The Part(ies) Over — Part II…..

Well, the Libertarian Party had their convention over the weekend, the party hopefuls were sorted out, the delegates voted – and Bob Barr is the new nominee for President.

I’m disappointed.

Barack Obama is the likely new President — I believe the American public has had a snootfull of having their rights trampled by the likes of Bush and Co; (he entered office with $1.25/gal gasoline and no enemies; he’ll leave office with $4.00-4.50/gal. a likelihood, having created more enemies than we can possibly ever kill off, and with the Constitution – that ‘goddamned piece of paper’ – a shambles).

I’ll vote for Ron Paul in November — Obama is still pandering to the Cubans in Florida (he can’t seem to figure he can get elected without them); the likes of Al Sharpton, and anyone else who’ll get him some votes – and as for Hillary, while her likelihood of a nomination is moot, I think enough people remember the first Clinton administration – Travelgate, Whitewater, Blowjobgate, and all the ‘friends’ who committed suicide or died under mysterious circumstances – to trust her with the keys to the asylum.

We’ve done a splendid job, yet again, of turning the election of the free-world’s leadership into another tawdry popularity-contest.

No need to worry.

With things as they are, it won’t be long before China and Saudi Arabia own us outright, and we become cheap labor for the up-and-coming gazillionaires and megabusinesses of Asia and the Middle East.

Think Great Britain – in 1918.

Me? I’ll still promote the concept of democracy — voting for a candidate, rather than against someone else — but I imagine that this idea, just like so many others I have, are a thing of the past….

Until later….

The Part(ies) Over….

Friday, Ron Paul announced he would ‘soon wind down’ his candidacy for President.

Ron has a storied past. He ran for President in 1988 against Bush the First as a Libertarian (he got my vote then); he’s since represented his district in Texas for a couple of decades, and has with his departure left a hole the size of the national debt in the hopes and dreams of many of us who wanted a standard-bearer to help us Take Our Country Back.

The five potential candidates who have offered themselves under the Libertarian banner look like Ralph Nader by comparison.

Paul is the Real Deal.

He’s got the sense. He’s got the experience. He’s beholden to no one. People take him seriously – but not seriously enough to run as a Republican, which party is in-thrall to the Neocons, and most likely will be for the near term, at the very least.

On the other hand, the five Libertarian candidates (the party will hold its convention in Denver later this month) simply cannot be taken seriously.

One wants to move the UN to Somalia. Another idolizes “Jimmy the Greek” (the notorious bookmaker). Another would legalize all drugs and abolish the DEA.

I’ve got a radical idea, folks.

How about Ron Paul again, this time as a Libertarian?

(If you think this is a good idea, go the Libertarians’ website and suggest it as a poll. Also, go here – it’s Ron Paul’s website – and suggest he put his hat in the ring.

I’d vote for him – especially considering the competition – from all parties.

A Pause For Station-Identification….

(Here’s some weekend-viewing, along with a little commentary – I ran this around a year ago — and if anything, it’s more cogent now. Enjoy….)

Sorry, folks, but I’m going to rant a bit here.

Y’see, I’m a bit irritated — more than a bit, actually – with the fact that (according to those Gallup polls I posted a day or so ago), most of the American population could care less about the way the country is run, and would actually sacrifice some or all of their civil-liberties in order to fight this amorphous-blob the government calls ‘terrorism’.

Guess what. They have.

And, they’re dragging the rest of us along – to the point where if we want to live in a truly free country from now on, we have the option of leaving – or staying put and trying to fix what a majority of us no longer seem to want – the right to speak our minds.

Office-worker and mill-worker; educated professional and tradesman – it’s all the same. Speak out = Run the risk of a labor camp. It’s all there — the military has the plans; our President just issued the directive and executive-order over the past two months.

Everything’s in place.

Further, we now have a shadow-military, beholden to no one, operating all over the world (but with concentration in Afghanistan and Iraq). They’re exempt from prosecution for any crime committed on their watch:

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(Blackwater Corporation – documentary video)

“We have become a monster in the eyes of the whole world – a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.”

— Hunter S. Thompson, writer

I write and post this rather fearfully, because the functionality of government has led us to a sorry pass. Today, we’re in a position where speaking out could quite literally land us in a new American Gulag – and the only difference is that when our sentence is done, we won’t land in the tender embrace of friends and family who see that the government is wrong – we’ll likely land back in an environment where the hostility of that 52% of Americans who believe that the government is right holds sway over everything. No job. No housing. Non-persons.

If that doesn’t sound like Stalinism, I don’t know what does.

This next piece of film might change your mind about elections, also. While I’m still going to vote, and while I still believe that if enough of us get busy and work, our votes will still count – the time may be fast approaching (if it isn’t already here) where we’re powerless to do anything about the powers-that-be:

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(Electronic Voting – documentary video)

We live in a nation where the government can create the news.

Case in point. David Broncaccio of NPR, one of the last true reporters in America, did a piece on the election in Florida, where he brought up several of the points in the last video.

He’s a reliable, non-fringe source of news — and his piece has only aired once, with little or no commentary from other sources.

Let’s look at why.

Most of the board-members of NPR are either corporate sponsors with close ties to the government, or government appointees. Tell the truth = Lose your funding.

Fox? O’Reilly is a government shill, telling people what the powers-that-be want them to hear. Spend five minutes listening to an overseas news broadcast on the same topics, and you’ll come away with the same inevitable conclusion.

Folks, we’re being spoon-fed the same Kool-Aid, over and over. Fortunately, it’s our choice to accept it, or no.

“We are watching a poorly-staged rendition of Wag The Dog, interpreted for the morbily stupid and performed by the criminally insane.”

— Jules Carlysle; author/writer/commentator

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(“Be Careful What You Say” – Documentary Video)

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

— Hermann Goering; Reichsmarshall [1933-1945]; at Nuremberg

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It’s true, folks.

Be careful of what you say.

So, what’s to do?

Admittedly, the situation looks pretty bleak. We have little or no control over what the powers-that-be are doing right now – and it appears as if the new Congress has pulled impeachment off the table like a plate of bad hors d’oeuvres.

I’m going to suggest something simple, yet impolite: Start talking about it.

Yep. Those of you who grew up with the mistaken idea that ‘talking about politics isn’t polite’ – bring it up as table-conversation at the next neighborhood event or friends-gathering. Chew the fat. Doesn’t matter if you know everything, or not — between you, you’ll find that the free exchange of ideas is the most powerful tool you have.

Remember Margaret Mead, the world-reknowned anthropologist: ” A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” You have a chance here, and it’s yours to lose.

Make it count.

An Open Note To My Friends….

I just finished reading the comments on my last blog.

I love you guys. Really.

Blogging And The Like — Part II

(No photo – none needed)

I guess I struck a nerve with my last post on the quality of blogging in general. It’s probably unnecessary, but I thought I’d clarify a few things.

First, I didn’t pay any particular attention to what I did when I killed off my Multiply site — but apparently more than a few folks thought it was uncalled-for to do so. A couple of folks sent me offlines about it; there’s evidently been some talk over on Multiply about my actions.

Really – I didn’t think it would be taken one way or another — and honestly, it didn’t appear as if anyone was reading, so I really didn’t think I’d be missed.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we all write for a reason — and not even Mother Theresa was completely altruistic (she got something out of what she did, even if she didn’t get paid). I’ve never believed in paid-blogging, even though several folks have suggested I do so.

In the end, killing my Multiply site was more an act of personal humility than petulance; more a “Well; no one’s reading — no point in going on”, rather than a “Gee, I’ll take my marbles and go home!”

Really. It wasn’t intended to hurt anyone – it was just apparent that no one was reading.

Second, I didn’t want anyone to think that (for one moment) I believed this forum was any more drivel-free than Multiply. What I meant was this — I miss the old days here. A piece on weightier topics would not only get fifteen or more comments — but the commenters would write one of their own, and the process continued — there was a critical mass of thought here which has all but disappeared, and I miss it.

That critical mass never seemed to happen over on Multiply, and it’s fast fading from any social networking site – I suppose I’m saying that it was of and for a time – and that time is done.

That’s why I killed my blog.

Never meant to upset anyone over it. Or make anyone wonder – or anything else.

It was just time to move on.

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In the end, I don’t expect (and never have) anyone to ‘kiss my ass’, or anything else — and I’m sorry some folks interpreted my actions in that manner.

(The future? I don’t know. Looks like we won’t get anything workable here until late this year — and truth to tell, it just may not be worth the wait. We’ll see….)

Blogging Beyond the Pale —

or, ‘Why Did We Care In The First Place?’

When Kennedy James, one of my longtime-friends from this site, wrote a pseudo-obituary for Y/360, one of the reasons he listed was ‘…we didn’t really care about all those featured-bloggers, anyway.’

I got a laugh out of that one.

Many of you have read me over the past few years. You’ve seen me comment from time to time about being a Yahoo ‘feature’ – what I’d learned; what I’d experienced. Several of you asked me, “Is it all ‘that’, anyway?” – and I’ve said, “Yes – and no.”

I got a lot of drive-bys, stalkers, troublemakers, and the like. I met a LOT of new people. I had marriage proposals from Egypt and Nigeria. I had a lot of people who thought I was female (ostensibly because I could [a] string a sentence together, and [b] my name wasn’t something like “BIG_10_INCH_4_U”.

Mainly, it was a pain in the ass, answering the same question eighty times with a smile on my face – helping people work through glitches in 360 or show them how to use it – I nominated several people as my replacement – until I found out that the entire program had been cancelled, and I was stuck with the damn job!

I’ve never (at least, not the way I see it) ‘bragged’ about the position – it was more like being an ambassador; later on, for a product no one wanted to claim, and which the developer had even abandoned.

Through it all, there was a whole lot of unwanted attention. I felt like the only girl in town after the mine let out for the weekend – everyone’s buying me drinks, but I still felt vaguely uneasy and sometimes downright unsafe.

Which, in case you wondered, brings me to my point.

While Y/360 has slowly demolished itself, the phenomenon of wearing-one’s-heart-on-one’s-sleeve has become de rigueur for the blogosphere. I learned this over on Multiply.Com, where I had a site for a while and learned that while I’d been busy writing a book, the rest of the world was busy airing dirty laundry and writing drivel.

Oh, all right. Not the whole world. Just a good chunk of it – and they all wound up writing on social-networking sites.

Take this gal, for instance. She’s one of an estimated twelve million bloggers – and she calls herself ‘90dayJane’. Her blog is one big whinefest; her stated goal is to leave something behind when, 90 days from late February (right around the corner, folks!) she’s going to kill herself.

That’s right. She’s gonna bitch for three months, then do herself.

Oh, please save me.

This has gotten completely out of hand – it doesn’t matter the problem; you can feel free to talk about it. Hemorrhoids? You can tell the whole world you’ve got a pain in the ass the size of a golf-ball and a whole collection of foam-donuts.

Boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife giving you fits? Bitch! The world will listen.

Don’t like your job? Be careful here – it turns out that most potential employers cruise the ‘net looking for your name – and if they find it on a blog that’s a B&M session about your current boss, you can keep steppin’ – turns out a lot of ‘em will use your blog as decision-making criteria.

Nope. Blogging has gone mainstream – the general public is blogging in huge numbers, with predictable results.

Many bloggers find that this is also the road to riches. While I’ve personally viewed blogging as a free medium, many have registered their own domains and are busy selling their life-experiences – and getting massive hit-rates, as well as outright rates-of-return.

That PayPal widget? It’s good for something – and for some, it’s the road to income. Yes, sirree; you can sell your troubles online
– and, sad to say, there are people who will buy.

(I’m often given to saying that chatrooms are like watching a train-wreck; you can’t look away. Now, blogging has gone the same route).

Me? I think I’ll keep my private life private. I can recall the odd bad-date blog (which led a couple of you to wonder if I’ve ever had a good one); I blogged the day my cat was killed – and I once entered a writing-contest last fall about the death of an old friend — but that’s about the size of it.

I’ll keep on writing the way I always have – and, assuming that I’ve still got a forum-of-sorts here, I’ll keep on keeping on – and leave the drivel to others.

Breeding, Christianity, and the American Way

Jim, Michelle, and all the Little Duggars

(The other day, the Duggar family of Tontitown, Arkansas [USA] announced that they were expecting their 19^th child. The Duggars were the subject of a Discovery Channel episode detailing their lives. Jim, the ‘man of the house’ is a real-estate agent and former Arkansas-state legislator; he and his wife are devout Fundamentalist Christians; one of their personal tenets is to continue to reproduce ‘as long as God wills it’.)

“Children are a heritage of the Lord”.

Thus begins the Duggar family website, which extols the virtues of indiscriminate breeding. They’re both real-estate agents, who have by all measures done a pretty good job of selling real-estate – because they’ve built a 7,000 square foot, ten-bedroom home and are (by their own statement) debt-free.

Back when they were the subject of the Discovery Channel series about their burgeoning litter, the Duggar’s enjoyed the largess of several companies which donated everything from commercial-kitchen appliances and diapers (turns out that breeding, for some, is its own reward).

All of this reproduction is a showcase for the Duggars to tell the world how their god has ‘blessed’ them. Their website is full of Bible quotes – in fact, they’re great at telling the Rest of Us how to live – just like the one, above.

Michelle (mom Duggar) homeschools all of the chitluns, with an emphasis on ‘JOY’ (‘Jesus’ first; Others second; Yourself last). This egalitarianism is enforced by a whole lot of communal-living – bunkbeds are the norm; of the ten bedrooms, one is for the parents (they need a lot of bed-time to do what they do); the other eight are for the 17 (soon to be 18) Little Duggars.

Whew.

I’m going to do some basic math here.

Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures — the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth consume 45% of all meat and seafood; 58% of total energy; and over 87% of the world’s transportation. The poorest consume around 1% of these items.*

Put another way, the average American consumes 300% more resources than his/her Third World counterpart.*

“But shouldn’t they be allowed to have as many children as they want?” This question was asked of me the other day in reference to my ‘blast’, which also addressed these folks.

The answer is twofold.

First, there’s no law against it. Secondly, their religion seems to mandate it. Putting those two together and understanding that there’s still no restriction on the practice of religion in America, no matter what the implications and as long as no laws are broken, and the answer has to be ‘Yes – they should have as many children as they want.’

However, there are greater issues at stake.

First, there are six billion (yes; that’s with a ‘b’) people on the planet. While people are breeding at a faster rate in the Third World, the perspective I just proved mathematically above should give one pause – because all those Little Duggars are going to consume the equivalent of 5,700 Third World residents.

Sort of makes even ‘god’ pale by comparison, don’t it?

Second, we can’t feed the people we have here. It’s that simple. Food shortages, primarily because of the increase in energy, will only continue as the effects of peak oil (do some reading on that topic if you haven’t already) aren’t assuaged by some miracle of engineering and discovery.

And that, dear reader, is what I mean by Global Irresponsibility – and the type exercised by the Duggars is appalling.

No matter what told them to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, it’s largely irrelevant today – the Bible, you’ll recall, was written by men who also believed slavery was the proper state of things, and that the world was flat – so to say that we can’t afford the Duggar’s brand of religion any longer is a superlative – it almost goes without saying, and really isn’t open to much debate.

What follows, again, is simple math: We’re out of food, nearly out of energy, and almost out of time. People like the Du
ggars, by that litmus test (the only one that really matters) – are the problem.

It’s beyond any hope that the Duggar’s will see what they’ve done and beg the world’s forgiveness – to them, ‘forgiveness’ is something else, indeed, and doesn’t apply to them. Many things ‘don’t apply’ to Christians of this stripe – because, you see, they’re right.

Their ‘book’ tells them so.

Meanwhile – that clock, remorseless beast that it is – keeps ticking….

References:

*Human Development Report (United Nations; 1998)

Yahoo 360 and The Future… — (with update)

(…or, ‘Why The Future Starts in Vietnam’….)

Vietnam?

That’s right.

Turns out that Yahoo has released a product called “360 Plus” in Vietnam – it’s modular, and proves out to be a LOT easier to use (if the initial information is correct).

If you go here and read the Q&A, it appears that the product was launched only recently, but is very well received, giving a boost to Yahoo’s presence in that growing country.

The sample page (yes, it’s in Vietnamese) is here.

While it looks pretty basic (no ‘blast’; no ‘quick comments’; no friends-sidebar or other 360-like attributes), it’s also modular – which leads me to believe that additional modules are available.

My hope?

That they’ll introduce something like this worldwide – something which, in the end, will correct the many bugs in 360 and finally give us a useable product that’s out of beta.

Whither the UPS….

This raises another question – what happened to the Universal Profile System (UPS) that Yahoo touted so recently as a couple of months ago?

Is it dead? In the background? Will the UPS be a ‘gateway’ to a revised blogging platform like 360-Plus?

It’s evident that this is new information. Techcrunch is only covering Yahoo’s failed deal with Microsoft; none of the other sites (Slashdot; etc.) have shown a peep of information.

A Betting Man….

If I were a betting man, I’d’ve bet on Yahoo accepting Microsoft’s bid. I’d’ve also bet on Yahoo keeping its word, and delivering a useable product in March.

It’s a good thing I’m not a betting man, because the longer I’m associated with the high-tech world, the more I (re)learn that (1) incredibly smart people do incredibly stupid things, and (2) we’re always slaves to the political-dimension of decisions.

Yahoo likely has a plan – but none of us are going to know about it ahead of time – and guessing likely won’t help.

(An update — the following is from Matt Warburton by way of the ‘360 Product Blog’):

“Just to be clear, the 360plus product is specific to the Vietnamese market and it is not the new universal profile that we have mentioned previously in this blog. So, while 360 is transitioning to the new profile for users worldwide, the 360 name will live on in a different product in Vietnam.”

Until later…..

— “Astra”

Rant for a Saturday….

