Stark Raving Logic

World Poetry Champ Buddy Wakefield in Omaha at Shoot Your Mouth Off next weekend!

2007-02-27T13:18:00.000-06:00

We have one of the best live performance poets in North America if not the world coming to Shoot Your Mouth Off in Omaha next week: Buddy Wakefield! Buddy is an amazing writer, performer and person who's got a resume longer than my arm. In the write up on PoetryMenu.com local slam guru Matt Mason wrote:

"Buddy is the 2004 and 2005 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion; Featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO's Def Poetry Jam; Won the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Founded Bullhorn Collective. To bring this excellent feature in, there will be a $5 cover tonight."

We never charge a cover normally, but as Buddy does this for a living we are charging a cover to help cover his costs for coming through town. (Just check his tour schedule.) Believe me when I say that I've seen him perform 5 times in front of different sized crowds and $5 is a bargain. If you'd like to sample some of his work, his myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/buddywakefield) has four poems in audio and a video of him performing live.

If you're ever planning on going to our show (or a live poetry event this year), come to Shoot Your Mouth Off (320 S 72nd St, 504-4434) next Tuesday!

The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-02-08T09:17:00.000-06:00

A thought provoking look at what Web 2.0 is transforming (us) into, created by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University.

Great Webcomic: The Whiteboard

2007-01-31T17:07:00.000-06:00

The Whiteboard is a webcomic about a polar bear who runs a paintball shop in Alaska and the friends who drive him crazy. Ok, if you're still here, I'd like to recommend this comic for anyone who hates getting up in the morning, dealing with fussy customers, hates bad puns has a low frustration threshold but loves getting into trouble, abusing caffeine, tinkering with engineering, hangs out with a close-knit support group and otherwise enjoys riding life until the wheels fall off.

For more fun, check out www.The-Whiteboard.com

Turn Off 3rd Party Cookies in Firefox 2.0

2006-11-04T11:51:00.000-06:00

If you casually surf the web, 3rd party cookies are a privacy problem. Advertisers like DoubleClick use them not only to profile where you've been, but what you've been doing. Many people don't know that advertisers and other ne'er-do-wells can capture very specific user data, like words that you've searched for in popular search engines. In Firefox 1.x, it was easy to go to Preferences (OSX) or Options (Windows) go to Privicy, click the Cookies tab, go to "Allow site to set cookies" and check "for originating site only".

This convenient option is gone in the Privacy settings in Firefox 2.0. You can still block most 3rd party cookies by editing the configuration file. Just type "about:config" into your address bar and hit return to open it and then type cookies into the filter at the top. The line you want to change is "network.cookie.cookieBehavior". In the Value column, the default value is set to "0" which basically means "Accept All Cookies" as detailed in this knowledge base article. Click on "0" and change it to "1" which translates into "Only Accept Cookies From The Site I'm Visiting" and hit return. That's it, you're done!

For more information on this and other security topics, check out epsiode 64 of "Security Now" at Steve Gibson's excellent GRC.com.

October Wishlist: Pimp my MacBook Pro

2006-10-31T18:51:00.000-06:00

My new wish list for my 15" MacBook Pro includes the following bling:

Speck SeeThru Hardcase (Pictured at Left) $39.95

"Accent the sleek look of your 15" MacBook Pro notebook! Get great hard case protection, a hint of color and a massive dose of shine. SeeThru MacBook cases are made of translucent hard plastic to beautify and protect."

They offer these in red (pictured) and translucent and I love the idea of being able to both protect the surface and temporarily change the color of my notebook at the same time.

FastMac TruPower Extended Battery $99.95

"The first & only high capacity, extended life battery upgrade for Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro computer. This battery uses Lithium-Polymer cells (with integrated charge indicator LEDSs) that are manufactured to the highest quality standards and utilize TruePower technology to provide a safe computing experience."

Cheaper than Apple and longer lasting? Twist my arm! BTW, the site makes a point of saying that the the batteries aren't Sony.

Brenthaven Fusion Messenger Bag (Pictured atLeft) $99.95

"Look no further, this is the messenger bag for you! Custom fit for your portable, up to 15.4", the Brenthaven Fusion MB is the first messenger bag to combine great style and protection all in one. It's the perfect bag for the individual on the go."

I played with one of these in person at a local store and love the interior padded notebook chamber. Once you slide your laptop in and zip the case closed, your Macbook is completely cushioned, somewhat shock-protected and otherwise isolated from the outside world. A C-note seems pricy for a messenger bag, but it's still much cheaper than replacing your computer. There's ample room for additional accessories and gadgets as well.

Inuos 6x11 Drawing Tablet (Pictured at Left) $369

"The 16:10 aspect ratio of these pen tablets allows you to accurately reach every point on your widescreen display while taking up the least amount of desk space. The wide aspect ratio and the ample size of the 6x11 and 12x19 make these pen tablets great choices for use with multiple monitors to ensure that you have precise control when working on each monitor."

If you work in Photoshop or Painter, you probably know that once you go pen tablet, you never go back. I'm interested in naturally utilizing the widescreen ratio of my new MacBook Pro's 1440x900 display. I'm also looking into setting up dual 4:3 monitors on my main desktop machine. Being a USB device, this tablet will switch easily between them to make the most of both configurations. Pretty nifty.

Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Premium $?,???

Seriously Adobe, you're killing me over here. My new notebook is fast enough to run CS2 in native speed in Windows 2000 under Parallels and still have a slew of applications running in OS X at the same time. I can only imagine how fast this thing will run an Intel version of Photoshop or InDesign. Release the Universal Binary of the new hotness for OS X already.

Software Links Roundup

2006-10-26T19:33:00.000-05:00

Relive 1992 with a flying toasters screen saver (OS X and Windows XP) via Uneasy Silence.

There's a list of 17 apps that make switching to a Mac worthwhile at pixelspread. Lots of them are free, too.

The public beta for OmniPlan (OS X) is now open. If you'd like to try OmniGroup's take on project management, you can download it here.

I just started using Pzizz (OS X and Windows XP) for power napping and so far I love it. Checkout the demos here.

If you own a MacBook, you might want to try the new firmware update. It's supposed to fix the sudden shutdown problems some users have experienced. Infinite Loop has more details.

Want to run OS X on an AMD machine? Then check this project out before Apple sues this guy into oblivion.

If you own a PC (or a copy of Parallels) you can relive the glory days of Apple II software at VirtualApple.org.

How the iTV could save Apple from its own DRM

2006-10-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Let me start by getting this off my chest. I love my iPod. I was lucky enought to get one of the new 30 GB iPods for my birthday and pair it up with iTunes 7 on a 15" MacBook Pro. I love the seamless handshake that OS X does with both the iPod, iTunes and the media center experience built into Front Row. The podcasting features in the iTunes Store and Podcasts category in iTunes have turned my iPod into a timeshifting internet radio and TV that makes my workdays, errands and commutes pass much more quickly and enjoyably.

However, I haven't purchased a single thing from the iTunes store. The biggest reason is DRM. I just don't like the idea of spending money on something that I may lose the right to use even accidentally. I don't like the idea of purchasing content that artificially limits the number of devices that will play it. This may change if I start buying the odd song to learn for my band or odd show I might have missed. I'm willing to risk a couple of dollars occasionally. But I don't really see myself dropping $10-12 on an album or $15 for new a movie when I can just buy the same content on a platter and rip it (with Handbrake for DVD or iTunes built in mp3 converter for CD) for use with the iPod. At least that way I still have the original disc and the converted versions that I make will work with anything I own that's file-compatible.

A recent study in the UK seems to anecdotaly suggest that a lot of people haven't found the iTunes Store that compelling either with an average of 20 songs out of thousands on a giving iPod being iTunes downloads. It almost seems like the iTunes store is selling iPods. This is very interesting because in other digital media markets, such as video games, the platform is often sold at or below cost in order to try make money on media licenses. For example, it's common knowlege that Microsoft lost money on every original Xbox it sold trying to cram it's foot into the console market. The iPod, on the other hand, is one of Apple's most profitable products, with an estimated 52% margin on some models.

As for the iTunes Store itself, some people are using it and for some already compelling reasons. The two more persuasive arguments that I've heard boil down to convenience of purchase and convenience of use. Convenience of purchase really is a reflection of how the iTunes Store enables impulse buying and accomidates our feelings of sweet, sweet laziness at the end of a work day. Why get off the couch to go rent or purchase something when you can give in to the same rhythm of "I see it/I want it/I click it/I buy it/I use it" that has made purchasing software online so appealing?

Convenience of use was described by Robert X Cringley in this article where he relates how serving content from a hard drive is a killer feature for parents with little children who want to watch the same DVD over and over again:

And while my kids are in the room, let's pull up the single greatest selling point for digital downloads that has been missed by every story to date -- fingerprints. I'm not talking about reverent movie buff fingerprints, but the brutal peanut butter-and-Doritos fingerprints of a frenzied two year-old in need of his Dora the Explorer fix.

Probably half of the DVDs at our house have problems being read -- problems that don't appear at all on the dozens of Arthur and Clifford episodes I captured and now play through my MediaMVP network box. For families with small children -- millions of families in the U.S. alone -- having movies and TV shows on a server, safe from destruction by little fingers, is a huge argument in favor of electronic delivery.

Replacing an Apple Remote is a lot cheaper than replacing even three DVDs. Apple did a good job making it rugged and simple enough for a child to use. I use mine to browse and play content from my laptop a lot lately and it's a very compelling experience. If they can translate that to my home entertainment center while and give me access to the media I've already got saved on my home network, I'll get out my credit card. Of course, for Apple to deliver this with the elegance and user experience regular people will find appealling will require them to ship the iTV, their final weapon in the assault on the living room that they started with FrontRow.

The iTV is going to make video content from the iTunes Store even more appealing. I can already hook up my MacBook Pro to a TV or an HDTV and treat it like an iTV, but doing it every time I come home would be a bit of a chore. Also, while I'm treating my laptop like a home theater system, I've tied it up for doing other things. Other people have purchase Mac Minis just to use with their home theater systems, but $599 is still pretty hefty chunk of change for a lot of people to spend on a single purpose box.

With the iTV, Apple will offer us a box that costs $299 and that's simple to hook up to a home entertainment center and leave there. The selling point is that you can play all of the audio, video and image media from machines on your network on what's likely to be your best monitor (the TV) with your best speakers (the ones hooked up to it) in the room best set up for it. You can stretch out on your couch or easy chair and do this comfortably for long periods of time. There's probably even extra seating there if more than one person wants to hang out with you while you do it. You get something many of you may not have even realized that you wanted, but Apple gets something it's wanted for a long time.

The iTV will give the iTunes store a beach head directly into living rooms across the country. Suddenly it will be seductively easy for regular people to purchase TV shows and movies and then play them on their big screens without leaving the house. Unlike cable company DVRs, you can keep things indefinitely and upgrade storage capacity whenever you like. Unlike Netflix, you won't have to wait on a random movies from your queue. Unlike OnDemand services, you'll still have it 24 hours after you order it. Leo Laporte recently related giving up his cable service, because he found that it was cheaper to purchase individual shows and movies.

You'll still purchase your content from them on your computer, but you won't watch it there anymore. If you're running a laptop, you can do it right in the same room. This could turn the iPod/iTunes store dynamic back around and make Apple a media company with market penetration and sales volume to really envy. The DRM so many people find distasteful will still be there but it won't matter as much to average consumers. Many people are going to find that they don't care whether or not this week's episode of Grey's Anatomy or Heroes works with every computer or device they own, because it will work on the one device the care about: their couch.

Links Roundup

2006-10-15T12:18:00.000-05:00

Tech

Funny Windows Errors via Flickr

Make your Macbook or Macbook Pro cool enough to be a "laptop" via Slashdot

More wallpapers than you'll ever have time to look at via digg

Web

If you don't wear leather on a motorcyle, you might loose your own hide via SpeedFreakInc

Later, when I woke up in a tub of ice with my kidneys missing... (sfw) via BankLocater (nsfw)

Web Productivity: Browse Several Bloglines Folders at Once

2006-07-28T11:01:00.000-05:00

I love Bloglines.com. It's my favorite tool for tracking my online inbox of interesting, useful or entertaining web posts. I have over 400 feeds in my account including all of my blog feeds, webcomics, news sites and podcasts. My current total count is 4,054 unread posts and 258 items marked "keep new". It can take a while to process a folder with 150 posts in it, even when I'm skimming and only reading the ones that look interesting.

Sometimes, I want to take a break from reading tech news to read a webcomic. Sometimes I want to listen to a podcast while I work and then pause it while I check out the new entry from a friend's blog. The problem comes in when you click on a different folder or feed than the one being displayed. Doing so causes the entries you were looking at get marked "read" and are deleted from your account whether or not you were finished with them.

I've discovered the easiest way to skip around my feeds without loosing my open entries is to leave the folder I'm on open in one window or tab and just spawn a new empty page in my browser and load Bloglines.com into it. I can navagate to whatever else I want to look at on one page and return to the other page whenever I feel like it.

When I finish with one feed or folder I can either load another into it or close it. Being able to skip between several folders or feeds really keeps the larger ones from feeling like forced marches that have to be done all at once. This trick works with any browser and lets you treat Bloglines.com like a buffet you can pick and choose from instead of a TV that only plays one channel at at time.

Another great way to use this trick is to have one instance open that you can use for account management. If I find an article that turns me onto a new site or feed I want to subscribe to, I'll just add it here without loosing my place. I can also use it to rearrange feed or add folders without loosing what I'm sifting through in the other windows. Enjoy!

Make your Mac play nice on a Windows Network

2006-07-26T12:25:00.000-05:00

If you use a Mac on a network with a Windows machine and browse any of its shared folders you've probably noticed that it likes to leave extra files and folders behind that are visible to the Windows machine and might annoy or confuse its user. (".DS_Store" and ".Trashes" ring a bell?) Well now there are two ways to get your Mac to clean up after itself. You have your choice of either free and geeky or cheap and easy. Sounds like a win/win situation to me.

Mac OS X 10.4: How to prevent .DS_Store file creation over network connections (terminal hack via Apple Knowlegebase Article)

BlueHarvest ($10 shareware w/ 30 day trial - via the excellent Lifehacker's Gina Trapani)

PyMusique and iTunes Music Store: Problem or Opportunity?

2005-03-23T11:08:00.000-06:00

"The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
-Thomas Huxley

In case you hadn't heard, PyMusique is causing quite a stir in the online music world. An email from the author "DVD" Jon Johansen states:

PyMusique is an interface to the iTunes Music Store that lets you preview songs, sign up for an account and buy songs. It is somewhat interesting from a DMCA/EUCD perspective. The iTunes Music Store actually sells songs without DRM. While iTunes adds DRM to your purchases, PyMusique does not. Another difference is that signing up for an account using PyMusique does not require you to sign/click away any of your rights.

The application is written in Python and can be compiled in to versions for Windows, OS X, Linux or any other OS that has a good version for Python available to it. Which opens up a couple of interesting issues.

First of all, the combination of this software and the recently cracked AAC codec means that Linux users can now buy and play music from the iTunes store. The "bits just want to be free" idealist in me thinks that's a great thing. I think that DRM (digital rights management) usually fails to make the content it's applied to safer from piracy by tech-savvy users and (worse) ends up simply inconveniencing everyone else. The other downside is that DRM usually only works on platforms with compatible software written for it. That usually means Windows and (maybe) Macintosh. Every other OS gets left out in the cold. Open (or at least common) standards are what level the playing field between established platforms and new-comers like Linux and the revitalized Amiga. It seems unfair that an entire market of users is left with no legal means of participating in a sphere of activity simply because nobody has written a software babysitter for the files they'd like to use.

Second of all, as a part time Mac user, the whole thing leaves me a bit concerned. The iPod and the iTMS are a big part of Apple's current success in the market right now and I don't think the RIAA is going to look favorably on the DRM being stripped out of the music files it's members have sanctioned Apple to sell online. Apple has already had to face pressure from the music industry to raise the prices of the songs it sells from the nice round $.99 to $1.29 or more. In the face of the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) campaign from the "new" Napster's rent-your-music-by-the-month ads, having iTMS DRM cracked, patched a day later and cracked again isn't going to help the online music portion of its business. If Apple's online music business is hurt, a chunk of its profitability and its ability to tie-in to its core computer business gets hurt along with it. As a fan of the only non-Microsoft platform I can get major applications for, this worries me.

There is one small light at the end of this tunnel, and it doesn't hinge on Apple closing every DRM loop-hole that DVD Jon could exploit. All that would take is adding DRM to the files before the user downloads them. No, the sliver of hope I'm wishing on is that this "problem" will actually cause a spike in iTMS sales. What PyMusic takes out of the equation is DRM, not paying for the music. The debacle has certainly caused lots of publicity for both PyMusique and iTMS. What if Linux users came out in droves to purchase music before Apple permanently closes the loop-hole? What if freedom-loving Mac and Windows users did the same? Apple, and by extension its RIAA partners, would certainly profit from all of this activity. Maybe, just maybe, this would be another economic vote against DRM by the consumer.

It's certainly a beautiful hypothesis... only time will tell if it's slain by an ugly fact.

Mac OS X and Windows XP: Things they should steal from each other

2005-03-22T10:55:00.000-06:00

There is a lot to love about OS X when you compare it to OS 9. There are many things that XP improves on over Windows 2000. There are also many things that I could live without on both platforms. They are both resource hogs (especially when it comes to RAM). I've watched both operating systems take previously very usable machine from snappy, responsive computers to crawling, page-file hitting geriatric retirees.

However there are a few things that only become apparent when you switch from usingone platform to the other in the course of your day. This is especially true with applications that run on both machine: Firefox, Thunderbird, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc. So without further ado...

Things that I wish OS X would steal from XP:

1) Arrow tabbing dialog buttons

A dialog box comes up and asks you if you'd like to quit without saving. In both operating systems, one of the buttons is highlighted, which allows you to hit enter (return) to choose that option without moving your hands from the keyboard. In XP, if you'd like to choose another option, just use the arrow keys to move the highlight to another button and then hit enter. In OS X, you have to use the mouse to pick something else.

In fact, if there's one thing that XP does better over all, it's allowing the end user to drive the box for long periods of time without taking his hands from the keyboard. OS X is better at that than OS 9, but it's still not the same.

2) User definable eye candy

Both operating systems feature 32 bit icons, transparency effects (like drop shadows), lickable window widgets and font smoothing. OS is arguably prettier (your mileage may vary) than XP is with all the goodies turned on, but at least in XP I can turn the goodies off. Why would I want to do that? On newer machines it allows me to reclaim my system resources for actual work, and on older machines it can mean the difference between usability or not. In XP, I can set how much of my CPU cycles and video card memory I'm using just to redraw windows. In OS X, Steve Jobs decides how much of my machine's resources are used just to boot the thing up into idle.

Things that I wish XP would borrow from OS X:

1) Simplified Networking

In OS X, the network options are all configured from one pane which can give you an overview of everything or zoom down to the MAC address of your Ethernet card. Airport does a great job of locating and front-ending wireless networks that are in reception range. Multiple configurations for all of this are stored in the locations area. With a single drop down choice from the apple menu, my machine can switch to appear at a specific IP on my office LAN or change and get my IP from my DHCP router at home. This is very nice for laptops.

In XP, there are multiple layers of everything and they are all tied to your hardware devices. Not unfathomable or unusable, just needlessly complicated for the end user. I'd love to see some kind of location functionality on the Windows laptop we have at home.

2) Fast User Switching

In OS X, you can log into another user account, fire up some programs, do some work and then switch back to the first account without quitting any applications or logging out first. You can run as many accounts simultaneously as the machine can handle. It's not something that most people need, but it's nice to be able to do. I use it for light admin stuff that I don't want to use the command line for. Families that share one computer and coworkers that have different accounts on one machine are just some people who can benefit from this. In some environments, it's practically a selling point.

3) Password Verification for Everything

In XP, you visit the wrong page on the wrong day you can end up with all kinds of "Browser Help Objects" installed into your system feeding you pop-ups, hijacking your hosts file and redirecting your browser to places you don't want to go. In OS X, I can't even install security updates from Apple without verifying things with my password. I've had to manually remove spyware infections from Windows boxes at work before. I'd much rather type my password a few times a month.

Add HP to your list of Laptops to avoid...

2005-02-22T13:31:00.000-06:00

Hardcore Hogbender: Welcome to Trusted Computing

"The HP BIOS for most models of laptop now have a whitelist of allowed Mini-PCI cards that can be installed in the laptop. If your new WiFi card isn't on the (very small) list of allowed cards for that specific model of laptop, then your laptop won't boot."

Bush/Cheney win popular vote...

2004-11-03T07:25:00.000-06:00

Do not trust to hope, for it has foresaken these lands.

This week's Schadenfreude: The World Series and Election

2004-10-28T18:45:00.000-05:00

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Boston is enjoying its first World Series championship since 1918. Yet questions remain... How do Stormtroopers feel about the earth-shattering Boston sweep of this year's world series? Inquiring minds want to know! (BTW, if someone could please call Derek Jeter and tell him to suck it, I'd be much obliged.)

Guess who's not getting invited to Crawford for Thanksgiving? Bush Relatives for Kerry

Forget Stephen King, Ron Suskind is the scariest author I know...

2004-10-24T08:29:00.000-05:00

So there I am, sitting in my usual Sunday morning attire (briefs, not boxers) catching up on my online news reading when I manage to scare the hell out of myself. How did I do this fully 7 days before Hallowe'en? I started by reading this fun little article by Ron Suskind (co-author of former Bush administration Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's tell-all "The Price of Loyalty"). It's a rather chilling portrait of how Bush's reliance on his version of faith in Christianity is used by the administration to shield its decisions from both internal and external scrutiny. It's light reading. (On the spooky-meter we're at Scream.)

During the course of making my way through the article, Suskind mentions David Rubenstein of the Carlyle group asking Bush to leave one of it's boards of directors because "I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company." (Spooky-meter jumps to most of Signs.) But this isn't the heavy military industrial complex stuff we're used to hearing about Carlyle being involved in. We're talking about a job he was given on the board of what used to be the catering division of Marriott. (The Shining) Bush was given the job because he was down on his luck, so he pays them back by spending three years sitting through meetings and telling dirty jokes (Blair Witch Project)... This was after Billy Graham saved him. (Blues Brothers 2000... Look, if you're a fan of the original, this was a horrifying film!)

OK, I'm sleeping with the nightlight on, but I'm OK so far. I keep reading and get to a reference to an earlier article Suskind did for Esquire magazine:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush.

I decide to see if I can find that Esquire article by running a Google search using most of the above sentence as the search pharse (Don't worry, you can make up an email address to get access to it.) That's when the really disturbing part hits me. Most of the results I got back from Google were from bloggers talking about how creepy the article I was reading is. What's more they were choosing the following two paragraphs to illustrate the scariest part beginning with the sentence I had just searched! It was like realizing the killer was still inside the house with me! Observe:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

(Spooky level: The Ring) Oh {#@&! Now I'm spending the night with the lights on, every TV and radio in the house going while curled up inside my protective security blanket! This is a member of the executive branch saying that, in effect, the people running America are running an empire and aren't answerable to the constituents they serve who are merely engaged in the " judicious study of discernible reality". Well hell, when you put it that way... it scares the living $#*! out of me!

I'm sorry, but how are we supposed to proceed into this century when our leadership doesn't want to be bothered with abstract notions like reason and fact? What are we going to do? Pray our way out of uniting the Middle East against us? It's not like this is a novel idea. The "One Nation Under God" movement has only to look to European Christendom to see that not only did it not make European life more christ-like, but that it couldn't last forever. We're not "One Nation Under God" because not only do we not all believe in God, but those of us who do can't agree on who He is and what He wants. The problem with saying that you're on a mission from God, is that God never independantly verifies it to the rest of us. As for doing God's will in Iraq by deposing Sadam Hussein... Let's just say that starting pre-emptive wars against dangerous powers to liberate important regions has plenty of disasterous precedent.

Well, there you have it. Forget Kuntz, Barker, and King. If you want to send a real chill down your spine grab anything by the new master of modern horror, author Ron Suskind!

New Essay Blog (or) Intelligent Writing At The Top Of His Lungs

2004-10-20T21:09:00.000-05:00

I'm about to tell you why you should check out what my friend, Nat Derickson, has to say in his new current events and essay blog. But, bare with me, 'cause I'm gonna say it fancy.

I really enjoy it when someone knows what the hell they're talking about and what their point of view is. I can listen to PJ O'Rourke without throwing something at the radio because even though I don't agree with 85% of what he concludes, I can understand where he's coming from and what the factual basis for his arguments are. I'd rather listen to him talk than Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter. Those two belong in the Special Olympics of critical thinking. (I think that's a track and field event.) The same goes for our politicians. For example, take our president... please! They hate us for our freedom!? Give me John McCaine, instead. Give me Chuck Hagel standing up and telling Bush, "I don't care whether or not we both get the RNC newsletter, Iraq is a mess!"

On the other hand, when it comes to getting my choir preached to, I prefer that the preacher in question refers to some chapter and verses I don't hear much. If you have my attention, keep me awake with something I haven't heard or thought of, yet. I don't care how much we agree, if you're telling me what I already know or what you think I want to hear, I will tune you out like a bad UHF signal. Make with the thought-provoking and the insight or go write a bumper sticker.

Thus it is with great fanfare and pomp (mostly pomp) that I heartily recommend:

World News Summary For the Busy American.

(Thrilling, isn't it?) I've gone from straight politics to a mix that includes more poetry, tech new and other subjects I'm interested in, but Nat really reminds me of why I started posting in the first place. He has a writing style that is sharp and pointy, yet thoughtful and well reasoned at the same time. He adds current news to the mix and his analysis seems to originate from this planet, unlike some other writers I could name. He's earnest and sincere the same way the desperate screams of a man watching the world around him twist and collapse in a slow-motion train wreck are earnest and sincere... but it's actually fun to read. By way of example, his take on the notion that whole "Osama-Bin-Laden-might-attack-the-US-to-disrupt/influence-the-election" idea is one of the more well reasoned arguments on the subject that I've read. Anyway, go check out the site. Agree or disagree, I think you'll see what I mean.

Prayer is...

2004-10-16T11:37:00.000-05:00

Right now, Prayer is a pair of 19 year old kids in Baghdad who just want to live through the night, and as long as each doesn’t find out where the other one is, they’ll both get their wish.

Right now, Prayer is 13 and so desperate that she’ll strike a deal with God, Satan or any power who can hear her, if it will just keep her brother in his own bedroom tonight.

Right now, Prayer is just learning how to talk and doesn’t yet understand what she’s saying. But she knows when Daddy’s eyes are closed and his hands are folded together the things he’s saying are something the whole family listens to.

Right now, Prayer is just coming to grips with the idea that after 87 years of waking up every morning, he probably won’t tomorrow.

Right now, Prayer is 34 and just watched the most important responsibility he’s ever agreed to take on open his eyes for the first time and open his mouth to add his voice to the world.

Right now, Prayer is being offered by an enemy like a gift that will never be opened.

Right now, Prayer is as cheap as the talk it’s made of.

Right now, Prayer is being remembered just a little too late to be done.

Right now, Prayer is the only company a prisoner has on his 15^th day in solitary.

Right now, Prayer is glad just to be able to make the rent this month.

Prayer isn’t an audience with the almighty as much as a CAT scan that you know how to read for yourself.

God isn’t dead, He’s just listening… waiting… not for you to tell him what you want. He already knows that. He just doesn’t care. He knows what you need even if you don’t. Hearing you say it is the only thing He needs. It’s the sound of your own voice finally getting it. You are capable of so much more.

Six billion realizations radiate out from the planet every day like finger tips trying to stretch far enough to smudge the sky. Our souls struggle like drowning men as our bodies pull us back towards the earth. Sometimes we remember what we are meant to be: beautiful. I know because every face I’ve ever seen has my father’s eyes.

But we forget what we’re born knowing. We practice ugliness to hide ourselves from each other. We tell ourselves lies like loneliness, until we believe them. The preacher’s got it wrong. Most people damn themselves.

But prayer is the simple truth of breathing into a receiver and knowing that someone on the other end can hear you. You don’t even have to talk. Just take a deep breath and be yourself.

Amen.

Which file extension are you?

2004-10-14T19:19:00.000-05:00

Which File Extension are You?

This explains a lot, actually...

Free Campaign Consulting

2004-09-28T21:55:00.000-05:00

I was listening to the radio at work, the other day, when the station aired a campaign spot for a man I've never heard of. He's running for the senate, apparently, yet all the ad told me about him politically was that a sweet old narrator seems really impressed about the fact that this candidate still gets up and mows his own lawn. Somebody's grandfather also seems comforted by the fact that this aspiring public figure still drives the same pickup truck that he's had for over 30 years.

That's it. That's all the factual information that this campaign ad had to say about this man's qualifications to represent me with a seat in the U.S. Senate. After the 5th time of hearing it that day, not only did I have the "facts" of that ad memorized, and, in spite of my best efforts, an opinion of him had developed the vacuum of any real information about what he'd do for me in exchange for my vote.

Now, I'm not exactly suggesting that I want a multi-billionaire to pick and choose which corners we cut on the way to a tax-break, but I do expect a politician who's made it to that level in his career to... kind of have his shit together. I mean, if he wins, he'll be a senator. He'll probably kind of busy with things that are more important than getting the edging around the driveway just right. Hell, even my Dad started paying a neighborhood kid to rake the leaves after the mortgage was paid off. I guess that I'm supposed to find it charming that he's such a regular guy he'll cut his own grass. But I need to know a little more about a man who'll have the power to vote on whether or not we're going to declare war. It could happen. If I need open heart surgery, I want to know more about my doctor than that his patio is still level two months after he built it himself.

As for the 30 year old pickup truck: that gag is so old it's got hair on it. If you simply have to tell me he's good with long term relationships, will you just trot out his wife for public display like everybody else. I don't care if he's sentimental about a piece of farm equiptment... and I hope to God he can get a car loan. This tells me nothing useful. At least if you'd bragged about how long his marriage has lasted, we could both pretend that it would suggest that he's trustworthy and loyal. In reality, of course, hearing that a politician has been married for 30 years, means that after 3 decades with him, his wife isn't miserable enough to leave him yet.

While I'm at it, I'd like to tell anyone running for public office: stop holding press conferences in the middle of a ranch, in the woods or off the back of a fucking bass boat. Just stop that. It's not spontaneous. It's not even effective enough to be deceitful. Nobody thinks that a CNN camera crew got lost in the wilderness and just happened to stumble across a national political figure leading a crew of landscapers in a brush clearing project. We all recognize these little publicity stunts for what they are: cynical and scripted photo opportunities designed to give the candidate a carefully manipulated image. The only message that this sends to me is that if you are running for office, I can't trust a word coming out of your mouth.

This week's Schadenfreude: Techno Babble

2004-09-25T14:35:00.000-05:00

The computer industry is one of my favorite places to pick sides in a fight. Consequently, it is a prime source of schadenfreude. Over the years, I've accumulated a small list of "good guys" that I root for and "bad guys" that I pull against. Some of my winners are people that continually lead the the charge to bring innovative products to market (VIA, AMD, Apple). In many cases, being a "good guy" simply means that you are a company that managed to nail a superior product at a competitive price (ATi). While it's true that some of my "bad guys" just managed to dominate their segment of the market with a crappy, overpriced product (Intel), I do reserve a small reserve of contempt exclusively for the deceitful (NVidia) and the maliciously predatory (Microsoft).

So, let's kick off this week's poetic justice:

AMD

Anyone remember the K6-3? No? I'm sure that AMD tries not to either. Why would they, after all, for the first time in the CPU market, not only has a non-Intel company managed to ship a superior product, but they are doing so in competitive numbers. Here are AMD's Q3/Q4 shipping numbers for it's K8 generation of processors, thanks to Hard|OCP:

Q3: FX - 12,000; 754-pin - 970,000; 939-pin - 250,000
Q4: FX - 14,000; 754-pin - 900,000; 939-pin - 530,000

How is this schadenfreude? Compare those numbers to the measly 100,000 Itaniums that Intel looks to ship for 2004. No wonder HP is dropping the CPU from its lineup. As if this wasn't good enough, AMD actually out shipped Intel in the retail desktop space for the second time in 2004.

VIA and AMD

I hear some of you saying, "Not so fast there, Andy. PCI Express is still an Intel-only motherboard feature." OK, it's true that, up til now, if you wanted 64-bit processing and a PCI Express graphics card, you couldn't have both. It was a choice between an AMD CPU or an Intel compatible mobo... up til now that is. In fact, thanks to some sharp eyes, it's come to light that Abit has a socket 939 mobo with PCI Express ready to go, as soon as VIA can ship them some K8T890 chipsets. I know what I'm stuffing in my Christmas computer this year... an Athlon 64 and a PCI express video card.

Microsoft

Remember how the geeks in your life have been telling you that you couldn't get a virus from looking at naked pictures on the internet? We lied. Well, at least, we lied to you if you wanted to do it on Internet Explorer. The code to a malicious exploit that allows a code to execute based on a flaw in the way Internet Explorer and Office decode jpegs has gotten out. You need to hit Microsoft's website and start patching immediately... immediately after you download and install Mozilla Firefox, anyway. Better start using Thunderbird in place of Outlook and PC602 Suite instead of Office, just to be safe. They're all free and won't get your machine more infected than a sailor on shoreleave in the poor part of Thailand.

Mozilla

This one's not really schadenfreude, unless you consider it a kick in the teeth to Microsoft's browser monopoly. Mozilla Firefox 1.0PR has passed it's millionth download in under 100 hours of availability. Not only that, it has climbed from 4% of the browser market in Jan 2003 to 16.6% in Sept 2004. Somewhere, Richard Stallman is laughing so hard he needs emergency oxygen.

Honestly, all this good news is enough to remind me of the heady days when the Mac beat Intel to the 200MHz mark, or when AMD shattered 1 GHz with a shipping part. I'm sorry to see NVidia besting ATi on Doom3 performance, but it'll probably mean that next summer's Radeons will truly hit with a vengence. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about. Competition forces the real innovations to the top.

If you Blog or Livejournal do this NOW...

2004-09-06T17:11:00.000-05:00

...or don't, and see if I care.

Whether you use Windows, Mac OS X, or some variety of Linux, (or all three, like I do) chances are you already knew how much Mozilla Firefox kicks ass. It's fast and compact, has a small but well thought-out list of features, yada, yada, yada... But one of the best things about it is the community of extension authors that allow you to selectively add features you might want or miss. They have a little bit of everything, from image widgets to features that allow you to hide any element from a web page that you're viewing. (For example, you could "nuke" an annoying seizure-inducing banner ad.) But the feature we're interested in is called Sage.

Sage is a small, streamlined RSS and ATOM newsfeed reader. (Most of you already know what that means, but for those who don't, think of newsfeed as a special text version of your blog that Blogger and Livejournal automatically make available. With the right program or service, you can be instantly notified if a site updates. "You've got Blog!" You can also browse, blogs and other sites by headline or article this way.)

Once installed Sage hides in Firefox ever so quietly until you launch it from the Tools menu. Then it opens a sidebar with your RSS feeds, which are managed in a special folder in your bookmarks menu. You can open an RSS or ATOM feed right in the URL field to a regular window, (which will look like the XML or ATOM code) then bookmark the address to that folder. Renew the link from Sage and Voila! Instant headlines. (Quick tip for Livejournal users, just add "/rss" to any public Livejournal page to covert it to it's RSS equivalent. For instructions on how to do the same for "friends only" pages, go here.)

I love this, as I don't have time to get sucked into LiveJournal the way some of my friends have, but I do want to read their journals when they update. But with this set up, I can have a set of icons sitting in the sidebar of my browser, checking pages for updates (as little or as often as I want) and letting me know if I should look at someones blog, or read an article from Slashdot. I'm really busy during the week, so I love this feature. Until I figured this setup was possible, I just didn't get that excited about newsfeeds, but now I'm looking for a good one for my Palm Tungsten T3 so I can check for updates over bluetooth from the couch.

So, if you haven't downloaded Firefox, check it out. (Hell, while you're at it... Thunderbird is a kick-ass email client without the vulnerabilities of Outlook Express.) If you already use Firefox or Mozilla 1.7 and you don't have a newsfeed routine worked out, give Sage a try and see if you like it. Happy surfing!

(BTW, if you're looking for a free and legal way to open and author Word and Excel files, check out 602PC Suite. You'll be glad you did.)

Schadenfreude: Windows XP SP2

2004-09-04T13:42:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking about starting a weekly feature here. For those of you who haven't been infected by this particular meme, Merriam-Webster offers the following:

Main Entry: scha·den·freu·de
Pronunciation: 'shä-d^&n-"froi-d&
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy
: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

So for this week's laugh at someone else's expense, I've picked a company that can certainly afford it, longtime tech industry villain Microsoft. From all appearances the release on Windows XP Service Pack 2 has been an absolute mess for end users and companies' IT departments. I've been collecting these horror stories ever since my Windows Update icon has been telling me that SP2 is available for download and installation right now!

These are from Slashdot.org:

Inspiron owners complain of SP2 slowdown

"- in some cases by a factor of almost ten, from 2.6GHz to 300MHz"

WinXP SP2 = security placebo?

"It may look impressive, but the SP2 package fails to provide several of the most important, basic modifications required to run Windows safely on an Internet-connected machine."

Check for spyware before patch, Microsoft warns

"Barry Goff, a group product manager at Microsoft, said some spyware could cause computers to freeze up upon installation of the update."

And from the Register:

200 apps clash with XP SP2

"Consumers should note that some programs will 'stop working' after they install Windows XP Service Pack 2."

XP SP2 über patch already needs fixing

"The vulnerability allows malicious websites to place an executable file in a user's start-up folder when a user drags or clicks on a program masqueraded as an image."

And from eWeek

XP SP2 Gives Reasons to Switch to Linux

"... I did expect to see some improvement. Boy, was I wrong. Yes, some things are better, but there are also a slew of new, exciting security concerns."

Latest SP2 Flaw Bypasses IE Security Zone

"... the use of an unconventional value in the "Content-Location:" field of an MHTML (MIME HTML) file causes the browser to execute the file in the Local Intranet zone, even though it is run from the local computer."

Mac OS X and Linux users have been telling the IT industry to get off this low-security, proprietary, overpriced OS for years, maybe now a few more CIOs will listen. I run all three operating systems at home. It's true that they all have their idiosyncracies, but bar none, XP is the one that misbehaves the most and expects everything to act the way it acts. Bill Gates and Steve Balmer, your OS security is a joke and people know it. If you're out there: Ha-ha!

Sleep Deprived Haiku

2004-08-25T06:34:00.000-05:00

Impatient cat wakes
Me half hour before alarm. Cats
have no snooze button

God and Country Haiku

2004-08-24T21:19:00.000-05:00

You're yelling "God Bless
America" like you can
tell God what to do.

Family Values Haiku 2

2004-08-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Doctor Dobson,
Keep your kids off my lawn or
I'm calling the cops.

Family Values Haiku 1

2004-08-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

Dear Doctor Dobson,
We're fine. Maybe you should focus
on your family.

Haiku for Patti Linnell

2004-08-22T21:55:00.000-05:00

They say Masturbation
is healthy... until you do
it in front of them

Remembrance Haiku

2004-08-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Mom stops making bed
Looks at the picture frame... It was
Four years ago today

Retirement Haiku

2004-08-21T18:30:00.000-05:00

Old Couple with
Bloody Marys chews celery
In noisy silence

Self Help Haiku

2004-08-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

Hard work? Resented.
Talent? Taken for granted.
Success is a bitch.

Haiku for the 2003 NPS champ

2004-08-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

If you are dating
Mike McGee, getting a chubby
can have two meanings.

Baby Haiku

2004-08-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

Children are God's way
Of punishing couples for
not using The Pill.

Futile Haiku

2004-08-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

Tell me, how do you
Fit a lifetime into
17 syllables?

Moment of Clarity Haiku

2004-08-16T22:00:00.000-05:00

Being great is like
Being funny. You succeed
when you quit trying.

2004 Head-To-Head Haiku

2004-08-06T07:05:00.000-05:00

Her asshole lover was
Like a giant Panda:
Eats, Shoots & Leaves

2004 Head-To-Head Haiku

2004-08-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

I keep your memories
Warm... stuffed and mounted
Over the fireplace

You now have one year left to trust me...

2004-07-15T10:22:00.000-05:00

Greg Dean, author of the webcomic Real Life had a great insight today. In the post below the comic, he writes one of the best descriptions I've ever read about feeling young one moment and realizing how old you are the next. I can't wait to tell him how much better it's going to get in about seven years, though.

I'm turning 30 in less than a month, and I'm depressed about it goddamn it. I only have to do this once, so if I want to feel a mind-numbing sense of dread about it, then I wish everyone would stop trying to make me feel better. I'm getting so tired of hearing older people talk about how I'm still just a kid or hearing younger people say how much they are looking forward to it. For them it's either a fond memory like the summer after highschool or an abstract mile post like getting married or becoming an alcoholic, so of course they think it's great. If you're younger by more than a couple of years, then chances are you still think there's plenty of time to do all of the great things you want to. News flash: there isn't. Quick: Name the last celebrity or industry leader you heard about that started their brilliant career after 30. (Jesus doesn't count... especially if you don't consider crucifixion to be your idea of retiring at 33.) If you are more than a few years older, then you probably wish that you had it to do over again, and are doing the exact, same thing I'm doing with my 20th birthday, so just shut it!

For me, this is a looming, nay, impending catastrophe that will swallow my 20's whole like some great constricting snake and crap out my last decade before middle age. As my wife would say, "Quit telling me it's not so bad. C'mon dear... sympathy!" I'm throwing myself a gigantic pity party. For the next 20-something days, just picture an enormous multi-layer cake covered in grey frosting, lint and those weird balls of fiber that you find under the couch, sprinkled with shattered dreams and missed opportunities and lovingly topped with a grown man crying in his beer. All right, everyone: dig in! Mmmmm-boy! That's good pathos!

Deep down, I know that this isn't logical, but like most psychological reactions it's not meant to be rational. It's been years since I've individually accepted most of the mistakes and lost chances I racked up over the years. But there's just something about starting my fourth decade that seems to bring the totality of their sum into stark relief. Here are a few of my greatest hits from age 18 to present:

- There's that ignorant, clostrophobic and festering little sore of a fundamentalist University in central Arkansas that I lost a year of my life to. I should've gotten a better part-time job and payed my way through college instead of wasting a minute there.

- There's the two majors in college I could've skipped on my way to getting a degree I never finished in what I do for a living. I should've enrolled in a good BFA and used my computer to earn money right off the bat.

- There's the brief conversation I had with my dad in '93 about something called "hypertext" used to make "pages" into a "web" for this new "internet" thing I kept hearing about... the one I never followed up on for 5 years. I should've gotten rich, damnit!

- There's that stupid relationship I wasted my time and eneregy on that turned out to be six months of dating, followed by three and a half years of breaking up. I should've sat in that class and not talked to her for one syllable.

- There was staying in Memphis for the better part of two decades and hating it for not being where I wasn't, instead of just going somewhere else to see what there was for me out there. I should've started a career and then moved to a hotspot for new talent.

- There was taking up and dropping weight training on two separate occasions. I yo-yoed between 130 and 150 pounds, before my magical metabolism evaporated in a puff of mere mortality. I should've continued to lift after I took it up at age 16 and stayed with it. As it is, my body seems to have developed the ability to grow a stubborn little paunch of bodyfat that covers what used to be a washboard stomache.

- There was the fact that I waited until my mid-twenties to get good at talking to girls. (Granted, I did eventually meet my incredibly hot wife, but that's a long time to be miserable in the romance department.) I should've just talked to them instead of looking for the perfect opening for the perfect girl.

...And so forth. I guess that the problem with all of this is the fact that I couldn't have known then what I know now. I'm not going to wake up 20 years old tommorow with a head full of secret insider information. Life isn't like a movie or TV series, where you wake up one day and you've got a second chance at some turning point or period of opportunity. (On a side note: I always wondered about why they never show the downside to that senario: if you remember everything you know before you go back, you've probably still forgotten everything that you can't remember either. A second chance at highschool seems great, until you realize that you've forgotten your locker combination, your best friend's phone number and most of your pre-calculous.)

No, the reality of our remaining time on earth is a lot more like those crossword puzzle-a-day books that seem really complex, have cryptic clues about what to do ("34 down: five letters, the most common member of the order Chiroptera") and the only answers you have are the ones for how yesterday should've gone. ("Great, knowing that "unctious" is an eight letter synonym for "fulsom" is really going to help me with 34 down.") Well, I'm drawing to the close of a decade's worth of the most difficult puzzles I've ever tackled, and right or wrong, that book is just about all filled out. In August, I'll be recieving a brand collection of 3,650 puzzles to start working on. No peeking ahead when I get stuck, but everyday, I'll get a new set of problems to solve, and a chance to see how well I answered the challenges I've already worked through.

