Dude WTF?

US jet lands when religious item mistaken as bomb

You can read it, you can not read it, I'll summarize: plane lands because someone thinks jew using tefillin (the shit they affix to their heads and wrap up their arms - kind of looks like S&M, but the rest of the outfit rarely matches) is terrorist with bomb.

Issue #1: Really, no one on the plane knew what it was? It was a US Air flight out of LaGuardia, surely one of the passengers had been to hebrew school. New York does have a lot of tribal members.

Issue #2: The first step in assessing a threat is to land the plane? Leaving aside for a moment the fact that were it a bomb it could just as easily explode on the ground, and let us turn to some of the steps a potentially rational person might take prior to making an emergency landing. Like using your talkie-hole to ask the person in question what he is doing? Because

Issue #3: Terrorists are generally the furtive types. Dudes who wrap leather up and down their arms and chant in hebrew are certainly not furtive. They're out there praying in a non-hidey kind of way. People about to ignite secreted munitions generally like to do so in an unassuming way so that no one knows about the about to be blown up plane until it's too late to do anything..

Issue #4: Beards. I don't personally have one, but I know people who do. I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of them are not terrorists. Beard ≠ Terrorist. (See also Muslim ≠ Terrorist; Brown Person ≠ Terrorist; Chick in Head Scarf ≠ Terrorist; Sikh ≠ Terrorist; Person Wearing "Tom Jones in Beirut" T-Shirt ≠ Terrorist.) Also

Issue #5: Praying people. I don't personally pray, but I know people who do. Praying people are not always terrorists. Even if they have beards while praying.

Issue #6: Do you ever sort of wonder if people WANT to be the victims of terrorism? Even aborted terrorism? When I see someone doing something out of the ordinary, my first though isn't, "gee, that person must be a terrorist," yet that seems to be precisely what a lot of other people tend to think. I don't buy into the whole "if x then the terrorists win" crap, mostly because in the end we're all losers, but I'm just not all that frightened and, in this way, I can lead a life free from paralyzing fear. I know that's not the universal scenario.

People are scared. Some for good reason, most for not good reasons, but something happened here (albeit 8 years ago) that hadn't happened before and it scared people. Perpetually. Now all of our frames of reference take it into consideration; all of our actions are supposed to acknowledge or mind it; and our collective psyche is weighed down by its import (again, leaving aside that in the annals of tragedy, it ranks rather low - it just seems to rank high because it happened to America the Impervious). None of which is to say that terrorism doesn't suck and likewise the people who are terrorists. But I can't quite grok the rush to be victimized. Victims seem somehow sadder than non-victims and I don't personally like being sad. But as stories like this one crop up more frequently, I can't help but think that people are rushing to find instances of terrorism because it legitimizes their fear. It makes them less afraid of being afraid because now they have reasons to be afraid. "Of course it's ok to be frightened, look how many people are out to get me. I'm not paranoid, I'm a realist." And I get that too even as it saddens me.

As jaded and unpleasant as I may come across, I actually believe that most people are more or less just like me; they just want to live more or less happy, unmolested lives. And that's true whether or not they believe in evolution, or Vishnu, or thetans. So when I see people who are different from me, my first assumption is not that they're out to get me - and this is in no way designed to be raw self-aggrandizement, I just am sort of wired this way - even if they're really really different from me. I'd like to hope that others give me the same benefit of the doubt.

Oh God It's So Slow

My computer and I, we have an understanding. I understand that until I am willing to invest more than $300 at a time, I will not have a top of the line machine; computer understands that even though it is not a top of the line machine, I will love it. Recently, though, there has been trouble in paradise.

Upon returning from our weekend in St. Thomas, computer was sad. Sad in a very very slow way. At first, I did what any remotely tech-savvy person would do. I made sure that I had no memory-heavy processes taking up space, verified that the wireless card was working, and rebooted. Usually this cures all ills. Not so this time. Not only is the internet connection so slow that in order to load a page I must type in the address and then take a shower while the page loads, but programs are running at a fraction of their usual speed. So I went to level 2 home tech support: I ran the mother of all virus scans. Ordinarily, this process takes about 4 hours; this time it took about 36. And what did it tell me in the end? No infected files. (It should be noted that last week I ran anti-spyware software as a maintenance thing.)

I have no virii. I have no background tasks eating memory. I just last month doubled my RAM. I'm pretty much out of ideas. Which means I have to turn the computer over to devoted partner who wants to come home after a long day and work on my computer about as much as he wants to come home after a long day and clean grout out of the shower. Additionally, I already needed his supervision on a server move for one of my websites. Yeah I know how to do geeky things like move a mysql database, but when I inevitably screw it up or manage to migrate only some of my data, it's nice to have him around.

All of this is only going to the unfortunate truth that I am in desperate need of a new computer. This current incarnation is a Frankenstein's monster of cobbled together bits and pieces that have upgraded over time (new hard drives, new power supplies, new fans, new memory, new graphics cards), but the motherboard may well be over 6 years old. Which is old. It's like 85 in people years. And while I have the money, I just hate HAVING to spend it. (Even as I have already decided to build the next computer as opposed to letting Dell do it - having devoted partner to supervise computer building really is a boon.) And once I buy a new computer I will have to buy Adobe CS4. My current copy of Photoshop is a) old and b) non-transferable due to lack of CD. So now I'm in it for the cost of the computer and the cost of the software. The idea of starting from scratch is both fantabulous and several days' worth of work I'd rather not do (this is, of course, after I take a deep breath and spend the money).

So I'm desperately hoping that devoted partner can work his magic and save the little computer that could, at least for another six months. In the meantime, I guess I'll learn how to play Super Mario Bros. on the Wii.

Wednesday Nopropos (Political)

Perhaps it's that I went to bed at 9:15 last night, but I'm a little scattered today.

While watching Monday night's Daily Show wherein Jon Stewart lambastes the democrats for, well, being totally ineffectual, I confess I gave a bit more serious thought to challenging Joe Lieberman for his senate seat. Yes, let's all overlook the obvious for a second (I have barely managed to hold any job for more than a year, and not one of them has even been tangentially related to representing a state's concerns in congress to start), and talk about putting together my exploratory committee. I think one of the main problems with politics is the idea that our elected officials spend most of their time trying to remain our elected officials. A senate term is six years and my guess is, short of doing something actually illegal, they can't throw you out. I could campaign on giving free cookies to every Connecticut resident and then get into office and propose a bill banning cookies, and there's nothing anyone could do. I think the reason we don't see people taking chances or, frankly, calling out their colleagues for being spineless wimps who are afraid to take a hard position, is that they are all worried about getting reelected.

I wouldn't be like that.

Six years would far outstrip the time I spent at any other job and I am willing to be that I'd be bored by the end of it (or burnt out), so six years would be enough time for me to be a senator. This would give me the freedom to talk out of turn a little - like a Ron Paul with way better legs. I'd consider running as an independent so I could take both sides to task without worrying that Chuck Schumer wouldn't sit with me at lunch. Now, I realize that any rational person reading this (especially any rational person who may or may not have ever seen me act in a way that is not strictly "within the law") is worrying if I'm off my meds. After all, senatorial campaigns (hell the campaign for alderman) are incredibly expensive and I'm still paying off student loans. But isn't there still the useful fiction that in America one can lead a grassroots movement? I could be that grassroots movement! So, what I'm saying is, start seriously considering donating to my campaign.

One thing that might ruin my credibility with the left is a little disturbing tidbit passed to me by darling Antonio. He sent me a link to a brief segment on the O'Reilly Factor wherein (did I just use 'wherein' twice in one posting? It is a useful word when you think about it) it could be noted that Bill and I are in a kind of creepy agreement vis a vis Haiti. Now Antonio, who is hoping beyond hope that my senatorial campaign is more about shooting wolves from helicopters and less about, say, helping people, thought this would be an excellent springboard to convince me that Bill O'Reilly and I are more aligned ideologically than is actually true. One of the things I can't stand about modern politics, modern news, modern punditry, is the idea that all blanks think blank. Contrary by nature, this is grossly offensive to me. While chuckle-inducing in the short-term, I'm not super surprised that there is an issue, nay probably issues, where Bill O'Reilly and I can find common ground (I mean I would be willing to bet that both Sarah Palin and I think that intentionally poisoning retarded people is wrong - see we agree).

However, in the same clip, O'Reilly goes on to say something to the effect of, "see here's where the liberals blah blah blah." Wait a tic. I'm nominally liberal and we were right there together, Bill, why do you want to then make the discussion about how liberals as an undifferentiated group do/say/think/are anything? I know it makes for good television, I just wish our politics weren't so constantly televised that it became good politics as well.

So, creative types out there, start trying our slogans (it has been pointed out to me that, "Hey, I couldn't possible suck more than Joe" is not all that catchy). Together we can a) gainfully employ me for six years and b) change the face of American politics.

