Watch the East

The Christian Science Monitor has a good article about democracy in Iran. There are trends there that give hope to the notion that Islam need not necessarily run hand-in-hand with autocracy.

Analysts say secularization is a social movement that could explode if democracy is thwarted. Even some reformist clerics are calling for a separation of mosque and state

3:52:11 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Dirty Hands

I'm a software guy. Generally speaking, you'd be advised to keep me far away from your hardware, because I break things. Breaking software might not be so bad and often can be useful (depending on the circumstances), but breaking hardware is rarely a good thing. So I just stick to software and steer clear of hardware. You might say I don't like to get my hands dirty.

Outside today, the sun is warm and the sky is blue. The mist and the drizzle and the clouds and the rain of the last few weeks are gone. And outside today, I discover my compost pile has shut down: it's colder deep down inside than the warm air all around.

So it's time for a compost pile kick start. After all, it's full of potato skins and grapefruit peels, egg shells and apple cores. It's a piping hot brew just waiting to happen. So I step away from my keyboard and take the pitch fork into the back corner and turn. By tomorrow it should be hot again. In the meantime, I see on the ground around me that there are earthworms enjoying the coolness of the ground.

Earthworms! Gather them up with your hands. Dig them up with your fingers. Pull them out as they burrow down. Get the dirt under your finger nails. Get your hands dirty. Collect them and move them by the handful to the mulch at the base of the little oak tree. Let them do the dirty work, ...

... because you don't like getting your hands dirty.

11:24:10 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []