A Halloween Gift for New Orleans:NOPL Reopens to Offer Limited Services

Finally, a bit of good news from Katrina-devestated New Orleans and its libraries.

"Beginning Monday, October 31, NOPL's Main Library, as well as the Hubbell (Algiers Point) and Nix Branches, will be open for limited services.
Patrons and visitors will be able to access the Internet and software from designated computers. Copiers and fax machines will also be available for public use, and basic, ready-reference by phone will also be provided. NOPL patrons may also return library books checked out before Katrina; all fines will be waived."

- New Orleans Public Library website

Last month, the city laid off 90% of the New Orleans Public Library staff, leaving only 19 employees and almost 200 of some of the nation's lowest-paid library employees unemployed.

Fake News Clipping of the Day:Power Grabs Won't Balance California's Budget

Figured I needed to take a cheap shot at the Governator. For those unaware of what he's planning to do to the Fifth Largest Economy in the World, here's a primer.

Basically, Gov. Schwarzenegger is trying to do is fix California's budget woes, which is indeed something that needs to be done.

But slashing education spending? Union-breaking? And stripping the state legislature of redistricting responsibilities?

Probably not the best approach. Apparently the majority of Californians seem to think so, too.

Arnie, you may not realize it, but you're coming across to the world as a governor who wants to turn his state into a monarchy by circumventing the democratic process.

INSIDE THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: Is the Tech Waste Killing the Developing World?

NIGERIA: World's broken electronics pile up in Lago

LAGOS (IRIN) - Nigeria is becoming a digital dump, the recipient of vast numbers of broken gadgets from the West that can leak dangerous substances into water supplies and create cancer-causing particles when burnt, a toxic waste watchdog said on Thursday.

Basel Action Network, a US-based lobby group that recently conducted an investigation in Africa's most populous country, found that around 500 giant containers, packed with old computers, televisions and mobile phones, were arriving every month at the main city and port, Lagos.

These electronics are supposed to be for repair and re-use, but BAN estimates that 75 percent of the items are neither repairable nor of any economic value...

- FULL COVERAGE VIA REUTERS -
- ORIGINAL IRIN WIRE REPORT -

Waste not, want not, as the old saying goes.

But what does one do when one's gift of waste is no longer wanted?

For years, many well-meaning people have been "donating" their old information and communication techologies (ICT) to various organizations in the hope that their busted machines will somehow miraculously be salvaged in some remote part of the world.

People will donate their old PCs to be reused in places like Africa. Obsolete mobile phones are turned over to charities in the hope that they will do some good.

Waste not, want not, as the old saying goes.

The problems with this model of combatting the Digital Divide in the Developing World are numerous. While the idea of bridging the divide using the West's garbage may seem like a worthwile pursuit and a noble cause, it is often based more on the need for people or organizations to help than on the actual information needs of the intended recipients.

There are many who naively believe that that Palm that fell in the punchbowl at the office Christmas party will somehow repair itself, that that IBM 386 with the fried motherboard can bring the World Wide Web to some school in Honduras.

There are also the well-intentioned religious and nonprofit organizations that collect these machines, hoping beyond all reasonable hope that their organization can actually turn the broken playthings of the West into loaves and fishes for the Information Age.

And there are, of course, the entrepeneurs, who see the industrialized world's ICT waste as a potential goldmine, buying surplus salvage on the cheap with the intent of making repairs and remarketing the recycled product overseas.

Then there are those, sadly, who could care less about helping. Their motivation for shipping ICT refuge to Sub-Saharan Africa is motivated more by the need to maintain a profit-margin. Why pay more for the disposal of the extremely hazardous components in cell phones, PDAs, and PCs when a corporation can circumvent local environmental regulations and costs by shipping it to places where there are none?

The new "Digital Dumps" springing up around the globe in places like Nigeria, India, and other countries demonstrate that sometimes even the most well-intentioned gift can do more harm than good.

While waste not, want is indeed a great model for helping build a more efficient community, when it comes to technology, one man's garbage is not necessarily another man's treasure.

As a matter of fact, that leftover technology may be damaging that other man's drinking water or contributing to the destruction of the ecosystem in his part of the world.

It is still possible to teach a man to fish, but it is impossible to do so while the teacher continues to poison the water.

Dear George - Tough Shit, Dude. Maybe God's Trying to Tell You Something?

- Dramatic Music to Accompany the Following Post -
"Leaving on a Jet Plane" Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (1997 Fat Wreck)

Dear George:

In all honesty, I really feel your pain, man. Seriously.

Poor guy. You've had such a horrible October.

First, your crony...er...pick for the nation's highest court is sent packing, forced to withdraw her name from contention because, well, its easier to find Waldo than anything on Harriet Mier's judical record. (George, my man, I know you're not down with the whole "activist judge" thing, but would you mind picking somebody who's at least been, well, active?)

Then, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's personal Defibrillator gopher...er...chief of staff, goes and gets indicted by a Grand Jury for some silly old thing.

Tell Scooter to keep his chin up, especially if he turns out to be guilty in a court of law. I mean, there are lots of high-profile public officials who betray their country for political gains. Just look at Benedict Arnold. He's remembered fondly for revealing classified information, right? He even became the highest-ranking Continental Army officer to be decorated by the British for his service to the Crown during the American Revolution.

That's something, right? I'm sure North Korea, Iran, and those other Axis of Evil guys are ready and willing to accept any help your political buddies are willing to give them.

And Karl Rove could be next, man. That worries me. Who's going to tell you its all some crazy Liberal Conspiracy when he's gone? And who's going to hold your hand when those crazy mothers who lost their kids in Iraq want to ask questions?

What about the your fellow Texan, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay? Poor guy. I mean, who knew there were that many crooks in the Lone Star State? The nerve of all these crazy campaign contributors...preying on poor ol' Tommy Boy by shoving $100s down his political trousers.

DeLay arrested, Harriet Miers sent back to obscurity, and some guy named Scooter facing criminal prosecution.

So here's to you, George. Hope you feel better. Watch some football. Just keep away from that briefcase that Marine's carrying, man. Please don't try to punt that football.

Your domestic policy agenda has now achieved all the forward movement of a constipated truck driver.

Sorry dude. Maybe you could pray for God to give you another country to invade. Or maybe God's trying to tell you something. I don't know...just an idea.

Have a nice weekend, George.

Much love,
The ZenFo Pro

Stupid F#%@ing Blogger Template Editor....

For anyone who may have attempted to view the ol' ZenFo Pro Homestead in the last two hours...

Sorry about the mess.

I just finished revising my template, then realized I'd mispelled one URL. I went in to make the minor correction, and, poof!

Blogger ate my template.

This one may look a bit different - used a backup template file to reformat a generic dummy blog.

Think everything's working correctly now, so...

Stupid Fucking blogger template editor.

I need a Scotch.

Make that a double...

Library Gonzo:Getting Papers Done the ZenFo Pro Way

This week in Gonzo librarianship...

In recent months, seven college students and two high school students, regular readers of the ZenFo Pro who contacted me offsite, have sought my advice to expedite the their academic research and paper writing.

I've now confirmed that not one of the nine got below a B+ on their graded work. These accomplishments are theirs alone and I don't want to sound at all like I'm taking credit for their success. They did the work; I just offered some advice. But its nice, still, to know that one can reach across the World Wide Web and make a difference.

One student, a sophomore at a Nevada university, left me a rather emotional voicemail this morning - apparently, she has never gotten above a C on any paper she's written. Well, now she has a 98% on a paper, and her professor actually made a point of bringing her stellar work to the attention of the class.

The thing that made the difference, according to the student -- taking time to go beyond the "plug-and-chug" undergrad research model, to personalize a rather mundane topic into something personal and passionate, and to do the research she wanted to do to build her case. A lot of students fall into the trap of wanting to write papers to satisfy a particular prof or instructor.

Trust me. Faculty would much rather read a well-cited paper full of good ideas than a paper simply written to fulfill a course requirement.

A 16-year-old Ohio punker earned her highest grade ever on any academic assignment. The biggest hurdle she faced was not necessarily research-related; instead, this student felt that she was somehow pigeonholed into being a punk outcast in a preppy world and that people thought she was stupid because she wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

Instead of giving her some "Win One for the Gipper" type pep talk, I told her a story about a band called the Descendents, one of the best hardcore bands of all time. I told her the story of lead singer Milo Aukerman - who also holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and is one of the nation's most respected plant DNA scholars.

