Category: Composite: Tech & Poetics

Looking at Apache server logs

Posted on by Liz

I poked around with Apache log files today, looking at the log file formats and thinking of ways to look at the data. While a nice log parsing tool like AWStat or maybe a slick one like Mint would be nice, I just wanted to look at the data without too much fuss. Also, it’s not my server. So I wrote something to do what I wanted with grep and sort and uniq. A bit afterwards, I realized using awk would give me the fields I wanted from the file, and would be easier & faster than using grep or egrep.

So here’s some useful links,

* Managing and parsing your Apache logs This is good and simple with some useful example scripts.

* Checking your system logs with awk This has some explanations of why awk is handier to use than grep for handling log files.

* I’m growing more and more fond of awk! Why didn’t I know this before – I did everything with Perl, instead! *mad crush on awk*

It was fun doing this and made me want to install Apache and get it running so that I would know its ins and outs a bit better. But that will just have to wait until I finish digging into these log files… It is amazing what you can tell from them and what you can deduce, given a huge web site to sink your teeth into. Right now I’m thinking about bots and spiders, remembering the fun things I used to do with spam hunting, filtering, and watching the habits of users going through a big proxy server.



Infrastructure for civil service

Posted on by Liz

I have drunk the Koolaid.

I’m so excited to see the change.gov site. Mandatory civil service, I expected. But this goes way beyond what I hoped. This could mean real participation in government. Activism – real activism but built into our government – mobilization of people who have the most time and energy, not through churches and charities but through an organized infrastructure for nationwide civil service.

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

People will put in work they can be proud of. Rather than accepting help shamefully from “charity” everyone can be part of building communities and services. I think of the short but intense time I spent helping with Katrina relief in the Astrodome in Houston. And the moments when authority decreed and doled out, and the depression that caused, vs. the moments when people had the tools at hand, the resources, to organize themselves.
These volunteer corps will build structures where that work is respected, where it will lead to experience and self confidence and paying jobs for people.

I’m heartened by the Obama administration’s apparent respect for people with disabilities, teenagers, and senior citizens.
Look at this. It gives me chills. I keep looking at it and crying with happiness. I believe it. Agenda: Plan to Empower Americans With Disabilities.

First, provide Americans with disabilities with the educational opportunities they need to succeed.

Second, end discrimination and promote equal opportunity.

Third, increase the employment rate of workers with disabilities.

And fourth, support independent, community-based living for Americans with disabilities

YES!!! Someone GETS IT.

Thank you.

I think of all the fantastic people I know online who are living with disabilities and who contribute so much to society with all their intense, hard work. Work that is not recognized as such. They don’t need charity or a hand out they need decent health care and for their talents, knowledge, and work to be respected. This administration really could lay out paths for that to happen.

Look at the goodness of the change.gov site. It’s savvy, it’s well built, it was poised for launch. The organization of the Obama campaign convinced me deeply of this coming administration’s competence &efficiency, & their ability to use technology with good common sense. That convinces me too.

Take the things that are GOOD about the military, the Army, and make a decent U.S. Civil Service Corps where service is respected, turn all that to the power to build rather than destroy. Making things better isn’t the job of corrupt profit-based corporations or punitive institutions, or the prison-industrial complex, or religious-based “charity models” — building and maintaining our country is the job of government, which is – or will be – everyone’s job.

election night!



Argentinian feminists in the early 1900s

Posted on by Liz

To give a little extra context for the poem “Feminismo” by Alfredo Arteaga, here’s some of what women were doing in Argentina at the time.

“On May 10, 1910, the date of the centennial celebration of Argentine independence, the first Congreso Feminino Internacional convened in Buenos Aires, with more than two hundred women from Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Paraguay, and Chile in attendance. Dr. Cecilia Grierson presided. Grierson had attendend the Second International Council of Women (I.C.W.) meeting in London in 1899 and had returned to Argentina intending to found an Argentine branch of the I.C.W…. organized by the University Women of Argentina (Universitarias Argentinas) included among its sponsoring groups the National Argentine Association against the White Slave Trade, the Socialist Women’s Center, the Association of Normal School teachers, the Women’s Union and Labor Group, and the National League of Women Freethinkers.”

– from Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice, by Francesca Miller, 1991.

Here’s a link to a brief overview in English, by Marilyn Mercer, of feminism in Argentina in the 1800s and early 1900s.

In contrast to essentialist sexists like Arteaga, some of the great politicians of Argentina like Domingo Sarmiento fought for women to have access to education. Sarmiento thought women needed education to become involved in local politics. Through experience in local politics they would gradually acquire the skills to participate in national politics, voting, running for office, and being part of public life.

But high schools meant for college prep didn’t open in Argentina until 1905.

Here are some of the women Arteaga was likely complaining about:

* Juana Manuela Gorriti, a best selling author. Feminist, teacher, and battlefield nurse.
* Dr. Cecilia Grierson. Graduated from University of Buenos Aires medical school in 1889.
* Dr. Alicia Moreau de Justo. A founder of the Socialist Feminist Center. Social worker, writer, human rights activist, and doctor. Graduated from University of Buenos Aires.
* Carolina Muzzili. Reported on factory working conditions for women in the early 1900s.
* Elvira Rawson de Dellepiane, another doctor and feminist activist
* Ernestina Lopez de Nelson. Socialist feminist activist, teacher.
* Sara Justo. Another socialist feminist teacher.
* Julieta Lanteri de Renshaw A psychiatrist who graduated in 1906 from University of Buenos Aires.



Translation: Feminismo, by Alfredo Arteaga

Posted on by Liz

This poem is by the Argentinian writer Alfredo Arteaga and was published in 1917 in Antología Contemporánea de poetas argentinos. It is guaranteed to annoy. I stuck it in my anthology of women poets, in Appendix B. This is what our poetisas had to deal with — damning praise, the gist of which is, “Shut up, look pretty, quit writing poetry!”

