Research Methods, Ethics, Revolution
Yesterday I started painting in my new studio—after almost a year without painting for lack of sanctuary for my mess. (Exceptions: Mexico City, Brighton, the essential Hack42, a few other efforts…)
Today I woke up before dawn, too excited to continue to sleep. Now I’ve worked four canvasses again for the day. Time to clean up and be social.
The dancing shall continue indefinitely.
It’s been about a year since I had my own art studio space to make glorious mess. First day in the new place with canvas. Happy feelings with Nina. Covered in imperfection and oils.
“Granma, what did you do when there were daily mass shootings in America, warrantless mass surveillance, an unaccountable secret police committing crimes against humanity at home and abroad, and we knew the global ecosystem might be on the verge of collapse but a population at signifiant risk of death or disability from being fat couldn’t be bothered to ride a fucking bicycle?”
“I went to a safe place with good people and made beautiful art. Eventually.
I went home. Somewhere I’d never been and couldn’t speak the language. I learned.
I loved and I was loved without measure. A door opened and I entered just to see what was inside, taking in the light but leaving no trace. The reigns of all urgency slipped as I sat with strangers sipping the usual mixtures of strong stuff and melting angles. The frame of the world changed, and changed again. I realized I’d been had and lost because I dared to try. I tried again. I sank beneath my shining hope, and was taken for hopeless. I believed too much, kept faith too long, laughed too loudly, and got away—away so far, it became a toward. And when I finally stopped running, I rode a fucking bicycle. Now go read Arcadia and write President Snowden a thank-you letter before you help past-me procrastinate some more.”
Everyone who knows me knows I make lists… Of lists… On decision trees… With color-coding… It’s efficient. Insofar as it keeps me from actually doing anything, when everybody knows doing things leads to making mistakes.
So in my ongoing efforts to be a better public artist, as opposed to writing and painting out of my backpack qua magic art tree, I decided to make a list of ten original songs and ten covers to learn to performance level and play out already. Imperfectly. (Don’t even get me started on the list of reasons why this list is a terrible idea.)
Here’s my must-learn covers list. Which is sort-of a list of my favorite songs… Except it’s really a list of my favorite songs—that other people probably know and like, too. (No Les Nubians.) Cos hearing something you know and can at least kinda sing along with gets the warm fuzzies flowing better than hearing something new—even if it’s amazing.
1. “All Along the Watchtower.” Often attributed to Hendrix but penned by Dylan, this song is a peculiar choice for someone who doesn’t play the guitar (except when a neighbor brings me a child-sized one and random magic shit happens—I miss you, Tim). Criticized as incoherent (e.g., a watchtower ain’t a thing you go along) but widely covered, it’s a canonical example of how poetry that goes 20th century mainstream finds its way there largely through music. There was basically one highly paid female performing poet in 20th century America, and she started out reciting her work to piano…
2. “99 Luftballons.” Better known to Anglophones by its English name, “99 Red Balloons,” Nena’s anti-war protest ballad playfully imagines a world in which decentralized crazy shit freaks out defense ministers so badly they blow everything up. Basically, it prefigures the “cybercrime” craze as a facet of post-9/11 security theater, and with it the almost-criminalization of Anonymous. Also, it will help me learn German.
3. “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Freddie Mercury’s accidental for-the-album masterpiece.
4. “Hey Jude.” McCartney-Lennon’s ode to ending one thing without too much unnecessary sadness, in favor of moving on into the future with a smiling if not stiff upper lip.
5. “Killing in the Name.” Rage Against the Machine’s anthem of opposition to the military-industrial complex and my best opportunity to maximize the number of times I say “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”
6. “The Times They Are a-Changin.” Dylan again. A song about how the hippies and blacks were gonna win, before the Nixon administration fabricated a drug war to criminalize them.
7. “Respect.” Originally by Otis Redding but best known as Aretha’s calling card, what started out as a euphemism for male rights to sex on demand became an anthem for black and women’s rights activists. The things that happen when you let ideas out to play…
8. “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.” Pink Floyd’s anthem against formalized inculcation into submission, banned by the South African apartheid regime for its explicit rejection of thought control qua conservative educational institutions. If it was banned by those assholes, it’s good enough for me.