I think most of this "1/3-life crisis" is just my way of confronting whatever it is I think that I've done to hold myself back up to now. My "greatest hits" list doesn't doesn't include all of the interesting things I've done up to this point either:

- Ive been the lead in a professional theatrical production.

- I've played the bass for a living in a regionally successful jazz band.

- I've worked in a major label recording studio.

- I've been on a cross country bus tour with some world class spoken word artists.

- I've gained attention as a national level slam poet.

- I've taught myself at least three interesting jobs.

... And so forth. I'm really lucky, in so many ways, as I'm going into my 30s with a new job that's going to pay better than my current one, in better shape than I've been in for years, married to a beautiful woman whom I love, and with a relatively full and interesting life. I just want to make it through the next 3,650 sets of challenges that come my way. At least then, maybe 40 will really be something to get worked up about.

Talk Hard

2004-06-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

One of my longtime favorite web comics, R.K. Milholland's excellent Somthing Positive did a great strip today about the greatest piece of Nerd American exploitation ever witnessed since New Line Cinema greenlighted Peter Jackson's childhood dreams. Witness:

Ask The Tech Girl

This new service is seeking open minded female techies to provide tech support with a more personal touch... a more sensual approach... a more 10 minutes / $2.95 per minute kind of service. I glanced around the site a bit, and thought that this was the best profile for a techie on call at the moment:

Tina-

Call me up and ask about Adobe GoLive, Adobe PageMaker, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Director 7, Macromedia Fireworks, HTML, DHTML & JavaScript,PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw & Corel Photopaint.

Aside from tech, I'm also an accomplished woodworker and fitness trainer.

Call me and let's talk about everything from design concepts to muscle training & nutrition and everything in between!

Call me now! :-)

Tina

Jeez... How am I supposed to compete with that in today's job market?

The Flag Waver

2004-06-24T12:42:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite online strips is PVP, written by Texan Scott Kurtz, a self described republican. He recently posted an experience he had with his current favorite video game addiction, the MMORPG City of Heroes:

"When Captain America throws his mighty shield....
Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2004

Last night, after the day started to wind down I logged into my favorite virtual world for some escape time. The City of Heroes game has been my online diversion of choice as of late. I really enjoy the game a lot.

I've tried just about every character type and I'm settling on my favorites. Last night, for fun, I decided to make myself a Captain America type hero...You know, go the whole patriotic route.

So I logged onto the Guardian server and created myself a Science origin Tanker with Invulerability and Super Strength. I dressed him in red, white and blue, adorned him and named him FLAG WAVER.

Once I got to a populated area, other people in the game started reacting to my character, but not in the way I expected.

"Ugh. I hate our country."
"How can you wave a flag of a country that kills other countries for oil we already have."
"Bush is an idiot."

I inquired if these people were from another country that maybe didn't look too kindly on the US. They all stated that they were Americans, but they just didn't really like America.

I have to say that I was flabbergasted. No. I was disgusted. I really didn't know what to say back to these other players. I certainly didn't log into the game to get into a political debate. If anything, I logged in to escape that stuff.

Rather than be daunted, I created a list of handy macros that I could pull out to difuse any potential jerk coming up to me in game to piss on my American pride. Now, if anyone decides to make me feel bad about playing a patriotic hero, I can just pull out any one of these handy responses.

"I hope you're registered to vote."
"You're grandfather called. He's very dissapointed in you."
"I wouldn't know about that. I've been cryogenically frozen for the last sixty years."
"Look, are you going to point me towards the wehrmacht or not?"
"The country is only as good as you kids make it."
"I defeated Hitler's reanimated body to defend your freedom to say that."

It's kind of a sad day when playing Captain America starts to offend so many people."

I thought this was such an interesting episode for so many reasons. Much like Scott, I found it odd that even a tongue-in-cheek patriotic superhero would draw such a strong reaction from some people. I mean, C'mon... "The Flagwaver"? It's a beautifully clever satire of Captain America. It's the sort of character concept that you'd see in The Tick. So it seems a little odd that people would take it seriously enough to be turned off. It's not like patriotism is an unknown theme in superhero lore. Superman, one of the best known superheros to the general population, is simply an uber-American from outer space! However, as someone once said, the most dangerous thing to commit in public is irony. Scott knew what he meant with both the character and the name, I do too, since I read his side of it, but someone else might not have.

On the other end of the spectrum is Scott's emotional reaction. I understand why he felt picked on, after all he went to the electronic playground for some fun, not for an argument. Still, at the end of the day, I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape about how patriotic this person or that person might be. So, some random person doesn't like his country. Hell, maybe he doesn't like YOUR country... What's so disgusting (or even suprising at this point)? Someone always disagrees with the actions that this nation takes in the name of its collective citizenry. When they vehemently disagree with those actions (which is predictable in a time of war) it makes them ashamed to be associated with what's happening and discouraged that they can't prevent it. I think that's a perfectly human reaction, and it doesn't make the people who have it evil or bad.

I don't share his dismay, but I LOVE Scott's reopens to the situation. He didn't get rid of "The Flagwaver", nor did he get confrontational. He simply used humor to defuse the issue for himself. He created automated responses that he could hotkey, which removed the problem of having to process every little comment he encountered. On top of that, they are hilarious! My favorites are "I defeated Hitler's reanimated body to defend your freedom to say that." and "I hope you're registered to vote." (It's easy to complain, but are you doing something about it?) At the end of the day, I think that this is more of what this country needs in it's popular political debate. Screaming doesn't win you any friends and vilifying people doesn't bring them over to your way of thinking. Using your head and keeping things in perspective will help you get your point across, and it just might help you live longer, too.

Well done, Scott. Long live The Flagwaver!

I'd like a word with the conservatives, please.

2004-06-22T11:04:00.000-05:00

It's come to my attention that the self described "conservatives" out there have done a fairly effective job of hijacking the word "liberal". On the surface this seems like a good thing for them because, after all, if you take away the label that your opponents uses to describe themselves, it makes it hard for them to symbolically rally support to their cause. However, I think that this is already having a side-effect that will backlash against the tighty-righties the way the popular support for the Christian Coalition evaporated in the early nineties.

The side-effect is something common to all forms of low-rent hatred. The word-object of ridicule ceases to refer to the person or group it was originally attributed to in any meaningful way and becomes an all-purpose stand-in for everything that's wrong with the world. Righties are starting to describe the "liberal" media the way certain 1930s germans talked about the "jewish" conspiracy to control the price of gold. Neo-Cons see "liberals" everywhere the same way Joe McCarthy saw "commies" under every rock and in anyone who criticized him.

Merriam Webster shows the following definition for the term "Liberal":

Main Entry: 1lib·er·al
Pronunciation: 'li-b(&-)r&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin liberalis suitable for a freeman, generous, from liber free; perhaps akin to Old English lEodan to grow, Greek eleutheros free
1 a : of, relating to, or based on the liberal arts (liberal education) b archaic : of or befitting a man of free birth
2 a : marked by generosity : OPENHANDED (a liberal giver) b : given or provided in a generous and openhanded way (a liberal meal) c : AMPLE, FULL
3 obsolete : lacking moral restraint : LICENTIOUS
4 : not literal or strict : LOOSE (a liberal translation)
5 : BROAD-MINDED; especially : not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms
6 a : of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism b capitalized : of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; especially : of or constituting a political party in the United Kingdom associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives

What self described christian (as many conservatives fancy themselves) wouldn't want to be known as generous? What patriotic American wouldn't subscribe to the ideas of economic freedom and paricipation in government? However, we've just been through two decades of twisting Reagan's ideas about smaller government beauracracy into "anything that costs me a nickel in taxes is evil". The far right has now taken the name of the political spectrum that gave us every bit of social progress in the sixties and early seventies and completely redefined it. "Liberal" now means unpatriotic. "Liberal" now means un-American. "Liberal" now means godless. I could go on... It is defined purely in its opposition to something, with context supplying the specific meaning. Basically, the way it is now defined by the right, it means "person who doesn't agree with me and is therefore not simply incorrect but bad".

As I wrote in my piece on swearing, words that are repeated ad nauseum simply become repetitive sounds. I think that both "liberal", as a whipping boy, and, therefore by extension, "conservative" are in danger of becoming meaningless terms. This could happen any number of ways:

1) Implying that anyone who doesn't agree with a certain political platform is a godless, unpatriotic sympathizer of our enemies is going to get real old, real fast. Ain't but so much gas in that car, period. Sure it makes the faithful feel superior (as it's meant to), but it's a lousy way to win converts.

2) As I'm fond of reminding myself to stay sane, no one group of people has a monopoly on success or failure. No group has a monopoly on good or evil, either. Democrats, Reformers, Greens, etc. are also perfectly capable of successfully reinventing themselves and their opponents. (Let us not forget that their success in the nineties was part of what paved the way for the right-wing backlash we're living through at the moment.) If the term "liberal" becomes untenable, then there's no reason that the term "progressive" can't catch on with the right cultural hook. (For starters, who'd want to be known as a "regressive"? Maybe a new "progressive" movement will take a page from the neo-con playbook and just start branding its opponents with such a negative self-defined term.)

3) The two party system is not going to last forever. As convenient as it is to think of yourself and your opponent in terms of black and white or good and evil, Republican and Democrat ultimately fall as far from each other on the moral compass as do Coke and Pepsi. They are merely two multi-million dollar brands that are treated with the same marketing and image management that any large corporate brand is. We've seen decades of advertising and billions of marketing dollars thrown at us to get us to pick one brand of soda or the other. Now both Coke and Pepsi sell bottled water. While it's true that many alienated citizens don't vote anymore, many of us have left the party squabbles behind but not the political system.

4) Just like any other trend, our current climate and issues will blow over. Blustering about "liberal" this and "conservative" that will get you only so far with the Americans who don't need "liberals", "niggers", "honkies", "faggots", "breeders", "fundies", "catholics" or any other group of "them" in order to motivate their political action. Defining yourself only in opposition to something means that 1) you essentially stand for nothing and 2) you are dependant on the very thing you oppose. If this is how conservatives define themselves then they will (if they haven't already) become joined at the hip with the need to have liberals around to complain about.

So, in conclusion, I think that abusing the term "liberal" might have short term benefits, but in the long run, it will only create a cartoon that no one will either fear or loathe. After all who complains about "damn hippies" anymore?

Jack Ass of The Week

2004-02-19T11:50:00.000-06:00

This week's Jack Ass is CU football coach, Gary Barnett. This guy is such a waterhead, I don't even know how to insult his intellegence worse than he already has by speaking in public. In a story making the rounds in the college sports workd, former female placekicker Katie Hnida, reported being hazed, sexually harrassed and eventually raped by members of her own team. Now, this wasn't even isolated as she came forward on the heels of other CU students claiming that they were raped at sex parties thrown for the team. Coach Waterhead... I mean, Coach Barnett's incredible response was to state for the new cameras, that Katie was "a girl, and not just a girl, but she was awful." He didn't apparently have any sympathy for her, anger towards the chowderheads on his team that did this to her... nor did he seem to make any connection between going through a living hell and performing poorly.

Let's put you in County Corrections for a few weeks, let you get molested and raped and see how your coaching performance does!

