Journal Archives from theDreamworld ... January 2005

January 2005

January 31, 2005

Mmmmm ... updated Powerbook ...
<drool> .......

Posted at 9:09 PM

January 30, 2005

I'm falling behind with things for my classes - not horribly for the most part, but such that I'm just barely keeping up with readings, and a paper that is due this week isn't even started and a test that I have this week remains unstudied for. The distance learning class I'm taking, which is done online, has been interesting, but I just barely got done with that in time (we had to read, listen to mp3 lectures while watching PowerPoint presentations, and then participate in discussion on the provided Discussion Board, building from questions the professor had posted, and we had to do all of the first unit by January 28th. Needless to say, I was struggling on January 27th to get on the Discussion Board and answer questions (it took nearly four hours to read everything and make all my comments, far longer than I'd expected)). So needless to say, I'm not off to the greatest start this semester, considering this is just the start of the fourth week.

All of this pales in comparison to my thesis, though. I gave Theresa, my thesis advisor, two possible long stories and one short story that I wanted to use for my thesis (and for my writing samples to grad school), and she read them and then we sat down and discussed them and what changes could and should be made on the larger scale. That meeting ran well over two and a half hours, and we decided that I should do the major revisions we'd talked about, turn in new drafts to her to read and review, and then we'd meet again on the 8th of February. Well tomorrow is the 1st of February, a week before we meet as well as the day I should probably be turning in new drafts so that she has time to read them before we meet, and I haven't been able to spend a single minute on my stories. Hell, I haven't even had the time to read the written comments she made. So that's completely fucked, and I don't know how I'm going to pull myself out of that ever-deepening hole.

And as if all of the actual stuff-needed-to-graduate things weren't in such bad shape, I'd still have my incomplete grad school apps staring me in the face, one of which is due tomorrow (so I'm applying for admission starting the following semester), but most of which will be due in a month, and I'm really just fucked on that because there is a ton of writing to do if they're to be ready.

So I'm stressed, and a wave of depression has been trying to drown me for days. I'm continually trying to fight it off since I honestly don't have the time to be depressed and mopey. Sooner or later, though, it won't matter how hard I try - the depression will just take over. Then I'll have that to deal with, too, and my depression always makes me read and write and do everything notably slower, so that would just serve to worsen all of my problems.

Fun stuff, huh? If you think that's fun, you should let me tell you about taking care of my grandma and how fraught with problems that is. But I've whined enough at you for one day, so I guess I'll give you a break. You're certainly patient to come back and read this stuff after I so often get whiny or bitchy or boring. I appreciate it, even if I don't understand your motivation. Thanks for reading.

Posted at 2:37 AM

January 29, 2005

So how was Curling developed anyways? Maybe by disenfranchised street sweepers who wanted clean ice rinks? Or maybe ice hockey players with obsessive cleaning fixations? Or possibly just drunk bowlers trying to get the 7-10 split in a game on ice? It's one of the world's great mysteries.

Posted at 11:47 PM

January 28, 2005

Here he comes to save the day!

Posted at 1:06 AM

January 27, 2005

It was all I could do not to burst out laughing during my Vietnam War history class today. Dr. Hess had no idea that what he said could be interpreted as hilarious. In fact, I don't think that anybody other than me found the humor in it. Suffice it to say that you have to love The Princess Bride.

"Ha-ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia ..."

Posted at 9:58 PM

January 26, 2005

Okay, so I am now officially beating a dead horse. I honestly meant to end it yesterday - I mean really, three days of harping on the same rant is enough, I would think - but there seems to be a neverending exposure of the new instances of displays of "family values" that have nothing to do with family or value but just plain old bigotry, hatred, and ignorance. The latest comes from, unsurprisingly, a top official in Fuehrer Bush's regime. Once again this goes beyond sanity by condemning a PBS cartoon that promotes tolerance of all peoples, regardless of how they're different (and really, tolerance isn't really even enough - it should be full, federally-protected equality for everyone. Period).

Education Secretary Condemns Public Show with Gay Characters

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.

The not-yet-aired episode of "Postcards From Buster" shows the title character, an animated bunny named Buster, on a trip to Vermont -- a state known for recognizing same-sex civil unions. The episode features two lesbian couples, although the focus is on farm life and maple sugaring.

A PBS spokesman said late Tuesday that the nonprofit network has decided not to distribute the episode, called "Sugartime!," to its 349 stations. She said the Education Department's objections were not a factor in that decision.

"Ultimately, our decision was based on the fact that we recognize this is a sensitive issue, and we wanted to make sure that parents had an opportunity to introduce this subject to their children in their own time," said Lea Sloan, vice president of media relations at PBS.

However, the Boston public television station that produces the show, WGBH, does plan to make the "Sugartime!" episode available to other stations. WGBH also plans to air the episode on March 23, Sloan said.

PBS gets money for the "Postcards from Buster" series through the federal Ready-To-Learn program, one aimed at helping young children learn through television.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the "Sugartime!" episode does not fulfill the intent Congress had in mind for programming. By law, she said, any funded shows must give top attention to "research-based educational objectives, content and materials."

"Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode," Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS.

"Congress' and the Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television."

She asked PBS to consider refunding the money it spent on the episode.

Three requests

With her letter, Spellings has made criticism of the publicly funded program's depiction of the gay lifestyle one of her first acts as secretary. She began on Monday, replacing Rod Paige as President Bush's education chief.

Spellings issued three requests to PBS.

She asked that her department's seal or any statement linking the department to the show be removed. She asked PBS to notify its member stations of the nature of the show so they could review it before airing it. And she asked for the refund "in the interest of avoiding embroiling the Ready-To-Learn program in a controversy that will only hurt" it.

In closing, she warned: "You can be assured that in the future the department will be more clear as to its expectations for any future programming that it funds."

The department has awarded nearly $100 million to PBS through the program over the last five years in a contract that expires in September, said department spokesman Susan Aspey. That money went to the production of "Postcards From Buster" and another animated children's show, and to promotion of those shows in local communities, she said.

The show about Buster also gets funding from other sources.

In the show, Buster carries a digital video camera and explores regions, activities and people of different backgrounds and religions.

On the episode in question, "The fact that there is a family structure that is objectionable to the Department of Education is not at all the focus of the show, nor is it addressed in the show," said Sloan of PBS.

But she also said: "The department's concerns align very closely with PBS' concerns, and for that reason, it was decided that PBS will not be providing the episode." Stations will receive a new episode, she said.

Posted at 8:37 PM

January 25, 2005

Not to seem like I'm beating a dead horse here, but this bit of news today just illustrates the point I've been trying to make for the last two days all too clearly. Rather than support the beautiful simplicity of a plan to teach kids that bullying and name-calling is bad, these so-called bastions of "family values" want to teach kids (not just their kids but all kids) that bullying and name-calling is not even alright when directed toward gays but it's even expected. It boggles the mind that they can't even accept that such views make them bigots. If they expressed these types of beliefs regarding Jews, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, or handicapped people it would be obvious to even them that they were hateful bigots, but since it's homosexuals, a group of people they hate more than anything (which is the definition of bigotry, by the way - hating a group of people because they are perceived to be in some way different from others) then they see it as somehow their duty to lead the persecution. No doubt the Nazis made the same justifications regarding the Jews (and the homosexuals, who also were exterminated during the Holocaust).

