mistaking paradise

2008-04-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

look out, ill informed observations from a non-pundit.despite the near hysterical noise to signal ratio emanating from the democratic primary punditocracy and their conservative brothers and sisters in arms ranting across the blogosphere and polluting the nation's consciousness with minute by minute campaign horserace nonsense, i venture the following forecast.hillary clinton cannot beat barack

2007-12-31T10:11:00.000-08:00

"people have the power to dream, to rule, to wrestle the world from fools"-- patti smith

2005-09-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

dangerous squalorcompassionless people live a skin deep life, where empty slogans (for example, "tax relief" or "defend marriage" or "reverse discrimination") are cultural scams to protect the arrogant from the dangerous squalor lurking like inconvenient details in our culture's brutal conquering march across history. the current world champ of compassionless cronyism is george w. bush, the

2004-12-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

my deep blue neighborhood my rural precinct in the "deep end" of anderson valley voted 76% for senator kerry (344 out of 451 votes). the entire valley (all three precincts) voted 74% for senator kerry (740 out of 1005 votes). results for other races were similar, with liberals steamrolling to huge local landslide victories. color us deep blue, unrepentant liberals.

2004-11-19T06:37:00.000-08:00

let's play "who's the traitor?" it's an enchanting parlour game in which partisans on separate teams use character assassination to attempt the personal destruction of members of the opposing team. here's the basic move: if your team can bait an opponent to react angrily rather than civilly, then you get to label your opponent a traitor (and for good measure, a fool and a poor sport). the real

2004-11-12T19:07:00.000-08:00

fringe opinions get a free ride the columbia journalism review features blinded by science, written by chris mooney.A climate scientist faced with a reporter locked into the "get both sides" mindset risks getting his or her views stuffed into one of two boxed storylines: "we're worried" or "it will all be okay." And sometimes, these two "boxes" are misrepresentative; a mainstream,

2004-11-05T04:53:00.000-08:00

princeton's purple voting map red + blue = purple. here's a 2004 election map where the winner does not take all, courtesy of princeton math professor robert vanderbei.

2004-11-04T20:04:00.000-08:00

herbicide resistant coca? a suggestive but inconclusive article by joshua davis in wired magazine describes boliviana negra, a new strain of coca plant selected by local farmers to resist american anti-drug aerial herbicide spraying.Three hours after leaving the coca fields, I attend a meeting of two dozen heads of local farmer cooperatives - they represent more than 5,000 farmers in Putumayo -

2004-11-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

hope deferred kerry came close, but not close enough. this result just goes to show how much more work there is to do, though the heavy lifting will really fall on the shoulders of my children's generation. for what it's worth, this is my first apology to the next generation for the mess we are leaving them. my generation behaves like a bad guest. my country is drunk on some very strange brew. as

2004-11-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

hope is on the way today is the 55th presidential election day in america. peggy and i voted early this morning. we were both on the phone last night with our kids going over the ballot propositions in detail. we agreed on 13 of the 16 propositions, and we agreed to disagree on the remaining three. on the national election we're clearly both kerry partisans. i have a kerry bumper sticker on my

2004-10-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

kendra's next school in january kendra travels to australia to attend southern cross university at lismore by the border of queensland and new south wales. more on this later.

2004-10-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

memorial for edward b. lewis on monday 25 october peggy and i were fortunate to attend a memorial service in beckman auditorium at caltech for edward b. lewis, one of the foremost geneticists of the 20th century. we were invited to this rare gathering by keith lewis, ed's son and a close friend of mine from high school decades ago in the seventies in pasadena. keith also invited my brothers brian

2004-10-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

"it'll be kerry by a landslide" at the burbank airport this morning i was in line at an auto rental counter. a man in front of me saw the kerry - edwards button on my coat. he said, "you've got a kerry - edwards button, good for you. it'll be kerry by a landslide." a woman in line turned towards him and asked, "can i hold you to it?" i said to them both that i expect the election will not be as

2004-10-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

site design changes 2 fix header layout in archive? check enable comments? still trying add blog roll? soon

2004-10-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

the fog of war two weeks before election day the biggest messages emanating from the bush-cheney campaign are to describe kerry as a massachusetts liberal and to whine about what was a relatively minor comment on mary cheney's sexual orientation but is now persistent front page news. this is fairly incoherent behavior from a ruthless and discliplined republican team more commonly on message than

2004-10-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

iraq tragedy destroys a local life it is difficult to describe how terrible it feels when global events spinning out of control reach out and hurt someone you know. last week we were shocked to learn of a local casualty in the despicable bush war on iraq. manuel mendoza, a local boy who my kids grew up with in anderson valley, was critically injured while serving in the u.s. army in iraq, losing

2004-10-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

site design changes add blue to header? check add subtitle to header? check adjust date size and color to mute its importance and free the post title? check alter archive to monthly? check enable comments? first attempt failed, still trying fix header display problems in archive? out of time now, do this later

2004-10-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

new foot injury after months of persistent heel pain (but more importantly, after using up the annual deductible on my so-called health insurance) i sought medical advice. the answer, plantar fasciitus. details available at www.footphysicians.com. i forgot to ask dr. c. how soon i can run again. i'll ask him in two weeks at my follow up appointment.

