Relax

I’ve been having trouble relaxing lately. It may have to do what 51% of Americans see as important, or it may have to do with confusion over what the heck happened. Michelle keeps reminding me to take a break from news, issues, etc. that aggravate me and thus interrupt what she’s doing. But its hard. Especially with hope that some great plot or ruse surfaces before the Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

I guess I should relax and partake in some liberal media.

Happy 1.0

Happy 1.0 Firefox!

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Seriously, if you’re still using IE, you deserve the problems that come with it.

Geography of Africa

I read a summary on the Geography of Africa today. Not the physical layout of Africa, but the geographical research areas of interest of the last 15 years. Its now clear to me that Africa has routinely gotten the shaft from its colonial and post-colonial neighbors. I couldn’t really use the phrase “got the shaft” in the overview of the subject for class, but its hard to think of a more succinct way to paraphrase it since, well, since Aristotle.

I had the impression that Africa was getting taken advantage of by imperial powers and banks, but it was mostly limited to hippie-speak. These were more in-depth looks at the horrible cascading of unforeseen consequences to land use change, the profit exporting of IMF and Worldbank improvement projects, and the dismantling of appropriate medical resources to cope with the diseases challenging the continent. Africa seems to be the test bed for ill-planned projects and poor management decisions.

Fortunately, there are plenty of people aware of this who are interested in fixing many of these problems. Hopefully this includes an understanding that change need not jump from pastoral to industrial in one step, and that the ability to sustain itself rates higher than the ability to raise cash-crops.

iPen is lame

In an effort to determine how best to spend our tech fee, I was asked to try an alternative to the somewhat pricey Starboard. The alternative was a clumsy little device with the somewhat suggestive name iPen. The product was like a prototype to the wacom tablet where the designers realized that it was stupid to put the cord on the pen. I had some fun with it, but it requires that you use it on a little pad with a grid for optical registration. Kind of lame.

fart

Election Day, still no clue

I’ve been reading people’s reason’s for voting for different candidates, and they seem to be genuinely misinformed about what each candidate stands for. Or conversely, they don’t care what they stand for.

There seems to be a preponderance of questions about what Kerry actually stands for. I think this is a testament to how well the FUD machine on the GOP side is working. But I also think it points out why there is still an electoral college. Sure you can complain about the popular vote not mattering, but can you unglue yourself from your tele-ma-vision long enough to google the Kerry Campaign or read any number of articles and interviews where it is apparent who he is as a human and where he stands as a public servant? Democracy involves a bit more than watching political ads and touching the TFT screen or filling in the circles. Make sure you get your receipt too.

There also seems to be a general lack of interest in what Bush has actually done. I think the same gripe above applies to you folks too. Stop watching the TV (or listening to that radio) and read something. A lot has been written about this guy, and I must inform you, its not very positive. So you’re a Republican voting for a deficit spending, world policing, domestic policing, big government, anti-competition candidate? That doesn’t make sense. By your own definitions, that doesn’t make sense. Would a real moral leader ask churches to risk their tax exempt status to stump for them? Would an isolationist invade and occupy 2 countries on the other side of the word? Would someone concerned for your safety gut 30 years of environmental and occupational health laws or out a CIA agent as a vendetta? You need a new party, yo. Maybe its time to vote Libertarian? Maybe you should take back the Republican party and make them start their own. Anyone need a brownshirt?

I don’t mean to suggest that the entire debate has been vapid. Its been quite informed. But there has been so much noise that meaningful discussion has been diluted. That’s one of the benefits to reading – no noise.