Watching the Whirl(d)

Sometimes I think the world’s gonna spin off the axis…things keep happening and I always think “what more could possibly happen?” Bad question.

London bombings: what more could possibly happen? Hurricane: what more could possibly happen? CIA leak investigation: what more could possibly happen?

Well, secret executive searches with no judicial review; an Iranian nuclear threat; another Bin Laden tape.

I’m not complaining. Really; it’s a news-junkie’s wet dream.

I remember watching Reagan’s funeral: what I like to call “the day everyone thought we were being attacked for about half an hour that everyone missed.” It was incredible. All the senators and representatives are congregating in one place, when suddenly, security guards are screaming “take off your shoes and run as fast as you can!” I’m watching it all live: the reporter says a plane has just flown into the no-fly zone. This is serious. People fly by the camera. The camera man loses his shot as they all have to suddenly run away from the commands of a guard. And the whole time I’m thinking “this is it, this is it: I’m watching the next attack on live TV.” And then, just as quickly as it had started, the reporter announces false warning. Evidently, some senator’s plane accidentally entered the no-fly zone. And that was it.

But that’s kind of what I watch for.

Alito Hearing Gets Dirty

My absolute favorite moment of the Alito Hearing:

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer asks Republican Chairman Arlen Specter for an additional 5 minutes.

Chairman Specter replies “Yes. I couldn’t be very forceful about it, but yes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” Schumer says with a smile, “I’ll take it any way you give it.”

S.A.D. Acclimation

Portland in Jaunary. I grew up in in the Northwest. The grey never got to me. Then I moved to California. When I moved to Portland in 2000, I added S.A.D. to the diagnostic mix. Shorter days, lack of light exposure. I moved back to Seattle in 2002. Believe it or not, it’s actually much greyer there. Moved back here in 2003. But, to tell the truth, by about 2004, I think I’d acclimated to this climate again.

Last night I filled out a survey Shelley had done before me. One question: “what color is your bedroom?” Shelley’s bedroom walls are white, but the artist in her discerned the light, light lavender tone of her walls.

I kind of adapt Shelley’s approach to surviving Northwest winters. Somewhere down the line, I started seeing the colors in the grey.

What to Write? 2

Why do we blog? Why do we create profiles, upload pictures, and advertise ourselves? Why do we have this need to put ourselves, our personalities, our thoughts into the public sphere?

Reading The Diary of Anne Frank taught me that people might read my journals when I died. My past has taught me that people might read my journals while I lived. And so, naturally, like most people I suppose, writing in private journals feels censored, rehearsed. You could say I have trust issues. Blogging feels natural: I say what I'm comfortable having anyone hear.

The other component; why wait until you die to find out what other people have to say about your ideas? Why not start a conversation? Join the conversation?

Sometimes it’s hard to find the line between what to bring into the public conversation and what to leave in the private domain. My favorite blogs are the direct product of their author’s lives in some form or another.

But I don’t like passive aggressive blogging. I don’t like blogging as a form of two-way conversation. We’re all guilty of it sometimes, myself included. But this isn’t my diary. It’s also not my inbox. My life has had enough drama: so I’d like to declare this a drama free zone.

Help Wanted: P.R. International Coal Group

Within 20 minutes of a massive “miscommunication” leading the families of 12 remaining coal miners to believe their loved ones had been found alive, Ben Hatfield, president of the International Coal Group, learned that all but 1 were actually dead.

He then waited 3 hours to correct the “miscommunication.”

Why? He says the families had already been on enough of an emotional rollercoaster.

So he let them spend 3 hours with the false certitude that their prayers had been answered, their brothers and husbands and sons had been found alive.

He couldn’t just come in 20 minutes later and say “hold up, we need to clarify, we’ve gotten to the miners, but we DO NOT know how many are alive yet.”

And then, to top it off, he called this the worst day of his life.

Coal Miner's Daughter

I’m up way too late watching for breaking news on 13 coal miners trapped in a mine in West Virginia. Things like this happen every day. And really, I didn’t give a shit about this story until something one of the family members said caught my attention earlier this afternoon. Wolf Blitzer asked the sister of one of these coal miners why her brother took the job, and she said “the money.” And he asked her how much they paid, and she said “17 or 18 an hour.”

The 17 or 18 dollar an hour salaries of these guys are paid by a little company called the International Coal Group, Inc. A little company that made $158.4 million in their third quarter of 2005 alone (http://www.intlcoal.com/pages/quarter/2005_3RD_QTR.cfm). You know what 17 or 18 dollars an hour gets you? If these guys are married, after taxes it gets them $30,940. And that’s not counting any contributions to their medical or pension plans. They’ll work so hard their bodies will breakdown before retirement age. And every day their wives will worry they’ll turn on the news and find out they’re trapped in a mine (because, evidently, the families didn’t get a call from the company, they heard it on the news first).

It’s not worth it.