Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
TIME TO HANG IT UP
Cranky has been running marathons and ultramarathons for thirty-five years. Actually, the running faded away about fifteen years ago. What he’s been doing since then is more like shuffling. Anyway, after his latest effort—this year’s Marine Corps Marathon—he’s decided it’s time to call a halt, unless someone is willing to pay him big bucks. A la Dave Letterman, here are the ten reasons why.
1. He’s being passed by old men and obese women.
2. His times from his prime days have more than doubled, for a marathon from a little over three hours to well over six hours.
3. The hurt doesn’t start building after ten, fifteen, or twenty miles. The hurt starts right away.
4. His knees have no cartilage left; it’s bone on bone.
5. The water points are invariably out of water by the time Cranky arrives.
6. He’s tired of reading about some seventy or eighty year-old still running marathons. Good genes are something you are born with, not something that necessarily warrants effusive praise.
7. He’s too tired to oogle the young lady spectators.
8. The young lady spectators are preoccupied with young men spectators and young men runners.
9. He snaps at people who ask what his time was.
10. Finishing at the back of the pack and still being a basket case just ain’t much fun.
1. He’s being passed by old men and obese women.
2. His times from his prime days have more than doubled, for a marathon from a little over three hours to well over six hours.
3. The hurt doesn’t start building after ten, fifteen, or twenty miles. The hurt starts right away.
4. His knees have no cartilage left; it’s bone on bone.
5. The water points are invariably out of water by the time Cranky arrives.
6. He’s tired of reading about some seventy or eighty year-old still running marathons. Good genes are something you are born with, not something that necessarily warrants effusive praise.
7. He’s too tired to oogle the young lady spectators.
8. The young lady spectators are preoccupied with young men spectators and young men runners.
9. He snaps at people who ask what his time was.
10. Finishing at the back of the pack and still being a basket case just ain’t much fun.
Friday, September 30, 2011
PATENT REFORM? A LONG WAY TO GO
On September 16, President Obama signed into law the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, which made various amendments to the nation’s Patent Act (codified at 35 U.S.C §1-376). Ballyhooed as a patent reform measure, the America Invents Act really only touches the surface of patent reform. The fundamental challenge that the Information Age has thrown at the patent system was largely unaddressed. That challenge is where to draw the line between what is and what is not patentable.
For much of the Industrial Age, the line required a significant degree of tangibility for an “invention” to be patent-eligible. The requirement was not an explicitly written legal provision; it just flowed naturally from the primary focus of Industrial Age innovation, that focus being physical things.
Then in the latter half of the 20th Century came the Information Age. Tangibility gave way—not completely, but significantly—to bits and bytes, to different combinations of those bits and bytes, to software instructions for computers, to many “inventions” that consisted mostly of descriptions about how to do something rather than descriptions of a something itself. Indeed, in a number of cases, the descriptions, which after all were just words, were pretty much the whole “invention.”
This change in focus from the tangible to the intangible presented difficulties for a patent system that had long viewed patents as having two components: an “invention” and words describing the invention. In the intangible world of the Information Age, the words describing the invention often became the invention itself.
Section 101 of the Patent Act lists four categories of patentable objects: “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” The process, also called the method, category is where many Information Age, intangible innovations fall on the patent spectrum. Business method patents is a non-legal term frequently applied to many patents in the process category. Another informal term often encountered is software patents. The term, which has no precise generally accepted definition, refers to innovations that consisted solely or mostly of computer instructions.
In July 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision, Bilski v. Kappos, that dealt with the patentability question, the question of what might fall beyond the bounds of process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. The “invention” involved was a method of hedging against risk in the energy market. The key claims as identified in Justice Kennedy’s opinion of the Court were 1 and 4. Claim 1 contained a series of steps describing how to hedge risk. Claim 4 put the concept articulated in claim 1 into a mathematical formula.
All nine of the Supreme Court Justices agreed that no patent should be granted for the described hedging process. The point all nine justices apparently agreed upon was that the process was abstract and therefore not patentable. But there was no single rationale that could provide much-needed guidance to the Patent Office and the patent and business communities. Four Justices—Kennedy, who wrote the opinion of the Court, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito—said as little as possible. They defined the proposed patent as an abstract concept and rejected it solely for abstractness. But they did not hold that business methods were unpatentable. They conceded that business methods presented special Information Age challenges—the opinion explicitly recognized the existence of the Information Age—but the four Justices found no general prohibition on the granting of patents for business methods.
Four other Justices—Stevens, who wrote a concurring opinion, Breyer, who joined in that opinion and also wrote another concurring opinion, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor—took a more expansive view. They would have prohibited business methods patents. Justice Scalia joined a portion of Kennedy’s opinion and a portion of Breyer’s opinion. The portions of Kennedy’s opinion and Breyer’s opinion that Scalia did not join were portions that cast degrees of doubt on patents for business methods. Interestingly, the portions of Kennedy’s opinion that Scalia did not join were also the only portions of the opinion that referred to the Information Age. Being a firm Constitutional Originalist, perhaps Justice Scalia objects to the Information Age.
The bottom line was that the Court in Bilski provided only minimal guidance on the question of where the patentability line should be drawn. The Court did condone a machine-or-transformation test for process or method patent claims: was a process tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or did the process transform a particular article into a different state or thing? But the Court emphasized that the machine-or-transformation test was not the sole test for determining patentability under §101of the Patent Act; the test was simply a useful and important clue or investigative tool.
So, the Supreme Court punted in 2010 when presented with an opportunity to clarify the bounds of patentability. Would Congress do better in the first comprehensive patent reform act in almost sixty years? Well, no.
Perhaps the most talked about provision of the America Invents Act is the change from a first-to-invent system to a first-to-file system for determining who is entitled to a patent. The United States had been alone among industrialized nations in having a first-to-invent system. By moving to a first-to-file system, the United States will, proponents hope, reduce administrative and litigation costs patent applicants and holders can incur in a first-to-invent system, and in a world of disparate systems. Adoption of the first-to-file system was accompanied by a number of conforming changes to other provisions of the Patent Act, including §102 on novelty and §103 on non-obvious subject matter. These changes, and the change to a first-to-file system in general, are of interest to patent practitioners down in the weeds of the patent world, but they have little significance to the broad question of what types of innovations should or should not be granted patent protection, protection that in essence amounts to a limited-term monopoly.
Another much discussed aspect of the America Invents Act is the broadening of post-grant reviews. A rationale for the expansion of post-grant reviews is that the complexity of technology and the large increase in the number of patent applications has resulted in the granting of many patents that on one grounds or another should not have been granted. Under the America Invents Act (section 6), post-grant reviews may be sought on any invalidity ground during the first twelve months after a patent is issued or reissued.
A narrower provision of the America Invents Act (section 18) allows post-grant review of the validity of certain business method patents. The covered patents include ones that claim a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service, except that patents for technological inventions are not covered. Interestingly, the provision includes the admonition that amending or interpreting the categories of patent-eligible subject matter set forth in §101 of the Patent Act are not a permitted result of a post-grant review of a financial product or service patent.
The only direct narrowing of patentability under the American Invents Act concerns tax strategies. A small subset of business method patents, tax strategy patents are, as the moniker suggests, patents on tax strategies, or more accurately, on ways to avoid or reduce taxes.
Protecting tax strategies through the patent laws had aroused enough politically powerfully opposition that Congress was willing to curtail the practice. But Congress was apparently leery of opening a can of worms, which would have been the case if it began tinkering with the categories of patent-eligible subject matter in §101 of the Patent Act: processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter. Consequently, Congress took the approach of saying that any future tax strategy patent applications would be deemed insufficient to differentiate them from prior art. In other words, future tax strategies would not be considered novel or non-obvious inventions warranting patent protection.
So Congress has joined the Supreme Court in punting on the fundamental question that the Information Age poses for an Industrial Age patent system: as predominately intangible innovations proliferate and become the mainstay of economic activity, where is the line to be drawn between what is patentable and what is not patentable? For the time being, drawing that line will be the province of, principally, two entities: the Patent Office and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the federal appeals court that deals with patent matters at the appellate level.
The Patent Office itself does not speak with one voice. Policies and guidance are issued at a centralized level, but patent examiners can be all over the board in interpreting the policies and guidance, particularly in the fuzzy field of business method patents. The internal Patent Office appeals body—the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, which the America Invents Act renamed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—attempts to bring a modicum of consistency to examiner decisions, but the effort is never-ending and only partly successful.
Thus for those seeking patent protection for innovations with a significant degree of intangibleness, the years ahead will likely be a time of considerable uncertainty. The principal beneficiaries of the uncertainty? The patent bar, of course.
For much of the Industrial Age, the line required a significant degree of tangibility for an “invention” to be patent-eligible. The requirement was not an explicitly written legal provision; it just flowed naturally from the primary focus of Industrial Age innovation, that focus being physical things.
Then in the latter half of the 20th Century came the Information Age. Tangibility gave way—not completely, but significantly—to bits and bytes, to different combinations of those bits and bytes, to software instructions for computers, to many “inventions” that consisted mostly of descriptions about how to do something rather than descriptions of a something itself. Indeed, in a number of cases, the descriptions, which after all were just words, were pretty much the whole “invention.”
This change in focus from the tangible to the intangible presented difficulties for a patent system that had long viewed patents as having two components: an “invention” and words describing the invention. In the intangible world of the Information Age, the words describing the invention often became the invention itself.
Section 101 of the Patent Act lists four categories of patentable objects: “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” The process, also called the method, category is where many Information Age, intangible innovations fall on the patent spectrum. Business method patents is a non-legal term frequently applied to many patents in the process category. Another informal term often encountered is software patents. The term, which has no precise generally accepted definition, refers to innovations that consisted solely or mostly of computer instructions.
In July 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision, Bilski v. Kappos, that dealt with the patentability question, the question of what might fall beyond the bounds of process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. The “invention” involved was a method of hedging against risk in the energy market. The key claims as identified in Justice Kennedy’s opinion of the Court were 1 and 4. Claim 1 contained a series of steps describing how to hedge risk. Claim 4 put the concept articulated in claim 1 into a mathematical formula.
All nine of the Supreme Court Justices agreed that no patent should be granted for the described hedging process. The point all nine justices apparently agreed upon was that the process was abstract and therefore not patentable. But there was no single rationale that could provide much-needed guidance to the Patent Office and the patent and business communities. Four Justices—Kennedy, who wrote the opinion of the Court, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito—said as little as possible. They defined the proposed patent as an abstract concept and rejected it solely for abstractness. But they did not hold that business methods were unpatentable. They conceded that business methods presented special Information Age challenges—the opinion explicitly recognized the existence of the Information Age—but the four Justices found no general prohibition on the granting of patents for business methods.
Four other Justices—Stevens, who wrote a concurring opinion, Breyer, who joined in that opinion and also wrote another concurring opinion, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor—took a more expansive view. They would have prohibited business methods patents. Justice Scalia joined a portion of Kennedy’s opinion and a portion of Breyer’s opinion. The portions of Kennedy’s opinion and Breyer’s opinion that Scalia did not join were portions that cast degrees of doubt on patents for business methods. Interestingly, the portions of Kennedy’s opinion that Scalia did not join were also the only portions of the opinion that referred to the Information Age. Being a firm Constitutional Originalist, perhaps Justice Scalia objects to the Information Age.
The bottom line was that the Court in Bilski provided only minimal guidance on the question of where the patentability line should be drawn. The Court did condone a machine-or-transformation test for process or method patent claims: was a process tied to a particular machine or apparatus, or did the process transform a particular article into a different state or thing? But the Court emphasized that the machine-or-transformation test was not the sole test for determining patentability under §101of the Patent Act; the test was simply a useful and important clue or investigative tool.
