Seen at the mall today

Things I have seen at the mall: escalator is out of order. They are roping it off. I asked the man about it: isn't it just stairs now?

Yup.

He kept roping it off. God forbid we'd have to walk. Might as well declare it unusable.

Racist me

I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've considered myself non-racist. I'm proud of my upbringing, which brought me up to realize that anyone can be anything with enough work. I could have been an astronaut, I could have been a pauper. Every person makes their own way.

Sometimes I'll spend time at Yahoo's chat rooms (even though I have at least a whole blog's worth of bitches to go along with that.) I've been considered a regular in more than one Yahoo chat room. I'm not proud or ashamed of that fact. It's a good way to find out information and meet new people. I still don't feel I've gotten a good answer to my ultimate question though...

If you are in a jet moving faster than the speed of sound and you are in front of the engines do you hear the engine noise? I think you would because of the relative speed between you and the engine (0) but most people say you wouldn't hear the noise.

I detour on the tangent because this is a hard issue for me to cope with.

Since Yahoo got into the lawsuit and went to no user created rooms there has been a massive influx of non-English speaking chatters. All are of the middle eastern character set although I'm sure they speak different dialects and may even use different characters. I'm not well-versed enough to know the difference. Most people, even myself, called them derogatory names at first. There were times that we did little but to come up with new names to call them.

I was particularly drunk one night and ended up in a voice chat with some guy that was using the N word non-sparingly. It was a bitch and moan chat of sorts and said that right up front. I don't recall the name of it but it was clear from the start that insults were the name of the game. Belting out racial slurs doesn't make it into my list of insults. Those are fighting words for me. It wasn't long before I closed that chat session.

I can't control anyone but myself. I knew that was not somewhere I wanted to be. After a weeek or so I went back to Yahoo Chat, to my regular haunts. The middle easterners were there in force and the name calling commenced, even though they likely didn't know they were the brunt of the English comments.

I started to think about the previous chat experience and started to put 2 and 2 together. I was agreeing with the ire of the room about non-english characters in our chat room. We were there for a particular purpose, genealogy, and the non-english were there to find partners for love of whatever means. As time went on I realized I was being racist, or at the very least prejudiced.

My goal has never been to "be equal to blacks" or "be nice to hispanics" but to be non-racist. I realized that night I was as racist as Joe-Bob and I had to stop that. Since then I've had a lot of time to think and I now look at the whole war situation in a much different light. I also hope to never catch myself in that situation again. If I do I hope I realize what I'm doing because I really do believe we all have the same rights. I would not want somebody to think of me as less than I am because of where I live, what color I am, what god I worship, or any other such nonsense.

To the middle eastern people of the world, I am sorry. I have tried to amend my ways and I hope to see your side of the story from now on. I hope I have not wronged you forever. We all make mistakes.

Wars

The war on drugs is a war we aren't winning or losing. We're just throwing money at it like the junkies throw money into their habits. The war on terrorism is one we can't have any quantitative results from either. Yeah, we've not been bombed but statistically speaking we were winning the war on terrorism before it even began. Now we're just throwing money and lives at it like ... well, a junkie throws his money and life at his habit.

I sure am glad we don't declare a war on poverty. God knows the poor people of the US and world at large can't afford to pay their electric bill, let alone start throwing money away like the government and junkies do to support their habits.

I'm not a political person by nature but if you have to categorize me I would be considered a libertarian. I think the government should govern roads and leave the people alone except for the enforcement of democratically induced laws. I don't favor the radical view that poverty is induced by anything to do with the government. I prefer to look at poverty as mainly a geographic condition with many causes. This issue strikes close to the bone for me since I grew up poor, most likely always below the poverty line until I was out and about and on my own, but my families (maternal and paternal) still live in poverty stricken areas.

This is a disclaimer. I do not want your pity. If you offer me pity I will respond with hatred. I am who I am because of who I have been, where I have been and what I have been through. I'm very proud to have grown up the way I did and I am no longer anywhere near the poverty level.

My father's family lives in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. This is coal miner country in case you weren't aware. One of the only other jobs in this area is working for the railroad. Most of the farming that takes place in these areas is for personal consumption and the farming itself is a sideline occupation, as in the people don't make their living farming, they have to both have a job and farm when they have the time and aibility. My mother's family is scattered out a bit more than my fathers, but has traditionally lived just northeast of my father's, in rural south western Pennsylvania. They too, were poor farmers, much like everyone else in the small communities around there. Not too many people ended up in the Who's Who books but they survived and ended up procreating and I managed to be born through their efforts.

What is the solution to the war on drugs? Legalize or decriminalize. I support legalization of non-hard drugs so the government could tax the shit out of it and pay off the national debt at the expense of the people that actually use the stuff. If they can do it with alcohol why can't they do it with the other drugs?

What is the solution to the war on terrorism? There is no easy solution to this quandry. Actual political action needs to be taken rather than a bunch of lowlifes sticking in an earmark for their area that costs everyone money for their precious little pet project. We need to talk with the leaders of nations and come up with a workable plan that everyone can agree with. According to the press the reasoning for the September 11th attacks are actually fairly reasonable (although I'm not saying I agree with the action they took to get our attention by any means.)

