Mike Yon on American airport bullies.

What could I say to alleviate any of this?  Could I say, “This is the U.S., nothing to be afraid of.”?  The world already sees us as senseless bullies.  Aew might have been detained indefinitely; even I was concerned that the Department of Homeland Security might detain Aew for no reason.  Essentially, she had no rights.  They had already coerced her e-mail password out of her head through intimidation.

This does not make me feel safe: Our Homeland Security was focusing on a 40-year-old Thai bank officer while there are real bad guys out there. Thailand and the United States have had good relations for 175 years, and Thailand is one of the few countries in the world that is proud to say they are friends of the United States.  There are no threats to Americans from Thai people — who, among other relevant things, are mostly not Muslims.  The King of Thailand was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard.  I have never seen the King with a gun; only a camera.  His 2009 New Year’s speech was also a call for peace.  The King and his family helped bring widespread education to Thailand, which created a special problem.  Today there are large numbers of highly educated, successful women looking for highly educated men.  I remember General (ret.) McCaffrey, our former drug Czar, telling me a couple of years ago that the King of Thailand was incredibly important in wiping out opium poppies in Thailand.  The King of Thailand is highly respected by the government of the United States.  He is a very good man.

In the long run, in our foolishly named War on Terror, the Department of Homeland Security, which is also poorly named, is doing a lot of damage. I’d venture to say that DHS breaks a whole lot more than it fixes. The world we live in runs on goodwill. DHS has no idea how to create goodwill. It creates the opposite. This is a branch of the federal government that harasses, inconveniences, condescends, spies on and generally bullies everyone it comes into contact with. Why the hell do we think that is going to reduce terrorism in the long run?

One of my Christmas presents this year was Guitar Hero, Aerosmith Edition (with wireless guitar). Really fun game. I finished it in one sitting on easy level. Medium and hard may take longer. A couple notes for other 37-year-old rock god wannabes. Your fingers will hurt if you have OCD and play for six or eight hours like I did. The Aerosmith edition was OK, but the Legends of Rock edition is better. I’m playing on the Xbox 360 platform with a 46-inch LCD TV. Battling the devil on Charlie Daniels Band’s The Devil Went Down to Georgia was just frigging awesome. I felt like I was actually playing a real guitar against an opponent. Beating the devil sure felt good. Plus my wife gets a kick out of watching my developing “style.”

I’m going to practice a little more and then see what multiplayer is all about. Guitar Hero is just plain fun at any age. Even more so than Dance Dance Revolution. I find myself absolutely unable to complete Slayer’s Raining Blood, at least after a few beers. I’ll try again with none in me. I think I’ll go pick up Guitar Hero World Tour for tonight’s New Year’s Eve celebration.

Playing Guitar Hero made me wonder - does a real guitar player get screwed up trying to play the game. What about vice versa? I’d be curious to know if there is any mental barrier that you have to cross to be good at both real guitar and fake guitar on a video gaming console. I have a real guitar but I am left handed and only know a few chords since I insist on learning to play the guitar right handed (like I shoot). I’d love to hear from someone who can play real guitar and is also good at Guitar Hero.

As dwellers of a rural ZIP code, my wife and I face challenges that wouldn’t normally cross the mind of an urban American. For instance, our well is going dry.

Most of us count on water coming out of the tap when the faucet is turned on. When you can choose an unending stream of hot or cold water day after day, month after month and year after year you take it for granted. We do not. That is because at my house the water is only on when the electricity is on. Furthermore, the water is only on if you don’t use too much of it. At my house, we can take two showers, run a load of laundry and run the dishwasher. After that, there is no more water.

This is often a good thing - it forces me into a state of conservation mentality. Shaving, brushing my teeth and running the water in the sink have all become activities in which I do not take anything for granted. The water is on long enough to warm up and then goes off while I lather my face and shave. I use the same technique for brushing my teeth - get the brush wet and then get my teeth clean with a few more short bursts to rinse my mouth and the toothbrush at the end of the process.