'No Name-Calling' initiative spreads in schools

NEW YORK (AP) -- Using a young readers' novel called "The Misfits" as its centerpiece, middle schools nationwide will participate in a "No Name-Calling Week" initiative starting Monday. The program, now in its second year, has the backing of groups from the Girl Scouts to Amnesty International but has also drawn complaints that it overemphasizes harassment of gay youths.

The initiative was developed by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which seeks to ensure that schools safely accommodate students of all sexual orientations. GLSEN worked with James Howe, the openly gay author of "The Misfits" and many other popular children's books.

"Gay students aren't the only kids targeted -- this isn't about special rights for them," Howe said. "But the fact is that 'faggot' is probably the most common insult at schools."

"The Misfits" deals with four much-taunted middle schoolers -- one of them gay -- who run for the student council on a platform advocating an end to nasty name-calling.

GLSEN is unsure how many schools will participate in this week's event, but says 5,100 educators from 36 states have registered, up from 4,000 last year. Participation in a related writing-music-art contest rose from 100 students last year to 1,600 this year; the winning poem was written by Sue Anna Yeh, a 13-year-old from Sugar Land, Texas.

"No Name-calling Week" takes aim at insults of all kinds -- whether based on a child's appearance, background or behavior. But a handful of conservative critics have zeroed in on the references to harassment based on sexual orientation.

"I hope schools will realize it's less an exercise in tolerance than a platform for liberal groups to promote their pan-sexual agenda," said Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute.

"Schools should be steering kids away from identifying as gay," Knight said. "You can teach civility to kids and tell them every child is valued without conveying the message that failure to accept homosexuality as normal is a sign of bigotry."

In Iowa, complaints by scores of parents about the gay themes in "The Misfits" prompted the Pleasant Valley School Board to rule that teachers could no longer read it aloud to elementary school classes, although it could remain in school libraries.

In Colorado, lawmakers last year rejected a proposal to declare a statewide "No-Name Calling Week" in conjunction with the inaugural GLSEN-backed event. House Majority Leader Keith King said he was concerned about fostering a "victim's mentality" and argued that children should be taught to ignore taunts.

In contrast, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued a proclamation recognizing the event, and more than 40 national organizations have enlisted as partners, including the Girl Scouts, the national associations of elementary and secondary school principals, and the National Education Association.

"People who would criticize this, regardless of who came out with it, are people with bad hearts," said Jerald Newberry, who directs the NEA's health information network.

"This is as vanilla as you get in terms of creating safe environments in schools," Newberry said. "To criticize this program would, almost without exception, be a political attack, not an attack on its content."

Number one issue

James Garbarino, a Cornell University professor who has studied school bullying, said harassment based on sexual orientation "ought to be No. 1 on the list" as educators combat name-calling. Such taunting has led to violence and suicides, he said.

Whether programs like "No Name-Calling Week" work depends on whether staff and students heed the lessons yearlong, not just during special events, Garbarino said. "When it's done in a mechanical, mindless way, when it's just for show, kids see the hypocrisy of it," he said.

GLSEN executive director Kevin Jennings agreed that schools should do more than hold a one-week event; he hopes to evaluate systematically whether the initiative indeed reduces name-calling. "Every week should be 'No Name-Calling Week', but having one week at least raises the visibility of the issue," he said.

One of GLSEN's most persistent critics is Warren Throckmorton, director of counseling at Grove City College, a Christian school outside Pittsburgh. His skeptical comments about "No Name-Calling Week" have been widely circulated this month on conservative Web sites.

"There's no question middle school can be a difficult place -- I'm not advocating that any group gets mistreated," Throckmorton said in a telephone interview.

"But it will definitely make traditionally oriented teachers and parents and kids feel very uncomfortable, if they happen to object to homosexuality on moral grounds," he said of GLSEN's program. "If you disagree, you're hateful, you're bigoted, you're a homophobe. They're using name-calling to combat name-calling."

Another critic is Brenda High of Pasco, Wash., an anti-bullying activist since her 13-year-old son committed suicide in 1998 following harassment at school.
" The use of 'The Misfits' as a basis for this teaching puts the emphasis on the subgroup of the harassment victim instead of on the perpetrator of harassment -- the bully," she said.

But Howe said critics of "No Name-Calling Week" seem reluctant to acknowledge the scope of anti-gay harassment in schools.

"Homosexuality is not a moral issue -- it's a fact, and kids who are gay, or maybe just different, need to be allowed to grow up in a safe environment just like everybody else," he said.

Posted at 3:34 AM

January 24, 2005

I don't feel like I went far enough discussing the topic of yesterday's Journal entry (regarding the meanspiritedness of American Idol and the greed/nastiness of all reality tv shows). The problem that exists here goes far beyond these types of shows, and it goes beyond the examples from the editorial I cited (namely the nipple-gate incident and the insanity of Bob Dobson decrying SpongeBob's tolerance of anyone who is different (because, obviously, the Christian way, in Dobson's mind, is to hate and promote violence against those who are different, in the same vein as the KKK and the Nazis).

The problem, as I see it, is the warped sense of what constitutes "values" as expressed on tv. Hating homosexuals and their rights to marry may be the values of narrow-minded bigots, but it is far from a dictionary definition of 'value.' Promoting the completely factless supposition in Intelligent Design or Creationism as opposed to the widely-supported many-fact-based scientific theory of Evolution is not a value - it is not even base ignorance or stupidity; it is an active attempt to herald a new Dark Age, a push for an era that would be the opposite of the Enlightenment (which could use the already coined phrase "The dumbing-down of America"). The problem is also not 'the liberal media' considering the media is overrun with conservative pundits and conservative-biased news reports (cough-FOXNews-cough). The problem - and it is a problem that the so-called 'family values' conservatives should be up in arms about if they indeed give a damn about families or values - is the television programs and television ads (or radio and newspaper ads for that matter) that find demeaning men amusing, find stereotyping women to be convenient, and find promoting using children as slaves undeserving of care - these are the problems that are at the base of the corruption of America.American Idol and reality tv are merely a part of this type of attitude, where the depicted values could be catalogued as:

1) Look out for number one. Fuck anybody else - the sooner and more decisively the better. Unless you need something from someone, demean them and betray them as soon as possible to gain the upper hand.

2) Woman are insane from rampaging hormones. Stay out of their way and meekly say "yes" to their demands.

3) All men are pigs; they are to be hated; they are to be loathed. Take advantage of them. They deserve it.

4) Children of any age are perfect sources of free labor, and slavery laws don't apply! Locking them out in the cold, mocking their dreams, cheating them of their earnings, working them to sufferance, and avoiding anything that might be confused as compassion are your rights as a clearly superior "mature" adult.

5) Nobody lives in poverty, has acne, gets overweight, has trouble getting good grades, or has trouble making friends unless they're lazy, poor, stupid, and deserving only of death. Help them find that deserved place.

