Category: Best

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Frank the Hacker

I used to buy computers from salesmen. I shopped at MicroAge, way back in the 1980’s. A salesman convinced me that the IBM PS/2 Model 80, at $13,000, was better than state of the art. It was cutting edge. And, best of all, it used the new MicroChannel Architecture, so our I/O devices would be fast and easily configured. He rhapsodized about how IBM’s reliability and stability were in a class unto themselves. That’s why, when he offered a service contract at about $3,000 a year, I told him no. I said, “if it’s so reliable, we won’t need one.”

Well, as we all know now, MicroChannel died a quick, obscure death. When did I first realize I had been duped? When I tried to get a tape back-up drive for it and found out it cost $700 for the interface card alone.

Even better, I wanted an IBM keyboard for one of our other computers: $675.

It slowly dawned on me that this salesman, Wally, didn’t know a thing about computers, didn’t love computers, didn’t even know how to work a computer. I began to realize this when he wrote out my invoice, by hand, on one of those old metal boxes with the triplicate forms in them.

The next time I went shopping for computers, I went to a little shop in a decrepit little storefront on Queen Street. “Frank” sold me IBM clones for about $3,000 a piece. They were faster, better, more reliable, and more compatible (obviously) than anything MicroAge was offering at the time. I bought a Northgate keyboard from a company in Minnesota for about $150 after hearing Jerry Pournelle in Byte Magazine rave about it. It was better than the IBM keyboard– had the same nice click that I like, but it was lighter and more responsive. I had it for seven years before dropping a big heavy computer manual on it. I am not kidding. It was the manual for Word Perfect 5.0. It cracked the circuit board inside. I tried to re-solder it, but it was beyond me. I ordered a new one from Northgate. (Northgate’s keyboard division has since been bought out by their employees.)

Frank was a hacker. He dressed like a hacker. He looked like a hacker. I think he smelled like a hacker too, though I never got close enough to find out. His shop was a mess. He had a troll in the back room assembling motherboards and CPU’s and installing cards. But I loved Frank. He sold me computers and computer parts at a fair price. He loved computers. When a new device came out that was cheaper and better, he always recommended it, even if his profit margin was smaller. He couldn’t stand to sell you a piece of outdated, stupid technology, like parallel port tape drives or thermal printers.

Wally always wore a suit and tie. He looked frazzled for a while– I heard he went through an unpleasant divorce. He probably sold his wife one of those pathetic P/S 2 Model 50’s which were still based on the 286 processor and came out at the time the 386 was already getting old. It had a slick case, but the pathetic little power supply was capable of about 2 watts and it was impossible to upgrade.

The MicroAge store was slick and expensively decorated and went through a redesign every few months. I’ll bet their staff went on “retreats” and developed “strategic plans” and “mission statements”. They’re mission statement back then was something like: “We will fleece the customer for as much money as we can by deceiving him into believing he will be more productive with an empty hypocritical slogan than he will be with a functional computer”.

Frank’s mission statement was, “Where the hell did I leave that IDE cable? It was here a minute ago.” His strategic plan was to find his desk. His code of customer service was to try to remember to send out an invoice, and he gave you credit only if he remembered your name.

The world could do with a lot more Franks. We already know where all the Wallys are.

Keyboards

Even Northgate, by the way, puts the “\” in an idiotic place. Anyone who still uses the dos prompt has to reach his pinky way over to the right, to below the <enter> key to get to it. Meanwhile, the “}” is right up there in easy reach. Yeah, and how often do you use the “}”?

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Tape Accompaniement

As a former teacher, I remember meeting the word in all it’s awful dimensions: a student hands in an essay of exceptional, uncharacteristic clarity and eloquence, with a newly discovered gift for metaphor, and becomes defensive when questioned about sources.

It takes a while, but eventually I do locate the source: whole paragraphs copied verbatim from a youth magazine in the library. Confronted with irrefutable evidence, the student, far from being apologetic, looks me in the eye and says, “So? Who cares about a stupid essay anyway.”

Even the guilty find it easy to define cheating: passing someone else’s work as your own, “borrowing” from others, taking shortcuts when everyone else has to take the long route. We probably shouldn’t be so shocked to discover it: in most quarters of this society, taking the shortcut when everyone else is taking the long way is considered smart, shrewd, macho. It’s a sure way to prosperity and success. Donald Trump and Ivan Boesky may be vilified on the editorial page, but on the society pages, they’re kings. Oliver North may have lied to Congress and the public, and conspired to break the law, but he is growing rich peddling his Machiavellian politics to banquet halls filled with envious arm-chair rogues. Cheating is first and foremost lying.

Do we, as a Christian community, have a clear idea of what cheating is? We probably think so. We never tire of warning our children about cheating at games, or our young people about cheating at school or work, or our married couples about cheating on each other. As a Christian school teacher, I certainly thought I knew what it was. But recent experience has caused me to think twice about whether or not there is a consensus in our community about what cheating is. My question is, is taped accompaniment cheating?

Most of us have probably experienced this new approach to music by now. We attend a concert put on by school or church or club, and wonder where the sound of violins and trumpets is coming from. Soon we realize there is no orchestra: there is a tape. It sounds wonderful: musicians far more gifted and well-trained than anybody we know, playing along with familiar faces and voices from the congregation and community. The sound is clearer, better balanced, completely free of feedback and static. No flubs, except for the singers, occasionally. Nobody out of tune, except for the singers occasionally. Nobody misses their cues, except for the singers occasionally. I confess a secret wish that a fuse would blow, or that the tape would get snarled in the drive mechanism.

