"It's Not At All Certain..."?????

Original: (Thursday, October 28, 2004)

Dick Cheney
seems to parse reality differently than most of us. When he hears what he wants to hear, like 'intelligence' from the well known fabulist Ahmad Chalabi, nothing in the world is more certain. When he is told something he doesn't want to hear, like news of another military bumble in Iraq, like the failure to sequester a large store of explosives (at the very location he claims Saddam Hussein was "reconstituting his nuclear program"), this information is "not at all certain". Thinking about it, I suppose most of us practice this sort of denial to some degree. When it reaches this level, and the practitioner is so happy to share his deeply felt skepticism (read:fantasies) with the world, well, any total sociopath would be proud. I guess the only certain knowledge he possesses is the data that fits his preconceptions. Sort of todays version of "All The News That Fits, We Print". Anything he doesn't want to believe, well, it's just "not at all certain".
And then the Vice president calls John Kerry an "Armchair General"? Come on! This is the man who had "other priorities" when it came his time to serve in the military. Some of us think his other priority was to nestle deep in his armchair, where he was much less likely to get his ass shot off. Or become a victim of the ever popular "friendly fire".


Besides, Mr. Vice-Commander-In-Chief, the phrase is Armchair Admiral! You're in Pensacola! Pensacola's been a Navy town for longer than you've been a crooked politician! And that's a long long time...

How Productivity Software Saved the Day

Original: (Thursday, August 05, 2004)

I have spent the last several days in a kind of limbo. Or, if you prefer, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Its a sort of penance for having done something the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn't like. Anyway, I've been walking a lot, rubbernecking, dodging motos and beggars (I notice that the Geckoes are active in the daytime too, here). I've also been watching a lot of teevee in the heat of the day. I just saw Shakespeare in Love earlier today. It really is a good movie, I am happy to report. The thing that got me to thinking though was the last scene, where Shakespeare is beginning to pen Twelfth Night.
Now, I have several computers, not counting the one I am currently typing on. This one is in an internet cafe next door to my hotel. Costs r2000/hour (50 cents). My primary computer, despite being a well-aged five years, is fully loaded with Productivity Software. With my computer I can Process Words; I can Spread Sheets; I can Base Data, in many wonderful ways. I can even Point with Power. Isn't the modern world amazing!
My point? Will Shakespeare wrote 55 plays, and a number of sonnets (78 is a number that comes to mind, but it's probably wrong), and the only productivity software he had was a blotter. Or perhaps they still used sand to blot the ink on the paper back at the beginning of the 17th century. I don't really know. At 55 plays, Master Will is approximately ummm, 55 plays ahead of my production. So much for Word Processors, Spell Checkers, Grammar Checkers, Plot Outliners, and all the assorted canned writing aids of today. Of course, I am no Shakespeare, you might say. You are correct. In fact, there are very few such. One is the correct count, I believe. Still, there are lots of other people in history, recent times, and today, who have created rather prodigious bodies of intellectual work. I haven't heard of any who can be said to have had their productivity improved by Productivity Software.
Of course, without such software, I wouldn't be writing this, so that's something, I guess.
The only other example of the utility of Productivity Software I can think of immediately is that when my secretary (this was in the early '80's) came into possession of a Word Processor, the monthly report she submitted from my group to the main office grew in a few months from a seven page document, on average, to a seventy page document, also on average. She stopped typing, and started cutting-pasting-inserting-overtyping. Nothing ever got taken out.
Sort of like the tax laws.
Oh: everything has been smoothed over with the Thai Ministry of etc., so I am returning to Bangkok tomorrow. All has been forgiven.