2008 Crystal Ball

Many years ago my good friend Miss Dottie dubbed me Nostradumbass for my uncanny ability to make predictions such as, “So and So will make an idiot of themselves tonight over some guy,” or “That moron is going to puke all over the rug.” So I thought it would be fun for me to adopt my Nostradumbass persona since 2007 is drawing to a close and make some predictions for 2008. Sure I will be wrong on most, if not all, of these predictions but what the hell, I am Nostradumbass.

1. John Edwards will win the Iowa Caucuses BUT whoever takes second place will win the nomination. If it is Clinton, then nomination will be over before the end of February and she will pick Bill Richardson as her VP. If it is Obama, the nomination will be a hard fought battle but he will get the nomination. Obama will also choose Richardson as his VP. The Republican side is a little murkier but if Romney is able to squeak first place then I think we will be in for a showdown between Romney and McCain all the way until the Republican convention. If Huckabee gets first place then I think we will see McCain rise quite dramatically and have the nomination sewn up before the convention. McCain will then choose Huckabee as his running mate. I believe in January we will be saying President Obama.

2. There is going to be a semi-credible third party candidate in the Presidential general election and they will be included in the debates. This candidate will win some (not many but some) electoral votes.

3. Gas will hit $4.00 a gallon by Labor Day weekend and we will see oil prices reach $150 to $200 a barrel for a brief period of time.

4. Sometime in the next 12 months we will see a major breakthrough towards a viable form of alternative energy. It will be years before this technology will see practical results but 2008 will be the year that the discovery will be made.

5. We will see a major solar flare that disrupts electronic communications on scale previously unimaginable.

6. We will see a “surge” of troops into Afghanistan. The public reason stated will be because of crackdown on Al-Qaeda but the large presence of the Air Force will demonstrate that the true reason is because of increased instability in Pakistan and the very real risk that their nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of radicals.

7. A major international incident will erupt as Chinese fingerprints are found all over a breach in the defense system of another government. A cyber cold war will break out with the pawns being ex-Soviet states who will find their systems have become the testing ground for newly created cyber-weapons.

8. Facebook will be hit hard by malware that will be distributed within their new widgets. We will see the first malware that is designed for video game consoles that are connected to the environment. We will also learn what Storm Trojan is and people will be shocked to learn that the 50 million computers already infected is just the tip of the iceberg.

9. The mortgage crisis will continue and make the S&L crisis of the ‘80s look minor in comparison, HOWEVER, because foreclosures will be especially bad in Ohio and Florida (both swing states in an election year), Congress will give a major bailout to homeowners.

10. My last prediction was going to be the possibility of Israel attacking Iran unilaterally because of uranium enrichment, but I am going to end on a happier note and predict that my beloved Kentucky Wildcats will finish the season much better than people anticipate, with us in the Championship Game for the SEC Conference.

Check back in a year and we will see how well I channel Nostradamus versus just being a dumbass.

Aint to proud to beg

I am posting this blog from an iPod Touch and have decided that personal pride is no longer a valid enough excuse to not have an iPhone. So from now on I plan to beg, cheat and steal my way to a new phone.

Tie the season for Roy to get the Jesus Phone*.

* As dubbed by Wired Magazine in their review.

Miskatonic University Alumni

Any Miskatonic University Alumni should be aware of a wonderul new product that has come on the market. Baby's First Mythos is a must buy not only for your spawn but for any cute diminutive horrors that you care about and feel should have their sanity crushed by the might of the Elder Gods. This wonderful tome teaches them their ABCs and 123s, while at the same time exposing their immortal soul to the crippling reality of that malignant disease we call the universe.

I can think of no better present to find under the Christmas tree than this cute Golden Bookesque package of horror. I can't wait to send Sophie to sleep while reading to her poems about Azathoth, Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. The twinkle in her eye as her sanity flees will be just precious.

Move over Dr. Seuss, Lovecraft is coming home to roost and we will never be the same.

Happy Birthday Star Child

It goes without saying that I am something of a nerd and one of the defining characteristics of being a card carrying member of the Interstellar Brotherhood of Geekdom is a love of science fiction. I no longer remember exactly when I started loving all things science fiction but I do remember when my love of written science fiction began. As a freshman in high school, I was assigned to read Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I loved this book and began devouring as many science fiction books as I could get my hands on. Looking back 2001 is no longer one of my favorite science fiction novels. Hell, it isn’t even in my top 5 favorite Arthur C. Clarke books.

The top honor goes to The City and The Stars. If you have never read this work, do yourself a favor and pick it up immediately. No other book embodies the spirit and intelligence of science fiction as well as this novel. Upon finishing it, I gave it away so that someone else could experience the wonder. I had planned on simply purchasing another copy. Strangely, no book store I went into ever had a copy in stock. This included new and used book stores. Whenever I went into a book store (and if you have been to my house, you know that this was quite frequently), this would be the first item I searched for. This quest went on for over three years and the book remained elusive. I began to believe that maybe the book was magical and could only be found when one was ready to receive it. Remember, this was before the internet made everything as readily available as the corner grocery store. Eventually I found a dog-eared old copy sitting on the shelf of a used book store and since then have seen it everywhere, but I will never forget that three year quest.

December 16 is Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s 90th birthday and the General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Astronomical Association has set up a blog so that people can send Sir Arthur birthday wishes. If his writing has ever touched you or if you simply enjoy the convenience of global communications brought to you by geosynchronous satellites (Sir Arthur came up with the idea), then go and wish him a happy birthday.

Shit.

You parents already know this, but for everyone else, here is a little fact.

Baby shit stinks. Bad. I mean really really bad.

One of the lies that every baby book perpetuates is that you will get use to the smell of baby feces. The worst offenders make it seem that after a while you will get used to the smell and actually enjoy it.

This is a lie.

There is part of me that is worried that the Apocalypse is nigh and that global warming is the proof. If Jesus is the personification of beauty on Earth and the Anti-Christ is his opposite, then when the infant child of Satan takes his first shit, it will be shit so shitty that the global temperatures will rise as a result.

Now I will admit that fatherhood has brought my tolerance to all things shit related to a level that I never could have imagined. Tonight is a good example.

It all started with giving Sophie a bath. Imagine if you will, Sophie playing wonderfully in her tub, quacking at the rubber ducky and otherwise being the cute bundle of fat that she is. After a while, she is standing up holding onto the faucets and making her little proclamations, when she begins to do "The Grunt".

I don't know if all babies do this, but when our little Sophie decides to answer nature's call, she contorts her face into a M.C. Escher painting and begins grunting in a way that can only be described as metaphysical.

Anyway, she is standing there holding onto the faucet and begins "The Grunt". I immediately grab her from the tub because I have already learned this lesson and really don't feel like sanitizing the tube for all traces of fecal coliform. As I pull her to my chest and head to her changing table, I notice the dooce is already beginning its descent.

I am no dummy. I know that Newton explained the laws of gravity in 1687, so I swiftly flip my precious daughter onto her stomach with her ass stinking in the air and make for the changing table. Luckily Anna is in the other room and her assistance helps makes short work of the situation.

Later in the evening Anna goes out drinking for Stephanie's birthday (Happy Birthday Stephanie!) and Sophie and I have a night together. She is her wonderful self, playing wither her toys and reading her books, but when she crawls over into my lap with a huge "shit eating grin" and a smell that would peel paint, I knew that our adventures for the night were far from over.

Here is a little more information for you non-parents. Diapers are merely the manufacturers' recommendation as to where poop can go, not an actual catch-all as they are advertised to be.

Sophie had given me the present of one of her uber-poops. The kind that I haven't seen in months. I open up the diaper and see a line of solidified shit that runs from her privates to her mid-back. The best description for a dump like this is comparing it to the grout between floor tiles. In this situation there is only one thing you can do, grab a baby-wipe and start mining. The worst part is that you have to make sure that you get it out of EVERY crack and crevice. I don't know how much therapy Sophie is going to need because of all of this, but I hope the doctor offers group rates, because I am going to need it as well. Of course she finds all of this funny as hell, because the moment I undo the diaper she begins giggling and kicking her legs like a synchronized swimmer.

The moral of the story is that you will do things for your children that are disgusting on a Lovecraftian level, but you do it because you love them.

And that baby shit stinks.

A Choice

After reading this article in the Lexington Herald Leader about the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Global Warming chaired by Jim Gooch, who by his position is the default chief Democratic strategist on the environment, I felt the need to post the following video. I really wish the Committee had been able to see this video.

Please watch.



Thank you.

Free Rice.

Free Rice is a fun little website that tests your vocabulary while helping to feed the world. For every vocabulary question that you answer correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. I am warning you that the game is addictive as you try to reach ever higher vocabulary levels. If I can get past level 42, I will be a very happy camper.

Go try it and help feed the world.

A New Record!

Today was a very Jack Conway kind of day.

After 12 years of voting, I finally batted .1000 at the polls. Every candidate that I voted for won.

My uncle Robert has accused me for years of being a yellow dog Democrat and I have resisted this label. Yes, I usually vote a Democratic ticket but it isn't because of some unhealthy alliance with the party. Rather it is because the Democrats usually are more inline with my ideological beliefs. The two Republicans I voted for deserved to win and their Democratic opponents were morons that deserved to lose. It was nice casting a bi-partisan ticket and having the candidates I believe deserving win.

Also, I saw Kentucky play basketball tonight for the first time this season and was pleased with what I saw. As AnnaMarie said, "They need a lot of work", but even though they were leading by 27 points, the look in their eyes said that they were not happy with their performance. And they shouldn't be. There is a lot of work still to be done but I believe the the drive is there to win.

Yes, it was a very Jack Conway kind of day.

Just a little clarification.

I am amazed by the number of people that are unsure if waterboarding should be considered torture (like Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey). So in the spirit of education, here is a factual description of the technique.

Waterboarding induces panic and suffering by forcing a person to inhale water into the sinuses, pharynx, larynx, trachea, and lungs.

The head is tilted back and water is poured into the upturned mouth or nose. Eventually the subject cannot exhale more air or cough out more water, the lungs are collapsed, and the sinuses and trachea are filled with water. The subject is drowned from the inside, filling with water from the head down. The chest and lungs are kept higher than the head so that coughing draws water up and into the lungs while avoiding total suffocation.

As you will see in the picture, water is kept out of the lungs by the 15 to 20 degree angle of the subject. As long as the waterline remains below the level of the lungs, the subject does not asphyxiate.

Here is a list of things waterboarding is not:

upright or face-down dunking: People dunked face-first in water can keep water out for as long as they can hold their breath. When one is inclined with the head back, holding one's breath will not prevent the upper respiratory tract from filling with water.

asphyxiation: Survivors of near-drowning experiences report that the sensation of water flooding down the larynx and trachea as they struggle to breathe is the most terrifying aspect of the experience. In waterboarding, this begins quickly, long before the onset of oxygen starvation.

submersion: Waterboarding does not require immersion in standing water. Someone can be waterboarded with as little as a canteen or two of water.

simulation: Waterboarding is actually forcing large quantities of water into the pharynx, trachea, and lungs, inducing choking and gagging in the subject.

Now that you have the power of information, you can make up your own mind.

Thanks to the fine folks at waterboarding.org for the information.

Very Interesting.

Here is a link to an interesting website that determines the reading level of your blog.

Get a Cash Advance

Wii are the Future.

I have been reading for over a year how the Wii is a fad and that the novelty of its unique motion sensitive controller will wear off. Video game experts “in the know” repeat over and over this old chestnut and state that either the Xbox 360 or the PS3, depending on their personal favorite, is going to “win” in the next-gen war. The theory is that because the Wii cannot compete against the graphic and processing prowess of the Xbox 360 and PS3, that the Wii’s huge sales numbers are going to begin to fall as gamers move back to “traditional” video games.

In my mind, this past weekend proved that the people “in the know” don’t know what they are talking about. And it is because they are too close to the industry as it was, to see where the industry is going. Anna and I hosted about 13 members of her family for a small weekend family reunion. During this time, it seemed our poor little Wii was never turned off. After countless games of baseball, tennis, snowboarding, bowling, billiards and tennis, both Anna’s brother (who hasn’t owned a gaming console since the Atari) and her uncle (who has never owned a video gaming console) have decided that they are going to get their very own Wii.



What the industry experts don’t realize is the intense appeal of a gaming system that is obviously fun to the non-gaming public. These family members would never have been enticed to play a traditional video game with people sitting around holding a controller pushing buttons, but the wild gyrations involved in playing a Wii game are irresistible. Video game pundits just can not grasp the fact that Nintendo has effectively tapped an untapped market that the conventional wisdom did not believe existed.






