tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-320918472023-11-16T07:52:32.770-08:00Il dolce far niente...In Italian, it means "the sweetness of doing nothing"...
Random ramblings on life, politics, travel, high tech, and whatever else captures my fancy...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-84335743299923560012015-10-31T23:04:00.000-07:002015-10-31T23:04:00.227-07:00My (humbling) experience with gofundme (so far)Once again, it's been over a year since I've blogged. It's interesting to me the things that inspire me to blog, and the many things that don't.<br />
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I'd heard about gofundme, have read some of the stories that people have put there, asking for help, and while I've felt sorrow and compassion for the tragedies in those people's lives, I was thankful that, by comparison, mine is a relatively worry-free life.<br />
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These last two years have been the most challenging in my life. Divorced after 23 years of marriage. Two of my three children struggling to find their way, one an Asperger's kid who, god love him, lives in his own unique world, with all the troubles that brings. The other, my youngest, and of my three, the one dearest to my heart, struggling with years of self-harm, a cutter, who's gotten progressively worse, not better. The financial and emotional blow of being divorced... Finally, this year, after years of ignoring my own health, having to have two significant surgeries to set myself on a path to reclaiming a healthy body. And my oldest, strong and centered as she is, struggling with her own insecurities, her own feelings of loss and inadequacy, and suffering mostly in silence, at least not sharing her struggles with me, or looking to me for support. Still, more often than not, I've found myself counting my blessings...however bleak things might seem to be for me, there are many others who suffer so much more than I.<br />
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This time has not been devoid of brightness. Last year, I met a wonderful woman, with whom I now live, who loves me in a way I'm unaccustomed to being loved. Despite all of my challenges, all of my failings, she loves me for who I am, not for what I can do for her. When the time came for my surgeries, she helped and supported me completely, in spite of having lost her mother to cancer just a couple of weeks before my first surgery. I've lived with her since April, and together we've made a home that is full of love, even as it has its own burdens and challenges. Her older son has just finished the second week of what will be a fairly longterm inpatient rehabilitation program for drugs and alcohol. My youngest has just finished her second week in an inpatient treatment facility for kids who self-harm. Two of the most difficult things either of us has ever dealt with, and yet we both rejoice that our children are finally receiving the help they need to return to health.<br />
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The blow that pushed me over the edge was learning that an investment that I was hoping...depending on...to pull me out of financial ruin to some sort of equilibrium, and to pay for my surgeries, collapsed. And so, having just seen another gofundme story, I wondered whether that path might help me pull myself up again.<br />
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One thing that is true about me, for better, and sometimes for worse, is that I never ask for help. I've always tried to be self-reliant, always, even in adversity, maintained an optimism that, as my best friend from childhood used to tell me, all bad things come to an end. This, too, would pass. Even though in many ways I was at a particularly low point in my life, perhaps the lowest, if I continued putting one foot in front of the other, continued to keep my head down and work harder, I would find a way to muddle through and come out the other side. It's what I do.<br />
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So, I don't know how I finally reached a breaking point, a place where I realized I couldn't move forward without asking for help. And so I launched a gofundme campaign. I have to tell you, it is a most humbling experience to admit that you can't do it alone, that you need help, and most importantly, to actually ask for help, from those who know you, who've been in your life at one point or another, who have no idea what your life has come to. It's humbling (humiliating?) to admit how far you've fallen, and to ask people for support and help.<br />
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The response from my friends has been overwhelming. From old high school buddies, some of whom I haven't seen in close to 40 years, from colleagues with whom I worked years ago, even from some who don't know me, but know people who know me...in 24 hours, they have opened their hearts and their wallets to offer their support. It's not only the money, which is significant enough, but the outpouring of messages of encouragement, of love, of concern. I've used the word "humbling" a couple of times now, but I can't think of a better one. I've been touched...by their love, and by the lesson that, in spite of living in a world that often feels devoid of concern for others, there are people who truly are concerned, and who are ready and willing to act on that concern. In addition to the personal experience of being on the receiving end of their generosity, of spirit and of finances, I've realized that, too often, I stop short of acting on my own concern, of going the extra mile to share what I have with others less fortunate. That will change now.<br />
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I'm reminded of a line in As Good As It Gets where Helen Hunt's character tells Jack Nicholson's character to say something nice to her, right now, and he says "You make me want to be a better man." When all is said and done, my experience has made me want to be a better man.Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-7906726572555921542014-06-23T21:53:00.003-07:002014-06-23T21:54:13.717-07:00Beyond Hype - Internet of Things to Enhance our WorldMy friend and colleague, Steve Lewis, posted a thoughtful piece on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140622132705-34826675-beyond-hype-internet-of-things-to-enhance-our-world?trk=eml-ced-b-art-M-0-8365971178624023279&midToken=AQHg3UdjN-B-tw&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=2iaBCIDkc5YSg1" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>. As I'm not yet able to post as lengthy a comment as I wrote, I thought I'd blog about it here...and steal Steve's title... :-)<br />
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Steve, great set of thoughts! I think you're spot on in your observations, but I might offer that you're overlooking a much more foundational truth, which underlies both consumerism and the implementation and regeneration of strategic infrastructure. In fact, I'd argue that both of these are examples, and only just two examples, of what results from this foundational truth. I don't know if I can do it justice, but here goes. The mass consumerization of IT, brought to life by the stunning proliferation of mobility (devices, as well as networks), has changed forever the relationship between technology and business (wrought in the broadest possible sense). I've become a big fan of Mary Meeker's (Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers) annual presentation on Internet Trends (worth an investment of a couple of hours to read through it here: http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends). <br />
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For most of our careers (mine, yours, and others our age), technology has been a supporter of business imperatives. What I mean by that is we've always taken a business-driven approach to...well...business, and then endeavored to figure out new and innovative ways to leverage available technology to support what we were trying to accomplish in whatever business we were in. Some have lived on the bleeding edge of technology, and so have been more innovative than those who've not lived there. But the fundamental calculus has always been "how do I leverage technology to support business objectives." What this mass consumerization of IT has done is to flip that on its ear, I'd argue outstripping our ability to be hyperbolic about it. For the first time in my lifetime, technology is actually driving business strategy and imperatives, rather than the other way around.<br />
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If you put together the advances in cloud-based infrastructure, with the explosion in mobile and social computing (any teenager can build more sophisticated applications on an iPhone more quickly and elegantly than people like us used to do with mainframes or servers or desktops or all three just a scant decade ago), and a shift in focus from IT to platforms (enabled more than anything else I've seen by APIs and how they're being used to expose, externalize, and combine in heretofore unthought of and unheard of ways information that used to remain jealously guarded within the walls of individual businesses), what we have today that we never had before is both a world of data, and the technology that makes it possible to combine and recombine data from myriad sources into applications that were never possible before. And, equally, if not more importantly, the explosive growth and ubiquity of that data just begs for analysis and insight, of which your example is but one of countless possibilities. <br />
