this land was made for you and me

[gurdonark]

We had a wonderful meal at Two Rows restaurant--tasty crawdad bisque and cherry cobbler--and then went to Allen Station Park. They had a big pre-holiday-weekend Independence Day event going on. The parking lots near the park were full of cars--and lots of pickup trucks. As we walked to the bridge into this medium size ballfields-type city park, a huge speaker on a stand blared out lesser John Phillips Sousa works. I love Sousa, but I prefer it "main line".

The place was alive with children, bouncing in huge inflatable houses, playing a form of hockey in huge inflatable hockey fields, and playing miniature golf with plastic mallets on portable mini-golf holes set up in boxes. We strolled to Allen's one historic landmark, the old railroad dam which was built when Allen was founded by the railway.

A local orchestra and choir sang songs we didn't always recognize, but among them were patriotic tunes like the Olympic soundtrack music and "Deep in the Heart of Texas". Thankfully, they did not play "Dixie", although in my childhood this Confederate hymn of the War of the Great Misguided Racist Revolution (which is actually a pretty nice tune) would be played with patriotic fervour. They also did not play "This Land is Your Land" or "We Shall Overcome", which are patriotic songs I can sink my particular teeth into singing. I was sorry I only heard the bagpipes from afar. I wished a brass band had played "Stars and Stripes Forever" and made the shapes of sunflowers and marching Lone Stars on a field. The event was mercifully free of jingoism and misplaced rhetoric, if it was also free of anything that truly warmed my heart. I did like the passerby with the green hair, as well as the huge black labrador retriever glad handing the crowd. I was pleased by the diversity of the crowd, as I remember the times when Allen was something of a "white flight" area. Now it is just a "techie flight" area, and in techies there is no East or West, no shade or hue, no faith or frenzy. There's only tech.

We tired long before the fireworks, which is too bad, because I love fireworks. Then we came home, to tepid television. I played with simple webpage software, creating a little text webpage. I had not done that in years. As I was finishing, the far-off sound of the by-passed fireworks exploded, and I felt somehow a roman candle short of independence.

Comments

[geisa.livejournal.com]

i prefer sousa "residents" style, ie...the residents-'stars and hank forever, the american composer's series, vol II...the music of hank williams and john philip sousa'...AMAZING!!!;)

favorite song on that disc..."six more miles (to the graveyard)" by hank williams!!!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I don't have that album, though I'd heard it was good. I do like Sousa, even in non-Residents form, though.

Tech culture

[kenmora.livejournal.com]

in techies there is no East or West, no shade or hue, no faith or frenzy. There's only tech.


It's true, techies are among the most egalitarian in their philosophies as much as is possible for any broadly constituted demographic (whew, do your fingers ever get tongue tied?). Is it because they are among the typically persecuted class?

And is that changing? The old victim of Charles Atlas fame can now pump up their computer knowledge, but will this simply make for a tech hierarchy and "in crowd" of techies which admit no jocks or pops or politicos? I wonder if the tech culture will prove different from the cliquishness tendencies of any group. Grade schools will be the proving grounds for this, the crucible of group and individual competitiveness.

Re: Tech culture

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I beg to differ with both of you--I've found quite a bit of hierarchy in techdom-- beginning with the Mac vs. PC war and splitting off into factions of people who specialize in one area of techdom vs. another. And since techdom is always evolving, the *new kid on the block* always becomes the coolest of all (for 5 minutes)

Re: Tech culture

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

But the hiearchy is not based on ethnicities, religions, creeds, sexual orientations, but on ideas, skills, etc. This is not a perfect world, but a much better world than whether it matters if one is black or white.

Re: Tech culture

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, that goes without saying. I was just making the point that there IS a heirarchy, even if it seems more benign.

Re: Tech culture

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I always wonder about this sort of thing. On the one hand, in tech culture, race, religion ethnicity, sexual orientation, all are irrelevant...what matters is can one do. I am worried that if everyone was able to "do" in a supertech world, the old prejudices would come out again. The fact that some tech folks hold fairly
extreme positions on one line of thinking or another, sometimes due to a kinda "narrowcast" understanding of the humanities or the possibilities outside tech fields, bolsters my feelings on this.

But overall I am optimistic about the tech folks, and I think that
neighborhoods like mine, which is very diverse, exist because of tech.

Re: Tech culture

[geisa.livejournal.com]

evolution will always dictate the course of any and all human endeavors. the "fittest" will always survive, yet the "unfit" are allowed to exist, "wear gaudy colors and avoid display" and this is good because....

prejudice will never disappear as long as human input is required, no matter what context. to assume that prejudice is inherently bad, is a "social" construct, therefore creating an unsolvable dilemma. the fact is, we ARE all human, and we will discriminate based on our subjective perceptions...even if they are reduced to mere black and white type script. and to me, that is not necessarily bad, only human and expected. my only concern is that in a pool of murky diversity, and "in-crowds", people will dissolve into mediocrity and crumble under the pressures of inherent, stifling group conformities...but this also seems to be a necessary, unflattering and unavoidable human trait. yet, in reality, this behavior provides the catalyst for the outsider to step up to the next level. TRUE progress has always been the fruit of non-conformity, the "unfit"...which is also very "human" just as it is then very "human" for others to take the "fruit" and plant it over and over, creating groups and prejudices!!! but the human must be allowed to be "human" no matter what the consequences, positive or negative, as both outcomes feed off of each other in a continuing spiral into the unknown, the place that we all seem so naturally determined to reach...yes, even in "techworld" and yes, we are all still mere "humans", but only a few of us can provide the "fruit". they are fourteen year old outsiders hidden away in their garages right now...i bet they don't even have livejournals, nor do they concern themselves with groups and prejudices...they just THINK and DO!!!

Re: Tech culture

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

to the extent we can all think and do, I'm in favor of that.
i'm not really against differentiation, i just want differentiation to have a purpose in fact, not just be some inherited prejudice.