The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for May 2005

The Agony of Construction

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Hi Folks,

For those few people who were not fortunate enough to take a vacation and have subjected themselves to reading this it is clear that this little corner of cyberspace has been mutilated, bent, twisted, hammered, kicked, slammed and mistreated.

I am not completely satisfied with the look in both IE and Firefox, but I think for now that I have probably finished the major reconstruction. It is time to resume life and return to working on something other than this.

There will be some changes here and there and if I can convince someone with more knowledge and expertise in HTML there may be some bigger changes, but for now this is what we will be working with.

Thanks for your time,

Jack

More On The Construction

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Well I don’t want to admit to how long I have been tweaking, tinkering, hammering and smacking this blog around. It has been hours and while I feel like I have made some progress I am not satisfied with it.

When I was younger I was darn close to fluent in Hebrew. I used it on a regular basis and was very comfortable reading/writing/speaking. At some point in my 20s I stopped using it with the same consistency and like any foreign language I watched my proficiency shrink.

Within the last year or two I have had occasion to use it more frequently and have tried to make an effort to force myself to do so. I can feel the progress, yet I know that I am missing a ton of things. Simple conversations require much more effort and I get the feeling that there are times when I have really sounded foolish because I used the wrong word.

The real point of this story is that as I have been stumbling through a crash course in HTML and CSS I feel like I almost understand the conversation. I feel like I am just about the point where I can really engage and then suddenly I find out that I was wrong.

It is like the guy that goes to the kiosk in Jerusalem when it is 98 outside, desperate for an ice cream he asks for some gevinah (cheese) when he meant to say gleedah (ice cream). He is able to communicate, but he doesn’t quite manage to get his point across.

And that is where I am at, almost getting the code to function the way I want but not quite. I am done for tonight. But I’ll rejoin the battle tomorrow am.

Shameful Treatment of Nannys

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A large percentage of the families at my son’s school have two parents who work. It comes as no surprise to anyone as it is common knowledge that supporting a family can be financially challenging and sometimes these financial concerns lead to a need for daycare for the children.

One of the more popular forms of daycare is to try and hire a nanny. If you are really lucky you just might find Mary Poppins.

Since I am lucky enough to work in a building next to my son’s school I am a frequent visitor and I see just how many families have managed to hire a nanny. In my perfect world one parent would be able to stay at home with the children and the nanny would not be necessary.

Lately I have been appalled at the behavior of some of these parents in regard to the nannys that take care of their children. Their treatment of them has been shameful. I have heard the parents denigrate their nannies, belittle them and speak so poorly of them that I am amazed that they would allow them to care for their children.

I recently caused a few waves because I couldn’t tolerate the stupidity and blather coming from two different parents and took time to suggest that they work on fixing their cranial rectum problems.

If you are going to hire someone to take care of your children you should hire a professional and by the same token treat them as a professional. I have no tolerance for listening to the whining about how they could do more and be more helpful.

If they do not do what you want then you should fire them. Get them out, get rid of them, not sit there crying about how bad their performance is or suggest that there is a reason why they are what they are. Racist talk couched in platitudes is still racist talk and you should be embarrassed that you are doing it just as I am at witnessing it.

But I grant you fair warning. When I hear this crap come out of your mouth I am going to point it out. Unless you change your attitude life is going to be unpleasant around me .They deserve courtesy and respect.

Fortunately the people who I am excoriating seem to be a minority, but I am not the only one who hears this and should not be the only one who speaks out against it.

It Is Time To Wander Again

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I just finished watching the season finale of Lost. I thought that it was outstanding. I have a real appreciation for a fine story accompanied by acting. It left me a little revved up so I am taking a moment to sit down again and cry out to the faceless masses of cyberspace.

So I thought that I would share a few of the things that I have been thinking about. As I was cruising through the archives I came across a few stories that caught my eye. This USAToday article about the Iranian Hostage crisis really grabbed me.

“On a Sunday morning 25 years ago, U.S. diplomats in Tehran looked out the window to see hundreds of young Iranians, fired by a love of Islam and a hatred of America, spilling over the walls and through the gate of the embassy compound.

The Americans did not know it, but they were staring at the future — a militant Muslim fundamentalism that would one day replace communism as the greatest threat to their nation.

That was Nov. 4, 1979, the beginning of the Iran hostage crisis, and a date on a timeline that would stretch to Sept. 11, 2001, and beyond.

Fifty-two Americans were held captive for 444 days. Although none was seriously hurt, many were beaten, blindfolded, isolated and lined up for mock firing squads. Never had so many representatives of so powerful a nation been abused so flagrantly.

To better understand the impact of the crisis on the hostages and the nation, reporters from USA TODAY and Gannett newspapers around the nation interviewed more than half of the surviving hostages. Although they don’t agree on everything, most have reached these conclusions:

•The Iran crisis taught Americans little about Muslim extremists. “We don’t understand how they think,” says Dave Roeder, 65, who was an embassy Air Force attaché. Several hostages recall that when they came home, people were more curious about what they ate than what the crisis said about the use of Islam to compel terror.

“The very people today that are standing up and saying, ‘We’ve got to do something about this terrorism,’ are people that did not listen to those of us that had actually been out there fighting terrorists for the past 30 years,” says Alan Golacinski, 54, the embassy security chief.

•The crisis taught the extremists that terrorism works. When the crisis ended with the captors unrepentant and unpunished, “we were teaching the Middle East what could be gained through an act of terrorism,” says Rick Kupke, 57, who was an embassy communications staffer. The lesson was simple, says John Limbert, 61, an embassy political officer who later became ambassador to Mauritania: “You can break the rules and get away with it.”

As a result, many hostages say they expected a disaster like 9/11. Bill Daughtery, a CIA agent in the embassy and now a college political science professor, describes his reaction to the 2001 attacks this way: “ ‘What took them so long?’ ”

For many former hostages, Sept. 11 was particularly difficult. “It made me physically sick,” says Paul Lewis, 47, a former embassy Marine guard. “I thought, ‘They finally found a way to get here.’ ”

I read this and wonder what have we learned if anything and how are we applying it to the world around us. I think that it is fair to ask what we have to done to create problems but again will not stop stressing that wars of ideology are not always rooted in someone having done something wrong.

In simple terms, sometimes it doesn’t matter what you believe when it is not in line with the ideology of another.

In different news I am still kind of smiling/chuckling over the discussion we had regarding Star Wars and the LOTR. Of course Haloscan shows ‘0’ comments when we know that there were far more than that.

A house full of sick children is an excellent way to sow chaos. Somewhere I hear someone yelling unleash the dogs of war or maybe that is the sound of cranky children, I don’t know.

Tomorrow night I promise to get to bed before 1 am or should I say that I am hopeful. I get up before six am so these late nights are beginning to catch up with me. At 18 I could live on 4 hours a night for months on end. At 36 I just end, or at least it sometimes feels that way. I can still go on less sleep than most people, but I certainly feel the difference.

By tomorrow afternoon I am going to be hurting at the office and may have to get the caffeine fed to me through an IV. And with that I am going to try and get some shut eye.

Lailah tov from Los Angeles.

Anger Management

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I post this story every couple of months because it just makes me laugh.

ANGER MANAGEMENT

When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don’t take it out on someone you know, take it out on someone you don’t know.

It all started one day when I was sitting at my desk and remembered a phone call I had forgotten to make. I found the number and dialed it.

A man answered, saying, “Hello.”

I politely said, “This is Chris. May I please speak with Robin Carter?”

Suddenly, the phone was slammed down on me. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so rude.

I tracked down Robin’s correct number and called her. I had transposed the last two digits of her phone number. After hanging up with her, I decided to call the ‘wrong’ number again.

When the same guy answered the phone, I yelled, “You’re an asshole!” and hung up.

I wrote his number down with the word ‘asshole’ next to it, and put it in my desk drawer. Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I’d call him up and yell, “You’re an asshole!” It always cheered me up.

When Caller ID came to our area, I thought my therapeutic ‘asshole’ calling would have to stop.

So, I called his number and said: “Hi, this is John Smith from the Telephone Company. I’m just calling to see if you’re interested in the Caller ID program?”

He yelled “NO!” and slammed the phone down.

I quickly called him back and said, “That’s because you’re an asshole!”

One day I was at the store, getting ready to pull into a parking spot. Some guy in a black BMW cut me off and pulled into the spot I had patiently waited for. I hit the horn and yelled that I had been waiting for the spot. The idiot ignored me. I noticed a “For Sale” sign in his car window, so I wrote down his number.

A couple of days later, right after calling the first asshole (I had his number on speed dial), I thought I had better call the BMW asshole, too.

I said, “Is this the man with the black BMW for sale?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Can you tell me where I can see it?”

“Yes, I live at 1802 West 34th Street. It’s a yellow house, and the car’s parked right out in front.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Don Burgemeyer,” he said.

“When’s a good time to catch you, Don?”

“I’m home every evening after five.”

“Listen, Don, can I tell you something?”

“Yes?”

“Don, you’re an asshole.”

Then I hung up, and added his number to my speed dial, too.

Now, when I had a problem, I had two assholes to call. But after several months of calling them, it wasn’t as enjoyable as it used to be. So, I came up with an idea.

I called Asshole #1.

“Hello.”

“You’re an asshole!” (But I didn’t hang up.)

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Stop calling me,” he screamed.

“Make me,” I screamed back.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Don Burgemeyer.”

“Yeah? Where do you live?”

“I live at 1802 West 34th Street, ASSHOLE! It’s a yellow house, with my black beemer parked in front.”

He said, “I’m coming over there right now, Don. And you had better start saying your prayers.”

I said, “Yeah, like I’m really scared, asshole.”

Then I called Asshole #2.

“Hello?” he said.

“Hello, asshole,” I said…again, without hanging up.

He yelled, “If I ever find out who you are!”

“Yeah, you’ll what?” I said.

“I’ll kick your ass,” he exclaimed.

I answered, “Well, asshole, here’s your chance. I’m coming over right now.”

Then I hung up and immediately called the police, saying that I lived at 1802 West 34th Street, and that I was on my way home to kill my gay lover.

Then I called Channel 9 News to let them know about the war going down on West 34th Street. I quickly got into my car and headed over to 34th street.

There I saw two assholes beating the crap out of each other in front of six squad cars, a police helicopter, and a news crew.

NOW, I feel better.

Anger management really works!!!