Well well well, isn’t this a nice thing. Quick ramblings that go from my head to the front page. Does Tim know what danger lurks in giving us writers so much power?

Well, I will try my best to be responsible with this gift. Hopefully, such absolute power will not corrupt myself absolutely.

I think I will take this opportunity to discuss “Silence.” Silence is not found in nature, It is entirely man-made. Usually it is found in a man-made building, where it is possible to lock out the sounds of nature. It then comes about from one of two things, either isolation or cooperation. In isolation we are alone. In cooperation, we work together to be silent to hear the performance of an individual.

The web, and blogs and forums in particular, provide a third realm, where it is possible to cooperate while in isolation. To share and to learn from each other is a great thing. The performance is usually written, not spoken, but that is rapidly changing with animations, video and audio.

We will all be alive for too short a time to experience everything ourselves firsthand. The ability to share and learn from each other is the best thing we have.

I am sure that I speak for all the writers here when I say that we welcome your feedback, comments, and contributions.

Recently I got a complimentary e-mail that said mymac.com was a New Yorker magazine for the common man. I always thought the New Yorker was for the common man, since my late Uncle Jimmy used to read it.

Uncle Jimmy was born in Italy, and worked hard all his life. A blue-collar guy if there ever was one. I remember visting him once and he was covered in flour. He was in his eighties and still working as a baker. He would rail against FDR like the New Deal was written yesterday. He said “you cannot pay people to do nothing.” It was, interestingly, both a moral and an economic view. Idle hands being the devil’s workshop and all.

When I view my own writings, it is easy to see that the my apples don’t fall far from my family tree. Of course, I think I know something that he didn’t: The Interest Mechanism. Interest is the ultimate way of getting paid for doing nothing.

Idleness can occur at both ends of the wealth spectrum. What makes societies strong is the middle-class, and people like Uncle Jimmy. America is losing its strength, and one only needs to look at Brazil and central America and around the world to see our children’s future. The murders today in a gated community in Brazil of Shell Oil employees shows that money cannot buy everything.

The new American Dream to become a millionaire and/or retire early based on investments (rather than savings) is not one Uncle Jimmy held. This new dream appears to save us from our isolation, but it is destroying us at the same time. It is not a simple problem to solve, but it is solvable. All it takes is cooperation.

On this topic, I will never be silent.

War is a Racket is the title of an essay written by General Smedley Butler.

This general won two Congressional Medals of Honor, and after retiring in 1933 summarized his experience like this:

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents…..

I invite you to read his essay in the forums. I have placed it under the Politics thread. here (the link will go to my personal blog, until the forums are fixed. See “Other people’s essays.”)

It is a little long, but well worth reading. Our families and friends are at risk in foreign lands, we should consider the reasons why.

Today we seem to be in the same historical position as we were 70 years ago. Those creators of history are all long dead. but maybe we can change our future this time, instead of repeating past mistakes. This story sounds all too familiar, even without the anticipation of nuclear weapons.

While I see the trigger for corporate behavior as stemming from the interest mechanism and the monopolies issued by the Patent Office, the effect of corporate behavior would appear to be unchanged. We The People bear the consequences. There is no refuge from ourselves.

After viewing the pictures of the Apple opening in Japan, I couldn’t help but think that Steve Jobs has become James Bond. The place looks like it should be the set of a movie, not reality. And Apple, of course, is always making the greatest stuff in their laboratories. Some of them even explode during the experimentation stage, just like on the “real” James Bond movie set. Pixar, of course, is already in the land of movies and make-believe.

The analogy to 007 breaks down however, because, in the movie, the Apple Store set would usually be the evil lair of the mastermind bent on world domination. Apple couldn’t be both Chaos and Control, could it? Maybe that building is from Get Smart, not James Bond. Hmmm. Maybe could there are two sides to Apple. The eccentric genius and the controlling freak? No, that would be unlikely and unprecedented. Nobody rises to the top and…….

Sorry, I was interrupted by a news report. Well, news as best you can get these days. It is a story on MSNBC.com on Turkeygate. You know what Turkeygate is don’t you? Turkeygate is the latest in a long line of clever advertising tricks used to dupe people. It is a national pastime, and used by both political parties in their attempt to fool all of the people all of the time. You can read about it by clicking here.

Before you get complacent and think I am bashing Steve Jobs or George Bush, I am not. I am not bashing Abe Lincoln or John Kennedy either. (I don’t bash, I merely describe

Do we know which type of leader is best? Is it controlling freak and eccentric genius, or is it eccentric freak and controlling genius? Or a controlling eccentric freak or an eccentric genius freak?

You may define me however you wish. We should also be sure to define our leaders as they are, and not as their advertising wishes us to see them.

I hate advertising. Advertising is lies. Communicating and advertising are not the same thing.

If only I could get my mind to explode,
Then I could be free of my humanity, and its stupidity.

Spontaneous combustion, instantaneous conflagration, call it what you will,
I wish to break free of gravity, and be free like a bird.

I want to know a tree from the inside, and know a stream by its taste.
I want to understand time by the season, and hour by light.

I want to shatter my assumptions, as well as my doubts,
I want to be free of all things, and be bound just to life.

I want to know what it is like to chase the wind,
to have nowhere to go and be always en route.

To arrive and to depart is one and the same,
and to travel as a flock, a pair, or not.

The peace in sound is the rhythm in voice,
whatever place I listen is part of the score.

Cold and wet, dark and light, warm and dry, it is all the same.
Life and death, love and hate, more or less, it is all the same.

To rejoice in the heartbeat of my brief time.

If only I could get my mind to explode, and shatter all my assumptions.
Then, perhaps, I could be free.

To rejoice in the heartbeat of my brief time.

A BBC Report Click Here

Acting on “”extensive intelligence” the US military dropped an ariel bomb on a house in Afganistan killing nine children. The pinpoint accuracy did manage to kill one alleged bad guy too.

At a ratio of 9:1, we Americans just have to be willing to make these sacrifices for the good of democracy. Let me see..what was my sacrifice again? Oh yes, I have to keep my mouth shut, my eyes closed, my ears covered, and my attention elsewhere. Otherwise, the “extensive intelligence” of the al Qaeda network will defeat us.

I sure do hope that their Muslim parents wil forgive us, and turn the other cheek. Afterall, we wouldn’t want them to hold us responsible for the sacrifices we made to kill them.

Since I am on the subject of war. The President sent James Baker to Iraq to work out the details of how Iraq is going to repay its debt to the U.S. Gee, isn’t that what we did to Germany after WWI? We forced them to pay for their liberation, fertilized the ground with resentment, and then were shocked that extermist views took root.

It is too bad that all our “extensive intelligence” can’t see the forest from the tree. We need a worldwide Jubilee.

Besides this blog, I also have a blog at BeHappyAndFree.com This was a blog I created to place my first piece about Apple, which caught the attention of Roger, which led to my knowing about Tim, which led to my having a column here. Everything I write here is there, and vice-versa, although obviously with some difference in structure and intent. I don’t really blog there like I am doing here however, so my world is becoming divided. Oh well.

BeHappyAndFree comes from the words of The Alan Parsons Project song “Day After Day (The Show Must Go On) on the album, I Robot. The other day I dug out the album jacket, and this is what I discovered:

“I Robot: The story of the rise of the machine and the decline of man, which paradoxically coincided with his discovery of the wheel…and a warning that his brief dominence of this planet will probably end, because man tried to ceate a machine in his own image.”

Those words were copyright 1976. Pretty amazing, huh? At the dawn of Apple. In my bio, I describe myself as a daydreamer. The words from the song read:

Gaze at the sky
And picture a memory
Of days in your life
You knew what it meant to be happy and free
With time on your side

Remember your daddy
When no one was wiser
Your ma used to say
That you would go further than he ever could
With time on your side

Think of a boy with the stars in his eye
Longing to reach them but frightened to try
Sadly, you’d say, someday, someday

But day after day
The show must go on
And time slipped away
Before you could build any castles in Spain
The chance had gone by

With nothing to say
And no one to say it to

Nothing has changed
You’ve still got it all to do
Surely you know
The chance has gone by

Think of a boy with the stars in his eye
Longing to reach them but frightened to try
Sadly, you’d say, someday, someday

But, day after day
The show must go on
And you gaze at the sky
And picture a memory of days in your life
With time on your side

With time on your side
(Day after day the show must go on)
With time on your side
(Day after day the show must go on)

I copied the album to a digital format about a year ago, but never loaded the CD in my library. The other day at work I discovered a casette of the LP, and have been playing it a lot there when I had the chance.

A few days later (before the snow) I took my daughter to the park. As I watched her roll down the hill, I realized why we all know what it is like to behappyandfree with time on our side. It is the state of innocence, and trust, and inner peace. As adults, we understand that time is a compromise, and our emotions are mixed with a selfishness that is conscious and wilful. We lose our purity as we get older, but we never forget our innocent state. Like the Apple in the Garden of Eden, knowledge is the devil in us all.

When I started writing, I discovered that it made me need to constantly search for an audience. Although opinionated, I am more of a shy, stick to my cave kind of guy. Well, you know what they say about the quiet ones. I sure do talk a lot for a “quiet one.”

I went to AlanParsons.com the other day to see what he was up to. I never knew he was part of the genius behind Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. But what I really found was that even though I consider him a guy who has “made it,” he too still seeks an audience.

John Farr, whose writings I love, is in the same boat. I am thrilled that he is here. We are all seeking a broader audience, and we all have a unique perspective to share. It is our humanity that makes us real. The I Robot will never replace man.

What makes a man both superior to and weaker than the robot is his pride. Pride is a damn trap. Without the conceit to write, I have nothing to say. But with conceit, there is nothing worth saying.

As citizens of this new world of robots, I think we would do well to remember the words of a song from before automation:

Home on the Range

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

Today, man has conquered nature. This is a recent event. Now man needs to conquer himself. The thing that will make it possible is the conscious choice to “seldom hear a discouraging word.” Hope is at the center of our humanity. It is what drives an artist to find an audience. It is what drives a reader to listen. It is what drives man in a system of the perpetual re-birth of the same wisdom.

John, in one of his stories, mentions a bumper sticker that says “Art Ain’t For Sissies”. It is correct, but still reveals the conceit of the artist. Actually, a more accurate expression would be “Life Ain’t For Sissies.” Have the courage to love your brother, and worry less about the robots. A child is easily frightened, and is afraid to reach for the sky. What makes a man a man is his courage without conceit.

There is a great interview with Steve Jobs at Rolling Stone
here about the music industry.

Steve recognizes the problem. It is the issue of capital and credit required to get a new artist off the ground. And he is right, the winners pay for the losers. What he doesn’t realize is that the system of winners is what is creating the losers. As a billionaire, he doesn’t see the system as the problem per se. He accepts the fact of competition in the marketplace as a necessary prequisite, in spite of the fact that his success with iTunes is a result of cooperation in the marketplace.

The problems we face today all revolve around the issue of capital and credit.

David Bowie predicted that, because of the Internet and piracy, copyright is going to be dead in ten years. Do you agree?

No. If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive so that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. But on another level entirely, it’s just wrong to steal. Or let’s put it this way: It is corrosive to one’s character to steal. We want to provide a legal alternative.

This is the blindspot. What he is really saying is that it is corrosive to one’s character to share. This was the mistake that started 200 plus years ago when we set up the copyright and patent systems. This was the same error in thinking that led the financier of the American Revolution (Robert Morris) to end up in debtors prison.

I will have lots more to say on the issue of capital and credit, but for now, I just wanted to make you aware of the interview.

The purpose of the Age of Reason was to end the privileged debauchery of the religious and political elite. We have, in its place, created a new Age of Blindness, Where we once had darkness, and then a path of light, we now find ourselves blinded by the light. Our eyes may be open, but we cannot see anything.

Religious lies and dogma still separate man with vicious opinions of the unknown, but the scientific method has now added a new element of moral certainty. With science, we now claim to know the unknown mathematically, and believe it to be true just as fervently. Where before someone would open the Good Book, and claim to understand every mystery, today we open a book of numbers, and claim equally to have understand every mystery. We trust these numbers on a piece of paper more than our own two eyes.

Nothing represents this blinding light better than nuclear power. Our “reason” did not slow the old-age impulse to build bigger and stronger weapons. We are now caught in a cat-and-mouse game with terrorists, hoping to prevent being victims of a weapon we created, A dirty bomb, the intentional bombings in Japan, power plant accidents, and our bomb testings all share a common feature: The release of poison into our environment in concentrations that are not safe. Commonsense is no longer a part of the Age of Reason.

Our lexicon refers to “a jobless recovery,” as if an economy that does not provide sustenance to people somehow has value. “The numbers look good, we are turning the corner.” The machines are fed, but the people go hungry. I had a good year, I like the numbers written on my bank statement better than the numbers written on it last year. We can no longer separate our happiness or our actions from the numbers written on a piece of paper. Numbers define our past, present, and comfort with the future.

En masse we fill out forms for April 15. It is our duty as citizens to complete tax forms. It is for the greater good, and somewhere in the bowel of bureaucracy someone will read and audit our work. The massive collective effort of looking at numbers on paper has no known limit. With each passing generation we have more people employed looking at numbers. Not thinking, not writing, not analyzing, barely contributing. All for the purpose of filling a giant-sized file cabinet with sequential nothingness.

But this grand collection of numbers on paper would not be complete without making it a crime too. We collect the numbers, and then make sure no one alters the numbers to their “advantage.” Now we have people who watch the people who watch the numbers. If only a number itself were real, then we would all be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams.

