Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Google is terminating the technology that I use to publish this blog. It's free technology so I can't complain too much, but I'm busy and changing things takes time. My choices are migrate this blog to Google's new technology, abandon this blog altogether, or create a completely new blog using new technology. Given I'm not taking the time to post much it might make more sense to abandon this spot of e-turf.

Even though I work as an information technology engineer, I am weary of the constant need to change everything. Just when you get something working, then it needs to be ripped apart and reassembled. It's a racket if you think about it. IT workers create obsolescence so more work will be created and they will keep their jobs. In the meantime, we're working 50 hour weeks when we're lucky, more when we're not. When is enough going to be enough?

Death of a Cool Radio Station

I used to brag to my friends outside of San Diego about radio station 94.9 - they had lots of long time local DJs who actually knew the San Diego local music scene. I mean the real San Diego music scene. Bands like Hair Theater and Crash Worship and Crawdaddy and the newer ones as well (of which I'm too old and not cool enough to know). DJs who were at the shows at Iguanas or the Che Cafe. Every morning they had a local band of the day and played a song of the local band's on the radio.

That's gone. Mike Halloran got canned or let go or who knows what a week or two ago. Today I find out they're bringing the hack loud mouth dj from 105.3 to 94.9. So now we get to listen to 13 year old boy humor in the morning - joy oh joy. And it turns out that he and his staff need to pass a drug test. What kind of bullshit is that? Why does a rock n roll DJ need to pass a drug test?

Adios 94.9. I've switched to classical for now until I can find a radio station that supports local music, plays local music and doesn't submit it's employees to drug tests. Lets be real. What's the worst thing a stoned out DJ will do? I know, play good music.

Hope is on the horizon. The great crew at Activist San Diego are trying to create a community FM Radio Station. I don't know if it will reach into the City of San Diego, but if you're interested, check out their website and let them know you support their efforts.

Global Warming And Friends

Global warming is yet one more in a long line of issues that seems to divide people into believers and naysayers. As a person who firmly believes you don't get something for nothing, burning fossil fuels is an obvious no no. How can you burn up energy in 100 years that it took untold millions of years to creating without violating the something for nothing rule? At the very least, we run out of oil and need to find other ways to live in harmony with the planet. Some people argue that American lifestyles require high carbon fuel usage - but at the end of the day that's what's killing us. We're all fat because we're living off the energy of dinosaurs from a million years ago instead of the calories we consumed today.

I don't know what the answer is other than to go forward to the past - to a world were human energy is important, people lived in self-sustaining communities and our homes aren't filled with toxic crap from China. At the end of the day, buying stuff isn't bringing me happiness, hugs are.

In the spirit of local activism and global warming, I want to take a few minutes to share some of my local heroes. Carolyn Chase and Chris Klein - the amazing duo - who live a few blocks from me and who started the huge Earth Fair that happens every year in Balboa Park. I've volunteered with Earth Fair, am saving a creek thanks to a non-profit these two amazing people started, San Diego Earth Works, and have hope that sane decentralized transportation will become a reality in San Diego thanks to Move San Diego - another group with ties to the amazing duo. If it's environmentally progressive in San Diego, this is Chris and Carolyn are your connection.

The dynamic duo is in Copenhagen at the United Nations Conference on Climate change and have put together a website to allow those of us stuck in our mundane lives to hear some of the debates between regular people like ourselves.

Thank you Chris and Carolyn for all you do. You rock.

***From an email from Chris****************

Carolyn Chase and I are in Copenhagen at the UN conference on climate change (COP15). Officially, we are registered delegates of the Sierra Club, of which we are both life members.

We puzzled over how best to make a difference at the conference. We decided to create a special website, Message to America, and post videos of other delegates speaking their "message to America." We have also posted photos, and and there is a blog of updates, quotes, special notes, etc.

The goal is to give you a better picture of the kind of world citizens who are attending the event, and how critical this issue is for much of the world. It's one thing to deal with figures and technical abstractions. It's another to listen to a woman who's island is in danger of slipping beneath the waves.

**************End email from Chris*******************