Songbird

Way back in 2002, I stumbled across a nifty new browser named "Phoenix", then at version "0.3".  I thought it was slicker than greased Crisco, and I let all my friends know.  I was among the first (relatively speaking) to recognize the good thing that was to become Firefox, and I've been loving it ever since.  I mention this little blast from the past to establish my street cred and and set the table for the new kid in town:  Songbird.

Lambs For The Slaughter

This week, a lone gunman walked into an academic building filled with hundreds of college students and professors and, over the course of a half hour, methodically shot 30 people.  He used two hand guns, sometimes putting as many as three bullets in each body.  He calmly reloaded, presumably, dozens of times while terrified people all over the building hid where they could and wondered if the booms they heard reverberating through the halls would next come for them.

 So let me point to the elephant in this room:  How come all those people couldn't get together for a single decent bum-rush?

Best Friends Forever! Not!

I was listening to PBS the other day on my way home.  They were interviewing Matthew Dowd, a former campaign manager for George W. Bush.  He had just come out in opposition to the President.  The interviewer recalled for him the loyalty that Bush had shown to many of his appointees, often at significant political cost, and asked how he felt about what amounted to his betrayal.  His response was interesting.

He said that one should not be loyal to people, that one should only be loyal to "the Truth we know inside."

Nobody's Guru

I had a conversation with my oldest this weekend. We often have little philosophical discussion on life lessons - he's still young enough to want them. This time, I told him to avoid people who want to give him guidance. I know that sounds a bit funny, coming in the midst of a conversation in which I was giving him guidance. None the less, he understood what I meant.

Today is Tomorrow

It's been a tough couple weeks.  One of those periods when you burn days in a blur of pure reaction and, when you stop to catch your breath, you can't really say what it was you've been doing.  Something urgent.  I caught a co-worker in the hall and we exchanged white noise, making comments about how busy it's been.  He said something about catching up on some mutually important issue once things calmed down.  I was walking away when it occurred to me that we'd had the exact same exchange before.

No Heroes

In recent years, I've held the opinion that the world grants us precious few heroes, and we'd be better off, or at least better adjusted, if we stopped attempting to mint them from the larger than life figures we see in the media.  There is nothing about sports, politics, or movies, for instance, that make a person a good roll model, and much that works against it.  And yet I constantly see people worshiping at their favorite cult of personality without any thought of what value, if any, lies beneath it.   Why?

Sounds Reasonable

"Reason" is a wonderful thing.  Without it, everything you did would be driven by whim and dogma.  And how would you explain that to your wife?  But, like any tool, reason has its limitations.  Knowing what they are might greatly enhance one's efforts to "Be" reasonable, rather than merely having reasons.