Thursday, January 13, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Beware Bipartisan Anything
Beware Bipartisan School Reform
If everybody on the Hill is happy, Americans probably shouldn't be.
Katherine Mangu-Ward | January 7, 2011
As an example of what happens when Democrats and Republicans agree, consider the Reagan-era dismantling of the mental-health system. The conservatives wanted smaller government, the liberals did not want anyone locked up against their will -- and now we have lunatics like Jared Lee Loughner with no ability to stop them until they have wreaked their havoc. He was identified as mentally ill ( http://tinyurl.com/2acg968 ) but nothing could be done until it was too late!
Friday, January 07, 2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Watch Joel Meyerowitz, in “Everybody Street”
Joel Meyerowitz, in “Everybody Street”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2011/01/video-joel-meyerowitz.html
Monday, January 03, 2011
An thought-provoking take on Shabbos observance from DovBear
When you think about it, camping is an odd little ritual. You exert energy pitching a tent and setting up camp, then subsist for the duration on food that is tasty, but hardly gourmet. Real camping enthusiasts drive miles into the woods and do without the conveniences of store bought wood, and indoor plumbing, but even amateur dabblers like me deliberately put ourselves into a situation that, on the face of it, seems uncomfortable. What's the appeal of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, the pervasive smell of smoke, and limited access to modern conveniences like air conditioning and WiFi?
Also applies to Conservative Judaism - or any other ritualistic observance.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Just testing to see how Posterous treats image files when posting by email.
http://clivemoss.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/chmoss
http://www.facebook.com/clive.moss
http://chmoss.tumblr.com/
http://chmoss.posterous.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chmoss/
- My most credible excuse is that I have been doing this sort of thing for many years and as the world changes, I move on, carrying the detritus of a long life in technology and photography
- My other excuse is that I am a geek and I enjoy finding out how this stuff works and wondering why anybody in their right mind would want to do it
The Right knows they are right. The Left gets left behind.
There seems to be a certain temperamental difference between conservatives and Republicans on the one hand and liberals and the Democrats on the other. In broad strokes, Republicans, especially of the tea-party stripe, are typically proud, at least unapologetic, and sometimes belligerent about their beliefs. Democrats, in contrast, seem to adopt the defensive position by default. ...
Why are Democrats more anemic? One thought comes from the liberal journalist Thomas Frank. Writing in Harper's, Mr Frank argues that while Republicans respond to their base, Democrats have a misbegotten faith in a "Magic Middle" of centrist ideas that are tolerable, at least, to most Americans:
Democrats, for their part, tend to do the opposite, dreaming of bipartisanship and states neither red nor blue and of some reasonably-arrived-at consensus future in which the culture wars cease and everyone plays nicely forevermore under the smiling, benificent sun of free trade and the knowledge industries.
The Economist often has an interesting take on American politics.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
I always wonder why people sing songs ...
The combination of Google Reader and Posterous included the post below when I shared it with no attribution. I did not write it. It is from the excellent blog "Language Log"
Google Reader and Posterous omitted the heading and credit below. I include it here, with apologies to the original authors.
From the auldies but guidies file
(This post first appeared on 12/30/2004 under the heading "And a Right Guid Willie Waught to You, Too, Pal.")
We like the incantations we recite on ritual occasions to be linguistically opaque, from the unparsable "Star-Spangled Banner" (not many people can tell you what the object of watch is in the first verse) to the Pledge of Allegiance, with its orotund diction and its vague (and historically misanalyzed) "under God." But for sheer unfathomability, "Auld Lang Syne" is in a class by itself. Not that anybody can sing any of it beyond the first verse and the chorus, before the lyrics descend inscrutably into gowans, pint-stowps, willie-waughts and other items that would already have sounded pretty retro to Burns's contemporaries.
But it's my guess that most people take the first two clauses of the song as the protases of a conditional, rather than as rhetorical questions. True, most versions of the lyrics end the lines with question marks (this is the most familiar version, a little different from Burns's):
Should auld acquaintance be forgotAnd never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days o' auld lang syne?
