Things So Impossible

2011: Album(s) of the Year

2011-12-09T21:47:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these. Of course, being ronin, I have no excuse this year.

First some meta commentary. When iTunes Match was first announced, I wondered why anyone without an Apple TV would want it? If you have WiFi sync, doesn't your music get to all your iDevices anyway? Even if you had an Apple TV, wouldn't you just AirPlay from your iDevice to the ATV?

Sure there is value in going legit with your music collection, but ever since the digital music folks went DRM free, I've been able to maintain a very karmically clean library, so the amnesty value didn't stand out for me.

As usual, one needs to really embrace a new Apple offering to really "get" what value it was designed to deliver. Having had iTunes Match for a while now, being matched to the mother of all curated digital music collections has resulted in a music library that is the cleanest and best organized I've ever had. I find myself listening to more music and exploring more music.

The most unexpected benefit for me was how much new music I was exposed to because of iTunes Match. With all my music nicely mapped to the iTunes catalog, it was very easy to jump to the iTunes page for any of the songs in my library, see what others had said, and explore related music. With 90 second samples and alternative sources for (ahem) longer samples, I bought and listened to more new music than I had in a very long time (how the heck did I not know about the Decemberists and the Weepies?)

With the availability of a 64GB(!) iPhone and the option to automatically downsample tunes to 128kbps when loading onto the iPhone, I'm now liberated from storage management for my music library. All my tunes are now ripped lossless, and I no longer have to play games to manage what is and isn't on the phone. I also now always rip entire albums, meaning I'm exposed to much more music than I was before. (as an aside, my phone now has 1,000,000x the memory that my first computer had...we are only a handful of years until my personal phone has more memory than sum total of every Apple ][ ever sold)

On to the goodies. First some niche winners, then my overall winner.

Best Video No One Saw But That Everyone Must See: Simple Math (Manchester Orchestra)
I think I first heard about this video on twitter...clicked through on a lark, and had an emotional 2x4 slapped right upside my head. Holy crap! An amazing song, but the imagery and the integrity of the vision of the piece completely blew me away. Send this tape back in time 35 years, and you would have an entire generation of Scorsesees emerge in an instant. A great song, and a great reminder of how modern technology and tools have enabled and democratized a level of artistic expression that was unthinkable even a generation ago.

Best Album Everybody Already Knew About But Me: The Crane Wife (The Decemberists)
How did I get this far in life and not know about The Decemberists? Colin Meloy is bastard son of Robyn Hitchcock and Elvis Costello, with a musical sensibility that puts both to shame. How can the same song mercilessly and simultaneously blow both your left brain and your right brain away? As a newbie to their tunes, I'm treading slowly into the mind blender, but holy cow what an achievement is The Crane Wife. Every listen is like returning to a recurring dream, but with ever more Inception-like layers within the layers. The album is 5 years old now, but it may take another 5 years for me to get my head wrapped around this one.

Best Reminder That Art Is About Baring Your Soul: Sign No More (Mumford & Sons)
When I first heard some of their songs (and they were hard to avoid in 2011), I thought here are some hipster posers trying to channel Van Morrison and David Grey. Then I saw them perform on TV...damn! How do you bring that much of yourself to a performance and put it all out there? On first listen, several of the songs really stood out, with the rest being "eh". For some reason I kept coming back to the album and playing it all the way through. Each time through, another song really stood out. At this point, I can't get enough of this album and this band. Do yourself a favor and get the deluxe version (linked above). The DVD and the CD of a live performance are awesome.

As an aside, honorable mention in this category to the Piano Tribute to Mumford & Sons. These tribute albums are usually a curiosity and soon deleted. This is the exceedingly rare case where the artist is an extremely talented musician that is a huge fan of the source material. There is a deep and true and powerful set of emotions that run through this album. It is like listening to a good friend sit at the piano and play his favorite music. Recommended.

Most Poignant Emotional Time Machine: Remembrance-A Memorial Benefit (George Winston)
This last September 11 was a difficult one for me. I thought I had wept all I had to weep. I was very very wrong. 10 years on, the emotion was as raw and as numbing as ever. By chance, I ran into a benefit album that George Winston had recorded within a couple days of that terrible day. Through piano, guitar, and harmonica, he expressed the sadness, despair, anguish, fear, and loss from those terrible days so vividly. Very difficult to listen to, but necessary and important. All proceeds to benefit those that were harmed that day. Do yourself a favor and remember.

2011 Album of the Year: Bach: Cello Suites No. 1-6 (Pablo Casals, Opus Kura)
This past Thanksgiving, I had NPR on in the background while I was jamming through day before Thanksgiving dinner preparations. On came a piece about November 23 being the 75th anniversary of the recording of the famous Pablo Casals Bach Cello Suites and Robert Johnson cutting his first record. I of course knew about Robert Johnson, but I had only the vaguest knowledge of Pablo Casals or the history behind the Bach Cello Suites. I stopped my cooking and simply listened. I was struck by the passion and reverence of those speaking of these recordings, and the transformational impact they had. The next day as the meal settled, I downloaded a copy and sat down to listen. From the first note, I was like the character in Flatland who is lifted up out of the page, and sees things from a perspective he has never seen before. I had heard these pieces before, but here was a true master channeling the souls of the angels. Even through the hissing and the crackles, the music was transcendent: a moment of profound beauty. Ours is a better civilization for what Casals did that day. You owe it to yourself to share in this gift.

As an honorable mention, in any other year where I hadn't stumbled on one of the defining musical moments of the 20th century, my album of the year would have been New Blood (Peter Gabriel). A marvelous revisiting of some great songs, but with the depth and maturity that comes with age. Some of the orchestral arrangements literally took my breath away. Favorite like "In Your Eyes" have returned with all the power of an Aaron Copland fanfare for the ages. I immediately purchased the BluRay edition, but have been holding off watching it until I get my real sound system and TV out of storage. Fair warning to the neighbors: the house will be shaking when that one gets fired up.

Living in the Future

2010-04-09T21:44:00.004-07:00

This past week we got our iPad at work. It arrived just as we were debating the kinds of seemingly critical decisions that start ups seem to face every other day or so.

After an impassioned plea to respect the obligations of our mission even in the face of market resistance, I broke into "We few, we happy few..."

Some around the table smiled in recognition, some looked at the crazy guy. I pressed forward with "...we band of brothers, for he that sheds his blood with me today shall be my brother" and asked what decision Henry would make if he were with us at the table. The smiles grew bigger, and the concern about the crazy guy became acute.

After a brief discussion on leadership and the meaning of St. Crispin's Day, we took a break.

Over the next 60 seconds, I fired up iBook on the iPad, did a search on Shakespeare, downloaded the complete works (for free), did a search on "We few we happy few", and highlighted one of the most famous passages in English literature in remarkably attractive highlighter effects (bravo Apple), bookmarked the passage, fired up YouTube app, did a search on "we few, we happy few", and brought up the 5 minute speech from Kenneth Branagh's remarkable Henry Vth

When folks returned from break, we handed around the 1 1/2 pound device, everyone used hand gestures to watch the clip and read the passage, and we were all reminded of one of the greatest lessons in leadership the world has known. We decided to do the hard thing and not the safe thing.

All in less than 60 seconds, all on a whim, all without fanfare or surprise, all with transparent technology.

In that moment, the 40 year dream of the Dynabook was made real. We don't yet have jet packs, but we have something so much more profound.

Health Care Reform

2010-03-21T19:55:00.004-07:00

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge -- I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless... this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal... this was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.

This was the moment, this was the time when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.

-- Barack Obama, clinching the Democratic Nomination in St Paul Minnesota

Almost two years ago, I stood literally behind then Senator Obama as he spoke these words. I believed them then, and I believe them now.

I am so grateful that my children and children across our remarkable country will grow up never confronting the horrible choice of economic destitution or getting healthcare for them or the loved ones.

Thank you Mr. President.

Time shifting photos the easy way

2010-01-01T16:03:00.005-08:00

This summer, we snapped about 500 photos during our move from Minnesota to San Diego. Unfortunately, the time setting in the camera we were using was 16 hours slow for some reason, meaning that the time data stamped into the EXIF tags of the photos were also off by 16 hours.

Faced with the daunting task of manually adjusting that many photos, I paid a visit to the google and found these awesome EXIF tools from Phil Harvey.

I was about to dust off the old perl skills to write a script to recurse through the image directory and adjust all the timestamps by 16 hours, when I saw that my new good buddy Phil had done it already(!)

Pop open a shell and enter:

exiftool "-DateTimeOriginal+=0:0:0 16:0:0" dirname

where dirname is the directory that contains all the photos with timestamps to be adjusted.

Tool had no issues recognizing Nikon raw files and doing the right thing. No fuss, no muss, no more excuse to not fix timestamps when you forget to adjust your camera's time after day light savings time (yes, we're still using a digital camera from 2000(!) that doesn't automatically adjust for these things)

If you do anything with large numbers of digital photos, ExifTool is a must have for your digital toolkit

Courage and Resolve

2009-06-14T12:54:00.008-07:00

This past week has been as nerve wracking for me as any since last November: What would happen in Iran?

Would the echo of the sweeping change that brought Obama to the Oval office find resonance in the mideast? If not, what would it mean for the transformation in process here in the US? Would we be destined for a conflict between the old and the new in the mideast?

As the energy poured into the streets of Iran, I had hope that 30 years after the revolution, and 56 years after revolution lost, my cousins were rising to their birthright as a proud and forward looking people.

News was (surprisingly) plentiful, but facts hard to come by. It soon became clear that the old school was playing by the old rules, and was ignorant of the new rules (who confiscates cameras when every cell phone has one?) As Andrew Sullivan said the Revolution is being Twittered.

As #iranelection rages across twitter and glimpses of scenes right out of Mad Max are uploaded to YouTube (and just as quickly removed by people terrified of being found out) and Bill Keller (!) himself is reporting from Iran, it is clear that we are at a breathtakingly pivotal moment for the region and the world: The Fourth Turning is struggling to be born in Iran. It is a time for Heroes.

To all my cousins: I am so very moved by and so very proud of your courage. I pray for you the resolve to see it through. Turnings are not without pain and sacrifice and risk. But now, 56 years later than it should have been, the New Day awaits you as well.

Why I Will Never Buy a Maxtor Product Ever Again

2008-12-26T08:00:00.001-08:00

Couple weeks ago, I took a chance and declared Gov. Blagojevich of Illinois my douchebag of the year. Teach me to jump the gun.

Maxtor Corporation stepped up and took the prize with product behavior so douchebag'ish that it should be criminal (seriously). For the Maxtor weenies that are reading this, neither I nor the companies I have any influence over will ever buy any of your products ever again. That is a solemn promise, and one I will keep.

Here is the story for the curious, and for those unlucky enough to have been stung by these motherf**kers and are stumbling here through Google.

A couple days ago, I was doing a final backup of our old PC file server so I could complete the migration to our Mac file server over Christmas break: 200Gb internal drive being cloned to a 300Gb external drive in a Maxtor One Touch USB case. All our personal files, taxes, photos, etc. (the usual), with a backup procedure I've used >100 times with no trouble.

About 3 hours into the procedure, my old fileserver PC decides to die. It doesn't post, no fans spin, nothing. Dead as a door knob. I suspect a dead power supply. Alas, I now have a bad back up drive, and no easy way to back up the internal drive.

No problem, I'll pull the internal drive out of the file server and put it in the external USB case, and use the external case to copy the files to the new file server (unfortunately, the 300Gb drive in the external Maxtor case now has an incomplete backup and is useless to me).

Couple screws, pop it out, pop it in, plug it in, and my Mac tells me I have an unformatted 128Gb drive(!) Did I run into a Mac'ism? Plug it in to my wife's Windows laptop and the same thing: "E: drive unformated", with a disk size of 128Gb. Oh shit!

Fire up some low level disk management and recovery apps I have, and it finds the 12Gb C: partition, and also my data partition, which is now ~60Gb smaller than it should be with gobs of corrupted files and directories. WTF?

A Google search on "Maxtor One Touch 128Gb?" turns up the answer (take a moment and contemplate how close to magic that would have seemed to someone even 15 years ago)

Turns out the douchebags (a term I VERY rarely use, but much deserved) at Maxtor had decided that if a non-Maxtor hard drive was put into one of their external cases, they would intentionally cripple it by setting the Host Protected Area (HPA) limit of the drive to 128Gb. This is a firmware change on the drive itself, that makes it look like a 128Gb drive to the outside world, whether it is in a Maxtor case or not. Any partitions beyond 128Gb are now corrupt, and that data inaccessible.

Basically, for fear their case would be used with a non-Maxtor drive, these assholes had intentionally crippled and corrupted my harddrive, making a tremendous amount of data unreachable and unrecoverable through normal means.

(Un)Fortunately, others on the internet had already run into this mind-numbingly stupid behavior and solutions were available.

I recovered the disk by:

* Downloading and burning a bootable ISO image with the miraculous HDAT2 program from:

http://www.hdat2.com/files/hdat2iso_4_53.zip

* Popping the now crippled 200Gb drive into an old PC case and booting up with the HDAT2 CD

* Following the instructions to quesion #6 in the HDAT2 FAQ (reproduced here):

Q6: Host Protected Area (HPA) vs. 28/48-bit LBA mode
A6: There is a problem of incompatibility on some hard drives (e.g. Seagate and/or in an external Maxtor One Touch) when you are using 48-bit command for removing Host Protected Area (HPA) created with 28-bit command.
48-bit command cannot remove HPA created with 28-bit command and vice-versa. Following solution is for disk supports 48-bit LBA mode only and if you have HPA greater than 127 GB.
Notice:

"Some vendor-specific external drive enclosures (Maxtor) are known to use HPA to limit the capacity of unknown replacement hard drives installed into the enclosure. When this occurs, the drive may appear to be limited in size (e.g. 128 GB). In this case, one must use software utilities that use READ NATIVE MAX ADDRESS and SET MAX ADDRESS to change the drive's reported size back to its native size."

Solution:

1. Power-on PC, boot and start HDAT2.
2. In 'SET MAX (HPA) Menu' select 'Set Max Address'. Change 'LBA mode' from 48 to 28-bit LBA mode and press 'S' key to set maximal address for 28-bit LBA mode (127 GB).
3. Power-off PC (Important !), power-on PC, boot and start HDAT2.
4. In 'SET MAX (HPA) Menu' select 'Set Max Address'. Leave the selected 48-bit 'LBA mode' (or change 'LBA mode' from 28 to 48-bit LBA mode) and then press 'S' key to set maximal address for 48-bit LBA mode.
5. After restart you should get the full (native) capacity of hard drive.

Now my hard drive again registers as a blessed 200Gb, and all the directory and file structures are sound (at least so far as I can tell).

I am doing a final clone to my external 300Gb drive, then I am taking a literal sledgehammer to the Maxtor case. If someone has the mailing address for these assholes (the home address of the CEO would be ideal), let me know and I'll mail the remains to them with a heart felt "F**K YOU!"

On a happier note, Lubomir Cabla (the author of the freeware(!) HDAT2) is a gentleman and a scholar of the first order. Lubomir my friend, I hope the $100 donation I sent you helps keep you a little warmer during the cold Czech winter. Thank you sir, you are a god send.

Earth Rising

2008-12-24T08:00:00.001-08:00

I've written already about the time loop that is connecting us to the pain and schisms of 1968, and how the time has come for us to choose to break free.

While much happened in 1968 that turned us upside down, that year ended with the crew of Apollo 8 circling the moon on Christmas Eve, and sharing an image that did more to change our relationship with our world than any other before or since. For a moment, we caught a brief glimpse of ourselves as God sees us, and felt the awe of knowing how much more was in front of us to be worthy of all around us.

As we break free into the New Day, let's celebrate the Earth Rising that we first saw 40 years ago today, and remember that special obligation people the world over felt towards each other on that day.

May the blessings of health and hope for a better tomorrow be with you this Christmas, and may the special joy of being part of something larger than yourself fill your soul in 2009.

Said the king to the people everywhere,
"Listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people, everywhere,
Listen to what I say!"

2008: Album(s) of the Year

2008-12-12T17:18:00.002-08:00

Like last year (and again much to my surprise), my album of the year is a treasure from the distant past. More on that later. First, to the niche winners.

Best Album That Channeled A Soul: Songs in A & E (Spiritualized)

I didn't know what to expect with this album. Enough people recommended it that I took a leap (as an aside: how many people get exposed to unexpected books and music because they need to get to the $25 free shipping threshold on Amazon?)

From the very first track, you're listening to karmic reincarnation of Led Zepplin and early Pink Floyd as it should have been.

Listening to Songs in A & E is like mainlining emotion at its most raw. This is slap you upside the head emotional intensity, with an honesty that is shocking.

Anyone who can channel this much of their soul in a recording deserves our attention and respect, and certainly deserves a listen.

Best Album That No One Knows Existed: Love Bits (Unicorn Dream Attack)

In October I was driving home from work listening to our local public radio station. On came a story about a local Minneapolis band that absolutely mesmerized me (link to audio of the piece at the top of the article in the link). Unicorn Dream Attack is a local musician who has interfaced a keyboard to a Nintendo Game Boy and plays through the music synth chip in the device (aka, 8-bit music).

Before you roll your eyes and close the tab, this is not just a gimic. Listening to these tracks evokes the same feeling of impending greatness as watching Reggie Bush play in college or looking at an Andy Warhol painting before he jumped the shark.

There are flashes of blow-you-away-can-he-possibly-be-doing-this-on-purpose-absolute-brilliance in these tracks that made me thankful that an album could still surprise and touch me in this way. Wow.

After listening to the radio piece, I could not get Pill0w F0rt out of my head. Night and day, my brain worked overtime to get wrapped around this tune.

Do me a favor and drop the $10 to buy this CD. There are a lot of misses, but the hints of brilliance are transcendent. This is a talent that should be encouraged and emboldened. I can't wait for the next album.

2008 Album of the Year: Naked Songs (Rickie Lee Jones)

My album of the year is a Rickie Lee Jones album from 1995 that I did not know existed until a couple weeks ago (thanks internets). Naked Songs is a WONDERFUL live recording of Rickie, playing solo with sparse guitar and piano.

20 years ago, I took great pleasure in disconnecting my right brain and soaring with Rickie with her marvelous studio albums. Those that did the same have probably stopped reading so they can buy this gem from Amazon.

On this album, Rickie proves herself to be one of the finest singers alive. With nothing but sparse guitar and piano to accompany herself, she soars higher than I would have thought possible. I am in awe at the texture and sublty of vocals on this album. An extraordinary talent in her studio recordings proved to be even more extraordinary live.

Naked Songs includes the authoritative versions of all her finest songs. From the breathtaking take of Horses opening the set to Young Blood like it was meant to be to a rendition of We Belong Together that made me believe that we actually were.

This is the type of recording that we all wish Van Morrison had captured when he was in his prime. If you had even a passing interest in Rickie Lee Jones back in the day, set your right brain free, close your eyes, and soar to places we all wish to be. Bravo Rickie.

New Home

2008-12-10T20:53:00.003-08:00

The Wolf has landed. Excited to be an honest man again.

For Maman

2008-11-10T19:05:00.003-08:00

When Sen. Obama's grandmother passed away the day before her grandson was elected President of the United States, his touching tribute to her was a reminder of how much we are indebted to others, and how much they sacrifice to give a better life to others. It reminded me of my own grandmother, whom we knew as Maman.

My mother's mother embodied pure love and pure devotion for her family. I can't imagine a second of her life that wasn't dedicated to those around her.

Through the cruelty of geography and geopolitical conflict, we rarely spoke with my extended family, and we only saw my grandmother three times in the past 30 years when she came bravely across the ocean to see us.

My mother was the eldest of seven children, I was the first grandchild, and my older daughter was the first great grandchild in the family. Although all were loved, we symbolized something much larger for my grandmother: we were the embodiment of hope for the next generation.

Four years ago, my grandmother was dying of cancer on the other side of the world. We were visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, and they were about to go to Iran to be with her.

I do not read or write Farsi, but my parents do. I wrote her the following letter as my thank you to her, which my parents delivered for me. Four months later she was gone.

As Thanksgiving approaches, it is good to not only remember those you are thankful for, but also to remember to let them know.

Maman,

I hope that this note finds you and the family well. My apologies that for all the education and I learning that I have been blessed with in my life, this "be savad" [illiterate person] is not able to write to you in my parents' tongue. I have imposed on my parents to graciously translate the note for you.

The family is all together this year in my parents home, with the added blessing of [my sister's] children crawling around, playing and laughing, and enjoying their time with their cousins. With 11 of us healthy and happy and enjoying each other so very much, it is a special blessing and a reminder of the many many things we are so grateful for.

For all that we are and all that we as a family have accomplished, not a day goes by where I don't remember and celebrate the incredible foundation that we have built our lives around.

That we have had the opportunity to do what we have done is amazing, but that opportunity would have meant nothing if we did not have the strength of spirit and character to make something of it. We may be standing tall, but it is only because we are standing on the shoulders of giants that have given so much to us. It is my hope that we will be able to repay our debt by helping our children reach even higher still.

As I think of the forces that influence my life, for me the Ataii family [my mother's family] represents what it means to be a warrior: strength, resolve, a commitment to justice, and integrity in doing the right thing. It also represents what it means to be a poet: joy, empathy, a sense of humor, a deep commitment to those in need of our protection, and an emotional connection to the people and world around us.

The combination of the warrior and the poet is remarkably unique and vital. The pieces together represent far more than the sum of their parts. Together, they create a light and aura that commands the attention and respect of those around us.

I would like you to know that the spirit of the warrior and poet is strong within our hearts, and not a day goes by where that spirit does not shine brightly and impact all that we do and all the people we do it with.

Even at this early age, I see the same dual fire burning in [my daughters]. The warrior and the poet is strong within them (potentially very strong). We will do our best to cultivate those fires as they find their own way through the world.

In this country, they say the eyes are the window to the soul. As we walk around town as a family, it is common for strangers to stop and stare in wonder at [our daughters'] beautiful eyes. Not only are their eyes beautiful, but so is the joy and humor and love of life and incredible depth that dances within them. Although the wind may have blown the seed far far from the tree, we tell everyone that our daughters have their great grandmother's eyes. We may not live in the same part of the world, but please know that you can see them through me, through the gorgi eyes I got from you [my grandmother was originally from Gorgistan province].

Please give our love, respect, and affection to the family. Although we look forward to fate and circumstance to allow us to be together again, not a day goes by that we are not together in spirit.

Reza
November 25, 2004

Benediction for Redemption

2008-11-05T18:29:00.007-08:00

The last couple days have been an amazing experience, and one that I will never forget. I feel privileged to have been part of this moment.

I've already shared my hope for a New Day, and my prayer for Redemption. Last night was a monumental moment in acheiving both. Rereading these posts today, they ring even more true.

As a closing thought on this election, below is the tweet I sent from the floor of the DFL election party in St. Paul, immediately after the networks declared Senator Obama to be President-Elect Obama:

El and Iz: I pray that we will be able to give you (and your generation) the legacy you deserve.

Electing Redemption (or, Requiem for the Culture War)

2008-10-31T19:27:00.008-07:00

For those on the fence about this election, there are some excellent fact-based endorsements that are well worth your time and consideration.

As election day approaches, I've been thinking less about whom to vote for (readers of this blog will already know that answer), and thinking much more about what this election actually means.

I've previously talked about how this election is less about ideology and policy, and more about endlessly refighting the disputes of the past vs aspiring to create a possible future.

I am excited beyond words that this election is more meaningful than throwing scat at the wall to decide whom to vote for.

I am also very aware of the true pain this election has rekindled in those that had so much of their hopes and dreams and soul ripped away from them in the 1960s.

As my mind has been wandering around the overarching themes and arcs of this campaign, I believe November 4 will be a collective opportunity to finally step out of the Star Trek'ish time loop we've been stuck in, forever linking us back to 1968.

As we decide whether to break the time loop and fork an alternative time stream, I can't help but ponder:

How would our world have been different if the Dream of social equality and social justice had not been gunned down on a Memphis hotel balcony?

What if the moral embodiment of hope and our obligation to each other had not been silenced in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel?

What if the children of the greatest generation hadn't been ripped into two Americas, forever at each other's throat?

What if they hadn't been lost to self indulgence, despair, and defining themselves by their anger/hatred of each other?

What if we hadn't doubled down in an unnecessary and unjust war just to make sure that those damn hippies didn't get their way?

What if we embraced our moral obligation to equality (civil rights, women's rights) rather than losing the message in the culture war of us vs them?

What if we were able to recognize sleaze and incompetence in our leadership and reject dirty tricks and smears, rather than trusting our leaders of having the best interests of the nation at heart?

What if we took our obligations to our environment and world more seriously, rather than any discussion of the environment becoming a cruel joke to denigrate those on the other side of the culture war?

Starting Tuesday, we have an opportunity to actually find out.

As we look around us, the echos of the 1960s are becoming tangible all around us: echos in music (Shins, King of Leon), echos in endless wars for reasons long ago forgotten, echos in TV and movies (Mad Men, Bond), and echos in language (socialist, communist, victory at all costs, drill baby drill). What has always been just below the surface is bubbling into plain view.

After 40 years wandering lost in the desert, we are on the cusp of finally exorcising the cancer of our nation's soul that took root 40 years ago. Now that we can see the beast, how will we confront it? Will we ignore it for yet another generation?

It is time to confront these echos, recognize them for what they are and the importance they once had, feel compassion for the generations lost to the pain and anger of the culture war, and move forward to what could have been (and should have been) 40 years ago.

A New Day is breaking just over the horizon. It is time to look up and face the sun. It is time for the forever war to end, a nation to heal, and the Dream to be redeemed.

Regardless of whom you vote for Tuesday, let us all prey that we will finally move out of the desert, and once again move into the promised land of the American Dream. It is time for redemption.

Real Straight Talk From the Boss

2008-10-06T19:38:00.004-07:00

This past weekend, Bruce Springsteen was in Philadelphia for a voter registration concert on behalf of Senator Obama. He delivered more straight talk in 5 minutes than I've seen from any politician during the entire presidential campaign.

Via Joan Walsh at Salon, the here is the must read text of his words, and a link to the concert (speech starts around 25:00). Hey Bruce, I want my country back too!

Hello Philly,

I am glad to be here today for this voter registration drive and for Barack Obama, the next President of the United States.

I've spent 35 years writing about America, its people, and the meaning of the American Promise. The Promise that was handed down to us, right here in this city from our founding fathers, with one instruction: Do your best to make these things real. Opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all of our citizens, the American idea, as a positive influence, around the world for a more just and peaceful existence. These are the things that give our lives hope, shape, and meaning. They are the ties that bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another.

I've spent most of my creative life measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality. For many Americans, who are today losing their jobs, their homes, seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no healthcare, or who have been abandoned in our inner cities. The distance between that promise and that reality has never been greater or more painful.

I believe Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his work. I believe he understands, in his heart, the cost of that distance, in blood and suffering, in the lives of everyday Americans. I believe as president, he would work to restore that promise to so many of our fellow citizens who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning. After the disastrous administration of the past 8 years, we need someone to lead us in an American reclamation project. In my job, I travel the world, and occasionally play big stadiums, just like Senator Obama. I've continued to find, wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down.

They will, however, be leaving office, dropping the national tragedies of Katrina, Iraq, and our financial crisis in our laps. Our sacred house of dreams has been abused, looted, and left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs care; it needs saving, it needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power or a quick buck. It needs strong arms, hearts, and minds. It needs someone with Senator Obama's understanding, temperateness, deliberativeness, maturity, compassion, toughness, and faith, to help us rebuild our house once again. But most importantly, it needs us. You and me. To build that house with the generosity that is at the heart of the American spirit. A house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens. That is where our future lies. We will rise or fall as a people by our ability to accomplish this task. Now I don't know about you, but I want that dream back, I want my America back, I want my country back.

So now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising

Sunday Afternoon with Hope

2008-10-05T18:18:00.007-07:00

This afternoon, we caught the matinee performance of the new musical Little House on the Prairie at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. A wonderful production, and one that is sure to hit Broadway in the next year or two.

Although the show has Melissa Gilbert as Ma Ingalls, it was about as far as could be from the old TV show. Fast moving, great songs, great cast, wonderful story arc as the Ingalls girls learn responsibility to themselves and each other in the harsh homestead days.

For those looking for a glimpse into why fly over country is what it is today, I can think of no better way to do so than to watch this production.

For the early settlers, risking everything they had (and everyone they loved) for a chance to make something their own. Overcoming hardships, many dreams were lost along the way.

However, these fiercely independent people never lost their hope for a better life for themselves and their children. They also knew that hope is manifested in active doing, not passive waiting. Those who risked all to come west were those who believed more in their hope for the future than their fear of the present. They succeeded far beyond what they would have ever imagined in their lifetimes.

A wonderful musical. Highly recommended.

The show was also the first our family had attended in the new Guthrie Theatre. For those who haven't visited the new facilities, they are a profound statement of our community commitment to bring compelling live performance experiences to audiences of all ages and sophistication.

Walking through the facility, one gets the sense that it also represents a generational commitment based on hope for what will be. As I walked through the complex with my daughters, I have no doubt that they and the other children there will someday walk through this same building with their grandchildren, sharing the magic that can only come from real people creating new worlds to share with a live audience. The building itself was the embodiment of the community's hope for the future over fear.

As we walked along the Endless Bridge, reaching for (but not quite reaching) the Mississippi River, I saw for the first time the new 35W bridge, recently opened after last year's devastating bridge collapse. A little over a year ago, I had been driving through downtown Minneapolis with my family within a mile or two of the bridge when it collapsed. When my parents first called, I thought they were joking. The pictures on the TV were a sight that I never thought I would see, and hope to never see again.

Now barely a year later, a new gleaming bridge was teaming with life on a Sunday afternoon. After years of neglect (and perhaps incompetence) and pointless tragedy, we had rebuilt and embraced a New Day. I can only hope that our nation will choose to do the same.

The choice between fear of the present and hope for the future is the story behind the story of all pivotal moments in our history. It is also the central crucible of our times. As a father, for me there only is one choice.

On this Sunday afternoon, I'm very glad that my daughters were able to enjoy Little House and see part of that story, and I'm grateful for a community that believes so much in itself to build something as enduring and extraordinary as the new Guthrie.

Alas, I am also saddened that the choice between fear and hope is becoming so stark with 30 days left before the election. As the political temperatures rise and the smears fly, that sadness is tempered by an excitement beyond words that our collective choice on November 4 will signal a definitive New Day.

I am so proud of our country today...

2008-08-28T16:52:00.006-07:00

When I was twelve, I became politically active for the first time.

Jimmy Carter was frozen in uncertainty, and Ronald Reagan was spouting what even my limited math skills could tell was was pure nonsense. I was deeply concerned for the financial security of the country, and heard in John Anderson a voice of pragmatic reason and truth, being delivered by a man of integrity and action. It was my privilege to campaign for Representative Anderson that year, even though I could not vote for him. It was just the right thing to do.

In subsequent years, I was energized by Jesse Jackson's message of social justice, not as an entitlement, but as a morale obligation we all share for one another. Paul Tsongas and Ross Perot again brought fiscal pragmatism and generational responsibility to the table. This year, Barack Obama has reminded us all about the power of the American Dream.

When John McCain was twelve, Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey of Minneapolis rose to speak at the 1948 democratic convention and started a miraculous transformation of the party from one had made a deal with the devil of Jim Crow to the party that has put Senator Obama on the brink of being the leader of the free world.

Mayor Humphrey rose in a moment of singular moral courage to speak to the human decency that should be in all of us. He rose to speak to the then minority party position on civil rights:

We are God-fearing men and women. We place our faith in the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God.

I do not believe that there can be any compromise of the guarantees of civil rights which I have mentioned.

In spite of my desire for unanimous agreement on the platform there are some matters which I think must be stated without qualification. There can be no hedging - no watering down.

There are those who say to you - we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.

There are those who say - this issue of civil rights is an infringement on states rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

Sunshine won out over darkness, beginning what would become a decades long struggle for the soul of the nation. A measure of the righteousness of Humphrey's cause was that it caused Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats to leave the party and run their own bigoted campaign, bringing their vile hatred into the full light of day.

60 years later, after so much pain and blood and humiliation and evil and shame and anger and despair and death, the sun is shining brightly in Denver today. It signals not just the end of one long night, but also gives us all hope for what we have yet to become.

I am so proud of our country today, and so grateful for the New Day.

The moment the tide turned...

2008-07-15T17:53:00.004-07:00

Years from now, when history is finally written about the fear-induced night that has been the past 7 years, I believe Obama's speech today on national security will be held up as the moment when rationality began to return to our national discourse, and purpose to our national character.

Even in the doldrums of summer, I recommend everyone watch and listen to this speech, and embrace the challenge of creating our future, vs squandering the legacy built of dreams and blood over generations in a moment of self-induced fear.

Video can be found here.

You know you're back in San Diego when...

2008-07-12T09:06:00.004-07:00

We've been back in San Diego for the past couple weeks on vacation. Alas, heading back to the land of 10 trillion mosquitos later today.

Always fun to come back to a place where you lived for so many years. Through the magic of twitter, was able to capture all sorts of impressions while out here. Here is the omnibus collected edition:

You know you're back in San Diego when...

...you're arguing whether to get 4 or 6 almond croissants from Champagne Bakery for breakfast

...you walk through botanical gardens with monster bamboo and trees bursting with peaches and figs

...the last mile of your 7 mile run is seriously uphill and seriously kicks your ass

...about 1/2 the tweets in a 25 mile radius are in Spanish

...your kids would rather go swimming than watch the Cubs/White Sox game with you

...you see more BMWs and Mercedes than SUVs and minivans

...you have the patio door wide open at sunset w/o a screen door (!) and you aren't being eaten alive

...it takes your kids almost 24 hours to realize you've shaven your beard off

...on the 1st day of the hands free law, a cop drives by holding his cell phone to his ear

...the average body mass index is 30 percent lower than MN

...the ridiculously fit co-ed at Starbucks is having 2 venti frappuccino's for lunch

...friends profusely apologize for how terrible the weather has been (mist blocking ocean views)

...your calves and achilles are sore as hell from running that damn 1 mile hill 4x/week

...someone at the next table asks grandma "What's new" & she flashes her breasts & stomach (literally)

...you can run to the top of Torrey Pines & back, & reward yourself with a Roberto's carne asada torta

...after 2 weeks of running that hill that seriously kicked your ass, you're now kicking its ass

...after 2 weeks you're sort of maybe thinking that you may be starting to get tired of Mexican food

...all the tourists at Legoland significantly raise the average BMI of the county

...you cruise down the 10 lane highway at a very mellow 80mph, just like everyone else

FROM THE ARCHIVES: 1987 U. of Illinois Engineering Honors Convocation

2008-06-07T17:04:00.005-07:00

With graduation season upon us, I was thinking back to my graduation from University of Illinois - Urbana in 1987.

For reasons lost to the ages, I was fortunate enough to be the top graduating senior in the college of engineering that year. As punishment, I was asked to give the student response at the College of Engineering Honor Awards Convocation.

All these years later, it's good to see that I was as contrarian, presumptuous, and (extra) long winded at the age of 20 as I am today, although I would like to think that I have become a bit more sophisticated about capital and economics since then (ouch).

I have mentioned a couple times in this blog that I have been waiting 20 years for us to begin the revitalization of America in earnest, doing what I could along the way. Although it was shocking at the time to have anyone question the impact of the Reagan Revolution (let alone a punk kid with a funny name and an Electrical Engineering degree), it was amazingly gratifying to have so many parents and students come up after my presentation to thank me for putting into words the discomfort they were feeling for the direction of the country at the time.

To all 2008 graduates, my exhortation to you (with apologies to Harry Chapin): When in doubt, build something! Providence smiles when you break the second law of thermodynamics.

College of Engineering Honor Awards Convocation

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Friday, April 24, 1987

Student Response by Ray Ghanbari

When Dean Wakeland informed me last week that I was supposed to give the student response this afternoon, he neglected to mention what I was supposed to be responding to. This "oversight" was probably for the best since I was going to talk about what I wanted to talk about anyway.

The issue I would like to address today can best be described as responsibility. We students who are here today have, for the most part, 16 years of formal preparation behind us. As a group, we are almost ready to make meaningful the extravagant investment in time and effort we have made and, perhaps more importantly, others have made on our behalf (parents, teachers, and associates).

The questions we need to ask ourselves is how can we best apply our abilities to their greatest benefit. I suggest that in order for the answer to this question to be meaningful in an way, it is critical for us to be aware of what is happening, out here, in the "real world".

Towards this end, I will start with a little bit of history and a little bit of economics, then move into particulars.

During the period from 1960-70, the gross national product (GNP), after being adjusted for inflation, rose an average of 3.8% per year. Indeed, these were prosperous times for America. U.S. industry was the best in the world and had little difficulty competing in the world market. The baby boomer generation, who grew up during the amazing period of industrial growth following World War II, was entering the job market with a great deal of zeal and idealism. Their standard of living was significantly better than that of the previous generation and prospects for continued growth looked excellent.

During the 1970s, real growth in the GNP slowed to only 2.8% per year. This drop didn't really seem to bother people all that much. In fact, for the most part, this slow down didn't really significantly affect their lifestyles. As a group, Americans just kept spending like they were getting the same real raises they received during the 1960s. In these times of high inflation, it just didn't make any sense to save money. The general feeling was, spend it before you lose it.

When income fell short of expectations, the difference was simply made up by borrowing. The thinking was that since an anticipated raise was just around the corner, there was no reason to slow down the quest for the American dream. Unfortunately, when that raise finally came, it wasn't even enough to keep up with the increased cost of living, let alone get ahead.

In 1980, a new administration entered the White House, and the Reagan Revolution showed us the way back to prosperity. Since then, inflation has been brought down to virtually nothing, interest rates are sane once more, and America is seemingly standing proud once again. Indeed, what can be seriously wrong with an economy when there are now seven different types of Coca Cola to choose from instead of one?

The unfortunate fact is that since 1980, real GNP growth has been 2.4% a year (roughly 40% less than that experienced during the 1960s and 15% less than the 1970s). More startling is the fact that average real wages in 1986 were at the same level as 1969, and have actually declined since 1972. Even with the increased number of two-income families, median household income was 8% higher in 1973 than in 1983. What that means is that today, two people must work to hope to maintain the standard of living one person could provide in times past.

Another indicator of the current economic slow down, which has been in the news quite a bit lately, is the trade deficit. Since 1981, America's trade balance in manufactured goods has gone from a surplus of $18 billion to a deficit of $151 billion in 1986. Not surprisingly, in 1986, U.S. consumption was $150 billion more than U.S. production. Studies suggest that currently, the ratio of personal debt to income is 30% above that normally expected for this stage of economic expansion. It is readily apparent that we, as a nation, are simply living beyond our means.

The most distressing feature of the current situation is the increasing amount of money which is owned to other nations. Even in the best scenario, U.S. debt to foreigners will probably be $750 billion by 1990. Unlike internal debts, which for the most part can be continuously juggled and shifted around, these external debts will have to be repaid eventually, primarily in goods. A service economy, which many envision for the U.S., simply will be unable to generate sufficient exports to generate a surplus in the trade balance. It is clear that the U.S. must rely on manufacturing to deal with this situation.

It is we, as engineers, who must have a primary role in the required revitalization of American industry.

It is we, as future innovators, entrepreneurs, and managers who must spearhead an effort to update manufacturing processes to make them more responsive to changing technology, technology which is being developed here, in the United States.

It is crucial that U.S. industry be able to take the basic science advances, in which the U.S. is the world leader, and incorporate them into new technology and new products. New flexible manufacturing methods need to be developed and implemented so that U.S. manufacturing will be able to respond quickly and decisively to new technology.

As Mr. Hallene mentioned earlier today, it is the development and implementation of this technology which holds the greatest promise for increased productivity and increased U.S. competitiveness.

It is we, as future politicians, administrators, and businessmen who must aid in a reevaluation of societal priorities. It seems to me that, except for a few important exceptions, our society tends to emphasize the short term and the consumable. Unfortunately, this is usually at the expense of things like factories and education, which require long-term commitments.

Currently, U.S. corporations invest less in capital equipment than any industrial country except Britain. Nevertheless, corporate debt is up, but not to pay for new factories and equipment, but to finance mergers, acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts.

There is no question that those who are being honored today will succeed technically. It is my sincere hope that we will also succeed at a higher level; a level which requires awareness of the "big picture."

I urge those here today to develop this awareness. As was mentioned this morning, each generation seems to have a dilemma which must be addressed and overcome. I suggest that the responsibility of our generation is to revitalize and restore the promise of the American Dream. After listening to the credentials of the Bronze Tablet recipients this morning, I wouldn't bet against us.

Thank you for your kind attention.

A New Day

2008-06-05T19:41:00.008-07:00

40 years ago tonight - mere months after the Dream was shattered in Memphis - Hope was gunned down in a hotel kitchen, losing an entire generation. Over the next decade, the shattered generation scurried back to their respective corners, wallowing in self indulgence, anger, narcissism, and fear of each other and the godless devil across the sea.

I was too young to see what was happening at the time, but the scars and the pain are still real all these years later. Those who cared the most and wanted the most for their country were the most devastated, and have had every cause to look for reasons not to get sucked in again. The bitter fear of disappointment and betrayal is still too stark to confront, and schisms with the other shattered generation factions have hardened beyond healing.

For a new generation, those that have come of age in a time of division and segmentation defined by their elders, who have only seen their leaders define America as a place where those who "look and think like us" deserve a fair share of static or shrinking American dream, who have had leadership defined by those who highlight what we should be afraid of and (more importantly) who is to blame for our fear, we have finally grown up enough to ask "Why?"

Is this intragenerational war without end what we wish for children or our country? Is the Atwaterian/Rovian/Pennian deconstruction of American into progressively smaller groups that can be more easily influenced and brought into conflict with each other the American we aspire to?

Front Row To History

There was a time when attributes like decency, integrity, authenticity, and even intelligence were things that we took for granted in our leaders. With regret and great sadness, we have learned this is no longer the case.

Paradoxically, the profound betrayal of these attributes by our current President has galvanized a nation to question how we got here, and demand a better way. The darkness before the dawn presages the coming light.

After the Iowa Caucuses, we saw the first glimmers of light on the horizon.

As I watched Senator Obama's acceptance speech with my 11 year old daughter, I saw in her eyes the power of words to raise us up. I also saw in her the joyous news that her generation will look at gender and race in a presidential candidate the same way mine looks at religion: something that was a big deal at one point for those older folks, but really doesn't make sense. Dr. King's dream was becoming real before my eyes.

After the South Carolina primary, the glimmer had grown into full light. It was my privilege to vote for Senator Obama Super Tuesday.

Tuesday night, Senator Obama came to Minnesota to declare himself the democratic nominee. A journey that started 400 years ago when the first slaves were brought to our shores, to 221 years after a nation founded on liberty for all men ignored the cancer growing in its soul, to a bloody civil war that excised the cancer but did not heal the soul, and most recently has been churning in a 150 year struggle for basic decency and dignity was finally approaching the end.

The journey's end was made all the more worthy for being focused not on those 400 years of injustices, but rather on reclaiming the American ideal that had been shattered into fragments 40 years before, and restoring the ideal of America for all. By finally fulfilling the promise of America for all Americans, a leader was able to emerge to help us reclaim the ideal of America for all Americans.

The historic import was not lost on my fellow Minnesotans. With 3 days notice, it all came together. Where 60 of us had volunteered to help with the event, 400+ showed up Tuesday. The line to get into the Xcel Center started to build 8 hours before the event in the drizzle, and snaked over 2 miles through downtown St. Paul. The stadium was filled to the rafters with almost 20,000 people, with another 13,000 people outside unable to get in.

Inside the stadium, I was struck by the remarkable joy of those rushing into the arena, and the true diversity of colors, shapes, ages, genders, orientations, and national origins.

I was fortunate to have a spot immediately behind the podium along the rope line. The noise and intensity was that of a rock concert. When the wonderful Will.I.Am "Yes We Can" video was playing on the jumbotron, it was a profound moment that reminded all of us how far we had come.

Obama's speech was respectful, intense, and the crowd shook the foundations of the arena. Afterwards, the Senator and his wife were very gracious as they walked the rope line and shook hands with the crowd.

A little to my left, an older African American woman had worked her way to the rope line. In those eyes I saw a hard won wisdom and a history beyond what I could possibly imagine. As long as I live, I will never forget the Senator and his wife coming off the stage, and Michelle hugging that woman with a loving embrace for the ages.

You Can Blow Out a Candle, But You Can't Blow Out a Fire

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have an exceedingly poor track record of voting for presidential candidates. I am excited that for the first time a candidate I am supporting is the presumptive nominee, and has a more than credible shot at the presidency.

That being said, whether Senator Obama becomes President Obama ultimately is not the real prize. The campaign of 2008 has rekindled passions and expectations for the America we want for ourselves and our children. After 40 years of schism, we are once again rising to our birthright of E Pluribus Unum.

"Change We Can Believe In" is nothing less than the rebirth of the American ideal: many peoples coming together to achieve something larger, and leave something better for those that follow.

Senator Obama may fail or fall short of that ideal, but reclaiming the ideal will not fail.

Fitness

2008-05-04T11:09:00.003-07:00

About three years ago, my insides literally tied themselves in a knot, putting me in the hospital for about a week and requiring surgery to untangle the knot in my intestines. Quite the wake up call (and the kind of pain I wouldn't wish on anyone). As recently as 100 years ago it would have been a death sentence (and a very silly way to go).

During the recovery period, I found myself remarkably weak. Lifting even small things was almost impossible. I was running fairly regularly at the time, so the lower body recovered quickly. My upper body took forever to come back.

Out of that experience, I made a commitment to try and keep a balanced fitness routine. I set a personal goal of being able to (at any given time) run a half marathon, do a couple chin ups, and bench press my own weight.

Since then, I've been doing basic weight work for the first time since college (and hating it).

Yesterday, ran our local half marathon in 1:51:00 (and hurting the whole way...never got that second wind). Was able to do 5 chin ups, but bench capped out at 150.

Unfortunately I've been capped at 150 for a while. Unless I can figure out how to dropped 30 something pounds, will need to figure out how to break through that plateau without more lifting than absolutely necessary.

Any advice that doesn't involve needles and fits into 30 reps ~3x per week?

Batting 0.000

2008-04-29T20:56:00.003-07:00

Several months ago, I came to the painful realization that I have never supported a presidential candidate that has either won their party's nomination or the presidency (yup, batting 0.000). Unfortunately, I came to this realization a week or so after declaring my support for Obama.

My "out of the mainstream" streak actually extends back to 1980, when at the age of 13, I first became politically active/engaged for John Anderson in the republican primary, and later the general election as an independent candidate (hey, he was the only one that was saying stuff that made sense). Jesse Jackson didn't do much better for me in 1984, and Paul Simon (the one with the bow tie) fell flat in 88. Tsongas in 92 still breaks my heart (and I still hold it against Clinton), and we all missed a hell of a fun ride when Perot wigged out in 92 and 96. McCain/Gore in 2000, swing and a miss. Edwards and then Kerry in 2004? No we can't.

To confront my embarrassment, I sent out a survey to an extraordinarily unscientific population of people (n=11, 9 responses) selected because they actually read and respond to emails I send them, asking them to share their presidential batting average. The numbers were quite interesting.

In aggregate, there had been 12 votes for an eventual winner, and 42 votes for an eventual loser (0.286 batting average...more than good enough for the Cards this year)

A third of respondents had a 0.000 batting average(!) demonstrating that latte drinking contrarian (lower case l) libertarians with anarchistic leanings tend to cluster together.

Only one respondent (11%) had a batting average that was better than what a monkey would score throwing scat at a wall with two same-sized photos of the candidates.

For some odd reason, I was thinking of these survey results as I watched Rev. Wright's National Press Club presentation last night.

It was the capper for a very interesting weekend for Rev. Wright. His appearance on Bill Moyer's Journal Friday was remarkably intelligent, balanced, and thought provoking. His NAACP diatribe was a remarkable (and embarrassing) journey through the fun house of race "science" and seemed intended to offer nothing more than fodder for the eventual YouTube remixes. Yesterday's National Press Club Q&A was a rage of narcissism that could have only been intended to provoke and piss off "the man".

After that "feeling dirty as you watch a train wreck" feeling had passed, it crystalized for me that the election this year is not so much about ideology or policy, but is truly about generational values and aspirations. There are those defined and driven by their struggles around Vietnam, Watergate, Jim Crow, 60s Civil Rights, and Communism, and those who know this stuff was important to the grown ups in their life, but who don't quite understand why we can't move on.

When all is said and done, the events of this past weekend will either be remembered as the trigger that continued my unbroken streak of picking unwinners, or as the moment that there was a clean generational break with the issues and history and struggles that defined the baby boom generation.

I remain hopeful for the later. It is long past time to build the world our kids will inherit, and not endlessly refight the battles that a previous generation fought as they built a world for themselves.

If the former, I look forward at tossing the proverbial scat at the wall to decide my vote in November.

Remembering "The Rant"

2008-04-29T08:54:00.002-07:00

Today is the 25th anniversary of The Rant. (NSFW if you listen to the MP3).

I was a junior in high school, and just getting into the Cubs. How could you not become a hardcore fan after hearing Lee Elia just go off on the fans?

T.S. Eliot - The Wasteland

2008-04-15T16:42:00.004-07:00

Tomorrow is national share a poem day. Since I'm on the road, getting my contribution out a day early.

My contribution is one of the finest poems to ever grace the english language: TS Eliot's "The Wasteland"

Text is below (and much worthy of contemplation) (courtesy of bartleby.com), and thanks to the intertubes, a reading of the poem by TS Eliot on YouTube.

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). The Waste Land. 1922.

The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie, 15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, 25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. 30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; 35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, 40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, 45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. 55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City, 60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. 65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! 75
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'

II. A GAME OF CHESS

THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out 80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion; 85
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended 90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, 95
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale 100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms 105
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. 110

'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'

I think we are in rats' alley 115
Where the dead men lost their bones.

'What is that noise?'
The wind under the door.
'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'
Nothing again nothing. 120
'Do
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
'Nothing?'
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes. 125
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It's so elegant
So intelligent 130
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
'What shall we ever do?'
The hot water at ten. 135
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself, 140
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, 145
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. 150
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling. 155
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME 165
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. 170
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. THE FIRE SERMON

THE river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. 175
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; 180
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept...
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear 185
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse 190
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year. 195
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter 200
They wash their feet in soda water
Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc'd. 205
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants 210
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back 215
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays, 225
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses, 235
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence; 240
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall 245
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows on final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit...

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover; 250
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, 255
And puts a record on the gramophone.

'This music crept by me upon the waters'
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, 260
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. 265

The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails 270
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach 275
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala

Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars 280
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores 285
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia 290
Wallala leialala

'Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.' 295
'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised "a new start".
I made no comment. What should I resent?'
'On Margate Sands. 300
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.' 305
la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest 310

burning

IV. DEATH BY WATER

PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea 315
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying 325
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience 330

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink 335
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit 340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water 345
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring 350
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock 355
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together 360
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you? 365

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only 370
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London 375
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings 380
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains 385
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one. 390
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves 395
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
D A 400
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed 405
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
D A 410
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours 415
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
D A
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded 420
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order? 425

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins 430
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Shantih shantih shantih

40 Years in the Desert

2008-04-03T06:18:00.008-07:00

40 years ago today, Martin Luther King stepped into a Memphis church and delivered his "I Have Been to the Mountain Top" speech to striking sanitation workers.

As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" — I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.
[...]
But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.
[...]
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Of course, those closing words were prophetic. The next day Dr. King - husband, father of four, courage incarnate - was assassinated outside a Memphis hotel room.

After 40 years of wandering, is the promised land within our grasp? I am more hopeful than I have ever been that it is there for all of us to see.

UPDATE: Clarence Page reflects on the promised land. Mary Lyon asks whether we have found our Joshua.

UPDATE: teacherken has a wonderful reflection on Dr. King's Mountaintop speech...must reading

This year, a century ends

2008-03-30T18:28:00.006-07:00

Although the still ice covered lake outside the window would indicate otherwise (to say nothing of the 6-8 inches of snow predicted for today), today is the season opener for baseball. It is also the beginning of the hundred year anniversary year of the last time my beloved Cubs won it all.

I welcome this unofficial first day of summer wearing my faded and torn Cubs cap from the soul shattering 1984 campaign. In this summer of Hope, I Believe.

Go Cubs!

We The People...

2008-03-18T09:38:00.008-07:00

For the second time in as many months, Barack Obama has left me feeling humbled, and awed at his ability to take the higher path.

The first was during his remarkable victory speech after the South Carolina primary. After a week of the most distasteful pandering and race baiting, the man stepped forward riding an enormous victory and a ground swell of "not this time". I (and I'm sure many others) were watching with a sense of rightousness, glad that those that had behaved so poorly had been rejected so soundly. I was waiting for a firey rebuke of the race baiting tactics and a triumphant victory speech.

Sen. Obama showed himself the better man. In what was the third of a series of speeches that will change this country and be remembered and studied for generations, he moved beyond the passions of the now, and urged us to embrace where we are as the starting point for what we must become:

We are up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics; this is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again.

And what we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon. A politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us. The assumption that young people are apathetic. The assumption that Republicans won't cross over. The assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor, and that the poor don't vote. The assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate; whites can't support the African-American candidate; blacks and Latinos can't come together.

But we are here tonight to say that this is not the America we believe in. I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina. I saw crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children. I saw shuttered mills and homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from all walks of life, and men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. I saw what America is, and I believe in what this country can be.
[...]
The choice in this election is not between regions or religions or genders. It's not about rich versus poor; young versus old; and it is not about black versus white.

It's about the past versus the future.

It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation - a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.
[...]
When I hear that we'll never overcome the racial divide in our politics, I think about that Republican woman who used to work for Strom Thurmond, who's now devoted to educating inner-city children and who went out onto the streets of South Carolina and knocked on doors for this campaign. Don't tell me we can't change.

Yes we can change.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can seize our future.

And as we leave this state with a new wind at our backs, and take this journey across the country we love with the message we've carried from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire; from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast; the same message we had when we were up and when we were down - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people in three simple words:

Yes. We. Can.

This morning, as he took to the podium to address the concerns raised by his association with Rev. Wright, Sen. Obama humbled me again. The narrative had already been written: reject Rev. Wright and embrace the "mainstream", or stand firm with his pastor and become the latest in a long stream of "black" candidates. Rather than take the simple path, Sen. Obama seized the moment and with nuance and intelligence and honesty that shines a searing light on the absence of these traits in modern politics, urged us all to embrace where we are, as a starting point for what we must become. The speech is a remarkable one, and should be read or viewed in its entirety. The issues raised should also be discussed and debated by all those that are committed to a better America. Some excerpts:

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
"A More Perfect Union"
Constitution Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
[...]
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
[...]
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
[...]
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
[...]
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
[...]
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
[...]
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
[...]
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
[...]
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
[...]
This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

I am again humbled by the courage and leadership example of this man. Better to lose the presidency standing tall for the future you believe in, than to gain the presidency by embracing the present you seek to change. He chose not to speak to the sound bite narrative and the least common denominator. Rather, he chose to take on the larger issue, the harder issue, the infinitely more nuanced and subtle issue and ultimately important issue. Sen. Obama's speech today was a profound example of political courage, and an extraordinary declaration of faith in our ability as We The People to move forward together towards that More Perfect Union.

I am here because of Ashley, and also for El and Iz, Alex and Emily, Ethan and Maddie, Jessica and Garrett, and countless others. I pray that our courage is worthy of their hope and possibilities.

UPDATE:

John Nichols at The Nation offers a wonderful analysis of the speech.

James Carney at Time crystalizes the audacity of choice that Obama presented today.

Joseph Palermo and Stacy Parker Aab write wonderfully about the courage and truth of the speech today.

5 years in, a time for penance

2008-03-13T20:45:00.005-07:00

March 19 will be the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. With nearly 4,000 American soldiers dead, many more damaged and wounded in terrible and subtle ways, families and communities devastated by endless combat tours, and countless hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's displaced, devastated, and killed, it is a moment that requires thoughtful reflection on our responsibilities and accountabilities.

Five years ago, in the run up to the war, I shared the following with some mailing lists I am on (preblog days):

Echoes and Focus

A timely and thought provoking piece from a voice that earned a right to be heard:

http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/voice_prophet

In my opinion, Iraq II may be the right war for the wrong reasons. By being for the wrong reasons, it makes it the wrong war (the end can never justify the means).

The US created Saddam in the name of practicality, to help manage the direct consequences of another monster that was created in the name of practicality (the Shah). It falls to us to clean up the mess we created, not in the name of the UN or homeland security, but because of our responsibility to the American ideal.

As a nation, we should address that responsibility directly, and not mask the discussion in wranglings over UN resolutions and WMD posturing. This is a problem we created, and we need to fix it, the French be damned.

The other side of the war on terror understands that their war is with the American ideal, not America the place. It is we that are blind to where the real battle is being fought.

America the place will survive, even if we suffer horrific losses. The great legacy, burden, and responsibility of the nation is the ideals it represents. The smear of hypocrisy is the great enemy, and I fear we're sinking ever deeper into that hole for the sake of practicality (TIA, Pakistan, Venezuela, UN "debates", Saudi Arabia, Palestine/Israel, China, etc.)

Ray

When the war started, we were visiting my parents home in Washington DC. Like many Americans, I was riveted to the television in those first days of the war. My profound dread and fear for our soldiers were replaced by the giddy joy of watching Baghdad fall with minimal loss of life. There were tears flowing down my face as the brave soldiers draped the American flag on the statue of Saddam. As I went on my run that day (down Democracy Blvd of all places), I was bursting with pride that my country had so expertly removed a tyrant and evil man, and had begun to atone for the evil of having put him in place to begin with.

Shortly afterwards, a letter to the editor in the Washington Post lambasted the soldier who draped that flag on that statue. I was moved to write the following to the editor of the Washington Post:

I am writing in response to Joe Dobrow's comments on April 11 that the marine who draped the flag over the statue of Saddam Hussein "displayed the insensitive behavior for which Americans are known around the world."

Mr. Dubrow and others should remember that for our military, their families, and many Americans, our flag is not a symbol of jingoism, political affiliation, or national borders. Regardless of how it may appear to others, the Stars and Strips represents the freedoms that members of our volunteer military have committed their lives to defend, even in distant places for other peoples.

When that brave Marine raised the flag, it was not to chants of "U-S-A" in some perverse ESPN moment. Rather, the flag was raised in honor and memory to those who fought and fell at Okinawa, Normandy Beach, Berlin, Pyongyang, Basra, Baghdad, and countless other far off places so that we and others may enjoy the blessings of liberty.

While we may have honest disagreements about our nation's policies and the long term implications of the war, we as a nation should never be ashamed or reproachful when those who bravely and honorably fight and die for the freedoms we all enjoy proudly raise the Stars and Stripes. They, their families, and what our flag represents deserve better.

Ray Ghanbari

Five years in, I am grateful that we have not turned on members of our military. However, it is clear that we are engaged in an unjust war for unjust reasons. It was the right thing to remove Saddam. We had created a monster, it was our obligation to remove him. Our distorted rationale going in (and on-going distortions to stay in) have corrupted the moral basis for the war, and have hurt our country in ways that will decades for us to recognize and reconcile. Until we acknowledge and accept that we have not been in the right and that we have caused tremendous pain and death to countless innocents, we will be unable to to gain the redemption that will truly save what we are fighting for.

Several weeks ago, I was struck dumb by a remarkably vivid call for repentance and salvation by the Rev. Jim Wallis. His words are worthy of study and contemplation by all Americans, regardless of religious persuasion. His call for repentance is of profound importance to us all. In this season of repentance and rebirth, I wish all of us the courage to confront our past, so we can embrace our future together.

A Lenten Call to Repentance (by Jim Wallis)

March 19 will be the fifth anniversary of the war with Iraq. In this season of Lent, we are called to lament and repent for an ongoing war that is being waged by our country, financed by our taxes, and fought by our brothers and sisters. After five years, we all lament the suffering and violence in Iraq. We mourn the nearly 4,000 Americans who have lost their lives, the tens of thousands wounded in body and mind, and the unknown hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.

Recent U.S. claims of modest security gains in certain sectors of Iraq do not justify extending the U.S occupation - especially when five years of occupation has not produced the political reconciliation necessary for real security and stability. The fragile security improvements are not sustainable without a political solution, which is simply not forthcoming. And without a clear path to political progress, we will simply see more of the same failed strategy and a scenario of American occupation in the midst of bloody sectarian warfare with absolutely no end in sight—and with a real prospect of compounding the tragedy by attacking Iran as well.

On this anniversary, we should all repent for America's actions. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said about the war in Vietnam: "How can I pray when I have on my conscience the awareness that I am co-responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam? In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible." It is a good lesson for those of us who oppose the war – it is still funded by our tax dollars and supported by our elected leaders. That is a responsibility for which we all must repent.

But repentance means more than just being sorry. It means both admitting that the course we have been on is wrong and committing to begin walking in a new direction. Repentance has to do with transformation, and that's exactly what the American church needs to break out of its conformity to the American government's foreign policy of fear and war. We must pursue our future foreign policy in ways that are consistent with moral principles, wise political judgments, and international law - rejecting unilateral preemptive wars for multilateral cooperation. We need a new definition of our national security. There is a better way. The global church feels it, and the world is hungry for it.

Given how important the issues of Iraq, Iran, and U.S. foreign policy will be in the 2008 elections, there is no better time than now for U.S. churches to offer words and acts of repentance for their misguided and misleading support for America's mistakes. It's finally time for the American churches to find their voice for Jesus' way of peacemaking and to demonstrate—in matters of war, peace, and the critical area of conflict resolution—just who we belong to.

For the next four weeks, God's Politics will be featuring posts from a variety of voices on Iraq. We'll hear from Iraqis, U.S. veterans and parents, Christians from other countries, pastors, and peacemakers - all reflecting on the cost of the war. Together, we can dedicate ourselves to a world where war is not the answer.

For those so inclined, Rev. Wallis has an on-line affirmation for those looking to publicly embrace a new path.

A New Day in Texas

2008-02-23T07:03:00.004-08:00

Via the field, a remarkable video showing the Prairie View A&M students in Texas shutting down a highway to march seven miles to the nearest polling station to vote.

You owe it to yourself to watch this one, and share far and wide.

Texas Early Voting Wave as Reaction to Systemic Disenfranchisement

Texas Republicans have worked overtime to make it harder for key Democratic voting groups to vote and be represented fairly. The redistricting games they’ve played are infamous. And for the Prairie View A&M University precincts, they put the early-polling place more than seven miles from the school.
So what did the students in this video do? They shut down the highway as they marched seven miles to cast their votes on the first day of early voting.

A Moment of Conscience

2008-02-13T16:32:00.003-08:00

Today on NPR, I heard an amazing and brave declaration of principle, that was yet another sign that a new day is coming.

Mark McKinnon is the chief media advisor in the John McCain campaign. He was one of the very few staffers that stuck it through with McCain when he had his melt down last summer. He was also the media and advertising director of the 2000 George Bush campaign that systematically and shamelessly destroyed McCain, and part of the 2004 Bush team that went after Kerry.

The moment of courage (and honesty) in the interview was when Mr McKinnon explained why, when he signed on to the McCain campaign, he did so with the caveat that he would resign from the campaign if Obama were to become the nominee of the Democratic party. His words represent a remarkable return to decency:

"I would not work in the general election if Obama were the opponent on the democratic side.

"I will be supporting 100% John McCain...I would be supporting (him) from the sidelines.

"I met Barack Obama, I read his book, I like him a great deal, I disagree with him on very fundamental issues...I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama. It would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign."

When a hard nosed pro like McKinnon decides to sit out a presidential campaign rather than be party to dismantling Obama (and by proxy, what he represents), I am reminded of the freedom marches of the 60s. Sometimes all it takes is a clear voice to remind good people that they have acquired some bad habits.

Thank you Mr McKinnon for your courage and example.

The End of an Era

2008-02-13T08:43:00.004-08:00

In watching the election returns for the Potomac Primary last night, I was struck by two things.

First, Obama absolutely SPANKED Clinton in the VA primaries. In looking at the CNN exit polling data Obama simply dominated across all groups. At this point, any niche electability issues or denial of being the front runner are gone.

The MSNBC politico-geek squad have done some great analysis on the delegate situation. Unless Clinton pulls a scorched earth strategy, the VA primary is the first salvo in a national campaign for Obama. Regardless, game over for the Clinton era.

Second, when Senator Clinton was giving her post primary speech in Texas, I was struck at how truly sad she was. Unlike some arguably contrived moments during this campaign, it was clear that she had seen the exit polls and done the math and knew it was over.

For a remarkable woman who has lived worked all her life for this moment, and fought and compromised and made the deals with the devil to get where she is, what a bitter and heart breaking moment. I shared her sadness for the cruel cards fate had dealt her. Against any other candidate from the past 20 years, she would have fulfilled her life purpose and become president.

As sad as I am for Senator Clinton, I am hopeful that the end of the Clinton era and the end of the Bush era will allow Americans of all political stripes to bring closure to the past 20 years of hate filled "anybody but the other guy" politics.

The Gamma Curve of Politics

2008-02-09T14:21:00.001-08:00

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of Neil Stephenson. Aside from absolutely wonderful writing and imagery, he is able to see and communicate broad trends and forces better than almost any other writer I've read.

A recent post by Cory Doctorow reminded me that I had not read one of his earliest books from 1994, Interface (co-authored with his uncle, and published under the pseudonym Stephen Bury).

Interface is the story of how a cabal known as the Network works to buy the presidency by hacking the brain of a popular politican that has had a stroke.

As with all Stephenson books, there are many many moments of sheer genius, and given that it was written in 1994, remarkable (and uncomfortable) prescience.

An example is the exchange early in the book between Cy Ogle, a political media consultant, and Aaron Green, an engineer that has invented an "emotional detector" that can monitor the emotional response of the person that is wearing it.

"...Have you ever been on TV, Aaron?"

"Just incidentally."

"How did you think you looked?"

"Not very good. Actually, I was kind of shocked by how strange I looked."

"Your eyes looked as if they were bulging out of your head, did they not?

"Exactly, how did you know?"

"The gamma curve of a video camera determines its response to light," Cy Ogle said. "If the curves were straigh, then dim things would look dim and bright things bright, just as they do in reality, and as they do, more or less, on any decent film stock. But because the gamma curve is not a straight line, dim things tend to look muddy and black, while bright things tend to glare and overload, and the only things that look halfway proper are in the middle. [...] the whites of your eyes are intensely bright. If you knew what I know, you would keep them fixed straight ahead in their sockets when you were on television, exposing as little of the white as possible. But because you are not versed in this subject, you swivel your eyes around as you look at different things, and when you do, the white part predominates and it jumps out of the screen because of the gamma curve; your eyes look like bulging white globes set in a muddy dark background."

"Is this the type of thing you teach to politicians?"

"Just a sample," Ogle said.

"Gee, it's really a shame that --"

"That our political system revolves around such trivial matters. Aaron, please do not waste my time and yours by voicing the obvious."

"Sorry."

"That's how it is, and how it will be until high-definition television becomes the norm."

"Then what will happen?"

"All the politicians currently in power will be voted out of office and we will have a completely new power structure. Because high-definition television has a flat gamma curve an higher resolution, and people who look good on today's television look bad on HDTV and voters will respond accordingly. Their oversized pores will be visible, the red veins in their noses from drinking too much, the artificiality of their TV-friendly hairdos will make them all look, on HDTV, like country-and-western singers. A new generation of politicians will take over and they will all look like movie stars, because HDTV will be a great deal like film, and movie stars know how to look good on film."

Here we are 14 years later, and the gamma curve of politics is starting to straighten in the HDTV age. A highly recommended (and quick) read during this election season.

"We Are The People We Have Been Waiting For"

2008-02-07T06:10:00.001-08:00

Super Tuesday night, I participated in the Minnesota caucuses at a local middle school. The scene was breathtaking. Cars were lined up for blocks. Old and young were walking up and down the snowy and icy roads, bundled against the Minnesota winter.

I was forced to park ~1/2 mile away. As I walked towards the school, I passed excited college students texting their friends, elderly shuffling as best they could, and parents with their children. Given the importance of the evening, I was immensely proud of my neighbors, and caught up in the sense that the long night may in fact be coming to an end.

All through the school, neighbors were packed into classrooms and hallways, talking about issues and candidates. The combination of engaged people, political signs, and children's drawings were a powerful reminder of why I was there.

As I moved through the line to receive my ballot, I was shocked to be handed a 2x3" piece of plain paper with ripped edges, and asked to write my preference for President and put it in an envelope. Once I realized that they must have run out of printed ballots 30 minutes into the caucus, I was overcome with the emotion of knowing that something much larger had begun.

"We The People of the United States of America, In Order to Form a More Perfect Union..."

It was my privilege to write the name "Barack Obama" on that piece of paper.

Many others have written much better than I about their rationale for supporting Senator Obama. In particular, the author Michael Chabon makes the emotional case for the intellectual issues and noted law professor Lawrence Lessig makes a very strong intellectual case for the emotional issues. Both are well worth your time. Their analysis has both beauty and integrity.

In my case, I have a commitment to (and belief in) the American Dream (or more precisely, the Dream that is America) that is so profound, that it is difficult for me to talk of it without getting choked up.

Not the dream of a chicken in every pot, nor the dream of two cars in the driveway.

Rather the Dream of many peoples coming together to achieve something larger, and leave something better for those that follow. This is the true soul of America, and embodied in our Nation's Motto: E Pluribus Unum — Out of Many One.

We may celebrate the Declaration of Independence, but our true character and what we should aspire to live by is best captured in the preamble to our Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We the People does not refer to the 51% of the 64% who vote that agree with us, but it refers to all that we are and all that we will be. Not Red States or Blue States, but the United States. Not the welfare of those that vote for us or give us donations, but the general Welfare. Not a southern strategy or swift boating a military hero, but to form a more perfect Union.

The past 20 years have been a long dark night for those of us that believe in We the People. The lessons and successes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove (shamefully applied by both parties) have put our nation on a path to Balkanization, and manipulated the American Dream into a micro-targeted nightmare. More frighteningly, over the past decade the tactics of division have moved beyond partisan politics to an Orwellian exploitation of fear, and set the last great superpower on a path that could easily spiral to neo-facism.

While we face many challenges and dangers in this world, I believe the greatest threat to what we are is to forget who we are. When we fracture ourselves and "win" by causing someone else to "lose", we spiral ever deeper into the zero-sum night.

We stepped back from the same precipice in the 1890s (greed) and 1950s (fear). Each time, the moment was right to elevate a leader and a voice that rejected the politics of division and the policy of the ends justify the means, and reminded us that we are at our best when we grow the pie, not when we fight over the scraps; that our manifest destiny is born of our shared values and dreams, not conflicting fears and greed.

I have been waiting for that leader and that voice for the past 20 years. While I have done my best to live the example of the greater good — of people coming together to accomplish more than they thought possible — I had nearly lost hope.

Although I still suffer from what Chabon called the "pitiable...fear of disappointment", I believe that leader is Barack Obama.

Even if he falls, or falls short of the ideals he has set forth, there is a glow on the horizon, waking those who believe more in the Dream than they fear the darkness. As that glow grows into full light, we are indeed the people we have been waiting for.

As Seneator Obama said Tuesday night (emphasis mine):

You see, the challenges we face will not be solved with one meeting in one night. It will not be resolved on even a Super Duper Tuesday. Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have so little, who've been told that they cannot have what they dream, that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes, they can.

We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubt that tells him he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him. Yes, he can.

We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt, that she cannot somehow claim the life that was swept away in a terrible storm. Yes, she can.

We are the hope of the future, the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided, that we cannot come together, that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

We know that we have seen something happen over the last several weeks, over the past several months. We know that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored — that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation — repair this world, make this time different than all the rest. Yes, we can.

Let's go to work.

Begun, the Bandwidth Wars Has

2008-01-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

When pseudo watching Steve Jobs' MacWorld keynote yesterday, I was struck by the impending clash of business models in digital content distribution. With studios embracing the long revenue tail by moving from theatrical distribution and broadcast to DVD/Blu Ray as their primary revenue generators, Apple and (presumably) Microsoft and others looking to replicate the iTunes model by bringing video and game content into their own digital "networks", it is a great time to be a consumer (unless you purchased an HD-DVD player, but that is an other post).

For all the geopolitical maneuverings, what blew me away yesterday was when Jobs announced that they would be renting DVD-quality and HD movies on iTunes, streaming over the network to the little Apple TV boxes. My immediate reaction was "Damn, it sucks to be Comcast"

When Apple charges $5 for that HD movie rental, they are imposing a massive load on the last mile internet link to that little box under your fancy TV. I can't imagine an HD movie with 5.1 sound being less than a 5Gb download, at least while maintaining any level of quality. That is a HUGE download for a single view movie rental.

Not only does Comcast (and other broadband providers) have to support 1/2 the distribution burden, they get no rev share from that $5 and potentially lose revenue in their premium pay per view or on demand services.

In the clash between IP creators and owners, net neutrality, digitization, portability between multiple devices (phone, TV, computer, iPod), and limited/aging physical infrastructure, something will break and something will give. When that happens, look for folks like Google to step into the breach. This one will be fun to watch, esp. as all the *ahem* alternative distribution and sharing folks exploiting content and infrastructure at the edges.

MSB - The Rise of the Main Stream Blogger

2008-01-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

One of the welcome trends this election cycle is that blogging has become sufficiently mainstream that the pros are leveraging the new publishing medium to its fullest. For example, compare the cogent, well written character of an excerpt from Byron York's post today to the shrill shrieking that was the norm in 2004:

McCain and Romney: The Warrior and the To-Do List
The candidates make their last pitch in New Hampshire.

By Byron York

Manchester, New Hampshire — You want to see the fundamental differences between John McCain and Mitt Romney? Look at how they chose to end their campaigns here in New Hampshire. Crafting his final argument, Romney, the technocrat, came up with an itemized to-do list for his administration. McCain, the warrior, promised never to surrender in the war on terror and to pursue America’s enemies to the gates of hell. But even as they revealed their different selves, both men seemed somewhat rattled by the last hours of the campaign — not just exhausted, not just nervous, but intensely aware that soon they could be fully back in the race for the Republican nomination, or nearly out of it.

Compared to the hacks that ruled the roost in the last election cycle (as someone famously said, the trouble with the global village is the global village idiot), it is wonderful to see that lines between traditional print and broadcast and internet publishing have been blurred.

Peter Kafka today highlighted the same when he noted the lack of reaction to Bill Gates sitting down with an Engadget blogger at CES.

Hope

2008-01-05T17:01:00.001-08:00

For those that did not stay up Thursday night, you owe it to yourself to watch and read what is sure to become one of the more important political speeches of our era.

After nearly a decade huddling in fear in the depths of an Orwellian night, it moves me to tears to hear someone speak so eloquently about hope. I have not been so moved since Jesse Jackson's remarkable speech at the Democratic Convention in 1984.

Tonight I watched Obama's speech with my daughter. She is currently studying the Emancipation Proclamation, and I can think of no better bookend to those great words.

Transcript of Thursday's speech below for posterity

Transcript of Barack Obama's Iowa victory speech

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:48 AM EST, January 4, 2008

DES MOINES, Iowa

This a transcript of Senator Barack Obama's victory speech to his supporters in Des Moines after the Iowa Caucuses, as provided by Congressional Quarterly via The Associated Press.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, Iowa.

You know, they said this day would never come.

They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.

But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.

You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008.

In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.

You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington.

To end the political strategy that's been all about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states.

Because that's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll finally meet the challenges that we face as a nation.

We are choosing hope over fear.

We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.

You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they don't own this government -- we do. And we are here to take it back.

The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face, who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know.

And in New Hampshire, if you give me the same chance that Iowa did tonight, I will be that president for America.

I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single American, the same way I expanded health care in Illinois, by...

... by bringing Democrats and Republicans together to get the job done. I'll be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working Americans who deserve it.

I'll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all.

And I'll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home...

... who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century.

Common threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.

Tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of America because of what you did here in Iowa.

And so I'd especially like to thank the organizers and the precinct captains, the volunteers and the staff who made this all possible.

And while I'm at it on thank yous, I think it makes sense for me to thank the love of my life, the rock of the Obama family, the closer on the campaign trail.

Give it up for Michelle Obama.

I know you didn't do this for me. You did this -- you did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

I know this. I know this because while I may be standing here tonight, I'll never forget that my journey began on the streets of Chicago doing what so many of you have done for this campaign and all the campaigns here in Iowa, organizing and working and fighting to make people's lives just a little bit better.

I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay and a lot of sacrifice. There are days of disappointment. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are nights like this; a night that, years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children -- when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always said was inevitable.

This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.

This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment.

Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path.

It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.

Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq. Who still goes to bed each night praying for his safe return.

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

That is what we started here in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond.

The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, calloused hand by calloused hand, that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again.

Thank you, Iowa.

A great day

2008-01-03T20:07:00.001-08:00

I am not ready (yet) to get behind any of the presidential candidates, but I am absolutely bursting with pride as an American that an African-American with a name like Barrack Obama has decidedly won the Iowa caucuses.

For my 11 year old daughter, who is following a presidential campaign for the first time, it is a great day when the very short list of those who will become the leader of the free world includes a woman and a black man. My sincere hope is that she will grow up wondering how it could have ever been different, and never accepting anything different.

Regardless of who ultimately becomes president, America has just become a better place, and our future a better future. After the long night, it is indeed morning in America again.

Happy Birthday

2007-12-15T14:39:00.000-08:00

Today's Writer's Almanac reminds us that today is the 216th anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights. With the social pendulum having swung as far as it has, it is worthwhile to reread the Bill of Rights and remember there are values that define us a nation that transcend fear.

It was on this day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States, thanks in part to a man who hasn't gotten a lot of credit, George Mason. He was a lifelong friend of George Washington's who wasn't interested in politics, but when Washington was named Commander of the Continental Army, George Mason reluctantly took over his friend's seat on the Virginia legislature. And then Mason was assigned by chance to the committee to write the new state constitution.

Mason had read the philosopher John Locke, and he liked Locke's idea that all people are born with certain rights, and that government's purpose should be to protect those rights. George Mason believed that the best way to protect those rights would be to list them in the constitution itself. And so he put together Virginia's "Declaration of Rights," the first government document in history that specified the absolute rights of individuals. Mason's ideas about rights and freedom influenced a 25-year-old legislator named James Madison, who passed them along to his friend Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson would go on to use Mason's ideas in his own draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Mason was asked to participate in the Constitutional Convention after the war, but he disagreed with the other delegates on numerous issues, especially slavery, which he thought should be outlawed in the new constitution. He fought for the inclusion of a list of rights, like the "Declaration of Rights" in the Virginia Constitution, but his idea for a bill of rights failed by a wide margin.

And so, when it came time to sign to the new U.S. Constitution, George Mason was one of the only men there who refused. He said, "I would sooner chop off [my] right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands." His decision ruined his friendship with George Washington. The two men never called on each other again. But he hoped that his protest would encourage an eventual passage of a bill of rights, and it did. His former protege, James Madison, introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of Congress in 1789, and Madison used Virginia's Declaration of Rights as the model.

