Moved
I've moved my writing efforts for the time to jeffreysykes.wordpress.com
Come visit if you are interested.
July 22, 2008
July 04, 2008
Worth a thousand words
This reminds me of this. The former. The latter. Related.
Hat tip, Bubba.
July 01, 2008
Jeffrey Sykes' Top Ten Things about having a Toddler
10. Relearning the English language from scratch.
9. Realizing that "the thrill of living" is never really gone
8. Graham Crackers!
7. Remembering what it was like to be helpless
6. Noggin
5. Losing the fear of the unknown inside the smile of innocence
4. Understanding what your parents meant
3. Green Eggs and Ham
2. Did I mention Graham Crackers!!
1. Understanding Agape Love
9. Realizing that "the thrill of living" is never really gone
8. Graham Crackers!
7. Remembering what it was like to be helpless
6. Noggin
5. Losing the fear of the unknown inside the smile of innocence
4. Understanding what your parents meant
3. Green Eggs and Ham
2. Did I mention Graham Crackers!!
1. Understanding Agape Love
June 30, 2008
Am I supposed to worry about Amy Winehouse?
Can anyone tell me if this Amy Winehouse person has any talent and if I should be worried about her every move?
I can't keep up anymore.
June 09, 2008
Whacko/wingnut compromise could lead to energy independence (don't hold your breath)
So I heard a GOP congressman say on the House Republican Conference podcast that there are 1.5 trillion barrels of oil* within reach of domestic production. I've been studying the issue and debating with my dad over ANWAR and offshore drilling. He was going on and on about the Chinese drilling 90 miles from Florida while we couldn't drill in our own territory.
I didn't really believe him, but I know he listens to talk radio all day in the car and watches Fox at home, so I figured it was a talking point last week.
Sure enough, there goes another member of the House conference talking about the Chinese drilling in Cuba.
It figures.
Now, I've been studying the domestic oil situation and came across a few USGS documents that said there are about 7 billion proven barrels in ANWAR and about 21 billion proven in the total US.
By comparison, our newest colony, where we have spent 520 billion dollars in the last five years, has 112 billion proven barrels of oil.
So here is my question. And my comment.
Wouldn't the absolute strategic thing to do be to drain all the oil we can from the rest of the world while sitting on our reserves (don't get high on your own supply, and all), thus ensuring that when the rest of the world is sucked dry, we still have 10-15 billion barrels in reserve?
Second, how is it conservative to advocate the draining of our own reserves, endanger our own natural resources, and abnegate our own technological development so that we can maintain our addiction to oil?
Maybe if the wingnuts will allow the pinko-environmentalist to raise the CAFE standards and bring more electric hybrids to the market, the whacko environmentalist will let the right wing fascists drill for more domestic oil.
Now that's what they call government.
* I'm going to assume the congressman was talking about oil shale, since we do have 1.5 trillion barrels in proven reserves of that. So the GOP plan seems to be to strip mine anywhere there is oil shale and have us run the economy off of this stuff, which one congressman says is opposed by "radical environmentalist" who claim it emits twice the greenhouse gases that regular oil products do. Those wascally wadicals.
June 05, 2008
Peacocks strut because the can't fly
Been listening to some podcasts from the American University in Cairo this week. I found this gem from Dr. Cornel West.
"The Vocation of a Democratic Intellectual" is the third from the bottom on the above link.
He spends the first seven minutes honoring his friend Edward Said, but then launches into an amazing examination of ideas in a breathtaking lecture.
I admire West's intellect so much that I give him a pass on his politics. This lecture is pure, brilliant Cornell West at his intellectual height.
Like this gem from the 18:00 minute mark, speaking about problems with advanced capitalist societies and "various professional managerial figures" and some academicians walking around "like a peacock, with the foliage visible."
*"I come from a tradition that says peacocks strut because the can't fly. They snub because they are insecure. Where is your courage to think for yourself? To shatter conformity. To shatter complacency. To shatter cowardice. To be yourself. To find your own voice like the great blues and jazz musicians."*
Damn.
I really needed to hear that today. Serendipity is a beautiful thing.
April 28, 2008
A call for separate and unequal
Two recent items in the NYT on education are worth a read:
Chicago school teacher Will Okun:
"[O]ur school has too many students who are making no legitimate effort to learn or pass classes. These students attend periodically to socialize, to sell drugs or to alleviate boredom. Some are mandated to attend by the court of law or by a relative. Others are just too young to drop out. They do not carry book bags; they are not in possession of pen or paper. When the hallways and classrooms are in order, these students mourn, “It’s dead as hell in here.” The threat of F’s, parent conferences, detentions, and suspensions are pointless. Unfortunately, no one in the family seems to care. Only the threat of expulsion garners temporary compliance."
A gem in comments:
"Disruption and dysfunction are the enemy of achievement for enormous numbers of students. Yet we do nothing for them. We simply must draw a bright, shining line around those who are ready to learn, and let nothing interfere with their education."
Chicago school teacher Will Okun:
"[O]ur school has too many students who are making no legitimate effort to learn or pass classes. These students attend periodically to socialize, to sell drugs or to alleviate boredom. Some are mandated to attend by the court of law or by a relative. Others are just too young to drop out. They do not carry book bags; they are not in possession of pen or paper. When the hallways and classrooms are in order, these students mourn, “It’s dead as hell in here.” The threat of F’s, parent conferences, detentions, and suspensions are pointless. Unfortunately, no one in the family seems to care. Only the threat of expulsion garners temporary compliance."
A gem in comments:
"Disruption and dysfunction are the enemy of achievement for enormous numbers of students. Yet we do nothing for them. We simply must draw a bright, shining line around those who are ready to learn, and let nothing interfere with their education."
April 15, 2008
Jeffrey plays Berkeley
Today I have fulfilled a dream of attending UC-Berkeley. Not really, but due to technology I can sit in on a philosophy course, Existentialism in Film and Literature, given by Instructor Hubert Dreyfus during Spring 2006.
Cool.
Cool.
April 14, 2008
Piedmont Conservative Online
Piedmont Conservative Online is a nascent movement among right thinking residents of the most glorious area of the country. Stretching from Georgia to Virginia, the Piedmont is an area critical to the future of conservatism and is a battlefield in the conflict of ideas that will shape the future of policy in the United States.
We are currently seeking core team members in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia to lead our efforts in those states.
If you have an interest in journalism and a conservative bend, please contact the moderator Jeffrey Sykes at jeffreyhsykes@gmail.com
We are currently seeking core team members in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia to lead our efforts in those states.
If you have an interest in journalism and a conservative bend, please contact the moderator Jeffrey Sykes at jeffreyhsykes@gmail.com
February 26, 2008
Towards a *Jeffresian* general theory
Some years ago a I developed a theory, which much to my chagrin, I have not been able to fully develop as of yet. The theory, which I called "The devaluation of humanity", stated that much social suffering could be contributed to the affect of the rise of technology on the value of man when viewed in purely capitalistic terms.
The theory holds that if one placed humans on the value scale of supply and demand then, when considering the impact of technology on the supply of humans and the demand for humans to supply the needs of capitalism (labor), then with supply up and demand down, the cumulative value of humanity would decrease.
My thoughts in this direction where that this devaluation of humanity could account for the increase in senseless violence, the embracing of abortion as a method of birth control, the crumbling of traditional values such as respect for person and property, the myriad of social factors that place increasing stress on the family, etc, etc.
So that was my theory of the 1990s.
Enough of that. I have a new theory for a new decade.
I've only recently been struck with it.
February 24, 2008
Escape from suburbia?
This article in The Atlantic Monthly seems important:
*At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”*
February 22, 2008
"Who killed the electric car?"
Watched this movie last night. You should watch it too.
Get involved.
Existential heroine of the month.
*Hydrogen is not the answer.Because of the high energy losses within a hydrogen economy the synthetic energy carrier cannot compete with electricity. As the fundamental laws of physics cannot be chanced by research, politics or investments, a hydrogen economy will never make sense.*
More:
*For the establishment of a sustainable energy future the present energy system has to undergo significant changes, not just minor adaptations or modifications. The key point is the transition from a chemical energy base built on fossil fuels to a physical energy base built mainly on electricity from renewable sources. This transition is predetermined by the laws of physics. It cannot be avoided or significantly delayed by politics. However, the transition will proceed more smoothly, if all players agree to move into the same direction.
Without the slightest doubt, the technology for a hydrogen economy exists or can be developed in reasonable time. Also, hydrogen is an appropriate energy carrier for particular niche applications, or it may become an important medium for electricity storage with reversible fuel cells. But hydrogen can never establish itself as a dominant energy carrier. It has to be fabricated from high grade energy and it has to compete with high grad energy in the marketplace.
Hydrogen cannot win this fight against its own energy source. Therefore, the answer to the question: "Does a Hydrogen Economy make Sense?" is an unconditional "NEVER". A global hydrogen economy has no past, present or future! *
February 21, 2008
Kareem still defying the conventional wisdom
For a guy who has been on nearly 30 covers of Sports Illustrated, Kareem has never been your typical jock. In fact, he's been busting stereotypes his entire life.
Kareem Abdul Jabaar was my first sports hero and the hoops joy and pain I endured as a kid in the 1980s was directly tied to how well he did in the playoffs each year.
The 1983 finals, for example, were the most painful of my life because my grandfather had died in the fall of 1982 and I spent some time with my grandmother the next spring as she prepared to move to a new house. In fact, I think I was with her for two of the 76ers rambles during their sweep of the Lakers that season.
As I have mentioned, I read Kareem's autobiography, Giant Steps, as a teenager and his story is just incredible. Hanging with Wilt as a kid and a teen in NYC and Philly, finding himself as an unlikely loner/outcast at UCLA while being the best basketball player in the country, battling with Big E in the Astrodome, finally getting to the pros and squaring up against his hero, Wilt.
Kareem can't be put in a box and I think that is what frustrates people the most about his demeanor.
I think its a shame that he wasn't able to get a lasting coaching gig in the NBA. I think an entire generation of big-men were robbed of his influence, not only when it comes to basketball, but in terms of what he could have meant to them intellectually and broadening their off the court horizons.
Kareem has a new audio book out, and a feature on ESPN.com. He's also blogging for the LA Times.
And I haven't even touched on his affinity for jazz.
Go, man, go!
Kareem Abdul Jabaar was my first sports hero and the hoops joy and pain I endured as a kid in the 1980s was directly tied to how well he did in the playoffs each year.
The 1983 finals, for example, were the most painful of my life because my grandfather had died in the fall of 1982 and I spent some time with my grandmother the next spring as she prepared to move to a new house. In fact, I think I was with her for two of the 76ers rambles during their sweep of the Lakers that season.
As I have mentioned, I read Kareem's autobiography, Giant Steps, as a teenager and his story is just incredible. Hanging with Wilt as a kid and a teen in NYC and Philly, finding himself as an unlikely loner/outcast at UCLA while being the best basketball player in the country, battling with Big E in the Astrodome, finally getting to the pros and squaring up against his hero, Wilt.
Kareem can't be put in a box and I think that is what frustrates people the most about his demeanor.
I think its a shame that he wasn't able to get a lasting coaching gig in the NBA. I think an entire generation of big-men were robbed of his influence, not only when it comes to basketball, but in terms of what he could have meant to them intellectually and broadening their off the court horizons.
Kareem has a new audio book out, and a feature on ESPN.com. He's also blogging for the LA Times.
And I haven't even touched on his affinity for jazz.
Go, man, go!
February 15, 2008
David Brooks looks at the big picture
That David Brooks! I love it when somebody speaks the unvarnished truth:
*If there is one thing we have learned over the bitter experience of the past 30 years, it is that per-pupil expenditures and days in the classroom are not sufficient to produce superb information-economy workers. They emerge from intact families, quality neighborhoods and healthy moral cultures.
Finally, doing that would mean laying down lifelong policies. Human capital development is like nutrition — you have to do it every day.
The first group of policies would foster two-parent families. If all American families looked like the intact middle-class ones, we wouldn’t have nationally low education outcomes. Married men earn 10 percent to 40 percent more than single men with similar skills, and their children are much more likely to graduate from high school. But among the lower-middle class, there is a poisonous spiral of economic stress and cultural decay.*
*If there is one thing we have learned over the bitter experience of the past 30 years, it is that per-pupil expenditures and days in the classroom are not sufficient to produce superb information-economy workers. They emerge from intact families, quality neighborhoods and healthy moral cultures.
Finally, doing that would mean laying down lifelong policies. Human capital development is like nutrition — you have to do it every day.
The first group of policies would foster two-parent families. If all American families looked like the intact middle-class ones, we wouldn’t have nationally low education outcomes. Married men earn 10 percent to 40 percent more than single men with similar skills, and their children are much more likely to graduate from high school. But among the lower-middle class, there is a poisonous spiral of economic stress and cultural decay.*
February 11, 2008
Where's yer treasure?
This is a random reminder that the cost of the War in Iraq will top $500 billion sometime this month. That is an estimated cost of $12 billion to taxpayers in North Carolina.
We could have provided more than 2.6 million scholarships to university students in this state for a like amount.
End of reminder.
February 06, 2008
Fatwa spreads to Emerald Isle
'ar brudders in Eyerland leed de weigh.
*There is something missing from this otherwise typical bustling cityscape. There are taxis and buses. There are hip bars and pollution. Every other person is talking into a cellphone. But there are no plastic shopping bags, the ubiquitous symbol of urban life.
In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.*
January 28, 2008
Assalamu alaikum
Outside of my mom, I think I have about 14 regular readers. For you folks, I wanted to let you know I will be taking extended breaks from Apriori Concepts this year. I have a handful of new projects to look after, and I don't feel as I have much to offer that is fresh and unique right now.
I may pop in here from time to time, and I'll definitely be around the 'sphere.
I may pop in here from time to time, and I'll definitely be around the 'sphere.
January 17, 2008
Calling our bluff (or, for every measure there is a countermeasure)
Reuters:
*Colombia's success in breaking the power of its big cartels was due partly to close cooperation with the U.S. which provided money and intelligence. The unintended consequence: much of the illicit business previously run from Colombia moved to Mexico.
Now, along the border, Mexican drug traffickers are trying to extend their culture of corruption to the north, targeting Border Patrol and military officials they think might be tempted by easy money.
