Author: The Cat Herder General

aka Dennis Moser — Citoyen du monde: Peregrinator, photographer, retired librarian/archivist/academic, musician, teacher of English to foreigners, and sometime writer... Due to bureaucratic nonsense, I have left Europe. I DID not return to the US, I took a left turn at the Calgary airport and am a refugee trying to learn to understand, and maybe speak, "Jouai" over here amongst the Quebecois.

Watch for ICE on the road, Traveler

Winter is barreling down upon us and the long, slow slide into the oligarchy that we are witnessing in the US right now is filled with so many new ways to watch and, in some cases, warn. One of the worries is that there is no clear record of the actions that ICE has been taking. We cannot allow this to happen. Taking control of the narrative is paramount when dealing with an all-out war of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lie.s

Currently, there is an initiative underway, coming out of Europe and outside the potential for prohibitions by US regulators, to document events and individuals involved in ICE activity and to allow private citizens to report it.

Here’s a link to a news story about it —

https://migrantinsider.com/p/news-ice-list-launches-wiki-to-expose

And another discussion about the project —

https://www.crustnews.com/p/were-building-the-wikipedia-of-ice

Screenshot of an ICE Wiki entry:

Screenshot of an ICE armed agent in the South Park area of San Diego, 2025-04-11.

And here’s the Wiki, so put it to good use and feel free to share these links as widely as possible—

Link to ICE Wiki

[The graphic above links directly to the Wiki as does this,
https://icelist.is/]

Rambling 01.05OCT2025

Splitting audio / each line treated as a totally independent instrument, literally an ensemble member who was the “solo” representative of that particular sound. The transformation of that signal into a MIDI stream which then be controlled with complete of the originating audio stream. This would allow painting different timbres, possibly diametrically opposed one, with one note. This would be especially true in the case of the advanced application of delays, reverbs, and reversal. This could be accomplished with the use of software and hardware and any combinations possible with them.

The use of guitar pedals on synths, the development of boutique boxes (I hesitate to simply call one of my favorites — the Empress Effects Zoia — a pedal), and the parallel development of the various “*-berry) Linux devices are examples of using various technologies in unintended manner with highly-desired results (from an aesthetic/artistic perspective).

The marriage of proven and robust MIDI implementations with increasingly sophisticated capabilities of digital technologies suggest a rich area for artistic exploration.

For those about to rock…

Whew! Improv isn’t just what you do musically, it’s what you do.

Period.

Last night, I played my first face-to-face live gig in a very long time. Streaming live from a studio, where you can perform in your pajamas (if that’s your thing and maybe you’re not doing video streaming) on a platform like Second Life has its own challenges (does it ever!) but the audience rarely sees what is happening*.

So last night was an exercise in real-time damage control, improvising a solution that would make them smile and applaud (throwing money, underwear, or t-shirts is always optional).

https://www.facebook.com/emom.mtl/videos/786197931074043/

Eric Wrazen, master of ceremonies and no slouch on the synth himself, presided over the first EMOM performance of the Fall season at The Wheel Club here in Montréal. It was my first performance there and only the second time I’d been there for an EMOM event (I was lucky to have learned of it, shortly after getting settled in to my new apartment here). If I said it went off without a hitch it would be a bald-faced lie.

It didn’t.

I think it was Dwight Eisenhower who said that plans mean nothing, planning means everything. What I’d planned, while only mildly complicated considering all that was involved, and what happened were two quite different things. My original “blueprint” involved using two main audio sources: the Arturia MicroFreak and the Modal Argon8m. I’d brought The Three Sisters (my three Empress Zoias, Amelie, Brigitte, and Chloë — yes, the instruments are named and labelled so it’s easier to keep track of what’s been programmed), a Boss RC-1 for some simple looping, and an RC-500 for reverb on the Argon8m. Finally, I’d brought a Focusrite Scarlet to interface the iPad with the Argon8m.

What I find continuously challenging with Argon8m is using the software — I am not a big fan of using a laptop in live settings after having a hard drive catastrophically fail just moments before doing a gig in Fort Worth many years ago (yes, I salvaged the performance and no one even knew what happened). Rather than use a laptop, I’ve been using an iPad Pro, which has brings its own issues (Gee, THANKS Apple for making it so damned difficult to interface externals with the iPad, ESEPCIALLY the whole “Pro” series — another discussion for another day, but I’ve been using a Pro in one form or another since Generation 1.0 before I ever left the States). The MODALapp is pretty dependable on the computer, less so on the iPad, so it’s always a tiny gamble.

And last night, the gamble failed. Hard.