Seriously, this is what the media promotes. It's a sick view of the world, and these are not the kinds of "values" that I want invested in anyone who is anywhere remotely close to me. These are the sort of problems that should be attacked by people concerned about "family values", but guess what? Not a peep is heard from the conservatives. Why is that, you might ask? Simple. They don't care. They have no values except those listed above. They just realize that it's not politically correct to be so obvious about their true attitudes. It's pretty obvious, though, if you look around.

If conservatives are so concerned about "family values" then they should start looking at defending the values that make and protect families. I don't really expect that ever to happen since I don't really think that their mouthing of the words "family values" is anything but lies and outrageous propaganda that attempts to elevate their position against the innocents whom they malign with their vile rhetoric. Himmler and Hitler would be impressed by their twisting of what is right and what is wrong, but I am simply disgusted.

Posted at 9:47 PM

January 23, 2005

For four years I have avoided American Idol and the odd frenzy that surrounds it. I have avoided it for the same reasons, mostly, that I have avoided reality programs - because they showcase the baser natures of humanity, and they are at their cores simply examples of selfish, spiteful inhumanity. Most people seem to delight in these festivals of mocking, demeaning, and screwing over their fellow human beings, who for their despicable acts are rewarded time and again. I've never understood the attraction inherent to so many people in shows like these, and I'm comforted to see that I'm not alone.

This editorial from the New York Times expresses many of my own sentiments in regards to American Idol and reality tv.

American Awful

At a time when the self-appointed guardians of family values have been denouncing television programming for everything from wardrobe malfunctions to SpongeBob's squishiness on gay tolerance, it's interesting that "American Idol" seems to be getting a pass. Fox's hugely popular search for the next singing sensation started its fourth season last week with a series of vicious encounters between hopeful but pathetically untalented young people and celebrity judges being paid to make fun of them. While the contests do not feature bare breasts or four-letter words, they send a truly dreadful message to millions of young viewers about the proper way to treat fellow human beings.

The high points of the early episodes of the show are the moments in which desperately clueless singers deliver unbearable versions of pop standards in front of judges who either burst into derisive laughter or helpfully advise the would-be idols that they are way too fat, badly dressed, funny looking or simply "honestly, excruciatingly awful." While some of the contestants have the sort of impenetrable self-obsession that seems to invite that kind of treatment, others react in ways that make it clear they are simply weak and vulnerable. The producers seem to feel it's funny to watch a trio of wealthy and famous adults making fun of a simple 16-year-old girl whose only sin was being "pretty sure I have a good voice" when she didn't.

About 100,000 contestants, all in their teens or 20's, auditioned for "American Idol," and the ones who wound up on national television survived at least two elimination rounds. While Fox said the survivors were chosen to be a good cross section, it is hard to imagine that any of the extremely naïve contestants understood that they were being moved along only because they showed promise for being ridiculous. In the ensuing battle for the "tickets to Hollywood," the viewers are invited to roar while young people who in many cases appear to be poor, of low intelligence or even mildly disturbed, sing enthusiastically and then stand gape-mouthed with shock while their heroes insult them on national television.

One of the points of any reality show is to allow the audience to watch as contestants humiliate themselves by screeching at their spouses on a race around the world, by being voted off the island first, or by failing to get a rose from the bachelor or bachelorette whom they have been desperately and publicly wooing. But there is a very wide gap between demonstrating that life is full of hard knocks and embarrassment, and glorying in the abasement of the utterly defenseless.

Posted at 10:35 PM

January 22, 2005

My grandma is going to drive me insane. She is determined to be a victim somehow from this Carpal Tunnel surgery, regardless of the fact that everything has been going great and coming out just as the doctor explained it would. Nevertheless she is sure that there is more pain to come, that she will lose the use of her hand, and that her hands will fall off any time now. Okay, so she hasn't claimed that last one yet, but just wait and see - that's about all she hasn't complained and worried about yet. I'm honestly at the end of my patience with continually re-explaining what the doctors have told her on three separate occasions and what I have additionally reiterated dozens of times myself. I accept that her memory fails at times, and I accept that she doesn't pay attention very well, and I accept that she is worried about how things will turn out, but I am in utter disbelief at how pessimistic she is and how much she seems to constantly want to be a victim. I'll admit that I'm not always the most optimistic person in any group, and I'm more paranoid and cynical than the average person, but my grandma puts me to shame on all levels, and I can only take so much. The weeks can't pass fast enough until both Carpal Tunnel surgeries are done and forgotten, completely healed and in the past. Until that time, probably six or more weeks away, my life will be a series of accumulating aggravations, and that is certainly nothing I'm looking forward to.

Posted at 12:12 AM

January 21, 2005

Ahh!! There's an angry monkey in my closet!

Posted at 1:06 AM

January 20, 2005

Hail Hitler ... errr ... I mean Hail Bush. (that's what I'm supposed to say, right?)

As most of you know, today is the inauguration for Fuehrer Bush's second term. He managed to cheat, lie, and steal his way into it, despite the contrary desires of every intelligent person on the planet, and today we're supposed to sit back and cheer for this villain that is trying to destroy the world and the people who populate it. Well sorry, but I'll only be cheering if there's a successful assassin out there (although please consider Bush and Cheney if you will, since Cheney is no better than the Fuehrer himself).

This column from the New York Times shows that I'm not alone in these feelings and that makes me happy in itself. At least there is hope for the world in that there are intelligent people who know how wrong this presidency is.

An American in Paris

(PARIS) Watching George Bush's second inaugural from a bistro in Paris is like watching the Red Sox win the World Series from a sports bar in New York City. Odds are that someone around you is celebrating - I mean, someone, somewhere in Europe must be happy about this - but it's not obvious.

Why are Europeans so blue over George Bush's re-election? Because Europe is the world's biggest "blue state." This whole region is a rhapsody in blue. These days, even the small group of anti-anti-Americans in the European Union is uncomfortable being associated with Mr. Bush. There are Euro-conservatives, but, aside from, maybe, the ruling party in Italy, there is nothing here that quite corresponds to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-tax, anti-national-health-care, anti-Kyoto, openly religious, pro-Iraq-war Bush Republican Party.

If you took all three major parties in Britain - Labor, Liberals and Conservatives - "their views on God, guns, gays, the death penalty, national health care and the environment would all fit somewhere inside the Democratic Party," said James Rubin, the Clinton State Department spokesman, who works in London. "That's why I get along with all three parties here. They're all Democrats!"

While officially every European government is welcoming the inauguration of President Bush, the prevailing mood on the continent (if I may engage in a ridiculously sweeping generalization!) still seems to be one of shock and awe that Americans actually re-elected this man.

Before Mr. Bush's re-election, the prevailing attitude in Europe was definitely: "We're not anti-American. We're anti-Bush." But now that the American people have voted to re-elect Mr. Bush, Europe has a problem maintaining this distinction. The logic of the Europeans' position is that they should now be anti-American, not just anti-Bush, but most Europeans don't seem to want to go there. They know America is more complex. So there is a vague hope in the air that when Mr. Bush visits Europe next month, he'll come bearing an olive branch that will enable both sides to at least pretend to hold this loveless marriage together for the sake of the kids.

