One of my favorite songs from what I think of as “first-period” U2 (the era before Unforgettable Fire) has always been “New Year’s Day,” with its juxtaposition of optimism and acquiescence, suggesting:
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.
On New Year’s Day.
But then at the center of the song declaring with renewed affirmation:
Though torn in two
We can [...]

Just finished reading The Transparent Society, David Brin’s 1998 rumination on the question of “Will Technology Force Us to Chose Between Privacy and Freedom.”
It’s a really thoughtful book about an alternative approach to the battle over privacy based on two-way transparency, or more accurately accountability. Along the way I marked a few passages in the [...]

While I’ve not doubt that a vegan president-elect Kucinich would be closer to my views on the animals-we-call-food, it’s enheartening truly to see Obama talking about food policy with a true intellectual approach, trying to understand how environmental issues are mixed up with how “food” is produced.
First, to backtrack. Via ecorazzi ( Barack Obama Discusses [...]

I just wanted to quickly share two recent videos cover my disgust over California’s prop 8 and related legislation better than I could myself.
The first is Lindsay Campbell, from MobLogic.tv:

The second, from Countdown with Keith Olberman on MSNBC:

I’m simultaneously very proud we managed to elect Obama; equally sad we chose to remove rights from gay [...]

I don’t normally push online petitions, the theory being that the ease with which a petition is generated, circulated, and signed is inversely proportional to the influence it has on those addressed (online petitions are too easy to do and therefore less meaningful).
But this one I think has a chance:
If Sen. Barack Obama becomes [...]