It just doesn’t get any better than this.

And if it does, someone, please bottle it, sell it, and give me royalties. We’ll be rich.

Thanks to @seanpaune, This is Now My Desktop Background is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

1 Comments

• At November 19, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  rizzn.com> Thanks to @seanpaune, This is Now My Desktop Background http://bit.ly/5×6h8

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Regarding my last post, I did receive one interesting bit of feedback that didn’t show up here on the blog.  Considering the fact that I haven’t posted on this blog for a few months with any degree of regularity, I find it amazing that anyone found my post at all, but it indeed did happen… on Facebook.

I sometimes forget that I have an oddly assorted audience on my various social networks that consist (amongst many other segments) of a few people I never talk to and couldn’t be bothered to walk down the street to meet for my 10 year High School reunion, let alone alter the fabric of my writing style just to please. You can rest assured that if I can forget the fact that these folks exist in my social graph, one or two of them can occasionally forget that my world doesn’t really revolve around theirs.

Jessica Carroll-Ogden and I go way back.  In the mid-90s, we played Legend of the Red Dragon together on the various local BBSs in East Texas, along with a handful of my nerdiest friends. We talked rarely back then (in-character and in-game), but in “real life,” she ran with a much different crowd than I.  It was only after a mutual friend after high school had me tag along while he visited her that I had a conversation with Jessica that lasted for more than a few minutes. 

In general, she’s one of those persons that, throughout my entire life, I’ve known mainly by reputation or as a friend of a friend. This may be, now that I come to think of it, the first time she’s ever directly reached out to me with real words and said something to me.

She left the following comment on the Facebook share for my blog post:

"Not cool. we call that the "R" word at my house. I have two adopted kids with mental retardation and that word makes one of them cry. And Jess is off her soapbox now."

*Sigh* Here We Go…

Look, I get that there are mentally handicapped kids in the world, and I understand that there are probably more than a few people in my life who have kids that fall into that category. Heck, one of my best friends in the world is (by technicality) mentally handicapped (and he loves the word “retard,” and has used it on me occasionally … I’ll let him out himself in the comments if he likes.).

Here’s my best advice: don’t let your mentally handicapped kids read my material, because there’s a strong possibility I’ll drop “the ‘R’ word’ again.

Why will I continue to use the ‘R’ word?

It’s freakin’ funny. It is.  I like calling people names like “ecotards” or “frigtards” or “motard” or “Jason and the Tardonauts” (I just made that last one up, but I’ve got to find a reason to use it.  Anyone have any really good dirt on Jason Calacanis?).

More importantly, in the context of my last post, it was a movie reference.  Blame Ben Stiller. Blame a dude dressed as a dude disguised as another dude. Blame the Physicians Desktop Reference.

Don’t blame me, though, I’m just the messenger.

Or, if you’re Jessica, you can continue to blame me to your heart’s content. We’ve been officially disconnected on Facebook (This is the first time I’ve ever done that – had to really hunt for the “unfriend” button).

Why the heck would I unfriend someone I’ve known so long?  Well, mostly because I paused to think of exactly what it would mean to keep her as a friend on Facebook.

1) She’d see this post and have her feelings hurt. I really have no desire to directly and intentionally hurt people, and you shouldn’t either.  If you’re one of the 27 mutual friends of Jessica and me, only show this to her if you want to hurt her feelings (and we know from her previous comments that she’s pretty sensitive).

2) I don’t want to make (more) kids cry. I get enough of that on a daily basis from my two-year-old (and you can just ask my 8-year-old how unfair I can be sometimes), and I have no desire to inflict that level of emotional trauma through the power of technology on the off-chance her kids read my retarded crap over her shoulder.

3) You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you. Damnit, I wasn’t calling her kids retards, I was calling a Yale graduate a retard. Seriously… RTFA!

4) There’s not room in this social graph for two egos this large. When I think of how long I’ve known Jessica, and how many meaningful interactions we’ve had (and how this ranks up on the top 10), I realize that there’s really no reason for me to have someone who thinks I must censor myself for her benefit as part of my “inner circle,” which is in essence what a Facebook friend is.

5) The word ‘retard’ is, was, and continues to be funny, and that hilarity is completely disambiguated from actual mentally retarded folks. It carries no social stigma like the word “racist” does.  Calling someone a retard is a victimless crime (that is unless Jessica sees it, in which case she and her children immediately become the victim). The mentally handicapped aren’t my core demographic. If they somehow become a group of people I regularly write for, I will at that point refrain from using the word “retard” on a regular basis.

Speaking of which, why is she letting her kids read my blog?

I realize I’ve let the blog go to fallow over the last several months.  My focus has been on building up SiliconANGLE, and I’ve largely been successful at it. When I relaunched rizzn.com a couple weeks ago, it has a distinctly more personal feel to it since I can channel all my ‘professional’ efforts into what I write and edit at SiliconANGLE.

This blog is generally safe for work, but let me state here and now that the blog is not safe to read if you’re mentally handicapped.  Other groups of people that should not read my blog (if they have thin skins): scientologists, people who run Twitter conferences, City Code Inspectors, socialists, President Barack Obama, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the FTC, bankers, people who work for Business Insider, Sarah Lacy, Steve Gillmor, and anyone involved in the criminal justice system in Denton County.

Speaking of which, I need to get back to work. You probably do, too.

On Political Correctness and Full Retards [Moderately Entertaining Tangent] is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

2 Comments

• At November 16, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  rizzn.com> On Political Correctness and Full Retards [Moderately Entertaining Tangent] http://bit.ly/44piLQ

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 16, 2009, Art Lindsey III wrote:

  If you're talking about me, (unless you have some other disabled friend), I am not even "technically" mentally disabled, you RETARD. If you're NOT talking about me, well, then I got it wrong, and maybe I am. Whatever.

  However, you are wrong. Sometimes it is fun to make kids cry. It depends on the kid(s). Some of them are punks. Mowing the lawn and crying at the same time, there's some therapy for ya!

More people read my Twitter-stream and my Google shared items than read my personal blog these days, but I feel so strongly about this one, I need to adapt my comments from a recent Google Reader Shared Item to blog format, just so I have this saved for posterity and can easily refer people to the sort of stupidity the eco/green debate has devolved to.

I’ve been following this sort of backlash and back and forth the green world has had when someone they respect, the guys from Freakonomics, slaughter the sacred cow of the Al Gore style green movement, cap’n’trade, carbon credit eco movement.  There’s a fellow named Richard J. Walker who’s been sharing out items in Google Reader on this topic, and I generally scan them and move on.

As an aside, I generally like Richard’s shares.  They challenge a lot of my core beliefs.  He seems to be an atheist (I attended seminary), he seems to be an environmentalist (I am a skeptic when it comes to most eco-claims), and he seems to be somewhat of a hippie-happy Californian (I’m a gun-totin’ Texan). Plus, he has a ton of nifty bleeding edge science shares that really spark the imagination.

At any rate, though, the latest few shots across the bow were chronicled in a post over at “Climate Progress,” and mostly concern a Literature major-cum-environmentalist’s quest to discredit the Freakonomics guys and their position that emergent and bleeding edge science has a much better chance at saving the earth than economically crippling solutions generally proposed by green movement leaders.

I won’t go blow by blow, Climate Progress does a decent job of that.

The post over there ends with the quote from the gal who tries to tear apart the Freakonomics guys:

To be skeptical of climate models and credulous about things like carbon-eating trees and cloudmaking machinery and hoses that shoot sulfur into the sky is to replace a faith in science with a belief in science fiction. This is the turn that “SuperFreakonomics” takes, even as its authors repeatedly extoll their hard-headedness.  All of which goes to show that, while some forms of horseshit are no longer a problem, others will always be with us.

Yeah – these back and forths have been happening in The New Yorker and the NYT, by the way.  Just so you get a sense of how big the stage is and how passionate these ecotards are getting about defending their turf.

Here was my response on the GRSI:

I’m sorry – anyone who buys into the author’s point of view here, especially in light of the quote this thing ends on – is a full-on retard.

