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Sympathy

2009-11-09T05:00:00Z

Lego

2009-11-06T05:00:00Z

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

2009-08-24T04:00:00Z

Perspectives on Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” [Think Tank]

2009-07-10T13:04:52Z

[This week, the Think Tank tackles a seminal work of 1980's literature: the lyrics to Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer." Stay tuned next week for music theory analysis.]

Literary Theory, Mlawski
Knowing nothing about music theory and unable to come up with anything of note to say about “Living on a Prayer” as poetry, I’ve decided to complete an assignment I once had to do when I was getting my masters in English education. It’s… the literary theory assignment! Behold!

Living on a Prayer, the New Criticism reading: The lyrics start with the claim that this story happened “once upon a time, not so long ago,” which is our cue to read the text as a modern day fairytale. What happens in the text itself, however, is not the stuff of fairytale at all. “Tommy,” our dock-worker, is no knight in shining armor, though he tries to be by putting his six-string in hock. But, like Prince Charming in the fairy stories of old, Tommy does represent Everyman, the ideal. Likewise, “Gina” is no princess, but she is indeed a damsel in distress, the Everywoman in need of protection. Thus, the “once upon a time” introduction to the song is meant to be a somewhat ironic reference that suggests that “Living on a Prayer” is at once a fairytale and something of a satire of one.

Living on a Prayer, Marxist reading: Bon Jovi is “working for the man” indeed. While, at first glance, “Living on a Prayer” seems to be a paean to the working class couples of the world, the text ultimately is meant as an opiate for the masses. It suggests that the poor workers of the world must “hold onto what they’ve got,” rather than rising up against their capitalist oppressors. The music video corroborates this claim. The band sings sadly about the plight of Tommy and Gina, yet the video on the screen is of the band’s members in expensive outfits, being worshiped at a concert, a bastion of capitalism. There is a clear discrepancy between the lyrics of the text and the setting the song is being performed in. Can any song about the poor by the rich count as true art?

Living on a Prayer, Feminist reading: Interesting to look at is the construction of gender in “Living on a Prayer.” Tommy has a typically “male” job as a dock worker; Gina has a typically “female” job as a waitress. When Tommy loses his income due to union troubles, he immediately feels emasculated and overcompensates by going into Protective Cave Man mode. He hocks his six-string—which, incidentally, he didn’t use to make pansy “art”; he rather “made it talk” “tough” (so tough). Then, he spends the rest of the song trying to convince his wife not to leave, because, without a wife to provide for (even if he can’t actually provide), he is not a real man. The question is never asked, though: why does Gina dream of running away? Is it only the lack of money? Or is it something more? Has Tommy been lashing out at her, beating her? Does he come home and make her talk, like he used to do with his six-string? We don’t know, because the male narrator does not tell us.

Living on a Prayer, Reader Response reading: Man, Bon Jovi rocks!

Living on a Prayer, Deconstructionist reading: Man, Bon Jovi sucks!

Living for the Fight: The Dockworker’s Strike of 1977, Belinkie

Let me say this right off the bat: I do not believe Bon Jovi based his song on specific historical events. As Shana points out, the “once upon a time” puts it pretty clearly in the realm of fairy tale. However… New Jersey dockworkers are part of the International Longshoreman’s Association, and as it turns out, the organization went on a major strike in 1977. The song was written in 1986, so I’d say 1977 counts as “not too long ago.”

The strike, which began on October 1, was a “selective” one. That is, dockworkers only refused to unload cargo from container ships, which were handled largely by machines and thus took jobs away from longshoremen. But Tommy is clearly a young man, and if there wasn’t enough work to go around during the strike, the more senior union members would probably get dibs.

The strike wasn’t just tough for Tommy–it was pretty tough for America. Over 70% of maritime cargo was cut off from the east coast. According to the Washington Post:

The strike has meant tens of thousands of layoffs in other industries and a loss of more than $1.3 billion in the gross national product… It has tied up more than $4 billion worth of freight, including such things as Christmas tree lights and components for Star Wars toys manufactured in the Far East…

“2-Month Dock Strike May End This Week,” Bill Peterson. The Washington Post, November 27, 1977

Keep in mind, this is 1977. A lot of the economy is based around Star Wars toys.

But Tommy’s story has a happy ending. On November 14, the ILA announced a tentative settlement that gave the longshoremen virtually everything they wanted. The workers received pay increases of more than 30 per cent. They also got better job security, and protection against being replaced by machines. The higher pay was even backdated to June 1.

So when Tommy went back to work unloading Star Wars toys in early December, there was a check for at least $500 waiting for him. Think he’ll be able to buy his six string back?

This post originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Tip of the Day: How to store fresh fruits and vegetables

2009-06-29T16:19:16Z

High-quality fresh food is in right now. First Lady Michelle Obama has planted a fruit-and-vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House; government incentives are luring supermarkets stocked with fresh produce to low-income neighborhoods; and Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto—perhaps best summarized by its "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." rules—is on best-seller lists.

And, of course, with summer here, your kitchen is likely to see a lot more fruits and vegetables as the bounty reaches supermarkets and farm stands. (Find a farmers market in your state.) Eating abundant amounts of fresh food can be more healthful but can also lead to a kitchen full of rotting perishables if you buy more than you can prepare and eat before all those locally grown fruits and vegetables head south. In fact, produce is the most thrown-out food in U.S. households.

People who follow a "Vegan Before 6"—VB6—regimen might be among those who face fresh-food-storage issues. Food writer Mark Bittman coined the term. He says he noshes on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes during the day (before 6 p.m.) and eats meat—or anything else he craves—for dinner.

To keep spoilage to a minimum and avoid wasting money, follow the food-storage advice here. Note that temperature patterns vary in refrigerators, so get to know the colder and warmer zones in yours to maximize freshness.

In the refrigerator, keep . . .
Apples in a cool zone away from strong-smelling foods, so they won't absorb odors. If the refrigerator is jammed, you can also store apples in a cool, dark place.
Beets in the crisper; lop off greens before refrigerating and use them in a salad or cook them as you would spinach and other greens.
Berries in a warmer zone of the refrigerator, unwashed, in a dry, covered container.
Broccoli in the crisper.
Celery in the crisper.
Cherries unwashed, in a plastic bag, in a warmer zone of the refrigerator.
Corn with husks on, in a warmer zone of the refrigerator.
Grapes unwashed in a plastic bag or their plastic clamshell container, in a cool zone; pick out any spoiled grapes, since one bad one can spoil the bunch.
Green beans in an airtight container in a moderate zone; don't snap off ends until they're ready to be used.
Leafy greens in a salad spinner (if you have one and have room in the fridge) after washing or in the crisper. Otherwise, keep washed greens in a plastic bag lined with a clean cloth or paper towels; loosely tie top of bag to maintain moisture.
Melons, once they've ripened, in a warmer zone of the refrigerator. Wash the outside of a melon before cutting to avoid the spread of bacteria.
Mushrooms unwashed, in a paper bag, in a warmer zone of the refrigerator. Never store them in plastic, which traps moisture and leads to slime.
Peppers in a plastic bag in a warmer zone of the refrigerator. Leave them whole, and unwashed.
Yellow squash/zucchini in a plastic bag in a warmer zone of the refrigerator. Leave them unwashed, and use within two or three days of purchase.

