Professional

My first and major career was as a professional in computer high tech centering on data communications. About the time I turned fifty, I left high tech (or it left me:-) and attempted to embark on a second career in bookkeeping/accounting. When an opportunity to live frugally and pay all the bills without holding a permanent job arose in 2004, as employment had been such a big problem for me for so long, I grabbed it. I'm now semi-retired from the labor force, occasionally volunteering to do a little bit of computer software or data analysis or bookkeeping.

Of course having been a computer type, I can't avoid being attracted to the world wide web. Hence these pages you are looking at, which were created manually, without any sort of HTML editor at all (no FrontPage nor DreamWeaver nor even HotDog nor HoTMetaL/XMetaL) and with only simplistic image editors (no PhotoShop). I haven't completely forgotten my past life and sometimes get involved in things like helping to administer computers at the local school (including setting up a Windows Default User and networking XP Home). And of course having been a computer type, my humor tends toward computing jokes.

Personal

My life so far falls into relatively separate phases:

• Childhood and Teenager
• College
• Single Young Adult
• Middle Age Integrating Family
• Middle Age Split Family
• Semi-Retired

My favorite pastime is sitting with a cup of tea and a good book in my rocking chair.

I'm intrigued by the intersection of the public sphere and the private sphere.

I'm attracted to the idea that America became successful because of a good social contract with all its citizens. That social contract has been greatly strained recently. To me it's important to address our widening inequality. I want leaders that recognize "we're all in this together," so for example I supported the candidacy of Robert Reich for governor of Massachusetts, and I supported the candidacy of Dennis Kucinich for the Democratic contender for president. Here are the three simple planks of the USA's social contract:

1. as companies do better their workers should as well
2. everyone participates in our social insurance against being impoverished through illness or bad luck
3. everyone should be given an opportunity for a good education

I try to think and act very locally where I have some sense of control over what happens. Even so, I have opinions on some wider social and political issues:

• our country's goals and methods for combating extremist violence
• more generally the direction of the current foreign policy of the United States towards the Middle East
• the direction of the current domestic policy of the United States
• thoughts on general issues that seem common sense to me and particular thoughts on Iraq viewed with common sense, also expressed in a more allegorical style in this tale about a marauding dragon
• a few big questions that remain unanswered puzzles to me

Garrison Keillor's We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore expresses my opinions well.

I wonder if our government fell for a conspiracy theory. Laurie Mylroie in her books hypothesizes a single mastermind behind both the earlier and the final attacks on the World Trade Center, the Anthrax attacks, and more. And according to her hypotheses that mastermind was Saddam Hussein. Although it's easy to dismiss her ideas as the ravings of a crackpot, many in our government apparently fully subscribed to and even acted on them. The context of this unsubstantiated fringe theory makes things like Vice President Cheney's long disappearance to an "undisclosed location", the quick and easy conflation of 9/11 with Iraq, and the very strong reaction to the Anthrax attacks easier to understand.

Although it seems I've moved a long way away, I'm still connected to my family of origin. Also I'm aware of some of my ancestors' history, via documents such as Great-grandma Dover's Autobiography.

I'm amused by the same sorts of jokes that amuse a lot of computer types.

Family

Daughter Jennie.

Son Caleb.

They live in Ipswich and attend its public schools where current concerns include funding, advocacy, and the current emphasis on high stakes testing evidenced at the state level by the MCAS graduation requirement and at the federal level by the No Child Left Behind program.

Their mom Kaye is a professor of psychology at Gordon College in Wenham MA.

Hypothesis

A theory says that every person in the US can reach every other person through someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows the person you want to reach. To test for yourself if this is true, try following these links that were part of the Six Degrees Of Separation project.

Residence

Both I and my ex-wife and kids live in the very small town of Ipswich Massachusetts. It's the town where Crane Beach is, north of Boston. As a "townie" I get almost-free access to the beach. I can cut around the lines at the entrance booth and go to our own parking area.

Ipswich is far enough from Boston to to have its own identity rather than just being a suburb or a bedroom community. One wag recently commented Ipswich is a bit like Mayberry RFD. Many of our merchants have a presence on the commercial website for the town, and the Town of Ipswich has an official website that contains a lot of information related to town government. I live on the main street of downtown, over Ye Olde Barber Shop, across from the fire station. My kids live in the same house I used to live in little over a mile away.

Location: N42 40.86' W070 50.35'  (North America> USA> Massachusetts> Boston> North Shore> Ipswich) Time: UTC-5 (USA Eastern Time Zone)  (UTC-4 summertime --"daylight savings time") Email comments to Chuck Kollars

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