Archive - 2015
January 18th
Cyber Zettel
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 01/18/2015 - 10:41Time to clear out some of those tabs I’ve left open. On Facebook this morning, upon seeing that a friend had changed his profile picture to say, “Je Suis Charlie”, I summed up my thoughts with
You know, if someone shoots up the Westboro Baptist Church some day, as much as I support freedom of speech, even for them, and as much as I abhor gun violence, I will not post on my Facebook Wall "I am the Westboro Baptist Church".
Another person posted a link to an article about Pope Francis’ words on freedom of speech, which started a lively discussion. On that one I added,
While we must strongly defend freedom of speech, even the freedom to say really stupid or hurtful things, that freedom doesn't mean that it is necessarily wise to say stupid or hurtful things. As one friend once said, the freedom to be an asshole doesn't mean you have to be an asshole.
Instead, we should be looking at what our intent is and what the impact is. For example, do we post cartoons of Mohammed with the intent of curtailing extremist violence? Is that the impact we are really having?
The other day, Susan Campbell shared a blog post, asking What means “freedom of speech?”, pointing to a BBC post about Muslim girls being hugged by members of a K-Pop band I don’t know Muslim traditions that well, but my understanding is that it is not acceptable for Muslim women to be hugged by men that are not their husbands. The girls, and the K-Pop band members acted in ways unacceptable to the girls culture.
One of the things I’ve been focusing on, is trying to better understand other cultures. So, on my reading list is Being Muslim in France by the Brookings Institute.
As I think about this, my mind wanders to the Amish, with their Ordnung, which is perhaps the equivalence of Sharia law. What is the relationship between Amish ‘Demut’ and Muslim modesty?
The key idea for me is to focus on understanding and accepting other people’s cultures. As an aside, I sang at a Jewish service honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. on Friday night. Besides the Jewish prayers, there were Muslin prayers, Bahai prayers, as well as a wide representation of Christian traditions, including Catholic, Episcopalian, Congregationalist, and Quaker.
Another friend posted a link to 7 cultural concepts we don't have in the U.S.. There are ideas of embracing the imperfect, continuous change, of innovative fixes. There are ideas of valuing time outside in nature and of togetherness inside.
In response to an article in the American Bar Association Journal, Parents investigated for allowing their 'free-range' kids to walk home alone, I posted:
I walked to and from the bus stop a quarter of a mile away every day starting in kindergarten. And when I got home I was free to wander the neighborhood and surrounding woods. It wasn't until I was about seven that I started exploring the whole town on foot and bike by myself.
If a neighborhood isn’t safe enough for a ten year old and six year old to walk in, then we need to make the neighborhood safer. And, here I reflect back on my work in health care, we probably should be encouraging everyone, parents and kids, to get out and walk more often in their neighborhoods.
Another window I have open is The Long Memory – Loafer’s Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind by Utah Philips. It is an incredible collection of recording by Utah Philips that a friend posted about on Facebook. The friend had set listening to all of this as a goal for 2015. I’m going to try as well.
Recently, there has been a cluster of earthquakes around Connecticut, so a few tabs that I have open are related to that. I like looking at the USGS Earthquake Map. Particularly, I like zooming to my location, and then setting the options to show the past months earthquakes nearby. When I zoom to my location, I note my current latitude and longitude.
I click on the little gear in the upper right corner of my screen, and then click on Search Earthquake Archives, I set the minimum magnitude down to 1, and then set a rectangular geographic region to be a few degrees on either side of where I am. For example, if my location is 41.741°N 71.888°W. I might set the region to be from 40 to 42 degrees North and 72 to 70 degrees west. (Note to indicate west, instead of east for the longitude, use a negative value, e.g. -72 to -70)
Another page that I like is the Latitude/Longitude Distance Calculator from the National Hurricane Center. Knowing my own geo coordinates and those of the earthquake, I can calculate how far they were from where I was. The latest bactch were about 65 miles away. There are a few good geocoders out there if you want to find the coordinates for other locations, like http://geocoder.us/
January 17th
Hacking Brooklyn Ferry
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 01/17/2015 - 18:27It is Saturday, a day of rest. I am visiting my brother-in-law and his family in Hanover, New Hampshire. Fiona is off hanging out with her cousins. I have just gotten back from a walk around the Dartmouth campus, playing Ingres, hacking portals.
I pause to read Crossing Brooklyn Ferry as part of the MOOC that I am taking. How curious it would all be to Walt Whitman, a MOOC, the internet, this laptop. How curious it would all be to Walt Whitman, Ingress, GPS, cellphones. Hacking Brooklyn Ferry.
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island,
I first lived in Brooklyn in the days before the cellphone, when the internet was limited to a select few. I commuted from Brooklyn to New York, not by ferry, but by subway. Years later, I lived on a sailboat, a sloop, Whitman would have said, on the west side of Manhattan. I often sailed the waters Whitman wrote about, jibing and tacking amongst the vessels in the bay. Again, years later. I walked the streets, hacking portals in Ingress.
