Benblog

Police and Property

I have no objection to a little law and order - i just don't think we're there yet to have a completely civil society, and  until we do, we need professional order keepers.

It's just the degree to which they are militarized and the degree to which they are controlled by property owners.

If we decide as a society that it is not okay for people to be afraid to walk outside at night anywhere, we prioritize our resources towards the betterment of all.

Conservatives would argue that the costs of such idealism are cost prohibitive, and to some degree they are right. But some of those costs can be removed by better design and more effective systems and practices. Looking at ways of designing better living, rather than giving entirely over to an ideology of either free market or state controlled. A blend of those mechanisms.

Not some complete purchasing parity, but a closer approximation of some equitable distribution of the world's wealth. Should people starve in our times? Do we have some tolerable measure of malaria related deaths? Clitoral mutilation. 50% of whole societies enslaved by laws enacted to enforce power, not liberate.

The Perfect Note

I know what the perfect note sounds like, digitally reproduced, refined, mastered, the settings simulating even the piano's room. Or stage. Or hall.

More refined ears than mine know the subtle differences.

But warts and all, there is richness till to the sounds of my imperfect church basement instrument.

The joy and pain, the neglect, has given her an inimitable voice, one an oscilloscope might not even recognize as a piano, let alone anything grand.

I struggle with the idea of going digital for that reason alone. Should an instrument designed to be tuned imperfectly really have perfect tuning?

Would Keith Jarrett, George Shearing, Christopher O'Riley, George Winston - would any of them sound the same?

Tools

Now that I have a santuko blade, I wonder how I cooked so long without. Small movements done repetitively add up to much saved energy and increased efficiency.

I am also a bigger believer than ever in the benefits of an upright orbital sander for the homeowner doing his or her own sanding. The fact that it takes longer than a drum sander is part of the point.