Are you serious?!

It never ceases to amaze me how seriously people will take themselves - and each other. I suppose this problem, er, issue, is most prevalent among those who we assume should be taking themselves, and the world at large, seriously; namely the politicians. Yet to hear them talk endlessly about how wonderful they are and how much they care about themselves, er, their communities and constituents, I am often reminded of young children in kindergarten who talk endlessly over each other paying no attention to what anyone else is saying - creating a cacophony that is unintelligible to anyone who may be trying to listen.

I feel rather certain that most of them could not cogently explain in plain simple language the variety of issues that their attempted legislation attempts to solve at any given point in time - let alone their proposed solutions. But they become oh-so-very serious as soon as someone begins to question their premises on a given subject. They will happily (if not so coherently) pontificate for hours on the potential impact of a given event without saying anything of actual substance that will make any sense to their intended viewers. Instead, the viewers will see the men and women in nice suits and well-coiffed hair using big words (that they probably could not spell if challenged) to make themselves sound far more intelligent than they may actually be.

Yet the most intelligent people that I have come across in my life are those who are the least self-conscious about it - and certainly the least willing to show it. A good doctor is one who can explain to their patients the illness that they may have and what needs to be done to heal it without the patient not remembering anything said ten minutes after they have left the office. A good developer is one who can not only write the programs that accomplish what is needed to get it done but then explain to the casual user exactly what the program does in a language that does not require a binary decoder so that said user can actually use it as its intended. A good teacher is one who can speak to their students in a fashion that the students can actually understand while still enabling them to function at a level higher than that in which the lesson was explained.

As for me, I harbor very little illusions about how seriously to take myself. I understand technology enough to perform my job but not enough to necessarily grasp the higher-level concepts to abstract out some of the more serious applications, let alone explain them to a lower-level developer to a level that would be commensurate with their own knowledge level. My most significant ability is that to learn new things but, come on, how seriously do we take life-long students?

Re-learning to write

As a result of a friend of mine and her post yesterday on getting back to writing (at least she entered a short story contest which is more than I have done in the last few years) along with my own very noticeable lack of motivation to go back to writing in spite of having (I think) some very good ideas that need to be fleshed out on paper, I am writing this in the hope that I will perhaps be able to hammer out a quick short story this week. Who knows, I may even work to try to publish it. I just need to find some places that do this sort of thing - preferably reputable places that do not necessarily require entry fees. Though, I guess that I'm not above a small entry fee for the opportunity to be published. Maybe...

I noted on my friend's blog my own concerns regarding self-censorship and I will endeavor to write without it. Of course, as most of my friends will note, self-censorship is certainly not one of my endearing qualities else I would probably be more popular than I currently am. Which is not to say I am not popular, merely that I have a tendency to certainly rub people the wrong way due to the lack of a filter between my brain and my mouth. Strangely enough, though, the lack of a filter between those two is apparently more than replaced by the heavy-duty filter between my brain and my fingers since I tend to write far differently than I speak. And that is why writing is my preferred medium rather than speech...

Just an observation as I type, anyway...

And now back to the RedRoom (you can google it) and see what I can learn and do there...

Remembering Chaucer

It has been almost a year since my friend Chaucer passed away. In some ways, I still have not come to grips with his death. There have been many times where, while doing something, thoughts of him and how he would have reacted have passed through my mind - stark reminders of an emptiness that has not yet healed. When I learn something new in the world of technology, I tend to think of how I would talk with him about it (whether he really cared or not - and I suspect he didn't). The same goes for music for we had similar tastes (well, ok, except for him and his band camp thing). I recently picked up a copy of a Lady Gaga CD and remembered that he had first introduced her music to me and I discarded it thinking it was nothing more than light pop/dance music that wouldn't keep my interest. Of course, he thought the same thing so go figure why he bought the CD in the first place.

He loved playing the video game Need For Speed and we had done it at my house - where he promptly beat me soundly each time we played. I have not played the game since he died; I think in part because I am not sure I want to play and remember him and the pain that is still associated with his passing. His contact info is still in my phone because I don't want to delete it for fear that I may forget one day. I still have him in my email and chat applications as if though he may someday just magically reappear and we can discuss politics and race relations (he was one of the few blacks I knew who actually halfway considered voting for McCain (though he wouldn't admit that to anyone else) - then voted for Obama anyway). I thought of him a couple of weeks ago when I read Clarence Thomas' opinion on the Chicago gun control case and the history of black ownership of guns in the US - and knew that he would have enjoyed discussing that opinion.

