Glenn Hauman: View From Above

Brad Templeton:

I have finally realized why this White House is so concerned over the Iraqi Prison abuse scandal: They fear they have been caught doing something really serious — lying about sex.

His observations over at Making Light: Arkhangel grieves for lost honor are brilliant, and codify something that’s been nagging at me for a while:

It was apparent a long time ago (as I’m sure most of you know perfectly well) that Rumsfeld, along with a number of other Prominent Individuals, is a CEO of a type now not uncommon: he has no leadership ability (which used to be recognized as a component of “management”), no inspirational qualities, and lacks a basic understanding of how the “business” he’s been put in charge of actually operates.

Instead, he decides what the company is supposed to return on its investment (or achieve in the short term), demands “plans” to achieve this, and hands off those plans to people who are expected to implement them successfully with whatever resources they can scare up. Anyone who stands in the way of the CEO’s imperial will by pointing out that for the plan to work will require airborne squadrons of hypersonic pigs is told to make it work anyway, under whatever threat happens to be available. The CEO -does no work,- including making actual operating decisions. He makes a demand and collects a bonus. If the plan fails, or for that matter the company, that’s someone else’s fault. Probably government regulators’.

For some decades it has been considered, and often taught, that “management” is a “skill” independent of the business it is applied to; running an airline is no different from running a pizza parlor, and being too deep in the details the pizza business (never mind -liking- it) might get in the way of your getting the airline job. And the business of America is ROI and P/E; it has nothing whatsoever to do with making a product or delivering a service.

And really, how can you not love a post entitled “RUMSFELD JUMPS SHARK: Shark Denied Counsel”?

The Media Revolt Mainfesto by Orcinus. Read it. Now.

Over on Peter’s blog, topic titled PeterDavid.net: Bush vs. Kerry someone in the comments thread has mentioned Hitler.

My question: as a moderator, should I shut down the comment thread now that Godwin’s Law has been violated?

Yahoo! News – Yankees Balk at ‘Spider-Man’ Ads on Bases

Seriously– is there a possibility that this film won’t get enough advertising mindspace? That people won’t go out to see it in droves? This over-hype is rude, and worse, makes people think the movie is going to be worse than it is because they have to sell it so hard.

I blame the drug culture. During the Sixties a lot of people came to believe that they could get the real truth by intuiting vibes and reading auras, and that nit-picky left-brain attention to fact and detail is useless, if not harmful. Some of those people are still around today, and they seem to have had kids.

Posted on May 4, 2004Author Glenn HaumanCategories Uncategorized

Yahoo! News – Airlines Balk at Paying More for Security

Man, it must suck when you don’t spend a thousand dollars a plane to secure cockpit doors and suddenly you find yourself in financial tough times, even after you get billions in government loans and breaks.

And they’re being hindered by a price war! Heavens, the free market is just too fierce!

According to the Military Casualty Information of the Vietnam War, our casualties to date is 737, which surpasses all the casualties in Vietnam from 1957 to 1964, and we’re well into 1965.

We can now get US soldiers killed in a year, when it use to take seven.

I had commented to a friend who was in the thick of the Vietnam protests back in the day that Iraq felt like Vietnam on Internet time. I’m not happy to see that I called that one right.

For an even harsher take on the subject, see Billmon’s Vietnam on Crack.

Some of you know that in a past life, I was an e-publishing pioneer. It seems to be coming back to haunt me.

Normally, I’d never look at a site named shortshortshort.com, but here we have Short-short Stories by Bruce Holland Rogers, so it’s worth a look. Bruce is running a subscription, $5 a year gets you 36 stories– lord only know what type, since Rogers is an award-winning writer in many fields (Pushcart Prize, two Nebula Awards, the Bram Stoker, etc.), and many of the subscription stories have gone on to appear in print in such magazines and anthologies as The Sun, Realms of Fantasy, Descant, Analog, and Polyphony. Give it a shot.

Second piece: one of the little odd joys I got in the BiblioBytes days was from watching the reactions on people’s faces as a brief explanation and demonstration of the latest technology loose on the net. I saw it happen with musicians with Napster, and I saw it happen with authors and publishers with ebooks.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen that particualr look of wonder and horror on someone’s face– but I just saw it yesterday. On someone who works in the comic book industry.

Stay tuned.

So there won’t be a transcript of the ventriloquism act in front of the 9/11 Commission today. Why?According to this:

The decision, following a practice President Ronald Reagan used in 1987 when appearing before a commission probing the Iran-contra matter…

Iran-Contra, yeah, that’s what I want to cite as precedent when trying to convince America that there was no wrongdoing, yessiree.

The press is starting to give a hard time about it too:

“MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, the President is already under oath as the President of the United States. But let me go back to when the President signed the legislation creating this commission.

“Q He’s under oath 24 hours a day? (Laughter.)”

And if he is under oath 24/7, does that mean we can try him for perjury for such lines as “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction” and “Mission Accomplished” and… well, you know the list.