Life – Page 103 – Eclecticism

Not In Our Name rally

November 27, 2019October 7, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

As mentioned in my previous post, today was the day for NION rallies across the country. Prairie was visiting for the weekend, and she and I decided to head up and participate. Something of a new experience for me — I’m fairly vocal with my friends and occasionally here on my site about my beliefs, but I’d yet to ever actually participate in anything like this. I figured it was time to ‘put my money where my mouth is’, so to speak, and so about 12:30pm we started walking up to Volunteer Park for the rally, in time to get there right about 1pm when it was scheduled to start.

Not really knowing what to expect, or how these things generally go, we just wandered into the park and found a spot on the grass to sit and listen to the various speakers they had. I didn’t have anything to write on with me, so I don’t remember who all spoke, but there was a lot of interesting stuff, if fairly predictable for the crowd and event (that sounds horribly cynical, but it’s not meant to be at all — forgive me, I’m tired and need to go to bed, but I wanted to get this in first). One thing I thought was really interesting was the broad spectrum of people there. There’s something of a preconceived notion of the people you’d ‘typically’ find at a political rally like this, usually leaning more towards the obviously leftist/radical side of the population. This rally seemed to attract a very wide range of the population, however — rather nice, it makes it seem like more and more people are starting to question where our government is taking us, rather than just accepting everything that comes down the line. Definitely neat to see.

At about 3pm, everyone started moving to begin the march portion of the day’s events (no small feat with an estimated 7,000 people gathered at the park). A giant inflated globe carried by a bunch of kids led the march, followed by a bunch of giant puppets, then all the rest of the gathered masses. We marched out of Volunteer Park down to Broadway, down the main drag of Broadway to Pike St., then hung a right and went down the hill into downtown Seattle, ending at the plaza in front of Westlake Center.

The entire event (rally and march) went quite well from what I saw. After reading things like the account of the march in Portland that ended up in conflicts with the police, I knew that it was possible for things to get a bit hairy, but thankfully enough, that didn’t happen. I did see a few people in the crowd that came prepared for conflict — dressed in black, with black stocking caps, black bandannas tied across their face, and goggles — which made me a little nervous, but apparently none of them actually felt like causing any problems.

I don’t entirely understand people who would take this approach to a protest. If they were just bringing along facemasks and such in case things did get out of hand, and they had them ready to wear if necessary, that would be one thing. However, coming to the event and spending the entire event ‘dressed for battle’, if you will, gives the definite impression that not only are they expecting conflict, but they might even welcome it — if not instigate it. Not very encouraging when the intent is for a peaceful protest, and when the protest is focused on crying for peace.

I was also rather pleasantly surprised that there didn’t seem to be an overbearing police force out (something that Seattle seems to have an issue with in recent history). They were definitely present, but didn’t at any point take an aggressive attitude — at least, not that I saw or heard of. About the only time I noticed tensions rising at all was as we passed one street in Downtown, where there was a line of riot troops blocking off the street about halfway down. This, unfortunately, did attract some amount of boos and catcalls from some of the marchers as we went by, however the troops did nothing except stand there, and march organizers made sure that noone broke ranks to actually try and directly confront any of the officers. I’m pretty sure that the only reason they were there (especially since it was only on that street) was that a protest last summer suddenly changed direction and blocked traffic on I-5 for a couple hours, and they were blocking off the access ramp to I-5 to ensure that this march didn’t try to do the same thing. Nobody went after them, though, and they left us alone, so aside from a few unnecessary taunts tossed their way, it was pretty uneventful.

Eventually we made it down to Westlake Plaza, where a post-march rally was being held. I saw one of my favorite rally signs being held up here by a guy probably in his late teens: “And I heard the Reagan administration was bad”. It made me laugh, at least. We hung around for a while longer and listened to a few of the speakers that were at this rally, then decided that we were hungry, it was a good time to duck out, and did just that. All in all, a very entertaining day, and it felt good to actually get involved and give some more visible, vocal support for the NION movement.