2004-10-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

last night's pesto place in blender: 1 cup olive oil 1/4 cup whole garlic cloves, peeled 1/2 cup pine nuts liquify. add to blender: 1 cup (packed) washed basil leaves liquify. add to blender: 1/2 cup olive oil 1 cup (packed) washed basil leaves liquify. pour contents of blender into a small mixing bowl. add: 2 cups grated parmesan / romano blend stir until thoroughly

2004-08-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

social terrorists when i was young and spiritually searching i interacted often with converts to various paths. generic jesus freaks. jehovah's witnesses. liberation theologists. jesuits. catholic workers. hare krishnas. buddhists of many stripes, especially zen. yogis. hippies living as born again native americans. my tai chi teachers. new age pagans. u-u's. sufis. recovering drug addicts with a

2004-08-07T21:36:00.001-07:00

hope, compassion and wonder row, row, row your boat gently down the stream merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream how can a parent teach hope, compassion and wonder to a child? where is the soul of patience, the eyes of grief, the palm of peace? who can see the arc of insight cascading like rainbows across the horizon? when does a friend know it is time to reach out and comfort

2004-07-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

regime change is what i want the first convention is in reruns on c-span. now the boys are on the road stumping for votes, four white males in two tag teams, the incumbents versus the challengers. at this juncture i side with the democratic challengers. the republican incumbents, with their divisive message, their mean spirited arrogance, and their grotesque pandering to the worst human instincts

mydoom virus

2004-07-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

too funny.

2004-07-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

looking back from an imaginary happy future imagine two tribes bickering over the same piece of ground. let's call them the greens and the blues. imagine the greens and blues have separate religions. imagine each tribe's god told them they don't have to share their land with any other tribe. imagine growing up green and inheriting a legacy of institutionalised intolerance blessed by religion and

2004-07-07T22:56:00.000-07:00

harvesting my chet's garlic a couple weeks ago was depressing. despite my efforts at the front end of the planting to sort the cloves into two distinct categories, in the end it made no difference to the final crop. every single bulb exhibited the defective re-sprouting character i am seeking to eliminate from the strain. the crop is curing in the back porch. in the next few months before

2004-06-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

i saw michael moore's fahrenheit 9/11. i enjoyed it. i am amused by the punditocracy howling all over the media about michael moore and truth and lies as if documentaries are somehow objective. the myth of objectivity persists in the popular media. i learned long ago that the world is not run by the sharpest tools in the shed. i don't mind michael moore having his say any more than i mind talking

2004-05-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

distributed network imaging

2004-04-14T22:26:00.000-07:00

my wardrobe has three broad color schemes: brown, blue and grey. i wear baseball hats to shade my head and eyes. my three kids went to very different colleges, and i have a baseball hat from each one. by chance, they are the perfect color complements for my wardrobe. call me a lucky dad: when i wear blues, i use the blue hat with "slugs" in gold lettering from santa cruz; when i wear greys, i

2004-04-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

how long till iraq follows it's near neighbors among the ranks of newly "liberated" countries that split apart along strict ethnic or religious boundaries? if the past two decades have taught us anything it is that try as we might in the west to encourage everyone to just get along and focus on a collaborative social future, all across the globe petty differences explode overnight into national

2004-03-27T01:30:00.000-08:00

keep hope alive. sometimes it is so hard to stay positive. sometimes i feel worn down by the machinery of hate and the shrill, mean-spirited, partisan accusations that pass for "dialog" in our culture. there are so many people that just want hope and options to succeed. i'm not talking about the predators or the greedy or the deeply cynical. i'm talking about the honest and hard working, about

2004-02-24T12:03:00.000-08:00

it was a few weeks ago, but diana from gotham summarises things quite nicely: In any case, the flap over Bush's national service is one of context. George Bush is a mediocre resentful drunk who failed upwards at everything in life, who admits that he joined the National Guard because he didn't want to serve in a war that he didn't have the guts to oppose, who as President betrayed the trust of

2004-02-24T10:19:00.000-08:00

today's announcement of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is just more hate speech from president bush, who is clearly a divider, not a uniter. hopefully this bush administration is accomplishing on a national level the complete trashing of the republican base in the same way that california governor pete wilson used divisive hate speech to trash the republican base in california in

2004-02-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

let's call this post a new hope. maybe in 2004 we have a chance of snatching power away from the awful conservative machinery of death and insanity that purports to govern the u.s.a. in our name. today i am allowing myself to hope that the neocon trash at the top can be defeated in november, after which we can begin a cleanup of the wreckage they have made of our culture. is it possible to

2003-12-30T21:43:00.000-08:00

dropload is a very cool concept...

