The Year Without A Treecam

Politics

Treecam Lighting 1997Since 1964, a Christmas Tree has been placed in front of the U.S. Capitol each year (now it is lamely labeled a ‘Holiday Tree’ for the sake of political correctness). And since 1969 that tree has come from a different National Forest.

In 1997, I was working in the Senate Democratic Technology & Communications Committee as an Internet evangelist to Democratic Senators. It was a wonderful job in which I had many opportunities to help find new and interesting ways for a Senator to go online. Our boss was Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic Leader, and in 1997 the Capitol tree was coming from the Black Hills National Forest in his home state of South Dakota. Tasked with finding a way to do something online with the bosses tree, my colleague Jeff and I shared the same thought instantaneously… treecam!

In some choice real estate in the Capitol Building, we placed an old TV camera, a Macintosh computer, and a network connection to take a still picture of the tree every minute and upload it to the Internet. Neato, right?

The Treecam was a sensation that drew tremendous amounts of online visitors and national press coverage. Many people would venture out to the West Lawn of the Capitol to stand next to the tree, while a friend captured the Treecam image for them when it went online. Reportedly one television weatherman showed the Treecam as a background for his forecasts. And a collection of all of the Treecam images were combined together to form a time-lapse movie in which the decorating and lighting of the tree, and the passing of the hours and days could be seen in rapid succession.

Treecam became a tradition that continued for six more years since that first one. Until this year. Things change in the aftermath of an election. Senator Daschle was defeated, and another Senator has been elected to the job of Democratic Leader. A week ago, at least a half-dozen technical staff on the Democratic Communications Committee were notified that their services would no longer be needed. Such personnel changes are any new boss’ prerogative. But to axe such skilled, dedicated, loyal and long-serving employees a week before Christmas is an indication to me that much more than just the Treecam has gone dark this holiday season in the Capitol.

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It’s A Wonderful Life, or Not…

Movies

It was an accidental juxtaposition of movies on the Casey DVD player tonight, two movies of different times, with utterly different messages. And it requires a dual-review. Spoilers within, so deal with that if you haven’t seen one or either of these movies; It’s A Wonderful Life and The Butterfly Effect.

And I’d find it hard to believe if you haven’t seen the first one. Since this film no longer plays around the clock in December as it once did, I do feel a responsibility to provide at least once annual force-feeding of George Bailey’s life-affirming adventure. And so, against the moans of my children, I insisted on starting with ‘It’s A Wonderful Life‘, Frank Capra’s holiday classic.

The story needs no re-telling here (if you really need a recap, try this 30-second version with bunnies). Suffice to say that George’s life doesn’t turn out the way he had planned, and despite having a beautiful wife, great kids, and many friends, he hits a low-point where his attempt at suicide is prevented by a guardian angel. Still convinced that everyone would be better off if he had never been born, George’s angel grants his wish, and introduces him to the people and places in his life as they would be if he had never existed. And of course, everyone and everything is worse off without George (although Pottersville looks like a fun town to me). George has an epiphany, begs his angel to take him back, and we have a happy ending with neighbors emptying their pockets, Clarence getting his wings, and some wine and Auld Lang Syne. The End.

The Butterfly Effect was one I added to my Netflix queue based on the preview. It looked like a nice horror/sci-fi/time travel type of thing, and I generally like that sort of stuff. In the movie, Evan Treborn is a young man with some issues. His father is in the nuthouse, and Evan has a bad habit of blacking out and missing critical events in his own life and the lives of his friends. On his doctors advice, he begins to keep journals, writing down his daily activities and thoughts in order to have a reference to check against when he later forgets what’s going on around him. He’s got some good reason to black stuff out; a crazy dad, pedophile neighbor, sadistic friends and a prank gone horribly bad. But only years later, when in college Evan is studying how memories work, does he discover a unique talent. By re-reading his own journals, Evan can project himself into the past. Once there, he can act to change events, and then come forward again to live with the end result of the change he has made.

Evan learns that his attempts to change history often bring unintended consequences, and repeat visits to the past to try and fix things again and again typically only make things worse. As he continues, you start to wonder if he’s really traveling through time, or if he’s just crazy like his father and all of this is in his own head. Ultimately, he decides that all of the problems in his friends lives are his own fault, and so Evan goes back one last time for an interesting final solution. I guess his guardian angel was on a coffee break or something.

I should note that we were watching the Director’s Cut, and not the Theatrical version. A posting on the IMDB message boards says that the version that played in theatres had a happy ending (it was supposedly on the flip side of the DVD disc, but our player wouldn’t cooperate in playing it). But I can tell you, the Director’s cut does not. It was my wife Jennifer who pointed out that The Butterfly Effect was essentially an exact opposite of It’s A Wonderful Life, in that unlike George Bailey, Evan finds that they only way he can make everything turn out well for his family and friends is to take himself completely out of the picture.

