, got under a light in front of Books, Inc., and finally extricated and counted out enough squunched up bills in my pockets. Turned around and headed in.

It was a blast! Dizzy dancing all around! I soaked it all in and felt like I was 23 again. Everyone was partying with everyone. There was a freedom, a joy, an exuberance that was utterly liberating. High-fiving! Enthusiastic shouts of joy! Smiles on every face. I danced with guys showing off their masculine moves. I danced with a very nice and pretty young woman in a traditional sari. I peeked up in admiration at the beautiful costumes and women in the Bollywood movies showing up on a video screen to the side — Disney has no monopoly on making feel-good musicals!

I lost myself in my own happy dance listening to the rhythm of music from half-a-world away, yet recognizing the same sorts of beats and banter patterns to be heard from any modern DJ anywhere in the world from Mumbai, India to Mountain View, California, from Mayo, Ireland to Montevideo. Here was no passivity. There was a bit of passivity and resistance from a few corners to get up and dance. Yet so many made up for it!

Bump, bump, bump! Went the beat.
Dance, dance, dance! Went the feet.

The place was filled with shimmying, swirling, swishing bodies. The men were all tigers, on the prowl. Though most all of the guys seemed as harmless and friendly as Tigger. The women all seemingly-innocent lambs, though I caught a bit of an alluring arched eyebrow and an enticing smile here and there indicating they were possibly looking to get caught! Yet not by me. I did indeed feel my age. Though the dancing made me feel young, I had an “I remember when” feel in my heart. Some of these young people were probably not alive when I was first out of college and dancing in the New York night clubs.

One point of correction I must make for myself. First I thought it was the 60th anniversary of India’s birth. No, I was wrong. The partition was 1947. Perhaps I was thinking of Ghandi’s assassination, which occurred this year on January 30th, in 1948. Regardless, the place closed down to the enthusiastic singing of songs in foreign tongues and the to-be-expected lingering of clumps of friends and the pretty young women leaning into quite handsome young men for a closer conversation.

I wandered back to my car around 2:00 am. It had been about 6 and a half hours of pure fun since Al Yankovic took the stage. Probably one of the most totally fun times in my life. Certainly one of the most refreshing experiences I had all year.

On the surface, the obvious connection is that on the same night, I saw a show by Wierd Al and danced to celebrate the Indian independence that Ghandi’s movement brought about. On a second level, I was able to see and compare how at both events passivity and resistance of people can be used to bring about social change (getting up and dancing the night away), or it can be used to avoid getting involved in the world around us. They are also connected, at least in my life, because Al Yankovic and Ghandi both inspired me in different ways. Wierd Al with the ludicrousness and humor of existence. Ghandi with the sublimity and profundity of it all. They are a yin and yang pair.

Afterwards, I logged into WoW just to see if some friends were still online. They were, but I really didn’t do any questing. I just chatted with them about movies, games and books. I conceded to read Atlas Shrugged finally, though I have never been an Ayn Rand fan, philosophically. I also inspired a friend to watch the movie Witness.

One final note: As I was typing this up, researching the genre that is Indian desi dancing, I came across this video, which reminds me of a hybrid of Wierd Al does Desi. (Though he’d probably be more likely to do Desi Arnez.)

A Distant Relative

2008-08-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an artist in the north of England. Wow! Relatives all over the place. Artists, at that!

“Up Corless!” as the Irish would cheer.

Shanachie Records

2008-08-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

I love the collection of world music sold by Shanachie records. I have a bunch of their music. However, given the mess of my apartment, my music collection is all piled up and scattered around. I have more music than I can listen to, unless I hired a professional DJ like Dave Morey of KFOG to spin the hits every day.

Yet when I take a precious CD out of it's jewel case (an apt metaphor), and place it in my CD player, I am transported to distant lands and times. The world is better. Smaller. Kinder. Warmer. Nostalgic, yet futuristic. An alternate reality of where else I might be in the world. Or, then reflecting upon it, I imagine the people of those lands and cultures abroad, and I realize that I am happy that they are there. Living their lives. Listening to this sort of music.

There is a sort of resonance that is established. That “world harmony” we once sang about if we only we bought the world a coke. Unfortunately, not everyone in the world can be taught to sing... yet.

Actually KFOG has the Putumayo World Music Hour, which highlights the music of Putumayo World Music. Maybe Shanachie should call KFOG and try to get some of their records in the rotation too. That'd make me smile more!

