Logographer

Checking out another fad that all the kids seem to be into these days: last.fm. Now you can see what I listen to at home. What I hear in the office stays in the office.

Does anyone care about my listening tastes? No, I hardly care about it myself. I’m only interested in checking out the integration of Menuet, iTunes, and this Web 2.0 service. So far, I fail to see the value proposition, as the MBAs would say, but I’m only a curious techno-nerd, far from their ideal client.

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Here’s a video of Steve Jobs appearing at the Cupertino City Council meeting a few days ago to announce his decision to build a second Apple campus in that town. It’s interesting to see and hear Citizen Jobs, and funny at times to hear the reactions from some of the council members.

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2407 Rogers Blvd, Sunnyvale, CA 95051

Understand?

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John Fund, writing for the Wall Street Journal, has been following the story of former Taliban spokesman Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, now a student at Yale. In his most recent article on the topic, Fund notes that “there appear to be a whole lot of dark corners in university admission offices that deserve illumination.” His report is worth reading, not only for the commentary on the “Taliban Man at Yale” incident, but also for some of its insight on American politics.

Not usually the type of reader who follows a story from a reporter on the political right? Consider what this young man said:

James Kirchick, a Yale senior, wrote last month in the Yale Daily News that he was disturbed by the refusal of liberals to be outraged over the religious fascism the Taliban represent. . . . He noted that “a friend of mine recently remarked that part of his and his peers’ nonchalance (and in some cases, support for) Hashemi has to do with the fact that the right has seized upon the issue. Our politics have become so polarized that many are willing to take positions based on the inverse of their opponents’. This abandonment of classical liberal values at the expense of political gamesmanship has consequences that reach far beyond Yale; it hurts our national discourse.”

Isn’t it difficult to disagree with Kirchick?

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The Euston Manifesto is an interesting read. Here’s an excerpt from the preamble:

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

The manifesto has 353 signatories now, according to statistics on the site. I myself have only a few minor quibbles with the manifesto.

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Michael Waller thinks that the tone of the debate on immigration in this country could use a little more reason and a little less emotion and demagoguery. One way “to help push the immigration debate in a more sensible direction” is to look at the treatment of immigrants as defined in the Mexican constitution. His note titled “Mexico’s glass house” is a quick and interesting read, bringing to light some stark contrasts between the treatment of immigrants in the United States and Mexico.

Did you know, for example, that naturalized Mexican citizens don’t have all the rights of native-born citizens? You might be surprised to find that naturalized Mexican citizens can lose their citizenship if they return to their country of origin and live there for more than five years. Immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, are also barred from certain professions. Waller cites many articles from the Mexican constitution to create a list that will probably surprise many Americans.

Clearly something has to be done to reform US immigration laws. When laws are not enforced even by the government for a long period of time, something is wrong with the laws, the government, or both. There are also too few people asking why many Mexicans don’t want to live in Mexico, a country that has a long history of official corruption and a large and deeply impoverished underclass. When will Mexico be pressured to reform? Back in the US, it seems reasonable to assume that a population numbering in the many millions (some say 11 million) of non-citizens with no legal standing does not create a healthy environment for assimilation and participation in the greater society. Politicians on both sides of the aisle seem unable to deal with the problem rationally. It’s worth reading Waller’s note, if only to encourage a little more critical thinking.

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Everyone by now knows, or should know, to take anything on Wikipedia with a grain of salt. It’s not without some genuine value though. I like to use it as a quick way to find a few dates, or at least to get a sense of the historical context on a subject, to refresh my memory, or to help me fill in the gaps in my knowledge about a historical event. This works for some topics better than others. It seems to work well for topics in modern western military history, such as the two World Wars. It can also work for information about famous places. I just referred to the page on Seville to refresh my memory on the date of the city’s switch from Muslim to Christian control, although I wouldn’t cite this date in a paper without consulting a more reliable source.

But these pages are in a horrible state: Moors, Hispania Baetica, Córdoba, and Mezquita. Woe to any student who relies on them for a school report. These pages could lead them into C territory, or worse, if I were grading them. Beside all that, if I ever teach a class on medieval Spain, I can already anticipate the problems I’ll have trying to deal with the term “Moors.” It belongs in the same bin as “feudal.” Students should be familiar with these terms, but they also need to know how troublesome the words have become.

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For those of us who make a living trying to keep a network of Macintosh computers working smoothly, the Managing OS X blog looks like it might have some helpful information. I’m setting up radmind for some machines at the office now, and Managing OS X offers some helpful tips for it, along with other interesting topics.

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