Only one link for today: this article from Newsweek/MSNBC gives some insight into why the Democrats lose elections despite having far superior ideas (and, indirectly, why Fox News has soared to the top of the ratings). It's about how your brain makes political decisions and how to frame an argument.
Here are my thoughts: it's really, really sad that political decisions need to be marketed. This kind of crap is why I'm not that interested in going into politics, even though at first glance it would seem like it's right up my alley.
However, more importantly, the marketing of political arguments will directly lead to the downfall of the democratic process. To show how, first let me lay out a couple of axioms: first of all, people will never make completely rational decisions. This has been proven beyond a doubt in economics and many other arenas. Second, not everyone will have access to all available information - some people will have an information advantage.
Taking these two givens, we can se how the presentation of information is of paramount importance. People at large won't do the necessary research and dispassionate analysis to have a true opinion on the issues, so they think what they are told to think. If (using an example from the article) a couple Arabs buying AK-47s could incite people to vote for more gun laws, without considering the benefits and drawbacks, they can easily be manipulated to vote along with the political interests of those with the information advantage. Since this is a situation exacerbated by the one-way medium of television (as Al Gore points out in An Assault on Reason), a medium that is accessible only to the super-rich, we have a small coalition of people ruling the majority. Call that what you want, but it ain't democracy.
This is a problem that isn't going to go away anytime soon under our current system. Saying "we just need to educate the population and give them the power to make informed decisions" is NOT a solution, for the simple reason that it is impossible. The only solution is to impose vast restrictions on the ability of big businesses to have political influence and limit the role of money in the political process. Of course, that presents a Catch-22: how do you get this political machine of wealth and power that so easily can manipulate popular opinion to make rules that will limit its ability to do exactly that?
My head hurts.
One more thing I thought when I read that article: Imagine if Al Gore had given the response outlined in the lead-in to the article... think the last seven years might have been a little different?
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Doctrinaires
The New York Times has a really interesting article today entitled "Science of the Soul" that tries to encapsulate the recent discoveries giving evidence for a physical background of morality. Evolutionary biologists have known for years that many seemingly difficult-to-explain human "moral" attributes could be explained by survival-influenced evolutionary behavior (to take a simple and obvious example, it behooves a parent to share their food with their offspring, even though they then get less, because it increases the chance of their genes' survival).
Now, it seems, neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists are finding structures within the brain that can be directly linked to these behaviors - not only in humans, but also in other animals. Of course, religious conservatives are in an uproar. One of the central tenets of pretty much any Judeo-Christian religious doctrine is that man is special: he has a soul, and was created as the caretaker of the earth (a concept which has historically led to a lot of mistreatment of animals and "sub-human" humans).
The more science discovers, the less is left to be explained by religion. If I were a Catholic bishop, I would feel threatened by each new discovery, too. But inevitably what happens in these scenarios is that church doctrine doesn't change until it is absolutely forced to by prevailing wisdom. By then, it is apparent to everyone how asinine the church's position on the issue is - think the "sun revolving around the earth" situation. This phenomenon doesn't only take place in the catholic church - it is also present in protestant, Muslim, and Jewish thought patterns. The Catholic church is simply the easiest to follow because of its official, centralized doctrine. In the article, this 1996 quote from Pope John Paul II illustrated precisely what I am saying:
Now, it seems, neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists are finding structures within the brain that can be directly linked to these behaviors - not only in humans, but also in other animals. Of course, religious conservatives are in an uproar. One of the central tenets of pretty much any Judeo-Christian religious doctrine is that man is special: he has a soul, and was created as the caretaker of the earth (a concept which has historically led to a lot of mistreatment of animals and "sub-human" humans).
