Some Things Change, Part 2

Today, the Macy's Holiday Parade. Yes, I know its the day *after* Thanksgiving and this is not New York City. Not *that* Macy's parade, this is the one that used to be affectionately known as the Meier and Frank Holiday Parade.

No giant balloons floating, this one is more about marching bands, and they do have giant floating things that are driven by inside people. Now that would be a fun job - driving a giant floating Christmas tree down the streets of Portland.

When big bad Macy's moved in (not my opinion, I actually *like* Macy's, but then, I'm from the East coast, so they didn't betray my memory or anything, in fact, they brought my home back to me here on the west coast. Long live bi-coastalism!). Well, when Macy's bought out Meier and Frank, they tried to subvert the local traditional post-holiday parade.

Tried to make it into some sort of competition to The Rose Parade or something - banned middle school bands from participating. A righteous hue and cry resulted. Myself among them. Did they think we would get on national TV or something?

Our way was more about having breakfast at the local tavern with the family, and standing out in the rain and snow or whatever, and cheering the bands. The 6th grade bands were the hope of future high school bands, of course, so they deserved a lot of cheering!

Skip ahead to today: I was happy to see many 6th grade bands participating. About half a dozen from various Oregon and Washington middle schools. Rah! Some of them sounded really good! So Macy's now really does have a clue!

On the high school level, mixed results in this endless recession.. Whereas in past years, Portland city high schools didn't have enough marching band kids unless they "pooled" them together into one mixed band. So they would dig up old uniforms and have a mottled group all in one band. OK. I felt a little sad that at their schools they didn't seem to have enough kids or interest to have their own band.

Different story this year - both Madison and Franklin had their very own bands. Uniforms, drumline, the works. Very cool! Rah Portland!

Across the great river however, up in Vancouver, where unemployment is higher than anyplace in Oregon, anyplace in Washington. The once very great and powerful Vancouver bands, that had the most amazing field shows you have ever seen in your life - very sophisticated (read: very expensive) and always it was Evergreen or one of the others that took top place. Well this year only a half dozen kids from Skyview - on a very long flatbed truck doing some sort of tropical marimba music. Fun, but these bands used to have like 100 or more kids - each.

Happy to report Camas, Century, Hilhi- at full strength. Go Century!

Some Things Change..

The comment about "meet the new boss, same as the old boss", well, some things never change. You might have great "hope" about "change" but alas, you will be disappointed when you realize that some people are always in power, some are not. And there you are.

But landscapes *do* change. Took a walk over to the "New Brookwood Parkway", not to be confused with the old Brookwood. Sidewalks are underway. The vision of sidewalks, now covered with rebar, which is a fascinating substance, maybe one of the elements on the Periodic Table or something.

The dead space under the road, where it takes a huge death-defying turn, is now a true wetland. Which always happens after days of rain. I look forward to walking the sidewalks in the sun, some day, some day.

The last vestiges of old Washington County are still sort of there, if you look for them. Giant Douglas fir trees, giant Cedars. I have a few of my own! I should appreciate them. Trees should be declared a public resource. None of them suitable for hanging Christmas lights on, unless I knew someone who could climb 100 feet up.

Alas the old country houses are all but gone, this is a modern community despite the saving grace of old trees who pre-date any of the houses, any of the roads. But ones are coming into view now that they've widened the road, peeking out with their country windows and country porches. So they can watch the cars whip on by. While people may not change, landscapes do.

True Occupation

From Day 1 I was disenchanted with what seemed the entitlement mentality, occupation mentality, aimless mentality, of the occupiers. They seemed to want without having anything to offer, not even ideas.

Today I read about them occupying a foreclosed house in NE Portland. One that had boarded up windows, owned by the bank. Empty. In a city with homeless people that live on the street.

The occupiers have taken up residence. The police are reacting and getting them out of there. I suppose they are tasked with upholding property rights - even the property rights of an absent landlord that has neglected the property and allowed it to be a blight on the neighborhood.

Well finally this is a cause I can stand with them on. Think about it as an equation: homeless people needing shelter, especially with the onset of winter - cold rainy never drying out sleeting mossy winter in Portland. Houses, left for no one. Still serviceable shelters.

I don't know how these two things will find each other, and I don't know if the occupiers just want to glean off these houses, as they gleaned off the public parks. If that is their goal (and they have nice warm homes to go to), then nothing is accomplished. But if they can pave the way for all the fring-ers who co-mingled with them and intruded on their peaceful protest in the park, then maybe something good can come about. Occupy the houses.

Viral Protesting

When all hope is gone, you take to the streets.
If I felt hopeless, after all my best efforts and energies, I would do that too. How has our country lost hope? Is this universal?

I remain hopeful.

Its easy to cast blame, much harder to come up with constructive solutions - that satisfy both sides.

How have we come to this? Or is it lack of concerted effort that got us here?

Nature abhors a vacuum. So - have people become so disenfranchised with the political system, that they abdicated the responsibility to take part? Can you force people to listen to you by planting a tent in a bank lobby. And how does this help the foreclosed homeowner, the debt-ridden student.

By being "unpredictable" and not obtaining permits to march along public thoroughfares, are they gaining more attention. Does this translate to credibility? Or, is it just tangling every day people who can't get to work, can't use the park, can't get a police callback?

The public is becoming disenchanted. The OWS fad, the pet rock, the macarena. Or --- something more lasting. They do have the unions on their side.

Union membership, not what it used to be in this country. Like any organization, trying to maintain its organization is Purpose #1. Iowa Workforce Development Department decided to install kiosks in lots of places in the state - libraries, public buildings. And keep open chat lines for job seekers -evening hours, Saturdays. By these performance improvements, they were able to save over $6 Million. The response? The union and several state legislators are filing a lawsuit. Lost jobs, don't you know.

Next story: creative destruction. And just why don't we keep making buggy whips? Or Ford Pintos? I think tomorrow when I take stock of all the leaves that have fallen off the trees, what with the wind and cold sleet we had today, I should try to recapture them. Glue them back on the trees. Preserve fall forever.

Take a Deep Breath

.. I am nervous.
Every day I spend in Portland is a perfect day.

Police on the corner waiting for a confrontation. Given their track record.. be very nervous.

Young 20-somethings standing on the corner, holding Bank of America signs. Something like "get banking out of the banks", their signs were logo-perfect. A large sign on the block was "Move Your Money". Well, given public pressure, B of A backed off their $5 per month debit card fee. Proving that public pressure does work. rah.

I am still outraged by the Occupy Portland group, now living in public parks in downtown for over a month. Basically preventing access for "the public".

Tell you what, if they tried to occupy Mt Tabor, if the roving bands of wild dogs don't drive them out, then I would mount a citizen campaign to rout them out. Public means public for all of us - not just you.

I have yet to find anyone on the blue side of the fence who agrees with me on this OWS ourtrage thing. I snuck a peek at the Multnomah County Republicans site; they too are outraged. Good. Someone should be.

Sorry to say out country has gotten *so* polarized and that even our Commander in Chief has now become the Complainer in Chief. What ever happened to hope and change?

I remain hopeful and I want change. And its not about party ideology.

Back to Occupy Portland. At 12:01 this very evening, they have been told to evict themselves. The Mayor, Mr Sam Adams, said so. Given that this is the West Coast, this will happen on West Coast time - so don't expect immediate action. Give it 2 weeks. But Jim and I will set our watches for 12:01 and see whats happening.

C Lives Forever

Sigh, the co-author of the C programming language, Dennis Ritchie, has passed on. At age 70 he wrote his last line of C code..

Not that the Economist magazine has any lock on technical truths outside its domain, but they state "The gizmos of the digital age owe a part of their numeric souls to Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy." John McCarthy, author of LISP (little insipid silly parentheses), another programming language.

Most of Ritchie's work was done at ATT Bell Labs. The Mothership of Northern New Jersey, where all my friends' parents worked. Kind of like an Intel/Hillsboro relationship, back in the day. In fact my best friend Ellen, her dad worked at the Murray Hill location, the real core of the Mothership.

