Larry Hosken: New: Tag: choice

Book Report: Show me a Hero

It's a history of the struggle to build and inhabit public housing on the white side of Yonkers, NY, USA in the 1990s. (If that sounds familiar but you're sure you didn't read the book, maybe you saw the HBO miniseries?) It was a pretty interesting, albeit aggravating read. Why aggravating?

Yonkers' NIMBYs were national-news-level notable. In Yonkers, they were very stubborn. Ordered by a judge to build public housing on the east side of town, city politicians got elected by promising to just not build that housing. Faced with fines, they stuck to their guns. When the fines threatened to bankrupt the city, when the city had to fire workers, when… Their appeal went up to the US Supreme Court.

The book isn't written from the NIMBY point of view. I suppose the NIMBYs didn't want to sit down with the author and recount their tales of hurling racist epithets back in the good ol' days. But you feel their presence in every chapter: Voting out the sane politicians; making death threats; hurling those epithets.

Instead we hear about the ousted Yonkers politicians and the outside-Yonkers politicians who were trying to figure out how to make the city comply. Do you fine the city? Seems bad to make city workers lose their jobs just because the city council got taken over by racists. Do you fine the city council members? They can declare bankruptcy, and then get re-elected by pointing out their sacrifices.

And we hear about the people who moved into the new public housing when it was finally built. None of these people thought of Ruby Bridges like Yep, that's the lifestyle I'm looking for. But they had to learn how to get along with their new neighbors, how to stand up for themselves. There are some real moments of inspiration in there.

Poll Clerking 2024: The Paper Jam November 5, 2024, I once again volunteered as a poll clerk for a San Francisco election. I clerked at the same garage as 2022, and it was still swanky: building owner Jay served up espresso drinks, I...

*unpins the browser tab devoted to the Washington Post daily crossword puzzle web page* So long, old friend. I hope you understand why I had to unsubscribe. ...

I'm yes on Prop 33, though I'm pretty YIMBY I'm slogging through my ballot, looking at California proposition 33. This proposition says that cities could impose rent control on more types of housing. Opponents say: Beware! NIMBY jerks wil...

Want to encourage people to #vote, but mostly people with attention to detail? Leave a note of encouragement in a small crack in the sidewalk, kinda buried, kinda overgrown with grass. (San Fran...

The #SanFrancisco #IVoted sticker is pretty spiffy this time. ...

I just gave to a political campaign. I dunno how much I agree with the candidate; I didn't really check. I was just so surprised to see a political campaign text show up on my phone not in the Spam f...

Here's a screen shot of my phone Messaging app's Spam folder: Apparently when the app sees a message from a new-to-me number that contains a picture, the app chucks that message into the spam bi...

I'm reading press releases about the Beagle Brigade Act, which would set up a center to train beagles to detect prohibited agricultural items in international mail and the baggage of international tr...

I'm just now realizing that the head of the San Francisco Sheriff's Department Oversight Board is Jayson Wechter, the guy who ran those Chinese New Year parade Treasure Hunts. Wow, hmm. Wow. OK. Tha...

Oof. San Francisco's Elections Director got caught helping a vendor sell their voting equipment to the city. The Director's contract is nearly up and the SF Election Commission wants to search for a ...

Democratic Primary, a.k.a. Shooting Themselves in the Foot You may recall a couple of years back I blogged about "electability," specifically, if a USA political party wants to pick an electable candidate, they should listen to voters in states that are medi...

Poll Clerking 2022 Friends, I have a tale of luxury and decadence. November 8, 2022, I once again volunteered as a poll clerk for a San Francisco election. Though California was a vote-by-mail state, it had only been ...

San Francisco California Election Notes I filled in my ballot. I'll point out a few propositions where researching the details changed my mind. California Props [26 | 27]: allow sports betting administered by [native Californian tribes | ...

In the upcoming election, San Francisco Proposition D defines "affordable" housing in a way that surprised me, but made sense when I looked up California state law. Prop D makes allowances...

I randomly encountered Jeffrey Oldham in the park today. I was surprised to see him since it wasn't election day. We know each other from work, but in recent years we've met on election day. Jeffrey'...

In the recent San Francisco District Attorney recall election, we found out many San Franciscans thought the D.A. has a lot more leeway than was true. And then there's this guy: ...

San Francisco is getting new public trash bin enclosures. There are a few designs up for consideration. I visited one design today. It just plain didn't work. When folks tried to throw out their tras...

I'm filling in my ballot, scrolling through the California Voter Information Guide and got distracted by the candidate statements for California's Board of Equalization, 4th District (southern Cal). ...