The more science discovers, the less is left to be explained by religion. If I were a Catholic bishop, I would feel threatened by each new discovery, too. But inevitably what happens in these scenarios is that church doctrine doesn't change until it is absolutely forced to by prevailing wisdom. By then, it is apparent to everyone how asinine the church's position on the issue is - think the "sun revolving around the earth" situation. This phenomenon doesn't only take place in the catholic church - it is also present in protestant, Muslim, and Jewish thought patterns. The Catholic church is simply the easiest to follow because of its official, centralized doctrine. In the article, this 1996 quote from Pope John Paul II illustrated precisely what I am saying:
Although he noted that in the intervening years evolution had become “more than a hypothesis,” he added that considering the mind as emerging merely from physical phenomena was “incompatible with the truth about man.”Sooner or later, this kind of thinking inevitably catches up to the church, and they are left with egg on their faces. Simply stating a "truth about man" that flies in the face of all available evidence is an affront to curious, thinking people everywhere. When I hear of a quote like this, I feel much less bad about the decline of the church. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Thagomization
"Now this end is called the thagomizer, after the late Thag Simmons." One of my favorite Far Side strips has actually spawned a new term - the spikes at the end of a stegosaur's tail are now referred to by paleontologists as the "thagomizer".Democratic Underground unveils their Top 10 Conservative Idiots of the week. All I can say is that Trent Lott is a perfect fit for the people who voted for him.
The NFL Europe championship game took place this past weekend, with Hamburg beating Frankfurt. The halftime performer? Meat Loaf. I kid you not.
The Supreme Court took another step toward limiting free speech, ruling that a student who unfurled a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at the running of the torch for the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 could be suspended from school for advocating drug use, despite the fact that the incident didn't take place on the school grounds.
Glenn Greenwald notes that now all the people we're killing in Iraq are "Al-Qaida militants"... see, we did attack Iraq because of terrorists! Propaganda at its best. Or is that worst?
On a roll, Greenwald also gives a good exposition of the Bush administration's "good vs. evil" mentality and how it has led us much further along the path to war with Iran than was ever necessary.The New York Times gives an interesting detail of how Rupert Murdoch came to be so evil.
Finally, the Boston Globe talks about why most citizens of this country want to impeach W, but most members of Congress don't... could this possibly be connected to Congressional approval ratings in the 20s? Nah. My personal view is that impeachment proceedings are political dead weight, but they need to be done. From the article:
Most Democratic politicians and strategists see impeachment as a loser. Right now, President Bush is one of the least popular presidents in American history, and Democratic leaders don't see any point in turning him into a political martyr.I agree with those sentiments. However, more importantly, impeachment must be preserved as a threat to dishonest, incompetent, and outright criminal politicians everywhere. If a politician brazenly lies to the American public, time after time, and it results in a war that has killed thousands of our citizens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, for absolutely no gain whatsoever, doesn't get impeached - who does?
Congress doesn't want to get sidetracked with the impeachments and lose popularity. I ask - what popularity? It's becoming increasingly apparent that the majority is so slim that they'll never pass anything of consequence with Bush and his veto power sitting there. So they may as well spend their time impeaching him, and running the risk of martyrdom.
Still, I don't think turning Bush into a martyr is a big risk. First of all, impeachment proceedings would bring to light additional evidence of exactly how big a scumbag Bush is, further turning public sentiment against him. Second, it would put the GOP in the awkward position of facing the possibility of President Cheney, a leader even they don't want. If Bush gets impeached, and Cheney resigns rather than assume the title, it looks horrible for the GOP. If Cheney ascends to president, he can't be any worse, effectively, than Bush, and he's unpopular enough within his own party that he won't be able to move any legislation.
Rrgh. Mondays.
Friday, June 22, 2007
No, it's not a bubble bath
And you thought jobs in Alaska were bad. This guy (near Sangram, India) gets paid to remove pollution from drains in the Ganges river with his body. Yuck.A few more links:
Ever wonder who the biggest pricks in Congress are? Cracked.com has the answers, although picking some of these guys out is like shooting old, fleshy, white fish in a barrel.
How terrorists play chess:
But how can the white pieces win? Is there some kind of social subtext to this?...And finally, have you ever thought what the world would be like if they casted a James Bond movie using only rodents? Me neither. But check this out (with your sound on):
...or was it MURDER?
Also, as an addendum, do yourself a favor and read how Dick Cheney is treating the constitution like a midget in a prison shower. I don't have the heart to link to it here. In fact, I'm going to go watch the dramatic chipmunk again to cheer myself up.
Sacre Bleu!
...or whatever they say in Central Africa. Zimbabwe's economy is crashing and burning under some of the most striking hyperinflation in recent history, threatening the security of Robert Mugabe's already tenuous hold on the country. Right now, the going rate for Zimbabwean dollars is over 300,000 to one U.S. dollar - almost double what it was last week. This NY Times article from a little over a year ago gives a little perspective by saying that toilet paper now costs $417 - per sheet. And since then, the situation has gotten much worse.
