REDUX

Oh Captains, My Captains

Discovered this via, a here-to-fore-unknown-to-me site, SwirlSpice, who is "Internet Famous"

First attempt:

Take the Star Trek Quiz

Captain Jean-Luc Picard             
Always in control, you are a great leader, deligator, and diplomat. These qualities attract people to you, and this sometimes annoys you.
Aloof, introspective, and philosophical; you enjoy quiet time in solitude.

 

               

Second attempt:

Take the Star Trek Quiz

Captain James T. Kirk
Charasmatic tatical leader/ egotistical womanizer. Your arrogant cowboy mentality is forgiven because of your deep concern for those close to you.
Your middle name is Tiberius.

 

               

In Memorium

On Being American

On this day, the 229th birthday of the United States of America, I figured that I'd put together some perspectives on America and what it means to be American.  (All images can be found at gettyimages.com):

The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.

Mary McCarthy

It is a part of the American character to consider nothing as  desperate; to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance.

Thomas Jefferson

Okay, so you figure it out

First, there's this:

INFP - the Healer You scored 36% I to E, 31% N to S, 38% F to T, and 63% J to P!

You are more introverted than extroverted. You are more intuitive than observant, you are more feeling based than thinking based, and you prefer to go with the flow rather than having a plan. Your type can best be summarized by the word "Healer", which belongs to the larger group of idealists. You have a capacity for caring that is deeper than most. You strive for unity, are fascinated by the battles between good and evil, and can be something of an idealist. Only 1% of the population shares your type. As a romantic partner, you are usually supprtive and nuturing, however, you have a high need for individuality. Harmony is extremely important to you as you are very affected by conflict and tension, which also makes you resist confronting your partner directly about problems. When you get angry, you usually blame yourself, rather than your partner. You can also be stubborn and unyielding when you feel you are being criticized or mistreated. You feel the most appreciated when your partner listens to you carefully. You need to be understood. You need to hear your partner express their feelings, the more often, the better. Your group summary: idealists (NF) Your type summary: INFP

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 46% on I to E You scored higher than 33% on N to S You scored higher than 28% on F to T You scored higher than 69% on J to P

Link: The LONG Scientific Personality Test written by unpretentious2 on Ok Cupid

And then, there's this:

ENFP - The Champion Your Type is 60% Extroverted, 12% Observant, 31% Logical and 12% Structured

Your type is known as the Champion type, which is part of the larger group called idealists. Nothing occurs that does not have some deep and ethical significance in your eyes. You see life as an exciting drama. You are very charismatic, yet tend to be too harsh on yourself for not being as genuine as you think you should be. 3% of the population shares your type. As a romantic partner, you need to talk about what is going on in your life. You are a strong supporter for your partner's efforts to grow and change and be happy. You need to feel that same support from your partner. Expressive, optimistic, and curious, you are eager to enjoy new experiences with your partner, whom you wish to be your confidant and soul mate, as well as play mate. You are uncomfortable sharing negative emotion, though, and tend to withdraw from confrontation and process your feelings privately. You feel most loved when your partner appreciates your creativity, accepts your uniqueness, and sees you as the compassionate person you are. You need to hear your partner tell you how much you mean to them and would love if they did thoughtful spontaneous things to demonstrate it. Your group summary: idealists (NF) Your type summary: ENFP vincex's shorter version of this test. My longer version of this same test. The real deal.

This test tracked 4 variables. How the score compared to the other people's: Higher than 52% on outgoing Higher than 15% on observant Higher than 44% on logical Higher than 12% on structured

Link: The Quick and Dirty Personality Test written by unpretentious2 on Ok Cupid

The Usual Suspects

Three (un)timely meditations on friendship:

One's friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.
-- George Santayana

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
-- Plutarch

True friends stab you in the front.
-- Oscar Wilde

Please, do yourself a favor and check out Leo's new blog, "Lila" and then, listen to Erik's latest mixes.

And to think...this whole time, I had absolutely no idea!

You Are a Capitalist Republican

Money makes your world go round - and it's no surprise that you always vote your wallet. You're financially successful (or plan to be), and your agenda is low tax and pro business. You don't get fired up about abortion... but mention capital gains tax, and you go crazy. You want government to be as small as possible - and to stay out of the way of business.

What political persuasion are you?

60 Minutes, Dan Rather, and the Public Trust

I wrote this letter this morning to my local CBS affiliate, its parent company, 60 Minutes, and Viacom. Figured I'd share it with you.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please be so kind as to inform the management of KGPE-47, Clear Channel Communications, CBS, and Viacom, that the behavior of Dan Rather and the 60 Minutes production staff is unacceptable. It amazes me that a news story such as the one aired by CBS on Wednesday, September 8, 2004 could be backed with the full name and credit of your fine organizations. Let me explain.

It is to the credit of the 60 Minutes' investigative team that the story revealing new questions concerning President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard came to light as quickly as it did. Whether or not the staff properly vetted the documents is debatable and should be thoroughly discussed in public forums. When a journalistic enterprise such as 60 Minutes (and their parent CBS News) assumes the vital role of public watchdog, they are obligated by their role in the search for truth to become transparent and ethically beyond reproach, lest both the credibility of the story, as well as the shareholder value of the organization, be called inexorably called into question.

