tisiwoota

if the earth would sit still for a moment

I would not get off but rather find the little

place at its center where some silent being

prays over pulleys & greases gears

to make them turn true & in that place

plant a forest to surround that being & build him

a tiny shrine to live in at the bullseye of all things

where nothing moves but the whirlwind centrifuge

& the exhaustion of everyone who has

held something dear

Portland, 1968

You stand as rocks stand
to which the sea reaches
in transparent waves of longing;
they are marred, finally;
everything fixed is marred.
And the sea triumphs,
like all that is false,
all that is fluent and womanly.
From behind, a lens
opens for your body. Why
should you turn? It doesn’t matter
who the witness is,
for whom you are suffering,
for whom you are standing still.

This is way past topical, but just wanted to repost some “deep thoughts”
from another blog of mine:

1. The whole Obama chimp cartoon fiasco has me wondering:
In the alternate universe(s) where Hilary is now President, is there a
similar brouhaha where a cartoonist makes a stimulus jab by portraying
Hilary as the octo-mom? Perhaps where the babies are bailed-out
banks/industries? I mean, that seems like it’d be the inevitable
equivalent, right?

2. I was thinking about the horrible saying: “Those who can, do.
Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”
When did it originate? Doesn’t seem like it would go back as
far as one room schoolhouses or an all-women profession
(since women couldn’t “do” that many other jobs). So did it
originate as an emasculating jibe once men started entering
the profession?

Hmmm….

Singapore mostly lives up to its rep as a vast series of malls that happen
to have UN representation.

I mean, if you’ve been anywhere in Asia, it’s not exotic at all. Just little
things that remind you that you’re not in a mall in the US– the cashiers
take and hand back your credit card and receipts with both hands; most
bathrooms have at least one squat toilet among the stalls… give me a few
minutes and I’ll think of a third.

There are more misspellings and grammar mishaps on official signs. Oh yes,
and as I mentioned before, all the cats have their tails docked.

That’s part of why I haven’t written much about it– it doesn’t feel like nearly
as unique experience as going to Vietnam was. I mean, it’s not that exciting
to report that I went to a different mall that had a different Louis Vuitton store.

But recently, outside my apartment, I saw the most awesome little lizard ever
parasail onto a tree. Dude.

It looked like this:

[It flicked that yellow flag on its throat open and shut several times]

This is a blog entry I wrote (elsewhere) the day after the 2004 election.
It is, I think, worth revisiting today:

Even if “we” had won the election, our battles would not be over.
They would be easier yes, but not over. Either way, there is always
more to do. So let’s get back to doing it.

We have been reminded of the importance of working together,
and of not being complacent.
As many of us have read, those lessons are what sewed the basis of
the success of the current regime. It will work for us, too.

We have a start, and we can run with it, if we try.

Little did we know then how far we could get today.
So perhaps too, little do we know today, how much further
we shall get tomorrow.

I was greeted at the airport by students from the school’s “Welcoming Committee.” They were very friendly and helpful. They explained the bus and rail system, and gave advice on where I should live.

Then they offered me a piece of gum.

At first I declined. Gum is illegal in Singapore, right?

After they unwrapped their own and began chewing, they repeated the offer.

I reassured myself that this probably wasn’t a covert sting operation, and accepted. No sirens went off, no guard dogs attacked, and no one gave me so much as a sideways glance.

They informed me that consuming gum isn’t what’s illegal. Selling gum is illegal.

So where do they get their gum? They all go to Malaysia on the weekends, just a hop across the border, and bring it back with them.

“Most people who come here think Singapore has a reputation for strict laws. But really, there is one law in Singapore: just don’t get caught.”

I’ve been car-less since my car got stolen in September, but those of you still car-bound may want to check this roadside assistance alternative: A Better World Club.

Why the need for an alternative? Well, AAA isn’t just a benign organization that picks you up in emergencies and gets you hotel discounts. They do a lot of lobbying– and it’s all pro gas-guzzling, against fuel efficiency, against public transit (they’d rather see more highways paved), against the Clean Air Act, etc.

There’s a great Sierra Club article on A Better World Club (and AAA’s activities):
here

Excerpt:
Well, I think the bottom line question for everyone is, when the car breaks down at some inopportune time and place, will you be there?

The way that works is this: There are six national towing networks in the country, AAA being the most prominent of them. The important point is that these networks are non-exclusive for the most part. The service providers can sign up for any of them, so you’re really dealing with the same service providers no matter which network you’re with.

*BWC provides nationwide 24-hour emergency roadside assistance including towing, lockout and flat tire assistance, jumpstarts, gas and fuel delivery.
*BWC supports sound environmental policies like mass transit funding and the Clean Air Act.
* 1% of all BWC revenues go towards environmental cleanup and advocacy.
* BWC donates $1.00 for every online booking made through their web site and offer members free carbon offsets (to help fight global warming) when you make your airline reservations through Better World Club.

BWC is generally less expensive than AAA, and guarantees to match their prices.

Check it out, eh?

Better World Club

PS Also awesome? They have roadside assistance and towing for _bicycles_. Whoa nelly.

