I came to America in the early fifties.  Unlike some who arrived after the war by boat, or plane, I slipped in by birth.  The sun was shining on America in those days. The U.S. had recently won a well-publicized war, we were flush with cash, opportunity and ambition. There was no shortage of ideas, muscle or the political will to make our many dreams one happy reality. Beaver and Wally Cleaver lived just down the road, our father (everyone had one in those days) always knew best, and your mom’s friend Donna Reed could whip up a mean apple pie in the kitchen.

Those days are gone. But it hasn’t stopped a parade of hind-sighters who desperately lament those by gone days when life seemed to be normal. You can almost see the Rockwellian paradise in Rick Santorum’s voice. All of those folks who lament the good old days of family values, seem to forget that the nineteen fifties as we remember those years, happened mostly on TV.  Continue reading →

There’s over a billion technology blogs out there in cyberspace. My God, don’t any of us have lives?  I remember attending the myriad tech conferences in the mid-1990s in San Jose and other parts west, people were just giddy with excitement with anything that had to do with the computers and the Web.

Now fifteen or so years later, in the midst of a major recession, a tech job is still the island in a sea of employment desperation. I may not be overspending at the local mall but I’ll still be stealthily buying my way into poverty on Amazon.  Continue reading →