Observations from the Window 2.16, Egypt

Following the lead of Tunisia and Egypt protests seem to be spreading like a wildfire through the Middle East with Iran, Yemen, Libya, Algeria, and Bahrain all seeing protests of one kind or another. Even in the newly democratic Iraq people are in the streets again. Why does that last sentence make me want to laugh or cry? It all makes the dark one in me want to start some sort of dictator death pool; any takers? I'll take Iran with the first pick, more out of hope than anything else.

At times the world seems such a tiny place. Over the weekend I was reading some about the Egyptian uprising and in the process came upon my own minor connection to it. Dr. Zahi Hawass was appointed Egypt's Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs as part of a Mubarak's cabinet shakeup at the beginning of the protests. Always a controversial figure Dr. Hawass is at the center of a storm over what, if anything, was looted from the Egyptian Museum during the protests. I met Dr. Hawass at a lecture he gave at NYU a few years ago and got close enough to shake his hand. After reading "Egypt’s Zahi Hawass and a dark past" all I can say is this; I do not recall any call girls being present.

Another big story to come out of the Egyptian uprising was the government shutdown of the internet for five days. How the shutdown was done is something it has yet to explain in full but it seems it was accomplished by simply closing down the choke points where data enters and exits the country. Whether by high-tech means or by simply pulling the plug Egypt's internet was killed between 12 and 1 on the morning of January 28th and nobody knows how. In ways the strategy backfired on the government in that the shutdown had to be partly responsible for the near collapse of the Egyptian economy and that near collapse is what prompted the military to act.

And finally; I want my own internet and I want it yesterday. “It is not hard, when everybody is just in one big database controlled by Mr. Zuckerberg, to decapitate a revolution by sending an order to Mr. Zuckerberg that he cannot afford to refuse,” Mr. Moglen said." From "Decentralizing the Internet So Big Brother Can’t Find You." Totally awesome idea and a good article in the New York Times but I'll let you read it if you want and wont bore you with my geek side.

Bob Marley - Redemption Song

2/21 update - At this point I have to say I was wrong to pick Iran in the death pool. As troops fire on protesters and ambassadors around the globe resign Libya seems to be the next to fall ....

From The Nation - "The End of Qaddafi?"

3/1 update - Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities chief mentioned above, resigned today.

3/30 update - From The New York Times today, "Zahi Hawass, who resigned as Egypt’s minister of antiquities less than a month ago under criticism for his close ties to former President Hosni Mubarak, was reappointed to the post on Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported, citing an Egyptian news report; Mr. Hawass, reached by phone, confirmed his reappointment."

Observations from the Window 2.13

We in the Village are mired in the middle of the fall collection edition of New York Fashion Week and I for one am a bit tired of it. I'm not the biggest fan of Fashion Week to start with but today I went ice skating and there was a woman skating in a jacket so bizzare I just had to ask. In my most polite tone of voice I asked her what the hell she was wearing and was told faux monkey fur, I do not lie. OK I know the stuff is hot in the fashion world but this woman looked like she was wearing the whole faux monkey.

The problem with Fashion Week is there are too many people walking around who think they are stylish, want you to think they are stylish, and totally look like hell. Supposedly the New York Fashion Week is all about cool where Paris is about elegance. I myself dont see it, there isnt nearly enough black or leather and there are way too many mohawks for my taste. Call me an old fashioned dyke but i like that long silky hair I can wrap my fingers in when it is called for, but i digress.

Just to prove the whole fashion week thing is out of control I'll tell you about a notice we got at the gallery. We get all kinds of things about openings, parties, shows, and the like; some aren't exactly within walking distance but this was new. We received an invitation to the first ever Muscat Fashion Week in Oman which takes place from February 22nd through the 24th. There are now at least 18 fashion weeks that I know of and I'm probably missing some so please no more, I beg you.

I read a review of the Alexanedr Wang show hoping for anything positive and what I found made me cry myself to sleep (l). "There was a pretty balance between hard and soft in the textures and shapes used in the collection – we especially loved his buttery, black biker-girl jacket with a huge fur collar teamed up with beautifully tailored silk trousers. Is this what Joan Jett would look like if she grew up and got a job in an art gallery in the Big Apple? We hope so." I don't have words ....

