Blog posts

It was with some despondency that I woke up to the news that CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) passed the US House of Representatives last night. The extracts of the floor debate that made their way onto Morning Edition did not make pleasant listening, and it was particularly disappointing to hear that our local representative, Vern Ehlers, voted for the bill. Some of the more encouraging commentary today has focussed on the fact that the Bush administration had almost made this vote a vote of confidence in his presidency, twisting the arms of many Republican members of the house. At some point some politicians need to start standing up to the increasing tendency of embattled leaders to make any vaguely significant vote a “confidence” issue, but it is heartening that a vote cast as being so crucial came so close to going the other way. ...

For a while now I’ve been wondering about setting up a ‘planet’ style aggregator for discussion of ‘participatory politics’ type tools. Over the past few months I’ve been building lists of such tools at del.icio.us and on a wiki, as well, of course, as in my newsreader. But there’s something to be said for the ‘planet’ approach which allows interested parties to quickly get an overview of who the accepted figures in a given field are and where the conversation stands. ...

I’ve been using Audioscrobbler for about a year now to keep track of my listening, see what others are listening to and pick up recommendations. It’s been good to see the service stabilise a little and features evolve – right now I’m particularly fond of the ‘under appreciated artists’ recommendations as a reminder of areas of my collection to revisit – but every now and again there’s still the odd glitch. ...

Since the late German was invoked by Steve in the comments on this post, now seemd a fitting time to link to BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time and their current featured episode, which is a profile of Karl Marx. I doubt Steve would be interested, but anyone looking to understand the impact Karl Marx and the materialist dialectic have had on subseqent economic and political thought (from both left and right) may well find it fascinating listening. ...

Discussing Hotel Rwanda with friends and acquaintances earlier this year, I was struck by how much more informed about the Rwandan holocaust it seemed I had been than most of those around me. It seemed that even the UK media’s extremely poor coverage of those events entirely dwarfed that provided by US network news. That conversation popped back into my mind when I read the following in an email forwarded by a friend: ...

Posted as a comment on this entry at Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog in response to another commenter. Jeffrey’s post was a link to this article by Kate Bowman Johnston. Gabe - if CCM really did simply exist to perpetuate a sort of music that wouldn’t be accepted in the mainstream because of the way it “edifies the body, lifts God up in worship, and presents Bible truth in good lyrics” then I’d say you had a point. But CCM left those boundaries a long time ago. Even if we could put aside the theological triteness of much of its output (which in itself undermines all three criteria), a few minutes at GMA week will show that it has long since moved on to seeking to present an ‘alternative’ to mainstream culture. ...

If anyone reading this lives in Grand Rapids’ 2nd electoral ward and wasn’t already planning to vote for Rosalynn Bliss in the upcoming city commission elections, I’d urge you to do so, if for negative reasons (which isn’t to say there aren’t positive ones, it’s just a disclaimer). This morning we had a phone call from Right To Life West Michigan urging us to vote (I didn’t spare the time to explain that I’m taxed without representation in the US) for Shaula Johnston. Delighted at the opportunity to communicate with somebody from any campaign, I decided to quiz them on Johnston’s other policies that might affect abortion rates, such as poverty reduction. At the City Commission level there is no chance of having a serious impact on abortion policy, so this would seem a sensible area for an anti-abortion candidate to work on. ...

I’ve resisted posting much here about the recent London bombings or their aftermath. There’ve been plenty of offline conversations, but I’ve been wanting to let some of the dust settle before writing on the subject. We were glad to hear that none of our friends or family in the city were hurt, and glad of the ease of communication that brought that news. Unfortunately, Tony Blair’s statements, reported in the Observer yesterday, implying that changing British foreign policy is not an appropriate response to the attacks seem remarkably superficial. British foreign policy was changed sharply in the wake of the twin-towers attacks (in that case, towards war with Iraq) and it is entirely right and proper that it should be reassessed. ...

While on the East Coast last month we visited Rhode Island for a wedding. That tiny state was a great setting for the nuptials, but I didn’t get much indication at the time that—when it comes to giving its residents access to key information—it is one of the most innovative. Shortly after we returned, I spotted this piece on Jeff Barr’s blog which I’m only just getting to. He eulogises about the clarity with which Rhode Island’s state government have grasped the vision of the “remixable” Web 2.0 concept, and their recent efforts to embrace those technologies: providing their citizens with tools and data about government in a format they can actually use. ...

Skimming through my newsreader I’ve been coming across numerous reports of people mistakenly being sold copies of the latest Harry Potter book. In this story refers to one child returning the copy he was accidentally sold on Monday. Should we feel bad that amazon delivered ours earlier today and that we’ve already been indulging? Tags: Harry Potter | Amazon