To wit:
"Another Victim at Colorado
Rick Reilly
SI.com - Feb 18, 2004

"At Colorado they're majoring in b.s. The denials have piled up like cordwood. You show me a coach who maintains he's unaware of recruiting parties featuring paid strippers, of four alleged rapes, of sexual harassment claims by one of his players against other players, and I'll show you a coach who is hell-bent on not knowing.

Makes this alum want to hide his class ring."

Rick Reilly, who broke the story, takes the words right of my mouth. Everyone likes to play the deniability card when they're caught asleep at the wheel. The words "not me" are ingrained in our collective psyche as Americans. But declaring that Katie Hnida was coming forward with her story because she was a girl and a terrible player just trying to cover a weak season... on what planet does that make sense to say out loud. Your mouth was moving, your larynx was making vibrations, Barnett, but was your brain actually engaged in the process of crapping that stupidity out of your mouth?

Well, no need to stand on ceremony, folks. Even Jesus thinks this guy's a jackass.

Jack Ass of The Week

2003-11-05T17:33:00.000-06:00

This week's Jack Ass is the Halliburton Corporation. Accepting the award this week on behalf of his former company, is U.S. V.P. Dick Cheney, the former CEO of this company which has recieved numerous no-bid contracts since the invasion of Iraq began. Many people have written this off as a complete coincidence, but that's now getting harder to believe by the day. In a story broken by Aljazeera, investigated by Reuters and reported this evening on NPR, Halliburton is accused of gouging US taxpayers for the gas it's selling the military in Iraq.

Thank you sir, may I have another?

To wit:
"Halliburton Accused Of Gouging U.S. Taxpayers By Overcharging For Imported Gas (english)
Aljazeera (QATAR) 9:43am Thu Oct 16 '03
article#353756

"Halliburton billed the government an average price of $1.59 per gallon (3.7 litres), excluding the company's fee of 2%-7%, said Waxman. He said the average wholesale cost of gasoline during that period in the Middle East was about 71 cents a gallon, a figure an oil industry source told Reuters was accurate. That meant Halliburton was charging more than 90 cents a gallon to transport fuel into Iraq from Kuwait. 'When we checked with independent experts to see if this fee was reasonable, they were stunned,' said Waxman, adding a reasonable transport cost would be 10 to 25 cents per gallon, especially as the US military was providing security."

This kind of blatant profiteering, of course, cuts to the heart of why some people are suspicious about why we're in Iraq in the first place. That aside, my suggestion to Cheney and Company would be: if you're going to make money off of a situation that's killing a handful of people a day try to keep from getting so greedy about your prices that we notice you're ripping us off. Soulless arrogance is hard for your marketing department to sell. Now even the Army (which answers to Cheney) is asking that the contract be filled by someone else.

"What? I thought you were used
to getting ripped off at the pump."

So, Mr. Cheney, I understand that you want your retirement stock in Halliburton to do well, but gouging the very taxpayers that are dying to keep the contracts coming in Iraq makes you and your former company, Halliburton, complete jackasses.

Weekend Update

2003-11-01T12:24:00.000-06:00

A short list of news items from CNN.com that suggest it's probably safer to stay home this weekend:

Actual Situation Comedy:

Clown Robs Bank

And you thought it was hard to sing in public...
Naked karaoke angers neighbors

Catholic Schoolgirls Rule
Girls Chase and Pummel Flasher

Revolvers: When you care enough to shoot someone six times in the face and upper body.

Lawyer Shot Outside Courtroom

And in the "Thank God There Was No Picture" department...
Man Drops Cell Phone In Train Toilet, Jams Arm

Apparently the secret Republican handshake is nothing more than an impromptu hand-squeezing contest:

Bush Stumps For GOP Candidates

Streaming Consciousness...

2003-10-30T18:03:00.000-06:00

Imagine getting high quality Stream of Consciousness
wherever you go!

Inspired by Real Networks, makers of the popular RealPlayer application that streams audio and video over the internet, I am pleased to announce that Stark Raving Software, a subsidiary of Stark Raving Industries, will be offering its own internet plugin that will offer high quality streaming consciousness directly to your computer's web browser. Just download and install our forthcoming StarkRaver into your favorite browser and you can enjoy long-winded rambles, wandering subject matter, and other frivolous content MIME-types in the comfort of your own home. This new service is possible due to our breakthrough time-compression scheme. Our proprietary technology allows us to condense so much drivel into a few short paragraphs that the reader feels like it takes "forever" to get to the point.

We will soon offer similar versions of StarkRaver developed for internet equipped cell phones, wireless enabled PDAs and internet accessible refrigerators. StarkRaver is expected to be released as a free service with a pay service to follow that will offer additional features, such as random visual images, stretched analogies and jarring juxtaposition. No final pricing has been established but our marketing department says that it should be in the neighborhood of "our CEO's rent divided by the number of our subscribers."

Parts of Speech

2003-10-29T19:57:00.000-06:00

"Can you hear me now, you %^&!?"

Swear words are like the homeless of vocabulary. Take the F*** word. Many people have referred to this naughty little mot as the universal part of speech. The thinking goes that it can replace any word in a sentence like some kind of pronoun on steroids. Witness:

Person 1: I f***ed that f***ing f***er the f*** up.

Person 2: Get the f*** out!

Of course, to flesh out this exchange into something of a conversation, while maintaining its obscenity content, we need another swear word.

Person 1: I f***ed that f***ing f***er the f *** up.

Person 2: Get the f*** out!

Person 1: No s***. I f***ing beat the living s*** outta him. That f***ing motherf***er had it f***ing coming.

Person 2: F***in' A!

Ok, I could go on, but in the interest of maintaining a family-friendly site, I won't. (I had the sheer genius to tell my Dad about this blog, and now I find myself struggling with the awkward idea that my Mom might be reading this.) The point here is that, yes, you can replace just about any word with f*** and it will grammatically make sense. But why would you? The F*** word is only universal if all you need, for the most part, are verbs that are destructive or sexual, nouns that are male and derisive, and modifiers that only exaggerate what they're applied towards.

Of course, like the homeless, these words are reviled by descent folk who feel imposed on by suddenly finding themselves in the presence of one such curse. Then you have a smaller hardcore group of open minded people that feel these epithets deserve some consideration, as they will always be with us because of the way human society works. (cough, cough)

OK, I'll switch analogies before that one get's too stretched out. I actually think swear words are like junk food. Adults use it with impunity, but kids find themselves getting scolded when their parents catch them with it. OK, OK... I think they are like junk food because they hit the spot when you get the craving for one, but they are full of empty calories. OK, that one's worth pursuing.

When you follow a fairly healthy diet that's full of a wide variety of foods, eating an occasional juicy cheeseburger or order of fries can make for a tasty, if naughty, puctuation to your sensible set of eating habits. But as much as your tastebuds are amused by a sudden infusion of salt and fatty acids, that kind of food is virtually devoid of the kind of nutrition your body needs to repair and refuel itself. You get the picture. If you've ever been forced to eat at Mickey D's for breakfast and lunch everyday, you know that you get run-down and kind of full before you can make it up at diner. You also quit tasting it after a while.

Lenny Bruce went to jail for your right to be a
foul-mouthed jerk. So try to at least have
something to say.

Similarly, if you are thoughtful and articulate, the occasional swear word will stand out and have a degree of emphasis when carefully applied to make a point. Conversely, if every other word that comes out of your mouth is s*** this or motherf***ing that, your impression on other people gets kind of blunted instead of sharpened. Oh sure, you might make a strong initial impression. But the words, when repeated often and for no apparent reason, sentence after sentence, begin to empty the paragraphs of actual content. Those still paying attention to what you're saying only hear the words occuring between the swearing, but the swear words simply become sounds, devoid of meaning.

I prefer a balanced approach, verbally speaking. l try to use whatever language expresses what I'm trying to say. If I need to say something ugly, or require a sudden burst of emphasis, then swear words are definitly on the menu. Otherwise, I try to use something else if I can. After all, there's nothing worse than a one note solo, when you came to hear a tune.

A Scott, A Mick and a Regular Midwesterner walk into a Bar...

2003-10-28T06:54:00.000-06:00

I love double standards. They are beautiful examples of the axiom "Actions speak louder than words."

The other night, a couple of friends of mine and I went drinking at a posh little place downtown. Somehow, the subject turned to race relations and we found ourselves talking about whether African Americans are allowed to make jokes about white people. Now, personally, I have a rule about this kind of thing, namely the whole "making cracks about other people" thing, and it's that as long as it's not simply mean-spirited, contains a kernel of truth and (most importantly) it's funny, then go ahead and knock yourself out. Of course, I use humor as a sword sometimes, but I try to reserve drawing it for the times I think that someone is picking on someone else.

Why can't we be friends?

Now, I love Dave Chappelle. I think that he's funny and he has a lot of good things to say about a lot of weird things that happen to lot's of folks. However, my Scottish American friend and I found ourselves at cross-purposes on the whole "Chapelle" issue. She felt that because Dave makes the occasional joke about white people, he's fundamentally unfunny and a racist. Now, I'm going to steer clear of the whole "white people have made caricatures out of other human beings for decades while doing terrible things to them" argument because: 1) none of the people at the table were slave owners, segregationists or klansmen and 2) that tactic is reserved for arguing about history with people you don't know the personal habits of. On this particular occasion, I did know the personal habits of my esteemed friend.

First a bit of background, my family name is Irish and, trust me, unless you are an Albino, the only time I'm not whiter than you is when I sing or play the bass guitar. So when I make a crack like, "Fuck us", I'm talking about whites that can't take a joke, but more importantly, I'm talking about what society considers my own kind. Of course, I'm only speaking for myself and I have a thick skin. Make fun of the way I dance, I can take it. If you talk about racism or cops beating black folks up, I'm probably on your side, as I don't participated in either of those things. I'm sorry, but my brain doesn't shut down when I hear someone who isn't white talk about "white people". Either what they say has merit and I pay attention, or it doesn't and guess what? I still have a job, a wife, my self respect and life intact. I've never suffered for being caucasian. I can think something directed towards someone who kinda looks like me sounds stupid without getting worked up about it.

Anyway, like I've said, I know the person getting outraged about hearing jokes about white people and I have something more specific to say about her stance. We watched an episode of Star Search and she loved a joke that a white comedian said that offered, in effect, that if you see a group of people in prison, you know the white guy did it. He's not there because he was profiled or couldn't afford a lawyer. Yet when she and I watched Chappelle the other night, Dave made a joke about when you see a lone white guy hanging out in a group of black people, you know he's the most dangerous guy in the crew because he most have done something crazy to earn their respect. Plus they keep him around to talk to the cops. As far as slander goes, the white comedian said the worse thing about the hypothetical white guy in the joke, yet my friend only got offended when Chappelle did his bit.

It gets better. She and I went dancing (insert joke here) at a club a couple of years ago and she had to calm me down when I overheard a white trash barfly say following charming remark: "What are you smoking menthols for? Those are nigger smokes." Don't worry about it, that's just the way they talk in here... her outrage over the way a white person was talking about black people was virtually non-existant. It was (quite sensibly) more important to her for us to enjoy our evening than it was for me to rip into a stranger I wasn't going to change the mind or behavior of. (Insert dangling participle joke here. I think I'm up to two, so far.) Yet when Dave Chappelle makes a joke about white people, she decides she can't stand him. Interesting...

