Kevin's random thoughts - politics

One election post

2008-11-05T01:54:00Z

The resources I'm watching are ABC (WCCO) on TV, fivethirtyeight.com online. Congratulations to my sister in NC for ousting Elizabeth Dole, and to my parents in PA for (apparently) driving their state for Big O.

But even in the midst of the excitement tonight, my attention turns towards the coming administration. No matter who wins, there's a lot of work to do after the election to put the country back together. Let us pray, and work, and apply political pressure, to make sure it happens.

The Media's fault

2008-06-10T20:26:00Z

I've mostly refrained from comment, even in my face-to-face life, about Scott McClellan's book, because the only necessary summary was tweeted (twit? twitted?) so wonderfully when the book came out at the end of last month (thanks daringfireball). But the maddening stream of defensive self-congratulation by members of the media can't stand unchallenged.

Well, actually, it hasn't. While I have no truck with Scott McClellan blaming the media for letting the administration start a war about which my views have been clear since before it started, neither should the media be so quick to congratulate themselves for their coverage:

A majority of Democrats in the House voted against the authorization of force... There were also huge antiwar demonstrations, which received stunningly little coverage.

Some of which I helped organize in my admittedly tiny little college town. It's not ultimately the media's fault we invaded Iraq—rarely is the media fully to blame for anything we try to push off on them—but as usual, they bear the responsibility for giving a louder voice to those in power and ignoring all others.

Food security

2008-06-09T18:38:00Z

For the second year, my lovely partner and I have signed up for a CSA share. We were mostly happy with last year's, but they seemed to pick everything just a little too late; the produce we got was often a little too large and a bit bitter. This year we've signed up with the Turtle Creek Farm, and our first box came on Friday for pick-up at our favorite co-op. So far, as expected, there's a lot of spring greens, including some tasty-looking spinach we'll be having tonight (probably as a salad). All of it looks really good, and the family running it seem really friendly.

Below the fold: our garden, companion planting, locavores and kitchen gardeners

We also have our own garden going, a 5 x 20 ft. plot that I started a couple years ago. This year is the first time we've managed to get the thing planted in time to have some real success with it. The long, cold spring helped us in that regard—it gave us more time to buy seeds and plants and get them into the ground. Currently planted:

Three mounds with corn, to be joined by beans and squash
Six tomato plants, companion-planted with two Thai basil plants
One half-row each of butterhead lettuce and spinach
One row of onions (though I'm pretty sure these won't work)

This evening I'll be planting the other half-row each of spinach and lettuce, so that I can harvest them incrementally. I'll also be planting the beans and squash to join the corn.

Meanwhile, I'm following the pursuits of similar-minded folks around the country via the Locavore Nation blogs. I've also been regularly reading the Kitchen Gardeners International site for tips, and by the end of the summer we'd like to be able to can our extra produce.

Haiti is starving (updated)

2008-04-14T13:30:00Z

Update: if you read only one thing about Haiti, read this: Haiti, Reaping the Whirlwind

For the past several months, my lovely partner and I have been planning a trip to Haiti. Our parish has a partnership with a parish there, and we're part of the group that works on the partnership. We're meant to leave on Saturday, but as you might have (but probably haven't) heard in the news last week, people are in the streets protesting and, in some instances, rioting.

Funny thing, what happens when people are starving. Eighty percent—four-fifths—of the people in Haiti live on less than US$2 per day, and many of those are in so-called abject poverty, living on less than US$1 per day. The cost of food in developing countries worldwide has as much as doubled in the past year, and in Haiti, many people are literally subsisting on cookies made of dirt.

If you're a praying sort, please include the people of Haiti in your prayers. If you're an activist type, call your congresspeople at the state and national levels. Here's some further reading to help you raise awareness:

Google News search for Haiti
HAITI: Economy forces poor to eat dirt
IMF warns rising food prices may spark more riots like Haiti
Biofuels a factor as global food riots spread to Haiti

If you're a charitable sort, consider donating to the UN World Food Programme mission in Haiti. It would take US$96 million to fully fund the WFP in Haiti, of which they have only received 13 percent.

That's all for now. If we go, I'll blog from the island if possible (there is at least e-mail access there).

I hated DRM before it was cool

2007-11-21T20:55:00Z

From some random ZDNet-employed tech pundit:

Apple goes to great lengths — usually through its digital rights management technologies (what I call C.R.A.P.) — to tightly control the relationship between its software, its hardware, and, in the case of the iPhone, the relationship of both to carriers and the Internet (God forbid you should attempt to acquire new audio online for your iPhone — music, ringtones, etc — through anything but the iTunes Music Store).

Just the latest in a long string of Apple hatred (and now litigation) based on their "FairPlay" DRM system. Apple can't be exonerated of their complicity in the foisting of DRM on us consumers, but let's review the facts.

Apple does not force you to use DRM-crippled music either in iTunes or on the iPod. In fact both products were capable of using the de facto industry standard (though unfortunately patent-encumbered) MP3 format before FairPlay existed in the market—i.e., before the opening of the iTunes Music Store.
Apple themselves sell non-DRM-crippled tracks through their own music store.
Apple is neither the only, nor the worst company to use DRM.

I happily use an iPod and iTunes (and a Mac). I have never paid money for a single DRM-encumbered track from the iTunes Store (though I do own a few such tracks via gift cards and Pepsi caps). I've been an eMusic subscriber since their plans included unlimited downloads. I find it unconscionable that the RIAA could sue a family into oblivion for simply depriving them of potential (that means neither real nor certain) revenue to which they (and the courts) think they have a right.

But why is it suddenly cool to hate Apple for using DRM (based on utter fabrications), and not actually support ditching it entirely?

And if you hated Bush before it was cool, see here.

Apparently police hate cyclists...

2007-09-04T03:18:00Z

Another incident of police brutality against cyclists in the fair city across the river. I had reasoned after the incident at the airport that perhaps the airport cops were a bit more on edge, since they're confronted daily with the bogus color scheme that's meant to help keep us safe from terrorism. But Minneapolis city police showed no more restraint than the two MSP officers in the previous incident. And this time, I witnessed part of it in person.

The monthly Critical Mass ride in Minneapolis has been going on for a while now, and I don't think they've had any trouble from police on this scale before. Twenty people were arrested, by excessive force. The police claim that one of the riders deliberately veered into a police car, and they expect that to be satisfactory explanation for their actions: pulling people off their bikes, spraying mace indiscriminately into the crowd (and hitting bystanders), and punching riders. Some witnesses are also saying that at least one squad car was deliberately driven into cyclists.

But of course, a bicycle is much less danger to a squad car than the other way around, so—and I cannot stress this enough, because Americans and some of my previous commenters can't quite seem to get it—in no way were the police actions justified. Even if a cyclist did in fact drive into a squad car, there is no call for punching people and spraying mace in their faces.

As a final note, if the officers' goal was to promote traffic safety, why would they be riding at speed down Nicollet Avenue like this?

(photo from here, © Tony Webster. license)

To the government, I am a 'taxpayer'...

2007-07-13T15:05:00Z

It has always bothered me that in all American political discourse, I, as a native-born resident of this nation, am referred to not as a 'citizen', but as a 'taxpayer'. We only want to provide government services to 'taxpayers', not to 'those lazy bums who don't earn their living above-board'.

Does that mean we should be taught in elementary school to be 'good taxpayers'? Should we strip out civics classes in favor of economics? Will the DAR publish manuals for 'taxpayership'? (Or would they leave that to the Taxpayers League?)

The terminology is especially strange given that most people's objective seems to be to avoid paying taxes.

Sensible policing

2007-06-27T14:58:00Z

In response to these two blog posts by someone in Australia who goes by the name Duae Quartenciae (hereafter referred to as D.Q.) about Stephan Orsak, a cyclist who was assaulted by police at the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport:

There can be absolutely no excuse made for this kind of police behavior. The officer's actions were wrong from the very beginning of the incident. Stopping a cyclist in a potentially dangerous traffic situation is perfectly acceptable; stopping any vehicle by shouting out through the squad car window is dubious at best.

Stopping a cyclist by shouting through the window of a moving squad car, a much larger vehicle, is an improper action. Cars are much larger and heavier than cyclists, and thus a danger, particularly when the operator is (or appears to be) operating from frustration and anger. The officer should have pulled into the lane behind Mr. Orsak and used the squad car's megaphone, or spoken calmly through the window to instruct him to pull over. Or he could have simply turned on the lights and momentarily hit the siren.

As it was, it seems perfectly sensible to me that Mr. Orsak would seek to end as quickly as possible an exchange that started badly and degraded from there. Police abuses are too common an occurrence to simply follow instructions and wait until "you can take it up with some higher authority". If an officer is already "abrupt and abrasive", as D.Q. puts it, at the beginning of the stop, I as the cyclist being stopped am already at high risk, and would want to escape the situation as quickly as possible.

That risk, unfortunately, turned into direct harm when the officer used a weapon on Mr. Orsak. D.Q. also acknowledges that this was uncalled for, but I'm disconcerted that he* seems to make allowances for the officers' behavior leading to the use of the taser. The assumption in his two postings seems to be that when one is stopped by the police, one should simply obey, no matter what the officer commands.

It simply is not sensible nor self-protective to yield unconditionally to a police officer who has stopped you. This incident is evident proof of that fact. As both a resident of Saint Paul and a regular bicycle commuter, I was disturbed by the story (and how little press it's gotten), and by the normalization of the notion that we should unquestioningly acquiesce to police power.

Protest idea of the day

2006-03-09T11:51:00Z

Burst into a refrain of “Happy Birthday To You”, in public, at random, to protest the sorry state of copyright law.

FOIA request on Bush-authorized domestic spying

2005-12-20T16:13:00Z

The Democratic Party is making a Freedom Of Information Act request for documents related to the presidential order Bush issued to the NSA to allow spying on US citizens. They’ve opened it up for others to sign on. I’ve already done so.

It’s not a surprise to me that the administration authorized the NSA to spy domestically. It doesn’t surprise me, either, that Gonzales is engaging his great skill in stretching the letter of the law to provide the greatest possible impunity for the administration, claiming that the authorization was within the law. (It’s pretty clear to me—and a lot of people, regardless of party affiliation—that it wasn’t.)

The fact that it doesn’t surprise me, though, doesn’t make it any less important not to let it slide. COINTELPRO has returned, but this time from the NSA and CIA instead of the FBI.

On the other hand, it *is* surprising—pleasantly so—that the Senate has been voting down some extremely bad ideas (renewing the USA PATRIOT Act, drilling in ANWR) and reauthorizing useful programs (e.g. the Violence Against Women Act, VAWA).

I should note that I won’t ordinarily be posting such online actions aside from the ones I consider of high importance. If you want to see the action messages I get, look to MoveOn, Planned Parenthood, and the Democratic Party.

This is also my first attempt at using TrackBacks. We’ll see how it works…