Benjamin Melançon's blog

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Shame on Nader voters in Missouri; California GBLTQIA get ready to fight for 2012

Now, I've voted for no chance candidates in every election, but I can't believe that more than 17,000 people in Missouri, virtually all white I am sure and who think of themselves as progressive, couldn't figure out how important it was this election be voting with their black brothers and sisters in the state, what one more state in the middle of the country means for a mandate? For shame.

Worth a recount, but there may not be enough uncounted and spoiled ballots in Kansas City and St. Louis to make up that deficit... though there very well might be.

On the bright side of Sarah Palin's call with a foreign leader

On the bright side of Sarah Palin's call with a foreign leader (of satire), during the entire seven minute call when she thought she was talking to the President of France, she did not declare war, threaten an invasion, or accuse him of anti-Americanism. I call that a refreshingly level head in the Republican Party.

Economic Crisis: You finally noticed?

I will admit that there's a frightening part of me enjoying the officially agreed upon international economic crisis, for two reasons.

http://www.openmediaboston.org/node/348 - eviction in Boston neighborhood

Roslindale Family Evicted, 4 Arrested in Attempted Blockade
Watch that, and ask yourself who the police are there to protect and serve.

The real economy need not suffer in the downfall of the speculative economy

Douglas Rushkoff tells it like it is in the economy:

the money is itself crap. It’s based on a centralized lending scheme and has no intrinsic value. The Fed no longer even releases the metric telling us how much money is out there.

All this means is that you can’t count on capitalism anymore. Your wealth is not how many paper assets you have. It’s not even how much land you have (or think you have). It’s what you can do. It’s your value to other people.

Cool things my friends are doing

I have amazing friends. And I know I have modest friends too, so they're probably out doing all kinds of cool things I don't know about.

But here are two things I do know about:

Anjali Forber-Pratt is winning Paralympic medals in China. Her family is there to cheer her on, including her brother Ian. She got the bronze medal in the 400 meter wheelchair race!

Amanda Miller is acting in a play, the longest-running off-Broadway production, Tony and Tina's Wedding. And not just appearing in it, I'm pretty sure a role that could get you best supporting actress counts as starring. And this is just in addition to working full time and taking classes to get another degree.

Another first night in Chicago, another homeless veteran sharing my hotel room

For the record, you name it, I was against that war to begin with. And as Dad said more than once, while most of the country waves the flag and cheers another war and demands that everyone "suppport our troops," it will be people like us who actually do anything for them when they return.

To do

There are too many items to keep track of in my Chandler calendar / tasklist, so for lack of anywhere else to keep track of them I'm posting some important priorities to my blog.

Big pieces:

  • Community Related Taxonomy before Chicago taxonomy code sprint
  • Eclipse PDT IDE

The big ultimate goal:

Ted Rall, capitalist:

"NEWS DOES NOT WANT TO BE FREE": Ted Rall, in his syndicated column that he posts free on his web site, quotes Chris Hedges: "Nearly all reporting--I would guess at least 80 percent--is done by newspapers and the wire services."

Rall goes on to write:

Campaign season moratorium on old jokes

I wish I had been a little quicker to go on Internet record against apparent sexism in some coverage of Hilary Clinton, quite apart from my being thrilled she is not candidate for president anymore, and I hope this is both respectably early in John McCain's bid for the presidency, that it won't continue to be an issue, and that .

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