evolution

Google: “complete privacy does not exist.“

Kansas v. Darwin is on but I’m not in the mood.

Can sass veedar WIN! izzon buttheim naught. Inn der Moodenspritzen.

Good night from Lawrence’s sister city, Wetfarten, Austria.

So… I’m going to start looking for a house in Topeka. The lease I have on my place in Lawrence runs out next April. I’m looking for advice, particularly as regards timing and possible down payment. I don’t know how much of a down payment I’ll be able to afford in six months, but without giving away too much let me say that my credit rating is excellent.

In Iowa, the way around the state’s ban on all-nude dancing is to get your establishment labeled an “art center”. If you plan to open such an establishment, I suggest strongly that you check the IDs of the dancers:

The case pending before a Fremont County judge effects only one business in Hamburg, but if he agrees with the prosecutor, it could eventually threaten the legal standing of nude dancing clubs across the state.

District Judge Timothy O’Grady heard arguments in a one-day trial on July 17 and took the case under advisement.

It all began on July 21, 2007, when a 17-year-old niece of Sheriff Steven MacDonald climbed up on stage at Shotgun Geniez in Hamburg and stripped off her clothing. Owner Clarence Judy was charged with violating Iowa’s public indecent exposure law.

Judy responded that the law doesn’t apply to a “theater, concert hall, art center, museum, or similar establishments” devoted to the arts or theatrical performances.

“Dance has been considered one of the arts, as is sculpture, painting and anything else like that. What Clarence has is a club where people can come and perform,” said his lawyer, Michael Murphy.

Murphy noted that the club has a gallery selling collectible posters and other art, and it provides patrons with sketch pads.

Other visual art might annoy me less if it had nude dancing.

(That was the title I was going to use last night, but decided against it for obvious reasons.)

Tony said that I “[took] apart the hype” surrounding Sean Tevis in my post of last night. You can be the judge of whether or not I did that, but I do know this: The “Prime Buzz” blog, like most McClatchy operations these days, is a day late and a couple of million neurons short, swallowing the hype hook, line, and sinker.

The Web has been around for about twenty years, and in popular usage for about fifteen. Why is it so novel now to communicate with it?

So there’s this guy running for the State House in the Kansas 15th, which covers a chunk of Olathe between 119th and the Fe, and between Moonlight Road and Woodland Road, with a smaller bit that abuts I-35 just to the south for good measure. I don’t usually jump on the Internet commentary bandwagon, but this is happening in my own state, so I thought I’d better mention it.

His name is Sean Tevis, and he appears to have caught Internet lightning in a bottle. According to him, he has met his fundraising goals((with the help of more than a few non-Kansans, although among those running for the House I doubt that’s rare)) and then some. He’s running as a Democrat against the Republican incumbent, Rep. Arlen Siegfreid, who — let’s be honest — I wouldn’t know Arlen Siegfried if he walked into my living room in Lawrence wearing a sign around his neck that said “Hi, I’m Arlen Siegfreid”. Siegfreid, if a search of the Capital-Journal’s news archive is any indication, appears to be a little bit of a Culture Warrior, which as you know I grew tired of a long time ago, but nothing really jumped out at me either way. I don’t live in this district, so your mileage may vary.

Earlier on, I wrote this comment here in a post on a State Senate primary from one of the original “Creationist Six”:

I can’t tell whether he’s actually a fresh face or another Moderately Moderate Moderate of Moderation.

I’m leaning toward the second one. I only obliquely described what I meant by that before; the Moderately Moderate Moderate of Moderation is a person who stakes out what he or she believes is the “middle of the road” position (but is pretty reliably left of center) and then tut-tuts the rest of us about what we should care about. Anyone (usually but not always conservatives) who stands up and vehemently argues for a position then gets the usual branding which you can find obliquely in most newspapers and in spades on any liberal blog.

