ART AND THEFT

Personal computers and the internet are revolutionary. They’ve killed and created industries, threatened political empires, revolutionized communication, and democritized creation. And that’s just in the first 10 years of general use.

Perhaps the most radical aspect of this revolutionary force, though, is the transmission of goods in a non-material way. For example; if at any other time in human history you wanted to read, you had to buy, borrow, or steal a book. If you wanted to own a piece of music you had to buy a record. If you wanted to take pictures you had to buy film. If you wanted to see the pictures you had to have them printed on paper. And so on.

Now the movement of these things reflect a model less like modern commerce and more like the agrarian model that preceded it. News, ideas, pictures, movies, television, art, word processing, recording, film editing, and much more are now like wild fruits and vegetables, growing in such massive abundance that they stretch beyond our ability to consume them. As long as one has a computer and internet access, these things arrive in unimaginable abundance for free, 24 hours a day.

As other technologies imitate the successful model that the personal computer and internet are built on we may see a further shift toward this strange, new vision of business and civilization. For example, if your home is equipped to harvest solar power and your car is fueled by electricity, then the need for a great deal of commerce is eliminated. In a sense, you are farming your own fuel from the sun. Whole industries would be rendered obsolete and individuals would require less day to day capital to maintain their lives. Again, the model looks agrarian. Or, in this case, what you might call solagrarian.

And to take it farther out, though not at all beyond what is happening even today, if the ability to replicate or fabricate food or goods at home becomes universal how much more industry is eliminated and what is left to sustain economies and social structures?

Could whole communities retire into pre-industrialization style villages, growing produce, repairing transportation, building houses? This all with your neighbors, no money exchanged at all.

How is medicine distributed? Especially in light of the disease eliminating and life extending  treatments on their way to the public.

Who educates and to what end?

And perhaps most fundamentally; what does a species that is uniquely adapted to aggressive competition do in a world where everything it needs is more or less provided for? What does it do all day if it’s not fighting for survival or profit?

As we adapt in the eye of this first wave of a long hurricane season of technological advance the questions of society, economy, and what it means to be human at all will come in to question and expand again and again. As thrilling as it is unsettling, we stand at the dawn of the possibility to transform and transcend everything our species has ever known. There has never been another time like this in history and the opportunity for epic scaled creativity surrounds us.

New years didn’t feel so much like the end of an era this year since one particular era still had 20 days to go. That being the final hissing gasp of two unbelievable terms with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

The legacy that Bush has left this country is remarkable, to be modest, but two things stand out that most define the tone and message of his administration: the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and Guantanamo Bay Prison.

Both the revelation of Plames’ undercover status with the CIA as revenge for her husbands disagreement with the Bush rationalization for war with Iraq and the detention of political prisoners deprived of legal council or speedy trial sent a strong message both to the world and to the citizenry of the U.S.. The message was; if you cross us we will strike you and there will be no law to protect you. The subtext was a clear as a black bag over your head, our will is law. We can do whatever we want to. And you’re a traitor if you don’t like it.

The administration did about as well as any other insulated, dogmatic autocracy and better than many.  Term limits allowed them to avoid the fate of Castro (holding the country in a state of retarded development), the fate of Hitler-era Germany (the destruction of the nation), or the various other catastrophic outcomes of iron fisted, anti-intelligence, anti-democratic movements (perpetual civil war, international isolation, etc.). But they had the heart of a true dictatorship. I’m afraid there just wasn’t time for it to grow up.

The Bush administration believed whole heartedly that they knew best and, as Dick Cheney has said in his legacy interviews, they weren’t governing toward the polls. In other words, your opinion didn’t mean anything to him. In still simpler terms, your voice didn’t count anymore. The trouble with that is that, by definition, a democracy is a governance executing the will of the people. A people who must not be afraid to speak up and dissent, and whose opinion must be considered by their elected bodies.

