Bryan Adams Blog

Fighting Words

Let me briefly take you back to Gahanna Middle School West, 1988-1991. There are a number of bad kids, and fighting is a problem. So the school institutes a rule that says that anyone involved in a fight gets 10 demerits. Administrators go to great lengths to point out that it doesn't matter who started the fight -- anyone fighting gets 10 demerits. This policy left a problematic open question: what should you do if someone walks up to you and punches you in the face?

Your answer to that question basically says it all about Fahrenheit 9/11. If you believe that you should punch back, and I think that's a reasonable viewpoint, then you will like the movie. Michael Moore has crafted a powerful punch back in the face of the Bush administration. And I don't blame anyone who feels that Moore, on behalf of everyone who's gotten a bad deal over the last four years, is entitled to a like response. I have no bone to pick at all with people who liked this movie, and I will not be voting for Bush in this lifetime.

But if you're like me, you're getting tired of watching a fight.

I have a more formal litany of complaints: I think he's unfair in his treatment of the troops, I don't think you can demand to be taken seriously when you superimpose Bush's face over the opening of "Bonanza," and I think Moore's narcissism gets in the way of his interviews. But my real criticism is that he's officially sunk to the level of the Republicans. In other words ...

... You can't criticize Bush because he sees everything in black and white, and then make a movie that sees the world in white and black.

... You can't complain that the Bush administration unfairly associated Saddam with Al Qaeda and then unfairly associate George W. Bush with the Saudis and Osama Bin Laden.

... You can't accuse the Bush administration of manipulating the public with fear and suspicion about terrorism, and then try to manipulate the public with fear and suspicion about the Carlyle Group.

... You can't rail against Bush for being childish and silly in public appearances and then ride around Washington reading the Patriot Act over the loudspeaker of an ice cream truck.

Don't get me wrong: Moore is a smart guy, and he makes good movies. Roger & Me is still my favorite movie of all time. Bowling for Columbine was much less good, and contained a disappointing level of inaccuracy (and his reaction to the criticism was even more disappointing). I will gladly pay the $10 to see his next movie.

I just wish he had made a better movie this time around. One that recognizes that you don't fight polemic with polemic, you fight it with a reasoned response. You don't fight childishness with childishness, you fight it with maturity. You don't fight thoughtless ideology with thoughtless ideology, you fight it with supported arguments.

Ultimately, I wish someone would come up with a way to fight fighting without fighting. Because more bloody noses and black eyes aren't going get us anywhere.

The World Sure Is One Fucked Up Place

Just got back from seeing That Darn Movie. I'm going to write something about it, just as soon as I stop feeling sad. So, you know, give me a few days.

"Liberal (or Conservative) Bias": A Stupid Concept

[This is the first in a highly-unplanned series of posts aimed at examining things I find stupid.]

If I hear one more person talk about the "[adjective] bias in the media," I'm going to rip my ears off my head and hot glue them over my eyes so that I never have to hear or read anything again. THE WHOLE IDEA OF BIAS IN THE MEDIA IS STUPID. Let me show you.

If we want to consider bias in the media, we have to ask ourselves, what is a bias? Let's consider two definitions, ripped shamelessly from my favorite website, Merriam-Webster Online:

2 a: a peculiarity in the shape of a bowl that causes it to swerve when rolled on the green b : the tendency of a bowl to swerve; also : the impulse causing this tendency c : the swerve of the bowl (note, I'm pretty sure this definition is talking about lawn bowling)

3 a : BENT, TENDENCY b : an inclination of temperament or outlook; especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : PREJUDICE c : an instance of such prejudice

Normally, "bias in the media" refers to definition number three. In other words, if I go to the NPR website and the headlines all say "Poll: Bush Support Fading in Battleground States" and "Kurds Distrust New Leaders" and "Bush's Dilemma: Critics on Both Sides," then I might conclude that NPR has a bent toward stories that make Bush look bad and demonstrates a tendency to cover the war negatively. Similarly, if I go to the Fox "News" website and see a giant "LET FREEDOM REIGN!" headline, followed by "Saddam to be Transferred in a Week," and "Bush pleased with Iraq Handover," then I might conclude that Fox News has a bent toward malevolent evil and that Roger Ailes demonstrates a tendency to suck donkey balls.

But, for either NPR or Fox "News", how do I know that it's bias and not just accurate reporting of the situation? If I'm trying to measure the bias of my bowled lawn ball, then I measure the distance between the target and the actual final position of the ball. I can then predict how much the bowl goes to the left or right, and I can compensate for that on my next throw, allowing me to use the biased ball to hit the jack (I love lawn bowling). What's the target for a news source? What would an unbiased news source look like?

