I'm getting ready to head down to Arkansas this afternoon. I may get a post up or two this weekend but I may not - we'll see. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend. I encourage you to reflect on how fortunate we are because our ancestors made some great decisions and accepted higher taxes to build the infrastructure that we all take for granted today - the infrastructure that built our economy.

A question we have to consider is what we are doing for the future. Are we building what they will need to be successful? Or are we leaving them to fend for themselves so we can have more immediate gratification? This is a question fit for a patriot.

Spent the weekend at Michelle's parents with Kimmi, Michelle, Garbe, and the dogs. Spent some time on Leech Lake with John's boat and the rest relaxing with Michelle's parents. It was a great weekend, here are a couple of fun photos from it.

Organizing is hell. That it is less harsh today than 100 years ago does little to change the fact that organizing workers today remains incredibly difficult. Those who do it sacrifice much to help workers get a fair share of what they produce - to give them more control over their workplace (organizing solely for a raise is seldom a worthwhile endeavor).

Years ago, I worked with organizers, most often from HERE (a union generally representing hotel and restaurant employees) and UFCW (food and commercial workers) and I have a great respect for what they go through just to get some employers to abide by the law, let alone gain advantages for the workers that are fair and yet not required by law. They work long hours at low pay, and rarely get the praise they deserve for improving the status of workers across the country.

A note for those of you who don't know your labor history - if you don't know how long it took and how many died in the struggle for a 40 hour day, an end to child labor, and for a minimum wage, you should learn. Some people actually think employers willingly bestowed these prizes on workers - this ignorance insults the memories of some of the most important people in the history of this country.

A decent start to understand the labor history of this country may actually be a work of fiction - John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle (which you should buy from IndieBound.org (Amazon is great but independent bookstores are better for the community). Those intimidated because of being forced to read Steinbeck in High School should reconsider - this is a fairly short book and is apparently President Obama's favorite book by Steinbeck.

The book is about organizing the agriculture workers in California way back in the day. Each of these quotes comes from dialogue - starting with an insight into why organizing workers was so important:

"Did you ever work at a job where, when you got enough skill to get a raise in pay, you were fired and a new man put in? Did you ever work in a place where they talked about loyalty to the firm, and loyalty meant spying on the people around you?"

As to those who would argue that humans are too individualistic to work together, one might answer "There is power in a union."

"Men always like to work together. There's a hunger in men to work together. Do you know that ten men can lift nearly twelve times as big a load as one man can? It only takes a little spark to get them going. Most of the time they're suspicious, because every time someone gets 'em working in a group the profit of their work is taken away from them; but wait till they get working for themselves."

The final quote is something that can be applied to almost every power struggle in the history of humankind. London is the name of one of the main characters. The men they are organizing may well starve - their families may be malnourished because the owners of the orchards had all the power in the arrangement. 100 years ago, when people went on strike, some might get killed quickly in a streetfight and others might watch their children go days without food during the ordeal. These were serious struggles.

"They say we play dirty, work underground. Did you ever think, London? We've got no guns. If anything happens to us, we don't get in the newspapers. But if anything happens to the other side, Jesus, they smear it in ink. We've got no money, and no weapons, so we've got to use our heads, London. See that? It's like a man with a club fighting a squad with machine-guns. The only way he can do it is to sneak up and smack the gunners from behind. Maybe that isn't fair, but hell, London, this isn't any athletic contest. There aren't any rules a hungry man has to follow."

According to Wikipedia, when writing about the book, Steinbeck said this - something that I sometimes want to shout at pompous folks who are more horrified by a fucking expletive than the daily outrages faced by the underclass in our cities.

The talk...is what is usually called vulgar. I have worked along with working stiffs and I have rarely heard a sentence that had not some bit of profanity in it. And in books I am sick of the noble working man talking very like a junior college professor. [The novel] is not controversial enough to draw the support of either the labor or the capital side although either may draw controversial conclusions from it, I suppose

Between Senator Ensign (huge critic of Clinton, called on him to resign due to his infidelity) and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, the Republicans and their extramarital affairs are clearly threatening the institution of marriage. These leaders are setting an example that husbands have little obligation to be faithful to their wives. They frequently claim that homosexuals are a threat, but this is clearly a gambit to hide the fact that Republicans are intent on destroying the monogamous family unit that forms the basis of Western Civilization.

