Gleeks

I admit it. I'm a Gleek. It happened to me gradually over the past year. At first I was ashamed of myself. Then I made peace with my shame and gave into my enthusiasm for all things Glee.

By all standards, I should hate Glee. It's noisy, it's angst-ridden misfit teenagers, it's singing and dancing on prime time TV. I like rational detective shows like CSI, or high octane thrillers like 24 or even tongue in cheek spy capers like Burn Notice. Glee is a different animal altogether. And I love it. During its just ended first season, I couldn't WAIT to download the latest episode from iTunes. I sat transfixed through every hour, laughing and crying and sometimes cheering.

What gives? I discovered, over the course of 22 episodes, that Glee fills a massive gap in the television landscape: the celebration of talent. Sure there are reality shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. Neither of those shows focus on talent as such. Mostly - in the case of American Idol - they focus on popularity.

Quick. Scan your memory banks and tell me how many American Idol kids stand out as performers and personalities. Now do the same for Glee. There's Rachel the nerdy girl with the captivating voice who takes on classics by Barbra Streisand and numbers from Les Misérables. There's Finn who can take a Journey song from the 1970s and make it his own. Even Puck, the former Mohawk sporting bad boy, does a touching solo of the cheesy Kiss song Beth. Let's not forget Mr Schuester, their teacher, who takes on everything from rap to a high octane duet of Bruce Springsteen's Fire with guest star Kristin Chenoweth. Finally there is the comic genius of Jane Lynch as Shuester's nemesis Sue Sylvester.

Coming completely out of left field in a television landscape dominated by procedural detective shows, Glee proves that Americans and the world at large love a good story of the underdog making good and the encouragement of talent. As the first season wore on, the Glee kids' ambition increased and the numbers they chose exploded in a dizzying display of theatricality. To be sure, there were some clunky subplots. I couldn't wait for the Terri Shuester character to go away so Will could pursue Emma, the quirky OCD afflicted guidance counselor. Similarly, Emma's 'romance' with gym teacher Ken Tanaka left me bored. But, the show's writers and producers had the smarts to learn from these mistakes and correct those problems early on, leaving more time for the core characters and their struggles and triumphs.

And then there were the turns by Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, both big Broadway, TV and film stars in their own right. The show gave them just the right amount of screen time without overpowering the rest of the show. Both ladies served to move the story forward without detracting from what everyone loves so much about Glee.

My recent articles have focused on political and social matters portraying some of the negative aspects of what's happening in the world today. In thinking about what I value and the things that bring a smile to my face, I immediately thought of Glee. It gives its viewers a pause from the heavy handed events playing out in the world today. Glee is a happy pleasure, not a guilty one. It reaffirms that life is worth living and with a little talent and pluck, success can be ours.

I'm a Gleek and I'm not afraid to announce it to the world.

Fanboys

There exists a curious divide these days between information technology experts and everyday users of technology. For the IT expert, to love Apple products is to admit to a brutish stupidity. I mean really, everyone knows Apple lovers are just 'fanboys'. What do they know about technology anyway?

As it turns out, I am a fanboy myself. I am also a computer professional and have been for 15 years. Am I stupid? Am I brainwashed? How could a thinking man like me succumb to the mass hysteria that is Apple worship? The answer is: slowly, but methodically.

Flash back to 2001 and the release of the first iPod. Apple as a company wasn't faring so well. Their Macintosh computers were selling, but nothing like today. Along comes the iPod, which resurrected the company. Yes, portable music players by Creative Labs and others were gaining traction. But when Apple released the iPod and iTunes, it was the first unified approach to collecting and maintaining one's music collection on a computer. Granted, iTunes was only available for the Mac, so it meant the iPod enjoyed only niche status.

Then, in 2003, Apple released iTunes for the PC and the iPod took off. In a few years, it became the hottest music player on the market. Everyone had one or wanted one. I was sceptical at first, opting to go with a 10GB Archos player first, and then later a Creative Labs model. In 2004 I bought an iPod Mini and loved it - until it died completely on me a few months later. I didn't buy another iPod till a year later.

