I was bored on the train to chicago, so I wrote a bunch of stuff, cut & pasted here for your enjoyment. I’ve broken it up into a few topical sections for your ease of perusal.
Ran back to Tom’s place to pick up a cd full of mp3s that Jason
Chalecki burned for me back in 98 or 99 when I still believed I wanted
to be a programmer (Hi, Donovan 😉 [looking at the dates on the
files, it seems it was 98. Damn I’m old]. 650MB of mp3s will cover a
very long train ride. Thank you so much, Jason.
So, my train was a little late, but that’s no biggy. I got a few
newspapers: Pittsburgh Tribune Review, New York Times, USA Today, and
Pittsburgh City Paper. Read most of the Tribune Review (this is a
virtual first for me. I rarely even skim the newspaper, but I’m
trying to stay better informed. Part of being a better citizen, I
figure.) I’ve justified it for years with my distaste for propaganda,
but that’s a rationalization for avoiding the unfamiliar, and
avoiding acceptance that I’m part of the game, whether I like it or
not.
I turned the laptop on and put in the cd, cursing myself because I was
sure that I hadn’t installed sonique, and I was correct, I hadn’t.
But it seems windows media player
Jason put the Winamp player on the cd. I used to think that was lame,
but now I recognize Jason’s genius, and send my profuse thanks =)
I avoided reading the paper for maybe 10-15 minutes, but pretty much
read all the news I cared about (if I ever take an interest in the
sports page, I will feel ready for the 1984-ending-esque bullet) in
the Tribune Review before hitting cleveland. Conclusion: The world is
nuts, and violent. Justice is only dispensed in conflicts between
people of the same socioeconomic class, and then almost never by the
people involved in the conflict. Though I’m not sure that this is
anything new. Nor am I sure that this is truly representative of
reality, even if it’s all the papers report.
Apparently cmu’s Prez is involved in an examination of the water
distribution infrastructure for the Greater Pittsburgh area. I’ve
actually met Jared Cohon (aforementioned Prez) and he struck me as
pretty cool (for a straight old white guy ;). He’s been a driving
force in getting domestic partner benefits at cmu. He asks sensible
questions and seems to listen to the answers. Reminds me of a pretty
cool guy I know in the east bay also working on civic water
distribution. But I digress.
It took me like an hour and 45 minutes to read the interesting parts
of one weekday paper, and I know it was incomplete and politically
slanted. I don’t understand how anyone has the time to read multiple
sources to cull out political bias in their information and get
balanced information. At least, not if they want to do anything else,
including act on said information.
Congratulations, you’ve hit the nail upon the head.
It’s so difficult to really know what is going on today about multiple topics. There are some things I try to keep up on, but if I was truly a good citizen I would know what bills were voted upon each day, and who voted for/against them, and what pork-barrel projects were stuck in amongst the important project, and….
And that’s just one aspect of the domestic stuff. That doesn’t cover the judiciary, foreign relations, things that actually are happening in other countries, etc. It’s truly overwhelming sometimes and I can’t believe I’ll ever be able to keep up with more than a fraction of it.
Sad, isn’t it?