The Progressive

Reach further

I went to the store today and asked an employee to reach an item off a high shelf for me. She grabbed it and held it out to me. But she only held her arm out at about 45°, so it was still far out of my reach.

Bear in mind that she was standing directly in front of me. I had my arms outstretched as far as I could but my hands were still a couple inches short of my knees because I was seated. In addition, my toes are at least another six inches farther forward than my knees.

So I asked her to “reach further.” She raised her arm another few degrees which brought the item a couple inches closer to me but still beyond my reach. It was as if she were taunting me, dangling it in front of me but keeping the item just beyond my reach. So I rolled my wheelchair a few inches towards her so I could grab the item but, as I moved towards her, she backed away.

Since I was getting nowhere (figuratively), I stopped and held my arms out again and asked her yet again to “reach further.” She continued holding it out towards me but no closer with this look on her face as if to say, “I’m doing it.” I must have repeated “reach further” at least three times before she finally held it out close enough for me to grab it.

Then I went to the other side of the store to get another item. I asked a different employee to grab it for me. He did it and held it out towards me but still out of my reach. He and I proceeded to go through the same dance I had just danced with his coworker all over again!

Mind you, this trip to the store wasn’t unusual. This happens to me all the time. Do people not know what the words “reach further” mean? Do any of my wheelchair-riding friends encounter the same issue?

#Hashtags #goneWild!

You know hashtag-mania has gotten out of hand when an organization hashtags everything in their message. But when they do it on a printed poster, the hashtags have gone completely wild!

Printed poster with many hashtags — Printed poster

Let me say first that I’ve never attended this church and I am not affiliated with it in any way, so this is not a criticism of the church. It’s just a random poster I saw at the local mall that is exemplary of hashtags gone wild and I’m only criticizing the way they were used.

There are two reasons for using hashtags in a promotional message:

To help a tweet appear in a Twitter search on the tagged topic
To uniquely identify a tweet as relating to the specific organization (or campaign, event, etc.)

How well do the hashtags in this photo achieve those objectives? Let’s forget the fact that they’re on a printed poster to start out and consider it as if it were an online tweet.

Do a search in Twitter for #riskitandcome (the last hashtag in the photo) and you get “No results.” If the organization is not using the hashtag in their own tweets, what’s the point of publicizing the hashtag? Furthermore, it’s doubtful that a Twitter user is using #riskitandcome in any search anyway. On the other hand, it’s very likely there are many users searching for #god on Twitter. But when you search Twitter for #god, you’ll find that it results in millions of tweets and it would be a miracle to find one by this particular organization in the proverbial haystack of tweets. So neither of those hashtags help the organization accomplish the first purpose for a hashtag. The only hashtag in this photo that might be good for appearing in a search is #tustinchurch (Tustin being the name of the city the church is in).

The most effective way to uniquely identify a tweet as relating to the specific organization is to use its username. This organization failed to do it in the first hashtag in the photo. They should have printed their username, @ConvergenceOC, rather than using a hashtag. If you search Twitter for @ConvergenceOC, it displays all tweets by or about the organization. However, a hashtag could be a good way to uniquely identify a specific event. The organization should first search Twitter for a prospective hashtag to see how many tweets it appears in. Then they should choose a hashtag that is tweeted infrequently and is easy to remember, such as #theaterChurch, to uniquely identify an event.

Finally, let’s consider using hashtags in a printed medium. This photo was taken outside at a mall, so they should use a hashtag that is easy to remember because the person seeing the poster might not search Twitter for the hashtag until they get home. They should also minimize the number of hashtags in the poster to make the most important hashtag stand out. People will not want to search a dozen different hashtags on their cell phone while standing in front of the poster. For this poster, the only Twitter-related content it should have is the username @ConvergenceOC and just one hashtag like #tustinChurch or #theaterChurch.

Facebook now also supports hashtags. But the same principles apply as do for Twitter. Use hashtags that are meaningful and will help accomplish one of the two reasons for using them. Be especially judicious about which hashtag to use in print. Don’t let your hashtags go wild!

Unfollow

I unfollowed quite a few profiles in Twitter today. I know a few profiles that consistently make tweets I consider interesting or entertaining but my tweet stream has been full of tweets I don’t care about lately. I took a closer look at some of the profiles I followed and found that most of their tweets didn’t get my attention. Those are the profiles I unfollowed.

