Ultranormal

Category: politics

  • And don’t think I’m picking

    And don’t think I’m picking on a single party… My cynicism is not partisan. I’m an equally disenchanted with all of them. Remember, I voted for Nader out of desperation, and even he turned into a raving a-hole after the election, so I was wrong again. I would have voted for Harry Browne, the good ol’ Libertarian candidate, but he was nowhere to be seen during the election.

  • I try not to be

    I try not to be completely cynical, but it’s getting harder and harder. With everything that’s going on in the world, how can anyone be optimistic or even believe in the altruism of others? For example, President Bush is proposing that Worldcom be investigated and those responsible do time. Where was this fury for Enron? Oh, I guess Mr. Ebbers didn’t donate enough money to the campaign.

    In the interest of disclosure, Worldcom is right down the street from us, and I have friends at church who work there and had all of their 401k in the company stock (which if I knew, I would advise against – I mean, you can believe in your company, but don’t be naive). But, I don’t know anyone who works at Xerox and the same thing applies.

    I just can’t believe that things are going to get better, and that I’ll ever get that idealism back. Everyone in charge is crooked. No one’s clean. I ask anyone to please find me a clean politician, CEO or corporate lawyer.

    It makes me feel powerless. There’s nothing I can do to affect change in the world on a scale past my neighborhood, and even that would require me to have the drive to attempt something, and I just don’t.

  • Jen and I watched Married

    Jen and I watched Married in America on A&E yesterday. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a documentary by Michael Apted of 9 couples about to get married. It followed them through the final days of preparation, up to the wedding, and in a couple cases, a few days after the wedding. Now, that wouldn’t be so interesting except that they’re going to follow up with the couple every 18 months (Mr. Apted also did the amazing 7up series of films).

    It was striking how different each of the couples were, yet how familiar their problems were. Jen and I sat there saying, “They’ll make it,” and “Oh, they definitely won’t.” We ended up staying up until 1 in the morning talking about all of our married friends and how we see a lot of the problems we saw in the couples in the film in our friends. We also talked about how extremely lucky we are. We’ve been married for four and a half years (exactly 4.5 years yesterday), and while we’ve had our problems, we’ve figured them out and moved on. Some of the couples seemed to hold on to the little problems and bring them up in the interviews, which wasn’t a good sign.

    I think my favorite thing about the documentary was they didn’t choose all well-off white-toothed yuppie couples, like you see in A Wedding Story. They ran the gamut, and that was great to see. They had:

    • the lower middle class interracial couple from Long Island: who I think will make it, they just have it together

    • the Southern fratboy/sorority girl couple: who I guarantee will not make it

    • the mixed-faith Filipino Christian/New Jersey Jewish Guy: who I don’t think will make it, but I’m not betting against them

    • the yuppies: who I’m not sure about

    • the Southern African American couple: I’m not so sure about them either… he’s got mother issues, but they seem together enough to make it as long as he doesn’t wig out when he realizes it

    • The recovering alchoholics / ex-con: Surprisingly, I think they’ll make it in their own way. They hit rock bottom, and are hanging in there. I think they have a great shot at it.

    • The Latino Couple: They’re definitely not going to make it. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but he’s on a major rebound, and she’s not handling it all that well.

    • The Irish Catholic Cop / Columbian first generation American: They were the cutest couple, and after the first couple I listed, I think they have the best chance of making it. They logical and together, but you can tell they have a deep affection for each other, and their families. They’re on the same path, which I think is probably the most important part.

    • The Lesbian Couple: I feel bad, but man, this couple could not have been more of a stereotype. Let’s see, one lady has a she-mullet and is a corrections officer. The other is a P.E. teacher!! They both play softball, dress alike and are a butch as they wanna be. Do I think they’ll make it? Yeah, they remind me of my old boss in Tucson and her partner. Steady, unflappable and determined. I think they’ll have a long, uneventful, happy life together. I almost wish they would have chosen a couple that didn’t quite fit so snugly into the assumptions everyone has about lesbian couples.

    The film’s very well done and if it’s on again, I would heartily recommend it. If you’re married, it’s a great jumping off point for discussion, and I think Jen and I both saw pieces of ourselves in most of the couples (me, I feel I’m just like Toni, but that’s a whole different story).

  • I don’t see what all

    I don’t see what all the fuss is about. If it’s a news program and it’s impartial and objective then what’s the problem? If our kids understand that not everyone believes the same thing, and that not everyone in the world has the same family life, how is that bad? If Nick gives the information, and parents provide context and their own spin, I think it’s a great opportunity to warp your kid’s life however you want. If you let them watch it and then say all those people are going to hell for being weird and unholy, go right ahead. Or, how about you let them watch it, and let them decide for themselves? Or, if you’re so weak you can’t handle exposing yourself to anything outside your small sphere of belief, then don’t watch it at all. Go watch Reverend Jerry or Pat tell you all the bad things that happen in the world were caused by those dirty non-believers. Don’t let your children learn. Keep them bottled up and frustrated. Make them xenophobic.

    It’s like the whole creationist argument. If you run around you whole life with your fingers in your ears screaming that Genesis 1 is the way it is, end of story, then I don’t think you’re giving God enough credit. You’re reading a chapter that’s been rewritten, translated, edited, and futzed with for thousands of years. If you’re reading the New International House of Pancakes Student Edition with Genderless Pronouns and With Liberal Use of the Word ‘Dude’ edition of the Bible anyway, how can you trust what you’re reading anyway? How can you be absolutely positive it didn’t start, “And the first day, God sat down at a drafting table with a box of freshly sharpened pencils, a big pad of paper, a cup of cocoa and started doodling. And God saw that his doodles were good. And that the was the beginning and end of the first day except when God went to get the paper. On the second day, God did rewrites. On the third day, God showed them to Jesus and Jesus nodded, smiled and then giggled when he got to the platypus. God was pleased at the giggle and nod and said, ‘Go forth and build me this place so man might be.’”

    The world is small; God is big and wise; the universe is apparently infinite in all directions; our belief systems should be able to compensate for knowledge. I accept that evolution might very well be true. It makes sense to me. I also believe that even if evolution happened exactly like Charlie laid it out, that I also believe that God designed it that way. I am not so proud to think that my ancestors ran around naked swinging from trees and were hunted by large beasties with gigantic teeth. I’m ok with that, and it makes the story much more interesting than the mother of humanity being made from a rib. I believe that people are different for a reason. Everyone has the right to think what they want, do what they please, make the choices they make. It’s called free will, and it’s our greatest gift. Now, if you think you should kill people and then go do it, society has the right to throw you in a little room or fry you in a chair with a pat of butter. But, you’re welcome to think it. And I’m welcome to think you’re a freak. You also have every right to think that homosexuality or any number of other things is wrong, but don’t you think your kids should at least be aware of it? If you don’t teach your kids about the world, they won’t learn how to make decisions. If they have all the facts, and understand the consequences of their choices, then you’ve done what you can. It’s up to them to use their free will and decide for themselves. Just arm them with all the information you can get your hands on and let ’em go.

    So, there you go… I’ve rambled enough. I should get back to work.

  • Wilson said she was concerned

    Wilson said she was concerned the combination of revealing clothing and suggestive dancing could lead to sexual assaults. So, instead of fearing sexual assaults commited by others, she went and committed one herself. That’s pre-emptive administrating, folks!

  • My post about the whole

    My post about the whole CIA thing yesterday was a little disjointed, mostly because I was upset about work, and just couldn’t handle any more bad news. I need to go back and read 1984, but doesn’t this all strike you as being vaguely familiar? Jen and I went and saw Sum of All Fears on Saturday. The movie made me angry. I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to think that a president would fold under the pressure so quickly and go nuclear (or as GW says, nucular) without at least first getting communication with the folks on the ground and figuring out what was going on.

    And then, I read that George W. Bush has signed an executive order making it clear he wants to “remove” a head of state. I didn’t think you needed an executive order for that sort of thing, especially if the CIA is going to be carrying it out. It just seems like a plot point in a bad Tom Clancy book, or even worse, a bad Tom Clancy movie.

  • Isn’t this a declaration of

    Isn’t this a declaration of war? If it’s true, and we really don’t have any reason to believe otherwise, haven’t we just said that heads of state are fair game, and the Iraqi government should understand we’ve just declared war on them by George W signing the order to assassinate him (which we all know is what it means by “remove”)?

    I’m not a supporter of Iraq. I don’t like Saddam. I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad idea to get rid of him. I think it’s a really bad move to announce, “Hey, we’re going to come kill your president.” before we’ve actually done it. Professionals don’t let things like this get out. You don’t announce a secret CIA mission to assassinate a head of state until it’s over and done with, and even then, you probably shouldn’t tell anyone. It’s bad form.

    The more I see and hear from the Administration, the less faith I have in them.

    I’d talk about this more, but Big Johnnie’s watching, and I wouldn’t want to be held without being able to see a lawyer, speak to anyone or expect my civil rights to be respected.

  • The Incompetance Mirror I’ve been

    The Incompetance Mirror

    I’ve been attentively watching the media tempest around the things the FBI and CIA missed before September 11th. It seems that we had all the clues and just didn’t put them together. There seems to be a lot of gnashing of teeth over this. The rhetoric is hip-deep and rising, and it amazes me. Knowledge management is an incredibly difficult concept to grasp, much less implement reliably. While things could have been done better, I don’t think crucifying Directory Mueller is going to help anything. From everything I’ve seen and read so far, he’s doing what needs to be done. He’s streamlining the processes of the Bureau, implementing better knowledge management and will probably fix it.

    I’ve been thinking about how complex a knowledge management system would have to be to have figured out all of the things congress and the media were expecting this mythical system to figure out. The system would have to take data in many formats (wire taps, field reports, eye witness statements, satellite scans, etc), index it, compare it against all other documents in the system, find links between people, all their aliases, organizations, their leadership, membership, locations, etc and spit out usable results. It’s a massive task, one that from what I know of Government bureaucracy, hasn’t been built yet, and will take a long time to get done. I work at a very large company, and we don’t have a company-wide knowledge management system, even though I’m sure it would save us millions of dollars every year in saved effort and combined infratstructure. We rebuild the wheel over and over because we don’t know what the group next door is doing.

    If big business, who actually keep track of the money they make and spend, can’t keep track of its own institutional knowledge, how can we expect the slow moving leviathan that is the government to figure this out overnight, or even in six months.

    I hope the Government (and all their institutions public and secret) get the clue and come looking to the private sector and education to figure this problem out.

    I’ve got some ideas, and I’ll probably talk about them some more later (and this would probably make more sense if I weren’t watching The Wire while trying to write this).

  • Usually, Salon leaves the depressing

    Usually, Salon leaves the depressing comics to Carol Lay. But, today, Keith gets in on the action.

  • Tom Tomorrow, my Chevy Blazer

    Tom Tomorrow, my Chevy Blazer and I hate you. You make so much sense, yet, I am somehow driven to now drive more and more, driving over mountain roads, spinning out in wet parking lots and for some odd reason I want to drive into the ocean to show my car’s unique ability to navigate through wet sand and surf.