We are going to have a second well dug to supplement the first but I will never again take the water flowing out of my taps for granted. From my way of thinking this is a healthy approach to anything in life. Taking things for granted is a good recipe for losing them. Whether your spouse or your new car is the thing you take for granted doesn’t matter. If you do not respect and care for the things that make your life bearable they will abandon you when you need them most.

Life in the country tends to reinforce this lesson.

The McAfee software company makes products that are supposed to simplify and enrich my computer life by protecting me from unwanted intrusions such as spam, malware and viruses. However, they fall pretty short when it comes to convenience. I’ve been testing the product for some months now as part of the Amazon Vine program. I’m going to have to do reduce the number of stars I’ve given McAfee for their 2008 security suite. Here are the reasons.

1) Failure to fix product flaws, however minor. It shouldn’t take McAfee more than two years to address a minor problem. A toolbar that won’t remember where you dock it can drive you nuts. Imagine if you parked your car in the garage and the next time you went to get in it it had moved itself to the driveway. Irritating, to say the least. My advice to McAfee - don’t allow your staff to make promises that they have no intention of following through with.

09-19-2006, 06:38 PM

RichyH Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 4

SpamKiller toolbar does not stay in position (Outlook 2003) Just a small problem compared to the emproxy problem, but yet it’s pretty annoying. In the new version of SpamKiller it doesn’t show an icon with options in Outlook 2003, but a toolbar. And when I change the location of the toolbar it resets itself to the original position everytime I restart Outlook. I know it’s not a big problem, but it’s also not a improvement compared to the previous version, but rather a setback. Maybe something small like this can be fixed. I sure hope so.

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#2 09-20-2006, 05:11 PM

Steerpike_ca McAfee T3 Technical Support Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Waterloo, ON Canada Posts: 140

HI RichyH, This version of SK does not allow you to permanently change the position of the toolbar in Outlook. There are plans in future releases/updates to provide this functionality. HTH __________________ Steerpike_ca Chaos reigns within Reflect, repent, reboot Order shall return

2) Failure to make a useful anti-spam feature. McAfee’s anti-spam feature appears useless to me. Customers are supposed to be able to “train” their in-box by identifying certain email as spam. For instance, I once subscribed to the Huffington Post daily email. It’s garbage and I don’t want it anymore. No matter how many times I tell McAfee that email from Ariana Huffington is junk, the mail still shows up in my in-box. What is the point of an anti-spam trainer that isn’t trainable?

The worst part of the deal is that McAfee wants $60 a year to keep my software current. Guess what? No. You’re not getting $60. Software companies need to be taught to fix the broken features in their products.

One of the new paradigms Americans face in 2008 is the increased likelihood of being videotaped while dealing with any type of authority. It is likely that you are being recorded every time you travel an interstate, when you are pulled over for minor traffic violations, as you enter or leave government buildings and in a host of other situations where government is involved. This reality proves to be a double edged sword from my perspective. Now everybody gets to be on the jury. The police are not exempt from this new reality, nor should they be.

It is my opinion that civil servants should be recorded in the performance of their duties as a matter of course. I’m sure many would disagree. However, there are enough citizens with cameras that police abuse of power will be harder and harder to hide when it happens in public venues.

“If you’re getting in the way, or obstructing what I’m doing, that’s a different story,” said the officer in Downtown Brooklyn. “But if you’re not obstructing what I’m doing, you can put 10 videotapes on me.”

An officer in the Union Square subway station on Tuesday said that once when he intervened in a fight, he found he was being filmed by several people. “I asked people to help, but no one did,” said the officer. “I didn’t expect anyone to help, but at the time I really needed it. It was two against one.”

If you’re videotaping the police stay out of their way. If they try to take your camera, resist and flee. The police have no legal authority to stop you from recording them in the performance of their duties. This is an issue near and dear to my heart because I am a photographer. Since 2001, it has become increasingly risky to take photos of happenings in certain venues, particularly in large cities. Police have a greater tendency to interfere and officiously tell me that “photography isn’t allowed” in a given area. Bullshit.

In a free nation, photography is allowed wherever you happen to be. In a free nation, if the authorities are recording you, then you should also be recording them. There is nothing wrong with keeping each other honest.