Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

I've been on the road (more on that later) and haven't had a chance to note the passing of a couple of giants. Author Ray Bradbury passed away on June 5 at the age of 91, and Doc Watson, guitar legend, died on May 29 at age 89. The first book by Ray Bradbury I read was a second hand copy of The October Country I bought at a thrift store. It was a collection of short stories more gothic horror than sci fi, and deliciously creepy. I tended to prefer the short stories over the novels - they were little polished jewels of language and poetic imagery. The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man both followed the same format, in that they were a collection of short stories bound thematically into a pseudo-novel. His actual novels were not so much to my taste - the artfully constructed language of the shorter pieces (to me) seemed to bog down the narrative energy of the longer works. I re-read one of his most praised novels,   Something Wicked This Way Comes , a few years...

Two weeks ago I started a poll to let my readers (you know who you are) decide on which of my on-line representations to use: the Classic (old) Dr Ralph, or the New and not so improved Dr Ralph. Assuming you care, you can read about it elsewhere ; I see no point in boring people again. The voting is over, and the Classic Dr Ralph is the winner by a 7 to 1 margin. Which is to say there were 8 votes: 7 for Classic Ralph, 1 for New Ralph. I have to say, I'm glad we had one contrarian who went for New Ralph. As someone who spent the first third of his professional life in advertising, I'm not all that surprised. Anyone remember New Coke and the subsequent  resurrection of Old Coke (which was quickly dubbed "Coke Classic") in the wake of public outcry? It happened over 25 years ago but is still an instructive object lesson to any one involved in marketing. There are many this primary season who would have benefited from reviewing this case study. I  part...

If (as they say) a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll leave it to you to do the math at the Iconic Photos blog. The tag line for the site is "Famous, Infamous and Iconic Photos. The format is simple: presentation of a photo or photos, along with some background information to provide a little context. I spent about ten minutes just flipping through pages and saw any number of images I recognized or recalled: the balcony in Memphis the moments after Martin Luther King's assassination , the young JFK, jr, solemnly saluting his father's coffin , and the moments before the second aircraft slammed into the World Trade center on September 11, 2001 . One of my favorites is Nelson Rockefeller flipping the bird to a heckler . The look of utter glee is too good to be missed. They don't make Republicans like him any more - or at least they don't nominate them. Hit the " Random Post " link on the right sidebar for something you didn't expect. Be...

Small disclaimer: my youngest son, formerly a student at George Mason University, has shaken the dust off his sandals and transferred to Texas State University , in San Marcos. Frankly I'm glad, though I was enthusiastic about his attending when he applied. There are any number of reasons I'm glad he's back in Texas, not the least of which is that tuition costs will be about a third of what they were at GMU. Though Mason has an exemplary technology and computer science program, they are also Ground Zero for various academic apologists for the whole Libertarian movement. The Cato Institute , bankrolled by Princes of Fucking Darkness David and Charles Koch , is housed there, and the Economics department is awash with Libertarian shills for the Kochs such as Don Boudreaux and Russell Roberts. A recent dustup has arisen over at  GMU over Professor T. Mills Kelly's class, "Lying about the Past," which had as part of the coursework, assignments to go out and ...

Now's your chance to vote on which profile picture I should use. Classic (old) Dr Ralph New Dr Ralph A little background, for those of you who actually give a shit about any of this. I switched out my old profile picture for the new one, as part of a little experiment a little while back. I occasionally comment on the blog of my good friend, the Whited Sepulchre, and his Libertarian co-religionists usually point to my profile picture as proof of my supposed Socialist leanings. I'm actually the embodiment of moderation, at least in my mind. So, whose visage would most appeal to those of the Libertarian persuasion? Why, George Mason economics professor and paid Koch brothers shill Don Bourdreaux! I performed my Photoshop magic and - no more Commie Ralph! Now I was part of the tribe. I was amazed at how the WS's commentators now found me (occasionally) a reasonable person.  Others who remembered the old picture found the new one just...creepy. A little back...

This caught my eye: Forbes claims our Government writes crappy code . Specifically web code. Of course this was based on an analysis the security company Versacode did, so I'm not convinced how unbiased their judgement is. Still, it isn't all that hard to believe, since in my professional experience, there is an awful lot of insecure web code, out there. Most of this comes from sites with some sort of database backend (dynamic sites) rather than static sites.  In my experience, this is because when projects get behind schedule (have you ever known a project *not* to get behind schedule?), testing and security concerns are the first two things to be tossed out the window.  Okay - this little post ought to please all my Libertarian friends. But let me point out (since I have no ax to grind, unlike Versacode) that this sort of thing  is *not* the exclusive failing of government.  Boo-yah.

I went to a Libertarian gathering the other day (it was in the neighborhood). The Libertarian crowd talks a good game. They seem to be, for the most part, fairly intelligent people,committed to their cause. While I don't always agree with them (and on quite a few issues I *do* agree with them), they make interesting arguments for their side. That being said, I've come to realize they are as full of hokum as the political types for whom they display their sneering superiority. They make much of their supposed political purity, espousing opinions that fall outside the mainstream on social and personal freedom issues, as well as small (and no) government stances on other issues. The truth of the matter - other than the Republican-friendly small government stuff, the rest appears to be all window dressing. During the 2010 election, Tea Party Libertarian, Rand " yes my dad's name is Ron " Paul, stated on his website in 2009 that " life begins at concepti...