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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Feb. 17 UPDATE- The Santa Cruz Library Joint Powers Board put off a vote on any of four proposals under consideration for the library system’s future. Two of the proposals called for closing multiple library branches. However, after hearing public testimony at its Feb. 14 meeting, the board instead directed a subcommittee to come up [...]

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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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