My first question is, why even bother with the singers? And in fact, at a recent Christian elementary school production, taped background voices were indeed added to the performance– just to make it sound a little better than it really was. “They needed a little help for that part,” so I heard. So why not go one step further, and have the students mime the lyrics, and use professional voices instead. It would certainly sound even better.

“Ah,” you say, “but then what’s the point? You could stay at home and listen to music like that anytime you want to. The important thing about a performance is… ” Well, what is it? That it’s real? That it’s live? That it’s people we know displaying their true talents?

Our society already suffers from an oversized respect for “celebrities” and “professionals”. It is in the interest of big corporations– music publishers and broadcasters– that we care as little as possible for local talent and as much as possible for famous people who live in mansions in New York or Los Angeles and never perform except when surrounded by 50 body-guards and an equal number of scantily clad dancers. Now even the Christian community sometimes prefers a tape made in Los Angeles or Nashville to the musicians in our own community. If we follow this path, we will someday have no local musicians left, for who want to compete with a multi-million dollar recording studio?

It may sound strange but I thank God everyday that the Canadian Government passed it’s Canadian content rules, requiring radio stations to play at least 33% Canadian music. If it were not for this law, we would never have heard of Spirit of the West, Bryan Adams, Crash Test Dummies, Blue Rodeo, Colin James, or dozens of other Canadian artists.

It surprises me that schools and churches– along with Karaoke bars!–are the worst culprits for this artistic shortcut. Whenever I can, I ask the people involved why they used it. Most often the reason given is expediency: it’s just too difficult to get live musicians to come out for practice and performances. People promised, but didn’t show up. It’s more convenient to use a tape. The microphones and PA equipment are a big head-ache.

Most musicians I talk to say, “If I had known that they were going to use a tape instead, I would gladly have played.”

One director was pleased to report a new minister’s opinion that the music was far superior to a live performance he had recently heard, with a real band. But what did he expect? And why should the director feel flattered by this opinion? The fact is that background tapes, because they are produced in a studio and because they are edited and mixed and enhanced in innumerable electronic ways, will always sound better than even the same musicians playing live. There is no question that for pure technical quality, nobody will ever beat a good studio recording, including the studio artists themselves.

It is an entirely different question as to whether or not technical quality is what really matters. There has always been a sizeable number of music lovers who prefer to hear live music, warts and all, because of its immediacy, it’s honesty and emotion, and the dynamic rapport between audience and performer.

But it is more convenient to use a tape, and I have some sympathy for the harassed choir director who feels she or he just can’t put up with even one more aggravation and decides to take a shortcut. I have the same sympathy for that student of mine who just couldn’t put up with the mental agony of writing and re-writing and revising and evaluating another essay, and decided to take the easy way out. She took the trouble to rewrite everything in her own hand, and even to reconstruct an outline and a rough draft, since they were required. For all that effort, she received a zero.

When the audience at one of these performances applauds at the end of the evening, I wonder if the organizers have the honesty to ask themselves if they have earned it honestly? I am reluctant to applaud even the singers, though I know most of them probably didn’t choose to be accompanied by a machine. It feels silly.

And it’s wrong, most of all, because just as most of our students are honest– even if they know they’re not perfect– most of our musicians are honest– even if they know that they are not perfect. And I will always rejoice to hear an honest musician up there in front of the crowd giving it his or her best shot, because while most of us are honest about what we actually say to people, very few of us are honest enough to show so much of ourselves to so many at once.

I wish our music directors and choir leaders would take a stand, speak up, and educate the Christian community about artistic ethics. Our community needs to know that, yeah, sure, it could sound better, and bigger, and slicker, but it wouldn’t be honest. It’s somebody else’ work.

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Arrested Development: The RCMP Get Their Gas

I am not making this up.

The RCMP got called in by the Alberta Energy Co. to try to put an end to sabotage of its gas and oil wells in Northern Alberta.

Now, first of all, you must be aware of the fact that these wells stink mightily and emit noxious fumes over a large area. People live in this area. But when the police were called in to put an end to the noxious fumes, they did nothing. You see, clean air doesn’t make a profit.

Then some of the citizens of this region, understandably frustrated, took matters into their own hands. They began to commit acts of vandalism, damaging the wells and drilling equipment owned by the Alberta Energy Co. The Alberta Energy Co. then called the police. They were there lickety-spit.

So, there you go. The Alberta Energy Co. damaged the environment and possibly the health of a large number of farmers, and the police shrugged and ignored the problem. The farmers damage some equipment, and before you can say “Dudley Dooright”, they are out there doing an investigation.

They tried and tried to find the culprits but they could not. However, they did happen to know that this farmer named Wiebo Ludwig (isn’t that a great name?) and his friend Richard Boonstra had been loudly complaining about the pollution from the wells for many years. So they arrested him. So not only did the police not enforce the law protecting the environment and people’s health, but they tried to punish the victims.

Unfortunately for the RCMP, the courts in Canada still do require evidence occasionally and they had none. Worse than that, they discovered that nobody would testify against the two men. So they had to release them. I must congratulate the police on their integrity here. Standard procedure, it sometimes seems, is to lock the suspect into the same cell as an informant serving a long sentence for something or another.

Then you offer the informant an early release if he happens to overhear the suspect confessing in full to his crime.

Well they adopted the next best solution. They would blow up one of the wells themselves. Then they would report that the saboteurs were more dangerous than they had originally thought. Won’t you fink on them now?

How surprised they must be at the uproar. They are so surprised that they pretty well ‘fessed up right away. We didn’t think you’d mind. At least we didn’t strip search anybody. And we didn’t actually charge the suspect with blowing up the well that we blew up.