Even with the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution didn't provide full citizenship to blacks or women, among others, and it has had to be amended again and again over the years. But when we think of what it means to have a free country, most of our ideas about the meaning of freedom come from those first 10 amendments, adopted on this day in 1791, which include the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a fair trial. George Mason died in 1792, a year after those freedoms and rights became law.

Addendum

2007-12-05T21:12:00.001-08:00

Wonderful when a single image captures so much (thanks AJ).

2007: Album of the Year

2007-11-29T12:37:00.000-08:00

Much to my surprise, my album of the year is a concert recording from 36 years ago, followed closely by an album that was never released.

Neil Young's spectacular "Live as Massey Hall 1971" is a remarkable recording from what must have been a magical evening. Solo Neil, with a small Toronto audience that braved the January cold.

Listening to this recording, one realizes how amazingly powerful and evocative Neil's voice is. The concert was between "After the Gold Rush" and the chart busting "Harvest", with Neil singing many "new" songs, like "Heart of Gold", "Journey Through the Past", etc. Can you imagine being in the audience that night and hearing these songs for the first time?

The recording is outstanding, really capturing the depth and subtlety of the guitar/piano and singing. Listening to this album, one realizes how extraordinarily good Neil was back in the day.

Going through the album, it has the definitive versions of classics like "Old Man", "Journey Through the Past", "Heart of Gold", "On the Way Home", "Man Needs a Maid", "See the Sky About to Rain", and "Tell Me Why".

Needless to say, any Neil Young album that has 7 definitive tracks is a must own and a must listen. Neil Young "Live at Massey Hall 1971" is my 2007 album of the year.

The close second is another Neil Young album, but one that was never released. "Chrome Dreams" is the mythical never released Neil Young album from 1977. Always discussed in hushed tones, some of the tracks made it into subsequent albums, but not all.

A little over a month ago, Neil release Chrome Dreams II, a "sequel" to that 1977 album. A mixed bag, but notable for having the 18 minute epic "Ordinary People", which had been cut from the "This Notes for You" album 20 years ago. Worth purchasing just for that song (wow!)

The hype leading up ti Chrome Dreams II worked its magic on the internet, and (via this post by Fred Wilson) I finally got to fulfill a dream and hear the album.

What an amazing album!

The definitive version of Pocahontas (one of the best songs ever made), a great take on Too Far Gone (one of the better songs on the Freedom album), the unbelievable Stringman (which I had never heard before), a definitive acoustic take on Powderfinger, and familiar versions of classics Like a Hurricane, Homegrown, and Captain Kennedy.

Taken together, Massey Hall and Chrome Dreams may bump After the Gold Rush and Freedom from my "You only have 2 Neil Young albums you can take to the deserted island" list

As an aside, back in the early 80s, right after I discovered Neil Young, my best friend Terry's mom let us know that Rolling Stone had had a great interview with the man a couple years before (kind of surreal rereading that article after all these years). In that interview, he hinted at the treasures that were waiting in his vaults, waiting for the day when he was all done:

One of Young's long-standing jokes is that he's saving his best material for his "Bus Crash" album. The few who have heard samplings of Young's tape vaults -- songs that didn't fit into the flow of his albums, entire unreleased works, live tapes, Buffalo Springfield tapes -- agree that some of his most compelling performances are among the unreleased material.

"All those songs," he says, "they're still there. They're there. And they're in an order. They're not gone. But, you know, they're old songs. Who wants to hear about it. They're depressing. They are. It's like ancient history to me. I don't want to have to deal with that stuff coming out."

"Until," I ask, "you're not around to deal with them coming out?"

"That's right," he says. "Then they're there. I think every artist plans for the future like that. I have things in a certain order, so that if anything ever happened to me it would be pretty evident what to do."

With a discography that included (at the time) Harvest, After the Gold Rush, Rust Never Sleeps, Decade, etc etc, we sat there in awe imagining what might be in The Vault. The image of "...it would be pretty evident what to do" haunted me then, and I've thought about it often in the years since.

Fast forward 25 years. Neil is releasing a whole series of live performances (volume 3 of which is the Live at Massey Hall gig from 1971). If you get the version of Massey Hall with the DVD, there is actually an old film of the concert (wow!). The vault is loosening up.

Inside the packaging is a nondescript insert saying:

COMING IN 2007
Neil Young
The Archives Vol 1
1963-1972

8-CD, 2-DVD collection. The first volume in the definitive audiobiography.

After 25 years, the vault is finally opening. Terry my friend, this note's for you.

Christmas wish list

2007-11-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

For those looking for ideas for what to get me for Christmas, you should check out the latest Profiles in History auction and look for lot #1128. I'll gladly arrange shipping (thanks)

LOT #1128

Original screen-used full-scale model T-800 endoskeleton from Terminator 2: Judgment Day

1128. Original screen-used full-scale model T-800 endoskeleton from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. (Carolco/TriStar, 1991) This iconic figure was constructed for the opening scene of the film, when the T-800 makes his dramatic appearance in the frightening future world of Los Angeles, 2029 A.D., in the Future War battle with John Connor and his small band of survivors.

Measuring fully 6 ft 2 in. tall, the figure is hand-crafted of chrome-plated resin over a steel and aluminum armature. The feet of this intricate T-800 are the original feet used in the first Terminator film, and are the only real metal feet made for any of the films. The eyes illuminate in an errie red (powered by a small battery), and the figure is posed on a custom-built diorama of "scorched earth" to complete the display. This is a 100-percent complete screen-used figure; only the mechanical elements have been removed to make it suitable for studio display.

An impressive and iconic figure from this groundbreaking film, which received the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1992. This is the first time this piece has ever been offered publicly, and may be the last opportunity collectors will ever have to acquire what is probably the most instantly-identifible visual effects character of the last 30 years of film history. $80,000 - $100,000

Top Five TV Moment: The Thanksgiving Turkey Drop

2007-11-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

TVSquad has a post on one of my top 5 TV moments of all time: the WKRP Turkey Drop episode.

The clip in the TVSquad post is classic. However, you need to get the epilogue to the scene as well. After you watch the clip on TVSquad, here is the link to YouTube for the epilogue.

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly"

I can't talk about WKRP (one of my favorite shows of all time) without raising hell for the decision to dub generic music into the DVD collection. I am patiently waiting for the day that some enterprising youths from the Church of Johnny Fever dub the original music back into the DVD rips.

Mac'ing It: Two Months In

2007-11-18T12:02:00.001-08:00

As discussed in earlier posts, I recently made the switch ~~back~~ to ~~NEXTSTEP~~ Mac OS.

A couple months in, I'm settling into the new environment. For the benefit of those that are considering a change, here are the key apps and tidbits that I've settled on.

Backup

I use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my internal drive to a partition on an external firewire drive once a week or so. This partition is fully bootable in case I ever have trouble with the internal drive, or have a botched install or OS upgrade.

For incremental backups, I use the Mozy on line backup service. Free for a couple Gb of off site backup, and working well.

When I upgrade to Leopard, I'll be using TimeMachine to backup locally to the aforementioned firewire drive (different partition for the TimeMachine backups), and keeping Mozy for off site backups

I also figured out how to keep directories in sync between my Mac and our PC file server. I use Foldershare, which is a amazingly useful P2P directory sync program that works between PCs and Macs. Only down side is a 10,000 file limit for an sync pair, but it works very very well (at least after I turned off encryption). Other downside is that it is such a clever and appropriate use of P2P, that I wish I had thought about it.

Useful Utilities

Every Mac user should have Growl installed. A unified system notification service, which lots of apps use to post message ("New Mail", "New IM", "Backup Started", etc.) Having some challenges with Leopard but working well with Tiger

Workspace clutter is a huge problem on Macs (too many windows everywhere). Sticky Windows provides a great solution in letting you configure certain apps to auto collapse to tabs on the side of the screen when they are not active. Great way to manage support apps like Address Book, IM tools, iCal, iTunes, etc, and significantly cuts down window clutter. Highly recommended.

One of the most useless legacy features of the Mac is the stupid menu bar at the top of the screen. It may have made sense back in 1984 with the first Macs with limited screen resolution, but even the NeXT machine back in the day knew enough to get rid of this thing. With a large resolution screen, it is a pain in the ass and a waste of screen real estate.

Since it is up there, may as well make good use of it. iStat menus puts a lots of system stats on the menu bar (CPU, memory utilization, etc.)

One of the things I miss from Windows is being able to Alt-Tab to a particular document (vs an application). Witch is a nice tool that replaces this functionality on the Mac.

Quicksilver is a must (see my earlier post)

Plaxo also has an amazingly nice service for synchronizing your Mac Address Book and iCal calendar with your Yahoo address book/calendar and your Google address book/calendar. Extremely useful, and a must have. After the disaster that was Plaxo's first attempt to become the addressbook for the internet, they've got it right this time.

Disk Inventory X is a nice tool to see what is taking up all the disk space on your system.

iStumbler is a great tool to show you your local wireless networks, bluetooth devices, and bon jour connections)

1Password is an interesting password manager with good integration with Safari and Firefox

VNCViewer (free VNC client...use it to remote connect to our home PC file server)

Productivity Applications

I've been using NeoOffice (a Mac version of OpenOffice) for Excel/PPT/Word type things. Works reasonably well with good interoperability with the dark side, but a huge memory hog. Good news is that I don't use Vista (under Parallels) for anything other than occassionally using Internet Explorer when I run into a site that doesn't play well with Firefox or Safari. OpenOffice for the Mac just didn't work for me.

I recently purchased Apple's iWork '08. Numbers isn't quite up to Excel levels yet (even for advanced basics). Keynote and Pages seem nice, but I haven't done a lot with them yet. Dirt cheap compared to Office.

For outlining and clipping management, I'm using Notebook. Very useful and works for me to keep my thoughts and web clippings organized (to do lists, notes, outlines, web clippings, annotated audio recordings, etc.) Having first used Notebook in beta under NEXTSTEP 15 years ago, great to see Jayson still advancing the app. Must have app for anyone that works primarily in the digital domain.

Twitterrific is a nice Twitter client that I'm just starting to play with

Adium is the multi-protocol IM tool of choice

Physical Things

After a lot of research, I ended up with the Tom Bihn Empire Builder laptop bag, with the fancy Tom Bihn absolute strap. By far and away the most useful and best designed laptop bag I've ever had. Extremely intuitive (things just appear where you expect them to be). The strap has a slight elastic give that makes it easily the most comfortable strap I've ever used. Can't recommend this bag highly enough

One nuance of the Tom Bihn bag is that there isn't an obvious slot for your notebook in the bag. Tom Bihn does sell a padded "Brain Cell", that looks like it is designed to let you drop your laptop from a 2 story building. I got one of these, but it was just too bulky in the bag for me. Even when I took it out, it was sufficiently bulky that I may as well have kept it in the bigger bag and carried the bigger bag around. I ended up returning it.

In its place, I purchased a Waterfield sleevecase. It fits in the Tom Bihn bag perfectly, and easily comes in and out when all you want to do is take your laptop around. Incredible service and shipping times too.

I do have an Apple wireless mighty mouse in my bag. Don't use it that often, but it is nice to have (and works well)

I recently upgraded the laptop to 4Gb of memory (newegg.com) Firefox is an amazing memory hog, and NeoOffice sucks it down like only a bloated Java app can. Of course, if you are running virtual machine(s) in Parallels, you can never have too much memory.

Giving Thanks

2007-11-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

Every year at around this time, I have a tradition of sharing a Thanksgiving "thank you" with my coworkers. If the work is worth doing, it is inevitable that you're asking a great deal of those you work with. Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the value and meaning and decency of that work, and why it is worth doing.

This Thanksgiving, I find myself a ronin, so I stepping back from grand corporate themes to something more personal.

I come from an immigrant family. Growing up, my parents knew nothing about Thanksgiving. It wasn't until we moved to the US in 1970 that we first became exposed to this holiday. My father was a graduate student at Penn State, and my mother was learning how to speak english and function in this strange place, many thousands of miles from family and home, with a three year child.

Looking back, it is incredible how so many in that small college community embraced our young family, so far from home and all that was familiar. In particular, the McCarl family (my father's graduate advisor) made a point of inviting us to their home every Thanksgiving, to share the holiday with them and their kids. It is there we learned about the holiday, and the real meaning of giving thanks for your blessings, and sharing those blessings for others.

Over the years, Thanksgiving grew to be (by far) the most important holiday for me and my family. My parent's Thanksgiving table was always open to others who were far from home, alone, or new to the community.

Fast forward to 1987. I am in England working on my masters and for the first time going to be away from home at Thanksgiving. One of my fondest memories of my year in England is borrowing pots and pans from the college kitchen and preparing a full Thanksgiving meal for 50 other expatriots and English friends. Sharing the meal and the meaning of Thanksgiving with so many friends is a blessing I will never forget.

Last year, we were all at my parents house in Washington DC for the holiday. Around the table, we were blessed with 14 people, with our family, my sister and her family, my sister's husbands parents joining us from Nevada, and a coworker of my father's from Japan. After 35+ years, it was incredibly moving to see what our family had grown into since those very first Thanksgivings with the McCarl family.

This past January, Dr. McCarl passed away at the age of 79. In his nearly five decades at Penn State, Dr. McCarl had made many contributions to science, the community, and the university. For this immigrant's son, I will always remember him and his family for being the first to show me, through their kindness and how they lived their lives, what it means to be an American. Thank you.

As you sit down with friends and family this holiday, remember those who through their decency and example have touched your life, and be mindful of the opportunities you have to touch others. It is through these touches that who we are echoes and ripples through time.

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, thoughtful, and reflective Thanksgiving with friends and family.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Thanksgiving 2001

2007-11-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

From the pre-blog days, another in a series of posts "From the Archives". In this case, heart felt thanks for all our blessings during the Thanksgiving immediately after 9/11 (as I'm sure you remember, it did not seem like we had much to be thankful for in those dark days)

*****************************************

Friends,

Best wishes for a happy, healthy, thoughtful and reflective Thanksgiving with friends and family.

As we enter this season of Thanks, of Penance, of Light, of Miracles, and of Rebirth, I find myself ever more grateful and appreciative of what Stephen Jay Gould calls the "Everest of decency" (see appended).

No matter how hard we are on ourselves and each other, we are blessed to live in a Golden Age:

We consider ourselves in a recession, even though we enjoy an economy and opportunity that were beyond the dreams of most people just 10 years ago.

We are (justifiably) at war to defend life and liberty, at a time when nearly everyone on this planet enjoys a level of freedom and opportunity that is well beyond the wildest imaginations of Jefferson, Lincoln, and even Kennedy and King.

We are concerned about our future, even though the last 60 years has demonstrated an unbroken and ever accelerating blossoming of human achievement and self-actualization that exceeds the sum total of all that came before it.

We stand tall, at the pinnacle of civilization, on the sacrifices and accomplishments of those that came before us. By our deeds, we raise those yet to come even higher, one grain at a time.

Thank you for all you have done (and will do) to build that fortress ever taller.

Best wishes for the holidays...

Ray

***************************************

Excerpted from "An ode to human decency" by Stephen
Jay Gould, 9/20/2001

In an important, little appreciated and utterly tragic principle regulating the structure of nearly all complex systems, building up must be accomplished step by tiny step, whereas destruction need occupy but an instant. Ten thousand acts of kindness done by thousands of people, and slowly building trust and harmony over many years, can be undone by one destructive act of a skilled and committed psychopath.

"For this reason, a documentation of the innumerable small acts of kindness, the good deeds that almost always pass beneath our notice for lack of "news value," becomes an imperative duty, a responsibility that might almost be called holy, when we must reaffirm the prevalence of human decency against our pre-eminent biases for hyping the cataclysmic and ignoring the quotidian. Ordinary kindness trumps paroxysmal evil by at least a million events to one, and we will not grasp this inspiring ratio unless we record the Everest of decency built grain by grain into a mighty fortress taller than any breakable building of mere concrete and steel."

*****************

And for posterity, full piece from the late Stephen Jay Gould....

From the Toronto Globe and Mail, 9/20/01

The Globe Review

An ode to human decency

Bless the good people of Halifax, writes pre-eminent American scientist STEPHEN JAY GOULD, one of 9,000 travellers forced to land in Nova Scotia during the terrorist strikes

STEPHEN JAY GOULD
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

09/20/2001
The Globe and Mail

"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."

NEW YORK -- Images of division and enmity marked my first contact, albeit indirect, with Nova Scotia -- the common experience of so many American schoolchildren, grappling with the unpopular assignment of Longfellow's epic poem Evangeline, centred on the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755.

My first actual encounter with Maritime Canada, as a teenager on a family motor trip in the mid-1950s, sparked nothing but pleasure and fascination, as I figured out the illusion of Moncton's Magnetic Hill, marvelled at the tidal phenomena of the Bay of Fundy (especially the reversing rapids of Saint John and the tidal bore of Moncton), found peace of spirit at Peggy's Cove and learned some history in the old streets of Halifax.

I have been back, always with eagerness and fulfilment, a few times since, for reasons both recreational and professional: a second family trip, one generation later, and now as a father with two sons aged 3 and in utero; a lecture at Dalhousie; some geological field work.

My latest visit among you, however, was entirely involuntary and maximally stressful. I live in lower Manhattan, just a mile from the burial ground of the Twin Towers. As they fell victim to evil and insanity on Tuesday, Sept. 11, during the morning after my 60th birthday, my wife and I, en route from Milan to New York, flew over the Titanic's resting place and then followed the route of her recovered dead to Halifax.
We sat on the tarmac for eight hours and eventually proceeded to the cots of Dartmouth's sports complex, then upgraded to the adjacent Holiday Inn. On Friday, at 3 o'clock in the morning, Alitalia brought us back to the airport, only to inform us that their plane would return to Milan.

We rented one of the last two cars available and drove, with an intense mixture of grief and relief, back home.

The general argument of this piece, amid the most horrific specifics of any event in our lifetime, does not express the views of a naively optimistic Pollyanna, but rather, and precisely to the contrary, attempts to record one of the deepest tragedies of our existence.

Intrinsic human goodness and decency prevail effectively all the time, and the moral compass of nearly every person, despite some occasional jiggling prompted by ordinary human foibles, points in the right direction. The oppressive weight of disaster and tragedy in our lives does not arise from a high percentage of evil among the summed total of all acts, but from the extraordinary power of exceedingly rare incidents of depravity to inflict catastrophic damage, especially in our technological age when airplanes can become powerful bombs. (An even more evil man, armed only with a longbow, could not have wreaked such havoc at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.)

In an important, little appreciated and utterly tragic principle regulating the structure of nearly all complex systems, building up must be accomplished step by tiny step, whereas destruction need occupy but an instant. In previous essays on the nature of change, I have called this phenomenon the Great Asymmetry (with uppercase letters to emphasize the sad generality). Ten thousand acts of kindness done by thousands of people, and slowly building trust and harmony over many years, can be undone by one destructive act of a skilled and committed psychopath. Thus, even if the effects of kindness and evil balance out in the course of history, the Great Asymmetry guarantees that the numbers of kind and evil people could hardly differ more, for thousands of good souls overwhelm each perpetrator of darkness.

I stress this greatly underappreciated point because our error in equating a balance of effects with equality in numbers could lead us to despair about human possibilities, especially at this moment of mourning and questioning; whereas, in reality, the decent multitudes, performing their 10,000 acts of kindness, vastly outnumber the very few depraved people in our midst. And thus, we have every reason to maintain our faith in human kindness and our hopes for the triumph of human potential, if only we can learn to harness this wellspring of unstinting goodness in nearly all of us.

For this reason, a documentation of the innumerable small acts of kindness, the good deeds that almost always pass beneath our notice for lack of "news value," becomes an imperative duty, a responsibility that might almost be called holy, when we must reaffirm the prevalence of human decency against our pre-eminent biases for hyping the cataclysmic and ignoring the quotidian. Ordinary kindness trumps paroxysmal evil by at least a million events to one, and we will not grasp this inspiring ratio unless we record the Everest of decency built grain by grain into a mighty fortress taller than any breakable building of mere concrete and steel.

Our media have stressed -- as well they should -- the spectacular acts of goodness and courage done by professionals pledged to face such dangers, and by ordinary people who can summon superhuman strength in moments of crisis: the brave firefighters who rushed in to get others out; the passengers of United Flight 93 who apparently drew the grimly correct inference when they learned the fate of the Twin Towers, and died fighting rather than afraid, perhaps saving thousands of lives by accepting their own death in an unpopulated field. But each of these spectacular acts rests upon an immense substrate of tiny kindnesses that cannot be motivated by thoughts of fame or fortune (for no one expects their documentation), and can only represent the almost automatic shining of simple human goodness. But this time, we must document the substrate, if only to reaffirm the inspiring predominance of kindness at a crucial moment in this vale of tears.

Halifax sat on the invisible periphery of a New York epicentre, with 45 planes, mostly chock full of poor strangers from strange lands, arrayed in two lines on the tarmac, and holding 9,000 passengers to house, feed and, especially, to comfort.

May it then be recorded; may it be inscribed forever in the Book of Life: Bless the good people of Halifax who did not sleep, who took strangers into their homes, who opened their hearts and shelters, who rushed in enough food and clothing to supply an army, who offered tours of their beautiful city and, above all, who listened with a simple empathy that brought this tough and fully grown man to tears, over and over again. I heard not a single harsh word, saw not the slightest gesture of frustration, and felt nothing but pure and honest welcome.

I know that you good people of Halifax have, by long tradition and practice, shown heroism and self-sacrifice at moments of disaster -- occasional situations that all people of seafaring ancestry must face. I know that you received and buried the drowned victims of the Titanic in 1912, lost one in 10 of your own people in the Halifax Explosion of 1917, and gathered in the wreckages and remains of the recent Swissair disaster.

But, in a sense that may seem paradoxical, you outdid yourselves this time because you responded immediately, unanimously, unstintingly and with all conceivable goodness, when no real danger, but merely fear and substantial inconvenience, dogged your refugees for a few days. Our lives did not depend upon you, but you gave us everything nonetheless. We, 9,000 strong, are forever in your debt, and all humanity glows in the light of your unselfish goodness.

And so my wife and I drove back home, past the Magnetic Hill of Moncton (now a theme park in this different age), past the reversing rapids of Saint John, visible from the highway, through the border crossing at Calais (yes, I know, as in Alice, not as in ballet) and down to a cloud of dust and smoke enveloping a mountain of rubble, once a building and now a tomb. But you have given me hope that the ties of our common humanity will bind even these wounds.

And so Canada, although you are not my home or native land, we will always share this bond of your unstinting hospitality to people who descended upon you as frightened strangers, and received nothing but solace and solidarity in your embrace of goodness. So Canada, because we beat as one heart, from Evangeline in Louisiana to the intrepid Mr. Sukanen of Moose Jaw, I will stand on guard for thee.

Stephen Jay Gould is a professor of zoology and geology at Harvard University and an internationally renowned author, whose books include Questioning the Millennium and The Book of Life: An Illustrated History of the Evolution of Life on Earth. He lives in New York. Special to The Globe and Mail

Veteran's Day

2007-11-11T21:05:00.000-08:00

Given all that our armed forces have done for us and for the betterment of the world, Veteran's Day is a day that should have more import for us Americans. While Canadians wear their poppies, for many in America it is almost an after thought.

Every year, for me an important part of the holiday is to visit the Medal of Honor site and read about the recipients. As an example, the citation for Master Sergeant Gary Gordon:

*GORDON, GARY I.

Rank and organization: Master Sergeant, U.S. Army. Place and date: 3 October 1993, Mogadishu, Somalia. Entered service at: ----- Born: Lincoln, Maine. Citation: Master Sergeant Gordon, United States Army, distinguished himself by actions above and beyond the call of duty on 3 October 1993, while serving as Sniper Team Leader, United States Army Special Operations Command with Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, Somalia. Master Sergeant Gordon's sniper team provided precision fires from the lead helicopter during an assault and at two helicopter crash sites, while subjected to intense automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade fires. When Master Sergeant Gordon learned that ground forces were not immediately available to secure the second crash site, he and another sniper unhesitatingly volunteered to be inserted to protect the four critically wounded personnel, despite being well aware of the growing number of enemy personnel closing in on the site. After his third request to be inserted, Master Sergeant Gordon received permission to perform his volunteer mission. When debris and enemy ground fires at the site caused them to abort the first attempt, Master Sergeant Gordon was inserted one hundred meters south of the crash site. Equipped with only his sniper rifle and a pistol, Master Sergeant Gordon and his fellow sniper, while under intense small arms fire from the enemy, fought their way through a dense maze of shanties and shacks to reach the critically injured crew members. Master Sergeant Gordon immediately pulled the pilot and the other crew members from the aircraft, establishing a perimeter which placed him and his fellow sniper in the most vulnerable position. Master Sergeant Gordon used his long range rifle and side arm to kill an undetermined number of attackers until he depleted his ammunition. Master Sergeant Gordon then went back to the wreckage, recovering some of the crew's weapons and ammunition. Despite the fact that he was critically low on ammunition, he provided some of it to the dazed pilot and then radioed for help. Master Sergeant Gordon continued to travel the perimeter, protecting the downed crew. After his team member was fatally wounded and his own rifle ammunition exhausted, Master Sergeant Gordon returned to the wreckage, recovering a rifle with the last five rounds of ammunition and gave it to the pilot with the words, "good luck." Then, armed only with his pistol, Master Sergeant Gordon continued to fight until he was fatally wounded. His actions saved the pilot's life. Master Sergeant Gordon's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest standards of military service and reflect great credit upon him, his unit and the United States Army.

I encourage everyone to take some time and read the citations of our Medal of Honor winners. I am awed and humbled by the courage and commitment and bravery of these soldiers. For every story that is told, there are thousands of other stories (large and small) that we never hear.

Many are skeptical of our current war or the judgment of our political leaders. While there are many sides to that discussion, we should have only one side in our gratitude and respect for those brave few that stand forward for us all. My deep and enduring thanks to the friends and family of Sergeant Gordon for his example and service, and my thanks and respects to all those who have bravely served our country.

The Best Show on TV

2007-11-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not watching too much TV these days. My beloved Cubs exited the post season far too soon, I'm not yet sucked into football, and Lost, 24, and Battlestar Galactica don't kick off their seasons for another couple months.

With the rumors flying around that Battlestar Galactica (far and away the best show on TV right now) may not start it's new (and final) season until spring, I am most sad.

That being said, by far the best TV on TV right now is every Friday night from 8:58-9:00 pm (central) on the Sci Fi channel, squeezed between Flash Gordan and Stargate Atlantis. Those 2 minutes are better than any other program on TV right now, and (thankfully) are viewable at the Sci Fi Channel web site.

Leading up to the 11/24 premiere of the Battlestar Galactica Razor movie on Sci Fi, they are running a series of 2 minute vignettes to help set up the movie. Watching this little snippets, you realize how much BG is head and shoulders above all over shows (the last couple weeks are make-you-sit-up-and-whisper-"DAMN!" television). Fragging good TV.

Even during the lame season premier of Bionic Woman, one of the best sequences was when Jamie Summers walked into her apartment, and there was a TV in the background playing a space battle scene from a Battlestar Galactica episode. Made you realize just how bad Bionic Woman really was.

For those who are not BG junkies yet, run (don't walk) to your local Blockbuster or Netflix and start renting season 1. You won't be disappointed, and should be caught up by the time the new season starts.

Tart Tatin

2007-10-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

NPR recently had a wonderful segment with cook book author Dorie Greenspan, with Ms. Greenspan sharing her recipe for tart Tatin.

Since we picked ~40 pounds of apples at the local orchard a couple weeks ago, it was time to give it a go.

The tart turned out remarkably well, and was extremely impressive to serve. We paired it with a fresh batch of serious vanilla ice cream, and some friends to help eat it.

Apple Tart Tatin
(with thanks to Dorie Greenspace)
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
~6-8 firm/sweet apples (we used Firesides)
1 sheet (8 oz) frozen puff pastry
dash of cinnamon

Thaw out one sheet (8 oz) of frozen puff pastry (in the freezer section of your local supermarket). On a floured surface, roll out sheet so that 1-2" larger than your pan. Trim sheet into a circle shape (can be sloppy...doesn't matter), poke all over with a fork, and keep in fridge until ready to put in oven.
Find an oven proof 8-10" fry pan. Melt the stick of butter. Swirl butter around to cover the sides of the pan. Sprinkle sugar over melted butter and remove from heat. Peel, quarter, and core apples. Arrange apples, rounded side down, around frying pan. Try to arrange apples nicely, and pack in as much as you can. Apples will shrink during cooking, and the apples will be the visible presentation for the dish. Once one layer is laid down, cut remaining apples into smaller pieces and fill in cracks and even out the apples. Depending on size of apple and pan, the number of apples you need will vary. Sprinkle cinnamon to taste over apples (I went on the lighter side so as to not overwhelm the flavor of the apples).
Return pan to heat and cook over medium high heat until caramel turns dark. This will take about 15 minutes. Initially, will go very slowly. When color starts to change, will change quickly. You may need to reduce the heat towards the end so as to not burn the caramel.
Cover apples with puff pastry. OK to tuck pastry in at edge. Place on a covered cookie sheet (to catch drippings) and place into a 375 degree oven. Cook for 40-50 minutes, or until puff pastry is done.
Remove from oven, cover pan with a rimmed serving dish larger than pan, and CAREFULLY but quickly turn pan upside down to transfer to serving plate. If any apples stick to pan, carefully put back on tart.
Let tart cool for 10 minutes or so (caramel is too hot and too liquid to serve right away), and serve with your favorite ice cream.

I had no troubles with sticking or with the transfer to the serving dish. Visually, the dish was extremely impressive (the apples had a wonderful color). The tart was sweeter than I thought it would be, but absolutely delicious. Our local food critics (ie, our girls) enjoyed it a lot, although our younger one still refuses to eat apples that aren't apple sauce.

This one could become a family standard.

Twitter and Fires

2007-10-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

I've never quite "got" Twitter. Interesting distraction, but it seemed like a lot of attention and time being put into something that didn't quite have a return (exception is some of the services that combine twitter like entries with address books, so you can see what your contact is doing immediately before you call them)

With the fires in San Diego, I've been very concerned for family, friends, and former neighbors (horrifying to see neighborhoods you recognize burning to the ground on TV, and folks talking about some fires pushing all the way to the Pacific). Tracking things on line has been spotty and confusing.

The clear exception has been the KPBS twitter. KPBS is the local public radio/TV station. Their twitter feed is by far the most useful and timely information source I've found. Even though they have lost their transmitter to the fire, they continued to stream online, maintain blogs and Google maps, and have since moved to broadcast on another radio station. They are to be commended for providing such remarkable public services during this crisis.

The twitter service and format seems particularly well tuned to streaming commentary, which is exactly what you need during fast changing situations like wildfires.

For friends and colleagues in So Cal, be safe.

Site of the Decade

2007-10-23T19:06:00.001-07:00

If there was any doubt to the socially redeeming value of the internet, this site should end all arguments. Clearly the site of the decade (my inner twelve year old geek is beside himself with giggles)

Karma is a Callin'

2007-10-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, Amazon.com launched their new digital music download service. I have never bought into the "legit" digital download services (iTunes, etc.). Generally speaking, the audio quality has been piss poor, and the digital rights management (DRM) protections have been worse that ridiculous (limiting playback to iPods/iTunes, or Windows (yada) Ultimate (yada) Live (yada) 360).

I have never understood how otherwise rational people could create a business model predicated on pissing off and annoying your paying customers with an inferior product, while people who steal unprotected MP3s (conveniently ripped from non-protected CDs from the same music companies) from file sharing sites get better quality, no DRM hassles, and the ability to use the music anywhere they want.

What caught my attention with Amazon is that they sell standard MP3s, with no DRM nonsense. Nice! In poking around the site, content is still limited. However, the songs are ripped using basically the same settings (highest quality VBR or 256mbps) using the same high quality encoder (LAME) that I use to digitize my own CDs. Double plus nice!

I immediately dove into my digital music archives, looking for files that (ahem) had slipped in there over the years when karma had its back turned. To my (pleasant) surprise, there were only about 15 songs where the RIAA and I may have had something to talk about (sorry, I could never justify purchasing a full Carl Douglas album to get a legit rip of "Kung Fu Fighting"). My rule of thumb had always been that if I had more than one song from an album, it was time to purchase the album. I was pleased to see that it had worked out in practice.

A very pleasant (and convenient) 30 minutes later on Amazon, and I had brand spanking new, DRM-free, high-quality, and karma approved versions of ~10 of these songs in my music library (including "Kung Fu Fighting"!).

Amazon is continuing to rip albums into its collection. I'm sure some labels will continue to fight selling legit DRM-free content (even though they already sell that same DRM-free content on CDs), same as I'm sure some people believe the world was created 6000 years ago or that the Cubs actually have a chance to win the series next year.

I'm looking forward to the death of DRM as the music industry rationalizes. Look for some thoughts on how to accelerate that process in future posts.

In the meantime, the Amazon end user license does have some unfortunate limitations on traditional fair use rights for things you purchase (for example, you're not allowed to sell the MP3 you purchase from Amazon to another person). If you're the sort of person that believes karma reads the fine print, you may want to do the same.

For those that have been held back by DRM nonsense, get on over to Amazon, start going legit, and make your preferences heard with your $$.

New TV Season

2007-10-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

I normally don't start watching new TV shows until well into the new season. It is usually a lot easier to wait to see what gets momentum, then catch up by grabbing older episodes at the "usual locations"

This year, with Lost and Battlestar Galactica not starting until January, and Survivor just too lame to stomach another season, started watching Bionic Woman and Pushing Daisies.

Bionic Woman (aside from the pure old school geek appeal) is being done by the same crew that does the spectacular Battlestar Galactica (top 1 or 2 show on TV right now), including having Starbuck as an evil bionic woman.

First couple episodes were surprisingly lame. I kept hoping that Starbuck would open a can of bionic whoop ass on the incredibly lame actress playing Jamie Sommers. Writing has poor, uninteresting production, generally awkward acting, and the obligatory insanely annoying kid sister.

Thankfully, episode 3 this past week was actually pretty good! I'm hoping that the quality continues to build, and that the producers/actors don't end up with two mediocre series instead of one great one. Still hopeful for this one.

Pushing Daisies is a remarkable series for TV, much more film-like than anything else on TV right now. First couple episodes are director Barry Sonnenfeld channeling the Cohen brothers, but with a sweetness that is quite charming. Have no idea how long a TV show can maintain this level of visual/production creativity, writing, acting, humor, and pacing.

I'm signed on for as long as this ride lasts, and highly recommend every one join this ride.

As an aside, is anyone else struggling with this season of Heroes? Way too many stories and too little humanity. I pity those that are joining the show this season and struggling to keep up.

Pierre Franey's Mac and Cheese

2007-10-01T19:41:00.001-07:00

Way back before the day of Food Network and celebrity chefs, all we had was public TV and the likes of the late Julia Childs (blow torch and all), Jeff Smith (before we knew of his real tastes), and the late New York Times columnist Pierre Franey.

While recipes come and go, our favorite Mac and Cheese recipe is courtesy of Mr Franey. No Velvetta in this one. Lots of very nice Gruyere, red peppers and ham sauted in butter, and red pepper for some kick. This is a very grown up Mac and Cheese.

With our kids finally getting to the age where we can contemplate food with flavor and varied texture again, fired up a patch of Mr Franey's Mac and Cheese for the first time in over a decade.

Recipe is appended, and highly recommended as we move into the fall...

Pierre Franey's Grown Up Mac and Cheese
(from the NYT 60 Minute Gourmet)
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup finely chopped onions
2 sweet red peppers, cored/seeded and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1/2 lb country ham, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
2 1/4 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
Red pepper flakes to takes
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 pound Gruyere cut into small cubes
4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Bring 3 quarts of salted water to a boil, and add the macaroni. Stir frequently, and cook until almost tender, about 10 minutes. Drain thoroughly.

3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet. Add onions and red peppers. Cook and stir until wilted. Add the ham, cook briefly, stirring.

4. Add the milk, cream, salt and pepper, red-pepper flakes, nutmeg, the drained macaroni and the Gruyere cheese. Cook, stirring for about 5 minutes or until the mixture thickens.

5. Place the mixture into a flat baking dish. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese.

6. Place in the oven, and bake for 15 minutes. Place under the broiler until nice and brown.

Yield: 4 servings.

For this recipe, I like to use a really nice ham, like what you get at Honey Baked Ham. Try to under cook the noodles slightly, since it will continue to cook in the sauce and in the oven. When you saute the onions and peppers and ham, you can give the whole dish a very nice roasted flavor, but be careful not to burn. The Gruyere and ham were really meant for each other, esp. with the freshly ground nutmeg to bring it all together (these three flavors really make the dish). You can't have too much Gruyere in this dish (in the heavily French accented words of Mr Franey, "I Love Gruyere!").

Last Lecture

2007-10-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

(thanks to Paul for pointing me to this)

A couple weeks ago, Randy Pausch (a pioneer in virtual reality and professor at Carnegie Mellon) gave a lecture at CMU on "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Although dying from pancreatic cancer, Prof. Pausch gave one of the most moving and uplifting lectures I've had the pleasure of seeing.

The lecture is long (over an hour), but pays the viewer back with a glimpse into a wonderful outlook on the world, how to live your life, and our responsibility to those around us to help them live theirs.

As I was watching it, I was reminded of how J. Michael Straczynski (aka, JMS or create of Babylon 5) described actor Andreas Katsulas after he passed away last year. After describing the party Andreas hosted for friends a couple months before his death, JMS shared that by how he lived and laughed and shared the last months of his life, Andreas had shown him the right way to die. With the gift of this lecture, Prof. Pausch has done the same.

The Revolution Will Be Posted to Flickr

2007-09-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

For those (few) of you that haven't discovered it already, one of the best web comics out there is xkcd.

About 6 months ago, they posted the following comic with an embedded longitude and latitude (a park in Cambridge MA) and a date/time (yesterday).

In true geek culture, a couple hundred people showed up.

Nerd nation is upon us.

Finally, rational behavior...

2007-09-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

After many years of head scratching and cursing the industry whenever I bought a new cell phone (and had to buy a new car charger) comes the news that the mobile phone industry has agreed on a common connection/charging standard based on micro USB connectors.

A small victory for rationality, but hopefully indicative of a trend of governments creating economic disincentives for wasteful behaviors.

Now if the automobile manufacturers would agree to always put the gas cap on the same side as the steering wheel...

Ray

NotDullPhones

2007-09-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

My contract with Verizon has just come up, and my two year old cheapo Motorola phone just signed up for AARP. Time to play the field and see what's shaking in telephone land.

As much as a geek as I am, most people are surprised that I have never owned a smartphone. For me, phones are about making phone calls. I want the phone to be reliable, have great battery life, have a contact list for speed dial, and get great reception. Bonus points for voice activated dialing. Don't care about cameras (they suck), MP3s (have them on my laptop), web access (it sucks, and I have my laptop), texting (email), etc.

WAY back in the day, I was addicted to my beloved Psion 3a as a portable device. Used it for calendaring, meeting notes, to dos, etc. When laptops matured to the point of being desktop replacements, I couldn't justify carrying two devices any more and reluctantly gave up the Psion. To my mind, they have been one of the few players to actually "get it" and "get it right"

With the iPhone out, I am again tempted. If it had 3G connectivity, I would own one already. Still I'm tempted.

In doing some research, I found the surprise of all surprises: an absolutely brilliant post by the actor (and apparent gadget freak) Stephen Fry on all things smart phone. Excerpt below, but the whole piece is a must read for any self-respecting geek.

Design matters
By design here, I mean GUI and OS as much as outer case design. Let’s go back to houses. The sixties taught us, surely, that architectural design, commercial and domestic, is not an extra. The office you work in every day, the house you live in every day, they are more than the sum of their functions. We know that sick building syndrome is real, and we know what an insult to the human spirit were some of the monstrosities constructed in past decades. An office with strip lighting, drab carpets, vile partitions and dull furniture and fittings is unacceptable these days, as much perhaps because of the poor productivity it engenders as the assault on dignity it represents. Well, computers and SmartPhones are no less environments: to say “well my WinMob device does all that your iPhone can do” is like saying my Barratt home has got the same number of bedrooms as your Georgian watermill, it’s got a kitchen too, and a bathroom.” … I accept that price is an issue here; if budget is a consideration then you’ll have to forgive me, I’m writing from the privileged position of being able to indulge my taste for these objects. But who can deny that design really matters? Or that good design need not be more expensive? We spend our lives inside the virtual environment of digital platforms - why should a faceless, graceless, styleless nerd or a greedy hog of a corporate twat deny us simplicity, beauty, grace, fun, sexiness, delight, imagination and creative energy in our digital lives? And why should Apple be the only company that sees that? Why don’t the other bastards GET IT??

What You Really Learn at College

2007-09-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

Via dethroner, comes the engineering marvel for the week...

Periodic Table for Visualization Techniques

2007-09-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

A very cool and very handy periodic table for visualization techniques.

Nicely done

Best Media Center Box On the Planet

2007-09-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

Lifehacker has a very nice comprehensive guide to how to mod an old school Xbox so you can run Xbox Media Center. Things have come a long way from the "crack open the Xbox and solder in a mod chip" days.

We've been running XBMC for years, and it is the best reason to own an Xbox. We actually have an Xbox that has never played a video game, but only runs XBMC at 1080i to our HDTV.

Get a cheap used Xbox on eBay, the Xbox DVD remote, and a wireless adapter, and you have the best media center box on the planet for <$100 (if that).

I keep all music, photos, vids, etc. on our file server, and access the files on the XBMC boxes (yes we have a couple of them) Having photos randomly cycle on large flat panel display at 1080i is amazing...

If you're feeling brave, the hack is even easier if you have a friend that has already modded their xbox. They can FTP the save file to their xbox, and use the xbox memory card management features to copy the save to a memory card (don't need Action Replay to do it from a PC)

As an added plus, many console emulators have been ported to the Xbox. Once you have the Xbox modded, you can FTP files to and from the Xbox. It is a nice diversion to play old Atari 2600 or NES games with a real console controller (alas, 1080i HD resolutions don't help them much ;-)

UPDATE: Lifehacker has a followup post on some advanced features of XBMC that is also worth a read

Mac'ing It: Living in a Multi-Computer World

2007-09-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

With the new Mac in the house, it's been time to adjust how I manage basic logistics (backups, email, calendars, etc)

The situation is complicated by also running MS Vista on my new machine (via Parallels Desktop in a virtual machine)

Clearly, we're all going to have to deal with more and more virtual computers over time, even if they're all running on the same hardware. Virtualization is amazingly powerful and convenient, but keeping the basics (contacts, files, bookmarks, etc.) in sync between all these environments becomes a challenge.

Here is what I've settled on to keep my OSX environment in sync with my online environment, and MS Vista and MS Windows XP environments.

Email, Calendar, and Address Book
Email is probably the easiest. For years my primary personal email environment has been Yahoo Mail. With near infinite storage and universal access via the web, it has worked great. Have had the downside of no off line email access when traveling, but the convenience of having email on any computer I walk up to has made up for it.

(Un)Fortunately, the Mac has some pretty powerful integration between the built in Address Book app and the built in Mail app. Honestly, having lived in NeXT Mail for almost a decade, not using Mail.app in OSX was never an option.

I configured Mail.app to download my Yahoo mail via POP, and leave messages on the server so I can still have web access from Vista and other environments. The only annoyance is that Mail.app does not delete mail on POP servers when you delete in Mail.app. Instead, you have to bring up the info panel for the Yahoo mailbox, find all the messages that are deleted on the Mac but still on the server, and press a button to delete them from the server. Works fine, and I'll probably set up a script at some point to automate it.

Addresses/Contacts and Calendar entries are another issue. Fortunately the latest version of Plaxo is spectacular in sync'ing various environments. I have a free Plaxo account that keeps my Yahoo, Google, and OSX environments in sync for calendars and address book (also supports hotmail and Outlook sync, but I don't use those). Works like a charm. I highly recommend it for everyone. (FYI, Plaxo has come a long way from their amazingly annoying incarnation several years ago...this is a first class service)

Web browsing and Bookmarks
Internet Explorer and Safari are both nice browsers, but I've been a Firefox user for a while. So I don't go crazy, my requirement was the same brower (with same plug-ins) and same bookmarks under both OSX and Windows.

Solution was to stay with Firefox. All my favorite extensions work in both environments. Experience is essentially the same.

Wish I could have fun with all those cool Safari'isms, but the Windows version would have to mature a lot before I give up Firefox (OSX version as well)

One of my favorite Firefox extensions is OnlineBookmarkManager. It syncs you're Firefox bookmarks with an on-line service, and lets you keep multiple systems aligned. There are other services as well, but I wanted something simple and reliable (I don't need social networking around bookmarks, thanks).

There is the added benefit of always having an off site backup of your bookmarks in case you lose your hard drive.

Files and Backup
I haven't yet put together a clean hybrid solution for file and backup management.

When I had a pure windows environment, I used the "Offline Files" feature of Windows to cache a copy of my files on my home file server to my laptop. While at home, I connected directly to my file server. While away, I would still have access to the local copy on my laptop, and any changes would get sync'ed back to my file server when I got home.

Backup was a simple matter of backing up the file server (with the added benefit that files were usually on 2-3 hard drives in 2-3 different machines at any given time if I lost a drive).

Backups of the file server involved cloning the internal drive to an identical external drive. Recovery would involve popping the new drive in and rebooting. Ditto for my laptop.

Unfortunately, OSX does not have a notion of off line files. There are a variety of options to keep folders in sync, but I haven't found a good one. The .mac service apparently provides for syncing between Macs, but that doesn't help me.

My current hack involves sync'ing files from my file server to my MS Vista virtual machine partition. Using Parallels, I can at least have access to the files. Need to come up with something more rationale. Please give a holler if you have a workable solution to keeping ~20Gb in files in sync across multiple environments.

For system backup, I'm experimenting with the Moxy on-line backup service. So far, so good (2Gb free backup storage, $5/month for unlimited). If you want to try it out, follow this link. I get 256Mb additional storage for every referral ;-)

Carbon Copy Cloner seems to be the app of choice for clone Mac hard drives. I have a MyBook Pro external drive on order (has USB, Firewire 400/800, and eSATA connectors) that I will start using for clone backups of my various system drives. Given the Unix roots of OSX, I can't imagine any issues with CCC.

Printing
We currently have an HP all in one printer attached to a Netgear wireless print server. Works great from our Windows boxes, but no Mac support for the Netgear.

Fortunately the Netgear uses standard LPD for communicating over the network, and the Mac is a Unix box under the hood.

Fortunately, our HP has Mac drivers. Unfortunately, the drivers are only for when the printer is connected directly to the Mac via USB. HP does not offer LPD drivers, and the various linux sites doesn't have a LPD driver that works either.

Solution right now is to walk up to the printer and plug it in when I want to print. Long term solution will be to find a printer that is well supported via LPD, or is a PostScript printer.

So far so good. Need to get the sync issue sorted out, but that should be addressable.

Get Out the Hot Cocoa in Hades

2007-09-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the shocker of all shockers, Sun Microsystems, the company that recently changed its stock ticker from SUNW to JAVA to emphasize that it grown beyond its hardware roots as Standford University Network, has become an OEM for Microsoft server OS's to help them sell Sun hardware.

Ars Technica captures the Sun strategy map far better than I could ever hope to.

And of course, Fake Steve Jobs has his say. (fair warning: stop drinking your coffee/soda/whatever before looking at the 2nd link)

Modern Day Alchemy

2007-09-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

bunnie (of hacking the original Xbox fame) has been posting a series of absolutely fascinating pieces on his blog about working with the manufacturing processes in China.

The video clips really give you a sense of what's happening, and bunnie is an excellent engineer/correspondent. His new company Chumby is ramping manufacturing in China, and he's bringing us along for the ride (before you ask, I've already filed a grievance with their VP Product for getting on the "First 50" list).

If you have any interest in the ghost in the (global economic) machine, definitely worth a read.

There are countless "wow" and "a-ha" moments while reading these posts, but one that really sticks out is his post on what is required to keep all the factory workers fed:

Again, the scale of some food operations is pretty impressive. I heard that Foxconn–the place that makes the iPods and iPhones–consumes 3,000 pigs a day. I saw this truck of pigs going off the exit on the highway toward Foxconn, and it reminded me of that factoid.

From pigs to iPhones! It all happens right here in Shenzhen.

Clearly, modern day alchemy is no longer about transmuting lead into gold, but rather pigs into iPods.

Yahoo

2007-09-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

I was going to say something, but Fake Steve Jobs beat me to it.

Really REALLY big holes...

2007-09-10T15:24:00.001-07:00

For those of us that wasted their elementary and middle school years seeing how deep you could dig a hole, deputydog has put together an amazing collection of 7 really really big holes...

The Bingham Canyon mine in Utah is particularly impressive. Apparently, the locals started digging the thing in 1863, and they're still going. So far, 3/4 miles deep and 2 1/2 miles wide (a ~~damn~~ darn big hole, as the locals would say)

Form over Feature/Function

2007-09-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

One of the extraordinary things about being in the Mac world is the different mindset that you see in the applications and the application community. Design philosophy not only matters, but people actually know what it means.

After years in the PC space, I had gotten used to the relentless focus on feature/function in the various applications. "Things" were defined by long lists of features and the details of the functions they supported.

If you're lucky, these feature/functions may be grouped by some metaphor. Alas, you usually had to deal with competing metaphors from the 5 different teams that worked on the app (or 100 teams if you're talking MS Office)

If you're extremely lucky, the application designer may have applied some goal-centric design to streamline the app.

More often than not, competitive pressures in the PC application space required developers to put an insanely number of features into the app to remain competitive with the other folks that had 1000s of features in their app.

With that grounding, I was overjoyed to stumble upon the game changing Quicksilver for OSX. Although I'm sure the iGeeks could describe what it is (I'm still an apprentice), I find it a very difficult application to describe.

Thankfully, the author gave a very interesting (and must see) tech talk at Google on the subject that is available for viewing. There are also some nice on line tutorials available, which may be a better place to start.

What I find most interesting about Quicksilver is the movement from applications from a collection of feature/function (spell check, email, etc.) to application as a metaphor (desktop, recycle bin, etc.) to application as conversation based on a grammar.

Rather than interacting with a program (feature function) or a proxy for a thing (metaphor), you are now have a conversation with the application using a simple grammar.

In the case of Quicksilver, start typing a noun (word, file name, application name, etc) and pick your "thing" from a list, then pick the verb for what you want done to that "thing". For example, "Birthday photos.jpg", "Email to (compose)", "mom".

In selecting your noun, you're invoking a desktop search engine that intelligently adapts to your search style based on what you select. For example, if you type "pd" and select "Parallels Desktop.app", next time that app will be at the top of the selection list as you type "pd".

Based on the type of noun, there are then a fixed set of verbs that are appropriate things to do with that noun. As you plug in additional capabilities, the list of verbs grows.

The neat thing is that working with Quicksilver feels a lot like working with a person for the first time. Early on you need to make extra effort to make sure you're on the same page when discussing things, but over time you move to a kind of short hand. Human/computer interaction as conversation.

The authors Google tech talk video briefly alludes to the author's work on Abracadabra for gestural control (non-verbal) as a complement to the text focus of Quicksilver, and speaks to the minimalist philosophy behind the app. By using hotkeys and gestures as short hand for "sentences" (for example, circle to select, and a loop to delete), you can get to the next level of transparency in communicating your intentions.

Definitely worth checking out.

...Going to Party Like It's 1989...

2007-09-08T11:31:00.001-07:00

After many many years of Windows purgatory, I recently purchased on of the new 17" MacBook Pros. Last several days have been a lot of fun, and definitely a nostalgia tour.

I haven't owned an Apple since my trusty Apple ][+ WAY back in the day (my first computer). I believe it was one of the very first Apple ][+'s sold in the state of Florida. Somehow persuaded my parents to give me a loan to get it ($2000 at the time was a lot of coin!), but it led to all sorts of good work through junior high and high school, teaching community college courses in BASIC, etc. Eventually sold the beast to get an Atari 800 (far better for gaming and game programming...amazing computer back in the day).

I was a Mac user through college, but was never able to afford my own. In grad school, my good friend Terry was going on and on about how amazing the new NeXT computers were. They were also insanely expensive. Finally in 1989, he convinced me to take the plunge with the new NeXT slabs. At the time, my campus and research group was heavily Unix-based, with everything from VT-100 terminals (real ones) to the just emerging DEC workstations for those lucky enough. I managed to persuade my advisor to move our lab from VT-100s and a couple shared Macs to NeXT machines.

At the time, the NeXT machines were amazing. I figured they were at least 10 years ahead of their time. Now, 18 years later, in playing with OS X on the MacBook Pro, it's clear that it was at least 15 years ahead of it's time.

Managed to stay with NEXTSTEP through 1998, then VERY painfully forced myself to switch to Windows NT (was in a corporate environment by then and it was too difficult to work with others). At the time, one of the more difficult things I had ever done.

Now, 9 years later, it is very surreal to pop open Terminal.app and fire up emacs and fiddle with NetInfo from the command line. The surface is a whole lot prettier, but the core is the NEXTSTEP that I never quite got over.

As an aside, I'm loving this new box. Using Parallels, able to run Vista in a virtual machine under OSX so maintaining the best of both worlds. OSX and the Mac apps are of course gorgeous. As I get up and going, I'll post some lessons learned for others that may be considering switching. Also, some tricks to keep all these various environments in sync with one another (virtual machines are awesome, but it is really hard to keep them aligned).

All I want for Christmas is a Super Capicitor

2007-09-05T07:51:00.001-07:00

From Ars Technica comes a bit of geek news I've been waiting for years to read.

Apparently a company in Texas is working on a new type of capacitor that would replace traditional batteries. Capacitors make incredibly good sense for power storage, except for that pesky charge density problem (they just can't store that much umph unless they are huge). The Texas company is rumored to have a solution to that problem.

Having a viable solution to portable power storage would be game changing. Unlike computation power, memory, storage, etc. that have all enjoyed explosions in capacity, batteries have not been riding a wave of innovation.

A viable clean, high density, instant charge capacitor-based power storage system would turn a lot of what we currently do (from driving, to phones, to solar/wind/wave power to load leveling of power consumption in large offices) completely upside down.

Let's hope it actually works.

Peach Ice Cream

2007-09-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

(NOTE: Since my sister informed me that these ice cream posts were becoming a bit obsessive, this is my last ice cream post for the season. Fortunately, it is also the end of ice cream season ;-)

With coffee, vanilla and chocolate hazelnut ice cream under our belt, and the freezer well stocked with chocolate hazelnut for the kids, I wanted to take advantages of the fresh peaches we get this time of year to try a fruit ice cream.

Once again, I used the previously successful vanilla ice cream recipe as a starting point, and experimented until the flavors seemed right.

Serious Peach Ice Cream
(with apologies to Alton Brown)
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 12 oz. jar of high quality peach preserves (not jelly)
2 vanilla bean, split and scraped (or 1 high quality bean)
1 1/2 fresh peaches, peeled and finely chopped (1 peach if large)

Combine all ingredients except the fresh peaches (including the beans and their pulp) in a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Attach a frying or candy thermometer to inside of pan. (see note below) Stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Remove the hull of the vanilla beans, pour mixture into lidded container and refrigerate mixture overnight to mellow flavors and texture.
Freeze mixture in ice cream freezer according to unit's instructions. The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. 5-10 minutes before freezing is complete, put fresh peaches in the mixer and start up again. Once the volume has increased by 1/2 to 3/4 times, and reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer before serving (8 hours in our freezer).
NOTE: If you do not have a thermometer, bring the mixture just barely to a simmer. As soon as you see a bubble hit the surface, remove it from the heat. Do not let it boil.

For this recipe, make sure to use a high quality peach preserve (this is where most of the flavor comes from). I went with a fancy Swiss brand. Cut the sugar back from 1 cup to 1/3 a cup because of the sweetness already in the preserves

For this batch, I used 2 vanilla beans instead of one. This is because the new batch of beans I purchased are no where near as fragrant and intense as the first batch. Lesson learned: vanilla beans can vary by factors of 2-3 in flavor and intensity.

This batch was nice, but I was hoping for more peach flavor. Larger chunks of peach were also fairly unpleasant, since they came across as frozen chunks of ice (at least until the meltd)

For the next time, I think I'm going to give up on the peach perserves, and puree a large amount of fresh peaches. My hope is to get more peach flavor, and keep things smooth.

The girls do not care for peach ice cream. Even the little bit of peach in the vanilla recipe was enough to put them off. Looks like dad is going to have a lot of peach ice cream to eat this winter.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Wireless Surround Sound Headphones (4/29/06)

2007-08-30T17:47:00.000-07:00

From the pre-blog days, another in a series of posts "From the Archives". In this case, a report on wireless surround sound headphones from Apr 29, 2006

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http://reviews.cnet.com/Pioneer_SE_DIR800C/4505-6468_7-31225550.html?tag=also

Several months ago I asked many of you if you had any experience with wireless surround sound headphones.

After some research, ended up buying a pair of the Pioneer DIR800c (actually, a base station/headphone set, along with a spare set of headphones).

Application is for our upstairs TV, so that we don't disturb the kids after they've gone to bed (and the spouse when she's gone to bed)

the headphones work remarkably well, even for surround sound. The decoder does a very nice job of taking surround sound feeds (for example, from our DVD player) and mapping them to the left and right ears on the headphones.

Sound quality is excellent with good base response. Two sets of headphones have no problem being driven from the same base station. There is independent volume control on each headphone.

Basestation use IR to communicate with the headphones, so no interference issues with phones/wlans/microwaves/etc.

Extremely low noise floor (surprising), and comfortable to wear for a full movie. Pretty decent battery life, and the base station has a convenient battery recharger built in (it comes with rechargeable batteries)

A tad on the pricey side, but several dealers on ebay sell new sets for considerably less than list.

It is difficult to find a set of these headphones without the basestation (ie, a 2nd set). I got mine from:

http://www.audiocubes.com/product/Pioneer_SE-DIR800_Dolby_Digital_Surround_Headphones.html

Ended up coming from Japan(!), but shipping was prompt and inexpensive. They also have some cool Japanese science toys. For instance, the inner geek in me loves this puppy:

http://www.audiocubes.com/category/Gadgets,+Games_Gadgets/product/Gakken_Cup_Phonograph_Kit_in_Edison-style.html

When the girls are a little older, I may actually let them play with it ;-)

If anyone ends up with 2 basestations and wants to get rid of one, let me know. I'd like a basestation for the downstairs TV for gaming.

Ray

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Wii Report (1/14/07)

2007-08-30T17:45:00.000-07:00

From the pre-blog days, another in a series of posts "From the Archives". In this case, a report on the Nintendo Wii from Jan 14, 2007

*****************************************

We finally got our Nintendo Wii this past week (used off eBay...only a slight premium). Like many gamers, we're now a dual Xbox 360/Wii household. With the weekend finally upon us, we fired it up yesterday.

Not surprisingly, the girls had a great time making up their avatars (called "Mii's" in Wii land). Some games actually use the avatars in the game, which was a thrill for them.

The sports games that came with the unit were a big hit. Our 10 year old had a great time with tennis (you swing the controller like an actual racket), and even has a sour elbow today (!). Our little one enjoyed the bowling game, and everyone had a good time with the boxing game (all these games use the Mii's, which added to the fun).

The Wii Rayman game is also lots of fun. A very large number of minigames, each one using the Wii motion sensing controllers in different and unique ways (ie, spin the controller over your head to spin and then launch a cow as far as you can, move the controllers up and down to run as fast as you can, draw pictures
on the screen, etc.) Clearly Ubisoft used the game as an excuse to explore different control strategies using the new controllers. Like every Rayman game, very high production values and humor content. A definite winner.

I must say that I'm very impressed with the precision and naturalness of the motion sensing controllers. When I first heard what Nintendo was planning for the Wii, I shook my head thinking this was the end of a great company. On the contrary, this is a rebirth, based almost entirely on a new way of interacting
with games. The unit itself is remarkably underpowered by modern standards (basically 2x the power of the old Gamecube). The value is purely in the games and the elegance of the human interaction. I am very excited to see what type of creativity this inspires.

Already, it looks like some interesting things are coming. In particular, the next installment of the SSX series (one of my favorite games) looks like it's really going to take advantage of the new controllers:

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/842/842200/vids_1.html

(check out the video)

I can't wait to hit the virtual slopes using these controllers.

On the other side, the Wii incarnation of the Godfather game hints at a level of interactivity that is actually frightening for me:

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/842/842201/vids_1.html

(check out the video)

I've commented to others that I'm actually afraid to see how the next installment of Grand Theft Auto uses the controllers.

One of the nice parts of the Wii is that finally gives me a chance to check out all those Gamecube games that I always wanted to play but never could (this is my first Nintendo console). The Wii is basically a Gamecube with updated parts (cpu, graphics, etc.) so backward compatibility is complete. Have Zelda on the
shelf waiting for time, and I'm also looking forward to Metroid.

However, the Gamecube game that I have been most looking forward to playing is none of the big hitters. For those with a Wii (or thinking about getting one), or those with a Gamecube, you absolutely MUST pick up Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for the Gamecube:

http://cube.ign.com/articles/595/595520p1.html

This is a brilliant platformer (running around as Donkey Kong jumping and grabbing bananas), made 10x more so through the use of the bongo controllers for movement. You use the right bongo to move right, left to move left, both at the same time to jump, and clap to "attack" opponents. In terms of sheer fun
factor, this is the most fun we've had with a video game in a LONG time (the girls were besides themselves with laughter, as was dad).

To make decisions even easier, EBGames is liquidating the game and bongo controllers:

http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=B220494A

For $15, you get the game and 2 bongo controllers. Use the coupon code "SAVER" and get free shipping as well. (Greg, ordered one for you already). Game only uses one controller, but the Donkey Konga rhythm games are quite fun as well (the bongos are used in a rhythm game, with up to 4 players at once).

Have not had a chance to check out the Wii Virtual Console games yet (emulated versions of classic arcade games). I've purchased Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64, but have the Classic Controller on order (required to play it).

All in all, the Wii is an outstanding piece of family entertainment, and ideal for those that are looking to get a broader group involved in gaming/each other. I love my Xbox and 360, but these aren't games that you can really enjoy as a family. The Wii really follows through on the promise of "we", and I've very
excited to see where the developers will take things.

Ray

Billions and Billions...

2007-08-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for something to make your head hurt, contemplate a 1 billion light year wide hole in the universe:

Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing.

The late night comedians will have a field day with this one...

It might be, it could be...

2007-08-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

This past week, we made our annual summer pilgrimage to Chicago.

I have a deal with my daughters: we spend a day at the American Girl store on Michigan Ave, eating fancy lunches, seeing shows, getting the dolls' hair done, and shopping for 6+ hours. Afterwards daddy gets to eat pizza at one of his favorite Chicago pizza shops (Gino's East, Duo's, Giordano's, etc.) and no one gets to complain when we go to Wrigley for a Cubs game.

One of the great things of going to Wrigley for a game (aside from the spectacular history and feel of the place) is that I get to watch a baseball game with 40,000 other people that react and cheer at the same time I do. Normally in our house, I cheer the TV or the internet radio broadcast, and the family looks at me like I'm crazy.

Unfortunately, things were a little more complicated this time, since we decided that Kit and Elizabeth (my daughter's American Girl dolls) wanted to come to the game. Kit had her new Chicago Cubs outfit on, and Elizabeth had her traveling clothes. To complicate things further, the give away at the ballpark was a stuffed Snoopy doll with a Cubs uniform on. More often than not, I was holding several dolls and a blankie and unable to stand up to cheer a home run. Such is the price of fatherhood when you're a Cubs fan.

In looking around the park, I was shocked at how many boys had Cubs jerseys with Sammy Sosa's name and number of them (a clear majority of those with jerseys had a Sosa jersey). Sosa hasn't played for the Cubs in years, and left with a bit of a steroid cloud over his head. However, his continued presence says much about how youngsters learn to love to game, and the power of the definitive home run to focus attention in a game that is otherwise full of gray and subtlety.

Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream

2007-08-15T16:23:00.000-07:00

After our spectacularly successful first batch of home made vanilla ice cream, it was time to appease the masses and give chocolate ice cream a go.

Rather than mess with a good thing, I used the previously successful vanilla ice cream recipe as a starting point, and experimented until the flavors seemed right.

Serious Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream

(with apologies to Alton Brown)

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Nestle's)
2 tablespoons seedless strawberry jam
2 tablespoons malted milk powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons Torani hazelnut syrup

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Attach a frying or candy thermometer to inside of pan. (see note below) Stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Pour mixture into lidded container and refrigerate mixture overnight to mellow flavors and texture.
Freeze mixture in ice cream freezer according to unit's instructions. The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. Once the volume has increased by 1/2 to 3/4 times, and reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer before serving (takes 8 hours in our freezer).
NOTE: If you do not have a thermometer, bring the mixture just barely to a simmer. As soon as you see a bubble hit the surface, remove it from the heat. Do not let it boil

I used vanilla extract since I wasn't sure how much vanilla would be enough/too much for the mix. For next time, I think I'll go back to using a full vanilla bean. If it works out, I'll update the recipe.

I substituted seedless strawberry jam for the peach preserves to avoid the dreaded "chunks of peach" problem that got me in trouble with my daughters last time, and because I thought the taste of strawberry would complement the chocolate better. Got it right on both counts, but I think it could use a little more acidity from more jam.

I am a sucker for malt flavor in ice cream, so I snuck some in this time. I think I can get away with a lot more next time (very subtle...added depth without slapping you upside your head)

We're a Nutella household, so our kids are already used to the wonder of chocolate with hazelnut flavor, so adding the Torani hazelnut syrup was a no brainer, and really added a nice depth to the flavors.

This batch turned out extremely well (my 5 year old even gave me a medal for being the best ice cream maker, declaring it a "Top 10" ice cream moment). Nice balance of flavor that jumped out at you.

With the first batch under my belt, this one was embarrassingly easy to churn out (ouch). Took about 10 minutes the night before to get the mix made (including all the experimenting to get the balance right), next morning poor it in and get the mixer going while eating breakfast. By the time you're done with your tea, ready to go to the freezer, and the kids get to fight over the ice cream beater for dessert.

For the next time, I think I'll back off on the sugar (like the vanilla, this recipe is extremely sweet). The flavors are strong enough that it can take a lot more malt flavor and a real vanilla bean. The girls still insist on crumbled Oreo cones on the chocolate hazelnut ice cream, but I prefer a traditional sugar cone.

Next time: coffee ice cream!

Waffles

2007-08-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

In addition to making way too much ice cream this summer, we've been experimenting with lots of different home made waffle recipes.

Many waffle recipes call for beating your egg whites separately and folding them into the waffle batter to get some loft. I've tried that before, and it is WAY too much work, especially in the morning when you're just getting up and the kids are hungry.

As a general rule, let's all agree that life is far too short to be separating eggs and beating the whites to a stiff peak at 7am before you've had your breakfast. In search of the perfect waffle recipe, any that required beating egg whites were struck from the list.

To get things started we purchased a wonderful new waffle iron from Villaware (model 2004). Heats incredibly quickly, no stickiness problems, nice even cooking, etc. Recommended

Our first try was Alton Brown's Basic Waffle recipe. I didn't want to have a whole lot of whole wheat flour sitting around, so I substituted all purpose flour for the whole wheat flour. These were nice, but fairly dry. If you lubed them up with butter and maple syrup, they were quite tasty (but then again, so would an old sock) (1 thumb down from our 5 year old).

Next up was Alton Brown's Chocolate Waffle recipe. Skipped the chocolate chips to try to keep them as a breakfast waffle rather than a dessert waffle. Again, remarkably dry. The chocolate also made it fairly bitter. Even lots of butter and maple syrup couldn't save these (2 thumbs down from our 5 year old)

In an effort to redeem myself with the kids, next were Aretha Frankenstein's Waffles of Insane Greatness recipe. Obviously, expectations were high (didn't help that for a couple days before hand I was saying "Frankenstein's waffles of INSANE GREATNESS" in my best movie voice).

These were outstanding. Large amounts of vegetable oil made them extremely crispy and borderline greasy (no butter needed), but the corn starch and relatively large amount of vanilla made an amazingly nice waffle (2 thumbs up from our 5 year old...she regularly asks for "Waffles of Insane Greatness" now in her movie voice). Only downside was needing to wait 30 minutes after you mix the batter up before you can start making waffles. Get the mix made before your start up your coffee machine.

Last up were Overnight Yeasted Waffles from America's Test Kitchen:

Overnight Yeasted Waffles (extracted/adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)

1 1/4 cups whole milk
1 stick (!) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (next time I'm going to try 2 teaspoons)

Heat milk to near scalding (almost to boil), then add butter to melt. Let cool until mixture gets to ~115 degrees (slightly warm...don't want to kill the yeast).

Separately, whisk together the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt, then gradually whisk in the warm milk until the mixture is smooth.

Whisk in the eggs and vanilla until fully mixed.

Scrape down sides of bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 12 hours (up to 24). Batter will double in size.

Next morning, heat waffle iron. When hot, remove mixture from refrigerator and whisk to recombine and deflate (it will be more alive than you are at that time of the day).

Cook as you normally would on your waffle iron.

Note: these waffles are airy enough that I set my waffle iron to 3 1/2, as opposed to 6 or 7 for the other recipes on this page. Less mass so it cooks that much more quickly. The very large amount of butter means it crisps up quite nicely and that you don't need to grease the waffle iron.

These had the advantage of being made the night before (amazingly simple to mix together) and having the yeast rise in the refrigerator overnight. Definitely most convenient of the bunch on a groggy morning.

I found the tangy flavors of the scalded milk, yeast, and mellowing overnight to be very very nice. Lots of butter in the mix (again, none needed for cooking or after cooking), making them very rich and crispy. Extremely airy and light, so go easy on the maple syrup (it just soaks in like a sponge). Flavor actually reminded me of the crust on Gino's East pizza in Chicago (one of my favorites). I would make these my favorite, with perhaps more vanilla next time (1 thumb up from our 5 year old)

I would like to find a recipe that uses corn meal/polenta to accent the waffle. I think that would be a nice flavor combo. I may experiment a little and see how it turns out.

If you have a favorite waffle recipe, please pass along. Happy to put it through the Ghanbari Girls gauntlet and post the results.

As a tip for you waffle makers out there. Unless you have a large family (in numbers or girth), you will likely have extra. Turn down the heat on the iron about 20%, make slightly under done waffles with the rest of the batter, cool the waffles on a cooling rack, stick them in a plastic bag and freeze them. They actually survive quite well and toast/crisp up fine (no more Eggo's in our house).

Next up: Home made soft pretzels(!)

Living the good life...

2007-08-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

As soon as this guy gets mobile again, time to head to Vegas... (thanks to Kedric for forwarding)

Coffee Ice Cream

2007-08-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

With vanilla and chocolate hazelnut ice cream under our belt, time to make mom and dad happy by making some coffee ice cream.

Once again, I used the previously successful vanilla ice cream recipe as a starting point, and experimented until the flavors seemed right.

Serious Coffee Ice Cream

(with apologies to Alton Brown)

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup minus 4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons decaf Folgers coffee crystals
1 tablespoon peach preserves (not jelly)
3 tablespoons malted milk powder
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Combine all ingredients (including the bean and its pulp) in a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Attach a frying or candy thermometer to inside of pan. (see note below) Stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Remove the hull of the vanilla bean, pour mixture into lidded container and refrigerate mixture overnight to mellow flavors and texture.
Freeze mixture in ice cream freezer according to unit's instructions. The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. Once the volume has increased by 1/2 to 3/4 times, and reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer before serving (8 hours in our freezer).
NOTE: If you do not have a thermometer, bring the mixture just barely to a simmer. As soon as you see a bubble hit the surface, remove it from the heat. Do not let it boil.

Since I did not think strawberry would work with the coffee, I went back to the peach preserves. I used 1 tablespoon instead of 2 since I wasn't sure how it would work out. Also used 1/2 a vanilla bean since I didn't want to overwhelm the flavor with vanilla. I used freeze-dried coffee to control portions, and decaf so we can have as much as we want at night (we're caffeine wimps in our house). I felt brave with the malt, so loaded it up.

This batch was nice, but not the surprising success that the previous two batches were. Coffee flavor was a bit too intense (to the point of being borderline bitter), and the taste was flat on the tongue.

For the next time, I'm going to use the full vanilla bean (it can take it). Also, I plan on cutting back the coffee to 1 1/2 tablespoons. Lastly, it does need some acid to balance out the flavor and not be so flat. I'll either use the full 2 tablespoons of peach preserves, or experiment with some lemon rind in the mixture (probably the lemon rind just to see what happens). Can still benefit from more malt powder. I'll back off the sugar tablespoon for tablespoon as I ramp up the malt.

The girls still insist on crumbled Oreo cones on the coffee ce cream, but I prefer a traditional sugar cone. We all enjoyed some Heath bar crumbles sprinkled over the ice cream. Next time, may try blending some Heath bar crumbles in to see how they survive the process.

For those that want to jump the gun, add blend ins to the ice cream machine at the very end of the churning process (~5 minutes to go). Too early and they'll either dissolve or get ground to a pulp.

Ice Cream

2007-08-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I'm on a bit of a home made ice cream kick this summer.

Late last year, after lusting after them for 20+ years, we finally got a Kitchen Aid mixer. I took advantage of my good fortune to get my wife the ice cream maker attachment for the Kitchen Aid for Christmas. For those of you that have experiences a Minnesota winter, you know how unlikely a gift an ice cream maker is for Christmas, but there you have it.

This summer, we finally got to get the bowl out of the deep freezer and give it a whirl.

Now I'm an ice cream fan, not a custard fan. After a rather unfortunate incident with a rotten egg when I was twelve, I have an aversion to eggy tasting things. Most recipes for home made ice cream are actually custards, using copious amounts of egg yolks in an effort to make the concoction more rich.

After much searching, I found an interesting ice cream recipe from Alton Brown, host of "Good Eats" on the Food Network.

Serious Vanilla Ice Cream

Recipe courtesy Alton Brown

Show: Good Eats

Episode: Churn Baby Churn

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons peach preserves (not jelly)
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Combine all ingredients (including the bean and its pulp) in a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Attach a frying or candy thermometer to inside of pan. (see note below) Stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Remove the hull of the vanilla bean, pour mixture into lidded container and refrigerate mixture overnight to mellow flavors and texture.
Freeze mixture in ice cream freezer according to unit's instructions. The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. Once the volume has increased by 1/2 to 3/4 times, and reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer before serving (takes about .
NOTE: If you do not have a thermometer, bring the mixture just barely to a simmer. As soon as you see a bubble hit the surface, remove it from the heat. Do not let it boil.

The Kitchen Aid did a great job. Took about 20 minutes to churn. You know it is done when the churn paddle starts to slip in the mechanism (this is intentional). Transfer to a pre-chiled pyrex container (I prefer the neutral taste of pyrex to plastic), cover in plastic wrap and cover the container with its cover (remember, air and thermal cycles are the enemy of your ice cream), and freeze for ~8 hours until hard. Makes just under a quart of ice cream.

This turned out remarkably well for a first effort. The vanilla bean added a remarkable amount of flavor, especially after seeping in the mixture over night. Heating the dairy also did a LOT to really add some depth to the flavor and texture (taste the mixture before and after it goes into the fridge over night to see the difference). It was borderline too sweet, but otherwise outstanding. The only complaint from the kids was the occasional chunk of peach from the peach preserves that spoiled the party for them. I liked the (very) subtle peach flavor. The acid was necessary to balance out the flavors of the ice cream.

In our house, the preferred serving style is in a bowl, with some crumbled Oreo ice cream cones on top of it. Caramel sauce is also always in fashion.

For future variants, I plan on cutting back the sugar some (2-3 fewer tablespoons) and perhaps adding 3-4 tablespoons of malted milk powder (I'm a sucker for malt flavorings in ice cream). I'll extend this post as I try different variations of the vanilla ice cream, and have different posts for different flavors we're experimenting with.

Mike Wieringo

2007-08-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

Rest in Peace comic book artist Mike Wieringo, who died Sunday at the age of 44.

Wieringo's recent run on Fantastic Four (with writer Mark Waid) was a wonderful return to the childlike wonder that so much represented the soul of the World's Greatest Comic back in the day. Reading that run was an unexpected joy and an important reminder, and for that I thank Mike.

I Believe!

2007-08-12T12:39:00.001-07:00

Baroque Cycle

2007-08-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

I recently joined the elite club of 18 other people that have actually read all three volumes of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (or the Baroque My Back Cycle for those of us that had to carry around these books for the 18 months it took me to read them)

A far ranging novel, covering Isaac Newton, Leibniz, various kings/queens, Europe/Asia/North America, the invention of calculus and modern science, etc. over ~3000 pages, essentially chronicling the remarkable years of 1660 to 1714 when modern civilization was born. A remarkable tome, at its heart about the role of free will vs an all knowing God and mathematical perfection.

Stephenson clearly had free reign from his editors, often spinning off into multi-page Melvillian prose to lovingly explore such topics as how to fabricate phosphorous from animal urine.

For all the extravagance, there are literary jewels where the imagery lingers far longer than the backache. For example, 1/2 way through a round the world sea journey, our heroes approach feudal Japan from the west. During this time, Japan was desperately trying to keep foreign influences from their shores (those of us of an age will remember the Shogun miniseries, where we first learned to understand a little Japanese).

"Dappa exchanged Malabar-words with three black sailors who had just hauled in the sounding-lead, then turned toward the poop deck and gave van Hoek a certain look. The captain stretched out a mangled hand towards the bow, then let it fall. A pair of Filipino sailors swung mauls, dislodging a pair of chocks, and the head of the ship itched upward slightly as it was relieved of the weight of the anchors. Their chains rumbled through hawse-holes for a moment, making a sound like Leviathan clearing its throat. Then chains gave way to soft cables of manilla that slithered and hissed across the deck for quite a few moments, gather force, until everyone abovedecks began to doubt if the Malabari sailors with the sounding-lead had really gotten it right. But then the life seemed to go out of those cables. They coasted to a stop, and the Filipinos went to work recovering the slack. The sails had all been struck, but the wind that they had ridden in from the Sea of Japan found purchase on Minerva's hull and nudged her forward into the long shadow of a snow-topped mountain, creating the curious impression the the sun was setting in the east."

(I look forward to someday writing something 1/2 as good as the above...wow!)

Aside from the larger philosophical questions and historical excitement (and the philosophical issue of free will vs determinism is explored subtly and extraordinarily well through the actions of the story), imagery like the sun setting in the east on a Japan turned upside down makes these books a must read for those with the patience to work through them.

For those friends in Minnesota, in a moment of head swooning temporary insanity, I purchased the Hillhouse limited editions of these books. That means I have the original backbreaking hardcovers available if someone would like them.

Don't mess with TEXAS!

2007-08-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

Now this is what I'm taking about: Chicken-Fried Bacon

Hurry up and get your orders in before it is banned.

For those that have had the pleasure of attending the Minnesota State Fair, can you honestly say you wouldn't give this a try? (with ranch dip instead of gravy of course)

Geoff had the best suggestion: fry it up on a stick, and roll it in corn flakes (aka, Breakfast on a Stick)

Patti Smith's cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

2007-08-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

In a sign of the times, rock/punk legend Patti Smith (all 60 years (!) young) has released an album of covers.

Among other astonishing songs is a cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", accompanied by a banjo. A remarkable journey for the woman who opened her 1975 debut album with a killer cover of "Gloria" by Van Morrison.