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Bye, Steve

  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>I can’t remember a time that I didn’t love to dance. I was one of those little girls whose mothers carted them to weekly ballet and tap lessons. My friends and I choreographed dances after school and fawned over the cheerleaders at high school football games. My dreams were shaped by the Star Search dancers and some quintessential 80s dance movies: Dirty Dancing, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and Footloose.</p>\n<p>By the time I was starting high school, I realized I was a Smart Girl and not a Cheerleader, and I started to deliberately dance silly in order to avoid the possibility of being mocked for trying to dance well and failing. In college, I chose the goth club because people actually went there to dance, and didn’t mind if you danced a little differently. After college, clubs in the city were expensive (for me on my grad student stipend) and filled with cigarette smoke and guys who thought I should want to grind with them. Ugh. I stopped dancing entirely.</p>\n<p>I didn’t realize that I missed it. Yeah, yeah, so I watched Save the Last Dance like 10 times… My life was full. I did yoga. I discovered contra dancing, which was a blast – in a structured sort of way.</p>\n<p>And then I moved to Twin Oaks. My first Twin Oaks dance party was when I was a visitor at Halloween, and it was a revelation. The people filling the dance floor ranged in age from 2 to 78 or so, and I got to watch as many dancing styles as there were people dancing. Everyone was out to have a good time, no matter whether they danced well or awkwardly, hip hop or hippie, boisterously or demurely. It was safe to make eye contact while dancing, and share the joy of moving my body to music, without worrying that I’d have to defend my boundaries later. I was quickly hooked.</p>\n<p>For my first 6 or 7 years of membership, I made a point of going to every dance party I possibly could.</p>\n', created = 1371597953, expire = 1371684353, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:cabc2f74d04ec46f126e7604975f375a' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p dir=\"ltr\">This post was written by Paxus and originally appeared at <a title=\"Official Comm Conf website\" href=\"http://communitiesconference.org\" target=\"_blank\">www.communitiesconference.org</a> Sections in italics are additions to the original post.</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\n</p><p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>1. Reconsider your living situation.</strong>  If you let it, the Communities Conference can really shake you up.  Daring people who are trying new or untested lifestyles are presenting or in attendance.  Step outside your comfort zone a bit and start from the assumption that you could live somewhere else, or with other people and see what this event has to offer and demonstrate.  Let go of the assumption that your next year has to look like your last year and go back to your own personal values.  What do you really care about?  How could this be better experienced in your daily living situation?</p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>This is a call to be daring, which i think is the most under nurtured revolutionary trait.</em></p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/MlYJFErljS9j3u6y6WRVo0iBCXDZJwpTyYWEDvrWb2vpq-yicsSTFbj-OdjwR7hhnLnrhD4f8kVb2uWn0vUFDl_QsP_MmQfuhHYFbM0Qa6UK-i6fMrzmrjIMWQ\" width=\"NaN\" height=\"NaN\" /></p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>2. Chat with a rock star.</strong>  There are a bunch of inspiring personalities at the Communities Conference and they are more accessible in this relaxed 3 day event than they are at most times in their busy lives.  Seek out the people who say something that excited you and ask to have lunch or a more private chat with them.  If this is your first time attending, read the entire set of workshop descriptions upon arrival and find out which presenters sound like they are doing stuff you are excited about and then get any of the event organizers to point that person out to you.  This conversation might just change your life.</p>\n', created = 1371597953, expire = 1371684353, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:1a0cae9ea7d8413500e25214684ad887' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>Several people have said the most useful piece of the <a title=\"Official Loud Love event\" href=\"http://loudlove.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Loud Love</a> event was the transparency tools workshop.   i was powerfully reminded that while the tools are useful, what appears to be really happening is that people are longing to be asked these revealing questions.  With the smallest opportunity most people will share deep feelings and vulnerable information about themselves, even with people they dont know very well.</p>\n<p>We have re-started the transparency group at Acorn.  There were a few people excited about it and a number of people who showed up when it happened who seemed to like it.  My original thought was that we should try to fuse Acorns more festive culture with this tool set and instead of having the classical, slightly formal transparency discussions.  We should have transparency parties, where the format is more relaxed, less full group oriented and more smaller conversations.  Distracting food and drink could be part of it as well.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://paxus.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/picsasso-girl-in-mirror.jpg\"><img class=\" wp-image-13883 \" alt=\"Picasso\'s girl in the mirror\" src=\"http://paxus.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/picsasso-girl-in-mirror.jpg?w=363&amp;h=450\" width=\"363\" height=\"450\" /></a><br />\n</p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Picasso’s girl before a mirror</p>\n<p>Instead, at the first Acorn transparency event this year, we stuck to a more conventional format, with the group in a circle and a single person revealing themselves to everyone using several <a title=\"This blog transparency tools list\" href=\"http://funologist.org/2010/12/27/liberal-transparency/\" target=\"_blank\">different tool sets</a>.  And i was blown away again.</p>\n', created = 1371597953, expire = 1371684353, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:eec343b01362d659c6c6422356f34349' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
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  • user warning: Table 'cache_filter' is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: UPDATE cache_filter SET data = '<p>Scabies sucks, but it was fun when people got excited about applying each other’s permethrin and the subsequent “prolonged skin-to-skin contact” parties we’re now green lighted to have.</p>\n<p>And having strep is not fun, but it’s nice that I don’t worry about losing my job/money/childcare/house because I’ve gotten sick and need to stay in bed for a couple days.  And people will bring me food.</p>\n<p>So maybe intentional community breaks even.  We infect each other with every transmissible ailment, but then we take care of each other while people get back to normal.</p>\n<p>Cue inspirational music.</p>\n<p> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/runninginzk.wordpress.com/629/\"><img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/runninginzk.wordpress.com/629/\" /></a> <img alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=runninginzk.wordpress.com&amp;blog=51640857&amp;post=629&amp;subd=runninginzk&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" /></p>\n', created = 1371597953, expire = 1371684353, headers = '', serialized = 0 WHERE cid = '3:ecef4d3a4c260902733e7beecb9958ad' in /home/thefec/htdocs/includes/cache.inc on line 109.
Submitted by Paxus on Sat, 10/08/2011 - 14:09
in

