The below use of any gender-specific pronoun is not intended to exclude any other gender. I just haven’t figured out the right grammar for that sort of thing yet and I hate using “his/her” or some such ridiculous bit of constriction.
Welp, here we go again. With the addition of Messers. Cruz and Paul and presumably Ms. Clinton this weekend, the horse race that is our presidential election has begun. Frankly, this time around, there ain’t enough Motrin on the planet to soothe the headache that will likely result from all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over these next 19 months or so. As a preventative measure, I’m going to not listen to any of it, instead putting out my criteria publicly and whoever finds me first can have my vote.
Simple, right?
My vote’s easily had, ladies and gentlemen. Matters not to me whether you’re a D or an R or an L or an I or any other letter in the American English alphabet. Turn my criteria below into a checklist, check ‘em off, and I’m yours for the asking. No catch. No fine print. You give me what I want and I’ll give you want you want – my vote. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
So here in no particular order, here are the things I want in a presidential candidate before I’ll even consider voting for any one of them. My vote will go to the candidate who:
Possesses at least SOME charisma.
Is willing to change her mind or position when presented with new facts. (See what I did there?)
Has government or corporate executive experience. Check that. Has SUCCESSFUL government or corporate executive experience.
Demonstrates willingness and ability to build consensus.
Is reasonable.
Treats other candidates with respect. Bonus points if it actually compliments its competitors. (It rubs the lotion on its Super PAC.)
Puts Nation over party.
Ok, folks, now you know the rules. If you think you got what it takes, come and get it.
Full disclosure: I do not fluently speak any foreign language. I learned to speak tourist German and Spanish in my Army days, though I never was able to wrap my arms around French when I was living in Belgium. (Those darned French have a different word for EVERYTHING!) And no, I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night either.
Back when I lived in Los Angeles, everything seemed to be bilingual. Hearing foreign accents was a daily occurrence and it used to bug me because even back then I was hard of hearing. People with accents are often tougher for me to understand. (I suffer from CHS. Can’t Hear Shit.) But the use of languages other than English wasn’t off-putting to me at all.
Today I heard on the radio the remarks from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal regarding the assimilation of immigrants into the United States:
“It is my view that immigration can make a country stronger, or it can make a country weaker. It really depends on whether immigrants coming to your country are coming to join your culture, your mores, your laws, and become a part of your history. Or, are they coming to be set apart? Are they willing to assimilate? Do they have their own laws they want to establish? Do they fundamentally disagree with your political culture?”*
The subsequent discussion on the radio focused on the assimilation of immigrants into American culture and that such assimilation required the use of English. Required. Many local D.C. callers to the radio show were immigrants who celebrated their parents’ requirement to speak nothing but English. I get that. Learning English in the United States of America has a huge practical advantage over the alternative. It really does set one up for success.
Culture is entwined with language and I have said myself that you can’t fully understand a culture without knowing at least a little of the language. Having admitted that, I find myself thinking more and more that it’s not the be all and end all for everyday life in these here United States or anywhere else for that matter.
Hypothetically, if an immigrant embraces liberty, freedom, our representative system of government and loves this Nation just as much as I do, why is it so important that they NOT refer to us as “Estados Unidos” or “Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika?” Those words all describe the same thing. In one sense, it’s like “car” versus “automobile” or “feline” versus “cat.” Two expressions exist which describe the same concept.
Why do we accept those subtle variations in our own language yet are so intolerant of variations supplied by other languages? Isn’t it just other words for the same things?
Personally, I suppose I can sum this up by saying that I really don’t care how you talk to me as long as you treat me with respect and kindness. I totally get the practical aspects of communicating with me in English. If you want me to understand you, you will probably have to query me in English, but if you’re lucky, I may know the German or Spanish words. Or if you’re really lucky, you may stumble on the two Russian words I know. (I got a D in Russian in college — not my proudest moment.)
It’s not these practical aspects of language that perplex me. It’s the outright fear and indignance that a lot of Americans exhibit at the prospect of other languages creeping into the American culture.
So I’ll ask thusly: Why do Americans seem to fear language other than English? Should we? Can immigrants who assimilate every aspect of our culture except the use of every day English be considered truly assimilated? Does the inclusion of other languages diminish or augment American culture?
* My emphasis. I am neither endorsing Governor Jindal’s position nor do I oppose it. I am merely using it as a jump-off point for discussion. Now jump and discuss.
I’ve not written much lately. You know, life getting in the way and all that rot. I am a terribly undisciplined person writer and don’t always post here or anywhere else, for that matter. But I got this web site and I really should feed it more often. But I’m lazy.
For now, since I am far too lazy busy to write lengthy essays on topical issues and in the spirit of feeding this blog, here’s a list of winners and losers from relatively current events.
Kim Jong Un vs. Sony Pictures:
Winner by KO: Kim Jong Un. North Korea appears to have single handedly dealt a serious economic blow to a major U.S. corporation. The accepted definition of terrorism, ”the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims,” applies here. We as a Nation should respond accordingly.
(Sidebar: I’ll bet sales of “Team America: World Police” are going to skyrocket because of this. Therefore, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the only American winners in this transaction.)
Mid-term Elections: Republicans vs. Democrats:
Winner: No one. We still get the same guys for the most part. I long for a viable third party.
Kim Kardashian vs The Internet:
Winner: The Internet. She didn’t break the Internet. Kim’s butt is the broken one – it’s got a crack in it. (Hardy har har.)
(Sidebar: If you were expecting a picture here, you will be sorely disappointed.)
U.S.A. vs Cuba:
Winners: Everyone. We’re now a step closer (albeit a small one) to exporting American culture, commerce and freedom to Cubans. Besides, what was in place wasn’t working and after 50 years, it’s time to try something new.
Now, let’s sell those Cubans some DirecTV dishes!
Marvel vs. DC:
Winner: Marvel. While “Gotham” on the Fox network is terrific, Marvel has masterfully woven its characters into a rich fabric spanning movies and television. The finale of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” delivered a magnificent situation from which the Marvel universe will blossom even more. Well done, Marvel Studios.
Chloe Bennett as Skye
Loser: Paramount Pictures. They still can’t get “Star Trek” right. Trek is as rich of a property as Marvel with an established fan base. Why they keep screwing it up is beyond me.
NASA vs. ESA:
Winner: The edge goes to ESA for landing on a comet ten YEARS after launching the damned thing. Philae’s successful landing on Comet 67P/Churymov–Gerasimenko is the culmination of a monumental undertaking by the European Space Agency. Well done!
NASA, please don’t feel left out. You only missed by a hair’s breadth. I have always loved what you do. You contributed enormously to my childhood imagination so I’m automatically prejudiced. Orion’s first flight was a remarkable accomplishment and paves the way for the return of American manned space missions. But dude, ten years? Man, that’s tough to top! (If that little explosion at Wallops hadn’t happened, you’d have had the edge. Just sayin’.)
Stay with me here, this is liable to get complicated.
My first instinct when it came to this subject was to pooh-pooh government regulation of what amounts to a private pipeline. The Internet, after all, is an electronic pipe that delivers information on demand and unbiased by location. In other words, you have access to the same information regardless of where you are on the network. (That’s the beauty of TCP/IP.)
Since an Internet service provider owns the broadband network infrastructure, they should be allowed to manage it and charge what the market will bear. Consumers will regulate the value and price of delivery through the usual dynamics of supply and demand.
Makes sense, right? Let’s look a little more closely.
Enter Comcast, for example. (And there are other examples. I’m picking on Comcast because I’m a former Comcast employee, sorta.)
Comcast and others have decided that they will prioritize the delivery of Internet traffic based on the information provider’s ability to pay. This means that an information provider can pay Comcast to move its information faster than a competitor. Plus, if I’m a high-volume information provider, I’m using up a whole lot more of Comcast’s bandwidth to deliver my information. Therefore, if I’m using more of Comcast’s resources to move my information, it should cost me more, right?
While this sorta makes sense in the context of a Netflix streaming service, or iTunes Movie delivery, when you consider the second and third order effects, this concerns me.
Comcast owns the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC and all of its entertainment and news operations. Let’s suppose hypothetically that Comcast decides that it will give top priority to Internet delivery of its NBC News products and relegate other news organizations to a lower priority. Comcast understandably wants to you to see their advertisements in their news products instead of those of their competition. That means that if you’re a Comcast subscriber, online access to NBC News products would be easier to find, more readily available, faster to download, featured in ads and otherwise presented to the consumer IN LIEU OF products from other news outlets.
Taken to the extreme, since Comcast owns NBC, they may make an economic decision to offer ONLY NBC News products on their network by routing all Internet searches for news and current events to NBC resources. This would have the effect of censoring all news and information from any other source but Comcast’s NBC News.
And Comcast isn’t the only one who would likely engage in such a scenario.
Time Warner, Cox, Verizon all would likely strike similar deals with information providers who would collectively decide what information gets priority on their networks and what gets relegated to the basement of Internet transfer speeds, ultimately limiting what your eyeballs can see.
Do you want your access to information limited in any way just because of the company you’ve chosen to deliver your Internet service? Do you want your Internet provider deciding what news source you’re likely to see?
I don’t.
I have no objections to the CONSUMER paying higher prices for using greater capacity. I have a problem with Internet service providers deciding for me whose information is more valuable. The value of any given piece of information is a decision that individuals should make for themselves.
If there were multiple broadband Internet service providers available nationwide, I’d not be too awfully worried about the issue as the marketplace would have multiple choices from which to choose information they want. But in most cases, there exists a duopoly or, as it is in my hometown, only a monopoly on broadband Internet service. In these communities, market forces can’t apply and if the ISP limits the delivery of certain kinds of information, what’s a consumer to do?
Since broadband Internet service in a given community is more often than not limited to one or two companies, it becomes more like a utility than not and should be regulated appropriately. No single company should have the power to limit news and information provided through their networks given the public’s reliance on it.
Internet service is no longer a luxury. It’s a must-have. Schools rely on it. We voters rely on it for the delivery of facts and opinion. In fact, broadband Internet service has become so important that it serves the public, and therefore the public interest.
Keep the information flowing to the public without bias, without limiting choices and ideas and without commercial interest censoring it.
I wrote this back in 2009 in response to all the “Where were you when 9/11 happened?” questions and recollections that were being circulated around the Internet. I’ve reposted it many times in the hope that I’ll continue to recall not just the horrific facts of that day’s events, but the feelings with which I associate it. To this day whenever I hear replays of the news broadcasts of that day, the feelings, anguish and anger can be nearly overwhelming.
Even though I wasn’t near any of the three places that were scarred forever by the acts of a few, 9/11/2001 changed my life in ways that I could not have imagined then and which I sometimes don’t believe even now. Regardless, I will never shake the feelings that 9/11 evokes in me nor do I ever want to. More importantly, I wish that all of us could share the unity, resolve and dedication to our nation and our common defense that we all felt in the days and weeks following that awful day in 2001.
Thanks for reading.
“So, do you think the Army’s going to call you up because of this?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
That was the big question my supervisor at the E! Channel asked me on 9/11. While I did eventually get called up, I’d gladly give up all the financial and professional gains which resulted if it had never happened. But that’s not what these words are going to be about.
I was awakened that morning by a phone call from my mother-in-law who told us in frantic, disjointed words that something bad was happening. As a native New Yorker, she was understandably shaken at learning that Manhattan was under attack. The message was related to me by my spouse at the time who slammed into the bedroom and shook me awake and said “Wake up! The Pentagon’s under attack!”
I got up, rushed to the TV in a groggy stupor and saw the story as it was unfolding, still in chaos. Information was rolling into news agencies willy-nilly and much of what was heard and reported was unconfirmed. I dressed and hurried to work in the Wilshire District in LA, near the La Brea Tar Pits. The streets of Los Angeles were relatively deserted – not empty as they were during the LA riots in 1992. But it was clear that people were staying home. Businesses closed for the day and many more operated on essential staff only. Which is why I was going to work.
