"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Morality

Reclaiming the Common Good:

71% of voters strongly agree that "Americans are becoming too materialistic," including 71% of Democrats, 70% of Independents, and 72% of Republicans. (92% total agree.)

68% of voters strongly agree that the "government should be committed to the common good and put the public’s interest above the privileges of the few." (85% total agree.)

73% of Democrats, 62% of Independents, and 67% of Republicans strongly agree with a common good focus for government. A similar percentage of voters (68%) strongly agree that "government should uphold the basic decency and dignity of all and take greater steps to help the poor and disadvantaged in America." (89% total agree.)

This should be the bedrock of what Public institutions are all about, and instead Bush is pushing a MF constitutional amendment (chance of happening: null) to ban gay marriage.

You know, it annoys me how Republicans get to be the family values people. What's better for a family? Not having the dudes who love eachother and live down the block get legal recognition, or having some fucking health care? Is it learning about "intelligent design" or having one parent with a job that can support the family financial so that both don't have to work full-time? Sheesh.

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Writing Things That People Understand

The second person who I love and respect in a week just complimented me on my writing but also said they don't understand some of what I blather on about. That's fair enough -- and actually I'm pretty flattered in the first place that people think all this first-draft stuff is "well written" --- but that comprehension gap is something I really want to work on.

See, I do actually know what I'm trying to say most of the time. I'm not saying I say it well, but there's an intention to communicate. I'm doing a big writing project this summer, and the goal is to make something that's quite broadly accessible, grokable by all.

So, thinking about what that might entail... one thing I'm definitely going to be doing in the future is setting up some wiki-style linkage, so that when I use obscure terminology I can link to wikipedia (as above for "grok"), and maybe to my own pages when I use something specific. Also: diagrams, pictures, charts and graphs!

It's interesting, trying to express. I'm realizing that I have my own sort of Gestalt in which I operate. It includes a lot of weird and/or disparate things that I don't think most people necessarily have rattling around in their head. All things go. All things go. But it being my Gestalt after all, I think it's worth something. It's part of what I want to capture in the old writing.

I feel like it should be possilbe to break it down into simple bits, like axioms. I used to wonder if doing this would smart myself out of a job, but now I don't worry. There will always be people who need help applying abstract knowledge to their real-world problems (this gets complex; it's often even kind of hard) and these people will always be able to hire me to help out. In the mean time, the more other people who get more capable the better for everyone.

Not that I'll be able to bring anyone enlightenment (ha!) or smarts or even useful knowledge or anything, but I can try.

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Yearly Kos, Las Vegas

Vegas here I come. Yep. Looks like I'll be teaming up with some other heads to do an all-day CivicSpace marathon on Thursday at the Yearly Kos.

Hopefully I'll have picked up a camera by then (gonna try to do that tomorrow). Should have some fun pictures if so.

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War Drums

Wes uncovers final proof that we must fear (fear) the menace of Persian Plutonium.

And, on a more serious note, scuttlebutt from the military types says there's a pretty good-sized arms buildup around Iran, though maybe all it really is is a way to gin up the price of oil. Hmm...

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