I recommended that she purchase/download a copy of Cool to Be You (Fat Wreck, 2004) and use that as motivation. Hit the stacks and the online catalog at her local public library and keep the album blaring through her headphones. Ignore that "people think this of me" feeling and keep the eyes on the prize.

Locally, I had the pleasure of helping one of my fellow OxBloggers finish up a research paper that had been hanging over her head a while back. I ran into her at a coffee shop Tuesday and got the follow-up. Her professor wants her to present the paper at a conference. He, too, gave her a shout-out in class for her amazing work.

Way to go, ladies!

Idiosyncrasies? Me??? Answering Zydeco Fish's Open Tag

Idiosyncrasies...hmmm...

Answering a tag issued by my man Zydeco Fish...

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Write down five (or more) of your own personal idiosyncrasies. Then, if you wish, tag five people from your blogroll or friendslist to do the same.

1. I usually sleep in my socks, but, somehow I always manage to take one off in the middle of the night while asleep.

2. I've eaten an average of three cups of yogurt a day for the past two years.

3. I'm extremely superstitious. I cross myself when passing cemeteries, hospitals, or accident sites.

4. I read tarot cards, but, as a rule, will not read cards for family or lovers. Nor will I read them at a distance. I will not read cards while a television is playing, a computer is running, or electrical devices (except radios) are on.

5. Some of the most important decisions I've made in life I've made by either flipping a coin or by throwing a dart at a map.

6. I've lived in a three-bedroom place for two years and only have enough furniture for a studio apartment. And I prefer it that way.

7. I will not let anyone into my house wearing Abercrombie and Fitch because of the company's blatantly racist policies and tee shirts. If you show up at my door wearing the stuff, plan to get naked on the porch and bring a change of clothes.

8. I wore a piece of white nylon string tied around my right wrist for seven years, from 1994-2001, as a reminder that there are always people somewhere in the world who have nothing to eat. The "bracelet" literally deteriorated into dust.

9. My living habits have often been described as "utilitarian." I've never seen much purpose in acquiring things simply out of comfort or a sense of style. I reuse grocery bags instead of using trashbags, for example. Equally influenced by studying various Eastern spiritual paths, Thomas Merton, and spending my years in Louisiana with an Associate of the Order of Julian of Norwich as a spiritual advisor.

10. I hate walking on man-made "nature trails," preferring to hike deer and game trails.

11. I love the smell of fresh concrete.

12. I have a tendency to quote obscure songs at inappropriate times.

13. Thirteen's my lucky number.

---

Damn, I'm a strange one...

Tag, you're it. Open-Source Tagging at its finest :)

Coming Out in the Locker Room:Sheryl Swoopes, Title IX, and Gay Athletes

Sheryl Swoopes (Bio, Stats), the Michael Jordan of women's basketball and one of the greatest female athletes in the history of women's sports, fell in love. The reigning WNBA MVP didn't see it coming. By her own admission, what she feels for her partner is as intense and as real as she's ever experienced. Lots of athletes have fallen in love with trainers and coaches before.

But this is different. The intensity and passion led the Houston Comets forward to hold a press conference yesterday. According to Associated Press writer Kristie Rieken's piece,

"The only thing that outshines the exquisite diamond on Sheryl Swoopes' left ring finger is the glow on her face as she discusses the love of her life."

Athletes fall in love, male or female, just like everyone else. What makes Swoopes's story newsworthy is that she also publicly announced to the world that she's a lesbian. Swoopes claims that part of her motivation for the announcement was the desire to be able to finally share her world and her accolades with the love of her life, former Comets assistant coach Alisa Scott.

Swoopes wants to be free to be herself and to be happy.

Hopefully, the American sports media will give her and her partner that chance -- without turning her story into another insipid celebrity-comes-out story.

Lesbianism has for too long been an unwelcome stereotype cast unfairly upon women's sports. Yes, there are female athletes who are lesbians. But there are also lesbian doctors, lawyers, EMTs, soldiers, police officers, and firefighters. Because of the stereotype cast on women athletes and the fear that such stereotypes might lead to an overturning of Title IX protection for high school and college women's programs, lesbian athletes have been unfairly stigmatized by not only a conservative society but by teammates, coaches, and fans as well.

In my seven years as a journalist, mostly spent as a sports reporter, I had the privilege of working with hundreds of very talented athletes at all levels of competition across the country. And a few of them, male and female, were homosexuals. Most felt enormous pressure to stay in the closet, because any admission meant the possibility of social rejection, being cut or traded, or the possible loss of scholarships.

I've had several athletes admit in strict confidence and off-the-record that they were gay. To this day, I've never revealed their identities or their sexuality to a single soul - not an editor, not a girlfriend, and not even my closest friends and family. And I will take their secrets to my grave.

One kid was a very talented athlete with a full scholarship. This guy lived in constant fear of being outed because his dad openly bragged about beating up homosexuals. The only female athlete to ever come out of the closet to me did so accidentally - I ran into her while she was on a date with a friend of mine.

As I write, Texas -- Swoopes' home state and home of her WNBA franchise -- still has a ban on gay marriage on the books and is even debating the possibility of adding an amendment to its state constitution that further restricts the rights of its citizens to love who they wish.

I'm hoping Sheryl Swoopes and her partner can offer a bit of hope and inspiration to the thousands of high school, college, and professional gay athletes out there. We supposedly live in a free society built upon a foundation of the rights to self-determination and independence. Its about damned time we began to apply that to all of our people, including the gay and lesbian community, on and off the court.

Celebrity Activism: Did Live8 Concerts Really Help, or did they do more Harm than Good?

Interesting article in this morning's Independent (UK) that examines the problems with global poverty relief organizations relying on Western celebrities as spokespersons for the Developing World:

Do stars really aid the cause?
By Stuart Hodkinson, The Independent (London)

...You bought the wristband, went to the concert, joined the march and rejoiced when a deal was struck to save Africa. But don't be fooled - nothing has changed...

* * * * *

... The [Make Poverty History] coalition's anger has intensified over revelations about Live8's paternalistic treatment of African campaigners and their relationship to corporations operating on the continent. Firoze Manji, the co-director of Fahamu, an African social justice network and a member of G-Cap, recounts how the African coalition had planned a concert in Johannesburg in early July to be
held in one of the townships. According to Manji, a meeting of Oxfam GB, Curtis, Geldof and Kumi Naidoo cancelled it in favour of Live8...

- FULL COVERAGE HERE -

Do Westerners, even people like Bono and Bob Geldof, deserve to be treated like the champions of the GLOBAL poverty relief? Are they helping or hurting?

The Spirit of Rosa Parks: Freedom Isn't Free, But Its Value is Weighed Against Legends

When I first heard that Civil Rights pioneer Rosa Parks had died, my first instinct was to weep.

So I did.

So much has already been said about this petite woman, this tiny pillar of conviction and courage, that I find it difficult to find the words to express my gratitude for her leadership and her fortitude.

How does one write a fitting eulogy for a woman who helped a nation liberate itself from its prejudices? Simply by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus 40 years ago this December, Parks helped summon the pallbearers for Jim Crow's funeral. How does one memorialize a legend?

One simply says thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Parks, for showing the world that the true beauty of the American Experiment lies in its everyday heros, the people that change the entire course of a society through simple acts of defiancy. Put enough of these acts together, and one has a social and cultural revolution.

Rosa Parks was an African-American in life, but in death she has transitioned into that parthenon of legends, full of folks with names like Lincoln, Jefferson, King, Roosevelt, Patton, Franklin, Truth, Chief Joseph, and Geronemo.

And that is a place where she rightfully belongs.

Thank you for your courage, ma'am.

The American "Me" and the African AIDS Pandemic

"UN charity Unicef says 18 million children in sub-Saharan Africa could be orphaned by Aids by the end of 2010."

"Nearly 90 million Africans could be infected by HIV in the next 20 years if more is not done to combat the epidemic, the UN has warned. Some 25 million Africans have HIV, which causes Aids, at present."

- BBC News

---

I'm sure there's a lot of folks out there new to the ol' Zenfo Pro site who wonder why I often post about the plight of the people of Sub-Saharan Africa.

It has very little to do with wanting to do some kind of community service or simply trying to make the world a better place. Its more personal than that.

Two of my very good friends, Mesi and Asti, are from Ethiopia. Mesi's fiancee, Mike, hails from Eritrea. My dad was grew up in Egypt. One of the nicest, most compassionate people I met in grad school grew up in Kenya - and never turned a fellow student away when they needed someone to talk to or a hot meal.