Why, What Did You Do This Weekend?

IMG_6796
Hawksbill Turtle, St. Thomas
Originally uploaded by reallyct

At some point during our Thanksgiving trip to Bonaire, I turned to devoted partner and said that my eighteen-year-old self would never have imagined herself hauling nitrox tanks around an arid island and throwing herself 80 feet underwater. I followed that pronouncement by saying that my eighteen-year-old self didn't know what she was talking about when it came to how to have a good time.

Courtesy of devoted partner's very generous company, we spent the holiday weekend in St. Thomas, our every need catered to.

Except for the weather.

It rained pretty much nonstop for the entire weekend except, of course, for yesterday morning as we prepared to leave. Not the traditional January weather in the Caribbean for sure. Once upon a time, I'm sure I would have moped about wondering why I wasn't getting a tan, racking up room service and pay per view bills, and generally being a not at all good travel companion (see also forcing devoted partner to play interminable hands of gin). But I'm in a seize the day kind of phase of my life and just because the weather was less than optimal was no reason for me to abandon my crazy cruise director behavior.

This is how at 7:00am on Saturday, after four hours of sleep (there was a lot of highly encouraged nighttime revelry on this trip) we found ourselves the recipients of a wake-up call and room service breakfast and, by 9:00am, were on the scuba boat heading for our two dives. It's how the following day, when I let us sleep in until 8:00am, we hopped the ferry boat to St. John and spent the entire day snorkeling. Our excellent theory being, if we were going to get wet anyway, we might as well get wet in the water actually doing things.

Was it the best scuba/snorkeling we've done. Absolutely not. The visibility wasn't terrific. But we saw a turtle, always a high point, and though there was too much sediment for a good photo, devoted partner found a sleeping baby nurse shark. Job well done. We were wet and cold (or at least I was) a fair bit of the time, but when I think of the alternatives, I think we did pretty well. And this made me realize what a huge bonus it is to be with someone who also would rather regret the things he's done than the things he hasn't done. We're both working on extending this idea to more facets of our lives, but I like that, almost independently, we're deciding to be a little more proactive, and a little less mopey.

I don't spend a lot of time here going on about how lucky I feel to be the devoted partner of devoted partner, mostly because he reads this and is easily embarrassed, but as we scoured the sandy bottom for hiding sting rays while our butts got poured on, I felt pretty damn lucky. I just thought I should share.

Ma'am, That's Between Devoted Partner and Me

"Heh-heh, that's a big triangle."

People of the service industry, a moment if you will. I want to like you. I want to tip you. So please remember that your job, your sole occupational mission is to SERVE me. Now, for me personally, this doesn't mean you have to kiss my ass (though for some people it will be), but it does me you need to treat me like your source of income and not your friend (at best) or your object of mockery (at worst).

So, Tracey, if you wonder why we won't be working together again, and by working together, I mean I will not again pay for the privilege of you grooming my legs and nether regions, it's that you uttered the above sentence. This after our first encounter where I made it VERY CLEAR what I wanted my lady parts to look like and you made them look a different way, which you tried to assure me was "better," and I assured you was a) not what I asked for and b) in no way better for me. I gave you a second chance. When you tried to upsell me, again, on lady parts grooming enhancements, I did what any borderline insane person would do and took out a green pen and proceeded to draw on my lady parts where I wanted you to groom. I did this not to shame you, but to ensure that my hard earned dollars resulted in a service I wanted. You were not amused.

So you thought you'd be cute and comment on my stated preference with mockery in your voice. As if I was unaware of my stated preference and needed to you remind me. As if I hadn't literally crayoned my stated preference onto my skin. You'd think that after 17 or so years of personal grooming I might have become competent to make this decision and, wait for it, be absolutely uninterested in what you, Tracey, think about it. Unless you're offering to take care of it in some other capacity, it's really none of your business.

I wouldn't make a big deal out of this except it isn't remotely the first time I have been mocked while, let's be honest, doing some maintenance work that isn't pretty. When I couldn't afford to be choosy, it was the girls at the nail salons chortling in high-pitched voices about my relative hirsutitide as compared with the average Korean. When I had disposable income where I could pick and choose, it took me quite a while to weed out the Eastern European babushkas who clacked their tongues at me admonishing me over ingrown hairs and encouraging me to pare down my look. In fact, when I think about it, I have had two aestheticians in my life who DIDN'T suck - one just became way too expensive (I'm talking close to $200 when you figure in tip), and the other moved salons (to where I do not know). Everyone else has been rather shite.

