Archive for the ‘politicish’ Category
present day thinking »
Monday, May 7th, 2012
Most days, I ride a bike over a hundred potholes, through half a dozen poorly designed intersections, and under a few thousand feet of raised track that looks as if it could fail at any moment. It’s sort of great but also sort of sad.
It’s clear our transit system is a disaster. But not because we cater to cars, don’t plan complete streets, or even that our maintenance lags desperately behind deterioration.
When we connected the cross-country rail lines, creating incredibly oppressive monopolies, trains were a big deal many couldn’t afford. When we created a nation-wide network of paved roads, displacing millions of poor people, cars were all the rage, if you could afford one. Both projects created Rome-in-a-day social and economic gains after substantial upfront costs. (more…)
absurd conservative health care mandates »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
This health care stuff is great. I’m not all into it or anything, but it’s sort of great to watch this nonsense go down, right?
If you have a job—kudos, by the way, isn’t unemployment still like 64.32%*—why would you care? You’re set (well, maybe). And, though an expansion of Medicare could have made a difference, there’s very little change in this new set of meh.
Why all the fuss?
Employed people with plans are already under a mandate. A twenty-six-year-old out of college gets the same plans and cost breakdowns as his fifty-eight-year-old coworker. If he or she opts out—because the benefits are not one-to-one with salary—the company loses hundreds in tax credits.
one million strong for Facebook sucking! »
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Three times already, I’ve been encouraged to enable the new “Timeline” feature on Facebook. I won’t, but I know enough about it that I’m sure it’ll totally set some people off.
With each redesign (can we call them that?) of Facebook, there’s outrage, but why? We use their product, it’s not our Facebook. It’s our speck of collected statuses in a vast, vast, vast wasteland of other collected statuses.
We’ve changed the definition of “ownership” in the digital space, haven’t we? We use Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to share our thoughts, sure, but then those thoughts aren’t really ours anymore, right? (more…)
our brief affair with representative democracy »
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of spending time with my parents. They were on the way back homeward after a long road trip, part of which was spent in colonial Williamsburg.
This is noteworthy for two reasons. First, did you know we were once colonies? That whole thing with Will and Kate (or, you know, Wite) makes a lot more sense.
Second, it was mentioned that, before our Revolution, only nobility could vote. I vaguely remembered this but, having been reminded, it’s fun to see how we’ve come full circle. (more…)
Wisconsin’s a symptom »
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
The protests and the uproar are nonsense. That’s sad, right? I mean, DEMOCRACY!! and the PEOPLE and whatever?
Early last November, a highly conservative, mostly elderly crowd, made their way to vote across the nation. There was no uproar, no shipping of pizzas from all over the world for volunteers and no schools closed.
On that day, the events of the past weeks were set. A mass of uninformed ideologues took to the streets, single file. In an orderly fashion, the battle was won without signs, chants or sleeping bags. (more…)