Now I’m left following only 116 profiles and my tweet stream is much more interesting. Sometimes less actually is more. What really surprises me are the users that follow thousands of profiles. That means any individual profile that tweets content of interest to one of those users will almost never be seen in their tweet stream because their tweets will get drowned out by the thousands of other profiles tweeting. Overall, the tweet stream of a user who follows thousands of profiles could not possibly have much interest to the user.

To overcome this effect, some Twitter profiles tweet every few minutes. Many times, they simply tweet the same exact tweet over and over again. This does not help matters. The more prolific the tweets, the lower the quality of the tweets by that profile because they’re grasping at straws to continually come up with interesting content. And repetitive tweets might be more likely to be seen by followers but they’ll just dominate the tweet stream of all the followers who find it uninteresting, drowning out the tweets the follower would find interesting.

I recommend everyone cull the profiles they follow. The only reason to follow a profile is so it will show up in the tweet stream but there’s no point in viewing the tweet stream if it’s not interesting or entertaining. After unfollowing the profiles, their tweet stream will be much more interesting. And with fewer tweets in their followers’ stream, users can stop repeatedly tweeting the same tweet every few minutes just to try to be seen.

Masala chai

My brother makes a spiced tea (“masala chai” is the Indian term for “spiced tea”) that is unrivaled anywhere around here, in spite of the fact that there’s a substantial Indian population in the neighborhood. It’s not only delicious but also has an energy kick that belies the fact that it’s just tea. I suspect that there must be some extra caffeine hiding out in one of the spices he grinds fresh for this drink.

I watched Daniel making chai this weekend so I could get his recipe. Note that these ingredients are all whole spices when he makes the chai and grinding them fresh is probably half the secret to what makes it so delicious. So get your mortar and pestle out if you want it to be the best it can be and let’s make some chai.

Ingredients (per cup):

5 allspice corns
6 cardomom seed pods
1 clove
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg seed
1 grind black pepper corn
1 tablespoon orange pekoe Indian tea
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
10 ounces 2%-fat milk

Pour the milk into a sauce pan. Pull the seeds out of the cardomom pods and put them into the mortar with the other spices, including just one grind from the pepper grinder. Grind the spices course with the pestle then add the tea and grind it fine. Add the contents of the mortar to the milk then put the sugar into the mortar. Grind the sugar with the pestle enough to pull the spices’ oils off of it and the wall of the mortar and incorporate the oils into the sugar. Then add the sugar to the milk and turn it on medium heat. Stir constantly to prevent the milk from scorching on the pan. As soon as it comes to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and strain the drink into a cup.

Libyan civil war

Last month, I blogged about the Egyptian “revolution.” The big news this month is the struggle for liberation from totalitarianism in Libya, which bears many resemblances to what preceded it in Egypt. So why am I not referring to it as a “revolution”? The conflict in Libya bears one fundamental difference from that in Egypt.

In Egypt, the revolutionaries were entirely peaceful—no one raised arms against Mubarak. In fact, that’s what made it so interesting to me. In Libya, on the other hand, an armed rebel force is leading the charge against Moammar Gadhafi. The Libyan rebels are inexperienced but they are anything but peaceful.

This makes the recent events in Libya essentially a civil war. For that reason, I have grave concerns for the United States’ involvement in it under the authority of the UN Security Council resolution. While I am empathetic for the Libyan peoples’ fight for freedom from Gadhafi, it in no way is a national security issue. Gadhafi poses no imminent threat to the US…as long as we take no military action in Libya. The conflict in Libya is just one of a number of civil wars around the world and the US should no more be involved in it than it should be involved in any of the others.

All I can see in the future for this is a quagmire. The UN has not laid out an end game for their resolution. Without UN occupation forces on the ground in Libya, victory is far from certain for the rebels. Pro-Gadhafi forces could make themselves very difficult to target from the air and sea yet still exact damage on the rebels. Gadhafi could conceivably retain power for a long time under a no-fly zone.

And what if Gadhafi is killed or driven out of power? The rebel forces are barely a cohesive unit. In the power vacuum that would result from the defeat of their common enemy, they would most likely splinter into fractious tribal alliances battling each other for power. The UN could potentially be creating another Somalia-like region in Africa. It’s arguable that the Libyan people would be any better off without Gadhafi than it is with him.

