Benblog - My world, your browser

Wed, 12 Jan 2005 06:54:56 GMT

The Blog is Dead - long live the Blog.

Actually, it's moved to TypePad.

You can get there by going to www.benjones.org or benjones.typepad.com.

I'm hoping to figure out how to convert my Radio blog, but still working on it.

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 05:09:04 GMT

The thing that scares me about the adminstration's policies and Condoleeza Rice's statements on Iraq is the similarity they bear to Ashcroft's approach to crime - that we need to pre-empt any crime by arresting or eliminating anyone who has the potential to commit a crime, or intent alone. Holy moley.

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 04:36:04 GMT

A really interesting piece of social software would be on online Etch a Sketch, were the drawing result would be determined by consensus. You could even set up private rooms for collaborative exercises.

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:59:35 GMT

I guess the one thing about the Farmer ad that may be smart is that it's so corny that it may actually generate some free press. And hence get the message out and repeated without having to buy the air time. But still... Still boggles my mind that they so missed the boat, so completely and utterly missed the boat on her potential use of the web. I wish I hadn't worried as much about which of Farmer and Russ could most benefit from the web, and focused on both of them, or some of my more direct connections with Russ to do his web work more effectively. Potentially would have been a more likely hire, and maybe helped us get creds to help another Farmer in some other state the next election cycle. Oy vey.

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:44:30 GMT

I wonder if the Farmer campaign accidentally hired The Daily Show to write and produce her first campaign commercial. Oh my.

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:36:55 GMT

My first reaction to this was that I was surprised it hadn't happened before. My second was how grisly and sad, the whole sordid story - that people are dead because they wanted to go someplace else to gamble money, as if that is a different experience elsewhere, qualitatively - you may be able to win more or have better odds, but qualitatively, the experience varies little, like the varying terrain one might experience hiking various places within a twenty mile radius, but not mountains or oceans, literally, of difference. My third - what are the odds? Literally.

Are people driving to gambling locations more or less likely to be fataly injured? Maybe if the statitistics for people who travel to gamble, accidents per passenger mile, or by some other measure, especially if it's the one that favors gambling least - like number of departures, not even looking at passenger miles, is drastically better than it is for the rest of the population, maybe then they're on to something.

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:28:53 GMT

I lost my precious tonight - the very, very last of my stainless steel crumbers, that 59 cent Excalibur. Money is just one measure of scarcity, but not complete. It was cheap, quantities are high, utility is low, but while I wouldn't pay much more than 59 cents for one - I won't create a black market for the item here, or create a crumber crisis ala the Dutch bulb phenomenon, but the fact that I know of no place to reliably replace the sturdy stainless steel ones, cheaper than the anondized aluminum ones, made the clink on the ground in the dark corner of the market attach itself to my gut, sinking to the ground with it.

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 08:10:46 GMT

Another thing just dawned on me regarding the fear driven, the limbic brain reaction of people to this potential stage in human development., when I was trying to ponder the immediate significance of the stupidity factor at work in people not getting how idiotic their president is compared to Bush. That when Kerry makes Bush look stupid, he makes THEM look stupid too, or feel stupid, so they react to Kerry with hostility, the way a grade school class who has long looked up to their golden boy student might completely disregard the obvious superiority of a new kid in school, opting instead to denigrate him or her. That person may never actually be fully engaged in the community's social fabric, although the hostility will diminish over time.

But even seeing some of the subtle differences in outlook between Kerry and Bush, since Kerry isn't representative of an out their enlightenment, just that, hey, war might be bad and the world has changed way too much for unilateralism to ever be effective, even with military and nuclear might (how scary is that to wake up to one morning), is scary. It represents accepting subtlety, vulnerability, moving beyond our primitive state towards something better, that light that has inched us along so far, to the point where a backward step towards bellicosity could actually, unlike spears or tanks or atomic bombs, pretty quickly reduce our species to nothingness.

And what organism survives and benefits as a result? The meme of hatred and fear and destruction that will keep this universe from potentially having its poets for billions of years if ever. I think that's one thing we need to keep in mind is that maybe we are the only species sentient in the way we are, and if that's the case, wouldn't it be a royal f-up if we ended up wiping ourselves out? What a tragic irony. And so sad that no one else will be around to write up the play.

Sat, 09 Oct 2004 07:04:34 GMT

The one clear loser in the debates are the American public, who demonstrate with each passing poll just how stupid we are. I can't imagine anyone thinking that Bush is competent. Certainly, he gives easy answers, the angry father, but holy crap, he just isn't on the ball, not at all. Insane. And it feels like our so called liberal media is too cowed to jump on this, insane.