"In the U.S., the region most vulnerable to corruption is the U.S.-Mexican border and particularly the border with Arizona," said Paul Charlton, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona who is now partner in a law firm. "The temptations are just extraordinary."
Over the past few years, investigators have uncovered scores of U.S. public employees who accepted bribes for helping to move drugs or look the other way. The latest was an Arizona prison officer sentenced this month to 15 months for taking cash from people he thought were drug traffickers.*
*Colombia's success in breaking the power of its big cartels was due partly to close cooperation with the U.S. which provided money and intelligence. The unintended consequence: much of the illicit business previously run from Colombia moved to Mexico.
Now, along the border, Mexican drug traffickers are trying to extend their culture of corruption to the north, targeting Border Patrol and military officials they think might be tempted by easy money.
"In the U.S., the region most vulnerable to corruption is the U.S.-Mexican border and particularly the border with Arizona," said Paul Charlton, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona who is now partner in a law firm. "The temptations are just extraordinary."
Over the past few years, investigators have uncovered scores of U.S. public employees who accepted bribes for helping to move drugs or look the other way. The latest was an Arizona prison officer sentenced this month to 15 months for taking cash from people he thought were drug traffickers.*
January 09, 2008
Barnett on "the Pentagon's new map"
I just watched the best power point presentation ever. It was by Thomas PM Barnett at last year's TED Conference (more on that later if it all sinks in.)
If you are interested in the future of American military strategy and would like an honest assessment of why Iraq went so bad for so long I suggest watching the 25 minute video.
If you are interested in the future of American military strategy and would like an honest assessment of why Iraq went so bad for so long I suggest watching the 25 minute video.
January 08, 2008
Gitmo shame lingers
This article is a month old, but well linked to relevant sources regarding the thorn in our side that is the Guantanamo detainee situation.
The ACLU is planning a national protest for Friday, urging the closing of the prison at Gitmo.
A rally is scheduled for noon in Raleigh.
Like the larger Iraq question, the Gitmo situation vexes me greatly.
On the surface it is repulsive to see our government treating human beings in ways that conjure up Goodwin's Law.
It is frightening to imagine the expansion of tactics used by the government on enemy combatants at Gitmo to potential political enemies at home. (Sedition Act of 1918, anyone.)
But they are enemy combatants.
I think what troubles me the most is Dick Cheney and GWB's arrogant bunker mentality when it comes to taking a big ol' poo on the tradition of constitutional restraint of executive branch power.
I jus' *Can't Truss It*
The ACLU is planning a national protest for Friday, urging the closing of the prison at Gitmo.
A rally is scheduled for noon in Raleigh.
Like the larger Iraq question, the Gitmo situation vexes me greatly.
On the surface it is repulsive to see our government treating human beings in ways that conjure up Goodwin's Law.
It is frightening to imagine the expansion of tactics used by the government on enemy combatants at Gitmo to potential political enemies at home. (Sedition Act of 1918, anyone.)
But they are enemy combatants.
I think what troubles me the most is Dick Cheney and GWB's arrogant bunker mentality when it comes to taking a big ol' poo on the tradition of constitutional restraint of executive branch power.
I jus' *Can't Truss It*
January 04, 2008
Sometimes, fading away is not a bad option
I don't care for the girl, her lifestyle or her music. Never have. She's prostituted herself since her first hit single and done nothing worthy of admiration since.
But this picture speaks volumes about what is wrong with our society, our obsession with the *cult of personality* and the value (or lack thereof) of self-respect and dignity in a digital mass-media driven culture.
Leave the girl alone before you drive her to further self-immolation.
I think Neil Young was being ironic when he said "It's better to burn out than fade away." He didn't mean it literally, folks.
December 21, 2007
Eternal truth, internal reconciliation
Every year about this time I reflect on the meaning of eternal life, mortality, morality and industrial capitalist society.
It hurts my head a lot. It burdens my spirit.
Then I think about football and the upcoming ACC basketball season and move on.
But Umberto Eco wrote this great piece a few years ago and I like to reread it now and the:.
*The pianist Arthur Rubinstein was once asked if he believed in God. He said: "No. I don't believe in God. I believe in something greater." Our culture suffers from the same inflationary tendency. The existing religions just aren't big enough: we demand something more from God than the existing depictions in the Christian faith can provide. So we revert to the occult. The so-called occult sciences do not ever reveal any genuine secret: they only promise that there is something secret that explains and justifies everything. The great advantage of this is that it allows each person to fill up the empty secret "container" with his or her own fears and hopes ...
"I was raised as a Catholic, and although I have abandoned the Church, this December, as usual, I will be putting together a Christmas crib for my grandson. We'll construct it together - as my father did with me when I was a boy. I have profound respect for the Christian traditions - which, as rituals for coping with death, still make more sense than their purely commercial alternatives.
I think I agree with Joyce's lapsed Catholic hero in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: "What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?" The religious celebration of Christmas is at least a clear and coherent absurdity. The commercial celebration is not even that.*
Umberto Eco
December 19, 2007
Huckabee ad brings out the best of the *long tail*
There is just something strange about the fact that a Christian running for president puts up a Merry Christmas video on youtube and it gets more than 6,000, mostly vulgar, comments in less than two days.
I firmly believe in freedom and freedom of speech above all. What value does morality have if it is not freely chosen?
But I think it is a sign of our sick culture that we live in an age where a great number of people believe it is decent for two men to marry each other, but to claim your belief in Christ's message gets you slammed with all types of vile.
Go figure.
Maybe the long tail needs to be hacked up with a +2 broadsword and sent to the abyss from time to time.
Ben Stein said it best.
May your merry bells keep ringing. Happy holidays to you.
I firmly believe in freedom and freedom of speech above all. What value does morality have if it is not freely chosen?
But I think it is a sign of our sick culture that we live in an age where a great number of people believe it is decent for two men to marry each other, but to claim your belief in Christ's message gets you slammed with all types of vile.
Go figure.
Maybe the long tail needs to be hacked up with a +2 broadsword and sent to the abyss from time to time.
Ben Stein said it best.
May your merry bells keep ringing. Happy holidays to you.
December 18, 2007
FCC overturns media ownership limitations
Despite the objections of Congress and most Americans, FCC Chairman Martin pushed through a loosening of media ownership rules today in a party line vote of FCC commissioners.
Not the end of the world, but par for the course for an administration that has thrown rationality to the wind to please giant corporate interests.
I'm sick of George Bush.
Watch this video to see what corporate media means for the First Amendment responsibility of the press.
Take action if you desire.
Not the end of the world, but par for the course for an administration that has thrown rationality to the wind to please giant corporate interests.
I'm sick of George Bush.
Watch this video to see what corporate media means for the First Amendment responsibility of the press.
Take action if you desire.
December 15, 2007
December 13, 2007
Good article on religion's role in American governance
Is it possible to be a Christian and in favor of secular government?
Roger Cohen via NYT:
*Thomas Jefferson saw those words as “building a wall of separation between church and state.” So, much later, did John F. Kennedy, who in a speech predating Romney’s by 47 years, declared: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”
The absolute has proved porous. The U.S. culture wars have produced what David Campbell of Notre Dame University called: “the injection of religion into politics in a very overt way.”
