Tuesday
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9/17/03
Stealing From the Police. Sort Of.
It seems just about everyone is in a tizzy about the RIAA, their lawsuits, and file sharing. Oh all right, stealing music. I guess what I’m surprised by is not that the subject has become a mainstream topic of conversation, but that it’s taken so long to get to this point.
Of course the RIAA has no one to blame but itself for the pitiable state of their industry. Well, pitiable for the stockholders and board members mostly; I doubt there are any musicians starving out there now that weren’t already. But anyway, by the mid to late ‘90s sales of home computers were explosive. Built-in CD burners became common. Broadband had arrived and was promised everywhere soon. Shawn Fanning whipped up a little network solution called Napster so he and his college buddies could share songs. All this, of course, took place lifetimes ago as far as business cycles go. And still, late to the party already, the RIAA did exactly the wrong thing.
Picture, if you will, you’re going through old Uncle Marvin’s garage. You look inside one particularly stinky cardboard box and are horrified to simultaneously see about a zillion cockroaches, at the same time realizing where uncle Marvin has been hiding the rest of those pickled herring sandwiches that aunt Mabel tries to get him to eat. Now, do you, A: slowly close the box and take a moment to consider the best way to control the menace you saw, or do you B: shriek hysterically and jump up and down all over the box making the cockroaches scatter to the four corners of the earth, thus ensuring that you will never be able to find or control them ever again. The RIAA chose B.
Incidentally, broadband wise, I just happened to be the luckiest boy on the block, so to speak. Cable modems came to our neighborhood very early and I had a pretty new machine: a killer Compaq system with a blazing fast 200 MHz speed Pentium with "MMX technology" and a whopping 4, count ‘em, 4 gig hard drive. And, even better, I must have been one of the first people in my neighborhood to be on that network. All the bandwidth in the world, just for me, me, me. I was in Heaven. And then, as if it wasn’t sweet enough already, someone turned me on to Napster. It was like crack, only geeky. My hard drive filled up and the stack of disks grew.
There were people on corporate and university networks with T1 lines and collections of the most amazing, esoteric stuff. (Not of course that I have any of this… but we’re talking rare recordings of authors reading their own material. Recordings to replace my lost cassette of the live WLIR broadcast of the Police’s first U.S. club appearance at ‘My Father’s Place’ on the Island in 1979. There were ‘Goon Show’ episodes, and I mean all of them.) And it was all mine at 2, 3, 4, and sometimes even 500k a second. ‘Bam’ that, Emeril. It was not only the friggin Wild West, but it worked. So, anyway, back to the RIAA.
They chose B, and the roaches scattered. They scattered to the P to P’s. WinMX, Grokster ShareBear, LimeWire and countless others. The Genie was out of the bottle, and it became apparent to even the glacial corporate culture of the RIAA that not only was a foreseeable lifetime of corporate lawsuits not an option, but that there was a new 800-pound gorilla in the corner named Kazza.
Ever subtle in their response to change, they have now settled on a three-pronged attack: First, suing twelve-year-old girls. Second, cutting retail disc prices, and therefore their own revenues, by a third. And lastly, by concentrating on efforts to produce un-rippable, encrypted discs.
You know, it’s really hard to feel sympathy for an industry that absolutely refuses to learn. Sue a twelve-year-old? Publicity-wise, why not kick puppies? (Or do an LBJ on them?) Cut your own revenues drastically? Well ok, I’m sure that pain will get passed on to the artists… heck, go kick some more puppies. And lastly, any technology you produce to protect hard copies of your content will be secure for how long? I’d give it a month before the enterprising sort of crackers who blew past DVD encryption make your product jump through hoops.
The future of entertainment media had been in the air for a long time. Then it was written on the wall. Now, it’s graven in stone, and yet the RIAA scratches its collective head. It’s really so simple. Just as vinyl, with its grooves that physically moved a stylus back and forth went the way of the spinning wheel, so will the physical distribution of shiny plastic discs.
But, if the RIAA if has it’s way, you will still have to go out and buy a disc, and then go home and unwrap it and then enjoy it on your home stereo, because that’s the only system that will play it. If, however, the RIAA is wrong yet again, music, and then video, will become purely digital. You will be able to buy content legitimately on line. Once downloaded you’ll be able to carry it around on your favorite MP3 (soon to be AAC) player or iPod and play it wherever you go. ( I do note the iTunes Music Store a little farther on) Whole libraries of video content will be available to buy or rent so it can be streamed to the TV in your den… none of this should sound far-fetched, because the technology is, for the most part, here right now.
So, as always, what is the last piece of the puzzle for a successful business? A large base of consumers hungry for a clean, simple, and flexible way to get what you have. Twenty years ago it was the introduction of a small, light, digitally perfect Compact Disc. Things keep changing, however. Recently there has been the mildly successful experiment with the iTunes Music Store, but it still looks like a very dainty dip into the hungry consumer waters when you remember that Apple users represent barely 3% of the computing world.
In the end, although I behave myself now, I’ve got ‘Roxanne’ from My Father’s Place in ’79, so the RIAA isn't even that relevant anymore. Well, maybe in its ability to slow things down a little, but it sure isn't anything to worry about. Unless you're a twelve-year-old girl.
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9/17/03
Stealing From the Police. Sort Of.
It seems just about everyone is in a tizzy about the RIAA, their lawsuits, and file sharing. Oh all right, stealing music. I guess what I’m surprised by is not that the subject has become a mainstream topic of conversation, but that it’s taken so long to get to this point.
Of course the RIAA has no one to blame but itself for the pitiable state of their industry. Well, pitiable for the stockholders and board members mostly; I doubt there are any musicians starving out there now that weren’t already. But anyway, by the mid to late ‘90s sales of home computers were explosive. Built-in CD burners became common. Broadband had arrived and was promised everywhere soon. Shawn Fanning whipped up a little network solution called Napster so he and his college buddies could share songs. All this, of course, took place lifetimes ago as far as business cycles go. And still, late to the party already, the RIAA did exactly the wrong thing.
Picture, if you will, you’re going through old Uncle Marvin’s garage. You look inside one particularly stinky cardboard box and are horrified to simultaneously see about a zillion cockroaches, at the same time realizing where uncle Marvin has been hiding the rest of those pickled herring sandwiches that aunt Mabel tries to get him to eat. Now, do you, A: slowly close the box and take a moment to consider the best way to control the menace you saw, or do you B: shriek hysterically and jump up and down all over the box making the cockroaches scatter to the four corners of the earth, thus ensuring that you will never be able to find or control them ever again. The RIAA chose B.
Incidentally, broadband wise, I just happened to be the luckiest boy on the block, so to speak. Cable modems came to our neighborhood very early and I had a pretty new machine: a killer Compaq system with a blazing fast 200 MHz speed Pentium with "MMX technology" and a whopping 4, count ‘em, 4 gig hard drive. And, even better, I must have been one of the first people in my neighborhood to be on that network. All the bandwidth in the world, just for me, me, me. I was in Heaven. And then, as if it wasn’t sweet enough already, someone turned me on to Napster. It was like crack, only geeky. My hard drive filled up and the stack of disks grew.
There were people on corporate and university networks with T1 lines and collections of the most amazing, esoteric stuff. (Not of course that I have any of this… but we’re talking rare recordings of authors reading their own material. Recordings to replace my lost cassette of the live WLIR broadcast of the Police’s first U.S. club appearance at ‘My Father’s Place’ on the Island in 1979. There were ‘Goon Show’ episodes, and I mean all of them.) And it was all mine at 2, 3, 4, and sometimes even 500k a second. ‘Bam’ that, Emeril. It was not only the friggin Wild West, but it worked. So, anyway, back to the RIAA.
They chose B, and the roaches scattered. They scattered to the P to P’s. WinMX, Grokster ShareBear, LimeWire and countless others. The Genie was out of the bottle, and it became apparent to even the glacial corporate culture of the RIAA that not only was a foreseeable lifetime of corporate lawsuits not an option, but that there was a new 800-pound gorilla in the corner named Kazza.
Ever subtle in their response to change, they have now settled on a three-pronged attack: First, suing twelve-year-old girls. Second, cutting retail disc prices, and therefore their own revenues, by a third. And lastly, by concentrating on efforts to produce un-rippable, encrypted discs.
You know, it’s really hard to feel sympathy for an industry that absolutely refuses to learn. Sue a twelve-year-old? Publicity-wise, why not kick puppies? (Or do an LBJ on them?) Cut your own revenues drastically? Well ok, I’m sure that pain will get passed on to the artists… heck, go kick some more puppies. And lastly, any technology you produce to protect hard copies of your content will be secure for how long? I’d give it a month before the enterprising sort of crackers who blew past DVD encryption make your product jump through hoops.
The future of entertainment media had been in the air for a long time. Then it was written on the wall. Now, it’s graven in stone, and yet the RIAA scratches its collective head. It’s really so simple. Just as vinyl, with its grooves that physically moved a stylus back and forth went the way of the spinning wheel, so will the physical distribution of shiny plastic discs.
But, if the RIAA if has it’s way, you will still have to go out and buy a disc, and then go home and unwrap it and then enjoy it on your home stereo, because that’s the only system that will play it. If, however, the RIAA is wrong yet again, music, and then video, will become purely digital. You will be able to buy content legitimately on line. Once downloaded you’ll be able to carry it around on your favorite MP3 (soon to be AAC) player or iPod and play it wherever you go. ( I do note the iTunes Music Store a little farther on) Whole libraries of video content will be available to buy or rent so it can be streamed to the TV in your den… none of this should sound far-fetched, because the technology is, for the most part, here right now.
So, as always, what is the last piece of the puzzle for a successful business? A large base of consumers hungry for a clean, simple, and flexible way to get what you have. Twenty years ago it was the introduction of a small, light, digitally perfect Compact Disc. Things keep changing, however. Recently there has been the mildly successful experiment with the iTunes Music Store, but it still looks like a very dainty dip into the hungry consumer waters when you remember that Apple users represent barely 3% of the computing world.
In the end, although I behave myself now, I’ve got ‘Roxanne’ from My Father’s Place in ’79, so the RIAA isn't even that relevant anymore. Well, maybe in its ability to slow things down a little, but it sure isn't anything to worry about. Unless you're a twelve-year-old girl.
Friday
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9/16
Novelty
My third-grader hopped off the bus today and was in what can only be characterized as a great mood. Practically giddy. Pretty unusual for him. It seems that they had been discussing Isabel in class that day. "Ah." I said. "Who?" You know the look I got.
I don’t know how it came up, but apparently they were talking about weather in general and storms in particular. My son thinks that storms are the greatest. But wait a minute, I said to myself, I used think that as well. Not the Andrews and Camilles that destroy lives, of course, but it slowly dawned on me that storms are cool. When I was a kid I loved nothing more than the wind whipping through the trees and sheets of rain running down the street. When else did you get to see your back yard as River? When else were the lights likely to go out, forcing everyone get around in eerie candlelight?
Of course the detached, logical adult that I’ve become tells me that the enjoyment we get from these things is explained by those classic productivity studies done back in the thirties. A group of researchers took a factory environment and changed the lighting. Productivity went up, only to eventually fall back to where it was. Then they painted everything a different color, and again productivity went up, only to level out again. If I remember the story correctly, there was a lot of head scratching and confusion until someone (probably the least over-educated one of the bunch) said, in effect, "Well duh, it’s not about the light or the paint; productivity rises when everyone is perked up by the novelty that any change brings."
So, it’s a pretty short, obvious step to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if we’re in a factory or the humdrum routine of a school day. Or the grind of keeping a house and family together. Novelty can be good. Big storms are novel. Hell, at the risk of sounding like a certain buffoon other than myself, I say, "Bring ‘em on!"
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9/16
Novelty
My third-grader hopped off the bus today and was in what can only be characterized as a great mood. Practically giddy. Pretty unusual for him. It seems that they had been discussing Isabel in class that day. "Ah." I said. "Who?" You know the look I got.
I don’t know how it came up, but apparently they were talking about weather in general and storms in particular. My son thinks that storms are the greatest. But wait a minute, I said to myself, I used think that as well. Not the Andrews and Camilles that destroy lives, of course, but it slowly dawned on me that storms are cool. When I was a kid I loved nothing more than the wind whipping through the trees and sheets of rain running down the street. When else did you get to see your back yard as River? When else were the lights likely to go out, forcing everyone get around in eerie candlelight?
Of course the detached, logical adult that I’ve become tells me that the enjoyment we get from these things is explained by those classic productivity studies done back in the thirties. A group of researchers took a factory environment and changed the lighting. Productivity went up, only to eventually fall back to where it was. Then they painted everything a different color, and again productivity went up, only to level out again. If I remember the story correctly, there was a lot of head scratching and confusion until someone (probably the least over-educated one of the bunch) said, in effect, "Well duh, it’s not about the light or the paint; productivity rises when everyone is perked up by the novelty that any change brings."
So, it’s a pretty short, obvious step to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if we’re in a factory or the humdrum routine of a school day. Or the grind of keeping a house and family together. Novelty can be good. Big storms are novel. Hell, at the risk of sounding like a certain buffoon other than myself, I say, "Bring ‘em on!"
Wednesday
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9/15
A Little More Metaphor Abuse
Ok, back to allegory and metaphor, as per 9/12’s blog. Both are, of course, constructs useful for any number of things, ranging from the sublime to the patently ridiculous, as is made all too clear by my 9/12 entry. Anyway, before I go too far astray again, my point is that for a long time now I’ve been trying to think of a way to illustrate clearly and succinctly some of the differences between liberals and conservatives, especially where the all-too-broad topic of patriotism is concerned.
Heaven knows that there is no shortage of stereotypes to work with; but simply calling conservatives "mean spirited cynics capable of thinking only in dangerously simplistic absolutes" just isn’t very entertaining. Likewise, calling liberals "weak-kneed, treasonous America-haters" is, well, perhaps more entertaining, but needlessly mean spirited and cynical. Oh the irony.
Luckily enough, though, it seems that Al Franken has done the work for me on page 24 of his new book, Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Franken points out that a common charge leveled against liberals in the post 9/11 world is that "we blame America first.", and that at every chance we get, we criticize America rather than celebrating it. So, I present to you Franken’s response, a deliciously succinct bit of metaphor, steeped in allegory:
"They don’t get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow."
I swear, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Did it come across as smug, or maybe even a little snotty? Maybe so, and I say "so what?" It’s a turn of phrase as true as it is beautiful.
It seems these days that the political divide in this county is not only wider than ever and growing fast, but social and cultural rifts are spreading as well. And if so, I have no doubt that the Neanderthals like Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter will eventually fall by the wayside. After all, just as wildflowers eventually cover even the most toxic battlefields, I truly believe that paragraphs like Franken’s will prevail over all the distorted hyperbole in our lives that now masquerades as reason.
Wildflowers? Well then again, maybe I should lay off the metaphors for just a little while.
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9/15
A Little More Metaphor Abuse
Ok, back to allegory and metaphor, as per 9/12’s blog. Both are, of course, constructs useful for any number of things, ranging from the sublime to the patently ridiculous, as is made all too clear by my 9/12 entry. Anyway, before I go too far astray again, my point is that for a long time now I’ve been trying to think of a way to illustrate clearly and succinctly some of the differences between liberals and conservatives, especially where the all-too-broad topic of patriotism is concerned.
Heaven knows that there is no shortage of stereotypes to work with; but simply calling conservatives "mean spirited cynics capable of thinking only in dangerously simplistic absolutes" just isn’t very entertaining. Likewise, calling liberals "weak-kneed, treasonous America-haters" is, well, perhaps more entertaining, but needlessly mean spirited and cynical. Oh the irony.
Luckily enough, though, it seems that Al Franken has done the work for me on page 24 of his new book, Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Franken points out that a common charge leveled against liberals in the post 9/11 world is that "we blame America first.", and that at every chance we get, we criticize America rather than celebrating it. So, I present to you Franken’s response, a deliciously succinct bit of metaphor, steeped in allegory:
"They don’t get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow."
I swear, it just doesn’t get any better than that. Did it come across as smug, or maybe even a little snotty? Maybe so, and I say "so what?" It’s a turn of phrase as true as it is beautiful.
It seems these days that the political divide in this county is not only wider than ever and growing fast, but social and cultural rifts are spreading as well. And if so, I have no doubt that the Neanderthals like Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter will eventually fall by the wayside. After all, just as wildflowers eventually cover even the most toxic battlefields, I truly believe that paragraphs like Franken’s will prevail over all the distorted hyperbole in our lives that now masquerades as reason.
Wildflowers? Well then again, maybe I should lay off the metaphors for just a little while.
Monday
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9/12
Metaphor Abuse
Allegory, fable, parable. All distinct and useful in their own way. Yes, for you they may bring back memories best forgotten about Sunday school, Hebrew school or whichever school to which you may have been dragged as a child, but still, a little allegory can be a good thing. Fable can be fun. Parable is still my favorite, though, and there are, incidentally, still one or two people working at a certain restaurant in Purchase, NY who will retell one of my favorite creations if you ask nicely.
It involves a rather harried person adrift in a rickety canoe as it rushes down a rock-strewn river. This person, or restaurant manager, oh all right, it’s me, as I hope you’ve presumed, has been given only a small broken paddle with which to steer the canoe past the rocks and avoid disaster. The stream rushes faster and faster. The canoe is taking on water. Up ahead, directly in the canoe’s path is an unusually large, menacing rock that will surely sink the entire affair. I’m all too aware of this hazard and paddle furiously to one side to avoid disaster. Just then, suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a big fat drooling man with a slight speech impediment stands up in the back of the canoe and starts yelling, "Hey, watch out!"
"Yes, I am" I yell back. The canoe takes on more water and is harder to control because the owner... er, I mean the fat man, is now waving his arms.
"Look out for that rock!" he hollers.
"Yes, I see the damn rock!" I shriek. "Now siddown!"
I continue to paddle as fast as possible to the left. "You have to paddle to the left" barks the fat man.
So what happened in real life, you wonder? Well, basically I dropped the paddle, jumped in the river and swam safely to shore. (Oddly enough the fat man did as well, leaving the restaurant, um, I mean canoe, to a less fortunate fate. The last I’ve heard it’s still afloat, but just barely.)
So what’s the point of all this? Well, it had something to do with a snappy little bit of allegory I came across in Al Franken’s new book, but I was having so much fun reminiscing about the River of Broken Dreams that I seem to have gotten entirely lost.
Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow. But anyway, to all of you who have had your professional Hopes and Dreams shattered on the Rocks of Despair… I invite you to swim for safety. Heck, it’s better than going down with the canoe, because then even a whole boatload of ridiculous metaphors won’t save you. Have a nice day!
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9/12
Metaphor Abuse
Allegory, fable, parable. All distinct and useful in their own way. Yes, for you they may bring back memories best forgotten about Sunday school, Hebrew school or whichever school to which you may have been dragged as a child, but still, a little allegory can be a good thing. Fable can be fun. Parable is still my favorite, though, and there are, incidentally, still one or two people working at a certain restaurant in Purchase, NY who will retell one of my favorite creations if you ask nicely.
It involves a rather harried person adrift in a rickety canoe as it rushes down a rock-strewn river. This person, or restaurant manager, oh all right, it’s me, as I hope you’ve presumed, has been given only a small broken paddle with which to steer the canoe past the rocks and avoid disaster. The stream rushes faster and faster. The canoe is taking on water. Up ahead, directly in the canoe’s path is an unusually large, menacing rock that will surely sink the entire affair. I’m all too aware of this hazard and paddle furiously to one side to avoid disaster. Just then, suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a big fat drooling man with a slight speech impediment stands up in the back of the canoe and starts yelling, "Hey, watch out!"
"Yes, I am" I yell back. The canoe takes on more water and is harder to control because the owner... er, I mean the fat man, is now waving his arms.
"Look out for that rock!" he hollers.
"Yes, I see the damn rock!" I shriek. "Now siddown!"
I continue to paddle as fast as possible to the left. "You have to paddle to the left" barks the fat man.
So what happened in real life, you wonder? Well, basically I dropped the paddle, jumped in the river and swam safely to shore. (Oddly enough the fat man did as well, leaving the restaurant, um, I mean canoe, to a less fortunate fate. The last I’ve heard it’s still afloat, but just barely.)
So what’s the point of all this? Well, it had something to do with a snappy little bit of allegory I came across in Al Franken’s new book, but I was having so much fun reminiscing about the River of Broken Dreams that I seem to have gotten entirely lost.
Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow. But anyway, to all of you who have had your professional Hopes and Dreams shattered on the Rocks of Despair… I invite you to swim for safety. Heck, it’s better than going down with the canoe, because then even a whole boatload of ridiculous metaphors won’t save you. Have a nice day!
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9/11/03
9/11...
I’m actually rather wary of expressing any thoughts about September 11… either the day itself or any of its subsequent anniversaries. What is there to be said that hasn’t already? There will be heartfelt remembrances on op-ed pages across the nation. There will be human-interest stories about how the victim’s families are coping. There will be Lifestyle pieces written about how our society has been forever changed. When they show up in print, all of these pieces will cover the emotional and political spectrum; from maudlin to touching, from the obvious to the insightful, and from the nakedly opportunistic to the selflessly revealing.
For my part, I know that I don’t have anything particularly coherent to say about that day’s events because of the ambivalence I feel about the social and political fallout that has overshadowed everything else since. In two years, September 11 has become much larger than the four airliners, three buildings, and three thousand-plus lives that were wiped out that morning.
On that day, of course, it all seemed very simple. Bad terrorists. Innocent civilians. Really, really, bad luck. But where have we gone in the two years since? This very day the air is swirling with accusations, responsibilities are being avoided, lies are being told, and political hay is being made. From the few documents making their way to the light of day, we know that on the day of the attack the White House scrambled to find a connection with Iraq. We now know that before the attacks occurred, one of Dick Cheney’s infamous closed door national energy policy meetings involved a map of the mid-east and discussion of the impacts of a "post-war Iraq". And yet, somehow, everything is still Clinton’s fault. And yet, we’ve all seen the picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam. And we know who sold Saddam his weapons in the first place during the 80’s. And yet, that’s all irrelevant because Bush has given up even trying to find a link between Saddam and September 11.
So, selfish guy that I am, I wonder, "where does all this leave me?" I guess I just have to go back and separate all the pieces. Sure, previous administrations of each party engaged in incredibly foolish and shortsighted policies… but the attacks remain as unjustified as they are heartbreaking. For the victims, I’ll leave a candle burning in my living room window tonight. And the people in power who continue to exploit the tragedy to drive their own agenda? Well, that’s just going to have to be a fight for another day.
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9/11/03
9/11...
I’m actually rather wary of expressing any thoughts about September 11… either the day itself or any of its subsequent anniversaries. What is there to be said that hasn’t already? There will be heartfelt remembrances on op-ed pages across the nation. There will be human-interest stories about how the victim’s families are coping. There will be Lifestyle pieces written about how our society has been forever changed. When they show up in print, all of these pieces will cover the emotional and political spectrum; from maudlin to touching, from the obvious to the insightful, and from the nakedly opportunistic to the selflessly revealing.
For my part, I know that I don’t have anything particularly coherent to say about that day’s events because of the ambivalence I feel about the social and political fallout that has overshadowed everything else since. In two years, September 11 has become much larger than the four airliners, three buildings, and three thousand-plus lives that were wiped out that morning.
On that day, of course, it all seemed very simple. Bad terrorists. Innocent civilians. Really, really, bad luck. But where have we gone in the two years since? This very day the air is swirling with accusations, responsibilities are being avoided, lies are being told, and political hay is being made. From the few documents making their way to the light of day, we know that on the day of the attack the White House scrambled to find a connection with Iraq. We now know that before the attacks occurred, one of Dick Cheney’s infamous closed door national energy policy meetings involved a map of the mid-east and discussion of the impacts of a "post-war Iraq". And yet, somehow, everything is still Clinton’s fault. And yet, we’ve all seen the picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam. And we know who sold Saddam his weapons in the first place during the 80’s. And yet, that’s all irrelevant because Bush has given up even trying to find a link between Saddam and September 11.
So, selfish guy that I am, I wonder, "where does all this leave me?" I guess I just have to go back and separate all the pieces. Sure, previous administrations of each party engaged in incredibly foolish and shortsighted policies… but the attacks remain as unjustified as they are heartbreaking. For the victims, I’ll leave a candle burning in my living room window tonight. And the people in power who continue to exploit the tragedy to drive their own agenda? Well, that’s just going to have to be a fight for another day.
Thursday
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9/08/03
A Non-Rant For A Change
The nights are crisp, the days bright and clear and school’s back in session. What does it all mean? Apple picking, leaf raking and suffering through early Christmas ads on TV? Sure, but there’s something good as well: soccer’s back. Our oldest boy played his first game this last week, following a few early practices during which a dozen or so boys ran with purpose and shook off August’s pre-school stupor.
It’s actually a kid activity the whole family has been looking forward to all summer. We have him doing other things of course, as no child would be complete without an exhaustive schedule of pastimes designed to enlighten the mind, enrich the spirit and build the body… yet this is the one the rest of us can stand.
There was, after all, camp and swimming for much of the summer, but that obviously didn’t do me any good. Then there’s karate, which is great focus and concentration practice for the boys, but there are only so many times that I can watch them stand in a line, kicking and yelling "Hiyawww." We also did little league, but in baseball there simply isn’t enough for the kids to do. And for us, sitting through an entirely too long game while your kid spins in circles in the outfield while staring at the sky in a daze, is, simply put, excruciating.
Ah, soccer, however, keeps them running and thinking at the same time. They socialize. They think and react as a group. They burn off energy and fall down. The games are actually exiting to watch. And, in a politically incorrect way, I must also note that parent-wise, the whole vibe is very different than in other sports. Simply put, we haven’t run into any savages.
So, have kids? Short on time and resources? Trust me, cut back on the piano lessons and send them off with a soccer ball. And, if nothing else, it’s a good excuse to share gratuitous pictures of your little guys and gals in action.
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9/08/03
A Non-Rant For A Change
The nights are crisp, the days bright and clear and school’s back in session. What does it all mean? Apple picking, leaf raking and suffering through early Christmas ads on TV? Sure, but there’s something good as well: soccer’s back. Our oldest boy played his first game this last week, following a few early practices during which a dozen or so boys ran with purpose and shook off August’s pre-school stupor.
It’s actually a kid activity the whole family has been looking forward to all summer. We have him doing other things of course, as no child would be complete without an exhaustive schedule of pastimes designed to enlighten the mind, enrich the spirit and build the body… yet this is the one the rest of us can stand.
There was, after all, camp and swimming for much of the summer, but that obviously didn’t do me any good. Then there’s karate, which is great focus and concentration practice for the boys, but there are only so many times that I can watch them stand in a line, kicking and yelling "Hiyawww." We also did little league, but in baseball there simply isn’t enough for the kids to do. And for us, sitting through an entirely too long game while your kid spins in circles in the outfield while staring at the sky in a daze, is, simply put, excruciating.
Ah, soccer, however, keeps them running and thinking at the same time. They socialize. They think and react as a group. They burn off energy and fall down. The games are actually exiting to watch. And, in a politically incorrect way, I must also note that parent-wise, the whole vibe is very different than in other sports. Simply put, we haven’t run into any savages.
So, have kids? Short on time and resources? Trust me, cut back on the piano lessons and send them off with a soccer ball. And, if nothing else, it’s a good excuse to share gratuitous pictures of your little guys and gals in action.
