Stuck In Traffic

The Tank Man of Tiananmen Square

2009-06-03T22:57:00.000-04:00

Who among us would be this brave?

Meningitis Recovery and Abba Music

2009-05-26T14:05:00.001-04:00

The Sun newspaper reported a story about a 3 year old British girl, by the name of Layla Towsey who had miraculously recovered from meningitis B. The little girl had initially been diagnosed with a heat rash on her leg, but shortly after her mother insisted on seeing a pediatrician, the Layla suffered a heart attack.

Laya was rushed to a hospital and put on life support. Her mother stayed at her besides in a 5 day long vigil and had prepared herself for losing her daughter, even to the point of kissing her good-bye.

But Layla surprised her mother and her doctors by slowly regaining consciousness and came out of her coma singing the Abba hit song, “Mama Mia!”

Her stunned mother reportedly said, “We had been preparing for bad news as the life support machine was keeping her alive. But on the Sunday I could hear her singing Mamma Mia quietly. I couldn't believe it. I knew then she would be OK...It's one of her favourite songs - she loves it. She got as close to death as you can get. She's a miracle."

There have been no reports of statements from doctors regarding the salutary effects of Abba's music.

Microsoft's New Search Engine: What's The Advantage?

2009-05-26T12:48:00.002-04:00

The Wall Street Journal and the All Things Digital blog both broke stories this week indicating that the long anticipated new search engine from Microsoft will likely be unveiled this week. Internally known as "kumo", the new search engine is a revamp of the current Microsoft Live Search engine.

The re-branded search engine is widely rumored to be name Bing and Advertising Age reports that that Microsoft is putting $80-100 million into an advertising campaign to displace Google in people's minds as the synonymous term for internet search. For comparison's sake, it's estimated that Google's advertising budget last year was $25 million. But will people bing it instead of googling it?

As reported by Alex Patriquin and compete.com, MSN/Live Search's year-on-year market share fell to 6.2% of the total search market, this despite being the default search engine for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. So clearly either technical innovation or better branding is needed.

The All Things Digital blog story links to three reported screen shots from pre-release versions of the new search engine, working under the kumo name. The screen shots show a clean sparse results pages organized by the type of content that the search result represents. For example, one screen shot shows a search for pop star Taylor Swift. The left side navigation pane shows the search results organized by categories images, songs, lyrics, biography, music, albums, videos. This sounds similar to the search engine claims that Microsoft was making last year when it bought the semantic search engine Powerset.

It's unclear that automated organization of search results based on an understanding of the clusters of types of results can be leveraged into a sustainable competitive advantage for Microsoft and enable it to eat away at Google's 73% market share. Can these features be duplicated by Google? Are these features significant enough to convince users to change which search engine they use?

One aspect of the new Microsoft search offering that has yet to be tested or proven is just how much of the web has its search infrastructure indexed. Warm and fuzzy names, default search engine status, sparse layouts, and new organizing techniques for search results aren't worth anything if the information is not in the Microsoft databases to be found in the first place.

Automated SQL Injection Attacks Top Attack Lists

2009-05-26T10:18:00.004-04:00

The Info Security website recently released a republication of Breach Security's report, The Web Hacking Incidents Database (WHID) 2008 Annual Report, raising questions about secure application development for internet-facing applications.

The WHID report highlights the trends in automated SQL injection attacks as the highlight of 2008.

“SQL Injection attacks that planted malware on target web sites were the #1 attack/outcome vectors for criminals in 2008.”

The Breach Security report mirrors similar reports from the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force® 2008 Trend & Risk Report published earlier this year:

“...we have seen mass SQL injection attacks, a portion of which is attributed to the Asprox botnet. This combination of a botnet plus a SQL injection attack capability enabled another method of mass delivery of malware in which a large number of affected sites effectively becomes a delivery point. Additionally, these automated attacks also highlighted the high number of Web sites vulnerable to SQL injection and that secure development practices will go a long way in effectively mitigating these attacks.”

Sites like the Microsoft Developer Network include articles on how to fix security holes in application platforms like .NET to protect applications from SQL injection attacks, but the problems continue to be prevalent across a wide variety of applications.

The Breach Security report also indicates a shift away from ideological and defacement attacks and an increase more commercially oriented attacks, leading to a shift in target web sites. Breach Security reports a large increase in security attacks focused on financial institutions. Government and law enforcement sites continue to be subject to the largest numbers of reported attacks.

German Authorities Remove Red Bull Cola from Store Shelves

2009-05-26T07:37:00.007-04:00

When Red Bull announced that it was releasing a "Red Bull Cola" product to complement its Red Bull Energy Drink, the company emphasized the use of natural flavorings, without phosphoric acid, preservatives, or artificial coloring. As the Red Bull page for the cola product states:

"The cola from Red Bull is a unique blend of ingredients, all from 100 % natural sources.

In addition, it is the only cola which contains both the original Kola nut and the Coca leaf. Therefore, it is a very special recipe. Or what else would you have expected from Red Bull?

The result is a natural, not-too-sweet cola taste, which comes from using the right plant extracts."

The soda maker proudly shows us pictures of Red Bull Cola's ingredients to emphasize that it has nothing to hide.

The first ingredient on the list is "coca leaf." which has lead food product safety officials to raise concerns about the safety of the product.

TIME magazine recently reported that

"The [Health Institute in the state of North Rhine Westphalia] examined Red Bull Cola in an elaborate chemical process and found traces of cocaine," Bernhard Kuehnle, head of the food safety department at Germany's federal ministry for consumer protection, told the German press on Sunday."

Further press reports indicate that retailers in six German states have been told to remove Red Bull Cola from their shelves. So far, no other authorities have exercised similar powers to remove Red Bull Cola from the markets in their jurisdiction.

The fear apparently stems from the assumption that inclusion of Coca leaves in the product means that there is "cocaine" in the product, which would not only be a health concern, but a narcotics concern.

But international narcotics law requires that the the cocaine alkaloids in coca leaves must be removed before they can be shipped outside of the Andean region of Bolivia where they are grown. These "de-cocained" leaves are used as flavoring agents in a wide variety of foods throughout the world.

Whether the minute traces of cocaine were falsely detected as a result of hyper-sensitive testing, the traces of the cocaine alkaloids are left over from the cocaine removal process, or were deliberately put into the cola drink by Red Bull hasn't been determined. Red Bull representatives were quick to issue statements that their use of coca leaves are strictly as a flavoring agent.

While food safety authorities in some German states were rushing to exercise their product banning powers, there were calmer reactions from the German federal authorities and other authorities worldwide. The general consensus was that even if the samples colas had trace amounts in the levels reported, they posed no health risk to the public. News reports indicate that the conducted tests found 0.13 micrograms of cocaine per can and that an average person would have to consume approximately 12,000 liters of the cola to feel any adverse effects from the cocaine alkaloids.

The publicity surrounding the detection of these trace amounts of cocaine alkaloids in Red Bull Cola has reinforced the image of Red Bull's marketing themes of high energy drinks, which are all natural and pack an "extra kick".

The issue however has caused a dilemma among German authorities. Narcotics authorities in Germany are now faced with determining whether the product's trace amounts of cocaine alkaloids violates German narcotics laws and are now faced with the difficult decision whether to enforce the narcotics laws despite the virtually unanimous consensus among health officials is that there is no health risk associated with it.

Obama's Budget Cut

2009-04-30T07:39:00.002-04:00

Yip Yips Discover Radio

2009-04-27T21:55:00.002-04:00

For anyone who needs a pick me up.....

Free Speech at UNC: Victory or Defeat?

2009-04-15T11:25:00.005-04:00

The Raleigh News and Observer reports in "Protest stops Tancredo's UNC speech":

CHAPEL HILL -- UNC-CH police released pepper spray and threatened to use a Taser on student protesters Tuesday evening when a crowd disrupted a speech by former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo opposing in-state tuition benefits to unauthorized immigrants.
Hundreds of protesters converged on Bingham Hall, shouting profanities and accusations of racism while Tancredo and the student who introduced him tried to speak. Minutes into the speech, a protester pounded a window of the classroom until the glass shattered, prompting Tancredo to flee and campus police to shut down the event.

And further into the story:

Before the event, campus security removed two women who delayed Tancredo's speech by stretching a 12-foot banner across the front of the classroom. It read, "No dialogue with hate."
Police escorted the women into the hallway, amid more than 30 protesters who clashed with the officers trying to keep them out of the overcrowded classroom. After police released pepper spray and threatened the crowd with a Taser, the protesters gathered outside Bingham Hall.

And more examples:

Inside the classroom, several student protesters screamed curses at Tancredo and Riley Matheson, president of the UNC-Chapel Hill chapter of Youth for Western Civilization.

Someone needs to teach these kids about Free Speech and engaging in discussion and debate rather than this sort of childish behavior. These UNC students ought to be ashamed.

Some video from the event

A Twitter Revolution

2009-04-11T11:29:00.002-04:00

The international version of Speigel Online had arecent article titled, "Fearing Uprising, Russia Backs Moldova's Communists" about the student uprisings in in Moldova to protest the Communist rule of that country.

Similar to other uprisings in the region, these appear to be student and citizen uprisings against the corruption in the government. One of the notable things about these recent protests is how effectively Twitter was used to both communicate among the protesters and to communicate events to the rest of the world.

Riot police took back the Moldovan parliament and presidential buildings on Wednesday, and Thursday was calm in Chisinau. But a large protest in the capital was brewing on Friday -- organized on a Twitter stream tagged #pman, which stands for the initials of Chisinau's biggest square-- with protesters claiming the government would use the threat of a Romanian coup as a reason to arrest people illegally.
"Communists block students in their classrooms and threaten them with exmatriculation if they protest," claimed one Twitterer on Friday. "Somebody help Moldova pleaseeee," wrote another.

This sort of thing is getting more and more common. As Spiegel notes:

In the West, the uprising looked like another post-Soviet "color" revolution, a people's movement against an old-guard Communist regime, such as Georgia's 2003 "Rose Revolution" or Ukraine's 2004 "Orange Revolution." From Moscow's perspective, that's exactly the problem. "The Moscow authorities are afraid of spontaneous mass protests in the regions … and, for this reason, Russian television is showing what is happening in an exclusively negative light," Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, told Reuters. "It is beneficial for the Kremlin to show the consequences of peoples' protests to justify why it needs to be tough."

It will be interesting to see how authoritarian governments react to these tactics. The United States Government is already starting to go down that path. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would federalize control over the nation's internet infrstructure and according to the EFF:

"One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds."

Maybe there are good points in the Cybersecurity Act. But we also have to be careful to give the government a tool for shutting down dissent on the internet.

As the Moldova protests show, telecommunications and internet infrastrcuture are becoming crucial tools for bringing about political change and giving oppressed people hope.

Relative Losses

2009-04-09T22:47:00.003-04:00

From Yahoo news, I saw an article titled, "Wells Fargo projects record $3 billion 1Q profit."

I guess that's good news. Maybe. The news article talks about how their stock price surged and the overall market was up 159 points.

But then in the 4th paragraph, you read:

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which has received $25 billion in funds as part of the government's bank bailout plan, anticipates earnings after preferred dividends of about 55 cents per share. Revenue for the period ended March 31 is expected to climb 16 percent to $20 billion.

So let's see, what if we take away the government bail out money. Let me see if I can do this math,

$3 billion - $25 billion = -$22 billion

So without the bailout money, they would have recorded a $22Billion dollar loss?

That would have been a huge loss, back in the days before Obama's proposed 10 year 9.3 Trillion dollar deficit.

The Watchmen: Tales of The Black Freighter - How Not To Promote It

2009-03-21T15:08:00.005-04:00

I'm proud to say that I am the lead organizer of The Triangle Geeks on meetup.com. Geek is, after all, the new counter-culture. As the lead organizer, I'm always on the look out for new things for us all to do together. I'm always looking for an excuse for a few of to get together and hang out.

Quite a few of us had seen the latest comic movie, The Watchmen, when it hit the theaters a few weeks ago. So I was ecstatic to be contacted by Andrew Briskin of Tango Blues Entertainment. In his e-mail he said:

Calvin,

I work in grassroots promotions for Warner Home Video and we
are interested in sending your MeetUp Group some FREE
promotional materials and swag for the upcoming "Watchmen" DVD
releases titled "Watchmen Motion Comics" and "Watchmen: Black
Frieghter" for your group to receive and discuss at one of your
MeetUps. We would like to supply the materials for you to get a
sneek peak of "Watchmen: Black Freighter" (release date is
March 24, 2009) by having you host the event on any day
beginning March 20th (Friday) through March 23rd (Monday). Is
this something you would be interested in? Please e-mail me
back as soon as possible so we can get you the right quantities
for the number of members you would have attending, and
shipments to you before the mentioned dates. I am available at
xxx-xxx-xxxx if you have any questions or by e-mail at
[e-mail address redacted].

Thank you,
Andrew Briskin

Very Cool! I thought this would be a great idea for a meetup. Given that we had quite a few Watchmen fans, I could organize an event at my place and we could give out the free promotional materials and swag in random drawings, etc. So I responded almost immediately and told him I'd be happy to organize the event. And I put the wheels in motion to organizet the event at my place.

So, on the day of the event I get a Fed-Ex envelope in the mail. Not a box, mind you. An envelope.

In the envelope where the following items:

A Cover Letter
2 copies of a press release for Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter
2 copies of a press release for Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic
A home-made DVD with trailers for the two releases

I should note that, as far as I can tell, the trailers on the DVD are the exact same trailers that are on YouTube.

Here's what the cover letter said:

Thank You for your participation in our Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchment: Motion Comics promotion. Included you will find two copies of press releases for both titles, including background on the DVD story, cast and crew lists, and other information we hope you will find interesting.

In addition there is a DVD containing the trailers for the two titles, per our initial e-mail communication for your preview. It is programmed to "loop" should you be screening it in a more informal manner through the day.

We appreciate you taking the time to put this event together and would love any feedback and photos you may take at the event. If you can e-mail a few shots of your group to me at [[e-mail address redacted]] I would much appreciate them!

Thank You
Andrew Briskin.

OK fair enough Mr. Briskin. To hold up my end of the deal, I did in fact hold the event as planned and here are some of the pictures I took of people attending the event:

To say the least, we were under-whelmed by what was sent to us. I guess I can chalk it up to miscommunication. And certainly Mr. Briskin can claim to have covered his ass because he didn't promise us anything specific. All he promised us was:

"some FREE promotional materials and swag"

OK. Let's be careful and precise about where the miscommunication may have occurred.

When some sends me some written materials and says they are going to give me something FREE, using all caps no less. I assume they are going to send me something of VALUE. Maybe it's not a high value thing. And maybe there are strings attached to it. But it ought to be something that has some modicum of value

Two copies of a press releases with information I can get on the internet and two trailers that I can watch for free on YouTube are not of any particular value to us. Especially not when you consider folks have to get in the car and drive to the event.

I spent more on snacks for this event than Tango Blues or Warner Home Video spent on the stuff they sent, including the Fed Ex fees!

Furthermore, this stuff does not even come close to matching our definition of "swag". I don't know what Mr. Briskin was thinking when he wrote that he was going to send us "swag," but here's how the Urban Dictionary defines swag:

Promotional merchandise for a band, record label, or other entity in the music business, usually distributed at concerts.

May include t-shirts, stickers, promo CDs, posters, etc. Often free, but not necessarily; a t-shirt or record purchased at a concert might still be considered swag, especially if it is a design or release that is not readily available in the mass market.

Many independent record labels throw in a handful of free swag when they ship out mail-order packages (stickers, sampler CDs, etc).

The chief difference between swag and regular merchandise is that its purpose is not to make a profit, but to promote the band/label, and reward its supporters by giving them something cool and unique.

OK OK, the urban dictionary has a music industry spin on their definition. But the last sentence in the definition is key. Swag is a reward to supporters by giving them something cool and unique.

Two copies of the movie press release and two trailers that anyone can see on the internet, are not, shall we say, cool and unique.

I'd expected maybe a movie poster or two. I've been to lots of fan events and gatherings and I've seen movie companies give away movie posters, lobby cards, pins and buttons. etc etc. These are things that fans love to get.

I had dared to even hope that maybe they could give us a copy of the DVDs that we could give away in a random drawing. But even if they'd given us a movie poster or T-shirt or even a frakkin' coffee mug. It would be fun to give it away.

But no. Tango Blues / Warner Home Entertainment couldn't see it in their hearts to even send us the most basic swag.

Two copies of the press release and two trailers that anyone can see on YouTube is not worth our time and money and effort.

And no, you can bet your sweet bippy that none of us will be buying these two DVDs when they come out.

What's the lesson learned here? Next time, I'm not lifting a finger to do something like this until I have the swag in hand and I can see what it is. I am not going to waste my time, money, and effort. Nor am I going to waste the time of the Triangle Geeks again.

Oh yeah, that instills confidence

2009-03-09T11:41:00.001-04:00

Global economy "approaching" pick-up: G10

The global economy is "approaching" a pick-up point as positive elements that could fuel growth have yet to be priced in, G10 central bankers said Monday.

"We have a number of elements that are suggesting that we are approaching the moment where you would have a pick up," European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet said in his capacity as spokesman for the G10 central bankers meeting at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

ya think he could be anymore vague and non committal?

Reaching Out

2009-02-18T17:27:00.004-05:00

I've spent the past 15 days at the hospital, helping my Dad take care of my Mom, who suffered a stroke. She's been in ICU the whole time. Today as I was walking from her room to the cafeteria, I was half in a daze when this tiny little indian woman, dressed in the hospital's cleaning staff uniform, stopped me in the hall. We were passing each other in opposite directions and she literally reached out her hand and grabbed my arm.

"How is your Mother?" she asked. Took me a few seconds to realize that she was the woman who comes into to clean Mom's room every day, emptying the trash and stuff like that. I don't recall doing anything other than smilng gamely at her when she came in. But I guess she saw my Mom's decline and she reached out, literally, to ask me about it. We chatted for a couple of minutes then I thanked her profusely for even asking.

The people in my parents' neighborhood have been amazingly supportive and organized. They have a schedule in place to brng food to my Dad and I every couple of days. And the neighbors across the street set up an e-mail distribution list to brodacast updates on Mom's condition. Both neighbors and distant relatives are on it.

Funny thing though, that hasn't stopped the calls from coming in. People still want to call and even though they know everything they need to know. They still want to talk to us anyway. Just to talk.

Both of these incidents remind me that there's a difference between getting information and reaching out. Believe me, I'm not complaining.

Podcast Files are Offline

2009-02-15T23:39:00.002-05:00

All of the podcast MP3 files are offline until further notice while I make some file hosting changes behind the scenes.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

New Back Up Band Name for The List

2009-02-08T08:25:00.003-05:00

I love to keep watch for unusual and amusing band names and I like to keep a list of phrases that I run across that would make a good band name. For example, I always thought that "Walk Left Stand Right" would make a fantastic J-Pop band name.

I also keep an eye out for cool backup band names. Some of my current favorites are

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Dave Insley and the Careless Smokers

Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

This week I received a CD for an Austin singer/songwriter named Vanessa Peters. Her back up band name fits her angsty, frail coffeehouse style of folk music perfectly which is

Vanessa Peters and Ice Cream On Mondays

To me that conjures up either somone who's institutionalized, probably against their will, and who has a very small world around them and a controlled scheduled such that having ice cream on Mondays is both indicitate of the regimented life and the small pleaures in that world. And the thing about it is, there's nothing in the words themselves that are a particular downer, they only indirectly point to a darker place.

Or maybe Ice Cream On Mondays is simply a marker for child like enthusiasm.

Either way, or perhaps both interpretations combined, create a context and initial expectation for Vanessa's music.

Jazz and Blues At The Know

2009-01-31T11:02:00.005-05:00

IMG_0891
Originally uploaded by cspowers

Last night I had the opportunity to go to The Know Book Store and Cultural Center for their Friday night Open Jam session. They have a diner/music venue in 1/2 of the store and every Friday night a random assortment of local musicians shows up to play jazz standards and blues.

The Know Book Store is, as they say, a radical activist bookstore. Headlines on the freebie papers scream about the coming Marxist revolutions around the world and all that. But despite the fervor of the reading material, the assembled crowd was very good natured and relaxed. It's nice to be able sit at tables and chat with friends and strangers while listening to the music.

I put my pictures from that night on a Flickr set and I managed to capture a short video clip of one song with my camera. Unfortunately my memory card filled up before the song was done, but you can get a good idea of the vibe of the place. I've been having trouble uploading it, but will create a new post when I get it uploaded to YouTube.

Thanks to my friend C.G. for putting me on to the place! I have no doubt I'll be going back.

Obscurity Is Not Security

2009-01-28T10:02:00.001-05:00

Howdy,

For Data Privacy Day, I just published "Obscurity is not Security" to my Visible IT blog.

Glimpse into Obama's Approach to the GWOT

2009-01-24T08:42:00.004-05:00

This morning's Washington Post has an article titled "2 U.S. Airstrikes Offer a Concrete Sign of Obama's Pakistan Policy" reporting the latest engagements in the War On Terror. According to the article:

"The separate strikes on two compounds, coming three hours apart and involving five missiles fired from Afghanistan-based Predator drone aircraft, were the first high-profile hostile military actions taken under Obama's four-day-old presidency. A Pakistani security official said in Islamabad that the strikes appeared to have killed at least 10 insurgents, including five foreign nationals and possibly even "a high-value target" such as a senior al-Qaeda or Taliban official."

The Post provides some deniability cover for Obama stating that it was unclear whether he personally authorized the attacks, given he's just 4 days into his Presidency. But I distinctly remember after the election that news services reported that immediately after the elections, the President-elect starts getting daily national security briefings to help with the transition. So I can't help but conclude that Obama could have stopped these attacks if he wanted to.

But he didn't.

If there was any concern about the legal status of the people that were bombed, whether they were "enemy combatants" under international law or some other legal classification, it doesn't seemed to have stopped Obama from continuing this skirmish in the Global War on Terror. If there was any hand-wringing over the writ of habeus corpus for the people being bombed, it doesn't appear to have been enough for Obama to say, "Hey, wait a minute....."

I wonder how this bodes for the Gitmo detainees? On January 23rd, there was an AP news story (I saw it here on Yahoo), that reported:

A Saudi man released from Guantanamo after spending nearly six years inside the U.S. prison camp is now the No. 2 of Yemen's al-Qaida branch, according to a purported Internet statement from the terror network.

Maybe that's the overall strategy. Close Gitmo and avoid the legal wrangling and hand-wringing, let the detainees resume their duties in al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban and then re-engage them on the field of battle, attacking them with missles fired from drone airplanes so that there's no chance of them being detained again.

testing testing - pls ignore

2009-01-23T11:32:00.002-05:00

I am testing googles "backlink" capability. I am referring to this set list post on my taproot radio sie in this post from my stuck in traffic site. In theory, eventually, the post on the tapoot radio site should show a reference to this post at the end of it. Not sure how long it will take.

Russia Invades Georgia

2008-08-15T21:43:00.003-04:00

OK, let me see if I get this straight.

The US deposes a ruthless dictator, has a UN mandate to do so, allows the citizens to rebuild a deomcratic government the way they want it, lets the country sell it's oil exploration rights to whoever it wants, (and it turns out, not to the US), and we are the bad guys.

Russia, without a UN mandate, invades a a country with a democratic government, calls for it's leader "to go", attempts to bomb one of the most crucial oil pipelines in the world, and there is no hue and cry. There are no accusations about "it's all about the oil".

I don't get it. I really really don't get it.

SIT0010: Olympics, Bovine, Batman

2008-08-10T15:12:00.002-04:00

August 10, 2008 - Olympics, Bovine, Batman

Listen:
sitp0010.MP3

Current Events:
Staying True To The Olympic Spirit

Cultural Phenomena:
Bovine Geocaching

True Stories:
Give Him The Batman Mask

Legal:
The cowboy song is "Good Bye Old Paint" from the public domain.
The Stuck In Traffic theme music by Duane Andrews of duaneandrews.ca and is used with permission.
The podcast as a whole is copyright 2008 by Calvin powers and all rights are reserved.

Craig Stutzman: Give Him The Batman Mask!

2008-08-10T11:32:00.004-04:00

Chalk one up for the good guys. The Tulsa World web site is reporting a news story titled, "Shopper stops robber in Batman mask."

Late night. Food Pyramid grocery store. According to the police report, a Mr. Tony Leroy Cleveland walks in wearing a Batman Mask and a red bandanna over his face. Waving a gun around he corrals all of the shoppers and employees to one area of the store and starts demanding money.

One of the customers tries to duck behind a counter and Mr. Cleveland fires at him, missing by inches. Then it appeared that the gun jammed.

The Tulsa World story reported it like this:

The gun then jammed, and Stutzman tackled Cleveland, police said. Store surveillance video shows Stutzman single-handedly fighting to keep a hold on him.

"It took me a few seconds to register that we might have an opportunity here," Stutzman said. "From there, it just happened. It started in the store and ended outside. Everything else was a tumble, a blur."

The struggle continued outside the store until police arrived, even after Stutzman was hit in the head and face with the gun.

Stutzman said Friday evening that he didn't do anything extraordinary: "You know, it just happened," he said. "There's no real big thing about it."

But if you watch this video, you see just how big a deal it really is. He is single handedly taking this guy down. There's one or two other people who try to help a little bit, but this is basically a one man show.

Here's a link to the video:

I think this guy deserves to keep the robber's Batman Mask as a trophy. And maybe he'll start using it more often!

Staying True To The Olympic Spirit

2008-08-10T10:14:00.006-04:00

The Olympics opened with much fanfare this week. I didn't get to see the opening ceremonies, but all the buzz I hear from my friends was that it was both impressive and beautiful without getting too cheesy.

By the way, the official Olympics site at NBC forces you to install Microsoft's Silverlight browser plugin in order to watch videos of the Olympics. That is incredibly heavy handed and ridiculous and pure Microsoft. Hold the video hostage until you adopt their software. But that's a rant for a different day.

Meanwhile, I did manage to find one video here, that you can watch without giving in to Microsoft.

I understand that some commentators have even called it a "coming out" party for China taking its place on the world stage. I think that might be pushing it. But I do agree that for many people, possibly millions of people worldwide, the opening ceremonies will be their mew default image of China.

Problem is, the Chinese government still disregards human rights that the rest of the world demands and takes for granted. The beautiful glitz and flash of the opening ceremonies cannot erase the chilling images of Tiananmen Square Massacre.

We still routinely hear of individuals being jailed just for writing things that are critical of the government. We still hear of the oppression of religious practices. The much ballyhooed economic boom benefits the Party cronies more than the average citizen who still, as far as I know, is not allowed to own his own home or farm.

Yes. China is becoming impressively modern, beautiful, and powerful, but they are also brutal and have a lot to learn about how to treat human beings.

And so we have heard the usual hue and cry about boycotting the Olympics. The argument goes that sending athletes to participate in the Olympics sends a message to the Chinese that we don't care about human rights and even tacitly condone their brutal practices.

I believe this is incredibly short sighted and even borderline hypocritical.

First of all, why do we pick on amateur athletes to bear the burden of our protests? These young people have worked and trained all their life, harder than most of us ever will. They aren't a political group and indeed, they really aren't much of a group. Yes they are part of the "US Olympic Team" but there's not much meat to that group. They are mostly individuals competing in a sport they love. And whether they show up or not isn't going to affect the situation in China in any way.

There are far more substantive activities that could be boycotted if we want to use boycotts to try to force change in China. For example, when a US business opens a division in China and begins to do business with the Chinese, why aren't we screaming "How can we possibly do business with China who brutalizes it's citizens?" Why aren't we calling for companies to refuse to do business in China? Why aren't our diplomats raising protest when we hear of another group of Chinese bloggers being rounded up and sent to jail? Why isn't our ambassador to the UN making speeches at the UN about this?

If we really wanted to raise the issue, there are a bunch of more effective ways to make the Chinese uncomfortable about their human rights situation. But no, instead, we focus our desires for protest on a group of kids who just want to play their sports and ask them to sacrifice their life long dreams.

And besides, who said boycotts are effective? I completely agree that we need to bear witness to the practices we believe are inhuman. But I'm not sure boycotts are the right way to do it. And boycotting the Olympics is especially tragic because the Olympics have much better and more important uses.

The Olympics humanize all of us. The literally put us on an equal playing field. The worst thing we can do when trying to bring about favorable change in another country is to demonize them. It's an easy trap to fall into, but the worst thing you can do. The Olympics are one thing we can do to help prevent us from falling into the trap of demonizing people we think are doing bad things.

It would be too easy to fall into a trap and think that the Chinese are somehow "evil" people individually and that there's something different about them that makes them inherently prone to human rights abuse and other evils. If we don't interact with them in human terms in a one-on-one basis, they become an abstraction which can be demonized.

The whole point of the Olympics is for countries to set aside their differences and come together as human beings in good natured competition. My big gripe about the Olympics is that they are too nationalistic. Everyone marches around under their national flag. They play national anthems of the winning athletes. they count medals by country. If I were in charge I'd get rid of all that. I'd treat the athletes as individuals, not as members of a national team.

But even with its imperfections, the Olympics are a good way for us to remember that we're all human beings and they are a chance to build interpersonal relationships across national boundaries. Yes, the Olympics are highly staged. The Chinese in particular have been very heavy handed on the restrictions they put on athletes activities at the Olympics But it's a start. It's better than nothing. .

I saw a recent news story, in which it's been noted that Iranian athletes have been pulling out of events in which they compete directly with Israelis. The most recent case was in swimming, which is discusses in the news story "Iran swimmer avoids Israeli pool showdown in Beijing." The Iranians never give an explanation, but it has happened enough times over the years that the pattern is observable. I have a hard time believing that an amateur athlete would do that. Athletes don't train their entire life to literally pull out at the last second. They live to compete. So someone, someone in the Iranian government, forced them to withdraw to send a message. To try to make a political statement. And what is that statement? That the Israelis are beneath us.

Of course it backfires. Maybe it plays well to the folks within Iran. On the world stage, it makes the Iranians look childish. It makes them look like they are demonizing the Israelis, which by the way, at least seems consistent with their other actions and statements.

I am glad that the US has not done similarly foolish things by boycotting the Olympics. I'm glad that we're reaching out to the Chinese an all the other countries of the world. I'm glad that we're there trying to be good citizens of the world, trying to make some sort of human connection with other countries. And for the same reason, that's why I'm glad we're finding ways to be civilized and do business with them. Business relationships require interpersonal trust.

In the long run, it's only these these sorts of relationships that have any chance of having influence on China's much needed reforms.

SIT0009: Airline, Dark, Social

2008-08-02T17:48:00.003-04:00

August 2, 2008: Airline, Dark, Social

Listen:
sitp0009.MP3

Current Events:
Mr. Crandall's Speech On Airline Regulation

Cultural Phenomena:
Review: The Dark Knight
Review: X-Files: I Want To Believe

True Stories:
Early Riser

Legal:

The Stuck In Traffic theme music by Duane Andrews of duaneandrews.ca and is used with permission.

The podcast as a whole is copyright 2008 by Calvin powers and all rights are reserved.

Early Riser

2008-07-30T20:48:00.004-04:00

For as long as I can remember, I have always been an early riser. I remember in second grade I was so into cartoons that I would wake up early on a Saturday morning, so early that the station was till broadcasting its test pattern, just so I could be there as soon as the cartoons started. I remember in college, I'd set my alarm clock for 5:45am and almost every day I'd wake up _before_ the alarm went off. And even today, I tend to get up early even on the weekends. Most weekend morning's I get up around 5:30 or 6:00 and work on radio station stuff or blog stuff and then get some of my household chores done.

But what I have discovered recently, is that just being "up" in the morning doesn't necessarily mean that I am "awake" in the morning.

Case in point, a few weeks ago I was going through my usual weekend routine. One of the radio station chores I have is to select a new set of songs to play on the internet station and upload them. I select 150 songs using the Secret Calvin Algorithm to creat just the right mix of music. and then I have to upload them to the station servers. Problem is that the Time Warner connection I have at home is hamstrung with a slow upload rate and it can take as long as 2 1/2 hours to upload all the songs. However, I recently noticed that the internet speeds at my favorite coffee shop, the Open Eye, are significantly higher and what takes over 2 hours from home can take as little as 45 minutes from the Open Eye.

So one recent Saturday morning, I got the brilliant idea that I'd get all my chores done and select the weekly music set and then go up to the Open Eye to drink a cup of coffee and upload my songs. So I showed up right at 8am when they opened.

On this particular morning, a tall thin waifish woman was working the counter. I'd seen her a thousand times before. She's got that alternative look to her. gothy thrift store clothes, wild hair in various esoteric colors, piercings, and that emo-look. I'd always thought of her as a fairly friendly sort but never really talked to her.

Anyway, I ordered my small black half-caff just like always which she gave me. I took it to the end of the coffee bar and proceeded to doctor it up with Splenda and cream.

As I was doing this, I was dimly aware of a voice asking me something. But it wasn't until I heard it the second time that I thought to pick my head up and note that the barista chica had come down to the end of the bar with me and she asked me again, "So how are you?"

I struggled.

"Everything's good. There's plenty of Splenda and cream."

Bless her heart. She gave me a third chance.

"No I mean, how are YOU?"

Ah! neurons finally started firing. I'd seen this before. What was it? I know I know this. Oh yeah! Social Interaction! I read about this someplace. I can handle it. I know I can!

I knew that the question required not only an affirmative response on my part but required a coresponding query in return regarding the other person. Must be personal, but not too personal. Hmmmmm.

It seemed that the one thing I could tell for sure that we had in common was that we were both up early in the morning and that there didn't appear to be anyone else at The Open Eye this early. I seized on this.

"I'm doing good. Must be tough for you to get up so early on a slow Saturday morning." Not exactly phrased as a question, but it did invite a response I think.

She gave me a sly smile and said "Oh, it will pick up soon enough. It just depends when, but it will pick up."

Success! "Well, good luck!" I said and headed off to my table. Lame but polite at least.

It was at this point that I dawned on me that even though I'd been "up" since about 5:30, I might not have necessarily been "awake." Funny thing, I wrote 4 CD revews that morning before going to the coffee shop!