Informant

Old news, new news what's the big deal about news? Good news, bad news wait a second and there's more news. Good news, bad news ... I woke from sleep and a dream about identity and dress-up. In the dream an friend from a former life who lives just across the pond, a ferry ride away, was switching costumes at the last minute. "I love this one," she was gushing with delight at the look. This one was a green silk floral kimono that when opened revealed a stunning purple swimsuit or lingerie thing. In the dream the switch would change the whole arrangement, the whole agreement between a community of undercover agents. How would we recognize her if she changed her look. What difference would it make, the implication. We were being watched anyway what difference did it make if there was a costume change?

I had to open my eyes to see if I could wake from the dream.

In the Quonset I walked to the kettle, it was nearly empty. I hefted the glass jug of water, unscrewed the cap and tipped the filtered water into the opened kettle mouth. While I waited for the water to boil I opened my mail to find my old crony had sent a brief message, "Yes bank the fires" with a link to this You Tube of film director Petra Eppelein.

NEW NEWS 



In an interview with Petra Epperlein, Co-director of the 2016 film Karl Max City, East German-born Epperlein was asked, "What do you want people to think about when they're leaving the theatre?" Her answer:

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

PE: It’s easy to go down the rabbit hole of the subject of modern surveillance and come out sounding like a raving paranoid. However, for anyone who has lived under the gaze of surveillance in a dictatorship, the implications — and dangers — of our data driven future are chilling, no matter what its architects tell us.

In 2009, when Google’s Eric Schmidt was asked by CNBC if users could trust Google, he replied, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” These words, spoken by a Silicon Valley techno-libertarian, reveal just how much our fundamental definition of privacy has changed in the age of social media, where the most observed are the most valued, and personal validation comes from publicizing the private. Who needs informants when we so readily inform on ourselves?

In this new cryptopticon, we have become the apparatus. It doesn’t just watch us, it is us and every aspect of our public, private, and social lives is mediated by a network that is controlled not by governments, but by corporations that entice users with “free” services that promise efficiency and convenience, while, in reality, they are simply brokers and aggregators of human behavior. We are the products and our behavior is the new currency.

Unchecked, we are in danger of enabling our own worst dystopian nightmare, where privacy is a luxury, not a right. If that sounds crazy, ponder for a moment that Facebook users have uploaded over 250 billion photographs of themselves, their families, and their friends to a company that operates the most sophisticated facial recognition software in the world. I can only imagine what the “who is who?” obsessed Stasi would have thought of a population that eagerly hits the streets armed with radio-equipped cameras that capture, tag, map, and broadcast their every encounter.

It’s easy to fear the future, but I wouldn’t trade it for the past. Just as we finished the film, the UK voted for the Brexit and Donald Trump was promising to “Make America Great Again.” Nostalgia is a powerful thing, but does anyone really want to go back to a world of walls and closed borders?

OLD NEWS

 "[]Her Benton Place home burned down in 2001, and she moved into an RV on her property. Bakke said that in 2003 county officials told her of her violation and told her to get a building permit."

"Bakke said that she has applied for a permit for a home that he characterized as above-average size. What she has not done, however, is pay for the permit. Today [2008], she continues to defy Island County Code and live in the RV...[]"
"The rule falls under the county’s zoning ordinance and has been in effect since the early ‘70s. According to the planning department, neither camping nor the use of a recreational vehicle is permitted for occupation. Also, storage of an RV is prohibited on property without a single-family residence."
"Bakke (Island County Planning Director at the time of this article) said that people who prompt complaints fall into two categories: Either it is an on-going dispute between neighbors or it is people who come to a friend’s property and party."
Normally, the infractions go unreported, unless the people camping are being especially rowdy. Bakke said that people living in communities with smaller parcels usually call more often.
“I think a lot of those communities have benefited form the enforcement of those codes,” Bakke, who was the county’s first code enforcement officer, said. “There are places where it is a really big deal.”
Living in an RV, or even in a tent, creates several problems that Bakke said are enough to justify it being against the law. When people live in an RV, they usually bring in television sets, microwaves and other amenities, which the RV is not designed for.
“When you start plugging in a TV and a microwave, it’s common for them to catch fire,” Bakke said.
The long-term living in a recreational vehicle also creates an issue for the health department. Disposal of grey and brown water, which is runoff from dishes or laundry and sewage, is difficult to do over a long period of time.
But Bakke said that if people are being respectful and not bothering anybody, a complaint generally won’t be filed. The planning department does not proactively enforce county codes such as this, but it will respond to complaints.
“So long as you don’t get blasting drunk and pee on the neighbor’s pansies, there'’s generally not a problem,” Bakke said." - Read the entire article "County targets RV camping"  Whidbey News-Time Jul 9, 2005 at 12:00AM updated Jul 3, 2008 at 4:23PM

MORE NEWS

“Did you hear about the bombing of a homeless RV this morning?”

I hadn’t. The news was just breaking. Jeremy Patrick Kidwell, a 46 year-old family man from Portland, had placed a pipe bomb under an RV in his neighborhood. The owner of the RV recovered the device and confronted Kidwell.
Police searched Kidwell’s home and found PVC pipes, hobby fuses, gunpowder and literature about booby traps. They placed the man under arrest.
The Hoekstra family, who lives in the RV, confronted Kidwell after he placed the device. KATU in Portland reported a conversation between them that went like this: “Are you that aggravated with homeless people? I’m so sorry that we live on this street and obscure your view of whatever!”[]When progress is being made, that’s when churches start getting bombed. We saw this during the last civil rights movement. Where there is progress, there is backlash.
All the ugliness, in a weird way, is really a sign of change. We need to just keep pushing. We need to keep showing people how homeless folks aren’t any different from the rest of us. That the threat that some of us feel is a reflection of our own fears and insecurities..." -Read the entire article " Director's Corner" Timothy Harris, Founding Director, Real Change, August 31, 2016 

My mug of honey-sweetened Red Hibiscus tea is empty. I tip the cold mug up and drain the dregs to comfirm: I have drank it. Asleep and dreaming or awake and being the app(aratus) writing a blog will a costume change matter, Alice?