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SMOKE & MIRRORS - WILL WORK FOR FOOD: ROD AMIS opens our eleventh year with a lot on his mind..
SMOKE
"Where there's smoke, there's fire ..." Popular Adage.
5 January 2007: I'm not sure if I'm more outraged and saddened by the execution of Saddam Hussein in such a heinous and barbaric manner or by Mr. Bush's recent signing statement saying that it's now okay to open the snail mail letters that we Americans receive. The last time I had my postal mail opened, without regard, was when I lived in Egypt, during its state of war with Israel, during the 1970s. Then, I only sent letters to the Watson Foundation and the woman I loved. I was sure that I wouldn't write anything considered subversive or of interest to a government censor. Today, being a very public dissident in my personal life - while doing a poor job of hiding this fact in my professional life - I have reasons to be afraid. I opposed the policies of Bush I. It's documented all over the Internet what I think of Bush II.
One thing I do know is that I find the very idea that the Internet has been instrumental in showing the, reportedly, cell phone video of Mr. Hussein's death as repugnant as the death penalty itself. How dare we call this "civilization" when vengeance is the order of the day?
You don't have to agree with me. I've never asked for that. All I ask is that you consider my opinion. Where is the compassion; where is the humanity in this kind of exhibition?
Once again, I'm required by my position here, to produce an editorial that should inform and illuminate life for you, if I get it right. I had, therefore, to get that feeling out of the way to "talk" about the other issues with which we should be concerned, my loves.
INSIDE THE MAGAZINE
Do me a favor. Prove me wrong this edition and actually read some of the six (6) other new features I'm sharing with you this time.
For example, BRAD BALFOUR's interview with Japanese actor Ken Watanabe on his work in Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" is an excellent piece. It's something you won't find elsewhere on the Internet.
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI does a good job of speaking to issues of religion and science, a counterpoint to my own positions here, that is well worth your time at DAY ONE.
Because I believe there is an intellectual stream that exists, writers talking to each other across the centuries, it has always been my honor and privilege to publish work in the ether of my friend, mentor and colleague, LIONEL ROLFE, the Menuhin scion who has graced these pages for may years. Like me, he is an unrepentant radical. Like me, he has paid his dues for his radicalism. Thus, his memoir on the late Dorothy Healey at AMERICAN DREAMS this edition is a special gem I hope you will give some time.
That's only three of the six other articles you could read this week that just might make a difference in your perception of our world.
I don't think I'm asking much. You click ed to this page, after all. Before doing a Google search on Britney Spears, take a chance on learning something.
News to Rod
ITEM ONE: The FOCUS ISSUE here in G21 in 2007 is RELIEVING GLOBAL POVERTY. To paraphrase the great writer James Baldwin, it's expensive to be poor in this world.
Along that line, my pal Ric Williams sent me a link to this article at the end of 2006. It's worth your consideration.
ITEM TWO: Also in December, I was trawling around and found this article, this rant, this surprising statement from an unusual source, my dears, that I made a note to myself to share with you.
ITEM THREE: Finally, I thought you should take a look at this brilliant article about what's happening in Latin America.
ITIEM FOUR: THOSE OF YOU in the "political junkie" contingent likely noted that the New York Daily News broke the story this week about the leak from the exploratory committee for a Rudy Giuliani presidential run.
Astute readers will have noted that our navigation bar, on the left of every page except this one, shamelessly hypes how we break stories first. We do. We brought the Giuliani campaign's feet of clay to our Loyal Reader's attention last September with CATRIONA STUART's article on Kevin Keating's documentary "Giuliani Time."
Our journalistic colleague Amy Goodman, over at DemocracyNow!.org, featured Keating on her program this week to talk about the documentary and those elements of Rudy's history that G21 brought to your attention months ago.
There are many things you DO read here first.
That's news to Rod.
In the Crystal Ball
8 January 2007: THE MORE INTUITIVE among you will have taken my last editorials under consideration and not be surprised by what I'm about to say.
Come March, I'll have been at this endeavor for seventeen years, eleven of them here on the Web. Some weeks it's been easy, some difficult. (VERY Long-time Loyal Readers might even remember a time when I updated this publication daily, as opposed to the semi-weekly schedule I've taken to over the last couple of years.) It's been a good run, I believe. I'm certainly proud of the writers it's allowed me to know.
Thing is, because of some of the frustrations I've shared with you in these last few editions and because of my the vicissitudes of my own life, I've been giving a lot of thought to hanging up my gloves here and trundling off to simply write a personal blog.
At this point, I don't think I have to prove that I can run a Web site featuring multiple writers or am capable of the herding cats nature of such an endeavor.
Frankly, over the last year, doing this has become more of a burden and less a joy. I have other writing projects, both personal and professional, which suffer from my attention to keeping this enterprise alive. I am very invested in the new novel I've begun and a couple other projects.
IF I am lucky enough to garner consideration by the Knight Foundation for the "New Jack Newsroom" project I'm proposing, in partnership with the University of Texas and the League of Technical Voters here in Austin, I'll have more than enough on my plate. I'm very excited about the possibility of realizing that project because it would allow me to foster a new cadre of young, minority journalists.
I'm also excited about the newest project with which I've become involved, Leverage Social Media. It allows me to talk about the evolution of the Internet, something I've written and talked about since the early days. It doesn't hurt that it will help pay the bills.
AND I'm receiving a good deal of encouragement from my editor at Enterprise Leadership, a publication that actually offers me something close to a living wage.
All of these issues considered, and the fact that I'd like to have a love life again one day, among other things, means that some part of my time must be freed up. The part that is most obvious is this one. Though it has afforded both emotional and intellectual stimulation for nearly two decades, it has also had its costs. Perhaps 2007 is the year for me to make an end.
I'll keep you posted.
MIRRORS7 January 2007: Thanks to all those of you have let me know that you do appreciate the music shared in the "ENJOY WHAT ROD DOES" link I've featured on the left of this page since instituting "Smoke and Mirrors." I'm glad I could share some fun while letting my heart bleed over the problems of the world and my continuing state of penury.
Dance!
Sweet band=Zero 7.
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Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in February
Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in May
Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in July
Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in August
Rod Amis at the Huffington Post in November
ENJOY WHAT ROD DOES!Another bit of joy from our friends at Calabash Music:
Enjoy!
Kent Altemus, Becky's husband and my good friend, has spent this deer-hunting season in south Texas. Because he knows what a poor idyit I am, he sent their daughter over on New Year's weekend to bring me a bunch of venison to put in the freezer to tide me through the winter.
I'm thankful for having such a good friend.
I spent my last dime (yes) this week so that I could get my own personal connection back onto the 'Net. 24 and 7. No more piggybacking. Blazingly fast response time again. And no more downtime. (My employers will certainly be pleased.) I am fully back in my world, though I can't afford anything else.
Will work for FOOD.
Imagine me giving a huge "Ah-h-h-h" sigh of relief today but knowing that tomorrow I will know that God's Own Fool will have to suffer and pay the price for the world he wants...
I'm not really sure how I managed to do it, but I created another buzz on the blogosphere last week with my debut article about the John ("Smilin' John" in Rodspeak) Edwards presidential campaign. I thought I was just being my usual tech writer self but some people took me seriously and even accused me of being partisan. (For shame!)
Anyway, you get a reprint of the article to judge for yourselves in MEMOIRS OF THE INFORMATION AGE this edition. It was time t hat column got updated, no?
6 January 2007: A CLOSE FRIEND, who was a Tarot reader, when I lived in San Francisco, once told me that I carry the past like a shroud. I was confused by that statement and asked her what she meant. "The past is inescapable I said. You know the line about those who refuse to learn from the past."
And she said, "But it's not like that with you. Everything about you is like someone from another time. Not just your personal past but all of the past seems to hang around you."
