So yesterday, as you're aware, Brother Camping was proven wrong once again about when the world would end. To commemorate this I put together a little DJ set of relevant music and sound and broadcast it on ustream. While "spinning" I also played some old vhs tapes on a tv and pointed my webcam at the screen in an attempt at improvising some kind of video element without too much preparation. You can watch/listen below, and below that, read the playlist. I like how i managed to make the set tell a little story, introducing the situation, looking at the people going and the people "left behind" from both perspectives, then getting into the nature of evil while also criticizing the assumptions of the Dispensationalists that believe wackos like Harold Camping and others like him throughout history... then examining the armageddon situation as it would continue, and then some final jabs at Christianity and the worst of those who believe it, and finally it all dissolves away and everything is ok... or is it?
Enjoy.

Playlist: Read more>>>

I don't usually blog much about my beer brewing, mostly because I'm really new to it still, but back in February I brewed a beer that I'm really pretty pleased with that is also a creative departure from known recipes: a juniper pale ale.  Back in December Greta and I collected juniper berries from trees that were heavy with fruit in the Prescott National Forest, on the way from Flagstaff and Prescott. I had heard that people made beer with juniper so when we found ourselves in this forest I decided to benefit from Nature's bounty. A couple months later I looked around for recipes online and found a lot of different opinions on the best way to use juniper, but most folks seemed to model theirs after pale ales. I decided to make a tea from the berries and add it to what is basically a recipe from The Joy of Homebrewing, with different types of hops (I had just bought bulk quantities of Hallertauer and Cascade, so I used those).
You can see the full recipe here: http://hopville.com/recipe/623454/american-pale-ale-recipes/prescott-jun...
It turned out to be a really good beer that people consistently like. Come over and have glass.

from Mexico Solidarity Network:  NEW JUAREZ POLICE CHIEF ALREADY SUSPECT IN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
Retired army officer Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola, who was appointed last month to head the Ciudad Juarez police department, was accused this week of "enforced disappearance" in the case of four civilians arrested on March 26.  Witnesses told human rights investigators they saw police, dressed in camouflage uniforms belonging to an elite unit that provides body guards for Leyzaola, arrest the four men outside a convenience store.  The men have not been heard from since, and police deny they are in custody.  Later in the week, federal investigators arrested three of the officers, though little is known about the politically sensitive investigation.  The hard-nosed Leyzaola formerly served as police chief in Tijuana where he confronted similar accusations of human rights abuses after reducing murder rates and drug-related violence while reportedly decreasing corruption among police officers.  A secret diplomatic cable recently published by Wikileaks accuses Leyaola of destroying one violent drug gang by cutting deals with rivals.  He was also accused of participating in and supporting the use of torture, including beating and near-asphyxiation of arrestees and police suspected of being on cartel payrolls. Read more>>>

In the middle of the news-cycle theater piece known as "the possible shutdown," and "budget-cutting," it's good to see some of the border militarization fantasies get checked by monetary obsessions, and the thinkers of rational big business are advocating  even more such restraint. (this is really nothing new - smart people at the WSJ have known the stupidities of "closing/securing the border" for quite some time.) Read more>>>

An ancient Chinese curse goes as follows: "May you live in interesting times."  In this way we definitely live in interesting times lately.

What do people do in interesting times? In this time of instant communication from all parts of the globe, the interesting and the unfortunate are all available for view by Read more>>>

I learned very early in life that the best way to begin figuring something out, fixing something or answering some question or solving something or just getting anything accomplished at all is to first DEFINE what the problem, question, or goal is.  I've never forgotten that but many apparently never learned this in the first place.

Of course another key to life is communication. Always strive to be the very best you can be at communicating whatever it is to the other person or persons.  Your level of communication will deterimine your level of sucess at whatever it is you're trying to do that involves other people besides yourself.

Put these 2 basic rules of thumb together and of course that means, when you're trying to get something done, or some problem fixed, or some trouble troubleshot, and you're asking someone else to help you with that, you have to accurately and clearly communicate to them what that problem IS, or if you don't know that yourelf, at least communicate with them clearly enough all the bits and piece so that you and they can help you figure out what the fundamental goal is.  Until that other person or persons has a good idea of what your goal is, what problem you're trying to solve, they literally can't help you. They can maybe randomly get you closer to what you're going for, but  this will be accidental, and probably frustrating for both parties even after eventual success.

The reason this is important is this: let's say you are asking someone to help you with something but you already have an idea of how to do it, you just need need them to help you execute it. you ask them because they know that area of expertise, they have experience doing this sort of thing, possibly more than you.  But what if you're wrong about what it will take to solve the problem? So you ask them to solve it in your wrong way and they either try to do your wrong way, not realizing what you're up to, or they just get confused and they start asking questions in a wild goose chase attempt to figure out why you asked for such a a thing. If you're just started out describing what your problem was, instead of asking them to help you with your incorrect solution, then the other person would have been free to apply their expertise to help you come up with the right answer, quickly and without fuss and frustration.  The other thing is that this gives the other person some sense that you respect his expertise and trust him to help you generate a solution, rather than that you look at him as just some unthinking pack animal that you expect some aditional brute force from.

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