Tag, I'm it.

Miss No-H threw down the gauntlet, and said I wouldn't respond. Like the dutiful belligerent she knows me to be, I'll fall for the reverse psychology.

With a catch - My circle of blogs is pretty small, and I think she's tagged most of the ones I know. So I'll do a tag for each reason, but no way I'll have five.

I'll tag the Oracle before someone else does. That's one.

And Cracked. That's two.

Two's all I got - and all I need - I guess.

Top two reasons why I blog:

1) The obvious reason. Dad.

In the weeks after his death, I was short on clarity and the time to say much of anything. Oh, I'd thought about saying something on many occasions. I just never did. Given my history - I'd plotted out a story arc of me retreating further and further into my own head until one day I'd blow up at somebody for not passing the goddamn salt.

In the years prior to 2005, I had written a few essays for nobody in particular and this blog began as just another collection of words sitting on my hard drive.

It was a few weeks after the accident, and I was a mess. Some time after the boy was asleep, I went downstairs, fired up MS word and started typing. The first word that came out of my head was 'Autopilot.' I was going to type a eulogy, at least that's what I think I was going to do. A few hours later, I realized that I was never going to finish. So I made it into a blog.

I still work on the eulogy some days - most times when I'm in the car on the way home - listening to music I should avoid. I envision myself at the service all over again, only this time I'd step up to the podium and say all the things I should have. I write and rewrite paragraphs in my head until they are hopelessly overwrought or until some traffic mishap jolts me back to the present.

I have a few paragraphs I've burnished almost to the point of posting - a virulent defense of my associating dad's death with Katrina, rather than the freak accident that it could easily be classified as. I say them to myself at least once a week - imagining some hapless critic withering under my words as I drive them home with a pile driver.

-and then I think, "never gonna happen." and then I post something about the government.

2) My only other reason is the same as most, I expect. I like to say what's on my mind, and I'm not sure most people enjoy hearing it. Here, I can scream into the void and people can take or leave it. Given the potential audience of a blog like this, and my infrequent update schedule, I have no illusions about what kind of exposure my thoughts will get - but every once in awhile you get a comment or a tag - and that's pretty cool.

Cheers.

Finally, a candidate you can believe in...

It's a pity this candidate isn't running in any of my local elections... I'd give them a shot.

How do you pick a vampire out of a crowd?

Easy...shine sunlight on the crowd. The one who runs into the shadows is your bloodsucker.

The past few years have spawned a number of political organizations that are overdue for some sunlight therapy.

These are groups that purport to advocate for a popular cause, but their causes are curiously in line with powerful partisan interests.

This by itself isn't such a bad thing - there's certainly no law against being partisan. Any group can organize and freely praise their own or damn the opposition in any forum they can reach.

But isn't it interesting the number of groups who are formed by political operatives who take great pains to hide their affiliations? I am sure this occurs on both sides of the political aisle - but it has been raised to a high art by the current conservative crowd. Remember the Swift Boat Vets? a group of "concerned vets" who just happened to be bankrolled by partisan heavies like Bob J. Perry, the largest single donor to the Texas GOP.

Slate's Richard L. Hasen does a really nice job of shining the light on another bogus group, the American Center for Voting Rights - a group that loudly asserted that voter fraud was a growing national problem. They of course had a solution - rigorous ID and registration hurdles that (oh, by the way) might depress turnout among poor and minority voters - but they assured us they were not trying to depress traditionally democratic voter turnout.

Of course, since the group has tried hard to disappear right after the election was over, its kind of hard to believe they are (or ever were) anything other than just another partisan hit squad.

Read the whole sorry story here.

If they were really doing the work of the angels, why are they so afraid of the light?

This?! This is our government?

This is making the rounds, so this will hardly be news to anyone - but just because it un-fricking believable.

