Giving of oneself

The New Yorker magazine ran an interesting article in the July 27th issue titled “The Kindest Cut” by Larissa MacFarquhar. It was about kidney donation to strangers. It explored the perception of it and the results of it.  One portion fascinated me not only because of the exquisite wording but the insight as well:

“What, then, is it about saving a stranger by giving a kidney, a far lesser risk, that people find so odd? Do they feel there is something aggressive about the act, as though the donor were implicitly rebuking them for not doing it, too? (There is no rebuke in saving a stranger from drowning–you weren’t there, you couldn’t have done it. And you can always imagine that you would have if you had been.) Or perhaps it’s that organ donation, unlike rescue, is conceived in cold blood, and cold-blooded altruism seems nearly as sinsister as cold-blooded malevolence. Perhaps only the hot-blooded, unthinking sort can now escape altruism’s trainted reputation, captured in the suspicious terms for what people are really engaged in when they think they’re helping (sublimation ,colonialism, group selection, potlatch, socialism, co-depency–the list goes on).”

Wow. Yeah. Why can’t we think of good of this act of donation? What’s wrong with us (or me)?

loons, between the cries

[A journal entry from my vacation at lake front property.]

Loons are not silent when they are not nature’s mournful cry. No, they make a small hooting sound to each other, like small talk at a party before they must say something loud and meaningful. I heard the loons first by their small talk while reading on the dock. It’s the little things that one learns that is fascinating.

Just before it rains..

[yet another journal entry while on vacation.]

There is a moment before the rain starts when just a few scattered, random drops fall on the waters of the lake. They are so few when they fall that if you are lucky and there is no wind, preceding the impending precipitation, they sound like the individual strikings of a harp’s strings. Random, no mind to melody or rhythm.

Rain

[A journal entry from my lake front vacation.]

There are very specific types of rain. This is not a new thought–I believe the native American Indians categorized rain and named them uniquely. Perhaps categorized is too far, but one certainly could after experiencing so many types of rain at the lodge (my vacation spot of choice). But one thing is constant for today’s rain, it is not the ending type of rain. No, most certainly it is not. The advantage is, however, that again I get to be lazy with no remorse.

Generational Law

“”I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it’s laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.” “
— Thomas Jefferson

I was watching the mini-series “John Adams” starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney and the actor who played Thomas Jefferson recited the quote above.

The quote resonnated with me because it’s something I’ve been thinking of for a long long time.  Time’s passage alters connotations and denotations of the words comprising laws and the governing documents made from them. I’ve often said on issues of healthcare are that “life” in the famous line  “life, liberty and the persuit of happiness” now must includes healthcare. Sadly my research for this entry shows me that this phrase is in the declaration of independence not the Consitution so therefore I can no longer use that as a basis for universal healthcare. But nontheless despite that mistake on my part, Jefferson considered and voiced with great clarity and succinctness what has been nagging me for many years. Laws must be reconsidered as time’s passage alters their meaning.  Society changes. Words, given definition by society, are not static.  Jefferson was concerend that the documents he was helping to create would bind subsequent generations to their words and meaning unfairly.  It is amazing that this profound thought was voiced at the same time they were making their historical governing decisions.

Damn Port Forwarding Rocks

I don’t like using the corporate VPN. Why? It creates a new network interface on my machine and routes all traffic through it and thereby through my company’s network. I’d rather not have to disconnect to surf over to jsettlers.org for a quick match.

Recently I’ve started using VNC to work remotely on some tasks that require I be on my desktop.  But to do this I needed to use the VPN. Grr. VPN = BAD. So, I examined an example of  port to forwarding to the corporate wiki over an ssh connection.  I took a stab at setting up forwarding for VNC.

It wasn’t hard. The hardest part was figuring out that the vnc server on my work machine listens for connections on port 5900 + the display number (most likely 0 for you).  So I configured my ssh to forward local connections to port 5900 to my desktop ip address and port 5900. Once I establish my ssh connection I just fire up VNC and connect to localhost:5900 to connec to my desktop. Viola! The beauty in this is that I don’t have to start a program on the firewall machine and make sure it is running. When I establish my ssh connection it immediately “turns on” the port forwarding for on my local machine.

It’s all very powerful and very much related to my previous post “I Serve No More”.

AIG stuff

What? You are going to tax the hell out of those bonuses? I can understand the reaction. I can. But I don’t like it. Why?

I don’t want the government doing something illegal or immoral to get back the bonus money. I don’t want those bonuses paid out, but don’t dump a tax on them after the fact. I don’t think it is legal, rather I should say it shouldn’t be legal, to tax someone AFTER the fact.  In particular you can vote in a new LAW to tax someone after the fact.

So go after those bonuses, definitely. But don’t compromise our ethics to do it.

WBC vs. Owners

This is no longer particularly timely but I still think it is interesting.

The World Baseball Classic is a great idea but one injury to a star player will kill participation by MLB teams. Owners and coaches are not happy, I’m sure, with sending their players off to play in the classic because of the fear of injury. Their star player is managed by someone who hasn’t worked with them, ever. Doesn’t intimately know their planned rehab regiment. Doesn’t know them period. However, form what I’ve learned, the WBC is a MLB sponsored event and because of that they insist that players participate. I’m sure the players want to play, that’s what they do. However, this is not in the best interest of the teams.

So over the family dinner table we came up with a plan. MLB must guarantee the contracts of the players if they get injured. It’s still a losing proposition for teams if their player goes down as their team would certainly not do as well as with their star. So, they lose on revenue in many forms. But, at least they’d get reimbursed for that year’s salary.

MLB, you can’t just shanghi players and not take responsibility for them.

hey globe

The news of the Boston Globe’s, well the parent company’s, fiscal woes shakes one of the pillars of my morning routine. I love reading the sports section. That sports section has been a formative part of my childhood, heck my life. To reading Peter Gammons on baseball, Michael Holley when we lit up the Boston pages, to Jackie MacMullan’s insightful articles on whatever she choose to write about, Shira Springer’s thoughts about basketball (what a great name, BTW, she should be on NPR with that name, to Bob Ryan’s opinonated shouts across the Boston sport scene (I hardly ever agreed with Mr. Ryan but I enjoy that contrasting opinion).   But there’s more to the globe than that–there’s the comics, the business section, the movie reviews, the Sunday Ideas Section..

So here’s my suggestion–charge for online access. Yep. I’d be willing to fork over some money for online access. Your paid reader ship might go up some because people can’t share that electronic paper (if you do your security right).  Make general information on the site free but charge for more for indepth material that your outstanding staff offers. Basic coverage of the Boston sports scene? Free. Inside the club house articles–ante up. I think more people don’t want a home subscription because they don’t want the hassle of recycling a newspaper. You have to store the paper, carry it out to the curb on trash/recycling day..a physical paper while perferred over an electronic one is not as convenient. I want my Sunday globe in a nice printed form infront of me but the rest of the week? No, I’ll read my selected articles online and never have to worry about what I’m doing to the environment nor haul those papers to the curb.

The printed newspaper is dying and while I’ll mourn it deeply, I am willing to pay to make the new business model work.

The Matrix Revolution

I’m not going to review the movie. We know it. What I am going to say is that it is a good movie.  When it came out in theaters it got lukewarm reviews which is unfortunate I believe for it is a necessary conclusion to the series. Viewers possibly went into the movie expecting explosions (there are), fights (there are) and zen dialog (there is). Perhaps they wanted more of it? I don’t know but what I do know is the movie is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy. Agent Smith is the equation balancing itself against Nero. However that balancing also put the real world at risk.  If Nero didn’t have Agent Smith, Nero would have been the threat to the real world of the machines. <SPOILER!> Nero figured that out and struck a bargain with the machines for peace.

No this movie might not have been inventive as the first and second movies, but it is a very logically satisfying conclusion to the series.