Wow, that's the fifth email from the San Francisco Department of Elections asking me if I'll volunteer at the polls June 7th. Usually they email me just once per election. When someone from the ...

It's election day in San Francisco again, the second of four this year.* I wore my "I Voted" sticker today. I didn't see anyone else with a sticker. Now that California's a 100% vote-by-mail state, m...

As I headed out on my exercise walk this morning, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. In a house garage that hosted a polling place for last week's election, there was still voting equip...

Today's an election day in San Francisco. I wore my "I Voted!" sticker. On my morning exercise walk, I saw zero (0) other people wearing such stickers. I saw one (1) polling place volunteer...

Book Report: America, Inc. America, Inc is speculative fiction; but instead of the usual technology-speculation, it's organization-speculation. In the USA nowadays, corporations are people with free speech rights. This novel e...

Book Report: On the Plain of Snakes The author traveled from the USA to Mexico. A famous author, he could access places you or I could not: Local writers gave him letters of introduction; but nobody knew what he looked like,* so he co...

oh gee whiz this recruiting mail …We at the [San Francisco] Department of Elections thank you for your past service and hope you will be available to serve as a poll worker again in all four...

On Tuesday, September 14 2021, I volunteered at a local polling place for the California Governor Recall Election. This was my third time working a polling place, so I didn't have a web page's worth ...

My morning thoughts: Put Stacey Abrams in charge of the vaccine rollout. If anyone can organize that shit, she can. My evening thoughts: Put Stacey Abrams in charge of the Department of Homeland Sec...

I figured some stuff out that I hope to remember the next time USA presidential primary season rolls around.* Leading up to the primaries, people argue about electability. Pundits use electability t...

You might remember back in 2018, I volunteered at a polling place in a house's garage up in the hills. I'm remembering it because in today's news, Lisa Gautier and her excellent garage polling place ...

#IVoted in person today. This might surprise my fellow Californians—California's dodging the pandemic by voting by mail this month. I was sent a mail-in ballot to fill in and return. But this m...

Book Report: The Vapors Once upon a time in the USA, gambling was illegal across the land. A few cities and towns went ahead and had illegal gambling. Those cities stopped one by one until just one was left: Hot Springs, Ar...

Book Report: One Person, No Vote It's a whirlwind tour of voter suppression in the USA. Nowadays, Depending on who you ask, North Carolina is no longer considered a fully-functioning democracy; how did we land in this situation? No...

I wrote some notes about working the recent election. People wail and gnash their teeth about changes in election technology, but I was really glad to be using plastic security seals that I could clo...

On Tuesday, I'll be volunteering as a poll worker at the site of a 2-Tone Game puzzle. Yes, I'll be working on an election at a place that I turned into a puzzle. This will be so very on-brand for me...

Today I walked over to City Hall and voted. I didn't vote in the usual San Francisco way (marking pieces of paper with a pen). Instead, I used a ballot-marking device (BMD)—I interacted with a ...

I got some snail-mail from Mike Bloomberg. I opened up the envelope, but there was no check inside. I don't understand his strategy as well as I thought I did, I guess. ...

At today's Poll Worker training class, the instructor said that 80% of us volunteer election clerks would never see a ballot marking device (BMD) in action. That's too bad, since my curiosity about t...

“Freedom isn't free.” –Guy who went to City Hall to vote early and left his bus pass by the metal detector. ...

Risk-Limiting Audits The new hotness in election integrity is Risk-Limiting Audits. I'm going to ramble a bit about them here because so far I've pretty much missed the point of what the "Risk-Limiting" phrase means. But...

Clerk Life I volunteered as a poll worker in the recent election; you can read my notes about it. Spoilers: I got a lapel pin, much snazzier than a mere "I Voted!" sticker; a bird flew into our polling place bu...

I survived my day as a precinct poll clerk volunteer. Did civilization survive? I don't know, I mostly kept my phone off. ...

If you're in the USA, #BeAVoter . Vote tomorrow if you haven't already. Even if you and I don't agree on things, I want you to vote. Seriously. I'd rather that you vote than that you give up on the ...

If you live near SF and are interested in election machines and/or election security, you might want to visit the SF Poll Worker Practice Lab on Nov 4 where you can set up, tear down, and operat...

San Francisco Voter Guides Sparing you a google web search and rummaging around: SF Dept of Elections voter info, CA voter info. Candidate statements, arguments for & against propositions. SF League of Pissed-Off Voters....

