Also check out page 2 of this excellent resource.
Open Source Mac - Free, Open-Source software for OS X
Rock stars' green trees may be hot air - Sunday Times - Times Online
Eldest son Mickey has just been published in the January edition of PLoS Pathogens, "a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science."
PLoS Pathogens: Listeria monocytogenes Invades the Epithelial Junctions at Sites of Cell Extrusion
Mickey Pentecost1, Glen Otto2, Julie A. Theriot1,3, Manuel R. Amieva1,4*
1 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America, 2 Department of Comparative Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America, 3 Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America, 4 Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America
And his image (above) is on the cover!
Arte contemporáneo, irrumpe en la frontera sur - El Universal Online - Cultura
Also via Daily Wireless, this interesting mesh system.
AnchorFree in San Francisco, Association for Community Networking developing software tools.
Daily Wireless - MySpace Free WiFi
Hey Mick, why didn't you tell me about this?
Stanford University lectures and more online.
FT.com / World / Americas - Masked rebel makes comeback as Delegate Zero
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Agricultural Sustainability = Agricultural Productivity
General John Craddock is making a 2 day visit to Guatemala to confirm the destruction of narcotraffickers' airstrips in the Laguna del Tigre Park of the Peten.
Jefe Comando Sur EEUU verifica destruccion pistas clandestinas
Any readers I still have from last year might remember my baby steps with CivicSpace and Drupal. Here is the 2006 improved version.
CiviCRM 1.3 Released | OpenNGO
We're hard-wired for geometry - Science Mysteries - MSNBC.com
My thanks to Josh at Merida Insider, who is scanning and posting chapters of "In an Unknown Land" by Thomas Gann. Check the lively comments on his post:
Merida Insider, the Information Source for Merida, Yucatan - Forum
From Josh:
It recounts a trip he took around Yucatan during World War I with Sylvanus Morley, the archaeologist who headed the Carnegie project to rebuilt Chichen Itza. The two men, and a few others, started in Belize and made their way by water around the Peninsula.
As usual, I have begun scanning in the text into my computer. What follows is Gann's account of their arrival into Merida.
(I'll presume to copy it into this weblog - Click MORE)
Chapter XI
WE were boarded by the Customs and Health Authorities at 8.30 next morning, and on learning that the party consisted of two American citizens and a British subject the progress of our baggage through the usual Customs formalities was greatly expedited, for the Yucatecans, unlike most Mexicans, are extremely friendly both to Great Britain and the U.S.A., one reason being that most of their imports are derived from the latter country, while henequen—practically their only export—finds a ready market there.
There is no harbour at Progreso, consequently ships are compelled to anchor out in the open roadstead to gigantic sunken chains provided by the Government for that purpose, for which privilege they pay five dollars gold daily.
At the Custom House we were relieved of the arsenal of automatics, revolvers, and belts and bandoliers of cartridges carried by Morley and Held, as no one is permitted to carry firearms in the State of Yucatan—a most excellent and thoroughly sensible regulation, showing a comprehensive knowledge on the part of the authorities of the psychology of their countrymen. If such a law were only enforced throughout Latin America it would do more to civilise the country and abolish the perennial revolutions than all the talk of all the “patriots.”
We had heard a good deal about the high wages and high cost of living in Yucatan, but our first personal experience of it consisted in having to pay ten dollars gold for a cart to transfer our baggage from the Custom House to the railway-station, a distance of about a quarter of a mile. We simply reviled the cartman at first when he made this apparently extortionate demand, but soon discovered to our sorrow that the transfer of baggage is a sort of monopoly, for which the fortunate monopolists charge practically “all the traffic will bear “—in other words as much as they think the victim’s pocket will stand. Fortunately for us, our own appearance and that of our baggage, after a month of the Lilian Y, were equally disreputable, so we got off comparatively lightly.
