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Monthly Archives: April 2008
The Bush Years
I started blogging on February 2, 2002 (I had been ranting a bit for a couple of years before that) and will soon reach 3,500 posts. George W. Bush took office on January 20, 2001, so I missed the opportunity to comment on the first year of his administration.
Between now and when he leaves office (assuming he DOES leave office), I’m going to go back and tag every post dealing with W and/or his henchmen with “Bush Years.” Mine will be just one of thousands of records of his time in office.
Rendition
“After a terrorist bombing kills an American envoy in a foreign country. An investigation leads to an Egyptian who has been living in the United States for years and who is married to an American. He is apprehended when he’s on his way home. The U.S. sends him to the country where the incident occurs for interrogation which includes torture. An American CIA operative observes the interrogation and is at odds whether to keep it going or to stop it.”
Back in the day when people debated the death penalty, you’d sometimes hear the question:
Would it be preferable to execute 100 guilty men, knowing that one of them was innocent… or to let 100 innocent men go free, knowing that one of them was guilty?
In the movie Rendition, Meryl Streep’s character does a spin on that. Something along the lines of it would be worth torturing an innocent man if the use of torture produced intelligence that saved 7,000 lives (in London?).
CNN: Student Twitters way out of Egyptian jail
“James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10.
On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. “Arrested.”
Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted he was being held.” [CNN]
Wanted: Chief Customer Experience Officer
Steve Rubel describes three “emerging digital careers” to watch. You can read his description of each here, but “Chief Customer Experience Officer” seems like a must-have to me:
“Want to know if a company is a good witch or a bad witch? It’s easy. The web knows. Google, the media and online communities are littered with tales of companies that have exemplary products and customer service. However, it’s often easier to find those that have been vilified for the opposite. That’s the thesis of Pete Blackshaw’s forthcoming book – Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.
Here’s an experiment. For fun, enter any company into this special Google search engine I set up and let me know what you find. Brands are increasingly recognizing that customer experience is everything.” [Thanks, David]
The Senath Lions Quartet
One of the best parts of having a blog is connecting with people. You could argue it’s the only part. One of the first sites I created was a tribute to KBOA, the radio station where my father worked for many years and where I spent a dozen years. The site is packed with great photos, most of which were taken by the late Johnny “Mack” Reeder.
I captioned one of those photos “Unknown Hillbilly Band” because I had no idea who they were. Now I do, thanks to an email from one of the men in the photo, Charley Crawford:
“The name of the group is “The Senath Lions Quartet” and this was in 1951. We started the quarter in Senath High School. The members are left to right front, Charley Crawford, Jimmy Milligan, behind Jim, right to left are Charles “Tod” Horner, James Allan and David Adams at the piano. We were on the radio every Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m., sponsored by the Senath Merchants.”
Charlie was also a member of The Foggy Mountain Boys Hillbilly Band in 1948.
CORRECTION: I assumed –incorrectly– Charlie was referring to The Foggy Mountain Boys featuring Flatt and Scruggs. Charlie and friends were in a local band of the same name.
The Foggy Mountain Boys was an influential bluegrass band that performed and recorded during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
Spring flowers
Barb’s really too busy with work to spend as much time with her yard as she’d like but she still manages to plant some flowers. This year she planted about 300 tulips but the deer got a bunch of them and the moles probably got their share. But the ones that survived were very fetching in the late afternoon sunlight.
I’m no kind of serious photographer (that’s my man, Henry). But I’m not bashful about taking photos and sharing them with the world. I know some very good amateur photographers that never put their work online because they don’t think it’s good enough. At least that’s the reason they give and I tend to believe them.
I snapped these photos with my little Casio and they came out "good enough." Think of all the beautiful flowers that were never shared because someone thought the photos were not "good enough."
Can’t we just lock them away somewhere for nine months?
“The Missouri House of Representatives has approved a bill, the main feature of which, would create the crime of coercing a woman to have an abortion. It also would require abortion clinics to offer women information about alternatives to abortion and about the fetus. The bill now goes to the Senate.” [The Missourinet]
I tell people I’m from Bulgaria.
“The End of the American Century”
The War in 2020 is a terrific read. I’ll bet I’ve read it every 4 or 5 years since it was published in 1991. Wikipedia classifies the novel as “military-adventure.”
“The novel begins in the year 2005, when the South African Defense Force, equipped and trained by Japan, seizes mineral-rich areas of Shaba Province in Zaire. The United States sends the XVIII Airborne Corps along with associated air and naval assets to repel the aggression. The American expeditionary force is defeated due to a combination of technological inferiority (the South Africans’ Japanese equipment has such innovations as onboard battle lasers,) lax security (a squadron of USAF B-2 Spirit bombers is destroyed on the ground by South Africans and local guerillas) and poor intelligence.
The American collapse is so swift that the XVIII Airborne Corps attempts to surrender. When the surrender offer is ignored, the American President orders a nuclear strike on Pretoria, forcing a cease-fire and a South African withdrawal from Zaire. The political cost paid by the United States is very high; post-war epidemics, and economic and political conflict with Japan reduces American power and influence. These events are summarized by a newspaper headline that reads: “THE END OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY”.
Author Ralph Peters tells a great story. If you’re digging Afghanistan and Iraq, you’ll love The War in 2020.
The Onion: Ennui Gas
WASHINGTON — “Calling it the most effective tool to date in the War on Terror, the Pentagon announced Monday that it had developed a new chemical weapon called “ennui gas,” a nerve agent that overwhelms its victims with sudden philosophical distress over the meaningless tedium of human life and a sinking sense that everything they have ever accomplished ultimately amounts to dust.”
The Onion