buckdata – news and views for an unquiet age

Serve and protect are noble words, suggesting nurturance and safety. They make me think of a good Mommy, or perhaps an excellent babysitter. However, as a motto, these two verbs exist in a kind of linguistic vacuum: They are profoundly ambiguous. Are they infinitives or commands? Ideals or marching orders? Further, both verbs are transitive. [...]

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I peek at Twitter periodically, but haven’t done so steadily. In the last weeks, that’s changed. I’ve been glued to the Twitter feed on my iPod Touch since the democracy protests heated up in Egypt. Ironically, I first signed up for Twitter some years back because I had heard a tale about a journalist who [...]

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Proposed legislation adding a public option to the health care legislation enacted earlier this year was introduced in Congress July 21, sponsored by Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). HR 5808, introduced with 128 co-sponsors, would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to begin offering affordable health benefits as a public option as part of [...]

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I have two pieces of information that I haven’t acted upon. A relative has indicated that she is now on Facebook. And so has a professional organization. I haven’t heard much from the relative lately. I suspect there are more frequent communications on her Facebook page. But I haven’t looked. Suppose I “friend” her? Will [...]

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Isn’t it time we figured out some alternatives to oil and coal? (For those of you suggesting nuclear plants as a substitute, I suggest you rent “China Syndrome” at the video store and watch it, or acquire some penpals living around Chernobyl and get their opinions. ) We can do better for ourselves and the [...]

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I have decided that 65 is the new 30. Age 30 was a watershed.  Age 65 or thereabouts will be one too. Many of us who after 30 “got serious,” raised our children, bought a house, and worked at jobs we may not always have loved to try to hang onto it, get another chance. [...]

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Why can’t health care be more like firefighting? Firefighters, you did great. California’s Lockheed Fire, which extended over more than 12 square miles,  is 100% contained.  It took the labor of thousands of you to battle back the blaze before it spread to homes, injured people, and destroyed farms. Although outbuildings and some seasonal cabins [...]

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Citizen journalism has taken leaps since last year. We are living in some smoke today, but safe. The big Santa Cruz County wildfire you have probably seen on the news remains  miles off and over the ridge.  I know, because I can see it on the Internet. I found this  link to a satellite  fire [...]

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There is heated debate in Washington these days over what to do about our country’s recent unsavory dabbling in torture as an information-gathering strategy. As with many other instances during the George W. Bush administration in which legitimate duties of government (such as statesmanship) became conflated with and ultimately displaced by punishment, pure and simple, [...]

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Friends, family, and acquaintances are raising questions about whether President Obama  can accomplish  what we helped elect him to do. Will the wars end in Iraq and Afghanistan? Will clean energy really be funded? Will Bush-era wiretap and other privacy violations be sufficiently curtailed?  Will single payer health care get endorsed or merely sidelined? Will [...]

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