Since that Times article, was published, in August 2006, Mugabe revalued the currency to (supposedly) make it more competitive. His method? Just chop three zeroes off the value of each bill. Presto, the exchange rate is instantly cut from 550,000-to-1 to 550-to-1. Only problem is that such a maneuver doesn't fix the underlying cause, and inflation has shot back up. Many people can't even afford to take the money they've earned to the market and buy bread - by the time they get there, the bread has become too expensive. Trying to put money in banks, invest, or save for the future in any way is utterly self-defeating.
Some experts are saying that this has the potential to be the worst peacetime inflation in history. It's being compared to the legendary hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, the democratic government of Germany installed after the fall of the Kaiser in World War I, which was crippled by reparations payments and war debts (Hitler took advantage of this situation and the resultant German bitterness toward the French to come to power). During the worst moments of the Weimar economy, prices quadrupled daily, and people didn't even bother to collect the change from their 1,000 billion mark notes. But unlike present-day Zimbabwe, the Weimar crisis was caused by the war - the underlying German economy was still relatively strong.
It is becoming an increasing certainty that Mugabe won't survive the fallout. Zimbabwe now has effectively no economy, and the government is bankrupt. A government without money can't govern, and thus ceases to exist.
All this is a result of the underlying weakness of floating currency: the value depends on people's belief in its value. Floating currency is valuable because it can be manipulated to shield the economy from the worst effects of temporary crises - for instance, the 1970s Arab Oil Embargo, which was the original reason the U.S. left the gold standard. However, if people stop believing in the value underlying the currency - governmental stability, economic potential, and so forth - the currency has the potential to crash in value, as we are now seeing. Currently, there is about $784 billion worth of U.S. dollars in circulation. However, about half that is held by foreigners overseas, meaning that about $400 billion worth of actual currency supports a $13 billion economy - a ratio of 32.5 to one.
Now for the great thought experiment - what happens to the U.S. economy if the faith of people in the dollar's stability is shaken, for instance, by weakened respect for the U.S. overseas, by China dumping their vast dollar reserves on the open market, or by mounting national debt loads? The Fed has some ability to manipulate the value of the dollar, but the bottom line is that the dollar is worth whatever people think it is. Expert opinion is divided (actually, scattered) on what will happen in this case of increasing likelihood, but whatever the result is, it won't be good.
Now that's scary.
Since that Times article, was published, in August 2006, Mugabe revalued the currency to (supposedly) make it more competitive. His method? Just chop three zeroes off the value of each bill. Presto, the exchange rate is instantly cut from 550,000-to-1 to 550-to-1. Only problem is that such a maneuver doesn't fix the underlying cause, and inflation has shot back up. Many people can't even afford to take the money they've earned to the market and buy bread - by the time they get there, the bread has become too expensive. Trying to put money in banks, invest, or save for the future in any way is utterly self-defeating.
Some experts are saying that this has the potential to be the worst peacetime inflation in history. It's being compared to the legendary hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, the democratic government of Germany installed after the fall of the Kaiser in World War I, which was crippled by reparations payments and war debts (Hitler took advantage of this situation and the resultant German bitterness toward the French to come to power). During the worst moments of the Weimar economy, prices quadrupled daily, and people didn't even bother to collect the change from their 1,000 billion mark notes. But unlike present-day Zimbabwe, the Weimar crisis was caused by the war - the underlying German economy was still relatively strong.
It is becoming an increasing certainty that Mugabe won't survive the fallout. Zimbabwe now has effectively no economy, and the government is bankrupt. A government without money can't govern, and thus ceases to exist.
All this is a result of the underlying weakness of floating currency: the value depends on people's belief in its value. Floating currency is valuable because it can be manipulated to shield the economy from the worst effects of temporary crises - for instance, the 1970s Arab Oil Embargo, which was the original reason the U.S. left the gold standard. However, if people stop believing in the value underlying the currency - governmental stability, economic potential, and so forth - the currency has the potential to crash in value, as we are now seeing. Currently, there is about $784 billion worth of U.S. dollars in circulation. However, about half that is held by foreigners overseas, meaning that about $400 billion worth of actual currency supports a $13 billion economy - a ratio of 32.5 to one.
