mjh's blog

you oughta be in pictures

“When I’m ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I’m interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.” – Ansel Adams [hattip]

knowledge in the making

“When there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good [people] is but knowledge in the making.” – John Milton

The Longest Day of the Year

Happy Solstice, everyone! "Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run."

But who will protect the global mega-corps? Republicans to the defense!

Galling:  “[BP] shouldn’t have to be fleeced and make [made] chumps…” Chumps?!  Poor BP!

Not surprisingly, Bachman ignores the independent body set up to manage the money from BP. It’s no ATM.

Think Progress » Bachmann: ‘I’m not a shill for BP.’

Before Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) became BP’s biggest fan and apologist yesterday, one of the loudest voices criticizing the Obama administration was Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who said that BP needs to stand up for itself:

“They have to lift the liability cap,” said Bachmann. “But if I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there — ‘We’re not going to be chumps, and we’re not going to be fleeced.’ And they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t have to be fleeced and make chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest — they’ve got to be legitimate claims.

“The other thing we have to remember is that Obama loves to make evil whatever company it is that he wants to get more power from. He makes them evil, and what we’ve got to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to be paying $9 for a gallon of gas? Because that could be the final result of this.”

Think Progress » Bachmann: ‘I’m not a shill for BP.’

Good gawd, how does this fool come out of Minnesota, of all places.

WTF?!

Some on the right have said repeatedly that Obama embarrasses America by showing too much respect or deference to some foreign leaders, instead of the bully-swaggering of Duhbya [spit on the ground], when he wasn’t kissing Saudi princes. Now we see a Republican stick his head out of BP’s ass in order to kiss it. Pretty embarrassing, I think.

Think Progress » Joe Barton to BP: ‘I apologize’ for the White House ‘shakedown.’

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) speaking to BP CEO Tony Hayward:

“I’m speaking totally for myself, I’m not speaking for the Republican Party, I’m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself. But I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown…

“So I’m only speaking for myself, I’m not speaking for anybody else, but I apologize, I do not want to live in a country where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

[NOTE:] Barton has taken $1.4 million from the oil and gas industry, including $27,350 from BP.

Think Progress » Joe Barton to BP: ‘I apologize’ for the White House ‘shakedown.’

Remember the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez: Through a decades-long process in court, penalties were steadily whittled down to a trifle, even as Exxon’s profits rose ad nauseum. Corporations rule, and Republicans salute.

[Updated 9:47pm]

Think Progress » More GOP Lawmakers Hop On Bandwagon To Smear $20 Billion Escrow Fund As ‘Chicago Style Shakedown’ 

Last night, the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest caucus of Republican House members, fired off a statement declaring that the $20 billion dollar negotiated by BP and the Obama administration for victims of the oil catastrophe in the gulf is a “Chicago-Style Political Shakedown.” Echoing this sentiment, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) told BP executives that he is “sorry” for Obama’s “shakedown” of their company.

Think Progress » More GOP Lawmakers Hop On Bandwagon To Smear $20 Billion Escrow Fund As ‘Chicago Style Shakedown’

Texas rep. Barton backs off defense of BP « New Mexico Independent 

After perhaps underestimating the amount of populist ire directed towards BP, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, has now apologized for apologizing to BP chairman Tony Hayward. Reports indicate that Barton was forced to apologize by GOP leaders or face losing his spot as ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Texas rep. Barton backs off defense of BP « New Mexico Independent

Mmmoon

mjh wonders what moon water tastes like. And Martian water, too.

A Week Without Facebook (is like a fish without a bicycle)

[That’s a hattip to a slogan from my youth. Almost a koan, really.]

Trust me, it’s not hard to live without Facebook. Quitting cigarettes was much more difficult – and cigarettes are vile and poisonous. A better analogy might be giving up email or the phone (for some, certainly not for me).

It’s not that I’m noticeably healthier (though I have napped more). Nor have I channeled wasted hours into weight-lifting or yoga or reading. In fact, I’ve spent more time blogging in the past week than of late. That’s ironic because fewer people are seeing these blog entries and, if it were possible, even fewer are commenting. (Not a plea for a comment.)

Still, I’m happy here, back where I began, at home on my blog. Stop by again, sometime.

earliest sunrise is earlier than you think

“While the solstice itself falls on the morning of the 21st, the earliest sunrise of the year occurs a week before on the 14th.” [*]

She deserved a better end…

Our friend, Kathleen Crownover, died 6/12/10. Eleven months ago, I wrote of her leaving her long-time home of Albuquerque as a kind of death. She proved my pronouncement foolish by prospering for months after the move. Unfortunately, for the past two months, she suffered more and more. One might wish for death, but the body clings to life, no matter how weak or pain-full.

I do not share the belief that Kathleen has gone to a better place. She’s gone. I would feel so much happier if I could think there is more to it than that. But, all can agree, she’s better off than she was a week ago.

Though her end may have a lesson for us all, her life surely did. Kathleen was extraordinarily kind, gracious, and generous. She had a good smile and a sweet chuckle. She was a good friend. We will think of her often.

