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.

Hilly Moves

Hilary and her friend Emily moved to Portland this weekend to seek new fortunes. Yakima seems to do weird things to people, and I’m glad they chose Portland. They’re in a cool neighborhood in Macadam, and can see the river from their apartment. And they both seem to have some form of employment lined up, which is pretty amazing. Welcome!

New Stove

We’ve been without a stove for 2 months now. Well, one burner has worked periodically, but not in a predictable manner. Plus, its the small one in the back that isn’t level so if you try and fry an egg or something, it all runs down to the side of the pan.

Anyway, the landlord finally found a contractor that was willing to take some time out of their prosperous and profitable schedule to fix it. Starting Sunday.

The existing unit is a 30 year old POS with a grill on the left side. Who really grills indoors? Well, we started to once we realized it was going to get removed and we wouldn’t have to keep cleaning it. Plus, there aren’t any stove top replacements that fit the existing hole, so we’re getting a whole oven/stove combo, which is nice because our oven is probably 40+, too small to cook much, and occasionally starts things on fire.

We’re moving up.

Capital Cycle

One important requirement for success in a capitalist system is efficiency. To be successful is often to be the most efficient at one or more factors (labor, resource acquisition or allocation, distribution, etc.) in one’s economic enterprise. Its odd then that those who are the most successful in a capitalist system would then choose to use their accumulated wealth in what seem to be non-efficient ways. The choice of automobile, home, appliance, property and so forth seem to unravel the overall efficiency the individual sought in the first place.

Sure, this is an obvious observation, but its part of something I’m working on. I’m not saying its wrong either. Maybe its part of some cosmic balance?

inopportune

My father-in-law stopped by on his way back from a fishing trip and gave us a large quantity of individually wrapped king salmon. A few hours later, an explosion across the street and the loss of power in the neighborhood suggested it might have been the wrong time to get a freezer full of fish.

Luckily, PGE was here and had the transformer fixed in less than an hour. I’m not sure I could have eaten all that salmon, especially if I had to keep all that beer from going bad first.