Soapbox

I know that one of the virtues of blogs is supposed to be that they're ultra-current, but I'm going to buck the trend by writing about something I did on Tuesday.

Tuesday being the day Michael Crichton's new book came out. He gave a talk at the National Press Club in honor of the occasion, and I went because of a certain professional interest in the subject of said book, but also--I'll admit it--because Michael Crichton is famous.

He used the opportunity not to read from his new book, or even talk about his new book per se, but to pontificate. In case you're wondering, he believes that political decisions these days have nothing to do with science, and everything to do with, well, politics. Reporters don't check facts and hence feed the beast of poor scientific knowledge. What we need is a reliable system of managing information. Allowing genes to be patented is a terrible policy. Peer review is useless and only serves as a barrier to truly novel discoveries being publicized. In the future, people and organizations will be held liable for bad information they put out.

I was a little envious, frankly. Not that I'd have the hubris to try to draw out an audience of hundreds on a Tuesday night to listen to me lecture about what I think is wrong with the world, but if I wanted to, could I? No. Let alone get them to plunk down $27.95 plus tax for a pre-signed copy of my book. I have to content myself with regaling my five devoted readers with tales of what I had for lunch. Damn.

Speaking of soapboxes and science, I recommend this slightly-outdated article. I went (according to Fast Food Nation) to one of the first high schools in the nation to make an exclusive deal with Coke and post ads in the hallways, and even I found it disturbing.

Thanksgiving

On Thursday morning I flew down to Charlotte, NC to visit high school friend D.S. We made some Thanksgiving-esque side dishes and spent some quality time doing a whole lot of nothing. I'd never been to North Carolina before; my first impressions were:

• The weather is great
• The place is replete with SUVs and thin bottle blondes in tight jeans and high heels
• It takes half an hour to get anywhere.

Last night we ate a lot of cheap sushi with a couple of D.S.'s friends and then went to this club, which I found surprisingly fun. I guess I was due for some dancing.

We closed the place down, and back at D.S.'s place we had a long conversation about race and class and how some things about Pueblo weren't that bad. I went to bed at 4:00 and woke up at 6:30 to catch my flight to BWI, so the trip would have been somewhat brutal even if I hadn't had a middle seat next to a broad-shouldered man. I've developed a bad habit of sleeping through the drink service and waking up parched while the flight attendants are collecting the last of the garbage.

I arrived at my metro stop at around 11:00 and was cheered by the blue sky and fresh fall air on the final, pedestrian leg of my journey. Then I came home to my lonely cat and slept for most of the afternoon.

Winter

K was in town this past weekend, which gave me a reason to explore some new parts of the city: a jazz bar on U Street, Eastern Market, an amateur production of The Crucible. We also tried Ethiopian food, which may become a kind of rite for people who come to visit me. K flew out today, and the weather promptly went from comfortable-with-a-sweatshirt to unpleasantly cold. It hasn't taken long since moving from Ithaca for me to become completely unused to low temperatures, with dramatic results: last time the weather turned chilly I broke out in hives, and I'm afraid it might be happening again.

Hives! I am officially allergic to cold. I wonder if I could parlay this into being allowed to work from home?

Canadians

Today G.R. made a disparaging comment about how I hadn't blogged lately, which was nervy of him considering we're lucky to hear from him once a week. Rather than point this out I just said my life's been too boring to blog about lately. But that was before I arrived home to find a package from G.R.'s homeland, containing this awesome t-shirt. It's exciting if you're lazy, and you were a chemistry major, and especially if you only ordered it last week and selected the cheap shipping.

I don't want to sound prejudiced here, but is anyone else a little unsure of how to classify Canadians? They're a strange hybrid of foreigner and not-foreigner, fitting in well here apart from their superior enunciation and flappy heads. You can't teach them new words like "faucet." But once in awhile they say something that reminds you they do in fact hale from a different culture.

For example, today I had a drink after work with a Canadian friend who's lived in the U.S. for six months or so. We were talking about Al Jazeera; a friend of hers just moved here from Toronto to work for the new English version. Apparently all the non-anchor personel at the English Al Jazeera are British or Canadian because Americans don't want Al Jazeera on their resumes. There was an article in the Washington Post today that this friend thought was strangely biased against Al Jazeera, too, which led her to ask me, "Why are Americans so freaked out about Al Jazeera?"

To me Americans' automatic Al Jazeera-disliking reflex is such an obvious fact of life that I probably would never have questioned it. It would be like asking why cats hate vacuum cleaners (although a friend of mine thinks cats' ancestors were terrorized by a prehistoric feline-sucking Hoover, ingraining that aversion in their genes, so maybe that's a bad example). I could have said that post-September 11 Americans fear and despise all phrases that begin with "al," but I went with the less rascist explanation and said that the only time we ever hear about Al Jazeera is when Osama bin Laden releases a video, so of course we think they're the network of terrorists.

Here's my plan for salvaging America (and its reputation): Those of my readers who are not stealing cable should email their providers and ask them to carry Al Jazeera. We'll kill two birds with one stone: America will get more news of foreign lands, and we'll show the world we're not afraid of all things "al."

Rumsfeld: a remembrance

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing (With thanks to Slate)

Another worthy link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1761585

Taxation without representation

Being a registered DC voter on election day is like being that kid who's not invited to the party everyone's been talking about for months. Something I just learned last night is that we elect a "Shadow Representative" and "Shadow Senator" to go harass Congress to give us the vote. That seems pretty strange to me, not to mention sad. I voted for the Republican for Senator because I thought the Man might be more likely to give us the vote if we started voting Republican.

Speaking of Republicans, I think a prime example of how parochial the DC election is is this statement in the official DC voter's guide by a Republican running for at-large member of the council:

Growing up in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, Marcus believes that playing sports and his parents sending him to a local church to participate in Boy Scouts were major factors that deterred him from the dangers of the neighborhood he lived in. As a son of a former union president Marcus developed a strong work ethic and an understanding that business and labor need balance and communication to exist.

He went on to Bowie State University where he received his B.S. in Communications and his M.A. in Human Resource Development. Academically, he received Bowie State's Scholar Athlete Award in 2001 and 2002. Currently, Marcus resides in Southeast Washington D.C. He enjoys distance running, football, and golf.

Did this guy update his college admission essay and send that in? Granted, a Republican's odds of winning office in the District would only look good to a snowball in hell, but how about a little effort?