Not much time to blog today: I'm off to my wife's grandfather's memorial service. He had a good run—just a week or so short of 102 years old, and he lived in his own house till he was 97! Sometimes it's just time, but we'll miss Frank Blair nevertheless.

“Dr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey has seventeen degrees from eigthteen institutions of higher learning. She is a world-renowned and much-feared expert on just about everything.” Read all about HOW books and the amazing world of Dr. Haggis-on-Whey and her husband Benny at their Web site, http://www.haggis-on-whey.com/. You can view selected pages and even order her first book, Giraffes? Giraffes!.
[Via McSweeney's]

One of my students came to talk to me tonight about a contract he had been offered with a local small business. Not a position, a contract. A closed-ended, six-month contract. To do what? To be the entire IT department for the firm; to administer the network, servers and workstations; to run a VoIP phone system; and to complete an upgrade from Windows 2000 Server to Windows 2003 Server. The pay for this contract? Fifteen dollars an hour!! What is wrong with these people? Don't they know that you get what you pay for? This is a Master's degree student, who already has a Bachelor's in IT and is a CCNA. Using the ComputerUser.com salary calculator, this job should be getting about $64K per year: not the measly $30K they are offering! Even for contract jobs, www.ticker.computerjobs.com says this should be an average of $30/hr for just network administration. I have a friend with a contract position with a local government agency—with a similar broad range of responsibilities—who is getting 6 times what this firm is offering. This job, with all of the attached responsibilities, should be a salaried position with a title (IT Director?) at $70 to $80K/year. The sad part is that someone will probably take the contract because these are hard times. BTW, I advised my student to tell them to take a hike; he can find a real job.

One year from today—April 21, 2005—everyone who handles Electronic patient Protected Health Information (EPHI) is required to comply with the Security Rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) (except for small health plans, who have until April 21, 2006). This rule is codified as 45 CFR Parts 160, 162, and 164: “The security standards...define administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information. The standards require covered entities to implement basic safeguards to protect electronic protected health information from unauthorized access, alteration, deletion, and transmission.” Compliance with HIPAA Security will become a cottage industry over the next two years as even single-doctor practices who use a computer to store patient information will discover that they are subject to this rule. In a Security Focus article, Steven Weil explains the rule and its implications, but the article targets Security and IT professionals and not doctors, many of whom are completely unaware of their responsibilities under this rule. If you own a building that leases space to doctors and you provide Internet connectivity to your tenants, and they transmit EPHI over the network, you come under this rule! A Google search on “HIPAA Security Rule” produces over 8,000 results, most of them (it seems) targeting Information Security Professionals in the health care industry, but there is some hope for the small practice in the form of products like TurboCharge HIPAA Security which for a relatively nominal fee ($495) promises to provide all the tools to bring your practice into compliance. I do not envy those who have to wade through this stuff, but for out of work IT pros who need to pull in some much needed dineros, a few good HIPAA compliance tools coupled with a little marketing savvy could easily spell a successful HIPAA compliance consultancy. (Q: What do you call an unemployed IT professional? A: A consultant!). I'm almost tempted myself...no just tempted. But you could do it...really!

From reliable sources in the Pentagon, here are recent comments from a Protestant Chaplain in Fallujah:

All, Hot and sunny on Good Friday...quiet in Fallujah and Ar Ramadi. The Coalition has announced a pause in offensive operations. Humanitarian aid is being searched and then allowed into the city of Fallujah. Defensive operations continue 24/7. It is all war, all the time. The bad guys are regrouping. So are the Marines. The brawl will begin again...probably tonight. All intel points to the bad guys redistributing ammo, enlisting kids in the fight and moving for new cover. Convoys are limited..danger of ambush is high. Life in Blue Diamond continues, with an edge. Imagine a place the size of Lakeland Shores with 5 times the population. One asphalt street, two dirt roads. Due to the siege..no sanitation service for three day..that includes pumping satellites...We are on the edge of the town..we see the minirets of the city and we hear the immams sermons as they rail against us....good thing few here understand Arabic cause I can tell you the preachers weren't teaching the golden rule today. Morale, sky high...extra intensity..friends are on the line. The senior NCO's and officers here, feel the pull the most. They have served with or trained everyone on the line..The Corps is a small community. This is very personal. If a person can do something to help the outcome of the fight..they'll find a way..it's that kind of day..all for one, one for all. I divide the day; Holy Week service planning, convoy prayers, and COC intercessory prayers.

First, I go to the DIV Chaplain office to meet with the command Chaplain, Chaplain Divine..the fighting Irishman. What a man. RC Christians...be proud..you've got a great priest here. He spares nothing to get to his Marines. He loves Marines and he loves God. He waded into Ar Ramadi during the fire fight, three days ago...to provide ministry at the aid station...came back weary but satisfied he was where he was needed. He's on the road, to all the FOB's ministering to Marines. I had the privilege of praying for him, this morning. If he goes down the morale in this Division would take a huge hit. They love him.