2003-12-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

garden log in the eighties in the okanogan i rented a garden spot near tonasket. my garden was in a former horse pasture. over the south side of the pasture fence was the home of a long time local horticulturalist named chet stevenson and his wife pearl. chet had worked in the okanogan valley apple industry for decades. chet and pearl shared a small frame house with a lush garden and home orchard

2003-12-16T11:37:00.000-08:00

Joel Spolsky has a great review of Eric Raymond's The Art of Unix Programming.

2003-12-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

Wry humor from Cringely: "If your idea of having a life is following IEEE standards development, you know that 802.15.3 looks to be the first Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) networking technology used by folks who aren't spies and secret agents."

2003-11-28T09:16:00.000-08:00

a seat at the table from the mendocino cancer resource center.

2003-11-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

The Artistic Freedom Voucher: Internet Age Alternative to Copyrights by Dean Baker, on the Center for Economic and Policy Research web site. SCO Threatens to Sue Hollywood at groklaw, aka "i am not a lawyer". "...the bottom line in my mind is this: Novell knows what is in the BSDi settlement agreement, because they were a party to it. And they weren't a bit frightened by SCO's lawsuit and

2003-10-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

Israel: The Alternative. Here's a remarkable sentence that cuts through many layers of denial: "In today's 'clash of cultures' between open, pluralist democracies and belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states, Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp." This idea is at the core of an essay by Tony Judt writing in the New York Review of Books. Judt also writes: "The problem

2003-10-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

Robert X. Cringely has a sharp column this week undressing Steve Ballmer's recent remarks. How Microsoft's Misunderstanding of Open Source Hurts Us All

2003-10-14T05:13:00.000-07:00

Transfer of PHI by AHIMA. Also, Shadow Charts (aka escaped, unsecured PHI).

2003-10-12T17:21:00.000-07:00

Organizational Policies and Open Source by James Negrette, Robert Munro, and Andrew Aitken [ Linux Devices ] Intro to Wireless by IBM.

2003-10-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

it's grey and drizzly but beautiful in vancouver today...

2003-09-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

The Digital Imprimatur by John Walker, subtitled "How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle." Food for thought.

2003-09-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

writing in slate christopher hutchins provides an entertaining read in moore's law: the immorality of the ten commandments.

2003-08-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

five in the morning. thinking about the past. thinking about mistakes i made. thinking about people i trusted that i shouldn't have because as events unfolded they were not worthy of the trust i placed in them and things were said or done back then that carry hurt and pain into the present. like crimes against humanity going on in my house that i missed because i was deceived. successfully

2003-08-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

eben moglen, professor of law at columbia university law school, and general counsel of the free software foundation, has published an excellent position paper called Questioning SCO: A Hard Look at Nebulous Claims.

2003-07-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

in one my early posts on this blog i said, "i think george w. bush is the worst american president in the past 40 years." i posted those timid comments on march 31, 2003. earlier this week the german news site der spiegel online published an interview with george a. akerlof, a 2001 nobel laureate in economics, who teaches at u.c. berkeley. speaking of the bush administration, prof. akerlof says,

2003-07-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

today a full page ad in the new york times from wedeservethetruth.com.

2003-07-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

doc searls nails it with saving the net.

2003-06-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

free at last, free at last, the national do-not-call list is finally here. to register a number by phone, you must be calling from that phone number. to register a number by the web, you must provide an email address.

2003-06-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

today i went to day one of the plaNetwork conference at the presidio in san francisco. the attendees were a mix of hard core global social change activists, technology visionaries (including both brittle partisans and gregarious alpha geeks) and a broad base of left-leaning non-profit idealists. this is a soft money crowd, short on business logic, where capitalism is mistrusted and conservatives

2003-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

the plaNetwork conference next month in san francisco is a follow up to their 2000 conference, held before the dotcom crash and before the september 11th terrorist attack on the world trade center. now that our future is an inexorible portal thru a glass darkly to a grim realm dominated by the lower angels of our natures, and not the happy collaborative one envisioned in may of 2000, what message

2003-05-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

want to know the complete sun and moon data for one day at a location of your choice in the u.s.a.? the one day feature offered by the u.s. naval observatory has the answer.