Mr. Tevis also appears to have a bit of what I’ve called “the populist delusion” — the belief that there are vast hordes of people who, if only someone had the sufficient charisma to do so, are willing to be led by the nose to the progressive promised land. (Does that describe anyone in the news lately? I hope you’ll guess right.) There are wide swaths of dissatisfaction out there, but I think the solution to most of those dissatisfactions may be found by looking within rather than without. I also think that some of it can be explained by the monumental incompetence of the party claiming the conservative turf, the Republicans — most Americans lean conservative, and certainly most Kansans do. To see what can happen to governance when a statistically-significant group of people gets taken by this delusion, all the people of Olathe need to do is ask their neighbors in Kansas City, Missouri what they think of a couple by the name of Mark Funkhouser and Gloria Squitiro.¹

Just to show that I’m not here to bag on Mr. Tevis personally; let me note the parts of what he describes as his agenda I sympathize with. First of all, he says that Kansans should not pay sales tax on food. He’ll get no argument from me — in fact, if we’re to have an income tax, a payroll tax, and Kansas’s idiotic property tax system (which taxes you repeatedly on property you already paid sales tax on), then perhaps we should abolish the state sales tax entirely.

At this moment, Tevis has taken down his position on illegal immigration. I’m not implying anything sinister, just noting the fact. The rest of his positions come off as standard politician boilerplate (”stronger schools!”, “The government should be working to help you”, which is pretty much the converse of my political philosophy, which is that “the government should be working to keep others from hurting you and otherwise be seen and not heard”).

I really don’t think Sean Tevis is a bad guy, and I don’t wish him ill will at all. Thinking someone’s okay and voting for them are two different things in my world, but as I said, I won’t have to worry about it because I don’t live in his district.

Finally, I’d like to slap around the Macbook-and-cat’s-eye-glasses set that ran this up on the social networking sites and such.² Tevis has been passed off as something special outside of the state by these people³ because he’s “not a politician”, a “regular guy” running for office. Well — he is those things. So are most of the people in the Kansas House. I chose ten members at random to list their professions: Web developer, real estate manager, catering business owner, computer programmer, optometrist, rancher, college instructor, retired farmer/substitute teacher, teacher, attorney, retired railroad engineer.

This is Kansas: they’re all⁴ “regular people”. The Legislature only meets for 90 days each year. So those people don’t know what they’re talking about. Most of them didn’t give a crap about this state or anyone in it until it was time to tell snotty jokes about it.⁵

Anyway, I wish Tevis all the best; as I said, he doesn’t seem like a bad guy. I just thought I needed to opine on a political story in my home state that seems to have grown beyond its true breadth.

1. Let me say that I don’t think that Tevis, whatever his flaws, is nearly as much of an idiot as those two seem to be. [↩]
2. you knew I’d get around to that eventually, didn’t you? [↩]
3. Tevis has not passed himself off this way, which is admirable; for his part, he appears to be running out of dissatisfaction with Siegfreid, which I suppose is reasonable. [↩]
4. well, almost all [↩]
5. I live in Lawrence; I’ve heard ‘em all. [↩]

Just realized that I haven’t done one of these in a while, and it saves me for having to produce actual content for one more day. The song listed is the last one that triggered the alert.

• Hum (song: Stars)
• Depeche Mode (song: Enjoy the Silence)
• The White Stripes (song: Seven-Nation Army)
• Arcade Fire (song: Rebellion (Lies))
• The Killers (song: Smile Like You Mean It [naturally])
• Wilco (song: still Impossible Germany)
• Editors (song: All Sparks)
• Bright Eyes (song: When the Brakeman Comes My Way)
• Johnny Cash (song: Ghost Riders in the Sky)
• She Wants Revenge (song: Save Your Soul)
• Led Zeppelin (song: Houses of the Holy)
• Oingo Boingo (song: Just Another Day)
• Kaiser Chiefs (song: Ruby)
• Kings of Leon (song: Knocked Up)
• Sevendust (song: Prodigal Son)
• Jose Gonzalez (song: Down the Line)
• Doors (song: When the Music’s Over)
• Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble (song: Crossfire)
• Motorhead (song: Killed by Death)
• My Morning Jacket (song: Librarian [in honor of the job I'm leaving])
• Sufjan Stevens (song: Chicago)
• M83 (song: Kim and Jessie)
• Alice in Chains (song: Down in a Hole; fact: Layne Staley lived for a short time in Lawrence, after AIC made it big)
• The Raconteurs (song: Steady as She Goes)
• Pantera (song: Walk)