So. Today, via Stumbleupon, I discovered this amazing, mind-blowing video that tilt-shifts and time-lapses a monster truck show rally (and puts it to a rockin’ beat, to boot).

Since I’m taking a video editing class for fun this semester, I was ravenously curious to discover how it was done (I mean, I know about tilt-shift lenses… but for video?). And to figure out if (maybe maybe I hope I hope) it was something I could do, too– without buying expensivo equipment. Since it took more than a few clicks to answer all my questions, I figured I’d aggregate my findings for the internet at large. {You’re welcome}.

The way the artist, Keith Loutit, made his videos is explained in this interview.

But I’m just an amateur who doesn’t have the time (or fancy lenses) to take 60,000 PHOTOGRAPHS and then convert them to Quicktime.

Fortunately, there are short-cuts.

Someone has come up with a clever way to create a tilt-shift effect via Photoshop and FinalCut (okay, some fanciness required, but maybe it’s adaptable to other programs?). Example vid here.

Combine with instructions for making videos time-lapse (either by frame rate or in post), and voilà!

Or, I hope voilà.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to play around with this before the end of finals.

SO COOL.

update: A friend says there should be plenty more tilt-shift video coming with the new DSLR bodies with video recording– e.g. the new Canon 5DMkII.

Time Lapse, Tilt Shift

Prison Song

The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,
rearing to escape me. Where would it find another
animal as naked as this one it hates to over?
Once it told me what was happening outside,
who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air
was doing to feed or freeze me. Now I wake up
dark at night, in a textureless ocean of ignorance,
or fruit bites back and water bruises like a stone:
a jealousy, because I look for other tools to know
with, and another armor, better fitted to my flesh.
So, let it lie, turn off its clues, or try to leave:
sewn on me seamless like those painful shirts
the body-hating saints wore, this sheath of hell
is pierced to my darkness nonetheless: what traitors
labor in my face, what hints they smuggle through
its itching guard! But even in the night it jails,
with nothing but its lies and silences to feed upon,
the jail itself can make a scenery, sing prison songs
and set off fireworks to praise a homemade day.

SE Asian Memo to Wall St.

Especially:

What is clearer is that global investors have finally lost faith in the US’s debt-binged financial status quo and that a new, less US-centric era of global capitalism is dawning.

…The hard truth America is now so desperately trying to avoid is that US economic, financial and human resources - once considered the cream of the global capitalist crop - are in the new market reality worth a fraction of what they were previously priced.

Also interesting:

Others, reflecting on past Western criticism of Asian crony capitalism, wonder why the US media has not asked harder questions about a potential conflict of interest in former Goldman Sachs investment banker turned US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s lead role in devising a bailout package for his former Wall Street associates. They suspect it could be partially explained by much of the US media’s reliance on investment banks for their advertising revenues.

1. Debunking the Tipping Point.
Turns out the influence of “influentials” is over-hyped.

2. The Engineering Mentality and Terrorism.
Sociological study concludes that “in the Middle East, the mindset of engineers mixes with religiosity — and a lack of professional opportunity — to produce a toxic, combustive psychology.”

3.
DNA Used to Construct Inanimate Nanocreations
Using DNA to drive crystal assembly. Pretty cool!

This is a major and fundamental step toward building functional “designer” materials using programmable self-assembly. This “bottom-up” approach will allow scientists to take inorganic materials and build structures with specific properties for a given application, such as therapeutics, biodiagnostics, optics, electronics or catalysis.

4.
FDA Faces Major Backlog
Scary.

In the last 14 years, the drug agency has lost 1,311 employees and nearly $300 million in appropriations to inflation while Congress has passed more than 100 laws defining or expanding its regulatory responsibilities. The agency now regulates about $1 trillion worth of goods, or 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers.

The agency’s field inspection force has suffered, particularly in the area of food. In 1973, the F.D.A. undertook 34,919 food inspections; in 2006, that number had dropped to 7,783.

As the share of imported food, drugs and devices has soared, the number of agency import inspectors has plunged, to 380 in 2006 from 531 in 2003. Although 80 percent of the nation’s drug supply is now imported, the F.D.A. last year inspected only 30 of more than 3,000 foreign drug plants. It inspected 100 of 190,000 foreign food plants.

5.
Review of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror.
Stephen Miles is a great speaker, and the complicity of medical personnel is too often overlooked in talking about torture.

Miles examines medical reports on prisoners, notes discrepancy, omission, and inconsistency in its multitude. Shocking events, such as the government classifying only “two of twenty-three self-hangings as attempted suicides”, are revealed for what they are: medical complicity in cover-up. . . [M]edical personnel were far more involved in the ‘torture lite’ that occurred under the supervision of the American military: medical personnel monitored ‘patients’ to insure they could be tortured without dying; they used prior medical knowledge to devise torments for particular prisoners; and they used their expertise to cover-up evidence of torture, both on paper and on the bodies of those who were its victims. As Miles succinctly puts it, “[t]orturers need medical accomplices to keep prisoners alive as trauma is inflicted, to predict how severely detainees can be twisted, and to see that torture evaporates, leaving behind neither scars nor documentation.”