Cobb

Distraction

Disney Sounds Good

I missed this story when it first appeared, but I'm glad to know it.

A long tuning process for the hall lies ahead, and the musicians will need time to learn to play there, but both the orchestra's music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and acoustician, Yasuhisa Toyota, acknowledged breathing huge sighs of relief over the initial results.

What was unmistakable about the orchestral sound at Monday's rehearsal was its plentiful bass, crystalline clarity and forceful immediacy.

Disney Sounds Good

I missed this story when it first appeared, but I'm glad to know it.

A long tuning process for the hall lies ahead, and the musicians will need time to learn to play there, but both the orchestra's music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and acoustician, Yasuhisa Toyota, acknowledged breathing huge sighs of relief over the initial results.

What was unmistakable about the orchestral sound at Monday's rehearsal was its plentiful bass, crystalline clarity and forceful immediacy.

Inside the Castle

Where I Stand

Fort Worth, right about now.

Having traveled today, like the good old days, I'm finding it fascinating how much the blogosphere has replaced magazines as a primary source of information.

Blog volume will be down this week as I negotiate a surfiet of options. The job situation has turned from famine to feast. Well almost. So I'm really in a tough bind, having to make a decision within 24 hours among several somewhat vaporous choices.

Quicksilver is brilliant and funny. Enjoying.

Still under 200 pounds.

Where I Stand

Fort Worth, right about now.

Having traveled today, like the good old days, I'm finding it fascinating how much the blogosphere has replaced magazines as a primary source of information.

Blog volume will be down this week as I negotiate a surfiet of options. The job situation has turned from famine to feast. Well almost. So I'm really in a tough bind, having to make a decision within 24 hours among several somewhat vaporous choices.

Quicksilver is brilliant and funny. Enjoying.

Still under 200 pounds.

Define Stress

The Remaining B.O.D

Sgt. Stryker gives a paragraph that injects reasonable doubt into the illegality of the outing of Plame. That, however does not diminish the venality of the act.

But, was the CIA (and hence the United States) "taking affirmative measures to conceal" Valerie Plame's " intelligence relationship to the United States"? I submit to you that if the CIA is verifying her employment to Bob Novak and if Clifford May and Josh Marshall had no problem verifying it, then it's kinda hard to make the case that "affirmative measures" were taken. What you have to understand is this: if Valerie Plame was a covert agent, and if someone in the Bush Administration leaked that to Bob Novak, the real damage wasn't done until the CIA confirmed the relationship to Novak. If the CIA had denied or even given the old "we can neither confirm nor deny" spiel to Novak he wouldn't have had half the story he did. So, one could argure that by requesting a Justice Department review George Tennant is trying to deflect the fact that his agency is just as at fault.

Where's my Bush quote on Character? Somebody better fess up. Some head better roll.

There seem to be a lot of clever ways out of this mess, and I am inclined to believe that unless there is a straight-out battle between CIA and the White House, and maybe still if there is we may never get to the bottom. I think I'd be satisfied with a strong statement from the White House, but I doubt that I'm going to get one. Considering how long it took for GW to own up to the 16 words, what will last longer is the perception of cagey politics rather than smart policy. Since when has Karl Rove been a surprise.

Palace intrigue.

The Remaining B.O.D

Sgt. Stryker gives a paragraph that injects reasonable doubt into the illegality of the outing of Plame. That, however does not diminish the venality of the act.

But, was the CIA (and hence the United States) "taking affirmative measures to conceal" Valerie Plame's " intelligence relationship to the United States"? I submit to you that if the CIA is verifying her employment to Bob Novak and if Clifford May and Josh Marshall had no problem verifying it, then it's kinda hard to make the case that "affirmative measures" were taken. What you have to understand is this: if Valerie Plame was a covert agent, and if someone in the Bush Administration leaked that to Bob Novak, the real damage wasn't done until the CIA confirmed the relationship to Novak. If the CIA had denied or even given the old "we can neither confirm nor deny" spiel to Novak he wouldn't have had half the story he did. So, one could argure that by requesting a Justice Department review George Tennant is trying to deflect the fact that his agency is just as at fault.

Where's my Bush quote on Character? Somebody better fess up. Some head better roll.

There seem to be a lot of clever ways out of this mess, and I am inclined to believe that unless there is a straight-out battle between CIA and the White House, and maybe still if there is we may never get to the bottom. I think I'd be satisfied with a strong statement from the White House, but I doubt that I'm going to get one. Considering how long it took for GW to own up to the 16 words, what will last longer is the perception of cagey politics rather than smart policy. Since when has Karl Rove been a surprise.

Palace intrigue.

Finding the Cure

And We Thought Teller Was Dead

With any luck, Carl Collins and his scientist pals in Texas will be proven wrong. If not, then we are on our way to a new age of destruction which will have us looking back fondly to the Cold War.

Here's my advice. Sell all your biotech stocks and find out where you can drop some ducats on Hafnium. For this is the stuff of the atomic grenades of the future. You may as well hedge the bet by putting some chips down on Thorium and Niobium as well. Actually, that may not work because it will become nationalized, but you're a smart investor, you'll figure out how to corner the market.

Apparently, these elements have isotopes that are nuclear isomers. That means that they can be excited to certain states at which they release great amounts of energy as gamma rays. It's something like nuclear fission without the ugly byproducts. Sounds appetizing? You betcha.

According to the New Scientist:

Scientists have known for many years that the nuclei of some elements, such as hafnium, can exist in a high-energy state, or nuclear isomer, that slowly decays to a low-energy state by emitting gamma rays. For example, hafnium178m2, the excited, isomeric form of hafnium-178, has a half-life of 31 years.

The possibility that this process could be explosive was discovered when Carl Collins and colleagues at the University of Texas at Dallas demonstrated that they could artificially trigger the decay of the hafnium isomer by bombarding it with low-energy Xrays (New Scientist, 3 July 1999, p42). The experiment released 60 times as much energy as was put in, and in theory a much greater energy release could be achieved

The fine fellows at SRS are trying to find ways to manufacture mass quantities of this very rare element, which will be quite expensive. But dig this, there's no such thing as a critical mass. You can make really tiny weapons. Maybe you can flatten a block with a suitcase bomb. Exciting mad scientist stuff, that is if you can get it to explode. If it just fizzles, it will have the same ethical nastiness as neutron weapons do now, but if it goes boom, it's likely to get used.

Well, the controversy is just getting started.

"In my opinion, this matter is worse than cold fusion," said panel member Bill Herrmannsfeldt, referring to unconfirmed claims by scientists in the 1980s that they had generated nuclear fusion energy at low temperatures. Herrmannsfeldt, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is leading a revolt against hafnium-178 weapons work within HIPP itself.

Although Herrmannsfeldt regards claims for hafnium-178's super-energy powers as nonsense, he fears that other nations will take them seriously, triggering a new arms race. Recently, he successfully urged numerous top scientists to co-sign a letter to Washington officials citing experts' reservations about the scientific credibility of hafnium-178 claims and asking for a review of those claims by independent experts.

FAS has nothing on it yet. Keep your eyes open.

Fishbone

FYI, I am on a Fishbone mini-marathon. Fishbone is the greatest rock band that never made it big. They are so much better than the White Stripes. Loving Fishbone is like voting for John Anderson.

My favorites:

• End the Reign
• Servitude
• Love & Hate
• Sourpuss
• One Day
• Fight the Youth
• Nuttmeg

And of course the ever popular Beergut and Alcoholic. If you don't know Fishbone, I'd have to say it would be relatively impossible to know how I could be a blackneck. Listening to old Fishbone reminds me of the days I used to smoke Camel Filter Hard Pack, and wear the first incarnation of the Homeboy Suit. Like all great rock music, it gets into your bones and allows you to transform yourself - to reach out without speaking, to get radical in your own bones and share just being an American young adult in the spirited rage that is the tooth cutting soul of rebellion and non-conformity.

1987. Al's Bar. Downtown Los Angeles. Black duster, black fingerless gloves, black Converse All Stars, gold chemical spill baggies (from Flip), black tanktop. I step out of my red BMW 2002 with the Yakima bike rack and the Gold BBS rims. I pull out the Kenwood stereo and put it in the trunk. I walk into the bar and grab an icy Bud longneck. Fishbone is on stage. I am 26 years old and on fire.

Youth wasn't so bad.

Fishbone

FYI, I am on a Fishbone mini-marathon. Fishbone is the greatest rock band that never made it big. They are so much better than the White Stripes. Loving Fishbone is like voting for John Anderson.

My favorites:

• End the Reign
• Servitude
• Love & Hate
• Sourpuss
• One Day
• Fight the Youth
• Nuttmeg

And of course the ever popular Beergut and Alcoholic. If you don't know Fishbone, I'd have to say it would be relatively impossible to know how I could be a blackneck. Listening to old Fishbone reminds me of the days I used to smoke Camel Filter Hard Pack, and wear the first incarnation of the Homeboy Suit. Like all great rock music, it gets into your bones and allows you to transform yourself - to reach out without speaking, to get radical in your own bones and share just being an American young adult in the spirited rage that is the tooth cutting soul of rebellion and non-conformity.

1987. Al's Bar. Downtown Los Angeles. Black duster, black fingerless gloves, black Converse All Stars, gold chemical spill baggies (from Flip), black tanktop. I step out of my red BMW 2002 with the Yakima bike rack and the Gold BBS rims. I pull out the Kenwood stereo and put it in the trunk. I walk into the bar and grab an icy Bud longneck. Fishbone is on stage. I am 26 years old and on fire.

Youth wasn't so bad.

PWVD

RIP Althea Gibson

It's probably not fair to talk about myself, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe in the same sentence. We don't have very much in common. But knowing that Gibson had done what she had done made it easier for me to believe I could do what I wanted.

There may have been a time that I thought I might like to play tennis, but it was strictly part of its snob appeal. There were courts in the neighborhood over by the public pool. The local pro was a fellow who went by the name of 'Bruzz' or 'Buzz'. So we knew that there were black tennis players around the way. We mostly cared about putting old tennis balls in the spokes of our bicycle wheels.

Tennis seemed incredibly rich. This was back in the days when a christmas bicycle costing $60 was worth waiting the entire year. So spending $2 or $3 for three white balls was unthinkable. Just looking at those huge baskets of balls spilling over in the corners of the courts made us delerious. In those days, all the balls were white and nobody thought the new yellow balls would last. So we kids who hung out on the periphery of the tennis courts waiting for a prize to fly over the fence most eagerly coveted a Slazenger. It had a black panther on it.

Not only did Gibson play tennis, she wore a short fro. She wasn't particularly glamorous, but she did what she did in spite of everyone's preconceptions. She was an incontestable fact and proof that we as a people could do anything at all, considering that nobody really wanted to do what she did.

Ashe changed all that of course. He was a man of action and intelligence. Whatever kind of glasses he wore were the kind I wanted to get on my next trip to the L.A. Eye Clinic on Vermont and Vernon. Big square tortoiseshells with photogrey? Thin rectangular gold rim? Ashe was king, a cool calm and collected King. Not for long, but long enough to underscore Gibson's point.

They are both dead and should have lived to see the Williams sisters finally dominate. But I have a feeling they had larger dreams than just tennis. I hope we are doing right by their memories.

RIP Althea Gibson

It's probably not fair to talk about myself, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe in the same sentence. We don't have very much in common. But knowing that Gibson had done what she had done made it easier for me to believe I could do what I wanted.

There may have been a time that I thought I might like to play tennis, but it was strictly part of its snob appeal. There were courts in the neighborhood over by the public pool. The local pro was a fellow who went by the name of 'Bruzz' or 'Buzz'. So we knew that there were black tennis players around the way. We mostly cared about putting old tennis balls in the spokes of our bicycle wheels.

Tennis seemed incredibly rich. This was back in the days when a christmas bicycle costing $60 was worth waiting the entire year. So spending $2 or $3 for three white balls was unthinkable. Just looking at those huge baskets of balls spilling over in the corners of the courts made us delerious. In those days, all the balls were white and nobody thought the new yellow balls would last. So we kids who hung out on the periphery of the tennis courts waiting for a prize to fly over the fence most eagerly coveted a Slazenger. It had a black panther on it.

Not only did Gibson play tennis, she wore a short fro. She wasn't particularly glamorous, but she did what she did in spite of everyone's preconceptions. She was an incontestable fact and proof that we as a people could do anything at all, considering that nobody really wanted to do what she did.

Ashe changed all that of course. He was a man of action and intelligence. Whatever kind of glasses he wore were the kind I wanted to get on my next trip to the L.A. Eye Clinic on Vermont and Vernon. Big square tortoiseshells with photogrey? Thin rectangular gold rim? Ashe was king, a cool calm and collected King. Not for long, but long enough to underscore Gibson's point.

They are both dead and should have lived to see the Williams sisters finally dominate. But I have a feeling they had larger dreams than just tennis. I hope we are doing right by their memories.

Voice of the People

Issue Number Four: Steel Tariffs

Republicans need to start worrying about Michigan.

The tariffs, put in place to protect companies and workers in steel-producing states such as Pennsylvania, have cost jobs in steel-consuming states such as Michigan. While the administration expected that the tariffs would not be well-received in international markets, it did not fully anticipate the backlash at home.

Tindall and Chubb live on the Michigan side of the tariff divide, a boundary that looms large in the complicated terrain of the 2004 presidential election campaign. For Bush, who is expected to decide soon whether to continue the tariffs for another 18 months, the divide could prove treacherous.

Issue Number Four: Steel Tariffs

Republicans need to start worrying about Michigan.

The tariffs, put in place to protect companies and workers in steel-producing states such as Pennsylvania, have cost jobs in steel-consuming states such as Michigan. While the administration expected that the tariffs would not be well-received in international markets, it did not fully anticipate the backlash at home.

Tindall and Chubb live on the Michigan side of the tariff divide, a boundary that looms large in the complicated terrain of the 2004 presidential election campaign. For Bush, who is expected to decide soon whether to continue the tariffs for another 18 months, the divide could prove treacherous.

Omerta & Big Media

The old game of who knows and when did they know it has begun anew in the Plame case. I am annoyed that the Washington press corps is playing this game, because they already know what they know and have known for a while.

In the end it comes down to the privileges of position over the public's need to know. Everyone with something to gain by helping the public has something to lose by ratting out those scumbags..er sources, they are protecting. It's no different for White House staffers or newpaper journalists.

This is a game of one-upmanship that David Brooks could have predicted. Insufferable media jerks are going to keep their mouths clamped in defense of their 'integrity' in an attempt to stress their moral superiority to Washington politicians.

Subpeonas may or may not be able to cut through this conspiracy of silence. The blogospherians have nothing to lose - if we knew, everyone would know.

Omerta & Big Media

The old game of who knows and when did they know it has begun anew in the Plame case. I am annoyed that the Washington press corps is playing this game, because they already know what they know and have known for a while.

In the end it comes down to the privileges of position over the public's need to know. Everyone with something to gain by helping the public has something to lose by ratting out those scumbags..er sources, they are protecting. It's no different for White House staffers or newpaper journalists.

This is a game of one-upmanship that David Brooks could have predicted. Insufferable media jerks are going to keep their mouths clamped in defense of their 'integrity' in an attempt to stress their moral superiority to Washington politicians.

Subpeonas may or may not be able to cut through this conspiracy of silence. The blogospherians have nothing to lose - if we knew, everyone would know.

Plagiarism

Spittle and Shit

Since I am in the mood to be uncharitable, I call upon the demons of the dark to rise and fly away with the souls of Whittle and Schmidt, who have at long last spent the last of their credibility as well as their investor's last dimes.

Didn't I just tell y'all about this kind of crap?

So, what supposedly happens is, after years of pounding Happy Valley's tax dollars down this rat hole and getting nothing back but sullen 18-year-olds with pierced tongues and ambitions of someday owning their own Harley-Davidson Fat Boys, the Happy Valley Board of Education rises up in its righteous wrath and says, hey, let's get Edison Schools to turn this operation around (or words to that effect).

And in comes Whittle and his sidekicks -- turnaround plans at the ready. Out comes the new, get-smart-quick curriculum, the new computers for the teachers and every kid above the second grade, the new books and study aids and the new "facilities upgrades."

The IPO registration statement is overflowing with education bafflegab about "family and community partnerships" and that sort of thing. There's talk about "early learning" and "core values" and something called "norm-referenced tests" (beats me what that is). Yet in the entire 275-page document there's only a single paragraph purporting to show that the result of all the effort is really better educated, brighter kids.

The graph in question says that kids in Edison schools score better on certain unnamed state and national tests than do kids nationwide on other kinds of tests. But the graph goes on to say that the two kinds of tests are not "strictly comparable."

Heave Ho.

Unrescheduled

One Two Punch

Interestingly enough, I'm not much of a partisan. There was never a time in my life when I got much of a charge from 'being' a Republican or a Democrat. Instead, I like what I hear periodically and I say 'good'. Other times, I find something revolting and I say so.

Right about now, I think I'm suspect to a gathering sense of revulsion and nausea. This reminds me of two other occasions, vaguely. The first was when I learned that there were American subcontractors on the '10,000 foot runway' on Grenada that Reagan used to justify his silly little escapade. Of course it wasn't silly at the time, but it was little. The second time was Oliver North and that busta Poindexter. Today I have decided for a variety of reasons, not the least of which has to do with my impending exile to Texas and the sudden seriousness and giddy feelings I get when reading Neal Stephenson, that I have reached a yet another crisis of confidence in the Executive Branch.

