Radio at the Catskill Community Center
Catskill Community Radio Excerpt
June 12 2008 | on communication | No Comments »
Terrorism and Compliance at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
“What would my brother- a US Ranger currently on duty in Iraq- think of me and my seven year old daughter being a shield for an Iraqi-born anti-war artist?” I asked myself as she and I took a step closer to each other tightly holding hands as we moved through the crowd of angry protesters outside the aptly named Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy on Monday night. Earlier that day I received an email from the Sanctuary informing me that the Iraqi born Waffaa Bilal’s art had been censored by the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and consequently the exhibit was moved to the Sanctuary where protesters gathered outside. The protest was called publicly by the Troy Commissioner of Public Works, Bob Mirch. Subsequently, the Sanctuary- a beautiful church being lovingly restored- was closed in what appear to be spurious code violations.
Confrontation is an awkward thing for most of us. As I passed the demonstrators with my daughter - I looked down- but I couldn’t help noticing that most of them looked to be baby boomers or older.
Inside the Sanctuary we slowly made our way into the back of the crowded room and sat down just as a short man with carmel colored skin invited someone from the audience to come to the front of the room to “play.” Play? A moment later we were up and moving through the crowd again behind the large movie screen with it’s gigantic video game images of men stalking men with familiar looking faces to the back of the church where a friendly woman was giving away free popcorn faster than she could make it. “The video game is the censored art,” someone explained to me.
I have no interest in seeing violence if I can avoid it. I do my best to shelter my children from it- both the reality of it and the fantasy of it. For me a survivor of violence who knows intimately what “night terrors” and “triggers” are violence is not “entertaining” and in this respect the artist who caused such an uproar in Troy- Wafaa Bilal and I are alike: “What was wrong with Super Mario? Why do we need these war games?” he asked us.
My brother is a bright, moral young man, with a conscience and a strong sense of duty. Yet- I don’t doubt that his opinions and outlooks have in part been groomed by his participation in this “fantasy play.” Yet, my brother’s job is anything but play.
My brother was six years old when the first Gulf War started. When he was losing his baby teeth, Wafaa Bilal was living in a refugee camp caught between the repression of Sadaam and the Sanctions of the US and I was a college student in Chicago working with the Balkan Rape Trauma Response Coalition- a grassroots network made up almost entirely of women trained to assist survivors of sexual violence. Many of whom went repeatedly to active war zones of the former Yugoslavia to work directly with survivors of the Rape Camps. By day I debated with my professors whether the Rape Camps existed, at night I listened to updates directly from the women who were going to the front lines.
In those days we Americans weren’t much accustomed to thinking about the people who had so recently lived “behind the Iron Curtain” of the Soviet Union. It isn’t easy to tell a Bosnian Muslim from a Serbian Orthodox from a Croatian Catholic. We women in Chicago knew something about how to help people heal from violence and some of us were brave enough to risk our lives to go to war zones to share that knowledge and healing. It didn’t matter to us that these were Muslim women. But we shared the frustration and puzzlement that enraged the greater Muslim world- how could Europe and America turn a blind eye to such suffering right in the heart of Europe — could it be because they were Muslims?
Shortly after Vietnam the army set about solving what they perceived as the “morale problem” of US soldiers during that conflict by pushing for greater reliance on technology and psychology. Even as Judith Herman was publishing her groundbreaking work that reverse engineered 150 years of US Army records on war trauma to point the way to treatment of psychological trauma- and even as Waffaa Bilal was making his way from his home and family to a life of freedom in the United States and even as my colleagues in Chicago became part of the successful push to recognize rape as a tool of genocide - there were software engineers from CalTech- from MIT from Madison and Stanford from Urbana — and yes - from RPI who were working diligently to make the next generation of weapons more like video games and to make the next generation of war games more like “real life.”
Why should the students of RPI who are both consumers of war games and the next generation to soldier on in their creation be protected from the moral consequences of their actions? Is it not an immoral act on the part of the RPI administration to censor a work that is meant to problematize the very kinds of work that RPI students will engage in in coming years?
“Some day, I’m gonna have stories to tell you,” my brother says. I don’t ask him what he means. I know what he means. Waffaa Bilal knows what he means.
……………….
……………….
