IPW

Dolphin Garnish

Now as you all are well aware, I collect nemesis like fortune cookie fortunes, studying them and then putting them away in an old shoe when they prove to be uninformative. I have as many old shoes as nemesis, and like the old shoes, they always come in pairs. You may not have any idea what I'm on about, so let me fill you in. My good friend Stirling, who runs a competing and much funnier blog on the other side of town has thrown down the gauntlet. He has slapped me in the face with his glove, and insulted the thing most important to me in the world: The Seal of the City of Seattle. He has also threatened to punch me in half. What he doesn't know is this: like the common earth worm, known primarily for it's eating of earth, when punched in half I eventually grow myself back again into two Me's. I have been punched in half more times than I can remember (17) by stronger nemeses than he, and I have doubled each time. That is why there are 34 of me and only one of him. My 33 clones (they all disagree who the original is) are constantly active, alert. In defense. Well, about 10 of them are, the others have gone on to do other things. Some of them hold the top spots on the Ian Webster Google page, but we've covered that already. Of the 10 that are still on the defensive, 6 are sleeping at any given time, leaving 4 to guard me. Never mind that 3 of the 4, nay, all 4 are down a the bar right now, leaving me essentially alone. They could come back at any time.

What I'm saying is this, Stirling McLaughlin: You may SOUND like an entirely invented person, but I know you are not. I also know that you will not punch me in half, now, or never. Unless you want to bring on 34 worlds of hurt that is.

For those of you who STILL don't know what I'm talking about, here is the evidence:

http://stirlingmclaughlin.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/i-will-punch-you-in-half/

and, most dastardly, his handiwork:

Yes, it appears that Stirling has severed Chief Seattle's head, arranged it on a plate with a garnish of pinecones and dolphins, then mockingly inscribed my hometown's name across the top of the whole composition. I would return the favor to his own hometown's hero, but the icon of Donutburg, Pennsylvania appears to be only the lowly donut which is unable to sink any lower.

I Smell a boRat

So we saw Borat last night and it was funny. Okay, there were times when I was crying with laughter. So overall I give it thumbs up. But, being the contrarian that I like to be, I had some concerns going in that turned out to be realized. Firstly, my concerns were that he was going to really lay it on thick just destroying the Kazakhstanis and with them all ex-soviet states. I'm a bit more sensitive than most when it comes to ex-soviet states, or satellite states as Poland was, so I will understand if you don't feel my pain. And it's not really my pain, I'm not Polish, but I am married to a Pole so I do take these things a bit personally. Not only that, my step-dad was a Czech, so I have reason to offended if just by marriage. Anyway, my credentials laid bare, I'll go on. Since the "Kazak" scenes were actually filmed in Romania, and Borat uses a bastardized Polish to greet people (Jak sie Masz = How are you, in Polish) I think I'm right in saying that he's less Kazak than ex-soviet. He is of course playing on "The West's" general ignorance of these countries as part of his excuse for looking like a European but behaving like a caveman. He's playing on our ignorance and of course our stereotypes too. When telling people I just came back from Poland a friend asked if I saw anyone using horse carts to get around. He'd clearly just seen Borat. Or he's confusing the Poles with the Amish. The problem is that Borat uses a double standard. He is a rabid anti-semite, and his crazy antics leading from that cast his as an irredeemable fool. Of course when he stays with a homey Jewish couple on his roadtrip across the states they defy every insane notion he has about Jews. They are friendly, they do not try to poison him and they strangely enough do not have horns. So Borat's totally out of line stereotype is set up to be destroyed and it is a hoot to see him squirm in the midsts of this kind old couple. But the stereotype of the Eastern European as anti-semite is upheld and strengthened. There never is the counter-punch of reality that makes the opposite point, that in fact, despite our own stereotypes, ex-Iron Curtainers are not the backwards devils they are made out to be. Borat sort of turns into a primer for the new millenium on who it is okay to hate. In the right-hand, racist, homophobic, misogynistic Americans and in the left hand the backwards population of ex-Soviet states. Left high in dry and out of harm's way in the middle are all minorities and people like you and me who agree that backwards people should be laughed at. Borat is saying, "Bigoted America, you aren't so different from Backwards, Semi-Retarded Kazakhstan, in fact in many ways you are worse since you are so arrogant." My difficult problem is that I agree with the part about bigoted America's smugness. Because America is still the beacon of morality (yes, I believe this despite our recent behavior in Iraq) it makes it that much more funny to hear such intolerant things from some of our citizens. But where does that leave Kazakhstan and her neighbors? After we are done laughing at our own bad elements in our right hand, what shall we think about the people in our left?