Much too overt for Europeans, whose alarm at George W. Bush’s presidency has been fed by his allusions to divine guidance — “the hand of a just and faithful God” in shaping events, or his trust in “the ways of Providence.”*
December 12, 2007
Who pays the price for your Christmas cheer?
Wal-Mart investigating Chinese supplier of Christmas ornaments for paying teen workers an average of 49 cents per hour.
WWJD?
*The National Labor Committee — citing interviews, wage records and cellphone pictures smuggled out by teenage workers — said that the employees were being paid at less than Guangzhou’s legal minimum of 55 cents per hour and are being forced to work excessive amounts of overtime. Workers were paid by a piecemeal basis, according to the committee, with some earning as little as 26 cents per hour. The wage records, which were from a 10-day period from June 21 to 30 of this year, show a median wage of 49 cents per hour. By law, the employees should have been earning a median of 68 cents per hour because of overtime regulations.*
WWJD?
*The National Labor Committee — citing interviews, wage records and cellphone pictures smuggled out by teenage workers — said that the employees were being paid at less than Guangzhou’s legal minimum of 55 cents per hour and are being forced to work excessive amounts of overtime. Workers were paid by a piecemeal basis, according to the committee, with some earning as little as 26 cents per hour. The wage records, which were from a 10-day period from June 21 to 30 of this year, show a median wage of 49 cents per hour. By law, the employees should have been earning a median of 68 cents per hour because of overtime regulations.*
December 05, 2007
Trying to do my part (or conservation at the Sykes house)
We've been trying to heed the governor's call to cut our water consumption here in the Sykes household. Despite the fact that we have Lake Reidsville here, my wife is big on stewardship and I guess I began to feel bad watering my lawn and washing my car all the time when I knew Atlanta and Raleigh were about to dry up.
Anyway, we cut our water usage to six units last month. I know in the past we've used 9-12 depending on how much I watered the grass and trees I've planted in the yard in the last two years.
In Reidsille, one unit of water equals 750 gallons. So, if we have averaged about 10 units and cut it down to six, that's doing all right, in my view.
At the same time, we have been trying to conserve energy. We are lucky with southern exposure and big windows to get daylight across the entire front to the house. In the spring we began switching out to 13 watt fluorescent bulbs. We've changed 12 so far.
I calculated our power bill for last month and we averaged about 19 kwh per day as opposed to 21 kwh per day for the same month last year. So a reduction of about 60 kwh for the month. That's not a whole lot, but a step in the right direction.
We also figured that replacing 12 60-watt bulbs (720 watts) with 12 13-watt bulbs (156 watts) is a 79 percent reduction in usage just for lighting.
That's nothing to sneeze at. Now multiply that by all the light bulbs in homes across America and you see how we can begin to make a dent.
Anyway, we cut our water usage to six units last month. I know in the past we've used 9-12 depending on how much I watered the grass and trees I've planted in the yard in the last two years.
In Reidsille, one unit of water equals 750 gallons. So, if we have averaged about 10 units and cut it down to six, that's doing all right, in my view.
At the same time, we have been trying to conserve energy. We are lucky with southern exposure and big windows to get daylight across the entire front to the house. In the spring we began switching out to 13 watt fluorescent bulbs. We've changed 12 so far.
I calculated our power bill for last month and we averaged about 19 kwh per day as opposed to 21 kwh per day for the same month last year. So a reduction of about 60 kwh for the month. That's not a whole lot, but a step in the right direction.
We also figured that replacing 12 60-watt bulbs (720 watts) with 12 13-watt bulbs (156 watts) is a 79 percent reduction in usage just for lighting.
That's nothing to sneeze at. Now multiply that by all the light bulbs in homes across America and you see how we can begin to make a dent.
December 03, 2007
Smoking kills. Period.
A few weeks ago there was this story on smoking in city halls across the triad. Reidsville's was deemed the smokiest.
Via We101 and JazzyTina I saw this op-ed by William F. Buckley:
*Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes. Solemn because I would be violating my secular commitment to the free marketplace. Contrite, because my relative indifference to tobacco poison for so many years puts me in something of the position of the Zyklon B defendants after World War II. These folk manufactured the special gas used in the death camps to genocidal ends. They pleaded, of course, that as far as they were concerned, they were simply technicians, putting together chemicals needed in wartime for fumigation. Some got away with that defense; others, not.
Those who fail to protest the free passage of tobacco smoke in the air come close to the Zyklon defendants in pleading ignorance.*
Yeah. Can't argue with that. Or William F. Buckley.
Via We101 and JazzyTina I saw this op-ed by William F. Buckley:
*Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You'd get a solemn and contrite, Yes. Solemn because I would be violating my secular commitment to the free marketplace. Contrite, because my relative indifference to tobacco poison for so many years puts me in something of the position of the Zyklon B defendants after World War II. These folk manufactured the special gas used in the death camps to genocidal ends. They pleaded, of course, that as far as they were concerned, they were simply technicians, putting together chemicals needed in wartime for fumigation. Some got away with that defense; others, not.
Those who fail to protest the free passage of tobacco smoke in the air come close to the Zyklon defendants in pleading ignorance.*
Yeah. Can't argue with that. Or William F. Buckley.
An undeniable moral edict
CSM:
*Lagos, Nigeria; and Nairobi, Kenya - Once a month, John Ebiwari drags an iron rake through the open sewer that runs in front of his house in Nigeria's sprawling commercial capital of Lagos and scoops out the discarded plastic bags that block the flow of bubbling black filth.
On the last Saturday of each month Lagos police officers armed with big sticks make sure residents fulfill their legal duty and clean up their neighborhoods for 'Sanitation Day.'
The clean up provides a minimum of order in Lagos. But, in a move more drastic than seen in most Western countries, several African nations are tackling the scourge by banning or restricting use of plastic bags.*
Death I say!
December 01, 2007
Waiting for ... anyone?
I can't put into words how creatively awesome this is ...
*“In an instant all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness.”
When the actor Wendell Pierce spoke these words in performances of “Waiting for Godot” here last month, he really was in the middle of nothingness, or what looked a lot like it.
The performances, by the Classical Theater of Harlem, took place outdoors in parts of the city particularly hard hit by Hurricane Katrina and slow to recover. In the Gentilly section, a gutted, storm-ruined house was used as a set. In the Lower Ninth Ward, where one of the largest black neighborhoods in a mostly black city was all but erased by roof-high water surging through a levee, the intersection of two once-busy streets was the stage."*
November 30, 2007
Jeffrey Sykes thoughts for the day on illegal immigration and education
Yes. We are a nation of laws. And we are a nation of law breakers.
I agree in theory that we should not give people who break laws a pass on their actions.
But if you can't control the border, what then? We can't stop the flow of cocaine and opium into this country. We've been trying for at least 40 years. I'll bet you I could find some cocaine for sale on the streets of Reidsville in less than 30 minutes.
I'm very torn about the treatment of the children of illegal immigrants. Do we deny them access to public schools? What about those who can afford private school? Are we going to create an atmosphere of terror for those who are here legally as we round up those who are illegal? Do we err on the side of enforcing laws and rounding up illegals or on the side of civil liberties and right for those here legally?