Read the testimony of Frm. Deputy Attorney General James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

This bit should whet the appetite:

COMEY: In the early part of 2004, the Department of Justice was engaged -- the Office of Legal Counsel, under my supervision -- in a reevaluation both factually and legally of a particular classified program [NSA Wiretapping]. And it was a program that was renewed on a regular basis, and required signature by the attorney general certifying to its legality.
And the -- and I remember the precise date. The program had to be renewed by March the 11th, which was a Thursday, of 2004. And we were engaged in a very intensive reevaluation of the matter.
And a week before that March 11th deadline, I had a private meeting with the attorney general for an hour, just the two of us, and I laid out for him what we had learned and what our analysis was in this particular matter.
And at the end of that hour-long private session, he and I agreed on a course of action. And within hours he was stricken and taken very, very ill...
SCHUMER: (inaudible) You thought something was wrong with how it was being operated or administered or overseen.
COMEY: We had -- yes. We had concerns as to our ability to certify its legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed.
The attorney general was taken that very afternoon to George Washington Hospital, where he went into intensive care and remained there for over a week. And I became the acting attorney general.
And over the next week -- particularly the following week, on Tuesday -- we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality and explained our reasoning in detail, which I will not go into here. Nor am I confirming it's any particular program. That was Tuesday that we communicated that.
The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident. And I was headed home at about 8 o'clock that evening, my security detail was driving me. And I remember exactly where I was -- on Constitution Avenue -- and got a call from Attorney General Ashcroft's chief of staff telling me that he had gotten a call...
SCHUMER: What's his name?
COMEY: David Ayers. That he had gotten a call from Mrs. Ashcroft from the hospital. She had banned all visitors and all phone calls. So I hadn't seen him or talked to him because he was very ill. And Mrs. Ashcroft reported that a call had come through, and that as a result of that call Mr. Card and Mr. Gonzales were on their way to the hospital to see Mr. Ashcroft.
SCHUMER: Do you have any idea who that call was from?
COMEY: I have some recollection that the call was from the president himself, but I don't know that for sure. It came from the White House. And it came through and the call was taken in the hospital.
So I hung up the phone, immediately called my chief of staff, told him to get as many of my people as possible to the hospital immediately. I hung up, called Director Mueller and -- with whom I'd been discussing this particular matter and had been a great help to me over that week -- and told him what was happening. He said, "I'll meet you at the hospital right now."
Told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.
SCHUMER: What was your concern? You were in obviously a huge hurry.
COMEY: I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that.

So, this kind of crap goes down in CorpWorld - person A doesn't like like person B's answer - goes to person C. Happens at home, too. "Mom, can I have X?" "No." "Dad...?"

Except, this is the White House Counsel and the White House Chief of Staff not getting the answer they want from the Acting Attorney General of the United States, so they go to the man who would be Attorney General, were he not incapacitated.

What I especially like is the fact that Ashcroft's wife has attempted to cut off all communication to her husband while he recuperates. The President of the United States calls and informs her that the White House Counsel and Chief of Staff are coming over anyway.

The bonus round is, (and, I know I'm not alone in being surprised by this) Ashcroft does the right thing. He spells out his objections to Gonzales and Card and then tells them what he thinks is irrelevant, since Comey is Acting Attorney General, they should really be talking to Comey.

Gonzales and Card leave without talking to Comey.

Then (and I love this part)

SCHUMER: Right. OK. Let's continue. What happened after Mr. Gonzales and Card left? Did you have any contact with them in the next little while?
COMEY: While I was talking to Director Mueller, an agent came up to us and said that I had an urgent call in the command center, which was right next door. They had Attorney General Ashcroft in a hallway by himself and there was an empty room next door that was the command center. And he said it was Mr. Card wanting to speak to me.
I took the call. And Mr. Card was very upset and demanded that I come to the White House immediately. I responded that, after the conduct I had just witnessed, I would not meet with him without a witness present.
He replied, "What conduct? We were just there to wish him well."
And I said again, "After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness. And I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States."

Yes. Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales want their wiretapping declared "legal" by the AG, who refer them to the Acting AG. Instead of talking to him when he's in the same room, late at night on the day before their approval deadline, they leave. And then summon the Acting AG to the White House.

What a bunch of pussies.

The windout of this sad affair is that mass resignations are threatened by Ashcroft, Comey, possibly Meuller and others at DoJ, so the President relents and asks the Comey to come up with a list of changes to the program so it will be legal. We are to assume this happened, although with this sorry lot, who knows what happened the second Comey was out of the room?

