Tax the greedy, help the needy, and motivate conservation across the economy.
What They Tell Us vs. What We Want To Know
I’ve been reading up a lot lately on web usability, which is the art and science of making web sites user-friendly. Most of the literature deals with presentation (fonts, colors, layout, etc.) and programming elements (pop-up info boxes, dialog boxes, etc.). This diagram (hat tip to Jeffrey Zeldman) deals with actual content:
Of course, this example illustrates a university website, but it could easily be adapted to the sites of government agencies, non-profits, and even many businesses and corporations of all sizes.
When I showed this to RoZ, she had an immediate reaction to its humor and astute accuracy, even though I introduced it as “kinda geeky.” She made remarks about “publicity vs. useful information.”
It vividly illustrates a disconnect in modern communication where our major institutions have fallen completely out-of-touch with the people they serve.
Into the Woods
We went for a walk in Hixon Forest yesterday. It seemed like a good way to spend a hot day in July. So we were hiking on the Hickory Trail and almost at the junction to Lookout Point. We’d just come around a corner and I was walking in front.
As we neared a tree in the trail Obbie yelled “STOP”. I looked down, saw a snake and heard it’s rattle all at the same time. I tried not to panic, although I wanted to run back down the trail as fast as I could. Instead, we stepped back and let the snake continue across the path and into the woods.
Obbie had the small camera along and recorded what we saw. Kinda shaky, but considering the circumstances…
A large rattlesnake crosses a trail in Hixon Forest.
Close-up detail of the above picture.
After recovering our senses we continued on up the trail to Lookout Point, with a lot more awareness of what’s around us. And respect too. Thanks snake, and Obbie, for the warning.
This encounter reminded us of this silly but fun little Flash video. Watch for the snake.
BP = Boycott Petroleum
There’s a movement to boycott BP because of the way they f’d up the Gulf of Mexico… just as Exxon f’d up the shore of Alaska in 1989, and Pemex f’d up the Gulf in 1979, and Unocal f’d up the Santa Barbara coast in 1969, and on and on.
They’re ALL evil. If we keep driving, they’ll keep drilling, making it inevitable that this’ll happen again. We must strive to boycott ALL petroleum. (For the record, so far this year we’ve spent about $20 on gasoline… one small tank of gas.)
Oil on the Water
This song was stuck in my head, and I couldn’t rest until it came out, even though it may be a bit crude. And nowadays, it seems the best way to get wide release of a new song is to make it into a youtube video:
The lyrics are after the jump.
Arizona: Let the Boycott Begin
We have friends in Arizona that we’d love to see. There are places in Arizona we’d love to visit. But while the government of that state continues to pass hateful, mean-spirited, and simply stupid laws, we cannot knowingly spend a penny in that state.
For those who haven’t yet heard, there is now a law in Arizona that says that if a cop doesn’t like the way you look, then he/she can say “your papers, please!”, and if you don’t happen to be carrying your birth certificate or passport, then you will go to jail until you can prove you’re a lawful citizen of this country.
Even though we are not among the “brown people” this law is targeting, let’s look at this more closely. When we were in Vancouver BC, wearing our flashy purple outfits, some people thought we were from Montreal. When we were in Bath, England, someone thought we had Canadian accents. We have a habit of exchanging simple phrases in conversation in a language that is not English. Might it be possible that some rogue cop might be offended by our unconventional look and find “reason for suspicion” that we might not be American citizens?
This new law is offensive to the extreme, so until it is repealed, and those who pass it apologize for this foolishness (or the sane citizens outnumber the insane citizens and vote these fools out of office), Arizona joins Israel and Italy as “no-go” destinations for us.
The Cabin Fever Eradication Adventure
Sometime in early January, we began to feel overwhelmed by the winter doldrums. Later in the month we grasped for an explanation of why we were feeling this way. We observed that since Thanksgiving, we had not ventured more than 1.5 miles from our house. A change of scenery would be good. Just a weekend someplace else. It doesn’t have to be far, but it should be someplace we enjoy going. Read on
Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference 2010
The Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference is the largest gathering of its kind in the United States. We became aware of it in the early ’90s, when the organic farming movement was just beginning to expand beyond its narrow “counter-culture” niche. Today organic farming is big business, and some of the biggest food corporations are trying to muscle in on the fastest-growing sector of the food business. Read on
What Does This Mean?
During the years of the Bush/Cheney regime, many people displayed the American flag upside-down as a signal of distress.
Knowing that, how do we interpret this:
A Green Bay Packer flag flies upside-down on a late February afternoon in La Crosse.
I mean, weren’t they 11-6 this season? WTF?
The Snowplow Haiku
Crashing, rumbling, scraper of blacktop
Spreader of sand, sprinkler of salt
I didn’t really put much thought into it, it just came out as the snowplow went by. RoZ said, “Crashing, rumbling,” and I added the rest. She counted the syllables: 17, which – along with referencing the season – makes it a haiku by definition.
So for people who are much more “into” this kind of thing than we are, here you go.