Matt McHugh.com - Blog - January 2010

Watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the kids the other night. It's a movie I remember vividly from my childhood (that pointy nose Child Catcher scared the snot of out me) and was curious what the kids would think. They liked it, though I'd forgotten how much of it takes place in the "real" world. It's a solid 2.5 hours, and only the last half hour involves the whole fantasy sequence with the flying car and the evil baron. In my memory, that was the whole movie, and all the other stuff (the struggling inventor-father and his kids, the budding romance with the heiress, the lengthy musical numbers) was like the opening credits.

Interestingly, the opening credits in fact show that the car-that-would-be Chitty is in fact a famous racing car that's wrecked when it swerves to avoid hitting a child that wanders onto the track. Never got that in the umpteen times I saw it as a kid. Also, I noticed it was written by Ian Fleming and produced by Albert Broccoli. Fascinating to see the little echoes of Bond in it I never caught before. A super gadget car. An eccentric inventor. A sexy blonde companion. A despotic Euro-villain. Classic stuff.

The little scenario I spun the other day about the iPad Enterprise may seem farfetched, but I still think it's plausible given a year or two. While the iPad is a fairly limited computing device, it probably has enough capability for 80% or so of routine business users. With a year or two of development, I can really imagine it getting a toehold in the workplace if Apple chooses to drive it that way.

However, when I posted that scenario -- pretty much verbatim as below -- on a Cnet forum, it triggered a flood of wonderfully irked responses. Some were simply dismissive, some lambasted my ignorance about the current state of server-side software management, but all we firmly convinced that neither the iPad nor anything Apple could ever make a dent in Fortress Microsoft's office stronghold.

Eh. Maybe. Maybe not. I really do think simpler computing devices that integrate better into everyday life are the wave of the future. Sure, there will always be a place for physical keyboards and extra drives and large monitors, but the advantages of a truly portable, more-or-less fully functional computer that you can interact with naturally in multiple settings are too great to be ignored. I understand the paranoia of IT guys, scared that Apple's techno-sex appeal might woo users from the ol' beige mare that pulls their gravy train. Nobody likes to see a big dog in a turtle neck sniffing around their lunch.

The other night, my 6.5 daughter starts crying for help in her room. I go in and she's sitting up in bed, all upset. I ask her if she had a nightmare.

"Uh-huh," she sniffles. "They picked me up and carried my up a mountain and were going to throw me in a volcano!"

Here's a bee that's been in my bonnet for the past 48 hours or so: with the announcement of the impending (people forget, it's not actually available yet) iPad, Apple also unveiled their vision to sell ebooks: the iBook store. OK. A bit surprising because there are so many other bookseller apps already available for the iPhone (Kindle, B&N, Stanza, eReader) it seems a waste of their energy, but what the hey.

The thing that gets me is that if the mock-up of the Apple's iBooks interface is stunningly similar to the Classics book app. Classics was launched on the App Store over a year-and-a-half ago, was one of the earliest multi-book apps, and is widely regarded as the best designed -- at least in terms of graphical interface. Classics redefined user expectation of what the experience of reading a book on a 3-inch screen could be. It was even featured on an iPhone commercial, so obviously Apple marketers recognized its design impact quite a while ago.

For them to have simply lifted the look and feel of Classics without direct acknowledgment is very bad form. It's not coincidence or great-minds-thinking-alike or anything like that. It's Apple making a deliberate attempt to capitalize on the success of Classics, pure and simple.

For a huge company that puts such a premium on design innovation, Apple needs to be called on the carpet for this.

You start at a new job, and instead of a computer, they hand you an iPad. That iPad is tied to the company network -- getting all of its applications, data, web/e-mail access streamed to it from a secure wireless server managed by the IT department. On your desk, you have a keyboard and mouse you can plug into your iPad when sitting. Otherwise, you can pick it up, take it to meetings, use it as you like anywhere within Wifi or 3G range.

If you need new software (updated Word processing or Spreadsheet application), it's streamed directly to your iPad. No more IT guy running around with a CD to perform upgrades. No constant Windows Service Pack nonsense or virus definition updates. If you drop or lose your iPad, no big deal. It's lot cheaper than a desktop or laptop computer, and all the company's data and software is always hosted on the server... not the device. The iPad is a secure, mobile, wirelessly tethered computer perfect for a business user's daily needs. And, people love using it because it's cool and simple.

Imagine that. Imagine Apple FINALLY getting what it never had before: a real, business enterprise-level category killer. All from this thing that, at first glance, looks like a gigantic iPod Touch.

Just finished a book called The Godmakers by Dune author Frank Herbert. It was a slim little sci-fi novel published in 1972, but based upon several short stories Herbert published in the late 50's. Dune, his career-defining masterwork, was published in 1965.

The Godmakers wasn't a great novel. Well-written enough, but a bit disjointed with significant gaps -- not surprising since it was obviously force-fit together to capitalize on Dune's success. Still, it was pretty interesting as a glimpse into the mind of a writer percolating ideas for a much more comprehensive work. Herbert wrote six Dune books (I've read five) and all the major themes that run through them are toyed with in The Godmakers. A galactic society of factious planets bearing the cautionary scars of a great war. A government with a secretive controlling agenda, and an even more secretive matrilineal subculture indirectly manipulating politics. The convergence of technology and paranormal power, and the emergence of a superbeing with perception beyond time and space. All those things in the mix of the 150 pages of The Godmakers are writ large in the fat volumes of the Dune series.

Always interesting to consider an artist's body of work, particularly one as renowned as Frank Herbert for revolutionary imaginings, and trace the arc that led them to their most famous creations. Things rarely spring fully formed from anyone's forehead, despite how it can seem at first glance.

Rented District 9 over the weekend. I couldn't help but make some mental comparisons between it and Avatar. A few quick points:

However, despite those big plot similarities, the two films couldn't be more different. If Avatar is a prettified allegory of historic clashes between imperial powers and indigenous populations, District 9 is a brutal exposé of modern ethnic cleansing. Avatar shows an exquisitely detailed imaginary world unlike anything we've ever seen. District 9 realistically depicts impoverished segregated slums that we like to pretend don't exist. Avatar clearly drives your sympathies toward the beautiful, noble-savage aliens who are violated by unjust human incursion. District 9 presents an unsolvable moral quandary that taints everyone it touches and, in the end, just surviving is the closest any can get to victory.

District 9 was definitely the most interesting sci-fi movie I've seen this year. It's fascinating, depressing, thrilling, repulsive, sad and even uplifting in some moments. It is not for the faint of heart or flat of head, but if you don't mind your brains and viscera jolted a bit, it's worth seeing.

The whole family (me, wife, two kids) usually attend 10:30 Sunday Mass (Catholic), with a "Children's Liturgy" where they take kids from kindergarten to 4th grade downstairs to read them the gospel in more palatable way. However, when they bring the kids back in, during the offertory (i.e., money baskets), my 9-year old son comes in sobbing. The teacher -- young gal, mid-20's -- comes up to me and stage-whispers: "I just wanted to tell you that your son used obscenity and profanity during the lesson and we do not tolerate such language, especially in church."

Oh, shit, I'm thinking. What did the little bastard say? He's heard 'em all (both the wife and I are frequent blurters of colorful expressions), so no telling what might have spilled from his mouth if he was feeling onery, as he often is at church. "What exactly did he say," I had to ask. She replied: "We were talking about the various groups that had conquered the Israelites over the years. I mentioned the Romans and asked the class what they thought the rules they imposed on the Israelites were like. And your son said, 'They sucked.'"

She must have perceived the flash of "That's it?" in my face, because she continued: "I don't know how you feel about that, but we believe it's totally unacceptable, especially in church."

I thanked her for telling me and said I'd speak to him, and off she went. I leaned over to my son, tears still streaming down his face, and said: "You know better than to say something like that in church. You're not in trouble, but please remember to be more careful." He seemed quite relieved. Usually, if he acts up in church, I snarl the direst of threats in his ear, so he was probably pretty surprised by my mellow tone.

OK. I get that you can't have a kid saying "sucks" in Sunday school class. And I suppose it's not unreasonable for a teacher to want to notify a parent of such an infraction... but seriously, how does a 9-year-old boy saying "sucks" qualify as "obscenity and profanity?" -- except, of course, in this schoolmarm's Freudian awareness of its etymological connection to felatio... an awareness he certainly doesn't have. I didn't even ask why he said it. My assumption was because he was being a wiseass, going for a shock-value laugh -- but that may not be. He simply may think it's a common colloquialism that is not particularly offensive (and he would be right).

In any case, I'm not too upset with him. Mostly, the incident amused me -- though, the more I think about it, the more qualms I have with the priggish little girlie they put in charge of doling out my kids' weekly spoonful of Biblical pablum. Methinks this one is long on self-righteousness and short on perspective, a common bit of myopia among chuchy types new to their volunteerist orders and giddy on the ambient vapors of sacramental wine, as it were. I'll have to keep a sharper eye on these moonlighting lunch ladies.

A work colleague -- someone I've known for at least 15 years and worked with directly many times -- died today. Went into the hospital just before Christmast with ovarian cander... never came out. She was under 60.

I not sure what that brings the total to of people I have known through work who died relatively young. Must be close to 15 in my 20-odd years in the workforce. Mostly cancer. A couple heart attacks. A few AIDS or mystery illness. Several accidents. And these are just the ones I know about. There certainly must be many others from my extended circle of one-time associates.

The first few shocked me. The next wave saddened me. In more recent years, they worried me (in the sense of they seemed to be getting closer and closer to me in age and background). Now, I just shake my head in dismay. Oh, I feel saddness and mourn those I considered friends to any degree, to be sure -- but for the most part, I have this "There goes another one" resignation that just feels like weariness.

Here's a little book -- presented to me as folded pages, showed here in comic-strip format -- made by my 6.5 year-old daughter. Her spelling is atrocious, but overall I think it's adorable. I realize that I've spent so much time recording my son's history in this blog that I've slighted her a bit. Here's to starting to rectify that.

This little iPhone application, created by a two-man team from California, claims to be the only paid-for app to have reached 2 million downloads. That number may be inflated, since Apple counts each time a customer downloads an update to the app as a "download". Pocket God has been updated 28 times, so if you divide by that, you still get at least 71,000 units sold (though it's probably much higher) at 99 cents each. Apple's cut is 15% off the list price.

So, the minimum these two guys have made on this single game in one year is $30,000 a piece. Not bad. Not quite a living wage in California, but not a bad start.

With large disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, people often feel moved to donate to charities. Making donations online via credit card is usually the most expedient way (though this texting thing may supplant that at low levels).

However, credit card companies can potentially make quite a bit of money from this in the form of interest. What if credit cards EXCLUDED amounts donated to approved charities from the cardholder's interest-accruing balance? For example, if you have a $2000 balance on your Visa and you donate $100 to the Red Cross, that $100 is not added to the $2000 when your monthly interest is calculated. Any amount given to an approved charity (credit cards and banks could publish the lists on their websites) is permanently excluded from interest calculations.

"Corporate Citizenship" is a hip buzzword lately -- and credit cards have gotten lots of bad press recently for jacking up interest rates in the current financial crisis. This seems to me an easy way they could support philanthropy and get some much-needed good press right about now.

What do you think? Do any credit cards do anything like this now (other than Amex, with its pay-in-full policy)? Any ideas on how to lobby credit card companies to adopt such a policy?

Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. As anybody who's followed this at all knows, that spoils the Democrats 60-40 super-majority in the Senate, which all but guarantees they'll be unable to pass the Health Reform Bill against unified Republican opposition.

Doesn't surprise me too much. Health care reform has steadily lost ground in the court of public opinion. In fact, Brown -- a political nobody in Massachusetts until a few months ago -- campaigned pretty much solely on the promise he'd be the "41st Senator" enabling the GOP to stop the health bill. Personally, the bills in both the Senate and House have become so diluted they hardly seem like "reform" to me and more like "tweaking." Bottom line is you're not going to cover millions of uninsured without a public option. Take that away, you've got a collection of regulatory quibbles.

Looks like that requisite bottom 15% will continue to fall through the cracks, because Republicans hate them and Democrats are too incompetent to help them. Thus the status quo is preserved.

With Haiti so occupying the news and my consciousness recently, it took me a couple days to catch up on this one. Last week, someone hacked into some of Google's servers in China, apparently trying to get into e-mail accounts of known dissidents. Google concluded (based on exactly what evidence, I'm not sure... but I suspect they can back up the claim with ample technological forensics) that the Chinese government was behind it. If so, it's a blatant bit of spying and pretty bad business. In a fit of principle, Google decided to stop censoring its search results in China -- a reversal of a controversial concession they made a few years ago (e.g., search for "Tiananmen Square" or "Falun Gong" or "The Great Leap Forward" on Google China and it showed results mainly from government-approved sites).