"Europeans were convinced that Kerry had won on election night and were telling themselves that they knew all along that Americans were not all that bad - and then suddenly, as the truth emerged, there was a feeling of slow resignation: 'Oh well, we've been dreaming,' " said Dominique Moisi, one of France's top foreign policy analysts. "In fact, real America is moving away from us. We don't share the same values. ... In France it was a very emotional issue. It was as if Americans were voting for the president of France as much as for president of the United States."

That sense that America is now so powerful that it influences everyone else's politics more than their own governments - so everyone wants to vote in our elections - is something you hear more and more these days.

Elizabeth Angell, a 23-year-old American studying at Oxford, told me that a Pakistani friend at school had asked her if he could just watch her fill out her absentee ballot for the U.S. election. "He said to me, 'It's the closest thing I am going to get to voting. ... I wish I could vote in your election because your government affects my daily life more than my own.' "

The one concrete result of the U.S. election will probably be to reinforce Europe's focus on its own efforts to build a United States of Europe, and to further play down the trans-Atlantic alliance. "When it comes to emotions, the re-election of Bush has reinforced the feeling of alienation between Europe and the U.S.," Mr. Moisi said. "It is not that we are so much against America, it is that we cannot understand the evolution of that country. ... This election has weakened the concept of 'the West.' "

Funnily enough, the one country on this side of the ocean that would have elected Mr. Bush is not in Europe, but the Middle East: it's Iran, where many young people apparently hunger for Mr. Bush to remove their despotic leaders, the way he did in Iraq.

An Oxford student who had just returned from research in Iran told me that young Iranians were "loving anything their government hates," such as Mr. Bush, "and hating anything their government loves." Tehran is festooned in "Down With America" graffiti, the student said, but when he tried to take pictures of it, the Iranian students he was with urged him not to. They said it was just put there by their government and was not how most Iranians felt.

Iran, he said, is the ultimate "red state." Go figure.

Posted at 1:22 AM

January 19, 2005

How can you tell who's sane and who's insane?

Posted at 10:16 PM

January 18, 2005

Yesterday my grandma had surgery in her right hand/wrist for carpal tunnel syndrome (she needs ito have the same surgery in her left hand/wrist as well, but they only do one limb at a time). The operation itself took only about fifteen minutes, and for the most part it was as simple and easy as could be. All of the things that the doctor had said we could expect (almost none of which my grandma would believe) have been true, specifically the fact that: a) the surgery would be very quick, b) there would only be a locals anesthetic, c) she would only have a heavy bandage on her arm and that she would have full mobility of her fingers, d) that she would have little to no pain, and e) that she would be able to use her hand just like normal, even the same day of the operation. I've been very pleased to see it all play out that way, but my grandma is shocked - she was sure that she would be a complete invalid (and I think she's a bit disappointed that she's not). In any case, yesterday went swimmingly, and while I've been babying my grandma a bit, it's quite clear that she can still function very well on her own.

This morning was not as perfect as yesterday, even though there wasn't a huge problem. The doctor has wanted her to keep her right wrist elevated for the first 48 hours after surgery to keep down swelling, and I've had to constantly remind her to do that (or I've had to explain countless times that her wrist needs to be higher than her elbow). We set up a folded down pillow under her wrist for while she slept, hoping that that would keep her hand elevated, and it worked during the first part of the night, until she got up around 2:30 AM to use the bathroom, but some time after that her hand shifted off of the pillow and hung off the side of the bed while she slept. Not too surprisingly her hand was swollen up like a balloon when she awoke, and she was quite upset about it. The swelling went down in an hour, and didn't cause any problems, but it surely didn't help the healing process any (and it scared her quite a bit, although that may be a good thing since she's a bit more conscious about keeping her hand elevated now).

She's able to eat with her right hand, lift a coffee cup to drink, and all sorts of things. In fact the biggest limitation for her isn't pain or stiffness, it's the restrictions caused by the bandage. She'll be in this bandage for a week, then another, lighter bandage for another week, and probably a very light bandage for the week after that, but then she's done ... at least with that hand. About the time she's out of bandages on the right wrist, she'll be going for the operation on her left hand, and the whole process will start over from the beginning. On the plus side, though, the next operation should be much easier since she's right handed and that hand will be 'new and improved.'

Posted at 1:42 AM

January 17, 2005

This song - written by Queen to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his works, his visions - is now my tribute to the great man who we honor with a national holiday today.

One Vision

One man one goal one mission,
One heart one soul just one solution,
One flash of light yeah one god one vision.

One flesh one bone,
one true religion,
One voice one hope,
Wowowowo gimme one vision.

No wrong no right,
I'm gonna tell you there's no black and no white,
No blood no stain,
All we need is one world wide vision.

One flesh one bone,
one true religion,
One voice one hope,
One real decision,
Wowowowo gimme one vision.

I had a dream,
When I was young,
A dream of sweet illusion,
A glimpse of hope and unity,
And visions of one sweet union,
But a cold wind blows,
And a dark rain falls,
And in my heart it shows,
Look what they've done to my dream.

So give me your hands,
Give me your hearts,
I'm ready,
There's only one direction,
One world one nation,
Yeah one vision.

No hate no fight,
Just excitation,
All through the night,
It's a celebration wowowowo yeah.

One flesh one bone,
one true religion,
One voice one hope,
One real decision.

Gimme one night,
Gimme ione hope,
One man one man,
One bar one night,
One day hey hey,
Just gimme gimme gimme
One vision.

Posted at 9:54 PM

January 16, 2005

Don't ask me why I didn't go to sleep until about 5 AM last night; I really couldn't tell you. I just wasn't tired, and I kept surfing the net and watching bad tv. Damn, was it ever bad tv - the worst stuff imaginable. I have attained a new level of pity for insomniacs.

I got up relatively early this morning without getting a lot of sleep, but I had a lot of reading to do for both of my history classes. Plus, Mother Nature decided to give me more snow to shovel, and my grandma gave me a bunch of little things to do around the house as well, so I had all sorts of stuff keeping me crazy busy but I ended up not feeling like I got all that much done. But I am getting on top of some of my classwork for next week, and depending on how much I get done tomorrow, I should be pretty well on top of things. Tomorrow looks to be a busy day, though, so we'll just have to see.

Posted at 11:55 PM

January 15, 2005

This translation of Aristotle's concepts on rhetoric has been horrible, possibly the worst of any translations I have read. It took me hours to read and figure out what in the hell was there amid the mess that the translators had laid out. Fortunately there were different translators for the essay by Cicero about rhetoric. There was, really, no comparison between the two pieces, the translation was so poorly done for the Aristotle sections and the Cicero translation was very elegantly done. Thankfully that's all finished and I won't be reading any more from Aristotle this semester (not that I'd mind, so long as it was translated by someone else ... someone competent).

