Time for a bit of shameless self-promotion this morning.

I submitted The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! for a review over at Bloggy Award. I’m not usually one for reviews and ratings, but I do like the feedback, so I subject myself to it occasionally in the interests of making things better. I managed a three when I submitted at I Talk Two Much, and felt honored and bit confused because they didn’t savage me as they have so many others. I must have caught them on a charitable day, but they did have some constructive criticism which I took to heart. That’s one of the reasons why our blog design changed to what you see today.

If the score at I Talk Too Much was charitable, the score at Bloggy Award almost seems more like a “Boggled Award”. I scored well – certainly much better than I would have scored myself – but, the props were nice and, again, I got some good feedback that I’m working into the blog.

I say all that to say this, stop by Blog Award and read some of the reviews. It’s a great way to repay their service to the blogging community and as a way to discover blogs you may not have stumbled upon by yourself. I also say this – submit yourself to critiquing once in awhile. We can all use it and it can be a rewarding experience, even if you do get savaged.

Think of it this way…if you riled someone to the point they were willing to snuff out your blogging soul, you must be doing something right and that’s as good a lesson as learning from the successes.

Now back to our regular programming, which should already be in progress, but is being slowed because I’m lazy this morning.

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The Poobette in Montreal

Personal insight is a funny thing. More often than not, it’s harder to see things about yourself than for others to see them. This phenomenon isn’t a mystery. The same thing happens in many situations. For example, writers need editors because they’ve plowed the same ground repeatedly and lose sight of what’s most important about the story. The editor can see the holes immediately and help make the story stronger by pointing them out.

Many people go to therapy for help with personal insights. I do. For $85 an hour, you hire a professional friend to listen and reflect the different perspectives on your inner-most thoughts and feelings. This facilitated reflection can bring you to a better understanding of who you are and why you do what you do. But sometimes, hiring a professional friend isn’t necessary. If you pay attention, you can often use examples from real life to help you learn about yourself.

I have a 16-year old daughter. Almost from the time the Poobette was born, she began teaching me things – sometimes unpleasant things, but more often, practical things.

From her, I learned the value of consistency and patience. I learned that if I set expectations early, things were generally pretty smooth. We started taking her to restaurants when she was only weeks old. From the beginning, we made sure she behaved in a way that didn’t disturb others. When she was an infant, that consisted mostly of taking her outside if she needed to cry. When she began understanding concepts, we simply taught her that misbehavior wasn’t OK. When she did act up, Mrs. Poobah or I simply had to say, “Do we have to go outside?” to get immediate results. It worked well and she rarely challenged the limits because we didn’t threaten punishment, we carried it out.

Poobette also taught me things I could use in my job. When she was learning language for the first time I was working on a project to develop a controlled language that made translation easier and cheaper. By watching her progress, I learned many things about how language naturally develops that I could apply to my project. The results live on today as an industry-wide standard in commercial aviation. If I could dedicate the work to anyone, it would be her. Without the insight she provided, I’m not sure that whole idea would’ve worked. Not many kids make those kinds of contributions at three.

The Poobette continues to teach me today. She shows me the value of the things she’s taught me in the past with a close and open relationship in the present. She’s rarely surly or secretive. She appreciates what she has and frequently thanks us, and others, for it. The respect she shows us has also extended itself to her. She sees the value of her life and thoughts and participates in the with a gusto I certainly never had at her age.

So I guess I’d just like to say thanks to her. She’s taught me many more things than I’ve passed to her and that seems such a natural thing now.

Good going kid. I couldn’t have done it without you.

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The long awaited Congressional debate about Iraq was this week. Those who agreed to send in the troops had one more chance to wiggle out of their previous vote or plunge into the whole “cut and run” position. Those who voted against it. Well, they’re probably saying, “I told you so”.

A few have changed their minds – and in light of how viscous the backlash can be, that qualifies as a pretty brave position. One man who changed his mind is John Murtha.

When Murtha’s light came on, he spoke up and has continued speaking ever since. His reward for being smart enough to recognize a mistake when he sees one wasn’t a nice pat on the back and a pleasant letter saying, “John, you’re a good man and thanks for pointing that mistake out.” Instead, the very conservatives he so often sided with in the past attacked him like a pack of wolverines. Overnight, he changed from respected war hero to lilly-livered, liberal, cutter and runner. The backlash was so strong that the verb to be “Murthaed” has now replaced being “Borked”.

Murtha is a strong and knowledgeable man and probably one that I would personally disagree with more often than not. But on the subject of Iraq, I think he’s exactly right. In essence he says, when you do something stupid, fess up and find a way to make it right. Sometimes the mistake is so bad – and I count Iraq as one of them – that there’s no real way to fix it. When that happens, you do the best you can and cut your losses. For the corporate cronies in the executive and legislative branches, this should be instantly recognizable as a valid business decision that CEOs play out all the time.

Maybe they can’t see it because no one gave them a CEO-sized bonus for figuring it out. Who knows.

While I agree with Murtha, his delivery sucks. On the plus side, he takes every opportunity to make his points and it’s clear he’s impassioned about them. The problem is, his oratorical skills aren’t up to the task. What should be an inspiring message about facing failures and making things right gets lost in a sputtering, slightly rabid, and rambling, red-faced rant. He forgets what he wants to say. He stops sentences in the middle and moves in another direction at will. He almost never takes a breath to let anyone else speak. In short, he becomes an easy target for the wingnuts to characterize as another ACLU-loving loon, regardless of whether it’s true or not. He’s the mirror image of Kerry. Kerry’s somnambulant tones and forays into splitting the fine hairs of his positions bored half the people and convinced the rest he was an Alzheimer’s patent on sabbatical from the ward. Murtha rants more like Howard Dean – and you see where that got Howard.

There have been regrettably few political orators in the past few decades. In an effort to talk like the common man, Shrub just ends up sounding like a cowboy at the wrong end of a long trail drive with shit on his boots and dust in his mouth. Clinton was way too long and much too heavy on the “I feel your pain” angle. When you listen to Tree, it’s no secret where Shrub got his public speaking skills. The only things Daddy does better ate the absence of Shrub’s accent and not using the podium like a Serta PerfectSleeper.

Before Bush the Elder, the Great Communicator was Orator-in-Chief. Despite the moniker, he couldn’t deliver a line unless it was on a TelePrompter or whispered in his ear by Nancy. Before Reagan, Carter was long on ideas and short of ways to inspire. Ford never made it to the podium because all the tripping over microphone cords and Nixon looked like what he was, a thief caught with his hand in the till. Before him, Johnson made an effort, but fell short more on the basis of poor content than the lack of oratorical skills.

That brings us to Kennedy. Now Kennedy could talk. He could pluck an idea out of thin air and boil it down to it’s most essential and precious elements. His metaphors were powerful and never over-used. He had the pacing. He had the structure. He had it all. In fact, he was so good that his opponents often left his speeches with tears in their eyes.

So there you have it. Nearly 45 years of mumbled-mouthed politicians. No wonder the quality of civic debate has gone downhill. The speakers can’t speak and the listeners can’t understand.

So where does that leave us with Mr. Murtha?

I guess for now, we’ll take him solely at his content and forgive him the trespasses of his public speaking. Hopefully, people will see the raw passion he projects and be inspired by it, regardless of the delivery. Just because the man can’t talk is no reason to bypass his message.

It’s too important for that.

Cross Posted at Bring It On!

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We had an earthquake this morning. Residents met it mostly with yawns. The 4.7 temblor – I love that word – rattled a small town just south of the Bay Area at 5:24. I didn’t feel it because I was in my car, but it woke up the Poobette. As earthquakes go, it wasn’t a biggie, but I’m sure we’ll have some local news stories reminding us to be prepared for The Big One.

Of course, the Bay Area has earthquakes all the time. It’s even had Big Ones many times before. It’s a fact of life here. Once, while watching a TV news report about a massive Turkish earthquake, we had one. I thought it brought a little more realism to the video cam pictures of shaking office buildings in Ankara.

Bay Area residents are always aware of the danger. Hell, the main reservoir for the city of San Francisco is actually a big crack in the San Andreas fault and Caltrans is still working on damage from the 1989 Big One. You can’t avoid the near-weekly stories about the discovery of a new fault line or a tuned up prediction about when and where the Big One will happen. The fault line maps of the place look like a plate glass window after a riot. Crazy cracks running north and south, separated by only a few miles. There’s no place within 150 miles that is completely safe. When you look at the reality of the map the jokes about California cracking off and drifting away don’t seem so far-fetched.

I live on a hill overlooking the Hayward fault. The experts predict that’s where the next Big One will happen.

That crack lies directly beneath the huge stadium at UC Berkeley. In many places you can see it running down the gutters and cutting across intersections. It’s marked by offset curbs and hairline cracks. A few years ago, one of the local TV stations did a week long series about the Hayward fault. The reporter walked down the fault, stopping to talk to people about the scary proposition of living so near it.

The report consisted mostly of pictures of cracked concrete and shoulder shrugs from interviewees – except one woman. She lived in an aging apartment building sitting directly astride the fault. In fact, a crack representing the fault ran beneath her bed, placing it on one side and her feet on the other. She’d noticed the crack long before, but didn’t think about it much. Upon hearing the cheery news about the crack she said, “Frankly, it scares the hell out of me.” It may have scared the hell out of her, but she didn’t plan to move. She said, “Are you kidding? I can’t find another apartment this cheap in the Bay Area.” As always, economics trump personal danger.

Her reaction is typical for many people living in dangerous places. Residents of them are usually quite aware of the dangers. I’m sure all but the most thickheaded understood the danger to New Orleans, but it didn’t prompt them to move. The world over, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, and assorted other disasters happen and people begin to rebuild while the dust is still in the air.

I don’t think people do this because they are oblivious or think it won’t happen to them. They do it because they can’t afford to up-ass and move. It’s a personal version of a cost/benefit analysis. And as they live there, they take one of two paths, both designed to lower the stress of it all.

The smart ones take reasonable precautions like building an earthquake kit or laying in extra supplies of water. Then they go back to ignoring the Jello in the ground. The less industrious skip the earthquake kits with some gallows humor – what the hell do I care, if it comes I’ll be dead anyway – as they roll over and go back to sleep.

Oops, I guess I have to roll over now. An aftershock just hit. It’s just another day in paradise.

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I’m glad Lt. Dubya is taking advantage of his National Guard flight training. Seeing him supervise the Air Force One crew on approach to Baghdad was almost as stirring a sight as seeing him “land” on an aircraft carrier wearing his best Daddy-Go-to-Photo-Op flight suit.

And how about those photos of White House Disinformation Czar Tony Snow? I’m glad Michael Dukakis didn’t ruin the helmet wearing fun for all the pols. Tony – word – get that damn brain-bucket sized, will ya’? From the looks of it, there’s enough room for an insurgent to stow away under there.

There lots of buzz about the global photo-op, but it really doesn’t amount to much. Daddy Warspendabucks snuck in the back door – uninvited and unannounced – to visit his good friends and close allies, the Iraqis. I’m not sure what the US reaction would be if al-Maliki decided to visit the US in similar fashion, but looking good for the cameras would probably be the least of his worries.

As far as I can tell, the trip was a wash. The folks who think Dub is a grandstanding git got their suspicions reinforced. The dwindling number still supporting the aforementioned git thought it was a stirring display of unity, courage, and a reminder of yet another corner turned in Iraq. The troops either got a day off to go listen to George’s wind blow, or worked an extra shift on the Green Zone .50 cal to protect his sorry ass. George’s photo-ops always have something for everybody.

While the trip had little real or practical value, it did give Dear Leader an opportunity to talk to his titular allies and what he talked about was telling in a Bushian sort of way.

Amidst all the attaboys and picking of nicknames for his new-found friends – I heard he favors “Cousin Couscous” for al Maliki – he managed to remind the Iraqis and anyone else who would listen that the Mess-in-Potamia was an all Iraqi affair. He pledged undying support or pretty words until the mid-term elections – whichever comes first.

So here it is in a nutshell. The Nutty Cowboy sneaks into your country, shows up on your doorstep unannounced like the family’s bad Uncle looking for a loan, and starts telling you that even though he mucked up your country it’s absolutely your place to put things right. Then, he claps you on the back, says “Attaboy Couscous” and flies back to Washington.

Yeah, that seems about like his normal diplomacy to me. I don’t get what all the hubbub is about.

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