Smart Smart People

A few weeks ago I ranted about dumb vs. smart people. I found one of the smart people. I’m willing to bet the guy on the left is someone you’ve never heard of. I hadn’t until last night. His name is Sanford Ovshinsky, and he’s one of the smartest smart people.

The Economist calls him the Edison of our age, which is a pretty safe statement. It’s not simply his brain power that makes him remarkable, it’s his sheer chutzpa. He founded a company called Energy Conversion Devices (ECD). One of the main focuses of ECD is bringing hydrogen power sources into the mainstream. Here’s the sticky part: He founded the company in 1960.

Stanford wasn’t singularly obsessed with hydrogen though. Over the years he has invented and holds patents on a few items you may have heard of; rewriteable optical disks, flat panel displays, non-volatile memory, thin-film solar cells, and the nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) battery. Oh yea, did I mention he never went to college? He had to drop out of school during the Depression to help support his family. He credits his learning to public libraries.

ECD has actually lost money for most of its existence. Not that Stanford gave a rip about that, because he was always looking out at the horizon and not at the bank account. At 84 years old he’s just now standing on the edge of what will truly change the world. He’s engineered how to make solar cells without silicon, no small deal, as the price of solar cells has risen 50% in recent years because of a crunch in industrial silicon. He has also transformed solar cells into thin, flexible, self-adhesives that can be rolled onto just about anything. According to The Economist, he has worked out how to manufacture it at over 200 feet per minute. But the truly huge promise of his work is that he believes he’s figured out a way to scale up his hydrogen storage system to the megawatt level. This holds enormous potential, as it could move us away from being at the direct mercy of the power grid.

I think I missed something big in my dissection of smart people. I think the biggest ingredient is that you have to really want it. You have to be willing to ride hard towards your objective, even if you’re not sure what the objective will look like. The toughest part is probably that you have to be willing to stay your course when common consensus is that you’re full of s***. Einstein didn’t know the mechanics of it, but just knew there had to be a better explanation. He took a ton of crap from everyone around him and got academically blackballed, but he kept swinging away and eventually came up with E-mc2. Michael Faraday had almost no formal education, got scoffed at for most of his career, and was ostracized by the Royal Society…..until they finally realized he was on to something. The more I look at it the more I think that drive counts as much as intellectual capacity.

Ares

My Unborn Child

YouTube is the biggest and best waste of time since the advent of cable TV. For today's blogshot I used the power of YouTube for good and not evil. Having only seen the commercial on TV once, I searched and quickly found what I was looking for. Anyone that has ever had or spent time around small children will appreciate this. For that matter, this one is pretty good too. I have a bad feeling that Mrs. Ares and I will be seeing a lot of this if we reproduce.

Ares

Holiday Greetings

Both of us here at Ares and Athena want to pass along holiday greetings...to all 5 of our readers. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyful Kwanzaa, Pleasant Boxing Day, Enjoyable Belated Ramadan, Exalted Festivus, and positive salutations to whatever holiday Buddhists celebrate.

In honor of the holiday we pass along this reimagined classic.

Financial Likeness

One of the most universally hated institutions in our country is credit reporting bureaus. Under the hate-the-game-not-the-player theory I tend to see them as a necessary evil. The part that’s debatable is the level of evil that’s necessary. This brings me to an idea that Athena and I have been in agreement on for a few years now: Identity likeness rights.

Everyone’s familiar with the idea of likeness rights. If company X wants to use my mug in advertising they have to reimburse me, or at least get me to sign a waiver. To quote from the Library of Congress’s web citation on privacy and publicity rights “The privacy right or interest of the subject is personal in character, that the subject and his/her likeness not be cast before the public eye without his/her consent, the right to be left alone. The publicity right of the subject is that their image may not be commercially exploited without his/her consent and potentially compensation.” (Italics mine.)

I don’t recall ever giving my consent to Trans Union or Equifax to create a profile on me. In other words, they own my financial likeness. Their corporations are the direct financial beneficiaries of my financial existence, yet I have to pay them for a service that I have no choice in participating in. Yes, I know we’re allowed free credit reports. How incredibly noble of them, a gratis look at an algorithm’s opinion of me. Meanwhile, through lovely concepts like universal default, the credit reporting bureaus facilitate a greater payout by consumers across the spectrum of purchasing.