Now for the great thought experiment - what happens to the U.S. economy if the faith of people in the dollar's stability is shaken, for instance, by weakened respect for the U.S. overseas, by China dumping their vast dollar reserves on the open market, or by mounting national debt loads? The Fed has some ability to manipulate the value of the dollar, but the bottom line is that the dollar is worth whatever people think it is. Expert opinion is divided (actually, scattered) on what will happen in this case of increasing likelihood, but whatever the result is, it won't be good.
Now that's scary.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Performance Interrogation
So I was listening to NPR yesterday as they interviewed a very intriguing performance artist. She is a self-described feminist who is working on a project to explore feminism from the perspective of woman as aggressor, not as victim. To do that, she plays the role of a Gitmo interrogator alone on the stage, alternately interrogating imaginary detainees and teaching other interrogators techniques. It's supposed to be realistic, yet funny and scary - she actually attended the sessions where the Army trains their interrogators.
Anyway, to the main point - one line she said to the NPR interviewer really stuck with me. During their discussion of how the artist gets into character, she said (paraphrasing) "the soldiers really need to believe in what they're doing - they need to believe that their techniques, although harsh, are directly saving the lives of their friends and comrades, otherwise it's impossible for them to perform their job."
To me, that really represents why war doesn't make sense - especially war for profit. If average soldiers need to be brainwashed in order to perform pretty routine (which in itself is scary) military tasks, it follows that those tasks are counterintuitive and not in the soldier's natural best interests. It's obvious to any educated observer that interrogation doesn't directly save the lives of comrades in most situations, at the very least, so soldiers have to believe something that isn't true in order to do something that isn't good for them.
So who does benefit from this transaction? The cynic in me says "Nobody". But a more holistic view of the situation arrives at a more sinister truth. While it sounds like Weekly World News-style conspiracy theory, a realistic analysis leads to the conclusion that the people that benefit are the people that aren't fighting. This isn't to say that the overall "surplus value" (in economic terms) of the Iraq situation isn't negative, meaning that it was a huge mistake to go in there any way you slice it, but some parties are definitely making out like bandits.
Oil companies profit from access to fields that they didn't have before. Halliburton/Bechtel/Blackwater and their ilk benefit from enormous, unaccountable, no-bid contracts. Arguably hardline GOP hawks benefit from being able to scare people into voting for them (a strategy that is running dry).
But to summarize, people that aren't fighting, and are generally already wealthy, are brainwashing people who aren't generally wealthy to do things that are bad for them in order to make the rich richer. There is something profoundly fucked-up about this situation.
Maybe I'm giving too much credit to the stillborn independent thought processes of the troops - maybe they really do buy into this nationalistic fervor even before their indoctrination. In that case, America as a country is royally screwed, which may be the case anyway. But if the troops actually do think like this artist, and are somewhat skeptical of their assignments until they are falsely led to think that their duties directly save the lives of their buddies, it is a sad state indeed.
What do you think - am I going down the right path? I'm not sure myself...
Anyway, to the main point - one line she said to the NPR interviewer really stuck with me. During their discussion of how the artist gets into character, she said (paraphrasing) "the soldiers really need to believe in what they're doing - they need to believe that their techniques, although harsh, are directly saving the lives of their friends and comrades, otherwise it's impossible for them to perform their job."
To me, that really represents why war doesn't make sense - especially war for profit. If average soldiers need to be brainwashed in order to perform pretty routine (which in itself is scary) military tasks, it follows that those tasks are counterintuitive and not in the soldier's natural best interests. It's obvious to any educated observer that interrogation doesn't directly save the lives of comrades in most situations, at the very least, so soldiers have to believe something that isn't true in order to do something that isn't good for them.
So who does benefit from this transaction? The cynic in me says "Nobody". But a more holistic view of the situation arrives at a more sinister truth. While it sounds like Weekly World News-style conspiracy theory, a realistic analysis leads to the conclusion that the people that benefit are the people that aren't fighting. This isn't to say that the overall "surplus value" (in economic terms) of the Iraq situation isn't negative, meaning that it was a huge mistake to go in there any way you slice it, but some parties are definitely making out like bandits.
