Politics
Entries related to things political.
The New Hampshire Primary
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/27/2011 - 21:20One of the things I've always liked about the New Hampshire Primary is that it is pretty easy to get on the ballot. Pretty much, all you have to do is file your application and send in a check for $1000. Maybe I'll run for President some day.
Of course, being on the ballot doesn't mean you'll get any votes, or an press coverage, as many of the candidates are finding. The candidate list from the New Hampshire Secretary of State office lists thirty different candidates.
We've all heard the big names on the ballot, people like Romney, Perry and Gingrich, all of which seem to be just more of the old little government, except for when it benefits their corporate cronies, Republicans. Then there's the Bachmann, Santorum social conservative crazies. Cain is still on the ballot.
Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman are probably the two mainstream Republican candidates that I can take at all seriously. I don't agree with Paul on a lot of issues, but I mostly respect him. The little I've heard about Huntsman is good, but I haven't really studied where he is on the issues.
Yet this leaves a lot of other candidates worth looking at. Fred Karger talks about supporting LBGT rights, the right of a woman to choose her reproductive health, legalizing and taxing marijuana, and lowering the voting age. He's a fiscal conservative who believes in energy independence and a path to citizenship for immigrants already in the country. While I don't agree with him on all issues, he sounds like that extinct breed of mainstream Republicans.
Another Republican candidate on the ballot is Andy Martin. He lists himself as a 'corruption fighter' from Illinois. He strongly supports the Second Amendment, strongly opposes Cap and Trade, etc. Doesn't seem to be much of substance there.
Prior to reading through the list from the Secretary of State's office, the lesser known Republican candidate that I was most interested in was Buddy Roemer. Somehow, I ended up on his press list. Probably his press list includes anyone who will write something about him online, because, he's getting no coverage, even though, I think he may be one of the more respectable Republican candidates. His lead issue is fighting special interests, and he's doing a good job on that issue. He calls for a balanced budget and supports reforming health care but says "Healthcare reform under President Obama fell victim to special interests". Like with other Republican candidates, I'm likely to have major disagreements with them, and I suspect this is the case with Roemer as well, but he's well worth looking at.
Then, there's Vern Wuensche. He ran back in 2008, spent $36,000 and came in tenth in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Pretty much standard drastically smaller government stuff; do away with the Department of Education, eliminate the IRS, eliminate the Department of Energy, etc.
John Davis has an eagle, and image of him wielding a giant star spangled pipe wrench, and lots of conservative rhetoric. I think Stephen Colbert does a better parody of image obsessed conservatives, but I'm not sure that Davis is intending his site to be a parody.
Yeah, there's lots more, and I might get around to writing about more of the candidates later. Who knows, maybe I'll even take a crack at some of the other Democratic candidates; yeah, there's several….
Tracing a Musical Linguistic Virus in the Internet Age
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/17/2011 - 21:37The other day, I was listening to the radio and I heard something that has set me off in the search of a Musical Linguistic Virus. The idea comes from Neal Stephenson's novel, Snow Crash. In Snow Crash there is a bio linguistic virus which ends up getting spread via virtual worlds. It seems to be a pretty virulent science fiction virus, but it seems like the idea isn't really all that far from reality.
Ideas, snippets of music, and memes have been spread from one person to another for ages. Perhaps a good example is an ear worm. Even without the Internet, ear worms can spread quickly. For people my age, I could simply mention, "Lovin' You" by Minnie Riperton, and many of my friends would not be able to get the tune out of the head.
Yet perhaps musical linguistic viruses in the Internet Age are more complicated. It wasn't a simple ear worm that I heard on the radio that I haven't been able to get out of my head. Instead, the host of the radio show was talking with guests from a band. They talked about key musical influences, bands from the eighties, and reusing samples. Perhaps they are taking musical DNA from the eighties and mutating it into new ear worms or musical linguistic viruses.
They mentioned Brian Eno, so I started to listen to some of his ambient music series on Spotify. This is a new avenue where musical linguistic viruses can spread. A thought came to me listening to a radio show. I pursued the thought on Spotify by listening to the music. Spotify posted to my Facebook Timeline that I had listened to Brian Eno and friends commented on it.
Steven L Johnson said, "That's what I listen to when I want to nap. :-)".