One story: Kathleen took Merri to Paul’s Monterey Inn many times a year, simply as a friend as well as a thank you to Merri for her long, tireless work on KC’s behalf. I joined them many times in later years. We always had Mark Lyon’s as our superb waiter. One day, Kathleen, who was legally blind, albeit not completely, leaned over toward me in the dark restaurant and said, “Mark, your beard has turned white!” She was right, of course, but anyone who makes you laugh at a truth you’d rather ignore is a gift.

PS: Herewith, I start a new category on my blog: Obituaries. The entries will grow as the exits do.

The Hundredth Monkey Asks, ‘What are we doing to ourselves?’ [updated]

But, is the Internet – the Web, really – worse than TV? Didn’t people wring their hands over kids sitting passively in front of the TV for hours – even as many used them the boob-tube as an electronic babysitter?

We never seem to know what we need to when we need to. It always takes too much time to recognize the lead in the pipes. Lives are ruined in the meantime.

Ruth Marcus – Our gadgets, ourselves

I must know — now — what has arrived in my inbox, even though almost all of it is junk. I live an alt-tab existence, constantly shuttling among the open windows on my browser. I have switched, in Carr’s formulation, from "reading to power-browsing." I am a lab rat "constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment."

I love technology. It lets me work better and faster. It untethers me from a physical office and allows me to, well, alt-tab efficiently between work and family. E-mail and social networking, with the combination of ease of access yet remoteness of interaction, help make and renew personal connections.

But technology also takes its toll — including physically. "The technology is rewiring our brains," Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, told the New York Times. The brain is malleable, and, like any regular exercise, the instant gratification world of the Web helps build certain neural connections while others molder.

Ruth Marcus – Our gadgets, ourselves

Is Nicholas Carr right about the Internet and attention spans? – Newsweek 

There’s a lot that’s been written lately about how the Web is puréeing people’s gray matter. The most thorough take on the topic is Nicholas Carr’s new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, but anyone who’s been spending a lot of time surfing is probably going to be so distracted by e-mails and Facebook, etc., that he won’t be able to finish the book. Instead, he’ll turn, with irony, to the Web, where he’ll find plenty to read, especially if he’s looking for it today: The New York Times has just published two stories, a blog post, and an interactive feature arguing that the electronic methods by which they themselves are delivered are “intrusive, have increased [people's] levels of stress and have made it difficult to concentrate.” [mjh: Even more links in the rest of the article.]

Is Nicholas Carr right about the Internet and attention spans? – Newsweek

[Updated 9pm] Newmexiken posts a different view, but don’t let that distract you:

[begin Newmexiken’s entry]

‘[E]very time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes’
[mjh: for some reason, this post title makes me think of the assertion that smell involves aroma molecules impacting smell sensors, therefore, when  you smell a fart …]

Originally posted Friday, June 11, 2010 

If you’re reading this blog post on a computer, mobile phone or e-reader, please stop what you’re doing immediately. You could be making yourself stupid. And whatever you do, don’t click on the links in this post. They could distract you from the flow of my beautiful prose and narrative.

Nick Bilton – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com

Bilton goes on to discredit that theory and survey some recent thinking on the topic. Among other things, his discussion led me to this:

“And to encourage intellectual depth, don’t rail at PowerPoint or Google. It’s not as if habits of deep reflection, thorough research and rigorous reasoning ever came naturally to people. They must be acquired in special institutions, which we call universities, and maintained with constant upkeep, which we call analysis, criticism and debate. They are not granted by propping a heavy encyclopedia on your lap, nor are they taken away by efficient access to information on the Internet.”

Steven Pinker

Both are worth reading if you’re not too distracted.

[/end Newmexiken’s entry]

I’m reminded of the word-nerds in Word Wars or Wordplay. They shaped their minds to be very fast with words. Did their checkbook-balancing skills suffer as a result?

On my mind

“I can’t forget, but I don’t remember what.” – Leonard Cohen

living

“I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a life.” – Maya Angelou

Status Updates

Social networking sites, such as Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook, let you use short messages to update your friends on what you’re doing, your mood, etc. Yes, a status update may say more than anyone cares to know, yet these short “Hello World!” messages do remind everyone you’re still alive.

Visitors to my three blogs may notice – or not – that I’ve incorporated status updates into the header of each blog. (On most blogs, the tagline rarely changes.)  The two of you who use RSS to subscribe to my blogs will still, er, get the benefit of these updates, which are like any other posting, only briefer. (Huzzah!)

I expect to update my status no more than once a day and as little as once a week on each blog. If you want to see all status updates for one blog, there’s a link for that. To see all updates and entries for all blogs – you glutton, you – there’s a link for that, too.

I do miss the interaction in Facebook, where a status update often elicits a response from more than one friend. Out here in the wilderness, these updates may only be greeted by the sound of tumbleweeds blowing and coyotes ululating. Do feel free to comment (just click on the status update in the header) or send email.

"Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing… till the ductile anchor hold; Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul." Walt Whitman, A Noiseless Patient Spider