And I passed the test…

Dave Farquhar General , ,

They got my test results back yesterday, and according to the late Professor Emeritus Wolfe’s analysis, I have the potential to be a competent computer programmer. Of course my high school CS instructor could have told them that and charged a lot less money for it.
As for the question of what programming has to do with a sysadmin job… Well, an NT administrator does have to write logon scripts. I’ll leave the reader to come to his or her own conclusion whether such a test is necessary to determine whether you can write logon scripts or not. It’s not in my best interests to comment on that. I will say there have been a few instances in my professional career where I’ve had to sit down and write some code (besides batch files), be it a quick-and-dirty-utility in QuickBasic or C or KiXtart, or some maintenance programming in Perl. I’ll also say it hasn’t been much of a struggle.

So now I know I’m promotable without changing employers, and that feels good. There’s pressure on me from outside to change employers, and they have some valid points. I guess I like having options.

Dan Bowman sent me a link, which is currently 120 miles from me (I’m in Columbia), which he speculated was a response to what I wrote yesterday. I read it and I concur. The argument there was that you shouldn’t necessarily look for fulfillment in your job when you can find fulfillment in what’s staring you square in the face when you get home: your wife and kids.

There absolutely was a time when I believed that, and there may come a time when I’ll believe it again. My gut reaction to Dan was my standard gut reaction to everything: “Why, that reminds me of a story…”

I had a late dinner a week ago with a buddy and some of his buddies. Technically it was his bachelor party, though some people might argue that a preseason hockey game followed by dinner doesn’t count as a real bachelor party. His 21-year-old future brother-in-law was there. And at one point, the subject of relationships came up. I argued that if you’re alone until you’re 40 when the right relationship comes along, that’s better than bouncing around from wrong relationship to wrong relationship until you finally find the right one. He disagreed.

“Nothing’s worse than being alone,” he said. “I know. I’ve been alone a long time.”

I told him I’ve dated exactly three girls since I turned 18. The first of the three was much worse than being alone. At one point I wouldn’t answer the phone, just in case it was her, for fear of what she’d say. She was always mad at me about some piddly little thing or another. It was cool for about a month. The last two months, forget it. We broke up and I was a whole lot better for it.

The second of the three was always mad at me for some piddly little thing or another too, but at least she didn’t nag. We broke up twice. A few months after the second breakup, she started talking to me again out of the blue. Another female friend asked why we didn’t get back together. All of a sudden it hit me. She had no respect for me. When I told my friend that, her attitude changed 180 degrees. “Forget that,” she said. “Everybody deserves respect.”

The third of the three was worse than being alone too. She was always mad at me because I only e-mailed her every second or third time she e-mailed me, and my messages were always shorter than hers. She only called me once or twice, so I wasn’t afraid to answer my phone, but I was afraid to check my e-mail. She prompted me to write my first-ever mail filter. For some reason I wouldn’t stand up to her. I never understood the relationship, because we never had long conversations, there was no emotion whatsoever, and we never laughed. She didn’t get my sense of humor, and I certainly didn’t get hers. All we could do was talk about baseball. Of course, I could talk about baseball with my guy friends, and they never nagged me.

That lasted roughly six months, if I remember right. I wanted to find out whether being with her was better or worse than being alone. Finally I decided I liked being alone better.

Along the way, I’ve met The One several times. I’m sure everyone knows what I’m talking about. You meet the world’s most beautiful woman, and she turns out to be really nice, and funny, and has several other qualities about her too. But I always ran into a problem. I could never talk to The One. Well, I could talk, but the words never came out right.

So, at best, The One and I would become very casual friends. And that was it.

Then a few months ago I read something that sounded wise. I don’t remember where I read it, but it sounded like it was directed at me. If you’ve met The One several times and you keep blowing it, you’re probably putting too much pressure on yourself. You’re trying to say the one line or one word that’ll win her heart for good, and you’ll never do it, so you’re fighting a losing battle. The article said to forget that approach. Get used to talking to women, it said. If there’s a woman around, talk to her. Not even if you’re not interested in her–especially if you’re not interested in her. Do that, and you accomplish two things. You learn what women think about and what they like to talk about, and you eventually quit putting pressure on yourself, so when you finally do talk to a woman you’re interested in, you sound natural.

So a few months ago I started doing that, to a degree. It’s not like I walked up to every woman I passed in the grocery store and started talking, but since I work with a lot of women, I had that opportunity at work. I talked to a moderately attractive intern at work. I struck out hard. Then I ran into someone who reminded me of someone I used to know, but I couldn’t place her. I walked up to her. “I feel really stupid asking, but you look really familiar,” I told her. I told her my name, and asked if it meant anything to her. Turned out I went to high school with her. We had a couple of long, pleasant conversations, and she didn’t run and hide! I was on a roll!

So I kept on. One thing I learned I should have known all along. There’s a girl at work who’s still in college, working part-time, who was getting some help on a project from someone else. I happened to be in Someone Else’s cube fixing her computer at the time. At one point, Someone Else asked me how you’d adjust the leading in Microsoft Word. I gave her the bad news: You can’t, which was why I wrote a lot of my papers in college in QuarkXPress–I could finely adjust leading and tracking all I wanted, to make a paper whatever length the professor was looking for. At one point, Someone Else went upstairs for coffee, leaving the part-timer and I alone in her cube. She and I talked, mostly about my job. It was pleasant.

The next day, I was in her area, so I stopped in. I asked how her project was coming along. She was completely floored. “It’s almost done. Every second it gets closer and closer,” she said. “Thanks for asking. That’s so sweet!”

Lesson #1: Take an interest in what girls are doing. Especially The One. Judging from this girl’s reaction, she doesn’t get that from guys her age very often. Lesson #2: I already knew Lesson #1, but rarely expressed it. So if you’re interested in what she’s doing, make sure you ask.

So now I’m sure you’re wondering what I’ve accomplished. I’ve talked to all these girls but haven’t found The One lately, right? Wrong. I don’t know if she’s The One, necessarily, but she’s a good prospect. We talk a lot and she doesn’t run away. I know her well enough to know there’s a joke hidden somewhere in almost everything she says, but I don’t know her well enough to catch it every time yet. She understands. I don’t fret when I talk to her, and I don’t dread hearing from her. We seem to understand one another. Good signs, definitely. So what am I doing about it?

I didn’t look for a smooth way to ask her out. I brought it up. She saw it coming. I wasn’t visibly nervous, but I got choked up for a minute. You can’t control your subconscious, after all. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. She saw it coming and seemed to enjoy it–here’s a guy who’s confident, yet vulnerable. My vocal chords betrayed that. (Girls seem to like confidence spiked with vulnerability.)

Then I asked her out.

She said yes. She left herself a small door for escape. Then she closed that door.

And that’s the end of the story, for now.

Now, if I were in the mode of relying on wife and kids for my self-fulfillment, I’d be a basket case right about now. What if she cancels? What if it doesn’t go well? What if it does go really well, but then when I propose to her she says no? What if I never find another girl like her?

That’s thinking way too far ahead. That’s too much pressure. It’s not fair to her. She’s got too many other things to think about to have to deal with all that. Every worthwhile girl does.

I’ve said a few things to her that seemed to really make her feel good. So yes, I get some fulfillment from that. I get some fulfillment from work. I get some fulfillment from this site, though it’s been months since I’ve checked my logs so I have no idea how big my readership is now. I get some fulfillment from the things I do at church. And I get some fulfillment whenever a friend calls up and asks for advice or a favor.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that fulfillment shouldn’t come from one place. All of those things will let you down at one point or another. But if you’ve got enough other things, when one thing lets you down the others can still buoy you up.

The beginning of an end (but I don’t know of what)

Dave Farquhar General , ,

I took the Wolfe Battery Programming Aptitude Assessment yesterday. It’s a grueling, obnoxious test, simulating data structures like linked lists without saying the words and without giving any hint about what they’re useful for. (Good thing I already know that, courtesy of Computer Science 203.) It’s a five-problem test that most people, according to the testing company, complete within four hours. It took me between four and a half and five, but I had nearly an hour’s worth of breaks and interruptions.
It’s been my experience that tests tell you something (but not everything) about some people (but definitely not all people) some of the time (but definitely not all of the time). After administering a standardized test, you may or may not know anything more than you knew before the test, and you have no way of knowing whether you know any more, but if you believe in the things, at least you feel better.

My sister’s never done well on standardized tests. From looking at her test scores, you’d never guess she graduated high school in three and a half years and got her bachelor’s degree in another three and a half. I do well on standardized tests about half the time. Two IQ tests rated me average intelligence; a third rated me a genius. My SAT score was uninspiring; my ACT score got me automatic admission to the University of Missouri, plus a very nice scholarship. The first time I took Wolfe’s programming test, the results stated that I’m incapable of deep, detailed analysis. As far as I know, that’s the only time that’s ever been said of me.

I’ve had coworkers with outstanding test scores who were capable of superhuman feats with a computer. I’ve had coworkers with outstanding test scores who, when trying to fix something, would break it worse than I’d be able to break it if I’d been trying. I’ve had coworkers with test scores worse than mine who were more capable than me.

Personally, I’m a whole lot less interested in someone’s raw ability than I am in what that person does with it. If someone’s got 91 points of ability and isn’t using half of it, and I’m standing over here with 50 points and using almost all of it, which of us is more valuable? Now, supposedly there are tests that try to measure that too. I have no idea how those could work.

I don’t know how I did on the test. The last two questions are a series of simple problems, with each answer dependent on the previous, before you finally get a final answer. Each one took me about 20 minutes to finish. Then I went back and double-checked the problems, and found I made a mistake early in the sequence in each of them. So I ran through the problems a second and a third time, getting the same results the last two times, and they differed from the first. But I’m still not entirely confident I got them right.

My career pretty much hinges on those two problems. If I got them right, I’m promotable where I am. If I didn’t get them right, my chances of ever being promoted appear to approach zero.

Either way, a change is going to have to happen, and soon. I’m tired and beat up. I haven’t felt like writing. I got my hair cut earlier this week, and there was more grey hair on my apron than brown. I wasn’t that grey a year ago. I’m working the kind of hours that sent my dad to the grave at 51. I’ve been extraordinarily irate, to the point that I wonder if anyone likes being around me, because I sure don’t like being around me when I’m that way.

I’ve been here before. First time, I dealt with it by losing myself in a girl. That wasn’t fair to her; the fling lasted about two months, and it scarred us both. What she did in the end wasn’t fair to me, so I guess we’re even. Second time, I dealt with it by losing myself in writing. Now that all’s pretty much said and done with those books (one will be obsolete in a couple of weeks, while the half never made it into print), I made about $4 an hour writing one and a half books, then I acquired a repetitive stress injury. That wasn’t fair to me–I’d have made twice as much flipping burgers on the evening shift at White Castle, and I’d have had nearly as much prestige.

I know I sound like a broken record; every twentysomething I know is asking what he or she should do with life. And I don’t have an answer either.

And when I look at history, it tells me it doesn’t really matter. Even when whole generations set out to do something, what they do rarely makes a difference. That ought to be liberating–I can do what I want because it doesn’t make any difference in the long run.

But somehow it’s not.

Web browser troubleshooting

Dave Farquhar Troubleshooting

Over the last couple of workdays, in between viruses, I’ve had to diagnose some flaky Web browsers. The browser might work fine for me, but a user will swear it’s crashing. You can run the repair tool on Internet Explorer and/or take them up to Internet Explorer 5.5SP2, then you can hit a few sites and see what happens, but even a Microsoft product can usually survive 15 minutes of regular work (unless we’re talking about Word 2000 with one of my book chapters loaded, in which case you’re lucky to get five minutes’ stability, but I digress).
A Web search on “web browser stress test” turned up nothing useful. I found lots of tools for stress-testing Web servers, but I wanted to stress-test the other side. Finally I just went to BrowserTune and ran it. When IE passed all the tests, I declared the installation stable.

Then yesterday I grew weary of only having the Dillo and Konqueror browsers on my main Linux box. Dillo is lightning fast but it still won’t render sites like cnn.com and espn.com properly. It’s readable, but sometimes annoying. It’s the best occasional-use browser I’ll ever see, but I’m not comfortable using it all the time. Konqueror’s a decent browser, and has a lot of promise, but it doesn’t always render things properly either. And sometimes it’s annoyingly slow. I needed a well-known browser that most Web designers keep in mind when coding their pages, but of course I wanted to compile it myself… That leaves out Internet Exploder, of course. And I can’t compile Netscape myself… Or can I? I went and got Mozilla, and the current build is almost indistinguishable in appearance from Netscape Communicator 6.x. I found it renders well, and quickly, loads about as fast as Konqueror. And it includes an invaluable resource: Under the Debug menu, there’s an option called “choffman’s browser buster.” It’s just a link to a Mozilla site that repeatedly loads Web pages for as long as the browser stays running (so, until it crashes or you close a window). Great stuff. If part of your job is building Ghost images for new PCs, you’d do well to run one or more of these tests overnight (why not run several, in separate browser windows?) to make sure your browser installation took. If you ever have to troubleshoot an end-user’s Web browser, you’ll thank yourself for bookmarking that site.

It’s October…

Dave Farquhar Hardware , ,

October…
When the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear
Do I care?
October…
When kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
–U2
I didn’t do a whole lot this weekend. I laid around a lot, I did some dishes, and Saturday night I went out with some friends. More on that later. I can’t tell the story properly right now.

Linux as a diagnostic. I remain convinced that compiling Linux is the best system-wide diagnostic in existance. Case point: I lost a drive in a Windows 2000 box a while back. I gave up on trying to get the data back; all I cared about was my Baseball Mogul stats, but I started another game, built up another dynasty, so I don’t care about it anymore. I reformatted the drive and put Sorcerer Linux on it. First things first, an all-SCSI Linux box with a fast CPU really rocks. The most time-consuming part of the boot time is bringing up the SCSI interface. That takes about 15 seconds. The rest of the process is literally instantaneous.

Well, there’s no point in having a great system without recompiling everything specifically for it to take maximum advantage of it, right? So I started recompiling. The controversial 2.4.10 kernel came down and compiled without a hitch, and yes, the system does run very nicely with it. The simpler packages that provide most of the standard Unix utilities came down and compiled quickly and easily. Then when it came time to recompile the monstrosity that is glibc (the key library of any Unix system, and it’s a 16-meg bzipped tarball–this thing’s huge), the system’s weaknesses showed up. The drive failed again. I got sector errors and the system crashed hard. I reset and tried again. It came back up, Reiserfs quickly fixed everything, and it looked good, so I recompiled. This time, I reached the end of the compile process, but when it came time to copy the files into place, files that are there stopped being there. The drive failed again.

So, I’ve either got a heat problem or a power problem. The drive’s kinda crammed in a spot where it doesn’t get much airflow, and I’ve got a PCP&C power supply, so I suspect it’s a heat problem.

Nothing stress-tests PC components like compiling an entire operating system. Besides, even under regular use Linux tends to push hardware harder than Windows, even Windows 2000, but I see that as a good thing. I paid for the hardware, so I want my OS to squeeze it for every ounce it’s worth.

Thirteen hours! Woo hoo!

Dave Farquhar Windows , , , , , ,

It’s a beautiful day in the virushood, it’s a beautiful day for a virus, would you be my, could you be my…
Yes, today we hunted down and killed a couple of live Nimda specimens. I actually didn’t find any viruses whatsoever, but I found a number of PCs that I really liked. I kept trying to bet one of my coworkers they would float. Of course, that’s just my diabolical scheme, usually reserved for cantankerous Macintoshes. You get someone to bet you 10 bucks the thing doesn’t float, then throw it in the pond and see what happens. If it sinks, you’re out a problem. And if it floats? Well, that’s just proof that it’s a witch. And what do we do with witches? We build a bridge out of them! No, wait. That’s something else. Burn them!

Victim #1 was a P166 built by a local outfit called Intek. Intek is one of those clone shops that builds PCs out of the cheapest parts you can buy (including stuff even Packard Bell wouldn’t have touched) then sells for the price of a Dell or a Micron. But since it has an Intel processor in it and the place promises same-day service (which doesn’t always happen), CIOs fall for it. Anyway, I’ve seen 486DX2-66s that outperform this P166. And when I put the current version of Norton AntiVirus on it, it quit booting.

Personally, I think it’s time to just take the machine, slap a second NIC in it, and install a minimal Linux on it and make it a network bridge to keep a chatty Mac segment from killing the rest of the network, because that’s about all that PC is ever going to be good for in this day and age. But it’s not my decision.

We had one PC infected with PrettyPark. Of course, NAV deleted Files32.vxd but left all the registry entries behind, so the PC would no longer run any .exe files. I downloaded Symantec’s PrettyPark fix, but it looked, found no Files32.vxd, and pronounced the system clean. But thanks to the registry entries pointing to files32.vxd, no executable would run. So I faked it out. copy con: c:winntsystemfiles32.vxd, type some gobbledygook, then hit ctrl-z. Then, copy con: c:winntsystem32files32.vxd, type more gobbledygook, then hit ctrl-z. Run the fix again. Aha! We’re infected. Shall I clean you up? Why, thank you for asking, please do, kind sir.

Seeing as this PC sits on the desk of the head of the accounting department, I figured it’d be best to have it in working order for him this morning.

So. I’ve now worked something like 51 hours this week. And it’s Thursday. I have no social life. But once that paycheck comes in, I’ll be able to afford to have a very nice social life for a little while…

So I came home about 10:15, after stopping off at a gas station for a tank of gas (I was on E) and a beer. I very rarely drink, but I’ve been so tightly wound this week I figured I could use a little help unwinding. I threw in a microwave pizza, popped a beer, sat down, and wrote this. Now the pizza’s gone and the beer’s empty, and I’m not just tired, I’m also a little drowsy. That’s good. Hopefully that means I’m in for a good night, for the first time this week since Sunday.

And that was the last building that needed scanning. So now I can concentrate on my job. Currently I have about 25 trouble tickets open. Normally I have about four open at once. On any given day, four new ones should come in. On a good day I can close between five and eight. So now that the virus scanning’s done, I think the tickets will stop coming in faster than I can close them, but I’ve got a long road ahead to get caught up. Next week won’t be a 60-hour week, but it won’t be a 40 either.

Slap-happy

Dave Farquhar Humor/Satire

Hey, it’s time for the weekend! No? What do you mean? I’ve put in my 40 hours… You mean yesterday was Wednesday? It’s Thursday, not Saturday? Rats.
Do me a favor. Pray that the people I support quit opening attachments they get from their non-corporate mail accounts. Once we get these virus infestations under control, I can go back to a regular work schedule and having a life.

One amusing story from this week. On Tuesday, the administrative assistant flagged me down. “Would you lock up Tim’s laptop in the back room? He went home and left it in his cube again.” So I went and got his laptop and locked it in our staging room. I left a note on his desk.


Tim,

All your laptop are belong to us.

I didn’t sign it or anything.

This morning, Tim walked into my area. “You have my laptop back here?”

I got out the key and opened the staging room. “How’d you know?” I asked.

“Something about the way the note was worded told me to come find you,” he said.

I guess I’m just too predictable. And obviously I’m slap-happy because I think that’s absolutely hilarious. I think I really need to get some sleep.

Worst practices for e-mail

Dave Farquhar Viruses , , , , ,

If you want to wreck your computer with a virus and put your neighbors’ computers at serious risk, there’s a really easy way to do it. Just be really cavalier with your e-mail habits. Approach e-mail with reckless abandon, and you’ll quickly receive your just reward.
But if you like having a computer that works well, and you kind of like your neighbors, there are things you can do to minimize your risk. If, on the other hand, you want to leave your mark on the world in a negative way, do the opposite of the things I suggest here.

1. Acquire good anti-virus software and keep it up to date. I’ve been configuring Norton AntiVirus to update itself every day. It’s excessive, but since it’s impossible to guess when the next big thing will come out, and it might hit you before you know about it, it’s the only safe way. Update every day, and keep autoprotect on, so that files are scanned as they’re created. That way, if you get a virus, it won’t get far. I also set NAV to scan the entire computer–all files, not just executable files–at least once a week.

While sweeping the network at work, I found copies of Nimda, but I also found old friends like SirCam, Happy99, PrettyPark, and Kak. Obviously people were aborting the scheduled updates and scans.

2. If you do get infected, don’t count on your antivirus package to completely clean up the mess. Visit www.sarc.com or www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo to download a specialized removal tool for the virus your antivirus package caught. Run it to remove any residual damage your antivirus package may have missed.

3. Don’t take e-mail attachments from strangers. I take an even stronger stance than that. Frankly, when someone sends me e-mail with an attachment, the first thing I do is delete the message. I don’t even open it. I don’t care if I’ve known the guy who sent it for 10 years. Some attachments can execute without you even opening the message, so the only safe thing to do is delete it.