God, I love living in the age of the Internet! A World Wide Web of music!

Global Understanding Institute - Work in Progress

2008-08-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

I am working hard today on the Global Understanding Institute. Check out my work there.

-Pete.

20/20 by 2020 - at the CARB review meeting

2008-08-13T00:15:00.000-07:00

On August 8, 2008, at 1555 Berger Avenue, San Jose, California, the Santa Clara County Department of the Environment held a meeting for the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

I spoke at the meeting, and I never felt more "participatory democratic electorate" in my life. More of what happened there coming soon!

Why did you stop, Pete?

2008-08-11T02:03:00.000-07:00

I was tired. I was scared. I was lazy. I was relaxing. I was searching. I was well-off-enough to not have to care about working for a while.

I took a "life sabbatical" that took a bit longer than I expected.

Two words keep spinning around in my mind:

• Ameliorate
• Exacerbate

Many people know me, and it would be fair to say that I have, in my life, exacerbated some situations to the detriment of my own performance and the outcome of my relationships and projects. I suppose that is part of being a fallible human.

What kept me from action for a few years towards this project was the thought that I might actually, at times, do more harm than good. That rather than solve anything, I might just be stirring up things better left alone.

After coming back from Croatia, I was emotionally and psychically crushed under the weight of all that stood ahead of me on this path.

Who am I to solve global conflicts? Who do I think I am? Don't I argue with friends? By objective observation alone, apparently I can't even keep a successful relationship or career going. So how in the world am I supposed to solve problems of the world far larger than my own? "Bah! Physician, heal thyself!"

Fear plagued my thinking over time. What if, in some future day, I might say something to get a fatwa declared against me, or some offended religious group decides to boycott or plague the efforts of what I am setting out to do? Or I get sued or investigated or arrested for all sorts of increasing fantastical but possible reasons. What if, for instance, in the name of peace, some day I might get shot?

I actually made peace with the "putting my life on the line" rather easily. Moreso, I was embarrassed. Who in the world did I think I was to try to tackle this big a project? My ego stood in the way of progress because it was not being strong enough. The word, specifically, is pusilanimous -- the spirit of a small child.

Who did I think I was? "Eek!" So I hid for a bit from my worldly obligations.

If I was strong and manly, like Popeye the Sailor Man, I'd say "I am what I am and that's all what I am." The credo of the existentialist hero.

If I was Siddhārtha Gautama, I'd simply touch two fingers to the ground, and answer with the silent affirmation, "The earth knows who I am."

Jesus might ask, "Who do you say I am?"

Yet I am neither cartoon character nor a divine being. Anyone who may accuse me of being some sort of egotistical prophet should know this about me: I am quite aware of what it takes to be a superhero, and I did not pass the test with flying colors.

I'm Peter Corless. No more. No less.

Back when I began this blog, it was when I was playing NationStates. Max Barry's oddball dystopic faux-U.N. I went on my trip to Europe and when I returned, I was so zonkered from everything, including The Overnight, that I just laid on the sofa for a while and did very little for a very long time.

For the past two years, really, since around 2006 when I last tried to "get up and out of the house," I had enough money in the bank to not really do much except play games.

I did play a lot of games. I've played a lot of The Sims 2 and SimCity 4 in 2006, Civilization IV in 2007, and most recently, since November 2007, World of Warcraft.

I have been fortunately blessed with sufficient savings to have been afforded this lifestyle choice -- one that would be best described by the Japanese word "otaku."

It is not really a "job," since I wasn't getting paid, but as a game designer, I devoured these games to really understand the scope of play-over-time: factors of gameplay healthiness, such as addictiveness and burnout, replayability and customization, expansion and so on.

Over all this time, I wanted to understand both the psychology of the player and to see what the game designers were incenting their players to do based on their design decisions. All through this two-year period, I was not in denial about the unhealthiness it was causing in my own life. There are both adaptive and fun, and maladaptive and unhealthy ways to play games. I was at the outer limits.

If explorers of the 19th Century went to deepest, darkest Africa to learn the secrets of the native tribes there, I went to WoW to "spend time amongst the natives." Terra incognita of the human psyche when exposed to the environment of an immersive MMORPG. I found a fair share of abnormal psychological phenomena. Which is why I had avoided playing the game for so long. I had a feeling it would be a time-wasting phenomenon. Indeed it was, yet it has also been a learning experience. Now, when people talk about WoW, I can at least say "Been There, Done That." Yet I can also say far more, and feel more vindicated now about some specific thoughts I have on game design. Some thoughts which will likely show up in other projects I have percolating.