His death has affected me more than I would have thought possible. I certainly feel I have been more distant from friends and even family because I worry about how I would feel if I lose them. A stupid way to live and one that I am working to change back again but something that I would not have considered before Sept 4, 2009. I know I am not the only one who misses him as his many other friends continue to post messages on his Facebook account.

I wish I could have truly told his parents and his brother(s) how their son/brother affected me, what a positive influence he was (and still is in many ways) on me - even though I am a generation older than he - but I could not find the right words to express it and I am too proud to cry. I am sure that they are even more affected by his untimely passing than I but maybe it would help them to know that he is not forgotten and that he won't be. I miss the dude...

Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

The title of a Douglas Adams book - and this post has nothing to do with that book. I just happen to like the title.

I would like to be writing and doing much more than I am doing now. But I am not. When I get to the end of my day, I am so mentally drained that trying to pick up a pen and paper and focus long enough to start working on putting down on paper the ideas in my head is a difficult challenge. Yet this is the goal to which I allegedly ascribe my purpose. A sad commentary, I think, on self-definition.

I think perhaps a cup of tea may help...

Freedom to be stupid?

Gov. Schwarzenegger halts use of welfare debit cards at casinos. Now THAT is a headline that is likely to raise some hackles - whether it be for "Gov. Schwarzenegger" or "halts use of welfare debit cards at casinos". Since the idea of the governator does not bother me - surely worse have been elected by free countries throughout the world - I did have to raise my eyebrows at the idea of people using welfare debit cards in casinos. Isn't welfare intended to help people survive - to maintain their personal and family welfare? I may be wrong, but I feel rather certain that welfare does not include using the money provided by the government to go gambling.

But this does tie back in with some of my thoughts on freedom. What are the actual limits placed on the recipient of the card as to its use? It's called a welfare debit card so the implication is that it is not intended for gambling money, but are there rules that explicitly forbid it? And should there be if there are not? Finally, if there are limits placed on its use, do those limits impinge upon the freedom of the recipient?

I am inclined to argue that beggars cannot be choosers and it is certainly the right of the lender to tell the borrower how they may use the funds. But banks make loans to individuals and companies all the time - with the only proviso that the money must be paid back. The government, however, gives money to people with no such provision or requirement. (After looking through the California Department of Social Services site, I cannot see what the actual rules are for receiving, using or paying back welfare payments.) At most, it appears that the main requirement is that the recipients show an effort to seek work. So does this then grant the government the right to tell people how to spend their money? After all, once the users receive it, then it technically *is* their money.

For the government to assert dominion over how people may spend their money - regardless of where it came from - seems an abuse of power and certainly a restriction of individual freedom. That people should stupidly spend the money given to assist their personal welfare is a choice that they are allowed to make and they should be forced to suffer the consequences. But if that freedom (to be stupid) is taken from them, it is not only the stupid who shall suffer. As I had pointed out earlier, suffering the consequences of one's actions is a freedom.

And, as with most things, freedom can be a double-edged sword.

More thoughts on freedom

In the US, there is a great hullabaloo regarding the reduction of freedoms that were allegedly once enjoyed by the masses. These allegations typically are made by people on the political right as the situation relates to the political ideology of the current administration - both executive and legislative. The loss of freedoms tend to subsist of the argument that there is a greater governmental intrusion into the lives of the private individual - more so than existed in the past. And while there is a certain credence that can be given to this argument, it certainly is not an argument that should belong to one side or the other of the political aisle.

Frankly, it can be argued that there has been a continuous loss of the individual freedoms upon which the US was established. As the government continues to expand its powers over the daily lives of its citizenry, albeit at the alleged benefit of those it governs, it continues to reduce the liberties to which the people once may have had rights. One example, hot button issue though it is, is the right of gun ownership. There continues to be an active movement to restrict the ownership of firearms in order to reduce the violence that plagues many areas in the country. The motivation for this movement is seemingly a pure one intended to help reduce the number of victims of gun crimes perpetrated by criminals with supposedly easy access to guns. To argue against them paints the opponents of gun control as violent fanatics. Yet the purpose of the second amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the right to own firearms not for the purpose of shooting fellow citizens at will but as a guarantee to mitigate the power of the government. A government that has no fear of its unarmed citizens is a government that is either already, or on its way to, a tyranny.

But this does not mean that there are not other ways for the government to exercise its expansion of powers over the daily lives and freedoms of its citizens. And certainly in recent memory, no newly elected leadership has refused the powers that were accumulated under previous administrations nor has failed to increase the powers that it could wield through whatever machinations it could create or twist to its own desires.

Frankly, power begets the desire for more power. And power in the hands of a few, even those who are freely elected, is freedom given to those same few for whatever pittance may be granted in return. So handing over the freedoms that the people may currently possess for whatever meager promises the government may make is a dangerous bargain in the long term. Even Thomas Jefferson knew that

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

How much further down the path must the people trod before they are willing to see it?

Disappointment

After having lived through the agony of another match with the Cardiac Kids on the pitch, I am not sure whether to feel upset that they will go no further in this World Cup or relieved that I will not have to suffer a potential heart attack from watching them concede an early goal and wondering if they will be resurrected again by the heroics of Landon Donovan. When they went down by a goal in the 5', I was pounding the floor with my fist in frustration. How could they possibly give up ANOTHER early goal and be forced to play harder to come from beind?!

But the blame here goes squarely with Bill Bradley who must have believed that tweaking the lineup that delivered a victory in their previous match against Algeria would confuse Ghana enough to allow the US a win. His two changes, involving the over-awed Robbie Findley (who could not finish a sandwich let alone a scoring opportunity) and Ricardo Clark (who was directly responsible for the early goals in both the England and the Ghana matches) were incomprehensible to me. The players he had brought in off the bench had been far more effective than those two starters - and they were again today. To his credit, at least Bradley took Clark out before the first half was done; but that meant that another substitution was not available for later. Findley did not come on for the second half but that meant another substitution was also gone (read: wasted). The net effect was that he had only one other sub for the remainder of the game and, when it went to extra time and they gave up another inexplicable goal, there was no energy to get possession and opportunities for a matching goal.

It's still early and the repercussions of these decisions will likely take time before they are made public. This may well have been the last World Cup for stars Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey - and more is the pity that their efforts and heroics (particularly in Donovan's case) will have been for naught. While getting past the first round was their oft-stated goal, to have then been knocked out in this manner must have been maddening and a sad epitaph on their World Cup ambitions. Perhaps those who follow them will make them proud in the future. We can only hope...

Lessons not learned

Of course I was 100 percent behind everything that happened in the Cultural Revolution — it was a terrific experience.

To offer some perspective for Americans (or other Westerners), the Cultural Revolution is a mix of the most radical aspects of the upheaval of the 1960's and 70's combined with some of the heartbreak that tore families apart during the Civil War (or the War between the States, as it is sometimes known). It would be useless to offer more substantive details when there are several books that detail that lost decade in Chinese history where the country essentially went crazy. A Google search is a good place to start. I would also recommend Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai, a very moving, personal tale of survival during the Cultural Revolution.

Regardless, I digress. The above quote is attributed to Joan Hinton, a physicist who helped to work on the Manhattan Project who grew disillusioned and subsequently moved to China. Reading the quote at the end of her obituary in the New York Times, however, floored me for two reasons. First, I find it hard to believe that anyone could see any good in the Cultural Revolution - particularly anyone forced to live through it. Second, for anyone to make a comment like that, regarding a decade-long event that ultimately cost the lives of untold numbers of millions and refashioned its survivors into the "Lost Generation", shows a glaring inability to rationalize the theoretical with the practical.

Rarely does anyone who lived through the Cultural Revolution have any desire to discuss it or its impact on their lives. The actions that people took during that time revealed the lowest depths to which people would sink in order to survive. If anything, the survivors have striven to forget. Ms. Hinton's comments reveal a shocking inability to relate to the horrors that others lived through. That Ms. Hinton should have so overtly praised an event (and its creator) that caused so much suffering to an entire nation is, well, mind-boggling. Further, they indicate that she is more tied to an abstract world of theoretical ideas than their impact on the real (and often practical) world and that the reality of the practical application of said ideas apparently held no burden for her whatsoever. While it is one thing to adhere to a particular ideological worldview, it is quite another to impose it upon others when the adherent is unwilling to participate in the suffering if (or, in this case, when) it should go awry. But to praise the Cultural Revolution in the face of overwhelming evidence of its terrible impact is evidence that the power of the idea was more important to her than its practical application.

And yet, it seems that she was more practical than such a comment would otherwise indicate. After all, though she spent most of her later years in China, she never gave up her US passport, claiming that it made travel easier for her. Yet she never failed to condemn US actions regarding the nuclear weapons (her thoughts on the Chinese possession and use of nuclear weapons apparently remains unknown); actions that were, and still are, allowed under US law but would not have been permitted in China under Mao - or any subsequent leader since his death.

While Joan Hinton may have passed on, the ideas in which she believed so fervently over the practical realities of an existence she obviously wished not to see, persist with others who deliberately choose to remain similarly obtuse.

What refunds?

Somehow, I doubt the government would be as forgiving if the situation were reversed. Yet government officials can easily express their sympathies to their constituents who overpaid their taxes and are having their refunds, um, delayed until the beginning of the next fiscal year. People who overdraw their accounts are punished by their banks, credit agencies and other lending institutions. Yet when government does it, "ho-hum" appears to be the majority response. Sure, we're in an economic crunch but the citizens are feeling it as much the government. I'm curious as to what recourse there may be for people who've been denied what is rightfully theirs within a timely fashion. Perhaps if the citizens all got up and declared that they are in an economic crunch next tax season and refuse to pay their (underpaid - since most people have their taxes taken from their paychecks directly) taxes, maybe people would start to realize that it should be they who have the power since they are the ones funding government and not the other way around.

For those incumbents who survive the 2010 elections (on both sides of the aisle), maybe it would be worth stripping them of the monetary accoutrements of power next tax season and see if turnabout is fair play (with the government).

Genghis Khan and power

I recently finished a history of Genghis Khan and the empire he created. The novelist fashioned a rather favorable opinion of Genghis Khan and not just his method of making war but also his statesmanship and the positive cultural aspects of his reign. To read the book lends credence to the belief that Genghis Khan was an enlightened dictator more than a bloodthirsty barbarian. It is also eye-opening from the perspective of the role of authority and how it is imposed (for lack of a better term) for the benefit of all. Indeed, while Genghis Khan was portrayed in the West as a curse sent by God to punish the morally wayward it would seem that this book offers a more enlightened view, such as it were.

While I found the book to be engaging with its introductory approach to both his military prowess as well as his model of governance, it also caused me to reflect upon the idea of government and freedom such as we espouse today. While acknowledging Genghis's approach as all-or-nothing (you either lived under his rules or not at all), the book makes the argument that there were many benefits to his rule. Trade and commerce flourished under Mongol rule to each of its domains. Furthermore, there was a rather liberal approach to religion. I should caveat that by liberal I mean that the role of the church was sublimated to the role of the state and that there was an egalitarian view of each of the religions that operated under the with neither special favor nor particular disfavor toward any of them. Each was free to practice as they saw fit so long as it did not impinge upon others. In one section of the book, the author discusses a contest between theologians of the various major religious sects of that time and region (I believe it was Christian, Muslim and Buddhist) organized by the Mongol leadership. The main rule was that (on pain of death) "no one shall dare to speak words of contention." And thus did a discussion among equals on the merits of their various beliefs proceed. Though none of the contestants necessarily changed their minds it offered an example of the power of the state to reduce and/or modulate the stress caused by the otherwise fractious relations between the various religions. Indeed, the offspring of Genghis Khan worshiped as they wished without the concerns that permeated much of the rest of the world at that time. The result was Mongols who converted to Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and other religions - unheard of in that time. Considering that many states of that time were ruled by religious fiat (which granted the power to rule to a select few who paid homage to the religious leadership as a condition for God's approval of their rule), the difference is certainly striking.

The Mongols, once they had acquired a territory, sought out professionals who could help them to maintain their empire. These included engineers, scientists, teachers, doctors and other professionals. And once they were found, they were then included as part of the state entity to help facilitate the process of ruling the many far-flung lands they had conquered. The obvious benefit was the spread of information and knowledge from one place to many others. And more information, even if it is not something with which the recipient will necessarily agree, is better than not enough. The collaboration that was a natural result of this process, as noted by the author, provided several benefits to everyplace under the Mongol domain.

Many of the issues that play out in the world today are issues that were not so different almost 800 years ago. Power is often the ultimate goal regardless of the dressing worn - ethnic, religious, nationalistic or otherwise. Genghis Khan in his time sublimated each of them to his own rule under which was allowed to exist in harmony within the larger framework of the state that he created. Does this mean that everything should be sublimated to the state in order to promote the harmony that people often desperately pursue? As with all other issues, there is not a clear answer. Perhaps the best answer is a patchwork approach that allows for the resolution between power and freedom. Under the seemingly benevolent dictatorship approach proffered in this book, it would seem that submitting to the authority of said dictator offered a great many other benefits (including the freedom of choice in many personal issues like religion). But this did not last more than a few generations beyond the death of Genghis Khan himself. In the end, any dictatorship - benevolent or not - will inevitably become a not so benevolent one depending upon the actual people in charge. So a combination of freedom to make the choices of individual preference combined with some level of subservience to a protective authority may be of benefit. But to maintain that level is not a hard and fast issue and will require constant attention to ensure that the scales do not tip too far to one side or the other.