Call me selfish, but the idea that the continent that gave rise to human civilization, provided the ancient basis for much of the world's culture, art, and religion, is in such dire straits while the West frets over who stole Britney Spears's baby photos just pisses the hell out of me.

90 million people. Not simply random television footage shot in some remote corner of the world. Men and women, and children. All expected to be infected with HIV in the next two decades, and with the poor state of available health care and medicines on the continent, there's a chance we'll be burying 90 million bodies en masse in 25-30 years.

90 million. That's nearly three times the population of Canada, about one-third of the population of the United States. This is roughly the equivalent of the UN announcing that the entire populations of Belgium, Sweden, Italy, and the Czech Republic are expected to be HIV-positive by 2025.

And 18 million orphans? Angelina Jolie's going to need a bigger house. Every resident of Los Angeles County, Calif., would have to adopt two or more kids to give these children a fighting chance.

What pisses me off even more is the fact that as I write, there's some shoegazing emo kid in Denver overly obsessed with how to be more like Conor Oberst or Chris Carrabas. There's probably some supermodel throwing up her three-carrot dinner in some pub restroom in London. On N. Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, some half-retarded trustfunder's buying a new Gucci manpurse to match his $50 Dolce & Gabbana v-neck tee shirt, that he'll wear underneath a $1,200 Zegna sportscoat to a movie premiere. And none of them give a shit about anything other than preserving their own precious bubble of American self-absorption.

Must be nice to be that full of shit sometimes. Wish I didn't have the luxury of not caring, wish I could just turn off the news and not see the dark bronze faces of people that look like people I know and that I care about.

I'm sure that same self-absorption will do a lot of comfort to the teenage mother in Ghana who just found out that her son's illness was spread to him - and her - by the child's father. Or the old women destined to wail over the bodies of their village's Generation X and Y in places like Chad and Niger.

END TIMES NUT WATCH:Florida's Doomed, Left-Behind Anxiety, Etc...

The "Xanax Might Help, Holmes" Dept:

Recent global disasters are apparently causing apocalyptic anxiety amongst some Christian fringe groups in the US...

From the Indianapolis Star/Newsday:

Every morning, the Rev. Micheal Mitchell prays that if today is the beginning of the end of the world as we know it, he will be ready.

"Ever since the terrorist attacks four years ago, I try to live every day as if it will be the last day," said Mitchell, 46, senior pastor of New Life Tabernacle United Pentecostal Church in New York City's East Flatbush area...

-FULL COVERAGE HERE-

The "God's Still Got a Sense of Humor" Dept:

Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Ott takes a look at the not-so-biblical signs that yes, Pat Robertson may indeed be right that the End Times are upon us...at least when it comes to Tampa's museum district...

...Oh yeah, the signs were everywhere.

The art museum, which was going to transform downtown Tampa into an arts district, mysteriously vanished.

The red tide, which used to be more of an annoyance than anything else, refused to go away.

Politicians began speaking in strange tongues, and some of them appeared to be forked.

One started blathering something about needing to spend $40 million
for a sports complex while the rest of the county was wondering who
was going to fix the sewers....

- FULL COVERAGE HERE-

The "Revelation Will Be Televised" Dept:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer unearthed this piece of apocalyptic entertainment news. Apparently, Sony wasn't expecting the latest film adaptation of the Left Behind series to be a big seller...

A new film, "Left Behind: World at War," from Sony Pictures, opens this weekend at more than a dozen area screens - television screens, that is.

By Sunday, the apocalyptic thriller will have shown at more than 130 Ohio churches and schools and some 3,000 throughout North America..
.- FULL COVERAGE HERE-

Intelligent Design an Equal to Modern Evolutionary Biology?:When Faith Loses Focus, Dogmatic Science Is Born

I finally read through Cornell Interim President Hunter Rawlings's State of the University Address this morning. For those unaware, Rawlings recently became the first major academician to speak out against the Intelligent Design hysteria that's been sweeping across these States.

Rawlings's address is probably the first in of its kind that hasn't bored me to tears or served as a temporary cure for insomnia. Ask anyone who's ever had to sit through one of these things, and you'll soon discover I'm probably not alone. Normally, university presidents use this type of forum to try to make their institution look and feel better than it really is.

Instead, Rawlings used his speech to raise the warning flag on a serious issue that's bigger and more important than one single university.

Intelligent Design sounds like a legitimate scientific theory -- on the surface. But a close analysis reveals that its simply bad science, a smoke-and-mirrors charade more worthy of a exhibit in a Ripley's Museum than in the classroom. Its main proponents are not the great minds of science but leading members of the Christian community, many of whom are staunch critics of anything that would dare question the evolution of mankind as presented in the Book of Genesis.

While Intelligent Design theories have been advocated from many a pulpit, it has been ignored, even ridiculed by an extreme majority of biologists.

The belief that somehow the teaching of human evolutionary theory has corrupted the faithful or invited Satan into the classroom is absurd. Intelligent Design was born out of that absurdity - a theory based more on one particular set of religious teachings than on universally accepted principles of scientific research and scholarship.

Its proponents, in the end, do more to harm to the Body of Christ than good, creating the very human sin of stringing together obscure ideologies in an attempt to defeat some imaginary conspiracy against God. To that end, the attempt to introduce Biblical creationism into the hard sciences is more akin to the insanity of the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials than to any great intellectual or philosophical pursuit.

Religious belief and science are not the opposing forces that many people - theologians as well as hardcore secular humanists - portray. Scientific and religious thought, to the contrary, have long served as the buttresses that support human civilization, not merely balancing one another but helping to support the human need to build a better world. While scientific thinkers like Ben Franklin, Marie Curie and Isaac Newton helped show man new ways to harness nature's power for good, clerics like St. John of the Cross, Francis of Asissi, and Martin Luther King helped show man the awesome power of the human soul.

The real danger posed by theories like Intelligent Design and the Creation Science fable is not in the immediate impact sought by its proponents and supporters; instead, it is the long-term effect caused by those seeking to divorce scientific thought from religious thought, with one set of ideas seeking to supercede the other.

This sort of heresy leads only to human grief and suffering for the sake of ideological polarity; when religion supercedes science, men like Galileo end up excommunicated or burned at the stake. When scientific exploration loses its spiritual meaning, the doors are opened up for accepting the torture and execution of people as a legitimate form of experimentation - a gory lesson the world learned thanks to the Third Reich.

Intelligent Design may have its place, but it is not in the research labs of schools or universities.

HAMILTON CONFIDENTIAL: Keeping History from Repeating Itself...Epilogue

HAMILTON, Ohio (ZP) -- Its been two weeks since I've been down to Hamilton. Mainly because I've been afraid I'll run into someone I'm really not interested in seeing while out shopping.

The person in question, whom I'll call Chase, and I didn't exactly part ways on the best of terms. For one, I decided at a rather awkward moment that I've got way too much self-respect for a quick fling with a woman who already has a boyfriend and a child. Secondly, I'm pretty sure (as in 99.997% sure) that I conveyed, probably bluntly, that I'm not interested in being someone's crutch or escape hatch anymore. And I'm certain that, regardless of how much she wanted something to happen, I was sure I didn't want to go down that path.

More importantly in terms of my physical well-being, I'm even less interested in running into her step-brother, who I'll call Pete. Pete is not only Chase's kin, but he also works for the same construction company as her beau. I haven't heard from him in two weeks, and he hasn't heard from me. Probably best to leave it that way. Pete's a big guy with a temper and a drinking problem.

Anyway, I figured I'd make the trip to Hamilton Saturday. Throw fate to the wind. Besides, if I was destined to get snuffed by a girl's irrate boyfriend or kin, it would've happened to me a long time ago, back when I really was a total bastard. Besides, Goodwill was having another 50% Off Sale and I needed some new pants.

I pulled off at a gas station in Hamilton to grab some smokes and fill up my tank. While I'm at the pump, someone hollers from a passing pick-up and waves. The truck pulls up beside me and this skinny redhead in a cowboy hat grins at me.

No clue who she was.

Turns out she lives across the street from Pete and his roomates. Met me a couple of times at Pete's house. Girlfriend of one of the roomates.

Shit.

We talked for about 30 minutes in the parking lot. I got the rest of the story about what happened after I'd dropped Chase off at the house...

Essentially, things ended up going down pretty much how I expected. She made a big scene that night, told her beau that she was leaving him, that she was going to move to Memphis, and that she'd cheated on him - with me. She then went off the deep end, claiming that we'd been having this (imaginary) torrid affair for months. Additionally, she claimed, in front of a living room full of people, that she'd been cheating on him since she found out she was pregnant, that he was horrible in bed, that the baby might not be his, and that she wasn't really abusing Adderall.

