Go back a few hundred years and teenagers were effectively considered adults. In some places this is still true. My cousin took a trip overseas to somewhere really underdeveloped and met an 8 year old who was running a shop pretty much on his own. He did his own inventory, stocking and he ran the register. My cousin isn't easily impressed but I've never seen him more impressed than when he talked about this adult child.

These days young people -- especially those in first world countries -- don't fully mature until halfway through their 3rd decade. This is partly because because teenagers are coddled but mostly because teenagers are actively discouraged from making adult decisions. When I was child I lost count of the number of times I saw a TV show or read a book or heard a story where teenagers were cast in the role of a villain. I was terrified that turning 13 would magically turn me into a "bad" person and I committed myself to not making any decisions on my own.

Children don't magically turn into adults after turning 18 or 21. Adulthood is only achieved once adult decisions are made and the consequences of those decisions are lived with. If teenagers aren't allowed to make at least some adult choices on their own then it is only natural that they won't be adults when they move out.

First time happenstance; Second time coincidence....

There were three election shockers in 2016.

Actually there were more than three but for the purpose of this post, there were three: Brexit. Trump. and Duterte of the Philippines.

Trump and Duterte are brothers from different mothers. Their personalities & the tone of their rhetoric are very similar. They promise different things and disagree on several key points (notably regarding religion) but essentially they are different versions of the same politician.

One of these things is not like the other....

UK leadership elections are hard to control. Too many moving parts. Way too many votes. That's why pre-election polling in the UK is generally awful. A referendum vote is much more straight forward. It is yes/no. The UK voted "yes"....and Boris Johnson was named FM...which by itself is shocking. OTOH Johnson is very much Russia's kind of leader. Bombastic, nationalistic, and (by reputation) incompetent. High chance of him becoming the next PM.

My point?

We know that Russia influenced the US election.  Some of the same fingerprints can be found on the Brexit referendum.  I don't know a lot about the Philippines but as the title implies that's one country too many.

But why?

Russia doesn't have the chops to return to their super-power status. They're too far north; too sparsely populated; too recently removed from their Soviet past. But they want it anyway.  So instead of building Russia up, Putin is tearing down his competition.

The good news: The rhetoric being pumped out is too extreme for the mainstream.  Sooner or later it will be rejected.

on cats...

Watching live feeds of cats has made me realize: Cats -- feral cats in particular -- have language.

They trill, growl, chirp, hiss, spit and purr. These things have meaning. They also have use body language. I'm not saying cats are capable of discussing philosophy but they *do* communicate. Give them another four million years and they might even be the dominant species on the planet.

Why 4 million? That's about how long it took for hominoids to go from tree swingers to tool users.

What will happen to humans? Heck if I know. Maybe we will be enslaved by the cats.

We are post Alaric

Before the election I drafted a set of predictions over how I thought the transition would go. They were pretty general but also accurate (America holds its breath but the transition is peaceful).

So I'd like to share my predictions for how I see Trump's presidency playing out. Like my transition predictions these are general in nature but I can see it playing out in one of four ways:

A) The Invisible Hand of Fate provides Trump an outlet for his aggression outside of the country. The Rally's Around The Flag and for a time Trump is seen as the Churchill of the 21st century. Unfortunately I think he will eventually prove himself to be America's Hitler with devastating consequences.

B) The Invisible Hand provides an outlet within the country (think: Orlando Nightclub 2.0) leading to a dirty war (where a country's government wages war against its own citizens) aimed at Americans in general but Muslims in particular.

C) Without an internal or external outlet the Trump Administration will founder on the rocks of Congressional Gridlock.

D) Law of Unintended Consequences reigns supreme. In this scenario, Trump manages to stumble across success again and again. America has needed a shake up for a good long while. I'm not happy about Trump being the one to do the shaking but it isn't impossible that he will luck into success. Under this scenario he gets elected to a second term. However, I can not - NOT - see him being successful for eight years. Sooner or later he will take a fall.

my take-away from the debates

1. Red is not Clinton's color.
2. Trump's "presidential face" has a distinct pout to it.
3. The microphones should be programmed to turn off after 2:30s
4. Neither of these idiots have a clue what to do in the event of a large scale cyber-attack. Clinton's idea of using private security would work fine for beefing up firewalls but would never be able to mount a coordinated defense against an attack by China or Russia
5. Trump needs to learn the art of conceding a point.
6. He said *what* is his greatest asset?
7. Clinton's "woo" & shimmy would have been more effective if she hadn't grinned like a loon for majority of the debate.

Thanks Mom (not)

My mother died this weekend.

Am I grief stricken? No. I am furious.

My mother and I were long estranged. How long? 19 years. The estrangement was on her side (she stopped calling) but I wasn't sorry when it began. She was a terrible mother. But over the years I began to wonder why. Why didn't she sent a christmas card? Or a birthday present. Why didn't she call? I probably would have told her to shove off but still....I don't know.

About a week ago a member of her church called my father and said that my mother was dying. Her final wish was to speak to her daughters one last time. My father relayed this request to me and after careful thought I decided to grant a dying woman her final wish. Before calling I made sure that I was mentally and emotionally centered. That I wouldn't fly off the handle. That I would listen to what she had to say. It was all for nothing. My mother was already gone. Her body didn't know it yet, but her mind had fled.

The notes on her computer paint a picture of a woman who is scared for her life. According to the notes on her computer she believed that my father was stalking her with the intention of killing her (he wasn't). Her friends believe that is why she didn't call me. But that is a lie. Because she knew she was terminal three weeks before her death. She knew she was at the end and she still didn't call. Didn't want to face the music from a daughter who hadn't heard from her mother in almost twenty years.

I am furious with her for that. Furious I never got to have a coherant conversation with her. Furious that she didn't request that I be contacted until one of her last lucid days on this planet. Furious that the person she made this request of waited an additional four days to contact me. Furious that I now have all this anger inside of me and the person who deserves it is now beyond my reach. I guess that was her final gift to me. Anger.

Twitter != Facebook

I've been an active member of Twitter for about two years.  My Twitter account on the other hand is five years old.  I started it in January 2010 and after a few days I just let it sit.  I didn't know anybody on Twitter and nobody knew me.  So I went back to Facebook.

But I never actually forgot about my account.  Whenever something big happened (Cablegate, Occupy Wall Street, Bones Season 5 finale). I would log in and follow the latest developments.  And sometimes I would snark at the major players.

Then I would go back to Facebook where my friends could be found.

Thing is, I don't actually like Facebook.  I use it because it is the best way to keep up with my friends and far flung family, but between the privacy settings and the constantly changing Wall algorithms my feelings for the site concerned range between annoyance and creeped out.

I do like Twitter though.  It's fast pace, ever-changing and *anonymous*.  I don't have to use my real name there.  Which is why when I started pulling documents for the Prenda case, I directed people to my Twitter feed.  I've been active ever since. 

I see Twitter and Facebook as different sides of the same coin.  Want to know what is happening in a breaking news story -- go to Twitter.  Want to see pictures of your best friend's new baby?  Go to Facebook.  The two sites are only competitors in the eyes of the investors who are trying to force Twitter to more like Facebook.

Which isn't to say the site is perfect.  I would have liked to have illustrated this post with examples of my earliest tweets but it would have taken me two hours to scroll that far back.  On the other hand, at least I don't have to worry about missing something because I haven't posted on someone's wall in X number of days.

If I could give advice to Twitter it would be, "Don't compete with Facebook.  Compete with yourself.  Make the Twitter of Tomorrow better than it is today."