A Sheehan, Sheen Sunday

After my partner went out the last two weekends to shuttle people from camp to camp, I took the older kiddos to do my share. After three hours of non-stop driving I came into the Peace House for a quick bathroom break. On my way out, through the kitchen, a woman stopped me. "Which spice do you think would go better in this pasta sauce?" she asked.

I couldn't answer easily, so I spent the next couple of hours working with a team to whip up an easy dinner for 200. Martha Stewart would be so proud... if she weren't with the 'other' side.

My kids, each armed with a cell phone, reported in from time to time. The drifted like dandelion seeds from camp to camp, facing off opposite the 'anti-Cindy' protesters, documenting in their minds, and in the camera's eye, the sights of a real protest. The day was gorgeous, the highlights so many that the accompanying photos just a taste of the event.

My eldest was the 'bubble girl,' blowing soap bubbles as two of the activists got married. Then she and her sibling stuck with the press as Martin Sheen led Cindy in reading the rosary. I drove up just as they were finishing, to pick them up and get them home in time to get at least some sleep before the school day. My daughter had been angling for an interview with Cindy, and was encounteing the deft work of her 'handler.' A little smiling, pushing her unique status as a youth reporter, and she was able to get Cindy's attention for a single undivided attention. Then the crowd swallowed her, and Martin, and they drove off.

Trying to stave off the inevitable restaurant stopped I figured we'd at least eat some of the food I'd prepared and we stopped at the Peace House. We trooped into the kitchen, and it wasn't until I'd slung a dollop of dinner on my plate that I realized that the guy in the blue oxford shirt was Martin Sheen! Very cool human; he put up with my kids, and the admirers, with aplomb. Never got to see Cindy again, but we were all touched by the power of the system she'd built around her.

The odd thing is that, as much as I support her, and agree with many of the feelings about the war and it's attempted prosecution, I disagree with her core wish: I don't think Bush should talk with her. He's made up his mind, and talking with Cindy Sheehan, in my opinion, won't change his mind -- or hers.

A postscript on 9/8: All this power, all this focus, seems to have been shredded by the same hurricane that has shorn our southern coast of a tender strip.

The Free Internet, the Promise of Grid Computing

In the beginning, there was the 'Net. Nothing but Net. Gopher was there, and ftp, and other now-ancient protocols, and cruisers of that electronic highway of yore would probably have embraced Mad Max as their avatar.

When I ran an Internet business in the early through mid-90's, even the people with whom I contracted for programming had issues with using the Internet for things as base as commerce. The hue and cry died down about the time people started buying up domains and squatting ahead of companies that were just starting to catch onto this new medium with the potential to 'level the playing field' between the mega-stores and small boutique businesses. One of my investors offered to set up a fund with several of his cronies and have me buy up domains. I refused on moral grounds. Stupid me!

Now I have two firewalls, anti-virus and -spam software, and spend quite a bit of my business life defending against or outthinking people and software 'bots that are attempting to make my life, and that of my charges, impossible. There is a multi-billion dollar industry around Intrusion Detection, Intrusion Prevention, and network authentication, all around keeping the bad guys off our networks. Whether offerings by companies like Mirage Networks will be able to hold the fort without impacting legitimate activities remains to be seen on commercial-scale networks. All this without even touching the real crimes of identity and data theft happening all the time and reported to no one unless discovered. The Russian Mafia is already wise to the kind of 'protection' money already being collected by the Dons of Symantec, Trend, CA and MacAfee. Of course, their marketing methods are a bit more... direct.

Grid computing is at a similar cusp. If you've ever signed up to volunteer your computer to look for aliens, cure cancer, or map the human genome, you've been part of the birth of grid computing. Grid computing has been around for over half a decade in one form or another. In a nutshell, your computer goes to work for someone else when you're not using it.

Like the Internet itself, this simple idea has the ability to become a burden at least as onerous to businesses as security is for the average user, with a questionable return on investment depending on operating burden. Sun and IBM are duking out the back offices of grid computing, while smaller -- and nimbler -- companies such as United Devices are bringing their grid solutions to market.

Up to now we're still mostiy in the "do noble things for noble causes' mode. But to boost this idea to the level of market and profit requires satisfactorily answering the following questions:

1. How can information be kept confidential even if it's on someone else's grid?
2. How can the network be secured from inapropriate activity on the part of the grid it's hosting?
   
3. How can a company make money by hosting someone else's work?
4. How can a host prove to the work provider how much work they did in a measurable way that lets them get paid?
5. How do we match hosts with job opportunities?
6. And how do we do this securely over the Internet?
   

Bluntly, until issues #1 and #2 are solved, I don't think there's any future to grid computing on a serious commercial level. And then the other issues need to be solved to make this a worthwhile market segment. And judging from the reaction from drug companies, they're not thinking security, they're still trying to get their arms around their current IT infrastructure.

There's some good patents out there, if you look around (try here, or here). What we need now is a solid business model, an ROI that makes sense, and a commitment from both OS manufacturers such as Sun and IBM on how they can integrate fiduciarily auditable job performance into their grid offerings. What we have so far are packaging and marketing solutions who benefit the hardware makers, not grid users.

The Scourge of Stupidity

As someone who knows too much about the public school system, I dedicate today's column to the unsung geniuses of the K-12 sector: students and vendors. Whether for good or evil, these two groups represent the creme de la creme of our public education system. Kudos to our former and current governors, as well as our heroic legislature, for keeping the system up to snuff. In the meantime, Texas school districts are being penalized for our "leaders'" inability to solve problems to the tune of billions of dollars and a late start to the education of students.

Hello, Nurse!
A woman calls and, without giving her name, proceeds to tell me how hard it is to remember four passwords to access all the systems she needs for work. "My husband," she confides, assuming anonymity, "is a computer person, and he thinks it's silly that you have so many. I just can't get them all straight!" Click. The caller, it turns out, is a nurse. That would be the person parents entrust their children, to provide both wellness services as well as emergency first aid. Four passwords... remember medications. Four passwords... first aid protocols. I am worried that she will not be able to do her job if she can't remember four passwords without a complaint. I'm more worried that she'll do a pelvic exam on someone needing a Heimlich! HIPAA be damned, and forget FERPA. So what if a student who sees the sticky note on my monitor can then read all students grades? It's her precious memory that's being wasted. Idiot. I think I'll have her passwords reset weekly to random sixteen-character combinations.

P.S. She called from a school telephone -- from her desk, it turns out. So now she gets a reprimand from me and her supervisor. Even a child could think not to use a phone that could be traced.

Help Who?
Our school system has a help desk that takes all technology calls from the campuses. They are an intrepid and innovative bunch of folks who have to deal with all manner of questions. The telephone number for this group is emblazoned on all telephones in the school system, is e-mailed to every staff member using a computer on more than a weekly basis. It's on the bottom of every web page. We teach it to them at new teacher orientation.
"Hello, xxxxxxxxx department."
"Yes, um, my computer doesn't work."
"Have you called the help desk?"
"What's that?"
Caller ID to the rescue again. These are not neophyte teachers, backed against the wall by their young charges. These are grizzled, bluish-haired veterans who have been at the same job since before electricity was in vogue. We know. We see. We laugh.

Sadly, we transfer these folks to the help desk instead of putting in a work order to change out their computers with Etch-A-Sketch™ wireless devices.

The folks in the Help Desk industry even have a trouble ticket code for these folks :ID10T. You do the math.

Let me get an Expert on the Phone
A staff member is being walked through a set of instructions to connect her computer to a printer. We're talking Windows XP here, not a Burroughs 800-series mainframe. After the steps necessary to call up the control panel, then printers, then add a printer, she stops her helper.
"I'm sorry, this is just too complicated," she says. "Here, talk to Andi."
A pause, then a querulous, middle school voice. "Hi?" It lilts up.
"Do you know how to install a printer?" the help desk person says.
"Uh, sure," answers the sixth grader. "What's the IP address and do I need to create an output port?"
'Nuff said.

My Student the System Administrator
We had been having repeated problems with out computer network at a school. Teachers were complaining their students could not log in, they could not take attendance... in short, crazy-making. After much searching, we found that someone had plugged a server computer into the network. As the name implies, a server serves up things to its customers. Since computers are no smarter than the brooms in Disney's Sorceror's Apprentice, it began robotically serving up 'street addresses' -- IP addresses -- to computers around it. When we finally killed the connection to the laboratory, the teacher called in a huff.
"Why doesn't my lab work? What did you do?"
Short, tersely polite explanation followed.
"Oh," she said, unabashed. "That must have been my students. I was teaching them about servers and they must have plugged it into a network port. I told them not to!"
The teacher had no clue. Not in understanding what she was teaching, and certainly not in how to monitor what her students, clearly her technological superiors, were doing. They're the ones, after all, who turned on and configured the DHCP service that was so blithely readdressing computers around the school.