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True, many of the stories that make people froth at the mouth about this shift tend to be consumer-focused, and I might argue that that is true because those kinds of innovative applications of technology are the low-hanging, supremely easy to conceptualize, fruit, whereas examples like yours are a bit more esoteric, and maybe need some deeper thought, as you've obviously done. But the basic point remains: the number of possibilities is virtually limitless, and hyperbolic as it may sound, it also has the virtue of being true, which is something new in the world of technology, at least the one in which you and I cut our teeth. <br />
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Two things, I think, are true, and make this the most exciting time in my career: As we begin to wrap our brains around this massive proliferation and ubiquity and approachability of technology, more and more smart people will come up with more and more ways of leveraging all of it in ways that we don't dream of today, and the curve from early adoption to mainstream adoption will flatten and compress far more quickly than at any time in the past. And those two things will feed on each other, further flattening and compressing the curve. As a behavioral scientist, among other things, I'm intensely curious about where the point is where that cycle reaches maximum velocity, that is, how quickly do we get to the point where change happens far more quickly than our ability to absorb it, and what happens then? Thirty years ago, I could hardly imagine that world, much less believe that I'd live long enough to observe it. Today, I'm positively giddy about being a part of it, and observing it firsthand!Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-4870480887375143912014-05-25T13:32:00.001-07:002014-05-25T15:43:31.163-07:00Reflections...on life, love, death, and other thingsOnce again, I find that it has been some time since I've written. A good blogger, I suppose, is one who blogs, regularly, and by that measure, if no other, I'm not much of a blogger. I don't often feel as though I have much to say that merits sharing here. As I look back over the things I've written, I see a me whom I recognize, but don't really identify with much these days.<br />
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Since last I wrote, so very many things have happened in my life. After twenty-two years of marriage, I am just a few weeks away from being divorced. How that happened is still something of a surprise and a shock to me, not because it was something that happened to me, but because it was I who blew things up, in a most unkind and unexpected way...unexpected to me as much as it was to my wife, my children, my family. Reflecting back on it, I know now (though I was asleep about it until the moment that I blew things up), that I had spent perhaps half of my marriage suppressing and sublimating my needs, my wants, my desires, myself. I did the things that I thought a good husband and father should do. I provided. I sought to serve the needs of my wife, my children, my family, without acknowledging my own. Those rare times when I sought fulfillment for myself, when I reached out for a connection and got none, I rationalized...told myself that it was OK, that my wife wasn't in a place to give me what I needed, and, after all, a marriage is about going the extra mile when your partner cannot, and so I could wait until another day.<br />
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Awakening came in the form of another woman (how cliche!). She was a lightning bolt, an intellectual and emotional stimulation like I hadn't felt in years (or maybe ever), a personality that just lit me up in every way. Perhaps it was my own desolation, the void in my own life that made her look to me like something which she was not. Perhaps it was me seeking fulfillment in another, rather than in myself. Regardless, I looked outside myself for all of the things that I should have sought within myself.<br />
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Also, during these months, another friend lost a daughter, to cancer. However much I feel my own pain and sorrow, I find myself...ashamed?...that I feel so badly for myself, when my life is, by many measures, so much better. My children are all alive, happy (mostly), intact. How can I feel that any of my troubles are so bad when I still have them available to me?<br />
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So I sit alone in my apartment (Jesus, I haven't lived alone in nearly thirty years!), lamenting my state, and yet grateful for the opportunity to recreate myself, to step into the void that stretches out in front of me and...create...a life that I want to have. While it feels overwhelming, sometimes hopeless, now, I know that life will go on, whether I will it or not, and so the opportunity is to seize it, to drive it, rather than being driven by the past...<br />
<br />Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-51051235976183947432013-12-21T19:42:00.000-08:002013-12-21T21:22:19.595-08:00Musings and Reflections...<br />
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2013 is quickly drawing to a close (where on earth did the year go??), and I realized it's been over a year since I wrote anything here. And so much has happened! So many things have changed (some in quality, many only in degree), and so many others have remained, depressingly, the same...<br />
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Some highlights (there's a great list of noteworthy 2013 world events<a href="http://www.endmemo.com/events/2013.php"> here</a>):<br />
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<ul>
<li>Sarah Palin still gets news coverage. I truly don't get it... And Martin Bashear had to resign from MSNBC for telling the truth about how vacuous and vile she really is.</li>
<li>Speaking of vacuous...I like Alec Baldwin. I really do. And his show on MSNBC, <i>Up Late</i>, showed some real promise. And then, Alec opened his mouth off air in a crass manner that's become all too closely identified with Alec.</li>
<li>And speaking of opening your mouth in a crass manner! I love Duck Dynasty. Don't ask me why...there are all kinds of reasons I shouldn't. And I love Phil Robertson's life story of redemption, finding his own personal spirituality, and building a successful business off of something as pedestrian as duck calls. And you know what? I even think it's ok for him to harbor the religious beliefs that he harbors, though I think he's fairly selective about the portions of the bible that matter to him. And I <i style="font-weight: bold;">even</i> think it's ok for him to speak of his beliefs publicly. They're his beliefs, not mine, and whether I find them admirable or reprehensible, he's entitled to them! But dude, go to charm school! Talking about women's vaginas and men's anuses in a piece in GQ is, well, completely classless.</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
<li>Politics. Sigh... A year ago, I wouldn't (and didn't) believe that things could sink lower than where they were in terms of comity, plain old decency, and, well, civility. From an article that Robert Kennedy, Jr. wrote in the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/post_1548_b_807713.html">Huffington Post</a>, following the shooting of Gabby Giffords and others in Tucson, <i>"In 1964, Americans repudiated the forces of right-wing hatred and violence with an historic landslide in the presidential election between LBJ and Goldwater. For a while, the advocateds of right-wing extremism receded from the public forum. Now they have returned with a vengeance -- to the broadcast media and to prominent positions in the political landscape."</i></li>
<ul>
<li>The Republicans, in what is either an act of pure stupidity, or one of anarchy, shut down the government, because nothing else they'd tried had succeeded in getting rid of the Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare).</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<ul><ul>
<li>In 2013, a candidate for Selectman in Maine (not Alabama, or Mississippi, or Louisiana, but Maine!) posted a picture of Barack Obama -- you know, the twice elected President of the United States? -- on Facebook, with the caption "Shoot the Nigger." And there are sites and pages all over the internet that no longer even attempt to hide their racism. I grew up in the 1960s...50 plus years later, I feel like I'm living back there again. Truly sad...while I've never believed that we had gotten to a post-racial society, I certainly didn't believe that we'd regressed 50 years...</li>
</ul>
<li>Speaking of post-racial society...Nelson Mandela died recently at 95. His is an amazing story of endurance and forgiveness and of knowing where true power lay and how to wield it for the benefit of all.</li>
</ul>
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So many things this year, some good, some bad, some personal, some professional, some private, some public. The year has flown by, faster it seems, than years before, but that's how life works, right? Each twelve months a smaller percentage of all the twelve month chunks you've lived until that point. And I find as I grow older, that with each passing twelve months, I care less about the particulars of what have happened, and more about whether the world feels like a better or worse place to me, and what have I done to affect it...and how will it look when my children are my age, and I'm at the end of my time here, or close to it. Will I leave a better world behind for my children to live in?</div>
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With each passing twelve months, I grow increasingly despondent that the world my children will navigate through with their children will be a much less welcoming place than the one I've shepherded them to adulthood in...</div>
Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-91598756288443827642012-10-27T11:57:00.002-07:002012-10-27T12:29:51.356-07:00I feel like I'm caught in a timewarp...I can't believe that it's been nearly two years since I blogged. There have been so many times I've thought about it, but couldn't figure out where to start. So, let's start right now...it's ten days until the 2012 election. Let's recap, I don't know...the last 72 hours. <br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Richard Mourdock, candidate for the US Senate from Indiana said that a pregnancy that results from rape is "something that God intends to happen." Mitt Romney studiously avoids all questions from reporters asking him if he disavows Mourdock's remarks, and if he will ask Mourdock to take down the ad that Romney had done supporting Mourdock's candidacy (by the way, the <i>only </i>such ad that Romney has done).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Following Colin Powell's (you remember him, right? Four star general, commander of the US Army Forces, National Security advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State) endorsement of Barack Obama, John Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire (who resigned in disgrace as George H.W. Bush's chief of staff following revelations that he used government aircraft and vehicles to go golfing, go to a stamp collector's convention, where he bought $5000 worth of stamps, etc.) said, on CNN, as quoted in the <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/sununu-suggests-powells-endorsement-of-obama-was-based-on-race/">New York Times</a>, </span><i>"When you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he's got a slightly different reason for preferring President Obama," Mr. Sununu said. Mr. Morgan asked flatly, “What reason would that be?” Mr. Sununu responded, “Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him.”</i></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Ann Coulter, that blight upon humanity, called the president a "retard," and then doubled down on her remarks after being called out by many, but most elegantly by <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/special-olympics-athlete-takes-ann-coulter-task-over-120626285--oly.html">John Franklin Stephens</a>, a Special Olympics athlete, and a 30-year-old with Down's Syndrome.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Donald Trump, the ultimate carnival barker, offered $5 million to the charity of the president's choice if he would release his school records, his passport applications, and something else...don't remember, doesn't fucking matter...</span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">The fights continue (and the very idea that they are happening at all makes my head explode!) over who should makes the decisions about how a woman should behave, who should get to make her health decisions for her...it is, truly and sadly, the worst sort of clown show. Chris Matthews finally became the first journalist to call it out for what it is: </span></span> <i>"I don't like to [compare] anything to Sharia, but there's something about this theocratic notion that we're going to apply all our philosophical beliefs, our metaphysics, our religious training and turn it into law and turn it into criminalization."</i> Terry O'Neil, the president of the National Organization for Women was a guest on his show, and put the sharp end on his point: <i>"I think that it's kind of the creeping Talibanization of American policy." Speaking of Mitt Romney, she insisted that the Republican is in the "thick of this very fringe but very dangerous line of thought."</i><br />
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">I'm reminded of the famous footage of the beginning of Joseph McCarthy's downfall, when Joseph Welch, who was the head counsel for the Army at the McCarthy hearings, had <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTwDUpbQHJg">finally had enough</a>: </span><i>"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"</i></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;">We've had enough. The lack of decency, the lack of decorum, civility, or even basic human respect...is appalling. In our political discourse, we have shown ourselves to be the most vulgar and low of human beings, and in our human discourse, we are no better. I hope and pray that we will go past this, and yet I fear that we have simply revealed ourselves over the last four years, and we truly have learned nothing about ourselves and those we share the planet with in the last fifty years.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 18px;">Perhaps we're on the cusp of turning the corner...</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 18px;">Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, said on Ed Schultz's show that "my party [the Republican party] is full of racists."</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18px;">This morning, on her show, Melissa Harris-Perry delivered a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/27/melissa-harris-perry-deli_n_2030834.html">very powerful and forceful open letter</a> to Richard Mourdock on the subject of abortion and women's rights.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 18px;">Last night, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/27/bill-maher-mitt-romney-warning_n_2030187.html?utm_hp_ref=comedy">Bill Maher warned moderates</a> that if they vote for Mitt, they'll be voting to bring the crazies back to Washington.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-52351945481883095092011-01-25T11:36:00.000-08:002011-01-25T11:37:49.552-08:00A Tribute to Olbermann: Why He Is Different From the Pundits at Fox NewsIf I could have said it better myself, I would have...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-26901291414127431222011-01-22T17:12:00.000-08:002011-01-22T17:21:01.915-08:00Phil Griffin is a fucking moronI'm certain that, in the fullness of time, the details of Keith Olbermann's departure from MSNBC will become public, but whether it was Keith's decision to leave, or Phil Griffin's decision that he leave, allowing him to go has to be one of the dumbest decisions ever made (or not made, or bungled) in cable television history. Keith was on the vanguard of what made MSNBC into what it is today, and he was the loudest, most eloquent counterpoint to the right wing blather at Fox Noise. Don't get me wrong...Rachel and Lawrence are wonderful, but there's no replacing the original...<br /><br />We'll miss you, Keith, but look forward to your re-emergence, in whatever form, in whatever medium (or media). Hurry back!Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-36458839518881311482011-01-14T12:46:00.000-08:002011-12-29T13:51:53.935-08:00Some more thoughts on Tucson, Sarah Palin, and civil discourse...A friend of mine wrote me on Facebook about the broad generalizations on both sides of the ideological divide in this country following Tucson,and when I sat down to respond to him, much more poured out of me than I had anticipated...and so I share it here, too.<br /><br />Listen, I'm (mostly) a centrist, too, though probably more liberal than you. That said, the issue (at least from my perspective) is not as you describe it. Let me try to explain:<br /><br />1) I don't believe that Sarah Palin caused this problem. This guy was a nut bag, acted on his own, and whether he was aware of the gun sights on the map or not is almost immaterial. As a psychologist I heard on television explained it, "it was not ideology which caused this problem, it was pathology, but the ideology was gift-wrapping on the pathology." I think that's a pretty interesting way of looking at it, and I happen to agree.<br /><br />2) What Sarah Palin IS responsible for, I think, is how she speaks. Saying things like, "Don't retreat, reload!" or "We need to take up arms" or things of that nature, not in private, or to a small group of friends, but publicly, loudly, to the American people is, frankly, not what people look for in a potential leader, and absolutely does foment the general environment of political and civil discord that's running amok in this country right now. Is she responsible all by herself? Of course not. Is she helping to stoke the fires of anger among a population that is, quite frankly, in the aggregate, uninformed about their world? Absolutely she is! In the health care debate, it was she who coined the term "death panels." She was referring to a provision that would subsidize the cost of end-of-life counseling for those who wanted it. In other words, if I am terminally ill, and want to talk to a counsellor about my wishes about how I want to die, what provisions I want to make for my funeral, how I want to say goodbye to my family, etc., that counselling would have been paid for by my insurance. Death panel? Absofuckinglutely not. Words have consequences and effects in the real world,and a person in her position, with the national audience she has, MUST carefully weigh each word that they speak, much more so than you or I, and they have a RESPONSIBILITY to do so.<br /><br />3) The choice of "blood libel" was simply either tone deaf, or intentionally belligerent. There is no alternate "generic" or less volatile and offensive interpretation, as I've heard some try to explain. It's like "Nazi" or "nigger" or painting a swastika on someone's house, or burning a cross in their front yard. You may try however you like to explain that that is not what you meant, but there is NO alternate meaning, given the dark history linked to those terms. "Blood libel" was, quite simply, an accusation made against Jews that they would kill Christian children, and use their blood to make Passover matzoh. The most recent such accusation happened in Massena, New York, in September, 1928 (read this <a href="http://www.wherewhatwhen.com/read_articles.asp?id=317">http://www.wherewhatwhen.com/read_articles.asp?id=317</a>) , so, though that is a long time ago, this is something which occurred even in this country, and in modern times. Her choice of this term is inexcusable. Maybe a speechwriter wrote it, and she didn't know what it meant (one theory I've heard in the media). If a speechwriter handed me something I didn't understand, I would ask what it meant before delivering it. THAT is what a leader does. What she did is NOT what a leader does. I think it's also worthwhile reading this article, by Bobby Kennedy, Jr., about what the tone was in this country when his uncle was assassinated: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/post_1548_b_807713.