MyMedia

A Cyberpoem for Spring

2008-09-22T16:51:00.017+10:00

Citrus Fruit in Cyber-Spring

"Not just the grace of fingered feel and touch, but the hint of summer breathed upon a hive buzzing with shared secrets of the sweet; dark honey flows from within hummed travesties of spring time over winter. The rind upon the fruit a kind of hide and suite of pealing declaration: skinning the disguise of seasons, thickened over seeding discontents; cycles timed and hunted, braced, tracked and traced with gently minded claw to tear to near and nervous electronic leap. Earthing dance for electricity."

Perfectly Strange (reposted)

2008-09-22T13:00:00.004+10:00

A venture into 'multi-media' Using screen shots from a 3D chat space, some of my favorite music, and a terrific little slideshow editing software bundle that was so good I actually paid money for it! Quali and I were engaged in a discussion on her blog as to whether RLC was a 'game' or a 'community'. There are frequently arguments and discussions, and even dramas about the ethics of 'roleplaying' and interpersonal relations in cyberspace. So I suppose this is what was at the back of my mind when I spent a couple of hours putting it together. It constitutes a kind of response to those kinds of discussion.

PS: I was inspired by the poetry of the characters and avatars I met on RLC. The construction of this piece is entirely synthetic, but the characters and identities are real. And only two of those identities are mine. And only one of them is female.

Enjoy

"strangely Perfect"

Many thanx to Quali, Kently and Thai for helping me test out my new slide show software. Also of course, Tom Waits, and Bette Midler. And the bartender. :-)

Note: RLC (Red Light Centre) is supposed to be a 'porn' site. But I have found more intelligent, interesting, and creative characters and people here than I ever did on the commercially oriented "Second Life" CPU-guzzling version of a 3D version of a web replicate. Which is what Second Life is, in my opinion. Just an up market version of the Web.

The Other September 11

2008-09-22T12:55:00.005+10:00

The 'other' September 11, of which few North Americans are aware is indelibly engraved upon the memories of most Latin Americans - that is the US inspired coup against Salvador Allende (a legally elected President) and his government in 1973. Over three thousand Chileans were killed immediately in Chile Stadium after the post coup 'round up'. Between 100 and 200 thousand Chileans were 'disappeared' during the following years of the US, (and UK) supported dictatorship, and hundreds of thousands felt forced to flee the country.

The footage here of the bombing of the Moncada (the Presidential Palace)has eerie resonances with the images of 2001.

The military coup ushered in over two decades of Pinochet's military dictatorship. One of the reasons I can't get into BDSM is that I once translated the testimonies of Chilean torture victims when they came to Australia as refugees.

While sympathetic to the tragedy of 9/11/01 I can also understand the sentiments of Latin Americans who saw it as 'collateral damage' coming home to roost.

Another uncanny resonance I find in this footage is Allende's speech before he was killed. He predicted his own death, and that the fascists would take and destroy certain radio stations and newspapers, and the headquarters of some of social organisations. For that reason he announced it as his last speech, knowing that the fascists would seize the last remaining media outlets. He was correct on every count.

And even as I write this, I await news from a friend in Bolivia. Yesterday (September 10) the Bolivian government expelled the US Ambassador for his support of right wing organisations that attempted to take over the government of the Province of Santa Cruz last Tuesday, their leader threatening to divide the country. Here is an extract from the news I had sent to me:

Bolivia, September 11 2008

"After destroying property of recently-nationalised public entities, the fascist groups then burnt the offices of the human rights organization, Centre for Juridical and Social Studies (CEJIS), before turning their attention to media outlets. Radio Patria Nueva installations were burnt, offices of the State television company Channel Seven in Santa Cruz were attacked and equipment stolen. They forced Radio Alternativa to suspend broadcasts and intimidated other media that are not aligned to the movement for elite-led autonomy, in scenes reminiscent of the previous week in Cobija, where four radio stations had to cease transmission in order to protect the safety of their journalists."

(Bolivia, September 11 2008)

It seems that some people never learn and try to force history to repeat itself in an endless loop. But then again, what goes around, comes around.

And
"Behind the 'other' September 11"

My first 'Nimbin' poem

2008-09-22T12:48:00.001+10:00

The Tree Frog

The tree frog calls
Rain rattles on the roof
Softening the next door
TV news of teenage
Suicides.

