crazy life right now

I have seen people write these kinds of posts, and they are probably self-indulgent, but today it feels like the right kind of post:

what is going on today:
possibly putting an offer down on a new house
telling my current employer that I might be leaving in the Spring
lecturing in 2 hours
packing for a big trip today
going to a community leaders' meeting
trying to visit the possible new house
a big laundry list of usual work stuff
launch a web forum for our comm. organization
next steps in launching newly formatted website.

Terry Schiavo

Nobody has put into words my feelings about the Terry Schiavo Tragedy better than Scott Rosenberg:

"The president himself -- who has, through international crises thick and thin, been unable to rouse himself from those long, long vacations at his Texas ranch, even when hundreds of thousands were killed by the Indian Ocean tsunami -- will fly back to Washington to sign the bill! Sanctity of life? The hypocrisy would be ludicrous if the case weren't so heart-rending."

really, read his whole post.

The thing is that I am not really sure what word describes this whole event. "Event" seems crass, "Tragedy" fails to capture the farcical nature, "Spectacle" ignores the fact that this is an awful private event for Terry's parents and husband. if anyone has any better words, let me know.

This is just so sad.

Fat

Sometimes I think that I am probably blowing some things that I get all worked up about out of proportion. An example of something that gets me worked up is obesity in America. It is an issue that is impacted by many (to me) non-sensical aspects of American choices. But perhaps it is something else less insidious, maybe.

But just the other day, a friend of ours from Denmark who has been in this country for ~10 months, came riding by on her bike. In the course of conversation with my wife she declared that she was out riding because she has gained so much weight since moving here. 10 months!!! That bothers me. Simply moving to my country, which I still think quite highly of, and simply living the way that one lives here has already made her noticeably (to her, I haven't seen her) heavier. To me, this is just symptomatic of the types of things that should change but won't.

new blog alert again

here is the link

Things "Frustrating" me

Bankruptcy Bill's imminent passage - Burns me up b/c of the way those filing for bankruptcy are casually dismissed as irresponsible or cheats, when the reality is that very few are working the system. Particularly burns me up b/c the only person that I know who has filed for bankruptcy is a conservative who told me at the time, "you know I am really against people filing for Chapter 11, but we just have no other option." Exactly. Just like everyone else who files.

California Public School funding - 45th in America. Great job guys! Hey, let's cut the funding a little more, take it away, Arnold... Legislators, is that a deafening silence I hear from you...

Ok that's only two, but the rest seem too big to even begin to talk about: pathetic war planning in Iraq, budget deficits, increasing abortion rates under a Republican president and Congress, continued neglect of housing for urban poor...

new blog alert