Lay me down in the tall grass

Out of the office reply...

2010-06-14T12:29:02Z

Hey, I've not been posting for a while. Sorry about that.

Right now I'm in Melbourne Australia. On Thursday we drive up towards Sydney. In two weeks we'll be in New Zealand. In a month we'll be in San Francisco. In two months we'll have an apartment. I'll be working, back at Rdio.

Actually, I probably should be getting some work done for them right now, only my laptop battery is fucked so I'm a little reluctant to get started on anything too significant. It literally carries zero charge so the smallest bump on the power loses everything. It's like being back with a desktop computer, only the cable on my computer isn't nearly as solid as a good old kettle plug.

I want to post more of our experiences. I'll do that when I take and make the time and when I've had a chance to upload more of our photos.

Australian Of The Year

2010-01-26T07:39:58Z

It's Australia Day. Or Invasion Day. It's when I think about what I love about Australia, but also all of the horrible things we've done in our past and how far we've got to go. On Australia day they hand out a bunch of honours to people who've made significant contributions to Australian society and one award for Australian Of The Year. I'd never heard of this year's recipient, Patrick McGorry, but it sounds like he's done a bunch of good things.

So, I'm going to pick my own personal Australian of the year. The Australian whose work has made me proudest. It's a pretty easy choice for me. My brother Colin has spent the past year working at the Yamatji Marlpa Pilbara Native Title Service. He's working with Aboriginal communities in the Pilbara to identify and protect significant sites from mining. He's living in Port Hedland, but not on a miner's salary. I know I'm biased, but I'm really proud of what he's been doing. We'd be doing better as a country with more people like him.

Jerusalem Maths

2010-01-25T16:19:01Z

Last Friday we went on an alternative archaeological tour of the Silwan neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. The tours are run by Israeli archaeologists who feel that the archaeology done in the area often referred to as the City of David aren't done professionally. The Israeli Government and the settler organization El Ad use archaeological techniques that have been rejected by mainstream archaeology for a hundred years (such as tunnelling) and approach the digging with a political agenda rather than pure scientific interest.

Our guide showed us not only how archaeology is being used as an excuse to force Palestinians from their homes, but also how only the Jewish and Judean parts of the history were being explored and explained to the exclusion of the other significant history of the area. It was also interesting that he rejected a strong connection between the Judean people who settled in Jerusalem in 1000BCE and the Jewish people of today.

Jewish people feel a strong historical connection to Jerusalem, but so do people of many different faiths and cultures. In the city's 3800 year history it has had many rulers and been consistently home to different people. Back to the time of King David there is biblical documentation of the city being culturally mixed (see: Joshua 15:63, Judges 1:21). While there have been Judean or Jewish people living in the city with (with a few interruptions) since about 993BCE, they've never been the only residents. Some Palestinians see themselves as the descendants of the Canaanites who first settled Jerusalem, but that connection, like that between the modern Jewish people and the Judeans of King David's time is difficult to prove or disprove and is widely disputed.

I did some quick lazy research and made a spreadsheet to track who has been running Jerusalem for the past 3810 years, since the Canaanite Jebusites first built a wall around their city. I tallied up the years that different groups controlled the city and it came out like this:

Jerusalem has spent about 20% of its history as a Jewish city. It has spent about 1.5 times more time as a Muslim city and twice as much time ruled by polytheistic rulers. Even parts of the city that are considered to be associated with particular religions almost always have a mixed history. The Muslim Dome of the Rock is built on the site of the Jewish temple but has also been a Christian church. Much of the Western Wall (Kotel), arguably the most holy place in modern Judaism were built by Muslim rulers of the city. The history is so complicated and mixed it's illogical for any particular group to claim a unique connection to the place. Anyone that does probably has a modern political agenda.

Sleepy or tired?