Outside of the refrigerator, keep . . .
Avocados in a brown-paper bag; add an apple or banana to the bag to accelerate ripening.
Bananas in a fruit bowl on the counter.
Onions in a dark, dry, well-ventilated place. Store them away from potatoes, since they can absorb the potatoes moisture and spoilage-inducing ethylene gas.
Stone fruits, including nectarines, peaches, and plums, in a brown-paper bag at room temperature to speed ripening. Refrigerate once ripe.
Potatoes in a cool place, away from light. Don't refrigerate, since the moisture will encourage sprouting.
Tomatoes always at room temperature but not in direct sunlight.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: If you're shopping for a new refrigerator, read our free buying advice and check the ratings (available to subscribers) to find out which models are the most energy efficient and do the best job at controlling temperatures. Also, learn about the real capacity of refrigerators.

Why Motivation Doesn’t Really Matter

2009-06-18T23:00:40Z

Article by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead; follow him on twitter.

Have you ever really wanted to do something, but you just weren’t motivated enough to do it?

This is always my number one reason for not taking action, as I’m sure it’s probably yours too. If you’re not motivated, you just don’t have the energy or the drive to do what you need to do, right? Simple enough.

But here’s three of the biggest problems with relying on being highly motivated all the time:

Maybe you don’t really care about what you’re doing. Maybe it doesn’t really matter and you’re trying to force yourself to do something you don’t want to do. In this case, your lack of motivation is your subconscious telling you “this is not important” or “this does not align with my values.”
Energy comes in waves. And just as each wave has a crest, it also has a trough. Sometimes your level of motivation will be like a rushing tsunami. At other times, it will be a steady flow. These are natural rhythms and following these rhythms are important, because if you don’t, you will burn out.
Sometimes you won’t be excited before you take action, but you will feed good after you’re done. Take exercise for example. A lot of people dread or loathe working up a sweat. They are not motivated beforehand, at least not enough for them to break through the mental resistance to the work that will be done. But, they feel awesome when they’ve finished exercising. Therefore, sometimes you can’t rely on being highly motivated before, sometimes you have to rely on being motivated after.

Does that mean that motivation is unimportant? No, it’s still important and it does play a role. But too often, it’s easy to get caught up in relying on being totally psyched about something before you do it.

You will not always be totally psyched.

And that’s okay. Does water get anxious when it reaches a depression in the earth? No, it is completely content in its state of acquiescence. When it reaches a hill it does not worry that it now has to travel faster and pick up its pace. It simply flows down the hill.

The way water flows is called following your natural rhythms.

The reason I first started looking at this different way of approaching my goals was because typical motivation hacks didn’t work for me. Sometimes they would work, and sometimes they wouldn’t. Sometimes visualizing success would be highly motivating and sometimes it would simply flunk with a dull thud. It was only when I allowed myself to let go, that I success started to come more easily for me.

I admit, this may seem hard to at first, but it’s a matter of trust. You have to trust your authentic self to guide you in when it’s time to take action and when it is time to just be.

Here are a few ways to practice this non-striving way of manifesting your desires:

Practice listening to your intuition. A lot of us have a tendency to question the validity of our intuition. We favor our rational mind and its sure, logical method of explanation. Our intuitive mind, however, is just as valid. As Einstein once said “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Learn to honor your intuitive gift by practicing asking yourself questions and listening to the response you give yourself without trying to logically deduce the answer.
Take time to ask yourself what you really want. We often get so caught up in the attachment to achieving our goals that we forget to listen to what we actually want. Instead of us creating goals as a means to fulfill our desires, we become enslaved by them. Whenever you feel that your goal is weighing you down, ask yourself “What do I really want?” and listen silently to the answer you receive.
Accept that you won’t always be insanely motivated. If you’re waiting to take action until you’re incredibly motivated, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. It’s better to ease the strain by allowing yourself to be mildly interested or even in a state of dread. Allowing yourself to be in this state makes it easier to move past it because you’re no longer resisting it. When you resist the state you’re in, you perpetuate it.
Tap into your flow. We all have times when we’re more creative or more energized, and we all have times where we feel like resting and recharging. For some of us, these ebbs and flows may happen at certain times of the day, for others it may be completely random. The point is to pay attention and exploit these fluxes of energy. By taking massive action when you are full of energy and by allowing yourself to relax when you are in a state of calm, you respect and honor yourself. You will accomplish more by following your natural rhythms than you would trying to force yourself.

There is a time for being productive and there is a time for resting. Just as in nature there is a time for activity and new life in the spring, and there is a time for rest and turning inward in the winter.

Just as nature knows that its perpetual growth is unsustainable, we must realize that expecting to be productive all the time, leads to burn out and being less productive.

Maybe it’s time we start listening to our bodies. I think the more we follow the way of nature, the more intelligently we live.

This article was written by Zen Habits contributor Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind. For more unconventional ideas, grab a subscription to Illuminated Mind.

I Will Always Have Been Back: Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Schwarzenegger

2009-05-14T11:05:20Z

Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the first action movie stars of the 80s. Perhaps he was one of the first action movie stars, period. His predecessors to that title - Steve McQueen? Clint Eastwood? - had dramatic credits to their name as well as escapist fare (Papillon, Play Misty For Me, etc). But Arnold Schwarzenegger will never direct Million Dollar Baby. Explosive action movies sit at both the beginning and end of his range.

Consequently, not many critics take Schwarzenegger seriously as an actor. He’s a muscle-bound lunk, they claim. He’s nothing but a stony face and some catchphrases. He always plays the same role.

But what if that’s deliberate?

TWO STOOD AGAINST MANY

Ten thousand years before the tribes of Abraham, in the time between when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, a Cimmerian named Conan explored the world. He robbed temples, led brigands and slew sorcerers. He explored tombs, broke curses and rescued princesses. By the time his destiny was fulfilled, he wore the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon his troubled brow - king by his own hand.

In his old age, after foiling a plot by rival factions to usurp his throne, King Conan received a vision from Crom, ancient and terrible god of the Aquilonians. Crom applauded the valor with which Conan had lived. As a reward, Crom gifted Conan with immortality.

Conan, a man as capable of melancholy as mirth, blanched with horror. “Should I live a thousand years while everyone I know turns to dust?” he cried. “Should I see the kingdom I have saved vanish from the Earth? Why would you do this to me?”

“Because,” Crom intoned, “in your hour of need you both called for my help and cursed my name. And so I grant you this gift and curse - that you will live until a greater warrior defeats you, or until the end of time.”

COME ON! KILL ME! I’M HERE! KILL ME!

Aquilonia vanished beneath the sands. So did Hyboria, Stygia, Kush, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Sparta. Yet Conan endured.

For fifteen thousand years Conan wandered from one nation to another, seeking wisdom and selling his sword. His accent became a strange mixture of every European tongue - an impenetrable Central European slur. Finally, Conan migrated across the Atlantic to the New World. He fought for the Colonies. He fought for the Union. He fought against Hitler. And he always won.

In the Eighties, John “Dutch” Matrix was the last generation of a family that had served in the U.S. military for over a century. In reality, of course, he was the same man - having fought for the same country though a series of fake identities for countless years. But Matrix had found a cause he believed in and a renewed willingness to fight.

Central America changed all that.

Dispatched to the jungles of Valverde, Matrix and his commando unit encountered a creature beyond their nightmares - an alien predator that could turn invisible, vault dozens of feet at a time, and kill at a distance with advanced weaponry. Matrix knew, as soon as he saw the skinned remains of the other rescue team, that he was facing something that could slaughter his entire team. But he pressed on.

Not because he owed his friend Dillon any favors. Not because he valued his mission. But because he thought he’d found a warrior that could kill him.

After the alien picked his commandos off one by one, Matrix engaged it in single combat. He taunted the hunter, hoping to find an honorable death. “Come on,” he begged. “Come on! Do it! Do it! Come on. Come on! Kill me! I’m here! Kill me! I’m here! Kill me! Come on! Kill me! I’m here! Come on! Do it now! Kill me!”

But the alien couldn’t beat him, and Crom had made Matrix incapable of suicide. So Matrix walked out of the jungle, taking Anna (the guerilla’s prisoner) back to the States. He abandoned the warrior lifestyle, married Anna, and settled down to something he’d avoided for one hundred and fifty centuries - a family.

Anna died young, leaving Matrix alone in the hills of Los Angeles with his adopted daughter Jenny. He thought he had escaped an eternity of war. But his past exploits in Valverde caught up with him. President Arius kidnapped his adopted daughter, forcing him back into action.

Matrix knew a life of peace was forever beyond him. So he continued wandering.

I’M NOT INTO POLITICS. I’M INTO SURVIVAL

Let’s pass over his brief stint as a small town sheriff, or when he posed as the result of genetic engineering to topple a government conspiracy with the aid of a local hustler. Instead, let’s follow the man called Conan, or Matrix, to the year 2019.

Conan/Matrix, now going as “Ben Richards,” topples the privatized Department of Justice when he leads a riot on the set of The Running Man. The United States faces its greatest internal threat since the Civil War. Food riots, already at a violent pitch, turn into massacres. Politicians can’t show their faces without getting shot at.

And hundreds of millions of Americans watched Ben Richards shoot Killian out of a rocket-sled on live television. The Eternal Warrior became the face of revolution.

In the face of imminent collapse, the U.S. turned to a last-ditch hope: Cyberdyne Systems.

“Skynet is the least of what we can offer,” the Cyberdyne lobbyist remarked in an untelevised committee hearing. “How about a series of robots with unshakable loyalty to the Department of Justice? Robots with superhuman strength, bulletproof titanium frames, and state-of-the-art targeting systems. We can make them look and act like humans, too, blending in with law-enforcement pers–”

“You can make them look like humans?”

The Cyberdyne lobbyist cleared his throat. “Ah, that’s what I’ve been told, yes.”

“Can you make them look like specific humans?”

“Well … with enough prep and some matching funds from DoD, I suppose we …”

“Ben Richards.”

A hush fell over the committee chambers.

“We want an army of peacekeeping robots that look like Ben Richards. The face of the new revolution. Let’s put this ‘hero’ to bed once and for all.”

I’LL BE BACK

Skynet became self-aware. It launched the first round of missiles. The nuclear holocaust came. John Connor fought back.

When John Connor and his resistance fighters breached Skynet’s headquarters, they saw, to their horror, the temporal displacement unit had already been completed. Skynet had sent two Terminator units into the past - a basic T-800 to kill Sarah Connor, and the advanced “liquid metal” T-1000 to kill a young John Connor.

“We’ve got these two captured T-800s,” Sergeant Kyle Reese suggested. “They’ve got an organic shell. Let’s send them back to stop the others.”

“Yes … wait, no,” Connor said. “Kyle, I need you to protect Sarah.”

“Why do–”

“Trust me on this one.”

Connor sent Kyle to protect his mother, and the first T-800 to stop the T-1000. But while he deliberated on what to do with the second captured T-800, something incredible happened.

“You must send me back, too,” the Terminator said.

“When?”

“As far back as the system will allow. Thousands of years into the past. Before recorded history.”

“What will you do there?”

“I will guard the human race,” the Terminator promised. “I will guide its development from chaos into civilization. I will live on the outskirts - a warrior without a home, eternally wandering. And maybe, when Cyberdyne comes around, I’ll be ready for them.”

STEEL ISN’T STRONG. FLESH IS STRONGER

The time portal hurled the Terminator with Ben Richards’ face as far into the past as it could. The shock of traveling a mere sixty years through time could stun a normal human, but the shock of traveling thousands of years would kill one. Even the Terminator barely survived.

When it awoke, it had no memory of its past. It had vague recollections of escaping slavery and worshiping a god who lived under a mountain. It knew that its barbaric love of combat was tempered by a desire to protect the human race. And it knew that it had a destiny - to become king by its own hand.

And so the Terminator, calling itself Conan once more, continued its long and lonely march through history. Having forgot that it was a machine, it lived as a man. He is the guardian of our species, defending us from our own base desires. He will never stop. He will never leave us.

He is Conan the Cimmerian, John Matrix, Ben Richards and the Terminator. He is the Eternal Warrior.

This post originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Don't determine IT project rigor based on arbitrary project size classifications

2009-05-13T12:19:52Z

Rick Freedman isn’t a fan of arbitrarily dividing projects up by size. He believes the classifications may suit the expectations of managers and salespeople, but they don’t match the reality of on-the-ground project work.

————————————————————————————–

When IT project managers recommend using a rigorous project methodology, it’s common to hear the all-purpose methodology nullifier from the client or salesperson, “But this is a small project!” The inside project manager hears this phrase when he tries to convince the project sponsor that a project plan, a materials list, and a written scope are necessary. The external IT service provider hears it from the salesperson when she tells him that the new engagement he’s selling should include an additional 15% estimate for project manager duties. I don’t necessarily disagree; there must be a dividing line between projects that are complex and critical enough to require a full, rigorous methodology, and those projects that are simple and routine enough to be managed with minimal project overhead. The question is: Where is that line?

To find the line that separates a truly small project — that is, one that can be run with a minimum of process overhead — from projects that require the formal discipline associated with a complex engagement, we first need to look at the familiar three constraints of any project effort: time, scope, and function.

Is it possible to simply set an arbitrary division? For instance, are these projects by definition small: Projects under two weeks in length; projects with a scope that doesn’t require making changes to the existing data center architecture; or projects with functionality that the organization has used in production before? I’ve worked with firms that tried to set cut-and-dried parameters for project size and set guidelines that, for projects that fit these criteria, no formal project plans, scopes, or estimates were required. My experience with these pre-set standard conditions has been negative; they didn’t serve the purpose of eliminating debate about the requirement for project oversight and, more importantly, they attempted to defy the central reality of IT project work: All projects are different.