Californians, Don't vote for Mark Meuser I'm researching the California election. There are two candidates for Secretary of State, the incumbent and the challenger. The challenger wants me to know that California elections are in sorry shap...

I'm researching the California election. There are two candidates for Secretary of State, the incumbent and the challenger. The challenger wants me to know that California elections are in sorry shap...

Book Report: October A history of the months between the overthrow of the Tsar and the rise of Lenin, as told by China Miéville taking a break from writing science fiction long enough to untangle this mess such that one ...

Book Report: Confessions of a Political Hitman Autobiography of a guy who did political opposition research back when that meant travelling to county seats and looking at old voting records on microfilm or somesuch. He mostly worked for right-win...

Today in 2017 Congress-calling history: I spoke to a live human. Not a voicemail, not a web form, a human. June seemed like a nice lady. She totally didn't make fun of me for hesitating while I waite...

Link: Inside the Recount Pretty interesting article about the 2016 Presidential Election recount efforts: New Republic | Inside the Recount https://newrepublic.com/article/140254/inside. The story as I understood it before r...

Huh. Neither of my senators' voicemail boxes were full this morning. Maybe I should start leaving longer messages. ...

Link: Obama's Lost Army After Obama was elected, some of his campaign folks wanted to set up tools and organization to foster grassroots civic participation. The DNC saw this as competition and shut it down. If you wonder w...

USA congress-callers, bills to support/oppose Some more bills you might be for/against to keep in mind when you call your senators/reps for things which you already heard about on 5 Calls or One Thing You Can Do or wherever: HR. 804 "To a...

USA congress-callers, interesting bills If you're already calling your US senators and/or representatives, maybe nudge them to support: Senate bill 200 H.R. bill 669 These bills say that the President can't do a nuclear first strike on...

USA congress-callers, you have other sites If 5 Calls isn't working for you today, here's a similar site: The 65. It doesn't conveniently show you your senator/rep's phone # on the same screen as info about the issue… but you...

CA congress-callers, you have 2 senators I love reading tweets&posts from my friends calling their congress critters. The 5 Calls web site is pretty excellent for keeping track of issues to call about; and I see a lot of folks are using...

I've been lurking on some right-wing websites, hoping to get a view outside my bubble. I was especially curious about voter fraud. There are some specific things that keep coming up—maybe the f...

Hoo boy, political argument at the big family Thanksgiving dinner. We just couldn’t agree on what the worst thing about Trump is. ...

Walking around my neighborhood today, I see 100% grim faces. It reminds me of hallways in companies facing multiple layoffs. ...

San Francisco peeps who haven't already voted: Hoodline's Election Guide is a darned handy collection of slates. ...

It's a double do-gooder shirt sticker day. (#IVoted a couple of weeks ago, but waited until today to affix the sticker.) ...

SF folks, what excellent voter recommendations/endorsements am I overlooking? I'm looking for such that explain their thinking, not just say Yes on this, No on that. Here's the stuff I'm slogging thr...

Comic Report: The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye This comic is funny. I say that right away because when I tell you the premise, you'll be tempted to click away thinking "oh that is some fauxlitical artsy-fartsy bullroar to be purchased by earnest ...

Ever since that convention kerfuffle, I've been trying to remember this cold-war era movie quote: Student Journalist: As your party's leading presidential candidate, you are a staunch advocate of n...

Book Report: Lean In I heard a bunch of bad things about this book. I read it so that I could make fun of it. But now that I've read the book, the bad things I've heard seem like they were about a strawman version. I'll ...

Book Report: Give and Take This book makes the case that you can behave nicely and still get ahead in business. Is this surprising? Does this need saying? Maybe; the author says that many folks don't think they can give others...

Link: Law Offices of Lowell Finley If you're into election technology, a new blog to follow: Law Offices of Lowell Finley. Remember when California was reporting folks trying to sell us so-bleeding-edge-it-aint-really-working-right-ye...

Book Report: Dataclysm The OKCupid blog is pretty amazing. Way back when, it caused a stir talking about trends in USA interracial dating. Plenty of USA folks say they don't care about race. But when the OKCupid folks look...

This evening's Adventure Design Group was the San Francisco Institute of Possibility. This was about as far from puzzlehunts as you can get—they run events that might be described as awesome pa...

Book Report: Everything is Bullshit The Priceonomics blog wrote a book with a rude name. It's pretty interesting; a lot of it was stuff that I'd already read. (I wasn't subscribed to the blog, but other folks kept forwarding links&hell...

Book Report: A Fighting Chance It's an autobiography by politician Elizabeth Warren. Before she w19as a politician, she was an academic. She studied bankruptcy. When she started, there was received wisdom around bankruptcy: people...