I responded, "Well, I've had a LONG week, and I'm actually going to crash soon." In fact, I did head off to bed soon after that, but my mind continued to turn about this. How does music affect what we think? How much does it reflect the current culture? Can we culture jam spreading different musical linguistic viruses via the Internet?
Perhaps an interesting project would be to create word clouds of the lyrics to the 25 songs of each year and tracking how it has changed.
So, what are you listening to? Why are you listening to it? How is it changing you? Perhaps most importantly, can we change what we listen to and how we talk about it to change our country and our world?
Joe's Ghost
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/15/2011 - 22:19It was the holiday party for the staff of the Town of Woodbridge, along with board and committee members. Seventy or eighty people gathered in a small Italian Restaurant down in the flats. They had their cocktails, ate their appetizers and main courses and chatted. In the background there was music; a lot of it from a generation ago.
I sat with my wife, whose grandparents had lived for many years in Woodbridge. Her grandfather had done a lot of stuff for the town; I think it was in public works and as part of the volunteer fire department. Some of the folks there remembered Joe. They talked fondly of the great work he did and how he treated everyone with respect.
Kim commented about how some of the music include songs her grandfather would sing to her and about how he most be pleased to have old friends telling kind stories about him to his grand daughter and her husband who are now both on town commissions.
Joe had lived near the golf course and had sledded on the hills when he was young. Now, people were talking about the referendum and what would happen next to the golf course.
Kim had to leave early to pick up Fiona and I quickly followed suit. I need to be up early tomorrow. I don't know if anyone got up to say kind words to all the people that help make the town run as smoothy as it does, both the employees as well as people serving on boards and commissions.
Yet they should be praised, for it carries with it an echo of old New England Towns where people worked hard together to make sure everything ran smoothly and everyone was properly cared for. It was an echo of a New England town where my wife's grandfather did his tasks to make a mark, and where everyone can follow in his footsteps.
Referendum Recap
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/13/2011 - 22:32This evening I had a committee meeting in Orange, so I rushed home, let the dog out, ran to the committee meeting, and left in time for the referendum results at the Woodbridge Center. Many of the usual suspects were there to watch the results, about 30 in all. A couple represented local news organizations and the Bethwood Patch and the Milford Orange Bulletin both have stories up about the results already. The reading of the results was recorded for WGATV79.
The referendum was clearly defeated, 588 votes for, 1190 votes against. I tweeted the results from the gymnasium. Then I chatted with various people about what comes next. As best as I can tell, a new committee will investigate different options and the process is likely to continue for a while.
Woodbridge Referendum: Sale of Public Land
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/10/2011 - 18:16On Tuesday, residents of Woodbridge will go to the polls to make an important decision. An editorial in the Milford-Orange Bulletin, in support of the deal, Toll Brothers is good deal for town, puts it this way:
Will they approve a plan to help pay for a major track of open space by selling a small portion, or will they opt to wait for a possible better offer that does not currently exist and potentially miss this chance to secure the future of the parcel?
They conclude,
When facing this major decision, Woodbridge voters should rest assured that their elected leaders have done their homework, put together a very good plan, and are presenting it to the town’s citizens for their approval. This makes the choice much easier: The Bulletin supports a Yes vote.
James Urbano, who Manta lists as owner of F & J Urbano CO Builders in Woodbridge, “private company which is listed under home builders”, and is listed on the town website as a member of the Conservation Commission has a letter in the Bulletin, Vote No on land sale, which starts off,
The Boards of Finance and Selectmen claim that “Woodbridge tax rates will climb significantly” if townspeople say “No” to Toll Bros. It’s unfortunate that town officials have resorted to scare tactics. The sale is not good for Woodbridge.
I have only made it to the special town meeting on the topic, and so my information is based on what was presented there. I also serve on the town’s Government Access Television commission and the commission has started sharing recordings of some town meetings on YouTube on the WGATV 79 YouTube Channel.
I encourage all the residents of Woodbridge to read both the Editorial in favor of the land sale and the letter in opposition to the land sale. I then encourage you to watch the videos of the town meetings. The meetings are long and are broken into segments to fit onto YouTube. Then, once you are informed about the issue, be sure to get to the Center on the 13th to vote.