The green tree frog recalls
Our brief age of seasons
The unions and the separations
That reasons can’t restore
Or fathom

We lay beneath our shared roof
And listened, dreaming
The damp crush of fallen leaves,
The quivering wetness
Of rain-struck flowers.

The tree frog senses
Through slick skin
The shift and slide of rain,
Clings and holds the slope of leaf
Against the flow to guttering.

Rain laves the eye
An open well
The tree frog calls. The rain
Runs down in twining braids.
I hear.

(I dream
the crush of fallen leaves
in hair,
and in your mouth
the quivering wetness
of rain struck flowers.)

July 19 - Again!

2008-09-22T12:37:00.002+10:00

I was a way from this blog for the best part of a year. It wasn't until I found myself posting a story about July 19 on another blog (mainly to get up the noses of US posters who were making a great deal of noise about their 4th of July celebrations), that I suddenly remembered that my last post here was July 19 post, in memory of the Sandinista revolution. So little by little I have started posting across to this blog. Who knows, it might be resuscitated to a new life, much like the Sandinistas, who have made a comeback in the last year.

July 19 1979 was the day of the Triumph of the Sandinista Revolution which overthrew 40 years of dictatorship of Nicarabgua by the Somoza Dynasty, and serial invasions by the US dating back to the 1890s (William Walker who declared himself President for several years and sold the right to gather taxes to the Morgan Bank), the early 1900s, when the US sent in marines (and incidentally, first used aircraft as a weapon of war), and throughout the eighties, financed the mercenary remnant of Somoza's National Guard, (the 'contras' financed illegally by the CIA and cocaine connections) and eventually, through a near total economic blockade,starved the country until a government more to their liking was elected in 1990.

This song holds fond memories for me. When I was working in Nicaragua I used to stay in a kind of 'backpackers' where international supporters and workers would come and stay. There was a Nicaraguan guy who was actually a trained opera singer, believe it or not. But we would all sit around in the courtyard in the evenings, and he would bring out his guitar, and he taught us all this song. He'd stride around, singing the lyrics, playing his guitar, and have us all yelling out the words of the chorus.

2008-09-21T21:09:00.002+10:00

"Peeling mandarines in CyberSpring"

"Not just the grace of fingered feel and touch, but the hint of summer breath upon a hive buzzing with shared secrets of the sweet; dark honey flows from hummed travesties of springtime over winters. A rind upon a fruit, a kind of hide and suite of pealing declaration; skinning the disguise of seasons, thickened on the seeding discontent: cycles, time, braced,tracked, traced and hunted with a minded pawed and gentled claw, torn to near and nervous electronic leap; an earthing for the dance of electricity."

Strangely Perfect

2008-09-21T19:57:00.003+10:00

I paid money for this slide show software, and it found it strangely interesting. It turned into a medium to express experiences on a 3D chat site.

RLC (Red Light Centre) is supposed to be a 'porn' site. But I have found more intelligent, interesting, and creative characters and people here than I ever did on the commercially oriented "Second Life" CPU-guzzling version of a 3D version of a web replicate. Which is what Second Life is. Just an up market version of the Web.

I do have 'video' screen capture software, but still looking for something easier to use than windows Movie maker, to put some interesting material together. And don't tell me that these thrown together screen shot stills (shown below) don't reflect the fascination of the avatars and identity players of RLC. In fact, the stills don't do justice to the 3D engine that seems to synchronise dance steps to the music playing (more of that later).

In any case this is a kind of 'cyberpoem' -perhaps not really? Really, it was only a test run of a software slide show package (that I actually paid for !?!), and I thought I would learn how to use it while I was waiting for a two hour download to complete.

I was inspired by the poetry the characters and avatars I met on RLC. The construction of this piece is entirely synthetic, but the characters and identities are real. And only two of them are mine. And only one of them is female.

Enjoy

"strangely Perfect"

Many thanx to Quali, Kently and Thai for helping me test out my new slide show software. Also of course, Tom Waits, and Bette Midler. And the bartender. :-)

A poem about Nimbin

2008-09-21T11:27:00.001+10:00

A poem about my local bowling club, normally a stronghold of conservatism and age, but in my home village a social hub. The club was taken over by the hippies, who changed a few of the rules... there are still older people, but now there are young people too.

