Friday Fish Wrap: October 15, 2010

Thursday night was the great takedown that wasn’t. I’ve heard from more than a few people - Reid supporters mostly - that they were disappointed but not surprised. It changed nobody’s mind. In the comments sections of several media websites, the Angle supporters were present, in full delusional tinfoil helmeted force:

Timekeeper wrote on October 15, 2010 02:55 PM:

“The best “Social Program” is a JOB!
The Best Neighborhood cop is a “Home Owner!”
the socialist democrats have destroyed both!

Harry Reid refuses to discuss the issues; Unemployment, high Taxes, Stim-U-Less, Takeovers of “private” businesses, MASSIVE SPENDING, Backroom Deals, Voting without reading the bill, Home Forclosures, Bankruptcy, Mortgage Scams, NV last in Education, Cap & Trade, Union paybacks(card-check), …

Vote for Sharron Angle - she has the American Values that will be needed to help restore this nation, stop the spending spree and create jobs.”

What this amounts to is the usual TeaNut strategies of suppressed correlatives, bare assertions, and existential fallacies, plus a lot of angry verbal foot stamping and name calling. Sadly, GOP operatives like Rove and Gillespie are kicking back with a satisfied smirk.

When they write like that, what do they expect people to do besides laugh? These are the same voters who believe every viral email hoax that comes across their inbox. This is sad. Slogan based intellects.

On a more personal, and local level: I was told this week that one of our favorite restaurants will be closing. Oddly, I didn’t hear a thing about Obama-care, Socialists or tax and spend liberals being the cause. Add to that the sad news that a familiar waitperson at another restaurant we frequent committed suicide this week.  Again, no mention of a failed stimulus, interference by the United Nations or the World Bank, or even MASSIVE SPENDING.

I’ll tell you what killed a business and a person:

A- An economy played so fast and loose by a largely unregulated, out of control Wall Street (thanks to the Grover Norquist philosophy of starving the ‘beast’) while a pro-business White House watched with a complete lack of concern, that it eventually broke. When the Christmas choo-choo train finally went off the tracks it took a lot of people, mortgages and businesses with it.  This was all set into motion long before Obama got there.

B- There comes a point when people break too. After years of living hand to mouth doing the jobs that need to be done yet don’t pay big - like waiting tables - with a seriously disabled spouse at home, little in the way of help from struggling social services, medical insurance and more, people simply wear down and out. The pain of the struggle becomes too much to bear on a daily basis.

This was a sad week for Mr. Maven and I, but sadder still for those whose efforts and story have come to an end.

I can say pretty confidently that Sharron Angle would simply shrug it off. ‘They’ failed. All failures are ‘personal’ for true believers. Harry Reid would want to know why so that he could prevent it from happening again to somebody else. He believes that such failures, although they might have some personal/individual responsibility, also have roots in the community and it’s responsibilities to people.

Sharron Angle sees ‘me’. Harry Reid sees ‘we’.

That’s an important distinction.

Sharron Angle the Darwinian said during the debate that she believed it was her responsibility to make policy such that business could survive and thrive, rather than bringing jobs to Nevada herself, let the conditions or lack of them bring jobs … or not.

Harry Reid said, and has repeatedly shown by his actions, that he believes he has to both craft the right policy to grow an economy and bring the jobs. He would both teach the man to fish, and bring a spare fishing pole and bait to the pond.

I’ve always believed that you can’t really separate self/individual from the larger community. I support Harry Reid because I know he also believes that.

Oh, one last thing about the debate. I’ll be happy to hear the last of Sharron Angle’s self-promotion as a ‘teacher’. I can’t find anything that spells out what her actual teaching experience or credentials are beyond being a substitute teacher for 25 years (in all that time nobody wanted her full time?) and a two year gig at a tiny private religious school. Now there’s a resume to be proud of. When did she get her teaching certifications and from where?

Was Angle’s teaching just a nice bit of extra money while husband, Ted, was busy working for the BLM?

Oh, if you want to read an entertaining view of the debate, check out the Rude Pundit. Funny. And, FactCheck.org has a nifty analysis of the Sharron Angle ‘Viagra’ ad.

We went to see ‘Social Network’ the other day and really liked it. It’s a fascinating inside look at how one of the most wildly viral of modern phenomena came to be - Facebook.

We both got a lot out of this movie. He better understands the whole social networking thing. I related in a much different way - as a participant in an eerily similar story. Brilliantly creative people are both a gift and a curse. You can make some enemies and fail some friends on your way up.  I’ll let it go at that.

I’ve been working with Adobe tech support in Delhi for the last month, dogging a rather novel bug that’s been creating some anguish when I used Photoshop Elements 8.0. I think we’ve finally gotten it fixed in today’s session. What I really want to say here is that Adobe really went the distance in trying to resolve the problem. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with their folks in Delhi. They are professional and easy to work with - and they speak enough of an American style of English that communications wasn’t an issue.

Do I have any angst over outsourced jobs like this? No. Not really. It’s a world economy, and as long as the primary software development - the core creative engine behind it all with the best paying jobs - is done here in the United States, why would I?

Worrying about keeping some phone tech support here in the United States would be about as smart as trying to keep all the Adobe jobs - for example - in San Jose, California. I say this having worked on a web-based SaaS product that was created here in Reno, Nevada but built both here and in Delhi, India.

There’s an important distinction - that one of the Indian software guys point out to me. One thing that is unique to America is our creative drive … our ability to take entrepenurial risks and challenge the status quo.  That’s why enterprise the world over comes to the United States. We’ll be alright as long as we keep supporting an educational system that produces people like Bill Gates. Without that, it won’t matter how many assembly line jobs we keep here, our economy will fail.

The next time a politician talks about keeping American jobs here - ask what kind of jobs. High volume, minimum wage jobs of yesteryear? Or high value, high wage jobs of the future? There’s an important distinction there that few politicians understand, not to mention the electorate. Unfortunately, our economic future depends on it.

Talking about Adobe, I was taking a peek at the new version, 9.0, of Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Premier. Adobe finally gets it. Not everybody needs to be a Photoshop guru. Too time intensive - it becomes an end in itself. We want to enjoy the pictures we take of our friends and families, our lives and move on to share them in new ways. Adobe has finally made Photoshop for the rest of us, and then with 9.0 taken it even closer.

I’ll be upgrading from PSE 8.0 to 9.0 soon. But what I keep wondering is why they are still bothering to put out software on a disc? Why it’s not web-based. A part of the cloud. Maybe if the American infrastructure lived up to its own self hype … You can bet that the Sharron Angles of the world will never understand the question not to mention the possible answers.

Ah, that’s a discussion for another place and time.

Have a good weekend.

-maven