I could not get the Argon8m to send audio to the mix. For whatever reason, nothing from “that side” of the mix was working, or sending me output to the little mixer I had brought along. As I was the first person scheduled to perform, the pressure was on to get it sorted out and time was working against me. Eric was gracious enough to start without me and I frantically began pulling cables and re-configuring the set up to work with the ‘Freak and two of the Zoias. I managed to come up with a working arrangement and then it was “showtime!”

Give a listen to the video excerpt above; I have a WAV of the performance that I will be listening to in hopes of pulling some usable audio out of for later.

*At one point in the history of performances in Second Life, the question came up as to whether or not certain performers were actually “performing” live or simply having their avatar appear and running a prerecorded track — the VR version of lip-synching. The controversy is still there and, to my mind as a performer, has cast a permanent shadow over the whole scene.

WHAT NIJ RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT DOMESTIC TERRORISM: The Report

So the DOJ removed this report that that concluded that far-right extremists had killed more Americans than left-wing or radical islamist extremists. Well, what’s a lapsed archivist/librarian to do when someone is trying to deliberately (and with malice, I might add) alter the historical facts?

Well, share it of course! So here’s a link to it:

https://a.nwps.fi/306123.pdf

… should that link disappear, I’ll make sure the report is still available.

#Resist #Persist

The water is boiling and the frog is oblivious…

#Persist #Resist

It’s nearly Friday over in this part of the world and the news cycle seems to have accelerated such that it is a continuous spin cycle. What will happen tomorrow that The Regime will try and spin for us to forget over the weekend remains to be seen.

One thing is clear: Authoritarianism is already in the USA. No waiting for the markers of pre-WWII or the Soviet Union — it’s here. Now. The title comes from the story of placing a frog in a pan of water and slowly bringing it to a boil. The frog remains in the water until it is dead. Drop a frog in a pan of already boiling water and it will do its damnedest to leap out.

Analogy for Amerika? Oh, yeah. There is no sugar coating it, given the events of the past week.

Many Americans still enjoy a lifestyle seemingly untouched by the changes of the past nine months. How much longer that can be said remains to be seen. A friend shared this earlier today and I was shocked reading just how far along The Regime, and Project 2025 has succeeded in reaching their goals:

https://www.project2025.observer/en

Forty seven percent today. And it’s only Thursday, nearing the second week of September. Winter is coming.

You face a choice. I suggest reading this essay and think about it. Feel free to share it, too.

https://the.ink/p/essay-what-are-you-waiting-for

Image of Jimmy Kimmel with text reading, "I stand with Jimmy Kimmel"

Google and The Right to Be Forgotten

In a case in Canada, Google is refusing to comply with a court decision involving “the right to be forgotten.” As an archivist, I have mixed feeling about this, but I think Google is in the wrong here…

Google refusing to comply with privacy commissioner’s ‘right to be forgotten’ decision

Bringing it back: “Silence = Consent”

Cut and paste and pass it on… #Resist #Persist

WHAT TO DO AT AN ICE CHECKPOINT, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WHITE and/or FEEL THE NEED TO JAM UP THE WORKS.
Here’s the deal:
🔘 Border Patrol can verify citizenship within 100 miles of a border or “external boundary.” This includes coastlines, so NYC, Philadelphia, and all of NJ are within the 100-mile zone.
🔘 Border patrol can only ask brief questions about citizenship, and they cannot hold you for an extended time without cause.
🔘 You always have the right to remain silent. You do not need to answer their questions.
🔘 WITH THAT SAID, IF YOU ARE A BORN CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES AND ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WHITE, YOU NEED TO SPEAK THE FUCK UP.
🔘 The most important acts of resistance are the small ones. Make it difficult and uncomfortable for ICE agents to do their jobs. They are counting on citizens to turn a blind eye and allow them to deport undocumented citizens without challenge. Disabuse of that notion.
🔘 If you are on a train, bus, or anything else and ICE or CBP boards, you need to stand up and loudly let everyone know that they have the right to remain silent or only answer questions in the presence of an attorney, no matter their citizenship or immigration status. There have been numerous reports that confronting the agents in this way has caused them to leave without verifying citizenship. THIS CAN SAVE LIVES. 🙌
🔘 If you see anyone being held up by immigration, loudly ask if they are being detained and if they are free to go.
🔘 Immigration officers cannot detain anyone without reasonable suspicion, an agent must have specific facts about you that make it reasonable to believe you are committing or committed, a violation of immigration law or federal law. If an agent detains you, you can ask for their basis for reasonable suspicion, and they should tell you.
🔘 Always say no to a search and let everyone know that they can and should refuse consent to a search.
🔘 They cannot search or arrest anyone without facts about that make it probable that they are committing, or committed, a violation of immigration law or federal law.
🔘 Silence alone meets neither of these standards. Nor does race or ethnicity alone suffice for either probable cause or reasonable suspicion
🔘 White citizens, you have a level of privilege which protects us from retaliation from ICE for being “rude” and making a scene, which makes it our DUTY to speak up and make sure people without the same privilege know their rights. GET LOUD. YELL. YELL IN SPANISH IF YOU KNOW IT. LET PEOPLE KNOW THEY DON’T HAVE TO SAY SHIT. MAKE ICE UNCOMFORTABLE. THROW SAND IN THE GEARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY.
⭐️ Bonus info ⭐️
🔘It is perfectly legal to record immigration agents as long as you are not on government property or at a port of entry. If your train/bus gets boarded, pull your phone out and start videotaping immediately.
🔘 If you are detained or see someone getting detained, get the agent’s name, number, and any other identifying information. Get it on video if possible.
And get any detainees’ names and (even rough) birthdate information – this will make it easier for them to be found in the system.
🔘 Contact the ACLU or your local immigrant/migrant support orgs if you see someone’s rights being violated.
(this has been copy and pasted — please do the same)

