Conversation with a god

eclipse

Of those who like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, only some can stomach The Silmarillion. Tolkien was able to keep people rapt with attention in the former, but the latter is for die hards who wanted to understand how it all fit together. I fall into the latter camp, but even so it took me several tries to get through. Here now is an imaginary interview with the head honcho of that book, Eru Illuvatar, copied without permission from Gods Gossip, the god trade rag.

GG: So Eru, what makes you different from other gods?

E: Well, to start with, I give away the ending in the beginning. Most gods try to keep all their cards to themselves, revealing only obliquely their designs. Not me. You get through the first chapter and you know where we end up. I’m a little cagey about where things end up, of course.

GG: For example?

E: I all but told that schnook Melkor what’s going to happen. He had a choice. They all had choices. He could have not gone into the world. Others didn’t. He had the crap kicked out of him. Twice! I guess I gave him mush for brains.

GG: Your colleagues approach creation differently. Are you a moral god?

E: I like to think so. But I really don’t need to be in the bedroom of every elf, man, or (so help myself) dwarves. And really to me it has never been about who kills who. If it were, the theme would have been sedate, and I probably would have fallen asleep creating the world, and that wouldn’t have been good. And all this praying. I mean really. Does anyone think I really am not paying attention? No sycophants for me in my world. Except for Manwë.

GG: You say you don’t care who kills who. But then what was your goal?

E: I like balance. Perhaps it’s not balance between good or evil as my unofficial biographer had put it, but just about power. Melkor set himself up to topple everyone else, and then his successor tried the same thing. In the end it was a close call in both cases. I know it looks like I couldn’t

GG: How successful would you rate yourself on your ability to achieve balance?

E: Quite successful. I mean it took two midgets and a lunatic to tip the scales.

GG: People always wonder about wizards. Can you say a bit more about them?

E: Wizard this and that. The biggest mistake a god can make is going the wizard route. It’s really hard to achieve balance if you have a few people who have more weight than the others. I mean, look at Harry Potter. Why is he so great as opposed to others? It really does gnaw at me.

GG: I’m sorry – I meant your wizards.

E: Emm. Right. Well, I really didn’t want them to play a big role in my world. Really they were meant to be more of an information conduit, so that elves and men took the hint that there might yet be a problem. I only gave them a little something extra to get peoples’ attention, but then my mind wandered in song. As you’ve no doubt noticed, I gave free will to everyone, so far as they could tell. Heh.

GG: Got a favorite god you look up to?

E: Me. Who else?

GG: Right. Just joking. Thanks for taking the time with us today.

E: I take the time every day.

Happy Swiss Confederation Day

On this happy occasion, let us take a few minutes to discuss some of the benefits of living in Switzerland. To start with, people are polite to a fault. Our family has been treated with the utmost respect the entire time we have been here. In our town, people greet each other in passing with Greuzi, and they say good-bye when they part.

While the trains run with well known precision, what is not so known is that you can get virtually anywhere in Switzerland through the extensive network of not only trains but also buses. The trains are also kept clean not only by the SBB, but also by the passengers themselves. One need look only so far as the neighboring countries to understand that it is hard to keep the transit system clean, and easy to create a mess. The Swiss have worked hard. Most of what we need is close at hand. That includes two supermarkets, three bakeries, day care, two post offices, several banks, a pool.

Joanna enjoys swimming, and for a very reasonable amount she can do so nearly every day of the year. How reasonable? What we pay in a year here wouldn’t cover the cost of the service in California for a month. But don’t get the impression that Switzerland is a socialist state, for it is perhaps the least socialist state in Europe. We do not have a social healthcare system, but we do pay a very reasonable fee per month for insurance. When we want to see a doctor, we see one. Not a nurse, but a doctor.

While I have come to realize that there is no perfect place, Switzerland is even attempting to do away with some of the things I would think of as flaws. Smoking here has dropped dramatically, even in the time we’ve lived here.

So here’s to you, Switzerland! Maybe next year I’ll recite this auf Deutsch!

Why Extradition of Hackers Is Important

Each day we hear about different forms of fraud and theft on the Internet. Someone in America gets phished from a computer in the UK that is controlled by another computer in Switzerland, that is controlled by an individual in Italy, and their bank account emptied to a mule in America, and the money ends up with some gang in Russia.

Even if you found the individual in Italy you have to answer this question: where was the crime committed? The Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe addresses this very question, and fosters cooperation amongst cooperating societies. Extradition is so rare that it is worth pointing out when it happens. On the 30th of July a UK Court refused to block extradition to someone who is accused of having caused many hundreds of thousands of dollars to US government systems. While in this case the government was a victim, something that happens all too often, far more often it’s individuals who are harmed. In this case the person sounds a bit disturbed. Let’s hope that next time they extradite people who do this sort of thing to make money, and demonstrate to them that it is not worth the risk.

Because the risk of getting caught is so small, this is an instant where the penalties should be very high when intent on theft, fraud, or disruption of services is clearly evident.

Doha Dead

World trade talks collapsed this week in Doha over food subsidies. I had previously discussed the potential impact on Switzerland. However, the collapse of these talks, the inability to reduce barriers, particularly subsidies in the U.S., has harmed countries where agriculture is still the dominant export, or would be if such tarrifs didn’t exist. The question remains: what protections are appropriate, even absent tarrifs? What sort of quality standards must be observed? If they are observed, then does the cost of living and production overcome the cost of transportation? And is the impact of transport on health and environment understood and accounted for? Many millions of lives and lifestyles depend on the answers. Food has to be affordable to all and safe to produce and eat.

Ignore This Day!

Ever wonder how talk show hosts come up with topics? I’ve been doing this blogging thing now for a month, and I am beginning to gain some appreciation for topic selection. I’ve often been told that it is better to say nothing at all than to say something meaningless. Not that I’ve listened, but that’s what I’ve been told. There are an infinite number of things going on in this world, and a nearly infinite amount of things that I have no opinion on. So that leaves open a question: if I want to blog regularly, what to talk about?

Today I could complain yet again about the Bush Administration and their perversion of justice by hiring cronies. I could complain about the fact that they blew the budget by $482 billion, much of which was spent on a war that was mismanaged from the beginning. I could add to the sympathetic sighs that singer Amy Winehouse continues to go through her travails, or that Kelsey Grammar goes through his.

Instead, this space is reserved for something positive to say about the world. Not so much today, eh?