READING:
Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant
Paul Clemens

This story – about the closing/taking apart of a large Detroit stamping press had such potential.

It could have looked – more deeply – at the people affected; it could have been a metaphor for the demise of industrial America; it could have woven the tale of, to some extent, the decline/end of unions and middle class existence.

Instead, is was just the story of the tearing apart of presses, told in a very non-linear fashion, all the while layers on top of a somewhat chronological progression.

Some good insights, but, dude, get an editor!

To be fair, this book would probably have meant more if I was from the Detroit area or was from a manufacturing background.

Still, I read the intro a couple of months ago and was intrigued: Very disappointing.

All books

This past Monday – June 13th – saw the first real Republican Presidential debate (it finally had most of the expected candidates). And it was, sadly, politics as usual:

• Michele Bachmann wants to eliminate the EPA, and she thinks that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, incest or if a mother’s life is in danger. ‘Cause, you know, “every sperm is sacred.” [quotation from Monty Python, not Bachmann]
• Mitt Romney finds it immoral to direct disaster-relief funds to, well, disaster areas without finding offsets to pay for this relief (because otherwise our kids will be paying for our christian character wasteful spending).
• Unlike Bachmann, Herman Cain (CEO of Godfather’s Pizza) has some use for federal government: He wants the FDA to inspect food. But at some other point he clarified his remarks on not having Muslim cabinet members: He said he said that because he was just thinking of those Muslims that want to kill us. Yeah Herman, and other folk’s irrational fear of blacks is just because they are thinking about the blacks that want to stick it to The Man. I’m sure you understand, Herman.
• Ron Paul basically wants the federal government to do just about nothing – to be fair to Paul, he seems the most consistent and non-pandering of the Republican bunch. He’s also seems more well-informed on matters on which he speaks.
• Newt Gingrich seems to think loyalty oaths are both meaningless and can uncover some bad guys. Let’s bring back HUAC!

OK, first debate, but, still: This entire pack has moved pretty far right. McCain touted cap-and-trade in 2008. Hell, he wouldn’t get past South Carolina today with that kind of attitude.

On the not-so-much politics as usual side of the coin, there was the small business of New York State’s Senate trying to pass a bill to make same-sex marriage legal.

To pass in the state senate (the measure is apparently more likely to pass in the state house’s other chamber, the Assembly), it needed some Republican votes. And, traditionally, same-sex marriage has been anathema for Republicans.

But then Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald stepped up and spoke his mind:

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing,” McDonald, 64, told reporters.

“You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.

“I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.”

— Read more: New York Daily News

Just awesome.

I’ve read snippets of what the iOS5 announcement means.

Basically, everything in the cloud (one disappointment to me: no streaming music. Huh.).

Google’s trying the same thing.

But Apple is relying on its apps on its own hardware; Google is betting on “all apps in the browser” approach.

You can argue both sides – Apple’s approach is betting on native apps; Google hopes the browser (on any platform) and Google Docs etc will render the traditional desktop obsolete.

Interesting arguments.

Notice how Microsoft is positioned in these arguments?

Not a factor (in the enterprise, yep; Mom and Pop, no).

Interesting.

Update 6/8: Cringely agrees with me about Microsoft’s continuing descent into irrelevance: iCloud’s real purpose: kill Windows

Update 6/9: The more I think about this – Apple’s whole product roll out and how it boxes in both Google and Microsoft (in different ways) – the more I think this is a huge freakin’ deal. As big as the iPhone, which changed that entire market (smartphones). A game changer.

WATCHING:
Messenger, The
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Ben Foster

I’m not even certain what this movie was meant to mean, but it moved me.

The movie was – at base – about the individuals (Harrelson/Foster) who notify the next of kin (NIK) about the death of their soldier son/husband/etc.

I don’t know; I’d rather be in Iraq being shot at than having to – day after day – deliver this news to the relatives of those who were shot at and not missed. And – of course – the relatives of soldiers who open the door and see the two officers…these relatives already know what the news is (but emotionally refuse to process same; completely understandable).

And the movie showed the cost on the messengers – this should require battle pay. Hard to watch at parts, and is was FICTION.

This is not the movie I expected; it still stuck with me. Harrelson, especially, is brilliant here.

It’s not an anti-war movie, but it does bring down to the human, day-to-day level, the cost of war. Powerful; complex.

All movies

Small roundup of some recent political news I found interesting.

Anthony Weiner’s self-immolation

After accusations of crotch-shot posting on Twitter, Weiner said he’d been hacked. Then that he wasn’t completely sure it was/wasn’t a picture of himself.

With the news that more pictures/details were about to emerge, Weiner held a painful press conference in which he said, basically:

• All the current accusations are true; the picture uploaded was him and he uploaded it.
• He lied about being hacked; he lied to everyone but is now going for full disclosure
• This wasn’t an isolated incident, he admits he has corresponded “inappropriately” via social networks a handful of times over the last three years, including after he was married.
• He apologized to just about everyone in the world, his wife especially.

He fell on his sword, and I give him props for that. He says he accepts all the blame; it was not a “drunken” or isolated incident; the females he corresponded with are free to say what they want, and he will not comment and so forth.

For someone who has just ‘fessed up to some really dumb (and potentially career-ending) behavior, he showed remarkable class. Took full responsibility, and had nothing negative to say about anyone but himself.

I liked Steve Benen’s take-away on Weiner’s press conference:

On the Political Sex Scandal Richter Scale, I’m still not altogether sure why this even registers at all. Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative “family values,” condemning others for their “moral failings.

I agree – to a degree (it’s still a “judgment” issue that Weiner repeatedly failed) – with Benen, but I don’t know if the press will agree.

All in all, a remarkable press conference.

Florida Gov. Scott signs law requiring welfare recipients to take drug tests

This issue – which was floated by Utah Senator Hatch last year – is odious, on so many levels. Hey, let’s say you do have a drug problem: Better you die (no welfare = no food)?

And what’s next? Have to prove you haven’t molested any children to get welfare/building permit?

And this is a Republican – you know, loves small government – governor. How is this getting out of peoples’ lives?

Also, Scott’s old company – a health-care firm – could profit from this. That’s a lot of drug tests.

Still, Scott defends this act as providing “personal responsibility.”

Boehner says the revitalization of the American auto industry is “nothing to celebrate.”

President Obama has been touting the recent success of both GM and Chrysler as proof that the automotive bailout was a good choice – good for America, good for jobs and – yes – a good Obama/Democratic talking point.
All three automakers (including Ford, which didn’t ask for funds) are turning a profit for the first time since 2004 and adding job unseen since the Clinton Administration.

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), through a spokesman, doesn’t see it as that big a deal.

“The administration’s auto bailout is nothing to celebrate,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. “The model the White House should be touting is Ford, which, instead of relying on a taxpayer-funded bailout, saw trouble coming and made the tough decisions necessary to preserve jobs and weather the storm.”
– Washington Monthly

OK, I can see the Speaker of the House – a Republican – not wanting to high-five a Democratic president, especially with elections coming up, but still…

At least say something like, “good, but Democrats have not done enough to create jobs…” or whatever.

And the Ford message is total bullshit – Ford testified in front of Congress to get GM and Chrysler dollars. Yes, Ford wanted to keep its competitors afloat!

Why?

Because if GM and Chrysler went under, the entire automotive supply chain would have collapsed, taking Ford – which, yes, had made better choices in the past – down along with GM and Chrysler.

Should GM and Chrysler have made better choices in the past?

Sure.

But President Obama was dealing with what was in front of him: Allow GM and Chrysler to default and effectively end the US auto industry. Or prop up GM and Chrysler and, well, hope for the best.

The best happened. All three turning profits, adding jobs, opening new plants.

Yeah, nothing to “celebrate”…

WATCHING:
Station Agent, The
Starring: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson and Bobby Cannavale

This is a quirky little movie from 2003 that I always meant to see, but just now yesterday got around to viewing.

This is a very quiet movie, about (mainly) three broken people – Dinklage, a dwarf; Clarkson, who lost a son; and Cannavale, who is destined to spend the rest of his life driving his ill father’s food truck. Somehow, they – and some other miscellaneous oddball characters – bond.

Again – this is a very quiet film, where dialog is used only to help the viewer read between the lines. The dialog and actions seemed very real.

Took me awhile to get to this, but it was worth the wait.

All movies

Shortly after the disastrous tornadoes that just leveled Joplin, MO, and other areas, there was an immediate call for federal dollars to help the displaced, injured, traumatized individuals and companies that had been affected.

You know, like the US always does in response to horrific natural (and un-natural, like the Gulf oil spill) disasters.

This time, there was a twist: Congressional GOP leaders said they wouldn’t pay out any monies without identifying offsets.

In other words, the government won’t help you rebuild your home/life unless we can find something to cut – probably something like NPR funding – to offset the cost of putting you back on your feet.

Call it the new “American Way.”

Now, while I’m against all the crazy deficit talk in DC these days, I agree that this is a new world. We probably need to look at the books and identify some outdated spending we can cut (oil company subsidies, anyone??).

But don’t hold those who lost everything hostage to extend your ideological position. That’s just not cricket…

So, it’s encouraging to see a prominent Republican – Haley Barbour (R-MS) – come out against this new way of doing business. Speaking with reporters at a DC conference, Barbour said:

“I think disaster relief is not predictable,” Barbour said. “Emergencies caused by tornadoes, hurricanes are not predictable. Even if Congress — which as far as I know they never have — set aside a pot of money as some have proposed, and said, ‘Okay, this is money we’re going to use to pay for disaster relief’ — if they were to do that and we had a gigantic disaster that cost much more than that, surely Congress would come back and appropriate the extra money. And if they didn’t have a place to offset it, they should still go in and do it.”

Well, duh.

Now, Barbour is governor of a state – Mississippi – that has had its share of disasters, from hurricanes to oil spills, so he has a vested interest in protecting his state. One of the main Republicans putting this new way of looking at disaster relief forward is Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA). Virginia doesn’t get hit with a lot of natural disasters.

But it’s good to see a heavy-hitter like Barbour sticking up for disaster victims the way the US has always responded to natural disasters: By doing what government can do best – sending manpower, machinery and money to the affected areas.

If a tornado had wiped out a Joplin-sized town in Virginia, I wonder if Cantor would still be on board with his new-found fiscal austerity?

Update, June 6, 2011: One Republican candidate for president, Herman Cain, sides with Barbour – and against Cantor:

“It’s one thing to say we’re not going to approve raising the debt limit unless we find a dollar for dollar offset in cuts. [That’s] fine,” Cain said. “But when it comes to, ‘We need to help people get their lives back on track after a natural disaster,’ the statement isn’t ‘if we find the money.’ We will find the money.”
— Talkingpointsmemo.com

WATCHING:
Waiting for Superman
Davis Guggenheim, Director and co-writer

This documentary stakes a basic premise – that for all the problems the US’s public schools have, they are fixable, and the solution is to have great, high-paid teachers.

The teacher’s union, however, clings to the past and wants to remain the same – meaning most teachers get tenure after two years. So even if they are terrible teachers, they stay.

And the kids suffer.

While the movie did speak to parents getting involved with their kid’s schoolwork and so on, that was the main take-away.

It’d be interesting to have discussion about this with a teacher. Get the other side of the story – because the movie did show charter schools that didn’t have union contracts (or different ones; not sure) that allowed a bad teacher to be replaced. So it’s not like this is just a theory; there are schools in poor areas like Harlem that are turning out huge number of college-bound graduates.

Very interesting flick; almost two hours long and I really didn’t want it to end. Watch; discuss; do something about it.

All movies

I was updating my Portfolio page – which lists some work I’ve done behind firewalls and so on – and I was struck by how many sites I’ve worked on that have either totally changed (different language, but still ecommerce…) or are just gone.

Poof.

I did a quick site for a friend of a friend several years ago – just your basic “I exist” site (home page, about us, contact us, what I do etc), and I now see that the woman has turned the site into a WordPress blog (not a bad idea) that hasn’t been updated for almost two years. Even if she was still blogging, my work on the site is gone. Down the rabbit hole.

I realize I’ve been building web sites for over a decade, and have worked at a couple of start-ups (one that’s out of business), so that’s to be expected, but still…

To be fair, I’ve contributed to this web rot – my Geistlinger.com site moved from Cold Fusion to PHP, so those old pages don’t even exist anymore (on a different host). Ditto with this blog – was on Blogger, but when Blogger took away FTP publishing (which I used to host the pages on my own site), I installed WordPress and now the pages are served up dynamically – and are .php, not .html.

Again, Google confusion.

Bob Dylan – aka Robert Zimmerman – is 70 years old today. This has generated some press, especially the “top X songs” or whatever lists.

I rise to the challenge!

Here is CNN’s list of the Top 10 Dylan songs.

Here are my top Dylan songs, in no particular order, and I’m certain I’ve missed some. These are, to me, the best Dylan songs, not necessarily my favorites.

Whatever; lists are always fun/controversial.

Here we go:

• “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” – Best version (to me) is Live From the Gaslight: 1962. Live, when he was trying to get it right. (To me, he nails it.)
• “Like a Rolling Stone” – awesome electric Dylan, with lyrics that can cut glass:
  

  You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
  But you know you only used to get juiced in it
  And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
  And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
  You said you’d never compromise
  With the mystery tramp, but know you realize
  He’s not selling any alibis
  As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
  And say do you want to make a deal?

• “Positively Fourth Street” – again, electric poetry.
  

  Yes, I wish that for just one time
  You could stand inside my shoes
  You’d know what a drag it is
  To see you

• “Idiot Wind” – Yes, I like Blood on the Track‘s “Tangled Up in Blue” best, but “Idiot Wind” is an extension of “Like a Rolling Stone.” And that’s not a bad thing.
• “All Along the Watchtower” – so good that when Jimi Hendrix cut the definitive version of same, Dylan began mimicking Hendrix.
• “Blowing in the Wind” – not the greatest, but was on the lips of every folk singer in the 60s or 70s. Hell, it’s the anthem of a generation.
• “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding”) – when Dylan really got Kant/poetry into his recordings.
• “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” – Early political song; great apocalyptic poetry. Nuclear rain is going to fall.
• “Song to Woody” – From his first album, this song – that I’ve never heard on the radio – is important in that it really sets up where Dylan was at the time (moved from his native Minnesota to New York) and what he was trying to do (make it as a folk singer). It’s a nod to Woody Guthrie, as well as the other folk heroes that help shape Dylan.
  

  I’m out here a thousand miles from my home
  Walking a road other men have gone down
  I’m seeing a new world of people and things
  Hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings.
  […]
  Here’s to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too
  And to all the good people that traveled with you
  Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men
  That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.

• “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” – Remember, rock and roll can be fun
  

  Well, they’ll stone you when you walk all alone.
  They’ll stone you when you are walking home.
  They’ll stone you and then say you are brave.
  They’ll stone you when you are set down in your grave.
  But I would not feel so all alone,
  Everybody must get stoned.

I finally bit the bullet and installed Flashblock on my Firefox.

I’ll miss it a bit – you miss a bit of the Zeitgeist when you don’t see the ads and so on, but I won’t miss the speed hit I was taking.

Between the upgrade to Firefox 4 (very nice, except for memory management) and iTunes, some nights it’s a pain to keep things stable. No crashes, but iTunes would stutter all the the time.

Turning off Flash solved 95% of the problems. And – at the same time – when I go to sites I’m familiar with, no issues. HTML 5 and jQuery (especially) are removing the need for Flash in most cases. (One notable exception: Nick Denton’s sites: Gawker, Lifehacker and so on. Killing JavaScript would kill the site; it appears nuking Flash does the same. The sites – beyond the framework – never load any content. Awesome redesign, guys!)

Once again, Steve Jobs was right…or the success of the iPhone/iPad made people scramble to de-Flash sites so iOS devices could view same. Whatever.

Works for me!

Well, today marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of the first Apple store. (Read the CNN story.)

It’s hard to believe today, but when the first Apple store opened, there were no iPods. No iPhones. Certainly no iPads.

The store just sold desktops and laptops, which now lag in sales behind the iEverythings.

Like much of what Steve Jobs does, this was dismissed by many at the outset. Why? Gateway was actually in the process of trimming down their stores (and heading for eventual bankruptcy). Why a store just for Apple products (and a few select 3rd party products)? How could such a venture possibly be feasible?

Critics piled on the iPhone, and – more recently – the iPad when each arrived.

But Steve was right.

He certainly seems right about the stores, as well. Apple has opened more than 300 stores in the US and abroad, and is just starting a push into some very juicy markets – think India and China; think Brazil.

And the Genius Bar is just that – genius. I don’t know how many computers I’ve had to save for people (I was the genius bar, but I came to them), but if they have a Mac, it’s like, “Take it to the store.” While I have run across some very arrogant employees at the stores (a common swipe at the stores), they have been in the very small minority. For the most part, it’s a great experience – and what other store can you say that about?

FYI – I’m not a Mac fanboy. I have a Mac, but my primary computer is a Windows box, simply because I’m a web developer, and the majority of people currently access the web with Windows. I need to develop for them, and then test on other platforms. If I had another occupation, I’d almost certainly be on a Mac of some sort (my servers would still run Linux, however).

The stores were a somewhat out of left field concept, had a very good chance to tank in a spectacular manner, but … they didn’t.

The future is still a bit mixed. Hell, Dell got everyone conditioned to buying computers online, and now – with Amazon and the rise of ecommerce – there is less reason each day to actually go into a store. Any store.

As I mentioned, the Genius Bar alone could keep the stores open, but it’ll be interesting to see the staying power of these stores. Yes, at least one has been around for a decade, but does it – or the others – have the legs to last another 10 years?

I honestly don’t know.

Groklaw, the site that famously chronicled – and researched the absurdity of – the years-long saga of SCO’s attempt to “own” Linux, is changing leadership today.

Pamela Jones – aka “PJ”, the site founder – will keep the servers running but will no longer be writing for this important blog. She’s handing the reins over to Mark Webbink, a law professor and open-source fan. I’m not familiar with Webbink, but I trust PJ’s judgement.

I just want to give a shout-out to PJ; I’ve been a fan since virtually the beginning, especially during the crazy SCO days. We’ve exchanged emails; I’ve donated code. Groklaw was a very interesting – and bold – experiment at the beginning (essentially crowd-sourcing the research/reporting/investigation of intellectual property issues); it has blossomed into a powerful tool that I hope will continue to do the OSS community proud.

Thanks for everything, PJ!

(Screenshot: news.com)

OK, Apple and Google (smartphone OS makers) hauled in front of the US Senate this week to ‘splain their collecting user data (BAD!), and then there’s a Justice Department official arguing that mobile phone operators should store more data (to make it easier for law enforcement to use data to catch bad guys).

Huh! Bad you collected this data, but, by the way…collect/retain more…

TechDirt has a good (short) shot at this dichotomy, but, basically, this is something we are going to be dealing with for a long time – the battle of open vs. closed; access vs. not; privacy vs. not-so-much.

It’s been an ongoing battle; this latest kerfuffle was just a exclamation point on the matter.

And why is the Senate concerned with this? It reminds me of when the Senate did all those hearings on steroids in professional baseball.

Huh? (both cases)

(Screenshot: news.com)