Everything I learned about social dyanamics for a group of 50 people I learned from sitting on the C language committee, back in the late 80's. X3J11, which sought to take the simple pure language that K&R (Kernighan and Ritchie) developed, and turn it into an actual ANSI standard. And an ISO standard as well (a trip to Paris, yes!!)

Every representative on the committee worked for a purveyor of C compilers, and my sitting there was no exception. I was there to see what was up, not make changes or anything. But the Borlands and Microsofts of the world were there to protect their own version of the language.

The real take away for me was that in any group of 50 people, most will follow. A couple will lead, and everyone else will believe what they tell them. PJ Plaugher, an independent consultant, the kind who could bang his shoe on the table for emphasis if needed, was such a leader.

But the best moment was when Dennis Ritchie decided to join our little group - the author himself! We were surely honored. But, his purpose was to protect the purity of his language. The creative language engineers on the committee wanted to introduce "safety" type words that would impact the semantics of the language. I recall the word "noalias" - a new keyword. It would mean that the object it pointed to was not some wild pointer that could point anyplace. Making C safe for Visual Basic programmers I guess (look up "goto considered harmful" - the oft-referenced article that states too much Basic in your life will cause brain damage).

Safety - no wild pointers! A pointer is something that points to an area of memory, indirectly. Really handy for linked lists and things like that. Fortran types probably wouldn't understand, where you have to declare fixed size arrays. Well, back in the day you did, I wonder if Fortran is still alive, and has adopted sexy new features.

So Dennis himself got up and shouted "noalias is an abomination!!!" OK! We were awed. He was right of course. Stop all this silly language engineering. C isn't about safety, as if you could really control everything.

C begat C++ (which I don't see anyone talking about, thankfully). C begat objective-C (used by Apple), C# (Microsoft), and Java. I didn't know C was considered a predecessor of Java, I thought Pascal was, but hey - its in print now so maybe they are honoring C in ways I never even knew about.

Java, inside that little iphone next to you. Proving once again that the mothership, ATT Bell Labs, located in New Jersey, has had a powerful impact on the world. and continues to do so, even after its author passes on.

Nicolas takes a Chinese name

Well, I haven't yet decided on my Chinese name. But Nicolas Sarkozy is about to sign up for one!

Apparently Europe wants a bailout, and the Chinese have money. Could be a nice pairing. Like those pairings they have out at the wineries over Thanksgiving (note to self: find a day over Thanksgiving weekend to visit the wineries - oh so beautiful with leaves falling and wine tastings, yum). Pairing chardonnay with filberts. Or pinot noir with chocolate. Just stay away from the sake and brie pairings..

Greece will get its democratic chance to take a referendum on whether to get bailed out or not. Or what? Will they sever themselves into the Mediterranean Sea? If we could invent technology to sever land masses that are no longer pulling their fair weight, many have often thought about doing that with the land mass known as California.

Of course all of these problems with the EU, with Greece, with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, would all fade into the sunset if we had j-o-b-s.

There are plenty of state experiments out there trying to create jobs. Some are creating jobs. Some are lining pockets of developers. Some are providing employers with free labor. Some are taking that short term hit of crack cocaine, deferring the painful withdrawal of government largesse to a later date.

Is real job growth organic? Whatever happened to creative destruction? I used to love that concept. Some industries are meant to die away. Others will spring forth. You don't ask your corn plant to keep producing, propping it up with fake ears of corn so it has the appearance of continued production. When actually its just a layer. It produces an ear of corn. The stalk dies off. Something in there about "detassling" that I never quite understood, but my college roommates all did this in the fields of Illinois when they were in high school. Maybe that work is done by illegals now, I don't know. But the stalk then gets turned under. New seed corn is planted for the next year.

The real job growth, remember, as with all good things, springs from Bell Labs in New Jersey. The Western Electric experiments. The "Hawthorne effect". The managers at a Western Electric plant wanted to encourage their workers to be more productive. They painted the walls blue. The workers were more productive!

They turned up the lights. The workers were more productive! They then turned down the lights. The workers were more productive!

When all it took was perhaps, some internal motivation, that someone out there does give a rip about you.