In fact, is it even possible, from a theoretical perspective, to say anything unbiased about anything? Let's say I tell you that a box contains three apples. Unbiased reporting, right? However, let's say that I know that the Democrats want to make a pie to feed some poor kids, and that pie will require four cups of apples. Let's further suppose that I know that the three apples in the box are abnormally large -- some kind of huge, mutant apples -- and, despite being only three in number, that they will suffice for the pie. If my only report is that "the box contains three apples," then my omission of the abnormal size of the apples could be construed as an anti-Democrat bias. This obviously works both ways: if we have the same abnormally-large apples and now the Republicans claim that there will be enough to give some apple slices to poor people, some apple slices to faith-based programs, some apple slices to teachers, and still have enough to give lots of apple slices to rich corporate fat-cats, then my there-are-three-apples report is biased against the Republicans, because I've made it sound like there won't be enough apples when, in fact, there might be (even though, as we all know, it will turn out that there weren't enough apples for the fat cats, not even close).

Think of it another way. Imagine we have our current media machinery, only it's 1860. The dominant issue of the day is slavery. What would an "unbiased" (or, if you prefer, "Fair and Balanced") report on slavery look like? Would Sean Hannity say something like, "Well, on the one hand, slaves are separated from their families and treated like animals and killed on a whim, but on the other hand, we're getting really great returns on our plantation investments"? Would Ann Coulter whine endlessly if the New York Times ran story after story about the wretched lives led by slaves? Would Bill O'Reilly, from the "No-Spin Zone," tell us about how it's not fair when CBS news calls Senator Smith, "slave-owning Senator Smith"? Would Michael Savage just be doing his job by demanding that the government shut down the illegal "Underground Railroad"?

The bottom line is this: reporters and editors, like everyone else, are trying to understand the world. We're all guilty of bias when we use words to describe that world. We're all guilty of bias when we try to contextualize the events from that world. We're all guilty of bias when we try to make that world congruent with a world-view that we inherited from our families and communities as children. In short, we're all guilty of bias when we are human.

So what can we do? I think that the only solution is to realize that bias is a fact of life and try to sort out the truth by seeking out information about the world from a variety of perspectives. Mostly, though, you should read THIS BLOG, because you can trust me to always provide you with the unbiased truth. How d'ya like THEM apples?

Emotional Assets

Our receptionist Dee has trouble remembering names. She can answer a call, and by the time she's buzzed up to my office, forget the person's name. It's a bit of an occupational hazard, given her job, but we've all managed to deal with it. She has many other good qualities that outweigh the name problem.

Her 5-year-old grandson was visiting this week, and he was in the office a bit for a few days. I had forgotten,frankly, how adorable a 5-year-old little boy can be. When I first met him, sitting behind the reception desk, I asked his name. Now, I do remember that 5-year-olds can be painfully shy, so when he didn't answer, I told him it was okay. "No, it's not," Grandma Dee replied. "This is Scott. Scott, say hello to Mrs. Adams."

Interestingly, Dee's youngest son is also named Scott, so I thought it was kind of cute that he was named after his uncle. "Scott, how are you enjoying your visit with Grandma?" I asked. Dee got a quizzical look on her face. At the same time 'Scott' was writing on a little piece of paper. He rolled it up and handed it to me at the same time Dee said, "No, Scott is my son. This is Gene." I unrolled the little paper, and there in little-kid printing is written "Gene."

This is what makes 5-year-olds so adorable. Obviously this kid is hearing adults having a rather ineffective conversation. We're not communicating this kid's name correctly. Maybe he even knows his grandma has trouble with names. And, he can see that I'm old enough to be his grandma, so maybe I have the same problem. But, he solves the problem by just writing his name down and giving it to me. I'd love to have a 5-year-old boy again.

But, next week, I'll have the next best thing. I'll be visiting my 27-year-old son. I can hardly wait. But I've been thinking that it's really poignant for me that most of my vivid memories about Bryan are when he was a little boy. Bryan was the most adorable 5-year-old boy that ever lived. He had such enthusiasm, curiosity, tenacity, and tenderness that he constantly melted my heart. He left home at 18, and hasn't really spent extended time with us ever since. So, when I see him now, it's amazing to me how mature he is. My mind is in a 1995 time warp - he's forever 18. But, he's not. And all those milestones he's reached since then, well, we've just been visitors to those events.

My husband and I have been bemoaning the fact that none of our children live within 600 miles of us. We've invested a lot of our love, time, effort, and money into raising our wonderful kids. And I'm really proud of how they all turned out - except for the fact that they're so far away. When I talk with my contemporaries, and they ask how the kids are, they invariably comment on the geographical distance between us. Now, I can imagine that they privately think we must not have good relationships with our kids, or otherwise they would want to be closer to home. But, that's really not the case. I feel very close to all my children. Though, lately, I get actual physical longings to see them.