By the way Milan fashion Week is from February 23rd through March 1st. I'm thinking if I'm going to be flying anywhere it isn't going to be to some city named after a rodent.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.11, Egypt

So in the end the Egyptian military made its choice and Mubarak had to go.

Call me strange if you must but I get so into moments like this. Maybe after studying so much history I just get a kind of high when I realize I'm seeing history being made as I watch. If I could have been there I would have, taking pics or sitting on top of a tank just taking it all in. Maybe I found my camera too late and missed my calling; maybe it's never too late. Please don't anybody tell my dad I wrote that.

With Wael Ghonim as their hero the Egyptian people toppled the so called 'Last Pharaoh' and forced his resignation. Ghonim , a 30 year old Google executive , was the anonymous activist behind the 'We Are All Khaled Said' Facebook page from which the January 25th movement evolved. For the last eighteen days the people of Egypt chased a dream, a dream of freedom, and today they caught up with that dream. Nobody can know how events will play out in the next few weeks and months but one thing is certain; Egypt and the world itself will never be the same. And what comes after this? "Ask Facebook," Ghonim told CNN. "I want to meet Mark Zuckerberg one day and thank him."

In October Malcolm Gladwell wrote in The New Yorker (l) that "the revolution will not be tweeted." Maybe he was wrong, maybe the next revolution is being planned on Facebook as I write this. I can only hope so.

Allāhu Akbar

Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now

23:50 update - Once again the GOP is on the wrong side of history. In his speech to the CPAC convention Ron Paul disagreed with the idea that the US "has a moral responsibility to spread our goodness around the world.We need to do a lot less a lot sooner, not only in Egypt but around the world."

Observations from the Window 2.11

It was below twenty degrees again last night. I don’t really care how far below twenty it goes, below twenty is cold enough for me. I just sit in the window watching the people walk down the street all bundled up and all looking like smokers who found a way to smoke without cigarettes. Even my vendor has disappeared for now, his spot on the corner replaced by of trash appearing under a melted snow pile which is now frozen into some macabre urban ice sculpture. It all combines to make me dream of spring, something that at times seems farther away every day.

My brain has started a list, a sort of psycho wish list, of things to keep itself warm. So ....

I want it to be warm outside; I'm talking 70 or 80 degrees warm. I want to be able to say I'm hot and not just be looking in the mirror when I say it. I want to hear that I have the house at the shore for my annual week of relaxation or solo debauchery or whatever it is I do there. I want to sit with my feet buried in the sand while I sip on an ice cold Corona and chew on the lime. True, I don't actually sip beer but I like the thought just the same. I want Fred's. I want to drive Foxy with the top down, the stereo blaring, and peeps thinking I must be totally insane. I want to buy sunscreen and not just need it for my face because the snow is too damn bright.

I want to sit on the roof in a tank and shorts and watch the stars all night.

Now that I have probably totally jinxed myself I do have one realistic thought that is warming. Phillies pitchers and catchers report Sunday. Maybe spring isn't that far off after all.

Sheryl Crow - Anything But Down

Observations from the Window 2.8.1

Studying Art History you learn all about revisionist history. There is a branch of the discipline that is just that, a revisionist view of art. In the mid-80s, when I was but a wee thing, there was a huge clash between the revisionists and the traditional historians with the revisionists being called radicals and troublemakers. Before you ask, no I'm not technically a revisionist. In the end many thing changed in the study of Art History and I may write about it sometime because it has always intrigued me but not now. However I did bring revisionism up for a reason.

Ronald Reagan's one hundredth birthday was a few days ago. Reagan was too early for any real time experience and too late for any of my studies so my only actual experience of him was seeing his funeral when I was ten. Like a lot of people my age I didn't know much about him and just always looked on Reagan as my grandfather's Republican. This is where the revisionist part comes in. My opinion of him came from what I heard in the years since the funeral and was also colored by living eight years under the Bush administration. Not that I would have voted for Reagan but he just seemed to more liberal than today's conservatives and seemed to have been good for the country.

