Okay, here’s a critical analysis of light rail in general and Minneapolis light rail in particular. I was asked my opinion on this. Without my opinion prejudicing you, tell me what you think of it.
I’ve never gotten into phone sex. It’s like writing a story for nifty, only worse, because it’s extemporaneous. My creativity is not that fast. The one or two times in my life I’ve done it, I was given great compliments, but I was lying about what I was doing, because the act was a huge turn off for me. Just experimentation and an overly cooperative mindset.
I’ve been a bit more selective about the dating than the sex. I’m going to have to cut loose on the dating, and figure out what it is that I like. Or maybe cultivate a bunch of casual relationships in a more stable setting. Or maybe even both at the same time. I’m just afraid of hurting people. One threatened suicide from someone I was fooling around with is more than enough for one lifetime. Emotions: scary shit. Eek.
My politics at last
So here’s my quick blurb about my politics, reciprocating
Society is formed of norms. Beliefs about the world. Practices for performing important tasks like maintaining safety, acquiring food, shelter, bringing up the next generation, and so forth and so on. But sometimes norms aren’t enough. This is particularly true as societies get larger. The need for more sophisticated and often more powerful systems of organizing people and maintaining order take over.
What matters to me in society are the big ones: safety, food, shelter, water, health, and the ability to keep things going smoothly for the next generation(s), and maybe just possibly hand them something better than what we have.
Correspondingly, education is probably my top priority. I’d like smaller class sizes, more participatory, and project based learning. I’d like kids to learn initiative, cooperation, and cultivate all the various abilities they possess, at the levels they possess them. I’d like kids to learn how to learn on their own. I want to see greater adult involvement in the educational process, and less age segregation. I’m not nearly as concerned with shoving more money at schools as I am with making sure the schools do things in a different and better way. See also Howard Gardner on this one. If our citizens are going to think for themselves they have to start young. A few years of mandatory military or civil service also seems like a good idea to me (it shouldn’t be too easy to duck out of the military service though, no more national guard draft dodges).
People do a better job when they are not worried about their health care or that of their loved ones. Further, people are society’s most valuable resources. Society should cultivate their well-being accordingly, including strong increases in preventative healthcare. Subsidize Total and tax frosted flakes. Gym memberships should be a citizen right. Healthcare, including mental healthcare, should be provided free or nearly so (ala public transit) to everyone. I recognize and appreciate the choice concerns of
I think privacy should be vigorously protected, not by continuing to deny that the government collects information on us, but by making every effort to secure the information they already have on us, and putting strong controls on how that information is distributed, as well as full information on how it is used and accessed. I see one’s right to pursue whatever religion, philosophy, or personal perversion one likes as intimately tied to this. Anything two consenting adults wish to do is fine. Marriage is a religious institution. Legal relationships for co-parenting, co-residence, and co-ownership of property ought to replace civil marriage. People should be able to bundle them. Making any of these relationships more than two citizens should be kosher. Allowing any of them to be performed by same sex couples ought to be fine. Allowing sisters to coparent, or a bunch of buddies to establish a co-residence deal should be a no brainer. There should be a waiting period on such civil arrangements. Just to reduce commitment in haste.
I think all citizens should be equal in the eyes of the law in terms of race, gender, sexual preference, religion, and cultural affiliation. I’m not sure what to do about age. Almost no one is competent to live independently at 12, some still aren’t at 40. Sex should only matter in terms of reproductive law. Discrimination of the basis of relevant characteristics is fine. (Hooters shouldn’t have to hire men, chippendales shouldn’t have to hire women, but sex isn’t relevant in picking surgeons, secretaries, or shelvers)
I think we as the governed ought to know (and ought to fucking care) about what our government is doing for us, to us, and with us, down to the last dot of ink. I think willful attempts to deceive the public, or deny a citizen their rights, including access to information, ought to be considered treason, and those guilty of it ought to have their citizenship revoked. Negligent deception or obstruction should merely remove one permanently from office, and bar election to any public office down to and including county dogcatcher. Leaders ought to be held to much higher standards than the rest of society, but not for their private perversions. I don’t care that Clinton got a blowjob. I do care that he lied about it. I care more so that he may have used his office to coerce an intern. I care much more that Bush manipulated military intelligence to fabricate a justification for war to serve his political purposes.
Voting rights for everyone, including ex-cons. Including voting from prison. Attempts to dick around with this fall under my previous statement about denying citizens their rights. Flexible voting policies (not a single voting day, easy vote by mail, etc)
I am, as you can probably tell, an idealist, and I’m fine with that.
