Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
vicarious travels in iraq and the future of blog-journalism
this is jake, having managed to convince some us soldiers in iraq to allow him to try on some body-armour for a photo. i guess if you are an american you have less of a chance that they will shoot you on approach.
as i am nearing the end of my packing spree – i have spent a little more time online over the last few days – which has occasioned a couple of online chats with my friend jake who is currently traveling in iraq and documenting his travels with photos, video and writing on his blog – “it’s complicated”. a combination of technical advice (as in “installing a vsat in iraq“), bittorrent video snips, and some beautiful slice of life photos – jake’s blog has attracted the attention of tens of thousands of daily readers and notable internet info sources like as boing boing, gizmodo, and cnet news (article by declan mccullagh).
in short – he has become something short of infamous in the elite geek circles of the internet (unfortunately this doesn’t translate into money or real fame…. but it has its own cachet to be sure) – and will probably get him into trouble with his own government once he returns home.
in the meantime, jake is working to make his iraq-blog experience as interactive as possible. not only is he willing to answer any questions asked by the readers of his blog, but he has also asked people to posit questions for him to ask iraqi and kurdish people during interviews – promising to pick the ten best and use them as a starting point.
and herein lies what i think is the actual power of blogs as journalism (something the pundits have been going on about for ages but is motly crap…. very few blogs by individuals not employed in regular media work do anything approximating journalism, no matter all the hype). jake’s attempts to bridge the (mainly) north american reader’s questions with his momentary access to iraqi and kurdish people are an excellent example of how blogs can foster and build an independent gonzo-news culture involving all the participants in a story-telling circle (rather than a one way directive). one would hope such an experiment would allow for honest lines of inquiry and response as ‘net anonymity frees people up to ask even the “stupid questions”, or the questions that cnn won’t be asking in any case – and the stories of everyday people can come back to put a face and voice to the tragedy which has seen the country stalled in a 15-year nightmare.
although i didn’t mean this to turn out as a site-review – it has turned in to a bit of one…. if you are at all interested in a political tourist’s visit to iraq – i would recommend checking out jake’s traveloque. do, however, beware… like many photobloggers without an internal filter, jake has the tendency to post copious photos behind his “cuts” – know that if you click on the links for more photos you might be waiting a long time for them to load (this is the only near-criticism of the site i have… though it really isn’t much of one for those of us with high-speed).
on a personal note – my favourite thing about jake’s trip to the middle east has been the photos of him on the site – sans goth-suit 🙂 i have never seen jake without a suit on (even at a mid-summer california ruckus camp during a serious drought) – so this brings some sort of perverse pleasure on my part…… i wish my friend safe travels for his time in the middle east in any case and a seamless return home (when, in fact, he decides to come back).
more blah blah blah
there is an end to this packing in sight – and i’m amazed since i still have a week until moving day…. i have yet to tackle the entranceway, the kitchen and the bedroom, but the living area, bathroom, gear closet and basement are pretty much taken care of – so by tomorrow night i should be pretty much finished, save for the last-minute items for thursday night. that means i can focus on cleaning and getting rid of garbage. this evening i have a garbage burning planned for all the stuff that can be easily burned – a small perk to living in the country is open fires.
i finished with my paperwork yesterday, and as of monday it will be filed, making me the legal owner of my house. from start to finish, this whole process will have taken 5 weeks by moving day… hard to believe that these things can happen so fast…
the return key fell off my ibook yesterday, and for the life of me i can’t get it to reattach – it looks like something has got bent which might be the reason why. i guess i must be typing with some ferocity to actually bend the metal bits that hold the keys together – or possibly it really is that i have bad luck with ibooks…..
fortunately it’s still under warranty so i’ll take it in this week to have it looked at… i’ve been meaning to take it in for the wireless antenna (which has always had crappy signal strength) for ages, and get more ram for the damned thing too – so i suppose it will be a combination trip to macstation. word from the wise – if you are buying an ibook, the 3-year applecare is a *must* have. for all the apples i have owned since 1995, the ibooks definitely have the most problems (moreso than the older mac laptops even) – something about their supersonic lightness seems to make them more prone to hardware issues.
really, i’m just posting at the moment as a mechanism for procrastination – apparently my landlady is showing the house again today to some prospective renters – so i really should get on packing a bit more before they get here…..