For years I bought iPods of various flavours, but I stuck with my Windows PCs. Why spend THAT much money on an overpriced toy computer? Over time I grew weary of the instability of my PCs. They would inexplicably crash or grind to a halt, even though I had ample memory and disk space. I kept them optimised and well organised - all for naught. A friend of mine and Apple aficionado insisted that he never suffered a single one of the problems PC users did: no crashes, no slowdowns, no fatal viruses. I was intrigued but still sceptical.

Then, I decided to visit an Apple Store and try a Mac out for myself. I still didn't buy one. For a year, I weighed the pros and cons of switching to a Mac. Would all my files be compatible? Would I still be able to share data with PCs? Would I be able to port all my iTunes content over without pulling my hair out?

In February of 2008 I took the plunge. I bought myself my first Mac. It was a MacBook Pro with 3 GB of memory and a 160 GB hard drive. It was sleek and beautiful and a powerhouse of a machine. Within a few days I'd transferred all my files easily and lost nothing. I could leave my Mac running for weeks and weeks without restarting it and without slowdowns. I had arrived as an Apple fan.

Today, I still own my original MacBook Pro, and I have since acquired another 15" MacBook Pro for work and two 13" MacBooks for my own personal use. I also got myself a Time Capsule that enables me to back up all my Macs wirelessly and effortlessly. I bought an Apple TV that I attached to my home theatre system. I own an iPhone that I love and was one of the first people in Australia to purchase an iPad, thanks to a business trip to California in April of 2010.

Now let's revisit the fanboy slur. If it is true that Apple lovers are just following a fad, then what does that make me? I spent years before buying an Apple product. I didn't buy a Mac until it became crystal clear to me that it was a superior machine worth every cent paid. What gives? In my view, it comes down to envy.

Now, no Apple detractor would admit to feelings of envy, but if you give it some thought, you have to wonder why these detractors so vociferously attack Apple fans. Who cares, right? One can still buy a PC with Windows or any other operating system. One can still buy portable music devices from Creative Labs and other vendors. Notice, however, that as Apple's prominence in the marketplace has increased, the attacks on the company have also increased - but not by Apple's customers.

Food for thought.

Six Percent

Recently I've been thinking about the figure of six percent. No, it's not the percentage of my salary that goes to taxes. Nor is it related to some number of people afflicted with a disease in a given area. Six percent refers to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's proposed 'super profits tax' on mining companies in Australia. His ostensive justification for this tax is it will help 'working families' in Australia. The real motive is hatred of producers.

The reason this has been on my mind is my amazement at how Mr Rudd arrived at this figure. Why not 10 percent? Or five? Or eight? Is six percent the amount above the 'usual' and 'reasonable' profit margin that governments today deem 'enough'? Who can say? One thing is certain: his hard push for this tax has garnered him some nasty press in recent weeks - enough that his entire administration is losing supporters fast.

Now let's think about what such a tax must mean in reality. If I were running a business today, any profit I make would necessarily be reinvested back into improvements in my firm. I would be able make more of the products I sell, which means more customers and also better pay for my employees. I might be able to offer better incentives to my employees to retain their skills. Or I might be able to modernise my equipment so I can produce my goods more efficiently. Whatever the case, profits exist to ensure that the business keeps functioning and growing.

Contrary to popular myth, profits do not line the pockets of fat cat capitalists, though it is no concern of mine what successful businesses do with their money. Look at Apple. In the news recently, we learnt that they had surpassed Microsoft to be the most successful tech firm in the world. Their Mac computers, iPhones and iPads sell like hotcakes. A new Apple product release resembles a blockbuster movie release, replete with celebrities and overjoyed customers raising their fancy new gadgets high in the air.

What does Apple do with its profits? Or rather what does its CEO cum rock star Steve Jobs do with his profits? Buy fancy houses, cars and yachts? Does he live the life of a playboy? No, he goes to work. Mr Jobs enjoys his fabulous success by WORKING MORE.

What if the American government were to slap a 'super profits tax' on Apple, for the simple reason that they're highly successful? Would Steve Jobs continue to work as hard? Would his company turn out as many great products as they do now? Would Americans be better off because Apple could produce less?

It is well known that Australia escaped the worst of the global financial crisis in large part because of the mining industry. For this reason alone, they should be spared the insanity of having to rethink their business plans to avoid paying a 'super profits tax'. If Mr Rudd cared a whit about the enviable Australian standard of living, he would cease his chicanery of punishing successful firms and focus on making it possible for more Australians to succeed. The best way he could do that is to tell the Australian public that they are free to produce to the best of their abilities and that he will pass no law preventing them from accomplishing their goals. And then honour that promise.

Addendum: On Thursday, 24 June 2010, Julia Gillard succeeded Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister of Australia. Much is made of her being the first woman Prime Minister, but she possesses the same tired ideas as her predecessor.

The Male Dollar

A Facebook friend of mine recently offered, as one justification for the concept of feminism, the 'fact' that women make 70-ish cents to the 'male dollar'. Now, this is a view I have heard bandied about for several decades, but I was particularly taken by the expression itself. Many people today would shake their heads in dismay and proclaim that we must right this horrible and sexist wrong without further delay.

My reaction, in keeping with my investigative mind, was to offer that it would be a damn fine thing if it were true. Think about it: if businesses actually DID pay women some reduced amount compared to their male counterparts, then it would stand to reason that those businesses would JUMP on this. Why hire men at all when they can realise immense savings just by hiring women with the same skills as men? Think of the possibility of business expansion!

All sarcasm aside, the notion of a 'male dollar' is specious on the face of it. No business can or does last long by hiring purely on the basis of the sex of the employee. The purpose of any rational business venture is to attract the best talent and pay market wages. Why? Or, why NOT hire women at lower wages BECAUSE they're women? The answer is: because under capitalism or even semi-capitalism as we have today, any business that pays some group less because they belong to that group will soon find they are bleeding talent to their competitors.

I work in the enterprise software field. Every day there are market pressures to continually improve the products and lower the costs of development. If my firm were to make its hiring decisions on the basis of sex alone, it would soon find its competitors overtaking it. It would then face the threat of sure failure if it continued in its irrational hiring practises or change its ways and hire on the basis of talent alone.

Another common claim is that between two equally qualified candidates, it is usually the man who is hired over the woman. This simply cannot be true, either. The stakes are too high for an employer to make the wrong hiring decisions. They MUST hire the most qualified or suffer the consequences quickly. In reality, there is no such thing as two equally qualified candidates for a given position. The education, aptitude, drive and prior work experience will always favour one candidate over another, regardless of sex. The two finalists vying for the same job may be close competitors, but one will always be the better choice.

In the end, one must constantly challenge oft repeated bromides. Just because one makes the same claim over and over again for decades doesn't make it true. To arrive at the truth, one must remain ruthlessly logical and look for the evidence, just as crime scene investigators must sift through mountains of facts to catch a criminal.

Location:Mitchell Rd,Alexandria,Australia

Health Care and the Lies People Believe

'You can be sure our doctors are very good', said my Slovak colleague to me one day. I had been suffering from a pretty bad cold for several days, at which point my colleague insisted I see a doctor about it. I calmly explained I already had plenty of cold medicine I'd brought from America, but she would have nothing of it. I was to see a doctor and that was that.

Off I went to see the doctor. Her office looked like a set from a 1940s period film. There was nothing to suggest a modern 1990s facility. The doctor spoke little English, but my Slovak was by then strong enough to describe my condition to her. After a bit of poking and prodding, and against my protestations that I had cold medicine, she gave me the prescription: herbal tea and a potato. A potato? I asked. Yes, she intoned. Cut it in half and rub the cut ends on your neck. This, along with the tea, will cure you for sure. She thrust a packet of tea in my hands - and said potato.

After I left the doctor's office I chuckled sadly to myself. If this is what passes for the medical profession in Slovakia, no wonder 'universal access' is so, well, universal. Who needs scientific diagnoses when a little folksy remedy can cure whatever ails you? Needless to say, I discarded the potato and the tea and took my Sudafed. I felt better soon after that. When my colleague asked me about my experience with her crack doctor (or is it cracked out?), I said it was very instructive.

Flash forward to America in 2009. A new President has been elected on the nebulous notions of hope and change, and the world grins beatifically with approval. The nostrum of 'universal health care' has tightened its grip on a goodly number of the American populace, whilst those of us who have some experience with these vaunted systems outside the US scratch our heads in wonder over the affair. Just what do people think they're going to get for free? MRIs at the drop of a hat? Advanced laser surgery? And does it occur to anyone that it might be a tad dangerous to give scalpels to people with the mentality of a nine to five postal worker, as exists in these fantastic medical systems in countries the world over?

