All posts by rbowen

No, I’m not saying he’s Hitler!

This morning, as I listened on NPR to what Germany and France are saying about Iraq, I found my self suddenly reminded of Europe in the years between WWI and WWII, and, in particular, in the late 30s and early 40s, when everyone was so terrified by what had happened in WWI that they were willing to overlook anything rather than go to war.

There was an interesting commentary, by some guy who was an expert on Franco-German relations, talking about the motivation of each of these folks. Germany just has an aversion to war. This is understandable, but may result in them being somewhat voluntarily blind to things. France, on the other hand, appears to have an aversion to a world in which the USA effectively does whatever they want, and so have set themselves to oppose the US view whenever possible. Now, I’m not sure that either of these assessments are actually accurate, since I don’t really know who that guy was, or what he had been smoking, but these both seem very plausible to me, and it further seems that this may result in some disagreement in the future that may cause this historically-improbable alliance to fall apart.

And, before anyone thinks that I’m comparing anyone to Hitler, I’m just not. It seems to me that just about everyone is making silly decisions for silly reasons. Hussein is condeming his people to a long stretch of misery at the hands of the rest of the world, because his pride does not permit him to submit to the demands of the international community. The USA is, in my uninformed opinion, sticking to our initial decision, and will stick to it, regardless of what happens. We will go to war with Iraq, and we will depose Mr Hussein, and I can’t imagine that any turn of events will avert this outcome. It’s really just a matter of time, and a matter of who will be in it with us. If I were to assign reasons for this, I can’t say that they would be far from the pride that I attribute to Iraq.

France and Germany and Russia – who can say? Certainly not me.

And I can’t say who is right, although I am much more persuaded now of Mr Bush’s position than I was 4 or 5 months ago. The issues seem fairly clear – the UN asked Iraq to do something, and for 12 years they have refused to do it. The UN promised drastic outcomes in the event that Iraq refused to comply. So what is in question is, what are those outcomes, so vaguely specified, and is 12 years long enough to comply with the requests? I am glad not to be a politician, and I am glad that these decisions are not mine to make.

But, back to my initial point, it seems that the insularism and “gosh we hope everything will just work out nicely” attitude that we’re seeing now is alarmingly reminiscent of what we saw in the last years of the 1930s, and as Phydeaux observed, the very same people that are saying that we should not take any pre-emptive action are the ones that said that we should have taken pre-emptive action prior to the second week of September, 2001.

Growth is (good|bad)

Note: This will probably only be of interest to folks in the central KY area. I suppose I should create a “Kentucky” category for these sorts of things.

I saw some bumper stickers on the way to work today. Some said “Growth is Good”. Others said “Growth is Bad”. Or “Growth Destroys Bluegrass Forever” or “Growth Pays Your Bills” or “Jesus Loves You, Everyone Else Thinks You’re An Asshole”. Ok, so that last one is not related to my topic, but, there it was.

I’m continually amazed at how politicians take simple matters and make them complex (Do you like Estrada or not? Vote, and get on with the job we pay you for.) and take complex issues, like the issue of growth, sum it up in one word, and ask us to be for it or against it.

Is growth good or bad? Well, no, of course it’s not. Unchecked growth for the sake of growth is silly, but nobody is advocating that. Demonizing your opponent does nothing for understanding of an issue. Mischaracterizing your oponent’s position in order to make your own seem more attractive has always struck me as a tacit admission that your own point is rather weak.

So here are some rather more useful questions.

Do you want your kids to have good jobs? If so, do you want them to stay near home, or are you content for them to move to California in order to get a decent wage? Are you ok with the fact that beautiful horse farms are being converted to housing developments? Or, asked differently, do you think it is more important for a plot of land to support one multi-millionaire family and their dozen horses, or for it to support hundreds of families working to put money into our local economy? It’s really all about your perspective.

I have always been an advocate of supporting local businesses whenever possible. Given a choice, I would rather pay a few dollars more at a locally-owned bookstore, for example, than buying from a national chain. Why? Because it enriches my community, rather than someone else’s. And I try to do the same thing when I travel, going to restaurants that are clearly local, rather than the chains I could eat at at home.

How is this connected? Well, if local businesses are to prosper, this is going to cause a certain amount of growth. Not wild, untrammeled growth for the sake of growth (see the east end of Man-O-War for examples of this, I think) but purposeful growth, with an eye to improving the quality of life of the people that live here.

So, once again, I’m rambling. But take note, the next time you see these bumper-stickers, that the “growth is bad” people are driving expensive, new cars, which they would not have without said growth. And the “growth is good” ones tend to be on older cars, driven by people looking for a brighter future in which their kids won’t have to worry about their next paycheck. Perhaps this is an unfair generalization, but it seems accurate thus far.

Wheaton permits dancing

After 150 years, Wheaton College has decided to change their rules and permit dancing. This may strike you as non-news, particularly if you did not go to Wheaton, or to Asbury.

Well, call me old fashioned, but I’m … well … old fashioned. Tradition is a valuable thing, even when you don’t understand it. Are the reasons for forbidding dancing less relevant now than they were for the last century? If anything, they have increased, not dimished, and if those reasons were considered valid for all that time, why do they think now that they know better than the previous 30 or 40 administrations?

I watch my alma mater, Asbury College, remove many of the rules that have been in place since 1890, many of these changes being made since my graduation in 1992, and I wonder if it is really progress. Is it actually desirable for them to “catch up” with the times, when the times are clearly so very unsavory.

And was it sensible of NPR to do a story on this, in which they basically poked fun at Wheaton for having standards, rather than lamenting the fact that they had given them up?

I’m sure that the students are pleased with this change, as I am equally sure that the Asbury students are pleased that they can now watch R rated movies on campus. But it seems to me that in the absense of understanding of traditions, a move to abolish them is ill-advised, at best, and damaging in many cases.

Sure, if you went to a state University, or pretty much any educational institution that doesn’t *claim* to stand for anything, these are really not relevant issues for you, and you probably don’t see why it even matters. But organizations that claim to stand for something should actually stand for something, and be unashamed, and unwavering about it. If folks outside that tradition don’t understand why these things matter, well, that’s because they are outside that tradition, and their opinion is largely unimportant in that regard.

So, do I think that dancing should be permitted as Asbury College? Well, I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds that 113 years of Asbury College administrators have seen fit to say that it should not, and I would not presume to imply that my opinion should carry more weight than theirs. And I’m quite disappointed at Wheaton, and at Asbury, for overturning traditions in order to appease the very people who are unwilling to take the time to understand those traditions. And I’m disappointed with NPR for lacking the journalistic integrity to investigate those traditions, and rather to be content with poking fun at them.

HighBridge

Tim and I went out to High Bridge to take some pictures, but all the ice had already melted. However, we did get some pictures of the river at flood stage. This one, for example, shows the river locks. Note that you can’t actually see the locks.

I particularly like the bench, which is a board that two trees have grown around over the last few decades.

No, I’m not a great photographer, but I figure if I take enough pictures, a few of them will be good just out of dumb luck.

Crazy weather

Last sunday we had ice on the trees. Yesterday I zipped the lining out of my jacket because it was too warm. Today we have an inch of snow on the ground. Perhaps tomorrow it will be warm again.

This sort of fluctuation plays havoc on the roads, and we have a big crop of potholes out there.

Write every day

Numerous people, over the years, have encouraged me to write every day. And I really have tried. This is probably the closest I have ever come.

Strangely (dunno, maybe other folks do this too) my thought process seems to be very much akin to my writing process. I start with a thought, and I edit it, until I have a statement, or a passage, expressing an idea. Most frequently, I do this if I am going to speak to someone about something – I plan out exactly what I am going to say, and, for the most part, I stick to the script. This is why, I suppose, when I write and when I speak, I tend to use the same phrasing. Also, I suppose, it is why when I speak on a topic, people will often tell me that I seem to be lecturing. Incidentally, this is where I got the moniker DrBacchus in the first place. I was speaking to a fellow imbiber about the wine we were drinking, and he said I sounded like a college professor lecturing on some academic topic.

So writing in a medium like this, where the technology lets me put down my thoughts as they come to me, seems to be well suited to my way of thinking, and my way of writing.

And if, occasionally, I actually write something that other folks find worth reading, all the better, since I don’t expect to ever write the Great American Novel, or even the Great Apache Book, although I continue to strive for the latter.

So, there, I’ve done my writing for today. Now, perhaps later, I’ll actually write some of the stuff that I’m supposed to be writing, and for which they are paying me.

Saddam’s shields

These folks are going to Iraq, where they will (they think) prevent the war by being human shields. I suspect that our men and women in uniform, who are risking their lives for the safety of the American people, will be only too glad to help them along with their wish for martyrdom. Whether or not I am completely persuaded of the necessity and/or validity of our complaints against Iraq, I am completely persuaded that these folks are enemies of the United States, and should be treated as enemy combatants in the event of a war, and as treasonous traitors in the event that they return to the US once things have been resolved, whatever that resolution may be.

Downloading music

Although entirely too long, Salon.com Technology | Embrace file-sharing, or die, by John Snyder and Ben Snyder, is worth reading, or at least skimming. At a bare minimum, read the Thomas Jefferson quote.

Ever since the demise of Napster, I have not downloaded music from the Internet (except for a few isolated cases) and, in that period, I have purchased perhaps one CD. Prior to that, I was downloading music and buying CDs of stuff that I liked. Clearly, I’m not an isolated example of this, but this link between hearing a song and buying a CD is just as obvious as it at first seemed to me. I’m somewhat at a loss to see how the RIAA does not see this. I think that it is, perhaps, a generational thing, and the folks that are currently in control just can’t bring themselves to make that jump. While it is possible that the next generation of leaders will make this step, the current lack of movement would seem to doom the RIAA to forever be one generation behind the curve.

LPLUG February

Yesterday was the February meeting of the LPLUG. Doug DeYoung spoke about Linux security, the methodology of cracking into Linux machines. It was a very interesting presentation, and demonstrated how useful even the smallest piece of information can be to a cracker.

Hopefully we’ll have his presentation for the web site eventually, but I’m not sure if he’ll be anxious to give us that or not, since he gives this presentation a lot.