I should also mention that the translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh that I'm reading is rather flaky, too. In a scholarly sense it is very accurate and interesting, but as a literary work it stinks. Rather than try to make the story flow by filling in missing pieces of the text with educated supposition, as many translators have done over the years regarding Gilgamesh, this translator has simply left those segments as empty brackets [ ] or brackets around ellipses [ ... ], both of which leave you having to try to stop and figure what it might mean. When you have as many of those empty brackets as you do words in a given paragraph of text, it makes figuring things out a struggle (if not impossible). Like I said, it's accurate in a scholarly way, but since we're looking at this in a literature class in the context of classic literature, I think it is a disappointing choice, particularly considering many of my classmates are completely unfamiliar with the Gilgamesh story and are completely confused because of this text. And it's not like I think I even expect too much from translators ...

Posted at 1:32 AM

January 14, 2005

Sometimes things just exceed your expectations. Cases in point (three of them):

It wouldn't have seemed possible that Fuehrer Bush could seem more flaky and insipid to me than he has proven to be over the past 4+ years, but he's full of surprises:

Bush uses new nickname for senator

LINCOLN, Nebraska (AP) -- Sen. Ben Nelson finally has succeeded in getting President Bush to stop calling him by the nickname "Nellie."

Bush had been referring to the Nebraska Democrat as "Nellie" since 2001.

Nelson disliked the nickname and had asked the president to stop using it.

The president likes to give people nicknames. He has called Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, "Pootie-Poot," while aide Karen Hughes gets "High Prophet."

But Bush heeded Nelson's request to scrap his moniker, and at the recent White House Christmas party, the president referred to Nelson as "Benny."

"The president had a twinkle in his eye when he called me that," Nelson said. "He knew what he had done. I said, 'Thank you, Mr. President."'

And if that's not weird enough, truth is clearly stranger than fiction:

Pentagon Sought 'Gay' Bomb

(Washington) The Pentagon tried to develop a bomb that would turn an opposing army "gay" according to newly declassified documents.

The papers, obtained by the New Scientist and the Sunshine Project - an organization that exposes research into chemical and biological weapons - show that during the Clinton presidency the military attempted to create a series of non-lethal chemical weapons that would disrupt discipline and morale among enemy troops.

One weapon that the Pentagon worked on is described as an "aphrodisiac" that would make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other.

According to the documents the Pentagon believed that "provoking widespread homosexual behavior" among troops would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.

The papers which date from 1994 show that the bomb was being worked on by scientists at the US Air Force Wright Lab in Dayton, Ohio.

The documents also show that the lab requested $7.5 million to pursue the bomb, but a Pentagon spokesperson told the New Scientist it is not known if the project ever went ahead.

“The Air Force’s proposal is delusional, homophobic and offensive,” said C. Dixon Osburn, Executive Director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

“Gays and lesbians serve in the United States armed forces and in the militaries of our closest allies. They do so as part of a formidable fighting force. The assertion that a gay opponent would be somehow less effective in combat is outrageous. No one questioned the battle prowess of Alexander the Great because of his sexual orientation.”

Most exceptionally today, though, I was most pleasantly surprised to have my expectations exceeded by the new Battlestar Galactica series on SciFi Channel. I remember watching the original Battlestar Galactica series as a kid, and it was amazing (at the time) for the special effects and the concept. It rapidly began to go to extremes and get stupid, particularly with the revival as Galactica 1980, but the series always had a warm place in my heart. I wasn't alone, either, because fans of the series have held on for years, wishing for more, supporting novels and toys years after the series had long since been off the air. SciFi Channel made a movie last year (a miniseries actually) to remake the whole concept in a more interesting way, and while they did incredible things with special effects and did a wonderful job of getting rid of the things that had made the original series seem hokey ay times, they also rewrote the whole idea quite a bit and seemed to lose something. Don't get me wrong, it was really cool and well done, but it missed that "magic" that there was to the original show. So when SciFi announced that they'd be making a full series of the show, I had mixed reactions. I was sure that it would be interesting, but I wasn't sure it could last based on what they'd had in the movie.

Well tonight I was most pleasantly surprised to find something beyond my wildest dreams. The special effects were even more spectacular than what had been seen in the movie, the storyline expanded to be more full and detailed than what had been seen in the movie, and most importantly, this new series seems to have incorporated a lot of things that had been missing from the movie that were part of the "magic" of the original show. It was just little details like the Cylons being chrome-plated robots rather than just human look-alikes or the clear indication that the main characters were goofy or fallible in realistic ways or even just the intrigue of the day-to-day challenges the fleet of stellar refugees faced as they were chased by the ruthless Cylons (as opposed to the thrust of the movie, which was just the overarching tragedy of the destruction of the homeworlds by the Cylons that forced the last remnants of humanity to flee in whatever ships they could). The bottom line is that this series has far more potential than I ever would have credited it with before. It, along with Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, all in the Friday night lineup, should make Fridays a great night for sitting back and letting my imagination run wild.

Posted at 12:12 AM

January 13, 2005

Amazing how tired I can feel with 6 hours of sleep and inconsistent meals, isn't it? Zzzzzzzz .....

Posted at 2:43 AM

January 12, 2005

Meh. Well, I got a fair amount of sleep last night, even though I woke up a few times and couldn't go back to sleep for an hour or so. Around taking care of my grandma, today has just been a day of reading things for my various classes on Thursday. It would have been nice to get a jump on the next phase, readings for next week (or even the assignments for my distance learning class), but there just wasn't enough time in the day, so those will have to wait. I still feel tired, and getting up at 5 AM tomorrow surely won't help, but at least I'm up to speed on what has to be done. We'll have to look at that as some level of success.

Oh, and while I haven't really sunk into what I'd call depression - I threw that off while I slept, I guess - I don't feel great either. It could just be the tiredness talking, but I feel emotionally numb right now, and depression seems a heartbeat away. Hopefully I'll shrug that off with tonight's sleep. We'll see.

Posted at 9:21 PM

January 11, 2005

It has been a very eventful day, full of good, full of bad, and full of surprises. It started at 5:30 AM so that I could get myself together and get to Bowling Green in time for my first class. Considering I barely made it in time with relatively clear roads (it was snowing but not heavily), and considering there wasn't a single parking space available when I got there at 8:55, I think - much as it pains me to admit it - that I will have to get up even earlier to get going and have enough time to make it to my 9:30 class.

That 9:30 class is Advanced Technical Writing, the course I've feared the most this semester. I took this class last Spring semester and had to drop it because the expectations were outrageous, having more projects due for that one class than I had put together in every other Tech. Writing class combined (actually, even more than those combined numbers of projects). It was outrageous, and I simply couldn't juggle it with everything else. Today's most pleasant surprise was that the new professor teaching this course is approaching it completely differently, studying the theory of technical writing rather than the application, and while we will have to do an in-depth proposal, that will be the only project, and everything else will be based on tests and exams. This news was quite welcomed and very encouraging.

Following this class, I dashed to the Student Union for a quick bite to eat. I got out of my class early, leaving me time to go, but normally I'm not going to have so much time, and I'm not sure how I can swing finding time to eat until my last lecture is over at 2:15. Today, however, I had time to eat and time to go to the computer lab to print out some materials from the Electronic Reserves that I need to read for that Tech Writing class (and surprisingly, those documents are Aristotle's theories of rhetoric).

The next pleasant surprise for the day was seeing upgraded Macs in the lab, 17" iMacs, not the newest version but the version previous to that. They have 1.25 GHz processors and are fully loaded, and finally, with their induction, Tach Services at the university has switched over to the most up-to-date version of OS X (we had been stuck with OS 9 (and not even the most recent version) while the labs had older machines). So I was pretty thrilled to have a pretty, responsive, and modern machine to work with. It's been a long time coming.

When I got to my next class I was surprised to find only one person I knew. After all, this was World Literature: Ancient to 1700, an English class, and I know all sorts of English majors. The class isn't exclusively for English majors, but to find only one person I knew, and not even someone I knew well enough to talk to, was surprising. Have that many people graduated and left that I'm the last in a new group of people? Audrey Becker, the prof for the class, seems interesting and fun. I've never had her before, and her reading list seems quite good. This class will be almost a review for me in a lot of ways since the materials are largely things I've already read (The Odyssey, various Greek plays, Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and so forth). She has chosen a number of things that are new to me, though, so it should be interesting. I had been hoping that this would be my easiest class, based on having read so much before, but I'll be busy with papers and exams. It won't be bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it will still take a good bit of time.

Although I had a little time to go back to the labs to do a bit more work, I normally will be heading straight from that class to my Vietnam War class with Dr. Gary Hess. Dr. Hess is not what I expected, but he has come so highly recommended by so many people I've been friends with on campus that I've been sure I would enjoy his class. I expect that what he has planned will take a lot of time for papers and exams, as well as lengthy reading, but the class isn't going to be any harder than I expected. And it should be enjoyable, too.

Those three classes are the only "active" lectures I'll have. I do have the distance learning class about World War II, and I'll have mp3 lectures to listen to while I watch Powerpoint presentations, but I'll be doing that here in the house without any need to be on campus. I have yet to meet with Theresa, my thesis advisor for my Creative Writing Senior Thesis, but I'll be doling that on Thursday and getting everything laid out. I'll be incredibly busy this semester, but it should all be doable. That's a relief. I had worried quite a bit that I'd be burdened with too heavy of a workload.

After class I ran around campus to get a variety of errands done, and then I visited Phil, my favorite prof, in his office and had a great chat with him. He shared a big secret that I'm not able to reveal yet, but it was exciting news. I also met with Karen Craigo, the advisor for Prairie Margins, because I have an idea that I could do my proposal for my Advanced Tech Writing class with Prairie Margins as the focus. She and I both like the prospects, so now I just have to sell the professor of my class on the idea (as well as a fellow student, since we'll be teamed into pairs within the class). I came up empty finding a few professors I wanted/needed to speak with after that, but I felt like I'd done pretty well all things considered.

Now it may seem that everything went swimmingly today, and it largely did, but I had moments (too many moments) of seeing hot guys that just made me feel lonely and sad, and there wasn't much I could do about that. I also met with one of my academic advisors and found out that there might be a problem with me graduating because two of my literature classes might not be accepted. I took them as elective classes in the 300 level, and nobody told me they weren't applicable for a degree (and why, I ask, would they even offer classes that don't qualify as an elective - I mean, it's an elective class, not a required thing?). So we'll see. I'm told by my advisor that she'll smooth things out and make sure that they're accepted as fulfilling things so that I can graduate, but now I'm worried that I'll find out at the last minute that I'm going to get screwed over. I guess we'll just see.

I also found that my blood sugar levels were screwed up massively by the lack of sleep and lack of food for such an early day, and I was really out of whack by the time I was ready to leave campus at 3:30 PM. I had more errands to run in the city of Bowling Green itself, so I did those, but then I grabbed a couple of sandwiches at Arby's to eat on the drive back to Sandusky since I was still so weak, even after my stop for a "lunch" around 11 AM when I went to the Union. The food ended up making me feel better, but it also made me drowsy, and I fought to stay awake all the way back to Sandusky as I drove. One of my biggest challenges will be figuring out this sleep and food deal or I'll have a seriously difficult semester.

I remained depressed on the drive back, probably partly due to being weak due to the lack of sleep and low blood sugar, but I'd seen cute guys on the streets while driving out of town, too, and everything combined together just made me too weak to hold my emotions together. I had a couple of errands to run in Sandusky when I got back, too, and by the time I had finished everything and gotten back to the house, it was 6 PM, and I was exhausted. I spoke to my grandma for a while and went over some questions she had about bills, tax items, and other mail stuff, and eventually I made my way upstairs to relax. After lying back and watching tv and surfing the net for an hour or so, I felt a bit better. I got a lot of stuff sorted out for classes and got my list of readings and assignments all organized, and I even got some reading done of some online stories that I follow. I'm still exhausted, though, and I've been fading in and out for a while, even falling asleep for a few hours before waking up again just now. And I'm tired enough to easily fall back asleep again with ease. And that sounds like a good way to go, honestly, so that's the plan.

Posted at 4:48 AM

January 10, 2005

Well, my sister flew back with my grandma yesterday, and while my grandma will be staying, my sister will be flying back tomorrow, leaving for Cleveland International Airport before I even get back from my first day of classes. It's hardly long enough to even call a visit, but I have had some nice conversations and gotten caught up on what's going on with my sister and her husband and kids. I feel out of the loop on those things most of the time, so it's handy to get caught up. My grandma's been sharing stories of her trip, too, and I'm sure that will keep happening for the next week or so. She's happy to be home, though, regardless of how good of a time she had at my sister's, and she seems quite happy and healthy.

I've already started working on one of my classes, a distance learning class in history regarding World War II, and as all of that is conducted through an internet portal, I've at least been able to go through the materials and see what's required, and I'm finding it interesting and achievable. Hopefully tomorrow's classes will feel similarly bearable. We'll see. That would certainly be a big plus.

Posted at 10:54 PM

January 9, 2005

Have you ever wondered why the name 'Dick' became a common alternative for the word 'penis'? Me neither.

Posted at 10:48 PM

January 8, 2005

I am now officially sick of shoveling snow. Winter can now end. Thank you.

Posted at 12:13 AM

January 7, 2005

Well, 15 hours, 210 miles, and $500 later, I'm winding up my day. I've ranged through Sandusky, out to Bowling Green and around, up to Toledo and throughout, and then back to Sandusky once again. I've been quite busy, buying all of my textbooks (for $310, even though I bought everything used and didn't have to buy three of the books because I had different versions already (which should work)), submitting my transcripts requests (at the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University, the two universities I've attended), applying for graduation, getting a haircut, washing the car, taking out the recycling, buying groceries, having dinner and a great chat with Steve at Olive Garden, and checking out the new construction on the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art as well as the continued construction on the Franklin Park Mall expansion and the I-280 suspension bridge project. I fit in a bunch of other, small errands, too. I've been a busy boy.

As pleased as I've been to get so much done and out of the way, I've had mixed feelings today after seeing Andrew while I was on campus. Andrew is the guy from last semester's film class that I think is attractive and interesting, and I'm quite sure that he wants absolutely nothing to do with me, but that doesn't stop me from still wishing I could get to know him every time I see him (and strangely I keep seeing him on a very regular basis). I'm attracted to him, and seeing him makes me happy, but I feel sad, too, in that nothing is happening, and I don't think it ever will. That's okay, I guess, but it'd be a lot easier if I didn't have to keep running into him all the time.

But hey, at least I got a lot done and racked up a huge credit card bill. Compared to that, who'd want to get close to some guy they're attracted to?

... me ...

Posted at 1:42 AM

January 6, 2005

Compiling all of the shit that's necessary for even a single grad school application is ridiculously time-consuming and frustrating, but multiply it by twelve (to cover all of the schools I'm applying to so that I can have a better chance of getting in somewhere) and the result is pure insanity. I think I've developed carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm/hand due to the straight hours of meticulously writing out forms in duplicate, triplicate (and even in quadruplicate in one case), and my mind is turning to mush as I try to come up with essay after essay to fulfill these bullshit requirements. I've been told that MFA Creative Writing programs generally look at your writing sample first (the short story) and if they don't care for the story they won't even look at anything else. That means that all of this other bullshit that I'm filling out and writing up might never even get read.

It's all so much bullshit.

Posted at 10:02 PM

January 5, 2005

Teenage boys the world over are rejoicing (at least the straight ones).

Playboy Coming to iPod
Magazine to offer photo galleries that can be viewed on digital media players, including iPod.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Playboy magazine is offering galleries of photographs that can be viewed on digital media players such as the Apple iPod.

The magazine said it will offer galleries of both non-nude and nude models, using the name "iBod."

"The overwhelming response we have received for this feature supports our theory that iPod Photo users are a technologically advanced group with a significant interest in enjoying beautiful Playboy images," said a statement from John D. Thomas, editor of Playboy.com.

The gallery of 25 non-nude photos will be available for downloads at Playboy.com. To get the gallery of nude images, users will have to belong to the Web sites' "Cyber Club," which charges a monthly fee.

Posted at 11:10 PM

January 4, 2005

I have for a long time had a strong interest in the improvement and revival of railroads in America as a way to promote mass transit and cut back on the needs for so much dependence upon cars (and even on planes). Considering the railway systems in place in Japan and throughout all of Europe I think it's easy to see that modern railways have a lot to offer: tremendous speed, comfort, affordability, and accessibility combined with the lowered need/desire for regular use of a car and also with the added bonus of lessened environmental impact. America, however, has missed out on all of this.

Surely America set the tone for railroads in the early days, laying miles and miles of track in very short times and connecting vast distances, leading to better travel and commerce. Even once commercial airlines were available and most people had their own cars, railroads still, in the early part of the 20th century, were a very preferable form of travel. In fact, the various railroad companies competed madly to have the fastest, most comfortable services available. But then things changed, the government took over commercial lines through regulation and railroad, without the competitive edge making it upgrade, rapidly declined as a standard form of transportation. As the decline continued, the comfort level was reduced and the accessibility factor went down as well as numerous stops were struck from the schedules. While Europe was designing and building high-speed mag-lev trains that sped along at 200 mph or faster, America was doing nothing. While Europe was laying new tracks to connect virtually everything, America was cutting back. It's no wonder that so few Americans look to the railroads as a means of travel anymore - they just aren't a very attractive package.

American railroads could be so much more, though. The technology already used in Europe and Japan, if employed in America, could lead to cross-continental rail lines that could travel just as fast as airline flights, be much more comfortable (and safe), and cost less. And once the major lines were created, spanning major distances (New York to Seattle, Atlanta to San Diego, Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., Chicago to Miami ... whatever) once major routes were done, then smaller lines could be built to connect to the lines or at least connect into major hubs. Honestly, the benefits to having a modernized railroad system in the U.S. would be multifold, and I think that most people would choose the comfort, cost savings, and convenience of rail lines over planes, cars, or buses. The problem is just getting thee ball rolling.

In all fairness, the U.S. government has shied away from doing anything to upgrade the railways in America because it is a very expensive prospect. It would require entirely new railways on entirely new land with entirely new trains and entirely new stations, all paid for and operated by the U.S. government. Considering that returns from Amtrack continue to diminish, it would seem like a troubling pursuit, a project that would cost billions upon billions without any sure sign that any of that money would ever be recouped. Personally, I still think that it would be worth it and that "if you build it, they will come." But just because I believe that doesn't mean that I don't understand why Congress avoids any sort of reform at all. It's just too risky politically considering how much it would cost, how long it would take to build, and how much land would have to be acquired.

This observation by Washington Post guest columnist James Coston is the most intelligent proposal I have yet seen, and I think it makes great sense. I doubt that in this time of massive deficits and domestic budget cuts that Congress will even begin to think about this idea any more than they have of any other idea concerning the railroads, but hopefully in time Congress will come back to this suggestion and give it due consideration. There is much to be gained from having high-speed rail lines in America, and this plan is the best start I can imagine.

Here is Coston's article:

Beyond Amtrak
Federal Funding for Trains Should Be Similar to Highway and Airport Programs

America's intercity passenger rail company, Amtrak, cannot survive much longer -- at least not in its current size and shape -- on the amount of annual funding that Congress and the administration provide. That was the conclusion of the Transportation Department's inspector general, Kenneth M. Mead, in a report delivered Nov. 18. It ought to be heeded.

The administration wanted to provide Amtrak with $900 million this fiscal year. Congress came through with $1.2 billion, but Mead agrees with Amtrak chief executive David Gunn that even the higher figure is not enough to keep the full operation going.

"Unsustainably large operating losses, poor on-time performance, and increasing levels of deferred infrastructure and fleet investment are a clarion call to the need for significant changes in Amtrak's strategy," the inspector general wrote. "Continued deferral brings Amtrak closer to a major point of failure on the system but no one knows where or when such a failure will occur."

Mead noted that on the Boston-New York-Washington Northeast Corridor, the only substantial piece of railroad that Amtrak owns and controls, century-old movable drawbridges could fail at any time for lack of upkeep or replacement. One such failure would close the line, forcing a massive, expensive and probably unmanageable diversion of the region's business and personal travel to already overburdened highways and airports.

Outside the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak rents track space from the privately owned freight railroads. That infrastructure is more sound, but freight-train congestion and antique signaling throw passenger trains off schedule. Meanwhile, Amtrak's diversion of scarce capital funds to patch track along the Northeast Corridor leaves no money to rebuild or expand its small rolling-stock fleet. Ridership grew by double digits on key corridors in California, Washington state and in the Midwest last year -- but no funds are available for more cars or locomotives.

Whether it's the railroad falling apart in the East or the fleet failing in the rest of the country, Amtrak is not getting the federal support it needs to meet demand.

Mead did not say why this is happening or what needs to be done about it. As a veteran Washington bureaucrat adept at ministering to multiple contending constituencies, he eschews the blame game. Instead, he handed the job of sorting it out to Congress, which, after all, is the body that will have to fund any solution.

"Congress needs to provide clear direction for Amtrak's operating and capital investment priorities as well as Federal funding levels in reauthorization legislation," Mead wrote. He suggested five possible strategies: refocus on under-500-mile corridors, where fast trains outperform air and auto transportation; cut low-performing operations; increase funding to develop the entire existing system; fund only to maintain the status quo; or "any combination of the above."

That's an interesting slate of choices, but all of them amount to micromanagement unless Congress first takes another, global step: It has to stop treating passenger trains as a business and start treating them as a federal transportation program.

What does a federal transportation program look like? Simple: like our highway and airport programs. The federal government doesn't operate the vehicles or market the service. There's no such company as "Amcar" or "Amflight." Instead, Washington helps the states to fund a state-of-the-art infrastructure that private operators can have access to -- highways for private cars and commercial motor coaches, airports for airliners. Congress needs to stop focusing solely on Amtrak, a government-owned train company operating on obsolete private and public infrastructure, so that it can refocus on getting matching funds out to states and communities that want to build up their intercity railroad tracks and start running fast, frequent, comfortable trains that people will pay to ride.

Several impatient states -- California, North Carolina and Washington -- couldn't wait for a federal program, so during the go-go '90s they spent some of their taxpayers' money to build track capacity and buy trains on their own. Their programs are successful -- California's 60 daily departures are carrying more than 4 million riders a year, and growth is quickly surpassing the capacity of the state-owned fleet.

But even rich states such as California have hit the fiscal wall, much as Pennsylvania did in 1939, when it ran out of money to finish its new turnpike and had to wait for an emergency grant sought by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Unless Congress develops a federal-state matching-grant plan for railroad tracks like the highway program it started in 1916 and the airport aid program it passed in 1946, passenger trains will continue to starve, highway and airport backups will grow, and Mead's successors at the Transportation Department will continue to scratch their heads about why the federal government can't seem to run a profitable train business.

Passenger trains used to be a profitable business in this country -- many, many years ago, when railroads enjoyed a monopoly over mechanized overland transportation and the federal government was not yet building and subsidizing two competing travel systems. But those days are gone. To expect a passenger train company to earn a profit on today's underfunded, obsolete and downsized track network is an exercise in nostalgia.

But to expect fast, frequent, efficient trains to carry masses of travelers who now fly, drive or stay home is the height of reality -- provided the funding is there for a railroad infrastructure as modern as the ones government provides for cars and airplanes. The key is our proven federal system of matching grants. It's amazing how much money a state legislature will appropriate for a project when it knows there's money waiting in Washington to match it. And it's amazing how eager entrepreneurs are to provide quality transportation once they're sure government will keep funding the infrastructure.

Look at the airlines. They're broker than Amtrak, but they keep trying, because win or lose, they know government will keep paying for the airports. Infrastructure assistance, not operations, is the federal government's proper role in a better train system.

The writer has worked for Amtrak and served on the Amtrak Reform Council. He is chairman of NewTrains Leasing System, which provides financing for passenger train equipment and infrastructure.

Posted at 12:33 AM

January 3, 2005

What a terrible shame that Futurama was cancelled. So sad.

Posted at 11:42 PM

January 2, 2005

It's been a week since tsunamis from the Indian Ocean ravaged the southern coast of literally all of Asia, taking countless lives and utterly destroying all shelter and basic sources of sustenance from the reshaped shorelines to points far inland. I have been avoiding commenting about the whole tragedy, waiting to have something insightful or supportive to say, but even after a week I still am left speechless, unable to even begin to express how saddened I am by all that has happened. To realize that in some cases perhaps only two people survived from an entire thriving community, no vestige of which exists any longer, is unfathomable. Not only must the people deal with the loss of friends, family, and neighbors, but they have lost their homes, their places of employment, and any manner of community or community centers. In many cases even the land where their cities once stood has been washed away. The psychological trauma of losing literally everything that you knew ... it is staggering to attempt to comprehend such loss.

I have been angered at the U.S. press which has preyed upon this tragedy as a photo opportunity for the media to rush to see who can give the most tragic pictures, and I have been disgusted by the overwhelming numbers of pundits, columnists, and reporters who have been pushing stories about worries of whether the U.S. has decent-enough early-warning systems for tsunamis for the west coast and the east coast, as though worrying about America (where tsunamis rarely hit and have historically taken very few lives ever) - like that is somehow more important than focusing upon the needs of the victims in Asia for support and care that is needed with great immediacy. The unflinching selfishness of the U.S. media, which suggests a vast selfishness in the American people, disgusts me, and I hope that these self-concerned articles in the media are not indicative of the concerns of American people. I would like to think that Americans care deeply and are trying to help in whatever ways they can. I would like to think that Americans would be filled with compassion for their fellow man and anxious to extend a helping hand.

I worry about those who have survived in Asia, and I hope that they receive the help they need, right now in the form of basic shelter, food, and medical needs, but just as importantly in the long-term needs of rebuilding their communities and, most importantly, offering counseling for these people in what will surely be resultant life-altering emotional traumas. I can't imagine how it would be possible to bear the burdens of so much loss and start all over again, but that is what these people are being asked to do. I wish them the best at rebuilding their lives, but mostly I wish them peace. I don't know if they can ever find peace after such tragic circumstances as this, but I wish them the most peace that they can achieve.

Posted at 12:02 AM

January 1, 2005

I spent about five hours sorting and organizing my grandma's stacks of bills and records to make them understandable and usable (both in preparation for filing income taxes and just so that I can make sense of them, since my grandma is losing her ability to sort through them with any ability lately). I had wanted to do this last summer, but even with as many drawers and files as I sorted and made sense of, I never got to the actually working files. Granted, I had set up a few new routines for her and arranged some of the files, but not in the complete way I had needed to. And with the new year rolling in, I had to get the files organized so that we'll start filing all of 2005's records in a sortable manner. I was able to clean off the dining room table (which is generally a mess of opened mail, bills to be paid, statements to be filed, newspaper clippings, recipes, stamps, scrap paper with notes, millions of little ripped corners of pages with addresses, magazines she has received but will never read, and ... well just about any other paper document known to man. Some day I expect to find a copy of the Magna Carta in there. Anyhow, I cleared of the dining room take and then cleared off the dining room chairs, and then the stacks under the chairs in the corner, and the stacks on top of the file boxes, and even organized the mixed up mess in the file boxes themselves. There's no telling how long any of this will last (I usually clear off the dining room table each time she leaves, and she fills it back up within two weeks of having returned. It's a start, though.

With all of that done, I can now focus completely on grad school apps. I'll admit, though, that sorting through all of those files was enough for one day, in my mind, so I picked up Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix this evening and have been reading through at a very enjoyable pace. It's a great book, a good deviation from all of the expected aspects of the Harry Potter world, and it's honestly thrilling just to be reading book for fun and not be expected to finish it in a really short amount of time and then write a ten-page essay on it. Yep. Good stuff. I'll be working on grad school app stuff for the next few days - most of the week, in fact, I expect - but I'll be planning to wind down in the evenings with this book. It makes me look forward to this last week of winter break just because of how much I'm enjoying this story. I'll probably comment more about the book once I've finished, but so far it's excellent.

Posted at 10:42 PM