I Don't Care Where He Is

Edward Snowden, the former contractor who is credited with pulling the veil off of PRISM, the massive federal surveillance program, is in Moscow at this writing, reportedly asking Ecuador for asylum.

Hero or traitor, he picks some strange places to escape U.S. charges: Hong Kong (China) and now Moscow. He reportedly considered Cuba and Venezuela. Perhaps since Julian Assange was able to hide in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, Snowden figured he’d find some refuge in that South American country.

Those who think he’s a traitor would no doubt prefer to see him in the confined spaces of an American prison, but his other choices aren’t so great. If I were choosing places to live, Hong Kong, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador would probably not be high on the list. He can never again set foot in the United States or a country that’s too friendly with us if he wants to avoid capture. Those who want to see him paying a price for his misdeed might take some comfort from the fact that he will always have to be looking over his shoulder. As for Julian Assange, BTW, I don’t see the Ecuadorean embassy listed among London’s five-star hotels. Plus, he can’t use any free tickets to those West End shows.

It may be easy for others to conclude that Snowden is a hero, but heroes don’t always get an immediate ticker-tape parade.  We’ve only recently gotten close to the concept of honoring our own service members who fought in unpopular wars. Heroism usually requires a price of some kind, which Mr. Snowden is already paying.

Personally, I would prefer we spend as little time and money as possible on this fellow. And perhaps we’ll be a little more careful before we hire government contractors in the future.

One piece of advice, though, Ed: If I were you, I’d be careful to avoid open spaces. With this administration’s penchant for using drones, well, a round of golf might be a really bad idea right now.

Got Your Number

OK, everybody, knock it off!

I got it. It’s 12.12.12, and this is supposed to mean something. The Bible is full of 12s – 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles. There are 12 inches in a foot. We buy eggs by the dozen. 12 dozens is a gross.

Why must we humans heap meanings on things that really have only one? 12 by itself is a NUMBER. That’s where it begins and ends. It may have interesting mathematical properties. So have a good time, but don’t get exercised about it.

Apparently, 12 has lots of significance in Judeo-Christian culture, but there are other cultures. From what I read, the big number in China is 8, so couples jumped through hoops to get married on 8.8.08.

A numerologist once told me on a radio show that my life path number was 5. I read that I’m supposed to be happy-go-lucky and adventurous. I am neither. The description says that I’m a good communicator. I’ll leave that up to the readership here.

It’s a little like astrology. You think you were born under a certain sign, and it may have worked as a pickup line in a bar in the ‘70s, but in fact, the sun apparently travels through two extra constellations these days, so what you think you are, you’re probably not.

To return to numbers, the only ones that have any great practical use for me these days are those in the bank account, the cholesterol count and perhaps the percentage of body fat. There may be one or two more.

But in the end, can at least some of us agree that this preoccupation with the meaning of numbers is all about having too much time on our hands?

Is My Microwave Oven Spying On Me?

We are by no means Luddites in my house, but we were perfectly content to use a microwave oven that was the better part of 40 years old, until it began emitting strange sparks and flashes not seen since the original 1931 version of “Frankenstein.” It’s a little early for Halloween movie rentals. But we had to think about safety first.

So, we bit the bullet and decided to buy a new oven, and this is a whole different animal in many ways. For one thing, it puts out twice as much cooking power. For another, it has all kinds of bells and whistles the other one didn’t have. With the old one, we just turned the time dial to the desired cooking duration and pressed the button. When it was done, it was done. The new one not only has a digital display, but seems to know what you’re going to cook ahead of time – or maybe it’s my imagination.

There’s a particularly intriguing feature called Total Cook Plus. With this one, you read a code off the package of microwave food you want to cook, punch it in with the oven’s keypad, and the oven cooks the food according to specification – you don’t even have to read the directions on the package.

But here’s the thing: To activate this feature, you have to put in your Zip code. Why on earth would an oven want your Zip code? Well, it figures out the atmospheric pressure where you live. and it makes adjustments accordingly. Such things affect cooking, apparently.

Well, at least that’s what they say. But how do I know it doesn’t have other applications? You’ve been hearing the stories about how electronic devices made in China and sold here are feared to have some “back-door” technology that allows someone sitting at a computer in Fujian or someplace to control the device. I suppose if I’m cooking Chinese food, and someone in China has a better idea of how to do it than the oven does, I should remain open to suggestions. But what else is that oven doing? What kind of data is it mining? It already knows what I eat. What’s next?

This all reminds me of a movie from the 1970s called “The Demon Seed,” in which a computer tries to get Julie Christie pregnant. Maybe that’s a better rental for Halloween.