{ This post was rescued from July 2007… }

Sadly, America has become famous on the world stage for our special brand of Yee-haw Imperialism, best exemplified by our current President Bush. Though he was born the  privileged son to one of America's most powerful and wealthy families, he liked to play up a "regular guy" image to the media. During his presidential campaign and in his early years in office, President Bush would present himself as a hard-working cowboy, the kind of fellow you might “have a beer with.” Now, six years into the disaster of his administration, most reasonable folks now understand that Bush is nothing but another robber baron in the long line of rich and powerful people who fleece this great nation of its talent, its unity, its children, and most of all its money.

In this week's New Yorker magazine (July 9 & 16, 2007), reporter Jon Lee Anderson has written a fantastic  article titled "The Taliban's Opium War — The difficulties and dangers of the eradication program." Anderson has been reporting for years from the Iraq and Afghanistan war fronts, and his stories are told clearly and with an economy of words (listen to a radio interview with Mr. Anderson; Wikipedia).

Anderson reports on his visit to central Afghanistan, where a low-intensity conflict brews between American private military contractors (mercenaries), Afghan farmers, Taliban militia members, local Afghan police, and other "coalition" forces (namely the Dutch) — just to name a few of the players. We learn about some of the ex-military Americans who work for DynCorp, a giant  private military contractor. At times, the DynCorp employees sound like tough-guy movie characters, talking the same old talk that separates the brutes from the thinkers. A DynCorp employee who is "a former Army man and prison guard" told to the reporter,

"The real problem in this war on terror is you guys, the press. Ties our hands. The only way to fight this is to give them back the same medicine, like Operation Phoenix, in Vietnam. My Lai — what Calley did there was probably just on orders."

Ah yes, I see. We just need to let the soldiers do the killing as they see fit, and everything will be all right.

One of the few things separating our American democracy from a terror regime of secret killings is the ability of the general public to actually know what our government is doing, by reading the free press. A functioning democracy requires a free press — the ability of professional reporters, operating under a code of ethics, to gather up the facts and present it as news. Without the oversight of professional journalists publishing the truth as they discover it, how can I as a citizen know what my government is up to? I know for sure I can't trust the government. Maybe I can't totally trust the press either, but at least they're a check against the government. That's the way the founders of the United States intended it: a free press was guaranteed by the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in the Bill of Rights.

So it's downright absurd that a hired soldier who is working for taxpaying Americans tells an American reporter that the press is holding him back from the barbaric killing that he could be doing (which he's pretty sure would win this doggone war once and for all).

It's a sad state of affairs when the hired soldier doesn't see that he's part of a non-sensical conflict, the result of American corporate profit motives and the immature ambitions of George W. Bush, a man who should never have been president.

Just like the war in Vietnam which boiled America when I was a small kid, the current conflicts are fought mostly for the benefit of the ultra-rich and the well-off upper middle class — all those folks who are making lots and lots of money by keeping the great war machine running.

It's the military industrial complex, my fellow Americans, and it's doing more harm than good! (Apologies to all of you who live comfortable middle-class lives by latching onto this ugly social/economic boondoggle.)

Learn more about the privatization of the roles once filled by the U.S. military:

• Private Warriors, a "Frontline" special from PBS
• Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq (Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2007)
• The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic,  by Chalmers Johnson (links to Google Books)
• Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, by P. W. (Peter Warren) Singer (links to Google Books)
• Permanent War Economy on Wikipedia

Shut off your TV news and check out some quality regular reading and listening:

• The New Yorker is the best weekly magazine you can get. Its unfailingly eloquent writers have soberly told the truth and exposed the lies of our government for decades. Yet their sometimes-troubling reporting is balanced by the funniest comics you'll ever read, along with excellent coverage of all kinds of music, art, architecture, design, and  short fiction, along with amazing photography. I think you'd find yourself a much happier person if reading the New Yorker replaced your television or video game habits (remember, the truth sets you free!).
• The New York Times is still the best written and most thoroughly reported news in America: the stories that you need to know to wholly understand what's going on in the world and our country, with a minimum of distraction. Keep in mind that the Times is marketed to a very wealthy readership so prepare yourself for a barrage of advertisements appealing to the richer-class. Despite this, its writers and editors report decently on the condition of all Americans, rich, poor and in between. If you can manage it, get the Sunday edition, or check the NYTimes.com Web site.
  
