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Early milestone

I've actually had a few hours in a row the past couple of days to write some fiction. That story I've been working on for what seems like forever now just broke 100 pages. So I guess I'm a bit more than a third of the way through. It's only taken four years to get this far, granted, but it's something.

When I was in the Crimea doing research last year I bought a bottle of honey vodka from a shop on the street in Simferopol where a lot of the action in the story takes place. When I finish the book, I get to drink the vodka. It's all about incentives.

Saddam

Listen, I know this is tilting at windmills, but I had really hoped they weren't going to execute Saddam. Personally, I've got a lot of conflicting emotions about it. I don't believe that the death penalty is a deterrent for any of the other dictators in the world, and morally I'd say I'm opposed to the death penalty as a concept.

I don't have any right to offer an opinion on Saddam, granted, because I wasn't there in Iraq. I wasn't directly touched by any of this, and I'm sure I'd feel different if I was an Iraqi Shiite who survived the uprising of '91 and the massacres that followed.

I do feel different about bin Laden- the man who attacked my city and killed three thousand of my people. Could I grant any clemency to him with an open heart? I don't think I could. I'm sure I'd feel different about the abstract morality of the death penalty if the case was about anyone who hurt someone I loved.

But besides my own lack of clear thinking or logical and moral consistency, I think the execution of Saddam is a bad idea because it's going to make it more difficult to deal with people who may be our enemies in the future. It's bad enough that we invaded Panama in the 80s to bring Noriega up on drug charges--hell of a miserable precedent that was. But what happens now that every head of state out there has reason to believe that their lives are literally in danger from the United States?

Saddam showed restraint in the first Gulf War by not using chemical weapons against the coalition forces or the Israeli population, and of course in the second Gulf War he didn't have any chemical or biological weapons. But let's say we take on Kim Jong Il in ten years. If he honestly believes--as he now has every reason to to--that his life is literally in danger, why should he show any restraint at all? What leverage will we possibly have to keep him from dropping one of his nukes on Seoul or Tokyo? (And in ten years he'll have missiles with enough range to hit Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle). What's he got to lose?

Is there any question why Iran and North Korea are pushing their nuclear and ballistic missile programs as hard as they can? These guys have every reason to fear a rope around their own necks unless they have a credible, devastating deterrent with which to strike the US.

This hanging doesn't make the world better and it sure as hell doesn't make it safer. I guess I can understand the need for revenge on the part of the Iraqi Shia, but I fear that the law of unintended consequences is going to express itself, hard.

And it won't come back for the Iraqi Shia, it's going to come back for us.

Agnew anagram

Heh, I was screwing around on Wikipedia after writing that Gerald Ford story, looking up the events around 1974 & 75, and I picked up this fun yet perverse tidbit:

The name of Spiro Agnew is an anagram for "Grow a penis."

Somebody should get working on what we can make of "Zbigniew Brzezinski"...

Gerald Ford

President Ford just died, and another public figure passes into history.

It's funny how memory works- I'd written a piece that talked about my first childhood memory being President Ford on TV talking about the OPEC oil embargo, but I just looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out that the oil embargo ended before Nixon resigned- so what I remember couldn't have happened.

I am sure I remember the embargo though, because I remember cars lined up for blocks in front of the gas stations after they started rationing fuel in New York.

I think I remember Nixon's resignation too, and I guess that could be a real primary memory even though it's a scene I've seen on TV probably 50 times since then. My hippie dad used to tell me that if I was a bad little boy, Richard Nixon would jump out from my closet at night and "get" me... I've been terrified of Republicans since. (It explains a hell of a lot about all the politically-flavored neuroses I've been wracked with as far back as I can remember. Thanks, Dad.)

I also remember my parents making wisecracks about how President Ford couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. So I guess that must have been after he'd tumbled down the stairs from the doorway of Air Force One on live TV. I remember that vividly, although again, it might have been something I'd seen on tape afterwards and now imagine it was something I'd seen live... I remember that Air Force One was an old converted 707, not the 747s they use today. Poor President Ford waved grandly to the crowd, took one step... and down he went. The secret service almost shat themselves.

I'd forgotten until the news coverage this week that Ford was never voted into the executive branch- he was appointed from the House minority leadership to replace Agnew as Vice President when Agnew resigned in disgrace, and then replaced Nixon when Nixon resigned in disgrace the next year.

On a side note, it's great to have time to indulge in a little political nostalgia here. I spent four days over the winter break not touching my work machine, and have spent the last week working from home. Getting nine or ten hours of sleep a night, which is a bloody miracle.

I wish it could stay like this. I'm not looking forward to everyone getting back in the office on Monday.

Turkmenbashi

I just read that President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan, also known as "Turkmenbashi" ('father of all Turkmen'), has died at age 66.

I'm a little sad, honestly. He was by most accounts a repressive and often-brutal dictator who imprisoned and tortured his political rivals or forced them into exile. But at the same time some of his most surreal gonzo excesses are not completely without charm.

For example, he renamed the month of April after his mother, so instead of saying "I'm going on vacation in April," you would say "I'm going on vacation in Glenda," (or whatever). He also renamed January, a planet in the Taurus constellation, and a local mountain after himself.

There's a huge gold leaf-covered statue of him in Ashgabat, the capital city, which stands on a motorized turntable so his face is always turned towards the sun, and if you wander off into the city park, the trees are wired with motion sensors and small, waterproof speakers, so you hear Niyazov's voice whispering words of wisdom to you as you pass by. I'm not making this up.

The news has been so godawfully depressing the past few years, and we've been forced to spend our attention on bad guys of truly unalloyed evil, murderers like bin Laden, al-Zarqawi and Mullah Omar. So I always thought President Niyazov provided some welcome comic releif, with his Elvis hair and his eccentricities. Kind of a cross between Mike Myers as Doctor Evil and Kramer from Seinfeld.

Alas, Turkmenbashi, we hardly knew ye.

Marissa diary part 2

Ok, so life really is incomprehensible...

About 4PM on Friday as I'm struggling to get the settings done on my
loaner computer, I finally check my messages on my work phone.
Astonishingly, a colleague leaves a message saying a guy called him
who had picked up my laptop from the freeway! Apprently the only card
in there was for my colleague - he said the guy would be calling me.

The very next message was from the man I now call, the Laptop Angel.
My pulse raced as I lept out of my chair with a whoop. Could it be
true!? Could there still be good-hearted people in this world?!
Could I really have accumulated such good karma!?

I called him, his name is Tony, and we made plans to meet the next
morning. Turns out he really had to investigate to track me down.
Maybe identity theft isn't that easy after all... As soon as I hung
up, I began running through the hallways hooting & hollering that I
was getting my laptop back. It felt like the return of my pet kitten.
I was simply giddy with relief & frankly, disbelief that it was
really happening!

One of my colleagues suggested I might get a date out of it. That's
one way of turning lemons into lemonade, I suppose...

I promptly cancelled the Craigslist ad I had placed.

The morning meeting didn't work out, so "Tony" said he'd drop the
laptop by my place. "Oh, shit. What can I offer him as a thank
you/reward?", I thought. Scrambling, for something meaningful but not
cheesy, I decided on a bottle of wine & a thank you card with $100
inside.

We met, and exchanged pleasentries. Frankly, he was damn cute! My
colleague knew her shit! I mentioned the get-together I was having
that night, and he said he might take me up on that...

A few hours later, my phone rings and "Tony" says my card was way too
nice & that he couldn't accept the money. We politely squabbled, and
finally I told him we'd have to continue the battle that night over a
glass of wine with my friends.

Believe it or not, he actually showed up.

At the party, "Tony" was very sure of himself, but not egotistical -
could carry a very good conversation - and was down right charming.
Not only that, I knew he was nice on top of it all because of the
laptop return. We jointly repeated the cooky story to all the late
arrivees. Many heads were shaken in disbelief, many laughs were
had...

As the night slipped from young to old, and empty wine bottles choked
the recycle bin, Tony gracefully bowed out. I gave him a hug & told
him not to be a stranger. A little while later, a female friend was
getting ready to leave & asked if Tony had left.

"Yeah, about 20 mintues ago. Why?", I said.

"He told me to give you this..." A crisp 100 dollar bill fluttered before me.

!?!?!?

Unbelievable.

A 10 minute debate ensued amongst the group on whether he did the
right thing, or should have taken the cash. I mean, how bloody _nice_
can one person be? Is there a limit? A breaking point where the
niceness spills over to insanity?

The consensus was that I should invite him to dinner to pay him back
properly. So, this afternoon I pulled on our common heritage (He =
Italian Catholic, Me = Polish Catholic), and left a message for him
saying the Catholic guilt would haunt me the rest of my life if I
didn't take him out to dinner or lunch.

*stutter*

Ok - I began to choke. The joke was getting awfully stretched. I
didn't want to seem too pushy or agressive. There really was no
further reason to meet. A reward was offered, and he graciously
declined.

I'm never going to call him again. It's done. The laptop has been
returned & is fully functional (I'm typing this message on it).

Bollocks. Again.

Marissa: The Motorcycle Diaries

Since I have f*ck all to say these days besides kvetching about work, I'll pass the mike over to Marissa in San Francisco, who can relate her own tale of recent bitterness and woe...

We had an all-day meeting today in our Sunnyvale office.

The meeting took forever, cramped in a tiny room w/ almost 50 of us. By the end, I was exhausted, and took a cat-nap in the lobby comfy chairs before mounting the Silver Bullet for the long rush-hour slog back to the city. Because there was so much traffic, I was lane splitting heavily & going a bit faster then I normally do on the bridge. Somewhere just after the airport, my laptop fell off my bike!

The strange part is my backpack stayed on! It was like a slippery piece of bologna between 2 slices of Wonderbread. It just squirted right out... (NEVER happened before, of course...)

I wasn't sure if the "ca-chunk" I heard behind me was a bump in the road or that something fell, so I slowed down and reached behind me to feel what was up. Sure enough, a kind soccer-mom navigating a gigantic SUV through the undulating sea of cars rolled down her window to tell me my laptop fell off.

"Go back!", she yelled.

I tried to go back and get it, but there was no shoulder & the cars started moving again. So, I went 3 times to the nearest exit, backtracked, then rode on the shoulder as best I could to look for it, all the while dodging bits of wood, dead animals, and soiled diapers while praying the broken glass didn't puncture my tires.

No dice - and I pissed off many motorists.

(The first time I took an exit too near, and bypassed the place where I thought it dropped. So I parked on the side of the road with my blinker and began to walk against the stop-and-go cars, headlights blindingly bouncing off my helmet visor. I van full of immigrant Mexican plumbers stopped and asked me what I was doing. When I told them, they said "You're risking your life!"

Oh, right.

I walked back to the bike, and exited again...)

Total travel time from Sunnyvale to SF: 3 hours. Straight. On the bike. It was no fun at all...

Bullocks.