Bots, cookies, conservatives, liberals, and the Man from Independence
It started when the printer stopped working, which is when I get most of my ideas.
Not the printer necessarily, but when things don't work the way they're supposed to. I puzzle over this. I am usually helpless, a cave man wondering what lightning is. Jerry Seinfeld did a routine about this years ago. His car breaks down on the freeway, so of course he opens the hood.
"What am I looking for?" he said. "A giant on-off switch set on off?"
That's me. I hope for easy answers, because if it's not there then it might involve the use of a screwdriver, and that's when I usually get into trouble. Or else I just ignore it, hoping that elves will sneak in at night and fix it. This almost never happens, but wouldn't it be great if it did?
So I was reading about spyware. I've known about it for a while, little "bots" that sneak onto your hard drive and track your trek along the information superhighway, setting you up for sales pitches. Or worse. And this article said that spyware can interfere with printing. So I installed some bot exterminator software and voila. I fixed something.
Spyware bots are similar to cookies, and not the kind you leave out as an elf offering at night in desperation, to wake up and find them gone and your printer still not working and the dog smiling a lot. Cookies are the little bits of code that websites leave on your computer to identify you, help with log-ins, etc. I don't mind cookies, but maybe I should. I just like to go to my favorite sites and have them say, "Hi Chuck." It's the little things.
That's what happens when I go to NetFlix. They say hi. And other things. Things like "Chuck, based on your past rentals, here are some titles you might enjoy." I find this amazing. I don't know if it’s an advanced algorithm or just some guy choosing at random, but often there's either one of my favorite movies or one I always meant to see. It's like magic.
The other day NetFlix suggested "Truman," the HBO movie starring Gary Sinise as our 33rd president, so I took their advice. I enjoyed it, too. It was a nice performance by Sinise, and even though it only covered about 35 years of Truman's long life and swept by some big moments, it was still well done. And it made me think.
I miss liberals.
You know? I'm not talking about what passes for that side of the spectrum in contemporary American politics, interest-group driven, publicity seeking, respond-within-the-news-cycle left-wingers. I miss people like Truman, and Hubert Humphrey and Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and even Teddy the trust buster. People who loved their country with a passion and dreamed of a better one, who felt obligated to stand up for the little guy who had no lobbyists and try to take an unwieldy government and see if they couldn't do something good with it. Old-fashioned liberals. There are few of them left.
And I miss conservatives. People with their feet on the ground, who trace their roots to Jefferson and Hamilton, who see the world as it is, who are suspicious of bureaucrats and Big Government, who believe if you leave us alone, for the most part Americans can make it work because that's who we are and what we do. There are few of them left, too.
I love both of these types; I love their purity and their devotion and their consistency. America is hard to do. We will scrabble and bicker and want different things in different ways, but at the end of the day we want what is best and if we disagree on methods, we at least can be polite and change the subject to baseball.
This sort of relationship is hard to find anymore. Listening to Air America a bit recently, I've been struck at the friendship of Al Franken and G. Gordon Liddy, obviously coming from opposing viewpoints but respecting and admiring each other, and debating with a hint of a smile as if to say, "We want the same things; my way will work and yours won't, but God love you anyway for caring."
Or Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, friends since their early 20s, who discovered somewhere along the way that their politics were polar opposites (Stewart passionately conservative, Fonda just as liberal) and found their friendship stayed just the same, even if they avoided politics for the most part.
Or George Will and Patrick Moynihan, a Goldwater conservative and an old-time liberal, who were fast friends and admirers of each other. Will mentions Moynihan (who passed away last year) often, and always with respect.
It was this recent Will column that got me thinking. George Bush, who campaigned on fiscal prudence, lower taxes and old-fashioned isolationism/anti-nation building, has become a big spender and regime changer, and what are conservatives to think? George Will makes some great points.
So I emailed my buddy Larry Simoneaux. Larry writes for the same paper I do. He's ex-Navy, an avid hunter and Roman Catholic and NRA member and a true-blue conservative, and we are friends of a sort, and I thought we might have a dialogue. He's as disgusted with the Labeling of America as I am, the idea that you're either with me or you're agin, and if you're agin then you frolic with the devil and heaven help you.
So we're going to try something soon. Something. A dialogue, in print. We're discussing it. Maybe we'll talk abortion, guns, gay marriage...or maybe something else. Maybe how we're more alike. Maybe how we share a faith, and a passion for our country, and a belief that power and money run the show and how that's wrong.
We've agreed not to discuss Hillary.
And we're probably too idealistic, thinking that maybe reasonable people can disagree on things and still be friends, still be respectful, still concede good points and point out faulty logic and still grieve for a sad (so far) Mariners season.
I'll keep you posted. And if you have any ideas, I'd welcome them. I'm far too optimistic for my own good, I know, but I like to think that a couple of people who differ on certain things can find common ground, common courtesy, and maybe learn something from each other.
Plus, Larry is really good with tools, and cars. And my car doesn't sound so hot. So it can't hurt to keep the conversation open. Although I still put a plate of cookies in the garage every night. Just in case.
3:54:03 PM 
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