“…isn’t dangerous enough to remain in detention”

“Haaretz reports that Hathaleen’s killer, Yinon Levi, was released to house arrest while he’s investigated for manslaughter, with a judge deciding that he isn’t dangerous enough to remain in detention.

This decision comes less than a day after Levi shot and killed Hathaleen in broad daylight, with the attack caught on camera. Witnesses said that Levi later said of the shooting, “I’m glad I did it,” per Al Jazeera.

https://truthout.org/articles/no-other-land-contributors-killer-released-as-israeli-soldiers-raid-mourners/

I can only ask, “What the fcuk?” In broad daylight, in from of cameras.

#NotInMyName

Shadows and Lights…

Evening.

A darkened sky, the light beginning to emerge from the those corporate windows across the way, allowing their interiors to be more clearly revealed. And as I look at this checkerboard of light and darkness, a vacillation catches my eye. I move to get a better view of the two windows and see what looks to be a disco ball with garlands of bright lights running from wall to wall, and, somehow, a beam of light — like a searchlight — sweeps across the tableau. I see this several nights in a row and now I am truly curious.

Days later, I gaze over at the same scene, now reflecting the sky, buildings, and grounds — that are hidden from me, for they are behind me — to the north of here. I try to look closer, feeling like Jimmy Stewart in “Rear Window” but looking for my binoculars (I have none, at present).

Details emerge and resolve, as does the meaning of the mystery. I see a rising lansdscape, and atop it, lights flashing exactly where the “disco ball” had appeared. Indeed, the lights are flashing, even in the wild-fire smoke-muted sunlight of the Montréal skies. And now, I understand.

I spent some time yesterday, observing this reflection, periodically, as the day transited from a yellow-gray morning, through the equally yellow-gray afternoon, and finally into the welcoming cool of night. What I was seeing was the warning lights arrayed across the top of the promontory that hulks behind me, rising up and North of me. This, and nothing more.

Today, the reflection is muted by the aerial pollution of smoke from the Prairie fires — I had forgotten just how pernicious that smoke is on what our skies look like, after experiencing it in Wyoming and Alaska — and I cannot see the Mount or much other detail. But it is there, waiting for the fall of darkness.

“See ya later, alligator…”

!

This one won the Internet for me today. Haven’t found the attribution for it yet, but here it is anyway.

We’re deep into July and I’m having flashbacks of the Summer of 1973… Nixon had the sense to resign. These days, we can only hope for that (and that he takes the rest of his crew with him).

Wondering if there is a mechanism to call for new elections in the US system…

Image of Donald Trump greeting an alligator in front of his estate in Florida, with the text "Seeya later Alligator — At your Trial, Pedophile"

Starving the News

Once again, so that news can be shared more freely —

“Since AFP [Agence France-Presse] was founded in 1944,” the agency’s Society of Journalists said on X, “we have lost journalists in conflicts, some have been injured, others taken prisoner. But none of us can ever remember seeing colleagues die of hunger.”

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/22/nx-s1-5476532/agence-france-presse-gaza-afp

Basically, the Israeli genocidal behavior is now directly affecting not just Palestinians. Maybe the world will start paying attention? Or, in the words of the inimitable Phil Ochs:

“But Monopoly is so much fun, I’d hate to blow the game

And I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends“