Category Archives: Politics

The Hero

26 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by in Politics, Running

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My little sister and I toughed out a difficult 2020 together. I know, most everyone did. Our year was heavy with the sadness of caring for our mother on hospice. Normally we are separated by a thousand miles. If there was a silver lining, it was that the work-from-home nature of my job meant I was able to be there with her and my brother in our mom’s house for the entire year.

We were all able to be there for each other, as family should be. I don’t recall exactly how I felt when it was over in January of last year, I recall being a bit emotional. Nancy dealt with it by training for a half marathon. I was more than happy to join her.

Other family members traveled from across the country to join us and together, we turned hard memories into a celebration. With Covid limiting mom’s service to a Zoom video call, the weekend took on special meaning.

I’m grateful to my sisters and nieces for joining us in Austin. They came because they understood how their presence would contribute to the mental health of all of us. And it did.

In a small sense, my family’s actions were heroic. This is a time, for all of us, when we need strong actions, big steps, meaningful contributions. And it occurs to me, at a time when the world needs a hero, that we have one.

“I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Forgive the politics, but my blog receives enough views from Russia and we all have to do what we can.

American Soap

03 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by in Covid-19, covid-noir, Politics

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If I told you whom I had this conversation with, I’d have to kill you. But this was in fact my conversation tonight. Let me know if you’ve had similar conversations.

This person suspects Trump is faking his corona virus infection. And this person is deadly serious. In earlier conversations, I thought she was mostly joking. And I thought it was funny. I laughed so much harder tonight knowing this person was serious. And this person has evolved beyond suspicion to confidence in her theory.

I laughed so hard on the phone with this person. With everything going on, from the world’s problems to my own dire straights, it felt good to laugh like I did. Seemingly daft conjecture became deeply inane and devolved into plausible supposition on par with a debate on the reality of professional wrestling. By the end of our call, I was left wondering if it was me who was daft.

Tell me what you think. Trump is at a military hospital where he controls the staff as commander-in-chief. The show of white coats on CNN today, failing miserably at transparency, could not have been manufactured back at the White House. Where, I might add, Melania is ducking out of the show. Trump knows he is hopelessly behind in the polls, and can’t possibly dodge that fact he’s responsible for the untimely deaths of nearly a quarter million Americans. What else to do other than become part of the problem he can’t solve by becoming infected himself?

It’s brilliant, except for one small detail, and my brother pointed this out to me when brought into the fray. His administration is too inept to pull off such a clever plan. That is indeed a good point.

And I myself? I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, and this is no different. I do love the fanciful possibilities. If Lance Armstrong was an American tragedy, Trump is an American soap opera. His one true success may have been in reality TV, but the ebb and flow he injects into the news cycle reminds me more of a TV drama.

I don’t know. Professional wrestling is fake. Trump is fake. What are the odds his illness is fake? After I ended the conversation and hung up the phone, I wasn’t exactly sure what I believed, or why I was laughing.

We are the Media

11 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by in Geek Horror, Politics

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“The Vietnam War was lost on television” is a phrase attributed to Marshall McLuhan.  We still trusted our news media back then.  More importantly, we were all watching the same channel.  When Walter Cronkite reported on the war casualties, we all had the same numbers.  McLuhan’s point is expressed by another of his phrases, “the medium is the message.”

Today’s medium is social media.  Streaming is interesting, but social media is the game-changer.  I could brush broader strokes and say the Internet, but social media is the medium that allows us to self-publish, and that’s powerful – just ask the President.

I find it ironic, if not pathetic, there is such pervasive sentiment bashing the Media.  Fox News plays to the lowest denominator while MSNBC promotes Antifa.  Zuckerberg should take more responsibility.  We love to blame others.

On the receiving side, we curate our messages by accepting certain friends and blocking others.  On the publishing side, we share posts that appeal to us.  That’s self-publishing.  That makes us the Media.  And we’re bad at it.  It’s fair to say the etiquette is still forming, but until then, stop blaming section 230.  We’re all publishers.  We’re all content distributors.  Own it.