Civilization (n): An advanced state of human society, in which high levels of culture, science, industry, and government have been achieved.

Snot-Noses and Potatoes….

Y’know, I’m getting old.

I went to breakfast this morning at my favorite morning-place here in the Portland area (a restaurant known for a good breakfast, day or night – they make the best Eggs Bennie in town, and I’m rather fond of just being ‘me’ on the weekends – but this morning was far different than normal.

I had the opportunity to watch a rather motley looking tribe consisting of grandparents, plus Mom, Dad, and three offspring gradually demolish the area around a six-person table. Mom thought it was great fun to feed the two-year-old hashbrowns, and watch him throw them on the floor.

They didn’t limit their festivities to the floor, either. One of them had a cold, and was wiping his snotty nose on his hands, then rubbing them on anything handy (chairs; table; carpet). His other sibling has taken the sugar-packets and was busy making some sort of sand-sculpture on the tabletop – all while the adults just watched.

The resulting mess was nothing less than frightful.

Now, I know just about everyone who works there. I’m virtually one of the crew, which is part of the ambiance. I’m often a part of the staff’s conversations, so when one of the women who work there walked in after Motley Crew finished their scorched-earth policy to conclusion and said “f**k!” under her breath, I shook my head and said, “I wonder how that tribe lives at home.” She turned around and said, “Will, this happens more and more now. The owner won’t say anything to people like this, no matter how much we complain.”

Potatoes on the floor. A table looking like a glazed-donut in places, thanks to Mr. Snot-Nose. Sugar on the table; none in the container; packets torn open everywhere. She simple cleaned the table, brought out the sanitizer for the snot-spots, picked up the potatoes off the floor, ran the carpet sweeper, and started setting the table again for the next group. I was almost finished with breakfast by the time she was done. She was not happy.

So, just when did people decide that this was proper behavior?

Recently, one of our local TV stations did a story about a company here in Portland which actually goes to people’s homes and teaches them how to conduct a sit-down dinner for the family. They make money doing this – teaching people basic manners.

The news-crew interviewed the teenage daughter of the family which was featured – she said that dinner was always a mess – her mother was on her cell-phone non-stop; the cat was allowed in the same room, so it often ate her dinner; her brothers were invariably in a fight, and her Dad sometimes just got up and left rather than deal with it.

Now, I don’t know about you – but I’ve got a simple solution, and it doesn’t involve spending $300/session to have someone teach ‘manners’.

It involves looking around at things, and making a simple decision: How important is civilization?

Yes. That’s right. Civilization.

I’m often called a snob. That’s fine. I’ll cop to that, and more, if it means that setting standards which prohibit using a cell-phone at dinner or throwing food on the floor.

This morning’s events made me realize why “American culture” is an oxymoron. Small wonder why other countries don’t respect us, when parents allow their children to behave in this manner, and the parents are no better themselves.

Slurp….

In fact, bad behavior is not only acceptable, it’s sometimes even legislated. Recently, one of my friends wrote a blog about ‘lactivism’ – yes, you read that right – it’s the impassioned belief of some that nursing women should be allowed to ‘whip one out’ and feed the chitlun right there in front of you.

“Don’t show me your t_ _ s!”, exclaimed Bill Maher a few months ago, when a manager at an Applebee’s in Virginia asked a woman to cover herself.

The whole chain suffered
massively after that request – ‘lactivists’ from all over the country, fueled no doubt by lattes and cheap Internet service, boycotted and demonstrated in front of most Applebee’s across the country.

Turns out that his request (issued at the request of a restaurant patron) was illegal.

Yep. You heard me right. It was illegal to ask the woman to cover herself in public.

A few years ago when the Rest of Us weren’t looking, the ‘lactivists’ all got together and rammed-home some legislation across the country – it’s now illegal in all fifty states to ask a woman to find some place private – or even to use a blanket – to breastfeed.

They’ve managed – and I don’t quite see how – to convince fifty state legislatures to pass laws allowing sucky-sucky in public – as long as it’s baby doin’ the deed, and not a lil’ somethin’-somethin’ goin’ on.

Now, I don’t follow.

As Maher pointed out, why not allow masturbation in public?

For that matter, why stop there? Why not allow public urination? Save a lot of money building public bathrooms – why not public troughs, like they had in Roman times? Take a dump in public, too – it ought to be legal now, but no – the same state which first brought you “no shirt/no shoes/no service” (Oregon) now allows bare-breasticles anywhere – as long as they’re being ‘used’ by a person under the age of, say 18 months.

I still can’t walk barefoot in a restaurant, though.

Not that I’d want to – you see, I’m civilized….