For a few weeks now, I've been intending to write an essay here called "The Race Thing". The upshot is this: I don't get it. I don't get the race thing. I don't understand racism and I have no tolerance for racism. At the same time, I haven't been exposed to the kinds of racism that many of my friends experience on a daily basis. I don't know to what extent racism pervades our society today; I've simply never seen it in the computer industry and I haven't been terribly active in those sectors of the population where it allegedly prevails.

Don't get me wrong; I *know* that it exists. A relative of mine who is a cop makes that obvious in the stories he tells. And, sadly, I do know several people who have expressed unflattering opinions about people based upon their skin color. I can only chalk this up to ignorance and frustration, and I've seen it happen with people of all different ethnic backgrounds.

Just because I haven't seen it in the computer industry doesn't mean it doesn't happen, of course. But, nonetheless, because I'm not reminded of *my* skin color every day, I guess that can make it difficult for me to imagine that *some* folks *are*. When I get into a conversation on the topic, I am therefore constrained to intellectual observations rather than any real first hand data.

(perhaps when I get around to writing this essay, I'll mention my experiences as a "minority" at Bennett High School, but I'm getting ahead of myself...)

Nonetheless, I find the recent news that a major employer in the computer industry is being sued for discrimination to be particularly hard to fathom.

The lawsuit alleges that the company in question maintains a "plantation mentality" when it comes to its African-American employees. When I read this, my first thought was: "Well, Duh, assholes! They have a plantation mentality toward ALL their employees!" I have known people to have to seek psychiatric help over their working situation with this particular employer. The suicide rate seemed rather fantastic while I was there: pretty much every other week, the corporate newsletter mentioned the passing of some co-worker from some undefined cause.

This wasn't a race thing. This was an everything thing. You either "drank the kool-aid" or you were an outsider. If you allowed the borg to assimilate you, then congratulations, you were eligible for promotion... and, you could do well. But, if you clung to a life that was outside of the corporate culture, you surely would not succeed there. I have many brilliant friends of all ethnic backgrounds who are doing well there; but, their lifestyle choices are more amenable to that style of working situation. The plantation life ain't so bad, I guess, if you like that kind of work.

It was clear that if you kissed The Man's ass, you got promoted, and if you didn't, you didn't. HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER CONTEMPORARY WORKING ENVIRONMENT? The folks filing this lawsuit are seeking a class action remedy because they (the seven plaintiffs) were "passed over" for promotions that were given to others (whites) who were "less qualified". I have some news that may shock some: LOTS OF PEOPLE GET PASSED-OVER FOR PROMOTION IN FAVOR OF TWITS WHO ARE LESS QUALIFIED.

Note to all y'all who feel oppressed because of your gender, race, religion, or whatever: the key to success in this corporate world is to learn what to kiss and when to kiss it. If you really want to be "equal" to the straight white male who got that promotion, learn to kiss ass like he does.

If you're above kissing ass, then you're above being promoted. Whoever thought that being promoted was glamorous missed a class somewhere.

Now that I've insulted all of my former colleagues who have ever gotten promoted, I think I'm going to take a breather. I'm getting worked up.

In my next installment, I'll insult several ethnic groups, deride America's educational system, and further expose my raw, naked bitterness (even more fully than I already have here) before I finally capitulate and admit that I really don't know what I'm talking about, apologize to my former overlords, and beg for mercy from my new masters.

So, I understand that I risk looking foolish by exposing my ignorance and my only half-formed ideas on the subject, but I nonetheless need to explore this issue. I do this like I explore any issue -- by throwing it out there and seeing how it looks, then rearranging as appropriate. It's just the way I'm built; some internalize. I gotta get it out there. Better to risk looking foolish now than to not examine the issue and risk *doing* something stupid later.

I think.

There's also the painful reality that my many friends and family who happen to understand The Race Thing first-hand will be uncomfortable seeing me make a fool of myself like this. Let's face it: this is embarassing. I'm making an academic exercise about one of the most emotion-laden issues around. By exposing my ignorance to my dearest of friends and family who happen to have a different background than me, well... I hope you'll understand that *I'm* just trying to understand. And, I'm starting this out by trying to understand just how much I *don't* understand.

First of all, let me state something that can only sound obnoxious, but I believe it to be true, nonetheless. When I meet people, *yes* I notice their appearance (including their skin color, et al), but I honestly believe that I don't *assess* them on the basis of their physical traits. In this day and age, that can only sound like bullshit (and like self-serving denial), but let me try to explain.

Let's put this in the grossest of terms, because I think you *will* understand. When a heterosexual man encounters a woman he has never met before, he will react to a number of attributes he encounters. He may, for example, find himself physically attracted to her bust, her butt, her face, her neck, her hands, her hair. He may go crazy (or not) with lust over her voice. Her eyes. And yet, another man might not even give a second thought to these very same attributes. So, Mr. Smith meets Jane Doe and immediately notices her full, shapely breasts. Mr. Smith is a breast man. He can't stop thinking about the large and inviting bust-line of Ms. Doe. Mr. Jones walks up and meets Mr. Smith and Ms. Doe. Mr. Jones is not a breast man. He likes butts. Breasts don't really do it for him (even though Ms. Doe believe that every man she meets is only interested in her breasts), and Ms. Doe's bust in particular is of no interest to him. Since her figure otherwise has nothing terribly attractive to him (her butt being somewhat not his type), he does not end up focusing on her as a sexual being. She's just another woman he is meeting. That's all.

This isn't an essay about sexual attraction (now that I've alienated another large segment of the audience), it's about perception. Ms. Doe, because she has been physically endowed with a chest that gets an awful lot of attention, can't quite grasp the idea that NOT ALL MEN ARE INTERESTED IN HER OVERSIZED BREASTS. And, yet, some men simply don't care. Doesn't phase them at all. And, note, I'm still talking about heterosexual men, in this metaphor. In this example, Mr. Jones can talk with Ms. Doe and not have a single thought about sex. At least, he's not thinking about sex with her.

Like anybody else, I make assessments of the people I meet based upon any number of attributes. And, I *do* notice skin color, shape of face, voice, eyes, language, weight, all that stuff. But, for whatever reason, I'm just not interested in most of that stuff. Grooming habits probably register more deeply in me than skin color. Eyes matter a lot. They reveal a lot. A dishevled shifty-eyed white guy will always worry me more than any black man in a suit. (Except for Don King, ha, ha.)

Now, I could go on for another thirty paragraphs about why I think this might be the case for me (parental upbringing; unique experiences in my high school, mental defects, whatever), but this isn't about "look how non-racist I am." Rather, it's a starting point for understanding just why it is I *don't* understand.

I want to tell you about my Uncle Philip. Phil is great. He's only five years older than me, and we grew up in close proximity for many years of my youth. He sharpened my chess game, let me use his computer (remember the TI 99/4?), tried to explain the Theory of Relativity to me. He's a great guy.

Now, he *also* happens to have been born with Cerebral Palsey. So, this affects his speech and his motor control. Talking with him is difficult, at first, until you get used to his speech. Anyway, Phil came to visit me my senior year at Cornell, and we went to a Cornell hockey game. I drove us to the parking lot by Lynah Rink and started looking for a place to park.

"Allan. What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for a place to park."

"Park there!"

"But, that's a handicapped spot!"

I am such an idiot.

In my mind, I'm not thinking "Ooh, I have a handicapped person in my car." It's just my Uncle Phil. One of the most brilliant minds I know.

This is an example of how patently stupid I can be when it comes to keeping in mind very obvious physical realities of someone else's existence.

A similar incident occurred more recently, when I had the pleasure of joining my friend Harry from Cornell at a little soiree at his house. Harry was News Director when I first began working in the News Department at WVBR, and he was one of my first and most enduring mentors there. Harry went on to become a reporter for the NPR station in San Francisco. Very cool dude with a very sharp intellect.

Anyway, many cities later, he and I both live in the same town again, and he invited me over to his place. As it turns out, I was one of only two white people at the event. Everyone else there was Asian-American. I didn't even notice it at the time. But, we all ended up settling into this excellent discussion about the radio business and the software industry, and the subject of discrimination came up. I was surprised, at first, when they started talking about how NPR doesn't have any minorities in its upper ranks, etc., etc. What surprised me wasn't the facts that they brought up; what surprised me was... they were talking about themselves. ie, this topic was immediately relevant to *them*. And, I'm thinking to myself, "But, Harry, what are you talking about? You're not a minority. You're Harry!" (Unlike my conversation above with Philip, I actually didn't say this out loud.)

So, you see, I'm an idiot. (Sorry, Harry. Sorry, Philip. I hope you both can forgive me. I can only hope I have other redeeming qualities.) And, this particular kind of idiocy has led me to completely not get The Race Thing. The concept of "minorities in executive positions" has always been an academic subject for me. But, it *isn't* an academic subject. Real people are facing real glass ceilings on the basis of physical attributes that have nothing to do with their abilities.

More to the point, *some* people's *entire lives* are shaped by the fact of thier ethnic background. And, this fact is leading to huge injustices on both sides of the racial divide.

Tune in for the next installment, wherein Allan the Idiot brings up O. J. Simpson and the criminal justice system over lunch with some co-workers of multiple ethnic backgrounds, and watch as the fun ensues.

So, back when I was self-employed or worked for small companies, I would often be confronted by economic choices. For example, if I or someone on my team wanted or needed a new piece of equipment -- let us say, hypothetically, a new monitor -- the decision to purchase would often boil down to the business.

For example, I might ask "How many more widgets must I/we sell to offset the cost of this monitor?" There's also the quintessential "What would it cost me if I *don't* purchase this item?" Even though the second question is more important, the first question always helped to put things into perspective that helped to create incentive. Usually, it would cause me or the member of my team to think in terms of "What can I do today that will help to drive up sales by X widgets?"

But.

What if you work for a company that loses money on every sale? What if you work for a dot com? THEN what do you do? It's like being in a bizarro world. Selling more means... losing more. So, if you want to clear the cost of a piece of equipment, do you try to sell more? Or, do you try to sell less?

Are you better off encouraging your friends to shop with your employer when you know that every dollar they spend brings your employer closer to bankruptcy? I don't get it. I just don't get it.

I think I'm beginning to understand why my essays are getting dumber and dumber. It's because *I'M* getting dumber. Spending time in the land of dot coms is hurting my brain. Decision making here has absolutely no basis in reality. This must be what it's like to work for the government.

As many of you know, I used to host a radio comedy show called A Night at the Asylum at WVBR-FM in Ithaca, NY. The show was largely inspired by Dr. Demento, only we focused more on comedy and less on novelty records.

Recently, one of my fellow former producers of said comedy show discovered that someone she knew was wanted by the police for child molestation. The culprit was caught, and as the facts about his predatory practices were revealed, it became clear that this very sick individual had messed up a great many people's lives... including friends who were very near and dear to her.

As we discussed this traumatic chain of events, my fellow former comedy show producers and I came around to the question of a routine we used to play on the show: Kinko the Clown, by Ogden Edsl. None of us could remember ever really liking this particular song, and we all wondered why we'd every played it. It didn't have any particularly funny lines, and it's rather insenstive to a nasty subject.

But... I've been thinking about this more and more lately. I think that, in fact, we *did* find it funny at the time; we've simply forgotten why. Our context has changed.

The reason I believe this to be the case is because I happened to see Dr. Demento in a live performance this weekend. Focusing on "things [he] can't play on the radio", the syndicated radio show host played songs and videos of a number of bits that don't (currently) pass FCC muster. Some of these items would never, ever make it, but were very funny (including an extremely rude Mick Jagger tune that he recorded with the *intent* of being so bad that the record company would never release it, simply to fulfill a contract that he wanted out of). Others used to be playable on the radio, but have since elicited fines from the FCC. This collection surprised me, in particular, because it included a number of routines we used to play all the time: Monty Python's "Sit on my Face", for example.

Then, the good doctor showed us a music video and prefaced it by saying, "This song used to be one of the most requested on the Dr. Demento show, but I haven't played it in a couple of years, given the aftermath of the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorodo." The video was for Julie Brown's, "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun."

Wow. I was stunned. This song was frequently featured on our show. And, as the video unfolded, it was so patently clear why playing it now would be so beyond the bounds of acceptable taste. Given the events that transpired in Littleton, there was no way to interpret this song as anything other than a sick and depraved acting-out.

But, the thing is... this was recorded *years* before Littleton, and it was mocking high school homecoming pagentry; it was not advocating violence. The song and video were so clearly cartoonish; the humor so obviously a coy swipe at high school's culture of popularity. Yet, in the context of a post-Littleton world, it is both mean and savage; an indictment of a culture of violence.

Watching this video on Saturday, I completely agreed with Dr. D: even if the FCC had no reason to fine you for playing it, this was one routine worth dropping from the playlist. And, yet...

And yet the fact is that, in its day, this piece was actually quite funny. It still is, in it's own juvey way, if you can overlook Littleton.

But Littleton did happen.

And there really are maniacs who go around molesting little children.

And context is everything.

Lately, I've taken to writing the beginnings of these magnum opus essays on this site, which I have then never gotten around to finishing. I finally got called on it.

A long and thoughtful e-mail took me to task for the part of an argument I'd left unfinished. And so, allow me to continue my thoughts about comedy and context. I offer no promises that this completes my thoughts on the subject, but at least I can get into it more now that I know where the dialog is heading.

The reader's e-mail begins: "You seem to imply that 'The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun' was only funny pre-Littleton."

My essay does imply this, but the implication comes from an omission on my part. Rather, the events at Littleton changed the context in which I (and others, I'm sure) receive the song, and *that* changes the nature of the humor with which it is received.

Pre-Littleton, the song is funny because it is an absurdist fantasy. High school punishes all who enters its doors -- students and faculty alike. But to the typical student, the Homecoming Queen (or Prom Queen, or Captain of the Cheerleading Squad, or whatever) appears to be the one little darling least affected. This song's humor lay in the fact that it tweaks our recognition both of the frustration that leads to such a seemingly unlikely event, and the casting-against-type of the actual perpetrator. We recognize and empathize with both the antagonist and the protagonists in the song. It's ludicrous. Impossible to imagine... and yet, it's perversely satisfying at the same time. A Homecoming Queen reigning destruction upon the previously celebratory event.

Post-Littleton, the scenario is not so absurd; not so foreign to the imagination. I agree with the reader that any reasonably intelligent person would have deduced when this song was first released in the '80's that a Littleton-style event was not only possible, but even *probable*, eventually. But, it was nonetheless outside the realm of our actual experience. The schoolyard shootings leading up to, including, and following Littleton banished that little false sense of "it can't happen here."

And, so, anyone who is familiar with the school shootings (and related events) that have taken place in the '90's receives "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" with a different context: the situation itself is no longer absurd; only the particular angel of vengence.

(I will remind the audience that back in the '80's, high schoolers who felt particularly frustrated with their situations tended to commit suicide rather than homicide. That, or they played Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not sure which was worse...)

I was picking apart the structure of the song to myself as I sat at the concert hall listening to it, and it really is an exellently constructed bit of humor. I won't bore you with my analysis (I'll bore you with my rant about context instead), but I agree with the reader's e-mail that the song is still funny. *However*, because the context has changed, so has the nature of the joke.

The reader goes on to state (and, I think this is the heart of the matter):

"All this being said, I probably wouldn't have bothered to write except I think the idea that context is everything is rather offensive if not mildly dangerous.

"I remember years ago I was telling you about an episode I liked of 'Homicide, Life on the Streets.' I actually agree with you about what you found offensive, but I still liked the writing and presentation. Anyway, the plot revolved around some clean cut kid who committed a murder. He got his hands on a gun, and once he held it he felt it had power over him and he had to shoot someone. That's really simplifying but it's the basic idea. You were very right in that it played to the anti-gun lobby's contention that it's guns that are bad, and the shooters aren't responsible.

"In a sense I see the same sort of danger in ideas like 'song's about molesters are only funny until you know someone who has been molested.' This implies an inability to reason from the abstract to the specific. It also gives creedence to the idea that only those who have suffered from a gun crime should be allowed to have an opinion on gun laws. Or, to speak to another of your recent essays, the idea that only those who have suffered from racism should be allowed to have an opinion on affirmative action or other laws."

[snip]

While I see the point, I believe there are two distinct issues here. The songs "Kinko the Clown" and "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" remain the same as they ever were, before and after the potential listener becomes involved in an outrageous event such as the ones that serve as the setting for these songs. The outrageous event in the song is absurd. The outrageous event in real life is tragic. (The same can be said for Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical," I suppose.)

But, the listener may well interpret the songs differently after having actually experienced an event such as those depicted in these songs.

Our tastes in humor necessarily change over time, and I contend that this is largely because of our expanding library of context. Many people I know find the old Warner Brothers cartoons much funnier once they're adults than they did when they were children, because they had more context in which to fit more of the jokes. Alas, just as context can enhance the meaning of a joke, it can also sometimes detract from a joke's effectiveness.

I, for one, have outgrown scatalogical humor, but I've found an increasing love of puns. Go figure.

But there's a different, underlying issue that the reader points to, and it is one of politics, not aesthetics. Here, we come back to my original title, "Censorship and Context".

We may agree or disagree as to whether it is appropriate to play a song for a wide public audience that attempts to be funny against a backdrop of violence (or some other potentially tragic setting). As I stated in my last essay, I agree with Dr. Demento's decision not to play "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" on his radio show, given the events at Littleton. And if I were still hosting a radio show of my own, I would make the same decision.

I neglected to say in my previous essay, however, that I nonetheless believe that this is and should be a matter of taste -- to be exercised by the host (or performer), and not to be imposed by the government appointed arbiters of the airwaves.

Dr. Demento willingly refrains from playing "Homecoming Queen", although I suspect he looks forward to the chance to play it again on the radio one day. No doubt, his decision is as much motivated by business concerns as it is by any sensitivity on his part. Nevertheless, I would find it particularly offensive to have the government dictate his playlist by banning this song... just as I am offended that the government does see fit to dictate that certain other songs are stricken from the airwaves.

One of the many ironies here is that Dr. D can play a funny song about an absurd school shooting, but chooses not to, while he is prohibited from playing a lovely little ditty called "Sit on My Face (and Tell Me That You Love Me)" -- set against a pleasant backdrop of mutually consentual gratification -- but you can be certain that he'd play it if he were allowed.

How long will it be before the FCC finally regulates the thoughts we choose to express on the Internet (either on the web or via e-mail)? I shudder at the idea.

Maybe, as posited by the ubergovernment in George Orwell's 1984, changing how people speak really does change how they think and, in turn, changes the reality in which we live.

For example, we see doublespeak like this in the financial papers:

"According to First Call/Thomson Financial's research analyst Ken Perkins, of the 137 retailers monitored by First Call the sector overall is expected to show negative growth of about 5.4 percent year-over-year, which is down slightly from the 6.5 percent recorded in the third quarter."

Retail sales are expected to show negative growth? Negative growth? Hello? There used to be a term in economics that described "negative growth": recession.

Can you say "recession" boys and girls? I thought so.

While my employer has been right-sizing to optimize for our negative growth scenario -- which is double-plus ungood, if you happen to be on the unright side of the right-sizing -- I've become increasingly sensitive (a good, healthy American word if ever there was one) to the manipulations of meaning being broadcast by our decision makers.

I would say that my employers are, in fact, lying to my face, but I'm being constantly reminded by my peers that this is an unright way to look at it. They are not lying to us. They are not even telling us "untruths". They are simply assuaging the negative growth in our expecations with non-truths because that is completely appropriate in an environment such as this.

Language, in theory, is a tool for communicating meaning. Lately, however, it is increasingly being used as a tool for obfuscating meaning. From the former President ("That depends upon what your definition of 'is' is," and, more recently, "[sure she gave me lots of money, and sure I pardoned her husband, but] there was absolutely no quid pro quo."*) to the captains of industry to tell us "We all need to be in this for the long term" while they take $26 million out of the company as the stock price continues to plummet.

My favorite nontruth was recently uttered by a Vice President (my employer now has an organization that goes three Vice Presidents deep. Three! There are three VPs between me and the President of the company. How can we possibly need that many VPs?) when a fellow employee asked point blank "Are there plans for any more layoffs this year," and the VP said with a straight face, "No, there are no plans for any more layoffs this year."

Meanwhile, I'm being told to figure out how to manage my team with at least one fewer person on my staff by this summer. (BTW, in corporatespeak, people are not people. They are "headcount". In national security terms, layoff casualties are "collateral damage." Thus, I am not actually losing people... I'm decreasing headcount.)

My staff now has a better bead on the truth here than I do, because the rumors they hear are often more accurate than the official line I'm told by those higher up the food chain than I am. I think this is partly because the folks on the front lines don't bullshit each other the way upper management bullshits their staff.

Did I say bullshit? I meant to say "lie through their teeth."

Telling the truth doesn't make reality any more palatable, but it *does* make it more likely that you'll be able to negotiate reality's treacherous waters successfully. But, neither our news media nor our captains of industry seem to think we can handle the truth.

---

*note: the second quote above [with my paraphraseology in brackets] is attributed to Clinton by ABCNews' account of the incident in this online article. ABCNews claims to quote the former President's statement in an Op-Ed piece which appeared in the New York Times, but I have not seen the original article.

When Everett and I were at grad school together, we often tossed about the idea of working on a paper comparing the parallel evolution of American Science Fiction movies and the prevailing political attitudes of the day.

The argument was pretty obvious, but we hadn't seen anybody address it in the academic press, and we thought it might be fun. Here's the obvious:

Fear of nuclear bomb testing was obvious in such cheesy grade-B movies as They!, Godzilla, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman!, and so on.

Worried about communist perversion of the American ideal? There were scores of invasion flicks that highlighted that theme, but the best by far had to be Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

For fear of nuclear war, look no further than the parable in The Day the Earth Stood Still or the more literal Fail Safe and Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove.

We began to feel a little bit more optimistic at the power of our ingenuity in 2001: A Space Odessey, as well as the Star Wars and Star Trek sagas that came a decade later.

Concurrently in the 70's and 80's, the popular sci-fi movies presented growing concerns about technology getting us in over our heads in Alien, Logan's Run, and Mad Max -- and, later, Terminator and its many rip-offs.

My thesis stopped there; this was, after all, 1991 at the time I contemplated writing this scholarly work.

I've been reminded of this little idea, though, as I've been preparing to host a get together of some friends to watch a movie. This group gets together on a monthly basis with the members taking turns hosting. The host can assign homework that pertains to the movie that the host intends to show.

I decided, for various reasons (mostly pertaining to the fact that certain members of the group are big into conspiracy theories), to show The Parallax View. I assigned as homework for the members of the group to watch either The Conversation or Three Days of the Condor.

These three movies came out in 1974 and 1975, and each are about conspiracies and the use of very plausible, very real technology in carrying out those conspiracies. Having now seen all three quite recently, I have to confess that I don't think Parallax holds up as well as I remembered. It feels a little dated, and the conspiracy is simply too far fetched... but, then, that's quite possibly the point. Alas, all three films have their flaws. In the end, though, I think Conversation holds up the best. Francis Ford Coppola is expert at making every scene count.

The fact that all three films came out at the same time is no coincidence. The assassinations of JFK, King, and RFK had started to take their toll on the American psyche, and the revelations of Watergate fueled a national mood of distrust -- both of the government and of technology.

This distrust was echoed again and again in the mid-70's, in mainstream films like All the President's Men as well as in the science fiction of the day. Aside from Logan's Run and others, there was the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This one is particularly telling. In the original, 1956 version, the G-men save the day at the very last minute. In the 1978 version, the government has already been co-opted. Authority can not be trusted. In the end, no one can save us.

Getting back to my three conspiracy movies of 1974 and '75: it's been fun for the past week to watch these movies and pick apart their similarities and their differences. But, in the interrim, I happened to catch up on a movie I've been meaning to see for some time: The 13th Floor.

Interestingly, this movie came out at around the same time as three other movies with the exact same theme. If The Conversation, Three Days of the Condor, and The Parallax View are all representative of a culture that is increasingly paranoid about conspiracies, what should one make of the period of 1998 and 1999 producing four movies that focus on the idea that our reality is merely a construct by some outside power?

I maintain that The Truman Show, The Matrix, eXistenZ (written and directed by the same man who brought us the 1978 version of Body Snatchers), and The 13th Floor are representative of a new undercurrent in American political thought. As a nation, we are in the midst of an incredible identity crisis, completely uncertain about what is real -- what is true. In Truman and Matrix, the message seems to be that we are at least partly culpable for our part in confusing reality with make-believe... willingly participating in, if not actively encouraging, the deception.

Do these movies resonate with the public because they ultimately forgive the pop culture for its lack of moral conviction? I'm inclined to think not. Rather, I'm inclined to believe that these movies have tapped into a growing ennui that must, eventually, lead to an awakening. We laugh at the conceit of The Truman Show even though we know the joke is on us. But as the nation contemplates, in its own politicorganic way, the nature of reality, I have a sneaking suspicion that the wake-up call is not too far behind.

Seattle experienced its first (and, likely, *only*) major snow of the season a week ago. People dialed into work from home on their computers, sending out e-mails and cancelling meetings. "Can't make it, too much snow, blah, blah, blah."

I *did* make it into work, and had a jolly good time poking fun at my colleagues. "Why, back where I come from, we wouldn't even close the public pools for this measly few inches of snow!"

Now the California transplants are making similar jokes about Wednesday's big event. "You call *this* an earthquake?" :-)

I actually found the recent earthquake in Seattle rather exhilarating. It came without warning, gave us all a helluva good ride for about fifteen seconds or so, and then left us to our own devices. When is the last time a tornado, hurricane, blizzard, flood, or other nasty weather-related imposition dropped in for a visit and then left so quickly? While I'm not a big fan of natural disasters, I have to say the weather-related ones have a much nastier tendency to hang around. Mr. Earthquake said "boo" and then left. It was shocking, thrilling, scary, and adrenalizing.

By and large, I think the folks of Seattle and the surrounding areas handled it all rather well, and it's even cooler to realize that, with all of the potential for calamity (it was, to be fair, a big 'un), there were few serious injuries and no directly related deaths. The same cannot be said for the Mardi Gras festivities in Seattle the night before, which had similarly resulted in a lot of property damage (on a smaller scale, to be sure) but, sadly, also cost many folks some time in the hospital and even one fellow his life.

Since many of you have dropped a line to ask how things are going or how they went, here's my Seattle earthquake experience in brief: I was in a meeting on the 7th floor of one of the new downtown office buildings when it hit. By a freak coincidence, my group had recently been the beneficiaries of some emergency-related training, and the whole situation unfolded for me in a surreal state of "No problem. Everything's under control." I heard one of the big metal beams start to twist, and my first thought was that the construction that had been going on in our area was getting out of hand again. (They are building a new stadium across the street, and their work often shakes our building.) A pause, and then another squealing sound from the building, and I began to think those construction workers were trying to break into our room. A rather funny thought, since the construction work was going on across the street, but that's pretty much how things played out. Someone said, "Is this an earthquake?"

Yours Truly, in "everything's under control" mode, told everyone to get under the table and grab onto the legs. (That's to keep your cover from getting away from you, don't you know.) With four of us in the room, and with the quick thinking on my part and the quick acting on their part, this meant that there was really no room under the table for me. :)

So, the building shook and rocked like a cruise ship that had just hit hard seas (been there, done that) and after a particularly nasty lurch, I suddenly felt the adrenaline hit. Wow. Then, the building began to settle into more routine shaking and rocking before it finally calmed down.

I had "sea legs" for the next hour or so.

Lots of rooms sustained lots of damage (bookshelves and monitors tipping, falling, breaking, bursting, etc.), but in the end, it was mostly superficial. There were the occasional "safety czars" giving us conflicting directions ("Get out of the building now!!!" "No! Stay in the building! It's unsafe out there with the transit tunnels!" Etc., etc.).

Everyone went to their cell phones. None of them worked because the circuits were overloaded instantly. I went to my office (after walking all the way down the stairs, and then walking all the way back up, following the various instructions I'd been given) and used the land line. Got in touch with Paulette. She was okay. Then, I made plans for getting over the lake to check on our house.

QED. End of story. No structural damage to our house that we can see, and not much in the way of disarray with the contents. A few picture frames askew, but that was about it. In fact, the class at the University was still on for that evening. Far out.

The corporate headquarters for my employer is closed for a couple of days while they repair *flood* damage caused by bursting sprinkler systems. My own building escaped that fate, so it was back to work and back to business as usual today. Just like that.

The quake did a lot of damage. Our building, like many others downtown, is still structurally sound, but it will nonetheless require a lot of repairs. Any good conspiracy theorist will tell you that this was all a plot arranged by the unions to make sure that there will be good jobs for construction workers even in the midst of the dot com bust that is leading to a decrease in demand for new buildings and houses. Thus, the local economy will continue to do well, taking money out of the insurance pools that it has been funding all these many years, and life will go on.

Unlike many of my peers here, I did not find this event to be life-changing. It was interesting; an experience worth having, certainly, and I highly recommend it as long as you can arrange to live through it unscathed, as most of us did on this particular occasion. It's pretty wild when terra firma becomes terra jello. Nonetheless it was, after all is said and done, just another interesting day in the already topsy-turvey world in which we live.

So, I guess I should get mad here at ol' Rev. Jesse Jackson. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar again; this time, for paying his mistress $120,000 as an employee of one of his non-profits and failing to declare her on the tax disclosure forms.

Whatever. Whether this "oversight" was intentional or unintentional is generally irrelevant... until Jesse spouts out with quotes like this:

"There is no evidence that there is any inconsistency or impropriety."

This kind of nonsense just pisses me off. The Rev. is not asserting innocence, but is claiming virtue by way of an alleged *lack* of evidence to the contrary. Not "I didn't do it," but "You can't prove I did it."

This is not a new tactic; Jesse did not invent the "There is no evidence, so there must be no crime" shtick. Everyone knows that Al Gore invented that (shortly after he invented the Internet).

I say that tongue-in-cheek, but let's acknowledge that when Al was caught taking bribes in Japan, he didn't protest that they weren't bribes. He said "there is no legal governing authority" that had jurisdiction in such a case. Ergo, no crime was committed, technically speaking.

President Clinton, likewise, used technicalities to obfuscate meaning when he claimed, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." When challenged later, he argued the definition of every word, even going so far as to say, "That depends upon what your definition of 'is' is."

Now, I realize I'm going off on a rant here, and it's taking me toward a generally recurring theme that you've seen on these pages before: the use of language to communicate meaning versus the use of language to obfuscate meaning.

This generation did not invent the use of language to confuse. Neither liberals nor conservatives; Democrats nor Republicans nor Socialists nor Communists; politicians nor citizens nor corporations nor academics nor lawyers -- none of these can lay claim to inventing or cornering the use of language to confuse. (Well, Al Gore can claim he invented it, but he'd be exaggerating.)

And, quite frankly, I don't think it's getting worse. Or better. But, it nonetheless rankles me. Just like crime rankles people in Detroit who nonetheless refuse to move.

But, just as the folks in Detroit may have recourse, of sorts, to try to at least curb the problem of crime (even if they can't eliminate it), there must certainly be *some* recourse to curb this doublespeak that is so steeped into our culture.

The first step, I believe, is to call bullshit where bullshit needs to be called. I am only one man; but, I can at least refuse the bullshit on a microsocietal level. So, here's my tiny public message to the Rev. Jesse Jackson:

"If the glove don't fit, I don't give a shit. Pay your taxes and shut up."

In the aftermath of the recent shooting at Santana High School in Santee, CA, four students have been prohibited from returning to school.

The four students were friends or acquantances of the alleged shooter and had not taken him seriously when he boasted that he would take a gun to school to shoot kids who had been taunting him. Because the alleged shooter was known to be a bit of a joker, these acquaintances apparently assumed this, too, was a joke, and didn't warn anybody.

These four students were initially barred from the school because "the investigation is still on-going." Later news reports say that they're barred from the school "for their own protection." In a recent town meeting, residents said they blamed these individuals for what happened, because they should have told somebody.

So, I would just like to set the record straight, here. We all make judgement calls on a daily basis; we all do the best we can. These four kids, recognizing a pattern of behavior, assumed that what they saw fit into the pattern they had come to know.

But, when it comes to assessing blame, we get back to the same problem as the Columbine shooting and so many others like it. Don't blame the neighbors. The Friends. The music the shooters listend to. The books they read. Their parents. The movies they watched. The video games they played. Images in the media. The bullies who taunted them. The girls (or boys) who turned them down for dates. The internet. The bomb-making materials. The pistols.

Accountability starts at home. It starts with the person who pulled the trigger.

Everyone who has ever been to high school -- anyone who has ever had a pulse -- has had to deal with bullshit. Has been taunted or teased or laughed at or disagreed with. Has had bad days. Has had things stolen. Has had problems with parents. Has been denied something. Has been surrounded by idiots with a different world view.

Shooting your fellow classmates (or co-workers, as in several other recent incidents) is not a legitimate form of expression. Accountability starts with the perp, first and foremost. If you must assess blame, blame the shooter.

Seems these days all I do is carp (karp?) about my job or politics. My plan today was to take a lighter subject write about "Quotable Underpants" (you'll see what I'm talking about when I get around to writing that essay), but a friend of mine called me twice this morning about what he saw on TV, and it brought me right back. I keep trying to get out, but they keep pulling me back in.

Seems that on this morning's "This Week with Sam Donaldson", Jeff Bezos came on and Sam grilled him about what it means to become "pro-forma profitable". My friend was incensed. "Where were theses guys last year? Why didn't they hold Jeff's feet to the fire last year instead of making him Time's Man of the Year?"

My reply: "Last year, the stock price was high and Amazon was still promising to *lose* money. As long as you promise to *lose* money, it's really not important which accounting method you use."

Anyway. I'll karp (carp?) more about work in another essay. My friend went back to watching TV, and then called me again a half an hour later. "George Will was just on. He says that Barlett's Familiar Quotations is coming out with a new edition, and it will contain only three quotes from Bill Clinton. Guess which three."

Now, this is a fun game. The first one was easy. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Miss Lewinski."

"Yup. Next?"

The second one was also easy. "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

"You're two for two. Next?"

I must confess that I had to think about it. It took me almost five seconds. But, I finally came up with, "I didn't inhale."

My friend told me that, indeed, those were the three Clinton quotes that made it into Bartlett's. He said that George Will then went on to compare these quotes to the many Kennedy quotes that appear in the book.

After our conversation, I thought about this. What are three memorable quotes from Bush? Reagan? Carter? Ford? Nixon? Let alone Kennedy and Johnson. I also realized that, truthfully, comparing Clinton to Kennedy is a little disingenuous... even though Clinton has long maintained that he wants to be considered the modern JFK. Observe:

The three quotes that come immediately to mind for George Bush are not all that wonderful.

"Read my lips: no new taxes." A broken promise.

"A thousand points of light." A vague campaign analogy.

"Voodoo economics." A slam against Reagan's proposed economic plan when the two man opposed each other for the Republican nomination in 1980.

(My copy of Barlett's does refer to all of these. It is a 1992 edition. Barlett's also reminded me of one that didn't make my initial three: "I want a kinder, gentler nation.")

If we grant Bush "kinder, gentler nation" and drop one of my other three, then I guess we get a mix of good intentions, but still not terribly strong stuff.

Well, I started having fun with this. Name the first three quotes that come to mind of a recent President, and see what Bartlett's recorded.

You may want to try this before you read what I came up with (and what my 1992 edition of Barlett's came up with). It's fun.

Reagan: I didn't have to think long at all to come up with three quotes from this man. First, there's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Interestingly, this doesn't appear in my copy of Bartlett's. I can only hope they add(ed) it in a later edition.

The second one that popped into my head was "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. They left me." This one also doesn't appear in my copy of Barlett's.

My third quote from Reagan (or, rather, the third one that came to my mind) was his reference to the Soviet Union as "the Evil Empire." This one did make it into Bartlett's.

After I perused Bartlett's (there's a good one about "Government is like a big baby -- an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."), I was reminded of another one that didn't make my initial list of three but should have, and which also isn't in Barlett's but should be. It was a gaffe; Reagan was performing a microphone test prior to a radio address, and someone had recorded his joke test message and sent it to the media. It caused quite a stir.

"I am pleased to announce that we have just passed legislation outlawing Russia. The bombs will be flying in ten minutes."

So. The quotes that come immediately to mind about Reagan convey power of conviction, if nothing else. Bush's echo with unfulfilled good intentions. Clinton's are defensive nonsense designed to confuse, not to clarify.

What about Carter? I'm sorry to say that the only quote that came to mind was from an interview when he admitted to having lusted after other women in his heart. This was hardly strong stuff, but Carter was a born-again Christian, so I guess it made waves in that context. (According to Barlett's, he said "I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do -- and I have done it -- and God forgives me for it.") There are other quotes attributed to Carter in Bartlett's, but none of them sound either familiar or important.

Ford? Again, I come up short. There's only one that sticks in my mind: "Our long national nightmare is over." (This was in his first address to the nation after Nixon resigned.)

Barlett's also includes "I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln" and a gaffe from a debate with Carter. It does not mention his "Whip Inflation Now" slogan. Okay, so that's two I came up with.

Nixon? Ha!

"I am not a crook." (in Bartlett's)
"Peace without dishonor." (not in Bartlett's -- I'm thinking that he said something along these lines with regard to pulling out of Vietnam)
"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore..." (this one is in Bartlett's)

Nixon also coined the phrase "silent majority", which is a great term. I'd forgotten that was him. But, I *did* remember the famous Checkers speech, in which he successfully deflected accusations of an illicit slush fund by saying that the only potentially inappropriate contribution he'd received was a puppy named Checkers, and by golly, he and his family were going to keep that puppy.

I'm going to skip to Kennedy now. Each of the above mentioned Presidents only has a few quotations listed in Bartlett's. Kennedy has a couple dozen. I don't necessarily recognize each of these allegedly familiar quotations, and I don't think the man was any more quotable than Reagan, but I'll let that go for the moment. Kennedy certainly resonated for a generation in a manner that no President has since.

Here's my top three for Kennedy (all of which appear in Bartlett's):

"Ich bin ein Berliner." (Barlett's points out, correctly, that this translates literally to "I am a jelly donut." But, it also notes, correctly, that the Germans understood the point he was trying to make... even if it did raise a few chuckles at the same time.)

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." (Bartlett's also notes that this sentiment appears in speeches by three other prominent statesmen: Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1884, LeBaron Russell Briggs in 1904, and Warren G. Harding in 1916. Bartlett's further notes that Kennedy had been dwelling upon this idea for some time; a quote from Rousseau appears in his early private papers that expresses the same sentiment.)

"I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth." (I needed Barlett's help in getting that one exactly right, but I've always linked this famous sentiment to Kennedy.)

Kennedy's familiar quotations are about goals; about getting off our collective butts and accomplishing something. Even if you disagree with his statist positions ("ask not what your country can do for you..." at first sounds like a repudiation of the welfare state, but then "but what you can do for your country" keeps the state firmly at the center of individuals' lives...), there is a motivational and unambiguous quality to Kennedy's familiar quotes. In this regard, I think that he and Reagan are particularly similar. Reagan vocally advocated a space-based defense initiative; he proclaimed that the United States would never yeild to terrorism; he stood up to the "evil empire" and then boldly negotiated nuclear arms reductions with the Soviet Union.

Most who admire one of these Presidents tend to find many faults with the other, but I think the case can be made that both were men of action who spoke of goals and of attaining those goals. Ford and Bush also spoke of goals, but were vague about how to attain them. Ultimately, they proved to be ineffective.

And, Clinton? If you look at his familiar quotations, he comes across as most similar to Nixon -- a man who also would have been impeached, had he not stepped down. Their most familiar quotes center upon the self: "I'm not a crook" and "I didn't inhale." Their most famous speeches concern defending themselves against accusations of impropriety.

Both men were obviously smart. Both men were obviously quite capable. But, both men also were blind to their own fallibilities, and they blamed the media and the public for the problems they brought upon themselves.

Clinton expressed many brilliant thoughts; he also expressed many terrible ideas. This is true of any man to hold the office of President. Nonetheless, when we look at *familiar quotations* of these men, we come to the inevitable conclusion that Kennedy (involuntarily) and Reagan left the office in such a way so as to allow us to remember the bright and powerful things they said. Clinton, like Nixon, managed to leave the office in such a way so as to only remind us of his terrible foibles and his wasted potential.

There's no shortage of news like this throughout the country these days, but I'm amazed at this news item, nonetheless. In Buffalo, NY, the Powers That Be (read: the idiot lawmakers) have decided to try an education experiment that will be funded with federal money.

They are going to pay students $5.00 per hour to attend summer school who require the summer session in order to advance from 8th to 9th grade. That's right: students who are not meeting the state minimum requirements to be admitted into high school are going to be paid to attend summer school.

What are these nitwits thinking? The are going to financially reward students for failing to meet statewide minimum standards. This is as perverse a system of educational incentives as any I've ever heard.

In school districts around the country (including the one in which I briefly taught eighth grade math), honors and "advanced" classes are being scrapped for fear that their very existence might hurt the self esteem of those students who are not selected. Being ahead of the intelligence curve (or, simply applying one's brain at all) is not being encouraged or fostered. That's already bad.

