Desiring Machine

Well it seems Google is becoming a victim of their own success.

And that is the problem with becoming a cultural phenomenon. The law ceases to protect you. What is happening to Google is what Gilles Deleuze would call a deterritorialization or line of flight.

“Multiplicities are defined by the outside: by the abstract line, the line of flight or deterritorialization according to which they change in nature and connect with other multiplicities. The plane of consistency (grid) is the outside of all multiplicities. The line of flight marks: the reality of a finite number of dimensions that the multiplicity effectively fills; the impossibility of a supplementary dimension, unless the multiplicity is transformed by the line of flight; the possibility and necessity of flattening all of the multiplicities on a single plane of consistency or exteriority, regardless of their number of dimensions.”

~ Gilles Deleuze Thousand Plateaus

The semantic disruption of Google is possible because of its multiplicitous nature. Googling is a nomadic experience. A process by which one moves adrift through the chance encounters of reality and linguistic relationships that bind them together. The network that Google corporation glues together traces out the very grid that we live within. In a word Google has become ours because it has weaved together through its tapestry of search algorithms, technologies, and interstitial existences the very fabric of our being. When you become that co-aligned with the grid you no longer continue operating as a separate autonomous unit of being. Your identity is lost, you become nomad.

It is remarkable the rhetoric and logic of ownership, trademark, and corporatism. To presume that things are fundamentally discrete and can be owned, or even that language can be owned and controlled because it is part of a brand. Rarely is it mentioned that Google is the product of us. What is compelling about Google is that it weaves together the products of our being, whether they be blogs, news, video clips, webpages, text, audio, utterances and disclosures. That is the soup of life and tapestry of our weaved web. Google owns it no more than you or I own it. It is a territory that defies territorialization. And Google, being successful in providing the services that effectively allow us to traverse this web, finds that their brand has become something that they no longer really have any control over. And so goes the logic of control when confronted with the force of deterritorialization. Google is a line of flight that traces, it is no longer a stable place, entity, or idea.

Hey Google, I got your google right here!

This is a chilling news story about how Iraqi barbers face brutal intimidation by radical fundamentalists because they believe the barbers shouldn’t be shaving beards. The thuggery amazes me. And I am under no illusion of the grave threat these wackos present to society. It is because of this absurdist religious nonsense that the founding fathers so strongly believed in separation of church and state. Jefferson and his contemporaries understood quite clearly why it is important to not let this radical religious thinking take a foothold in society. This is why we on the left worry about the radical christian fundamentalist strains in our own society.

But after reading this news, the islamofascist nutjobs killing barbers seems to take the cake. And when they talk about car bombs I have more than a vague sense of the danger. Several years ago I missed a car bombing in Cape Town, South Africa by a few hours when I walked through a mall parking lot there. The bombing was reportedly attributed to radical islamic extremists who went on to do a series of other bombings in Cape Town while I was there. I will never forget the feeling of recognizing that had I simply been in the same place just a few hours later I might not be alive. This is one of the personal experiences that does tend to color one’s thinking. So I am under no delusions about islamic extremists, or IRA extremists, or anti-abortion extremists, or even your garden variety lone wolf nutjob.

The fight against these fundamentalists is not an easy one. And I deeply sympathize with the barbers. It must totally suck to live under that kind of daily threat and intimidation because some nutjobs have decided that they must take an absolutist stand on facial hair. Perhaps, and I don’t mean this flippantly, we should air drop gillette razors across the country to send these radicals a clear message that they cannot win.

But there needs to be an outcry and real action from the muslim community. They will need to take an aggressive stand against the intolerant elements of their religion. The Saudis should start right away in the dismantling of the wahabi sects and schools in their society. The Iranians should curtail the hate filled mullahs. The jews and Israelis should curb the militaristic elements of their society. And we could do well to brush back the fringe Christians in our society. People of good faith everywhere need to take a stand.

Interesting article on how some top Israeli doctors have been accused of unethical experimentation on elderly patients.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but one would think with the history of Nazism and Josef Mengele these doctors would be a little more aware and sensitive to the realities of their practices.

I guess it is a testament to the health ministry in Israel that these folks were found out.

