back from the crescent city

I just returned from a 6-day trip to New Orleans, and I'm a very different person emotionally. I saw things, heard stories that were utterly unbelievable and completely heartbreaking. I'm still working on sorting out my thoughts, but look for updates with photos and reflections on the trip in the next few days/weeks.

today's ramblings

Haven't had much time to post lately - fewer interns = more work for those of us still around - so today might be a fairly random conglomeration of thoughts.

• Steelers win! I liked what I heard as far as the new playbook goes. (Couldn't watch, since our cable company doesn't provide the NFL Network. gah.)
• The world seems to be falling apart. Mines, bridges...Here in Pennsylvania there was an uproar because PennDOT was not going to release safety records for our bridges. This isn't anywhere near complete, but http://www.rideonpa.org lists the "structurally deficient" bridges in the state. Roads, too. Interesting to look at.
• Barry Bonds = a joke.

Even bigger joke? The fact that Bonds' juicing controversy is getting more analysis in the media than the Democrats' forum from last night. I'm ashamed, but I didn't watch the forum/debate last night. I wish I had. It sounds like it was a good one. (I'll brag about the fact that I didn't watch ESPN and still have not seen video of HR #756.)

The Democratic primary is already turning into a horse race, and that's unfortunate because the primaries are supposed to be when the party members decide whose ideas and positions we like best. I could not tell you anything about the positions of the second-tier candidates, because essentially they don't matter in a horse race. Quite frankly, I don't even think that the leaders' positions matter. All that matters is who is leading the polls. The leader determines who will get the media coverage, and whoever gets the most coverage will be the name that people remember. That leads to more people picking them in the polls...around and around it goes.

But, as some anchor on CNN said yesterday, if we picked our president based on polls in August or September, we'd be talking about President Howard Dean right now.

I just hope Dems come to their senses before Iowa/New Hampshire. Hillary won't win a national election.

reducing my impact

I took the Live Earth pledge on 7.7.07. However, I'm ashamed to say that I haven't taken much action yet, especially on #2 - become carbon neutral.

But this morning as I was getting ready for work, I realized that it would be really easy for me to start. Take this list, for example - what I've done so far today that I could have done differently.

• Lunch box - Every day (that I pack my lunch) I use a brown paper bag and throw it away when I'm finished eating. I know for a fact that a bunch of old school lunch boxes are around, so tomorrow I will use one of them instead of a paper bag.
• Coffee mug - Every day (that I drink coffee at work [let's face it - that's every day]) I use a new styrofoam cup. No explanation needed. Tomorrow I will bring a mug to work.
• Air conditioner - Every morning I wake up freezing because my air conditioner was on all night. Tonight I will turn the A/C off before I fall asleep.
• Phantom power - My phone and computer chargers are both plugged in right now, not being used but sucking energy. I will unplug these chargers when I'm not using them.

Obviously there are tons of other things I can do. Those are biggies.

Kudos to Marriott and other hotel chains. Even though they're only changing this policy to save money, it will make the world a little greener.

More links:
http://www.mtv.com/thinkmtv/environment/
http://www.liveearth.org/crisis_solutions.php
http://www.tearfund.org/Campaigning/Climate+change+and+disasters/Pentathlon.html

screw the bookstore!

That's pretty much been my rallying cry ever since my first semester freshman year. I was very naive then and ended up paying more than $400 for my classes. Four classes. As a freshman. Outrageous. Like they aren't sucking enough money out of me as it is.

At any rate, ever since then, I've been using half.com and amazon.com. Aside from the exorbitant price tags even on used books at the bookstore, the pathetic amounts they offer you to buy back your books is disgraceful. The $400 semester? They offered me around $75 to sell them back.

I'm not the only one starting to get angry. Calls for change are getting louder - ideas like renting books and offering electronic versions are gaining popularity. I think colleges need to cut out the middle man. The bookstore itself (Follett is ours and seems to be a popular culprit) is typically what determines the sale price and purchase price, and it needs to run a profit!!

I don't know how likely it would be for a school to drop its contract with Follett and sell directly to the students. But as more of us get angrier, more will look for other ways to save a few dollars, which usually happens by buying directly from another student, a la half.com.

Me? I've been able to actually run a profit some semesters by buying the cheapest book (in decent shape) I can find and selling it to the highest bidder.

Maybe I should drop out of school and become a book-peddler.

my three cents

I wish people paid this much attention to me when I fall down. Or that I was less clumsy.

Slow news day, apparently.

Other non-news for today (not to blow off the significance of one man falling down...)? What about this whole Hillary-cleavage issue? It's strange how worked up everyone is getting over it. To me, it's not a big deal. My reasoning:

a. It's part of the human body. Get over it. This is about on the level of a fifth-grader's fart jokes. Really. Get over it.

b. What cleavage? The article says that to see the ghastly cleavage, "[n]o scrunch-faced scrutiny was necessary." I don't know about that. Maybe it looked different live, but the pictures and screenshots I've seen are hardly revealing. I understand that the article is more about how Hillary's style has changed since she was only playing the "first lady" role. However, that ensemble doesn't exactly scream "SEX." Feminine, maybe. But she's a woman, and she's allowed to dress that way.

In my humble opinion, I think this is evidence that our country is not ready yet for a female president. As a feminist, that's a painful admission to make, but if columnists can't get past a woman's clothing choices, they're not even listening to what she has to say.

Strange pairing of the day: Louis Vuitton and Mikhail Gorbachev? And it's being shot by Annie Leibovitz?

current thoughts on the environment

I'm all for protecting the environment. Not even just protecting it. Taking steps to fix it. I believe that "scientists" who say global warming doesn't exist/is a natural phenomenon/whatever are not scientists. (My theories: paid off by the oil companies/right wing, missing half a brain...is there a disorder that puts you permanently in denial?) I was driving behind a Yaris yesterday and nearly started drooling. Don't even get me started on the Prius.

I do think that ethanol has the potential to solve a lot of problems that stem from our dependence on foreign oil. However, corn-based ethanol? Not so exciting.

Disclaimer: I'm a farmer's daughter, but somehow I managed to escape with little to no knowledge about agriculture.

But it takes a ridiculous amount of energy to convert corn into viable ethanol. Business Week says it's a net energy waste, because it's inefficient to use as fuel, too. Aside from that, though, do you know how many people we could feed in this world with that corn? Granted, corn doesn't necessarily have the strongest nutritional punch, but something has to be better than nothing, right?

Even so, it seems like that's the way we're going to go. Which has led to complaints about higher prices for cereal and other corn-based products. I'll put my "farmer's daughter" hat on for a moment. So your prices are going up. Maybe that means that my dad will able to start to dig himself out of debt. See, he's not a corporate farmer, and the past few years have been dry. Long story short, that means debt. You've been paying the same price for milk for years as his debt has piled up.

Personal anecdotes aside, wouldn't we as a country rather pay a little more to support our farmers (corporate or famiy-owned) rather than supporting Big Oil, which supports Big Middle East?

I would think so.

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In other news, "British squirrels are the most cunning."

today's top news story

In my eyes anyway, I think that today's most important news story was NOT Michael Vick's preliminary hearing or Lindsay Lohan's latest bust. That's of course contrary to what CNN would have you believe.

The Washington Post got it right (as of 8:08 on their Web site, anyway). Special prosecutor to investigate Gonzales? Damn right. It's about time somebody realized the blatant disregard the Bush league has shown for process. Any process - judicial, legislative, intellectual. Quite frankly I can't even believe he's made it this far without something like this happening.

Is it bad that I get some sort of pleasure out of watching his presidency collapse around him?

"He tells the half truth, the partial truth and anything but the truth."

You could attribute that quote to more Bushies than you can count.

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In other news, a story that didn't get nearly enough attention today, considering the implications. Hazleton's immigration debacle got shot down by a federal judge. The reason? A city can't perform federal duties. The judge also said "the city could not enact an ordinance that violates rights the Constitution guarantees to every person in the United States, whether legal resident or not."

Bravo.

I'm all for enforcing immigration laws, but that's the federal government's job. (Not that that's working out very well, but in theory it should be the feds' job.) Sidebar: What do these people really want to do? And by "these people," I mean the hardcore, kick-em-all-out fanatics. Thousands - if not millions - of communities would literally shut down without the illegals. It's an unfortunate fact that we've gotten used to having them around.

I lost wherever I was going with that. But I heard a semi-serious solution to the problem recently (can't remember who said it when or where...) - lower the minimum wage so the work pays better in Mexico...obviously never going to happen but it does make you think. Makes me think anyway.

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Speaking of the minimum wage...gah. I'm torn over that one. I'm fully aware that raising the minimum wage will speed up inflation. But I'm also fully aware that I only get paid minimum wage during the school year through work study, and last semester was nice with an extra few dollars lying around.

But even when the increase hits its peak though in 2009, if you work 40 hours a week all year at minimum wage, you'll be in poverty. I don't know because I've never had to support myself alone, but I don't see how $15,000 a year could possibly support one person, not to mention any other family members. And to think of someone trying to live like that, it really does make me think that maybe the increase is a good thing, and maybe it should be higher still.

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And just for kicks... The poor kid never got an answer!

First post

Just a test to try out fonts and colors. Because that's clearly more important than actual content.