I'm reaching that point in my life where things are all supposed to start coming together. The planning, the striving, the working-like-a-dog-to-get-someplace days are dwindling. It's time to review the assets. But our biggest assets are our children......and they're all more than 600 miles away. I think I need an emotional asset planner to help me figure out a better long-term plan.

All of you who don't live near your parents, please give them a call today. For me. And if any of you do emotional asset planning (that's got to be a fledgling career field somewhere), give me a call.

My American Idol

I need to be more like Ryan Seacrest.

I didn't realize this before now because I am not an American Idol watcher. The show's just not my bag. I don't listen to Top 40 music, either, and I don't live in LA. In some sense, The Ryan Seacrest World (TM) and the bryan adams world are completely disparate. I don't watch or listen to a single one of his bazillion enterprises, and I doubt he knows (or cares) about developmental neural nets. And that's fine.

In fact, I probably would have continued on in my Seacrest-free lifestyle were it not for the recent New York Times Magazine story about him (Bland Ambition -- archived locally). I am going to come right out and admit that I am thoroughly in love with the NYT Magazine. Someday, it and I will run off together and have a million pseudo-intellectual, nerdy love-children. When I make a list of things about the world for which I am truly grateful, that magazine is somewhere near the top. I'm that kind of guy. You probably already knew.

But that story is a hatchet job. The magazine usually tries to be fair, and on political issues, they will almost always go to a half-assed extent to pretend to consider the conservative viewpoint. But in this case, the magazine's elitist nature is exposed like a fat man's stomach through a baby tee. The barely-veiled scorn that author Allison Glock felt for Seacrest was made perfectly clear to any half-conscious reader ("His sincerity was almost painful," Cowell's quote about him as a dog, the blatant sarcasm in the last line). And yet ... she never did find anything unlikable about him, despite clearly digging very deep to find it. The best she could get was an editorial forehead rub from Simon Cowell. The question that the story tries, but fails, to answer in the negative is "Can Ryan Seacrest really be that nice?" Allison clearly got to the end of the investigative part of writing the story and decided that, if she couldn't come right out and say what's wrong with Ryan Seacrest, then she would make it clear that, if there's nothing wrong with Ryan Seacrest, then that's what's wrong with him.

What she completely fails to recognize is that being likable is an important, valuable skill, even in the absence of anything else. I sort of don't blame her -- it's a common misconception. There is a certain class of people, a class to which I firmly belong, which values thinking over everything else. When we went to school, we were good thinkers, school was designed to measure thinking, and we all did very well. But, at some point, the equivalency between "good" and "thinking" went from being a value that school had to being a fundamental value in our lives. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as a value -- thinking is an important skill, and it makes the world a better place -- but it's a value, not a fact. Thinking isn't all there is, and the greatest skill in the world isn't necessarily the ability to think. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize that thinking is just one part of how the world works.

One way of thinking about it is like software (and, yes, I am pathetic for comparing everything to computers). Thinkers love to write the algorithms that do the actual computing. Do you get the right answer every time? Are you able to handle a wide variety of problems? How fast can you do it? These are the kinds of questions that drive us. But there's another aspect to a program, which is designing the user interface. Is it clear what the program does and how to use it? Is the font big enough to read? Do the menus look cool when they drop down? Algorithm people like me look down on this aspect of programming, but it makes a huge difference to the end-user. We could argue all day about which is more important (the algorithm side would win), but, ultimately, the program that's the most successful will be the one that has the best algorithm AND the best interface (cf. Windows versus Linux).

This is why I say that I need to be more like Ryan Seacrest. I have spent the last 22 years of my life working on making my algorithm more complete, faster, more accurate. And I'm pretty well tuned up. I can do a lot of neat stuff. I have lots of thoughts. But my interface needs work. I'm realizing this as I go into my big presentation this Friday. I have a million things I want to tell my sponsor -- how my programs work, what they do, what the contribution is -- but when I go to tell them, we both end up frustrated because, well, my user interface sucks. I'm too easily offended by perceived slights, I don't intuitively understand what they want to hear, and I fail to recognize and satisfy the concerns that are behind their questions. And so I crash a lot: they don't feel good about funding my research (although they should) and I feel like I'm not giving them their money's worth (although I am).

I have put a great deal of thought into how I might fix this problem, and I think the answer is clear: I must find someone to flatiron my hair before Friday morning. That should pretty much solve the problem, right?

Dunkin' Don't

You wouldn't think that hot pink and bright orange would go together, but they do. Oh, Lord, do they ever.