Bowls

Such a gentle, social

Geometry; the lob and rolling

Kiss of hit-and-miss touch

Of green with a handful of dark

Weight placed, just so,

Upon a timed and trodden lawn.

I have to pause myself sometimes, to

Stop and watch the willing moment

Of the waiting word roll out

Seeking destination

Jane Austen could be almost jealous of this

Civilisation of muted feral chords

Modulating from formal white

To musical toned shades

Of green and blonde and tan

and dark, and amber;

Another one, and just one more

To trundle on

To inevitable

Gatherings.

July19 in Nicaragua

2007-07-19T22:47:00.000+10:00

When Blogger comrade Dave Riley came to visit me here at Nimbin his eyes immediately picked out a full colour photograph that I had proudly framed and hung on my kitchen wall. I was looking at it again today, because I had taken it on the 19th of July 1989, in Managua, Nicaragua. It was the last July 19 celebration to be held in Nicaragua before the Sandinistas tragically lost the 1990 elections to a 14 party, largely CIA backed coalition. They had managed to stay in power for 10 years against a vicious war of aggression fincanced by the US government (in the latter years illegally, using drug money), and an economic and diplomatic blockade, and a campaign of systematic sabotage.

As can be seen in this scan, the expressions of the faces of the participants, even in 1989, still reflected the euphoria, delight, and pride from the 'first' Nicaraguan 19 de Julio, (July 19) in 1979, when the Sandinistas marched into Managua after their guerilla forces defeated the thuggish National Guard of the corrupt and vicious dicator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. They celebrated with a triumphant victory parade through the streets of Managua, marching, cheering, and riding on anything with wheels.

I arrived in Managua myself just a month after the 'Triumph' of 1979, and the euphoria of that time would often fuel my enthusiasm during the many years I spent working in the region of Nicaragua and El Salvador. An account of those years can be found at my very first web site, made in 1996, using notepad, and handwritten html code as my web page editor :-) on this site:

http://lillianblue.org/CentralAmerica/

Today the former Sandinista President, Daniel Ortega has been returned to the Presidency, and with the economic and moral support of Socialist Venezuela, the Sandinistas may make a comeback as the majority party in Nicaragua. If they do, we may look forward once again to the inspiring 19 de Julio celebrations.

Guest Post: Message to Warwick's blog

2007-07-17T23:33:00.001+10:00

I have been visiting the innards of Warwick's blog to make it work in a way that would suit a Media type person such as he.

So I signed into the blogging works and got down to business.

I have imported the NEO template which is really snazzy and has a lot of really really cool attributes. It happens, however, that there is a problem with the template as it is supposed to list recent posts. I'm thinking it is a feed issue...That's my diagnosis. But we'll see.

So it won't work just yet the way Blog God intended and I may have to engineer a fix. But my perspectives for "Warwick's blog" are in play.

I will consult the entrails of some feral animal to see what course I now need to pursue and after washing my hands of its gut stuff, will return to the workstation for another sweaty session making blog whoopee.

Satire

2007-07-17T23:25:00.001+10:00

Click on title for full list.

LatinRadical

2007-07-17T23:20:00.000+10:00

Click on title for full list

Video outrage

2007-07-11T09:51:00.000+10:00

Bono's Creed of Greed

2006-11-13T10:38:00.001+11:00

Most of my blogging activities these days have been focussed on the Nimbinradiomedia
podcast site. Getting my Latinradical radio and podcast show in the can, etc. A bit of background research turned up some interesting information on superstar Bono, and where some of his real (financial) interests lie. A Sydney friend was quite shocked when I showed him Bono's interests in an ultra-violent computer game involving a simulated invasion Venezuela, that seems directly opposed to his social reformist world-saving posturing.
At the risk of having his lawyers come after me I thought I should publish some of the background on U2's Bono. The Venezuela solidarrity Network is preparing a very warm, and politically controversial, welcome for the mega-pop-star of the Band U2. Bono is an active member of the board of a company("Pandemic") that develops war game simulations for the Pentagon to train its troops. One of the spin-offs is a game about to be released commercially to civilians, called "Mercenaries II - World in Flames". It simulates an invasion of Venezuela by xternally financed mercenary bands with detailed maps of Venezuela and the capital city, Caracas. The motive is oil, and the game encourages players to think that they are overthrowing an oil hungry 'dictator', very obviously modelled on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez, far from being a dictator, commands huge popular and democratic support. At every constitutional crisis provoked by the US (including coup attempts) he has bounced back merrily with elections, Since the turn of the century, he has consistently improved his majority vote, now rating somewhere between 70 and 80 percent. His popularity ratings are still rising. (Might have something to do with the fact that he is investing oil revenues into social programs and sustainable devlopment ...and the consistent 10 percent growth rate of the Venezuelan economy since he introduced 'socialistic' programs of government investment,since the 1990s ... ).