Don’t be fooled; it is not a feminist poem. It’s a critique of the feminists of 1917, who were fighting for rights, for education, for the vote, and to be taken seriously as writers. It’s a great example of how feminization can be used by patriarchy to infantalize and silence women, to deny them agency.


Feminismo


Porque es vuestro, mujeres, el encanto
que ilumina y perfuma la existencia;
porque vertéis amor–eterna esencia
de toda la alegría y todo el llanto;
porque, al pasar vosotras, los más nobles
y fuertes corazones se estremecen
y juncos, tiemblan los que fueron robles;
porque gemas y flores nos parecen
creadas sólo para vuestro lujo;
porque no hay en el mundo quien ejerza
función sagrada o soberano imperio,
sin estar sometido a vuestro influjo;
porque dáis, aunque débiles, la fuerza 
que penetra al abismo del misterio
y sube del ensueño hasta la cumbre;
porque la irradiación de vuestra gracia
a todas las tinieblas presta lumbre,
y nos brindáis un bálsamo divino
para cerrar heridas del destino;
porque formáis la excelsa aristocracia
de virtud, de bondad y de belleza,
a la que sólo el vil infiere agravios;
porque sóis la suprema fortaleza
(que dijo Salomón en sus Proverbios)
ante la cual se humillan los soberbios;
porque son siempre necios los más sabios,
si en vuestra copa no han bebido un día
la ignorante, esencial sabiduria;
porque es vuestra la luz de las leyendas,
el alma musical de los cantares
y el fecundo calor de los hogares;
porque recibe Dios nuestras ofrendas
con agrado mayor, si vuestras manos
o labios la elevan; porque el cielo
os desterró para adornar la tierra
y aquí extender de la ilusión el velo;
en fin, porque, entre títulos humanos,
os pertenece el título que encierra
toda la majestad y la dulzura –
ese nombre de madre–¡oh bellos seres
que derramáis primaveral frescura
en los tiempos más foscos de la historia
y que santificáis nuestros placeres,
contentaos por siempre con la gloria
y con la suavidad de ser mujeres!




Feminism  


Because it's yours, women, the enchantment
that illuminates & perfumes existence;
because you shed love–eternal essence
of all happiness and all sorrow;
because, on meeting you, the noblest,
strongest hearts tremble
and oaks turn to shivering reeds;
because to us you seem to be gems and flowers
created only for our luxury and enjoyment;
because there isn't anything in the world that exercises
sacred function or imperial sovereignity
without being submitted to your influence;
because, though weak, you give strength
that penetrates the abyss of mystery
and you mount in dreams to the summits of mountains . . .
Because the radiation of your grace
brings hunger to all that’s dark and and hidden
and you bring us a divine balm
to heal the wounds of fate:
because you form the highest aristocracy
of virtue, of kindness, and of beauty
to which only the evil give offense;
because you are the supreme fortitude
(just as Solomon said in Proverbs)
before which soveriegns make themselves humble;
because even the wise are most foolish
if they never drink, from your cup,
your naive, essential wisdom:
because it's yours, the light of legends,
the musical soul of the singers
and the fertile heat of the hearths;
because God hears your prayers
with greater amiability if your hands
or lips lift them to heaven; 
because heaven exiled you to adorn the earth
and extends here the veil of illusion;
in fin, because, among human titles
you have the title that encompasses
all majesty and sweetness,
this name of mother–oh lovely beings
that spill over with primeval freshness
in the greatest focal points of history;
you who sanctify our pleasures,
content yourselves for always with the glory
and the softness of being women!


Translation: María Luisa Milanés (1893-1919)

Posted on by Liz

María Luisa Milanés was an ardent feminist and Cuban nationalist who killed herself in part because of an unhappy marriage (Davies 58). She wrote poems that were deep critiques of patriarchal culture and that were expressions of solidarity with other women and all oppressed people.

Her poems were sometimes published under the pseudonym Liana de Lux. Her passions were philosophy, music, and literature. Her works include Autobiografía, published though unfinished. She destroyed many of her own poems and essays before her death. Amado Nervo was said to be her favorite poet and a great influence on her work.
She read French, English, and Latin, writing in and translating from French, Spanish, and English, publishing in the journal Orto (Fajardo). A 1920 volume of Orto gathered a selection of her verses and was dedicated to her memory (Lizaso and Fernández de Castro 299). 


Hago como Spártaco


Ya decidí, me voy, rompo los lazos
que me unen a la vida y a sus penas.
Hago como Spártaco;
me yergo destrozando las cadenas
que mi exisitir tenían entristecido,
miro al mañana y al ayer y clamo:
¡Para mayores cosas he nacido
que para ser esclava y tener amo!

El mundo es amo vil; enloda, ultraja,
apresa, embota, empequeñece, baja
todo nivel moral; su hipocresía
hace rastrera el alma más bravia.
¡Y ante el cieno y la baba, ante las penas
rompo, como Spártaco, mis cadenas!I’ll do what Spartacus did


I've decided: I'll go, breaking the ties
that bind me to life and its sorrows.
I'll do what Spartacus did;
I'll stand tall to destroy the chains
that have saddened my being,
I'll look towards morning and the past and declaim:
I was born for greater things
than being a slave and having a master!

The world is a vile master; filth, insult,
snare, mind-numbing, soul-narrowing, below
all moral standards; its hypocrisy
makes the bravest soul despicable.
And considering the mud and slime, considering sorrow,
I break, like Spartacus, my chains!


No puedo comprender . . .


