Fragments

Posting Photo from Playbook

2012-01-19T23:36:00.000-08:00

I'm testing Blogger's ability to play nice with Playbook. I'd like to add a picture here.

And sure enough, I can do that!

Complications with Quotation Marks, Punctuation, and Hyperlinks

2011-10-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a problem I have with punctuation and hyperlinks. When I quote online resources, I like to include at least an author-title-source-date citation, with the title hyperlinked to the original source. When I encounter a title that includes quote marks, things get complicated:

"Robert's internal 'war,' while being held in check at the moment, makes Robert a very dangerous person to the rest of society," Zell said. "The two threads woven through him, obsessive compulsive controlling behavior and anger, will never change. Robert acknowledges the same" [John Hult, "Judge to Eric Robert: 'May God Have Mercy on Your Soul'," Argus Leader, 2011.10.27].

See those quote marks in the article title? Normal punctuation rules dictate that we enclose the article title in double quotes, and that we transform the quote marks within the title to single quotes. Problematically, the comma with which we normally separate the article title and the newspaper title is supposed to go inside the closing single quote mark as well.

I've felt that placement of the comma inside the closing single quote breaks up the integrity of the original article title. I find that problem compounded when I follow my normal hyperlinking style rule of applying the hyperlink to the complete article title. The hyperlink should include exactly the text that constitutes the article title. In this case, that should include the closing single quote mark. But if I follow normal title-quotation punctuation rules, extending my hyperlink to include the closing single quote mark also includes the comma, which delineates the title but is not part of it.

Thus, I choose hyperlink-title integrity over traditional comma placement.

sign language for star

2011-01-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

sign language for star
what else need we say?
firmament in hand
thing we know only
in miniature
sphere undimensioned
light unshadowing
far gravity dimmed
each star pins our souls
move that little hand
you touch what none can
you sign in silence
queen of silent sky

Solstice Temple

2010-12-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

Frost makes a temple of night
Branches, barbed wire, air itself encrystaled
All lines diffuse, substance in question
Light in air made firm
Great beams leap up
Yardlights, farm yard driveway
Fold and focus photons upward
Forming pillars in the frost
Temple firmer seen from afar
Columns quarter mile apart
Five, six across the frozen lake
This sparse parthenon
Cold to bundled, cloud-exhaling supplicants
Ringed in shafts of icy light
Buttressing the unseen vault
Lost in darkness above.

Read with Passion

2010-12-25T20:44:00.001-08:00

No, really.
Throw everything in. Everything.
That means you.
If the poem were just the words on the page,
I wouldn't have invited you.
I'd buy the book
Read it silently, fearful someone might see my lips move
Then hand the pages without a word to someone else.
These words are your connection to me and everyone else.
Say them that way.
Turn off your damned Ira Glass ironic detachment
And deliver them
Exude them
Sweat and strain and proclaim them
Hammer and nail them
Beat them senseful
And let them beat you back, beat you up
Wring you out and overflow you
Mean the words
Be the words
BE THEM.

That's how it's done.

DissProp

2010-12-07T08:05:00.000-08:00

Elluminate public dissertation proposal defense: https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007004&password=M.058E549D00E96EABBD9D3E4569CC17

Links Page for DRA RE-EF Project

2010-10-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Thank you for taking Dakota Rural Action's survey on energy efficiency!

If you'd like to learn more about things you can do at your home, farm, or business to use energy more efficiently, check out these resources:

Midwest Energy News: "Tracking issues from Ohio to the Dakotas," this online daily compiles energy-related news relevant to Midwestern readers. Midwest Energy News comes from St. Paul-based non-profit Fresh Energy.
Home Power: Since 1987, this magazine has published news and views on solar, wind, hydro, and other technologies to help individuals produce their own power and reduce their dependence on the grid.
Mother Earth News: This Kansas-based publication covers a wide range of sustainable living issues. Folks working on energy efficiency projects will find the Renewable Energy and Green Homes sections particularly useful.
EnergySavers.gov: Uncle Sam wants you... to save energy! The U.S. Department of Energy offers lots of tips on saving energy and money.
HUD's Partnership for Advancing Housing Technology (PATH) offers top tips for energy efficiency in new construction and remodeling projects.
Energy Efficient Rehab Advisor: also offered by PATH, this interactive tool helps you find energy-efficiency remodeling advice specific to your type of home and where you live.

KELO video embed test

2010-10-26T15:14:00.001-07:00

Pavel Klushantsev, Soviet Sci-Fi Film Director

2010-08-31T19:24:00.002-07:00

Soviet/Russian director Pavel Klushantsev produced some landmark science fiction films during the dawn of the space age. His work was part sci-fi, part documentary. Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas have acknowledged Klushantsev as big timber. Some reading:

Клушанцев, Павел Владимирович (на Википедии)
This article at Astronautix.com highlights parallels between Klushnatsev's Road to the Stars and Kubrick's 2001.
More on Road to the Stars from Kosmograd.
Biography на русском языке
Евгений Харитонов «Космическая одиссея Павла Клушанцева» (отрывок из книги)
статья И.Войтенко "Человек с другой планеты" в журнале "Флорида"
Книги Павла Клушанцева на epizodsspace.airbase.ru (kids' books)

Watch Klushantsev's work online:

1935. Seven Barriers (Семь барьеров)
1937. Intrepidity (Неустрашимые)
1946. Northern Lights (Полярное сияние)
1946. Meteors / Meteoroid (Метеориты / Meteory) (10 minutes)
1951. Universe / Kosmos (Вселенная / Vselennaya)
1957. Road to the Stars (Дорога к звёздам / Doroga k Zvezdam) (58 minutes)
1962. Planet of Storms (Планета бурь / Planeta Bur) (78 minutes)
1965. Moon (Луна / Luna)
1968. Mars (Марс)
1970. I See the Earth (Вижу Землю) (16 minutes)

Horizons Community Blogs

2010-08-31T13:59:00.000-07:00

Test Post for Mickie

2010-06-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

You type a paragraph.

Then you type another paragraph.

ANd a third for good measure.

USF J-Term Student Blogs from Sioux Falls and New York City

2010-01-12T16:29:00.001-08:00

I'm trying out a Google Reader bundle. The following blog posts come from a J-term class Kim Bartling is teaching at USF. Students are engaging in various community activities and blogging about their experiences. Three students are in Sioux Falls; seven students and their prof are in New York City. Good stuff!

If you have a Google Reader account, you can click the Subscribe button and add the active RSS feed to your Reader.

testing Bulldog Media embed

2009-12-28T06:26:00.000-08:00

Trying to embed big hi-def video!

About Me

2009-12-19T16:03:00.001-08:00

This is a practice "About Me" page. I'm Cory. I live at Lake Herman. I ride my bike.

Contact

2009-12-19T15:58:00.001-08:00

Contact the Madville Times!

Zemanta Test #2: Not Much Better on Obama

2009-06-15T16:08:00.000-07:00

Image by BL1961 via Flickr

I try out Zemanta on a political post from the Madville Times. The automatic in-text links are maybe fun for quick background info, but it looks like if I want specific links to the topic at hand, I still have to Google and paste those myself. And it appears that not one of the suggested related links at the bottom relates to Real ID/Pass ID. Nice service if you're looking for serendipitous learning and backlinks, but do we really all want to clutter each other's posts with a huge box of vaguely related content?

The radical right-wingers have been trying to convince us that President Obama is some closet socialist or fascist with a master plan to take away all of our liberties.

Cynical paranoid meme-spewing, meet reality: The Obama Administration is scaling back the Real ID law, a Bush-era law that caught heck from privacy advocates and numerous state governors:

...the Bush administration struggled to implement the 2005 law, delaying the program repeatedly as states called it an unfunded mandate and privacy advocates warned it would create a de facto national ID.

As governor of Arizona, [Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano called Real ID "feel-good" legislation not worth the cost, and she signed a state law last year opting out of the plan. As secretary, she said a substitute would "accomplish some of the same goals."

Eleven states have refused to participate in Real ID despite a Dec. 31 federal deadline [Spencer S. Hsu, "Administration Plans to Scale Back Real ID Law," Washington Post, 2009.06.15].

The replacement plan, Pass ID, gets rid of at least some of the unfunded mandates in Real ID and includes stronger privacy protections, although folks at the ACLU and the Cato Institute still say it's too much of an infringement on individual rights. I'd agree with them; the government might do better to back away completely from the fear rhetoric and leave states alone on drivers licenses. But Pass ID serves as yet another example that the wild-eyed anti-Obama conspiracy theorists have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Zemanta Test 1: Unimpressive

2009-06-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

Image by erjkprunczyk via Flickr

I'm trying out Zemanta, a Firefox add-on which is supposed to provide cool links and images. I'm not impressed. I try out the following text and see what Zemanta spits up. You can see the links and tags that Zemanta adds (complete with a lot of bulky HTML). Following the text are the first ten links Zemanta suggests. I try to get the first ten images, but it looks like Zemanta allows just one image. I do get some South Dakota images. Whoopie. But my Blogger composition window is now very busy, and I have to scroll down for my publish button.

Lake Herman, South Dakota, is a wonderful place to live. The lake is small and not overpopulated. Lake Herman State Park, the Izaak Walton League, the Madison Country Club, the St. Thomas Recreation Center, Game Fish and Parks boat ramp and wildlife area, and Camp Lakodia have kept development from getting out of hand, as have some stubborn farmers who prefer to keep farming and grazing cattle near the lake.

What Daddy Did on Friday

2009-04-17T19:44:00.000-07:00

My loves! Here is a photographic sampling of the most fun parts of my day!

Tree blossoms in the morning sunshine.

Blossoms and... hey! What's that little blossom petal floating in the morning sky?

Purple blossoms in the Conrad Formal Gardens (tie not required, but try to match the flowers if you wear one) outside the Marcum Conference Center.
Hooray for the little guys: the underbrush blooms first to catch some spring sun before the big trees leaf out down in Four Mile Creek Valley.
The mighty waters of Four Mile Creek itself, burbling by the eastern edge of Oxford, Ohio.

Little yellow flowers peeking out from the ground cover by the Four Mile Creek trail.

Twist in the trail by Four Mile Creek.

Look! Right in the middle of uptown! It's a park!

It's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park, with purple tulips...

...and a cannon, of which everyone is afraid except the big stone cow.

The stone cow has nearby company: a stone goat, a stone pig, and a stone sheepy-sheepy!

Goat!

More lovely tulips in the downtown—I mean uptown—park. (Oxonians are particular about this uptown thing.)
Closer, closer, closer... tulips! This is my impressionist zoom photo.

As if a park isn't enough, right across from MLK Park is the Memorial Pavilion, frequent site of live music, ideal spot for peace rallies and other mass college shenanigans.

I'd have included pictures of my evening run around campus and town, but it was dark out, and I was busy huffing and puffing. Sometimes art just has to take a back seat to hard-charging exercise!

Dwaine Chapel, Community Reinvestment Act: An English Teacher's Diversion

2008-11-12T15:06:00.001-08:00

I start teaching again Friday, so I thought I'd practice my homework evaluation skills. Plus, I just discovered I can use the "title" attribute in my HTML to make little pop-up annotations within text! Just hover the mouse over what looks like a link, and an Enlgish-teacher note should pop up. Cool!

So here's some practice grading on Dwaine Chapel's CRA essay, posted earlier for your consideration. The most important comment: the essay seems to present disjointed information without an effort to draw connections to a unified thesis.

Dwaine Chapel, "The LAIC Perspective,"
Madison Chamber of Commerce newsletter,
November 2008, p. 7

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was passed in 1977 and states "regulated financial institutions have continuing and affirmative obligation to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered." This simply means that lending institutions are a-for-profit organization and are afforded the ability to reinvest that profit back into the community in which they serve.

Banks are rated on their reinvestment activities and the funds are used to accomplish many productive and positive tasks. For example the funds can be used to take action in creating new jobs, affordable housing, fair housing, and to help small business and entrepreneurs to name a few.

Fair housing and affordable housing focus on the low to moderate income sectors of an area. Area median income is a guideline used to determine if a bank can receive CRA credit for the loans it issues. Many organizations throughout the country have applied for community development loans addressing housing needs in their community.

The definition of area median income is the median family income for a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or the county or statewide median family income if the individual is outside of a metropolitan statistical area. The definition of low income means that the income level of an individual is 50 percent of a geographical area. Moderate income means that the income level of an individual is at least 50 percent and less than 80 percent of the area median income. Family median income states that the income is at least 50 percent and less than 80 percent of a geographical area. Middle income means that the income level of an individual is at least 80 percent and less than 120 percent of the area median income. Family median income states that the income is at least 80 percent and less than 120 percent of a geographical area.

What is a metropolitan statistical area (MSA)? It is a geographic area used by federal agencies that collect and tabulate survey information gathered. A metropolitan area contains a population of 50,000 or more as its core urban area. Furthermore, a micropolitan is that urban core consisting of more than 10,000 and less than 50,000 in population.

According to the most recent census data obtained through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), income information for Lake County shows the 2008 estimated median income to be $57,240 which is an increase from the 2004 median income level of $43,750.

