Distracted Mind

The tricky thing about faith is that it’s a belief in a God that isn’t very vocal. Sure, holy texts reveal that God spoke to prophets and common folk, but when’s the last time you heard of God talking to Joe Blow in the modern day? Have you seen a burning bush, lately? Some days I long for a Monty Python-esque hand of God to come out of the clouds; it would sure beat quiet introspection and meditation.

God becomes a sticky subject when tragedy plays out, especially en masse. Holocausts, genocide, disasters, wars, we wonder why God is mute. When Pope Benedict visited Auschewitz over the weekend, he was moved to ask “Why, God, did you remain silent?” Perhaps the answer isn’t in God’s silence, but in our resolute deafness to the signs.

When Hitler was in power, the evil was gradual. It started with speeches, then propaganda, then segregation, then disappearances. Did people know what was going on? Probably, though many people just didn’t notice. It was business as usual. By the time awareness crept in, it was too late.

When Rwanda’s genocide achieved momentum, we were deaf to the calls for help. It was a blurb on the news as we rushed to work, a bit during dinner time. Only now does the full horror of the murders really reach us, over a full decade later.

The same scenario plays out over and over again. History repeats itself more often than a bad burrito. We hear about horrible violence and monstrous acts, often too late. We embrace inaction because we don’t know what else to do.

We see photos of atrocities every day, so many that we become immune. And yet God’s silence is deafening — the sound of blood beating through your ears. Is it really that God is silent, or are we just not paying attention?

God’s vocal chords are humanity. If we remain silent, God remains silent as well. Pope Benedict wonders why his God, my God, didn’t speak up during the Holocaust, but the answer is clear: God was screaming. Every person beaten, every shot fired, every child and parent gassed was a cry out for help that was smothered before it was heard — suppressed by fear.

Why, in present times, does God remain silent? We see war crimes, torture and monstrous acts every day and they just keep coming. We don’t live in Nazi Germany, but some still remain quiet in their fear. Fear for their jobs, their families, it makes no difference. There are voices clamoring above the masses of pop-news, though, to get the truth out.

If you think that God is silent, just raise your voice.

I was listening to the Ed Schultz show last night as I drove home from the grocery store and he was talking with a caller who had a fascinating outlook on today’s society: too often, we allow ourselves to have an external focus. We rely too much on other people and things for our contentment. This hit home with me, since I’m one of those people who looks to others for approval far too often.

In junior high and high school, I wasn’t much of a popular gal. Infamous, maybe, but definitely not popular. Something about me just wasn’t pretty-girl material, or even overlookable. I was worse than a wallflower: I was a weed.

I spent a lot of time being unhappy because I let others decide my self worth. Junior high was the worst, because I _desperately_ wanted to fit in. Did the cheerleading thing, cried when I finally didn’t make the cut. Tried to be a giggly girl and get the boys, got made made fun of instead. I smiled only when I knew it was O.K. to smile, hid when it was time to cry. At the time, it was a very special after-school movie sort of hell.
As I got older, fitting in didn’t matter as much. High school wasn’t as horrible, namely because I had found a niche among the nerdier sort of kids: bandies, Jesus freaks and the newspaper club. I hung with the valedictorians and computer geeks when I wasn’t with my church group, having more than enough activities to keep my mind off the fact that I wasn’t one of the golden, sparkling homecoming queens. Of course, by senior year, I had developed a prejudice against said homecoming queens along with the cheerleader types. One could say that I’d become an elitist reject.

I went off to college and attempted to embrace my freaky little self. Of course I still craved approval from my friends and peers, and now also from my professors. Now, though, I had affected a pre-emptive strike attitude: I would look down my nose at others before they could insult me. I became that freaky bitch in black who barely liked anyone. Cynicism and clove smoke became a sort of armor, for a while.

I loosened up a bit, but I still had those jagged edges to protect me. I was a pro at insults, even getting a jab in at my future husband the night we met. Even so, I still had that knobby-kneed little girl inside me wanting approval and more.

I would be dejected if I didn’t earn compliments for my work. My greatest fear was getting laughed at, which graduate school realized many times over. If you didn’t know, MFA students are kind of like hungry sharks in critiques: they can smell insecurity like an all-you-can-eat chum fest. Critiques would frequently send me into post-crit tears, because someone would say my work wasn’t “advanced” or “innovative” enough. I doubted myself and began producing work that reflected the opinions of my peers and professors instead of actually expressing myself. I let others dictate whether I was good enough.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that judgement and criticism aren’t healthy. They’re a necessary part of growth and putting something out there for constructive criticism can lead to some great things. However, at that time, I was allowing criticism and judgement to rule over me. It wasn’t a good thing.

Now, as a slightly more “adult” version of myself, I find myself listening to that caller on the Ed Schultz show and wishing that my daughter was old enough to have this conversation with. Instead it will be an ongoing lesson; one that I’ll have to teach by example. I want to concentrate on muting the external focuses in my own life so that I can be a better example for my girl, so that she doesn’t grow up valuing IPods and pleated cheerleaders’ skirts more than her inner strength and work ethic. So she doesn’t grow up allowing others to tell her when to be happy.

I have this tendency to be impulsive. Sometimes it pays off, other times it doesn’t. I think I’ve hit one of those “other times.” I wrote last week about [switching hosts](http://distractedmind.com/2006/moving-days/), but I just did an “undo.” While I loved [MediaTemple](http://www.mediatemple.net), and I really loved them with a fiery passion to defy time and history, I had to switch back.

Why? Because it was causing more trouble to switch than was I could justify. So instead of MediaTemple, who I still highly recommend for anyone without a multitude of domain names and sites, I’m back with DreamHost. Disappointing? A little, but it’s for the best — now I can concentrate on other things.

Every weekend I try to get out of the house while my daughter naps, just to snap a few photographs. My husband is game enough to go along with this plan, since it gives him some peace and quiet of his own, and I get to wander around the area and get pictures. This plan, I love it.

Of course, there are some difficulties. I always start out wondering where I’m going to go, since there’s so much to see. One of my favorite places is the West Side Market, but I like to get some variety. Today I went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Saint Theodosius, to capture the beautiful domes I see every day on the way to work.

It’s always calming, wandering around and taking photos. It lets me see the city through different eyes — allowing me to see beauty and interest in places I’d normally overlook. It also takes me to parts of the city that I normally wouldn’t travel, which is great.

As the mother of a toddler, I don’t get out too much. I go on walks, I go to work, but I don’t do much adventuring, except during these one or two hour expeditions. I relax, I look through my viewfinder, I’m on my own. It’s an experience that I’ve missed.

Back when I lived in Northwest Ohio, I used to explore abandoned houses along the flat and windy countryside. It was fascinating to see what people would leave behind and how nature would reclaim what was once man’s. Sure, I’d occasionally run across a faulty stair or a wall-dwelling raccoon family, but it was invigorating.

I got some great photos, but I also learned how temporary possessions really are. I’d talk to neighbors, try to get a feel for what happened to the owners (most had died or were put in assisted living). I’d try to leave the place the same as I’d found it, with the exception of a skull (animal, not human) in perfect condition that I carried away from one site in a baggie. I know, it’s a little morbid.

Photographing a city is different than photographing those old, broken houses. For one thing, the city has a life that breathes through every sight. Even the buildings seem to breathe. An abandoned house seems like an echo compared to a city, where the past, the present and the future coexist in the streets and buildings.

The city is kinetic — steam and smoke move through the air as cars fly past on the freeway. A city like Cleveland has a history different from the derelect farmhouses I once explored: where their stories are in the past, Cleveland’s story is still being written. Photographing that story is something wonderful. It’s taking a moment out of time and fixing it, to be remembered as a moment of past and present with a hint of the future yet to come.

Since I switched hosting providers, I decided to do some spring cleaning on my digital acquisitions. I have too many domain names. Way too many. I’ve decided to put four of them up on ebay, since I don’t want ‘em, don’t need ‘em, and would rather have some money for hosting.

So, [here are the domains,](http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZtinabel9QQhtZ-1) for anyone who may actually be interested: [wp-tips.com](http://cgi.ebay.com/wp-tips-com-top-level-com-domain-for-blogging-tips_W0QQitemZ9729000460QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem), [bitchycraft.com](http://cgi.ebay.com/bitchycraft-com-top-level-com-domain-for-handcrafts_W0QQitemZ9729001282QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem),[accessibilis.com](http://cgi.ebay.com/accessibilis-com-top-level-com-domain_W0QQitemZ9729839591QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem), and [blogsrebuildinglives.com](http://cgi.ebay.com/blogsrebuildinglives-com-top-level-com-domain_W0QQitemZ9729840351QQcategoryZ11153QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem).¬† Right now they’re selling for a dollar, if you’re interested.

I decided, rather impulsively, to change web hosts. I’m moving from [DreamHost](http://www.dreamhost.com) to [MediaTemple](http://www.mediatemple.net). I blame [Will Kessel](http://www.collisionbend.com), since he made Media Temple sound so damned appealing at this month’s blogger meetup.

Will’s earnest salespitch wasn’t the only reason for switching, though. I also switched for the technical support and better uptime. I’ve had a few problems with uptime with Dreamhost — not many, but enough to notice. DreamHost only had email support for people in my plan (the cheapest one), which was a little annoying. MediaTemple has phone support, which is terrific and a little rare for a large hosting provider.

So far, I’ve been pretty pleased. I’ve had no major complications, other than waiting for my domain nameservers to actually propagate (which is a fancy way of saying that I’ve been waiting for things to
change over to the new server), and things like the control panel seem a little easier to use. Of course, this means that some things will be a little wonky on some of my websites for a little bit, while I get everything moved to its proper place, but there are worse things in life.

So thanks, Will, for clueing me in to a provider that’s personal enough to take phone calls, but professional enough to provide good (and somewhat less complicated) service.

[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/tina/137864047/ “Guardian”)

Preachers love to talk about faith as a mustard seed — the small little seed that blossoms into a huge plant. What they don’t like to talk about is faith’s dark twin: doubt. On a good day it’s easy to have faith. Darker days aren’t as easy. Doubt is always hanging out at the edges, ready to step in when faith takes a break. Where faith feels certain, doubt raises questions. Yin to yang.

If faith’s a mustard seed, then doubt is fertilizer. Too much and it’ll burn the plant, too little and the plant is weak, just enough and the plant will be hardy. Finding that balance is rough anywhere, but finding it in a town like Cleveland requires exercise.

Cleveland’s one of those towns that has seen better and worse. Downtown’s in a slump — there are empty buildings and empty streets at high noon, boarded up windows where stores used to have a golden age. The press wants to constantly re-invent the city as somewhere else, when the city’s personality just isn’t going to fit as a new New York, Chicago or Boston. It’s just Cleveland.

We all have our doubts about this place: employment’s sometimes elusive, salaries aren’t what they could be, the suburbs are a constant siren’s call. Our educational system isn’t even second-rate, but still there’s something that pulls us to the city.

There’s a beat to Cleveland, but it’s more of a [Pogue-ish](http://www.pogues.com/Releases/Lyrics/LPs/RumSodomy/DirtyTown.html) style than top 40. We are a dirty old town.

Our buildings, our walls, they have a history that is written in the stone — Elliot Ness, Rockefeller, Garfield, we have our greats and our fallen. We’re a town of immigrants pulled together by commerce and location, a network of neighborhoods that co-mingle, separate and single, each with its own flavor and language.

We’re east and west, polarized nearly to the point of passport requirements. Go ahead — ask a West Sider for directions to [La Gelateria](http://lagelateriacleveland.com/).

We’re all these things, but we’re even more. When friends from out of town visit, I make a point of taking them to the West Side Market. Why? Because it’s a Cleveland thing. We buy pierogies and sausage, maybe some chocolates or some pasties, and we absorb the market atmosphere because it is _Cleveland_. We cruise around the neighborhoods, looking at the churches, we walk around West Park and Ohio City, we go to the waterfront. I take them on a tour of the reasons why we live in Cleveland and they’re _jealous._ They want these things in their cities.

Finding faith in a city requires acknowledging the doubt and going one step further; digging past it to the roots. Finding faith in Cleveland means finding that one elusive but excellent mom-and-pop restaurant — the one with only ten tables but whose owners welcome everyone as if they’re family. It means looking at those dirty neighborhoods for what they were and what they’ll be. It’s reconnecting with the history behind the city; the good and the bad. Finding faith again is about finding doubt and making it fertile enough to grow something good again.

It finally happened. I lost it all. My computer rebelled against me. When I went to bed Wednesday night, everything was fine. Thursday morning, different story. I tried to wake my laptop up from sleep mode–nothing. I turned it off, then on. Nothing. I put it in the freezer for over an hour, then tried to turn it on: nothing. Black screen, clicking noises,unresponsive. _Shit._

I was already home for a sick day, being that my nose felt like Bill Cosby came by in the middle of the night to fill it with Jello Pudding and my chest was equally full of the same vile pudding substance. I didn’t feel well at all, and this was the creamy icing on my nose-and-chest-pudding cake. I called the Apple tech support hotline, grateful for the couple hundred that I plunked down for the Protection Plan (not an easy decision, but definitely worth it). When nothing the tech support operator suggested worked, I was down to one option: take it to the Genius Bar.

I finally got to the Apple store and got the verdict: dead hard drive. _Sweet Jesus._ I did most recent backup of _anything_ last week, and those were photos and artwork. Gone are all of my emails, my most recent photography, my applications, the serial numbers for things like NetNewsWire, potential layouts for clients, and countless other things that are somewhat important. I could have paid for data recovery, but it probably wouldn’t have worked. The hard drive was just fried. I just have to deal with losing most of my shit.

Now it’s time for acceptance, moving on, and prevention. I was able to borrow a laptop from my office to get email and do some work, but it’s not the same. I was also able to devise a new strategy for making sure this never happens again. Nothing can prevent your hard drive from dying, but you can at least prevent data loss by doing one simple thing on a regular basis: back your system up. Clone your drive. Save your files to an external drive, CD or DVD. Be [anal-retentive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_retentive) about it. Data recovery methods are prohibitively expensive and don’t always work — they aren’t as good as having full backups.

I received a phone call from the Apple store today, saying that my laptop is as good as new. I can pick it up and start getting my digital life back, with a few new addendums. I will be doing regular backups using the much recommended [SuperDuper!](http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html), a free program that will back your entire system up to an auxilliary drive. I may even shell out the $27.99 for the full version, which allows backup scheduling, scripting and other options.

All I can say is this: people, _back that shit up._ Seriously. I’m mourning the loss of countless photos, emails and more because I was cocky. Hard drive failure happens, and it happens more often than you think it does.

[Engaget](http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/03/professors-banning-in-class-laptop-use/#comments) has an interesting little story today, one of professors banning laptops in the classroom.

I find this amusing. I used to teach, way back in graduate school, and I always figured that if students weren’t paying attention, I needed to work harder and make the subject more interesting. I taught in a computer lab, so the siren song of the internet was always there, but somehow students managed to participate and get some actual learning done.

As a student in the same type of classroom, I was always able to multitask — check a few emails here… write down a few notes there… it was dead simple. However, if I wasn’t going to pay attention, it wasn’t because of a computer screen. It was because of a boring lecture.

Face it: banning laptops ain’t going to help. Take away the laptops and you’ll still have students daydreaming or doodling in a notebook, so the competition for student interest needs to be won at the front of the classroom. I wonder: are the professors in question afraid the students aren’t learning, or are their egos suffering from all those clicking keys?

[Tim Russo](http://democracyguy.typepad.com) has been chronicling the election snafu as it unfolds, but I’d like to voice a few concerns of my own.

First off, my voting experience was uncomplicated. Other than not getting the card to read the first time, the voting went off without a hitch. That said, I’m still concerned.

First off, what about a paper receipt? It seems to me that the paper trail was a selling point. Having to read everything on screen and verify that way was a pain in the ass, and the receipt that printed out and scrolled off never to be seen again didn’t help me either. The receipt issue was, and is, extremely annoying.

Second, [what about people with disabilities?](http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=5693) Sure, there’s supposed to be an audio booth at every polling place, optical scanning devices were supposedly available, but none of that was widely (if at all) publicized. How are people with vision impairments supposed to vote? Well, if all the other options fail, they can vote by dictating their votes to someone who _may_ cast them accurately.

Someone with limited motor skills may find the touch screens to be unwieldy–they require a degree of accuracy that many individuals with motor-impairments can’t muster. If you have severe palsy, how can you ensure that you’re going to touch the right candidate’s space? It could be a fairly long and frustrating process for people with motor-impairments. I’m thinking that there will be some lawsuits regarding electronic voting and accessibility.

The whole electronic voting thing is playing out like a bad farce. I’d like to think that the machines had been tested before today, that kinks had been worked out, but it doesn’t seem to be playing out like that. Polling places are closing down due to mechanical errors, people are angry and frustrated with the new technology. While both Daman and I had no problems, we’re also used to working with technology (being the computer geeks that we both are) and aren’t exactly citizens average.