So it is time to put away those games and begin some work that may pay me back for all those draining hours before the computer screen.

It is time to ameliorate many things in my life, after having exacerbated them to some rather unusual extremes. I've "done the heck" out of some things in my life. So long as I put those experiences and the knowledge that came with those experiences to some beneficial use, then it will have been worth the opportunity cost of being out of the job market for a few years.

At this point, there are some things that I am doing for love. There are some opportunities emerging for earning money. In fact, I celebrate that I have a check to deposit. Not big, but it's a check. Ideally, I'd like to earn a 'right livelihood' -- something done for both love and money sufficient to meet the hopes I have for this life.

Now it is time to begin again.

Razumijen, Flowers in the Cracks, Adrienne Barbeau, Isaac Hayes

2008-08-11T01:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I have sort of left this blog out to dry for a while. Like many things in life, I am just picking up the pieces and reassembling loose ends.

The good news is that I have committed to two projects again:

• Razumijen
• Flowers in the Cracks Artists Alliance

Razumijen is taking on a life of its own. The scope of what is possible is growing so greatly that, in order to properly work on it, I am going to found the Global Understanding Institute (GUI), committed to monitoring, analyzing, and providing possible models for resolution of global crises and conflicts.

Flowers in the Cracks is going to be best served as a non-profit corporation too.

I feel that it is imperative to birth these as organizations so that they can continue to take on a life of their own.

I also talked to Ron Darcy today about the ol' Celebrate History ideas we had once. I've also been in contact with Dana Lombardy. Ron suggested we all get together at some point for dinner.

In fact, I started dropping into touch with a bunch of old friends. I found a notepad in the back of my Saturn station wagon. It was indeed the pad of paper I had on me when I was first filing for Celebrate History's 501(c)(3) status way-back when. A lot of contact info from when I was running Green Knight Publishing too.

I have been thinking of filing "The Green Knight" as a new fictitious business name (a "DBA/Doing Business As") just so I can build that up as my consulting gig.

It would fit into the activism I find myself in the midst of. For I went to the Department of the Environment this week to speak a few words for public comment to the California Air Resources Board representatives who were presenting the plan to deal with Global Warming in California. The folks at Environment California (CALPIRG) invited me to the meeting.

I was amazed. They brought thousands upon thousands of cards. Each one was a show of support from a registered California voter. They each represented someone, like me, who made the simple yet clear request: ensure the plan holds accountable those who emit greenhouse gases. Require they pay the cost to the environment for their emissions.

Democracy in action!

I am meeting many people right now who are brilliant neighbors. You would be surprised who drops into Books, Inc. on Castro Street. Today, I met Adrienne Barbeau, who was speaking about her new book Vampyres of Hollywood. I asked her during the Q&A if she believed that Escape from New York was the pinnacle of her career. After a bit of laughter, she shared some news, gently: Isaac Hayes, who had played the Mayor of New York in the movie, had passed away this very morning. "Chef" from South Park is how most people would likely know of him these days.

I just found out now, reading the news of his death, that Mr. Hayes was a Scientologist and left South Park for their mockery of his beliefs. Perhaps I will return to that issue another day. For now, I'll just pass on some other memories Adrienne shared of her experience on the movie set.

Issac Hayes, she said, was always a gentleman. She spoke well of John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, and referred to Ernest Borgnine simply as "Ernie." From her smile of nostalgia, I could tell there was a great camraderie there. Yet of all the people, it was Donald Pleasance who had the best sense of humor. He was the sort of guy who would give her a quip before the cameras started rolling that made her bust up laughing.

I am usually automatically a fan of, or at least keenly interested in, any movie set in New York City. If one looks at that film's dystopic portrayal of the city in 1997, it is quite off from the actual historical outcome. The same way 2001: A Space Odyssey never lived up to its utopic or dystopic possibilities.

Thus, as the clock ticks towards 2:00 am, I am thoughtful about envisioning a future wherein the Global Understanding Institute may be solving for peace and security on a global scale. Or a world where the war and crises continue unabated regardless of the efforts of concerned citizens of the world.

