The spousal unit and I popped the cork on a bottle of champagne last night: layoffs came and went yesterday and once again I dodged the bullet.
My boss (bless 'em!) used his considerable mojo to keep our group intact. I think I'll name my first child after him. Wait -- I already did!
Who could have known?
Update: for the record, this is *not* how my employer handled things.
Well, the great Whitehouse beer bash is over.
Obama, the "bartender-in-chief," had a Bud Light and Crowley, the arresting officer, had a Blue Moon. Henry Gates initially asked for a Jamaica Red Stripe but switched to a Sam Adams. Joe Biden (designated driver) went with a non-alcoholic Buckler.
In a written statement, Obama thanked Gates and Crowley for "joining me at the White House this evening for a friendly, thoughtful conversation."
Predictably, Fox News criticized the president's choice of beer.
Jailbreaking iPhones is apparently the national pastime. I wouldn't know, since I'm a Nokia man myself (T-Mobile has me by the short hairs).
Since the iPhone's launch in 2007, Apple has had a running battle with hackers who like the cool factor of the iPhone but chaff under the restrictive controls imposed by Apple on how owners can use the freaking thing. Hackers defeat controls, Apple pushes a firmware update to lock things down: repeat ad nauseum.
Now, as a response to the Electronic Freedom Foundation's petition to legalize jailbreaking, Apple is screaming that the modified devices could possibly, maybe be used to disrupt cell phone tower software and create a denial of service. Never mind that millions have already unlocked their phones and we don't seem to have a problem.
Oh please.
I don't know which is more lame -- that Apple would be so desperate as to play the "terrorist card" -- so Bush era -- or they would be so arrogant as to think would-be cell tower disruptors would insist on using nothing but iPhones for their nefarious deeds. Either way, Apple demonstrates once again they have no shame whatsoever.
As usual, it's about (drum roll) the money.
This is why, despite the sexiness of the device, I refuse to get an iPhone.
Apple has a long history of being control freaks. Just because they wear designer uniforms doesn't mean they aren't Nazis.
The King is dead, long live the King.
This is slightly stale, but a recent TIME online survey (we all know how accurate those are) reveals Jon Stewart of the Daily Show is now the most trusted newscaster in America. TIME's handy results page lets you show the numbers state by state. NBC's Brian Williams, a frequent Daily Show guest, takes the number two position.
Despite the rampant goofiness of the show, the Daily Show consistently out reports the "mainstream media," in terms of their guests and in the research and preparation for said guests. Don't believe me? Just ask Jim Cramer.
And here it is, your moment of Zen.
It would appear the blow up over Black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s recent arrest by Cambridge police for disorderly conduct is about to settle down. Exact details of the incident seem to depend on who is recounting them, but most agree on the following: Gates was hauled off in handcuffs after bitching out cops who showed up when he broke into his own home.
Several black writers have suggested Gate's outrage over his arrest may have been fueled as much by social stature as race. Regardless, given the fact that 58 year old Henry Gates is a diminutive figure-- hardly threatening, the charge of "disorderly conduct" seems overstated at best.
His offense was more likely that unwritten law, "contempt of cop."
Gates was later released without being charged and the Cambridge police department termed the episode "regrettable" (a non-apology apology if I ever heard one).
During Obama's recent health care press conference, a reporter asked him about the incident. Obama said the cops had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates.
This, of course, caused even more uproar.
Obama, seeking to defuse the situation, made phone calls to Gates and Sgt. Crowley, the arresting officer. He called Crowley "a good man," and conceded his (Obama's) words had been ill-chosen (another non-apology apology). He ended by saying he'd invited the two men to the Whitehouse for a beer.
Gate, in a statement issued later that day, said "I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative." He continued, "I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sergeant Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige."
No word yet on whether Crowley will be bending elbows with the gang.
While one would hope this will put an end to the blowup, Obama should realize he's left himself open to another potential firestorm in the blogosphere and amongst the cable news and talk radio insta-pundits.
I, of course, refer to the choice of beers served at this meeting.
Does he go with an import like Heineken and run the risk of seeming elitist and un-American? I can hear the screams of O'Reilly and Glen Beck now.
What about a good working class beer like Coors? The late Joseph Coors, former president of Coors Brewing and grandson of the founder was one of the founding member of the conservative Heritage Foundation. Most of the other traditional American beer have been consolidated down one or two corporate owners. Budweiser is now owned by a bunch of Belgians.
If I could make one small suggestion, consider a fine product of Rahr and Sons Brewery, crafted right here in Fort Worth, Texas. My personal favorite: Ugly Pug, a (ahem) black lager.
It's one decision you will not regret.
Now for something completely different...a report on California fans of the Tour de France, as reported by Dan Brekke on San Francisco NPR station KQED.
Why, you may be asking.
Simple, really. Dan is old high school buddy of mine. I last saw him on his way to San Francisco, when I lived in beautiful Isla Vista. This was about 1979.
Although Dan and I email periodically, it was fun hearing his voice. His blog, Infospigot, is worth a read, and a damned good counterbalance to all this Libertarian wackiness I find myself surrounded by of late.
It is an urban legend and somewhat of journalistic cliche that Eskimos have a large number of words for "snow." which somehow belies the importance of snow in Eskimo life. If this be the case, consider the number of words in our capitalist system related to moving from the state of employment to unemployment.