2010-01-22T23:18:55Z

View Poll: Sleepy or tired

Last Friday in Bil'in

2010-01-20T17:34:00Z

Fridays are demo day in Palestine. It's the weekend but not yet shabbat so religious Jewish Israelis can participate in solidarity. Right now there are about ten non-violent demonstrations each Friday. Activists travel from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem coordinate cars to drive to and between demonstrations

Breakfast

Sharon and I met Emily and Noam early, picked up Ginger and drove to Bil'in. We went to Emily's friend Abu Nizar's place for one of the most amazing meals of my life. We sat on the roof of their home and ate from dozens of different amazing tasty dishes - foul, salad, hummus, baba ganoush, and so many things I don't know the name of. We hung out with Abu Nizar, his wife Amina, his eldest son Nizar and many of his other children. Abu Nizar is the popular committee's legal representative so he works with Emily (who is the village's lawyer) a lot. One of Abu Nizar's friends is a writer who is writing a book about Bil'in, and he came by to ask us who we were, why we were in Bil'in and what we thought about the situation. He was a really interesting guy, having grown up in Bil'in and left Palestine in 1974 and worked with the PLO before returning exactly 22 years later to become part of the new Palestinian administration.

Demonstration

The formula for the demo in Bil'in (which is similar to what we've seen in other towns) is to gather in the middle of town and march in a celebratory fashion to the point of conflict. The issues that Bil'in is protesting are that a bunch of their land was taken to expand an illegal Israeli settlement, and that Israel's "security barrier" / "apartheid wall" cuts the town off from much of their remaining land and olive trees. In 2007 Israel's supreme court has ruled that the wall must be moved so that the villagers can freely access their land, but it's still there, so we march up to the wall.

Now Emily, Ginger, Sharon and I didn't actually march up to the fence, we stopped a couple of hundred meters back to watch the action. We weren't there to get tear gassed or arrested, we were there to learn and for solidarity. Noam went along with the bulk of the protesters up to a gate in the razor-wire fence that the wall is made of here. Sure enough pretty much a soon as the protesters reached the fence the tear gas started flying. Some kids started throwing stones across a section of fence nearer us so the soldiers responded with tear gas there too.

We were never in a cloud of tear gas, but the invisible stuff that floats on the wind is pretty unpleasant. It stung our eyes and throats. The best defence was covering our mouths with cloth. I had the Berber turban I picked up in Morocco and that did a decent job. We had onions too, which help your eyes tear up to was the gas out.

For half an hour or so of soldiers lobbed tear gas over the fence. The protesters would retreat a bit and then return, asserting their right to be there. Then suddenly the army crossed over and half a dozen heavily armed soldiers came towards the village. The three of us retreated to Rani Bornat's house. Rani is a disabled Bil'in resident who goes up to the wall every week. He was paralysed on the first day of the second intifada during a non-violent protest yet he continues to protest non-violently. He's a real inspiration. He also has newborn triplets which the girls were really excited to see.

Emily hadn't heard from Noam and he wasn't answering texts so I ventured out of the house to find him. At the entrance to the village I saw Noam with a bunch of Bil'in residents and Israeli activists surrounding three soldiers. Then they escorted the soldiers down the hill back towards the gate. Noam explained that the soldiers had come into the village to arrest some people and the activists had managed to prevent that. The soldiers left empty handed. They came back a few minutes later, I think more kids were throwing rocks, but we were back in the village.

We had a wonderful day. It was great to meet Abu Nizar and his family. It was great to see Rani, his father Waji and the rest of their family. The weather was beautiful, the food was amazing, the conversation was interesting and everyone was so friendly. The only thing I don't love about Palestine is the occupation.

