Opaque Lucidity

Common Evil

I watched a very disturbing documentary about the SS last night on the History Channel. That group's brutality is well known and almost unimagineable. But there was a point to the show that really gave me pause.

Many Holocaust survivors were interviewed, and they recounted tales of horror that any student of history has heard many times. But one man, who was too young to have been an adult at that time, made a very interesting statement: "It took me a long time to realize that it wasn't Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels who were beating and imprisoning me; it was the carpenter, the mechanic, the baker. These people could've been our neighbors."

Strong stuff, but very sobering. Any movement like Nazism can not exist without the support of at least some of the populace. And so you have to wonder who among us would be capable of such atrocities. In "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", Sheerer argues that Nazism was popular in Germany because it brought order to chaos and Germans were fairly new to true national unity. This makes sense, but you have to wonder.

Our view of Nazism today is one of extreme nationalism, racial purity and militarism. While these ideas were the true goals of Nazism, this was not how it was sold to the German people. The Nazi party was the party of job creation, of crime-free streets, of "getting us what we deserve". When these things began to happen, very few questioned the means by which these goals were achieved. With that in mind, I have to wonder if we have really learned anything from the mistakes of the past.

Miller Time

Evidently, some Republicans want to draft Dennis Miller to run for a statewide office on the Left Coast. The story is from the LA Times, so it could be a complete fiction. But it wouldn't shock me if it were true.

I worry about what's happening to the Republican Party. As a friend is fond of saying, "The Republicans are great at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory." It is my contention, perhaps mistakenly, that most people become Republicans because they want to belong to a party that stands on principles, not emotions, focus groups and polling data. But seeking the endorsements of celebrities in the same way Democrats do is, to me, selling out. The truth does not need endorsement or public praise; it will stand on its own.

Boss-Free Month

I successfully survived our first month-end without Boss. Judging by his lack of any appreciable responsibilities, you may wonder why this was a big deal. The fact is that my company's month-end, and the hours of tedious report creation that come along with it, was the only area where Boss held the reins until his final day. He held the reins so tightly, in fact, that none of us really knew what he did during the last few days of every month. Thus, the past 10 days or so have been spent retracing his steps. I have read old e-mails, dug through trash cans and pored over locally saved files on his PC. Last night ended up being a 12-hour day, but it was well worth the effort---I think everything worked out well, although we won't know for sure until our clients have a chance to look over their data.

Robert Palmer has died. At the height of his popularity, I was in high school. My wife and I were aghast at the thought that, in the 80's, he was just a little older than we are now. But it was only yesterday, wasn't it?

Robert, USMC Part Deux

I received a letter from Parris Island today. My friend Robert is doing much better. It seems that his illness turned out to be full-fledged pnuemonia and he was on bed rest for a couple days. In boot camp, this can play hell with one's morale.

Even though navy boot camp is sort of light-weight compared to the Corps, I had a similar experience when I was in Orlando. My new boots rubbed a spot on the back of my foot that became infected. I tried to ignore it, but one of my shipmates saw it and sort of "ratted" me out. I got one day of bed rest and it was the worst day of my life. While no one yelled at me, it was as if I had let everyone down.

But I digress. Thank you for keeping Robert in your thoughts and prayers and please continue to do so. He still has about 8 weeks or so of training, and it's only going to get harder.

Bandwidth

Some of you are viewing this page with a dial-up connection. If the pictures are loading very slowly, please let me know and I will remove them. I like to add a little color every once in a while, but I don't want it to be a pain for you to read my ramblings. Thanks.

A Reese Break

I need a Reese reset. Ummmmmm....Reese.

It's a Dog's Life

1.5 Billion...No Freakin' Way

I have never read a romance novel. This is not unusual, seeing as I am a heterosexual male whose taste in reading leans more towards non-fiction. But I was listening to 'This American Life' over the web this morning and there was great segment about a woman attending a romance novelist convention in NYC. She was impressed by how seriously the authors took their work. And why, dear reader, do they take it so seriously? Because it's a $1.5 BILLION a year industry. Yes, that's an American billion, as in $1,500,000,000.00. Apparently, one-half of all the paperback books printed in this country every year are romance novels.