Busy Wikipedian

2007-02-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

I stopped posting to my blog after leaving for Europe to do research for various projects, including Razumijen, and to walk Hadrian's Wall with Legio X Fretensis. When I got back, a lot happened, and in a way, a lot did not happen. I was physically exhausted and somewhat drained. Walking in The Overnight in July 2006 also socked me good. I had blisters on my blisters. More than just physically drained, what I had undergone sapped me of the desire to make public many of my thoughts.

For various reasons, I did not get back to my blogs until now, in February 2007. Now, I am in the mood to write again.

Indeed, since December 2006, I have been very busy on Wikipedia, especially in relation to articles dealing with the War in Somalia, and the history of that nation. For a time there, the updates of maps and articles I worked were at the top of the Current Events page for Wikipedia. I've also taken under wing a broad series of articles having to do with the US military, such as the new US Africa Command, and the issues of extremism, whether Al-Qaeda and the followers of so-called “Al-Qaedaism” or movements of irredentism and ethnic nationalism, such as saffronization.

All of this related to Razumijen in my mind. The same issues of intolerance drove the civil wars in the Balkans, Iraq, or Somalia, or Sudan. Part of my stepping away from the west Balkans was to look at a different conflict with fresh eyes to develop a more generalized set of rules as to what drives civil wars in general. And, more precisely, I wish to develop a generalized set of models for those rules. There are concepts such as the "heat" of a conflict. Is it a "hot" war or a "cold" war? What is the tempo of action? For there certainly are times in these civil wars when dramatic, swift actions are undertaken, and other times when months if not seeming years go by with little change in fronts, or prospects for peace. Thus, I wished to watch the Somali war closely while it was unfolding, to see what decisions were made, and to read the accounts of the actors on the present world stage, to compare with the Balkans, which I can only now look at through the lens of hindsight and history.

As for Razumijen itself, progress is being made albeit slower than I hoped. I have been working on the map for the game, and am presently mulling over how precisely to represent the divided lines of control and partition of the states such as Croatia (while the Krajina area was occupied by the Krajina Serbs and the JNA), and Bosnia-Herzegovina (from the initial conquests of the Bosnian Serbs to the Vance-Owen plan, Owen-Stoltenberg, the 1994 Contact Group, and the final 1995 Dayton Agreement partition). Right now, I have a certain idea, but I reserve to change my mind.

As you can also read from my other posts, I have also been mulling over the issues of Iraq, and comparing it contextually to these other modern civil wars in former Yugoslavia and Somalia, and to a lesser extent, Sudan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. There are deep-seated social and political issues similar across all of these conflicts, and also, key differences to each.

Lastly, to balance out all of these articles about war and conflict, I also wrote an article on Wikipedia for the “Sixth Clan” women’s movement of Somalia, founded by Asha Haji Elmi. The movement grew out of her hopes for reconciliation and out of concerns for the safety of women and children in conflict-afflicted Somalia. She desired to give women a voice in the politics of Somalia, so often dominated by chauvinistic warlords. She succeeded in gaining a seat in the Somali parliament, along with 21 other women. They still have a long road ahead of them. After reading so much about the contentious clan politics of Somalia, I was struck by her poignant declaration, “My only clan is womanhood.” Hence the “Sixth Clan”—womanhood. Harkening back to my blog’s beginnings around last Martin Luther King, Jr. day, and seeing how I had not touched upon the anniversary this year, I felt this Somali civil rights movement should be celebrated. While my Wikipedia entry needed to follow a Neutral Point of View (NPOV), here, on my own blog, I must express my sense of inspiration and hope such movements transform Somalia, and for similar movements to ameliorate other war-ravaged regions. Though I am cautious to make predictions, I do pray we’ll be hearing less of the sensation headlines of bombings, shootings and rocket attacks, and more about such peaceful civic and social movements.

Iraq (2007–2010) Questions & Answers

2007-02-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on the Military.com forums, 12 January 2007:

Answers to questions posed in another thread.

Originally posted by Airborneinfantry:
What do you think if we just redeploy our forces like most in your beloved party want will happen in that region?

Two effects simultaneously.

First, positive effects. Due to various reasons. Foreign insurgency may go down because there are not Americans to kill. The desire of a lot of mujahideen will be to move on from Iraq towards "the sound of the guns" -- to be wherever the US is still actively operating. e.g. back to Afghanistan.