A postscript: a few weeks later, during summer school, the same teacher wrote the administrative user name and password to the campus computers on the white board, so her students could install software they needed. We're still picking illegal software off of them. The teacher is. not surprisingly, still gainfully employed.

I write these vignettes not just to vent, but to point out that it is vital that a teacher not only be a page ahead of their students, but really know the tools of their trade. Can you imagine Rembrandt not being able to teach his students how to make a brush or mix paints? Or set up an easel or stretch a canvas? The metasubject being taught is as important as the relevant syllabus entry.

It's not about teaching to the standardized test: it is about modeling intelligent humanity to the generation that will hold your life support plug in its hands.

It's not too late to worry.

Giving Blood, Unclenching the Fist

This is the danger period. The patient was carefully poked and prodded, prepped. Staff was on hand to ensure the foreign objects were carefully inserted, that the blood of the body was removed from its location. Now the fist can unclench, the staff turns away and let natural clotting do its work.

The antiseptic metaphor ends here. There is nothing sanitary or manageable like a blood donation with the Gaza and West Bank withdrawals. The "safe" part of the Gaza withdrawal is almost complete, and, barring any last-minute idiocy on the part of the settlers or their "helpers" in Homesh or Sa-Nur, civilians should be out of harms way, at least in terms of their former, to be razed, homes.

Now the way is clear for the ugliness to begin. The lootings by Israeli soldiers. The terrorist tactics our Jewish youth learned so well from their Palestinian brethren. Today they stopped just short of being shot, just short of burning a man in his bulldozer.

In a few weeks, we will see just how little control the Palestinian Authority has over the people it purports to rule. It would be too easy a publicity stunt, for example, for the Iranian-backed terrorists that already have the 'hearts and minds' of many Gazans to stage an invasion of the already-vacated territory, claim it as their victory. Check out Hamas' celebration of their "military" victory.

The reality is that Sharon will not move back in. The U.N. will not support us. The PA will appeal to the world organizations for support, and Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their ilk will have more to crow about on their web sites of lies. Lies that their leaders have been burning into minds to young and malleable to discern from even a relative truth. Look past the boy's flag. Look to the blood, flames and hate painted on his wall.

If the settler movement wanted to ensure that the withdrawal fulfill the prophecy they preached, they need to continue to urge their children into danger, into lines of fire they would never dream of sending themselves. If they want to ensure that Israel gets what small, temporary advantage this withdrawal brings, they should leash their dogs of war; make their children go back to their yeshivot, back to learning about the less imperialist aspects of god and country. There will be plenty of time for them to scold 'I told you so' to whichever government follows in Sharon's downfall. There may even be a time for them to return to Kfar Darom a third time, to move Atzmona yet again, from where it has yet to root.

The relaxed fist can clench again in violence, contract in involuntary and painful spasms, or allow fresh blood to bathe its tissues. In the spirit of this blog, I look forward to a more peaceful border despite reality, a stronger Israeli society as a result of this disengagement. Most of all I hope the tears of fear and rage shed by the children evicted from the only homes they knew be replaced with smiles as they are welcomed into their new homes by new (and old) neighbors.

Nazis in the Mirror

The images before my eyes, from the time I can remember asking the first question, have always drawn my memories of my parent's Holocaust, of my Holocaust, to the scared child walking under the guns of Nazi thugs, the Jewish star pinned to his thin chest his death warrant.

Yesterday and today, with pain, tears and trauma, Israel forcibly removed fanatical Jews from their houses. The decision has and does tear families apart, throw doubt into the hearts of both staunch supporters and decriers of the disengagement, and creates, to hijack a phrase from the Palestinians, our own Al-Nakba.

The impact of this self-expulsion by Jews, of Jews, will reasonate for at least a generation. The toddlers will remember this forever, telling the story, reinforced by their version of history and the event and the omnipresent media documenting this disaster. Would the IDF induct the fanatics throwing acetone at police officers into its ranks? How will the IDF find loyal, Zionist, dedicated soldiers to be the next generation of leaders? How will families look each other in the eyes when one side demonstrated in orange, the other in blue?

This exodus from Gaza pitted 'great' rabbis against the government, the army and the will of the majority of the Israeli populace. Their defeat in this battle only signals that the war between the fanatic and the realist, the secular versus the deeply religious, the voices of peace against the strident chanting of doing god's will. How yeshivas that were born at the breast of the West Bank and Gaza Strip can survive this and remain Zionist is beyond my ken at this time. It must be, but tonight, from my far-away perch, I do not see the way.