I understand that when you were growing up you didn't hope and pray for the day when you could groom places on me I can't comfortably reach myself. I know this. I'd like to think that the fact you make, on average, $30/hour in tips is some kind of compensation (cause that's not chump change). But considering that your livelihood is tied to those tips, what possible incentive do you have to make me feel angry enough at you that I won't come back and, you know, tip you again? The motivation on this one utterly eludes me. (As an aside, something I realized yesterday while on the slab is that a lot of these women are probably sadists. Judging by the number of times Tracey asked me if this hurt, and seeming to be upset that I responded that it didn't, I would wager that she might get off on hurting women with enough disposable income to have this service performed. After the actual 4th time she asked, I told her, "I'm not shy, I'll let you know." That seemed to shut her up.)

I am sharing this kind of personally embarrassing and definitely too much informationy story because I tend to feel unashamed more of the time than some of my women friends. But if this process, one I'm actually not nearly as embarrassed by as I was in my teens, can leave me feeling so crappy, I can only imagine what it does to other people. So here's my prescription: if you are a woman who pays another woman money to have your unwanted body hair ripped from its roots by hot wax, you deserve at the very minimum to not feel mocked, intimidated, or tortured. I have had brazilian bikini waxes that felt like a little slap and tickle, and ones that felt like training day at Abu Ghraib; the latter are ones where you can stop and say, "there is no reason you should be treating sensitive parts of me with such disdain." Also your lady part regions are yours to groom how you like. If you want a heart or a star or a mohawk or a full-on 1970s retro look, guess what, you earn your own money, you can have whatever you want. If your aesthetician questions your choice, you should feel free to ask what personal stake she has in it and, if she persists, tell her you're not into chicks and that she's making you uncomfortable. If all else fails, and you have a 23 years old giggling at the mass of your unwanted hair and calling her friends in to laugh at you as well (true story - I was 17), feel free to muster as much hauteur as you can, pull your pants on, say something cutting about the fact that ass hair or no ass hair, one of you rips people's ass hair out for a living and the other doesn't, and leave the salon. There are only about a million places that would be all too happy to take your money. I suggest you discover where they are. I know I'll be looking too.

Cause Celebre

When cherry-picking culture and tradition as I do, one has the opportunity to craft a personal code that embraces only those things one deems important and worthy of dissemination. From all the years of indoctrination, the one principle of jewish tradition that resonated most strongly with me was the jewish attitude towards charity. I can think of a number of reasons for this, but the easiest one to point to is that I have been the frequent recipient of a very jewish form of charity throughout my life.

Charity is a very important part of traditional jewish life, some would argue it is the most important part, and not just any charity. A list making people (read the bible, it is full of lists) the jews of olden times made a list of ways to be charitable from least to greatest, and I am recounting them here:

1. Giving begrudgingly
   
2. Giving less that you should, but giving it cheerfully.
   
3. Giving after being asked
   
4. Giving before being asked
   
5. Giving when you do not know the recipient's identity, but the recipient knows your identity
   
6. Giving when you know the recipient's identity, but the recipient doesn't know your identity
   
7. Giving when neither party knows the other's identity
   
8. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant

I like this list.

A lot.

And I'll explain why it is of particular significance to me. I was a scholarship student for all thirteen years of my Dalton education. I got a lot of scholarship. There would have been no other way for me to attend what is, I believe, the most expensive private school in Manhattan. I don't know whose donations put me through school, though I suspect that, through their giving, most of my friends' parents paid for my education. How nice it was, though, to be able to be a kid in a good school and not always know that it was by the grace of specific people. What a wonderful thing to not have that feeling of being beholden. I might add that this experience engendered two things: the first is that I give what I can whenever I can back to the school so that someone else can benefit and that both my brother and I have a lottery-winning pact that involves an immediate endowment of a scholarship fund.

Now what is not on this list, but is of importance to me, is giving without making a big fat deal out of it. Whether or not the recipient knows, if you are a person who gives and then broadcasts your giving in a self-aggrandizing manner (as opposed to broadcasting for the purposes of encouraging others to give as well), I find your giving to be somewhat tainted. As if you gave not because the giving itself was sustaining, but to be acknowledged for what a generous and selfless person you are. Yes, you gave, but I would call that giving grudgingly - as if the giving was a byproduct of your ego.