I don’t give a shit about hunting as an argument for allowing gun ownership. I care about safety from criminals (better served by banning guns, than by universal gun ownership, we can chat about that if you disagree, but far better served by preventing the motivation for crime), and safety from the government, which may be better served by allowing gun ownership.
I care a great deal about how I’m going to leave the world when I’m dead. My veganism and aversion to cars is as much if not more political [as] than personal. Most of the problem is that people are spread way the fuck out because we are afraid of our fellow citizens. Because we don’t know our fellow citizens. Because we are spread way the fuck out. Note the vicious cycle. Think about it, long and hard. Particularly if you’re thinking about buying suburban real estate. Also note the effects of transience, disposability, and consumer culture. Disposal costs ought to be included in the purchase price of an item. Urban forms ought to be contracted. Our cities ought to be rebuilt to better suit biking and walking. Efforts should be made to encourage people into mixed culture communities and engage in their communities (and get the hell away from the TV).
I think the UN should be scrapped and replaced with an organization structurally capable of making a decision. I think that the US should reprioritize away from military endeavors and western europe should build up its militarily capabilities. I don’t think we should be the world police. If we choose to be the world police, we shouldn’t bitch about protecting the world. Playing the martyr for choices one has made is one of the prime forms of drama queen.
I think our current criminal justice system is beyond retarded, as well as inhumane. Pot and all other drugs should be legalized, and smoking (anything, including pot) should be banned in public. Education and rehabilitation (for the willing!) should be the norm. Prostitution should likewise be legal and regulated. Deliberatly allowing rape to go on in your prison should put you behind those same bars, with the rapist. Negligently allowing it should get you your own cell. Sticking convicts in an environment where their dominant contact is with other convicts, and expecting it to cure them of criminal tendencies is the “beyond retarded” part. The goal should be to turn them into useful members of society on exit. Minimal standards of living guaranteed. And not just to criminals, to remove that motivation for criminal behavior.
Abortion. I actually forgot about this one, because as a gay man it has never directly involved me. I am fine with abortion. I’m honestly not as deeply bothered by infanticide as many people are either. I view the killing of an adult as a much bigger deal, though I would never do either. It is killing, certainly.
Yeah, there’s more, but that should do for now.
Mine don’t really fit on a bumper sticker either. And, yes, I do change my positions when confronted with countervailing evidence, some are more mutable (whimsical) than others.
DC vegetarian restaurants
Wouldn’t it have been clever to look up a list of veggie friendly restaurants earlier? Instead of going to some place that seemed to not understand that “no cheese” and even “sin queso” meant the cheese inside the burrito, too. *shrug* I’ll definitely try a couple out before I go, though. =)
movie reviews
I don’t think I ever got around to reviewing the Day After Tomorrow. The roomies and I watched it on NYE. The idea, proposed by many, that it might raise environmental consciousness made me want to cry, like the science of the movie. Otoh, taken as an action movie, it wasn’t bad. I also found the experienced arctic explorers who didn’t bother to look under the snow to see what they would be walking on, not to mention their ready abandonment of all their gear, somewhat, err, questionable. =) The burning of books, to keep warm (which I predicted pretty early on), the interesting notions of international goodwill, etc, etc. Sure, it’s an action movie, using your brain isn’t expected to be an asset when enjoying it, but a little more plausibility in there would have been nice. =)
Night before last, I saw Saved. I thought it was an amusing, superficially dumb, but subtly well made movie. I understand
Dad in Kuwait
Mom called at 7:18a to let me know that dad is in Kuwait, the first step to his return home, and one which lowers his risk level dramatically. I am glad to hear the news, and strongly considering shutting my phone off when I go to bed in the future. =)
suboptimal scu
This afternoon/evening has been ennui rich. Perhaps it is related to my inconsistent diet, distinct lack of sleep, frequent self-confinement in underground chambers, where I sit and listen, and do nothing else.
Or perhaps it’s that I’m not really into this transportation policy as a profession stuff (I’ve been more consistently engaged by energy policy conference material). Cool as everyone has been, I’m ready to be back home, I think.
Also I am sad for my student loans have not arrived yet (not even to my student account, let alone to my checking account), so no replacement laptop for scu just yet…
It probably also didn’t hurt that there was an slpp ra thing this evening, and I experienced my typical failure to engage in any significant way.
I think some sleep and making the time to work out tomorrow would make for a much less melancholy me. Hmmm. No wednesday morning sessions at trb for me. Check.
plans for reciprocity
So, having recieved a thoughtful, detailed reply to my perhaps somewhat flippantly phrased question to
And I typically find the “this is what I did today” style posts rather lame. Though with all the cool stuff I’m doing while in a different town, I’m making myself an exception.