Coming in the spring of 2008 we are going to see the release of Wii Fit which will include everything from aerobics to yoga poses to muscle conditioning, and it will even measure your BMI. It is titles like these that will persuade people to purchase a Wii that never would have dreamed of buying a 360 or PS3.

This means that hardcore fanboys are not going to be the only audience in town. Right now the average production cost of a traditional first person shooter is in excess of $50 million dollars. If you aren’t a first person shooter or sports fan, then console gaming really wasn’t up your alley. Things are going to change. With such a large audience in place that doesn’t really care about these type of games, you are going to see a decrease in the amount of resources a video game publisher will be willing to invest in these sorts of titles, when they could concentrate on a cheaper to produce and more widely accepted title for the Wii. I recently read a quote from an EA Games executive that they can have four to five teams working on various Wii games for the same cost as one PS3 game.

For me personally this revolution is a wonderful thing. I don’t really care about Halo or Madden ’08, but love games like Civilization, SimCity and Alpha Centari. In the past these types of games only appeared on a computer and usually required a top of the line computer to run them effectively. That all started to change today. Will Wright, the legendary creator SimCity, announced that his newest project called Spore will be released on the Wii. The interview that announced this wonderful news quoted Mr. Wright as stating that “Somebody asked me what I thought next generation meant and what about the PlayStation 3 was next generation. The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii – the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement, but the Wii feels like a major jump – not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic. In some sense I see the Wii as the most significant thing that's happened, at least on the console side, in quite a while.”

Spore is my idea of a dream game, the game allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its existence as a multicellular organism to a spacefaring sapient creature. The game is mindboggling in its scope. For example, just in the spacefaring section, you will be able to beam down your creature to interact directly with an alien species. You may interbreed different species genetically, or place a "monolith" (in the style of 2001: A Space Odyssey) on a planet, triggering evolution of intelligent life, then come back later to see what has evolved. Also, Will Wright explained that there would be over half a million different stars, each one having its own planets, more than anyone could visit in a lifetime. If your console is connected to the internet, many of these worlds will be populated with creatures and civilizations created by other players. The creatures, vehicles, and buildings the player can create will be uploaded automatically to a central database, catalogued and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players' games. As is traditional with most of Will Wright's games, the game never presents the player with an absolute ending and the Space Phase continues for as long as the player wishes.

Viva La Revolucion!

Gratuitous Cuteness

Just a couple of picture to fulfill your daily quota of cuteness.





And for good measure, this is the license plate that I designed for the back of Sophie's car that you saw a few posts back. Do you get the joke?

Tomb of Horrors!

The only thing worse than a bad president, is a bad DM. The picture below also explains Iraq. In the entire history of gaming there has never been a roleplaying group that does what the Dungeon Master thinks they ought to do. Why should the Iraqis be any different?



By the way, America just rolled a 1 on credibility.

The Humanity!

Last night while innocently reading the Freeman Academy newsletter, I received a shock to the system. The Juniors of Freeman Academy are sponsoring a young girl from Bolivia and a single sentence sent my mind reeling.

"Her birth date is February 7, 1991; the same age as our class."

1991?!?!?!?!

Juniors in High School were born in 1991? What?!?

I don't know what to say. If this does not shock you, then you fall within three categories. Either you are too young to understand my shock, too old to understand or have internalized the reality of your age FAR better than I have.

I turned 30 at the beginning of the month and was amazed how little it effected me, but this simple fact is almost impossible for my mind to accept.

Now that I think about, it is probably just that the kids in Freeman are all geniuses and have skipped about five or six grade levels.

Yeah thats it.

Blow Up The TV! Throw Away The Paper!

I have come to a decision that many of you (including myself) are not going to believe. I no longer care about the 2008 Presidential race. Really. In the foreseeable future I am going to conscientiously tune out all of the rhetoric, spin and propaganda.

The mental turmoil that has been slowly building within me has reached the point that I simply have to throw in the towel. How the the nomination process works, since I live in Kentucky, makes my vote and voice worth less than a city-wide straw poll in Iowa or New Hampshire.

You have to understand that I haven't reached this point because I don't care about the world, my country or even politics in general. In fact, it is because I care about those things too much that I have decided to tune out. It all started with an online calculator. This calculator asks whether you support various issues and the level of importance that you place upon each issue. Your results are then compared to the various presidential candidates' stances and you are given the candidate that most matches your beliefs. It was a foregone conclusion that I should be supporting one of the "extreme" candidates that has no real shot at the nomination, much less the actual Presidency. As predicted, when I got the results back it showed that I should be supporting Dennis Kucinich with a 93.10% match.