If Bush is elected in 2004, the population of Canada will grow, not as significantly as if we had a draft, but close to it.

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 05:45:23 GMT

The other thing that strikes me as absolutely insane about Bush is that we were, until quite recently, a bastion of hope and democracy in the world - despite all our faults. Now the rest of the world is looking at us as imperialists, with some scary military might. Unfortunately, we have a brutality entirely beyond any previous empire, since our conquests are almost ephemeral, having nothing to do with defending our borders or promoting an ideology of any kind, even an ideology of creating more markets. It's just a self-perpetuating rage, at a false sense of deprivation, almost as if we're so enamored of the idea of fire, maybe what petroleum is on this evotionary stretch, and don't realize that there are other, even better ways, of accomplishing the goals reached through consumption of a non-renewable resource (non-renewable relative, of course, since the sun will eventually burn out as well, or whatever subatomic particle we learn to harness millions of years from now may stop flowing through our solar system, etc...). God save us from the angry patriarchy, Muslim, Christian, Jew - of whatever belief system, at least to get us through the next several generations.

Wed, 29 Sep 2004 02:37:11 GMT

It just dawned on me, the absolutely brilliant tautology of Republican claims that Al Quaeda wants Kerry to win. If there is, as Cheney intones, likelihood of some big attack if Kerry wins, and there is another terrorist attack of any kind during his administration (which could, of course, include bombings in Iraq), they can say - see, we told you so. If there aren't any terrorist attacks during his administration, they could say, see, the terrorists really wanted Kerry to win.

These are crazy times, and for the first time, I am truly, truly polarized, in a state of disbelief that any thinking human could think that Bush and his cronies are not bent on destroying the human race, regardless of their intent. I so want to have an interaction with some of the St. Louis wealthy elite to get a real take on this - to say, is this part of the strategy of a return to feudalism, a renewed stranglehold on the uppity peasants of the world, they ones you convince to vote for your party with your pictures of mangled fetuses and your bombing of places where people have darker skin? Ride on, you self-proclaimed apocalypse, ride on into your magestic armageddon, for Jesus is the only one who can save us, so burn, burn, burn the world away.

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 03:19:41 GMT

The darkness is such a separator for men and women in this world. I was drawn into the darkening woods tonight, feeling enveloped, feeling safe in the embrace. It's a fusion, for me, of energies - not so much femine, not so much masculine, but a perfection, especially in a healthy, balanced forest, which is why "the" embrace, rather than "her." Tracy decided not to go out walking this morning because it's getting dark now early.

Running hard and taking a break, especially early on in getting in shape again, is like building in a reward system for returning muscles. I think I've found a new way to break myself back into running, rather than just going out and running, forcing myself through what is often profound pain and injury, with the notion that I'll get it to heal up later. My body doesn't work that way so much anymore - the injuries are deeper, the recovery slower.

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 04:19:50 GMT

Alright, I've finally loaded images without crashing my computer - which I think resulted before from my failure to edit any of the huge files I was trying to upload.

These are the shots I was trying to put up to demonstrate how lobelia thrives most when presented with the challenge of reaching for light, given the same growing circumstances otherwise.

Full sun, kills:

You can see the three "control" plants side by side, with the one in the center having to grow to get sun, the one on the right in shade, and the other in partial sun.

And lobelia on the porch, reaching for the sun:

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 02:39:26 GMT

One of the things that gives me a slight glimmer of hope in Iraq are the men and women on the ground, if only we listened to them more, and they heard less from our civilian leadership. They are the ones who most want to end the conflict, have the greatest immediate stake in ending the conflict, and the ones, at this point, with the only potential to do so. I doubt many folks on the ground would have recommended, as the White House and Pentagon did, assaulting Falluja. Nor would military brass, the upper ranks, have recommended a policy of aggressive "containment." We're just poking our sticks in hornet nests, and we forget, despite our size and power, that the hornets outnumber us about 15 to 1.

I'm thinking I may institute a new tradition of eulogizing friends once a year. That becomes a good assessment of how close you've maintained a relationship, ones that you wish you had more time to spend with, ones you maybe wish you spent a little less, judged by what you'd say on the spot as a toast at a wedding, a few words at a funeral, a retirement party, authentically, from the heart.

Knowing cats by the sounds of their purr is a pretty good bet that they've made a permanent place in the home, even more so than the naming.