What's the site about?

HIS IS A QUESTION I am often asked, for, rather like its operator, this site isn't "about" any one thing or even any clear constellation of things; and thus, in this sense if no other, the nebulous Squort.com may be rather an apt name.

For its first few months, this site was on a flat structure as befitted its status as essentially a glorified personal homepage. This meant buttons linking to all the pages were on the menu on each page, so one could instantly get anywhere from anywhere else. Simple and convenient. Not, however, very flexible.

As mentioned in my last update, I have done a fair amount of writing of late — almost all in the realm of politics. And when I considered how best to organize the site to incorporate it and other planned work, I realized that, by retaining the simple structure, I'd eventually find myself with menus suitable for a four-star restaurant (in terms of number of items listed, at least).

It was time to fragment; time to create subdomains and sub-subdomains (and even three sub-sub-subdomains). Then it was time to face reality: My new web host, while far superior to my former ISP, uses an interface that doesn't allow the creation of sub-subdomains, so my intended structure had to be revised again. Today you will find a site divided into six subdomains; however, you will also find what amounts to sub-subdomains organized as folders within their respective subdomains. All of this is illustrated in the Site Map page.

But the site map is just that: a map. It doesn't try to tell you what the various parts of the site are in fact "about."

You are here. (But where is here?)

You are now in the primary (or Home) domain — in which "www." appears before "squort.com". The purpose of this section is to tell you a bit about me and my family, in addition to why I'm writing articles for the internet, and what the site itself is about.

For me, here is here

I make my home, with my family, in that famed black hole — er, I mean mecca — of tourism, Santa Cruz, California. And here I have been, save for a few years in school and the Navy, since I fell inside its event horizon — um, that is, since I fell in love with it — upon my arrival from Vermont in 1976.

Now, not to be unduly negative, I have found businesses and health-care enterprises in this county to be, as they are everywhere I've been or heard of, a mixed bag. And, while "newspaper" upon "magazine" upon "journal" upon "website" is happy to praise these entities (often with advertising emolument in mind), no one seems yet to have provided a forum for the dissatisified.

Enter Business Watch and Health Watch. While these do not pretend to offer the authority and resources of such an organization as the Better Business Bureau, they will provide an opportunity for anyone who has come away profoundly unimpressed by the ethics, professionalism or courtesy of a local business or health-care provider to present his or her complaint in a public forum, and possibly warn other Santa Cruzans of potential problems to expect. (Read the respective pages to find out more about these programs and how they work.)

I've played chess for almost thirty years, and have spent much of that time teaching the game as well — since 1984, in fact. In general, I've met students through the local chess club or by word of mouth, and given lessons in nearby cafés, keeping the instruction informal and on an extremely small scale. Recently, however, I tried expanding my clientele via the internet, using the "boards" and "pieces" at the Free Internet Chess Server to teach right on the server.

Bad idea. For me, at least. I found the interface so inefficient for instruction that I felt I wasn't really able to give my students value for their money.

So, I'm now back to offering lessons, but only over the board here in Santa Cruz County; and if I expand my clientele via the internet, it will be because someone local read this or my chess teaching page itself and e-mailed me to set up lessons — over the board here in Santa Cruz County.

(Note that the URLs for these pages are characterized by "santa-cruz." in lieu of "www.")

A new direction

I have always been politically awake and active, for I am convinced that politics is the only relevant venue in which to attempt to influence what happens to us as citizens, consumers and taxpayers. But only lately, with the countless crimes of the cabal in Washington, have I come to the point of writing and publishing some of my ideas. They are just that — my ideas — but recent observation suggests to me that they may also represent the concerns of a great many American citizens: My essay on the recent invasion and current occupation of Iraq has been the subject of what seems an exponentially growing number of search-engine queries in the weeks just before this was initially written (Feb. 4, 2004); it is, in fact, currently on the first page of Yahoo and MSN search results for terms as broad as "US invade Iraq."

It thus appears that the interest is there, which has encouraged me to keep plowing ahead.

In general, the Nation and World subdomain concerns itself with three areas: Iraq and other political issues, as mentioned above; the Solidarity Alliance; and the Unity Party.

Of these, the latter two are introductions to the Alliance and the Unity Party, respectively — in addition to a statement of principles for the former, accompanied by a declaration of the Essential Rights of the Human Species.

By far the greater proportion is devoted to my political "reelings and writhings," as Lewis Carroll would call them, in the Issues department; these are in turn divided into three broad categories: essays (as mentioned above), quips and quotes from me and some others I consider worth quoting, and the new addition to the lineup: inspired by one of my heroes, Tom Paine, the Common Sense Series, which consists of a sequence of short essays repetitiously but not illogically titled "Common Sense on ..." (in which the ellipses ["..."] are a variable representing the subject at hand).

You can get there from here

Almost every site has a Links page. I have two — so far. This is because my links fall into two main categories: political and nonpolitical.

The nonpolitical page contains an assortment of links to sites providing graphics, fonts or other web-design items I've found useful, along with miscellaneous other sites I happen to like and think potentially valuable to others. The political page, on the other hand, is a more ambitious project: On it, I propose to link to as many other progressive and anti-Bush sites as I can find to make common cause with (more pages will be added as the number of sites listed grows; I intend to limit myself to twenty links per page). The coming political civil war will be hard fought, and we will need every possible ally if we are to halt what threatens to become a totalitarian juggernaut.

All work and no play ...

But if we are to be joined in such a grim battle, we must leaven our spirits with humor — which alone stands between us and madness much of the time.

The purpose of my humor section is simply to amuse; if in the process you find that I also warm your heart or tell you something you've always wanted to know, write me and complain at once. Also write if you think of any good twisted titles to add to Titular Torsion.

I should warn, however, that some of my humor also has a bit of a political edge to it.

Ever wanted to put George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the trash?

The Downloads section is small, and likely to remain that way until I have more free time for graphic design. It currently consists of a page containing a free Kaleidoscope scheme (an appearance-changing theme for Macintosh OS 8 and 9), which gives you, among other things, a desktop trash can featuring the simulated televised likenesses of the "President" and "Vice President." And the other page provides a selection of link graphics and code, in case you want to link to Squort.com.

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