Staying down

Beaten by the press

Working in breaking news journalism can be taxing and it is certainly not an old mans game. I was reminded of that fact over the past few days when I was lucky to join the working press and cover some aspects of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. The amount of energy and time to get any story is all consuming, but to get the big picture story of an international event takes a lot more time and effort and brains.

Over the past week there had been rumblings of plans of some sort of anarchist attack on the G-20, or at least some sort of disturbance. The summit got underway and it was obvious Pittsburgh was prepared for anything. Even with press credentials we could not get through the road blocks set up about 16 blocks from actual convention center.

That actually worked for us, since we never had a plan to cover the politicians or the "events" staged for the gullible and subservient world press corps. I knew going in that for me, the real story would be the public reaction to the meeting and the various protests. Over the past few summits of G-20 leaders, there had been wildly violent and disruptive protests. Pittsburgh had planned for this, hiring police from around the region and supplementing those with national guard units.

I will add details later, with video from the original, unauthorized protest all the way to the night time tear gassing and police brutality that even sent me to the hospital last night.

Those words and images will come in the next few days, as it stands, it is painful to type with two fingers.

Pressing at the G-20

I stopped in at the press center at the G-20 summit yesterday to reserve space at one of the tables. There are information people all over the place so I asked a woman if it would be safe for me to leave my laptop during the day. "I doubt it," she said, "from what I understand anyone who applied for a press credential got one, so this place would not be safe to leave anything of value".

Really? Anyone who applied got a credential? That explains how I got mine.

The world press seemed to arrive yesterday for the event. Late last night we were driving around the largely empty streets of Pittsburgh watching as hundred of workers and at least as many police were setting up embankments and closing off entire stretches of the the downtown corridor. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. But rest assured, we flashed our press passes and police would allow us to drive right up to the convention center, never searching the car, looking at any other sort of ID or really anything that could be called security.

The other interesting non-secure thing? About 11 PM last night we had a small caravan of press, a black jeep and my black sedan driving on a bus only road downtown. Police were literally on every street corner, usually 5 or more officers. At one point, about 2 blocks from the convention center, the jeep in front of me pulled over and stopped, so I pulled in behind them. We all go out, blocking the street and everyone began making phone calls. The police were less than 20 feet away and yet not a single officer questioned these unknown people, in unknown cars, stopping on a bus only road and everyone exiting the vehicles.

So much for securing the perimeter.

Police in force

I was sitting in a parked car last night, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, in a not so nice neighborhood, watching a meeting of anarchists and other anti-G20 protesters. Well, not so much watching the meeting, that was going on inside of a small office. What I was watching was the people milling about outside and the ACLU reps who were there to make sure that no one harassed the protesters.

We were right across the street in a public parking lot and after watching for about half an hour a police car cruised by, and then a second and within 15 seconds our parking lot was filled with police cars, vans and a haz-mat bus. There must have been 50 police in riot gear waiting in the various vans. The New York Times reporter in our car told us to all just sit quietly and watch. We did. The police stood around, talked to one another and waited. The protesters didn't do much either. After about 15 minutes of this strange little standoff, the police left.

People in the crowd all pulled out video cameras when the police arrived and the pink hatted ACLU team was poised to, well, I am not sure what ACLU people do if police start cracking heads, but since that did not happen, it's really not worth pondering.

The meeting broke up peacefully and no one is quite sure what happened. The police appear to be showing up at any sort of meeting of possible protesters and just hanging out, leaving the distinct message that any sort of outrageous protest will be met with a large police response. In the land of the free this is what passes as public dialog.

G-20 protesting

I sat at an outdoor cafe last night with a group of reporters and a couple of protesters. I showed up late and I had missed the introductions. One nice looking guy was sitting on my right. The other protester sat across the table from me. I did not catch either mans name. These were young guys, in their 20's and both seemed articulate and bright.

For those wanting the tatooed and angry protesters from Seattle's WTO riots, these were not them. These were the educated and caring people who would like to see real change come to the economic realities of the world. Fewer vastly wealthy people, more healthcare and food for the desperately poor. What exactly is wrong with that?

The guy sitting to my left lives in Florida and is a pre-school teacher. So is his wife and while I doubt they make a lot of money, what they do have is summers off and work that makes them happy. I wonder how many people have either of those. We talked about this American tradition of working until you are sick, never taking real vacations where you spend time out of your comfort zone and enjoy other cultures. It is easy to make fun of the French, until you spend some time with the French.

He also talked about the dangers of protesting. He did not want to break windows, he did not want to damage the city, he wanted to be part of a movement that supports people over big business and with the worlds most powerful leaders coming into the city today for a two day summit, this is the place right now to get that message out.

Speaking of messages, as I was looking for parking last night, two vans of Pittsburgh police stopped in front of me, emptied into a convenience store parking lot and immediately surrounded two skinny hippies. I did not run up with my camera, so I missed whatever it was that motivated the police response, but very few times in life does 10-15 police really need to respond with force to question two skinny hippies.

First footage of the G-20 silliness

Well, you don't have to look hard to find irony in the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. The video here is of the media center at the convention center. Designed for handle the needs of hundreds of working press, I stopped by this afternoon to check things out and what did I find? Lamps. Enlightening stuff.

