Theodicius
Good. Evil. Bratwurst.

Antonella Pavese is leaving IT. She explains why:

What I found frustrating is not so much the exclusion from the boy’s club–although there is definitely some of that–but rather the excessive emphasis on speed rather than quality (for a different take on this issue, see Alan Key on the disappointing lack of new and revolutionary programming languages; via Andrew), on execution rather than strategy, and the disregard for the human and caring aspects of building applications (e.g., the quality of the user experience rather than the quality of the code).

I know it isn’t what you want to hear, Antonella, but that’s they way it is in almost every company, and the tendency increases with size. I used to work for a Fortune 500 company, not an IT company, and the attitude was prevalent all over the place. There wasn’t an emphasis on quality, despite the lip service. There was an emphasis on speed, and if quality was in the way, it quite often became a casualty (point of clarification: quality issues that could physically harm someone were not casualties, but quality issues which resulted in poorer performance or confused customers often were).

Company executives want numbers, why do you think the recent accounting problems happened in the first place? They want good numbers and don’t have a great interest in how they get them. That’s why we see support functions and call desks being outrsourced to cheap, often less qualified, labor. The bottom line is the goal, and so nothing warm and fuzzy, such as training, such as usability studies, that cannot have a directly justifiable dollar gain gets their interest. (Yes, I know full well that these things improve the workforce and the product. The problem comes when the executive asks “how much?” And then the executive whose funding will be cut to fund those items asks for a detailed justification of those numbers. It’s not always possible to come up with firm numbers that will pass scrutiny, and even if you can, the first time you’re wrong you lose every future discussion about the same issues.)

She cites some of the usual gender-hostile reasons, but I’m pleased to note they aren’t her main reason, because many of those same issues are problems for the men in this field as well; men are conditioned since birth, however, not to complain about things like that, so you don’t hear much from our side of the gender fence, I’m afraid. I know every time I thought about those issues I heard a voice in my head say “that’s why they call it “work,” dummy.”

The problem is that the corporate mindset has milked America until it’s getting pretty dry, and soon they’ll be moving on to fresher pastures, and a workforce that won’t complain as loudly or be able to choose another path. It’s already happened in the world of textiles, is happening now in computers and electronics. Won’t be long until the only jobs over here will be sales, marketing, and service. Antonella apparently won’t find that too bad, as she’s looking forward to moving into marketing, but for hands-on folsk like me, that would simply be another form of death. On the bright side, I’ll be retired before that happens.

Recently we celebrated Independence Day. I was distracted by other problems from doing my usual bit in honor of the day. (My sincere apologies, milady Liberty; I may yet get back to it, albeit late.) But as I was doing my annual bit of reflection on this land I love so much, London was bombed (again). And then Paretsky’s book dropped by for a visit. And I have to do this. I don’t have a choice.

It is a time of war, that is certain. It is also a time of national crisis, that much is also certain. But the two are only peripherally related. The war is on foreign soil, the crisis is on our own.

We are engaged in struggle over Liberty; whether in fact Liberty is worth defending, or whether we should give it up, piece by piece, We were hurt, and we lashed out; we acted then, through pain, in haste. But we no longer have that excuse.

The actions of our current leaders give voice to the question: Do we stil believe in Liberty? Do we still believe that everyone has the right to speak, the right to practice any religion, the right to think? Make no mistake about it, for that is the road we are currently traveling down.

Do I have the right to draw up detailed plans and schemes on how to kill a person, or a thousand people, so long as I not act upon it? Do I have the right to make such plans and schemes public, to talk about them with other people? I know there are those within the range of my keyboard who would say no, and would denounce me as a terrorist.

But before you slap the cuffs on me and cart me off to prison, realize that I have also described Tom Clancy, reading any one of his early books during a publicity tour. Or an unknown author, writing his first book and showing it to friends. Or a gamer, creating a world for himself and his friends to play in.

There’s a reason why the laws the designers of our freedom created punished actions, not thoughts. Because until we act, there is still time to recant, to repent, to call it off. Until the trigger is pulled, no harm has been done, no matter how detailed the plan. Oh, but these people are different, you cry. They won’t back down.

So what? Even if they are different, we aren’t. We’re still the same people who were committed to the idea that thoughts are free.

Or are we? Have we come so far from the time of tyranny that we no longer recognize its visage? Is it possible that we no longer recognize our sworn enemy? Have we really descended so far? As recently as 40 years ago, Walt Kelly’s possum could still recognize the enemy; Pogo shouted his warning then, and it still applies today: “We have met the enemy, and he is us!” We all want to remain secure and comfortable, and we don’t like to be reminded that Liberty is inconsistent with either condition, so we all bring tyranny to the party. This is why we need all the more to recognize its ascendence and resist it.

Let me state it bluntly. If you, Mr. Ashcroft, believe you are entitled to know the title of every book in my library, then you, sir, are my enemy. If you, Mr. President, believe that you are entitled to make people disappear into a fortress without trial, without their being able to face their accusers, then you, sir, are my enemy. If you, Mr. Chertoff, believe you are entilted to tap my phone simply because of where I worship, then you, sir, are my enemy. Liberty may scare you (I know she sure scares me at times) but that’s no reason to show her the door. Her absence scares me even more.

It’s popular among today’s pudding-headed pundits to pompously pronounce that anyone who dares utter words like the above hates America and all it stands for. Some even call it treason. Where’s your DD214, Ms Coulter? I signed up; I love this country, and the gift of Liberty given to me through it, so much that I gave up four years, and volunteered, if necessary, to give up the entirety of my life itself, in its defense. And to defend your right to call me names. I’ve already paid that much, and stand ready to pay more, if such is demanded of me. I’m not asking you to be quiet; I’m not even asking for thanks. Just reminding you of something you’ve probably forgotten while you recline in your padded chair thinking about who to smear next, and how much money you can make doing it.

Bold words? Perhaps. But freedom demands boldness; half-hearted attempts at it are doomed to failure. Barry Goldwater once said, “Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice.” You go, Barry. And, before anyone suggests it, the PATRIOT Act doesn’t qualify. It doesn’t defend Liberty; it gives it up without a struggle, hoping to obtain a little security in return.

Liberty costs. Freedom isn’t free. And neither Liberty nor Freedom are ever purchased. They are only rented, and the rental price is paid in blood; no other currency is valuable enough to make the exchange. If you want to live free, you have to know right up front that others will hate you for it, and you have to let them. That’s the key; if they are not free to work against you, then you are not truly free yourself.

The people of London know this. That’s why the Monday after the bombs went off, the subways and busses were filled. They refused to give in to the fear, and stood strong and tall. They refused to give in. You want to see heroes defending Liberty? They aren’t all on the battlefields, in precinct houses or fire stations; look in the subways of London. To stand up without a weapon and say “You can take my life, but not my freedom”, that, truly, is heroism.

Once a young firebrand, in the midst of a national crisis, took pen in hand and wrote these words (in “The American Crisis”): “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain, too cheap, we esteem too lightly: — ‘Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value.”

Young Tom Paine knew whereof he spoke. Today, there’s a panic mob running amok, and it wants to deprive us of some of our Liberty. (This is the way it happens; Liberty is never lost all at once, but rather dies the death of a thousand cuts, as piece by bloody piece she is sliced up and traded away.) To stand up to that mob will mean to risk losing something. But we owe it to those who have died renewing our lease on Liberty to take that risk. We have to stand beside Liberty during these hard times, so that she may stand beside us later, in our own time of peril.

We are, in the words of Lincoln, a nation dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. And once again we are engaged in a battle to test whether such a nation can long endure. Many have paid with their blood to get us to this point; can anyone possibly think we owe them no less? We need to continue the job, no matter the price.

“…we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Sara Paretsky has a way.

She has a way of creating characters you enjoy being around, and a way of creating characters you want to avoid being around. She has a way of making them speak as if they were in the room with you. She has a way with plotting, and a way with pacing, that keep you interested, keep you turning pages.

But that’s not what I meant. I’ve been holding off on writing this because it’s going to link to something else; I know it. but here goes.

Sara Paretsky has a way of pulling topical happenings into her books, and making abstract things seem more real for doing it.

In Blacklist, the topicality is provided by the PATRIOT Act. The subplot is about a boy at a private school who happens to be the wrong ethnic group, and has the wrong place of worship, who attracts blame for all sorts of things for no other reason than that. And it’s about what rights the US Government has taken away from us so it can hunt down anyone it so chooses to hunt, regardless of the facts in the matter.

The story is good, but I have to admit she didn’t “palm the ace” quite as deftly as she usually does. One of the breathtaking revelations in this novel was so painfully obvious to me the moment it first appeared that I began to lose some respect for Ms Warshawski when she didn’t immediately reach the same conclusion. It seemed to me that Paretsky intentionally dumbed down our intrepid heroine in a weak attempt to sneak one by the reader. I don’t mind it when an author tries to sneak one past me, but I feel cheated when she doesn’t put her heart into the effort; almost insulted by the lack of respect she is showing for my attention.

But the major point here is the side effects of the nefarious Act, and how much it requires us to trust that our government will only do good things and only has good intentions. To one who has lived through Watergate, and all the subsequent “gates” (schemes from both parties, I’m an equal-opportunity mistruster) this indeed seems like we’ve slid through the looking glass. I’m supposed to trust people I wouldn’t buy a used car from? Oh, there are individuals in government that I feel I can trust, but just give a blank check to anyone in a uniform? Come on, get real. I’ve spent time in a uniform myself. I know the kind of heroes who wear one, and I know that villains can wear one, too. (Remind me sometime to tell you why I left the military; I met some fine people there, but I also met some real scum. And the scum was winning.)

I’m sure I’l soon launch into some more analysis on the political side of this, but suffice it to say this is a good read, if you’re sane enough to be able to stand the politics.

Overheard at lunch: 4 of the young darling set who had no idea what the acronym SWAK means.

(Sealed With A Kiss, if you’re among them.)

Tom Clancy answers the question “What’s next?” It’s hard to have an action hero that gets constant Secret Service protection, so it was fairly obvious that former president Jack Ryan was finished as a protagonist for his books. I saw a few tentative starts with some net police stories and some other stuff, but nothing with any legs.

Well, I have my answer, now. Remember the son born during an earlier advanture? He’s all grown up, now, and is stepping in to the family business, so to speak. Father doesn’t exactly know about it at the moment, but he and a couple of his cousins have now become assassins, working for a quasi-non-governmental secret organization which spies on the government and is dedicated to doing that which the government cannot do, because people might find out.

The new direction isn’t one I cotton to, exactly, so it’s possible that my Clancy collection stops here. He appears to have bought into the old saw that to beat your enemy, you must become your enemy. My reaction to that has always been “if that’s the case, what’s the point of fighting in the first place?” It’s the same kind of non-think that spawned the more egregious parts of the PATRIOT act (political aside: parts of the aforementioned act I could possibly support, but not at the cost of the rest of the baggage it brings; it was a perfect example of how hasty action makes for bad laws). He tempers it a bit with the idea that only a few have to do that, leaving the rest of us unaffected, but I don’t buy that. I think any action taken in my name will eventually have its effect on me.

The premise is simple: if you knew the location of people who had been a part of actions taken against your citizens, would you quietly kill them as and where you found them? There’s a certain Old Testament flair to it, I grant. It’s hardly a new idea, even in reality. Israel embarked upon such a quest after the Olympics in Munich. When the hit in Sweden went bad, however, they dialed down the retaliations. And, given the current climate in Israel, I don’t see how anyone can suggest it was more than minimally effective.

But reality notwithstanding, Clancy carries off the premise, and the tale, with his usual aplomb: good pacing, good characters, nice climax. Good read, even if the whole idea is a bit dicey. Whether you’ll like it depends upon your suspension of disbelief. If you can’t get past the politics, even for a few hours, don’t bother.

I have, BTW, two good memories of Clancy, non-book related. First, of course, is his line about computers, back during the Mac vs PC wars: “Never ask a man what kind of computer he drives. If he drives a Mac, he’ll tell you. If he doesn’t, why embarrass him?”

The other one was his appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. O’Reilly was on one of his favorite hobby horses, using the military to patrol our borders and catch illegal immigrants. And, given the politics in Clancy’s books, he assumed he get an easy agreement from his guest. (Making the assumption proves that O’Reilly doesn’t read closely, or at least critically.) Clancy shut him down in no uncertain terms, and repeatedly told him, much to our host’s dismay, that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that it was a Bad Idea. Maybe it’s a distinction that only us ex-mil types can see, but it was good to see someone handle that pompous windbag as well as Clancy did.

Not sure what was wrong there, for a while, but I’m back on the air. The problem started out with the server disappearing, then grew into something more mysterious as time went on. But I’ll make up for it with a lot to say this morning.