No, my site isn’t going black today. Of course not. As if more than a few people would notice if it did, and that’s no effective way to lodge a protest. Instead I’m heading into SF for a rally against SOPA/PIPA at the Civic Center, and while as ever it’s debatable whether en masse fist-shaking is any more effective (it certainly did little enough in 2003), for me it helps build a feeling of community in a way little else does.
I’m against SOPA/PIPA for the most basic of reasons: nobody’s going to filter my internet while I have anything to say about it. Far as I’m concerned an uncensored ‘net is the greatest thing human social evolution currently has going for it, the single most powerful tool we have to help us develop perspective and intelligence and generally lift ourselves outof the customary mire of isolation, pettiness and tribal suspicion of The Other. Not to mention enabling true democracy among the hoi polloi (a demographic which in this context I’m proud to consider myself a part of) and other little things like that. We need the ‘net, and we need to let it take its own course. Piracy is a relatively small problem in contrast to the advantages that keeping government interference to a minimum offer.
Plus I’m generally for anything that the RIAA and MPAA are against. The issue isn’t whether I enjoy the (ahem) occasional act of piracy; it’s that those two agencies are essentially tools of the 1%, serving no interests but their own and the established powers that formed them, and fuck that. They don’t care about the artists they claim to serve, only funneling my money into the 1%’s pockets. They’re not getting it, they haven’t for years, and they won’t as long as they continue to push crap like the SOPA/PIPA agenda.
There. That’s enough invective for the moment - I need to save some for the rally.
It’s a good day for an outdoor event: chilly but clear and sunny. Forecast says it’s going to be the last such for a week as the rains are finally on their way, due to arrive tonight. They’ll be hitting the coast in a few hours and that’s the only reason I’m not already on my way out to Point Reyes for the day. Which would be no effective way to lodge a protest either, come to think of it, so all right. Bring on the wet.
Still thinking about being out there, though, and how. Mary Lou Lord has a song about watching the sun rise from those white cliffs that’s stuck in my head and it isn’t helping any. (That same song contains the line It’s so insane/I’m Rimbaud and you’re Verlaine and I’ve always wondered what that meant: what was the deal with those two, anyway? I suppose I could look it up on Wikipedia but today’s evidently not the day for that, either.) Maybe next week if there’s a break in the weather.
Not today, though. Today the only traveling I’m doing is on BART over to the Civic Center. Looking forward to it, too, and not just for the rally; I was there yesterday for a job interview and walking along Grove past the Bill Graham I was reminded of how much time I used to spend in the area back in the day. Way back in the day, when I first came to SF and lived in a rooming house in the inner Richmond and my meager Greenpeace wages permitted little entertainment that didn’t involve checking a book out of the massive public library on Larkin or playing a few rounds of pinball at the arcade still open then on Market Street. Hi-Speed was my favorite game, and my favorite lunch spot Carlos Goldstein’s on, I think, McAllister. I remember a window table where I dawdled over a plate of nachos and slowly worked my way through Martin’s Armageddon Rag, a book I’ve surprisingly never felt compelled to revisit. (Ditto Carlos Goldstein’s, though less surprising after one too many lunches there landed me with food poisoning.)
That was all a very long time ago. Half my life and more, though it doesn’t seem like it. From what I saw yesterday the Civic Center overall hasn’t changed all that much in the intervening years though I haven’t been inside the library that I can recall since it was rebuilt. Maybe I’ll nip in to have a look now I won’t be in my interview clothes; I always did have a thing for massive public buildings that I blame on growing up near Philadelphia.
The interview itself went fairly well. I can’t tell if they liked me for the job; I wasn’t overly impressed with them but how picky are you going to get for a 6-week contract? (Plenty on their part evidently, since they gave me an impromptu computer test to determine I knew what a CMS was. I don't know why I was caught off-guard but I was.) Still no word from the place I saw Friday and that’s just fine. I’ve barely given it a thought in the intervening days and that just by itself tells me all I need to know about my interest in the position.
Besides those two, nothing in the pipeline at the moment. My post-rally plan for today was to look for more jobs online but – surprise surprise, Craigslist is blacked out too! Ha ha, the joke’s on me.
Elsewhere life proceeds apace. My mother is out of the nursing facility and back at home, attended for the moment by my sister who’s flown out at short notice to help as needed. News from that end is sketchy because the internet’s been down for several days there. No ideological-motivated blackout this time, just a technical failure that nobody seems to know how to deal with. I won’t say I’m hanging on the edge of my seat for developments but I’m certainly very interested. No immediate plans to call my sister for updates though because between my very ill (and very stubborn) mother and my crazy brother who won’t leave the house I’ve no doubt she’s got her hands full.
It’s hard to decide whether what’s going on with the ‘net today is small beans next to my family or vice versa. I’m just glad I don’t have to. Now pardon me, I have a BART train to catch.
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