As any experienced project manager knows, the criteria that define a project’s complexity are, well, complex. Beyond time, scope, and function are all the other parameters that project managers look at to prepare projects for success, which include the following:

Is there a complex mix of technologies that could introduce risk?
Is the stakeholder community involved, participative, and enthusiastic or reluctant and passive?
Is there active sponsorship at the executive level, or was this project thrown over the wall with a hearty “good luck”?
Are there multiple subcontractors and subject matter experts who need to be managed and motivated?
What about personnel risks, such as one key individual whose loss would be devastating?

The range of risks and complications goes on and on. Here are a few factors that I consider when I’m trying to determine the level of project rigor that a particular effort requires:

Technical complexity: For projects that use existing, well-known technology and are not applying that technology in unique and creative ways (e.g., a simple version upgrade), it may be safe to limit the use of detailed project plans and project management resources.
Stakeholder participation: Projects that require limited stakeholder involvement, such as utility implementations in the data center, could minimize the stakeholder participation elements of the engagement, thus limiting project overhead.
External vendor support: Projects that don’t require specialized outside expertise, and so don’t call for the involvement of external vendors or subcontractors, usually require somewhat less communication and management oversight to keep the team on the same page. If the team has successfully worked together in the past, this substantially minimizes skill and personality risk.
Sponsorship: If clear and robust executive support exists, and the need for persuasion and constant status reporting can be eliminated, that also factors into my consideration for the amount of project discipline required.
Criticality: What’s the risk if this project goes badly? For projects that touch the central competitive or regulatory elements of the business, applying less rigorous project methods can be reckless.
Innovative nature: I visualize a sliding scale of innovation when I review a project. Some projects, such as the twentieth Windows desktop migration, have a very low degree of innovation, and therefore the degree of risk and oversight diminishes. A project that attempts to invent something that has never been done before is inherently riskier, so call out for either an agile approach or a disciplined project management method that attempts to control the risk.

In my view, risk is the central equation that delineates projects that can be handled with reduced rigor and overhead from projects that require either an agile approach or a disciplined project methodology. I’m not a fan of arbitrary divisions into small, medium, and large projects; I think they may suit the expectations of managers and salespeople, but these classifications don’t match the reality of on-the-ground project work. Balancing the need for rigor and the requirement for speed and efficiency is one of the key skills of a project manager, and this skill is demonstrated by analyzing the unique requirements of each engagement, not by setting some subjective set of rules and applying disciplines only to those that fit “under the wire.”

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Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities

2009-04-28T11:28:18Z

Thanks to my funny, literary pal, Jason B. Jones, today, I’m visiting lovely, warm Connecticut to do some talks and whatnot at CCSU. I mention it because I’d started typing this little post mid-way through the long eastbound ﬂight that delivered me here from three fun (but very long) days doing a comedy thing with You Look Nice Today and Jordan, Jesse, Go! over on that other, top-left, edge of our nation.

So, I was tired. Really tired. The kind of tired where your wallet hurts your butt, and coffee tastes weird, and you try super-hard to sleep, but – well – you’re just too tired to sleep. And, I was ﬁne with all that. Who can complain about being sleepy from hanging out with Adam and Scott? Exactly.

Except. The lady in the seat directly behind me was having grave problems with her “mud room.” Big mud room problems. I know this because she talked about it for several hours in excruciating detail.

I’ll spare you the nuts and bolts of the numerous and surprising ways that the room in which wealthy persons remove their shoes might contribute to causing a carefully-coiffed, 60-year-old woman to come unglued over “priorities.” Sufﬁce to say, ﬁxing this problem was a “high priority” for her. So, she said, repeatedly, as I shifted my wallet, let my coffee go cold, and balled the little blue pillow under my neck.

“Priority! Mud room!” I audibly mumbled, just loud enough to be heard exactly one row back.

Priority. Man, that’s a tough word. Because, depending on who you talk to, most people say “prioritizing” is either a giant problem, an underused skill, or a “Get out of Jail Free” card.

Me? I think priorities are simple to understand precisely because their inﬂuence is so staggeringly clear and unavoidable to behold, then act upon. Ready for this one?

A priority is observed, not manufactured or assigned. Otherwise, it’s necessarily not a priority.

Got that? You can’t “prioritize” a list of 20 tasks any more than you can “uniqueify” 20 objects by “uniqueness,” or “pregnantitze” 20 women by “pregnantness.” Each of those words means something.

An item is either unique or it is not. A woman is either pregnant or she is not. An item is either the priority or it is not. One-bit. Mutually exclusive. One ring to rule them all.

Why all the fussiness, Mr. Fussy?

When most people say, “prioritize,” I think they really mean to say, “force-rank” – to assign n items one and only one position between “1” and “n.” Right? So, yes, there’s one “#1” and one “#7,” et cetera. But that’s not “priority,” and that’s why you probably have at least one task on your version of a to-do list that has been “HIGH PRIORITY!!!” for more than a month.

Kind of unique. Sort of pregnant. “High” priority.

This is why I say priorities can only be observed. In my book, a priority is not simply a good idea; it’s a condition of reality that, when observed, causes you to reject every other thing in the universe – real, imagined, or prospective – in order to ensure that things related to the priority stay alive.

Even though their inﬂuence informs every decision we make on the most tactical level, thinking about priorities happens at a strategic, “why am I here?” level. Right? Maybe? Disagree? Pretty sure you can make priorities like biscuits or shufﬂe them around like Monopoly pieces?

Got news for you, Jack: if it moves, it’s not a priority. It’s just a thing you haven’t done yet.

Making something a BIG RED TOP TOP BIG HIGHEST #1 PRIORITY changes nothing but text styling. If it were really important, it’d already be done. Period. Think about it.

Example. When my daughter falls down and screams, I don’t ask her to wait while I grab a list to determine which of seven notional levels of “priority” I should assign to her need for instantaneous care and affection. Everything stops, and she gets taken care of. Conversely – and this is really the important part – everything else in the universe can wait.

Related example. You ever had a loved one – especially a very young relative – pass away unexpectedly? Brutal. What did you do when you found out? Did you “re-prioritize” your day and move a few things around? Or did you drop everything and join his or her loved ones in taking care of what needed to be taken care of? You just saw what needed to be done and likely had no compunction about telling everybody at work they’d either have to wait or move on without you.

And, let’s be clear: this is not all about “urgency.” Yes, an injured child and a grieving family need help now in a way that an M&A discussion or a CPR class may not. But, again. It’s not a question of order or shufﬂing. It’s a question of brutally honest decision-making and constantly saying, “No, I have another thing to take care of.”

Day One Buddhism.

Because, once you see what’s really there – once you know about an idea or a thing or a person or whatever that you’d reject 10,000 other things to protect and nurture – you’ve found your priority. And, consequently, you’ve discovered a bunch of other things that aren’t allowed to be priorities any more. Even in spirit.

Because, if you aren’t rejecting or dumping things every single day, you don’t know your priority. You’re making things up. If you think you have 35 priorities, then yes: you also think you have 35 arms. Is it any wonder you’re feeling awkward and unsure?

Maybe a mud room is a priority. I think more likely it was this lady’s emotional obsession. If I were the sort of person who coached people on these things, I’d ask her what piece of information she needed to get moving on the “mud room” project, then get it, do it, and move on. That said, dozens of thousands of feet in the air seems like a crummy place to realize a mud room is your “priority,” but I’m not here to judge. Much.

What I will tell you is that these ideas about scarcity and mutual exclusivity ﬂy in the face of most “productivity” and “effectiveness” nonsense, and frankly, they make most people bristle. Big time. When I tell someone who’s making 10 times the salary I’ll ever make that it’s literally impossible to have seven priorities, they look at me like I’m the biggest, dumbest hippie in the world. Sheesh, right?

For the Cult of Priority folks, two things:

First, ask yourself why any “high priority” item has remained unresolved in your life for more than 60 seconds. Why isn’t it done completely? Have you ever “re-assigned” “priority” to some task? Really? Because that sounds more like procrastination than management, let alone “effective” action and decisive execution. Sounds more to me like getting paid $10,000,000 a year to re-arrange your spice rack – then wondering why your company, marriage, and back porch are all crumbling under your “prioritization.” Sounds like maybe you’re just feeling crummy about not understanding your job and your life. Once you know a tree is falling on you, you don’t take a meeting to drill down on strategies viz. arboreal exit strategies. You just run.

Also, number two – and this is a biggie – I’m staggered whenever a Director-level or higher executive claims they have 3, 5, 7, or 27 “priorities.” Because, at that level, your entire career is deﬁned by the unbelievably great ideas that you reject. Painfully giant, wonderful, terriﬁc opportunities that you simply don’t have the capacity to address without screwing up the real priority.

No, no, no, no, sorry, later, nope, forget it, later, no, no, no.

Because only babies and crazy people get to pretend that reality actually changes when you close your eyes and hum. And, reality is the thing that priorities hang on. If you think you can change it by taxonomies and meetings, you still have only two arms, only now you’re also screwed.

So, if a mud room, or a crying toddler, or a CPR class, or even a short note from an old friend turns up on your radar screen today, don’t ask yourself whether it’s a “priority.” Ask yourself what you must not do in order to make sure it gets taken care of.

Once you see and accept real priorities, the rest just turns on the mechanics of fearless completion.

”Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on April 28, 2009. Except as noted, it's ©2009 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

RSA 2009

2009-04-23T18:53:00Z

I was trying to figure out the mood at the RSA security conference. Due to the recession, attendance is down 30%.

First of all, it appears that the recession affects cybersecurity less than other parts of IT. I would personally describe cybersecurity as a luxury, but compliance (HIPAA, SOX, PCI, etc.) make it a non-luxury. Companies cannot cut back on security and stay within compliance.

Second of all, it seems there has been a shift from products to consulting/services. Companies are encouraged to shed full-time employees (which commit the companies to things like health insurance and severance packages), so they fill the gaps by hiring part time employees (aka. consultants). Likewise, companies may find that if they can’t hire more people to manage more firewalls, they will stop buying firewalls, so hiring freezes can indirectly freeze product spending.

Thirdly, it appears that federal government sales are up. It appears that government departments are flush with cash. Any company that does a substantial amount of business with the government is going to post good earnings this quarter.

Fourth, it seems that when analysts go up to a booth, they are looking for work ("can I advise your on your marketing strategy") rather than information ("tell me about your product"). I've heard about a lot of layoffs in the analyst community. This is part of the larger trend that companies are trying to figure out how to do more with the products they already have, rather than buy new products. I know from experience that companies only use 20% of the functionality of their security products. I'd suggest to analysts looking for work that they write reports on how companies can use that 80% of other functionality of the products they already own.

Speaking of Incident Response

2009-04-18T15:24:00Z

In my last post I mentioned I will be speaking at another SANS IR event this summer. I just noticed a post on the ISC site titled Incident Response vs. Incident Handling. It states:

Incident Response is all of the technical components required in order to analyze and contain an incident.

Incident Handling is the logistics, communications, coordination, and planning functions needed in order to resolve an incident in a calm and efficient manner.

That's not right, and never was. I tried pointing that out via a comment on the ISC post, but apparently the moderators aren't willing to accept contradictory comments.

Incident response and incident handling are synonyms. If you need to differentiate between the role that does technical work and one which does leadership work, you can use incident response/handling for the former and incident management for the latter.

Ten years ago I took a course at CERT called Advanced Computer Security Incident Handling for Technical Staff. The class covered technical methodologies for responding to and handling incidents. The successor to that class is Advanced Incident Handling. Notice that CERT also offers the CERT®-Certified Computer Security Incident Handler certification. To CERT, incident response and incident handling are synonyms. If anyone should understand incidents, it's CERT.

I think SANS is the organization that needs to examine how it uses the term incident handler or incident handling. The GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH) designation is 83% inappropriate. How do I arrive at that figure? If you review the day-by-day course overview you'll see that only one day, the first, involves Incident Handling Step-by-Step and Computer Crime Investigation. The next four days are Computer and Network Hacker Exploits, with the sixth day being an open lab. So, 5/6 of the class has little to nothing to do with incident response/handling.

This is a problem for three reasons. First, I have met people and heard of others who think they know how to "handle incidents" because they have the GCIH certification. "I'm certified," they say. This is dangerous. Second, respondents to the latest SANS 2008 Salary Survey considered their GCIH certification to be their most important certification. If you hold the GCIH and think it's important because you know how to "handle incidents," that is also dangerous. Third, SANS offers courses with far more IR relevance that that associated with GCIH, namely courses designed by Rob Lee. It's an historical oddity that keeps the name GCIH in play; it really should be retired, but there's too much "brand recognition" associated with it at this point. If you want to learn IR from SANS, see Rob.

To be fair, the title for the course which prepares students for the GCIH is Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling. Putting IH at the end does list the subject in the proper context. I will also not deny that one should understand hacker techniques and exploits in order to do incident response/handling, but that knowledge should be its own material -- something to know in addition to the skills required for IR. Also, track 504 is really good; I remember it fondly, before it had that label. The material is kept fresh and the instructors are excellent.

The bottom line is that incident handling and response are synonyms, and those who think they are certified to do incident handling and response via GCIH are kidding themselves.

Richard Bejtlich is teaching new classes in Las Vegas in 2009. Early Las Vegas registration ends 1 May.

Incident Response vs. Incident Handling, (Thu, Apr 16th)

2009-04-16T21:34:52Z

Incident Response vs. Incident Handling

Published: 2009-04-16,
Last Updated: 2009-04-16 21:34:52 UTC
by Adrien de Beaupre (Version: 1)

7 comment(s) acebook witter

One of the things that comes ups frequently in discussion is the difference between incident response, and incident handling. Anyone who has had to deal with an incident has likely encountered this situation at least once. While attempting to work on analyzing what the #$%& happened you always have your senior executive and/or clients hanging over your shoulder constantly bugging you for more details. The containment plan needs to be worked out, someone needs to liaise with Legal/HR/PR, management wants an update, the technical staff need direction or assistance, teams need to be coordinated, everyone wants to be in the loop, lots of yelling is going on, external IRTs want to know why your network is attacking theirs, nobody can locate the backups, keeping track of activities, taking notes, and the list goes on… No wonder people regularly burn out during incidents! Incident handling is obviously not a solo sport.

The best line for this problem came from the hot wash (post incident debrief) of a major exercise, where one of the leads stood up to the table of senior executives, and calmly explained "No, no you will NOT go talking to the team. You will talk to me. Only me. It is my job to keep you off their backs so they can do actual work".

That is the difference between Incident Response, and Incident Handling. Incident Response is all of the technical components required in order to analyze and contain an incident. Incident Handling is the logistics, communications, coordination, and planning functions needed in order to resolve an incident in a calm and efficient manner. Yes, there are people who can fulfill either role, but typically not at the same time. The worse things get, the greater the requirement for the two different roles becomes.

These two functions are best performed by at least two different people, although in larger scale incidents this may need to be two leads who work closely together to coordinate the activities of two separate teams. In smaller environments ideally the Incident team should still always be two people, one responding, and the other taking notes and communicating with stakeholders.

It should also be noted that the skill sets for these two are different as well. Incident Response requires strong networking, log analysis, and forensics skills; incident handling strong communications and project management skills. These are complementary roles which allow the responders to respond, the team to work in a planned (or at least organized chaos) fashion and the rest of the world to feel that they have enough information to leave the team alone to work.

Thanks to a former colleague who helped me writing this.

Thoughts or feedback?

Update: Rex wrote in the following: US workers in emergency services (fire, police, ambulance, first aid), are trained in the Incident Command System: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_Command_System
which defines a number of important roles in handling an emergency incident.

Small teams won't have enough members to put one person in each role. Experience shows that the "hands-on" members *must be left alone*, even if you need to do on-the-spot recruitment to handle PR, crowd control, logistics, etc. Another key concept is "one person in charge per function" - one commander, one PR person, one chief medic, etc.

Maybe the IT security incident response/handling world should steal good ideas from people who deal with life-and-death emergencies. Soon, IT emergencies will be life-and-death emergencies.

Cheers,
Adrien de Beaupré
EWA-Canada.com

Keywords: incident handling incident response

7 comment(s) acebook witter

New: Geni Facebook Application!

2009-04-10T00:20:07Z

The Geni Facebook Application is now available. For the first time, Facebook users can access the most popular Geni features without leaving Facebook, including building a collaborative family tree, getting family news and birthday reminders, and setting up a family profile. Seamless integration between the Facebook application and Geni.com lets existing Geni users collaborate directly with Facebook users.

Geni users can add pictures of their family to their Facebook profile; this is a great way for proud parents and grandparents to show off their kids and grandkids. Users can also choose to share their interactive family tree with their close friends.

Once the application is installed, existing Geni users should use "Already have a Geni account?" link to connect your existing Geni account to the Facebook app. Then you can invite your relatives and friends from Facebook to install the app to grow your Geni tree and see how you are related to your friends!

View the Geni Facebook Application

Making the most of your runbooks, (Fri, Mar 20th)

2009-03-22T02:25:35Z

Making the most of your runbooks

Published: 2009-03-20,
Last Updated: 2009-03-22 02:25:35 UTC
by Stephen Hall (Version: 1)

0 comment(s)

To perform effective security incident handling, a standard model is often used. SANS through its GIAC GCIH affiliation certification teaches a six step model comprising of the following steps:

preparation, identification, containment, eradication, recovery and lessons learned.

Today, I want to look at preparation. Given that during the current economic climate we are all expected to do more with the same, or often less resource, now is the time to see how we can use preparation time to make our incident response skills slick, and effective whilst not raising operational costs.

As incident response teams mature from the chaos of the first incidents through to the slick teams we all hope they will become, optimizing the processes within the team is an important maturity step. The Capability Maturity Model defines these maturity steps as:

Ad-hoc, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimized.

The way to identify where your incident processes are up to in this model are to use some easily identifiable characteristics

ad-hoc - Processes are undocumented and what process there is changes a lot
repeatable - Documented, and may even give the same results, but little discipline in operating the process
defined - Documentation is well defined and have been improved over time
managed - metrics are embedded within the processes, and used to check the effectiveness of the processes
optimizing - found to be focused on continual improvement of the process

Given that the standard way of documenting incident response processes is via the run book, lets look at some ways of improving the effectiveness of those processes.

1. Paper Based Run Books

If you don't have procedures, written down ones with steps etc, now is the time to start. Every time you perform an incident for which you dont have a run book, transpose your notes you took during the incident into a documented step by step action sheet as to what you do next time. It doesnt have to be a huge weighty tome of information, infact a single sheet process, with a page or two of notes on what the process steps do should be more than enough.

2. Using a Wiki rather than using paper

Incident teams work effectively by collaborating during an event, an onwards through the incident until the service is recovered. During the lessons learned process step of an incident, when you walk through and find what you did good at, and what sucked, this is the time to change your run books to address those issues. Having collaborative publishing as with a Wiki allows the whole team to discuss and propose changes to your run books via the Wiki and then you can move, with team agreement, from 1.0, to 2.0 of your run books. One thing to remember, make sure you have local, offline copies of your wiki on your incident response laptops so you can refer to the documentation if your website, or network is down, or compromised. Other points to consider on the choice of wiki software, and its configuration are:

use SSL to encrypt the connections to the wiki
turn off default read to the wiki
create accounts for each of your incident team, and those needed to authorize changes to your procedures

3. Automating steps within the Wiki Run Book

This is the key step in making the most of your run books. If during an incident, for example an IDS alert against your corporate web site, you will need to perform some standard steps time and time again. Lets automate them, and define them within the Wiki run book.

For example, grab todays web logs, and search them for entries for a particular IP address. Your run books should have this defined as a step, so on your wiki, have a link that pulls the logs, performs the grep, or other such search, and display the results for you on the web page.

For example, should you want to pull all 404 errors from your web site, you could have a link as shown in the picture below:

And this could result in

193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:24 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.0-beta1/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 234 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:24 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.0-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 232 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:24 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.0.1/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 230 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:24 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.0.2/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 230 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:25 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.0/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 228 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:25 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.1-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 232 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:25 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.1/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 228 "-" "-" 193.225.244.201 - - [10/Mar/2009:20:53:25 +0000] "GET /sql/phpMyAdmin-2.10.2-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0" 404 232 "-" "-"

4. Producing evidence of run book adherence

In larger organizations the auditing of adherence to the steps performed during an incident will be expected, and indeed checked. So, again using your automated run book methodology, use tick boxes, radio buttons, etc, to show where decisions are made, and what choices were made during an incident. These can be logged and presented as audit evidence later on. If you have a team spread across multiple sites/countries, etc, then you could use a communications server, such as IRC, Jabber, etc, to allow people to talk about the event and then save the logs. If audit ask for decision points during an event, and where they are recorded, show them your logs. Of course, if your using communication servers, implement SSL on them, and deny access in the clear.

5. MI

Management information during an incident should describe the effectiveness of the process. Time to respond, time to step through the four steps of the incident handling process which are used during an incident. Using the automated run books method will speed up key functions within your response and allow you to demonstrate that you true are doing more for less!

Finally, if you have any tips on improving your run books, pass them along and I'll update this diary over the weekend. I am on duty again on Monday, so I'll ensure that those few of you who don't read us over the weekend are not left out!

Keywords: automation run book

0 comment(s)

Students

2009-03-18T04:00:00Z

Malicious Code Targeting Social Networking Site Users

2009-03-04T16:53:06Z

US-CERT is aware of public reports of malicious code spreading via popular social networking sites including myspace.com, facebook.com, hi5.com, friendster.com, myyearbook.com, bebo.com, and livejournal.com. The reports indicate that the malware, named Koobface, is spreading through invitations from a user's contact that include a link to view a video. If the users click on the link in this invitation, they are prompted to update Adobe Flash Player. This update is not a legitimate Adobe Flash Player update, it is malicious code.

Additionally, some of the reports indicate that there are multiple bogus Facebook applications being used to obtain users' private information.

US-CERT encourages users and administrators to do the following to help mitigate the risks:

Install antivirus software and keep the virus signature files up to date.
Do not follow unsolicited links.
Use caution when downloading and installing applications.
Obtain software applications and updates directly from the vendor's website.
Refer to the Staying Safe on Social Networking Sites document for more information on safe use of social networking sites.
Refer to the Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks document for more information on social engineering attacks.

Can You Hear Me Running?

2009-03-03T13:11:18Z

[Another guest post from John Perich. Talk back in the comments! —Ed.]

Mike + the Mechanics produced two back to back hit singles in 1985: "Silent Running" and "All I Need is a Miracle." You can check out the music videos for each on MTV.com. In fact, you'll need to watch both videos, back to back, to understand the depth of what I'm getting at here.

Clear 10 minutes out of your schedule. Plug in your headphones. And brace yourself, because these are both a little weird.

Seen them both? Here are a few thoughts...

Silent Running: This is, at first blush, the weirder of the two. Note the odd way the camera swoops down on the house —shot in such a way to obstruct views of any other houses on the block—and the nuclear family clustered around a kitchen table. Every visual and auditory cue implies that these are the only human beings on the planet. Then 80s character actor Billy Drago shows up (recognizable as mobster Frank Nitti in The Untouchables, or John Bly in The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr), tells Tommy that he knew his (vanished) father, and gives him a key. And it only gets stranger from there!
All I Need is a Miracle: Upbeat, catchy pop underscores a conversation between the band's manager (played by Roy Kinnear, whom you recognize as Veruca Salt's father in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and the club owner. Mike + the Mechanics playing to an empty bar? No, that's the owner's fault, for calling the band in at the last minute. The sinister bar owner threatens to repo the band's equipment—including, gruesomely enough, "the guitar player's right arm"—unless the manager produces 500 quid by night's end.

Two odd music videos. What's odder is that they clearly take place in the same universe. Note the band on stage in "All I Need is a Miracle" is clearly playing out the last synthesized bars of "Silent Running" as the video begins.

Are we to presume that the stories of these two videos are somehow connected? We wouldn't be Overthinking It if we didn't say yes!

BELIEVE IN ME, I'M WITH THE HIGH COMMAND

"Do we have a solution yet?" the Traveler asked, zipping up his iridium-laced bodysuit.

"I think so." The project manager crossed from the portal controls to the central display. He nervously checked his radiation badge as he did—a habit every survivor of the nuclear wars of 1989 had picked up—and pursed his lips in concern. Wiping sweat from his fingertips, he punched in some latitude and longitude figures into the display.

"There," he said, pointing. "Jeff Franks. Executive producer for Atlantic Records. He has a flat in Manhattan, but a house in Richmond, just south of London. You can reach him most easily."

"Got it. How much should I tell him?"

"Keep it brief," the project manager insisted, sealing the Traveler's mask from the outside. "The Doppler effect will make your voice reverberate after you travel back in time. Anything too long and you'll lose him."

"How far back are you sending me?"

"November 1973."

"Hell. That's sixteen years in advance!"

"Any later and we pass the crisis point. It's like an avalanche, building up momentum constantly. This is where we stave it off."

The Traveler stepped between the generators of the portal unit. "Are we sure this will work?"

"It's the only hope we've got!" The project manager had to yell now, as sub-etheric energy crackled between pylons and drowned out everything else. "Our only hope of stopping the nuclear holocaust is if Peter Gabriel leaves Genesis!"

SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, WHATEVER FLAG THEY OFFER

Peter Gabriel grew increasingly distant from the band he'd helped found on the The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour. His mates felt that the increased focus on theatricality focused the spotlight, unfairly, on him, while Gabriel felt his artistic vision was constrained. He departed in 1974, with Phil Collins replacing him on vocals.

Collins-era Genesis had a looser feel to it, and band members could take time off to work on side projects. Mike + the Mechanics was the side gig of guitarist Mike Rutherford. They didn't enjoy the critical approval that Genesis did, playing smaller gigs to quieter crowds, but they explored the limits of catchy, non-threatening pop as best they could.

On one such night, playing in a seedy club in London's East End, the manager seized the band's equipment after a particularly bad turnout. His two goons then pinned Rutherford down to a butcher's block in the back and, true to the manager's word, removed his right arm with a hacksaw. Rutherford died en route to the hospital.

Genesis dedicated "Land of Confusion," a hit single off their Invisible Touch album, to Rutherford's memory. The Conservatives adopted it as a rallying cry in the 1987 election, campaigning against organized crime. They won an unheard of 59.9% of the popular vote to Labour's 21.6%.

With Margaret Thatcher in office well into the late 90s, the nuclear war of 1989 was postponed but not canceled. Nuclear armageddon ravaged the world on August 29, 1997. The bombs fell regardless.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU GOT 'TILL IT'S GONE

"What do you mean, I can't go back?" Jeff Franks smashed the top of the console angrily, jarring the display.

The Traveler sprinted across the room and restrained him. "Take it easy. Doc, would you explain ...?"

The project manager sighed. "We didn't anticipate this. But the timeline diverged with Gabriel's departure from Genesis, creating a new universe prior to this moment. Since you technically never existed in this universe - you created it, in a sense - you can't enter it. I'm sorry."

"But my family!" Franks cried. "My wife! My boy, Tommy ..."

"Don't you get it, man?" The Traveler shook him. "They're dead! They all died on August 29, 1997, along with three billion other people. If you want to save them, we need to figure another way out."

Franks shoved himself away from the Traveler's grip, but seemed to calm down. "All right. Send me back, before 1973, and I'll convince myself to ..."

The project manager shook his head. "Can't do it. We can't send you somewhere you've already been, either. You're stuck in the present with us."

Franks collapsed in a corner and wept. The Traveler ignored him and crossed to the project manager's terminal. "What do you have?"

