Until August

Some administrivia for you, my happy reader.

I will be suspending this blog, and its newest sibling (Aries, Mork, or Tahoe) until August 2013.

This action is being taken because our family’s upcoming move to the capital city of the Land of Smiles.

Preparations for this move will take up a vast amount of time as the logistics (not to mention the bureaucracy) of a move halfway around the world are quite daunting.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you in August.

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Second Term Follies

So what is it exactly about a president’s second term that makes them go all wobbly in the ethics department.

Richard Nixon had Watergate.

Ronald Reagan had the Iran-Contra Affair.

Bill Clinton had an affair.

George W Bush had the Valerie Plame Affair.

And now, the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, and the Department of Justice’s snooping on the Associated Press all on his scandal-plate.

Maybe Jimmy Carter and George Herbert Walker Bush are happy with the fact they were one-term presidents.

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And That’s Why You Test

Before I moved on our family’s international adventure, I used to be a software tester.

Really.

One life lesson that that former employment taught me was to always test something before releasing it into the wild – or at least before the customer gets a hold of it.

When I tested software, I always strove to ensure that I would find all of the bugs so that the end user would not. In addition to uncovering all the glitches, our verification department also made sure that the program under test satisfied the requirements of the user. In other words, not only did we test to see what was wrong with the software, we also verified what was right with the application.

This was a lesson not fully embraced by a certain company and said business had its hands slapped publicly (or at least on the World Wide Web) by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

In yet another of my treks around the Internet (such as here and here), I found this news release from HHS stating that the department had revoked the certifications of two software programs designed to be part of the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs. This was done because the programs did not meet the required functionality.

That’s why you test. So your programs don’t wind up in news releases from the government.

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Marquee Recycling

Just because I can, I decided to imagine what would happen if an owner of a movie theater wanted to show a certain trio of films for a festival but the marquee only had a limited amount of space. Obviously, the owner would have to be creative and double up on words.

Here is what I came up with…

Gone Baby Gone With The Wind In The Willows

The Once and Future King and I Was a Teenage Werewolf

Plan 9 From Outer Spaceballs of Fury

Raise the Red Green Mile Lantern

Just Rango With It Came From Outer Space

Raising Arizona Dreamscape

Penn & Teller Get Who Killed the Electric Car 54, Where Are You?

The Pope Must Die(t) Another Day of the Living Dead

When a Batman Loves a Woman in Berlin

The Pineapple Midnight in Paris Express

Moscow on the Hudson Ladyhawke

…and as a special treat, here is a recycled marquee with four titles…

Dirty Harry Potter and the Sword in the Sorcerer’s Apprentince Stone

If you have any other suggestions, please go ahead and drop them off in the Comments section.

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How Ironic If They Can’t Agree On How To Vote

Tripping through the Web is one of my fun activities. Poking through the nooks and crannies of the Internet turns up some interesting items, especially when I turn my electronic spotlight on the halls of American government.

Case in point today is the White House.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue puts out press releases and other announcements on a daily basis. On March 28, the Office of the Press Secretary put out this communication which creates the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

“Yeah,” he writes with sarcasm, “another commission created by the White House.”

Part of the release states that the mission of the Commission – whose acronym is PCEA – is to…

…identify best practices and otherwise make recommendations to promote the efficient administration of elections in order to ensure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots without undue delay…

Further down in the announcement, it states that PCEA can consider…

…the number, location, management, operation, and design of polling places;
…the training, recruitment, and number of poll workers;
…the efficient management of voter rolls and poll books;
…voting machine capacity and technology;

Now, please correct me if I am wrong (feel free to leave your pleasant feedback in the Comments section), but aren’t all elections the responsibility of the states or local authorities? Heck, even a Presidential election is actually fifty-one separate elections run by the fifty states and the District of Columbia.

So, doesn’t it seem like an intrusion of the federal government into the state’s sphere by coming up with recommendations about elections? A story from POLITICO ends with that same thought as Jennifer Epstein writes, “Most election laws are determined by states and local jurisdictions, and even where the federal government does have oversight…”

The release from the White House says that the Commission will be advisory in nature so there is nothing mandatory about PCEA’s ideas. What that means is that the end result here is that (at most) nine people will get together, hold meetings, chat, debate, and create a document that would become a weighty doorstop if people still used doorstops.

However, there is one person who expressed his support for PCEA. Perhaps President Obama can name him to the commission.

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Nineteen Eighty-Now

In his book 1984, author George Orwell wrote about a society where all the activities of its citizens were watched over by Big Brother. Even at home, people were surveilled twenty-four hours a day through the use of telescreens, televisions that transmit images, but also contain cameras to keep a watchful eye on the inhabitants.

There were many things to fear about Orwell’s dystopian future, but it is surprising to see how quickly we (and by we, I mean the United States of America) has quickly and quietly acquiesced to modern-day telescreens.

From pleas about how drones should not be feared to efforts to make Google Glass cool, hip, and trendy, it appears that most people (with the exception of the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the Electronic Privacy Information Center) don’t seem to care too much about having their everyday activities recorded and stored without their consent.

To show you how far this acceptance of the all-seeing eye peering back at you has become, I simply direct your attention to the bit of your computer screen just above where you are reading this. I’m guessing that there is a webcam perched atop your monitor or on your smartphone or on your tablet.

It’s a camera staring right back at you. And you have no idea who is on the other end.

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Me On War Week

I have written before about the concept of setting aside a week to reflect back on a series of events that all happened to have occurred in that calendar week, but in different years.

At the end of January, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) honors those astronauts lost during the Apollo I fire (1967), the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion (1986) , and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (2003).

My previous post postulated creating a Loss and Remembrance Week during April 16 through 22 to remember those taken away and affected by the shootings at Virginia Tech (2007), the siege at Waco (1993), the bombing in Oklahoma City (1995), and the shootings at Columbine High School (1999).

This post is to offer up this current seven-day period as War Week (March 19 – 25) where we can reflect on the meanings, morality, consequences, etc., of the armed conflicts entered into by the United States of America. This week was picked because of a trio of anniversaries that fall within this timeframe:

…March 19, 2011 – The United States (along with others) begins military action against Libya;
…March 20, 2003 – The United States begins military action against Iraq; and
…March 24, 1999 – The United States (along with NATO allies) begins military action against Yugoslavia.

I understand that allies help allies because that’s what friends are for. However, I can hope that in the future that the next time some provocation comes our way that instead of firing up the troops, maybe we can just walk on by and avoid the deja vu of deaths upon deaths. For that hope, perhaps I will say a little prayer during this War Week.

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Coming Home…Just Not Now

The Mannski Family was faced with a choice and that choice has been made.

Nearly two years ago (March 2011), the Mannski Unit made the decision to move (temporarily) from our home in Virginia to France. The genesis for this lateral move was the fabulous opportunity presented to my wife to use her PhD for a non-profit.

My wife’s contract expires early next year and we were all set to move the family back to the Old Dominion.

Then, as usual, something out of the blue appeared over the horizon, took a cab to our apartment, and brought a croissant to munch on our balcony while it gave us the following opportunity.

My wife, through the contacts she has met here, has been offered a position with a multi-national corporation (MNC) to use her degree and experience to assist their affiliate in…

…wait for it…

…Bangkok, Thailand.

It probably took us slightly over a day to make our decision.

Come the middle of 2013, the Mannski Family will be setting up shop in the Land of Smiles.

For my wife, the professional advancement and experiences offered by this position made her decision easy.

As for me, the non-working spouse who hit the pause button on his career, the choice to move across the globe from our Virginia home was also easy but for a different set of reasons.

I have been bitten hard by the international bug after living abroad for over a year and a half in a foreign country. Seeing new things, experiencing new cultural traditions, and eating new cuisines (to name a few) have been beyond my expectations and I do not want it to end. Thailand will only accelerate and intensify this broadening of my cultural horizons.

Reason Number Two (which dovetails with the first reason above) is that I believe that living abroad will also broaden the cultural horizons of our three children.

However, there is another reason why I am opting to not return to the country of my birth. That reason is because, in over a year away from the United States, I have come to the conclusion that the red-white-and-blue is completely bat-guano bonkers.

From the over-the-top negative tone of the 2012 Presidential campaign…
To the endless red-state versus blue-state sniping seen in news programs and Internet comments…
To the paralysis of its politicians (I point to the debt ceiling limit “debate” of 2011 and the “fiscal cliff” negotiations of now)…
To the lack of tolerance towards those with any dissenting views (I point to the on-line petition to the White House to deport CNN personality Piers Morgan)…
To, finally, my desire that I don’t want the lives of my children cut short courtesy of the “gun culture” of the United States…

For all those and other reasons, I have opted to not reside again in the best country in the world, the United States of America.

I am astounded at how much my perspective has changed after being away for a scant amount of time, but changed it has.

It is my sincerest wish that whenever my wife’s employment with MNC ends (whenever that may be), that the wonderful people and policy-makers of the United States of America get their act together and work together to make the “land of the free / home of the brave” the shining beacon I know it can be.

Until then, I will enjoy the view from the outside.

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Symmetry in Art

Not sure whether this should be filed under “life imitates art”, “art imitating life”, or just plain, obnoxious coincidence.

The news came out recently that actor Larry Hagman passed away. Mr. Hagman is known for playing the J.R. Ewing on the television show Dallas. Hagman was currently portraying the scheming oilman in the current incarnation of the show which started this year. Hagman’s character was the patriarch of the Ewing clan and now he has died during the run of that show.

During the first running of Dallas – from 1978 to 1991 – the head of Ewing family (and J.R.’s father) was Jock Ewing who was played by actor Jim Davis. Interesting to note that Mr. Davis also passed away (in 1981) during the run of that popular show.

Those two deaths aren’t enough to cue the theme from The Twilight Zone, but I thought it was worthy of a mention.

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My Son, The Cartoonist

It’s time once again to make my middle child, Jared, the star of today’s posting. We’ve seen him as a culture explorer, a film industry expert, and as Tony Hawk.

With school in full swing for my trio of children, it is my responsibility to monitor their homework. To assist me in my quest, the school has provided all the kids with a planner so that they can write down all of their daily and weekly assignments.

In the first week of my middle child’s educational career, I opened up his planner and saw, once again, the unique creative artistic talent that he has.

Below, you can see his twist on the “How Are You Feeling Today?” poster…

Oddly enough, “scared” is not a choice

And, before you ask…No, I am not worried about Jared. He’s a smart, intelligent, creative, stable lad who simply likes to draw skulls and other creatures that would set your teeth a-chattering.

(But, I do worry about his spelling.)

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