Genius grants

I have done many films on artists, short films of great artists installing their work (Mark Disuvero) films of great artists painting (Philip Pearlstein, Enrique Chagoya + many others) and a number of top photographers who talked about photos. One of my favorite interviews and films was with Rackstraw Downes, who just today, won a MacCarthur Genius Grant. Here is the announcement:

Rackstraw Downes, the veteran painter of landscapes and urban places, is a realist esteemed by people, including me, who normally have scant use for realism in art. His current show, of work from 1999 to 2004, at the new Betty Cuningham Gallery, is powerful in quiet, stubborn ways. The subjects include a viaduct in Harlem, a flood-monitoring station on the Rio Grande, a Texas desert, electrical substations in that desert, and metal ductwork in a large, dark attic. The look of the pictures, most of them panoramas, is luminous but taciturn: just the facts. Their surfaces are fine crusts of dry, oil-starved pigment, applied in sober little strokes and patches. The tonality is so uniform that the color, though extremely varied, turns almost monochrome in memory. “I want to paint exactly the way something is,” Downes said to me recently. “If that means dulling down the green, then dull it down. Find the beauty in that.” The pressure of scrutiny in his pictures yields a revelation not only of how the world looks but of how the eye—unaided by photography, which Downes pointedly never uses—toils to behold it.

I will try and either post the film or some clips. He is remarkable on a variety of levels. Oh I should add, my interview and his images are available in a book at the Betty Cuningham Gallery in New York.

Let the goods times...

I picked up my official passive aggressive press credential to cover the G-20 summit this week in Pittsburgh. If you have not been paying attention, it's this passive aggressive summit because the good people of the State Department and Secret Service are very strange in their communication abilities.

Some friends from traditional media outlets in New York City also applied for credentials months ago, as did I. A few weeks ago I got an email from the organizing committee telling me where to pick up my credential, but not bothering to mention whether or not I actually would have a credential. Better than that, the traditional media folks in New York City did not even get this email. Either way, I picked up the credential and checked for the good folks from the New York Times and they indeed will be credentialed.

Now, the goods news, it looks like Pittsburgh may actually get exciting during this weeks planned and unplanned protests. The worlds biggest economic leaders are on their way and the posters and planning is underway to disrupt the tea party. I will be posting live video from various protests and editing short films on the summit during the majority of the protests and meetings.

Capitalism is unpatriotic?

Imagine if you owned a company that polluted a river that people swam in. Do you think the people who swam there would think you were patriotic? What if you company employed people, would that make it OK to pollute the river?

How about this, you log forests and that logging causes all sorts of environmental damage, from erosion related flooding to global warming. Is the logger patriotic? He/she is damaging not only their area, but the world. But then, they are cutting forests because we demand wood and paper and all the other stuff dead trees give us.

How about McDonalds? Patriotic? Let's see, they make food and feed billions. Of course, their food is unhealthy and filled with genetically enhanced beef products and parts of chickens that don't show up in biology books. But they feed billions, they must be patriots. Plus, they make a handy profit, which is always good in a capitalistic society. Except this, the food they sell is killing millions of people.

Those obese people we see all over our streets and certainly behind the wheel of large automobiles did not get that way from a gland problem, or at least the vast majority did not get that way. No, they, we, ate our way to blimpiness.How did we do that? By eating crap, day in, day out for years. Where do we buy a lot of that crap? Places like McDonalds.

It's weird, in a society that is built around making a dollar and selling anything possible to remind us of what a great country we are, is killing itself in both unhealthy diets and an unwillingness to provide education and healthcare for the people who are just doing what the society is telling them to do. Eat more, eat fast more, eat more fast food more.

And these corporations are patriots, right?

G-20 protests have begun

Various protests are already underway in Pittsburgh this weekend as people prepare to host the G-20 summit this week. There are a number of smaller protests and musical protests that are planned to kind of get people in the mood for the craziness.

I will be linking live video coverage and some of the still shots coming up this week. Please come back and check.

Admit it

I love to admit mistakes. There is nothing like letting it all hang out there, or as much as is comfortable. We all do stupid things from time to time, I have, you have, the president has.

Bankers do stupid things too. Heck, all working people make mistakes on the job. One time, I was interviewing an artist for about 25 minutes and I realized I had not turned the camera on. 25 minutes of brilliance wasted.

But lets talk about mistakes bankers made, make and want to continue to make. A few years ago many stupid bankers started to come up with brilliant ways to make more money. See, bankers like to make money, it is the nature of banking. So, as they started to find new ways of making money, say, by loaning money to people unfit for a loan, they could show, on their books, that their banking strategy was brilliant. Which, for many months, it was. Well, it was for bankers.

Not so much for the schmoe who for years and years and rightfully knew he could never get a load and buy a house. Home ownership is such a strong part of the fabric of being an American. In America we own our own property, we have our own little home, or big home, and it is ours. Well, it's ours and the bank that loans us money to buy it, and the taxing authorities who make sure we pay our taxes, or they will own our homes. Many people for many years could not afford a home of their own. This is how the system worked for many many years. You made a living, you saved your money, and you purchased a home.

Then the stupid and greedy bankers found ways of loaning money to people completely unable to comprehend the financial shell game. So when a slick greedy banker type sold people of limited means the opportunity to own that home they always dreamed of, how could they be expected to resist. They could not, you could not, I could not, no one in their right mind could.

The problem is so simple, even a stupid greedy banker should have been able to figure it out, mostly because greedy bankers throughout history knew one thing, if a person could not afford to pay back a loan, that person at some point would not be paying back the loan. Kind of simple logic when you say it out loud.

The thing about being stupid and greedy is this, greed overwhelms stupid. I want more money, I always want more money. Just today I was thinking how I want a private jet to take me to visit my friend in California. Sure, I could use miles, or even pay for some cheap ticket to visit, but I want the money to buy a jet and fly where I want, when I want. See? I want a shitload of money. This too is part of the American fabric, which is why republicans promise big tax cuts to the very wealthy, and they get support not only from the very wealthy, but sometimes from the very poor, who figure with a couple years of decent pay increases, they too may someday be super wealthy and they want those tax cuts in place when that happens.