The Community Reinvestment Act provides opportunity for banks throughout the country to provide community development loans to address a number of economic development issues in their communities. The CRA was initiated to improve the quality of life issues and create and retain jobs and most importantly retain families for a neighborhood and a community.

Testing: Google Electoral Map

2008-11-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

Testing WMV Embed from SDPB Candidate Videos

2008-09-26T16:58:00.000-07:00

SDPB is putting up their candidate videos, but gosh darn 'em, they won't let me download the files! Let's try embedding Scott Parsley's video:

WMV Embed Test: Franklin Nelson de Padilla

2008-09-23T13:55:00.001-07:00

Hey, let's try embedding some video from SDPB's "Meet the Candidates" series! Here's District 1 Constitution Party House candidate Franklin Nelson de Padilla:

There, how's that work?

Miracle Treat Day August 7

2008-08-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

DSU CET 750: Gabcast RSS Feed!

2008-07-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

The previous two posts are experiments with Gabcast, a service that lets you audio-blog by phone. If I had my cell phone on a bike trip, I could provide hourly updates of the ride. If Joe and Erin convinced me to take a phone on the Centennial Trail, I could post regular updates on the hike (assuming I get service). I wonder: does this service also include the capacity to upload video? That would be cool. Gabcast appears to be just voice, but with photo/video capability on phones, we have a live TV studio in our pocket!

Here's the link to the Gabcast RSS feed for Madville Times Mobile. You can add that feed to your favorite subscription service. I can add it to my sidebar, which I'll do experimentally for just a moment, to get a screen cap.

Madville Times Mobile #2

2008-07-23T13:59:00.001-07:00

Gabcast! Madville Times Mobile #2

Madville Times Mobile #1

2008-07-23T13:58:00.001-07:00

Gabcast! Madville Times Mobile #1

CET750: PhotoStory 3 Project on the Madville Times!

2008-07-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a video history of the first three years of the Madville Times:

SketchUp Practice: Funky Shed Galore!

2008-07-22T09:58:00.001-07:00

Some images from Sketchp: I am so designing my next shed this way!NE ground view
SW aerial view

History with TimeToast: A Madville Times Timeline

2008-07-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

I'm taking CET750—Multimedia II— with Dr. Geary here at DSU this week. One of our assignments was to create a history timeline. Most of the other students are active teachers, so they are doing timelines they can use in their classrooms on their content area. I thought I'd make a brief history of the Madville Times:

Paul Otlet's Mundaneum: Web 0.0

2008-06-20T08:39:00.001-07:00

Imagine the Web and hyperlinks in 1934. Belgian Paul Otlet could. See Alex Wright, "The Web Time Forgot," New York Times, 2008.06.17.

By the way, Otlet didn't attend school until age 12. His father, a successful businessman, thought that "classrooms stifled children’s natural abilities."

Identifying Knowledge Complexity and Specificity -- Sample Texts

2008-02-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

IT/IS Blogs:

[procedural] UK Further Education Blog: Is Your Data at Risk?
[declarative] UK Further Education Blog: Independent Study Advises IT Planners to go OpenXML
[d/p] UK Further Education Blog: IT Forum: Windows Vista and Security
[d] Le Café Central de Déva: EXOLEDB Architecture
[d] Le Café Central de Déva: Monitoring Event Sink # 5 - How reliable Event sinks are?
[d] SGriffin's [MSFT] WebLog: Where Did I Put Those 5.5 SDK Docs?
[p] SGriffin's [MSFT] WebLog: SQLMail Hates MAPI
[d] SGriffin's [MSFT] WebLog: Why Outlook Won't Show Your Messages
[d/p] The Old New Thing: The dead home desktop returns from the dead
[d/p] The Old New Thing: Shell policy is not the same as security
[d] The Old New Thing: Why do registry keys have a default value?
[p] Sara Ford's WebLog: Did you know... You can use Shift+ESC to close a tool window - #142
[p] Sara Ford's WebLog: Did you know... use Ctrl+Tab to bring up the IDE Navigator to get a bird's eye view and navigation of all open files and tool windows in Visual Studio? - #122
[d] John D'Addamio's Blog: What’s different about testing open source projects?
[d] Microsoft's JobsBlog: What comes around goes around ... Why I love working at Microsoft, too
[d] Kirk Allen Evans's Blog: LINQ to SQL vs. LINQ to Entities Smackdown!
[d] Kirk Allen Evans's Blog: If LINQ to SQL Is Good, Is SQLCLR Still Evil?
[d] Kirk Allen Evans's Blog: Getting Started With DSL Tools - Part II

IT/IS Forums:

IT/IS Journal Articles:

[d] Brown (2008). Wikia Search finds few fans in early going. CNetNews.
[d/p] Ferguson (2007). Companies warned not to rush into social networking. CNetNews.
[d] Meyer (2008). Google applies for image text patent. CNetNews.
[d] Reuters (2008) U.N. report: Rich-poor digital divide still broad. ZDNet News.
[d] Broersma (2008). Canonical distributes Parallels via desktop update. ZDNet News.
[d] Dill & Simons (2008). The Democratic Party's dangerous experiment. ZDNet News.
[d] Newbold & Azua (2007). A model for CIO-led innovation. IBM Systems Journal.
[d] Cherbakov et al. (2007). Changing the corporate IT development model. IBM Systems Journal.
[d] Zeng et al. (2007). Model analysis for business event processing. IBM Systems Journal.
[d] Curran et al. (2007). Power-constrained high-frequency circuits for the IBM POWER6 microprocessor. IBM Journal of Research and Development.
[d] Agerwala & Gupta (2006). Systems research challenges: A scale-out perspective. IBM Journal of Research and Development.
[d] Dongarra et al. (2006). Self-adapting numerical software (SANS) effort. IBM Journal of Research and Development.
[d] Kandaswamy et al. (2006). Building web services for scientific grid applications. IBM Journal of Research and Development.
[d] Peterson et al. (2006). Application of full-system simulation in exploratory system design and development. IBM Journal of Research and Development.
[d] Naveh et al. (2007). Workforce optimization: identification and assignment of professional workers using constraint programming. IBM Journal of Research and Development.
[d] Anderson et al. (2007). Insider attack and real-time data mining of user behavior. IBM Journal of Research and Development.

Econ/Fiscal Policy blogs:

[d] Greg Mankiw's Blog: Four Goals of Tax Policy
[d] Greg Mankiw's Blog: Proposed Fiscal Stimulus: My View
[d] Greg Mankiw's Blog: Inequality vs Injustice
[p] Peter Orszag, CBO Director: Economic stimulus options
[d] Peter Orszag, CBO Director: Corporate tax receipts
[d] Peter Orszag, CBO Director: Long-term budget outlook
[d] Risk and Return: Concerns About Municipal Money Market Funds
[d] Risk and Return: Today's Links: Skepticism Abounds
[d] Crossing Wall Street: Nominal GDP
[d] Crossing Wall Street: Apocalypse When?
[d] Freakonomics: Who Benefits from the Subprime Crisis?
[d] Freakonomics: Can Economics Incentives Get you Pregnant?
[d] Marginal Revolution: Investment tax credit as fiscal stimulus
[d] Marginal Revolution: Did the New Deal prolong the Great Depression?
[d] Paul Krugman: Federal spending mythology
[d] Paul Krugman: The Rorschach doctrine
[d] Paul Krugman: And now they notice?

Econ Forums:

[d] sci.econ: free trade trurns wealthy countries into poor countries
[d] talk.politics.misc: McCain's solution for lousy economy... (msg 23)
[d] sci.econ: Hanson vs Solow (msg 1)
[d] alt.politics.economics: Uptick in Union Membership (msg1)
[d] Shaking up the Fed -- comments. Free Exchange, Economist.com.
[d] Does America have a budget problem? -- comments Free Exchange, Economist.com.
[d] Taxes: No laughing matter -- comments. Free Exchange, Economist.com.
[d] Equality denial -- comments. Free Exchange, Economist.com.
[d] Harnessing bias -- comment. Free Exchange, Economist.com.
[d] A textbook example -- comments. Free Exchange, Economist.com.

Econ Articles:

[d] Chain of fools. Economist, 2008.02.07.
[d] Same as it ever was. Economist, 2008.01.10.
[d] Old Chinese myth. Economist, 2008.01.03.
[d] Ellis (2008). Dollar's slide: It's the economy, stupid. CNNMoney.com.
[d] Willis (2007). What a rate cut means to homeowners. CNNMoney.com.
[p] Fisher (2008). Eight ways to recession-proof your job. CNNMoney.com.
[d] Bottazzi (2008). On the relationship between firms' size and growth rate [PDF!]. Economics Bulletin.
[d] Neumann and Penl (2008). Volatile capital flows: Interactions between de jure and de facto financial liberalization. [PDF!] Economics Bulletin.
[d] Gaube (2007). A note on the link between public expenditures and distortionary taxation [PDF]. Economics Bulletin.
[d] Dai (2007). Endogenous Wealth-Depending Time Preference and Fiscal Policy in Open Economy [PDF]. Economic Bulletin.
[d] Bateman & Taylor (2007). Does the distribution of New Deal spending reflect an optimal provision of public goods? [PDF] Economics Bulletin.
[d] Altman (2008). How much economic fredom is necessary for economic growth? Theory and evidence. [PDF] Economics Bulletin.
[d] Yao et al. (2007). An empirical analysis about population, technological progress, and economic growth in Taiwan. [PDF] Economics Bulletin.
[d] Nakamura (2007). Wage inequality and welfare effects of domestic technological progress: A dual economy approach. [PDF] Economics Bulletin.
[d] Yasar and Morrison Paul (2007). Firm performance and foreign direct investment: Evidence from transition economies. [PDF] Economics Bulletin.
[d] Park et al. (2007). Income inequality and marriage. [PDF] Economics Bulletin.

Blogs and Wikis for Bolsheviskys

2008-01-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

Corporations are terrified of the Internet and net neutrality. They have to turn the Internet completely into a business model. If they don't, they'll have all these examples of socialism at work. Wikipedia -- socialism. YouTube -- socialism. SD Blogosphere -- don't let those ads fools you; it's socialism. We are showing in the knowledge economy, working with the most valuable economic resource in play, that socialism really does work. We can produce damn good content for reasons other than profit. Bloggers and Wikipedians and YouTube mavens are showing that humans really can cooperate outside of the capitalist paradigm.

2008-01-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

Skellie, "7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic," ProBlogger.net, 2008.01.04

Resource lists
Lists of tips
Good advice
Arguing a popular point of view
Anything with a killer headline
Q&As with high-profile people
best-of lists.

Ideology as Disguise for Power

2007-11-14T10:41:00.001-08:00

Ideology hides vested interest and power through theoretical constructions (verbal pictures) that portray a state of affairs as natural (and therefore unavoidable) or just, when in fact it is not. Those caught in ideology are led to limit their analysis in such a way that prevailing assumptions and constraints are not subjected to informed critical arguments (cf. Mumby, 1988, for a more detailed analysis of the relationship between ideology and the ideal speech situation).

Hirschheim & Klein 1994

Communities Don't Practice -- Individuals Do

2007-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

From David Skyrme:

Communities of practice are seen as a powerful way of developing and sharing knowledge across organizational boundaries. In particular most are conversation-based rather than content-focused. People with problems are connected to their peers and experts who might be able to help. But in many organizations, communities are virtual. There is a lot of 'interesting discussion' but is it practical? What distinguishes a community of interest from a true community of practice is the application of this interesting knowledge towards achieving a common purpose. Successful communities usually have some face-to-face meetings and encourage people to spend some time with each other, observing them at work and having meaningful 1-on-1 dialogues. With rare exceptions it is individuals who practice, not communities.

Hegel on Passion

2007-11-06T15:04:00.001-08:00

Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion.

--G.W.F. Hegel

Sheer Techno-Irony...

2007-10-09T12:45:00.000-07:00

"Please add me to the coordination and collaboration technology team. My emails seem not to be getting through. thanks."
--graduate course e-mail from student to prof, accidentally e-mailed to all class members after student hit "Reply to All."

NY Times Response to Theocrats

2007-10-09T12:36:00.000-07:00

Jon Meacham, "A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation," New York Times, 2007.10.07

Free Market Economy Thwarted by Corporate State

2007-09-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Read The Mutualist Blog! He quotes from A New History of Leviathan (Rothbard and Radosh, eds.), available online in pdf format:

It is now widely understood that the United States in mid-twentieth century is a Leviathan Corporate State—a political economy dominated by giant multinational corporations whose extensive domain, operating with the levers of government, extends from the local retail outlet to firms negotiating for rights to explore oil deposits offshore of Saigon. But the corporate state, whose pervasive influence has recently been subjected to sharp critiques by Herbert Marcuse, Charles Reich, and Phillip Slater..., is by no means a new phenomenon. The corporate leviathan began to emerge at the turn of the twentieth century, after an era of substantial laissez-faire had proceeded to industrialize and urbanize the nation.

The essays in this book reveal how and in what manner the corporate state developed in twentieth-century America. They show how a sophisticated group of large corporate reformers managed to replace a freely competitive economy and make a new governing class, through the use of reform mechanisms to mold the government into a mighty instrument of monopolization and cartelization.

Health Care Moral, Fundamental

2007-07-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

“We have an obligation to assure something more like fairness and equity in human health. We do not have a choice, unless we plan to give up being human. The idea that all men and women are brothers and sisters is not a transient cultural notion…
It is a biological imperative”
-- Lewis Thomas, The Fragile Species

“You’ve got to be healthy and stay healthy. Without your health, you don’t have anything. You can’t provide for your family, you lose your job, you lose your house. You ain’t got nothing without your health.” – Joe H., American from Wyandotte, Michigan.

From "The Surgeon General's Call to Action on Global Health 2006," draft report, blocked by HHS official William R. Steiger, Office of Global Health Affairs

The YouTube Dems Debate -- 2007.07.23

2007-07-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

You wouldn't know it from the press coverage, but Dennis Kucinich had a lot of good things to say. Guess the press doesn't have time to quote anyone but their darlings. See Kucinich's comment on the Dems failing the American people in context and everything else he said in this full transcript of the debate from CNN.

Jack London on Free Market Pseudopatriotism

2007-07-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

Main character Ernest Everhard, addressing small-business owners agitating for anti-trust legislation, Jack London, The Iron Heel, Chapter 8: "The Machine-Breakers," 1907:

`But when you squeal you don't state the situation flatly, as I have stated it. You don't say that you like to squeeze profits out of others, and that you are making all the row because others are squeezing your profits out of you. No, you are too cunning for that. You say something else. You make small-capitalist political speeches such as Mr. Calvin made. What did he say? Here are a few of his phrases I caught: "Our original principles are all right," "What this country requires is a return to fundamental American methods-- free opportunity for all," "The spirit of liberty in which this nation was born," "Let us return to the principles of our forefathers."

`When he says "free opportunity for all," he means free opportunity to squeeze profits, which freedom of opportunity is now denied him by the great trusts. And the absurd thing about it is that you have repeated these phrases so often that you believe them. You want opportunity to plunder your fellow-men in your own small way, but you hypnotize yourselves into thinking you want freedom. You are piggish and acquisitive, but the magic of your phrases leads you to believe that you are patriotic. Your desire for profits, which is sheer selfishness, you metamorphose into altruistic solicitude for suffering humanity. Come on now, right here amongst ourselves, and be honest for once. Look the matter in the face and state it in direct terms.'

Remember This As You Work on Your Dissertation

2007-07-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

"The disease of the modern character is specialization." Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977. [Sierra Club Books softcover edition, 1986, p. 19]

Ill-Chosen Simile

2007-07-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

I should have noticed this sooner:

Just like a good cattle brand helps a rancher identify his herd, our logo and tagline work to differentiate Madison from other communities.

--Sascha Albrecht, "Note from the Director," Madison Chamber of Commerce newsletter, September 2006, p. 2

That would explain the burning sensation on my hindquarters.

Current Reading: God's Politics -- Wallis on Vision and Social Cohesion

2007-07-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" -- Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)

"Another reading of the Proverbs text makes an ever deeper point. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates this famous text as, 'When there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint.' Perhaps that prophetic insight explains why a lack of vision in a society contributes directly ro social unrest, lawlessness, violence, and chaos. It may not just be poverty that leads to social breakdown, but also the absence of any compelling and credible vision, articulated by public leaders and accepted by the people, that serves to hold a society together." -- Jim Wallis, God's Politics, HarperSanFrancisco, 2005, p25.

Wallis is not saying that we need a theocracy (David). He's saying that when we have politicians who cherry-pick the Bible for lines that support their ideology but ignore the complete picture of Jesus's message and the obligations of both personal and social responsibility within the social contract, we get a politics of disillusion and complaint, and civil society crumbles.

Using Quote Marks and Showing Emphasis in Print

2007-07-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

I notice a bad habit among my fellow citizens to use quote marks for purposes other than marking quotes. For instance, the sign on the door at the print shop in town reads as follows:

"We Are Open"

Monday through Friday....

The composer of the sign appears to want to emphasis the phrase "We Are Open." Quote marks, however, do not function as emphasizers. Here, the quote marks distract from the meaning of the words, maybe even suggesting that "We Are Open" is a figure of speech, not a literal statement.

If you want to emphasize words in print, you have a number of graphic options to choose from. On paper, you can use all capital letters, underlining, bold type, or italics. You can increase the font size or use a different font that grabs attention more than the main font of the page or poster. You can also use various graphic characters, like the asterisk, the arrow, and the index (you know, that old-fashioned pointing hand).

Online style experts are pickier (how this came about in the freewheeling world of the Internet, I'm not sure). Using all capital letters for almost any purpose online is a cardinal sin. Underlining can be confusing, since underlining usually indicates a hyperlink. Still, with bold, italics, and other font tricks and graphics at your disposal, you never need to use quote marks for emphasis.

As I tell my students, "Save your quote marks for when you are actually quoting someone." The only other time you might use quote marks is when you are talking about a word as a word. For instance, if you are writing a report about the origin of the word "supercilious," you would put quote marks around that word. Compare that with a sentence in which you refer to your boss as a supercilious supervisor, in which case you would not use quote marks.

"In Your Face" -- Not the Model for Life's Victories

2007-07-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

The whole in-your-face mentality conveyed by professional athletes, Mountain Dew marketing, and other elements of our culture leaves kids totally unprepared for the real nature of competition and victory in our everyday lives. Life isn't like a basketball game, where everyone is watching our every move, just waiting for a chance to cheer that game-winning shot or clever steal. People aren't watching, and for the most part have no idea of or interest in whether we win or lose. They're all too busy fighting their own battles to view our struggles as the central dramas of their lives. When we do win -- when we get that job, are proven right, come out ahead -- very few people, if anyone, will notice. There will be no one at whom to shout "In your face!" and anyone who hears us doing so, if they deign to respond at all, will snicker, "O.K., whatever."

When sports and media train our kids to expect rousing ovations in response to every small achievement, our kids are bound for disappointment when they enter the real world and find themselves living out the daily struggles of family and career in relative anonymity. Truly significant accomplishments will feel like let-downs when they aren't followed by applause.

Our greatet victories are often unseen, unpublicized, and unacknowledged by anyone but ourselves. For most achievements that matter, there is no adoring crowd, no scoreboard, no hall of fame. We must learn to accept our own satisfaction at our accomplishments as enough. If we are confident enough in our own identities and talents, if we do things we truly enjoy and take pride in, we can labor on happily, seeking the good for its own sake, and for our own sake.

Between v Among

2007-07-05T07:05:00.001-07:00

Rapid City Journal publishes this erroneous grammar:

What started six months ago as light-hearted joking between Meadow’s 11 residents has turned into a two-day celebration of the tiny community’s 100th birthday, scheduled for Friday and Saturday, July 6 and 7.

If only two residents had been present at the initial joke-storming session, between would have been correct. However, with three or more participants, one must use among:

What started six months ago as light-hearted joking among Meadow’s 11 residents....

Gray's Eight Main Arguments in False Dawn

2007-07-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

From John Gray, False Dawn, New York: New Press, 1998, IBSN 1-56584-592-7. Nicely summarized in the "Postscript" [211-218]:

"Free markets are creatures of strong government" [211-212] not the natural state of affairs. No state, no free market.
"[D]emocracy and the free market are competitors rather than partners."
Socialism was a disaster and won't come back.
Socialism, a Western ideology itself, was a rejection, not a triumph, of Western ideals (e.g., Enlightenment universalism). Neither post-communist Russia nor China nor any other such recovering communist state has adopted a truly Western or American economic model.
"Marxism-Leninism and free-market economic rationalism have much in common" [215] such as a utilitarian and hence destructive view of nature, "scant sympathy for the casualties of economic progress," advocacy of efficiency uber alles (including industrialization of agriculture and destruction of small farms -- boo!), and a universalizing, homogenizing impulse that would create one global civilization erasing cultural differences.
Free-market ideology is deeply connected to American exceptionalism. We think it works for us, so it must work for everyone else. Our worldview blinds us to dangers of global laissez-faire economics and possible remedies.
"[T]he chronic insecurities of late modern capitalism, especially in its most virulent free market variants, corrode some of the central institutions and values of bourgeois life" [217], particularly the idea of career.
Even the great hegemon, the USA, lacks the power to exert healthy reforms of the global free market on its own. However, it does have the power to veto any reforms intended to mitigate or reverse the destructive (and self-destructive) effects of global economics. "As global laissez-faire breaks up, a deepening international anarchy is the likely human prospect" [218].

Oxymoron of the Week

2007-07-01T06:04:00.001-07:00

Natural Cheetos (on sale in our local grocery store).

What's in a Name? (For Some People, More Just Isn't Enough)

2007-07-01T06:03:00.000-07:00

Laurie Moore-Moore, Founder and CEO, Institute for Luxury Home Marketing (quoted in Maya Roney, "The New Rich Are Building Bigger," BusinessWeek Online, 2007.06.27)