Why is GNOME 2.6 giving people such headaches? So many people hate the spatial browser. That’s fine… to each his own. What gets me is why so many people are whining about how to change the default GNOME 2.6 behavior that’s present in Fedora Core 2. Simple.

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p>Use System Tools -> Configuration Editor. Choose the apps/nautilus/preferences folder and turn on “always_use_browser”. Satisfied? Sheesh, quit yer whining already.

I was with some friends last night who (remaining nameless, of course) don’t share my political views. This is fine with me, and doesn’t change the fact that I love them dearly. But they are also quite a bit younger than me, and the difference between coming of age in the 1980′s and doing so in the 1990′s is apparently quite a bit wider than one might imagine. They don’t remember having stretches of time where there was a daily fear that a nuclear standoff (or even all-out war) might actually occur.

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p>In the early 1980′s, unlike any other time before except during the Bay of Pigs crisis, teenagers really grappled with the fact that we might not live to graduate college, or possibly even high school. The fact that the nation never left DEFCON IV status didn’t appear to have much to do with the international state of tension during the Cold War. Because a nuclear exchange could have occurred before any other forces could change their readiness, it didn’t have to. And the Soviets knew this as well as we did.

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p>Thanks to President Reagan’s adherence to his policy of peace through strength, and his gentle but firm reminders that America should stand her ground with dignity, the Soviets’ constant testing of our mettle eventually lessened as their glance drifted inward to address their failed domestic agenda. They could no longer both sustain a military stance against the U.S. and maintain their international grip over the Eastern Bloc nations, especially while the bread lines in their own country lengthened. This steadfast determination on Reagan’s part, more than any other political or economic gambit of the 20th century, doomed Communism. Without the geographic cantilever of the Soviet Union, and in the face of a global economy that thrives on the free flow of information, China’s politics are destined for change as well.

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p>It is a pity that people even eight years younger than I don’t realize the extent of the changes that Reagan wrought in the world. It’s more a pity that the news media, which does, covers it with a thick veneer of cynicism and misinformation.

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p>This morning I heard a radio interview on WTOP with a senior fellow of the Cato Institute regarding the legacy of Reaganomics, where the interviewer (in typical fashion) tried to blame the growth of Federal spending on Reagan’s inability to deliver on his campaign promises for less government. The fellow — unfortunately I can’t recall his name — informed the interviewer, “No, that’s incorrect,” and went on to explain to listeners that the growth in spending during Reagan’s years was not even due to the increase in defense spending, but rather was mostly due to higher interest payments on deficits that Reagan inherited from past administrations. It was, in fact, Reaganomics’ restraint of the growth of the money supply which arrested inflation and interest rates, allowing future administrations to even think of balancing the Federal budget.

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p>Which just shows you that if you wake up early enough in the morning, you can still get a cogent piece of truth injected into the mass media. I expect that we won’t hear that interview excerpted on WTOP again.

My blog doesn’t really provide much in the way of trenchant political commentary. I leave that to more talented wordsmiths like my friend Chris. But I have to mention here the sadness that I feel at the death of former President Ronald Reagan. He was truly someone who lived the American dream, up until his last years were stolen unfairly by Alzheimer’s Disease.

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p>His shadow falls across most of the part of my childhood that I can remember in terms of world events, and it is mostly due to his steadfast leadership that my children will worry far less about the threat of nuclear holocaus than did my peers and I. And although the prosperity he brought in the 1980′s was responsible for the wave of fast-money greed on the part of an amoral few (notwithstanding the liberal media’s portrayal of the decade as being a terrible time for America, despite the fact that the liberal late 1960′s and 1970′s were far worse), it also ushered in technological and social breakthroughs that continue to advance the human condition in the 21st century. To a greater extent than any President since Kennedy, he united people from both political parties, and arguably he was a more upstanding moral figure to boot.

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p>I fear we shall not see his like again, although he represents everything our country needs today.

My brithday was uneventful… spent most of the day on the road with Leah & crew to play at the Frederick Arts Festival, which ended up being a bust given the nasty weather and consequent low attendance. Today she and I are doing an acoustic duo at 11:00am at the Herndon Festival, where we hope to have better turnout since it’s sunny and beautiful outside.

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p>Eleya and the kids got me a new watch, a DVD (“The Great Escape”), Peter Straub’s new book, some aftershave, and a really nice bag. My good friend and drummer Rich and his family got me two great CD’s. And my Pop came over for a late dinner with us (Chinese, yum!). All in all it was nice.

So in their efforts to choose a reliably nondescript and universally inoffensive campaign slogan, John Kerry’s aides have chosen a poem by Langston Hughes. Which is a bit ironic, because while Kerry has been assiduously careful to not alienate large sectors of the American people, Langston Hughes wrote many poems that were overtly atheistic and lionizing Marxism. What was that about new Democrats?

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p>Thanks to Chris.

I’ve set up a new repository for my work with the Fedora Documentation Project. Hopefully I’ll have some extra time to create some more content over the next few months as I get used to Core 2.

Back at work today after feeling a little better yesterday. I made it to band rehearsal and we had a pretty good run-through for Saturday’s show at the Frederick Festival. Leah and I are also playing Sunday morning at the Herndon Festival. Look for us on the “Cafe Stage.”

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p>I am saving up my pennies for a new guitar…. The problem is I can’t decide between a Martin and a Taylor. There’s a Martin model I really like, the JC16-RGTE Premium, but I’m afraid of having it sound too much like Leah’s Martin. I’ve been a Taylor fanatic for a while, but their new models are very expensive and I haven’t heard their new Expression System pickup for myself. There’s much talk about it on discussion boards, but as always, those boards are full of people who don’t know what the heck they’re talking about most of the time. Maybe I’ll look for a used one on eBay….