This little moralizing is a result of something that bothered me (I willingly admit it bothered me more than was strictly necessary) in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. There were two kinds of reactions to this tragedy (more on this later): the first was the "please donate to Haiti relief;" the second was "oh my god I am so sad about Haiti I have been upset all day my thoughts and prayers are with all Haitians we are all one planet today."

There is not a single Haitian currently buried under rubble who gives a shit about how YOU feel! This is not about YOU. Using a disaster to broadcast what an empathetic do-gooder you are is disingenuity at its worst. Shutup and pay the nice people at the Red Cross if you feel so strongly about it.

Now for the controversial part. WHY do you feel so strongly about it? An earthquake killing people in Haiti is the most normal way people have been killed in Haiti in ages. Haiti is a cesspool and has been for your entire life. Where was your sadness on Monday? Haiti is easily the worst country in our hemisphere - disaster relief isn't going to help that. Which is not to say we shouldn't contribute to disaster relief. But the outpouring of, frankly, crocodile tears over a natural disaster in a place that is a manmade disaster is unbecoming. Again, I am making a distinction between caring about the plight of the Haitians by making a donation and seeming to care about the Haitians while making it more about how much you care about Haitians.

The world can be a deeply shitty place most everywhere. The difference is that when an earthquake hits Northridge, California or Kobe, Japan, since neither of those places is a hellhole on earth, once the rubble is cleared, and the mourning finished, life in those places isn't unbearable. In two weeks or two months, once the aid agencies have left and the streets are free of rubble and body parts, Haiti will still rank among the places human beings would least like to be. I wish that we, collectively, could spend more time in between natural disasters donating our time, our money, and our well-wishing to making places like Haiti, like Sri Lanka (remember all the people who died there in a natural disaster? when was the last time you even thought about Sri Lanka?), livable. So that a natural disaster would be a temporary sadness in an otherwise decent place. We're not ever going to stop earthquakes or hurricanes or volcanoes; reacting to their impact and leading the victims to believe we give a shit on a grand scale when we only care for the duration of the news cycle, is, at best, unbecoming.

It's ok to be overwhelmed by the seemingly unsolvable problems of our age. I wish I felt there was a little more honesty in our reactions to these crises. It's ok to say, "jesus christ, I know I should do more all the time, but it's really hard. In the meantime, let's all pitch in and send a couple of bucks to the red cross. It must especially suck in Haiti right now." It's also ok to donate without fanfare, when you can, what you can, even when it's not a reaction to an immediate problem. Like I've tried to make clear, it's not like Haiti's problems are going away.

End of an Era

So much media news these past few days. As I am one of the apparently few people who has never watched late night talk shows, the NBC/Leno/Conan drama has interested me less than the American Idol drama.

Before you point your fingers at me, culture police, let it be known that I have, wait for it, NEVER seen an episode in its entirety of any of the following: Real World, Road Rules, The Bachelor, Jon & Kate Plus 8, Jersey Shore, and this is a short list of the happy pablum I have missed, so put your pointing fingers away.

But I have watched every season of American Idol and, much like my current watching of Nip/Tuck, later seasons were watched more out of nostalgia than out of interest. I kept hoping someone would do something, well, interesting, and, sadly, the closest American Idol has gotten to interesting was last season's Adam Lambert and, regardless of sexual orientation, I am on the record as being against ManLiner.

So the exit of Simon Cowell does have real-world ramifications for me. Considering he's the only participant on the show who occasionally demonstrates competency with an above-grade 8-level vocabulary, I really WON'T have an incentive to watch after his departure (see the above not-watched shows by way of an explanation. I like school. I think school is important. I think polysyllables are important).

So watching the opening episode of this season last night had some bittersweetness. I realized how much of my affection for the show had to do with Cowell's frequent honesty (though he too can be swayed by a perky look with an ear-splittingly bad voice) and his snark. And how little I care about the looped heartbreak stories of EVERY contestant. In a this-is-what's-wrong-with-America way, all the contestants willingly admit that they think this is their ticket out of poverty (and no one ever mentions, you know, college as a way out of poverty, just instant international stardom). I understand that the American Dream meme has been pretty well diluted out of existence (remember when part of the American Dream involved working for it?), but writ large on the most popular show on television - well this year, knowing I'll probably not watch the show again, it's harder to swallow.

Devoted partner will be pleased, though. He can't stand watching the show and the humiliation suffered by the contestants. He'll be happier when it isn't a part of my must-see TV routine.

I'm just hoping in my last viewing season someone finally does a take on Madonna's Like A Prayer complete with black Jesus. Go out with a bang!