Some other reports on the march:

A crowd estimated by march organizers at 6,000 to 8,000 people registered their dissent yesterday, rallying and marching in a nearly mile-long procession from Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill to Westlake Center as part of a nationwide anti-war protest.

They chanted “Drop Bush, not bombs,” carried origami birds on long poles, wore Uncle Sam costumes on stilts and sported signs that said “Save us From Mad King George.”

There were the occasional whiffs of patchouli, John Lennon buttons and refrains of “we ain’t gonna study war no more.” But this wasn’t a repeat of the 1960s.

Mennonites mixed with anarchists. There were groups of Vietnam veterans, social workers and blue-haired teenagers — all opposed to a brewing war.

Strollers got stuck in potholes and baby boomers in Dead Kennedys T-shirts carried camcorders.

— Seattle P-I: Thousands walk for peace

Yesterday’s march attracted a broad collection of protesters — young and old, students and professionals, and many who said they rarely, if ever, attended rallies.

Tracey Marsh, a graduate student at the University of Washington, had begun to wonder if anybody paid attention to demonstrations anymore. Taking a break from the procession, she said she now feels a new urgency to be in the streets.

“It does give me a sense of hope,” she said as the people flowed by. “It’s really important to let Congress know we don’t support (an invasion).”

— Seattle Times: Thousands hit Seattle’s streets to protest war

After rallying in the park for several hours, the group moved en masse towards Westlake Park, bringing their message of peace to the downtown streets of Seattle.

Speakers included Congressman Jim McDermott, who recently traveled to Iraq; Rev. Jeffrey of New Hope Baptist Church; Peggi Thompson, mother of Seattle political prisoner James Ujaama; and Mark Kolner of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“If theres a problem well work through the United Nations, we cannot go alone,” McDermott told KING 5 News. “If we go alone we lose the whole world.”

— King-5 News: Thousands rally for peace in Seattle

NaNoWriMo

November 27, 2019October 3, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’ve just run across something that I’m really tempted to make a shot at — National Novel Writing Month, in which all participants have one month, from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th, to write a 50,000 word novel (approximately 175 pages). Quality isn’t a concern, nor is style, form, or anything of the sort — merely doing it, or attempting to do it, is the point.

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

I haven’t got the faintest clue what I’d write about. I don’t even know if it’s a real possibility, when I work a full 40-hour week, plus some on the weekends. But I’ve got the next month to think about it, to see if I can come up with something worth writing about (or even something not worth writing about, just to see how it ends up), and to see if I really want to give this a shot. I think I do…

Goodbye Dez!

November 27, 2019September 28, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

I just got back from a nice goodbye dinner for Dez, who’s leaving on Tuesday to move to Toronto to live with her finacee. Was a good evening — Dez, her finacee (who’s name I’m completely spacing on at the moment…), Rick, Chad, Don, Kareem, Scott, Mary, Kim, Kayo, myself, and a few other people that I didn’t manage to catch the names of, all just sitting back, joking around, and having fun.

Looks like there’s a chance I may be heading to Toronto over Memorial Day weekend next year, too. That’s the date they’ve set for the wedding, and I might end up providing the music for their reception, also! Pretty cool…we’ll see what happens.

That’s it for now, though, I’m pretty brain dead. Thinking zoning with some DVD’s for the evening will be a nice way to relax.

Yikes

November 27, 2019September 21, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

I think I just heard gunshots. Eight, very quick, all together, no pauses. Creepy.

[2:30] Called the police, they’re going to check out the immediate area.

[2:33] Nice response time — there’s two police cars looking around now.

[2:55] Haven’t heard anything else, nor have the police felt the need to get back in touch with me for any reason. I’m going to assume that all’s well — or at least well enough that I don’t need to actively keep an ear cocked.

