Cobb

2003 Won't Get Him

My grandfather made it through over 5 hours of abdominal surgery. The next 24 hours are critical of course, but he's made it through 2003.

On to the next.

Obligatory Seriousness on the Question of Israel

Israel. Middle East. Palestinian. Intifada. All keywords I shut out. Why? Because they fall below the level of one Lynch Factor. In a short time, however, it is likely to exceed a matter of 3000 deaths. But that doesn't change how many dBs the volume has been turned up on every injury sustained in that part of the world.

I am upset and I will continue to be upset at the focus maintained upon Israel and Palestine. American media coverage of their problems wildly distorts the perspective of injuries. We know, with Mad Cow precision, when every Israeli dies in this interminable conflict. But we have no equal in covering other nations. This is intolerable for me not because I believe 'jews control the media' but because it is a distortion of the priority in matters of human rights throughout the world in the interests of the American Empire and its role in global pacification. We have focused too long and a problem we have been unable to solve multilaterally, unilaterally or ass-backwards. If 100 people die in Liberia tomorrow, we won't hear about it. If 100 people die in the Gaza Strip, we'll hear about it for weeks. We will send billions to Israel and save no lives the IDF couldn't save themselves. We send nothing to Liberia where thousands of lives might have been saved. The math is simple 1 soul = 1 soul. Where are we saving souls? Certainly not in Israel or Palestine.

We used to hear about the Bakaa Valley as a harboring ground for terrorist. It used to be this way in Beirut, Lebanon. Hmm, maybe that was because Israeli forces were there.Now we don't care. My complaint is simple. The focus is undeserved and it distorts our world view.

I understand that my willingness to dismiss the prospects for Israel and Palestine will be met with fury. So I will say this once loudly, I have no reason to be anti-semitic in this stance, that is not the reason and you may conspire as many theories as you please to justify such a label. I refuse it and I barely have the patience to digifiy it here.

During my entire passive consideration of the questions of Middle East Peace it has always been the case that I believed in the appropriateness of a two state solution. Of course Israel has a right to exist. Nationalism is the paradigm and people have every right to soverienity. That right extends to the Palestinians as well.

However recently, try as I may to ignore this, I am confronted with a twofold reality. The first is in sympathy with the prosecution of occupation over lands Palestinians claim. I have few doubts that in the main, the IDF is being as reasonable and civilized as possible given their overwhelming military superiority. I think as well, that their achievement of assassinations can be justified on a strictly military basis. Politically, I think it stinks to high heaven and is an absolute disgrace. But I understand that keeping collateral damage to an absolute minimum is precisely equivalent to murder for hire. Wouldn't we like to know how the Israeli parliament picks such military targets? Ick! So on the whole, if you are at war with people, you might as well do it like the Israelis because on the whole, over the years they've killed only a few thousand Palestinians which is lightweight by any national standard.

The second part of this reality is that the Palestinians cannot, whether by attrition by the militant occupation or by inconsequential international support, or by reason of a lack of pacifist will, muster a standing government which is capable of handling diplomatic issues, controlling radical elements or a solid majority of factors necessary to move beyond (dare I say it?) tribalism. Of course it's more complicated. But what's Hamas, an NGO?

Hate me for the paragraphs OK, but it's all I can stand to think about the situation.

I hold Israel to a higher standard than the PLO. I would like to hold Israel to the standards I hold for any democracy, better yet, nuclear power. But I cannot. They don't deserve it in my eyes. I can go look for specific reasons, and something tells me that I may have to start reading all of the missives I've been getting from my subscription to Bitterlemons lo these many months. But I'm sure it will only depress me further. Perhaps it is better to be depressed and right, than willfully oblivious, especially if I'm going to have to answer to comments at Cobb.

I have said, jokingly, that I would rather have three Jewish states than one. We could aid one, bomb one and ignore the third. (I did so in a comic, and so therefore cannot find it in a text search.) But there is only one Israel and wishing it were not so doesn't help matters. So the combination of these two factors makes me think that perhaps between the Israelis and the Palestinians they could come up with one state.

Given that I have little faith that between them they would be able to negotiate a permanent peace between them as states, perhaps they might do so as citizens. It seems impossible to me that as nations they could ever resolve the property disputes between them without war, and while it is almost certain that Israeli law would give little or no recourse to nationalized Palestinians dispossessed of their properties, in the long run that may be preferable to war. If Israel were to grow up and grandfather the Palestinians what are the chances that they would continue their current course as a Civil War? On the other hands what are the chances that they would grant Palestinians full and equal civil rights?

This is something the Israelis have no impetus to do at the current moment, and it is for this reason that I heap shame upon them. But they are within their rights as a nation. Yet Arab Israelis certainly feel second-class pressures upon them as their families are split across the lines drawn and redrawn as checkpoints.

I believe a one state solution requires Israelis to be more respectful of Palestinians than they ever would be otherwise. I wonder if they could maintain their national conscription if it meant arming Palestinians. So long as there is a border, there are xenophobic excuses for civil rights abuses.

Mr. Sharon, tear down that wall.

Howling At The Moon

Well, it's about time to kiss 2k3 goodbye. And good riddance.

We shall highlight the evening's festivities with a number of old and new traditions. We will have noisemakers and confetti balloons. We will burn old bad news in the fireplace. We have another Kwanzaa candle to light. I will blow the digideroo I got from Sydney and most assuredly we will howl at the moon.

Nothing like a second four day weekend. See ya next year.

Heading to WebMD

Peritonitis is the word of the hour. This is the infection of the lining of the body cavity where are your vitals are. As far as I can tell, if you have a perforated bowel, sepsis can start infecting this lining. So even if you're able to clean out all the bloody cancer, there are a lot of things that need to stay put which can't afford to get sick.

These are the things you think about when news is scarce from the operating room.

Oh, and did I tell you yesterday they had the nerve to say that there was a shortage of O+ blood? I think Pops cleared that issue up quickly. At any rate, I don't need to be aggravated, I just don't like being squishy right now. The Big Bowen needs to die with dignity as befits such a man with as little attendant BS as possible. I don't want to be impatient with the doctors, but then again I'm not in direct contact with them.

I'm getting grouchy.

Update on the Patriarch

From Pops:

R is in surgery right now. i got a call from the anesthesiologist at around 10:30am EST and he said they would start in about 15 minutes. he said R will be given general anes. he wanted to know if i had any questions, and i had none. he said that they would do their best, adding, "...but he's a very sick guy."

Compression

Today I found a great compression utility called 7-Zip. It's tiny. The installation executable is only 920KB. It supports a wide number of compression schemes including RAR (which is my current utility of choice - the one I licensed and paid for.) and BZIP2.

What the heck is .bz2? I've never heard of it, but apparently it's a butt-kicking format that does up to 40% better than .gz. This is news to me. According to Breton Chapin:

In general, Burrows-Wheeler isn't as fast as LZ variants.
Theoretically, it takes O(n) time to sort the input. This assumes
that strings of any length can be compared instantly. Practical
algorithms for sorting for BWT actually take n log n, or n*a, or n log
a where a is the length of the longest match, because arbitrarily long
strings cannot be compared in O(1) time. Memory requirements of these
algorithms vary considerably, but all are many times the size of the
block, whereas LZ variants get by with a relatively small fixed amount
of memory. bzip2 uses 2 algorithms. bzip2 starts with an n*a which
works great if the data is not too repetitive as then a will be small.
If it's taking too long to sort the data, bzip2 switches to an n *
log n algorithm. gzip uses an O(n) algorithm that really does run in
O(n). If you were compressing 50M in one big block (bzip2's max is
900K blocks) with an n log n algorithm, you could expect it to take
around 25 to 26 (log base 2 of 50M) times as long as an n time
algorithm.

Then there are implementation details. Because BWT uses so much more
memory than LZ, performance of a system's memory (caching, especially)
becomes an issue, for both compression and decompression. Also, bzip2
makes its comparisons one byte at a time, rather than one 32 (or 64
bit) word at a time. (Don't know what gzip does there.) I modified
bzip2 to do comparisons 4 bytes at a time (on little endian machines)
and got about 10% to 15% improvement in speed of compression.

If you think bzip2 is slow, try some of the older PPM implementations
from before people realized PPM could be as fast as BWT. On the other
end, the old Unix "compress" is faster than gzip, and back in the 80's
people sometimes complained about gzip's "slowness", asking if gzip's
better compression was worth it.

Wow. It's been so long since I've heard a real computer scientist speak. You learn something new every day.

Resolutions

Dean: Wisenhimer

Howard Dean seems to have a good time cracking wise on Democratic guys. William Saletan says that he needs to shut up for the good of the Party. I say he ought to keep going and be the life of the party.

Everybody gets to make jokes at the expense of the Dems, why not Dean? Of course it's not particularly useful to expose hypocrisy if you're a hypocrite, but why not have a little fun when you've got money and limelight to burn? I'm actually starting to enjoy this.

Dean: Wisenhimer

Howard Dean seems to have a good time cracking wise on Democratic guys. William Saletan says that he needs to shut up for the good of the Party. I say he ought to keep going and be the life of the party.

Everybody gets to make jokes at the expense of the Dems, why not Dean? Of course it's not particularly useful to expose hypocrisy if you're a hypocrite, but why not have a little fun when you've got money and limelight to burn? I'm actually starting to enjoy this.

Mad Cow

Predictions for 2004

A bunch of predictions for 2004.

Tech
Tech IPOs will make a comeback.
Linux makes no inroads to the desktop.
Halo2 breaks all console videogame records.
Microsoft is reborn. People will say Gates has done it again.
Microsoft brands a PC.
Apple ports more Windows software.

Politics
GOP breaks ranks over spending & civil liberties.
Brokered Democratic Convention. Dean/Gephardt/Clark
Blogs break a major scandal and get tongue wagging approval from skeptics.
Term limits lose support.
Taxation comes back via 'fees'. States use clever rhetoric, fool nobody.

Arts & Culture
Hiphop sweeps the Grammys
Reality TV shows bite the dirt.
A new cult TV show is born in the tradition of Buffy
Children's fashion gets trashy.
Digital music pervades. RIAA gains a prominent political foe.
People get sick of Merlot. Shiraz gains even more ground.
Harry Potter 3 is a massive critical success.

Sports
Chargers leave San Diego
No Americans medal in Olympic gymnastics despite hype.
Tiger Woods gets the Grand Slam.
Venus Williams quits / gets injured.
The Greek Olympics are a big dud.

Currents
Assisted Suicide gains support.
A huge hack/worm gives put computer security in the headlines.
Americans invent more stupid reasons to hate France.

World
Single State theory gains ground in Israel/Palestine.
Most American forces leave Iraq.

Health
SARS hits US

Business & Finance
Outsourcing backlash gets fierce.
Dow 11,000
NASDAQ 2100
Wal-Mart evolves the organic food business. Whole Foods moves forward.

Predictions for 2004

A bunch of predictions for 2004.

Tech
Tech IPOs will make a comeback.
Linux makes no inroads to the desktop.
Halo2 breaks all console videogame records.
Microsoft is reborn. People will say Gates has done it again.
Microsoft brands a PC.
Apple ports more Windows software.

Politics
GOP breaks ranks over spending & civil liberties.
Brokered Democratic Convention. Dean/Gephardt/Clark
Blogs break a major scandal and get tongue wagging approval from skeptics.
Term limits lose support.
Taxation comes back via 'fees'. States use clever rhetoric, fool nobody.

Arts & Culture
Hiphop sweeps the Grammys
Reality TV shows bite the dirt.
A new cult TV show is born in the tradition of Buffy
Children's fashion gets trashy.
Digital music pervades. RIAA gains a prominent political foe.
People get sick of Merlot. Shiraz gains even more ground.
Harry Potter 3 is a massive critical success.

Sports
Chargers leave San Diego
No Americans medal in Olympic gymnastics despite hype.
Tiger Woods gets the Grand Slam.
Venus Williams quits / gets injured.
The Greek Olympics are a big dud.

Currents
Assisted Suicide gains support.
A huge hack/worm gives put computer security in the headlines.
Americans invent more stupid reasons to hate France.

World
Single State theory gains ground in Israel/Palestine.
Most American forces leave Iraq.

Health
SARS hits US

Business & Finance
Outsourcing backlash gets fierce.
Dow 11,000
NASDAQ 2100
Wal-Mart evolves the organic food business. Whole Foods moves forward.

Don't Have A Cow, Man

So we found one mad cow from Canada and people are going berserk.

Listening to To The Point yesterday helped clarify a few things for me. The big gaping loophole in the current FDA rules has to do with the allowable uses of cow-brains and spinal cords, the primary location of BSE prions. The current language says that such stuff from ruminants cannot be fed to ruminants.

Yes cows eat cows, and that's not bovine porno. You can grind up cow parts down to 'protien' and add this to cow feed. Take note that 'corn fed' cows don't grow as meaty as 'cow fed' cows, although your corporate cowmonger will refer to the 'high-protein diet'. Also, cow blood products are fed to calves as milk substitutes. You can draw off the plasma, dry it and add it to some kind of powdered milk mix that baby cows suck until the cows come home.

Note the word 'ruminant'. Legally, that means cows and sheep, but not horses or other mammals that are ground up for feed. So what often happens, if you stretch your imagination a bit, is that cows are ground up to feed pigs and those pigs are ground up to feed cows. So it's possible following the current rules that a bad cow with mad cow can still get to another cow even though the law says cows can't eat the known vector parts.

What was not made entirely clear but should be is that while we process 30 million head of cattle on an annual basis, we have only found 1 American mad cow in the past ten years we have been looking. Furthermore, when the Brits had upwards of 70,000 documented cases of BSE, less than 200 people died of the mutated human CJD in contradiction to severe predictions like this one.

I for one find it remarkable that within a week all the cow parts from one cow can be identified through the food chain. It means we are greatly capable, and that somebody somewhere has a hell of a database. Among those somebodies must be the CDC. I don't happen to have any death-by-freak-accident stats, but this matter is significantly less dangerous than the flu. So don't let the excitable folks get the best of you.

Games & Gamers

Adding this new pseudo-intellectual category, I will be splitting off all my gamer stuff from Critical Theory. I've just met a guy who knows something about game programming and is of an artistic persuasion. So as I delve deep into dungeons with dragons of all sorts, I'll blab about it here.

I'm strictly XBox, although I will consider stategy games for the PC.

Empire In Review

Back in my pre-blog days I was ranting in private forums and salons. Now that I've gone public, I've been pretty consistent in my ways. I am still firming up my ideas about the American Empire, but unlike Christopher Hitchens I have not always been so evolved in my thinking.

This morning I found an extended rant about Empire which reminded me of certain concerns I had with regard to xenophobia in our foreign policy. Surprisingly, of all the things GWBush has turned out to be, I find him singularly lacking in the ugly spirit. He might say 'crusade' but he is no crusader. I remain convinced that Rumsfeld's announcement to would-be supporters and generals in Saddam's army was a statement worthy of great honor. And I believe that the Battle for Baghdad was won because of such a backchannel of honorable surrender.

At any rate what is clearer in my thinking since October of 2001 is the potential of global Western fraternity and that the toppling of dictators is an expensive but probably necessary task. I believe the Western economies can sustain this.

the point i would make about american xenophobia is that it is fundamentally contradictory to the principle of our declaration of rights. we live in a society in which the more equal pigs determine the status of the farm whether or not the rest of the animals like it. part of the reason that we can have this huge diversity is that in the end, most of us are below the radar. there's plenty of food to go around and we often improperly call our consumption freedom. sure it's freedom from lack, but that is not the same thing as self-determination.

so when we project power on the rest of the world stage in the name of freedom, and we point to all of the variety of political opinions and ethnicities and religions here at home there is a subtle hypocrisy. and that hypocrisy is that the net consensus of all that diversity is not delivered from the ground up and that when it comes to affairs of state there is this thing called america which has little or nothing to do with the diverse interests of the common american. yet that american must stand by and be judged by the actions of a state over which he has no control.

the fundamental issue is how consistently our actions abroad enable or disable self-determination. what are we doing as a nation to enable others to have that ability?

I have a firmer belief in the benefits of market participation. A consumer economy is what fuels most of what America is. That being the case, a consumer economy can work anywhere in the world to deliver prosperity. So many people may sweat Halliburton, but Halliburton is a drop in the Wal-Mart bucket and we the American people buying socks, soap and sandwiches is what makes Wal-Mart.

The consequences of this idea is that a simple grasp of consumer economics can enable freedom in headless nations. But we shouldn't concentrate on oil wealth. That's not where it's going to come from. The oil will be cash flow for debt service anyway. It will be schools & staples that gets the economy rolling in Iraq.

I am distracted by China in all of this, because if markets are truly as powerful and fundamentally liberating as I think they are, then bourgie brotherhood has a truly awesome global future. Step one remains to clear the board of hoarding despotic regimes and let the people start being people.

We will all be shoppers in the same mall, and that's a good thing.

Strollin'

I haven't been reading as much as I would like. My schedule's a little cramped. But I did find a few things pretty interesting. This piece on Intellectual Bondage stokes my fires of contempt for Israel again. I have discovered that the oases of Egypt may be distressed. Mannish grumbles about non-white roles in Hollywood. And here I found a hilarious fish story about civil liberties.

Darling Nikki

I finally found the Nikki Giovanni poem I have been looking for lo these many years. Thanks to my liberal Canuck friend PA.

Revolutionary Dreams

i used to dream militant
dreams of taking
over america to show
these white folks how it should be
done
i used to dream radical dreams
of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers
of correct analysis
i even used to think i'd be the one
to stop the riot and negotiate the peace
then i awoke and dug
that if i dreamed natural
dreams of being a natural
woman doing what a woman
does when she's natural
i would have a revolution

1970

Ujamaa, The Problem Child

Ujamaa, cooperative economics, has given me trouble since the first time I understood it. That is primarily because I find it lacking as a strategy of liberation. So while I light the candles this evening, I'm not going to engage in any hypocrisy. Fortunately, it's the birthday of the spousal unit, so the festivities continue unabated.

There is, in my mind if not on the minds of everyone in the Kwaku Network, some measure of conflict between Ujamaa, Black Capitalism and Blackface Capitalism. It is a very difficult discussion that I have singly been unable to maintain in any forum, try as I may.

Now I have only been to a few colleges, so I don't have the last word. However, I cannot recall ever having met one black business major declaring that what they intended to do with their degree and first 50 thousand dollars was go (back?) to the ghetto and buy up the local 7-11 franchise. The emphasis is still cool. 70's cool. Integration cool. Corporate America cool. As we speak, it is not a recognizable black thang to invest 20 large into the local fruit stand. Now for the twisted critic, this brings up the dysfunctional culture question. Wrong turn. The fact is, we much prefer the black owned operated and oriented bookstore to the black grocery store. Kellogg's Corn Flakes will suffice, but not McKnowledge. In Eddie Murphy's Coming to America. Everybody laughed at John Amos' McDougals. A black capitalist, but not Ujaama.

I've made peace with the fact that Ujamaa simply doesn't scale. The cooperative economics of the small shopping village, say Leimert Park, is not ever going to work as a strategy for African Americans. As a tactic, maybe. So while I accept it as a value in the Nguzo Saba, I'd have to say that it is not a transcendent value. Aside from that, anyone who has studied Liemert Park knows that cooperative economics didn't work there either. If it did, the large theatre there would be bustling with the entertainment progeny of Marla Gibbs, The Comedy Act Theatre, birthplace of Chris Rock would be rockin' instead of quiet and The World Stage wouldn't have gotten in trouble.

There are successful businesses in Leimert Park and in Fort Greene and in various lovely black cultural & shopping districts. But I daresay cooperative economics is not a part of the business plans they are talking with their bankers.

On the whole, I believe that the appeal of Ujamaa has much to do with nostalgia for the leadership and control black elites had over the average black in the days before racial integration. When the ladies of the Links had more scholarship money for young black highschoolers than General Electric, when your neighborhood black doctor who studied at Meharry made housecalls, when you didn't worry about redlining because Golden State Mutual Life Insurance took care of that for you. Those were the good old days.

But black banks can't compete. I can remember when it was a 'black thang' to not use ATMs because black banks like Founders Savings Bank couldn't afford to join the network. And so people stood patiently in line, for a while. Now the building that was new in the 70s on the corner of Marlton & King Boulevard is now dusty, empty and for lease. Blackfolks wanted low prices more than they wanted black owned banking. Spin that four different ways iteratively substituting 'needed' for 'wanted' in the previous sentence for subtlety's sake. Pick whichever you like, but in the end, the market wins.

In the 'black mecca' of Atlanta, there are black radio stations that advertise as ebonically as they please that black car dealers are having Juneteenth sales on late model automobiles. ("Don't play like you didn't hear it") Of course you're not going to get any guarantee that Toyota was made with black hands, the paper won't be carried by a black finance company and insurance we've already covered. But you will get black customer service and marketing, and that's all good. It crystalized the idea in my head that there are limits to the amount of recourse one needs in a consumer economy. I continue to remind those who tilt at boycott's windmills that black people, by all rights, have no reason whatsoever to wear cotton. What has the cotton industry in America ever done for blackfolks but work us into early graves? Yet nobody seems to mind at all. I'm sure there are some Jews who will never, ever buy a German auto, but I don't think anyone cares about that either.

Some take this with gloom and say that it is yet another feature of our doom that there is no escaping the pervasive immorality of the Man's markets. Except the Man does not control the market and it is amoral. It's the nation of millions that holds you back (and gives you lower prices).

So try as they might, black Marxists may try to paint markets in evil colors, (generally white) but they cannot explain why millions of African Americans have made the economic choices we have, which include abandoning Ujamaa for banking, employment and other roles. Well, they say that we're all brainwashed for eating potato chips instead of 'recycling black dollars', but I'm not going to dignify any black mass hysteria arguments. It's not an explaination.

While I'm on the subject, allow me to remind you that it can be argued forcefully that the greatest enemy of Ujamaa is the Diversity Industrial Complex. Think about it for a moment. Whom are they training to be sensitive to whom? Somebody is getting paid to show Joe Millionaire how to attract the attention and respect of Jamal Ordinary. That's a good thing, but it is not empowerment despite smushy rhetoric to the contrary. It may or may not take a village to raise a child but it definitely takes a crafty capitalist to beat another. So I think that Malcolm, the patron saint of steely-eyed independence would be kicking Ujamaa to the curb and owning shares of General Electric, not painting the corporate hallways in melanin-friendly earthtones and inventing a race-normed Myers-Briggs test. But I digress.

I am convinced that it will be critical masses of African American millionaires who will be the successful conservators of all that Ujamaa might have been were it capable. Black Capitalism will work in niches as big as corners of professional sports. Yeah I admit it, I'm an elitist. Then again everyone celebrates Harriet Tubman but can't name the passengers of the Underground Railroad. Ujamaa will continue for mom and pop whom I'm all behind but don't expect any more from them than I the local Pakastani owned 7-11 to help Pervez Musharraf.

Finally, I'm going to put my boy Fleming on the spot. Is he Ujamaa? Does anybody need a PhD for Ujamaa?

Ujamaa = Howard University Drama Club
Black Capitalism = Rocawear
Blackface Capitalism = Denzel Washington movies.

Blackface Capitalism rules.

Patriarch in Danger

The oldest Bowen is in poor health and will be undergoing surgery this week. He fell Saturday and now we are in the process of discovering all of the shortcomings of retirement home industry. The demons of time have manifested themselves in the form of colon cancer and a perforated intestinal hernia.

After 91 years, we still don't want to say goodbye. With any luck we'll not have to.

GOP Integration: BYO Blackness

Yet again, I am getting whacked for my realpolitik. I continue to suggest that African Americans integrate the Republican Party, and last week I said those that didn't where chickenshit. Let me say it another way.

I hate analogies as much as the next guy, but they can be awfully useful sometimes. I hope this is a time, and yes I'm going to make it personal too. If the principle of what I am attempting to encourage has not been made self-evident by now, then it only proves the necessity of yet one more try.

This time I'm going to talk about the computer industry. As I mentioned on Kujichagulia to my offspring, there was a knucklehead named Kent who famously told me in 1984 that I had to choose between computers and business. Nobody could do both, they don't mix. Kent was one of the managers responsible for the Xerox computer business. You do the math. In my calculations, Kent was incompetent to decide my future, and I am certain there have been years when I bet he wishes he had my job in the computer business (in the business of business computing) despite his fervent belief that computers did not belong on the desks of business managers. But Kent wasn't the only naysayer in this matter. Legions of folks have been proven wrong.

There are no black women in computing. Do I mean it literally? Of course not. However, if you were a professional man in search of a professional wife, and you had the same tastes in women as I, chances are that during the 80s and 90s your pickings would be mighty slim. I have worked, in the past 18 years, with exactly 4 peers who were black and female in the multi-billion dollar Database and Business Intelligence segment of the computer industry. Not only that, my job as a consultant has put me in scores of different corporations from coast to coast. I'll restate the obvious, black women are scarce.

Nevertheless I have married, raised kids (one halfway to adulthood), and have not been babeless all this time. While I have not been swimmin' in women, I have been very happy and comfortable. But I've never even looked for them in the workplace. Tangentially, one of the reasons I stay bald is because when I'm on the road, I cannot count on finding the right kind of barber, and I should say that because of the French & Indian Creole side of the family my hair is very straight at the roots so even the ordinary black barber can't fade me right. In otherwords, I get what I need by providing it myself or seeking alternative sources. There would be no way I could have any pride or function properly as a black man if I depended on the computer industry to take care of my personal needs. It doesn't matter to me whether the industry is hostile or indifferent with regards to the reasons for its short supply, I bring it myself. So you will see, at industry functions, a black family when families are invited. I represent.

I am satisfied with my career because it provides the rewards I expect. But it is not a part of my expectations for them to understand and provide anything related to black culture. If I had to get support from the workplace, I would be in sorry shape. But since I do get what I need, when I am in the workplace the flow goes the other way. They get it from me. I am the provider. So everywhere I work has a little more flavor than it had before I came with it. This is your standard 'strong positive black man' stuff. I got it goin' on and everybody is better off for that. Every once in a while people want to touch my hair. Every once in a while somebody says something incredibly stupid and racist. Every once in a while there are intolerably stark reminders of the white male desolation of computer geekdom. So some days, I have to head for the hills and recharge the batteries. Nevertheless it is not difficult for me to enjoy a week in Boise, Idaho learning MDX, as Cobb readers know.

So to the Republican Party.

My home is my well-wrapped universe. But I still cannot find that poem by Nikki Giovanni that talked about a revolution. She said that when she was younger she had energy stored up to take heat to the Man so that he could never keep her down. But then she had a thought and that was that if she had a revolution in her own mind that she could be liberated from complicity in her own oppression. She didn't need to fight the Man, because she didn't need the Man. She thus accomplished her revolution without firing a shot. This revolution is what I call the sound of the drum. It is the basic operating principles of self-respect which has been maintained through African American culture for more generations than a few. This is what you keep whole and pure by any means necessary.

A man with dignity doesn't need to join a club. His membership dignifies the club.

People need to convince me that membership in an American political party cuts off the sound of the drum, because I don't believe it. What I hear, when people complain about the Republicans and African Americans is that joining deafens the sound of the drum, blanches all that was black and irreversibly corrupts the soul. I say these people have the wrong expectations of political parties in general and are probably not quite well stocked enough at home to survive hostility and indifference.

If you don't believe that good triumphs over evil. If you believe that you can be faded. If you think there can be no such thing as a righteous black Republican (or American, or Muslim, or Gay) then I would suggest you go get your Nikki Giovanni on, because deep down you have not won your own revolution.

I once wrote in my old performance poetry days that the great man keeps his own poetry with him, in rhythm. Pick up an Essence magazine and take it to work with you and leave it on the desk for everyone to see. In fact, put it in the pile in the lunch room. But I digress.

I cannot mean to suggest that there are not legitimate beefs with the Republican or any political party that are not best solved through loyal opposition. That would be pure idiocy. As I said in the beginning, my expectation is to triple black Republicans to somewhere around 10-12% by 2013. But I know that partisanship is weaker than consensus, and I know that the Democratic monopoly on black attention is already broken. Most importantly, I know that home is where the heart is and ain't nobody gonna turn me 'round.

Christian Chinese

According to this article in the CSM, there are upwards of 90 million Christians in China today. I spoke to my new big ballin' friend the other day, and he has all the appearances of a man laughing his way to the bank. The two ideas are inseperable in my head.

But there is another.

The youth choir in one of China's government sanctioned churches in the southeastern city of Xiamen sings to a crowd of 3,000. Later, they dropped their hymn books and clapped gospel style.

When, in 1989 or so when I was dating Maiko Tashida, I was surprised to find that she practically freaked out over my vinyl. It was Confunkshun in particular that made her eyes go all dewey. I have since added to my understanding that the hunger of Asians for Western culture is more inclusive and respectful of black culture than we African Americans are accustomed to getting.

Remember Patti Labelle's 88 million records.

I am prone to imagine all manner of links between African Americans and Chinese. My friend R sees it between they and Natives. As they become real, it will be a beautiful thing. Lord help me, I have visions of riches.

Seven Times Nine Eleven

Two days ago, an earthquake measuring 6.7 destroyed an entire city in Iran. Less than a week prior to that, an earthquake measuring 6.5 disturbed my work and made me nauseous. In Iran, the count of bodies has surpassed 21,000. The earthquake in California killed 3. Within 3 minutes of the California quake, I was online, and then listening to the radio searching for news. I just found out about the Iranian disaster this morning.

The headlines this morning at Google News alert us that one US soldier and two children were killed in an attack in Baghdad. Wow.

It may be true that humans are better disposed to accept natural disasters. There is no reason and no target for revenge. Nothing we can do but cry and bury our families. We curse the indifference of God and we seek comfort and sympathy among survivors. We must only heal, for there is no cure. But when we can point a finger at a fellow human, ahh what a difference.

Why?

Mad Cow Prediction

Have no doubt that McDonalds is going to lead the pack when it comes to anti-BSE protocols (if they haven't already). It won't take much pressure, but they've been undergoing a great deal of change. My gut tells me that they won't BS when it comes to BSE and to remain a vendor that sells meat to McDonalds, it's going to take more than a handshake and a smile.

Keep an eye out for Michael Pollan. Better than any American writer, he describes what's going on in the culture and economics of food. He is the notable author of The Botany of Desire and Behind the Organic-Industrial Complex.

Kujichagulia 2003

This morning, I went to the African Marketplace & Kwanzaa Parade at Liemert Park, entirely by accident.

The plan was to meet Pops at Lucy Florence and talk about days past and days to come. That happened uneventfully, but I got a chance to see a bit of the K in action. Interestingly enough it was who wasn't there that got my attention.

The Muir High Alumni drum corps just blew all the recorded and amplified music everywhere away. They had the kind of beat that made you change the rhythm of your walking pace. It was powerful. While I had just been hanging around the natty dreads and their incense and t-shirt booths, it was that booming that let me know a real parade was happening. I finally got out to Crenshaw and found the Dorsey HS cheerleaders, and an incredible set of steppers whose name escapes me (all in black and gold) and finally a group of about 30 black equestrians trotting in grand style.

Something about black horsemen (and women) really impresses me. Whenever I see them in parades, whether they be the Buffallo Soldier re-enactors, part of some other equestrian group, or just trotting up the street in a horse community like Altadena, it always piques my interest. These folks were styling in white longsleeves with black pants, as their horses highstepped in black, red and silver tack.

Still and all, the sparsity of the whole affair was the most remarkable thing I noticed. There couldn't have been more than 1000 folks at Liemert Park itself. Power106 had their radio truck in the parade, so it must have been announced. Still, it's hard to judge considering I was at the very end of the parade route. Everybody who wants to get their African thing on was in force including the usual suspects, but the huge crowd that shows up for the King Day parade was conspicuously absent.

Not looking for inspiration these things don't encourage or discourage. I really wished I had a little bit more cash to spend and that I had brought the kids. But there will always be another opportunity to get into roots. While I was there I was able, finally to get some red, black and green candles. I called Rite-Aid last night, they said they had them in stock but that was not the color green nor size red I had in mind. It's great when the kind of stuff I'm talking about is right there. The vendors of African objets d'art were making their small fortunes, and that's some commercialization nobody could object to. On the whole, it was a good thing.

Kujichagulia is fun to say 80 different ways, and so the kids had a field day with the word this evening. We can do what we want, just give us room.

I'm bushed this evening and don't really want to get into the personal Kujichagulia story. Besides, all of you know that being a black Republican is about as Kukichagulia as one can get. Of course, that brings one in conflict with Ujamaa. But that's for another day.

The Best OJ Story Yet

This morning, I met a man whose brother has some dirt on the trial of the century. It's the most cogent theory I've heard in years.

The long and short of it is this. Marcia Clark submitted to the Court some fiddled phone records. The defense, in this case Robert Shapiro, stipulated that they accepted the phone records and therefore a line of inquiry which would have changed the entire complexion of the case was dropped.

I imagine that this kind of thing happens all the time. But what if?

More of the story is that this fellow worked for or with the LA Medical Examiner's office in such a way that he had direct access to the autopsy records of Nicole Brown Simpson before they were entered into evidence. He made copies and retained them. According to this story, one of the employees of the ME's office, upon being called to the scene called the Browns and asked very specifically when was the last time they spoke to their daughter. The reply was that it was at 11pm on the previous evening. This notation was made on one of the papers filed with the autopsy report, a copy of which was held by this gentleman whose brother I spoke with this morning. This destroys the timeline presented by the prosecution which had OJ in the limo on the way to the airport at that time.

When our friend hears the testimony given on the stand by the ME's senior officer, not the individual who spoke to Brown's mother, his jaw dropped. He immediately saw the discrepancy and attempted to file a friend of the court brief. Evidently he had the wherewithal to make for his own investigation, and thus began his own personal crusade. This landed him before the State Supreme Court of Texas as judge after judge blocked his attempts to get legitimate (GTE) phone logs to Judge Ito. Shapiro's stipulation (is my guess) proved insurmoutable. The defense already changed tactics.

Most shockingly, this guy claims that he has found the perfect suspect. I believe the name is Glen Rogers. This character was arrested for murder in another state, and apparently is a serial killer. He has killed women who look like Nicole Brown, there are somewhere some pictures of him with Brown and her female friend partying at The House of Blues. Furthermore, this character painted her condo. I suppose it's easy enough to find tell of this guy and if he had killed other women by slashing their throats, it's not a good sign. But what would Cochran care? His job is finished.

I believe a lot of unproveable theories, but a friend recently helped me debunk the one about the Bali Bomb being a suitcast nuke. All that was required was some reasonable doubt. Powerful theory that, reasonable doubt.

The Best OJ Story Yet

This morning, I met a man whose brother has some dirt on the trial of the century. It's the most cogent theory I've heard in years.

The long and short of it is this. Marcia Clark submitted to the Court some fiddled phone records. The defense, in this case Robert Shapiro, stipulated that they accepted the phone records and therefore a line of inquiry which would have changed the entire complexion of the case was dropped.

I imagine that this kind of thing happens all the time. But what if?

More of the story is that this fellow worked for or with the LA Medical Examiner's office in such a way that he had direct access to the autopsy records of Nicole Brown Simpson before they were entered into evidence. He made copies and retained them. According to this story, one of the employees of the ME's office, upon being called to the scene called the Browns and asked very specifically when was the last time they spoke to their daughter. The reply was that it was at 11pm on the previous evening. This notation was made on one of the papers filed with the autopsy report, a copy of which was held by this gentleman whose brother I spoke with this morning. This destroys the timeline presented by the prosecution which had OJ in the limo on the way to the airport at that time.

When our friend hears the testimony given on the stand by the ME's senior officer, not the individual who spoke to Brown's mother, his jaw dropped. He immediately saw the discrepancy and attempted to file a friend of the court brief. Evidently he had the wherewithal to make for his own investigation, and thus began his own personal crusade. This landed him before the State Supreme Court of Texas as judge after judge blocked his attempts to get legitimate (GTE) phone logs to Judge Ito. Shapiro's stipulation (is my guess) proved insurmoutable. The defense already changed tactics.

Most shockingly, this guy claims that he has found the perfect suspect. I believe the name is Glen Rogers. This character was arrested for murder in another state, and apparently is a serial killer. He has killed women who look like Nicole Brown, there are somewhere some pictures of him with Brown and her female friend partying at The House of Blues. Furthermore, this character painted her condo. I suppose it's easy enough to find tell of this guy and if he had killed other women by slashing their throats, it's not a good sign. But what would Cochran care? His job is finished.

I believe a lot of unproveable theories, but a friend recently helped me debunk the one about the Bali Bomb being a suitcast nuke. All that was required was some reasonable doubt. Powerful theory that, reasonable doubt.

Kwanzaa Questions

Dickerson on My Tits

Debra Dickerson gets on my last freakin' nerve today. I haven't even lit my first candle and already I'm getting upset defending my family tradition. Her NYT editorial is an insult that is popping the veins on my forehead.

First let's get to standing:

Until two years ago, the mere mention of Kwanzaa would have me cracking wise about kente cloth boxer shorts and artificially lengthened dreadlocks � and cultural pride as mere show and consumerism.

and with dripping condescention worthy of Chirac

Kwanzaa, like Christianity, does nothing for me but I have to respect that it does for others.

and then the blatant contradiction:

In rejecting Christmas and Christianity, blacks reject the primary force for black American sustenance and resistance.

So presuming you are black, how the hell did you make it in this world if Christianity does nothing for you?

Umoja 2003

You may not know it, but under ordinary circumstances, I would be a celebrity of sorts. Who knows, in time my story may make headlines. But the obscure fact of the matter is that I was something of a privileged youth. Although I don't often think or talk about it, I was the original kid cast in the role of Corey for the groundbreaking television series 'Julia' starring Dianne Carroll. I was also the fist black kid scripted to star in an episode of Gunsmoke. None of that actually happened because my parents were not stage parents. It's deeper than that, but that's a story for another day.

One thing that I mention more than those other brushes with fame is my association with the origins of Kwanzaa. So in my middle age, I feel some responsibility to the celebration and its values. In fact, a year ago I got much of my impetus to blog publicly over the venomous idiocy being spread by Ann Coulter. At the time I was rolling my own blog and then transitioned it to 'Cobb Static' at any rate. Here is the kwanzaa section of my first days of Cobb.

This year as my kids have become old enough to understand more than simple symbols, I will bear the burden of exemplifying various of the values with tales of my own youth. I cannot believe that my children will be black in the same ways I was, but as I have said on behalf of the Old School, there are certain strengths forged in the furnace of yesteryear that maintain their fortitude today. They can be admired for what they are even if they are not duplicated, as if they could be. No one need race a tortoise and a hare today to understand the moral of that story. So while I am an exponent of Kwanzaa, I am not a die-hard for strict interpretation. This is why I have no particular objections to whitefolks celebrating watered down or variant versions, multi-culti style.

On this, the first day of Kwanzaa, the theme is Umoja. Unity. It is of great value in the proper context, and nothing has demonstrated greater power for African Americans than our unanimity in opposition to those who have initiated perpetuated conditions which subjected us over the centuries. There are others who have dedicated themselves to the purple prose of all that, I'll just tell one old personal story and allow you to consider the resonance.

Dishes

How do you know you are middle class? You get to the point at which some significant fraction of your dishes are in the processed of getting washed. They will be spread in several places. There will be glasses in the bedrooms and living room. There will be cups, plates, pots and pans in the dishwasher and the rack. Several will be on the stove and others will be in the fridge. There will be a fraction in the sink(s), and a few will be actually cleaned and put away in the cabinet.

But they will never all be in the cabinet. They won't fit! Try it. Empty the sink, the dishwasher, the rack, the refrigerator and the stove. Clean every pot, pan, plate, fork, spoon and spatula in your house. Now try to put them where they all belong. You will be confronted with an American Middle Class Dilemma, which is that you need a bigger garage.

Dishes

How do you know you are middle class? You get to the point at which some significant fraction of your dishes are in the processed of getting washed. They will be spread in several places. There will be glasses in the bedrooms and living room. There will be cups, plates, pots and pans in the dishwasher and the rack. Several will be on the stove and others will be in the fridge. There will be a fraction in the sink(s), and a few will be actually cleaned and put away in the cabinet.

But they will never all be in the cabinet. They won't fit! Try it. Empty the sink, the dishwasher, the rack, the refrigerator and the stove. Clean every pot, pan, plate, fork, spoon and spatula in your house. Now try to put them where they all belong. You will be confronted with an American Middle Class Dilemma, which is that you need a bigger garage.

All About Being Uppity

The Uppity-Negro demonstrates, perhaps unintentionally, one more good reason for African-Americans to represent in the Republican Party.

[. . .] In 1983, when he was a young congressman during the Reagan administration, Gingrich sparked a controversy when he said: "It is in the interest of the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan to invent new black leaders, so to speak. People who have a belief in discipline, hard work and patriotism, the kind of people who applauded Reagan's actions in [invading] Grenada." The idea still applies, he said.

As a black republican who defied Reagan over Grenada I agree with Gingrich in his provocation. What does it say about the African-American political sophistication when the 'evil' whiteboys can create a more popular black icon than blackfolks themselves? It says that both blacks and whites are afraid of integration. Integrated places don't need all that, proving the Republican Party isn't truly integrated. Fine. There's only one true solution and that has to come from the masses of black voters. Unless and until they do so, scams of the foolish will continue.

It should go without saying that the entire success of the Republican Party over the past two decades has been all about grass roots work coupled with top-down scheming. The bottom up stuff is what Howard Dean's supporters are all excited about, because there hasn't been a true Demoratic populist since Lawton Chiles. Hell, this is what Nader showed in 2000, but I digress. African Americans have an open invitation to feed at the Republican trough, but by and large they are chickenshit. C'est la vie.

Annual Tradition

Not in France

Whoops

Blues

If Shit Gets Thick

Over at Calblog, some speculation is going on about what might happen if we suffer another terrorist attack on par with nine-eleven. I will speculate also.

After the earthquake the other day, L and I started talking about what would be the likely target. Not having heard the details of new intelligence which Jay rightly says shows progress in the assym war, we thought of the most ghastly target imaginable. The Rose Parade.

Anyone who lives anywhere near Pasadena around the first of the year knows how impossible it is to get in and out of that town when the Tournament of Roses is going on. A terrorist with a dirty bomb could probably find no better target than the Rose Bowl on New Years day.

I can only think of one or two targets that would be more appalling to Americans were it to be destroyed by an act of terror. The first would be the Statue of Liberty and the second would probably be the Lincoln Memorial. You can blow up the White House in Independence Day and not many people screw up their faces. But when Charlton Heston wept on the Planet of the Apes at the desecration of Lady Liberty, she embedded herself that much deeper in the hearts of all Americans. I could go on about Lincoln, but the human target of choice would be the Rose Bowl.

I'm having a hard time keeping tears out of my eyes just thinking about such a thing, and I can be fairly grim. But I can assure you that America would go ballistic in several dimensions were such a thing to occur.

First, we'd start slapping each other around. The chorus of "I told you so" would become deafening. When I say 'shit gets thick', believe me, people will be cursing on the air.

Predictions:

1. People to the militant right of GW Bush will begin coming out of the woodwork. Do not be surprised to hear from Ross Perot. Another Republican with a war record will challenge. McCain perhaps.

2. Wesley Clark will have a better chance to be a hawk. If he does so he will unite Democrats.

3. Arabs and Muslims will be beaten in American streets.

4. North Korea will slip further in our priorities.

5. The dispersion of troops in the Middle East will up the ante to tactical nuclear.

6. The French will do a 180 and back the US. Chirac will pull a right-wing rabbit out of his hat which will devour the weasel.

7. We will begin to undermine governments like we did in the bad old days. Congress will undo restrictions on gunboat diplomacy.

8. The Crusade is on. Collateral be damned.

9. National ID happens quicker.

10. PC dies, people will smoke, drink, curse and have sex.

All in all a nasty situation for enemies and percieved enemies of the US. Not much changing for the worse domestically. I think the courts will continue check and balance as they have begun to do.

Emerson's Organic

I'm writing a longish piece on Secularism, not necessarily in the context of Chirac's charade, but in the context of how it may fail here. My basic idea is that Marketing's aim is personalization and tends toward the same direction as pluralism and multiculturalism, that is towards the individuation of products & services etc. This makes us more strangers, and less likely to create cultural products and institutions designed to serve a higherbrow populism. If we accept the premise that we don't share many values and in fact are practically atomic, then we will settle, as a democracy, for lower common denominators, rather than strive to achieve greater common factors.

In researching this phenomenon I want to bring forward some principled American ideas to show contrast, while I consider what advances in infotech and business have wrought. So in this I first went to Emerson. He is too large to swallow, so I'll dwell on him for a moment.

There is no better example of a dovetail between myself as an Organic and this by Emerson. It has been part of my angle as a 'brother outsider' for many years. I observe the raising of the race concurrent with its enfeeblement.

4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil, and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat, and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of the two men, and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad axe, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?

Echoes of Heim on Heidegger! "As humans develop the ability to typify and apprehend formal realities, the loss of truth as emergent disclosure goes unnoticed."

Top Ten Films of All Time

Norm again throws us an impossibly large bone. Either way, you catch it in your teeth. What are the ten best?

First I'll list the Best Movies of All Time

• Ran - Akira Kurosawa
  
• Koyannisqatsi - Godfrey Regio
  
• Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock
  
• Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean
  
• 2001: A Space Odessey - Stanley Kubrick
  
• The Philadelphia Story - George Cukor
  
• The Bicycle Theif - Vittorio De Sica
  
• Playtime - Jacques Tati
  
• Saving Private Ryan - Steven Speilberg
  
• Titus - Julie Taymor
  

Now my Favorite Movies of All Time

• Ran - Kurosawa
  
• Heat - Michael Mann
  
• Blood Simple - Coen Bros
  
• Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean
  
• Ronin - Frankenheimer
  
• Pi - Aronofsky
  
• Akira - Otomo
  
• The Fifth Element - Besson
  
• The Color Purple - Spielberg
  
• The Matrix - The Ws
  

Don Fox on a Rampage

Ever have one of those days when you need to tell the world to sod off? Don's having one right now. Don't miss it.

While we're handing them out, here's a middle finger to pseudo pacifists. You know who you are, you hobbit-loving Hobbsians.

Drowned

Ezster sets herself up for a great joke which couldn't make prime-time comedy by referring to this map comparing the size of Israel to Lake Michigan.

If you haven't heard the joke it goes a little something like this. One sunny day in Kabul around November of 2001, GWBush, Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden find a magic lamp. Being gracious, or not knowing what it is, Bush lets Omar and Osama go first.

Omar says: I wish for a great impenetrable wall around Afghanistan. No infidels can ever interfere with our great Islamic Republic.

BinLaden says: I wish for a great sky barrier so that no modern aircraft can enter or exit. We shall be free from terror from the sky (One track mind, this guy)

Bush scratches his head for a moment and then makes his wish to the genie.
Fill it up with water.

Drowned

Ezster sets herself up for a great joke which couldn't make prime-time comedy by referring to this map comparing the size of Israel to Lake Michigan.

If you haven't heard the joke it goes a little something like this. One sunny day in Kabul around November of 2001, GWBush, Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden find a magic lamp. Being gracious, or not knowing what it is, Bush lets Omar and Osama go first.

Omar says: I wish for a great impenetrable wall around Afghanistan. No infidels can ever interfere with our great Islamic Republic.

BinLaden says: I wish for a great sky barrier so that no modern aircraft can enter or exit. We shall be free from terror from the sky (One track mind, this guy)

Bush scratches his head for a moment and then makes his wish to the genie.
Fill it up with water.

Bad Luck, Good Luck

Yesterday was weird.

On the way to work, I got a flat tire. I made it to the gas station but they didn't have my size. The mechanic put on my donut, but wanted to charge me 12.50. I was going to pay it but the cash register was broken. The boss gave me a discount.

I'm late for work so I make a U turn out of the gas station. A cop pulls me over. I don't know where the papers are for the car, but my wife copied them onto yellow paper and they were easy to find. (Remember the days when your registration papers were in the visor?). The cop gives me a break.

I get to work late, but it's OK. I start to test some software, and an earthquake hits. Nothing falls over.

By lunchtime I am exasperated, what else can go wrong today? Nothing happens at work. I drive home safely. I sit down and relax having grabbed the contents of the mailbox and all of the UPS packages left on the porch. Ahh. Made it through the day without another weird thing to stress me out. Bill, Christmas Card, Card, Card, what's this?

Summons for Jury Duty.

Bad Luck, Good Luck

Yesterday was weird.

On the way to work, I got a flat tire. I made it to the gas station but they didn't have my size. The mechanic put on my donut, but wanted to charge me 12.50. I was going to pay it but the cash register was broken. The boss gave me a discount.

I'm late for work so I make a U turn out of the gas station. A cop pulls me over. I don't know where the papers are for the car, but my wife copied them onto yellow paper and they were easy to find. (Remember the days when your registration papers were in the visor?). The cop gives me a break.

I get to work late, but it's OK. I start to test some software, and an earthquake hits. Nothing falls over.

By lunchtime I am exasperated, what else can go wrong today? Nothing happens at work. I drive home safely. I sit down and relax having grabbed the contents of the mailbox and all of the UPS packages left on the porch. Ahh. Made it through the day without another weird thing to stress me out. Bill, Christmas Card, Card, Card, what's this?

Summons for Jury Duty.

Return of the King

OK I finally saw it. That's the reason there were no blog entries yesterday. I'll be brief. It is definitely not a perfect flick and even if I hadn't ragged on Frodo, I have to agree with Hawkins (although not as squeamishly) that there's a bit too much hugging and loving and smush in this film.

I had been warned that I was going to leave the theatre in a sobbing pile, but it wasn't that touching. I can only get so weepy over swords and sorcery. But I must admit that the spousal unit and I have never been quite so affectionate in the theatre as we were watching all this.. this melodrama.

That said, it was an excellent entertainment and I look forward to wasting a perfectly good weekend watching all three on DVD back to back.

I felt so hurt for Samwise. I just wanted to smack the [remaining] teeth out of Gollum/Smeagol. In fact, I nearly jumped out of my seat when he finally to a rock to the noggin. There's nothing lower than a conniving traitor, except perhaps a cowardly, gluttonous father who sends his only remaining son to die out of spite. There was no shortage of truly despicable characters in this epic, and that is what makes for excellent good vs evil.

Anyway I said I'd be brief. Damnable film has already taken too much of my day. Go see it.

BTW: It must have been some time since I've been to the theatre. All the trailers were new to me. Spiderman2, Adventures of Riddick, Harry Potter 3, all looking like pretty damned good flicks. Well, Spiderman is tired, but the other two look good.

Return of the King

OK I finally saw it. That's the reason there were no blog entries yesterday. I'll be brief. It is definitely not a perfect flick and even if I hadn't ragged on Frodo, I have to agree with Hawkins (although not as squeamishly) that there's a bit too much hugging and loving and smush in this film.

I had been warned that I was going to leave the theatre in a sobbing pile, but it wasn't that touching. I can only get so weepy over swords and sorcery. But I must admit that the spousal unit and I have never been quite so affectionate in the theatre as we were watching all this.. this melodrama.

That said, it was an excellent entertainment and I look forward to wasting a perfectly good weekend watching all three on DVD back to back.

I felt so hurt for Samwise. I just wanted to smack the [remaining] teeth out of Gollum/Smeagol. In fact, I nearly jumped out of my seat when he finally to a rock to the noggin. There's nothing lower than a conniving traitor, except perhaps a cowardly, gluttonous father who sends his only remaining son to die out of spite. There was no shortage of truly despicable characters in this epic, and that is what makes for excellent good vs evil.

Anyway I said I'd be brief. Damnable film has already taken too much of my day. Go see it.

BTW: It must have been some time since I've been to the theatre. All the trailers were new to me. Spiderman2, Adventures of Riddick, Harry Potter 3, all looking like pretty damned good flicks. Well, Spiderman is tired, but the other two look good.

Rapproachment

Cambria Earthquake

So A is describing this print server that we are about to test, and all of a sudden I start feeling nauseous. I got enough sleep, so what's going on? I close my eyes and then I look down at my feet to gain composure and it's still happening. We're on the 10th floor.

The blinds are slapping against the windows. It's an earthquake for sure. I stand and leave the cube and walk over to the windows, but not too close. I say out loud that it's definitely an earthquke. Traffic down on the streets is still moving, but I don't want to get close enough to the window to see if power lines are swaying. I don't hear any car alarms going off but we are up pretty high.

Now I can't help but think of Al Qaeda and I'm a little ashamed of that. But I do want to get the hell out of the building even though nothing has fallen over.

First I hit the net to see if there's anything. Nothing. OK I'm going downstairs.

On the way down, L tells me that he used to work in the twin Arco Towers downtown. When some earthquake hit a while ago, people in a corner office looked out of the window and the other building was missing. At the top floors, they move about 15 feet. So for the moment they had swung out of synch. I start moving quicker down the stairs.

The cellphone networks are working but the Nuke isn't at home. I leave a message on the answering machine. Finally I get down to the lot. Some folks have KNX on the car radio. 6.5 north of Monterrey is what we hear. OK so we're in the clear here in LA.

Still this was the most nauseating rolling earthquake I've ever been in. It beats the other record for the one in '82 which I think was Coalinga. I was in Northridge at the time.

OK back to work. I'm still feeling dizzy though.

BTW: Here is the quake map.

Cambria Earthquake

So A is describing this print server that we are about to test, and all of a sudden I start feeling nauseous. I got enough sleep, so what's going on? I close my eyes and then I look down at my feet to gain composure and it's still happening. We're on the 10th floor.

The blinds are slapping against the windows. It's an earthquake for sure. I stand and leave the cube and walk over to the windows, but not too close. I say out loud that it's definitely an earthquke. Traffic down on the streets is still moving, but I don't want to get close enough to the window to see if power lines are swaying. I don't hear any car alarms going off but we are up pretty high.

Now I can't help but think of Al Qaeda and I'm a little ashamed of that. But I do want to get the hell out of the building even though nothing has fallen over.

First I hit the net to see if there's anything. Nothing. OK I'm going downstairs.

On the way down, L tells me that he used to work in the twin Arco Towers downtown. When some earthquake hit a while ago, people in a corner office looked out of the window and the other building was missing. At the top floors, they move about 15 feet. So for the moment they had swung out of synch. I start moving quicker down the stairs.

The cellphone networks are working but the Nuke isn't at home. I leave a message on the answering machine. Finally I get down to the lot. Some folks have KNX on the car radio. 6.5 north of Monterrey is what we hear. OK so we're in the clear here in LA.

Still this was the most nauseating rolling earthquake I've ever been in. It beats the other record for the one in '82 which I think was Coalinga. I was in Northridge at the time.

OK back to work. I'm still feeling dizzy though.

BTW: Here is the quake map.

Gangsta Hobbit

Elijah Wood is being marketed as a sex symbol now. That's why you'll see more photographs like this.

I had to do a double-take at the checkout line when I saw him and his buttboys posing on the cover of some entertainment mag. Wait a minute says me. Aren't those supposed to be hobbits? Where are the big fuzzy feet? Where's the curly hair? Where are the rosy cheeks? Gone! Gone I say. They've all been taking fashion cues from David Spade.

What on middle earth are we to make of all this? It's such a perversion that I'd rather they have been animated. OK I say that now when I haven't seen the final film. Still, I don't want to see these guys in metrosexual mufti. I realize that they need to get out of being typecast, but do they honestly believe that they'll ever do anything to top this?

I dunno. Short of a sex change, I suppose this is the best thing they can do. It's part of the devil's deal. I'm not mad at ya Elijah, but stay away from my daughters, you you...

I made up a comic routine out of this guy. It went something like this. (sue me if you don't laugh I have a real job now.) What's up with Frodo Baggins and why is he walking halfway to hell with a half naked AIDS patient on a leash? I finally figured it out, LOTR is all about gay marriage. There's what? three women in the whole film, the rest are a bunch of hairy guy chasing each other around tarnation in search of a ring. They all want to wear it. They want the respect!

OK it's much better performed than written, and I probably wouldn't say 'tarnation'. But I like Frodo. And I like my Frodo to stay Frodo, just like in the old days when he was humble and honest and incorruptible. Now he's a walking advertisement for.. something I'm sure the world doesn't need.

The little bastard is having the time of his life, and I'm testing French fax software.