Essentially, Google threw down the gauntlet to the Chinese government, daring them to take the next move in a highly visible, international chess game. Sadly, some reports say Google tried to talk other U.S. firms into taking a similar stand, but none would. (These reports never said who those firms were, but I can sure see Microsoft and Apple whistling and looking away on this one.) As cool as this might be, it strikes me as hollow grandstanding. Google will not pull out of China for the same reasons it initially censored its search results, which is the same reason every Western institution -- including the U.S. government -- will continue to do business with China regardless of its political and humanitarian misdeeds:

China is the largest growth market on the planet. Period. Doesn't matter what you're making, selling, buying or borrowing, China is the place where any business with an eye toward global economic expansion has to go now.

I give Google's little publicity stunt of principle six months before its gone like it never existed (like hundreds of thousands of Chinese dissidents).

Watched the last half hour or so of the Golden Globes tonight. I didn't hear anybody say a word about the situation in Haiti -- though my wife told me it was mentioned eloquently several times early in evening. I have noticed there's a definite quota system about how often unpleasant real world events can be mentioned on L.A.-L.A.-land award shows. Two, three times, early on, max. More than that -- or if it's done late in the show by big winners -- it's considered distasteful.

Rich Hollywood liberals are the poster-child pariahs of conservative pundits, as despised by that demographic as the media moguls of the Religious Right are hated by left-leaners. I have to say, I find it hard to disagree. When some pampered, spoiled, bad-tempered, middle-aged brat of an actor starts pontificating about the social ill that's trendy at the moment, it does annoy me, even if I might, in principle, agree with the essence of the message. Yes. We should assist with Haitian relief efforts. And efforts to rebuild New Orleans. And call international attention to genocide in Darfur. And help the families of 9/11 victims. And support our troops in foreign wars. And advocate for the rights and sovereignty of local populations affected by those wars. And care about gay rights and AIDS and cancer and racism and native American rights and national poverty and international injustice and global warming and health care and so on and so on and so on. I just find it tiresome how celebrities take up and move on from these cause célèbres like the yearly fashions.

I suppose it's all just about bully pulpits and the issue that captures the imagination of a moment. Lord knows if someone turned a camera on me and gave me 90 seconds to talk to a billion people, I'd zero in on something I thought was wrong with the world and what should be done to fix it. And you'd probably think me pretentious and preachy, and you'd be right. Doesn't mean I'd be wrong. Just annoying. I guess the question is: does it do your cause good or ill to annoy people about it? We'll have to check the Text-to-Haiti donation figures tomorrow to see.

The scope and scale of the quake in Haiti has me rather shaken. The idea of hundreds of thousands of desperate survivors, with a rivalling number of dead bodies, all packed into about 100 square miles of the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere that's had most of its infrastructure destroyed... well, that's simply worse than anything I can imagine. And I can imagine quite a bit.

While there's not a shred of good I can see coming out of this, I believe there is real spiritual value in being reminded how fortunate one is and how dire things might be. Modest though my situation is by some standards, it is paradise compared to what others endure. The difference between me and them is pure luck. Where I was born and the opportunities afforded me are no reflection on the content of my character. And if I've applied my efforts and talent to exploiting those opportunities, I am mistaken if I take any success I have had as a measure of deservedness.

No. At the root of it, it's all just plain luck. Luck that my home is intact and my family alive and my body healthy and my job secure (so far). No matter how prudent or prepared we think we are, misfortune can wipe away our best laid schemes at a stroke. It's easy to forget that, to feel safe when you've skirted by for a while without major misfortune. Haiti reminds us that the possibility of abject disaster is real, even if we've lost out ability to imagine it.

Over the last two days, the earthquake in Haiti has dominated the news. The scale of the devastation combined with the poverty and infrastructure problems of Haiti has makings of an astounding human tragedy. Not that one scorekeeps in a such a fashion, but dramatically worse than Katrina for example, and in many ways even the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The concentration of so many dead, wounded, starving, and homeless in such a small and chaotic area is truly horrific.

Relief organizations have gotten record donations in the last 48 hours, and rightly so. Some people may roll their eyes a bit at the charity bandwagonning going on here, but I think it's right and proper. If it suddenly seems hip or fashionable or trendy to donate to some worthy cause, I say that's all for the good. If you've never thought much about Haiti before yet send a check because everyone else is, that's fine with me. And if a bloated, drug-addled, narcissistic fuckface like Rush Limbaugh wants to call you a hypocrite for that, that's his detestable business.

The people of Haiti don't really care what motivates to you give a little money to help bring them urgently needed food, water, medical supplies, equipment, and volunteers. They don't care if you think there are worthy causes elsewhere but feel guilted into giving a little money to theirs. They don't even care if you believe disorganization and corruption will take a bite out of that little money you're sending their way. Just give that little money, and to hell with your "right thing/wrong reason" quibbles.

I'm enjoying the hubub over a quotation, reported in a new book, that has Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stating in 2008 that among Barack Obama's political assets are that he's "light-skinned" and speaks with "no Negro dialect." Feigned outrage from the usual suspects and calls for his resignation aside, I'm left to ponder what the big deal is.

You're telling me -- Fox News, African-American Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, and voices from every corner of the Right -- that you disagree with the essence of Reid's off-handed, private remark made nearly two years ago? You think he's totally off-base, racist, and unfit for office because he noticed (as has every political strategist, armchair commentator, and barbershop pundit) that a significant aspect of Obama's populist appeal across racial lines is his moderate complexion and mid-Atlantic accent?

No, that's not it. It's that word you object to! That ugly, hateful word "Negro" -- once considered a genteel term for Americans of African descent until, along with "Colored," it fell out of favor because of its association with segregation (you know, that conservative policy Trent Lott viewed nostalgically) and was supplanted by the much, much more accurate and respectful descriptor "Black." Reid used the other "N" word! Lynch him! (with political due process, of course).

Obviously, this is just the political party on the outs grasping at a straw of chance to undermine the party currently on top. With mid-term elections approaching and health care legislation they're desperate to derail, of course Republicans are looking for any chink in the Democrats armor (which ain't hard to find!). I don't really fault them for it. Democrats do the same when it's to their advantage. I guess I just got so dazzled by the surface hypocrisy that I couldn't see the deeper strategy. Silly of me.

After pre-screening Robot Chicken Star Wars and deciding some of the gags were a bit too suggestive for my 9-year-old son, I went ahead like a doofus and showed him a clip from it on starwars.com. When I clicked on it, I thought it was a sketch featuring two giant space slugs with East Ender accents ordering millions of tons of Chinese delivery as a consolation after not catching the Millenium Falcon. However, it turned out to be a bit with George W. Bush finding out he has hidden Jedi powers. His first order of business is to mind-control Barbara into agreeing to a threesome with Condi. They don't show anything, but you hear him say it.

Of course, the boy had to know what a threesome was. I just told him it was "a grown-up joke." Right. Like a smart-ass 9-year-old spawned of my loins would leave it at that. After asking every five minutes for two hours, I figured I had to give him something better. So, I said "It's when a man goes on a date with two women." I explained that his wife would be jealous so that's why he had to hypnotize her first. Then I strongly cautioned him that it was considered "a rude word" so don't ever say it at school or in front of grown-ups.

Best I could do, in the circumstance. Another gaffe that will come back to haunt me, I'm sure.

So my 9-year-old son has heard of the Robot Chicken and Family Guy parodies of Star Wars. He found trailers for both of them on my iPod (gotta pay more attention to freebies I download) and kept saying he wanted to see them. Indulgent as I am about such things, I nonetheless figured both required pre-screening. I ordered some used DVDs ($6 each on Amazon Marketplace) and watched them.

The verdict? Inappropriate for his age. Robot Chicken, only a little bit. Family Guy, way over the line. I'm not a big Family Guy fan, generally; it's got lots of silliness and shock value, but often falls short on wit.

Sorry, son, but I'm putting both these away somewhere you can surreptitiously find them when you're PG-13.

For some years now, I've seen my function in the greater practical scheme of things as a cog in the machinery of the economy. I get money from here and I give it there. I get a paycheck and it goes to a mortgage company and supermarkets and a cable provider and a phone company and department stores and gas and electric and property taxes and medical expenses and insurance and kid activities and diners and so on and so on and so on.