Which brings me to Mr. Dan Rather and his defense of the story on Friday, September 10, 2004. His defense of the news segment was both obfuscatory and disingenuous, single-handedly setting a new low in broadcast television. In an event of such magnitude -- the revelation of documents which allege that a sitting president was a deserter from his military service during an election year -- your organizations are duty-bound to rise above Mr. Rather's reptilian defensiveness and disclose all of the (doubtlessly) sordid details surrounding this story.

I say duty-bound because, as a broadcast television network, your livelihood is based entirely upon the acknowledgment that you serve the public's trust in exchange for the rights to the public's airwaves. This trust is not served by stonewalling, recriminations, and spiteful defensiveness. If CBS were a product that I, as a consumer, had to pay for, please be sure that I would do no such thing.

Currently, I am suspending judgment on this issue in order to see how Viacom, CBS, Clear Channel Communications, and KGPE-47 conduct themselves in the coming days. If it becomes obvious that none of your organizations take your obligation to public service and responsibility to reporting the truth seriously, I shall begin to organize a boycott of all of your products and advertising sponsors' products.

Moreover, I will write my representatives at all levels of government as well as television regulators in an effort to begin a public dialogue on the usage of the nation's public airwaves by entities that act and think themselves unaccountable to the American public. The behavior of Mr. Rather, 60 Minutes, and CBS News is unacceptable: nobody who trades on the public's airwaves is above public scrutiny. Furthermore, no business unit of a publicly traded company like Clear Channel Communications or Viacom is above public scrutiny.

I look forward to a prompt, complete, and very public accounting of the behavior of your various business units and employees. Let me also assure you that if there is any way that I can be assist you in this process, feel free to contact me. Thank you.

Sincerely,


Andrew Schouten

UPDATE (9/13): Clear Channel Communications is a class act! The good people at the local affiliate just e-mailed the following:

Thank you for emailing us regarding your views on 60 Minutes as well as the CBS News organization.

KGPE-TV and Clear Channel Television are companies built on a consistent and reputable foundation, conscientious in every possible way regarding our obligation to serve the public with accurate and reliable information. This applies to our news organizations as well as our public service initiatives. We are constantly concerned, as are you, that the news always be reported in an unbiased, fair manner.

Whether or not this has occurred within the CBS News department will remain to be seen. As you are likely aware, we are not shareholders, nor in any way do we have editorial control, over what CBS News says or does. In that respect, we stand aside and wait to hear further discourse on the subject, which is sure to come in the next days and weeks. As an affiliate of CBS, we expect and assume the Network will conduct itself in a manner consistent with a leading news provider – thorough and without reproach, as it has done for many, many years.

We do appreciate your input and will forward your comments to the CBS Affiliate Relations department, as well as to within appropriate individuals in our own company.

Now that's how you run a media company!

Hawai'i

...and we're back

A week in Hawaii followed by another week adjusting to a new job compounded by the events of last week meant that I had little time to devote to the blog. Please forgive my absence.

Pessimism

Today I felt a pessimism. And it was ripe. I had a pretty good day, that is until... well, just read it:

andrew_redux: in fact, it wasn't until i was in the car driving home
andrew_redux: and i was listening to "Sean Hannity"
andrew_redux: and he played the audio to that guy's beheading
andrew_redux: i'd avoided the video
andrew_redux: or graphic picutres
andrew_redux: because, well, i didn't want to think about it
andrew_redux: and i didn't want to find myself looking at it and not have an emotional response
andrew_redux: like, say, somehow i processed it like as if it were a slasher flick or something
andrew_redux: because i'm pretty jaded when it comes to video, right
andrew_redux: and it was blood curling
andrew_redux: i'm happy i was in the country because i took my foot off the accelerator
andrew_redux: i almost pulled the car over
andrew_redux: it was horrible
andrew_redux: you hear them saying "allahu akhbar"
andrew_redux: and then all of a sudden, a piercing, shrieking castrato scream
andrew_redux: as they're holding him down
andrew_redux: with the allahu akhbar in the background
andrew_redux: and then the scream intensifies
andrew_redux: horrible wail
andrew_redux: and then the shrieking stops
andrew_redux: instead it's just like a puntcured baloon or tire
andrew_redux: whining
andrew_redux: and then a gurgling
andrew_redux: and they were chanting, yelling allahu akhbar throughout the whole thing
andrew_redux: they sawed his head off
andrew_redux: not chopped
andrew_redux: not sliced
andrew_redux: sawed it
andrew_redux: with a knife
andrew_redux: not an axe
andrew_redux: not a sword
andrew_redux: a knife
andrew_redux: i want to be angry
andrew_redux: and outraged
andrew_redux: and all that kind of normal response
andrew_redux: but because it was audio
andrew_redux: it was radio
andrew_redux: and radio's so intimate
andrew_redux: i couldn't look away
andrew_redux: and i'm reconstructing the image from the sound
andrew_redux: it was horrible
kelleenl: I don't think I can cheer you up about this.
andrew_redux: it's one thing to think you know what evil looks like
andrew_redux: but when it's heard
andrew_redux: yesterday i had been thinking about writing about the beheading on my blog
andrew_redux: some kind of thing like
andrew_redux: well, you can't ask for a better enemy than an arab terrorist
andrew_redux: because just when the world is convinced that you're a shit
andrew_redux: he will always try and out do you on the despicability scale
andrew_redux: but this
andrew_redux: it was so unprofessional
andrew_redux: so amateur
andrew_redux: but so enthusiastic, so...
andrew_redux: those terrorists are a death cult
andrew_redux: i mean
andrew_redux: i think to myself
andrew_redux: you're beheading some guy
andrew_redux: he gets a last meal
andrew_redux: a last cigarette
andrew_redux: a last word
andrew_redux: and it's quick, humane, even
andrew_redux: nobody likes death
andrew_redux: nobody likes killing
andrew_redux: but how do you do that
andrew_redux: the poor man
andrew_redux: he was shrieking
andrew_redux: i mean
andrew_redux: flying a fucking jet into a building isn't as evil as this, it's bigger, sure, but, you can't hear all 3000 people shrieking -- shrieking -- in your head
andrew_redux: and not only that, but they reveled in it
andrew_redux: like i said, i want to get angry
andrew_redux: and say something like
andrew_redux: this means that we need to fight more
andrew_redux: or some AM radio shit like that
andrew_redux: but i can't
andrew_redux: i can't because it's just empty posturing
andrew_redux: everyday it's a race to the bottom
andrew_redux: you know, i want to find peace in victory
andrew_redux: and i want everyone to have a future
andrew_redux: a future where they can self-actualize
andrew_redux: where they can become somebody
andrew_redux: but how do you do that with somebody like that?
andrew_redux: how can you share a future with somebody that wants to die, wants to kill you
kelleenl: I don't know.
andrew_redux: somebody who doesn't want the life he can have in this world
andrew_redux: because he thinks he can only get it in the "next"
andrew_redux: i wouldn't be surprised if the Americans didn't start really massacring people after what i saw
andrew_redux: because you can't win
andrew_redux: either he kills you
andrew_redux: or you kill him
andrew_redux: and in killing him
andrew_redux: he wins
andrew_redux: because not only has he made you in to a killer
andrew_redux: but you've just radicalized several more that want to do the same thing
andrew_redux: so he wins again
andrew_redux: it's not even that they don't have anything to live for
andrew_redux: they live to die/kill
andrew_redux: if this keeps up
andrew_redux: we're going to get everyone out
andrew_redux: and drop the bomb
andrew_redux: but if you leave
andrew_redux: who gets into power?
andrew_redux: and i don't really care what anyone says
andrew_redux: we have to do this right
andrew_redux: but it will only get worse
andrew_redux: and it will only get worse before it gets better
andrew_redux: if it gets better
kelleenl: It will get better.
andrew_redux: you know, it’s an evil different than the Nazis
andrew_redux: the Nazis engineered death;
andrew_redux: it's removed
andrew_redux: somehow:
andrew_redux: banal
andrew_redux: industrialized
andrew_redux: a technologization of death
andrew_redux: logically working for nefarious ends
andrew_redux: but this
andrew_redux: was up close and personal
andrew_redux: and sadistic
andrew_redux: and exhibitionistic
andrew_redux: they sawed his head off
andrew_redux: not hack
andrew_redux: not chop
kelleenl: stop
andrew_redux: sorry
andrew_redux: it's just i heard what the abyss sounds like
andrew_redux: i'm afraid that all this technology
andrew_redux: all this media
andrew_redux: all this communication
andrew_redux: is just going to make us want to kill each other more
andrew_redux: because our ideologies
andrew_redux: not our civilizations
andrew_redux: but our ideologies
andrew_redux: cannot abide the Other
andrew_redux: and it's not like the Soviets
andrew_redux: who killed people in Siberia
andrew_redux: and no one talked about it
andrew_redux: so people denied it
andrew_redux: pretended it never happened
andrew_redux: thought they deserved it
andrew_redux: out of sight out of mind
andrew_redux: but this, it's so...so...in your face
andrew_redux: "See we'll kill more! Nyah-Nyah-Nyah! What are you going to do about it? Nothing -- because you're weak!"

And perhaps we are. If all that we can do is say, "See I told you so" or use this atrocity to expiate guilt for our own behavior, we are weak. We are weak because we are weak-minded. Because we cannot see it for what it is, only what "caused" it, or to equivocate criminality, or to express our prescriptions in outrage or in self-righteousness.

We are weak, just as they are weak, because we want to make something of Mr. Berg's death. We want to use the horrible, depraved event of his death to justify something else -- our views, our prejudices, our ideologies. How petty, how small.

Nicolas Berg -- may you rest and peace, forgetting your horrific death and your depraved killers

Sh!t. I'm tired.