Monday, 6th o September 2004
Clarity
Flashback to 1994
The phone was ringing on a Saturday morning as we were having breakfast. I picked it up. “Hello?”
“Lt. O'Malley, this is LTC Jones, we need to talk. How soon can you get down to the unit?”
“I, uh, I'll be right there. Can you tell me what this is about?”
“No I can't.”
“Okay, I'll be right there.” This couldn't be good. No way could this be good. What did I do? What is the problem? I had no idea, and the terse tone filled me with dread.
“Hon, I have to go to the unit.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Most definitely, yes, there is something wrong, but I don't know what. I can't talk about it... I... “ I fumbled around for keys, shoes, trying to remember where I was.
On the short drive to the port district in Oakland, I searched my memories trying to figure out what this could be about, trying to think if I did or said anything... anything. I had no idea, and that was more disconcerting than anything.
“Lt O'Malley, close the door and have a seat.”
I sat there in stunned silence, waiting for the bell to toll.
“I have received a disturbing report of your behavior, LT.”
...and? I thought.
“Two SGT's have come forward with racial discrimination complaint against you. I consider these charges grave.”
I felt shocked and relieved at the same time. Shocked that someone could have accused me of such a thing, relieved that I knew it to be untrue.
“I – uh, never. Sir, I have never done such a thing. Who was it?” I was a little rattled, searching for the purpose, the plan, the method, why am I here, I asked myself?
“I can't tell you, LT, but I consider the charges serious.”
“I am not a racist. What do they say I did? What could I have done? I'm married to a Puerto Rican, I live in Oakland for God's sake. I love diversity. There's no way I'm a racist.”
“That may be, LT, but I tell you, you have a problem.”
I stammered, repeated myself, got defensive. “Sir, it's not true. It's not true. I didn't do it.”
LTC Jones, changed his tone a bit. I noticed a slightly fatherly demeanor for this young Lieutenant. “LT, you have a problem. How are you going to solve it?”
“A problem?! I never.. I didn't. I can't...”
He cut me off firmly. “LT, YOU have a problem. What are you going to do about it?”
Something clicked at that moment. I have a problem. Yes, I do, don't I? I have been lost in my own bruised ego. I had tried to shirk the responsibility for this problem that had been thrust upon me. It was mine. All my own. It was not of my own making, but it had been delivered to me. I was now the proud owner of a problem not of my own making. Now novel, eh? - as if no one in humanity's history had ever had to deal with a problem not of their own making, or consequence, or foundations contrary their own values.
How novel, how rich, how unusual, I reflected sarcastically. This is something that happens everyday. Problems arrive at the doorsteps of unsuspecting fools, delivered by incompetent, malicious, ill-intentioned, or ignorant people. Sometimes problems arrive from the Atlantic kicking up wind gusts of 150 mph. Accidents happen, sometimes through the carelessness of action, thoughtlessness, or just plain dumb luck.
“What can I do?” I asked LTC Jones. But before he could answer, I blurted out, “I want to address the company. Let me address the company, that way the individuals can hear me and I don't have to single them out. Let me address the company and just nip this in the bud, with an apology.”
LTC Jones hid a smile. “That's a great idea, LT. We can do it in the morning formation. That way it can be cleared up, and we can get on with the rest of the weekend. I'm glad we had this talk. Now get out of here.”
He was pleased, I could tell. He didn't want to be too jubilant. It's not dignified. But reflecting on this many years latter, I understand the difficulties of command. He had a Lieutenant and two Sergeants that were at odds. In order for his unit to function there must be accord. The unit must run without disruption, petty politics, individual negativity, bickering. The unit must have unity, a sense of esprit de corps. He doesn't know who to trust, and probably doesn't really care. If the charges go forward, a complaint would be filed, possibly investigated and filed away. As a commander, I can tell you that that is not a solution. It solves nothing, does nothing but document and bury the incident. Meanwhile, relationships suffer, factions form from those that support one side or the other, and the unit becomes less effective.
My direction was clear in that moment of clarity, a momentary bolt of wisdom had shot through that young heart of mine, and allowed me to divorce myself from my ego, my concern for myself, my career, my well-being, and allowed me to see my damaged unit, and know there was something I could do about it.
What LTC Jones really wanted was someone who could solve his problem, and I was the only one capable. To have been able to count on me for that task was probably something for which he was very grateful.
I am reminded of this by current events, new deployments of soldiers to Iraq, young men and women of great dedication and honor, being sent to solve a problem. Was the problem of their creation? Did they put Sadaam in power? Did they ask for Sadaam to attack Kuwait. Did they ask for Rumsfeld? Did they ask President Bush to preemptively strike? Did they ask for the impatience, the bad intelligence, the nebulous motives? Are they pawns in an unjust game of international politics?
Maybe, but they are the only ones who can solve the problem. Do firefighters stand around and argue and hand-wring while the house is burning. “Idiots had substandard wiring. Idiots had an old space heater. Idiots tried to do their own wiring, were smoking in bed, doing crack, playing with matches.” Do firefighters do this? They solve the problem by putting the fire out. There is nothing else they may do.
Bush is irrelevant. Kerry is irrelevant. Michael Moore is irrelevant. History will judge Bush, but our men and women in uniform can solve a problem right now. Or not. Complain and let it burn, or put it out?
Choose wisely.
Friday, 27th o August 2004
Spam from Colonial America
Hey, J.M., just got this... Tell me what you think. T.J.
Subject: Gorgeous French properties.
To: f_father2@msn.com
From: bonaparte75@aol.com
Date:
08/01/1802
Take advantage now while the market is undervalued and before cities go up. Need a place to retire? An international shipping port? Want to make sure your family is well taken care of? Want to double the size of your country? At less than 3 cents per acre, you can't beat these prices.
How can we sell so low? Simple, we like you. That and we need funds to fight the British.
Do you have a sense of Manifest Destiny? Fulfill that destiny by taking advantage of this one special offer. We've even taken the special care of pacifying the local inhabitants. Don't worry, they won't cause you any problems. We promise.
Wednesday, 25th o August 2004
Protection Welfare State
When did the Republican party become the anti-intellectual party, hmmm?
When did we get associated with brain dead policies and never admitting a mistake, skyrocketting deficits, and religious wacko, quasi fascist, morons? When did this all happen, because I didn't get the memo.
I want to help the poor, but I don't want to JUST take care of them. Entitled living can lead to even bigger problems down the line as we've seen. A deep seated sense of entitlement is the biggest soul draining evil the modern world has ever known... and it sneaks up on ya, get's in there slowly, and before you know it you start demanding that your gub-ment protect you from, Big Macs, dirty cigarettes, rude comments, and terrorists. Send the poor and lower middle class to shoot the bastards. I deserve this SUV.
Protect ME, dammit. I deserve it!!
When did this happen? When did EVEN the Republican party become such a federalist morass of "Don't worry 'bout nutin'. We'll take CARE of them, and we'll take care of YOU," while we happily shop at Wal-mart and whine that the government isn't doing ENOUGH to protect me and my children.
We need more power to take care of you. We need need more money to take care of you. We need more wiretapping to take care of you. We need more bombs to take care of you. We need more government, bigger government to take care of you.
What happened to "We the People"? I guess it's now "We the Government." So instead of shrinking welfare, Bush and crew now have the whole country on it, a sort of "protection welfare." In fact, that's what I'm going to call it. Protection Welfare. Now we're all in it, and we think we are entitled to it.
Has anyone stopped to ask if I want those idiots to take care of me? I don't need them to take care of me. I don't expect it. I reject it. And I reject it because it makes me lazy, robs me of my volition, steals my thunder.
Do people need a helping hand every once in a while? Sure we do, but we are not entitled to it. We should be thankful for any help we receive and try to repay it in kind, because it is a gift from our fellow citizens. We don't deserve anything, except maybe a peaceful eternal rest.
Thursday, 12th o August 2004
Najaf sounds like an email virus.
Either way the virus affecting Iraq needs to be history so the body may heal and the sirens calling out to terrorism from the arab world stop.
Saturday, 31st o July 2004
Solutions that make sense
I've been working like a possessed madman on our web portal software ACES. It's a straightforward, no-nonsense web content management system driven by PostgreSQL (my DB of choice). It doesn't have threaded discussion, moderated talk back posts, a slick authentication system, a million and one cookie collection, javascript out the wazzoo, or RSS feeds. What it does have is a nice easy to use interface for a user to maintain his/her website. Want to edit content? Click on it. A form will open with a nice little word processor thingie with nice little buttons, a place to upload images, icons, attached documents etc. It's so stupidly simple, I get annoyed with it from time to time.
I want a big fancy portal system that's perfect. I checked out wordpress recently. It's a blog system designed for personal use journal writing, but it's really grown into a damn fine vertical community system, that is, a deep but narrow vein of pure gold. I played around with it for a day, marked up a style sheet or two, got the hang of where all the parts were to master the layout, but I eventually put it aside with a sigh. This program was obviously made by web professionals for other web professionals.
Standards compliance has mugged wordpress, beaten it to a bloody pulp and left it useless for other than web demi-god. The general public doesn't get semantics. They don't understand why simply making headers bold is a bad idea. They want pretty colors, big fonts, pretty fonts, a multitude of other hard-coded sins. Did Hemingway feel the need to put certain passages in bold? Did he change colors to make a point? He didn't even use pictures.
It's not that Wordpress is difficult to use, it's just that it solves a problem that people don't know they have.
I also tried out Drupal, the CMS that was used by Democratic primary candidate Howard Dean to run his grassroots network. It's a slick, high quality, fully integrated community portal, CMS, server application. It's also a tangled maze of jargon, clicks, and weird stuff. Maybe I'm not so smart, I think as I click around in a circle again. Haven't I seen that tree, that rock before. Perhaps one of my legs is shorter than the other and I am walking around in circles. From the couple of days I've spent playing with it, I do feel that I am well on my way to carpal tunnel syndrome. Yikes. Taxonomy terms, icons, sub-this, publish that... blah. This thing is a nightmare of usability, and that's me, albeit not the brightest monkey on the planet, but jeez this thing still suffers from the, "made by extremely smart people for extremely smart people" factory seal, locking it tightly up away from the unwashed masses.
I limp back to my little ACES portal system. I'm so sick of hacking on this thing. Maintaining software is a pain in the ass, writing in features you never expected on a client's request, adapting it to particular quirks of an organization or user, president, elderly secretary, fussy retard. Wouldn't it be great if I could just harness these Open Source hackers to write my CMS for me. I'll just adapt it, style it, and hand it over to the client. "Sorry, that's the way it comes in the package. If you want X feature you'll have to pay BIG for it."
But in the end ACES just turns out to solve a problem that already exists. Small businesses want websites. They don't have a lot of time. They don't get a lot of hits, but they want to make a good impression on the cheap. In short, they don't have a lot of time and money to make a lot of mistakes. If it's too hard to use, they won't use it.
ACES let's them click a link and edit their site, publish their
information and be done with it, which is really all 99.9% of people
and business want anyway. So I curse my fate and roll out an ACES
site, which the client loves and actually uses. In the end, I muse, the world is not made up of web-gods. It's inhabited by mortals, ordinary folks for whom banality is bliss. ACES is for them.