Oil companies profit from access to fields that they didn't have before. Halliburton/Bechtel/Blackwater and their ilk benefit from enormous, unaccountable, no-bid contracts. Arguably hardline GOP hawks benefit from being able to scare people into voting for them (a strategy that is running dry).
But to summarize, people that aren't fighting, and are generally already wealthy, are brainwashing people who aren't generally wealthy to do things that are bad for them in order to make the rich richer. There is something profoundly fucked-up about this situation.
Maybe I'm giving too much credit to the stillborn independent thought processes of the troops - maybe they really do buy into this nationalistic fervor even before their indoctrination. In that case, America as a country is royally screwed, which may be the case anyway. But if the troops actually do think like this artist, and are somewhat skeptical of their assignments until they are falsely led to think that their duties directly save the lives of their buddies, it is a sad state indeed.
What do you think - am I going down the right path? I'm not sure myself...
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Linkety link link link
Today's sign of the Apocalypse: Now you can't say "rape", among other offensive words, during - of all things - a rape trial.
Some of history's most famous photos are collected in one spot here; it's pretty interesting to look through.
I've heard of parents naming their kids, among other things, "Stealth," "Female," and "Shithead". This one is in that league, although I'm not sure if it's for real...
Yo Mama responds to the news in her zip code.
And finally, this article makes the seemingly startling revelation that (da dum da dum da dum da dum) beach sand is more deadly than sharks! That's right, over the last 17 years 16 people have died in sand accidents in the US, and only 12 people have been killed by sharks. But when you think about it, the writers are idiots. That's like saying that walking into your kitchen to get a glass of milk is more deadly than aliens with heat-ray guns - I'm sure someone has been killed sometime getting some milk, but I highly doubt anyone has ever been heat-ray exploded. Same fallacy - millions of Americans play in beach sand every year, while very few come anywhere near a shark.
Some of history's most famous photos are collected in one spot here; it's pretty interesting to look through.
I've heard of parents naming their kids, among other things, "Stealth," "Female," and "Shithead". This one is in that league, although I'm not sure if it's for real...
Yo Mama responds to the news in her zip code.
And finally, this article makes the seemingly startling revelation that (da dum da dum da dum da dum) beach sand is more deadly than sharks! That's right, over the last 17 years 16 people have died in sand accidents in the US, and only 12 people have been killed by sharks. But when you think about it, the writers are idiots. That's like saying that walking into your kitchen to get a glass of milk is more deadly than aliens with heat-ray guns - I'm sure someone has been killed sometime getting some milk, but I highly doubt anyone has ever been heat-ray exploded. Same fallacy - millions of Americans play in beach sand every year, while very few come anywhere near a shark.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Back from Vacation Links
Genarlow Wilson finally goes free, overturning one of the most unjust imprisonments in recent history. (Update: not quite yet.) Couldn't we have just let these wackos go their own way back in 1865? Here is the article that I read back in January that first got me interested in Wilson's case as a shining example of the the justice system in general, and minimum sentencing guidelines in particular, gone mad.
We could save energy and save money in one swell foop. Of course, as the Economist points out, that would make too much sense. This is the problem with a political system that runs on pluralistic representation - there isn't any political incentive to make changes that don't benefit a single powerful party to a great extent, because nobody is able to organize enough to lobby for obvious changes that help everybody a little bit.
Colin Powell wants to close Gitmo. Now that's how you flip-flop! (This strikes me as a sad case because Powell is obviously an extremely intelligent guy who got caught up in a neocon administration that forced him to kowtow to their warped world view in order to have any credibility and/or power. Now that the political winds have shifted, Powell is saying what he thought all along, and comes off looking weak and foolish despite finally being correct.)
Slate gives us the revisionist history surrounding Sgt. Pepper's...
What if Fox News had covered all of human history?
Self-referential fun with time travel!
This might take second place to that hamburger on a donut bun in the category of "unhealthiest foods ever".
The most useless infographic ever: how stupid are we supposed to be?
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Happy travels, Dawkins, and moral thoughts
The contrast between United Airlines and JetBlue is amazing. Right now I’m sitting in a leather seat, with plenty of legroom, at 30,000 feet, watching Popeye cartoons and eating complimentary Terra Blue chips. The aircraft we were to be on pulled into the gate at Anyway, I thought now would be as good a time as ever to recap some of my notes from The God Delusion, a controversial book by Richard Dawkins. Since my notes are incredibly disjointed and cover about eleventy jillion different concepts, I’ll just focus on my notes from Dawkins’ discussion of the roots of morality.