There is something sadly alluring about the childish rounded font in his logo, the absurdity of his colors, the Olde Towne grittiness of his location. His radio station is permanently fixed on the teeny-bopper station, his employees are aggressively disinterested in your needs, and his menu is a spite-filled rejoinder to the "alleged obesity epidemic." He doesn't care how much you weigh or what your cholesterol is. He simply lays out his seductive wares in all their glistening glory, and he has absolutely no shame about mixing things like "Boston Creme" and "Chocolate frosting." He doesn't ask if you want cream or sugar in your coffee, he only ask you how many scoops and squirts you want. And, sweet Jesus, don't get me started on the breakfast sandwiches.

Ok, let me just say a few words about the breakfast sandwiches: they're bad. I mean, without getting overly philosophical, let's ask ourselves a basic question: what is food? I've given this a lot of thought, and my definition is this: food is a substance intended for human consumption that meets some of the nutritional demands of a normal, healthy human being. It's a tricky exercise, defining food, because there are lots of gray cases. For example, the dictionary definition is too broad: "a material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy." Under that definition, anything that one can fit into one's mouth and consume without killing oneself would be food. Grass clippings would be food. Human flesh would be food. My shorts would be food (they are fiber). But it's also easy to go the other way and become too restrictive. If you restrict the definition to include "provides energy," then you lose items like water. If you restrict it to include "nutritional value," you lose items like Big Macs.

I believe that the critical qualifier is "intended for human consumption." Ultimately, the one thing that separates "food" from "eatable" is the intention of the preparation. Consider a theoretical example: an unknown substance falls from space. It is clearly not food. One might test it to ensure that it isn't toxic, and it still is not food. A cretin might eat it and survive, and it is still not food. But if, in the hands of a chef, it is carefully prepared to maximize the pleasure one experiences when consuming it, then it becomes "pate du alien" or "space sauce" or whatever. It becomes food because another human being has deemed it so. That tenuous interpersonal connection, an unseen but deeply trusted bond between strangers, is the only thing that separates our food from our trash, and thus, separates us from garbage disposals with legs.

I bring all this up because I believe the breakfast sandwiches might be a breach of that trust, and therefore, not technically food.

But, like everything else, he simply doesn't care what you think. In fact, he's so gaudy and ridiculous in both his presentation and content that you can't help but admire his audacity. I mean, you go in the first time, almost laughing at yourself, swearing that you're only doing it because you're short on cash and just need a little snack. But that excuse wears thin after the third or fourth visit, and suddenly, you realize that you need -- literally, chemically need -- to go back. It hadn't occurred to me before this, but he's basically the pimp of the food service world. The whole place might as well be encased in a giant white fur coat.

And I, Bryan Adams, am a Dunkin' Donuts ho.

Do You Know These Guys?

Just got back from 42 hours in New York. If you know either of the below-circled gentlemen gawking at my girlfriend, please ask them to report to Boston immediately for an ass-kicking.

You and Me

Our connectedness to one another is an interesting dynamic. I think it's part of why we read blogs, why People magazine is so popular, and why reality TV has such huge audiences. We're constantly trying to gauge where we fit in with people who are different from us, and yet learning we're very much the same. We watch people who are younger and think we never had it that good. We watch people who are older and largely hope for a lot of medical advances as we age.

CRG is the eldest person in our office. He was born in 1920. He went to Harvard Law School. He's a staunch Democrat. He married M in 1942 and they went on to have 3 lovely children. M was a terrific person. She had, literally, a twinkle in her eye. She was charismatic and engaging, with a ready laugh - even up to the month before she died of cancer in 2002, just days shy of their 60th anniversary. C & M were quite a pair. Once, when my husband and CRG tried a case that they won, CRG called M on his way home and told her to be "ready for action." They were that kind of couple.

We all worried about CRG after M died, and for many months the effects of her passing showed on his face. Tears welled up in his eyes when he talked about her. Normally quite dapper, his clothes were rumpled and mismatched. But after his son took him on a cross-country trip to visit his daughters, he started to do better. He walked a bit more upright, he laughed more, and he wanted to be with people again.

A group of us got together for dinner a few months ago, and on our way to the car, CRG bemoaned his own poor culinary skills and mentioned that his "next wife" would be a good cook. This comment threw me for a loop. "Next wife?" What about M? They'd been together longer than I've been alive, and now he's thinking about her replacement? I started thinking about Mark as an 84-yr-old after I've kicked the bucket......and wondering about my replacement. What would Mark want his "next wife" to do that I don't do well?

The other day, CRG was commenting on my recent weight loss. He asked how old I was, recalling how when he was in his 50s, he'd gained weight more easily, too. He trimmed down after a surgery, and he's in darn good shape now. He still plays tennis regularly, but we were both acknowledging the disconcerting physical changes that come with aging when we had the following exchange:

CRG: You know, I just don't look good in, um... um...., (whispery voice) 'the nude' anymore.

