b.rox

It seems that painting trim and windows is a lot more time-consuming and a lot less fun than painting the walls. I spent all day yesterday and today and I’m almost done. I’m working on the largest room in our house, the utility room. I prepped three weekends ago, did the ceiling two weekends ago, [...]

Yesterday I referred to Bobby Jindal as a “right-wing nutjob.” I regret that, as I prefer not to call names. I got carried away.
I should have said that he seems like a right-wing nutjob. A friend of mine says Jindal acts like that to get the so-called “Bubba vote.” He says Jindal has to play [...]

My voting philosophy is pretty simple. Here are my general rules:

Vote against the incumbent, if there is one.
Don’t vote for a candidate of either of the two major entrenched parties.

These are not rigid by any means. I’ll make an exception if I believe in a particular candidate or if some other calculus suggests itself.
Of course, [...]

I’ve started a thread over at the Flickr Ideas group advocating for a feature that I think would be beneficial. If you’re a Flickr user and if you like Creative Commons, please check it out. If you think it’s a good idea, please voice your support.

Problem: You’re winding down a long day and would like to enjoy a nightcap. But when you get to the liquor cabinet you are confronted with an alarming situation: All the liquor is gone. No bourbon, no scotch, no vodka, no gin, no cognac, no tequila. (Apparently you drank all those.) It’s too late to [...]

Noah K called me the other day to promote an upcoming event called Hip-Hop for Hope. Now I love me some hip-hop, but I don’t care for what much of mainstream commercial hip-hop has become. My tastes run to the old school and the underground. I like intelligent, socially conscious rap. That’s why it’s good [...]

For various reasons I’ve made an effort over the years to eliminate God-talk from my everyday speech. I try not to make casual reference to God. For example, I don’t say “God bless you” or “Thank God.” If I hit my thumb with a hammer I may make a spontaneous exception.
And now I’ve found another [...]

I’ll be participating in a panel discussion on “Media, Communication and Community: Private and Public Interests in Rebuilding New Orleans” this Wednesday night. It’s sponsored by the Xavier University Communications Department and it’s open to the general public. More info.
Next week, I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on “New Media and Community Activism in Post-Katrina [...]

I’m quoted in an AP article about Ed Blakeley:

Mid-City resident Bart Everson said that after Blakely started work in January, he saw him as the “last, best” hope for leadership in the city’s recovery. He said he still does, “but I haven’t seen the evidence of anything getting accomplished.”
“I still hold out hope something is [...]

Story #25 about our renovation appears in today’s Times-Picayune.

48 Hours Mystery will be running a show this weekend about Helen Hill and Dinerral Shavers and the general topic of violence in New Orleans.
I spoke to the producers a couple of times. One producer told me he was disappointed by the seeming resignation of most of the people they’d interviewed. He was hoping [...]

Last night I attended the New Orleans City Council At-Large candidate forum at Xavier.
Twelve of the thirteen candidates were there, Kimberly Butler being absent. There were nine rounds of questions, adding up to 117 mini-speeches. Candidates were limited to one minute in length in some cases and 30 seconds in others, and the limits were [...]

If you tried to leave a comment here in the last 24 hours you probably got an error message, but I just fixed that problem — I think.

A friend of mine voted early and sends the following report.

Since you gave me some advice, I’ll tell you how I voted. Just a little FYI. When it’s relevant, I’ll tell you why I made the choice I did. Generally, I don’t vote for Republicans. Also, when I’m trying to make a decision [...]

I’m feeling a tad frazzled today, just a little overwhelmed because I’m juggling a few too many things. And also, I’ve gotten behind with this journal, and there’s so much to write about.
Let’s see…

The guy who dissolved the Soviet Union was in New Orleans over the weekend, talkin’ ’bout a revolution. Yup, Gorby said if [...]

I haven’t posted for a few days because of weird technical problems.
I wasn’t able to login from home over the weekend, so I figured I’d try from the office when I got back to work. But Monday was a wash, with the entire campus cut off from the internet. Today, I was finally able to [...]

Xy found this crawling around on our deck this morning and demanded I take a picture.

It’s shaped like a worm but has the texture of a slug, and it’s very distinctive with the stripe down the back and the hammerhead. I’m not sure if it’s a true worm some sort of mollusk or what. We’ve [...]

We’ve just had E.M.A.N.S. boxes installed all across the campus, including here in our office. The acronym stands for “Emergency Mass Alert Notification System,” and it’s designed to let people note about emergency situations, like if there was madman roaming around with a gun. It’s a fairly discrete system, designed to avoid mass panics. It’s [...]

I see Slashdot is celebrating its tenth anniversary. That gave me pause to reflect on an artifact from my life ten years ago, which for various reasons I’ve been re-reading recently.
It’s called Stone Cold 97, and I suppose you could say it was my first foray into blogging. Actually it was a collaboration between my [...]

Regarding that message from an old friend that I posted yesterday?
At first I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I read it with increasing incredulity, and when I got to the end I laughed out loud. It was a slightly uncomfortable laugh, the kind viewers utter while watching early episodes of The Office.
Surely, this [...]