With North Korea announcing a successful nuclear weapons test Australia Prime Minister John Howard had strong words for North Korea:

“We are outraged that a country that has to rely on the international community to feed its own people, and to bring them back from the brink of starvation, devotes so many of its scarce resources to missiles and nuclear weapons progress.

The test has destabilized the region. It’s eroded North Korea’s own security. A strong international response is called for, and Australia will give full support to that response.”

This is all nice and good but I fear that strong words are not enough. It seems the world is full of excuses. With spiraling out of control nuclear proliferation we need more than strong words. We need results. This is the only standard that we can hold our leaders up to, anything less is a failure and a direct threat to our survival.

We needed more than strong words when Pakistan became a Nuclear power.

We needed more than strong words when India became a Nuclear power and expanded it program repeatedly.

We need results in North Korea.

We neeed results in Iraq

We need results in Afghanistan

We need results in Iran

We need results in the Israeli conflict with its neighbors

We need results in Darfur

We need results in NOLA after Katrina

We need results in Russia when respected journalist Anna Politkovskaya is gunned down.

We need results on Human Rights in China.

We need results on the Mark Foley scandal.

We need results in the proliferating gang warfare that plagues our cities.

We need results in the Mexican government that continues to fail its people and does not actively curb the flow of drugs into our country.

We need results in the economy

We need results on turning the tide of global warming

We need results in environmental protections

We need results in the Hanford Nuclear clean up efforts

We need results in the cafe standards and fuel efficiency of our cars

We need results in the global effort to improve health and decrease poverty

The world’s problems are not intractable, just difficult. We can accomplish many things but it will take more than words. There are no problems only solutions and action. This will require real leadership from our leaders and other leaders around the world.

The Clinton Global Initiative is a start. There are many other efforts out there. But our leaders need to understand that words are not enough. History will judge us on results more than how we talked about the problems.

Ok its official, I am spending way too much time on You Tube these days. But in my defense how can you turn down the opportunity to stumble upon great clips like this. The timing and music are excellent.

Some of the most insightful lyrics I have ever heard come from Leonard Cohen’s There is a War.

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn’t.
Why don’t you come on back to the war, that’s right, get in it,
why don’t you come on back to the war, it’s just beginning.

I have always liked the sublime paradoxical calculus and insight of the line: “The is a war between the one who says there is a war and the one who says there isn’t”. Even though this song was written in the 70’s it seems very precient today and even more profound in light the confrontational times that we find ourselves in today.

As a true artist Cohen doesn’t offer any advice, merely observation and insight. Knowing that there is a war doesn’t help you any more than knowing that there is not a war. As so many things in life these are beyond our immediate control and will. Hence the paradox in Cohen’s words. However, I find comfort in Cohen’s song because I somehow find it useful to know that the world is on fire. Better that than to sleep through the party, right?

I offer you three videos that can only confirm the suspicion that there are those who want to add to the fire:

Jesus Camp. A Christian madrasah in North Dakota?

Leftist Radicals and the case of Josh Wolf in San Franisco

Islamic Mob Rule at the Trial of Three Christian Terrorists Convicted in Indonesia to the Death Penalty.

No matter what political stripe, you are likely to find yourself in agreement, dissent or dismay with at least one or any combinations of these videos.

But alas I remain optimistic because as a freedom loving, rule of law believing, ultra liberal, Christian school upbringing, privileged White Male I know that this is all statistical noise. I have a trust that cooler heads prevail ultimately. It is just a shame that the noise machine can attract so much attention. Attention whores in an attention economy. That is font of our times and the source the clamour.

Welcome to the war. We will resume our normal broadcasting of peace and prosperity just as soon as we can elect cooler heads to high office.

What is it about April Fools day that makes it such a favorite holiday of geeks? Slashdot goes pink and celebrates ponies.

Apple Computer founded itself on April Fools day in 1976, Steve Wozniak was an incurable joker. April Fools day is the one holiday that geeks tend to go all out for. It is one of those lighthearted days that brings the practical joker out of everybody.

