Poshlost, Hermitage, and Surrender Leaflets

2003-03-22.

(Hmm, no wonder all those Iraqi soldiers are surrendering: who could resist a surrender leaflet offer like this?)

Light blogging volume right now, because I’m really busy working on Whyblog.org (now with blog!) while simultaneously following all the war coverage, but I’ll break the silence long enough to say that jh3k is back with a new domain, since the old one seems to have turned into a bad porn site. Welcome back, Jim. Good to have you among us once again.

Speaking of porn, you might be interested to know what “poshlost” means in the Nabokov context. I think the Russians use it to mean “kitsch.”

And speaking of Russians, Amy and I just watched Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark at The Charles. What a strange, surreal, yet wonderfully engaging panorama of Russian history, travelling through the chambers and halls of The Hermitage, that palace-museum which preserves within its walls the legacy of the Tzars. The narrator’s viewpoint sweeps through time as smoothly as it flies through rooms, accompanied by a European co-narrator from the 1800s, as they jump between Tzarist Russia and present-day St. Petersburg. All in one smooth, single shot.

Okay, that’s it for now. Dos vedanya!

Armory

2003-03-21.

The grim walls of the National Guard Armory near Baltimore State Center.

Photo taken with an Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3MP SD.

The View from Iraq

2003-03-20.

Iraqi blogger Raed/Salam looks around Baghdad the morning after. He says Saddam’s “got verse!” Mm-hm. Meanwhile, IraqTV appears to have been hacked, and Kuwaiti bloggers wonder how Wolf Blitzer stays awake.

Godwinist Irony

2003-03-20.

Linnwood shows us a bit of Godwinist irony from Japanese antiwar protestors. How times have changed.

The Day After

2003-03-20.

Ugh. I had intended to go home around midnight, but work on WhyBlog.org, combined with the multiple distractions of following war news, reading blogs, and chatting on #mefi kept me up till 3am. I zonked out on the couch in the lab, meaning to catch the light rail home at 5am, but that never happens, does it? The pathetic part is that I barely even managed to accomplish anything: just install blogging software in WhyBlog and transfer the db routines to an integrated class. I still need to get down to those RSS parsers.

(What blogging software, you ask? MT. Yes, it won out in the end.)

Iraq War Begins

2003-03-19.

It begins. As air raid sirens, anti-aircraft fire, and missile explosions flood the skies and streets of Baghdad, may the good Lord protect the innocent civilians of Iraq in this time of war and terror.

I was a bit startled to find myself agreeing with Willis and Kottke tonight. There are deep-seated issues at stake here which are far bigger than simple pro-liberation/anti-war sloganeering. Studying both sides of the problem has only made me more cynical about the whole political millieu we live in. I cannot in good conscience march in support of either side, and filtering through the haze of biases and straw men only muddles my opinion more.

I would so like to formulate a decent stand on this important issue, but sitting here in the lab, sleepy, overworked, and info-overloaded with the sudden flood of war news overlapping with my work on WhyBlog.org, the war seems like nothing but a media-induced distraction, separate from my immediate circumstances. And if wars are fought in that manner while we, the people they are fought for, are utterly dissociated from the causes in question, then something is crucially and seriously wrong.

More later.

Apple Gore

2003-03-19.

War in Iraq! Incurable superviruses! Disgruntled tobacco farmers in green tractors! And now, we bring you the latest portent of the apocalypse, Al Gore joins Apple board of directors! Were I a premillenialist, I would expect to have been raptured seven ways from Sunday by now.

Watching Dwight Watson

2003-03-19.

The morning after Dwight Watson drove his tractor into the Constitution Gardens pond. This spot at the police lines was the closest I could get, and was where the rest of the press were gathered. The tractor is barely visible as a smudge of green and yellow below the street sign at center left.

Photo taken with an Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3MP SD.

DC Tractor Guy

2003-03-18.

If Tractor Guy is still there tomorrow morning, I’m going to pass by the Mall on my way to work, get as close to the police lines as I can, and take pictures.

Update: I went and took photos from the far-off police line in front of the Dept of the Interior, then left for the office. 20 minutes later, Tractor Guy surrendered.

Update: Watching John Deere. The tractor and the pond are about 200 yards beyond the police lines, obscured by police vans and foliage, but if you zoom in and hunt around for a bit of green, you’ll see it. Not that you need to bother. He’s already old news.

A New Pneumonia

2003-03-16.

You can imagine that I’m watching news on this outbreak of resistant pneumonia very closely, as at least one case has been reported in the Philippines: home to me, my family, friends, and loved ones. Prayers that this acute illness can be contained and stopped. I do want to go home to visit some day soon.

BBC Q&A

News from Inq7

Pinoyexchange thread