Me abisma no entender, bello Narciso,
la ingenua admiración que te arrebata
y te fascina en la onda azul y plata . . .
Claro, que para ti es un paraíso
mirar tus ojos bellos y tu boca,
tu sonrisa, tu frente y tu figura
llena de majestad y de dulzura . . .
Pero ¿no piensas que haya algo de bueno
que distraiga tus ojos y tu mente,
fije más alto tu mirar sereno
y entretenga tus horas dulcemente?
¡Quisiera comprender mi alma sencilla
la perfecta hermosura de tu frente,
donde jamás el pensamiento brilla!

 
I just don’t get it . . .


Lovely Narcissus, I'm afraid I don't understand
the naive admiration that grips
you bewitched in the blue and silver wave . . .
Sure, for you it's Paradise
to look into your own beautiful eyes and your mouth,
your smile, your brow and your figure
full of majesty and sweetness . . .
But don't you think there's something better
that might amuse your eyes and mind,
might direct your calm gaze to something higher 
and fill the hours with sweetness?
My simple soul longs to understand
the perfect beauty of your brow,
where no thought ever sparks!


Translations: Bolivian poet Adela Zamudio (1854-1928)

Posted on by Liz

Here’s another chapter from my (unpublished) anthology, Spanish American Women Poets (1880-1930).

Adela Zamudio was a Bolivian poet, essayist, novelist, teacher, and school director. She was also an activist and an advocate of women’s higher education. In her early years, her poems were published under the pseudonym “Soledad” (Aguirre Lavayen 12). Throughout her life, well into her sixties, Zamudio fought for divorce laws, secularization, women’s labor movements, and other feminist liberal causes. She was also a painter, though most of her paintings are lost. Zamudio wrote a long narrative poem, “Loca de hierro” ‘Iron madwoman.’ She was one of the founding members of Feminiflor, a Bolivian feminist magazine.

Her publications include: Ensayos poéticos (1887); Ensayos politicos (1887); Intimas (1912); Peregrinando (1912); Ráfagas (1912); and Cuentos breves (1921). Her books were published in Bolivia, Paris, and Buenos Aires. Íntimas was a romantic epistolary novel about and for women, meant to expose the hypocrisy of the upper classes (García Pabon vii).

Her poems, romanticist and controversial, were called “virile” and “rationally masculine” by her contemporaries; they considered her a “mujer-macho” (Cajías Villa Gómez 38). She read and admired Byron, de Musset, Becquer, José Zorrilla, and José Espronceda. The all-male La Paz Literary Circle, who considered themselves to be romanticists, elected her an honorary member in 1888. An entry in the Diccionario de Mujeres Celebres of 1959 lists her as a leader of the women poets and novelists of Bolivia, who included: Hercilia Fernández de Mujía (“la ciega Mujía”), Lindaura Anzoátegui, Mercedes Belzu, Sara Ugarte, and Amelia Guijarro. In 1926 she was given a medal by the president of Bolivia (Sáinz de Roblez 1200). October 11th, her birthday, is Bolivian Women’s Day.

There are biographies of Zamudio written by Gabriela de Villarreal, Alfonsina Paredes, Augusto Guzmán, and Sonia Montaño.

Much of her work remains unpublished.

She compiled a spelling book in Quechua for use in schools, and composed many poems in Quechua, among them “Wiñaypaj Wiñayninkama” ‘Para siempre / Forever’ (Taborga de Villarroel 181). Her translation of the poem into Spanish puts it into octosyllabic lines, a romance de arte menor. I have translated it from Spanish. Though I do not know Quechua, I include the original here because it was useful to refer to the word patterns. For example, the original used repetition in a way that the Spanish version does not duplicate.

“Nacer Hombre,” her most famous short poem, was published in 1887. It is a poem “pie quebrado,” ‘broken meter,’ with verses of octosyllabic lines and one line shortened to four or five syllables, and thus is de arte menor, in a popular form for poetry and folk song. 



Nacer Hombre


Cuánto trabajo ella pasa
Por corregir la torpeza
De su esposo, y en la casa,
(Permitidme que me asombre).
Tan inepto como fatuo,
Sigue él siendo la cabeza,
Porque es hombre!

Si algunos versos escribe,
De alguno esos versos son,
Que ella sólo los suscribe.
(Permitidme que me asombre).
Si ese alguno no es poeta,
Por qué tal suposición
Porque es hombre!

Una mujer superior
En elecciones no vota,
Y vota el pillo peor.
(Permitidme que me asombre).
Con tal que aprenda a firmar
Puede votar un idiota,
Porque es hombre!

El se abate y bebe o juega.
En un revés de la suerte:
Ella sufre, lucha y ruega.
(Permitidme que me asombre).
Que a ella se llame el "ser débil"
Y a él se le llame el "ser fuerte."
Porque es hombre!

Ella debe perdonar
Siéndole su esposo infiel;
Pero él se puede vengar.
(Permitidme que me asombre).
En un caso semejante
Hasta puede matar él,
Porque es hombre!

Oh, mortal privilegiado,
Que de perfecto y cabal
Gozas seguro renombre!
En todo caso, para esto,
Te ha bastado
Nacer hombre.

To be born a man


She works so hard 
to make up for the sloth
of her husband, and in the house
(Pardon my surprise.)
he's so inept and pompous,
that of course he's the boss
because he's a man!

If some poems get written,
a person must have written them,
but she just transcribed them.
(Pardon my surprise.)
If we're not sure who's the poet,
why assume it was him?
Because he's a man!

A smart, classy woman
can't vote in elections,
but the poorest felon can.
(Pardon my surprise.)
If he can just sign his name
even an idiot can vote
because he's a man!

