Who is this Guy?
Alaskan. Wife Ilana and I moved to Alaska in 2003. We both work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, she in Rasmussen Library, me at the *Arctic Region Supercomputing Center.
Musher. We have *rather a few dogs, for dog sledding on the trails around our home in Two Rivers, Alaska, the finest mushing on earth.
Pacifist. I'm against all war. There's a great site that looks at the human and other costsofwar.org. These costs are for decades, not just the up-front expenses of soldiers and munitions.
Vegan. I'm against eating or exploiting animals. People ask me why I'm vegan. Here are reasons why I am a vegan. In favor of social reform that creates opportunity for people, with literacy a key part of creating opportunity. Visit Yahoo's Vegan pages; the Vegan FAQ (one of several) is especially informative. Don't be duped by the billions of dollars spent by meat industry every year to make you think meat has benefits. For a great case in point, read all about McDonalds in mcspotlight.org. Don't worry about being alone - take a look at this list of famous vegetarians & vegans.
More than war, racism or even imperialism, the global economy depends on the exploitation of non-human life. [...] The modern death culture cannot tolerate a philosophy that values life over wealth and power. "Peter," in EF!J Eostar 2006 p. 19.
Need more? Here is an article by Peter Singer from the September 11 2006 issue of The Nation: Don't Buy Factory-Farm Products.
More on the pacifist theme: Here is one of many great articles by Naomi Klein from The Nation (July 21, 2008) on Disaster Capitalism. Thesis: "today's preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis."
For animals: "It was once remarked that a person who destroys the works of man is condemned as a vandal, but a man who destroys the works of God is praised as a sportsman. How anyone can turn a creature of movement, light and beauty into a blood-bedraggled corpse in the name of sport and pleasure is beyond comprehension" -- Clive Hollands
Realizing that the corporate greed that is at the heart of modern industrialization of animal killing, here's a quote from Michael Moore from The Nation: "Greed has been with human beings forever. We have a number of things in our species that you would call the dark side, and greed is one of them. If you don't put certain structures in place or restrictions on those parts of our being that come from that dark place, then it gets out of control. Capitalism does the opposite of that. It not only doesn't really put any structure or restriction on it. It encourages it, it rewards, it."
Pro higher-education. Isn't everyone? This article by Lisa Featherstone from the June 10 2009 issue of The Nation says how higher education could be free for everyone -- for much less money than you would think.
Anti-Corporate Media. Radio and Internet. I co-founded (with Ann Bishop) *Prairienet, the community network of Urbana-Champaign Illinois. I've also been active with iBiblio, the Public's Library, in Chapel Hill. I've had a life-long passion for music and gadgets, and a good place to put them together is radio. I did The Lone Rhinoceros Show and lots of other stuff (music & programming, engineering and events) at WEFT, community radio in Champaign. I was on the air for a couple of years, and involved with radio production, at WXDU, Duke University's community radio station. These days, I can be heard Thursday mornings from 10am-noon on KSUA, UAF's student-run radio with my show, Notes from the Underground. Yes, there are non-commercial alternatives, and they are great!!!
Media, animals, and other themes get me thinking about the theme of ownership. This is a concept that is so built-into us that envisioning a non-ownership society is nearly impossible. Is it possible? Ursela LeGuin's groundbreaking science fiction nodel, The Dispossessed goes into this, and it is fascinating to me to read how the anarchist from another planet (also referred to as a "non-authoritarian communist") sees the "propertarians." Some quotes:
"To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws."
You can't crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them."
Environmentalist. How many environments do you have to live in? What's happening to the one we share? Get educated about environmental issues - visit Envirolink or get informed about the environmental movement - try Earth First! Journal. Some easy steps to help: become *paperless.
Teacher. I started teaching university classes about the Internet in 1988, and though my current job doesn't have regular teaching duties, I'm still teaching in many other ways. See *my old UNC pages for links to classes and other items, or local copies of my INLS187 Information Security class.
Hacker and security expert. I've been active in organizing hacker conferences including HAL 2001 and 2600's H2K, H2K2, The Fifth HOPE, and The Last HOPE. I believe that hacking is ethical, and even presented some ideas for a *teaching hacker ethics and a *hacker's code. I'm a certified information security professional (CISSP) with several papers and conference proceedings on information security, data integrity and privacy.
Note: Items with a *are my own pages or projects; others are external links.