Granted: Gadhafi would likely kill many of his own civilian people absent UN intervention. But Omar al-Bashir has been doing the same in Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur have been killed by the Janjaweed, yet the US never intervened. These are tragic states of affair that all decent people wish would never occur. But it’s not grounds for the US to get involved in a foreign country’s civil war.

Egyptian revolution

This will be interesting to watch unfold. First of all, how many other revolutions have we seen where the revolutionaries are not in large part members of some structured organization that could present potential leadership? It seems the Egyptians have not yet coalesced en masse behind any significant potential chief executive, political party, or existing government structure (other than their respect of their army).

Secondly, how many other revolutions have we seen where the revolutionaries overthrew a stable government using entirely peaceful methods? Not a single weapon was used by revolutionaries to force Mubarak from office. They used nothing more than the sheer collective will of the people—the truest form of democratic revolution. I think this revolution is now in uncharted waters, so it could end up just about anywhere.

Lastly, few would disagree that Web 2.0 technologies played a critical role in facilitating this revolution. Now that we have a successful proof of concept for a telecommunications-based revolution, it makes me wonder what we will see happen in other oppressive states in the Middle East these next few months. I’ve read that the youth in Iran—a substantial segment of the population—aspire to a more Western-style society…

Homo evolutis

I call this blog The Progressive Zone because I like to think of myself as a progressive person. Unfortunately, when some people hear the word “progressive,” they equate it to being liberal. My conception of progressive is neither liberal nor conservative—or maybe it’s a little of both.

When Juan Enriquez shares mindboggling science, he explores a number of examples of what I consider to be “progressive.” Watch Enriquez’s TED presentation then read the rest of this post.

The next species of human
Juan Enriquez at TED2009

As you saw, none of the science Enriquez shares is “liberal” in the negative sense some hold of socialist government or late-term abortions and the like. In fact, the economic concept presented at the beginning is actually fiscally conservative. But no one would deny that both the fiscal approach and the science is progressive—at least according to my concept of progressivism.

Enriquez paints a picture of the kind of future we will get if progressive thought is used to get us there. The question it raises is, do you find this kind of world scary? There are likely many people who would be intimidated by the thought of humankind becoming Homo evolutis. After living more than twenty-five years in a paralyzed body, I find it exciting!

An Epic ale

No, that’s not a typo—I didn’t mean an epic “tale.” It was truly an epic ale I drank last night: the Stone Vertical Epic ale. As epic as this ale is, I’d never heard of it until last night.

Eric, the owner of Addison Homebrew Provisions, brought a bottle of the 10.10.10 bottling of the series to my home. The series of Vertical Epic is brewed over the course of ten years and designed to be cellared for a vertical beer tasting sometime after December 12th, 2012. I was very fortunate to be there when Eric prematurely popped the cap.

Photo of a bottle of Stone Vertical Epic ale — Stone Vertical Epic

I’m a big fan of Stone Brewing Co., the brewer of what is in my opinion the best commercial pale ale on the market. Nonetheless, the 10.10.10 Vertical Epic exceeded even this high bar. In fact, it’s probably the best beer commercially brewed in the United States that I’ve drank in years.

It pours slightly opaque with an almost golden color. The head had dissipated almost completely by the time I got the glass but the ale still had a pleasant nose to it. I’ll spare you the comparisons to all of the foods that aren’t put into beer which connoisseurs claim to smell—I’m pretty sure I smelled malt, hops, yeast and some other stuff. The aroma was mild enough that it wasn’t a spoiler for what I was in for when I tasted the Vertical Epic.

Stone says they brewed the beer to fit the strong Belgian golden ale style. This boded well for me since Belgian ales are my favorite styles of beer. The Vertical Epic did have the essence of a Belgian ale but there was something else going on that I couldn’t quite place at first. Whatever it was, it was delicious from the first swig, while the ale was still cold.

So what “else” was there? For one, Stone says they added chamomile during the whirlpool stage. I can’t say that I tasted it but I could faintly smell it once I was made aware of it. But what “else” was probably most significant about the 10.10.10 Vertical Epic is that Stone added a juice blend of Muscat, Gewurztraminer, and Sauvignon Blanc grape varietals in secondary fermentation. When I was told this, I realized that ironically the flavor that really makes this beer great is wine. The reason I couldn’t initially peg the Epic style is because it’s essentially…a wine beer (if you never heard of a “wine beer,” it’s because I just coined the term).