One ripple of history, however, must not be allowed to propagate. Some fanatics, some sick, twisted settlers and agitators dared to do what we as a people have allways despised when done my others: compare anything less than a holocaust to the Holocaust. Armenia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Serbia, the Iraqi Kurds, these are all holocausts worthy not only of comparison, but deserving of remembrance so that we, as a human society, can learn never to repeat. (So far, we seem to be developmentally challenged in that regard.)

With this disgusting display we have lost the ability to compain against PETA and their comparison of chickens in cages to Jews peering at the photographer from their wooden slats in Auschwitz. We can no longer blaze with righteous anger at the goose-stepping neo-nazis proclaiming Judenrein in podunk Polish or German towns that haven't seen one of my kind since they shipped us off to death camps in 1939.

My parents' town in Poland, in 1947, Nineteen Forty Seven!, committed a pogrom against the remaining few Holocaust survivors, to create a Judenrein city. They welcome us now, with our money to spend on touring the places where they and their parents condemned their visitors' families to death. My family, for the record, went to Auschwitz on September 8, 1943.

This is a picture of my father's friend who, after the war, posed in one of the uniforms, taken by a professional photographer. I never got a straight answer from my parents as to why so many survivors had their pictures taken like this, but I have a theory. While the Jewish star was a symbol of their subjugation, the uniform was their badge of survival, of having passed through the storm. I never saw any of my family pictures after the war with anyone wearing that star.

With all due respect to the Israeli citizens who have had their lives entirely disrupted, and their children whom they subjected to a life-crippling trauma, they should be ashamed that they even thought of comparing non-violent, crying soldiers and police officers to the cold, heartless bastards who murdered over three hundred of my aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins for the simple sin of being Jewish. May these victims of brutal murder be remembered, as the memory of these defilers of those of martyrs be erased.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Sometimes the absurd is far more compelling than reality. I've been depressing myself with the Israeli pullout from Gaza, and contrasting the dispassionate American coverage with the heart-rending coverage on Israeli radio and television. Just amazing. And, of course, depressing.

Then the latest raft of idiot-spawned viruses came over the transom and, while at this time we seem not to have been hit, we've spent several person-days this evening getting prepped. I work with an amazing team, and I am in awe of their focus and loyalty to the cause. No matter how little it pays. Sigh.


And then... The Flying Spaghetti Monster comes to the rescue. My cousin from New York sent this missive to me. Were it not for my previous belief in peanut butter (1)(2), I would immediately convert -- the evidence, as explained in this site, is simply overwhelming, as it would any Kansas School Board member. Enjoy!

May I have many similar posts!

MSNBC needs sharper pencil, maps

At the start of the second Intifada MSNBC (cited August 8, 2001) had maps of the Middle East, listing all the Arab capitals, and Tel Aviv listed as Israel's. It took a hue and cry to get it changed. Idiots.

I don't know if it's the urge for drama or just plain stupidity, but they just posted the following headline under a withdrawal article on the web: "Tel Aviv seals borders to civilians; clashes reported near some settlements." That's like saying 'Citizens Fear Washington Fire will Spread to Chicago." (Hint: Gush Katif and Tel Aviv are far apart!) That would be the charitable explanation. The scarier, but I think more accurate explanation would be that, again, MSNBC is playing to their master' strings, and Jerusalem has again been supplanted by Tel Aviv. Proof again that oily Texas, not Washington, D.C. is the capital state of our country.

Americans wonder why we are laughed at by citizens from other countries. It's simple: we generally don't know any language except English (poorly, in large part, at that), our knowledge of geography generally lends itself to knowing where the nearest Wal-Mart is, and not cities and other trivia. Add to that the way our media frames everything in a naive, superficial, 'packaged for maximum impact' way. News needs to be timely and correct.

This is a trivial version of the larger media game, 'paint folks who kill civilians with different brushes.' More on that another time.

A Forced Immigration

I hope in reviewing this post in two weeks I will smile at this. Now I'm feeling that same feeling my reserve unit shared three days after Passover in 1988, when we were activated in order to maintain order in Shchem (Nablus). The way was unclear, the criteria for success... unwritten.

D-Day has begun with clashes, tire slashes, and underage youths as the footsoldiers for their elders. Dare I point out that our cousins the Palestinians have been using their children, albeit for more lethal errands, since my time in Shchem? The youth of today won't be the soldiers of tomorrow. They will be a fanatical thorn in the side of Israel's society; believers in transgressing the law if only their rabbi, or any rabbi, sees fit.