Back to stupid greedy bankers. In short, they loaned a lot of money, trillions of dollars, to people who did not have a decent pot to piss in. You can not judge a families earning power by the pots they choose to piss in, but when all they have around the house to piss in are discarded McDonalds super sized cups, it would be a decent guess to figure they are not the type who piss in Tiffany pots.

Greedy stupid bankers did not worry about pots or piss. They loaned money to every pot pisser they could find. In no other time in history could any imagine loaning people money without proving they have a job, an income and assets. Except a few years ago, almost anyone could get a loan by asking for it. It was the stupidest banking scheme ever and it fell apart about a year ago and the legacy of this program will haunt this country for thousands and thousands of, no, I am kidding, no one cares.

Seriously, the stupid greedy bankers did not lose their jobs. Most got bailed out by government programs, some even made money by using the governments no-interest loans to continue programs that were at the very least ineffective. In all of this, bad loans to deadbeats and the like, bankers getting bailed out because they had grown their banks so large that if they were to collapse (as they should have) the economy would have tumbled into the deepest depression since the last deep depression.

The bad news is these bankers are using some of that bailout money to hire fleshy lobbyists to grease the machine that is big government. Not a single major regulation has been passed and signed into law. Think about that, these irresponsible bankers not only kept their jobs, they are fighting any regulation that would force them to act like responsible adults. And the responsible adults making rules in Washington DC? More interested in the presidents real birth certificate, the watering down of any serious health reform and of course, counting all those angry protesters marching in the streets, demanding more for less.

The waning days of any long running play are often sad and depressing. This particular play, the American system, was once a drama, then a farce and now, not so funny comedy.

The dirty secret

I am not sure how to break this to you. While Pittsburgh is certainly sprucing itself up for next weeks G-20 conference, this is a city that is not so interested in the national stage, unless that stage is gold and black and has the Steelers logo imprinted on it.

This is a football town, up and above all else. I can tell you this, if the summiteers want to piss off the people of Pittsburgh, mess with parking during a Steelers game, or delay it for some unknown international reason. You do that, you will have yourself an international uprising on your hands.

A quick note and I am back to editing a long form film I am working on. I had to drive to Prosperity today. I know, think about that for a second. In Pennsylvania you can drive to Prosperity, but first you would have to cross the border of California and possibly stop for a burger in Washington just to get to the wonderful town of Prosperity.

Is there anything more American than prosperity? In truth, isn't that what we all really love about this country? You may start from little and find a way to get more and if you are smart and dedicated, prosperity will be yours.

The town of Prosperity does not really live up to its namesake. But really, when we talk of prosperity, don't we all get to define that in our own way? I have a relative who defines everything in terms of money. If you make a lot of money, you are successful and happy and if you don't, you are a loser and dreadful. I have another friend who is an artist and is broke and hardly every makes any money to speak of, and yet he seems filed with not only prosperity but a deep happiness my relative could not recognize. Different views, different definitions.

live from washington dc

Images from the zealots holiday in DC

Notice anything uniform about the following images? First, idiots make the worst protest placards possible. Second, as noted before, the vast vast vast majority of the protesters are fat and white. I am not sure what that means, because I am sure there were plenty of fat white protesters who did not support President Bush, but this group that gathered in Washington DC seems almost exclusively fat and white.

G-20 bringing out the protesters

From this mornings Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

Scaling 30 stories of the Sears Tower in Chicago in early December to unfurl a 2,500-square-foot banner protesting nuclear power.

Creating giant papier-mache marijuana cigarettes to protest potential legislation in Italy.

Dressing as clowns and floating in bathtubs down the Allegheny River to mount a naval attack on the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

The last hasn't happened, but all are ideas for creative protests -- events designed to maximize exposure to the media and subsequently the public -- and to draw in new supporters to a movement.

As the Group of 20 summit looms, experts expect a slew of various actions in and around Pittsburgh.

Some of them may be traditional sit-ins or encampments. Others, though, like the clowns-in-bathtubs idea (suggested at an early G-20 planning meeting for activist groups from Pittsburgh), are designed to be off the wall.

"People respond to creativity because it's more interesting in talking about a problem," said Alexander Bloom, a history professor at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. "There can be joy in protest -- and enthusiasm and excitement. And that makes people respond to it."

John Sellers, who is a founder of the Ruckus Society -- an organization that helps train various movements to run creative actions -- believes that enthusiasm is crucial to success.

Before the rioting began during the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle in 1999, Mr. Sellers described the protest marches there as "amazing."

One example he gave was a gathering of thousands and thousands of Sierra Club activists dressed as sea turtles -- joined by Teamsters -- blocking intersections and dancing.

"They were rocking, boogieing in the streets together," said Mr. Sellers, who once worked with Greenpeace. "It was true people power -- democracy in the streets."

He recalled that even the police were smiling at the antics.

"I feel we did America proud," he said. "It never felt that way before."

He helped found the Ruckus Society in 1996 to help spread the idea of safe, creative and strategic actions to any group that was interested.

"There weren't that many practitioners of high-profile, media-friendly, creative direct action," Mr. Sellers said.

Now, he said, the organization is small, but has a large network. There are more than 150 people who work as trainers for Ruckus, and another 3,000 to 4,000 alumni who have gone through the program.

The idea is to train people to look at traditional activism in a new way, Mr. Sellers said.

"People should think what they can do differently and not do the same thing over and over again -- like a ballet the state knows all the steps to," he said. "You can be easily marginalized as someone who is against, against, against. It's important to show what you're for and not be constantly in opposition mode."

One of the most important steps in creating an effective action, he continued, is framing the dialogue.

"It's really important to distill your messages down to the most clear naked poetry that you can," Mr. Sellers said.

Dr. Bloom agreed.

"Every social movement, if you want people to participate, you have to bring them to some consciousness of the problem," he said. "It's hard to get people into something arduous."

But sometimes, outlandish actions can provide the opposite effect and trivialize a message, said Jackie Simpson, a professor of sociology and peace studies at Notre Dame.

"It can undermine the sense of seriousness of the issue," she said.

Dr. Simpsonsaid, though, that to be effective, it's essential for protesters to influence the political elite.

"The authorities won't pay attention to the message unless something interrupts business as usual," she said. "Really novel tactics can sometimes be effective, as well as tactics that generate confrontation."

While violence detracts from the message that most activists want to convey, it also tends to get the most media coverage.

But Mr. Sellers doesn't like that approach.

"Actions that scare people aren't effective," he said. "If it scares my grandmother, and the teachers and firefighters we want to get out there [with us], then it takes us backwards."

While some organizations take a traditional approach and others go for shock value, several try to use humor to spread their message.

The Raging Grannies, first started in Victoria, British Columbia, in the mid-1980s, have now spread to cities across North America.

Carolyn Hale, who helped start the group in Seattle, has protested at events as small as city and county council meetings to the WTO.

"It was amazing when we walked down the street how many young people ran down and said, 'We love the Raging Grannies.' "

Their hook is humor. The older women wear hats and dresses, and they sing, dance and use street theater.

One recent song Ms. Hale's group has used to protest America's economic breakdown is sung to the tune of the "Hokey Pokey":

"Sub-prime loans go in,

Toxic assets come out.

Cut them all up and spread them all about.

Let's do the hocus pocus and bring the system down.

Fraud's what it's all about."

"I think we do get heard because we're different," Ms. Hale said.

And that's sometimes all it takes, Dr. Bloom said.

"People have learned how to get the media to respond -- what it takes to get attention."

One movement in the 1960s that attracted worldwide notice was a 1967 incident at the New York Stock Exchange.

A guerrilla theater group call- ed the Yippies went to the stock exchange and started throwing hundreds of $1 bills off the balcony into the air over the floor.

"The tickertape came to a halt," Dr. Bloom said. "The stockbrokers left their desks to grasp for money floating in the air.

"It made a literal point. These guys who pretend to be sophisticated are really just grabbing for dollars."

That same group, during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago the next year, nominated a baby pig for president.

Generally, the tactics used to protest -- or start an action -- evolve with the times and technology, Dr. Bloom said.

In the United States, while there may have been sit-ins in the 1930s, television ads were used in the 1950s.

Today, a form of protest that has been used involves computer hacking.

Just last week in Australia, hackers shut down the prime minister's Web site for an hour to protest proposed Internet censorship.

"Mostly, protest comes when people feel things are being done over which they have no control," Dr. Bloom said. "People protest when they feel their voices are not being heard."

A series of long days

My daughter and I drove twice to West Virginia today for work, well work for me, hours of endless road for her. While driving I was listening to the radio and it is kind of fascinating to listen to radio reporting while driving in beautiful country.

Today there was a march on Washington DC by angry white people fed up with the black man in charge. I doubt that was the real reason, but it seems to me like it just has to be. After all, these "patriots" are out there in the street, complaining bitterly about big government, government waste, government fraud and government everything.

I certainly support protests. Heck a few years back my wild daughter and I marched in Seattle to protest the impending invasion of Iraq. That was back when even super gay Dan Savage was supporting the Iraq war, so it took a certain about of dogged pride on our part to step out in public and protest what we believed back then was an ill thought out attempt for an idiot president to make up for his daddies short comings.

Our protest had no impact on the decision to invade Iraq.

The angry white people protesting in Washington DC seem to be hell bent on bringing down this socialist president we elected 11 months ago. There are a few things I never get about these angry white people. First, why so angry? Second, where was your outrage when Haliburton was getting billion dollar no bid contracts? Or a Medicare plan to pay for elderly peoples drugs promised to bankrupt the Medicare system? Or, for the love of god, we got lied into a useless and deadly war? Where were the angry white people then?

Possibly at abortion clinics. The last time I have seen this many angry white people, it was in front of an abortion clinic. Mostly male, mostly fat and slow and mostly white. Same people, different signs, well most of them, some of the images from todays rally showed the anti-abortion crazies as well.

I fight the urge to become cynical on almost a daily basis. Cynicism is for sissies. But what really makes me wonder about the angry white people is this, why don't they love their country? Abortion is legal, so why do they want to take away a woman's right to choose? And why are the anti-abortion protesters almost always angry white men?

The rally in DC, again, the angry white men who seemingly hate our president. That's OK, generally speaking half the country always hates the president. But when I was marching with my young daughter many years ago against a bad idea for going to war, it was not angry people, it seemed like it was mostly serious people who disagreed with the president. The people today not only seemed viciously angry, but if you put a robe and hood on most of these people, I am sure there would have generally been a high level of comfort in their summer wear.

Prissy queens

In an attempt to rebuild my own economy, I often take one day film jobs that sometimes put me in unfortunate positions. Today was one of those. All names, if it mattered, were changed.

The shoot was set for 11 this morning. I was hired to film an interview with an expert in some sort of electronic investing. I set up camera, lights and microphones at about 10, because I like to have everything in place, so when things come together, my job is all set to go.

At a little before 11 the interviewer showed up, we talked, and then he said that the interviewee was often late, it was his style. About 15 minutes later this, oh my, how do I describe this mess, this short, overweight little man strides into the room with purpose. He was wearing a simple beige suit, with the pants pulled up to hide his large belly, a nice tie pulled tight against his next fat and his hair dyed an off color of purple.

He sat down and immediately I felt uneasy. He smiled some sort of knowing grin and my stomach began to turn. Everyone got the mics on and the camera was rolling and for 3 hours this windbag was boring and ebullient. He was so proud of his knowledge that it made me want to punch him. After an hour I needed to change tapes, so hair color queen bee went to get some water and the interviewer looked at me and said, "never trust a man who dyes his hair."

Those my friends are words to live by. Mr. Talk-a-lot went on for the full three hours, at times describing in lurid detail his education, his accomplishments (as they were) and his ability to understand complex issues without getting to "intellectual".

The interviewer got a call and decided he had enough of the interview, so after 3 hours we were done. I am not sure why I found this person so hideous. It may be that people who talk a lot, but have little to say, make me uneasy. It was also the way he spoke, in that fake holier than thou super intelligent sort of way that usually means the person is kind of neurotic about their education. It could also have been the hair color. Purple hardly ever looks right on anyone, yet alone a man fast approaching 60.

So, todays lesson? Never trust a man who dyes his hair. Enough said.

G-20 welcoming committee

"These assholes don't have a clue what they are doing. They are doing nothing but trying to get their 15 minutes. I am licensed to carry and I hope to hell they start some shit while i'm around, there will be less of them to protest. "

Just in case you buy the progressive spin the Pittsburgh politicians are actively putting out, do not forget that this is a small city built around a proud heritage of labor, asbestos and idiocy. The above quote is one of many on a public forum. These sorts of crazy threats have been around for a few weeks, but in the past few days more and more seem to be coming out of the woodwork.

Should protesters be worried? Should delegates be frightened? Should the police be prepared for craziness? Probably not, but with a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later, and with a few thousand extra police around, the city of Pittsburgh is prepping for an all out assault on civil liberties. By the sounds of the undereducated minority, if the police can't handle the protests, the knuckle draggers among us will be glad to lend a hand.

Passive/Agressive

If there is one thing I dislike in our wimpy communication skills it has to be this inability to speak clearly. I noticed this when I was much younger. Friends and I would be driving somewhere, it was Southern California and driving somewhere was always the start of whatever adventure we were involved in. What I began to hate was the inability of friends to make a decision. The conversation would almost always go something like this, "where do you guys want to grab something to eat?"

Then, almost every time, the choices would be spurted out, and everyone would hem and haw and soon, nothing was decided, all the while we would be passing perfectly acceptable food options. What struck me was that no one wanted to be responsible for such a simple decision. At some point, I just decided to be a decision maker, because what we ended up often doing was deferring to no one, and no decision would be made.

I have been haunted with this sort of passive aggressive idiocy my entire life. I had a long term relationship with one such woman, who I think made an attempt to never be passionate about anything, that way life in general could not overwhelm her. Imagine how empty that sort of existence is? Never commit to anything, never experience anything, never be responsible for anything.

So, imagine my response when I recently received a notice from the organizers of the G-20 meeting coming up in a couple of weeks in Pittsburgh. It was from the organizers, but also the secret service and the White House press office. It contained all this information on where to pick up press credentials, where different media could send stories and where interviews would be conducted. All sorts of useful information, except one piece that could be important. This email did not offer any sense if the people receiving it would be credentialed. It seems that letting people know in advance if they would be receiving the credentials to cover the G-20 is not as important as safe places to park satellite trucks.

If that is not bad enough, I got a call from a friend at the New York Post and the New York Times yesterday afternoon, asking if I had heard anything about the credential process. I asked if they had the same informational email as the one I received. They were surprised, no they said, no email at all.

Passive, meet aggressive.

Consumer economy dead?

Here is a great story about the changing face of the economy. What I really like about it is, well, about time.

For the longest time the American people have been force fed a diet of shop till you drop mindlessness that always had a very ugly underside. Either you did as you were told and rang up credit card debt and re-mortgaged your future, or you did not, but there was little middle ground and the vast majority of the people who do what they are told, shopped. And then dropped, in an economic mess of their own making.

This to me has always been the ugly side of capitalism. First it always seemed anti-patriotic for companies to do many of the things that have made them hugely successful in the eyes of investors, that is ship jobs overseas for slave wages, import cheap and crappy goods to sell to people who could no longer afford quality, and finally, build up a diet built on crappy food mass manufactured to remove all taste and health benefits out of it.

Have you ever wondered why we have become the most obese nation on earth? I mean, really, step back and ask yourself that. Maybe it is because we do not promote family meals anymore, not that we ever really did. There is some romantic vision of families sitting around the table, debating the great topics of the day, while being respectful to a father and mother who seemed content and in love. I never knew anyone who grew up like that and the elderly people I talked to over the years did not know those people either.

In modern America we have fast food restaurants on almost every block in every type of neighborhood. I recently met a man who owns four McDonalds restaurants. Want to know what he makes per year? I did. His salary is 130 thousand dollars a year, which is a nice chunk of change, but there is an asterisk next to that, because he is also the owner of the company that he works for, so he gets profit sharing. Add in the profits from the four McDonalds and he takes home over half a million dollars a year.

So, while the populace is eating his products and getting fat, his bank account is equally obese.

Again, tip of the iceberg. If you want to know what is really wrong with mindless consumerism, go to a shrink. No, seriously, go talk with a counselor, psychologist and psychiatrist. Americans are the most heavily medicated people on the planet. Wait, at first I mentioned that we are the most obese people in history and now we are the most medicated. We are deeply depressed and fat. Why is that?

My guess is that we were not meant to shop and collect crap and live a life of meaningless shopping and eating unhealthy flavorless food. As the big corporations became farmers and the restaurants became chains that served terrible food, and as out jobs became more and more repetitive and boring, we became clinically depressed, not liking our food, our shopping, our lives. So we medicate.