Though the failed economy is getting all the press, this is the great boot print that Bush has left on the United States. We came as close as we ever have to a real erosion of the fundamentals of this country. It wasn’t just the ineptitude in the handling of Katrina, or the horrifying mismanagement of the invasion of a sovereign nation, or the dishonesty, or the tragic consequences of stock market deregulation that made these eight years a low point in American history. It was the feeling that anyone who saw these failures was doomed to be shut out, mocked, or worse. That there was no objective body of law to protect you. Enemies of the state got what they deserved. Adding to the doom was the feeling that the very people who could’ve helped sort out these disasters and safely take America into the future we’re shouted down or bullied out of public discourse. And it seemed that we were one Sarah Palin wink away from turning this failed movement into a dynasty.

Guantanamo and Valerie Plame stand as symbols of this administrations desire to destroy or incarcerate their enemies, but without the ability to administer justice to them. They had a willingness to seek vengence and deliver punishment but without the vision to skillfully negotiate with adversaries and strengthen friendships.

The only difference between a surgeon and a killer is that a surgeon has the knowledge and wisdom to use his knife to heal. Bush picked up the instruments but didn’t know how to use them.  Now the nation, and world, has the scars to prove it.

By all estimates, Obama and his team will shut down Guantanamo quickly and that symbol of failure will be gone. Hopefully in it’s place will be a renewed belief that justice for all is at the heart of the American ethos and Bush’s legacy of deception, secrecy, and punishment without justice will leave with him.

So today we say goodbye. Farewell? Nah. Just goodbye.

For those of you following along….

We (the Nowhere Band) did the two White Album Christmas shows and they were top shelf across the board. The circus and vaudeville acts, curated by Noah Mickens, were fantastic and the playing of the Beatles White Album in it’s freaky entirety was a great success. Getting to learn the guitar parts to the Beatles weirdest record was both a challenge and a blast. Anyone who questions their geniusshould try to play (and sing) these songs.  Aside from the performance we stuffed in around 1000 people over two nights in spite of some wondrous, snowy, winter weather that blew through between the 12th and the 19th. Here are some pics of the show and a few from the after party at Chet and Johns on the 19th.

Noah as the Host

Aerialists, Night Flight

All of us from Afar….

Me, Chet, and Matt Voth

Johnny Drama

Feels good to feel good…

Merry Chistmas!

As technology gets more consumer friendly, information more widely dispersed, and the horizons of science get pushed out and out and out people are going to start building their own biological hacks. One day very soon there will be as many non-FDA approved treatments in home labs and foreign clinics as there are traditionally approved treatments. Loose germs?  Miracle cures? Bizarre side effects? Furious pharm companies? Absolutely. And that’s just the beginning… Here’s how it all starts:

“Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, … hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering — a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories.

Many of these amateurs may have studied biology in college but have no advanced degrees and are not earning a living in the biotechnology field. Some proudly call themselves “biohackers” — innovators who push technological boundaries and put the spread of knowledge before profits.

In Cambridge, Mass., a group called DIYbio is setting up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a used freezer, scored for free off Craigslist, that drops to 80 degrees below zero, the temperature needed to keep many kinds of bacteria alive.

Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college, said amateurs will probably pursue serious work such as new vaccines and super-efficient biofuels, but they might also try, for example, to use squid genes to create tattoos that glow.

Cowell said such unfettered creativity could produce important discoveries.

“We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game,” he said.”

Read the whole article here

In case you think I’m making up all the future science stuff…..

In the December 15th cover story of Genes & Development, a research team from Stanford University School of Medicine reports that the blockage of a single gene, called NF-kB, can reverse aging in the mammalian skin. This finding sets the stage for the development of future genetic age-intervention therapies.

“Here we show that aging in mouse skin can be reversed by blocking a single gene… These findings suggest that aging is not just a result of wear and tear, but is also the consequence of a continually active genetic program that might be blocked for improving human health,” states Dr. Chang.