2010 Goals

2010-01-04T22:04:15Z

Not so much resolutions but directions I'd like to head in or things I'd like to achieve:

Really enjoy the rest of our trip. Make new friends on our travels. Reconnect with old friends in Australia. Have a great time with my family in Australia and New Zealand. Continue to have a fantastic time with Sharon.
Be excited to be back in San Francisco.
Find a job that's satisfying and challenging. I'm still not quite sure what that looks like but I'm tempted to find a position that involves supervising other people which I've never done before. My experience with great, terrible and average managers kind of scares me, but that's the point. I'll want some kind of safety net like a good mentor and perhaps even formal training.
Live frugally. I'd like us to be on our way towards a down payment for a home by 2011. Saving for the trip and even more being on the trip we've learned to live simply and cheaply and it's great.
Find somewhere great and cheap to live. This ties into the previous item, but goes beyond that. By the time we left San Francisco I was ready to leave San Francisco. Our beautiful apartment was beautiful, but I'd like to own something beautiful which means living somewhere cheap for a while. By "great" I mean somewhere that has a bit of charm, a sense of community around it and where I can get coffee, groceries and public transport to work on foot easily. I think this is entirely possible in the Bay Area but quite likely not possible in San Francisco (I don't want to live in the Sunset, Richmond, etc). A lot of this will tie into the job question.
Make music. With people or by myself. Regularly or occasionally. In a structured context or strumming on my guitar while I wait for a compile. It doesn't matter I've failed to make any music for the past few years and I know that it's a missing piece.
Spend more time nerding out with nerds. I love to talk about ideas with interesting people but it's not something I've made enough time for in the past few years. In San Francisco with its political homogeneity and massive computer industry this will generally mean participating in tech meetups or clubs. Like music it takes time, is easily ignored but makes me happy.
Write some software that either makes me some money or makes people excited. I'm often not great at picking projects that will keep my attention to a successful completion. I'd love to be part of an awesome free software community but I'd also love to try my hand at entrepreneur.
Start the baby making. Really everything else on the list is just setting myself up to be ready to devoting myself to a family while keeping myself satisfied as an individual.

2009

2009-12-31T14:25:25Z

1.What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

Quit my job with no job to go to.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't know if I had any actual resolutions, but I generally intend to be better organized and in better physical shape. I did that. Next year I could use more of the same.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

A cousin and some friends. And we got to visit a lot of them in our travels.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My cousin Mathieu died late last year in a traffic accident in Peru. I've continued thinking about him a lot this year. It was great to get to spend time with his parents, brother and nephew when we were in Switzerland.

5. What countries did you visit?

Oh my: Canada, USA, Switzerland, France, England, Scotland, Holland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Morocco, Spain, Israel and Egypt. More to come in 2010.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

My own bed to sleep in.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

May 1st - our last day of work before travel.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Actually getting going on our trip!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not saving more money before we left, spending too much money in Europe - now we're kind of on a shoe-string, though luckily in cheaper places. I also wish I'd been better uploading photos and posting updates online.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nope, a cold and an upset stomach here and there.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Plane tickets!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Friendly people all over the world.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Conservative Americans, the Israeli government and the apathetic, ignorant or racist Israelis who support them, the governments of the world for failing to agree on laws that will allows us to continue living in a world with beaches, drinking water and a climate that lets us grow enough food to eat.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Travel.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Travel.

16. What songs will always remind you of 2009?

I gotta feeling. Between European pop radio and Andy and Ali's wedding I've got some good memories.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier
ii. thinner or fatter? thinner
iii. richer or poorer? richer in time, poorer in money

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Spending time with friends - the times we had around the world were great, but I could have used a little more of it.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Overnight travel without a bed (planes and trains).

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

We spent Christmas in Tel Aviv where most people don't celebrate Christmas. While Christmas is a holiday I celebrate I hate the commercialized crap so I loved it. We built a cardboard christmas tree with recycled paper ornaments and didn't exchange gifts. Perfect!

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Nope, got that one covered.

22. How many one-night stands?

7, I mean 0.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is the only show I really watched and it's really great.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Nope, and answering this question I feel like I'm kind of past hate.

25. What was the best book you read?

I actually started reading again this year after a gap of many years. I think I might have enjoyed Tales Of The City the most since it reminded me of home. I also loved Umberto Eco's first two books, the new William Gibson, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Middlesex. No nothing actually released this year.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Central European pop radio. They love Roxette as much as I do.

