Category: Living

Politics by Joe WilcoxMay 26, 20045:59 am

I Must Be Living Under a Rock

Living in the Washington, D.C. area—hey, right off Connecticut Ave., baby—and tracking high-tech and the Internet for work, you’d think I’d know about what’s going on. Apparently, I have too much in common with Patrick the starfish from SpongeBob Squarepants. There’s a reason he lives under a rock, folks.

This morning, while checking the couple hundred or so RSS feeds I monitor, I stumbled onto this tantalizing headline, “Sex Scandal Rocks US Congress,” from Express India. So exactly how far around the world do I have to go to get local news: “Washington loves nothing as much as a summer sex scandal, and the season is off to an early start this year, as a Congressional aide was sacked after posting her lovemaking exploits on the internet”, according to the story, with a dateline of today.

Critters by Joe WilcoxMay 17, 20044:24 pm

Cicada Nation

Washington, D.C., is now capital of the Cicada invasion. These bugs are everywhere, looking every bit the survivors of some prehistoric meteor that wiped out all other ancient species. Saturday, while driving through an impending […]

Photo by Joe WilcoxApr 18, 200412:15 pm

The Rebel’s Love Birds

Yesterday, my daughter’s school held a yard sale for the PTA. I snapped these love birds using the Canon EOS Digital Rebel.

Critters by Joe WilcoxApr 8, 20047:18 am

Bun Bun

My daughter’s in-door bunny got her first romp around the backyard yesterday. I used the occasion to try out my new Canon Digital Rebel camera.

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 8, 20043:27 pm

The Odds on God’s Existence

A story in today’s Guardian says the odds favor God’s existence. The three writers cite work by Dr. Stephen Unwin, who used a 200-year-old formula used to “work out the likelihood of events” to determine with […]

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 25, 20046:25 pm

Washington Winter Wonderland

Snow is pelting Washington this evening. Forecast for the D.C. metro region is 10-20 cm of snow. I’d say there’s 1 cm on the ground in the first half hour of snowfall. Lots of losers […]

Health by Joe WilcoxJan 24, 20046:45 am

Man on the Train

Wednesday afternoon, while on the D.C. metro, I saw a homeless man working the train for change. Lots of loafers beg for money around Washington; they’re professional beggars whose job is collecting handouts, sometimes pretty aggressively.

But this guy looked truly down on his luck. I’m not tall, about 1.6 meters, and this guy, sporting a well-weathered sleeping bag, was shorter than me. He shuffled politely through the subway car, asking people for money. What surprised me was just how many folks gave him money. Unlike the professional beggars, which more typically use disposal cups, this guy took cash by hand. Like the others, I gave him some change; I wanted to give more but hadn’t hit the bank machine before going on a trip to New York. He literally got all that I had to give.

Health by Joe WilcoxJan 23, 20048:08 am

My LinuxWord Souvenir: Poison Ivy

Wednesday afternoon I headed up to New York for LinuxWorld. Strangely, I developed a weird, itchy rash. Thank-you, LinuxWorld, you gave me poison ivy! Reliable Dr. Mirkin made the diagnosis this morning. Maybe Linux truly […]

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 20, 20043:29 pm

NeoPets Alarm Clock

Rousting a kid is every parent’s morning nightmare. Those kids cling to the pillows the way leeches used to stick to our backs at the old swimming hole.

Two weeks ago, my daughter picked up a Pocket NeoPets electronic game, at the local Target using her allowance money. Promptly, at 7:30 each morning, the game buzzes to feed her critter—a Fairy Poogle, I do believe—and she hops out of bed with urgency no alarm clock could muster. It’s a parent’s dream situation.

Politics by Joe WilcoxJan 20, 20043:08 pm

Voter Profiling

I guess privacy doesn’t mean much during an election year. According to a Reuters story by Andy Sullivan, politicians are “drawing detailed profiles” of voters. Mr. Sullivan quotes Grassroots Solutions founder Robert Richman as saying, “It’s pretty scary, the stuff you can get on people”.

It’s funny how politicians often talk big about protecting people’s privacy (except maybe with regard to Homeland security). But in the crunch, some won’t hesitate to mine data the same as businesses.

Living by Joe WilcoxJan 19, 20047:58 pm

Racism and Naiveté

Growing up in Northern Maine, a white wonderland in more ways than just snow, doesn’t seem like the best place for exposure to other races, or even cultures. But, my hometown Caribou also was where many kids from “the base”, as in Loring over in Limestone, went to school.

My best buds growing up tended be a different color from me, like the Chung brothers, Davis and Winchell. Not that I noticed. I was colorblind to skin. I remember learning about slavery, civil rights, and racism in eighth grade, a concept that made no sense to me.

Journalism by Joe WilcoxJan 18, 200412:14 pm

If You’re Political, Then say So

Should journalists make political contributions? That’s a quandary raised in a today’s Washington Post story by reporter Howard Kurtz. The situation is this: Some news organizations allow staffers—and that includes editors and reporters—to make political contributions. Such contributions could infer bias and so tarnish the contributor’s and/or news operation’s neutrality.

As a former journalist too often disgusted by the news media misbehaviors, I’m in favor of the contributions, as long as there is full disclosure. My reasoning is simple. Reporters, editors, and publishers are people. That means they do have biases and even agendas. But the mask of so-called neutrality often hides the real story behind news stories. I like the idea of those purporting to deliver unbiased news stories and analyses offering readers insight into their political leanings.