A popular belief is that morality descends directly from religious beliefs, an extremely disturbing idea at face value. In essence, this is the “Big Brother” principle – people only act good because someone (God) is watching. Luckily, the Big Brother principle doesn’t work logically – humans have a real, experimentally verified sense of altruism that doesn’t seem to vary much across religions or the lack thereof.
Another analogous situation could be presented to a doctor. Imagine he has five patients dying, each with a different organ failing, and there is a healthy man in the waiting room with five healthy organs. Is it permissible to cut him open and take his organs to save five others? Of course not! But this is the same situation. It seems that the distinction is as follows: it is morally impermissible to drag innocent bystanders into a bad situation and used for the sake of others without their consent. However, in the initial situation with Denise, the individual on the siding is not being used to save the five people – they just have the bad luck to be on the siding which saves the five people, and can be considered collateral damage, which seems to be OK. This is further confirmed by a variety of more intricate train-based situations.
Further on, to clarify what Dawkins calls “the changing moral Zeitgeist,” Dawkins mentions a set of “New Ten Commandments” that both reflect moral consensus and give us an aspirational moral target, as follows:
- Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.
- In all things, strive to cause no harm.
- Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness, and respect.
- Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
- Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
- Always seek to be learning something new.
- Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
- Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
- Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
- Question everything.
I was originally going to pick out my favorite “commandment” or two, but I can’t. I think this is an excellent summary of how we should live our lives. More than anything, I think these commandments are startlingly applicable and relevant to modern life. If only everyone thought this way…
Monday, June 4, 2007
The Tao of Supersoarability
During my recent travels (travails?) I had the chance to read two extremely thought-provoking books. One was The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, which hopefully I will comment on sometime in the future. The other is a fantastic book I purchased from a used bookstore about a year ago by Paul Ciotti called More With Less: Paul MacCready and the Dream of Efficient Flight.
More With Less is the story of aerodynamics pioneer MacCready through his career of adventures: from soaring (motorless gliders) champion in the 1940s, to the hang-gliding subculture of SoCal in the 1970s, to building the first human-powered plane, to building the first solar-powered plane, to winning a solar-powered car race across the Australian outback, just to name a few.
Along the way, of course, MacCready works with some fascinating personalities. One, hang-gliding pioneer and aviation writer Richard Miller, lived out of a VW Bus for most of his life and while an aeronautical genius, was a little loopy. However, this paragraph, paraphrasing an article Miller wrote for Soaring magazine in 1972, to me has significant merit:
Tao was the unifying spirit which animated any great project or organization in their quest to solve a problem or achieve a victory. Inherent in Tao, unfortunately, was its ephemerality - it only lasted till the goal was won. After that, the fiercely focused quest for victory always seemed to degenerate into a nervous search for security. "It's the epic of the frontier," wrote Miller. "The pioneer who had to dig for water, fell trees and hunt game to provide for his wants, gives way to the settler who finds his surveyed section lot ready equipped with access road, sewage pipes, and utility poles." There was also the matter of complexity. As planes became larger, more expensive and more complicated, they weren't so much thrilling expeditions into the unknown as corporate projects, business propositions beyond the control of a single man. "Thus Tao was diminished," wrote Miller, "and discontent was felt in the hearts of men."This paragraph really resonated with me. While flying is one of the most incredible things I have ever done, one of the reasons I stopped is akin to the feeling Miller describes - when you're up there, while you are alone and entirely dependent on your own faculties, you're still not quite part of the air. You're trapped in a cramped cockpit behind a roaring engine.
Someday I will go hang gliding. To me, this represents the ultimate commune with the nature of the skies. A glider "makes an aerial excursion, not an incursion. His passage leaves a whisper, not a shriek."
Soaring was a "metaphor" for life itself. There was nothing more elemental than the notion of bobbling along in zero sink, at six or seven hundred feet, fighting for your own mortality against "the forces trying to pull you down."
