.cross.wired.mind.

I have located a site that MUST be the source of information on the Internet used by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).  I could be wrong (of course I am this is a joke after all) but the similarity is pretty creepy.

Sensationalist headline?  Nope.  From the body that brought you “sending internets through a series of tubes” brings you this little gem of a bill.  Yes.  They want to block any site that has you create a user profile and to which you can contribute content.  The group that still does not understand the fundamentals of the Net is seeking to ban all forms of Web 2.0 from schools and libraries.  A move to Canada is looking better and better all the time.  Speaking of which, the high today in Vancouver is 63 compared to our 100+. Hmmmmm.

Sorta related to my last post I found this tidbit on the Register about the criminalization of meta tag abuse.  I wonder how long it will be before this extends to the world of business and the general manipulation of search engine trafic.

One of the greatest things about the Internet (other than it being tubes rather than a dump truck) is that you can be your true self.  You do not have to worry about feeling out of place or rejected because you can remain anonymous and find your niche.

The trouble is that some people use that anonymity as an excuse to cause problems for the rest of us.  This goes beyond trolling, though that is a major problem.  Anonymity combined with powerful social software tools allow individuals to slander, libel, harass, and bring harm to others without repercussion or accountability.

Now, I know what your thinking – INVASION OF PRIVACY!  No.  There is a difference between privacy and anonymity. I am all for privacy, but if an individual causes serious disruption and damage to a forum, blog, wiki, or online game there needs to be some form of accountability.

The reason we have a police force is to ensure that 95% of us can live our lives while the 5% that would seek illicit gain or do harm to us are held accountable when they do.  Police in the real world have the ability to pierce the veil of privacy to discover the identities of perpetrators of crime.  Legal accountability is only possible because we have no real world anonymity.

Let’s look at gaming.  When Halo 2 came out I was ready with my new xbox live subscription.  I was looking forward to playing multi-player online games any time of day with people from all over the world.  Within a few short months it became clear that Halo 2 on xbox live was being ruined by cheaters, modders, hackers, and abusers.  There is nothing more frustrating than playing a serious, ranked match only to have one of your team mates turn on you or start to commit suicide to lower their rank because they are tired of playing challenging games and would prefer lower their rank so they can paWn n00bz.   To their credit xbox live has the ability to track down offenders and get them kicked off the system but nothing prevents these no-goodniks from jumping right back on with a new account.

I understand that the actions of cheaters in an online game does not rise to the level of a risk to life and limb but Net anonymity facilitates real crime too.  People are using Craig’s List to find victims to rob.  Email fraud, phishing, identity theft, sexual harassment, stalking, and worse are now on the rise because anyone can go online with complete anonymity commit crimes with little hope of actual accountability.

If there was a mechanism to map an individual’s online identity to an individual’s real world identity then he or she could be held accountable for his or her actions.  Then the 95% would be able to live, work, and play online safe from the crap thrown at us by the 5%.

Let’s keep identity privacy.  But anonymity should be a privilege that can be lost when laws, or the rules of conduct, are broken.

Did you know that division is sinful?  No I am not talking about the mathmatical operation (though long division is definitely evil).

As I have been reflecting on faith and politics it came to me that I should take a look at the source most often quoted by the current administration (and evangelical politicians of every stripe) when it comes to the moral justification for the actions they undertake on behalf of the United States’ body politic.

I decided to go to the Bible and see what I could find that has given the religious right the motivation to wage war, cut funding for the social services directed towards those at or near the poverty line, and to generally favor the wealthiest of citizens and corporate interests over the vast majority of us that are not a part of the upper class.

What I found was quite at odds with what I have witnessed over the years,

I started at the base - what about faith?  What is it?  How does it work?  This is what I found:

James 2:14-26

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Ok.  Got it - faith does not function if you do not act in accordance with faith.  Isn’t that what the politicians from the religious right do?  They believe they act out of faith.  But what should a person of faith actually do.  What virtues should a person of faith manifest?

Here is what I found:

Galatians 5:16-26

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

So we are not supposed to foster discord or promote factionalism.  Isn’t that the very heart of partisan politics?  Division is an aspect of a sinful nature.  There it is.  If faith is to be alive then the fruits of the spirit, according to the Bible, must be made the center of our works.

So how will God judge us when all is said and done?  Well, according to the Bible God has a pretty good test - and this is a test for which we already have the answers. 

Matthew 25:31-46

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

So why don’t we just do this?  Why is it so hard to do?  Why do we insist on acting like goats?

Now, I believe that heaven and hell are states of mind and not literal physical places so this takes on a very different meaning but still - the New Testament is filled with these gems.  If those that claimed to be devout and pious Christians just followed these three quotes could you imagine how different our political situation would be right now?

A couple of weeks ago I was in the back yard with my dogs.  It was moments after the sun had set and the light was beginning to become muted.  I had a flash back - a powerful resurgence of an image that was a constant in my life until October 2000.

The image bubbling up from the depths of emotional and sensory memory was that of my father sitting in my old back yard in the early evening in mid summer watching the trees sway in the wooded lot behind my childhood home.  His ever-present portable radio sitting next to him tuned to WPEN - Frank Sinatra’s vocal stylings softly permeating the air.

My father would sit in his lawn chair for hours, the very essence of contentment.

My father did not live a life that would be considered great if it were measured by the common standards of wealth or fame.  He did not live a life of purpose compared to those whose sacrifice transcends to that of living martyrdom.  But make no mistake, my father was a great man and he lived a life of purpose.

Before he passed we spent hours going through his bureau drawers and the collection of odds and ends that had long ago displaced the clothing which had originally been there.  He took great pride in showing me dozens of pins he had received from the years spent working as an electrical engineer at the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia.  Each pin represented a month of work with zero defects in his work.  He had at least six for each year and one or two for entire years without defects.  But the reason he took such great pride in his work was not the awards but the esteem of his colleagues.

In the early 1980’s I went to “family night” at the company he joined after the arsenal closed.  By the time we had toured the facility and arrived at his work bench it became clear that he was truly liked and admired by his co-workers and his manager.  He took great joy and pride from doing what he loved with excellence.  He was not always the easiest man to get along with but tales of his exploits were always told with a wink and a smile.  He looked out for his crew.  He stood up to management, and always spoke his mind.  My father never hid behind false civility or the conjured façade of workplace politics. He did his work with an eye towards true excellence and opposed any barrier that stood in the way of it.  He did this not for himself, but for everyone he worked with.

It cost him promotions.  It cost him raises.  But he never compromised his own integrity and the goal of excellence just to climb some corporate ladder.  He went to work as if each day was his last.  He lived his life content that he had kept true to himself.  When he came home from work, and later when he retired, he could look back and be satisfied.  His “superiors” may have wanted him to conform to their vision of a model employee in a harmonious workplace, but that was not who my father was.  He was his own man.  He knew what mattered in life.  He lived with purpose and reaped the rewards of satisfaction. 

He earned the right to doze in his lawn chair on a mid-summer’s evening, listen to radio, and watch the leaves rustle in the wind.

Here is a bit from a column in USA Today:

“Soccer in America has had every chance. We reject soccer, that’s fair to say,” says sports pundit Frank Deford, who is happy to lay out the reasons soccer causes him to hold his nose. “There’s not enough scoring, and ties make no sense.”

This World Cup isn’t helping the pro-soccer cause. Two elimination games have been decided on penalty kicks after zero goals in 120 minutes of play; the tournament has posted a 2.36 goals-per-game average, the lowest since 1990.

Deford isn’t finished. “There’s really a lack of proficiency in the game. God didn’t intend for us to use our feet and our heads. Though what soccer players do with their feet and their heads is extraordinary, it is in the same way that spinning plates is extraordinary.”

And don’t get him started on soccer’s offside rule, which prevents attacking players from standing any closer to the opposing goal than the other team’s last defender.

“That’s simply un-American,” Deford says. “We’re all about forward, forward, forward, in sports and in our society. From the 19th century onward, we have not taken to soccer. It’s almost as if it’s not in our DNA to like it.”

Ok. Let’s take this point by pointless point

“Soccer in America has had every chance. We reject soccer, that’s fair to say,”

Uh, no.  In 1990 I knew 2 other people who knew anything about soccer.  My bud Mark whom I watched matches with and our friend Marco who is an Arsenal supporter.  In 2006 I am literally surrounded by people who discovered the game since 1990. 

In 1992 I wore my Manchester United jerseys to school and to the mall and the only people that said anything had foreign accents, and I NEVER saw ANYONE ELSE wearing any soccer paraphernalia of any kind.  In 2006 you cannot go to the mall without seeing at least 3 or 4 people with Arsenal, Man Utd, MLS, US Nats, Brasil, or some other soccer colors.

In 1992 there was one channel showing any form of soccer at all and even then it was just some highlight shows.  In 2006 I cannot physically watch all of the soccer available to me.  Between ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Soccer Channel, Gol TV, Setanta Sports, Univision, Galavision, Telemundo, and Pay-Per-View there are easily dozens of live matches every week from nearly a dozen countries.  I can even watch the Guatamalan league IN ENGLISH if I wanted to.

In 1993 the only professional league here in the US was a local semi-pro team that got 600 to 1500 fans per match.  Today we have a true pro league that is over 10 years old that averages 15,000 fans per match.  In 1990 we had ZERO American players (well near zero anyway) playing in top flight professional leagues around the world.  Today we have dozens of players in the top tiers in England, Germany, Holland, Norway, and more.  There is an entire site dedicated to tracking our players overseas.

Verdict - Frank Deford earns 1 idiot point.

“There’s not enough scoring, and ties make no sense.”

What?  This is the man who praises the no-hitter as a marvel of baseball.  Frank - a no hitter means that NOTHING HAPPENED!  Egads.  Ok let’s do a comparision what is the average number of touch downs per NFL game? Last season it was 4.4.  Last season in the English Premier League the average was 3.75 goals per match.  Apparently .65 is a big difference to Frank.  Unless he is a fan of the field goal.

Ties make no sense?  Here is what makes no sense.  Football games are typically won in overtime by the coin toss.  The team that wins the toss typically drives close enough to score a field goal and the game ends.  How does that make sense?  Oh, Frank is a baseball fan.  He likes games that go until 3 freaking AM because ties make no sense.  No Frank - watching a baseball game for 8 hours makes no sense.

2 more idiot points in the bag - Frank now has 3 idiot points.  He’s earned his hat trick.

“There’s really a lack of proficiency in the game. God didn’t intend for us to use our feet and our heads. Though what soccer players do with their feet and their heads is extraordinary, it is in the same way that spinning plates is extraordinary.”

WTF?  Has he watched Zidane when he has the ball at his feet?  Has he seen Joe Cole’s goal from the first round?  Did he see Henry’s goal vs Brasil?  Heck - did he see Demarcus Beasly set up Clint Dempsy with a perfect pass to score our only real goal of the tournament?  Back in 1994 a friend of mine was in the hotel where the Brazilian Nats were staying.  They were playing the soccer equivalent of hackey sack with a Dixie Cup.  Yes a little plastic cup.  Lack of proficiency?  Now that statement is just blind ignorance.

Frank Deford scores another brace - 2 more idiot points for Frank for a total of 5 idiot points.

And don’t get him started on soccer’s offside rule, which prevents attacking players from standing any closer to the opposing goal than the other team’s last defender.

“That’s simply un-American,” Deford says. “We’re all about forward, forward, forward, in sports and in our society. From the 19th century onward, we have not taken to soccer. It’s almost as if it’s not in our DNA to like it.”

What a block head.  American sports are laden with rule that slow down the offense.  There is offsides in hockey.  Three strikes in baseball, offsides in football, offensive fouls in basketball and the list goes on and on.  No Frank - American sports are about forward, stop play, forward, stop play for a commercial, forward unless a foul is called, forward, another commercial.  Soccer is always moving with true stoppages for subs, fouls, and injuries only.  There is more actual play time in soccer than in ANY “American” sport.

Frank gets 2 more idiot points to bring his total to 7 and he gets 10 bonus idiot points for the xenophobic/nearly racist DNA comment.

Frank Deford - you are an idiot, that’s fair to say.