Earlier today I was reading some blogs when I stumbled on something in David Mixner's blog (l) that I traced back to the Daily Kos (l). I'll let you form your own opinion.

"The following press conference is the first public mention of AIDS in the Reagan White House. At that time 200 Americans had died of a new infectious disease. Reagan himself did not mention AIDS for three more years. [Note: other sources say five, citing 1987.--Clarknt67]

The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, Press Briefing by Larry Speakes
October 15, 1982, The Briefing Room
12:45pm EDT

Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement -- the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?
Mr. Speakes: What's AIDS?
Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?
Mr. Speakes: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)
Q: No, I don't.
Mr. Speakes: You didn't answer my question.
Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President ...
Mr. Speakes: How do you know? (Laughter.)
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?"

My thoughts on the subject of Mr. Reagan and his administration have changed drastically.

Read the full Daily Kos post "Screw Reagan" here.

Observations from the Window 2.8

Over the past weekend I went through one royal funk I think brought on by the fact that I have never in my life been so tired of a winter before. I was telling a friend how drained I was feeling and didn't know why but I think that is the answer. I never got like this in the mountains but than this winter seems so damn special, or maybe a better word is grueling. Plus in the mountains I had hockey and skiing and here I just have slush, never ending grey slush to go along with my collection of now grey boots.

I was also in a bit of a photographic funk, to the point that I reshot a job because I didn’t like the way it turned out the first time. I always said part of the reason I like photography is the instant gratification aspect of it. I can take so many shots in so little time and even if I only like one it's almost instantaneous and costs next to nothing. On the other hand the cost of a painting has been known to come in at days without sleep, a case of Corona, a bottle of tequila, and a carton of cigarettes. All that is not exactly instantaneous or cheap in today's economy.

Ash has a theory of her own on this one. It being that I am spending too much time on the shots I am doing, stressing over them, and making them not so instantaneous. Or as she so succinctly puts it I'm using too much of my 'limited' brain power on them. My secret theory on her theory is that she wants me to start painting so she can sell my paintings. That and she has a not so secret desire to open a gallery of her own and needs a captive artist with a larger body of work.

After a couple of relatively warm, if not exactly spring like, days I seem to have snapped out of the funk for now. Hopefully I stay out of it but one never knows with me.

For the record that little virus my comps had a couple days ago totally sucked. I did manage to get rid of it but it seems to have affected Firefox in some way, slowing it down to the point I want to scream. I started using Google Chrome more and now I’m thinking the ‘Google” virus was unleashed by Google to get people to use Chrome. I have been tweaking the Firefox code and it seems to be working better but it may be too late, I like Chrome and its black skin.

And so it goes ….

30 Seconds To Mars - Closer To The Edge

Observations from the Bar 2.6

I stopped by my little bar after work to watch the Super Bowl and get reacquainted. I haven't been here in some time and with the Flyers going into the second half of the season with the best record in the NHL I soon might be spending more time here.

I really couldn't care less about the game because I don't like either team so I would be perfectly happy if neither one wins. I know the Steelers are from Pennsylvania but i don't care, I never liked them. After all they are from western PA and everybody knows that it's a strange breed of people that live west of the Susquehanna. On top of that there are no cheerleaders because neither team has them. There are only six teams in the NFL that don't have cheerleaders and it was just our luck to get two of them this year. Seriously, there should be a rule against that. There should also be a rule against halftime shows with bad sound, or maybe just against totally bad halftime shows.

That leaves the commercials and they don't seem to be anything special this year either. Maybe I missed something but I'm totally unexcited so far. The Chrysler ad with Eminem is probably my winner because it is very well made and "Imported from Detroit" is prob the only memorable line to come out of this game. My only other thought on the commercials is that Stella Artois and Miller Lite are clearly targeting different markets. Wait, GoDaddy just came on so things are looking up and it's followed by VW Bettle, win win.

It was nice to see George Bush could get a ticket to the game. One has to wonder if he and the old gang were discussing how things are going in Iraq and how the Middle East needs more strong countries like Egypt. That Georgie, he always was a little behind.

One final toast to the missing 400 who were denied seats even though they had tickets. Seems Jerry Jones forgot to install some 1200 seats in his new sports palace. Honestly you just can't make this shit up.

And so the final score was Green Bay 31 and Pittsburgh 25 with Penn State getting its 49th Super Bowl ring. There had to be a silver lining somewhere and damnit I found it.

Observations from the Window 2.3

One of those bad days you would like to forget. A day when my virtual empire once again went into a virus induced meltdown. After six hours of wracking my brain, and all but pulling my black hair out by the roots, I think I finally have it cured but it's been enough to make me turn to the geek darkside. Yes I'm talking about switching to those Apple products. Supposedly they don’t get viruses because it isn’t worth the time it takes to write them because there just aren’t that many machines compared to Windows run ones. You get much more bang with windows powered machines. And the gods know the aholes that write these things want all the bang they can get for their trouble.

Till I was finished I had run more malware cleaners than I knew existed. I finally found that what I had was something relatively new and called the 'Google Redirect Virus' which most virus and malware programs don’t catch because it doesn’t leave trace files but worms its way into the computers settings than disappears. All I know is that it sucks big time, very big time. What it does is give you fake search results and than redirects you to websites that contain more viruses and trojans. I finally found a tiny free program made by Kaspersky called TDSSKiller that got rid of it in five minutes. But by than it had spread to two of my comps and threatened to give me something I have never had before, short hair. But all is well for now, until the next time.

Before the meltdown I had started writing about the protests in Egypt but I didn’t get very far. All I had written was this before the meltdown began.

"And why aren't you tweeting more Richard Engle? Anderson Cooper got beat up yesterday so he is quiet too. Don't give me that cell phones are out, just get a BlackBerry like the protesters have. A little bit of geek speak related to Egypt; it seems BlackBerrys are on different servers than the rest of the internet. Servers the government seems unable to find."

I feel stupid reading that because I now see at least forty reporters were beaten today and a big march is planned for the morning Egyptian time, or about three hours from now. Egyptian state television began broadcasting just pictures of flowers and it seems Friday will be a historic day, one way or another.

One prays for change yet dreads the cost.

Observations

Sometimes the apple falls so far away from the tree it's not even in the same yard anymore ....

Observations from the Window 2.1

It's Groundhog Day, or maybe Tim Burton's vision of Groundhog Day starring Johnny Depp instead of Bill Murray. Either way a thick layer of ice grips the Village this morning as I look out the window. I'm talking about a groundhog with suicidal tendencies, with a rope around his neck instead of a collar, a groundhog with a taste for Zoloft.

Torn from his borrow by a gentlemen resembling a Victorian executioner Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow today so they say it will be an early spring this year. I’m not one to believe in superstitions, seriously I'm not, but at this point I'll take whatever hope I can get. I haven’t heard from Staten Island Phil yet but I don't think he is going to see anything but his reflection on the ground if the executioner should drag him out.

You might be getting the idea that I’m tired of this winter, the winter from hell, and you would be correct in that assumption. I have had more than enough of this winter of the snowpocalypse and thundersnow and as the lights flicker I might yet add this winter of the icepocalypse to the list. We of the Village are surviving on thoughts of spring and summer but it getting harder and harder to wipe that war in the trenches looks off our faces. Groundhog or not for now the winter from hell keeps us in its, well, icy grasp and doesn’t show any sign of letting go.

Better keep all my toys charged today ....

Groundhog Day - Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad

Observations on Art 1.30

Since its invention photography has given us a side of conflict that it wasn’t possible to see before. Unstaged photos convey its emotional side that I personally don’t think the written word can touch. They have the ability to reach out and tug at the heart of the viewer.

Below are two such photos. The bottom was taken on June 18, 2009 in Tehran, Iran. The top was taken just yesterday in Cairo, Egypt.


Lefteris Pitarakis / AP

ZhuPix

Observations from the Coffee Shop 1.30

Revolution by social networking, the very idea intrigues my inner geek side. What I mean is people using Twitter and Facebook to organize and overthrow a corrupt government, or attempt to do so. I'm not going to pretend to understand it but some random observations ....