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/post_1548_b_807713.html</a><br /><br />4) On the overall question of what this says about her ability to be president, David Frum (former speechwriter for George W. Bush, and certainly not a liberal) probably did the best, and most dispassionate job of explaining why her 8 minute video damaged her: "When you apply for a job, you should dress for the job you want,” Frum noted, “She dressed for the job she has.”<br /><br />5) On the general question of the lack of security at the event, even though the USCP has a protection unit which can provide notification to local law enforcement, USCP is almost exclusively focused on providing protection to the leadership of both houses of congress, not the individual members, and in exceptional circumstances, to those who have been threatened, and then only until the perceived threat has passed or lessened. I agree, had her office notified local law enforcement, even the presence of a single police officer might have provided enough of a disincentive to prevent this guy from doing what he did. Or not... But, it is an all too common occurrence for members of congress, when in their districts, to hold gatherings like this one across their district, and to plan security for each of these would a) be extremely complex, and require exponentially larger expenditures, which b) would likely not be viewed kindly by their mostly ignorant constituencies.<br /><br />It's a difficult problem. Even though the last paragraph of what you sent me talks about the "assumed" tradeoff between accessibility and security, I think in practical terms the tradeoff exists, and brings with it a cost, as well, not only in dollars, but in lost civility, lost (dare I say it?) democracy.<br /><br />When I was a boy, my parents took us to Washington, DC, multiple times. I was able to attend the Senate Select Committee hearings on Watergate, without going through any metal detectors, and I was patted on the head by Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii (still serving) and by Senators Howard Baker and Sam Ervin (the chairman of the committee. I saw Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman testify. Years later, I was able to see Ollie North testify during the Iran Contra hearings. Multiple times, we toured the White House, and at the Capitol, you could go to your representative's office, and get free gallery tickets to watch the House or the Senate, and you could pretty much freely walk through the capital. We even rode the small capitol subway (which runs between the Capitol and the various House and Senate office buildings) with senators and representatives.<br /><br />When I took MY children there, last April, you can no longer enter the Capitol, except through the new Visitor's Center, and you can no longer walk through it except via a guided tour, and most of the areas I walked around freely in as a child are now completely off limits. Why? Multiple shooting incidents over the years, following which new and more stringent security measures were put into place. Are members now more safe when they are in the Capitol? Of course. Have we lost something invaluable in our democracy in terms of access? Yes, absolutely. Has that loss of access and increasing distance between the people and their leaders contributed to the feeling of distrust of government? I don't see how anyone could make the case against that point of view...<br /><br />That is much more than I was intending to write when I began, but I hope you understand that the debate is more nuanced than how it is cast in the media, and it IS a valid debate, and a necessary one. Frankly, I think it is MORE dangerous NOT to have it, than to have it...<br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/post_1548_b_807713.html"></a>Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-63302535858711735932011-01-13T10:56:00.001-08:002011-01-13T11:04:30.145-08:00Blood libel???I wrote in my last post that maybe, finally, Sarah would engage her brain and think before she spoke. Fat chance of that, huh?<br /><br />There's plenty that's been said/written by others on her most recent screed, but this woman is vile, repugnant, morally bankrupt, and intellectually vacant. She's an embarassment...to her supporters, to her fellow Republicans (though, were I one, I would not want to identify myself with her in any way), and to herself, if she were actually self-aware. She's had her 15 minutes of fame...it's time for her to return to the swamp she crawled out of...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-84441641920788439712011-01-09T10:43:00.000-08:002011-01-09T11:16:14.610-08:00The World has gone mad...When will people like the half-witted, half-term quitter, morally and intellectually bankrupt pretender, Palin, learn that words, like actions, have consequences. I wrote in part on this topic almost two years ago (<a href="http://il-dolce-far-niente.blogspot.com/2009/04/disconnect.html">http://il-dolce-far-niente.blogspot.com/2009/04/disconnect.html</a>), about how words can create, change, destroy real things in the physical world. Now, Palin's PR machine has spun up to try to say that her website "targeting" Democrats using riflescope-style crosshairs had "nothing to do with violence or guns." Really? I know you guys aren't that naive, so then you must be complicit...guilty...responsible. "<a href="http://www.alaskadispatch.com/blogs/palin-watch/8205-palin-staffer-calls-using-tragedy-to-score-political-points-qobsceneq-" target="_hplink">We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights</a>," she said in an <a href="http://tammybruce.com/2011/01/special-public-podcast-intv-w-rebecca-mansour.html" target="_hplink">interview</a> with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. "It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps." Give me a fucking break. I've never seen crosshairs on any map I've ever looked at. Have any of you? Go home, hug your children, and contemplate the death of the 9-year-old little girl, born on 9/11/2001, who only went because she was just elected to her student council, and a neighbor thought it would be a great experience for her to see what real politics was all about. How dare you <em>spin this!!!</em><br /><br />I would love to see Palin indicted as a co-conspirator.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIMMRE2HDw63kU8NzlIn9iIn0PP_1KXimYQn8go7nFk7HT_1CBio7Dff5v_dP9UTebiBQeCQu9ur4dyYwpiW87CWtGDft80Aa6E3P_PuZthSQ8xUIs-_gEWa-89iVFn4N7o08glQ/s1600/SARAH-PALIN-TARGET-LIST.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 197px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5560263053960692562" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIMMRE2HDw63kU8NzlIn9iIn0PP_1KXimYQn8go7nFk7HT_1CBio7Dff5v_dP9UTebiBQeCQu9ur4dyYwpiW87CWtGDft80Aa6E3P_PuZthSQ8xUIs-_gEWa-89iVFn4N7o08glQ/s320/SARAH-PALIN-TARGET-LIST.jpg" /></a><br />Perhaps now, Sarah, following the brutal murders of a 9-year-old (!), a federal judge, a minister, and three nearly 80 year old bystanders, perhaps now, you'll engage what few sequentially-firing neurons you have, and THINK before you open your mouth...I hope the faces of the dead haunt your dreams for the rest of your life, though I suspect that in your own dimly lit mind, you can't or won't ever make the connection. Go back to Alaska, won't you? Leave the country to the truly patriotic, dedicated, committed ADULT leaders...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-54582861848751685752010-02-06T23:00:00.000-08:002010-02-06T23:01:11.395-08:00Palin to Obama: Stop LecturingAmerica to Palin: Go fuck yourself!Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-45794828901797093392009-12-07T12:48:00.000-08:002009-12-07T13:04:17.047-08:00Live out Loud!Just came from Mighty Maddy's funeral...as funerals go, this one had it all...laughter, tears, wisdom, tender moments. "Live out Loud" is what was on the buttons that were on the tables at the reception after the service. What an exhortation! We, truly, are given nothing, and there's nothing like the death of a child to remind us all how fleeting life is...<br /><br />Rest in peace, Maddy, and I wish peace for your family, and joy in their memories of you.Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-30982924319500673742009-12-01T17:49:00.000-08:002009-12-02T06:42:19.656-08:00Rest in peace, Mighty Maddy...About an hour after I posted last evening, Mighty Maddy passed away...I hope for peace for the family she leaves behind...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-61534530474335090432009-11-30T21:12:00.000-08:002009-12-01T05:35:39.161-08:00A Reflection on the Fragility of Life, part...?It seems like yesterday, but in fact, it's almost two years ago since I wrote <a href="http://il-dolce-far-niente.blogspot.com/2008/03/reflection-on-fragility-of-life.html">this post</a>, after the sudden death of the son of a friend of mine in a tragic accident.<br /><br /><br /><br />Tonight, again, I must reflect on how ephemeral, how short, and how...unfair?...life can be. Tonight, Mighty Maddy will come to the end of her year-long fight with leukemia. When, exactly, the end will come is not known, but during the course of this evening, it almost certainly <em>will</em> come, when the last of her life support is disconnected. Maddy is 8 years old...