Blue River

21 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by in Politics, Snowshoe

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You might not know that Blue River is a town.  It’s more like just the rural space south of Breckenridge, Colorado.  The 65 mile long Blue River running through it collects itself from Quandry Peak and the slopes of the Ten Mile Range, then flows north toward Frisco, through the Dillion Reservoir, and finally empties into the Colorado River in Kremmling.  Our friends Scott & Julie let us stay in their Blue River cabin for the weekend, something Ellie wanted to do for her birthday.

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Ellie brought some friends up with her to celebrate.  Brit came up as well and they all stayed up late playing games.  I woke up early the next morning to a half foot of fresh snow.  I made coffee and read Comey’s “Higher Loyalty”.  Despite my running blog where I try to present myself as athletic and adventurous, I’m a sucker for passive activities as well.  Reading a novel in a big leather chair with snow falling outside the window is as good as it gets for me.

It occurs to me the last book I read was in the political genre.  I guess I’ve started others but lost momentum and haven’t finished them.  I won’t comment on the political aspects of Comey’s book, it’s just a good read.  My interest was in Comey’s writing.  I was fascinated after reading his memos by his writing style.  I take notes all day long at work, sometimes on paper but mostly using Evernote.  My writing style when note taking doesn’t deviate much today from 30 years ago when I used to furiously copy down details in college while capturing information from a lecturing professor.

Comey writes memos with the flair of a fiction writer.  I know, that might be telling.  Seriously though, he adds adjectives and describes obscure observations on the mood of a room for simple record keeping.  It makes for great reading so I knew his book would be good.  It is.  He had a storied career and there is so much more than what he writes on the Trump saga, from telling mobster stories to prosecuting Martha Stewart.

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Karen wouldn’t let me stay inside all day.  We went snowshoeing on the Willow Trail at the Nordic Center.  It snowed most of the day but wasn’t cold.  Snowshoeing is my favorite couples sport to do with Karen.  So peaceful in the trees.

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This trip was for Ellie but I enjoyed myself too this weekend.  I needed a break from working every weekend.  I probably enjoyed reading inside the comfy cabin the most, but there was good social time, and of course the snowshoeing.

hashtag deletefacebook

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Geek Horror, Politics

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Sure, go ahead.  Delete Facebook.  Or better yet, just add the hashtag and don’t do it.  I chuckle over the irony when people post their intentions to take a pause from their social networking addiction.  Seems to me like they rarely make it past three weeks.

I don’t care if Facebook lost billions in market cap in this latest brouhaha over consumer privacy.  Like anyone else, cry me a river.  I also have little doubt their market cap will return before year end.  Just like every major corporate hack, Target, Sony, Heartland, their stock takes a dip and recovers in less than a year.  And while I don’t care about Facebook, if forced to pick sides, I’ll stand by Zuckerberg.  As culpable as they are for their own inactions, just like with prostitutes and drug users, the politico positioning is to punish the victims.  And it’s pretty clear why.

The reason is clear when I read the op-eds in the Saturday morning papers.  Editors can finally take a departure from their vigilant stance as Trump apologists by directing their angst against Facebook.  There is no collusion and Zuckerberg is responsible for the Russian election meddling.  No better misdirection than an unloved corporate scapegoat.

I don’t think anything will come of this but the one thing I could get behind is if this leads Zuckerberg to stop pushing the lies about Facebook not being a media company.  Talk about some brazen bullshit.  They direct 20% of this country’s advertising dollars.  That’s the real story for me because I know Americans won’t change their privacy concerns and habits from this.

Even if you delete or pause your facebook account, you won’t stop looking for a free digital lunch elsewhere.  Facebook has two billion users, they aren’t going away from this.  Social Networking might lose this battle but technology will win the war.  Remember John Henry in his epic battle against the jack hammer?  Spoiler alert.  Tech wins.

Nasty Ellie

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by in Ellie Rose, Politics, Running

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American women are taking it to the streets today in solidarity.  Good for them.  Ellie is going to be part of something today that no doubt will indelibly shape her character.  If all she does is talk to Susan all day long, she’ll grow from the experience, but she will be among thousands of empowered and spirited ladies.

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Ellie is a doer.  Volunteer work.  Student council.  She will be traveling on a bus from the neighborhood to downtown Denver all on her own today to be part of a political event bigger than the inauguration.  I don’t know exactly what she’ll take away from the experience but I expect it will be positive.  Self-empowerment.  Belonging to a tribe.  Politics.  She is just a high school freshman, but she is growing into something special.

Moral Standing

11 Friday Nov 2016

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I’ve gone for some time without writing any political posts, but it’s not something I shy away from.  I was pretty passionate early in the election cycle.  I lost interest in the March timeframe after it became clear to me how the media was simply promoting Trump for the entertainment value.  I stopped following the news, for the most part I stopped watching the news.  I started writing my novel in March and have given very little time to anything else, including running.

I can’t let this election result go though without contributing my 2¢.  I voted for Hillary and sure, I’m disappointed to know Trump will be my President for the next four years.  But I’m not going to lose any sleep over the potential policies he’ll enact that I’ll disagree with.  Short of dropping a nuke, there’s only so much lasting damage he can do.  I’ve been on the losing side of most Presidential elections.  The world doesn’t end.  Or at least, it hasn’t yet.

And yet I woke up the next day depressed.  Seriously depressed.  I’ve never felt this way before after losing five of eight elections.  And I could tell from facebook that I was not alone.  Why the depression?  Trump isn’t going to do much to screw me over.  I’m a white male.  It took me  until the end of the day to figure it out.  Introspection isn’t my strong suit.

I was depressed because I couldn’t get over the notion that half the country voted for Trump.  Not the voting per se, but the implicit acceptance of every base aspect of Trump.  If Trump and half the right-wing media can refer to Hillary as criminal, when after hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have found no evidence of anything, after decades of trying, then I feel fairly safe calling Trump a perverted pedophile.  I mean, we can toy around with some of the little things too, like bigotry, xenophobia, sexism and racism, oh, and third-grade diction; but the man has allegations against him of raping a 13 year old girl.  This photo of him above references a porn movie he cameoed in.  And half the country is okay with this?  That’s why I was depressed.  And then I did the math.

I did similar math in a blog I posted at the start of the year suggesting only 10% to 20% of the country was behind the numbers leading to his nomination.  The GOP is nothing if not fractured.  Well, consider half the country didn’t vote.  Like me back in March, they were so disgusted by everything, they just couldn’t participate.  I know some Democrats are mad at them for this apathy, but I can empathize with them.  Back to the math, if half the country didn’t vote, then Trump’s behavior has only been legitimized by 25% of the population.  Still a bigger number of apparently low self esteem voters than I’d like to see, but this somehow makes me feel better.

For me, it’s not about Trump.  It’s about where we are as a society.  It’s bad enough America seems to be trending dumber.  I want to believe we’re becoming more civilized.  We might not be.  When I woke up Wednesday morning, I thought we were for sure in the gutter.  Like in this photo above, Trump will certainly cheapen the Presidency.  I just don’t want to believe Americans are following his example.  I can live with Trump.  I subscribe to Comedy Central.  I’ll be fine.  I just want everyone else to be fine too.

Slouching Towards Anarchy

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Politics

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I already called this in my last political post.  Trump will win the battle but Hilary will win the war.  Like anyone though, I can’t help but stare, open-mouthed, at this slow-moving train wreck.  Still, I’m holding out in a state of denial that the GOP will nominate Kasich in a contested convention, and things will be okay.  The imploding GOP has done very little to suggest anyone but Trump will win the nomination.  Mitt did come out and give it the ole college try.  Otherwise, Democrats have done more to warn us of impending anarchy.

I’ve accepted all this but still can’t quite get over this one quandary.  Just how does a minority view become so dominant?  I’m sure the Nazis represented a minority in Germany, yet they assumed power.  I want to better understand the GOP numbers.  What does 30% to 40% really mean in Primaries?  If you assume half the country is Democrat and the other half is Republican, then 30% becomes 15% of the nation at large.  And when you consider much, much less people vote in primaries than the general election, it must be less than 10% of the country that supports Trump.  One man, one vote?  Hardly.  I’m just amazed at how things can go so far south, steered by such a small minority of knuckleheads.

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I don’t believe Trump could ever be elected, but then I didn’t think he’d ever be nominated, and I’m being proven wrong on that outcome.  I’m beginning to become alarmed.  I’ve done my part.  I’ve debated Trump-supporting friends on Facebook.  I blog my personal views.  I put myself out there.  I tried logic and facts.  That’s pointless of course.  People don’t vote facts, they vote their life-long system of beliefs.  An interesting study suggests the one unifying personality trait among Trump supporters is their comfort level with authoritarianism.  Maybe that’s genetic.  Maybe it’s social experience.  Whatever, it’s a personality trait.  As much as I want to simplify my understanding and refer to Trump supporters as idiots and anarchists, they’re not necessarily.  Apparently Trump supporters are no more stupid than any other American.  Fair enough.  They are who they are and for whatever reason, Trump appeals to them.

The Wall and Trump

I don’t unfriend them on Facebook.  I block quite a number of posts and content sites – over two dozen apps.  Facebook doesn’t show how many pages I block, but at least that many.  I don’t unfriend people for thinking differently than me.  I think of Facebook as my TV and each content-producing friend as a different channel.  And I appreciate having some variety to watch.  I try to avoid behaving as an Internet Troll but I don’t shy away from commenting.  Not sure why I’m so comfortable commenting my personal views.  I’ve always figured it’s job related.  My job put me online before the Internet and I’ve become comfortable with it.  The message is the medium and the medium is now a multicast party line.  So the message is noisy.  This is my contribution to the noise.  I understand there are few topics more sensitive than politics, but freedom doesn’t spring from silence.  You know where I stand on Trump.

Mad Max Politics

03 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by in Politics

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I’ve held my pen for some time now.  I promised myself after my last political commentary in May of 2015 that I would wait until the Primaries kicked off.  There’s not much point really in me writing a political blog.  By this point, voters’ opinions are set in emotional concrete, hardened by a lifetime of experience, cured by media, and possibly even genetically formed at birth by DNA.  There’s no chance that anything I write will influence anyone from thinking differently than their already steadfast, personal belief systems.  But let me remind you that this blog isn’t about you.  It’s about me.  Writing is cathartic and I’m in a little need of self-help after Super Tuesday.

I never thought Trump would get this far.  What, me worry?  Now I am of the belief that this campaign season is a done deal with Hilary and Trump virtually unstoppable.  Put a fork in it, we’re done.  I’m extremely disappointed in our current state-of-affairs.  I wrote off Hilary as unelectable back in March of 2015, the day I read news of her home email server.  I sincerely expected a deep GOP field to offer me multiple choices of electable candidates.  I never voted for George W., yet I intended to vote for Jeb.  I trusted him to address immigration with a plan I would find most palatable, and immigration is one of the issues I care about.  Plus, Jeb is such a big teddy bear.  What happened?

I believe Hilary will be nominated and win the general election.  Although, I even think Bernie would beat Trump or Cruz in the general election.  I find this ironic that the most establishment candidate of either party will become our next President after the most unconventional, Mad Max campaign in my lifetime.  I can live with her.  It’ll be somewhat boring after all the excitement, but I’ll be able to sleep at night afterward.

If Trump were to win, I’m not too concerned that he would screw up our domestic economy because I don’t think he could pass anything.  I don’t think he could build Trump Wall even if Mexico did agree to pay for it.  The GOP is effectively a multi-party party, has been really since the ’90s, and Trump doesn’t control a large enough faction.  Trump is hardly the first wealthy politician.  The reason rich politicians don’t self-fund their campaigns is that they need factions to buy-in and feel ownership.  A politician has to yield some control in order to lead.  Unless Trump plans to fund a super Pac to continue funding Congressional politicians while he is President, he’ll never have support.  No President is an island.

So I won’t move to Canada if Trump is elected.  I might short the market.  I am concerned, that like demagogues before him, he’ll turn to foreign forays after becoming frustrated with his domestic failures.  Like when Argentina’s General Galtieri attacked the Falklands after just four months in office.  There are many better known historical examples.  But then, I don’t expect the imploding GOP to nominate Trump if he shows up to the Convention with less than a majority of delegates.  If they do, Congress will likely impeach him before he even takes office.

That leaves the remaining candidates.  I could accept any of them.  Now.  I know I railed against Cruz in a 2015 blog.  With good reason.  Ted Cruz is the Anti Christ.  But he’s also the only candidate to state intentions for dealing with H-1B visas as part of his immigration reform.  He seems to understand that America needs to worry more about protecting high-skilled jobs over low-skilled jobs.  You might not feel that way if you’re washing dishes at a restaurant, but H-1B reform would help me personally.

Not sure how I will vote.  Anyone but Trump.  I don’t even know what party I’ll vote for so I’m impressionable – if you think you can influence me.  I don’t mind talking politics.  I was a poli-sci undergrad.  Leave comments.  I’ve never censored this blog for any comments other than advertising.  I won’t be able to watch tonight’s debate because I have a school play to attend.  I did see Romney’s anti-Trump speech already.  I liked it.  Any comments on that?

A Bad Apple

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in cyber war, Geek Horror, Politics

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All you need to know in terms of Tim Cook vs the FBI is Donald Trump’s position on the matter.  Trump believes Apple is in the wrong and should be forced to provide the government with a backdoor hack into their iPhone.  Because he believes national security trumps personal privacy.  This is actually true – in China.  And Russia.  If you already take issue with this self-made celebrity, then you can assume Apple is right.

To be fair, and less political, personal privacy is a complex issue.  The U.S. Constitution references no protections for personal privacy.  The Bill of Rights however references numerous Amendments that allude to privacy.  Privacy of beliefs, privacy in your home, privacy of person and possessions against unreasonable search and seizure.  I think the list goes on but I’m not a lawyer and can’t defend any of them.  I do know Americans expect a certain degree of privacy and the government has the authority and corresponding legal process to transcend our privacy given sufficient warrant.  In this case, the FBI is leveraging the All Writs Act to demand that Apple engineer a new IOS version that disables the feature that would wipe the iPhone data after 10 unsuccessful login attempts.  This would allow the FBI to subsequently hack into the iPhone with a brute force password attack.

Precedent is set that allows the government to do this.  Shoot, there is even a recent case where the U.S. Attorney’s Office forced another smart phone manufacturer to unlock a screenlock.  But Apple is refusing to comply.  Tim Cook wrote an open letter explaining why.  He frames his argument from his customers’ perspective.  But just think about the consequences for his company.  Apple is being forced to weaken their product in a global market and their competitors are not being forced to do this.  They will immediately be at a competitive disadvantage in a global market for their most successful product.  Game over for the iPhone.

And recall, corporations are deemed people by the Supreme Court.  Apple will have all of the same assurances to privacy, to protection from self incrimination, to a right to earn a living.  They have every right to do business as any American as an individual.  They have the resources and will win this battle.

Why is it so hard to take a position on personal privacy vs State security?  The State has laws and legal precedent allowing them to violate your personal privacy.  We have laws and legal precedent allowing us to refuse, assuming we have the financial resources to fight.  But encryption just sort of breaks everything.  Encryption means, even if the government gets their way, they might not be technically able to have their way.  You can’t hand them the keys to your data if you’re dead.  Encryption puts the government in a real pickle.

This will be the data privacy fight of the new millennium.  This will be good.

Politics

09 Saturday May 2015

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snake oilWe went out for dinner last night with some neighbors and the discussion turned to politics.  My initial response was that I do follow politics and get into it a bit as an election nears, but now isn’t quite near enough for me yet.  I wouldn’t be able to maintain my disgust meter for two full years well enough to compete with some of the more seasoned internet trolls.

Even though everyone agreed they felt similarly on the early campaign, Pam went for broke and lobbed the grenade I couldn’t avoid.  She asked me what I think of Ted Cruz.  She somehow knew the right words to cut through my reluctance and evoke the most visceral response.

His pasty-white, fat face and greasy, slicked back hair make my skin crawl.  He’s Nixon reincarnate.  He’s a neon billboard flashing into the darkness that he’s a snake-oil selling, revival-tent preaching, dirt-bag liar.  At least that’s the image I take away from the media feeds.  Hope I haven’t offended anyone. Feel free to unfriend, or unfollow, or block me.

BYOE

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in cyber war, Geek Horror, Politics

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email chainI’m not sure whether to file this one under Cyber War or Geek Horror.  The subject matter fits under Cyber War.  My goal with cyber war is to discuss topics of interest while sneaking in a bit of a computer security primer for friends and family.  But Hillary’s Bring Your Own Email to work story also smacks of tech gone horribly wrong.  And I don’t have enough stories in that genre.  I’ll classify this under both categories.

Hillary has yet to respond so it’s premature for me to comment, but this is a blog.  She might surprise us by stating other reasons once she does respond, but the general consensus at this point in time is that the Clintons are private people (no really, everyone is saying this on the air about the most public figures in America) and they have lessons learned from their share of lawsuits and subpoenas.  So I don’t question Hillary’s desire to set up an email server at home before beginning her tenure as Secretary of State to maintain a degree of privacy.  In fact, and I’m still struggling to digest this, it’s common practice for high-level politicos.  Apparently there’s a strong market for consultants to set up personal email servers for public figures.

I can even relate to Hillary, and so can you.  Does your employer support BYOD in the workplace?  You know, Bring Your Own Device to work?  Mine does.  If they didn’t, they would have to buy 450,000 $500 smart phones for us all.  Do the math on that.  This is a real trend.  You use your personal iPhone to access your company email.  You use your iPad to access company databases while sitting on your couch and also drafting your fantasy football team.  The tradeoff is that you install your company’s computing policy onto your phone.  That sets configuration specs such as the complexity of your password and how often you have to change it.  And we’re as okay with this as we are with granting Facebook complete copyright to our family photo library.

Do you think Hillary complied with State Department computing policies on her home email server?  The discussion to date is about her operating within the guidelines (at the time) of leveraging a personal email account for official business.  My point is there is so much more to comply with.  All of us working from home at the remote end of a VPN tunnel understand that we’re the weak link in the corporate security chain.  We have family members accessing our keyboard.  We allow guests on our wifi.  Shoot, I use my personal MacBook Pro as my primary work computer.  I also sacrifice half my CPU utilization to my company’s AV and computing policy auditing software.  Some people use their work computer to host their personal pictures, play their music, and send personal email.  I prefer to subject my personal MacBook Pro to crippling corporate security and compliance software in order to use a single device.  Before that, I used two devices.

No one is talking about this yet but my concern is that Hillary did none of this.  Maybe she ran AV software.  Well of course she did.  Computers don’t run for very long if you don’t.  Point is, how would we know?  How would the State Department I/T staff know?  And AV is just one small example.  There are many essential security practices that must be followed.  Once that home email server is compromised, it can then email malware to heads of state!  I’m trying to remain optimistic.  Maybe this server was supported by a special team of State Department I/T staff.  That’s not unusual at all for C-levels at large corporations.  But stories like this remind us not to be surprised when common sense is ignored by people who should know better.  Lost in this week’s news, General David Patraeus reached a plea agreement for sharing extremely confidential information with his biographer/lover.  Trust no one.