How many police will it take to round up 12 million illegal immigrants and send them home? Are you gonna pay for it? I understand that North Carolina, as of 2005, only had two federal immigration officers in the entire state. How long will the waiting period be for deportation hearings, or are we gonna suspend those and just bus people back to the border. Are we gonna send Guatemalans back to Guatemala or drop them off in Mexico? Who pays to send a Nicaraguan back to Nicaragua? Multiply that by 12 million.
Are we going to have internment camps for people waiting for a deportation hearing? Who pays for that? Who provides basic safeguards for health and safety?
I'm not offended by people who look and sound different from me being here. Didn't we create the problem with our lax enforcement? Why are we punishing our Latino neighbors with our increasing fear of Islamic terrorists? Why don't we deport all the illegal Muslims first and then worry about the Hispanics? Wouldn't that be cheaper, more doable and result in much better security?
What else ...
Do we have any history of providing citizenship to a large segment of non-citizens in one stroke of a pen? Did that work out well? Should we have shipped them back to their home country? Can I say that? What's the difference now? Aren't illegal immigrants from Latin America who come here to find work essentially slaves to the global economy? What is their choice? Stay home in mud huts and starve and provide no hope for a better future for their children? Is that what Europeans did in the 17th and 18th Centuries?
Man this is complicated.
Oh yeah, who is going to provide grief counseling to all the school teachers and administrators who have to look a parent in the eye and tell them we can't let your six year old go to school because you are a damn illegal immigrant?
I agree in theory that we should not give people who break laws a pass on their actions.
But if you can't control the border, what then? We can't stop the flow of cocaine and opium into this country. We've been trying for at least 40 years. I'll bet you I could find some cocaine for sale on the streets of Reidsville in less than 30 minutes.
I'm very torn about the treatment of the children of illegal immigrants. Do we deny them access to public schools? What about those who can afford private school? Are we going to create an atmosphere of terror for those who are here legally as we round up those who are illegal? Do we err on the side of enforcing laws and rounding up illegals or on the side of civil liberties and right for those here legally?
How many police will it take to round up 12 million illegal immigrants and send them home? Are you gonna pay for it? I understand that North Carolina, as of 2005, only had two federal immigration officers in the entire state. How long will the waiting period be for deportation hearings, or are we gonna suspend those and just bus people back to the border. Are we gonna send Guatemalans back to Guatemala or drop them off in Mexico? Who pays to send a Nicaraguan back to Nicaragua? Multiply that by 12 million.
Are we going to have internment camps for people waiting for a deportation hearing? Who pays for that? Who provides basic safeguards for health and safety?
I'm not offended by people who look and sound different from me being here. Didn't we create the problem with our lax enforcement? Why are we punishing our Latino neighbors with our increasing fear of Islamic terrorists? Why don't we deport all the illegal Muslims first and then worry about the Hispanics? Wouldn't that be cheaper, more doable and result in much better security?
What else ...
Do we have any history of providing citizenship to a large segment of non-citizens in one stroke of a pen? Did that work out well? Should we have shipped them back to their home country? Can I say that? What's the difference now? Aren't illegal immigrants from Latin America who come here to find work essentially slaves to the global economy? What is their choice? Stay home in mud huts and starve and provide no hope for a better future for their children? Is that what Europeans did in the 17th and 18th Centuries?
Man this is complicated.
Oh yeah, who is going to provide grief counseling to all the school teachers and administrators who have to look a parent in the eye and tell them we can't let your six year old go to school because you are a damn illegal immigrant?
November 27, 2007
New poster boy for the death penalty
Lethal injection is too good for this fellow.
November 26, 2007
*Hated and feared for something we don't want*
Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but it seems to take me a while to catch up on pop culture these days.
Anyways, I want to make this abundantly clear:
My Morning Jacket's song Gideon, from their 2005 album Z, is a life changing song, one of the most poignant I have ever heard. I would rank it up there with Ohio and For What It's Worth as anthems that capture for all eternity the true moral failure of society/politicians/all of us to make our common American experience the most it can be.
Who are you, what have you become
I think it's pretty clear Jim James is commenting on W's use of religion to shroud his decision making processes, and then strikes at the heart of the administration's botched war in Iraq (needless, pointless) and failure to cradle our own in a time of need (Katrina).
What does this remind you of
I had heard that during live shows their stage lights shimmered and popped just like that Friday on tv when we unleashed shock and awe on the streets of Baghdad. I'll never forget sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Reidsville having a meeting with my then editor boss at the Reidsville paper. If I recall correct, I was hoping to see early March Madness action, but instead watched the brilliance of the explosions and fire balls as they lit up the night sky there yet again, deployed and captured by technology, beamed to space and across fiber optics to my eyeballs in a sleepy hamlet thousands of miles away.
My first thoughts were "this is not the image of America I want lingering in the minds of the rest of the world for the rest of my life."
Hated and feared for something we don't want.
Animal. Come on.
What does this remind you of
As I watched this video, that's just the image that flashed in my mind.
Music as social commentary is powerful. Thank God there are artists still among us.
Anyways, I want to make this abundantly clear:
My Morning Jacket's song Gideon, from their 2005 album Z, is a life changing song, one of the most poignant I have ever heard. I would rank it up there with Ohio and For What It's Worth as anthems that capture for all eternity the true moral failure of society/politicians/all of us to make our common American experience the most it can be.
Who are you, what have you become
I think it's pretty clear Jim James is commenting on W's use of religion to shroud his decision making processes, and then strikes at the heart of the administration's botched war in Iraq (needless, pointless) and failure to cradle our own in a time of need (Katrina).
What does this remind you of
I had heard that during live shows their stage lights shimmered and popped just like that Friday on tv when we unleashed shock and awe on the streets of Baghdad. I'll never forget sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Reidsville having a meeting with my then editor boss at the Reidsville paper. If I recall correct, I was hoping to see early March Madness action, but instead watched the brilliance of the explosions and fire balls as they lit up the night sky there yet again, deployed and captured by technology, beamed to space and across fiber optics to my eyeballs in a sleepy hamlet thousands of miles away.
My first thoughts were "this is not the image of America I want lingering in the minds of the rest of the world for the rest of my life."
Hated and feared for something we don't want.
Animal. Come on.
What does this remind you of
As I watched this video, that's just the image that flashed in my mind.
Music as social commentary is powerful. Thank God there are artists still among us.
November 19, 2007
A job with a view
I know a young man who is spending his first few years out of college working in Southeast Asia as part of a water purification project. It is his second trip to that region.He is stationed somewhere between Calcutta and Saigon, and gets to travel east and west from time to time. What an experience for a young man not yet 25.
This is his latest dispatch, and I think needs to be shared as we approach the period of American surfeit.
You will likely read his book in years to come.
*Kolkata is everything I dreamed it would be. Maybe you've seen such squalor, but I haven't. Everyone there looks like a picture taken for a calendar advocating the problem of suffering. It's the kind of place a blind man's bamboo cane will play over your toes like a xylophone while women in saris the color of rhododendron blossoms wash their children's clothes in sewer drains along the road. Thick flocks of crows hang above the roofs next to crepe paper kites that fly in glorious loops. It's the kind of place you can find a man, right in the middle of the deafening torrent of traffic, lying half-wrapped on the sidewalk like a bundle of bones, curled into the position he held before he entered this world, his hands cupped over his ears.