He sins and drinks and gambles
and in a backwards twist of luck
she suffers, fights, and prays.
(Pardon my surprise.)
That we call her the "frail sex"
and him the "strong sex"
because he's a man!

She has to forgive him
when he's unfaithful;
but he can avenge himself.
(Pardon my surprise.)
In a similiar case
he's allowed to kill her
because he's a man!

Oh, privileged mortal
you enjoy lifelong
honor and perfect ease!
For this, to get all this,
it's enough for you
to be born a man.

Wiñaypaj wiñayninkama   Para siempre


Ripunaykita yachaspa   Al saber que ya te irías
Tuta-p'unchay yuyask'ani  noche y día me atormento,
Sonqoy ukhu pakasqapi   y sangra mi corazón
Waqaspa tukukusqani.   como una sombra en tormento.

Ripuy, ripuy waj llajtaman  Véte a ciudades lejanas,
Waj kausayta kausarqamuy  anda a vivir otra vida,
Kaypi ñak'arisqaykita,   y lo que yo haya sufrido
Chay kausaypi qonqarqamuy.  olvídalo en tu existencia.

Ya(. . .)huyu, lakha phuyu  Nubes negras, celajes oscuros
Uyaykipi rikukusqan   se aborrascan en tu frente,
Chay shhika llakikusqayki  y el dolor que he sentido
Llakiyniywan tantakusquan.  brota en cascada de lágrimas.

Rejsisusqaymanta pacha   Desde el día en que te vi
Wasiykita saqerpariy,   nimbé mi alma en tus ojos,
Sonqoyki rumiyachispa   y saturé mi corazón
Waj kausayta kausarqamuy!  con unos pétalos rojos.

T'ikachus sonqoypi kanman,  Si en mi pecho hubieran flores
Umphu sonqoy ch'akisqapi  desde este corazón lánguido
T'kata t'akarpariyman,   y marchito, alfombraría con pétalos
Purinayki yan patapi.   el pasar de tu camino.

Ripuy, ripuy waj llajtaman,  Véte a esas tierras lejanas,
Waj kausayta kausarqamuy,  corre a vivir otra vida,
Ripuy, ripuy qonqarqamuy  y sepulta en el olvido
Tukuyta kaypi kaj kama.   todo cuanto aquí ha existido.

Forever


Knowing that you're leaving
torments me night and day
my heart bleeds
like a damned soul in hell.

Depart, depart for distant cities
keep on living your other life
and forget whatever I've suffered
as you enjoy existence.

Black mists, jealous clouds of darkness
obscure your brow in storm,
and the pain that I've felt
bursts forth in a torrent of tears.

Since the day I saw you
my soul glows haloed in your eyes
and my heart is full
of scarlet petals.

If in my chest there could be flowers
since this heart languishes, withering,
it would carpet with petals
the road where you walk.

Depart, depart for distant lands
go on living your other life
and bury in forgetfulness
everything that's existe
d here.



Gadget love – Messing with my G1

Posted on by Liz

Look, my G1 made friends with my Chumby!

gadgets!
So far I’m very happy with the G1. It has a great feel, it’s easy to type on, its phone and net coverage is great so far in the SF Bay Area, and every day people are posting new new apps for it. If you are a sanfransocial chronic fidgeter like me you’ll be snicking this thing open & shut all day, because of its pleasant slide-y feeling. And because you will be all like OMG I HAVE THE MOTHERF*CKING INTERNET IN THIS BORING ELEVATOR.

The first thing I did was to try out everything on the phone. My contact list, which is a giant mess, is in there from my old Razor’s sim card. Seriously, it’s a huge mess. The few people that I call all the time, I starred to move them over to the “Favorites” tab in the Dialer. The phone dialer is nice; I like dialing on the touch screen rather than with the numbers. The other thing about Contacts/Dialer that I like is the long, detailed call log. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to add new numbers from the call log to my contacts list: click and hold on a log entry, which pulls up a new menu including one to save to contacts.

I find it a little perturbing that I can’t tell if I’m closing an app, or just backgrounding it. Is that stuff all still running in the background?!

In the browser, I logged into my gmail account. Suddenly a wealth of data is there for me, since I’m a heavy Google user. The top bar slides down window-shade style to show new email, messages, calls, or other notifications.

Maps – Fabulous. Try street view, then the compass.
Market – Works great for me so far. Fun to browse. I like the comments/reviews on each app, especially how they are often frivolous and rude.
Amazon MP3 – addictive, good browsing, works beautifully. Buy mp3s, move them over to your computer or server with no problem at all. I already love Amazon MP3 for its lack of DRM and its great selection especially in Latin music.
Browser – Okay, but I have a little trouble zooming, clicking, entering data into tiny boxes. I think it takes practice with the tiny trackball.
Calendar – Scary good if you use Google Calendar already. I have 4 calendars going at once. So far I find week view the most useful – there’s no text on it but you can tap a colored block for a quick popup that gives details.
Gmail – okay, but I wish I could delete
Camera – still playing around with it. Works very well in low light! Seems a bit slow, but autofocus works well.
Music – Slick!
Pictures – Works just fine
Youtube- haven’t tried it yet
Voice Dialer – Works! neat! Will I actually use it? No.

I stuck some photos on it and changed my desktop to a photo from my Flickr account. Therer’s a Flickr group with 640 x 480 photos to use for wallpaper, and you can find more wallpaper on the various community forums. Moving from the left and rights sides of the desktop to the middle & back is strangely addictive and beautiful. I tried for a while to move apps by flinging them, or holding them and scrolling, but couldn’t get that to work. INstead, if I want to move something from the center screen to the left or right, I click and hold, drag it to the trash; then go to the side screen, click and hold on the background, and add the alias to that app or shortcut.

g1, so cute!

After a while I looked at App reviews and “tips and tricks” on some of the forums: Android Forums, Tmobile G1 forum, androidcommunity.com.

When you plug in the G1 to a Mac with a USB cable, you will see just 3 folders: albumthumbs, dcim, and Music. Poke around in there and see what you can see. Drag some music over to the G1’s Music folder and it shows up in your Music app.

When you are browsing, click and hold on a photo to download it. Not sure if this works with pdfs, movies, or sound files – I haven’t tried yet. When you download something from the browser, a new folder is created that you can see when you poke around with a USB connection. Same for amazonmp3 and BlueBrush – they create folders you can access through a USB and your computer’s filesystem.

At some point I downloaded some apps and messed around with them. when I first got this beast early this week, there was barely anything except like 500 different tip calculators. Hello dorkwads, take the tax, double it and add a dollar or two, you don’t need to whip out your $300 phone to calculate the tip … OR DO YOU…

Amazed – a simple marble-in-a-maze game.
AnyCut – looks useful to make shortcuts.
Barcode Scanner – Interesting! But has way more potential
Bluebrush – I have not really explored it but it looks like a collaborative whiteboard drawing app. I would not call its menus or icons intuitive… Flailed a while then left.
Cab4me light – Great potential! I need this! Needs more cab companies, data, a button to turn the GPS on and off.
ConnectBot – YAY I can ssh from my phone! This makes me happy. If I could ssh into my phone as well, maybe use scp, wouldn’t that be nice?
Es Musica – Tried this for fun. Hey, bikini boxing!
iSkoot – Skype for the G1!
Langtolang dictionary. Simple translation dictionary for several languages.
Shazam – This is good. It listens & samples a few seconds of whatever music you’re listening to and identifies it. I tried it with a range of music. It had great accuracy.
Strobe Light – this is really great if you’re a total asshole. Of course I downloaded it.
WikiMobile – How handy. Will never have another restaurant argument again. Am already a know it all trivia-hole, and now I can prove it on the spot. I haven’t tried the other Wikipedia app yet. How do the different versions compare?

Here’s what I’d like to have on my G1:

* password/keychain manager. What a pain in the ass entering all this stuff.

* a plain old compass app, unrelated to Street View.

* Ecto, or some equivalent, so I can post quickly to any of my 24812469 blogs, which are not all on Google/Blogger/Blogspot.

* Photo uploaders. Better extensions to send photos out very quickly to Flickr, my various blogs, Twitpic, or whatever. Hot buttons, so that I can snap the photo, and hit a single on-screen button to go “send to X” rather than pull up a menu, connect with gmail, start typing, and send to my Flickr email. It should be seamless, so I can take another photo or act like a human being instead of a little gnome fiddling with my magic box all day long.

* G1-Thing, to hook up one of the barcode scanners with LibraryThing.

* Inventory functions. More “barcode scanning a list of objects” functions. When I scan a bar code I don’t necessarily want to look it up on google or amazon or ShopWhatever. I might want to just add it to a list of Junk in my Trunk. I could see people scanning their CDs or books or DVDs here. Or hooking in the list of stuff in their pantry to somewhere like FoodProof, to figure out what they could cook without having to shop.

AAAAAA! Did I just mention computers and recipes in the same breath? Maybe I should go back in time and buy a Honeywell Kitchen Computer!

Honeywell Kitchen Computer

Honeywell Kitchen Computer

* GPS. I would really, really love some cool GPS functions. I love the satellite tracker/detector screen on my old (borrowed) Garmin eTrex. I would just turn that thing on and stare at it for 10 minutes to see how many satellites would pop up. I’d like to know what satellites so I can look them up online. Better yet pop me up some info and tell me all about it. Holy crap! SATELLITES are flying around over us in SPACE. That never ceases to be cool.

Some geocaching apps that hook in to geocaching.com would rock.

* Tide tables. I have no reason to care, except that when I’m driving up to the city, if it happens to be low tide or a super low neap tide I might swing by the beach to poke some anemones and harass a hermit crab or two. If I were still surfing, a surf report app might be nice.

* Nethack. The real kind not the graphic version please!

* Auto rotate. Last but not least. I wish that the screen view would rotate when I turn the phone, not just when I open the keyboard! Or is that a setting already, and I’ve missed it?



I am not The Wheelchair: Air travel and disability

Posted on by Liz

written on the plane, the other day

When I enter an airport I’m in hostile territory. Dread and courage fill me. In addition to the dehumanization everyone around me is about to experience, the stripping off of possessions and shoes like Inanna entering the underworld, the x-raying and knowledge that any random act, out of our control, could result in police intervention, in taking away our illusion of freedom — in addition to that I am covered in the cloak of wheels, I have lost my human soul, I know that in the eyes of power and ignorance, I am luggage, an inconvenience, an animal, an exoskeleton.

Airline and airport staff talk to each other loudly over me. I am “The Wheelchair”. What I say, what I ask for, what I want, doesn’t signify. My words don’t mean a thing. My money can’t buy human dignity. I have lost my Agency. Speaking creates a cognitive dissonance, a problem, an incident. Inside myself, I have become bravado and willpower, entitlement and stubbornness.

Let’s glide over the shunting into special lines and glass walled holding pens and pat downs… Let’s ignore the issue that the law (the Air Carrier Access Act, in the U.S.) says the airline *has* to let me break down my chair and put it in the cabin, which they almost never will allow, instead *taking away what is crucial to me* and throwing it in the hold of the plane, perhaps to be left behind or damaged, the non-acknowledgment that them taking my wheelchair away puts me in a state of absolute panic. Let’s leave those problems behind.

Let us skip to the Gate.

Here is an example of how the illusion of human decency, manners, could be preserved.

