Motley Moose – Archive

This week our nation suffered a tragedy of perhaps unprecedented scale. The age and innocence of the victims leaves us all speechless. While we all try to come to grips with the reality our minds shy away from the pain. Every other instance of similar tragedy in America pales in comparison.

When I heard about the incident yesterday morning my first reaction was “oh god, not another school shooting” and I shunted it aside so I could focus on doing the work I am responsible for. In the evening I finally allowed myself to turn on the television. I could watch the first few minutes with a cap on my emotions, calloused as they are by past experience.

Then the person on the screen said it was a school that only covered children from Kindergarten to the fourth grade. The information caught me off guard, my mind stopped working.

I broke down and wept uncontrollably, face in my hands and wracked with sobbing. Donna came and put her arm around my shoulders while I slowly brought myself under control again.

There is still too much pain in my mind to allow myself to do more than think past the thought, what that really means. I cannot be the father I need to be if I allow myself to look into that pit. This morning I can sit here and write this, wiping tears out of my eyes as the screen blurs, but soon I will move on and decorate the Christmas tree with my children.

I will not watch the news today, and I recommend you do not either. Perhaps I will stop here in my office to talk here with you a few times, perhaps I will not. There is time to think about this together, and the considered pace of the Moose will allow us the opportunity to do that here in a manner that allows the space needed.

The one thought I will provide is that while we may be prompted to fall into the pattern of past conversations regarding gun control, what value can be found in this incredible loss may be another issue. The mental health of the tragic young man who performed this horrible crime.

It may in fact be true that the incredibly unlikely 180 in American gun laws would reduce the instance of such events, but that is not likely to happen. What is going to happen due to the changes made in American healthcare insurance (if I understand the legislation) is that those with mental health concerns may begin to find help within reach. This is something we as a nation might be able to do, to find some small compensation buried in the astounding price we just paid.

With those dulcet tones gracing the conversation it is time to get right down into the holiday spirit.

Feeling Yuletidian? Fiscalclifftonian? Looking forward to Christmas dinner, New Year’s Eve, the beginning of another solar cycle and a Presidential Renogeuration?

Deck the halls with boughs of holly and don your gay marriage apparel, the season is upon us!

Consider this a Ho Ho Hopen thread.

I recently took the first of several trips to Yemen and Qatar. My purposes revolved around a point I had been making for the last few years: that some small nations were poised to implement national infrastructure cybersecurity structures ahead of larger and more developed nations. This theory went on to suggest that small wealthy nations and small developing nations each had distinct types of conditions which could present recognizable opportunities to make progress.

Central American, North Africa and the Middle East present a range of such nations. On the Arabian Peninsula examples of each are to be found in Qatar and Yemen. The first is a highly developed nation with complex infrastructure and surging growth, the latter is an impoverished nation tentatively coming out of decades of dictatorship.

After meeting with a wide range of individuals and groups in Yemen and key Qatari officials the opportunity to advance these issues in both nations is clear. Qatar stands to advance strong foundations laid in previous years and solidify its position as a role model for national cybersecurity infrastructure development.

Developing these capabilities in Yemen, however, could provide support for issues of national, regional and global interest.

The Washington Post puts the question that we all should be asking: “Which Romney Will Voters Get?

If Romney is facing a Democratic Congress that demands compromise in return for votes – the same situation he faced in Massachusetts – he’ll be more like the Massachusetts moderate he presented as last night. If he’s facing a Republican Congress that’s pulling him to the right and threatening to reject his proposals and force him into a primary in 2016, he’ll be more like the candidate we saw in this year’s  primaries and throughout much of this campaign.

Does anyone know who Mitt Romney is? Does Mitt know who Mitt is?

We are left to wonder.

Have at it, Mooses.

The first Presidential Debate is in a few days. Common wisdom is that this will be the last chance Mitt Romney has to distract from an endless series of misfortunes and turn around GOP hopes for the White House.

Will Mr. Romney step up to the plate better than he did when others paid $50,000 to clean theirs listening to him? Will he be able to come across as a Regular Guy not completely out of touch with the reality others live in?

Hey, how about a friendly $10,000 wager on the outcome? That’s what regular people do, right?

Since life itself is in fact a Box of Chocolates it is always worth taking the time to close your eyes and see if you can pick one of those orangey-middle ones just by chance.

In that spirit, consider this a frivolously Open Thread to do with what you will.

Mitt Romney declared earlier this year that his job is not to worry about half of the country.

The American Conservative calls Mr. Romney:

Just Another Crude Reverse Class Warrior

…

Newsflash: Romney isn’t simply a stiff. He’s a jerk.

Emphasis not mine.

There is something large and yellow and pointed at Dandrige, Tennessee in our driveway this morning. Already loaded up with the Modular Units (Rubbermaid Roughtotes, god bless ’em), a Gator, household furnishings and various pieces of California Coastal Redwood that never imagined the journey it is about to take.

My navigator is all jazzed up to be blasting across the American frontier with her dad. Donna, having done her part of packing returns the favor of staying the hell out of her way is working logistics while I work loading.

For many of our friends and family the idea of moving at all – much less thousands of miles – is so out of context that they are functionally unable to see the thrill of the journey. But life is in all ways a journey, without any destinations fixed to bedrock however we might like to delude ourselves to the contrary.

Life, politics, society, language, culture, knowledge. Their beginnings are forever behind us and their end is not our goal. A bad stretch of highway (Oklahoma) or a patch of desolation (Amarillo, TX) no more define the journey than an  unhappy moment with your partner defines your relationship. A moment or an epoch in politics no more defines our culture than our adolescent summers define our lives.

Bring the future, embrace the past. Revel in the flow, learn to surf the changing landscape and always, always, love your radar.

With the summer winding along and fall vaguely looming on the horizon, two great forces align to compete in the ritual fashion.

On the fringes of each camp zealots and True Believers burn effigies and dance to their gods. On the far right of the field of battle directionless Fear rules, on the far left unfocused Angst is emoted. Trembling fingers clutch spasmodically the china walls of genteel Tea cups in Faux colonial halls to the east, to the west scowls wreath the visages of Occupiers of empty lands.

The majority in each camp are at rest, healing from a hard road behind and focusing on a better road ahead.

Who will win, come the chill of November? Will it be the Tea-sipping shut-ins of the Right, the invective-hurling Occupiers of the Left or the vast majority in the Middle?

Consider this a Moderately Open Thread.