Second, I work to coordinate Good Friday, Easter Sunrise and Protestant Easter Service. Having services in a war zone is a little different.
A) We have to worry about getting large numbers of people in one place. One mortar round into the right place and you could kill alot of marines.
B) Organists are in sort supply and we don't have an organ. Music?
C) We are going to worship and it will be well attended...we need Easter..because we live in the valley of the shadow of death..we need the resurrection.

Third, twice a day I go to the 'Cave'..the combat operations center..which is housed in a former palace..poorly lit and the hub of fighting the battle...I stand in the corner and pray for each person/position and those they represent. I don't know many of them, but God does. I pray for wisdom, strength, mercy, endurance and God's presence for each warrior all those they serve or represent. I cover the Cave and the battle field as I look at live imagery projected on the wall. I don't know how the Marines do it...but the COC is loaded with strack looking Marines. The senior NCO's all look like NFL lineman. The junior officers look like marathon runners and the mid-grade officers look like NFL halfbacks...the senior officers are lean, tanned and serious..deadly serious. The place exudes the warrior spirit. If you are a civilian I can't explain it and won't apologize for it. If you are a veteran you don't need to have it explained..the warrior spirit. These Marines are in a street fight. They don't have the word 'lose' in their vocabulary. They've been bloodied and their anger is up. The intensity in the COC is contagious. This is a tribe of warriors. They exist to close with and destroy the enemy. They have their tribal mores, rituals and rites. Their enemy has desecrated members of the tribe and taunted the Marines. They've asked for a fight. The Marines are in full pursuit and absolutely determined to annihilate their foe. I'm sure that sounds harsh to politically correct ears and those for whom this type of violence is anachronistic. It does not sound foreign here...it is status quo. We are in a violent land, with an evil element and they are having violence visited upon them. There is no room here for half measures. This is a test of wills...one side will prevail. That is clearly understood and never discussed..it is obvious. We aren't playing paintball..we are at war.

Fourth, Convoy prayers...convoys go out of here regularly. I hunt them down..pass out a small card with a convoy prayer on it and then gather whoever wants to pray and we pray. The number of prayers is going up, hourly, as the ambushes continue. Here's how intense it has become..today's standard preconvoy brief now includes the following: “If you drive into the kill zone..two options..drive through and on, or reverse and drive out. Do not stop. If you are blocked into the kill zone..displace from the vehicle, find cover, fix the target, engage, manuever and destroy the hostile forces. Target selection..rules have changed...avoid civilians, if possible. Hostile forces are now using civilians as shields. We are not interested in losing more marines. If you can avoid putting civilians in your line of fire, avoid it. If not, fire to take out the hostile forces.” Implication? Chilling...we've entered a new dimension. We are fighting an enemy who respects no laws of humanity, knows no rules of land warfare and gives no quarter. How do we fight, without become barbarians ourselves?

Fifth, ministry of presence..in a place this small..I walk from shop to shop and just say, 'hi'..can't tell you the number of times someone says...“Hey, chappy..it's great to have you here.” Something about seeing a chaplain is calming to folks this close to the fight. Good Friday in Ar Ramadi. While you're having lunch I'll lead the evening Good Friday service. We will remember our Savior who willingly laid down His life that we might live...and we'll be thinking about young marines and soldiers who are willingly putting their lives on the line so Iraqis can be free...no great love hath a man than to lay down his life for his brother...

Good Friday to you,
John

The wartime diary of Lieutenant Charles C. Winnia, USMC was found behind a drill press in the garage of his former division leader, Captain Alonzo B. “Brew” Treffer. Brew's son David passed the dairy along to Carl Richardson, a former Marine aviator himself, who transcribed and posted the entire diary on the Web as The Diary of a Marine Corsair Pilot in the Solomon Islands. Lieutenant Winnia was killed in action and never returned from the Solomons. Through an unlikley series of coincidences involving Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, the diary came to the attention of his girlfriend, Jane “V.J.” Watkins, whom he had met in graduate school at Vanderbilt University. The story has also been covered on NPR's Morning Edition; on their site you can hear V.J. read Lt. Winnia's last letter to her. This is teeny slice of history that personalizes World War II and helps make it real now that we are now so far removed from it.

“Perfessor” Bill Edwards, Professional Patriotic Purveyor of Pleasingly Pianistic Pyrotechnics, has an amazing gallery of old-time sheet music covers. There are a lot of really interesting images from the late 19th & early 20th Century, many of them patriotic. I ran across this during a Google image search for “Midshipman”. I also came across two really neat sites of military cap collections, Rick's Hat Check Room and a Japanese site simply called Military Cap Collection. Isn't surfing fun?