Since I've accepted this, it's made things easier. I've lost some of the desperate sense that I'm running on treadmill for dear life. I know I am, but now I know it's the status quo. Everyone is. Row after row of us like hamsters. If we stop running, we get hurled back and take out others, so we run and run and run and run. And, if things go according to plan, we get to step off by the time we're 70.

Sometimes, though, it all seems so pointless and daunting. It's not the working part I mind. Actually, what I have to do on a daily basis doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is the oppressive sense that I have to do it. I have to keep feeding the machine, keep shoveling X amount of money into the furnace, keep running and running. Sometimes, I'd just like to stop for a while.

Today was a Help the Economy Day. That's how I think of a day where I seem to just buy a lot of non-necessary things. Here's the score:

So that's $135 on frivolous/unnecessary stuff... not to mention recent Christmas spend and other expenses related to the boy's birthday. I've always been cheap, but lately -- especially with the current economic pinch -- I've reached a point where spending on anything other than food, mortgage, or utilities provokes massive anxiety. The coping strategy I've come up with is to keep reminding myself that I'm helping the economy with a little consumer money. Personally, I think that's crap. Personally, I believe saving rather than spending is key to improving the long-term economic health of this nation, and reducing rampant over-consumption is critical to saving its industry, environment, and -- dare I say -- soul.

But, then I realize I work for a company that sells stuff I need people to keep buying. And all those people sell things as well. Basically, we all have to keep buying each other's crap to keep the machine running, regardless of need or debt. You could argue that's the way an economy works, but it's gotten out of control. The current economic woes are the result of that cycle writ large, of the massive, institutionalization of borrowing and spending rather than saving and producing.

So, if I helped the economy today, it was as a co-dependent, enabling its continued pathology. Good going, me.

Some cable channel has been running all the Rocky movies recently so I've caught bits and pieces of them here and there. Growing up outside Philadelphia in the 70's, Rocky was a major thing in our household, but some of the films are so bad (Rocky V is truly laughable) that my overall impression of the franchise is pretty negative.

However, just tonight, I watched the last third or so of the original. I'd forgotten how good that original was. Some of it -- showcasing dilapidated Philly rowhomes and loudmouthed locals -- is so dead-on accurate that it's almost painful for me to watch, having had my share of experience in those environs. And the Rocky character, who pours everything he has into that one fight, not to win but just to make a decent showing ("I ain't even in the guy's league. All I want to do is go the distance.") is a pretty compelling bit of drama to anyone who's ever honestly faced the vast, vast statistical likelihood that they will, as best, be a mediocrity at any endeavor they put their hand to.

A few days ago, I caught most of Rocky Balboa, the sixth in the series, shot when Stallone was about 60. That movie was an exact parallel of the original, only now Rocky's over the hill and wants to prove to himself he can rise to one last challenge... not to win, but just to prevail. Obviously, less fresh and compelling than the first, but not a bad capper to the series. After Rocky V, I bet Stallone was glad to redeem the franchise he launched (and that launched him) from jokesville.

I've finally figured out what Sarah Palin is: the ultimate reality show contestant.

All her life, she's had her eye on that Fame Monster and, when it came within her grasp, she grabbed and held on masterfully. Accomplishment. Acumen. Public service. Baggage to be discarded when it weighs you down on the ceaseless quest to keep the fickle public's interest. In a way, I admire her. The same way I admire Madonna and Lady Gaga. Ms. P truly belongs in that company.

Interesting to think that after decades of serving his country with great distinction -- both in the military and highest ranks of government -- the single enduring legacy of John McCain will most likely be that he launched that dippy broad to national prominence.

Had to drive from New York to Boston and back for work. I've made this drive a few times in the last couple years, so it's starting to get pretty familiar. One interesting aspect of it for me is listening to the radio. Usually, I hardly drive at all during a given week, and I never listen to the radio anywhere but in a car.

I'm a perpetual seeker during that 4-hour drive. I just hit the Seek button constantly -- rarely even listening to a song all the way through. If I like the song, it gets a minute or two, then on to the next. FM 86 to 108 then back round the horn again. For four hours. It's just my way of keeping myself entertained.

I can tell where I am in the drive by the stations. Near New York City, you've got lots of salsa and rap... some talk, jazz, and a couple classic rock or pop. In Southern Connecticut, you lose the Spanish and pick up more pop/top 40 and rock. Fair bit of talk, particularly Christian stuff. Mid-Connecticut, more classic rock, almost no salsa or rap, and a surprising number of country stations. As you continue north to Massachusetts, pop and classic rock stations grow until, by the time you're in the Boston area, they dominate the airwaves. The playlists seem pretty consistent, too. I feel like I've heard Fergie's "Big Girl's Don't Cry" and John Mayer's "No Such Thing" on these trips way more than random statistical likelihood would support.

Of course, there's always one classical, one jazz, and at least one talk station at any point on the trip. You know what's missing? Oldies. I'm talking 50's and 60's Doo-Wop/Motown/Elvis-type stuff. Maybe that's too old now, and 70's and 80's are the oldest viable oldies. Odd to realize my childhood music legitimately qualifies for the oldie category. What's that say about what I qualify as?

Hey, I just saw another web ad with this bizzaro Jesus-or-Terrorist stock photo guy -- only this one had something to do with getting a new mortgage, rather than a Pell Grant. Same primitive-looking text layout, with just this guy's face stuck inexplicably in the middle of the ad.

Interestingly, the gist of the ad was something to the effect of "nine out of ten mortgage holders are paying too much," but instead of writing out "nine out of ten," they displayed 9/10 in conspicuous large type near the dude's photo.

Am I nuts, or is putting a big 9/10 near this picture deliberately meant to evoke 9/11 in a subtle, corner-of-your-eye way? Call me crazy, but I think this is a pretty slick attention-getting advertising trick.

Came across an op-ed on CNN.com by a commercial airline pilot who was in the air during the attempted bombing on Christmas Day. He says that pilots received no immediate notice of the event -- an unforgivable lapse given the lessons of 9/11 -- and only found out about it six hours afterward upon checking CNN on his iPhone.

The pilot came down pretty hard on "the government" -- mainly in the guise of the TSA -- for failure to follow notification procedures, and a slew of comment posters, mostly right-leaners far as I could tell, joined the chorus of condemnation. While I would not argue the TSA, FAA, or "government" in general is blameless here, as with 9/11, I look to another group for some accountability. Here's my posted comment:

To indulge in the blame game for minute: Who's responsible for the failure to notify airline pilots about the attempted Christmas day bombing?

I say the airlines.

You know, those huge corporations (bailed out with taxpayer money) who sequentially lost control of four separate planes to less than two dozen fanatics eight years ago. If a news service was able to disseminate timely info, why couldn't the commercial entities with the most to lose? (Perhaps because taxpayer bailed-out insurers help insulate them from the loss? Just a thought.)

Conservatives love to argue that the private sector is the best force to guide public policy, yet they rail against the government's failure to control industry whenever industry screws up. Hey all you free-market advocates, want safer skies? Don't write your congressman. Stop buying airline tickets. Capitalism vincit omina!

Jesus? Charles Manson? Osama Bin Laden? An intellectual? A slacker? An artist? A criminal? A rock star? A redneck?

Strikes me there's something very archetypal and polarizing about this face. He's Rorshach-esqe in the way what you see in him says something about who you are.

Who is he? No idea. Just a face from a web banner ad. The ad was for some company claiming to help you get a Pell Grant for educational purposes if you make less than $45k a year. What fascinated me about this was why they picked this guy. A young woman. A soldier. A middle-aged mom. A whole slew of other images would seem more appropriate for said ad, yet they picked this guy. Someone in the agency knew this familiar-oddball face draws more attention than a forgettably attractive one.

Every year, I'm always a little shocked and sad when I realize Christmas is over. Yes, technically, I know the traditional Twelve Days goes to the Epiphany on January 6, but after New Year's Day, all festivities seem utterly passed. They seem to conclude just once I begin to enjoy them.

The sad fact is there's so much build up, so much pressure and work to prepare for the holidays, that I find it hard to enjoy the anticipation like I did as a kid (pretty common complaint, I'm sure). When the holidays arrive, there's so much chaos that I find it hard to relax and enjoy them in progress. And, once they're gone, I feel this let down and anxiety to get back to work for all the things that backed up over the holiday slacking So, basically, I don't feel like I get to enjoy any of it.

There are many reasons for this and, mostly, have to do with me and my personality -- but still, I can blame our culture a bit. Aside from the prevailing economic dark shadows of our time, which seems to leech some of the color from everything lately, retail commercialism drives a month-long pre-Christmas day buying frenzy then discards all semblance of holiday spirit the day after. If you need proof, just check out the December 26 Valentine's heart displays in your local Hallmark.

So, once again, the Christmas bubble pops and all that's left is to box up the tree and lights and get back to the grind. Obviously, that's the nature of holidays -- they come, they go, they come back next year -- but I feel like there should be something more to it. What that might be, exactly, I have no idea.

Went bowling today for the first time in maybe 15 years. I actually kind of enjoyed it, though it's a lot harder in real life than on the Wii. Even with the gutter gaurds up, I bowled two games and didn't break 100. I typically score over 200 on the Wii. Makes me wonder about the value of all those hours pilots spends in flight simulators.

The kids seemed to enjoy it, too. It's tough to find active activities for them in the winter. They've gotten too big for McDonald's or Burger King indoor playgrounds (my sanity saver from winters past), so this bowling thing may be a reasonable weekend distraction sometimes. Expensive,though. $5.00 a person a game, plus shoe rental. Two games ran me almost $40. Gotta be better deals I can ferret out.

Just for fun, I'm going to see if I can do daily blog entries for all of 2010. See how long this lasts.

In the last few days, the topic most on my mind is the whole racial profiling debate stirred up in the media by the underwear bomber. The general outrage over the screening failures that allowed him on the plane quickly gave rise to some pretty specific arguments -- some coming from actual elected officials -- for the value of racial profiling.

First off, I always find coulda-shoulda-woulda after-the-fact Monday-morning-quarterbacking very tempting but rarely productive. Still, it is valid enough to dissect an undesirable event to figure out how to prevent future occurrences. Like the Dark Side of the Force, racial profiling gets sold as the quick and easy path by folks claiming to be concerned only with security. However, the alpha and omega of racial profiling is always racism, pure and simple.

Case in point: the kid involved in this incident is clearly black to Americans (and, of course, I mean white Christian Americans here, as they're the ones most agitating for racial profiling). Said Americans aren't too good with ethnic and cultural subtlties, but we have become convinced that Arab Muslims are trouble -- a conclusion not without some justification (though, I note here that people can always justifiy their racism and the most strident are frequently those with the most ostensibly rational arguments). Problem is we're not too sure what Arabs look like (we couldn't tell a Moroccan from a Pakistani if our lives depended on it), and we're even less clear on Muslims (we don't grasp that there are millions of European and Asians Muslims) -- but we can spot an African, which makes the profiling much easier to deal with. Besides, keeping a suspicious eye on black folks is something we're used to in America.

Aside from the obvious practical argument against slanting screening for terrorists toward a certain racial profile (i.e., terrorists can seek recruits outside the profile), the old-fashioned -- some might argue, outdated, in this instance -- notion of justice still seems the strongest counterpoint to me. Put bluntly, it's unjust to hold an individual accountable for crimes, real or perceived, committed by others from a group they belong to. Heck, the root of all recent terrorist attacks against Americans are the result of them profiling us, though by citizenship rather than ethnicity. It's an approach of the enemy we categorically deem reprehensible, yet consider adopting when we think it might be expedient. That just don't sit right with me. It's surrendering the moral high ground, and unlikely to help much in the long run. After all, what are we going to do when a white guy blows up something? (Based on historic examples, not a whole lot.)

But there's something else that bothers me. As compared to torture, pre-emptive war, and genocide -- all things put forth at one time or another as justifiable for homeland defense -- racial profiling is something that can seem pretty innocuous. We're not hurting anybody; we're just watching them more carefully to protect ourselves. Eh. Maybe true, but the dangerous extensibility of that argument is what really worries me. Who watches the watchers when they start to slide on the slippery slope between vigilance and prejudice, between caution and oppression. You can decide to pull the Nigerian Muslim kid with documented terrorist sympathies out of line easily enough. What about the half-Latino, half African-American native-born U.S. citizen who converted to Islam and Googled "chemical explosives" last week? No doubt many think he should be on a watchlist. How about a Middle East Studies professor who watches Al-Jazeera in Arabic? Yep. Him, too. Better safe than sorry. Some guy who dashes off a blog entry against racial profiling? Obviously a potential threat as well.

Matt McHugh.com - Blog - January 2010

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