Technicalities. Support your local constabulary. And all those people in Elmira complaining about the pollution from Uniroyal…. watch your step!

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Michael Jordan’s Pittance

Wow. Michael Jordan is going to donate $5 million dollars to aid teachers. He wants the money to “focus on giving kids an opportunity to excel and to achieve their dreams”. The program is called “Jordan Fundamentals”. Teachers can receive up to $2,500 in grants.

Can you believe the class and generosity of this guy! What a personal sacrifice! He saw a need, and just reached into his pocket and wrote a check!

Ooo. Wait! It looks the money will come from the proceeds of the “Nike Sporting goods Jordan brand”. Huh? The richest Athlete in the world doesn’t have a check book?

In other words, this is a marketing ploy. We are going to see ads asking you to contribute to the Michael Jordan Nike Jordan Fundamentals Program to help children excel and achieve their dreams. Yeah. And one of their dreams might be to become so rich and greedy and self-centred that you can have your accountants and lawyers create phony charities to raise money on behalf of your good name without having to sacrifice a penny of your own real wealth. You can drive around in your limo with your bodyguards and jewelry and pretend that all those suckers who pay $150 a ticket to watch you play basketball are investing their money in virtue and goodness.

Jason Kamros, a math teacher in Washington D.C., says “Yipeee!” You see Kamros had been spending up to $1,000 of his own money to use photography to help teach math to this grade sixers. He’s going to apply for some of Jordan’s “largesse”.

That $1,000 probably represents about 1/20th of Kamros’ annual take-home salary. Jordan’s $5 million potentially represents about 1/20th of his annual income, except for the fact that Jordan isn’t actually going to contribute a penny of his personal income. He’s going to contribute his name, which cost him nothing, last I heard. YOU are going to contribute the $5 million dollars by buying Nike Shoes. And your purchase of Nike-Jordan Shoes helps keep children in Indonesia employed in sweat shops at 15 cents an hour. And how much you wanna bet that Nike isn’t getting a cut as well?

It is one thing to demand a monumental pile of money to play basketball and then pretend not to be greedy. It is one thing to pretend to be generous and self-sacrificing when you are not. But surely it crosses all boundaries of decency to take money from your fans, give it to a charity, and then call the media’s attention to your “generosity”.

If I were Jason Kamros, I’d tell Jordan where to stuff it.

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Soma

A man writes Ann Landers:
“I am a 60-year-old man who doesn’t have any interest in anything or anyone. I’m bored with everybody I meet. I am bored with my job and bored with my life.”

Ann solves his problem: “You aren’t bored; you are depressed. But you don’t have to stay that way the rest of your life. See a doctor; and ask for an anti-depressant that will help you.”

Was there ever a better illustration of the rampant hypocrisy of our society’s stand on drug abuse? We spend billions of dollars a year trying to stamp out the recreational use of drugs by teenagers and the inner-city poor, and then turn around and, through that paragon of bourgeois values, Ann Landers, advocate that we go running for a quick hit whenever we feel a little depressed with the world.

In the meantime, a woman in Illinois has just been released after serving 20 years in prison for merely being in the same car as a drug dealer. I am not making this up. The drug dealer– classy guy, I guess– freely and immediately admitted that the three pounds of heroin were his and his alone, and that the woman didn’t even know about it.

The courts said, “We don’t care.” Those new “get tough on crimes laws” made it possible for the prosecution to convict her anyway.

While she was in prison, she acquired some legal skills and now plans to work as a paralegal. Ann Landers, however, is still on the loose.

What, really, is the difference between the Lithium this man’s doctor will probably recommend, and the cocaine sold on the street corners? They are both addictive. They are both escape hatches from the pressures of life.

The difference is, the class of people who use them.

* * *

Judy Sgro, who dared to challenge some behaviours by the police during her tenure on the Toronto Police Services Board, has been pushed out of the position of vice-chairperson. Somehow this really reassures me that the police are out there to make sure our civil liberties are well-protected.

November 1999: Once again, even though the crime rate is going down, the police in Waterloo County, Ontario, are requesting more money and more officers. So while Mike Harris keeps telling the rest of us to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for the good of the economy, the police get to go on fattening their budgets and payrolls and throwing their weight around as never before.

When the crime rate went up, the police said they needed more officers because there were more criminals. Now that the crime rate is going down…. well, I guess it’s too much to expect. Just as it might be too much to expect that the police, when the crime rate goes up, might admit that they’re not doing a good job, instead of asking for more money.

Sometimes, I’m not totally opposed to the conservative agenda. It’s the rank hypocrisy that bothers me. If Mike Harris had declared that all of Ontario, teachers, the poor, the rich, industry– everyone– is going to have to tighten their belts, I could have seen some benefit to that. But inevitably, with the Republicans in the U.S. and the Conservatives in Canada, the real agenda is not to reduce taxes, but to shift the burden from the rich to the poor. When Harris talks about reducing taxes, he’s not talking about you and me. He’s talking about those people who inhabit the private boxes at the Skydome, and with whom he’d rather spend his off-hours anyway.

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Cry Me a River

I just watched Bill Clinton’s State of the Union Address. Coming as it does, in the middle of impeachment hearings, it was extraordinary. It may well be the best political speech I have seen in the past ten years. You could not have guessed that the man delivering it was living his life under a cloud.

The Republicans are playing a peculiar game. The State of the Union Address was a no-win situation for them. Sit and growl and you look like sore losers. Stand and applaud, and you have to answer the question: why are you trying to impeach him? Conservatives say that the Republicans are showing a lot of principle here– they are willing to buck a year’s worth of polls that show, with uncanny consistency, that the voters utterly reject impeachment.

Is this really “principle”? I don’t believe it. Remember, we’re talking about politicians here who routinely accept large donations from big corporations in exchange for altering or creating legislation that favours their interests. Remember, we’re talking about politicians who want to rely on chemical companies to tell us if they think some of their products might be doing harm to the environment. Remember, we’re talking about politicians who not only give away our forests to the lumber companies, but also charge the taxpayers for the cost of building logging roads, and who think that “global warming” is a left-wing hoax. Remember, we’re talking Jesse Helms, and Bob Barr, and Henry Hyde here. They ask us to believe that nothing matters more to them than “principle”.

I suspect that many of the hardcore conservatives in the Republican Party have come to believe that polls reflect the effects of some kind of magical spell woven by the Clinton administration and the media, which will evaporate like moon-dust the minute Clinton is actually removed from office. They firmly believe that in two years, the voters will not care who impeached whom, and will once again vote for the “righteous” party, the party of self-interest, the party of guns, the party of big military bands, the party of Star Wars, the party of Kenneth Starr.

* * *

If anyone needed any further convincing that Kenneth Starr is a modern day Grand Inquisitor, consider the case of Julie Hiatt Steele. (If you haven’t already been convinced by his treatment–harassment, rather– of Webster Hubbell and Susan McDougall).

Julie Hiatt Steele got a phone call from Kathleen Wiley one day. Kathleen Wiley was going to tell the media that President Clinton had groped her on a visit to the Oval Office. She didn’t want anyone to think she had made up this story after hearing about all the other scandals involving Bill Clinton so she asked Julie Hiatt Steele to tell a reporter that Wiley had told her about the groping long before the headlines about Monica Lewinsky. Long before the book deal.

Julie Hiatt Steele agreed to do so. She called a reporter and confirmed the story.

A few days later, she called the reporter for whom she had confirmed Wiley’s story and told him that she had lied, and that Wiley had asked her to lie. The story wasn’t true.

I don’t think any of us will ever know why exactly.

Julie Hiatt Steele has now been charged, by Grand Inquisitor Kenneth Starr, with perjury and obstruction of justice. Her tax, bank and telephone records have been seized by Starr’s office. Her brother, accountant, and former attorney have been called in to testify. She could receive up to 54 years in jail. Julie Hiatt Steele has no other involvement in this case. She has never been to the White House. She has never had any contact with any person from the White House. She has recently adopted a Romanian orphan. She is a single mother. Her sin was to dispute Kathleen Wiley’s account of what happened after her meeting with President Clinton, testimony that Starr wanted very badly in order to persuade the Senate to impeach Clinton.

Kenneth Starr, beneath that smug, pious exterior, is a fanatic with unlimited power who is out of control. If the Republicans really believe that he has been impartial, they should sign a pledge that they will renew the Independent Prosecutor’s position when it comes up again even if there is a Republican President.

Kenneth Starr believes that Julie Hiatt Steele conspired with the Clinton White House to sabotage Kathleen Wiley’s allegations. This is kind of a strange idea, because, until the reporter called on Ms. Steele, nobody even knew who she was. It’s hard to imagine how the White House could have gotten to her before anybody in the media knew her name.

It is also hard to imagine an act more cynical, unscrupulous, and devious, than to indict this woman for perjury on the day of the State of the Union Address.

If you get a chance, watch Julie Steele in interviews. She seems like a very bright, articulate, decent person. She answers questions directly, quickly, with apparent candor. She is frightened and astounded that this indictment could happen to her in the United States of America, under the statute that gives Kenneth Starr almost unlimited power. We’re talking about a single mother here who has never committed a crime in her life being threatened with 54 years in prison. Even Marlin Fitzwater, the press secretary for George Bush, said he was appalled.

It appears that Kenneth Starr is punishing Ms. Steele for failing to collaborate his increasingly hysterical views of the Clinton White House.

Remember we all laughed when Hillary Clinton alleged a right wing conspiracy. Well, I sort of laughed. I thought it was a cheap shot, a political statement, not meant to be taken seriously. It’s smart to be skeptical of both sides on this issue.

Now I’m beginning to wonder. You have to keep in mind that the Jones case itself only survived judicial scorn through the efforts of wealthy Clinton foe Richard Scaife.

I suppose it is possible that Ms. Steele is an amazing liar. Either that, or Kenneth Starr is one amazing little fascist.

* * *

If the Senate does call witnesses, as everyone says they will, it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend the Republican “strategy”. It is said that they favour calling Monica Lewinsky, Vernon Jordan, and Betty Currie.

I can’t imagine what they expect to gain. Monica is likely to repeat her statement that nobody promised her a job in exchange for her silence, or asked her to lie. If the managers from the House hope to intimidate her or shake her testimony, they will have to resort to some rather ham-fisted tactics, which don’t play very well on tv. I would expect the Republicans will try to have these hearings closed to the public, but, like I said, Republican strategy here is baffling.

How will it look on TV, to have frisky little Monica Lewinsky testify in front of 91 white men who are all old enough to be her father, and 9 women?

Betty Currie is another dangerous witness for the Republicans. Picture the svelte, sensitive Bob Barr, or Henry Hyde questioning this middle-age black secretary about who really arranged for the gifts to Monica Lewinsky to be returned. If she says, “I don’t really remember”, will one of the Inquisitors really go, “Come now, Mrs. Currie!” In front of the nation? Will William McCollum crack his whip or his wit? Will Trent Lott offer her a smoke, courtesy of the Tobacco Industry he has served so well in exchange for generous contributions, or invite her to a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist group to which he has given fawning keynote addresses?

How many people, besides myself, will glance around the Senate at that moment to determine who many black members are sitting? Take a guess.

lottbigots.jpg (19927 bytes)
Trent Lott (2nd from left) with CCC members.

Then there is Vernon Jordan, the real bogey-man for the Falwell-inspired conspiracy buffs. Who is this mysterious man, operating in the shadows, elusive and silent in the face of all this cacophony? Well, by all accounts, he is a very shrewd, very intelligent man, who might just slice the Republican inquisitors to ribbons with his replies. The Republicans want to play with this witness?

And what if the Democrats call Linda Tripp? What if they call that slime-ball book agent from New York who first advised Linda to tape her conversations with Monica Lewinsky– Lucianne Goldberg? One could not imagine more appealing witnesses favourable to the prosecution other than Dracula and Frankenstein. What if they highlight Linda Tripps’ perjury, when she declared that she had no interest in writing a book on the subject to a Grand Jury— while tapes show that she was discussing with Ms. Goldberg how much information to hold back from Newsweek so she would still be able to command big bucks for an exclusive book contract?

* * *

Perhaps one of the most hysterically absurd myths about the Clinton scandal is that the media is in cahoots with the Democrats. I am in cahoots with the Democrats, and I have never been as infuriated with the media as I have been for the past year. I have watched endless hours of CNN– the 24-hour impeachment channel– and ABC and NBC and CBS. I’ve seen Dan Rather summoned back from Cuba to analyze the profound social and political implications of a semen-stained dress. I’ve seen reporters stare into a camera with a straight face and tell the world about the gravity of a situation which I found utterly hysterical and ridiculous. I’ve seen Larry King–divorced and re-married five times himself– solemnly pronounce that the entire nation was disgraced by Clinton’s sexual behavior.

And these are Clinton’s allies?

Well, lately, maybe they are. CNN has taken a more sober perspective. Jeff Greenfield now finds the impeachment somewhat bizarre. Greta Vansusteran now concedes that no reputable prosecutor would have proceeded with the case. Larry King arches his eyebrows and frowns while interviewing the indicted Julie Hiatt Steele. Bernard Shaw appears to grimace just a little while interviewing Bob Barr.

But Sam Donaldson still looks pretty solemn as he interviews Larry Flynt.

For the record, I would defy these people to name a single commentator in a major American television news department or news magazine who has given a “liberal” view of things, which is, that this has never been and never will be anything else but a desperate attempt by the Republicans to sabotage and destroy a Democratic administration. Yes, some of them may genuinely believe that Clinton’s offenses were serious. Most of them have simply been absorbed into the hysteria. They have no idea of what is up or down, left or right, rational or hysterical. They are simply in the middle of a political vortex that continues to spin out of control.

The real truth was accidentally revealed by Henry Hyde on Saturday. He said, “you may disagree with us, but at least we believe in something”. In other words, we arch-conservatives can’t believe that we are wrong. We refuse to accept. We can not admit it. We can’t tolerate those who disagree with us because their values are not real. We are the only arbiters of truth and justice. If we only had an army….

* * *

What made Clinton’s “State of the Union” speech so good? He struck a tone of non-partisanship. He showed no sour grapes. He touched upon all of the current hot-button issues for voters and took the “correct” position. He pre-empted the Republicans on every issue except tax cuts. He laid out a clear, specific agenda, with realistic goals and achievable results. He reminded America that times are very good, indeed, knowing that most Americans will identify the current levels of prosperity and growth with his administration.

The Republicans keep parroting that history will remember Clinton as the first President, since Andrew Johnson, to be tried for impeachment. To the contrary, I believe history will remember this era as “the good old days”, and exciting period of change and innovation–and prosperity– and it may well become known as the Clinton era.

On the other hand, some politicians may be remembered for voting to impeach the most popular president of the past fifty years. Or they may be forgotten as voters cast them aside.

When people look back today to assess presidents, what do they remember? Who is currently the most popular?

John F. Kennedy, who really accomplished very little, but looked like he had a lot of potential. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who carried on an affair for many years. Why is Roosevelt remembered so fondly? Because he communicated very well. He led the country through a decade of prosperity and continued growth. He made sane, rational decisions that seem, in retrospect, to have been the right ones to make.

Ronald Reagan? He was liked on a personal basis, but a lot of people have not forgotten that, thanks to his fantastical “trickle down” economic theory, he took the budget from a $45 billion deficit to a $540 billion deficit. I’m not kidding. You can look it up. How is it that the Republicans continue to pass themselves off as the “fiscally responsible” party?

Clinton has taken the budget from hundreds of billions in the red to about $80 billion in the black. The Republicans like to say they did it, all by themselves. But they also want you to believe that Ronald Reagan was a great president. But he couldn’t have done without the Democratic Congress. I guess we remember what we want to remember.

Think about it. This is a fact, confirmed by the most extensive scientific polling ever conducted– and the November elections: Bill Clinton is the most popular president in forty years.

The bottom line, for many Americans, is really quite intuitive. Two ships are in the harbour. Both are going to the same destination. One of them is captained by Kenneth Starr, and he introduces his officers to you: Bob Barr, Lindsey Graham, Asa Hutchinson, Newt Gingrich (hey– he got this ball rolling), and the rest of the gang. They explain that there is going to be lots of rules and they will be enforced strictly. Homosexuals are not allowed on board. No smoking or drinking, or rock’n’roll. Rich people get all the big cabins. They have to pay more for them, but only rich people get to dine with captain or use the pool. Religious services are held every Sunday and attendance is obligatory. Let’s pray first. And you’all be sure and have lots of fun.

The other ship is captained by Bill Clinton. He introduces his officers. Vernon Jordan, Betty Currie, William Cohen, Al Gore, and Hillary. You notice there are lots of buxom maids with big teeth. Can’t afford a ticket? You can work your way across the ocean in the kitchen.

Which ship will you choose?

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Bad Kitty. Bad, Bad Kitty

I just read in the Toronto Star that an elderly man who was missing for four and half years was finally found. Just think– missing for four years! His family must have been absolutely thrilled to find him.

Except that, well, he wasn’t feeling very well when they found him. In fact, he was sicker than a dog. He was so sick, there wasn’t much of a pulse. A long time between beats. They’re still waiting for one.

When he went missing, they must have hunted high and low for, well, at least fifteen minutes. Actually, there was no “they”. Nobody looked for him, because if anyone had looked for him, they would have found him right where he could almost always be found. He died in his own home.

In his bedroom.

No one noticed. For four years. No one missed him. No one wondered why he didn’t answer the phone anymore. No one checked to see why they didn’t get their usual Christmas card or anniversary phone call. No one, so it appears, even wondered why he hadn’t paid his heating bills.

I guess he must have lived in some isolated cabin somewhere, deep in the woods, far from any cell phone service.

Somewhere about two blocks from his wife and daughter. In the same town. Just down the street.

The body was not– how shall we put this delicately?– “pristine”. In fact, the body wasn’t there at all, which leads you to wonder what the police meant when they said they found “a body”. What they found were pieces of bones and stuff. Actually, the stuff was all gone. But they did find the bones. And the skeletons of a few cats. I don’t know if they used carbon dating or what, but it has been established that the cats died after the man did, of starvation, but not, as it were, before exhausting all the protein available in the house. Bad kitty.

Of course, some things are better left unspoken. And I’m sure the RCMP forensics laboratory has better things to do with their time, but I really think we ought to investigate the shady activities of those cats. Consider this: a few years ago, a man in London, Ontario, was given a fine for trying to drown some puppies in a creek. Now, if we are going to regard humans killing animals as criminal activity, why shouldn’t the reverse be true as well? And seeing as there is fairly compelling evidence here that those cats may have exceeded the bounds of feline decency, I think there ought at least to be an investigation. No one is advocating the death penalty here– but I think that at least a hefty fine is in order, if only as a deterrence.

Mostly, I am moved by the fact that a man can lay dead in his home for four years. He was a baby once, crying for his mama’s tit, gurgling and giggling at his grandpa’s faces. He was a toddler, exploring and playing and stretching and dreaming of noises and flashes, and a young boy on a tire swing seeking adventure, and a youth impatiently wishing he could be grown up, and a man going off to war because it seemed honorable, and an apprentice learning his craft, hoping to be a success. He met a girl, was charmed, and he courted and maybe even loved, and in the first flush of marriage was possibly an attentive, caring husband whose arrival home from work everyday brought laughter and joy into the house. He had children whom he bounced on his knee and sang little nonsense songs to. Maybe he changed jobs, moved to different places, tried to learn new trades, to provide for his family, to pay for the rare pleasure of a trip to the lake and an ice cream cone for everyone. He bought his first car, got cheated, smashed his fist on the hood in anger and learned painful lessons of commerce. He must have had friends, and relatives, with some of whom he was not on speaking terms. He probably had some disappointments, some bitter defeats. Perhaps he started drinking, and grew sullen and unpleasant. His friends died, moved away, disappeared, argued with him, and stopped coming to visit, and stopped inviting him to join them for a drink or two and checkers down at the Legion. His own former wife and daughter lived two blocks away and never came to see him, not once, in four years, not at Christmas, not on his birthday. He must have spent a long time in his room, watching the world go by on a blue glass tube, hearing the noises of the outside world, and believing that his life had completely unwound itself and the only thing to wait for was hiding for him, behind the grimace of a cat.

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Lament for Geoworks

Does it surprise you to know that Windows is only about 9 years old? That it was released in 1990?

That version of Windows, of course, was called 3.0. There was a Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0, but they were so pathetically, mind-numbingly bad that nobody even tried to use it. Windows 3.0 was different. It was merely incomprehensibly bad. But it was made by Microsoft, the company that gave us Dos 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2, and 3.3, and 4.0, of course, and 5.0 (the best dos ever), and 6.0, 6.1, and 6.2. And Bill Gates, at the press conference announcing the conception of Windows, warned that other graphical user interfaces wouldn’t be compatible with future versions of dos.

In 1990, nobody could have believed that Windows would be so late, so bad, and so slow. Everybody thought that in a year or so, we’d all be happily clicking and dragging around on our IBM compatibles in Microsoft Windows.

Geoworks was released in 1990, and it ran great. It was a true graphical user interface with a remarkably functional core, and real multi-tasking. It ran happily on 2 MB of RAM and required very little disk space.

Just as it was set to take the world by storm, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft was almost ready to roll out it’s own version, Windows, in just a few months.

Geoworks was destroyed, crushed by the announcement. Software developers switched to Windows, so third party applications dried up. Even worse, the investors pounded Geoworks’ stock until it was pretty well wiped out.

It took five years for a truly functional Windows to emerge (Windows 95) and, even then, it still wasn’t as reliable as Geoworks was in 1990. I run both Windows 98 and Windows NT on my desktop. They are both pieces of garbage, to put it bluntly. They are bloated, slow, bug-ridden, and annoying. Why do I use them? Because I make my living with computers. Everybody wants Office 97 and Quake and all the other Windows applications. I get paid to try to solve all the problems that shouldn’t exist.

There are other operating systems: Linux, BeOs, OS/2, but few applications that run on them. These other OS’s are strong, reliable, and fast, but Microsoft beat them off with sticks and stones. That is the legacy of Microsoft’s strong-arm tactics over the last 9 years. The result has been disastrous, though few people seem aware of it. The loss of productivity due to problems with Windows must be phenomenal.

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Those Wild and Crazy Lawyers

Quick– who made more money this year? Microsoft Corporation or a couple of lawyers in Texas?

Right. The lawyers. Well, almost. You see this group of lawyers represented the State of Texas in negotiating a settlement (read “sell-out”) with the tobacco companies. In exchange for lots of bucks, paid to the lawyers— ooops! Paid to the Plaintiffs! That’s you and me! —the tobacco companies get to continue marketing death and disease to American children. What a wonderful country!

So how much did the lawyers bill the State of Texas for their noble services, defending the innocent consumer against evil, ruthless, greedy corporations?

How much you say? Well, these are lawyers, after all. So the amount might be a little excessive. What d’ya think? Take a guess? How much should a lawyer be paid for a couple of years of work, doing research, bribing employees to turn over internal documents, and ordering health studies already paid for by the tax-payer through government funding of Universities and Research Organizations? How much?

$10 million?
$20 million?
$50 million?

Oh, come on now. These are REALLY SMART TALENTED LAWYERS. After all, the average lawyer would have tried to get tobacco companies out of the business altogether. But that would have made the tobacco companies very unhappy. So these superior lawyers actually found a way to make everybody happy. The government gets money. The tobacco companies get to stay in business. The taxpayer gets to continue smoking away.

$100 million?
$200 million?
$500 million?

Come on– don’t be shy! These the same intelligent, compassionate, competent professionals you see every day in the movies and on television, except that you never see the scene where they present their bills and take almost all of the settlement money they weaseled out of the greedy, amoral, unfeeling corporation. How can a lawyer live off of a measly $500 million dollars nowadays? Be reasonable! There are SO MANY expenses. Postage. Clerical work. Filing. Thinking. Reading. Subscriptions. Donuts. Get SERIOUS!

$1 billion?

A mere BILLION? When Michael Jackson makes almost a tenth of that? When Bill Gates makes ten times that much! And how much more important is a Texas lawyer than the owner of the greediest corporation on the face of the earth? Give me a break.

$5 billion?
$10 billion?

Now you’re getting reasonable! But not too reasonable.

$25 billion?

Right on! Yes, these Texas Lawyers are asking for $25 billion dollars for negotiating— GET THIS– a $17 billion dollar settlement. In other words, for recovering $17 billion dollars from the tobacco companies for the lucky tax payers of Texas, they ….. well, they want to keep all the money. Yes ALL of the money. YES, ALL OF THE MONEY. But that’s not all folks! The taxpayers of Texas, in compensation for all the medical costs of taking care of all of the victims of smoking addictions, get to PAY these Texas Lawyers an additional $8 BILLION! You lucky Texans! Not only do you get to have tail-gate parties at Huntsville State Prison where they execute completely worthless, disgusting, evil, unredeemable human beings almost every night— you also get to pay a bunch of lawyers $8 billion dollars for……. well….. for…..

Well, fortunately, the lawyers and the tobacco companies got together and decided that it wouldn’t be fair to hit the citizens of Texas with such a large bill. They said, “What? Are you crazy?” Well… And they decided that those Texas Lawyers should ONLY receive $3.3 billion.

Whew! Here I was all upset over nothing! A mere $3.3 billion! How many lawyers were involved? The New York Times doesn’t say, but several other states had teams of three or four leading lawyers and their staffs. But– get this– some lawyers represented as many as 30 states. Do they get paid once? Are you an idiot? Does Michael Jordan get paid once even though he plays in 30 different stadiums?

Well, yes he does. But that’s Michael Jordan. He’s not a lawyer.

One of the lawyers for Florida, Steven Yerid, said the costs are justified. Why? Because that’s how much lawyers should make? Because their work is so terrible, so risky, so dangerous, that even a $14.95 an hour coal miner wouldn’t take it on? Because they are so smart that they scare Stephen Hawkings?

No. He said the fees were justified because “the costs come from the industry”. In other words, we’re justified in taking any money we can lay our grubby hands on because we are lawyers. We just ARE.

Furthermore, he says, the lawyers might have ended up with nothing if they had lost the case. So, because these lawyers might not have won the case, they are entitled to demand as much money as they please.

Remember, this line of reasoning is coming from a lawyer, someone you might need to depend on for your life if you’re ever charged with a serious crime in Texas.

Pity me. I thought this case was about public health and liability. Instead, it is clearly some new kind of industry, in which clever entrepreneur can sue somebody out of the blue on the off chance they might collect a few billions. Who do they sue next?

What does the public have to do with it? Go suck a camel.

The industry will pay it? Ha ha ha. The industry?!!! Where does this idiot think the “industry” gets its money? From the smokers! So, not only will very little of this money from the tobacco companies actually find it’s way into the medical facilities of Texas (aren’t most of their medical facilities used to gas convicts anyway?), but the smokers will pay more for cigarettes in order to pay the lawyers who negotiated a deal in which tobacco companies can now market their disease- causing product with impunity.

Now, who was this lawsuit supposed to benefit?  Who were the victims of the corporation’s malfeasance?  Who was harmed by the evil practices of these public entities who profited from their misery?  That’s right: the smokers.  The same people who are paying for the settlement!

There are some scandals that shock you. There are scandals that boggle the mind. There are scandals that baffle you, because the scale of the moral atrocity is so far beyond normal human experience that you can’t even begin to comprehend it. The Savings and Loan Scandal. The loans to 3rd World Dictatorships at usurious interest rates. Windows 95.

And then there is the king of all scandals, the mind-blowing, baffling, stunning, incomprehensible, MOTHER of all scandals. And this is it.

So while you’re sitting there eating your chips and watching the sanctimonious republicans try to impeach the president for consensual groping in the Oval Office— consider where your hard-earned tax dollars are really going.

And weep, wail, gnash your teeth, bash your head against the wall….. what else are you going to do?

Get yourself a lawyer?

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The Immorality of Komodo Dragons

I just watched a television documentary on Komodo Dragons. These creatures are real slime balls. I think we should have nothing to do with them. In the first place, they are very ugly. They’re up to five feet long, covered with scales, and they have kind of a baggy, flabby look. They look like a log covered with wet burlap. And it’s no wonder: they’re only active for about three hours a day. Why are they only active for three hours a day? Why don’t they get out there and put in a regular eight-hour day like the rest of the hard-working animal kingdom? Because they will eat anything, no matter how old or disgusting. Komodo dragons will kill large animals, like goats and deer, and eat part of them, and put the rest away for later, and not in a fridge. I guess when you’re as ugly as a Komodo dragon, you don’t care what goes into you. You see this fresh elk go leaping by and he looks real tasty and all, and then you look over at a two-week old rotting goat carcass and think, “hey, that looks good…”

Komodo dragons drool when they’re hungry. But not like you and me. Oh no. Komodo dragon drool is toxic. You see, Komodo dragons don’t go chasing after deer, knock their legs out from under them, and then break their spines, like the hard-working jaguar or cheetah. No, the Komodo dragon sort of wanders around as if he wasn’t up to anything, and then, if a deer gets kind of careless and doesn’t move out of the way quickly enough, they leap– “leap” being a relative term here–into the air and bite them. The deer often gets away, or thinks it gets away. It moves off into the distance and looks behind itself and sees this ugly, baggy old lizard coming after it… slowly. But the Komodo dragon will follow the deer for a week, from way behind, because the Komodo dragon knows that, thanks to that toxic sludge drool, that little bite is going to get very badly infected. That deer is doomed. Eventually.

You have to respect the Komodo dragon’s patience, don’t you? Would you go into MacDonald’s, order a hamburger, take a bite, and then wait a whole week until it quieted down ten blocks away so you could finish it off?

Komodo dragons will eat other Komodo dragons if they can. This is a non-issue for Komodo dragons. I don’t think they give it much thought at all. You certainly don’t see other Komodo dragons gathering around a corpse and demanding an investigation. They are more likely to demand a share. And this is why young Komodo dragons live in trees until they are three years old and at least five feet long.

Komodo Dragons mate for life, but the male doesn’t have a good memory. He can’t tell just by looking at a female whether it’s his wife or not. He kind of follows her for a while until she notices him. “Huh? What do you want? Oh—again? I should have known. Is that all you think about?” Yup. That’s her.

Seriously, if he is strolling along and he happens to see a female and he gets the urge, he has to get real close first and then taste her sweat glands. Then he knows. It is very important for him to be very, very sure that this beauty is his wife, because, if it isn’t, the minute he gets close, she might kill him and eat him. This makes it very difficult for Komodos to have orgies. I’m not saying it’s impossible or that it’s never happened: just that it’s difficult. And for the same reason that a dead goat lasts a Komodo a month, they aren’t too worried about “protection”. A Komodo thinks, “Listen, I just had a mouthful of month-old maggoty goat meat, I’m been crawling through leech infested muck for three hours, I live in a dark cave with thousands of fruit bats, and I just sniffed your sweat glands— and you’re worried about exchanging bodily fluids? What are you? A prude?”

In order to mate, the male Komodo has to bring his body temperature up about ten degrees. So he goes and lays in the sun for an hour before sex. This takes a lot of spontaneity out of the Komodo dragon’s life, but hey, how spontaneous can you be if you only move three miles per hour? So, say a couple of Komodo dragons meet in a singles swamp. He says, “hey, you look like my type.” She says, “Oooo. You’re getting me hot. Let’s make it.” He says, “Okay. I’ll go find a sunny rock and we’ll see you in an hour.”

And what if the nearest sunshine is waiting for him on the other side of a shady mango grove? He waddles over there at 3 miles per hour, lays in the sun for an hour, brushes his teeth and slaps a little after-shave under the old burlap, waddles half-way across hell’s half acre, through swamps, under trees, through gnarled roots, finds the female, sniffs her sweat glands to make sure it’s her, rears up… “Oh damn. I’m too cold.” And you thought Viagra was inconvenient?

As if life isn’t hard enough for the male Komodo dragon, if he stays in the sun too long, he will die of heat stroke. So he can’t let himself go way over the ten degrees up, and then hope he cools off just the right amount by the time he gets to the female. For Komodo dragons as for humans, timing is important.

Komodo dragons live in only one place in the entire world: you guessed it: Komodo. People have to be careful on Komodo because Komodo dragons will sometimes eat people. Now, you’ve got this 150 pound lizard roaming around this island drooling this toxic sludge and attacking your children… and what do you? You protect the lizard! You put him on the endangered species list!

Well, I think we’re just getting carried away with this endangered species business. If it was up to me, we’d be having Komodo soup every night until they were all gone.