At this point it goes without saying that I've been in India, but I'm back in the village now, and so happy to be home. It has never seemed so clean and peaceful, so serene. I wish I had time to tell you all about everything, about how the rice fields of West Bengal glow with dew at first light, how I walked along the ridge that is the border of Nepal through fog like tattered prayer flags flown to the wind, how the men up there carry their loads using only a strap across the forehead, how the Himalaya seems to rise from nowhere, too big to be believed, how I missed my train and spent the whole night sleeping on a wooden luggage rack above the no-class cars, how I got the rhythm of walking in me and could hardly bring myself to stop. But that would take so long, and such stories are usually better told in person anyway.
As glad as I am to be gone, I'd like to go back to Kolkata for a moment, if only in my mind. When you get the news that your grandmother has had another serious surgery, you mostly want to be alone near water. You want to sit along the Ganges and watch the bathers descend the ghats by the thousands in a place they've been coming for thousands of years. If you can't do that, then you want to stand at a precipice and look out over the familiar wrinkles of earth that seem to rise and fall endlessly, preferably in a place with a strong breeze that is like the pitchless music of all such cliffs. Any place, really, that is quiet and that reminds you how old the world is, how much it has changed and is ever changing, and what an unimportant part you are in a play that never had to include you, but that chose to anyway. You've got train tickets to Varanasi but the political parties are calling for a strike of at least 48 hours and if you leave there is no guarantee you'll be able to get back in time for your flight. So you stay, against your will, and try to make the most of it.
That's just where I was a week ago, stranded in Kolkata, left to follow around Mother Teresa's ghost. And so I spent the next few days working with the Missionaries of Charity along AJC Bose Road. The sisters' that work there have a thankless, measureless task. The only counts they can make are the number taken in from the streets and the number that died in the night. The good they accomplish will only last as long as that person is alive. I was taken back to my college dorm room when the words of Mother Teresa first asked me from their page, "Do you love your neighbor? Do you know your neighbor?" Those paragraphs went on to speak of the dignity of each life, of a source of love that ebbs into eternity like the blue-gray mountains, of a river that flows from nowhere to nowhere like the universe outside of time. Please, whatever you do, don't think me righteous. At every entrance of those refuges there is a mural of a rosy-cheeked Jesus in pastel robes, the words "You did it for me!" arching around his delicate frame. But I didn't feel a part of that radical ethic. I felt like a man standing in the surf, throwing water on the shore bucket by bucket. I sat there on the beds feeding the sick their rice and dal one spoon at a time while the newly dead were wrapped in white tissue paper and carried to the truck, one of the few that would be allowed on the streets that day. I sat there and tried to think that I was washing the body of Christ, mostly holding my grandmother.
If you were to come to where I live you might be tempted to pity my neighbors, as I have also been. The children's nakedness. The grime on their hands and feet, their faces. The way that they sometimes wreak of urine or days without bathing. But they play all day in the kaleidoscopes of light the sun makes with the palms. They crouch on canoes that glide effortlessly over mirrors of the sky, which always seems to be the most improbable shade of blue. Their hands know how to catch the quickest crabs without being pinched. The colors of this place are in their laughter. I don't mean to minimize their need. I don't mean that I don't love each of them. I'm not sure just what I mean. Is that okay for now? Thanks so much for reading this far. As always, I'd love to hear from you.*
November 14, 2007
Marvel Comics gets it
Pretty cool. Right now, 250 free samples are available in a nifty interface.
WaPo:
Comic book publisher Marvel said yesterday that it has made thousands of vintage comics accessible online for a subscription fee.
The service, called Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, is intended to attract new fans with online versions of the hard-to-find early adventures of such superheroes as Spider-Man and the X-Men. Though the publisher has occasionally posted issues of its classic comics online, this is the first time it has tried to make a business with Web content.
"We wanted to find a way to get more people to take a look at our comic books," said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Publishing.
WaPo:
Comic book publisher Marvel said yesterday that it has made thousands of vintage comics accessible online for a subscription fee.
The service, called Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, is intended to attract new fans with online versions of the hard-to-find early adventures of such superheroes as Spider-Man and the X-Men. Though the publisher has occasionally posted issues of its classic comics online, this is the first time it has tried to make a business with Web content.
"We wanted to find a way to get more people to take a look at our comic books," said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Publishing.
Fatwa, continued
The Independent:
British shops hand out a staggering 13 billion every year. But after a decision by 33 London councils yesterday, plastic bags could be soon be consigned to history, unmourned by anyone who cares about cleaning up the environment.
Fatwa declared.
November 12, 2007
Saturn and Titan: Planetary electronica
It's not sci-fi, it's NASA. And real.
Rod Serling and Stanley Kubrick got it right all along.
"My God, Look at all the stars."
Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions, which have been monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are closely related to the auroras near the poles of the planet. These auroras are similar to Earth's northern and southern lights. This is an audio file of Saturn's radio emissions.
Why can't they all be this good
My favorite actor, Daniel Day Lewis, makes a character come alive like no other. He is beyond great, bordering on awesome and unbelievable.
His role as Bill the Butcher still scares me when I think about how cruel he was. In Last of the Mohicans he makes love come alive. In Unbearable Lightness of Being he drives you crazy with his narcissistic egomania.
Just a few examples of the great actor profiled in the NYT's Sunday Mag feature. He has a new western coming out, something that one wouldn't necessarily expect from DDL, but among some of the awesome movies of the genre to hit the screen lately.
November 09, 2007
Do you understand what this means?
NYT:
India and China are home to about a third of humanity. People there are demanding access to electricity, cars, and consumer goods and can increasingly afford to compete with the West for access to resources. In doing so, the two Asian giants are profoundly transforming the world’s energy balance.
India and China are home to about a third of humanity. People there are demanding access to electricity, cars, and consumer goods and can increasingly afford to compete with the West for access to resources. In doing so, the two Asian giants are profoundly transforming the world’s energy balance.
Today, China consumes only a third as much oil as the United States, which burns a quarter of the world’s oil each day. By 2030, India and China together will import as much oil as the United States and Japan do today.
November 07, 2007
Not buying in
A Communist Party supporter in Minsk, Russia, holds the old Soviet flag
during a rally marking the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution.
Why abortion equals ignorance
I've always had a gut feeling that abortion was a horrendous thing. It can't possibly be healthy for the woman, from a physical, spiritual or psychological standpoint, and I guess it goes without saying that its not good for the baby.
I have never quite understood how a woman can kill a life that is living inside her, but then again, there is a lot I don't understand any more.
But if ever there was an argument against abortion, I met it about two years ago. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but the facts are this:
I know a young woman, about 23 years old, who has more talent in her little finger than I have in my entire 327 pound body. She has more external beauty than most are blessed with and has even more internal beauty than that. She was adopted at birth by a loving couple who have raised her as their own. Her mother told me that they adopted her under the following circumstances: Her birth mother was a teenager and got pregnant and somehow the idea of abortion was raised, until someone, somewhere stepped in and intervened to have the idea of abortion thrown aside and replaced with adoption.