The pier master—well known to me, as he had formerly been a clerk in the British Honduras Government Service— told us that on the piers and wharves unskilled labourers were being paid five dollars gold daily, while skilled stevedores, with overtime, sometimes made as much as twenty-five dollars in twenty-four hours. I wonder what proportion of professional men—lawyers, parsons, doctors—either in England or the United States make such incomes as these?
We caught the 10.30 train for Merida, arriving in little over an hour, after an extremely unpleasant journey in a crowded carriage—hot as an oven, and permeated by the fine limestone dust of the peninsula, which induces in new-comers, till they get used to it, an unpleasant state of suffocation.
Merida is one of the prettiest, cleanest, gayest little capitals it has been my good fortune to visit. In many ways it reminds one of Monte Carlo in the season. The warm climate, the scrupulous cleanliness of the streets and plazas, the flowers, music, and sunshine, the crowds of pretty, well-dressed girls, the numbers of prosperous-appearing idlers, the absence of poverty, squalor, and ugliness, and the perpetual air of festa, are all common to both.
The Plaza de Independencia is the main plaza or square, and the chief place of rendezvous of the town. Its north side is occupied by the State Executive Palace, its south by the Montejo Palace, its west by the Municipal Palace, while on its east side stands the fine old sixteenth century cathedral, where, though the devout are allowed to enter and pray in front of the altar, Mass is no longer celebrated, as all the padres, with the exception of one or two in Merida and Campeche (who, however, do not celebrate the Mass, but confine themselves to the performance of baptisms and weddings) have been expelled from Yucatan, amongst them the Archbishop, who is at present in exile in Cuba, and whose fine old palace adjoining the cathedral has now been converted into Government offices.
Carrancista soldiers, under General Alvarado, did a great deal of damage in the cathedral when they entered Merida, burning the magnificent, priceless old seventeenth century reredos and gilded carving of the altar, and practically destroying the ecclesiastical library, which contained four copies of the first edition of Cogolludo’s Historia de Yucathan, a work indispensable to the student of Maya archaeology. In the somewhat remote hope that these might have been preserved by some marauding soldier, we inserted an advertisement several times in the Voz de la Revolución, the principal paper and official organ of the Government in Yucatan, offering to purchase copies of Cogulludo, without result, however; and, indeed, no Mexican soldier would have looked upon four ancient volumes as worthy loot, and, like Bishop Landa, when dealing with MSS. of the aborigines three centuries previously, would probably have cast them into the fire, as in his opinion likely to perpetuate a pernicious and worn-out religious system.
The façade of the Montejo Palace is a very fine one, decorated with many statues of Spanish ladies in the dress of the period, knights in armour, and scantily-clothed Indians. All the carving is said to have been done by native Indian sculptors, and this is probably the case, as we realise from the remains they have left behind their remarkable cleverness in stone work of all kinds. The decoration of the hated conqueror’s palace with statues of the haughty Spaniard in full armour triumphing over their own half-clad chiefs, exhibited, moreover, on the façade of the principal house in the principal square, for all who passed to see, must have been a bitterly hateful task to the Indian artists, whose pride of birth and the length and purity of whose descent equalled the proudest Castillian of them all.
The plaza is slightly raised and asphalted; like the streets, it is kept scrupulously clean, and is covered with beds of beautiful sweet-smelling flowering shrubs and trees, amidst which are walks supplied with free seats, while at night, from eight to ten, the whole place is brilliantly ifiuminated. An excellent band plays, and it is then that all Merida comes forth to enjoy itself. Some ride slowly round and round the outer zone in automobiles, looking at the crowd, listening to the band, and exchanging smiles, nods, bows, and finger twiddlings with their friends passing on foot, or in other autos. Others promenade round the inner zone, or sit on the seats, to see and be seen, while neat, polite little boys flit silently amongst the crowd, seffing dulce and cigarettes, or carrying tiny boot-cleaning outfits ready to give one’s shoes a shine for the modest sum of 50 cents, for no Meridano seems to get his boots cleaned in the morning, or at his own house, but waits till he goes abroad and engages a bootblack, of whom there are swarms throughout the city.
It is a curious fact that amongst a people so fond of innocent pleasure private entertainments are conspicuous by their absence. Dinners at their own houses are rare, and dances of still less frequent occurrence. Even foreigners bringing letters of introduction to native families are rarely entertained at their private houses, but feasted—on an elaborate scale, it is true—at clubs, hotels, or restaurants. One reason for this, I believe, is that on more than one occasion foreign travellers who have been entertained at the private residences of the native aristocracy have, on writing their experiences later, given most unflattering—and, it must be admitted, unfair—descriptions of the home life and morals of the Meridanos.
Everywhere the country is in a transitional state. The old order is giving place to the new, and the Mestizo and peon (the latter, till freed by Alvarado, a virtual slave) are breaking down the barriers of caste which separated them from the Spanish Yucatecan, and gradually becoming free citizens of a free Republic. At one time the Indians and Mestizas, or women of mixed Spanish and Indian blood, were compelled to wear a distinguishing costume consisting of the huipil (a long, loose, sleeveless cotton garment cut square and rather low at the neck), and a pik, or cotton petticoat reaching to the ankles. These huipils were always kept scrupulously clean, and often exquisitely embroidered by the owners at the neck, armholes, and bottom of the skirt with gaily coloured cotton in all sorts of fantastic devices. Their magnificent black hair, ribbon adorned, was worn braided, hanging down the back, sometimes covered with a shawl, while the richer ones were often loaded with jewellery—chains, rosaries, earrings, rings, and brooches. This undemocratic regulation has now been abolished, and Indians and Mestizas dress as they like. The garments of their ancestors are, however, hard to cast off, and many of the elder women, even in Merida, still cling to them, with the result that one not infrequently sees an old mother promenading about the plaza in bare head, moccasined feet, and loose huipil and pik arm in arm with her daughter in high-heeled shoes, elaborate coiffure, surmounted by a still more elaborate hat, and clothed in the latest importation in the way of gowns from the U.S.A. It must, however, be admitted that the mother’s costume is by far the more becoming, as well as comfortable, for the female Yucatecan of all classes almost invariably possesses a figure short and somewhat broad, with practically no waistline marked by nature, eminently unfitted for the clothes of modern civilisation.
Many Indian workmen may still be seen wearing a short striped apron, the distinguishing badge of their class, which formerly they were compelled to wear, and now continue, apparently from sheer inability to break a centuries-long custom, though the compulsion no longer exists.
At the best hotels, if one asks for the excellent corn cake of the country he is regarded with mild contempt as an unprogressive countryman, and, indeed, the toothsome tortilla has in the city been largely superseded by atrocious white bread. Even posole, the native drink made from ground corn and drunk all over the Maya area for the last 2,000 years, is now offered for sale at the little kiosks and stalls round the plaza in the form of posole helada, or iced posole!
The whole country was practically bone dry, no alcohol except beer and light wine being on sale. The former is so very mild that it would be impossible to drink sufficient of it to induce intoxication, while the price of the latter is so prohibitive that no one but a millionaire could afford to buy sufficient of it to produce the same result. In consequence of this strict prohibition an unfortunate contretemps occurred to us. Morley had six bottles of claret on board the Lilian Y, which he insisted upon landing, and which we brought safely through the Customs, quite ignorant that any duty had to be paid on them. These wretched bottles of claret proved a white elephant to us, as we lugged them about all over the country, though no one thought of drinking any. On returning from Chichen to Merida, however, they were, as usual, bestowed in our grub box, which an over-zealous Customs official, who had had some misunderstanding with Muddy, insisted on searching. He said nothing at the time, but telegraphed the authorities in Merida, who arrested the unfortunate Muddy, who was in charge of the luggage, on his arrival, and hauled him off to the police station. We meanwhile had taken an auto for the hotel, as Muddy had always proved himself capable of clearing the baggage.
The next we heard of the matter was the arrival of a small policeman an hour or so later to tell us of Muddy’s plight, and the retention of most of our luggage in the police station, whither we hurried at once. We found Muddy sitting peacefully on a bench in the office, quite undisturbed. Nothing, however, would induce the sergeant to let him depart till the arrival of the Chief of Police, who, we were told, was closeted in his office, and would appear before long. We sent out for some food for Muddy, and, not liking to desert him, Morley and I took it in turns to sit up with him till about 2 a.m., when, as it became obvious the chief was not on the premises at all, we retired to the hotel to bed, which was just as well, for he did not arrive till 11 a.m. next morning, when he very politely expressed his sorrow for the inconvenience we had been put to, and dismissed Muddy in triumphant possession of the claret.
One is loth, however, to criticise the Yucatecans, for their kindliness, cleanliness, hospitality, and cheerful optimism far outweigh their minor faults; and whereas the latter are ephemeral, and rather the result of a rapidly developing civilisation than temperamental, the latter are permanent, and ingrained in the Yucatecan character. Nearly everyone in Merida can speak Maya in addition to Spanish, and an astonishingly large proportion of the people have at least a working knowledge of English; so much so that it behoves one to be remarkably careful not to make adverse criticisms aloud in that language of the native manners and customs.
Morley overheard an Indian urchin shouting to one of his companions: “Conex, conex, jugar baseball, ten catcher, tech pitcher “—“ Come along, come along to play baseball, I catcher, you pitcher “—Maya, Spanish, and good Americanese, all mixed in one sentence.
On the 27th we were received in the State Executive Palace by His Excellency Carlos Castro Morales, Governor of Yucatan. What struck us most forcibly at first sight of him was his immense and colossal size, for, though not very tall, he was tremendously broad and thick, yet extraordinarily active for a man of such vast bulk. He smoked brown orozus—Mexican cigarettes—from morning to night, the stub of one serving as a light for its successor. These were covered with paper impregnated with liquorice, and the tobacco they contained was so saturated in saltpetre that it burnt like a time-fuse, which it strongly resembled in flavour and smell. The Governor was at one time an operative on the Yucatecan railroad, and, being a man of considerable ability, was put in by the Socialists, as Governor. He proved a success from the first, and never has the country enjoyed such prosperity, and never were the labouring classes so free, and never have they received such wages as during his régime. He was very pleasant and agreeable to us, asking many questions as to the object of our visit, and showing no mean knowledge of the archaeology and former history of the country. Indeed, he put me right in the spelling of the Maya word “ Chachac” in the title of a little pamphlet of mine he had read, and which should have been written” Chachac,” to denote the Maya explosive “Ch.” We found that he spoke with equal facility Spanish and Maya. On my expressing regret at seeing all the churches closed and padres banished, and asking if he were a Catholic, he struck his great chest with his fist, like a drum, and shouted: “No, Señor, yo no estoy Catolico, yo no estoy Protestante, yo soy Pensador libre “—“ No, sir, I am not a Catholic, I am not a Protestant, I am a Free Thinker “—and as this matter of religion bid fair to lead to friction, we quickly changed the subject. He gave us each an open letter addressed to all Government officials and others throughout Yucatan, advising them to give us every aid and assistance in their power in the prosecution of our archaeological work, and, furthermore, put the railroad automobiles at our disposal, to convey us to any ruins or places of interest which we might wish to visit; and so with mutual expressions of goodwill we took leave of the most genial, human, and successful Socialist it has ever been my good fortune to meet.
On numerous occasions we met Señor Don Juan Martinez, recently representative in the U.S.A. of the “Commission Reguladora de Henequen” of Yucatan, which practically controls the entire trade of the State. He had previously been Government Inspector of Ruins, and introduced us to his son who now occupied that office. Mr. Juan Martinez is an extremely intelligent man, with a thorough knowledge of English, very strong American sympathies, and an acquaintance with the ancient written Maya language probably unsurpassed in the Peninsula. He has translated MS. records in old Maya dating from just after the conquest, as well as portions of the books of Chilam Balaam, the ancient Indian historical records kept by each town at first in the glyphic system employed by the Mayas before the conquest, but later translated into Spanish by some educated Indian very soon after the conquest. It is greatly to be hoped that, having at least temporarily abandoned his labours as an ambassador of commerce, Mr. Martinez may be willing to turn his unique knowledge of ancient Maya to account, and publish some of the MSS., translations which he has made, of old Indian records and documents, which may otherwise be lost to the student of Maya archaeology for ever. Mr. Martinez, junior, the present Government Inspector of Ruins, was extremely kind to us; giving us letters of introduction to the local Guardjanes of the ruins, who are all under his supervision: for the Government realising at length the immense value and interest of these wonderful memorials of the past, has placed one or more guardians or caretakers in each of the principal ruins, who are paid by the state, and whose business it is to keep the buildings clean and free from bush, and to see that none of the statues, inscriptions, stucco paintings, etc., are removed by visitors, as they have been practically indiscriminately in the past. It may be also that the Government were not unwilling to demonstrate to outsiders that a Socialist Administration can not only lead the State to a material prosperity hitherto unknown, but alone of all the Governments which have ruled Yucatan since the time of the conquest, is sufficiently enlightened to actually spend a considerable amount of money in the preservation of her artistic and archaeological memorials. He also took us round to the owners of ranches on which the ruins were situated, or to their representatives in Merida, and from them we obtained letters to their maj or-domos instructing them to provide us with food, lodging, transport, or in fact anything within their power whicb we might require. Probably in no country in the world would hospitality have been carried so far as the provision of free bed and board for an indefinite period, for a number of practically unknown strangers. But the land barons of Yucatan occupy in many ways a unique position. Their vast estates, often grants from the Spanish crown, dating back to the days of the conquest, run to hundreds of thousands of acres, their Indian and Mestizo peons are numbered by hundreds, sometimes even by the thousand, while the country houses where they spend the hot season are often so vast as to resemble rather royal palaces than private dwellings. Their revenues, which in former days were indeed meagre, being derived from the few head of stock carried by their vast stretches of stony arid land, have, since the introduction of henequen, for the cultivation of which this land is peculiarly well adapted, swollen in the most Aladdin-like manner, till Merida is reported to contain more millionaires in proportion to its population than any city in the world—not excluding Pittsburg.
We had several very interesting interviews with Don Francisco Juan Molina Solis, the historian of Yucatan, whose works, the Historia de la Conquista de Yucatan and Yucatan durante la dominacion Espanola, have a wide circulation amongst archaeologists outside the Peninsula. Notwithstanding his great age he is now engaged in writing a history of Yucatan from the end of the Spanish rule to the present day. His knowledge of the conquest of the various tribes of Maya with whom the Spaniards came in contact, the cities and territories occupied by them, and of the early ecclesiastical history of Yucatan, is absolutely unsurpassed and unique. Indeed, he and Don Juan Martinez are almost the only survivals of a generation who regarded a knowledge of the wonderful history and literature of their own country as more important than a foremost place in the mad rush for wealth, which now alone seems to occupy the people of Yucatan ...
330 miles per gallon.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Diesel-Electric Hypercar
The enormous Laguna del Tigre reserve, in the Petén of northern Guatemala, has been a center of narcotrafficking. Now the government is planning to destroy the airstrips used by the narcos, and is calling for help from the EU.
PrensaLibre.com - Destruirán pistas del narcotráfico
El Ejército guatemalteco destruirá las pistas clandestinas utilizadas por los narcotraficantes en el parque nacional Laguna del Tigre, en Petén, con la intensión de evitar el trasiego de drogas en esa zona, ofreció el general Francisco Bermúdez, ministro de la Defensa.
From the originator of the Gaia concept. After the cheery "can do" optimism of WorldChanging, this is real doomsday thinking. Still, he may be right. Pull your community together for the long haul.
Andrew Scherer and Charles Golden were among the archaeologists I spent time with in the spring of 2004, in Esmeralda and Tecolote. They continued their explorations of the Sierra del Lacandon Park in Guatemala in 2005 and will return in June of this year.
This is their 2005 report to FAMSI:
I've made Google Earth overlays of two of their maps from the report.
Sierra_del_Lacandon_Exploration.kmz
And draping 2004 AIRSAR data on the map (a large file):
Sierra_del_Lacandon_AIRSAR.kmz 36.5 mb
See also my previous post on the Usumacinta River valley and OS X Google Earth tools:
The Daily Glyph - Google Earth Community Usu tour
And the tour that includes Ron Canter's maps of of the river and Maya trails:
The Daily Glyph - Improved Google Earth Usu Map
If you don't have the Google Earth program, it is a free download (for Mac or PC) that you can find here:
From the Brownsville Herald.
Infiltration from the south feared - Terrorist smuggling denied by admitted drug runner
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Making Backups
The room is a "doomsday vault" designed to hold around 2 million seeds, representing all known varieties of the world's crops. It is being built to safeguard the world's food supply against nuclear war, climate change, terrorism, rising sea levels, earthquakes and the ensuing collapse of electricity supplies. "If the worst came to the worst, this would allow the world to reconstruct agriculture on this planet," says Cary Fowler, director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an independent international organisation promoting the project.
Thank god we stay in the southern part of Mexico when we visit. When our reporter friends mentioned Los Zetas last year, and described a close call with them, I really had no idea what they were. As Mexico tries to downplay them, the FBI is taking the situation very seriously.
Federal Bureau of Investigation - Press Room - Congressional Testimony
Emergency Position Indicating Radiobeacon (EPIRB) - USCG Navigation Center
Taking a break from color correcting a Court TV show (Dominick Dunne, Power, Privilege and Justice), I ran across this at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW):
Insurance against getting sued if someone on your network uses it to infringe on copyright.
Individual Copyright Infringement Insurance Prompts a Lawyerly Debate
Via CrunchNotes
I saw Larry Lessig's famous Disney/copyright presentation at Cooper Union several years ago and was stunned at the simplicity and clarity of it. Now Lessig has posted his Google Book Search presentation, with notes on how he created it.
Lawrence Lessig - Experiments in presentation technology
Add this to the list of "Things I'll need to know in the new Girls Club media center"...
The Good News for Mac Lab Admins - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Damn, they're good at WorldChanging!
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: City Planet Redux
I've posted an annotated Usumacinta tour, minus the Canter maps (too big a file for the system) on the Google Earth Community forum.
Google Earth Community: Maya Usumacinta Tour
Here again is my latest version that includes Ron Canter's overlay maps, and starts and finishes in my NYC neighborhood:
The Daily Glyph - Improved Google Earth Usu Map
And other recent posts on GE and OS X:
The Daily Glyph - Google Earth, OS X and offline
The Daily Glyph - Garmin GPS Mac OS X compatible
Garmin Announces GPS Product Support for Mac OS X
And a related post on the Google Earth blog about using Google Earth with Garmin's Map source software.
Google Earth Blog: Garmin Supports Google Earth
Yep. Intel Macs came out today. Grrr. But my other wish came true. The official Mac OS X version of Google Earth.
And a tip for using GE without an internet connection (as on the Usu, if I'm brave enough): use the cache, and swap them out and save them.
Google Earth Blog: Offline Google Earth Use
The statement on the Mexican web page does not mention hydroelectric power or the Usumacinta. But the recently signed pact is a new declaration of the old Plan Puebla Panama and bears watching.
México - Presidencia de la República | Actividades
Iniciativa Energética Mesoamericana.
Engaged: Conference: inkwell.vue, Topic 262
"The USA right now is the buried shadow of the Confederate States of America. You can watch GONE WITH THE WIND, and it's the secret textbook of the Bush Administration. The South lost that war for a reason. The South didn't have it in them to be a major power, because they were bold, gallant, devout, crooked, dumb and full of unexamined anxieties. The thing is, though: when a culture is "gone with the wind," it's never utterly and entirely gone. You can't make things go away by distributing them into the wind. It's just... up in the atmosphere. The emissions of the past form a smog. A breathable compost. You can't throw the past away and start over with a Year Zero. There is no "away." Tomorrow is this place, at a different time."