• They want us out of their holy lands. Check We can do that.
• They say we plunder their resources. I was under the impression we were actually paying for the oil but I'm sure we can work something out there so Check.
• They say we dictate rules to their leaders. Well if by that they mean we say "do whatever or we won't do business with you" then well, maybe no check on that. Otherwise, I might be misunderstanding their request there.
• They say we support the wrong people. Well if we can get this worked out we won't be supporting anyone per se. So Check.

With those few things out of the way it looks like we've figured out a way to (at least mostly) to appease the current terrorists and it didn't cost us anything other than maybe a little bit more money for their oil or something. Seems reasonable to me anyway but I'm not a politician with a secondary agenda either.

What is the solution to a war on poverty? Keep our government out of it to start with. They could mess up screwing in a lightbulb. Let them make better roads to places that have geographic resources such as coal, but lets keep their fingers out of the locals' pocketbooks. Start looking at alternative ways to tax people. I'd like to see a flat tax on gross income but I'm sure that's far too radical for the rich to allow to pass. They are of course, the ones with the money and lobbying power while the poor have no means to state their case other than a handwritten letter to their representative so I'm sure that will never come to be. But for areas that are generally economically depressed why not give everyone there a tax break? It would allow the businesses to grow which would allow them to increase wages and that would provide a better quality of life for everyone. It might even invite more poople into the area which would have the benefit of added development and new businesses for people to choose from and be employed with.


It's just a thought.

Look out Lance, you might run me down on your way by!

I got the trusty old bike out today for a little bit of tooling around the island. I had hoped to get some miles in early this morning but the weather was quite chilly and the wind was high. I decided to try to wait out the weather but when it hadn't improved by noon I decided to brave the elements.

It's been several months since I had the bike out and while not everything worked as planned it was a great ride. The computer seems to be dead, possibly needing replaced. The wire leads seemed to have come loose and it was never that reliable anyway. The chain guide needed some love but I rather expected that. The tires didn't hold pressure over the "winter" but again there was never any doubt that they would need some help.

I was surprised that it was much like getting back on a bike after being off of one for some time. I know this sounds like a self obvious truth but look at the bike. It is quite a bit different than the Huffy and Free Spirit type that I, and most people, grew up with. It was a smooth ride and for a time I even rode one handed while I talked to my brother on the cell phone. I think I might need to tighten the seat and realistically I likely need to have a full tune up done. Unfortunately it looks like my favorite bike shop has given up the magic smoke and gone the way of the dodo. It is still technically winter here on the island so it is possible they might reopen in the summer. Until I'm sure I will wait because I really don't wish to take it to anyone else. The lady that runs it, Jaime, is a good person and I like her. I know that sounds like a crazy way to pick a bike mechanic but the truth is they can all turn a wrench and know far more than I do about what tool to use where and how to make it feel like new again. But too many bike mechanics, like too many computer technicians, are just snooty and not fun to deal with. I'd rather pay someone I enjoy dealing with than to pay someone I loathe. Jaime is only the second bicycle mechanic I have known in my life that I didn't detest.

My biggest little man got a new bike from Santa® for Christmas® and he's gotten to be quite good on it. I feel my pace will slow even more when we start riding together but that's as much of a challenge as going fast and being that I'll be in good company. He was wanting to go on the ride today but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to navigate the beast well enough to have one more little responsibility with me. It was pretty cold anyway and even my hands and ears were more than a bit nippy when I got in so its probably best that he had to hang back this time anyway.

I forecast many miles on the bike this year. My little five mile journey today was but a precursor of things to come and I'm very excited about it. I enjoy watching the road go by at a slower pace and I hope to see some old roads and some new ones along the way.

Wrong again

The new issue of Popular Science has a cover story that raises my ire. "Where's My Flying Car?"

It's at gulfstream, along with mine.

I was going to overlook this egregious lack of originality until I got to page 18, in the What's New | Cars section. It says, "SUB-SUBCOMPACTS Inexpensive and efficient, the smallest cars are finally available in the U.S." Nope, wrong again. Feel free to do a google search on kei cars, or better yet, just check out the wikipedia page. Or I can just tell you about it. A kei car is a special kind of car, typically Japanese (but not always) that fit an important niche in the automotive market. These cars are especially small and gutless but are thriftier on fuel than my old Chevrolet Metro. The engines are not allowed to be over 660 cubic centimeters, they can't be over about 5 feet wide, and their length is not to exceed about 11 feet.

Popular Science lists the "Most Compact" model as the Toyota Yaris, at 12.5 feet long, 5.5 feet wide, and it has a 1500 cubic centimeter engine. If it were up to me, I'd have an R1 or something similar. While it is not specifically a keicar, I'd look bad ass in a Nissan Figaro. Sadly they are no longer in production. Even more fun would be a Suzuki Cappuccinno, also no longer in production. Alas the good* people at the NTSB say nay.


* By good I of course mean good for nothing.