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Let Freedoms Ring
Thank you, Micah Holmquist, for reminding me about this speech: …The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect. Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are : Equality of opportunity for youth and for others. Jobs for those who can work. Security for those who need it. The ending of special privilege for the few. The preservation of civil liberties for all. The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living. These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding straight of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations. Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement. As examples : We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care. We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it. I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation. If the congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead pocketbooks, will give you their applause. In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression –everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. To that new order we oppose the greater conception --the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society. This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory. -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on How quickly we forget our history lessons.  comment []
Anita Borg: Thanks, Sys! Salon eulogizes Anita Borg this week; she passed away after battling cancer. I am indebted to Borg for her persistence as an advocate for women in the field of computer science. Many of you will blow this off, thinking this is an anachronistic rant, that women have surely by now reached parity in the sciences with men. WRONG.
According to GirlTECH, based on data gathered by the NSF: That’s disgusting. It’s nominally better than the number of women receiving degrees in physics (a shameful 18%). I’m certain that these numbers did not change substantially in the years since 1997, although I can’t get my hands on more recent studies. There are more figures corroborating this trend at the Anita was entirely right about the importance of engaging women in computer science: "What if," Borg asks, "only 30-year-old women developed technology -- all of it -- and that technology was geared mainly for 13-year-old girls? Technology would be out of whack, out of balance. But that's the world we live in: Men hold the power, and boys drive the market." The next time you’re crabbing at your computer about either software or hardware, ask yourself if it might have been a better system had more and different intelligence and consciousness had been used to design software or hardware. Ask yourself that any time you experience a design failure on a car, your cell phone, anything that requires technology in its manufacture. The entirety of the genius of women has yet to be tapped; the potential of their full creative powers is unrealized. Imagine the enormity of positive change that could be wrought on the face of the earth if the power of half of mankind was brought to bear. Imagine computer science alone impacted by that potent force. What an incredible thing it could be. Encourage the girls in your life to pursue computer science; even if it’s not their primary interest, encourage them to find ways in which their primary interests can be augmented and developed with the use of computers. Thank you, Anita. Happy trails to you. comment []Newsconference under way 1:30 PM EST -- Rummy is speaking from a prepared speech. Gee, I wonder why? Only way to keep him in a "gloat-free zone"? General Myers is speaking from a prepared speech as well. This is getting scary; I figured this guy could speak safely. Wonder if they're going to take questions? 1:39:18 PM comment []
1.0 -- You might be an Engineer! My family is engineer-dense. No, not “dense” like thick-in-the-head, although occasionally obtuse is an appropriate description. We’re just saturated with engineers and engineers-by-proxy. Hubby is a Master’s degreed engineer; so is my dad. My brother is an engineer as well. My youngest brother isn’t exactly an engineer although he went into electronics while in the service. Sister is an electrician; she should have been an electrical engineer, but just didn’t get around to going to college. I started school in engineering, but I managed to find my way out and reconnoitered into business with a recent compromise in IT. My father-in-law is a frustrated engineer; he didn’t get a degree, but if he had, he would have been an engineer. He's a licensed contractor, dabbling in home construction to satisfy that engineering drive. There are people who envy me all this technical assistance. I hate it when I have more than one of these family members working on a project. I have to walk away. I dumped on my sister and let her help my spouse with putting up the picket fence you see in the photo taken two days ago (below). The anal part of analytical personalities can really cause heartburn. Sis messed with my spouse, taking perverse pleasure in tweaking the fence posts as my spouse tried to align them using a transit. “It’s a 32nd to the south”, he yell at her; she’d overcompensate by adjusting the post a quarter inch to the north. “There, is that better?”, she’d shout back…of course not, but she had the patience to mess with him on every single fence post as he sighted them in. I’d have used a fence post along side his head to fix the problem. How incredibly fricking anal, a gawddamned thirty-second of an inch… comment []
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