unreasonable.org

In the Disney version of The Jungle Book, King Louie famously sings of his desire to master fire:

Now don't try to kid me, mancub
I made a deal with you
What I desire is man's red fire
To make my dream come true
Give me the secret, mancub
Clue me what to do
Give me the power of man's red flower
So I can be like you

Kanzi the bonobo not only shares this fascination with fire, but can use a lighter to start one, putting to rest the myth that the "dumb beasts" fear fire.

From the "life is great in 21228" department, here's some nice local news: Baltimore City is donating 11 acres in Catonsville to Baltimore County. (For readers outside the region, I should note that Baltimore is an independent city, not part of the county.

Valued at $110,000, the land had been owned by Baltimore City since the 1920s, but the city apparently lost track of it for some time. The space is near Frederick and Rolling Roads; the county will use the land either for a park or a garden, or leave it as a natural area.

This follows on the heels of last month's transfer of 23 acres from Catonsville Rails to Trails to the county, which will ensure that the Short Line Trail will remain open space for years to come.

From the beautiful irony department: a South Carolina circuit court judge has ruled that New Beginnings Baptist Church, a "black church" according to the AP, owns the building housing the "Redneck Shop", a disgusting little business which runs a Klan museum and sells such winning merchandise as KKK robes and T-shirts with racial slurs.

The Redneck Shop runs out of an old movie theater in Laurens, about 70 miles northwest from Columbia. SC. It's been there since 1996, but in 1997 in-fighting within the KKK, and possibly someone seeing the light, resulted in one the Klansmen transferring the building to church ownership.

While a clause in the deed entitles proprietor John Howard, the former KKK grand dragon for the Carolinas who is the store's proprietor, to run his store in the buildng until he dies, the delightful-ness of this irony remains.

As the year opens, it's worth taking a moment to reflect on the subject of time.

Time-keeping is complicated. A great example is the recent movement of the international date line to put Samoa and Tokelau on the other side, as the U.S. declines in relative importance as a trading parter compared to Australia, New Zealand, and China.

Time exists at the intersection of cosmology, biology, culture, politics, economics, and technology. The cosmological aspects of time are tricky enough, with at least two different but useful ways to define a year, the "solar year" (or" tropical year"), and the "sidereal year". Neither year works out to an even number of days -- and there are slightly different ways to define "day", as well.

My 2011, as told by my tweets/Facebook statuses. (https://twitter.com/tom_swiss, https://www.facebook.com/tom.swiss ) Typos left intact.

Happy New Year! 2010, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out...

Least favorite way to start the new year: "OMG the server's down!!!!" & of course I didn't bring a laptop to the NYE party...all fixed now.

Just saw that 11/11/11 will be a Friday, and thus suitable for parties. Start planning your Six Aces Day party now...

should not watch film noir (The Third Man) on a cold and lonely winter night. Too much gloom all at once.

Little girl in Bean Hollow with the walking stick: my inner child has a crush on you and your ready-to-take-on-the-world attitude.

Today's run: on streets due to snow. Google maps says 6.2 miles -- first time I've measured. 64m 25s. Not too bad, given some serious hills.

Thanks all for the b-day love. I plan on heading over to the Judge's Bench around 9ish tonight for a beer or 3, if anyone cares to join me.

Re: the birthday thing: couldn't have done it without Mom, who did most of the work. Thanks. :-)

From the caveat emptor department...Slashdot points out an HDMI cable at Best Buy priced at $1095.99. A typo? Automatic pricing gone wild? No, Best Buy carries a whole line of insanely priced "AudioQuest" brand cables. (Another good reason to not send Best Buy your business.)

I've been pointing out Ron Paul's history of publishing vile racist and homophobic newsletters for years. Now mrdestructo.com has found, scanned, and posted dozens of the documents in question. "Mobutu Sese Seko" also posits a possible explanation I had not considered: Paul is neither a racist nor incompetent to run a 'zine, but is deliberately publishing this crap to rile up support (and money) from racists.

Also on the Paul front, two demonstrations of his opposition to liberty: Paul once introduced a Constitutional amendment to allow the states to outlaw destruction of the flag (i.e., burning the flag in protest), and he has stated that there is no right to privacy and that states can legitimately outlaw consensual sexual behavior. (He also describes here his opposition to the separation of church and state, but that's old news.)

Two posts I made to the Free Spirit Forum today, that may be of interest to FSA members who don't follow that list.

[name and address elided] writes:

> If one of the (reasonable) concerns about FSA and FSG leadership is
> transparency, it'd be valuable to have information like this posted/
> specified, rather than referred to.

I think that the concern with transparency and openness gets to the core of the idea of changing the rules for membership -- because it hits on why people choose to become or not to become members. If people feel that members are not being informed of what's going on and not being given a proper chance to participate in decision-making, why would they choose to become or stay members?

Senator Bernie Sanders (one of the few American office-holders I'd like to sit down to lunch with) has proposed a Constitutional amendment to remove corporate personhood and get corporate money of of politics. It provides as follows:

As you may know, the Free Spirit Alliance is considering a change to its Articles of Incorporation to make it easier for people to become members. I've had a chance to review the proposed changes. While I appreciate Cat's work on this, and support the general idea, I have a very serious concern with the following provision of the proposed amendments:

"Any voting member has the right to request that another individual be placed on a ban list and removed from the membership roll. This would be followed by a vote at a meeting after notice has been sent to the individual. A ⅔ majority of all members in attendance, either in person or
by proxy, at that meeting would be required to place an individual on the ban list. In addition, being ejected from one of the Corporation's events automatically places a person on the ban list."

As I read this, since ejection from an event is at the sole discretion of the event coordinator, the FSG and Beltane coordinators can -- without recourse or due process -- strip an FSA member of their membership. However much we may trust the folks who currently coordinate our events, I don't think this is a wise policy.

Unless someone can point out something I'm missing, I must vote "no" on the proposed change, and ask that other members do likewise.