RIP B9

Dick Tufeld with The Robot

I remember rushing home from school in the late 60's so that I could catch "Lost in Space" on the local UHF TV station. The early episodes were in black & white and the later ones were in the gaudy, over-saturated colors of the 1960's.

The special effects were pretty bad, the acting was even worse. But it was the only afternoon science fiction I could get; Star Trek was shown in the evening when I had to share the TV with my sisters or my parents (none of whom were fans of the show). Nevertheless, I loved the spaceship, the Jupiter II and - most of all - the Robot.

Mostly he was just called "Robot," but in the scripts and (I think) the original pilot he was technically designated B9 (benign). Whatever you called him, I loved the concept of a helpful and friendly robot.

That was the long way to get to the point that I just found out that the voice of the robot, Dick Tufeld died last week. His voice was distinctive and could be heard on many shows created in the 60's and 70's. He even reprised his voice-over role for the (horrible) 1998 remake of "Lost in Space." Audiences cheered when they heard his voice again after so long.

Now that voice is silenced as is the Robot. Never again will Dick - in the guise of B9 - utter that famous phrase: "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" Farewell, Dick Tufeld. Farewell, Robot.

Life Aint Fair

Conservatives are upset at the number of references to "fair" in the SOTU speech. "Life's not fair!" they claim. On that very narrow point, I agree with them.

But here's where their argument falls apart.

Life is not fair. In a strictly Darwinian sense, life in the jungle, life in the caves, life on the African savannah was not fair. But one of the reasons that we are all here, able to have this conversation, is that our ancestors worked to make life a little more fair. They banded together for protection; they worked together at hunting and gathering - and later at agriculture. They helped the old, the young and the sick not just because it was the "right thing" to do, but also because those who might have been seen as a burden in the days of roaming the savannah were now able to help on the home front.

Just about every societal advancement our ancestors worked so hard to create was in an effort to make life more fair. A conservative commenter on one of my Facebook friend's posts about the SOTU - in reference to fairness - stated "when YOU feed a poor child that's [good], when government does it that is... evil."Really? When only the government has the resources to reach all of those in need, even then their feeding of a hungry child is evil?

I want to live in a fair society. When conservatives can look around the ideological blinders even they want to live in a fair society. Can anyone really imagine that they want to live in a truly Darwinian society where only the strong survive?

Let's Try This Again...

News of my demise is greatly exaggerated.

The last time I wrote an "I'm back!" post, I really thought I'd be able to keep up with The Fulcrum again. The job I found, and worked at for nearly a year and a half, wound up taking almost literally all of my time. Working 10 hour days was common; weekends too. Even holidays were not safe from it's reach.

Now I'm back on the job-hunt. And there's an election coming up. And there's so much to discuss.

This time I really do mean to post here - and keep posting. I'm working on my blog roll; if I've left off someone important, I apologize. The new Blogger templates and editing tools are taking some adjustment. 

Let's see how it goes!

Americans Are Stupid

A community center is not a mosque. Yet liberals have allowed the Tea Baggers and the rest of the xenophobes on the right to frame the discussion around a "mosque at Ground Zero." As Keith Olbermann stated, it's not a mosque and it's not at Ground Zero. But Keith is the only person of note saying so.

If the (absolute) least common denominator gets to set the frame how is it possible to have an intelligent conversation?

Taking To The Streets?

This post on Tom Dispatch by Bill McKibben is worth the read. Why aren't more people enraged by the lack of progress on Global Warming?

McKibben lays out 3 things that need to be done to move forward in a meaningful way on what is literally a life and death issue. One of those things is that we're going to have to get loud; we may have to get arrested. His last paragraph:

Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.

It's a Jungle Out There

I recently attended a briefing about a company here in the Rochester area that I'd like to work for. They are a relatively new company with a great product. I've read recently that the economy is - slowly - turning around, but I've also heard that so far this is a "jobless recovery."

There's a phrase that belongs in the Oxymoron Dictionary.

In any case, the HR director for this company stated that for every position they post an opening for they receive between 150 and 250 applications. That is not out of line with what I've heard from other companies in the area.

So here's a question: Can there really be such a thing as a "jobless recovery?" How sustainable are corporate profits when so many of the consumers they depend upon for those profits are unemployed or under-employed?

Back From the Dead

On January 24th of 2009, I almost died.

A patch of black ice in the middle of the road ended an otherwise ordinary winter weekend in upstate New York. My Honda CR-V crossed the center line and hit, head-on, a logging truck.

I don't remember anything until about two days later. I spent two weeks recovering in the hospital, spent a month in a wheel chair and then another month on crutches. There was lots of pain, physical therapy, drugs, and the joys of withdrawal from pain medication.

Today I walk at least 2 miles a day, ride my bike, golf and am pretty much back to normal. I was very - very - lucky.

That was the start of my hiatus from The Fulcrum.

After going back to work, about a year after my accident - and the day before my birthday - I was "downsized" from my job with a company I'd been with for 17 years. That served to prolong the hiatus. But now that I'm well established in my job search, I've decided that I have a little bit of time during the week to blog again.

So now I'm back; and there are so many things to talk about!

Is There Anybody Out There?

It's been over a year and a half since I last posted to this blog.

I was curious to see that there are still an average of 19 visits per day here. So... who's out there still stopping by? Leave a comment and let me know. Maybe it's time to resurrect The Fulcrum!

Office Holiday Party From Hell

The holidays are stressful enough, even in the best economic times. This year, with the economy tanking in the third and fourth quarters, pink slips are just as likely to show up in your company distribution as a holiday card. With the down turn being so horrible in so many industries, we can probably be expecting to see a lot more stories like this:

A man has been charged with first-degree murder after a shooting at an office Christmas party in Vancouver Friday.

Police allege Eric Allen Kirkpatrick, 61, opened fire at the TallGrass Distribution Ltd Christmas party, killing Benjamin David Banky, 40.

Banky was the CEO of TallGrass Distribution Ltd., a natural health products company.

At least a dozen employees had been celebrating when the gunman, who had been recently laid off, entered the party and began firing a gun, according to Vancouver Police spokesperson Const. Tim Fanning.

Emphasis mine

CEOs and other "highly compensated" company officers, trying to glad-hand at the office or at parties while the average worker is wondering whether or not they'll be able to afford food for the holidays, much less gifts for their kids, are going to be natural targets for the least stable among us.

Cannon Fodder

The actual term is archaic; it first described those front line soldiers, in the time of linear warfare, who marched straight into cannon fire during an attack. Unfortunately the phrase has never been given the time to truly fall into disuse. And BushCo. have done their best to make sure it didn't go out of style in their time.

That most dangerous and feared weapon of the insurgents in Iraq and now, more and more, Afghanistan is the IED - Improvised Explosive Device. Those soldiers caught in the blast of such a device - the ones not killed outright - are left with broken or missing limbs and faces and with permanent, debilitating brain injuries.

But BushCo. has repeatedly said - about many things - "we couldn't have known!" And, after all, you have to go to war with the military you have, right? But every time they've uttered those words, it's turned out to be a lie. This time is no different.

The Pentagon "was aware of the threat posed by mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) … and of the availability of mine resistant vehicles years before insurgent actions began in Iraq in 2003," says the 72-page report, which was reviewed by USA TODAY.

[snip]

Marine Corps leaders "stopped processing" an urgent request in February 2005 for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles from combat commanders in Iraq's Anbar province after declaring that a more heavily armored version of existing Humvee vehicles was the "best available" option for protecting troops, the report says.

Why would Marine "leaders" stop processing such an urgent request from their comrades in the field? I've known lots of Marines and the only thing that would keep them from helping a fellow Marine is pressure from the top. Lots of pressure. Remember that BushCo. was still suffering under the delusion that they could prosecute two wars on the cheap and could "transform" the military into a lighter, more deployable force. I'm sure there was plenty of pressure to keep costs down and to keep materiel as light as possible. No matter the human cost.

Add this to the way-too-long list of stories you can tell your conservative friends who still believe the lie that Republicans "support the troops."

Cluster Bomb Cluster F*ck

The U.S., once again, thumbs its nose at the international community (along with, surprise, Russia) by refusing to ratify or even attend talks on a treaty to prohibit the use of cluster bombs. To quote perhaps the most germaine line in the article:

But that kind of warfare has become obsolete, he (Ollie Pile, an operations manager with de-mining charity The Halo Trust) said, and cluster munitions have outlived their purpose.

As an ex-military officer, I remember planning for the use of these weapons; it was always against advancing massed infantry or armor or to take out an area target such as an airfield or munitions depot. At the time, I loved them because they did lots of damage with little risk to my troops. The problem is, that type of warfare is most likely extinct. And, like all man-made devices, there is a definite failure rate; leaving unexploded, but still quite live, munitions lying about for civilians to find...

I think it's time for us - with or without Russia - to join the rest of the civilized world and ban the use of these weapons. Perhaps President Obama will have different ideas on our place in the world in cases like these.