Okay...now I'm certain, beyond a reasonable doubt, I made the right call in not getting involved.

I asked the redhead what she thought really happened two weeks ago.

She said she figured Chase made it all up, because, in her opinion, Chase was completely nuts. She also said I seemed like too smart of a guy to fall into that trap. I told her what really happened and she laughed hard. She told me that's what she figured that's how things really went down. Apparently, I wasn't the first guy she'd tried to use as baby-daddy repellant.

Yeah. Glad I trusted my gut on that one. And my moral compass. Guess they both come in handy sometimes.

Speaking of the Undead..Hometown of GWAR Hosts 2005 Zombie Walk

Found this juicy little bit over at Sound Destruction about the 2005 RICHMOND ZOMBIE WALK.

The event was organized by the folks over at I-Mockery and featured dozens of folks wandering around the one-time Capital of the Confederacy's downtown in search of brains...BRAAAIINSSS!

(Speaking of which, no clue why this guy took a bite out of my arm last night over by the cemetery. I look like shit this morning, green and achy. And I have a temperature of 70 degrees or so...can't be good. Probably just bird flu...And for some reason, people's heads are starting to smell like mom's home cookin'.... )

For those who don't understand the whole brains thing, please check out the 1985 punk-zombie-dark-comedy horror flick, Return of the Living Dead. The soundtrack's hard to come by, but anyone who's a fan of TSOL or 45 Grave should try to dig up a copy on vinyl...

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Note to people who work in archives, museums, or other historical document repositories trying to work your way up the institutional ladder...

If you find a metal vat with the these markings (image at left) while cleaning out your basement, please insist that your curator or director open it. Tell them that its a gift from a valuable donor or something. Your local custodians, coroner's office, and National Guard unit may be a bit pissed, but hey, it could lead to a promotion.

Zen and the Art of the Living Dead:New DVDs in the ZenFo Pro Collection

Well, its the Halloween season, and that means its time to add a few new DVDs to the ol' ZenFo Pro film library.

Halloween, as I've mentioned before, is probably my favorite season. Maybe it comes from the fact that I watched too much late night horror flicks as a kid. Maybe it comes from the fact that its the only holiday where people are encouraged to give candy to children in return for a bit of a scare.

Scary movies are my thing, regardless of the time of year. Not stupid, dimwit slasher flicks filled with more tits-and-ass than is needed to carry the story, but films that make the pulse race and the heart skip a beat. Tales filled with the supernatural, the conflict between mere mortals and the mysterious forces that stalk them like a demon possessed zombie.

Anyway, I've always loved a good scare. I guess its the closeted Goth kid buried somewhere inside, catalogued in the back of my brain somewhere between the grocery list and my oft-beleaguered inner child.

DVDs added this month so far:

1. Land of the Dead (2005, Dolby 5.1, US and Canada)
You gotta check this one out. Asia Argento is the hottest zombie-killing machine to ever grace the screen. Career character actor Eugene Clark (at right, as "Big Daddy")steals the movie as the lead zombie. Clark has no speaking lines, just gutteral, undead sounds. Yet he successfully turns what the long-feared flesheating zombie mythos on its side, delivering a performance that leaves the viewer feeling more sympathy for the undead than for the living.

2. Nosferatu (1922, silent, Germany, B&W).
Max Schreck created the vampire genre with his chilling, sinister performance as Count Olaf.

3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919, silent, Germany, B&W).
A masterpiece of German silent cinema.

4. Night of the Living Dead (1968, B&W, US)
George Romero cast African-American actor Duane Jones in the lead for this film, making it the first horror flick to star a black man...as something other than a witchdoctor or a servant. Jones was not cast to make a political statement against the rampant racism of the era, but, according to some reports, the sight of a black man slapping a hysterical white woman drew more gasps in the segregated South than the gory special effects.

5. Dead Men Walk (1943, B&W, US)
Total cheese vampire flick.

6. The Invisible Ghost (1941, B&W, US)
Romantic ghost story starring Bela Legosi.

7. La Muerte Viviente ("The Snake People" American Title, 1971, Mexico)
One of Boris Karloff's last films. Features the eternally-sensual Yolanda Montes (better known as Tongolele, at right), perhaps the best known exotic dancer in Latin American cinema.

Montes's perfomances in several of these low-budget films is said to have influenced the development of Salma Hayek's character in the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino flick, From Dusk Til Dawn.

DeLayed Sentencing: 10 Minute Fun with PhotoShop

Zenformation Playlist 10/21/05:Aha! Its Happy Fridays, Happy Hour Coming!

1. Me and Mia - Ted Leo/Pharmicists
From the 2004 Lookout! Release, Shake the Sheets.

2. Ride the Nuclear Wave - The Oranges Band
Another Lookout! artist, from their 2005 release.

3. Mince Meat - DangerDoom (MF Doom and Danger Mouse)
What do you get when a emcee named for a Marvel Comics villian and a DJ who wears a mouse suit on stage record an album based on Cartoon Network cartoons?

4. Mission - The Phenomenauts
I've never really been able to figure out these guys. Are they rockabilly? Are they Devo disciples? Either way, still dig these guys from East Bay.

6. You Move - Blackalicious

I've always been a fan of the use of random heavy distortion guitar samples in hip-hop. And complex rhymes and that old school flow. This track actually reminds me of a song called "Suzie's World," by Professor Griff. I know, pretty random.

7. El Diablo en el Ojo - Tindersticks

When I was a radio DJ many moons ago, I remember I was never cool enough to play any Tindersticks, especially anything off this track off their 1995's Tindersticks Second Album. Now, every acoustic quasi-emo folk artist collaborative wants to do projects like this.

8. By the Time I Get to Arizona - Public Enemy

I remember vividly the controversy surrounding this song. Chuck D wanted to send a message to Arizona politicians, who cited the state's lack of an African-American population as reason enough for not honoring the memory of Martin Luther King. So Chuck and co. issued this track, with the help of Sista Soulja, with a line that was interpretted as a death threat against the then-Arizona governor.

9. Quarto - Calexico

10. Midnight in a Perfect World - DJ Shadow
From the 1996 release Entroducing...

Don't Drop the Soap, Mr. DeLay: U.S. GOP Leader Faces Arrest Warrant

Sure, its only symbolic. And he'll be out on bail shortly. But just imagine the possibilities...

- READ BRIEF HERE -

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From the Seattle Times Capital Watch:

AUSTIN, Texas — A state court issued an arrest warrant yesterday for U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, requiring him to appear in Texas for booking on conspiracy and money-laundering charges.

The court set an initial $10,000 bail as a routine step before the Texas Republican's first court appearance tomorrow...

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Cat People? You Don't Believe in Cat People, Do You?

Caught Cat People (RKO, 1944) on cable last night. Forgot how suave and dark this film - and producer Val Lewton's body of work - really is. Must add to my favorites list. The cinematography is stellar given the fact that the film was shot on such a low budget.

Awesome noir horror flick. A tale about a cursed woman who can't get aroused, else she turns into a raging wild animal and goes on the prowl for blood.

I've always loved the work of RKO poster illustrator William Rose - the artist responsible for so many amazing noir, suspense and horror posters at that studio. He was also W.R. Hearst's big illustrator.

Check out some of Rose's work here. He's also the guy responsible for the posters for Citizen Kane.

Beat on the Brat with a Baseball Bat...

Okay, something to finally make my day. And I thought I was starting to finally grow up...

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You Are a Punk Rocker!

When it comes to rock, you don't follow any rules You know that rocking out is all about taking down the man You've got an incredible stage presence and rock persona You scare moms, make bad girls (or boys) swoon, and live life on the edge!

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

OXFORD CONFIDENTIAL:I've Gotten a Little Too Comfortable Being Single?!?.

Boring day at work. After getting used to having a million things going at once, my workload's about 90% back on schedule. After spending the last three months running in between meetings, offices, and parts of town, things are beginning to level off.

Great. Now what am I going to do?

I ended up spending the day getting some old administrative things out of the way. Catching up on paperwork, digitizing some floorplans, and even managed to get caught up on e-mail. Minimal meetings, and one was a lunch phonecall with a friend.

Sweetness.

I get into an elevator this afternoon with this woman. I politely ask her if she's enjoying the wonderful fall weather. She says yes, but neither she nor her roomates can figure out how to get the heat working in their new place.