Me (having waited my turn): Hello. I’d like a gate tag for my wheelchair please.

Gate Agent: Here you go. Would you like to pre-board?

Me: Yes, thanks.

Gate Agent: Please let me know if we can do anything else to assist you.

Or this:

Me: Hello. How’re you doing? I couldn’t get a seat near the front of the plane. Could you try to get me an aisle seat near the front? Otherwise I have a hard time getting on and off the plane and getting to the bathroom.

Gate Agent: Oh, the plane’s pretty full. We can probably move you up though since our airline keeps a few seats near the front of the plane open till the last minute for people who need them. Or, I could just switch someone out. Or I will ask the flight attendant to find someone to switch with you once you are on the plane.

Me: Thanks. If you can’t move my seat now, I’m sure someone will switch if I ask once I’m on the plane.

*I happily go whooshing down the really fun ramp.*

Flight Attendant: Hello. (Unfazed and correctly assessing situation.)

Me: Hi. My chair gets gate checked and I have a tag on it. When it actually gets put on the airplane, could you let me know, so that I have that assurance? I need to know that it hasn’t been left behind.

Flight attendant: Sure. Do you need any other help?

Me: Oh, I can get it, but if you don’t mind, would you mind putting this bag over 6A?

Flight attendant: Sure, watch your step.

Me: Yup. Thanks.

Flight attendant: *Doesn’t watch me get on the airplane in a hovering way as if I’m a freak show stuntwoman, or going to face plant*

Once in a while, one tiny leg of travel will go smoothly with most of these elements. People will behave with normal politeness.

Here is how it usually goes instead, an example with everything gone awry.

Me: (waiting in line)

Gate Agent: (in hurried conversation with other agents who have flocked about in dismay) Can you help out The Wheelchair?

Me: *shoots fuck off rays in every direction*

Gate Agents: (more and more agitated)

Me: *pretends to ignore it*

Gate Agent: Miss, MISS? You need to come over here. Did you fill out paperwork? Why don’t I have you down? Are you travelling alone? I’ll need to call someone. You need one of those, a special, a …?

Me: I don’t need an aisle chair. I don’t need any extra help, thanks. Could I have a gate tag for my wheelchair?

Gate Agent: You need to do the paperwork. It’s our policy. If there’s a wheelchair, we have to do the paperwork. Why didn’t they do this at the front when you checked in? We’ll need to take that wheelchair and check it now.

Me: No, sorry. I’d just like a gate tag.

Gate Agent: We’ll take care of that.

(They want me to get into an airport-owned chair, and take my own chair away. To make sure it doesn’t get lost? To treat it like baggage?)

Me: No.

Gate Agent: (Argues) (Calls people) (Consults all other gate agents, flight attendants, the pilot, and/or security officers)

Me: Bye.

Gate Agent: Here’s your gate tag. *comes around the kiosk thing* I’ll just put this on here. *Bends over, touches me or grabs my shoulder or the back of my chair, and tries to strap the elastic band of the tag onto my WHEEL.*

Me: I’ll take that, thanks.

Gate Agent: Persists in trying to strap tag to my tire. Argues.

Me, firmly: Thank you, but no. I’ll put that on. THANKS.

Gate Agent: But I have to just, let me…

Me: NO.

Gate Agent: *sends me major hate rays* (In their mind, I have not properly accepted and appreciated their noble, generous help.) You’ll need to check this wheelchair at the door. They’ll bring it to you at the other end.

Me: Yes, I know. THANKS. (Special fuck-off-and-die smile.)

Later

Gate Agent, with several other flunkies: Miss. MISS!!!

Me: Yes?

Gate Agent: We need you to preboard now. *grabs wheelchair*

Me: LET GO OF ME.

Gate Flunkie, talking real loud and slow: I need to help you get on the airplane Miss. *grabby McGrab*

Me: DON’T TOUCH ME!

Gate Flunkie: I need to help you get down the ramp.

Me: Thanks. No you don’t. Stop. Thanks very much but no.

Gate Agent: Excuse me Miss but we’re trying to help you. It’s our policy that…

Me: I don’t need any help thanks very much.

Flunkie: I have your aisle chair and…

Me: I don’t need one. Thanks. No. I’m getting on the airplane. Byeeeeeee.

Flunkie and Gate Agent: Miss! Misss!!!!!

Me: *wheels fast down ramp*

Flunkie, running after, grabbing: I have to walk behind you!

Me: No you don’t. Get off me.

This almost always happens. Not every time, and not all of it at once — EXCEPT FOR MOTHERFUCKING TODAY ON STUPID US AIR, but it happens enough that I go a bit crazy anticipating it. I usually get on the plane mad as a hornet, humiliated, outraged, and overdetermined not to cry.

Keep in mind that I barely need any help or special consideration, yet I still get treated with amazing inconsideration and disrespect. People who need help transferring or other help get even more disrespect. Likely I’ll be there someday; will my anger have burned me into a little cinder, by then? How will I cope? (Huge props to you all who have worse struggles than mine.)

Today I arm-checked a particularly obnoxious gate agent who would not stop trying to grab for my chair back and my shoulder. I just threw my arm out and blocked her hand hard enough to hurt. It left a bruise on me and likely on her. I feel lucky no one came to arrest me for assault. She was really mad. But, I told her not to touch me, and she kept grabbing. She went beyond grabbing the back of my chair and was on my shoulder. I felt mad enough to get in a fist fight right there. I was so mad I got on the plane without giving
anyone my ticket.

No, wait. Back up. If we’re in Europe or China, or probably anywhere else other than the U.S., pretty much the instant I set a wheel into the airport or train station this will happen:

Me: *wheeling along about to go to the bathroom or shopping or something*

Random station employee, very agitated, grabs me: Miss! Miss, let me help you.

Me: What?

Random station employee: You need to come this way. *tries to start pushing my wheelchair.*

-or-

Random station employee: Excuse me sir, is she going to need help getting on the train/plane?

Me: Hello. I’m right here. You can talk directly to me.

My companion: *drools, twitches, and plays dumb*

Random station employee: Sir, will she need a ramp or a lift? Could you please come this way?

Me: HELLO!!!

In Budapest they tried to put me into an ambulance to travel about 200 feet from airport door to airplane stairway. (I got on the bus everyone else did, instead.) In Hong Kong I did a little dance with a woman whose job it was to push me – I wouldn’t let her grab my handles, and I was faster than she was, and swivelled to face her whenever she tried to go around back.) It has me on edge. I expect absolute bullshit and disrespect, “it’s our policy”, and when it comes, it sinks down inside me like a stone, I swallow it, I swell up with possibly disproportionate rage and pride. I do more than I would otherwise, while I can, to show away, to prove these fuckers wrong, to spit in their faces.

But back to the U.S.A. and its airport situation.

I know, it is just some bad “sensitivity training” and clueless people, who have mostly to deal with older folks who have an attendant or relative travelling with them. I would like to readjust their training.

If you work for an airline or somewhere, and you see a person with a disability, you might assess whether they look like they need help. Or offer once, and back the hell off if we say no. For example, I have obviously a business traveller who just wheeled myself through an entire goddamned airport. I value my independence. I know how to ask for help if I need it. GO HELP SOME LADY TRAVELING WITH 3 CHILDREN for god’s sake. She is the one who obviously needs help. Push her stroller for her, if you must push something.

Their training seems to be in one mode. That is: An object (formerly, perhaps, a person) comes in a wheelchair, pushed by a helper. That helper will need even more help transferring the person-in-wheelchair to an airplane seat and out again.

If the wheelchair belongs to the airport, then the agent has to call the other end or enter something in the computer system, so that the destination gate has an airport wheelchair and staff to push it so that the casual wheeler or older person without their own gear can get through the airport. (However, this never ever works and it is always a big surprise on the other end, causing more consternation and kerfluffle.)

Or: radical shock, the person might have their own wheelchair. The agents never expect the wheeler to be traveling alone. They’re very anxious if you don’t have an attendant or companion. I think they’re worried, perhaps from past experience and with reason, they will have to assist a difficult transition from chair to aisle chair to seat. The agents AND the flunkies who push the chairs should be educated in the variety of people’s level of ability.

I also know it’s not the end of the world that once every few months someone tries to cross my boundaries and won’t listen. Cry me a river… A lot of people with disabilities have to put up with that shit all the time, every day, and tolerate all sorts of things, because they have to, to survive.

I would like to continue from here to talk about race and disability for a moment. Being patted on the head and grabbed in airports is not in the same league as the racist assumptions, threats, and violence that, for example, black men or men assumed to be “arab” face in the same situation. We don’t have to compare those things, but I want to point that out, in part because I don’t think most white people think about it, but in part because I feel sometimes like it is black men in many situations who notice the bullshit way I get treated as a disabled person and who throw me knowing and sympathetic looks, that they GET IT… and with the added dimension of laughing at me a little for my inability to hide my anger and for my assumption that things could be different, for my sense of privilege and entitlement that means I display outrage and am not afraid of being treated as a threat and dragged off to some concrete holding cell (though, in fact, I am a little afraid of it.) I often appreciate those knowing looks and sympathetic remarks. Even when they are a little bit amused or scoffing… It is a little bit like gaydar, an eye contact held an instant longer than usual, with a little spark of sympathetic communication. What do you think of my perception? And that it is particularly gendered? I am unsure what to make of it.

Women with little children are also noticers of ridiculously dehumanizing police-ish petty bureaucrat behavior; they expect it, they don’t get particularly dehumanized but are treated with a bit of extra hatred and the expectation of inconvenience and something of a burden of guilt. We bond with the sympathy of those who are Inconvenient, bulky, overflowing the boundaries. That bond is more the bond of concrete offers of help. Amazingly, it is women overflowing with children, overburdened, who speak to me with humanity. I always try to help them too. I entertain their children, I get them to stop crying, I offer them trinkets to look at and hold, I draw pictures in my notebook or teach them finger games, I give them rides in my lap if we make friends or merely point out my sparkly LED wheels.

On the last leg of this flight I sat near the front of the plane, not presuming to first class, or the first row of the coach section, but picking an aisle seat in the second coach row. I planned to ask the person sitting there if they would switch with me – my seat, which I couldn’t get anyone at the gate to help me switch, was in something like row 25, also an aisle. A significant distance for me at that moment as I only had a cane, not my crutches, and it was a long flight where I’d need the bathroom more than once. The man whose seat it was refused to change. The man across the aisle was outraged, and got up to change places with me. I cried with gratitude. When we got off the plane, I shook his hand. The whole flight I had to sit next to the selfish asshole who did not appreciate the fact that to him walking 20 extra steps was trivial. I wish him a special place in hell. Truth be told, for all the hours of the flight, I wished him to be disabled and face that wall of inhuman indifference. Someday, he will be old, and the wall of ignorance he built for himself will wall him off from the rest of humanity, because assholes like that don’t have friends or family left by the time they feel the effects of age. I don’t like festering in that level of bitterness, but sometimes, that’s where I end up, ill-wishing others so that they’ll learn their lesson, though they won’t, and it’s pointless. Conquering that internal resentment or hatred is part of the difficulty of being disabled, I think.



Every day is Men's Day

Posted on by Liz

At BlogHer, when Jocelyn Harmon from Marketing for Nonprofits stood up during the keynote panel to ask Carol Jenkins how we can make stories, and news, and politics, more complicated around race, gender, and class, there were women cheering all over the room.