<br /><br /><br />As I sit here, in the comfort of my home, while my three children sleep upstairs, all healthy, I cannot fathom what it must be like to know that your child is going to die...not some day, not next year or in fifty years, but most likely tonight...or certainly tomorrow. How do you say goodbye? How do you make the terrible decision that the time has passed when perhaps there is yet more that can be done to save her, that the time has come to make the decision to let her go, to manage her pain, so that her passing will be as painless and simple as possible? How can you let go, believing, though you may, though you must, that her journey is not yet finished, but that she is moving on to another world, a better world? How, as a parent, can you cope with the desparate pain that you must let your baby make that journey into the unknown alone?<br /><br />For oh so many reasons, as I have grown older, my faith in the God that I was raised to believe in has ...morphed...faded...transformed... In the days that followed 9/11, I began to draw a hard line between belief in God, and adherence to religion. I know that we humans need ritual in our lives. It helps us to understand, to grasp, to find comfort, and to find constancy, in all the terrible reality that life carries with it. But, as 9/11 so cruelly taught, religion is of man, and as with all things made by man, man can use it to do terrible things to his fellow human beings in the name of what he "believes."<br /><br />The psychologist, Carl Jung, was asked once in an interview if he believed in God. His answer (my paraphrasal, anyway) was that he did not need to believe in God, because he <em>knew </em>that God existed. Somewhere, somehow, deep within myself, I, too, know that God exists...at least I cannot reconcile any understanding of my world if it did not, at some point, <em>begin</em>! What happens after I've breathed my last, I do not know... but I must believe that God did not create this life as a dress rehearsal.<br /><br />Tonight, Oh Lord, from the depths of my soul, I invoke your love and your mercy. Carry Maddy safely to you, and bring comfort to her family and friends, who must endure this terrible, unexplainable loss...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-40310318236318559602009-04-22T12:37:00.000-07:002009-04-28T08:47:21.720-07:00Disconnect...From time to time, I get to thinking about the power of language, and how different ways of speaking (whether out loud, or in your own head) about something can result in two people perceiving the same thing in diametrically opposite ways. Separately, but related, I'm often struck by the cavalier manner with which people use language. Language, <em><strong>speaking</strong></em>, actually causes and shapes real things in the real world.<br /><br />Think about JFK promising that, within a decade, we would send a man to the moon, and return him safely to earth. Lofty, yes, but most importantly, much of the technology and materials needed to accomplish that vision did not exist when he spoke it. And we in fact <em>did</em> send man to the moon and return him safely to earth within that decade. That is the power of language to create...<br /><br />"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!!" ...'nuff said.<br /><br />I got a letter the other day from someone I was close to many, many years ago, sparked, apparently, by my having made a connection request on LinkedIn. The details aren't important, but what's germane to this post is the language in the letter, and how it knocked me back on my heels. I read a fast, hard-hitting synopsis of the last twenty plus years (by the way, I'm paraphrasing a little here, since I don't remember the exact wording, and I threw the letter out)...<em>"I'm Catholic, and I'm pro-life," </em>and <em>"I own firearms" </em>and <em>"I held the son of a friend of mine as he died after being hit with a terrorist IED,"</em> along with a lot of pain that's apparently been sitting just below the surface all this time. I got to thinking...<br /><br /><br /><ul><li>Catholic and Pro-Life, own firearms, apparently have been to Iraq or Afghanistan or both. What does "Pro-Life" mean exactly? Pro-<em>all </em>life? Or just one specific kind? </li><li>Doesn't owning firearms on some level make you pro-death? I mean, they're kind of a single-purpose device, they accomplish exactly the same end as suction or the morning after pill, only by different means. Mind you, I'm not anti-gun...not by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm also acutely aware that I can't (and don't) claim that I'm pro-life if I'm pro-gun!</li><li>Is a yet-to-be-born life intrinsically more valuable than one that's gone on for 19 or 22 or 25 years? It's ok to kill and be killed in a war fought by a government, but it's murder if it happens in a war between rival gangs? What about a prisoner, convincted in a trial by a jury, whom science later proves was not guilty? (There's a good book called <em>"Picking Cotton" </em>which talks about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony in the context of a story of a man who was convicted of rape, and convicted again in a second trial, based on the eyewitness testimony of the victim, and ultimately, DNA evidence proved it wasn't him, but someone who looked very much like him. What if he had been executed?) Why, exactly is one form of killing wrong, and others are right? Seems to me, the dead are still dead, and as far as I know, that's still an irreversible condition.</li><li>What about embryos? Those which are used become people...those unused are discarded...like garbage...not buried, not given a funeral. Is one life, the other not? Who gets to draw that distinction? The Bush administration drew one, albeit weird and twisted...these embryos were, in fact, life, and so could not be "destroyed" for stem cell research...yet they could be discarded like garbage if not implanted in a uterus and brought to term.</li><li>Holding someone dying from injuries from an IED...is that qualitatively or otherwise different from holding someone dying from a gunshot wound on the street, or holding someone dying from cancer, or <em>not being able to hold someone</em> who died when the airplane they were on vaporized in the World Trade Center? Is one experience morally superior to the other? Does one give you some bona fides to speak morally that the others do not?</li><li>In case the pro-choice nuts take solace in what I wrote about what it means to be pro-life, just what the hell does "pro-choice" mean? Yes, I understand the usual exceptions for rape and incest. Life of the mother presents some interesting dilemmas. BUT...the choice was exercised in the instant the decision was made to have unprotected sex. To pretend that there's yet another choice to be had about that decision <em>after </em>it's been made...is hypocrisy. And the idea that somehow or other it is about the woman's choice about what to do with her body completely ignores the fact that there were two involved in creating that life that grows within her...what to do about what two created is not solely the choice of one, is it?? Again, I don't state this like it was handed down on stone tablets...I could be (and maybe am) wrong, from one or more points of view...</li></ul><p>Apparently, the letter-writer has also read things I've posted online, like this blog, and made a random comment about, essentially, defending my right to spew my left-wing blather...and how my travels have been to "tourist destinations" while the writer's have been to other, presumably less-pleasurable, destinations. I've traveled extensively in my work, and the effect that has had (and you can get some of this from previous posts I've made here) is that I've realized that the world is way smaller than one might believe, especially if you have remained coccooned within a couple hundred miles of where you were born your entire life. And in an odd way, the more of the world you see, the more you realize what a lunatic fringe radical Islamism is...it would sort of be like judging that the United States is nothing but a bunch of white supremacists because your only exposure to the people of the US is from something you saw about some Aryan group in Idaho. Here again...language can be used in such a cavalier fashion...with such powerful results, positive or negative!</p><p>I ...we all... owe an unpayable debt of gratitude to those who've made the choice...the commitment...the sacrifice to join the nation's armed forces, and who are then obligated to go where they are ordered to go, and do what they are ordered to do. But please...don't presume moral superiority over me because you've chosen to go, while I did not, and don't put your choice in my face, because it was <em>your</em> choice...nobody forced that decision on you, nobody made the choice on your behalf. </p><p>The decision to go to Iraq and not to pursue bin Laden was a political decision, and I don't accept that had we not gone to Iraq, somehow my freedoms would have been challenged. Nor, frankly, do I accept that my freedoms were in peril when the towers fell. In fact, my government has done more to restrict my freedom since 9/11 than Al Quaeda did. In a perverse way, my government has become Al Quaeda's instrument to undermine the American way of life, and the freedoms we...to my letter writer's point, perhaps...take for granted.