2003-04-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

an article titled drug firms cure the rich covers a speech by british nobel prize winning scientist sir john sulston. speaking at the edinburgh international science festival sir john questions the priorities of market-driven science, especially for pharmaceutical research and manufacturing.

2003-04-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

late to the party as usual, i finally noticed this exellent op-ed piece by nobel prize winning author gunter grass, The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values, published two weeks ago.

2003-04-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

i'm disappointed by the appalling intolerance of hard right and hard left partisans in our culture. it is as destructive as any repugnant regime in history. future historians, once the irrational distractions of current events decay into rational analysis, will no doubt nail our intolerant behavior. we read about civic tragedies gone by and shake our heads wondering why the people who were

2003-04-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

saw a great quote today, from rev. martin luther king, jr. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar, it is learning to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs to be restructured.

2003-04-16T06:30:00.000-07:00

on 18 april 1946, during easter recess for his trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, captured nazi reichsmarshall hermann goering was interviewed by gustave gilbert, a german-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist. goering's comments on patriotism, noted below, were published in gilbert's book nuremburg diary. We got around to the subject of war again and I said that,

2003-04-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

some quick links: oscom looks interesting. i might go. LEDs vs. the Lightbulb in technology review big music's broken record

2003-04-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

it's raining today in san jose

2003-04-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

maybe it's all just a joke? as usual comedians expose the soft underbelly of the beast: "President Bush announced tonight that he believes in democracy and that democracy can exist in Iraq. They can have a strong economy, they can have a good health care plan, and they can have a free and fair voting. Iraq? We can't even get this in Florida." -Jay Leno "President Bush has said that he does not

2003-04-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

free at last! the california attorney general has established a web page where you can pre-enroll for the national do-not-call list.

2003-03-31T15:34:00.000-08:00

three months, no posts. ok, i'll mention one thing that's bothering me. the local paramilitary patriotic thugs were out again this weekend, roaring up and down main street in their oversized trucks with visible guns, huge flags, and their loud in-your-face pro-war messages. i went about my business while ignoring their offensive and intimidating bluster. i think george w. bush is the worst

2002-12-10T19:58:00.000-08:00

here's some info for j.p. banks, sure to become an uzbekiblogger. there are three main blogging software tools i know of at the moment: blogger is easy to use, very portable, and free if you don't mind ads in your blog. it's probably the most user friendly software for the non-techie crowd. obviously i do this bog with blogger. radio is not free, but it has a nifty news polling feature that is

2002-10-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

darrell came over for dinner. afterwards he showed me how to boot roslyn's computer. sometimes i am such an idiot. i had already given up on it and was expecting to spend hundreds of dollars taking her computer to a repair place, maybe even buying a new motherboard. he saved me from all of that cashflow anguish. i was so happy i gave him 512 mb in spare ram i had sitting around. what a great

2002-10-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

we have to do better u.s. press ignores australia's pain, the homeless guy and the grapes of wrath if not now in this generation, then when do we get to address the continuing madness of hatred and intolerance raging out of control everywhere on every continent? what possible justification remains for the unrelenting exploitation of the poor and weak by the rich and powerful? or for the

2002-10-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

today was a long day. i fed the dogs, cats and horses in the dark before dawn this morning, then i drove away towards sacramento. i listened to some choice music on the drive: neil young, mark knopfler, pat metheny. when i hold you in my arms it's a breath of fresh air when i hold you in my arms i forget what's out therei was singing along with neil on my way through winters, california when i

2002-10-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

after work today i planned to catch news headlines on the radio, then switch to the tape player for my hour long drive home. unfortunately, the news was preempted by a speech featuring yet another plea for war from president bush, continually sounding like the boy who cried wolf. i didn't need to hear more than a couple sentences of his war mongering doubletalk before i flipped off the radio and

2002-10-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

darrell called from halted specialties in san jose, a geek's dream store. he said old macs were on sale at 50% off. he was looking at a powermac 8500 for $32, with s-video inputs. he also said they had 21 inch monitors for $100, and older printers for under $20. i reminded him that his bank account is a few dollars shy of zero, he doesn't have the rent saved yet for next month, and he can't

2002-10-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

megan said she associates women cross country runners with anorexia. she mentioned two top female runners with obsessive eating disorders. i said i cannot speak for the stars winning the races, because as a fifty year old running for exercise in the middle of the pack i never see the hyper competitive rail thin runners she mentions. the men's and women's bodies i see around me in races are

2002-10-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

their ears are up and alert as i park the car. yvonne and sandy meet me at the gate, wagging their tails and bodies. sandy yelps and howls. yvonne drops a damp tennis ball in the dirt path at my feet. sandy shifts from paw to paw, dancing and capering. the cats, looking bored, glance past me with casual disdain. i walk down the driveway conversing with the animals in falsetto tones. yvonne tosses