Replacing a belief in science with one in science fiction? I’m sorry, if you truly believe that, you need to read more. The promise of scifi (sans the flying cars) is here today. Just look around. Watch a TED presentation.

That’s right, I said it. Full on retard.

I stand by that, too.  Full on retards, man.  If you can’t open your eyes and look around you at what’s possible now as opposed to simply a year ago?  Yeah. You’re retarded.  That’s your only excuse.  Only a retard wouldn’t be able to look around and see that tech has advanced to the point where our machines are almost freakin’ sentient now, as opposed to two or three years ago, where they were still making movies about that stuff.

And frankly, I think my judgment may be a slight to retards everywhere. I mean heck, while these ecotards are fighting it out at The New Yorker and The New York Times, even retards know that print publications are just about the easiest way to publish something and have absolutely no one read it.

You Just Never Go Full Retard is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

5 Comments

• At November 15, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  rizzn.com> You Just Never Go Full Retard http://bit.ly/3785N2

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 15, 2009, GooglingSEO wrote:

  You Just Never Go Full Retard- Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins: More people read my Twitter-stream and my Google.. http://bit.ly/4uN2aj

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 15, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  RT @rizzn: rizzn.com> You Just Never Go Full Retard http://bit.ly/3785N2

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 15, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  Everyone knows you don’t go full retard. http://bit.ly/omRsk

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 16, 2009, pr_frienderati wrote:

  You Just Never Go Full Retard http://bit.ly/4lVndv #postrank #frienderati

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

It’s rare I edit a podcast where bleeps would be appropriate (and Steven Hodson isn’t one of the hosts).

Marian Haas minced no words when talking about Cisco, who’s now a competitor to HP after HP’s $2.7 billion acquisition of 3Com.

John rushed down to the HP campus to grab an interview after the news was announced and came out with a winner. You should really go check it out.

The money quote: “…if you go down a couple levels down in the [Cisco] organization someone there is saying ‘Oh shit!’ They are fearing now that up and down the stack we now have a better value proposition and better platform in every layer in the architecture than Cisco has.”

Download the MP3 or Listen Below

Our prior coverage on the HP acquisition news as it broke:

Breaking News: HP Set to Acquire 3Com for $2.7 Billion
Cisco’s Joel Earnhardt responds to the news of the acquisition
John’s Pre-interview Brief

HP is Serious About Taking On Cisco… is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

1 Comments

• At November 12, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  RT @rizzn HP is Serious About Taking On Cisco…-Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins http://is.gd/4TxSb

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

I just finished doing one of the best Out in Right Field episodes ever with Art a few hours ago.

It’s worth listening to all 90 minutes, if for no other reason than not to miss the discussion on the race riots I witnessed at my high school as a kid.

“Race riots at lunchtime” is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

1 Comments

• At November 3, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  rizzn.com> “Race riots at lunchtime” http://bit.ly/3sglpb

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Generally I find the topic of Network Neutrality to be cumbersome and energy draining, but two weeks in a row, I’ve listened to TWiT give the other side of the argument a half-hearted treatment, and Jason Calacanis this week simply pleaded with the listeners for 15 minutes to go write their congressman to vote for Network Neutrality.  I tuned out at about the time Jason started invoking John McCain’s imprisonment in POW camps as evidence as to why we need a network neutral internet.

It was just too much.

Look, I’m not against network neutrality, per se.  It irritates me like no one’s business that Comcast discriminates against BitTorrent protocol, as if everyone who uses it is some sort of a criminal. I’ve been writing about how this is a bad practice for broadband companies to engage in for, quite literally, years and years (both on my somewhat low profile soapbox of my personal blog as well as during my considerably higher profile stage of Mashable when I was Associate Editor there).

The bill that has everyone up in arms is Senate Bill 1836 IS by John McCain, the aptly titled Internet Freedom Act of 2009.

Here’s the bill in it’s entirety:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Internet Freedom Act of 2009′.

SEC. 2. LIMITATION ON AUTHORITY OF THE FCC.

(a) In General- The Federal Communications Commission shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services.

(b) Exception- The limitation set forth in this section shall not apply to any regulations that the Commission determines necessary–

(1) to prevent damage to the national security of the United States;

(2) to ensure the public safety;

(3) to assist or facilitate any actions taken by a Federal or State law enforcement agency; or

(4) to ensure the solvency of the Universal Service Fund established under section 254 of the Communications Act of 1934.

(c) Rule of Construction- Nothing in this section shall be construed to supersede, repeal, or negate any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services that were in effect on the day before the date of enactment of this Act, including any regulations established pursuant to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (47 U.S.C. 1001 note).

(d) General Principles- Congress finds that–

(1) the Internet and all IP-enabled services are services affecting interstate commerce; and

(2) such services are not be subject to the jurisdiction of any State or municipal locality.

This is, in my opinion, good.  I think that the government should stay out of regulation on the web.  Every time they try to get into regulating the web, it turns out to be an incredible disaster. 100% of the time.  No exceptions.  At no point in our nation’s history has regulation of the Internet ever been a good thing.  We all know this, we’ve all participated in various Blue Ribbon campaigns, and we’ve all called our congressman over this or that.

It seems, though, that when it comes to Network Neutrality, that somehow this time it’ll be different.

Like a battered wife, for whatever reason we believe them.

Let’s Refresh Our Memory on US Internet Regulatory Efforts

Back in 1995-1996, it was the CDA (The Communications Decency Act). The CDA made it a felony to knowingly expose a minor to "indecent" material over the Net.  This was publicly rallied against by many on the ‘Net led by the EFF, and eventually struck down in 1998 as unconstitutional. You may remember it, if you used the web back then, from all the blue ribbons on everyone’s home pages and Geocities sites.

There have been dozens more attempts by the government to regulate various aspects of the Internet in recent years, though. The record industry arm in arm with the government has been for many years trying to make penalties for illegal filesharing more than just a civil matter, and the movie business has succeeded in making internet filesharing of copyrighted material criminal.

Copyright law combined with technology has proven to be especially damaging to the common man, with the government authorizing all manner of honey pot and sting operations aimed at entrapping the average user and then successfully fining them between thousands and millions of dollars.

I wrote extensively about this very topic in 2007 at Mashable in a piece entitled “Is the Listener License Coming?”

This doesn’t even begin to touch on all the failed attempts to enact bad legislation, like the 2003 bi-partisan attempt to revive the 1984 Betamax legislation, which would outlaw cassette tapes, VHS tapes as well as peer-to-peer and any other recordable media where an audio recording could be stored.

  … or like in 2008 when my favorite congressman who looks like John Tesh (Rep. Ed Markey) tried to enact legislation that would require all producers who distribute content on the web to close caption all their creations. From my post at Mashable two Junes past:

The FCC would be the organization administering all these regulations. Just in case you forgot, this is the same organization that fined a TV network millions of dollars over a half a second of accidentally visible nipple. Heaven forbid Art fail to bleep Steven on one of our weekend podcasts! We could be in for a world of fines and fees.

True, the FCC isn’t currently being tasked with monitoring the decency of the Internet’s broadcasts, but if you give the FCC jurisdiction over one element of online broadcasts, what’s to prevent them from engaging further regulations on content, structure, and monetization? Sure, that’s the tried and true slippery slope argument, but not one without precedent when it comes to governmental oversight.

The FCC has no business telling me what I can and can’t produce – this strays way too far from regulating public airwaves (not that the organization hadn’t already strayed far afield in that respect).

The language of the bill makes opt-out provisions based on “feasibility,” but is very nebulous on what feasible means. Technically feasible? Fiscally feasible? Do they even care? Do they even understand?

The FCC has remained remarkably retarded over the years when it comes to understanding their mandate and relating that to what is feasible and fiscally responsible. If you need proof of their aloof position with regard to the economics of regulation of our airwaves, try applying to receive a low-power FM transmission license. These are licenses supposedly reserved for emergency broadcast and public non-commercial programming. Despite this, waiting lists are generally years (verging on decades) long, and are still out of the financial reach of the average American.

We don’t really hafta turn back the clock to decades past, though, to see a patter of technological incompetence.  Let’s look at what’s been attempted since the Obama Administration took office:

• The FTC enacted guidelines regulating and restricting almost all speech on the Web, subjecting all users of social media to potential $11k fines per offense.
• Recovery.gov was found to cost $18 million (a site to showcase governmental fiscal transparency), but what that purchases is nowhere to be found.
• A floundering plan for national cyber-security (ask Twitter, a company recognized by the State Department as internationally vital to free expression, how that’s working out for them right now).
• A national broadband stimulus package that most pundits agree has no roadmap or guideposts for success other than the same industry players that have corrupted the Universal Service Fund for decades.
• … not to mention US AG Christine Varney’s quixotic quest to end Google.

McFly… hello?  Am I getting through?

Look – like I said, a Network Neutral Internet?  Yeah, I’m all for it.  But not at the point of a gun.

When you put the full weight and power of the government behind the enforcement of communication guidelines, you end up with more than you bargained for – always.  Jeff Nolan recently said it best: “There is one absolute truth about Washington D.C. and that is the desire for turf knows no bounds and once authority has been established it is fully exercised and rarely relinquished.”

What starts out in this administration as an altruistic means to a network neutral internet will end up with efforts decades hence to obfuscate every indecency by the same organization that tried to punish those networks responsible for Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple. Is that what we want? Do we really want an organization accountable to the statistically most corrupt collection of individuals in America?

The FCC isn’t elected, folks, it’s appointed, and when there are rare efforts by Congress to reign in their power grabs, they get ridiculed by thought leaders like they did on TWiT Sunday afternoon. I don’t mean to impugn anyone on that show, but that’s not smart behavior.

Why Do We Have a Problem With Our Broadband, Anyway?

The reason why we’re in danger of having a non-network neutral internet is the same reason why we’re ranked so poorly amongst the rest of the world when our rate of broadband speed and adoption is stacked against each other.

It’s because the government has habitually approved and encouraged large telecommunications conglomerates to monopolize markets, and create ridiculous government run initiatives (like the Universal Service Fund) to increase adoption and service quality, rather than encourage competition and decentralization of power.

If we deregulated telecom in the same ways that South Korea and Japan deregulated telecom, we’d see the same innovation in the space, and a clear lack of need to regulate network neutrality.

Few would argue that a non-network neutral ISP is a desirable thing.  If you ask a set of consumers who understand what it’s about whether they’d like a network neutral internet o r a non network neutral internet, they’ll always side with network neutrality.  If we had a truly competitive landscape in America when it came to telecom and broadband, instead of the duopoloy we’re stuck with, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

It’s hard to find resources that do a good job of chronicling how Japan and South Korea got their stellar Internet and broadband landscape, but last year I found an excellent research paper from Berkeley University that had a veritable treasure trove of details that provided historical perspective dating back to the 1800s.

Some of the more interesting factoids I gleaned from the paper:

• In the one year between 1999 and 2001, the number of DSL subscriptions in Korea rose from 97 thousand to 2.7 million
• In that same year, cable modem subscriptions increased from 17 thousand to 1.5 million.
• The rates of growth that were experienced in Japan as well as South Korea were due to governmental de-regulation.
• In Japan, the telecom was handled and regulated by the same division of government responsible for postal regulations (sound familiar?). Once that restriction was eliminated, the roadblocks were cleared for rapid growth.
• In South Korea, similar governmental roadblocks were cleared, mostly having to due with censorship.
• In both cases, demand and centralized population centers were the biggest driving factors behind adoption.

Only after rapid growth and clear dominance by a few private broadband providers had been established did the government step back in and exert a heavier hand in how the markets were regulated.

If we can re-create the type of wild-west atmosphere in North America as was created in East Asia in the late 90’s, these network neutrality debates would be a thing of the past – the free market would breed them into obscurity. 

Simply put, if the government stopped subsidizing and allowing for telco duopoly in America, we wouldn’t need further governmental regulation of our pipes.

My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

7 Comments

• At November 1, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  rizzn.com> My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate http://bit.ly/nf5eu

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 2, 2009, seanpaune wrote:

  RT @tweetmeme My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate http://bit.ly/OrFo2

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 2, 2009, jdblewitt wrote:

  My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate- Mark “Rizzn … http://bit.ly/2rQpUv

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 2, 2009, Webdatingsecret wrote:

  My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate- Mark “Rizzn …: … their stellar Internet and broa.. http://bit.ly/2xvVjn

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 2, 2009, webdateexpert wrote:

  My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate- Mark “Rizzn …: … their stellar Internet and broa.. http://bit.ly/2xvVjn

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 2, 2009, hoyttrac wrote:

  My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate- Mark “Rizzn … http://bit.ly/1kwg60

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At November 4, 2009, tsudo wrote:

  My Problem with the Modern Network Neutrality Debate http://su.pr/9eq3DO by @rizzn I can’t deny he makes a valid point

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

They’re having Halloween dress up day at HSBC, where my wife works.

Pictures are already showing up on Facebook from her friends – apparently her costume is the hit of the party.

She made this thing herself, too, by the way.  I helped.

My Wife is a Mummy is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

In what’s becoming a developing story, Cisco is getting in trouble for their recent Starent acquisition.

John has the goods on the /saBackchan

Law Offices of Brian M. Felgoise, P.C. Announces Investigation on Behalf of Shareholders of Starent Networks, Corp.

The Law Offices of Brian M. Felgoise, P.C. announces an investigation into possible breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of state law, among other things, in connection with a proposed sale of Starent Networks, Corp.

I’ll be looking into it more deeply in the morning and helping John put a piece together at SiliconANGLE.  Trying to keep my eyes open at the moment, and failing.

Shooting from the hip, I’m inclined to say that it’s either very bad for Cisco, or is just shareholder posturing.

Cisco and Starent: Looks Like Trouble is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

2 Comments

• At October 29, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  Got my personal blog migrated over to the new SiliconANGLE infrastructure: http://bit.ly/9KaIT

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

• At October 29, 2009, rizzn wrote:

  rizzn.com> Migration Successful http://bit.ly/4ATKki

  This comment was originally posted on Twitter

Today was one of the most humiliating and infuriating days in my life.  I’ll give you more on that in a minute.

The news of the day today, at least in the political-sphere, is a bit of what I’d consider to be biting political satire. All over Los Angeles, these posters depicting Barack Obama as the Joker from the Chris Nolan Batman movies are popping up (poster pictured to right).

The defensive line from the left has been saying that this is just a scare tactic to identify a two payer or single payer system with socialism (which is identified with communism, which is identified with extreme economic destitution and mass murder of it’s own citizens).

Inquisitr’s Kim LaCapria, a self-professed libertarian, analyzed the poster as such:

Meh. I appreciate good political commentary of any affiliation but this is just lazy. Protest fail. Are we supposed to be scared of socialism? Because last I checked, all my European friends and lovers have all their teeth left and don’t have to reset their own bones.

Personally, I don’t think socialized medicine needs much of a slamming.  If you’re in the know and understand the interdependencies of the various nations on the US military, it’s clear why it works in European countries – all the money they save not spending on a military (since ours supports and defends their nation), they can spend on healthcare. If they had to pay for both, they’d be as bankrupt as the United States will be.

But first, let me tell you about my no good, horrible, very bad day.

  Beyond that, though, what I’m more fearful of isn’t socialism – it’s bureaucracy and increased governmental oversight. Ronald Reagan once said that “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” Never were truer words spoken, as I found out today.

This afternoon, I had the local cops called on me – for child abandonment. Given that my son, as most days (since I work from home) hasn’t left my line of sight for more than five minutes at a time all day, you may wonder how that’s possible.

My apartment is situated as such so that I can see what’s going on in the living room from my back porch. Whenever I have a business-related call to take during the day, I usually plug my laptop up in the kitchen, which adjoins the back porch so I can get drinks and food for my two year old son Jacob Li when necessary, and to and step out on the back porch when I need quiet conversation.

Apparently today was the day that the city code inspectors picked to inspect my apartment. I’ve lived in Texas off an on for almost my entire life, and never once have any of my domiciles been subject to a surprise city-mandated code inspection before, but there is, I suppose, a first time for everything.

During today’s surprise inspection, I was on the phone on my back porch speaking with my partner at SiliconANGLE, John Furrier when I hear men’s voices yelling loudly, as if they’re trying to get someone’s attention. I had been on the back porch for no more than a two or three minutes, and Jacob was thoroughly engrossed in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, waffle in one hand and juice cup in the other. The way the sound bounces around in the courtyard behind my house, I thought it was coming from outside or from a neighbor. I looked around over the fences and such, and didn’t see anything, so I come back inside.

As I open the back door, I see two men I don’t recognize standing in my living room, my front door open, and my son Jacob running out to the street.

I come in and they’re yelling at me "Where have you been?"

I live in what I consider to be a safe neighborhood, but I also generally keep the door dead-bolted. Naturally, I’m a little alarmed that anyone would be in my house, let alone two disheveled looking workman types. Their very presence in my home (let alone their confrontation attitude and the fact that they’d just let my son run out towards the street) activated my daddy-instincts, and I began to size up the situation in my mind how I’d save my son and take out these two intruders.

I holler back as my 6’5” frame lumbers menacingly closes the distance across the household to their position: "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?"

As it turned out, one of them was the local property maintenance fellow, and the other happened to be my ‘friendly’ neighborhood code inspector. The maintenance guy had supplied the city employee with my apartment key, and since I had failed to chain the door, they had gained entry into my home.

His answer to my inquiry was unimpressive.

“We’ve been in your house for a half hour trying to figure out why this kid has no parents around,” said the city man I later learned was named Gabriel Rojas.*

“That’s bullshit, sir, I’ve been in the kitchen the whole time,” I replied.

“Watch your language with me," he said

During this interchange I’m carefully but steadily backing him out of the house – he’s stepping backwards out and I’m advancing on him.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?" I ask, incredulously. At this point he’s backed himself all the way out of the house, and Jacob has long since run back in the house.

“I said watch your language with me,” said Gabriel. “I have a right to be here, announced or unannounced, and gain entry to your home for inspection under Texas state renter laws.  Check your leasing agreement.”

I was flabbergasted at the audacity of this man, who not only came into my house unannounced and started a verbal altercation with me, but told me that I essentially had signed my rights away by renting an apartment in the state of Texas. About half a dozen legal statutes raced through my mind that I could quote to refute him, but given that I was clearly dealing with a moron with a Napoleon complex, I didn’t imagine quoting them would do me much good.

He must have taken my brief pause as some sort of acquiescence, or perhaps the look of , because he pressed home his point: “You clearly don’t want to speak to me about your home inspection or why you were gone for a half hour, so you can talk to the cops.  I’ve already called the cops a half hour ago about your abandoned son, and they should be here soon.”

I knew that the timeframe was made-up, since the police station is right across the street. If a cop were to walk to my house, it may take them four minutes. None-the-less, I locked the door, and Gabriel Rojas the City Code Inspector sat down on my front door stoop, and I awaited the arrival of the police.

The rest of the story is pretty unexciting.  Once the cops got here, I explained everything to them in vivid detail, more or less like I did above, adding only: "Look, the guy is probably saying I’m argumentative and confrontational, but from my perspective, there were two unknown disheveled men in my livingroom, my son’s running out the front door… I went into protective dad mode.”

The cop said "I completely understand." With that, he and the three other squad cars that came to attend to my heinous crime took my number, wrote down my ID information, and left.

When my wife came home, she caught Gabriel in the parking lot, where he was similarly belligerent with her, informing her that if she didn’t like it, she could take it up with the Mayor of Farmer’s Branch, TX. Subsequent to the conversation with my wife, however, he recanted his previously ‘iron-clad’ timeline when speaking to our landlord.

The landlord, (whom I’m not really on great terms with) defended me to him, he admitted it was more like three minutes, rather than a half hour that he searched the household for my presence.

“Mr. Hopkins doesn’t have a car other than the one his wife drives,” the landlord told Gabriel. “Since he works from home, it would be impossible that he’d have left his child for a half-hour unattended.”

Socialism is really bureaucracy, and bureaucracy is really evil.