I was nonplussed. I'm not the kind of person to put too much stock in notions like reincarnation. Nonetheless, I have to admit that I have never been able to shake the sense, in some places around the planet and with some people, that there were years and years there that I had experienced before.
Part of my fixation with the Romans, for example, has to do with my knowing, intuitively, things about that era that simply feel right. Long-time Loyal Readers will recall how I felt compelled to get to Galerius's city on what is now the Serbian/Bulgarian border. I entered the gates of that city knowing it, that I was not there for the first time.
It was much the same in Cairo and Alexandria, when I went to Egypt in my youth.
I am not sure what to say about these feelings, other than that I know the past is always - always - with us.
Right now, today, in my present life, I have reconnected with a person I knew in the past of my childhood, another one, in order to understand how I mean to proceed this year. This is a loving and generous woman who is helping me understand things I've attempted to ignore about my young life and my family. I'm surprised, frankly, by her efforts to help me sort these things. But and again, it reminds me that we cannot escape our pasts.
"Little Sister" (Becky) told me in a conversation last night that I should be angry. (Like I'm not.) She says that I fail to confront people who have done me dirt, that I'm always too politic and now is simply another example of my being civil when it is not called for. And I know, Becky, of all people, has my best interests at heart. It was hard to listen to, I must admit. I am as afraid of my own anger as I am of demonstrations of anger, what some people call "passion," by others. So I go the "Mister Valium" mode when, internally, there is an exploding volcano.
As a master of re-invention and transformer, a person who believes in looking over the next mountaintop and toward the next horizon, these feelings are a bit scary for me.
What I've been thinking about lately is that I'm not really close to anyone.
I don't trust people.
Matt, my best friend, is immature on various levels. I hold the mentor role, so even when I'd like to tell him when I'm hurting - even after how he's stepped to the plate for me on many levels - I can't talk to him.
Becky is as close as you can get to me and I can't tell her how I feel...
Those of you familiar with the comedic routines of the late Richard Pryor, a true genius, will understand the next reference. "I understand you, Rich. You don't need to talk to anyone else."
Writers, like the best comedians, can easily fall into that trap. AND IT IS A TRAP.
Some days I'm so lonely it does physically hurt. And I know I have NO ONE I can talk to who won't judge me, who will just let me talk...
So I just stay here in my isolation.
7 January 2007: This weekend, I watched the film "Akeelah and the Bee." It reminded me of what it was like to grow up a poor Black child here with things going on in my mind, suspecting that I was different from the people around me and had talent. It reminded me how it hurt when my peers suspected that I might be a "Brainiac," how they would tease and denigrate me and cheer when I failed or stumbled.
I experience some of the same things from my adult peers but have learned not to take it to heart as much as I did as a child and adolescent. I understand human motivations better. "Stay down!" they yell, even from my own corner of the ring.
I don't listen anymore. I get up and allow my face to be smashed one more time. Then I swing back, knowing that someday I might win.
Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own.
Thanks for coming back this week.
ROD'S FOCUS THIS WEEK
1 - Resolving my ambivalence about this publication.
2 - Finding a new lover and new writing jobs.
3 - Getting the Trotter book out on the market.
"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "
Love,
Rod
ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at the (U.S.) Public Broadcasting System (PBS's) WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS Internet magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, r eaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.
He did stints as the Resident Philosopher at three separate gin mills in that city in the French Quarter and the Marigny, earning his stripes during two successive Mardi Gras seasons. Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. When he's not busy here, he writes technology columns for EnterpriseLeadership.org, IT Manager's Journal and NewsForge. Rod's more leftist writings can be found at Atlantic Free Press. (Don't tell his potential employers.) He writes a weekly column on social media issues for Leverage Social Media. Rust never sleeps.
Our Resident Philosopher has decided to return to Austin, Texas, afte r over two decades away. Wish him luck..
In his spare time, Rod chases women in the many the way a fly chases a spider..
He continues to be committed to integrity,
chastityand a dose of humility.
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