Each time any of us who know this young woman reflect on the possibilities of what could have, or could have not been, it just sickens the soul to know that people are snuffing out millions of lives like this each year.
There was a recent conversation at another site that got down into the minutia of when a life is really a life and what different cultures say and whether religion defines life or our perception of abortion. We all have opinions and rights, and I believe that individual freedom trumps morality, because without freedom morality has no value.
But some things are right and some things are wrong.
I don't care your background, if you think abortion is not equal to the elimination of a human life then there is something wrong with your cerebral cortex.
I have never quite understood how a woman can kill a life that is living inside her, but then again, there is a lot I don't understand any more.
But if ever there was an argument against abortion, I met it about two years ago. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but the facts are this:
I know a young woman, about 23 years old, who has more talent in her little finger than I have in my entire 327 pound body. She has more external beauty than most are blessed with and has even more internal beauty than that. She was adopted at birth by a loving couple who have raised her as their own. Her mother told me that they adopted her under the following circumstances: Her birth mother was a teenager and got pregnant and somehow the idea of abortion was raised, until someone, somewhere stepped in and intervened to have the idea of abortion thrown aside and replaced with adoption.
Each time any of us who know this young woman reflect on the possibilities of what could have, or could have not been, it just sickens the soul to know that people are snuffing out millions of lives like this each year.
There was a recent conversation at another site that got down into the minutia of when a life is really a life and what different cultures say and whether religion defines life or our perception of abortion. We all have opinions and rights, and I believe that individual freedom trumps morality, because without freedom morality has no value.
But some things are right and some things are wrong.
I don't care your background, if you think abortion is not equal to the elimination of a human life then there is something wrong with your cerebral cortex.
November 01, 2007
Investors pushing Media General to split up its business units
Via The Street:
With its stock down by more than 50% over the past three years and its industry in turmoil, Media General announced this week that it's considering the sale of five broadcast TV stations from its portfolio.
It's going to take more than that to generate any enthusiasm from Wall Street.
Investors want Media General to follow the example set by Belo Corp. and E.W. Scripps and separate its broadcasting business from its sluggish newspapers operations.
The company has built its future around "convergence" of newspapers and tv stations in markets such as Bristol, Va., Tampa and the Roanoke/Lynchburg area. But hold up:
Ethan McAfee, director of research with former Media General shareholder Ramsey Asset Management, says he doesn't believe that substantial synergies between broadcast and newspapers really exist at Media General. "Any smart management team would do exactly what Belo did and realize the market is not paying at all for the hybrid strategy of owning both TV and newspapers and seriously consider breaking up the two," he adds. Media General's management team "has been around for ever, and they're not particularly savvy Wall Street people. It's a family-owned business and there was never much pushing for them to actually change anything."
"They can't come up with a number to quantify the synergies, which tells me they really haven't thought about it and this is just their excuse to not do something creative or outside the box," says McAfee.
Noch einmal.
Kurds deserve freedom from fear
It's been long enough for the suffering of the Kurds. Seems like the Turks are merely using the minor incursions of an obscure communist group to advance their territorial lusts.
Turkish attacks, including aerial bombings, have burned scores of fields and orchards, the villagers' main source of income and food.
The tensions arise in a region finally reaping peace after generations of suffering, in contrast to the rest of the country. "We want to build irrigation projects, a church, a mosque, or pave a road," said Khalid Aziz, the mayor of Batifa, to which many families have fled. "We don't want war. We have witnessed too many wars in our lives."
The current president exacerbated these centuries old ethnic tensions and he needs to get his head in the game and put a stop to the shelling of agricultural villages by a well-heeled member of NATO.
Let's not forget what the Turks are capable of.
Turkish attacks, including aerial bombings, have burned scores of fields and orchards, the villagers' main source of income and food.
The tensions arise in a region finally reaping peace after generations of suffering, in contrast to the rest of the country. "We want to build irrigation projects, a church, a mosque, or pave a road," said Khalid Aziz, the mayor of Batifa, to which many families have fled. "We don't want war. We have witnessed too many wars in our lives."
The current president exacerbated these centuries old ethnic tensions and he needs to get his head in the game and put a stop to the shelling of agricultural villages by a well-heeled member of NATO.
Let's not forget what the Turks are capable of.
October 31, 2007
Guts
These monks have it.
October 30, 2007
Fueling their buying power
With oil settling in at a record high again yesterday, the WaPo takes a look at what oil rich developing nations are doing with their deluge of cash.
The answer? Hoarding it in sate-run investments, which is fueling a redux of late 19th Century economic nationalism:
In the past, these funds had largely been content to hold safe, low-yielding investments such as U.S. Treasurys. Now, with the expectation that Treasury yields could be low for years and the recent weakening in the U.S. dollar, they are seeking higher returns and taking bigger risks.
Some are buying stakes in key industries in the United States and Europe, including banks, ports, stock exchanges and energy companies. Others are looking beyond opportunities in the West, shoring up Asian banks and building Africa's infrastructure.
The new, more aggressive investing strategy is reigniting nationalistic sentiments around the world. Germany has been alarmed at Russia's move to acquire stakes in pipeline and utility companies. New Zealand opposed an effort by Dubai investors to take over a major airport.
October 24, 2007
Migrant labor sends $300 billion to Third World
Ed sent us to this site for a story about GWB's spending habits, but I found an even better story while looking around.
Seems migrants (or immigrants) around the world are sending some $300 billion in cash back home to their families in the Third World.
*The first-ever study of global remittances found that migrants sent more than $300 billion home to their families last year, with India edging out Mexico as the top recipient.
India got $24.5 billion, while Mexico received $24.2 billion. China was third with $21 billion, according to the United Nations agency that released the report Wednesday.
"Walls are not stopping them; patrol boats are not stopping them," said Kevin Cleaver, the assistant president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Rome-based U.N. agency that did the study. "I was surprised at the magnitude of these numbers." *
That's a good aspect of globalization and shows the true interconnectivity of the world's economy.
"The study estimates that 150 million migrants, most of them in Western Europe and North America, regularly send money to their mostly poor relatives in developing countries. About 10 percent of the world's population depends in some way on the money migrants send to their families, most of which is used to buy basic goods and services."
Now I wonder if those folks use that money to buy American made products? Wait. Do we make any consumer products in America anymore? How is it that communist China is conquering the world with consumerism?
October 23, 2007
A woman worthy of admiration
I'm just gonna go ahead and say that I really admire Benazir Bhutto. I first became aware of her in the late 80s. I saw a picture of her in the newspaper climbing down off a bus in a sea of people as she returned to Pakistan the first time to run for PM.Her father is revered as the best ever politician in Pakistan. He was murdered, as is often the case of popular leaders in third world countries, by military and police thugs in 1979.
Twice she has been elected, but removed under suspicious circumstances of "corruption" Wikipedia says:
"The criticism against Benazir came largely from the Punjabi elites and powerful landlord families who opposed Bhutto as she pushed Pakistan into nationalist reform, opposing feudals, whom she blamed for the destabilization of Pakistan."
Likely story from power elites.
Anyway. The main reason I admire her is she has the strength of steel in her if she has the guts to stand up for democracy and equality in one of the most violent countries and regions of the world, where women are treated like dogs and freedom is but like mist among the winds of military and autocratic power.
