A Flower and a Russian...

kept me company so many years ago. A Flower and a Russian encouraged me always to write.

A Flower and a Russian tried to help me grow.

Consciousness and conscience are but a chorus of voices. The Flower and the Russian have been clear and distinct voices in my mind for nearly 30 years.

A small well-distinguished chorus of two provided a continuous light by which to pen my thoughts.

The Flower blossomed anew this week. I have never been without the memory of the fragrance, not even for a moment.

They tried to help me grow. I hope they succeeded.

I blog here now
       but for the gift
    of light
    given to me
        so long ago
    by
           a Flower
      and a Russian.

I am working on an entry...

that I cannot seem to finish.

It is too controversial. I do not like to be controversial.

Maybe I am not smart enough to manage the pratfall.

Maybe I have never even seen a pratfall.

Maybe
     I am
        looking up
   from one
              right now.

An epidemic of public intolerance...

seems to have overtaken the erstwhile tolerant.

A new publicly accepted definition of tolerance encapsulates intolerance. It requires that we publicly expel those who exhibit certain behaviors we characterize as intolerant. It perpetuates the myth that we are are still tolerant when we do not tolerate the intolerant. This dissembling is pure and simple Freudian projection. We are not intolerant; they are.

We are not tolerant. We have embraced a tolerance diet. We should call it tolerance light.

The number of celebrities lately in trouble for racist, sexist, homophobic or other intolerant remarks keeps growing. There is Mel and his dad, Michael Richards, Isaiah Washington, Trent Lott, Dusty Baker, Andrew Young, Don Imus, The Governator, a substantial number of football / baseball / basketball players, Police Constable Peter O’Kane, the entire Fox News Staff, and James Watson. Plus many more.

I am uncertain exactly how to characterize Larry Craig's foot flapping flip flopping affair. Is it neo-tolerance? What about the reaction of his reactionary colleages? Hypo-tolerance?

Perhaps Dr. Burke (Isaiah Washington) should not have been fired from Grey's Anatomy because he uttered homophobic idiocy, or even for actually being an homophobic idiot. He should be fired because, frankly, he is a terrible actor. Maybe he should be allowed to be a homophobic idiot -- one who obviously has some "latent issues."

Stick and stones, and words: We no longer seem to sanction this distinction.

I do not condone or countenance racists and bigots, their language or their behavior. But tolerance requires, by its definition, the acceptance of behaviors and attitudes with which I disagree, so long as they are not harmful to others. Words are often hateful but infrequently harmful.

Tolerance in an open democratic society cannot include a policy to ban hateful speech. We should not discriminate. Nor should we be reactionary.

Real tolerance will provide a more substantive moral example than our hypocritical version of tolerance light. Tolerance is a long term, classical liberal value. It is a good and necessary component for building a fair and just society. Yes, it is hard. But tolerance light is dangerous, and subversive of liberal democratic principles.

Tolerance light
             has become
              just
       another form
     of
social control.

Google wants to advertise...

on my blog. The little box on another page says I could make money.

Would that make me a professional writer?

Or a whore?

I am comfortable either way.

Would I ever get kissed?

Many positions do not involve kissing. Or fame. Or money.

At least not getting money.

    I
     hope
            you get
               what
      you pay for.

There is a funk...

in the air.

I cannot shake it.

Two dogs go racing after a cat. That cat could take them both, but she runs anyway.

She runs because she has no where else to go. Nothing worth watching is on TV.

They chase her because of a poem they heard a folk singer recite. It was rap music by another name.

They have forgotten the words.

The don't remember the tune either. So they run.

I met Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls twice. She lived in the next apartment when I moved to Georgia.

She decided to move. Her cat had run away. Her apartment was empty: no furniture and no cat. "Here kitty kitty kitty."

She said was she moving to North Georgia, "where the livin' is free."

I have been to north Georgia. It is not free there.

It was the second time I met her, when she was looking for the cat. I listened to her music every day when I lived in Germany. She could only offer a cliche in person. I expected so much more. Meine Gute!

That cliche banged around inside my head like an imitation Seiko watch in an empty clothes dryer. I walked away with my head hung low in disappointment.

I wanted the blue back in the sky, and the dogs to go back home.

I wanted her cat to come back so she could leave.

I
     want
          to erase
          the fall
          from
     my brain.

The Real Estate Market...

is everywhere a bust. I spent last week in rural North Carolina. I have some real estate there. No one is buying.

I have been unable to sell my mountain cabin. It is completely renovated, and is beautiful. There are no buyers.

The people seeking refuge from Florida have been coming into north Georgia for a few years now. The spillover caused growth in North Carolina, Tennessee and even in Kentucky. Land prices sidled upward for several years.

The growth has stopped.

I advertised on Google and Yahoo for a while. I did very well with Google. I foolishly traded them for a realtor.

One would think I might have learned. Apparently, I had not.

My realtor is threatening to leave the business and move to some other part of North Carolina.

I wish they all would. Realtors are not a trustworthy lot.

If anyone wants to buy a great cabin in the mountains in rural North Carolina, let me know.

          I know
                    a guy
                              who
                    has
          a nice one
to sell.

Although I like Folsom, California...

it reminds me of George Harrison's song, Crackerbox Palace. My use of the phrase is different from that in the song.

Many neighborhoods in Evansville, Indiana were originally composed of row upon row of shotgun homes. They were privately owned, but essentially "company house" construction. The homes were built with limited lot lines, including a small back yard and usually a small front yard.

These shotguns homes might cover eight or nine hundred square feet of internal floor space. There is very little variation in the floor plans.

Shotgun homes are made socially front-facing. The front porch welcomes visitors. It is where people greet and socialize.

Such neighborhoods are very pretty when they are clean and white washed. They have a certain cultural character that makes them attractive.

These neighborhoods resemble rows of neatly stacked saltine cracker boxes, which are proportionally constructed rectangles. "I welcome you to Crackbox Palace..."


The houses in Folsom, California are virtually indistinguishable on most variables.

The lot lines for Folsom homes are proportionally even smaller than the company house or typical row house construction. There is a ten foot strip of lawn in the front and back, and sometimes a 3 foot strip of rock on either side.

It appears to be the city of seven floor plans. They all feel the same inside, though there is some variation. These are certainly "company houses" though there is a slight variation in the meaning of "company house" here. They were intended to be sold by the companies. The Folsom builders did not have any more imagination than the row house designers.

They are larger than the row houses. Size is correlated closely with price in a non-creative way. Price also varies by school district and elevation. This is perhaps the most sociologically predictable city since Muncie.

While there are, I am told, regulations to govern the similarity of neighboring facades, the actual differences are merely formulaic. The variation is indicative of the range of solutions anyone with only 4 types of Lego would reach.

Folsom houses, while they have a certain architectural attractiveness, have no social character at all. Patio furniture may not be visible from the street. The front porch does not greet with warmth. You never see any actual people in front of the houses. There is no one outside to wave.

These neighborhoods are very pretty when they are clean and white washed. This city and these neighborhoods are very heavily regulated; ergo, they are ALL clean and white washed ALL of the time. Similarly, they have a certain cultural character that makes them attractive. They also have a certain sterility that is as clean and comforting as a very high quality hospital.

From the outside, these neighborhoods resemble rows of neatly stacked saltine cracker boxes, which are proportionally constructed rectangles. "I welcome you to Crackbox Palace..."

    We've
       been
          expecting
             you...

Sometimes my kids climb...

... on stuff. I let them fall down. Sometimes they run when they "might oughta not". I let them fall down. We have a slide in the living room. They jump from the slide to the back of the couch. Guess what. I let them fall down.

I lost a lot of skin falling down before I was 15 (and since). It's ok to fall down.

My job is not to keep them from falling. It's to teach them to always get back up.

(Originally posted on the Unicylist.com forum. 2005-04-04, 04:00 PM)

*******************************************************************

My kids were aged 5 and 7 when I wrote that.

Today my daughter, almost 10 years old, was sent to the principle's office for the first time.

(It wasn't her fault. Is it ever?)

She cried like an infant when she told us about it. I was very stern, like a real adult.

I tried not to giggle when she was looking.

I am such a proud parent. I think my daughter grew up just a little more today.

So I had to kiss it and make it better.

Get out the band-aids, and find the Bactine.

        This
             little girl
                     is
                        still
                  my
              baby.

Failure is a great teacher...

...if one lets her do her job.

I have trekked behind in Her footsteps for years.

The Goddess Quit is the angry nemesis of Failure. Quit aborts the unborn Will from Failure, and leaves her daughters Depression and Dismay to fester in the womb.

Quit is a low pressure system that teases the energy from Failure. I will side with Failure in every stormy battle against Quit.

I will ever choose Failure in Her n'er ending battle with Quit's vamp sibling Inertia.

I will battle Nothing with Failure.

"I will stand on the Ocean until I start sinking."

Failure breathe my final essence, I will not exchange a kiss with the seductress whore Quit.

I respect fair Failure and will battle beside Her. I do not pursue Her. She is but one of triplets.

I much prefer her most beautiful sister Success, of the three.

I have
         slept
                  most often
                           with the
                  homely
and
         good
                  sister
                           Adequacy.

I started to write a novel...

about three years ago. I was selling voter registration systems and electronic voting machines. My company had developed a partnership with a firm in Texas. They had great products. Their voter registration system was vapor ware. It was, however, backed by a very solid vanilla HTML-based, wire-frame user interface, a legacy-system-port requirements package, and a fit-gap to complete the design. Their electronic voting machines, on the other hand, were the best engineered product on the market, and had the highest quality user interface. We had some limited success as partners. Their software and hardware products eventually made some money in their respective spaces.

I began work on my novel by developing an outline that included love scenes, major geek time, and a core of political intrigue. I wrote a great deal, off and on for over a year. I would write, and then real life would overtake my project. I would put it down for a few months, and then begin to write again.

Then a catastrophe struck.

My complete outline was published in the papers. It was carried by every major news organization in the country. It was shown in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, on CNN.com and MSNBC.com, discussed by Tim Russert and Chris Matthews. It was a nightmare that occupied my days.

I do not mean to suggest that anyone stole the outline I wrote, or plagiarized my written ideas.

All that I had conceived just came true.

I get my muse on now and again. I periodically visualize and vocalize the obvious before it occurs. Sometimes I even make wild predictions that are latterly proved true.

In this case, however, I was simply a guy with two passions - politics and information technology - who could see far enough into the past to understand how badly these two worlds would mix in the future.

I did not choose the topic accidentally.

I knew the level of integrity of several of the corporate characters in this space. The executive at Diebold finally spoke to the nation what all of us in this space had long known when he agreed to deliver Ohio to Bush. He was certainly not the only person thinking along those lines.

Information technology and politics well represent men and women in Tannen's book, "You just don't understand..." Information technology solves problems by applying rational solutions. Politics is pure passion; she wants nothing more than to be understood. She expects -- and accepts -- nothing more, as well.

I have seen politicians and political-bureaucrats put information technologists through a grotesque range of systemic contortions to support purely selfish political motives. Sometimes the technologists merely spend a long time, and waste a great deal of money, at failure. Frequently a team of technologists is scapegoated and fired. Periodically the offending politico is also canned.

It did not take a genius to predict that information technology would be skinned by politicians in the election space.

I left my notebook in the seat-back pocket on a Delta commuter jet in Dallas, Texas. I called Delta for months hoping to retrieve it. My version of the story was lost forever.

I saw no reason to revive the project when it ceased to be fiction. What could I really add to make it any more interesting, or more surreal, than it already was?

I saw an article in the news this week that indicated electronic voting was being suspended in The Netherlands.

Sociology has been defined as the documentation of the obvious. Perhaps fiction is but a race to stay in front of current events.

         Information technology
            "pwned"
                  by politics
         is now history
                  waiting
         to be written.

A guy who races go-carts...

lives across the street. They look very small and unassuming. They churn along at over 60 mph on the tracks where he and his son race them. He says they will run 110 mph or faster given enough straightaway. NASCAR drivers train in them.

I was going to challenge him with my Sentra. I'm afraid he would bump me into a fence. His go-carts only weigh 80 lbs or so. Their center of gravity is lower than my Sentra. I would not be embarrassed lose the race. I would not like to explain to my insurance company that my Sentra had been bumped into a fence by an 80 lb go-cart.

I don't have a go-cart, but...

      I
           ride
                a unicycle
     to work.

I am the most gullible person...

I have ever met. I used to be, at least. I want to believe everything.

I want to believe the people of Atlanta retain some trivial element of the warm southern hospitality for which the city is so famous. I want to believe such friendliness still exists in some part of the urban jewel of the south. I want to believe that some tiny fragment of the service industry there retains a legitimate smile and a genuine cordiality. This I want to believe. But the evidence is scant.

I want to believe that elected Democrats and the democratic platform are in some essential way related. I want to believe that the equitable and good core principles historically represented by the Democratic Party are somehow visible in the deeds and actions of at least a few current Democratic office holders. This I want to believe. But I cannot find any examples to prove it.

I want to believe that western society values people more than things, that Hobbes was wrong, that Marx was wrong, that nasty, brutish and short is not the means to justify an end gain. I want to believe that we expend greater effort to conquer hunger and provide health care than to achieve another market record. This I want to believe. But the poverty rate is enormous and death rates are so very different for those of no means that it would challenge even my gullibility to believe it.

I want to believe that the world is interested in its children. I want to believe that we really do everything possible to save energy, protect the environment, manage the green space, and to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and global warming. I want to believe that we adhere to our principles to build -- and leave -- a better world: to take only pictures and leave only foot prints. This I want to believe. But we make everything out of plastic, even plastic; and I saw not a single other pedestrian on my way to or from work today.

I want to believe that national boundaries are more than property lines to stratify wealth.

I'm gullible. I can believe these things.

        Maybe
               I
                    should
               watch
        more
     television.

Proving others are smarter than I...

is a passion of mine. I have often said, "If I am not the dumbest guy in the room, somebody has got to go."

I once frightened a new employee with that statement. He realized within a week or two that he, too, was smarter than I.

Why would I consider hiring someone with less talent and intelligence than I have.

I may be dumb, but I am not stupid.

Today Ray proved again that he is smarter than I by actually doing what I could only describe in a cartoon diagram. He did not need to prove he is smarter. It is unanimously accepted. I contributed in my small way with a challenge to cross the hill. He found a gold mine on the other side.

I benefit from being near such people. Sometimes a small nugget falls from their heavily loaded wagon.

I donate it to charity when I find one.

I have lashed my pony's halter to the rail on his buck-board. I wish him all of our common great success.

He deserves all of the credit.

It is
        the least
                I
        can give,
                when
        it
                is
        not
                the most
        I can give.