But how is my financial identity any different than my physical likeness? Apparently the difference is that the law has decreed my physical person has a right to privacy but not my financial person. To again quote the above, “their image may not be commercially exploited without his/her consent and potentially compensation.” I hate to sound like I’m playing lawyer word games here, but I don’t think this is too much of a stretch.

The really scary folks aren’t the Big Three. They’re regulated and accountable to a fair degree, and that regulation is growing constantly. The really scary folks are pigf***ers like ChoicePoint (with their pictures of kids playing and puppy dogs on their mainpage) and Acxiom. They can take your identity and sell it to whoever walks through the door and any financial fallout is borne by you, the consumer that had zero say in who gets possession of your financial likeness. Choicepoint got caught doing just this a few years ago, and the jury is literally still out on what sort of penalty they should incur. (Update, I stand corrected. 5 mil, that'll show 'em.) This, not the Big Brother Bogeyman, is who we should lavishing with concerned attention.

And please, spare me your incantations of 1984. Anybody who’s worked in government can tell you there aren’t enough smart people concentrated in a given corner to execute a finely tuned cabal in secret. Your chances of being mistakenly imprisoned by the government without recourse are pretty close to zero. If it does happen there are broad avenues of recourse. (Unless your name is Jose Padilla, sucks to be you pal. Read my reference in an earlier post about entering the arena of conflict.) Your chances of ChoicePoint selling all of your personal information to a Nigerian criminal ring are substantially higher. And your recourse when that happens amounts to Jack and Shit, and Jack left town.

Ares

Administrative Notes

Just a few housekeeping details. As you've probably noticed, I've been putzing around with the formatting. If there's any particular format you find more annoying than another let me know. Second, I know it looks like I'm blog-hoggin. It's not that Athena doesn't have anything to say. Due to a bunch of factors that are too cumbersome to list I have more time and access to posting than she does. She tends to "give at the office", so to speak. More to follow......

Ares

All those people

Today I did something I don’t normally do. I drove around the exurbs of this godforsaken city. A lot. An appointment took me over hell’s outer acres. I normally have almost no commute, so I can’t complain about having to endure traffic. (My aggregate monthly commute miles are less than most people’s daily.) But one thought did strike me: What exactly are all these people doing and why are they doing so much of it?

True, I was one of those people, but I was just visiting. Sitting in traffic is one of the biggest wastes of time since penguin baseball without the ensuing bragging rights. Which leads me to think that anyone that believes mass transit is going to solve this problem needs to put the bong down. People are annoyed to the point of shortening their lives and wasting breathtaking amounts of time, and still volunteering to do it each day. We need something bigger than mass transit to get a handle on this one. I think the appropriate buzzword here is paradigm shift.

I’m not climbing on the global warming/anti-hydrocarbon economy/save the earth soap box. Also not talking about anti-capitalism; I’m a market champion to the point of being Libertarian. There is something bigger at work here. Humans weren’t meant to live like this. And by “like this” I mean spending inordinate amounts of our waking hours going back and forth to sit in little boxes to earn money to buy stuff. Somewhere along the line means and ends became inexplicably intertwined. When you break the chain of habit commanded by existence and think about it does this feel right to anybody out there?

I’m not espousing a return to the mythological “Good Old Days”. (Any time you hear someone use the term “Good Old Days” be wary. It’s a loaded term wielded by those that can’t envision a future worth creating.) There are parts of this modern world that are very much worth having. Mrs. Ares advocates something between neo-Amish and neo-luddism. I think that mightiest of modern writers got it just right:

We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra. F*** Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Ares

If It Walks Like a Duck.....

I don’t like beating dead horses, but I’ve got a few questions. By now the battle lines are firmly drawn in the whole overwrought imams-thrown-off-the-plane incident. Is it me or does it seem like they had the press releases and indignation spring loaded and ready to fire? We’ll let that one go, as I’m sure one of the imams had CAIR on speed dial. CAIR probably has a pre-formatted press release for stock denouncements. I have yet to waste a single second of my life reading anything they write, but I would imagine it reads something like “We, the yadda yadda yadda of the religion of peace, do most strongly protest the treatment of yadda yadda yadda at the hands of yadda yadda yadda.”

My second question is the big one. This is your big chance Mr. Imam, explain exactly what it was you were doing dancing around the cabin, yelling like a Palestinian game show host? I can assure you the media is on your side and is only too willing to make the airline and the Department of Homeland Security look like jackasses. Throw Wolf Blitzer a bone show us how it was all just a big misunderstanding. I’m a reasonably intelligent guy so I’m sure if you got me in the contextual neighborhood I’d be all up in there with you. The lady that got the flight diverted for lighting matches to cover her farts is a good example. Who hasn’t let fly on a plane? Maybe you had some lower G.I. issues and decided to go check with Mohammed to see if he had any wetnaps for your impending trip to the wiz closet. En route to Mohammed’s seat a couple of good air biscuits shot out of you unexpectedly. Embarrassed, you let fly with a few good Allah Ahkbars to provide some auditory cover.

My other question is simpler and more towards the rhetorical. Though I haven’t seen it anywhere I’m sure someone has made this reference. Isn’t a bunch of guys screaming Allah Ahkbar on an airplane the modern equivalent of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater? Memo to all you ass clowns: Your freedom of speech comes to a screeching halt when you scream the name of your god while in the midst of a conveyance that your co-religionists used to murder my countrymen. Flying is a privilege, not a right. If you wanna get your god on at Koresh levels while in a mode of transportation get yourself a Kia and hit Interstate 80. (I don’t usually endorse other people’s work, but for an excellent editorial on the issue I direct you to this piece in the Wall Street Journal.)

I think it’s time we engage the Duck Rule. For those not familiar, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and craps like a duck you’re probably dealing with a duck. This was a PR hit, pure and simple. I’m not the first person to suggest that. The only reason I invoke the Duck Rule is that no other plausible explanation has been put forth. With the world-wide mass media engine pointed directly at them the voices of the Religion of Peace haven’t issued so much as a beer belch in the arena of explanatory logic and justification. Here’s a hint to all of the Islam boosters in the crowd out there: Bashing the faults of your opposition does not endow you with righteousness, or even prove your point. It just makes you look like the mental 11 year old that you are.

And while we’re on the subject I think CAIR is the Tokyo Rose of the Long War. Think of all the energy they’re wasting on press releases when they could be, say, beating they’re wives. Okay, that was crude, I’m sure they don’t beat their wives. But I’m pretty sure hell’s going to freeze over before we hear them condemn the practice. I sent Athena an article the other day about a male school teacher in Afghanistan that was disemboweled and literally ripped apart by the Taliban recently. His crime was teaching at a school for girls. Surely we can all get together and agree this is evil? Not CAIR’s cup of tea I guess. As the brilliant television show once intoned, they’re beating the women. Step back from that and we can talk like adults. Hell, I’ll even talk to you like you’re a man.

Ares

Dumb Smart People

I’ve been kicking an idea around my melon for a while now. Are we more inclined to think people are smart because we agree with them? Ask yourself this question: When was the last time you agreed with a statement made by someone you can’t stand? It is so automatic that we barely even notice. We dismiss them as morons and henceforth everything issued from their pie hole is crap.

The conservative blogs have a designated term for this when it’s applied to the president: Bush Derangement Syndrome. Its victims are otherwise intelligent people that are never more than two conversational leaps from a sputtering, profanity laced Tourettes syndrome outburst when it comes to anything dealing with our current president. (That reminds me, at some point I’m going to take a blog walk with the outsized emotional investment this country has made in the office of the president.)

But to me the president is just a humorous footnote in a larger question. If possible, put down the political and social pretensions and ask yourself a question. What constitutes ‘smart’ in our society?

There are obvious benchmarks that have always been accepted. An advanced degree will get you street cred in some circles. Going to law or med school will get you a seat at the table. But the older you get the more lawyers and doctors you meet. After you’ve met a few and spoke with them socially you realize that the dumb ass distribution hits that population with some measure. I think in some cases people we’ve been giving the smart tag are really folks that were just obsessive-compulsive about academics.

Another pit we commoners fall into when it comes to viewing smart people is being mystified by their skill set. Because a person knows a lot about something doesn’t automatically make them smart. It just means they’ve lived in a neighborhood you haven’t, intellectually speaking. How many of us have met people that can give you the intimate details of a computer server while barely being able to dress themselves?

I know, there’s that whole ‘emotional intelligence’ thing at work. But I’m driving at something a bit different. A computer with a big hard drive isn’t necessarily a great computer; it just holds a lot of stuff. Saw a bit on the Science Channel a while back about an English guy that can solve pi out to 20,000 places in his head and can learn a new language in a week. While he is an impressive intellectual specimen he is also of limited use to humanity. My idea of a really smart person is Benjamin Franklin. He failed a fair amount, but he was always pushing the unknown. Granted, in his day the unknown was a hell of a lot bigger.

And while I’m on the subject of the unknown there is another ugly phenomenon that’s poking up its head up here and there. With the rise of the Internet, Wikipedia (which I love), and the Discovery Channel there are a lot more people getting exposed to a lot more stuff that would have normally been outside of their knowledge envelope. While learning is a good thing because it makes us push up against our unknowns it does not automatically impart wisdom. Just because you saw a thing on the Discovery Channel does not mean you’re an astrophysicist or expert on modern warfare.

This is especially insidious in the realm of politics, where partisans pick and choose knowledge that suits their position. You can test this hypothesis by going into any large chain bookstore. Look at the variety of books that are prominently displayed near the entrance. Most are tomes taking a particular view on a divisive issue. Somewhere along the way it was decided by mass media that controversy and conflict should constitute the largest part of our diet. Critical thinking is getting that much tougher, for those that even care to engage in it, because our springs of knowledge are being flavored and tainted.

So I return to the question I’ve been asking myself for quite some time now: What constitutes ‘smart’ in our society? I think the definition is like art and pornography. You know it when you see it. I think we would benefit from a lot more people pushing the limits of their experience and intellect. Merely being an information consumer isn’t enough.

Ares

Hazardous Material

Right now I believe that the most dangerous substance on the planet isn’t nuclear waste, or radon gas, or even polonium. Its hormones.

Anyone with a teenager in their house agrees with me. Anyone who has SURVIVED adolescence agrees with me. And I, having just turned 39, can look back over my life and blame lots of stupidity on hormones. I imagine that in my 40s I will look back at my 30s and exclaim over the ridiculous, self-destructive behavior of that decade, and blame it, yet again, on hormones.

But you don’t have to take my example as proof. Let’s look at, oh, say, Saudi Arabia. The only country on the planet named for a family. More than half its population is under the age of 18. Its residents are mostly highly educated (except for the women; they get beatings instead) and underemployed. Talk about your hormone cocktail. And the royal family has more trouble every day keeping a lid on things. It’s a big job: keeper of Islam’s most sacred places, keeper of the biggest oil reserves in the world, keeper of gender apartheid. It would be a big bite without the demon hormones. Add in the underemployed angry young men, the oppressed angry young women, and the just generally angry people, and you’ve got yourself a hormone hurricane. Criminy.

So what’s my answer? Increasingly, I see the wisdom in my Great-Aunt Nita’s philosophy. When a child is born, put them in a barrel and feed them through the bunghole in the barrel. When they turn 13, plug up the hole. If they’re still alive when they turn 40, you’ve got yourself a winner. (This last sentence is my contribution. I don’t think Aunt Nita actually favored releasing offspring from the barrel at all.)

Athena

For those that aren't familar, you can read about it here or here . Go with God little one.


"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing."

The DeKalb Dozen

Athena and I had a discussion about a year ago. We forecasted this. The DeKalb Police (read: Vernon Jones) succumbed to political pressure that had no basis in logic or reality. In a stunning disregard of the facts and a fantastic embrace of manipulative emotion it was decreed that Tasers would no longer be employed. You see, someone had died as a result of its use so it must be an inherently evil device.

For the uninitiated, the Taser offered police officers a last ditch weapon they could employ before using deadly force. Yes, it is a bit disturbing to watch a person being Tased. By now we’ve been inundated with video of persons shaking and screaming as a result of being shocked. But I have it on good authority that bullets are more gruesome to behold. The difference here is that we’ve grown up with a lifetime’s worth of television images of people being shot. Operant conditioning at its finest. The question I have not heard uttered once, in any forum is this: Prior to doing away with that option for police officers how many people were Tased that would have been shot were it not for the Taser? No one, anywhere at the political level exercised a modicum of initiative and spoke from a position of truth. The sad fact is that in the balance Tasers save lives. Don’t take my word for it. Find the studies and look at the deployment history of departments that have had the courage to continue to use it.

The genesis of the conversation Athena and I had about Tasers was the idea that people squirm at the sight of unscripted violence. People’s instinctive, lizard-brain reaction to witnessing one person visit violence on another is that it must be wrong. And while a Taser is a weapon of violence, its use is governed by a myriad of laws and regulations. The men and women that deploy it are rigorously screened, indoctrinated, and trained. There are multiple layers of oversight and accountability within our society with regards to violence. Over the course of many years and through excessive refinement society has dictated to those that protect it the standards by which violence may be employed. The two most basic are OCGA 16-3-21 and 17-4-20.

Such discussions are merely academic though. The gospel truth here is that the people shot by the police entered an arena of confrontation. This is not necessarily the worst part of the equation. The most destructive portion of this is the fallacy and pandering that has transpired in its wake. The embrace of comfortable narrow-mindedness and worst-common-denominator cheerleading merely papers over cracks. The lack of intellectual rigor and klieg light posturing only serves to remove larger chunks from society’s mainstream while empowering a select few. It only digs the trenches deeper.

Put down your run-home-to-momma paper thin logic and your lazy paradigms. Get cozy with the cold bathwater of experience that is larger than the bounds of your television. You can rail against inexorable logic and universal truths or you can set out to test the hypothesis's of life yourself. Why are we required to give inordinate amounts of time in the public debate to those that have nothing to offer but thinly disguised paranoia that has reached narcotic levels?

The AJC's self-congratulatory tripe that it continues to trot out is a greater disservice to public safety than thugs on a robbery spree. The undertone of the tortured lexicon employed by the AJC implies at every step that malfeasance and cover-up are the order of day. That the only possible explanation for 12 people killed at the hands of an instrument of state power is blood lust and a secret campaign to euthanize the black population. That police agencies are out of control and drunk with power. Why is the idea that there just might be little pockets of evil in this world so hard to believe? That there might just be a small number of people in this world that can't be reasoned with. Notice I used the terms ‘small’ and ‘little’ in the previous two sentences. That is because even though the number of shootings is above a mythical statistical mark it still does not reflect the daily reality of over 99.9% of the population. Does anybody get that feeling after reading another journalistic hit piece in the AJC?

Perhaps the greatest disservice we as a society have endured is being sold over and over again the idea that most of life’s problems have simple solutions. Our television is packaged so that issues are presented and resolved in neatly wrapped hour and half hour increments. Our news is processed and refined so that only the most digestible portions are served. More often than not news is merely a litany of horrific events that befell a select portion of the population on that particular day. These vignettes of micro chaos are projected onto a larger backdrop and served in between helpings of entertainment and sports. The only objective is the furtherance of blame and fear. Ultimately there may not be any answers to the problems placed in front of us. But if ever there was a time to demand greater depth in our understanding it is now.

Ares

"Do You Think I'm Stupid?"

Another Vernon Jones Production is in the works. This time it’s the county’s long, drawn out, excruciatingly desultory search for a new police chief. Not content with the current candidate pool, Uncle Vern had to seek out his own brand of corruption. For the full back story I direct you to that paragon of journalistic virtue, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Sandwiched in a forest of commercial ads you find “Ex-Dallas chief up for DeKalb police job”.

Terrell Bolton was chief of the Dallas Police Department from 1999 to 2003 according to the article. His first act was demoting the then-current brass in the department, a move that cost the city of Dallas $5.5 million in a later lawsuit. (Victor Hill’s long lost brother?) He was fired in 2003 for what is coyly referred to as “other controversies”. This makes him perfect to work in DeKalb County politics. We seem to specialize in “other controversies” here in DeKalb County.

Bolton already knows what plays to call should he land in DeKalb. The article says he was “supported by some black ministers after his firing.” and told a church congregation that the city manager had been ‘tricked by Satan’. Am I the only one that gets that queasy feeling when a group of ‘black ministers’ is trotted out to do political bidding? (Tawana Brawley anyone?) Although I must admit that I have a weak spot for the ‘tricked by Satan’ defense. The public’s reaction to that particular defense will provide a quick litmus test of intelligence. Little known fact: The ‘tricked by Satan’ defense is a close cousin of the ‘that’s not my dope/gun/dead ex-wife’ defense used so successfully by perps in DeKalb County courts.

According to the AJC, the three actual finalists were the product of a search committee appointed by Jones. The article also said that Jones had hoped to find a female candidate, but no female candidates could be recruited. This is because women are much smarter than men. Jackie Barrett was still at an investment seminar and couldn’t be reached. Beverly Harvard wants to see how that new Ikea furniture looks in her office at the airport before she’ll throw her name in the ring. Beverly should be perfect for the job; she’s got years of experience playing the faithful subservient to megalomaniac politicians and running police departments into the ground.

The issue the AJC throws down and then promptly ignores is how Bolton’s ended up in contention for the job. If he wasn’t a recommendation of the search committee how did he make it into the running? Short version: Vernon saw someone he could own outright. Someone with crap in his past he could dangle over his head. Wonder if there is still room in the Sid Dorsey Memorial Wing of Reidsville State Prison?

The absolute best part of the entire piece comes from Vernon himself. When asked about Bolton’s background and ‘controversies’ Uncle Vern says “Do you think I’m stupid?” Oh Vernon, didn’t your momma teach you not to dangle juicy little nuggets like that in front of the voting public?

Ares

Potty Mouth

So Athena and I were discussing the blog today and the subject of my potty mouth came up. Specifically, the frequency and positioning of the F-Bomb. It’s been said by many that swearing is what a person does when they don’t know how to properly express themselves. I have no problem expressing myself, but my urges to pontificate profanely stem from two sources. One, I have been the beneficiary of a long tutelage under many masters in the School of Cursing. Accomplished experts in the art of slicing with crude mono-syllabic words took me under their wing before I learned how to drive. There’s some deep programming going on here. Secondly, I think there are times when you are pushed off that expressive cliff. If used correctly, cursing can become the ultimate epithet of frustrated disgust. My profession features a lot of these cliffs.

I think I understand what Athena was driving at. If your blog becomes a profanity-riddled rant your on that slippery slope moving downhill towards oblivion. Sort of like getting an e-mail from someone written with the Caps Lock on: You hear them yelling in your head while you’re reading it. Nonetheless, there is a middle ground to be found here. I think there will be times when no other words will do. In the interest of maintaining some approximation of dignity I’ll strive to keep it above board.

Ares

All Been Done Before

I'm starting to know how my parents feel. I'm getting just old enough to see 'new' things and say "That's already been done". Case in point, the pointless movie whose marketing you can't get away from. Good rule of thumb on movies: Any movie that tries this hard to tell you it's good probably sucks. But my bigger point it is this: Didn't Yakov Smirnoff do this shtick back in the early 80's? If I was Yakov I'd be startin up a posse. On a more personal note, I think Borat looks a little too much like Dennis, one of my roommates in college. Anybody seen Dennis lately?

Ares

Athena here: since Ares is a little slow remembering this, I'll chime in. It was actually the late, great Andy Kaufman as Latka Gravas. And though we mortals sometimes were slow to tweak to Andy's genius, I still maintain he was one of the greats. May he rest in peace.

Vernonland

I have to hand it to the AJC. They never cease to amaze and incense me. For today’s lesson in high school journalism I direct your gaze to the Metro section of last Thursday, the 2nd of November. There you will find a fawning, vomit-inducing half page article about DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones’ birthday party. Just in case you were in danger of missing it, they headed the page with 158-point, Japs-Bomb-Pearl-Harbor-sized font. I’d bet what’s left of my hair that the New York Times front page headline on September 12, 2001 didn’t use font this big.

This article is repugnant on so many levels it’s difficult to get a handle on all of them. Let me just get this one out of the way up front: Why the f*** is this news!? Isn’t there some other media venue that could convey this, preferably one I can ignore with greater ease? Crack Whore and Politician Monthly comes to mind. Okay, I feel a little better getting that out of the way. As previously stated there’s a gi-normous headline. “Jones throws a big ball”. They sure know how to reel you in. The sub –headline, in standard 48-sized font beneath that is “DeKalb CEO praised as a communicator, prioritizer and fitness fan”. I suppose praising him as a media whore, micro-manager, racist, and shameless self-promoter in a way that would make Don King gasp would be redundant at this point.

In some Byzantine attempt to give the event depth and context the author starts out referencing Truman Capote’s 1966 ball to honor Katherine Graham. Relevance and dignity go right out with window by paragraph two with the gushing line “But who needs Truman when you’ve got Vernon”! Then there is simply the bizarre, which deserves to be quoted in its entirety. Without any setup or follow through referencing this paragraph appears 3/4 of the way into the piece:

"Animals cause more grief to politicians than humans do, said Lewis Regenstein, who leads the Interfaith Council for the Protection of Animals and Nature and wrote a book called ‘Replenish the Earth: The Teachings of the World’s Religions on Protecting Animals and Nature.’”

Okay, I’ll bite. What the f*** does that have to do with anything? It’s like some little journalistic dingle berry set adrift in a putrid swamp of an article.

In case I hadn’t been cc’d on all the memos cataloguing what a great humanitarian Vernon is there’s a recap. “Partiers also included an animal rights activist, a senior citizen in her wheel chair, a would-be amusement park developer and one of Jones’ gym buddies”. They had to send the animal rights activist because the spotted owls refused to be photographed with Vernon and the puppies were terrified.

There is one particular section that caught my attention. “Drinks, though, were aplenty – a cash bar, no taxpayer dollars involved. No one misbehaved. A few feet away stood a couple of uniformed county police officers.” So as a taxpayer the only thing I didn’t pay for was the booze. Hey Vernon, how much for the rest of the party and the overtime for those officers? Or did that amusement park developer friend of yours help pick up the check? In my wildest fantasy world someone from the media would ask you how many kids in DeKalb County don’t have health care or won’t graduate high school, and then in the same breath ask you how much the taxpayers of this county kicked in for your little get together. Some analogy about hell freezing over comes to mind. I missed the meeting where the media decided that Vernon shall henceforth be held blameless and unaccountable.

One last question, this one for Charles Yoo, the author of the piece. How could you? Is this why you went J school? Where you a willing participant in the long drawn out death of journalism, or did someone blackmail you? Chuck, there are other jobs in this world. Some of them actually mean something. Some of them won’t require a half-dozen shots of Jack Daniels to look yourself in the eye when it’s over.

Ares

Yes, he does actually have a sister, and here I am. I'm just a little slower on the posts. And a little less angry, but then, we knew that already.

First, just because Mark has been the Lite Gov for a minute doesn't mean he can actually ACCOMPLISH anything. It IS a Republican-controlled Senate, after all. And since the Lt. Gov is not elected on a ticket in this state--the Gov and Lt. Gov run independently of one another--its not entirely fair to blame Taylor for Perdue's issues. And boy does he have issues.

Still, that's not to say I like Mark, because I don't. But I dislike him less than Sonny. Ringing endorsement. And I know a few folks who feel the same. Tuesday is going to be interesting, as in the Chinese proverb: may you live in interesting times.

And just for the record, Kinky may be funny as hell (he is) but he's still a freaky old hippy running for office as a joke. I want to believe there are still qualified folks out there who will run on the serious. But Ares would tell me I'm kidding myself.

An Election Prediction

Nothing’s going to happen. When I say nothing’s going to happen, I mean to the body politic in this country. They may be some furniture moving happening on Capitol Hill, and there may be a change in the majority, but the song remains the same. In some respects we may be a little worse for the wear. Regardless of the outcome there are battalions of lawyers already lathering up on both sides to claim fraud and malfeasance. This is now standard in our elections: Argue the process if you don’t like the outcome. The tin foil hat brigade works itself into a tizzy about electronic voting machines and election stealing. (Elections were stolen long before computers.) If their side loses there is a large chunk of the electorate that will believe it simply has to be fraud on some level. And, of course, the media is only too happy to gleefully report every person who ever disagreed with anyone. Case in point: There are about six people in this world that don’t agree with Saddam Hussein getting the death penalty, and all six are getting face time today.

The biggest mistake that will be made by Wednesday is that one side will claim victory. Whoever is holding the majority in Congress will be doing so by a thin margin. If the Democrats win they will most likely call it a mandate, which it is not. It’s is simply a lot of voters holding their collective noses. I have a sinking feeling that if Democrats attain the majority they’ll be like a teenage boy that finally gets a girl to sleep with him: So overwhelmed by the prospects that they fumble and fidget and squander the opportunity. If Republicans retain both houses they’ll say……I’m not sure what they could say with a straight face. “I promise we won’t suck as bad”?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we’re no better than we were on Monday. Regardless of what falls where the electorate will be about equally divided and really pissed off at the other side. Which is exactly what benefits both parties. The more time we spend throwing rocks at each other the less time we spend paying close attention to what elected officials do. We used to use divide and conquer on other countries. (Now we just conquer.) Seems to be working out pretty well domestically for the people in power.

I’m sure Athena would probably disagree with me. Over to you sis.

Ares

That House on West Paces Ferry

Is there anyone, anywhere in this state whose EEG even twitches at the idea of the governor's race? To paraphrase P.J. O'rourke, how the f*** did we end up with these two quibbledicks vying for helicopter rides? Let's roll through the options.

First we have Sonny, a man that couldn't excite 5 year olds on a playground. He does get points for chutzpa, what with that whole "I'll change the flag if you elect me, honest" move he pulled. The truly fascinating aspect of that is watching the indignation of people that feel betrayed by that issue. Oh my god! You mean a politician lied to you? Couldn't happen to a nicer group. Aside from that, can anybody name one thing Sonny has done to.....well can you name anything he's done? Yes, state services took a hit. Our mother works for the state and her pay took it in the shorts over the past few years. But Sonny inherited an economy that was on Ex-Lax. And let's face it, unless it can be attacked by the National Guard there isn't too much a governor can do about too much.

Mark Taylor reminds me of Amway for some reason. The entertaining thing about Mark Taylor is that I haven't watched a politician beg this hard in years. He's using babies and puppies in his commercials for Christ's sake. Maybe we can get someone with some personality to loan him a cup or two, at least until the election is over. He's my question for the electorate. Mark has been in the co-pilot seat the whole time Sonny's been governor. Every time Mark says Sonny's administration sucks isn't he getting some splatter on himself? Got a question for Mark. What have you done, ever, that makes you qualified to be governor. Being elected to the number two spot is not a testimony to the depth of your character. If you had been a captain of industry you could at least say you had, you know, done something. Oh, my mistake. Just read your bio. It says you're an executive in your father's company. Boy, I bet that interview was tough. Sounds like you know what hard work is.

This leads to a larger question I've been toying with for a while now. What is the point in having a governor? (I know, it's a rhetorical question. It's not like we have an alternative here.) Day to day stuff in the world of governance is carried on by career bureaucrats. People that move the ball forward in this world are average Joes and Jans that endure the political mood swings of pencil necks that think they're anointed because they were 5 percentage points more popular than someone else. The people that get the roads built, teach your kids, maintain the parks, and come when you call 911 don't have the option of being an executive in their father's company. Most of those people show up for work every day because they feel theirs is a job worth doing and they derive some satisfaction by being of use to their fellow man.

That said, the office of governor can be extremely important to the citizens of a state. Just ask everyone that voted for Kathleen Blanco. Although she fell flat on her face, I don't think the problem was Kathleen. She was the product of a system where your qualification for governance is based on your popularity. As Hurricane Katrina showed us to the tune of a thousand dead bodies, politics shouldn't be an anyone-can-play game. We need a better vetting process. Fire and police services require rigorous training before you're given power over other humans. What do politicians have to do? Spend a lot of money, that's what. The problem we run up against as citizens is what I call the natural gas cul-de-sac. (And while we're on the subject of gas and governors, thanks for that particular fucking Roy.) Choosing a governor is like choosing a natural gas provider. Regardless of whom you chose the bill is going to be about the same. You get the option of "choosing" the name on the bill, but it's still the same stinky unstable shit being pumped into your house.

It's been more than a little fun watching the Kinky Friedman run for governor in Texas. I think we need more Kinky's in this political world. Kinky is in effect saying to the other candidates "No body takes you seriously anymore. My being here is proof of that". Kinky is to professional politics what blogs are to the mainstream media. He's set me to thinking: Who in Georgia would make a Kinky-style run for governor?

The name we should see on the ballot is Shirley Franklin. She's about the only politician in Georgia that can stand up and say with a straight face "There's a whole lot less broken stuff now than when I got here". Anyone that can get a handle on that festering monument to dysfunctionality that is the City of Atlanta deserves to go far in this life. Given the comparative levels of dysfunction, Shirley should be able to unkink the state in about a week. Not that the bar was very high for Shirley. All she needed to do to be better than her predecessor was show up for work and not get indicted. God bless her, Shirley is actually trying to make things better. Is it too late to have a write in candidate?

Ares

The First

This is the collaborative effort of a brother and sister. In short, we are over-educated, under-employed, and generally bemused by the world around us. Coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, we find ourselves in agreement more often than not. We live in Atlanta, capitol of the "New South", where "New" doesn't mean better.

We had hoped to make this blog into something more than a monument to our own narcissism. After years of enduring the pathetic excuse for mainstream journalism in this town (I'm looking at you AJC) we decided to see if we could do better. Knowing this will never be anyone's source for breaking news or widespread coverage, we decided to take a different tack. Our aim is to see if we can intelligently comment upon events without the loading of breathless predictions of doom and danger or requsite buzzwords that comprise the pathetic template placed before us every day. In other words, they've lowered the bar so low that it would appear anyone can play. Besides, it's just the internet. If we fall flat on our faces we'll have done it in front of 4, maybe 5 people counting ourselves.