She survived a bombing of her motorcade last week. (Serious pics here.)Let's hope she can bring some commonsense rational to this area of the world.
October 18, 2007
Bond as punishment
Somebody help me out here.
This guy steals a weed eater from Stoneville and gets put under the jail with a $100,000 bond.
This guy robs a man in a park in High Point, chasing him down while brandishing a handgun, which he then uses to split the guys head open with after tackling him to the ground. The wound from the blow requires 12 staples and 12 stitches to close.
His bond?
Five-thousand dollars. Which means if his friends come up with $750 he can get a bondsman and walk.
WTF?
This guy steals a weed eater from Stoneville and gets put under the jail with a $100,000 bond.
This guy robs a man in a park in High Point, chasing him down while brandishing a handgun, which he then uses to split the guys head open with after tackling him to the ground. The wound from the blow requires 12 staples and 12 stitches to close.
His bond?
Five-thousand dollars. Which means if his friends come up with $750 he can get a bondsman and walk.
WTF?
October 13, 2007
Is who owns the media as important as how it is filtered?
Much time has been spent debating the bias of the media, print media's future and the impact of the web on news reporting. In paying attention to the discussion my ears tend to perk up when it comes to left/right broadsides across various media (print,web, broadcast.)
So today my ears perked up when I saw David Horowitz on C-Span. I watched his program early in the day and spent much of the evening following up on Horowitz and his anti-thesis, Noam Chomsky.
It was while reviewing Chomsky that I discovered his Propaganda Model of mass media. I find it interesting that a rabid leftist such as Chomsky has developed a model that pretty much reflects the right-wing argument of media bias.
The model attempts to explain such a systemic bias in terms of structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people. It argues the bias derives from five "filters" that all published news must pass through which combine to systematically distort news coverage.
The first filter, ownership, notes that most major media outlets are owned by large corporations.
The second, funding, notes that the outlets derive the majority of their funding from advertising, not readers. Thus, since they are profit-oriented businesses selling a product — readers and audiences — to other businesses (advertisers), the model would expect them to publish news which would reflect the desires and values of those businesses.
In addition, the news media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses with strong biases as sources (the third filter) for much of their information.
Flak, the fourth filter, refers to the various pressure groups which go after the media for supposed bias and so on when they go out of line.
Norms, the fifth filter, refer to the common conceptions shared by those in the profession of journalism. (Note: in the original text, published in 1988, the fifth filter was "anticommunism". However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been broadened to allow for shifts in public opinion).
Have you stopped to think why they are coming and what we would do without them?
Here at Apriori Concepts the driving philosophy is to exude our gut instincts, to go with the discernible moral right that flows from within, free of much of today's drivel and bias that prances about as truth.
So it has been with the immigration debate, which I have engaged in a few times in recent weeks as my level of tolerance for American bigotry has reached its limit.
The underlying reasons for my outspokenness have been two fold. One, I fear that the easiest path to an illegal immigrant free country would be a ratcheted up police state, which I oppose in its entirety. The second is the overwhelming instinct I have that welcoming new Americans who work hard and want to create a better life for their offspring is somehow fundamental to the American experience.
So imagine my delight, while researching the issue today, that I run across this article released this month from the Cato Institute:
Low-skilled immigrants come here for the same reasons our forebears came: family ties and economic opportunity. Our economy continues to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs each year for lower-skilled workers in such important sectors as retail, hospitality, cleaning, landscaping, food preparation, light manufacturing and agriculture. At the same time the number of Americans who have traditionally filled such jobs — those without a high school diploma — continues to shrink.
Yet our immigration system offers no legal channel for peaceful, hardworking immigrants to enter the United States legally to fill even those jobs that fewer and fewer Americans want.
Efforts to enforce the current law have failed miserably. For the past two decades, we have dramatically increased spending on border enforcement, built walls for miles into the desert and raided restaurants and chicken-processing plants from coast to coast. Despite ramped-up enforcement, the number of people living in the United States without legal documents continues to grow.
Conservatives as traditionalists
David Brooks on the chasm among conservatives:
To put it bluntly, over the past several years, the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism's Burkean roots. This may seem like an airy-fairy thing that does nothing more than provoke a few dissenting columns from William F. Buckley, George F. Will and Andrew Sullivan. But suburban, Midwestern and many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives. They care about order, prudence and balanced budgets more than transformational leadership and perpetual tax cuts. It is among these groups that G.O.P. support is collapsing.
October 11, 2007
How should we treat the foreigners among us?
A few bloggers have been detailing the rifts developing in the traditional Republican constituency. This recent court ruling on employing "illegal" immigrants further highlights that trend.
President Bush made the effort the centerpiece of a re-energized enforcement drive against illegal immigration in August after the Senate rejected his proposal to overhaul immigration laws. But the court ruling -- sought by major American labor, business and farm organizations -- highlighted the chasm that the issue has opened between the Republican Party and its traditional business allies.
The case also called attention to the gulf between Washington rhetoric about the need to curtail illegal immigration and the economic reality that many U.S. employers rely on illegal labor, as well as to the government's inability for nearly three decades to develop adequate tools for identifying undocumented workers.
When the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce say something is bad for business, I think it's safe to say it is bad for business.
I also recently heard a knowledgeable man speak on Christian charity. He cited the passage in Leviticus where God commands that foreigners be treated with justice and "as one of you native born."
What was that about America being a Christian nation?
President Bush made the effort the centerpiece of a re-energized enforcement drive against illegal immigration in August after the Senate rejected his proposal to overhaul immigration laws. But the court ruling -- sought by major American labor, business and farm organizations -- highlighted the chasm that the issue has opened between the Republican Party and its traditional business allies.
The case also called attention to the gulf between Washington rhetoric about the need to curtail illegal immigration and the economic reality that many U.S. employers rely on illegal labor, as well as to the government's inability for nearly three decades to develop adequate tools for identifying undocumented workers.
When the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce say something is bad for business, I think it's safe to say it is bad for business.
I also recently heard a knowledgeable man speak on Christian charity. He cited the passage in Leviticus where God commands that foreigners be treated with justice and "as one of you native born."
What was that about America being a Christian nation?
October 10, 2007
Women in a car do not constitute threat of deadly force
This is out of control and needs to stop:Both the company and the Interior Ministry have launched investigations into the incident.
The violence broke out in the early afternoon, when four SUVs belonging to Unity were heading east along a six-lane divided thoroughfare in Karrada, one of central Baghdad's most popular shopping districts. The white Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, carrying four people -- including at least three women -- drove toward the convoy from behind, witnesses said.
Iraqi police investigating the incident said the gunner in the last vehicle threw open a door and tossed what looked like a flare, then fired at least 19 rounds into the Oldsmobile.
According to Unity's chief operating officer, Michael Priddin, the women drove up quickly and "failed to stop despite escalation of warnings" including "hand signals and a signal flare."
October 04, 2007
Good Question
Long time coming
September 28, 2007
Wathca' gonna do, when ya well runs dry? (I'd like to know)
More on China's rape of the environment. Via NY Times:
For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China’s galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China — even as demand keeps rising everywhere.
China is scouring the world for oil, natural gas and minerals to keep its economic machine humming. But trade deals cann