Sunday, June 24, 2007
Casidee Riley
Casidee Riley, once a regular in local theater productions and the star of a Billings-based movie, "So You've Downloaded a Demon," is in LA. You can find an interview of her here. More here.
Update
To use Quickbooks payroll, I had to buy Quickbooks 2007. To use Quickbooks 2007, I had to buy Microsoft Office 2007. Now that I have Microsoft Office 2007, I have to buy Quickbooks payroll.
And so it goes. Since Friday, I have mostly been relearning computer programs that I had used without problems for 10 years. In Word 97, for example, I used to close files by clicking on an x in the top right corner. In Word 2007, I have to click on a logo in the top left corner, then click on the Close command.
In Word 97, headers and footers were under the View menu. Not a terribly logical place to put them, but nevertheless I found them and learned how to use them. In Word 2007, headers and footers are under the Insert menu. Not a terribly logical place to put them, and I had to learn to find them all over again.
And, of course, the mail merge interface between Quickbooks and Word no longer works the same way and often doesn't work at all. I spent about three hours on Friday writing subscription renewal letters, a job that normally takes a half-hour or less. I finally got it to work by ignoring the instructions, which were worse than worthless because they provided not just unhelpful information but quite self-evidently bad information that reduced the chances of getting the program to work. One of the bright spots of Quickbooks used to be the thorough and easy-to-follow instructions. That's long gone, and Microsoft instructions retain their perfect record: Never once, in 10 years of using Word, have I ever found a useful piece of information in the Help section. The Help appears to have been designed for some totally unrelated program.
So I am out several hundred bucks, and many hours of lost productivity, paying for stuff I already owned and relearning stuff I already had learned. At the same time, we are still fiddling with the new website, which actually is shaping up a little every day and now can carry breaking news. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning adding links to the link section. The links are far from complete, and suggestions are welcome.
And so it goes. Since Friday, I have mostly been relearning computer programs that I had used without problems for 10 years. In Word 97, for example, I used to close files by clicking on an x in the top right corner. In Word 2007, I have to click on a logo in the top left corner, then click on the Close command.
In Word 97, headers and footers were under the View menu. Not a terribly logical place to put them, but nevertheless I found them and learned how to use them. In Word 2007, headers and footers are under the Insert menu. Not a terribly logical place to put them, and I had to learn to find them all over again.
And, of course, the mail merge interface between Quickbooks and Word no longer works the same way and often doesn't work at all. I spent about three hours on Friday writing subscription renewal letters, a job that normally takes a half-hour or less. I finally got it to work by ignoring the instructions, which were worse than worthless because they provided not just unhelpful information but quite self-evidently bad information that reduced the chances of getting the program to work. One of the bright spots of Quickbooks used to be the thorough and easy-to-follow instructions. That's long gone, and Microsoft instructions retain their perfect record: Never once, in 10 years of using Word, have I ever found a useful piece of information in the Help section. The Help appears to have been designed for some totally unrelated program.
So I am out several hundred bucks, and many hours of lost productivity, paying for stuff I already owned and relearning stuff I already had learned. At the same time, we are still fiddling with the new website, which actually is shaping up a little every day and now can carry breaking news. I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning adding links to the link section. The links are far from complete, and suggestions are welcome.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Joe Galloway
I wasn't going to blog about this exchange, but it has been haunting me, so I will at least link to it. You people who think the MSM don't know war never met Joe Galloway.
Galloway, by the way, is a bit of a home boy. He attended Victoria College, where I spent part of an unhappy semester, and he's from Cuero, Texas, if memory serves, a few miles up U.S. 87 from my hometown. In those days, we called U.S. 87 the Cuero Highway or, on longer trips, the San Antonio Highway. Now I call it the Billings Highway.
Galloway, by the way, is a bit of a home boy. He attended Victoria College, where I spent part of an unhappy semester, and he's from Cuero, Texas, if memory serves, a few miles up U.S. 87 from my hometown. In those days, we called U.S. 87 the Cuero Highway or, on longer trips, the San Antonio Highway. Now I call it the Billings Highway.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Free tickets
Free tickets for the July 11 Billings Mustangs game that the Downtown Billings Association and the Outpost are sponsoring have arrived. Stop by the office at 1833 Grand Ave. and pick up a few.