I first remember seeing it in the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran. This was highlighted by the Green Facebook page and its 56 youtube videos including the sad death of Nedā on June 20, 2009. The video was uploaded two days later and now has well over one million views. The Green Revolution also included possibly the first ever use of DoS attacks in protests of any kind as opposition supporters attacked government sites and exchanged attack tools on Twitter and Facebook.

Earlier this month saw the Jasmine Revolution topple the President of Tunisia and force him to flee the country quickly followed by this week’s unrest in Egypt. What makes the latter interesting is the government's total shutdown of the internet. Tunisia had cut off certain websites and Iran slowed it to the point it was almost unusable but nobody, not even China, has ever attempted a complete shutdown before. Twitter and Facebook went down on Tuesday (1/25) and in the early morning hours of Friday the entire web was shutdown followed by Egypt's cell phone networks.

In Iran opposition leaders, the middle class, and especially women seemed to grasp there new power but also saw the writing on the wall and choose to fight another day. In Tunisia the Twitter revolution was wildly successful and the president was forced to flee the county. In Egypt it's too early to tell but one has to wonder how long a modern country with modern business can operate in the world without the internet.

"Why in the most vibrant democracy in the world, where engagement and knowledge of the world is probably the most important, why it's not available is one of these things that would take a PhD scholar to understand," said Tony Burman, head of North American strategies for Al Jazeera English on why the free network is not available in the United States.

In some interesting side notes China has blocked the word 'Egypt' from all its search engines and I have to ask; has NBC News's Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel become the new Anderson Cooper?

update - After I posted this I saw the following in the Washington Post. "Liz Sly reports from Baghdad: "Activists on Twitter are furiously tweeting the dates of the next putative uprisings: Sudan on Jan. 30, Yemen on Feb. 3, Syria on Feb. 5 and Algeria on Feb. 12. 'Arab Revolution Timetable,' say the tweets hurtling among the region's new generation of cyberspace revolutionaries."

update 2/2 - Al Jazeera reported "Social media used in bid to mobilise Syrians for rallies demanding freedom, human rights and the end to emergency law." Supposedly this coming weekend.

the Loner

"We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create.

Loners, by virtue of being loners, in celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave—like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels, and sole survivors.

Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before, and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the cabalists.

Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarified. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline.

A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions."

Anneli Rufus, "Party of One, The Loners Manifesto"

Observations from the Window 1.27

So this winter from hell keeps spawning new terminology, at least new to me. Welcome to thundersnow. The snowpocalypse was bad enough but last night Mother Nature came to the party armed and it seemed more than a little pissed off. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain were followed by another foot of heavy wet snow. And than there was the thunder, at the same time awesome but so surprising because it is the last thing you expect while sitting watching the snow fall. Yes Mother Nature seems to be mad as hell and is taking it out on the Northeast this winter. I'm not alone in thinking that the Village has had quite enough of it.

It is now officially the snowiest January on record in New York City and has snowed eight times in the Village since December 14th. The mayor just said 1,700 plows are out on the streets but I have yet to see one on our street. But than the mayor was also late for his press conference so even his four wheel drive limo must be have problems navigating the streets. Those bicycle messengers don't seem to have any problem though and it’s funny to watch people dive out of their way as the bikes race down the sidewalk. I think I would need to throw a well placed hip check if one of them tried to run me out of the way but I haven't been that lucky yet.

Funny thing is that so far this year the Penn State’s main campus has received just 14" of snow or pretty much what was dumped on Central Park just last night. Go figure, either the snow is following me or my enviro-geek brother is right and it's global warming. Fresh from a photo walk in the falling snow I checked my email and found one from him with a link to an op-ed piece titled 'Bundle Up, It’s Global Warming.' It could be written in Sindarin for all I know so I'll leave the science to him but he likes it so I'll pass it on.

And finally I give you my thought for the day. I should be sitting on a beach digging my feet into the warm sand and than reaching for the bottle of Corona. No? Well at least I have my skates now.

Corona Extra - The Football