The interview is about more than just the deal he made, selling Webjay to Yahoo and becoming an employee. A manifesto for an open media internet. Congrats, Lucas!
Via Slashdot
A 400-page pdf guide to every night in 2006:
Universe Today - What's Up 2006 - Download it Free
I've been dabbling in Google Earth lately. In this post I'll start collecting information to allow more sophisticated mappers to plot data on a Google Earth map.
First, here's how one person mapped the avian flu outbreak.
Declan Butler, reporter » Avian flu maps in Google Earth
Here's a link to a tool (still being developed) that skilled cartographers like Ron Canter could use.
Brian Flood : Arc2Earth - ArcGIS to Google Earth Conversion
I'll post more information here as I run across it.
Nothing new here, but a good summation for American readers.
The Zapatista's Return: A Masked Marxist on the Stump - New York Times
MiamiHerald.com | 01/05/2006 | Help Hispanics get access to broadband, video choices
"For Hispanics the stakes are especially significant because only one in eight are experiencing the digital fast lane known as broadband. And study after study shows that broadband usage is a predictor of educational advancement and educational attainment."
UPDATE: On the Digital Divide list, a response to this editorial, pointing out the ties between the author's non-profit and telephone companies. (click MORE)
Andy,
Do you think it would have beeen helpful for LULAC or the Miami
Herald to have acknowledged that in 2004, LULAC received a $1
million dollar grant from SBC, and that LULAC's "Corporate
Alliance Members" include: AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon and Sprint:
http://www.sbc.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=21220
http://www.lulac.org/links.html#anchor551841:
Should we celebrate the active engagement in telecommunications
policy of nonprofits being intensively funded by a set of phone
companies that have tended to mix philanthropy and politics, at
times to the apparent detriment of consumers? Might it not be
better for such nonprofits to stay on the sidelines, while
members of the nonprofit sector free of such conflicts of
interest lead efforts to promote telecommunications policy in the
public interest?
Principal LULAC arguments in the op/ed you cite include:
1) "We need to streamline or otherwise eliminate unnecessary
red-tape imposed by state and local governments in deciding
whether an otherwise qualified company should be permitted to get
into the phone or cable business. 'Mother, may I' is truly bad
policy in this technologically dynamic era."
What is LULAC getting at here? The phone companies urgently want
to provide one-way transmission of video services to the public
without needing to first agree to franchise terms with
municipalities like the cable companies have had to do.
And if I interpret correctly, LULAC would like both phone and
cable companies to be exempt from negotiating franchises with
cities. My sense is that in many cities, such as Cleveland,
Seattle and San Francisco, those franchise agreements have given
a major boost to efforts to provide equitable access to
technology.
At the same time there's a lot to be said for the efficiencies of
a single statewide procedure, if the benefits of those
efficiencies flow not just to corporations but also to
disadvantaged citizens. It seems odd strategically that LULAC
would at this stage of the game lead an attempt to cede the phone
companies their desired goal, without making the case that cities
and their citizens must get, as a result of any more efficient,
streamlined process, a much better deal on average than they get
through the current franchising system. It would be naive to
assume that benefits accruing to phone and cable companies will
naturally flow to consumers without explicit, enforceable
provisions to ensure that.
2) According to LULAC, "any company that wants to compete in the
voice-telephone business should be required to contribute to the
Universal Service Fund (to ensure affordable phone service in
remote and low-income areas), to offer emergency 9-1-1 services
and to offer services for the hearing impaired such as Telephone
Relay Service. There is reason for concern, as many companies
that offer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services are
trying to evade these obligations."
The phone companies are having their profits eroded by VOIP
providers and would love to slow them down with burdensome
regulations. But presumably LULAC should want them to survive and
thrive. I would guess that LULAC's constituents are in small but
increasing numbers taking advantage of services such as Skype,
Gizmo, Google Talk, and Free World Dialup that enable them to
make VOIP calls within the U.S. and overseas without being
charged for the service.