Questions for Romney
Left in the West has a few questions for Mitt Romney when he is in Great Falls this weekend for the Republican convention. Two questions I would like to ask are omitted:
1. In a recent presidential debate, you said that Saddam Hussein wouldn't open up his country to weapons inspectors. But weapons inspectors were there until the eve of the war. Why did you say that?
2. In a recent presidential debate, you said you would like to double the size of Guantanamo. Recently, Colin Powell said he would like to close it not tomorrow but this afternoon. Explain why you are right and he is wrong.
1. In a recent presidential debate, you said that Saddam Hussein wouldn't open up his country to weapons inspectors. But weapons inspectors were there until the eve of the war. Why did you say that?
2. In a recent presidential debate, you said you would like to double the size of Guantanamo. Recently, Colin Powell said he would like to close it not tomorrow but this afternoon. Explain why you are right and he is wrong.
Power of the blog
Just a month ago, I was complaining about Albertsons preferred savings cards. Today comes this.
I shouldn't take all of the credit. This outfit has something to do with it -- and gets a hat tip for pointing out the story. Also I think I saw a story the last time this came up that said Albertsons had discontinued the cards in stores in the Northwest, although not in Montana. I can't find the link now, but I don't think I dreamed it.
I shouldn't take all of the credit. This outfit has something to do with it -- and gets a hat tip for pointing out the story. Also I think I saw a story the last time this came up that said Albertsons had discontinued the cards in stores in the Northwest, although not in Montana. I can't find the link now, but I don't think I dreamed it.
Brain dead
Sounds like the Montana Republican Party is seriously brain dead. Since when is a political convention a private party?
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
On bias
Montana Headlines has a thoughtful post (meaning, I agree with it) on media bias. He cites a Jay Cost piece that makes a point I have been pounding on for years: Sure, media bias exists, but the left-right bias that gets all of the attention is only a tiny, and not terribly relevant, part of the picture.
Progressively tense
I'm not a Fox News basher, but one thing Fox does on radio irritates the heck out of me. It broadcasts most of its news in the progressive tense. So we get, "The president meeting with Tony Blair" rather than "The president met with Tony Blair" or "The president is meeting with Tony Blair" or "The president will meet with Tony Blair," any of which would be more precise than the vague progressive. But then, the motto is "fair and balanced," not "accurate and precise."
I advise my English students to avoid the progressive tense because it is unclear and wordy. I sometimes point out to them, and I always point out to my German students, that German has no progressive tense at all -- and nobody ever misses it.
Now Fox is pounding the progressive tense into their impressionable heads, for no other reason, I suppose, than that the past tense sounds so, well, past. Fox, I can forgive you for Bill O'Reilly, but not for this.
I advise my English students to avoid the progressive tense because it is unclear and wordy. I sometimes point out to them, and I always point out to my German students, that German has no progressive tense at all -- and nobody ever misses it.
Now Fox is pounding the progressive tense into their impressionable heads, for no other reason, I suppose, than that the past tense sounds so, well, past. Fox, I can forgive you for Bill O'Reilly, but not for this.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Finished
Finally finished reading Anthony Shadid's "Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War." It's a valuable book in several respects, perhaps most as a counterpoint to Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco." "Fiasco" is essentially a military history of the war; Shadid focuses exclusively on the sentiments of the Iraqi people themselves.
In one memorable scene, Ricks is walking at the front of a military patrol shortly after the fall of Saddam, interviewing soldiers who tell him that 85 percent of the Iraqi people fully support the U.S. invasion. At the back of the patrol, Shadid, who speaks Arabic, is interviewing Iraqis who present a far more skeptical picture -- even at that early date, Shadid says, no more than half of those he interviewed expressed support for the invasion.
Shadid also thoroughly outlines the history of Iraqi misery and repression, especially over the last 35 years. The Iran-Iraq War, a vague footnote in most Americans' memories, looms huge in the reactions and fears of Iraqis. The utter chaos of the post-war occupation, Iraqi skepticism over U.S. intentions, and the competing factions within Iraq all get thorough coverage.
