Write your representative.

In a republic like ours one of the greatest things we can do as citizens to influence legislation is to write our representatives and senators to voice our opinion. For this hour in history I strongly suggest writing your representative in congress against SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act will allow the U.S. Government to use DNS blocking; the same method used by the PRC, Iran and Syria to censor The Internet and keep there citizens in the dark.

Please help fight SOPA! Fellow The Dallesians and eastern Oregonians please email Greg Walden. You can also sign a petition at whitehose.gov to let the white house know what we think about this bill and where they can shove it.

Comments

Why I'm running for the parks board

Two months ago now I declared my candidacy for election to Northern Wasco County Parks and Recreation District Board of Directors Position Number Five. A mouth full of a title. I really enjoy our local parks and have no major qualms with the parks district or the current board. They have done a fine job maintaining and improving existing parks and programs. So there's question you are probably asking and I am required to ask myself. Why am I running? Democracy requires contest What is the point of an election with only one candidate? Without contested races there is almost no need for real public discourse unless some controversy springs up. This is all too common for local elections in Wasco County. Uncontested races are akin to a business handing a job to the first and only applicant. This wouldn't work in the private sector and it shouldn't work for public offices. Surely the citi...

Book Review: Tribes

Tribes by Seth Godin is a quick read on leadership. I read this book because it was listed on "Books every leader needs to read" or some such similarly named list. There are some good bits to glean out of this short book. I'll try to condense them here: Managers are not by nature leaders. Managers allocate resources to accomplish a defined outcome. Leaders change things by setting a vision and building a tribe around that vision. Tribes are everywhere big and small. Mega-tribes, sub-tribes, etc. Leadership is inherent risky. But far less risky than our minds tend to think. This is evidenced by the many failures of several highly successful leaders. (Think Elon Musk and the Tesla Truck presentation ). Find people who are doing exceptionally better than average and amplify their influence on everyone else. Leadership is about challenging the status quo. It is s...

Book Review: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

I recently (actually weeks or months ago now) finished reading "Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now" by Jaron Lanier. This short book covers what is quite possibly one of the biggest issues of the current era, the toxic influence of "social media" on individuals and culture at large. The book raises issues about more than purely "social media" sites like Facebook and Twitter, attacking the business model that many web services are operated on. I can't bring myself to fully agree with every point raised by Lanier. Ten chapters present ten different arguments for why you should opt out of most of interactions happening on the internet today. However, I believe they can be summarized in two key points. Social media is bad for your health. Your emotional, social, psychological and spiritual well being are degraded by the use of social media. These sites tend to reduce our ability to have empathy, increase irritabili...

Mr. Polehn writes

Search This Blog