I guess it’s a common question for any of us. Is the world a better place with me in it? Am I having a positive or negative impact on my loved ones? Would my home town become a Pottersville without me living in it? We’ll never know the answers, but the questions themselves can help us strive to be more like George than Evan.

Thanks to Eric for sharing the Bunny version of It’s a Wonderful Life

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Family Time Capsule

Genealogy
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I’m home tonight after a two day trip to Chicago to attend my grandfather’s funeral. It was really great to be there, to remember him, and to share memories with his large extended family, many of whom I was meeting for the first time. At the luncheon that preceded his funeral, a large battered black suitcase was on the table, and it’s contents were a time capsule of memories for all of us that were there. The suitcase was stuffed with photos dating back 100 years, newspaper clippings, letters, yearbooks, and more.

We spent hours pouring over its contents, repeatedly turning to my grandfather John’s 90-year old sister Margaret to ask, ‘Who’s this?’. And like an unfallible oracle of family history, Margaret could not be stumped.

Some fast sorting went on, with pictures that had the most meaning to each of John’s families ending up in the right hands. But the bulk of the photos, and the case itself, were entrusted to me, with my promise that I would digitize the collection and share it online with all. And Margaret’s children have promised me that they’ll get her in front of a computer as needed, to continue the task of sharing and preserving the memories that come out of this black suitcase.

Over the last two years I’ve often wondered what it was the triggered my sudden fascination with genealogy, and my obsessive hunt to learn more about my family. Opening this suitcase gave me one answer. For two years I’ve been doing my homework, learning about the people in my family, trying to understand what their lives were like. Without that initial effort, much in this suitcase would mean nothing to me. But thanks to it, I am well prepared to dive into this suitcase. I know the people in these pictures, and I’m ready to learn still more.

Stay tuned for a continuous stream of contents from this family time capsule to be posted here in the Casey blog. As I get items scanned, I’ll be adding them to album titled Casey Memory Suitcase that you can find among my online photo albums.

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John Francis Casey (1912/Chicago, IL – 2004/Cortland, IL)

Family, Genealogy

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My grandfather, John Francis Casey, passed away this morning. He was 92 years old. 92 years 157 days to be as precise as my genealogy program allows. I only had infrequent contact with him growing up (my grandparents divorced when my father was a young boy). But from those visits I do remember tales of work on the beat as a police officer in Chicago.

As an adult, I am happy to have taken opportunities to visit him, and to introduce my own children to their great-grandfather. Most recently was in the summer of 2003, when my new interest in genealogy led to a trip to Chicago with my brother. We visited Grandpa Casey, and his sister Margaret, and tracked down many other relatives who we were not fortunate enough to have met when they were still living.

Family trees are a fascinating thing. Genetically speaking, I’m Chris Casey/Dedera/Slovacek/Peter, but that’s way too long to sign on a check, and each of those names could be similarly split. And so the naming rules say I’m a Casey, and I’ve traced my way back to John’s Great-Grandfather Michael, a tenant farmer in County Limerick Ireland, who’s own son Michael came to America and ended up in Chicago. My place on the Casey tree passes back through my Grandfather John, and I hope I can help preserve his memory for my own children and farther down the branch as it grows.

Read John’s Obituary from the Chicago Tribune.

Care to climb our tree? Explore the Casey/Geltmaker family tree online.

If you have any information about John Casey or believe that you may be connected to my tree in any way, I would be very glad to hear from you! Please send me an email to: chris@casey.com

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A Series of Unfortunate Events

Books

This weekend, for my son Will’s birthday, we’ll be taking a crew of boys to the movies. And the film of choice will be A Series of Unfortunate Events. But before going to see the film, I decided to crack the books. The books have been favorites with the kids, and we have something like ten volumes of the series lying around, so I got my hands on ‘The Bad Beginning: Book the First’ last night and finished it this morning. It was great.

And now I’ve just finished ‘Book the Second: The Reptile Room’. And it was as good. The writing is wonderful. Throughout the books, which are offered as a retelling of these unfortunate events in the voice of Lemony Snicket, our storyteller frequently turns directly to the reader to offer a funny but practical definition of a term used or to describe some dramatic element as in these snippets of an excerpt which describe “dramatic irony”.

