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

Peace be unto you all!

Your Mission for 9/11, 2008

Tomorrow, I would like us all, as interested and concerned citizens of the world, to photograph and record the world as it is now.

Wherever you are.

Whatever you are doing.

Smile.

Laugh.

Draw pictures.

Take photographs.

Take notes of the moment.

Celebrate the renewal of life.

Celebrate a new spirit of the day.

Cherish the moments and images.

Pray at 11:11 am and 11:11 pm.

Listen to the wind and the world around you.

Record your thoughts and feelings in words and images.

Consider how this day is different than the one seven years before.

Reinvent 9/11 as a day when the Flowers in the Cracks can be found.

Reinvent 9/11 as a day when we can engender Global Understanding.

My thoughts on this September 11th

My proposition is to change history.

To restore history.

To make history.

Tomorrow is September 11th, 2008. It is the 7th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. There are children, like my niece and my nephews, and the twins of my long-time friend from college, and so many children, who have grown up in a world wherein an aura of suspicion and doubt of our world cloud the air much thicker and even more noxiously than the fireballs, plumes of smoke, and whirling asbestos-laden particulates that obscured the air of downtown Manhattan on that fateful morning.

Yet the children are joyful. Innocent. Happy. Playful. It is not they who stress over the world so much as the parents, bombarded as they are with patriotic or sectarian propaganda, real-time news, and real-life worries and stress from all sides.

How can we ensure, to the best of our ability, that such children’s simple joys last through their lifetimes, even as the hammers of strife, conflict, crisis and all-too-human cynicism try to darken their lives? How can we ease the stress felt in the hearts of those struck through by the trauma of the current world conflicts and crises?

My hope is by celebrating our Flowers in the Cracks, and by fostering Global Understanding.

This weekend, on Saturday, the 6th of September 2008, Franklin Pham led and directed the first scene’s shooting for his first film, The American Dream on the campus of San Jose State University (SJSU). It is a movie tied to the theme of what is real, and what is a dream. It is a movie tied to the legacy of 9/11. Franklin is both part of Flowers in the Cracks and the Global Understanding movement. His movie is an homage to the lives of those who died, and to those who suffered and still suffer. His movie is a balm offered to our world in pain, and expresses his commitment to and vision for natural ethical principles.

What is the dream we each hold in our hearts? How can we turn those dreams into something more real, more profound and happy than the harsh and cynical reality we each face when we look at the world around us? What is true, when we look into the mirror of our souls? I was utterly pleased and happy to help Franklin make his own dream — of being a filmmaker — become a truth, and a new reality. For one day, we shed cynicism to engender joy. We fought against a world of terror and tragedy by sharing our hearts, our minds, our laughter, our smiles and by making new friends.

This week and last, all sorts of ludicrous reality has been occurring around me. Movies and television series I am helping to make. Romantic smooches and chaste amor! An online game in the theorizing. Owls and starlight. The befriending of a homeless man. Helping a family in need. Having people I have just met devote their trust to me and call me “brother.” Working with clergy and business people. Seeing my heroes in real life, like Greg Mortenson, who wrote Three Cups of Tea, at the University of San Francisco. Tales of chivalry and romance. Tales of magic and miracles. Huzzah! is in the air. The Green Knight is back in the saddle.

As many of you know, I ran Green Knight Publishing 1998 - 2005. I let it lapse for a while there. Perhaps it is time to rebirth that business and domain name, and raise the shield and lance once again. To tilt at the windmills of our minds and hearts. For the past few years, though, I have wandered in my own Wasteland. I needed a break from Silicon Valley life. I needed my own time in the wilderness.

Beginning on Epiphany, in the year 2006, I began a few new quests in my life. The first was Flowers in the Cracks (flowersinthecracks.blogspot.com), which I began along with Ilona Leiberman. It is an artistic movement. The second began with the 2006 project Razumijen, which has expanded and resulted this year, in 2008, with the launch of the Global Understanding Institute (globalunderstandinginstitute.org, globalunderstandinginstitute.blogspot.com). The movement was begun around the same time as I was preparing my work on Razumijen by Karl D. John: Valentine's Day 2006. This year, we are taking it to the higher level, with plans to incorporate it as a non-profit in California, and hopefully, to spur a worldwide evolution.

Ironically, as I was typing this, I got an automated call from the director at Greenpeace. His welcome voice asked for my feedback. I think I will call him back. I'd like to speak to him personally. Then, shortly thereafter, still typing this, I got a call for a free home security system worth hundreds of dollars — if only I’d put a sign up in my front lawn. Now, if only I owned a lawn!

Then, the third call I got was from my friend Eli, who I played World of Warcraft with earlier this year. After I left the game, and the World of Warcraft, he remains a friend. Long after the peace breaks out, friends still remember you. He also told me about the death of his grandmother, about his relationship with his mother, and about the crush he has on a girl named Elizabeth. Eli is 13 years old. He's a great kid.

Finally, I got a call from Franklin Pham and Harshi, who are heading up to celebrate the end of the day at the local book shop, Books, Inc. on Castro Street in Mountain View. Franklin Pham is the writer, director and producer of The American Dream, a movie presently in production in San Jose and Mountain View, California. Harshi is the lead actor. Franklin found my lost wayward notebook. Huzzah! He's on his way right now to deliver it to me. Harshi and Franklin both laughed at how a huge crowd of people at San Jose State University shouted down a religious zealot on campus who was trying to pontificate and accuse everyone around them of being a sinner.

God, if you believe in him, is the world’s most ironic comedic director. Whoever is directing this day has just given me a number of thematic messages:

• Let's work together to create sustainable and secure environments.
• Let's remember our friends long before, and long after, any wars die down.
• Let's collectively try to ameliorate the pains and sufferings of the world.
• Let's keep in touch with our friends and our families.
• Let's make new friends and families too!
• Let's try to minimize religious and political intolerance in the world.
• Let's face even the most difficult of crises and conflicts with truth, trust, laughter and good spirits.
• Let's create and live out our dreams.
• Let's celebrate together.

One day, I will have that green lawn, and then, I can get the free security system. Or possibly not. I might feel secure enough just to have the lawn. I might be happy to let other people have their lawns, and for me to simply keep a few flowers alive in my apartment.

Why 11:11 on 9/11?

There are two special moments I wish to focus on tomorrow. Morning and evening. 11:11 AM and 11:11 PM. I wish these both to be moments of prayer and peace.

Between 9/11 and 11/11, we have two months to work towards armistice in the world. For it was on November 11, 1918, at 11:11 am when the guns were “All Quiet on the Western Front.” That was the day and the precise moment of Armistice.

Armistice: 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...

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...

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

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

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...

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sun Rising over California, 7 April 2006 © Peter Corless

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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?

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?

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?

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.

Razumijen

I will be off to Europe for a month. My first quest is in Croatia.

Read more about Razumijen to find out why I am going.