Blogcritics Author: Yo-Duh

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Will McCain Bail?

Yo-Duh — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:08:06 EDT

By that I mean: Will John McCain abandon the Republican Party? Not, will he abandon his race for the presidency, because that's not like the good Senator. And if I'm reading him correctly, he's pissed. With good reason. The GOP has a long tradition of awarding the nomination to the next in line. On many occasions, that has been a previous presidential contender who - though qualified - has been passed over. This time, the nod was supposed to go to McCain.Fate, timing and circumstance have conspired to deny the Senator from Arizona and war hero his due, and after all he's been through who could blame the man if he's good and mad? So I'm betting he'll fold his current hand, put his Republican campaign to bed, reorganize his staff and bolt the party for an independent run. The staff reorganization piece began after his last quarterly reporting and accelerated today with the departure of his two, top campaign managers.Being a man of conviction, McCain is not likely to go quietly into the night. No, a much more likely scenario is that he will abandon the party completely and join Joe Liberman and Michael Bloomberg among the ranks of the newly independent. And Chuck Hagel may not be far behind, as the GOP goes the way of the Whigs. It's just the perfect election cycle for that scenario, don't you think? Just when you think nothing else could happen, it may. John McCain understands two important facts about this time in history. First, the Grand Old Party has hit historic lows among all groups polled because conditions at home and abroad really are disastrous. And second, American voters are looking for a hero - or a heroine to extract us from this mess and restore our quality of life and reputation worldwide. Not a technocrat or benign, smiling puppet this time around. No, we want a real, red-blooded American hero to get busy and dig us out of the nasty hole this administration has created. At the grassroots level, we're all pretty clear on that. Rudy seems to get the message, but will surely fade once his personal life and social liberalism is the focus of concentrated attention. And Romney is a hero only to those who deem the deepest of faith to be important. Ron Paul is a hero among the Netroots, but that hasn't translated yet into gains with the mainstream electorate. And probably never will. Fred Thompson has superficial hero bonafides, but oh yea, they're all in scripted roles. In his real life roles, the man seems all too shallow and self-serving to be very heroic. His work for Nixon, then for a pro-choice organization as a lobbyist (which he is still denying) look to be real problems. McCain, on the other hand, has faced his devils, vetted himself and established his turf. That's worth something to the moderate center he courts. He has the best hero credentials of any candidate running, and also deserves props for that. We should not forget the man spent years in a bamboo cage as a prisoner of war for his country. Read that story again if you have any doubt regarding his bonafides. The Republican Party has not had a real hero in the ranks of presidential contenders since Eisenhower, a five-star general who ended WWII. Not unless you count heroes of the silver screen, and I never really "got" that. So McCain may yet offer himself to an engaged citizenry intent on finding a new American hero. By doing so, he would rid himself of the need to pander to the religious right and his campaign would have a platform to advocate for his sometimes contentious issues like immigration and campaign reform. With instant and comprehensive Internet communications; a YouTube channel and a willingness to work the blogs, anything could happen. If it's ever going to happen, this will be the election cycle.

Yo-Duh is a veteran techie and writer with roots in computer hardware, software and gaming. That's after his career in health care and education. For decades, he has labored to frame new developments and provide context. His passions include music, travel, politics and primitive art. Profile on hi5.

NFL Releases Schedule: Dumbs-down the Sport

Yo-Duh — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:12:05 EDT

I see the NFL released its new schedule today. That used to be a big deal for this sports fan. I was one of those football fanatics that checked out during the season, and stayed glued to the tube on some Thursdays and Saturdays, and every single Sunday and Monday for months. But now, I'm wondering what's happened to my game? I used to love the NFL. Then "stuff" started to happen. It started with TV time outs. Those inexplicable interruptions that inevitably interfere with the natural rhythm of the game. Just go watch a good high school game on a Fall Friday night to see what "natural rhythm" is all about.Then, in what I take to be an effort to cut back on human resource costs, cable-mounted robotic cameras appeared to much fanfare and self congratulation. Well, news flash: they suck. And the networks have been trading leagues and playoffs recently, so a fan never knows just whom to expect in the booth. Sure, the A-team announcers are spot-on. But the B- and C-teams are really, really bad - often consisting of tired old farts paired with young, brash and clueless know-it-alls. That frequently leads to some discernible disconnect at best, and tension at worst. Just what I want to be dealing with at game time.Recently, network game coverage has been highlighting the "human drama" and "personal sacrifice" associated with the game. Lots of fresh-faced young announcers conducting earnest interviews with players on the sidelines. First of all, that's turning a perfectly good sport into soap opera; and second, it's kind of a hard sell with the numbers of NFL players busted of late for possession of firearms and assault. Get real. Can anyone say: "Too much drama?"So even the drama's not enough. Advertising agencies, in their great wisdom, turned all of my heroes into laughing stocks. Here's where I give the title of the post a nod. The TV commercial that really drove me from the room holding my head was the one featuring a host of HOF-bound QBs being pushed around supermarkets in shopping carts. First time I saw that I had to reach for the air sickness bag. Whose idea was it anyway to turn our sports heroes into powerless fools in the fetal position? That's so intuitive, don't you think? But it didn't stop there, and still hasn't. How about Peyton in that black wig and fake stach? What a giggle, no?As my frustration mounted, the real jock in the household introduced me to European League Soccer and world-class Rugby. That would be my eldest, adult daughter. This is a girl who used to greet me on Sunday mornings with a recitation of all the times and channels for televised NFL games; the key match-ups, and her personal picks for the day's schedule. She had a poster of Steve Young in her room. An all-conference athlete herself, she takes sports very seriously. And she's way big on soccer and rugby now. Frankly, I can see why. A total breath of fresh air. Soccer fans sing with joy, and scream in agony. I have been on foreign soil for the last two Soccer World Cup matches, and I can tell you the excitement for the sport is palpable and thick. In one case, I witnessed every high-rise in Toronto empty out in about a minute, as delirious fans filled the streets to celebrate. Soccer is not the only "other" football. There's Irish football, Aussie Rules and my new favorite, Rugby. American males, who are suffering and in decline, should have a look at Rugby. It's a very masculine and triumphal struggle. The New Zealand All Blacks rugby squad is simply the best football team of any sort on the planet. That "Haka" they do before each game would chill any opponent. It's intriguing that the team's biggest threat is its smallest player.I've not given up entirely on American football. I still love the excitement and pagentry of college bowl games; I remain a Wisconsin Badger fan, and my entire family is devoted to the South Medford High School Panthers in Medford, Oregon.I'm just not going to be watching the NFL this year, and I didn't get very excited last season. I'm sure there will be way too much personal drama on the sidelines, folly in the booth; and I'm not interested in sports soap operas. I'll catch the next Superbowl commercials online. So hold the barbecue and stow the chips. You can leave the beer.

Book Review: Management by Baseball - The Official Rules for Winning Management in Any Field by Jeff Angus

Yo-Duh — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:12:06 EDT

Start the new baseball season with a great business management book. Management by Baseball: The Official Rules for Winning Management in Any Field, penned by Jeff Angus, is the perfect, post-opening day primer for managers and business executives with a pension for America's Game.The result of the author's thorough effort and unique perspective is a quick and enjoyable read that features management tips with stories from baseball legends like Earl Weaver. What's not to love? Angus uses game-winning and game-losing strategies from some of the greatest MLB rivalries of all time to illustrate his considerable grasp of the principles and practices of good management. He points to individual, game-changing decisions and parses the logic and context of success. In Management by Baseball, Jeff makes a convincing case that baseball skippers like Joe Torre and Dusty Baker are better role models for managers than respected corporate giants like Jack Welch and Bill Gates. And he's got perfect examples to back up his claims. The book's chapters look at: managing the mechanics of the team and game; managing talent; managing change; managing yourself, and ultimately, mastering the game. Angus correctly observes that baseball managers spend hours studying research, dissecting competitive challenges and devising micro-strategies. Team skippers are called upon to manage abstract concepts, like time-management and human resource development (training) and recruiting. They make high-pressure decisions, like calling for a steal or pitch-out, and a bevy of more mundane choices like picking a lineup. Angus draws real-world lessons from this fascinating fodder, then presents it in language that is spot-on while easy to understand. The book is just fun to read. Thus, the text is an excellent choice for a first venture into the vast world of management theory and practice, as well as a refreshing exclamation point for those veteran execs who have already plumbed the depths of the literature. A veteran blogger, Angus has been online and posting since 2003 - which isn't surprising as he is also an uber-geek. What else could you call the guy who started the original Infoworld Test Center? Still a regular columnist for weekly computing publications, Jeff also has regular columns with CIO and the Seattle Times - where he mines platinum from mountains of baseball statistics.It's one thing to pontificate from on-high about the principles of business management. There is no shortage of tomes heavy with slogans or alternatively, weighty technical disambiguations. I am more inclined to value an analysis of winning management techniques when accompanied by relevant, understandable, real-world examples and anecdotal evidence. It's even better when those examples are stories about some of the greatest moments in baseball. Management by Baseball takes the reader from first-base all the way home.

The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections

Yo-Duh — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 21:16:01 EDT

The political season is already underway, in case anybody has missed the news. The national election campaigns are getting plenty of attention. A variety of newly minted political blogs has amplified the effect, and video wars are underway on YouTube. In this political frenzy, the science of running and winning local elections is often overlooked. Local elections are the real grass-roots at work, where the proverbial rubber-meets-the-road. Catherine Shaw's The Campaign Manager (third edition) is a detailed handbook that provides managers of local campaigns, no matter what their level of experience and sophistication, a strategic, A-to-Z roadmap to victory in the polls. Just check out the book's (exclusive) five-star rating in this category on Amazon. Shaw, mayor of Ashland, Oregon for three consecutive terms (12 years) and former chief-of-staff for Oregon State Representative Dr. Alan Bates, just may be the country's leading authority on the subject. She has managed and won countless local elections including bond and levy issues, as well as the campaigns of local elected officials. Based on her work and scholarship, Shaw has been an invited lecturer at Yale, the University of California and Southern Oregon University. One reason Shaw's approach is so popular with readers, academics and political consultants on-the-ground, is her data-driven approach that parses successful campaign management into its logical building blocks. The Campaign Manager then details the particulars involved in each phase of the campaign, from the early "fatal-flaw" analysis, through constituting a "war-room," to conducting the day-to-day activities of the campaign. Nothing is overlooked. Her chapters on precinct analysis and targeting are key contributions to the literature, and her GOTV methods are being employed with great success across the country. Shaw begins her tome with a section on how to use the book, including the ten commandments of campaigning juxtaposed against the cardinal sins of campaign management. She parses the campaign team and addresses volunteer recruitment in the second section. Turning her attention to the campaign brochure, Shaw speaks to theme and message development; polling; slogans; logo, and the all-important Voter's Pamphlet. There is, of course, an extended section on fund-raising that includes tips, techniques and tracking mechanisms. Lawn signs can play a very visible role in local elections, even though there are cycles when none will be used. Shaw makes sense of it all and provides a management model and checklist. The Campaign Manager also devotes considerable attention to "The Candidate." Shaw knows how to "package" and "position" her candidates, and she shares those insights freely.For political trench warriors, this book is a bible of sorts. It covers issue- and candidate-based campaigns. As former Oregon Secretary of State, Phil Keisling put it in a cover note: "This is arguably the most comprehensive, insightful, and useful compendium of local campaign wisdom ever assembled." NPR's political correspondent, Mara Liasson is also a fan. It's easy to see why. Shaw's perspective is focused, and she offers readers a wealth of useful examples, tables and illustrations as real-world touchstones. But for this reviewer, the principal strength of this work is its success in reducing the mystery of politics to a science. Shaw has learned her trade well, and has practiced it successfully for decades. As a result, her book is replete with the kind of insight, wit and sage advice anyone brave or crazy enough to take on a political campaign will certainly need. If you've got a school bond to pass, get this book. If you're tired of your local state representative or senator, get this book and show it to others of like mind. You may just end up with a candidate. And you'll certainly end up with a plan. If your Uncle Homer is always complaining about the usual suspects, get this book and give him a copy with the admonition that he better give it a rest unless he wants to run himself. Just be ready to have a politician in the family or among your network of friends. Yes, this book is that good.

John Poindexter, The Fed's Data Mining Uber-Geek

Yo-Duh — Fri, 6 Apr 2007 19:59:38 EDT

Is retired Admiral John Poindexter (AJP) the best software architect alive today? I think he just might be, and I'm not sure whether to feel warm and fuzzy about that or to be very, very afraid. That's because Poindexter, a convicted felon with a criminal record of lying to Congress, is the federal government's "Uber-Geek." The Nerd in Chief is most responsible for the conception, design, and execution of the Department of Homeland Security's massive technology apparatus -- at least the data mining and analysis piece, the core functionality of the new system. His convictions, I should note, were modified on appeal. AJP has been working on this stuff for years. And I know that to be a fact. I first met the Admiral in the late 80s -- when he was back in civies after Iran-Contra. He was a developer at the time and worked with DESQview/X, a multi-tasking, windowing environment provided by my employer. He showed up at the annual developer's conference one year and joined the company's trade-show crew and other developers on the floor of Network World (might have been InterOp) on at least one occasion that I remember. I also remember him hanging with Wayne Ratliff and Bob Byers, of dBASE fame, who shared his passion for software design and database architecture. Even then, there were lots of animated conversations around collecting data from disparate sources on multi-platform networks; buffering and caching that information in novel constructs, while providing multi-layer hooks and handles so that external software agents could organize and process the aggregated data to achieve certain, pre-defined goals. Heady stuff at the time. There was a lot going on in the data base developer universe in those days. Brian Russell and Mitch McConnell had finished Clipper 5.0. Ratliff & Byers were collaborating on new stuff and the Admiral was right in the middle of all the action. John Poindexter was the mind behind the Total Information Access (TIA) system first proposed after 9/11. Congress was so intimidated by the reach and constitutional implications of that model they cut off funding and told the program to go away in 2003. It didn't, of course. Now, TIA has returned on steroids -- and has been rebranded as ADVISE - for Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement. Parse that. It makes for some interesting disambiguation. The Christian Science Monitor covered the story. ADVISE is capable of cross-matching material from websites and blog posts to government records and personal data. Techies, ponder this: The Feds can take ten-terabyte gulps of data and process it in under a minute. As good as that may be for advancing scientific research, it does not bode well for personal privacy. As I understand it, massively scalable, grid- or blade-based computing architectures based on commodity components connected by 10Gb Ethernet networks and Core XGE Ethernet-based backbone switches are delivering over one terabyte/minute table scanning rates in a variety of available Data Warehouse Appliance configurations. Another model, "share-nothing" architecture, is the key to the MIT Media Lab's new petabyte storage, terabit I/O bandwidth "Human Speechome" project. That is one of the largest and highest performing commercial systems that I am aware of. And you know the Feds are way ahead of that curve. And now, the Feds have a great Beta site for all of their machinations: Singapore. Wired Magazine recently reported on the re-birth of TIA/ADVISE and the work of AJP in rolling-out the tightly controlled country's internal surveillance and data mining program. Dubbed Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS), the new system is being deployed by Poindexter protegees. Singapore is widely expected to fine-tune the system, work out any bugs, then sell it back to us. It's just so convenient that I can't avoid the conclusion that the old "nod-and-wink" is at work to circumvent the will of the Congress of the United States and the opinions of our citizens. Just peachy. A worthy data mining and privacy guru, Jeff Jonas of IBM (check out his fine blog), adds this humorous take: "Data Mining, noun, 1. Torturing data until it confesses ... and if you torture it enough, it will confess to anything." Therein lies the conundrum for privacy advocates. I can guarantee that outsourcing our systems development and beta testing to entities that are beyond our authority and public oversight will only exacerbate that conflict. But then again, that's how AJP has always worked.

Linux Guru Murdoch Joins Sun Today

Yo-Duh — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:19:54 EDT

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (SUNW: Nasdeq) today announced the appointment of Ian Murdock to the position of Chief Operating Platforms Officer. Murdock posts about the move on his weblog today. A legend in the open source software community, Murdock will retain his title and role as chair of Linux Standard Base (LSB), the Linux platform interoperability standard group. Prior to joining Sun today, Murdock was Chief Technology Officer of the Linux Foundation. He co-founded Progeny, a major Linux distributor; and, was founder of Debian (a combination of the first three letters of his wife Debbie's name and his own first name), arguably the first, decentralized open source project run by volunteers. On his weblog, Murdock is coy about his charter - but allows that working to close the interoperability gaps between Sun's Solaris operating system and Linux will be a priority. Today's announcement is sure to boost Sun's already enviable status among the technically gifted. Murdock is seen in the industry as something of a software saint. The investment community should be interested and enthusiastic as well. Sun has been busy recently, adding exciting new products like the world's first "virtualized" datacenter in a box (the "Blackbox" project) - which literally puts a fully-featured IT operation in a shipping container. Just plug in your industrial-strength bandwidth and power; add a water supply for cooling, and you've got a turnkey datacenter solution that can be shipped and housed in a number of creative environments. And the company has also inked recent agreements with its Japanese partner, Fujitsu. Maybe that's why uber-investors, KKR, recently anted-up a serious pile of cash for a piece of Sun's action - and futures. In any case, something's up with the "Sunnies."

Music Review: Tony Furtado - 13

Yo-Duh — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:37:12 EDT

How do you classify the music of cross-over innovators like Bela Fleck? Can genius be pigeonholed? I don't think so. The same is true for Tony Furtado's music, all thirteen albums - which defy cookie-cutter musical categories. Somewhere between alternative bluegrass and alternative country - with a few jazz, Celtic and Latin influences for good measure - Furtado is often compared to Bela Fleck. Like Fleck, he started out as a banjo sensation - twice winning the national banjo competition. But unlike Fleck, Furtado extended his instrumental repertoire to include almost everything with wires and wood. His slide guitar playing is exceptional. Where Bela pushes limits, builds mathematical constructs with his music, and has composed an entire song that is a palindrome, Furtado is driven to extract every last ounce of emotion from every note he plays. A natural storyteller and songwriter, his melodies are sweet, fluid, and often haunting. That's when he's not thrashing his slide to evoke some raw country blues with Kelly Joe Phelps on vocals. I love both Fleck and Furtado, but I tend to react to Bela's work with my brain and my feet; and to Tony's music with my heart, soul and body chemistry. I'm rarely happier than when I'm listening to Furtado's American Gypsy (2002) or Roll My Blues Away (1997) discs. His music reaches down and turns on a fire hydrant of emotions. It has a welcome, masculine vibe that is strong, confident and unrepentant - sure to appeal to alternative music-loving males as well as their female counterparts. My partner's enthusiasm testifies to that. Some of Furtado's sweetest slide guitar tunes include: "Can You Hear the Rain," "Promise of a Better Day," "Song for Early," and "Crow Country." These songs are the musical equivalent of soulful cowboy poetry, featuring the artist's strong, instrumental voice. And Tony has mastered the art of speaking to his audiences with only his instruments. They weep, cajole, and moan. There is authentic passion in all of his music. It's all real, nothing sounds contrived or formulaic. Honest music. Songs like "Willow Tree," "False Hearted Lover," and Bill Munroe's "Molly and Tenbrooks" showcase Furtado's country blues licks and the sultry moan of Kelly Joe Phelps' unique and pleasing voice. In January, Tony Furtado released his 13th album; appropriately dubbed 13. It has 13 tracks. Furtado is 39 years old, three times thirteen. The work marks a departure from previous compilations in that it features a bigger cast of supporting musicians, and a nod to alternative, southern-style rock. So this album speaks to the "feet" thing. It is definitely "danceable." In addition to ten original compositions, he performs three covers on this disc. Furtado's covers always bring something new and unexpected to the work of other songwriters. On 13, he offers versions of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Sun," and Elton John's "Take Me to the Pilot." The artist also showcases more of his own vocals on the new disc. He's got a nice tenor, and is maturing as a songwriter. I'm personally very fond of his inspired instrumental tunes, but artists evolve and try new things. If you count yourself a fan of alternative bluegrass or country; and you are intrigued by a gifted artist and storyteller with genuinely emotional content, dial-up Furtado's web site and check out his tunes and discography. He's back on a min-tour after a year's hiatus. I'll be there when he appears a the Mobius in Ashland, Oregon in April. Wouldn't miss it.

Gypsy Zeitgeist: Films by Tony Gatlif

Yo-Duh — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 22:13:45 EDT

Occasionally a filmmaker succeeds in capturing an authentic aspect of human life and culture. That's always a triumph in this age of formulaic plots and endless sequels. The obscure and intense movies of Tony Gatlif certainly qualify as modern screen gems. Gatlif weaves colorful and musical tapestries of European Gypsy life that are powerful portrayals of one of the oldest and most misunderstood cultures on the planet, the Roma. Gatlif's 2000 film, Vengo, is set in a dusty Gypsy village in southern Spain. Almost all of Spain's passionate flamenco music is performed by Gypsies. And Vengo is notable for the abundance of raw, authentic flamenco performances that are showcased in the film. Even grandma, La Abuela, gets into the act with an a capella performance that couldn't possibly be any more emotional. The rhythms of flamenco come from the soul of Spanish Gypsies, and this movie gives viewers a glimpse of what that really sounds, looks and feels like. Vengo is a powerful exploration of the role of family honor and the age-old practice of blood feuds among ancient cultures that disdain modern law and authority. The Spanish title of the movie, in a classic play on words, suggests that "vengeance" is "coming." Gatilf's early work includes two films that are often cited as the definitive cinematic reflections on Gypsy zeitgeist, Latcho Drom and Gadjo Dilo. Latcho Drom charts the journey of the Roma from their beginnings in the state of Rajahstan in India; through the Middle East, up the Balkans to Central Europe, and ending in France and Spain. Understanding this journey, and the role of music in the lives of the travelers, is key to appreciating the roots of Gypsy culture.Gadjo Dilo, literally translated as "crazy outsider," centers around a story of a young man who embarks on a journey from France to Romania to try to find a singer that he discovers on one of his late grandfather's tapes. In the process, he learns a lot about the life of Gypsies in Central Europe, the cultural bias and ghettos; falls in love, and discovers the full range of Romanian Gypsy music. An examination of European Gypsy life couldn't overlook the famous Manouche Clan of French Gypsies. This clan forever changed the face of jazz with the musical improvisations of Django Reinhardt and his group, The Hot Club Quintet of France. Gatlif's Swing introduces Max, a well-off traditional Parisian sort who encounters an engaging young woman who introduces him to a new world of life, love, music and culture. Both Gadjo Dilo and Swing employ the device of a "stranger" falling in love with an exotic, young Gypsy woman. The Gypsy culture is very different from traditional western societies, and must be understood outside of that context. The persistence of young love provides a mechanism for unfolding the process, level by level. Not for the easily distracted, these movies are highly recommended.

Gonzales Should Resign

Yo-Duh — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 19:58:30 EDT

The privacy of law-abiding, average American citizens has been compromised by the federal government. Recent reports by the Justice Department's Inspector General, cited extensively in last week's news, make it clear that basic rights are being trampled right here at home. The Administration insisted publicly that no wide-net would be cast, yet the real volume of intercepted email and magnitude of eavesdropping is staggering. To find out how the federal government may be gathering and using information about you, check out this interactive site owned by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. More onerous is the fact that the process has been overseen by fumbling and incompetent operatives with no sense of public responsibility or personal honor. Techies, ponder this: The Feds have a data mining operation in place that can take ten-terabyte gulps of data and process it in under a minute. Now that's very good for science, but it doesn't bode well for maintaining personal privacy. On weekend news shows, prominent Democratic senators Joe Biden and Charles Schumer called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to do the honorable thing: resign. After all, this massive intrusion into our personal lives and information came on his watch. Can anybody say "accountability?" Not Gonzales. During his tenure our privacy and basic rights have been compromised; we have continued to use widely-questioned methods of torture in our interrogations, and have legions of seized prisoners to whom we have denied the basic rights of Habeas Corpus. Now, we are faced with the specter of political firings of perfectly performing federal attorneys -- who resisted overt pressure from Washington to put justice aside for political motives. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse. In one case, a federal attorney was fired to make room for an aide to Arch-Mage of the Dark Side, Karl Rove. Will somebody please pass the air sickness bag? Making matters worse, instead of being accountable the AG has been dismissive of the problem, labeling it an "overblown personnel matter." Yea, uh huh. News bulletin: all the fired attorneys had great performance reviews. The president could take a lesson from Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, who when confronted with the same dismissive attitude about the treatment of disabled veterans at Walter Reed Hospital's outsourced rehabilitation center immediately fired the top two generals involved and sent a strong message to the services that this kind of outrageous behavior would not be tolerated. I'm guessing that's not going to happen in the Justice Department.

The Sweet Little Parlour Mysteries of Arturo Perez-Reverte

Yo-Duh — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 03:45:45 EST

I love Arturo Perez-Reverte. This fabulous Spaniard writes sweet little parlour mysteries for smarties. Literary entertainment for thinkers. I've got about six of his lush, Euro-centric novels on my bookshelf. He is probably best known for The Club Dumas, which was turned into a wonderful movie starring everyone's favorite actor, Johnny Depp. Dial-up The Ninth Gate from your movie provider and you'll be hooked. Perez-Reverte writes very well researched stories, replete with historic fact, literary references and a level of detail that gives his readers more than expected - without overburdening his prose or cluttering his plots. His characters are indelible, and very earthy. Aging Gypsy divas with spit curls; villains so despicable one can just imagine the tips of their mustaches curling up in ugly sneers; quirky sidekicks and a cast of colorful extras populate his work. And always strong women. Either as protagonists or antagonists. If you enjoy art, read The Flanders Panel first. The resourceful protagonist in this story artfully restores the work of Flemish masters in her studio next to the Prado Museum. If you are intrigued by fencing and the fine art of the epee, then read The Fencing Master first. You'll meet a very beautiful, but dangerous, woman and learn the secret of the "unstoppable thrust" in a dying world of honor and chivalry. In The Seville Communion, an ancient church is a major character in a convoluted plot involving computer viruses and detective priests. The Queen of the South follows a resourceful drug cartel queen through adventures in Mexico, Spain and Morocco. For lovers of the sea and Explorer's Club sorts, there's The Nautical Chart, which unveils a mystery surrounding an ancient and rare sea pilot's chart that is purchased at auction. Memorable characters, including a lot of strong women; historic settings; engaging plots; and, lush, colorful prose. These titles are all good reads. That said, I know a lot of Perez-Reverte fans and all have at least one book that leaves them less than satisfied. Personally, I attribute that reaction to the fact that the author produces such consistently high-quality and enjoyable work -- I'm talking four- and five-stars -- that the occasional three-stars one might apply to a single book reflects a statistical regression to the mean. Hey, Johnny Depp starred in one of his elaborate tales. 'Nuff said.