If we don't medicate with food, we do it with prescriptions and if we don't get the pills, we watch TV and get brain dead. I can not tell you how many people I no longer talk to in part because what they want to talk about is what they saw on TV, not what they did, what they created or what they are passionate about. If you are passionate about The Hills, you should take more Xanax and stop calling me.

So, our economy is changing, dramatically. People are worried that this concept of buy buy buy and medicate and pill pop and eat till you explode really might not be what we were meant to be. Imagine that. Maybe we were meant to farm, and live a simple life, and enjoy music we made with our hands and art we created with our own fingers. I often think about Scott Nearing, who's book I devoured in college and he made me want to become a simple farmer, living a good life. I have never actually made it that far, although at times I have come close. But there are things I think we can all do that would make us healthier, happier and better people of the world. Simple things, like buy locally grown foods, stop support Wal-Mart and the like, do not buy things you do not need, save money, never eat at a restaurant where you do not know where they get their food. Throw out those medications and stop watching television. Call friends you have forsaken and ask them how they are doing. Create your own community. Make a loaf of bread for that neighbor you never really bothered to get to know. Take afternoons off to spend time with your lover. Have more sex and enjoy a glass of wine with someone you love.

Mostly, make decisions without the fear of the TV hotheads and live a life you define and one that you can be proud of. Stop lying, life is short and soon enough you will be gone and the people who knew you, who loved and hated you, the people who mattered will move on without you and your legacy will either be one of generosity and wisdom, or possibly that of the fat guy who was lazy and stupid. Choice can be a wonderful thing.

G-20 prep

There I was today, walking around the secret passageways of the Pittsburgh International Airport. I did not have to go through any security, in fact, I was given a tour of the airport by the people in charge of airport security.

This was a strange way to see the inner workings of an airport. First, behind the scenes, much like behind the scenes at a film studio or a sausage factory, it is not as pretty as I would have hoped. There was no secret gym and locker room for the pilots, and trust me, I was looking. I was also paying attention to things like doors. There are doors I never saw as I walked from one terminal to another in the past. But today, I would walk past a food stand and the guy with the badge would look over and say "follow me" and he would key in some code, the door would unlock and we were again deep in the bowels of the airport.

Airports are hardly ever pretty. I am not sure why this is, because many of us have spent many hours at airports. It seems like an advanced society would make airports beautiful and sexy. A place we would all like to hang out in, but only get to visit when we fly. Imagine being excited to fly because you may get stuck in Denver for a few extra hours.

The Pittsburgh Airport is really functional above all else. It is that functionality that makes is cumbersome and boring. I was there on a technical mission, but I have to say, as I walked from office to office, from roof top to basement, one thing I noticed, loud and clear, these people are taking the impending arrival of the worlds leaders extremely seriously.

A few times in my life I have been in a presidential wait. Either a president was passing through an area I was in, or I was attending an event or a speech, and every time, you could sense the security, and often times see it. But here I was, in an airport that will see leaders of the worlds largest economies and these people were preparing for anything and everything.

What I really found fascinating is how wide the communication loop is reaching and how well planned everything seems. These are professionals doing what they do, and it was kind of inspiring.

G-20 preparations

The G-20 (more formally, the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors) is a group of finance ministersand central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 of the world's largest national economies, plus the European Union (EU). It also met twice at heads-of-government level, in November 2008 and again in April 2009. Collectively, the G-20 economies comprise 85% of global gross national product, 80% of world trade (including EU intra-trade) and two-thirds of the world population.

^]One the region's most vocal advocates for civil liberties yesterday praised the Pittsburgh administration's efforts to accommodate the protesters who plan to demonstrate against the upcoming G-20 conference.

Officials overseeing security during this month's G-20 summit appear likely to tap the Pennsylvania National Guard as a major source of personnel -- perhaps the biggest.

Finance ministers of the largest industrial countries vowed on Saturday to keep their multitrillion-dollar stimulus efforts in place, but at a meeting here they failed to agree on any firm limits on bankers’ bonuses, a sign of the deep rifts that remain between American and European leaders.

Laboring

It's hard to imagine a labor day when Americans really honor people who labor for a living. Then again, I have yet to see any really honor shown to veterans on their special day. Wonder why that is actually.

I have been working 3-4 real jobs lately and maybe for the first time in my life, I am starting to understand what it really means to labor. I seem to know a lot of people who work with their brains for a living, and while this is a perfectly honorable way to make a living, it is not the same as coming home from a long day of labor and needing a hot bath and a nap to continue.

When I think of labor I remember some of my first jobs. In fact, once, while taking a semester off of college, I worked as a landscape installer in Southern California. It was a glorious job on a variety of fronts, not the least of which was the concept of working outside in the Southern California sun. There was also a dire side to the entire landscape work, which was the back breaking nature of digging holes in dried ground all day. It was months of work that was meaningful in the sense that I was helping plants grow and creating beauty where only dry unused soil existed. Then again it was hard work, that left me longing for books, bongs and babes at the dorms of college.

Needless to say, I did return to college, grabbed a degree and willed myself to find work that would not leave me punished and sore. Until now.

Sometimes I think about this somewhat smart fat man I know, who has made a life of taking advantage of the creativity and skills of others. While I at first thought this was kind of a smart thing, the more I got to know him, the more I thought of his soulless existence. See, what we create in life is what will end up being our true legacy. If we spend our lives taking advantage of the creative and inspiration of others, our legacy is then one of a money changer, a manager, a user. There is no way around it, and as I watched closely as smart fat man did that to others, I realized I wanted to be the person who creates things, not the one who sells the creations of others.

