Now we're heading for the big market after we stop by the bakery next door for a fresh snack.
Got to love the ameneties of a jungle hotel run by a gay man.
- Mobile and Free
Location:El valle
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Arrived in el valle de Anton
Just checked into anton valley hotel in the heart of el valle (which I apparently can't stop saying). Great place with tons of things to do. Tomorrow is hot springs and mud baths for a dollar, canopy tours, or climb a mountain. Tough choices.
Now we're heading for the big market after we stop by the bakery next door for a fresh snack.
Got to love the ameneties of a jungle hotel run by a gay man.
- Mobile and Free
Now we're heading for the big market after we stop by the bakery next door for a fresh snack.
Got to love the ameneties of a jungle hotel run by a gay man.
- Mobile and Free
He said, she said
I said: just imagine if we had meet earlier in our lives.
She said: yeah.
I said: except if we had, you would have been married.
She said: yeah. And you would have been an asshole.
-- Mobile and Free
She said: yeah.
I said: except if we had, you would have been married.
She said: yeah. And you would have been an asshole.
-- Mobile and Free
Location:El valle, panama
We just might move to panama.
Hello everybody! We are in El Valle for several days this week. Took the 2.5 hour, $3.50 van/bus ride breakneck through the mountains to get here with blaring spanish go-go music (with "D-D-DJ Nonstop") to serenade us. It was great, but i wished i had my earpeace which was in my pack on the roof. I had this perma-bop going though and it actually made the trip quite short...coupled with the fact that we were going 180 mph. It was a bit of an ab workout leaning into the turns because i refused to hold on to the "oh-shit" bar. excellent! Yesterday, we walked to the top of indio dormida mountain range which is the rim of a huge volcano crater that makes up the valley. The top ridge there forms the silhouette of a sleeping woman. We of course got totally lost winding our way up the trails because, they're not hiking trails so much as the way people get to their mountain houses from town. We were stopped on a trail to take a break and this homeboy came trucking up the trail with rubber wader boots on and a big sack of crap from town over his shoulder. He asked us (or signed to us) whether we were coming up or down. We said up and i made a little mountain peak with my fingers and pointed to the top. He said, oh, this way goes to my house, come up with me and i'll show you how to get to the peak. He had a little shack in a notch of the mountains that looked down on the valley. it was really spectacular, if flush toilets and electricity are not your thing. :) it really was very beautiful and he had a little garden and his wife was really nice too. They looked like they were 60, but Michelle says they were probably 27. I used my excellent spanish to figure out that he was telling us we could cut through on a path around the back of his garden to get to where we wanted to go. he pointed to the peak a ways off and we saw two people standing at the top of it. He said, that was inido dormida. We marched out the way he said, but were barely out of sight of his place when we hit another fork and, of course, were instantly lost again. fortunately, everyone up there was fantastic and we got directions from a few other people (I just kept thinking about what kind of reaction i would get if we were hiking around the mountains of kentucky...probably would have been a very different outcome.) and then just wandered some more but eventually we found the peak. I got out my binoculars and we looked back at the dude's house. He and his wife were sitting on their porch apparently waiting for us to summit. We waved our arms and i saw through the binos that they waved back. Gotta love Guerro TV. Anyway, we sat on her face for a while and then climbed down her arm along a fucking single track goat trail. it was a blast. When we got down we bought four cans of ron and coke. yup cans. Which turned out good because it started to do the afternoon rain thing (which lasts about 15 minutes usually and cools everything down really well) and a couple from edinburough on their honeymoon (he's english) just got into town with all their gear asked us if we knew were to find a ride to their hotel. I said, no, but i have these two extra ron and coke. The guy smokes Kools (hehe). So we had a good time chatting with them and they told us to contact them if we were ever in scotland and they'd show us around. we also ran into them at dinner last night and had some more laughs when we shared a cab back to town. in particular at the group of americans that came to dinner out in east jesus with their navy blue dinner jackets complete with gold buttons. How much stuff to you have to pack for dinner jacks to make the list?! who am i kidding, these are not the kind of people who "pack." Did i mention they were wearing boat shoes too. The brits were fun but they apparently want to be all honeymoony and crap because they don't really seem to want to play with us. Which is strange because i'm just so entertaining and everything. After we meandered off the crater rim, we went to the thermal baths and exfoliated with some mud which i subsequently got in my eye. We were soaking in the pool for a while and then an inundation of quebecua entertained us with their...well, just being (somebody must have spilled the beans in montreal about panama because, to the extent we see any tourists here, they seem to be french canadians). We chilled there for a while (at the cost of 1 dollar each) among the trees and pools and then went back to the hotel for some more ron and cokes. well, that was yesterday anyway. It's been a great trip so far. And we just figured out that we have an extra day here (We forgot our itinerary at home) so that's great. if you come to panama, you have to come to el Valle. Tomorrow is zip-line canopy tours. Today is laundry, interwebs, and more ron and cokes (not in a can). We have more pics to upload, but i have no wifi yet to send them to facebook. Hope you are all well. I'm heading back in for some more paradise. ciao, rich |
P.S. Ron is spanish for Rum and i can't stop saying ron, in case you didn't notice.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
On the bus to el valle
On the bus to el valle with Michelle. One word: Spanish go-go with "dj nonstop."