So, the Supreme Court punted in 2010 when presented with an opportunity to clarify the bounds of patentability. Would Congress do better in the first comprehensive patent reform act in almost sixty years? Well, no.
Perhaps the most talked about provision of the America Invents Act is the change from a first-to-invent system to a first-to-file system for determining who is entitled to a patent. The United States had been alone among industrialized nations in having a first-to-invent system. By moving to a first-to-file system, the United States will, proponents hope, reduce administrative and litigation costs patent applicants and holders can incur in a first-to-invent system, and in a world of disparate systems. Adoption of the first-to-file system was accompanied by a number of conforming changes to other provisions of the Patent Act, including §102 on novelty and §103 on non-obvious subject matter. These changes, and the change to a first-to-file system in general, are of interest to patent practitioners down in the weeds of the patent world, but they have little significance to the broad question of what types of innovations should or should not be granted patent protection, protection that in essence amounts to a limited-term monopoly.
Another much discussed aspect of the America Invents Act is the broadening of post-grant reviews. A rationale for the expansion of post-grant reviews is that the complexity of technology and the large increase in the number of patent applications has resulted in the granting of many patents that on one grounds or another should not have been granted. Under the America Invents Act (section 6), post-grant reviews may be sought on any invalidity ground during the first twelve months after a patent is issued or reissued.
A narrower provision of the America Invents Act (section 18) allows post-grant review of the validity of certain business method patents. The covered patents include ones that claim a method or corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service, except that patents for technological inventions are not covered. Interestingly, the provision includes the admonition that amending or interpreting the categories of patent-eligible subject matter set forth in §101 of the Patent Act are not a permitted result of a post-grant review of a financial product or service patent.
The only direct narrowing of patentability under the American Invents Act concerns tax strategies. A small subset of business method patents, tax strategy patents are, as the moniker suggests, patents on tax strategies, or more accurately, on ways to avoid or reduce taxes.
Protecting tax strategies through the patent laws had aroused enough politically powerfully opposition that Congress was willing to curtail the practice. But Congress was apparently leery of opening a can of worms, which would have been the case if it began tinkering with the categories of patent-eligible subject matter in §101 of the Patent Act: processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter. Consequently, Congress took the approach of saying that any future tax strategy patent applications would be deemed insufficient to differentiate them from prior art. In other words, future tax strategies would not be considered novel or non-obvious inventions warranting patent protection.
So Congress has joined the Supreme Court in punting on the fundamental question that the Information Age poses for an Industrial Age patent system: as predominately intangible innovations proliferate and become the mainstay of economic activity, where is the line to be drawn between what is patentable and what is not patentable? For the time being, drawing that line will be the province of, principally, two entities: the Patent Office and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the federal appeals court that deals with patent matters at the appellate level.
The Patent Office itself does not speak with one voice. Policies and guidance are issued at a centralized level, but patent examiners can be all over the board in interpreting the policies and guidance, particularly in the fuzzy field of business method patents. The internal Patent Office appeals body—the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, which the America Invents Act renamed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—attempts to bring a modicum of consistency to examiner decisions, but the effort is never-ending and only partly successful.
Thus for those seeking patent protection for innovations with a significant degree of intangibleness, the years ahead will likely be a time of considerable uncertainty. The principal beneficiaries of the uncertainty? The patent bar, of course.
Monday, September 12, 2011
CNN-TEA PARTY PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: THOUGHTS ABOUT
) When did CNN foreswear substance for entertainment?
) The National Anthem!?
) OK then, why not an F-16 flyover?
) And scantily clad cheerleaders?
) Was CNN making a case for being the Monday night football provider?
) Michele Bachmann’s children number 3, 5, 7, or what?
) If CNN allies with the Tea Party to sponsor a Republican Presidential debate, would it also join forces with the Democratic Party to sponsor a Republican Presidential debate?
) Texas Ranger Recon Unit: can it operate nationwide, maybe even in Afghanistan?
) Which is an indication of greater idealism: cheering for the uninsured thirty-year old dying because of no medical care, or cheering, as in the last debate, about Texas executing two hundred plus people during the Rick Perry years?
) Do those who support individual retirement accounts based on stock market investments recall that the stock market tanked recently?
) If old people’s benefits are not going to be tampered with and reforms will make things right for young people, does that mean those in their forties are in deep do-do?
) Who keeps returning Ron Paul to the U.S. Congress?
) For that matter, where did these Tea Partiers come from?
) Is pretty much anything treasonous?
) Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain: somebody is paying you guys to embarrass yourselves, right?
) And Wolf, it’s been a long slow decline from those heady days in 1991 when you were a young stud dodging incoming Scuds in Saudi Arabia, hasn’t it?
) The National Anthem!?
) OK then, why not an F-16 flyover?
) And scantily clad cheerleaders?
) Was CNN making a case for being the Monday night football provider?
) Michele Bachmann’s children number 3, 5, 7, or what?
) If CNN allies with the Tea Party to sponsor a Republican Presidential debate, would it also join forces with the Democratic Party to sponsor a Republican Presidential debate?
) Texas Ranger Recon Unit: can it operate nationwide, maybe even in Afghanistan?
) Which is an indication of greater idealism: cheering for the uninsured thirty-year old dying because of no medical care, or cheering, as in the last debate, about Texas executing two hundred plus people during the Rick Perry years?
) Do those who support individual retirement accounts based on stock market investments recall that the stock market tanked recently?
) If old people’s benefits are not going to be tampered with and reforms will make things right for young people, does that mean those in their forties are in deep do-do?
) Who keeps returning Ron Paul to the U.S. Congress?
) For that matter, where did these Tea Partiers come from?
) Is pretty much anything treasonous?
) Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain: somebody is paying you guys to embarrass yourselves, right?
) And Wolf, it’s been a long slow decline from those heady days in 1991 when you were a young stud dodging incoming Scuds in Saudi Arabia, hasn’t it?
Thursday, September 08, 2011
ONE MONTH WORK, NINE MONTHS VACATION?
The Congressional Budget Office issued a sobering budget and economic report on August 24. Among other predictions, the CBO estimated that unemployment would remain above 8 percent until 2014. That’s more than two full years away. A major reason for the pessimistic forecast is that the CBO anticipates only modest economic growth.
And why is economic growth only expected to be modest? Republicans will tell you that too much taxation and too many regulations are the problem. Democrats will tell you that not enough government stimulus is the problem. Some economists will tell you that a financial crisis caused by too much debt—such as the current one—does not permit a quick rebound. The economic system has to go through a painful period of deleveraging; that is, debt reduction. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff are two such economists (This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press, 2009).
The too-much-debt economists are probably in the ballpark. But their explanation might not be the whole story. A few months ago, Barack Obama his own self stumbled onto a fundamental problem. He noted that using an ATM meant you were not interacting with a real live bank teller. In other words, ATMs have substantially reduced the number of tellers need in the world.
Of course, the President’s observation was greeted with derision by his adversaries, and even many of his supporters snickered. But he did touch upon a serious obstacle to a full-employment economy: the rapidly changing nature of work. Over the centuries, technological change has in turn produced changes in the nature of work. Existing jobs and occupations have disappeared or been degraded. New jobs and occupations have evolved. The process has rarely been smooth. Change is messy.
The onset of the Information Age, brought about by the computer, has continued—indeed accelerated—this disruptive evolutionary process. The relative, and in some cases absolute, numbers of bank tellers, secretaries, administrative assistants, production line workers, and many other similar types of employees have contracted. New jobs and occupations are emerging, but slowly. In fact, national economies may be entering an environment in which full employment is not achievable. Put another way, the problem might not just be the lack of jobs but the lack of need for a fully employed workforce.
If, say, 100 workers and managers can, with computers and computerized machinery, produce enough food, clothes, housing, other necessities, and leisure goods for 1,000, 10,000, even 100,000 people, what then? Well, you respond, those thousand or whatever need money to buy the food, clothes, housing, other necessities, and leisure goods, so they have to work. But all the necessary work is being done. Is massive income redistribution the answer? Is rotating the 100 necessary worker and manager positions through the 1,000 total supported people the answer? Work a month and get nine off? Are we ready for that future?
And why is economic growth only expected to be modest? Republicans will tell you that too much taxation and too many regulations are the problem. Democrats will tell you that not enough government stimulus is the problem. Some economists will tell you that a financial crisis caused by too much debt—such as the current one—does not permit a quick rebound. The economic system has to go through a painful period of deleveraging; that is, debt reduction. Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff are two such economists (This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press, 2009).
The too-much-debt economists are probably in the ballpark. But their explanation might not be the whole story. A few months ago, Barack Obama his own self stumbled onto a fundamental problem. He noted that using an ATM meant you were not interacting with a real live bank teller. In other words, ATMs have substantially reduced the number of tellers need in the world.
Of course, the President’s observation was greeted with derision by his adversaries, and even many of his supporters snickered. But he did touch upon a serious obstacle to a full-employment economy: the rapidly changing nature of work. Over the centuries, technological change has in turn produced changes in the nature of work. Existing jobs and occupations have disappeared or been degraded. New jobs and occupations have evolved. The process has rarely been smooth. Change is messy.
The onset of the Information Age, brought about by the computer, has continued—indeed accelerated—this disruptive evolutionary process. The relative, and in some cases absolute, numbers of bank tellers, secretaries, administrative assistants, production line workers, and many other similar types of employees have contracted. New jobs and occupations are emerging, but slowly. In fact, national economies may be entering an environment in which full employment is not achievable. Put another way, the problem might not just be the lack of jobs but the lack of need for a fully employed workforce.
If, say, 100 workers and managers can, with computers and computerized machinery, produce enough food, clothes, housing, other necessities, and leisure goods for 1,000, 10,000, even 100,000 people, what then? Well, you respond, those thousand or whatever need money to buy the food, clothes, housing, other necessities, and leisure goods, so they have to work. But all the necessary work is being done. Is massive income redistribution the answer? Is rotating the 100 necessary worker and manager positions through the 1,000 total supported people the answer? Work a month and get nine off? Are we ready for that future?
Thursday, August 18, 2011
THE BOOGER, OUR LITTLE FRIEND
Boogers get a bad rap. They are consistently portrayed in an unflattering manner. Their extraction through nose-picking is not presented as a natural human activity but as something uncouth, even filthy. An entire Seinfeld episode was built around the disgust with which society views a pick.
Yet who among us has not participated? And we should not be ashamed of having done so. Boogers are not vile things. They are actually quite useful.
One use: food. Yes, boogers can be a tasty little snack. They are naturally salty, some more so than others. And if survival is at stake—say you are trapped in a cave and becoming malnourished—boogers are certainly more palatable than other human waste alternatives. So, find yourself hungry but with no food readily available? Pick your nose.
Another use: glue. Some, admittedly not all but some, boogers are excellent adhesives, at least as good as epoxy, J-B Weld, Gorilla Glue, or other alternatives available from such stores as Home Depot and Ace Hardware. Have a repair job requiring an industrial strength adhesive? Pick your nose.
A third use: beauty spot. Accustomed to applying a beauty spot as part of your preparations to face the world each day but don’t have the necessary material one fine morning? Pick your nose.
Not yet persuaded about the value of boogers? Well, their use as a hygiene sensor should remove all doubts. Most of us have worked in offices at some point in our lives. And offices mean communal lavatories. And keeping communal lavatories clean is a challenge of the first order. Some employers commit the resources necessary to maintain a minimally acceptable level of cleanliness. Most don’t. But as an employee, how can you judge?
You can certainly judge the extreme. Unflushable toilets and urinals (do female bathrooms have urinals? Seriously, most guys don’t know) are certainly not acceptable. But how do you evaluate the rest?
Well, one method involves the much maligned booger. Simply place a booger on a wall. If you’re a guy standing at a urinal and no one is around, reach into the old nose, get one of your bad boys, and deposit it at eye level or a little below. And then see how many days it remains in place. Or if you’re in a stall rather than at a urinal, deposit the little rascal on the side wall, maybe a bit to the side of the paper dispenser so you’ll have a reference point to locate it on later visits.
Among Cranky’s former employers was an agency of the federal government. This particular agency was a bit lax in the hygiene department. Hygiene sensors frequently remained unremoved for weeks. The last one Cranky deposited set a record. Seven months after installation, it was still in place. In fact, Cranky left the agency before the sensor did. Some years have passed so surely it’s gone by now. But maybe, just maybe. Second floor men’s room. Urinal furthest from the door. Eye level. Check it out.
Yet who among us has not participated? And we should not be ashamed of having done so. Boogers are not vile things. They are actually quite useful.
One use: food. Yes, boogers can be a tasty little snack. They are naturally salty, some more so than others. And if survival is at stake—say you are trapped in a cave and becoming malnourished—boogers are certainly more palatable than other human waste alternatives. So, find yourself hungry but with no food readily available? Pick your nose.
Another use: glue. Some, admittedly not all but some, boogers are excellent adhesives, at least as good as epoxy, J-B Weld, Gorilla Glue, or other alternatives available from such stores as Home Depot and Ace Hardware. Have a repair job requiring an industrial strength adhesive? Pick your nose.
A third use: beauty spot. Accustomed to applying a beauty spot as part of your preparations to face the world each day but don’t have the necessary material one fine morning? Pick your nose.
Not yet persuaded about the value of boogers? Well, their use as a hygiene sensor should remove all doubts. Most of us have worked in offices at some point in our lives. And offices mean communal lavatories. And keeping communal lavatories clean is a challenge of the first order. Some employers commit the resources necessary to maintain a minimally acceptable level of cleanliness. Most don’t. But as an employee, how can you judge?
You can certainly judge the extreme. Unflushable toilets and urinals (do female bathrooms have urinals? Seriously, most guys don’t know) are certainly not acceptable. But how do you evaluate the rest?
Well, one method involves the much maligned booger. Simply place a booger on a wall. If you’re a guy standing at a urinal and no one is around, reach into the old nose, get one of your bad boys, and deposit it at eye level or a little below. And then see how many days it remains in place. Or if you’re in a stall rather than at a urinal, deposit the little rascal on the side wall, maybe a bit to the side of the paper dispenser so you’ll have a reference point to locate it on later visits.
Among Cranky’s former employers was an agency of the federal government. This particular agency was a bit lax in the hygiene department. Hygiene sensors frequently remained unremoved for weeks. The last one Cranky deposited set a record. Seven months after installation, it was still in place. In fact, Cranky left the agency before the sensor did. Some years have passed so surely it’s gone by now. But maybe, just maybe. Second floor men’s room. Urinal furthest from the door. Eye level. Check it out.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
THE GLORIOUS REPUBLICAN OATH CRUSADE
Where is Major – de Coverley when we need him?
A little rusty on your Catch-22? Major – de Coverley (yes, there was no first name, only a dash) was a minor character in Joseph Heller’s 1961 classic comedic, some would say subversive, novel set in a U.S. Army Air Corps unit in the Mediterranean during World War II. An imposing figure, with an eye patch, the Major’s reaction to a particular situation might be just the sort of thing needed to extract today’s Republican Party from a sticky mess it has gotten itself into.
What Major – de Coverley did was to bring an abrupt end to the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade. The Crusade was the brainchild of Captain Black, a rear echelon intelligence officer who fancied greater things for himself and was constantly plotting to achieve those things. After his failure to become the squadron commander—the job went to Major Major—Captain Black was upset in the extreme. He decided that Major Major was a Communist and announced to his fellow rear echelon officers: “They’re taking over everything. . . .I’m going to do something about it. From now on I’m going to make every son of a bitch who comes to my intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath.”
So the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was born. It became an immediate success. The plane crews had to sign loyalty oaths to get their map cases, more oaths to get their gear, including flak suits, and still more oaths for transportation to the airfield. An unofficial competition sprang up among the rear echelon administrators as each sought to outdo the others in requiring loyalty oaths. Requirements for the pledge of allegiance and the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner soon appeared.
Major – de Coverley had been away from the unit when the Oath Crusade began. Shortly after returning, he attempted to enter the mess hall. A loyalty oath was thrust at him to sign. He looked at it. He looked at a group pledging allegiance before sitting and another group singing The Star-Spangled Banner before using the salt, pepper, and ketchup.
With “fiery disdain” and “mountainous wrath,” Major – de Coverley swept the oath away. Harshly and loudly he thundered, “Gimme eat.” Looking around the room at the various groups at one stage or another in the oath taking process, he added with a roar, “Give everybody eat.” And so the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade came to an end.
Captain Black remind you of anyone? Yes, Grover Norquist. Mr. Norquist’s no tax pledge has not only become almost a requirement for success in today’s Grand Old Party but has also spawned pledges and oaths on other matters, abortion for example. As many observers have suggested, should not the oath to support the Constitution that every office holder takes be all the oath-taking that is necessary?
Yes, what today’s Republican Party needs is a Major – de Coverley, someone who, when Mr. Norquist thrusts a no-tax pledge at him or her, sweeps it away and thunders, “Gimme eat. Give everybody eat.”
A little rusty on your Catch-22? Major – de Coverley (yes, there was no first name, only a dash) was a minor character in Joseph Heller’s 1961 classic comedic, some would say subversive, novel set in a U.S. Army Air Corps unit in the Mediterranean during World War II. An imposing figure, with an eye patch, the Major’s reaction to a particular situation might be just the sort of thing needed to extract today’s Republican Party from a sticky mess it has gotten itself into.
What Major – de Coverley did was to bring an abrupt end to the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade. The Crusade was the brainchild of Captain Black, a rear echelon intelligence officer who fancied greater things for himself and was constantly plotting to achieve those things. After his failure to become the squadron commander—the job went to Major Major—Captain Black was upset in the extreme. He decided that Major Major was a Communist and announced to his fellow rear echelon officers: “They’re taking over everything. . . .I’m going to do something about it. From now on I’m going to make every son of a bitch who comes to my intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath.”
So the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was born. It became an immediate success. The plane crews had to sign loyalty oaths to get their map cases, more oaths to get their gear, including flak suits, and still more oaths for transportation to the airfield. An unofficial competition sprang up among the rear echelon administrators as each sought to outdo the others in requiring loyalty oaths. Requirements for the pledge of allegiance and the singing of The Star-Spangled Banner soon appeared.
Major – de Coverley had been away from the unit when the Oath Crusade began. Shortly after returning, he attempted to enter the mess hall. A loyalty oath was thrust at him to sign. He looked at it. He looked at a group pledging allegiance before sitting and another group singing The Star-Spangled Banner before using the salt, pepper, and ketchup.
With “fiery disdain” and “mountainous wrath,” Major – de Coverley swept the oath away. Harshly and loudly he thundered, “Gimme eat.” Looking around the room at the various groups at one stage or another in the oath taking process, he added with a roar, “Give everybody eat.” And so the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade came to an end.
Captain Black remind you of anyone? Yes, Grover Norquist. Mr. Norquist’s no tax pledge has not only become almost a requirement for success in today’s Grand Old Party but has also spawned pledges and oaths on other matters, abortion for example. As many observers have suggested, should not the oath to support the Constitution that every office holder takes be all the oath-taking that is necessary?
Yes, what today’s Republican Party needs is a Major – de Coverley, someone who, when Mr. Norquist thrusts a no-tax pledge at him or her, sweeps it away and thunders, “Gimme eat. Give everybody eat.”
Saturday, February 12, 2011
DESERT STORM, THE FORGOTTEN LESSON
The twentieth anniversary of the Gulf War of 1991 is passing with little notice. Yet the war was one of those pivot points in the history of the United States when the perceptions of the past give way to a different focus. Perhaps the small number of backward looks is due to the intervening chaos of the Twenty-First Century’s inauspicious beginning. Perhaps the lack of attention is a result of the extraordinary degree of success that was enjoyed by the United States and its Coalition partners in 1991. Whatever the reason, the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm—the name of the military operation under which the war was prosecuted—are now little more than historical footnotes.
How was the war an historic pivot point for the United States? Most notably, the event erased the last vestiges of the international funk into which the nation had fallen after Vietnam. For almost two decades, the U.S. had been afraid of its own shadow. Every foreign policy issue had been considered in the context of, we can’t have another Vietnam. The attitude surely discouraged involvement in a number of ill-defined messes around the globe. But it also hindered action in more clear-cut situations.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, was just such a situation. In response, President George H.W. Bush on August 5, 1990, set a tone not heard much in the preceding twenty years: “This will not stand.” Thus commenced months of both diplomatic activity to bring other nations on board and military preparations for a possible armed intervention. Something else that commenced were months of, we’re getting ourselves into another Vietnam. But George H.W. Bush was not to be dissuaded. The diplomatic efforts to build a coalition succeeded, and when Iraq failed to leave Kuwait, the armed intervention—war—followed.
Air attacks began on January 17, 1991, and a ground invasion of Kuwait and southeastern Iraq started on February 24. By March 3 the fighting was over. The enemy, Iraq, was vanquished, papers were signed, and the victors came home to parades and celebrations. It was a classic military victory. So much for that disagreeable little episode a few years back in Southeast Asia.
But righting a wrong and erasing the funk of Vietnam had downsides. For one thing, at least a few individuals in Islamic nations were disturbed by the intrusion of the West, particularly the United States. Cultural and religious norms had been violated. Perhaps feelings of belligerent inferiority had been stoked. The simmering hatred for the West and the United States became apparent to all on September 11, 2001.
Another downside seems to have been the creation of a false impression in the minds of some in the victorious nation, the United States. That false impression concerned the apparent ease of applying military might. The leading U.S. military men in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., Commander of U.S. Central Command, had insisted on adequate—no, more than adequate, overwhelming—forces. A veteran of World War II, George H.W. Bush agreed with the need.
And the force that was put together for the Gulf War was indeed overwhelming: in excess of 520,000 members of the U.S. military alone. Other nations added at least another 100,000.
But the lesson of victory resulting from the application of this overwhelming force was not learned by all, including apparently the Secretary of Defense at the time, Richard B. Cheney. When the United States embarked on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in 2001 and 2003, respectively, the numbers of troops involved were much below the 1991 Gulf War levels. There is no evidence that Mr. Cheney, now the Vice President, expressed any concerns about the relatively small force the nation was committing.
The maximum number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined has never exceeded 200,000. The combined areas of the two countries total over 400,000 square miles. The operational area of the 1991 Gulf War—Kuwait and the southeastern corner of Iraq—was 20,000 square miles at the most. So the math is more than 500,000 troops for 20,000 square miles in 1991 versus less than 200,000 troops for more than 400,000 square miles in the wars of this century, a 25-to-1 versus a 0.5-to-1 ratio. Perhaps those numbers explain the elusiveness of a clear cut victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Incidentally, the troops-to-square mile ratio in South Vietnam at the height of the U.S. involvement was approximately 1.3-to-1. As older readers may recall, that ratio proved inadequate to establish physical control over the entire country.
Thus a largely forgotten lesson of the Gulf War and Desert Storm—and Vietnam—is that seeking an outright military victory requires a massive commitment of manpower. If the committed forces are less than massive, the nation should lower its expectations and increase its time horizons. Simply keeping hostile forces off-balance for a lengthy period might be the best achievable outcome. But pursuing a classical military victory when the manpower commitment has not been made has proved a fool’s errand.
How was the war an historic pivot point for the United States? Most notably, the event erased the last vestiges of the international funk into which the nation had fallen after Vietnam. For almost two decades, the U.S. had been afraid of its own shadow. Every foreign policy issue had been considered in the context of, we can’t have another Vietnam. The attitude surely discouraged involvement in a number of ill-defined messes around the globe. But it also hindered action in more clear-cut situations.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, was just such a situation. In response, President George H.W. Bush on August 5, 1990, set a tone not heard much in the preceding twenty years: “This will not stand.” Thus commenced months of both diplomatic activity to bring other nations on board and military preparations for a possible armed intervention. Something else that commenced were months of, we’re getting ourselves into another Vietnam. But George H.W. Bush was not to be dissuaded. The diplomatic efforts to build a coalition succeeded, and when Iraq failed to leave Kuwait, the armed intervention—war—followed.
Air attacks began on January 17, 1991, and a ground invasion of Kuwait and southeastern Iraq started on February 24. By March 3 the fighting was over. The enemy, Iraq, was vanquished, papers were signed, and the victors came home to parades and celebrations. It was a classic military victory. So much for that disagreeable little episode a few years back in Southeast Asia.
But righting a wrong and erasing the funk of Vietnam had downsides. For one thing, at least a few individuals in Islamic nations were disturbed by the intrusion of the West, particularly the United States. Cultural and religious norms had been violated. Perhaps feelings of belligerent inferiority had been stoked. The simmering hatred for the West and the United States became apparent to all on September 11, 2001.
Another downside seems to have been the creation of a false impression in the minds of some in the victorious nation, the United States. That false impression concerned the apparent ease of applying military might. The leading U.S. military men in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., Commander of U.S. Central Command, had insisted on adequate—no, more than adequate, overwhelming—forces. A veteran of World War II, George H.W. Bush agreed with the need.
And the force that was put together for the Gulf War was indeed overwhelming: in excess of 520,000 members of the U.S. military alone. Other nations added at least another 100,000.
But the lesson of victory resulting from the application of this overwhelming force was not learned by all, including apparently the Secretary of Defense at the time, Richard B. Cheney. When the United States embarked on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in 2001 and 2003, respectively, the numbers of troops involved were much below the 1991 Gulf War levels. There is no evidence that Mr. Cheney, now the Vice President, expressed any concerns about the relatively small force the nation was committing.
The maximum number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined has never exceeded 200,000. The combined areas of the two countries total over 400,000 square miles. The operational area of the 1991 Gulf War—Kuwait and the southeastern corner of Iraq—was 20,000 square miles at the most. So the math is more than 500,000 troops for 20,000 square miles in 1991 versus less than 200,000 troops for more than 400,000 square miles in the wars of this century, a 25-to-1 versus a 0.5-to-1 ratio. Perhaps those numbers explain the elusiveness of a clear cut victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Incidentally, the troops-to-square mile ratio in South Vietnam at the height of the U.S. involvement was approximately 1.3-to-1. As older readers may recall, that ratio proved inadequate to establish physical control over the entire country.
Thus a largely forgotten lesson of the Gulf War and Desert Storm—and Vietnam—is that seeking an outright military victory requires a massive commitment of manpower. If the committed forces are less than massive, the nation should lower its expectations and increase its time horizons. Simply keeping hostile forces off-balance for a lengthy period might be the best achievable outcome. But pursuing a classical military victory when the manpower commitment has not been made has proved a fool’s errand.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
TEAR DOWN THOSE PYRAMIDS
Was Ronald Reagan a great President? Well, following Vietnam, the oil shortages, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter, how good did you have to be? The nation was in a funk, economically and attitudinally. Just maintaining an even keel might be enough, in the eyes of many, to make you a great President. So yeah, Ronald Reagan might qualify as a great President.
But there were some negatives. On Ronald Reagan’s watch, the federal debt almost tripled, from $789 billion in 1981 to $2,191 billion in 1989, and in no year was there a budget surplus. The nation moved from being the world’s largest international creditor to being the largest international debtor. Unemployment reached 10.8 percent in the last months of 1982, almost two years into Reagan’s first term. The highest unemployment rate under Barrack Obama has been 10.6 percent, which basically was an inheritance from his predecessor.
Two hundred forty-one members of the U.S military died by Islamic suicide bomber in 1983 in Lebanon. Reagan responded by withdrawing the U.S. military from Lebanon, a wise move say some, cutting and running say others. In any event, the home-front political repercussions were few because Reagan promptly had the military beat the snot out of Grenada, a Caribbean powerhouse. Internationally, the withdrawal had a more detrimental result, helping to persuade a certain up-and-coming Islamic radical that the United States was something of a paper tiger.
In 1986, a murky arms for hostages deal involving Iran and aid to Central American anti-communist rebels raised questions about the extent to which Reagan was actually in control of his Administration.
But let’s be generous and say Reagan was a great President. He was certainly better than some who have gotten to the Oval Office. He made many of us feel good. He said pithy things. The problem is his present-day worshipers. They are prone to see the Reagan years as the nation’s apogee, a time when all was right with the world. They see the fall of Communism as a direct result of a Reagan pithy exhortation: “Tear Down This Wall.” They want current problems to be so easily solved.
The attitude was on display this weekend, the centennial of Reagan’s birth. The boys and girls at conservative media central, Fox News, could not just extol Reagan’s virtues. They had to go a step further and bash current political adversaries by contending that Ronnie would know how to solve current problems. The economy? The deficit? Ronnie would know what to do about them, never mind the mixed economic record of his eight years.
But perhaps the most ludicrous statements concerned the current turmoil in Egypt. Ronnie would know precisely what the nation’s policy should be. More important, he would be able to articulate that policy with rousing words of inspiration. The Fox News folks didn’t get around to speculating what those words might be, just that Ronnie would find them.
Ronnie not being here, however, perhaps he and his friends at Fox need some help. How about this: “Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down Those Pyramids.”
But there were some negatives. On Ronald Reagan’s watch, the federal debt almost tripled, from $789 billion in 1981 to $2,191 billion in 1989, and in no year was there a budget surplus. The nation moved from being the world’s largest international creditor to being the largest international debtor. Unemployment reached 10.8 percent in the last months of 1982, almost two years into Reagan’s first term. The highest unemployment rate under Barrack Obama has been 10.6 percent, which basically was an inheritance from his predecessor.
Two hundred forty-one members of the U.S military died by Islamic suicide bomber in 1983 in Lebanon. Reagan responded by withdrawing the U.S. military from Lebanon, a wise move say some, cutting and running say others. In any event, the home-front political repercussions were few because Reagan promptly had the military beat the snot out of Grenada, a Caribbean powerhouse. Internationally, the withdrawal had a more detrimental result, helping to persuade a certain up-and-coming Islamic radical that the United States was something of a paper tiger.
In 1986, a murky arms for hostages deal involving Iran and aid to Central American anti-communist rebels raised questions about the extent to which Reagan was actually in control of his Administration.
But let’s be generous and say Reagan was a great President. He was certainly better than some who have gotten to the Oval Office. He made many of us feel good. He said pithy things. The problem is his present-day worshipers. They are prone to see the Reagan years as the nation’s apogee, a time when all was right with the world. They see the fall of Communism as a direct result of a Reagan pithy exhortation: “Tear Down This Wall.” They want current problems to be so easily solved.
The attitude was on display this weekend, the centennial of Reagan’s birth. The boys and girls at conservative media central, Fox News, could not just extol Reagan’s virtues. They had to go a step further and bash current political adversaries by contending that Ronnie would know how to solve current problems. The economy? The deficit? Ronnie would know what to do about them, never mind the mixed economic record of his eight years.
But perhaps the most ludicrous statements concerned the current turmoil in Egypt. Ronnie would know precisely what the nation’s policy should be. More important, he would be able to articulate that policy with rousing words of inspiration. The Fox News folks didn’t get around to speculating what those words might be, just that Ronnie would find them.
Ronnie not being here, however, perhaps he and his friends at Fox need some help. How about this: “Mr. Mubarak, Tear Down Those Pyramids.”
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
TIGER MOM OR DAD WOULD'A HELPED
Talk about explosive impact. The Tiger Mom Amy Chua has become close to a national obsession. Her espousals of a child-raising theory centered around browbeating one’s urchins until they excel have roused vehement debate. Most seem to think her approach is over the line.
Well, Cranky begs to differ. He thinks that the lack of a Tiger Mom, or Dad, in his youth condemned him to mediocrity. Cranky’s dream in his adolescent years was to be a high school basketball star. Despite a year-round commitment, however, and hours and hours of practice, he never made it past mediocre. Even in his senior year, he was mostly the sixth man on the team.
For a long time Cranky attributed his lack of success to being a slow 5’10” Caucasian with a vertical leap of about six inches. But now he realizes what the real problem was. He didn’t have a Tiger Dad, an Ol’ Man who devoted hours to screaming the Young Cranky to perfection.
So thanks a lot, Dad. It wasn’t me that was the loser. It was you. You were content to accept my obvious physical limitations. You did not demand that I overcome nature and achieve stardom. I could’a been a contender, Dad, but you let me down.
But there is still time for Cranky to be a Tiger Dad. I’ve got two grown daughters who are athletic enough but, to my regret, have never shown much interest in basketball. All I want them to do is to make a jump shot, a bona fide jump shot. Start with the ball about chest high, rise in the air bringing the ball over the head and situating one hand on the ball’s underside, then in that millisecond pause at the top of the jump, simultaneously flick the wrist and push with the arm.
C’MON GIRLS, STOP LOLLYGAGGING. YOU SHOOT LIKE GIRLS. IF YOU CARED FOR YOUR OL’ MAN, YOU’D DO THIS.
Well, Cranky begs to differ. He thinks that the lack of a Tiger Mom, or Dad, in his youth condemned him to mediocrity. Cranky’s dream in his adolescent years was to be a high school basketball star. Despite a year-round commitment, however, and hours and hours of practice, he never made it past mediocre. Even in his senior year, he was mostly the sixth man on the team.
For a long time Cranky attributed his lack of success to being a slow 5’10” Caucasian with a vertical leap of about six inches. But now he realizes what the real problem was. He didn’t have a Tiger Dad, an Ol’ Man who devoted hours to screaming the Young Cranky to perfection.
So thanks a lot, Dad. It wasn’t me that was the loser. It was you. You were content to accept my obvious physical limitations. You did not demand that I overcome nature and achieve stardom. I could’a been a contender, Dad, but you let me down.
But there is still time for Cranky to be a Tiger Dad. I’ve got two grown daughters who are athletic enough but, to my regret, have never shown much interest in basketball. All I want them to do is to make a jump shot, a bona fide jump shot. Start with the ball about chest high, rise in the air bringing the ball over the head and situating one hand on the ball’s underside, then in that millisecond pause at the top of the jump, simultaneously flick the wrist and push with the arm.
C’MON GIRLS, STOP LOLLYGAGGING. YOU SHOOT LIKE GIRLS. IF YOU CARED FOR YOUR OL’ MAN, YOU’D DO THIS.
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