the dattblog

2003-09-10T07:36:00.000-04:00

I have finally moved over to the new web site. As of today, I will no longer be posting here. Drop me a line and let me know how you like the new site. Don't worry; it's subject to change.

2003-09-08T19:50:00.000-04:00

We arrived back from Notre Dame/Chicago safe and sound. We had a great time in Chi-town, highlighted by a wrong turn I made which planted us firmly in the middle of the south side of the City near 10pm on Saturday night. Doug (our resident Irish lad) took in the scene in silence. After we found our hotel and were walking around downtown, I was glad that he had caught a glimpse of the "bad" part of the city; it brings balance to someone new to our nation by showing that we, too, have problems.

I gained a new respect for Doug this weekend. He is intelligent, interesting and kind. He is also madly in love with my sister-in-law, which makes my heart glad. Megan was 7 when Kelli and I started dating, so seeing her grow up has made me miss not having younger siblings. I guess, in a way, I consider her my little sister just as much as if we were related biologically. I would not take it well if Doug were not the man he is. However, it looks like he's going to be OK. I am proud to be able to call him a friend.

I learned something else this weekend: The Great Lakes Naval Training Center (affectionately called "Great Mistakes") is now the only Navy boot camp. I went to boot camp in Orlando. At that time, San Diego was also open. Anyway, we saw many freshly-minted recruits walking around downtown. It brought back memories of my own victorious weekend so long ago. Boot camp is such a closed environment that you believe whatever you are told. The cynicism I would later develop had not formed yet. The future was bright. But, my God, those kids are young!!!

I know that I was supposed to be blogging on my own website by the first of September, but I haven't had time to mess with it. Thanks for your patience.

Speaking of computer/internet stuff---I visited the Apple Store in Chicago...wow. Apple does a great job of sellling "hip and cool".

2003-09-05T14:13:00.000-04:00

The father of one of Jessica Lynch's fellow soldiers is angry about her book deal. As I mentioned a few days ago, this is why the Army doesn't keep "celebrities" on the payroll very often. I am truly, truly sorry that this man lost his child, but there is no force in the universe that will bring him back. Lynch's book deal is just a focus for his anger right now, and it's pretty understandable. But understand this: there are thousands upon thousands of men and women who have written books detailing others' pain and loss in war and other times of crisis. People want to read about trauma, loss, heroism, cruelty and all the other facets of human behavior. If all our books were about kindness and good times, no one would read.

Kelli and I are going to Chicago this weekend, so there probably won't be any posting until Tuesday. We are taking her younger sister and Doug, her boyfriend from Ireland. This is his first visit the the US, so it will be interesting to get his reaction to a large, midwestern city. I had the chance to spend some time with him last weekend and I found him to be very friendly and lacking in that phony-ass bravado that seems to permeate young American males. Unfortunately, some American males never outgrow this.

Battle of the Planets. Wow. I used to love this show. Fiery Phoenix, anyone?

2003-09-03T19:26:00.000-04:00

Here's a great Wired magazine article about the technology behind new synthetic diamonds. According to the article, the market will soon be flooded with grown diamonds indistinguishable from the real thing.

I have mixed feelings about this, partly because I just spent a significant amount of money on two new diamonds for my wife for our upcoming fifth anniversary. The part of me that is my father says, "Damn, I got screwed". But the other part of me knows that I bought them for her because they are one of the few material items she has ever asked for and they bring her joy.

As most of you probably know, almost every diamond on the planet is mined and distributed to retailers by DeBeers. There have been rumors that they have started wars in Africa, bribed officials and made people disappear in pursuit of their monopoly. If any of this is true, perhaps lab-grown, perfect diamonds will end up being a good thing for humanity.

2003-09-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

What kind of life are you living that Scientology is appealing? I have spoken long and loud about my disagreements with Catholicism and Fundamentalist Protestantism, but at least you can walk away anytime you want. Scientology seems more and more like brainwashing/slavery to me. What blows me away even more is that it was started by a science fiction author and its tenets are based upon a STORY he wrote. Wow.

2003-09-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

Richard Miniter recently wrote a book, "Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror". The book is a fast-climber and promises to be swept under the rug as soon as the press gets the time to dig dirt on Miniter. So, before the world forgets, here's a quote:

"Mr. Woolsey's (former CIA director) personal account of the Clinton White House's repugnance for those in intelligence is jarring. Despite being handpicked by Mr. Clinton to head the CIA, the president did not meet even once with Mr. Woolsey privately about any security issues during his first two years in office. After Osama bin Laden's attack on hotels housing U.S. Marines in Yemen in December 1992 and the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993, it was clear that the United States was being targeted by terrorists. Because of the new threat, Mr. Woolsey went out of his way to be accessible to the new president. In fact, he made the trip from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to the White House every day for the president's intelligence briefing, for which Mr. Woolsey's staff had prepared detailed reports. It had been the habit of previous presidents to welcome the CIA director into the Oval Office for the briefings so that complex issues could be clarified and advice given. Mr. Clinton, however, left Mr. Woolsey cooling his heels outside in the hall each time.
The humiliating treatment of the nation's top intelligence expert reflected Mr. Clinton's cavalier lack of respect for the dangers facing the world's only superpower. The impertinence of the White House toward Mr. Woolsey reached the level of casting the CIA director as an object of ridicule. As Mr. Miniter reports: "When a small plane accidentally crashed on the White House lawn in 1994, West Wing staffers joked that it was Woolsey trying to see the president." The planes that crashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 — and the fact that the attacks came as a total surprise to America's intelligence community — were made vastly more likely by Mr. Clinton's policy of neglect toward intelligence officers and their role in defending the nation"

What was it James Carville said? Oh yeah, that's right: "It's the economy, stupid."

2003-09-02T01:35:00.000-04:00

Wow...no posts since Friday. I haven't had a break that large in a while. This weekend was busy, with a visit from my sister-in-law's boyfriend from Ireland. A great guy by all accounts. More later.

2003-08-29T07:06:00.000-04:00

Drudge has a link to a story stating that Madonna kissed both Britney and Christina at the MTV VMA Award Show last night. I'm glad I didn't see it; I might've passed out and crushed our cat.

It looks like the number one suspect in the "MSBlaster" worm case is an 18-year old kid. Good...hopefully he'll get some serious prison time. Don't be fooled; this is terrorism and it hits all of us economically.

Han Solo has chimed in on America's foreign policy. Thank God we've finally heard his opinion! I knew there was a reason why I couldn't sleep. Harrison: memorizing a script and playing yourself in every film doesn't make you an expert on anything. In fact, it only means you're pretty and have good hair. Learn your place.

2003-08-27T17:26:00.000-04:00

Jessica Lynch is out of the Army. The military doesn't often keep celebrities in its ranks as this can cause problems with unit cohesion and morale. In Lynch's case, her injuries would've kept her off duty for probably another year, so it's understandable. As the story mentioned, there is a book/movie deal in the works. While I don't begrudge her the 15 minutes, I can't help but wonder about the SEALS and other Special Forces men who rescued her. Will there be a big payoff for them? Of course not; it was just another job to do, something they train for. It bothers me on some level that a young private how was part of a unit that got lost in the desert becomes a household name while these SEALS (most of whom got pulled out of Afghanistan for Iraq) will never be known. That's the way they would have it, I know; there's just no cosmic justice in it.

2003-08-27T07:43:00.000-04:00

Howard Stern is on vacation this week, so they're running "best of" shows. Stern did a great (and serious) interview with Mia Farrow when the news about Woody Allen and Soon-Yi first surfaced. I am amazed at how intelligent and compassionate she is. She has adopted nearly 14 children; all of them are from third-world countries and most of them have disabilities. She first got involved with children during the Vietnam War when she first came in contact with orphanages there. At first, she only raised money or collected supplies. Later, she actually began to go on visits to Vietnam. It was there she discovered that no one wanted to adopt the handicapped or older kids. These were the children she adopted. I have a new-found respect for her and a new loathing for Woody Allen for treating someone of her caliber so badly.

2003-08-27T07:36:00.000-04:00

I stepped out this morning at 5:51AM and looked at Mars as it made its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. I left the binoculars at home, so I had to use the ol' naked eye. If you're out tonight around 10pm, Mars will be up. From only 35 million miles, you can really tell it's a planet.

2003-08-27T07:32:00.000-04:00

One of the things that frustrates me most in life is being far away from a situation involving people I care about and being able to do nothing about it. Kelli told me long ago that men and women are different in this; women just need to express how they feel about a situation whereas men need to fix it. I guess this is why men have fought wars throughout the ages. If we can go blow something/someone up to fix a problem, count us in.

The heartbreaking thing about this long-standing issue is that friendships will end over it before all is said and done. I have come to learn in my short life that friends should be measured by quality and not quantity. I do not have "friends of convienence" or networking buddies. If you are my friend, you have my love and loyalty. Thus, when friends fight, it hurts me deeply. The funny thing is, it is these friends who make me the most angry. I want to grab some of them and say "Do you know what you are throwing away? Do you know how rare this thing is?" But it wouldn't matter. They will have to lose those precious things before they realize how valuable they really were.

Speaking of losing things (like a brain), Boss left me a voice mail concerning some software problems we had last week. LAST WEEK---keep that part in mind. Anyway, the tone of his message implied that he was SURE I had done something that resulted in some double entries. I'm not even here during the day and I know what really happened. Am I going to tell him? No way. My answer will be something like, "Gosh, Boss, I don't know. I checked all the logs and everything here looks OK." Then I will laugh, knowing that it will take him hours to solve a very obvious problem. Look, I know what Jose Ferrer said in 'The Caine Mutiny'---"You're loyal because he's the Captain or you're no good." I'll take Captain Queeg any day.

2003-08-25T02:26:00.000-04:00

I registered the new domain tonight. It's going to be www.opaquelucidity.com (don't go there yet; there's nothing there). When I get ready, I will post a link here for you to follow. Then, the Dattblog will move on down the road, hopefully by the first of September.

2003-08-24T00:46:00.000-04:00

My aunt hosted a family reunion today for my father's side of the family. It was nice to see everyone, but it was sad to realize that I only recognized about half the people there. I have 25 first cousins, most of them have children, so it's almost impossible to know everyone. Promises of better communication were made, but I know most of them will never be kept; not out of apathy, but out of the sheer busyness that encompasses most of our lives.

As I looked at my family, I realized that we (just like many American families) have had a hand in most of the big events of the 20th century. Amongst us are veterans of every war since World War One, survivors of the Depression, protestors of the Vietnam War, participants in the Civil Rights movement and countless local events. Unfortunately, almost none of it is written down anywhere. Every day, thousands of stories about heroism, sacrifice and faith are lost as people pass away. Tales that would inspire future generations are gone forever in the blink of an eye. I realize that it has always been this way, but that doesn't make the thought any less sad.

I am probably going to be moving the Dattblog soon to a new website. It will still be me rambling on about events personal and public, but with more added stuff like pictures and a "links" section that will allow you to follow my surfing habits. Stay tuned.

2003-08-22T07:26:00.000-04:00

From the Washington Times:

"We have obtained a Defense Intelligence Agency report that states four American prisoners of war from the Korean War were sighted in North Korea in 1993.
A North Korean defector reported seeing the four POWs at the Changkwangsan Hotel coffee shop in Pyongyang in August or September of 1993.
The POWs were described as being in their 50s or 60s and were under the control of the North Korean military's reconnaissance bureau. They were in the North Korean capital to give a lecture on American "armed power."
The POWs were being transported in a Mercedes-Benz.
The report, declassified at the request of the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War POW/MIAs, also said that as of 1990 at least 10 U.S. prisoners, including "an unknown number of black men," were being held by North Korea in the Sungho district of Pyongyang.
Also, in 1986 two Americans were spotted in Pyongyang teaching "western customs, western lifestyle and English" at a North Korean Communist Party school.
The defector stated that he estimates that as many 60 American POWs are in North Korea.
The declassified DIA report comes after admissions by North Korea that its intelligence services kidnapped Japanese nationals and held them for decades.
Japan's government wants the issue of its abducted nationals to be raised during the six-party talks with North Korea on its nuclear program. American POW activists want the issue of missing American soldiers in North Korea raised at the Beijing talks as well, we are told."

The term "brain-washing" was invented during the Korean War to explain what happened to some POWs who ended up in Chinese hands. Thus, it is possible that some of these men are defectors who chose to stay in North Korea of their own "free will". But what if they didn't? Can we turn a blind eye to this?

2003-08-21T15:38:00.000-04:00

Blackout Blues. Very, very well done.

2003-08-21T15:31:00.000-04:00

I was thinking last night about what the world was like when I was 12 (twenty years ago). I was thinking about this after having a conversation with a friend about his child's busy schedule. It seems that, today, many of the pre-pubescent children I know are involved in so many things that they have to schedule their lives the same way their parents do. Since we do not have children, I will not debate the merits of that here. However, I think there may be some solid reasoning behind it. Here's why:

In the summer of 1983, I was getting ready to go into the 7th grade. I don't remember that summer separately from the ones that came before, but I do remember that I rode my bike alot. Something else----I was bored most of the time. It wasn't that I sat at home all the time (although there was probably too much of that for a boy my age), but my world was not filled with anything that was mentally challenging. I wasn't alone in this; all the kids in the neighborhood did more or less the same things. Our lives were not hurried, but they were not especially interesting, either. There was no internet, MTV was in its infancy and only one family on our street had cable.

I can't imagine being twelve today. The number of outside influences on a child has increased exponentially. We were not ignorant of the outside world, but it was not broadcast to our homes non-stop, 24/7. This is why I don't get as bent out of shape when I hear someone say how their child is very busy----what would they be doing otherwise? If I had had an internet connection in my room in 1983, I would still be there, probably looking like Jabba the Hutt. Back then, an old Playboy was worth its weight in gold. How different would I be if I had been surrounded by Britney, Christina and JLo' rear end like kids are today?

2003-08-20T13:58:00.000-04:00

I stooped to watch Bill Maher's latest embarrassment on HBO, but only because Anne Coulter was on. Of course, Maher only had her on as part of panel which also contained Orlando Jones. I could almost smell poor Orlando's brain burning as he tried to keep up. Someone told me that he has a talk show. That must be a reeeeaaaal treat.

I've talked about this before, but seeing Maher again (I won't repeat that mistake any time soon) made me relive my thoughts concerning the victory of the cynic in the media and pop culture. Bill Maher, the unfunny, grey serial monogamist who finds it appropriate to mention that he once had sex on Arriana Huffington's couch, has only found success because he can poke fun at the real participants in life. Somehow, questioning the President's intelligence with one-liners instead of thoughtful discussion is appealing to many people. Why, you ask? Because it's easy on your mind. It's like the grade school playground with lights and a nice set.

2003-08-18T19:07:00.000-04:00

After I had written off my old Yahoo! account (with calendar and addresses) as gone, I received an e-mail today telling me that it was back to normal, no hard feelings. You gotta love technology.

My friend Robert left for Parris Island today. I met him about 18 months ago through the radio show and I immediately liked him. Like me, he was raised Catholic and comes from a big family. He was getting ready to finish his junior year of high school then and the Marine Corps was still just a possibility. He follows his father, who went through Quantico in the '70s, into the Corps. One thing that Robert has going for him is that he is not a whiner; the ability to do unpleasant things without complaint can carry one far in the military. Another thing in his favor is his size---he's skinny, but not underweight. When I went through Navy boot camp in Orlando, us bulky guys had to work that much harder to shed the pounds, keep up during runs, etc. I can't imagine what horrors Parris Island would've introduced to my body.

I have had the honor of knowing several Marines well enough to know their families. Every one of them is better for their experience. It is amazing that all the branches of the military, but especially the Marine Corps, takes teenagers and chisles them into men and women in so short a period of time. Robert will be no exception; he will come back a man. Even though you probably won't be looking at this blog for quite some time, my friend, know that you are in our thoughts. Thank you for your service. Semper Fidelis.

2003-08-16T05:43:00.000-04:00

Test. Move on; there's nothing to see here.

2003-08-16T05:41:00.000-04:00

I'm a pretty big science-fiction fan. I've haven't read much of it in the past 15 years, mainly because some of the writing is questionable (it's like a lot of Christian and Country music; it wouldn't cut it anywhere else). But I love Sci-Fi movies, mostly Star Trek. To appeal to me, it has to be good science fiction; I'm not one to watch "Plan 9 From Outer Space" just because it's on.

Today, I saw that the Sci-Fi Channel is going to be presenting a Battlestar Galactica mini-series. All the hardcore fans are pissed because, evidently, it doesn't bear much resemblance to the original show. I was eight or so when the show first aired, and I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. When I see old episodes now, they seem incredibly cheesy. However, you have to take them as 70's TV and move on. They were great for their day.

One series I have been pining for is Space: Above and Beyond. "S:AAB" was a sci-fi show that ran on Fox in 1995-96 for 24 episodes. It was about a squadron of Marine Corps fighter pilots in 2063. By that time, the US Navy is the space-faring arm of the military; all the carriers, destroyers and cruisers are actually spacecraft. This seemed kind of far-fetched for only 60 or so years in the future, but work with me.

Anyway, our brave pilots are fighting against an unknown alien race which destroyed a human colony on Tellus. The series was done by the same team who did "The X-Files", so it was rife with conspiracy theories and dark content. One thing that hooked me early on was how the viewer didn't know anything more than the Marines. Early on, each hit-and-run mission seemed to exist on its own. But as the season progressed, you were shown more and more of the big picture, leading up to Operation Anvil (why do I remember stuff like this?), the invasion of the alien homeworld. It was only then that you realized that there was really an Allied coalition of sorts, made up of Chinese, British, Norwegians and French forces all carted around this part of the galaxy by American "ships". The season ended with a cliff-hanger of sorts, which led me to believe that the producers expected a second season. It was not to be.

Damn, I'm a geek.

2003-08-15T11:51:00.000-04:00

I just had my first run-in with the Blaster worm. If you are running Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003 Server, please, please, please update your OS and your virus definitions. This is, by far, the most widespread worm I have ever seen. The next time it comes around, it could be carrying a payload.

2003-08-14T18:20:00.000-04:00

I don't often post up-to-date news here because I normally only post once a day. However, NYC and must of the Northeast corridor are in the dark right now. There are rumors that the Blaster worm may have something to do with it (doubtful, but you never know), but what has impressed me the most thus far is how well the people of New York are handling this. Los Angeles would already be on fire.

2003-08-14T15:52:00.000-04:00

Here is the complete list of candidates in the upcoming California recall election. This is the first time in my life I have wanted to live on the Left Coast. As I see it, there are really only two choices: Kurt E. Rightmyer--middleweight sumo wrestler (He's a sumo wrestler!!! I mean, how cool would that be? He could wear that big underwear thing to the office) and Ned Fenton Roscoe--cigarette retailer (I would love to see all the Tobacco Nazis if this guy won. Where would they go next? Mars?).

Of course, this is Ahhhnold's race to lose. Funny thing about that: can anyone name something that he's for or against and why? I can't either. People like him because he's Conan and the Terminator. That's pretty alarming, but then you guys DID elect Gray Davis. To quote Larry Flynt (concering Davis), "that guy's ready to be embalmed."

Kelli and I are headed up to Notre Dame on Sunday. The plan is to make the drive there and back in one day, stopping at her sister's apartment to set up a wireless network. She could probably do it herself as easy as all that stuff is getting these days. I recently set one up in a couple's home in under an hour and that included upgrading one of the machines from Win95 to Win98. Oh yeah----I'm the man.

2003-08-13T15:33:00.000-04:00

I have talked here before about divorce, but an event that occured today got me to thinking about it all over again. Those of you who read this blog regularly know about the very bitter and public divorce that someone with whom I am on the radio went through. Of course, I understand that divorces happen and no one knows what goes on behind closed doors. But this clown, just today, forwarded an e-mail from his ex-wife to everyone on his mailing list. I could almost understand this if both parties were in high school, but this borders on insane. This cat's need for approval is so strong as to make me wonder if he does not have some sort of psychological disorder. Couple this with his very obvious butt-kissing to people and companies who provide him with free services and you begin to understand why my only connection with him is for three hours on Sunday. SHHEEEESHH!!!

I wrote the first page of the next book early this morning. It's just a page, but that has always been the hardest one to write. We shall see.

2003-08-11T12:20:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the lack of posts over the weekend. It seems that, more and more, our weekends consist of running errand after errand, with the occasional movie squeezed in for good measure. I don' t mind this at all; in fact, I love a quiet weekend with my wife. It just doesn't leave much time for writing.

Last night, we went to the in-laws for my father-in-laws famous chili (great idea in August!). I have been trying to watch my diet more closely lately, which means a lot of chicken, lean meat, vegatables and the occasional portion of rice. Sunday was the first time I have had chili since January or so. I don't know if there is a connection or not, but I had three distinct, horrible nigthmares last night. One dealt with me stumbling onto this "farm" where women were kept in vats of creamed corn (hey, I don't know either) and fattened up for some undoubtedly gruesome reason. I tried to free them but ended up in a vat myself, which was patrolled by this robotic eel that stopped by to shock me on every once in a while. Since the vat was filled with corn, I couldn't see him coming.

The second dream had Kelli and I in the country where we broke down and walked to a nearby farmhouse. When we entered the house, we found a family that was being terrorized by the father (who, no joke, looked like Boss). I ended up stabbing the guy with a carving knife, at which point the entire family turned on us. This one was the most psychologically disturbing because it makes me wonder what goes on in those little dark corners of my mind.

The final had Kelli and I on a road trip (again), except this time we stopped at a small town motel which looked amazingly like one I actually stayed in in Tennessee once. There was a group of ghoulish looking guys next door who broke into our room. Once again, I killed them all (this time with a shotgun that I must've been sleeping with) and we immeditately hit the road. Once on the road, we noticed a car gaining on us at high speed. It was the four men, all alive and all staring at us. I guess they were the undead or something.

Funny thing about this is that I woke up after each dream, something that I almost never do. In fact, I can't tell you the last time I had a dream that I remember. I'm wore out.

2003-08-07T06:04:00.000-04:00

My posts from the last couple days have not shown up yet. Perhaps this post will bring things up-to-date.

So Ahhhnold is running for governor. As I have written here before, I am not a fan of this recall movement. However, it will certainly make for good entertainment. I also read that Gary Coleman (yes, THAT Gary Coleman) is running as well. Only on the Left Coast.

Pride is also a sin, your Excellencies.

So Boss comes back today. He will go back to what he was doing before he left, which is essentially nothing. What was amazing about this vacation (his fifth? this year) is that he didn’t even bother to tell me, one of his employees, that he was leaving. Next Tuesday, I will begin training on the new software that is slated to replace our current Picassso/AS400 setup. Who do you think went to the trouble of rescheduling the training so I could get some sleep? Who do you think sent me an e-mail telling me about the schedule? Boss, you say? HAHAHAHAHA!!! It was Grant, our Network Manager and my personal hero. If Boss had his way, my training would arrive on my desk in the form of some sheets of paper he typed out. “UMMM, here Matt; read these over and let me know if it makes sense.” He will be infuriated when he finds out that he will not have any say in my training on this new system. I am the last person he has any type of authority over even though, on paper, he runs the entire department. You know what, Boss? I’m sorry that daddy didn’t love you, but it’s no longer my problem. We will all be happy to see you go...and the sooner the better.

2003-08-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

Interesting factoid: California is the largest dairy-producing state in the nation. The largest herd out there is 14,000 head. Considering that dairy cows are milked multiple (three?) times a day, that must be one amazing operation.

Something happened to me the other night that filled me with both a sense of sadness and a renewed appreciation for the educational opportunities I have had in my life. I stopped on my way to work to get gas and, while I was on my way inside to pay, a man approached me and asked if I could give him some directions. He was holding a piece of paper with a Westport Road address typed on it. Westport Road is about 15 miles from where I was standing, so I did my best to give this man (obviously a delivery driver) concise directions from off the top of my head. I looked back down at the piece of paper while we were talking and I noticed that there were written directions at the bottom of the page that I had not noticed before. It was then I realized that this man, probably in his 40’s, couldn’t read. He probably made deliveries in a set area (his van was from out of state) where not being able to read road signs didn’t create a problem for him. But here he was, far from home, lost and unable to do something as simple as read a map.

We could look at a man like that and wonder why he hasn’t taken matters into his own hands and learned to read. After all, there are numerous adult literacy classes in every city. But I don’t think any of us can imagine the sense of shame that must come with having to admit you lack a skill which so many of us take for granted. It would have to be a grating constant in your life.

I was also thinking about the joy that reading has brought to my life. We all know people who haven’t delved into anything more heavy than an issue of Sports Illustrated since they graduated from school, but at least they have the capacity to do so. To not know the joy of a good book that will NEVER be made into a movie is almost incredible. That there are people in this country today who will never know the printed word is a disgrace.

2003-08-04T02:21:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot: I have enough spare parts here to build an older PC. I think I may build one tomorrow, connect it to the router and keep my Blogger account open while I'm home. This way, it may become a stream-of-conciousness thing; if I think it, it goes here. We'll see.

2003-08-04T02:16:00.000-04:00

I just noticed a recently update blog: "shut your fucking piehole"...I'm going to run right over there.

I spent a great deal of the weekend cleaning. For some reason, doing the cleaning puts me in a good mood. Thinking about the cleaning depresses me. I can not stand a messy house; I guess I get that from my mother. I am continually amazed at the filth some people will live with. I'm not talking about dust in the corners; I mean a weeks worth of dishes in the sink and a shower that is moldy. YEEEECHHHH!!!.

It's time for the McIntyre story. Kenny McIntyre was one of my classmates in Nuclear Field 'A' School in Orlando. He was married, so he and his wife lived in what we called "navy housing", a little annex area full of tiny houses that was located between our base and the Orlando airport. McIntyre, while certainly intelligent, was the biggest slob I have ever known. My friend Peter and I used to entertain ourselves thinking about how long it would take for the navy to boot McIntyre out on his ass with a dishonorable discharge. One day in late October, 1990, as I was packing to go on leave, Peter began to tell me how dirty McIntyre's house was. His tale was so bad that I was sure he was pulling my leg. When I told him so, he decided that, on our way to the airport, we would stop by the McIntyre house.

So, resplendent in the dress blue uniform of a newly-minted petty officer, I went to Kenny's house with Peter and his then-wife Kelley. OH MY GOD....THE HORROR!!! To this day, I have never seen a house this dirty. Here' the run-down:

1. Several layers of clothes spread evenly over every square-inch of floor space (dirty).
2. Every pot and pan in the house, dirty, piled on the stove (moldy).
3. A bird flying free in the house, shitting at will (birdcage standing open).
4. Open 2-liter bottles of Coke on the coffee table, growing a thick layer of something (penicillin?).
5. Pizza boxes (some empty), piled so high at various places around the living room that they seemed to be defying the laws of physics.
6. A constant, loud scratching/wailing noise coming from the utility closet that turned out to be a cat and a ferret sharing that small space.
7. A smell so bad that I can still conjur it up to this day if I think about it.

As I stood in the middle of living room, worrying that the damn bird would decide to take a dump on my uniform, I decided that I had to go. I bolted for the door, muttering something about needing to cool down a little (it was about 74 inside and 85 outside). Peter and Kelley came out soon afterward; the three of us must've looked like we had witnessed a beheading.

As bad as all that was, the hits were just beginning to arrive. Kenny and wife got KICKED OUT of navy housing about three months later, an act that we didn't think was possible (we imagined the navy deciding to burn the house down instead of cleaning it). On a roll, Kenny then got disenrolled from the Nuclear Power Program for writing checks on a closed account. Then, to put the cherry on top, he got busted for smoking pot. By this time, his wife was seven months pregnant (I'm not making this up). I saw Kenny one more time before I left Orlando; he was busted back to Seaman Recruit and I was a Petty Officer Third Class. He was still his goofy, happy-go-lucky, the-world-hates-me-but-what-the-hell self. I would give a significant amount of money to see him today.

2003-08-02T23:31:00.000-04:00

I've been pretty angry for the last 20 hours or so. Our ISP here at home, InsightBB, does not give us the ability to check our e-mail remotely. Kelli set up a Yahoo! account some time ago, but I resisted because of the small amount of storage space (4MB) that comes with a free account. In June, I finally decided to give in and go web-based all the way. Not only did I set up a Yahoo! e-mail account, but I also transferred over my entire address book and calendar from Outlook. Lo and behold, I found out last night that my account has been deactivated. Why? I have no idea. The last e-mail I received was from a friend who thought it was a good idea to forward me a pretty interesting PowerPoint file (it was really nice). Contacting Yahoo! is an exercise in frustration; if you fill out a "Customer Care" form, you are sent a reply telling you to fill out a "Customer Care" form. So I gave up and created a new profile. The e-mail link on the left will send you to my original InsightBB account, which is forwarded to my new address. However, I have to completely rebuild my address book and calendar since I do not have the original Outlook files. If anyone out there knows a Yahoo! employee, please let me know how I should proceed on this. I can live with deactivation, but I would like to have my old mail back.

I sell old computer components on ebay every now and then. I recently sold some stuff to a young person in Texas who, after winning the auction, proceeded to dictate payment terms to me. I met the guy half way (I will leave negative feedback after he leaves some positive feedback for me), but this is not the first time I have had an experience such as this. Each time, the perp was someone young (under 25). Maybe I'm getting old and forgetting what I was like then, but I would like to think that I paid attention to the rules. It's as if there's a trend to think "Well, gosh, that really doesn't apply to me, does it? I mean, I'm very special, so we'll just do it my way." What really steams me is that this guy didn't even realize what he had done. It goes against my fantasy image of an orderly society.

2003-08-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

DLP is in the process of changing his blog into more of a full-fledged website. I've updated the link on the the left.

2003-08-01T02:17:00.000-04:00

I mentioned some time ago that I contribute a little “This Day in History” post to a website of some friends, which explains why my history postings here have decreased. Today, however, is a pretty important day in history because the events of sixty years ago helped shaped the character of a man who became, by some standards, one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century. So, I have decided to be lazy and repeat my post here:

Today in 1943, PT-109 was cut in two by a Japanese destroyer during a night patrol. PT-109 was a PT boat, the famous wooden patrol boats the US Navy used in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theatres during the Second World War. They were fast and deadly, carrying various heavy caliber machine guns and four torpedoes. They were also dangerous vessels to serve aboard; one lucky shell could blow the 80-foot craft to pieces.

PT-109 would come to hold a special place in history, for her commanding officer was Lt. John F. Kennedy. That fateful night, Kennedy's boat and the other craft of the squadron were spread out off the coast of Kolombangara Island, waiting for Japanese destroyers that were known to be in the area. Critics of Kennedy's seamanship skills wonder how a small boat capable of 50 knots could be run over by a slower ship. The truth of the matter is that PT-109 was barely idleing when she was hit. It was a common tactic of the time for the PT's to spread out and lay in wait. Movement by night at speed was dangerous because the wake of the boats was visible for miles and attracted Japanese night bombers, which could not be heard above the sound of the boat's three aircraft engines.

There was a strong haze that night and the lookouts aboard PT-109 had almost no warning. The destroyer loomed out of the darkness, cut the boat in two and continued on her way without firing shot. Two of the crewmen were killed, but the eleven survivors, including Kennedy, swam to a small coral island nearby. Kennedy swam back out to try to flag down any passing PT boats, but the current carried him away from his destination. When he arrived back at the island, he was exhausted and in excruciating pain from a back injury that would plague him for the rest of his life.

Several days later, the crew swam to another nearby island where they made contact with some natives. Kennedy scrawled a message on a coconut, which the natives took to an Allied coastwatcher nearby. The crew was soon rescued and Kennedy was awarded both the Navy and Marine Corps Medals for gallantry in action. The coconut ended up with a special place in the Oval Office.

Last year, while doing some research about a novel I was considering writing, I came across an autobiography by a man who had served with Kennedy. The man said that when Kennedy turned up missing, the rest of the squadron assumed that all hands had gone down with the boat. But what amazed the author was how quickly PT-109 was written off---there hadn't even been a search party dispatched.

2003-07-31T05:17:00.000-04:00

Thanks to DLP for passing on the link to Jobforjohn.com. This reminds me of a fallacy that has grown in popularity of late among the attention span-challenged set: that tax cuts somehow hurt the economy.

Could someone, anyone, explain to me how this works? Is your money in the hands of the federal govt. making your life better? If so, why? The truth, of course, is that liberals loooovvvveeee tax money because the programs it pays for keep them in power. It also helps them play the class-warfare card, ensuring that those who are too ignorant to think for themselves believe that punishing success will "even things up."

2003-07-29T15:43:00.000-04:00

My favorite oversized waste of resources, Michael Moore, gets some column-inches at Opinion Journal. It’s a pretty long piece, but here’s my favorite snippet:

“And you can be sure that the trendy sophisticates in Cannes and Hollywood will once again rise to their feet to honor their mendacious auteur, European intellectuals will bow before his Manichaean simplicities, and the international radical left will cheer the moral obtuseness of the man who has made his fortune turning the documentary into fiction.”

Piss off, Mikey.

My favorite off-the-cuff comment from Bob Hope occurred in 1968 while he was touring South Vietnam. After taking the stage, Hope was told that there was an Air Force colonel in the audience who was the top-ranking American ace of the war so far. Without missing a beat, Hope said, “And I would like to acknowledge the presence of Colonel So-and-So, who is the leading distributor of MiG parts in Vietnam.”

2003-07-28T02:30:00.000-04:00

Holy Shit! There are still active Cargo Cults in the South Pacific. How can this be? For God's sake, World War Two ended almost sixty years ago! We've sent space probes all over the Solar System! I can pick up my cell phone and call Tokyo if I want! Cargo Cults? Jon Frum, come back and put these people out of their misery!

2003-07-28T02:10:00.000-04:00

The Korean War ended fifty years ago yesterday. I remember my father telling me one time about his visit home after his first tour off the coast of North Korea. He was talking to a friend of his father's when the man asked, "So where have you been?". Dad answered, "We went to Japan and then patrolled off the coast of North Korea." The man replied, "I didn't know that war was still going on over there." It really was the forgotten war, even while it was still going on.

I read that Uday Hussein's briefcase has been found. Evidently it contained some cash, clean underwear, one condom, Viagra and cologne. WTF? Was he on his way to an orgy?

Speaking of people who would be better off living in another dimension, some reporter in the White House press pool asked the new White House spokesman (don't remember his name): "Don't you think that the Hussein brothers should've have been taken alive?" My answer would've been: "Don't you mean how many Americans should've died to capture them alive? Well, the answer is none. In fact, we had plans to carry them around the streets in cages and then beat them to death with their own genitals, but that just didn't work out. Well, there's always dear old dad. Next question."

2003-07-25T06:56:00.000-04:00

Anti-Catholic bigotry, alive and well in our Senate. Where are the Catholic bishops in this country? If Pryor were Jewish or Muslim, there would be an enormous outcry. But our bishops, smug in their positions, do nothing while “pro-abortion” Catholics (there really is no such thing) like Ted Kennedy runs rampant and win votes because of their religious affiliation. Of course, elitist silence is nothing new.

When the sex abuse scandal first became public news in this country, my first thought was, “There’s going to be a house-cleaning”. In my mind, justice would have been served if every bishop who had ever been aware of a priest’s crimes and NOT turned him over to civil authorities had been fired. After all, the Catholic Church is not supposed to be run like the Mafia; the ancient code of Omerta does not apply. But what happened? Virtually nothing. Now, the best thing that could happen to the Catholic Church is a grass-roots uprising and a demand for accountability. But it will never happen. It’s all about money and getting butts in the seats.

2003-07-23T08:11:00.000-04:00

Uday and Qusay are dead. It couldn’t have happened to two nicer guys. This may sound crude, but I believe it would be appropriate to display their bodies publicly; kind of a “if we can get these guys, we can get anyone” message. Bastards.

“Unaware that a live microphone was broadcasting their words around the Capitol, Assembly Democrats meeting behind closed doors debated prolonging California's budget crisis for political gain.

Members of the coalition of liberal Democrats talked about slowing progress on the budget as a means of increasing pressure on Republicans.

A microphone had been left on during the closed meeting Monday, and the conversation was transmitted to about 500 "squawk boxes" that enable staff members, lobbyists and reporters to listen in on legislative meetings.

Some members of the group, including Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, said if the budget crisis were extended, it could improve chances for a ballot initiative that would make it easier for the Democrats to raise taxes by lowering the threshold for passage from two-thirds to 55 percent.

"No one is running" for re-election, she said, according to a transcript made by Republicans. "And maybe you end up better off than you would have, and maybe you don't. But what you do is show people that you can't get to this without a 55 percent vote."

From sfgate.com. Oh yeah, they’re the party for the working man. Uhuh. Wake up.

Doesn’t this cat look like a smartass? You can just tell he’s getting ready to give his owner some lip.

2003-07-22T07:33:00.000-04:00

Like it or not, California often serves as a guinea pig for things that have not yet propagated to the rest of the country. The current Gray Davis recall effort is no exception. However, I believe this is one trend that could potentially be damaging to our nation for generations.

For those of you who don’t know, Gray Davis is the current governor of California. I will say now that he is perhaps the least qualified and least intelligent person to ever hold the office (I’ll consider Jerry Brown, but you’ll have to bring proof---Davis was Brown’s chief of staff, by the way). Davis’ poll numbers are about as low as they can go, making even the most forgiving Democrats back away from him. Now, there is a movement afoot to have a recall; that is, a special election to determine whether or not Davis remains in office. If Davis loses the vote, he is cast out of office and another election is held to determine who gets to live in Sacramento. This process is not new for the Left Coast as Ronald Reagan (yes, THAT Ronald Reagan) survived a recall attempt in 1968 while he was governor. Some, but not all, of the states have recall laws on the books. Those who support them say that these laws exist to give the populace the ability to remove someone from office who proves to be incapable of continuing in the job for whatever non-criminal reason (impeachment laws exist to address criminal issues).

But I believe a recall, even of someone like Gray Davis, is always a bad, bad idea. Consider that only about 28% of eligible voters vote, on average, in any election. On the other hand, any adult who lives in the state in question can sign a recall petition. Why should you blow off an election and then have the right to force a recall? In my opinion, bad politicians who win elections should serve as a warning to all of us to do a better job of becoming and staying informed. I would be willing to bet that half of all elected officials in this country (local, state and federal) would not survive a recall attempt. It’s an invitation to anarchy.

Kobe Bryant cheated on his wife. This makes him a bad father and husband; it doesn’t make him a criminal. But, even if the “victim’s” story falls apart, his career and reputation will be tarnished forever. Is there any justice in that?

Note to G.W.: Please, please stay out of Liberia. First, that entire shithole of a nation isn’t worth one American soldier, Marine, airman or sailor’s life. Second, sending troops in there is asking them to be willing to shoot children with guns. How many Americans could do that?

2003-07-19T08:41:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching a replay of the commissioning ceremony for the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76). It was the United States Navy with all the pomp and circumstance it can muster. Nancy was there in the place of her husband who can no longer travel. The Reagan is the only ship ever named after a living President. My guess (and it’s only that) is that they did not expect him to be alive when the ship was finished. I know that sounds heartless, but the name was decided almost a decade ago when the ship was still on the drawing board. The same thing happened when the navy commissioned the first of the Arleigh Burke-class guided missle destroyers in 1992. Burke had served during World War Two and had been CNO during the 1950’s. In 1992, he was still alive and about 127 years old. It was almost pitiful.

One of the traditions that occurs when a new ship-of-the-line is commissioned is the command to “man the ship and bring her alive” (that’s the command, word-for-word). At that command, the crew runs up the gangplank(s) and mans the railing, turns on the radar, sounds sirens, etc. to signify that the ship is ready to roll. With a destroyer or cruiser, this is quick and orderly process. With an aircraft carrier, it takes some time. I can imagine running up flight after flight of ladders in my dress whites (which are made of Certified Naval Twill-----polyester) only to stand by the rail while someone 500 levels above my pay grade spouts on about how wonderful the new ship is. The only ship I was ever on for any length of time never left the pier and had been commissioned before I was born. I did get to see a de-commissioning once; it was the USS MacDounough (DDG-39) which was turned over to the Greek Navy. If you have ever seen Greek sailors, you may understand why it was not a great time. “Smelly” just doesn’t do the situation justice.

2003-07-18T07:09:00.000-04:00

Today in the year 64A.D., a great fire erupted in Rome. It would burn on for a week, destroying almost two-thirds of the city (I would imagine that fire-fighting was not a fine art in those days). This was the fire that spawned the legend about Nero fiddling. In reality, Nero wasn’t even in Rome during the fire and the violin wasn’t invented until much later. Be that as it may, Nero took the opportunity to have Rome re-built in a more orderly Greek fashion. That’s right: the columns and wide vistas of Rome that we all imagine were borrowed. Nero also thought it would be a good idea to blame the fire on those pesky Christians he kept hearing so much about and started the first series of persecutions in the early Church.

I came up with this great book idea one time about a race of beings who conquer the Earth and, to make things easier for us to understand, adopt the rank structure used by the Roman legions. They also make us adopt a common language (English), which ends up being their downfall. With a common language and a common enemy, mankind realizes that our internal differences are minor. Thus, mankind unites to fight the aliens and usher in an era of peace. Problem is, I could probably crank out the story in 50,000 words or less, which is more the length of a ‘New Yorker’ article than a book.

By the way, I know that I haven’t been commenting on politics much lately. The world scene of late depresses me and I have been trying to step away from it a little, something that I haven’t done since the election debacle in Florida in 2000. In fact, I have taken to listening to sports talk shows instead of my normal evening line-up. It’s not that I am changing my views; it’s more that I am sooooo tired of people who understand so little about politics, the military, foreign policy, etc. trying to tell me (and the world) how Iraq is a quagmire and that our President is a liar. Neither is true and people without agendas who know the score realize that. I have just reached the point that I can’t stomach the whiney, lip-biting pansies who litter the airwaves and the printed page at such places as CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The LA Times and the like. It’s beginning to smell like 1968 in here.

2003-07-17T05:07:00.000-04:00

This morning, if it's clear where you are, you will see that the moon and Mars are practically on top of each other. I don't know what the astronomical term for this is, but it looks like Mars is serving as a running light for the moon. In an earlier age, I would be dancing around the fire, preparing to sacrifice something to the harvest god. Or the fertility god. I forget.

I have historically had a dim view of my fellow man. I don't consider most people very loyal, moral or intelligent. This is elitist and not particularly true. Today, I was reminded again that there are people in all of our lives who have a clue about what it means to stand up for what is right and noble. I am disappointed in myself when I don't see this quality in people from the outset. I think it reminds me that I am very much my father's son; I always assume I'm in a minefield.

2003-07-16T07:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you have to step back from a situation and ask yourself, “Why am I doing this? Why do I care?” In my life, I haven’t done that nearly enough. As a result, I have found myself in difficult situations in which people had certain expectations that I couldn’t fulfill. Tonight, I was thinking of a friend of a friend who used to ask, “What did you do today to move closer to your goal?”. My answer, right now, is this: nothing. I am plodding along, pissing away my time at pursuits that do nothing for me, my wife or our life together. And, just like you, I’m dying a minute at a time. I can do better.

Between January and August of 2001 I wrote a book. It’s not a very good book, but it’s all mine. No publisher wanted it, so I filed it with my other writings and moved on. But now, when I look back, I realize how fulfilled I felt while I was writing it. It became a passion and, perhaps more importantly, it put a little discipline into a life that normally has very little. And so, starting Monday, I will begin on my second book. I probably only have one or two more books in me, but I believe this one may have an audience. It’s about love and loss and truth and the times that try men’s souls. And it’s not about me or anyone I know; in fact, it’s a work of total fiction. Watch this space.

2003-07-16T07:02:00.000-04:00

Please read all of this:

“Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. “

The above is from Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech to the nation in January, 1961. Forty-two years ago. Did he know something about groups so large that he did not address their threat until the night before he left office?

2003-07-15T20:38:00.000-04:00

Check out the 1:45PM PST post on Hugh Hewitt's website. Just reading his summary will tell you all you need to know. There are still heroes among us.

Reading the above story made me think about the news media today. Here is a story about true heroism, buried on in the center of the LA Times. I can forgive some of this because, well, it is an LA paper, but this kind of subconscious censorship goes on everywhere. In this age of the 24 hour news cycle, it's as if every front page story must be sensational and/or bad news. Cases in point: OJ, Jon Benet Ramsey, Chandra Levy, Elian Gonzales. None of these stories had any relavance on the national scene, but they were all front page news for weeks or, in the OJ case, years. Is this what the American public wants to see and hear?

This led me to another thought that may explain the liberalism that is rampant in the mainstream media: liberalism thrives on bad news. When a family is doing well, or the economy is good, the huge government expenditures and silly laws championed by liberals are unnecessary. But if the news at least appears to be bad all the time, liberal ideas maintain a foothold in our society. So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

2003-07-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

Sunday night I mentioned that my manager is an idiot. First, I wish to announce that I will now just refer to him as “boss” because the term “manager” implies that he actually manages something and/or knows what the hell is going on.

I won’t go into the sorted details here because, frankly, it’s technical and no one but me really gives a shit that the description record in the laser check application had been modified, the code was no longer readable and I had to restore to a month-old copy that didn’t recognize any of the new clients and, in the process, bypass the password database file (I’m pretty proud of that little piece of work) so I could access the old software. I knew you didn’t care.

So how, you might be wondering, did things get so messed up? One word: boss. My Harley-riding, backwoods, obnoxious, assholish, sexist, racist, needs-shock-therapy, unholy hell of a boss caused the entire thing by messing with the software and then deciding that, holy shit batman, it’s four in the afternoon on a Friday and I need to go. So he told our daytime PC support guy to restore the application and LEFT FOR THE WEEKEND. The restore didn’t contain all the files that yours truly needs to do his job and “poof”, I’m sweating it out all on my own on a Saturday morning. I did eventually call boss, but only to get access to a file that I should have had access to anyway.

There’s a lesson here: incompetence rules. I now understand that boss leaves me in these predicaments because he knows that a) I’ll fix it and b) I have no one to tell who doesn’t already know what he’s like. My experience has damned me. So, for the sake of my own sanity, I have to figure out a way to make him leave. I have only done this once before in my life and the target was psychologically weaker. Boss really, really doesn’t care, which actually helps him and hurts me. If he was worried about professional humiliation in front of peers (as the last guy was), I could make him retire tomorrow. But he is in a position of authority without any apparent responsibility. I may have to call in bigger minds to advise me.

2003-07-14T01:57:00.000-04:00

I love late-night radio. The disposition of the callers goes from bored (truck drivers) to weirdo (we didn't go to the moon; I talk to yellow jackets). What is amazing is the fact that these people all function in our society. Now, as I type this, there is a guy talking about how the movie 'T3' is going to happen soon. That's why he moved out to the woods. WAKE UP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!!

My manager is an idiot. More on this later.

2003-07-10T06:29:00.000-04:00

The Scopes-Monkey Trial began today in 1925. I won’t go into all the details here; if you graduated from high school in this country, you know the story. Suffice it to say that it was the first big showdown between fundamentalists and hard science. The argument continues today in different forms, but the elements remain the same: the bible is the direct word of God versus an essentially godless crowd who hold on to theories as undeniable truths.

Here’s a theory, and it’s all mine: maybe evolution (human and universal) is all part of God’s creation. Consider that in the book of Genesis the universe was dark before the creation. Now, if you believe in the “big bang” theory, then you know that the universe really was cold and dark for a few million years while everything congealed to the point where fusion could take place. Without solar fusion, there is NO natural light and no planet formation. How would you go about explaining nuclear fusion to people who worshipped snakes? You don’t; you create a week-long creation pageant and weave it into a larger morality tale explaining the sinful nature of man and justifying why it was OK to treat women like cattle.

The larger question, I guess, is why does this not make sense to fundamentalists (note that I don’t use the word “Christian” here because I have my doubts)? Could it be about control? Hmmmmmmmm....

By the way, I have changed my e-mail address but have not had a chance to change it on the Blogger template, so if you have e-mailed me since the end of June please re-send; my old address now gets forwarded to my new one. Thanks.

2003-07-09T16:59:00.000-04:00

I read with some interest yesterday (sorry I no longer have the link) about a girl in Moorestown, NJ who, along with her father, is suing the school district because they proclaimed “co-“ valedictorians in her Senior class---her and a young man whose grade point average was several hundreths of a percent lower than her own. While the school district acknowledged that the girl did receive a higher grade point average, the young man had to take several classes that the girl was not required to take. These classes were not weighted as heavily, and so the small discrepancy existed.

I could argue this case either way and feel satisfied. What bothers me is the larger issue contained therein: how far parents will push their children to be “winners” in life. I am becoming more and more aware of this sickness in our society, maybe only because so many of my generation have children who are nearing school age. I have lost count of how many times I have heard statements like “I want him/her to go to do really well in school so, you know, they can go to a better college.” Ironically, many of the people saying this never went to college or went to a (GASP!) state school.

Let’s flash back to 1989. The valedictorian and salutatorian of my high school graduating class were named Kathy and Todd. I don’t remember who held which title (as if it matters now). Both of them gave non-memorable speeches, although Kathy did say something about little fish and big fish. It was all very nice. I got really, really drunk later and yelled at my ex-girlfriend at a party in the Knobs.

Now, let’s move forward to 1999. Both Kathy and Todd are at our 10-year reunion. Kathy is a, umm, doctor, I think. I mean this in all seriousness; she was so banal I couldn’t talk to her. Todd was the picture-perfect corporate alpha-male. I avoided him totally. So who did I talk to all night? Teddy, the guy who sat next to me at our graduation and did so poorly in school that he had to take summer classes AFTER our Senior year. But Teddy did OK; he sold vacuum cleaners or something door-to-door and then started hauling a rock-climbing wall around to county fairs and such in Georgia. He was the most interesting guy in the room because he had actually known hardship, loss and victory. He cycled across the entire continent with his father one summer. He was and is, in all the ways that should matter, a success. But I know, deep in my soul, that many of the people there that night would have scoffed at Teddy because he didn’t have a degree or know the right people or belong to a country club. And they would have been poorer for it.

2003-07-09T16:56:00.000-04:00

I don’t often copy entire news articles into the blog; I prefer just to give you the link and let you go on your own. However, the article below struck such a chord in me that I believe I must place it here in its entirety. This is from the San Francisco Chronicle from Sunday, June 29, 2003. Enjoy:

“America is under attack as never before -- not only from terrorists but also from people who provide a justification for terrorism. Islamic fundamentalists declare America the Great Satan. Europeans rail against American capitalism and American culture. South American activists denounce the United States for "neocolonialism" and oppression.

Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. But in this country itself, there are those who blame America for most of the evils in the world. On the political left, many fault the United States for a history of slavery, and for continuing inequality and racism. Even on the right, traditionally the home of patriotism, we hear influential figures say that America has become so decadent that we are "slouching towards Gomorrah."

If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed. And who can dispute some of their particulars? This country did have a history of slavery and racism continues to exist. There is much in our culture that is vulgar and decadent. But the critics are wrong about America, because they are missing the big picture. In their indignation over the sins of America, they ignore what is unique and good about American civilization.

As an immigrant who has chosen to become an American citizen, I feel especially qualified to say what is special about America. Having grown up in a different society -- in my case, Bombay, India -- I am not only able to identify aspects of America that are invisible to the natives, but I am acutely conscious of the daily blessings that I enjoy in America. Here, then, is my list of the 10 great things about America.

-- America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy. Rich people live well everywhere. But what distinguishes America is that it provides an impressively high standard of living for the "common man." We now live in a country where construction workers regularly pay $4 for a nonfat latte, where maids drive nice cars and where plumbers take their families on vacation to Europe.

Indeed, newcomers to the United States are struck by the amenities enjoyed by "poor" people. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s when CBS television broadcast a documentary, "People Like Us," intended to show the miseries of the poor during an ongoing recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with a view to embarrassing the Reagan administration. But by the testimony of former Soviet leaders, it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans have TV sets, microwave ovens and cars. They arrived at the same perception that I witnessed in an acquaintance of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States. I asked him, "Why are you so eager to come to America?" He replied, "I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."

-- America offers more opportunity and social mobility than any other country, including the countries of Europe. America is the only country that has created a population of "self-made tycoons." Only in America could Pierre Omidyar, whose parents are Iranian and who grew up in Paris, have started a company like eBay. Only in America could Vinod Khosla, the son of an Indian army officer, become a leading venture capitalist, the shaper of the technology industry, and a billionaire to boot. Admittedly tycoons are not typical, but no country has created a better ladder than America for people to ascend from modest circumstances to success.

-- Work and trade are respectable in America. Historically most cultures have despised the merchant and the laborer, regarding the former as vile and corrupt and the latter as degraded and vulgar. Some cultures, such as that of ancient Greece and medieval Islam, even held that it is better to acquire things through plunder than through trade or contract labor. But the American founders altered this moral hierarchy. They established a society in which the life of the businessman, and of the people who worked for him, would be a noble calling. In the American view, there is nothing vile or degraded about serving your customers either as a CEO or as a waiter. The ordinary life of production and supporting a family is more highly valued in the United States than in any other country. America is the only country in the world where we call the waiter "sir," as if he were a knight.

-- America has achieved greater social equality than any other society. True, there are large inequalities of income and wealth in America. In purely economic terms, Europe is more egalitarian. But Americans are socially more equal than any other people, and this is unaffected by economic disparities. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed this egalitarianism a century and a half ago and it is, if anything, more prevalent today. For all his riches, Bill Gates could not approach the typical American and say, "Here's a $100 bill. I'll give it to you if you kiss my feet." Most likely, the person would tell Gates to go to hell! The American view is that the rich guy may have more money, but he isn't in any fundamental sense better than anyone else

.

-- People live longer, fuller lives in America. Although protesters rail against the American version of technological capitalism at trade meetings around the world, in reality the American system has given citizens many more years of life, and the means to live more intensely and actively. In 1900, the life expectancy in America was around 50 years; today, it is more than 75 years. Advances in medicine and agriculture are mainly responsible for the change. This extension of the life span means more years to enjoy life, more free time to devote to a good cause, and more occasions to do things with the grandchildren. In many countries, people who are old seem to have nothing to do: they just wait to die. In America the old are incredibly vigorous, and people in their seventies pursue the pleasures of life, including remarriage and sexual gratification, with a zeal that I find unnerving.

-- In America the destiny of the young is not given to them, but created by them. Not long ago, I asked myself, "What would my life have been like if I had never come to the United States?" If I had remained in India, I would probably have lived my whole life within a five-mile radius of where I was born. I would undoubtedly have married a woman of my identical religious and socioeconomic background. I would almost certainly have become a medical doctor, or an engineer, or a computer programmer. I would have socialized entirely within my ethic community. I would have a whole set of opinions that could be predicted in advance; indeed, they would not be very different from what my father believed, or his father before him. In sum, my destiny would to a large degree have been given to me.

In America, I have seen my life take a radically different course. In college I became interested in literature and politics, and I resolved to make a career as a writer. I married a woman whose ancestry is English, French, Scotch-Irish, German and American Indian. In my twenties I found myself working as a policy analyst in the White House, even though I was not an American citizen. No other country, I am sure, would have permitted a foreigner to work in its inner citadel of government.

In most countries in the world, your fate and your identity are handed to you; in America, you determine them for yourself. America is a country where you get to write the script of your own life. Your life is like a blank sheet of paper, and you are the artist. This notion of being the architect of your own destiny is the incredibly powerful idea that is behind the worldwide appeal of America. Young people especially find irresistible the prospect of authoring the narrative of their own lives.

-- America has gone further than any other society in establishing equality of rights. There is nothing distinctively American about slavery or bigotry. Slavery has existed in virtually every culture, and xenophobia, prejudice and discrimination are worldwide phenomena. Western civilization is the only civilization to mount a principled campaign against slavery; no country expended more treasure and blood to get rid of slavery than the United States. While racism remains a problem, this country has made strenuous efforts to eradicate discrimination, even to the extent of enacting policies that give legal preference in university admissions, jobs, and government contracts to members of minority groups. Such policies remain controversial, but the point is that it is extremely unlikely that a racist society would have permitted such policies in the first place. And surely African Americans like Jesse Jackson are vastly better off living in America than they would be if they were to live in, say, Ethiopia or Somalia.

-- America has found a solution to the problem of religious and ethnic conflict that continues to divide and terrorize much of the world. Visitors to places like New York are amazed to see the way in which Serbs and Croatians, Sikhs and Hindus, Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Jews and Palestinians,

all seem to work and live together in harmony. How is this possible when these same groups are spearing each other and burning each other's homes in so many places in the world?

The American answer is twofold. First, separate the spheres of religion and government so that no religion is given official preference but all are free to practice their faith as they wish. Second, do not extend rights to racial or ethnic groups but only to individuals; in this way, all are equal in the eyes of the law, opportunity is open to anyone who can take advantage of it, and everybody who embraces the American way of life can "become American."

Of course there are exceptions to these core principles, even in America. Racial preferences are one such exception, which explains why they are controversial. But in general, America is the only country in the world that extends full membership to outsiders. The typical American could come to India,

live for 40 years, and take Indian citizenship. But he could not "become Indian." He wouldn't see himself that way, nor would most Indians see him that way. In America, by contrast, hundreds of millions have come from far-flung shores and over time they, or at least their children, have in a profound and full sense "become American."

-- America has the kindest, gentlest foreign policy of any great power in world history. Critics of the United States are likely to react to this truth with sputtering outrage. They will point to long-standing American support for a Latin or Middle Eastern despot, or the unjust internment of the Japanese during World War II, or America's reluctance to impose sanctions on South Africa's apartheid regime. However one feels about these particular cases, let us concede to the critics the point that America is not always in the right.

What the critics leave out is the other side of the ledger. Twice in the 20th century, the United States saved the world -- first from the Nazi threat, then from Soviet totalitarianism. What would have been the world's fate if America had not existed? After destroying Germany and Japan in World War II, the United States proceeded to rebuild both countries, and today they are American allies. Now we are doing the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Consider, too, how magnanimous the United States has been to the former Soviet Union after its victory in the Cold War. For the most part America is an abstaining superpower; it shows no real interest in conquering and subjugating the rest of the world. (Imagine how the Soviets would have acted if they had won the Cold War.) On occasion the United States intervenes to overthrow a tyrannical regime or to halt massive human rights abuses in another country, but it never stays to rule that country. In Grenada, Haiti and Bosnia, the United States got in and then it got out. Moreover, when America does get into a war, as in Iraq, its troops are supremely careful to avoid targeting civilians and to minimize collateral damage. Even as America bombed the Taliban infrastructure and hideouts, U.S. planes dropped food to avert hardship and starvation of Afghan civilians. What other country does these things?

-- America, the freest nation on Earth, is also the most virtuous nation on Earth. This point seems counterintuitive, given the amount of conspicuous vulgarity, vice and immorality in America. Some Islamic fundamentalists argue that their regimes are morally superior to the United States because they seek to foster virtue among the citizens. Virtue, these fundamentalists argue, is a higher principle than liberty.

Indeed it is. And let us admit that in a free society, freedom will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes the freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. But if freedom brings out the worst in people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans who live decent,

praiseworthy lives desire our highest admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is not the only available option. Even amid the temptations of a rich and free society, they have remained on the straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is freely chosen.

By contrast, the societies that many Islamic fundamentalists seek would eliminate the possibility of virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in a free society like America, it is almost nonexistent in an unfree society like Iran's. The reason is that coerced virtues are not virtues at all. Consider the woman who is required to wear a veil. There is no modesty in this,

because she is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue, it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue. Thus a free society like America's is not merely more prosperous, more varied, more peaceful, and more tolerant -- it is also morally superior to the theocratic and authoritarian regimes that America's enemies advocate.

"To make us love our country," Edmund Burke once said, "our country ought to be lovely." Burke's point is that we should love our country not just because it is ours, but also because it is good. America is far from perfect, and there is lots of room for improvement. In spite of its flaws, however, American life as it is lived today is the best life that our world has to offer. Ultimately America is worthy of our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it makes possible the good life, and the life that is good.”

2003-07-07T20:10:00.000-04:00

Buddy Ebsen has died. He will always be, for most of us, Jed Clampett. 'The Beverly Hillbillies" is one of the shows from that era that I still find to be laugh out loud funny, even after seeing most of the episodes five or six times. It's hard to imagine that he was 95.

Speaking of old TV shows, I heard someone talking about 'Gilligan's Island' and the seven deadly sins. Maybe I'm out of touch, but has this theory been around for a while? It 's fun to consider, anyway.

As I age, I find myself laughing more and more (sometimes bitterly) at people who consider themselves to be authority figures. This tendency has become more obvious of late as I have become a participant in an online community. What's funny is that almost the entire leadership "caste" of this group is made up of individuals who, in the real world, do not hold or are incapable of holding real positions of leadership at a job or in their community. Ironically, it seems that those who desire power the most are the least qualified for the position. This is not always true, but my time in corporate America has shown me that true leaders are sought out by management and are often given responsibilities they did not seek. The people who always seek responsibility and power are often self-serving types who have no true sense of the world outside of themselves. If only our political system worked this way.

2003-07-06T17:24:00.000-04:00

My intention, on the Fourth, was to post the entire Declaration of Independence. If you have never read the entire document, do yourself a favor and do so. There are many details which we never discuss today, but are interesting in hindsight. Well, if you're a history nerd.

Today in 1976, the first woman was admitted to the US Naval Academy. '76? That seems kind of late to me. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but my last Commanding Officer in the navy was a female Lieutenant Commander. In the early '90s, there were commands in the navy that could ONLY be filled by women. It was an attempt by the navy to give women a chance at command, since, at that time, women could not serve aboard ships-of-the-line (warships). Anyway, my CO was as useless as tits on a boar hog. In the civilian world, she wouldn't have been placed in charge of a dumpster. She's probably a four-star admiral by now.

Actually, I'm posting this from the radio studio. That's how boring the show is today. Or I've became jaded.

2003-07-04T02:43:00.000-04:00

As you can see by the error below, my post was too big for the Blogger system to handle. So, instead of re-typing it and cutting out the boring parts, I will just say happy Fourth.

2003-07-02T15:13:00.000-04:00

I apologize for the dearth of postings over the past few days. I have begun contributing a “this day in history” piece to a website I peruse often and it actually requires me to do a little research every night. But I am and always have been a history geek of sorts, so it’s all in good fun. However, I do not want my aimless ramblings here to suffer, so I will endeavor to do better.

“Faith is going on a journey without knowing the destination.” I saw that on a sign in front of a local church the other day. Our world is full of neat little sayings like that which seek to bundle up the fundamentals for us. But it got me to thinking about my own faith (or lack thereof) and I came to this realization: if I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, when I died, the mysteries of the world would be explained to me, I would believe in anything you wanted to lay in front of me. Of course, I guess it’s really not faith if you need some sort of ironclad guarantee. And even if I had it, I would probably want more; after all, what if I died and God said, “Hey, Matt, you know what? It’s all a goof. I made the world so that I would have something to do on a Saturday night. No hard feelings, OK?”

The United States will be 227 years old on Friday. That’s a blink of an eye for the world, and not too much time in the span of human memory, either. I may have mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating: when my father (who is 70) was born, there were still men alive who had fought in the Civil War. Some of the grandfathers of those men were alive when the country began. To be that close to history is, for me, astonishing.

2003-06-28T02:37:00.000-04:00

At work on Friday nights, I listen almost exclusively to Joe Elliot until midnight. Joe is a local radio host and I find that I agree with him more often than not. Last night, he was talking about this past week’s Supreme Court ruling dealing with sodomy laws in Texas. This is a contentious issue because it almost always devolves into a discussion about homosexuality. And when it does, all the things I hate about the Midwest, and Kentucky in particular, come to the fore.

If you read the old laws concerning sodomy, you realize that they were written to ban not only homosexual sex, but any sex that was considered “deviant”. Most adults, gay and straight, have broken these laws if they reside in areas where they are still on the books. Why do we break them? Because we either don’t know they exist or we don’t care. For all practical purposes, these laws are unenforceable.

What ticked me off were the calls Joe was receiving. The largest group were the “Gay is a choice” crowd, none of which, I am positive, have any homosexual friends. The people I know who are public about their homosexuality are few and all of them are male; to a man, none of them chose to be gay. As one told me a few years ago, “I woke up one day when I was thirteen and I liked boys. It was never a question.” I think, maybe, it is easier for the fundamentalist crowd to call homosexuality a choice than to say that, golly, maybe God ALLOWED THEM TO BE BORN THAT WAY. Evidence of homosexuality among other animals doesn’t seem to sway the argument. Of course, when you start at a conclusion and work backwards, that kind of thing happens.

2003-06-26T06:59:00.000-04:00

An upbeat piece from my favorite news agency, the (North) Korean Central News Agency:

Koreans vow to revenge themselves upon Yankees
Pyongyang, June 25 (KCNA) -- Agricultural workers held an indignation meeting in Sinchon and schoolchildren a meeting for a vow of revenge at the hall of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League yesterday on June 24 on the occasion of June 25, the day of struggle against the U.S. imperialists. Speakers at the meetings said that the war of aggression unleashed by the U.S. imperialists 53 years ago was an unprecedented mass-killing war that inflicted immeasurable disasters and misfortune upon the Korean people.
Disclosing that those murderers are now imposing all sorts of misfortune upon the South Korean people and killing innocent people irrespective of men and women, young and old, they branded them as the most heinous harasser of peace in the world, ringleader of evil and human butchers unpardonable down through generation.
If the U.S. imperialists ignite another war of aggression in this land, agricultural workers and schoolchildren will pay off old scores upon them, they warned.
An indignation statement was read out and a poem carrying a vow of revenge recited at the meetings.

I suppose it’s too late to mention that it was the North Koreans who started the whole thing in 1950.

Peter Lorre was born today in 1904. Lorre was the actor who played the admiral in the film “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” in 1961. That film and the later TV series (‘64-’68) were my first introduction to life in our glorious navy (I only saw the reruns). Of course, I was seven or eight at the time. I didn’t know that flying submarines don’t exist and that giant squids do not regularly attack nuclear-powered submarines. The coolest thing about the show (and something the navy needs to think about) was that the bow of the submarine had....are you ready?....WINDOWS. The admiral’s office was up there. I don’t where the torpedo tubes were, but the office had cool wood paneling and a spiral staircase.
One more thing about the sub (named the ‘Seaview’ (?)): the ventilation ducts were big enough for a man to crawl through. If the ship was taken over by bad guys (which it was every third or fourth episode), someone would “out-flank” the intruders by crawling through the ventilation system. Greatness.

2003-06-25T07:17:00.000-04:00

Apple, once again, claims to be selling the fastest PC on the planet. And, once again, everyone is questioning their data. If you’re interested, swing by the Apple web site and look at how much the new G5’s go for. $1999 gets you a stripped-down model. To get the big-daddy earthshaker, you have to spend almost three grand, and that’s without a monitor. For $2000, I could build a complete system that would bury that machine.

I think the folks at Apple would be better served by not going this route every three years or so. Unlike Intel and AMD, Motorola (and now IBM) does not roll out a new generation of chips once or twice a year. Thus, the all-new G5 will be yesterday’s news by August. Apple used to be about “the difference”----people buy Macs because they’re not beige boxes. Problem is, the beige boxes aren’t beige anymore, either. Thus, Apple must reinvent itself. The iTunes thing was a good start; it turned people away from thinking that Apple is just a computer company. On the other hand, it must continue to sell hardware in order to survive. So here’s my prediction: in three years, Apple will no longer be selling desktop computers. Its product line will consist of laptops and “convergence” devices; that is, equipment that merges computing with home entertainment. Sony and others are trying to do this now, but it MUST be Apple’s future if the company is to survive in the retail sector. You read it here first.

Today in 1942, Dwight Eisenhower was placed in command of American Forces in Europe. Looking back, this may seem logical; we all know Ike as a two-term President and a five-star general. However, he was a mediocre student at West Point and did not see combat in World War One (unlike many of his contemporaries). On Dec. 7, 1941, Ike was a colonel. By May, 1945, he was wearing five stars. He was world-famous and almost universally respected. I have often wondered if the vaunted “unseen hand” was work here. Those of you old enough to remember the end of Eisenhower’s second term will recall the speech he made warning of the perils of the “military-industrial complex”. Had he been a slave to that complex? Has every president since? George Noory, call your office.

2003-06-19T19:50:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from the first chapter of Ann Coulter's forthcoming book, "Treason":

"Why is the relative patriotism of the two parties the only issue that is out of bounds for discussion? Why can’t we ask: Who is more patriotic -- Democrats or Republicans? You could win that case in court.

At least we can be thankful that in the war on terrorism, we were spared the spectacle of liberals calling Osama bin Laden an “agrarian reformer.”

While consistently rooting against America, liberals have used a fictional event forged of their own hysteria - “McCarthyism” -- to prevent Americans from ever asking the simple question: Do liberals love their country?

Phil Donahue asked rhetorically: “Are the protesters the real patriots? It is at least counterintuitive to say that it is more patriotic to attack America than to defend it.

[A]fter World War II, the Democratic Party suffered from the sort of pusillanimous psychosis that seized all of France after World War I. The entire Party had lost its nerve for sacrifice, heroism and bravery. Beginning in the fifties, there was a real FIGHT for the soul of the Democratic Party. By the late sixties the contest was over. The anti-Communist Democrats had lost.

Democrats are on the precipice of securing their reputation as the Chamberlains of our time. In fact, today’s appeasers are worse than Neville Chamberlain: Chamberlain didn’t have himself as an example.

Jimmy Carter couldn’t land a helicopter in a desert, but he seemed to imagine the public was hungry for his counsel in the war on terrorism. Carter is so often maligned for his stupidity, it tends to be forgotten that he is also self-righteous, vengeful, sneaky, and backstabbing.

Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. Fifty years of treason hasn’t slowed them down."

2003-06-19T19:40:00.000-04:00

The Pope is the Anti-Christ. I always knew that old, little Polish man was up to no good. Seriously, people like Jack Chick are the reason why I have such a problem with fundamentalist Protestants. If you buy the bible word-for-word (even though it's been translated numerous times), then you are either misguided or a fool. Just an opinion.

My friend Gary is in town on business and we are getting together tomorrow night. He is the first member of the Texas crew to visit here since Kelli and I were married. There has been talk of a Fourth of July visit, but nothing official yet. We shall see.

Sleazy Sixties Smut Books! Don't click on the link if tawdry paperback covers offend you. My two favorites: "Satan was a Lesbian" and "Matador of Shame". I have always wondered if any "smut" authors went on to become well-known mainstream artists.

Tom Cruise wants federal funding for Scientology . This is one area in which I agree with the German government: label Scientology as a cult and ban its existence. Federal funding! Next thing you know, artists will want federal grants for displaying crucifixes in jars of urine.

2003-06-18T06:59:00.000-04:00

Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” in Roe vs. Wade, announced yesterday that she is going to ask the Supreme Court to re-evaluate the case . Her contention is that much more is understood now about how abortion affects women physically and psychologically. She also believes that the court needs to consider the effect abortion has had on our society since 1973.

As well-intentioned as Ms. McCorvey may be, this case doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting anywhere. Even if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case (which it can always decline to do), they are unlikely to reverse the previous ruling. But there is something else in all of this that many who are against abortion do not fully realize: abortion is no longer about sucking an unborn child out of women and flushing him down a sink. It’s about women’s “empowerment”.

Abortion will become illegal in this country when women stop having them. NOW and Planned Parenthood are pro-abortion (let’s not call it “pro-choice”, OK? Those of us with some intelligence know better) because it’s a very profitable business to have a hand in. If the profitability were taken out of abortion, doctors would stop doing them and these “free” clinics would soon lose interest in the procedure.

But there will have to be a cultural shift in this nation before any of this takes place. An entire generation of women born since 1973 has been bombarded with the message that abortion is not only a right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights (or it’s “penumbra”, as the Court decided) but, if that right is taken away, they will somehow be less free. Can someone explain this to me?

We hear the mantras all the time: “It’s my body” and “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.” Consider this: if I take my body to the top of the Kennedy Bridge in Louisville and try to jump off with a homemade parachute and someone sees me, the police will try to intervene because such an activity is illegal. But it’s my body, isn’t it? If my parachute fails, I will land in the river and be washed away. No one will be harmed but me, right? Now, let’s say I decide to put a gun in my hand and take my body to the bank and rob it. I put the unloaded weapon in the teller’s face and tell her to fill up my seabag with cash. Is this illegal? You bet. Is anyone harmed? Not really. The bank customers are covered by the bank’s federal insurance; they won’t lose a dime. The teller may be frightened, but I can’t hurt her with an empty weapon. Hey, if you don’t like bank robbery, don’t pull one.

And don’t tell me I don’t understand because I’m a man---that argument is weak, misguided and goes against feminist theology.

2003-06-17T17:20:00.000-04:00

I’m sorry about the shortage of posts over the past few days. I had every intention of posting on Sunday night about Father's Day, but I spent the day with my two fathers (biological and through marriage) and didn’t have time to write. I have written about my father here before, but never about my father-in-law. John is a quiet, kind man who has treated me as a son since long before I married his oldest daughter. He is a father of four, a grandfather to wishes and a friend to the many he comes into contact with in his capacity as Family Life Coordinator at our parish. He is also an avid computer user, which means that many of our conversations revolve around the latest problem he has stumbled onto with his home PC (which I built in 1999 and re-built recently). He is easy to talk to; unlike my own father, John does not have “minefield” issues into which one should not stray. I guess the greatest compliment I can give him is to say that I feel at home when he is around.

So I joined an online “clan” that plays Medal of Honor: Spearhead online. Don’t laugh yet---it gets better. As I mentioned before, I am a casual online gamer. It’s a great way to blow off steam. But playing alone becomes boring in very short order. Thus, the clan. I didn’t join one before I didn’t know anyone who actually belonged to one. That changed a couple weeks ago when my friend Eric dropped me a line and told me that he and our mutual friend Shawn were joining a group. My mental image was of scruffy teen boys, smoking weed and figuring out ways to cheat the game. However, the clan they joined is populated by a couple of veterans and others who take the whole thing pretty seriously, so much so that they “practice” every night.

The first thing these guys did was set up a rank structure. Since one of the founding members is a former sailor, they decided to set up the whole thing like the UDT (underwater demolition) teams of World War Two. All was well until this history-buff asshole from Indiana who goes by the call-sign MattDatt showed up and questioned why the fellas (and one gal) were using current naval enlisted rates and not those in common use in 1944. You may now laugh.

So the “Vice-Admiral” running the show has asked me to get him a rate sheet that reflects enlisted rates and officer ranks from the war. The officer part is easy; naval rank has not changed for them since the 19th century. But the enlisted side is a different story. My first thought was to find my grandfather’s Blue Jacket manual from that time; however, I don’t know where it is. I searched on the ‘net and finally found what I was looking for. Stand by for heavy geekiness.

I knew you would want to know all that.

Check this out . While pretty smart, it’s also very disgusting. But one thing: where were the homeless go during the Clinton administration? Why did the homeless only reappear in January, 2001? Media bias? NO WAY!!!

2003-06-13T17:55:00.000-04:00

DLP puts up an interesting New York Times editorial which insinuates that our current economic woes were created by this administration in order to cut social programs. It would seem that the wheels have come off the bus over at the Old Gray Lady. Thinking that the economy can be controlled from the White House is ridiculous on its face; then again, we are talking about Paul Klugman. By the way, does anyone else think that he looks like Ted Schmitt from 'Queer as Folk' with a beard? Just a thought. At least Teddy understands basic economic theory (when he's not getting tweaked).

2003-06-12T07:16:00.000-04:00

Today in 1991, a guy named Tim Berners-Lee addressed a symposium at CERN, the European Particle Physics Lab in Geneva, Switzerland. Berners-Lee presented an idea that he called a “hypertext system”. This “hypertext system” was soon called the World Wide Web. While the internet, which is really the backbone of the web, has been around since the late 1960’s under various names, the World Wide Web has really only existed for about a dozen years. It’s hard to imagine life without it.

The first time I heard the phrase “World Wide Web” was sometime in 1992. My friend Steve called me one day while I was stationed in Charleston, S.C. He told me about someone he knew (the name escapes me now) who spent all his time posting information to this new thing called “The World Wide Web”. My knowledge of networks was non-existent and, thus, the concept of inter-connected networks spanning the globe was incomprehensible. I didn’t own a computer until 1993, just ten years ago. It was a Mac Performa 200 (Classic II) and I don’t think it had a modem. For all I know, it may still be in use somewhere.

My friend Art sent me this quote a few days ago:

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans...
...unless they have too much education and vote Democratic,
which proves there can be too much of a good thing."

He had gotten it from a Bush-bashing site which attributed it to Karl Rove, a close Presidential advisor. I read this kind of stuff every day online, and it doesn’t surprise me---the world is full of angry liberals. What makes this text so unusual is that, to this day, I can not find the full quotation. I asked Art to get me a source on it, and he wrote to a professor who had used the quote in a write-up on about.com (I think; the trail is getting long). The quote originally appeared in The New Yorker and then in the New York Times, that bastion of accuracy. Both publications published the line exactly as you see it above. What’s between those ellipses? We may never know. I did finally get to read the entire paragraph the quote was taken from. It has to do with Rove making the point that spending money on education would be good for the Republicans because it would allow more poor people to live in suburbia, where the GOP made substantial gains in 2000.

It is this kind of manipulation that proves the Democrat/liberals in this nation have no plan and no future. When faced with a presidency that is both popular and focused, they can resort to nothing but name-calling and class warfare. When the was the last time you heard a Democrat make an argument against a Republican initiative that did not include the words “obstruction”, “rich” or “working families”? Of course, when your play book is only a paragraph long and was written by James Carville, you can’t expect too much.

2003-06-10T15:31:00.000-04:00

Reese Witherspoon is one again great with child. This is the second time she has experienced an immaculate conception, which is, I suppose, some sort of record. But, you ask, what of her husband (who will forever go unnamed here)? Surely you jest!!! He is obviously a homosexual and is merely serving as a second source of income in the Witherspoon home. Any other situation would infer that the two of them have sexual relations and we all know that is an impossibility, right? Il mio Dio! Perché lei me ignora?!

I have a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Babylon Revisited’ at work that I read and re-read when the mood strikes. It’s a collection of his short stories written between 1920 and 1937, the best years of his career. I have been drawn to him and his work since I first had to read ‘Winter Dreams’ my junior year of high school. There was something about his writing that made me want to live in the post-Great War era when the rich were even more obscene than they are today and even the bartenders drove custom-built cars. I wanted to live in Manhattan and wear thick silk shirts under my Brooks Brothers suit and talk about my company as a “going concern.”

I wasn’t until I read ‘The Great Gatsby” that the cracks in that world began to show. It might have been my age and my growing cynicism towards the elitists of our day. Whatever the cause, Fitzgerald’s flaws were suddenly all around: women were fragile playthings who played tennis and cried a lot; Jews were always bankers or con men and always the evil behind the throne; blacks were just servants; Catholicism was always either just a mistake in someone’s past or a religion for immigrants. But Fitzgerald was a man of his time and it’s very easy to cast aspersions without realizing that many of those same stereotypes exist today, albeit with a thick coat of gloss on them.

When I read his writing today, I can’t help but see the historical similarities between the 1920’s and the 90’s. Both were economic boom times with little in the way of underpinnings. Both were times when foreign policy was seen as secondary to domestic affairs. Both ended with the economy on the decline. The 1930’s saw a depression that was only ended by the Second World War; we got a recession and a war at the same time, an idea that would have been economically impossible 70 years ago. With history as our guide, 2010 (like the late 40’s and early 50’s) will see the rise of a new superpower on the world stage. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

2003-06-09T01:02:00.000-04:00

Hillary's book is now on sale. If you can stand over 500 pages of, well, stuff, please pick it up and let me know how you like it. I will be reading it as soon as someone gives me a copy or I can steal it. Stand by for a week of softball interviews by they likes of Katie Couric, Baba Wawa and Larry King with questions like "What's your greatest accomplisment?", "What was it like to live in the White House?" and other tough gems. To borrow a phrase, "pfffft."

Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty today in 1968. I don't even want to get into it. This is one of those moments in history that won't even BE history in another fifty years.

Today is Joan Rivers' birthday. She has been completely rebuilt and should not need another overhaul until 2045. You heard it here first.

2003-06-06T06:49:00.000-04:00

Weapons of mass destruction. What a phrase. I don’t ever remember hearing it before 9/11, but I’m pretty sure it was in common use in places like the Pentagon and the Rand Corporation. Now, it is part of every American’s vocabulary. Lately, most of our media and seemingly all of the British media are interested in where Iraq’s WMDs are. Every Democrat in the country is making his livelihood by pointing out the fallacy that, less than two months after the end of hostilities, our military has yet to turn up “a smoking gun.” (For the record, a gun that is smoking has already been fired. The phrase should be “a loaded gun.”). The fact that several pre-sterilized mobile labs have been found is, I guess, merely coincidental. We all know that fertilizer and baby medicine are produced the world over in labs towed behind trucks.

There are two points to consider here. First, this brouhaha is not really about chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; it’s about George W. Bush and war in general. The mainstream media is dying to relive the thrilling days of the Vietnam War when, as they believe, they were the only thing that stood between democracy and a military-led junta in this country. After all, this may be Dan Rather’s last war in the anchor chair. One only has to listen to a press conference with Donald Rumsfeld to hear the outright hostility many in the press feel towards the military. Why is this? Simple: the very existence of a strong military goes against the socialist notion that every problem in the world can be solved with a treaty or a new set of laws, preferably overseen by the UN. Add to that the annoying truth that our military is the finest on earth and you quickly begin to realize how intolerable the situation must be in the hallowed halls of The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, et. al.

My second point is one of conditions. What proof will have to found before Old Europe and the mainstream American media accept that the old regime in Baghdad had WMDs? If a few rockets full of VX gas are found, the amount will be too small to worth quibbling over. If the chemicals are less esoteric, it will be said that they were the work of fringe elements and not the government themselves. If a huge stockpile is found, it will be said that the entire thing was staged (I have already heard this, by the way). It’s a no-win for the Americans.

I believe the simple truth is this: the weapons are long gone. Hussein and his henchmen had nearly six months warning that the inevitable was going to occur. And since the weapons may have had the imprint of Paris, Berlin or Moscow all over them, it was in their best interest to see them destroyed or made to disappear. Hussein knew that an American invasion would mean the end of him, either physically or politically. But if the Allies found nothing to justify the war, they would have egg on their face and he might stand a chance of staying alive somewhere else in the world.

There is a pretty interesting article linked on [H]ardOCP that discusses a common myth that the human eye can not distinguish between 30 frames per second and higher frame rates. This has become an issue to many PC gamers in the past few years as the power of hardware increases to the point where a new game on a high-end system appears completely fluid. The end effect is one of total immersion, and really cool to those of us old enough to remember such time-wasters as Tank Battle and Asteroids on the Atari 2600.

Confession time: I play games on my computer. I don’t have as much time to do it as I used to, but I play online when I can. And since I have never really mentioned it here before, here’s my current rig’s specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Processor
ABIT AT7 Motherboard
1GB Mushkin PC3200 DDR Ram
120GB Western Digital SE ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive (running Windows XP Pro)
80GB Maxtor ATA/133 7200RPM Hard Drive (running Red Hat 9.1)
120GB Western Digital FireWire Drive (for backups)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Video Card with 128MB RAM
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card
TDK 52x CD-RW Drive
TDK 4X DVD+R/+RW Drive
Antec Mid-Tower Server Case with 400W Power Supply (Black)
Samsung SyncMaster 191T 19” LCD Display
Klipsch 2.1 Speakers

Oh, yeah, I’m a geek. This is the same setup (with the exception of a RAM upgrade and replacement CD-RW/hard drives {both of which I smoked}) I have had since the first of the year and I am doubtful that I will change it any time soon. The average home PC has become so fast and has so much storage space that it will take years for office applications to catch up. There are only three reasons to have the fastest thing on the block: you need to compensate for something missing in your life, like a girlfriend; you are a serious gamer and need those extra five frames per second; you do serious digital photo/video production/manipulation.

2003-06-04T06:52:00.000-04:00

My wife bought a subscription to ‘Details’ magazine for me a few months ago. It’s not really in my reading wheelhouse, but it presents a diversion in the same way ‘Maxim’ does, albeit with more references to gay porn. But I digress.

This month’s cover lad is Josh Hartnett. Josh is only 24, so I’m going to go easy on him. His interview in the mag centered around his distaste for life as a celebrity. Evidently, nubile young women hound him wherever he goes and designers give him clothes to wear. I can only imagine his burden. In fact, when faced with the choice of a) deciding what time to have my driver pick me up b) deciding who I was going to “do” tonight or c) deciding which nostril to snort with first, I would probably have some sort of nervous collapse.

I’m just kidding. While many people desire fame, very few realize how brutal it can be. The fans who love you today will hate, or worse, ignore you if your next film isn’t a blockbuster. Once you reach a certain level of notoriety, your days of going to the grocery in sweats and an oil-stained t-shirt are over. And one day, you will get old and no one will hire you.

What poor Josh never learned in college was the basic economic theory concerning opportunity cost. Every decision we take has a cost, that cost being the thing we did not pursue with said opportunity. Josh pursued success in acting; in exchange, he gave up anonymity. What’s worse is that he said he wants to be like Al Pacino, a guy who is taken seriously by other actors. Oh, OK....now I understand why he made “Pearl Harbor”. Sheesh.

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification today in 1919. It was ratified by August, 1920. The smart-ass part of me wants to say something about a kitchen and a lack of shoes, but I shall refrain.

Two important events of the Second World War occurred today. In 1940, the evacuation of Dunkirk ended. The Belgian port city was the end of the road for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), having been pushed back across France during the month of May. Now, the only way out for the Brits and the remainder of the French army was by sea. Winston Churchill, knowing that the British Royal Navy did not have the resources to pick up over 300,000 soldiers, asked the public to help. As a result, nearly every vessel capable of crossing the English Channel—ferries, yachts, sailing ships, lifeboats, speedboats and tugs---made the dangerous crossing while under attack by the German Luftwaffe. The successful evacuation gave the British public a moral boost. Churchill, however, would have none of it. In one of his angriest speeches of the war (or any time, for that matter) he stated that “retreats do not win wars.”

Two years later, in 1942, the Battle of Midway began. Midway Island is a high spot in the Pacific Ocean, but was a crucial base for the American Navy. The Japanese planned to invade the island and use it as a base to subdue Hawaii. However, American intelligence types had broken the Japanese naval code and knew of the plan. So, when the Japanese sent a diversion force to the Aleutian Islands off Alaska, they were ignored. Admirals Nimitz and Spruance met the Japanese with everything the US Navy had left in the Pacific: three carrier battle-groups centered around the Enterprise, Hornet (just back from launching the Doolittle raid on Tokyo) and Yorktown (badly damaged at the Battle of Coral Sea in May but patched together in 72 HOURS by the shipwrights at Pearl Harbor). Ultimately, the Japanese were turned away after losing three carriers and over 300 aircraft. The Americans lost the Yorktown. Historians call this sea battle the turning point of the war in the Pacific. This is correct on two counts; first, it stopped the Japanese advance and two, it marked the first time that the Japanese incurred loses that their limited industrial capacity could not replace. They had indeed woken a sleeping giant.

Interesting tidbit for those of you keeping score at home. As mentioned above, the Pacific Fleet only had three carriers in June, 1942. By August, 1945, when hostilities ceased, it had 74. That’s a whole lotta steel.

2003-06-02T21:55:00.000-04:00

Our society changed a little today. Allow me to clarify: the potential for that change was introduced today. The FCC loosened up ownership rules on radio/TV/newspapers, meaning that large companies (Clear Channel, Gannett and all the major broadcast networks) can buy an even bigger slice of the media pie an many markets. I say "many" because there are still limitations in place that keep one company from owning every media outlet in a smallish town. Take a moment and read the article I linked above; it does a much better job of explaining the ruling than I ever could.

There are three things about this that bother me. One is the reaction of the groups critical to the ruling. Where the hell were all these people when the rules were first loosened during the Clinton Administration? Answer: nowhere. That makes this protest anti-Republican and anti-Bush, not anti-"big business". If they were honest in their convictions, they would lay blame for this at the feet of The Bubba himself.

The second thing that bothers me is the overreaction of the media, both left and right of center. Understand this: NOTHING HAS HAPPENED YET. Clear Channel has not purchased every radio station in the United States, nor could they. They will be allowed to buy more stations, which, in my opinion, is not a good thing based upon what I know about the radio industry in the United States. More on that in the next paragraph.

Finally, this move by the Republican majority on the FCC board is NOT a move by true conservatives. The Republican Party in this country is viewed by the opposition as being all about "big business", and this plays right into their hands. A true conservative would want to see media outlets (TV, radio and newspapers) controlled by as many companies as possible. This promotes competition, which would lead us towards better, more balanced journalism and, in my opinion, a more diverse entertainment selection. With only four big TV/Cable media companies in this country, how many reality shows will we have to endure? How many times can a show like "CSI" be cloned? Where will the risktakers go? Why promote the formation of an oligarchy in media, especially when it is decidely liberal?

On another note, the USS Constellation sailed home for the last time today. She is an aircraft carrier, commisioned in 1961 and deployed 21 times. She served in Viet Nam and both Gulf Wars, as well as Afghanistan and other "brush fires" too numerous to mention. When she is retired in August, she will be replaced by the USS Ronald Reagan, the latest Nimitz-class carrier.

To most of you, this is not big deal. It's not really a big deal to me, either, but it will be to the many thousands of men who served aboard her. I was still in the navy when the last of the Iowa-class battleships, the USS Missouri, was decommissioned. The Japanese signed the surrender documents ending WWII on that ship, and she had served in every war since. One of my friends at the time had served aboard her when she had escorted Kuwaiti tankers in the Persian Gulf. He told me about the plaque on deck that commemerated the surrender and how they had strung lights all over her mast so that, at night from a distance, she would look like an oil tanker to a passing Iranian patrol boat. He had a tattoo of her on his forearm. It was a real attachment, albeit to something made of steel and painted haze grey.

2003-06-01T23:43:00.000-04:00

I've been doing this for exactly one year today. I always like to start things on the first of the month, and this blog was no exception. It struck me a few minutes ago how temporary this thing is. Unlike a book, my musings will one day disappear into the ether----either I will lose interest or the hosting company will go out of business. Maybe all these blogs will become like the plans for the old Saturn 5 rocket: still there, but no hardware in existence to read them.

2003-05-31T04:09:00.000-04:00

I was outside at 1am this morning, right about the time the bulk of the UPS air fleet arrives at Louisville International every night. Despite flying numerous times and having detailed knowledge of how an object flies, I am still mesmerized by flight. It is still magical to think of a sky filled with silver tubes shooting across the sky. I would love to get my pilot's license, but I think that it would make flying into something procedural for me. Time will tell.

The Johnstown flood happened today in 1889. It wasn't a flood so much as it was a dam-break. Johnstown was a little town 12 miles downstream from Lake Conemaugh in Pennsylvania. The lake was owned by a prestigious hunting and fishing club which had allowed the dam to become dangerous. When it broke, 20 million tons of water wiped the town off the map, killing over 2200 people. Yet no one was able to successfully sue the hunting and fishing club. How times have changed.

2003-05-29T07:10:00.000-04:00

Two short articles from our friends in North Korea:

World No-Tobacco Day

Pyongyang, May 28 (KCNA) -- Activities are being conducted in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to mark the World No-Tobacco Day, May 31. The government is directing efforts to encourage people to quit smoking harmful to them. Medical workers across the country are intensifying propaganda about the harmfulness of smoking among the people and stimulating officials to take the lead in the anti-smoking campaign.
Multifarious propaganda activities such as performance by artistic propaganda squads, screening of the scientific film "health and tobacco" and photo exhibition have been conducted as demanded by the new century.
Much effort is being made at industrial establishments to create a favorable environment for the young people to refrain from smoking.
In this way, the DPRK is joining in the efforts for the implementation of the no-smoking initiative of the world health organization for building the 21st century free from cigarettes and the 2000-2004 action program of its South-East Asian Regional Office.

U.S. war against Iraq dismissed as unjust

Pyongyang, May 28 (KCNA) -- The United States describes its Iraqi war as a war for "freedom" and "peace" but it can never justify the injustice and criminal nature of the war, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed article. The article brands the Iraqi war as a war of aggression against independence and peace, a war unilaterally perpetrated by the U.S. in disregard of international law and the UN and typical state-sponsored terrorism in the 21st century.
Iraq has never infringed upon the interests of the U.S. nor threatened it. Therefore, there was no legal justification for the U.S. to mount a military attack on Iraq as unanimously claimed by the world public, the article says, and continues:
The inspection of weapons in Iraq was conducted according to the UN resolution at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Therefore, the Iraqi issue should have been settled according to the UN resolution. However, the U.S. unilaterally perpetrated military invasion of Iraq without any approval or resolution of the UN.
This has brought into bolder relief the despicable true colors of the U.S. imperialists who go arrogant, disregarding and mocking at the UN and international law.
The absurd pretext put up by the U.S. during the war helps clearly understand the injustice of the war.
When invading Iraq the U.S. cited the Iraq-laden ties and the "Iraq's possession of weapons of mass-destruction" as pretexts.
But any objective material evidence which can testify to those things has not yet been discovered, to say nothing of the period of the war.
As claimed by the world people, the true aim sought by the U.S. In its Iraqi war was to have a monopoly on Iraq's inexhaustible oil resources.
The U.S. is, indeed, the world's biggest oil thief and a rogue state.
With nothing can the U.S. cover up the unjust and criminal nature of the war and its selfish aim sought in it.

Does it strike anyone else as interesting that the rhetoric from Pyongyang sounds a lot like the rhetoric from the anti-war crowd in the United States and Europe? Just a thought. And I am very, very glad that they have taken a stand against tobacco. After all, murderous thugs with nuclear weapons don’t kill; cigarettes do.

Kelli and I saw “Bruce Almighty” this past weekend. For a film from Hollywood, it was amazingly respectful of the Western concept of God. Most of you know the premise, so I won’t rehash it here. The point of the exercise was to show that many people turn to God and ask for miracles but overlook the miracles we perform for each other every day. If there is a Supreme Being or some over-riding intelligence in the universe, He undoubtedly acts through the normal actions of man and nature.

There seems to be a resurgence of “religiosity” in this country right now. Most of it centers around Protestant Christianity, which kind of leaves me cold. I have a great deal of respect for people who are sincere in their faith; what turns me off is this ever-growing concept that God hands out things to the faithful. A case in point: there is a chiropractic office in Louisville that advertises on one of the local talk stations. In the ad, the narrator says, “This is God’s office---we work for God.” Really? You mean that the Almighty cuts the payroll checks? Does He hire and fire? Could I get my back adjusted and then pay my bill by sacrificing a dove or giving money to my church, since it’s all intended for God? AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

One more thing while I’m on the subject: could everyone PLEASE stop talking about blessings!!!??? If you own a beautiful home, God did NOT “bless” you with a house. God blessed you with talent and ability at your conception. You honed what you were given into an ability to do a certain job that pays for your lovely abode. That’s how it works. God may push or help you stand, but you have to finish the race.

2003-05-28T18:29:00.000-04:00

I received an e-mail from a good friend today mentioning that my posts lately have been a little glum. Please don't worry. When I write, I write from my heart. Whether it's history, politics or something going on in my personal life, I write about what I am thinking at the moment. Many days (like today), I read what I wrote last night and think, "Damn, dude, that's pretty black." But there it is, unscripted for the world. I have only edited an entry one time, and that was when there was a glaring factual error in what I had written. Smile.

2003-05-28T06:41:00.000-04:00

I found out this afternoon that one of my uncles is due to have open-heart surgery this week. He has had heart trouble before, so this turn of events is not surprising. However, the fact that this is all happening to HIM does shock me. Gus is not overweight and exercises regularly. To my knowledge, he was never a heavy drinker. His only vice is smoking, which he gave up some time ago. He is the only one of his brothers who seems to have heart issues, even though he is the youngest of his male siblings. I guess you never can tell.

Our friends Mike and Tammy were in town this weekend, and it was great to see them. Their presence reminds me that Kelli and I do not have many friends with whom we socialize. Sometimes I am bothered by this, as if I am missing out on something. But we both have a large number of siblings, and maybe that makes a difference. We are never lacking for invitations to outings and such, which makes me wonder how people with lots of “friends” manage to fit everyone in. As I have written here before, I think that my definition of what a friend is may be different than the norm. I believe they should be judged by quality, not in quantity. I know many people who seem to be almost desperate for friends. They must meet every neighbor, co-worker, etc. and bring them “into the fold”. I think it’s a plea for universal acceptance or proof of success in life.

I have found myself becoming more and more moody lately for no good reason. I have often thought that I suffer from some mild form of depression, but I have never considered it serious enough to seek medical attention. I asked our family doctor about it over three years ago and he attributed it to stress. I was still working at Diesel Injection then and I was under a tremendous amount of stress, so I dealt with it. But now, after working alone and relatively stress-free for almost three years, the feelings have not subsided. Part of the problem may come from working nights and never getting a really good “night’s” sleep. But I am increasingly filled with a sense of dread; I think about getting old and dying more than anyone my age should. More and more, I can make myself tear up at the drop of a hat. Both of these are well-known symptoms of depression.

But seeking help for this means one thing: talking to a psychiatrist/psychologist. Please understand that I have nothing against “the talking cure”; I am just afraid that I wouldn’t get anything out of it. I think that I am too self-analytical to really be able to unload to a stranger without constantly re-writing my thoughts. I know many people who do go or have gone to a therapist and proclaim it great. I always joke with Kelli that all I need are some good anti-depressants. I’m not sure I’m joking anymore.

2003-05-26T00:29:00.000-04:00

DECORATION DAY
Henry Wadsworth Lonqfellow

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
Nor sentrys shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
And started to your feet
At the cannons sudden roar,
Or the drums redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.

2003-05-23T07:08:00.000-04:00

Jessica Lynch, the Army private who has become kind of a folk hero, is under investigation by the Army. The goal, as it were, is to find out what really happened the day of her capture. As you may remember, most of Lynch’s comrades were found dead, many of them shot in the head. For her part, Lynch claims to remember nothing, a common side-effect of trauma. Much folklore has grown up around her---that she shot and killed a few Iraqis and was only captured when she ran out of ammo, and/or that she helped the SEALS who rescued her (isn’t it odd that it took a bunch of sailors to rescue a soldier?) by firing a .45 at her captors while being carried out of the building. I don’t buy either of those stories, but it has nothing to do with her. The truck she was in crashed at the site, and some in the military believe that she sustained most of her injuries in the wreck. Most likely, she didn’t put up much of a fight because she was simply hurt too badly. Furthermore, SEALS do not hand out weapons to people they are rescuing because each man in a boat crew has an assigned area in a building that he is supposed to clear; an injured soldier with a weapon becomes an unknown variable in that equation. I’m sure the SEALS took enough firepower with them that they didn’t need stray rounds from a pistol flying around. Just for the record, I know that a) the Army and Marines leant support to the SEALS and b) SEALS aren’t sailors in the traditional sense. I just had to throw that in.

When I stared this blog, my friend Steve told me that it would be great therapy. Like so much else, he was right. The one problem with posting private thoughts on a public site is that, at some point, people begin to read it on a regular basis. At first, I only told close friends about it. Over the past year, however, people have either found it by accident or by second- and third-hand invitation. This makes me a little self-conscious, which is one of the reasons why I took the counter off the site. But to be true to myself and the people who take the time to peruse my ramblings, I must write from the heart. Thus, out comes the following:

I could write an multi-volume epic concerning the mistakes I have made in my 32 years. No one has died because my errors (that I know about), nor has anyone lost any significant material possessions. My big mistakes, the ones that make me wince when I think about them, have all been about the heart. Most of them have been made because I can not help but feel things deeply. Slights that others let slide cut me to the core; praise that seems incidental will buoy my spirits for days. I know I am not alone in this, but, sometimes, I feel very alone with my inability to govern my passions.
And so it is with my friendships. Outside of my biological and in-law family (I’ll explain why I threw in “biological” in a minute), I can count my true friends on my hands and feet. Throughout my life, they have always been measured by quality and not in quantity. The people who I now consider friends are held deep in my heart; even the ones with whom I do not often speak are thought of almost every day. I have a passion for them (don’t confuse this “passion” for something sexual; that’s not what I mean).
So it is with the group I refer to as my “Texas family”. They are a group of about a dozen men plus their wives or significant others. I have known them for nearly a decade now, and even though they are nearly a thousand miles away, I feel as if I am always a member of the group. I lived in Texas for two years in the mid-90s and was immediately accepted into this diverse clan without question. They treated me as a son and brother, and I accepted the responsibilities that come with those positions. I have settled feuds, given advice, delivered bail money and offered a shoulder to cry on. Their influence, as much as anyone else’s (besides my wife), has made me who I am today.
As I have written here before, our little group isn’t what it used to be. The reasons are too numerous and complex to go into here. But when I visit, the old ship sails again, rust and all. So it was at the end of March when I made my annual pilgrimage to attend the NASCAR Winston Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. The weekend was a little tense and things boiled over early the morning of the race. I said some regretful things (which I later apologized for) but I flew back home feeling very sad about the entire state of affairs in my home away from home.
When I got home and checked my e-mail, the accusations we already starting to fly concerning some of what had occurred over the preceding weekend. It was too much for me to take. In a fit of rage/disgust/something, I fired off a rather long e-mail to the parties involved and their significant others. In it, I expressed my belief that things could not go on the way they were and that something had to give. The big problem, as I see it, is that no one will come forward and express their feelings on anything. This, I explained is “cowardice wrapped in bravado”. I also announced that I would be taking a break from my visits, possibly until the first of the year. I encouraged everyone on the mailing list to come and visit Kelli and me any time, as only a few of them have been here before.
Only two of the people on the list responded, both agreeing with what I had to say. Except for removal from another person’s mailing list, I have been greeted with stony silence. Needless to say, I believe I may have struck a nerve. As always, I talk to my friend Peter often, but other calls have become scarce. I have wondered if it is just a question of “giving Matt some breathing room” or just writing me off. It would be a lie to say that it doesn’t hurt to be sort of left out in the cold. I don’t regret writing what I wrote, although I probably should’ve been a little more pointed in my accusations. I don’t know; I guess I just miss my friends.

2003-05-22T06:49:00.000-04:00

Most people who follow politics today will say that the political landscape has become much meaner than it was in the days of the gentleman politician who made his point based on reason and logic. Oh, we are so enamored with what was! Just for the record, today in 1856 Preston Brooks attacked Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate with a cane. Sumner was in recovery for three years. And I thought James Carville was a low-down bastard.

Kenny Chesney won Single of the Year at the Country Music Awards. His is the only country concert I have ever attended. It was a pretty good time. The only bad part of the evening was the opening act, Montgomery Gentry. The lead singer of the group ran around stage with the mic stand, as if he was warming up for a joust. He was also wearing a black duster, which made me uncomfortable because I kept thinking about how hot it must be. I’m slowly turning into my mother.

2003-05-21T07:04:00.000-04:00

Betty Winston Baye, our chief Louisville-area race-baiter, is at it again with another column about how whitie is getting away with murder while poor Jayson Blair of the NY Times is fired for being a LIAR. The fact that his skin color is the only thing that got him the job in the first place is somehow unimportant. How many times have I heard journalists refer to the NY Times as “the newspaper of record for this nation”? PFFFT.

What I am about to say may sound prudish, but it denotes a very troubling trend in our society. I heard a conversation yesterday about how sexually aggressive many college-aged women seem to be. The message, it seems, is that “the boys do it, why can’t we?”. In fact, more than one adult video production company has actively recruited talent at places like Indiana University.

For the record, why can’t young women behave like young men? Most men of college age, if given the chance, will sleep with anything even remotely female. We are, for better or worse, aggressive, competitive hunters. Most of the time, we are limited by our commitments, the law, guilt or, in some cases, the inability to find someone to hook up with. So why shouldn’t women behave like this? The answer is simple: they aren’t men.

Allow me to explain. For years and years, feminists (who long ago forgot what their struggle was originally about) told women that they were just like men with different plumbing. While we can all agree on issues such as universal suffrage and equality of pay, that wasn’t enough for the NOW crowd; they had to BECOME men in order to feel equal. In doing so, they denied what most right-thinking people know is a biological fact---that men and women think differently and, more to the point, view sex differently. Now, the young women of the 70’s have daughters who are college-aged and the fruits of the experiment are beginning to speak for themselves.

I am not making allowances for men here. Many, many men of all ages behave like despicable bastards when it comes to relationships. I believe this is rooted in the still-lingering belief that all American males need to be strong, silent types who don’t express emotions. Without a significant, caring male present in many households to dispel the myth that it is unmanly to be open, honest and loving, it is perpetuated ad infinitum.

The problem, as I see it, is that we have created a generation of women who have no respect for, or awareness of, the strength of their sexuality. Sex is just another thing that is required of them, and it is often given freely enough that it is not considered a big deal. What is missing is the true emotional attachment that comes from a committed relationship. Instead, love and affection come in 30-minute intervals while everyone’s clothes are off. As long as the sex is “safe”, no harm will come to anyone.

But the harm does come. It comes in growing up with no sense of mystery about love and intimacy. It comes with the realization that being desired as a sexual object is different than being respected. It comes with the realization that a condom doesn’t offer any protection from a broken heart.

I guess this all comes to my mind now as I see our oldest nieces and nephews go through high school and college. They are above the fold, in my opinion, because they came from homes where they were exposed to good relationships. But many of their compatriots were not and, at some point, peers become just as big an influence as parents. As sad as this may sound, there’s not enough money in the world to make me want to be in their shoes today.

2003-05-20T07:10:00.000-04:00

My father has a “parable” about people, and I have found it to be very true. Imagine that you took a group of people who work together and told them, “From here on out, we are going to pay you not to work. You don’t even have to show up here Monday through Thursday. All you have to do is come in on Friday morning and pick up your paycheck.” Dad’s theory is that it would only take about a week before someone started asking why the company wasn’t offering direct deposit.

The story is funny in the abstract, but not when you are the person hand out the checks. My wife and I are not wealthy; however, we were in a position three years ago to bestow a kindness on someone in her family who is less fortunate than we are. We did not intend for the situation to continue indefinitely, but it is hard to take something away from someone you care about who has become dependant upon your charity. On Sunday, however, things came to a head when the person actually complained to my wife about our apparent lack of concern for this person’s situation. As those of you who know Kelli can imagine, she was livid. Needless to say, our contribution to this person’s life is coming to an end this week.

Now, because of our (mainly Kelli’s) kindness, there are hurt feelings and a growing chasm between us and another member of her family. Through it all, I have to wonder why we bothered in the first place. Was it worth the trouble that is now bound to occur? I honestly don’t know. I know that charity should not be offered with the expectation of gratefulness or repayment. But should it really be this hard?

Today in 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from New York in a successful attempt to be the first human being to make the flight across the Atlantic solo and non-stop. The flight lasted 33 ½ hours, after which Lindbergh was hugged by thousands of unwashed Parisians, joyful that he was not there to take over the country. Some of them surrendered anyway, just in case. When I think of Charles Lindbergh, I always think of Jimmy Stewart, who played him in the film.

I saw the end of another Stewart movie the other night and I can say, without reservation, that it was the sappiest piece of crap I have ever seen. The name of it was “Strategic Air Command”. I watched the last 15 minutes only because Jimmy Stewart was a real pilot in a real war (back when Hollywood actually contained some men of honor). But the last scene was the clincher: Stewart and his wife, looking at the sky as a flight of B-47s, undoubtedly laden with huge 1950’s thermonuclear devices, streak overhead as the music swells. All in technicolor.

The Dixie Chicks were in concert here in Louisville a couple nights ago, and very few people protested. Is anyone surprised at this? Most Americans have the attention span of a hummingbird and Natalie Maines’ comments were made over two months ago. I remember a friend of mine telling me that “their career in the US is over”, to which I said, “Everyone will forget about it by May” (when the US leg of the tour began). That’s one thing that bothers me about country music---it is patriotic by nature, but almost in a “mob mentality” kind of way. We went to a Montgomery Gentry concert a few months ago and the “ra-ra America” stuff kind of reminded me of a basketball game. In some ways, there is nothing wrong with that; it is good for our national character to cheer for something so right. But it must be anchored in something substantial, something real and deep down that remains when the cheering stops and times are hard, as I believe they will be in the future.

2003-05-19T01:32:00.000-04:00

I'm posting this on my PC, which is now running Red Hat 9. That's a distribution of Linux. If that doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry about it. I still have old, trust Windows XP on the other drive, but these Linux distributions are becoming very impressive with their ease of installation and use.

I was thinking about snobbery on Saturday, and I came to the conclusion that we are all snobs in one way or another. There are three main types, and I think we can all see ourselves as one type or another: I use the term "he" here to denote the generic person; please know that this is proper English.

1. The Old School Snob. This kind of snob is what most of us generally think of when we think of snobbery. New money, old money or Sugar Daddy's money; what matters is the fact that this kind of snob is wealthy, you're not, and that's all that matters. This is very typified in a place like Churchill Downs, where the rich sit, literally, on top of the great unwashed. Dress and manner are very, very important to this group, and very little deviation from the norm is allowed--thus, this snob is almost always white. Politically, he comes in two distinct flavors: Country Club Republican and Elitist New York Liberal Democrat.

2. The Art Snob. The Art Snob is not defined monetarily, but in his choice of lifestyle. He works in some artistic medium---paint, sculpture, photography, film, graphics, performance art, theater, etc. He turns his nose up at anything "mainstream", be it a choice of dining, movie-going, club-hopping or clothing. In opposition to the Old School Snob, the Art Snob is broadly defined in reference to almost everything (housing, clothing, race, education, etc.) except political persuasion; to be a conservative is, to him, to be a Nazi. Only radical socialism is acceptable here as anything else will get you thrown out of the band.

3. The Hobby/Obsession Snob. This is the most common type of snob because he is so wide-ranging. My experience with him has been mainly in the tech fields, so I will draw my example from there. He is an expert in something (Linux, for example) and is so proud of his achievement (or, more likely, threatened by others') that he is very unwilling to share any knowledge he has obtained. He can be found in chat rooms and bulletin boards all over the Internet, berating people who ask questions that he considers rudimentary. He has long ago forgotten that his knowledge was had the same way. This type of snob is the most likely to be found in a dead-end job and/or living with his parents.

You have to admit, I have yet to run into anything I can't place in a little box.

2003-05-17T05:24:00.000-04:00

I want to talk about the three kinds of snobbery, but I'm too damned tired right now. I'm posting this here to remind me.

2003-05-16T05:23:00.000-04:00

I'm going to quit with the "Matt:" thing before each of my posts. If you have authority to post here and you do so, just identify yourself in some way.

We had a beautiful lunar eclipse last night. During the eclipse, the moon is dark (or red, if local viewing and atmospheric conditions are right), lit only by starlight and light refracted by the Earth's atmosphere. I took a pair of binoculars to work, and the sight I saw through them was almost terrifying. Under normal conditions, the full moon is so bright that many details of her surface are washed out. We are left with a bright circle that seems two-dimensional. But when the sunlight is blocked from reaching her surface, an entirely different satellite is revealed: ominous, gray and, most surprising of all, spherical. For the first time in my life, the moon actually looked like a planet and not part of the background. For the better part of an hour, I could look at this menacing ball above our heads in its true 3-D form. Truly, truly stunning.

I'm in the process of upgrading my father-in-law's computer. I have enjoyed working on it because I know the pleasure it will bring him. He owned a computer long before anyone else I knew and his current machine was approaching four years old, an eternity in CPU generations. It is hard to imagine that even a budget processor today is more than five times faster than the top-of-line CPU of 1999. This doesn't translate to an exponential increase overall (hard drive technology is a major bottleneck), but it's still an impressive difference.

You know by now about the truck driver who left a tractor trailer full of people at a truck stop in Texas. It's hard to believe that a human being could be so callous. Could he not just unlock the trailer and tell the riders to get out and go their own way? I have a theory on this case: the guy driving was getting paid for the safe delivery of these people and it wasn't his first trip. When he saw things going south, he abandoned the trailer, hoping that everyone inside would die. Otherwise, the people he was doing this for would be implicated, leaving him out in the cold. And before you Texas-haters out there (you know who you are) point fingers, know that the driver was from New York.

2003-05-14T19:45:00.000-04:00

Matt: General Tommy Franks, commander of Allied forces in the Persian Gulf, is being brought to trail for war crimes in Belgium. It seems that Belgium has a claim of "universal jurisdiction" when it comes to crimes against humanity, even if Belgium or Belgians are not related to the case. Can someone explain to me how this makes sense or is legal? Of course, nothing is going to come of it; it's just being done in the name of political expediency. But next time, let's let the Germans keep the Socialist basketcase of a country.

2003-05-13T18:36:00.000-04:00

Matt: Wow, I've really gotten slack. I like to put something up here every day, just to have some continuity. Most of my posts are written at night, and then posted when I get home in the mornings. However, I have re-committed myself to doing a serious workout every night during my "lunch" hour, so most of my posting time has gone out the window. I will endeavour to do better.

I just finished watching an interesting, yet very frightening, history of the Trident submarine. The Trident subs (actually called Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines) are one leg of the nuclear "triad". Now, there are only about 16 or so of these subs, as they are very, very large and expensive. They were first designed in the 70's when Congress became worried about the new Soviet Navy. The scary part of the this tale is how officials in Congress and the Defense establishment wrangled with Navy admirals over the mission of these monsters. I'll try to boil it down:

Most of us believe that a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. Not so. Early on, nuclear bombs were inaccurate as hell. Of course, it didn't matter. But as the 70's dawned, new technology allowed nuclear missles to become frightfully accurate. This means that a smaller weapon could be used against a smaller target, like a missile silo or even a concentration of troops. When the Trident missile and the submarine to carry it were being designed, the Secretary of Defense and the people at Lockheed-Martin wanted to make the missle super-accurate (so it could be used as a first strike, "counter-force" weapon). The Navy hated this idea because, as one Admiral put it, "If it's that accurate, some damned fool's going to want to use one of them." Eventually, the Navy won out. Now, every missile made by anyone is highly accurate, so the argument is moot. What is frightening is how the Navy understood that the missiles should only exist as a deterrent, but there were civilians authorities wanted to create something that someone might actually want to use.

One final note on this: Admiral Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy and still a huge presence when I was in the nuclear power program (he had been dead for several years), was testifying before Congress when all the wrangling was going on. Never known for being politically-correct, Rickover was asked: "What do you think are the chances this nation will ever have to fight a nuclear war." His answer: "I definitely think we're going to blow ourselves up."

2003-05-09T07:37:00.000-04:00

Matt: Sorry about the lack of posts over the past few days. I really don’t have a good excuse except to say that I have not been in a writing mood. So this morning I will try to cover some unrelated items that have been floating around in my brain since Tuesday.

I received an e-mail last night from the gentleman who edits the 84Online Newsletter. What, you may ask, is that? It’s the newsletter that was created in conjunction with 84Online, the radio show that currently occupies my Sunday afternoons (I’m the fat guy on the left who looks like he just got picked up off an island). I am currently the “E-Mail of the Week” editor, meaning that I scan through the questions our team receives and pick one that is interesting, weird, insightful, etc. and send it to the editor for inclusion in the newsletter. However, it seems that, for reasons I won’t go into here, our beloved editor is going to resign his position. Depending on whether or not I can talk him out of his decision, the newsletter will become my baby starting next week. This is, in some ways, exciting; the newsletter (sent by e-mail) has over 1800 subscribers, which is pretty decent. But our current editor also receives criticism for some of the things we talk about therein---not something I am looking forward to. But, if pressed, I will do it because worthwhile endeavors need to be kept alive. If you do not subscribe to the newsletter, go to the website above and do so now. That is not a request.

On Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I became momentarily obsessed with a question: how hard would it be to create a side living by making up a story? If you don’t know what I mean, check out the Coast-to-Coast AM website. George Noory is the guy who replaced Art Bell, for those of you who don’t keep up with late-night AM radio in this country. The site and the radio show regularly feature guests who are such crafty liars and con men that I am beginning to think I should join their ranks and live off the gullibility of others. Here’s some points I’ve come up with:

1. My story needs to involve gloom and doom. People seem to believe this more than rosy pictures of the near future.
2. I have to include an alien somewhere. Aliens are always big with the sci-fi, living-in-the-basement-with-my-computer, need-a-shower set.
3. I need to present my case one of two ways: a dramatic flair (ala’ Richard C. Hoagland) or a flat, deadpan delivery that makes me sound as if I don’t usually use my vocal cords to communicate with humans.
4. I need a poorly designed website.
5. My story must include some sort of government cover-up. Our federal government is covering up evidence of UFOs, Bigfoot, Planet X, Reptilian Overlords, The Illuminati, Secret Oaths of Freemasonry, The Ark of the Covenant, Remote Viewing, The Coming Global Super Storm (an Art Bell favorite) and Crop Circles. And you thought your tax money was being wasted.

I found out that my wife and I are close enough to being rich to smell the Cuban cigars. My country club invite must’ve gotten lost in the mail. I must get those ascots back from the cleaners.

Madonna, in France, being Madonna. If we are ever going to invade France and use it as a gunnery range, there is no time like the present.

I heard an interesting quote last night, “People over-romanticize children.” What a mouthful! My wife and I (childless and very happy about it) have been trying to find a way to express how we feel about the “baby zealots” in our lives. That quote is about as close as it gets. We love children and believe that there are millions of good parents out there. There are also millions of lousy parents out there who have no business owning a dog, much less raising another human being. Once you have a child, you have him FOREVER. You are never NOT the parent of that person. Why do people not get that? Babies don’t exist to make you feel better about yourself or help keep your marriage together. If you married someone because you want to have a baby, you are an idiot, plain and simple. Parenthood is not for everyone; let’s quit pretending it’s just another stage of life.
We have some friends who just had their first child, a boy. They are both in their mid-20s, and I am amazed at how well they are handling this change in their lives. One thing that helped them, I think, is something that almost never happens between two young, married people: they actually talked about how a baby would change their lives. They realized, before conception took place, that certain financial and lifestyle changes were going to take place. They don’t agree on everything, but at least the door has been opened.

Yesterday, May 8th, was the anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe (1945). To mark this anniversary, I re-read the German and Japanese surrender documents (almost as fun as sniffing glue, but without the brain damage). They are very, very different in wording and scope. The German surrender document is very lengthy and almost completely devoid of emotion: do this, do that, tell us where you planted mines, where all your subs are, etc., etc. The Japanese document, by contrast, is much shorter and very vague, but full of pointed jabs at Japanese government and the Emperor (it is worth noting that the German surrender barely mentions post-war government). The Japanese were basically told that “you will do what we tell you, when we tell you and that includes all you bastards, so stand by”. I’m exaggerating, of course, but not by much. I have read these documents before, but not one after the other. I wonder: did the wording have to do with the bitterness of the war (Japan started it, after all), or was the reasoning more racial (the Japanese sold the war as freeing Asia from colonial powers)?

2003-05-06T07:10:00.000-04:00

Matt: Today in 1954, Roger Bannister set a world record by running a mile in less than four minutes (he did it in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds). Today, the mile is not a common race length (the metric system is used worldwide for track events), but Bannister’s time is regularly beaten in so-called “glamour” events. In my opinion, this goes to show how much better training and nutrition have become in the past fifty years.

Today in 1942, General Wainright surrendered all American troops in the Philippines to the Japanese Army. I have covered this issue in some detail before, so I will not rehash it here. Wainright was a POW until the end of the war and was present when the Japanese surrendered on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. President Truman awarded him the Medal of Honor for his courage in captivity. He died in 1953, eight years to the day after the Japanese surrender took place.

Today in 1937, the German dirigible Hindenberg burst into flames while trying to moor at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Most of you have probably heard the commentary of Herb Morrison, the radio reporter who cried out “Oh, the humanity!” as the burning wreckage hit the ground. I have always heard that Morrison was fired for this display of emotion, but I can’t find any confirmation of that. His report was broadcast nation-wide (a first for radio), so I can’t imagine his career came to too much harm.

I have had two non-IT people tell me in the last 48 hours that they are regular listeners to the radio show. When I begin to question why I bother, things like that buoy my spirits. Since the entire AJ incident (if you don’t know, don’t worry), I have been a lot more distant from our beloved delusional host. But the core of the show, the five or six guys who keep the wheels turning, keep pulling me back in. No, this is not the part where I fall over in the kitchen and have a heart attack.

When you work alone and at night, your brain, which normally has to work AND communicate with co-workers, suddenly finds some idle time (or CPU cycles, if you prefer). So I find myself thinking of all sorts of things: my past, the future and other things that are better left unsaid. But one thing that keeps cropping up is a running argument in my head concerning faith. As most of you know, I was born and raised Catholic. I attended twelve years of Catholic school. My wife is also Catholic. But, for me at least, belief in Catholicism and the entire concept of a Creator is becoming more and more untenable. To believe in God, one must have faith. And that is where the trouble starts.

If you were to remove God and morality from any of the world’s major religions, you would still have an excellent means to control a population. After all, the concept of heaven and hell is not exclusive to Christianity; some scholars even believe that Judaism borrowed the concept from the early Muslims. Any way you slice it, threatening someone with eternal damnation is good way to get their attention. And what if they ask for proof of the Almighty? Tell them that they must have faith in Him, for they will not know Him until they die. Oh, and by the way, to be faithless is to be a heretic.

So, as the night wanders on, this is where my brain wanders to: early man, unable to accept the finality of death, created the concept of an afterlife/reincarnation, etc. Early empires, needing a stabilizing force, embraced the teachings of religion as a means of control. Christianity comes along, becomes a binding force in the civilized world and BOOM, here we are.

I read Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge” for the first time the summer after my Junior year of high school. Larry, our anti-hero, tells the narrator he had a falling out with Christianity when he began to wonder why a loving Father would demand worship from his children. Why, indeed? That very thought has become a mantra as I wrestle with faith. I keep going back to the concept of a bipolar God: all-loving, but demanding prostration from those He loves so much. But I had a thought this morning that may have answered two questions for me: One, why do we have free will when it seems that so much bad has come from it and two, why does God demand faith.

The first concept is simple: maybe we have free will because we have to freely choose God. Maybe, at the risk of sounding disrespectful, God needs our freely-given love in the same way we need His. Evil is the turning away from God, denying Him the love that He shows us. The worship, then, is not demanded; it is our outward sign of love for our Father.

The second question addresses faith, which is much more difficult for me. If God wants our love, why doesn’t He just write messages in the sky or speak to us through our TVs? Here’s one idea: Jesus said that we must be as children in our relationship with God. When I was a child, my father knew everything. I didn’t know that he was going to come home from work every day or keep a roof over our heads---he just did it and I didn’t know any better. I had FAITH in him because I was a child. To me, he was dad, that guy that just made it all happen. Maybe, with God, it has to be just that simple: He’s on the throne, and that’s all we need to know. Hmmm.

2003-05-05T00:44:00.000-04:00

Matt: Check this out. I have a feeling that there is something going on there that I should've known about before now. Norton Defiant!

By the way, I discovered two new blogs hosted on Blogger: "My Gay Ass Blog FUCK YOU BLOGGER" and "anus". "Dattblog" just seems weak now, doesn't it?

2003-05-04T02:19:00.000-04:00

Matt: I noticed that, with two exceptions, I am the only person posting to this blog. That's OK; it's not for everyone. If you didn't get my e-mail on this subject and want the POWER OF THE WORD, drop me a line.

It's 2AM here in Indiana. Sunday morning. It is at times like this that I feel most alone. Kelli has been in bed for almost two hours; my work shift does not allow me that luxury. I tried, at first, to have "normal" weekends. It just wasn't to be. I found that I was tired all weekend, and moody to boot. For everyone involved, it is better for me to keep the same sleep pattern all week. I find myself thinking of all the things that are pushed out of the way by everyday life: what was, what will be, how I could've done things differently in this situation or that. It accomplishes very little, but it almost always leaves me in a dark, brooding mood. In thirty minutes or so, I will take a Tylenol PM and go to bed. Sunday will be bright and I will forget my dreary Saturday night until next weekend.

Next Sunday is my birthday. 32. As I recently told my mother-in-law, I have now reached the age I thought was "middle-aged" at 18.

2003-05-02T08:06:00.000-04:00

Matt: I watched a very interesting expose’ last night on Adolf Hitler. Normally, histories of the Third Reich concentrate on the Second World War. The first half of this documentary looked at the early years of the Reich, which is, in my opinion, where all the important lessons lie.

Many have and do wonder why a man so unqualified as Hitler was able to rule a first-world, technologically-advanced, predominantly Christian nation. The answer is simpler than many are ready to believe: He (through his henchmen) made the country run well. To the damaged German psyche that emerged from World War One, this was of paramount importance.
At the beginning of the 21st century, we can look back at that time in European history and wonder how so many could turn their backs (or openly collude with) on such evil. But is it really that far-fetched? Consider, if you will, the last occupant of the White House, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton. Liberals, rest easy; I am not going to compare Billy Bob to Hitler. When Clinton won the presidency in 1992, we were going through a mild recession. As the economy improved and the tech bubble grew out of sight, it seemed as if Bill could do no wrong. Dubious land deals? No problem. Serial adultery (and possibly rape)? No problem. Having sex with an aide in the Oval Office? No problem. After all, the economy was good. If Bill Clinton could’ve run for a third term in 2000, there is a strong chance that he would’ve won. In a survey taken before the 1996 election, 65% of the women polled believed that Bill Clinton cared about them just as much as their own HUSBANDS did (I’m not making this up). So is it impossible to imagine modern-day Americans or Europeans or Asians or Africans rallying around a tyrant who gave them hope and jobs?

On a lighter note, today is Oaks Day here in Kentuckiana. For those of you who live far afield, know that Oaks Day is the day of racing before Derby Day. Traditionally, Oaks Day was the day when the well-heeled true racing fans went to the track. Now, it is only a shade more subdued than the big day itself. At the risk of being sacrilegious (I know; that shipped has already sailed), if Jesus had been born a horse, today would be Easter and tomorrow would be Christmas. Ticket to hell for one, please.

Benjamin Spock (not Mr. Spock, trekkie boy) was born today in 1902. His book, “The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care”, probably did more to raise a generation of brats than any one work before or since. It has been argued that this book (published in 1946), made the Vietnam generation what it was. Take that as you will.

One more thing: Does anyone else think it’s cool as hell that our President made a carrier landing yesterday? And isn’t it even more cool that he originally wanted to do it in an F/A-18, not the S-3B “Hoover”? (Before you e-mail me, I know it’s called a “Viking”; flight deck crews call it the “Hoover” because it sounds like a vacuum cleaner). I knew I liked this guy. Cowboy cool. And I mean that in a good way. And yes, I know it was a great photo-op and even better PR. But I guarantee the sailors appreciated it.

2003-04-30T07:19:00.000-04:00

Matt: Today in 1803, we bought the Midwest United States from the French. They called it the Louisiana Territory; we called it a bargain. The deal took place while Napolean was still the big cheese in France. That's kind of like buying Tibet from the Chinese. Or something like that.

Those early years of American History (1776-1830) were filled with larger-than-life types who seem to be bigger than men of our era. Of course, they weren't. They were men of their time; their time just happened to be very historically relevant. But I have come to have a pretty good grasp of those early, big men. Here's my summary of some of them, set in a high school:

George Washington: Captain of the football team and Homecoming King. Graduated and went to West Point. He's the kid that your mom wanted you to be.

Thomas Jefferson: The nerdy kid who made a fortune doing everyone's homework for them. Always broke from buying stuff at Radio Shack. Could've started Microsoft if he hadn't been too busy daydreaming.

Benjamin Franklin: The life of the party. Knew where to get beer and how to evade all types of trouble. Will write the great American novel. Chick magnet.

John Adams (Second President): The teacher's pet. Man most likely to be stoned by his neighbors. Always right and likes to tell you why.

Andrew Jackson (Sixth(?) President): The first guy to get in a fight, but always the last guy standing. Just scraped by academically. When he makes it big, he will hire all his friends.

OK....maybe I have too much time on my hands.

2003-04-28T00:12:00.000-04:00

Matt: I just finished "History in Color" on the History Channel. Tonight's episode was about the navy in World War Two, which is sort of in my historical "wheelhouse". It made me think of an Easter story I heard a few years ago on NPR. If I have told it before, please forgive me. As many of you know, the invasion of Okinawa occured on Easter Sunday, 1945. The Navy and Marines had been invading islands since 1942; what made Okinawa different is its distance from Japan (800 miles) and the fact that the Japanese considered it part of Japan proper. Thus, it would be defended to the last man.

On board one of the transport ships on the eve of the invasion, a reporter was recording his interview with some of the young Marines. Audio recordings of interviews were still pretty rare then, so it is especially jarring to hear these young voices who, if they lived through the war, are now men in their 80's. Anyway, the reporter stopped this one Marine who was reading a letter:

"Whatcha reading, son?"
"Oh, it's a letter from my wife at home. She sent a picture of our son. I haven't seen him in almost two years."
"Good-looking lad. Maybe even a future Marine."
And then there was a pause just long enough to be uncomfortable.
"I hope not."

2003-04-25T07:04:00.000-04:00

Matt: The CEO of American Airlines has resigned, and not a moment too soon. This whole debacle smacks of arrogance, a human trait that I abhor. It also reminds me of a book I read several years ago: “On The Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple” by Gil Amelio. Amelio was the CEO of Apple Computer during the company’s darkest hour. Despite the fact that company was hemorrhaging money every quarter, Amelio continued to bitch about his compensation. According to him, CEOs of large companies are paid millions of dollars because there are so few people capable of running an enterprise that large. While there may be some truth in that statement, it’s a pretty giant assumption. How many people hit glass ceilings in their careers not because of ability, but because they didn’t go to an Ivy League school or don’t have good hair?

When I worked for UPS, the company was still solely owned by management. Oz Nelson, the CEO during my tenure, had started working for UPS washing trucks. He had spent his entire professional life with the company and understood package delivery like no one else. But he was not unique. Up to that point, EVERY CEO UPS had ever had was a life-long employee who had worked his way through the company. How often does that happen today? Very, very rarely. Most of the time, CEOs are glorified PR specialists brought in because they saved another company or have a good public image and will drive up stock price.

There is nothing wrong with bringing in an experienced person from another company to run yours. But to pay these few people salaries that are thousands of time higher than what the “little people” make is obscene. I am no socialist, but I do believe there is such a thing as gluttony and it’s on display right in front of us. The people who despise capitalism are being handed ammunition by the CEOs of this world and they're too blind to the realities of the workaday world to even realize it.

And one more point: have none of these people heard of pay based on performance? Did I miss something, or has American Airlines lost more money than it has ever made?

2003-04-24T18:22:00.000-04:00

Matt: Has anyone besides me noticed the similarities between the Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq and the Communists and Facists of an earlier era? All three groups made their grabs for power after devastating wars when the populace was at its most demoralized. Many Muslims (a majority?) in Iraq want the nation to become a theocracy like Iran. Of course, this has nothing to do with religion; like communism and facism, it is ultimately about putting power in the hands of a few. When is this nation going to admit that this war on terror (of which the invasion of Iraq was a part) is really about a clash of cultures? When are we finally going to admit that much of Islam is an enslaving power?

2003-04-24T16:53:00.000-04:00

Matt: Our cat, Kahlua, has increasingly become the focus of my observations. She is getting old (maybe 12 or so) and is becoming more and more "retired". She sleeps about 20 hours a day, but her waking hours are spent with Kelli and I, wanting to be petted or somehow pampered. But what is most interesting is how she adapts to the patterns in our lives. When I get home from work in the morning, she is up and waiting for me, sometimes in the foyer of our home. If Kelli stays up too late at night or falls asleep on the couch, Kahlua wakes her up, reminding her that it is time for bed. If Kelli and I are both home (as on the weekends) and busy, Kahlua acts strangely, as if it is wrong for both of us to be up at the same time.

Of course, I know that she is not long for this world. It is wrong, I think, for us to love a creature with such a short lifespan. But we have no children, and I think couples need to love something outside of themselves. There will be other cats, but none like her.

2003-04-23T17:01:00.000-04:00

Matt: There was an interesting (and somewhat frightening) program on the History Channel concerning “lost nukes”, i.e. nuclear weapons that had been lost due to airplane crashes, etc. One of the people interviewed was Robert McNamara, Defense Secretary for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He was, in many ways, the architect of the early stages of the Vietnam War.

When asked about nukes in general, McNamara said that, upon taking office in 1961, he didn’t think there was a difference between a conventional weapon and a nuclear device “other than the size of the explosion.” In his defense, McNamara stated that “I had just come over from running Ford Motor Company. I didn’t know any more about nuclear weapons than anyone off the street.” REALLY? You mean the man who was picking targets in Hanoi and Haiphong from the basement of the White House didn’t know beans about radiation or fallout? What else about the military did he not understand? Say what you will about Rumsfeld; at least he’s worn a uniform and knows, as G. Gordon Liddy would say, “which end of the tube the round comes out of.”

Speaking of people in uniform, journalism.org has a great guide to military ranks. I could do nothing but cringe a few weeks ago when I saw a reporter on MSNBC repeatedly call a naval Lieutenant Commander “lieutenant” (he should have been addressed as “commander”). But then, getting those little, important things correct is not something our media specializes in any more.

2003-04-21T00:45:00.000-04:00

Matt: If you have a television and it's been on at all over the past 96 hours, you know about the Laci Peterson case. Despite the fact that there are 16,000 murders in the United States every year, this one seemed to grab the attention of the national media in a big way. Maybe it's the anger that we all feel towards a man who may have killed his pregnant wife right before Christmas while having an affair with a blonde bimbo; who could've awritten a better soap opera? And now, just as our blood lust is about to be satisfied, we hear from the gang at NOW. It seems that they disagree with Scott Peterson being charged with double-murder. In their words, it might "give ammunition to the pro-life lobby."

A caveat before my tirade: as I have stated here before, I do not believe in the death penalty. I believe that it removes a person's potential for salvation and I can imagine no worse punishment than spending the rest of my days in a cell with a large man who finds my ass attractive. So I do not want Scott Peterson to get the death penalty if he is found guilty; I want him to suffer mightily for the rest of his miserable days in some shithole where his tan, good-looking self can be repeatedly handled by scary, scary men. The thought alone makes me want to curl up in the fetal position and cry.

But what steams me about this is how pro-abortion groups oppose a stiffer punishment for a man (gasp! A MAN!!!) because it might weaken their position. Could it be, you hags, that you're afraid some young women might begin to question their position on the issue? That they might vote for what they know in their hearts is right? And, just for the record: how many women support abortion because they have had one and must support it or question their own decision? How many women see abortion as a "rights" issue and nothing more? How many women are pro-abortion by reflex?

Several years before my wife and I were married, we were visiting with a friend from out-of-town. Over the course of the evening, abortion reared its ugly head. When my future wife stated that she was pro-life, my friend was shocked. "As a woman, how can you be against abortion?" he asked, as if the position was only for fundamentalist Christians with 12 children who opposed any form of birth control. I think about that conversation often, and I realize now that his question was actually the question asked by feminists the world over---"If you are not with us, you must be nuts, for if you are sane and against us, the problem COULD be on our end." Imagine that.

2003-04-20T00:54:00.000-04:00

Matt: Ten years ago today, the father of a childhood (and current) friend of mine killed himself. It was Easter Sunday, and my entire family was at our house when the news came. Much later, when I found out the details of the act, I came to realize how angry the man must've been to do the deed in the manner he did. I won't go into it here out of respect for his family, but everything connected with his death was symbolic: place, method, etc. Ten years.

2003-04-19T06:33:00.000-04:00

Matt: April 19th is a pretty dubious day in history. The American Revolution began today in 1775 in Lexington, MA. In 1993 the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas burned to the ground. The Feds say the cultists started the blaze; the survivors blame incendiaries used by the ill-named FBI Hostage Rescue Team. Either way, Timothy McVay used this date in 1995 to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City in memory of the events at Waco two years earlier.

I had been living in Dallas about two weeks when the Ok. City bombing occured. I remember being so shocked that I thought I was dreaming----how could someone blow up a building full of innocent people? How could it happen here, less than three hours' drive from where I was standing? Little did I know.

2003-04-18T11:51:00.000-04:00

Hi Matt. This is a test to see if my login and posting capabilities are working correctly. Please tell everyone "Howdy" from Texas and have a great Easter.

2003-04-18T07:33:00.000-04:00

Matt: Benjamin Franklin died today (Thursday) in 1790. He was 84. Franklin easily accomplished more than I could list here; needless to say, he is one of our greatest citizens. If I could live one man’s life over my own, it would be Franklin’s. My favorite quote of his is one that he put in a letter to a much younger friend: “In the dark, all cats are gray.” Think about it.

Today in William Holden’s birthday. He was the star of ‘The Bridges of Toko-Ri”, one of the best war films (and the best film about the Korean War) ever made. It’s worth a rent.

I should be writing science fiction. I keep pushing this thought out of my head, but it keeps coming back to me like a stray cat. I have tried writing no less than three novels in the past year, just to have every one turn into shit. But I have one complete science fiction storyline fleshed out that I have yet to put on paper. It just all seems so damned nerdy. Do you know how many science fiction books I have ever bought? 0. Do you know how many I have read? Maybe 6, and all of them were treatments of screenplays. Yet, when I go to Barnes and Noble or Hawley-Cooke, there is a large Sci-Fi section. Who reads this stuff?