To tie this intricate and detailed story of humiliation and frustration back into my original point – it was bureaucracy, regulation and ceding control to the government that gave this twit Gabriel Rojas the license to enter my house as if I were simply a squatter.  It is the position of control that attracted this little-man-syndrome having fellow to a position where he could not only bully his fellow man, but act as a busy-body in other’s affairs.

Bureaucracy and culturally shared cynicism is probably the biggest contributing factor to the overall level of frustration.  While I’m thankful that I won the police officer lottery this time around and didn’t get tased in front of my children, I’m also well aware of the fact that this passionately typed out blog post is about all the social justice that will be meted out.

Even though I knew it was futile, I still spent an hour on the phone with Gabriel’s direct superior at the city’s code enforcement division.  I learned a number of interesting but ultimately useless facts about the man: he’s had police training, he was a military policeman, he’s been in the department for some time… I heard some quieting platitudes and reiteration of the flawed ideology that code enforcement can visit their horrors on unsuspecting citizens at their whim.

We expect nothing of our government these days. Several years ago, when my wife and I were dating, over the course of a weekend, I had two direct encounters with law enforcement that more succinctly encapsulate the frustration I’m trying to convey (albeit packed with much less emotion).

I lived in Tyler, she in Dallas.  Over the two hour drive to see her, I was pulled over for traveling five miles in excess of the posted speed limit (of 65 MPH).  The conversation went cordially, if not bizarrely, enough for most of it.  Despite the fact that I was driving a late-model car in near-mint condition at the time, he thought I looked suspcious as I stood on the side of the road, and demanded to search my car. 

Since I had nothing to hide, I let him, but I made the mistake of putting my hands in my pocket while he searched, which spooked the young fellow. For my mistake, I spent the next hour handcuffed on the side of the highway while he turned my car inside out.

Later that weekend, while spending the night at a friend’s house, my car window was broken out and my radio stolen. As soon as I noticed it, I called the police, and then spent the rest of the day waiting for a patrolman to apparently never show up. The police couldn’t even be bothered to take a statement in person, and I was called and told to give a statement over the phone.  Curious at my situation, I asked the operator if they expected to catch the criminal in question.  She laughed and declined to answer.

Cynicism is great, but we’re systemically cynical to a fault…

At what point do we as a country look around and realize we live in a world that doesn’t work?

No matter who I told the story of the city inspector to, everyone had the same reaction to my sentiment of resignation to no action being taken against Gabriel the Douchebag Code Inspector: “you’re right – nothing ever comes of these things anymore.”

This is the same system of control we wish to entrust our national health care to? Let’s leave aside the historical implications of the word ‘socialism’ for a moment.  Let’s set aside the modern examples of the many alternative forms of health care insurance, private and public, that exist as options for reform. Let’s put away our feelings of partisanship – this has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans.

Let’s just examine our feelings and experiences with the government that we have.  When was the last time that government came through for you – on anything?  Have the police, over the course of your life, been a help or a hindrance to your financial and physical well-being? Are they more concerned with finding ways to curb vehicular petty crimes, or are they interested in keeping the peace?

Do you find that the many tentacled beast of local, state and federal government something that aids you, on the whole, with your goals in life? Are the people who fill those positions typically self-important loons who want to lord their small position of authority over you, or are they typically goodness-filled individuals with your best interests at heart?

You’re likely thinking to yourself of all the ways your government has failed you – not the big ways, but the death from a thousand cuts you suffer on a yearly basis.  The snotty DMV worker.  The inept TSA inspector.  The petty peace officer. The corrupt education administrators. The ineffectual congressional representative. The perversely moronic banking regulators.

At what point do we say “That’s enough?”

More importantly, at some point we need to say: “You get no more responsibility until you get the ones you have done and done right.”

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Lest there be any confusion, the Gabriel Rojas in question is the Code Enforcement Officer in Farmers Branch Texas. He can be reached at gabriel.rojas@farmersbranch.info or on his phones: 972-919-1435. His direct superior, ‘Jim’, can be reached at 972-919-2549.

Socialism, Bureaucracy, and Farmers Branch, TX’s own Gabriel Rojas is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins