Sex, lies and airplanes. I sure wouldn't want the assignment of writing the obligatory Movie of the Week about 1st Lieutenant Kelly Flinn. This woman is SO lucky that she isn't pulling hard time, yet she presents herself to the world as a wronged victim of an uncaring system. Hey Ms. Flinn. . . the military BY DESIGN is an uncaring system baby. Now quit crying and get out.It is sweetly ironic that a woman, Air Force Secretary Dr. Sheila Widnall was tasked with making the final decision regarding Flinn's fate. Widnall made the right one. Out like Flinn: she's excused from the Air Force without pension, responsible for repaying the taxpayers the 18 thousand dollars plus that we paid to educate her (the million bucks that went was spent training her to fly high-tech bombers is flushed down the toilet along with any honor Flinn may have once had).
Looking kind of like The Church Lady, Dr. Widnall simply upheld the rules and regulations that have been on the books for decades, while Flinn had openly broken them, lied about it and broke them again.
Flinn does not have The Right Stuff by half. As the Pentagon officials said, this isn't about adultery--this is about disobeying orders and then lying about it. By the way, Ms. Flinn flew B-52s carrying the most deadly nuclear devices known to humankind. Is it any surprise that someone who cannot be trusted isn't the best person for this awesome assignment?
Flinn is simply a well-trained tramp, extremely lucky to be walking free, with her perverse view of what the Air Force is all about. Not to mention her view of "real love." Good lord, and you trust her to wrangle nukes? I don't. This isn't an issue about women in the military, this is an issue about a morally bankrupt individual getting a slap on the wrist transforming her previous role of Air Force Poster Girl to 1st Lieutenant Slut.
What are screenagers doing online? They're seeking out commercials. This isn't Generation X, this is The Brand X Generation. Logo's represent the new Golden Calf. We've turned commercial branding into a reasonably entertaining substitute for spirituality and our youth buy in big time.
For students of all ages, but especially teens, the web represents the largest reference tool ever known (okay, some of the references are a bit bizarre, and there's no accounting for accuracy, but it's big--really big okay?) You would think that with access to the internet a kid would never have to visit a library to do his or her homework right? So they'd use it like this right?
Helping with the homework must be the primary motivation behind a lot of parents' purchases of computers, modems and online time for their teens. The firm of Cheskin+Masten ImageNet, of Redwood City, California addressed the issue and guess what they found? What a surprise! kids weren't using the web for homework very much, if at all. Perhaps, viewed more realistically, the kids have been handed a brand new way to hide in their rooms and chat with other teens for hours on end ("Hey, what's up?") and, while no one is looking, expose themselves to the horrible secrets of being a jaded sexual adult ("Hey, what's this?")
As junior taps away in his room upstairs late at night, is he really looking for the periodic chart of the elements or something slightly less enlightening like MTV.com or following his favorite team's site? Wherever there is a large demographic group with intense brand awareness and loyalty, having discretionary income to spend on floppy pants and floppy discs you can usually find a group of consultants. Converging like ants on a sugarbowl, to "solve" the burning questions: "Just what are they thinking, where are they going?"
The distinction between marketing and entertainment are almost totally blurred for this generation. So why not consider the next step: that of entermarketing blurring into religion?
I used to work with a company just outside of San Francisco where every afternoon at precisely five p.m. everyone would rush to their work station and assume the position. It was time for the office network Doom session.
"Twitch 'n' Kill," is how the lead engineer referred to the activity. You could hears screams of pain matched by squeals of joy emanating from distant cubicles, even behind the glass walls of the executive offices as multiple players wove their way through dangerous labyrinths killing one another with abandon. (A modern team-building exercise?)
An internal network's blinding speed can't be compared with what the web can deliver today in terms of performance, but the web can deliver in spirit. The speed with come eventually--the players are already there.
Back in the lazy Fifties, my parents used to invite a few friends over to play Bridge, whatever that is. I used to hate my parents' Bridge parties, cigarette smoke in our living room, music by The Hi-Lo's and strange adults using my bathroom. (Actually I liked the music by the Hi-Lo's . . .) Maybe the fine art of a good game of Bridge is dying off like shag carpeting and avocado green appliances.
Enter Network Bridge. Not quite "Twitch 'n' Kill," a little more like "Yawn 'n' Draw." You can find tips, tournaments and team mates at OKBridge, an online Bridge service. You know, I'm finding it hard to contain my excitment here. On the other hand, the opportunity to play with folks from around the globe in relative real time is very cool. (And I have to admit, it's Mensa compared to a chat room, so I should be more respectful.)
Back to death for the wrap! Big players are sniffing around smelling dough in the online gaming market. They're even hauling out the old subscription model, and it may work with this content. Why do you think they call it a "killer" app anyway? This ain't Bridge Ma.
As if the idea of a piece of paper, inside another piece of paper, a little rectangle of paper with glue on the back stuck to it, dropped in a box, picked up by a human, sorted by several other humans, put on a truck, a plane, a truck, sorted by several more humans, put back on a truck, then carried to your door by a human makes sense to continue these days.
No redesign of a website is going to keep the post office relevant in the 21st Century. UPS, FedEx, Airborne, DHL, et. al., have all but replaced the traditional means of sending a business package via USPS. The by-the-piece mail system we have today is facing extinction from the kind of electronic family-oriented communication available through consumer-friendly AOL and WebTV-type email access.
I'm no techno-evangelist but the days of blue-suited postpersons walking around the neighborhood with a big sack full of paper and a squirt bottle of dog repellant are numbered.
But there's good news for all you disgruntled postal employees. There's still something you can't get with email, and that's a collectable Bugs Bunny stamp! All sorts of cool stamps that represent pure profit for the post office when you stick 'em in a book. (GIFs aren't collectable yet--maybe someday.) I have to admit, I have a sheet of Elvis Presley stamps somewhere in the basement, not that I'd ever sell it. If the post office is to survive as anything other than a quaint anachronism, it had better figure out how to go electric, and fast.
I cover the waterfront. For those of you still interested, here's a quick update on the lowdown surrounding the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. What follows is gleaned from the local media over several months. Because I reside in bucolic Boulder, Colorado, I am subjected to a new flood of leaked insider info and innuendo weekly that, I'm discovering, doesn't always filter up to the mainstream media. (And let's face it, a lot of us are two busy to watch Geraldo.)
The murder happened a little over 150 days ago. It is reported by the tabloid newspaper Globe that John Ramsey's highly-paid investigating team are pointing to Patsy, the little girl's mother, as the perpetrator. Patsy was recently asked to submit a fifth handwriting sample to the Boulder Police, who also consider her Suspect #1.
The family's pediatrician, (who happens to be a fellow country club member and golfing buddy of John Ramsey's) has agreed so far to only one public "interview" which was held in the presence of one of John Ramsey's lawyers. Patsy took little JonBenet to see this doctor . This same doctor was asked to leave a practice in Arvada under distrubing circumstances. As reported on Peter Boyle's Denver morning talk show, the nurses working with this physician referred to him as "The Pervert" because of his peculiar practice of catheterizing any and all patients brought to him regardless, even if the visit was for a sore throat or earache. The children were all catheterized.
Look it up. I'm not going into it. It's just another horrible twist to this terrible case. Remember, this is the doctor who assured the public that in all his examinations of JonBenet he hadn't detected any signs of sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, Boulder's police chief Tom Koby (who announced at the beginning of the controversy that his department had investigated the case "by the book,") is the target of a no-confidence vote from within his own ranks. Even the police think he's botched the investigation beyond all hope.
Further evidence of John Ramsey's character burst into public view recently when the tabloids (god luv 'em) revealed the name of one Kimberly Ballard, who allegedly had an affair with family man, father of "Daddy's Little Girl," John Ramsey. While Patsy was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for cancer, John Ramsey was perusing the personal ads in the back of USA Today as I guess discerning millionaires do. After a Tucson tryst with Ms. Ballard (who was pre-qualified by J.R. as petite and blonde) they continued to see and know one another for some three months until Ballard, feeling a little uncomfortable, broke it off.
She later was shocked to discover the similarities between her own appearance and that of the beauty-pageant made-up JonBenet.
The media savvy Ramseys have been placing ads in Boulder's hometown newspaper, The Daily Camera for the past few weeks, offering a $100,000.00 reward for information leading to the arrest, etc. of the killer or killers, blah blah. What the heck, let's throw another red herring on the coals.: the latest ad requests anyone having seen a "well dressed man talking to children" around Christmastime please contact the police.
The police, the mayor and the district attorney's office all issued public statements the next day proclaiming ignorance of any "well dressed man talking to children" around Christmas or any other week. A day after that, the district attorney's office was forced to publicly apologize, as the "mysterious man" tip came from someone in the D.A.'s office directly to the Ramsey investigators, bypassing the Boulder Police.
The whole thing is so out of control that pretty much everyone agrees that even though the prime suspects (the parents) look and act incredibly guilty, there will probably never be an arrest let alone a conviction. Apart from everything else, the JonBenet murder case suggests two disturbing truths that few feel comfortable addressing: child abuse can happen in the nicest of homes; and in America today, if you have tons of money you can get away with murder.