There is a type of situation which occurs all to often and which is occurring at this point in the story of the Baudelaire orphans, called “dramatic irony”. Simply put, dramatic irony is when a person makes a harmless remark, and someone else who hears it knows something that makes the remark have a different, and usually unpleasant, meaning.

…

As you and I listen to Uncle Monty tell the three Baudelaire orphans that no harm will ever come to them in the Reptile Room, we should be experiencing the strange feeling that accompanies the arrival of dramatic irony.

…

For no matter how safe and happy the three children felt, no matter how comforting Uncle Monty’s words were, you and I know that soon Uncle Monty will be dead and the Baudelaires will be miserable again.

In fact, from the book’s dedication “For Beatrice – My love for you shall last forever. You, however, did not.”, to the rear cover warnings that remind readers that they are “free to put this book back on the shelf and seek something lighter”, the books are draped in dark foreboding and doom.

They remind me of the dark, but still tremendously amusing, works of Edward Gorey, of whom I am a big fan. When my daughter wondered how it is that these books come off as funny, when the story is so tragic, I didn’t have much of an an answer. But I shared a copy of Gorey’s classic and grisly alphabet book The Gashlycrumb Tinies with her. I guess it’s the same reason we can laugh at someone else’s painful fall in a ‘Funniest Videos’ episode. Sometimes we just have to laugh at pain and misery, especially if it’s someone else’s.

A am very much looking forward to catching up on the nine books in the Unfortunate Events series that I still have to read. Will Count Olaf be the villain in all of them? Can he succeed at stealing the Baudelaire fortune from these unfortunate orphans? Can Lemony Snicket maintain the story, or will the formula get tired? Will the movie be any good? I don’t know, but it looks promising.

For further reading:

Dastardly Good
The Washington Post, 12/17/04

Out of This World: The Designer Behind ‘Lemony Snicket’
The Washington Post, 12/18/04

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Bush Monkeys

Humor, Politics

Reuters reports that a painting of President George Bush titled, Bush Monkeys, by 23-year-old artist Christopher Savido, was “removed from an art exhibit at the Chelsea Market in Manhattan over the past weekend after the director of the market protested the content of the painting of Bush”.

I agree that this painting is an outrage not suitable for public display. For too long unflattering comparisons have been made between President Bush and Chimps, and it’s just plain wrong.

It’s an insult to the chimps.

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Online Politics: Milestones and Footnotes

Politics

Where does the time go? Ten years ago, thanks to some dumb luck, good help, and fortuitous timing, I helped to make Sen. Edward Kennedy the first member of Congress with a web site. The office had taken its first steps online more than a year previously, first on dial-up bulletin board systems, then an ftp directory, some usenet newsgroups, and eventually onto the Senate’s new gopher server. But 1994 was the year of the web. The letters WWW took on a whole new meaning, and thanks to the efforts of Eric Loeb and John Mallery at MIT, in May of 1994 Senator Kennedy became the first member of Congress with a home page on the World Wide Web.

Ten years later, that event is officially a milestone, and there’s even a new poster commemorating the events of The Digital Decade in politics to prove it.

They say that history belongs to those who write it, and so I did (you can even still buy it – used for 49¢!), more than once, but several times. And whether from my telling of that tale, or from bullet point milestones on posters such as this one, Kennedy’s role as a leader in helping bring politics online is well-established.

Recently Kennedy’s office and the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs announced the launch of a six-year oral history project to “create an archive of spoken recollections and reflections that illuminates Senator Kennedy’s public life, his vocation, the institution in which he has served and the political world in which he has moved.” In the big picture of his legislative career and continuing public service, Senator Kennedy’s leadership in bringing politics online will be just a footnote. But in my field of online politics, it’s a major milestone, and one that I remain very proud to have played a part in reaching.

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Buy Blue this Christmas

Politics, Web Surfin'

What’s a Democrat to do during this holiday season? Still depressed that all that work and all your contributions still left you on the short end of 51-48? For some, shopping can bring you some cheer. Maybe it can bring you even more if you educate yourself about how the businesses that you buy from choose to use that money in pursuing their own political agendas. That’s the theory behind two web sites, BuyBlue.org and ChooseTheBlue.com.

For some businesses, giving a majority of their political dollars to the party in power is less of a political act than it is a practical reality. The majority rules, and if you want to grease the wheels of government, that’s where your money is going to go. Others have political agendas as well, and they may promote them aggressively with their corporate contributions, and they do.

But at the same time, it is every consumer’s right to make their purchasing decisions however they please. Price, product quality, and good service are obvious factors in most buying decisions. And if you choose to dig a little deeper, and care to look at how a company uses your shopping dollar in the political arena before you give it to them, you certainly should.

thanks to Nels for sharing these with me