ME: (gulp)

CRG: There's just a lot of sagging that's really not very attractive.....

ME: (nervous laughter) Yeah, I know what you mean.

CRG: No, no, no. Now, you're still in your prime - you're only 51.

ME: Well, I don't know about that.......

CRG: Oh yes, I don't think you have to worry about how you look without any clothes on.

ME: (quickly doing mental math to remind myself he's 84) Well, I guess you'd have to ask Mark about that....

Now, don't take from this that I was offended at all. (Though I am trying to figure out whether a compliment from an 84-year-old is something I should brag about). It's actually encouraging to know that an 84-year-old thinks about the same things as a 20-year-old. He's a man who's missing his life-long companion and all that went with that relationship, including physical intimacy...and wondering whether he's still attractive. It's that connectedness that's both poignant and heartening. Much as we need to distinguish ourselves, we're also wise to remember that we're all pretty much looking for the same things......probably for all of our lives. Go for it, CRG....and thanks.

Why I Do It

People ask me all the time: Are you ever worried that your robots are going to get too smart and take over the world? I always answer: I just wish that they'd try.

Because the first thing you learn about robots, after working with them for even a very brief time, is that they hate working. If you ever did build a truly humanoid robot, and then you hired it to do something, it would be one of those employees who calls in sick every third day. "Sorry, boss, my power supply is flaky," or "I'm not going to make it in today because I moved my arm and pulled out all my cables," or "Something is wrong with me and I have no clue what it is." That last one especially. The most natural state for a robot is for several things to be broken -- hopefully some in software and some in hardware -- so that it's not working and you have no idea where to start to fix it.

If I had to describe my job in a nutshell, that's it: I make broken robots, then I try to fix them.

For example, over the past few weeks, I've been trying to get this little robot arm to point itself at a little green plush toy using a camera mounted on the end.

The concept behind my research is pretty simple: I'm writing software that serves as the brains for this arm. So the information from the camera goes into the brain, the brain does some thinky things, and commands to the motors come out, hopefully making the arm point at the target (the green toy). My new idea is that you should be able to do something really crazy, like turn the camera upside down or unplug a motor, and the brain should figure out how to compensate. Not earth-shattering, but enough to write a thesis about.

Except it wasn't really working. And when I say "wasn't really working," I mean, "wasn't working at all." For the last 11 consecutive evenings, I have set up a little experiment where the brain would try itself out repeatedly on a simulation. For the past 11 nights, the brain has tried and tried and tried all night long to figure out how to stay pointed at a little green target. For the past 11 consecutive mornings, I've come into work, hooked up the brain to the robot, and let it rip. And, for the last 11 consecutive mornings, I have flipped on the power, whipped out the green bug, and watched as the arm ... did nothing. Well, that's not technically true: one morning it rammed itself all the way to the left in a desperate attempt to spill my coffee and break itself. But most mornings it did nothing.

So I spent my days asking the obvious question: how do you fix it? I'm embarassed to admit that, to answer this question, you basically do all the same things that you would do if you were trying to get your DVD player working. You check the cables. You break out the manual and read it word-for-word. You find something that works and use it to test everything else. You finally look at all the stuff that you thought you were sure was working. You get really pissed and ask yourself how much you really want to watch a DVD. You reboot everything. You stare off into space imagining how cool it would be if lightening would just hit the system and make it start working. You call a friend who knows more than you and make them think about it. You pull your hair out, you pound the table, you fight with your girlfriend, and you curse your advisor, your school, your robot, and most of all, yourself.

And then you find it: a little metal pin in one of the connectors is bent.

And suddenly, everything works, and you're collecting data, and you're showing people, and you feel so much like a scientist, you grow a cheesy mustache and wear a thoughtful look.

Like A Rented Mule

Geek Cred

Nanny-nanny-boo-boo.

[Thanks to Vicki for the invite.]

Them's Da Rules

Columbus, Ohio is still reeling from the revelation that OSU basketball coach Jim O'Brien knowlingly violated NCAA rules by giving money to a prospective player whose family was in dire financial straits. For those of you unfamiliar with Jim O'Brien, this is like learning there's no Santa Claus. He's a class act, and I'm reserving my final judgment until I hear his side of the story. But, it's disappointing nonetheless.

This all came to light through complicated series of events unfolding from what seems like a systematic violation of NCAA rules involving an assistant coach arranging to subsidize another player's lifestyle through an athletic booster. Apparently, the booster asked his housekeeper to take care of the player, and he promised to give her a monthly stipend to do it. The booster got divorced, and that somehow resulted in the housekeeper getting stiffed. You with me? So, the housekeeper is suing the booster for violation of their contract. In her deposition, the housekeeper revealed all kinds of improprieties involving payments to players. The string was pulled and the sweater has unraveled.

Now, I'm married to a lawyer. I work for lawyers. I understand that our society uses lawsuits instead of grenades to register our complaints. People constantly complain that most lawsuits are frivolous, unnecessary, and clog our courts. I really don't want to get into the whole 'litigation explosion' idea here, except to say that this litigation has perhaps done its job.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for any of the parties. We don't have a Jean Valjean situation here. I have none for the housekeeper who wants her money for taking care of this kid. I have none for the booster who thought he was clever in arranging the deal. I have none for the coaches who helped with the arrangements. I don't really have any for Jim O'Brien. I don't have any for the player. Everyone had a choice to work within the rules, and nobody made the right choice. And, I don't think anybody should get a dime as a result.

See, we need to have rules in our society. We try and agree what those rules are; we set them down in writing; we interpret them differently; and we let our courts decide whose interpretation is right. This prevents a lot of random violence. But, only if we all play by the rules.

While most people deride our legal system, (and I agree it's imperfect), it's better than the alternative. As much as I dislike this woman's lawsuit, it actually served an important function. It brought to light a lot of distasteful behavior that was wrong. Now, I think a really good argument can be made for abandoning the NCAA altogether and treating college players like minor leaguers for the professional sports teams. But, our society hasn't decided to do that yet. And while the rules are still that players cannot accept money while they're students, they have to accept that. Everybody does. Or, they can begin the process to change the rules.

I guess it's just human nature to take everything to its extreme. We're never content with what we're allowed to have or do......there's always something more. This usually gets us into trouble - and this case is a classic example. But, it's important that the legal system actually worked to expose the problem. Maybe it will help us re-write the rules, or affirm the ones upon which we've already agreed.

Bench Blogger

I just realized that Bryan uses me as a 'bench blogger' sometimes. Like early today he writes me this real sweet email wishing me happy birthday and suggesting that I might want to post today, since it's my birthday (and he had to go to a friend's graduation). Now, quite honestly, I try to put a lot of thought into my posts. (I have to keep up the standard, you know). But, when my son beckons, I just have to answer. Just so you all know, sometimes I'm "starting," sometimes I just come in off the bench. Like today. Hope I don't get shipped to the minors.

You Say It's Your Birthday

[This is a 'mom' post]

My birthday always makes me feel weird. Celebrations involving me make me uncomfortable.

I was born the day before my mother's birthday and so I'm named after her. While this sounds like an "aww" thing, it's not. I was the third girl in a family of five children, so they sort of ran out of names. During my whole childhood, my birthday was like the forward of a book - you had to turn that page to get to the real point of things. Like an afterthought that came first. The year I turned 21, my entire family ignored my birthday. I'm not kidding. So, I've never really expected much.

Then I got married and my husband makes a really big fuss on my birthday. (Remember the apple/potato thing? He treats me like an apple on my birthday). Like, I have 6 more presents waiting for me at home (I already opened 1) - just from him. He let me sleep in a little today. He fixed my breakfast. I can write a blog post instead of work. Lots of pampering.

Then I had kids and they make a big deal out my birthday. I suppose this is in response to our making a big deal out of theirs when they were little (no 'sins of the fathers' thing for me). So, now they're returning the favor. They call me. They send me sweet cards. Bryan tries to get a present delivered to me on my birthday, even if it costs him a week's pay. And he likes it if I have to figure out what it is - after I've opened it. Once, when he was little, he made me a "space armada" birthday card. I was addicted to that video game, and he made me a card out of construction paper with all the little descending space aliens on it and a cute little message inside. Lots of cutting and glue. Adorable. And, I still have it.

So, I guess you could say I'm growing into my birthdays. I don't have to worry that no one will remember, or that it doesn't matter. Each year I start to anticipate it more, wondering what kinds of fun things might happen. So, it's not like birthdays are just for kids. We old folks can actually enjoy them, too.

By The Way

If you want to get Mom something for her birthday, you've got a little less than 12 hours.

I Have Not Lost Control Over My Bladder

One fun way to start your day is to to pour coffee on your pants in such a way as to make people think you've peed yourself. You know, just in case your co-workers have too much respect for you.

Sexual Healing

I'm flipping through my referral logs the other day when I come upon this entry:

First thought: Oh my god ... THEY'RE ON TO ME!

Second thought: Ok, whew, the link is actually praising me for this not-particularly-well-written-or-insightful post about a 60 Minutes segment on porn. Wanting to see what other sites I was competing with for clicks, I flipped through the site, which is kind of an information clearinghouse for married couples who have Internet-related fidelity problems. But with a scorned-lover's edge. One of the panels (click on the tab labeled "Discovery") even has, in flowing type, a little table entitled, "The Pros & Cons of spying on your spouse."

So, you know, not a site that I would have written myself.

Reading more, there's a lot of stuff that causes me to blink repeatedly and shake my head. "Addiction to pornography is the same as addiction to drugs or alcohol." "Buy the innocent-looking keyboard that secretly records everything they type!" "Three Steps to Save Your Relationship and Stop Internet Infidelity: 1 -- Talk to Your Mate, 2 -- Seek Counseling, 3 -- Monitor All Internet Use." I can't help but feel like a lot of the copy on this site was written by a still-angry spouse who, while recognizing that the Internet has a lot of "good stuff" on it, basically sees the computer as a gateway to a horrible other world.

And it is. Only that "horrible other world" is the real world.

Look, I have a lot of sympathy for spouses who've been cheated on. And I have no doubt that there are many men who use pornography to the detriment of the rest of their lives. But these transactions, whether they happen on the Internet or in another medium, happen for the same reason that every other transaction happens: supply and demand. If your wife is meeting other people in Internet chat rooms, it's because she wants to meet other people, not because there are chat rooms. If your husband is looking at sexually explicit websites, it's because he has some unresolved sexual urges, not because someone put porn on the web. All the spy software and accountability programs in the world aren't going to squash the driving force: desire.

Of course, the Internet makes it easier, and every transaction is, in part, regulated by its costs. Would I be more likely to drink a lot if I could download beer? Sure. I don't want to suggest that the Internet has no impact or that there aren't valid reasons for limiting someone's time on the computer (in fact, I can think of nothing but good things that result from less computer time). But trying to stop your husband from cheating by limiting his Internet use is like trying to prevent another Abu Ghraib by banning digital cameras in the military. You're shooting the messenger. And that's not just bad for the messenger -- it's bad for you because you never got the message.

A Liberal's Tribute to Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan is the first President that I remember. My first opinions of him were those of a child: he's our President and he is good. I remember having a pretend election between Reagan and Mondale in my third grade class, and I voted for Reagan because I had never heard of the other guy. I remember lots of people doing impressions of him. I remember dressing up as him for Halloween once. But I didn't really know anything about him -- he was basically a famous and powerful person. Kind of like Yoda, but less green.

Of course, as I grew more politically aware and learned more about him as a politician, I liked him less. I will never, ever, ever believe that "trickle-down economics" is anything but an excuse for rich people to make other rich people richer, and even if it works, I believe it is in conflict with our values as a nation. Breaking the air traffic controllers' strike hurt labor unions for a long time, and I think that's a bad thing. And his use of the passive voice to shrug off his involvement in the arms-for-hostages deals is a hallmark of bad leadership that still haunts today's Republicans.

It's the contrast between his politics and his background that drive me crazy. Reagan went to California to cover a baseball team, was given a screen test with Warner Brothers, and quickly became a B-list star. It was his leadership with the Screen Actors Guild (defending, incidentally, actors accused of being Communists) helped launch his political career. And yet, he said, "A big businessman is what a small businessman would be if only the government would just get out of the way and leave him alone"? I think it's easy to say bad things about governmental involvement in business when you've never been forced to work for less than a living wage, or injured on the job and then fired, or robbed of your pension by criminal executives.

The result was that, for me (and, I suspect, for many who are about my age), Reagan went from being a semi-mythical character from my childhood to some kind of conservative villain. And that's about all I thought about him, until I started reading about him yesterday and today.

While his political legacy is not, in my opinion, worthy of admiration, his personal legacy is. It is hard to find anyone who worked with him who didn't personally like him. His close personal relationship with Democrat Tip O'Neill is unparalleled in today's politics. Even the smart-assed, super-liberal Sam Donaldson had a goofy grin when he recalled getting zinged by Reagan in the press room.

And his love for his wife, Nancy, was so clearly genuine and sincere that my heart melts a little when he says that his marriage is "like an adolescent's dream of what a marriage should be." You can see it in the many clips of them holding hands, or waving at each other like five-year-olds, or in the reckless abandon in the way he hugs her. The CBS morning news today had a clip of one of his inaugurations. After being sworn in, he turns to Nancy and says something, and she can't hear him and shakes her head, and he repeats it, and she says something back, and then, clearly and audibly, he smiles and says, "I'm going to kiss you now," and he grabs her by both shoulders and does. I couldn't help but feel a little choked up.

That's my final picture of Ronald Reagan. I couldn't think any less of him as a politician. But he seems like he was a good man and a loving husband, and that still counts for something. I don't really care for jelly beans, but I will eat a few of them in his memory.

