Disjointed Kitsch

I’ve been writing C programs for over 20 years, but more recently I’ve been writing them for Linux/Solaris systems. I’ve been writing my own Makefiles to get my source code to compile but always wondered how other source code maintainers go about creating the “./configure, make, make install” process.

So this morning with nothing better to do I investigated the GNU Autotools. Slogging though on-line manuals was tedious so I went looking for a tutorial and ended up finding one I liked. Autotools Tutorial for Beginners was just the sort of laid back tutorial I needed to grasp the basics so I could start using them on my own project.

I’ve been playing with VirtualBox on my Mac Mini the last couple of days and I’m impressed! Not only was I able to install an ancient version of Win95, I also installed my favorite Linux distro Gentoo.

Just downloaded the Gentoo livecd, created a Guest OS for it in VBox and followed the normal Gentoo stage 3 install process. Sweet!

One problem I had was how to talk to the Gentoo VBox install from my Mac host OS. The answer was port forwarding using VirtualBox’s command line tool VBoxManage.

After trolling around the news reports of the “Potomac Primary” this evening I ended up reading a NYT Magazine piece about David Axelrod. Fascinating!

Although it was published in April of 2007 as Obama was starting his campaign, it reads like a playbook of the strategy deployed to date - the message of hope, optimism, and moving beyond the politics of the small. Of the exact themes that Billary’s hitting him with today as negatives (inexperience, no specifics, etc..) Axelrod & Co. were already waiting for and expecting them.

Compare this guy to Hillary’s “Microtrends” guy Mark Penn, who has the same roll as Axelrod in her camp. Talk about “politics of the small”. Newsweek has a good contrast piece on the two.

This is a watershed campaign year for the Democrats. They can either reach back in to the past or grab forward into the future. I may vote Democratic for the first time in a long while but it’ll only be if Barack is the guy at the head of the ticket and with out a whiff of Billary. If not, I’m holding my nose and voting Republican.

So let me get this straight…

Romney leaves the race and McCain is the presumptive nominee for the Republicans.  The far right Limbaugh/Coulter fringe says “He’s not a conservative Republican” and that they’d rather have Hillary. Talk about splitting the party. It’s not McCain that’ll do it, it’s the far right whack jobs that would rather have it their way or no way that’ll split it up.

I’m not a “party line” guy so I’m really curious as to why the Billary haters are now moving toward  her as a McCain alternative. Is it if they can’t have it their way they’d rather have it no way?

Grow up! You’re acting like a bunch of cry babies that are not getting their way. I’d really  love to see Rush and Ann out campaigning for Hillary. Perhaps we’d get some real bipartisan exchange of ideas going and actually accomplish something instead of just standing on the sidelines blathering at the opposition. What would even be better would be for them to do all that work for Hillary and McCain still get elected. Sweet!

I generally vote Republican although I consider myself and independent. I’m not on the far right wing and I’m definitely not as far left as Billary. My first vote ever was for Regan’s first presidency. I voted for Ross. I’ve voted for Democrats when I thought they could do the job better than a Republican and I’ve voted straight ticket Republican when I thought the democrats were just too far left.

Ever since Nixon I feel like we’ve lived in a “gotcha” politics world. Some part of the political segment, the press, or some special interest is out there to rip the target “du jour” up and cast him/her in an unfavorable light in order to score on their political agenda.

As an American first, not Republican or Democrat, I find this behavior disgusting. I’ve gotten so fed up that I’ve refused to engage in political dialog with just about anyone until the political discourse in this country moves away from the “gotcha” politics and move into one that represents the true spirit of America.

When I review how our country was founded and how it grew, I see cooperation and consensus building as cornerstones of our political process. Where has that gone? Are we so caught up in proving the other side wrong that we’ve forgotten that the best solutions are often forged out of compromise and blended ideas rather than a black and white choice between punishing alternatives? Frankly, I hate the political climate today.

I am interested in Barack Obama’s message of unity and hope, not a divided America, not red vs blue, but red and blue, all colors, facing the challenges and grabbing opportunities in a spirit of mutual respect, trust, and a willingness to cooperate. I find it extremely interesting that the candidates generating the most excitement in either party are not the ones on the fringes appealing to the party base but those attempting to move the discussion toward the middle. John McCain isn’t a far right Republican and Barack, although more left than I’d like, has a message that’s more in line with my hopes and dreams than Billary’s mesage of division and discontent.

I’m not predicting an outcome but whomever is elected I hope that the political dialog in this country stops being about “gotcha” and start being about finding common ground through compromise and mutual respect.