From: lars@beagle-ears.com
On 2025-12-27, rbowman wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Dec 2025 20:29:05 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:
>> Given that the Constitution (capitalized like the Bible) was written to
>> protect the interests of what was in effect a "landed gentry",
>> it is a bit remarkable that it over time has permitted as broad an
>> upward mobility as it did until the age of Reagan, Koch and Gingrich.
>> I guess "Noblesse Oblige" was a thing back then. But now that the gloves
>> have come off, I think some new rulemaking is required.
>
> When I was in high school, or perhaps even grade school, I remember the
> American History class dipping into 'The Federalist Papers'. Since it was
> basically indoctrination the Anti-Federalists weren't mentioned although
> many of their predictions have come to pass. The Federalist party didn't
> last long but it did manage to create the Marshall led Supreme Court which
> had a much greater impact.
>
>> The Catholic church contains amazing diversity; from Opus Dei to Dorothy
>> Day. And yet they manage to stay together by pretending not to have
>> differences of doctrine. In other words, hypocrisy is one of the first
>> ingredients in that glue.
>
> I would lean more toward the Day side. Have you seen 'Entertaining
> Angels'?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertaining_Angels:_The_Dorothy_Day_Story
>
> Day wasn't one of Cardinal Spellman's favorite people. I don't know if
> there is much of a connection but Martin Sheen took his stage name from
> Fulton J. Sheen, another person Spellman disliked.
Never saw it, but have read a number of articles about her life. I will
see if that movie is on Amazon Video. (For all tht I dislike about
Amazon, I buy my movies and music there, because I trust they will be
around to serve it for the rest of my life.)
>> I find a lot to agree with in the left wing of Catholicism, even though
>> I would describe myself as an atheist humanist. (But I attend church
>> more than most of the "Christians".)
Unitarian Universalist "church". More sundays than not, I am there. And
I serve on the board of my local congregation.
> Day's influences were an interesting blend that included Kropotkin. Not
> for nothing
>
> $ hostname
> kropotkin
>> Google and Amazon are two examples of capitalism run off the rails. They
>> both discovered loopholes in the economy and rode them hard. Google
>> seemed to be pretty benign at the outset, but when you consider just how
>> much was spent on infrastructure before they even began to monetize it,
>> you can tell that someone must have pitched a plan to the money people
>> quite early on.
At the inception, Amazon was a hack on the books distrubution system.
They were a branded front-end to the (unvisible unless you were in the
book trade) Ingram distributors, who were the back-end for pecial
orders" for all independent bookstores. I think Bezos noticed that there
were more than a dozen branded mailorder houses selling computers out of
a central warehouse called "Ingram Micro". (Computer Discount
Warehouse, PC Warehouse, Mac Warehouse, etc etc). So he attached himself
to that. He had no inventory, no shipping and handling: He just took
orders from the web, and told Ingram to drop ship them to the customer.
And as the business grew, he built first a warehouse, then many
warehouses. He shipped with UPS, and by now he is running a package
shipping business about as big as UPS. And they do it well ... but there
is a lot of collateral damage in the local communities everywhere.
Similar to how Walmart had already dismantled a lot of small-town
retail. In my town, we have refused to let Walmart move in. There are
Walmarts 50 miles North of here, and 50 miles South of here, but not
closer. On the other hand we *begged* Target to come in, and they
finally did about 10 years ago.
> Google's map API was initially free and was used by quite a few people
> including geocaching.com. Then it suddenly became a profit center. When I
> was designing our web map I talked to Google to find out what it would
> cost. The answer was basically 'How much you got'. We went with Esri's
> API. Esri isn't shy about charging for their products but for some reason
> they left the JavaScript API open. Google and the other proprietary
> companies issue a API key that must be included in every query and is used
> for billing purposes.
> I have very mixed feelings about Amazon. When it started as a book and CD
> I preferred Barnes & Noble. Especially for foreign CDs Amazon would
> advertise the item, take the order, and then ultimately fail to deliver.
> It had the potential to become another failed dotcom but it learned
> rapidly.
We still have one AMAZING independent bookstore here. Chaucerś Books.
Years ago we also had another great independent bookstore called the
"Earthling". The kind with a fireplace and a few comfy easy chars in the
middle. They died when 3 national chains moved in all at the same time.
Barnes and Noble, Waldenbbooks and Borders. After 3 years or so, each of
them realized that they were losing mmoney because the market was
overserved, and then they all closed at the same time. Stupid
management.
> Now it's difficult to avoid. While I would prefer to support local
> businesses for many things like the electronics I play with there are no
> local businesses. This is too small a market and never developed something
> like Fry's. If you were lucky Radio Shack might have something but they're
> gone. Of course Fry's is gone now, perhaps killed by Amazon. Even more
> mundane during covid there was almost no cat food on the shelves locally,
> but I could get a case of Purina from Amazon. I still get a case every
> month. I think the cats recognize the Amazon logo on the box but haven't
> figured out how to help themselves. Kindle? I've got several and rarely
> buy hardcopy books. Even a lot of the titles in the library's digital
> collection are routed to the Kindle via Amazon. There are local bookstores
> and even a B&N but finding what I want is difficult B&N has shrunk their
> tech books down to one shelf.
Chaucerś has one side of a whole aisle of tech stuff. A similar amount
for travel books. And for Cookbooks. Twice that for fiction. A whole
other room for childrenś books. So I go there first, but if they don't
have it on the shelf, I order it from Amazon.
>
> So I recognize the problem of Amazon's virtual monopoly but I also
> remember having to drive to Spokane for anything vaguely specialized. We
> do have more big box stores now including a couple of SuperWalmarts, but
> is that any better?
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