</p><p>So thank you for your service to our country...sincerely...but our children dying in Iraq is not making me more free or even preserving the freedoms I already had, and that, in my humble opinion, is a far greater crime... Ending the scourge of Nazism and Hitler in WWII, especially because Hitler got <em>so </em>close to achieving his goals...that was a question of preserving our freedoms. Going to war with Japan because they bombed Pearl Harbor...that was a question of preserving our freedoms. Going into Afghanistan to crush Al Quaeda and find bin Laden...that <em>would be </em>about preserving my freedoms...Iraq was a disastrous decision, and mind you, not one I pin on our military, anymore than I blame our military for the fiasco in Vietnam.</p><p>One last point about this...the recent stream of revelations about how we tortured people in our custody has made the world considerably less safe for me as an American, and considerably less safe for my children...as Americans, perhaps as future soldiers, sailors, or marines... The game that is ongoing around whether or not it was torture, whether or not what we do can be called torture, even if it resembles in every way the same activities conducted by other governments which we have unequivocally labeled as torture...is really a vile, dangerous game, and is completely about shaping perception with language...attempting, in a very real and concrete way, to change reactions and behavior by changing the speaking about it...</p><p>But back to the main reason I began this post...it blows my mind that two people can share an experience (as in the ongoing torture conversation), and yet have completely unrelated perceptions of that experience...or worse still, believe that two separate things took place. It <strong><em>is</em></strong> all about how we choose to talk about it, and how we shape our perceptions, our memories, and our judgments, based on the language we use to describe it.</p><p>As for my letter-writer...I can only profess my contrition for unwittingly causing pain, the more because my experience of those events could not possibly have been more different than described...that they were is perplexing...and makes me wonder how I could have "spoken" differently...and why our separate language about the shared experiences could be so different...</p>Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-68235337536726807562009-02-15T19:40:00.000-08:002009-02-15T20:16:44.380-08:00Random Thoughts...I guess I'm not really much of a blogger...just realized I haven't blogged in about three months...<br /><br />One of my intellectual heroes, B.F. Skinner, used to say that if you wanted to become a good writer, you should write every day. He believed that writing was like any other behavior...the more you practice it, the more skilled you become, and that it is self-reinforcing.<br /><br />The "stimulus" bill has passed, and the president will sign it tomorrow. Not a single Republican vote from the house, and just 3 in the Senate. I get really irritated seeing key Republicans (John Boehner, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, as my favorite examples), men who led us down the path of ruin over the last 8 years, stand in the well of the Senate and bloviate about the bill, how it's just another Democratic spending bill that will put us in debt. Hello, McFly? Just what the hell do you think a stimulus is? I particularly enjoyed Congresswoman Candice Miller (R-MI) standing in front of the cameras to declare that this bill was full of pork, like high-speed rail from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and that Michigan was being railroaded with this bill. OK, lady, first of all, if you can't do word play as well as Jesse Jackson or Johnny Cochran, then don't try, because you sound stupid. Secondly, I'll grant you that there are probably more useful and justifiable places to put high-speed rail than between LA and Vegas. BUT...think about the number of jobs that will be created to build it...and jobs are important, especially when we're losing 500,000 of them a month in this country...<br /><br />I think people under-appreciate the economic peril we are in. And I think that the failure to grasp how close we are to the precipice is a failure of intellect or honesty or both. If you're much over the age of 30, and haven't suffered a major head trauma sometime in your life that's caused you to forget the past, you don't need to be a Harvard-educated economist to know that there's never been an economic condition like this in your lifetime. And you also don't need to be exceedingly bright to realize that if we've slipped further and further in the last eight years, then whatever we were doing during that time must not have been working very well. And that if you try something over and over and it doesn't work, then you stop trying the same thing, and try something different!<br /><br />I think what Obama's done is the right thing, and even yet, it could fail. It COULD fail...but certainly, doing nothing, or continuing to do the things which got us into this mess WILL fail...<br /><br />There are times when I wish I could just retire...walk away, and spend the rest of my days reading, relaxing, and cooking in my own restaurant...and then I reflect on just how unrealistic that dream is...maybe some day I'll hit the lottery...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-90732980502094846982008-11-11T12:23:00.000-08:002008-11-11T13:51:51.970-08:00A New Day in America, or the same old same old?I hate writing posts like this...I really do...<br /><br />"Let these bastards get in...I don't give a damn anymore." That beauty comes from Roberta McCain, John McCain's mother. My immediate response, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, is... well, those of you who know me can well imagine the expletive-laced epithet that immediately comes to mind...but I've been told my gutter mouth leads people to not listen to the message... Let's put it this way...I hope that Roberta McCain doesn't need anything from the Obama administration...if she's collecting Social Security or a military pension, perhaps she should express her outrage and moral superiority by giving it back... amazing the sense of entitlement that some people have...<br /><br />Here's another beauty from a business associate of mine, from his facebook page: "What a truly, truly sad day in American history!!! When we put financial hope and superficial emotion over moral standards and right & wrong!!!" Dude...moral standards like...sending nearly 5,000 young American kids to their deaths in Iraq for a war which was justified with lies? Moral standards like calling Obama a terrorist, a traitor, and screaming that he should be killed? Moral standards like letting unused embryos be discarded in the trash, rather than using them for stem cell research, which might actually prolong life and find cures for diseases like Parkinson's and spinal cord injuries which otherwise shorten life? Those kinds of moral standards? I cannot believe the arrogance...<br /><br />But, I don't even really need to look far from home...my own brother-in-law sent me and his sister an email in which he asserts that Obama won because 95% of blacks (he won't call them African Americans) voted for him, (and here's the good part) <em>and that's just racist</em>! Pity is, I <em>know</em> how <em>he</em> was raised...and it saddens me that he is such a bigot...for no reason...my in-laws are lifelong Republicans, but decent, good people...I don't know what happened with their son.<br /><br />I wrote in a <a href="http://il-dolce-far-niente.blogspot.com/2008/02/rush-limbaugh-is-fucking-moron.html">previous post</a> that I was heartbroken at the level to which political discourse had sunk in this country. I fear that I was wrong...it wasn't about political discourse. If only it were that trivial. Instead, I fear that we have come no farther in my lifetime than where we were when I was a child, divided as a society, suspicious of one another because of our skin color, or the shape of our nose, or because some speak with an accent...I thought that we had become more enlightened...<br /><br />I've heard many a news reader or commentator or political analyst remark that we elected Obama because we had finally transcended race as a people...not hardly, I think...oh yes, some of us did...perhaps a great many of us. Yes, it's true that he got 61% of the "white" vote...and yet...<br /><br />Can we imagine that Bill Clinton or John Kerry or John Edwards or hell, Joe Biden, would have been called a "terrorist"... a "socialist" ... a "traitor"? Yes, it's true that Kerry was savaged over his service to his country in Viet Nam. I supposed it is OK to question him if you, too were there, and didn't come back and criticize your country. But, isn't even questioned service more honorable than service avoided? Yes, I'm talking about you, W, and you, Cheney, and you Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Rove and the rest who lied us into Iraq...who never having served in a war...never having seen its horrors firsthand, thought nothing of sending our sons and daughters to die in one? But even at the height of the indignation over Bill Clinton's lascivious behavior, nobody ever called him unpatriotic, or a terrorist, or a traitor. Why Obama and not Clinton? Or Kerry? When you can't call someone a "nigger" anymore, what do you call him? A traitor, a terrorist, a socialist... You try to make people believe that he's dangerous...that terrible things will happen if he's elected. I was happy to hear Colin Powell be the first to say, about people calling Obama a Muslim...so what if he was? Why, in a country founded on religious freedom would we not be accepting of a Muslim president?