A Different Kind of Politician

Senator Tom Coburn has been causing trouble on Capitol Hill. I really admire his willingness to subvert the dominant political paradigm. His fiscal perspective is admirable.

Too bad the rest of his thoughts about the role of government are messed up: He is anti-choice, pro-death penalty, anti-gay, and pro-censorship. Just about all of his political positions are anathema to me, but his fiscal conservatism is laudable.

At the other end of the Republican spectrum is Ted Stevens, who was indicted today on corruption charges. Couldn't happen to a better person. Stevens is a prolific font of the worst pork ever seen on Capitol Hill. His love of pork has put Stevens in direct opposition to Coburn and the fireworks are fun to watch.

Anyway, this is just a quick post to point out the nice coincidence about these two gentlemen hitting headlines in the same week.

Music Monday: A Tribute to Harris Wulfson

A friend of mine's brother passed away last week, so this week's Music Monday is a tribute.

I never met Harris Wulfson, but I heard about him from his sister and have been looking around for information. Harris was a musician and composer. You can check out some of his music at his website [www.wulfson.com] and learn more about him at his Wikipedia page or at this person's blog post.

In addition to composing and performing music, Harris was also a software engineer. One really cool thing he did was coming up with the The Hidden Chair. At Jazz Central Station (a really good music BBS I used to visit), there was a drawing of a chair that was part of the graphic in the left nav without any indication that it was a link of any sort. It totally just blended into a larger graphic. Clicking this chair took you to a hidden discussion board that became an integral part of the core of the community. As somebody on a bulletin board said upon learning of Harris' passing:

I was thinking about The Chair yesterday, I really was. That was a cool concept that was pulled off so successfully. Harris didn't tell anyone about it, he just let users find it and have fun. Well it was a gift he gave us.

Anyway, here are some other gifts Harris gave us--his music. These are pieces he composed, so they really give you an idea of his innovation.

Az Meshiach Vet Kumen


hifuleanictins (an improvisation)


Finally, we have LiveScore. Harris didn't really compose this. He invented the system by which a computer turns data created by audience members turning knobs into sheet music that is sight-read and performed by classical musicians live. Harris described the piece:

... an interactive network piece with live generated music notation for sight reading musicians. The music is generated algorithmically, and sculpted in real time by participants in the gallery using a MIDI knob box.

Amazing.

Harris was a polymath who saw and made really cool connections between forms of music, between music and technology, and even between people. I'm sure that life wasn't always easy for him, but he was really a special person.

My deepest sympathies go out to his friends and family. We are all poorer for his passing.

Web Stuff Friday: Star Trek, a Game, and Larry Miller

Star Trek Inspirational Posters are awesome. They are kinda spoofs of Demotivators (which i have blogged before), which are spoofs of inspirational posters like these. Note that there are four pages of the Star Trek posters, all filled with tons of Trekkie inside jokes. If you didn't watch the old Star Treks, or at least the movies, don't even bother with this. If you have seen the original shows several times, then this site will make you laugh out loud.

Here is a cool game. Everything is in Japanese, but see how you do. I think I scored 22 on my first time through.

Here is one of my favorite comedy bits of all time. Larry Miller's "Five Levels of Drinking."

Here is a routine about the difference between men and women. You can skip forward to about 4:00 in this:

Great stuff. This is where I get lines like "it's like the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it" and "God's flashlight," both of which are regular parts of my lexicon.

Drives and Walks of Shame

Network World has an article Doing the Laptop Drive of Shame. This is one of my minor fears. It would be a big fear if I lived far from the office or worked at a job that couldn't generally be done remotely. The chances of me doing this is really quite high.

When I lived in an apartment as a single guy, it often took me three tries to get away from home.

1. First, I would lock the apartment door, then realize "dang, forgot my _____" (insert critical thing like my briefcase.) Back on in.
   
2. Second, I would lock my apartment door, walk down the stairs and just to the door to exit the building. At that point, I would realize that I forgot my wallet (or something similarly important.) Back up the stairs and into the apartment.
   
3. Finally, after getting my wallet, I would make it to the car and realize that I forgot one more thing (perhaps even my car keys.) Time to walk back across the parking lot, into the building, up the stairs, and into my apartment.
   

I sometimes imagined that someone watching my routine would have thought me a really dim or crazy person, but chances are that nobody really noticed or cared, so my shame was mostly internal. It wasn't a public walk of shame that anybody ever noticed.

Now that I live in a house with an attached garage, the trip from briefcase/wallet/keys to car is a short one, so round trips at home are quick ones. At the office, it often takes me one or two attempts to leave, but those trips are generally between the door to my office (which I share with ten co-workers) and my desk. Not much shame there. I'm a doofus, but that is not news to my co-workers.

Feeling Dirty About Deleting a Comment

For the first time, I deleted a comment that was left on this blog. It bothers me that I deleted the comment, so here it is in the main blog.

In response to Reverend Wright Persists in Aiming at Obama's Foot, some anonymous person commented:

Maybe You Are The Racist Reston Kid, Obviously You Did Not Hear His Sermon Or Press Speach From Start To Finish. Maybe You Should Clean Your Ears Out, And Open Your Eyes More So You Will Know What The Hell Is Going On, Turkey!

What should I do with this sort of thing? My inclination is to delete any anonymous comments that don't contribute some new information or an opinion. If this person actually informed the discussion with some information or an opinion, I wouldn't have such a problem with the comment. Instead, he has tossed this comment in here and has probably moved on--never to be heard from again.

I have kept comments from people with whom I disagree. For instance, I had a back-and-forth about the use of torture with someone who commented in response to my post Mixed Feelings About Omar Khadr's Gitmo Interrogation. When a comment is signed, the conversation can continue. When a comment is anonymous, it can be a dialectic dead end.

The bottom line is that nasty, unsigned comments will probably be deleted. Comments that are interesting, informative, or signed (not necessarily all of these) will survive.

Music Monday: Herby Hancock's Cantaloupe Island

Herbie Hancock wrote Cantaloupe Island back in 1964 (here is the original) and it has stood the test of time. I like this song and have really liked many renditions by many groups (including Us3's version called Cantaloop), but all of the groups I am including here have Herbie in them. Each group has different composition, so you can certainly see some different takes on the song.

Herbie Hancock, Freddy Hubbard, et al:


Herbie Hancock Trio


Herbie Solo and Then With Herbie (it's cool to watch him jamming with himself)

Dr. Bill and Barack

As the Jesse Jackson/Barack Obama tiff erupted recently, it made me think back to Bill Cosby's comments that got him into hot water with some of the black political establishment. I found the full text of Bill Cosby's speech at the 50th Anniversary of Brown vs Board of Education.

Really interesting stuff.

Now look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things.

Here is Obama's Father's Day speech. One of my favorite snippets is:

Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more after school programs for our children. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities.

But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it's the courage to raise one.

As I read the transcripts of these two speeches, it struck me that Dr. Bill was full of passion, but he did not really put together the best oratory. Obama delivers on the oratory. Both men can claim early hardship (Cosby grew up on the mean streets of Philly, while Obama's father left when he was 2,) but Obama's delivery really works. His status as an outsider helps him see and speak more clearly about what ails us.

Both men make some good points, but Obama's discourse is more balanced. He is all about shared responsibility: the government has responsibility, but so do individuals. Obama wants all of us to get out and push. We can't just sit back and let the government solve our problems.