So it’s Thanksgiving and if you still have relatives around it’s a problem.  I wish I had one of mine around.

His name was Fred and he hated it. I met him when he married my Aunt and the first thing I remember about him is he used to tickle me and say “Ice Cream, Ice Cream, Ice Cream”.

That was not his most objectionable trait.

He was also a writer and as I look at my life it’s just amazing how much I have modeled his very worst habits.  I’m a solitary recluse except when I’m practicing politics (in real life folks, takes a heart of stone to cut someone who delivered their votes to me, and I have one).

Fred always respected my space because he understood that being a writer meant spending large quantities of time reading and staring at the ceiling waiting for a muse and then turning out a piece of crap on deadline.

You know, like this one.

He was a public relations professional, an educator, and a Longshoreman (very proud of his Union memberships which he maintained throughout his life).  He lived in New York City and on a commune with a goat and dirt floors.  He spent several years picking rocks (I’m going to stop right here and explain.  This is a pretty common seasonal agricultural occupation in New England where the frost heaves up stones during the winter and you have to pick them out of the soil before you plant).  He never had to work in a chicken factory though except when he taught there.  He wrote for newspapers and magazines pretty continuously, but he also did screenplays and plays, many of them for children.

In fact I’d say the bulk of his work by piece was children’s plays which he wrote for my Aunt to produce with her theater students.  You see if you use commercial material you pay an arm and a leg for it.  She says the worst thing for her is that he was around to see everything she ever produced.

And now, he’s not.

He was a terrible poet who’s efforts mostly reflected his twisted sense of humor which was formed by his admiration of Soupy Sales, the Marx Brothers, and the Three Stooges.  He wrote some short stories and novels, most unpublished, but his magnum opus is his collection of B-Movie quotes which is far more extensive and accurate than IMDB.  He has a collection of over 2000 tapes and DVDs and about twice that in books which will need to be cataloged.

I’ll probably end up his literary executor, not because his daughter (my cousin) is incapable of the task, she’s a book editor, but because she’s busy with two kids and a Masters degree in Special Education and I have the computer skills to detangle his drive which I expect is a mess.

He died unexpectedly after a short illness.  I had not seen him for several years nor was I able to get there before he passed.  I suppose it’s for the best, it was quite debilitating and I suspect that was not the way he wished to be remembered.  I hope he knew how much I admired and respected him.

And so, instead of being with you this evening as I originally intended, I am serving a Thanksgiving feast I and my immediate family and friends have prepared at his memorial.  Sorry I’m not here to interact as is my usual custom.

Addendum:

As it turns out this is not even my first this week.  My political ally and partner lost his mother.  He is a good friend and was the candidate until he lost.  He decided to go in a different direction with his life, I persisted and became Capo di Tutti instead of Consigliere.

I hope you’ve all had a happy, healthy, and safe holiday, so what’s your fucking problem?

(h/t John Aravosis @ Americablog)

Happy Holiday Celebrating the Massacre of the Indigenous People of North America.  I hope that you and your family and friends are happy and safe with plenty to eat and be thankful for.

So not the droids you’re looking for.

N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power

By JAMES RISEN and LAURA POITRAS, The New York Times

Published: November 22, 2013

In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”

…

Using sweeping language, the paper also outlined some of the agency’s other ambitions. They included defeating the cybersecurity practices of adversaries in order to acquire the data the agency needs from “anyone, anytime, anywhere.” The agency also said it would try to decrypt or bypass codes that keep communications secret by influencing “the global commercial encryption market through commercial relationships,” human spies and intelligence partners in other countries. It also talked of the need to “revolutionize” analysis of its vast collections of data to “radically increase operational impact.”

…

Intent on unlocking the secrets of adversaries, the paper underscores the agency’s long-term goal of being able to collect virtually everything available in the digital world. To achieve that objective, the paper suggests that the N.S.A. plans to gain greater access, in a variety of ways, to the infrastructure of the world’s telecommunications networks.

…

Yet the paper also shows how the agency believes it can influence and shape trends in high-tech industries in other ways to suit its needs. One of the agency’s goals is to “continue to invest in the industrial base and drive the state of the art for high performance computing to maintain pre-eminent cryptanalytic capability for the nation.” The paper added that the N.S.A. must seek to “identify new access, collection and exploitation methods by leveraging global business trends in data and communications services.”

And it wants to find ways to combine all of its technical tools to enhance its surveillance powers. The N.S.A. will seek to integrate its “capabilities to reach previously inaccessible targets in support of exploitation, cyberdefense and cyberoperations,” the paper stated.

…

The agency also intends to improve its access to encrypted communications used by individuals, businesses and foreign governments, the strategy document said. The N.S.A. has already had some success in defeating encryption, The New York Times has reported, but the document makes it clear that countering “ubiquitous, strong, commercial network encryption” is a top priority. The agency plans to fight back against the rise of encryption through relationships with companies that develop encryption tools and through espionage operations. In other countries, the document said, the N.S.A. must also “counter indigenous cryptographic programs by targeting their industrial bases with all available Sigint and Humint” – human intelligence, meaning spies.

…

One of the agency’s other four-year goals was to “share bulk data” more broadly to allow for better analysis. While the paper does not explain in detail how widely it would disseminate bulk data within the intelligence community, the proposal raises questions about what safeguards the N.S.A. plans to place on its domestic phone and email data collection programs to protect Americans’ privacy.

N.S.A. officials have insisted that they have placed tight controls on those programs. In an interview, the senior intelligence officials said that the strategy paper was referring to the agency’s desire to share foreign data more broadly, not phone logs of Americans collected under the Patriot Act.

Above all, the strategy paper suggests the N.S.A.’s vast view of its mission: nothing less than to “dramatically increase mastery of the global network.”

A ‘new’ Game? Show that’s going viral-

Snowden Leaks Old Journalism Textbook, Media Shocked

By: Peter Van Buren, Firedog Lake

Friday November 22, 2013 9:42 am

In yet another dramatic revelation flowing out of whistleblower Edward Snowden, a journalism textbook from 1983 has been sent to several large media outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times and the trailer park where Fox News is thought to originate.

“To say we’re shocked is an insult to electricity,” said a spokesperson from the Post while speaking with the media, who refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media. “We had no idea. Not a clue.”

“For example, it says here that ‘journalists’ are supposed to gather facts, analyze them, and then ‘report’ what they learned,” stated an unnamed former somebody from Fox. “This flies in the face of our current practice of transcribing what government officials tell us anonymously and then having someone read that aloud on TV. We are still trying to find out more about the ‘analyze’ function of journalism, but Wikipedia is down right now. Anyway, we blame the liberals.”

Fox News went on to say that a chapter in the book about naming sources so that readers themselves could judge the value and veracity of the information “just came from Mars” as far as the organization is concerned. “I mean, if we named our sources, they’d be held accountable for what they say, you know, and I doubt we’d have much access to the big boys after that. We’d have to start hiring people just to go out and gather news, maybe outside the office even, instead of just from the web. Something like 90% of our content comes from press releases from ersatz think tanks controlled by PR firms. Our whole business model would have to change. And that thing about ‘questioning’ what the government says? How are we supposed to do that? Who do they think we are?”