I've been dancing in my seat for about a half hour now. Probably I'll collapse in a sweaty heap after the next half hour. For the second time on this trip, I'm wishing my earpeace was not in my tech bag in my big pack. Doh! There is a note to self I there somewhere.
The bus has ac which is nice. The driver has a festival of forty Christmas trees hanging from the abundant vent over his head. The are swinging crazy with the beat at the breakneck speed of the driver on the excellent but windy road cut through the jungly mountains de la panama.
I just saw the ocean.
Oh shit. I'm pulling Gs. The road is so windy and fast it's tricking the accelerometer on my phone and rotating my screen as I type.
-- Mobile and Freesic nice.
Location:Panama
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The break odds
That's laying odds before you go on vacation on how much stuff is going to get broken by your buddy who's watching your house while you're gone.
-- Mobile and Free
-- Mobile and Free
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
It is not fucking missing the blood!
I'm not talking about fucking watchmen. Im saying the Internet, as portrayed by the yellow emoticon, will put an end to communist china.
-- Mobile and Free
-- Mobile and Free
Thursday, December 17, 2009
web browser
Build a web browser that does an analysis of the currently viewed page and then gathers other pages with information about that page. Wikipedia, google, yelp, etc. Then the pages can be loaded locally as needed, if needed. Other pages are discarded as time passes.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Rich Cleland is political malaise.
Rich Cleland is political malaise.
7 hours ago via Facebook for iPhone · Comment · Like
Kathryn Palmer: Lieberman inspired? Nice of him to change his position now when it's been the opposite since the 2000 election up until just three months ago, don't you think? He's like an evil Aaron Sorkin character.
7 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: Partially, but he's a duche so my perpetual low expectations pretty much protect me from him. I think the malaise has settled in as I've realized that Obama is never going to try and convince people that the health care debate is about our obligations to each other not about what we can get for ourselves.
What good is rhetoric if you don't try to use it to persuade people who don't already believe.
6 hours ago · Delete
Kathryn Palmer: Some people cannot be persuaded because they cannot listen to reason. Obama attempts to persuade through logic; the opposition persuades through irrational emotional appeals to breed fear, hysteria, and hate. There's a large part of the populace that falls prey to the latter and cannot be convinced by the former, unfortunately. Obama's difficulty raises the question as to whether it is ethical to employ manipulative rhetoric for an honorable end or to endanger attaining that goal by attempting to use rhetoric honorably.
6 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: I think you are correct that Obama is an intellectual; therefore, logic is persuasive to him. I disagree, however, that he can not make be emotionally appealing. That was a major difference between his victory and Kerry's defeat.
Additionally, i think there is an emotional argument to be made without resorting to sophistry. Republicans talk about Americans' rights. Obama should have made the case for Americans' responsibilities, in particular, to each other. We are our brother's keeper in that when he fails, it spreads to us. That was Kennedy's message to America in the 60s.
I think this "honor" shield is BS. He has not engaged even intellectually on this topic. He learned the wrong lesson from Clinton's failed health care initiative. Rahm told him it was, the president should not get mired in a fight on health care. The real message was, you can have your ass handed to you on health care and still do a ton of stuff, including get elected for a second term.
5 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: The president should have been out front on the moral necessity of real health insurance reform. I thought he was going there with this speech to the joint session (which was a great boost) but he let that harvest whither on the vine.
He didn't want to take ownership of health care because he didn't want to be associated with its potential failure. The irony is that, of course, it will be seen as his failure regardless. what's more, it will also be his failure when the dems get slaughtered in 2010 because the base isn't going to show up.
It's a failure of leadership.
5 hours ago · Delete
Stacy VanDeveer: if there was an 'agree' tab I'd click that...
4 hours ago · Delete
Kathryn Palmer: You're harder on Obama than I am, and I think that's good. I probably could be more critical in some circumstances. But we have to remain supportive to an extent, too (though not blindly so). He's taking fire from all sides and when the left joins in it just emboldens and validates the illogical clams made by the right.