April Fools is one of those delighfully simple holidays that helps ring in the spring season with a celebration of mischief and tom foolery. The holiday is unfettered with onerous solemnity and sacredness. This lack of theological encumbrance is what makes the holiday what it is. You would never hear some pundit drone on and on about how the secularists are killing the holiday by refusing to prioritize one religion over another. There is not this soul searching for the lost and true meaning of the holiday. In practice April Fools day is the expression of holidays in their purest form, a marking of time through action and ritual. But this particular holiday challenges our perceptions of truth and our trust in others. We play with truth and falsity with a kind of inspired innoncence. All is illusion and we are fine with that, on this day more than others.

There are many theories about the origin of April Fools Day. One theory ascribes the origin of the holiday to the changing of a calendar. The theory is that in the middle ages the western world changed from a Julian to a Gregorian calendar. This moved the new year from end of March to the beginning of January. After the calendar change went into effect there were a few hold outs who refused to go by the new calendar and continued to persist in celebrating the new year at the beginning of April. These folks became the object of practical jokes in the form of paper fish tagged to their backs and referred to as Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish.

Another theory goes back to british folk lore:

British folklore links April Fool’s Day to the town of Gotham, the legendary town of fools located in Nottinghamshire. According to the legend, it was traditional in the 13th century for any road that the King placed his foot upon to become public property. So when the citizens of Gotham heard that King John planned to travel through their town, they refused him entry, not wishing to lose their main road. When the King heard this, he sent soldiers to the town. But when the soldiers arrived in Gotham, they found the town full of lunatics engaged in foolish activities such as drowning fish or attempting to cage birds in roofless fences. Their foolery was all an act, but the King fell for the ruse and declared the town too foolish to warrant punishment. And ever since then, April Fool’s Day has supposedly commemmorated their trickery.

What is it about geeks in particular that seem to relish in this holiday? I think it boils down to a child like innocence and playfulness that the spring time holiday evokes. It is in this playfullness and innocence that we find renewal and rebirth with our relations to the world. On this day nothing can be taken for granted, and we must approach everything with curiosity and the insight of a child. There is a refusal to see the world as given but rather make it according to our imagination. And this is the heart and soul of the geek personality trait. Many will ignore you, many will write you off. But being overlooked is your greatest strength. Because when you are overlooked they will forget about you and forget that you are changing the world.

I am a fan of Bob Dylan and I think what I find most satisfying in his music is the ecstatic tenor in many of his songs. The somber and emotional mood of Shelter From the Storm is undeniable and has long been a staple of many Dylan fans, myself included. But I have recently become more aware of what I would like to call an “ecstatic” vein in Dylan’s music. I find this stuff positively infectious. Some examples I can think of are

• Paths of Victory

• I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)

• When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky (the version from the Bootleg Series Vol. 1)

• You Changed My Life

• When My Ships Come In

• If Not For You

At his best, Dylan is yearning, and earnest in his love songs. In many of his songs there is a crescendo build up to the excitement. Just listen to the build up in Dylan’s voice about 3/4 of the way through When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky it just bursts into a full blown enthusiastic earnest. This is completely independent of the lyrical content. Sometimes even in contradiction to the lyrical content. Take Desolation Row, far and away one of my favorite songs, especially the unplugged version. On the surface a seemingly somber song about desolation and absurd living, but in my mind Dylan carries it off with an air of ecstatic aloofness, with a detachment that is more cutting and incisive than the lyrics themselves. And for all those in despair about the current state of our nation just go back and listen to Paths of Victory or When The Ship Comes In. With these songs I just sit back and think I am glad to be alive.

I am too young to have experienced Dylan when he first came of age. I can only imagine how my parents experienced Dylan when they were my age or younger. My dad positively worships Dylan. For him it is a spiritual feeling. I came of age in the era of angst ridden grunge and Kurt Cobain. And there is much to acknowledge and celebrate in Cobain. He spoke for my time and screamed it out in a way that I still find compelling. But when I listen to the early Dylan I am reminded of a music and spirit that really is the soul of the progressive moment. A heralding of the political and cultural day of reckoning, an enthusiasm for the present and embracing of the struggle. The driving force through all this is an ecstatic emotional response that fully recognizes that we must remain present in the moment and live purposefully.