9. “For What It’s Worth.” Buffalo Springfield’s witness-bearing account of the Sunset Strip curfew riots in which police used discretionary enforcement of curfew laws to tell noisy singing hippies to be quiet. That worked well. (Not.) Counter-culture was public, art-infused, and criminalized. I wonder if that could be important to learn from in historical terms. But what do you learn from it when history rhymes? Tom Lehrer answered that art as protest is a joke. (He still sang that very criticism.)
10. “American Pie.” Don McLean’s dirge for post-World War II America.
11. “Whistle.” Flo Rida’s pop-rap request for oral sex, begging to be remade with its political double-entendre underscored: Tell me the truth from the inside, and baby, you’ll get yours.
Now if I could only remake for piano/vocals and learn one of these to performance level in one day a week every week for the next three months, while doing the same for my originals, making a new painting oeuvre this side of the big pond immediately but after getting some composition training, remaking a proper artist website and online store months ago, writing all the things, rewriting and performing my new stand-up material, getting stronger at core and cardio, being a better European denizen in all possible ways at the beginning of the time of climate change refugee waves, listening attentively to and playing with all my friends without distraction, and re-learning how to make gluten and dairy-free healthy tasty things… in German. (Oh. And stop distracting myself long enough to do my taxes.)
No sooner did I blog the little poem I wrote after the 2016 Logan CIJ Symposium last night, than it turned into a draft of that song about the false liberty-security opposition I’ve been wanting to write…
Now if I could only sing in the kitchen alone without dying of embarrassment. And where’s my band? We have practice tonight, didn’t you know??
***
“XXX?!”
A minor
V1
Our (E) fathers’ (hG E) fathers (DC) made (A) a (E) deal
to (C) dwell in (D) hope (E), not (F) live (E) in (D) fear (E).
Life (B), liberty (CBA), and pursuit (GA) of (C) happiness (CDE)
require (hFG) the audacity (GF) of hope (E), no (D) less (E).
Now (E) Obama (EFE) says (D) it’s (C) privacy (B) or (C) security (lBA)—
that (lA) to (G) live (A) free (B), we (C) trade some liberty (CDE).
But (E) there’s (F) no (E) lawful (C) society (C lA) to (D) keep free
under (E) mass (F) surveillance (ED) of (C) you (A) and (E) me.
V2
How (B) can I (C) make (B) whole (A) my (B) own heart
with (A) someone (lG) storing every broken (GA) part (B)?
Holding (C) a hammer (B) and collecting (lA F) nails (F)
is (F) no way to balance Justice’s (FG) scales.
All (E) the haystacks (DC) on (lA) earth can’t hold all the (G) needles (AC),
and (B) we hurt (C) the (B) good (A) thrashing (D) through (C) for the (B) evils (A).
There’s (F) no (E) lawful (C) society (C lA) to (D) keep free
under (E) mass (F) surveillance (ED) of (C) you (A) and (E) me.
V3
It’s (C) a (lA) false (C) opposition (CB)
That (A) comes to its fruition (GAB)
With (A) war (G) drums beating
Through (B) veins (A) swiftly (AG) heating (A).
ISIS (BG) says (B) “This (C) will (B) be (A) your (lF) head (A)”
I’ll (G) choose (C) to keep (B) my own (A) instead (lF AG).
There’s (F) no (E) lawful (C) society (C lA) to (D) keep free
under (E) mass (F) surveillance (ED) of (C) you (A) and (E) me.
All (E) the haystacks (DC) on (lA) earth can’t hold all the (G) needles (AC),
and (B) we hurt (C) the (B) good (A) thrashing (D) through (C) for the (B) evils (A).
There’s (F) no (E) lawful (C) society (C lA) to (D) keep free
under (E) mass (F) surveillance (ED) of (C) you (A) and (E) me.
—
Modeled on “Russians” (structure, spirit), by Sting & Sergei Prokofiev.