A lot may also decide to leave before the Iraqis themselves consolidate domestic power and they are left without a sympathetic populace to hide amongst. They'll leave fractious sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'a to the locals.

Secondly, a negative effect. Some of them, percieving they are making ground, will be all-the-more-determined to stay and topple the Iraqi government. Either that, or if things shift against them, to stay as sour-grapes and make last-ditch kamikaze attacks.

However, over time, Al Qaeda itself will fade, as local sectarian politics overwhelms the minority of the hard core Al Qaeda element.

Do you think that Iraq will be a stable country?

No. But there are others to blame for that besides Al Qaeda.

Do you think that Iran will stop pursuing nuclear weapons?

No. But we can also move to certain more secure areas of Iraq to be nearby to monitor or even, if need be, respond to Iran, and leave some of the places in Iraq for the Iraqis themselves to take care of.

Do you think that whole region will settle down if we were to pull our forces out?

Sort of in some ways, and no in others. See above. My own feeling is that there can be a sort of soft partitioning of the country. Not precisely the same as the hardcore partition and DMZ of North and South Korea, or even the Line of Control in Kashmir, but something more than the NFZs of ONW/OSW. Treaty and truce lines. It is possible to establish an uneasy peace with more sporadic violence.

I would really appreciate an objective response. Don't politicize it, tell what you forsee if we completely leave that region?

If we did pull out entirely, I foresee an Iraqi Civil War which results in three or likely more devolved states or city-states comprising some mix of the following:

1. Babylon - All or part of a divided Baghdad and environs.
2. Kurdistan
3. "Basra Republic" - Shi'ite south
4. Sunni Triangle - Al-Anbar Tikrit, plus portions of southern Ninewa (14), and possibly part of a divided Baghdad.
5. Assyria - City-state of Ninewa/Mosul
6. Iraqi Turkmenistan - City-state of Kirkuk

There would be a lot of ethnic cleansing and IDPs, but eventually you'd have the same sort of fragmentation that happened with Yugoslavia. Because it has some pockets of stability, and oil income, it would never become the collective basketcase that Somalia has become. Some specific areas would become basketcases, such as the desertous and violent areas.

Al Anbar would become aligned with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Basra with Iran, while also maintaining ties with the west, India and China for oil sales. The US would shore up Kurdistan. Other areas would jostle and fight, or at least compete heavily for control of resources, and vie for aid dollars and international business.

Kurdistan would likely try to hold the Assyrian, Chaldeans and Turkmens "near" them, but those minorities would likely hold out for special autonomy even if they stay within a "Kurdistan."

Turkey would never be happy, and might likely militarize the border even more, or intervene. Iran too might intervene against the Kurds.

Alternately, a regional peacekeeping force might develop, where different powers try to keep the separate warring factions apart.

Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States might be forced to get off their duffs and move in their own people, along with other forces from Egypt and Jordan. If it were turned over to an OIC-based peacekeeping mission, akin to how the US is pushing for an IGAD mission in Somalia, it might actually get solved without putting US forces at risk.

What Shall Iraq Become?

2007-02-09T17:11:00.000-08:00

The following was posted on the Military.com forums on 06 January 2007:

The Pressure of Iraqi Federacy vs. Federation

Kurdistan enjoys rights of autonomy which the southern areas around Basra wished to also enjoy.

In October 2006, Iraq passed a law allowing its regions to create their own autonomous areas. It's still up in the air as to the new alignments we'll see.

Iraq's 450,000 Christians have been pushing for autonomy. They once had twice that number, before 1991, but violence forced many into exodus. The Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian churches are looking either for a state-within-a-state with special recognition within Kurdistan, or their own federal state.

The open question is whether and precisely how might better-organized areas of Iraq may create specially-privileged areas of the nation, making them superior to the rights or privileges enjoyed in other parts of the country. This is the deep concern driving the oil-poor western Sunni areas: a lack of a share in the nation's oil revenues, a lack of proper representation or privilege.

The issue of federacy versus federalism is what shoaled Yugoslavia. It was obvious Serbia became "more equal" to the other states. One by one, the other republics sundered themselves from those unequal relations. Even now, it dominates its two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina, and it is obvious the Albanian Kosovars are not pleased with their present relationship.

