Ptolemy Grey's Apartment Motivates Me To Renew Clutter War Efforts

In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Walter Mosley writes about a 91 year old man whose grand nephew comes by his apartment twice a week to take him shopping for cans of tuna.  I'll skip ahead to where Reggie is out of the picture and 17 year old Robyn is now over to look out for Ptolemy.

Ptolemy's mind is not always in the present and his apartment is a mess.  No, that doesn't describe it.  In fact, reading this made my mom's garage seem eligible for a spread in Better Homes and Gardens.  Let me give you the picture.

"What is that smell?"  Robyn asked him.
"I don't know.  There's parts'a the house I cain't get into anymore.  The bathroom, half the kitchen.  I ain't been deep in the bedroom since before what's-his-name, uh, Reggie, would come."
"You got a bedroom an' you sleepin' under a table?"
. . .
"Don't go in there," Ptolemy said when Robyn opened the door to the bathroom.
"I got to, Mr. Grey,"  she said.  "If I'ma be comin' here an' looking' aftah you I got to have a toilet to go to."
While Ptolemy tried to think of some other way he could have Robyin's company and keep her out of the bathroom, she opened the door and went in.
"Oh my God,"  she said.  "What is this?"
A large wad of blackened towels flew out from the doorway and landed with a thump on the small bare area of the crowded floor.
Ptolemy covered his face with his hands.
"You got suitcases in the bathtub,"  Robyn called out.  "An' there's black stuff growin' in the commode.  There's, oh my God, oh no. . ."

The kitchen and the bedroom have similar problems.  But soon Robyn takes Mr. Grey to the hardware store and buys a bunch of cleaning equipment and garbage bags.  And some bug bombs.  They go to a motel for two nights while the bug bombs are killing the cockroaches and other vermin in the house and then she spends five days cleaning the apartment.

Five days.  That's all.  I was embarrassed.  I've been fighting the clutter wars at a downright leisurely pace.   I've even got a clutter war tag on the blog.

Five days.  I need to set some deadlines for making room in this house.  Mind you, our commodes have no evil black gunk nor are there suitcases in the bathtubs.  There's just one room downstairs which has been a staging area for things moving out of the house.  The garage is the next way station for outgoing junk.

Five days.   OK, now I'm getting serious.  And while most of you probably don't care about any of this, posting it, I hope, will force me to speed up the pace and really get the garage and downstairs storage room into much more aesthetic and usable space.





An hour tonight in the garage.  It's not a lot, but it's a start.  I find taking pictures of big jobs before I start, helps remind me when I'm done for the day, that I actually have accomplished something.  (I hope you can tell which is the before and which is the after picture.)



I still have to figure out where to get rid of a couple of old computer printers.  OK, thanks for indulging me here.

By the way, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey isn't a great book, but it's good, and it did get inside the mind  of a 91 year old who is having troubles staying in the present.  As a youngster myself, I can't judge the accuracy, but it did make me think about what the world might look like when my brain isn't always functioning right.  

Hensley Report on Election Now Available - Form Over Substance

The Municipal Attorney's office has released Judge Dan Hensley’s review of the April 3, 2012 Election.   It's structured nicely and touches on many of the issues, but doesn't tell us anything new and doesn't take any kind of serious stand on anything.  He does say there is an additional addendum still to come on the Data Processing Review Board that used to monitor the voting machines but was eliminated. 

I've got the whole report posted (thanks Scribd) below.  And then a few thoughts of my own at the end.

From the summary:

1.    Nothing intentional was done
2.    The Deputy Clerk in charge made mistakes
3.    The Clerk should have supervised more carefully
4.    They should make changes in the rules.

In the body it does discuss the Minnery email (but doesn't mention names) and the broken seals on the ballot boxes, but just says, they happened.  For the seals, it says to tell election workers to follow the rules next time.

While he says he did some interviews, "The information I learned in my interviews did not differ in any significant respect from that contained in the Commission's summaries.  For this reason, in addition to my own interviews I relied on the Commission's summaries." But we don't know how many interviews, who, or what he asked and what they said.  And we know the Commission told the Assembly no seals were broken.  (Hensley does recognize that there were broken seals.)

Hensley Report on Anchorage Municipal Election July 2012


When the citizens group that originally called for (and ponied up $1500 to have 15 precincts recounted) met with the Assembly's Attorney and turned in a very detailed report of problems, I suggested in that post that it would be interesting to compare what they presented to the Assembly for free to the $30,000 report this retired judge presents.

The Assembly eventually voted to refund the $1500.

The contrast between the two reports raises serious questions about how money is spent for 'experts' rather than for good quality products.  This new report doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know and has none of the details that the Citizen group provided.   It would be interesting to know exactly how much time Hensley actually spent on this and who he interviewed.   As an outsider he seems to have gone over all the information that was already known and summarized it.  This is a great example of form over substance.

Clutter Wars: Old Photos - Checkpoint Charlie 1964-2010, Loussac Opening

My new strategy in the Clutter War is to get rid of things in the garage to make room for boxes from the house.  But I'm being distracted by what I'm finding - like old photos.

Here are some pictures from the year I was a student in Göttingen, Germany.  I'm in the window the day I painted my room in the Forum student housing building on Brüder Grimm Allee, on my scooter (I think it's a Lambretta, but I don't remember for sure and can't find pictures on line that match this model.  But I did find a history of the Lambretta here, beginning before it made scooters, including a 1939 declaration that the factory was  a "model of fascist establishment.") There's a picture of me at the Fasching Party and one with Claudia in Berlin at Schloss Charlottenbe[u]rg.  These are all 1964 and 1965,

In 2010 we visited Berlin and I took and posted this picture of Checkpoint Charlie which is now just a tourist attraction with a guy in a soldier suit in the middle of bustling Berlin.  But I couldn't find my old pictures until today.  The back of the 1964 picture says, "Checkpoint Charlie from ramp on Western Side looking over the wall.  Barbed wire on bottom of picture is on top of the wall."  That's me looking at the sign.   In those days the space between East and West Berlin was no-man's land and today it's just a historical footnote in the middle of Berlin at a point where you otherwise would have no idea this had been the border.

In the last set, you can see Loussac library at what I think was the official opening in 1986.  Then there are two kids preparing for Halloween (this picture is here for their spouses to enjoy).  And finally a picture my son took of his father during the red beard period.  I don't have exact dates but these are mid 1980s.  

OK, back to the garage.  I don't think I've made much room today.

Scam or Real Problem? Living With Parasites [Updated]

I got this email today from a blogger friend:

Hi Steve,

A few minutes ago, while I was visiting your blog, the warning that I attach appears in my screen. It says:

Warning: something is wrong here

"whatdoino.steve.blogspot.com.es has contain from  borderland.northernattitude.org a well-knowed site  malware distributor. Your computer can be infected by avirus if you access to this site (...)"

Maybe you should check your computer with an antivirus...

Regards,

Here's the original message that he received:

Click to enlarge and focus

Since my blog is not on my computer, but somewhere on Blogspot's stuff, if there is a problem it would have to be there. And borderland.northernattitude.org is a blog run by a Fairbanks school teacher that I have linked. It's hardly a malware distributor. My guess is that my friend got some scam message trying to get him to buy some anti-malware software.

Anything good, just attracts parasites. I'm talking about the internet in general, not my blog. But this goes for any institution that gains any kind of crowd or good reputation. The pickpockets quickly show up to take advantage. And the scam artists impersonate the officials  of the respected institution hoping to gain credibility from its good reputation. Look at all the sleazeballs who have joined various churches and use them to work out their own personal dysfunctions.

But if anyone who knows more than I do about the inner workings of this system thinks I'm actually spreading malware, could you please let me know and what I need to do about it.

[UPDATE July 2:  I got some thoughtful email from Mike who checked out my source code and Doug's source code at Borderland - where I got a warning message when I tried to go there.  Doug's emailed me to say his site was hacked and he's redoing it.  While I imagine there will always be people who mess up other people's lives, I also suspect that the less disparity in income and the more people who have loving, balanced parents, the fewer people who would do stuff like this. I know this could be happening to my site and I don't have the skills that Doug seems to have to fix it.  But I'd learn.  And it's good to know there are folks like Mike who jumped in to offer help.  Thanks.]

June Ends, July Begins - Cottonwood, Construction, Contentment

 A breeze blew the cottonwood seeds from our big tree in the afternoon.  Fortunately, we don't have cottonwood allergies.  (For a lot more on cottonwood, here's an old post on this untapped Alaska resource.)

Later we went got onto the Seward Highway at Tudor.  The highway is being widened and the four bridges over Campbell Creek are going to be raised and a real bike trail constructed under the roads (including the frontage roads on each side.)
This is the on-ramp merging into the highway.

We had dinner with old friends who moved to New Zealand but are back in town visiting.  They are staying above Potter Marsh and the time flew as we talked about many things.  It was after midnight as we went home and I stopped for this view of Turnagain Arm, Potter Marsh, and Mt. Susitna.

Photography Is Not A Crime - Blogging, The First Amendment, And Your Camera

Even at this relatively mild blog, I've been threatened with law suits twice, and I was accused on a local talk show of killing someone with a post that didn't even mention the guy and which was much more factual and restrained than the talk show host. 

So I have an interest in people who blog about first amendment rights for bloggers and  for photographers - especially those who are keeping public officials honest.  It began with a Reason post I stumbled on which gave three rules for how to photograph a cop from Carlos Miller:

1 Get it on video. Police think twice when dealing with video, as opposed to a still camera. If your camera has video capabilities, start rolling. If you have a smart phone, use a live stream service like Qik that stores the video online immediately. Inform the officer that the video is live streaming and people are already watching it online.
2 Assert your rights. Police also think twice when dealing with people who know their rights. Inform the officers that they need a subpoena before confiscating your camera, even if they demand it “as evidence.” Police can confiscate your camera only if it was used in the commission of a crime, such as child pornography.
3 Just leave. Ask the officers if you are being detained or are free to leave. If they are detaining you, they must have reasonable suspicion you are committing a crime. Taking pictures or video in public is not reasonable suspicion. If they are not detaining you, then you are free to leave—with your camera.

 This led me to Miller's blog - Photography is Not a Crime - which is full of stories about people having problems when they photograph or video tape cops in action or just in public places.  Here are links to some of his recent posts:

[UPDATE July 30, 2013:  I've updated the link to Photography is Not a Crime above.  I've removed the links below, but if you go to the link above, you'll find lots of examples like these.]

• NYPD Publishes Poster of "Professional Agitators," aka Citizens who Record Cops

• LAPD Tell Photog Not to Listen in on Their Private Conversation on a Public Sidewalk

• Introducing TapIn, an iPhone App Essential for Citizen Journalists

• Albuquerque Police Officer Chases Away News Videographer From Investigation

• Austin Man Facing 10 Years in Prison After Photographing Cops Making Arrest 

This last one is about a West Point grad who served in Iraq who was arrested.

My short visit to his blog does suggest that Miller tends to take the side of the photographer and while I'm sure there are photographers who provoke police, I'd guess more often than not, police are simply irritated and taking advantage of their power.  In any case,  it is useful to be aware what kind of trouble your camera (or smartphone) can get you into and know your rights before something happens.

That led to looking for other blogs focused on blogging, photography, and the first amendment.

http://photoblawg.wordpress.com/ - the most recent post I could find was August 2011, but there are interesting stories by " San Antonio photojournalist and law student Alicia Wagner Calzada"

The Radio, Television, Digital, News Association  Website - has Ethics Guidelines for Social Media and Blogging 

The National Photographers and Photojournalist Association - has articles on rights of photojournalists

For the most part there are articles and posts on this topic on blogs and websites that deal with a wider range of topics.  Here are a few:

Chicago police arresting photographers 

DOJ affirms right to photograph police

PATCO:  Photographers are probably not terrorists

Caught on camera:  Lancashire police arrest amateur photographer

All dressed up and nothing to do except arrest photographers

  

[UPDATE JULY 30, 2013:  See also this video an encounter with a Swedish police officer for a contrast.]

Affordable Care Act - Victory - And Media Framing

Fox News:  The ruling is a victory for the president

New York Times:  In a striking victory for President Obama

Michael Moore on Democracy Now: "This really is a huge victory for our side, in spite of all of my concerns with this law,"

CNN:  Thursday's narrow 5-4 ruling was a victory for Obama,

There's lots to speculate about the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act. Too much.  So I'll just focus here on the media reaction, particularly all those who have framed it in terms of zero-sum games, in terms of winning and losing. 

Game Theory (in brief)
Zero-sum games are those where [the outcome is a fixed amount]  there can only be one winner and one loser.  What I gain, you lose and vice versa.  If there are five slices of pie, the more I eat, you fewer you can eat.  Classic zero-sum games are, in fact, games, like chess or basketball or boxing where there is one winner and one loser.  If we think only in terms of winning and losing though, only about the immediate outcome, we fail to see that these are really, in the larger context, variable sum games.

Variable-sum games are ones where the outcomes can vary, they can be larger or smaller depending on how the players play the game.  For example, in the pie example, if two people fight over the pie, instead of having five pieces between them, the pie pan could crash and smear the pie all over the floor and fill it with glass leaving no edible pieces.  (I've discussed game theory in previous posts - here's one with more detail.)

And a boxing match may have a winner who is given $1 million and a loser who gets $100,000.  That may be the win-lose part, but beyond that the loser may get valuable publicity, even a book deal, or he may get serious brain damage, or all three.  The important game to follow in most situations is bigger than who won and who lost.  It's about all the side effects of the game that ripple into many areas. 

Focusing on victories, on winners and losers, takes our attention off the broader consequences.  Sure, some people's lives will be improved by ACA and others possibly harmed, but let's get our facts right about this and acknowledge it's not zero-sum.  And sure, the health care bill could be much better.  But the Republican insistence on 'market based'  solutions to everything has blocked many options and is another example of either/or thinking, that ignores market failures - such as tens of millions without access to health care - that require government intervention.   Treating everything as black or white, as you're either for us or against us, or you're a good American or a traitor, blurs all the gray in between. 

We see this in the conservatives who have turned on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for what they see as his betrayal.   They made the Affordable Care Act into a loyalty test.  If you are for it, you're the enemy, if you are against it, you are an ally.  Until you fail the next test.

And the media, by focusing on this idea of winning and losing, play into this way of seeing the world.  Life is not a zero sum game.  The economies of nations can have many outcomes from the bleak world of North Korea to the bustle of Brazil.  We can have everyone poor, we can have many poor and a few rich, we can have many relatively well off with a few poor and a few rich, and many other combinations.  We can have health care where millions of people cannot get care.  We can have a system that distributes care based on wealth,  or based on the number of years of life a procedure will save, or based on corruption and connections.  It's a variable sum game.  And we must get past simplicities, like, "poor people are poor because they are lazy."  It may be true for some, but there are lots of other explanations, including how society is structured, and why, for example,  baseball players can make tens of millions of dollars and teachers can only make tens of thousands of dollars. 

Not all the media focused on the winner/loser meme.  And the President himself recognized the problem with framing the decision as a victory for Obama.  

President Obama:  I know there will be a lot of discussion about the politics of all of this - who won and who lost. That discussion completely misses the point.  Whatever the politics, today's decision was a victory for people all over this country, whose lives will be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold it.

But he's still talking in terms of victory.

Court Questions

There are lots of other issues in this decision to parse out.  What does it mean about the court?  Earl Warren, a Republican Chief Justice appointed by a Republican president got his court to vote unanimously in their landmark 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision to end school segregation.  Was Roberts thinking about Warren in this decision?  Was Roberts unable to get a unanimous decision or didn't he try?  Was he worried about the reputation of the court as partisan so he found a way to support ACA?  Or did he think that this was unquestionably constitutional?  Or did this simply fit his pro-big business bias?   Was he trading this one for a negative vote on a future important case?  Say gay marriage?  Or more power for business?  Are there hidden precedents embedded in this decision that he can use to forward his Federalist Society values in future cases?  We don't know what he was thinking and probably won't for quite a while if ever.

Health Care Questions
There are questions about how to get better health care for Americans.  About the cost of health care and the affect of ACA on the US budget deficit.  And how this will affect the election.  The Republicans during the primaries were worried that the creator of the Massachusetts health program wouldn't be the strongest candidate against Obama.  Will Romney's obvious shift from being a supporter of universal health care with a mandate in Massachusetts to a harsh opponent of Obama's very similar plan be credible?

Media Questions
And there are questions about the media's rush to be the first to announce the Court's decision that led to Fox and CNN incorrectly reporting the outcome.  Ironically, HBO's new program The Newsroom's first episode which was broadcast Sunday and posted online, included a newsroom debate over how to report the just beginning to unravel story about a BP oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. 

The media, of course, will argue that the market demands digestible soundbites, brevity, simplicity, so they need to use understood story lines like winners and losers.  Israelis and Palestinians have been caught in a zero sum game for decades now.  Is that what is ahead of us as Republicans* force Democrats into a zero sum game over the future of the US?  Or can we step back and and see our common interests and get off this road to destruction and back onto the road toward more justice, more peace, more cooperation, more prosperity for more people?


So, while the media felt compelled to dissect this decision before they even read it, it seems to me that we'll be figuring out all the implications for a long time.



*I think there's plenty of evidence of Republicans stonewalling everything Obama, epitomized with the Republican Senate minority leader's declaration that their top priority was to prevent Obama from getting a second term.  Anything that might put Democrats in a favorable light, they opposed.  Democratic animosity exists, but not nearly at the same the level.

The Hot Club of Nunaka's Gypsy Jazz

The Hot Club of Nunaka played gypsy jazz Thursday night at Out North's Black Box Theater.   This is part of the Anchorage Music Co-op, one of the many arts groups incubating over at Out North.

Derek Christianson, Karl Pasch,             Eric Rogers,              Nathan Levine,   Carter Bancroft

We enjoyed chronological tour starting in the 1920's and I thought about how much of what happens in a community is invisible to the people just passing through the neighborhood. (Though a door was open a bit so maybe some of the music drifted out.)

I also thought about the Klez-X, the klezmer group we heard in San Francisco in January.  One can't help but hear the connection between the gypsy and klez music.  The key thing missing last night was the accordion.  And Klez-X were all incredible musicians.  The kind that make performing music look easy.  Nunaka reminded me how hard it really is.  Although they were really good nearly all the time, there were points where, to my untrained ear, it didn't quite make it.  This is just a local group that I assume plays after work.  But they are so good, I want them to have some impresario take them under his wings and polish them up the few places they need it.

It's much easier to give a sense of the night by just playing the music, than talking about it, so here's a brief video sampler from the concert. Because of where I was sitting, Carter Bancroft was cut off for most of the video.  But at the end the person blocking my view left and you can see him on the right in the last clip.  And think about this like listening to a concert over the phone.  The sound on my tiny Canon Powershot is pretty good, but it can't do justice to music.





You can hear more, better quality samples at Hot Club of Nunaka's website.

By the way, Nunaka Valley is an Anchorage neighborhood with, generally, moderately priced houses, and not a place one would associate with hot gypsy music.  A band joke, I would assume.

Is America The Greatest Nation? The Newsroom's Response

HBO has posted the complete first episode of its new show The Newsroom.

It starts at a dreary Crossfire type debate at Northwestern College [University].  Newsman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is avoiding giving straight answers. 

A student named Jenny asks:

Can you say in one sentence or less, you know what I mean, why America is the greatest country in the world?

Will avoids a serious answer, but the moderator pushes.  A woman in the audience has a sign that says:  “It’s not.  But it can be better.”

Pushed by the professor who is moderating - “I want a human moment from you” - Will’s dam bursts:

It’s not the greatest country in the world, professor, that’s my answer. . .

. . . You know why people don’t like liberals, cause they lose.  If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so god damned always? 
And with a straight face, you’re going to tell students that America is so star spangled awesome that we’re the only ones that have freedom?

Then he gives a list of statistics where the US is lower than many other countries. 

7th in literacy. . .  27th in math . . 22nd in science . . .   We lead the world in only three categories:  number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and  defense spending where we spend more than the next 25 countries combined. . .

. . . So when you ask what makes America the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.  Yosemite?

But then he gets positive.

We sure used to be. . . and gives a long list of things we used to do.

OK. this is a scripted speech, and the rankings on these scales depend on how the factor is defined and measured.  Information Clearing House, for example,  also attacked the question of America’s greatness ranking back in 2005, but it says we’re 49th in literacy and 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy.

But the basic premise, that we aren’t the greatest, is important for Americans to hear.   Too many Americans believe the myth of our being the greatest country like alcoholics believe they can stop drinking any time.  The first step in recovery is getting past denial.  Until we recognize there are many ways to be great and we don’t monopolize them all, we’ll continue to slide, just as Rome did, as Spain did, as Great Britain did, to name a few former greatest countries in the world.   


And his nostalgia for the past leaves out slavery and segregation and killing off of our indigenous population, the denial of rights for women, American imperialism around the world, and a lot of other nasty stuff. 

But the episode is a promising start for a new series brought to us by the people who gave us the Sopranos, Six Feet Under,  and The Wire.

You can see the whole episode here. 

Thanks to Gryphen at Immoral Minority for posting this video.

I'd also note that while 'America' is a common abbreviation for the United States of America, its use slights the rest of the people who live in the Western Hemisphere in North, Central, and South America.

"Women I almost slept with"

I left Fischer's Under the Frog in LA, not intentionally, but I'd already prepared this post because  I love how he writes, the wit, the words, the sly understatement, the original imagery. (Maybe it's not original for Hungarians, but it is for me.) 

His themes are universal stories of humans and their individual and collective foibles and problems.  In this case with the background of Hungary under the Nazis and then the Communists.

 Gyuri is having trouble with women.

He had met Zsuzsa a fortnight before the camp.  She represented a change of tactic for Gyuri.  He had been pursuing a number of attractive women, who far from considering docking had recoiled from his greetings as if his hello were a wielded knife.  'Communism and celibacy, that's too much,' Gyuri had moaned.  Rather like an injured player seeking a fixture in the division below to repair his pride, Gyuri had met Zsuzsa at a dance.  Gangs of hormones, supported by a sense of desperation, had unearthed beauty from an unpromising surface.  Even though they had only met three times, Gyuri had been unpacking the equipment, setting up the furnishings of affection and a good part of his time in Trabánya was spent contemplating the ransacking of her fleshy treasure.  (p. 121)

But when he visits her apartment unannounced, there's a young AVO (Hungary's hated secret police) officer visiting her.  After the AVO man has left, Gyuri tries to explain to her how terrible it was to entertain an AVO man.

The other great disappointment he suffered that evening was the realization that Zsuzsa was heavily involved with stupidity.  Her occupation (florist) should have warned him but Zsuzsa, although she inhabited Hungary, didn't seem to live there.  She didn't understand what was going on, she hadn't noticed what was going on and couldn't grasp what Gyuri was saying.  Gyuri also noticed that her nose was looking too large that evening but on the other hand he couldn't help being envious of her total lack of contact with 1950.  She had an airtight insulation of dimness.  (p. 122)

(Seems I know some of her relatives today.)  But his story telling gets better.

This was going to be, he sensed, another fine addition to his collection of failures.  He could see the title of his autobiography:  Women I almost slept with.  Not Kissing and telling.  '1950 was a good year, I almost slept with four women:  a heroic production increase, under strict Marxist-Leninist principles, from 1949, when I almost slept with two women.'

. . .Gyuri took his leave and reflected deeply on the absurdity of living in a country more than half full of women (demography being on his side since the erasure of the Hungarian Second Army in 1944) and being unable to transact some romantic commerce.  Standing in the tram, with the passengers packed as tightly as cigarettes in a carton, centuplets in the oblong womb of the tram, even with the back of three other citizens coupling with him, Gyuri felt sappingly alone.  Crushed, but lonely.  How do you find people you can talk to?  There should be  a shop.  And once you've found people you can talk to, how do you hang on to them? (p. 122)

Universal questions.  So all this keeps Gyuri from sleeping.

Mental eructations* growled up clearly from the cerebral digestion  It was three o'clock in the morning, the hour favoured by the back-seat drivers in his  cranium for interrupting his sleep.  Whatever was bothering him would be thrust up, and although he couldn't name the issue, a strong discontent was emanating from his cerebral colon. (p. 124)

*I had to look up eructations.  It's apter when you know it means 'the act of belching' .

 Switching on the light, Gyuri referred to his watch.  Three minutes after three.  Why was it when he wanted to wake up with punctuality he couldn't but the seething rage inside always popped out at its self-appointed seething hour and why was it that when he wanted to feel awakened in the mornings he could never feel as fresh as he did now? 

I think we've all been there, but not as eloquently.  He still hasn't fallen asleep when there's a knocking at the door.  It's four plainclothes AVO who take him to headquarters.  He's still being cheeky when they can't find his name on the list.  He's looking at the young AVO officer.

Gyuri studied him and thought:  if only I hadn't been born with moral vertebrae, with intelligence, with dignity, I could be sitting there comfortably. (p. 126)

Of course, this is a burning question today - why are some able to do humanity's dirty work while others' moral vertebrae prevent them from doing evil's bidding? 

Here's the previous post on Under the Frog.