As for rhetoric, it IS frustrating that he's not amping it up (defining rhetoric a positive persuasive force and not "mere"). The emotional appeals he made during the election were made to rally a base beaten down by the Bush years. To bring over wavering conservatives, he wisely lowered the emotion and focused on evidence of McCain's "more of the same" connection to Bush. Different methods for different audiences for different purposes in different contexts.
I don't get his strategy right now, but I suppose it is largely informed by the rules of the political game he has to play by necessity if anything is to get done. We need to keep him honest, yes, but when it comes to political posturing, blame the game, not the player--provided that player is intelligent and has our best interests in mind. And how many viable alternatives do we have that fit that bill *other* than Obama?
Good debate.
4 hours ago · Delete
Michelle LaVigne: I was going to chime in, but you all seem to have done a pretty good job. I only wanted to add that Obama is too careful. He made a great health care speech in September, but didn't follow it up with any meaningful leadership.
4 hours ago · Delete
Hans WegmuellerNoticed Lieberman came up - a co-worker of mine recently blogged some thoughts about him: http://www.livinglakecountry.com/blogs/communityblogs/lake_country_liberal.html
3 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: Things like the "rules of the game" and "conventional wisdom" are the problem. Sacrificing principles to "get something done" is the cover that perpetuates the corrupt system.
If you want to break the mafia's hold on a community, you can start by convincing everyone to stop paying for "protection." This might weaken the mafia, but it will definitely gets some heads cracked among the shopkeepers. So they don't buck the system and the mafia takes their share.
It's the problem of Havel's green grocer and the success of King's freedom walkers. If you really want to change something fundamental, you have to be willing to fail spectacularly and uncompromisingly on principle...and then do it again...and again if necessary.
It is a much longer, harder road, but in the end, the goal isn't to get something called reform passed, the goal should be to convince citizens that they need to contemplate something larger than themselves because that's the only quality that engenders success for a whole society.
Every day for a president who wants to "fix" washington, should be an opportunity to make that statement, no matter what the issue. Accomplish that to the extent that others with their agendas have created the American individualist, and the rest will follow naturally.
3 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: i agree, good debate.
3 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: (or deliberation)
3 hours ago · Delete
Kathryn Palmer: The idealist in me totally agrees with everything you said. The realist in me, however, admits that some things are important and some things are immediate and prioritizing sometimes involves undesirable decisions to be made.
All this fixing the system at large that needs to happen is slow, painful, and incremental--as all meaningful change is. Problem is, we have too many immediate problems under the current system to practically begin the important task of reforming it. If we're putting our house in order, it's rather pointless unless we put out the fires first.
Once the economy, foreign policy, and health care brouhahas even out a bit, I'll adopt your stance more strongly. But not now.
I must go do my work now. This debate is important, but writing my dissertation is a more immediate task. ;)
2 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: The pesky thing about principles is that they are at their most important when they are at their least convenient.
For the record, I don't believe that everything in politics involves a principle that needs to either be held or compromised. And their needs to be room for give and take when determining what the actual civil policies are going to be. And also, it is a serious challenge to figure out how to walk that line.
However, the realists are telling me that they know the car has a flat, but we should drive it just a little bit further and hope there's someplace open down the line where we can fix it. Of course, if we do find this unknown place where that can happen, we'll also need to pony up for a rim by then.
The mechanism of government in this country has more than just a flat tire, it has major systemic failures. Whatever we make with it will only compound our problems further because the ends are preexistent in the means. For example, we tried to use it to fix health care and we ended up giving away billions to insurance companies.
You tell me that we have too much important stuff to stop now? I say the stuff we have to do is too important not to stop now and fix the machine before we move forward.
2 hours ago · Delete
Michelle LaVigne: revolution anyone?
54 minutes ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: nah, I'm malaise.
2 seconds ago · Delete
7 hours ago via Facebook for iPhone · Comment · Like
Kathryn Palmer: Lieberman inspired? Nice of him to change his position now when it's been the opposite since the 2000 election up until just three months ago, don't you think? He's like an evil Aaron Sorkin character.
7 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: Partially, but he's a duche so my perpetual low expectations pretty much protect me from him. I think the malaise has settled in as I've realized that Obama is never going to try and convince people that the health care debate is about our obligations to each other not about what we can get for ourselves.
What good is rhetoric if you don't try to use it to persuade people who don't already believe.