Yes, how curious it would all be to Walt Whitman, and yet, to hop to a different poet,
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
I return to Whitman. Later, I come across “ as I lay in my bed” and my mind wanders to Wordsworth.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
I sit on my brother-in-law’s couch, and think about Wordsworth’s daffodils and Whitman’s “ curious abrupt questionings” and then my phone buzzes to notify me that a portal I had captured is now under attack. My resonators will be destroyed and the portal will be captured again by the resistance.
The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
Of course, this is not just in the game of Ingress. It is also in the game of life and struggling to write something meaningful. Yet I continue to struggle, continue to write, continue to hack portals only to be recaptured.
“Flow on, river!” Whitman exclaims, and Joyce replies, “riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay…”
January 16th
Responding to the Anti-Speech Control Crowd
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 01/16/2015 - 11:15Recently, a friends on Facebook have been criticizing Pope Francis’ comments about Charlie Hebdo, Pope Francis said there are limits to freedom of speech. One friend, a vocal atheist, who generally likes what Pope Francis is saying
Why on earth is it that a belief with no evidence is less challengeable than one with a mountain of evidence to support it?
One person, Lisa, responded, Questioning is way different than taunting. I responded:
I find myself more closely aligned to Lisa's perspective. For those who don't know me, I'm an active Episcopalian involved in interfaith dialogs. Faith is something that should be questioned. We should have constructive dialogs about belief structures. But mocking another person’s beliefs is not a constructive dialog. It is picking a fight.
I'm all for free speech, but with any freedom comes responsibility. When you speak, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to change someone else's opinion? To start a fight? To be funny?
More importantly, beyond intent, what is the likely impact? I think this is especially important for all of my evidence based friends. What evidence is there that your words are going to be beneficial and what evidence is there that your words are going to cause unnecessary violence?
I think if we look at trying to avoid encouraging unnecessary violence, we may find that avoiding mocking other faith structures, and instead trying to understand them, find mutual ground, and then work towards de-escalating violence is much more beneficial.
Later, a friend shared As a Muslim, I’m fed up with the hypocrisy of the free speech fundamentalists.
To that discussion, I added,
The question becomes how do we wield the pen most effectively to prevent violence? Do cartoons of Mohammed help prevent violence, or does it incite violence? Free speech is a great starting point, but we need to look further as to having the post positive impact with free speech.
I’ve titled this blog post, “Responding to the Anti-Speech Control Crowd” to link this discussion to the discussion of Gun Control. How do we talk about free speech, while at the same time advocating for the responsible use of that speech?
January 15th
What to Write
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/15/2015 - 22:00With the start of the New Year, I’ve gotten back some of my writing mojo and am back in the habit of putting up at least one blog post a day. Coming up with writing material has been somewhat easy since I’m participating in two MOOCs right now, yet there always is that struggle of what to write. If I don’t have something compelling, or enough energy, should I skip the blog post? Keeping the discipline of daily writing, perhaps, brings the most benefit on those days when it is hardest to write.
This week has been very busy, and there are many topics I would love to explore in depth, when I have more time, but for this evening, I want to reflect on a post a friend put on Facebook:
I keep trying to blog, but now, with a heightened sense of everything being public all the time, it's not as easy as it was before.
After Charlie Hebdo and Raif Badawi, after Ferguson and Eric Garner, we see speech becoming more and more divisive and for some, more and more dangerous. No, it isn’t as easy any more, but perhaps it is more and more important.
The question becomes, are you saying something new, insightful, important, or are you just echoing talking points of your political orientation?
Sometimes, it is neither. Sometimes, it is just the discipline of daily writing, and there’s value to that as well.
January 14th
This Moment in Time
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 01/14/2015 - 20:26This evening, my attention returns to the Walk Whitman course. The video I listened to, today, talks about Whitman’s place in the burgeoning cities of the nineteenth century. I pause to think about the places we live in today; from the cities of the industrial revolution to the global villages of the information age, transcending time and place.
I glance at Open Culture, bringing me videos from the sixties and seventies. I glance at Global Voices, bringing me stories from around the world. I glance at the daily office, connecting me to ancient stories.
What does it all mean, this moment in time in the twenty-first century? How do I process all of this without burning out, without future shock, without becoming numb, just another consumer of content?
Ideas continue to percolate, but I don’t have the time or energy right now to bring them together into a more complete collection of thoughts.
I return to the class and read Whitman's "To a Stranger" and then respond in the forum with my reaction to the poem when asked about the urban context and why Whitman addresses a stranger:
Not to foreshadow a coming poem, but here we are, over a hundred years hence. The urban context is being replaced with a global village context that transcends time and place. Camus wrote of the stranger. I am the stranger. You are the stranger. There are so many people in this class that are strangers to me, whose gender I do not know.
Yet when I think of the stranger, I think of the child muse, still undiscovered. Giving us hints of what is to come, but not full fledged inspiration. More like the fairy child that visited Babbitt in his dreams.
And as we walk the city streets, we catch a fleeting glimpse of the stranger. Pink Floyd caught that glimpse as well, but turned to look at it was gone.
May none of us lose that hope of inspiration.