Link: MAY ONE Who doesn't want anyone to study climate change? Wyoming's governor, that's who. Wyoming mines a lot of coal. If your re-election money comes from coal, you imagine a federal "war on coal." Most peop...

If you lost count of the recent NSA citizen-snooping outrages but figure there are enough to justify nudging your legislators, The Day We Fight Back is a web site to guide you through that. ...

Book Report: Griftopia We've had a chance to reflect on the financial disasters and bailouts of 2008. What have we learned? We learned that America's most successful bankers aren't those who are best at computing loan risk...

I listened to the "Famine Game Reaping" snoutcast and then posted a question in the form of a personal failure of imagination: What if you were a GC running an application process and you wanted some...

A day late, I figured out my Hallowe'en costume. On me, it's pretty scary. On someone of your sterling judgement, dear reader, it would be less so. ...

Book Report: Broken Ballots A few people want to steal elections. A few billion people want fair elections. How do you make an election un-stealable? It's not easy. Elections do't run themselves; we need election officials. Fol...

Book Report: All the President's Men I didn't think I'd learn anything from this book, but I was wrong. I thought everybody knows the story of All the President's Men: Plucky reporters Woodward and Bernstein investigate Watergate; they ...

Book Report: Republic, Lost When Solyndra was falling apart, Republicans were screaming: these green companies were just boondoggles, false fronts to scoop up government money. It's easy to dismiss their complaints as a bunch o...

Book Report: The Evolution of Cooperation It's a book by Robert Axelrod, who set up some groundbreaking game theory experiment/contests back in the day. He set up a computer program that would run other computer programs. Specifically, it ra...

The Wooly Pig Cafe is better than Ike's (Sorry, out of towners, this blog post is only of interest to San Franciscans.) The best sandwich place in my neighborhood is the Wooly Pig Cafe. They put together some awesome sandwiches from ingre...

Book Report: Too Big to Know We know a lot, and nowadays we know that we know a lot. I read a lot of books. But I read only a teeny-tiny fraction of the books that get published. And books are, in turn, just a teeny-tiny fractio...

Book Report: Super Crunchers It's a book about working with Big Data. Considering some of the projects I've worked on, you think I'd be pretty excited. But my experience made me kind of picky about the details. At first, this bo...

Book Report: Waltzing with Bears This book's subtitle is "Managing Risk on Software Projects" and it's written by the Peopleware guys. OK, nobody's reading this blog post anymore; the non-computer folks have clicked away to find som...

Book Report: Priceless Yesterday, I dodged Black Friday, but didn't quite make it through Buy Nothing Day. I bought a streetcar ride and then a train ride down the peninsula. How much were those worth? I don't know. I k...

Book Report: Predictably Irrational A series of musings about how people really behave. Or, rather, how they misbehave. Describes experiments about placebos, cheating, and other circumstances in which people lie to themselves and to o...

Zine Report: Giant Robot #57 The Obama posters say "HOPE", but when Obama himself picks people... well, he undercuts hope. It's like he scraped my old book reports, looking for books about USA politics with villains and chose th...

Book Report: Sources of Power This book came out ten years ago. It discusses how people make decisions. Not necessarily how people ought to make decisions--but how they do. It does have some advice on how people can make bette...

Book Report: Pirate Freedom If you travel through time, are you free? Or are you hemmed in by predestination? (Postdestination? What do you call destiny when time travel is involved?) That's a complicated question, and fort...

Book Report: How to Rig an Election This morning, I'm munching my breakfast, reading Slashdot's feed and I see a name I recognize. The strange part: the name is that of a politico, not a computer programmer. The Slashdot post is point...

Book Report: Gaming the Vote I know what I can say about BANG 19 preparations. It's necessarily vague, in the name of seekricy, but it's heartfelt. Thank you you past Game Control folks who have shared advice, "war stories", a...

Book Report: Deliver the Vote Deliver the Vote is a history of crooked elections in the U.S. of A. It doesn't try to describe all crooked elections. Just some good stories, just enough to fill up a few hundred pages. George Wa...

Book Report: The Wisdom of Crowds Ron and Sua were in town on Friday. That's why I was stuck on a train. I'd had dinner with them on the peninsula, caught the train back, blammo. But it was good to see Ron, good to see Sua. This ...

Book Report: What's the Matter With Kansas? Thomas Frank, a member of the liberal intellectual elite wrote this book for other members of the liberal intellectual elite to tell them that the formerly-liberal working class is tired of liberal ...