It's just a disgrace. Add to that, Gonzales tried hard to stop this testimony from seeing the light of day - having prohibited Ashcroft's and Comey's from testifying for over a year.

Kinda puts a whole new spin on John Ashcroft, don't it?

---

Now we have Gonzales stabbing his current deputy in the back the day after he resigns.

"I wasn't involved in firing US Attorneys."

"Oh, you have proof I was in those meetings? Oh, then I was in the meetings, but I don't remember doing anything in them."

"Yes, I was the Attorney General - but it's not like I remember every little thing that goes on here..."

"Even though I remember nothing, I'm confident that everything was done properly."

"Now that you mention it, I'm certain that McNulty did all of the decision making there. I just follow his recommendations. That's McNulty, M-C. Got that?"

He even smirked while he did it. What a first-class jerk.

Broken record

It's getting to the point where pretty much anything I read from Glenn Greenwald generates a 400-decibel, from-the-gut "Damn right!"

-so forgive me for quoting and linking to the man yet again, but he's just so freaking spot on:

The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press

This week, the Bush administration sought vastly increased powers to spy on the telephone conversations of Americans, and then threatened to begin spying again illegally and without warrants...

Yesterday, it was disclosed that Iraq's government is actually purging itself of anyone who seeks to impede lawless Shiite militias...

...And one of the right-wing's most influential academicians published an article on The Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page explicitly advocating "one-man rule" in America whereby the President can ignore the "rule of law" in order to fight The Terrorists.

None of that -- or virtually anything else of even marginal significance -- was reported by The Politico, an online political magazine founded by some of the nation's most prestigious and admired (in Beltway terms) political journalists. But yesterday, The Politico's so-called "chief political columnist," Roger Simon, published a 674-word article -- prominently touted on The Politico's front page -- exclusively about John Edwards' haircuts, cleverly headlined "Hair today, gone tomorrow."

...The sprawling, glaring, and ever-widening discrepancy between (a) how journalists like [the Politico's] Harris preeningly describe what they do and (b) the empty-headed trash they churn out on a regular basis, is the actual crux of most media criticism.

Required viewing

I know this link is making the rounds again, but if you haven't seen Stephen Colbert beating the crap out of everything Washington - you really should.

Stephen Colbert rips Washington a new one.

(It's the full C-SPAN footage) You'll need to jump ahead to 51 minutes into the program.

Righteous.

Hijacking the Superbowl

This story is pretty damn funny...

MIAMI, FL (PRWeb) -- Just days after the Boston bomb scare, another team of Boston-based pranksters smuggled and distributed 2,350 suspicious light-up devices into the Super Bowl. Due to its attractiveness as a terrorist target, Dolphin Stadium was on a Level One security alert, a level usually reserved for Presidential inaugurations. By posing as media reporters, the pranksters were able to navigate 95 boxes through federal marshals, Homeland Security agents, bomb squads, police dogs, and a five-ton X-ray crane.

During the second quarter of the Super Bowl, the team of pranksters -- who call themselves the "Super Six" -- quietly distributed thousands of "Prince Party Packs" to an entire section of Dolphin Stadium. Each packet contained a light-up necklace with official-looking instructions. By turning on the necklace lights during the halftime show, Super Bowl fans believed they would be spelling out the word "PRINCE."

But they didn't. They spelled a secret message that was broadcast to 93.1 million people.

Yeah, they're shamless self promoters, but they're still pretty damn funny.

Ahh nature....

Umm....

Mr. duck....?




...mind getting the hell outta my back yard?

(just a visual from the other day's excitement...)

Number to beat

I'm a news junkie, always have been.

I want to be plugged in. It's never been enough to know the latest news, but to find multiple accounts of the same event - then look for the different granules of information they are based on. This pastime has become less enjoyable in recent years - as the news has (at least in my opinion) turned considerably darker. I'm finding myself so put off by traditional mass media that I find myself tuning out more and more.

This is where I'm at with Virginia Tech. Not that this story is unworthy of attention - it's just that I am sick to death of the kind of attention it is receiving.

We've seen this movie before.

---

Start with a place at random: Littleton... Springfield... Blacksburg.

At first, the media just does its job.

Tell us what happened/is happening.

Not long after this phase, things start to go wrong.

Video is obtained. Solemn newscasters caution it may be disturbing, and then play it on an endless loop next to talking head interviews.

Eyewitnesses are found and interviewed live. Newscasters inch their questions towards painful subjects: "Did you see the shooter?" "Did you know the victims?" and finally "Did you personally see anyone shot"

Tell us about the blood.

Frequently, the eyewitness will become upset. The interviewer will visibly show their concern, "How are you holding up?" "Tell us how you are feeling," "How are you dealing with this?"

Are you scared? Are you in pain?

Early reports will have come in - they will be wrong.

The shooter is dead. The shooter is at large.
Ten are dead. Twenty. Less than twenty. More.

Possibilities abound, and are trotted out one after another by speculative journalists who aim to point out that the event may be even worse than first thought.

The carnage is tallied. The networks wring their hands and dispatch live crews, because modern media has conditioned us to expect that the person reading copy off a teleprompter must have a backdrop that is both live and relevant.

The police hold a press conference. It serves to dispel the more sensational possibilities we have been offered by the news. The shooter is dead. We learn the identity of the shooter, the true number of victims.

We learn, to our horror - the 'What' and the 'How.'

The facts established. The chorus of 'whys' can now begin:
"Why here?" "Why did they do this?"

We delve into the recent history of the shooter. "Where did they live?" "What did people think of them?" "What was behind their rage?"

There is a why. Tell us what it is.

These questions only serve as filler while bios of the known victims can be assembled and edited. We are shown grieving family members, survivors in tears.

Experts in grief counseling arrive in the form of talking heads. "What is this community going through?" "Tell us what you've heard from the families."

Pain. Show us the pain.

Recriminations, previously thought unseemly, become acceptable. The police were too slow. This should have been prevented. Lessened. It didn't have to be this bad.

Someone is to blame.

In a natural segue, the news shifts to "How do we stop the next shooter?" Criminologists, law-enforcement officials, and politicians spend ever-increasing amounts of time telling us the same thing:

Disturbed people who have easy access to firearms can hurt lots of people before we can stop them.

We cannot stop this.

---
All of this - all of the horror - is recorded and broadcast into living rooms, dorm rooms, workstations, bus stations, cars, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, every-frickingwhere -

-even some dimly lit basement where some man (and it is always a man) stops to watch. They see suffering on a national scale. The “worst ever,” they hear, over and over. Powerless, angry, they reflect on their wounds and those they hold responsible.

Then they think:

32. Yeah. I can beat that.

Rock on!

C (of A&C) had a baby on April 11. All are doing well.

Best news I've heard all month.

You gotta be freaking kidding me...

Watching the current administration read from the same scandal script can get tiresome.

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out the pattern has been:

1. Questions about administration conduct are raised.
2. Administration denies wrongdoing.
3. Administration officials selectively and voluntarily disclose exculpatory documents, appear before Congress, assure everyone that safeguards are in place, deny wrongdoing, and claim the conduct in question is used only for proper purposes (e.g., protecting country again terrorism).
4. Administration followers -- led by those controlling Congress -- insist that no investigation is needed because Official X made clear that there are safeguards in place protecting us and everything is being done for proper purposes.
5. Congressional Republicans block Congressional investigations, compel no disclosure of evidence, do nothing to investigate administration claims.
6.Scandal ends, unresolved.

So, now that the White House is facing a hostile Congress. The game plan doesn't work so well.

In the recent Gonzalez brew up - we've learned that White House staffers have been using email accounts sponsored by the Republican National Committee. Why would they do that? Because RNC communications aren't subject to open records requests, as they aren't government documents.

Unfortunately for the White House, this tactic will protect them from the curious citizen or watchdog group, but not a Congressional investigation. The White House can't claim executive privilege, since these are political communications.

At this point, those in the administration realize they are off the script - so they improvise-
(From the AP via TalkingPointsMemo)

The White House said Wednesday it had mishandled Republican Party-sponsored e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official White House business.

