types of people

So I've noticed a theory, I noticed something and now it's a theory. There are two types of people:
1. Those who put sliverware down in the drying rack with the handle up, and
2. Those who put it down with the business end up and handle down.

I've seem some people who really seem to care about it,
If you leave the fork up, you stand a chance to get the fork dirty,,, you'd never hand someone a dinner fork with their hands on the tines. I suppose there's also the small additional risk of having the sharp edge sticking out.

On the other hand, people who are silver downers say: If you put the fork up, you know it's a fork, so you get the tool you want easier.

I think it warrants further study.

Now I AM a Mac

First Mac post. That's all for now.

Bush: We'll leave as soon as they ask us!

So didn't President Bush go totally apeshit when John Kerry suggested that he would confer with our allies about international terrorism?

Tucker Carlson: I want to impeach Bush!

And so did George Pataki. I don't have a link to it, I just watched it on TV... But their gist was this: George Bush is an idiot. At his press conference, besides threatening David Gregory, he had two main messages:

1. We must stay in Iraq; it's life or death; we will lose to Terror if we leave Iraq
2. We're outta there as soon as the Iraqis ask

Yeah, one really follows from the others. We're going to allow 200 guys who make our congress seem an awesome tool of effective, decisive action to tell us when we're going to pull out. But our congress can't tell us the same thing. Hmmn.

Oh, and a bird pooped on him during the press conference.

Live Blogging/Tea Grotto

This is the same two people as before:

UDOT does have some funny practices in my book. I don't know if you noticed, but sometimes they pave a road, and then six months later, to the day, there's the utility company to tear it up again.
I like this place, enough to keep coming back here. [at this point, they're clearly running out of things to say. She badly wants to leave.]
I'd like to live in England. They're funny people. They're depressed. //You laugh at that? //Yeah
...
Oh, that's right, Australia's totally cosmopolitan... everyone is first or second generation.
When they speak, they're hard to understand they have a very strong accent. [He laughs uproariously] I couldn't make heads or tails of it.//OK, yeah//I can't even begin to describe it, to imitate it. [he laughs out loud again] [She's looking in her bag, fiddling with her watch band. Fiddling with her bag. Ya think she wants to leave??]
Even in Australia, there's something about Queensland. Everything there can kill you in Australia, but in Queensland it's even more.
I hate spiders.
Yeah, my big brother, he woke up one night and there was a big spider, and it was as big as his hand and figured he couldn't do anything, so he just turned off the light and went to sleep.
Was he telling me this story, about the big spider? Yeah.
We freaked out in our apartment once, it was like two in the morning, there was this giant spider it was this big. I was finishing a story, and I hear this blood curdling scream. It scared me! This girl had a herniated disc and she jumped up onto the stool and was screaming Kill it Kill it! But it was huge.
My information about Australia is about four years old.
I'm still waiting for my dad to call me. His truck's in the shop, so both my parents...
I had this car, the front end was messed up and I couldn't figure it out.
So occasionally, things will work, or they won't, and it will just click//weird//Yeah//Click click//Yeah//Click click and you flood the engine with gas
Toyotas are wonderful, they give them crappy bodies, but the engines are great. The body just rusts right off them.
My brother had one. [now she's looking out the window and gripping the edge of the table]
But Toyotas are ok.//Yeah, I like 4-runners
My cousin is an archeologist, he was working up in Montana for the forest service. So my dad said, tell me when it stops running. I know Toyotas stop running at 180,000 miles. But he rolled it.
My dad's a geologist. We go out to the desert where the Airforce owns it. And they take these landgraders and cut a big swath. So I go out with my dad, and it's yeah. Or get shot by a passing aircraft carrier [yeah, he said carrier]
...
I wish I remember how to buy a car. My understanding is that they'll give you an offer, you say no, then they'll give you a second, and you should say no to that, and then you take the third offer. But I've never done it.
That's really too bad.
...
Time to go.//Yeah//What time's your flight?//6:00. And I have to find my hotel on my own.//Dude, that place is insane.... [they walk out the door.]

Can't stop the signal

Great moments in micro-reactions...

Two people. He's a nerdy hippie guy. Glasses, long hair, bad goatee. She's kind of dyke-y, short hair, kind of round, vaguely Hispanic. None of this technically has anything to do with it, but I think it's what the people call "setting the scene." In any case...

The body language is interesting, hard to explain the dynamic. Kind of like two acquaintances meeting up, where one of them (him?) kind of roped her into coming, although they arrived separately. Anyway, at some point, he decides to blow his nose. He pulls out one of those paisley-ish hippie bandanas (blue, not red). And he blows it. A good, thick one. She already had her hand close to her mouth. But for a second, she looked like someone seeing an autopsy. Total disgust. And not even at the act proper, but him--"How can he DO that?"

Old Hitchens

Continuing my line of copying others' words. I have added some ellipses and highlights only. I think it was published in Slate if anyone wants to see an original. I think Hitchens is mostly a nut-job, but this piece really hit me when I read it a few years ago.

Mommie Dearest
The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a
fundamentalist, and a fraud.
By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, October 20,
2003

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism.

...It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to "sainthood," until five years after his or her death. This was to guard against local or popular enthusiasm in the promotion of dubious characters. The pope nominated MT a year after her death in 1997. It also used to be that an apparatus of inquiry was set in train, including the scrutiny of an advocatus diaboli or "devil's advocate," to test any extraordinary claims. The pope has abolished this office and has created more instant saints than all his predecessors combined as far back as the 16th century.

As for the "miracle" that had to be attested, what can one say? Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery. A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of MT, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumor. Her physician, Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn't have a cancerous tumor in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine. Was he interviewed by the Vatican's investigators? No. (As it happens, I myself was interviewed by them but only in the most perfunctory way. The procedure still does demand a show of consultation with doubters, and a show of consultation was what, in this case, it got.)

...

During the deliberations over the Second Vatican Council, under the stewardship of Pope John XXIII, MT was to the fore in opposing all suggestions of reform. What was needed, she maintained, was more work and more faith, not doctrinal revision. Her position was ultra-reactionary and fundamentalist even in orthodox Catholic terms. Believers are indeed enjoined to abhor and eschew abortion and contraception, but they are not required to affirm that abortion and contraception are the greatest threat to world peace, as MT fantastically asserted to a dumbfounded audience when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Believers are likewise enjoined to abhor and eschew divorce, but they are not required to insist that a ban on divorce and remarriage be a part of the state constitution, as MT demanded in a referendum in Ireland (which her side narrowly lost) in 1996. Later in that same year, she told Ladies Home Journal that she was pleased by the divorce of her friend Princess Diana, because the marriage had so obviously been an unhappy one

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many
volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story. George Orwell's admonition in his essay on Gandhi—that saints should always be presumed guilty until proved innocent—was drowned in a Niagara of soft-hearted, soft-headed, and uninquiring propaganda.

One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of
miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith, and the cult of a mediocre human personality. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

Others' thoughts on: Law, rape, and Duke

Ironically, what started as a boon for sexual harassment awareness and a call to arms to (re) crack down on sexual predators on campus has turned into a disaster. When those spoiled, snotty white boys were guilty, everyone, including the entire Duke student body plus the faculty was very happy to make examples of them. Marches, ads in the paper, the whole thing. I thought they were guilty (to tell the truth, I still do; something went down that night.)

But because of their (I'm going to just go ahead and blame everybody) inability to see shades in the story, because the media covers or it doesn't, well, here we are: now schools and counties are scared of bringing charges because of the reverse effect: they might be sued if they're wrong:

See, this is why one should look at the coming of hurricane season as a good thing. because every minute a cable news network spends watching some poor, windswept anchor get his tuchis handed to him by Mother Nature is one less minute they can spend on generally screwing up the world.

Writing for Poynter today, Al Tompkins introduces us to the term "Duke effect" and discusses how the Duke Lacrosse botch-up is having deleterious effects on sexual assault prosecutions everywhere. Citing an article on Law.com, Tompkins relates:
In Texas, one defense attorney recently cited the case during voir dire, and again in closing argument, in an assault case involving a teacher accused of pinning down a female student while other students beat her. The lawyer reminded jurors about what happened at Duke. The defendant was found not guilty in three minutes.

Now, one imagines that across the country, there are countless examples of tatty little criminal trials in which prosecutorial misrule leads to regrettable and embarrassing outcomes.

How is it that a run-of-the-mill case in Durham, North Carolina ended up impacting the voir dire of a trial half a world away? Why, it's almost as if someone put a megaphone in front of every stitch of Duke-related, sensationalized nonsense and amplified it out of all reasonable proportion!

So, media: How's that rush to judgement working out for ya?

Me.

I love being me. I loves me some me. Shockingly, no one else does. (Sad face)

Now I'm drinking green tea, typing away, being a nice little liberal. Talking bad about white trash, and Okies, and whatever else doesn't make my level of cool and culturally acceptable. Aren't I a snarky little man? I've managed not to do anything in my life that has affected others, have I? Or is the question, I haven't managed to do anything in my life? Or is it I've managed to do only things that haven't affected people?

So, enough of that. I drank most of a bottle of very good riesline last night. Back to being snarky.

Stealing thoughts of others...

(with attribution).

from Matthew Yglesias:

Mark Helprin's gone and done us all the service of advocating the idea that dare not speak its name: Rather than endlessly retroactively extending copyrights, why not make them last forever?
Unfortunately, he doesn't consider any of the various reasons that make this a terrible idea. Is it, for example, really such a bad thing that community theaters and schools all throughout the country (and, indeed, the world) can put on productions of Shakespeare's plays without paying stiff licensing fees? What if his heir and his team of consultants (I recommend Marsh) determined that the profit-maximizing license fee was really, really high -- something only the world's major theaters could afford, and something that they'd be willing to pay since his work is, to say the least, kind of well regarded.

Alternatively, one can imagine a world in which Herman Melville's great-great grandson decides to release a "director's cut" version of Moby Dick and then embark on a campaign, à la George Lucas, to prevent the publication of the original version of the novel. He couldn't, of course, suppress the already existing print copies of the story which might continue to circulate, samizdat-style, for decades, but I still think there might be a problem. Melville fans and literary critics around the world would eagerly await Great-great-grandson Melville's demise and hope that his heir might be more reasonable.

You also already have an enormous problem of orphaned works, situations where nobody knows who owns the copyright to something, and where the person who owns the copyright may not even realize that the work exists. Obviously, the longer copyrights endure the worse this problem gets. Forever, meanwhile, is an extraordinarily long time -- we'd be drowning in orphaned works.

This last point is, in many ways, the crux of the matter. It would suck if my grandfather's novels -- or my grandmother's, or my dad's -- were to become orphaned in the future, or just unavailable because ownership of them passed into the hands of some jerk who didn't care about them. My grandparents are all people I know personally (or knew in the case of my late grandfather), but I couldn't so much as name all my great-grandparents.

Expecting N-th degree heirs to manage the oversight of cultural works properly is irresponsible. When things enter the public domain, by contrast, the practical impact is to put the fate of the work in the hands of whoever happens to know of and care about its existence. That, in turn, is a much healthier situation for world culture -- Shakespeare's works are whatever Shakespeare lovers make of them, which is how it should be.

One to remember.

Political Cartoons I found cleaning out my harddrive

Update

Weather: Raining.
Drinking: Pouchong Oolong tea, from Taiwan.

The guy is gone. My sampling is over. I almost miss him.

I saw a cartoon with a picture of Rumsfeld: It said, I almost miss hating him. I guess the same for me.

Some other political cartoons I have:

Please god pull my ears out

So this guy is talking. A lot. Loud. Every thought is worthy of everyone hearing it:

• Doug Fabrizio drives him crazy.
• They've changed how trains are driven. It's not as smooth as it used to be.
• His brother used to have a gun, because he found the cleaning kit
• There was a bat that was rabid, and the teacher's aide touched it. When did rabies shots get so expensive?
• He really likes The Office. He thinks Pam is cute, although he doesn't tell them to women. He also thinks Rainn Wilson's parents were hippies, who added an N to his name.
• When they were against the ERA, it was because they pretended it was because of unisex bathrooms, even though they already existed.
• He has a good imitation of LDS accents.
• He also like My Name is Earl. He really liked the one where that one woman played the manager of the white trash trailer park.
• He doesn't patronise Walgreens. When he used to go to City Council Meetings, he didn't like their attitude. He considers them to have bad architecture.

That was just a sampling. Oh. My. God.

I'm a Mac

I just bought a new computer. I'm writing this on my work computer, an IBM thinkpad. But I decided to buy a Macbook. Since I decided to buy one, however, I've come to hate those "I'm a PC, and I'm a Mac" commercials more than ever.

Parenting Advice

I read, by way of several people (I don't want to get in trouble!) some very good advice about raising children. It was about kids who grow up assholes. He said, "Only an asshole lets his children hang out with assholes."

Because if your kids are dicks, even if you're not, you've got something to do with it.

Weather update

I don't do them much these days... it's colossally nice out. I'm on my little balcony writing this, wearing tshirt and shorts. Things could be much much worse. Still, I badly need to shower!

Full Sail...

Somehow I got quite drunk last night on two (2) Full Sail Slip Knot IPA's. Granted, they were 22 ouncers, but still--two beers!

I think I'm finally feeling the effects of getting off my Wellbutrin. I'm not quite depressed, I just feel, well, the closest feeling is "needy." I emailed an old gf last night. I almost hit on another friend last night while watching the Jazz game. I thought about sending an email to FF. I spent part of the afternoon with my ex, and had to try very hard not to be sad when we didn't kiss afterwards.

I'm trying to muscle through it, but I'm not doing all that well. Well, more to the point, I'm not sure how to muscle through it. It's not muscle-able, as it were.

I also managed to send sarcastic, almost mean (though in a clearly joking manner) to two Portland contacts. Don't know what the hell that was about. Need to remember that teasing doesn't get me what I want... even if it's funny, it doesn't get me anything, and doesn't get them anything.

My sleep patterns are getting worse again. I'm sleeping a lot, but need to be taking lots (well, a full pill) of ambien. I thought I was getting better... maybe I am, this is just a little chemical detour.

I was able to finish this Sunday's Times Crossword. I also finished the week before's. But I had to put it down for a while and actually finished it Saturday night. I say this by way of mentioning that my brain is somewhat working, at least.

Another ambien fueled post

Let's see, second day of the tournament. Great weather, had to put on sunscreen.

Did have a guy bounce off me, and said "wow, you're big I ran right into you." That was fun, I didn't move. Saw many old friends, Amber, CV, Yvette, Sara Bennet. Drank a little. Back hurt a lot. And my skin's all dry from the air, the hot tub, and then from the shower.

Going over to my house to help R work on the yard. Good way to get something done, good way to spend a few moments together.

My day

My day could probably be covered with several different stories...

First, to get out of the way, saw Christy, looking good, although her ultimate game isn't what it used to be. I really wish I could figure out how to connect with her.

Also saw some old friends, some of whom I am either attracted to now or have been in the past. I went to watch the Jazz game, therefore missed the party where all my old (female) friends were. I would have struck out there if I somehow could make it. I will make sure that I hang with them tomorrow night if there's anything up.

I hate my life. I just can't connect with people and I so want to be able to...
Rachel: Called her today, I was listening to the radio, they were mentiong the derby. I know she likes horses, so I called her to remind her. "You're calling to remind me about the race?" she said. Wow, I missed you, too.

And CUT's playing in the regional finals tomorrow.

In Moab...

The last time I was in this house, Christy was with me. We’d already discussed that things were over, but she came down here and stayed in this house, my family’s house. We shared a bed, although it was chaste as can be. At the wedding, we kind of hung out, dancing to the extent that either of us dances. We took a walk down to the river. It was a cool night, it’d been raining, but the low-lying clouds were breaking, giving us a great view of the canyon and the moon above it. We walked out to the deck where the wedding took place. I didn’t know what to do. I was then, and still am amazed today, at her beauty. I hoped on some level that she was reaching out to me, that it was a chance to be alone, to have big ol’ me give her a big bear hug and get her warm. We eventually drove back from the wedding, just the two of us, the only ones staying at this house. We did a quick hot tub, we got ready for bed, we got into bed. We talked a little. I really wanted to kiss her, not from a romantic perspective, just from an affection, connection way. So I rolled over and kissed her on the cheek. I told her I felt like a little kid, stealing away a kiss. She said she felt the same way. Except I think she meant it the opposite, that I made her feel like a little kid by getting her wrapped up and tucked in and then kissing her goodnight.