Really though, labor is always about the market place, at least for the vast majority of people. The same is true of home builders, artists and filmmakers. Without a market to pay for your work, you may call yourself a homebuilder, or an artist, or a filmmaker, but in truth, you are probably something else. While there is nothing wrong with being a closet artist, there is something triumphant about being the person you should be, not the one you want to be, but are too shy to become.

I am off on a series of tangents that make little sense.

As a person who is working and working hard to survive right now, my heart goes out to the millions of Americans who are out of work, who would do anything to better themselves, who are trying to find a way to survive. On this labor day, I think about that image posted at the top of this page. I was in Seattle when the rebel artists took to the streets in front of the corporate Seattle Art Museum and latched a ball and chain on Hammering Man. The symbolism was not lost on anyone, but what impressed me was the ability and cunning of an artist to take another artists work and enhance it. You hardly ever see that, but the ball and chain on Labor Day many years ago is an image and thought that sticks with me.

On labor day 2009 may we all find a way to create a life we can be proud of , to long for goals that are hard to achieve, but attainable and may we all find ways to remove those balls and chains we all metaphorically wear and move on, move past and climb to a new place.

Hummersexuals

It seems incredibly obvious to me that in "free" countries adults still can not get married to the people they fall in love with.

The problem isn't marriage itself, heck I was married and it was awesome for a few hours. What the problem to me is that married people get built in goodies, like tax breaks, visitation rights and inheritance. As long as one group of people by the will of a license to marry get perks, then everyone who wants said perks should be entitled. Simple really. So, if it's marriage that you want to keep sacred, that is, the word marriage, then so be it. But at some point, this becomes an argument over equal rights, and we all know where that ends up. So, what say, we let the Mo's marry, and we move on to more important things, like who will beat the Yankees in the playoffs?

G-20 in a lovely city

The Pittsburgh city council is planning to lay down some serious anti-protesting laws next week, that means no gas masks, no pipes and locks and certainly none of that free speech the kids are so fond of these days.

Who knows what the council will actually decide. There are rumors, yes I hear them, that there are some serious out of state protesters planning to do to Pittsburgh what hooligans did in London at the last super fun G-20 meeting. I say bring it on.

Protests are good. Protests and fun and can be loud and dangerous and exciting.

Here is something funny about protests. I was once renting a run down apartment on the lower east side of Manhattan many years ago, long before the lower east side was a decent place to live for hipsters and the people who want to be around hipsters. There was a Polish guy who was gutting the apartment when I went to check it out and we began talking. It seems that he was a member of the Solidarity movement in Poland, at least until recently, because he had scampered out of Poland because he feared for his life. "but," I said, " I thought with Lech Walesa and all the workers, the protests and control had been wrestled from the commies."

He just kind of looked at me like I was an idiot, which is a look I have become quite familiar with over the years. He then gently explained to me that what the Solidarity Union had done was shut down a city, not by protest, but by brute force. There was a difference. He laughed at the idea of protests by themselves accomplishing anything. Then he asked me, "when was the last time a protest in America had any impact?"

So, now, many years later, I think of my Solidarity friend when I think of the hooligans and the anarchists and the anti-global cabalists and I think that someday these protests will accomplish something, at least I hope the do. I would hate to think that all the effort that goes into costumes and posters and hair styles would be for nothing.

Well, is Glenn Beck a killer?

I am just going to steal a post from The Stranger:

This is a parody/satire website dedicated to exploring the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. They are offering a 200 dollar reward for anyone who can prove that no girls were raped and murdered by Glenn Beck in 1990. Current polls show that 84% of everyone who took this online poll believe that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. They are using the same probing journalistic skills to explore the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990 that Glenn Beck himself used to explore topics like President Obama's birth certificate and health care death panels and the fact that Obama is going to douse the middle class of America with gasoline and then light us all on fire.

Stealing the spotlight

I like this a lot. A Pittsburgh company is hoping to borrow the international press when the G-20 economic meeting gets going later this month in Pittsburgh. I am a big believer in guerilla marketing, having successfully used such tactics to start a business and sell original art.

Here is the entire story lifted from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

Need to get a message to the world leaders attending the Group of Twenty summit? Elliance, an Internet marketing agency on the North Shore, would like to help.

The agency has come up with an idea to use its strategically placed offices -- across the Allegheny River from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center -- to use "2,400-watt beacons of democratic hope" to flash messages in Morse code toward the G-20 meeting place. If insurance concerns can be worked out, the project could launch quickly.

It isn't strictly marketing. As a joint effort with artist Osman Khan, the agency sees it as more of a grass-roots public art experiment. But if it could help boost Elliance's reputation as a creative place where the staff thinks a bit differently, well, that's OK with CEO Abu Noaman.

Outside of the many official and semiofficial efforts under way to market Pittsburgh around the G-20 summit this month, businesses are coming up with ideas that might be called guerrilla marketing or at least quirky attempts to borrow a little shine from the media lights blasting down on the Steel City.

A search of video site YouTube.com for the terms "G-20" and "Pittsburgh" brings up plenty of protest clips. But it also finds other offbeat pieces, including the short scouting video done by the Elliance staff as they held a camera in a car and drove around to make sure their windows could be seen from the convention center.

Brady Communications recently posted a 3-minute, 20-second video showing scenes around the city and staff members talking about what they love here. "Pittsburgh is a hidden jewel," says John Brady, president of the Downtown marketing firm, in his cameo. Other staffers talk about being able to get fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets, checking out galleries around town or learning to love Steelers football and the post-Super Bowl parades.

It could almost be an official VisitPittsburgh film, but it's not.

Lia Osle, Brady director of brand strategy, said absolutely the goal of the video was to pick up exposure. Or, as she described the thinking that got things going about a month ago, "Maybe we can grab a little bit of the spotlight that's focusing on Pittsburgh right now."

