Jon Lowder

Hating the Setup CC and the Red Exclamation Point!

There are lots of things to find annoying in the world but one that has really crawled under my skin of late is the over profligate use of the CC in emails.  Nothing irks me more than when a bunch of people are CC'd in an email  before said email is sent to the "To" person to deal with directly. I think we've all probably been there: someone sends you an email and CCs your boss, your bosses boss and potentially your spouse and lover.  In it they request something and make it sound like this is at least the 20th time they've asked you for whatever it is and you haven't responded to any of those first couple of dozen requests.  The truth is that this is the first it's been mentioned and the "From" person is just being an ass and trying to make you look bad.

I get just as annoyed being one of the CCd people.  I already deal with enough email to choke a horse so I don't really need to know if one of my friends or associates is being asked to provide a phone number for some schmo and simply must reply ASAP.  Why involve me?  If the "To" person doesn't get back to you then pick up the damn phone and bug him until he does.  If that doesn't work then call his boss.  Either way, leave me out of it.  Oh, and if you think you're going to get results by applying some sort of peer pressure then you've got another thing coming.  All you're accomplishing is making me and the other 20 people you CC'd think you're an annoying little twerp at best, and at worst an inconsequential gnat who doesn't merit a response from my respected colleague.

Then there's the use of the ! on every damn message you send.  Ever hear of Chicken Little?  When every thing is a ! then how am I supposed to know when you send me something that's truly !-worthy?

Yes, I'm cranky today, but believe me when I say I have a good reason.  If you want to know why then send me an email with a ! and CC everyone in your address book and I'll get right back to you. 

The Year in Review - Evergreen Version

The year that was.  Lots of people were born, lots of people died.  Lots of people did some really smart things, lots of people did some really stupid things. Somewhere there was too much rain, somewhere there was drought.  Some world leaders acted like assholes, and others acted even assholier. Some people complained about the weather, and others just complained. Some people starved, others were gluttonous. Some people fought, others loved each other and most did both. The earth orbited the sun once, the sun didn't notice and now we start over.

So Who Prays for Forsyth County?

After I vented my spleen yesterday I got to thinking that maybe I'd spouted off about the Forsyth County commissioners a little to rashly.  Specifically I said:

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is fair.  I'm left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

I started thinking that maybe I should have checked before I wrote that, and I should probably look into it to be fair.  So I did.  I checked out the minutes for all the regular meetings held by the commissioners from 2000 to 2006 and the meeting summaries from meetings held in 2007.  That's 175 meetings held from January 10, 2000 to April 9, 2007, each of which began with a call to order and then the attendees standing to hear the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.  Here's who gave those 175 invocations:

• 152 were delivered by representatives of Christian institutions (Churches, Salvation Army)
• 16 were delivered by board members
• 2 were delivered by a representative of a Unitarian Universalist congregation
• 2 were delivered by a representative of Forsyth Jail Prison Ministry (both in 06)
• 1 by a Rabbi (November of 06)
• 1 by a representative of Carolina Dianetics (Scientologists) (1/22/07)
• 1 (3/12/07) the notes only say "invocation" and do not indicate who delivered it

I guess I was safe in my spouting off.  Although I did see the occassional Seventh Day Adventist included I didn't see any Mormons, Muslims or Buddhists.  I find it interesting that the Dianetics person was invited last month since that occured after the commissioners received the letter from the ACLU.  Another interesting point is that the board member who most often gave the invocation was Dave Plyler who lost his seat in a close election last year to Ted Kaplan.  Kaplan is one of the three commissioners to oppose proceeding with the court battle that the commissioners voted yesterday to pursue.

I wonder if we'll see more diversification of invocators as we move forward thanks to the attention from the lawsuit?

Venting Ye Old Spleen

Maybe I'm cranky because this is the most stressful time of the year for me at work.  Whatever it is I've had it with some of the crap that passes for news and public dialogue these days and I figured what better way to blow off a little steam than to spell it out for the three people who read this thing.  So here we go.

Item #1: Forsyth County Commissioners and the ACLU re. Sectarian Prayers to Open Public Meetings

A while back the ACLU sent a letter to a bunch of municipalities in western North Carolina threatening to sue them if they didn't end the practice of opening public meetings with sectarian prayers said by preachers invited from various churches.  All of the municipalities were told by their lawyers that they didn't have a leg to stand on and some came to the decision to either open their meetings with non-sectarian prayers or with moments of silence.  Of course my county commissioners aren't listening to their lawyer and are considering going to court to fight the ACLU even though there is a ton of case-law, i.e. precedents, that have held against prayer at government meetings.  The commissioners are also getting a lot of vocal support for fighting the ACLU from local citizens with only a smattering of dissent. (For a taste check out the letters to the editor of at the Winston-Salem Journal).  What really gets my goat, though, is that the arguments put forward in support of sectarian prayer are downright obtuse.

One rationale that the sectarian prayer supporters use to argue their point is that the establishment clause should not be interpreted to allow a small minority to deny the majority their right to sectarian prayer.  This is as dumb an argument as you can make for this reason: Not allowing a government meeting to open with a sectarian prayer is not denying anyone the right to pray. If you feel like it you can go and sit in the meeting and pray to anyone or anything you like, but the government can't invite you to come and pray as their representative.  What's being denied is the government's "right" to sanction any one religious group or sect.

Another argument being floated is that denying Christians the right to invoke Jesus is also barring Jews, Muslims, etc. from praying to their God.  No one, including the ACLU, has said that the prayer before a meeting can't invoke "God", they've only said you can't invoke a specific deity like Jesus or Buddha.  I've mentioned that to a couple of people and they think I'm lying.  Whatever.

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is fair.  I'm left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

Finally, I'm willing to bet that the commissioners know this is a losing cause.  They've been hemming and hawing while they try to come up with a resolution that protects them from the vocal choir of voters who want to fight the ACLU. It looks like they might have found a way out of their jam by deciding to fight if, as todays Winston-Salem Journal reports, some Christian-folk get together funding to privately finance the legal fight.  That would mean that the commissioners wouldn't have to worry about any political fallout for spending public dollars on what everyone knows is a losing battle.  In other words they can pander to the vocal Christian majority of their constituents without risking anything.  Cowards. 

The county commissioners have been elected to represent all of their constituents, not just the majority who are Christians.  Every single one of them has an atheist, agnostic, and other non-Christian in their district but instead of looking out for this small minority's interest they're pandering to the majority.  They seem to think that their job is to do what the majority wants them to do, but if that's how representative government worked then we could run our government like American Idol.  Their job, first and foremost, is to uphold the law for all of their constituents and if they fight a battle that their own legal advisors say is wrong then they all deserve to be canned in the next election.  And for anyone who doesn't know me, I say this as a life-long Christian.

Issue #2: This Whole Imus Thing

What's to say that hasn't already been said?  Well, I'll just add a couple of thoughts. 

Number one: How did Al Sharpton become the black community's "representative"?  That's like the white community being "represented" by some strange hybrid of Pat Robertson and Donald Trump. Sharpton's an opportunistic gas-bag who's cause is his own wallet, period.  If there wasn't any money in it he wouldn't be "representing" anyone.

Number two:  Sharpton's antics took Imus from being a has-been listened to by a couple of million people who lost half their brain cells while dropping acid in the 60s and 70s to being the most prominent person in media. And it happened in less than a week.  Sharpton would argue that Imus is hurting because he lost a bunch of sponsors and has lost his simulcast on MSNBC (viewed by the tens of thousands!).  Of course now even my kids know who he is so when he starts streaming his schtick online, putting out podcasts, writing his autobiography, etc. he'll make a gazillion dollars.  But Sharpton doesn't care because he's reaping the benefit during his own show's sweeps weeks.

Number three: Imus and Sharpton both know that they're going to get even richer off this thing and they literally have a symbiotic relationship now.  I imagine that in a month they'll be toasting their success with a glass of Cristal at a restaurant in Harlem.  They're playing us for suckers and it's working.

Number four: Who thinks that by Monday we'll still be engaging in the productive "discussion of race" that this episode supposedly opened up? If you raised your hand I know of a bridge in Brooklyn that Sharpton would love to sell you.

That's it for now.  I do kind of feel better.

Why are you really sorry?

Today's "controversy of the day", at least for the morning, is what ex-NBA player Tim Hardaway said when he was asked about he would handle having a gay (homosexual, not happy) teammate.  Here's what he said:

You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known," Hardaway said. "I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States...

And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that's right. And you know I don't think he should be in the locker room while we're in the locker room. I wouldn't even be a part of that.

Yowch.  His statements are definitely politically incorrect, obviously objectionable to many people and just as obviously reflective of his true feelings.  And I'd hazard a guess that his views are shared by many of his NBA peers and by a fairly large segment of the population.  Personally I don't share his views, but they are his views and he's being brutally honest about his feelings with his comments.

Well, not 24 hours after his comments hit the airwaves Hardaway has issued an apology.  Here's an excerpt from an ESPN.com story about the controversy:

Hardaway, later saying he regretted the remarks, apologized for the remarks during a telephone interview with Fox affiliate WSVN in Miami.

"Yes, I regret it. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said I hate gay people or anything like that," he said. "That was my mistake."

Well, I'm sure he is sorry for making the comments.  He's probably lost a lot of future dollars from media and PR gigs and I'll bet he is sorry for that.  But is he sorry for hating gay people?  I doubt it, and in our society I don't know if we can or should demand that people apologize for expressing their true feelings.  Nothing says we have to agree with them, or support them, but their feelings are as legitimate as anyone elses.  If anything we should say, "I hear what you're saying and here's why I think you're wrong."  Instead we shout "You're wrong you bigoted asshole!" and then wait for the public bowing down and apology.

Our airwaves are filled with celebrities, athletes, politicians and other infamous folk who open their mouths, utter something considered objectionable by a segment of the population, and then when they figure out they might lose money or status they issue an apology.  Their apologies are sincere in that they really regret making trouble for themselves, but otherwise they ring hollow as a damage containment tool.

For once I'd like someone to say something like, "I know most people don't agree with what I said, but it's what I believe and that's that.  Maybe I should learn to say nothing if I've got nothing nice to say, but it's too late for that now so if you disagree with me let's talk about it."  Unfortunately we don't seem to have people in the public eye willing to do that.

What's real interesting about the Hardaway story is the reaction of John Amaeche, an ex-NBA player who came out of the closet in a book he recently wrote.  Amaeche's book has caused a big stir in the NBA universe and is what prompted the interviewer to ask Hardaway about his feelings on having a gay teammate. Here's what Amaechi said:

Finally, someone who is honest. It is ridiculous, absurb, petty, bigoted and shows a lack of empathy that is gargantuan and unfathomable. But it is honest. And it illustrates the problem better than any of the fuzzy language other people have used so far.

Exactly.  Without people like Hardaway, people who say what they really feel, we don't stand a chance of having an honest conversation about issues like these.  And without an honest conversation we don't ever get any closer to understanding each other's position.  In Amaeche's words we will continue to have a gargantuan and unfathomable lack of empathy.

Where I'd Like to Position the Missionaries

Something I've mentioned on numerous occasions since moving to Winston-Salem is that when I was in the DC area most people would ask me "What do you do?" when they met me but here they ask "What's your church?".  And it's not confined to parties or other social situations.  It happens at the grocery store, the barber shop, and just about any other public forum.  It's also interesting to me that people here will unabashedly share their religious views with total strangers and will invoke religion in discussions of things like schools.  Let's just say that school prayer is still a hot issue here.

It has never really bothered me that people profess their religion so publicly and it also doesn't bother me when they ask where I go to church and then invite me to attend theirs.  The public square is as much theirs as it is mine and I've always felt that if it made me uncomfortable I could just ignore the question or brush them off.  Although I've never done it I've had in the back of my head a plan to say "I'll come if you let me sacrifice a chicken on the altar like I do in my basement".

What does bug me is when members of various churches knock on my door and try to sell me on their church.  This is my sanctuary after all and I don't like it being invaded.  I understand that most Christians believe it is a necessity to recruit (I don't know where it is but there's apparently a passage in the New Testament that invokes people to play Coach K and recruit for Jesus' team), and as I said before I don't mind if they use the public square to do it, but when I'm at home I want to be left alone. 

Quick side note: Whenever I hear people talk about the part of the Bible where they're instructed to go out and recruit I always wonder why they assume it means for their particular church?  I mean if I'm Christian then I'm Christian, so what does it matter where I go to church?  Two words: collection plate.

A notable exception is the Mormons.  Yes this is very inconsistent but there's a personal reason.  When I was a kid my family was Mormon and at an early age I was being prepared for the day that I would go on my mission.  I started saving money at around 8 years old, but when my parents got divorced we left the church so I never got much past saving $20 for the bike I was going to ride for God.  To this day I'm still on the books with the Mormons and they periodically send the boys in white shirts to my house to say hi.  It's easy for me to see myself in their shoes so I'm inclined to be sympathetic.  And because they're so young it's also easy for me to steer them away from selling to talking basketball over a glass of water that they're always thankful for, which means it's almost always a pleasant 15 minutes.

The other churches tend to send little blue haired ladies who are not easily swayed from their topic.  They're also stubborn and doctrinaire and exactly the kind of people I don't much want to hang with, but because they're little blue haired ladies I'm incapable of brushing them off. It would be too much like brushing off my grandmother.  I think if they sent someone younger I'd be able to invoke my chicken sacrifice ploy, but I just can't do it with the blue hairs.

So I've started to think about how I can cut them off at the pass, as it were.  Some ideas include:

• Putting a Buddha on the front porch.
• Keeping a turban by the front door that I can don before opening the door.  They wouldn't know a Sikh from a Shitzu, but they'd know that whatever I was I wasn't Christian.  It'd probably scare 'em to death and I'm willing to bet they'd set a record for the 100 yard dash in the 80+ division.
• Put a statue of the Virgin Mary on the front porch and a sign on the front door that says "We're Catholic and One of Us Used to be Mormon".  This has the advantage of being true and thoroughly confusing.  What could they possibly say?

For the record we've been attending the Moravian church down the road for the last several months.  They're great people, they never once knocked on our door and they spend an inordinate amount of time eating chicken pie and drinking coffee.  Exactly the kind of people I want to hang with.

In anticipation of those of you who I'm sure I've offended let me say this: I've spent a lot of time in various churches including Mormon, Presbytarian for a couple of months, Unitarian for one service, Baptist with some of my cousins, Lutheran High School for three years, Lutheran College for one year, Catholic for much of my adulthood, Methodist for several services and now Moravian.  There is much more similarity than difference between them, and almost all of the difference is in what I'll call ceremony.  From what I can tell the doctrinal differences are more important to the church leaders than their congregations so where I choose to spend my time is based more on the people of the church than the doctrine.  That probably best explains my peturbation at being evangelized (I feel like a Verizon customer being cold-called by Cingular) and my inclination to be attracted to the Moravians' honey-pot practice of "Food and Fellowship."

RINO and DINO meet NINO

RINO and DINO sounds like some sort of cartoon or maybe even a NY nightclub act from the '50s, but in this case it means "Republican in Name Only" and "Democrat in Name Only."  These terms are bandied about online, usually as an epithet in some political nutjob's rantings.  You know the kind: "Bush is God, the Republicans are the only thing standing between America and the Democrats' bankrupting us with their irresponsible tax and spend policies and the liberals' bringing about Armageddon with their support of baby butchering and butt humping", or, "Bush is the Devil, the Democrats are the only thing standing between America and the Republicans' bankrupting us with their irresponsible tax-cut and spend policies and the neo-cons bringing about Armageddon with their foolhardy battle with Islam."  Basically I'm talking about the pains-in-the-asses who see all human relations as adversarial and somehow never picked up the finer points of civil discourse during their adolescent development.

I'm always amused by the RINO and DINO accusations.  As someone who's never joined either party I can't be called anything but NINO (nothing in name only) and since that doesn't actually mean anything it doesn't really sting.  My brother used to accuse me of being an independent because I didn't have the balls to take a stand on issues.  I used to respond that I refused to be associated with any group that I could disagree with consistently since I didn't want anyone to think that I might believe in something in which I didn't.  I think I also said something nasty like he was a Republican because he couldn't think for himself, but hey, we were young.

I truly have a hard time understanding why an "average voter" would join a political party.  It's easy to understand why people who want to be in power would form or join a party since it's a means for them to achieve their goals, but I just don't get it for the average person.  Maybe they want to be told how to think, or maybe they look at it like supporting a football team, or maybe they like the snacks at the party meetings, but it's still a befuddler to me. I mean if I were to declare myself a Democrat I'd be associated with people like Kennedy and Rangel, and if I were to declare myself a Republican I'd be associated with people like Foxx and Bush.

And what about the issues?  You ask any 10 Republicans what they believe about the war and you're going to get a lot of different answers.  Some want to get out, some want to stay.  Ask them about the separation of church and state and you'll get different answers depending on whether you're speaking to a fiscal or social conservative.  If I were Republican I'd be spending all my time prefacing my remarks with, "I'm a Republican, but not one of those Republicans, because I don't agree with their stance on...", and it would take me a full paragraph before I could actually state my own beliefs.  As an independent I simply start with, "I don't belong to a party.  I believe..."  I'm not picking on the Republicans since the same would happen with the Democrats.

All this got me to thinking that maybe the solution is to start a party of NINOs.  We'd essentially be a party that professes a belief in nothing, requires its members to only vote their consciences and endorses no particular candidate or issue.  We'd have a big convention just like the other parties, and we might even nominate a candidate, but we'd do it by lottery.  Hell, our odds would be fantastic for putting someone better in the White House than the Democrats or Republicans, I mean even random selection could do better than those jokers have done for the last generation or so.  We could even give ourselves a nice all-encompassing name: The Elephant's Ass.  Our slogan could be something pithy like, "All for nothing".  I wonder if the RINOs and DINOs would come over if we invited them?

Easy to Criticize, Hard to Do

A while back I left a comment on someone else's blog (can't find it or I'd link to it) in which I said some rather critical things about TV reporters and their writing abilities.  Lenslinger quickly, and rightly, took me to task.  He pointed out how hard it is to write stories on the fly, match it to video and then get it even semi-coherent for the air.  That was just one reminder about how easy it is to criticize and how much harder it is to actually do anything.

It's easy to critique an author's book, but incredibly difficult to write your own.  It's easy to tell a waiter how to do his job, but when's the last time you carried five plates on your arm without spilling?

I was reminded of this by Lenslinger's post "Ten Things I'd Teach News Reporters."  You get an appreciation for how much goes into a nightly newscast, even when it doesn't go well.  Of course we can, and should, criticize anyone who can do good work but doesn't, just as we can be criticized when we don't do our jobs well.  These folks choose to do their jobs in public and as a result they open themselves up to criticism by a far larger audience than the rest of us can even imagine, but that's the road they chose.

There are other jobs that open the practitioners up to public criticism.  Professional athletes come to mind, and on this election eve so do politicians. I'm sure that politicians' jobs are harder than we'd like to admit, but at the same time the power they wield demands that we be highly critical of them.  If TV reporters screw up the worst thing we get is bad TV (who'd notice?), and if professional athletes screw up they get check mark in the "L" column, but if politicians screw up we get, well, screwed.

While reading Lenslinger's piece I remembered how pissed I got the first time I got a negative comment on this blog, and I remember how agitated I was when some troll got on here and started giving me hell.  I also remember thinking, "How do public people do this every day?"  So, yes I'm appreciative of the thick skin that all people in public life must have and I wonder why they do it.  I'm also trying harder to appreciate the hard work that goes into what these folks do, but I'm also not going to give anyone a free pass when they don't do their jobs well.  In the case of a bad on-air report I'll probably just laugh and say something like "that was inane", but in the case of politicians I'm gonna squeal like a stuck pig and demand better.

And, oh yeah, I'm gonna try and toss the rascals out.

Don't Buy Gas from the Bastards on Old Bridge Road

See that picture on the right?  You might have to click on it to see it at full size to see that I paid $3.39 for 87 octane unleaded gas. I took the picture with my camera phone right after filling up at a station on Old Bridge Road in Prince William County, VA earlier this week. It was the day after the BP announcement re. the pipeline in Alaska being shut down for a while and a miraculous $.40/gallon jump occured overnight.

I bought there because I was on fumes and didn't have the opportunity to look elsewhere, but just down the road I found gas that was $.20/gallon cheaper and that trend stayed everywhere I drove.  I'll take my hits for not looking for gas sooner and denying myself the chance to find a better price, but I can at least call them out on their gouging. 

On the way home last night I got a tank full in Petersburg, VA for $2.92. 

And for the record I don't have anything against higher oil prices (that whole supply and demand thing), but I do have something against gougers.

It's Not My Fault

As a parent one of the hardest lessons for me to teach is personal accountability,  mainly because I often feel like a hypocrite.  For instance the other night Celeste and I were giving our oldest son grief for his interim grade report which to much of the world would have been fine but to us smacked of underachievement.  Our opinion is supported by the fact that his grades are regularly dragged down by incomplete or missing homework assignments.  Of course his initial reaction is to state that his grades are better than all his friends' which just throws fuel on our fire and he's learned to keep his mouth shut.  But I can see in his eyes he still thinks it.

My problem is that I have to come down on him knowing full well that I did the same, if not worse.  Of course if I didn't get on him and stay on him I'd just be coasting as a parent and I'm not going to do that.  I fully expect my kids to grow up and be better people than I could ever be and I'm going to do my damndest to help show them the way.

Unfortunately I don't think my kids are getting good object lessons from the leaders of our country when it comes to taking personal responsibility for their actions.  President Bush would be an easy target for this so I won't take that shot, but I will point to one current example of someone needing to learn to accept responsibility for her actions.  Rep. Cynthia McKinney had a little altercation with a Capitol Police officer when she forgot to wear a lapel pin that identifies her as a member of Congress and then after breezing past the security line at the Capitol (members are allowed to do that) was asked to stop three times by the officer.  When she failed to stop he touched her and she slugged him.  She says that he was overly aggressive and touched her inappropriately and believes that even without the pin he should have recognized her and that his actions were prompted by the fact that she was black.

Rather than acknowledge that she may have contributed to the situation Rep. McKinney played the race card.  How nice.  She could have said, "Well I should have worn my pin and I probably should have stopped to identify myself, but the officer was entirely too aggressive in stopping me and I think it had something to do with the fact that I was black" and this would be easier to swallow.  Instead she accuses an officer she doesn't even claim to know of racism and assault and can't even admit that she may have contributed to the situation.  Isn't it a form of racism to assume another person is racist because they offend you and happen to be of a different race.  Couldn't it just be that you are an onerous jerk?

I've always found the race card an interesting play because it tends to appear and disappear depending on the situation.  For instance I doubt that Rep. McKinney would claim that she is probably elected only because she comes from a heavily black voting district, not because she's the most qualified for the job.  Of course if she lived in a diverse or heavily white neighborhood and lost an election she would probably claim it's because she's black. You see, playing the race card to avoid personal responsibility also precludes you from recognition for personal achievement.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely think there should be laws and regulations against excluding people from business, neighborhoods, organizations, etc. because of their race.  I also believe that preferential treatment specifically because of race is a mistake because it denies those receiving the preferential treatment from their due recognition.

And that's the lesson I want my kids to learn.  They need to take responsibility for their actions and when they do they'll be able to pridefully enjoy the achievements that are sure to follow.

Life Without -ologists

My brain is tired today and that means it has been wandering more than normal, which is the inverse of what happens to my body when it is tired.  Anyway one of the thoughts that my brain tumbled to is this: the more -ologists in your life at any given time, the worse off you are.  For instance:

• If you are seeing any medical -ologist you are probably feeling either physically or emotionally threatened. Who wants to start their day getting ready to see an oncologist, endocrinologist, cardiologist, psychologist, etc. ?
• If you work with an -ologist of any stripe you're most likely a miserable SOB.  Who wants to be surrounded by apologists (Democrats), numerologists (Republicans), sociologists (we're all screwed and here's why), pathologists (I see dead people), climatologists (the sky is falling!) or theologians (a form of -ologist, but with a holier-than-thou bent)?
• Exception that proves the rule: Sexologist.

Thankfully my life is barren of -ologists right now and I'm knocking on wood as I write this in hopes of keeping it that way.

I'm Confused. Is it Because I Read the Newspaper?

As usual I began my day by reading the local newspaper, The Winston-Salem Journal.  I think the Journal compares well with other small-city newspapers and I actually enjoy being able to read the entire paper over a cup (or six) of coffee.  But as I read the business section today I became confused.  My problem began with an AP story that had the headline "Looking Jollier" (ed. note: they use a different headline for the online version of the story) and details the rising consumer confidence index.  As part of the story they have this sentence:

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said that sales of new single-family homes rose by 13 percent last month, the biggest one-month gain in more than 12 years.

Great news that new home sales are increasing right?  Well, yesterday there was another AP story on the front page of the business section with the headline "Sales of Existing Houses Go Down."  "Okay," I tell myself, "so sales of new homes are soaring while sales of existing homes are tanking.  But wasn't there something else in yesterday's article about future building?"  So I pulled up the old article and found this:

The weakness in existing home sales followed an earlier report that construction of new homes and apartments fell by 5.6 percent in October, the biggest setback in seven months.  Applications for new building permits, a good sign of future activity, fell by 6.7 percent, the biggest decline in six years.

Hmmm.  What does it all mean.  To make it even more interesting, or confusing depending on how you look at it, there's another item in today's paper that says that the sales of existing homes in the local region rose two percent in October, which means that the local market did better than the nationwide market. 

So what am I to think?  Obviously there's a mixed economic picture, but since I'm not an economist I'm not sure exactly what it all means.  I could hope for the newspaper to provide me some guidance, but they are only spitting out data, not providing context or guidance.  In all fairness to the paper this is simply one story of many that they can cover, and Lord knows they're stretched thin by their current business problems.  But maybe they have their current business problems because of stories like these.

It has become abundantly clear to anyone who hasn't lived in a cave the past 10 years that information (news) is a commodity.  Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can spew data to the world, but what takes time and talent is providing background, a sense of scope and most importantly perspective.  Is it because most people equate perspective with opinion that the folks in the news business shy away from injecting their own thoughts or analysis into stories?  If so I think that's a flawed assumption that leads to a product of limited or no value.

Let's be clear: straight opinion belongs on the op-ed page.  But editors and reporters can create value by giving us the news and then providing some perspective without crossing the line into opinion.  Some newspaper pieces identified with the tag "Analysis" that we see in the paper on an infrequent basis are a good start, but they are too few and far between.  What we need is for each story to be "framed."

Most stories in most papers are simply regurgitations of what happened, when it happened and to whom it happened.  Rarely do newspapers frame the story for us, give us an idea where it fits in the larger picture.  It's this framing, this perspective, that would give a story depth and value.

For an example look at the two stories I highlighted.  Instead of simply reciting this economic data give me an overview of the data and then put it in perspective and make it relevant to my life.  For instance, does it mean that while the national housing picture is indicative of a slowdown the local housing market is actually on the rise?  Tell me why that is.  Tell me that it's probably because the local economy has been hammered for the last five years while the rest of the country has been on a great economic ride.  Tell me if we'll see more construction jobs here, if local housing inventory is shrinking, if the value of my house is probably going to continue to rise. 

In short tell me what it means, because if you don't I probably won't continue to subscribe and I know for damn sure that the kids coming of age now will have no time for you.  But just like me today's young adults need someone to help them understand what all this information means, and if you could tell them they would pay for it.

As things stand I'm still confused.

How Much is Enough?

Via Ed Cone I just read a piece by Dave Winer called Transcendental Money that he wrote five years ago.  This excerpt will give you the gist:

Now I can define my term. Transcendental money is the amount of money required to transcend time. It makes just enough money to satisfy all your reasonable needs, wants and desires, but no more. You can do the math yourself, factor in the cost of living where you live, or want to live, it's just arithmetic to determine what your transcendental money number is.

Once you have your real number, the true nature of money reveals itself. No matter how much you have, you never feel secure. Sorry, I didn't make the rules, have a talk with your god, or your dog, or whoever you turn to for spiritual guidance. The unhappy ending for all of us is death, we all lose this game, there's no winning strategy, and no matter how much money you attain, you can never feel secure, unless you trust nothingness, because that's where we're all headed.

So money offers a chance, in its absence, to find a happier purpose to life. I believe that no matter how much money you have it can't bring you that secure "I Will Exist Forever" feeling that our hearts all feel we deserve.

Now, having no money certainly offers a chance to postpone living until you get the money. I've been there, done that, got the prize. But I've seen people with huge piles of money-sweating money who believe that if they just double their fortune they will feel truly secure. I can't help these people, but I can help people who are truly poor.

I read this at an opportune time.  I'm getting ready to head to D.C. to join with some of my fraternity brothers (Iota Xi chapter of Sigma Chi) to help out a brother who's hit some hard times.  I also know someone going through a divorce and navigating some rough economic waters, literally having a hard time paying the bills and putting food on the table.  So money, or the lack there of, is definitely on my mind.

Part of me feels guilty.  Why, I wonder, am I so caught up in the day-to-day of my own existence, worried about things that are so petty in comparison to the problems that some friends are facing?  I know, I know, it's human nature, but that knowledge does not alleviate the guilt and quite honestly I don't think the guilt is misplaced.

Far too much of life is spent in pursuit of more; more money and the supposed security that more money brings.  Mind you I'm not arguing that money is not important. It most definitely is critical to our every day existence just as healthy crops and ample game were critical to our ancestors.  What I'm saying is that even when we have enough money we don't perceive it as being enough so we spend an inordinate amount of time seeking more. 

Reading Winer's piece it occured to me that he was on to something.  Money, or at least having it, truly is transcendent.  Most of us have experienced cycles in our life when we have less or more money.  When we are in a down cycle money is our means for survival and when we are in an up cycle it is merely the means through which we get ourselves more stuff, more vacations, etc.  Of course if we don't control ourselves during the up cycle then we can quickly spend our way into a down cycle, rinse and repeat.

And then there's the unknown that the future holds.  We've all known people who fall on hard times, sometimes by their own hand and sometimes by fate (failing health, natural disaster, etc.).  The uncertainty of the future causes us to feel the need to stockpile money "just in case."  Of course that's prudent, but only to a point.  Figuring out what that point is, when enough is enough, is critical to being able to take the focus away from day-to-day economic gain and placing it where it belongs, on day-to-day giving.

Just Being a Professor Doesn't Make You Smart

There's a quote from a professor in an article in the Arizona Republic titled "iPod Era of Personal Media Choices May Be Turning Us Into an iSolation Nation that I think highlights the dangers of listening to an academic make pronouncements about the cultural impact of, well, anything related to the real world.  Here it is:

"What concerns me is that we are developing an information segregation," said Jeffrey McCall, a communications professor and media watcher at DePauw University in Indiana "People are ending up exposing themselves only to the ideas, issues and entertainment that suits them. And I don't think that's healthy in the long run."

What universe is this guy from?  People have always segregated themselves and they have always segregated their information, no matter the medium.

To give you just one example take the newspaper scene in Washington, DC.  For years there have been two papers, The Washington Post and The Washington Times.  Ask any native of DC and they'll tell you that the average Post reader is likely to be liberal and perhaps a little elitist.  On the other hand they'll tell you that the average Times reader is either a staunch conservative, black or both.

Look at TV news. We haven't always had the "conservative" media like Fox, but we have had choices.  Back in the day you could often be classified by the broadcast news you watched.  Were you a Cronkite guy or a Brinkley gal?

All we have with the new media is a lot more variety, more complexity and perhaps more defined segments to choose from.  So what if you TiVo your TV programming now?  That just means that instead of going to the fridge during a commercial you fast forward through it.  So what if you listen to your iPod instead of the radio?  That just means you find your music through avenues other than the 50 or 60 songs being rotated ad nauseum on the radio.

Sounds to me that Mr. McCall is a member of the camp who feels that we need to be nannied to death.  We can't possibly enlighten ourselves, we must rely on someone else to do it for us.  But that ignores the other great human trait we all share and that is curiosity.

As I said people have always segregated themselves but we've also always been a curious lot.  Anyone who argues that just because we can choose what we want to hear or read and thus will never find "new" music or ideas has obviously never been stuck in their car listening to the same mix CD for a few hours on end.  We're human, we get bored and we're constantly on the hunt for something new. 

The almost infinite number of choices at our disposal are a great thing.  We now have an idea of how much we don't know, the scope of what we may be missing.  I'd argue that with our curiosity piqued we will actually broaden our horizons.  Sure we'll still be looking for those pundits we agree with and for the music we already know we like, but in the process we'll more than likely discover something new that we like more than we ever expected.  What could be better than that?

Reading List September 1, 2005

• Kids Just Get It (The Post Money Value) - While at dinner Rick Segal overheard a child say the following after hearing about benefit concerts being put together for Katrina victims: “How come they have to do music to get help, don’t people just want to help?”
• Fred Barnes to Katrina Victims: Drop Dead (New Hounds) - Conservative pundits behaving badly.
• Rant on the Hurricane (The Chairman's Corner) - The Guilford County (NC) Republican Party is in deep doo-doo.  Why?  Just read a few posts from this guy's blog for some clues.
• Wedding Canceled (Patrick Eakes) - Anecdotal testimony from people on the ground in Louisiana.

Googol = Incredibly Large Number or Antonym for Number of Respectable Politicians

One of the advantages of driving to DC from North Carolina instead of flying is that it gives me time to think.  On this latest trip I spent a lot of time thinking about politics and religion.  (I know it's sad, but it is what it is). None of the following is earth shattering, but I figured I'd get my opinion on paper before I forget what it is, and yes I reserve the right to change my mind.

I was just reading this piece in the Washington Post about all the perfectly legal ways that politicians can be paid off, uh, I mean incentivized, and it reminded me of my train of thought during the drive up.  That train of thought can be best summarized as: why are so many politicians slimy little bastards?

Harsh words?  Yes.  True?  I think so.

Here's my stink test: Can you name more than three politicians that you respect?  Note that I used "respect" and not "like" or "agree with."  Really, how many politicians do you believe have well articulated principles, have a track record of sticking to those principles, treat their colleagues and constituents honorably and seem to sincerely have the good of the country/state/county/town at heart as they do their jobs?  How many have the courage of their convictions to the point that they can do what they feel is right even when they know they're going to get hammered for it? How many have the humility to say "I was wrong" or "I stand corrected?" (That last was for President Bush).

Yes there are good people in politics and I would like to believe that they are the majority, in fact I very definitely used to believe that, but that's no longer the case.  Here's why I think most politicians are rather despicable:

• Politicians, like stars in every other public arena like sports and entertainment, are by nature self-centered.  They are their own "brand", their own "product" and so the only thing they have to promote is themselves. Their own economic and psychological well being must be their top priority, followed by everything else.
• Politicians are as susceptible as anyone, if not more so, to the human frailties of greed and vanity. They are easy prey for the hucksters, er lobbyists.
• The traits that help politicians succeed (see above) are the antithesis of many of the traits that most of us value: honor, integrity, humility.
• Politicians are "me" people, not "we" people.  We've all had dinner with "me" people and it isn't much fun.

A corollary to all if this is the theory that the higher up you go the more pronounced the bastardization seems to get.  In other words I think I'm more likely to meet an honorable politician on the town council than I am in the halls of Congress.  That's because:

• The more a person succeeds in politics the more pronounced the personality traits outlined above.
• If you're a US Congressman the economic benefits of doing whatever it takes to survive are much greater than if you're a member of the town council.
• The member of town council isn't separated from reality.  A councilperson has a day job, doesn't generally have a staff and definitely doesn't have a bunch of groupies telling her how great she is.  Members of Congress are surrounded by sycophants.

So there's my opinion about politicians.  For the record I have a lot of respect for the people who run the town where I live (Lewisville, NC).  They do a lot for a very little and they truly seem dedicated to building a great community.

Also for the record the only politician on the national stage (US) that I can come up with that I really respect is John McCain, if for no other reason than he seems to be able to march to his own drummer and has the guts to take on anybody.

How about you?  I would love to be proven wrong, so please feel free to nominate a US Congressman, Senator, Vice-President or President for the status of "I'm Not a Sleazy Bastard." You can do it in the comments of this blog or by sending me an email at jon.lowder AT gmail.com. If we can come up with 51 Senators, 218 Congressmen, one Vice President and one President then I'll stand corrected. In fact if we can come up with that many politicians who would win an "I'm Not a Sleazy Bastard" contest then I'll have my head shaved.

Reading List August 7, 2005

• Web 2.0: It's a Great Time to be an Investor (Venturepreneur Partners) - An article by a venture capitalist that explains how the Web is changing from a "medium where information is simply published and remains static, into a platform where applications reside and services are distributed."
• How to Write Using Stream of Conversation (Rexblog) - "I believe those of us who try to understand and interpret what is taking place when social media intersect with traditional media often place an emphasis on the idea that the article is the beginning of a conversation. However, reading Joi's complete post, I'm reminded that an article (or post or story) comes mid-stream in the conversation."
• Outgrowing the Grownup (Moore's Lore) - How Eric Schmidt might be screwing up Google.
• Google Balances Privacy, Reach (CNET via Moore's Lore) -  Is Google a threat to your privacy?
• The War on Truth (A-Clue.com) - An opinion piece about the "war on truth" currently being waged by conservatives in American politics.
• The Drawdown Lowdown (Reason Express) -  Possible scenarios for US troop reductions in Iraq.
• The London Flypaper (Reason Express) - "Standard pro-war flypaper doctrine has all the young Muslims flocking to Iraq to die for Allah, not staying home and trying to blow stuff up. Pointing this out does not mean claiming that George Bush is to blame for the London bombing of 7/21 or 7/7, the straw man that Bush supporters love to toss up."
• Up in Smoke (New York TImes Magazine) - The Freakonomics guys look at what happened to crack cocaine.
• Ostentatious Obscurity (Reveries.com) - Owners publicize their restaurant by making it a secret; unlisted phone number, no signs, hostess that denies its existence.  Only in New York.
• Rules of Success-The Path of Least Resistance (Blog Maverick) - Mark Cuban says that the secret to success is providing the path of least resistance, or in other words make things as easy as possible for customers, not yourself.

Judge, Reagan Appointee, Doesn't Seem to Like Bush Policy re. Bringing Terrorists to Justice

My mom wasn't a big fan of Ronald Reagan (nominee for understatement of the year), but one of his judicial appointees might pass even her scrutiny.  From Lex Alexander's Blog on the Run I found this post about the sentencing of the "Millenium bomber" Ahmed Ressam by District Judge John Coughenour, a Reagan appointee.

He then posts an excerpt that you can read from the original remarks posted on Crooks and Liars. Here's the most important part of the quote:

Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens.

Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.

The tragedy of September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.

I think the policy that he is alluding to is one of the things that has bothered me most about the Bush administration. Their tendency to aggressively change the rules to serve their short term purposes is a long term fiasco.  I'm sure they think it's necessary for security reasons or whatever, but I'm also sure that many bad things have been done for seemingly good reasons.

Many of my more conservative friends and colleagues perceive any condemnation or critique of the administration's policies towards the terrorists or "enemy combatants" to be a "liberal" tendency towards softness.  Well, I can't think of anything I've heard or read from the "liberal" side that indicates that they want to be soft on the terrorists.  No, they want justice as much as the conservatives do, but they don't want us to sacrifice our scruples in the process.

One of the reasons that America's system of due process has been held up as an ideal is that it compensates for the universally human habit of making mistakes.  How often are people arrested because they were mistakenly identified by an eyewitness only to be cleared later by physical evidence?  The system, while not perfect, provides for the opportunity to right the mistakes that we will inevitably make. 

In the case of our round up and detention of suspected terrorists we need only look at the recent shooting of a misidentified suspect in London as evidence that there is a very good likelihood that we've nabbed a few innocent people.  Of course I could be wrong, but without due process it becomes much harder to know.

On the practical level the administration's secrecy also denies us the true reward of our justice system, namely the ability to clearly define what is right and what is wrong, and what the penalties are for those who do wrong.  In other words we aren't able to make an example out of those who are guilty because we can't prove to the world through the application of our system of justice that these men are evil.  We can only ask the world to take our word for it, which just isn't good enough.

Finally the current policy also harms us in our relations with other countries.  We look like we're willing to "talk the talk" as it relates to democratic ideals of justice, but we're not willing to "walk the walk."  Or more specifically we look like we're willing to "walk the walk" only when the path is paved, but not when it's rocky.