I normally take my time drinking a fine ale—particularly when it’s upwards of ten percent alcohol, like the Vertical Epic—but I found myself drinking it like a session beer simply because it was so good. I had to refill my glass to be able to taste it after it warmed some and, yes, it was every bit as enjoyable and perhaps more complex as when it was cold.

While you can let the 10.10.10 Vertical Epic warm, I recommend against letting it age ‘til 12/12/2012. In my opinion, it lacks the foundation that makes an ale age well that much longer. The flip side of that coin is that it will likely be the best beer you’ll drink this year, so don’t pass up the opportunity to drink the Stone Vertical Epic ale if you can find it.

Maredsous Blonde

Normally I prefer brunettes but tonight I’m making an exception for a delectable Belgian blonde. This blonde comes from a monastery in Belgium called Maredsous. She’s a true abbey ale, with 6% alcohol by volume.

The Maredsous Blonde pours up with a thick, foamy head, proudly displaying a few pockmarks from the bigger bubbles popping. She leaves a heavy lacing on the glass as I drink her down. The head releases a sweet, grassy bouquet with a hint of sharp cheddar. She also creates a great sensory experience as the foam carries the ale across the tongue.

The ale is golden in color with a faint murkiness. As I drink her in, the distinctive flavor of the Belgian yeast steps out at me. But it’s well balanced with the malting and bitterness of the hops. The malt leaves a slightly waxy mouthfeel. The mild European hops linger on the palette. Maredsous reminds me of a Belgian wit I cut my teeth on but without the spiciness. This allows the four flavors of a basic beer to shine in this blonde.

And shine they do! The Maredsous Blonde is one of the most enjoyable beers I have drunk in quite a while. As she warms, she is smoother than ever. Now I’m done with her—all that’s left is the traces of her white head lacing the glass.

The will of the people to be unconstitutional

The California Marriage Protection Act, which provided that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” was voted into law by Californians in the November 2008 election. Earlier this month, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturned the law more commonly known as Proposition 8.

This has supporters of the proposition in an uproar, claiming that Walker denied the people of California their free will. It’s ironic that the California Marriage Protection Act itself denies an entire class of people their free will to marry. Of course, Proposition 8 supporters would argue that all it does is to explicitly define “marriage” in the state’s constitution as it has been defined for millennia.

In fact, polygamy—one of the more ancient practices—was long considered a legitimate marriage, both in religions and in society. It was not uncommon for a marriage between an adult and a girl in her early teens to be recognized without controversy. Because the Confucian philosophy dictated that Chinese marriage brings together families of different surnames, it was not considered incestuous to marry one’s maternal relative, and families would intermarry from one generation to another.

In modern marriage, neither religion nor moralities have any relevance, at least insofar as the state of California is concerned. Walker made this case in his ruling when he wrote the following clause:

Marriage in the United States has always been a civil matter. Civil authorities may permit religious leaders to solemnize marriages but not to determine who may enter or leave a civil marriage. Religious leaders may determine independently whether to recognize a civil marriage or divorce but that recognition or lack thereof has no effect on the relationship under state law.

He was also careful to recognize that overturning the law in no way impinges on anyone’s religious freedoms:

Proposition 8 does not affect the First Amendment rights of those opposed to marriage for same-sex couples. Prior to Proposition 8, no religious group was required to recognize marriage for same-sex couples.

A marriage in a California church, temple, or synagogue is not legally recognized if the state has not licensed the couple to marry. A legal marriage licensed by the state is valid even if there has been no religious ceremony. From the perspective of the state of California—which is the only jurisdiction of the California Marriage Protection Act—marriage is simply a legal status of two consenting persons, with the associated rights and responsibilities prescribed by law.

Furthermore, within the scope of authority of Proposition 8, marriage is a state matter. California is obligated to execute state law only to the extent that it is constitutional under the United States Constitution. That constitution happens to have an equal-protection clause—Amendment XIV—that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Judge Walker wrote that “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.” Proposition 8 reflected the will of the people of California…to enact an unconstitutional law. For that reason, it should not stand.

Cake decorated with the words — Same-Sex Marriage