I've been catching up on the last 20yrs of graphic novels/manga with a will lately, so Frank Miller (among others) has been on my mind. Scanning his Wikipedia entry, I found this nugget attributed to him, regarding the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States:
"...Nobody questions why we, after Pearl Harbor, attacked Nazi Germany. It was because we were taking on a form of global fascism, we're doing the same thing now ... It seems to me quite obvious that our country and the entire Western World is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants.... For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, and the sixth-century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people's heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I'm living in a city where 3000 of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built..."
Putting aside Frank Miller's affinity for exactly this sort of barbarism in his art, this was a thoughtful quote since I'd just finished Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, an auto-biographical graphic novel about her own coming of age in Europe and revolutionary-era Iran. In context, I respect Mr. Miller's anger at the situation (and share it) but have to make a point about his language -- this is about power, not culture, and they're very different. All of the positive/amazing aspects of the modern era are also not the embodiment of Western culture but artifacts embraced by even the oldest cultures to improve themselves in their own ways, not proof of any ideology's appeal.
Literacy and mass communications has an enfranchising effect, it's true. Oppression is threatened by awareness and, when its power is culturally aligned, cultures share the consequences. That's the fault of oppressors, however -- personalities craving control will grow it by the hand of God or man, dusting off any custom or superstition to keep it. This axiom isn't just abundant in history, it defines it -- in time, the ambitions of the powerful dominate the record, even substantiating cultures they originally exploited. The rest of what he mentions -- outmoded notions of law, hygiene, etc. seem as cruel and bizarre as any you'd find where material and educational disparities prevail, as (for example, in reverse) between medieval Europe and Asia.
The Western Bible is no showcase of enlightenment either, chock full of ideas as nutty as any other doctrine dating from over a thousand years ago, and there are plenty in the US who take it as the literal word of God to be obeyed. This isn't any more cultural thing either, however, but observance of an older, frankly more proven artifact. In its day, the Bible was technology, an authority on the universe, human history, and best practices, that did the job for centuries. That's unwise to ignore in a practical sense, no matter how much life has changed in these last few, measly decades.
This suggests something Frank Miller and others seem to forget, as well -- people can and should change slowly, in terms of generations, no matter how fast our toys improve. That's not backwards but sensible on the scale of evolution, making the categorical dismissal of ancient belief systems a disservice to the human species. The way out is to speak truth to power: Cultures are about survival and prosperity, not greed or violence. The ambitions of individuals -- presidents, emperors, terrorists, revolutionaries, you name it -- bring them into opposition, preying on everything and everyone to achieve their ends. To ignore this is to play into their hands.
I recently concluded my imagination needed a recharge, so rather than face the pile of serious reading I've been poking at for a decade or I decided to fill in another personally major cultural literacy gap: Graphic novels. I think this began when I saw the Watchmen movie, for what it's worth -- I enjoyed it so much I rightfully suspected the book must be at least very interesting (I picked 300 and From Hell, otherwise, to evict their film adaptations from memory).
Some of these here are 20+ years old, I realize, but didn't catch my eye when they first emerged because I was wrapped up in my career, school, etc. and have never been successful mixing real life pursuits with light reading. Given how obtainable and affordable all of these titles have become after all this time, the years may have worked to my advantage anyway.
Completed, over the last month or so (numbered items are omnibus editions):
- Asterious Polyp (David Mazzucchelli)
- Watchmen (Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons)
- The Ghost in the Shell #1 (Shirow Masamune)
- Aliens vs. Predator #1 (various)
- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller, et al)
- Promethea #1-2 (Alan Moore, et al)
- Lost Girls (Alan Moore, et al)
- Ronin (Frank Miller, et al)
- From Hell (Alan Moore, et al)
- The Sandman #1 (Neil Gaiman, et al)
- Akira #1 (Katsushiro Otomo)
- The Dark Tower/Gunslinger #1 (Stephen King, et al)
In-work, on order, or in a big pile in the living room:
- Promethea #3-5 (Alan Moore, et al)
- The League of Extraordinary Gentleman #1-2 (Alan Moore, et al)
- V For Vendetta (Alan Moore, et al)
- Batman: The Killing Joke (Alan Moore, et al)
- Batman: Year One (Frank Miller, et al)
- Sin City #1-7 (Frank Miller)
- 300 (Frank Miller)
- The Sandman #2-11 (Neil Gaiman, et al)
- The Sandman: Endless Nights (Neil Gaiman, et al)
- The Dark Tower/Gunslinger #2-3 (Stephen King, et al)
- Swamp Thing #1-2 (Alan Moore, et al)
- Black Orchid (Neil Gaiman, et al)
- The Books of Magic (Neil Gaiman, et al)
...and, last but not least:
- Prince Valiant #1 (1937-38, Hal Foster) (reading it with the boy)
Additionally, in early 2010 there's supposed to be reissues of the rest of the Akira and The Ghost in the Shell omni's I intend to snatch up.
You might notice an armload of Moore, Gaiman, and Miller. These are some good, satisfying writers -- especially Moore and Gaiman -- but I'm also concentrating on them because (a) I dig noir, a major emphasis of Miller's, and (b) their remaining catalogues are easy to round up and handily span other graphic novel genres. The weak showing of genuine manga reflects my ignorance of quality writers and series in Japan, but I hope to correct that soon.
What do I think? Well, some of this stuff is very good. Even if a particular plot doesn't knock me over, they're always thoughtful and drawn well enough to leave a solid, creative impression on my mind. They do the trick, basically -- my imagination is in a better state, and the format is engaging and portable. I can knock out a chapter or even a page in-between real life crises without losing the context, unlike with novels or histories.
So...yeah. I recommend graphic novels. What a wonderful notion, I...hope they catch on?
Remember magnolia blossoms?
Creamy like Sunday suits
Blessed with a scent
Only old men would call cheap
I don't want it, though
The heat, the stink, the traffic
The miles, the popping ears
Kids with anything better to do
Those bends of muddy rivers
Bored with the haze, themselves
Cutting this way and that
Just so we could walk together
Nests of bumpy, old roads
People who knew the old me
The me who didn't need respect
Not like I do now
I grew up near hissing rapids
Thinking this would always be
A tunnel of chill in summer
But an excuse to hold each other
The place left me before I left it
Yet you're still there, tucked
Into those cool, dry niches
Mothers and father, now dust
I don't think I'll go back
Until I feel that safe.
The black cat always came back black as coal with a soul full of excitement with a dinner napkin with a fraction of meat Joseph Kitchin 10/01/2009
Huh. I knew the Clone Wars (well, all of Star Wars...) was supposed to be a parable, buuuuut:
"...All democracies turn into dictatorships—but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it's Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea. What kinds of things push people and institutions in this direction? That's the issue I've been exploring: how did the Republic turn into the Empire? ... How does a good person go bad, and how does a democracy become a dictatorship?..."
-George Lucas, Interview in Time Magazine, 2002
All democracies, eh? So...how much is Lucas trying to align his space epic franchise with current events, and to what end? I see little bits and pieces of Iraq and Afghanistan in the Clone Wars series my son is iterating through (we have 24 episodes or so on the iPod). Odd.
Even though I grew up in DC and consume a lot of political mumbo jumbo from the Internet, the operative logic in Congress and the White House has always been safely ahead of me. That's predictable, really -- as information rich as any age seems to be, average stiffs with only a few minutes a day to devote to anything other than their job or household will be out of the loop. The blogs and podcasts even I follow probably amount to a chatty hill of beans in this scheme of things.
As the density and cleverness of my favored sources have improved, on the other hand, unease seems to keep pace. I see plenty of reasoned, well-documented riffs on recent, global events, for example, but no useful prediction. It's usually clear where tomorrow's vote on given issues will land (and I'll surely be conversational as to why), while next week keeps being a mystery. With all these referential assets falling flat when I try and make sense of things to come, I'm stuck with deduction.
What am I missing in this mass of analysis, or simply not looking for?
Separating hazards, I'm trying to examine an issue of present, personal and national interest: modernization of healthcare funding in the US. Presented with the essentials -- is effective healthcare a human right (and thus, universally available), may wealthier people be taxed proportionately to offset costs, should drug and healthcare providers negotiate with the government on prices, etc. -- most Americans were sold yesterday, yet action has been dragged into the weeds by the cheapest distractions.
Theories are abundant and dismissive: Americans are stupid. Politicians are on the take. Big drug and healthcare are too powerful. We don't agree on hot-button details (e.g., abortion, substance abuse). The President is too hands on/off. We can't shoulder the deficits. More regulation/controls are too distasteful. These don't jibe with me, however: none are categorically true nor deal-breakers, nor do I see a solid, additive effect -- identifiable interests opposed to coherent groups of these appear, themselves, coherent and a minority.
Barack Obama and this Congress also don't seem to be trying too hard, however, and I'm not to be the only person who seems to think so. Yet, why wouldn't (a) a smart, mandate-rich President and (b) the baddest of bad-assed Congressional majorities pull out all the stops for a legacy of real, lasting healthcare reform?
Overseas consumers of US national debt, mostly in Asia, suggest an answer. These are both annoyed at the collapse of mortgage-backed securities (a former mainstay of export income investment) and suffering with tanked American consumer demand. They want the latter back, at least, and have rumbled disinterest in future debt financing if we devalue it by producing too much, e.g., by creating a non-deficit-neutral public healthcare option with or without new taxes. Without this overseas funding, regardless, the US would grind to a halt.
Right alongside, however, Medicare will soon blitz the federal budget with ailments of retiring Baby Boomers, ironically the last demographic with real retirement plans and supplemental healthcare coverage. A decade-long, multi-front war -- unthinkable a decade ago -- may also catch up to this.
I believe such forces could squeeze the life out of any public healthcare funding initiative and...seem real, logical. I also believe the brightest, most decent-minded leaders of all stripes might quietly (even secretly) abdicate in the face of these, spinning off handouts to insurance and drug companies in consolation for being publicly derided. The current, visible debate would therefore be about...what? Initiative in upcoming party power struggles, foreign policy, or appointment horse trading?
Where do I go beyond this? If I'm glimpsing some higher-level political game, how many years (decades?) have I missed? Am I far gone enough to believe, for example, the last Administration orchestrated the war and ignored evidence of an impending collapse in the mortgage markets to...what? Deny Americans healthcare? Weaken international rivals (China, Russia) for dwindling global resources? That's insane, yet only an order removed from embracing the irrelevance of this graphic debate on healthcare policy.
These notions bother me, but perhaps without merit -- if nothing changes and I'm alive and safe (even without health coverage, as we are now), am I really deprived? Maybe this is the price we pay for preserving a first world lifestyle. Questions nag and persist, however, especially in light of George W. Bush's Presidency: Can Americans rightfully claim a democracy? Did the Bill of Rights ever have value where it counted, in the hearts of our national leaders? I wonder if we'll even know the truth of these, for sure.
If you're a software engineer, there's a good chance you've bumped into this type in an average, mid-sized company or small division of a large one. Since I've either been or worked with this sort of person in almost every job I've had and heard many, similar reports from colleagues, I'm compelled to provide this analysis for the inexperienced and unwary. Even though I include myself in this classification, I might add, I can't wait until we're a thing of the past.
Here are the hallmarks. Any two will do:
- Advanced academic training, positively correlated with the size of the organization, though without "visionary" status in any discipline (requires social skills)
- Close ties with a CEO or senior management who fought the good fight back in the day, when men were men and the company may not have made it
- Responsibility for at least one (1) major saving of corporate bacon at a point where inspiration -- preferably another's -- was foiled by reality (extra credit if the solution was esoteric/unmaintainable)
Their survival depends on the following. Again, select two:
- Confrontational discussions, often of peripheral substance, characterized by aggressive, invective-laden tones and/or academic doublespeak
- Whisper campaigns
- Divide-and-conquer tactics with teams/management, where all roads leading away from core fetishes end at steep cliffs
These techniques are immediately recognizable if you've been in the industry any length of time, and I'm ashamed to say I've employed most of them. We leapt into the breach when business/technical software was relatively young, became big fish in small ponds, learned lots, and shaped generations of applications which followed. The bad news is our solutions tend to be buggy, weird, and symbiotic (requiring our indefinite input), and hard enough to decouple/decipher that meaningful, spec-driven changes become more troublesome than they're worth. We're a pox on the industry in this sense, but I'm here to tell you this is going to come to an end soon, even if I'm going to be too old to appreciate it. Here's why.
Firstly, there are many, new software engineers with an overwhelming percentage of name-brand CS training under the hood, as opposed to hard engineering or other sciences (e.g., my own Geography/Astronomy degree). This is creating downward wage pressure across the industry and giving employers options they've never had before. Senior hands point out the quality/quantity thing, which is true -- a team of newbs does less good/more harm in the same amount of time as one, motivated senior engineer. This won't remain the case for long, however -- the crowd of devs now in their low 20's will be pretty savvy and level-headed within a decade and more accustomed to networking/collaborating with peers from generational trends alone.
This is compounded by evolving demand for software itself. Although not exactly exploding, software development remains a growth industry because it continues to be a force multiplier for the rest of the economy. This rubs up against an unfortunate fact, however: many business and government applications still suck. For a long time, other industries tolerated notoriously poor reliability/quality in business solutions because they were so new and enabling, but this has changed impressively during my career. Every enterprise relies on computers and Internet-based capabilities these days, has a good sense of best practices, and are regularly on the lookout for better solutions.
I also suspect middleware and back-end solutions (e.g., databases) understood within the ranks of journeyman software engineers today as buggy and support-driven will become extinct as these people become decision makers. Why? Because this class of engineer has come of age having and exploring options (usually cheap ones), and are categorically uncomfortable with the troublesome, vertically-integrated product lines characteristic of the early years of ecommerce.
Why wouldn't the senior engineers I'm picking on be at the vanguard of this movement, however? Because most of us are entrenched in product lines we're strongly associated with and, fundamentally, not as smart as we look. Our science projects continue to sell and expand, but require constant attention and defense from forces inside and outside our niches, and we're simply not quitters. This quality serves us when nights are long and deadlines short, but not when we have to play well with others. In short, much of this senior cadre of the software industry represents the problem. Lastly, we have to sell our now-elderly, peculiar creations to a new generation of engineers, and a skeptical one at that. That's not typically among our gifts.
Last and least specifically, outsourcing isn't over. Highly-trained offshore resources didn't quite work out as planned when they were so furiously embraced a few years ago, but this illustrated industry and government's distaste for how the domestic software industry works. There are three forces still in motion here, however: Firstly, just as in the US, young, semi-English-literate engineers the world over aren't staying that way by a long shot. Second, more balanced, mixed on-/off-shore development regimes are proving reliable. Finally, local demand for software work in overseas economies is blossoming as these engineers mature into entrepreneurs and spread out, making the idiosyncrasies of US businesses less relevant.
The Indian industry, specifically, provides another important insight: maturity as a discipline. India has the greatest number of high-CMMI/ISO-compliant organizations I've heard of, which both makes sense when selling into other markets and forms a solid, widespread basis for the future competence. The US has been so enamored of its creativity, for good or ill, it's never settled on standards for developer training, process regimes, etc., and it shows. Confronted with this, senior engineers go on about the art and subtlety of software as opposed to, say, civil engineering, but they're fundamentally wrong. The certification and systemization of civil engineering evolved precisely because of costly, inspirational failures in the field, much like bits of the last twenty years of software development.
Why have we gotten away with our particularly American industry for so long? I suspect because we were first to this fight, investment dollars have been easy until recent times, and software is so much easier to develop and leverage than (e.g.) suspension bridges. Software engineering will grow to be a real, standards-driven discipline, however, as it coalescences around the current generations of specifically-trained software engineers. It's a necessity given the numbers, and will become self-evident. We will identify the best and least-worst practices and make them law. Will I miss the early years, so to speak? Yes, in a sense, but that's nostalgia for you: We miss the old, while embracing the new in all things. Thank goodness for progress.
Added a few from the early half of this year, mostly of the family and the Blue Angels show at SeaFair (July). Hope you enjoy!
The rest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mkitchin/
My son gave me a cognitive shiver today, admittedly right on schedule (roughly, once a week at his age). This morning's topic began as geography, after a quick game of Go. I had been reviewing the distribution of colonial influence over the globe in the last lesson, then strayed into languages and customs and how conquest leads to their adoption. As a contrasting example, I was enplaning how, despite the use of English worldwide, it was hard to find English spoken in the interior of China due to isolation, having never been conquered in the modern age, etc.
At this point, he interrupted:
"China is like Rome."
"What do you mean?" I encouraged.
"Well, it's like Rome, but so is the United States. They're both very large. And...if they ever fought it would be a very hard war."
"Why would you say that?" I asked.
"See...China has better attack, but we have better defense."
"What do you mean?" I knew he was using the metaphor of Star Wars miniatures, where units have different attack/defense ratings.
"We have big cities, with lots of buildings and big weapons, so we're tougher and it would be hard to destroy all the buildings. They have lots of people and lots of little cities. When we read the folk tales, for example, they have lots of houses with carvings of dragons and stuff, which are small, but they have lots of people, so they could fight a long war."
"So...how are we like Rome?"
He shrugged. "We're always in a war, and we have lots of weapons and soldiers. Rome did also. And China, and they're very big."
I might need to skip ahead a few lessons, though since he's still eight I'll probably leave out nuclear deterrence so he can sleep at night.
This morning I suckered myself into a discussion that came dangerously close to the truth, which is never pretty in a cube farm. I mentioned a nearby bank robbery to a co-worker, he remarked how rare those are, and I opined that if a certain Wall Street investment firm had a branch in Seattle more people might line up to rob "those criminals." He gave me a studied, deadpan look, clearly in the mood for a debate, and asked how these could rate as criminals. Sliding over the edge, I let go on how these same folks had lent others billions of dollars, then managed to get reimbursed (without obligation) when their clients were bailed out by the US Government. As my grandchildren might get to pay off this debt and executives involved were likely to invest their haul in other, more growth-oriented economies, I ranked them as thieves. Woe is me.
See, ok: Companies that lend unwisely only to be rewarded when somebody else's bacon is saved by the taxpayers are (a) lucky and (b) doing right by their own investors, I get that. As a company, they're functional, possibly even good, but I reject other, implied value propositions. Lots of mechanisms execute their functions well while doing harm -- companies, governments, chemicals, guns, and (yes) markets. And, yet...my co-worker was ready to dance with this. This latest scheme was supposedly part of a venerable equilibrium which sustains us all. This money will return as opportunities, and it's not like this sort of thing hasn't been going on for centuries, right? I wasn't done, however. The scale, I said...I don't care how far back you go, nobody has been as rich as the rich are in this world today. There have never been so many orders of magnitude separating the likes of a Wall Street executive and the normal worker, whose income mostly doubles back into their lives (cars, houses, education for their kids, etc.).
Another co-worker piped in. They're young and, though attached, free of dependents and happy with their opportunities. I contend over the last thirty years the real options available to people with education and average initiative have dwindled -- we need dual-earning households to pay for homes and an unexceptional car or two, to say nothing of the sick cost of college degrees. Add to that typical concerns from a decade or so in a given career, children, and the odd chronic illness and "opportunity" has a different meaning. But no, that's ridiculous -- the things people want drive them to work harder, the nicer cars, bigger houses, gadgetry, etc. Really, I ask? That's a supply-and-demand perspective, yet I see no weakness in supply of...well, anything. Cars, houses, electronics, you name it are all in abundance at historically low prices.
Wasn't the drive for equal rights for women in the workplace, for example, driven by necessity rather than a yen for extra spending money? That particular dam seemed to break...when....just before Ronald Reagan came around to save the world, right? Ah, but there was more.
I pulled my head out of my ass and shot back with two of my favorite things: professional basketball and European cars. Some years ago I watched a documentary called Hoop Dreams, about the divergent lives of two urban youths trying to break into the NBA. A remarkable statistic opens this film: 80% of young men in inner cities are certain they will become professional basketball players. Not that they "have a chance" or "have the talent", but will. While it's true many professional players come from this background, this conviction remained widespread despite the slim likelihood any respondents even knew of somebody who had made the grade. That...is exactly how the American middle class continues to function, despite all the ills we'd discussed. One in perhaps ten thousand of us have the good fortune, talent, and drive to break and keep that first million, yet we all convince ourselves we're certain to, some day.
Isn't this motivation a good thing? I grant you the latitude to succeed, to identify and exploit economies of scale, competitive advantages, etc. is a brilliant quality of American society, but does that somehow require us to put up with the likes of investment bankers swimming in our tax dollars? The door started to snap shut on me by this point, as I was spiraling into the dead end of socialism or something more categorically pathetic in public discussion, so I dug in my heels. Wait!, I said: Think of BMW!
If you ask executives at BMW if they want to be the biggest car maker in the world, they'll give you a (perhaps) surprising answer: Of course not. As they tell the story, a long time ago there was a company which made 100% of the electric toasters in the world (General Electric), yet the year this dominance was achieved that very division lost 150 million dollars. Why? Because being the most powerful (or the only) of anything isn't all it's cracked up to be. As one commands more of a market their identity deteriorates, and the capacity to adapt and grow goes with it. BMW will tell you they've found their place, and they like it. They'll defend and adjust their niche should larger forces shift, but that's it. A different kind of goal, realized. How does this apply to the rest of us who don't make expensive, overcomplicated cars and motorcycles (as a former owner, I get to say that...)? Why, let me tell you.
Look at other, more insular western democracies: the Scandinavian nations, France, Germany, even the UK and Canada. Higher standards of living, better cradle-to-grave services, more leisure/creative time, more employee protections, a better life. Right? Not quite, came the response -- how about their tax rates (25%, 30%), oppressive regulation, and lack of an entrepreneurial identity, etc. At this point I stalled and grew nervous. We'd reached a disconnect -- these things didn't seem bad to me, and I was on treacherous ground in a business setting. How could any sane person abandon the superiority of choice, mobility, freedom, for...a modest, comfortable existence? A place, as in the BMW example, yet not necessarily dictated by one's specific potential. Why do so many people from these countries come to the US to escape these very things, however? Why don't we hear of Americans fleeing to (e.g.) Denmark or Ireland?
Well, for one, most of these countries aren't letting anyone in, at least not without ancestral ties. One may interpret this as stinginess, but based on my limited travels in Europe I'd say it was a considered choice that's simply alien to the American mindset. These particular cultures have notions of themselves that aren't growth and opportunity driven. Plenty of people come to the US from these places, as well, though it isn't nearly the desperate rush we see from the developing world. My will ebbed as this reasoning made a victory condition unclear -- I desired different things and was less attracted to unlikely possibilities. Then came a hammer blow. That Wall Street investment firm of which I spoke? They're a major stakeholder in the hierarchy of companies I work for. Though I may not be culpable, I survive squarely within the influence of their scandal.
Do I have the nerve to sacrifice my standard of living for a slice of moral superiority? Hmmm? What was that? I quieted now that we'd come full circle, then professed exhaustion and retreated, more embarrassed at how wound up I'd gotten than the substance of the discussion. Not here, I thought, not now. None of this was worth fighting for with all the work left to do in the day.
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