But rewarding sub-par performance? This is somehow going to improve the "outcome-based" results of public education?

I guess the theory behind the new program is that requiring students to attend summer school is not enough, and we should provide added incentives for them to attend. I, for one, am in favor of a more traditional incentive: let's *really* not let them into the high school until they have legitimately fulfilled the requirements of entry. (There are another few essays in me regarding why students are promoted without having met the minimum requirements, but those will have to wait for another day.)

There is an old -- and rather ironic -- Russian phrase that says "people will get the government that they deserve." While we may agree or disagree with this sentiment, the fact is that when the government engages in social engineering -- and any and every policy regarding the education of its citizenry or future citizenry is, by definition, a social engineering project -- the government does end up with the citizenry it deserves.

We have seen numerous examples of how, when the population is rewarded for bad behavior, the result is an increase in the undesirable results. The welfare system in New York State (and other states, as it so happens) that rewards pregnancy and punishes marriage has resulted in a disproportionate number of unwed mothers among the poor in New York State. This, in turn, has resulted in a number of societal ills: single-parent families in poverty are more likely to stay in poverty than two-parent families; children in single-parent families are more likely to be abused; children in single-parent families are more likely to engage in drug use, crime, and the like.

What, then, can we expect of a system that pays our society's children to perform poorly? What can we expect of any system that reinforces any behavior? We can expect to see an increase in that behavior over time, until it is endemic. In this case, we can expect to see a stellar increase in poor performance.

Let's not reinforce poor educational practices. Let us, instead, reward excellent performance. Let's recognize those who do well, and give children across the board unequivocal incentive to excel.

As for Buffalo; if they enact this policy as they are currently planning, the performance of its children will decline significantly in the coming years. And that is a crying shame.

We all train each other on how to behave. Every day.

Habits form at the outset of any relationship, and they tend to reinforce each other and evolve each other over time.

Take the customer/vendor relationship. Customers say they want good service, but when it comes to putting their money on the table, they often grant their patronage to stores with bad service because, well, it's cheaper. So, the cheaper-but-you-get-bad-service behavior is rewarded, and it gets reinforced.

When you visit sites on the web, they sometimes send instructions to your browser to open up a new window with some advertisement or another. This is very irritating. One major online retailer has also discovered that when *they* pop up a window promoting a special sale, more people end up buying.

The result is that now this online retailer pretty much *always* puts up that annoying pop-up. It won't be long before the other major online retailers do the same. We, the customers, are rewarding them for their bad behavior.

Now, I should also point out that the major online retailers track where you come into the site and at what point you leave. They do this to find out what's working and what isn't.

If, like me, you are annoyed by unsolicited advertisement windows popping open on your browser whenever you visit an online retailer, my advice for you is to simply close all of your windows related to that store and wait a few minutes before reentering. If enough people do this, then the stores will stop this behavior. I know this for a fact: I (so far, at least) still work for one.

Hmmm. Had an epiphany about my employer today regarding the direction things are heading within my department. It's a three part epiphany, which I will summarize forthwith:

1) My group is stratifying along functional lines rather than business sector lines. At first blush, this is obviously less efficient for each product line when it comes to attending to their specific business needs, but it has the potential of being *more* efficient from a company-wide perspective. Why? Because, if all Web Devs or Program Managers or Catalog Specialists are interchangeable, then you can shrink or grow headcount as needed.

So far, this is hardly interesting. Having a re-org in order to accommodate layoffs or massive expansion is to be expected. However, I'm coming to see -- with each new 'process' and 'workflow' -- that we are adopting the McDonald's model of reproducibility. (Sorry for all of the potential spelling errors in here, by the way. It's late, and I won't be running this through a spell checker tonight.)

Once you have functional uniformity, and each functional unit interacts within a clearly established framework, then you invite the opportunity to franchise off sets and subsets of your operations. As goes Amazon, so goes the Borders.com/Amazon.com deal, and so goes Amazon.co.uk, and so on. Work will not get done terribly quickly on a store by store basis and store-specific innovation will become practically unheard of, but company-wide initiatives and innovations will be more easily and effectively propagated.

Thus, big-picture-wise, this should be a good thing.

2) That said, the current employees come to the realization that they are, nonetheless, "training their replacements". This was the big outcry from the latest round of layoffs at my employer: the Customer Service team was sent out to build a new team working on the other coast of the country, only to return to Seattle and be handed pink slips. This was a rather surprising reward for being so loyal to their company.

Alas, alack, from an objective position, one can recognize that this is simply a business decision that will necessarily have growing pains. C'est la vie, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Truly, there's no need to take it personally... the company owes the employee wages in return for the laborers efforts, and no more. Loyalty -- by the company toward the employee or visa versa -- is neither required, rewarded, nor appropriate.

So, knowing this, I and my fellow employees can choose to accept the reality for what it is and stay until our run is through, or we can mosey along now while the moseying is good.

But.

3) Then there's the movie "Memento". In this movie, the story begins with the last scene and then works it's way backwards. The story is told from the point of view of what writers lovingly refer to as "the Unreliable Narrator." This Unreliable Narrator suffers from a kind of brain damage that won't allow him to make new memories ever since he took a rather nasty blow to the head. The only way for him to follow a line of continuity toward his stated purpose (which, as revealed in the very first scene, is to kill the man who raped and murdered his wife) is to leave himself notes, polaroid pictures, and other clues/reminders about what he has discovered and what he needs to do next.

From a story-telling standpoint, the technique is terribly fun to watch. But, from a story standpoint, you quickly learn an inherent problem: he who has no immediate history is apt to magnify the foibles of his immediate past.

My employer has this kind of condition. My employer, like the Unreliable Narrator of Memento, apparently is unable to make new memories. And so, it keeps covering the same ground, not realizing that it has tried certain approaches before that have led it astray from its stated goals.

Centralization along functional lines may aid in replication (the franchise formula), but it will never aid in increased efficiency among business units. Amazon.com's stated goal is *profitability*, and it's stated intention is to do this with the existing business (and not by selling itself off as a franchise). To attain profitability, the company must enable its most profitable (and/or best-margin) stores to immediately react to changes in the marketplace. Thus, a decentralized model is the most likely candidate. Layoffs, which are easier in a centralized world, are not a ticket to profitability. Ever.

My employer has vacillated back and forth between the centralized and decentralized model several times. Is the problem one of ever-changing goals? I'm not so sure. More likely, I think it's a case of having no short-term memory. It conducts experiments and then forgets the results.

This is too bad, because if this is, indeed, the case, then we are looking at an Unreliable Narrator which will ultimately lead itself, inadvertantly, far away from its desperately sought-after goals. It's always a shame to see any person or organization with so much potential end up totally burning itself (himself/herself) up. It's even more of a shame to be a party to the situation. I'm a passenger in a car that is running a red light, and I don't know how to affect the driver or the vehicle and thereby avert the imminent wreck.

beginrant

So, people are still making snide comments in e-mails and web postings about "the stolen election" and how the Supreme Court "gave him the office". They do this apropos of nothing, discussing topics that are in no way otherwise related to politics or government. I see it repeatedly on any number of listserves I'm on and websites I track.

Now, I have to confess that our Fearless Leader is not impressing me thus far. Aside from his general ungoodspeakeness and his dubious handling of certain foreign affairs issues (the one area where his father particularly outshone the eight-year interim office holder), I'm most bothered by el Presidente's insistence upon making faith-based charity organizations into yet another government welfare baby. When some administration down the line chooses to cut this particularly dangerous cord -- and this will happen, someday -- these organizations will suffer the same withdrawal symptoms from the crack cocaine known as Federal Subsidies that so many other local- and state-based organizations have suffered when their own supply was cut. (Remember what happened when President Reagan finally pulled the plug on those ill-advised educational welfare programs in the mid-80's, anyone? Now, *that* was painful... and, totally avoidable had the crack not been handed out so gleefully by previous administrations.)

But, all that being said, the problem remains that whether y'all like the facts or not, our current President was selected by the very same system that has been in place (with a few tweaks from time to time) since the Constitution was adopted. You can bang your drums about how just one more recount might have changed the results, or how the Florida ballot unfairly penalized idiots who couldn't remember to read the bloody directions (the form, interestingly, was designed by a member of the losing political party and was approved by a bipartisan panel and had been used, in various incarnations, repeatedly both in certain Florida counties and other counties throughout the country for decades), but the facts remain these:

1) the vote was a statistical tie
2) supporters of the losing candidate were going to be bitter about the results, regardless of who eventually "won"
3) in the end, this country determined the results of a bitterly contested and pretty much evenly-divided election through legal institutions and not through more nefarious means.

So, please, for crying out loud: Get over it!.

We survived Bubba; we'll survive Dubya. Now, stop your whining.

And if it bothers you that much, get involved in your local elections later this year. The reality of the situation is that your local and state legislators have a much more dramatic impact on your daily quality of life than any yammerhead in Washington. If you don't believe me, spend some quality time in Buffalo, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco all in one month. Same country, same Federal programs. Very different economic and cultural climates. Why? Local politics.

I know, I know. It's easier to whine about how things didn't go the way you think they shoulda down in some backwoods southern districts than it is for you to get off of your lazy butt and try to do something that might actually make a real difference in your life. Quite frankly, I was more bummed about the results of the national primaries last year than I was about the results of the general election. But I'm tired of hearing about it. It's over. Let it go. Please.

endrant

This year's World Con -- the World Science Fiction Convention, which is the largest annual assemblage of professionals, semi-professionals, and fans in the industry -- is being held in Philadelphia starting on Wednesday, August 29th. Dubbed "Millenium Philcon," this year's event is described at their website, http://www.milphil.org. Each year's event tends to take on the name of the city in which it is held. Last year's World Con, for example, was held in Chicago and was therefore known as "Chicon".

Each year, attendees get an opportunity to "vote" on where the convention will be held in three years. Thus, at Chicon last year, the attendees cast their ballots for where World Con 2003 would be held (the winner was Toronto). This year, we will have a chance to decide between two final candidate cities for the site of World Con 2004: Boston, MA and Charlotte, NC.

In order to vote, you must essentially buy a supporting preliminary membership to that year's convention. In other words, you have to put your money where your mouth is. I'm not sure if the minimum you can put down is $50 or $100, or what, but I'll be finding out soon. This year, I intend to vote.

If you, dear reader, happen to be an attendee at this year's World Con, I strongly encourage you to vote for Charlotte, NC in 2004.

Reasons to vote for Charlotte instead of Boston:

* Boston's convention facilities and airport are currently a disaster because of a massive public works project called "The Big Dig". There is no realistic reason to believe that this work will be completed by August of 2004. Because of the Big Dig, traffic into and out of the airport is a nightmare; renting a car involves a hellish journey into the bowels of Revere, MA (many miles from the airport itself), which takes you further away from the convention facilities and places that much more construction and traffic between you and your World Con. The facilities themselves are not conveniently located all in one easy-to-navigate area, and have a run-down quality that I would hardly deign to call "charming".

* Charlotte does not suffer from the ails of the Big Dig, and its facilities are newer; more modern. The city is easier to navigate. The airport is easy to manage.

* The people. Simply put, the locals in Charlotte are pleasant; the locals in Boston would just as soon you go away, which they make paifully clear in every encounter.

* The traffic. Boston drivers are aggressive to the point of being homicidal. If you dare use your traffic signal, they will immediately move to cut you off... even if it means missing their exit or turn. I've seen it happen. I lived there for several years, and was reintroduced to this sad fact the last time I visited the area (I made the mistake of using my turn signal, and was rather rudely reminded that I had to relearn all of my old, nasty Boston driving habits if I was to survive). Drivers in Charlotte, in my experience, are reasonable; quick, without being rude.

* The weather. The natural unpleasantness among the Boston drivers and the shopkeepers in the area is exacerbated by the brutally muggy and hot summers. If weather is a factor in your voting, let me tell you: Charlotte has no disadvantage when it's compared to Boston in the summer. Both will be hot; Boston will be unbearably muggy.

* Hospitality taxes. Okay, I have to admit something here: I don't actually know what the hospitality tax situation is in Charlotte. All I do know is that it is patently absurd in Boston. Want to rent a car? There's sales tax. Excise tax. Massport (airport useage) tax... even though the rental car companies are not actually located at the airport during the Big Dig. On my last visit to Boston, the taxes added roughly 35% to the total bill. Want to get a room at a local hotel? There, too, the taxes are simply outrageous. Again, I can't say whether this is the case in Charlotte. They certainly must have *some* taxes upon the hospitality industry. I intend to do the research. But, let me warn you, friends: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has worked hard to earn the moniker "Taxachusetts".

Okay, I'm ripping into Boston little bit here. Believe it or not, I love to visit Boston. It's one of my favorite cities in the country to visit. But, not in the summer; not in August. I've done too many conventions in Boston at that time of year to know better. (Living there for several years has also informed my thinking on this subject). Visit in the fall. Visit in the spring. But not in February. And not in August.

Charlotte is also a fun town to visit. Clean and friendly, with many interesting sites to see and new facilities to enjoy. It's a town that knows how to beat the heat... it has to. :)

So, if you're going to be at World Con this year, allow me to encourage you strongly to vote. And, if you do vote, allow me to encourage you to vote for Charlotte.

Either way, I look forward to seeing you at World Con 2004... as well at World Con 2001!

Your humble Science Fiction correspondent,

--Allan

The following essay was originally posted here on November 5, 1998. I am reposting it now partly to explain my little outburst in yesterday's entry, and partly because I can't think of what to write tonight, and partly to justify an upcoming essay. This essay may also be of interest with the recent launching of yet another new Star Trek series....

* * *

Do you follow NFL football? There's an interesting story brewing in Minnesota and Buffalo, where two old "has beens" are turning in extremely strong performances at quarterback. Randall Cunningham of the Vikings and Doug Flutie of the Bills are two former stars who have returned from recent obscurity to just eat up the attention of football fans everywhere, leading their teams to the tops of their respective divisions.

What's that? You don't care? You haven't been following this uplifting story? You weren't aware that Doug Flutie came back to the NFL -- refusing a million dollar contract from the Canadian Football League to take a paycut of 75 percent -- simply in the hopes that by playing in the higher-profile NFL, he might raise awareness of autism? (Flutie's son is autistic) Or that Randall Cunningham credits his resurgence to a newfound faith in God?

You weren't paying attention to the fact that these guys are over 32 years old and can still play this kids game better than the $25 million kids who are supposed to be the best?

It doesn't thrill you to follow the story of how these grown men put on brightly colored costumes and then go run into each other in the hopes of carrying an oddly-shaped ball across an arbitrarily set "goal line"?

Well. Lemme tell you something. I didn't used to follow sports, either. But, lately, I've gotten more into it... to the point where I actually not only watch the games on TV when I can, and attend a few in person -- on occasion -- but, I even read the articles in the sports pages. Not just the scores... the actual articles!

This has been a gradual change in me. But, the question has come up from time to time: why? Why do you care about what's going on in professional sports? Recently, I had a chat with a friend who posed this question yet again. Only, this time, I stumbled upon an answer.

Competitive sports are, like novels or movies or television sit-coms, a particular kind of entertainment. Like the daytime soap operas, they are serials -- each episode building upon the previous to tell a story line that spans several months, with recurring themes year after year.

Football is like Hill Street Blues -- a soap opera with more violence and less romance. Baseball is like Dick Francis novels... the story always follows the same formula, but the details of each story vary. And, lets face it, some endings are more satisfying than others.

In fact, the best comparison that I can think of is to view professional sports as a kind of live-action equivalent of the Star Trek novels, books, or TV shows.

What?

No, really.

First, there's the formula. Each sport consists of a league of teams which are composed of characters who fill particular roles (the quarterback/pitcher/captain, the running back/designated hitter/engineer, the receiver/catcher/science officer, etc.) that play out their drama within a certain set of goals (get the ball into the endzone, run to home base, spread peace and harmony throughout the galaxy) within a certain set of rules (try to make 10 yards within four downs, try to score a run before three outs, try to seduce the alien spy before the show is over).

As in Star Trek, pro sports have a code of conduct which may or may not result in penalties... it all depends upon whether you get caught (no holding, no stealing, no interference with the development of a civilization's culture).

But, as with Star Trek, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in professional sports. Although one episode/game contains a great deal of drama, intrigue, and even a little character development, a series of episodes/games strung together in a season tells a more sweeping story. It is precisely this sweep that grabs the interest of the sports enthusiast and the Star Trek geek. As a football season progresses, we begin to notice certain teams emerging as contenders for dominations of the league... just as a season of Star Trek may begin to reveal certain races/species/aliances vying for dominations of space/time/whatever.

Sometimes, such contenders may suddenly fall apart. The Denver Broncos, in the season before they won the Super Bowl, were eliminated from the playoffs by Jacksonville in the first round. The Borg, just as it's shaping up to be a real menace one season in Star Trek: Voyager, gets practically wiped out by "Species 8472".

Then again, sometimes the underdogs struggle back from near annihlation to virtual dominance. There was that year the Buffalo Bills came back from a pathetic opening of a season to just barely get into the playoffs to stage the greatest comeback in an NFL playoff game ever, and eventually even make it to the Super Bowl as a Wild Card team. Just like the Cardassians, after beaten into submission, form a surprising alliance with the Founders to end up wipiing out half of the Federation fleet.

Of course, the Bills lost that Super Bowl, and the Cardassians are having troubles of their own in the Star Trek universe.

Here's a similarity with a twist: both pro sports and Star Trek have good guys and bad guys. Heroes like Mark McGuire, Joe Montana, and Captain Kirk. Villains, as well... Charles Barkley and the Evil Romulans. However, in sports, villains are usually identified as powerful adversaries to your particular favorites. So, if you're a 49ers fan, Green Bay or the Cowboys might be your villains. In Star Trek, alas, the villains are a little more universal. We know when to boo the Klingons or the Cardassians, because we are told under no uncertain terms that, at any given time, they unequivocally represent evil.

As with Star Trek, sports' sweep extends beyond single seasons. The Klingons evolve from season to season, changing from dishonorable enemies to wary allies to brothers-in-arms. The Broncos dominate the AFC but lose every time they reach the Super Bowl... until, near the end of John Elway's career at quarterback, they finally win the Big Game. Traditions and records span through the seasons; some changing, some not. Vulcans are traditionally logical. Yankees are traditionally jerks. Kirk is often alluded to as a history maker in the Star Trek mythos. Likewise, Joe Montana or Babe Ruth. Remember the Curse of the Bambino!

Ah, which brings me to the real draw of sports as entertainment. Depth. The more you follow the story, the more details you discover that subtly enhance the story; give it flavor.

If you are intrigued by the story line of a Star Trek series, you can get into other series... or, the books, the movies, short stories, interactive computer games, technical manuals, collectible toys.... The Star Trek universe is rich with detail.

The same is true with sports. You can follow the careers of specific players, teams, divisions, coaches. There are stats, records, and scores to track for a game, season, career, or even the entire history of a team, league, or the sport itself.

As I mentioned earlier, the ending isn't always satisfactory. One episode/game may be poorly written/played, or have an outcome you don't like. The bad guys sometimes win. Luck sometimes has more impact on the outcome than ability. Sometimes, you cheer the good show of the good guys, you appreciate the development of a dynasty; but, sometimes, you also see cynicism win out. Florida Marlins, anyone? Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?

Like soap operas, Hardy Boy mysteries, and other forms of serial entertainment, neither Star Trek nor pro sports show signs of ending. The story is open-ended and ongoing. This, too, may be part of the draw. Fans get upset -- very upset -- when a soap is threatened with cancellation. Days of Our Lives, anyone? Witness the fan reaction to the cancellation of the original Star Trek, or the various baseball/football strikes. Look at the current NBA lockout. Competitive sports are as much an opiate for the working class as soaps used to be for the traditional homemaker or Star Trek is for geeks. Because they endure.

And, that's what keeps us coming back.

1. Do the goals/ideals of feminism mesh well with the genre of science fiction? Why/why not? Does science fiction offer any special opportunities for feminist writers? Or, does it present any special difficulties?

The first part of the question assumes that there is a coherent set of goals/ideals associated with the term "feminism" -- an assumption that I think is dubious. The term is generally considered to describe "the doctrine advocating social and political rights for women equal to those of men." (This is the definition found in the Random House College Dictionary) I favor this definition.

However, Gloria Steinem and Camille Paglia, among many others, show just how divisive the moniker "feminism" can be. There are several major schools of thought pertaining to the advocacy of social/political equality for women, and they are often bitterly opposed. The legality of abortion, for example, is both fought and defended by camps claiming to defend feminist ideals. Some feminist camps deride the choice that some women make to become mothers or housewives, while other camps maintain that women do not have to pursue careers to the exclusion of family in order to become "equal".

Since (unlike my friend in grad school) I am not a student of feminist theory and am therefore not certain which aspect of feminism is being favored as the "true" school of thought, I'll simply refer to feminism as defined by Random House, above.

There is also the problem of defining science fiction. There is a very long and hard fought disagreement among those who discuss this field as to whether a story must rely exclusively upon scientific principles in order to count as sci-fi. For example, since several of Ray Bradbury's stories in The Martian Chronicles do not *have* to occur on Mars in order to still be coherent, do they count as sci-fi? Again, I'm going to defer to the definition I find in my dictionary, rather than go into this argument here. Random House defines science fiction as "a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation." I read this to include the works of Ray Bradbury and Ursula LeGuinn, even though others may disagree.

The ideals of social and political equality for women clearly mesh well with the genre of science fiction. The genre encourages authors and readers to consider not only what life and human nature is like now, but what life *could* be like, given any number of opportunities, environments, or histories. It allows us to speculate on the good and bad results of living in a world where equality is supported or denied. It affords us the chance to consider "What if...?" As we imagine these different possibilities, it also allows us to imagine that they are possible, and that we might well pursue and attain them.

In general, stories in the genre tend to favor the ideal of a society in which women and men are socially and politically equal.

That said, while the genre meshes well with the ideals of feminism, it does not always conform to the ideals of feminism. Because this is a literature of speculation and free-thinking, it also includes stories that endorse or advocate views opposed to those of feminism. Given the definition that feminism is an advocacy for equality among the sexes, the fact that science fiction includes some works that do not share that point of view reveals that the goals of this genre *can* mesh well with those of feminism, but that doesn't mean they always do.

Science fiction does, however, offer many special opportunities for feminist writers. Like other genres of literature, it enables authors to tell stories that embody or challenge ideals of human relationships -- political, social, and otherwise. But, what is unique to this genre is the ability to extrapolate behaviors from settings; to distill ideals to their purist forms and tell stories that evoke much more vividly the concepts that are being presented.

While there are historical fiction stories that may display the grit and resourcefulness of a female protagonist, or mainstream novels in which equality is shown to be preferable for all concerned than inequality, science fiction can challenge our assumptions on a more basic level. For example, Ursula K. Leguinn's classic The Left Hand of Darkness takes us to a society were members are inherently equal with regard to gender because they do not express/embody gender except during mating season, and even then, they may change from one gender to another as they move from one mating season to the next. In a society where gender is not a given, we look look to other cues to explain characters' behavior.

When I'd begun writing this essay, it seemed to me that science fiction presents a particular difficulty to the feminist author, however, that other genres do not. There has long been a general precept in science fiction that something has to happen -- that action must take place -- in order for the story to move forward. This is not a requirement imposed by other genres, where it may suffice for a story or novel to simply describe a setting or a society without much activity on center stage.

Milan Kundera's literary novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being explores the social and sexual roles of men and women (and has a very strong female protagonist) against a backdrop of invasion and war... but, the characters never do much of anything. They talk a lot, and it is through these conversations that their gender roles are explored. But action? Forget it. I even learned recently that in the movie version, the director had to substantially cut back on the battle footage montage because it stole attention away from the non-action of the rest of the film. There could never be a science fiction equivalent to Kundera's work.

Science fiction, conventional wisdom states, requires action. This is not to say that lizards need to eat their way out of our favorite characters' bodies, or that kickboxing robots are necessary to blow up large buildings. Nonetheless, characters need to be going places and doing things.

The more I've considered this idea, however, the more I realize that it is not entirely accurate. There are counter-examples. Flowers for Algernon, one of the genre's best examples of an intensely personal exploration of the meaning of identity, is hardly action-packed. The conflict is ultimately, as it is in Unbearable Lightness, internal to the characters.

That said, I suspect it is nonetheless harder for a writer to present the "people talking" style of story within science fiction than in the more mainstream genres. Is this a "special difficulty"? Perhaps not. This tendency toward action within sci-fi has not discouraged writers from "talking" at length in their stories about the points they are trying to make (Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand leap to mind).

---

Sheesh. I sure can leap into that stuffy old academic tone of voice when I want to, no?

Tune in tomorrow, when we address the second question in the series. :)

Is the following essay a coherent expression of an interesting concept, or just a pep talk to myself? I'm not sure.

I mentioned earlier that I'm discovering (rediscovering?) the power of commitments. While we might generally agree that it's a good thing to keep your commitments to other people -- you know, show up on time, do what you say you're going to do, etc., etc -- there is also a concept that I was introduced to a couple of weekends ago that goes a little deeper. That by establishing that your word is good, you give new power to your word. Your word becomes a tool to create. Since I'm working on my writing and speaking careers, this concept carries a few interesting entendres.

The concept as explained to me -- or rather, as I interpreted it -- goes like this: when I give you my word that I'm going to do something and I fail to follow through, I injure us both... even if only slightly. You are likely to feel let down, even if only a little, by my failing to follow through. I'm late to our appointment, for example. Not the end of the world, certainly, but you're a little put out. Bothered. It doesn't enhance your day, and can only serve to detract from it. Likewise, I feel a little bothered. Disappointed in myself. Rushed or frustrated. It doesn't matter *why* I didn't meet my commitment. The reason may be just as trivial or large as the promise itself. Either way, though, I've made a negative impact on our respective situations.

Likewise, if I fulfill a commitment I've made to you, both of us benefit. Again, you may not end up jumping for joy because I managed merely to meet you at the agreed upon time or followed through on some small favor, but by doing what I'd said I would, you at least feel good that I followed through and we can move forward from this point. I, likewise, feel reliable. I've invested some worth into my word.

Now, I realize this may sound like a load of New Age, touchy-feely nonsense. I've long subscribed to the concept that keeping a contract (however you choose to word it) is of the utmost importance -- whether from the Objectivist Epistemological arguments of Ayn Rand, or simply from the aphorisms my grandfather used to recite to me over and over again ("If the appointment is worth making, it's worth keeping," et al). When you get right down to it, this is the Randian contract as seen from a psychological viewpoint instead of a moral or social context.

But let's take it one step further. When you make a promise to yourself, you are doubling the stakes. When you break a promise to yourself, you are injured both as the promissor who failed to follow through and as the promissee who was failed. Likewise, when you keep your commitment to yourself, you benefit both as the promissor who followed through and as the promissee who was valued.

Now, none of us can keep every single promise we make. For many of us, most of the transgressions tend to be small. "Sorry I was ten minutes late, but traffic was awful." This may be because most of our commitments are actually small in nature. Ultimately, the damage or the benefits of breaking or keeping your word accumulate over time.

If you tend to make your word good, if you make a point of honoring your commitments, then when you give your word, you are more likely to be moved to make it happen. If you keep your promises to yourself and others, you are more likely to keep more of your promises. In other words, you develop a cycle of reinforcement.

(It's fun to note that in the ancient tradition of the Judeo-Christian model, God and the Word were one and the same. Here we have a being whose Word *is* Good, and therefore when the Word is issued, what is said simply... is. "Let there be light!" Lo and behold, there is light.)

So why do I bother mentioning all this mamby pamby mush? Because it provides me with a lever with which I can begin to move myself in the direction I want to go. Because by rededicating my word, I am making more distinctions, better decisions, and stronger commitments. I'm making fewer promises, now, but I'm making those commitments stick. As my word gets better, not only to others but also to myself, I'm finding it less effort to move forward.

A few entries ago, I mentioned that I'd followed through on a commitment to begin writing a new short story and to send out another story for consideration by a publisher. I then made a new commitment: to finish the story I'd started and to have it out by this past Friday. I have to admit, I wasn't feeling terribly moved by this commitment. It was a half-hearted promise to myself, at best.

But I decided that if my word is to have any weight, I have to do what I can to follow through with my declarations. I didn't even decide this with a great deal of deliberate thought. If I had, I think there would have been more of a "chore" aspect to following through. Instead, I simply... did it. Recent habits helped carry me forward. I began Friday with about 1,300 words or so written. By 11pm, I'd written a total of 3,600 words, trimmed 200 back out, and sent it off to my critique group. I'm now intent upon sending it out for consideration by June 15th.

As I develop the habit of keeping these small commitments, I expect to be able to follow through on the larger ones. Like becoming a published novelist. Like becoming a great father to my child/children. Like building a life that matters.

This may all be mumbo jumbo, or it may be the most profound concept ever devised. I'm inclined to think that it falls somewhere between the two extremes. I can, in fact, think of several counterexamples of people whose word was worthless but who nonetheless managed to do big things. However, I do know that renewing this concept of commitment is helping me right now to go where I want to go more effectively than I'd been managing before. So, whether it's legit medicine or just a placebo, I think I'll see how far this concept takes me.

--

Side note: is this what those "Promise Keeper" groups are all about? Is there some kool-aid I should be drinking? I wonder, but I'm not sure if I really want to know. :-)

This two-part essay about "Changes" is not, ultimately, about having a newborn in the house, but that *is* where the essay begins. I'm starting off with an illustration, as it were, of one kind of life changing event, but there will actually be some content here that is not baby-related.

Allow me to start off my illustration, however, with a few baby pictures, since visuals are always fun.

In addition to the pictures I posted here when Alexander was first born, I've been sending along photos to Alexander's paternal grandmother who has been posting these additional photos on her site. I particularly like the batch at the bottom of page three, which I had taken when Alexander was only one week old.

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to scale the full versions of the photos I have down to a manageable size on the web, so I've been kind enough to allow Alexander's grandmother to take care of that. However, I *am* taking photos, and I simply *must* call attention to a couple that I'd taken yesterday, the day after he turned two weeks old.

It's amazing how much can change in a mere two weeks. The changes in Alexander's appearance only capture part of it; there are changes in how he vocalizes, changes in how he sleeps, changes in how he interacts. Naturally, we're still figuring things out. When he's awake, he's a very alert baby; when he is not happy with the world situation, he's very vocal about it. Each day is different in terms of how awake, how happy, how upset, and how hungry he is.

Alexander's mood, like anyone's, is prone to changing frequently and often. In a newborn, however, those mood changes do not appear to be terribly subtle or sophisticated. As adults, our emotions might shift several times within an hour, but the shift is rarely profound enough to be noticeable to outside observers... or even to ourselves. For example, in the mail, Paulette and I receive a gift for the little one from a friend, and I am happy. In the same pile of mail, there's the new car payment bill. I'm concerned. I drop the mail onto the kitchen counter and realize I'm hungry.

Little Alexander's shifts are a little more abrupt. He is set down on a favorite couch, as in the photo above, and he is happy. He remembers that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off by several hundred points, as in the action shot below, and he is concerned.

This change took place within about ten seconds, in a photo shoot that lasted about, oh, thirty seconds.

When Paulette and I first started telling people that we were expecting, the most frequent response was "this will change your life forever." And of course, my most frequent thought about this response was, "Well, duh." Getting a puppy changes your life. Getting a driver's license changes your life. Forever! Anything that shifts your responsibilities and your capabilities has some profound effect on the quality and shape of your life.

Has Alexander changed my life? Certainly. But the whole idea that "having a kid changes your life" is trivial. It's a tautology.

Try this one on for size: life is all about change. Change *is* life. Once you stop changing, your life is ostensibly over.

*That* will be the focus of the second part of this essay.

...to be continued...

In response to Part I of this essay, my friend Tyrean notes that the changes that come with having a baby are more impactful than the changes that come with getting a driver's license, et al, because they affect your life 24 x 7. There is something to be said for this.

Once you have a baby (and choose to provide for its care), each aspect of your life changes. Your daily activities may or may not change, but they need to be planned for with a new element in mind. Your prior method of scheduling time goes right out the window, and basic tasks such as eating, working, and especially sleeping are profoundly altered by the requirements of your new responsibility.

When I had been told this kind of thing, as an expectant parent, my internal response was, "Yes, I know this." And I also knew that living it would be different from knowing it, and that has also proven to be true. Knowing beforehand that your daily routine is about to be altered forever has a different quality of experience from dealing with the reality when it happens.

All well and good. But the same profound shifts have occurred several times in my life, as I'm sure they have in your, dear Reader. When I went away for college, I left my home town and my parents' house. Everything in my life changed profoundly: planning meals, managing my time for even the simplest tasks, and even my sleep schedule were profoundly impacted *every day*. Gradually the newness wore off, of course, but I still eat-sleep-act-think without parental interference. (This, some may argue, may not be such a good thing, given the photographic evidence.)

Getting married profoundly affected my life, as it may have yours. I don't think I went through the emotional swings that many of my friends have described -- rather, I did all that before making the decision to commit. Still, all kinds of decision-making were impacted because most decisions I made/make would/will have the added dimension of how they affect this other person in my life.

Moving to Russia, moving back, working full-time for a small business, going to grad school, working full-time for a behemouth corporation, working full-time for a high-profile dot com, going to Clarion West, etc., all marked major changes in my life. Certainly, some have been more profound than others, and some have had more long-lasting effects than others.

My central thesis, however, is that *whatever* the nature of the change, any well-balanced person requires these profound changes from time to time. Some changes are thrust upon us (like when we are forced at gunpoint to attend kindergarden), are accidental outgrowths of our own decisions (like becoming a paraplegic because you chose to get behind the wheel one day while under the influence), or are planned and desired landmarks (like deciding to go to college, get married, get a job, have a baby, whatever).

There is also a necessity for our lives to experience *retrenchment*. A prolonged period of stability, where we deliberately reduce risks and expose ourselves to less likelihood for change. This is certainly a physiological necessity, although we all obviously have different thresholds for how long and how stable such periods must be before we feel ready to push ourselves toward change again. The point is, we cannot live effectively if everything always changes. But we nonetheless require periods of change in order to advance our lives.

[I have a theory about the interrelations between fear and ennui as biological imperatives to encourage change and, thereby, growth and advancement. Would you like to hear it?]

I admire my grandparents, who embraced change in their lives not only as they advanced throughout their careers and their family life, but also beyond retirement. They are constantly trying new things, expanding their horizons, and staying involved in their lives. I think it is their ability to embrace change that has helped to keep them alive and alert and active this long.

A friend of mine picked up stakes and headed for New Mexico and (shudder) grad school after a profitable career at a major software concern where he was able to work without having completed his undergraduate degree. He has left the known (with all the good and bad that it includes) deliberately and chosen to make a change. That change now involves major house reconstruction, dinosaur digs, and developing patentable radar technologies.

Change is not for everyone at all times; it's certainly not for *me* at all times. But profound change is necessary from time to time for those who want to grow; who want to participate in their own lives. Having babies or dropping your career to go to grad school or getting married or even moving out of your parents' house may not be something you, my kind Reader, are interested in doing. But if you find yourself feeling a little bit of ennui, if your life seems to be just futile, allow me to suggest that you make a change.

You may discover that the change you made needs to be refined a bit (read: mistakes will happen), but at least you'll be participating in your life.

[end soapbox]

Paulette recently sent some friends and me a link to an article on abc "news" dot com about research into the "World's Funniest Joke." While I'd hardly call this news, it certainly fills the infotainment genre that ABC, CNN, and others call news. I was very infotained, as several of the jokes listed were quite fun.

The winning joke, as quoted by ABC:

"Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services.

He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."

There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

Back on the phone, the hunter says, "OK, now what?"

I like it. This would probably work better as a radio sketch than it does as a written joke, but I still like it. A friend, however, who was on this discussion thread said she had heard about the contest results on a local (New Jersey) radio station, and that the station had said that the winning joke was about New Jersey. Alas, looking at the ABC "News" article reveals nothing about New Jersey.

Then, on a lark, I checked the site of the actual contest, which revealed that the winning joke *does* mention New Jersey:

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "OK, now what?"

Notice that the New Jersey reference is not the only change made in the ABC "News" article.

What galls me the most, insofar as anyone can be galled by an infotainment piece about the World's Funniest Joke, is that ABC "News" presented the winning entry in quotation marks and then paraphrased it, rather than quoting it.

And, why? Why? Did ABC's rewording of the joke make it any funnier? Any less offensive to New Jersey hunters? Any less shocking to the squeamish, with the original joke's reference to his eyes being rolled back? I mean, what gives?

I'm very accustomed to the "news" getting it wrong. Misquotes are a fact of life, and always have been in infotainment. But what gives when you have the original text right in front of you to cut and paste into quotation marks? What?

Censorship isn't funny.

Say, that reminds me of a joke. How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb? Oh, wait....

Wayback (not "way back," but "wayback") when I was in college, a good friend and I enjoyed watching a television show called The Wonder Years, which focused on the coming-of-age of a fellow named Kevin and his friends and family during the 1960's. The story was told like one big flashback, narrated by actor Daniel Stern as the adult Kevin, even though we only saw the young Kevin (played by Fred Savage) on screen.

My friend pointed out on some rainy Tuesday many years after we'd started watching this show that every single episode seemed to involve the narrator saying something along the lines of, "I knew then that things would never be the same."

Kevin kissed his girlfriend Winnie for the first time, and he "knew then that things would never be the same." Winnie's brother was killed in Vietnam, and Kevin "knew then that things would never be the same." Kevin played hookey from Coach Cutlip's gym class, and he "knew then that things would never...."

Well, you get the picture.

It was sort of a funny formula, the kind that drinking games are made of. "Next time Kevin says he knew then that things would never be the same, everyone drinks a shot." Whatever. Despite this predictability, the show was fun to watch. Even as I type this, I realize that there may even be a little bit of "Wonder Years" that was lurking in the back of my mind as I began exploring the good and the bad of 1980's Buffalo in my recently completed novel.

But that's not why I bring this all up.

It seems that most days with Alexander are producing in me the same kind of "and I knew then that things would never be the same" response that seemed to fill up the ficitional Kevin's life. Ferinstance, Alexander (three and a half months old at this point) completely rolled over from lying on his back to resting on his tummy all by himself yesterday. More than once. After rolling over, he started trying to crawl. He moved around a bit, but didn't quite manage to get anywhere. But you could see he was figuring things out.

Once he rolled over the second time, I knew then that things... you know.

Allow me to point out that we don't currently have a television feed in our house. We rent movies, borrow DVDs, etc., to pickle our brains as necessary, but we don't have cable or satelite or anything like that. And yes, this is a little odd, given that my current project (near completion!) is a pilot for a television series being written on spec. It's also a little odd, given my role as some sort of pop culture consumer type guy. I'm catching up on my pop culture reading though. :-)

Anyway, this all means that Alexander hasn't been spending much time plopped down in front of the television. In fact, he hasn't been spending *any* time in front of the TV.

Until recently.

Now I must point also out here that there's this little device called a "pacifier" which is a pretty magical gizmo. You place the little rubbery thingy in his mouth when he's crying, and he stops crying. If he doesn't seem tired and you want him to sleep, you give him this wonderful invention, and he goes to sleep. I knew from the first time we gave him a pacifier and he took it that, well, things would never be the same.

Recently I was watching a video course (this is like an audio course, only it's... oh, you know) from the Teaching Company about detective fiction. I no longer get my pop culture the old fashioned way; now I watch videotaped college lectures about pop culture. (Actually, I'm learning more about the form of the detective novel because I think I can learn from these kind of thrillers as I put together my next novel.) As I was watching this very dry presentation by a rather high-pitched professor, I noticed that the previously-antsy Alexander had moved around on the floor where he was babbling so that he could see the screen. He was fascinated. Completely drawn in. The television was acting as uberpacifier. He watched until I was done with my lecture.

We are not using the television as a baby-sitter for Alexander, and we have no intentions of doing so. But now that I've seen the immense power of the television on our child, I can't unlearn that knowledge. Things will never be quite the same.

...I gotta say, though, that the television makes the pacifier look much less of a controversial choice than it once had seemed. :-)

Many people I know spend a great deal of time lamenting the deterioration of our society. The news has shifted from reporting to opining and entertaining. Politicians are sleazier and sleazier. Crime is up. Education is down. And our popular culture is dumbing America noticeably.

As one who was trained as an historian, I often find it necessary to point out that these things come and go in cycles. That the so called "news" today may be bad, but the same kind of scandal-centric infotainment was all the rage back when Hearst's papers inspired the term "yellow journalism." That Clinton was hardly the first President to be accused of inappropriate liaisons while residing in the White House... nor the first to be re-elected with that reputation. That crime is always going up... and down... and up... and down. That Johnny, by and large, can read. That our pop culture is just as varied in its quality today as it ever has been... but that the good selections from the past have survived in our memories while the inane selections have been conveniently forgotten.

I stand by these observations. By and large, the world is a better place today than it was ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand years ago.