Our long national nightmare
I'm never flying Untied Airlines again, if I can help it (might be tough once we move to Chicago, though). Our plane was supposed to take off from O'Hare at 7:26 PM last night, which would get us into Logan at 11:05 - late, but not unreasonably so. When we got to the airport, we saw the flight had been delayed till 8:11. Still not a big deal, so we went to Chili's and had some dinner. I had a chipotle bacon black bean burger, since it was (seriously!) the healthiest thing on their shortened version of the menu. Delicious.
Getting out of Chili's, we saw the ETD was now 8:41. Over the next hour, the plane was delayed 6 more separate times, including delays of 1, 3, and 4 minutes. Finally, with the departure time in the late 9's, the pilot came over the intercom and said he needed to leave the airport because of a family emergency. Turns out his wife was giving birth. The saga was just beginning.
United told us not to worry, they would get another pilot (from the airport bar?). After another 45 minutes, at about quarter to ten, they cancelled the flight, because they couldn't find another pilot, and announced that we had all been re-booked on a flight to Boston leaving at 6:00 AM. The ensuing stampede to the customer service booth, combined with the numerous other United flights that had been canceled due to the approximately seven drops of rain that had fallen on Chicago that day, created a line that was probably, literally, over an hour long.
We walked a couple gates past that to another random gate that was just finishing up the boarding process, to Newark, I think, and I talked the lady into staying a minute and giving us a hotel voucher, since there were no more flights to Boston that had any seats available. She booked us a room at the Holiday Inn Rolling Meadows, which turned out to not only not be in the airport (there was a Hilton in our terminal), but to be the third closest Holiday Inn to the airport, about half an hour away.
On the way to the hotel shuttle, we stopped by the bag claim area to grab our suitcase, which had our clothes, toiletries, and everything else. One problem - United hadn't taken our bags off the plane, due to "abnormal operations", so we wouldn't be able to get our bag for the night. We arrived at the hotel shuttle zone at about 10:05, and I called the hotel. Turns out they have a shuttle every hour, on the hour. The last one was at 11.
We went back into the terminal and walked up to the first class ticketing counter, which was the only one that was still staffed, to attempt to get a cab voucher or a closer hotel. When we were finally second in line, the agent said they were closed for the evening and walked away. Luckily, we had wasted about half an hour, and got back to the shuttle zone at about 10:45. The shuttle zone now had approximately the human density of Times Square on New Year's. We found out where our shuttle stopped, positioned ourselves, and leaped on as it was rolling to a stop. That turned out to be a good move, as it had to leave about 10 former United customers on the curb due to lack of seats.
On the ride to the hotel, we learned that the first shuttle to the airport, half an hour away, in the morning left at 5:30 AM. Great. We checked in at about 11:30, scheduled a wakeup call at 3:30 and a taxi at 4, and passed out, me with my contacts in due to lack of case and fluid.
In the morning, after we checked through security and bought our large Starbucks, I went to the customer service counter to get a reimbursement voucher for our cab ride that morning. The agent informed me that they couldn't do that; I would have to go to the website and file a claim. Luckily, our flight was only delayed by 20 minutes, and we got into Boston, and got our bag, which had spent the night on the floor of Logan - turns out, they had flown the plane to Boston with our bags, but without any passengers.
To recap:
United delayed our flight at least 8 separate times for no apparent reason.
Our flight was canceled because United didn't have enough pilots to deal with an expected occurrence.
United didn't give us our suitcase.
United booked us a hotel half an our away from the airport (for comparison, downtown Chicago is 20 minutes away).
A United agent walked away from the counter rather than help me.
The hotel United booked for us had no transportation available that would get us back to the airport in time for our flight.
United customer service representatives were unable to give basic customer service when I asked them about taxi reimbursement.
They took our bags to Boston without us and left them sitting on the floor next to the baggage claim unguarded.
Oh yeah, and the seats were small and the coffee was bad.
Bitchfest over. Let us never speak of it again. Without further ado...
Ornithology gone PC in a really funny, sad way.
The Pistons lose 4 straight games and the series to the Cavs. LeBron put on some great performances, no doubt. But when the rules dictate that when a star player throws himself into a group of defenders a foul is called, it leads to an ugly brand of basketball that is really impossible to watch. Unless the NBA fixes the arbitrary quality of its officiating, they may have lost me.
Idiots of the week. I guess the RNC wanted Kiefer Sutherland, but he's too short to be electable... (Also, Republicans are still scared of the implications of meat-packing).
Finally, we rented an apartment in Chicago! It's a beautiful place in Uptown, close to the train, in a gorgeous neighborhood, by the lake... perfect in just about every way.
Getting out of Chili's, we saw the ETD was now 8:41. Over the next hour, the plane was delayed 6 more separate times, including delays of 1, 3, and 4 minutes. Finally, with the departure time in the late 9's, the pilot came over the intercom and said he needed to leave the airport because of a family emergency. Turns out his wife was giving birth. The saga was just beginning.
United told us not to worry, they would get another pilot (from the airport bar?). After another 45 minutes, at about quarter to ten, they cancelled the flight, because they couldn't find another pilot, and announced that we had all been re-booked on a flight to Boston leaving at 6:00 AM. The ensuing stampede to the customer service booth, combined with the numerous other United flights that had been canceled due to the approximately seven drops of rain that had fallen on Chicago that day, created a line that was probably, literally, over an hour long.
We walked a couple gates past that to another random gate that was just finishing up the boarding process, to Newark, I think, and I talked the lady into staying a minute and giving us a hotel voucher, since there were no more flights to Boston that had any seats available. She booked us a room at the Holiday Inn Rolling Meadows, which turned out to not only not be in the airport (there was a Hilton in our terminal), but to be the third closest Holiday Inn to the airport, about half an hour away.
On the way to the hotel shuttle, we stopped by the bag claim area to grab our suitcase, which had our clothes, toiletries, and everything else. One problem - United hadn't taken our bags off the plane, due to "abnormal operations", so we wouldn't be able to get our bag for the night. We arrived at the hotel shuttle zone at about 10:05, and I called the hotel. Turns out they have a shuttle every hour, on the hour. The last one was at 11.
We went back into the terminal and walked up to the first class ticketing counter, which was the only one that was still staffed, to attempt to get a cab voucher or a closer hotel. When we were finally second in line, the agent said they were closed for the evening and walked away. Luckily, we had wasted about half an hour, and got back to the shuttle zone at about 10:45. The shuttle zone now had approximately the human density of Times Square on New Year's. We found out where our shuttle stopped, positioned ourselves, and leaped on as it was rolling to a stop. That turned out to be a good move, as it had to leave about 10 former United customers on the curb due to lack of seats.
On the ride to the hotel, we learned that the first shuttle to the airport, half an hour away, in the morning left at 5:30 AM. Great. We checked in at about 11:30, scheduled a wakeup call at 3:30 and a taxi at 4, and passed out, me with my contacts in due to lack of case and fluid.
In the morning, after we checked through security and bought our large Starbucks, I went to the customer service counter to get a reimbursement voucher for our cab ride that morning. The agent informed me that they couldn't do that; I would have to go to the website and file a claim. Luckily, our flight was only delayed by 20 minutes, and we got into Boston, and got our bag, which had spent the night on the floor of Logan - turns out, they had flown the plane to Boston with our bags, but without any passengers.
To recap:
United delayed our flight at least 8 separate times for no apparent reason.
Our flight was canceled because United didn't have enough pilots to deal with an expected occurrence.
United didn't give us our suitcase.
United booked us a hotel half an our away from the airport (for comparison, downtown Chicago is 20 minutes away).
A United agent walked away from the counter rather than help me.
The hotel United booked for us had no transportation available that would get us back to the airport in time for our flight.
United customer service representatives were unable to give basic customer service when I asked them about taxi reimbursement.
They took our bags to Boston without us and left them sitting on the floor next to the baggage claim unguarded.
Oh yeah, and the seats were small and the coffee was bad.
Bitchfest over. Let us never speak of it again. Without further ado...
Ornithology gone PC in a really funny, sad way.
The Pistons lose 4 straight games and the series to the Cavs. LeBron put on some great performances, no doubt. But when the rules dictate that when a star player throws himself into a group of defenders a foul is called, it leads to an ugly brand of basketball that is really impossible to watch. Unless the NBA fixes the arbitrary quality of its officiating, they may have lost me.
Idiots of the week. I guess the RNC wanted Kiefer Sutherland, but he's too short to be electable... (Also, Republicans are still scared of the implications of meat-packing).
Finally, we rented an apartment in Chicago! It's a beautiful place in Uptown, close to the train, in a gorgeous neighborhood, by the lake... perfect in just about every way.
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