Howard Stern

In my life I have always found myself on the "conservative" side of the political and religious debate.
I was at Washington for Jesus in 1980, 1988, and 1996- marching and (once i was sold enough) voting for whatever republican party we were supposed to believe in at the time.
For those of you who don't know, the religious right was founded and created at those rallies by people with whom I became really close- especially in the 90's.
you have to understand that satellite and cable TV was propelled and pushed forward in the early days by Pat Robertson and friends- because they realized that this new medium was a viable outlet for Christians to get the word out, because network TV cost so much money, and the bandwidth existed to create and program entire networks around Christian themes and beliefs.
In other words, it was the "secular" market that drove Christians into the newer cable TV markets. Pat Robertson literally walked door-to-door in the Virginia Beach/ Hampton Roads area selling cable boxes getting faithful churchgoers to sign up for cable TV and watch the new Christian channel he was programming. Christian TV was a safe haven for Christian families to turn the TV on and "feel safe."
Later, we got smart enough to realize that not only could we control our own little channels on various Cable networks, but we could also throw some weight around and some political clout to push our beliefs on the popular media as well. We cracked down on content, and got bogged down in subcommittees debating what was decent and what was not, while all along Howard was building his own media empire.
So now fast forward 20-30 years to now, and the Religious right (we) managed to talk congress into cracking down on indecency on free radio channels- especially on "shock" jocks like Howard Stern- and what is it that we have actually accomplished?
1. Howard has the freedom to say whatever he wants on Monday morning
2. He isn't just going away, he is creating a whole network on Sirius, where he is programming 24 hours of material
3. He has the chance to pioneer a whole new medium and push the boundaries even further.
I'm not mad- I have listened to Howard's show for the last month or two. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal if we had just ignored him and left him alone- but no- we're in power, so we gotta fine him and censor him, and give him exactly what he wanted- publicity, controversy.
Its just like the early Christians in Rome, but this time we're Rome, and Howard and his followers are the ones being persecuted.
When you listen to his show, its easy to be "shocked" by some of the things he does- but when you really listen to what's going on, you hear something being communicated underneath; Equality, gut-wrenching honesty, self-depreciating humor, and realism, and these are all things that Jesus preached, but are missing from the message of the right. Rooting for the underdog, reaching out to the sick, and the poor, and the forgotten members of society. The religious right is missing out on the basic message of what Howard Stern does and says.
So, now Howard will have the freedom to preach his gospel any way he sees fit, and now there's nothing the religious right can do about it.
If we want to reach out to this generation, we need to focus less on what "they" (the far left) are doing, and spend more time using the tools and the media outlets we have to show that we have to capacity to care, to understand, and to listen instead of constantly trying to legislate morality.

"just" johntindale

In my younger years, I would sometimes take on different persona, in an attempt to define myself.
When I was in high school, I called myself "Mr. LCS" LCS- short for Lanham Christian School, which was of course where I attended high school. This nickname started as a slur by one of my friends- In those days it wasn't cool to like LCS. We all felt much more self-assured and much cooler as 'haters', but I decided to go against the grain and make the best of it. So one day, when I said or did something to point out that LCS might not be so terrible, one of my friends said "whatever- Mr. LCS," and I took that as my monniker for the next two years.

The thing they don't tell you in high school, is that once you graduate- its pathetic to have an identity that comes from what you were in high school. This led me to ask myself the questions; "Who am I? and Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Where shall I find a good sammich and a beer?" So I just kinda "blended in" once I moved on to community college, work, and everything else that comes along with getting a life.

My next phase was "churchboy" this nickname deserves a long- drawn out description and discussion, but its not gonna get either for the sake of brevity. I think it might have been Keith Goldman who said it first- I'm not sure. The point of the nickname was that in our church in Annapolis, I was among the few that had grown up "churched" and had an experience of what church was supposed to be like, as opposed to most of the congregation who had mostly grown up "unchurched." I'll never prove it, but I'm sure Kirk Franklin heard it at Washington for Jesus, and used it for the title of his autobiography. I used to like the way Jeff Fenholt felt the nickname "churchboy" was too long, and would simply call me "church."

When I left that church, and my first marriage burned in flames, and my life came to a screeching halt- I realized that the 'persona' of churchboy must also die in flames, which led me to the same question that all fallen and retired heroes must ask themselves, "Who am I? and Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Where shall I find a good sammich and a beer?"

I went back to my old faithful trade, and got a job as an hvac tech with a local plumbing/hvac company. Here I became JT. closer to the "real me" but not quite. It was a good job at which to throw myself because everything else was crumbling around me. When that whole thing fell apart, it wasn't so much of a life-changing experience, but it led me back to the questions, "Who am I? and Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? Where shall I find a good sammich and a beer?"