• The Nation - a weekly magazine published since 1865, and one of the greatest sources of reporting and truth-telling in America.
• Listen to NPR and public radio in general; check out the left/low end of your radio dial.

From the Potrero Hill Neighbors Group:

The new board of directors of the Starr King Open Space are holding a public meeting Wednesday July 15 at 6:30pm at the Neighborhood House. If you aren't aware, the Open Space is the undeveloped land between Carolina & De Haro at 24th, and the open areas near Starr King Elementary. 

The board would like to introduce themselves to you, hear your visions, and get your input on the proposed development of a neighboring property that has the potential to impact your use of the openspace.

Please come by!

DATE & TIME: Wednesday July 15th 6:30 to 8:30pm

LOCATION: Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, 953 De Haro St., San Francisco

I recently ponied up for a conference session given by Nielsen Norman Group, regarding website usability. Below are some of my notes. Most links point to articles from usability expert Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox.

1. About 75% of user visits to a website are to a page other than the site’s home page; users are frequently “deep linking” to a site through search engines. Thus, those pages need to provide orientation about where the users are.
2. Links to PDFs annoy users; they wonder if the website is “cheap” because the site’s publisher didn’t create an HTML page.
3. Search boxes should be at least 30 characters wide. Showing a Google custom search on your site will increase your site’s trustiness — users view a Google search form as a positive. The upper-right is the best location for a search box; else, upper-left.
4. Don’t separate out content by the type of technology, e.g., putting all podcasts under a podcast link. Better to integrate the various forms of technology (plug-in?) with the relevant content.
5. Writing for the Web: don’t use language telling users how good or useful something of yours is; users will determine whether what you’re offering is good or useful.
6. A summary at the top of a page of content is often helpful to users.
7. Users like sites that have a set of “learn more” links at the bottom of an article. Don’t have a dead-end at the bottom of page!
8. Users fixate on how they expect the interface to behave. They’ll do the same thing over and over even though it gives them the same result. This illustrates how important it is to use standards and accepted methods in website design. These days (2009), users have high expectations of websites.
9. All users appreciate when information has been distilled down to what’s most important and easy to digest. Websites should invest in professional writing, editing, information architecture, user testing, etc.
10. Progressive disclosure: only disclose information at the rate at which users expect it. Don’t dump too much, or dribble out too little.
11. Linked phrases should be very descriptive of what users will get (thus, “click here” is the worse possible linked phrase). Links should bear information.
12. Many (the majority of) users still have problems with fly-out (or drop-down) menus. It’s better to lead users to landing pages where they can consider their options for that section, or use “mega drop-down menus.”
13. Users don’t move the mouse around much. Don’t expect users to explore a page with their mouse looking for hidden links or info pop-ups. They focus on areas that give a strong information scent, which is strongest with linked text.
14. Fine-tune content to match user's search behavior: optimize <title> tags to benefit users scanning SERPs (search engine results pages).
15. Browser tabs are still a feature used mostly by advanced users; the majority of users don’t browse with tabs.
16. If the user needs to understand the company’ infrastructure to understand the website, then there’s a problem with the site.
17. Headings and headlines are extremely important for users scanning text (which is what they do: people scan the web, they don't necessarily read it).
18. Graphical internal promotions for the site should match the site’s style.
19. Users’ view of the web is through SEARCH, more than ever. They use search as their starting point more than anything else. They even often think of what they’ve accessed as “from Google:” They’ll say “I read it on Google” even when they really read it on a page linked to from Google.
20. Clear, contrasty and large text is very compelling to users, and is OK to use along with a photo. If the text is on the photo, make it contrast enough — easy to read.

(FWIW — ask me sometime whether I thought this day-long session was worth the $800 I paid.)

Above: the always-beautiful Mt. Wilson Towercam view, June 30, 2009, southern California.