For starters, there is "losing one's job" (whoops, it was here a minute ago), as if it the poor unfortunate merely misplaced his livelihood. Then consider the personal violence inherent in the following: fired, discharged, axed, cut, given the boot, and of course, terminated.
British workers find themselves "sacked," and when collecting unemployment, they go "on the dole."
It's important to distinguish whether the separation was for cause (fired!) or merely bad business conditions (laid off).
Of particular interest is the term "given the pink slip" or more simply "pink-slipped." According to the New York Times, the earliest documented use of the term is 1910, and it refers to the supposed practice by some employers of putting a pink termination notice in an employee's pay envelope. Snopes.com, source of much debunking, states verifiable examples of this practice have "remained elusive," but mentioned a supposed practice of the Ford Motor Company:
The "pink slip" has come a long way from when Henry Ford dreamed up a way to evaluate his assembly line employees. Each worker had a cubbyhole where at the end of the workday, a manager would place a piece of colored paper. A white piece of paper meant their work was acceptable, a pink one meant the boot.
Snopes further examines colorful dismissal notices, and suggests an alternative meaning for "pink."
Other languages have also used terms for dismissals related to colorful paperwork — Germans would "get the blue letter" ("den blauen Brief bekommen"), and the French military dismissed personnel with a "yellow paper" ("cartouche jaune") — but perhaps the "pink slip" doesn't have anything to do with color at all. Consider that we often use terms relating to injury or violence to describe the severing of a relationship (e.g., a fired employee has "gotten the axe," a player who doesn't make the team is said to have been "cut"), and that when used as a verb, "pink" means "to pierce" or "to stab" (hence the item known as "pinking shears") or "to wound by criticism or ridicule."
Modern corporations have turned to euphemisms for the act of shedding employees, with the goal of making this seem like a sensible business decision. The earlier "down-sizing" has given way to the even more Orwellian "right-sizing." Taking a cue from the British term "made redundant" employers now speak of RIFs -- reductions in force.
Despite all the pretty words, it comes down to this: shit-canned is still shit-canned, no matter what you call it.
Next week I'll be finding out if this term applies to me.
Just saw a Reuters report that journalist Walter Cronkite, often called "the most trusted man in America," has died at the age of 92.
Born in Missouri on November 4, 1916, he moved to Houston, Texas when he was ten. His broadcast career began when he was 20 and became a radio announcer in Oklahoma. During WWII he covered North Africa and Europe, and was selected to fly on bombing raids over Germany. After the war he covered the Nuremberg Trials.
Edward R Murrow recruited him for the new CBS television division in 1950. He became the anchorman of the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962. Hearing his voice crack when announcing the official confirmation of John Kennedy's death was a defining moment for a generation. My generation.
He was a passionate supporter of the U.S. space program and covered most of the launches for CBS. After a Cronkite editorial that called the Viet Nam war unwinnable, Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, "If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."
The man was a giant. There are pretenders to his legacy, but they are self-promoting pygmies.
I flipped on the radio and was forced to endure about 10 seconds of Dick Cheney going on about waterboarding before I could change stations. When will the earth finally open up and swallow him with flames licking at his pale fat ass?
Barack Obama and right-wing French President Nicholas Sarkosy find that if they look hard enough they can find common ground on at least some issues at the G-8 Conference.
Well done, gentlemen.
Woody Guthrie wrote the song "This Land is Your Land" in 1940 as a reaction to the syrupy sentiments of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America." We forget now Guthrie's song was not originally just a patriotic camp singalong.
When formerly blacklisted folk icon Pete Seeger sang it on the Washington Mall during the Obama inauguration concert, he sang the whole thing, including what singer Jill Sobule and others have mockingly referred to as the "Commie verses."
An anthem is a song of celebration. For a country as diverse as ours we need more than one National Anthem. "This Land is Your Land" belongs on that list of unofficial anthems, and not just the feel-good verses.
This Land is Your Land
by Woodrow Wilson Guthrie
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.
Chorus
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there whistling
Is this land made for you and me?
Chorus
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
Every July 4th I wander down the street and watch the Ryan Place parade in the sweltering July heat. It's a neighborhood event that has more patriotism in its pinky finger than anything you'll seen on your HD TV from the comfort of your air-conditioned house. To hell with fireworks -- this is my favorite thing about the 4th.
Neighbors and friends from near and not so near gather for the fun. Differences are put aside and we share the sense of celebration.
I love the description "the American Experiment," despite attempts to co-opt the term for narrow partisan purposes. The experiment fails when we stop recognizing that no one person or group has a monopoly on wisdom, virtue, common sense or love of country.
Me and my good friend the Whited Sepulchre at the Ryan Place Parade.
Republican pinup Sarah Palin has decided to hang it up and has announced she'll be resigning as Alaska governor. Time will tell what fueled this latest bit of Wasilla wackiness. Given her competitive nature, perhaps she felt overshadowed by fellow Republican governor Mark Sanford's hi-jinks.
"We've seen a lot of nutty behavior from governors and Republican leaders in the last three months, but this one is at the top of that," said John Weaver, friend and confidant of John McCain. Even now McCain must be kicking himself again for choosing her as running mate in 2008.
Given the suddeness of her decision and the fact she's leaving without serving even a full term, inquiring minds will be wondering if she's trying to outrun some soon-to-be breaking scandal.
God willing, this will be the last time I write about this woman. But I doubt it.
