I wonder if Quasimodo would call it "hump" day

Blogger was down last night, at least a half hour longer than they predicted, for maintenance...it happens. The stories I have to tell from back when I was a programmer/analyst/project manager!

It was a truth we learned the hard way that on Tuesday nights the US Information Agency computer system (which was also usd by Radio Marti and Voice of America) got all their system updates loaded. This, unfortunately, meant that on Wednesday morning the results were undepenedable if you scheduled a demonstration of software for, say. the Director of the USIA, who happened to be Ronald Reagan's best friend.

Yeah, that's right...two keystrokes and the system locked and the computer center chief, Carl, went nuts...along with everyone else in the room.

From then on, we scheduled demonstrations for Tuesday mornings.

Did some good writing yesterday...did a cute Top Ten List for a friend...made some tough decisions about "The Morgantown Suite"...have some new edits to integrate from Gina...teaching my writing class tonight. Have a job interview with a mysterious company in Fairmont this afternoon...they only seem to want to share their initials, and the phone number from their ad (and that they return calls from) resolves in a Google search to a residential number. Either this guy is a recruiter or it's a very entrepreneurial effort (gee, did I spell it right?)

I encouraged my friend "the Gooch" to start his own blog. He is very knowledgeable and highly opinionated about sports, particularly the WVU Mountaineers, and I think he'd make a dynamite blogger. Aside from Chris Henry being drafted at all, he called the recent NFL draft pretty well, and we've had some spirited debate about the fate of Kevin Pittsnogle in the NBA Draft (he says the guy doesn't have NBA level skills, I say he's colourful and charming and sports teams are more in the business of getting fans in the seats and selling TV air time than getting the absolute best athletes).

Says a lot about "the American Spirit"...no?

I have noticed a lot of potstirrers going after "sexual predators" lately, particularly on Fox News. Even in discussions not related to convicted sex offenders, they seem to want to invoke them. This concerns me.

Don't think for a second I have any great fondness for them. I don't. I have spent too much time supergluing back together young women who have been sexually abused to have any sympathy for their attackers. But you combine the rabble rousing (but "fair and balanced") tactics of "news" organizations trying to sell advertising time with the amped up outcry and awareness of Meghan's Law tracking of offenders, and you have a day coming soon where offenders who were caught, convicted, served their time and are back out in the world, regardless of whether they personally stand as a threat to society, will be dragged fromt heir homes, beaten and lynched.

Hey, if it makes Rupert Murdoch another fifty cents, he doesn't care about the American (and Christian) traditions of justice.

Yes, many sexual predators are not successfully rehabilitated. Same thing could be said for murderers, car thieves, drug users and jaywalkers...especially if they are cornered by society and told they can never rise above their past mistakes (the recent Supreme Court election in West Virginia had a campaign doing that very thing to a parolee to gain political points, (costing him his job) to help elect a candidate in the pocket of an out of state coal company). The fact that I find their crimes particularly revolting (or that paid and prompted talking heads like to hang onto their audience to talk about them) should not change the way we, as a nation that likes to brag about their Christian principles, takes care of our fallen brothers and sisters. Yes, take every chance to protect our children (but note: most assaults are not by strangers...they are by family members. Your child is more at risk from Uncle Charley than from some guy in Nebraska who was locked up for five years, ten years ago. Shall we start requiring all relatives to register?)

Thus endeth the pontificate.

Time for breakfast.