So I give her my number, tell her to give me a call at about five or so. I've fixed everything from heaters to furnaces to doorknobs for people - its probably a simple fix, I tell her, and I'd be more than willing to stop by and check it out.

So she gives me a call at 5:30 or so. I stop by on my way home. Turns out, it was indeed the waterheater - somebody must've turned off the gas to the furnace.

While I'm working on getting the pilot light relit, this girl started asking me a lot of questions. (Who moves into a house with a gas furnace and DOESN'T keep matches handy? Do you know how hard it is to light a pilot with a frigging Zippo?)

She asked what I did at the library. She asked me why I was in Oxford. She asked how old I was. She asked me what I do for fun.

And then she asked me if I had a girlfriend. I said no. She asked if I was seeing anyone. I said no.

She mumbled something, then left the pantry for her kitchen. While I'm working the coverplate back into place, I hear the sound of three destinct women's voices and a guy - the roomates, I guess? All four are speaking in that "loud whisper argument" voice - soft enough where I can't make out what they're saying, loud enough where I can hear them in the room where I'm working while the door's shut.

Feeling awkward, I start singing to myself. Whistling. I was hoping the roomies weren't mad that this girl had brought a total stranger home to fix a furnace, rather than call the landlord. To make things worse, I heard some door slam shut.

Awkward...yeah.

So I fix things up, get the gas flowing, and the Lord sayeth, "Let there be heat!" And there was. I quietly snuck out to the hallway to check the thermostat. The girl who'd asked me to look at it was standing there fiddling with it. I squeeze between her and the meter (tiny place), figuring she'd move out of the way. She doesn't; she just stands there pressed between me and the wall.

This girl is like breathing down my neck, asking if I wanted something to eat.

Told her I was fine.
Then she asked me if I wanted a beer or something.

I said no thank you and asked her what temperature she liked to keep the place. She asked me where I lived and what temperature I preferred.

I finished up and left. She followed me out to the curband thanked me for helping her out.

I stopped on my way home for a cup of coffee. As I'm sitting there reading, I kept wondering if I'd somehow missed something. I had to call a female friend of mine up for something else anyway, so I told her the story, and she laughed.

She wouldn't tell me why she laughed, but she said I've gotten too comfortable being single...

What the hell does that mean?

THE WAR ON INFORMATION POVERTY: Progressive Group calls on Congress to Combat Digital Divide

Congress Needs to Address the Digital Divide - 2005

by Mark Lloyd, Center for American Progress

In 1995 the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce (NTIA) issued its first comprehensive report on the access of all Americans to advanced telecommunications services. “Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the 'Haves' and 'Have Nots' in Rural and Urban America” documented a disturbing disparity in access to computers and the Internet. In 1998, NTIA called its report “Falling Through the Net II: New Data on the Digital Divide.” The term “digital divide” proved very useful in drawing attention to the problem of inequality in an America increasingly dependent upon information technology. And in 1996, Congress established policy to monitor the access of all Americans to advanced communications technology and required all telecommunications companies to contribute to a fund that would help bridge the gap between the “information haves” and the “information have-nots.”

Those seem like the good old days...

-READ FULL ARTICLE HERE -

DARFUR CRISIS:Miami Alum DeWine Cosponsors Darfur Peace and Accountability Act

Senator and Miami Alum Mike DeWine (R, Ohio) is cosponsoring a bill in the U.S. Senate aimed at helping end the crisis in the Darfur region.

The bipartisan legislation has gained support from both sides of the aisle, with the likes of Sens. Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) and Diane Fienstein (D, Calif.) teaming up with James InHolfe (R, Okla.) and Elizabeth Dole (R, NC) to help bring justice and aid to war-torn Sudan.

Government officials in the U.S. and other western nations have previously been criticized by various human rights organizations for a lack of action involving the reported genocide in the region.

This bill, S.1462, outlines steps toward ending the violence in Darfur. The bill would help expand and strengthen the African Union mission to better protect civilians, impose focused sanctions on individuals responsible for atrocities in Darfur, and support peace negotiations to resolve the conflict.

The bill is currently in committee. A similar bill, H.R. 3127, has also been sponsored in the House of Representatives.

To help insure the bill makes it to a vote on the Senate floor, the Genocide Intervention Fund , the Save Darfur Coalition, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation are coordinating a massive National Call-In Day, where supporters of the measure are asked to contact their Washington delegation to solicit support Oct. 18.

The event's coordinators are asking that supporters of the measure contact the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be put in contact with the offices of their state's delegation.

DeWine is currently the only Ohio official cosponsoring the measure.

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Thanks to Alice: Wonderland or Not for the info!

Acting a Fool:Changing up the Layout a Bit

As you've probably noticed by now, I've swapped out the colors on the ol' Zenfo Pro template, replacing them with a new batch of CMYK/hexadecimal colors, just in time for the Fall Blog Fashion Season...

Had a student ask me to turn my truck stereo down at a stoplight. He was, ironically, wearing a Dead Kennedys tee-shirt...

Had an older woman at the laundrymat become the 5,000,000th person to compliment me on my grandfather's grey Stetson yesterday. Her grandson asked me if I was a cowboy. I lied and said I was, and he was too. Never realized before how uncommon it is to see a guy under 60 wearing a cowboy hat anymore, Kid Rock and most country singers excluded. Her son even drew a picture of me to show his mother...

Had a student walk into my office today and ask if my name was Jamie. Then she asked me if I had a brother named Jamie. Then she left...

Mondays...gotta love 'em.

Alma Mater News:Cal Poly Football Ranked No. 3 in I-AA Polls

Don't normally get excited about college football, but my alma mater/former sportsbeat just moved a little closer to a national football title.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 17, 2005

Cal Poly Football Achieves Highest Ranking in National Polls

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly has achieved its highest ranking ever in Division I-AA football.

Cal Poly climbed three positions to No. 3 in the two NCAA Division I-AA polls following a bye week, due in large part to the fact the Nos. 1-, 2- and 4-ranked teams all lost last weekend.

Cal Poly was ranked as high as No. 5 in the 2004 polls, winning its first seven games before suffering back-to-back losses to UC Davis and Eastern Washington.

Prior to the 2004 season, Cal Poly¹s highest ranking was No. 14 after winning its first three games of the 2003 season. Cal Poly was ranked No. 16 in the final poll of the 1997 season, finishing 10-1.

Gonzo Librarianship:Understanding Users By Experiencing the User's Perspective

In the I-World, librarians, particularly librarians who've joined the profession in the last decade, have been trained to examine the information-seeking behavior of users as a means to meet their ever-changing information needs.

For those who've lived under a rock for the past few decades, libraries are no longer about simply providing patrons with the latest trade paperbacks or research materials. Libraries are expected to serve as the community cultural centers, to provide access to not only books but the World Wide Web, audiovisual materials, children's materials, archival material, and the like. Libraries are increasingly called upon to provide space for informal learning opportunities as well - places like study rooms, public meeting rooms, coffee shops, etc.

I'll skip the rest of the professional mumbo-jumbo for now. The point here is libraries and librarians must continously reevaluate services and products to gaurantee they're meeting the changing needs of their users.

While many academic and public librarians advocate the adoption of often complex surveying methods to conduct user needs analysis, most libbies have little or no time to actually conduct such research. The professional literature is full of examples of years-long research and analysis articles, some of which provide very valuable insight into the world of Joe-Sixpack and his reading habits. Others, however, often leave the reader scratching their heads, wondering how much free time the research authors had on their hands or asking "damn, getting tenure at XYZ University must be easy."

While such methodology is indeed valuable in the hands of the right iCowboys, I prefer a more personal, immediate approach to understanding the research behavior of my patrons. Since librarians also have this nasty habit of citing the most obscure scholars as inspiration for their methods, I'll add mine here...

Hunter S. Thompson.

Like the great Doctor Gonzo, I don't want to simply understand what users want or expect by writing boring articles about it. I want to feel what they feel, to put myself in their shoes and to walk the untold miles. When I need to answer a question, say, about what patrons think about my institution, I simply go to where the patrons go when they're not in the library. It can be a bar or a houseparty on the weekends. It can be a club meeting or a concert. And it can be at a nightclub, dancing wih a girl and asking where she likes to study or why she uses libraries.

I know there are a lot of libbies who still buy into the "library science" crap. The science part is often trivial and watered down, a weak sister version of the more vital field of information science. (Information science, for those non-iPros, is in its simplest form the study of the asking and answering of questions. It is the field of study where intelligence-gathering, espionage, librarianship, computer science, psychology, and anthropology meet on equal ground to understand the human quest for more knowledge.)