What is the analogy and lesson to draw for Iraq? If the northern Kurdish region and the southern Shi'ite region are able to make special privileges for themselves, it will further fuel discontent amongst the increasingly-isolated and alienated Sunnis. Driven to desperation, they might feel that being separate from Iraq is better than being treated as inferior members of the federated nation. They do not enjoy privileges under a federacy. Thus why should they remain?

To combat this, a compromise would need to be reached with the Kurds and Shi'a. Some form of yet-to-emerge goodwill needs to break out between all parties to lessen tensions and to share benevolently in the rule of the country.

Barring such a rosy picture, incremental, creeping consolidation of power in the north and the south and the increasing sense that there is a "federacy" with unequal partners rather than a fair form of "federation" will cause Bagdhad and the west to consistently smoulder and periodically explode.

What do the Iraqis want?

2007-02-09T17:03:00.000-08:00

The following was originally posted on the Military.com forums on 06 January 2007:

The critical issue the US is faced with is not in whether US domestic policy wishes to achieve "victory" in Iraq so much as what the Iraqis themselves want.

1. Iraqi leadership is flagging - Iraq Prime Minister Wishes He Could Quit- "I didn't want to take this position... I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again."

2. Iraqi demands for autonomy increase - Iraqi Kurds Detail Demands for a Degree of Autonomy (18 Feb 2005), Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq (Joe Biden, 1 May 2006)

The Iraqi desire for separatism versus federalism is the key trend. Even if we stayed for a decade, what are the Iraqis themselves trending towards? Would would there be an "Iraq" to defend? One article that runs counter to the ideas of separatism struck some chords with me:

Iraq's partition fantasy (Reidar Visser, 19 May 2006)

Visser is pushing a book, Basra, and a thesis arguing Iraq is not like former Yugoslavia. Yet the issues are similar. Many people in Yugoslavia at first considered themselves "Yugoslav" versus "Croats," "Serbs," "Slovenes," "Bosniaks," "Albanians," "Kosovars," "Macedonians," etc. But that number faded as Tito's life ebbed away, and his legacy was lost in time. A decade after Tito's death showed a great difference. By the outbreak of the 1991-1995 wars, the vast majority abandoned the concept of a unified "Yugoslavia," and identified themselves primarily with their ethnicity. Is the same trend happening in Iraq? In other words, where is the sense of political "self" for the majority of the people in the nation?

Without a Saddam, is the concept of "Iraq" also faded? Would it take a decade? Should we look out 5-10 years to project the likelihood of breakdown of the government, or will matters be settled by then?

Iraqi Federalism vs. Separatists

As of September 2006, the belief that Iraq will stay together for five years is 72% versus 28% who believe it will divide. The strongest beliefs towards separate states are amongst Sunni (45%) and Kurd (35%), which means that it is the Shi'a who believe it will stay together. Of course, being the largest minority, they would benefit the most from it staying under their control. This is the key trend to watch in the coming years.

This comes from a poll called Majorities of All Iraqi Ethnic Groups Want Strong Central Government. The title of that report is somewhat misleading. Iraqi opinion is about evenly mixed as to whether the central government has too much or too little power. The Kurds think it has too little power. The Sunni think it has too much. The actual slimmest numbers are amongst those who think Iraq's central government's power is "About Right." Most think it has either too much or too little. Which means extremist views are more prevalent than views of moderates.

Fingers in the Dike

The US military itself is now split on the likelihood of success in Iraq. While most want more troops in Iraq, about 80% think it unlikely they can be replaced by Iraqi troops within two years.

There is some good news, statistically provable. Year-to-year US casualties are dropping. While deaths remained about the same from 2004 to 2006: 848 in 2004, 846 in 2005, dropping slightly to 824 in 2006, wounded have dropped considerably more: 8,001 in 2004, 5,947 in 2005, and 5,676 in 2006.

Total casualties over those years: 8,849, 6,793, 6,500. More than a 26% drop in total, though less than a 5% drop over the last year.

Thus the news is not good enough to satisfy the American people. 2006 also saw a sharp uptick in casualties towards the end, reversing the trend. We'd have to be in Iraq for the better part of a decade before they stopped attacking us. Unless a dramatic change occurs -- which does not seem likely -- staying in Iraq for the next 3 years means sustaining somewhere around 15,000 - 20,000 more wounded and dead. In other words, a full division taken as casualties. The key question is whether Iraq, as such, will be around to be defended.

