I Have Gravitas - a helluvalot in fact!

.... man I'm gonna apply for this job in London... part of the requirement is to have:

"the gravitas to be able to extract information from others and then recommend proposed improvements with conviction and authority"

Hell, I'm good at that!
... what's 'gravitas' anyway?

List of social networking websites

Here's the future boys. On your mark! Get Set! Go network!

(Wow... I can live my whole life now without having to leave my computer.)

If you're not sure how - here's some entry tips on how to use what (I predict) will soon replace Monster if it hasen't already.

If We Beat the Enemy Does That Mean We Win?

If the war on gangs doesn't work, why do we think the war on terrorists will work.

There has been an effort to suppress gangs. This effort has failed and in fact has had the opposite effect!!! - this latest justice policy report reveals.

Hmmm.... is anyone surprised? I kinda am. But again, I kinda ain't.

So is anyone surprised that Al Queda has significantly grown and world terrorism has been on the increase since 911 and the "war on terror?"

Something counter-intuitive is happening here. The fact is that if you DON'T arrest kids in gangs they generally cause no crimes and leave the gang basically unscathed in about 12 months time. If you DO arrest (lock-up, put-away, get 'em off-the-streets) these same kids - you lock them into a gang identity forever removing their otherwise normal chances of a healthy productive life - for life!

This report reveals that gangs are not nearly the problem hyped up as by the news and police propaganda. And instead reinforcment of gang activity takes place by adding more cops to the streets and "cracking down" on the "gang problem."

Who would've thunk it?

Should someone mail this report to President Bush? Or is it too late? Have we already set into motion the dividing lines and locked in hatred from 1000s if not 1,000,000s of angry young muslims around the world.

Will our future be like in those dark anti-utopic sci-fi worlds we see in movies where everything is unstable and currents of violence and hatred lurk around each corner?

And what wise man will step forward and see that love, kindness, understanding, and even forgiveness can change a heart and soul? - not force and defeat of enemy. (I could be wrong here.)

Hey, isn't this kind of what that one famous guy said - "love your enemies" . What was his name again. Oh yeah, Jesus.

But isn't some of these main supporters of this war on terror Christian based? Hmmmmm.... Maybe they're not Christians like in "Jesus-said-to-do-this" kind of Christianity.

Here's a quote I liked from the report:

Further, the thrust of most gang enforcement efforts
runs counter to what is known about gangs and
gang members, rendering the efforts ineffectual if not
counterproductive. Police officials make much of targeting
reputed “leaders” while ignoring the fact that
most gangs do not need leaders to function (not to
mention the risk that removal of leaders will increase
violence by destabilizing the gang and removing constraints
on internal conflict). Research on the dynamics
of gang membership indicates that suppression
tactics intended to make youth “think twice” about
gang involvement may instead reinforce gang cohesion,
elevating the gang’s importance and reinforcing
an “us versus them” mentality. Finally, the incarceration
of gang members is often considered a measure
of success, even though prison tends to solidify gang
involvement and weaken an individual’s capacity to
live a gang- and crime-free life.

Put the words "terrorist organization" in the above quote where the words "gang" are.

just don't seem right

i try to never pea in the shower... it just don't seem right

actually, i don't
but i'm tempted to
i mean you gotta go... and water's all draining ta' same place... probably
but it just don't seem right

so i lean outside the shower... and into the weeds... as best i can

How to Make the Class Experience Better

Response to a query for suggestions on a SQL Optimization class I took recently:
**** ******* *********

Yes I enjoyed the class. Yes I have recommendations.

How to make the experience better next time:

Work harder at making sure each student is orientated to the page/exercise/script/folder/screen that teacher is working on at the moment: Too many students including self miss a beat, not know how they got to where they are, lose contact with flow of talk, quickly get discouraged and miss the exercise. When everything builds upon the previous thing learned, keeping orientated with where the class is supposed to be and getting there is paramount.

Spend time working with the students through the labs instead of just turning them silently loose for an hour and a half. Get them orientated again and make sure they get started right. Too many people are lost too much of the time. Just because a few basically already know it and stay with the teacher, doesn’t mean everybody does. Students are just too embarrassed to admit they’re not keeping up. It’s the Teacher’s responsibility to ensure everyone is onboard. Just asking, “is everybody with us?” and no one answering is not sufficient.

Orientation. Orientation. Orientation.

Ensure the student is orientated with where we are and how we got there.

Ensure it!

Look over her shoulder if you have to. If they’re not on the same page, they’re not orientated.

Too Bad for You - Suckers. My Wife Cooks.

Preacher gave a sermon yesterday. Said, "So, when did 'cooking' become a four-letter word?" His message series was titled "Marriage by the Book."

Not being very interested in the sermon, I leaned to my wife eventually and whispered, "Is this relevant?"

She tuned me in with, "Oh yeah, you'd be surprised the women that don't cook."

I said, "Huh? Really? Well how do people eat then?"

After sitting through the pretty boring sermon - mostly describing the ideal woman from Proverbs 31 and how she was industrious and cooked and was a pleasure to behold and on and on - I went to the Sunday School class only to hear the women laugh and carry on how they don't cook at all. One prominent lady said she doesn't even bother to bring home fast food. It was pretty much a joke of an idea to even think about cooking. The male teacher himself said his wife's stove had been broke for two years. And the wife didn't even know it. Another minister's wife joked how she had just informed her husband no Sunday dinner would be ready for today and he'd have to take her to a restaurant.

As church was ending a man in the foyer was practically crying, shaking, and telling me how these sermons on happy marriages were killing him. He couldn't take much more. He said he was ready to "just give it all up" and to "cut losses and get a divorce". He said he was embarrassed that his children had to hear what a good mom was like.

After going home I asked my wife more about these other women that don't cook.

She reminded me of some friends of ours who are on the edge of divorce. She doesn't cook, the house is usually a wreck, and she doesn't particularly prepare herself or any greeting for when her husband gets home off of work.

She complains her husband isn't being the loving kind of husband she wants. She may leave him.

I thought of another person. I was his best man at his wedding. He has two children.

His wife used to broadcast often that she "does not cook and never will. Period." They pack up the kids and go out somewhere every night - if they want to eat.

They're going through a divorce now.

We went home after church and ate:

• Chicken fried chicken w/ gravy
• Green beans (grown from her garden)
• Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers (garden again)
• Homemade brownies
  

I brought in the leftovers to work today and ate it all again.

It was really really really good.

Mmmmmmmmmm.........

The Rightness of Playing by the Rules

A conversation yesterday caused me to rethink my primary supposition that playing "with" the rules is a superior mode of behavior than playing "by" the rules.

I'm a much better boundary pusher and game designater than player. I find it more fun to alter games with more interesting rules than to play by someone else's pre-defined rules.

I'm talking of course about social interaction, rules of engagement, unspoken rules, rules of etiquette.... that sort of thing. Purely the abstract and unsaid norms that are picked up by culture and mimicry alone.

What Clint forced me to note is that there is a chord of discongruency between a Machiavellian approach to social orders with moral values. This may seem obivious to most, but being a bit of an elitist and rebel and having grown up under the air of suspicion that everyone and everybody's basically hiding some kind of original intent - I can't help but being this weird Machiavellian Christian paradoxical misanthrope.

I don't trust the world but I trust in some ephmeral omnipotent Good.

So I'm changing my way of thinking.

I see that there is a fundamental "rightness" to "playing by the rules" and a fundamental "evil" and arrogance to "playing WITH the rules."

Systems themselves sustain the individuals. Thus any system resists subversion (by making rules, and punishing rule-breakers) to sustain itself while the individuals who "play by the rules" sustain themselves by sustaining the system.

(some of this has to do with the science of "emergence" - guess or google it.)

The conclusive moral of the story for me is to:

FIND THE FLOW

.... and GO with it.