Zingers Introduction

The Z-Factor: the name zing and zingers

A visionary leader and swim coach (Doc Counsilman) coined a concept called the "X-Factor." Here comes the "Z-Factor." Z comes at the end of the line in importance. It matters little.
Know that the zingers matter hardly at all.

Defense

In life, it is my opinion, that all moves are to either gain in equity (offense) or to preserve equity (defense).

As a participant in the Mayor's Race in 2001 in the City of Pittsburgh, I'm in last place. I have very little equity to preserve.

I'm going to fight the good fight vs. the establishment, and the establishment has the upper hand. Hence, I'm going to invest next-to-nothing into efforts of defending what I've got. However, those who are part of the establishment have much to preserve. They might not mind my exercise of the freedoms to enter into the race, but should I look more like a contender, then we might see some changes in the attitudes and "handling" heaped in my direction.

The truth be known, my best defense is just another way to cloak some additional offense. As in baseball, the faster the pitches come into the batter, the faster the ball can be returned to the field with minimal efforts from the swing. I'm going to leverage negative attacks against myself as offensive opportunities. Incoming strikes are sure to expose the striker and be deflected with gentle swiftness.

These take-downs are going to be managed at this domain. Then, they can be more easily removed or repositioned to buffer and not to scrape.

Public image security

The equity that I've got to preserve includes my sanity, my family, my public image. I'm not going to go into debt with finances. I'm going to continue to be a stay-at-home dad.

The public image can be preserved on the net with PGP security. "Public keys." They are ready for use as necessary. PGP public-keys might need to be leveraged with email and public postings on forums and newsgroups. I hope not, but time will tell.

Another easy way to be more secure is to take things to the domain that I control, Rauterkus.com. We can control what gets posted on our pages without the worry of outside hands.

Replies to more aggressive opportunities are going to feature a pointer to a web page.

Serialized

A line-up of the zingers is visible at: http://Rauterkus.com/zing/

Public Mission

This endeavor is a public service endeavor. I aim to raise issues, solutions, hope and the course of our collective outcomes to new, better and more interesting, as well as sustainable results. This is a community challenge. This is a public forum. This is about relationships, governance, neighbors and fun-loving world peace.

Because I have faith in our shared brotherhood and sisterhood, and because I'm hopeful that I can display a high level of respect to others too --- I'm always post in public forums (and have done so for some years) as myself. I don't use a "pen name." I don't use a fake nick-name. I post as Mark Rauterkus -- or Mark_Rauterkus.

It is fine if others choose to use a fake name in public message centers. Consider doing otherwise, please. People do become more civil when masks are removed.

Aid Welcomed

I try to stick up for others, and I hope others are going to stick up for me too. If you want to chime in and communicate your displeasure to any type of meaningless attacks against unlogical ways and good-intentioned folks -- do it.

Long-Winded

My net-based public postings are always long-winded by intent. I would love to submit short messages, but I dare not. Style and personality needs to be injected so the authorship of the message is clearly understood.

Spoofing is one of the worst crimes of the net. It is easy to spoof short messages -- so I never post short messages.