Our fathers’ fathers made a deal
to dwell in hope, not fear.
The pursuit of happiness
requires no less.
Now they say it’s privacy or security—
and privacy is dead.
They used to say liberty instead.
(h/t Logan Symposium, Snowden, Drake)
True to his name, Lauri Love went AWOL (absent without leave) from the Finnish Army to care for a sick friend. Before formalizing his conscientious objector status in 2004, Love noticed what felt right about being a friend and caretaker — while also realizing what felt wrong, for him, about being a soldier. The soft-spoken son of a Baptist preacher and a Finnish teacher has since been intermittently plagued by a range of health problems of his own. Love’s struggles echo Aaron Swartz’s — and he is accused of participating in Anonymous’s digital political protest and mourning of Swartz’s death…
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]
Following China’s example, France has banned anonymizing software, open WiFi, and private cryptographic keys under the auspices of security. In the wake of the Paris attacks, several high-ranking American federal officials criticized surveillance roll-backs and suggested encryption should be banned despite no evidence that it played a role in the tragedy — to the contrary, the attackers in this case communicated in the clear, and the top intelligence lawyer recently lamented that the government lacks a single good example of terrorists relying on cryptography to do their dirty work.
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]
Following the government’s lead, a Washington Post email subject last week asked: “Is Snowden to blame for Paris?” The question focuses attention on blaming national security whistleblowers for violent extremism. Aside from the insufficient evidentiary basis for such suggestions, this question allows neoconservative government officials to frame the public debate in ways that favor their own, powerful interests. It fits the broader narrative about global politics that privileges a particular conception of security that is factually incorrect in ways that harm the well-being of billions by distracting from the greatest threats of our time: climate change, the arms trade, and mass surveillance. Forget ISIS. We are facing the potential collapse of the global ecosystem and economy as we know it. That’s what I call a global security crisis…
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]
About 15 km between Emmerich, Germany and Arnhem, Holland, a tabby kitten guards the middle of the road into Landgut de Panoven. Small but unafraid, he’s more interested in new visitors than in the Eurasian coots floating and diving like black ducks with higher-reaching white beaks and puffy fennel seed-like webbing on their feet. Their lake began as a hole dug out for clay. It’s off-season, so visitors mainly come for the rustic industrial site’s restaurant or events. But over the summer, they come to see the old, clay sauna — building, machine, and stove in one.
[Read more from the latest in my gratitude essay series at Rebel News.]
Yesterday, at least 120 people died in Paris in the largest-scale European terror attacks since the 2004 Madrid train bombing. French President François Hollande declared a state of emergency, closed the borders, and shut down the Métro, while police and City Hall recommended people stay inside. French special forces freed concert-goers who had been held hostage in one of several simultaneous gun and suicide bomb attacks. Some witnesses heard the gunmen shout, “This is for Syria.” The Islamic State has since claimed responsibility. France has been on heightened alert since joining American-led airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria in late September. Now its capital — previously synonymous with romance — remains under curfew for the first time since World War II, has 1,500 extra troops guard buildings including schools, and the Eiffel Tower is closed indefinitely…
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]
The criminal justice system is supposed to apply especially stringent standards of proof and rule in order to best uphold liberty. “Double jeopardy” — the legal idea that you can’t be tried for the same charge twice — doesn’t apply to most of our lives. Rather, personal history rhymes. Alcoholics usually kick the bottle several times. Divorcees often remarry. Criminals were themselves crime victims at higher rates than the general population, although most crime victims don’t go on to become criminals. People often repeat behavior they know rather than trying new things. Maybe because fear of the unknown tends to be our greatest fear, maybe because change is hard, maybe because rewards make more of an impression than punishments. We don’t know why. And we don’t know why American interrogators come home to interrogate…
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]
Fourth-generation Methodist minister Douglas Gene Williams was excited about sharing the word of God with a new audience starting Friday. They’ll probably be more interested in his other gospel — beating so-called “lie detectors” or polygraphs. They’re certainly be captive. Doug is serving a two-year sentence after federal agents entrapped him in Operation Lie Busters, a seven-figure sting targeting polygraph opponents. His case raises troubling questions about politicized prosecution, free speech, and national security.