A Picture's Worth....

The Ohio Supreme Court is attempting to resolve the controversy between a group of American Indians who routinely protest the use of Chief Wahoo as the mascot for the Cleveland Indians baseball team and, well, those who aren't offended by that.

The protesters stand outside the stadium before all the home games and shout at the fans as they enter. Apparently, to draw further attention, they recently set fire to a stuffed effigy soaked in lighter fluid, potentially endangering passersby. The Ohio Supreme Court is going to decide whether that's free speech or not.

This is one of those issues that, because I don't feel strongly either way, I take in from the sidelines. **Disclaimer** This does not reflect Bryan's attitude in any way, shape, or form. There are very few things (actually, I'm struggling to think of one...) that Bryan watches from the sidelines without getting pretty involved. In fact, when we took him to an Indians game when he was about 15, he stopped by the protesters to hear their views first hand -- until his dad physically dragged him away. But, for me, this is a controversy that just doesn't raise my ire.

On the one hand, I see that degrading images of minority groups foster prejudice. I guess I just don't agree that Chief Wahoo is such a degrading image. Actually, the Indians were named in honor of the first native american to play baseball. That seems like a good thing. On the other hand, depicting native americans with a cartoonish facial features isn't fair either. But is the intent here to somehow ridicule native americans? I don't think so. Should that be the standard? Or, does anyone really remember that the team was named for Chief Louis Francis Sockalexis? Probably not.

This proves to me why it's better to just stay out of things about which you know very little. I'm not extremely knowledgeable about native american history, nor am I all that schooled in the history of the Cleveland baseball team. All I know is the little bits and pieces I've read and heard. It's basically a lazy and passive position. So, I stand by the sidelines and watch.

The justices on the Ohio Supreme Court aren't that lucky. They have to take a position, albeit from the limited perspective of whether the protesters' behavior violates our Constitution. But, will they take the time - and do they have the inclination - to really get at the issue? My years of close involvement with the legal system have taught me that the justices won't be wearing that metaphorical blindfold. These are folks elected -- and who seek re-election -- with the help of the political machines that drive our society. If the native americans think they needed lighter fluid to grab baseball fans' attention, well, they'll need a lot more than that before our Court.

Pull The Trigger

Trigonometry really ticks me off. I hate the aesthetics.

Here's how your paper is supposed to look: a big diagram at the top, defining all your variables. Then you write some big hairy equations that describe the relationships between those variables. Then you write a bunch of lines wherein you reduce the relationship between those parameters to their essential nature. Then, at the bottom, you have some short, simple equation that tells you exactly how to compute one variable if you know the others. I like it when the variable you're looking for is "y" so that you have something that looks like "y=blah" and I like for the other variables to include at least "x", a capital letter like A or M, and a greek letter like theta, preferably with a subscript. I also like to draw a little box around that result. Makes me feel good.

Trig always fucks this up, though. You get to the bottom, and that little box inevitably contains something nice, like "y = (A cos x) / (A sin x)." But then you look up trig identities on ye olde internet and discover that all that y is, in fact, the cotangent of x.

I hate that answer for two reasons.

First of all, what the fuck happened to A? I hate the way trig functions always cancel out variables you wanted. I went to all the trouble of defining A, and now trig has told me that it's irrelevant. Look, trig, even if I don't need it, I want it. That's why I gave it a name. Now, either you find a way to put A in that little box or I'm gonna jam my foot into your denominator.

Second, what the fuck is up with cotangent? I think of the trig functions as little characters on a sitcom. There's Sine, who's the b-list star who landed his own series. Nice guy, decent looking, maybe he has something quirky, like a monkey or a funny accent. And there's Sine's goofball roommate, Cosine, who always leaves the milk out and is the local weather man on channel six. Remember that one time he let Sine's monkey escape, and he searched all over the city, only to find that the monkey came home on his own? Classic. And who can forget Tangent, the ne'er-do well downstairs neighbor who's got a different job every episode and is always plunging Sine and Cosine into hilarious circumstances. Oh, the hijinks those three get into!

See what's missing from this picture? Cotangent. He's not even on the show. Maybe he was the mean landlord who had bad chemistry with the other characters. Maybe he's Sine's boss at work who always wants him to work weekends, but can't deliver a funny line. Maybe he was a cameo that never really panned out. I don't know. The point is -- he's not really someone you like to see in the little box at the bottom of the page. He has no energy, no vibe. His presence casts a pall over the entire procedure, almost like, "What was the point of figuring all this out of the answer was going to include Cotangent?" There's no nice way to put this: Cotangent is like Breckin Meyer.

(And don't even get me started on the Secant twins.)

All this is a long way of telling you that, man, work is driving me absolutely crazy right now.