<br /><br />But wait... why is Obama a "black" man? His mother was "white"...are we still back in the days of the late 1800s when the so-called "one-drop rule" came into being? The rule held that if you had just one drop of non-white blood, then you were not white. <a title="Madison Grant" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Grant">Madison Grant</a> of Virginia in <a title="The Passing of the Great Race" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passing_of_the_Great_Race">The Passing of the Great Race</a> wrote: "The cross between a white man and an <a title="Native Americans in the United States" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States">Indian</a> is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a negro is a negro; the cross between a white man and a <a title="Historical definitions of races in India" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_definitions_of_races_in_India">Hindu</a> is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a <a title="Jew" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew">Jew</a> is a Jew." (Interestingly enough, the "one-drop rule" wasn't declared unconstitutional until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed Virginia's inter-racial marriage ban in <a title="Loving v. Virginia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia">Loving v. Virginia</a>.) If we considered Obama to be "white" would we have called him all these names?<br /><br />What if none of this "below the surface" racism were there...what about those who labeled him as an elitist? It blows my mind that we are suspicious of smart people...think about that for a minute, why don't you? My dad is retired now. He was a schoolteacher, on the secondary level, taught foreign languages, science, math, and English. It used to happen to him, probably once a year, that during parent-teacher conferences, a parent would say to him "You're so smart! Why are you teaching here?" My dad would respond, incredulously, "Would you have an idiot teaching your children?"<br /><br />One would think that we would want <em>only </em>the smartest among us as our leader. One would think that after eight long years of the "C-" president, we would hunt, desperately, for intellectuals to lift us up...to tackle the difficult problems that the current holder of the office has led us into. Instead, we got the hillbilly from Wasilla. The lipstick on a pig analogy was oh so appropriate...this non-intellectual journalism major who can't name a single newspaper that she reads, who had the audacity to claim that she had foreign policy experience because she can see Russia from her house...oh my god...<br /><br />I am thrilled beyond my ability to describe it that Barack Hussein Obama will be our next president. As Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg put it, she had been waiting all of her life for someone to inspire her the way that people told her that her father had inspired them. He is certainly inspirational. He is eloquent. He paints broad pictures of big ideas. No president in my lifetime, since JFK, has done that. Will he succeed at everything he touches? Probably not. But I do believe that he will reach for grand things. Will he be my generation's JFK? Or given the current situation in the world, our FDR?<br /><br />It is dangerous to invest too many hopes and dreams in one man (or woman). Yet, for the first time in my lifetime, I feel hopeful, and I dare to dream of a country so much better than it is today. Time will tell...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-71952436180215133662008-11-10T21:35:00.000-08:002008-11-10T21:38:25.952-08:00So overdue...I need to find the time to reflect on the election of Barack Obama...and I will...but for the moment, after not blogging for so long, after being so angry by where i saw this country moving...<br /><br />I am SO thrilled at the potential ahead of us...<br /><br />more later...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-39044217761505676262008-03-21T15:57:00.001-07:002008-03-21T20:19:31.215-07:00A Reflection on the Fragility of Life...Today, I attended a funeral...<br /><br />It wasn't a "normal" funeral...you know, one where the deceased has lived a long, full life, is in his or her 70s or 80s or 90s, and even though there is sorrow at the passing, there's not shock or devastation at the sudden, inexplicable loss that happened too soon...<br /><br />Today, I went to a funeral for the son of a friend, a man I work with. His son, just 19 years old, was killed sometime shortly after 3AM this past Sunday. In the rain, which made the roads slick, in the middle of the night, he wrecked his car, got out, tried to cross the interstate to get to safety, and was hit by a semi-truck and killed.<br /><br />It's not the details of the accident that provide the shock, though they are shocking enough. It's the sense of senseless loss, the end of an all-too-young life in an instant, the tragedy for a father and mother and four-year-old brother he leaves behind, of instantly being robbed of a bright light in their lives. As a father myself, I cannot fathom, nor do I hope that I will ever have to, the profundity of their loss. Fathers are not supposed to bury their sons...not supposed to bear the pain of going on after having someone so precious taken from them...<br /><br />And, as for this child's mother...I cannot ever claim that I can know what she must feel. I have always been (just the tiniest bit) jealous of the bond between my wife and our children...she carried them inside her for 9 months, felt them, literally, as a part of her...gave them life, and then nurtured and fed that life, all in a way that I, of course, could not, a bond I can never share. No matter how much Dad must feel that his heart has been wrenched out of his chest, his grief, his pain, must pale in comparison to that of his wife...<br /><br />This is the third time in just over ten years that I have attended a funeral like this one. The first, in November, 1997, was for the daughter of a friend of mine, a child who suffered from <a href="http://www.christinacapozzifoundation.com/shones.html">Shone's Syndrome</a>, and lost her hard-fought battle at the tender age of 8 1/2. The second, in June, 2004, was a friend of my son's, an almost 8-year-old boy who died when, while riding his bike, he collided with a pickup truck. And now this one...<br /><br />It is these times, when a life ends so suddenly, that we're reminded just how fragile and how precious life is. It is times like this when you realize that you may not get the time to mend a broken friendship, or to renew a relationship with a relative. Life is oh so short, oh so tenuous, and each day lived is a victory over death. In our rapid-fire culture here in the US, it seems sometimes as though we always live for tomorrow. If we work just a little harder now...if we invest ourselves in our careers a little more now...if we labor to make progress now, so that someday...SOME day...we might be able to slow down a little, take a breath, and smell the proverbial roses.<br /><br />We see commercials on television that tell us we need "a plan" for our retirement, that play on our baby-boomer sensibilities, that tell us we can have our cake <em>and </em>eat it too, our sense that there is a future to which we are entitled...<br /><br />We are entitled to nothing...<br /><br />I am certainly not preaching a "live for today, to hell with the future" philosophy...certainly we should never fail to plan...but we must also learn to live, to wring every drop from life each and every day, because tomorrow is not guaranteed. The very title of this blog captures the essence of what I'm talking about..."Il dolce far niente"... literally, the sweetness of doing nothing...the idea that in those moments we can steal from the grind of daily life, obligation, work...one can find the sweetness that is what living is truly about...<br /><br />Recently, on <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/">Countdown with Keith Olbermann</a> (if you read this blog, you know Keith is my hero), there was a short piece about a man in the United Kingdom, 101 years old, who was preparing to run the London marathon. When asked what he does to prepare, the first thing he said was that he wakes up every morning...good prep!<br /><br />There's no lesson here (I'm not qualified to offer one even if there were), and I'm not even sure why I'm writing this, except perhaps for catharsis for myself.<br /><br />For each of my friends, I cannot know your grief and your pain, and I pray that I never shall, and I do not know what I can do to help you with yours, other than to pray for you, for your children, and for myself and mine...Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-37048237689197526342008-02-15T07:55:00.000-08:002008-02-15T10:11:11.103-08:00Rush Limbaugh is a fucking moron...<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23176099/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23176099/</a><br /><br /><em>“I would like today to announce a tentative decision — I’m still thinking about it — to endorse Barack Obama,” he said, his head cocked slightly toward his 18-karat-gold-plated microphone, his hands spread wide like the wings of his sleek G4 jet.</em> His microphone is 18 karat gold plated?? These are the kinds of people that, when a revolution happens, the poor, hungry, and disenfranchised seek out first, and tar and feather, or disembowel, or behead. I'm sorry...was daydreaming there for a second...<br /><br /><em>“Folks, can we agree, just between us,” he told his listeners, sotto voce, on Wednesday, “has it not been brilliant how strategically I have inserted myself in this campaign?”</em> Is this guy actually for real??<br /><br />I'm heartbroken...I really am...at the level to which political discourse has fallen in our country.Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-3315296198814027842008-01-09T09:10:00.000-08:002008-11-11T09:49:26.770-08:00Soldier blogs from beyond the grave...As I was perusing msnbc.com this morning, I came across the story of Major Andrew Olmsted, killed in Iraq on January 3 (seven more American service people have died since him, bringing the US death toll to 3, 915). He had been blogging for some time, under a nom de plume, about the war, his experiences, life in general...<br /><br />Major Olmsted wrote (and apparently revised a couple times) a final blog entry to be posted in the event of his death. It's a worthwhile read, as, I'm discovering, so much of what he wrote is...<br /><br />Requiescat in pacem...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.andrewolmsted.com/">http://www.andrewolmsted.com/</a>Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-26942547978324934652007-12-27T10:05:00.000-08:002007-12-30T11:03:27.270-08:002007...goodbye and good riddance<div align="left"><a href="http://www.bumperart.com/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=2004051002&productID=2795"><img src="http://www.bumperart.com/ProductImages/2004051002_Display-35.gif" /></a><br /><br />Sometimes, the world feels turned upside down to me, and never more, it seems, than this last year...<br /><br />Let's review:<br /><br /></div><ul><li>There are now 3,900 US military personnel dead in Iraq (and counting)...3,900... that's 25% more than perished in the attacks on 9/11...and all in a war entered into on false pretenses, invented facts, and outright lies -- assertions which the demon-in-chief <em>knew</em> to be false when he made them...and a war on a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11. Yes, I know all those who are either too uninformed, or too blind to the truth or just plain morons will shout that al quaeda is all over Iraq. BUT THEY WEREN'T THERE BEFORE WE INVADED!! Which came first? We invaded. We failed to plan for what would happen when we won (you know, nation-building, that thing Dubya said no administration of his would do -- that's one promise he's actually kept...), and the vacuum(s) that followed were opportunistically filled by al quaeda...in fact, more than one student of the situation has observed that there has never been a greater recruiting tool for al quaeda than our invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, Afghanistan languishes, the Taliban is resurgent, Osama bin Laden remains at large (you know, the guy <em>actually </em>responsible for 9/11)... As a great bumper sticker I saw said, <strong>"Nobody died when Clinton lied..." </strong>That about sums it up.<br /></li><li>Scooter Libby was convicted -- <strong>CONVICTED</strong> -- of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned of Valerie Plame’s identity and whom he told <em>(Note here...the revisionist history on this one is that she wasn't really a covert operative. Plame was a "NOC" -- non-official cover, meaning so secret, in the terms of the old <a href="http://www.tv.com/mission-impossible/show/577/summary.html">Mission Impossible </a>television series, that "the secretary" will deny all knowledge...and, by the way, the guy responsible for the law that made it a crime to reveal the identity of a covert agent -- known officially as the "Intelligence Identities Protection Act" -- was the high priest of the republican party, Ronald Reagan.) </em> And then, facing 30 months in jail -- itself a travesty compared to the crime -- his sentence is commuted by the criminal-in-chief, effectively pardoning him, and thus guaranteeing that the details of how Plame's identity came to be leaked will remain known only to the criminals responsible (in case you've lost count, Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby himself, and of course, Mr. C-Average, "W"). I wonder how many foreign agents, recruited by Valerie Plame, and working for <em>us</em> -- you know, the good guys -- lost their lives because she was outed, and they were traced to her...</li><li>That (rhymes with "punt") Coultergeist (as my hero, Keith Olbermann calls her)...for so many things, but my favorite... <em>"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say." </em>Won't somebody just shoot her?</li><li>Here's another of my favorites, courtesy of the deceiver-in-chief...the fact that the US Intelligence community knew that Iran ceased its efforts to build a nuclear bomb in 2003 is proof that they intend to build a nuclear bomb... OK, my head is going to explode now...maybe all those kids who never paid attention in class were right, and I was wrong...if I were stupid, this might all make sense...</li><li>Mitt Romney saw his father march with Martin Luther King...oops! That never happened...no, it was that the NRA endorsed him when he ran for governor of Massachusetts...oops! That never happened either! Wait, wait, he's pro-life...doh!!! There he was, speaking at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in 1994! What a charlatan! The mormons can keep him...America doesn't need him...</li><li>The Democratic congress is ineffectual, because they can't stop Bush...I get so weary of this! If you understood how our government works, you know, according to the <strong>US Constitution</strong>...that thing that controls, well, how our government works, you'd understand that there need to be enough Democrats <em>in</em> congress to override a presidential veto...the specific language, from Article 1, Section 7, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution, <em>"Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, <strong>or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives</strong>, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill." </em>Read it <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section7">here</a>... So, don't piss on the Democrats for not having enough power to defeat this bastard...we, the people, didn't give it to them!!</li><li>And the latest, today, Benazir Bhutto is assassinated...I'm looking over my shoulder for the apocalypse...</li></ul><p>But, there were two good things that did happen in 2007...Jerry Falwell and Henry Hyde, the devil's own minister, and the whoremaster of the US House of Representatives, died. Go straight to hell, boys...there's a special corner reserved just for you...I'm reminded of a passage (one of many) from the bible: <em>Matthew 23:14 "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation." </em>If you know me, you know I'm not a particularly religious person, but I loathe hypocrisy...</p><p>I, for one, am happy to see this year pass...I only hope that 2008 is <em>somehow</em> better...I pray that it not be worse...</p>Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-88616558105515460542007-03-09T13:36:00.000-08:002007-03-09T13:37:41.524-08:00Daylight Savings Time woes...If you own a computer... :-)<br /><br />Here's a link to Microsoft's web site page on the DST issue, with some question driven guides to help you ensure that your device(s) don't choke...<br /><br /><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst">http://support.microsoft.com/gp/cp_dst</a>Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-37922551039994303242007-03-09T11:23:00.000-08:002007-03-09T11:30:04.131-08:00People in glass houses....I've always believed (and said in this blog) that I thought that the Republican-led witch hunt against Bill Clinton for, let's face it, lying about getting a blowjob from a woman who was not his wife in the Oval Office was a far greater travesty than what he did. In fact, I pretty much don't care about what Bill Clinton did (or does) in his personal life, and when you look back on life as an American under Clinton compared to life under the current waste of human flesh who stole the office, well, 'nuff said. I also pointed out that the "holier than thou" Republicans who led the charge, such paragons of moral virtue like Henry Hyde, an adulterer, and Robert Livingston, erstwhile heir apparent to the Speakership of the House and, by the way, an adulterer, were hardly in a position to judge Clinton. It now turns out that that other self-appointed arbiter of all that is good and moral was himself, <em>while spearheading the effort to impeach Clinton (!!!)</em>, having an extramarital affair. Newt, we're surprised, shocked even (NOT!):<br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17527506/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17527506/</a>Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32091847.post-19201159324016196552007-03-04T23:49:00.000-08:002007-03-05T00:04:04.631-08:00More Republican Hijinx....or, Ode to a Lost ConstitutionJust when you think that there must be something they won't do...some level they won't stoop to...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17453555/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17453555/</a><br /><br />Turns out Pete Domenici, Republican Senator from New Mexico, may have called a U.S. Attorney in his home state to pressure him to issue indictments against Democrats implicated in a kickback investigation before the mid-term congressional elections last fall. The prosecutor, David Iglesias, was later fired, he says (with some evidence), because he resisted the pressure by Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson, another NM Republican to rush the indictments. Iglesias is one of eight U.S. Attorneys fired in December, some without cause, all under similar circumstances.<br /><br />There are so many things wrong with this... first off, it is a violation of Congressional ethics for a member of congress to communicate with federal prosecutors about ongoing criminal investigations. But even if Domenici and Wilson skate by on ethics, this kind of behavior smacks of the Gestapo. The Gestapo, during its tenure, operated without any restrictions by civil authority, meaning that its members could not be tried for any of their police practices. This unconditional authority added an elitist element to the Gestapo; its members knew that whatever actions they took, no consequences would arise. Sound familiar...?<br /><br />At least we hung the Nazis...will we actually let these criminals retire with pensions funded by our taxes, earned with our sweat and labor?Just a guy...http://www.blogger.com/profile/17289179394425836318noreply@blogger.com0