What Happens Now in America

An amazing week we've had. The Red Sox surprisingly pounded the Cardinals for their first World Series win in 86 years. George Bush gets re-elected and the Republicans gained seats in Congress. - Almost overnight my whole world has changed-and I'm trying to rethink how to react to the problems I think the US has in the realm of Global Americanization- the export of Jobs, the rising national Debt, the war against Terrorism especially in Iraq, Just Like Saddam said it would be it would be fought there in the desert. What's going on with Osama these days. Osama is still out there, George, you better capture him- (please don't kill him, try him in international court, strip him of his power and reveal that he is an insane inciter of wrongful religious interpretation.) We need to stop pissing off Muslims, and promoting fear of other nationalities in the name of democracy. We also need Global support and integration of our policies to align better with our allies and the UN -mend repugnant stadoffish behavior of our First World America. This means enacting a higher sense of world responsibility rather than a them or us attitude. I want to go to other countries and not have to fear I will be a target. We need stricter gun control and looser restrictions on freedom of speech. Repeal the Patriot Act. Give the troops protection. The US needs to set an example of environmentalism and not be the largest consumer of expendable non-renewable resources. Shit, I am thinking too far to the left to be considered a mainstream American. Arghh, I have questions about what Bush is up to. 1) What about this huge debt load the US has taken on-how can this be reversed? 2) How can we secure our US jobs and borders if you offer incentives to export Jobs away from the US, and offer deals to companies that use sweatshop labor for pennies on the (Aamerican) dollar? 3) How can all Americans have access to education and health insurance no matter what their income level is? There should be no homeless in America. 4) How about making Washington DC the safest city in America? 5) How about NOT ignoring the AIDs crisis around the world, and support programs which espouse protection on a physical level and NOT a religious one? I could go on but my head and my heart hurts from thinking about this stuff. Liberal activism will still go on. Michael Moore will still bug the crap out of the conservatives. And Massachusetts will still be profoundly liberal, and inspirational to those disenfranchised by this election. In the awesome book,"In the Shadow of No Towers" by Art Spiegelman there's a reference to the other shoe that will drop. I'm waiting too. Hopefully, George, that shoe won't drop on you. Here's to hope -benj

Baseball Writing

Baseball, as an American Sport, is the subject of much love and loss, angst and excitement, pleasure and pain. Baseball, the game itself, is as enjoyable to watch as it is to play, it is unlike any other popular sport, where a team responds to the actions between two players-one throwing- the other batting- and separate team support for these two in their moment relies on the awareness of this play. An extremely democratic game, where the confrontation between two opposing factions is face to face-and the Teams must compete to support this confrontation, much like a candidate and their party support. The game ends when one side wins - there's no real time limit on a game- an inning may be minutes or hours, the pace can be rapid or leisurely- patience may be tried, opportunities missed, a stolen base here, a passed ball there, a clean up hitter left to start the next inning. It is truly a wonderful pastime. Baseball also gave rise to delicious sports reporting of such emotional content that it rises above any other American journalistic endeavor and influences other topical items with allusions to the game in the coverage of American Politics, War, and Culture. Our conversations are peppered with comments like "missed the ball", "struck out", "home run", "on deck", and "in the bullpen". We root for our teams like they are our family. Ecstatic wins and depressing losses, instances which defy logic, canonization of a player's achievement or demonizing failures make great matter for opinion which may be interpreted as a stunning defeat or a miraculous win -depending who's root root rooting for the home team. These are the facets of the diamond which have made Sports journalism a lively read, and provides a full spectrum of interpretation from logistical to the incredible, skill and chance make for an unpredictable game whatever the statistics might suggest, a good team can fail, a bad team can succeed in a game and that game can be all of itself or part of season, it all makes for great subject matter filled with human drama outside our personal dramas. So as these Red Sox try to break the curse (it's not achieved yet), be certain it will matter not if they win or lose but how they play the game. For if they win, they will be perceived to do the same next year, and if they lose, they will be perceived to try again. And that is what Baseball is all about and someone will write about it one way or another.

EMC and Dantz

The gigantic data corporation EMC has purchased Dantz and its software titles like Retrospect. I find this amusing because for YEARS I've wondered why EMC supported just about every Windows and Unix platform except Apple's. To me, this has been a glaring omission with EMC's products. I find it a welcome addition for I once toured the Hopkinton EMC campus where you could see every EMC product and thousands of servers and disk storage units and computers from every major and a lot of minor companies-including laptops-except Apple. I mean, jeez, they claimed there was more storage in this one building than the whole country of Italy. A search on supported systems on the EMC technical page had no mention of Apple at all. So now the big question is: How long will Dantz still support Macs? I don't know the answer to this question. We all know that there are rabid Apple haters out there. I project a conspiracy theory here: EMC is a major Republican supporter, Al Gore is on the board of Apple. It would conceivably be possible that EMC would want Apple products to go away. Another realm of possibility is that the Small to Medium Business Server market is moving toward Apple's Xserve, which is an excellent product for a fantastic price point WAY less than any other major manufacturer's offering (Anyone considering a new server for their group should consider this option- a stand alone G5 XServe with a 1000 user licenses costs 4000$ or less). And EMC is struggling in this market, not really sure how to deal with smaller companies. Personally, I think it's the sales folk at EMC who can't grasp why the smaller markets would go to some other vendor. It's a culture thing- In the computing world there are two types of "Professional" sales folk. One is the Grey Suited Sales drone with briefcases and Dell laptops who only regard you if you have considerable cash $$$ to spend on. The other is the Lacrosse shirt and blue-jeans folk who will sit down and whittle away their product to your budget. EMC tends to be the former. I suspect it's their Banking and Insurance clients that have insinuated this type into the Sales culture. Apple could get by without Dantz (I have for years), but they would need their own backup product or partner with someone (Like Mike Bombich of Carbon Copy Cloner) to make an Apple enterprise Backup Program meaningful (and I don't mean .Mac Backup). How about Veritas? After some needling of tech support a couple years ago, they did put up OS X support (since they already had bsd support), and now I suspect OSX is fully qualified at this point. (I've not researched this...) There are others in the market, mostly small potatoes and Unix front ends to ditto and psync. Meanwhile, what happens next remains to be seen. Is this a gentle move into a smaller market for EMC or a Microsoft-like gobble, chew, expel type move to diminish competition?

What Happens

If I add a picture to my email?

Dumb Downers

Hey blog readers, Here's a complaint about the excessive use of technology in the world. 1) Your computer sucks! Microsoft, Apple and a TON of these open source code monkeys are needlessly crowding your pc with with CRAP. And they make you pay for it whether you realize it or not. Where is the persistant data? Where is the Common user interface? Why do the GEEKS out there promote speed over functionality? 2) Cell Phones Suck! I hate it when I get called by someone "on the road" and the phone clicks off in an underpass. Or when a lone cell phone rings (in some obnoxious pop tune or a horrendeous synthesized classical piece) and you have to guess which button to push. Where is the voice interface on these things? And what's with the cameras? Convergence devices without a decent interface (and that means very little button pushing) are DOOMED. Don't buy one until it complies with known standards. Even worse is video phones. Is it me or do communications companies have too many marketing idiots promoting dispeptic products. A phone/palm/camera/MP3 player is absolutely too much stuff to put into a handheld device. They are complicated, transitional items which upon purchase are immediately outddated. Beside all the interface crap you need to go through to deliver your own info to yourself. WTF? 3) SUV's Suck. Why are we wasting gas driving SUV's? Holy mutha load, If we didn't depend on FOREIGN OIL we wouldn't be wasting Tax Dollars blowing up Iraq. The auto industry should be ASHAMED at their gross negligence for the environment, and should be building super economical transport. Those waste Billions could have actually rebuilt the public school infra-structure, provide food for starving Americans, provide Jobs for the unemployed, Why the US allows corporate entities to build up a bottom line while outsourcing to foreign workers on the cheap, enjoying tax freedoms, and basically trading your future for their their personal enjoyment. 4) Break Up the HUGE MONOPOLIES. Ok, I thought my phone rates would go down when the industry got deregulated. Nope. Hey I thought my cable bill would go down when they deregulated the cable industry. Nope. How about air transport, is it any cheaper, is it more secure, is it efficient? nope. While I'm on this subject you note that you have FEWER choices in all these things now than you did 10 years ago. This is progress? 5) The industry of American Democracy has to change. The USA needs to adopt a 30 hour work week, a higher minimum wage, longer vacation allowances, national health insurance, gender free marriage rights, the right to food (no hungry families), the right to shelter (no Homeless), the right to mental health supervision. We have to change our prison system as well- and develop a US Conservation service -like a peacetime army- to preserve our land and the intrinsic economic power it holds to benefit ourselves. Our reliance on cheap trade (again, for the bottom line) serves only to weaken what should be a self-sufficient economy. 6) Stop paying politicians. From the President on down, there should be no such thing as a Career Politician. -ok enough for today -O

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to the one on my left

you beg me for food you stare you moan ......food you come up to me and peer into my occupied place i am busy you are hungry i will not let you starve your back is toward me you are taunting me you check to see if i am looking then you try to chew on something that is not food it is plastic or rubber you want food i will not let you starve

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