While Information Science provides me with the meat-and-potatoes hardcore research, I treat librarianship like a fine art, inspired by that area of scholarship. Librarians are not researchers, we're artists, painting our masterworks in the bright Technicolor of the Information Age. Librarianship is just as sensual and seductive as any D.H. Lawrence novel or Miles Davis recording. Properly harnessed, I believe libraries can expose as much passion and subsequent orgasmic energy in populations as an all-night dance club or a Mardi Gras ball. And I think, though many of my colleagues may disagree, being a librarian sometimes feels just as damn sexy and smooth as a Grey Goose martini at a blues concert.

Librarianship is not about hard science. Librarianship, for me, is about the calming of nerves, the conveying of firm confidence and reassurance, the negotiation of a question to get the simplest answer. There should be lots of eye contact with patrons. There should be smiles and even laughter. And there should, above all, be a since of fulfillment by all parties involved.

So, to better understand what my clients need from me and my library, I go to where they live. I meet them as an equal about town to meet them on more level ground in the office. I don't want to have to rely on often boring and complex research as my sole source of user needs analysis.

Rest in peace, Hunter. And thanks for your contribution to my professional training. Makes for some interesting information literacy training sessions...

Jasoba Fett Finally Eaten By Sandworms:E-mail Overload Leads Zenfo Pro to (Probably) Dumb Conclusion

Okay. Deep breath. Wow.

Since apparently a portions of the small hamlet of Oxford and even smaller Miami bubble apparently read my blog, the Jasoba Fett profile image is gone. I figure there really isn't much point in protecting my identity locally anymore, since all semblance of that went right out the window a while ago.

I've replaced it with a real photograph of real, honest-to-god me. I found this image going through some old e-mails. My friend Jenny took this picture of me a few months ago. She thought it was pretty funny to snap a picture of me to capture my look of groggy annoyance at waking up to find my chest shaved.

In all reality, I do know better. I'm an iPro. I get paid to teach people that there really is no such thing as anonymity in cyberspace. I just had no clue how many lurkers out there there were. I've always been resistant to putting a hit counter up - I really don't think I want to know.

I got 24 e-mails as a result of the last few posts. This time, I responded to each one, thanking them for their interest in my site, answering various questions about my "status." (I'm still single, really not interested in planning for a relationship with this person, etc.) I have no clue why. What's so interesting to your average Miami student? Is it the fact that I had an image of a Star Wars character super-imposed over the Library of Congress Reading Room?

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E-MAIL SNIPPETS:

...Do you hang out with a bartender named [Jane Doe] at Mac and Joes (a local bar)? ...

...this girl is probably trouble. I'll bet she's your stereotypical Miami skank and you're just caught ip (sic) in her quest for her MRS degree...
(Thanks for the warning.)

....do you think I'm cute?... (There was a photo attached.)
(I said yes, then asked why a first-year student needed a 27-year-old guy to tell her that.)

...you sound like such an intelligent caring guy. I think you just need to watch out for girls around here though. And thanks for helping me with the paper last semester!...
(I thanked this guy for the shout-out.)

...Hey, were you sitting in front of Alumni Hall eating lunch and talking on your cell. I'm sorry for eavesdropping, but I realized you answered your phone saying this is Jason. Then I saw you in [MY] Library...
(I acknowledged yes and thanked her for her observations)

...you talked to my class this week, didn't you? OMG! I knew it was you when you started talking about the digital divide! That's so awesome!...
(I thanked her for her interest in my research area.)

...Zenfo, I hear ya brother. That G guys right, dude. Watch out for those warning signs...[Writer's Ex] was like boning my roommate all last semester, bro. My best friend! Took her back, she did it again. These girls around here ain't worth shit. You can drink with me and my boys any time.
(I sent my sincerest regrets for his experiences, expressed my gratitude for the offer.)

...one of my friends thinks you're a very nice guy...
(I said thanks.)

...Did you like hook up with some chick named brandi this summer...a friend of mine said she heard from somebody at the library that you and this chick were like a couple or something...
(Lord, that came out of left-field...I answered that I had heard- and dispelled - a similar, less sleazy sounding rumor this summer and that there is no truth to what her friend's friend's friends heard whatsoever.)

...do you like work out at the Rec? You've gotten kind of buff. Hope this girl's worth it. Now that I know you are the same guy who's always on his cell phone at Kofenya...
(I thanked the girl for noticing. No, I don't. Just work out at home. And yes, I'm on my cell way too much.)

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As you can see from the photograph, the Zenfo Pro is just a normal, kinda weird guy. I'm not Superman. I know there are some folks who think I lead some kind of exciting life. I'm pretty much a homebody. I like my quiet time. There's no stream of women in and out of my life. I don't live like Hugh Hefner. If you see me on the street, I don't bite. Just say hi. I'd like to think I haven't lost all of my people skills living in Oxford.

For whatever reason you find my blog interesting, thanks for reading. Especially the regular commenters here. You all have offered a lot of great ideas, sharing your voice and compassion across cyberspace. That's pretty bad ass in my book.

The Right Kind of Meeting:A Run-In with the Past and Admitting When You're Wrong...

This morning,I ran into a girl I was briefly involved with while I was outside my workplace answering a phonecall from a contractor. I haven't seen or really talked to this person since things ended, rather awkwardly (my bad) in the Spring.

When she stopped, I swallowed my pride, told the contractor I'd call him back, and decided I probably should say something.

So we talked. I don't like loose strings. I don't like leaving questions unanswered, especially when its so easy to just ask.

After talking for a few minutes, I realized how much of a total dick I had been towards the end of things. This is a brilliant person, someone who I had fallen madly in love with, and someone who I let my self-imposed blindness and selfishness get in the way of doing the right thing by stepping back.

Since she and I last talked, I think we both have done a lot of maturing, readjusting, and figuring out a bit more of who we really want out of life. I also realized she was in a much better place, healthier, more alive than I ever remember seeing or hearing her.

And I realized, too, that I'm in a much better place, despite an increased workload and a bit more stress. I go out and socialize with people. I don't treat my time in Oxford as a prison sentence anymore, but rather as just one of life's interesting twists and turns.

It was a pleasant conversation, a grown-up conversation, and something free of all of that past baggage...at least from my end of things. And she's even considering librarianship as a possible career option and thanked me for introducing her to it.

She said she'd like to go to lunch sometime. Why not? She's a very cool person to hang out with - one of the most interesting people I've met in my time here. And it seems like we've probably got a lot of catching up to do. No strings attached, no expectations, just lunch.

Maybe we can help each other answer some of those unanswered questions.

Zenformation Playlist 10/12/05:...The Recently Discovered Old School Mix Tape

I'd rather have a hundred thousand or a million people saying I'm nuts and I'm crazy for my musical choices and what I've said lyrically, than a million people all raising their hand on the first day.
- Chuck D., Public Enemy

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There's something missing lately from the mainstream hip-hop scene. Maybe its the lack of any hope, or the lack of creativity on the turntables, or the discarded sense of ghetto intellect. Its sad, really. Where once rap music served as a means for poor folks to escape the tragedies of American poverty, now the push is to market and repackage some of those same tragedies to kids in the suburbs. Instead of sreaming "Take from the Man What's Rightfully Yours," the majority in the mainstream scream "Become the Man and Sell Out Your Community."

I recently rediscovered an old mix tape, the label worn down to nothing. This was probably recorded for me by a buddy of mine on my high school track team, a guy named Eddie. Eddie was 340 lbs of pure black rage who would later go on to play college football at a traditionally black college in Virginia, and, as rumor has it, successfully court a Ms. Black Virginia Pageant contestant using only his mad, dope, fly...hiaku skills.

Those of us who lived in what was often referred to as the "Booshes" (rural po' folk pronunciation of bushes) often swapped mix tapes as way to . We shared tons of new music, old school jams, and beat-box beats as a way to liven up normally boring trips through rural central Virginia. Ahh...the mix tape. The original P2P file sharing software...

A sampling of the songs from that tape:

1. Left My Wallet in El Segundo - A Tribe Called Quest
One of the most bizarre, random hip-hop songs of all time. How many rap songs include slick lines like "And Ali had the fruit punch?" Almost forgot the lyrics to this one.