This time it didn't come as an epiphany or as a joke- It slowly crept up on me like a feeling that had been repressed for years. first it was a little disappointing- "I'm just John Tindale." Me-with all my failings, shortcomings and bad habits. Me-who I am when I am alone. Me, when I'm not trying to win any popularity contests or impress anyone. Me, ME, ME, ME-it became defiance, like Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live declaring "I'm Gumby Dammit" I declared to everyone around me "I'm John Tindale, dammit."

Most recently, the defiance has died down, and I'm more settled and comfortable with the idea. It only recently came to me that my website is "johntindale.com" and that my blog is johntindale.blogspot.com, and that my "myspace" is "myspace.com/johntindale" In days gone by it never would have occurred to me to be "just" johntindale. I'm comfortable with that concept. I don't need a marketing team, or writers, or a PR firm. I'm John Tindale. I even answer the phone that way. "Hi, this is John Tindale!"

I'm funny, but not funny all the time. I'm smart-but not always. I'm creative when I have time. I'm organized when I have a secretary. I'm good with other people's money, but not so much with my own. I'm mechanically inclined. I like movies. I like good TV (hard to find these days) I like comedians-except for most women comedians-and all the women comedians I think are funny are all gay. I'm a Christian, but a very liberal Christian. I like sex. I like beer. I'm divorced and remarried to a wonderful girl who is now proud to call herself Melanie Tindale. I like to party, but I hate hangovers.

I like the internet- It was a really good idea. I spend a lot of time thinking about my son. I think I'm management material. I want to be rich and start a bunch of foundations to fund research, invent cool stuff, advance technology and science, and send brilliant poor kids to college. I want to build a garage and call it my "lab." I want to finish seeing the world. I want to learn to weld really well. I want to build stuff in general. buildings, houses, schools, libraries, time machines and cars that hover. Mankind has not accomplished jack-squat until cars hover. I think we should have another reformation- and hopefully a resultant renaissance. I want my gravestone to say something really deep and profound, and I want a whole bunch of people crying profusely at my funeral. I'm interested in a lot of things until I "figure it out" and then I tend to drop it like a hot potato.

I want my son to go to, and finish college. I want him to succeed in life. I want him to be happy. I want him to love and respect his mother and know that I'm ok with that. I want him to be whatever he wants to be, and know that I'm ok with that too. I want him to be proud of his dad, John Tindale, and to know that his dad is proud of him too.

I'm John Tindale. take it or leave it. Love me, hate me, react with ambivalence. I am John Tindale, I am here because God ordained it from the beginning of time, My purpose in life is to build and establish things, and good sammiches and beers are everywhere- London, Philadelphia, DC, NY, Sydney, Kiev you just sometimes have to drink a few crap beers, and a few lousy sammiches in the quest, but the quest is the fun part.

The Confusion

Im almost finished with The Confusion by Neal Stephenson, and I'm already looking forward to The System of the World.
The Confusion, volume 2 in The Baroque Cycle is another masterpiece of piracy, intrigue, and adventure picking up where Quicksilver left off in telling the tales of Eliza, Countess De La Zeur and "half-cocked" Jack Shaftoe.
Eliza sets out to mastermind a massive plot involving the French Navy, the Tower of London, and a fair bit of manipulation of foreign trade, while Jack regains his memory and manages to talk his way out of slavery, creating a cabal with his fellow oarsmen- getting into a whole new adventure along the way.
Many readers seem to find Stephenson difficult to read, but I love the plot twists, the scientific discussions, and the narative dialogue- and the use of "letter-writing" to flesh out the story. Reading Stephenson's books is like reading "classical" literature, with an updated sense of humor and a modern sexual frank-ness that "fits" in the story.
If you like to read, you'll love reading these books.

Quicksilver

I just finished reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. Quicksilver is the first of three books in Stephensons Boroque Cycle, followed by The Confusion and The System of the World. I gotta tell ya, that this is one of the most interesting, well-written, imaginative books I've read in quite a while.

Quicksilver is a period fiction that is completely amazing. It introduces us to a fictional character named Daniel Waterhouse, and takes us through many stages of his life, from his early college years at Cambridge to his latter years at a fledgling MIT- with a bunch of revolution, demise of kings, pirates, and open warfare in between. Just as St. Johns teaches within the context of the "great books" Stephenson breathes life into the Natural Philosophers, and helps us climb into the great minds of Hyugens, Newton, Leibniz.

Stephenson uses a three-part book to bring the late 1600s to life- touching on art, religion, science, mathematics with skill- explaining calculus, astronomy, anatomy-within the context of what the men who first ventured into these areas might have been thinking about. His dialog, and his characters' candid discussion of philosophy help us to imagine what it must have been like to peer into a telescope and predict the movement of planets, to perform scientific dissections, to write new geometric theory- all within shifting religious and political climates.

Stephenson manages to infuse this action-packed story with comedy, drama, scientific and mathematical thought, romance, and cryptography, while intertwining poetry, and references to John Donne and John Bunyon.

I'm going to Borders to buy The Confusion.

Daylight Saving Time

Apparently, in 1784 Ben Franklin worked out while finishing out his days in Paris as the American Ambassador to France, that in the evening hours shopkeepers and late-nighters were using alot of oil in their lamps the stay up later in the evening once the sun had gone down. He actually worked out how much;

"183 nights between 20 March and 20 September times 7 hours per night of candle usage equals 1,281 hours for a half year of candle usage. Multiplying by 100,000 families gives 128,100,000 hours by candlelight. Each candle requires half a pound of tallow and wax, thus a total of 64,050,000 pounds. At a price of thirty sols per pounds of tallow and wax (two hundred sols make one livre tournois), the total sum comes to 96,075,000 livre tournois."

So he wrote an opinion paper titled "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light." In short- he felt that by changing the clocks, people would make more use of natural sunlight, and would need to use artificial light less, thus saving energy and increasing productivity during daylight hours.

Under legislation enacted in 1986, Daylight Saving Time in the United States begins at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of April and ends at 2:00 a.m. on the last Sunday of October, so after this morning, Daylight saving time is over- and will resume next spring. In other words- we are on standard time in the winter months.

In 2007, DST will be extended for four weeks in the States, once again citing energy savings as the reason.

Sudoku

I just got back from London the other day, and while I was there I noticed bunches of people on the tubes playing a game called Sudoku. Melanie had seen it somewhere before, so she filled me in. The game board looks like this:


















The object of the game, according to sudoku.com is;
"Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3 x 3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.


















You can download a desktop version for a 28-day trial or purchase it for $14.95, but I bought a Sudoku book in Iceland, and kinda enjoy using the old pencil (with eraser) method.

Be prepared to be caught-up, because its highly addictive.

the age of reality?

I'm reading one of my literature textbooks again from college- and right around the turn of the century- writers, poets, authors, whatever were concerned with "realism." they felt that the romantic age was coming to a close and that a new era of realism was at hand.
They wanted their characters to be more fleshed out, and have less dramatic things happen to them. They wanted their readers to get inside the heads of their characters- to make their writing seem more "real." No more kings, princes, or melodrama- they felt that authors had the responsibility to depict life as realistically as possible.
This movement led to some really cool writers in the first half of the 20th century. Steinbeck, London, Frost, and my favorite- Hemmingway. their characters drank too much, smoked, cussed, and seemed more "real." You could almost feel the cold, smell the smells, see the sites, it seemed like you were reading about real people doing real things.
Forgive me, but I can't help but draw a parallel between then and now. The sitcom has given way to reality TV. We could see it coming- The Bradys tied up every problem in 30 minutes every week, and then Roseanne showed us what "real" white people were like- and now Reality TV puts us right in people's bedrooms in the middle of the night with the romantic green glow of night vision TV.
What ever happened to the idea that reading, going to the movies, watching TV was about escape? I want to get away from reality when I'm being entertained. I want to be distracted from what's real- I want a hope for the future, or and alternate universe. Distract me- make me think. Give me some good old fashioned sci-fi. Don't get me wrong- i like to pull the curtain back on the wizard from time-to-time too, but I still appreciate the attempt at production.
i know Jar-Jar was corny. I know that alot of those digital effects in movies don't look as good as stop-motion animation, but give me the fake anyway!
I just can't help but think that sometimes its cool to read The Count of Monte Cristo or some good old fashioned poetry by John Donne. i want more Star Trek on TV and less Road Rules. I don't care where the next Survivor is.

I'm sick of reality- I'm gonna go watch my x-files DVDs.

Deep Throat

So after all these years we finally know who Deep Throat is.

The whole thing was sort of anti-climactic wasn't it? There's the old guy and his wife mugging for the paparazzi-and how did Vanity Fair get the exclusive? What would have been wrong with the Washington Post- the one single organization keeping his secret all these years?

Now all we need to know is;
1. Who was the second shooter?
2. What crashed at Roswell?
3. What the heck are they doing at Area 51?
4. Where's Jimmy Hoffa's body?
5. Why did the death of Tupac and Biggie coincide with the rather wide-spread acceptance of Hip-hop within the white community?
6. What happened to the soldiers who came home sick from the first Gulf War?
7. Just how friendly are the Bush's with Saudi royalty?
8. Why are gas prices so high?
9. Why are we closing military bases when we're at war?

no answers, solutions
no enlightening resolutions-
just more and more questions
dark places, grey areas, clandestine operations

HVAC Master

As of May 15th, 2006 I will be able to take the Master HVAC test for the state of Maryland. That may not seem like a big deal to many of you, and others may tend to think "that's all he's managed to do with his life?

It is for me quite a big deal. I have a skeleton's closet full of unfinished projects, degrees, books, etc. and I will finally have accomplished something substantial. Not much will change once I have passed the test, but one thing will- I will have finally mastered something.

HVAC was one of the first things I realized I couldn't BS and charm my way through. No matter how nice you are, or how funny, or how smart, if you are an HVAC tech you will at some point find yourself on a roof with a bag of tools and a machine that refuses to run. It is here that I find that I am most focused, challenged, and most fulfilled when the job is done.

HVAC is hands-on. There's nothing "virtual" about it. It is math, and engineering, and technical, and heavy lifting, and reading and studying, and thinking and (sometimes) swearing and sweating, and customer service and staying on top of the latest technology, and working on some of the most antiquated technologies around. It involves chemistry, and design, and algebra and geometry, physics and microbiology. You really have to know your stuff to make it in this field.

I am an HVAC mechanic. I am proud of that. I could have been a professional writer, a journalist, an artist, a pastor, a desk jockey, a network administrator, or any number of things, but HVAC is where I find myself at home. I can hang with plumbers, electricians, steamfitters, intellectuals, geeks, engineers, and find commonality with all of them- because of what I have learned and what I have been allowed to see as an HVAC mechanic.

HVAC has broadened my horizons. The Washington area might be unique in that my trade has brought me in contact with senators, TV personalities, diplomats, presidential cabinet members and the foods! Oh my gosh, the foods... I know the DC area like the back of my hand. I have learned problem solving to the nth degree. I understand logic and process of elimination.

My life has taken a lot of twists and turns, and there have been times where I thought I wanted to try other things, but I have enjoyed working with HVAC systems up until this point, and my hope is that with licensing will come legitimacy, and the chance to impart my understanding of the trade to a new group of young men and women after me.

The Good 'Ol Days

Mel and I have been buying the X-files seasons on DVD. Mulder and Scully in the first three seasons have tacked corporate cover-ups by bad pharmaceudical companies, secret internal goverment agencies, ailens aided by the US military- I guess what I'm getting at is- What ever happened to the good 'ol days when it was our government that we all distrusted?

I'm not quite old enough to remember Watergate, but i do remember Iran-Contragate, or the Savings and loan scandal, or all the hubub surrounding the Clinton family's dealings. I remember that prior to 9-11 we all had a nice healthy amount of skepticism towards what the government was doing behind our backs.

Have you read the Patriot Act? do you know and understand how much power and freedom it gives to the very agencies we suspected, loathed, feared or even despised in the 90's?

Every ounce of power we give our government now is power they can use against us in the future. Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth anf twentieth century said that "power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely." If they can tap phone lines and read the emails of Arab-Americans and Muslims now, there's nothing to stop them from doing it to Christians, or Buddists, or the next religio-ethnic group to fall out of our government's good graces.

Yes, our country is great, but it is our Constitution, our liberties, and our freedoms that make our country great- not our militry, or our global strength, or our ability to piss-off and alienate half the world.

Maybe the ACLU should spend less time trying to get the Ten Commandments out of courtrooms and more time actually protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Maybe actually finding Osama Bin Laden should be a higher priority for our President.

Just remember, it is still just as important now as it was then that we take a little of Mulder's advice and trust no one.

