Terry in Bubble-Land

How To Cause An Earthquake, And Other Assorted Ramblings

2011-11-08T19:19:00.000-05:00

It’s been known for quite some time that human activities can induce seismicity. Dams create lakes behind them that can weigh down the crust (as can flooded quarries) Mines can collapse. Gas and oil extraction can do the same. Geothermal energy projects induce seismicity as well. This isn’t exactly controversial, and hasn’t been for several decades. On nature’s side, heavy rainfall can induce earthquakes as well.

Since natural gas extraction has lately become a serious environmental and partisan political issue, and big earthquakes worldwide have made big news over the last two years, I thought I’d write a brief review about what’s known, and what’s not.

First, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start this diary out by taking a scientific stand, and explicitly spelling out my stance on the phenomenon in relation to a series of moderate quakes that have rattled and caused significant damage to areas east of the Rockies over the last couple years. I wouldn’t want to be accused of being a shill for the gas companies, be questioned about my motives because of my employer (those who know me know who I work for, and my employer is rather incensed by the extra work and significant damage the drillers are doing to infrastructure in my state), and so on. This is a bit of meta but I think it needs saying, since the behavior is rather infamous here on a variety of controversial scientific issues. Genetically modified food is one of those, although we’re not talking about that here. On the other hand, what do you folks think corn/maize is? Sorry, couldn’t resist.

To put it simply: I like proof. Good old fashioned peer-reviewed Proof. It's sexy. This sort of proof is what we use for climate change and the ongoing disaster that has become. Pointing to a bunch of somewhat related studies (or more commonly, other blog posts commenting on university press releases) and then going “see?” isn’t proof to me. It’s a hypothesis, sure, and an entirely reasonable one given the research, but until it’s investigated and researched for the specific subject at hand, it isn’t proof. I also know, from all available evidence, that hydrofracking for natural gas extraction is a very bad thing from just about every environmental angle I can think of (even the earthquake one).

Are the recent earthquakes in Virginia, Oklahoma, and Colorado induced by oil and gas extraction activities? I very much lean toward no for all three based on available evidence , although a weak case for the August quake in Colorado I think can be made. In Virginia it’s a quake that occurred in a region that’s hosted infrequent large (and possibly, very large) earthquakes in the past several millennia, although I do think a (rather weak) case can be made that it was partially induced by events begun in 1971 relating to the creation of Lake Anna, which is nearby. In Oklahoma I have a bunch of ideas ranging from natural seismicity to induced seismicity to the recent uptick is a prelude to a much larger sequence of quakes, even if they don’t occur for several decades. This has likely happened in Oklahoma before, but when it did, no one who wrote down history was living there. For all three, I still submit that they’d have happened anyway at their magnitudes with or without human influence which hasn’t been absolutely proven, and I doubt was involved. All three occurred in areas that are seismically active relative to their surrounding areas.

But how would humans induce an earthquake?

RESERVOIRS

Reservoir induced seismicity is well known, and has been both highly damaging and deadly worldwide.

In the 1940s, as Lake Mead filled, a series of quakes began, rattling nerves in the new and growing city of Las Vegas. Some were large, compared to what had been experienced in the local region to that point. Eventually, seismologists tied the rising lake to the quakes which incidentally, still occur today. It got deadly after that: an M6.5 earthquake in Koyna, India, in 1967 killed 180 people. (Seismicity still continues in that region to this date).

How does this happen? While the exact mechanism isn’t fully understood, it works like this: Water is heavy. Very heavy. It can weigh down the crust, deforming it, and increasing pressure on the ground below. Locally it can influence whatever regional stress field exists. Water can also force its way underground beneath a reservoir (or, a flooded quarry). Much like hydrofracking, the water creates fractures. If the water finds itself a fault that happens to both be 1. Stuck and 2. Oriented to the regional strain field, the fault can rupture. This is fairly well observed, all over the world.
In 1994 a fairly sizable earthquake for the region (M4.6, with an M4 foreshock) struck near Reading, PA. As it occurred two evenings prior to Northridge, it eventually got forgotten in the news. However research determined that a quarry in the area had ceased production, and flooded. When the quarry was abandoned and flooded, the strain in the local area changed suddenly enough to produce an earthquake on one of the many buried faults that riddle the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Well, series of earthquakes—the sequence began in 1993 and is apparently still ongoing. Minor quakes still shake the Reading suburbs.
I’ve read an argument that this is precisely what happened in Virginia. Lake Anna sits right in the middle of the Central Virginia Seismic Zone, and was filled in 1971. A retired geophysicist feels it was the causative agent behind August’s quake. I think a case can be made with further research, but I sincerely doubt it.

However this isn’t something you should expect with all dams, quarries, and reservoirs. A fault loaded to rupture already needs to be there.
This is the short version. A wealth of information can be found via Google Scholar, and a variety of websites on the internet.

Perhaps one of the best papers on the subject that I’ve found is “On the Nature of Reservoir-induced Seismicity” by Pradeep Talwani.

ENERGY INDUSTRY RELATED INDUCED SEISMICITY

It’s been more or less conclusively proven that these activities can induce seismicity.
In the early 1960s, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a program to dispose of waste fluid began. The fluid was injected down very deep wells drilled deep into the earth. What could go wrong, the Army thought.

Now, earthquakes had rattled the Front Range in Colorado in the past. A fairly significant one struck in 1882, its magnitude assessed at probably 6.6. A fault in Colorado has been recently identified (PDF). But these probably weren’t exactly known in the 1960s. Human beings have a habit of forgetting and losing their awareness of hazards over time.

At any rate, the ground started rumbling.
(PDF) It built to a point in 1966 and 1967, where three earthquakes over M5 caused some damage in and around Denver. After that, injection ceased. Then, the earthquakes more or less ceased. Further investigation proved that the injection activated a fault, which then ruptured. Would it have done so without our help? Perhaps, or perhaps not.

This is what happened near Guy, Arkansas. The region had been active before, a swarm rattled a nearby area in 2001, so when the quakes started again in 2010, that’s what people thought was going on. However, once injection ceased, so did (for the most part) the earthquakes. Arkansas has placed a moratorium on waste fluid disposal in wells. I assume the fluid is now going to sewage treatment plants, like it is in Pennsylvania, and that is a whole other kettle of fish.
It’s also occurred in Ohio and other places.

Basically, it works like this: You have your well. Your well is drilled perhaps 2, 3, even 4 kilometers into the earth’s crust. Unknown (or perhaps known, if one assumes a level of dishonesty on the part of the geophysicists who work for energy companies) to you, there’s a buried fault there, right under or adjacent to your disposal well. The fault, of course, has no noticeable surface expression, especially if you’re east of the Rocky Mountains. You pump the waste fluid from your gas/oil extraction operation into this well. It has to be disposed of somehow. The fluid works its way into the fault, lubricating it. In most cases, nothing happens, but this fault happens to be under strain, close to rupture geologically speaking, and aligned to the regional compressive stress field. And, it does. And it doesn’t stop until you stop injecting fluid down the well. When you do, most stop right away, although the seismicity may linger for a time after that.

You can also modify this for similar processes used for geothermal energy. The Geysers in northern California is infamous and After a series of quakes in Basel, Switzerland, a geothermal plant was shut down after it was linked to them. It’s not just the oil and gas industry that can induce seismicity. The very green geothermal industry can too. But it’s more or less the same here too, as it is in seismicity generated by other human activities. You have to have a fault right under your well, or very close to it, and it has to be a fault that’s already stressed just about to the point of failure. Conditions have to be just right (well, wrong, if it’s a populated area) for a quake of size to happen. This is the short version, of course: this site, one of many, has a lot more primary source information.

I want to go back to something I mentioned at the beginning of the diary, as to an idea I’ve kicked around since the earthquakes in Oklahoma began this weekend. Dr. Seth Stein of Northwestern University, in Chicago, and his team have developed a series of intriguing theories to help explain why earthquakes occur in the middle of continental plates/. The USGS has created a seismic hazard map, which it is in the process of updating, that I feel isn’t entirely accurate. Scattered across the eastern and Midwestern part of the nation are various little zones where seismicity is elevated compared to surrounding regions. Central Virginia is one of those areas. Charleston, South Carolina is another. A region centered at New Madrid, MO is the most famous. Another is located in central Connecticut at Moodus. We don’t entirely understand why these regions are the way they are---some may be related to exceptionally ancient rifting, others are related to post-glacial rebound and others on ancient continental collisions. Various pieces of continents attached themselves to what is now the eastern third of the US, and perhaps they’re not all knit neatly together. All of this is being pushed, generally, westward. Dr. Stein hypothesizes that these little patches of elevated seismicity are actually aftershocks of much larger quakes, and that large quakes can migrate all over the place—zones can turn on and off over time. We sort of see this happening in China.

For Oklahoma (and perhaps elsewhere) I’ve come up with a few hypotheses:

1. The earthquakes are entirely natural
2. They’re induced entirely by human activity
3. They’re natural, but indicative (warning) of a coming, larger and more significant quake i.e., the Wilzetta Fault (PDF), which appears to be the culprit, has turned itself on, perhaps due to stress transfer from the New Madrid quakes that occurred to its east 200 years ago.
4. Hypothesis 3, but the threat mitigated somewhat, because the strain was partially released due to hypothesis 2.

I guess we won’t know. I lean toward hypothesis one based on all available evidence (and there's none at this point that points the blame at nothing but the Earth itself), but hypothesis 3 is interesting too. It's not like Oklahoma is aseismic.

This is by far an incredibly cursory review of what I know, and what science knows. Now I didn’t spend this time to disprove my point, which is I think the quakes mentioned at the beginning of the diary were natural. I wrote all of this to show how it could be proven otherwise, and done so scientifically (which rather is the only proof I’ll really accept). I’m in no way saying gas drillers should keep fracking. I absolutely think they should stop.Their danger to water supplies is documented. Their damage to roads is well known to transportation departments all over the place. I also think that if they're inducing quakes to occur, this has to be investigated and proved.

In short, prove it first before you blame the drillers. This isn't out of concern for the drillers. It's out of concern for the scientific process.

Banned Book Week!

2011-09-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

It's Banned Book week! Here's the list of the 100 most challenged books---the one's I've read are in bold, per these rules.

It occurs to me my home school district, Upper Darby, actually assigned a lot of these. For a district that was more or less run by Republicans, this might be a surprise, but it was suburban Philadelphia, after all. Very few fundies. This is a good thing.

Also interesting that the Joy of Sex isn't on this list (and yes, I've read that one too) but the Joy of Gay Sex is.

1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
2. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
4. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
5. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
7. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
8. His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
9. ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r (series), by Myracle, Lauren
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
11. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
12. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
13. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
16. Forever, by Judy Blume
17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
20. King and King, by Linda de Haan
21. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
22. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
23. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
24. In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
25. Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
26. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
27. My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier
28. Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
29. The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
30. We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
31. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
32. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
33. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
34. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
35. Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison
36. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
37. It’s So Amazing, by Robie Harris
38. Arming America, by Michael Bellasiles
39. Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane
40. Life is Funny, by E.R. Frank
41. Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
42. The Fighting Ground, by Avi
43. Blubber, by Judy Blume
44. Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
45. Crazy Lady, by Jane Leslie Conly
46. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
47. The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, by George Beard
48. Rainbow Boys, by Alex Sanchez
49. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
50. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
51. Daughters of Eve, by Lois Duncan
52. The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson
53. You Hear Me?, by Betsy Franco
54. The Facts Speak for Themselves, by Brock Cole
55. Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green
56. When Dad Killed Mom, by Julius Lester
57. Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause
58. Fat Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going
59. Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
60. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
61. Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle
62. The Stupids (series), by Harry Allard
63. The Terrorist, by Caroline B. Cooney
64. Mick Harte Was Here, by Barbara Park
65. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
66. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
67. A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
68. Always Running, by Luis Rodriguez
69. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
70. Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen
71. Junie B. Jones (series), by Barbara Park
72. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
73. What’s Happening to My Body Book, by Lynda Madaras
74. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
75. Anastasia (series), by Lois Lowry
76. A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
77. Crazy: A Novel, by Benjamin Lebert
78. The Joy of Gay Sex, by Dr. Charles Silverstein
79. The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss
80. A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
81. Black Boy, by Richard Wright
82. Deal With It!, by Esther Drill
83. Detour for Emmy, by Marilyn Reynolds
84. So Far From the Bamboo Grove, by Yoko Watkins
85. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
86. Cut, by Patricia McCormick
87. Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
88. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
89. Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
90. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
91. Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
92. The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Louis Sachar
93. Bumps in the Night, by Harry Allard
94. Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine
95. Shade’s Children, by Garth Nix
96. Grendel, by John Gardner
97. The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
98. I Saw Esau, by Iona Opte
99. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
100. America: A Novel, by E.R. Frank

hilarious

2011-05-28T18:27:00.000-04:00

Also, true.
via: PZ Myers

Seismologists responsible for the deaths earthquakes cause? Really?

2011-05-26T16:02:00.002-04:00

crossposted from Daily Kos

Yep, that headline is not hyperbolic. It's an actual case ongoing in Italy right now. It's also outrageous.

L'Aquilla is a city located in central Italy. It is the capital of the Abruzzo region. It also sits in a region that is seismically active. All of Italy is, as it sits astride the boundary between Europe (well, Eurasia) and Africa, giving the nation its famous volcanoes such as Etna and Vesuvius, and earthquakes that have long rattled and destroyed cities for as long as we humans have been building them.

L'Aquilla was no different. An earthquake hit the place in December of 1315. Another one hit in January of 1349, during the height of the Black Death. A 1703 quake utterly flattened the place, as did another one in the summer of 1786. So it's not like the hazard was unknown. Perhaps, somewhat forgotten, as we've seen in recent quakes all over the world, the quake you expect and plan for may not be the one you get (see, Tohoku, both Christchurch/Canterbury quakes, and Port-au-Prince).

When 2009 rolled around, something odd happened in the Abruzzo region. A laboratory technician detected elevated levels of radon burping up from the ground, went on television, and stated a major quake was coming for the area. Now, it's well established that sometimes, radon emissions can sometimes portend a future quake. There is some evidence of this fact, and in fact, elevated radon was detected before March's megaquake off of Northeast Japan. But more often than not, this does not lead to much of anything. Indeed, I live over a formation that farts up radon on a regular basis all over my state, and we almost never have earthquakes (which doesn't mean they haven't happened, or don't happen, or won't happen. The written historical record is too short to really know what the largest quake Pennsylvania can have, and that's a topic for another time.)

Says Chris Rowan (from the linked article above):

I’m not pointing this out because I think that proposed precursors such as radon emissions and EM signals are not worth studying: there is enough evidence to suggest that some of these signals are indeed related in some way to tectonic processes in the subsurface. However, studies like this are often reported as a definitive step towards the holy grail: reliable, timely warnings of imminent seismic activity. The abundance of false positives is a clear indication that things are nowhere near this clear cut. When your ‘precursor’ signal is only associated with an earthquake one time in ten, or even one time in four, you’ve obviously still got a lot of work to do. Perhaps one day there will be some theoretical or technical breakthrough that allows us to distinguish real precursors from the noise. But until that day, whenever you read a story that describes some phenomenon that preceded a large earthquake, and dangles the carrot of true earthquake prediction, don’t just look at the headline event. Check for false positives.

Radon emissions, among other things, were also detected prior to Loma Prieta (also known as the San Francisco Quake of 1989, although technically, its epicenter was closer to Santa Cruz).

Like Rowan, I'm not saying this is an area of potential research to be ignored, however.

Back to Italy. Essentially what happened is the technician went on tv, scared a bunch of people that a disaster was imminent within a short timeframe, and was reported to police. Italian geophysicists then stated that earthquakes can't be predicted with precision (true) and that people shouldn't worry too much, beyond having their normal disaster plans ready. Preparedness never hurt anyone, don'tcha know.

In addition, a series of smaller quakes had rattled the region, and nerves. We know now they were foreshocks, but foreshocks cannot be identified as such until after the fact.

The earth had other ideas. Within the week, in fact.

At 3:32AM (local time) on the 6th of April, 2009, an M6.3 quake ripped through the region along a normal fault trending NW-SE. Its hypocenter was only 5.9 miles beneath the surface of the Earth, thus making it a very shallow earthquake. As we've seen time and time again, most recently with Spain's M5.3 near Lorca, even a moderate earthquake like this one can be catastrophic when close to the surface, even in nations well acquainted with seismic hazard (again, see Christchurch).

The quake rattled all of Central Italy, swaying buildings in Rome and Naples. It devastated L'Aquilla, and killed 309 people.

L'Aquilla had considerable medieval building stock, but it was modern buildings that suffered the most. A hospital wing and dorm collapsed. Aftershocks caused even more collapses. Modern buildings, in a nation well acquainted with seismic activity, should not just collapse. We'll get to that. But unreinforced masonry, buildings known to be deadly in an earthquake, proliferated in L'Aquilla and after the quake the streets were full of masonry debris.

Fast forward to today.

A judge has decided that those geophysicists who met and stated there wasn't much to worry about should be charged with the deaths of those 309 people. This is where it gets queasy for me, and for anyone who respects science and how it works. From the nature article:

The seven were on a committee that had been tasked with assessing the risk associated with recent increases in seismic activity in the area. Following a committee meeting just a week before the quake, some members of the group assured the public that they were in no danger.

In the aftermath of the quake, which killed 309 people, many citizens said that these reassurances were the reason they did not take precautionary measures, such as leaving their homes. As a consequence, the public prosecutor of L'Aquila pressed manslaughter charges against all the participants in the meeting, on the grounds that they had falsely reassured the public (see Italy puts seismology in the dock). After several delays, the public prosecutor Fabio Picuti and the defendants' lawyers appeared this week before Giuseppe Gargarella, the judge for preliminary hearings, who had to decide whether to dismiss the case or proceed with a trial.

Note the area in bold. People, living in a nation that rattles from the top of the boot to the heel on a regular basis, did not take any real precautions. In addition, could they? It's fairly clear reading the damage reports that modern buildings failed as badly as the ancient ones did, if not worse.

Another take away quote:

Boschi has said in interviews that he feels "devastated" by the ruling, and that he expected the case to be dismissed. He notes that there are hundreds of seismic shocks every year in Italy: "If we were to alert the population every time we would probably be indicted for unjustified alarm," he said. He also denied ever having reassured the population or downplayed the risk. "There is no document whatsoever proving I did something like that," he says, adding that the main cause of the tragedy was the poor building standards in the area. "I hope the trial will better clarify what role the seismologists really had in this story".

At any rate the trial begins in September.

A guilty verdict, I believe, would be a chilling effect across a wide swatch of science, not just seismology. For one thing, radon emissions do not (often don't) result in large quakes afterwards. If we warned regions every time someone's radon detector went nuts, people would stop listening, in addition to the chaos such a warning would cause. And we already know what happens when people don't listen to warnings. In the Midwest, until recently, tornado sirens sounded for an entire area, instead of just targeting the area of town the tornado was actually going to hit. I suspect this may be part of the reason Joplin's death toll is so abnormally high, as every story I've read has stated that people heard the warnings for up to 20 minutes before the tornado scythed through the city. On the East and Gulf Coasts people ignore hurricane warnings, because the storms weakened or veered off at the last moment. This is especially true in areas that have not seen intense hurricanes for many decades, like New England (the last major storm was Bob in 1991, the last intense storm before that was Carol in 1954). This is a part of human psychology that can't exactly be helped, without constant education.

And it could cascade. What if the Japanese decide to sue their seismologists? A consensus over whether the fault that broke in March could produce an M9 (the last probable one occurring in the year 869) was slow to build, and the Japanese have always focused on the region southwest of Honshu. Or anywhere else, where infrequent, high risk hazards occur. We can't just charge the scientists for something that is largely not within their control, especially with earthquakes since they cannot be predicted, and only forecast under the fuzziest of conditions, with any real precision or accuracy.

If found guilty, the scientists go to jail for up to 12 years. We shall see what happens.

The Radon paper, incidentally, can be found here.

The Twitch List

2010-10-21T15:51:00.001-04:00

I've developed, over the last few years, an actual physical twitch to words and phrases that are overused and/or hypocritical. They include corporate-speak and blog-talk. without further build-up here's a sample:

austerity
black swan
overton window
"family values" (those who espouse this loudly usually don't have any)
Judeo-Christian
values
morals
"truth to power"
calendar as a verb
agenda as a verb
solution as a verb
noun as a verb
"lifestyle choice" (Christianity: lifestyle choice. Gay: no, that's biological)

and so on.

What's on your twitch list?

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WE WON

2010-08-04T16:35:00.001-04:00

yes!

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yeah, no.

2010-07-26T16:59:00.001-04:00

Here's how it works, to that small subset of wingnuts that failed High School Civics. Freedom of Religion means all religions. All of them. All. End note.

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The Shorter Sharron Angle

2010-07-09T09:11:00.001-04:00

"it's your own fault you were raped by your brother and it was God's Plan anyway that you carry the child to term, so make lemonade."

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Haven't paid much Attention

2010-04-21T20:01:00.000-04:00

I haven't given this place much attention in awhile so I'm surprised there's comments on old posts here. At any rate, watch this space.

Oh, and here's one of the most interesting blogs out there by Canadian Randy McDonald.

A Bit More Detail

Haiti

2010-01-16T00:32:00.000-05:00

Please give if you can.

On that Peculiar American Religion

2009-11-06T18:31:00.004-05:00

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Maine, on Tuesday, became the 31^st state to deny their neighbors civil rights. The No on One Campaign was excellent, as I followed it. They had commercials with families. They had an education program. They were everything the Prop 8 people in California were not. We should have won. But we didn't. There's a common thread here in Maine and in 30 other states where votes to deny or remove civil rights have occured. It's the only thread between states as culturally disparte as California and Alabama. That thread is "American-style" Christianity, the kind you see on TV. They may be a minority within their religion, but they've taken over. They're the public face, and they're a poison on our nation.

It is obvious to me now that the short-to-medium term trend is obviously not in the favor of equality. The other side, whose only commonality is Christianity, a faith they've perverted, is only a handful of states shy from being able to possibly get their Federal Constitutional Amendment (should they retake the House in '10, another reason why its imperative they do not). This angers me; a dull, burning sullen anger. Like a red dwarf star. See, they burn almost forever, a dull, red, sullen fire. On occasion they flare angrily and that's what I did on Wednesday morning. I made some pretty cruel comments on Twitter and quite frankly I think I earned the right to them. I don't apologize. I stand by them, even though they were made in extreme anger and hurt.

In state after state churches have raised funds to deny civil rights to their neighbors. I recall in 2004 after the election, a particulary ugly and vicious year for civil rights, reading an article in the New York Times about an Oklahoma man whose neighbors did just that. Oh, they knew he was gay. They even supported his "lifestyle." But they, in large numbers repeated across the many states that year that had such votes, chose to say "you're not good enough to have basic human dignity." And yes, I'm aware that sentence has my particular spin on the situation.

See, at this stage of the game I find it nearly impossible to believe that every person in this country doesn't know at least one gay man or woman. Has at least one person in their family who isn't straight. I just find that this has to be a statistical impossibility. I have a friend here in the Harrisburg area who is a hairdresser in the small conservative town where he's lived his entire life. He's quite open (and given his age in his mid-40s, you'd have to be pretty oblivious to not figure it out), but if a referendum on his civil rights ever came up, his neighbors would vote in masse to deny them to him because their churches would tell them to do so. I know this because I've read articles from the people at Townhall who love their gay hairdressers and interior designers but don't want them to have civil rights. Or, I hear the ladies on the bus who love HGTV but don't want those men and women to have any civil rights either. I feel the same about my own neighbors in the small conservative town that I live in now. I'm sure they think my boyfriend and I are lovely people; in fact I know they do, but they'd vote against us if such a vote (and it keeps threatening to pop up) comes to Pennsylvania. And they'd do so because their churches would tell them to do so.

I saw this coming at 17 and made most of my breaks with Christianity then. We were Baptist, of the African-American branch. There were some liberal Baptists there; in fact our church's pastors were one of many who ministered to President Clinton. But we still had the things we Kossacks excoriate the Fundamentalists for. Indeed, it was many years into adulthood before I stopped feeling guilty about that thing Jocelyn Elders got fired for. 17 happens to be when I admitted what I had known since I was 12 and there was no squaring that circle with what I was forcefed in Sunday School. How my boyfriend does it is totally beyond me. Plus, since the age of 10 or so God never made much sense given the vastness of the universe. The break was natural but I still enjoyed some of the rituals. Then, the cultural conservatives started with their Culture Wars (or maybe I just became more aware of them) and I made more breaks. I ceased coming home for Easter Dinner (that was the first.) I stopped saying "under God" during the Pledge (the second.) I reject Christmas (both secular and religious, and that's the third). And now I'm totally done and I'm not sad about it at all. But others are and I deeply feel for their pain.

But what makes me the most sad is what happened? Christianity is supposed to help the least of those. It's not supposed to go out and deny the rights and dignity of its neighbors (and yes, I'm aware of Christian history. Well aware.) Perhaps I'm looking at it through the wrong lens.

Christian Europe seems to have moved beyond this. Obiviously there are nations in Europe who also won't extend equality to all their citizens but I was heartened to learn of the Church of Sweeden's decision to perform and 'sanctify' same-sex marriages after that nation legalized it. Of course Europeans, despite the fact that some of them actually do live in nations that can be classified as Christian nations because they have state churches, are generally somewhat more secular then we are in the United States. I can't help but wonder if the several hundred years of bloodletting in Europe, a tradition largely unknown on that scale here in North America, is why they seem so open to fairness and equality.

But I have to still wonder. The church my grandmother grew up in is not the same now. She once told me she told off her pastor for his loud and obnoxious attacks on the Da Vinci Code. For my grandmother to do this was amazing to me because she's quite shy. See her faith is more of the teachings of Jesus and not trying to one-up another in the culture war, which will be loudly underway as the holiday season approaches. I think it all went wrong 30 years ago, when the Christian Right rose to power. They don't care about the things like being a good samaritan, or just being damn nice, or whatever. Their idea of faith is faithiness. It's fake. Indeed, in the paper here this morning there's an article about our Catholic Church (so instrumental at hating equality in Maine) getting autistic children to connect with their "faith." link. Not help them survive in the world. Just connect with "faith."

Like a friend of mine who waited tables. Sundays, she hated. The after-church crowd was more into their "faith" then helping the least among them. Tipping just didn't happen with that group. I hear this is not an uncommon thing.

Or how it's more important to say Merry Christmas and demand the poor clerk on the other side of the register say it too then taking a bunch of gifts to Toys for Tots or the Salvation Army.

Or how getting saved is awesome and anyone who isn't, no matter how good a person they are, is evil incarnate.

Or how it's more important to deny the civil rights of your neighbors then it is to feed our growing homeless population.

Or find any and every issue they can and fracture the American population into deep polarization at others and themselves. I see that polarization here every day on this site. Blaming Obama for the loss in Maine, or blaming California's black portion of the electorate for that loss gives them exactly what they want. And that's Christian? I don't recall that during the Sunday School forcefeedings.

This is the public face of Christianity in the United States in 2010; a deeply shallow, venal, vapid faith. I know fully there are many, many people in the US who do not feel this way and who fully exercise a great use of their faith. Who volunteer at soup kitchens and give to the poor. But they are screamed down on television, in the newspapers, and elsewhere. That needs to change.

People will probably get defensive at this diary because I fully have become an atheist and that's their right and opinion. But it's also my opinion that it's about time for Christianity in this nation to be retaken from those who have poisoned it. I certainly would love for all religion to simply vanish but we'd find some new thing to hate on, I suspect. If it's going to be around, it should be used for good.

Let's call it the Third Reformation, where Christianity finally decides it's going to respect humanity despite whatever reservations it may have regarding things it finds repugnant. It's time for America's liberal Christians to retake the faith. I'll never come back, but I'll support the efforts.

Mild Irking Frustration

2009-02-05T17:48:00.003-05:00

After yet another quarter of my report being held up at the last minute I'm wondering about the joys of self-employment.

I think it'd be cool to sell solar panels and windmills. Not that I know anything about starting a business, or running a business. And, beyond the minimal research I've done, not enough to convincingly sell a solar panel system (or install one) beyond the "ZOMG THIS IS SO AWESOME!" which it is (I mean, really, selling electricity BACK to the utility? That's just hotness.)

So, perhaps, over the next couple years, I'll sock away cash and do a lot of homework on the subjects. I like where I work currently, don't get me wrong, but self-employment has an allure to it.

And President Obama might fix the one big reason I don't do it: health care.

test post

2009-01-30T01:07:00.000-05:00

Just a test post from my blackberry. I really should be asleep but I can't. I'm too restless.

But it is a good restless.

Beyonce

2009-01-28T21:40:00.003-05:00

You know, Beyonce is everywhere.

I actually think this is cool. Her voice has really matured.

I thought she was excellent at the Kennedy Center Honors:

And singing for President Obama and the First Lady:

I think she should do more stuff like this.

This concludes today's random post.

I don't want to hear any Whining

2009-01-26T21:00:00.002-05:00

That phrase is the joke of the year. And we're only barely a month in.

Rendell. I voted for ya twice, but man, you can be an ass.

Lots agree!

Yeah I totally should be Blogging More

2009-01-26T20:36:00.003-05:00

And so should my mom.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I can't seem to blog from my Blackberry. This really isn't fair. If someone knows a way that T-Mobile would like, let me know.

Anyway I'm feeling lazy at the moment. I've seen two reasonably good movies in the last three weeks. Seven Pounds was sad, and about halfway through when you figure out what is up, you'll be sad for the rest of the movie. Gran Torino, surprisingly, was a comedy. The acting was a little wooden, particularly on the Hmong actors side, but a good effort for all.

I'm enjoying my house hunting as I browse the MLS. I wish PA Fair Housing Council was easier to contact. They don't respond to emails.
I think a big old Victorian like the ones in the 2000 block of Green St. would be awesome to live in. I'm so excited to buy a house this summer that I could plotz.
People want on my dance card now that it's no longer available to them. Funny, that. Where were you from August 2007 through Sunday? Ah well, you lost your chance.
Carley's is an excellent restaurant downtown.
The banks don't need any more money. In fact they're hording it.
I'm also still amazed 100% financing is still available. Really?

#44

2009-01-20T11:09:00.002-05:00

KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-01-14T16:42:00.000-05:00

Ricardo Monteblan has died.

Majel-Barrett Roddenberry, Gone at 76

2008-12-18T21:18:00.000-05:00

This makes me really sad.

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the wife of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has passed away, Access Hollywood has learned. She was 76.
The actress died of leukemia at 12:27 AM on Thursday with her son, Rod, by her side. She was diagnosed with the disease six months ago.
Majel, whose acting credits included “Bonanza” and “Leave It To Beaver,” had been a part of “Star Trek” in all of its forms since it first premiered on September 8, 1966.

What Traditional Marriage Really Should Look Like

2008-12-10T14:51:00.002-05:00

Totally cribbed from Daily Kos. Hey, it's in the Bible. Fundies need to get to it. All of the below, since they've chosen not to believe in equality because their God apparently has the EQ of Veruca Salt and will throw a Veruca Salt tantrum if we extend equality to everyone.

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

Ok, the Trek Reboot Looks Hella Cool

2008-11-19T16:50:00.000-05:00

I'm one of those who will scream at continuity errors, but let's face it. Star Trek needs a reboot to bring it more inline with the times, much like Battlestar Galactica was rebooted and is Teh Awesome.

So I think I'm going to like this movie.

It'll probably be the only movie I see in the theater in 2009. It better come to the IMAX.

May 9, 2009. Save the date.

Mom's Blog

2008-11-18T17:21:00.001-05:00

My Mom has a Blog. Check it out.

The Curse is OVER!

2008-10-29T22:48:00.000-04:00

Billy Penn can suck it!

Congrats, Philadelphia!

More Art

2008-10-19T18:39:00.003-04:00

I've had a couple people say they'd be interested in me painting them something. I'm not sure if they're just being nice or if they're serious. At any rate, here's some new paintings.

I've never given any real thought to actually selling anything I paint. It's really just a hobby.

just an art update

2008-10-14T22:51:00.001-04:00

Painted a bunch. Located here. Enjoy.

Gifts---NO!

2008-09-29T18:05:00.003-04:00

I've developed a weird thing about gifts.

I don't like them.

I have a birthday coming up in about 13 days. I don't want any gifts. No gifts! NO GIFTS! I'm serious. See, I only have 550 square feet. I'm using one of my couches as a catchall. I have no place to put the items that are on the couch. My coffee table doubles as my easel. The paints get stored underneath. I am due to drain an aquarium soon but that space will get taken up by something I know. So, I have no space for anything new and won't until I move (assuming I ever get the motivation to move. Not looking likely right now). And to be perfectly honest, I'm at a point where if I really want something (and most of what I want right now is not something I can buy as it's not material, or something I can even have, but I won't get into that right now) I can just go out and buy it myself. Except for maybe the big screen TV (but again, I haven't the space for a big screen TV.)

Plus, I'd rather you spent that money on a charity anyway instead of on me.

The same goes for Christmas. No gifts, please!

This isn't a passive-aggressive way to get more gifts. I really don't want anything material this birthday or this Christmas. Thanks.

Yuck

2008-09-20T22:34:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Fall. Not my favorite time of year---winter is coming, and I've grown to greatly dislike winter.

Ah well.

Maybe a trip down South around Christmas time is in order.

Passenger Rail Service: Part One of an Occasional Series

2008-09-10T18:18:00.003-04:00

There really ought to be direct no transfer rail service between Harrisburg and points south, like Baltimore and DC. I've done this trip a couple times on Amtrak and it is annoying to have to go east to then go south. Greyhound is direct, however it can be a psych ward (and germ factory) on wheels. And as we all know by now, I really have no interest in driving and the fact that cheap gas is gone forever proves I made the correct decision, even if everyone looks at me like I'm some sort of alien life form from the planet Romulus. Well hey guess what, they have flying cars on Romulus that run on magic and drive themselves and it's all free! Ha! Anyway, I digress.

A basic primer about the rail network south of Harrisburg. It's all freight rail now. As late as the late 1970s, there was passenger rail service between Harrisburg and Baltimore that ran along the tracks now owned by Norfolk Southern that run on the east side of the Susquehanna River to Port Deposit, MD, but way back in the day, one could get on an interurban (what we would now call "light rail" or if you're an ornery Philadelphian like I am, "trolleys") and go pretty much anywhere. Indeed, it was actually possible for someone to take the interurban from Lancaster all the way to Scranton, and then connect to go to New York City. While I won't expound upon conspiracies involving General Motors, the automobile was essential in killing this form of public transportation. There are almost no interurbans left, but a great example of one is just 2 hours east of here in the Philadelphia suburbs between Upper Darby and Norristown (Septa's Route 100).

Passenger rail (not interurban) service also existed, along the Northern Central Railway and the Maryland and Pennsylvania (Ma and Pa) Railway. Passenger service on the latter ended in the '50s. Most of the Northern Central's right of way is a rail trail, save a section that is currently in use as part of Baltimore's light rail system. A deep google search found a reference that Amtrak also had some service as late as the late 70s, but it, like most of Amtrak, could not make a profit. It went. It was also not that direct, and slow. Scenic, but slow.

As for passenger train service, Agnes was a major culprit by causing major damage to rail infrastructure up and down the Susquehanna Valley, the complete collapse of the private passenger rail service industry in the late 1960s and 70s (which bought us Amtrak) was another, and all of us who preferred to drive pretty much ended it.

I think it's time it came back. This link is an interesting thread to read. There is a 7 year old PennDOT report on the state's passenger rail needs. It's a PDF and an interesting read. But it's 7 years old. Times have changed. It should be updated and I think I may bring it up at work sometime soon since I don't nearly have enough things that challenge me to do (I have lots of stuff to do, it's just not challenging.)

This is something I'll be expanding on a lot more as time goes on but I drew this very basic map a couple weeks ago. I may be coming into a copy of ArcGIS that I can do a real nice fancy map on it.

View Larger Map

Ignore the pushpins. They were there to aid me in drawing the very rough lines.

The blue squiggle on the right, that hugs the east bank of the Susquehanna roughly follows existing Norfolk Southern trackage. It was the trackage that was used by Amtrak as late as the late 70s (and was apparently electrified, like the Keystone line.) As far as I know (I don't have PennDOT's freight rail network map here at home) it is the only track that exists between Harrisburg to connect in Maryland with the Northeast Corridor lines. The other lines roughly follow existing track that is freight rail (the stop in York has several at-grade crossings, if you've been to the new stadium or used the Greyhound stop there you've seen them) and the trackage generally has degraded or been ripped up for rail trails south of York and in Maryland.

This is of course just an idea. I'm not yet to the point in my research where I can come up with numbers such as money and potential travel demand for analysis, and PennDOT (officially) does not have that capability to do in house (we can talk in private about unofficially). If I could hazard a guess based on the Scranton-NYC rail line that is under serious consideration I'd say this would cost Maryland and Pennsylvania somewhere north of $200 million to get built (Scranton-NYC is just shy of half a billion dollars, last time I checked.) There aren't many major population centers between Harrisburg and the Baltimore-Washington metro, however Baltimore and Washington's commuter shield grows ever wider every day, despite the price of gas. A heavy rail like like Amtrak can be used as a commuter line. The Keystone Line basically fulfills that role.

What do you think? This is a draft of an idea that I've had for a long time. This is an infrastructure connection that should exist, did exist, and with enough noise from enough organized people with their facts right, will exist again.

The Latest

2008-09-04T23:13:00.001-04:00

Yeah.

Choose Something Like a Star

2008-09-02T21:51:00.003-04:00

This one has an actual title. It's titled "I Burn." Inspired by "Choose Something Like a Star."

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.

Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.

It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

I put the small 5x7 paintings up on the wall yesterday.

Blogger Comments And Sunday Art

2008-08-31T22:04:00.003-04:00

I've had some people tell me the comments engine blows. Let me know if it works for you.

I also painted on Sunday. This one's a little PG-13 and it IS what you think it is. Ha. Ha. Was fun to paint too!

Next Sunday is the Art Association Gallery Walk. Apparently, there is art and culture in Harrisburg. I'd like to go if anyone wants to go. Maybe I'll ask someone out.

I get the BEST Spam!

2008-08-27T18:09:00.000-04:00

Check this out! I won 400,000 pounds!

From the online email ballot promotions held by
Motorola Company, your email have been approved to claim the
sum of £400,000 (Four hundred thousand pound) .

To file for claim, you are required to provided us with the information below for verification:

Full Name:
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Reply this email with the information for claim
(moto_prom123@yahoo.com.hk)

Too funny!

Latest piece of Artwork

2008-08-25T22:46:00.006-04:00

I did this on Saturday. It was supposed to be a nebula, but as you can see, I went a little nuts because I bought 36 new colors that day and just had to try it out.

Plus I think I was still feeling some "side effects" (mainly time dilation) from Thursday evening's fun-filled activities and I kept zoning out as I painted. Oh, and at one point, the colors started dancing on the canvas which was cool although irritating. Thus, lots of red and orange and purple. There actually is black all the way under that. Sunday I applied a thick coat of glaze to it.

I'm finding I really like painting, even though to be honest, I don't think I'm all that great at it. But hey, it keeps me busy and occupied since lately, I really haven't felt like doing the Harrisburg Out and About Drinking scene.

Wednesday Night Painting

2008-08-20T21:15:00.002-04:00

Yup, this is what I did.

This last one is the one I didn't start. Maybe this weekend.

More Art Time at Terry's House!

2008-08-17T22:50:00.003-04:00

Ok, not really a house, but you get the gist. Not sure what I was going for with this one. Bright, isn't it?

The Art School book I picked up 3 years ago off of the sale rack at B.Daulton. I think it was a good purchase, although I can honestly say I haven't opened it in awhile.

Dinner

2008-08-17T21:57:00.001-04:00

Nom Nom Nom!

Arts and Crafts at Terry's Home!

2008-08-14T22:39:00.003-04:00

I had the urge to paint again. So I did.

Be honest. You won't hurt my feelings if you think it's hideous.

dumpster diving

2008-08-14T17:44:00.005-04:00

On the heels of my totally awesome mirror that I painted on Sunday, today I found a perfectly good coffee table. I had been using a steamer trunk as one before.

Now I have a coffee table. Can you believe someone was going to throw this away? Amazing. There's not a thing wrong with it except for where someone stuck something onto the top--that can be scrubbed off with some soap and water.

Oh well. It's MINE now!

Yes I'm aware of how junky it already is. When you live in 550 square feet, every inch gets used. I've outgrown this place, no matter how much I toss so I think after October all my focus is going to be on putting lots of money away so I can get out of here when my lease is up next July, preferably sooner.

Picture was taken with my new digital camera, which apparently has resolution that's sharper then real life.

Dinner

2008-08-12T22:10:00.004-04:00

4 boneless porkchops
1 can of Cream of Celery Soup
a few tbsps of Worchester Sauce
half can of water (use the soup can)

preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put porkchops in baking pan. Pour worchester sauce on porkchops. Then pour can of cream of Celery Soup in pan. Add water. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until done.

then eat. I'll be eating this for a few days.

I served it (to myself) with whole grain linguine, which can be found in the organic section at Giant, although I'm sure Wegmans has the same linguine too. The linguine I made in a microwave rice steamer that has a pasta attachment.

This came about because I wanted to use Cream of Mushroom soup and didn't have any and I was too lazy to ride down to the Sayford Market to get some.

Spore: September 7th!

2008-08-11T15:11:00.000-04:00

What do you think?

2008-08-10T16:21:00.002-04:00

My afternoon/evening plans were postponed a day so I painted a mirror frame. I found this mirror out by the dumpster about a month ago and was amazed someone was going to toss it. So I snatched it and today I painted it.

What do you think?

Discussion Question Time

2008-08-09T18:27:00.002-04:00

If we all move to electric vehicles and alternate fuel vehicles, what will we tax (or how will we tax) to keep the roads paved and the transit running?

I'm beginning to see that a lot of people ( the various "Green" bloggers at Daily Kos like dotcommodity and A Seigel) don't seem to have answered that question when they make their case (sometimes guiltmongering, but hey, do what you gotta do to make a point) for putting solar panels on carports for plug-in electric cars so they don't have to buy electricity generated from a big corporate utility and so on.

My coworkers had an argument from Williamsport well past Selinsgrove as we drove down US 11/15 from Towanda last Thursday about this and it sparked something.

Many Americans hate the gas tax, as we seem to hate all taxes. But I'll tell you what, you know exactly what you're getting with the federal and state gas taxes: paved roads. They may not be the best, as any Pennsylvanian or resident of the upper Midwest/Northeast will tell you, but they get paved when they can. Furthermore, myself included, we expect expanded transit systems. Or we expect the light rails (then called trolleys or interurbans) to come back after we ripped them all out after World War II. The money for that has to come from somewhere.

Gasoline has come down, because people stopped driving. Eventually it will continue its slow rise upward. I am firmly of the belief what's occurring now is an artificial bubble and not the End Of Civilization Due To Peak Oil, although the Peak is approaching if it hasn't passed already. At any rate, people stop driving, revenues to keep the roads paved stop coming in. Revenues stop coming in, roads don't get paved so then your fancy (although very fragile, I mean what's available in electric cars now look like Barbie cars or golf carts, no offense) electric car will be worthless unless they start building them like Hummers.

I'd like to have a cool serious discussion about this because it really should be on people's minds. We can all put solar panels on our carports and garages assuming we live in the suburbs where we can have a carport and/or garage, as most Americans do (and we'll discuss where city dwellers would plug in later.) We can all generate our own power so we don't have to buy from some evil corporate utility that probably isn't green and won't be for at least another 2 or 3 decades. But that doesn't answer the question on how the roads get paved if no one used gas to power their vehicles anymore. We're already seeing our revenues begin to fall and at PennDOT, this is seriously hurting our purchasing power.

I'll throw an idea and note I'm not for or against it. A Transportation Systems Sales Tax that everyone pays, no matter if they drive or not. Everyone enjoys the benefits of a functioning transportation system, otherwise you'd starve. Think about it. Or post your own ideas in the comments thread.

It's either that or we toll just about everything.

i'm a superhero!

2008-08-03T12:21:00.001-04:00

Your results:
You are The Flash

The Flash		75%
Green Lantern		70%
Iron Man		70%
Spider-Man		65%
Hulk		55%
Supergirl		55%
Robin		47%
Catwoman		45%
Batman		45%
Superman		45%
Wonder Woman		30%

Fast, athletic and flirtatious.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

Which is Better?

2008-08-03T11:40:00.000-04:00

Having a whole crowd and entourage of friends
Just having a small close-knit group of friends

Just a hypothetical on a Sunday morning.

2008-07-31T19:30:00.000-04:00

Brain Lateralization Test Results

Right Brain (52%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain.
Left Brain (52%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Things that make you go hmmm

2008-07-28T23:30:00.002-04:00

Remember when people were screaming for Marylin Manson and so on to be banned after Columbine because it caused those kids to murder their classmates and then shoot themselves?

hmm

Adkisson targeted the church, [Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve] Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

I can't help but wonder, given what I've read about the guy who shot up a church in Knoxville, TN, screaming about liberals and gays as he murdered two people, will there be calls to ban whatever radio program(s) that likely riled him up? No, of course not. Don't hold your breath and don't be silly.

For the record, I'm not calling for a ban on anything because that would be wrong all around. All around.

And also for the record, let's hate what's evil. What's REALLY evil, and not what some people on the radio decide for their listeners so they can make a buck.

There will be a lot more posts

2008-07-27T16:05:00.001-04:00

There will be a lot more posts as soon as I figure out how to blog from my Crackberry.

Some Pics From Austin

2008-07-27T15:53:00.002-04:00

The entire gallery can be seen here.

It was a great time, and a blast.

This is Unacceptable

2008-07-21T19:10:00.001-04:00

I wanted to write about my vacation, and I will eventually, but I find myself really disturbed by what's coming out of Italy these days.

And this is unacceptable.

Three Years in Harrisburg

2008-07-05T18:54:00.003-04:00

Today marks my third year in Harrisburg. On July 5th 2005 I moved up here after graduating from college.

I have to say, I really, really hated this place that first year. I thought the people were unfriendly and I didn't really like my job. But, despite attempts to escape the first year I decided to give it a chance.

The second year wasn't too much better, but it improved. Last year I got a bike, dumped the ex, made some friends and the whole world opened up. My job still sucks though, although the people are quite nice.

Harrisburg is a pretty cool place when you give it a chance. I mean partying on 2nd St. does get old after awhile but you can find a new activity easily. I love the fact that generally I don't have to drive and if I need to get somewhere someone is always willing to give me a ride. We still need a good grocery store in the Midtown neighborhood, preferably not a Giant. Whole Foods or Trader Joe's would rock. I think they could put it somewhere along the 6th Street corridor where all that vacant land is because that would simply make sense. Right?

It has its issues like any place, but it's not bad. There's cool people here too. So, I'll give it a year or two more.

Accelerating?

2008-06-23T23:18:00.006-04:00

Hmm.

I'll just 'assume' it's all in the pipeline like Dr. Hansen says it is.

Lucia muses on this. She's not a skeptic. She's also one of my favorite sites. I don't comment daily but I visit every day.

One of Anthony's guest posters also muses on this. They are skeptics who believe the solar cycle should be given much more credit then what it gets. I think their idea that cooling is on the way based on a prolonged Solar Cycle 23 and two predicted future wimpy solar cycles is speculative at best so I'm skeptical of it. The Earth is most definitely warming. Of course if they're right then everyone that's bought into the current scientific consensus is wrong and hundreds of millions will starve (which they'll probably do anyway if the warming accelerates after 2010, since it's not, now.)

For what it's worth, the skeptics have latched onto the fact that there's a noted divergence in the temperature record between the satellite and land-based records, as seen in this graph. Now I'm pretty sure the world will get back to boiling sooner or later, but if you want to know why they are the way they are (since even the religious right and the mainstream Republican Party has had its buy-in to AGW/ACC) this is why. The graph was created here and you can do it yourself. It's a cool, cool site. I'm glad I found it.

I am more or less done with my adventure in the skepticsphere. It was an interesting run. However I'm not convinced that the Earth is NOT warming, as it clearly is. Thus, Congress should do something but probably not cap-and-trade, as it just allows polluters to just trade their "pollutants" around (pollutants in this case being CO2). Nothing will change. But people will get rich off of it. Hmm, perhaps I should get in on that. I much favor a nice carbon tax with instant rebate. A nice fat check every year like the one we got this year? I'm game! I want solar panels on my future roof!

As my colleague Andy Revkin reported, the influential NASA climate scientist James Hansen is now pushing for a new approach to cutting greenhouse emissions. Instead of the cap-and-trade approach pushed by some politicians and environmentalists — and rejected in the Senate last week — he’s urging a “tax-and-dividend”: a carbon tax whose revenues would all be directly returned to citizens. The money would be divided equally, so that people who use less energy than average — like lower-income people — would get back more than they spend.

Dr. Hansen and I are not exactly public-policy soulmates, but I’m with him on this one. I’ve advocated a similar tax on carbon generally and gasoline specifically, with all the money refunded directly to citizens, either through simple payments or by depositing the money in new individual retirement accounts. Refunding money directly removes the temptation for Congress to treat a carbon-reduction revenues as a chance to dispense trillions of dollars worth of favors — as proposed in last week’s bill, which was aptly dubbed “pork-and-trade.”

And Dr. Hansen , who told Congress today that the world is probably going to end as we boil off the seas and atmosphere, is for it too.

I, however, don't and rarely ever have responded to appeals to emotion. Emotionality is why nothing is getting done. Bjorn Lomborg (and despite what everyone screams, he is not a skeptic!) more or less said this in his book, "Cool It" and got pies in his face for it. Some bloggers would rather name call instead of doing real action. And to be honest, I wish those dudes would just chill the fuck out and smoke some pot, clear their heads, and then come back and be rational about their work instead of screaming "DELAYER, DENIER, I WANT TO LOCK UP THE OIL EXECS FOR DISINFORMATION." Cause then, I'm just going to say "good luck with that" and not care about your cause and work on things that are important to me, like solving hunger in the third world and curing AIDS which would have much better socio-economic impacts on planet Earth then screaming epithets at each other. And yes, the skeptics and cooling alarmists are becoming as histrionic as the warming alarmists. It makes me wish I had gone into psychology. I could make millions writing pop-psych books on you people! and people would buy it and buy into that bullshit!

And that's all I have to say about that.

Parking Lease dot Org now launched

2008-06-22T17:22:00.001-04:00

Found this via the Pennlive Forums.

Check it out, and if you're a Harrisburg resident, pass it on!

Parking Lease

Last Word on the Midtown Crime Spree

2008-06-21T01:32:00.002-04:00

This is going to be my last word on the Midtown Crime Spree.

I''ve been thinking.

And I'm thinking---if you let these punks (thankfully, two of them are caught) terrorize you into being afraid at night, not meeting your neighbors, and so on, then they've won.

Don't let them fraking win.

Don't be afraid to walk down your street. If you are---they've won.

Don't be afraid to hang with your neighbors on your stoop. If you are---they've won.

Don't be afraid to meet your friends downtown or at the Midtown Tavern or the Taproom (well you do have to walk past Cafe 1400, and that can be a scary place)...otherwise they've won.

Hiding in your houses means they've won.

Not going out and enjoying life means they've won.

Don't let douchebags win! And that's just that!

But still, carry mace or a tazer or whatever if you need to. I met a guy tonight who has a billy club. That's hot. But don't let these douchebags win and terrorize our city.

Summer Vacation

2008-06-20T00:33:00.001-04:00

Not really taking one(except to Austin, TX in just under a month), but this summer so far is kind of awesome.

Something I'll Expand On Soon

2008-06-20T00:06:00.002-04:00

I'm having a bit of trouble with the "consistent With Chronicles" as defined at Dr. Pielke Jr's place

Read here.

The short version is now global warming has begun to accelerate (or not--I read an article it was "taking a break" till 2015) thus everything that happens in the weather is now consistent with the consequences of global warming, event the Midwest floods even though it was patently obvious in March that there'd be widespread flooding on the Mississippi and its tributaries due to the amount of snow and rain that fell there this winter and spring.

that and the misunderstanding as to what 100-year flood and 500-year flood means (they're probabilities, not statistical recurrence times.)

Sometimes a flood is just a flood. Although the White House said we could connect global warming to it...

i dunno we'll just have to see. /ramble

Twitter rules

2008-06-19T00:27:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to share that fact.

In fact you can follow me on there if you wish. I am shortstack81.

Midtown Crime Alert

2008-06-17T22:12:00.003-04:00

First, from Jersey Mike

I also received the same crime alert email.

CRIME ALERT!

This is to inform you that last night, shortly after 10pm, there were two attacks in Midtown by a group of teens, 8 to 10 of them, which included 3 or 4 girls in this group. They were estimated to be between 17 to 20 years old.

The first attack happened to our neighbor on the 1500 block of Green St, between Boyd and Reily. This happened at approximately 10:10pm. He was out in front of his home watering his plants and flowers when this group walked by and without saying anything to him attacked him by punching him several times and throwing him to the ground. He called out for help, where two neighbors heard him and they went outside to help. The kids took off down the street and the Police were immediately called. The neighbor was left bloodied and shaken.

One of the attackers was described as a black male, approximately 5'8" to 5'10", wearing a black tank top, dark baggy shorts and corn-rows in his hair. One girl was also seen with a bright red shirt.

10 minutes later another person was attacked and robbed on Verbeke Street near Penn Street, at Shady McGrady's. It was the same group who attacked the first person.

Recently a few crimes have happened in our midtown neighborhood, such as bikes stolen, a basement break-in an attempted home break-in and an attempted car break-in to steal a car radio. Now with this latest attack, we would like for everyone to be aware of these incidents and ask that you take precautions to be safe.

In the incident of the attempted home break-in, a black male and white female were seen looking into a home windows with a flashlight. When a neighbor saw this he yelled at the people where the yelled back profanities and fled. Police were called immediately.

Please turn on your front and back porch lights. Call the police should you see ANYTHING that may be considered suspicious with a good description of what you have witnessed. And please get to know your neighbors so that you can call and support each other before any of these types of incidents happen to you or one of your neighbors.

Thanks and take care.

There was another incident Monday evening. I hate to think these will continue.

Midtown is my favorite neighborhood in the city. It's much less pretentious then Shipoke (where the old ladies look at me weird when I ride my bike down there), and it's full of all sorts of very nice, very interesting people of all classes, ages, ethnicities, and so on.

It would behoove people, however, especially if they're new to city life, that this is not the suburbs or the country. Be aware of your surroundings. Harrisburg is really not that dangerous a city but as the last couple nights have shown, never underestimate the stupidity and viciousness of a bunch of bored, heathen teenagers. I've never been a gun fan but if you've got a permit to carry, I say go for it. Just don't be stupid like these brats.

At any rate be careful out there. And to the punks doing this shit I say you'd better go find a new, legal activity like picking up trash or Playstation or something. You're going to jump the wrong person and get your dumbasses shot. And I can't say anyone will have much sympathy for any of you.

And I'll be damned if a bunch of thugs is going to make me feel unsafe in my own city. They can all eat my nuts.

For Bina

2008-06-14T15:38:00.001-04:00

Mike Piazza in action!

Best Frakking Show on Television

2008-06-14T12:59:00.001-04:00

You know, I Blog so my Mom doesn't think I'm Dead

2008-06-13T01:44:00.003-04:00

She gets on me if I don't blog for awhile and she doesn't hear from me.

At any rate I have no idea, other then her and a couple others, if people are reading this thing. Does the comment engine suck? Leave me a comment every once and awhile. It may just push me to blog a lot more.

First Heat Wave of the Summer

2008-06-07T15:02:00.002-04:00

even though, astronomically, it isn't Summer yet. (Meteorologically, summer began a couple days ago.)

Not 2 weeks ago I was shivering as I stumbled home from yet another bar night out. If I wasn't so skeptical about everything, I'd say Mother Nature was fucking with us.

The heat has made everyone scarce (why do people in Pennsylvania fear the heat? cmon! Get used to it if the Earth warms drastically!) so I am forced to find my own entertainment today.

So: I watched all of the last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica. It's as intensely satisfying now as it was when it started in 2004.

I filled up some water bottles.

I turned on the Air conditioner.

I turned it back off because it made it too cold, and my AC unit is loud and irritating forcing me to put the TV up too loud. It isn't really that hot in here since I don't get sunlight after 11am in my apartment, except maybe between 6 and 7 in the bedroom at this time of year.

I looked at house listings in midtown again. A new prerequisite: I'm willing to give up the washer/dryer for a larger back yard for a pool.

Mark my words--I'm going to have a swimming pool. Just don't know how big it'll be.

I contemplated riding down to Philly on the train but nixed the idea when I discovered the latest train back was at 8:45PM. That kinda takes the sails out of your fun (and I didn't really want to sleep over at any relatives' houses, at least not this time.) There really needs to be a midnight train, even though yes I know money controls that and if Amtrak isn't making money on it, they won't do it.

FYI they USED to have a late train going in each direction. Wish they'd bring it back.

I'm climbing the walls. This is kind of the first Saturday in a while that I'm not doing something with someone and I'm very antsy.

SI, SE PUEDE!

2008-06-03T19:37:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama who will, within 3 hours of this post, clinch the nomination to be the Democratic Party's candidate to be president. And then, in a few months time, he will BE president of the United States of America.

Congratulations to Senator Hillary Clinton for her equally historic campaign. I think she'd make a great person to head up Health and Human Services, or even the Senate Majority Leader.

Now we can get on with it and crush that mean, nasty, bully of a Senator from Arizona (because seriously, no one who calls his wife a trollop and a cunt should be president, like ever.)

YES. WE. CAN!

Harrisburg Development Page

2008-05-26T11:49:00.001-04:00

Take a look at all the planned developments here in Harrisburg.

Josh at Karns Quality has done some good work collating everything he could find and putting it in one place.

Harrisburg Development Page

It's Arts Fest Weekend!

2008-05-23T00:34:00.001-04:00

That of course means PARTY TIME!

And we can also look at some awesome art.

Artsfest

Hope to see everyone there!

Final Cylon Poll

2008-05-19T18:39:00.001-04:00

I'm running a poll on who the final cylon in Battlestar Galactica might be. I'm thinking it's Gaeta, based on all the available evidence.

Vote in the poll. It's to the right.

Cafe Fresco's Level Two

2008-05-17T12:05:00.002-04:00

So my friends and I decided to check out Harrisburg's new swanky martini spot: Level Two.

You can read more about it over at Harrisburg Nightlife.

Suffice to say, it was a hot fun time. I felt a little underdressed as it is just a very classy place with a friendly (and hot) bar staff.

Non-smoking too.

Check it out.

My Blackberry is all grown up

2008-05-17T11:38:00.001-04:00

it made phone calls all by itself last night.

Without any prompting from me.

Good cellphone.

This is apparently a common phenomenon with Blackberries. They'll make phone calls all by themselves, usually to random people in the address book. It's funny actually.

Sushi

2008-05-07T18:46:00.001-04:00

I am now a sushi fanatic.

I have to have it like all the time now.

The COOLEST blog EVER

2008-05-07T16:44:00.002-04:00

You have to be a special sort of nerd to appreciate this blog, and indeed, I am a special sort of nerd.

It's a blog ALL ABOUT VOLCANOES!

Check it out!

Big Win NC, incredibly Narrow IN

2008-05-07T01:22:00.002-04:00

I'm sorry, but it's over for Hillary. If she had not let her campaign be such, and forgive my French, a racist bitch campaign...she'd have had her nomination in March.

but good for her, for winning, narrowly, in Indiana.

PDO Flip

2008-04-30T18:22:00.004-04:00

Lucia and Anthony both report that the PDO has flipped to negative (or cool).

It could help to explain the chilly spring in the Northwest and the "stall" in global warming reported on so many skeptic blogs (for the record, I don't think there was a stall.)

The PDO (or Pacific Decadal Oscillation) is a long period climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean, typically in 30 year cycles. It was not discovered until the late 70s, which was when it flipped to positive (or warm). Read through the links and come to your own conclusions as to whatever implications there may be.

The "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) is a long-lived El Niño-like pattern of Pacific climate variability. While the two climate oscillations have similar spatial climate fingerprints, they have very different behavior in time. Fisheries scientist Steven Hare coined the term "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" (PDO) in 1996 while researching connections between Alaska salmon production cycles and Pacific climate (his dissertation topic with advisor Robert Francis). Two main characteristics distinguish PDO from El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO): first, 20th century PDO "events" persisted for 20-to-30 years, while typical ENSO events persisted for 6 to 18 months; second, the climatic fingerprints of the PDO are most visible in the North Pacific/North American sector, while secondary signatures exist in the tropics - the opposite is true for ENSO. Several independent studies find evidence for just two full PDO cycles in the past century: "cool" PDO regimes prevailed from 1890-1924 and again from 1947-1976, while "warm" PDO regimes dominated from 1925-1946 and from 1977 through (at least) the mid-1990's. Shoshiro Minobe has shown that 20th century PDO fluctuations were most energetic in two general periodicities, one from 15-to-25 years, and the other from 50-to-70 years.
http://ingrid.ldeo.columbia.edu/%28/home/alexeyk/mydata/TSsvd.in%29readfile/.SST/.PDO/
Major changes in northeast Pacific marine ecosystems have been correlated with phase changes in the PDO; warm eras have seen enhanced coastal ocean biological productivity in Alaska and inhibited productivity off the west coast of the contiguous United States, while cold PDO eras have seen the opposite north-south pattern of marine ecosystem productivity.
Causes for the PDO are not currently known. Likewise, the potential predictability for this climate oscillation are not known. Some climate simulation models produce PDO-like oscillations, although often for different reasons. The mechanisms giving rise to PDO will determine whether skillful decades-long PDO climate predictions are possible. For example, if PDO arises from air-sea interactions that require 10 year ocean adjustment times, then aspects of the phenomenon will (in theory) be predictable at lead times of up to 10 years. Even in the absence of a theoretical understanding, PDO climate information improves season-to-season and year-to-year climate forecasts for North America because of its strong tendency for multi-season and multi-year persistence. From a societal impacts perspective, recognition of PDO is important because it shows that "normal" climate conditions can vary over time periods comparable to the length of a human's lifetime.

Spread This Around

2008-04-30T18:04:00.001-04:00

What was that about Rev. Wright?

Battlestar Galactica

2008-04-27T03:44:00.002-04:00

First Few Episodes Recap:

1. Roslin is getting cranky. And close to death.
2. Baltar as the Messiah is fucking creepy.
3. Cally got hosed
4. Tory is also fucking creepy, although looking back, her character has always had this dark side. It was her idea to stuff the ballot boxes a-la Florida-style.
5. I am firmly convinced that Baltar's "Inner-Six" is not a figment of his imagination or a manifestation of his guilt at his hand of humanity's destruction, nor is she a Cylon trick. She is something altogether different. Oh, and she's fucking creepy too.
6. Starbuck is not a Cylon.

I'm willing to put money on it that the Final Cylon is Dualla. But we won't find out until late this year or next.

Wow, people are overprotective and dumb

2008-04-25T00:26:00.002-04:00

This Article just made me mad.
As a kid, I was allowed to ride SEPTA all by myself. And I was much younger then this columnist's 4th Grader. I believe I was 6.

Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence," Skenazy wrote on April 4 in the New York Sun. "Long story longer: Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating—for us and for them."

Online message boards were soon swarming with people both applauding and condemning Skenazy's decision to let her son go it alone. She wound up defending herself on the cable news networks (accompanied by her son) and on popular blogs like the Huffington Post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined "More From America's Worst Mom."

You could argue "it was a different time then," but seriously, it was the late 1980s, and crackfiends and other scary people were everywhere.

Yet at the same time in my generation, helicopter parents hovered over their kids and now those kids can't get jobs without mom and dad holding their hands. And they're my age---26! 30 is only 4 years away, folks!

It is OK to teach your kids to watch out for strangers. My mom sure did. Again, it WAS the 1980s. But folks, your kids will not survive in the real world if they are overcoddled and incapable of any independent thought or action. Especially if peak oil pans out to be the catastrophe the catastrophe pornographers keep saying it will. I'll survive. The ones incapable of it will not.

donations

2008-04-23T22:28:00.000-04:00

Obama

Judy Hirsh

Dauphin County for Obama!

2008-04-23T00:37:00.002-04:00

Yup, I'm a little shocked too! And my home County of Delaware, also for Obama! And if you're not from Delaware County, you won't know how hardcore the Republicans are there!

The whole Keystone Corridor it looks like voted for Obama.

While the vote ended up more or less as I expected, I was secretly hoping for a win. However, my state senate candidate, Judy Hirsh, won huge here. Piccola, I think you should find a beach to lie on in January. You're not coming back to the Senate.

As for the presidential race, she'll, at most, net 10-12 delegates. So far it appears the vote count as of the time of this post is under the 200k threshold she wanted. This means we'll limp on to North Carolina. Hopefully it'll end after that, but it's doubtful she'll win the nomination at this point (as it was doubtful after the Texas state conventions, but whatever.)

In the chance she DOES get it, we need to rally around her so we can beat McCain, as that senile, mean, nasty old man can not be allowed to have access to the US's nuclear arsenal.

Let's Go Change The World!

2008-04-19T13:33:00.001-04:00

You know where I'll be tonight.

Capitol Steps, gates open at 630pm.

The Home Stretch

2008-04-17T23:49:00.002-04:00

It's on. It's been brought.

We've come now to the end.

The Home Stretch.

It's almost like a general election. But on Tuesday some 4 million Pennsylvanians will go to the polls and decide who they think should be the Democratic Nominee.

I'm ready.

We're ready.

Pennsylvania is ready.

The Democrats are ready for a nominee. Will he shut her out and end it next Tuesday night? Or will it continue into North Carolina?

Lukewarmers

2008-04-16T17:04:00.004-04:00

I had tried to figure out where I sat on AGW spectrum. I'm an agnostic on most things that cause internet flame wars, including this one.

Most probably had assumed that when I felt things weren't adding up, I was an evil Republican troll who worked for an oil company and I hated the environment. This, of course, is hyperbolic, stupid, and illogical.

I've no doubt the Earth has warmed since 1850. I have serious doubts about the catastrophism that will befall us anyday. I have a psychological theory that the post 9/11 times have made pretty much everything dark, from TV to science fiction to the proliferation of catastrophe porn shows on The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel and elsewhere. We've become obsessed with our own ends.

I suspect there's more then enough evidence that the world doesn't work that way.

I drew this chart for myself:

}-denial---------skeptic---------|-----lukewarmer--------|--believer-------------G&D---{

I'm a lukewarmer, closer to the 'believer' side but fairly skeptical on a lot of things . G&D stands for Gloom and Doom.

Lucia, at The Blackboard, has a post about just that.

I wrote this post to explain why certain blogs appear on my blogroll. They run a wide spectrum: from Anthony Watts who clearly falls in the skeptic range, to Dr. Pielke Sr who I suppose I'd classify as a 'Lukewarmer' to his son who is most definitely a believer, but feels the debate needs to move toward adaptation in addition to mitigation. These are people who more or less fit my views.

As an aside it wasn't always like this. I more or less took An Inconvienent Truth at face value. Katrina settled it for me then---but recent research indicates Katrina wasn't all that unusual a storm. I still think An Inconvienent Truth is a decent film and Katrina was a terrifyingly excellent wake-up call for coastal residents everywhere (and will lead to needed reforms in emergency management and the Army Corps.)

In closing, my answer is "we'll see." The pipeline warming may turn out to be real and the world will end before 2100. Or, it won't. That said, it's time we got off of petroleum and began the construction of a new energy infrastructure that involves wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear, and hydrogen fuel. Or gas from air---as the scientists at Los Alamos believe is possible.

haha

2008-04-14T20:08:00.000-04:00

these Domain Names are FULL OF FAIL

Car Free in Harrisburg

2008-04-14T16:59:00.005-04:00

I've been here almost 3 years. I think that's long enough to make observations.

To answer a question that people are probably beginning to ask nationwide if they're looking to relocate anywhere (even here, of all places, rare as that seems to happen though) is can you live in Harrisburg without a car?

Yes! You can!

And No! Good luck!

First the yes. If you're within the city limits, it's not too hard to function without a car, if you work for the state or any place downtown (although let's face it, they all are tertiary industries to government), own a motorcycle or scooter, have no need to go out to the suburbs for anything, or have lots of friends to carpool around with. Despite the scary time I had on 2nd St. biking the city is very bikeable and I admit I'm still a fairly timid surface street biker. I'll stick to side streets and trails until I work up enough nerve. The hills aren't too bad.

While there are no 'real' grocery stores within the city limits, at least on my side of the Paxton Creek Valley, there is a pretty good Farmers Market. Parking is a bit of a premium in much of Midtown (which, despite the couple revisionists on the Pennlive message board, extends from Forester to Maclay, Front to 7th.)

The bus system, while horrible, serves its purpose: to get workers from the 'burbs to downtown government and other assorted offices since parking is at a premium downtown and increasingly expensive.

I have a couple friends I go grocery shopping with. Personally I like this method. Shopping alone is dull and it's always better to have someone to talk to. As I'm not into malls and most adult sized clothing doesn't fit me unless I special order it (and I have much too much dignity to wear children's clothing), I have no need to go out to the mall except for maybe Christmas shopping, and I don't even do that anymore. I buy gift certificates if anything at all. People have enough junk. I know I do!

As for the no, well if you want to do anything that requires leaving the city, you'll need a car, or a ride, or taxi money. While my doctor is just a few blocks away, if she orders tests they're almost always outside of the city since Harrisburg Hospital has downsized those types of medical things at their downtown location (for example, I needed a CT scan and had to leave the city to get it as the service was no longer offered at Harrisburg Hospital according to their website, but at their satellite office outside of town.) . My dentist is not exactly on a bus route. I usually just take a cab. For the handful of times a year I actually need to do this, it isn't enough for me to justify the expense (from my point of view, plus I believe when you add it all up, it's a couple thousand to operate a car) getting a car. Well, that and my stubborn mental block about it too. People who know me know that once I've made up my mind on an issue, don't bother trying to change my mind.

However I don't see how anyone could live in any of the suburbs around here and survive carless, except perhaps Camp Hill. Even then, I wouldn't want to risk crossing the Bypass to get to the Giant from the older section of town. I'm not sure if there's a pedestrian underpass. I suspect most people just drive. I suppose it is possible to live over there on the West Shore carless--I know a guy who bikes from New Cumberland to his job every day and he also doesn't drive, but it may be tougher alone. The East Shore 'burbs are older and therefore a little more walkable.

That said, my stance on driving (it's a big fat no for me, I won't do it and I have no logical reason why other then I simply don't want to and that's that!) more or less limits me to certain activities that are easy to get to by bus, foot, bike or friend with a car. It also limits me basically to the city limits to live and work and play mostly. I have no problem with any of that. I live alone and I don't (and won't) have a family to cart around. I wouldn't recommend going car free to married people or people with children especially since concepts such as carsharing and FlexCar won't come to this area because we simply don't have the density for it.

I wish people wouldn't look at me so weird when I say "I've never ever had my license and I don't want it." I also wish it didn't make it so hard to get dates around here, since everyone is so spread out. As to not driving, it isn't out of concern for our warming Earth---I'm somewhat skeptical in regards to the catastrophism that comes out of every breathless media report on the subject. It's more out of concern for my wallet and a general disinterest in the whole thing. Plus, with $4 gas approaching, would YOU want to learn to drive right now? What a waste of money, from my point of view.

It's all about trade offs though, and I think that for me, my quality of life would go down if I had to maintain a car or even spend the money to learn, which I priced somewhere in the $600 range, and I just haven't the time to do it.

So, in short, Harrisburg is survivable carless. You just have to have patience, friends, and creativity. I've got two of the three going for me, so it's all good.

Unsettled Science?

2008-04-14T07:39:00.002-04:00

One of the biggest disputes in climate change amongst climatologists have been hurricane and other assorted tropical cyclones, with the National Hurricane Center's Dr. Chris Landsea and more then a few paleotempestologists (an admittedly new sub-field of climatology) stating there have been no appreciable trends (and in some basins, a decline as the Earth has warmed) and Dr. Kerry Emanuel among others saying that more intense and numerous tropical cyclones would be among the many catastrophes to befall us as the warming of the Earth accelerated.

Dr. Emanuel has changed his mind.

One of the most influential scientists behind the theory that global warming has intensified recent hurricane activity says he will reconsider his stand.

The hurricane expert, Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, unveiled a novel technique for predicting future hurricane activity this week. The new work suggests that, even in a dramatically warming world, hurricane frequency and intensity may not substantially rise during the next two centuries.

The research, appearing in the March issue of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is all the more remarkable coming from Emanuel, a highly visible leader in his field and long an ardent proponent of a link between global warming and much stronger hurricanes.

His changing views could influence other scientists.

"The results surprised me," Emanuel said of his work, adding that global warming may still play a role in raising the intensity of hurricanes. What that role is, however, remains far from certain

The actual research paper is here. (PDF)

More analysis here and here.

The Vapidness of Tyler Perry

2008-04-09T21:05:00.002-04:00

I don't like Tyler Perry.

There's something about his works that grates me. It may be the over-the-top moralism. It may be the insistence that the answer to everything is God. It might be the irritation of yet another movie with a black man dressed up in drag (when it's clear the first two irritations make it clear to me that he'd not be into that culture not one bit.) There's probably a lot of reasons why, but those are the basics.

That said, the brotha found a formula and is sticking to it. And now he's rich. People are sucking this up like Kool-Aid and I can't figure out why.

Educate me please.

It was Earth All Along

2008-04-06T12:45:00.000-04:00

Charlton Heston is dead.

A Bike Ride through Town

2008-04-05T21:03:00.004-04:00

Today, I rode my bike all the way down past Shipoke to where Paxton Open Sewer i mean Creek empties into the Susquehanna. It's a shame there isn't a bridge across it. One could wade across I suppose but the water color didn't look all that inviting (electric blue can't possibly be natural.)

This section of the Greenbelt has a reputation for lewd male behavior and lo and behold, there were a handful of creeps who'd disappear back into the woods. I seriously doubt they were out for nature walks. I wish the cops would patrol back there more often as their behavior is unfair to the rest of us. I'm no prude and some behaviors are better done behind closed doors. That's just fair. You don't have a right to sex in public.

I opted out of doing the greenbelt because I didn't have my wallet on me and I was getting hungry. Plus I was tired. And the above creepy men were creeping me out. I wasn't in the mood to get propositioned. Luckily there were lots of other people who were out enjoying the nice day and seemed to put a damper on the lewdness, as far as I could tell.

I rode back up Front Street then rode around the Broad St. Market. There's a few homes for sale back in this area that are priced extremely low (as in perfect for me!). The area hasn't gentrified. During the day it seems ok, not sure if I want to walk around down there at night.

I rode up my favorite little street in town after that---Penn Street to Macclay, then rode home, stopping to talk to Dan Miller from city Council and Representative Ron Buxton who was out canvassing.

I'm surprised though, the last time I tried riding my bike back in November I was seriously out of shape and was winded by the time I got to Kelker St (that's 6 blocks). So I suppose getting out and doing things and walking home from nights out is seriously helping my health out. I mean I made it all the way down to the Paxton Creek confluence, and back. I think that's about a 6 or 7 mile round trip.

Uptown Harrisburg Cleanup

2008-04-05T20:52:00.002-04:00

I'd have to say it was a success.

Only I would find it fun to pick up trash on a Saturday morning. Among the fun things I found were condom wrappers (but thankfully, no used condoms), a dime bag that still had pot in it (it's in the garbage now on its way to the incinerator), old political signs from last fall's City Council race, and lots and lots of assorted snack food bags.

One thing I don't get is why toss a drink if you're not going to drink the whole thing? We found lots of those.

One of the women in our group found a dead possibly cat, and an old style answering machine, and a nice 14 carat ring someone lost.

There was a nasty vacant lot that a large group tackled at Jefferson and Oak St. We had our hands full with 6th Street so we didn't head over there but I hear they found a dead skunk, snakes, and other really nasty disgusting trash inhabited by centipedes. City Council members were with them and were apparently outraged this went on. A fence will go up soon. I hope so.

I often wonder if anyone's ever done a study on cities who have privatized their trash services and cities that still have trash pick up. In Southeast PA, we don't pay a private service to pick up our trash, at least not in Upper Darby. Trash fees are something I'll have to be aware of as I househunt. It seems a rather foreign idea to me, to be honest. I'm willing to bet Upper Darby, despite it having about 40,000 more people then Harrisburg, is probably a little cleaner and has few dumping sites.

Uptown is a neighborhood that has just been ignored for too long. Yet there were still blocks that were nice and clean, with well kept houses. The people in them may not be rich, but they clearly have pride in their homes and are grateful if anyone comes into their neighborhood to clean it up. One group encountered a man who was so grateful that anyone would come out to his neighborhood that has been derided and ignored by the rest of Central Pennsylvania that he gave the group some money.

Things don't just fix themselves by magic. They require people to be willing to help out.

At any rate it was a great use of a Saturday morning, and I'll be doing it again on April 26th in the non-gentrified part of Midtown (east of Third St.)

Obama in Harrisburg, last Sunday

2008-04-05T20:48:00.002-04:00

Some pictures. I was able to get in after all.

They are blurry because I was moving and just all around excited.

Harrisburg LOVES Obama apparently!

2008-03-29T13:31:00.002-04:00

I just got back from the Campaign Headquarters here on Second St. I sort of knew it was a lost cause, I slept too late due to a nasty little head cold I picked up yesterday. But, like his campaign, I figured I'd keep my hopes up.

The tickets were gone at 9am, which was when they opened the doors.

The line formed at 3 am. It was hella cold last night.

The line at its longest apparently snaked all the way up 2nd street, up State Street, and up Third past the Capitol.

I am hoping Senator Obama comes back and reserves the Giant Center!

As for me I admit I teared up a little bit, but I still hope to get to see him again.

(The image is from Boston in October).

Veruca Salt

2008-03-27T17:27:00.002-04:00

Remember the bratty Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

Lately, the Clinton campaign has really reminded me of that character.

It's sad, because I really did like her and her husband, former President Clinton a great deal. Going into Primary Season I liked all of the candidates (at the time there were 6 or 7) a lot, although I thought some were total long shots.

Now, not so much.

I'll still vote for her in November in the off-chance she does indeed win the nomination via the only real option left--superdelegate coup. But I doubt I'll do much else. For one thing, she'll not get a dime from me.

It's Just Too Horrible To Imagine

2008-03-26T19:56:00.001-04:00

there are no words

Life Lesson #41

2008-03-24T14:03:00.001-04:00

Always check your clothes before you put them through the wash.

My Letter to Whole Foods

2008-03-24T13:51:00.000-04:00

I've seen Whole Foods stores in downtown Philadelphia, serving the needs of an improving neighborhood.

I think your corporation could do well here in Harrisburg city. There are a number of sites in town that were former retail that are simply sitting empty. Many city residents want a grocery store within the city limits. With gas prices continuing to rise, going to the grocery store for many of us city residents often means a 10-15 minute drive. Building within the city also helps us expand our tax base and help limit suburban sprawl.

The city itself has a nighttime population of about 48,000. During the day it swells to almost 100,000. In the region there are almost 500,000 people. You will have a decent market here.

With stable employment and a fairly educated population I think Whole Foods could do well here.

I am simply a private citizen, with an interest in improving the city that I've adopted as my home.

Thank you for your time.

-Terry Pinder
Harrisburg, PA

2008-03-22T18:14:00.007-04:00

My dad doesn't believe me that I started spring cleaning so here's pictures for proof.

Yes, still a tad junky, but notice no sofa bed? All the big stuff is gone and the little stuff is all that's left to sort through and toss out. I need a coffee table. And a vacuum cleaner. And a real bed, although the Aerobed is quite comfortable and firm (it had better be, for the price I paid for it!)

Actually this is further proof that 549 square feet is too small for me, and it's getting time to move. I really don't want to add any more furniture to the space because it's so small (like more bookshelves, etc.) We'll have to save more and then get serious about house hunting.

Junk-Be-Gone!

2008-03-22T11:12:00.003-04:00

I had accumulated about 2 years worth of junk. See, I developed this habit of ordering stuff from Amazon and never throwing away the boxes. As a result closets overflowed and I ended up using the bedroom as a closet.

It's all gone! Yay!

I have to highly recommend 1-800 Junk. They arrived on time and got the job done within a half hour, all for $200. They even came out in today's Onion Snow. I mean I wasn't going to do it myself, so I figured it'd be best to just pay someone to just come in and do it.

Now I have to buy a bed. But the biggest part of Spring Cleaning is now done and I'm happy.

Olde Uptown

2008-03-22T01:05:00.003-04:00

You know, I just have to say good job and mad props to the guys redeveloping Olde Uptown here in Harrisburg.

An observation I've noticed is people seem very set in their ways around Harrisburg, and they belittle any new change that tries to come down the pike. I don't much care for Mayor Reed, but he does deserve some credit for making the attempt to make the city better. And everyone else who has come up with good ideas should be too. It's time for an effort like Olde Uptown to occur in the State Street Corridor. With those huge houses that line the street it could be a real showcase hit.

I am sort of househunting, and I may just do it in Olde Uptown. It's a bit farther then my original part of the 17102 I was looking for. but it's really worth a look (since it seems to be the only part of the 17102 that's not in the 6th St. Corridor that's affordable.)

Link: Olde Uptown

The Speech

2008-03-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naÃ¯ve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Crackberry

2008-03-17T17:08:00.001-04:00

Everyone should have a Crackberry.

Seersucker

2008-03-17T17:07:00.003-04:00

I am looking for an orange seersucker suit.

It is probably better if you don't know the reason why.

If anyone knows a retailer who sells such a divine piece of clothing, please let me know.

I need to have this by early June.

Capitol Blue Cross is really getting on my nerves

2008-03-14T16:43:00.004-04:00

So for the second time this year, they've denied payment a major medical procedure.

I had electrodiagnostic testing done for Carpal Tunnel. I indeed do have that injury. Capital Blue Cross denied the claim, stating in so many terms it wasn't medically necessary. (Apparently, the doctor tested too many nerves. Um, no he only tested one major nerve and its radial branches present in both arms. How is that too many nerves?)

I find that interesting since I have done tons of homework on Carpal Tunnel and the best way to determine if someone has the condition is through electrodiagnostic testing (essentially, they take a low voltage and and shock certain points along the nerve to check the electrical impulses. It's non-invasive. They had to do this in both arms, as I have it in both arms.Yes, Capitol Blue Cross, it is indeed possible to get Carpal Tunnel in BOTH arms. Imagine that!) How in the heck is this not medically necessary, when it's the BEST way to get a CONCRETE diagnosis? Riddle me that, Batman.

I don't see the purpose of having medical insurance if they're just going to deny payment for everything and not give decent concrete reasons why other then "it's not medically necessary," when there's really no better way to test for the condition then the procedure (which isn't even that expensive a procedure!) I had done is. So I don't see the point in bothering to go to the doctor, since Capitol Blue Cross seems to not want to bother paying for anything, even though I ALREADY PAY FOR IT ON A BI-WEEKLY BASIS.

Yeah, best health care in the world. Whatever. And Capitol Blue Cross wants to expand statewide. I chose them because they were concentrated only in this area, other then the other ones offered to us who are national organizations and have some pretty big black marks against them too. Statewide just dilutes the brand. Maybe they want to be like their brother Blue Cross organizations, all of whom suck.

I for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

2008-03-13T20:41:00.001-04:00

Enter the ICHC online Poker Cats Contest!