Hooray for living downtown! ;)

The Turing Test is in no danger

December 6, 2019September 20, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

Just some fun wordplay, from this MeFi thread dealing with AI, language, and other such goodies.
Some English sentences likely to trip up any AI program attempting to understand them:

We gave the monkeys the bananas because they were hungry.
We gave the monkeys the bananas because they were ripe.

How do you determine what object ‘they’ refers to in each sentence?
It’s hard to recognize speech.
It’s hard to wreck a nice beach.

Say these two aloud.
Visiting relatives can be boring.

One sentence, two ways to understand it.
We saw her duck.

Three meanings (the least obvious involves a serrated blade).
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

With thanks to Groucho Marx, I believe.

Stoopid. With two ‘O’s.

November 27, 2019September 18, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

In working on the job submission tool I’m involved with at my job, it keeps amazing me just how many complaints and/or comments we’re getting from customers that they wouldn’t have if they would read the information on the page. But they don’t, and they whine, which forces us to attempt to dumb it down even further. I’m convinced that the lowest common denominator is sinking minute by minute.

Then I realize that I’m working in a place where there are signs posted on all the soda machines — which are free, and marked as such — explaining in four steps how to get your free soda from the machine.

Select and push button of desired soda.
Allow soda to drop.
Remove soda from cooler.
Please remove only one soda at a time.

As my dad once told me, “you will never lose betting on human stupidity.”

My most humble apologies!

November 27, 2019September 16, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

Erk…as horrid as a thing this is to admit, I goofed up.

Yesterday (the 15th) was my dad’s birthday, and in the midst of my usual weekend duties, I completely forgot to call. Or write an e-mail. Or post a note here.

Or anything. Sigh. I generally try to be better about this.

I’ll be calling tomorrow morning — if I’m lucky, before he gets up and checks this website…but if not…happy (late) birthday, dad! You’ll be hearing from me soon!

Even cops get to play sometimes

November 27, 2019September 13, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

Every morning on my way to work, I walk out my door and head about five blocks down 8th avenue to my usual bus stop. Once a week, when I need to pick up my paycheck, I cut through the Freeway Park next to the Convention Center and head into downtown to the Today’s offices.

Since I had a paycheck waiting for me today, that was my route. Once I turned into the park entrance, though, I was a little concerned, as there was a small group of five police officers, all on their patrol bikes, grouped around the top of the staircase I normally head down. It didn’t look like anything was really happening, though, so I just kept going on my merry little way. Just before I got to the top of the stairs, one of the officers turned his bike around, carefully took aim — and started to attempt to ride his bike down the staircase, egged on by the other four officers he’d just been talking with, and another officer already at the bottom of the staircase.

He paused at the first landing long enough for me to walk by, then started working his way down again, only to take a tumble off his bike about halfway down. Fortunately, the next officer, already starting to ride down the stairs on his bike, managed to both avoid the one who’d just fallen off his bike and was laughing and trying to disentangle himself from the spokes, and keep going down without taking a spill. “It’s not as easy as it looks!” said the officer waiting at the bottom of the stairs, as we watched a couple more start to bump their way down.

Must’ve been a slow morning.

Man I wish I’d had my camera with me.

So it’s been a year

November 27, 2019September 11, 2002 by Michael Hanscom

I’d like to come up with something amazingly deep and profound to say, but for one reason or another, it’s just not in me. Besides, plenty of other people have worthwhile things to say.

I think part of my little bout of writer’s block is just that the entire situation is frustrating. One year ago, something huge and immensely terrifying happened. In the year since then, however, a multitude of other, smaller, less immediately noticeable things have happened (usually in the name of ‘patriotism’), that added up scare me as much as (and quite possibly more than) the attacks themselves. It’s a different kind of scare, but it’s a scare, nothenless. Awareness of this side of things does seem to be growing, though, which is good.

I guess, most of what I’d really want to say I’ve said already, either in some of my rants over the past year or in the links I’ve chosen to highlight in this blog (the majority of which, unfortunately, still reside in limbo).

I dunno. I’m rambling. Caught between wanting to say something, and not really having anything of real import to say.