Burnin’

Florida is a big state with a lot to offer. There’s the spring break rituals in Ft. Lauderdale, Daytona and Panama Beach. The beautiful people and art deco masterpieces in South Beach. Disney’s megaplex in Orlando. The artists and writers of The Conch Republic, also known as Key West.

One often overlooked aspect of the state I make sure to enjoy is the bounty of nature. Bald eagles, egrets, herons, alligators, manatee, dolphins and panthers make Florida their home. For sure, increasing human population is a dangerous threat to pristine nature. Which makes it all the sweeter to visit places in the state that are hard to reach and therefore relatively untouched. The Ten Thousand Islands are such a place, as is Keewaydin, a barrier island between Naples and Marco Island. Keewaydin is accessible only by boat. There are homes, but very few. You can walk the beach and see no one. That’s a true joy in modern times.

Berkeley is a wonderful place. It’s pretty. It smells good. There’s no better place for espresso anywhere in North America. I could go on.

Then there’s the down side. Due to the town’s progressive history and the locals’ tolerant attitudes (and perhaps the mild climate), an inordinate number of nut jobs call Berkeley home. Scratch that. They’re not crazy, they’re crazy about politics, particularly of the leftist variety. I know. For a short time I worked as a development officer for the Bay Area Green Party, and it was a scarring experience. Here’s but one example. I had written a letter to the local Whole Foods Market–arguably one of the most progressive companies in America–asking them for support. As it turns out, this outraged the head of the East Bay Greens, for the store was not unionized.

Tonight, I came across this wonderfully apt image from the “How Berkeley Can You Be?” parade and it brought back a flood of memories.

Sour Bob is one funny dude. In fact, I can’t think of a funnier blogger. Here’s some of his thinking, from a blog entry titled, “Dear White Guy With Dreadlocks” >>

“The most obvious thing I could point out is that no matter how much you might enjoy smoking weed, being a scruffy Caucasian white guy from Illinois pretty well eliminates your claim on the distinctive hairstyle of a black Jamaican religious sect.

Then I might draw to your attention that you seem to have no knowledge of whatever secret techniques Rastafarians use to keep their locks moderately clean and presentable. Their locks look like slinky tendrils of tribal goodness.

Yours look like you hold them together with Crisco and poop.”

from The Independent: Polar bears, the biggest land carnivores on Earth, face extinction this century if the Arctic continues to melt at its present rate, a study into global warming has found. The sea ice around the North Pole on which the bears depend for hunting is shrinking so swiftly it could disappear during the summer months by the end of the century, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ICIA) says.

The ACIA said a warmer polar region will not only result in the possible extinction of the polar bear and other species. It will present serious challenges to the health and survival of some native peoples and their cultures.

Countries bordering the Arctic, notably Russia, Greenland and Canada, are already planning for the time when the north-west and north-east shipping routes are open all year round. Russia especially is expected to benefit hugely from the control of a year-round shipping route between Japan and Europe which will cut thousands of miles off present-day trade routes.

Xeni Jardin for Wired News: What if the efforts to stop unauthorized music file sharing are successful? How would that change culture?

Jeff Tweedy: If they succeed, it will damage the culture and industry they say they’re trying to save.

What if there was a movement to shut down libraries because book publishers and authors were up in arms over the idea that people are reading books for free? It would send a message that books are only for the elite who can afford them.

Stop trying to treat music like it’s a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can’t be cheap, either.

At times, I have had a soft spot for conspiracy theories. So, maybe it should come as no surprise that my liberal friends are sending me reports of alleged voter fraud. Although, I believe this trend has more to do with my friends’ collective disbelief at the outcome of last week’s election, than my penchant for the story beneath the story.

Thom Hartmann writing for Common Dreams points out that anyone that can hack into a personal computer can hack into a central tabulator (the machine that counts votes from hundreds of precincts), since central tabulators are, in fact, nothing more than PCs. Makes sense.

But the thing that really grabbed me is the news that Karen Hughes, one of Dubya’s closest advisors, told the President on election day that he was going to lose and lose big, since Kerry was ahead in all the battleground states. This revelation indicates to me that if a right wing geek squad did intervene on Bush’s behalf, chances are he and his inner circle knew nothing about it.

I have a number of thoughts about this map and the regional and cultural differences we face today. First, blue and red is the new black and white. That is, the populace is much more evenly divided than this map indicates. Blue states have lots of conservative voters and red states have lots of liberal voters, with some exceptions, notably Utah.

Then I consider that our urban centers are overwhelmingly blue, or liberal. The inverse is also true. Rural counties are almost all red, or conservative. It’s interesting to me how the very Americans most likely to face a terrorist attack are anti-Bush. It seems fear sells much better in homogenous environments. City dwellers are not afraid of gays or foreigners because their nicest neighbors are often gay or foreign-born. It’s in the monocultural landscapes where fear thrives.

See this purple map for a more balanced view.

“Over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed “The #1 Liberal in the Senate.” That’s more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this — that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals — that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that’s BIG news.” -Michael Moore

John Boyle reminded me today to get out in the country in my quest to visit as many Frank Lloyd Wright structures as I can. His neck of the woods near Greensburg, PA is home to two Wrightian gems, the famed Fallingwater and Usonian masterpiece, Kentuck Knob, also known as the Hagan House (for the Hagan family of Hagan Ice Cream fame).

The home constructed of native stone, tidewater cypress and copper was finished in 1956 and is located but seven miles from it’s more famous relative, Falingwater. The allure of Wright, old friends and the rolling countryside of Western PA beckons.