Even the publishers admit that the genre is formulaic: there is a conflict that keeps the lovers apart and often the male character is a scoundrel. By the end of the book, good triumphs, evil is beaten back and the man and women ride off into the sunset. Almost all the authors are women, and the acceptance rate for first-time authors is fairly high. As a person who had received rejection notices that weren't even signed, this seems almost too good to be true.

So here's the plan: I will write the novels and we will publish them under my wife's name. However, my porn name (the name of your first pet and the name of the street you grew up on) will appear somewhere in every book. So if you're ever in Barnes and Noble thumbing through the Harlequin section and you see one of the characters is named Tiger Graceland, you'll know what happened.

Robert, USMC

I recently received word that my friend Robert is not doing well. Robert is in boot camp at Parris Island in preparation for becoming a Marine. He has been gone just over a month, but word has it that his morale is down due to some recent sickness and that feeling that hit almost all of us in boot camp---the feeling that you made a mistake joining up.

So if you pray, please say a prayer for my friend. He is a good man and will be a top-drawer Marine. And now, in these times, this nation needs men of his caliber. Thank you.

MYOB

I think that we would all like to look at ourselves and believe that we are not influenced by or care about the opinions of others. Of course, that's crap; if we didn't care about other's opinions, none of us would wear clothes, bathe or hold down a job. But there is a line out there somewhere in our lives, a line beyond which only a few special people get to have a say in our affairs.

Here's an example that both illustrates my point and is the reason for this post. My wife and I do not have children and, since we are both now in our 30's, we probably never will. There are a few very good reasons for this, none of which I will delve into here. Why, you ask? Because you're not inside the circle of people who are privvy to that information. Don't get upset; only my wife is inside this circle with me. Beyond her and I, it's no one else's business.

The problem with making decisions of a private nature and KEEPING those decisions private is that all of us have people in our lives who believe, mistakenly in this case, that they have us all figured out and they don't like our decisions one bit. Why don't they like our decisions? Because those choices aren't the ones that they made. It doesn't matter that they don't know all the facts. What matters, in their minds, is that their lifestyles be seen as somehow superior to mine and yours. Nothing can exist that is equal but different.

So these people in our lives feel it is a very bad thing that Kelli and I do not have children. Do they know why? No. But it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it takes everything in my being to not pick up the phone and yell at someone until they cry, which is something I can do very, very well. The only thing that keeps me in check is my wife, who does not handle things in that manner.

So we will live our lives, probably childless, and deal with the worried questions and false judgements of friends and family who don't know the first thing about the reasons why. But one day, long down the road, the question will be asked to my face instead of behind my back. And then, only then, the reasons will come forth. And those who were sure they knew the reasons will feel guilty, and they will question their own judgements. As cruel as this may sound, I hope it causes the same hurt in them that it has caused in us.

...and I Feel Fine

Jupiter is going to become a star this weekend. Well, not really, but some of the nuts on the web want you to start stocking up on water and bullets anyway.

As I've mentioned many times before, I am a regular listener to George Noory, the man who replaced Art Bell (who is making a weekend comeback, by the way). George often has UFOlogists (that's what they call themselves) on who tell the same story that they have been telling since 1947: the US Government knows all about UFOs and is lying to us about it. While this is a fairly simple premise, a cottage industry has grown out of it.

If you step back and think about it, none of these UFOlogists can ever step forward with irrefutable proof of aliens, UFOs, anal probes, etc. If they did, the mainstream media would pick up the story and all of these people would be out of business. So the story must continue without an end; we must continually be told that we are being lied to and that the only way we can ever know the truth is to find it ourselves. Anyone who refutes the "truth" is part of the cover-up. Doesn't this all work out nicely? It's like that old image of the snake eating his own tail.

Here's the truth about aliens: they are human beings from the future. Before you laugh, consider the following:

1. Over time we have become less hairy and taller. However, height is becoming less and less of an issue except in areas of sport. In fact, the world would be much easier to feed if we were all four feet tall. How tall are the "greys" that everyone is seeing? About four feet tall.

2. As the different races on this planet intermingle, human beings will become one color. Also, we are aware of the harmful effects of prolonged sun exposure. With those two facts in mind, take a human being and put him inside for about 50 generations. What color would he be? Grey. What color are the "greys"? Ummm, grey.

3. There was a time when human beings used all of their senses equally. Now, we receive most of our information through our eyes. It stands to reason that, over the next several thousand generations, our ears will get smaller and our eyes will get larger. Also, our brain will become larger as our bodies shrink. Have you seen an alien head lately?

4. As our brain power increases, it stands to reason that our telepathic powers will increase to a point where they become part of our everyday lives. If we don't talk as much, our mouths will get smaller and eventually become just a tube to put food in. When was the last time an abductee saw an alien speak?

5. While alien technology seems impossible, consider this: we have been flying one hundred years and we have already sent probes to the farthest reaches of our solar system. What will we be capable of in a million years?

QED.

By the way, if you ever want to chime in on my inane commentary, click on the "comments" link after each post. Bear in mind, the whole world can read what you write. Join the club.

Life as a House

Before I came to work this evening, Kelli and I watched the film 'My Life as a House'. It's about a man dying of cancer and how he handles the last few months of his life. I am a big fan of Kevin Kline (my high school drama teacher and he were contemperaries at Indiana University) and he does not disappoint here. It's worth the time.

The film brings forth the classic dillemma of death: if you knew you were going to die and had a significant amount of time (several months or years), how would you spend it? If you only had a day or so, the answer to most people would be to spend that time with loved ones. But if you had enough time, wouldn't you want to spend it making something that would outlive you? Maybe it's my own self-serving nature talking here, but I would want to leave something that people will point to a century from now and think of me.

Of course, we are all dying a minute at a time. And so, the question becomes: why am I not doing it now? I could get hit by a truck or struck by a meteor or fall off a cliff at any time. And as my father loves to say, time will go by no matter what you do.

Justin=Satan

was obviously being punished by God. There can be no other explanation.

Vols

This water tower is painted "UT Orange". Big deal, you say? Well, this water tower is in IRAQ. Read all about it.

Just One of Those Days

I took a decision yesterday that, upon initial reflection, may seem rash. However, I think that time will prove me right. I have decided that, except for friends, family and one local business, I am no longer going to work on PCs or troubleshoot networking problems.

I came to this point when I stopped to consider how much time I spend doing this "side" work versus how much that time is really worth. The conclusion I came to was that it would be economically impossible for an individual to pay me enough to make it worthwhile for me to give up that time and feel justified in doing so. Of course, this doesn't apply to people who I have done work for before and to whom I still owe assistance. But I have recently begun to dread Mondays because every Monday (which, with my work schedule, is Sunday to me) is filled with this and that computer problem. It's no longer a good time.

The Ghost of Boss

When a person works at a place for 23 years, you expect him to acumulate some baggage; by that I mean junk, old papers, etc. Boss didn't leave these tangible things behind---his big present was his office computer, which contained years worth of files that I have spent the last few hours trying to organize. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so frustrating.

So I made a promise to myself today: if I leave here, I will leave everything in perfect order. The next person to sit in this chair will look around and say "That Matt guy was pretty together." I know that sounds cheesy, but I am coming to realize that what you leave behind can say as much about you as what you did when you were here.

The End of a Chapter

Boss is gone. He was not fired, per se; instead, he was given an early retirement and sent on his way. He was gone all of last week, presumably for the death of a nephew. While I would never call such a serious claim a lie, it is interesting to me that he was removed immediately upon his return. This makes me believe that the death was a cover story of some sort so that he would have time to prepare for his corporate demise.

I should feel some sense of elation or at least gladness. While I admit that the news this afternoon made me almost giddy for a time, it now fills me with a strong sobriety brought on by my realization that I will now be more in the forefront than ever. Boss was nothing if not a control freak, and part of that need was met by keeping me in the dark about upcoming events, projects, etc. until the last moment. Now, the doors have been opened on his fortress and I see that the situation is worse than I ever could've imagined. Documents are missing, contact numbers gone and instructions have disappeared.

But I guess my current melancholy is more focused on the man himself and the 23 years he spent here. I'm sure that his retirement package is generous, but I can not imagine that Boss was happy having arrangements forced upon him. This was almost entirely of his doing, but I can't help but wonder when and where he turned that corner and became the detriment he was in his final years here. Could it have been avoided? Could a kindness or more support have made the difference? My gut says no, but we will never know now, will we?

Like a Virgin

Madonna is very concerned with protecting her daughter, Lourdes, from her "on-stage persona". Really? I know this sounds crazy, but if she were interested in her daughter having a somewhat normal existence, shouldn't she have married the child's father instead of picking some good-looking sperm donor? Am I missing something here?

I was a witness today to a temper tantrum. The tantrum took place in an office where I do some work from time-to-time. It was conducted by a young man of about 3. He was angry at his mother, who was there to fill out some paperwork. Her response to his outburst? "He's always like this when he comes back from his dad's house."

Two things about this. One was our reaction (nodding and smiling), which says something about how desensitized we have all become to bratty kids from broken homes. But my second thought was deeper: shame is dead in our society. Like it or not, shame and guilt are what hold civilizations together. I go out and work not only out of a sense of financial need and personal pride, but to avoid the shame I would feel for not being a productive member of my family.

Evidently, not everyone feels this shame. There was a time, not so long ago, when divorce was a dirty word. It happened, and sometimes it needed to, but it wasn't something that was treated with glibness and resignation. There was a certain amount of shame in a failed marriage, enough so that it wasn't considered nice dinner conversation.

We now know that shame can be used to keep people trapped in bad situations. Many, many women stayed in abusive marriages because of the shame they would feel if they left. But I think that the pendulum has gone off the scale at the other end---to support shame as a real thing necessary in a civilized society is considered nutty. But history teaches us that a world without limits, morally or otherwise, will become a world where nothing is held sacred.

The Man in Black

Johnny Cash has died. We have truly lost a giant.

The Big Lie

In our ever more politically-correct world, unless you are a Christian (I am including Catholics in that), your religion is considered to be above reproach. In fact, any culture based on your faith is untouchable. The apologists on the Left claim that the world would be a better place if we only understood each other a little better and made things as diverse as possible. It is that attitude, that move towards inclusion at any price, that is getting people killed around the world.

I was not going to comment on 9/11 and its aftermath this year. If you have been awake for the last 24 hours, you have been bombarded with news stories and editorials about the events of two years ago yesterday. One theme pushed by the mainstream media is the idea that we must understand why "those people" hate us so much. Really? You mean you really don't know? Or, as I suspect, do you not like the answer?

This is probably going to be long, but please allow me to explain. To the adherents of the liberal mindset, evil (and, thus, evil people) do not exist. When bad things happen, those bad things are caused by someone who is misunderstood or angry because of some injustice perpetrated upon him by society. To stop bad things from happening, we must understand why he is so angry and seek to change society so that his anger is quenched. If we do not change, then his actions are not his fault, but ours.

And so, after Sept. 11, 2001, the big question among the "Great Thinkers" was why the terrorists hate us so much. The answer, to them, was simple: the terrorists hate America for the same reason that the true liberal mindset hates America: we are gluttonous, overbearing, rude, unaware, uncaring thugs who run the world. Our success surely must have come at the cost of a good life for all the well-meaning people of the world who only want to be left alone but who fall under the shadow of the American Experiment. So the answer, logically, is that the United States must stop being a bully, share the wealth, and recognize that our society, successful though it might be, is no better than anyone else's.

Fair enough. But let's look at it from a different angle. Imagine a company/country/movement that holds sway over dozens of countries. It has started wars, killed political and religious leaders and brought millions of people under its control. In the countries it does not control directly, it sets up schools in the hope that future generations will come to see the light and join the company/country/movement in furthering its goals. It follows a strict set of guidelines, but has no central convening authority.

In case you don't know yet, I am talking about Islam. The very crimes that the US is accused of are actually perpetrated by this movement. While they rally the troops in places like Palestine, Egypt and Pakistan by teaching hatred towards the West, they openly oppress women and non-Muslims in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia. While Christians around the world believe that they have a duty to show kindness and compassion, many Muslims believe that their only duty is to mutilate the genitalia of their daughters (or beat them to death if they threaten their family's "honor") and kill non-believers.

Many of you reading this are appalled. You say, "I know Muslims and they are kind, gentle people. They don't condone terrorism and honor killings." This is true. But, I ask, where is the outrage on the part of moderate Muslims? Where are the speeches condemning the homicide bombings in Palestine? Or the extermination of Christians in Sudan? Imagine if the Pope issued a death threat against an author who wrote a book condemning Catholicism (as was done against Rushdie when he wrote "The Satanic Verses"). Catholics around the world would be yelling to every media outlet they could find, telling them that they do not agree with His Holiness. But from American Muslims? Stony silence.

And so we come back to the "Great Thinkers". If they were honest in their assessment of terrorism, they would have to conclude that the problems lies not in economic inequity or Western cultural dominance, but in extreme interpretation of a bankrupt faith. But to do this would mean abandoning the belief that all cultures are morally equal. In fact, it would mean stating that a 1300-year old way of life may be fundamentally flawed.

An admission of this scale would open the floodgates on the liberal mindset, something that the mainstream media (and our own government) is not prepared to deal with. Thus, Islam must remain beyond reproach while its adherents threaten all freedom-loving people. Anyone drawing a comparison between American freedom and Islamic opression is labeled a bigot, a racist or, worse, a right-winger. Even the White House has had to dodge the issue for the sake of political expediency.

A century from now, when we are all gone and what I have written here today will have escaped into the ether, historians will see this as a time in human history when the world was once again divided into two camps: freedom-loving peoples and oppressive slave-drivers. I just hope that there will still be freedom-loving people left.

Edward Teller

Edward Teller, the "father" of the hydrogen bomb, has died. Teller was a very complex man; if you read about his confrontations with and later condemnation of Robert Oppenheimer you will see how often he contradicted himself. While the idea of designing horrible weapons like the atomic and hydrogen bombs might bother you, consider that it was those weapons which staved off a third world war. You could even say, possibly, that development and deployment of such unthinkable weapons saved human civilization at a time when it was broken down into two nearly even camps, each bent on seeing the end of the other.

Alpha Males and "Caulifornya"

I had a long talk with a friend last night about the concept of the . Being one who associates business or athletic success with overall goodness (seemingly a common mistake among men with poor or missing father figures), his take on the subject is very different than mine. My problems with the term and the concept are three-pronged. First, the term "alpha male" comes from the professionals who study apes and chimps in the wild. Originally, it was used to refer to the male of the group who was the undisputed leader, sexually and otherwise. I just don't get the warm fuzzies from being compared to an animal. Can't we come up with something new here?

Secondly, there is Al Gore. During the campaign leading up to the 2000 election, Al Gore's handlers hired a WOMAN to teach him how to be an alpha male. I don't know what he was missing or how this woman was going to help him find it, but common sense tells me that you are either born as an alpha or your not. Maybe I'm wrong on this; however, I do know that money would've been better spent buying that hapless bastard a personality. That entire debacle left me with a visceral reaction to the term.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, "alphas" use their newly-minted social construct as an excuse for that fact that many, many of them are jerks. There is nothing wrong with honing and using leadership skills or being competitive socially and economically. But understand that being manipulative or overly aggressive are not good management or life skills to develop. And if you have those tendencies, you need to work to get rid of them.

On the scale of Alpha, Regular, Nice and Jerk (see link above), I guess I fall pretty squarely into the Regular category. I possess some NiceGuy qualities (rushing relationships, insecurity), but I believe they have mellowed since my marriage. In the fourteen years since I graduated from high school, I have held three mid-level management positions in three different companies. I have worked with incredibly diverse people. In all that time, I can say that probably no one would've pinned the attributes of the alpha male on me. Yet, I was successful in all those positions for one reason: people respect you if you respect them and demonstrate honesty and loyalty. There's no secret there; it's just the golden rule brought to work. I didn't need to dominate every conversation or win every debate to get there, either.


Speaking of debates, I saw where Gray Davis was poking fun at The Ahhhnold because of his pronunciation of "California". Tell me if I'm wrong here, but if a Republican had made that statement, wouldn't the mainstream media be calling the candidate anti-immigrant? Anyway, start practicing this title: Governor Bustamante. You Golden Staters deserve whatever you get.

Welcome

Welcome to my new broom closet in cyberspace. For those of you who followed me over from the Dattblog, please be patient while I learn my way around. As of today, that weblog will no longer be updated.

I would like to give a word of thanks to my friend Kyle who has helped me get this thing up and running. He has the patience and kindness of a saint. His hosting company is in Louisville and is first-rate.