Suddenly Americans care about Christian beliefs

In the most recent election, the media "discovered" just what can happen when members of the religious right find in themselves the ability to unite and vote accordingly.
"The vast right-wing conspiracy" turns out to be just a bunch of normal Americans who are generally tolerant of other people's privately held liberal ideas about sex, about God, and about life in general, but who at the same time react very strongly when these liberal ideas are going to be forced upon them.
The interesting thing to note, however is suddenly the media cares about what people believe. Liberals are finding reasons to crack open a Bible to find out what Jesus said about this, and what the Ten Commandments say about that.
Why is this interesting? It is interesting because for the last 100 years we have been told that Christianity is on the decline in America. Evolution is being taught in the schools, and God has no place there. The sexual revolution has removed God from that discussion. Other religions are supposedly on the rise and are increasing in popularity.
The Athiest agenda is supposedly winning the war on removing God from our classrooms, our courtrooms, and out state buildings.
Why is it now, after all these years the media is being forced to research just how Christian beliefs can drive election results. Richard Nixon first recognized it as the "silent majority" It wasn't until the 1980 election, and the advent of Washington for Jesus that brought about the election to office of Ronald Reagan and the rise to prominence of Christian leaders such as Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson et al.
The tide and influence of the religious right has ebbed and flowed over the last 25 years since then because Christian leaders have at times failed to be united over which way to vote. Are Christians Democrats? Are they Republicans? How do the teachings of the Bible line up with party platforms?
As the debates continue over the Ten Commandments, Gay marriage, Sex Education in the public schools, abortion rights-The religious right will continue to be united, and will continue to go to the polls with a clear mandate.
The United States of America might not be a Christian nation any more, but it is a Nation with a majority of Christians, and despite what the special interest groups would have us believe in a democratic society- Majority still rules.

DEPLETED URANIUM

I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but did you know that we're using nukes on the battlefield?
Apparently, since 1991, the US military has been using tactical nuclear bombs on the battlefield. Uranium 238, or depleted uranium is a byproduct of nuclear power plants, and DU or depleted uranium is actually a very hard metal used as ballasts in boats and planes- the problem is that once it reaches 0ver 600 degrees, DU becomes incendiary, or it burns.
it is the principle element that makes bunker busters effective for two reasons, its hardness and weight makes for an effective shell casing, and when it burns it produces a uranium oxide smoke that becomes airborne, back in the day when we were afraid the Russians were gonna kill us we called it fallout.
We used DU bomb shells in Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, and in gulf war 1 and 2. Remember the whole Puerto Rico thing where those evil Puerto Ricans were protesting our base there? They were protesting because we were testing DU bombs there.
How about gulf war syndrome? There is evidence to strongly suggest that the mysterious illness that many of our troops exhibited after returning from the gulf war can be attributed to exposure to radiation. NATO troops from Italy and other nations have died of Leukemia, and have contracted other cancers after exposure to radiated bomb sites.
The DoD has issued statements that DU is no more dangerous than lead based paint, but have you seen what the lead abatement guys have to wear when they remove LBP?
http://www.nato.int/du/docu/d010523e.htm
http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_balkans/du_balkans_s04.htm
http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/duupdate.htm
http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/AFP/2004/10/15/608242
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/
http://www.mapw.org.au/nuclear/du/01ippnw.html

Fahrenheit 911

I just bought Fahrenheit 911 at blockbuster, and if you haven't watched it yet, you need to.
Michael Moore made a documentary in the 1989 called Roger and Me, about the effect that General Motors downsizing had on a small town in Michigan called Flint. He pioneered the guerilla documentary, and was a frontrunner for a new type of 'journalism' where the journalist stands outside of a company with a megaphone demanding the "truth" much like what might be found in the anti-smoking commercials of the TRUTH campaign
Later he had a show in the 90's called TV Nation doing the same type of investigations of congress, corporate America, the white house- making for some entertaining, albeit eye-opening stuff. Karen Duffy, or "Duff" from MTV was on the show as a field reporter as well.
Fast forward to now, and with the release of Fahrenheit 9-11, and he raises some very interesting questions about the Bush family's relation to Saudi families, how much money Dick Cheney's former company stands to make off of the rebuilding of Iraq, as well as many other allegations of a hidden agenda behind the Patriot Act
Michael Moore is a flaming liberal, so I have always taken what he has to say with a grain of salt, and the neat video editing tricks tend to throw you off, but this movie is one you should watch. It raises some very key questions about the motivations of our government, and what our role in the world should be.

Goodbye WHFS

01/12/05 99.1 WHFS officially changed format. I remember when I was a teenager, I used to meet up with other alternative freaks like myself, and the first way we knew whether they were cool or not was by asking, "Do you listen to 99.1?" some would say that the 'real' hfs died a long time ago, but Gone are the hfstivals, gone are the junkies, and gone are the hours spent in my service truck listening to 99.1 WHFS.

HFS was where I discovered New Order, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and later Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden.

Goodbye hfs, you'll be missed- What are your HFS memories?

01/01/05

01/01/05 Oh well, Christmas & new Year's have come and gone! Had a good time with Mel's family Christmas morning, and then trekked back to meet up with my family. Everything was pretty cool, good to see everyone, get a few gifts and goodies, gave a few too.. Did most of my shopping at the last minute, but other than that everything else was cool. Check out pics in the Photo gallery of Christmas, car show, etc.