The agency, whose video had more than 200 views by early this week, knows how to use tags and keywords to pop to the top of search results. But, she said, such Internet markers have to be used properly. Search engines eventually figure out if a video of Britney Spears or a dancing wedding party has a G-20 tag but no connection at all to the event.

"That's what we didn't want to do," she said.

Sara Parks, co-owner of the fair trade and green lifestyle Equita store in Lawrenceville, was surprised to learn that a G-20 tag had been put on a YouTube video made by local filmmaker to promote the flea market that she and her partners began promoting this summer.

But, hey, why not, she said.

She wouldn't even mind if some people who come to town for the G-20 -- if not the leaders, then maybe some of the police brought in to help or other visitors -- stop in to check out the Lawrenceville Little Flea gathering at Butler and 36th streets that Saturday. "It's a great diversion and a way to see the neighborhood," assured Ms. Parks.

In an old-fashioned way, the market picks up on the economic and sustainable themes that helped bring the summit to Pittsburgh. Reusing items reduces the need for new things and cuts carbon footprints. In a tough economy, a flea market can help people buy things cheaply while others make a little money, Ms. Parks said.

Tim Fitzgerald, president of Jacobsen dealer Krigger & Co. in West Deer, also was unaware that the G-20 tag was one of several on a video showing a new Eclipse 22 prototype all-electric mower demonstration at Nevillewood a few weeks ago. "I'm not sure what the tie-in would be," he mused, noting that his son loaded the video before heading back to college.

But the $40,000 piece of equipment used for places such as golf courses is greener and cleaner than more traditional models, he said.

While he didn't exactly have a message for the G-20 leaders, he did have one for officials in Washington, D.C. They need to stop vilifying golfers, he said.

It seems companies don't want their CEOs seen golfing these days because it might look like they are goofing off. In addition, Mr. Fitzgerald said, the stimulus package bans municipalities from spending the funds on their golf courses. "There are a lot of people employed in this business," he noted.

Whatever messages the masses want to convey to the G-20 participants, the people at Elliance hope to be able to deliver. "I always feel it's important to hear the grass-roots voices," said Mr. Noaman.

After they came up with the idea a few weeks ago of using their windows in the Confluence building, they asked the landlord for permission. The project is benign, but they don't want to get anyone in trouble. Insurance concerns are being reviewed.

If everything works out, people would be able to send messages to a Twitter account, heyg20. Some would be translated into Morse code. Six windows with six different colors would each flash a different message. "It'll look like a light show," Mr. Noaman said.

Every so often, the lights could be synchronized to deliver a single message from Mr. Khan and Elliance.

The G-20 organizers don't want some other group to try to hijack their windows for an inappropriate message, so not everything sent in would make the light show. But all items sent in would be available to those who want to check out the Twitter account.

That might be useful, too, for the G-20 leaders. They may not all be fluent in Morse code.

By Teresa F. Lindeman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

More stupid white people

I like stupid people as much as the next guy, I do. But this healthcare "debate" has brought out the knuckle draggers and the right wing zombies like no movement I have ever seen before. It's almost as if they are proud to be stupid. You know, their argument is that they do not want socialism to take over our country, and that may be OK, I am not sure. What I find amazing is that most of the mouth breathers were probably educated in public schools, and not very well educated at that. So the argument they should be making should sound like this, "I was edumacated at a public school, paid for by everyones taxes and look at me, I am stupid as rocks and I can't think for myself and I fall for every fear based argument and Hitler and Muslins and death councils and Glenn Beck and I watch TV and I am worried and Obama was born in Kenya and he is black and I am worried and terrorism...."

Business news is not so good

I read the business stories so you can get drunk:

Stocks took a kick in the groin today and who do we have to thank for that? Banks and AIG, wait, is it 2008 again?

As much as I loved Cash for Clunkers, it seems that many of the US automakers did not do as well as some government types may have hoped.

In you are thinking about allowing the foreclosure vultures to take your house, imagine what it must feel like to own a 100 million dollar office building.

Leave it to the Germans and Apple to start to figure out new media.

Speaking of Apple, Almost dead Steve Jobs may be about to show off his new liver, no strike that, his new Ipod.

I love the Curious Capitalist at Time, but for my nighttime listening pleasure, as it were, I download the NPR Planet Money pod. There are some obnoxious people involved in this production and I imagine I would not want to hang with too many of them, but for informative and entertaining business news, these people put it together.

Drug policy

I love drugs as much as the next guy, although I never drink, I have never smoked and I think prescription drugs are for pansies.

So, then, you ask, how does a person with little or no vices stand on the whole drug policy debate? I say legalize everything. I am deeply hateful for a government that can not bring itself to pass meaningful healthcare for its citizens, especially with the right wing blowhards talking about government intrusion into your private life, all the while regulating every aspect of drugs that millions end up doing anyway.

It is stupid. At a time when more and more people are finding the joys of a little marijuana to calm that stomach disorder, or help with nausea, the big bad federal government continues to live in a reefer madness mentality.

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't our current president sell cocaine for a time? And didn't our former president do blow like it was cotton candy? So, the argument goes, if you do drugs you will end up being a loser, never amount to anything and probably spend years in jail. Two presidents part of a drug culture, another one smoked dope but never inhaled. For gods sake, are these elected politicians that stupid?

WHat was one of the first things FDR did when he took over the presidency in a time of economic collapse? Say it with me, he ended prohibition, not because it was the moral thing, or the wise thing, or a way to make money for the government. He did it because people were A - using it illegally anyway, B - wanted to be able to have a drink if they damn well felt like it.

So I ask you president Obama, and I know you have been sneaking in here and reading my blog, legalize it all, tax the hell out of it, pay for treatment and healthcare out of some of that new money and end the hypocritical idiocy.