Congressional investigators looking into the administration's firing of eight federal prosecutors already had the nongovernmental e-mail accounts in their sights because some White House aides used them to help plan the U.S. attorneys' ouster. Democrats were questioning whether the use of the GOP-provided e-mail accounts was proof that the firings were political.

Okay, so they're not being tiresome anymore - but just how freaking stupid do these people expect us be anyway?

I'm hoping a group of forensic computer specialists tear these idiots a new one.

The other shoe falls

JR was canned today.

Which turned today into a mad scramble to figure out:

1) What should have already been done
2) What has actually been done; and
3) What is on the near horizon

I was ramping up the person who will take up JR's slack when they stopped me up short.

"Before we get started, um... what happened?"

I'd completely forgotten about this aspect. Believing for so long that JR was on the way out for so long, I'd assumed that this was common knowledge to everyone. Given that most of us operate in relative isolation - people were understandably a bit mystified.

---

JR was likable - casual conversation, they'd be pretty entertaining up to a point. From the outside, people would see a person who is rushing on this or that project and think, "JR's got it together."

Except they didn't. At least, not in any way that was measurable.

They'd be able to talk around an issue, but any time you wanted hard answers - they just weren't there. JR was good at maintaining the facade. I don't know if they were intentionally deceptive - or if they really believed that they were busy and getting things done.

We all have moments when we're coasting at work: after you finish a big chunk of work, you're too sick/tired/inebriated to function at full throttle - it happens.

JR was like that every day. "I'm busy, I'm busy," but when you'd look over at them, they're shopping online, or on their cell, or surfing through a catalog - wasting time.

Worse, they just did the bare minimum on any project - then would puff it up like "wow, that was hard." With my boss out of town for over a week, I made it my business to make sure JR wasn't shipping the clients crap.

The more I looked, the worse it got. I tried to handle it internally - meet with JR - tell them the score - all I got was smiles and assurances, and the most polite form of pushback. They liked my "suggestions," but first they wanted to "get the boss's input as well."

i.e. Soon as you're not available, I'm going to feed the boss a line of crap. Then it'll be "I'd like to do what you say, but the boss said..."

Screw that.

---

Where was I? Anyway, CorpWorld can make you nervous and any time someone's plug gets pulled - everyone starts to wonder if they're on the bubble. JR's successor was expressing the very real fear that something they'd do in future would get them in trouble as well.

So I spill my guts on the subject. This seems to make them feel better - but it has the opposite effect for me.

This would be three times I've been in this boat, and each time the pattern repeats: people sidle up to me and ask (on the down-low, you understand) 'what the hell happened?'

It underscores the paranoia of CorpWorld, since these are people who, I would have thought, are completely secure in their professional life. Some of them have Masters degrees, some have Doctorates - these are people who should not worry. I'm some guy off the street with some working experience and a big mouth - I get to tell them not to worry?

Messed up.

"...we've traced the call, they're inside the building! Run!"

Working in a business as large as my current employer, I suppose I should not be surprised when I run into people I used to know. I live in the area, they (likely) live in the area - the odds aren't that long.

Previously, I'd run into a former co-worker from my past life (who I did not get on terribly well with) and managed to deal. They've moved on, I'd moved on - actually, there really wasn't anything to move on from. Start from zero.

For the past few weeks, I've been seeing (or swore I was seeing) somebody I used to know. Walking down the stairs, crossing the hall - Hey! was that...?

This was a person I'd always regarded as odd - they hung out in our group, mainly in the company of another associate who I've since lost track of.

This person was always.... odd. They'd eat food off of someone else's plate without asking - they'd make dark observations about topics of light conversation-

They were the sort of person you'd envision hearing someone describing in a newscast as "Quiet, always kept to themselves. Never would have suspected that they had a severed head in the fridge..."

That kind of person.

This person was known as potatohead, and now I see them everywhere.

Question is, now what do I do? I don't even remember their real name. One of these days, we'll end up in the elevator together and they'll say "hi," and I won't have the foggiest idea of what to say.

"Hey, how's the... uh? Remember when you creeped us all out that one time? Wow, that was... uh..."

Too freakin' weird.

2008!? You gotta be sh!tting me!