2. Burn Hollywood Burn - Public Enemy
What happens when you turn Ice Cube, Big Daddy Kane, and Public Enemy loose in a recording studio? You get a riveting three minute manifesto about the racial stereotypes prevelant in mainstream culture. I don't think much has changed, except now the majority of mainstream rap acts are more interested in selling Uncle Tom than fighting him.

3. Going Back to Cali - LL Cool J
The first time I went back to my hometown after moving to California, every guy I grew up with would always make some reference to this song when I explained why I had no desire to move back to Farmville, Virginia.

4. Sometimes I Ryhmn Slow - Nice N Smooth
Rather obscure early 90s hip-hop act. These guys took a Tracy Chapman guitar loop, a little bit of that old school drum machine, and some creative lyrics. No bitches or hos, no drinking Crystal. Just a very real narrative about a relationship with "Jane Doe" and coping with the issues of dating someone who thinks Emcees are just ghetto versions of ATM machines.

5. Brooklyn Lullaby - Lordz of Brooklyn
This song may hold the record for "Most Children Conceived to the Soundtrack from an Independent Hip-Hop Mafia Film." Smooth and gruff. Quiet acoustic instumental arrangements overlayed with lyrics about Gambinos, mob hits, comic book references, and cement shoes. I knew a lot of black guys who used this song as their "player" song - never realizing the song was recorded by a bunch of Italian American taggers from New York.

6. Papi Chulo - Funkdoobiest
Think, from the song title, most people can figure this one out. Sun Doobie, the leader of the group, went on to star in numerous adult films, curiously. There are two versions of this track, one in English and one en espanol.

7. I Know You Got Soul - Eric B. and Rakim

Eric B. is still regarded as one of the best emcees of all time, simply for the fact that he had this menacing flow that embarrassed a lot of other cats. There were two kinds of emcees I grew up with - those who wanted to sound like MC Hammer and those who wanted to be Eric B. The latter were often invited to perform with my band and other hardcore punk acts or vise versa. DJ Inc, the Bootcamp Chics, Angry Nigga Mob...angry kids with more passion and punk attitude than your average Green Day fan. How many rap acts have the guts to sample the Dead Kennedys or loop some Soundgarden? It was such a wierd mix. I even performed a live, punk version of the Gravediggaz' "1-800 SUICIDE" with Inc and ANM at a couple of house parties.

8. Walk This Way - RUN-DMC
Run DMC remain the kings of rock, there is none higher. Sucker emcees still call them sire. These guys from Hollis ressurected Aerosmith's career.

9. The Gun Tower - Ice T

10. Slam - ONYX and Biohazard
Why oh why did Limp Bizkit ever come into existence? Did the world really need Fred Durst to ruin the whole concept of rapping over live rock? Nobody's ever been scared of Fred Durst...well, maybe Justin Timberlake. But Evan Seinfeld and Sticky Fingaz? I'd cross the street.

Hope for Liberia:Americans May Need to Look Towards its Struggling Sister

I woke up this morning excited about the Presidential Elections.

Not the stupid "Hillary vs. Rudy Giuliani" garbage being spewed by the talking heads. Not the Democratic Party hand-wringing or the Republican Party jockeying, either.

There's another presidential election, going on right now, on the other side of the world, that should give all Americans hope.

Liberia, a nation partly founded by former American slaves and partly by the various backroom dealings of some of the United States' most visible 19th century leaders, went to the polls yesterday, choosing from 22 potential candidates for the first time since the fall of the Charles Taylor regime.

Liberia has too long been that wild step-sister that Americans refuse to look squarely in the eye. Its capital, Monrovia, is named for a former U.S. president. The tiny nation's Founding Fathers were not born in Africa, but were exiled former slaves born in places like Ohio, Virginia, and New England.

Part of the self-imposed blindness, I suppose, comes from the fact that much of Liberia's history, through the 1970s, mirrors a bleak reflection of the most embarrassing and tragic portions of own history. Liberia's founders first purchased an island from local tribal leaders and then took the rest through conquest. The founders of the American colonies did the same thing. The former American Free Men of Color modeled a lot of elements of their society after the 19th century stylings of their American siblings- including the adoption of the "civilized" practices of forced labor and slavery, political nepotism, and suppression of native religious beliefs to bolster Christianity.

When America finally came to its senses and finally began to reject many of these wholesale practices, Liberia flourished under our own antiquated system. The Native African population was eventually given some voting rights, but still lived under Liberia's own version of Jim Crow. Unlike the United States, where the prosperity and superpower status after the Second World War led to a Civil Rights revolution and turned people like Martin Luthor King and Caesar Chavez into a generation's liberators, Liberia went the eventual, inevitable route of murderous chaos due - a silly racial split based on silly childish prejudices left over from the 1800s.

Its an interesting thing to ponder...could the American Cultural Revolution of the mid 20th century ended differently? What if the voices of non-violent change had been ignored in favor of militant change and bloody counter-resistance? While the news footage of peaceful marchers in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama, being attacked by police dogs and fire hoses is still hauntingly disturbing, what would American Society be like today had those same protestors decided to raid a national guard armory before the protest? What if AIM (The American Indian Movement) leaders had really spurned massive violent resistance to White America? Or the Black Panther Movement had turned completely from local defense to strategically significant offense?

America's social and cultural prestige in the world is not owned to a nation's reliance on the gun or a nuclear arsenal. It is reliant on our peacemakers and the frequent ability to peaceably assemble, speak, and to, more importantly, to reach compromise through our democratic system. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Now Liberia, after years of bloody civil war, mass rapes and killings, and child armies roaming the streets, is holding free elections. The next President of Liberia may be former AC Milano footballer George Weah. It could also be Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who could be the first woman ever elected to lead an African nation. The Liberian ballot is full of a nation's best and brightest, its social critics, its dissident voices, its most violent advocates for change, and its truest representatives.

In many ways, its recent violent history has brought Liberia back to its true ideological roots, the purest intent of the democracy its society is modeled after. These principles, of course, remain the United States most important export - often, in spite of our own actions. The men and women who founded our own country, in spite of their flaws, outlined what it takes to make freedom work. And they realized, too, that peaceful resolution and individual human rights are indeed compatible.

These principles rang true in 1700s America. And, hopefully, they will hold true in 21st century Liberia. The responsibility of a free society is to elect its best advocates of freedom, not the best advocates for a particular ideology, political party, or special interest group.

Maybe there's a lesson in there, somewhere, that the United States can learn from its maturing baby sister.

Ever Have One of those Days...

...when the only thing you want to do after work is put on the Breeders' Last Splash album, light a few candles, burn some incense, and just feel yourself breathe?

When work goes to hell, there's always those peaceful times when nobody's around - no cell phone vibrating in my pocket, no office phone ringing off the hook, no computer crashes, no people in and out of the office.

Have a bit of turkey and some yogurt. Do my push-ups as the disc changer flips over to the Dogmatics' 1981-1986 (Vagrant CD compilation, 1998), probably one of the best underground acts in the history of underground music.

Sometimes, Tuesday nights can be as wonderful as Friday nights.

Police Brutality, Post-Traumatic Stress, or Both?:New Orleans, Post-Katrina

For many who've watched the videotaped beating of retired schoolteacher Robert Davis at the hands of NOPD officers and auxilary police, this may appear to be an open-and-shut case.

Three cops bludgeoning a man in front of a video camera is obviously police brutality. The officers have been arraigned at the devastated city's makeshift courthouse, a federal civil rights investigation has been opened, and the officers have all been suspended without pay.

But is this a hate crime based on Davis's race or just a symptom of a bigger problem.

Almost everyone I've ever met from New Orleans has a story about police brutality, corruption, and scandal. I've heard stories of the "accepted" practice of offering "Ben Franklin" ($100 USD) as ID during a traffic stop. I've heard the tales of Mardi Gras beatings and shakedowns of tourists. And I've even witnessed a few brutal detainments at that same intersection (Conti and Bourbon Streets) that made me cringe. A long-running joke in floating around the rest of the state described life in New Orleans, even prior to Katrina, as being like living in another country - a Third World country.

Given what I've seen and heard, that's not that far from the truth.

But I've also known a couple of NPD officers, too. A friend of mine from grad school dated one of the Crescent City's finest. He even hooked us up with an ride in a cruiser once after a day of partying during Carnival. He had a big heart, a good head on his shoulders, and seemed to be an all-around decent guy.

