When I visit a country, I like to learn how to say the usual polite things: Hello, Goodbye, Please, Thank you, It was like that when I got here. Starting two years ago, I’ve found myself learning a new phrase:

I am sorry about George W. Bush

German: Ich bin über George W. Bush traurig

Spanish: Estoy apesadumbrado sobre George W. Bush

French: Je suis désolé au sujet de George W. Bush

Italian: Sono spiacente circa George W. Bush

Portuguese: Eu sou pesaroso sobre George W. Arbusto*

Chinese (simplified): 我是抱歉关于乔治・W. 布什

Japanese: 私はジョージW. ブッシュについて残念である

Korean: 나는 조지W.부시에 관하여 유감스럽다

Russian: Я огорченн о George W. Bush

Greek: Λυπάμαι για George W. Bush

Canadian: I’m so sorry aboot George W. Bush. Sorry for bothering you with this apology, eh?

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*Why Google’s language service translates Bush’s last name as a noun only in Portuguese (as far as I can tell) remains a mystery. Babelfish does not.

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Children of Abraham has posted an exhibit of photos by young Moslems and Jews:

Children of Abraham 2004 is an internet-based collaboration which has involved over sixty participants (interns) between the ages of 15-21 from twenty-three countries in the development of an online photo essay that highlights the core similarities between Judaism and Islam. An advanced interactive website has enabled these interns to discuss their work, and to engage in frank, probing dialogue on sensitive issues of culture, religion and politics.

…Many of the interns came from parts of the world where they have had no contact with the other faith. Maria Ali-Adib, a Syrian co-director of the project, was impressed by the openness displayed by interns during this process of discovery…

…More than 1,500 photo images were collected and some 3,000 postings submitted on the discussion boards. The project will have a fall photo exhibit available to be accompanied with comments from the interns. Current efforts include the formation of Muslim-Jewish dialogue groups by interns in their schools and communities, and a compilation of the summer’s online discussions for use as educational material.

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Microsoft is not providing connectivity during the conference I’m at, so I’ll be off the air for awhile. Frankly, it feels like they’re trying to hijack my attention and I resent it.

Later: Microsoft listened. Sort of. They’ve brought in enough lines for most of us to connect. Unfortunately, they have left them turned off until lunch lest our attention wander where it will go. So, I have been unable to google terms I don’t understand, check out web sites people have mentioned, and chat with Liz (who’s sitting next to me). Sigh.

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I’m traveling today to be “briefed” (i.e., schmoozed) by Microsoft at an event I’m not yet sure I’m allowed to mention. I’ll let you know. (And, yes, they’re paying my expenses.) Rest assured, neither facts nor the Beast’s warm embrace shall sway me from my prejudices.

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I’m in Chicago to be the lunchtime speaker at a meta-conference — it’s for meeting planners — and the Hyatt I’m in has a mint theme. Mint shampoo. Mint conditioner. Mint body scrub. Mint “ice body wash.” As a result, I’ve come out of the shower smelling like a molar.

It’s always enjoyable to attend a conference based around a particular hotel and realize that every attendee smells like English Rose or Sand Breeze. Somewhere a hotel marketing director got a good deal on pine-scented toiletries, so now the International Conference on Hydraulic Research smells like it slept in a Georgia forest.

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Mitch Wagner of TechWeb lists JOHO as one of the best tech blogs. Hahahaha. Mitch obviously has JOHO confused with, well, a blog that knows something about technology. Perhaps my current electrical problems (no pun intended) have convinced Mitch that I am an electrical engineer of genius-level deviousness who is committed to a rigorous program of self-abuse. Or perhaps Mitch is coming off a two-week Outward Bound course focusing on extreme sarcasm. In any event, thank you Mitch. I am touched and deeply deeply confused.

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It’s Yom Kippur. My family is in shul, but I’m here blogging. I’m also fasting, but that’s because I’m a meta-agnostic: I’m not sure if I don’t know if there’s a G-d.

Yom Kippur is about getting beyond all the crappiness we humans have managed to do to one another in the past year and starting again. It’s not a free pass. You have to make right what you’ve made wrong. But, the relationship isn’t symmetrical: You don’t get to demand justice from those lousy bastards who treated you like dirt. You forgive them. And if you don’t, you are now the lousy bastard.

Forgiveness makes no sense in terms of justice or psychology. Someone broke the rules, and you’re supposed to let it go? Someone hurt you and you’re supposed to act as if they didn’t? Forgiveness only makes sense because we’re so fallible, so flawed. Is there anything we get right all the way? We forgive because we couldn’t share a planet if we enforced all the rules all the way that perfect justice demands. We forgive one another because being human is the price of being human. We forgive because otherwise love would be an other-worldly value.

The Web exalts forgivness, but computers do not. To live on the Web, if you want to connect, you have to let lots slide. And you don’t even notice. You breeze past the typos, errors, disjointed thoughts, half-baked premises, outlandish assumptions, gross manners, inappropriate remarks and eye-burning color-schemes because there’s something to love in what — and who — you’re reading.

Computers, on the other hand, only know from rules. If one bit goes out of order, the whole house of charges can tumble. Computers’ obsessive-compulsive need to manage every bit — it’s what they were born to do — is proving too much of a temptation for us. In our fear-based belief that the perfect order is perfectly rule-based, we are falling prey to creeping Accountabalism, the belief that there’s no harm in tracking every bit. We’re eating ourselves alive.

But, while computers are rule-based, we are not. We need leeway to live together. We need openness to build a world we can’t predict. We need forgiveness so we can love one another or at least not beat each other to death with tree branches.

So, because I live so much on the Web where I can’t know exactly whom I’ve hurt, I know I owe apologies to many of you for not treating you the way you deserve. I can’t apologize in general and if I don’t know I’ve hurt you, I can’t apologize specifically. If I can make it up to you, let me know. I will try to do better.

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Someone sent me a link to a grainy video that seems to show a US helicopter pilot blowing up a dozen people in Fallujah.

I don’t know if this is an unaltered video.

I don’t know if it in fact shows an incident recently in Fallujah.

I don’t know if the event it shows is as unjustifiable as it seems to be.

Do you?

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My one-month-old Thinkpad X40 needs a new motherboard. Yesterday, it stopped noticing what was plugged into its USB ports. Today it can’t find its audio board. IBM has authorized the repair.

This occurred while I was on the road, lending credence to the theory that my electrical problems are not due to bad wiring in my house but in fact stem from some sort of perturbance in my aura. Or possibly an electrolyte balance. Ultimately, I think, we have to blame it on Karl Rove.

By the way, not having my laptop for the next few days is pretty much a freaking disaster since I’m leaving to give a talk early next week.

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It’s in images that I find myself remembering those who died in the attack. Horrifying, heart-tearing images. But it’s with an intake of breath that I remember those who walked into flaming towers to save others.

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