Anthropomorphizing Saddam
Update: Humanizing a butcher, NYT-style...
Thomas Friedman's op-ed piece in today's NY Times is one of those [occasionally] clever letters-to-Bush-from-someone-not-really-likely-to-write-him. In this case, Saddam writes to the President from an undisclosed Baghdad basement, offering his earnest advice on what to do now.
It's a semi-useful method for introducing some of the sticky problems in building a post-war democracy in Iraq, but no new ground gets trod. What gives me heartburn — and this is admittedly pretty juvenile, but I'm like, I don't care, you know? — is the way Friedman paints his fictional Saddam as a real human being who tried his best, gosh darn it, but just had more problems than any one dictator head of state could possibly handle. He had to rule Iraq with an "iron fist" to keep it from going to hell in a handbasket, because of those darned unruly factions. This tends to overlook the fact that he instead made Iraq a living hell on earth...and dang near eliminated some of those factions through liberal applications of genocidal oppression. But, hey...you got your methods and I got mine.
Note to Mr. Friedman for future consideration: Don't anthropomorphize Saddam. It makes your readers surly, and makes you look foolish and shallow.
[Link tip from Reason Hit & Run]
And so it begins — The institutionalization of blogging...
Just appearing in my inbox is this notice:
ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies Conference & Expo
The First Business Event for Blogs
June 9-10, 2003
Sheraton Boston - Boston, MA
http://www.jupiterevents.com/blog/spring03/index.html
Register by May 29th and save $100!
Priority Code: 81WB2
2-Day and 1-Day conference passes available at www.jupiterevents.com/blog/spring03
This conference is a one-of-a-kind gathering of some of the foremost experts on Weblog strategies and technologies. The conference will provide all the business, strategic, technical and market information that your organization needs in order to evaluate how Weblogs fit into your corporate strategy. With everything from market research to actual success stories to a "how to" program, this conference promises to be the premier event for Weblogs.
I suppose it is inevitable. Blogging goes commercial. This particular conference even has its own blog, to keep the hype-o-meter pegged.
A $895 a pop, I suppose somebody will make money off blogging, and I'm sure that any program featuring Dave Winer, David Weinberger and Tony Perkins (no, not that Tony Perkins...the other one) will have some worthwhile content. Still, I find this just a tad, well, sad...
Bring on the buzzwords!
Cubicle "eavesdropping"; blogs threaten journalists
In this edition: "Open Plan" office layouts...Blogs threaten Oldline Journalism?
Today's Wall Street Journal's regular "workplace column" (known as "Cubicle Culture") focuses on the hearing problems of cubicle dwellers...as in, "hearing waaaay too much." It seems that many who work in "open plan" layouts refuse to practice self-censorship when it comes to discussing intimate details of their lives in earshot of their co-workers, and those co-workers are, of course, a captive audience.
As far as Tom Underwood was concerned, the women in the check-writing department were sweet and friendly. The seven of them, all elderly, would converse while the 32-year-old insurance executive was temporarily stationed at a desk next to theirs.
Forming a kind of support group, the women would talk about their problems -- problems with their kids and grandkids. A mild distraction, sure, but none of this particularly bothered Mr. Underwood. But when one of them started bellyaching about the lack of full-figure fashions, Mr. Underwood couldn't lose the image. When one of them then pondered aloud the potential root cause of her gastrointestinal discomfort, the conversation stuck in his ears.
"When you're really concentrating on trying to get something done, it can just destroy you," says Mr. Underwood.
I've worked in open plan offices on a couple of different occasions (although I didn't know until now that that's what they were called...we referred to them as "bullpens," if we referred to them at all). The first was a college job, working on campus in the "repro-graphics" department as a multi-lith operator and general go-fer. I was the only male in the office; my co-workers were middle-aged-and-up women, mothers and grandmothers working at secretarial and administrative tasks. The only intensely personal comments I recall hearing on the job actually came from a younger secretary who came into our office "suite" to use the photocopier and announce how wonderful it was to have an, um, "encounter" with her husband at lunch. I did learn of one matron's fondness for Private Cellar whiskey — her own admission, at that; not some tattle-tale gossip — but in most cases, the conversations in my presence were pretty discreet.
Later, my first job out of college was in the accounting department of a major oil company in Dallas. Only the supervisors and managers had offices; only the senior accountant (and programmers!?) had cubicles; the rest of us worked in big open areas populated with clusters of desks. We even shared phones, two or three to a unit. There again, I don't recall ever being overly distracted by inappropriate conversation. Perhaps I was too focused on work; perhaps my co-workers were oddly fixated on the tasks for which they were being well-paid.
I won't try to tell you that it wasn't a relief and a pleasure to finally graduate to a cubicle and then to an office, but working in the bullpen also wasn't the hellhole experience that seems to be the norm today. What's the difference between then and now? My guess is that people were more discreet and more considerate back then. There are some subjects meant for public consumption and some which should be confined to private conversations; fewer people nowadays seem to know the difference.
Now that I work in a one-person home office, I have to confess that I have a certain nostalgia for the low-level buzz of conversation from the "old days." Although the increasingly insistent voices in my head seem to be filling the void ["No, they're not!" "Yes, they are!"].
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Good article by Donald Sensing over at One Hand Clapping about the threat to "real journalism" being posed by blogs. As the saying goes, just because you're not paranoid, doesn't mean everyone is not out to get you.
Haig on Dubya
Update: Interview with Alexander Haig...
Jewish World Review has an interesting interview with Alexander Haig, in which he shares his perspective on current events, having advised seven U.S. presidents over the past five decades.
Haig gives a one- or two-sentence summary of some of the major political and military figures he worked with, including Douglas MacArthur, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Here's his quote regarding our current president:
We now have a young president who has thus far shown he has what has been lacking in most of them - and that's an unusual degree of character. You can buy brains, you can buy good looks, you can buy television personality. But character is what makes the difference between a good president and a so-so president -- or worse.
Amen, and amen.
Concordes seek homes
Midland NEEDS a Concorde...
British Airways will be disposing of its seven Concordes when they cease flying in October. According to this article, the airline is already being deluged with offers from around the world. However, BA indicates that it could donate intact jets to four museums. Only three are mentioned in the article: the Smithsonian, the National Space Museum, and an exhibit at Heathrow Airport. I have a suggestion for the fourth: what better place to care for and showcase this historic aircraft than the Commemorative Air Force?
OK, so this addition to the collection might technically fall outside the stated mission of the CAF. But nobody knows more about preserving aircraft for posterity than those folks, and the Concorde is deserving of such preservation. Besides, the idea of having a Concorde residing in Midland County is cool beyond belief.
Al Gore Carries an iTune
Al Gore Scores Core Store (With apologies to Scrappleface)...
CUPERTINO, California—April 29, 2003—New Apple® Director, former Vice President Al Gore, issued the following statement today, clarifying his role in the creation of the iTunes Music Store, which Apple announced yesterday:
Since inventing the Internet, I have devoted myself to searching for a way to capitalize on my ingenuity by applying it to the field of music, which I also invented. The Apple iTunes Music Store — my idea — is the result of literally hours of research and contemplation (I have a lot of spare time, nowadays). I can't think of a better way to combine three of my favorite inventions (the personal computer being the third) so that millions of Americans and even some people who aren't necessarily American but who stil might have been able to vote in 2000 had they just...well, never mind about that. That's water under the bridge (did I mention that I invented bridges?).
Apple CEO Steve Jobs also issued this cryptic statement:
Next time Woz talks me into a side-bet on a game of Tetris, just put a gun to my head and shoot me. Please.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
Categorized Miscellany...
In the "no good deed goes unpunished" category I give you Kris Leija, the young man from Abilene, Texas who was caught on TV running into a burning apartment complex last Sunday to rescue four children, despite warnings from the fire department about the danger. After a Good Morning America interview the following day and following a local press conference, Leija was arrested and is now in the county slammer on charges of violating probation. As it turns out, he pled guilty to burglarizing a building last year, received a probated sentence, and subsequently failed to report as directed to his probation officer, resulting in the warrant for his arrest.
I trust the judge in Leija's next hearing will extend some leniency.
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In the "must see TV" category, I give you our local ABC affiliate, which treated us this morning to almost 60 seconds of watching an incredibly noisy battery-powered air compressor inflated a child's pool floatie, while two anchors and the demonstrating guest looked on with feigned enrapturement. Coming up tomorrow: the latest in electric can opener technology...
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In the "say whut?" category, I give you our local mall, which is considering withdrawing its facility for service as a site for early voting. According to the spokesperson, the mall's owner, Simon Property Group, does not want its properties involved in the political process.
Could it be that the democratic process is bad for business? I hope the Iraqis don't find out. In any event, judging by the ample mall parking space at any given time, it's amazing to think that the owners would do anything that would reduce traffic to its property.
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Rod McKuen turns 70 today. My wife and I engaged in a two-minute nostalgia trip, thinking about his late 60s album series entitled "The Sea," "The Earth" and — you guessed it — "The Sky." I had forgotten about the involvement of Anita Kerr and the San Sebastian Strings in this project, which, amazingly, sold in platinum record quantities. Unfortunately, this collection of hippie drivel beat poetry doesn't stand the test of time particularly well. But in it's day, to two naive youths growing up in a small town in west Texas, where we were continually exposed to both kinds of music — country AND western — it represented a glorious, romantic call to freedom. But, then, we also read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" so I guess we were technically insane.
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And, finally, an item that rightfully belongs in two categories: "the least surprising announcement" and "another one bites the dust." I have in my possession a copy of an unofficial email from an unnamed source, confirming something that has been expected for a long time in these here parts: the bulk of the ConocoPhillips office now located in Odessa will move to Houston; timing unannounced. This should come as a surprise to no one. My wife was working for Conoco at the time the merger was announced last year, and knowing what we did, we were somewhat outraged at the decision to locate the combined office in Odessa. However, we quickly realized that the move only seemed illogical, if you assumed it was permanent. My wife, being the smart and perceptive person she is, sought out a comparable position with another, more secure (!?) company in Midland. Her decision is now validated, but that doesn't make it any less painful to realize that yet another major oil company is abandoning the Permian Basin (management-wise, at least; the Odessa facility will likely become a barebones production office), and quite a few people will be faced with the same old decision: move to Houston or lose their jobs.
This leaves only ChevronTexaco, Oxy Permian and Unocal as majors with significant Permian Basin management staffs. And, of course, each of them have "co-staff" in Houston (and, in the case of Unocal, the Permian Basin manager is officed there).
A comedian and a lawyer rate Bush...
...and slam actors...
Jackie Mason (comedian) and Raoul Felder (attorney) write a regular column for The Jewish World Review. The current edition addresses the tendency of some to judge President Bush on his inability to "schmooze." I won't give it all away, but here's a sample that should make you want to read the whole thing:
An actor is the living proof that talking has nothing to do with intelligence. And that a big mouth can work perfectly with a small mind.
Religion and organ donations...
The BBC reports that fewer people are willing to donate their organs for transplants, and at least one researcher says that a "decline in Christianity" is to blame.
Dr Mike Fitzpatrick will tell an audience at the Royal College of Physicians in London, that people are becoming too worried about keeping their bodies intact after death.
"This is partly to do with a decline in religion and a retreat to an almost pre-Christian period," he said.
"The Christians have little regard for the mortal coil, but when that sense is lost then people become pre-occupied about burying their body parts."
How interesting. I guess when you believe that this — this temporal, temporary life, that is — is all you have, it becomes really, really important. Internal conflict (no pun intended) over organ donation is the least of one's worries in this case, I would think.
[Story tip from CNN Headline News crawler]
Goodbye to Warblogs Blogroll...
It's with a great sense of relief that I deleted my Warblogs blogroll earlier today. Now that Operation Iraqi Freedom has moved into a much less, um, tense phase (albeit no less significant), and Coalition forces are much less in harm's way, I don't feel the need to have a separate list of war-related links. However, I can't withdraw cold turkey; The Command Post link has been shifted into my regular blogroll. I hope the good folks at CP will continue to provide us with their excellent updates.
And, to build on Bill Whittle's excellent point (see below), I hope that this campaign has eliminated the need for a new future blogroll devoted to warblogs.
Dial-up Internet access "dying"...
This article in today's Wall Street Journal documents the exodus from the dial-up ranks of the three largest providers, AOL, MSN and EarthLink. Almost 700,000 customers dropped their dial-up services in 1Q03, although it's not clear how many of those simply shifted to another dial-up provider. The column provided only EarthLink's stats regarding broadband customer growth: 112,000 new customers in the 1st quarter (more than offsetting the 74,000 dial-up accounts it lost during that same period).
I doubt these statistics come as a surprise to anyone, and especially not to those who have made the switch and become broadband evangelists. These stats also continue a trend with important implications for website designers, especially those who — like me — have a client base consisting of small businesses and organizations for which the ideal site is one that looks pretty good, works for everyone and doesn't cost too much. They don't want to pay for multiple versions of the same site in order to serve up an optimized "experience" for each browser/platform/plug-in combination. For a designer, this generally means building a site to the lowest common denominator, say, a 56K AOL customer.
The switch to broadband means that we (the designers) can start having a little more guilt-free fun with our designs. We can start to fudge the rules a bit on page size, meaning more or higher quality graphics. We can actually throw in a photo just for atmosphere, here and there, without fearing that the Jakob Neilsen Storm Troopers will kick in our doors in the middle of the night and confiscate our copies of Photoshop.
OTOH, dial-up is still the way the majority of Americans and the vast majority of the rest of the world (...um, excluding Canada) accesses the internet. So, let's not get carried away, shall we?
What's in a name?
Has any candidate for a major political office ever won with a campaign based primarily on how hard his name is to pronounce? I'd be surprised if this has proven to be a successful strategy in the past, but apparently Randy Neugebauer is going to give it his best shot (along with promising to "keep west Texas safe from terrorism," which, frankly, hasn't been my hot button lately, but perhaps I'm overly complacent).
His first TV ad with this theme was set in a barbershop. A geezer in the chair tried every variation of pronunciation he could think of, getting corrected each time by all the other patrons, who didn't seem to have any problem saying "naug-a-bower." That one got pretty old in a hurry. The current one has a terminally cute elementary-school-aged girl giving a pitch — along with outtakes of her name-fumbling. It's getting a little stale, too, although her line "glad he's not a write-in candidate" is pretty clever.
I bring this up only because I think Mr. Neugebauer has gone overboard with his latest tactic in this strategy. My answering machine has a message on it from his campaign, and the young lady reading the script (and not very well, I might add) urges me to "please consider voting for Mr. Randy Nogginbower..." I'm certain this was not an intentional gaffe; surely, the campaign isn't that tightly choreographed. But it did make me laugh.
Now, whether laughter is the desired result in this campaign is a whole other issue.
The President's speech...
Sitting tonight in my living room in Midland, Texas, watching and listening to the President, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of pride...in our nation, our military and in our Commander-in-Chief. He demonstrated clearly -- once again -- why he is the right man for this time.
Our President is a man who is comfortable with himself and his decisions, without dodging the implications and difficulties that accompany the latter. He's not intimidated by disagreement, although he doesn't suffer fools with endless patience. And he speaks his mind with a directness and clarity that's refreshing in the world of scripted politobabble. Listening to him describe his experiences during the past months in such simple and powerful terms makes those who continue to focus on his style instead of his substance seem, well, as shallow and irrelevant as they are.
My favorite scene during the program? The shot of Clinton shaking hands with Arafat...no words needed; the contrast between then and now is obvious.
Oh, and it was pretty cool to hear him talk about Laura's and General Tommy Franks' ties to Midland Lee High School.
EOW Randomness...
Where does the week go? I spent most of yesterday morning in a surgical waiting room while my dad underwent blepharoplasty (he's doing fine, except for looking like the other guy after an alley encounter with Mike Tyson), and then did a short presentation for the local Mac user group on—of all things—blogging. Consequently, I didn't have time to blog.
The user group thing was interesting from this perspective: fully 75% of those in attendance didn't know the meaning of "blog." Granted, Midland isn't the center of the "new media" universe, but this perhaps is a reminder to bloggers that we're still a "fringe movement," albeit a rapidly growing one.
Even more interesting/disappointing, the term "Axis of Weasels" drew mainly blank stares. I was counting on that phrase to spark an understanding of the influence of blogs in today's culture. So much for enlightenment.
On the plus side, I did get to use Keynote for the first time (one of the members converted my PowerPoint show beforehand and we ran it on his 12" PowerBook). I assumed that conversion would be pretty easy, using an import command or something similar, but the guy who did it said it was even easier than that: just drag the PowerPoint file icon onto the Keynote app icon and voila yee-haw, there it is.
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James Lileks recent domain name renewal (hijacking?) problem is just a high-profile example of something I deal with almost daily: the ridiculously complicated domain administration process. I'm constantly getting hysterical notices of impending doom ("Renew now! Or lose your identity forever!") regarding domains coming up for renewal. Some of those domains don't need to be renewed; they were meant all along to serve temporary purposes...but just try letting one actually expire. You'd think the registrars live and die according to what I decide to do with that one domain name. That's why I suspect Lileks was not the victim of a mere expiration, but of something more sinister. OTOH, it could have been just a crashed DNS server (like I really know what that means).
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I read part of Helen Thomas' column this morning (no link available; I read it in the treeware version). I didn't mean to...I didn't want to...but her columns are like those particularly spectacular crashes you pass on the freeway. Your eyes are just drawn to the disaster, against your better judgment and morals. And for that lapse, I was rewarded with this:
Paul Kennedy, Yale history professor and author of "The Rise and Fall of Great Powers," was quoted recently as saying he was "shocked" to hear a Dutch journalist tell him that his countrymen were now "scared" of America.
"The Dutch. Scared. Is that a good long-term policy for the number one power in the democratic world?" Kennedy asked.
Well. Where to begin? Let's start with the secondhand quote referring to yet another quote from an unidentified individual purporting to speak on behalf of an entire nation. Just oozes with credibility, doesn't it? Of course, the fact that it was a journalist who stepped forward to represent his country makes it OK. So we have a journalist quoting a Yale professor quoting a journalist...who says his whole country is now afraid of the US.
I suppose the Gallup organization is quaking in its collective shoes, realizing that it can easily be replaced by a journalist. An anonymous one, at that.
Sources aside, one wonders if, perhaps, the Dutch are suffering from a guilty conscience. Is there something we should know about, something that causes them to places themselves in the camp of evil, murdering, oppressive dictatorial regimes? Because, as far as I can tell, those are the only folks who have anything to fear from us.
Interesting questions. But I won't count on Ms. Thomas for answers.
Goodbye, Charley...
It's with some regret that I make this announcement: I'm giving up on Charley Reese.
Over the years, I've agreed with about 90% of what Charley has written. Jeff Elkins referred to him as a "paleo-libertarian," which I take to mean that he's a dinosaur, a throw-back...and that's not necessarily a bad thing. For the most part, his opinions are grounded in common sense and he doesn't suffer fools, gladly or otherwise. But lately, his consuming isolationist desires and anti-Israel rants have just tired me out, to the point where I'm not interested in anything he has to say.
Then there's today's column (apparently published only in the particular universe inhabited by the Midland Reporter-Telegram; I can't find it online at his "official" website...and the MRT doesn't have it online either, so no link), where he makes these statements:
I'll be frank—I don't think the whole country of Iraq is worth one American life, and I don't care what kind of government Iraq will have... No American ought to die in defense of any country except this one.
I'm sure that there are some solid political and/or historical arguments to be made in support of his position. He's not one to generally resort to the "because I said so" form of logic. And this is an area in which reasonable men may differ without permanently parting company. Except...
Based on Charley's writings, I'm of the opinion that he's what one would refer to as a God-fearing person, and, probably even a Christian. That's what makes the preceding statements even harder for me to swallow. This is not a position with Biblical support, as I read and interpret Scripture.
Jesus Christ is quoted thusly: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13; NIV)
OK, perhaps I'm lifting that verse out of context; maybe it refers only to fellow believers. Let's then look to what Jesus says about just who our neighbors are. In Luke 10, He tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which a man is commended for taking care of the needs of an enemy (think Israelis vs. Palestinians).
Well, maybe "neighbor" isn't the same as "friend." Then let's just take the human terminology out of it completely and look at what God told us through His Old Testament prophet, Micah: "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8; NIV)
Strip away all the doctrine and religosity and you get down to this bedrock...justice, mercy and humility—in God's presence.
That's what Charley fails to recognize...or refuses to acknowledge, as I think he's too intelligent to not know this. What we did in Iraq—for the people of Iraq—was just and merciful. I don't know whether we're carrying out the humble part or not, although the concerted effort to restore the infrastructure and address the humanitarian needs tends to make me think we are.
It's my contention that only a Christian nation could carry out an action like we've witnessed. I'm not naive enough to believe that there aren't huge political and economic factors at work as well (and I really don't want to get into a debate about whether America is or ever has been a "Christian nation"...I'll just say that we've been blessed in amazing ways for over 200 years and it ain't because we're so much smarter and good looking than everyone else). But the act of laying down life in the cause of justice and mercy is noble, and it's made more so when the recipients of that sacrifice might not even like you for having done so. That's the true definition of grace.
Charley may not be pleased by what America is doing in Iraq...but, then, Charley's not the One we will ultimately give an account to at the end of time.
Much ado about nyet...
From today's edition of the Moscow Times comes this report of the merger between two Russian oil companies, Yukos and Sibneft, creating the second largest petroleum reserves ownership, behind only ExxonMobil and presumably limited to publicly traded companies.
Nineteen billion BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) is a healthy hunk of hydrocarbon, in anyone's book. But I learned a long time ago that it's not the barrels, it's the cash — and it's not the revenue, it's the profit — that counts.
The new company (creatively named YukosSibneft...must've used an American merger consultant for that) will have a market value of $36B. Compare that to the other market caps of the other companies mentioned in the article: ExxonMobil - $234B; BP - $145B; TotalFinaElf - $88B; ChevronTexaco - $68B (all values based on their stock/ADR prices at the close of the market on 4/22). The numbers seem to indicate that either the Russian oil is not that profitable, management is not that competent, or the reserves estimates are not that credible. Or, perhaps, a combination of all three.
Again, comparing the new Russian company to ExxonMobil, we see that the former's reserves are valued at $1.89/BOE, while the latter's 72B of reserves is valued at $3.25/BOE (simply dividing market cap by reserves volume). That's a hard gap to close.
It's probably only coincidental that another headline on the same page reads:
China is in the lead, but, as in the oil business, I suspect that Russian companies are doing their best to catch up.
Defeated by an upgrade...
I'm admitting defeat in my battle with Blogger Pro(strate). I'll continue to post here until I can figure out a non-Blogger alternative, but I've removed the link to my Archive (which didn't work anyway), and turned off the archive feature (which didn't work anyway). I've changed the settings to show the 30 latest posts, and I'll just let the older entries slip the surly bonds of Blogger.
Rarely have I been so frustrated with something so seemingly simple. Rarely have I seen something so seemingly simple (forgive the unintentional alliteration) made so complicated. For some reason, we who were suckered into convinced to upgrade are offered our choice of two Blogger servers, ostensibly so we can use whichever works best for us. There's Pro 1 and Pro 2. Pro 1 lets me publish my posts, but won't let me alter my archive template or republish the archives. Pro 2 will let me alter my archive template, but won't let me republish the archives, and it won't let me publish posts.
I'm probably paranoid to think that this is happening because I'm using a Mac running OS 9.2.2 and Netscape 7; I can't be the only person with that combination...but perhaps others are having the same problem.
Well, anyway...sorry to bore you with these problems. We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming...soon.
Dear Tim...
So go away you little, little man with your wrongheaded ideas and your marginally sane "life partner," back to your wretched coven of insular, preening, self-stroking pretenders, and leave the work of war and peace to clearheaded men and women.
Read the post that precedes this final paragraph, courtesy of The Ernie Chambers Project. And thanks to cut on the bias for the link.
Texas Hill Country Report...
I'm back from an extended weekend of bicycling through the Texas Hill Country, specifically around Fredericksburg and Kerrville. We put 135 miles on the longbike in three days, not much in bike touring terms, but considering some of the terrain we encountered, we were happy with our accomplishments. I've decided that biking the Hill Country is harder than riding in the Colorado Rockies, despite the altitude and reputation of the latter. The climbs in the Rockies tend to be long but not that steep, whereas in the Hill Country you encounter one short, steep hill after another...and the downhills almost never provide the momentum to conquer the next uphill without effort. I wish we had one of those fancy cyclometers that tracks cumulative altitude gain.
Anyway, it was a good time, and we didn't spend much of it contemplating anything particularly serious (other than occasionally wondering if any otherwise healthy individuals had ever just keeled over dead from exertion). We didn't succumb to the tourist shopping traps, and spent time in only one clothing store where my mom was doing some looking (and buying).
This was one of F'burg's oldest stores, built before it became a mecca for Austinites and San Antonians seeking refuge from the ratrace. It had evolved somewhat over the years, carrying a wider variety of goods, but down deep it was still a store for the, um, "older ladies" to shop. So, it struck me as quite amusing to hear the melodic strains of "Born To Be Wild" playing quietly through the store's sound system while I sat and thumbed through an old copy of Newsweek magazine, thoughtfully left there for guys like me who are best at shopping by sitting and waiting.
The Newsweek wasn't that old -- December 2, 2002, to be exact*. It had an article about what Iraq might look like after the predicted war. Interesting stuff, when viewed backwards through the lens of reality. But what caught my eye was a sidebar about the construction boom in Baghdad. It seems that last December, the smart money viewed real estate as the safe investment in the event of war. As one Iraqi architect put it, "we're not afraid of American bombs. No, the real fear is of the looting that will follow." Whew...talk about prophetic.
It seems that the Iraqis had more faith in our ability (and morally-driven desire) to target only military targets than did many Americans (and French and Germans and Russians, etc.). They also had a better feel for the realities of life when the pressures created by decades of oppression are released through liberation.
Funny how much an American president and an Iraqi architect have in common.
*Note: I tried unsuccessfully to find the Newsweek article online. If you happen across the link, send it along and I'll add it.
New Midland blog...
Please welcome the newest member of the Midland, Texas blogosphere: Berry Simpson. If the name sounds familiar, it should. Berry is a long-time Midland resident, a petroleum engineer and is serving as a city councilman. He is also a gifted writer and teacher. Berry has published a "spiritual journal" for a long time, and has built up a subscriber base of more than 300 for his YahooGroup-distributed efforts. I hope he'll begin sharing his thoughts and observations more often than once a week.
Stopping the looting...
There's a story in today's Tehran Times summarizing remarks by Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Revolution. Ayatollah Khamenei, as one might expect, puts a much different spin on recent events in Iraq, with one exception:
Ayatollah Khamenei, addressing thousands of worshipers at Tehran's Friday prayers, said Iran's position was like that of the Iraqi people and that the ouster of Saddam, as a most evil dictator, had been good news for the Islamic Republic.
"We never helped either of the tyrants, and we are very happy that Saddam is toppled ... We were neutral during the crisis, as were the Iraqi people, and are happy as is the Iraqi nation," he told the worshipers at Tehran University.
That's pretty much the last point where the Ayatollah seems to dealing with reality (and even that's subject to debate, given the comment about "either of the tyrants").
He said that the Islamic Republic sympathizes with the Iraqi nation about the crimes the U.S. committed against them, adding that the U.S. and Britain had violated the fundamental right to life of the Iraqi people by attacking civilians.
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He also called the U.S. and Britain's ambitious plans to share Iraq's resources as a big mistake and a reactionary step reminiscent of the early decades of colonialism.
...
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution cautioned that U.S. leaders will soon notice how their rhetoric about being champions of democracy in the Iraqi crisis will be frustrated.
"If they are honest about their claim that their campaign against Saddam was meant to establish democracy in Iraq, why don't they leave the country now that the dictator is toppled?" he asked. "If they have any belief in the principles of democracy and the rights of nations, they should immediately withdraw troops from Iraq and refrain from interfering in its affairs."
There's more, and some of it would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.
The last paragraph that invites thought and comment. Why, indeed, are we sticking around now that Saddam's "toppled" (referring, I suppose, to all those statues)? I mean, it's been, what...72 hours or so...surely our job is done.
I think the best answer to this ridiculous proposition came from an Iraqi citizen. I saw this quote yesterday, and I don't remember where, but it stuck in my mind as significant. I just wasn't sure why until now.
He was looking out over the looting taking place in Baghdad and asked — with plaintive seriousness — "when are the Americans going to stop the looting?"
Yesterday, I wrote about the difficulties of creating from scratch a brand spanking new democracy in a country like Iraq. I was focused primarily on the mechanics of the process: where do you find the right leaders, how do you get an organization...a government...in place, and so on. Those are good questions, I think. But they're almost minor in comparison to this one: how do you teach the people to be free?
How do you impart to these souls the idea that in a true democracy, ultimate responsibility and privilege begins and ends with the individual citizen? How do you make them understand that the government won't — that they shouldn't let it — do everything for them, be everything to them?
How do you convince them that in a democracy, the government is only as strong as the people who put it in place?
That, to me, is the true challenge...and it's a huge, mind-boggling one. At some point, Iraqis are going to have to figure out that they, and they alone, have the power to stop the looting.
Birthing a new government...
Busy day...just now catching up on some of the recent events in Iraq. I find it fascinating to contemplate just how one might go about establishing a new government in a place like Iraq...almost as fascinating as considering how easily the old one was brought down. ("Easy" being, of course, a relative term, and not one to be used without giving due recognition to the blood shed and lives lost to achieve the goal.)
The Iraqi National Congress is getting a lot of press, pro and con. I'm not well enough informed on the background issues to have an opinion, but I do wonder what it would be like to get a phone call, and hear the voice on the other end of the line say something like, "pack your bags, buddy; we want you to help us create a new democratic government in one of the key countries in the Middle East." Akeel Taee got just such a call about a week ago. And now the work is beginning in earnest, not just as an exercise in contingencies or possibilities. Heady times, these.
Even the most well-informed and perceptive among us are still occasionally struggling to make sense of it all. I found this quote in the online transcript of today's State Department briefing, as spokesman Richard Boucher tried to explain our official position regarding Turkish and Kurdish involvement in northern Iraq:
MR. BOUCHER: We consider the Turkish -- we consider terrorists to be terrorists, and we still consider the terrorists to be terrorists. And we consider those who are not terrorists, not to be terrorists. And we still don't consider them terrorists. That's as clear as I can make it.
Given the pace of change — revolutionary, one might say — in recent days, it's good to hear such things and realize that not everything is different.
One of the better trades in history...
Spring is upon us, when a guy's thoughts turn to baseball, or at least baseball metaphors. And in thinking about the strategic implications associated with today's Liberation Show, is there any doubt that the President has parlayed his baseball experience into the making of one of the greatest trades of all time, that being Iraq for France, Germany and Belgium? Talk about getting a major league player in exchange for some minor league hacks...
Israel breathing easier...
In light of today's events, and coupled with what I'm sure is an expert and well-informed analysis of the progress in other parts of Iraq, the Israel Defense Forces will begin releasing reservists who received emergency call-up orders for the possiblility of an Iraqi missile attack on Israel. Also, the possiblity of rescinding instructions to the public to carry their gas mask kits with them at all times will also be discussed.
It appears that freedom is being gained simultaneously on multiple fronts.
[Excerpted from the Thursday, April 10 (GMT+3) edition of Haaretz]
Photo essay: SF vs Baghdad
Viewing A Tale of Two Cities is well worth your time, and anyone else you care to send the link to. [Recommended by Glenn Reynolds]
Michael Moore "revealed"...
Jeff Jarvis points to — and provides a brisk assignment to irrelevancy — another hallucination by the ever-annoying Michael Moore.
I just ran the phrase "Michael Moore, annoying idiot" through an online Farsi translator, and it spit out this result: "Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf." Amazing. No wonder we never see them together in the same photograph.
Perhaps he's suffering from SARS ("Significantly Altered Reality State"). A quarantine does seem appropriate, just in case.
Anti-war protestor idiocy...
Update: This guy confirms my worst suspicions about many anti-war protestors. They're not acting out of lack of knowledge, they're acting out of lack of morals. It's a shame, too; one can forgive ignorance.
Miscellany...
The writers over at CNN Headline News must be tickled with themselves for this blurb that's currently running on their TV ticker:
Tanks for the memories: US spokesman say's that Saddam's fleet of 800 tanks down to 19
...
This entry by Mike Golding (notestips.com) seems to confirm the relative infancy of the blogging medium (phenomenon? artform? tool?). Navigation is such a fundamental part of any online communications... it's really pretty amazing that there's such a lack of consensus on the best way to do it, at least with respect to blog archives.
I wonder how many people regularly visit blog archives. I don't. I don't have time to read current posts, much less the old ones I missed. I suspect a lot of people are in this category. But that doesn't mean that a good archive navigation system isn't necessary. In fact, I might be more disposed to looking through selected archives if it didn't mean having to read/scan every entry to find items of interest. That's why I'd like to see more bloggers use headlines for their entries (like The Command Post). Even The Command Post's archives fall short in this area, however, in that there is not a list of headlines in "table of contents" form on its daily archive pages.
Of course, I'm not exactly the best person to be giving advice to other bloggers about how they need to organize their archives. Even at their best, mine are barely usable, and thanks to Blogger Pro(strate), they're currently barely accessible!
[Thanks to Simon Willison for the notestip.com link.]
...
Did we or didn't we? Take Saddam out, that is. After viewing the rubble and crater, I don't see how we'll be able to give a definitive answer to that question, if such an answer depends on identification of body parts, DNA, etc.
For one thing, judging by the amount of civilian activity and clean-up efforts around the bomb site, any evidence is likely to be ruined or disposed of by the time the military equivalent of the CSI team can do its thing. For another, the force of the explosions seemed to be such that perhaps all that's left is individual DNA strands. So, DNA may be all we have to work with.
But that raises another question, which is actually the point of this rambling post. I could have sworn that I heard Katie Couric say this morning something to the effect that "we don't have a sample of Saddam's DNA, and while we do have samples of his sons-in-law, they aren't considered to be close enough relatives to help in the identification process." Now, either Katie misspoke, or I misheard, or this is more information than I really wanted to know about the Saddamite family. Perhaps this is just another one of those "cultural things." But, where I come from, having a blood relative for a son-in-law is just icky. (OK...maybe his daughters are adopted. Which raises another line of questioning...to wit: would you rather be an orphan, or Saddam's adopted child?)
Saddam's film collection...
The Wall Street Journal reports that US troops are leaving their marks on one of Saddam's palaces in Baghdad:
In the heart of Baghdad, American soldiers who reached the gold-and-blue-domed New Presidential Palace used the toilets, rifled through documents in the bombed-out compound, and helped themselves to ashtrays, pillows, gold-painted Arab glassware and other souvenirs.
Get ready for the "I-told-you-sos" to start. First, it's the gold-painted Arab glassware, and then the oilfields.
I was more interested in this:
The palace had been stripped of most personal items, but the building boasted a sophisticated audio-video system. Troops looking in one cabinet found a collection of pirated movies, "Les Miserables" among them.
Remind me again..."Les Miserables" is set where? The irony is wonderful.
But the really great thing is that this is likely to completely silence the Hollywood apologists. Saddam's murdering ways may be overlooked ("it's a cultural thing, you know"), but, by golly, we WILL NOT TOLERATE piracy of movies!
Barnyard nations...Miscellany...David Bloom...
Ever since we started hearing France and Russia insist on playing a role in the rebuilding of post-war Iraq, I've had this recurring image of a familiar story running through my mind. I've been meaning to blog about it, but someone beat me to it. They did a much better job than I would have, so it's OK. Read "Doc Farmer's 'The Little Red Hen - Redux'" and see if it doesn't make for a perfect fit.