When I arrived at E!, I could see that many of the national cable networks which shared our satellite space had either gone dark or were carrying coverage from one of the big three networks. It was at that moment that the enormity and the immediate practical impact of this event on this Nation became apparent. Even broadcast commerce stopped for a time – shopping networks were carrying round the clock news coverage. Sports channels and others had full-screen graphics up telling people to tune to a network broadcast and follow the news.
One of the positive things about working at a TV network with all measure of high-tech TV equipment is that we could monitor as many TV stations as we had monitors. And we had plenty. CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC all raced to get pictures and firsthand accounts of the unfolding tragedy on the air. I flipped back and forth from moment to moment and channel to channel trying to find the best pictures. No one had a lock on the best, so it was back and forth from channel to channel.
As for what I was doing in between times, E! was trying to decide whether to take coverage from a major news network or stay with the on-air schedule without regard to the situation. My job was to design on-screen graphics in support of either option. Ultimately, E! chose to stay with their own programming rather than switch to one of the majors. I will not debate that decision, but I will observe on my own behalf that I had no interest in entertainment fluff at that point, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else feeling differently.
From the moment it sank in just what was going on, my heart was heavy, but my fists clenched in preparation. When my terrific boss, Ken Mason, asked me if I was going to get called up, not only did I hope so, but I was hoping it would be within the hour. For the rest of the day, most of us sat in network control going about our business with about as much feeling as the machines supporting us. It was quiet and the sounds of our air signal were mixed with the sounds of the coverage coming from ancillary equipment racks where the carnage of the day was being replayed over and over.
I would be many months before I actually got called up and reported here to Washington, D.C. in January, 2002. I spent the next 71 months assigned to the Pentagon in various assignments, some 9/11 related and others not.
A year after the attacks, our office moved into the rebuilt section of the Pentagon and shortly thereafter, the small indoor memorial and chapel was opened. Whenever I thought I was being unfairly put upon, I’d stroll the 30 seconds down the E-ring to the 9/11 memorial and stand for a minute or two.
It gave me perspective in two profound ways. It made me recognize that getting picked on that day wasn’t really so bad, and that any one of these people whose biography and photo were in one of two books would give anything to be in my predicament. Alive. Within reach of those about whom they cared. And it humbled me. Standing there for only a moment made me remember why I was there and that I had better do the best job I could.
Eight years have passed since the attack on our Nation. Today, while driving into my civilian job, I listened to replays of the coverage from that day and remember what it felt like that day. How shocked and horrified. How angry. How resolute. I suspect that will never change. I suspect that I’ll always feel the intense mix of emotions on this day. And I’ll fight back the tears on this day just as I did on this day eight years ago.
For many, the feelings we experienced that day have already escaped us, relegating the horror of the day to a collection of historical facts, figures and stately memorials to those who perished. It is right that we recall the facts and honor those who were murdered that day. However, it is my wish that somehow the shock, horror, anger and resolution I felt – that most everyone felt that morning – stay with us and unite us as it did on 9/11 and in the shadows of that day.
Eight years hence, we find ourselves a divided Nation when in truth, there’s so very much more about us that is alike than those things which divide us.
I wish we weren’t so divided and I have no solution as to how to unite us. I just know that we have it in us. The days following September 11, 2001 were some of America’s finest.
Remember what that was like. Not just today on this horrific anniversary. But every day.
Welp, here we go again. With the addition of Messers. Cruz and Paul and presumably Ms. Clinton this weekend, the horse race that is our presidential election has begun. Frankly, this time around, there ain’t enough Motrin on the planet to soothe the headache that will likely result from all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over these next 19 months or so. As a preventative measure, I’m going to not listen to any of it, instead putting out my criteria publicly and whoever finds me first can have my vote.
My vote’s easily had, ladies and gentlemen. Matters not to me whether you’re a D or an R or an L or an I or any other letter in the American English alphabet. Turn my criteria below into a checklist, check ‘em off, and I’m yours for the asking. No catch. No fine print. You give me what I want and I’ll give you want you want – my vote. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