The researchers then used a transgenic mouse model to test the effect of specifically inhibiting NF-kB in the basal layer of the mouse epidermis. Their results showed a striking outcome: After two weeks of NF-kB inhibition, both the global gene expression profile and the tissue characteristics of the aged skin reverted to that of a young animal.

Thus, while NF-kB activity normally increases as mammals age, the targeted blockage of NF-kB in the skin effectively rejuvenates the tissue. “The finding that aged skin can be “rejuvenated” by a genetic intervention late in life implies that the aging program is plastic, and therefore can be potentially manipulated to decrease the deleterious effects of aging,” explains Dr. Chang.
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Read the whole article here>
Read the paper published online ahead of print at www.genesdev.org.
Genes & Development is a publication of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

“It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology,” Obama said in announcing the selections in his weekly radio address.

It shouldn’t seem so strange to hear the president (elect even) speak in complete sentences, saying things that sound like great, sensible ideas.

There seems to be great consternation and puzzlement about how the American auto industry has gotten into such bad shape. Fingers are pointed, voices are raised, cries of “ineptitude!” and  “out of touch!” are inevitably followed by the grim epitaph “failed business model…” . Most recently,  Republican representitives in the US Senate shot down a 15 Billion dollar rescue package designed to keep the “big three” (GM, Chrysler, and Ford) alive between here and January 1st, 2009. They don’t want to “prop up” companies that have failed to “keep up with the times.” Makes you wonder just how these giant industries got so out of touch with the times. Politicians, the press, and the public exasperatedly ask, “why would these companies put all their money and development into gas guzzling, environmentally irresponsible, school bus sized sport utility vehicles and pick up trucks year after year?”

The reason most often stated by car company CEO’s is that the almighty “American consumer” wanted them. That begs the question, why would Americans want to own industrial sized and strength vehicles  when all they needed out of their car was to transport them to the office park where their cube is and to shuttle little Ford tough junior to see his probation officer?  Especially when these machines were blasting a carbon mushroom cloud into the stratosphere  and were destined to cost them a small fortune in fuel (as well as sending their money to their hated foes over seas- but that is another issue). The answer to that is this: they were told that all that Al Gore sissy crap about global warming was a liberal conspiracy and that it was their God given right to drive whatever monstrosity they could artificially finance. The problem is that now people suddenly want more fuel efficient (read cheaper fuel) vehicles,  the government wants to stop using “foreign oil”,  and people are taking the melting ice caps and flattened coastal cities as a sign that something is seriously wrong. Now they expect American auto companies to magically produce these vehicles over night. How could something so predictable and clearly preventable happen? Let’s take a walk down memory lane and look at the way some of the most influential voices on the American right convinced the red blooded, stars and stripes car buyer that developing more efficient alternative fuel vehicles was a waste of time and that a million Humvees on the road was like a rosy blush on the cheek of lady liberty, sending a blow to the communist gay mafia atheist liberals who would tear this great nations economy apart.

“(Environmentalists are ) a left-wing cult dedicated to bringing down the type of government I believe in.”   –Ronald Reagans secretary of the interior James Watt, 1980’s.

“This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we’ll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American. This guy’s crazy.” –George H.W. Bush speaking about Al Gore, 1992

“Despite the hysterics of a few pseudo-scientists, there is no reason to believe in global warming…” – Rush Limbaugh. In his book, See, I Told You So (1993)

”We will not do anything that harms our economy, because first things first are the people who live in America,” –George W. Bush, on his rejection of the Kyoto treaty to reduce global pollution 2001.

 ”Could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.” –The US Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee chairman James Inhofehaving speaking on the Senate floor in July 2003.

‘Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.’ –Sentence removed from the G8 environmental agreement by the Bush administration’s 2005.

 “Carbon dioxide, they call it pollution, we call it life.”  –Television commercial put out by CEI (Competitive Enterprise Institute), 2006.

Interviewer: But pollution in this country has increased amazingly since 1992.

George W. Bush: That is a totally inaccurate statement.

Interviewer: It’s a UN figure.