How is it possible to have so much wealth, so much production, and so much misery side-by-side? Most revolutionaries are quick to blame the elite of privileged debauchery. I do not. We have tried theocracy, we have tried monarchy, we have tried capitalism and communism. In each case we ended up with an elite of privileged debauchery. It is time to recognize that we are blinded by numbers, and have been for hundreds of years.

“No taxation without representation!” Which is it that we desire? Numbers or Liberty? We revolted against a system of taxation, and created one even worse. World trade agreements, banking, financing, tariffs and protections all justified by numbers on paper. We sought a solution to life’s mystery and misery through science and reason, and have solved neither. Our light now shines too brightly, and we are making the whole world blind.

I asked my seven year-old daughter a question yesterday. I said, “When Christ was born, three men gave gifts to a strange baby. Isn’t that how we should celebrate? Rather than getting gifts for Christmas, maybe we should give a present to a baby whenever one is born. That way, anyday can be Christmas. You would only get presents the year you were born. But, we can only give the present to somebody we don’t know. What do you think?”

She liked the idea. My 10-year old didn’t like it as much. And my oldest one said “Dad, you can’t change Christmas.”

Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

BBC Link

President God Bush has sacrificed more than ten, and we with him, and us with them.

However, the US has warned it will not be deterred by civilian casualties.
…..

The US spokesman said there had been no indication that civilians were at the scene and he suggested the victims were partly to blame…..

Yes, it was all the children’s fault. Why take responsibility for one’s own mistakes when one can blame a dead child instead.

(He was just following our orders.)

Genesis 18

Abraham Pleads for Sodom
16 When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”
20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”
22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD . [5] 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare [6] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing-to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge [7] of all the earth do right?”
26 The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?”
“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”
29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”
He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”
30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”
He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”
31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”
He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”
32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”
He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

I just got an e-mail from a supplier stating that they were the exclusive supplier of fleece jackets made by Columbia Sportswear. Never mind that I don’t believe them. What they are probably saying is that they are the exclusive supplier in the decorator industry. Chances are you can find the same thing retail. And, if it is a private label item, thus really making it exclusive, there still isn’t anything unique about a fleece jacket. “Exclusive,” in this case, means a “monopoly” in the marketplace.

Economic theory states that monopies are bad, and laws make them illegal. The practice of monopoly, however, is highly desireable. It is touted in marketing, practice and desire. What it sells is pride. My supplier is trying to tell me that their product is unique. When people want “what’s new,” this will be the thing to give them. And, it will be to my competitive advantage.

Pride is another word for cool. Is Apple cool because its stuff is cool or because it works better? Apple is the exclusive provider of the iPod. Does the price reflect the component costs or the cool monopoly? Cool people should have money. People aren’t usually considered cool if they are poor. When people are poor and talented we usually describe them as “dedicated”, or some other innocuous word. Being cool is mostly for rich people. If you can get the people with money to “buy with pride”, well golly, you got yourself a sale. You (the seller) declare your pride in yourself, and they (the buyer) declare their pride in themself.

Am I cool because I use Apple stuff, and it costs a little more? Or, am I cool because of what I do with it? Probably a little of both. Part of me wants to be dedicated, but to be wealthy would be cool. Then I could buy all the cool things I want.

What is clear, is that advertisers do try to sell you pride. Humility and advertising is like oil and water. It seldom mixes. The advertising that says we’re #2 and try harder is a rarity, and even then, pridefully points out being #2. The whole idea of competition and defining yourself as compared to others is prideful. Microsoft vs Apple is both a marketplace battle between monopolies and a personal one of pride.

When the Apple community looks at Microsoft, we let out a collective yawn. We have more pride than they do in quality. They likewise look at the Apple community and yawn, because they have marketplace dominance. Pride is one of those things that can blind you.

The iPod and iTunes now bridges the gap between the two communities. Everybody’s pride will have to be redefined. Apple will be touting marketshare growth and Microsoft will tout new quality improvements. The roles may someday reverse, but not the pride. The cost of that pride is built into whatever product you buy.

At New York City’s Rockefeller Center, Spanish-speaking employees were prohibited from speaking Spanish. This is not an isolated case among employers, and the idea has taken hold in many school systems too.

In France, it has been recommended that any type of religious adornment be prohibited from schools. (Headscarfs, crosses, and yarmulkas) here

In Italy, artificial insemination has been outlawed except for heterosexual couples who can prove they are in a “stable relationship.” here

Taken together, we have a new view of the Rights of Man: He must shut up, and the State controls what he wears and regulates his sex life and procreation. If this is how the free citizens of society are treated, what exactly is the difference between being free and being a prisoner? The only thing missing is a law telling one when he can eat.

Thomas Paine must be rolling over in his grave.