In any case, she didn’t stay long in the morning. I needed pills just to fall asleep, so I wasn’t peppy when she needed to pull out. She left, quiet, not intending to be rude, but coming across slightly that way given my hopes for a moment of affection. Those hopes were left a little unfulfilled. So I went back to sleep, but I didn’t like it.

Christy in many ways is the best person I’ve been with in a long time, certainly a archetype of who I’d like to be with, one of the overall most attractive. We had lots of differences: age, religion, she doesn’t drink, and some level of chemistry that she didn’t feel. I can neither confirm nor deny its existence, other than she didn’t feel it, and that’s enough.

I still get occasional reminders. I was never in love with her, but I have flashes of “Why?!?!” where I reflect on what I liked about her—her personality, her sarcasm, her incredible smile, long legs, great hair, sweet personality, childlike in some ways, and very mature in others. I miss those things. I find that as I look for women to date since then, I’m comparing them to her. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Push comes to shove

Well, not really. But I'm quite troubled, so I'll tell my tale...

I was playing ultimate tonight. My ultimate history is another tale, but I still play a little. It was a lovely night, I have to say, and I needed the exercise besides.

I started slow, like I always do this early in the season, especially on a weeknight when I'd rather be writing about "Quo Vadimus" than out playing... in any case, I was covering this guy. He went to throw, upwind, breaking my mark. I didn't let him. I leaned my body over, and put out my arm. He threw it, I "caught" him, on the arm, across the shoulder a little. He was a little of balance and fell over. He got up, said something about my "arm being out" "over him." I said I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he said something about "shoving" him. I said something to the effect that he'd know it if I'd shoved him. I thought it was over.

Later that point, we got the disc back, I threw it, and he ran right into me and shoved me! I over-reacted asked him what the hell had happened. He said "I was just following through" after the disc. Then I really reacted, told him--yelled at him--that if he did it again, I'd rip his arm off. I kept on yelling longer than I should have, although I never should have yelled at all. I'm mad at myself, is the short of it.

Quo Vadimus

One of my favorite quotes:

The Stranger: Dana. I'm what the world considers to be a phenomenally successful man. And I've failed much more than I've succeeded. And each time I fail, I get my people together, and I say, "Where are we going?" And it starts to get better. And that's what you should do.

From Sports Night. The Stranger owns a company called Quo Vadimus. Where are we going? What a great way to face failure. Forget "It's a challenge, not a failure" Just... Where are we going? Quo Vadimus.

Here we are today. We've failed. I've certainly failed. But where are we going now?

harder than it looks

This blogging thing. Hard. Harder than it looks. I should carry a voice recorder around; my thoughts while I'm driving around always seem more interesting than what I end up writing here:
I hate "brushless" car washes. They don't get things as clean as washes that touch your car. Isn't that why we use a cloth or a sponge when we wash things?
I can't stand unnecessary lane changes. Folks who change lanes seemingly at random, and are going slow. It's one thing to change lanes because you have to turn, or see something that might slow you down.
Whenever I make a list, it's things I "hate" or, I guess, things I "can't stand" Why am I so negative? I hate it!
Ok, the lane change thing is lame. I need to remember the good thoughts I have. The interesting ones. Apparently I only have one so far.

SSRI's

Well, actually all anti-depressants. Or, well, actually, the two I'm on. I've reduced one by half to see what happens. So far, I'm very sleepy. Just tired. My brain's ok, I guess, not too stupid. Less hand-shaking. That is, shaking hands. My own, not greeting other people. So I've halved my Wellbutrin, with the plan of eliminating it from my system within two weeks. Well, no longer putting it into my system. My understanding is that it'll take another few weeks for it to get totally out. And then we'll see about that zoloft.

It's been supposed to rain, but it hasn't. Sort of a double-reverse Eli's Coming. It's windy, at least. I like wind. No, I don't. It blows so much dust around. So much, in fact, that if it does rain, things will be dirtier after the rain than they were before. I drive a black car, so I think that blows. No pun intended.