One disaster averted in 2006 should be noted. The Iraqi government did close down the PKK office in September to show it was cracking down on the Kurdish separatists. That was to avert military intervention by Turkey, threatened since at least May 2006. We'll have to see whether more substantive changes occur over the next year.

Iraq is under pressure. My own view is that time is running out for federalism. Trading in a unified Iraq for multiple states will not make the problems go away, but it will move towards a permanent solution.

If Iraq fragments, what's Plan B?

2007-02-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

The following was originally posted on the Military.com forums, 06 January 2007:

My own prognostications for the future in Iraq:

1. Surge helps contain violence only temporarily but ultimately does not dramatically reduce problems. Rampant sectarian rivalry, corruption and an inability to secure the country causes a loss of trust in central government. See: Corruption: the 'second insurgency' costing $4bn a year

2. Declarations of autonomy by various factions (led first by an 8-region Shi'ite bloc, followed by Kurds in an "if they go, we go too" stance) leads Iraq away from federalism. Power starts to disburse to regional governors and militia leaders. The US becomes increasingly irrelevant in the country except as a source of money and power to back certain blocs. See: Shiite push for autonomy endangers Iraq's fragile coalition, also Iraq passes regional autonomy law

3. "Sectarian Cleansing" continues unabated, leading factional areas to enter into recriminations if not outright quasi-wars with each other over control of territory. US efforts to get them to "knock it off" fail, and the US makes tough choices as to what areas we wish to keep secure, and which areas we simply write off as not-of-interest, or pragmatically unprotectable. The US has best success in Kurdish north. South aligns with Iran, but US remains embedded because of oil infrastructure. Arab Sunnis feel increasingly isolated in center and make push for closer ties with Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. Syria and Iran grow distant as they are forced to back their own sectarian allies in the ongoing feud. Baghdad is left to the Iraqis, and suffers terribly.

4. Regardless of US policy and public stance, Iraq de facto cantonizes into sectarian regions that do not get along with each other. US domestic opinion will force pulling majority of remaining troops home, as the country heads towards a Yugoslavia-like descent into partitioning, or to position them solely in areas where US interests are greatest priority (a la the Boxer Rebellion). Unless a charismatic/powerful Tito-like nationalist figure emerges to create a vision of a unified nation (which might also be accompanied with violence and repression), the country will divide. Federal government will exist, but will be increasingly ineffectual on a nation-wide basis. Cooption of central government by a faction that still benefits by its maintenance will force the others to withdraw and declare further motions for autonomy.

5. The country finally devolves into three (or more) independent states after a bloody civil war, which is where it was going anyway, but only after animosity gets to fever pitch and millions are displaced from their present homes in a divison similar to the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh division, or again, like former Yugoslavia. The US will be blamed for ignoring reality and trying to hold the nation together after everyone else saw the writing on the wall of where the course of events were leading to naturally.

6. Problems spread to region as the "Kurdish question" is called in Turkey and Iran. US hems and haws, again trying to ignore Kurdish independence the same way we went ostrich and ignored the problem of the dissolution of Yugoslavia, refusing to back Croatia and Bosnia. Much hand-wringing is done to placate the Turks in NATO. Eventually we'll have to address the problem, once it explodes in a way that cannot be ignored, at a disadvantageous position for the US to deal with due to lack of initiative. The US is forced to adopt double-standards, supporting Kurdish independence in Iran, but not in Turkey. The US ultimately backs the Kurds, but they keep a chip on their shoulder, seeing how we foot-dragged the entire time regarding supporting their cause.

7. Basra becomes a player. Wooed by both Iran and the west, Basra makes a name for itself in the Gulf. They are opposed by the other Sunni Gulf states. Still, their control of oil makes them a darling that plays off suitors left and right. They might make an unusual strategic ally in China or India.

This is the present momentum in Iraq, combined with a few guesses on my part as to how the US and others will play into the course of events.

Presently, we are cushioning the fall by the presence of our troops there, but this is where it is headed towards of its own volition. This is domestic Iraqi politics. While the US can influence it, we cannot ultimately thwart or alter these sentiments.

Unless the Iraqis can find a uniting, galvanizing leader to rally behind -- all parties -- I believe that the momentum of present events leads towards the dissolution of the country just as surely as Yugoslavia was destined to fall apart once Tito took his leave.

Iraq will not turn into Somalia post Siad Barre. But it definitely will not keep its present shape or government structure even through the rest of the decade.

That's my own thinking. Give us your own view.

-Pete.