The most useful thing the book does is this: It reminds us that the war isn't just about the troops. It's about a lot of suffering people, doing their best to scrape together some kind of order out of years of chaos. Sadly, it is this aspect of the war that often seems to be totally forgotten in this country, both by the anti-war left and the pro-war neocons. Shadid reminds us that when we say it's better to fight terrorists over there than here, that has real, and deadly, consequences for a lot of people who deserve better.
In one memorable scene, Ricks is walking at the front of a military patrol shortly after the fall of Saddam, interviewing soldiers who tell him that 85 percent of the Iraqi people fully support the U.S. invasion. At the back of the patrol, Shadid, who speaks Arabic, is interviewing Iraqis who present a far more skeptical picture -- even at that early date, Shadid says, no more than half of those he interviewed expressed support for the invasion.
Shadid also thoroughly outlines the history of Iraqi misery and repression, especially over the last 35 years. The Iran-Iraq War, a vague footnote in most Americans' memories, looms huge in the reactions and fears of Iraqis. The utter chaos of the post-war occupation, Iraqi skepticism over U.S. intentions, and the competing factions within Iraq all get thorough coverage.
The most useful thing the book does is this: It reminds us that the war isn't just about the troops. It's about a lot of suffering people, doing their best to scrape together some kind of order out of years of chaos. Sadly, it is this aspect of the war that often seems to be totally forgotten in this country, both by the anti-war left and the pro-war neocons. Shadid reminds us that when we say it's better to fight terrorists over there than here, that has real, and deadly, consequences for a lot of people who deserve better.
On duty
Pulled jury duty again today. This is the sixth time I have been called since I was selected for the pool in Judge Susan Watters' court. I was excused once because I had to give a German final that day, so I am 0-for-5 -- five times in the pool, never picked for the jury. Several other potential jurors present today had been called as often, and a couple already had served on juries. One had served on two.
The first case involved a couple seeking damages from the state for an adopted child with preexisting problems. Another was a slip-and-fall case at The Rex. One was a tampering case involving a guy who scared me a little. One was this notorious DUI case. Sitting through voir dire gave me no particular insight into the merits of any of these cases, other than a better than average basis on which to judge the jurisprudential merit of the defendant's alleged offer in the latter case (none of your business, but thanks for asking).
Today's case had to do with assessing damages from a car accident involving a Gazette sales rep. The trial was expected to run four days, apparently with much of the time taken up by testimony and depositions from medical experts. That would have been about three days more than I suspect I would care to hear. I wasted much of the last hour of questioning wondering who would fill my 14-hour delivery day on Thursday.
I've never served on a jury and wouldn't mind doing it. But the jury selection process is an odd combination of appreciation and intimidation. Lawyers and the judge always talk about how grateful they are for our service, but they can send out the cops if we don't show up. They say how important jurors are for the process, then they keep us cooling our heels with no explanation for a half-hour or longer.
And the whole process is a little bit fun, a little bit boring and a little bit nerve wracking. I'm happy to serve, but I will be happier when I am done.
The first case involved a couple seeking damages from the state for an adopted child with preexisting problems. Another was a slip-and-fall case at The Rex. One was a tampering case involving a guy who scared me a little. One was this notorious DUI case. Sitting through voir dire gave me no particular insight into the merits of any of these cases, other than a better than average basis on which to judge the jurisprudential merit of the defendant's alleged offer in the latter case (none of your business, but thanks for asking).
Today's case had to do with assessing damages from a car accident involving a Gazette sales rep. The trial was expected to run four days, apparently with much of the time taken up by testimony and depositions from medical experts. That would have been about three days more than I suspect I would care to hear. I wasted much of the last hour of questioning wondering who would fill my 14-hour delivery day on Thursday.
I've never served on a jury and wouldn't mind doing it. But the jury selection process is an odd combination of appreciation and intimidation. Lawyers and the judge always talk about how grateful they are for our service, but they can send out the cops if we don't show up. They say how important jurors are for the process, then they keep us cooling our heels with no explanation for a half-hour or longer.
And the whole process is a little bit fun, a little bit boring and a little bit nerve wracking. I'm happy to serve, but I will be happier when I am done.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Quickbooks update
I expressed my frustration below with Quickbooks and Intuit. Just so you know, I have been using the new version for a couple of weeks now, and it is inferior in every detectable respect to the version it replaced. I have to suspect that Quickbooks is deliberately making its products worse. Some other complainers say that is so it can sell more updates to fix the problems it creates. I don't doubt it.
So my system has slowed to a crawl, the program takes up far more space on my computer, and I am having to relearn much of what I already knew so I can adjust to all of the pointless changes. It even looks uglier.
My payroll subscription expires in a couple of weeks, and I have been trying to get the company to tell me what assurances I have that it won't arbitrarily wipe the tax tables out of my system again whenever it chooses. Of course, Intuit refuses to answer that question.
So today I learn that the letter-writing function of the program no longer works. For that, I have to upgrade my version of Microsoft Word. More hassle, more annoyance, more expense -- all so I can continue to enjoy continued degradation of service.
Never, ever, ever buy from Intuit.
So my system has slowed to a crawl, the program takes up far more space on my computer, and I am having to relearn much of what I already knew so I can adjust to all of the pointless changes. It even looks uglier.
My payroll subscription expires in a couple of weeks, and I have been trying to get the company to tell me what assurances I have that it won't arbitrarily wipe the tax tables out of my system again whenever it chooses. Of course, Intuit refuses to answer that question.
So today I learn that the letter-writing function of the program no longer works. For that, I have to upgrade my version of Microsoft Word. More hassle, more annoyance, more expense -- all so I can continue to enjoy continued degradation of service.
Never, ever, ever buy from Intuit.
Wal-Mart revisited
An anonymous commenter on the immigration post below writes, "If you wish to make a moral argument against Wal-Mart, go for it."
I've never had much interest in making a moral case against Wal-Mart. My distaste for the world's largest retailer stems largely from other grounds:
1. Aesthetic. We create the world we live in by where we choose to shop. 24th and King is not my idea of a livable neighborhood.
2. Historical. I cut my journalistic teeth in East Texas when Wal-Mart was spreading rapidly to every city and burg, gobbling up mom and pops by the score. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth that has never quite gone away.
3. Practical. As a small business owner, I try to do business with people who do business with me. Wal-Mart never will.
4. Geopolitical. I just don't feel like propping up the Chinese government with my retail dollars.
5. Personal. I try to support businesses that offer jobs I might want to have someday. I don't want to work for Wal-Mart.
To the extent that I make a moral case against Wal-Mart, it has mostly to do with all of the lawsuits against it for unpaid overtime. Wal-Mart denies it has a policy of forcing people to work for free, but I worked for a company that operated in just the same manner, and it isn't right.
Two statistics in the new Harper's Index bolster my arguments. One is from a Civic Economics study that found that 68 cents of every dollar spent in a locally owned Chicago store is retained or recirculated in the community. Only 43 cents of every dollar spent in a chain store in Chicago stays there.
In practical terms, to cite another Civic Economics study, this one of San Francisco, if local merchants in San Francisco were able to increase their market share by 10 percent, 1,295 jobs would be created.
The other Harper's statistic came from Wal-Mart Watch, which says that Wal-Mart avoided more than $400 million in state taxes last year by renting stories from shell companies it created. That's not immoral, maybe, but close enough.
I've never had much interest in making a moral case against Wal-Mart. My distaste for the world's largest retailer stems largely from other grounds:
1. Aesthetic. We create the world we live in by where we choose to shop. 24th and King is not my idea of a livable neighborhood.
2. Historical. I cut my journalistic teeth in East Texas when Wal-Mart was spreading rapidly to every city and burg, gobbling up mom and pops by the score. The experience left a bad taste in my mouth that has never quite gone away.
3. Practical. As a small business owner, I try to do business with people who do business with me. Wal-Mart never will.
4. Geopolitical. I just don't feel like propping up the Chinese government with my retail dollars.
5. Personal. I try to support businesses that offer jobs I might want to have someday. I don't want to work for Wal-Mart.
To the extent that I make a moral case against Wal-Mart, it has mostly to do with all of the lawsuits against it for unpaid overtime. Wal-Mart denies it has a policy of forcing people to work for free, but I worked for a company that operated in just the same manner, and it isn't right.
Two statistics in the new Harper's Index bolster my arguments. One is from a Civic Economics study that found that 68 cents of every dollar spent in a locally owned Chicago store is retained or recirculated in the community. Only 43 cents of every dollar spent in a chain store in Chicago stays there.
In practical terms, to cite another Civic Economics study, this one of San Francisco, if local merchants in San Francisco were able to increase their market share by 10 percent, 1,295 jobs would be created.
The other Harper's statistic came from Wal-Mart Watch, which says that Wal-Mart avoided more than $400 million in state taxes last year by renting stories from shell companies it created. That's not immoral, maybe, but close enough.
Stop the killing
Dave Budge quotes, with at least halfhearted approval, this post from Powerline. But the quote strikes me as entirely wrong, for a couple of reasons.
1. It's never too late in the day to decide that killing is a bad idea. It may be too late for one's own redemption (a strict reading of the New Testament suggests it's never too late even for that), but it's certainly never too late for the sake of the world and of those who remain unkilled.
2. The kids shown in the picture presumably did none of the killing. If we are going to stop the killing, then starting with the good intentions of innocent children seems as promising a place as any to begin.
1. It's never too late in the day to decide that killing is a bad idea. It may be too late for one's own redemption (a strict reading of the New Testament suggests it's never too late even for that), but it's certainly never too late for the sake of the world and of those who remain unkilled.
2. The kids shown in the picture presumably did none of the killing. If we are going to stop the killing, then starting with the good intentions of innocent children seems as promising a place as any to begin.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Bumper sticker
Thursday Delivery Day Bumper Sticker of the Week: "'The universe is wider than our view of it.' -- Henry David Thoreau"
Thursday, June 14, 2007
News needed
If anybody has anymore information about this story or this one, I would like to hear it.
I should mention that James Klessens did return my call after the paper was put to bed. Like Mr. Adams, he didn't wish to comment about the case because of pending or prospective legal action.
I should mention that James Klessens did return my call after the paper was put to bed. Like Mr. Adams, he didn't wish to comment about the case because of pending or prospective legal action.
Super heroes
This letter to the editor by the mayor was right on target and closely paralleled my thoughts when I read the letter criticizing him for failing to attend Memorial Day events.
If you read The Outpost's Memorial Day calendar, you noticed that we had no events honoring veterans listed. That's not because we hate veterans but because no one bothered to tell us that any events were going on, even though this is probably the only newspaper in town actually run by a veteran and even though I could make a good case that the people most likely to attend such events are also the people most likely to read The Outpost. Maybe the events were reported on TV; I rarely get home in time to watch the news. Maybe they were in The Gazette; although I am a faithful Gazette reader, I don't read every story every day, and I may have missed this one. So I didn't know.
In all my newspaper years, it has never much bothered me when people complain about failure to cover an event. Since you can't be everywhere, such disappointments are inevitable. At least the readers' willingness to complain shows they still care.
But I haven't much use for people who can't be bothered to tell you about an event in advance but still have the energy to complain afterward that you weren't there. It's too much to ask that we be both omniscient and omnipresent. Even in the comic books, most of the heroes have only one super power.
If you read The Outpost's Memorial Day calendar, you noticed that we had no events honoring veterans listed. That's not because we hate veterans but because no one bothered to tell us that any events were going on, even though this is probably the only newspaper in town actually run by a veteran and even though I could make a good case that the people most likely to attend such events are also the people most likely to read The Outpost. Maybe the events were reported on TV; I rarely get home in time to watch the news. Maybe they were in The Gazette; although I am a faithful Gazette reader, I don't read every story every day, and I may have missed this one. So I didn't know.
In all my newspaper years, it has never much bothered me when people complain about failure to cover an event. Since you can't be everywhere, such disappointments are inevitable. At least the readers' willingness to complain shows they still care.
But I haven't much use for people who can't be bothered to tell you about an event in advance but still have the energy to complain afterward that you weren't there. It's too much to ask that we be both omniscient and omnipresent. Even in the comic books, most of the heroes have only one super power.
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