One of the greatest truth-tellers of the 20th century  died last night when George Carlin succumbed to heart failure. Carlin was perhaps of the funniest humorist of our time but he was much more than a comic.  He held up a mirror to the world to expose the hypocracy and absurdity of modern life.  While some criticised Carlin for the coarse language he often used, it was in fact a tool in his verbal arsenal.  One of the long standing topics of his monologues was the euphamism.  Carlin was an advocate of calling a spade a spade, not softening shell-shock to battle fatigue and then PTSD.  He used language to describe everything from the horror of war, to silliness of the hippy-dippy weatherman, to consumerism, to germs.  Carlin has inspired the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  The world needs more people willing to stand up speak truth to power in such an eloquent manner.

What do you suppose the chances are that the media will celebrate this truth teller in the way they fawned over Tim Russert last week.  Unfortunately that won’t happen even though it should.  Carlin provided us with far more reality than Russert ever did.  We’ll miss you George.

As we were leaving the media center the other day, I had the opportunity to finally meet the legendary Brenda Priddy in person.  For those unfamiliar with her work, many of the photographs that appear in automotive magazines and newspapers of cars where bizzaro tape jobs or big clumps of black camouflage are the work of Brenda and her colleagues at KGP photography.  They have an uncanny knack for being in places where engineers are testing future cars.  These days in the business of automotive journalism Brenda is held in the same high regard as Jim Dunne and Hans Lehman.

At any rate Brenda made a remark in jest that after all her years in the business, she had come to the conclusion that all automotive journalists were either Jewish, gay or both.  Unfortunately my mental energy level at that point was at  low ebb at that moment and I found myself unable to respond with the same degree of eloquence and wit that I am told I exhibited during a verbal joust with our colleague Ray the preceding day.  For the record Ray (even though I doubt you will ever read this) Nothing personal, I’ve been stuck at the corner table many times myself over the years.  It just wasn’t your turn.

Anyway, back to my belated response to Brenda.  Keep in mind that printed word lacks much of the nuance of the spoken word, especially in person and none of the following is meant to offend, insult or denigrate anyone (except perhaps hypocrites like Larry Craig).  I have friends and colleagues are fall into either or both categories and many others and I appreciate and respect all of them.  Disclaimers aside, henceforth is what I might said to Brenda (who herself is Jewish, although I cannot attest to her other preferences) had I been more quick witted during our encounter.

Being at least partially of Middle Eastern descent, I’m certain that following my lineage back far enough would yield ancestors who were members of the tribes of Israel.  However, in recent decades, to my knowledge none of the members of my family have partaken in Yom Kippur, Passover or hanukkah as an active member of the faith.  I myself having been raised Catholic and becoming persuaded early on as to the futility of all religion am an unrepentant athiest.  As to the other half of the generalization, I am not nor have I ever been gay, although I’m sure when it comes time choose what color to paint the walls my wife would likely appreciate me a little more if I did have some tendencies in that general direction.

Alas these words did not emerge from my sometimes scattered mind until some hours after the fact.  Fortunately I have this little corner in which to record them anyway and perhaps she will someday see them.  Pleasure to finally meet you Brenda!

Why is it that some people just have no sense of humor and insist on flauting that fact? Tesla Motors has a blog on their corporate site where staff put up posts talking about what’s going on at the EV manufacturer. A lot of the posts are about some the design decisions they’ve made and why they made them. The most recent post was written by one of their software engineers about his main side pursuit. Greg Solberg has been building electrically driven furniture for over a decade and most recently he and his girlfriend built a pair of 7 1/2 foot long fuzzy pink slippers. I wrote a post the other night on ABG linking to Greg’s post and the first commenter on the post wrote this:

I don’t know what Tesla Motors was thinking when they allowed such a post on their blog.

To this all I can say is LIGHTEN UP! Some environmentalists are just far to earnest for their own good. Sometimes you just need to relax and smile a bit.

Warning! This tale may make you feel old. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon for more mature folks to get frustrated while trying to make sense of some of the new fangled high tech gear. Even I, uber-techno geek get frustrated at some of the unbelievably idiot user-interface decisions that are made by some equipment designers. However, this particularly phenomenon of feeling like a stranger in time is not restricted to those of us with more experience in navigating through the world.

The young can become equally befuddled by pieces of equipment with which they have not previously become acquainted. Recently, my son Max had the opportunity to become extremely frustrated by just such a device. Those who are of my age or above, having manage to muddle their way through at least four decades of life may remember an odd little electro-mechanical gadget commonly referred to by historians as the rotary dial phone. At one time the phone company (of which there was only one in those dark days) would lease customers a phone (much as cable companies lease you a cable modem today) and it was hard wired to a wall (this being before the days of a phone jack on every wall in your home). You couldn’t stick these things in your pocket, or even wander around the house with one. If you were lucky you might get one with an extra long cord allowing you to reach across the room while talking to someone.

Our two kids have each had a cell phone since they were about nine years old, allowing them to contact us when needed. When I was that age, we had one phone in the house, I can even remember when the phone company technician came to add jacks to our house, allowing us to get an extension! and we could even move it from room to room! what a concept. At any reate on a recent Saturday afternoon, Max was at the sportsman’s club where he goes to do archery and air rifle shooting. He had left his mobile at home and had finished early while I had left to go run an errand.

When I returned a half hour later he was extremely aggravated and upset at me and I couldn’t figure out why until later. As it happens the only phone in the club house area where he was, was rotary dial phone. Max had previously seen one in a museum, but had never had occasion to actually use one. As a result, he had absolutely no clue about how to operate this seemingly straightforward device. He knew my cell phone number, but was completely unable to determine how to input it into this antique machine. It seems so odd, that something that was so ubiquitous in the earlier part of my relatively brief to date lifetime could seem so utterly foreign to a child who grew up with a computer mouse in his hand.  If something so seemingly innocuous can cause so much frustration for one child, imagine the effects of a one culture invading a completely different one, or the mental anguish that could result if time travel actually were possible.

Shrub has finally gotten his wish and been invited to the World League of Despots. You can read all the details at the Guardian. I would have to agree that between his insistence on torture, unsupervised spying, arbitrary detention without trial or legal counsel, abducting innocent people and sending them to third countries for interrogation and deciding what laws he will choose to disregard he has definitely earned it.