[Read more from the latest in my surveillance essay series at Rebel News.]
One of Jean’s first memories is of her parents’ daily border crossings between France, where their family lived, and Switzerland, where they worked. As small children often do, she worried her parents might disappear forever in that foreign country that is “out of sight, out of mind.” So as European norms about freedom of movement in the Schengen Area strengthened — with over two dozen European countries abolishing border controls, enabling passport-free movement within large parts of Europe — Jean [a pseudonym] felt safer.
[Read more from the latest in my gratitude essay series at Rebel News.]
Your faithful, wandering writer finds a slice of socialist paradise on the beaches of Denmark. All are welcome at Rosenholm bådelaug — but leave it better than you found it. The latest in my gratitude essay series for Rebel News.
On a former shipping wharf in greater Amsterdam, a pair of giggling blonde girls are not following the rules. They run wild over the old industrial estate grounds, clambering over a truckbed in the sunlight, reading a dinosaur book on the floor in the middle of a techno concert at night. Some people call ADM a vegan squat, but you can’t call these happy little girls squatters. They were born here. This is a village…
[Read more from the latest in my gratitude essay series at Rebel News.]
We are either on the worst-run mole hunt ever, or we’re acting like we want to be. Introducing the newest insider threat tool, DITMAC—the DoD Insider Threat Management Analysis Center. DITMAC ramps up surveillance—raising questions about security, free speech, and information warfare. In my latest surveillance series essay for Rebel News.
While I was busy continuing to publish on high-level federal law-breaking and documented lying about it, taxpayers paid the IRS to pester Amazon to yank my publishing rights. And they did.
I would research and rewrite the essay I drafted on this ridiculosity… Since writing is how I think sometimes, and this is something to think about.
But focusing on it is a resource drain, and I’m not wasting my precious time. Instead, I’m still busy rewriting my next book. Because it’s in the public interest, and I have my priorities straight.
As I report in my latest surveillance series essay for Rebel News, a new lawsuit targets American psychologists who collaborated in U.S. torture—but some of those collaborators also did positive psychology work that ironically offers a better way forward for security.
The statistics of miracles, the first CIA Inspector General on Operation Ajax, and a firm tug on the sleeve of my country—we have a rule of law problem. In the latest installment of my gratitude essay series, Gratitude with Attitude: Notes from a hacker traveling planet earth.
She wrote from Europe for Rebel News.
In COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNRELATED NEWS, Amazon just took my publishing rights.
Does Operation MOCKINGBIRD continue under another name, circumventing checks on domestic CIA operations? This matters more today than ever.
Double-standards in truth-telling, equal opportunity, and national security—in my latest essay at Rebel News.
My latest surveillance piece at Rebel News, on Black death in America, bias in science, and hope for a better tomorrow—weighing the pros and cons of the Justice Database.
America can’t just say we mean it when we express fidelity to our shared core values of liberty and justice. We have to show it, too.
Pen pals edition!
Before running my article on how it looks like the Justice Department might have conspired to commit fraud as part of a U.S. Government operation that happened to subvert some volunteer tech support of the Arab Spring, I gave the FBI opportunity to comment.
FBI punted to Justice and Justice ignored me.
Even though I had other, even more interesting questions for them both.
So I decided to ask GAO about all this.
Then I realized I also had information about other stuff GAO might have questions about.
GAO is really good at looking at numbers and documents, and asking questions. Not that they always get answers, or Congress/the People listen. But they do good work.
And when nobody listens, they just keep doing it.
What with the world still standing and all, I went for a night stroll here in Amsterdam—such a place of peace. Yesterday’s lunar eclipse marked the end of the Blood Moon Prophecy. A testament to the power of innumeracy and the frank commonality of miracles. One in a million events happen roughly once a month.
Dishes, lights in the dark, plants—the peace of woods and steel in Holland. Feeling grateful. In my latest essay in the new series Gratitude with Attitude: Notes from hacker traveling planet earth.
