The images comprising this short audio/photo slideshow are of my father and his two brothers as they traveled back to their boyhood home, La Plata, Missouri. The year was 2005.

As if the constant drumbeat of financial wrack and ruin isn't enough, now comes word that an American cullinary institution is on the ropes. If the financial meltdown hasn't hit home for you yet, this should give you pause:

TAMPA - The days may be numbered for "scattered, covered and smothered" hash browns at Waffle House. The iconic roadside grill's biggest franchisee has filed for bankruptcy protection.

The action escaped attention locally, but a company called Northlake Foods Inc. of Brandon, which operates 146 Waffle Houses in Florida, Georgia and Virginia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in mid-September. Chapter 11 allows a company to reorganize its finances while protected from its creditors.

According to its bankruptcy filing, 90 of Northlake Foods' Waffle House locations are in Florida, but it wasn't immediately clear how many local restaurants it controls, if any.

The company filed for bankruptcy because Waffle House Inc. of Norcross, Ga., was threatening to terminate the franchise agreement that gives it the right to operate the restaurants, the bankruptcy filing says.

I have very fond memories of Waffle House. My MSNBC colleagues and I virtually lived at Waffle House during our weekly rotations into and out of Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi, two back-to-back towns that were 90 percent wiped out by Hurricane Katrina.

One of the biggest mistakes a new administration might make in its first 100 days would be to ignore the impact technology has had on the privacy of our communications and the striking need to update the law accordingly. If the President fails to act early in his first term he will miss a window of opportunity that won't soon reopen, and it will be to the detriment of the Internet economy and to privacy rights. Much of our personal information is shared--and stored--online; yet the laws protecting that information are outdated and haven't kept up with technological advances.  Our information, often in the hands of third parties, looses much of the Fourth Amendment protection it enjoys when stored digitally at home or on paper.

In other words, current law discriminates against web-based applications in terms of the privacy they afford. This discrimination could put Internet technologies at a competitive disadvantage as consumers grow concerned about how private their information really is.  The next administration should take immediate steps to address this issue, but it shouldn't stop there.  For a closer look at the issues of security and technology the next president will confront, take a look at what the Center for Democracy & Technology has done in an effort to draft a kind of action outline for this issue and several others.

I've told friends and family repeatedly over the course of this election season that I didn't believe America was ready for a black man to be President. I based the majority of that opinion on the conversations and attitudes I experienced first hand during my 18,000 mile trip across this country in 2006. However, after seeing Barak Obama's acceptance speech tonight I am a doubter no more.

Republican or democrat or independent, if you weren't moved at times by Obama's speech tonight you have no heart. You may not agree with the politics; you may not agree with the programs and policies he articulated in this speech, but you had to agree with his call for personal responsibility and change from the old way of doing things. "Change doesn't come from Washington, change comes to Washington," Obama said.

And so it does; so it will. I'm sure McCain's speech will be stirring; I'm also sure it will be straining to hit the same crescendo of Obama's speech tonight.

And now for a small bit of fact checking. I'm getting sick of hearing the McCain camp parroting this bullshit about Obama voting to rasise taxes on people making $42,000... (and earlier in the campaign, McCain claimed that figure was 32,000... but they reached that figure by estimating tax deductions and figuring that the 32,000 was the AFTER TAX figure of someone making 42,000. But McCain's campaign pulled those ads after they were busted by several non-partisan watchdog groups who pointed this fact out them).

So, here's the truth--refute this if you can, but don't blow a gasket trying, because there is no "there, there."

First, Obama's vote was for a non-binding resolution of a Democrat budget plan; that's a ceremonial vote that basically says, "Well, this sounds like a good idea." And the plan was never enacted into law.

The truth:

It's true that a single taxpayer making $42,000 this year would have seen an income tax increase. "So what's your beef, Brock? You just confirmed the McCain claim!" Well, if we're in a court of law and you can only answer "yes" or "no" the the question: would Obama's vote have "raised taxes" the answer would have to be "yes." No way around that. But, but, but, but... that's not half the story and it's ignoring and distorting the full story that pisses me off.

A SINGLE person (and McCain's ad tries to portray the tax increase on FAMILIES making $42,000) would have seen a tax increase in the mind-numbing amount of $15. Yes, 15 measly dollars. And remember, it wasn't an official piece of legislation and it never passed. And it assumes that the taxpayer did not qualify for more than the standard deduction.

A single mom with two children could make as much as $62, 150 in total income in 2008 without being affected by this measure that Obama once favored. It gets better. A family of four, husband, wife and two kids, could make up to $90,000 without seeing any tax increase.

Obama's current proposed tax plan (and it would remain to be seen if it could pass, should he be elected), promises cuts for middle-income taxpayers and would increase rates only for persons with family incomes above $250,000 or with individual incomes above $200,000.


And speaking as someone who nearly hit that salary benchmark (one year at least), if you're in that salary range and can't afford to kick in some extra taxes to support this country you're one greedy son-of-a-bitch. When I was making that much money I had MORE than enough to live a hugely comfortable life-style; I joyfully gave money away to people and causes in need and it gave me great pleasure to be able to do that. I had the purchasing power to buy anything I wanted (ok, c'mon, within reason) AFTER putting 10 percent of my income each month into a retirement plan.

The nation is ready for change; I hope we have the courage to embrace that readiness.

BEFORE GOD, country and network TV, the council trotted out a 14-year-old to confess his “sin” of having glimpsed naked ladies on the Internet while at school. But not before the kid’s parents — with two smaller siblings standing by — verbally skewered a school system that allows kids unfiltered Internet access.

Though this family willingly gave their full names, including that of their son, as they stood before a room full of reporters and cameras, I’m going to leave them anonymous.

"My wife and I have prayed that if our children did something they were not supposed to do, they would get caught,” said the father. “Well, the Lord answers prayers and our son was caught,” the father intoned.

The offense: viewing porn on the Net. The self-righteous parents said this was their son’s “first exposure” to pornography and that they were “shocked and appalled” that it occurred at school via the Internet.

While the cameras focused on the parents, the kid stood motionless, each revelation driving another emotional spike into his psyche. As he stared at the ground, I tried to imagine what was going through this kid’s head. I didn’t have to imagine for long.

The father called his son to the podium to make his own statement! And there, like a criminal being made to stand before a judge handing out a sentence, the kid mumbled how wrong he had been and that “I agree with all my Dad said.”

I half expected the kid to just go for it and spill his guts: “All right, I admit it! I also accessed the Democratic National Committee site. My mind filled with liberalism and I gave all my lunch money to a homeless man.” No such luck. The kid just slunk away and took his place in the family lineup.

After this fiasco, I spoke to Vic Sussman, a friend of mine and top-notch cyberspace reporter in his own right. He was just as stunned. We tried to decide how many years it would be before this kid ended up climbing a clock tower with a hunting rifle and picking off unsuspecting citizens while the local TV interviewed horrified neighbors and friends all saying, “But he was always such a quiet and polite boy.”

Oh, I hear some of you yelling at me. “Wait, you trotted out your own son in this very column talking about how he accessed porn on America Online!”

Very true, but very different. You don’t know my son’s name, I didn’t hang him out to dry for the 6 o’clock news and I certainly didn’t berate him or imply that his natural God-given inclination was somehow wrong. I talked to him, honestly and openly.

SECOND OPINION
At first I thought perhaps I was being too harsh on this family for publicizing the boy’s actions, so I sought expert advice. “If this father believes this is a way to correct his son’s behavior, he has a very distorted view of caring and loving parenting,” says Nancy Faulkner, who has a Ph.D in counseling psychology and knows a few things about parenting and caring. Faulkner is an advocate for victims of sexual abuse and her efforts to keep sexual predators off the Net are tireless. She has 15 years of clinical experience, having worked as the director of a mental health outreach facility and program administrator for an adolescent psychiatric in-patient program.

So, what’s the damage here? “This public humiliation is very likely to either induce tremendous rage,” Faulkner said, “and/or dramatically impact his self-esteem and self-concept in a negative direction. Something he will undoubtedly remember for life.”

To get a second opinion I asked another expert: my 14-year-old son. “I’d kill you if you tried that on me,” he said, “or you’d have to kill me to get me in front of that camera.” And then he added, “They probably paid him a ton of money.” Ah, my little skeptic, wonder where he gets that?

So here’s the bottom line. Often under the banner of “protect the children” the kids are the very ones who get ignored or pushed aside, all in the name of grabbing headlines or furthering an agenda.

Perhaps the father in this story should spend more time talking to his son rather than praying he’ll be caught doing something wrong. Or one day he may find his son has a sudden affinity for hunting rifles and high places.

First published by MSNBC News, December 1997

Imagine Bill Gates launching into a full-on voodoo rhythm rant about how much time is wasted fiddling with his company's software, doing needless but mentally-masturbating tasks... ok, maybe that's too close to reality. Try this: Imagine one of the developers of a popular news aggregation site putting his own creation in the cross-hairs of his cursor and blasting away.

That's exactly what Aaron Swartz does in a Raw Thought "rage against the machine" missive that takes us all to task for wasting time for all the right reasons.

While we were developing Reddit, we always used to run into people who'd recognize us and come up to say hi. "Oh, wow," they'd say to us. "I can't tell you how much your site has killed my productivity. I check it a hundred times every day." At first, we just laughed these comments off. But after a while, I begun to find them increasingly disturbing. We'd set out to make something people want -- but what if they didn't want to want it?

For too long, simple popularity has been the only metric of a startup's success. Another startup, known as Twitter, has recently broken into the mainstream. And I constantly hear people saying things like "Yeah, well, I know it seems like a pointless waste of time. But it's so popular!" As if anything so popular had to be worthwhile.

Swartz makes the claim that while we are really capable, and maybe even desirous of reading War & Peace, what we end up doing is reading blogs and hitting the browser bookmark for Twitter because it's just so damn easy.

The same goes for reading stories on Reddit or your friends' pointless twits about their life. Looking at photos of sunsets or reading one-liners takes no cognitive effort. It's the mental equivalent of snack food. You start eating one and before you know it you've gone through two cans of Pringles and become a world expert on Evan Williams' travel habits.

Swartz, well into a full-on lather now, goes right for the virtual jugular: We need to stop pretending that this is automatically a good thing. Perhaps Procter & Gamble doesn't care if they're making us into a nation of fat slobs, but there's no reason why programmers and the rest of the startup world need to be so amoral. And no doubt, as pictures of cats with poor spelling on them become all the rage, people are beginning to wonder about where all this idiocy is leaving us. Which is where apologists like Doctorow and Steven Johnson step in, assuring us that Everything Bad is Good For You.

It isn't. YouTube isn't going to save us from an Idiocracy-style future in which everyone sits at home and watches shows like "Ow! My Balls!" (in which a man is repeatedly hit in the balls) -- YouTube's damn-near creating that future. As I write this, YouTube's #1 featured video is titled "Farting in Public".

Is all this beginning to make you squirm just a bit? Good. Back in the "good old days" of the Internet, circa the mid-1990's, I hung with a crowd that began to question all the time "everyone" was spending online (forgetting the fact that we were all on dial-up lines at a scorching 9,600-bps... and if that is greek to you, well, wiki it) and wondering if it were an "addiction."

We got over that... the Blackberry was invented and our "crackberry" addiction just became a running joke because when everyone paints their nose green only those with purple hair are outcasts... or something like that.

Point is, Swartz is sounding a goddamn clarion call here and it deserves some attention... just as soon you IM your BFF and send her a link to this article. TTYL.

With the nation, natch, the world, still listing from the worst mass murder in U.S. history, emotions have risen to the surface and lay exposed, like a raw nerve.  People are sad, depressed, confused and underlying all of it, they are pissed off.  And they have no place to channel that anger, some will drink it away, others will lash out at loved ones and friends, most will just swallow it where it will lay buried, like some roadside improved explosive device, waiting to explode at the most inopportune time. 

This is a dangerous time, there is little oxygen in such an emotional climate and yet crucial, life changing decisions and laws have life breathed into them.  We saw the same type of over reaction in the aftermath of 9/11. 

Step back and just breathe.

Meanwhile, consider the following report from Newsday reporter Tom McGinty who side-stepped the pack journalism that typically surrounds such events and did some worthy reporting that really puts Monday's tragedy in perspective.

Think you've heard it all when it comes to the writing and story-telling about war? Think again....

Death at a distance is doable. At least that's what I always told myself as a foreign correspondent, even as bullets tore through bodies left and right of me as I traveled with the Afghan rebels in early 1989. You keep your head clued in--and down--watch your back and, when rockets start to rain down from the sky, well, you just hold your breath and pray. But death isn't doable, it's merely tolerated or kept at bay, it is never denied.

Death came calling today, literally, at 7:08 a.m., when the phone rang and I learned that the sister of my youngest son's close friend had died Monday in the Virginia Tech massacre. The news was raw and brutal. And I always thought there had to be six degrees of separation for these types of things. Hell, there's less than six blocks of separation. My son can walk to his friend's house in less time it takes me to shave. This kid was on my son's Little League team; he's been in my house too many times to count; he's tracked mud on my floor, and apologized, and now the dragon has come.

Fifteen minutes later, with the sleep barely wiped from his eyes, I have to sit down and tell my son the news. He is unblinking, then his eyes start to rim with tears and I'm trying to be brave but feel a dam about to burst down my cheeks as well. "Stephen's going to really need a friend now," I say; my mind is screaming, admonishing me: "Is that the best you can fucking do?!"

I'm wondering that myself because I am no stranger to death; in Afghanistan a man died on my back as I tried to carry him to safety. Three times death has circled my door, as three times a son of mine has tried to ride the dragon straight into hell. Three times he has failed, but each time his journey took him further and the effort to pull him back proved more tenuous. No parent should have to bury their child. And maybe that's what has me numb this morning.

No Parent Should Have to Bury a Child
I fear few things, but the thought of having to bury one of my children settles in my bones; it horrifies and torments me (in October one of my four sons, a Navy corpsman, is heading to Iraq with the Marines).

And I am immediately sad for Peter, Stephen's dad. We haven't spoken yet but just imaging the emotional ordeal he endured on Monday breaks my heart, as I piece together some details from other friends and neighbors. After a thousand and one attempts to reach his daughter, Mary, a freshman at Va Tech, Peter decides a little after 6 p.m. to make the four-hour drive to Blacksburg, VA, where the university is located. Pedal to the metal, it's a race against time that he fears he may have already lost... about the time he arrives on campus an official from the university is pulling into his driveway back at home, knocking on his door, and telling his wife that their daughter is dead.

By luck, or chance or some inspired move in the great cosmic chess game, Stephen's grandparents are visiting this week. Stephen's mother left this morning for Blacksburg; meanwhile, Stephen and his other siblings are staying home from school, they still haven't been told the news. But Stephen is a bright 11-year old kid--he and my son both attend a "gifted" program at school--he's got to be thinking the worst.

When I was a little kid, just about my son's age, a friend of mine who lived three houses down, Jim, lost his brother; he drowned on his honeymoon. I never did hear the full story, hell I was only 10 or 11 and I just didn't care about details. But I do remember trying to ask Jim about it and remember him exploding; he started yelling at me, spittle flying everywhere and collecting in the corners of his mouth, all the while denying his brother was dead. And then he just collapsed on his bed, shuddering as he wept. I'd never seen anything like it, and I felt embarrassed, even ashamed. We never, ever, spoke about that day. For the rest of the time I knew Jim, through our high school graduation, he was never quite right. He withdrew and then just slipped into the anonymous margin of our hometown.

So now I wonder how this will all effect my son and his friend. I wonder if I'll have anything worthy of passing on to my son that might help him, help his friend and allow them to muddle through the experience and find that death, at some level, is doable.

Photo credit: AP Photo/The Roanoke Times, Stephanie Klein-Davis