If you don't watch the show - you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But for those who do, and just did-

I feel the same way...!

ARRRRGH!

Single point of failure

A chopper pilot once told me that Hueys in Vietnam had a part that was euphemistically called the “Jesus bolt.” Its function was to hold the rotors onto the main mast, which led to its nickname. If that bolt failed, only Jesus could save you.

My backyard has a Jesus bolt. I used to think it was a 1/3 horsepower submersible sump pump. Today, I found out otherwise.

I’ll explain.

My backyard is the low spot in the neighborhood – which means that, sooner or later, I get everyone’s rainwater.

The previous owner of my house installed the aforementioned sump in the yard’s low spot.

Let me back up – ‘installed’ is a pretty strong word. What they actually did is dig a pit for the pump, run five feet of PVC below ground until they reached their neighbor’s yard.

So far, so good.

Next, they ran twenty feet of PVC above ground, on their neighbor’s side of the fence.

With me?

Then, they attached flex hose and buried it along the back of their neighbor’s property until it came out at the corner of four lots that didn’t belong to them.

It gets better.

They then plugged said pump into a 100’ industrial strength extension cord, and buried it in the backyard.

How did it get power?

You’d think given their earlier decisions, they’d just plug it into an outside receptacle, but no, they ran it through a basement window (which could no longer be sealed against the weather) and plugged it into a wall outlet.

Nice.

All this I know now. Learning all this happened in stages – the last stage happening yesterday.

In the beginning – I knew only that there was a buried extension cord, and that the water went…somewhere.

Like most people not looking for trouble, we let this sleeping beast lie until it bit us. One particularly rainy day I noticed that not only was my backyard underwater, but there was a patch of water churning violently in the back corner of my yard.

Being me, I slogged over to the spot and found the aforementioned above-ground-on-the-neighbor’s property PVC pipe. It had split down the side and the sump was dutifully pumping water out of the middle of my backyard lake, only to deposit it into said lake about fifteen feet away.

This, I did not like.

So I bought some PVC, tore out all the splintered junk (that presumably had been shattered by repeated encounters with my neighbor’s lawnmower) and put a fresh batch of PVC on my side of the fence and tied it into the flex hose. Still didn’t know where that hose went to, but I didn’t want to mess with success. I found that the hose went deep into the ground, but once the water was going away – my curiosity followed.

Enter dad.

Dad was not the type to leave such a half-assed monstrosity in place. First chance he got, he dragged me out in the back yard to mount an electrical outlet right next to the pump. We buried conduit and gave the outlet some protection from the elements.

Then we dug a trench and buried the PVC and tied it into the flex hose. In the process, we discovered that it let out on the other side of my neighbor’s yard.
Early discussions with my neighbors indicated that this was not an issue.

Problem solved, right? Wrong.

Why? Because my backyard has a Jesus bolt.

A few days ago, my backyard turned into a lake again and I slogged through the water to trip a stuck float arm. Hours later, the water was gone.

Yesterday, the yard is a lake again. Waiting the usual span of hours, I see no movement. I slog through the marsh and pull up the pump, expecting to free a stuck float arm.

Only this time, the pump is well and truly broken. Apparently, the float fail last time occurred when the float was pressed up against the side of the pump. The pump got so hot that it melted a hole in the float. The hole let in water to the point where the float couldn’t live up to its name.

Last time, hauling up the pump probably cleared out the water and allowed trapped air to float the arm and trigger the pump.

This time, however the pump had kept running so long that it apparently cooked itself – leaving me with something about as useful as a soggy, twelve pound paperweight.

Off to the hardware store – and I buy the same make and model. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Hook it up, plug it in. Presto! Water level falling.

Later that night – I’m on the back porch watching my neighbors dig out their sump and 50’ flex hose. They’re headed for my yard.

That’s odd. So I chat them up and they’re intending to drain my backyard lake. This is nice, I tell them, but my pump is working now and this should all go away soon.

And then they kill off any hope of an easy solution to this mess.

See, the back of their yard is flooding, too. Not where it’s adjacent to my yard, but on the other side – where my sump’s flex hose ends. I turn off the breaker to the sump and, yep, the water in their backyard starts to recede.