In 1985 i wrote Steve Jobs a love letter congratulating him on being fired from Apple. It was a clever piece, handwritten, on pretty sexy stationary. i talked about the opportunity it afforded him and said i would like to work for him. i got no reply.

Angie encouraged me to write about Jobs last night, to be current. But i was too curious about how the media would cover him.  Not really to my surprise, with the except of some of my more radical friends, the coverage of Jobs is glowing.  The Edison of our time.  Genius, a loss to the world.  Yadda Yadda.


the man and the machine - cute pic

One of the phrases which comes up regularly is he invented things we did not even know we needed.  This sets off bells in my head.  What i really think this means is the created demand for products which we survived fine with before he came along.  He in essence made us more materialistic.

i am certainly not an anti-technologist.  And i think Jobs did do impressive work taking graphical user interfaces out of the Xerox PARC lab environment and commercializing it.  Jobs is clearly a brilliant industrial designer and capitalist, having built the largest technology company in the world.

But heroes of this type have clay feet, and Jobs’ were especially dirty.  Unlike is Silicon Valley Pirate friend Bill Gates, Jobs was miserly with his money (both personal and corporate).  Upon retaking control of Apple in 1997 Jobs axed all philanthropic donations saying that the company needed to cut costs and would reinstate these programs when it was more profitable.  With Apple as one of the most profitable companies in the world for many years after that, Jobs seems to have forgotten about the rest of the world, for he never reinstalled corporate giving.    And of course what industrial capitalism story would be complete without the story of the oppressed and suicidal Chinese factory workers.

No doubt Jobs was brilliant, and he manifested many of his dreams.  And he got lost in his technophilia.  He missed the opportunity to use his wealth, power, charisma  and influence to change the structural problems of the world.  In reading the many accolades in the most recent press about Job, i believe he was a great guy.  And along with being a great guy comes great responsibilities.

So now i may go out and buy an iphone, so i can teather it to my laptop which is going with me down the Erie Canal.  The irony of the purchase of my first apple product is certainly not lost on me.