I once had a drunken German kid reach into my pick-up window at a stoplight, apparently looking for a light. The guy caught me off-guard, and, with a quick hook to the face, I sent this guy to the ground, nose gushing blood, probably a few teeth knocked loose. I noticed an officer standing leaning against his cruiser nearby, who instructed me to pull over. Then, just as that pit in my stomach started setting in, the officer looked at the guy, made a gesture indicating the guy was drunk, then waved me on. Why hassle with somebody for defending himself. Its just more paperwork, more court appearances, and all for the same abysmal pay and long hours.

Unlike 9/11 and the public weeping and celebration over New York's Finest, the NOPD has been left hanging in the wind by Louisiana and the Feds, told to keep trucking along, to keep putting in more overtime with shaky gaurantees of a future paycheck. These guys were some of the worst-paid cops in the nation prior to Katrina. The PD was understaffed even outside of the tourist season, working with limited resources in a crime-ridden city full of a kalaidescope's worth of racial tension (Its not just black/white in NOLA, its WASP/Vietnamese/Portugues/Mexicano/Creole/Cajun/Haitian/High Yellow/Red Bone/Black in the city.)

During Katrina's aftermath, while millions were glued to television screens, the Bush and Blanco administrations were exchanging insults, these were the same guys who had to live a live-action version of "Assault on Precinct 13" for six days and nights. Two officers whacked themselves immediately afterwards, having lost everything and unable to keep going. And now, thanks to a rushed reoccupation of a devastated city, the officers who survived are working to deal with their own losses in property, family, and friends while simultaneously being asked to continue to play hero.

Maybe there was a racial motivation behind this weekend's brutality. Maybe all three officers were somehow so overwhelmed by their hatred of blacks that they chose to reinact Rodney King for a Associated Press news crew. And maybe the real reason they manhandled the AP producer afterwards was because they were FOX News fans. Yeah, sure. Its possible. But I think there's something bigger at play here.

What happens when the ol' Boys in Blue finally reach their breaking point?

While the officers' actions are unexcusable and deserve full investigation, its also important to remember that all men and women - police officers included - eventually will snap in times of extreme stress and trauma. These are the same guys who stood watch over a broken city while FEMA and other Federal and State agencies played hookie. These are the same guys who kept going when most of us would've probably given up and ran for our lives.

Again, while the behavior is abhorrent and disturbing, its an ugly reflection of the times we live in. We demand that our law enforcement keep our streets safe and to protect us, while simultaneously declaring they aren't worthy of a decent living wage or a well-equipped precinct. In many of the nation's poorest cities, we offer the bare minimum in terms of investment in law enforcement and expect enormous returns.

Then, when disaster strikes, we call on these same men and women to keep going when we're afraid we can't, to protect our livelihoods at the risk of their own - to do more with less so that our society may somehow prosper. Its always been a game of fuzzy math and backwards logic. And the result - abuses of power and a lowering of the bar in terms of human rights protection.

Sometimes, sadly, there are good people who get brutalized at the hands of authorities. Robert Davis is definitely a victim here. But are the police officers also victims? That's an interesting question, and I don't think anybody's going to want to hear the answer.

HAMILTON CONFIDENTIAL:Keeping History from Repeating Itself

HAMILTON, Ohio (ZP) -- For the last couple of months, I've been playing guitar a couple of times with these three guys I met this summer. Mostly, they call me up on lazy Saturday mornings to ask if I want to come down and jam, to drink some beer and socialize.

Aside from the occasional phone call and a grand total of maybe a 12 hours spent hanging out, I really have nothing in common with these guys. Sure, we like the same kinds of music and we all play instruments.

But two of the guys - who I'll call Dave and George - have criminal records, the third - who I'll call Pete - has a brother in prison. Not that I hold that against them. I grew up with a lot of guys who are now in the same boat, and in a lot of ways, its great to sit around and shoot the shit and pick at some old punk and rockabilly tunes - everything from Hank Williams to Social Distortion and the Cramps.

But I'm the only one there with a college education, actually, the only one there with a high school degree. Except for Pete's step-sister, who I'll call Chase - who lives in Kentucky but somehow always happens to be in Hamilton whenever I'm down there.

Chase is a rather attractive woman, with jet-black hair, gorgeous green eyes, and a million-dollar personality. She's looks and dresses a lot like Parker Posey. Chase has a lot of issues. Issues with a capital I. I'll skip over the details, but basically, she had a very rough childhood. The kind that requires a lot of healing and a lot of therapy to get over.

When I got down to Pete's house today, everybody's completely plastered. So I decide to take off and do some shopping - not my scene. Chase asks if she can come along for the ride.

We spent about two hours cruising around Hamilton. We hit up a bar or two. We hit up a music store. We had lunch. Somehow, we ended up stretched out in the bed of my truck by the Miami River, watching traffic.

While we're lying on our backs talking about the most random stuff, she asks me if she can do something. I say sure, like a dumbass. Before I can react, she kisses me. And, well, I kiss her right back without thinking. But then logic kicked back in, and luckily, I managed to reign in my libido before things reached that point-of-no-return.

The problem? I felt like I was being roped into something, like I was simply reacting to stimuli, running on the same auto pilot that caused me so much grief. There's another, less esoteric reason as well.

Chase has a boyfriend - and a child with said boyfriend.

She didn't take my sudden change-of-heart well, but better than I thought she would. She didn't say much after that - it was obvious that she was pissed. And I'm pretty sure she had indeed set me up a bit. (Note - while I've often been accused of being too flirtatious, I'm almost completely oblivious to any flirting directed at me.)

Needless to say, I probably won't be getting a call to jam with Pete, George, or Dave again. When I dropped Chase off, they were sitting on the porch. I'm pretty sure her slamming my truck door raised some questions. Not sure if I really want to know how she answered the questions.

But I did the right thing. I've been down that road before - no desire to go back.

Fair Trade Technology:Open Source Adoption Builds Better Intellectual Freedom Fighters

From Michael Woods, Science Editor, the Toledo (Ohio) Blade:

Office suite programs like Microsoft Office and Corel's WordPerfect Office contain some of the most important software for home and business computing.

One increasingly popular alternative to these pricey programs is a powerful office suite called OpenOffice that can be downloaded from the Internet without charge (www.openoffice.org). Individuals without a fast Internet connection may want to order OpenOffice on a CD-ROM to save download time.

OpenOffice defies that old adage, "You get what you pay for..."

- READ FULL REVIEW HERE -

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Okay, so you're a student. You've just moved off campus, got your own crib for the first time in your life. Mom and Pops just hooked you up with your own computer for getting schoolwork done.

But there's a problem. The forgot to blow the extra cash on XP Porfessional Edition. No Microsoft Office, so you can't get papers done in the format you need. No advanced software to get, well, anything practical done.

So what do you do? Go out and blow your hard-borrowed financial aid on $400 worth of software upgrades? Please. If you're like I was when I was a student, that money's either already been blown on CDs, beer, or buying flowers for significant others.

There's a way to preserve both your GPA and your entertainment budget, without having to hit the parents up for more cash.

Try OpenOffice, the office suite built for the world by a slew of the world's best programmers as an open-source volunteer project. Its completely free...no strings attached, no weird ads, no bizarre design flaws. It works similar to MS Office, allows you to save in .doc, .rtf, and to export documents into .pdf files. Need to do a PowerPoint presentation? Hey, OpenOffice has presentation software bundled in, with slick presentation templates.

I first experimented with open source software when I was in grad school at LSU. I've proudly used OpenOffice and support its adaptation and development as a tool to combat information poverty and the woes of the Digital Divide. But I also advocate its use on college campuses, in public libraries, and in schools here in the US. The more adoption by the Western world, the greater the media coverage. Firefox caught on across the country because of the buzz. People then asked a simple question to their IT folks: "What alternatives to corporate software do you offer and what can it do?"

Open Source Technologies are basically the Fair Trade products of the Information Age. For less than the price of one Microsoft Office license here in the States, whole villages in Sub-Saharan Africa can be outfitted with products like OpenOffice, networked through Linux-based Thin Clients, and given the same access to ICT that most Americans take for granted. I can then donate that licensing fee into charitable donations of help fund these sorts of projects.

This week, the Internet's reigning superpower, Google, teamed up with Sun MicroSystems (the original provider of OO's basic source code) to promote OpenOffice via the search engine.

The open-source revolution has even reached into government. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will use alternative open-source word processing and spreadsheet products that allow all users to view and read documents, if all goes to plan, starting in 2007. Demir Barlas at Line56 even compared the state's policy shift to a declaration of a Holy War against proprietary control of the most basic of information tools.

If that's truely the case, well, bring it on, son. It's about damn time for a real war for freedom, as opposed to that Iraqi mess.