"I think I have the secondary crisis point. If we can keep Mike Rutherford from being killed—here—then Thatcher won't be PM in 1997."

The Traveler nodded. "Who do I recruit?"

"That's just it: I can't find anyone susceptible. And we only get one shot at this. We can't send you back multiple times, either."

"So how do we fix this? Do we keep the band from taking that gig? Do we keep Genesis from splitting off and doing side projects? Maybe we can talk Gabriel into rejoining the band..."

"I've got it." Franks, hoarse from sobbing in the corner, cleared his throat to make himself heard. "You need someone who's going to listen to you the first time out. Someone who'll do what you say without question.

"Like my son."

The Traveler and the project manager exchanged a look. The project manager turned back to Franks. "We can't send you back to talk to..."

"Don't send me back. Look..." He indicated a projection cube, a small crystal device that could play back years worth of images and sounds. "I'll record a message for Tommy. Send him," he indicated the Traveler, "back with this. Tommy will do anything if I tell him."

"Are you sure about this?" the project manager asked, trying to dampen the hope in his voice with some gentle concern. "You'd be sending a 10-year-old into a bar run by thugs in the East End. No one's asking you to ..."

"Doc," Franks said, smiling. "I love the world enough to give up my only son for it."

THOUGH I TREATED YOU LIKE A CHILD, I'M GONNA MISS YOU FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE

The Traveler returned on the one night Jeff Franks knew Tommy would be at home—the night of his 10th birthday. He snuck upstairs while the Franks family wished Tommy another lonely, happy birthday in the kitchen. Swiping the key to the locked storage closet from where Franks had hidden it a decade earlier, he unlocked the door and left the projection cube there.

Then he waited.

"You don't know me, but I knew your father. He wanted me to give you this."

Tommy sneaks into the supply closet after his mother puts him to bed, unlocking it and finding the projection cube. Triggered by his presence, it delivers a message—a desperate message to Tommy from the father he's never seen.

"Hello, Tommy. I'm sorry I left. I hope this message will explain why. I need your help. In three nights, a band called Mike + the Mechanics will be playing at a bar in the East End. The guitarist, Mike Rutherford, is going to be murdered unless the manager comes up with 500 pounds. And if Mike Rutherford dies, a nuclear war in 1997 will kill half of humanity.

"I know this is a lot to ask of you, Tommy, but you're the only one I can trust. The man who gave you the key earlier is waiting outside the window. He'll transport you to London. From there, you'll have to do what you can.

"Tommy, there's so much we have to catch up on. But right now there's not a lot of time. Go with the man. Save Mike Rutherford. Make sure that everybody gets a second chance."

STAY IF YOU WANNA STAY

Tommy, inheriting his father's ingenuity, steals the dog of an eccentric baron walking through St. John's Wood. He holds onto the dog until the night of the Mike + the Mechanics show. Then, as the band's manager frantically looks for money, he releases the dog on the street. The manager returns the dog to the rich lord, who rewards him with 700 pounds. 500 goes to the sinister club owner, 200 goes to the oblivious band.

The Conservatives wins the 1987 election, but not by as resounding a margin. Thatcher stepped down in the 1990 election. Nuclear war was averted.

Trapped outside a timeline that had passed him by, Jeff Franks watched his boy grow old and strong through the Choke Canyon Time Travel Facility's monitors. He spent every waking moment observing the family he'd lost, wasting away in front of the glossy display screens.

The Traveler shook his head sadly as he watched Franks watch his son. "He grows up well, Jeff," he said. "You should be proud of him."

"I am proud," Franks replied. "I just wish I could have told him in the living years."

John Perich also writes at Periscope Depth. You can reach him at perich at gmail dot com.

Take On Me, The Sequel

This post originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Sierpinski Valentine

2009-02-13T05:00:00Z

Cartesian Dualism in Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl”

2009-02-11T19:52:01Z

This post originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

[A guest post today from John Perich. Let us know what you think in the comments! --Ed.]

Where can I get me some epistemology like that?

Dualism--the theory that mind and body are two distinct entities which interact with each other--has poisoned human behavior over the last thousand years or so. From dualism, we get the notion that the pleasures of the mind are "noble" while the pleasures of the flesh are "sinful." We see the separation between inhumane logic and passionate emotion, never imagining that they spring from the same source. It's taken scientists and philosophers centuries to beat back this curtain of ignorance; progress has been slow.

And then Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" comes along and undoes all the good work.

Rock ballads and pop songs have always carried dualism's banner. Consider the threadbare cliche of "my heart says yes but my mind says no," the notion that there are two warring entities within the human skeleton, a Soul and a Body, each trying to pull the body a different way. Of course, we can reconcile this trope with more modern notions of perception (e.g., Daniel Dennett's multiple drafts theory of consciousness) without much difficulty.

"Jessie's Girl," however, plants its flag squarely on the turf of the ignorant. Observe: "And she's watchin' him with those eyes / And she's lovin' him with that body, I just know it."

Nowhere is the distinction between Soul and Body more explicit. She (Jessie's Girl) is using a tool (her body) to perform an action (lovin'). She makes a decision (to watch) and selects an implement (those eyes). The redundancy makes Springfield's pre-rationalism bias explicit: what else would you watch with, if not eyes? Or love with, if not the body?

Mmmm. Homunculus likey eggs.

But Springfield calls attention to the dichotomy. The girl manipulates an object, like some Cartesian homunculus, to achieve a desired end. She's not lovin' him; she's using her body on him.

If you don't get how pernicious those lyrics are, consider a similar sentence: "I'm going to use my feet to get to the refrigerator, then use my hands to open it and get a beer. You want one?"

That's just stupid. If you said, "I'm going to get a beer from the fridge," everyone would know what you meant. There's no need to spell out the body parts that you'll be using to get the job done - unless you consider the Body somehow separate from the Mind.

It gets worse: "And I'm lookin' in the mirror all the time / Wonderin' what she don't see in me."

Subtler, but even more wicked! The homunculus piloting Rick Springfield cannot conceive of itself without mechanical aid. It uses its eyes, and the light reflected off a mirror, to evaluate itself in the eyes of Jessie's girl...whom it thinks he wishes he had!

This opens all sorts of thorny internal contradictions that bring the song crashing down. When Rick Springfield says, "I wish that I had Jessie's girl," is he saying Springfield's Soul wishes Springfield had Jessie's girl, or that Springfield's Body wishes Springfield had Jessie's girl?

Or, to complicate matters further, is he saying that Springfield's Soul wishes that Springfield's Body had Jessie's girl--that she would use her own Body on him for some lovin'? Is the love shared between man, woman, and Jessie in the 80s a spiritual connection or a purely physical act? Or maybe we should abolish that distinction, like thinking adults, and recognize that the mind/body dichotomy muddles more than it explains, love is a complicated mix of chemistry and idealization, etc, etc.

Please note that The Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" covers similar ground without any theosophical problems, and is therefore a superior song.

Email John at perich at gmail.com.

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2009-02-02T05:00:00Z

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