Monday, January 20, 2003

Not Just Whistling Dixie Inspired by the Trent Lott imbroglio, I've given a little study to their curious ideology and concluded that neo-Confederates aren't rooted primarily in racism or nostalgia for segregation. Rather, neo-Confederate ideology composes an anti-modernist belief system much like creationism. Neo-Confederates don't just dream about the past. They have moved in. The whole movement is like a fantasy role-playing organization, something along the lines of the Renaissance Faire. See this Time Magazine article dinging Bush for his recent bizarre decision, apparently made at the urging of neo-Confederate groups, to revive the custom of honoring Jefferson Davis. And see Josh's Marshall's outstanding further inquiry into Bush's decision, one Richard T. Hines, and the wacky Sons of Confederate Veterans. Do visit the SCV site and savor the poetry! I earlier wrote about the Lott affair here, here, here, and here. I've been meaning to post about Bush's astonishing decision earlier this month to re-nominate Charles Pickering (left) to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a move that last month I wrongly predicted would be DOA due to the Lott Test. Well, the Lott Test itself ain't dead; it will turn the Pickering hearings into a raucous media circus. I doubt the Republican senators on Judiciary are all that pleased with Bush on this one. Speaking of neo-Confederates, for some shockingly dishonest historical revisionism see the Our Mission page of the Web site of clothier Dixie Outfitters, recently embroiled in a controversy about Confederate-themed clothing at a public high school in Georgia. Last week House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) sparked the removal of Confederate flags flying over two state historic parks in Missouri. Kudos to Gephardt. Predictably, officials from the Sons of Confederate Veterans made themselves sound like the cretins they are in commenting about the situation in this story from the Jefferson City News Tribune. 7:56:05 PM     Blow Up Your FAQ Practical, inexpensive substitutes for the ordeal of full-blown Web usability testing. From Jonathan Peterson. 1:29:26 PM     Linux Rising A story in The New York Times today mentions my former employer, Linuxcare: I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard are placing big bets on Linux, and both are on a path to phase out their proprietary Unix businesses eventually. Companies like I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Red Hat, SuSE Linux, Linuxcare and others make money by supplying hardware, technical support, services or software for Linux systems. Linuxcare mentioned in the same sentence as IBM -- wunderbahr! As the director of the Linuxcare Web site, which once upon a time (1998 -- 2000) was big and busy and well known, I played a modest role in building the company during those astonishing times in San Francisco. Linuxcare survived the tech melt-down. It's a much smaller firm today than when I worked there, but by God it's earning revenue and providing jobs. One of Linuxcare's founders, the inimitable Arthur F. Tyde, is coming to New York this week for the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. We're going to have lunch and pow-wow about our new company, Sputnik. Don't laugh at the Web site please. Graphics are not my strong suit. Look for a site refresh, to help launch our upcoming Central Control product, next month. Another Sputnik founder you may have heard of, Dave Sifry, has a great blog about all things 802.11. He's also the creator of the blogging tool Technorati. In the picture to the left you'll see the three Linuxcare founders -- Dave LaDuke, Dave Sifry, Art Tyde (left to right) -- the same infamous Gang of Three who have founded Sputnik. 12:30:45 PM

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