Suffragettes	I know that it is all the fad to use the term “progressive” in the American radical left, moderate left, and moderate right. But sometimes its used in a way that really cheeses me off.
The Secret Ballot in New York, early 1900’s	I first encountered references to progressive populism while in High School in the 70’s, while in college in the early 80’s realized that I am a progressive populist, and indeed some of my time and effort in graduate school in the early 90’s was spent in mastering the basics of the American Institutional approach, which was originally established on the foundation of the American Pragmatism that provided the philosophical underpinnings of American Progressivism.
The 17th Amendment	Someone who argues that the differences between Senator McCain and Senator Obama are not big enough to justify voting for Senator Obama may be a leftist, they may be a radical, they may be a Liberal (in the American as opposed to European/Australian sense), they may be a whatever-you-wanna-callit … but I cannot fathom how anyone can style it as “progressive”.

So, if you are talking to a Progressive Populist during the campaign, trying to talk them into voting for Nader (or trying to talk them into voting for Barr, since pragmatically it means the same thing), don’t do it by first presuming that you are speaking for all progressives. Not unless you are sketching out a pragmatic political strategy for making progress.

“Peace in our times?”

Moving broken line | stable broken line | stable broken line

Moving solid line | stable solid line | stable solid line

Trigrams: Heaven over Earth moving to Wind over Thunder

12. Obstruction	42. Benefiting
Obstruction. This is not the other not benefiting the noble one’s persistence. Much goes, little comes. One cannot continue, one is being obstructed. This is frustrating. There is more loss than gain. This isn’t the other going against one’s interests, actually. Blaming someone may make one feel better, but isn’t helpful at solving the problem.	Benefiting. It is beneficial to have a goal to move to. It is beneficial to cross the big river. Benefiting from the situation. It’s a good idea to have a plan for undertaking something, to make good use of the opportunity.

Moving line 1:

Pulling out grass and entangled roots because of its accumulation.

Persistence brings good fortune.

Progressing.

Removing something that has accumulated and is now in the way, weeding it out by the root. Under the surface, things may be more entangled than one thought. Things go well by persevering with this. There is progress being made.

Moving line 4:

Having a higher purpose.

Without fault,

but it is a category separate from happiness.

Working on something that’s important to you, perhaps regarding your personal or spiritual development. There is nothing wrong with that. It is no pleasure to go through this development, but it really needs to be worked with.

Now in the Midnight Oil … also up at Agent Orange, so tipping and rec’ing that diary might help get the word out in a small way.

What do you do when you are a Congressional candidate … your Presidential candidate is campaigning on the basis of Potemkin Energy policies like drilling for an extra 100,000 barrels of oil a day starting a decade from now (when a Saudi announcement of an extra 500,000 barrels later this year did not move prices by any discernable amount) … and a gas tax holiday …

… especially when in the last contentious Ohio State highway funding fight, you as the Republican voted for Governor Taft’s gas tax hike, and your Democratic opponent voted against it?

Simple: you lie.

Well, of course, this is a Republican candidate for Congress we are talking about here … you don’t lie yourself, you have an “independent group” with a name like Freedom’s Watch lie for you.

… impossible. Whether this is dangling copper fingers in the stream … or just random reframing to nudge our thinking into possibilities that are regular habits of thought obscure … well, its not that crucial a question to me.

First line: divided line

Second line: moving solid line

Third line: divided line

Fourth line: divided line

Fifth line: solid line

Sixth line: moving divided line

Ah, I love symmetry, and this is doubly symmetric … it is both symmetric around the middle, and consists of two identical symmetric trigrams.

29. Abyss Getting accustomed to the abyss. Have confidence and hold on to your heart. For progress, taking action has value. A situation that is unfamiliar and dangerous, that one needs to get into and get accustomed to. Have confidence, and keep in touch with your feelings. Feeling fear is natural in this situation. Taking action is needed in order to have progress.

{Soon to be a Midnight Thought in Burning the Midnight Oil, also available in Blue and Yellow}

I have been reading the commentary in recent transit oriented posts on Matthew Yglesias’ blog (explicit links below the fold) … well, I’ll admit it, skimming the commentary of the troll that tries to sidetrack any transit posting by Yglesias … and as far as I can tell, the idea of the Great American Suburban Retrofit (detailed links below the fold) just has not sunk in at all … not even a little bit.

Instead its the usual “big city transit user saying we all need to live in walkable big cities” versus “happy suburbanite lecturing on how we not only don’t all live in Big Eastern Seaboard Cities, but many of use don’t want” … kind of talking past each other.

So Once More Into the Breach: We can Retrofit American Suburbia to make it Far Easier to Use Public Transit and offer Walkable Communities as a Suburban Option … without necessarily abandoning the suburbs and everyone moving to the closest big city.

Join me for a design challenge, below the fold.

Rough draft in Orange

Casting the Beauty Platform Diaires

NB. Most link collections like these look back. This one looks ahead to diaries posted following this one.

• Casting the Future of Docdharma …
• Casting the future of Docudharma remains …
• Casting about for the Beauty Platform
• Casting the Beauty Platform: Peace in Our Times
• Casting the Beauty Platform: Peak Oil
• Casting the Beauty Platform for a Multi-Polar Peace
• Casting the Beauty Platform for Resiliant Suburbia
  

• Casting the Beauty Platform for the Afghanistan Quagmire

Utsukushikereba sore de ii Ishikawa Chiaki As long as its beautiful, its fine (Lady Elwin’s Translation) ~the countless flowers enveloped in light gaze at tomorrow with eyes free of doubt~ everyone wishes for me to be pure, but waiting in the sky that’s about to be worn out picking flowers to make them their own they’re all just sinful people I stopped making promises with the future because even if I try to run far away from pain look, the chill wind is shaking my hair where should I search for the answer? even if I take a break from this selfish destiny I feel as if somewhere I was saved as if one day even this past that can’t be remade can be put away in a small box the countless flowers enveloped in light gaze at tomorrow with eyes free of doubt the white bell that quietly overlooks us as long as it’s beautiful, it’s fine is this the dream’s continuation? is this a dream I won’t awaken from? I murmured countless times I stopped making promises with the future because even if I try to run far away from pain look, the chill wind is shaking my hair where should I search for the answer?

… but of course, with translations, YMMV … this is the translation done by the fans of the anime that used this as an opening song:

I’ve been so busy getting on top of this teaching gig that I’ve been letting the blogging slide.

OTOH, while I cycled an insane 14 miles to work (and then back) the second half of last year when I was lucky enough to get called in … now I am cycling a perfectly sane 3 miles.

So just some random observations on a special midweek edition of Saturday Bike Blogging.

Excerpted from Burning the Midnight Oil for the Next American Revolution (14 May 08),

in the Burning the Midnight Oil blog-within-a-blog, hosted by kos,

though to the best of my knowledge he doesn’t know it.

Lets not be under any illusions about the difficulty of the coming election.

And that is: if there is any difficulty, we have made it for ourselves. We are being handed the opportunity of a generation on a silver platter. And while many of use have been distracted by the side issue of who is going to be nominated to run for the Presidency, in another week or so there will be no more excuse for getting sidetracked.

And we can turn our attention to building a House majority so large that the so-called “Blue Dogs” lose their leverage.