April 2003 Archives
The May 2003 issue of Scientific American offers an intriguing look at the likelihood of the existence of parallel universes or series of such universes--a "multiverse" (I always knew that my roleplaying past would come in handy some day)--as a result of the currently most popular cosmological model.
One of the many implications of recent cosmological observations is that the concept of parallel universes is no mere metaphor. Space appears to be infinite in size. If so, then somewhere out there, everything that is possible becomes real, no matter how improbable it is. Beyond the range of our telescopes are other regions of space that are identical to ours. Those regions are a type of parallel universe. Scientists can even calculate how distant these universes are, on average.
And that is fairly solid physics. When cosmologists consider theories that are less well established, they conclude that other universes can have entirely different properties and laws of physics. The presence of those universes would explain various strange aspects of our own. It could even answer fundamental questions about the nature of time and the comprehensibility of the physical world.
This article is not an easy read, obviously, but a fascinating one, and it offers one amusing "birds and frogs"--why do I suddenly find myself thinking about Hitchcock?--model for more readily understanding the many-worlds hypothesis:
[T]he outside view of a physicist studying its mathematical equations, like a bird surveying a landscape from high above it, and the inside view of an observer living in the world described by the equations, like a frog living in the landscape surveyed by the bird.
From the bird perspective, the Level III multiverse is simple. There is only one wave function. It evolves smoothly and deterministically over time without any kind of splitting or parallelism. The abstract quantum world described by this evolving wave function contains within it a vast number of parallel classical story lines, continuously splitting and merging, as well as a number of quantum phenomena that lack a classical description. From their frog perspective, observers perceive only a tiny fraction of this full reality. They can view their own Level I universe, but a process called decoherence--which mimics wave function collapse while preserving unitarity--prevents them from seeing Level III parallel copies of themselves.
Whenever observers are asked a question, make a snap decision and give an answer, quantum effects in their brains lead to a superposition of outcomes, such as "Continue reading the article" and "Put down the article." From the bird perspective, the act of making a decision causes a person to split into multiple copies: one who keeps on reading and one who doesn't. From their frog perspective, however, each of these alter egos is unaware of the others and notices the branching merely as a slight randomness: a certain probability of continuing to read or not.
As strange as this may sound, the exact same situation occurs even in the Level I multiverse. You have evidently decided to keep on reading the article, but one of your alter egos in a distant galaxy put down the magazine after the first paragraph. The only difference between Level I and Level III is where your doppelgngers reside. In Level I they live elsewhere in good old three-dimensional space. In Level III they live on another quantum branch in infinite-dimensional Hilbert space.
I've always hoped that the theory of parallel universes and an infinite number of other mes was correct... it actually makes me feel better to know that even if I'm not getting laid, there are an infinite number of other mes that are... right at this very second, in fact.
And an infinite number of Rick Santorums are right now being topped by their Stanley Kurtz lovers. Ah, poetic justice.
This just in from Broken Newz:
"Senator Rick Santorum Wants to Sing With Elton John at Grammies"
After recently equating "sodomy," with bigamy, polygamy, and incest in an interview, Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is attempting to mend bridges with the Gay community, perhaps by singing with Elton John at the next Grammies.
...He is [also] about to release his movie-acting debut, "Straight Mile" wherein he plays a struggling young Senator who excels in debates, but suffers from stage fright. In a small but telling scene in the film, Santorum defends a homosexual coworker, saying, "I have no problem with him being a homosexual, as long as he doesn't engage in homosexual behavior. Or lust in his heart, because that's a sin, too. Unfortunately, there isn't yet legislation in Texas making it illegal to lust in the heart, but just because I defend the right of Texas to lock up Ron here for getting laid doesn't mean I have anything against him....
Personally, I suspect he'll also be following in Eminem's footsteps by releasing his own line of clothing. Inspired by the "in-your-face hoodie" from Shady Ltd. that reads "You Got a Problem?", the hoodie from the Sanctus Ltd. line will sport the reply, "Only With Homosexual Acts."
The roll call of Republican congressmen standing behind Rick Santorum as a model of "inclusiveness" grew today with the addition of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (who didn't actually use the i-word, but who rather was "very proud of Rick Santorum standing on principle") and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who said "[Santorum] is our greatest champion [emphasis mine] for inclusiveness and fairness."
Sadly, this latter statement is starting to have a ring of truth.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist reiterated his support today for Mr. Santorum by noting that the "man of caring, compassion and tolerance" has "100 percent confidence" of Senate Republicans.
"Tolerance": now those Republicans have gone and ruined another perfectly good word.
[update 2003-04-30 18:25: I missed the fact that Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Whip, also praised Santorum's inclusiveness yesterday: "A variety of us have said in one way or another we know Rick Santorum, we know he's not a bigot. He's an inclusive senator."
Meanwhile, a Baptist Church in North Carolina was expelled from a local Baptist association last night for baptizing two gay men. We keep being told vis a vis the Santorum incident that many who are religious subscribe to a "hate the sin, love the sinner" philosophy. Would someone explain to me how withholding baptism (not that it really matters to me, since 1) I don't believe in heaven or hell or an angry white man up in the fluffy clouds; and 2) any jealous, snippy god that might condemn any of its creations, which it's supposed to love, to eternal damnation, really isn't worth loving or worshiping anyway) is the sign of a loving Christian orientation?
The New York Times today has an interesting article [nytimes.com], with an accompanying multimedia presentation, suggesting that the prevalent cross-cultural legends of dragons among ancient peoples were based on dinosaur bones, whale or oarfish skeletons, or composites of carnivores that preyed on homo sapien's tree-dwelling evolutionary ancestors: pythons, big cats and raptors.
Yeah, right. Like I'm supposed to believe it was really a flock of 400 flying leopards that were widely reported in England in 1532. Sheesh. Do I look that gullible?
[Disclosure: I came across this NYTimes.com article on my own, but then saw it also mentioned on Andrew Sullivan's blog, which I do regularly read.]
Today was day two of the week-long leadership course. We spent a little time first thing discussing in small groups our responses to our homework case study from last night. Then we spent the rest of the morning exploring the MBTI, and looking at the responses to various situations by the opposing functions on the individual axes. For example, we separated into Ns and Ss, and were given a cup containing M&Ms, and then had to record on newsprint the thoughts that came into our heads; the Ss tended to describe the cup, list the colors of the M&Ms, and give other facts and details, while the Ns used words like "cool," "kaleidoscope," "impressionistic painting," etc.
For exploring the T/F axis, we were asked to list the thoughts and feelings that came into our heads around the theme of conflict, how we'd like to be approached around a conflict, and how we tend to deal with it. For the P/J axis, we described how we go about planning a vacation, and when.
This took up the entire morning until right before lunch, at which point we were actually given our own full type results: my re-testing confirmed that I am an INFP, though the F was a little stronger than I expected; previous tests had shown me fairly close to the center point. Similarly, I knew I was a strong P, but this time I tested 100% P, much higher than any time before; as expected, I tested as a fairly strong I, and an off-the-scale N (I've scored 100% N on the S/N scale every time I've taken the assessment in the past twenty years).
The oddest thing was to see how unreflective our training group was, entirely coincidentally, from the general population. Es make up, I think, 75% of the general North American population, and are highly represented in the State Department too, we were told, yet in our training class we were 75% I to only 25% E. Similarly, INFP--my own type--describes only about 1% of the general population, yet six of us in the class--fully one quarter of the group--were INFPs, the largest single type represented among us. INFP also tends to be overrepresented among Internet users who have recorded their test results, at nearly 8%, and very heavily overrepresented among Blog writers who have recorded their types at Bloginality--with 21% of respondents, as of today--which I find fascinating. Is there something about the INFP type that tends to be more likely either to take training (though, since it's mandatory for all people at a given grade, it should be more reflective of the general population, or at least of the management levels within the State Department), write a blog, take tests, or all of these?
In the afternoon, we talked about EEO issues, affirmative action, sexual harrassment, and diversity more generally, the latter also in the context of Secretary Powell's statement that we want to "attract, retain and unleash" the "best and brightest."
I was starting to get really pissed at one point during the morning exercises. There was one woman who was in my group during both the N and F exercises who completely ignored any of my comments--she was recording on newsprint, and we'd been directed to write everything down that was thrown out. It got to where the other people started noticing, and when I would throw out a word and she would ignore me, one of them would then repeat it at which point she would include it. I was standing right beside her, so it wasn't as though she couldn't hear me. And I never met her before the class started yesterday, and we were at different tables and in different groups that entire previous day, so there's no history between us of which I'm aware. I even tried to bring it up with her, to find out what was going on, but she just ignored that as well; she wouldn't look at or acknowledge my existence. It was a very surreal, frustrating and alienating experience.
Additional pictures at ananova.com
Three-and-a-half inch stilletos reportedly inspired by the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz and designed by Stuart Weitzman went on sale today in London for one million British pounds. The shoes, originally for an unnamed actress to wear to the Oscars--but allegedly withdrawn by Weitzman "as a mark of respect to soldiers fighting in Iraq" (huh?)--were woven with platinum thread and are set with 642 rubies, totalling more than 120 carats.
Y'know, now I don't feel so bad about how much I paid for my pair of Campers.
I left work right after 5:00 this afternoon, in order to get my car to the inspection station, which I thought was open until 6:00. When I got there, it turns out they close at 5:00.
Of course, I shouldn't have waited until the last few days of the month to get it inspected. I'm usually much better about that, but I've been frustrated with the car lately that I just haven't wanted to bother. So now I'll have to try to see if my boss will let me leave early tomorrow or Wednesday so that I can get the car to the inspection station before 5:00.
Guess whose MBTI results tomorrow will not show a propensity toward J on the organization and planning (J) vs. spontaneity (P) axis?
I'm in Basic Leadership Skills training from 9-4 this entire week at work; it's part of a mandatory program instituted by Secretary Powell, who practices what he preaches about valuing people and developing the leadership skills of all State Department employees. However, as with anything in the government, bureaucracy and regulations get in the way.
The idea is that at upon reaching a certain grade level (GS-13) in the Civil Service and a roughly corresponding one (FS-03) in the Foreign Service, all State Department employees must enroll in this five-day Basic Leadership Skills course, which talks about organizational culture, communication and preference styles, and supervisory skillsets. At the next grade, you enroll in Intermediate Leadership Skills, and then at the next in Advanced.
But this doesn't account for the fact that not all GS-13s and FS-03s are alike. Some have never supervised anyone before, while others have, and some have no supervisory responsibilities in their current position. In my class of 24, I'm unusual in having come into the government at this level directly from private industry rather than from within the Department or from another government agency; before taking this job I'd been managing departments (with almost two years at the CTO level) for the past six to seven years, and managing teams and workgroups for another six or seven before that. I've had much of this sort of training before.
Granted, the part on organizational culture is particularly valuable to me anyway, because the culture, values and processes here in the government are very different than the other places I've worked, even the not-for-profits and academic institutions. And learning about new theories and models (though none of what we're going to be covering looks to be particularly new) and networking with other managers throughout the department certainly has value as well. But it would be nice if there were some degree of tailoring available, rather than only a one-size-fits-all approach.
Mean lil fellow, aren't you?
Which Monty Python Character are you?
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Who could argue with such a scientific assessment of my personality?
Wasn't up too terribly late last night; I think I was in bed between 2 and 2:30, and didn't get up for good (I was up once to feed the cat, and awake several other times from about 6:30 am on) until about 11:45. I remember just bits and pieces of dreams from last night; one sequence that is still with me was my being at some sort of combination house-antique store-musuem, in which lived a big cat (I'm pretty sure it was a Russian Blue). I was trying to leave through one of the back doors, and the cat kept running over to try to get out (this is exactly the behavior of Alex--my Maine Coon--when I go to leave the condo). He did manage to get past me, and out the door, but I snagged him up and brought him back; he was licking me and kissing me the whole time.
A number of days later, I was visiting my parents, and they told me that they believed the cat had rabies, but that it had gotten out again and no one had been able to find it to confirm it, so I would have to start prophylactic treatment. It had been long enough since I'd been there, that there was concern that the disease might already have taken effect. Yet I was procrastinating making the call for an appointment with a doctor (just as I continue to do in real life). And that's all I remember.
For more than a week I've been spending a lot of time struggling with my installation of Movable Type, the software with which this journal was created and is maintained. Several weeks ago I had upgraded to the most recent version, and things had been working fine until sometime over a week ago when I started getting time-outs, internal server errors, and page not found errors when rebuilding new entries or rebuilding the entire site. I hadn't changed anything. I visited the support forums for the software, and other people were describing the same thing--many noting that the problem had only come after upgrading to the current version, and often only on some blogs within an installation but not others, and seemingly out of the blue after working normally for a while. No one so far has been able to completely resolve it or even tie it to any specific cause.
My frustration has been growing, and yesterday I spent almost the entire time between noon and 8pm, except for a few bio and meal breaks, working on the blug (to be fair, a good deal of that time also was spent looking at other blogs, adding some new functionality, etc.). I finally did get the overall rebuilds to begin working correctly again--by decreasing the number that are built at once, even though this had never before been a problem--but this entry will be my first test of whether new postings also are reliably working.
[Update: it did work, hoorah; and this re-saving of it with the update will be a test of that functionality, which had been breaking as well, seemingly at the point where it normally would try to ping.]
[Update of Update: no, the resaving of an item still is causing a time out and pings not to be sent, though at least the actual text changes do get saved to the database and thence to the site.]
[Another Update: well, it seems to be related to categories; if I only have one category when building an item, it builds fine. When I add additional categories and rebuild it, it times out and fails. And when rebuilding the entire site, it was the category archiving that was failing along with individual entries. So I've turned category archives off, and now everything is working fine.]
I watched Some Like It Hot for the first time last night (yes, I know--believe me, if I had ever had a gay card, it would have been taken away from me, shredded, and the pieces burned and buried in a landfill many years ago. I saw my very first Opera--not counting a college production of Don Juan--just a month ago, too.). Really enjoyed it, and some of the queer subtext was quite funny.
After the movie I went into There, briefly, in a good mood, where I joined Matt, Lee and Roger already in a conversation. Matt and I started talking about Santorum's comments, the President's description of the man as "inclusive," and the phenomenon of "bug-chasing" and other real-world topics, but Lee and Roger left the conversation--Lee didn't want that part of the real world to intrude upon the game. So eventually we re-joined them, where they were continuing to explore the range of clothes and grooming options for their avatars, but by then I was feeling pissy and bored, and Matt was feeling just bored, so he logged out to watch some TV, and I logged out to do some other things.
I don't mean to make Roger and Lee come off as prissy little gay bois only interested in clothes and looks--in real life, they're not at all like that, though in game they do sometimes get rather caught up in shopping for their avatars and trying on lots of different looks (and I've certainly done my share of that off-and-on in game, too). It was just the particular circumstances of last night, of coming into game feeling really up and social, and feeling a little shot down because I was engaging in heavier conversation. At the same time, I can understand how they felt. Geez, I'm always so wishy-washy about describing even the mildest conflict, since I want to be so fair about presenting all sides and not always assuming I was in the right; in this case, certainly, there were no right or wrong sides, just different moods and tastes.
This is related to an email exchange between Gene Cowan and I on Friday in which we touched on the first--and unpleasantly unsuccessful--virtual contact he and I had had around 1995; his blog query about whether he should include more personal diary-like entries; and how other people that one writes about--and who might read these entries--might feel or react to being discussed in this sort of forum, often from a purely one-sided perspective.
Bad, wicked, naughty brain! Always thinking and rethinking and processing and reprocessing every little detail and every little fear. Sometimes I wish it would just shut up.
A friend sent this quote to me today. Surprised I hadn't seen it before, at first I assumed it had to be an urban legend, but a quick search confirms that it is, indeed, the real thing (and I was apparently under a virtual rock when this was making the rounds of the internet over the past few months).
Hermann Goering, in a series of prison interviews conducted by and collected in Gustave M. Gilbert's Nuremberg Diary, spoke in 1946 about how the people of any nation can be led into a war they don't want. The excerpt below is narrated by Gilbert:
We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Eleanor Clift (newsweek.com) on why Santorum is in no jeopardy of being Lotted (I hope I've just coined that).
Some quotes:
The base [of the Republican party] identifies with Santorum. He's their champion. At the first hint of controversy, powerful figures on the right flooded the White House with calls warning "not to walk away from Rick."
The White House is behind Santorum. More than anybody in the leadership, he's their guy. Hardcore and ambitious, he goes to the wall for every Bush initiative and for every right-wing cause. He's leading the party's fight against reproductive cloning and stem-cell research, and is working to pass an exclusion to allow faith-based groups that receive federal money to practice discrimination in hiring that would otherwise be illegal.
Bush knows that to break with Santorum would cost him dearly with his conservative base. Asked for Bush's reaction to Santorum's broadside against gays, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer reached new heights of verbal gymnastics. He said the president doesn't typically comment on Supreme Court cases. When the reporter pointed out that Bush had spoken out quite a lot about the Michigan affirmative-action case currently before the court, Fleischer said, "That's why I said--typically." Fleischer did say, though, that the president thinks Santorum is "an inclusive man." When it comes to entertainment, Fleischer is on his way to matching the Iraqi information minister.
Again with the "inclusive" label, first from Frist and now from Bush via Fleischer. How much clearer can the Republicans be on just what they really think about gay people? We're so far outside that tent that someone who unabashedly and unapologetically spews hateful nonsense implying that we are the equivalent of child molesters can be hailed as a paragon of inclusiveness. This is the true face, not just of Rick Santorum, but of George Bush and his compassionate conservatism.
What Fleischer said:
But the president believes that the senator is an inclusive man. ... The president has confidence in Senator Santorum and thinks he's doing a good job as senator--including in his leadership post.
Are we surprised that this is the definition of "inclusive" propounded by Mr. Bush? When governor of Texas, he said he would veto any attempt to overturn the state's sodomy law--the very case before the Supreme Court now that has loosened Santorum's lips... I'd have liked to have said "that has gotten Santorum in trouble," but it's clear that he won't get into trouble just for bashing us queers--calling the sodomy law "a symbolic gesture of traditional values."
Ah, thanks to Andrew Sullivan's blog for pointing me to today's Chicago Sun-Times editorial. Here's perhaps the best line I've seen so far in the debate over Santorum:
And one last point. How can we have any hope of creating a democratic government in Iraq free from domination by repressive religion if we cannot free our own laws of official faith-based biases inflicted on our fellow citizens?
And here's one of Sullivan's thoughts about Mr. Bush's statement today about the "inclusive" Mr. Santorum:
It hurts me to say this, Mr President, but your statement today has just made matters far worse. Senator Santorum believes that gay people should be subject to criminal prosecution for their private, adult consensual relationships. He has equated homosexuality with the abuse of minors. He has associated homosexual relationships with bestiality. If that is an example of "inclusiveness," then what would exclusiveness be? For the president to call the criminalization of an entire group of people the position of an "inclusive man" leaves me simply speechless. It indicates that the White House still doesn't understand the damage that this incident is doing, the fact that it is beginning to make it simply impossible for gay people and their families--or any tolerant person--to vote for the president's party.
Well, I never imagined that the conservative Sullivan and I--cute though Andrew may be--would be bedfellows, but there you have it. Oops... is that the police I hear knocking at the door?
Today's Friday 5
1. What was the last TV show you watched?
Um, wow... I think it was an episode of Changing Rooms one day last week, on BBC America.
2. What was the last thing you complained about?
Just a few minutes ago I was complaining to someone at work about the number of interruptions and meetings I've had today, leaving me with little time to actually accomplish anything (of course, here I am posting on my journal rather than getting anything accomplished).
3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?
Obliquely, I complimented Gene Cowan earlier today for his web design and writing skills over the past years that I've been following his site and more recently his blog.
4. What was the last thing you threw away?
A sticky that was on my monitor reminding me to do a task for my boss before 2:00 this afternoon.
5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?
Well, I had just immediately visited T. Kevin's Synaptic Discharge, which is what reminded me I hadn't yet done today's Friday 5. Before that, though, I had been looking at the News in Latin site, which was referenced in Gene Cowan's Just As I Thought blog.
Wow... with apologies to my two gay friends employed by McPaper, I have to admit I was surprised to find such a queer-friendly editorial as this in USA Today.
When commenting that Santorum's positions in the Senate and in the Republican hierarchy seem secure even after his remarks comparing homosexuality to incest, and suggesting that the state has the right to legislate consensual adult sexual activity within one's own home, the editorial noted, "That's because too many people in the GOP either forthrightly agree with his views or cluelessly wonder why an apology is required." It continued, "Neither scenario bodes well for a party that needs to show it can govern a divided nation in the short term and expand its political base over the long run."
Let's hope they're right.
The article also points out that, "[r]ushing to Santorum's defense, Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee only made matters worse on Tuesday, when he said: 'Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party.' If Santorum is the GOP's idea of inclusive, that fact is best left unadvertised."
<chuckle>
Meanwhile, Olympia Snowe, fortunately, continues to be a breath of fresh air. On the heels of her stance against Bush's "Leave No Millionaire Behind" tax-cut strategy, she has spoken out against Santorum's comments:
Discrimination and bigotry have no place in our society, and I believe Senator (Rick) Santorum's unfortunate remarks undermine Republican principles of inclusion and opportunity.
Hey, wouldn't it be interesting to see a cross-party Dean/Snowe ticket for the 2004 presidential election?
Oh, and I love the reaction Santorum's remarks are getting from Andrew Sullivan. This has really pissed him off at the "conservative" leadership within the Republican party. Yeah!
His blog entries for today and yesterday show an impassioned sense of betrayal by others who deem themselves to be conservatives. Here are some quotes:
But something this basic as the freedom to be left alone in own's own home is something I naively assumed conservatives would obviously endorse--even for dispensable minorities like homosexuals. I was wrong. The conclusions to be drawn are obvious.
This is not about homosexuality as such. It is about the principles of limited government, tolerance, civility, compassion and the soul of the Republican party. There are no deeper political issues. No war is worth fighting if our political leaders feel contempt for basic liberties at home. I realized this more profoundly after reading Santorum's full remarks, which are far more alarming than the small, doctored quote that created the immediate fuss.
[quoting a letter to him] "If Santorum is somehow representative of what is conservatism in the United States today, then I say no thank you to it."
Me too.
It's hard to find the right analogy, but it's not that far from saying that you have nothing against Jews, as long as they go to Church each Sunday. (Which was, of course, the Catholic position for a very long time.) Worse actually. It's like saying that, even if Jews practised their religion at home, in private, they could still be arrested for undermining the social order. Their very persistence in their identity--which harms and could harm no-one else--is a threat. Do you think someone who said that would remain a leading pillar of the Republican Party?.
The rest of the GOP is maintaining silence. Thanks, guys. We get the message. As one reader put it, "I was warming to the Republicans over Iraq. But statements like these have me running back to the Democrats." I can fully see why.
What he disapproves of mustn't only be denied public recognition; it must be criminalized. If you think I'm exaggerating, read his full comments. They are not a relic of a bigoted past, as Trent Lott's were. But they are an expression of a bleak future, in which tolerance and privacy are subject to the approval of "moral" majorities and enforced by the police. If that truly is his view, he needs to explain it further. And the Republican party has to ask itself if it wants an unconservative extremist as one of its leaders.
gay.com has an article about the "Ten great gay cars for 2003".
Yep, my Saab 9-3 is there. Author Steve Siler writes:
Saabs are ready matches for the gay community. Not only do they dare to be different, but Saab was validating and accessing our community through charity sponsorships and advertising in gay and lesbian publications before it was cool to do so.
OK, New Beetle Cabrio. Check. Jeep Wrangler. Check. Mazda Miata. Like, duh.
But really, now, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Subaru Outback, and the Ford Mustang and Ranger?
And speaking of cars, this news, which Roger heard on the radio on Tuesday but which I forgot to post about, makes me very sad. I really loved the look of the new T-bird though, to be honest, if I were going to spend $40K again on a car (which I'm not planning to and besides, all I could find in my area were the removable hard-top version instead of the soft-top I really want <grin>), it would probably have to be on something other than a two-seater. But oh, what a gorgeously sexy retro little two-seater it is.
Columnist Jerry Flint says:
I remember when they killed the first two-passenger Bird. I thought that the car was beautiful. A Ford executive back then said, "Beauty is a good 10-day sales report." The original Thunderbird reminded people that Ford could build a beautiful car. Ditto for the short-lived new Thunderbird.
The news about its demise is ugly indeed.
Amen to that.
Here's what Bruce Springsteen had to say about the absurd backlash against The Dixie Chicks--who have faced property damage and death threats for exercising their constitutional right to free speech--for their anti-war, anti-Dubya comments:
The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American.
The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about--namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home.
I don't know what happens next, but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support.
Go Dixie Chicks. Go Boss.
When I left Tucson from my visit to see Roger and Raymond a few weeks ago, I left behind a little gift Roger had gotten for me, a tiny shoe carved out of ironwood--to him, it looked like an "elf shoe," which made him think of me. To me, it looks like a clown's shoe--bulbously rounded toe rather than sharply pointed--but it's the thought that counts, and Roger's very thoughtful. I only left it behind because it had been batted off the coffee table and under the sofa by one of the cats, and I didn't realize this when I picked up all my other graft from the table to put in my luggage.
After I got back home and discovered I didn't have it, Roger looked for it and found it where Benny had left it after playing with it. He told me he'd send it to me. Earlier this week he told me he'd put the box in the mail--along with my "CD" (which confused me at the time)--and that I'd have it by Thursday or Friday.
Today when I got home from work, the package was waiting for me... a larger package than I expected. When I opened it, I found inside a DVD of Some Like It Hot, which he and I had been discussing based on a photo he took of the Hotel del Coronado, and which he was surprised to learn I'd never seen all the way through. Additionally, there were three bags of (yummy, 'cause I've already eaten one) ginger snaps, one of my two favorite kinds of homemade cookies, and a woven wooden basket with the shoe inside.
What a treat! And what a surprise to get all these other little gifts besides just the shoe. What a sweetheart.
Oh, and he just told me in IM that when he saw the basket, it said "Elf Picnic Basket" to him, so he had to get it.
Last night Craig hosted a wine and cheese get-together at his apartment. The invitation was for 6, and I was working late to finish a presentation that I had to deliver today, so it was 6:30 when I left the office (yes, that's late for me these days... I'm making 50% of what I was as a dot-com CTO, but then I generally get to leave at 5pm, rather than 9, 10, 11 or even later--a trade-off I consider perfectly comfortable).
Even so, when I arrived, only Craig, his girlfriend Laura, and her roommates Nicole and Amy were there. Eventually the party got hopping, and there were a smattering of people I knew (mostly only vaguely, though) and some new people to meet; a good mix. I had a very nice time, and the wine was really great.
Craig had enlisted Terry, a guy I dated for a year back in 2000-2001, and who sells wine, to pick out the vintages. He also invited Terry to show up at the party. Terry and I parted on reasonably good terms--we had said we were just taking a "break," and I thought we probably would get back together, but a month later he met someone else, and a month after that they moved in together. They're still together, and seemingly well-suited, and I'm happy for them. I even got together with both of them a couple of times. But the last time Terry and I saw each other or spoke was just about a year ago, one day that he'd invited me over to a wine tasting at their place.
I'd left sad, which he thought was because of his new relationship, but which was due more to a combination of things going on at the time--primarily my unemployment and my dad's very poor health--and neither of us contacted the other again.
It was really nice to see him last night, and we enjoyed catching up. We've agreed to talk again within a week.
I left feeling pretty good: the reunion with Terry had been sweet and positive, the conversation at the party had been interesting, I hadn't felt out of place or wallflowery all night and, in fact, felt very comfortable socializing the entire four and a half to five hours I was there.
Once home, though, I crashed. I went into a dive, and became very despondent, and then scarfed down a whole pint of ice cream. Several of the people at the party work at the place from which I was laid off in 2001 and, though the fact that I was laid off wasn't due to any gap in my own performance, or any flaw in my character, and wasn't personal (although there were certainly ways in which the CEO was a complete bastard through it all and, apparently, has even gotten worse in his treatment of the employees), I still sometimes find myself slipping into a sense of having failed, in some way, when I'm around a group of people from there. Combined with a sense of having failed in the relationship with Terry as well, and having consumed at least six or seven glasses of wine, I was ripe for a tailspin.
Fortunately, Matt called and didn't give up when I didn't answer the phone the first time around, and he cheered me up considerably. Additionally, the wine was starting to make me too sleepy to be too self-indulgent or self-destructive, so I drank my water, took my aspirin, and fell into bed. Today/this evening I feel fine: I had a good, productive day at work, I did a great job on my presentation, and I don't feel like a failure.
Oh cool. I wrote a note to Neil Gaiman yesterday, about the synchronicity I chronicled in my journal, and today I discovered that he'd included my comments in his daily journal entry.
And, about the reference I sent him, he said "How useful! Thanks..."
Heh. Love the Internet.
Meant to write about this yesterday. It's been a somewhat fertile period recently for connecting with old friends and acquaintances and making new ones.
Sheldon and Lisa, the friends with whom I'd lived for about four years back in the early 90s, have been transferred from Anchorage, where they've been the past three years after six years in Belgium before that, to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, about 2-1/2 hours from here. I got email from Sheldon yesterday telling me that they'd be attending a Magic tournament in Baltimore on Saturday, May 3, and would like to see me and stay over with me the previous night and possibly come back and stay that night as well before returning home on Sunday.
So I called last night and talked to Lisa for about an hour; it was so nice to hear her voice and to be back in touch with them again. I've been thinking about them a lot just in the past month, as various things have brought them to mind: Craig's been wanting to plan a trip to Virginia Beach, which is near where they're living now; the trainer on my staff and I just recently discovered that we both are gamers, and she's a huge Magic fan; even my restarting my journal last month was spurred by an email from someone I met ten years ago through Sheldon and Lisa; Jay, my ex and our fourth roommate back then, came down to help me out with Alex; etc. I've been nostalgic about those days, as I think those were the happiest of my adult life.
Sheldon was entertaining visitors--their new neighbors--when I called, so I didn't get to talk to him, but we've been exchanging emails, and will hash out the details of getting together weekend after next. I'm so looking forward to it.
Shortly after I got off the phone with Lisa, Matt--one of my newest friends, and my current online crush--made a surprise call, and we talked for at least an hour, and then ended up online in Yahoo, where we explored the voice chat and shared doodling environments. Yesterday was my best day, emotionally, in a while: work went very well, I accomplished a lot, and my communication with old and new friends (also including Roger, via Yahoo) was supportive and engaging.
Oh, I love this.
Regarding Santorum's comments about consensual gay sex being equivalent to incest or adultery, the Washington Post now reports that his "spokeswoman Erica Clayton Wright said the quote was accurate 'only in the context related specifically to the right to privacy in the Supreme Court case.' The senator, she said, 'has no problem with gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender individuals.'"
So, he has no problem with us... just as long as we keep the sex out of our own bedrooms.
Um... whuuuuh? Did he hire this spokeswoman from Bizarro World? Did she get her PR degree from the same school as Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf? Is this statement even supposed to be accepted as a cogent explanation, much less a retraction or apology?
The Associated Press (by way of washingtonpost.com) has reported that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) today, in an interview with the AP in which he discussed the expected decision later this summer from the Supreme Court on a case involving consensual homosexual sex in a private home in Texas, compared consensual gay sex in the home to incest and adultery, and went on to say that he believes there is no constitutional right to privacy:
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything... All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution."
Fortunately, even the Log Cabin Republicans are taking a big step back and calling him on the carpet for this one:
"There is nothing conservative about allowing law enforcement officials to enter the home of any American and arrest them for simply being gay," said Log Cabin Republican Executive Director Patrick Guerriero. "I am deeply troubled that Sen. Santorum would divide America in a time of war. Mainstream America is embracing tolerance and inclusion. I am appalled that a member of the United States Senate leadership would advocate dividing Americans with ugly, hate-filled rhetoric."
This is the same Santorum, a self-described "compassionate conservative" and as the head of the Republican Conference the third highest ranking Senate Republican, who was quoted as saying to the Washington Post last November that he supports a provision that would allow faith-based groups that receive federal funding for community service programs to discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring--even in cases where local and state non-discrimination laws are already in place. "I will make that stand," said Santorum. (from a news release from the Human Rights Campaign, November 25, 2002.)
In January of this year, the Philadelphia CityPaper ran an opinion piece entitled "A Friend to the End: Rick Santorum's Questionable Defense of Trent Lott," in which the author noted:
Our senator [Santorum] went on national television and claimed that Lott was "a man of tremendous integrity, a deep faith, [and] someone who believes all men are created equal." He added that the furor would subside when his colleagues "reflect and put things in better context," a dubious statement given the context of Lott's terrible civil rights record.
As the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, Santorum originally opposed even calling a meeting of Senate Republicans to discuss Lott's remarks and potential replacement, telling NBC's Tim Russert, "It's not under our rules to allow me to do that." A few days later, under pressure from his more moderate colleagues, Santorum reversed himself by calling a meeting for Jan. 6. But Santorum continued to defend Lott, even as more evidence of Lott's poor civil rights record came out, telling reporters on Dec. 18, "I'm more and more convinced that Senator Lott should stay."
Santorum didn't stop at defending Lott. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that "he personally never viewed Thurmond, who just retired as the Senate's longest serving member, as a segregationist."
No wonder, since the three of them seem cut from the same cloth.
This guy is really scary, though at least we know where he stands and that he's not our friend.
I don't think I've written about this in my journal or even noted it on my site, but I'm really interested in the phenomena of coincidence and synchronicity.
At dinner recently, I've been reading a few pages each day of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, by John Clute and John Grant. Last night, I left off two-thirds of the way through the page that begins with EMBLETON, RON(ALD SYDNEY).
This evening, just before dinner, I was catching up with Neil Gaiman's journal, which I hadn't looked at since Friday. Over the weekend, he had responded to a note that linked a Honda ad, Caractacus Potts's breakfast-making machine in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the children's game Mouse Trap, to Rube Goldberg, by responding that the English had their equivalent of Goldberg in William Heath Robinson, of whom I'd never before heard.
A short while later, at the dinner table, I started in on the next unread entry in the Encyclopedia--EMMET, ROWLAND--another unknown to me. Here are the first two paragraphs:
UK artist and inventor. A fine cartoonist, he was also a draughtsman and engineer. He became known for his succession of large, incredibly intricate "Gothic-Kinetic" inventions. Unlike William Heath ROBINSON [emphasis mine], who merely drew his eccentric contraptions, RE regularly created three-dimensional working models.
The amazing success of his Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway at the Festival of Britain in 1951 led to many more commissions, including permanent constructions like "The Rhythmical Time Fountain" at Nottingham, UK, and models built for CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG [emphasis again mine] (1968)...
Last Wednesday, I wrote about having received email from a former boyfriend, from whom I hadn't heard in over ten years, last December and then again on Tuesday, most recently asking if I were going to be around Easter weekend, since he was unexpectedly going to be in the area. After I'd replied to his first email in December, I never received a response until Tuesday. Because of this, and my suspicions about the level of his commitment to renewing the friendship, I did something I never do: when I replied on Tuesday night that I would be around, and giving him my contact information, I requested a Read Receipt.
Early Wednesday morning, I got the acknowledgement. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday all came and went, and, unsurprisingly at this point, I didn't hear from him.
My friends had been concerned about my agreeing to be available to meet with him, and Matt even had admitted to being a little jealous. They needn't have worried, though their love and concern are really wonderful.
At this point, I'm leaning towards deleting unread any future emails from him to spare myself what little angst he still makes me feel, though the odds are that I won't hear from him again anyway.
I did hear from my parents Saturday evening, who called to report that my dad's oldest sister had been hospitalized on Friday night and was in intensive care. The family had seen her throughout the week, and she seemed fine, but on Friday she called her daughter--my cousin--to report that she couldn't breathe. My cousin called an ambulance and went over to my aunt's house; she had a great amount of fluid on her lungs, and I'm told she coded at least once in the emergency room.
They had her on a ventilator Friday night and Saturday, but by Sunday morning she was awake and had removed the ventilator and was breathing on her own. Apparently she was experiencing a wide range of hallucinations, including seeing beings in the air and she reported that both "Timmy and Hoe" had been to see her ("Hoe" being a childhood nickname of Timmy, my dad). She had no recollection of anything after she called my cousin on Friday.
Her son and his wife flew in from San Francisco Saturday. Fortunately, though, my aunt was doing better by Sunday, and was more lucid; they're still analyzing the test results to determine if she had a heart attack, or precisely what happened otherwise.
Personally, even before the news about my aunt, I was anxious and depressed much of the weekend, to the point of even being somewhat hypochondriacal. Friday night I was feeling exhausted, and went to bed really pretty early for me, but on Saturday morning I just could not fully wake up, or get out of bed. I did get up around 8:30 long enough to open a pouch of cat food for Alex, but immediately fell back into bed and didn't get up until noon. I've been having bad headaches more frequently, and had a very bad one on Saturday; I also felt extremely fatigued, achy, slightly warm and was suffering what I think was probably just my first allergy attack of the season (and the pollen is pretty thick on the table on my balcony; it looks like a copper table top with a verdigris patina rather than glass).
But I started worrying that I'd contracted the Lyme Disease bacterium from a tick bite, from my geocaching exploration in the woods behind my office last Wednesday. I hadn't actually seen any ticks on me in the interim, mind you, nor have I yet evidenced the most common symptom of infection, the erythema migrans. I spent a big chunk of Saturday crusing Internet sites about the disease and looking at the growing number of incidents reported from my (urban) county over the preceding few years.
Intellectually, of course, I realized I was being silly. But I went to bed early on Saturday, and didn't get up again on Sunday until noon, having slept right through the morning sex-ed class for which I'm one of the teachers. The headache wasn't as bad on Sunday, but I still felt fatigued, stuffy and a little achy, and didn't do much of anything. I sat around in sweats all day, and didn't even socialize with Roger or Lee in Yahoo or There during the day: I kept to myself, and played a little SimCity but mostly just slept on the futon in the computer room.
By Sunday night, I wasn't even theorizing about the Lyme Disease possibility any more. But as I was preparing for bed, I was petting Alex and, as I rubbed under his chin, I felt a very tiny bump there I hadn't felt before. He's very skittish about it, so I wasn't able to really determine what it is, but from my quick glimpses at it through his long fur and his attempts to fight me, it does look like a tick. I wasn't able to remove it last night--though I'm covered with scratches from the attempt--so tonight I'm going to ask a friend to come down to help hold him while I try to see what this is, and to remove it, if it is a tick. Otherwise, I'll have to take him to the vet to have it done there.
And even if it is a tick, it doesn't necessarily mean anything... it might have just been on my clothes when I came in the house and gotten right onto him, rather than having been on me first: an infected tick needs to remained attached for about 24-36 hours before it can transmit the bacteria.
So, if it is a tick, I'll have to talk to my doctor and my vet to see if they think it merits starting the four- to six-week treatment of antibiotics for me (and whatever they do to treat pets), given that I haven't exhibited the rash but only the other symptoms, which are so common (headaches, muscle aches, fatigue and fever) as to be almost anything.
The problem, I guess, is that it's relatively easy to treat Lyme in the early stages, whereas down the road it becomes much harder and riskier, and the bacteria can cause some very serious things (from arthritis to cardiac arrhythmias to renal failure) but on the other hand doctors don't like to just give long courses of antibiotics "just in case" (and which has its own side effects and risks involved). And apparently the blood tests available these days for the bacteria aren't very reliable.
On the other hand, making an appointment with my doctor about a potential physical ailment might finally be the impetus to get me to talk to her about my increasingly troublesome mental issues.
After fighting with Alex and my own anxiety and insecurities, I had a horrible night's sleep. I tossed and turned, woke up multiple times, and had really vivid dreams, one of which I remember featured a somewhat larger, tiger-like Alex lunging at me and tearing at my arm and neck like you see in police dog videos. I wish cats could understand when you're trying to help them; after four years of feeding, loving and caring for him, you'd think there'd be a little more trust that I'm not trying to hurt him now.
Yeah! Scaled Composites, Inc. today unveiled its SpaceShipOne Project (space.com), a new, private passenger-carrying sub-orbital craft.
And it's a pretty cute little craft (well, pair of craft, really).
This is how Eleanor Clift so aptly describes (MSNBC.com-Newsweek) the bullying techniques being brought to bear against the two Republican holdouts on Bush's outrageous tax-cut proposal--Ohio's George Voinovich and Maine's Olympia Snowe.
The conservative Club for Growth is running an ad in Ohio with a photo of Voinovich next to a French flag. The group's press release calls Voinovich a "Franco Republican." The same ad is slated for Maine with Snowe pictured alongside the French flag. A narrator equates the senators' opposition to the full Bush tax cut with French opposition to the Iraq invasion.
In a separate article for the Associated Press, Jim Abrams records:
"These Franco-Republicans [Voinovich and Snowe] are as dependable as France was in taking down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein," Club for Growth president Stephen Moore said in a statement.
In her own article, Clift goes on to explain:
More than 60 percent of Americans say large tax cuts now are not needed, yet President Bush is making support for tax cuts a test of party loyalty and patriotism....
The president's claim that the dividend tax cut would benefit most taxpayers goes largely unchallenged. Seventy percent of taxpayers would receive no benefit at all according to the IRS. By contrast, the three top executives at each of the Fortune 100 companies would gain an average of $400,000 a year. Bush trades on the trust he enjoys with voters, which makes him a formidable campaigner. He gets credit for being plainspoken and a truth teller even when he falsely portrays his dividend tax cut as a jobs program.
What is going on in this country? How in the world can we even try to justify a program of tax cuts when we have a war to pay for, and a country--Iraq--to mend the wounds we've inflicted upon it? Has Bush no shame?
1. Who is your favorite celebrity?
Sigh. These questions are determined to make me confront my social ineptness, or at least my ambivalence about likes and dislikes. I don't think about celebrity or celebrities very much, frankly. So... I don't think I have a favorite, though there are some I admire, for various reasons, and some I lust over, for others.
In the first category would be Susan Sarandon, certainly. I got to meet her in my Harvard days, when she came to give a Learning from Performers lecture; she participated in a more informal gathering at North (now Pforzheimer) House, and sat up with a few of us well into the wee hours of the morning, talking so incredibly intelligently about her craft, and about rape and women's issues, among others. I also admire her and her partner, Tim Robbins, both bullied for taking a principled stand against the war, for their political convictions and their willingness to speak publicly, in the face of condemnation and hatred, about their beliefs. (Robbins's speech to the National Press Club is a must-read, an impassioned, well-spoken, frightening description of our government and fellow citizens' mounting attacks on our free speech and liberty. Hear the speech from NPR.)
The second category includes but is definitely not limited to Joseph Fiennes; Ewan McGregor (who knew the cutie could sing too?); Matt Keeslar; Viggo Mortensen; Hart Bochner, Jr.; Dan Futterman; Stephen Lynch; and Alistair Mackenzie.
2. Who is your least favorite?
Dr. Laura
3. Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life?
Have met Susan Sarandon (see above); Robin Curtis (Saavik from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; Paula Poundstone; Art Buchwald; Armistead Maupin (and told him that I'd named my then-cat--Armistead Meowpin--after him); Diane Duane, Mike Stackpole (whose Gemstone persona and mine were married for a time) and a number of other sf/fantasy authors. Lots of PBS celebs from my days working in public television: Fred Rogers, various Sesame Street cast members and puppeteers, Shari Lewis (at a congressional appearance with whom I once had to dress in a Lamb Chop costume... oh the horror), Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil, Julia Childs (though I first met her one day in Cambridge when she knocked me over as she backed out of a specialty grocery store), Bill Moyers, the Kratt Brothers (yum) and others.
4. Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?
Not for fame's sake, and definitely not to the point of being stalked in my home or mobbed on the street; but I do wish I'd accomplished or produced something that might be a little fameworthy.
5. If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why?
J-Lo: men all want her, and she's sleeping with Ben Affleck. <grin>
This article (nytimes.com), about the emotional and other challenges faced by gay partners when one or both of them are active military, made the front page of NYTimes.com.
At a time when thousands of Americans are planning for the return of their loved ones from the Middle East, there is a subset that remains largely invisible. The government's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which forbids gays in the military to be open about their sexual orientation, has caused an unknown number of couples to have their farewells behind closed doors, to plan similarly discreet homecomings and, in the time between, to resort to sterile or anonymous messages as a way of staying in touch.
With their hearts and lives in upheaval, the gay partners of troops in the gulf voice frustration that they have not received the benefits that married couples get, or the same level of emotional support. Several such people--male and female, who agreed to be interviewed only if their names were withheld, out of concern that their partners in uniform could be traced to them--also complained about a lack of support among other gay civilians, many of them skeptical about the armed forces.
This latter part is particularly distressing. And I know in the past, it's something I participated in; my skepticism of the U.S. military and its leaders, and my disapproval of its policies toward gay men and lesbians, led me to harbor suspicion of anyone associated with or enlisted in the armed forces. It was only through my very close friendship with a straight married Air Force couple in the early 90s, which also brought me into contact with a wide variety of their military friends, that I recognized my own prejudicial thinking.
No, I didn't support this invasion of Iraq by the U.S. I was very much against unilateral action by my administration without wider global support, and I'm still saddened and angered about the lives lost--on both sides--and the damage done to Iraqi cities and cultural institutions. But my heart truly goes out to the people who make up the forces, and especially to those who are separated from their loved ones, and most especially to those who cannot even acknowledge the existence of their relationship, for fear of being discharged, verbally or physically assaulted, or even killed.
When I started my current job last August, I also was tasked to be the Institute's representative to the Department's Internet Steering Committee. At my very first meeting and for a couple of months thereafter, the group complained about their frustration at the lack of participation and representation from my bureau in the past. I just apologized on behalf of the Institute, and tried to start being more responsive to the Committee's needs.
So during this time, I've been working to provide information, and build bridges and relationships. In my first two months, for example, I created an annotated list of training materials and courses available to web developers from our bureau--a list I was told they'd been requesting from us for months. (To be honest, I've had to miss a few meetings when they conflicted with meetings here, but I've really been interested in the work of the Committee and have been engaged as much as possible.)
In February, the Committee authorized the creation of a Webmaster Working Group, a much more informal subgroup of web managers, developers and webmasters from across the agency. I wasn't able to attend the first two meetings, but I sent people from my staff to make sure we were represented. Again, no one else from the Institute did so.
So today I was asked by the coordinator of the working group to come to their next meeting, next Thursday, to give a briefing about the training opportunities available for web developers. I agreed. I came back and ran it by my boss, just to clear it with her. She thought it was a great idea and a good opportunity for me, but suggested that I write it up in an email and send it to her, ccing her boss and her boss's boss (the executive director for the Institute), just in case there were any political issues we weren't seeing.
So I did. And the thing has gotten needlessly very politicized (surprise), and the Executive Director has replied that it is "probably ok" for me to attend the briefing (thanks a lot, since I wasn't asking permission to attend, and since I've been the only one attending the Committee's meetings all this time), but that we had to ask the registrar's office and the School of Applied Information Technology (who as recently as last week decided not to announce one of their courses in a cable to posts because "they were afraid too many people might sign up"... just what sort of business do they think they're in?) to give the briefing instead of me. These are the groups who haven't been participating in the Committee, and who never provided the list of training opportunities the Committee had been asking for, and for whom I effectively ended up taking on that responsibility by researching and compiling that document.
I told the director that I was very confident that I could represent the Institute effectively, that the briefing was only 20 minutes so it needed to be a high-level overview rather than a drilling down into procedures and individual courses, and that I'd already done the preliminary work months ago--but I got shot down anyway. She said that even if the other two offices decline to send someone, I still will have to run my slides and comments by them for review and clearance beforehand. This was just meant to be an informal gathering of web managers, developers and webmasters at all levels to brainstorm and share information, not a presentation before the U.N.
So I'm hurt, angry and frustrated yet again by the political bullshit and a message that I'm either not trusted or not important enough to talk about the mission of the Institute, my own current responsibilities for managing training facilities and tools, and the previous work I'd already done in this arena on behalf of these other offices.
Some days I just don't like working for the government.
The rest of the time I really hate it.
yes, I know: groan
I had forgotten, when writing my previous entry about geocaching on the way home, about the other cool thing that happened to me while walking home from work today.
One of the houses along the way had a bunch of pots on a little bench, next to the sidewalk, along with a note. I walked over, and saw that the pots were full of mint, and the note explained that the mint was free for the taking, but not to "let it take over." So I took a pot and brought it home with me; spearmint. I don't have a yard, only containers on my balcony, so I don't have to worry about the mint taking over. Will be very nice to have fresh mint now.
Sometimes people can be so cool.
There's a geocache hidden near my office that I've been looking for, without success, off and on since last August. The other day I discovered that it had been revised and moved, and I still had the original coordinates and information in my GPS. So, today on the way home from work, I stopped by the new coordinates again, and finally found it after about 10 minutes of searching. I signed the log, took out a Pez dispenser, and left a cow magnet I'd found in a cache we'd located while I was vacationing in Tucson at the end of March.
In the late 80s and early 90s I belonged to a local GLBT computer BBS called GLIB. One Saturday in 1990, I think, the group had planned a day trip by train to Atlantic City. On Friday night, I logged into the BBS and entered the chat room, and there was a new guy there I hadn't talked to before--I'll call him JJ. We started chatting, really hit it off, and talked through the night. There was that sense of this being someone I'd known all my life. The next morning, as I was needing to leave in order to get to the train station on time, I talked him into deciding--on the spur of the moment--to come on the outing too.
Midnight - You are a deep thinker, always searching
for answers and never quite at home. You are
very contemplative, and enjoy being alone with
your thoughts.
When are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
A Queens University (Belfast) study published today in the journal Heart purports that "[m]oderate exercise such as half an hour of brisk walking five times a week is unlikely to prevent an early death from heart disease, say researchers.... Only vigorous exercise such as jogging and hiking seems to make a difference."
"Moderate [e.g., golf, digging (?) or dancing] and light [walking, bowling or sailing] levels of regular exercise had no impact on death rates from all causes or specifically from heart disease."
So I finally get myself motivated to start exercising by walking the mile and a half to and from work every day rather than driving (ok, motivated because my car stopped working), and now I find out that I'm just gonna drop dead of a heart attack anyway. Looks like there's no point in refraining from eating the bacon big boy.
After writing yesterday about no longer remembering my dreams, this morning I remembered a chunk of the one I was having when the alarm went off.
I know there was more before the part I remember, but it was fading. In the dream, I was living in my parents' house, in which I grew up; I was my current age, with my current life, but in the dream appeared to have been living there for some time. My parents were away on a trip, and I was supposed to mow the yard. I had a robotic lawn mower--I think such things exist, but the one in my dream reminded me somewhat of the robotic vacuum cleaner I saw in the Skymall catalog on my flight to Tucson. It was round and looked sort of like a metal trashcan lid. It was supposed to move in an ever-widening spiral.
I came outside to check on its progress, and discovered that it had done about half the yard just fine, then had gone apparently haywire. It had veered off in a straight line toward the woods, cutting a swath through several rose bushes in the process. I went looking for it, but couldn't find it in the woods. While searching, though, I found an abandoned rusty bicycle from my youth; oddly, though it didn't seem at all odd in the dream, of course, the spokes were picking up transmissions, and were giving me snatches of my dad's conversation to my mom, though I can't recall now what they were discussing.
Then I was back in Tucson, at the desert museum. There was an exhibit of creatures that live in the desert foothills, but when I stepped outside and looked at the foothills, they were simultaneously real and an abstract two-dimensional painting of the hills (in glorious shades of purple), with moving but still two-dimensional abstract representations of the various flora and fauna, like living indigenous artwork.
Roger was there with me, and we wandered through the exhibit to a picnic area. There was a bbq underway, though there was no one else present. The grill, rather than being fueled by charcoal or gas, was peanut-butter powered. Similarly, it was clear that someone had tried to fashion plates and paper sacks out of peanut butter as well, but when they discovered that didn't work (there were vaguely plate- and sack-shaped lumps of peanut butter around the tables), they had cast them out of peanut brittle instead.
And that's when the alarm woke me.
I need to start finding humorous sites to visit each night before bed. Saturday morning I noted a site that had made me laugh the previous night, lightening a dark mood and allowing me to get to sleep. Last night I had a similar experience, but made even nicer by sharing it at the time with both Roger and Lee.
I hadn't yet explored the Weight Watchers Cards of 1974 (poundy.com), so I started off looking at those and sharing the URL with Roger and Lee. That site reminded me of the material at both drokk.com and at one of my very favorite sites on the web, lileks.com, most especially the Institute of Official Cheer. There was some new content at lileks.com that I hadn't yet seen, which was nice, but it all feels fresh again when laughing over it with friends who haven't yet experienced it.
These sites inspire the kind of laughter I mostly only remember from years ago, when I first discovered David Barry (whom I don't find nearly so funny now, but twenty years ago considered his work to be riotous) and The Straight Dope, the kind of stuff that could make me fall off the bed from laughing so hard. The commentary with the recipe cards on poundy.com, and with everything on lileks.com create the same effect; I was laughing out loud, with tears streaming down my cheeks. It was a great way to end the day and hit the sack.
Just registered two books at Bookcrossing, Stealing the Elf-King's Roses, by Diane Duane, a surprisingly disappointing work by one of my favorite authors, and The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time, a touching posthumous collection of various Douglas Adams speeches, essays, columns and a draft of the beginning of what might have become the sixth volume in the Hitchhikers trilogy.
I read Elf-King on the flight out to Tucson a couple of weekends ago, but only got around to registering it tonight. Finished Salmon of Doubt around the middle of last week, but haven't returned it to the library yet.
Entered the monthly Washington Post neologism challenge (washingtonpost.com) today. I entered this a few times in the past, and even got a few honorable mentions, but have forgotten to do so in a while.
Won't see the results, though, until the first or second week of May.
I'll have to check out yesterday's Style Invitational; I used to enter that occasionally, as well, and it's weekly, at least. Gives my mind a challenge; I don't get that from much else these days, and certainly not from work.
Well. Saturday night was a real crash and burn. I haven't even been able to write about it since then, and didn't post at all to the journal yesterday.
These mood swings--well, barely swings, since I'm not really having any manic phases, just oscillating between relatively flat and depressed--are becoming more pronounced and more--oh, I almost typed the word "debilitating," but that's really too extreme a word, maybe "annoying" or "distressing." And now they're being accompanied by severe stress headaches.
After being away from Alex for five days a couple of weekends ago, when I was in Tucson, I felt guilty about leaving him alone (even though I had both Jay and Craig come over to check on him/play with him). So I bought moist food, something I haven't given him since early in our relationship, because he's been satisfied with dry, which also allows him to free feed throughout the day.
Giving him any at all again was mistake #1. Mistake #2 was in, after a few days of only giving it to him in the evening when I return home from work, giving him half in the morning before work and half after. Now, of course, he expects this routine every day, and doesn't understand that on weekends, especially when I've been up until 4 or 5 am, I don't want to get up at 7:15 just to open a pouch of cat food.
Sigh.
I was starting to feel depressed and anxious again very early this morning, and was procrastinating about going to bed, when I came across a link to this site parodying the iconic figures used in the guides on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's paranoid affairs, er, I mean public affairs site. Some of these caused me to laugh so hard I very nearly fell out of my chair. I sent them to another insomniac friend, and he said that I was causing his cat to look at him funny from his own response to the parody. I'm now heading off to bed, feeling amused and much more relaxed.
Went with Craig and his girlfriend (and my former co-worker) Laura to see Stephen Lynch in concert tonight at the Birchmere tonight. What a riot. Tears-streaming-down-my-face, pounding-my-hands-on-the-table funny. If I thought he was funny on Comedy Central and on the radio, well, this was 100 times better; as wicked and witty as his lyrics are, they're only enhanced by his physical comedy and presence. And oh, he's even cuter in person, if that were possible.
Talked to Dad on the phone last night. I hadn't heard from him or Mom on Wednesday, the day they were heading back to Richmond to the Transplant Center. On Thursday evening, then, I tried to call my sister, but her line was busy, so I turned on AIM to see if she were online, which she was. We chatted for awhile, and then I asked her if she'd heard any report from Mom and Dad. She told me they'd gotten back Wednesday night.
So I called Dad; he was very apologetic that he hadn't called me yet, especially since he had said on Tuesday that he would call me back from Richmond when he had some news. They'd gotten in so late Wednesday night, though, that he was too tired to call.
He still doesn't know much more. The doctor drew some more blood, and is going to make more changes to Dad's meds, to see if this can get the white blood count back up where they want it. So we're back to just wait-and-see at this point.
Gene Cowan, in his excellent blog Just as I thought, wrote on April 5 (I just got around to visiting again earlier today) that Verizon never learns. This reminded me of an experience I had with Verizon myself on Thursday that I meant to post about but forgot.
I didn't post yesterday.
Had a reasonably good day at work, and the evening started off well, but I had a bizarre and rather extreme reaction to some things, in There, later in the evening, that left me angry, unhappy, and exhausted.
OK, the photo referenced in the previous entry appears to have been removed from the list of thumbnails and the progression of war pictures on the Yahoo! News site. The picture is still accessible using the direct URL, but it's been replaced in the thumbnail table of contents and the photo sequence with a picture of a burning building, so that it's no longer accessible from those. Dead bodies, looters and burning buildings apparently are fine to show during war, but I guess a picture of one man joyfully (and completely non-sexually) kissing another is just too extreme.
Thanks to Synaptic Discharge for bringing this fantastic photo to my attention.
1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
Hmmm. The first artist I saw in concert was Neil Diamond, with my parents and my cousin, when I was probably around age 10 or so. The first bands I saw, most likely, were the Boston band Human Sexual Response and Hüsker Dü, both of which performed at Harvard my freshman year. (Addendum later Friday night: Turns out I also saw Peaches and Herb, and Rupert Holmes, at senior weekend at Busch Gardens my senior year of high school, but I really don't count those.)
2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
I really don't have a favorite. I do have some favorite genres, including folk and Celtic, and what seems to be called "progressive" these days but that sounds what we used to call "alternative" in my younger days, and I have a lot of women's voices in my CD collection: Tori Amos, Jonatha Brooke, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Clannad, Enya, Dixie Chicks, Nanci Gri