In the quoted paragraph above, we see a LULAC position very much
in sync with that of the phone companies. But just as LULAC
thinks it efficient to skip municipal franchising, shouldn't it
recognize that there are huge efficiencies to offering services
at no cost, with no need to track and bill very minor payments.
Does it really help achieve the goals of universal service to
require services like Gizmo and Skype to bill each and every one
of their users in order to send money to the universal service
fund?
And as far as the situations where those or other VOIP providers
do charge some customers, shouldn't any call by LULAC for such
companies to contribute to the universal service program be
accompanied by a call for reforms to the universal service
program itself, reforms that may be unappealing to the phone
companies? According to David Hughes, the program has
historically piled monies into the coffers of the wireline telcos
while operating to the severe disadvantage of wireless broadband
providers.
http://www.comtechreview.org/summer-fall-1999/looking_at_erate.htm
And Robert Atkinson argues, I think persuasively, that "any
universal service payments made by VoIP services should go to
supporting the build-out of broadband telecommunications, not to
the PSTN" [The phone companies' public switched telephone
network]. Atkinson writes that, "Using these revenues to support
the 20th century circuit-switched network will only delay that
transition to a robust, packet-switched broadband network for the
21st century. As former FCC Commissioner Reed Hundt stated, this
would be as if government responded to Henry Ford's new invention
of the automobile by discouraging the construction of roads and,
instead, tax[ed] cars in order to subsidize canals and railroads.
http://www.comtechreview.org/spring-summer-2005/000316.html
I wonder whether LULAC agrees with Atkinson's position and would
promote it vigorously?
3) Finally, LULAC calls for, "nondiscriminatory deployment of
video services to every neighborhood to ensure that the process
is competitive and fair. In short, any reform must ensure that
Hispanic neighborhoods get access to these new services as
quickly as non-Hispanic neighborhoods."
Cheers to LULAC for staking out that position, which may clash
with that of its major phone company sponsors.
http://makeashorterlink.com/?D2E412C6C
- Stephen Ronan
Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
I'll need to do this sometime this year. And the old iMac I just revived has no DVD drive, so can't install any other way.
macosxhints - Create a hard-drive based OS X installer
Requires this: Bombich Software: NetRestore
UPDATE 1/11/2006: With Intel Macs come new ways to deal with all this.
The Good News for Mac Lab Admins - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
I'm using Tiger at this point but this article has some tips I hope to use to share an Airport connection on my laptop with an older iMac over ethernet or Firewire, since it has no Airport card. And I'm told that Apple no longer makes them for that model, so it's Ebay or this way.
MacDevCenter.com: Panther Internet Sharing
From prominent scientists and thinkers.
THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006
I've tinkered with the Usumacinta River tour for Google Earth that I posted a few weeks back. I fit Ron Canter's hand-drawn maps to the terrain a little better and changed the views on a few spots. Here's the revised version.
New York to the Usumacinta and Back (Revised 1/3/2006)
UPDATE:
See this post for links to many more Usumacinta River maps, overlays, and tours:
The Daily Glyph - FAMSI Report - SCHERER: Tixan, SDL
The Zapatista rebels left their communities in the jungle of Chiapas, Mexico, today to begin a six-month tour aimed at influencing the Mexican elections and pushing their progressive views into wider acceptance in the country.
CNN.com - Rebels exit jungle ... this time, to canvass - Dec 31, 2005
Their 2001 tour of the country (called La Marcha or the caravan) was the highpoint of Zapatista support and influence. Here's the report I produced while following them for 3 weeks that year:
La Marcha - The Zapatista Caravan, 2001 - iPod Video, 32 mb, 6:40
Note: If you don't have a video iPod, just download the latest free Quicktime player, for OS X, or Windows.
If you need one, buy before Jan. 15 to avoid a price rise. Great packboat!