But a lot of people leave out the question marks (for example here, here, and here), which suggests that the interrogative force isn't obvious. It may make no sense that way — "if old friends should be forgotten, we'll drink to bygone days anyway." But incomprehensibility only adds to the sense of immemorial tradition, even this happens to be a borrowed one, grafted onto American culture in 1929 by a Canadian of Italian ancestry.
As Eric Hobsbawm has observed, after all, the point of invented traditions like the kilt or the Pledge is to provide "emotionally charged signs of club membership rather than the statutes and objects of the club." And what could be more evocative than a New Year's song that's sodden with quaintly impenetrable phraseology? "Is not the Scotch phrase Auld Lang syne exceedingly expressive?" Burns wrote to a friend in 1793. Well, it works for me, anyway. Have a happy one.
Making life easy (for me)
I am switching to Posterous for all posts to social apps. This post is a test to see what happens. It may result in dual posts somewhere. Sorry. A picture of nothing in particular is attached to see what happens. A boring video for the same reason.
Here goes.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Fast Track for the Elderly - Help or Hindrance?
I went to the Illinois Secretary of State office today to get new a license plate sticker. In and out in five minutes! The office has put in place a fast track for seniors (65 and older). Age has its benefits. However, this approach is a reflection of the general view that equates elderly with poor and infirm. Whereas I enjoy the benefits of the elderly I recognize the unfairness of institutionalized preferential treatment for people who have no real right to preference or deference. The negative side of the silly equation is workplace discrimination and chronic underemployment of the aging.
My generation had the good fortune of being born slightly ahead of the baby-boomer wave. The boom provided a steady supply of workers for the pre-boomers to manage who could fund retirement of the pre-boom generation. When the boomer wave breaks as the generation begins to turn 65 this year, the retirement system breaks with it - and the world economy is grappling with how to support the elderly with health and dignity. Preferential treatment in government offices is a symptom of government trying to address the problem with no observable impact on budgets. It lets the legislators and bureaucrats feel they are addressing the problem without really doing anything. I may as well enjoy it while it lasts.
For folk who do not live in the USA - Secretary of State sounds like an impressive title. It is not. It is the administration department of State Government.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
London Street
I was trying to do some real street photography in London, but all I came up with was boring pictures of people - so I changed my approach and took boring photographs of streets - but I think they are graphically more interesting.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Image Sensor Implant Restores Partial Sight
Just add a Compact Flash card and I will not need to carry a camera any more.
Image Sensor Implant Restores Partial Sight:
"Electronics Weekly, BBC News: German firm Retina Implant reported testing results of the chip that has restored limited sight for people blinded by retinitis pigmentosa and similar diseases, destroying only the eye's photoreceptors, and leave its layers of image processing neurons intact."
Sunday, November 07, 2010
SOFA So Good
We arrived at SOFA, checked our coats, bought tickets, and had our tickets checked by the ticket checker at the door. I noticed that he scanned preprinted tickets, tore bought tickets in half, but just looked at my tickets taking no action.
When we left I pulled out the coat check tags and noticed that they looked remarkably like tickets to SOFA and not at all like coat check tags.
Turns out we had entered the show by displaying our coat check tag, and we now have two unused tickets for SOFA. They would be worth $24 - if the show did not end in 55 minutes.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Living real life in London
We have been in London for three weeks. We have been here long enough to feel that we do not have to run around and "tour" every moment. Instead, we can live almost normally, not like locals, but almost like expats.
We are in Hampstead. This suburb has been an intellectual center of London for many years. All around us houses display the little blue plaques that mark the home of a prominent person or family. Gracie Fields home is a little way up the hill. The Huxleys lived around the corner. Sigmund Freud lived a few blocks away.
Shopping malls are few and far between. High Streets are lined with interesting little shops with much more diversity than can be found in malls. The restaurants are reasonably priced (generally) and serve fresher and tastier food than similarly priced US restaurants.
Last weekend we visited our family in The Netherlands, with a brief stopover in Brussels, courtesy of Eurostar, the train under the tunnel. We missed a strike of Belgian rail workers by two hours. Yesterday we took a train to Oxford to spend the day with Hilda's cousin. Last night Julia and Abigail slept at our apartment. Tomorrow we are off to a coastal resort in Devon for the weekend. And so it goes.
Life is good.
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