How does that lead to me no longer giving a shit about the presidential race? You see, I am becoming more and more worried about the direction we are headed as a country and it is becoming abundantly clear that I can't do a damn thing about it. Hillary Clinton is looking more and more likely to receive the Democratic nomination. I have several reasons that I can not support Hillary (e.g. Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton dynasty where as of TODAY 40% of Americans have never lived without a Bush or a Clinton in the White House) but my primary reason for opposing Hillary is that our country needs healing. George Bush has been one of the most divisive Presidents in our history. Almost half the country loathes the man and this hatred has polarized our political process on all levels. The Attorney General race in Kentucky is an excellent example of how far this partisan polarization has come. The last thing this country needs is four more years of a person in the White House that half the country is going to hate. I don't care that I will be on the other side of the fence this time. This is a road that will lead to a very bleak future.

Because of the above reasons and the strong tendency I have towards pragmatism, I have been supporting Barack Obama. In fact Anna and I attended a fund raiser for Obama here in Lexington.



But I am tired. I am tired of trying to talk people into supporting a candidate that isn't my best match politically. Most of all, I am tired of the fact that even if I do convince them, it won't amount to a hill of beans. By the time we in Kentucky get to vote on a nominee, the process is over for all practical purposes. Whomever has won the earlier states has enough delegates to secure the nomination.

This isn't all. In the spirit of "Blog Action Day", none of the candidates (including Kucinich) has taken Al Gore up on his challenge to make Global Warming a top priority issue. This issue has to be addressed today, not tomorrow. And my party isn't giving the issue more than token air time.

So I am quitting. I am going to concentrate on getting the city council to install speed bumps on my street. I am going to become active in my neighborhood association. I am going to press my local officials on keeping their promises about proposed neighborhood centers. But I am going to quit caring on whom becomes president because I just can't take it anymore. I will vote in the primary and general election and hope like hell that our President isn't Fred Thompson, but if it is...oh well.

If you are interested in taking the candidate calculator that I spoke of earlier, here is the link. And, old habits die hard, so if you do take the test, would you be so kind to post the results in the comments section. I may not care, but I am curious.

Update!!

My vacation from caring about Presidential politics lasted a whole 24 hours. As many of you are aware, Stephen Colbert has thrown his hat in the ring for the 2008 election. This is really exciting news. Mainly because I think Colbert's candidacy is going to offer an excellent contrast to the other candidates by showing how little difference exists between his absurd parody of political rhetoric and the actual political rhetoric espoused by the "real" candidates.

In fact, I feel so strong that his candidacy is a good thing for the country that I have written him a letter offering my services in order to get his name on the ballot in Kentucky. I suggested that his message in Kentucky should be that since Kentucky's primary election is so late in the cycle, you might as well for vote for Colbert because nobody in the nation gives a shit who wins here.

Just Call Me Cassandra

You might as well start calling me Cassandra with as much good as this blog post is going to do but I am writing it anyway. I am currently reading Lawrence Wright's excellent book The Looming Tower and also this week we got Seymour Hersh's new article on the Bush Administrations push for war with Iran. Taken together it has gotten me thinking about what might happen if we did indeed begin a bombing campaign.

For the sake of arguement, let's not discuss IF we are going to attack Iran, but concentrate on what the ramifications of such an attack might be. If we accept Hersh's reporting that the planning now is moving towards a more "surgical" strike against Republican Guard targets (many of which are in the urban area of Tehran), what would the Iranian response be?

I think we can safely assume that Iran would use their numerous missles to attack the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq training camps inside Iraq that we are protecting with American military forces. Iran could simply make the arguement that they are protecting their national security interests based upon America making the exact same arguement for invading Iraq in the first place.

Remember also that Mahmoud Ahmandinejad has said on numerous occasions that he feels that oil is being sold way too cheap. If he indeed believes this to be true, wouldn't an attack on his soil provide a great justification for driving up the price of oil? I can hear some of you ask, "How could he substantially drive up the price of oil?" Pretty easily. Take a look at the map below.



The Strait of Hormuz is the only path in and out of the Persian Gulf and if you look closely at the map you will see that Iran controls at least 75% of the land surronding the strait. Sink one or two supertankers and the next thing you know oil is trading at $200 a barrel. That would make the price of gas at the pump to be about $6 to $8 a gallon. Remember as gas rises, so does EVERYTHING else. America today is completely dependent upon cheap gasoline. Approximately 50% to 75% of the cost of food at the grocery store is based upon the cost of transporting that food.

I had an anthropology teacher that told us that UK did a study and found that without regular shipments arriving by truck, Lexington would have enough food to feed its citizens for 72 hours. If new shipments couldn't come in, there would be no more food. Don't believe it? Next time you are at the store look at the shelves. Imagine if you wanted to buy enough of any particular good to last you for several months and how much of it you would buy. Now imagine what happens if everyone in the store also wanted to buy the same amount of that same good. Modern grocery stores don't have a back stock room. What you see on the shelves is all they have.

I will let you decide for yourself what that does to the American economy.

We haven't even gotten to the worst. Remember that Hezbollah is financed and primarilly controlled by Iran. They are considered the most organized and dangerous terrorist organization in the world. We know for a fact that they have 1000s of cells in Europe and Asia, and it is believed that they have numerous cells in America. If Iran unleashes Hezbollah in Europe, Asia and America, the economies that have already taken a big hit, get hit even harder.

So, at present we have gas prices double or triple current levels, the economy is collapsing, people can barely feed their families, huge unemployment, people losing their homes due to spiraling credit card debt and mortgages they can no longer afford and a strong possibility of major terrorist attacks on US soil. I don't think it is too far a stretch to assume that there will be some pretty substantial civil unrest.

Given the above possibilities, let us not forget that the Bush Administration has gotten rid of Posse Comitatus, the prohibition of US military forces to police American citizens, given Halliburton subsidary KBR contracts to build detention camps in America, and steps have been taken to allow the imposition of martial law in America.

Do I think that everything above is going to happen? No, I do not. But the fact that it is possible is terrifying. The Bush administration keeps stating that prefer diplomay with Iran over military action, but how can you have diplomacy when you refuse to talk with someone.

Monday, Monday. Ba-da Ba-da-da-da.

Today I turned 30. I am amazed on how little impact this birthday has had upon my psyche other than reminiscing about the last few years and remembering how lucky I am. I thought I would share with you some of the things that I am thankful for.



My beautiful bride. Everyday I am reminded me how she loves me despite my "peculiarities", opened my mind to worlds I never knew existed and brings a joy to my life that makes me one of the luckiest bastards on the planet.



My marriage. On the surface this may appear to be a duplication of the above, but it is not. Our marriage is more special than my feeble attempts at wordsmithing can bare. I am not going to attempt to describe it in words. Just know that I am very thankful for this wonderful union.



Riley. He is now 9 years old and the first glimmers are beginning to appear of the adult that he will become. I could not have asked for a more loving, intelligent and curious son. No one could be a better big brother. Oh yeah, and he has finally started to enjoy Lord of the Rings. Whew.



Sophie. Just look at her and tell me how anyone could not fall in love.



Friends. The past 30 years would have been a complete bore if it hadn't been for those individuals that have made it more fun than can be described on a public blog.



Good times and their memories. Just look at the picture and tell me that it doesn't look fun.



So turning 30 isn't really a big deal. Maybe if I had sat on my hands for the last 30 years, I would be freaking out, but as it is, I know that I have had an amazing life. Are there things I regret? You bet. Is there things that I would do differently? Of course. But here is the thing. I love who I am and the life I have. The past 30 years (the good and bad) have made me who I am, and for that I am grateful.

Kid Nation of Capitalistic Pigs

As I watched Kid Nation last night I was amazed by the absurdity of the show. Prior to the airing of the pilot, most criticism of the show revolved around whether it was appropriate for children to be “working” in such a manner. I watched the show not really believing that CBS would ever put the kids in any real danger, but I was wrong. The whole point of the show was to see how children would build a society without the influence of adults. Kid Nation could not be further removed from this concept. What the kids experienced is not an opportunity to develop their own society but an exercise in brainwashing them to become better consumers. It reminded me of the type of capitalist propaganda that would appear as a warning of the future in sf books like 1984 or A Brave New World.

The appointed leaders were told to read their instructions when they reached town, but being kids, promptly forgot to follow these directions. So, for the first two days the kids worked as one cohesive team. Jobs were divided according to who was best able to accomplish a given task. When some of the smaller kids didn’t get anything to eat, the majority of the others spoke out about the need to insure that the weakest were given their fair share. What we were witnessing was children going down the bumpy road to egalitarian society. And it was beautiful.

But this was not the show the producers had in mind. Since the leaders forgot about the instructions they were supposed to read on Day 1, the producers reminded them. Did these instructions offer sage advice on better ways to develop their microcosm of society? Just the opposite. The producers ordered this group of kids that were pulling together and operating in everyone’s best interest, to divide up into competing groups. They wanted to destroy the “Together We Stand, Divided We Fall” attitude and turn their society into “Us versus Them.” I wanted to shout at the screen. “Don’t let them fool you.” “You are doing great without their directions” “Damn the Man!!”

But the brainwashing doesn’t end there. Oh no, if they left it at this, we might have a televised Lord of the Flies on our hands. No, what they did was even more insidious. They took this little bunch of egalitarians and divided them up into Bourgeois and Proletariats. Some will be the upper class that get the most amount of money, but do the least amount of work. Others will be the merchants that will appease the masses with candy and soda. Others will be the “skilled” working class, even though they haven’t demonstrated any skills. And of course last we have the Laborers. They will scrub the latrines and haul the water. If you watched the show, note that the girl that had demonstrated the most skill at cooking did not become a member of the skilled class that would be doing the cooking. No she gets to scrub toilets.

This was very insidious and brilliant on the part of the producers. After dividing up the kids into groups they will manage to keep the peace by forcing the socio-economic reality of the real world onto their “reality-show world”. The kids won’t see anything wrong with this model because it represents the world from which they came from. What I find the most distressing is that the kids easily fall into this forced structure without a word of complaint. They don’t see that there is any alternative, even though they were walking down a different path all on their own.

Now I am not some communist radical. In fact I am capitalist because I believe it is the best economic model that we have come up with. But come on, these kids had the potential to show the world that capitalism is not the only alternative. The natural innocence of these kids had to be squashed in order to help mold them into the perfect little consumers. They had to create a system where in order to be rewarded you needed to “suck up” to the establishment so that you might get a Gold Star. I am not prone to muttering “capitalist pigs” under my breath, but this was too much. Ray Bradbury said, “The function of science fiction is not to predict the future, but to prevent it.” I don’t think America has read enough science fiction.

Ridin' Along In My Automobile

The Promise of the Web

Mashups are an excellent example of how the web is starting to finally make good on the promise that anyone can become a creator of content and then self publish. The two videos below are not the most well made mashups but they work for me.

Enjoy

This is what happens when you combine the Eurythmics and the White Stripes.



This is what happens when you add together the Beatles and Guns & Roses.

The Ka of Harry Potter.

First a word of warning. This post is about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and my thoughts upon reaching the conclusion of J.K. Rowling’s wonderful series of books. Obviously there will be spoilers below and I wanted make sure that I give you, the constant reader, the due diligence of warning.

Anti-Climatic. That is the best way of summarizing the state of my mind on this beautiful Monday morning. The Deathly Hallows was a wonderful book, full of twists and turns, and providing a fitting conclusion to the world Rowling has created. However, the anti-climatic feeling I am now experiencing comes not from a failure on the part of the author but from my own sense of loss. For many years now, I have prided myself on being a very astute reader of these novels and, if I do say so myself, quite good at deducing various plot twists. I would be very embarrassed to know exactly how many hours I have devoted to either thinking or talking about the world of Harry Potter. Prior to the release, I had speculated that Snape’s loyalty stemmed from his feelings towards Lily. I knew in my heart that Harry was a Horcrux, yet also believed that he was going to survive. These predictions and theories have now come to an end.

I believe this is a large part of why I feel the way that I do. Riley is now slowly making his way through the books. There is no doubt that Sophie will one day read the novels. However, neither of them will have the years of anticipation before picking up the next installment. They will not spend hours speculating with friends about possible outcomes because they can simply read the next book. I find this sad because, at least for me, one of the greatest joys of Harry Potter has been this speculation.

Now that the series is completed I find myself comparing it to another series that I spent years waiting for its completion. Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is also 7 books. The wait between books was longer and more emotionally draining than the wait for Harry Potter. When I first picked up the Gunslinger, Stephen King warned in his introduction that he will probably die before he completes the series. I remember very clearly learning that he had been hit by a van and was in very serious condition. I experienced an immediate feeling of panic, knowing that The Dark Tower would not be completed. However, Ka had a different plan. This is where the comparison comes in. After completing The Dark Tower, I was amazed and in awe of what King had accomplished. To this day I am amazed by The Dark Tower for being “more than I could have ever dreamed” while Harry Potter seems this morning to be “what could have been”.

I don’t want to give the impression that I did not enjoy the book or, by extension, the series as a whole. It would be most unfortunate if I gave that impression. I love these books. But this Monday morning as I sit and type, a part of my life that I have enjoyed over the years is now over. I guess that I am writing this in order to come to terms with my loss. However, life is constantly changing and these books will now take on a different role. Ka is a wheel.

Different Shades of Life

On this Wednesday before The Festival of the Bluegrass I find myself thinking about an interview Steve Jobs with Bill Gates. In it Jobs said, and I quote, "I tend to think of things as Beatles or Bob Dylan songs." It has now been a week since I read that quote and it has stuck with me like a Creevey brother following Harry (sorry , I am most of the way through Book 4 and have come to the sad realization that I will finish them well before the deadline).

This little thought has been beating around in the back of my brain now for over a week. I know both of their catalogs better than most, so maybe this is why I am spending too much time thinking about some throw away comment from a guy that I will never meet, but for some reason it has a ring of truth to me. Yes, the Beatles and Bob Dylan are different in a basic almost primal way, I just can't put my finger on what that way is.

Awesome

I know that Anna has already posted this on her blog but I don't care. I am posting it on mine too because it is just so Awesome. It resides above my computer terminal at work and is the only personal item I have in the office. No pictures of my children, just this gentle reminder to both my co-workers and myself that we pale in comparison to this picture.

June 4, 1989

June 4, 1989 was a pivotal date in the development of my civic conscience even though I did not realize the significance until many years later. The Tiananmen Square Massacre was broadcast live from China and I remember clearly how my 11 year old mind was captivated by the images. Scores of unarmed students standing up against the Chinese military, the chaos that only the shedding of innocent blood can spawn and of course, that image of the unidentified young man blocking the path of a column of tanks. I imagine that I am not alone in remembering this tragedy but I want to share with you why it impacted me.

I was raised in a fairly political family composed almost entirely of yellow dog Democrats (yes, I am including you in this assessment Robert, even if it is reluctantly) but they are not particularly radical. The idea of non-violence and civil disobedience were foreign concepts to my 11 year old self. Watching the news coverage of the massacre introduced me to an entirely new thought. You see, the commentators on the major networks were outraged that the Chinese military would use such overt display of violence in quelling non-violent protestors. To me, it was this outrage that was intriguing and new. Unlike many out there it was not the drastic contrast to America and the freedoms that we enjoy that was remarkable to me, but the fact that others thought what the military was doing was awful.

I want to pause here and state that I wasn’t some kind of child monster. Looking back, I believe my developing understanding of a complicated world around me was overly influenced by the simplistic notion only a 11 year old boy can hold that “might makes right”. I had never given any real thought to freedoms and rights. They were simply words that were used by Americans as a part of our jingoistic dogma. On June 4, 1989 I was introduced to the concept that just because someone is the most powerful doesn’t necessarily make them right.

This is important. I began to see that what happened in Tiananmen Square was wrong not because of some concept of liberty but because it was simply wrong. Let me try and explain it a little more clearly, I came to understand that there was right and wrong in the world and because of this we need civil liberties to protect the distinction between right and wrong. This is a very different thought path from believing that we have civil liberties and that if someone violates these liberties it is wrong.

Many years later, I was blessed to attend Bethel College and was introduced to Mennonites. It was this wonderful religious denomination that introduced me formally to the concepts of non-violence, social justice and civil disobedience. I can say now that it was the Mennonite church that allowed me to look at organized religion as something more than a despicable and insidious organization but was something that actually tried to make the world a better place. This was a revolutionary concept for a boy from Kentucky whose primary interactions with religion was hypocritical Baptist and pompous Presbyterian churches.

So in short, on this 18th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, I want to thank everyone out there that have had a hand in helping shape my life and my current view of the world. Sitting here at 29 I am amazed how different the world seems compared to my 11 year old self.

Thank you.