It doesn't break my heart or my spirit. I'm simply disappointed in giving them the benefit of the doubt, which is what I generally accord my government. The irony of this is, that being a registered Republican, this kind of nonsense is precisely what I cynically guard against. So to restate things a bit, if there is a singular difference between the kind of Republican I am and the kind that seem to be responsible for this madness, it's that I actually believe in good government and responsible government policy. Whereas the people who are running government are playing devil's advocate against themselves and destroying government because they believe themselves to be ineffably corruptible as politicians. That is to say, I think they must be convinced that the only proper thing for successful intelligent people to do is become captains of industry, and that their inferiors go into government. So their selling out the government is inevitable - besides, they are outclassed. The best thing they can do dismantle it from the inside and sell off the pieces to their betters.

If it is fundamentally evil, in the church of the mad Republicans, to spend public money, then they will flog themselves every night for their continuing sins, endeavoring at every turn to supplicate those whose money they are spending. Yet they apparently have no such regard for the public trust.

I am exercised about this primarily because I have bothered to listen to Paul Krugman. Quite frankly I don't think he's lost his mind or wandered in over his head. While he speaks in terms of his own outrage, I'd imagine that he has enough evidence to justify that characterization. If the Bushies would lie about the economy, what else would they lie about? He's probably not the person to ask such a question, then again, who's answering that doesn't have a partisan axe to grind?

I am secondarily pushed towards the edge because of the Plame affair which immediately got under my skin back in July. Charles Schumer, whose instincts once again prove to be pretty damned good, is pushing this matter like a good partisan should. He's got my ascent to it.

In assuming the Republican position, I think it goes without saying that I consider myself one of the sharper tools in the shed - willing to pay the cost to be the boss. So my responsibility is to stay about the fray when the economy tanks. That doesn't mean, however, that I am willing to stand about mute when GWBush pisses away the budget surplus. Push may come to shove and many millions more may be living on cardboard when the other shoe of this deficit falls. I plan on being ready, but I could have been pursuing happiness, and GW is not forgiven for making me work like somebody from the second world. This is supposed to be America.

So there it is. Krugman & Plame.

One Two Punch

Interestingly enough, I'm not much of a partisan. There was never a time in my life when I got much of a charge from 'being' a Republican or a Democrat. Instead, I like what I hear periodically and I say 'good'. Other times, I find something revolting and I say so.

Right about now, I think I'm suspect to a gathering sense of revulsion and nausea. This reminds me of two other occasions, vaguely. The first was when I learned that there were American subcontractors on the '10,000 foot runway' on Grenada that Reagan used to justify his silly little escapade. Of course it wasn't silly at the time, but it was little. The second time was Oliver North and that busta Poindexter. Today I have decided for a variety of reasons, not the least of which has to do with my impending exile to Texas and the sudden seriousness and giddy feelings I get when reading Neal Stephenson, that I have reached a yet another crisis of confidence in the Executive Branch.

It doesn't break my heart or my spirit. I'm simply disappointed in giving them the benefit of the doubt, which is what I generally accord my government. The irony of this is, that being a registered Republican, this kind of nonsense is precisely what I cynically guard against. So to restate things a bit, if there is a singular difference between the kind of Republican I am and the kind that seem to be responsible for this madness, it's that I actually believe in good government and responsible government policy. Whereas the people who are running government are playing devil's advocate against themselves and destroying government because they believe themselves to be ineffably corruptible as politicians. That is to say, I think they must be convinced that the only proper thing for successful intelligent people to do is become captains of industry, and that their inferiors go into government. So their selling out the government is inevitable - besides, they are outclassed. The best thing they can do dismantle it from the inside and sell off the pieces to their betters.

If it is fundamentally evil, in the church of the mad Republicans, to spend public money, then they will flog themselves every night for their continuing sins, endeavoring at every turn to supplicate those whose money they are spending. Yet they apparently have no such regard for the public trust.

I am exercised about this primarily because I have bothered to listen to Paul Krugman. Quite frankly I don't think he's lost his mind or wandered in over his head. While he speaks in terms of his own outrage, I'd imagine that he has enough evidence to justify that characterization. If the Bushies would lie about the economy, what else would they lie about? He's probably not the person to ask such a question, then again, who's answering that doesn't have a partisan axe to grind?

I am secondarily pushed towards the edge because of the Plame affair which immediately got under my skin back in July. Charles Schumer, whose instincts once again prove to be pretty damned good, is pushing this matter like a good partisan should. He's got my ascent to it.

In assuming the Republican position, I think it goes without saying that I consider myself one of the sharper tools in the shed - willing to pay the cost to be the boss. So my responsibility is to stay about the fray when the economy tanks. That doesn't mean, however, that I am willing to stand about mute when GWBush pisses away the budget surplus. Push may come to shove and many millions more may be living on cardboard when the other shoe of this deficit falls. I plan on being ready, but I could have been pursuing happiness, and GW is not forgiven for making me work like somebody from the second world. This is supposed to be America.

So there it is. Krugman & Plame.

Colorstruck

Shame or Dissonance?

One of the difficulties of not having an Ivy League degree and sufficient facetime with intelligent, wealthy, powerful and connected people is that it's often very difficult to determine whom to take seriously. The other difficulty is not knowing what exactly to take seriously. Who's connected to whom and which of those people are actually thinking, responsible and in control of something worth noting? Such are the conundrums which bedevil those of us on the outside.

It doesn't take a genius to determine that our neocon friends in the White House have got eyes bigger than the American stomach. It's not that we have bitten off more in Iraq than we could chew, it just that George W. Bush was never quite capable of reading the menu and didn't come the the White House with enough cash in his pockets. OK enough with the analogies.

What I'm curious to figure out is how Republicans who jumped on the Bush bandwagon at the expense of John McCain must have felt on September 12, 2001 when it occured to them at long last that after the crash of the stock markets that they had backed the wrong man. Now in California, Republicans must be gnashing their teeth to think the Arnold S. is their best hope for victory.

But on the other hand, things may just not be that well-wrapped. Maybe these candidates are the people's choice and the party central committees aren't in as much control as we outsiders believe.

Perhaps only an ability to carry the rhetoric is what makes one electable. As few scandals as possible. Once a person arrives at a certain level of name recognition, other forces take over.

Hard to know if this is really important or connected, here on the outside.

Shaking in His Boots

Finally, some internal investigations are happening to determine and punish whoever dropped a dime on Valerie Plame. The open secret was that it was Karl Rove who outed her to Novak. This is a crime of significant dimensions, certainly a bit worse that drunk driving or grand theft.

If I were Rove, I'd be shaking in my boots. But those spineless Democrats haven't got the guts to stand up and shout about it. I think it's because they think it is their partisan duty to be pacifist patriots and therefore have no elevated sensibilities when it comes to spycraft.

Hang 'em high.

UPDATE: Can the blogosphere PLEASE get over this 'gate nonsense? I am calling up volunteers to impale anyone who refers to this as Wilsongate.

OICW

I don't know if Heckler & Koch is an American company. Well, of course there is a US corporation but the company originated in the ruins of the Mauser works in post WW2 Germany. They have apparently dominated the imagination of the US Military with their newest rifle, a sophisticated affair called the OICW.

OICW stands for Objective Individual Combat Weapon, and has gotten the designation M29. It's a rather massive thing for a machine gun and is chockablock with goodies like timed explosive rounds. If your enemy is behind a wall, you can use the rangefinder and program a bullet shot just over the wall to rain down deadly shards at the precise moment. The theory is that this capability will shorten standoffs against the enemy in 'dug-in' positions, not to mention save ammo.

This gun is going to cost about 15,000 apiece and weigh about three times as much as the standard M16, but such considerations mean nothing in videogame simulations. This is how I came to recognize the OICW. The Ghost Recon Island Thunder online game for the XBox allows you to select this weapon for your three member platoons as you carry out missions in a post-Castro Cuba. In gaming this is a great weapon, and your avatar doesn't seem to run any slower with it.

The Germans have come back in their characteristically precise way in helping us to understand the technical specifications of the OICW and other arms as represented in the Ubisoft game. At RainbowSix.org one can check out the Detallierte Waffenlisten.

RPGs seem to be doing a great deal of damage these days in Iraq. The deployment of the M29 may herald a new era in which every rifleman will have equivalent firepower on the go. H&K will definitely play a significant role in the future of urban warfare. With any luck, this expensive, heavy and deadly weapon will not be just a videogame fantasy.

Sympathy Date

Interference

An Uncheesy Library

I just recently happened upon a rather cool site and concept in BookCrossing. It only took me a few minutes to sign up and register a book. It's a kind of 'Where's George' for books, but it's also a personal library. The novelty of tracking a book around the world wears off in about 30 seconds, but the appeal of having and ISBN lookup and instant categorization of your own books is massive. It's essentially a Gracenote database for books.

It's tough to say how long such a website will last, so I'm not going to archive my library there. I'd certainly pay the bucks to have my own library software, but everything I've seen is so cheesy. It reminds me of first generation windows programs for family trees. If you've found something that's not as cheesy as, well everything I've seen so far.

Right now, I'm leaning towards BookCat, but only because it's version 6, and I can export data. It could be a bit more pleasant to look at.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Bryonn Bain thinks he's an intelligent civilized man. The System knows better.

I was interrogated about "terrorist activity"—whether I was involved with a terrorist group or knew anyone else who was—without an attorney present. My Legal Aid lawyer claimed she was also a medical professional and diagnosed me as mentally ill when I told her I teach poetry at New York University. After my bail was posted, I was held behind bars another night because central booking ran out of the receipts required for my release. On my third day in jail, accused of two misdemeanors and a felony I knew nothing about, I was finally found innocent, and allowed to go home.

What's ironic about this whole deal is that computer systems are the way out. People forget something about excellently done computer systems, the mistakes they make are minimal and the speed with which they do things right is phenomenal. Now there are certain to be exceptions, but I challenge anyone to suggest that Citibank's ATMs are routinely making mistakes that cost the bank or its customers any money. When Walter Wriston put his money where his mouth was on electronic banking, an entire new era in finance was begun. Investments in the billions paid off and changed the way we behave when it comes to getting a little cash for the weekend.

Until such time as there is such a trusted and reliable system for identity, we are going to be subject to travesties of justice which are far more consequential than bounced checks.

Today, I can go online, call on my cell phone, or use a magnetic stripe card and a pin and know what my bank balance is, 24/7/365.25 It's not a problem. That is because the infrastructure is right. Sooner or later there is going to be a trusted identity net, and we in the chatting and privileged classes are going to be the first beneficiaries. I'll be speaking about it here in Cobb as time goes by.

Who do you think you are? And who knows you well enough to prove it? Do not doubt that I consider my existence in the blogosphere and your recognition of it as insurance against dark days to come. I'm down with the Negrophile among others. What's your phile?

Hard Times

Fall Season

Many many years ago fall was a big deal. New cars, new football season, new grade in school, new TV shows.

Now is about the time for me to be watching Monday Night Football with my son. So this Monday we watched the Raiders get stomped for a quarter or so. It was an odd experience, since we are both gamers, to sit passively staring at the tube. Most of the time what goes on on the big screen in the living room is our doing, but having hands free to embrace was unusual. He likes football. Interesting.

Last night was interestingly weird. I was watching the new show 'Threat Matrix'. We watched it together until the spousal unit came in to rebraid his hair. I haven't watched a prime time show in a very long time and so I had to rely on my wife's reactions before I changed the channel. My boy is very good guys - bad guys oriented so I figured it was OK for him to watch what was essentially a cop show despite all the Hells and Damns peppering the doofus dialog. I told him that the bad guys were the ones selling drugs. But after a short time, the wife's nose got too screwy so I had to flip over to Survivor.

He Looked Just Like You

Today has been one of those weird days of harmonic convergence. Every once in a while I have those days, and sometimes it goes on for a few days, in which I am the center of a lot of attention.

Last night, when I finally checked the mailbox, I found an unexpected gift. In fact, since I have humbled myself totally to a select group of folks, appropos my pathetic economic situation, I have been very very fortunate to have found people who have helped. It may not sound like much, but the fact that I can pay my October rent now has been the answer to the prayers of my family. I will be crafting thank you letters (as well as shareholder notices) this weekend. At any rate, I now have enough money to afford a $2 luxury and I tell you in all seriousness that I am taking my wife to McDonald's today. It will be a real celebration.

So I clean up and head over to deposit this check in the bank. As I am driving I get a phone call from my wife. One of my headhunters called. She's trying to get me a gig in Bethesda, MD. Well, that's good news. I spoke to her yesterday and she's already back with more information. Five minutes later I get another call. Sarah from the consulting firm I'm applying to called back, hopefully with news about my last interview. That's wild. Two calls in 10 minutes. So I make my deposit and am on my way from the teller window and the phone rings yet again. I answer my wife's special ringtone with 'You're kidding me.' A third guy is getting back to me about a resume I posted yesterday.

So I drive away with a little cash in my pocket and try to navigate my way back through the maze of parking structures that are Del Amo, formerly known as the world's largest shopping mall. There's a cop behind me. I make a left. There's a cop behind me. I turn into the parking structure. There's a cop behind me with lights on. I make a right turn down an aisle; the cop is out of the door before I can stop.

Jobless Recovery Explained

Death of a Renaissance Man

Whenever I came across an essay by Edward Said, I prepared myself to have my world turned slightly on ear. I approached such articles with tinges of dread for the alienation it might cause me by knowing. Now that he's dead I find myself regretting that I hadn't done more to seek him out. For nobody represented to me the example of a Renaissance Man than Edward Said.

His writing and thinking were remarkably precise. In the days that I was an avid reader of The Nation, I would like the plucky punch of Cockburn, but when I read Said I always felt that I was getting an education. He knew music, he know politics. He knew America, he knew the Middle East. He knew the Episcopal Chruch, he knew Islam. There seemed to be nothing beyond his capacity for understanding, and yet he chose to involve himself, deeply, in the most controversial and basic of human problems, that of warring peoples. He was passionate, he was scholarly. He was a mighty man. He simply exemplified what a highly intelligent and civilized man should be in our modern world.

Death of a Renaissance Man

Whenever I came across an essay by Edward Said, I prepared myself to have my world turned slightly on ear. I approached such articles with tinges of dread for the alienation it might cause me by knowing. Now that he's dead I find myself regretting that I hadn't done more to seek him out. For nobody represented to me the example of a Renaissance Man than Edward Said.

His writing and thinking were remarkably precise. In the days that I was an avid reader of The Nation, I would like the plucky punch of Cockburn, but when I read Said I always felt that I was getting an education. He knew music, he know politics. He knew America, he knew the Middle East. He knew the Episcopal Chruch, he knew Islam. There seemed to be nothing beyond his capacity for understanding, and yet he chose to involve himself, deeply, in the most controversial and basic of human problems, that of warring peoples. He was passionate, he was scholarly. He was a mighty man. He simply exemplified what a highly intelligent and civilized man should be in our modern world.

Two Economies

Matters of Race

My father was one of the men and women who helped get King Hospital built, but he missed half of the PBS documentary 'Matters of Race'. So did most of America, I suspect. It's the one reality program that nobody really wants to watch.

It was done well. You could smell the lefty bend of the Siler City episode, but it was unique in that it wasn't the same old thing. For once it came from four racial directions.

There were actually some extraordinary quotes that I wish I could get from a transcript. One of them had to do with the notion of wishing race away - that one could certainly be colorblind at the individual level but everybody in America inherits racial history whether or not we want to, and that doesn't go away. Wideman's comments apropos riots in Los Angeles, when people say 'Oh no, not again', they are decieving themselves, as if something stopped and then appeared once again as a total surprise.

Anyway, I hope to find somebody not particularly burned out to fill in some critical details. I think I'm headed to writer's blockland in a day or two.

Matters of Race

My father was one of the men and women who helped get King Hospital built, but he missed half of the PBS documentary 'Matters of Race'. So did most of America, I suspect. It's the one reality program that nobody really wants to watch.

It was done well. You could smell the lefty bend of the Siler City episode, but it was unique in that it wasn't the same old thing. For once it came from four racial directions.

There were actually some extraordinary quotes that I wish I could get from a transcript. One of them had to do with the notion of wishing race away - that one could certainly be colorblind at the individual level but everybody in America inherits racial history whether or not we want to, and that doesn't go away. Wideman's comments apropos riots in Los Angeles, when people say 'Oh no, not again', they are decieving themselves, as if something stopped and then appeared once again as a total surprise.

Anyway, I hope to find somebody not particularly burned out to fill in some critical details. I think I'm headed to writer's blockland in a day or two.

Bitchfest '03

I'd say that Cruz Bustamante got in the best barb, but that's only because I was reading. I had other things to do rather than watch a televised debate, if that's what you'd call it.

BUSTAMANTE: You're one to talk about photo ops, Arnold.

There's really not much to say here. I like that Bustamante condescended to AS, and I'm rather surprised that Arnold was only barely above literate on the issues. It might not have showed up on camera but when you read the transcript it's amazing how many time he says 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

Huffington proved herself to be little better than an excellent analyst and provocateur. I wouldn't follow her lead into a grocery store.

Camejo made a good showing, and a fine command of the issues and of himself. Too bad he really believes in the loony toons lefty reactionary stuff. I think he did an admirable job of not showing how much he hates capitalism. His words on taxation were the best of all of them.

Bustamante should have been talking down to everyone, and he could have portrayed himself as leadership material. Nobody pinned Gray Davis on him like they should have and he squeaked out of it, but he didn't really capitalize.

McClintock was entirely predictable but I think he did better than he deserved to do. So the Republicans are in a really big stew now, because Arnold stunk up the joint with his diversionary tactics.

All of them got bogged down on health insurance. Camejo won that one for clarity. Arnolds tangents were really sloppy and didn't succeed in print in bringing up new issues that the others couldn't reject. I'm for kids, just doesn't cut it.

I predict that Bustamante goes up, Camejo goes up, McClintock goes up, Huffington falls off, and Arnold loses points. Republicans tear out their hair, and the State of California slouches towards armageddon. Bill Simon must be kicking himself bigtime.

Prospecting

A Literary Half Life

Following up on Huck Finn, I started writing and couldn't stop. Here's what happened next:

I recently have come to recognize that I read more Heinlein than I knew, and that his influence on me was deeper than I imagined, especially 'Starman Jones'. Somehow I had forgotten it all. If you asked me if I had ever read a Heinlein book called 'The Rolling Stones' I would have said no. But if you asked me about having read a science fiction book with twins named Castor and Pollux, I'd have answered enthusiastically. Somehow all of the Heinlein I've read as a youth got sublimated into my personality without a trace. I also read at least 7 Star Trek paperbacks, certainly every one I could get my hands on.

I think this explains why I so deeply rejected science fiction by the time I graduated from high school and didn't return to the genre until my 30s with Delaney. There was a book whose title I would love to remember (it could probably be a Heinlein, go figure) that involved astronauts getting stranded on a planet of triped animals. There was some fantastic creature which resembled nothing so much as a huge triangular bear with three legs. How to outsmart the three legged creature on a planet far away. Then there was another (the same?) story about astronauts who faced the difficulty of being stuck on a planet run by a race of people who had very puritanical attitudes about eating. The astronauts had to observe incredibly detailed table manners or be imprisoned and starved...

At some point I started reading Roots and other fictions about American life, and it struck me that I was ingratiating myself with trekkie geeks and people who really believed that new worlds would equal new opportunities - that somehow scientists were better than other people. So where were the black astronauts in the real world? I read the 'Martian Chronicles' and '2001' and finally came to the conclusion that science fiction writers were dreamers. They put their novels in space because they couldn't deal with the conflicts of the real world, and that the best of them considering Bradbury and Clarke were dealing with human drama. So I finally began to reject science fiction. I was told that I should read 'Rendezvous with Rama' as an excellent book, but I had had it with the genre.

You might have expected that I would have turned to black authors immediately, but most of those books were over my head, speaking of my father's library. It turned out that between 1978 and 1980 I did very little reading at all. I dropped out of college for financial reasons and just got a job and partied like all the rest of the union types I became one of.

When I started reading again I wanted it to be about reality and moral conflict. For me, in those days of malaise, nothing exemplified this like Stephen King's 'The Stand'. So I read all of Stephen King. I also read all of Robert Ludlum, Woody Allen and Neil Simon. I was a working stiff. I wanted to be a New Yorker like one of Neil Simon's New York characters or one of Woody Allen's characters, but that too was a million miles away from my reality. I was missing the college experience between 78 and 82 and so I imagined that's what people became on the other side of higher education - California Suite.

I can't think of any black fiction that was published between 1978 and 1989. Even when I returned to college, it was all Amiri Baraka, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Rennaisance, Negritude Poets, Slave Narratives. Distant, alienated. In college, I primarily read O'Neill, Baraka, Ayn Rand. Not much outside of the Computer Science curriculum. By the end of Sophomore year, I ditched fiction altogether, especially following a disasterous blowup I had with my drama teacher over her admonitions that we stay away from 'complicated' playwrights like Beckett. So I just concluded that the world was stupid. I read a lot of Henry Miller and came to view much of the American middle class as he did. Pompous fat idiot pricks.

So I went to non-fiction. There I revelled primarily in Hofstadter, Sowell's books and Malcolm X Speaks. And of course Tracy Kidder's 'Soul of the New Machine', plus 'Turing's Man'. The makings of a true afrofuturist.

A Literary Half Life

Following up on Huck Finn, I started writing and couldn't stop. Here's what happened next:

I recently have come to recognize that I read more Heinlein than I knew, and that his influence on me was deeper than I imagined, especially 'Starman Jones'. Somehow I had forgotten it all. If you asked me if I had ever read a Heinlein book called 'The Rolling Stones' I would have said no. But if you asked me about having read a science fiction book with twins named Castor and Pollux, I'd have answered enthusiastically. Somehow all of the Heinlein I've read as a youth got sublimated into my personality without a trace. I also read at least 7 Star Trek paperbacks, certainly every one I could get my hands on.

I think this explains why I so deeply rejected science fiction by the time I graduated from high school and didn't return to the genre until my 30s with Delaney. There was a book whose title I would love to remember (it could probably be a Heinlein, go figure) that involved astronauts getting stranded on a planet of triped animals. There was some fantastic creature which resembled nothing so much as a huge triangular bear with three legs. How to outsmart the three legged creature on a planet far away. Then there was another (the same?) story about astronauts who faced the difficulty of being stuck on a planet run by a race of people who had very puritanical attitudes about eating. The astronauts had to observe incredibly detailed table manners or be imprisoned and starved...

At some point I started reading Roots and other fictions about American life, and it struck me that I was ingratiating myself with trekkie geeks and people who really believed that new worlds would equal new opportunities - that somehow scientists were better than other people. So where were the black astronauts in the real world? I read the 'Martian Chronicles' and '2001' and finally came to the conclusion that science fiction writers were dreamers. They put their novels in space because they couldn't deal with the conflicts of the real world, and that the best of them considering Bradbury and Clarke were dealing with human drama. So I finally began to reject science fiction. I was told that I should read 'Rendezvous with Rama' as an excellent book, but I had had it with the genre.

You might have expected that I would have turned to black authors immediately, but most of those books were over my head, speaking of my father's library. It turned out that between 1978 and 1980 I did very little reading at all. I dropped out of college for financial reasons and just got a job and partied like all the rest of the union types I became one of.

When I started reading again I wanted it to be about reality and moral conflict. For me, in those days of malaise, nothing exemplified this like Stephen King's 'The Stand'. So I read all of Stephen King. I also read all of Robert Ludlum, Woody Allen and Neil Simon. I was a working stiff. I wanted to be a New Yorker like one of Neil Simon's New York characters or one of Woody Allen's characters, but that too was a million miles away from my reality. I was missing the college experience between 78 and 82 and so I imagined that's what people became on the other side of higher education - California Suite.

I can't think of any black fiction that was published between 1978 and 1989. Even when I returned to college, it was all Amiri Baraka, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Rennaisance, Negritude Poets, Slave Narratives. Distant, alienated. In college, I primarily read O'Neill, Baraka, Ayn Rand. Not much outside of the Computer Science curriculum. By the end of Sophomore year, I ditched fiction altogether, especially following a disasterous blowup I had with my drama teacher over her admonitions that we stay away from 'complicated' playwrights like Beckett. So I just concluded that the world was stupid. I read a lot of Henry Miller and came to view much of the American middle class as he did. Pompous fat idiot pricks.

So I went to non-fiction. There I revelled primarily in Hofstadter, Sowell's books and Malcolm X Speaks. And of course Tracy Kidder's 'Soul of the New Machine', plus 'Turing's Man'. The makings of a true afrofuturist.

Freedom Vs Money

Huck Finn & The Turds of Assimilation

In an interesting coincidence, Dean Esmay is blogging about the banning of 'Huckleberry Finn', the socialist agenda of Gramsci and the overmedication of boys. I think the three are related and they as indicators of a certain amount of flabby flatulence in our society, not to mention groupthink.

Over at the YMCA there's a very healthy girl's basketball league. Every weekend, the gym is chockablock with female adolescents whisking back and forth. They run their little plays and pass the ball as best they can in the gym under long banners with the words 'Respect', 'Citizenship', 'Fairness', 'Trustworthiness', 'Responsibility' and 'Caring' ak the six pillars of character. Or rather I should say The Six Pillars. As any parent in a modern suburb must know, the Six Pillars are the copyrighted brainchild of the Character Counts organization, one of those stupendous civic organizations deToqueville admired of Americans.

Over at our local elementary school, there are no such banners. You see, since they are members of Character Counts, they are prohibited from going to the local flag store and have such banners made up. Instead they must buy them from Character Counts at something like $300 a piece. I know this because my wife suggested that the PTA save money by going to the local flag store, and the principal rejected the idea. This demostrates a conflict between Fairness and Trustworthiness. Is it more important that children have banners or that Character Counts makes a buck for their monopoly on values?

I bring this up because Americans' affiliation with civic organizations and general do-gooderism is often in conflict with common sense. And there are few activities that require the use of common sense than parenting. (I shudder to say 'parenting' because it makes it sound like a skill that can be improved by a few night school classes and membership in a civic organization). But you get my drift. Tending the Nuke (nuclear family) is a very important job, but by definition, it is something that is best taught by other families. It takes one to grow one, and not necessarily a 'village'. Part of being Old School is the implicit understanding of Family First (and feel free to make your own banners, we're fair here.) Which means sometimes you do things out of respect for a family tradition and value which isn't necessarily codified into the mission statement of some 501(c)3.

So when it comes to raising boys and girls, a parent has to rely on their gut and their extended families and other parents in their communities. Moreover, society needs parents to do just that. Parents need to rely on each other to do right and exemplify doing right. So how can it be that we get to a point at which we need to spend $300 to have an organization sell a concept to a public school to reinforce something that families ought to know? Well, there are good and bad reasons.

The bad reasons have to do with a long history of being brutally oppressive to people because of their families. If your family is named Wong, chances are (ha, chances are..) you will have a loaf of turds put on your plate called 'assimilation'. You want to be an American? Eat this, it's good for you. Forget your family traditions, you in America now boy.

The good reasons have to do with our motivation, once we establish something of value and permanence, to share our success with others. To build an open and free society means to build a strong commons. It means retaining a foundation against the frailties of human beings. Because when peril is near, anyone, indeed everyone is vulnerable.

The problem is that these motivations metastacize when they are institutionalized. What is simple bigotry one old immigrant family against the new takes on a whole new sinister dimension when a union is the bigot. What begins as a pledge to uphold virtue and value from one family's largesse becomes something entirely different when pledges and credos become ritualized. But none of this is so scary as when one of those institutions for good or bad reasons begin to replace the thinking of the people it was designed to serve. An institution should serve a reminder, not serve a whole plate of thought. An institution should nudge us forward, not make us march in step.

So when specialized institutional knowledge starts to creep up on common sense, that's when my neck hairs stand up. And this is exactly what I see in the overmedication of boys, and the copyrighting of character values and the subordination of family honor to institutional fidelity.

I started this piece to go on about boyhood, and in particular the boyhood of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and what it meant for them to buck the system and think for themselves. But I reason that if you understand what I've said up to this point, there's nothing I can say that Mark Twain hasn't. I just want to draw our attention to the conflicts inherent in trying to make the world safe.

The world will never be safe, so let our children develop their own wits. Let's try to keep our about us and employ them with honor without deferring so readily to those turds that are supposed to be good for us.

Ec Phil