"For each and every activist, there is an equal and opposite reactionary"

a highlight quote (admist a torrent of really bad puns) from the flying karamazov brothers, playing til may 19 in berkeley. juggling music and a tenuous relationship to science...

Jellyfish are amazing creatures.

Saw today the author of Jihad vs McWorld, Benjamin Barber. He was a great speaker, his style of oratory a mix between a priest and TV documentary host. His speech was very sermon like -- in the best possible sense of that word. He spoke to the causes and solutions of terrorism. He spoke in favor of a globalization of not just markets and capital, but more the rule of law, democracy, regulation -- the things that have not allowed corporations, for the most part, to run roughshod over americans, europeans and the japanese. The root of terrorism, he opined, is a powerlessness where the people are left with only the choice to sacrifice themselves in horrible ways.

One of those perfect San Francisco days today. Like being inside one of my nicer photographs, or in a visual feast of a movie like baraka. I happened to go down to the beach, and it was glorious. Flocks of my favorite bird down at the water side, going in and out with the surf searching for delicacies. A helicopter -- a traffice copter -- did a flyby sending them into the air. The flicked round and round like a school of fish, light catching them, fading in and out of the sky. Walking home from the N judah, I had a nice big smile on my face.

More interesting thought -- its occured to me a few times now, but isn't it really fascinating that several European empires were founded on the spice trade. We take the spices in our food so much for granted. But the guys bringing back the goods back then were making a killing. The food must have been in a bad bad way. I read that part of the desire was to overcome the smell of rotting food.

RANT - Wow. So I watched the latest X-files last night. Worst show ever in my humble opinion. Dumb writing. Dumb story. Even the good actors couldn't pull that pathetic lines out of their dives. Is it this bad, because they decided to end the show so quick, there was no rewrites of scripts. The actors who played the lone gunmen must be depressed. Out with a melodromatic whimper.

The Years of Rice and Salt is the name of the Robinson book

of course it happens it is working. my second blog (well third or fourth if you count the ones that did not work) serves me right for setting up my own template I suppose. today's highlights? seeing KS Robinson read from his new book, name escapes me, but following up well with recently read books, Thunder From the East (Dunn and someone, about a possible Asian Ascendency in the coming century) and Guns Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond, on macro history), germs being the operative word, the plague having wiped out most of the west in this alternate version of history.

agh why is this not working.