Learn More

• Stop Online Piracy Act From Wikipedia
• Information on H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act at OpenCongress.org
• Information on S.968 PROTECT IP Act at OpenCongress.org
• FAQ published on reddit
• What’s Wrong With SOPA? (PDF) EFF
• How the Internet Works (and How SOPA Would Break It)

Get Involved

• List of companies that have expressed support for SOPA or PIPA.
• List of companies that have expressed concern with SOPA and PIPA.
• Fight the Blacklist: A Toolkit for Anti-SOPA Activism EFF
• Take Action Checklist at Stop American Censorship.
• Urgent: Stop [U.S.] American censorship of the Internet Creative Commons
• Contact Your Representative with info and a widget to find them by EFF and Wired for Change.
• Directory of Representatives
• Senators of the 112th Congress
• Helpful info on making phone calls to your Senator or Representative.
• SOPAOpera.org keeps track of where your Congressmembers stand on PROTECT-IP and SOPA.

Pop quiz: have you honored your 2011 resolution(s)? Me? My 2012 resolution (like other years) is to make no resolution. Eminently practical, and realistic for most folks, I’m sure. Yes, I can.

Of course, now it’s time for all the journalists to write about the past year in review and predictions for the new. (Why don’t we do that in, say, August? Poor ol’ August. August gets short shrift, for a month that brings Dog Days to a close. Dang! Off topic.)

As a year-end rite, we made the arduous journey east, across much of the continent, from Santa Fe. We crossed the Mississippi. I still think Missouri wins for some of the nation’s finest road signs. Years past, we’ve enjoyed (or been amazed by) a certain highway sign on a road that seems perpetually under construction. As if in invitation, in bright orange background, we see the command, Hit a Worker. (Followed, in a subtler white background, by what we may guess to be consequences.)

This year, traveling the many miles across the Mississippi flood plain, we could see for miles in any direction. Houses are planted on plots a seeming mere six inches to a foot above the fields deep in water. (Cemeteries are rare, of course.) You might imagine my guffaw (almost choking) as we drove past a marker for Mount Level.

We visited a seemingly foreign land, tasted its unique foods, and viewed its native wildlife species. Then we began the drive home. All told, we spent more time on the road than we spent visiting.

We had spent awhile, visiting with folks we see in person maybe once a year. We had viewed their, and they had viewed our, changes with age: a thing unseen through traded emails and phone calls.

Don’t bogart that year, my friend. Pass it over to me.

¿k?

Ironic that the SOPA bill, proposing censorship of the internet, should be considered in Congress, exactly on the same day that we celebrate Freedom of Speech.

Ironic that we (the people) who constitute the government, should be outraged when other governments censor websites (for reasons they may deem perfectly reasonable) while we (the people) pursue a similar course on our own. For, surely, we, as the people, constitute the government which is considering SOPA.

Get it? We, the people? Constitute? Bwahahahaha…

Ironic that European governments are alarmed enough by this action that they consider backing off doing business with U.S. enterprises. For they fear (perhaps with good reason) U.S. monitoring of their web traffic and cloud storage of data without warrant. All this at a time when the U.S. economy is in dire straits, and U.S. businesses need all the help they can get.

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them. (Mark Twain)

Perhaps the best way to keep the Bill of Rights healthy is to exercise it.

Speak out!

¿k?

Hey, kids! Tell Mom and Dad. Try this. You can all sing along.

You know the music. Here’s the words. So sing and dance!

♪ You put your right foot in,
You put your right foot out,
You put your right foot in,
And you shake it all about. ♫

♬ You do the hokey pokey
and you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about. ♪

And remember, repeat it for your left foot, right elbow, left elbow, right hip, left hip—and any other parts of which you may have rights and lefts—your head, and whole self!

Did you sing it? Good! Now, just for fun, write down what time it is.

That danged song! Ooo, what fun! Write down what time it is next time you notice you’re not hearing the Hokey Pokey in your head. Compare with the first time you wrote. Surprising, huh?

What if the Hokey Pokey is what it’s all about?

¿k?

(If you’re not reading this in New Mexico, simply insert the name of your favorite politician and locale where appropriate, for best results.)

A year ago, in her campaign, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez said, I’m the only candidate that’s taken on corruption, and that’s the difference. I’ll end it…

Here’s a pop quiz: a simple question. Mark your answer sheet with either Yes or No.

Is there still corruption in state government?

Last one to turn in an answer has to clean up after.

¿k?

Perhaps one of the posters I saw, best characterizes Occupy Wall Street. We demand sweeping unspecified change.

It’s time we start. Occupy Wall Street is 99% of us. Surely that much brain power is enough to come up with a solution. Instead of ranting about what’s wrong, now’s the the perfect chance to make it right. Move forward.

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world

Corporate greed? Corrupt government? Okay. Deal with it. Get an Occupy Wall Street (OWS) President and an OWS Congress. (With 99% of the population, that should be no problem.)

You say you’ve got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan

Corporate greed, its influence on politics—votes should not be bought. No lobbyists. (Bounce their support staff.)

Put an OWS member or OWS committee in full command of each corporation to decide how to subtract money for social needs. (Ick! Committee meetings: but OWS oversees protecting the 99%.)

No one shall live in poverty, all deserve adequate medical care and proper education. But wait.

How to pay? I don’t reckon the bucks taken from all the corporations combined will pay the bill. But what else? Get creative. Taxes? That hurts.

You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We are doing what we can

Oh well, it’ll take a little tweaking.

Corporations and government are not vague entities. They consist of real people, from the top down, part of the 99%. Same with their support: job supplies, utilities, trainers, janitors, and…the hamburger joint down the street they all need at lunch break.

Corporations and government are part of our 99%. Should we accept 99% of the blame? We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us.

You say you’ll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it’s the institution
Well, you know
You’d better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow

¿k?

Lyrics from John Lennon’s Revolution pub. 1968

Yes, I know, I know: cheap play on words considering this year’s Blog Action Day topic. But bear with me. And see the Topics of Note locator on this page to select Blog Action Day posts from previous years. ¿k?

Food. Gotta have it. Mmmm.

With supper, we had an amazing broccoli, given to us by a friend who’d bought it at our local Farmers’ Market. Dangedest thing. The broccoli looked—how would you say—fractal? It was Christmas tree shaped, with lots of little Christmas trees making up the one big tree. Tasted just like a normal broccoli, though.

We also had a tomato, grown in our backyard. Not too many tomatoes this year: lack of rain. This was the driest year on record for New Mexico, we heard on our local weather report. A year of fires, and lost trees, and rivers that ran ash-black in flash floods, and threatened chile crops, and a destroyed historic apple orchard.

Each summer, one of our favorite spiders, an orb weaver, invariably picks some place in our yard to set up shop. One year it was a niche at the upper right corner outside our bedroom window. This year, it was a beautiful yard-wide web straddling the distance between a pine tree and the tomato plant stake we left after the harvest.

Jokingly, we call each year’s spider Son of Sam, though we know they’re females. We fetch them a moth now and then, and watch their amazing strength. A spider can lift a moth much larger than the spider, drag it to the center of its web, wrap it, return to repair the web, then enjoy the feast all night. Food.

So I’m sitting here today, on my fat butt, spidering all about the web, for information on food. I’m drinking fresh-ground Black Lightning from our local coffee company. (We buy it in bulk—5 pounds at a time—from our local coop. They recognize us now. We know when coffee’s delivered, and they have a bag ready.)

And here we are, on the web. The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization was founded on October 16, 1945. World Food Day (October 16) is what this Blog Action Day (October 15) is all about. The goal is to raise awareness about the issues behind poverty and hunger—in the spirit of issues addressed by previous Blog Action Days.

Okay, so here’s some awareness. 1,000,000,000 people live in chronic hunger. That’s one billion. Earth’s human population is 6.93 billion according to WolframAlpha. So that’s—what—nearly a seventh?

At the Ending Hunger website, you may read: A hungry person is weak. Tired. Unable to concentrate, study or work. Hunger leads to illness. The body starts to feed on itself, eventually leading to starvation and death.

The motto of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is fiat panis (let there be bread). I’m glad we have the luxury of bread.

Makes me glad we have the luxury of enough food. What do we do to ameliorate the plight of those one billion? Not much. We donate during various year-end food drives. Low points.

As I hinted, we lower the carbon footprint of our food by buying some locally. Still, low points. Seems like we could do better.

Often (but not always) we pay the extra price for organic food. Know what that means? It’s not the same as natural. Heck, natural‘s a pretty meaningless word, so far as food’s concerned. But the USDA has gotten pretty serious about what organic means. You can count on it. (Pretty much.)

They say, [C]onsumers buying organic products, whether produced in the United States or imported, can be assured that the foods are produced without antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, irradiation or bioengineering. Organic farmers are required to adhere to certain soil and water conservation methods and to rules about the humane treatment of animals. How about that?

(Go to that USDA page to learn some interesting nutritional differences between organic and not.)

Some of the best red chile you can find is organic, and it’s at the Farmers’ Market. A lady from Velarde sells it, and we seek her out anytime we need more. Mmmm. Food. Concoctions of all sorts.

Of course, we draw the line, somewhere. There’s a fellow at the Farmers’ market who sells eggs at $5 per dozen. Then, there’s folks from Taos, roughly 70 miles away, whose eggs sell for about $2 in the regular plain ol’ grocery.

Free range chickens? What’s a chicken range? How far does a farmer have to chase a chicken, and how happy is the chicken getting chased, to get the chicken back into a pen to lay a bunch of eggs? (Come here, you danged chicken!) Not a pretty picture.

And so, for this year, a well-fed spider has laid her eggs at some obscure corner of the web. New orb weavers next year.

¿k?

The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopts them. (Mark Twain)

We dare not venture into ruling against pseudonyms on the social web. For to go there would be to descend the slippery slope of defining pseudonyms.

Is William Shatner a pseudonym? How may William Shatner join the social web?

Do we limit real names to Anglo-centric names, and indeed, those that do not have the appearance of provocation or profanity?

We dare not protect free speech by censoring provocation or profanity. For to go there would be to descend the slippery slope of defining provocation and profanity.

If a provocation toward revolution is is unpatriotic, then how may we speak of the birth of the United States of America?

If making love is profanity, then how may I say, I love you?

Should it be okay to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater if, indeed, there is a fire?

Who shall make these decisions? Machines using algorithms written by imperfect humans? Or humans vastly outnumbered by the humans whose pseudonyms and speech would be monitored? (And who monitors the monitors?)

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

(— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot)

¿k?

Yep, hot. Moonsoon season, as we call it in Santa Fe, cooled things down a bit. You know the trip. Scattered showers means, maybe a quarter inch accumulates near the rain gauge in our yard, while, a few blocks away, dry as a bone.

Chance of rain? Heck, even 1% is a chance. Not exactly raining cats and dogs.

But we’ll remember this as the year the pups sitting in Washington tried to clean up their mess. The U.S. federal budget is about to go to the dogs, and Apple just now has more money than the U.S. government. Imagine that.

Deadline? August 2. News: August 1 at midnight. I wonder who has more money than the U.S. government doesn’t have? Arf!

Oh, well. We’re over the hump. Dog Days are nearly over: come mid-August, the weather begins its slow (yes, slow) descent into cool autumn.

So quick, it seems: the delicious aroma of roasting green chiles is already in the air. It’s a dog’s life: this year’s harvest is smaller. I hope there’ll be enough to feed my addiction.

So soon, Santa Fe Fiesta. Time flies when you’re having fun. Like a dog chasing a car.

Knick knack paddywack!

¿k?