Clearly the game is part of a massive Psy-ops operation by the US government establishment to crank up support for an intervention in Venezuela.

Bono refuses to respond to requests to rethink the release of the game. Despite claims to having 'social activist' credentials, his endorsement of this game proves that really, it's all posturing. Bono has disgraced himself and alienated fans on earlier occasions: Once (during the 90s) by taking his huge earnings offshore to avoid paying taxes that could go to the Irish people, (perhaps to build schools and hospitals?) and again by becoming one of the heaviest copyright cops on the Internet. ('We don't want anyone hearing us before they've paid ... !"). We know where he is coming from, so don't be confused by where he says he's been; he certainly doesn't want us to know where he lives. Watch this space for more developments, more deep background on Bono, more musical sketches for him and his fans and the very, very, warm welcome being prepared for him on his Australian tour.

nimbinradiomedia's Podcast

2006-11-13T10:36:00.000+11:00

nimbinradiomedia's Podcast

Reeling through the months

2005-12-28T09:02:00.000+11:00

No better time than that interlude between Xmas and New Year to go into retrospective mode and review the missing blogmonths, where the shouldabeen posts couldhavebeen posted, and wouldhavebeen had my energies not been so intently, perhaps obsessively, focussed on the podcast posts on the libsyn site (http://nimbinradiomedia.libsyn.com)

While it has fortunately not been a good year for President Shrub, it hasn't been a good year for the people, either. Anti-terrorist legislation was passed in Australia with a few token bleats from our now rather blimpish opposition leader, and Nimbin got its street surveillance cameras almost at the same time, against the wishes of (admittedly) disorganised locals. On a more positive note, Venezuela is walking tall (see next post) and to my immense delight, the working class Indigenous Evo Morales won the elections in Bolivia. At last - an election (like Venezuela's) where the elected representative genuinely reflects the people's will.

How to trash a B52 and influence people

2005-06-27T19:44:00.000+10:00

Out of the blog loop for a few weeks, but our little community radio station is taking to podcasting like a kitten to a can of sardines, and getting the stuff out has been exciting, generating some good energy. (Damn, I'm starting to talk like a hippy already!). At the end of my last post I was wondering where this podcast thing was taking me. I'm starting to find out. So far it has taken me to people like David Suzuki and Cairain O'Reilly, who have both granted us extraordinary interviews for podcast and broadcast. Martin was able to line up an 'exclusive' with Suzuki (which we immediately put on the net, of course) before he recorded question time at Suzuki's public lecture at Byron Bay.

Reading Bicycle Mark's Blogs had me sharing his thirst for radical activism ( I know, I know, you brew your own ... ). Thoughts like these were trickling through my head the other day while wandering through the village on the way to the radio station. An aquaintance interrupted my revery when he called me over and asked if a friend of his could get a bit of air time . He would only be in town for an hour or so ... Before I blurted out (perhaps fortunately) that we would talk to anybody on air, he breathlessly explained that the guy was just over from Ireland, on his way up to Brisbane to visit his family. Then he would have to go back to Ireland to face charges of causing grievous bodily harm to a B52 Bomber at the Shannon airbase! I nodded sagely and said ' I dunno ... I think we might be able to accommodate him at short notice ... ' Meetyas at the Oasis? (you know ... that sidewalk coffee place where all the chess players, and poets, and musicians, and 2Nim FM community radio people hang out ... ). I rushed down there and found Marie, our staion coordinator and most experienced interviewer.

5 minutes later they turned up. And what an interview Cairain gave us! And an incredibly mature vision of the nature of activism and the directions he would like to see it go. Not on quite the same track that I follow (he was working more from the spiritual/religious traditions of Ghandi, and Martin Luther King), but based on half a lifetime of experience and commitment. ( - At one stage I thought of a fellow arrestee at an anti-Vietnam war demonstration back in 1968. I remember that when he was asked his occupation at the Police Station when we were being charged, he gave as his occupation "professional agitator"... but that would be a comparison unfair to Cairain).

No. Not going to tell you what he said. You have to hear it yourself. It's only 20 minutes and it won't hurt a bit. In fact, it made my day.

What a week it was going to be, and was, and it was, wasn't it ...

2005-05-06T15:54:00.000+10:00

Still surfacing after the lead in and the lead out to the Nimbin Mardi-Grass that sweeps through this little village about this time every year. 10,000 plus tourists descend en mass to protest for Cannabis drug law reform and celebrate 'the weed'. There is a 'Pickers Harvest Ball', a giant joint twenty feet long carried through the streets, and ganja fairies of both sexes in skimpy green outfits and body paint handing out joints and 'magic' cookies. A locally organised brigade of volunteers called 'Jungle Patrol' do crowd and traffic control, and 'security'. This year a few undercover police from Queensland busted a ganja fairy, but there is a general sense of tolerance, and the crowds were mellow and well behaved.
I'm not a crusader, or even much of a user of the 'weed' (... it makes my head go funny ... probably something allergic I ate in my youth ... ) but I understand well reasons for decriminalisation. I see the issue as having consciousness raising effects (in the political sense) . Local activists are not slow to point out the political motivations for prohibition. Double standards aside, the issue is called in terms that outline corporate abuse and consumer exploitation. And for that reason I am behind it.
My role. OK. I saw Mardigrass as an opportunity, or a platform, to launch a little media project for the community, and the community radio station. I've set up a web site to access the sound files of the programming for Mardi-Grass, and a podcast site. A huge pretzel shaped learning curve for me. I'm still getting my head around RSS ( but it will find me eventually...).
Podcaster comrade bicycleMark came through with the goods again with a great live to air internet broadcast interview about the history of Cannabis Cafes is Amsterdam, especially for Mardi-Grass. The Nimbinites *love* these interviews .... another little media experiment.
Thanx Mark.
So now I have my own domain and podcast site! Woah! Where is all this taking me ... ?

2005-05-06T15:46:00.000+10:00

Interview with a Ganja Fairy.

2005-04-20T20:20:00.000+10:00

Late 1980s. Haven't changed much .. have I..?

Media barb of the week.

2005-04-20T18:28:00.000+10:00

Mark Colman on Radio National PM, interviewing former Australian Ambassador to the Vatican on the appointment of the new Pope:
"So how is the Catholic Church going to get around his alleged lack of charisma?"

With Friends like these ....

2005-04-20T17:35:00.000+10:00

With friends like these ...

Following up on a suggestion that we do an intellectual property rights piece I checked out the ongoing Kazaa case currently running in Australia. Nice little newsfeeder came up with some readable links. The most interesting of these were from something called 'The Register' which has been tracking the story.

Follow the links if you are interested in the case itself. What interested me was the way this publication - healthily oppositional in its editorial position - began arguing from within the rhetorical frame set up by the prosecuting lawyers. Basically the legal rhetoric of the prosecution was that if Sharman (the Czar of Kazaa!) could claim to block child pornographers (why only child pornography?) using the Kazaa Peer to Peer (P2P) network, then he could therefore also block music file exchanges which infringed copyright.

Sounds good. Especially with something as emotive as child pornography. It's annoying though, because the Kazaa conditions of service don't say any such thing. The Register simply repeats the defense lawyer's case - the basic defense - that Kazaa has just provided a technology and is not responsible for how it might be used. (Like VCRs, photocopiers - remember that one?). Sound, but a bit like using trench warfare to take out a sniper, in my view. I suppose it does serve the purpose of promoting the basic defense argument through repetition yet again.

Seems to me it would have been easier to pick holes in the dishonesty of the verbal slither from "reserves the right" (ie: claims the right) [to bar child pornographers from accessing Kazaa and its services] to misrepresenting that as a legal commitment to "boot off" porn peddlers. 'Reserving the right' is a legal protection (ie:from someone who might have been booted off and might sue), not a legal commitment.

The Judge seems to have seen through that particular tactic, but is obviously wearied by the effort. Understanding it all through the prism of the interests of the music 'industry' is all so demanding. He has announced that he has taken time off to hand down his decision "to accommodate the needs of the recordig industry". He needs more time to think it through. Poor man. He has a headache. Give him all the time he can take, is all I can say. (Does it have to be on a QC's salary, though?)

My real concern is that even if this judge is given all the time in the world, the fumbling of the quibble could establish precedents that will weaken future cases which depend on the increasingly fine definition of difference between patent law and copyright law. The problem faced by legal thinkers today, with Internet technology, is an old philosophical one - the difference between a text and a machine. Programs have always been built into hardware (ie: 'hardwired') and now specific programs (for mobile phones and other mass usage communications technology) are being built into our day to day instruments more and more. The programming moguls ie: Microsoft) are vertically integrated with the chip manufactuers (like Intel and Microsoft) and are working to establish a 'virtual monopoly'. One method is to revise the protocols that hitherto have kept the net open. Demand for broader bandwidth is being framed to favour the hegemonic position of Microsoft in the platform for software applications. Which would be hardwired into hardware circuits and chips.IT and the Internet have made the distinction between a machine and a text ambiguous through this kind of crossover, a crossover that entails a potentially damaging potential for society in legal interpretations of intellectual property law. It presents a challenge to a legal system predicated on humanistic principles..

From Blog to Pod Part 3

2005-04-20T15:26:00.000+10:00

BUT WAIT! THERE'S EVEN MORE!

.... and it just keeps getting better! While I was festering around the web looking for ways to get my head around podcasting, and software for our techies, I kept hearing these irritating little announcements from the Australian ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) Radio National, which I leave on around the clock virtually. They were always to quick and cryptic for me to grasp before I emerged from my web-induced trance state, but eventually I caught a reference to ... "if you want know more, go to our website at ... ... ABC Radio National, podcast .

Guess what? ABC Radio National is getting into podcasting next month. I'm sure the IndyRadio network (That's Independent Radio Network - an internet network of independent radio stations)already doing it.
Nice if NimFM do it before ABC Radio National though ...
For the Mardi Grass. Maybe we'll even let them do a story on it :-)
Ahhh ... synchronicity, sweet synchronicity.

The ABC has been quick on the uptake of new IT technology, and up until recently have used it intelleigently, and in a socially responsible way. The ABC Radio National website has become a major portal. So much so that there are strong moves for the the government to 'privatise' it (read 'sell it off'). It is an amazing educational and journalistic resource. Especially amazing since the web portal was largely initiated by a few enthusiasts, who got it going against management resistance, and finally got a shoestring budget of about $2million a year. So now they want to sell it. Now that its reputation is established ...

This year, a government which will have a Senate majority expected to take over in June this year, has made the first move of stripping down the ABC even further. Thye have appointed as its head a woman who, like the guy appointed by the US government to be its Ambassador to the United Nations, has stated publicly her antipathy to the organisation she has been appointed to be the head. It shows already (hence my earlier rant about Necrophiliac newsrules ... )

The ABC is a unique institution. While many Northamericans are conditioned to believe that anything which is State financed is necessarily compromised, the Australian ABC has, (like the Mexican State run newspaper) attracted the cream of journalistic talent and media people,set the standards of journalistic independence, pioneered new genres, broken stories that the commercial press would not go near, and attracted criticism from both sides of government. This government has finally reverted to the tactic of starving it into submission.

It was one of the first media in Australia to start sniffing around the phenomenon of the ipod and podcasting in an ABC Radion National documentary in October last year on their background briefing program.

So now a mainstream (under strict sufferance) national radio station is going to launch its own podcastting module. It brings to mind Mark's comment during his live to air interview. He said laughingly that slow to develop commercial radio interest in podding was starting to make him nervous.

ABC is not commercial radio. It has, hitherto maintained its independence. But with a new Senate coming up, giving an ultra conservative government unlimited powers, it could be a worry that the future role of the ABC, especially its Internet wing, comes into question. With copyright laws raging globally, the ABC's rich sound database could become tempting pickings for the corporate vultures. Let's hope the ABC does not become a Trojan Horse serving the corporate interests in this war.

From Blog to Pod Part 2

2005-04-20T14:57:00.000+10:00

The real Blog to Pod post. I will not be sidetracked by Necrophiliac news or dead and dying dignitaries this time.
There was and definitely still is movement at the station. That is, community Radio Station NimFM where I and most of the other staff work as volunteers. The live-to-air experiment (Internet linkup going live to air) raised great interest. Mark's lucid explanation of podcasting has finally dispelled the confusion in some minds between live streaming and putting some of our sound logs and programs on the net as easy-to-access mp3 sound files.

Technicians have been rounded up and they are enthusiastically putting leads and links into the broadcast studio to streamline the process. We are just waiting for the NimFM webmaster to come down from out of the hills to investigate the feasibility of putting up the broadcast of the upcoming Mardi-Grass festival into a podcasting format online on or near our website. Very exciting if it happens - especially for the thousands of international visitors who come here for that celebration, and who will probably be emailing their friends back home to access it, or loading it down onto their ipods. The Station policy that weekend is for all presenters to go out and get the street action - live vox-pops,live bands, chat with the ganja fairies ... (Me? I'm going to go home and cover my ears ... :-) )

From Blog to Pod

2005-04-18T19:52:00.000+10:00

I promise to keep this up to date from now on. Really. I promise. I was just so demoralised after I lost 800 words in blogspace. I wrote up a couple of strong pieces on local media treatment of Popes, Feeding Tubes, Dead Australians Coming Back Home (from mysteriously crashed helicopters) etc. etc. A media focus that was in my opinion excessive for two weeks. Overkill, even? It did displace equally significant, and perhaps more significant news of civilian casualties in Iraq, growing numbers of US troop casualties there, the atrocious treatment of the damaged US soldiers when they get home, and some pretty heavy vortices in current economic phenomena in both Australian and North America. I titled it 'Necrophiliac Newsrules, OK'.

Since I wrote it and lost it, there has been no let-up. We in Australia already have Anzac day coming up with bad news from Gallipoli. The Turks (with Australian government consent ... )have made an access road to accommodate the growing number of Gallipolean tourists flocking to the site from Australia each year. Not unsurprisingly this has disturbed the bones of the original combatants. Even as I write I am listening to a news item about delicate negotiations taking place between the Australian and Turkish governments, about how to give the bones the very best accommodation. So that it can be maintained as a tourist site, I guess. A crypt has been promised. The Bones may yet Stroll. Pop stars have been promised for the backpackers. With controversy, thank the Goddess. May they (the Bones) rest in peace...

The Papal Piece got lost in cyberspace before I could post it. A possible Papal Postmortal Retraction? A rejection of my work, on a sub quantum level of fumbled negotiations for a temporally distorted gateway (pearly or otherwise), acting as a paradigm of metaphysical censorship?

We'll never know and I personally don't really want to. Blogspot claims to have recovered their 'lost-post recovery software module' after a week or so of apologies, so I might not have to rewrite it so long after the iron has ceased to be hot. I doubt it.

But, there is movement at the station! A meeting has been lined up with the NimFM webmaster to facilitate the posting of sound files of some of our programs on the NimFM web site. There is a commitment to put a dedicated phoneline through to the studio and our very own STUDIO COMPUTER (at last) to do stuff online without having to (in my case) lug in a decrepit laptop and a hand pump to keep it cool because the fan is fucked.

So, Kate and Mark ... we have made a difference. thanx
I think ...

Happening at last

2005-04-04T14:24:00.001+10:00

Finally it is happening.
A bit of a media experiment with the local community radio station. Now that we have a studio phone I should be able to plug my laptop into the studio console, go online and transmit a live three way sound interview through something like IM with friends overseas.
Friend and blogger, Verbalchameleon from New York was able to line up Bicyclemark in Amsterdam. Pretty exciting, considering that the administrative committee of Radio 2Nim FM is a bit slow on the uptake of internet technology on the radio. Hopefully the thrill of a three way international conversation without long distance phone expenses will turn them on to the idea of developing the internet potential for community broadcasting.
Even as I type this I am listening to Martin do his show, using sound files from the indymedia network. Martin is the other technophile on the radio station and hopefully we will be collaborating a lot in the future. Thanks again to K for helping me to set this up. Next Sunday is the Big Day.