George W. Bush: Well, I just beg to differ with every figure you’ve got. The environment has - the quality of the environment has improved, in spite of the fact that we’ve grown our economy.

–From an Interview with English journalist Trevor McDonald, 2005.
“I am today raising a flag of opposition to this alarmism about global warming and urging all believers to refuse to be duped by these ‘earthism’ worshippers,” – Rev. Jerry Falwell  in a Feb. 25, 2007 sermon on “The Myth of Global Warming” at his Lynchburg, Va., church.

“We have observed (that people) are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.”  –Letter From Focus on the Families James Dobson and others March 1, 2007.

Been working hard on getting all the guitar parts together for the White Album Christmas shows. Nothing like learning 29 Beatles songs to remind you how good they were.
As with all these events we have the core band (Wondrous Fruit Gatherers, Gods Band, Nowhere Band, whatever you call us is OK), plus strings, horns, and some great singers. Beyond the music there is going to be a veritable circus all around. Trapeze girls, fire dancers, acrobats, jugglers.
The band was relieved that the clown couldn’t make it. Sorry, but something about having a clown dance (or mime or, uh, clown around) in front of you while you play a song that took weeks to perfect feels like it cheapens it somehow. Call it prejudice, but that’s just how we don’t roll. The only clowns on stage should be us.
All told, should be a blast. A couple more long rehearsals and that will be that.

Shows are Friday, December 12 and Friday, December 19th 2008; Bossanova Ballroom 722 E. Burnside, PDX.

 Advance Tickets at: brownpapertickets.com

….Tell funnier jokes.”

It’s tragically easy to forget that Woody Allen, at his peak, was both funny and the voice of sentimental, tortured souls everywhere. The odd mix of soft hearted melancholy and old school one liners that characterize his peak period in the late 1970’s has no companions. It is a genre owned by a singe artist.

Stardust Memories has all the romantic fidgeting, cosmic pondering, and stammering punch-lines of Annie Hall and Manhattan but with a big, sharp stinger on the back of it. Presumably to impale the legions of distorted mutants that were hovering around and pestering the real life Allen. It is this malice and unrestrained lampooning of his own fans (as well as himself), combined with a surreal narrative that makes this film the cherry on the top of the Manhattan/Annie Hall era.

Most of the action takes place in a small resort town on the Eastern Seaboard where a film retrospective of director Sandy Bates        earlier,  “funny” films is being held. The director (played by Allen, of course) is swarmed and pursued by a legion of Fellini-esque pinheads and crackpot monsters who subject him to smug criticism, bizarre adulation, banal questions, and endless requests for autographs, photographs, career assistance, money, and endorsements. The casting call for these people must have been savage. ‘Seeking:  people with shockingly odd features to play clueless sycophants as symbols of human failure . Malformed without being deformed please.”

While Allen dishes it out with relish, he saves some big hits for himself as well . His character is only attracted to mentally unsound women, he sleeps with his fans, he is beset on all sides by people in need whom he deeply sympathizes with but is also repelled by.  He is morose and neurotic, with a giant blow up of the famous picture of a Vietnamese citizen about to be executed in his breakfast nook. Therapy doesn’t help, drugs don’t help, and he wonders why he exists at all. As in all his films Allen plays an introspective, but pathologically unwise person trying to sort out what it means to be human.  Beyond everything else, that is what the viewer can relate to.

Stardust Memories works for the same reason Annie Hall and Manhattan do. Beyond their petty dramas, they ask the big questions and answer them by asserting that life is at it’s most poetic and meaningful in simple moments, during times when we least expect it and often don’t appreciate it. The great value of these three films is that, in the end, they arrive at the conclusion that there is poetry and beauty and meaning in life. And that aside from all of the existential spectres that haunt us, the ultimate answers lay in the odd, unexpected moments we collect through life. When Allens character hallucinates a visitation from super-intelligent aliens he asks if he should quit film making and do something more worthwhile and they sum it up saying, “You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.”