...
I just heard one of the countless retired generals refer to the "exchange rate" for yesterday's fighting inside of Baghdad. He wasn't talking about monetary currency, but the currency of war: bodies. The context? Estimates are that 3,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed for every 1 Coalition soldier. While I much prefer this ratio over the inverse, it's still a cold reminder of the realities of war.
...
Speaking of realities, I spent some of the weekend in the company of a Canadian who is currently residing in the Boulder, CO area. He refers to Boulder as being located "fifty miles from reality." He also had some interesting insights about the Canadian perspective on the war and the US in general, which I hope to share in a later post.
...
I knew David Bloom only through his television appearances. I was always impressed by his communications skills, but everyone on that level of TV journalism is a skilled communicator. What set David apart was his unfailing ability to not take himself too seriously, while always being deadly serious about the stories he covered. Nobody had a grin like his, or was as willing to use it. He was equally at ease reporting from the battlefield as he was sitting on the couch on a Saturday morning talking about his family. I'll miss him.
Tom Watson blogs from Parliament
Tom Watson is a member of the British Parliament (Labour Party, to be exact...as if I have any idea what that implies). He has a blog. He has a very good blog, in fact, and I'd like to suggest that our career politicians could learn a few lessons about his use of technology (and transparency) to communicate. Here's a sample post:
I had lunch with the Japanese Ambassador today (note the casual way that was dropped in as if it happens all the time). He was charming. So was I. That's why I failed to pull him up on this disgraceful political act conducted by his bosses in the Japanese Parliament. Rest assured comrades, it wouldn't happen in Britain. Oh no.
OK...so much of it is pretty provincial, requiring an insider knowledge of MP business or the UK political climate to fully appreciate. But I applaud his efforts, as well as blogroll them.
[Credit Simon Willison for the reference.]
Update...Pvt. Lynch
Matt Laurer just reported that Pvt. Jessica Lynch, recovering from one surgery and scheduled for another today in Germany, asked if her hometown newspaper had picked up on her story yet.
Is she ever in for a surprise!
FLASH - Don Johnson closing in on Baghdad
OK, I thought I showed remarkable restraint in not commenting yesterday when CNN Headline News' crawler repeatedly quoted President Bush as saying "a vice is closing in on Baghdad." After all, this was "Breaking News" and wartime reporting rules clearly state that spellchecking is not essential when covering stateside presidential addresses.
But I draw the line at silence when the main front-page headline in today's edition of the MRT (print edition only...at least the online editor appears to know the difference) reads:
'Vice is closing' on Saddam's regime
<sigh>
Local school district stats
As reported below, the MRT yesterday ran a story focusing on statewide salaries for teachers and superintendents. The story presented various statistics about school district size and salary levels but didn't draw any conclusions. I don't have a problem with the lack of conclusions; in fact, I think it's a good thing, considering the apparent absence of rules-of-thumb for determining the appropriateness of salary levels. That's unfortunate in and of itself, because it opens things up to the sort of subjective "it's too high because I say so" arguments that we see in the letters to the editor.
The article does observe that superintendent salaries don't appear to correlate with school district size (expressed in terms of number of students). A careful examination of the data rebuts that conclusion. There is a distinct correlation, and it is inversely proportional (up to a point). If the superintendent salaries are expressed as $/student, the smaller school districts tend to have hugely disproportionate salaries. For example, there are 551 school districts in Texas where the superintendent is paid $100/student or higher (ranging up to over $7,000 per student!). Of that group, only two districts have more than 1,000 students, and the average enrollment was 342. But, of course, this is just playing with numbers; this is a common phenomenon, and I'm sure there's a statistical analysis term for it. Not being a statistician, all I can do is describe the situation.
But, here are some more relevant comparisons, based on TEA data readily available here and here:
| State Average | MISD | Midland as a % of State Average | Ector County ISD | Beaumont ISD | Lubbock ISD | |
| Teacher Salary | $39,972 | $38,494 | 96% | $38,259 | $41,714. | $38,682 |
| Superintendent Salary | $87,252 | $188,770 | 216% | $182,520 | $281,567 | $205,900 |
| # of Students | 3,680 | 20,777 | 565% | 26,594 | 20,612 | 29,472 |
| Superintendent Salary - $/Student | $23.71 | $9.09 | 38% | $6.86 | $13.66 | $6.99 |
| Superintendent Salary - Multiple of Teacher | 2.2 | 4.9 | 225% | 4.8 | 6.7 | 5.3 |
| Superintendent Salary - State Rank | n/a | 31 | n/a | 35 | 4 | 15 |
| Enrollment - State Rank | n/a | 46 | n/a | 36 | 47 | 32 |
The "multiple of average teacher salary" is an interesting statistic. Unfortunately, due to the way the TEA data is formatted, I couldn't easily do a ranking of districts on this factor. However, looking at a few of the larger districts in the state (the ones where teacher salaries could be expected to be on the higher end) the multiples are all higher than Midland's.
Of course, this is the same factor that has put so many CEOs in the hot seat. The gap between the highest and lowest paid employees (or even using the average salary) in a large corporation makes the puny multiples we see here pale in comparison.
I'm not an apologist for MISDs salary structure. I don't know what the right salary level is...but I can say that I don't see anything in the data that says MISD's is wrong. Any institution that is charged with being a steward of the public's finances should apply this factor to its hiring decisions: get the best person you can for the least amount of money. We can easily quantify the latter factor; it's the first criterion that gives us fits. The scariest situation is where the money decides the quality, rather than vice versa. There's too much at stake to build an educational system around that principle.
District 19 Candidate List
So, we get to choose from among 17 candidates. In honor of the finalization of the candidate list, I've created a new blogroll for those who have websites (and which I've been able to locate...if you know the URL of an official campaign site that's not listed, please send it to me and I'll add it).
It's an interesting mix. Six parties (loosely defined, I'm sure; this is based on the election filing by each candidate); both genders; ages ranging from 79 (Flournoy) to 36 (Stace Williams); occupations/professions including retired farmer, CPA, oilfield supervisor, repairman, "public servant" (Berryhill), and so on.
As I mentioned yesterday, it's going to be hard for some of these candidates to distinguish themselves (in a positive way) from their opponents. It occurs to me that a "District 19 Candidate blog" would be a great way to provide an outlet for ongoing communication by the hosses themselves. Wonder if any of them have the time, energy (or nerve) to add this approach to their campaign arsenal? Wonder how many of them know what a blog is?
...
Well, I was going to post some follow-up analysis on yesterday's MRT article about Texas and MISD salaries, but real work has reared its ugly head. Perhaps later today...
All kinds of stuff...
Day Four of the Blogger Pro Battle...
I hope Pvt. Jessica Lynch is ready for the media frenzy. Not since Sarah Hughes has America had such a cute heroine (and I say that with the utmost respect for her military status and training). As far as who should portray her in the made-for-TV movie(s) that I'm certain are already being scripted, my vote goes to Brittany Murphy, the young actress who starred in “Just Married” and who won big-time points at the Academy Awards by sending her thanks to the American soldiers...and who reportedly also admitted that she didn't have enough information and knowledge to second-guess the military action.
...
As shown at the top of this post, it’s Day Four in the great Blogger Pro breakdown. I noticed that Blogger problems have taken such blogsphere luminaries as Tim Blair off the air, and for a couple of minutes, I felt honored to share that common burden. The feeling quickly passed and I just want things FIXED. NOW (particularly since Tim is back online and I'm not)! Please? (I’ve never been very good at confrontation. But I have issued a Strongly Worded Request.) OTOH, it's admittedly a tempest in a teapot; I'm under no illusions regarding my place in the blog food chain. It's not as though the Library of Congress has asked me to provide it with my archives so that future generations may be enlightened by my wisdom.
...
Am I the only one in Midland who thinks that the MRT pushed the line a little in today's story about Dr. Richard Bartlett's legal tangles with an HMO? The oblique reference to the Patel case added nothing to the story, and seemed to cast an unnecessary stone in Dr. Bartlett's direction. Unfortunately for him (from a Congressional election perspective), in such a crowded political field, many voters will focus on whatever factors seem to set a candidate apart...good or bad.
...
Another MRT story — focusing on statewide salaries for teachers and administrators — just cries out for some quantitative massaging. Stay tuned...
Posted by Eric at 10:37 p.m. CST [GMT-6]
Monday, March 31, 2003
Day Three of the Battle with Blogger Pro. I had a glimmer of hope last night when I noticed that my template inexplicably contained some invalid Blogger tags. Fixed 'em, but still no publish capability. More hope when I actually had a reply from a Blogger tech in response to my error report. He said he'd "tweaked some settings," but... This is a little ridiculous.
Nevertheless, we persevere, determined to be the master of, not mastered by, technology. (Righhhhtt.)
And, by the way, I KNOW that the permlinks are not working...I just can't do anything about it until, you know...
Speaking of how technology can bite, I just tried to send an email to a ChevronTexaco employee and it was rejected by his mailserver. Apparently, ChevronTexaco is employing the services of the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) in an attempt to screen out spam. While I'm not familiar with SBL, this practice is not unusual, per se. What I do find annoyingly interesting is the fact that the system is apparently blocking all email from the entire Cox Communications (cox.net) series of IP addresses. Here's the explanation:
Brendan Battles / IMG Online / World-Services
Battles abusing open proxies on Cox
[IP address omitted] is listed on the Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database as being assigned to, under the control of, or providing service to a known spam operation run by Brendan Battles / IMG Online / World-Services. Please see the ROKSO spam records for Brendan Battles / IMG Online / World-Services
A notorious spammer, Brendan Battles, has been abusing open proxies on Cox for a number of days, to harass JustThe.NET. Cox was informed but does not appear to be taking action ot stop the abuse.
Hmmm. Well. I googled "Brendan Battles" and got only a handful of matches...but almost without exception, they were sites dedicated to the prevention of spam and other acts of misuse of the email system. The guy has a rep, that's for sure.
Incidentally, JustThe.net (great name) is an ISP in Mentor on the Lake (another great name), Ohio. Wonder what they did to get on Brendan's hit list?
Anyway, here we have one individual shutting down email capabilities from one of the largest ISPs in the country. Of course, Cox is not totally innocent, in that they have apparently not taken appropriate measures to deal with the abuse of their system. Fortunately, I had another POP email account which I can use to bypass Cox...but how many other people on the Cox system don't have that luxury?
Posted by Eric at 8:45 a.m. CST [GMT-6]
Blogger Pro(strate) continues to deny me access to my own blog, instead giving me unintelligible error-code excuses for why I should find something else to do with my time. But this is too important not to share: put down what you're doing, and jump over to Bill Whittle's essay. It's long; it has some big words in it. But if you can finish it without a chill down your spine and a lump in your throat, then you're more of a man than me. Or, perhaps not.
We fight wars not to have peace, but to have a peace worth having.
Bill's going onto my blogroll ASAP.
Posted by Eric at 5:25 p.m. CST [GMT-6]
Sunday, March 30, 2003
The Gazette will be "off the air" for some unknown period, due to problems arising from an upgrade to Blogger Pro that is preventing us from publishing new posts (this notice was added the old fashioned way).
Why is it that "upgrades" so often renders useless software that was previously flawless? [Rhetorical question arising from a bad attitude...don't bother.]
In the meantime, feel free to visit amongst yourselves.
Posted by Eric at 8:10 p.m. CST [GMT-6]
About the publisher
Random Abbye photos...
Index of Post Categories
Index of Monthly Archives
Recent Entries:
And so it begins — The institutionalization of blogging...
Cubicle "eavesdropping"; blogs threaten journalists
Haig on Dubya
Concordes seek homes
Al Gore Carries an iTune
Categorized Miscellany...
A comedian and a lawyer rate Bush...
Religion and organ donations...
Goodbye to Warblogs Blogroll...
Dial-up Internet access "dying"...
What's in a name?
The President's speech...
EOW Randomness...
Goodbye, Charley...
The Neighborhood:
West Texas Blogs:
[Midland unless otherwise indicated]
Other Texas Blogs:
The Business:
The Church:
The World:
