Since my sister is expecting a blog from me, I'll do one today.
I'm currently on the phone with work, trying to talk my team lead through a network recovery. We had a massive power outage yesterday when some thunder boomers rolled through Atlanta in the afternoon. Normally we wouldn't worry about getting everything up, but we have some users in Brazil (Don't they celebrate the 4th? They don't? Why not? Another country? Really? I know. I know. I'm just pretending I just graduated from an Ivy League college. Those who read Lileks latest screed know what I'm talking about. No. No link. You should have him bookmarked or in your favorites if you use IE), who want access to our systems. All the critical stuff is on a UPS, but we have some ESCON Directors that aren't and naturally the connecting channels went through a director that didn't power up clean.
So I'm talking my team lead through all the recovery stuff he has to do. Ahhh. A power outage. The gift that keeps on giving. We've been meaning to move the rest of the critical stuff on to the UPS, but, we don't have a full time hardware plannner to manage the project. I could do it, but since my manager dropped my rating, I'm just not as gung ho as I used to be. Anyway, he calls me from the main console area, and I talk him through some stuff. Then It's out on the floor. Nope the switch says it has a problem. Let's try another thing. Back to the main console area. Enter these commands. Nope, still problems. OK, can't remember the configuration off the top of my head. Log on to this system. Where does the channel go? Uh oh. It goes through the switch. OK. Back out on the floor. Let's try the tried and true method. Power off. Power on. (The switch is controlled by a PC). Nope. Hmmmm. Look! The keyboard is unplugged. Plug in keyboard. Try again. How did keyboard get unplugged? BTSOM (Beats the shit outa me). OK. Now it works. Back to main console area. Log on to the four affected systems. Attach and vary on appropriate devices. Enter all these neat network commands. On these systems we have VTAM. Only old farts like me know anything about VTAM. GOC has a real good memory (tho' not as good as it used to be. My sister who is four years older is having the same problems). OK. All the affected systems go active on SAMON.
'But don't you have TCPIP?', I hear you readers ask. Of course we have TCPIP. But, for some strange reason, the folks in Brazil want to come in using SNA. But what is SNA? Systems Network Architecture. Something very old and true. And let's not forget reliable. It's very reliable. Damn dinosaur. You old farts always bitch about TCPIP and Microsoft. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.
So back to my team lead. Do we need to fix the rest of the paths? Nah. I'll do that Monday morning. And by the way, when our EPS (Empty Polo Shirt) boss wants to skill rebalance me out the door later this year to save money, I want you to remember the hour-and-a-half we spent on the phone today.
I used to be team lead, but I made two mistakes:
So let this be a lesson for you. Never, ever tell a manager the truth. Always tell them what they want to hear.
The upside of not being team lead, is I don't have to go in to work on emergencies, I still make the same amount of money, I don't have to work as hard, and I have less responsibilities. The downside is ... uh, let me think ... Wait a minute! There is no downside.
So now I'm gonna go outside and finish putting in some brick edging, but I'll be back and start on what I really want to discuss today.
I'm back.
Before I start, I would like to thank alert reader Christopher Hlatky for telling me the fix for the format problem. And if I were a better with html, it wouldn't have happened. I wanted to write as if I were talking real slow. I should have done it the way Andrea did it (scroll up) when talking about the 2000 election. I feel a rant coming on.
I thought the Democrats catch phrase was 'Let's move on'. Let's move on. And as long as we're talking about moving on, can't we just give this slavery thing a rest? Yeah, slavery was bad, but Jesus H. Christ, ya'll don't have the freaking franchise on it! Slavery bad. Lot's of Americans died to end it. And ever since the 60's there's been a lot of liberal guilt and that's why we have affirmative action and that's why we have to have lower admission standards to colleges because of 400 years of freaking oppression. Wait a minute! If they are just as smart why do we have to lower standards. Because of 400 years of oppression and the SAT is culturally biased. What freaking culture is that? English is English and 1+1=2 (unless base 2 and then it's 10). Well speaking English is not the culture of blacks and there's this 400 years of oppression thing. They be speaking ebonics. Then they not be getting any freaking jobs. I know. 400 years of oppression. Look this is America. We speak English here. There are two problems: The public school system sucks, especially in the inner city, and black children who work hard in school are accused of acting white.
The problem with the government school system is the government school system. The leftists keep saying we should throw more money at them, while they are sending their children to private schools. Guess where Jesse Jackson's kids went to school? Private schools. Al Sharpton. Private schools. As much as I dislike Jimmy Carter, at least he was not a hypocrite about education. He sent Amy to a government school in DC. I'm really pissed about the leftists who are writing off an entire race of people. They don't educate them and then they tell them they are not smart enough to get into college (if not why do they insist upon lower admission standards? - oh yeah, I forgot 400 years of oppression) and they are not smart enough to get a job (if not why affirmative action? - oh yeah, we have to make up for 400 years of oppression). It's not us bigoted white folks who are calling them dumb. It's their friends.
C'mon. Let's fix the government schools. I'm very glad that vouchers were declared contitutional. Maybe they won't work, but they can't work any worse than what we have now.
And now about slavery. Slavery has been around forever. The abolition of slavery is a fairly recent policy. And it was a bunch of of white people who did it. The English abolished it and we fought a very bloody war to end it. Guess where slavery still exists?
Sorry Cynthia. Try Africa and many Arab countries. But, I'll give you another chance. During the slave trade, who sold the slaves to the slave traders?
Had to be the Jews.
Wrong again. The slave ships pulled up to the African coast and the slaves were sold to the white traders on the ships by the blacks on the coast. It was your own brothers and sisters who sold you into slavery. Just like you, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and the rest of the poverty pimps are selling American blacks down the river by not demanding that they take responsiblity for their lives by staying in school and studying and by not having children they cannot afford. Keep 'em poor. Keep 'em on the plantation. And keep 'em voting Democrat. Everything is the fault of white people and Jews. And let's not forget 400 years of oppression.
Ok. Let's get to what I really wanted to write about today. We got someone else who wants to join Alec Baldwin, Martina Navratilova, Tom Cruise, and Robert Altman (another alert reader corrected me as I said Roger Altman in an earlier blog and I forgot who he was. He's a fellow blogger and I feel bad about not giving him credit where credit is due) in leaving the country. It's Bob Weidinger who wrote an essay in today's Atlanta Urinal and Constipation, titled What America has become is reason to leave. Bob is a teacher, which may explain some of his essay.
I was raised with the belief that the United States was the most perfect place on the planet.
So far, so good. I can't think of a country with more freedom.
I embraced the values taught in school and I believed them -- that this was a nation based on law, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution.
He must have gone to school a long time ago. But in his picture he doesn't look that old. Maybe he went to a private school. Now they teach that the Constitution is a 'living document' and it's bogus because it counted black slaves as 3/5 of a person. The Declaration of Independence is a 'flawed document' because it didn't include black slaves. We've already talked about this. Let's move on.
that this is true and yet I am thinking of emigrating. While the rest of the people of the world seek to come to these shores, for one born here it may be time to leave.
When ya gonna leave? Where ya gonna go?
I served my country in the armed forces. For the first and only time in my life, I swore an oath, gave my word. In order to accept my commission I willingly accepted that if called upon to do so, I would give my life for my country. I would do so then and I would do so now. But now I wonder what it is I would die for.
Wait a minute! This guy may be all right after all. He served in the military. He served his country.
We have been constantly bombarded with news of malfeasance, corruption, conspiracies and cover-ups. From corporate fraud and energy transfer shell games to immoral priests and politicians and the constant erosion of our cherished constitutional rights, it seems that all of the institutions that America has held up to the world as shining examples to follow were, in fact, just gilded to cover the fundamental rottenness at their cores.
What's going on here? I agree with every thing he's saying. And eight years of the Clintons took corruption to a new level. So why should we be so surprised about what's going on?
We air our dirty laundry for all the world to see when it is uncovered, but to what purpose?
It's called a free press and an open society. Hopefully if we expose enough corruption, the people, like, maybe you and I, might just demand that something be done about it.
We bandage the hemorrhage occurring in our society, doing just enough to divert our attention to other issues. Punishments do not fit the crimes,
And why do you think that is Bob? Could it be the left. Could it be the crap we're teaching our children in the government schools? Everybody's a freaking (I really wanted to use another word here, but my sister told me to clean up my language) victim!
justice is a worthy concept that is just that -- a dream, words spoken to appease. And soon, though the schemes may be different, the evil shows its head again in a different guise.
Maybe if we quit teaching moral relativism in our schools. Maybe if we quit teaching victimology in our schools. Maybe if we had booted Clinton out of office instead of letting him get away with everything and letting our kids see how it's done. And yes, I'm a Clinton hater. But, can't we just move on? OK. I'll make you a deal. If Clinton will just shut up and go away, I'll quit hating him. As it is he serves as a fine example of corruption and immorality.
We, the people, I hold most responsible for the current state of affairs. It seems we have abdicated our responsibilities as citizens. Our attention spans are such that no matter how vile the corruption that is discovered and uncovered, we soon turn our attention to more important matters -- deifying the life and death of minor entertainment celebrities, reality TV, more consumption of consumer goods we go into debt for. As long as we have our SUVs, our six TVs, 450-square-foot closets filled with stuff we no longer even know we have and plenty of diversions for the weekend, we seem content.
Dammit! There he goes. He's making sense again. Don't worry. It ain't gonna last.
And so I wonder if it is time for me to emigrate from the country of my birth. Who is the more patriotic, the one who stays or the one who leaves?
What is this? A trick question? The one who stays.
Though I would still pick up arms and fight to the death to protect my country from an invader, I wonder if I can truly say that I am willing to die for what my country has become.
So, your solution is to run away? Is that what you teach your students? Run away from problems? Remember the 60's? There were two slogans: America. Love it or leave it. or America. Fix it or lose it (or was it change it or lose it?). Bob, I believe a lot of what you wrote, but it doesn't make me want to leave. Look at me. I started blogging. There are a lot of others in the blogosphere and at places like Free Republic who believe that there are problems in this country. We are doing the best we can to fix them. And I think it's beginning to work. Without Mat Drudge breaking stories about Clinton that the main stream press was sitting on, we may have not had impeachment. We have Fox News which, despite what the leftists would have you believe is balanced, unlike CNNABCNBCCBSMSNBC.
From a sense of patriotism, I feel that if I stay I would be giving tacit approval to what is.
Not if you worked to change it. That's what being a citizen of this country should entail.
There are those who may say that to leave is cowardly,
Hey Bob! Look over here! I'm one of 'em.
that it would be better to stay and fight from within.
Yep. I'd be one of 'em. And I'm doing my best. I could use a little help.
But tilting at windmills has never proved very effective.
OK Don Quixote. Run off to a better place. When you find it, will you let the rest of us know where it is? With an attitude like that, I've only got one name for you: Loser.
And I finished in time to post today. And now it's off to Michael and Cindy's for dinner. We'll have barbecue and probably knock off three bottles of wine. And we will be glad to be Americans. All three of us vote. And every election we vote against Cynthia McKinney.
Bob, Delta is ready when you are.
Say hello to Alec, Robert, Martina, and Tom for me.
Posted by denny at July 4, 2002 01:33 PM