SeniorJunior

Every Little Bit.. . So I got so upset with the banks after the BushCrash that m'Wife and I moved our money from Wells Fargo and BofA to a local credit union (spoiler alert: another post on co-ops of all kinds is coming).  I was so miffed at the banks I even adopted "banksters" as a new perjorative. Granted, my bottom-99% funds will not even tickle the banksters, much less give them a stabbing pain. BUT... every little bit one can do just might do some good.  Every time we repair-reuse-repurpose and recycle we do a tiny little bit. So good old Steven Pearlstein   writes in the Washington Post, "Occupy Wall Street? Just defund it." And it's all about moving your money from wall street to co-ops.  My credit union - yours too, if you have one - is a co-op.  Owned by its customers, as opposed to Wall Street FatCats. And there are all sorts of co-ops out there, just look at this and this . We shop at grower-owned Farmers' Markets, too. O...

The Red/Blue States Map Now Makes Sense You know I'm a Good-Graphics-Make-Good-Communications nut ? This is NOT a good graphic.... ...because it looks like Red States win! And we all know what really happened. So map genius  Mark Newman , using programs he co-invented modified each state to reflect how many electoral College votes it has to come up with this wonder.... Lotsa votes = bigger state on the map. Voila!   Now you see why the blue states called the election. There are lots of other great maps of this ilk on Dr. Newman's site .  Check it out.  Then ask your favorite TV news source why you haven't seen this kind of graphic.

Improve Your Attitude About Everything I  have assigned this book to "transformative" in my personal rating system.  In his recently adopted "dual track" evolutionary idea, E.O. Wilson explains everything.  At least he explains such as why one guy is a hard nosed Republican, another a softy Democrat.  And why there is such intractable polarization.  And so much more.  That's why I say "improve your attitude."  There might be a bit much ant lore in the middle of the book for some folks, but I liked even that.  After all Wilson is a world renowned ant guy too.   He's prolific, original and a fine writer.  This book pulls you along like good narrative fiction, but its ideas are pure science. It goes to my fixation that evolution explains pretty much everything about everything alive.   Strongly recommended.

The HUGE Three If you're just sit around picking your toes -- or listening to right-wing radio - you might think nothing is happening in scientific progress.   Truth is (ah, truth, facts, actualities!), there is an astonishing acceleration in new discoveries, breakthroughs and invention.  I've picked my fav three, and they are so big I call 'em HUGE. These are going to affect us all.  Big time.  But take any random sample of the population of us U.S.-ers, and you will find darn few aware of even one of them, much less all three.  Why is that?  Simple.  The less simple, the less likely the 'mainstream media' is to cover it.  Methinks: Pix credit:  Duffer's flying pencil [Thus my snide comment about right-wing talk radio, home base for simplistic.  "Nuanced" is their word for anything smacking of complexity.  The huge, complex set of information that spells out "global warming" becomes a "hoax." (Interpretati...

Never mind the Higgs Boson, the really BIG science news is our growing ability to “see” invisible dark matter. Check this out: My fav science-for-laymen magazine ScienceNews has the article about seeing a huge filament of dark matter connecting two galaxies. SN has been all over this story for a while. This kind of news plucks my awe twanger.  I love it. Pix credit:  July 8, 2012 ScienceNews

Jim Ramsburg and I worked together in L.A. at KLAC in the deep, dark '60s. He was a whiz kid then and is a whiz olde farte now.  If you were conscious during the '30s, '40s and/or the '50s, you will find yourself riding Dorothy's tornado down Alice's rabbit hole of memory and nostalgia reading his book. If you are student looking for a great media paper, there is endless potentially plagiarisable stuff. If the ratings biz interests you, this will be fascinating. Plus there are a bunch of great stories.  You will grin, giggle and grimace.    Gotta get it!  Do the Amazon boogie. [Check out Jim's web site at http://www.jimramsburg.com/]

We Are Both Misguided and Well Informed Today's NYTimes.com has two articles that come from two different realities.  I couldn't pass this up without a comment.  These days "amazing" must be way more so to kick over the threshold of "gotta blog about it." First I read " Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot" Its about Tea Party types who believe the U.N. is trying to undermine our freedoms and American Way of Life by encouraging hiking trails and reducing greenhouse gases.  Just a sample: " Across the country, activists with ties to the  Tea Party  are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy.  They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a  United Nations -led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities. They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lane...