I'm actually quite surprised that it took so long for us to figure this out. After all, the states that overwhelmingly vote for Republicans have the highest divorce rates - especially those among the "Bible Belt." On the contrary, the states with the lowest divorce rates tend to overwhelmingly be more liberal - all stats from the CDC.

Clearly, Republicans have been more strategic than we gave them credit for. While they have undermined the entire institution of marriage with their frequent infidelity, they have convinced millions that gays are the real threat! Despite an utter lack of evidence for the gay threat to marriage (aside from a few passages from a book that equally condemns eating shellfish or wearing fabrics of mixed materials), we have fallen for a classic misdirection.

We must take action - we have to pass laws to protect marriage from this Republican onslaught. Legislation ought to immediately require that anyone who wants to marry declare their voting history. Those who vote heavily for Republican will be denied a marriage certificate in order to prevent more damage to such an important institution - the marriages of people who take it seriously. Additionally, the legislation will recognize the marriages of same-sex couples as well - a group of people that has not actually damaged the institution.

As always, the government will not require all churches to marry same-sex couples. Bigoted churches should be free to continue discriminating until they have run out of members (thank you younger generations who are annoyed at the irrational prejudices of gramps). In this case, the government will just get out of the way and stop preventing people who love each other (but intend to be faithful to each other, thus ruling out Republicans) from marrying.

In case it is not obvious, the above is mostly sarcastic. But this is 100% from my heart: to all you Republicans and your moralizing, shut the fuck up (or, for those who recognize this important acronym, STFU). You fucking assholes have spread hate while proving utterly less moral than perhaps every other societal group. Republican politicians may well be the least qualified people in the country to ever make a moral decision. You fuckers make me sick. Now go back to your goddamn cheating and leave the rest of us the hell alone.

Kimmi and Becca went to a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fundraiser - a retro prom dance. Photo gallery of their pre-prom prep.

The Internet, far from being a mere free-porn distribution engine, allows "mass collaboration." As more and more people come online, each person is better able to find others that share niche skills. In your community, you may be one of 5 or 10 that is interested in, say open source content management system programing (like drupal, the software that runs this site). But on the Internet, you can associate with thousands of people that share that.

Pehaps the defining book describing how this technological innovation impacts culture and business is Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.

It is a slightly dated book for those of us living the tecnica vida loca, but should still be interesting for those who don't live and breathe on tech sites and philosophical treatises on technology.

As people are better able to associate and work with others who share their specialty, they are able to make unexpected breakthoughs - from esoteric scientific knowledge to the mass sorting of photos of flickr. Oh - and almost all of this is only possible because of itself. Mass collaboration created the infrastructure on which the Internet runs - from the operating systems (linux) to the server software (apache) to the databases (MySQL and Postgres) to the scripting languages (PHP and Perl) all of which are combined into the "LAMP" stack.

The implications are stunning - for instance, Scorecard allows you to learn about pollution in your community. Laws require businesses to report on pollution they emit. Historically, that would go to a government agency that would or would not do anything about it. Now the government agency puts out data feeds that are incomprensible to most people. But groups formed to deal with just this information created software to automatically categorize and update these government feeds, making it more presentable to anyone who wants to easily access the information. And no, on some sites, people can actually upload their own data to contribute to the site, making the data more accurate.

The book is filled with examples like this and will be a good read for those who have not yet grasped how everything is changing in a "The World is Flat" kinda way.

A few months ago, Kimmi partook in a dodgeball tournament as a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society - I tagged along to snag some photos. Unfortunately, the lighting was horrible.

John McCain has been criticizing Obama for not "showing enough support for fair elections in Iran." Obama has been cautious on Iran - since the election last week, he is not said much and what he said has been marked with extreme caution. This is the wisest position.

Regardless of whether the election was fair or rigged, there is little the United States can do to change the outcome. Regardless of whether it was fair or rigged, the people protesting in the street is something we want to encourage - an Iran that is more responsive to the people. For decades, Iran has been run by an unaccountable cleric and the board he appoints. Meanwhile, the Iranians themselves tend to be among the most educated (some 80% literacy) and pro-western people in the Middle East.

The question is how to the U.S. can encourage the greater democratization of Iran. As soon as the U.S. government begins speaking out in support of the protesters, the Iranian power structure will use those words to say that protesters are tools of the American-Zionest-anti-Muslim global conspiracy to bring down Iran. This would be the worst scenario - something that I assume Obama has recognized.

Historically, many politicians have cared more about posturing for freedom than strategizing for freedom. One of the most counter-productive U.S. policies vs. Iraq prior to the 2003 Iraq War was a package of some $90 million to support those trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein. While it made sense for the U.S. to materially support the overthrow of Hussein, Congress and President Clinton chose to make it very public. This allowed Hussein even greater opportunities not just to continue killing dissidents, but to now justify it by claiming dissidents were paid spies by the American-Zionest-Western conspiracy. Notice a pattern?

A better policy would have been to secretly support the anti-Hussein forces ... if only the CIA were not historically so prone to get caught, thus running the risk once again, of de-legitimizing support.

But probably the worst policy is for American politicians to speak up, which will damage the movement on the streets in Iran.

McCain was also wrong in his preferred Iran policy - refusing to talk with them at high levels. Arguably, Obama's policy of reaching out to Iran has encouraged more people to protest their government. When any people sense an external threat, they tend to pull together and ignore their local differences to defeat the external threat. By ratcheting down the perceived threat of the U.S. toward Iran, we give their reformers more freedom to act.

This is not always true. Sometimes pro-open society forces need to speak up in order to give heart to reformers. There are times when criticizing a harsh regime is the best course, if one can successfully de-legitimize it in the eyes of more people. None of this is easy, that is why we need a President with good judgment.

Consider this McCain quote:

the fact is we should be on the side of a free and fair election, and not be in favor of an oppressive brutal government.

Perhaps McCain is too caught up in the excitement of seeing Iran transition to a more open society, but the "reform" candidate was not exactly going to change Iran significantly (the protests in the streets are far more important than any policies the reform candidate would have encouraged). Nearly all the power in Iran remains vested in unaccountable clerics.

The fact is, we should be on the side of an intelligent policy that help Iran become more open, not a policy of pro-freedom posturing that actually slows down the forces of openness in Iran.

Which country has the greater respect for democracy - in the sense of power to the people - the U.S. or Iran? This is a question about culture, not which government is more democratic, that would be an absurd proposition.

No matter who won the election in Iran, remember that they were voting for a puppet. The true power in Iran lies with the religious leaders, not with the person the people (including the women, unlike other allies of ours in the Middle East) vote for. Looking at the evidence, I have no idea if the election was stolen or not, I think the evidence is maddenly muddy in both directions.

But as I was biking into work this morning, I was thinking about all the people in Iran that have taken to the streets to protest what they believe is a stolen election. I was mentally comparing it to the election in the U.S. in 2000 - when there were significant voting irregularities in Florida that led many to believe they could not trust the official results.

What did Americans do? It is true that some went to the streets to protest. But I think far more were content to grumble amongst themselves and joke about leaving the country. Certainly, as a proportion of the population, far more in Iran have put themselves in far greater danger by protesting in the streets than did U.S. citizens.

There are a number of variables that make comparisons difficult - Iran has a greater proportion of young people (the people who tend to be the most passionate about having a voice in their governance it seems). Iran's society is much more in flux than was ours in the year 2000. Perhaps Americans have a greater faith in "the system" and the idea eventually the true winner would be found -- but I think that is a hard case to make.

Those of us who have spent a lot of time outside the U.S. are often struck by just how passionate others are about their politics. Maybe Iranians just care more about democracy than Americans ... I haven't made up my mind about it, it is just something I'm considering and trying to figure out how I feel about it.

One of the key sticking points in the health care reform debate is whether we need to have a public option, and if so, what rules will govern it. Some argue that a public option is absolutely necessary because they have ideological view that something as important as health care should not be run solely by profit-maximizing companies.

For those who do not share that belief, I just finished a convincing piece in The New Republic that explains why not all countries need a public option but that the history of the U.S. suggests we do - a short, pragmatic argument that I find rather convincing. I like this snippet, but it does not do justice to the full (but rather short) article.

In principle, effective government regulation can curb this behavior. In practice, insurers have demonstrated an uncanny ability to circumvent regulations. Just ask the senior citizens duped by deceptive marketing of Medicare supplemental insurance over the years, or the many working-age Americans who bought private insurance on their own and filed a claim, only to have their carriers rescind coverage retroactively after deciding there was some hidden preexisting condition in their distant medical histories.

TNR has featured a lot of health care commentary and coverage - the current issue (July 1, 2009) features a number of articles about health care reform that are interesting and recommended to those following this important issue. For those who are following it very closely, check out the Treatment, a new blog specifically about health care from TNR.