27. What did you want and get?

To get away.

28. What did you want and not get?

Horse pizza in Berlin. We just ran out of time.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

Precious

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

We were riding camels in the Sahara in Morocco. I was 32.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I really can't think of anything. It's been a pretty satisfying year.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

One week of clothes on repeat. The usual formula of jeans and t-shirts with some travel additions including zippy hiking pants and a Berber turban.

33. What kept you sane?

Having Sharon with me 24/7 for the past 8 months. I'm glad that didn't make me insane.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Sarah Vowell while I was reading Assassination Vacation.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Israeli Apartheid in Palestine (since I'm right here). Also climate change, American health care reform and GLBT equality though they were all a little more distant from me.

36. Who did you miss?

Friends in San Francisco, though it's been great travelling and seeing so many people around the world I normally miss. I miss having a technical community that I can talk to about crazy computer ideas, though I've managed to do a bit of that online nonetheless.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

We met a lot of great new people. The ones that stand out in my mind are the people we were on our group trip in Egypt with - all great, interesting people that we had a really fun week with and Emily's friends in Tel Aviv that we're getting to know.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009

I learned that I don't need nearly as much stuff as I think I need. I don't even want nearly as much stuff as I think I need. We got rid of almost everything we owned in San Francisco, left almost everything else in storage, filled our car with the remains, but left almost all of that when we left the US, but still, with only a backpack each we had way more than we actually used.

39. Quote song lyrics that sum up your year:

I don't really listen to song lyrics.

Travel update

2009-09-30T10:23:37Z

As usual, I have no useful update. Sharon is far better than me at uploading photos so you should go read her post.

http://dearanxiety.livejournal.com/870241.html

Actually you should just add her lj if you haven't yet.

We are in Munich, heading to Berlin, then Morocco, then Spain. I am debugging nasty C++ code wishing that the gdb reversible support was ready.

Oh yeah, there's a coffee shop chain called the San Francisco Coffee Company that exists in at least Germany and Hungary. Definitely not in San Francisco, though their coffee is American-style burned to a crisp roast. Their wifi is not free, but using the magic of cat5 we are sharing a single day-pass to their wifi.

In Austria

2009-08-25T21:27:35Z

We're in Austria and Sharon made an update:
http://dearanxiety.livejournal.com/869318.html

It looks pretty accurate to me. I'll write an update when I actually get around uploading some of my photos. I'm over a month behind.

En Europe!

2009-07-27T09:36:09Z

So we're in Europe now. We've spent the past week or so in Saleve spending time with family, reading, playing Sudoku, walking, etc. Dan is arriving tomorrow and we're off to visit more of Switzerland and more family on Friday. We fly to London on the 4th. Generally all good and fun!

More updates to come when I have more time, have uploaded more photos and am off the qwertz kezboard.

Edinburgh Festival(s)

2009-07-03T04:02:26Z

We made a draft itinerary for the Europe portion of our trip and I suddenly realized that that we tentatively scheduled a visit to Scotland during Edinburgh Festival season. Should we go? How should we go? Where would we stay? Any advice?

Robert Wone

2009-06-22T17:01:56Z

Somehow I came across a New York Times article about the reporting of the murder of Robert Wone. It was kind of meta, an article about the online vs paper reporting of the investigation of a grisly murder. I found the actual articles more interesting. It's a kind of fascinating case where it's entirely unclear if the DC police are trying to pin a crime on three men in an unconventional relationship or if a nice guy was killed in a fucked up creepy rape. Oh, there's a blog too.

Iran

2009-06-20T05:18:05Z

From Robert Fisk today.

The footage of a brutal police force assaulting the political opposition on the streets of the capital has shocked the world. Rightly so, although no one has made comparison with police forces who batter demonstrators on the streets of Western Europe, who beat women with night-sticks, who have kicked over an innocent middle-aged man who immediately suffered a fatal heart attack, who have shot down an innocent passenger on the London Tube... There are special codes of morality to be applied to Middle East countries which definitely must not apply to us.

