Disqus - Latest Comments for JWindish

Re: Safety of Amonia-Treated Ground Beef Questioned

JWindish — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:58:31 -0000

The demand for organic is there and growing. Its rise is unprecedented. But the problem is not solved. Regulators determine what food goes into school lunches, for example. The definition of "organic" has been set by the government -- with the significant influence of the food industry. That leaves us with some food that would not have fit the definition of organic a decade ago, now on sale as organic. And some locally grown food that would have been included in the definition of organic a decade ago, no longer is. The food system is immense and complicated. And the biggest factor in modern organics is regulation, not economics.

Re: We Need To Educate Prisoners

JWindish — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:28:49 -0000

Ah, yes! I missed that. Thanks for the clarification and sorry for my confusion.

Re: We Need To Educate Prisoners

JWindish — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:45:14 -0000

I seem resentful? I didn't mean to. I think it's a reasonable question. I think that not educating prisoners makes them more likely to be re-offenders and leaves us all more vulnerable to a cycle of crime. I'm sure many disagree with that. But the place I typically see resentment is from crime victims and victims' advocates who believe that giving anything to prisoners takes away from just claims of retribution and punishment.

Re: Review: The New Mac Magic Mouse

JWindish — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:18:15 -0000

Yes! 1/4 cleansing cream, "even the shape of this new bath and toilet bar is different, modern, curved to fit your hand..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QyiGMmmN38

Re: The Fake Date-Rape Epidemic

JWindish — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:20:18 -0000

Absolutely right. I changed the title of the post. I threw it up in a hurry and had originally called it the fake GHB epidemic. I should have left it. For simplicity and to correct that error I just added the word drug.

Re: Adam Lambert: Out, But Not THAT Out

JWindish — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:01:15 -0000

Poli, If you read my post and my comment, and I get that you did, nowhere do I or did I see anyone else ask that Lambert "take up the banner or be a poster child."

You and I clearly disagree and are not likely to find common ground on this one. But to reiterate, what I said was that it's ham-handed for a handler to say what his did. And he, Lambert, should expect to be called on it. You can't have it both ways: out, proud (his words), bad-boy (my take, along with the fan press, including Details) but still ask not to be portrayed as "gay-gay" (whatever the hell that is) when you're on the cover of a gay magazine.

I agree with roro and stockboy that the young Lambert is building a career. The Rolling Stone article said that he had only then (June) gotten his publicist, a day-to-day manager, and a bodyguard. As he rises to the heights of stardom, I have no doubt that he will be sure to hire a better publicist than the one that caused this ruckus.

Re: Daily Show Is Serious About Media Criticism

JWindish — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:31:39 -0000

Pacatrue, I've been too busy to get to a post that will include that On The Media story you cite. I second and endorse your admiration of the work done on that show. I never miss it.

Re: Adam Lambert: Out, But Not THAT Out

JWindish — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:19:12 -0000

You know, Polimom, contrarian that I am, I wanted to write the post from your '[they] expect him to be gay first and a singer second' perspective. But then I spent way too much time on this frothy story reading completely everything linked in my post above and more. At the end of all that I found your perspective to be wrong. I urge you to read up.

I suggest you start with that entire 5,000 word Rolling Stone piece. Lambert can't go around saying he "will own" "sucking my boy’s face" and describing how he lost his virginity on his 21st birthday, “I was drunk, and it was awkward,” not to mention his, "I’m proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.” You can't paint yourself (literally) as an out gay bad-boy performer and then have your publicist warn the gay interviewer not to make you look “too gay,” or, “you know, gay-gay.”

Or, well, of course you can. But then expect to be called on it. The gay press doesn't have the clout to make the criticism hurt. But to me, after reading up, it's legit.

Re: Droid Eris by HTC with Google

JWindish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:45:15 -0000

I agree Jim. It's my hope that the iPhone does come to Verizon and broader adoption means falling prices on those data plans!

Re: On SCOTUS cases and juveniles in jail for life

JWindish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:26:36 -0000

Jill, I got lazy and just copied and pasted the same comment from my post to here. Sorry! I thought maybe the comment thread from mine could be shifted to here. I should have edited because, no, I emphatically did not mean that portion of my comment to be responding to you. I, too, agree with Alan Simpson. But what I see happening now is far, far away from Simpson's experience. The justice machine today would not so easily set him free. And that's what saddens me.

I have personally spoken with the parents of kids who did nothing worse than Simpson suggests he did, but once in the system they ended up in a state facility. I have spoken with parents who thought they would teach their kid a Simpson-type lesson, only to find that once the police were involved, there was no way out. Our culture has clearly moved from a Restorative Justice place (if only minimally so) to a wholly Retributive Justice system. It's far simpler to have a black and white, zero tolerance, absolute position than it is to navigate the reality of a world where circumstances matter.

We don't pay for the justice system we need to manage the punitive laws we pass, and that inevitably means innocents swept into it. (Read the details of the 13-year-old Joe Sullivan conviction.) Even if you disagree with that inevitability, you might agree that the result of warehoused criminals is not likely to be reformed citizens, chastened and contributing to the community when they're released.

Now, I'm ranting to the choir rather than responding directly to you. I apologize. I agree with you that we need to live and act to project and protect and persuade. I'm glad you're doing that, too! My ranting comes from how big and impossible that job seems in the face of the far easier "lock them up and teach them a lesson" mentality.

Re: Should Kids Get Life Without Parole?

JWindish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:04:36 -0000

Sorry, Jeff, you're vision of what a prison is like bears no resemblance to those I have visited in four states. Maybe where you live they're country clubs; they're not where I live. A television with cable serving dozens of men does not a country club make.

What they are is staffed by under-payed and under-trained people (or at least people whose training is not informed by current research) where violent, predatory culture predominates, with only the most meager of rehabilitative efforts - though, admittedly, I very much admire those who work there and are making the effort.

In that place, the instinct to survive couples with a vengeful contempt for the society that put them there, and then releases them with no means to make it on the outside. And we're surprised that the recidivism rate is not Jeff's imagined low rate, but rather horrendously high?

Read it and weep.

Re: On SCOTUS cases and juveniles in jail for life

JWindish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:53:12 -0000

My post on this is here. I answered my few commenters with this, which I repost here to be part of the conversation...

Young people are reflection of their parents and the culture into which they are born. Maturity is a complex gradual biological and learning process. There are difference between physical, emotional, and intellectual maturity, both across age groups and individuals. The law draws a single line, if for no other reason, because it's easier that way.

By the logic of the comments so far, these kids would be better off being put to death. What I read here is that they should pay for their offenses. I see payment as pointless. My goal is that they not commit a crime again. Our system, as it stand now, serves only to warehouse and train hardened criminals.

My interpretation of "cruel and unusual," indeed any interpretation other than that of the courts', is irrelevant. But a life spent in prison seems more cruel than a life cut short through a quick execution. I wouldn't be surprised to find you agree a quick execution is preferable. And I wouldn't be surprised if a culture dominated by people with that view is a violent, criminal, and cruel one.

From that you can guess that I oppose life without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenses. My research has not been lifelong, but I have spent the past 2 years serving on the advisory board of a state juvenile detention center.

Re: Should Kids Get Life Without Parole?

JWindish — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:34:01 -0000

Young people are reflection of their parents and the culture into which they are born. Maturity is a complex gradual biological and learning process. There are difference between physical, emotional, and intellectual maturity, both across age groups and individuals. The law draws a single line, if for no other reason, because it's easier that way.

By the logic of the comments so far, these kids would be better off being put to death. What I read here is that they should pay for their offenses. I see payment as pointless. My goal is that they not commit a crime again. Our system, as it stand now, serves only to warehouse and train hardened criminals.

My interpretation of "cruel and unusual," indeed any interpretation other than that of the courts', is irrelevant. But a life spent in prison seems more cruel than a life cut short through a quick execution. I wouldn't be surprised to find you agree a quick execution is preferable. And I wouldn't be surprised if a culture dominated by people with that view is a violent, criminal, and cruel one.

Re: Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do

JWindish — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:43:54 -0000

Thanks Davebo. From the reporting I couldn't figure out who did the shoving and cuffing. I thought it would be only the police who had authority to do that.

Re: R.I.P. Vic Mizzy

JWindish — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:55:23 -0000

DLS... Link please?

Re: 15-Year-Old Set On Fire By Classmates

JWindish — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:25:18 -0000

"Do you think those kids have any idea of what goes on in our justice system or understand the realities of our penal system and jails? Of course not."

OMG!!! I can't believe you think they don't! The police and criminal justice system absolutely directly impacts the lives of kids each and every day. They are totally aware of it. The pervasiveness of our police and the intrusion of criminal justice into our schools and the daily lives of kids is exponentially greater than it was when I was young. Talk to the people in your school system. The teachers, administrators and students. I guess it's possible that where you live its different, but everywhere I've been and where I live today that is absolutely true.

Re: 15-Year-Old Set On Fire By Classmates

JWindish — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:00:53 -0000

I posted this comment yesterday afternoon. For some reason it, and a reply from Dr J, are no longer in the queue. DLS & CStanley, you will be unpersuaded (as was Dr J in his fine retort), but I am as confused by your NOT seeing a link as you are by me seeing a link. Here's yesterday's comment:

My relating the two was instinctive; I'll try to think it through and spell it out a bit more clearly here. If I was to rewrite the sentence that you quoted, Dr. J, I would add brutal and unforgiving to say "this kind of violence is a side-effect of our brutal, punishing, and unforgiving criminal justice system."

Our culture is implicated in that it sanctions that system. I'm struck by the police-state feel of much of what we take for granted -- surveillance cameras, tasers, debating the definition of torture, even those new menacing police cruisers so popular these days. They look like something out of Blade Runner's dark dystopian future. Our actions as expressed in our incarceration rate model an attitude that has to be soaked in by our children. How can we think this has no impact on our kids?

It is not just the high rate of incarceration or the increasing mandatory sentences we pile on, it is the fact that we apparently no longer believe that rehabilitation is possible or even a goal worth striving for. I take Jazz's point and agree completely with him even as I say that we have moved clearly and completely to a retributive justice model and as far away as possible from anything anywhere near a restorative justice model. Again, modeling a callous, judgmental standard for our young. Do you doubt that the kids who killed in Chicago or burned the boy in Broward County thought they were acting out of some kind of deluded justice?

I do know well how brutal and dangerous and bad some kids can be. I sit on the advisory board of a YDC; I have worked with and interacted with incarcerated and deadly dangerous criminal kids. But I've also sat with parents who had no idea what they were doing when they thought they'd teach their out-of-control kid a lesson by involving the police, only to learn that once in the system there was no way out. I've sat with the burned out public defenders that represent them, too.

I don't imagine an easy answer. I do believe, though, that the retributive incarceration regime we have been using adds to the problem rather than solving it.

Re: 15-Year-Old Set On Fire By Classmates

JWindish — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:22:43 -0000

My relating the two was instinctive; I'll try to think it through and spell it out a bit more clearly here. If I was to rewrite the sentence that you quoted, Dr. J, I would add brutal and unforgiving to say "this kind of violence is a side-effect of our brutal, punishing, and unforgiving criminal justice system."

Our culture is implicated in that it sanctions that system. I'm struck by the police-state feel of much of what we take for granted -- surveillance cameras, tasers, debating the definition of torture, even those new menacing police cruisers so popular these days. They look like something out of Blade Runner's dark dystopian future. Our actions as expressed in our incarceration rate model an attitude that has to be soaked in by our children. How can we think this has no impact on our kids?

It is not just the high rate of incarceration or the increasing mandatory sentences we pile on, it is the fact that we apparently no longer believe that rehabilitation is possible or even a goal worth striving for. I take Jazz's point and agree completely with him even as I say that we have moved clearly and completely to a retributive justice model and as far away as possible from anything anywhere near a restorative justice model. Again, modeling a callous, judgmental standard for our young. Do you doubt that the kids who killed in Chicago or burned the boy in Broward County thought they were acting out of some kind of deluded justice?

I do know well how brutal and dangerous and bad some kids can be. I sit on the advisory board of a YDC; I have worked with and interacted with incarcerated and deadly dangerous criminal kids. But I've also sat with parents who had no idea what they were doing when they thought they'd teach their out-of-control kid a lesson by involving the police, only to learn that once in the system there was no way out. I've sat with the burned out public defenders that represent them, too.

I don't imagine an easy answer. I do believe, though, that the retributive incarceration regime we have been using adds to the problem rather than solving it.

Re: Sergey Brin on Google Books

JWindish — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:39:31 -0000

Early on I was vocally in favor of the Google Books project and how Google went about doing it. On the agreement with publishers, the two people who i look to for guidance on such things, Larry Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, diverge. For now I'm more in line with Lessig, who sees the book agreement as the basis for something very good.

Re: FTC to Fine Bloggers, Advertisers up to $16,000

JWindish — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:44:48 -0000

No, the FTC has jurisdiction over consumer products, not political candidates. But Facebook is interesting. The guidelines apparently do apply to Facebook fan pages.

Re: Is Intellectually Serious Conservatism Dead?

JWindish — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:58:48 -0000

Dr. J, George WIll was all alliterative this morning on This Week; too over the top for me. One person on the Right I'm interested to learn more about is named in the Hayward piece I linked above:

Beck's distinctiveness and his potential contribution to conservatism can be summed up with one name: R.J. Pestritto. Pestritto is a young political scientist at Hillsdale College in Michigan whom Beck has had on his TV show several times, once for the entire hour discussing Woodrow Wilson and progressivism. He is among a handful of young conservative scholars, several of whom Beck has also featured, engaged in serious academic work critiquing the intellectual pedigree of modern liberalism. Their writing is often dense and difficult, but Beck not only reads it, he assigns it to his staff. "Beck asks me questions about Hegel, based on what he's read in my books," Pestritto told me. Pestritto is the kind of guest Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity would never think of booking.

I have to say I have also found some of what David Frum has said recently to be very interesting as well.

Re: Not ‘Photoshopped’

JWindish — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:31:22 -0000

Thanx. The choice of photoshop contest was a nod both to my southern home and the fact that my first car was, in fact, a 1967 Ford Galaxy convertible. Mine was blue. No confederate flag. And I wrecked it!

Re: Kurzweil Was Right: Bionic Eyesight Is Within Reach

JWindish — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:28:48 -0000

Come on, Don, don't quibble. Perhaps you would have rather I said, "Bionically Enhanced" in my title. But the Wikipedia definition fits:

[Bionics] is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology. The word bionic was coined by Jack E. Steele in 1958, possibly originating from the Greek word βίον, bíon, pronounced [bi:on] ("bee-on"), meaning 'unit of life' and the suffix -ic, meaning 'like' or 'in the manner of', hence 'like life'. Some dictionaries, however, explain the word as being formed from biology + electronics.

And if you search on "retinal-imaging" in the Google Books iframe above, you will find that Kurzweil's prediction for 2019 includes "implanted retinal-imaging devices (as well as comparable devices for audio 'imaging')." The technology described in the IEEE Spectrum article I quote above does indeed, I believe, put those implanted imaging devices within reach.

Re: Hookworms, Allergies & Asthma

JWindish — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:36:28 -0000

I will pass the eucalyptus oil and water suggestion on. I am very intrigued by the Radio Lab story, but I'd want to dig some more before trying it.

Re: Nissan “beautiful and futuristic” Noise: Cars To Sound Like Blade Runner Spinners

JWindish — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:51:31 -0000

Thanks David. I clicked through to the website of the company, and saw that they're doing Heathrow. But I missed that simple fundamental to the concept!

As for a song, Stockboy, hmmm.... Maybe Vintage Madonna. Burning Up.