The only exception I make is when someone e-mails me and tells me something’s coming. Sure, I’ll look at my friend’s resume, as long as he lets me know ahead of time that it’s coming and I should look for it.

Yes, I miss some good jokes and fun games that way. But you know what? I’d rather be accused of having no sense of humor than to have to rebuild my computer. I don’t have time to rebuild my computer. I’m already too busy rebuilding the computers that belong to people who open each and every e-mail attachment they get.

The virus of the week is W32.Vote.A, which masquerades as a chance to vote for peace or war between the United States and the Middle East. It doesn’t actually let you vote; it e-mails itself to your contacts and deletes files off your drive.

4. Don’t be the first on your block with the newest Microsoft software. Microsoft continues to refuse to take security seriously. No one in his right mind should be running Internet Explorer and Outlook Express 6.0 right now. Every single dot-oh release from Microsoft in recent memory has been an atrocity. Get Internet Explorer 5.5SP2 and stick with it. It’s fast, it’s as stable as anything Microsoft has written, and all the known holes that viruses exploit have been patched. Is the same true for 6.0? Who knows?

5. Don’t use a Microsoft e-mail client if you can help it. Microsoft’s the biggest kid on the block, so their mail clients are the most frequent targets. They also have more security holes in them than a vacant building in East St. Louis. There are a number of competent alternatives out there, including Pegasus, Netscape Messenger, and Qualcomm Eudora. (Just watch out for Euroda’s spyware–run Ad-Aware from www.lavasoftusa.com after you install Eudora.)

6. If you must use a Microsoft e-mail client, turn off the preview pane. Also, go to the client’s security options and put it in the Restricted Sites zone. That way when some idiot forwards you a message with hostile ActiveX code in it to automatically execute an attachment that e-mails itself to everyone in your inbox and address book and then low-level formats your hard drive, you won’t be affected. There is absolutely no legitimate reason for HTML e-mail to contain any ActiveX, Java, or JavaScript.

7. Don’t run any Microsoft software if you can help it. A Mac doesn’t count–the most popular Mac application is (drum roll please) Microsoft Office. Besides, there are plenty of Mac viruses out there to get you too. I’m writing this on a cheap PC running Linux. I use a tiny, lightning-fast mail client called Sylpheed. It takes up 733K on my hard drive. Outrageous, isn’t it? I use a tiny, lightning-fast Web browser called Dillo. It’s secure as a rock because it doesn’t do Java, JavaScript, or ActiveX. It renders pages instantly. It’s 240K in size. They’re both in alpha testing, but they crash less for me than Internet Explorer 5.5 and Outlook 2000SP2. And don’t be fooled by the tiny size: I compiled them for speed, not size. If I’d used size optimizations they’d be a lot smaller.

8. Don’t run your Web site on IIS. Even the Gartner Group is recommending everyone abandon IIS ASAP. It’s impossible to keep up with the patches well enough to prevent outbreaks like Nimda. Nimda knows about 16(!) security holes in IIS that it can exploit in order to send itself to people who visit your Web page. Yes, people try to hack Apache. Of course they do–70% of the Web uses it. But I hear of one Apache vulnerability a year. That compares to one IIS vulnerability a week. It is fiscally and socially irresponsible to bank your business on such an insecure, poorly written piece of software. (This site runs on Apache, and its only downtime in five months has been from a power failure. Zero crashes, no having to take it down to apply a patch. My system uptime reads 112 days.)

Nimda ate my weekend…

Dave Farquhar Viruses , ,

I left for Promise Keepers as planned late Friday morning, but not before I had a hectic morning with Nimda. Nimda didn’t spread too far (it seems most people got it from visiting Web sites, and in a lot of cases it was just pieces of it sitting dormant in browser caches), but we had no way of knowing that until we visited virtually every PC on the network. That takes a while–especially when you find people with anti-virus software that came free with a PC they bought in 1995 or 1996 whose definitions were last updated when Ace of Base was popular.
So we have a good argument in favor of kicking Norton AntiVirus into managed mode. And with the large number of unpatched copies of Internet Explorer out there, we’ve got an argument in favor of some kind of site management software so we can push installs.

The choice is pretty simple: Fork out the bucks for site management, or pay me enough overtime to make a downpayment on a house. It’s pretty obvious which decision makes sense.

As for PK, I learned a ton, and the bus ride to and from KC was fun. My buddies and I scored the very back seats. A couple of guys brought their early teenage sons, but for the most part, we were the young rowdies on our bus. (The kids in senior high were on the other bus.) I’ll talk about that later, when I have time to do it justice.

I worked 11 hours today, so I’m tired. I think it’s time for some quality time with my pillow.

Wrapping up the week with thoughts on oppression

Dave Farquhar Society , ,

I’m on my way to Kansas City to torque off NOW… I’m going to a Promise Keepers rally. I heard you go to things like that to learn how to oppress women. Although the way I read the PK message, it’s more along the lines of this: Get off the couch, turn off the football game and pay some attention to your family.
So, anyway, I’ll be spending some quality time at Arrowhead Stadium, far away from any computers. I’m rooming with three other guys my age, so this weekend will be just like college, only with better roommates. Those of you who’ve e-mailed me, I got your mail (I think), and I’ll get to it when I get back.

Speaking of oppression… One of my buddies e-mailed me at work with a link to a Fox News story (I can’t find it now). His only comment? [sigh]

The story, which I can’t find now like I said, talked about people forcing others to take down their flags because the United States is oppressive. (Yeah, buddy! The answer to oppression is more oppression! Rock on! Gotta get me some o’ that!) So when I wrote back, I was less succinct than he was:

If they feel oppressed, then let's ship 'em to Indonesia for a few years and then we'll see how they like the United States after that.

Bastards.

It’s an unfortunate fact of human life that we don’t all get the same opportunities. I go into the inner city and see lots of people who never had half the opportunities I had, even though they live all of about 15 miles from where I grew up. I feel bad about that. That’s part of the reason why I do some volunteer work. And when someone comes up to me and asks me to teach them how to do something, if it’s something I know how to do and how to teach, I do it.

Truth be told, I don’t run into complainers very often. Usually I run into people who are just trying to make the most of what they do have. I admire that. The reason why I have stuff is because my parents’ parents (on both sides) were the masters of making the most of what you have, and they taught my parents how to do the same, who in turn taught me.

And oppression is relative. There are plenty of people who will risk their lives and everything they have to be the poorest, most oppressed people in the United States, because that’s better than anything they’d attain back home.

In Indonesia, women are treated like sheep and cattle. They have no choice about wearing makeup–they can’t, period. Not that it matters because they have to wear veils. They have to cover themselves head to toe. The world would come to an end if one of them flashed an ankle. And you can’t go out–even dressed like that–without permission from your husband or brother.

We’ve got a long way to go.

As do they.

Is God punishing the United States of America?

Dave Farquhar Christianity , , ,

In the wake of Jerry Falwell’s controversial statements on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, and after a conversation with a pastor who told me one of his congregants asked him whether “God still reaches down and zaps people,” I think it’s time for a voice of reason.
First, an introduction. I’m 26 years old. I’m not a pastor. I am schooled and trained as a journalist. Theology was my best subject in grade school and high school, but I have no formal schooling in religious studies or theology besides that. I approach the Bible the same way a journalist would approach a source, or a good academic would approach a piece of literature. I am a Protestant. I do not buy the Catholic argument that all one has to do is listen to the bishops. That kind of thinking led us to the sale of the forgiveness of sins in order to finance the building of massive cathedrals in Europe half a millenium ago. One schooled in the Biblical languages can make a better interpretation of scripture than I can, yes, for the same reason that someone schooled in Russian can make a better interpretation of Tolstoy. But that doesn’t mean someone can’t read a good English rendering (or better yet, several good English renderings) and understand. I believe it is the duty of every Christian to spend at least a little bit of time in the book that gave rise to the religion; it helps keep people like Jerry Falwell and the Catholic bishops of the 1500s in check.

Enough of that. On to the issue at hand. Many evangelicals, and I’ll lump Falwell into that category, operate under the impression that the United States of America is God’s chosen nation. But nowhere in scripture is the renunciation of Israel’s status as God’s chosen nation. God’s chosen people today are those who believe in Jesus Christ. But that’s not the same as a chosen nation. It extends beyond political and racial boundaries.

God is interested in nations only because nations contain people, and God is much more interested in the people that make up that nation than He is about the nation itself. Governments exist to preserve order and to serve out justice. I don’t think it’s a drastic oversimplification to say government’s job is to protect its citizens from thugs. I believe the only real difference between conservative and liberal and democratic and totalitarian is a disagreement over just who thugs comprise.

Is God disciplining the United States Government? Absolutely. Is that His only purpose? Absolutely not.

We the people of the United States of America have sinned. There is no question of that. Is God disciplining us? Yes, along with many other peoples–it wasn’t just Americans who died in this tragedy. Is this punishment for specific sins, or an indication that God has turned His back on us? Absolutely not.

God woke us up. He got our attention. God does that, or tries to, just about every day. It can take many forms: something someone says, a close call in the parking lot, a feeling in the pit of your stomach, or the destruction of a building. If we paid attention to the little things, would the big things happen? Maybe not. But maybe so.

So why did God let this happen?

The simple answer is we don’t know. We have to remember that God’s priorities aren’t the same as ours. Our priority in the United States right now seems to be to maximize profit and pleasure. Profit and pleasure are fine things, and I think even Jerry Falwell will agree with that. But we run into problems when we let them control our lives. So, yes, the United States would do well to take the hint and realize that there’s more to life than profit and pleasure.

God’s priority is to get as many people into heaven as possible. Pure and simple. Prosperity and pleasure in human terms are entirely secondary to that.

There are numerous examples in the Bible of God letting nations go their own way, in order to punish other nations. God let Egypt run wild over the children of Israel. Then He punished Egypt for what they did. The Old Testament is full of these kinds of stories.

Is the now-provoked United States about to become an instrument of God, raining down God’s discipline in the form of bombs and warheads? That’s an awfully self-righteous thought. But I do believe God is now going to go use the United States to get someone else’s attention, yes.

And what of vengeance? It’s not up to the citizens of the United States of America to seek vengeance. The hate crimes taking place in the United States now are completely unjustified. But what about war? The job of governments is to protect its citizens. That includes waging war when the other side refuses to be reasonable. And if the government calls on its citizens, it’s their duty to take up arms and serve.

So why did God let 5,000+ people die?

Simple answer: Damage control. Believe me, seeing those deaths and the pain it caused hurt God more than it hurt all of us, combined.

I was talking about sin with one of the elders of my church the other day. I observed that the sin hurts the participants, much worse than they know. And it hurts the people around them. Making matters worse, the process of stopping the sin can hurt people. Sometimes stopping hurts more people in a single day than continuing the practice for a single day would. It’s a vicious mess with no good, easy cure. No wonder God hates it.

God feels the pain and anguish of the congregation that lost its priest. God feels the pain and anguish of the people who suddenly found themselves widows and widowers. God feels the pain of the children left without mothers or fathers. God feels the pain of the terrorists’ family members who are asking why and how their good little boy could have done such a thing. God feels it all, all at once, and more deeply than we’re capable.

But these kinds of things happen all the time. I had a Canadian reader write in, expressing his well-wishes. He said he understood totally. He left South Africa to try to get away from these kinds of senseless atrocities. They didn’t follow him to Canada, but now one has happened next door.

And let’s look at what’s happened since this tragedy. Yasser Arafat has told his men not to shoot Israelis, even if the Israelis shoot first. If the ceasefire lasts 48 hours, they’re going to sit down and talk. It probably wouldn’t have happened without this.

Russia is sharing intelligence with the United States. And it’s looking like Russia might get us the use of some former Soviet military bases. This is unprecedented. French author Alexis de Tocqueville saw the rivalry between the Russian Bear and the American Eagle in the mid-1800s.

Military experts expected our next war to be with China. But for now, China and the United States face the common enemy of terrorism. Terrorists hate us because we’re the biggest kid on the block, but China has attributes the terrorists would hate as well. China knows this. God may yet get China’s attention.

I haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening in Northern Ireland, but if nothing else, this tragedy has people on both sides of the conflict there thinking too.

And one thing we seem to forget is that it was only 5,000 deaths. There was a fourth plane that could have killed thousands more, depending on its target. God didn’t allow that plane to reach its destination. He also didn’t allow any other planes to be hijacked. There’s plenty of evidence that it wouldn’t have ended with those four planes.

And what of our 5,000+ innocent casualties? Their fate rests in the hands of a just and loving God. As hard as it may be to do, we have to trust that God knows what He’s doing and that this could have been much worse.