As far as I know Fisk is the only western journalist reporting out of Iran right now. If you're after reporting and informed commentary as instead of rumor-mill buckshot 140 characters at a time, please read what he's had to say.

Minor update

2009-05-14T01:07:57Z

So we've been on the road almost a week. Had a great visit in San Diego with Roz and CJ. Spent the past 5 days in campgrounds (plus one night at a motel-6). Sharon put some photos up here and I'll have more when I find a more reliable internet connection and uploader here.

The best thing I've learned: KOA campgrounds are awesome.

Traveling the world

2009-04-25T16:30:37Z

Apparently I haven't really mentioned this on my LiveJournal, but dearanxiety and I are quitting our jobs and traveling for a little over a year, starting in a little over a week.

We're hoping to meet up with plenty of people along the way. Our itinerary looks kind of like this:
May: drive across the South of the US
June: hang out in Ohio, go to Bonnaroo, Sharon's sister's wedding
half of July: relax by the beach in New Jersey, minor east-coast visiting
mid July - mid November: visit friends, family and random places in Europe
last half of November: Sharon's brother's wedding, relax by the beach in Florida, thanksgiving
December - January: Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan
February: Ghana
March: Kenya / Uganda / Rwanda (including a gorilla safari)
April - June: Australia including Aaron and Nicola's wedding, Perth, Margaret River, WA road trip, Melbourne, Sydney
half of July: New Zealand

and then home, poor, skinny, unemployed.

Racism is bad... when you don't talk about it.

2009-04-20T01:15:03Z

So the Obama administration has decided to boycott the UN racism forum and a bunch of other "western" countries have decided to follow suit. Their objection seems to be that a past conference described Zionism as racist. Duh. Of course it's racist. It's an ideology about defining a national identity around racial (or ethnic or religious or whatever) criteria. That doesn't mean that it's bad. Affirmative action / positive discrimination is also racist, but many people (including me) would argue that it's justified.

It's important to talk about these questions in open, inclusive forums. My gut reaction when people don't feel comfortable talking about this is that they don't believe in the morality of the policies, otherwise what's to fear?

How do you remember The Alamo?

2009-04-08T18:47:57Z

So as part of our upcoming road trip through the south I was looking into what the whole Alamo thing was all about. Not growing up through the American education system my knowledge was limited. I'd learned the Davy Crocket song in French as a kid in Canada (Davy, Davy Crocket, l'homme qui n'a jamais eu peur) and I had the general sense that it was the story of American civilians trying to seize land from Mexico and getting roundly defeated.

There was of course a lot more to it. I read up a bunch about the Texas Revolution and the Battle of the Alamo on Wikipedia last night and there were a few things that stuck out.

First of all, the American settlers had been there for quite a while. They'd set up ranches and considered themselves to be native. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain there were a couple of changes that they made. First, they banned slavery in 1829, then they tried to centralize control from what had been a bunch of Spanish colonies into a single state. Neither of these sat well well with the Texians. The Alamo should fit nicely into the rest of our civil rights themed tour of the South.

Secondly the treatment of Americans who had come to fight on the side of the revolutionaries was harsh. They were considered under Mexican law as pirates. When captured they were treated as criminals not as prisoners of war. Today we would have called them illegal enemy combatants.

Remember the Alamo?

Economic downturn prevents child genital mutilation

2009-04-06T20:36:41Z

From what I read in Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/192472

Apparently states whose Medicaid don't pay for male genital mutilation at birth have a 24% lower rate than those that do. Doctors say that more and more parents don't want to pay the $300 to have their children's genitals sliced up now that it's not covered by the state. I can't imagine wanting to have that done to any children, regardless of price, but I guess we'll take all the progress we can get.

Hopefully eventually this will become a human rights or a health issue, not an economic one.

Nomenclature

2009-03-24T17:06:15Z

Today's coverage of the protests, counter-protests and police response in Umm al-Fahm reminded me of a question that's been popping up in my head for the past couple of years. All of the articles I've seen refer to one set of protesters as "Israeli Jews" and the other set of protesters as "Israeli Arabs". On one side we have a religious grouping on the other side a language grouping.

When we were in Israel we met an Israeli who is Jewish but also Arabic - his family is from Iraq, he speaks fluent Arabic and it's the language of his ancestors. Like Israelis of all religions he also speaks Hebrew fluently. But he's not one of the "Israeli Arabs" who were being protested in Umm al-Fahm this week. He's one of the 3.5 million Sephardim and Mizrahim who are linguistically and often culturally Arabic.

The real divide here is not language or culture or ethnicity it's religion. Why aren't we calling a spade a spade? Why don't the news stories talk about Israeli Christians and Israeli Muslims?

BSG Spolier / Question

2009-03-22T17:30:06Z

Did the end of BSG feel a little bit Hitchhikers to anyone else?

Handmade Nation

2009-03-12T16:31:27Z

Last night we went to see Handmade Nation, a documentary about American indie craft fairs and small businesses, at Mezzanine. The movie interviewed a ton of people in the industry from boutique owners to distributors to the crafters themselves. The subjects were mostly interesting and talented, but occasionally boring. What bugged me wasn't what the movie presented, it was that it didn't ask any interesting questions about this community that's taken off over the past few years.

Perhaps it was the comment by someone early in the film that this was an alternative to consumer culture that got to me or perhaps it was the "do it yourself" refrain throughout. There seemed to be no recognition that handcrafted goods are as much a luxury item as a BMW or a big screen TV. There seemed to be no self-awareness that when you buy something that has been made by someone else, it's not do-it-yourself. There were really no tough questions asked, or any questions at all. It was just a bunch of people in an interesting industry talking about how great they are. The audience loved it.

Cheap Technical Books

2009-03-02T01:13:28Z

So, as part of getting ready to leave I'm getting rid of some technical books that I don't want to keep. Generally these have been useful in the past but I don't care enough about them to pay to store them.

Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love - 1st ed, paperback, well loved - $2

~~Pro Drupal Development by VanDyk & WestGate~~ ~~- 1st ed, paperback, almost like new - $2~~

The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System - 2nd ed, hardcover, almost like new - $5

The Book of Postfix by Hildebrandt & Koetter - paperback, like new - $15

The Official GNOME Developer's Guide by Matthias Warkus - paperback, good condition - $10

TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 1 by Stevens - hardcover, very good condition - $15

DNS and BIND by Albitz & Liu - paperback, 4th edition, covers bind 9, good condition - $2

~~Python Cookbook by Martelli, Ravenscroft & Ascher~~ ~~- paperback, 2nd ed, covers python 2.4, very good condition - $5~~

~~Berkeley DB by Sleepycat Software~~ ~~- paperback, good condition - $2~~

Mono - A Developer's Notebook by Dumbill & Bornstein - paperback ,decent condition - $2

~~The C++ Programming Language Special Edition by Stroustrup~~ ~~- hard cover, good condition - $15~~

~~Design Patterns~~ ~~- hard cover, like new - $10~~

~~Effective C++ by Scott Meyers~~ ~~- paperback, 2nd ed, great condition except for a half-removed sticker on the front - $5~~

~~Debugging with GDB by Stallman et al~~ ~~- paperback, great condition - $5~~

~~The Bison Manual by Stallman et al - paperback, great edition - $2~~

HTTP Pocket Reference - paperback, good condition - $1

~~Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by Stevens~~ ~~- hardcover, 1st ed, good condition - $5~~

Learning Cocoa by Paul Mott - paperback, like new - $2

So I listed prices that are about half of the Amazon used price but if you really want a book and want to pay less, then just say so - I want these books read. Oh, and you'll have to pay for shipping from San Francisco if you're not here.

Academy Awards Ceremony

2009-02-23T05:34:18Z

I felt the award winners were well selected, but that wasn't what I enjoyed about watching the Oscars. It was a really great show. I don't like awards ceremonies and the Oscars are often the worst. Boring, barely funny presenters, dull speeches, predicable presentation. This year they brought together a new team to produce the ceremony and it was amazing. Instead of mediocre stand up comedy they build the show around musical theatre. Many people don't know about Hugh Jackman's career on stage, but that's how he got started and he's continued to perform in between films, he even won a Tony in 2004. As the Oscars host he spent more time leading the singing and dancing than making stupid jokes. And it was great.

Conventional War?

2009-02-18T07:29:54Z

So I was listening to a documentary about the My Lai massacre this evening. It was fascinating because they included now declassified audio from the suppressed military investigation into the event. I hadn't realized the scale of the killing and rape (including child rape) and I'm feeling nauseated now.

But, apart from that it started me thinking about the term conventional warfare. It's used these days to mean a war between two strong well equipped armies using heavy artillery, tanks, ground troops, fighter and bomber planes, etc. World War Two, basically. Looking at the history of warfare that model didn't actually exist for very long.

From the Renaissance to the First World War warfare consisted of cavalry and infantry. Initially the weapons were human powered like arrows, lances and swords, and then they were powered by gunpowder - rifles, muskets, cannons. Over the 19th and early 20th century trench warfare evolved, but it basically came to an end at the end of the First World War as high tech weaponry took over. The Second World War was fought with planes, tanks, boats and missiles. There were still infantry battles but technology was advancing to separate the people doing the killing from the actual killing. Think of the V2 rocket or Hiroshima. The Korean war was fought on similar technology.

I don't think we've seen wars like that since then. The wars of colonial independence that followed WW2 were largely guerrilla wars. The Vietnam War and the Soviet engagement in Afghanistan were guerrilla wars. The wars in central and southern America were basically all guerrilla wars. The wars as Yugoslavia broke apart were guerrilla wars (or at least wars fought by civilians). Now the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are guerrilla wars. Can't we just call that conventional warfare and refer to the wars that we spend billions of dollars a year arming ourselves for mid twentieth century wars?

Bonnaroo

2009-02-16T18:38:30Z

So, since we're going to be in that part of the country anyway we're going to Bonnaroo this year. Here's the lineup right now - I've bolded the ones I'm going to try to make it to. I'd love any suggestions for other bands I'm not into yet but that I should see anyway:

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Phish (2 Shows)
Beastie Boys
Nine Inch Nails
David Byrne
Wilco
Al Green
Snoop Dogg
Elvis Costello Solo
Erykah Badu
Paul Oakenfold
Ben Harper and Relentless7
The Mars Volta
TV on the Radio
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gov’t Mule
Andrew Bird
Band Of Horses
Merle Haggard
MGMT
moe.
The Decemberists
Girl Talk
Bon Iver
Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabate
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Galactic
The Del McCoury Band
of Montreal
Allen Toussaint
Coheed and Cambria
Booker T & the DBTs
David Grisman Quintet
Lucinda Williams
Animal Collective
Gomez
Neko Case
Down
Jenny Lewis
Santogold
Robert Earl Keen
Citizen Cope
Femi Kuti and the Positive Force
The Ting Tings
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Kaki King
Grizzly Bear
King Sunny Adé
Okkervil River
St. Vincent
Zac Brown Band
Raphael Saadiq
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Crystal Castles
Tift Merritt
Brett Dennen
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue
Toubab Krewe
People Under the Stairs
Alejandro Escovedo
Vieux Farka Touré
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Cherryholmes
Yeasayer
Todd Snider
Chairlift
Portugal. The Man.
The SteelDrivers
Midnite
The Knux
The Low Anthem
Delta Spirit
A.A. Bondy
The Lovell Sisters
Alberta Cross

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Judean / Jewish / Israeli	812 years
Babylonian / Greek / Roman	964 years
Arab / Turkish / Ottoman	1210 years
Byzantine / Crusader / British	128 years