Oh yeah. I’m pretty set on making my book club plans work. All three. Progressive politics (see also mt earlier listing of desirable items), homo (maybe starting with life outside, dated though it may be), and workplace democracies (no idea about the reading list on this one. As much for my education as anyone’s).
Almost as much of a bitch as keeping up with the reading for these will be promoting the suckers. No, actually, promotion will probably actually be more of a bitch.
Finally, I’m tempted by a completely open lj invitation by an attractive, politically agreeable blogger who lives in atlanta for his bday party. Said blogger is taken, and way too young even if he weren’t. Plus, I have no one to stay with down there. I will not do crazy ass shit. Mantra of the moment.
Two days in one entry
Got a late start yesterday due to a late friday night (trust me, you will be noticing a trend this trip). Also losing sense of the days. But on the Saturday that felt like sunday, I slept through frontrunners, and went to
Afterwards, I headed off to Blowoff, where I saw
Then today I got a late start due to a late saturday night (also note the time stamp on this post. I encourage you to start a betting pool on when I actually drag my ass out of bed tomorrow, err, today. You know what I mean). I went to neither the obesity and transportation infrastructure, nor the international street design workshops that I’d intended to attend, but instead caught parts of the congestion pricing floor show). Talked briefly with Frank, the youngest research fellow in slpp. Nice guy. Had a decent, if overpriced, Eritrean lunch, with uninspiring samboosa’s, but injera as good as axum’s. Ran into Stephanie, a fellow first year and slpp RA when I got back to the hotel. She was headed off to a public participation workshop. We talked about my (and many of my classmates’) disappointment with the public participation course I took last semester. I should ask her how the workshop went.
Went to “so you want to be a transportation professional” workshop. More geared to engineers than polwonks, but still entertaining. The state employee and the (cute) contractor did not entertain nearly as much as the academic. He was a good lecturer, informative, and funny. He played a very entertaining martyr (we bleed for your enjoyment). Broke my schedule yet again to go back to the subsubcommittee meeting (not yet official) for brt and pricing (what I’m supposed to write a paper on at some point. *le sigh*). It’s good to know that the professionals fumble with the same sort of intellectually masturbatory silliness that volunteers do. It was eventually decided to rename it “the multimodal pricing implementation committee” and make it an official group in july.
This made me late for the “new and young attendees reception”. Hung out around there for awhile. Snagged some fruit. Chatted with an slpp ra (who I didn’t know was a fellow ra prior to the reception, told him about a couple ra events during the conference). Drifted around. Settled into a comfortable conversation with a friendly latino employee of the federal highway administration. I later found out that he was an ex-employee as of about 2 days ago, but shhh, his mom doesn’t know yet. He is a former dc resident. And a former minnesota resident. And the way the conversation was going, I think he’s a homo, but I’m not quite sure. We’ll be sharing the luch break tomorrow.
Metro out to prince george’s plaza, where Liz and Craig snag me away to gorge me on south indian (yay Dosai & idli & medu vada). I don’t think that Liz and I have found that special rapport nearly so well in years. Much talk of family. And politics (I have yet to have a conversation in dc that doesn’t involve politics. I mean even more than usual for me.) And my now deceased great aunt’s view of straight men having some basis for having their masculinity threatened by gay men because she’s seen gay porn, and she’s never seen men who look like that anywhere else. =)
Plans made with
Last night
Well, last night I went out and “hit the town”. I had plans to hang with
Then the twenties group. It reminded me of a few other gay discussion groups I’ve been to. Especially Express 20’s out of the Pacific Center in Berkeley (only about 1/4 the size, and much less racially diverse). The conversation topic was “what does the gay community mean to you?” I restrained my inner eyeroll, and took the first comment challenging the notion of “the gay community” as an inaccurate, misleading, and generally counterproductive meme. It went from there. I hope I’m not just stroking my ego when I say that I feel like I got a few people off their scripts and out of their mental ruts. My commentary was full of thoughts I’d previously mentioned or expressed here: we don’t raise our next generation, there are several gay communities, culture is distinct from community, race and sexuality have distinct parallels and distinct differences, pursuing legal rights when you desire cultural change may not accomplish your ultimate goal (see also racial segregation in the US now v pre-Brown v Board). And I owe a distinct intellectual debt to many different sources, including Dan Savage, the orientation lecture I didn’t attend but kept hearing about, Andrew Sullivan, etc. And it was fun. Though I could easily see the group falling into a rut were I to attend regularly. A different rut, to be sure, but a rut nonetheless.
Afterwards, I called up