Steven D. Brewer's blog

David Brooks says the GOP is rotting and he's right. Since the election, we've seen a race to the bottom as the GOP indulges in greater and greater excesses of their abuse of raw power to enrich themselves and punish their enemies—or just anyone they can rob. And traditional limits no longer seem to apply. Each day brings a new series of outrageous statements and behavior that, in the past, nobody would have tolerated. Now there seems to be no limit to what the GOP will tolerate: even embrace. Who knew the evangelicals would accept pedophilia as long as, by doing so, they could pass favorable appointments and legislation. It leads me to wonder what is too far.

When Germany invaded Poland, they had constructed a list, the Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen or Special Prosecution Book that had the names of 61,000 people on it: activists, intelligentsia, scholars, actors, former officers, and prominent others who were identified to be rounded up and shot. There isn't anyone named "Brewer" on the list, but there are two named "Breuer". Are such lists being drawn up by Republicans? If there were, would that be too far?

It may seem like hyperbole, but when political leaders seem willing to tolerate blatant lies and persistent corruption without blinking an eye, you have to wonder whether there is any limit at all.

On November 19, the President of the United States indicated that China, to curry favor with him, had released US citizens that its totalitarian regime might otherwise have incarcerated. But the father of one of those released was insufficently grateful to satisfy the enormous ego of Donald Trump, so he said this:

A statement by the President: pic.twitter.com/tFUh0E7YS5

— Real Press Sec. (@RealPressSecBot) November 19, 2017

And then five hours later, said this:

A statement by the President: pic.twitter.com/iczsDpiqvb

— Real Press Sec. (@RealPressSecBot) November 19, 2017

What kind of human being acts like this? What kind of person doesn't understand flattery enough to recognize (1) that a foreign power was appealing to his narcissistic ego by releasing the US citizens that way and (2) that expecting people to kow-tow, or show fealty, for something that he, personally, had little or nothing to do with is asking people to lie to your face. I suppose that's what power means to Donald Trump: the power to hold people down, rather than to lift them up; the power to divide them, rather than unite them.

The words that come to my mind are "mean-spirited". But as Rush Limbaugh said:

The Democrats, the left has this 30-year playbook of how to destroy conservatives by simply exposing the horrible, the mean-spirited, insensitive things they say, but that isn't going to work on Trump the way it works on conservatives, for a whole host of reasons.

As I said yesterday, the Democrats have some work to do if they want to articulate a vision that isn't just pointing out what a horrible person Donald Trump is, because Americans don't seem to care anymore. They seem motivated more by revenge: looking for enemies to punish for their decline in fortunes. Why they choose to punish the powerless, rather than the ones who actually caused their misery is anyone's guess.

I was very gratified a month about when my alma mater invited me to return to accept an alumni achievement award. I flew to Detroit, rented a car to drive to Kalamazoo. I had a nice reunion with an old friend along the way.

The day of the award was a fabulous event. I gave a talk that was well received. There was a luncheon and two receptions. I spent a following day with family and then had brunch with another old friend while returning to the airport.

On Friday, I found an envelope in my mailbox at work with a very nice thank you note and a thumbdrive.

The note said the thumbdrive had pictures. I went to plug in the thumbdrive and found that the design of the drive didn't anticipate people having a thin laptop like a Macbook Air. It has a cover on a leather strap that folds under, but it still requires 4 or 5 mm below the bottom of the laptop that aren't there. The only way to plug it in is to hold the laptop up, so it doesn't damage the port twisting the the thumbdrive up.

The 4GB drive contained three items, totaling about 60MB. (In other words, if it was a glass, it would have a eyedropperful in it): an individual photo, a group photo, and a copy of the Arts and Sciences Alumni Magazine. Being completely self-centered, I looked through the issue to see what it said about me. It didn't. It had a listing of last year's award recipients, but didn't mention me at all. Now, maybe that's what their plan was… But somehow I think they just included the wrong issue on the drive.

I'm grateful for the thought. And I'm still very grateful to have received the award. But maybe just a URL would be better next time. But, in flyover country, maybe sneaker net is as good as you can do.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I have formed one that potentially explains the behavior of the Trump administration. What if their goal is to undermine the ability of the establishment Republicans from fulfilling their campaign promises. By fomenting division and creating a side-show atmosphere, the Republicans have been unable to pass a single piece of significant legislation since the election. Their horrendous "repeal and replace", the "Muslim ban", immigration, it's all gone down to failure. By adding "repeal but not replace" to the tax bill, that might fail also. And Steve Bannon has announced he's planning to run primary races against all the establishment Republican candidates. Several establishment Republicans have already said they aren't going to run.

Normally, one might assume that the Democrats would sweep these races. But the Democrats have singularly failed to distinguish themselves with a message that identifies themselves as anything other than the establishment. They didn't cause the housing collapse, but didn't hold the ones who did cause it accountable. The stimulus the Democrats passed prevented a total collapse of the system, but left millions jobless and homeless and without prospects for years. Obamacare was a compromise that insured millions of people, but cobbled together out of the existing pieces, satisfied no-one. Democrats are just a kind of Republican-Lite: a kinder, gentler neoliberalism.

Too many Deemocrats believe they can point a finger at Trump and say "We're not him" and that people will vote Democratic. I'm concerned that, instead of voting for Republican Lite, when given a choice for a new Republican, that isn't part of the establishment, many will vote for the new Republican. If Democrats want voters in red states to vote for them, they need to clean house. They need to articulate a vision that explains how to shift power back into the hands of ordinary people.

Mia prelegeto por la Oratora Horo ĉe la 24a Aŭtuna Renkontiĝo

Hieraŭ mi ŝerce respondis al aŭtoro ĉe la interreto kiu volis reliefigi la problemon ke homoj ne pardonpetas. Ŝi afiŝis, "Multaj homoj kiuj eraras, inkluzive antaŭa mi, ŝajnigas kvazaŭ estas nur du elbecoj: faligu sin sur propra glavo kaj morti aŭ defendi sin. Ne estas la vero." Mi facilanime respondis, "Prave! Estas apenaŭ-konata tria ebleco: vi povas ŝanĝi la nomon, translokiĝi al alia urbo, kaj ŝajnigi ke vi neniam renkontis tiujn homojn." Ŝi ne amuziĝis kaj petis ke mi traktu pli serioze la problemon ke homoj tro ofte ne pardonpetas.

Fakte, dum la lastaj jaroj, mi pli bone lernis kiel pardonpeti ĉar ĝi estas nun deviga kapablo. Ekzemple, se vi surpaŝas la piedon de alia homo, ne indas diri "Ho! Mi bedaŭras ke vi estas kolera." Vi devas klare indiki tion, kion vi erare faris, kiel tio afektis la alian homon, kaj promesi eviti tion estontece. Ekzemple, "Mi bedaŭras ke mi surpaŝis vian piedon. Tio dolorigis al vi. Mi strebos ne surpaŝi vian piedon denove." Finfine, vi devas certigi ke vi neniam uzu la vorton "sed": tio ĉiam indikas eraron, ekz. "Mi bedaŭras ke mi surpaŝis vian piedon, sed vi estas en la malĝusta loko." Ne faru tion.

Mi devas konfesi ke mi iomete preferas la kutimojn de mia (praa) generacio en kiu la bezono pardonpeti estis minimumigita. Se iu faris ion, kion vi ne ŝatis, vi ne volis pardonpeton, simple agnoskon ke tio neniam okazu denove. Simple bleko aŭ ŝultrolevo sufiĉis. Kaj se oni volis paroli plu, vi simple ŝanĝus la temon al la vetero aŭ la hieraŭa sportsludo.

La plej grava konsilo kiun mi iam ricevis pri longdaŭrajn rilatojn estis la bezono akcepti ke la alia homo faros aferojn kiuj estos antaŭvideble stultaj kaj nepardoneblaj. Kaj vi devas akcepti ke ili tion faros. Vi jam diris mil foje ke ili ne faru, sed ili faros ĉiaokaze. Tio estas la homa naturo. Ili neniam ŝanĝiĝos. Kaj vi devas akcepti tion aŭ la rilato finiĝos. Eble pardonpeti helpas. Eble ne. Kion pensas vi? Ĉu pardonpeton helpas?

In October, I will be returning to WMU because I've been nominated for an alumni achievement award. It's a somewhat strange feeling, in part because my path is not what one would consider typical success in academia. Many academics believe that accepting a non-tenure-system appointment is to have "failed": to simply sink to the bottom of what John Perry called the academic trough never to return. But it's also just weird to be have reached the point where I feel like I'm starting to look back more than looking forward.

There are a series of events over the weekend. On Friday, I'll give a talk to the current students. The title of my talk is But what will the students do? Technology & Student-Centered Learning. And then there's a banquet, a reception, and a ceremony for a college level award. And for Saturday, they offered tickets to go to a Broncos game—they're playing the University of Akron—with a tailgating party beforehand.

I declined to attend the game. I've gone on record on campus as an opponent of football due to the growing evidence that it inevitably causes traumatic brain injuries. I did point out, however, that even the Minutemen defeated Akron one year when that was their single victory, which made me think the game might be good if someone liked one-sided contests. But I expressed some curiosity about the tailgate party.

"I'd be happy to learn more about tailgating," I wrote. "It is like a cookout with beer?"

"Unfortunately, no beer," she replied. "It starts at about 12:30 and each of the colleges have a tent, and you can go from one to another. Food, beverages, and activities will ensue! The Arts and Sciences theme for their tent is Casino night, so it should be lots of fun. Not sure what the other college have. I'm not sure yet if a faculty member will attend with you or not, we're still working out some details."

"What?" I replied "Well, then, I've been tragically misinformed about the definition of tailgating. Someone should correct wikipedia!"

But I admitted I was just kidding. Mostly.

On Tuesday, July 18, 2017, Phil Hotchkiss and I set out with our great friend Buzz Hoagland for an epic road trip to Vermont to visit craft breweries and bring home some select examples (hopefully including Heady Topper) to share with friends. Buzz had spent the previous week or two researching breweries in Vermont to find the best IPAs to sample. He had compiled a mammoth set of pages and had printed them out with all the data: breweries, maps, lists, pictures, and addresses. He handed this thick bundle of pages to me when I got into the car and I joked he that he must have printed out the whole internet.

We drove to Bennington, Vermont where we stopped at a brewpub for lunch and then headed next to Middlebury, the second stop of eleven Buzz had planned out. We had one beer at the Drop-Inn Brewery, but when we got back in the car, something happened. We realized something was wrong, but by the time we'd gotten around the side of the car, Buzz was already unconscious. Moments later, he stopped breathing. And just like that, he was gone. It was the most heart-breaking moment of my life.

I had to travel to Wisconsin to meet Buzz Hoagland. We were both at a BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium workshop in… 1997? 1998? Something like that. We were all biologists and teachers, but he was also a Mac user. And he had a beard and wore glasses. And he liked drinking good beer. We hit it off. It was only as the workshop was coming to a close that we discovered that we lived less than 50 miles apart. John Jungck used to say that the purpose of BioQUEST was to "begin conversations worth continuing." It certainly achieved its goal with us.

Buzz was due for a sabbatical that fall. He expressed interest in co-teaching my class with me for his project, which I welcomed and arranged. The class met once-a-week in the evening. Afterwards, we would go to drink a beer (or two) and debrief about how things had gone and to plan for the next class. I remember we had a hard time finding someplace that served beer that was also quiet enough to have a conversation. Eventually, we went to the Chilis in Hadley, in spite of the mediocre selections. I remember telling Randy Phillis how amazing it was to teach with someone and then go out for a beer and conversation, marveling at the simple pleasure of it. He quipped, "Well, I used to have these things called 'friends'…"

After the class, was over, we continued to work on new projects and to meet and drink beer. When we first met, he was still making homebrew. His Partisan Politics ale found a fan in me. Lucy, my mom, really liked a cream ale he could make. And his Toadspit Stout was something to marvel at. He could even make root beer! He gave me some advice when I wanted to try making homebrew which I did a few times (with mixed results). As the craft beer revolution took off, however, he eventually found he could purchase better beer than he could make. And so he pretty much quit making beer, except as a tribute to friends for parties, as he did for my 50th birthday party. Or weddings, as he did for Phil Hotchkiss.

Our relationship was multi-faceted. We discussed biology and teaching. But we were also both interested in technology and were Free Software advocates. We did web development and used Drupal together. We both loved cycling. We developed on-line classes together. We were both active in faculty unions and campus governance. We both had families and children. And passions. And problems. Buzz was someone I could always talk to about anything.

On the other hand, we were very different people too. Buzz was outgoing and charismatic. At a meeting, he would always be in the center, like a star, surrounded by other people. I would tend to sit in the corner by myself. I always felt a bit invisible—a bit self-conscious—when I was in a group with Buzz, because he was so present and so popular. And yet, time after time, he would come to me. And spend time with me. And invite me to spend time with him. I couldn't quite believe it at first and never did wholly understand it. But as the years wore on, I came to depend on the bond of trust between us that was as real as anything in my life.

A few years later, our relationship deepened when he invited me to join him in St. Croix to participate in his mongoose research. Buzz had been visiting the island off-and-on at that point for 30 years to study mongooses. But after that first year, I started going regularly. I couldn't go every year, partly due to finances, but also due to my other interests (cf. Esperanto.) But it was always the highlight of my year to visit St. Croix and be met by Buzz at sunrise every morning with "It's another beautiful day in paradise…"

I have so many memories of Buzz. Many were from our adventures in St. Croix: Driving back from the field, coming up over the rise, and seeing the brilliant blues of the Caribbean sea laid out before us… Watching bats under the Tamarind tree… Going shopping at Plaza Extra… Taking an "easy walk" with him to tide pools… Racing in jeeps along the "scenic road" (or, more accurately, scenic "road") to Creque Dam… Getting chased and stung by africanized bees and jack spaniards… Snorkeling on the Buck Island tour… Seeing baby sea turtles for the first time… Watching the sunset and looking for the Green Flash…

But many are just part of my everyday life: Working on manuscripts together… Cooking steaks on the grill in his back yard… Building a server together… Meeting at "high noon" for lunch with friends at Opa Opa. Or Hangars. Or the Northampton Brewery. Or the Student Prince. Visiting breweries and craft beer festivals… Riding from brewery to brewery in Pedal2Pints… Every day was like an adventure with Buzz.

It was a terrible shock to lose Buzz this way, so suddenly. He always seemed larger than life: like he was a man of brass. I never doubted but that he would live into his 90s like his father. I just assumed he would live forever—that he would live longer than me, anyway. But I can't be sad. The time I got to have with him was such a gift.

My friendship with Buzz Hoagland was one of the most transformative experiences of my life. I will treasure each of the moments of his life that he chose to share with me. I will never forget his generosity of spirit and the model he made of his life for his family and students and friends. I am certain that for the rest of my life, whenever I watch a sunrise or drink a glass of IPA, I will remember my dear friend Buzz Hoagland and be glad for the time we had together.

I mentally restricted myself to blogging about tree leaves, but I've been watching for leaf miners since I started and haven't seen any until today and it was in a goldenrod leaf. So I'm writing about a goldenrod leaf (Fig. 1). The plant was near my bus stop and I only had a moment to grab the leaf before the bus came, so I didn't observe any other characteristics about the plant. I'm not sure it would have been possible to identify it more specifically until it flowers anyway. There are a lot of species of Solidago and only a few are really distinctive unless you know them pretty well.

Figure 1. Goldenrod (Solidago sp.) leaf. Upper side is on left. Leaf miner damage visible.

Golderod leaves are lanceolate with a serrate margin. The leaf is light-green above and somewhat silvery underneath. The central vein protrudes under the leaf almost like a midrib.

The leaf miner track starts out around .2mm wide and leads toward the base of the leaf. When it reaches the intersection of a a smaller leaf vein with the middle vein, it turns abruptly, crosses the smaller vein, and heads toward the leaf margin. It runs along the leaf margin until it reaches the base of the leaf, where it reverses direction. The path returns along the leaf margin, but turns inward toward the middle and then meaders back and forth between the margin and the first major vein. There is a black trail inside much of the path, possibly frass or fecal material, The path leads to within a millimeter or two of the beginning and then stops.

I was an early Dropbox user, but was never happy about using a "cloud" service. The "cloud" is just someone else's computer and I've always wanted to use my own computer. I used SparkleShare for several years, but there was never a client for mobile, which limited its utility. But recently, I found out about Syncthing.

Syncthing provides a web-based graphical user interface to set up end-to-end relationships among devices. It tries to be something a non-technical person could use, but I'm not sure there it's quite there yet. It's a somewhat uneasy compromise between the two: I sorta wish it just had plain-text configuration files that I could edit with vim. (Its configuration files are plain text, but XML). In the end, I found that the easiest way to configure things was to use an ssh tunnel so I could configure both ends at the same time in different browser tabs.

ssh [hostname] -L 8333:localhost:8384

I set it up among 4 devices: my Ubuntu server, a Mac desktop, a Mac laptop, and an android phone. I could install via packages on Ubuntu. Simple. On the Mac, I had to move files by hand and missed that I needed to edit one file before starting it. And then that I needed to replace more than one instance of USERNAME in the file. But eventually I got it working. You could fix the directions, but you couldn't fix my pattern of only reading the directions once everything else has failed. It was easy to get it installed on Android except for figuring out how to create folders in the file-system. I could see the DCIM, Music, etc, folders, but didn't see how to create a folder at that level. Eventually, I saw you could select the /storage/emulated/0 folder and THEN create the folder. Very tricksy.

I was worried it wouldn't work properly across my broken NAT gateway, but it was fine. It uses local discovery as well as a distributed network of "discovery" servers to exchange information about where nodes are. It's just a little creepy, but seems to work OK.

One thing Syncthing has taught me is patience. A couple of times, I would set up something at one end, go to the other end and try to set it up there too, only to (eventually) have Syncthing simply ask me if I didn't want to set it up, with the setup already done. Sometimes it takes longer than I think it's going to, but just a little patience—getting a cup of coffee—does the trick.

I still haven't figured out all the configuration options. My brain wants to think in client-server terms, but Syncthing is more peer-to-peer in orientation. But it is highly configurable. It has four or five different options for versioning, including an "external" option, so you can write a script to manage versioning just how you like it.

I still haven't used it long enough to be sure I'm ready to migrate away from Dropbox and Sparkleshare, but initial results are very encouraging—encouraging enough I've given them some money. Now I just need to persuade Phil to set up a peer so we can provide off-site backups for each other. I mean, he's got that Raspberry Pi JUST SITTING THERE…

Phil shared an article with me today about two towns in Colorado where there's a cultural conflict: the hardscrabble mining town of Nucla with the wealthy, cosmopolitan Telluride right next door. There's a lot of fascinating history (the town of Nucla was built by socialists), but the central point of the article is the cultural differences that form the flashpoint for conflict.

Residents in Nucla want to re-open a uranium mill which the people in Telluride oppose. A Nucla resident says, “They’re the most wasteful people, yet they tell us that, you know, we can’t have our uranium […]." Which made me think of other ways to complete that sentence “They’re the most wasteful people, yet they tell us that, you know, we can’t have our ebola factory" or “They’re the most wasteful people, yet they tell us that, you know, we can’t have our africanized bee colonies." (Or "sarin gas storage tanks." Or "rabid raccoon breeding facility.")

One woman says, of her grandfather who died of cancer (from smoking and working in a uranium mine) “If you had told my grandpa that he was going to die when he was 70 a horrible, painful death, he would have continued to mine. That’s how he supported his family."

It reminded me of miners in West Virginia during the presidential election. I remember that Hillary told people, pretty frankly, "Look. The coal jobs ain't coming back, so we need to do retraining and get people into other jobs and careers." And they said "Fuck you, bitch!" and voted for Donald Trump. Yet when you ask them today they say, "Yeah, he said he's bringing the coal jobs back, but we know it's not going to happen." Hillary actually understood the problem and had the right answer, but people didn't want to hear an actual solution to their problem: they would rather have someone lie to them and tell them the fairy story they want to hear.