To help replace the Sanctuary’s front doors you can make a secure, tax-deductible online donation
(or a gift in someone else’s name) at:
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=10330
Links related to this controversy:
Summary of articles:
http://tinyurl.com/2pue62
http://indymedia.us/en/2008/03/30492.shtml
A brief video overview on YouTube:
http://tinyurl.com/2qndon
A sassy music remix of the shutdown order:
http://tinyurl.com/2wznr9
March 18 2008 | undoing violence and on communication | No Comments »
the rise and fall and rise? of 2 community nets in chicago
For the seven.1 people in the world- you know who you are- who are super interested in the fascinating but small vanguard we call Community Networks– I bring you an interview with Bill Comisky. Bill is an antenna designer in Chicago who moonlights as a volunteer on two community based networks in Chicago. When I* interviewed him in March, one network was “dark” — that is turned off- and the other network was humming along. He gave me his take why both projects chose open source software, the appeal to volunteer on community technology projects, asset building from the ground up, and the struggle to keep one net going and get another back up. (*A chipmunk named Betty actually conducted the interview.)
October 17 2007 | sounds and on communication | No Comments »
Feminist Interventions in Geek Culture: ShesFreakinGeekyGetOverItAlready
“I’m hoping a series of feminist interventions will erupt from shesgeeky like a labia majora in all its glory.”
On a nearly daily basis, I feel the disconnect between the very arbitrary and abstract places that my work takes me and the larger questions that tug at my heart. How in the world is municipal broadband infrastructure remotely related to questions of economic empowerment or social justice - never mind Gender Equity! I wish i I had the benefit of the shesgeeky crowd to gain a glimmer of insight on the connection between my values and my work. I’m sad to say that I’m going to be too busy next week trying to work with my crew of geek boys to be able to stop and reflect on how we could work together better. I feel that I am missing out on a what I expect will be a cathartic bitch fest and a tactical tidbit swap. Not to mention that it’s being held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View which would be soooo groovy to hang out in for a day or two. Anyway, in a nod to the ladies who will be hoofing it to the con, (mostly silicon valley girls), I want to throw out to the world my own personal laundry list for feminist intervention in geek culture. I am hoping for myself and my two daughters that out of the well deserved bitch fest, a series of feminist interventions will erupt like a labia marjora in all its glory.
Since I’ll be missing out, I’m starting my own private bitch fest right here right now. Below are a list of daily gripes about living and working in a dualistic world. I sure hope some of the ladies- and lady friendly folk- out there can point the way out of these hassles. As I started cataloging, I found that I had a lot to say about feminism and geek culture. I wrote 6 posts on the train home from Montreal on said topic. But I’m thinking small right now. Small, puny, everyday type hassles.
What do you do when your professional interest in a colleague is mistaken for sexual interest?
How do you handle it when the subtext of a male colleague is that your work doesn’t match up to his?
Do you have problems negotiating with your male colleagues About (from your POV) things that seem to be *** the simplest*** and ***most straightforward*** aspects of getting things done?
Do you get push back from male subordinates when you ask them to do things? What do you do?
What do you do when you perceive that your questions and concerns are disregarded first and addressed last?
When men are huddled in a circle talking about work do you insert yourself into the conversation?
What do you do when a male colleague won’t explain the details to you of how to do something but instead insists on “doing it for you?”
Do you take up administrative slack in a group instead of doing your “real work?” How do you avoid that?
Note: You don’t have to be a geek or even look like one to notice that some of these issues are not unique to geekdom, but rain on the parade of people the world over whenever more than one gender is set to a task. But the solutions to solve these problems are unique to the culture of those involved. If, for example, you are a school teacher you don’t have to go to hit the parties in Silicon Valley to land a job.
October 16 2007 | feminist interventions in geek culture and on communication | 1 Comment »
feminist interventions in Geek Culture: Stealin Away the Boy’s Toys
I have to credit my angry teenage daughter for helping me realize that when gender and technology mix, *disempowered* is often interpreted as *disinterested* — She also gets major credit for solving her own problems with a bit of active resistance.
When my daughter Manda was a freshman in high-school she came home excited because her technology class was about to spend several weeks playing with cool programmable robots. But before, i explain the ensuing disappointment she suffered, the agony, soul searching and eventual victory– let me take a self-congratulating minute to give myself props for having raised a girl who likes to play with robots. How did I do it? Well partly it was a conscious choice that I made. Partly its just cultural. We both have fathers who are really into tinkering and dad time always involves things like fixing the breaks on the car– “you should know how to do this!” (her dad) or going to hang out all day Saturday and all night Saturday jawing with hackers at the computer store (my dad used to own one.) “I thought we were going to do something fun.” “this isn’t fun!” Or perhaps it’s because we’re working class girls. Single moms, project girls and trailer park ladies like the ones we are related to are habituated to figuring out how to keep the old jalopy running for a few months more, stringing coat hangers for killer tv reception, and making commando style repairs to vacuum hoses, window repairs, and hem lines with nothing more than duct tape. I also recall a fateful day in my mid-teens when I first got “the treatment.” On tuesday, I was a darling pre-pubescent who men sweetly indulged by answering number of techie questions. On Wed, I men stopped showing me how to do cool things. Smell the menses. I wanted to make sure that my daughter felt self-reliant and capable. So I took her along to build radio stations in the midwest and wifi cantennas at MIT. She knows how to solder and a good deal more. End of self-congratulating.
When Manda came home frustrated that the girls in her class couldn’t even manhandle the robot parts because the boys had commandeered them all, I was at a loss to give her any advice Her teacher was a man and seemed to be tolerating what seemed to my daughter to be a completely unacceptable situation. Her friends were angry and frustrated too. Day after day she came home and bitched. Day after day, I contemplated, should I call the teacher? if he saw it as a problem, he would have done something. Would their be backlash if I called?
Her friends were angry too. Manda ranted that they were acting “like typical girls” — giggly and nervous, not willing to fight to get their way. As Manda saw it, they *wanted* to build robots, but that they felt *disempowered* to act in their own interest. I bet her teacher didn’t realize the extent of their frustration. I believe that many times in technology *disempowered* is misinterpreted as *disinterested*.
Hitting the web for solutions, I found of sites that identified this exact problem, but none practical recommendations. I had to apologize to manda. I had no suggestions for her. “Don’t worry mom, I’ll handle it,” she said. The next day she and her friends arrived about 20 minutes early for class. Taking advantage of the laissez faire nature of her teacher she announced to him that they would be disassembling all of the boys work and commandeering all of the robot parts. “You can join our team,” she told the boys, “but you’ll have to sit on your hands.”
October 14 2007 | feminist interventions in geek culture and on communication | No Comments »
The Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour Rough Cut
Here is a somewhat edited recording- a rough cut that will be edited into a larger piece- of the The Lackawanna County Coal Mine Tour. I took this tour in 2002 as part of the Lackawanna Ambassadors program. Our tour guide was a retired miner who worked in the Drifts about 100 miles south of Scranton. The most exciting part of the audio for me are the ambient sounds. I will use them wantonly throughout the edited piece. Lee the tour guide is everything that you want in a tour guide, a knowledgeable and authentic sounding character. Lee gives the dish on mining terminology, what causes the most fatalities in mines, proper blasting technique, and other sordid details of life underground. Note that the parts when everyone gets quiet– that’s when we are descending and ascending underground in complete darkness.
Feel free to use this rough cut for non-commercial purposes. If you do use it, please drop me a line and let me know for goodness sakes what use you were able to put it to.
Lackawanna County Coal Mine Tour - Rough Cut 23:05
September 28 2007 | mining and sounds | No Comments »
Open Source, not to be confused with….
Recently my father informed me there is a big difference between Open Source and Open Sores. How many others are confused by these gifts that keep on giving?
September 12 2007 | humour and on communication | No Comments »
Come Back Baby
A favorite old blues song heavily altered by Jerome Lindberg. Me singing and on guitar.
May 22 2007 | sounds | No Comments »
I’m Not Yours
Writing, singing, playing, recording and editing all performed by the little red hen right in her very own kitchen studio.
Feel free to use for non-commercial share alike porpoises.
May 28 2006 | personal writings and sounds | No Comments »
another satire
Dear Faculty and Students,
In consultation with the Board of Trustees, out President has determined the path to excellence in spite of our current budget crisis. We expect that these innovative measures will both enhance the quality of education demanded by our university community as well as save us millions. continue reading »
October 21 2005 | humour and personal writings | No Comments »