My sump is flooding their yard. This has never happened before – but it’s for damn sure I can’t ask them to endure flooding on account of my lack of follow through.

They’re nice about it, even offer to let me use their flex hose, but I’m pissed. Here I fix the faulty pump, and it turns out I've spent all this time patching a system that is totally doomed. I’m stuck with either running PVC out to the street, or shelling out the three grand it would take to re-grade the backyard.

Right now, I’m praying for a dry spring.

"...or else the terrorists win"

If you haven't read the anonymous article in the Washington Post regarding National Security Letters and what their effect is on law abiding citizens is, you really should.

from My National Security Letter Gag Order (login required):

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.

To paraphrase Hans Gruber, "[the liberty and freedom the terrorists cannot destroy] is [destroyed] automatically in response to a terrorist incident. You ask for miracles, Theo? I give you the F. B. I."

Basketball diary

Blogging is a curious animal. Readers who don’t know you will miss context and subtext. Readers who do know you can make you self-conscious.

I’ve been trying the anonymous route to protect the narrative – but even so, there are things you just don’t bring up.

I’d been debating in my mind if the Basketball Weekend is one of them. For over a decade now, my friend G has been inviting people over to his place to watch the opening rounds of March Madness. On the surface, this is boilerplate enthusiasm for a chosen sport. We like basketball; ergo we watch basketball in a group. Saves electricity, we can pool resources for beer and chips.

It might have been that, early on, - but the reality of any situation changes over time. What began as an excuse to drink and swear and carry on about this team or that team, is pretty much evolved into the best opportunity I have to see my old friends and step out of parenthood for awhile.

As I’m only starting to appreciate - those are two huge things in life. These are guys who I’ve known since – hell, since Bush the Elder was president. Given my background - outside of family, these are the people I’ve known the longest. We don’t chat regularly, so this is pretty much the only opportunity to catch up with them.

I remember C (of A&C) telling me once that she’d interviewed a co-worker for a project and one of the questions she’d asked was pretty typical: what do you know now that you wished you’d learned earlier? That sort of thing. Her co-worker had given a response that was pretty memorable: “I wish I’d realized how important people were a lot sooner in life.”

That’s always resonated with me. Growing up, my social life got erased every couple of years when we’d move – and I think I got more than I little used to writing people off when they were out of sight. I believe that this led to an alarming amount of selfish behavior on my part. I still do things that are (in retrospect) amazingly self-centered for a father of two. Of course, you appreciate the people around you – but investing in them is something I’ve been very bad at.

The Basketball Weekend has been G’s investment in his friends (I’m sure he doesn’t look at it this way) but boiled down – he makes his house available to everyone and we all benefit from hanging out together. March Madness is the excuse – but it’s just great to hang around with people who “knew you when.”

Reverting to selfish for a moment, it is worth pointing out that seeing your friends with their families is one thing – seeing them sans family is quite another. Stereotypically, this would mean the guys sit around acting lewd and chauvinistic because their wives aren’t around to carp on them – but this isn’t really what I’m talking about.

With my son and daughter around – I’m plugged into parenthood. Conversation steers away from subjects that aren’t fit for children and congeals around topics that address the current behavior of same. This is fine and good, but sitting in a roomful of adults, getting to talk like adults is one of the reasons there are bowling leagues and book clubs.

It is therapy. We can grouse about the things that cannot be fixed, discuss the world’s problems, or just forget everything and rally around the fact that Duke can’t seem to drain a basket whenever CBS coverage switches to Hi-Def (So long, Dukies – we won’t miss you).

It is not mere nostalgia, or escape – it’s an awful lot of things that I wasn’t sure I could (or should) spell out.

In the interests of splitting the difference, I’ll leave some things out.

I will not, for example – discuss drinking cocktails at ten in the morning.

I won’t go into details about when four of us watched two men wrestle in the nude.

-or how C made a waitress dance for him before kissing her (and him, a married man!) or any of that stuff.

Some things are just sacred.

Incommunicado

Mom's been the vector of family news for some time now - I hear about it because everybody calls her. Nobody call me because - quite frankly - I never call them.

This past week, mom was traveling in the Grand Canyon. No cell, no internet. So mom's off taking nature photos and somewhere, her phone was ringing off the hook.

Two long-delayed items finally happened, and neither of them were good.

First up - My uncle K had to put his dog Scooby to sleep. Scooby was the smartest, mildest, most user-friendly dog I ever knew. He was like my uncle - very low key, did his own thing - just a great hound dog all round. No great mystery or surprise, Scoob was getting old - and nature took its course. Just a shame.

The closer was also no surprise, just a sad end to a sadder story.

DB, Dad's cousin, lost his wife, JB last week. She had been suffering for years with that particularly cruel form of alzheimers that allows you to be fully functional, yet forget even basic things like speaking. I'd last spoken to DB at dad's funeral, and he was there alone. I knew it was bad, and we avoided the subject. I last saw her at the local festival and she'd smiled a lot and said nothing. After we'd said our goodbyes, Dad had pointed out that she wasn't shy - she just forgot how to talk somedays. She would have been about my dad's age - way too young for a disease like that. DB was like my grandfather, taking care of a person who didn't even know who he was. I can't even imagine.

So there's an end to their suffering, but it is such a dreadful thing. Alzheimers is called the "Long Goodbye," but it’s so much worse than that. By the time it finally consents to let you go, your loved ones are usually too spent to grieve in any normal way. DB's family has not had an easy go of it for lots of reasons - they just never get a break.

Dad would have been there - I would have gladly stood in for him.

I just wish I'd heard about it in time to do something.

Wisdom of the day

Saw this on Google:

People often write me and ask how I keep my wood floors so clean when I live with a child and a dog, and my answer is that I use a technique called Suffering From a Mental Illness. - Heather Armstrong

The writing on the wall

CorpWorld is an odd place. Most times - people are unfailingly polite. I believe that CorpWorld culture mandates this, a sort of enforced cheeriness I've taken to calling "North Korea Nice."

Your tech contact will politely smile and nod while you say your peace - then tell their manager that you are causing problems on the project. This will become obvious to you when your manager shows up out of the blue to discuss topics that could only have been suggested by the aforementioned tech contact.

In theory at least, conflicts are resolved by proxy - and no one loses face. Of course, the reality is that plenty of face is lost, and any lag in the system means that people will keep doing whatever got them in trouble until they eventually find out. This fact is compounded when those making the complaint know you're in trouble before you do.

This can make for some interesting meetings, as you sit with a roomful of people all wearing smug expressions on their faces.

Which brings us to a person called JR. JR is going to be fired.

This is fact in the same sense that a person who steps in front of a Mack truck is dead. A miracle could happen, Superman could do the fly-round-the-world thing he does, but odds are - they're pretty much toast.

So it is with JR, but they don't know it yet.

JR's been slacking and it's starting to show. I've seen their face time in front of clients get pruned back again and again, and they are being asked to do more grunt-tasks and less brain-tasks. Rather than seeing this for what it is, they have chosen to feel persecuted.

Worse, they are committing the one truly unpardonable sin in CorpWorld - they are making their department look unprofessional. Our department’s higher ups will tolerate an awful lot. However, if they have to choose between an employee and their own credibility, they'll pause a moment - if they like you - and then fire your ass.

Being in meetings with JR has become a little surreal. Ostensibly, nothing has changed and they are still responsible for running some internal meetings. But it's obvious to all that JR is in trouble. I may be the only one who thinks that JR's condition is terminal - but I've seen this same pattern twice now, and all the signs are there.

Having drunk the Kool-Aid, nobody tells JR a thing - we just smile and carry on. The moral paragons of the world would offer a warning - surely a warning isn't out of line - but I'm not stepping up any time soon. I'm right, but I can't prove it - and anything I'll say won't change a damn thing.

I can't say I have much sympathy for JR - management has been (from what I can tell) fair. But the fact that this situation has carried on so long essentially makes co-conspirators out of everyone who works with JR. We discuss the issue when they aren't around, and hush up when they show up. Nobody has hard info from a reliable source, but we're not stupid.

JR's going to "see their account rep" sometime in the next month or so - and we'll all just keep smiling until it happens.

Just another day in corporate land.