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Spread The Word With This Banner

Please use this permanent link to the Moving Day post

I have reached a turning point.

I propose that we declare this year's Summer Solstice, Tuesday June 21, 2005, to be Moving Day. Whereupon longtime Democrats such as myself, on one day and en masse, move to a party that has the set of values and principles that the Democrat party not only used to stand for, but used to successfully fight for, both on the legislative floor AND in the hearts and minds of the American people.

It is time that we joined the Green party, bringing to it the sheer numbers of people it now lacks to wield significant political power, and begin the long journey of creating a world that will be better and sustainable for generations hence.

I am the product of generations of proud and believing Democrats. I have never been a hardcore political activist, nor a marching protestor against things my government has done that I vehemently disagreed with. I have believed in the traditional values of the Democrat party that my father and his father believed in. I have believed in the progressive path. The defense of the common man and small businessperson upon which this country was built and has endured for over two centuries. I have fought against attempts to split our party, and have held fast through the last two national election cycles, hoping against hope that true leadership and a compelling and simply-stated set of principles would emerge.

I cannot begin to describe the deep sadness I have when I think of what the Democrat party has lost. but have now, as a single individual, come to the conclusion that the Democrat party is a failed and ruined institution. It it truly, and fundamentally time to move on.

I am by no means the first person to arrive at this point, but I believe I am exemplary of a particular type of Democrat. A dyed-in-the-wool Democrat that until now has vowed to hang on for as long as it takes. I now feel that that strategy is doomed. And our country with it, if a major and significant shift does not occur, and occur very quickly. In the present political environment, time is definitely not on our side if we continue on our current path.

By means of a shrewd forty-year-long strategy, the Republican party has slowly and inexorably captured the ideological playing field and rigged the semantic rulebook. Low income labor workers with modest incomes and families with no medical insurance now proudly vote Republican, convinced that the superficial Republican talk of family values is somehow more American than those of the Democrats.

Our country is now being led down a path that truly frightens me. I am not so worried about myself as I fear for the future generations that will inherit the great burden of debt and hatred we will reap from our country's current political actions, both foreign and domestic. Our leaders have abandoned the great and honorable tradition of drawing the world to our model of freedom, liberty, and justice by means of our own moral behavior and actions, and now foolishly lead the world toward endless hatred, division, and calamity by means of their bellicose war-mongering and misguided geopolitical blunderings.

I hold no ill feelings toward the Democrats. I believe there have been many decent, thoughtful, and hardworking Democrats, doing their best to hold the line against an increasingly leveraged Republican message. But I no longer believe the Democrat party can produce the message that will attract back all those that have abandoned it for the false promises of the far right.

I believe that we must abandon a party that can only manage, at its best, to offer up a weak and reactionary protest after the fact. That is not enough to save this country. We need a new model.

That model, that set of values, that truly and deeply progressive and whole vision already exists. It can be found in the Green party.

The Green Party of California Platform (from the Green Party of California site)

- Ecology & Earth Stewardship
- Social Justice & Liveable Communities
- Peace & Nonviolence
- Democracy & Electoral Reform
- Community-Based Sustainable Economics

Ten Key Values

- Ecological Wisdom
- Grassroots Democracy
- Social Justice
- Nonviolence
- Decentralization
- Community-Based Economics
- Feminism
- Respect for Diversity
- Global Responsibility
- Sustainability

Follow these links and read these principles. I cannot find a single solitary thing that I disagree with in the whole lot of them. In fact in them I see a whole range of ideas and principles and strategies that I have already embraced wholeheartedly for decades.

In this move we will not be rejecting the values and traditional platform of the Democrat party, but rather heeding the call of a more compelling and clear vision of an attainable future. I have been won over. And I believe that many other Democrats just like me, if given an indication of a mass movement, will do likewise.

Only in this new internet age could we truly hope for a rapidly organized conscious and coordinated movement on this scale. It cannot be centralized. It will take the decentralized and individual initiatives of thousands and thousands of individuals to trigger a significant move.

Yes, there are great political risks in this strategy, and there are many that will use fear to try to retain their internal power in the Democrat party. I have previously argued myself for revitalizing the Democrat party, but no longer believe that it's possible. Something is fundamentally, and fatally, wrong with the Democrat party. And I believe that thousands of others believe likewise, but are afraid to move to the Green party one at a time.

I believe a mass migration is possible. I believe it's possible to recapture the spirit of us all as a group. I believe that in order to do this we will have to take control of our national destiny at the grass roots.

I do not want, nor will I accept any form of ownership, management, or control over this idea whatsoever. I offer only the idea itself, and the personal opinion that it needs tooccur no later than this Summer in order to have time to fundamentally affect the 2006 mid-term elections. I believe that the Summer Solstice, a natural symbol of our planet's place in the cosmos, is a suitably auspicious date for this mass act to take place, and that the five months between now and that date is long enough for this idea to take hold, grow, and be sufficiently planned and supported.

This movement, if it is to succeed, must take hold and grow completely on its own. It must emerge as the additive ideas and supporting inventions and facilitations of many others scattered across this great country. Perhaps it will be taken up by moveon.org, or the progressive bloggers. I don't know. I don't believe this is about knowing how it will happen. I believe it is primarily about believing that it is possible. And turning the idea loose in the ideosphere.

Everything else will take care of itself.

Just spread the word.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/26/2005 4:30:27 AM

Consider the dog house.

No, not the old dog house. The modern dog house.

Doghouse Lyman Perry Architects, Ltd.

The old familiar icon rarely varies beyond the basic shape. Most dog houses don't vary much from the basic gabled or shed-style box. Though sometimes they're fashioned out of interesting found materials, such as big wooden cable spools.

Michael Young's Magis Dog House Photo: Design Council UK

Most dogs probably don't care. But when the owner's an architect or designer, the diminuitive dwelling can be an opportunity to explore a wide range of form, style, and materials. Michael Young's Magis Dog House, with its wonderfully whimsical styling, is a great example of a commercially molded design. Maybe this will finally eclipse the old standby, the Dogloo.

W.D. Loft Dennis Carr

Here's another example of a basic modernist doghouse.

A wonderful exhibition of thirty-eight custom dog houses, appropriately named Bowwowhaus was sponsored to benefit The Outdoor Arts Foundation and The Humane Society of Tampa Bay. My favorites were the Hoff-Bow Haus, Pooch Pavilion, Porterhouse, Bare Bones, and, and the butterfly-roofed W.D. Loft.

The Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge sponsored New Digs for the Dog: Build a Better Doghouse for Snoopy. Also, be sure to check out the Petchitecture collection at PAWS.

The 1999 book Barkitecture, by Fred Albert, featured numerous custom dog houses and spawned a whole slew of regional Barkitecture competitions, most of which benefit local humane societies and other worthwhile charities.

Barkitecture is an event sponsored by the Hull Seaside Animal Rescue which featured twenty entries in 2004. My favorite from that one was also called Bau-wau Haus (do I detect a pattern here?), which was truly done in the pure International Style. Barkitecture 2005 is coming in April.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/18/2005 8:29:02 PM

NCG 7319 NASA/Hubble

Astonomers from the University of California San Diego announced today that they've discovered a quasar whose redshift indicates that it's billions of light years away. This is nothing unusual. Quasars are some of the most distant objects known to astronomers, thought to be located at the furthest edges of the detectable universe (or, way way way back in time, if you prefer to think of it that way).

But what's strange is that it's located in the heart of NCG 7319, a spiral galaxy whose redshift places it just 300 million light years away!

Um, okay, everybody back to the chalkboard.

If it's confirmed that this quasar is indeed in a nearby galaxy, it may have significant implications for a wide range of astronomical and cosmological theories. Quasars have been used in measuring the size and age of the universe, as well as the recent theory that the universe is expanding at an ever accelerating rate.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/10/2005 2:39:58 PM

Dives in Misericordia Rome, Italy photo: Andrea Jemolo

Dives in Misericordia (aka Jubilee Church) is a beautiful example of Richard Meier's modernist architecture. And it's as technologically advanced in its use of materials as it is aesthetically pleasing.

This week's Science News (Jan. 1, 2005, Vol. 167, No. 1), in its article, "Concrete Nation: Bright future for ancient material," describes the "self-cleaning" concrete used for the church. Titanium Dioxide, a white pigment mixed into the cement, not only gives the material its brilliant white characteristics, but is highly reactive when exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays. This in turn kills bacteria and fungi and is capable of breaking down other pollutants that usually darken concrete buildings over time, such as nitric oxide, sulphur dioxide, and other organic compounds.

In the article, Luigi Cassar, from the Italcementi Group in Bergamo, Italy states that it was the project's goal for the high-tech concrete to retain its gleaming whiteness for as long as a thousand years. Wow!

Here are some links photographs, slideshows, and further information on its architecture and materials:

- Iconic Arcs: Jubilee Church by Richard Meier & Partners
- Richard Meier - Dives in Misericordia - Roma
- Architectural Record - Jubilee Church (Dio Padre Misericordioso)
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/9/2005 12:24:17 PM

Wow Wee Robopet

Drop the chalupa and check this out! Following a link to a PCMag article on Robosapien off the always-excellent Streettech, I was both delighted and just a little bit disturbed by Wow Wee's new Robopet. If he doesn't eat something soon - ¡este robochihuahua será muerto!

Just today I was reading in the San Francisco Chronicle about a proposed ordinance expected to be approved by the Board of Supervisors regarding regarding requirements for Pet Guardians for their pets: "water has to be changed at least once a day and served in a non-tipping bowl; food has to be palatable and nutritious". I was thinking that Robopet may have been mistreated and starved.

But then I saw Roboraptor. He looks considerably better fed. Perhaps he's eating all of Robopet's food.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/7/2005 1:37:48 PM

Apprentice Shelter at Taliesin West © Peter Beers

Apprentice Shelter at Taliesin West © Peter Beers

The apprentice-designed-and-built shelters scattered in the surrounding desert at Taliesin West, the residence and architecture center of Frank Lloyd Wright, comprise one of the coolest neighborhoods ever.

Well, figuratively speaking.

Definitely not the coolest temperature-wise. The heat is brutal in the Summer.

Peter Beers has traveled widely, touring and photographing numerous Wright buildings around the country and documenting them on his Frank Lloyd Wright Road Trip site.

One of Peter's tours was of the Apprentice Shelters at Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona. His photos of the shelters are great!

Apprentice Shelter at Taliesin West © Peter Beers

Apprentice Shelter at Taliesin West © Peter Beers

The tradition of the shelters first started in the 1930s when Wright was establishing the center. There weren't funds to build large, traditional housing, so first-year apprentices were required to live (which mostly meant when they were studying or sleeping) in tents in the surrounding desert terrain. As students gain seniority they're allowed to move to progressively better shelters, or design and build their own. Many of these are wonderful! Wouldn't it be an amazing experience to be a student there?!

Each shelter haa to be built for no more than $1000, and the apprentice isn't allowed to spend any more. However, donated supplies and help are allowed in order for the architect to learn how to develop relationships with suppliers and the contruction trade.

A year ago I had a client in Scottsdale, but didn't have time during my trip to visit Taliesin West. I hope to get an opportunity to do that someday.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/7/2005 1:03:29 AM

Penguins!

Penguins! Though it's wintertime here in the Northern Hemisphere, our Antarctican buddies are enjoying their summer in the southern oceans. This penguin-centric site is essentially a big click-through slideshow all about our penguin friends.

I've always liked penguins. When I was a kid, I used to draw them and even made some paper mache sculptures of them.

I once saw a video on television about a pet penguin that lived in a town in Japan. Every day the penguin would leave its home and walk several blocks to a fish market, whereupon the market owner would give him one fish to eat and put one fish in his backpack. Then he'd waddle back home!

Ever since then I've really wanted a pet penguin.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/4/2005 1:12:46 AM

Peephenge

OMG, the greatest henge of all - Peephenge!

I hereby declare this January to be the International Month of Henges.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/3/2005 3:18:03 PM

Super-Kamiokande Kamioka-cho, Gifu Province, Japan

The Super-Kamiokande is a giant detector-lined neutrino observatory, located 1000 meters deep within a Japanese mine in Kamiocako-cho, Gifu Province.

The original, smaller Kamiokande was completed in 1983, and was 16 meters in height, filled with 3,000 tons of pure water, and had 1,000 photomultiplier tubes. In 1996 it was supersized, becoming the Super-K, witha cylindrical chamber 40 meters in height, holding 50,000 tons of water, and with its walls covered with 11,000 photomultiplier tubes. These detect the minute flashes of light (due to Cherenkov radiation) when a rare neutrino collides with a water molecule.

Super-Kamiokand Cutaway View

Neutrinos were successfully detected from a supernova observed from within the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987. Solar neutrinos were detected in 1988, but the original detector was not sensitive enough to detect proton decay, which was its first aim. In 1988 the Super-K successfully detected neutrino oscillations, indicating that they have a non-zero mass. Previously, all evidence had been consistent with a neutrino having zero mass.

In 2001 as the chamber was being refilled after having been drained for maintenance, a single detector imploded, setting off a most unfortunate chain reaction. Over 7,000 of the other detectors imploded, and created a terrible and toxic wreckage.

Super-K Event Detection Visualization

In 2002 the Nobel Prize for Physics was jointly awarded to Raymond Davis Jr from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, and Masatoshi Koshiba from the International Center for Elementary Particle Physics, University of Tokyo, Japan, for their work on neutrino detection at the Super-K.

The Super-K continues to make new discoveries. In July 2004, the observation of the oscillatory pattern of atmospheric neutrino mixing. These neutrinos arecreated when cosmic rays strike molecules in Earth's upper atmosphere.

My favorite images are the great computer visualizations used to study observed events in the Super-Kamiokande detector.

Very cyberspacey!
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/3/2005 3:06:21 PM

GEN H-4 Co-Axial Helicopter

Wow, I've gotta have one of these! Offered in eight colors, this stylish contraption is the iPod of helicopters, - the Japanese designed and produced GEN H-4, the world's smallest co-axial helicopter.

It's pricey, but not out of reach at ¥3,600,000 (approximately $35,048.85ÊUS dollars at current exchange rates). That's about the price of a mid-level SUV, but just think how much cooler it would be to soar effortlessly over the lemming-like cagers, mired in their rush hour gridlock!

GEN H-4 Co-Axial Helicopter

I can't read Japanese, but from the specifications you can see that it's about as minimal as a helicopter can get without just being a backpack.

Here's a gallery of GEN H-4 photographs.

And here's a 2.6Mb .wmv file of the GEN H-4 being flown.

I wonder if these are going to become available in the U.S.. We're always behind the Japanese and Europeans when it comes to commercially-available transportation that's small and nifty. But I guess it evens out, since we usually win when it comes to gigantic and absurd.

See also the February 2001 JIMWICh piece on the Hiller X-ROE1 Rotorcycle, which is very much the progenitor of the GEN H-4. A Hiller Rotorcycle is on display at the nearby Hiller Aviation Museum.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/2/2005 12:05:02 PM

I loved the end-of-the-year photo Mark posted on bOING bOING of his daughter and the miniature donkey. It was so cute!

But there was something about it that seemed strangely familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Until I realized what it was...

It reminded me of the pose Juan Valdez and his donkey were striking in the first frame of my very-badly-drawn comic from the early 1980s.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/2/2005 12:03:54 PM

Stonehenge

Happy New Year 2005!

Let's start things off with a celebration of all things henge! Sure, you've heard of England's Stonehenge, though you might not've heard of Bruce Bedlam's theory that it was part of a giant wooden structure.

You're probably familiar with Nebraska's Carhenge. But I'll bet you've never seen Tankhenge, Planehenge, or Kayakhenge, let alone Boathenge or Surfhenge.

Balehenge

How about the magnificent Balehenge? What about Hayhenge? Or Strawhenge? You might want to check out Loghenge, or Woodhenge. See also Polehenge. If strength is what you're after, try Steelhenge. If seeking lightweight, then you'll want Foamhenge.

Don't forget Rockhenge, or the diminutive Pebblehenge. Or the Mudhenge at the 1996 Burning Man.

Sausagehenge

In the winter there's Snowhenge, which is a similar but smaller version of its cousin, Icehenge. And in the summer, you've got your Sandhenge. And Seahenge.

Carrothenge

If you're hungry, you might want to try the wienerriffic Sausagehenge, or the delicious Cheesehenge. If you're vegan, try the Carrothenge. Thirsty? Try Cuphenge.

And you have to love the bored officeworker genius of Rubberhenge. And the even more obsessive Sofahenge. Or the other Sofahenge.

However, I don't know if I'm buying the hengeness of Bushenge or Chairhenge. Beehenge and Poodlehenge are both on the dubious side. Or perhaps the lamest henge of all - Turdhenge.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/1/2005 4:12:14 PM

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