Aaron Adams’s Lame-ass Blog

Perhaps it’s a bit late to write about the HBO mini-series John Adams considering all seven episodes have aired. Or perhaps not, because the excellent writing, acting, and production quality of the series is bound to make it timeless and equally as appealing in years to come as it is presently. As I’ve stated in a previous post, some thoughts about the series have occurred and re-occurred to me, but I haven’t been able to write them down in a coherent form that all two of my readers can follow. I realized as I was writing last night that I must either produce something now, or forget it and wait patiently for the next thing that gets my typing fingers hot enough to pound out some stream-of-consciousness screed. To that end, I’ve decided to write short pieces about the series (driven by the soundtrack in my headphones) as the mood hits me.

I’ll state that, somewhat to my embarrassment, I’m mildly obsessed with the series and the main character for reasons related to a similar fascination I have with House and Richard Nixon: I’m drawn to characters and people that have genuinely useful intellect, people of accomplishment and contribution, but who emotionally struggle with common situations and people, especially themselves. I’ve read David McCullough’s book and I’ve known quite a bit about John Adams since I was young due to my personal interest in the American Revolution. To see a television series dedicated to the one founding father probably most responsible for our independence is scant compensation in place of any formal memorial for the man in our nation’s capitol. Of all the founding fathers who played major roles during the revolution and who were early Presidents, Adams is the only one without the formal recognition of a monument or a portrait on currency. Jefferson and Washington both get elaborate memorials and a bill and coin each featuring their portrait, and Adams gets nothing! That’s damn unfair, and damn unappreciative of the country and countrymen who owe him so much. (Sam Adams, a more minor player, still has a beer named after him, even though he ran a brewery into the ground two centuries ago.)

The series is full of moments that, with twenty-first century hindsight, I would have loved to have seen in person. Imagine walking with the Adamses during the night to the hill just outside their home overlooking Boston to see the British fleet shelling the fortifications around the city, knowing that this marks the beginning of the Revolutionary War. What must the feeling be like to watch teams of men drag captured cannons from Fort Ticonderoga through the mud, lead by Henry Knox, past the Adams home to the heights over Boston, knowing those cannons will force a British retreat? (Even though there wasn’t powder or a single cannon ball for any of them!) How thrilling and unforgettable would it have been to witness Washington’s inauguration, either from the street or behind him on the balcony, to hear the man’s voice speak the oath, and to be overtaken by the cheering of the crowd? (Adams’s acknowledgement as Vice President on the balcony with Washington is his finest moment in the series, in my opinion.) Surely it would be awe-inspiring, and maybe a little weird, to ride a wagon into Washington City, as they called it, which was a tree-filled swamp, and then come to a clearing with a half-finished White House constructed in the middle. The creative people associated with the production did an outstanding job of recreating these moments and scenes for the audience. Reading and imagining it are one thing, but to have it presented before you as reality is something else entirely.

To close this post, I want to write something about David Morse and Paul Giamatti. David Morse, who played George Washington, had quite a task set for him. He could easily have played the character too narrowly and made him out to be all hero and no human. Not so, thankfully. Washington certainly was a gentleman and a aristocrat of his time, but he also had a temper and ambition, and without going over the top, Morse plays Washington about as well as anyone ever may. And Paul Giamatti owns the character of John Adams. Although the series seems to primarily focus on the negatives and trials of Adams’s life, Giamatti manages to perfectly portray Adams’s self-deprication and dry humor when necessary, and I very much enjoyed that. The range of emotions necessary for playing the character, from disowning his own son and his grief at Abagail’s death, to the triumphant moment life was breathed into the Constitution as Washington was sworn in, has to be difficult for any actor. As much as some people may dismiss acting as a trivial skill, it must take stamina and fortitude to bring these emotions to the screen day after day. I’m sure both Mr. Morse and Mr. Giamatti will sleep better tonight knowing they have my approval and appreciation.

Because of the primary elections, I’ve been talking about politics with friends and acquaintances more than usual. I’ve explained to a number of people that I believe in the liberty of individuals predominant over all other considerations, I believe in Federalism and, by necessary consequence, our Constitutional Republic as established by our founders. Despite what others may assert, I define this belief as conservatism, in the sense that government power, in this case Federal power, should be used sparingly.

I’m posting this for two reasons. One is to record these quotes for my future use. Second, the people who established our republic are the foremost authorities when it comes to their intentions and motivations behind the Constitution and the roles and duties of the Federal government. They should speak for themselves.

* * * * *

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.”
– James Madison, Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention [June 6, 1788]

…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
–James Madison

“…the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.”
– Thomas Jefferson

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
– Benjamin Franklin

“No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.”
– Benjamin Franklin, Principles of Trade, 1774

“Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread.”
– Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
– Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
–Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
– Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 4, September 11, 1777

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”
– John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

“To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
– George Washington, First Annual Message, January 8, 1790

“One single object. . . [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation.”
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825

“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
– John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
– Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1776

“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.”
– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia [1782]

My friend John Welch and I have been having a discussion about current anti-smoking laws in this thread over at his site. Several days ago, I wrote another response to his latest comments and submitted them for his approval to be posted. For whatever reason, he hasn’t gotten around to approving them yet. And that’s fine. He may be busy and hasn’t looked at the queue, or he’s composing his own follow-up comments before posting mine, or he may consider the topic old and not interesting anymore. It’s his website, and it’s totally his right to refuse any comments at any time for any reason. I’m ok with that.

I do, however, want to post my latest comments to my own site. This is a topic I find interesting and it’s my hope that perhaps I can cause a few people who disagree with me to re-think their position. It is in that spirit I post my unpublished comments to bynkii.com. John and I have known each other for a few years now, and I’m confident he understands this is not meant to one-up him or in some way play an immature gotcha game.

And now, the comment.

And when enough people realize that there’s a currently legal habit that is causing real health problems,

Like eating Twinkies, or McDonald’s? Obesity is a real health problem too. Would you like the government to regulate what you’re allowed to eat, and how much of it? You know, some governments have already stepped in that direction by banning tans-fats. Your behavior-conrolled utopia is rapidly being built as we write. And the anti-smoking crowd has given these governments the green light to regulate such aspects of our lives.

generally stinking up the area, and making common activities (going out to eat, dancing) impossible for a rather huge chunk of the population,

I just came back from breakfast. Two booths away from me, a badly misbehaved child picked up the syrup container and started jumping up and down on the booth seat, splashing syrup, and his mother yelled at the top of her lungs for him to stop. It was obvious that this kid’s behavior made the common activity of eating breakfast, at the very least, unpleasant for a rather huge chunk of the restaurant. And this sort of thing happens nearly every time I attempt to eat out. By your logic, because badly behaved kids make common activities unpleasant or impossible, they should be illegal, punishable by fines or jail.

they have the right to use the legal system to try and fix that.

I’d sign a petition to have the legal system deal harshly with unruly kids and parents. After all, I have the right to total comfort and non-offensiveness wherever I am, public or private (according to the anti-smoking crowd). Let’s not be half-assed about it.

No one enacted anti-smoking ordinances illegally. No one hired enforcers at the polls in the locations where it was voted in. This has all been done legally. Smokers don’t like it, they can take the proper measures to try to undo it.

Smoky McStrawman. I have never claimed that anti-smoking laws are somehow illegal or invalid. I have never challenged their status as enforceable law. I do, however, challenge the logic and the motivations of their proponents. And I support any legal method to have anti-smoking laws repealed.

Wait, you’re bitching about the legal system creating a nanny state, yet you want to hire how many more cops to watch your behavior that closely?

Again, Smoky McStrawman. I’ve never asserted that more police are needed. I’ve stated that littering laws already exist that are intended to deal with the initial complaint of cigarette butts littering the landscape in your original post. Additional law enforcement is not needed. I’d say that repurposing cops from stupid things like clocking drivers in the highway median to dealing with citizen complaints, like littering, is a good approach.

However, my point was that, instead of new laws that send people to jail for smoking, your original complaint could be addressed by enforcement of existing laws. Nothing new required, police or statute.

How much of a tax increase are you willing to support to hire the extra cops to properly enforce all the littering laws?

How much of a tax increase are you willing to support when, because of current laws and tobacco taxes, smoking decreases and smokers no longer provide the revenue to the state and federal governments they’re used to in order to fund programs? Understand that governments don’t eliminate or cut programs because a revenue source dries up, they just find another revenue source. By curtailing smoking and taxing smokers to oblivion, you will be raising your own taxes.

How about smokers start behaving correctly on their own? Why is THAT too much to ask?

It’s not, and I agree.

No Aaron, all that told me were the businesses who were smoke-free and chose to advertise it. That’s NOT the same, and you know it, as a sign that says “Smoking allowed here”. Since, by the way you state it, it wasn’t a requirement, that’s not even reliable.

Smoking was allowed everywhere by default. The exceptions were noted. That is functionally the same - anyone entering the premises knew what the smoking status was.

I could give a fuck about second hand smoke deaths.

So I don’t expect you personally to use it as a justification for anti-smoking laws (and you haven’t). However, the people petitioning states to pass these laws use the alleged health-endangering characteristics of second hand smoke as the cornerstone of their anti-smoking argument. And it’s primarily based on faulty science and emotion.

What I’m tired of is second hand smoke in my clothes, because some fucknut ten yards away had to have a butt.

Hyperbole isn’t necessary to make your case. But, as I alluded to before, as much as you challenge my right to smoke, do you also have a right to absolute comfort and non-offense everywhere you may be? No, none of us has that.

I’m tired of second hand smoke giving me nicotine headaches and hangovers because I had the temerity to want to go someplace a bit more adult than fucking McDonald’s.

Intense cigarette smoke makes my eyes burn. It’s painful. I solve the problem by not being in environments where that smoke exists. I don’t ask the government to fine or jail people because I don’t like it. Again, non-existent right to comfort, etc.

I’m tired of someone’s personal habit, that I don’t share being forced on my because there’s no ventilation system in the world that will keep your smoke in your personal space and your personal space alone.

I’m tired of someone’s kids, born of personal choice, that aren’t mine, and their bad behavior, being forced on me because there’s no containment system in the world that will keep kids and their noise and their mess local only to the parents who are responsible for controlling the little monsters.

Really, we all have our annoyances that other people thrust upon us. Part of being an adult is to learn to deal with, or avoid, those annoyances while letting others live their lives.

And your “I have the *right* to create clouds of smoke that fuck with everyone around me for a ten yard radius” is some how NOT emotional, and based on cold sober rule of law and logic?

My opposition to anti-smoking laws is based on pure logic: Private property owners have the right to determine what activities are permissible on said property, as long as that activity does not endanger another’s right to life, liberty, or property. Your argument, however, is that you don’t like smoking and the impolite smokers who litter, so it should be illegal. If that isn’t founded in emotion, nothing is.

Why should MY “right” to enjoy a legal substance in a legal way be impinged because of *your* personal beliefs?

Exactly the question I’m asking! Why should my right to enjoy legal tobacco be infringed upon because of your personal beliefs? On private property to boot!

Again, I still don’t see you being real happy about a stream of tobacco spit across your shirt and in your drink. Yet somehow, you cling to the right to do the same to everyone around you with smoke. What, pray tell, is the real difference?

The difference is that smoke, under normal circumstances, is emitted in all directions with no ability of the smoker to control it, where spit is purposely thrust out of an individual’s mouth in a direction the spitter controls and is aware of. Your analogy is broken. You should be comparing smokers who blow smoke directly into your face (of which it seems there would be very few) versus your idea of spitting on someone.

That would suggest that no, anti-smoking laws do not inherently put people out of business.

I don’t, and haven’t, claimed to speak for business closings or economic effects anywhere other than the place where I live. I do find it interesting, however, that the three states you indirectly spoke of (New York, California, and Massachusetts) are rapidly losing population because of things like absurdly high taxes and other government encroachments.

Napkins at the table.

Try it.

A customer

Again from John Gruber’s linked list, here’s a Craigslist post from someone who seems to be an IT lackey in Boston. I can’t decide whether this post is serious, exaggerated to make a point, or straight-up mockery. In any case, I wanted to go through each of the 12 points to illustrate my IT style versus the style of aforementioned article.

1.They are all my computers; I am only letting you borrow them. People constantly laugh at me when I say this, with no idea that I am absolutely serious. I have been given the responsibility of every computer in the office; they are all under my auspices, bar none. if I am gracious enough to give you access to one of my computers, then be nice to it. Talk to it kindly, call it a nice computer, and occasionally pat the monitor. Your computer – and your IT guy – will thank you for it. Also, this applies to printers, the network connection to the outside world, the videoconference system, and the phone system. Mine. All mine. Get it? Good.

They are all the company’s computers. The company has purchased them for employee use, and the company has hired me to make sure these devices work correctly for you. I do ask that you be nice to the computers because it’s a benefit to us both - your work isn’t interrupted and I’m able to spend my time improving infrastructure rather than putting out fires at every desk.

2. If you are going to use my stuff, then use it properly. This means LEARN ABOUT FUCKING SPYWARE. If you absolutely HAVE to go to some site during work hours (and we’ll talk about this in a minute), then make sure, when the popups start showing up, you click the little black X in the upper right hand corner. Don’t click the big flashing “OK” in the middle. Don’t. Whatever it is you think you should do – if it’s not that little grey X in the uppermost right corner, don’t do it. Don’t. Just. Fucking. Don’t.

Please use sense and think before you click. Sometimes you don’t know, and I understand that. If there’s any question, I like it when you ask me first. As I said before, working computers help both of us.

3. We know. Yeah, that’s right, we know. Every little site you’ve gone to. All the email that passes through your computers. All the instant message chats you have. We know. All of them. So the next time you decide you just HAVE to visit some idiotic website with a movie of two guys fucking a chicken, the next time you HAVE to spam emails to all your friends about the cute guy you hooked up with the other night and he gave you chlamydia, the next time you HAVE to talk to your ex-girlfriend about hooking up one more time behind your fiance’s back, think twice about who might be reading that shit, and if you’ve pissed your IT guys off. Because we know.

I don’t know. I have neither the time nor the inclination to keep up with the personal lives of any of my coworkers. I’d bet a dollar your life is at least as boring and meaningless to me as mine is to you. I don’t care, I’m not into voyeurism, so I don’t know.

4. Do not take advantage of us, or our toys. It’s awful nice of us to provide you with a boatload of network storage space for your own private use. Oh, and incidentally, that network storage space at work? IT’S FOR WORK PURPOSES. That means take the seventeen gigabytes of mp3s from some shitty hip-hop artist that you got from some peer-to-peer and GET THEM OFF MY FUCKING NETWORK. I won’t ask nicely again. And listen to some real music – hip-hop sucks.

Please use company resources responsibly. Disk space, for example, is a shared, finite quantity that the company provides with the understanding that it’ll be used for work-related data. You don’t want to be inconvenienced by an absence of free disk space on the NAS when you’re trying to do something really important, do you? Neither do I. So let’s cooperate and keep frivolous stuff off the network shares.

5. Learn to share. Look, I realize that the computer came with Windows XP. I don’t like it any more than you do. But really – that T1 we’ve got? It’s for everyone, so you can’t hog all our bandwidth by downloading the entire Fedora Core 3. Do it from home. If you want to bring it in to work and dual-boot your drive, I really don’t have a problem with it. But go back to kindergarden first and realize that hoarding is a bad thing, ok? Thanks.

Bandwidth is for everyone. This, too, is a shared, finite quantity. Consider the coworkers you interact with every day when using it.

6. The computer I let you use is for your use alone. This is somewhat malleable, where if someone at work needs your machine for a minute, you can let them use it. When your fourteen year old son comes to the office with you on Saturday and you let him use one of MY computers, then bitch to me about spyware, well, I’m just gonna tell you to lick the crack of my ass and spit in a cup. Sure, I’ll fix your machine, but after that you’re gonna have two icons on your desktop; “Go To Work” and “Go Home”, and “Go Home” won’t work until 5:30. Think I can’t do it? Try me.

The company-provided computer is intended for employee use only. Don’t let anyone who’s not an employee use it at any time. This is for the well-being of not only the computer, but the entire network and the company’s data. You want to still have a job next week, right? The equipment needs to work in order for that to happen, and our data also has to be available.

7. Are you a Program Manager? Then keep your fucking hands off of my fucking computers. This is non-negotiable. You people could fuck up a free lunch. Get the fuck away from them or I will stab you in the neck with a pencil.

My experience hasn’t been that program managers are a particularly inept kind of user.

8. Are you in sales? Please see #7. You people are worse than Program Managers. Drink bleach.

Same goes for sales.

9. Are you in Engineering? I realize that most of you have forgotten more about hardware than I will ever know. This doesn’t really give you the right to attempt to overclock the PC I’ve let you use to Ludicrious Speed. Please use discretion. Attempting to eke out a few hundred more hertz is fine; requisitioning a Freon Cooling Unit because 3.06G just isn’t fast enough is a little overkill. Trust me.

Please don’t fiddle with the computer’s innards. We have warranties and budgets to think about. If you cook your machine, there’s no guarantee the VP of whatever is going to approve the expense of buying you an equivalent replacement. Do you really want to roll that dice?

10. Oh, so you have a laptop of your own? Keep. It. Off. My. Network. If I catch an unknown machine anywhere on my net (please see #3), I will fuck that machine up so badly your high-school TI calculator will be a Beowulf Cluster compared to your new paperweight. Also, I don’t fix home computers. Tough shit. I hope you get herpes.

Please talk to me before connecting foreign devices to the network. The company buys laptops for some employees, and it would be damn naive of me to think that those employees don’t use these laptops on their own home networks (and who knows where else) for their own purposes. Consequently, we have some procedures and safeguards in place. Come talk to me and we’ll work something out.

11. If you want something from your IT Department, email is your friend. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but still – if you need something from me, email it to me. Don’t blindly call me, don’t magically materialize next to my desk and sit there while I’m working on something, waiting for me to pay attention to you – email it to me. I’m not doing shit for you until I have a paper trail originating from you about it. You can follow up with a phone call, that’s fine; you can come over and say, “I just shot you an email, can we discuss?” – that’s fine too. If you just come over and leer at me while I’m in the middle of something, I will ignore you, and mentally give you cancer with my mind.

Auditing procedures require that we have a paper trail. Executive edict has determined that we want to be ISO-something certified, or whatever, and to obtain and maintain that certification, we need to create records of things that happen. I don’t like it any more than you, so if it’s a problem, take it up the ladder. In the meantime, come to my desk or call me on the phone, that’s fine. But be sure to e-mail me afterward for the record.

12. Anti-virus software. Look, people, it’s there for a fucking reason. Don’t try to shut it off, please? Can we at least agree on that? We spent a lot of money on that software so that it would be up and running all the time, and it’s not really my fault if you have fifty applications open and “the anti-virus software is slowing my machine down!!” So I’ll make a deal with you; if you don’t shut my anti-virus software on my computers off, I won’t shove an abacus straight up your ass. Ok? Good.

Networks, and the devices attached to them, are a collective resource. Things you do with the network and devices directly affect others and their jobs. The last thing we need is malware of some kind causing a work stoppage because one person made a bad decision when they know better. Do not turn off protective software.

It’s possible to serve your coworkers as an IT professional while still setting reasonable rules, boundaries, and limitations. Admittedly, that’s easier to do when you work in a comparatively small organization like I do. I’ve read tales about bad IT people, and I’ve worked for some, but the people I’ve befriended and whose advice and recommendations I trust are not the blowhards from the horror stories. There are good IT people out there, and they’re not bad just because you won’t be able to use your iPhone when you show up for work July 2. It’s not that we’re lazy and we don’t care to prevent the problems we anticipate, it’s that we’re concerned about what happens to shared resources we all rely upon for our employment when a problem we can’t predict occurs.