I was going to go on a long schpeil here, illuminating some of the misconceptions about my Country-in-law, Poland, but that shouldn't be necessary, my four readers are smart enough to know that you don't make broad generalizations about any one group of people, unless they are an intentionally formed organization or society like, say, the Republicans. You have the choice to become a Republican, or a feminist, or Pamela Anderson but nobody was ever given the choice of their place to be born. Or their religion to be born into, or the color of their skin. If we did have that choice we would surely all choose to be Italians, since let's face it, the Italians are all really good looking.

Cheap Laptop Discussion

Now I know all four of you have been holding your breath, having read and come up with talking points for our discussion on the New York Times article I posted. Here it is again for you late comers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/technology/30laptop.html?hp&ex=1164949200&en=65317907d3a0f6d7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Here's summary for you slackers: This fellow has created an ultra-cheap, ultra-durable, HAND POWERED laptop, with wifi and an ultrabright screen for outdoors use. In other words, being coupled with the fact that this laptop was free to the user, and cost only $150 to make in the first place, it is better than the computer you are reading this on. (Disagree? Try booting up in the next blackout to tell me so.) The drawback is that it isn't for you, greedypants. It is for millions of impoverished kids in the developing world. So why the controversy? A few people with more money than they know what to do with (cough*billgates*cough) have suggested that the money for these machines would be better spent on education.

The best counter argument in the article is that kids are like a sponge, give them a computer, or anything interesting, and leave them in front of it for a few hours and they soak it up. That's what I did when my parents plopped an old (new at the time) Mac512 in front of me. Did it matter that I didn't know how it worked? No, I just messed with it long enough and figured it out. As did, I'm sure you know, Bill Gates when he sat down in front of his first computer at Lakeside School in Seattle. Kids learn best when doing, not hearing about doing. It's one thing to be told that the richest nations in the world have magic boxes called computers that belch faeries when switched on, it's another to see the magic happen for yourself.

Anyway, as you can tell I think this is a great program, if you can call something on this scale merely a program. I just wish that the US government would buy a bunch of these laptops for kids in the country of its invention: The good old US of A. Imagine actually letting our own impoverished youths have a functioning computer and access to the internet. They might actually learn something.

What do you think?

Photographer Down

Magnum Photos, where Magda works, has some of the world's best photographers in its midsts. When I say that I am by no means exaggerating. The agency was begun by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa among others, the two greatest photo journalists of all time. One of the world's other greats was Leonard Freed. We had the opportunity to hang out at his place in the Hudson River valley earlier this year and spent an amazing sun dappled day with Leonard and his friends and family. I felt honored to have gotten to know him a little bit as he drove us around the tiny town of Garrison where he lived and showed us his favorite landmarks. He struck me as a humble and generous man, despite the fact that he was acknowledged to be one of the greatest photographers alive.

Unfortunately he passed away yesterday at the age of 77. It is a sad thing for his family and for the world which is a better place thanks to Leonard for having documented it in such a fascinating way. Here is a link to Magnum's webpage, which has a tribute to Leonard currently featured. If you read this after it has come down, go to the link and look him up. It's worth seeing the photos that the man made, and made the man.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.AgencyHome_VPage&pid=2K7O3R1VX08V