Books? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Books!

Link to CBS News Story

Bye, Bye, Library
AUSTIN, TEXAS, August 23, 2005

This story was written by Kris Axtman.

When students wander into the former undergraduate library at the University of Texas this fall, gone will be the "Quiet Please" signs, the ban on cheeseburgers or sodas, the sight of solemn librarians restocking books.

The fact is, there will be no more books to restock. The UT library is undergoing a radical change, becoming more of a social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse than a dusty, whisper-filled hall of records. And to make that happen, the undergraduate collection of books had to go.

I'll admit it - I haven't had my second cuppa joe yet this morning. But I don't think that restarting my heart is going to cut down on the throbbing I am feeling in my head right at this moment. No books? No books? Am I going MAD, or did they just say they have a library with NO BOOKS? A coffeehouse? A coffeehouse? I know many bookstores have coffeeshops inside them, I understand the connection between coffee and books, but what wunderkind thought up the idea of just, you know, getting rid of all the books? More room for coffee that way? Was there a dearth of coffee space? Were the dusty pages of literature smelling up the place? Ruining the aroma of fine-brewed stank-bean coffee mixed with lemon-lime with a twist and a foamed non-fat skim freeze dried llama milk whitener and a big fat peppermint floating on top, perhaps?

"For most children coming of age today, information and information technology are really merging so that they don't see any disconnect between the two," says Frances Jacobson Harris, author of "I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online."

They may not see any freaking disconnect, but I assure you that there is a freaking disconnect! For one thing - although there is a huge amount of information available online, the books that have not yet passed into the public domain, which would be most of the books written in the last 100 years or so, are not online. So you can't read them online. You read the book or you don't read them at all. I'd call that a freaking disconnect, wouldn't you?

To underscore that point, last week a new public high school in Vail, Ariz., become one of the first to opt out of supplying textbooks altogether in the hopes that students will be more engaged in learning. Especially designed as a textbook-free environment, all students were assigned laptops instead and will read and turn in most homework online.

You freaking morons! I'm a computer geek, I love computers, I love the Internet, I was an early adopter (BBS in 1985, first Internet dial up account in 1987, first Usenet post Feb 23, 1990, for crying out loud). But I know this much - it is MUCH HARDER to change history when there are printed books laying about that say differently. When all the information is digital, it can all be changed. All of it. You don't have to be particularly paranoid to see the problem there, do you?

At UT, the biggest challenge has been changing antiquated notions of a library's role in learning. "While most people have been hugely supportive of this idea, some have been sort of grieving over this iconic loss of the undergraduate library. I think what they are really grieving is the passing of the book as the means of scholarly communication," says Fred Heath, vice provost for the general libraries, adding that UT is the nation's fifth-largest academic library with more than 8 million volumes.

No, Fred, you mouth-breathing zipperhead. I love technology. Appropriate technology. You show me the digital version, the online version, of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," or "Henderson, the Rain King," or "The Stranger," or the collected works of Phillip K. Dick or Charles Bukowski, you dingbat!

I'm not "grieving over the passing of the book" you earwig-for-brains, I'm grieving over the fact that there is no one-for-one transference!

But what of the serendipity that comes from browsing the stacks? Librarians say that can now be done online as well with bibliographical weblinks, but this new age won't preclude books completely. "There are millions of students reading Harry Potter [books]," says Ms. Harris. "The difference is they might ... share their tidbits in a blog. The online library world has room for all of that."

Oh, well I'm freaking glad to hear that. Thank God for Harry Freaking Potter and the millions of fans who wait in eager anticipation for each new release. Well, I'm not going to bother actually reading them - what a waste of time that would be! Instead, I'll wait for the snippets and commentary to appear in blogs written by mental giants, of whom I stand in the exact opposite of awe (which hasn't a name that I can find, by the way, somebody help me with that one, please).

Everything I need to know, I learned from reading a freaking blog? Well, hooray for me! Woop-de-freaking-do! I love blogging. I love reading blogs. I love my blog, I love your blog, hell, I even love the ones I hate! I think blogs are a very cool new tool for peace, love, and understanding or something. But they ain't a substitute for actual learning. Which you get from reading books.

More and more, day by day, I feel the itch, the burning desire, to be in the vicinity of one of these cerebral poptarts when the timer goes off and up pops their contribution to endarkenment and misunderstanding. I want to see it happen right in front of me, and then I want to scamper away at high speed, laughing maniacally, clutching their severed babbling head under my sweaty arm like an evil football.

Yes, that would be fun. Argh.

That is all,

Wiggy

Gotta Be Cerious

Got home from my photography club meeting late tonight. Just got settled in, grabbed a brewski, and the neighbors were at the door. Same neighbors as the ones I broke their window out with my rocket-powered rock-flinger and lawn edger, is what.

"Come quick, come quick, grab your camera and come quick!" they shouted at me. I grabbed my camera and hit the door.

Turns out, they found some kinda plant growing in a pot under a bush in front of their house and fished it out. Looked kinda scraggly, kinda like Audrey from "Little Shop of Horrors." No, strike that - it looked a LOT like Audrey. One bloom, at the end of a weird swooping vine that went up, down, and sideways. Otherwise, it looked like some kind of nuclear mutant plant. But the flower itself was beautiful!

It is called a "Night Blooming Cerious" or Epiphyllum oxypetalum. It is a member of the cactus family, but it doesn't look like one. Pretty amazing bloom. Hypnotizingly beautiful, is what. I could have stared at it all night.

Here it is, in all the glory I could manage to record:

I am told that these are incredibly rare - like a once in a lifetime event for most folks. The neighbors said the flower opened up about an hour before they came and got me, and they were told by friends of theirs that it would be closed up again in a just a few hours. Pretty amazing. Glad Mrs. Wiggy and I got to see it.

Well, gotta finish my beer and toddle off to bed. Just wanted to share that with ya.

Best,

Wiggy

PS - And just for fun, I thought I'd try this:

Wigwam Jones Cafepress Store

Do you love it? Yes, you do. I am about to get all Wiggy with this new discovery. More later. Many smooches.

The Post Office Rant

I need to vent - again. It's about the US Postal Service - again. Feel free to skip this if you don't care for demonstrations of full-on, feet kicking, steam coming out the ears anger.

***

Still here? OK, let's get started. Here's some back-story:

In June, 2004, Mrs. Wiggy and I bought a house in a historic district of Wilson, NC. Ours is a happy 1923 bungalow with a big porch and wood floors and high ceilings, just right for three neurotic cats and two loopy linoleum-eating dogs and a pair of escaped lunatics from parts elsewhere.

One of the first visitors to our abode was the postal carrier. We thought he was introducing himself - how nice! Instead, he handed us a form letter that informed us that the US Post Office required us to install a mailbox on the street, as opposed to the mailbox that was currently on our front porch. That type of delivery (porch) was going away, and the Post Office wanted to save time and energy by delivering to the street and not having to get out of their right-hand drive vehicles.

We were the only people on our block to be so required, but the letter carrier explained that sooner or later, all the residents of our street would be converted. As people sold their houses and moved out, new residents would have to do as we were required to do. Ah. Lovely.

So, it was raining when we moved in. And it kept raining for a few weeks after that. I didn't feel like digging a post hole in the mud and rain to put up a mailbox, so I waited for better weather. And we continued to get mail in our mailbox on the porch, so I figured it was no big deal to do it right away.

But I was wrong. We began to notice that none of the mail being delivered to our house was actually for us. Most of it was for the former owners of the house, some was for 'occupant' and some of it was simply misrouted mail that belonged to other people. Since we had just moved in, we assumed for awhile that our own mail had just not caught up with us yet, but after two weeks, we began to get suspicious.

We went to the Post Office and it turned out that they were holding our mail for us there. A huge stack of mail, it was. Some forwarded from our old address in New Mexico, some addressed to our new address in Wilson, but none of it delivered to us.

We were never told that the Post Office was not going to deliver our mail. We were getting mail, just not OUR mail, so we had no reason to believe that we the Post Office was holding our mail. If we hadn't finally gotten suspicious and gone and checked it ourselves, I suppose we'd still have a mountain of mail at the local Post Office. They'd have a special "Wigwam Jones Room" to hold it all. But apparently had no plans to tell us about it.

OK, so I built a mailbox out on the curb in a big hurry. One year later, we're still the only house on the block with a mailbox on the curb.

The thing is, sometimes we get our mail at the curb, and sometimes it is delivered to the box on the porch, so we have to check both places. Depends on how the carrier feels like delivering, I guess. Lovely system, don't you think?

And that brings us to today's rant.

Back in June, 2005, I bought a couple of antique cameras on eBay. Camera collecting is kind of a geek hobby of mine. A few weeks went by, and the packages didn't show up. I sent email to the people who had sold me the cameras and asked where they might be. Both sellers insisted that they had sent them to me right away, since I had paid them right away. Both had mailed them 'Priority Mail' and one had gone for the extra 'Delivery Confirmation' and had a response card back from the Post Office indicating that the package had been delivered. In neither case did I buy 'insurance' from the Post Office, just postage - the packages were worth maybe 25 dollars each. Insurance would have cost a couple of bucks per package, and there is a lot of rigmarole surrounding filing an insurance claim anyway.

Well, the packages never arrived. I had noticed, in recent days, that we had been receiving packages addressed to others at our house. We would either deliver them to the correct recipients ourselves, or give them back to the postal carrier. In one case, a package was delivered that was to the wrong name, wrong house number, and wrong street. I mean it was not even close to our address. And I handed it back to the carrier and she argued with me over it! I ended up saying, "Lady, this isn't a discussion about politics, this is about an address. This is not my address. End of story!" She very grudgingly took the package back from me.

So after about a month, I went to the Post Office and asked them where my packages might be. They looked around and could not find them - but they promised to have a word with the carrier. Not good enough, I opined. I didn't want a chastened carrier, I wanted my packages.

Well, the long and the short of it was that my packages were gone. No one knew where they might be. At least, no one was telling. I was asked by the Postmaster if I had purchased insurance on the packages.

I need to rant about buying insurance from the Post Office for a moment - a side-rant, if you will. I pay for postage to ensure that a letter or package arrives at the destination I select. I pay for insurance to indemnify me if the package arrives damaged or is stolen. BUT - I do not pay for insurance to make sure a letter or package arrives. That's what POSTAGE is for! Let me make sure I have this straight - if I buy postage, you promise to deliver my package. But, if I buy insurance, you REALLY, REALLY, promise to deliver it? You promise to TRY HARDER? No way! You postal scum, you are supposed to give me your maximum effort ALL THE TIME! So although I will buy insurance from time to time to protect myself from financial losses in the case of a package that arrives damaged and the dollar value is high, I will NOT buy insurance to make sure the Post Office does its damned job.

Let's say you buy a piece of furniture, pay for it, and the dealer offers to have it delivered to your house for a small fee. The appointed day arrives and your new couch or recliner doesn't. You call the dealer and he says, "Oh, well did you buy insurance? Sorry about that, I guess it's lost!" Would you find that acceptable? Of course not! So why do we listen to the Post Office when they say that to us? We should smack them with a brick every time some stupidity like that comes out of their pie-holes until they stop doing it.

Alrighty, then. Getting back to the main topic. Where was I? Oh yes, no packages, no satisfaction from the local Postmaster.

So, I got online and filed a complaint with the US Postal Service. More time went by. I worked on my lawn, mostly. Drank some beer. Complained a lot. Got older.

About a week ago, I got a post card from the Post Office in Washington. It said that my problem had been resolved, and asked 'How'd we do?' Well, that just pushed me right over the edge. My slim grip on sanity relaxed, and I spun around inside my house like a whirling dervish, bouncing off the walls and causing great destruction. I had one nerve left in my body and the US Postal Service was jumping up and down on it. "How did we do?" I'll tell you how you did, you nincompoops! I'll tell you how you did, you incompetent weenies! I'll tell you how you did, you societal rejects! Customer service is just something you saw in a slide show once, isn't it? Let a postal service employee come within one city block of me about now, and you'll think Vesuvius was a small bottom burp. You'll think Apocalypse Now is happening right in your face. You'll be crying for your mammas before I even get the full can of Woop-Ass opened. I'll pull your teeth out, make dentures of 'em and bite you with them! I will tie your ears in a knot over your head! Pain! Pain! ARGH, PAIN!

Then I had a beer and Mrs. Wiggy made me a lovely dinner of red beans and rice and I calmed right down. Didn't have anything to do with the 500mg of Thorazine she shot me up with, as far as I know.

Monday.

I saw the postal carrier trying to skulk away as I got home from work. I jumped out of my truck and headed towards him at a trot. Mrs. Wiggy saw me and headed inside to get the tranquilizer gun again. I caught up with the carrier and stopped him.

Hey, bub. I got a bone to pick with you!

What's the problem?

What's the problem? What's the problem? He might just as well have said "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

I then proceeded to recite for him the entire massacree, in four-part hominy, with grits and ketchup to illustrate the important bits and a paragraph on the back describing what each one was to be used as evidence against him.

I also informed him that I was not going to stop asking for my packages. Not now, not ever. This was now a quest. A quest for my mail. I wanted my mail. And I was not going to stop filing complaints, calling people, and I'd even hop a train and Mister Wigwam would go to Washington if need be. I wanted my packages, dad nab it!

He went away shaking his head - another lunatic on his route, I'm sure he was thinking. Another crank. Another anti-government conspiracy freak with access to firearms and high-powered liquor who is well off his meds. Gosh, he knows me so well already!

Thursday.

I came home from work and discovered that Mrs. Wiggy had brought in two packages addressed to me. Both had June 24 postmarks. One was from South Carolina, the other from Virginia. Nearly two months to deliver two packages from one state away? Priority mail? With 'Delivery Confirmation' on one of them, yet? I could have kicked them from there to here in that much time. Both package labels were beginning to yellow with age, but otherwise, they appeared unmolested. Certainly they were uncontaminated with friendly prompt US Post Office service.

I opened the packages with trembling hands. Both cameras were in pristine condition, undamaged. Just as they had been packed and sent, lo, these two months ago.

Two months! Two months! Damned good job they weren't sea monkeys! Fine thing they weren't dry-iced meat from Omaha Steaks! Glad they weren't cuttings from Burpee Seed! Two months? Those packages were nearly ready for Social Security benefits by the time I got them! Two months!

Well, you can't imagine that I just let it drop. No, sir. Today at lunch, I went to the Post Office with the now-empty boxes in hand.

Here's what they told me...

It seems that we have had a temporary carrier for the past six months. That would explain why we get our mail at 7 p.m. and why we often get mail and packages intended for other people. Because they have a cheaper sort of idiot employed than the dregs of society that they usually hire. Apparently, most of them can't read addresses.

At some point in the past two months, our packages were delivered to a house one block over from ours. The person who lives there had even signed for the one with "Delivery Confirmation" on it, but had apparently then realized that the packages were not for them. So they put the packages on their front steps. And that's where they sat for nearly two months.

During this time, carriers came and went. All of them ignored the two packages left out on the porch. Not one of them bothered to examine the address labels and come to the conclusion that they were actually intended to be delivered a block over. A whole raft of temporary postal employees had passed by with a 'not my problem' attitude.

The carrier I had dressed down turns out to be our new 'real' carrier. He had taken my paddling to heart, as it were. He went and looked for my packages. He finally noticed them sitting on the porch of the house on the next street and delivered them to me.

Well, bully for him! I applaud him - he did the right thing. Why did it take two months for someone to figure this out? Why did the US Postal Service send me a postcard indicating that they'd sorted the problem and asking me how pleased I was when they had done NOTHING AT ALL? Who played "Lumpy" on 'Leave it to Beaver?' When am I going to calm down!

In the end, all is well. I have my cameras. I'm slowly settling down. I've just about used up my supply of righteous indignation, and I'm nearly out of waxing wroth, as well. Time to stock up. Maybe I'll buy something on eBay and have it shipped via the Post Office.

Smooches,

Wiggy

Throwing Stones at Neighbors

Now frankly, I've always been an optimistic kind of guy. No, scratch that, not true. Pessimistic. No, that's not true either. Hmmm. OK, here's what kind of guy I am. If you have a gallon of milk, and you drink half of it, how much do you have left? All of it. Duh. Yes, that's what kind of guy I am. The kind who gets smacked a lot.

Well, that's not what I wanted to talk about anyway. I wanted to talk about how important it is that I keep reminding people that their lives are not as wretched as other people's. Ah, no, that's not right.

OK, I wanted to talk about how I have a problem with Power Tools, and should not be allowed near them anymore. Hmmm. Closer.

Ah. Well, then, let's talk about being kind to one's neighbors. Nope, that ain't it.

Fine. I'm just going to talk about my yard again. Hang on.

As most of you know, Wiggy has a yard. Wiggy's yard is tiny, but troublesome. Wiggy has had to stomp it into submission on several occasions, and the weeds, they still live to vex and annoy Wiggy. Vex and annoy, I tell you!

Wiggy has an edging tool. You know what I mean? One of those things that resembles a ninja throwing star stuck to the end of a stick. You roll it along the edge of your yard, and the idea is that it trims as it goes - give you nice straight lines of grass on the edge of sidewalks, driveways, that sort of thing.

Only it doesn't. Not in the part of North Carolina, anyway. Here, the grass is an angry wild beast, and it throws out runners and eats concrete with aplomb. Your ninja throwing star on a stick makes it laugh - hah! You amuse the grass. It will eat your house now. Like Jabba the Hut. If it were your yard, that is. Yeah, that's me. Han Solo. Wiggy Solo. Trying Jedi mind tricks and waving my ninja star on a stick around. The yard's clearly not buying it.

So last week, Mrs. Wiggy unearthed a gift card that we had been given (as a gift, appropriately enough) to Home Depot. Well there ain't one in Wilson - we got Lowes. But hey, let's drive up to Rocky Mount and use this thing. OK, then.

So off we go, and we found something fun to buy. A Black and Decker electric lawn edger thing. Oh, baby.

Now, I haven't had such good luck with Black and Decker stuff. We had a coffee maker that had to be put to death, because it breweth not, but it speweth well, and it offended us mightily (that's the Wiggy royal 'we', in case you're keeping notes). We also have a battery-operated weed slapper that is supposed to be a weed whacker, but as it turns out, it is such a weak sister that it just kind of insults weeds. "Oh, you naughty weed. Go away!" Slap. The weed springs back and grins. There will be evil done this day. We don't use the annoying thing any more.

But we didn't have much choice. The only edge trimmers we could find were very, very, expensive, or the ninja star on a stick thing that as I mentioned, only seems to amuse the grass runners that slowly digest my concrete driveway and sidewalks. So we got the Black and Decker, as seen above, and I put it to use.

Last week, it did a pretty good job, actually. But I didn't have a long enough extension cord, so I could not do the part of the yard you see here - the edge of my yard as it borders my neighbor's yard. That's not my car, it is hers.

But you know, I can't let any day go by without a little chaos to keep it real, as they say. Which is to say, generally sucky.

So this morning, I went and got a longer extension cord, plugged the thing in, and let 'er rip. Ah. Lovely.

Now, isn't that special? That's the passenger side window of my neighbor's Mitsubishi SUV. A rock from my nice new Black and Decker electric edger did the deed.

Of course, my first thought was to run away. But then I realized that while I feel like a five-year-old most of the time (I went running to Mrs. Wiggy crying last week when a bad old wasp stung me while I was mowing and trying to edge with the ninja star on a stick), it probably wasn't going to work this time. I guessed I hadda go take my lumps.

Well, the neighbors thought it was a hoot. Funny, funny, funny. They said the best part was the look on my face. Oh yeah, great, guys. I'm remorseful, and you're laughing it up. It got so loud, it turned into another one of our porch parties that involved all the neighbors. These things just start spontaneously around Wilson, NC.

However, since I was so upset about having done what I done, they arranged a suitable penance. These creatures were brought over to my yard, where they have become the Walk of Shame.

No one is sure where the neighborhood Walk of Shame got started, or when. But it consists of every ugly lawn ornament you can imagine, all nicely decorating your yard, so that all passers-by think you have the world's worst taste, and all the clued-in neighbors know you have done something awful. Or something memorable. Or just had 'an event.' Our neighbors got the Walk of Shame by having a birthday party a few weeks ago which was well attended and well received. And now I have the Walk of Shame for having been too remorseful about breaking a window.

Well, it proves the point about not throwing stones at your neighbor's house. Or not buying Black and Decker. Or stay away from ugly lawn ornaments. Something like that.

Anyway. That electric lawn edger just got a lot more expensive. Dad nab it.

Grumble,

Wiggy

I'm so old...

I'm so old, I went to a British University. Harvard.

I totally crack myself up.

Hup, hup,

Wiggy

Shoot-to-Kill Orders

So, I'm home at lunch - gotta feed the dogs and let them bark their fool heads off in the back yard, plus, Mrs. Wiggy came home to take Zone V to the vet (she just got 'fixed' and declawed and she has a small infection in one foot). I turned on the TV for some mindless blah, blah, blah, while I ate my bologna-and-cheese sammich (with ketchup, yum).

I saw that the space shuttle got home safely - that's good, glad to hear it.

Then I look up and some talking head (MSNBC or maybe CNN, I can't remember which) is pontificating on the UK "Shoot to Kill" policy regarding terrorist suspects and whether or not it should be applied here in the USA. She's stirring up some crap with a couple of talking heads.

I really should not let myself get sucked into these things. I know better.

But, dammit, they're idiots. And they're talking pure crap and it is gonna cause problems. So I gotta step in, as usual.

OK, listen. "Shoot-to-Kill" (S2K) is supposed to mean two things: a) shoot suspects in the head, so they die really fast and b) do not try the usual "Stop or I'll shoot" warning.

But S2K is nonsense. Cops don't S2K - nobody who shoots people does.

Cops and the military and others who are trained to take lives when the situation calls for it are trained and told to shoot for 'center mass'. That's the biggest part of the body, where you stand the highest percentage chance of hitting. That would be the chest area, basically between the nipples.

Aiming for a person's head is dumb. It is dumb because it is hard to hit - heads are smaller than chests, and they're armored. Hit at an oblique angle and you stand a good chance of bouncing a bullet off their dome. Miss entirely, and you may hit someone you don't want to hit. Cops and the military want to hit something that will absorb the bullet and make the person fall down or stop doing what they were doing, whatever that might have been.

For years, cops in court who actually had to shoot a suspect have been asked by defense attorneys, "Why didn't you shoot to wound?" Zipperheads, the lot of 'em. There is no "Shoot to wound," any more than there is a "Shoot to kill." You shoot to STOP. STOP. STOP. That's all. No more, no less. If it wounds them, if it kills them, the cop could not possibly care less. Their job is to STOP the person from doing whatever it is that they're doing that rates the application of what might be "Deadly Force."

Anybody who says "Shoot to wound" or "Why not shoot the gun (detonator, etc) out of their hand" should be tapped upside their brain pan with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat for being so freaking stupid.

All there is, is 'shoot to stop'. Whatever form that takes. And to do that, you aim for the biggest part and pull the trigger. That's the chest.

The only people who aim for heads are snipers. Snipers are trained to aim for heads because they are armed with high-powered rifles equipped with telescopic sights and they are really, really, good at hitting exactly what they aim at with one shot. Also, police snipers are trained to know what is behind the suspect, so overpenetration that might result in the death of an innocent party is made less likely. Snipers lay in wait, they do not pursue. They are not police or even soldiers in the traditional sense - they are employed when battle has been joined, targets identified, and the situation is known. Police snipers never operate on their own - their authority to fire always comes from another. Military snipers operate on their own and make their own shoot / don't shoot decisions, but they have a list of acceptable targets and a set of standing orders, they are not free to select targets not already sanctioned in most cases (counter-sniper activity and pre-approved targets of opportunity being an exception).

None of these parameters apply to the police when chasing a criminal suspect, even one suspected of terrorist activities.

But what about the fellow with a finger on a detonator? If you shoot him in the chest, he may have a brief moment of life, during which he can explode his device and cause immense destruction and death? Should those folks, and people reasonably suspected of it, not be shot in the head immediately?

No. Those morons on TV, they angry up my blood. They don't know what they're talking about. Like crazy drug dealers, they consume too much of their own product and believe their own movies about terrorists and bombers and such.

First - again with the argument about shooting in the head - one slight slip or turn of the head, and bullet either misses or bounces off. Much good that did.

Second - Head shots can be instantly fatal - but they don't have to be. Singer Marc Cohn just got shot in the temple, for God's sake, last week. He's out of the hospital and doing fine.

Third - Any terrorist woth his salt will be using a 'deadman's switch'. The freaking thing goes off WHEN THEY LET GO, not when they press a button. So, it doesn't matter when, where, or how you shoot them. They let go of the pickle, and it's kaboom time.

Duh.

Now, stop talking about it. S2K is stupid. End of story.

Aw, man, now I'm all worked up.

Walla Walla,

Wiggy

You Are In The South - Willowdale Cemetery

I took a trip to Goldsboro, NC, to visit the Willowdale Cemetery, which is located right next to the downtown area. Willowdale cemetery is somewhat famous - it is the home of a mass gravesite for some 800 Confederate soldiers, some 200 of which remain unidentified. It is also built on the edge of an abandoned factory-looking thing.



At first, it doesn't seem any different from any other cemetery. There are the usual signs of subtle humor:



This poor fellow should have seen this coming and stayed out of the lake...



Two wives, no husband. Wonder where he absconded to? And do his two wives enjoy being buried next to each other sans hubby?

But then, you see something that reminds you that you're in the South. And it is not really very funny.



Seeing as how the Goldsboro Rifles were instrumental in setting up this cemetery as a mass grave, complete with massive monument to Confederate Soldiers, I must presume that this was a (ahem) white (ahem) cemetery. Given that, this must have been a signal honor. But I have no idea how to feel about it now. I'm confused as to what it all means now. Dead is dead. Are the passions, hatreds, and prejudices of long ago dead as well?



These two monuments are within twenty yards of each other, by the way.



Then you look up smack dab at the far edge of the cemetery, right up next to the abandoned factory I mentioned earlier, and there - the 'Jewish' sector of the cemetery. Yes, we're in the South.







Anyway, my cemetery photos. No disrespect intended. I like visiting cemeteries, and I am always highly respectful of the last resting place of these souls. I just spend a lot of time thinking in them, is all. And I've never seen some of the things I've seen since moving to the South. Makes you think.

On and On,

Wiggy

Who Are You? The ID Problem

Who Are You?

Identification is going to be one of the major problems facing our planet going forward. In a world of 6,446,131,400 people (CIA estimate, July 2005) , it is becoming more and more important to be able to identify people as unique individuals. Everybody wants it:

• Advertisers and merchants want it so that you can be sold to.
• Banks and creditors want it so that you can be made to pay your bills.
• Governments want it so that you can be made to pay your taxes, vote, get retirement benefits through the social security system, medical benefits, anti-terrorism, border control & immigration, and so on.

In olden times (like when I was a tadpole), the US was still enough of a rural society overall that aside from the great cities, you could be considered whomever you said you were. The closest thing we had a universal ID system was the US Passport, but not everybody had one (didn't need one unless you were traveling outside of the USA, Canada, or Mexico). Most everyone had a Social Security card - but you didn't even need one of those unless you had a job and paid taxes. I didn't get mine until I was 12 years old, for example. And many state driver's licenses did not have photos on them. Even years later, when I was in the US military, I had friends who had driver's licenses from states like New York and New Jersey that didn't have photos on them.

But times are not what they were. Now, we have a situation where the US Social Security number has become the default ID number for all US citizens, and it is issued at birth in most hospitals. That number is used as a unique identifier by credit bureaus, the federal and state governments, taxpayer roles, banks, credit card issuers, and even (gasp) the Social Security Administration.

There was certainly a time when people were concerned with the spreading indiscriminate use of the Social Security Number as a universal identifier. In fact, my original SS card said in big, bold, letters that it was not for identification. The cards no longer say that.

Even setting aside the sturm und drang surrounding the use of the Social Security Number (SSN) as a US national unique identifier, it is only unique as it is used. There is no guarantee that the person using a given SSN is actually the person to whom the number was issued. In fact, identity theft is rampant, and the consequences of having your identity stolen are rather horrible.

So let's talk about what kind of ID is attached to you more-or-less permanently. One is your fingerprints - unique as far as anyone knows. Two is your DNA, also unique unless you are an identical twin/triplet/etc (ah, the old 'evil twin' theory gains some ground here). Both are nearly infallible - but are not fast enough for real-time use.

Weird Science

There is a budding field of scientific exploration known as biometrics which attempts to prove that this aspect or that measurement of eyeball irises, facial characteristics, walk, handwriting, etc - are unique if only we can measure them promptly and accurately. So far, most of these sound like phrenology to me. Not saying that they don't work, just that there aren't that many successes so far that are a) always right and b) fast enough for real-time identification.

In general, then, the problems are these. Government-issued numbers and ID cards, though unique (in theory), and fast enough for real-time use, are too subject to being stolen or usurped by others. Personal characteristics, such as fingerprints and DNA, though unique and probably incapable of being hijacked, are not fast enough for real-time use. Various biometric techniques are either not accurate enough, not fast enough, or both.

Up Jumps The Devil

But as it turns out, we may have a solution. If a person does not have any physical characteristics that are a) permanent, b) unique, and c) fast enough for real-time identification, then you can give 'em one.

The Nazis figured this out - they used a tattoo to put a permanent number on the arms of Jewish concentration camp prisoners, members of the SS, and others. This technique has also been used on livestock (branding, tattooing serial numbers on horse's lips, etc) and it is fast enough for real-time identification, but it is prone to tampering. Tattoos can be removed, altered, and faked. Product UPC codes used when you check out at the grocery store are a form of this kind of tattooing.

In fact, when UPC codes first became popular (historically, they had been invented and used to keep track of railroad boxcars and were adapted for merchandise), some people feared that this would be the dreaded 'Mark of the Beast' that was predicted by the Christian Bible:

Revelation 13:16-17 (King James Version)

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name

This mention of the 'Mark of the Beast' is all over the place in the Book of Revalation. Basically, if you are a Christian, and you believe in the literal interpretation of this, if you take the 'mark', you're gonna burn in Hell and that's the end of that discussion. Strange as it may seem, a lot of people take this very seriously.

So you end up with two groups of very serious people upset over the UPC-code-as-ID concept; the heavy-duty industrial-strength Christians, and the privacy weenies, of which I proudly consider myself one, who basically resent any intrusion by the federal government into our privacy on Constitutional grounds.

Well, as it turns out, the UPC barcode is probably not the Mark of the Beast. Barcodes are just like tattoos - in fact, as applied (literally) to people, it probably would have to be a tattoo. And it is just as liable to be circumvented by the nefarious as a serial number tattoo. There was some talk about implanting a small plastic disk with a UPC code on it just under the skin and then reading it with a high-powered scanner, but nothing came of it that I'm aware of. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to get skin cancer to buy a box of Cherios, ya know?

That brings us more-or-less up to date. You see, there is a new boy in town, and he's got ever buddy excited. His name is RFID, which stands for Radio Frequency IDentification.

RFID chips are cool, from a technological standpoint. They're inert bits of circuitry that don't do much of anything until they receive a radio signal on a specific frequency. Then, the spring to life (in passive tags, the incoming radio signal actually powers them as well) and they transmit something back to the incoming device's receiver.

What do they send back? Well, whatcha want?

Retailers like Walmart have pioneered the use of the RFID chip to track inventory. The chip responds with a signal containing the information that a UPC code would carry, but it can be read at more of a distance, and without turning the box this way and that to find the blasted thing (anyone who has wondered how it takes an idiot clerk seven turns of a six-sided cube to find the side with the UPC code and wondered why they don't just print them on ALL sides would get the advantage to this).

In some cities in the US, pet owners have been required to have their pets implanted with RFID chips to facilitate tracking down their owners and verifying their shot records - in cities with large population densities, where pets can lose collars and traditional ID tags, this has worked out rather well. The biggest problem has been in getting people to have their animals implanted.

You have probably made the jump by now - if you can implant a pet, why not a person?

Well, lots of other people have twigged to that one, too.

An RFID chip implanted in a person can store and transmit all kinds of information. It can be a small data store on its own, or it can be a key to a data store that is kept elsewhere. Recently, the former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and former Governor of Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson, has been implanted with an RFID chip from VeriChip:

Worldnet Daily News - Tommy Thompson Implanted with RFID Chip

This type of chip does not actually contain any medical data. Instead, it contains a special code that allows a person equipped with the right kind of RFID reader to access a special database kept at VeriChip that has the medical data within it. VeriChip believes that this addresses a number of privacy issues - the data can't be stolen from a person by some passer-by who happens to have a generic RFID reader of some kind.

Can you imagine a person being hacked?

Right now, there are people whose sole hobby in life is to drive slowly through residential neighborhoods with a hacked up laptop and wireless network card and high-gain directional antenna, looking for unguarded WiFi access points (wardriving, as it is called). Can you imagine what kind of problems would be caused if a person could drive around sniffing the RFID chips of people, for God's sake? Mona Lisa Overdrive come to life, is what.

Conclusion - No Conclusion

So we've got this problem, see. The privacy weenies and the Christian Beasties are going to moan and complain and become most agitato, but it looks like this thing is going to be born:

Implantable Chips Bear Promise, But Privacy Standards Needed

'Health Chips' Could Help Patients in US

RFID Goes to War

So here's how it is going to come down...in my Wiggy opinion...which is sadly, mostly right...

Remember, Divide & Conquer strategies often work well.
1) If you can't get a population to agree to take an implanted electronic device,
2) Try some test runs to show how well the technology works (pets)
3) Create a need for better security (ID theft, terrorism)
4) Offer a solution to a universal problem that plays on the fears of elderly (health care in emergencies)
5) Implement nationwide voluntary call for compliance.
6) Give tax breaks to citizens who have the procedure done.
7) Give all kinds of incentives (one-stop registration/voting, easy grocery check out, blah, blah, blah)
8) Mandate use (should be nearly univeral acceptance by now).
And, for the Industrial-Strength Christians:
9) Round up and kill all those who won't accept the RFID chip.

Total timeframe=20 years, give or take. We're up to #4 now, and we're about to start on #5. We'll see it through to #9 in our lifetimes (I'm 44). Number ten is up for grabs.

Hey, this RFID stuff is exciting. It could fix a lot of problems - it could cause a lot more. I'm a privacy weenie, and this worries me from that aspect. But I'm also a technology weenie, and this is hot stuff.

If RFID were all upside, we'd never have to slow down for things like toll roads, retail store checkouts, taxes, census-taking, life in general could be much simpler. The long-range implications for positive uses of this technology are staggering.

If RFID were all downside, this would represent the end of freedom as we know it. Government knowledge of what we see, read, say, publish, and so on. Corporations would know what we were buying and how much, everyone with a tiny bit of power and an axe to grind could do great damage to people.

The realistic sitation? Well, as dangerous and exiciting as it is, I count on the federal government to screw it up until it doesn't really work, because I don't believe in one big conspiracy theme. Instead, I believe in the silo mentality of a whole bunch of little conspiracies, and with ever buddy in the government fighting each other for a little bit of turf, the Mark of the Beast is more likely to be lost in the shuffle.

Hammer On,

Wiggy

Fridays on the Lawn

I've said it before - Wilson, NC, is a terrific place to live. Just a few blocks from our house is the restored and renovated Wilson County Public Library, and the City of Wilson is presenting a number of free fairs this summer. Mrs. Wiggy and I attended the first. Not a lot to say, I'll let the photos do the talking this time.

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Veronica Creech - she works for the city and helped put this thing together.

A young lady and her balloon.

Velcro Wall. Weird fun.

Sprinkler to keep things cool. A very good idea, and the kids loved it.

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Summer Fun,

Wiggy