6 hours ago · Delete
Kathryn Palmer: Some people cannot be persuaded because they cannot listen to reason. Obama attempts to persuade through logic; the opposition persuades through irrational emotional appeals to breed fear, hysteria, and hate. There's a large part of the populace that falls prey to the latter and cannot be convinced by the former, unfortunately. Obama's difficulty raises the question as to whether it is ethical to employ manipulative rhetoric for an honorable end or to endanger attaining that goal by attempting to use rhetoric honorably.
6 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: I think you are correct that Obama is an intellectual; therefore, logic is persuasive to him. I disagree, however, that he can not make be emotionally appealing. That was a major difference between his victory and Kerry's defeat.
Additionally, i think there is an emotional argument to be made without resorting to sophistry. Republicans talk about Americans' rights. Obama should have made the case for Americans' responsibilities, in particular, to each other. We are our brother's keeper in that when he fails, it spreads to us. That was Kennedy's message to America in the 60s.
I think this "honor" shield is BS. He has not engaged even intellectually on this topic. He learned the wrong lesson from Clinton's failed health care initiative. Rahm told him it was, the president should not get mired in a fight on health care. The real message was, you can have your ass handed to you on health care and still do a ton of stuff, including get elected for a second term.
5 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: The president should have been out front on the moral necessity of real health insurance reform. I thought he was going there with this speech to the joint session (which was a great boost) but he let that harvest whither on the vine.
He didn't want to take ownership of health care because he didn't want to be associated with its potential failure. The irony is that, of course, it will be seen as his failure regardless. what's more, it will also be his failure when the dems get slaughtered in 2010 because the base isn't going to show up.
It's a failure of leadership.
5 hours ago · Delete
Stacy VanDeveer: if there was an 'agree' tab I'd click that...
4 hours ago · Delete
Kathryn Palmer: You're harder on Obama than I am, and I think that's good. I probably could be more critical in some circumstances. But we have to remain supportive to an extent, too (though not blindly so). He's taking fire from all sides and when the left joins in it just emboldens and validates the illogical clams made by the right.
As for rhetoric, it IS frustrating that he's not amping it up (defining rhetoric a positive persuasive force and not "mere"). The emotional appeals he made during the election were made to rally a base beaten down by the Bush years. To bring over wavering conservatives, he wisely lowered the emotion and focused on evidence of McCain's "more of the same" connection to Bush. Different methods for different audiences for different purposes in different contexts.
I don't get his strategy right now, but I suppose it is largely informed by the rules of the political game he has to play by necessity if anything is to get done. We need to keep him honest, yes, but when it comes to political posturing, blame the game, not the player--provided that player is intelligent and has our best interests in mind. And how many viable alternatives do we have that fit that bill *other* than Obama?
Good debate.
4 hours ago · Delete
Michelle LaVigne: I was going to chime in, but you all seem to have done a pretty good job. I only wanted to add that Obama is too careful. He made a great health care speech in September, but didn't follow it up with any meaningful leadership.
4 hours ago · Delete
Hans WegmuellerNoticed Lieberman came up - a co-worker of mine recently blogged some thoughts about him: http://www.livinglakecountry.com/blogs/communityblogs/lake_country_liberal.html
3 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: Things like the "rules of the game" and "conventional wisdom" are the problem. Sacrificing principles to "get something done" is the cover that perpetuates the corrupt system.
If you want to break the mafia's hold on a community, you can start by convincing everyone to stop paying for "protection." This might weaken the mafia, but it will definitely gets some heads cracked among the shopkeepers. So they don't buck the system and the mafia takes their share.
It's the problem of Havel's green grocer and the success of King's freedom walkers. If you really want to change something fundamental, you have to be willing to fail spectacularly and uncompromisingly on principle...and then do it again...and again if necessary.
It is a much longer, harder road, but in the end, the goal isn't to get something called reform passed, the goal should be to convince citizens that they need to contemplate something larger than themselves because that's the only quality that engenders success for a whole society.
Every day for a president who wants to "fix" washington, should be an opportunity to make that statement, no matter what the issue. Accomplish that to the extent that others with their agendas have created the American individualist, and the rest will follow naturally.
3 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: i agree, good debate.
3 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: (or deliberation)
3 hours ago · Delete
Kathryn Palmer: The idealist in me totally agrees with everything you said. The realist in me, however, admits that some things are important and some things are immediate and prioritizing sometimes involves undesirable decisions to be made.
All this fixing the system at large that needs to happen is slow, painful, and incremental--as all meaningful change is. Problem is, we have too many immediate problems under the current system to practically begin the important task of reforming it. If we're putting our house in order, it's rather pointless unless we put out the fires first.
