Victor Rozek
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As I See It: The Artist And The Pragmatist
December 5, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreGather around, boys and girls, Uncle Victor is going to tell you a story. And what a story it is, full of greed and generosity, cooperation and betrayal, respect and disdain, and even death. Scheherazade would be envious. OK, maybe not, but the stakes were higher for her.
In any event, once upon a time, there were two little boys, and for a long time that’s about all they had in common. One was abandoned at birth and became a college dropout who collected Coke bottles for food money. The other was very much wanted, went to exclusive schools (which,
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As I See It: Privacy Pirates
November 28, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreNovember is when my property taxes are due. And living in a state without sales tax, they tend to be high. But the amount is not what rankles me. It’s the fact that in a nation built on the sanctity of property rights, I will never truly own my home, even after the final mortgage payment is made. The reality is that as soon as I’m unable to pay my taxes, the state is empowered to take it away from me.
Although property rights are at best tenuous, they are so deeply embedded in our mythology that it seems heretical
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As I See It: Finding Balance In The Living Years
November 14, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThe shadows are just beginning to crawl down the massive sandstone walls as we struggle into our dry suits and neoprene socks. A thick pair of river shoes and a sturdy walking stick complete our outfits. It’s early morning and still cold as my wife and I prepare to embark on one of the legendary hikes in the National Park System, The Narrows at Zion. Zion is a long canyon carved over the centuries by the Virgin River. You enter the canyon from the south and it gradually constricts as you travel north until the walls close in and the
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As I See It: One Cabbage Leaf
October 24, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreNations are typically organized around a set of founding principles and enduring personality traits. France initially coalesced around the rallying cry of the revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and later embraced overpriced food and rude service. America united in its support of individual rights and unlimited use of fossil fuels. And Canada stood unabashedly for real maple syrup and hockey. But whether it’s settling a frontier, relieving a monarch of his head, or deposing whatever crony the CIA chooses for you, once governments achieve their basic mandates, the wise ones seek new ways to improve the lives of their citizens.
By
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As I See It: The Other Final Frontier
October 10, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn its 123 years of existence, National Geographic magazine has explored some inhospitable landscapes. Intrepid adventurers have hacked across the Amazon jungle, inched their way through underwater cave systems on the Yucatan Peninsula, and pulled sleds in sub-zero temperatures through ice and snow until they ran out of North. But in this month’s issue they tackle what may be the most impregnable and unfathomable landscape of all: The teenage brain.
Teenagers have been the source of parental discontent since Ayla roamed the Neanderthal frontier looking for a split-level cave. Neanderkinders no doubt lost their spears, failed to tidy up the
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As I See It: Celebrating Ignorance
September 26, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreAt one time, bloody bandages were hung on poles to dry after patients were bled by physicians. It was the origin of the now innocuous red-striped barber pole. Of course, the association of barber poles with primitive medical practices has long been lost because bleeding is no longer an unchallenged medical practice. But that’s the way of certainty: it crumbles like a stale cookie.
Certitude is a beast with a short life span. What people believe, what they live for, die for, and kill for, changes as surely as the seasons. Truth is mutable and yesterday’s facts become today’s folly.
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As I See It: Going Silent
September 12, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreMy first IT job was working swing shift computer operations for a Silicon Valley wafer manufacturer. In those days, disc packs were removable and resembled layered cakes consisting of a stack of platters coated with oxide icing. Each evening I would run a long series of sequential jobs. The process needed to be expeditious if there was any hope of finishing by shift’s end, which meant starting the next job as soon as the preceding one ended.
But even if I wasn’t glued to a monitor, the movement of the heads across the platters provided an accurate indicator of progress.
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As I See It: Paying Attention
August 22, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read more“How the hell did this happen?” The late fiction writer Robert B. Parker called it “humanity’s cry.” For those not paying attention, that always seems to be the question, after the fact. Why are jobs so scarce? Why did the deficit explode? What happened to the economy? Tardy but reasonable questions given the misinformation surrounding our seemingly rapid decline. If you’ve lost your job, or are fearful of losing it; if you’re searching for work but can’t find it; if you’re unable to make your mortgage payment, or know someone who has lost their home, it’d be nice to at
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As I See It: Piling On
August 15, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThere’s a phenomenon that takes place in extreme mountaineering that is perhaps illustrative of human nature. Teams ascending the highest peaks like Everest and K2 will often come upon a solo climber from another group who is clearly in trouble and in imminent danger of death. The nearer the summit, the more likely that person will be left behind. Granted, the margins at altitudes well over 20,000 feet are small, and the choices limited. But there is a “me first, me at any price” ethic that essentially says: I paid for this, I trained for this; this may be the
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As I See It: Barry, Barry Bad
July 25, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreMore often than not, ethical behavior seems to be determined by distance–either real or virtual. The Internet provides a daily reminder that the more removed an offender is from the outcomes he creates, the more emboldened he becomes. And the corollary is also true: The more remote the victim, the easier it is to harm her. Stealing an old woman’s money from the safety of Nigeria is easier than mugging her in Des Moines.
Technology offers criminals, the mean-spirited, and what Hannibal Lecter described as “the free-range rude,” a high degree of immunity from discovery and retaliation. It’s as if