Never Mix Argyle and Paisley

Does anyone remember Michael Nifong? If not, I apolgize for dragging his sorry butt back up! He was the District Attorney for Durham County, NC, who in 2006 contrived a case against three Duke University students in order to bolster his own political career. In it, he alleged that the students (all white and from affluent families) raped a (black, poor) exotic dancer (stripper) at a college party. When I first heard about this, my BS detector started deflecting slightly off the lower stop, but for totally subjective reasons – I knew plenty of white, affluent frat boys from my college experience (which, admittedly, was more than five years ago), and that kind of insanely antisocial behavior, or anything else that would affect one’s chances of landing a good position in the financial sector or a prestigious law school, was exceedingly unlikely on their part.

The entire nation watched intently as the case dragged on for over a year, and Mr. Nifong successfully exploited the case to get himself re-elected as prosecutor, meanwhile trashing the reputations, and financially draining the families, of the accused young men. The case was never particularly strong; there were no witnesses other than the accused and accuser, and the scant evidence provided as much argument against the accuser as for her (I won’t go into detail other than to say that if I did, this would no longer be a family-friendly blog). Nonetheless, politics and sensationalism were winning over justice and reason, and things didn’t look too good for the beleaguered students until…

…until it was revealed that Mr. Nifong committed some serious malfeasance by withholding exculpatory evidence, at which point the case failed, and ultimately Mr. Nifong was removed from office, disbarred, penalized, briefly jailed, and was himself driven to bankruptcy. His name lives on in ignominy as a passive verb, i.e., to be “Nifonged” is to be falsely accused in order to benefit the direct or indirect accuser.

Glad we got that over with!

Or did we?

I personally believe… that the entirety of western civilization is being Nifonged right before our very eyes. We are being accused of destroying the Earth by our lifestyles and very existence, and in particular, by our use of various forms of energy. And as penalty or remedy, depending on your perspective, a complete reversal of our economic system is indicated, with a small number of people (including a former VP with a rather large carbon footprint) slated to rake in billion$.

Disclaimer: I think we all agree that conservation and good stewardship of the environment are worthy pursuits, and reduction of pollution and decreasing dependence on foreign oil are laudable causes deserving our attention and effort.

I spent the early part of my professional career deeply buried in data, attempting, through various statistical and computational means, to extract information and knowledge from it. My application was confined to automotive diagnostics and quality control, but the basic scientific method applies to any empirical (data-driven) field of endeavor, including global warming:

1) form a hypothesis

2) test the hypothesis

3) arrive at a conclusion which either proves or disproves the hypothesis

4) write a bunch of papers, get them published, discuss them at conferences in interesting cities, and burn through the rest of your grant money on expense account meals and drinks

The last part of step 4 is optional, BTW, but is never omitted in practice.

Step 2, test the hypothesis, involves several activities, including research of existing knowledge on the subject, physical derivations, experimental design and execution, data collection, modeling (developing mathematical representations of the system being studied), and statistics. Step 2 is by far the most thinking- and labor-intensive, and generally consumes nearly all of the researchers’ attention. In this step, the researcher must employ strict discipline and near pathological open-mindedness in order to form and execute valid tests.

Steps 1 and 3, form a hypothesis and arrive at a conclusion, are generally pretty straightforward, so much so that it may escape notice when they are skipped or executed out of order, as is the case with “climate science.” First, it would appear that no hypothesis has been produced. Second, the conclusion that human activity is causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, and will foretell the end of civilization as we know it, was arrived at well in advance of any study--apparently by the same guy that invented the internet. Tests were then devised and data collected to support this foregone conclusion.

Now if you get all of your news from conventional outlets, you may have missed the latest “climate change” news: a large cache of e-mail and document files from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) was hacked and disseminated, revealing a disturbing pattern of falsifying data and models, stacking the deck on “peer reviews,” and repressing any competing viewpoints in an effort to produce an apparent scientific basis for man-made global warming.

“Never heard of them,” you might say. That would have been true for me too, until a few weeks ago. I’ve since learned that the findings of the “scientists” at the CRU are the ones used almost exclusively by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which informs the Kyoto Protocol and God-only-knows-what they’re going to come up with at the Copenhagen climate summit later this month.

Mind you, inept application of the scientific method does not necessarily invalidate or nullify the conclusion; it just means that we can’t yet prove it via the underlying hypotheses (if there even were any). If scientists at the CRU had stopped there, they would simply be guilty of plying their trade really, really badly. In the community of “climate scientists,” this would put them at about average.

However, the release of these documents, supposedly by a clever hacker, reveals a level of misconduct far beyond sleeping through high school science class. These documents reveal a deliberate attempt to conceal evidence that man-made global warming is not even happening, and to improve upon / cherry pick existing data to support the conclusion that it is.

You may be wondering, how could they get away with this? Isn’t there a peer-review process? Don’t scientists get to criticize each other publicly, and debate the strengths and weaknesses of conclusions before they make their way into public policy? In most fields, yes. This occurs mainly in step 4 (dissemination), during which steps 3 (conclusions), and 2 (methods) are challenged and defended (or not) in the public forum. But not in the field of “climate science.” It would appear from the released documents that not only was evidence tampered with, but the peer-review process was also tainted via selective reviews and deliberate attempts to silence any competing work. Further, any “unfriendly” attempts to obtain data and models via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) were thwarted.

Let’s wind things back to the basics for a moment, with a few fundamental questions for consideration before embarking on the scientific method:

1) is global warming happening?

2) is it the result of human activity?

3) can we do anything about it?

4) should we do anything about it?

5) if so, what?

Questions 3 through 5 depend on the answers to 1 and 2, so let's look at 1 and 2 first.

The answer to question 1, is global warming happening, is assumed by the prevalent media/political/academic establishment to be yes, but in fact many indicators express cooling over the last 10 years. Furthermore the data that purportedly demonstrates a long-term warming trend is pretty spotty at best.

The answer to question 2, is it man-made, also normally assumed also to be yes, is equally inconclusive, as we’ll discuss later in this missive.

The arrogant answer to 3 is yes, with the assumption that if we can turn Earth's thermostat up, we can turn it down as well.

The answer to 4 is yes, "obviously," we have to "save the Earth!" And the real red meat for politicians and other opportunists lies in the answer to 5 - what to do about it. The answer to that is pretty much anything they want to do, which miraculously always takes the form of consolidating power and wealth to themselves and their political allies, and the eradication of freedoms enjoyed by most of the western world, go figure.

Let's take a look again at question 1. If the CRU claims that global warming is indeed happening, it should be easy enough to look at the raw data and verify it for ourselves, right? To be sure, computing the Earth’s average temperature is not like falling out of bed. For one thing, it has a very low signal-to-noise ratio—it’s hard to measure climate with all that weather going on. Also, monitoring locations tend to change over time – for example, weather stations at airports which used to be out in the country are now surrounded by urban sprawl, with its attendant effect on temperatures. And of course, the calibration of any measurements taken before the early 20^th century is suspect. Overcoming these obstacles requires grueling analysis of copious amounts of data, but hey, we can handle it. Just give us the raw data; after all we paid for it, right…?

Well, funny story, IT'S GONE! The CRU disposed of the raw data! (Or at least they claim to have done, who believes anything they say at this point?). But they’re happy to share their improved, processed data, step right up, folks... Now dig, I completed my Master's Thesis in electrical engineering in 1991 on the topic of artificial intelligence applied to engine diagnostics, and guess what, I STILL HAVE THE RAW DATA! I don't ever intend to look at it again, but I do still have it around somewhere.

One function of my current job is teaching classes in business process improvement, which includes some applied statistics. In this class we emphasize that correlation does not imply causation, i.e., if two variables behave similarly, or appear to have some relationship, you can't assume that one is causing the other. When someone observes that crime and ice cream sales in New York tend to be proportional to each other, you wouldn’t conclude that one is causing the other. They may both be responding to an unnamed third variable, e.g., the weather, or the correlation may be entirely coincidental. This little bit of malpractice, that is, using correlation to impute causation, happens all the time, BTW, but lying with statistics doesn’t make it any less lying.

Now let's look more closely at question 2. If you see global temperatures rising or falling in a fashion similar to human activity, in the form of industrialization or fossil fuel use, you might be inclined to assume that the latter is causing the former, but without additional evidence or analysis, this would be irresponsible at best. But don't worry, "climate scientists" are doing nothing of the sort. They are not misreading the relationship between temperature and human activity because THERE IS NO RELATIONSHIP! That’s right, changes in global temperatures are not related, proportionally or otherwise, to industrialization or any other human activity. The only quantity with any discernible correlation to global temperature is solar activity, who'd 'a thunk it? So what "climate scientists" are doing is reading causation into uncorrelated variables, which can only be characterized as blind religious faith.

Okay, fine, a bunch of rogue scientists are pushing an agenda. Who cares? You, that’s who. These shysters have for years been the principal informers of the UN’s IPCC. They’re the ones quoted and cited by our own political leaders and politicians in pursuit of treaties and legislation. One such is the ill-advised “Cap and Trade” bill which would impose paralyzing taxes on all economic activity, meanwhile concentrating even more wealth into the hands of “carbon brokers” such as Mr. Inconvenient himself. Wake up, people, we are being Nifonged!

Tiger, what were you thinking?

The time period between the exposure of Mr. Nifong’s malfeasance and the actual dismissal of the case against the Duke students was particularly interesting and informative. First, there were denials, then explanations, then rationalizations, then the realization that we had all been lied to, and some had even contributed to the ruse. Nifong's supporters, including most of the media and many public figures, gradually went silent and skulked away, and if they apologized, you couldn't hear it over the chirping of the crickets. These included 88 Duke University professors, who had signed a letter condemning the students (I would never, ever let my children attend Duke with this despicable lack of support for its students).

That's the period we're in right now with "climategate," as it’s now called. We've already heard denials, deflections, and obfuscations, and now we're starting to hear explanations: "the e-mails actually represent good scientific criticism" is one gem I’ve read from the remaining global warming faithful. And rationalizations are even coming in from as high as the White House: press secretary Robert Gibbs informs us that the White House believes “climate change is happening.” He further avers, "I don't think that's anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore," and with a cocksure arrogance borne of utter ignorance of the evidence, “There’s no real scientific basis for disputing it.” (So that’s how science works now?)

As I alluded above, it’s not exactly certain that the leak of documents was the result of a hacker; in fact, there’s widespread speculation that it was an inside job, i.e., someone affiliated with the CRU grew a conscience, or perhaps had a bone to pick with Dr. Phil Jones, the leading scientist at the CRU and author of some of the more revealing e-mails. At any rate, the timing of the leak is so propitious as to appear deliberate: about a month prior to the Copenhagen summit where massive taxes and wealth transfer are to be discussed, and in advance of our own legislature’s debate of “Cap and Trade” laws.

So, what now? Well, I hate to be a pessimist, and I hope I’m wrong, but unfortunately I don’t think much is going to change. Honest scientists and other keen observers of reality have long known that man-made global warming is a fabrication, and so have the “scientists” and opportunists perpetuating the ruse. Meanwhile, most Americans are not equipped to weigh the facts objectively, and therefore must choose their position based on faith and/or political affinity. Now that the fraud has been exposed, how is any of that going to change? Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of good reasons to take care of our environment; global warming just isn’t one of them. Personally, I feel a slight sense of gratification at having my suspicions confirmed, but while I sit in my northern VA home office watching the thick, white flakes of global warming fall from the sky, what I’m really thinking is:

WHAT ELSE ARE THEY LYING TO US ABOUT?

Give it Back

Bruck’s message to President 0bama:

Give it back.

My first thought upon hearing that President 0bama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, or, I should say my first rational thought was, “couldn’t they find anybody who’s actually done anything for peace or human rights in the last year?” Well, of course there are many people working on various fronts, in the less sexy places of the world, toiling thanklessly against the ravages of poverty, genocide, human trafficking, and other scourges of the human condition.

Perhaps in a future column I could highlight some of our modern human rights warriors whose efforts are all the more thankless, having been overlooked in favor of a naïve and egotistical politician whose only real accomplishment to date has been to not be George W. Bush, but that’s not my point today.

Today I just want to say, give it back. That’s right, give it back. My curiousity was piqued when I heard that the president claimed to be “humbled” by the award. Humbled? Humble would be to realize that he didn’t deserve it, and that there are probably hundreds or even thousands of people who work actually does merit such an award. But that’s not why I’m suggesting he give it back.

The rationalization from the purportedly unanimous Norwegian committee was that our president has changed the atmosphere of negotiations for world peace blah blah blah to be honest I didn’t catch all of it – my internal BS siren drowned out the rest of their statement. But even the most ardent sycophants in the media concede that the president hasn’t really accomplished anything yet on the world stage, although they unanimously agree that he will someday.

Someday. Things will go as the Nobel Committee wishes someday. But not yet. So they give the prize in order to communicate and reinforce their wishes as to how diplomacy should be carried out, by giving a prestigious and world-reknown prize in advance. To all but the most hardened Chicago politician, this is known as bribery. A group of Norwegians has just bribed the leader of the free world to carry out diplomacy and state affairs according to their worldview. And he took their bribe.

I don’t expect our president to understand this; his grasp of subtlety seems to be profoundly lacking, and he seems to have stopped maturing politically and diplomatically at about his sophomore year of college. So I’m not expecting him to understand why; I’m just simply saying:

Give it back.

Pinch Me

The difference between dreams and reality is not always clear. Some claim there is no difference, that dreams are just as real as waking reality, and there are still others who claim that what we (normal people) perceive as dreams and reality are actually reversed. They’re wrong of course, but it’s interesting conversation fodder for the weak-minded and the less-endowed in the ambition department.

Today’s discussion is a bit more practical than that. When you’re awake, you generally don’t seriously suspect that you’re dreaming; sometimes in jest you might say, “pinch me” when faced with unusual circumstances, but for the mentally healthy, it’s really not a problem, not knowing if you’re dreaming when you’re awake. On the other hand, when you actually are dreaming, it rarely occurs to you to question whether or not you’re awake, no matter how bizzare or unlikely the scenario your subconscious has concocted.

Before we go too much further, let’s agree on terms. By “dreaming,” I’m only talking about where your mind goes while you’re sleeping – not daydreams, hallucinations, fantasies, or wishful thinking. And BTW, I’ve always cringed at the dictum, “may all your dreams come true.” If all my dreams came true, the world would be one seriously messed up place. Of the dreams I can remember, I’d say only about a quarter of them are actually good. Most are just weird or distorted versions of what I experienced during the previous day. Approximately 5% of them are really bad, like I killed someone, or lost a child in a crowded city, or was getting divorced, and I’m relieved when I wake up. And even of the actually good dreams, if they actually did come true, it would be like the logistical quagmire that was produced in the movie “Bruce Almighty” when Bruce, standing in for God, got lazy and just answered every prayer in the affirmative.

So, my favorite questions to answer being the ones that nobody’s asking, and the question of the day is, how can I tell if I’m dreaming? I don’t think there’s a single good general answer, but here are some specific circumstances I’ve found to indicate that you’re dreaming and not experiencing objective reality:

You can breathe underwater.
You can fly.
You can run extremely fast, or for extremely long distances without getting worn out.
You can jump over wide chasms.
A foreign citizen gets elected president and nobody even checks his ID.
You can walk through fire, or a blizzard, without feeling it.
You fall out of an airplane or off of a large building (this could happen in reality, but then you wouldn’t be around to read this fine discourse).
You find lots of money or other valuables just lying around.
An extremely unlikely member of the opposite sex (or same sex if you swing that way) is attracted to you.
You’re in prison, on in a strange country, or in a singularly dull business conference (see if you can figure out where I’m at while writing this) and you don’t know how you got there.
You can drive underwater.
Your car can fly.
You can drive your car or an other vehicle straight up or straight down a building or a cliff.
You drive all the way from Houston to Orlando without stopping for a restroom break, laboring under the delusion that adult diapers and a BB gun are somehow going to straighten out your love life.
You can communicate with dead people, or animals, or infants, or space aliens.
You can speak unlearned foreign or nonexistent languages
The speaker at the business conference is interesting and ends on time and doesn’t use a lot of tired cliches.
You made it to the end of a VOBNS column and have a vague understanding of what it’s about.

Are any of these things happening right now? Wake up!

That’s Not What I Meant!

I don’t speak very good German, let me be the first to admit. But I do know enough to get by, and even to have a good time in this very interesting country, where I’m temporarily stationed, and which happens to be full of fine and proud German people. But sometimes communications problems are more fundamental than the simple task of translating words and phrases.

(in the Kaufhof department store, looking for the restroom, speaking in German)
Bruck: Where is the bathroom?
Kaufhof Salesperson: Bathroom?
Bruck: Yes, the bathroom, the toilet, the WC, where is it?
KS: (with other salespeople) Do we have bathroom appliances? (To me) We don’t sell plumbing and bathroom appliances in this store, but you can find (something I didn't understand) on the 3^rd floor toward the back.
Bruck: Okay, thank you very much. (looks like I’ll just have to find it myself, which I did, on the 6^th floor, adjacent to the restaurant)

(at a hotel desk in Stuttgart, trying to get back to Sindelfingen, speaking in English)
Bruck: what is the best way to get to Sindelfingen?
Desk Clerk: will you be going by car or train? (a reasonable question)
Bruck: By car. (actually it was kind of a stupid question, as I had just paid for parking in the underground garage.)
DC: Yes, by car, I think that’s the best way to get there. (nodding agreement with the other desk clerk)
Bruck: No, what I mean is, what road do I take back to Sindelfingen?
DC: Oh, now I understand (laughing, gives directions).

So anyway, not exactly The Rise and Faill of the Third Reich, but a couple of snippets to demonstrate that more than just language barriers separate us. Good oceans make good neighbors!

The Gospel According to Sling Blade

Let’s see a show of hands – how many of you have seen the movie Sling Blade? OK, how many of you have even heard of the movie? To be fair, neither had I, until last year when my interest was piqued upon reading a tangential reference to it in an unrelated web forum. The movie came out in 1996, so I spent a good 12 years blissfully unaware of its existence. Sling Blade was written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who plays himself, just kidding, who plays Karl Childers, a gentle, big-hearted mental patient/lawn mower mechanic with a violent streak that spells his undoing.

It’s actually a pretty good movie, touching on many pertinent themes including alcoholism, domestic violence, homosexuality, mental illness, discrimination, single motherhood, abortion, and Christianity, without trying to jam the usual Hollywood agenda down your throat. I suggest that you add it to the top of your Netflix queue, wait patiently by your mailbox, watch it, then read the rest of this column. Warning – there are some rather coarse monologues from a fellow mental patient in the opening and closing scenes, and some rather colorful language from another character, but aside from that it’s pretty family-tolerable. If you read the original screenplay (which I did so you don’t have to), the movie actually tones things down a bit. I do recommend watching the DVD version vs. the streaming version BTW; the streaming version (Netflix instant watch) leaves out some semi-important parts.

Who is Sling Blade?

To really understand the movie, we have to ask the question, who is Sling Blade? We don’t necessarily have to answer it, but we do have to ask. BTW, the main character is named Karl Childers, but he has come to be known as Sling Blade in common parlance, after the name of the movie, which itself is named after the landscaping tool with which Karl ultimately vanquishes evil by killing Doyle Hargraves, …but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Sling Blade is not necessarily a comedy, but it has many tragi-comic elements, the most prominent of which being Karl’s character. His gravelly drawl and odd mannerisms, his overall humble simplicity, and his myriad difficulties communicating with everyday people take the edge off of what would otherwise be a rather dark movie. In fact, the almighty internet has several “soundboards” of Childers’ more notable quips. “I reckon I’ll have me some of the big ‘uns,” - a line from a scene at the Dairy Queen wherein Karl settles on “french fried pertaters” upon learning that they don’t serve biscuits with mustard. John Ritter also provides some comic relief with his portrayal of a paranoid and obsessively introspective small-town homosexual.

At the beginning of the movie, Karl is just being released from a mental institution, or “nervous hospital,” as he calls it, following a 25-year incarceration. As the movie unfolds, details of Karl’s past come to light, including:
- he was in the mental hospital after murdering his mother and her illicit lover
- he had spent all or most of his childhood confined to a tool shed behind his parents’ home
- he was not educated formally, but given regular, inaccurate “Bible lessons”
- his mental condition was the result of early child abuse
- he suffered ongoing guilt from having participated, under duress, in the abortion of his younger brother

Karl initially has trouble finding his place in a society that has left him 25 years behind, in an undefined southern US town that is not particularly open to “different” people. But under friendly pressure from the director of the mental hospital, a Christian businessman takes him in and helps him get his life together. Karl shines as a lawn mower and appliance repairman, a trade he picked up by osmosis during his childhood in the tool shed.

Karl befriends Frank and Linda, a fatherless 12-year old boy and his mother, and is eventually invited to live in their garage. Frank is bedeviled by Linda’s abusive and profane “boyfriend” Doyle, who is masterfully played by country music star Dwight Yoakum (“Guitars, Cadillacs,” “Streets of Bakersfield”). Yoakum provides some “inside” humor, as the leader of an amateur hillbilly rock and roll band comprised of talentless, tonedeaf rednecks with no singer. The main targets for Doyle’s abuse are Linda’s homosexual boss and best friend Vaughn, Frank, and Karl.

After getting on his feet, Karl pays a visit to his elderly and deranged father, played by Robert Duvall, who is living alone in squalor in the old family home. Karl fails to establish meaningful communications due to his father’s mental state, but does get some things off his chest. He expresses an initial intention to kill his father, and believes he would be justified in doing so, but decides to stand by and let nature take its course.

As the story unfolds, numerous subplots develop, including a love interest for Karl, Vaughn’s not-so-secret love life, Karl’s religious pursuits and viewpoints, Frank’s unrequited love of a local rich girl, and the development of a strong brotherly/fatherly relationship between Karl and Frank. Meanwhile, Doyle grows increasingly abusive and violent, driving Frank into a deep, inconsolable funk when he decides to move in with them and live “like a real family.”

At this juncture, Karl takes matters into his own hands. In an almost humorously abrupt and straightforward manner, he kills Doyle with a “Kaiser Blade,” or “Sling Blade.” He then reports himself to the police, having obtained instructions on how to do so from Doyle beforehand. “You might want to send an ambulance, or a ‘hearst’,” Karl artlessly instructs the 911 dispatcher, per Doyle’s sardonic guidance. Karl then sits down at the kitchen table for biscuits with mustard while waiting for the police to arrive.

We don’t see the aftermath, but are left to assume some level of redemption, at least from the immediate straits; prior to sanctioning Doyle, Karl sends Frank and Linda to stay with Vaughn, and gives them his meager savings. Karl may intend for this to be a relatively permanent arrangement; while arranging the immediate logistics, he makes a number of larger points. As if in answer to a previous, long-winded and complex explanation from Vaughn of the internal and external struggles of a homosexual in a small town, Karl starkly declares, “The Bible says two men ought not lay together. But I'll bet you the Good Lord wouldn't send nobody like you to Hades;” also: “you take good care of that boy.”

In the final scene, we witness redemption for Karl as well, at least in a limited sense relative to his baseline, through his resolution of issues, both with Frank’s family, and with his early life. He is back in the mental hospital again, this time, it would appear, for good. The perverted mental patient from the opening scene questions Karl on his experiences outside, and interprets them through his own depraved thought processes. He proceeds to launch into the same kind of lurid, nonsensical diatribe as in the opening scene, whereupon Karl stops him cold – “Don't you say another word to me. I ain't listenin' to you no more.”

So again, the question, who is Sling Blade?

Since you’re probably reading this on a computer, and most computers nowadays have flat screens with non-glossy surfaces, try this: Close all the windows, and set your display to have a black background. If the desktop is full of icons, you may want to push them aside. Now look square into the screen and you should be able to see a shadowy, distorted reflection of yourself.

There’s your answer.

Shoot Your TV

I don't consider myself a prude, never have been, hopefully never will be. Of those of you who know me personally, can I get a witness? Those of you who don't, well, consider yourselves lucky!

I've never been to a Hooters restaurant, and don't plan to in the future. Why? Not for prude reasons to be sure, but philosopical ones - their business model insults what little intelligence I have, so I don’t play their game. The unassailable Mrs. Bruck might be offended by the overt eye candy, so my choice not to go there is partially out of respect for her sensibilities, but what really offends me is the prospect that by doing business with them I'm tacitly conceding that I'm such a loser that I need to pay a pretty girl to talk to me. And from what I've heard, the food there isn't that great either. By contrast, there's a Polish restaurant in Hamtramck, MI that I absolutely love. The waitresses there all look like porn stars, leading me to wonder if food delivery is just one of the services they offer, but be that as it may, I go there for their fantastic dill pickle soup and other tradtional Polish fare. And I would still go there if their waitresses looked like Helen Thomas with a hangover. But I digress.

When the first child of Bruck was born in the early 90's we made a concious commitment to turn off the TV. We still own one (it’s about as old as the first COB), and watching broadcast or cable TV isn't taboo in our household; we just made TV, or I should say the regular watching thereof, not a part of our lives. Why? Again, a philosophical reason: it's important to pay attention to who gets to put stuff into our kids' (and our, for that matter) brains on a regular basis. We decided that TV producers and executives should not be on the short list.

What have we missed? Not much, I've found. A few clever sitcoms, some history and nature shows on cable TV, lots of commercials. I've had variants of the following conversation more times than I can remember:

"Did you see ______ last night (TV show or commercial)?"
"No."
…more conversation, etc.
"Did you see last week's episode of _______ ?"
"No, I really don't watch much TV, just the occasional sporting event."
"Oh, that's good, yeah, that's a good idea. I should do that."
…more conversation…
"Did you see _______ when so-and-so did such-and-such?"

And what have we gained? A lot more time, and I do mean a lot. Add up the number of hours you spend with your head in the technicolor sewer and you'll see what I mean.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a complete non-TV-user. I watch some sports (go Wings!), and occasionally watch episodes of The Office on the internet. And yes, I do recognize that there is a certain amount of positive programming out there. I'm just saying, think about the average level of enjoyment and fulfillment you get from X hours TV hypnosis vs. the same time spent in a creative, constructive pursuit and I think you'll see where I’m coming from.

Up to this point, I've taken my usual position of hey, it's my decision, my life, not yours; I don't presume to impose my values upon those who hold different ones, go ahead and watch the idiot box till your brain fries to a crisp for all I care.

Well not anymore. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Turn it off now. Better yet, take it out back and shoot it (in accordance with all applicable laws, restrictions, and ordinances), lest anyone else get the bright idea of plugging it in somewhere else and turning it on! Okay, okay, I know, you watch a lot of DVDs on the TV as well, and you just paid $1700.00 for a 49" HD plasma orgasmatron flat panel. At least you could take a BB gun and shoot the cable/antenna jack, is that too much to ask?

Why the change of heart, Bruck? Well, several weeks ago, I was looking for the Wings game and came across a rather sickening show. I don't know what show it was, and I wasn't going to hang around long enough to find out. In the first scene I saw, there was a young, presumably hetero woman at a social event dominated by lesbians, in which she was explaining, in a somewhat apologetic tone that she felt some kind of connection with the female spirit. The smart, sassy lesbian to whom she was explaining this replied, "if you don't [reference to oral sex], you're not a lesbian," at which point the young woman looked stricken and dismayed - obviously she didn't measure up to that standard! In the next scene, hetero sex was being simulated in a bed, with certain body parts strategically hidden, between two adults, the male of which was simultaneously viewing pornography on a bedside TV. The woman got all huffy when he tried to rewind the tape, and forced him to decide between her and the porn, whereupon he chose the latter. And this was during prime time on a broadcast TV channel, not a "premium" cable channel! Gee, Bruck it sounds like you took quite a big sample. Not really - the scenes I described represented about 15 seconds' worth of programming. Again, I don't consider myself to be a prude; it takes a lot to offend my sensibilities, but in 15 seconds, they managed to pull it off.

But they also gave me an epiphany. The writers and producers of these shows, and the executives that decide to air them are not good people. Hear me? They are NOT GOOD PEOPLE. It would be illegal (except in Alaska), but certainly not immoral or unethical to shoot them, therefore I'm recommending that you shoot your TV instead (in accordance with all applicable laws, restrictions, and ordinances). Since we can't stem the filth at the source, we can at least stop it at the output.

Let me digress into a little operational tradecraft for you. People do things based on what they think, and their thinking is based on what they see (/hear, etc.). This is the “See-Think-Do” cycle of human behavior. In order to manipulate a person’s actions and behavior, i.e., get them to “do” something, you have to consider what they would have to be thinking. Then you have to determine what they would need to see or hear (and not see / not hear) in order to motivate that thinking. This is the “Do-Think-See” cycle of behavior manipulation. Now consider who (see above paragraph) is controlling the “See” component of this cycle. Does it make a bit more sense now? And does the argument “I don’t let it affect me” seem just a bit more spurious? Bottom line: I don’t want my family programmed by these diabolical monsters, and frankly, I’m not too keen on having to share precious oxygen with people who are.

The few remaining users of broadcast TV are undoubtedly aware of the changeover from analog to digital TV occuring this year. It's a big topic in my radio club, since everything that goes through the air is some form of radio. When asked if I've made the conversion to digital, my standard answer is, "no." If pressed, I'll offer, "I don't really watch TV. I can get a few channels by patching into the cable modem." But what I'm thinking is, geez, that's like the DEA mandating that all old crack pipes are obsolete and junkies all need to upgrade to the new crack pipe!

And for those of you who don’t own a gun, or live in an area where the 2^nd Amendment does not apply to appliances, I suggest dropping your TV into a barrel of acid – I think that would work just as well.

Cops Zap Naked Intruder

…blared the title of a front page story in my Thursday News & Messenger, the newspaper of record for central Prince William County, home of two major Civil War battles and Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt. The online version (under a different title, byline, and date) can be found at:

http://www2.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/naked_intruder_tased_in_manassas/39917/

The short story is, a guy busts into an apparent stranger’s house in his birthday suit in the wee hours of the morning. He proceeds to awaken a man sleeping on the couch with a disjointed and profane soliloquy, whereupon the formerly sleeping man requests that he leave and summons police. The police arrive to find the scene as described, only with the naked, Tourette’s-suffering orator locked outside on the back porch and still in a pet. The police see fit to tase him into submission, whereupon they arrest him on numerous charges. He is currently lodged in the Prince William County jail, clothed, and being held without bond pending an 8 September hearing.

The print version of the article was more interesting, as it cited other stories of naked intruders and similar capers, introducing the topic expansion with poignant clarity: “It’s not often that law enforcement agencies in the region have had to tase a naked man…” One charming story told of a naked man in Florida (go figure) who defecated in, then slept in, a stolen truck, and was awoken and tased by police. I’m picturing young cadets nearing graduation from Police Academy: “Please, dear God, don’t let them assign me anywhere in Florida!” Another, somewhat more complex situation unfolded in New York, in which a naked man on a ledge 10’ above the ground fell to his death (ten feet?) after being tased by police. Good thing they didn’t shoot him! But it’s okay, the article seems to imply, as the man had exhibited suicidal behavior earlier in the day.

But let’s get back to our local naked intruder. So many questions left unanswered!

Like, which body part did the police tase? And did it cause shrinking or swelling?

What combination of drugs, alcohol, and daytime TV talk shows led him to this behavior?

And where was General Butt Naked? Where is General Butt Naked now, anyway? And what about Neil Patrick Harris?

First the easy one: Neil Patrick Harris (former child TV star who played Doogie Howser, MD in a show by the same name) currently lives in the Los Angeles area. He has been acting in plays and movies of late, and performing as an amateur magician. I last noticed him playing a sleazy party animal in “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle,” a ribald 2004 buddy movie. He hasn’t been in anything real big since “Doogie Howser,” and occasionally makes appearances at various entertainment industry events, his gay lover at his side.

General Butt Naked

Joshua Milton Blahyi was never formally commissioned as a General in any legitimate armed force. Therefore I encourage you to use air quotes when you cite the word General in the psuedonym that he adoped for himself as a militia leader during Liberia’s 1980’s and 90’s civil war.

General Butt Naked led his Butt Naked Brigade of ragtag teenaged mercenaries against various warring factions on behalf of Roosevelt Johnson, one of Liberia’s many warlords vying for power following a coup that ousted President Samuel Doe in 1994. I may be playing somewhat fast and loose with the historical details, but believe me, after the next few paragraphs, that will be the least of your concerns.

Liberia’s coups and civil wars have seen numerous self-appointed Generals, many of whom tended toward extreme behavior and sported colorful names, but none were quite as memorable as Joshua “General Butt Naked” Blahyi. Blahyi applied a combinaiton of African superstition and psy-ops in his battle strategies: He would engage his enemies wearing nothing but tennis shoes, believing that nudity would protect him from harm. Likewise his militia, when not naked themselves, would fight wearing garish and absurd women’s clothing, including bridal gowns and party dresses, sporting colorful wigs and dainty purses which they had looted from recently-attacked villages. They fought fearlessly, believing that this dress would confound the enemy (no kidding!), and even confuse their bullets via their mixed identities.

[note to sensitive readers: it gets ugly at this point]

But this was no powderpuff football cheerleading squad. A hallmark of any successful (i.e., not all dead) African militia is exceptional violence and ruthlessness, and the BN Brigade excelled in these arts. Before a battle they would attempt to appease Satan, under whose protection they believed they were fighting, through human sacrifice and cannibalism, usually of a young person from a nearby village. The Brigade often abused the bodies of their fallen enemies, notably using their heads for soccer balls, and once even placing a human head as the centerpiece of a table set in the middle of a major intersection in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.

Blahyi believes that he was summoned at age 11 by the Devil himself, by telephone, to live a life of violence and bloodshed, including human sacrifice, a ritual in which he purportedly engaged regularly between the ages of 11 and 25. Prior to leading a band of mercenaries in the mid-90’s, Blahyi operated as a tribal priest and armed robber, and claims to have killed more people than he can count.

[okay, you can open your eyes again now]

During a battle in Monrovia, while dressed in full (lack of) battle regalia, the General had a “road-to-Damascus” experience. He claims that God spoke to him directly, informing him that he was a slave to Satan and requesting that he make the switch over to His team. Blahyi is reported to have confessed his sins and repented in a refugee camp in Ghana in 1997, and now preaches the Gospel, clothed, in Monrovia and works with ministries to educate and care for young former soldiers.

I wish I could report a similarly happy ending for our other 3 aforementioned nudists, but, at least for two of them, while there’s life, there’s still time and space for redemption! Perhaps the Prince William County lockup could stand a visit from the former GBN himself next time he’s in town.