Once the economy, foreign policy, and health care brouhahas even out a bit, I'll adopt your stance more strongly. But not now.
I must go do my work now. This debate is important, but writing my dissertation is a more immediate task. ;)
2 hours ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: The pesky thing about principles is that they are at their most important when they are at their least convenient.
For the record, I don't believe that everything in politics involves a principle that needs to either be held or compromised. And their needs to be room for give and take when determining what the actual civil policies are going to be. And also, it is a serious challenge to figure out how to walk that line.
However, the realists are telling me that they know the car has a flat, but we should drive it just a little bit further and hope there's someplace open down the line where we can fix it. Of course, if we do find this unknown place where that can happen, we'll also need to pony up for a rim by then.
The mechanism of government in this country has more than just a flat tire, it has major systemic failures. Whatever we make with it will only compound our problems further because the ends are preexistent in the means. For example, we tried to use it to fix health care and we ended up giving away billions to insurance companies.
You tell me that we have too much important stuff to stop now? I say the stuff we have to do is too important not to stop now and fix the machine before we move forward.
2 hours ago · Delete
Michelle LaVigne: revolution anyone?
54 minutes ago · Delete
Rich Cleland: nah, I'm malaise.
2 seconds ago · Delete
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The flag - Neruda
...
But stand up,
you, stand up,
but stand up with me
and let us go off together
to fight face to face
against the devil's webs,
against the system that _distributes hunger,
against organized misery.
...
Our system distributes harm liberally.
-- Mobile and Free
But stand up,
you, stand up,
but stand up with me
and let us go off together
to fight face to face
against the devil's webs,
against the system that _distributes hunger,
against organized misery.
...
Our system distributes harm liberally.
-- Mobile and Free
Saturday, December 5, 2009
ShuffleLife
Life on shuffle and the importance of seeking and fostering diversity of experience.
-- Mobile and Free
-- Mobile and Free
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Dear Senator Feinstein:
I've tried calling your San Francisco and DC offices, but apparently i'm not the only one trying to get in touch with you today.
I am writing to inform you that I oppose your amendment to limit protection for journalists to those individuals who are paid by or contracted to a media firm. I am shocked that you consider fiscal compensation the demarcation for socially worthy reporting that should be protected. Consider the media fixation with balloon boys or White House party crashers and tell me that it's the paycheck that makes that journalism.
To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, "I can't define [journalism], but I know it when I see it." Your amendment should be withdrawn in favor of the original definition which included all citizens doing actual journalism. Let the courts decide whether a particular journalist deserves protection in the interest of the greater social good and not GE, Rupert Murdoch, or even the Sulzberger family.
Your amendment ignores the new reality of journalism. Advances in technology have taken the means of news production out of the hands of the media elite and given the common, local citizen a voice. In this new era, the individual is off the couch and empowered to explore, create, and tell. And at the crest of this monumental social change you and Senator Durbin are joining to de-legitimize this behavior and cast adrift the citizens who need the most protection because (by your definition) they don't have access to a full-time legal staff.
So I ask you and expect a response, if you believe that journalism is a social good that should be protected, how can you consider payment, which is at best irrelevant to the value of the final product and at worst a corrupter of that product, the defining factor in determining whom to protect?
I await your response.
Sincerely,
Richard Cleland
San Francisco, CA
I am writing to inform you that I oppose your amendment to limit protection for journalists to those individuals who are paid by or contracted to a media firm. I am shocked that you consider fiscal compensation the demarcation for socially worthy reporting that should be protected. Consider the media fixation with balloon boys or White House party crashers and tell me that it's the paycheck that makes that journalism.
To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, "I can't define [journalism], but I know it when I see it." Your amendment should be withdrawn in favor of the original definition which included all citizens doing actual journalism. Let the courts decide whether a particular journalist deserves protection in the interest of the greater social good and not GE, Rupert Murdoch, or even the Sulzberger family.
Your amendment ignores the new reality of journalism. Advances in technology have taken the means of news production out of the hands of the media elite and given the common, local citizen a voice. In this new era, the individual is off the couch and empowered to explore, create, and tell. And at the crest of this monumental social change you and Senator Durbin are joining to de-legitimize this behavior and cast adrift the citizens who need the most protection because (by your definition) they don't have access to a full-time legal staff.
So I ask you and expect a response, if you believe that journalism is a social good that should be protected, how can you consider payment, which is at best irrelevant to the value of the final product and at worst a corrupter of that product, the defining factor in determining whom to protect?
I await your response.
Sincerely,
Richard Cleland
San Francisco, CA
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