I was thinking about the penetration of broadband access to the Internet in various countries. One of the statistics that's frequently cited is about the huge percentage of Korean homes with broadband access as compared to the U.S. There are two other factors that need to be considered here:
1) The higher percentage of U.S. homes with Internet access, regardless of speed (71.1% in the U.S. vs. 60.9% in Korea, according to the latest figures I've seen), and
2) The vastly greater density of homes in Korea as compared to the U.S. We've got grunches more folks that are miles from their nearest neighbors.
I've probably missed something, but these points seem to mitigate our "negligence" at getting broadband out to everyone.
I spent my career in the U.S. Navy in cryptology, which essentially involves collecting foreign intelligence through electronic means, primarily using the radio. A major event in the history of Naval Cryptology was the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967. If you're not familiar with the incident, I'll provide two links: this site, created and maintained by Jim Ennes and Joe Meadors, two survivors of the attack, and this well-footnoted article by Michael Oren, a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. I provide both as background, because each side has its unshakeable beliefs, and no amount of facts or persuasion will get either to change their respective opinions.
Today, I received a link to an article in the Houston Chronicle by retired Admiral Thomas Moorer presenting his efforts to get to the bottom of the attack, and his opinions of why it happened. Adm. Moorer became the Chief of Naval Operations (the Navy's top dog) a few months after the attack, and later was appointed as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Adm. Moorer is adamant in his belief that the attack was deliberate, but he can only speculate on the Israelis' motivation.
Personally, I don't know what to think. While I tend to side with my shipmates who firmly believe that the attack was deliberate, there are several significant holes in their arguments. The Israelis, on the other hand, merely state that everyone involved in the attack was too stupid to figure out that this was a US warship. Even with my contempt for governmental bureaucracies, especially military ones, I find this explanation too much to swallow.
If you're interested in this incident, Google it. You'll find thousands of references. Maybe one of them actually presents the truth of what happened on that day in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. I just wish someone could conclusively identify it.
Steve Nash has a column in today's Brownwood Bulletin about people with "yes faces" and "no faces." This is something about a person's appearance that tells you before you even ask a question what they're answer is going to be. This crystallized something for me that I'd noticed in the past about myself.
I've noticed it mostly when I enter a polling place for elections. There are always workers for the various candidates standing around trying to hand you material which explains why you absolutely have to vote for their candidate. I have no use for this type of information, because I've usually already made up my mind how I'm going to vote long before election day. There are exceptions, of course, but my indecision isn't due to a lack of information; it's because there's no clear-cut answer based on all of the available info.
Anyway, if they hand me that paper, all it means is that I'm going to have to find a way to trash it. I'm not a litterbug, so rather than throwing it on the ground, I'm going to have to hang on to it until I find a trash can. Since I've got no use for the paper, I'd rather them just keep it instead of handing it to me. Neither do I want to engage these folks in conversation, unless I already know them, and would likely chat with them anytime I run into them. Plus, I vote at 6 a.m. when the polls open on my way to work. Since I routinely arrive at work at 6 a.m., I'm already late, so I want to get the whole voting process out of the way as quickly as possible.
Most of these folks are extremely pushy, essentially selling their candidates, they're the types that will waste a lot of their own time trying to persuade everyone they meet to agree with them. Hard-sell salesmen. Supremely annoying. The amazing thing is that they consistently let me walk on by them without saying a word. I must definitely be wearing my "no face."
I recently received an email from an old high school buddy of mine, James Rhodes, quoting a Molly Ivins article on MotherJones.com. Ms. Ivins apparently has been acquainted with President Bush for many years. Not closely, but they go back as far as high school, and she states she studied him closely while he served as Governor of Texas. If you haven't read her article yet, take the time to click on the link and read what she has to say. Even if you want to argue with her, or phone her up to talk some sense into her (or maybe congratulate her on her insightful analysis), wait until you've read the whole thing. This window will still be sitting here, waiting for your return.
Okay, you've read the Ivins article, right? Good. As I said at the start of this missive, James, who is, shall we say, a bit less conservative than I am, sent me a copy of the Mother Jones article, and after reading it, I had to write him back with my reactions. What follows is a copy of the email I sent him (I've taken the liberty of a bit of editing, but nothing major). Be forewarned: I don't pull any punches, at least not when it comes to those I find contemptible. There are many folks in this world, of all political stripes, I find worthy of my contempt.
Well, you're right, James, you're not going to change my view of President Bush with Ms. Ivins' invective. Unlike many Conservatives, who, like their Liberal counterparts, love to fool themselves into believing all sorts of wildly unrealistic things, I don't think President Bush comes anywhere close to perfect. To begin with, he's a politician. Any accusations of lying generate responses of, "Yeah, so?" They're all liars, or they'd never have gotten elected to their respective offices. That's just the sad truth of our political system.
One of the areas where George Bush has taken the most heat (apart from anything related to 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq or the War on Terror) is his humongous tax cuts, which grossly favored the wealthy. Yes, I agree, they did. So, what's your point? He wanted to have a meaningful tax cut, and any tax cut that doesn't touch those who contribute the vast, vast, vast majority of the taxes is meaningless. Those who don't pay much in taxes didn't get much of a tax cut. Sorry, can't have it any other way. If you don't pay much in taxes, you can't expect to get much from a tax cut. I haven't heard and just can't imagine any counter-argument that isn't laced with pie-in-the-sky, fuzzy illogic. Of course, I'm a Conservative Texan, so I'm surely wearing those blinders that Molly speaks about. On the other hand, I spent 20 years as an enlisted sailor, lived in several different countries, and even lived where there is no country (at sea, if you can't make the connection), and I've also lived on both coasts of our own country, in both liberal and conservative enclaves. While I haven't seen it all, I've certainly seen a lot of it.
Ms. Ivins suffers from a prejudice in her writings. I do, too. The difference is, I admit the influence my prejudices play in my opinions, and stand ready to change those opinions when confronted with good reason to do so. Molly gives short shrift to the dependency caused by the intoxicating, addictive influence of government handouts. Makes me wonder what world she's been looking at over the years. I suspect that she's one of those liberals who finds a few anecdotal pieces about someone pulling themselves up out of the mire because of welfare or some other version of the governmental teat, and says that these programs work. I look at the overwhelming evidence of their failure over the decades, and surmise that those who manage to extricate themselves from the muck probably would have done it on their own without wasting billions and billions (and billions) of dollars on the huge numbers of people who spend their lives wondering what the government is going to do for them next.
One of the hardest jobs I have as a father is making my children appropriately independent. It's not easy to know how much independence is the right amount (and that changes over time, and isn't constant among children), but I have to do my best to figure out how independent each child has to be at the time. To make matters worse, it's painful to execute the plan once it's established. Everyone knows many tales about holding back on independence, such as a 14-year-old wanting to go on a date, or a 16-year-old wanting to drive the car. To another state. For a week. With their significant other. Or whatever. But I believe that one of a parent's biggest jobs can be pushing the child that likes having things done for them, to do it themselves. I have to do that a lot, especially with one of my children. But he's all the better for my efforts. We have to break the cycle of dependency for folks to have a chance to stand on their own two feet.
I started digressing here, so I've backed up, deleted a buncha stuff, and I'll try to get myself back on track.
At any rate, George Bush is far from perfect, I'll grant you that. There are many things he does which cause me to smack myself in the forehead and ask, "What was he thinking?" but undoubtedly for different reasons from you and your Liberal brethren, James. Why do I support George Bush, then?
I'll be succinct.
Al Gore.
...and Howard Dean, and John Kerry, and Dick Gephardt, and Wesley Clark, and Kucinich and Sharpton. Liars all, just like George Bush. But they would also lead this country in a direction I don't want it to go in. While I don't completely agree with Bush's path, it's much closer aligned to mine than theirs.
I'm exhausted. I guess that's why I don't write for a living.
