Archives: December 2004
Fri Dec 31, 2004
Malvina Was Only Half Right
I wanted to pass on to all you lesbians and lesbian couples one household device that you should not be without: A dolly. More...
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Curse of Eleusis
While poking around the web reading about the Eleusian Mysteries, I have read many times that the site of Eleusis is one of the most industrial and polluted in all of Greece. Until today I had never read about how that might have happened. In a page called The Curse of Eleusis I read one interpretation of history. More...
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Thu Dec 30, 2004
The Red Haired Girl From the Bog
I'm about halfway through Patricia Monaghan's book, subtitled, "The Landscape of Celtic Myth and Spirit." I had to get past her narcissic voice and insipid style, but I did it to be able to read stories like this, of her experience at a Newgrange Winter solstice: More...
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Addictive Activity and Too Much Time
I would suggest that you not download the game "snood." Under no circumstances should you pay the reasonable shareware fee and register your copy.
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How to Draw a Labyrinth
Here's how to draw one yourself, on paper. And here's how to draw one with a group of people.
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Sat Dec 25, 2004
Staircase Tour Part 2
In case you're wondering, I didn't visit the "Pratcher" staircase on Walnut. Instead I visited the stairs on Mission Hill. Did you know about the hidden stair at the end of Green Street near Chestnut? More...
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Staircase Tour Part 1
There's something about a secret staircase, isn't there? Santa Cruz has several pedestrian staircases, and because they are disused by the auto-bound, and mis-used by bums, they have become examples of the in-plain-sight secret. More...
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Tue Dec 21, 2004
John Perry Barlow and Our Constitutional Rights
John Barlow was arrested last year and his case is finally coming to trial. I loved reading his post about the experience because he is such a great writer, but I wish it had all not happened. Sooner or later, all of use are going to have to put of a defense, as over-reaching law-enforcement leads to mission creep. More...
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Hemp and Fascism
This is a pretty good article on the history of industrialism, corporate power, and democracy. You put those three things together and you get what the Germans called Nazis. We call it Corporatism, but they call it "The American People," which is a very clever tactic of misdirection. Oh yeah, and hemp is involved. The miracle plant. Why on earth could any plant be illegal? It must be tremendously powerful and threatening.
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Scenic
I never take the views here for granted, do you? This one is a faded image of what I really saw last week, coming down Hagar Drive at dusk. There is no way to take a picture of the beauty of our bay. More...
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A New District Downtown
We have a historic district now. Even though it reminds me of Disneyland, I like it anyway. More...
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French Food
Last night we made that cake that is traditional in all high school French classes: The Bouche de Noel. More...
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Fri Dec 17, 2004
The Brides' Special Day (x7)
At work we were requested to move the IP address of a quicktime streaming server from Porter College to the Communications building. A professor was going to use the QT server for a performance on Dec 18th, but the campus had planned a power outage at that same time in that same area of the campus. So we moved the server yesterday to a place that will have electricity. And therefore, you will be able to see Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens get married. Live. I think this is a lovely idea, and I hope the execution is as interesting as the concept.
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Tue Dec 14, 2004
New Chancellor at UCSC
I think it is hilarious that UCSC will have a chancellor who is an out-lesbian. More...
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More on "Real Mexican"
A few days ago I commented on something I had heard on the radio about Mexican Food: that Mexican cuisine includes a wide variety of bugs and worms, and that of the 600 edible bugs, 400 of them are in Mexico. Well, someone told me something interesting about this situation. More...
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Mon Dec 13, 2004
Comment Spam
You may have noticed the comment spam. Sorry about this. It is a huge problem for the entire community of "pMachine" users. We've all been hit by the same group of users on similar IP addresses and similar domain names. The pMachine company plans to have a fix out before the end of the year. I have to go through and delete the bogus users, but the spammers create the users without a username so deleting them is harder than usual. And the comments aren't deleted when the users go.
I need to keep up deleting users and comments until the fix is written, and frankly, I have other things to do. There are ways to reprogram my blog to slow them down, but I've watched the message boards as they defeat the workarounds we put in place, so it doesn't seem worth it. It is just so sad and aggravating. Another community ruined by thieves.
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Chain of Thought
I'm so glad the New Yorker is on-line. This way, Arts and Letters Daily can read it and tear out the good articles for me to read. Last week, I read "Something Borrowed; Should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life?" For decades now I have thought that I had a very good idea of the difference between plagiarism and inspiration. My foundations on the subject have not been shaken, but the issue is much broader for me after reading this essay. More...
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Sat Dec 11, 2004
The Corporate Claus
Here's an interesting article in the New Statesman, (via Arts and Letters Daily) giving us the history of the East India company, and recent interest in it as the pioneer of global capitalism. What I didn't know before reading it is that Adam Smith, the god of all capitalists, wrote that corporations must be tightly controlled: More...
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Fri Dec 10, 2004
Real Mexican
The other day I noticed that the hamburger stand in Felton at Graham Hill and Highway 9 is a taqueria now. And of course you know that the Pontiac Grill (or whatever its late name was) is a taqueria now too. I like Mexican food as well as anyone, but does every joint need to have exactly the same menu? The other day I heard a story on NPR and now have hope for more diversity. More...
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Mon Dec 06, 2004
Biweekly, Bicycle, Bisect
At a meeting at work today we discussed having meetings twice a week instead of every other week, and this topic lead to a discussion of "biweekly" verses "semi-monthly," as it always does, which lead to no one knowing which was correct, which is also inevitable. With the magic of wireless networking, I was able to look up an answer, and found this: More...
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