seven reasons i don't think there will be a federal election called before summer
of course the hot talk at work (beside luna’s potential love interest) is the possibility of a federal election. although the pessimist in me would like to predict dire woe, i just don’t see an election happening before the fall, and not likely before next spring. here are seven reasons why:
- elections are expensive – both for taxpayers and political parties. none of the political parties has recovered financially from the last election yet…. and another election will take on the appearance of wasting taxpayer dollars
- the majority of canadians (when polled) don’t want an election right now
- although the conservatives have risen in the polls, stephen harper has not – canadians still don’t trust him and that doesn’t bode well for his party’s chances, no matter what the polls say
- government just doesn’t move that fast
- any party forcing an election now runs a serious risk of alienating the majority of the canadian public
- summer elections historically have low turn-outs and there is little doubt that the results of an election called for june or july, only a year after the people have already spoken would be questioned if the turnout numbers were significantly lower than last may
- is anyone really that surprised by a government kick-back scandal? really?
i didn’t see paul martin on the television last night, so i’m not sure what type of case he made to the public for staying in power, but in my opinion a minority government is the safest bet we’ve got. it hampers the government from making any real changes, which can only be a good thing given the downward trend of world governments as of late.
commuting
photo of the backside of the lions taken at sunrise from the ferry in january of this year
in the last six weeks i have become increasingly accepted as a sunshine coast commuter by the other folks who make the daily trek across the water in search of higher wages and more meaningful work… although i have been doing the trip for almost 8 months, i seem to have recently passed through some unofficial probationary period during which people mostly just looked at me sideways and occasionally smiled. now that i have weathered out the winter, and am buying a house – thus staying for at least some period of time – those occasionally smiling people now talk to me! every day! they ask me how i am doing and inquire about the status of my move, we talk about politics and the weather and their kids and the goings on of our community.
i think the secret is, once a single person starts conversing with you regularly, other people feel more able to do that too – and in turn, i feel more bold in striking up conversations with people i have never spoken to before but see all the time. if all other conversation fails, you can always get by in complaining about bc ferries – it’s like being suddenly admitted into a secret circle where the other participants are easily recognized, and share at least one daily life function in common.
when i first started commuting, i didn’t think i wanted to get to know the other commuters that much – not because i am unfriendly, but because i tend to use my ferry time to read and do school or union work. all that transit takes up such a large portion of my day, i want to make it useful rather than socializing with it. i think that factor tends to be recognized for the most part by other people though, and i have noticed that people tend to leave you alone if you are engrossed in work – and i have come to enjoy the end of the day chit-chat on the days when i am too burnt-out to stare at a computer screen any longer and crave for contact with humans rather than machines.
i am now in the rhythm of a life i suspect will be mine for a few years to come – and as much as it seems daunting, i also know that it isn’t nearly the big deal i once thought it was. not only am i able to work and read during the time i spend traveling, the sunrises and sunsets on the sound and the straight are frequently jaw-dropping, and now that summer is almost here – the idea of escaping the hot city at the end of the working day has infinte appeal.
at this juncture, the thing that bothers me most of all about commuting, is the people i encounter who say (over and over and over) “doesn’t it bother you? i could never do that”, as if there is some deficiency in me that i have chosen a long commute in order to afford the lifestyle i want (clean air, the ability to buy a home, being close to the backcountry). i often feel i am having to justify why i have chosen to live this way to people who i barely even know. fortunately the people closest to me get it…. and at least i’m not asking myself “why?” (okay, there have been a few of my tiredest days when i wonder – but it’s not anything approximating a regular occurence). it’s an interesting thing – this commuting and the people who do it are at least as odd as me….. who knew?
a short post about moving
i am two days away from officially being a home owner. i used my lunch break today to get a bank draft from my local branch – so i can pay my notary the final fees and sign my paperwork on friday. that’s right – FRIDAY – at 10 am… i will sign the paperwork that will finalize the sale of the house to me.
exciting, yes?
and in other news to do with moving – my phone number will be changing again…. those of you who would normally have it will be informed shortly of my new number and address. in the meantime, if you get confused, keep using the cel number because it remains constant (and isn’t long distance from vancouver).
that’s it, my brain is frozen on work-overdrive. i’ll try to post something a tad more interesting later.
Red Cedar 