Now, I need not spend much time here describing how most Canadians or most Australians or most French love their public health care systems. Like post offices and schools, these systems have been in place so long that virtually no-one questions whether government run medicine is moral and practical. Therein lies the great danger for Americans. Even with a medical system largely controlled by government, the country still has some free market principles that allow for continued innovation in the development of new drugs and surgical techniques. Under a fully government run system, Americans in the decades to come will come to get used to the stultifying bureaucracy and glacial pace of the beloved nationalised systems abroad. They will see as normal the kind of service they now associate with air travel, the post office and public schools. They will shrug their shoulders in resignation and say: 'At least everyone gets care now'.

But what if medical care were like the about to be released Apple iPad or the amazing devices that make our daily lives more productive and enjoyable? What if, instead of filling out reams of paperwork designed to protect themselves from a faceless agency or ministry, doctors attended to their patients as their primary purpose? And what if they decided on what fees to charge based on whatever criteria they deemed reasonable to make a good living? And what if individuals believed that their health, like their careers, was completely up to them?

I do not expect anyone to agree with me. Few do on this matter. My expectation, as always with my articles, is to encourage people to consider the consequences of the things they refuse to think about. If everyone silently abdicates the need to think about the big issues, have they still the right to grumble about the poor service they get or the botched operations that leave their loved ones worse off than before they went under the knife? In other words, if YOU value YOUR life, don't you owe it to yourself to find out that good doctors are far too important to relegate to the clutches of government boards and agencies?

Introspection and Repression

In the one corner sits psychological repression. In the other corner we have introspection. Both forces can tug at us throughout our lives, depending on the situation we must face, and both have consequences for our long term well being. As I was watching the 1980 film 'Ordinary People' again recently, it struck me how well this 30-year-old movie presents both sides, without degenerating into mawkishness or self parody.

Some of my readers may know the film, but others not. The story concerns a well off family in suburban Chicago facing the death of a son and brother. Donald Sutherland plays the father dumbfounded by the sad event of his eldest son's death in a boating accident and the resulting suicide attempt by his youngest son, played superbly by a young Timothy Hutton. Hutton's character Conrad is wracked with guilt over his brother's death. The movie begins just after Conrad has come home from a stay in hospital. In a bit of casting genius, Mary Tyler Moore plays the emotionally distant mother Beth. At the time, Moore was known as a comedienne, having recently completed the seven-season run of her hit sitcom. To cast her as the uptight suburban mother seemed risky in 1980, which is what made her tour de force performance all the more satisfying.

Ordinary People was Robert Redford's directorial debut, and in my mind he has never equalled the skill he shows in this film. There isn't a single throwaway scene or camera angle. The entire film maintains its focus on the issue of coming to grips with a personal tragedy and never lets go of this focus. Other movies turn suburban American stories into social commentaries about the idle rich or seek to reveal the 'obvious' underbelly of such a milieu. Ordinary People avoids the pontificating and cheap shots and shines its light on the Jarrett family's troubles. It neither derides them for their affluence nor snickers at their very real difficulties. It is, in my opinion, the most honest view of a family I have ever seen.

Some people may think of the film as a naturalistic slice of life. After all, there are no big heroes or monumental life-and-death struggles. Similarly, there is no obvious villain. It is a quiet and slow moving story - and a sombre one at that. Despite the apparent lack of an epic and gripping tale, in its own way it is epic. In the space of two hours, it deals with the issue of psychological health and at the close of the film has provided a subtle conclusion about which side it favours.

I first saw the movie at age 14 with my parents, when it was released in cinemas. At the time I didn't think twice about seeing such a difficult movie with my parents, but in the 30 years since, I have often thanked my parents for taking me to see it. It's quite something to sit in a dark cinema watching a family come apart at the seams, with a teenage son telling his mother to f*** off - and having my parents next to me no less! At that age, I surely didn't grasp the subtlety of the dialogue or the quiet intensity of the interplay between the characters. What I did know was this family had an awful truth to swallow and the two opposing characters of Beth and her son Conrad illustrated the theme of the film in stark frankness. To this day, the pivotal scenes at the end of the movie move me to tears.

30 years later, the movie still resonates with me because I always chose the path of introspection to resolve my difficulties. I don't credit Ordinary People with teaching me this lesson, but I do turn to it to highlight the importance of dealing with one's problems head on, regardless of how difficult it may be. Judd Hirsch, who plays the character of the wise Dr Berger, Conrad's psychiatrist, has an especially good line: 'A little advice about feelings kiddo; don't expect it always to tickle'. To me, this sums up the theme of the story. To deal with one's emotions isn't always pleasant, but it is a necessary step along the road to psychological health.

In the ruthless pursuit of values, the best gift one can give oneself is to introspect constantly and without regret. Anything less to me is to live incompletely. It's a choice we must all face on a daily basis: to think or to evade. I have picked the former and it has served me well in more than four decades of living.

Politics and Parties

A curious and fascinating thing occurs whenever I attend parties. Throughout the majority of an evening, the topics of conversation concern the details of people's lives - their careers, romantic relationships, movies they like, bands they absolutely MUST see when they return to Sydney, etc. And then that brief period hits that some of the partygoers see the need to broach the big topic of politics. Leaving aside the futility of such conversations in mixed company, I often wonder what motivates people to discuss them anyway.

To be clear, I do not view people as imbeciles incapable of deeper conversations on a variety of topics. On the contrary, I am constantly heartened to hear people wax eloquently about the industries they work in and how they have an impact on the wider culture. People are often passionate about their own values and can convey them with aplomb.

When I am asked about my career, I give a brief summary of the business problem my company solves with our software and my role in the sales process. I am neither too technical nor too 'sales-y'. I present examples of better customer service achieved through better communication, which is the key benefit of what my company sells.

Being American but living permanently in Australia is a built-in conversation starter, too. Partygoers are curious about my decision to move here and fascinated to hear about all the odd places I've lived in the world over the past 25 years. Australians I know often view Americans as uneducated homebodies, as opposed to worldly adventurers, which I clearly am.

These are all excellent party conversations. They address values at a personal level, which are to me the most important values. And yet inevitably, someone brings up politics at a party. It raises hackles because people don't want to seem uninterested and yet few people take a deep interest in the underlying principles of political philosophy. Because politics as practised in Western nations today is rarely principled, the predictable conclusion over party conversation amounts to: ah, who cares about ideas when we have such chumps in office. Rarely is there a next logical question, which is: why do we elect such chumps, only to complain later that they are liars and thieves after the fact?

During the American Presidential elections of 2008, a great many Australians asked me if I were proud that serious ideas were finally being discussed. My polite but direct answer was: I didn't find the ideas serious and that there was nothing new about quibbling over how the next administration was going to go after this or that industry for its alleged abuses.

This brings me back to the uneasy broaching of the topic in polite company. If people are moved by ideas in their personal lives, why do they so casually discard them when it comes to more abstract areas of intellectual endeavour? The answer lies within the question. People know a great deal about their own lives and careers, but when it comes to areas that do not directly concern them, their views become the boilerplate content of the airwaves and editorial pages.

As a mental exercise, think about your closest friends and what you know about them. Could you ask them 25 good questions about what they value in life and expect that the answers would be well reasoned and interesting? Now consider if the same is true if you were to ask them 25 questions about politics.

Abstract ideas are abstract for a reason: they are necessarily far removed from the immediately perceptual data that we all witness every day. It is far easier to reach rational conclusions about our jobs because we do them every day. We can even think ahead and form conclusions about how our work life can and ought to be, to borrow a formulation from the Greeks. When it comes to politics, however, few have the wherewithal to question the validity of minimum wage laws or the corruption of science when taken over by politics, to cite a few examples I have frequently overheard at parties.

As a matter of habit, I never bring up politics in mixed company and I never try to persuade anyone of the contrary views I hold. I respect people's intellects too much to bombard them with data they are unlikely to process fully. I have reached the conclusion, upon observation of a number of parties over the years, that people want to appear more intellectually 'with it' and so they jump headlong into a topic destined for a train wreck at the next switching station. Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, I still wish people would refrain from such desperation and stick to discussion better suited to party conversation: their own fascinating lives.