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That cone of silence

There was not-so much ado made about “the cone of silence“ incident after the initial dust settled.  It has largely been dimissed as silly.  Not so fast.  Imagine if the situation were reversed and Senator McCain were questioned first, while Barack Obama was riding in his motorcade when he should have been secluded.  Take it one step further and lets make it a black Rev.  

Wouldn’t people be asking why Obama didn’t arrive on time?  Wouldn’t there still be outrage if Obama had joked with the Rev. about being secluded?   If Obama then went on to outperform McCain would the likes of Rush Limbaugh not still be screaming that the entire debate was a farce?  You bet. 

This “silly” incident would have played out for weeks were the roles reversed.

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USB 3.0? Oh, no

I’ve finally gotten every PC, notebook, portable gadget or external storage device I own as USB 2.0.   It wasn’t deliberate, but over time these things had to be replaced or upgraded. Now I’m there and can relax.   Not.  I truly believed technology had finally evolved to the point that everything I had wouldn’t be obsolete for at least a decade. So naive.

This morning read that USB 3.0 is soon to be released.  Of course it is 10 times faster and so much cooler than USB 2.0   It’ll charge your iPod or MP3 player in a flash.   Sigh.

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Michael Phelps, God to NBC

NBC used to be my network news source of choice.  No longer, not at least for the remainder of the week.  I’m tired of the top national news story being the Olympics and Michael Phelps.  Simply because they are the network showing the Olympics doesn’t make it lead-off material every morning and night.

Its always the positive side of the games.  When Atlanta held the Olympics all the networks could talk about was security and possibility of a terrorist attack among other criticisms.  The only negative thing I’ve heard from China was the smog.  Surely it can’t all be roses in a country that we used to criticize for human rights violations.  I have to wonder if the coverage isn’t being consciously edited because visiting journalists want to be certain they retain their passport home.

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Moral values

This week the focus on the presidential election has been moral values. Both candidates have them and it shouldn’t be at the top of the list of problems facing the United States.

The economy is what people will show up to vote for, secondly foreign policy. Our tendency to fight unncessary wars leads back to the economy and moral values, in lives lost spending billions fighting for a cause most Americans have come to believe manufactured.

Moral values are an issue,  yet there is that separation of church and state thing. Many on the left claim “you can’t legislate morality” and, even though I lean liberal, believe you can and in many instances, slavery for instance, should. However don’t confuse the legislation of morality with legislating a particular religious belief. There is the separation of church and state and, unless the churches want to start being taxed, they should keep their voices out of politics.

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1984

Whatever happened to 1984? The book was required high school reading in 1983. All of the Orwellian predictions were to come true. In a way they have since. It isn’t so much that “Big Brother is watching”, as Big Brother doesn’t care. But he CAN watch.

The reality didn’t hit me until 2004. I had a flight scheduled to Toronto, your typical corporate pre-paid vacation for a seminar. I was set. I’d been to Canada before. No big deal. For some reason wasn’t allowed to pre-print my boarding pass online. No explanation, just that I had to show up at the airport with identification. OK, whatever. I showed up with my driver’s license. That’s all I ever needed to travel there pre-9/11.

I felt trapped in my own country. The running joke around the office, because I couldn’t immediately produce a birth certificate or passport, was “Richard wasn’t born, he was hatched”. Have to give ‘em credit for that one.

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