Distributed = Republican?

Tonight I was watching Now formerly with Bill Moyers, and there was an interview with Christine something with a W. (Oh yeah, Todd Whitman...I get it confused with Christine Whitney Sanchez) who used to be in the Bush administration. She was talking about how California should have the right to set higher standards for auto emissions than the US, and how it isn't right for the Bush administration to give in to automaker pressure to not do this (technicality, only the EPA can regulate fuel efficiency and they say any law on emissions really does this). She then said states should always be allowed to set any standard that is higher than the US standard, and what's more, it is in the Republican tradition to let those closest to the source of an issue set the policy--getting away with over centralized government, too much centralization, etc.

Well, how bout that, I thought. All this stuff those in my workplace are being asked to do in the name of distributive systems is not the Commie, Socialist evil those in the more "conservative" faction lead us to believe--it's right up there with Republican founding principles. And now that I think of it, it sounds pretty Libertarian, too, and that's another faction that has been complaining about new ideas about how organizations can function that are being introduced at work.

Where does this leave me? Even more firmly entrenched in my apparently novel approach of trying to evaluate ideas that are new to me based on their merit, independent of what kind of political folks would advocate it. Of course, I realize you can't really separate your philosophical leanings from what you are learning about. You always interpret new things from your particular cultural context--and there come those problems again.

In other news, I spent all day alone today other than a brief visit to church to sing old hymns with Unitarian lyrics. J.. went away to visit his brother in some desert where they were supposed to kill wild turkeys with arrows, but they had gotten chased off. I guess the Great White Hunter came up empty. I am glad I don't have to eat some freshly dead turkey. At least he's a "good" hunter and all involved in conservation and protecting the wilderness.

I get really down on weekends when the kids' dad comes and entertains them. I sometimes miss the family I had tried to hard to establish and lost. I'm sure everyone's better off now, but I hate having to "share" the kids. I didn't get to go to K's solo and ensemble competition, and he had been SO worried that he had no accompaniment for his tuba solo. It went OK, though, and I am relieved. That's also a problem with all the fun travel I now get to do for work. I miss kid events, like I won't be at their final band concert this year due to a conference. SIGH.

Enough personal stuff! At least I am blogging away.