I willl go ahead and say that my point here isn't to point out an inconsistancy and shreik "AHA!" People of all stripes do this thing where they take more offense at hearing certain things from some people more than others. In high school I saw one line-backer on our football team greet the other one with "Hey fucker!" I don't think the smile he returned that remark with would have appeared for a stranger offering the same thing. I'd also like to say that this story about my friend isn't meant as character assasination, either. She's a great person with a big heart who's friends with a veritable rainbow of people in our social group. Her best friend is Korean, for chrissakes. If you knew her, you'd know she's a great person. She's got a good idea going, "Making cracks about other people isn't right." She just seems to get more worked up when she feels that it's coming at her somehow.

Rush ain't right.

There are other, much worse examples of how the knee-jerk reaction of protecting one's own translates into actual racism, instead of simple inconsistancy. When Rush Limbaugh gets rankled about the fact that the country isn't as careful about the way it talks about whites as it is about blacks, it's said on the heels of decades of public comment carefully devoid of any concern for blacks. Translation: He only cares about the way he thinks he's being treated by extension. He isn't trying to raise the bar for the way people are treated, just white people. Rhetorical gymnastics like that are devoid of empathy. But hey, years of abusing synthetic heroin will do that to a guy. (Insert self-righteous smirk at Rush's expense here) Jesus said to treat others the way that you want to be treated, and that requires being able to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Otherwise a masochist could beat a guy and say, "Jesus, told me to." If you fancy yourself a christian, empathy isn't just a good idea, it's the law. If you, like me, aren't a christian, it's still a good idea, and I think it's worth stealing.

Hmmmm... "Don't make cracks about other people." Maybe, she's onto something...

Jack Ass of The Week

2003-10-27T17:18:00.000-06:00

This week's moron is "Reverend" Fred Phelps, the stridently anti-gay preacher who has made a career forgetting that Jesus thought love and forgiveness, but not homosexuality, were worth actually mentioning during his 33 years on the planet. This guy made national news when he had the poor taste to protest Matthew Shepard's homosexuality at the trial of the two men who beat Shepard to death for being gay.

Can you feel the love?

Now Phelps would like to use the 1st Amendment to bully Casper, Wyoming into letting him put up a "monument" on public property commemorating Shepard's "entrance into Hell" on the day Shepard died from his injuries at the hands of his assailants.

The kicker, of course, is that Phelps isn't even from Casper. Back in the south, a jerk from somewhere else that causes trouble for the locals is referred to as a "carpetbagger". I'd officially like to dust that euphemism off and tattoo it to this schmuck's forehead. That town has tried very hard to keep Shepard's murder (which horrified the majority of its residents) from being all that the rest of the world knows it for. Apparently, treating others with respect isn't part of Phelps' version of Christianity.

Some outraged residents have let it be known that if he puts this monument to his own avarice up, someone might use a sledgehammer to remove it. Now that's what I call civic pride. Phelps has said that if the monument is vandalized, he'll demand that the city of Casper provide 24 hour surveillance of it to protect his right to free speech. I'd normally say something acerbic here about the guy, but I'm dumbfounded that someone can actually not know he's making that big of a fool out of himself. Never let it be said that persistence and intelligence are the same thing. So, Fred: Jesus loves you, but the rest of us think you're a jackass.

A Short List Of Skills I'd Like to Master or Actually Learn in the First Place

2003-10-27T16:27:00.000-06:00

01) HTML, CSS, Perl and XML
02) Cooking
03) Shooting my Longbow
04) Making my own Arrows
05) Basic First Aid
06) Speaking Fluent Spanish (and possibly French or Japanese)
07) Cunnilingus
08) Car Repair
09) Knowing all my Scales, Chords and Keys off the top of my head
10) Rolling a Cigarette with One Hand
11) Yoga
12) Tantra
13) Staying In Shape
14) Field Stripping and then Re-Assembling an AK-47 while Blindfolded
15) Knowing what to do with a Unix prompt (and possibly a DOS prompt)
16) English Grammer
17) Touch Typing
18) Writing Narrative Fiction
19) Acting
20) Being Independantly Wealthy
21) A+ Certification
22) Aikido (or possibly Brazilian Ju-Jitsu)
23) Interpersonal Skills
24) Film Making
25) Getting a Film Funded
26) Dealing with Critics
27) Speed Reading
28) Making a Living Doing What I Love
29) Making a Difference
30) Making a Really Great Cup of Coffee

Let's Fire The Boss

2003-10-23T14:40:00.000-05:00

It’s official: I’d rather drink a tumbler full of vodka and powered glass than vote for George W. Bush to entertain us with four more years of his unique brand of physical comedy. I’m as willing as the next guy to let a joke run its course before deciding that it wasn’t funny, but enough is enough. Bush is like a Texas version of Jerry Lewis that the French actually don’t like. I really gave the guy a chance. He wasn’t my candidate in 2000, but after the inauguration I thought, “You know, how bad could it really get on the ground-level with him in the Oval Office?” The answer is much, much worse than I could have possibly imagined.

Ok, now tell me you still
don't believe in evolution.

Maybe you thought Clinton was the real Slim Shady. Maybe you think this President quoting gospel hymns during a state of the union address is the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Just what was the greatest thing before sliced bread, anyway?) All I know right now is that my income is 45% of what it was when the philandering Arkansan was in the White House. There just aren’t enough verses to Amazing Grace to make me feel good about that. What gives? I thought Republicans liked money. Get me back to $20 an hour and you can elect a Libertarian from Mississippi for all I care.

When someone gets to that level of government, their decisions were bought and paid for by a fraction of the electorate a long time ago, anyway. I just don’t cotton to having my livelihood stepped on in the process of giving the office away to the highest bidder, and this particular group of shadowy figures in the smoke-filled meeting room has now officially cost me income. So, for me, it’s time to shake the Executive branch Boggle cube and see if the new arrangement of letters has spelled “Robust Economy” from any angle.

Bush has managed to piss off the entire free world, get into an expensive war with a country that hasn’t invaded us, run up an even greater national debt than we had under Reagan and this guy’s still got more than a year left at the helm to make more sudden turns without breaking first. Aren’t the Republicans the party that preaches financial responsibility? We’ve got over a billion dollars a month to keep troops in Iraq, but we can’t afford to pay for education? The standard insult to Democrats is to call them tax and spend liberals, but cutting taxes while spending our asses off is somehow a better idea?

You might feel a slight
cramping sensation.

What do I have to show for it? The FBI can subpoena my library card activity and surfing habits. Whoopie. I feel so much safer now that John Ashcroft will know whether or not I’ve read The Bridges of Madison County or PVP. The Pentagon has proved once more that it can flatten third world countries with the efficiency of a lawn mower, but it hasn’t found Bin Laden or Hussein. We’re losing American troops at the rate of a handful per day, and that’s in a country we just conquered. We’re being told we can’t afford to take care of ourselves on the heels of being told that we have to spend $87 billion to rebuild Iraq. I wonder if seniors would have prescriptions completely covered by Medicare if Haliburton had a pharmaceutical division ready to fill a nice contract to provide the medications.

I’m less concerned with what Republicans think we should do than I am with what they’re doing. Maybe a small federal government is a good thing. Maybe we should have more of our money to spend ourselves. We can debate the abstract points of individual political philosophies until God finally tells the world’s faithful just which apocalyptic final chapter of which holy book had it right. In the meantime, the fact is: the standard of living in this country has slipped quite a bit with George’s people at the helm.

Now, as far as actually getting represented in exchange for your vote, picking a candidate has about as much of a specific effect on your personal future as your astrological sign. Maybe you voted for George, because he was Republican and that’s how you’re registered. Well, did he ever invite you to his house to talk about what you’d like him to do? Of course he didn’t. Not unless you contributed an amount of money to his party that has a single digit followed by a bunch of zeros, in which case, he did. But the regular kind of party line voting expressed by a ballot and not a checkbook actually gives you less say in how the specific administration will go, Republican or Democrat.

You, the faithful party voter, are the taken-for-granted girlfriend. Your party humors you and tells you what you want to hear from it, but not every day, anymore. Oh sure, right after the election there’s a honeymoon. They give you a little face time almost everyday and talk about how important you are. They romance you with language about the great future you’ll build together. But they’ve spent their time on the road talking to those other interests; sexy interests with bigger assets than you’ve got. Oh sure, you’re faithful and loyal, but they’ve already got you. Now, your party is setting their schedule around when those other interests they’ve been seeing need to get together and around what they’d like to do.

Of course I'll call you tommorow.

You ask them what they were doing with that political action committee or CEO the gossip section of the Wall Street Journal said they were out with the other night. Your party gives you a bunch of vague talk about how “We’re just good friends,” and then suddenly picks a fight with the country across the street before you can press them any further. Things start slipping around the House. Sure, some big show of effort is made about taking care of a couple of the things they said they’d do. But they begin to procrastinate on dealing with some of the issues and concerns they swore they’d make their top priorities. Promises made during those heady days of the campaign start to get broken. All of that money they said they’d spend on you or pay you back never quite materializes.

Maybe you feel disillusioned and start daydreaming about some independent candidate that reminds you of what your party was like when you first started voting. You start wondering about what it would be like on the other side of the fence. Who could blame you? All that time your party spent “broadening its horizons” with swing voters has left you feeling neglected and vulnerable. All that talk the Party gave you about how dedicated it was to you begins to sound hollow as you think about how your needs aren’t being met.

That is until the next election rolls around. Suddenly, there they are in the living room again every night. They throw lavish outdoor get-togethers for you and your friends. You get so many love notes in the mail you can’t even read them all. If you tell them about your problems and frustrations, they listen intently. You start to feel like the center of attention again. They talk about the things they can change or how you’ll work together to make it feel just like old times, again.

Parenting tip:
Never let your children
play with politicians,
you never know
where they've been.

Party-line Republicans and Democrats, I beseech you: snap out of it! These career politicians are worse than that jerk frat-boy your sister or cousin dated in college. They honestly need you, but only for one day every two to four years. When you give that vote away without a real commitment from your candidate, he won’t respect you for it. He’ll just move on to the next one. Campaigning politicians are like college freshmen guys trying to get laid. They think they have to work the hardest for the votes they haven’t gotten yet.

Would you sleep with someone who only called every two to four years and tried to get in bed with you using the same tired rhetoric you know they’ve already used with several thousand other people that week? Ok, maybe that analogy doesn’t work for the single young men out there, who just want to know how hot she is, before they’ll answer. But, I think you see my point. If these politicians want to spend their time chasing loose money and strange voters, make ‘em sleep in the minority seats in Congress. If your representatives aren’t representing you, dump their lame asses for someone else who will. Finally, if your president isn’t protecting your financial future or your freedoms before he does anything for anyone else, tell him the only library he needs to worry about monitoring is the one named after him that he’s about to build.

Columbus Day Revisited

2003-10-20T13:30:00.000-05:00

"Hi. I didn't even do what I thought I did."

I saw the Sopranos rerun last night where the Italian Americans and Native Americans in New Jersey get into a literal fistfight over what kind of a guy Columbus was. We just had Columbus Day a week ago, which my federal employee wife likes to celebrate by staying home and sleeping, so I’ll weigh in:

Fuck Christopher Columbus.

I just thought I’d make my position clear on that. I don’t need to go on at length on this. Thousands of perfectly good trees have this man’s ruthlessness and incompetence written on their flattened corpses like a ruined epitaph. Each book on the man is like a mass grave.

What interests me, and by “interests me” I mean frustrates me, about dialogs like this is the utter pointlessness of them. There are plenty of great people of Italian heritage who didn’t rape and pillage their way across the West Indies. What’s the point of clinging to this one? It’s a misplaced sense of identity caused by stereotypical cultural associations. But I’m Irish and therefore a raging alcoholic; so don’t just take my word for it.

I’d submit that the point isn’t this man or that event when it comes to conversations like this. It’s what we cling to in order to differentiate ourselves from each other. Take the south, for example. I grew up in Memphis, and I’m still amazed that people actually wear rebel flags in the 21^st century. When I moved to Omaha, Nebraska, I actually had someone tell me that he and his friends “y’know, still sport the confederate flag sometimes.” I think he wanted to make me feel at home. My initial mental response was an incredulous “Thanks for picking a side in a fight that we settled 150 years ago, but I don’t think Nebraska was even a state then.” Sticking with a losing team is charming when you’re talking about Redsox fans, but these “Gray Ghost” guys just seem sad and more than a little creepy. It’s not like we’re going to replay the Civil War just to accommodate a handful of jarheads living in a past they don’t seem to fully comprehend. At least Boston gets to take another shot at the World Series every year.

"Wait, pickup trucks are the product of industrailization
and not slave-based agriculture? Well, shit!"

What sustains people through these flights of the mentally bizarre must be our enormous and only occasionally taxed capacities for denial. I’ve actually had a white coworker tell me that because some Africans participated in the slave trade, whites weren’t morally responsible for their own part in it. This is what I’m talking about, right here. He was trying so hard to come up with a rationale for something that his brain actually became incoherent. Oh sure, the sentiment is grammatically correct and formed in English, but it still makes no sense when you say it out loud. It actually breaks down when you expose it to oxygen.

It’s fairly well documented that “Ending Slavery” was the “real” reason for the Civil War the same way “Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction” was the “real” reason for Gulf War II. Now, I’m not saying that the end result of emancipation wasn’t as worthy as keeping the country from tearing in half, but what I am saying is that twisting history into something more noble doesn’t accomplish what we’d like it to. Now that the ending slavery and the Civil War are linked as primary cause and effect in so many minds, the lingering resentment over the loss of the Confederacy in some is redirected towards those that seemed to profit from it: Don’t like the way the war ended? Too bad, it was over well before you were born. However, African Americans do live here currently and they are free now at the expense of “dear ol’ Dixie”... (Cue the goddamn violins.) Or so the apparent thinking goes, anyway.

People try deconstructing unpleasant pieces of history from other angles, too. “Maybe the slaveholders treated the slaves well.” This is akin to saying that a rapist is an OK guy as long as he makes sure his victim’s head is resting on a pillow. "Maybe there’s nothing morally wrong with slavery.” Try grabbing someone off the street and forcing him to vacuum your house for three days and see how that little idea holds up in court. So instead of displacing blame, these efforts try to magically absolve it altogether. My coworker’s attempt at constructing a sentence falls under that category of nonsense. To be polite, I guess you could refer to this as a kind of rhetorical deus ex machina. Reality didn’t shape up the way some would like it to, so they’ll just refuse to process it or even pretend something else occurred instead.

I’ve even heard revisionists from the Confederate apologist camp actually claim that some black troops actually fought for the Confederates during the conflict. How would that even work? Ang Lee’s Ride With The Devil (featuring a single black raider and set in the non-state territories) aside, the established Confederacy passed laws that black troops captured in battle were to be hung as escaped slaves. Slave owners didn’t even want their blacks reading books, but I’m supposed to swallow that they were willing to give them guns? That crashing sound you hear is that notion collapsing under the weight of its own stupidity.

But as I said earlier, this pernicious nostalgia for things that never happened is as unnecessary as it is factually erroneous. I grew up in the south, and I never felt the need to apologize for the lousy parts of its history as much as I felt the need to understand them. If I want to be proud of where I’ve come from I think about our artists. We gave the world the blues and rock n’ roll. We’ve given the world Mark Twain, H.L. Menken, D.H. Lawrence and William Falkner. (Well, maybe I’ll apologize for Falkner, but I’m not going to pretend he never existed.) Some places back home are doing so well economically that some Yankees actually move south (only this time they’re not referred to as carpetbaggers). Our Democrats are some of the most battle-hardened liberals in the country, and our Republicans can kick your Republicans’ asses. Our overcooked vegetables actually taste good. Plus, we keep manners alive so the rest of the country can remember how to use them if they ever decide to, again. With all of that and more to appreciate, why in hell would I waste my time and energy trying to defend the Alabama state flag? It’s not even particularly well designed.

If we can get past this
we can get past anything.

The fact is that as a culture (and even more so as a species), we’ve made lots and lots of mistakes. I know that we’d like to pretend that Vanilla Ice never had a top ten hit, but I’ve got pictures of you from junior high dancing to Ice Ice Baby in the five minutes that it took you to realize that the sampled bass line from Queen’s Under Pressure didn’t actually make the song worth listening to. Most people don’t go around pretending that Rob Van Winkle didn’t pick an even goofier stage name and put one over on us. We certainly don’t walk around constructing elaborate reasons why that track actually rocked. We give each other shit about having liked the song and get on with our lives. If we can come to term with such trivial pop culture embarrassments, why can’t we just admit our ancestors have screwed a lot of things up and gotten a lot of things right. Especially considering the end result on our quality of life will hurt only as much as admitting a lot of us once owned copies of To The Extreme.

So southerners, be proud of who we are, and quit trying to justify every detail of what we were. Nobody else on the planet is still watching Gone With The Wind while curled up with a box of Kleenex. Italians, the rest of us do know that white guys with MBAs, not fat guys named Vito wearing tracks suits, commit most of the organized crime in this country. Give the anti-defamation league a rest; it’s turning into a bigger joke than The Godfather: Part III. As a people, Italians have given so much good to the world, I’m surprised we’re not still speaking Latin conversationally. Finally, to the two Irishmen who were offended earlier when I made that crack about alcoholism, I was drunk when I wrote it and I’m sorry.

So that's where I left that...

2003-10-19T13:12:00.000-05:00

I’m sick to fucking death of things breaking down, but we’re not going to get into that right now.

Right now, I’m having way too much fun being distracted by the fact that I’d forgotten just how good the movie The Untouchables really is. This is the kind of pleasure one feels when finding a $20 bill in a jacket you haven’t worn since last winter. This little gem of a flick from 1987 shows you just how much fun a good movie can be to watch. The film is a dramatization of the story of Elliot Ness and his team of Chicago police that brought down Al Capone. Sure, it’s based on a true story and set in a very important period in American history (the part where Congress decided that telling everyone that they couldn’t drink anymore would somehow make them less violent), but the movie doesn’t pistol-whip you with that fact. The storytelling is great, and I mean brand-new-baby-kitten-asleep-on-your-neck great. The dialog doesn’t come across as pleased with itself when it’s clever, the sentimental parts aren’t sticky sweet and when there’s an action-hero punch line (you know- step 1) kill bad guy, step 2) say something cute about the way you did it) you feel amused instead of annoyed.

You’ve got Sean Connery playing a character appropriate to both his age and inexpugnable accent. You’ve got Kevin Costner playing Elliot Ness doing a Kevin Costner impersonation, which is how most of his good roles usually work. Come to think of it, I guess that’s one thing they both have in common. Neither Kevin nor Sean can stop playing himself, no matter how much the role demands otherwise (or as Cary Elwes put it, “Unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English Accent.”) So you’ve got a rare situation where two “name” actors are in the right parts for the right movie, then you’ve got two actual actors actually playing other people, namely Andy Garcia as an street smart Italian cop and Robert DeNiro doing an Al Capone slightly tinged with his title character at the end of Raging Bull, and something metaphorically approaching chemistry begins to happen.

I put more than a little blame for this wonderful state of things on director Brian DePalma. A lot of people have said a lot of things about him, but in brief, he’s known as a person quite taken with Alfred Hitchcock’s style of doing things. Whether or not you think that’s a good thing in general, in this case it’s beautiful to watch. The story unfolds, nay, unfurls like a gorgeous flag from America’s past, notable for its fewer stars. It twists and turns with changes in the plot or wind, yet always hangs firmly on its pole dug half its height again into a concrete premise. Characters develop. When they fail to, it’s because they’re dead. You care when the un-gratuitous violence takes its toll on the cast, but you are comforted knowing both their mission and the movie make progress as a result of their sacrifice or brutal elimination. DePalma’s, which is to say, Hitchcock’s style adds an honest tension and keeps your attention held like a breath in your chest as you wonder, I’ll repeat that for emphasis, wonder what will happen next. Hell, even the music is exceptional.

Rather than continuing to gush like a stabbed belly (which I could do for some time since I have two plus gallons of blood left in me), I’ll take the opportunity to transition into how the presence of quality in this film makes it’s absence felt in many of the other films I’ve choked down with popcorn and watery soda. Why should wondering what happens next be a novel experience when watching a film? When did having someone tell you something you didn’t already know become perceived as a bad thing for the average filmgoer? I mean, this has to be coming from somewhere and being rewarded somehow.

Remember when movie trailers weren’t Cliff’s Notes encapsulations of the films they advertise? This idea that we might resent not being able to predict every event in the movie, which we’re watching in the first place mostly because we’ve never seen it before, is incongruent on it’s smarmy little face. I’ve seen movies telegraph their punches so badly; they’ve sent me emails describing how they end before I even got in the car to go to the theater. If you dress the murderer in a mystery in a black top hat and give him a thick curly mustache to with his evil cackle, you have practically prevented me from figuring out that he did it because you’ve already told me he’s the villain. You have presented me with a clumsy set of cultural signals my simian brain is designed to interpret. How is that supposed to make me feel smart? I might as well congratulate myself for being able to read. Sure these kinds of visual shorthand are useful to establish elements quickly enough to make a larger point, but they serve piss-poorly as points in and of themselves.

David Mamet wrote in his book Three Uses of the Knife that drama is an expression of the survival mechanism in our brain that interprets sequences of things into cause and effect. I think the underlying point here is that your brain has to be under the impression that something is up for debate or worthy of investigation for your attention span to stay focused and for this pattern sorting instinct to reward you with “fun”. Once you’re aware that there’s a little man behind the curtain pushing and pulling levers, it’s pretty damn hard to take the glowing head with the booming voice seriously.

Poorly written, acted and directed films violate these expectations by calling the harsh, glaring light of attention from the illusion of a situation and put it squarely on the artifice failing to create the illusion. The landing sequence at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan may not make you feel like you’re on Omaha Beach fifty years ago, but it can fool part of your brain into thinking it’s watching an actual, meaningful situation. A direct to video porn called Saving Ryan’s Privates, on the other hand, would probably be a contrived excuse to depict an actual series of sexual acts between attractive but terrible “actors”, and as such, the lousy costumes, sets and dialog get in the way of watching the porn, and therefore call attention to themselves.

So, films like The Untouchables work because their parts all pull smoothly together in rhythm like a well-oiled machine and give the attention you put towards watching it the appearance of a complete and compelling thing. Only in retrospect do the well-designed parts come into any conspicuous focus. Films like Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace give you jarring speed bumps, gaping plot holes and bad directions, which leave you the impression you have survived a series of incidents rather than gone on a single contiguous journey punctuated with memorable events.

I’m begging you, Hollywood: There is a veritable litany of movies that do this well. Try imitating the craft of them rather than aping their specific parts.