The soon to be uprooted settlers are angry to leave home, and fearing to come to their new homes. Ten days in a hotel and then off to trailer parks hastily set up and 50% the size of their original homes... Israelis have all heard this before. Every wave of Aliyah (going up to live in Israel) has been like this: bad planning, empty promises from politicians more interested than the sound bite than the solution. When the Ethiopians were imported en masse, taking over apartment blocks straight from the desert, they were lost. These forced immigrants, coming from the luxuries of homes, lawns, farms and detached garages are entering their own shock. It's off to the trailers, to new neighbors and schools, to the uncertainty of how their lives in this new and alien country will continue. Because, for them, this is not the country they left. It's no wonder some settlements locked themselves inside their settlements.

They're reading the Israeli papers on the radio now, before the dawn. The settler leaders sent the punks to get some sleep, to "save their strength for tomorrow." With morning comes the real work, the work of forcing an Aliyah on those who feel they are already on a higher plane of existence.

Disengagement

What if at disengagement
everyone just walked off
empty handed
singing their patriotic song in
simple celebration?

Guy Bonding

"Hello," my spouse said. She squinted for a few moments, then handed the phone to me. "One of your friends," she said.
I took the phone. Normally she mouths who it is when I give her the 'puzzled' look; she just shrugged.
"Yo."
"Shlom!"
I recognize the voice; a friend whose had the enviable luxury of living work-free for the past few years. Sort of an uber-geek with good English, I've always been jealous of his ability to make money from his writing.
We discussed his job search for about ten seconds, then:
"Do me a favor," he said. "I'm in San Jose and am looking for a free wi-fi spot."
"What?"
He explained he was driving around the area and needed to 'hook in,' but didn't know where there was a good coffee shop with free wireless Internet.
"Um, you want me to look it up for you?"
"Could you?"
Nonplussed, I went into my office and, while he drove around downtown San Jose, I Googled maps and locations, squinted at poorly-drawn maps, and tried to list what was available.
It was kind of like listing all restaurants in the town.
"What neighborhood are you in?" I asked at one point.
"I don't know," he replied, but a moment later I heard the car sounds die away. I guess he pulled over to the side.
He game me a cross street and, armed with the right Google search ("free wifi in san jose, CA"), I gave him an address.
My spouse wandered into the office at the point I was trying to explain cross streets.
"Is he lost?" she mouthed. I nodded, then listened as he tried to find himself on a map.
"Is there anyone you could ask?" I asked him.
"Hang on, I think I see it... No, that's not it."
"Isn't there anyone there your could ask for directions?"
"Umm.... Ah, got it!" Sound of car pulling out again.
"Do you need anything else?"
"No, thanks! Bye!"
I hung up; my spouse started laughing. "He called you all way the from San Jose just to get directions?"
I nodded sheepishly, feeling slightly defensive.

Ten minutes later I was in bed, about to relish a much-needed early bedtime. My cell phone rang. It was my friend; he'd still not found the place. As I started to explain where it was, he said "Ahah! There it is. See yah!" and hung up.
My initial inclination (okay, action) was to roll my eyes at his stereotypical 'guy' behavior. But then I started thinking. My friend isn't a big relationship guy. He likes his life, his way, and that tends to make social dates more like encounters in one's travels. For him to call me, to think of me, was sweet. Even if the semiotic content of our engagement was mostly about cross streets and wi-fi hotspots where he could sip coffee, alone. He's a true friend, even if it's a sparse relationship. I raised a venti soy chai in his direction before turning off my reading lamp and rolling over to sleep.

Life and Anniversaries

15 years married. "Endurance," was my spouse's word for why. "Chemistry" was mine. We should add "love," "commitments" or, as co-workers have suggested, "resignation."

15 years ago Saddam invaded Kuwait, and my bride emerged from the bathroom to me fiddling with the radio above our bed instead of attentive to her. Since then there have been so many stories on the news of death and horror. The Gulf War, the Oslo accord and its bloody demise, WTC, then more planes, the WTC again and finally, and a war against stinging gnats.

So when I saw the news flash and the first images from the plane crash-landed in Toronto, my heart took it's well-beaten path down to my stomach. Flames meters from a highway. People watching, helpless, on the shoulders. Rain, smoke, flashing lights at too far a distance. MSNBC was quick to bring up the appropriate graphic of just how many people probably died.

I cried, called friends and co-workers to share the news of how there were no casualties. It felt so good to share in the cameraderie of joy instead of fear, elation instead of horror. In the belief that we can have good luck, instead of a harrowing procession of tragedies and deaths.

Today I have reason to smile. 309 plus 15.