BlogHer DC BlogHer DC

Now, we didn’t get deep into that subject but I also didn’t hear what usually happens when you say that in a room full of white folks, which is someone stands up and goes “But shouldn’t we all just be colorblind? I don’t see race.” (If you are thinking “what’s wrong with that?” you can start at Angry Black Woman’s post, Things you need to understand #5: Color Blindness.) So I was really, really happy that at BlogHer, we could raise the issue without an immediate defensive racist backlash. Instead a somewhat diverse room full of women *listened* to two women of color talk with each other about the difficulties of everyday racism in media. About not wanting to have to choose a side, or choose an identity. That was a good moment!

Then at the cocktail party I was sitting across from this dude. And hey, it’s a cocktail party and we’re all drinking Cosmos and talking smack. I believe I was outlining a new world order in which we would all get to take turns having sex with Jon Stewart. (Would he satirize the sex during the sex? Or wait till after?) But we were also talking about the rise of mom blogging, the way we love it that people mix up their “topics” and blog about their lives and eclectic interests AND politics. That in the mainstream media story, you are a soccer mom or whatever, and that’s that. But in our world in the blogosphere, we know, more and more, that we have many roles in life. We’re moms or daughters or sisters or knitters or we love to shop for shoes or talk about marketing, but we ALSO have valid political opinions. We are black or white or Latina or Jewish or multiracial, AND we are women, AND we have all these interests and roles and jobs and experiences. In our world, we acknowledge the multifacted nature of ourselves and of all the people we might meet. For me, I don’t even sit across from another middle aged lady on the bus without assuming they have a complicated identity. Sometimes I like to imagine the blog-identity, the internal world and speaking voice, of all the people but especially the women, around me in daily life.

In this middle of this conversation, our intrepid BlogHim, one of the 5 guys at a conference of 300 women, got me all prickled up. He wanted to question the mere fact of having a BlogHer conference, a tech conference meant for women. He warned us he was about to be non-politically correct, in other words, he wanted to try to piss us off. “So, ladies, what about the men? And what about the white men? What I’m saying here is that I can’t be hiring someone and say to my managers, “I really want to hire this white man because he brings a unique and diverse perspective to our product group.” I can’t say that. And that’s just not fair.” There was a sort of pause around the table as we all assessed our level of ability to Deal with this asshattery in the moment, pushing our Cosmotinis out of mind and whipping up some serious coherence, without causing a Scene. I understood that the guy was just trying to get a rise. He was trolling us. And he was doing it with a layer of faux irony and friendliness, so getting mad in response was socially difficult. Yet it was such a stunning example of male privilege and white privilege that I can’t let it pass.

So, I told Mr. What-About-The-Menz a brief story. Here it is.

When I was a kid, about 10 or 11 probably, I remember asking my mom, “There’s Mothers’ Day, and Fathers’ Day, and even Grandparents’ Day. How come there’s no Kids’ Day? It’s not fair!” My mom shot me a really dirty go-to-hell-you-idiot look and went, “EVERY DAY IS KIDS’ DAY.”

Here is the bit of the story I didn’t mention:

I remember suddenly getting what my mom meant, and thinking about everything she did for me and my sister, and how her life basically revolved around listening to us, playing with us, taking care of us, feeding us, supporting us and planning for our future, getting us to school, taking us to the library and piano lessons; our comfort and well-being. A hot flush of shame came over me as I thought about how all the things that were done for me, I was not really appreciating, but took for granted. Like, that wasn’t enough? I want a tiara and a pony too on top of it? Ouch. My mom’s moment of sarcasm and snark was a good educational moment for me. I GOT IT.

I think that telling the first part of that story was an okay response. It quickly made my point which is that he is blind to his everyday white male privilege.

And as described very well in the article I linked to above on male privilege — the instant that men are not the center of attention and the norm, they feel like it’s an *attack*.

The other thing I did was not look at the guy. I continued with all my body language to focus on my sister bloggers at the table. And that helped us to shift the conversation off of the guy, and back onto what we wanted to talk about. Doing this was a conscious effort. I recommend it highly for those moments when your conversation with a group of women is hijacked by a braying jackass who assumes that women owe him every second of their respect and attention. Pay attention to the women. Pay attention to the women in the microcosm of conversation, and in the bigger picture of the blogosphere.

Then, a bunch of us told the guy that he was really lucky to be in a context where he got to experience not being the default normal. He gets to hear conversations and interactions he wouldn’t hear otherwise. What do techy, writerly, blogging women talk about when they’re framing the conversation themselves and not being told what’s important by an array of expert men? What’s it like to be at a tech conference where you’re one of 5 of your gender there, and it’s very noticeable? That’s a rare experience for guys in social media. A bunch of us said that. With a helpful smile.

In short, a table full of women told him, very politely and obliquely, to shut up and listen. If only for one day. I don’t think he got it.

As is so often true, I saw a bunch of women soft-pedal their responses to a guy. And then immediately afterwards (and in fact a day later over IM with others) they all went “OMG, what a jackass.” Again, I felt sorry for guys who are that way, because they don’t have any reality check. I’m calling out the behavior, and point it out, not to be mean to this one dude. In fact, I give him credit for coming to a women’s conference and giving it a shot. I don’t expect him to learn and process every bit of it at once. On the other hand, I can’t let those kinds of statement pass without a mention.

I had no wish to get into a giant discussion of the idea of affirmative action at that moment. But I could do it on this blog.

What would you have said to hi
m “in the moment”? What would you say now, online, with time to think it over and express yourself clearly, to a guy who described his wish to hire white men for their diverse perspective?