I parked my car in a dark, scary alleyway last night. As I was walking out of the alleyway after parking, I passed a bum sleeping in a doorway.

This morning, I walked back down the same alleyway to pick up my car. It was a completely different world; the sun was out, people were walking their dogs, and the bum from the night before was awake, curled up in his doorway reading a novel.

Reading a novel!

I guess somewhere, deep down, I had some sort of deep seated belief that all bums were illiterate, because this floored me. Kathryn the small-minded.

Heck, if I were a bum, I'd be happy to spend my days sitting in the sunshine reading novels. Homelessness can happen to anyone, or so I've heard -- why should I file homeless people away into some sub-human pocket in my mind, even subconsciously? Why should I assume that homeless people couldn't or wouldn't want to spend their free time reading boooks?

Feh.

Girls are so much softer than boys.

Conscious self	Overall self

Take Free Enneagram Test

So says the Enneagram test. I think the "Conscious self" is probably pretty close. I'm not quite as sure about the "Overall self"; I'm not sure I'm quite as steady, dependable, or faithful as it would make me out to be. I also tend to prefer listening to talking, because if you talk too much you let out too much about yourself and lose some measure of control. ;-)

Mary said I should update my blog, because it told her it feels neglected.

So...

Umm...

Hmm.

I haven't been in a very prolific mood lately. I did find some writing I'd done early on in college while digging through some old papers yesterday, though, and was considering typing some of that up and posting it on the web. It's nothing amazing; a bit of trite poetry, a few short fiction pieces, and a couple of essays that were semi-decent, but they were still better than I remembered them being. So, yeah. Check in every so often, and perhaps you'll find those linked up sometime soon. Excitement galore.

Other news in my life:

My dog is happy. I got him new dogfood today. And we went for a walk -- he got to bark at a UPS truck, at a cat, and at another dog. I wonder if UPS trucks make some sort of noise that is outside the typical human's hearing range; Louie never barks at other cars or trucks, just at the UPS one.

My birds are happy. The sun is shining and their window is open.

I finally dug up my original ACT score report so that I could request that a score report be sent to UW. Both the SAT and the ACT require you to know the exact month and year in which you took the test, in order for them to be able to send out score reports. I knew I took them in '95 or so, but the month was a stumper. It turns out that 10/95 is the magical date on which I took my ACT.

So, having finished off that score report request, I'm done dealing with all external materials for my college transfer applications. Now I've just got to get my butt in gear and finish up my personal statements, and I'm good to go. That's work for this afternoon, maybe.

My tango teacher offered me a deal; I'm going to do some administrative work for he and his wife and possibly code them up a bit of software to help with stuff as well, and in return they're going to give me free private lessons. He's being all formal about it. It's a 1:1 ratio; I get one hour of private lessons for each hour of work. The lessons are transferrable -- I could pass them on to friends or such -- but for now I think I'm going to use them myself. He's also going to feed me lunch two or three times a week, and once in a while we'll go walk around greenlake -- that's the employee health benefits package. ;-) Yay for bartering. It kicks ass.

Seattle is really starting to feel like home. I hope school here works out.

Anyhow, I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of anything offhand and I need to run. More later.

From today's copy of the Rochester Post Bulletin:

Last week's Hot Topic question: "What do you think about the media's coverage of the war in Iraq and the U.S. military's 'embedded' journalist program?"

Here are some of the responses we received:

. . .

Unethical journalism

The media often used the terms "pro-war" and "pro-troops" to mean the same, and therefore perpetuates the myth that to oppose this particular war is to not support our troops. Nothing could be further from the truth, and therefore it's unethical journalism. The vast majority of citizens opposed to this particular war are 100 percent supportive of the troops. There's even a group forming (Parents with Children in Iraq) that's opposed to this war.

Also, why isn't it being more widely reported that relatives of victims of the 9-11 disaster are bringing a class-action law suit against, not Iraq, but Saudi Arabia? Most of those terrorists were Saudi -- none Iraqi.

"Imbedded" journalists, if they're not controlled and maintain their journalistic integrity, are good. They can witness and report the atrocities of war, immediately as it happens.

I'm against this particular war, but, God speed our troops. Win the war quickly, with minimum casualties, and return home soon.

Gene Kivi
Rochester

Deplores word games

Fox news coverage of the attack on a U.S. base in Kuwait was bothersome to me. I have a son in Kuwait.

Headlines repeated that "terrorists" had attacked the camp. They hyped the story, saying it looked like an Iraqi "terrorist" group had snuck across the border to "terrorize" our soldiers. Normally, once you declare war on a country, and launch bombing attacks described by the Pentagon as a "21st century blitzkrieg," you wouldn't label the enemy army "terrorists" because they fight back. Unless you're waging a PR campaign.

Later news updates clarified that it wasn't "terrorists," but a U.S. soldier who launched an internal attack. In my vocabulary, if he is indeed guilty, that soldier fully lives up to the definition of "terrorist."

I can only assume Fox news doesn't believe any American could ever be a "terrorist," no matter how horrendous the crime.

Don't get me wrong. As the mother of one of those soldiers marching into Iraq, I fully support our troops and I love my country. But just as a mother can love her children without approving of or condoning everything they do, I'm becoming more and more ashamed of much of what the current administration is doing. And I deplore the word games the media seems to resort to in order to defend it!

Janet Krueger
Rochester

. . .

Janet Krueger is my mother. Gene Kivi is a friend of hers, and she helped him with part of his letter. Go mommy!

"God bless our troops when they are dodging bullets but God help them when they come home..."

I just got done playing my first ultimate frisbee game in a while. Man; I thought I was in shape, but I was huffing and puffing after just a few points.

On the bright side, I had a nice lay-out for a score on my first point in. It was a great way to start off with the new team -- everybody was all of a sudden all excited to have me on.

Brian's blog is so much prettier than mine, now that he changed up his template. He's got a kick-ass cheese graphic! Where's my cheese? And Zump's blog allows for user comments. I should really fix mine up sometime soon.

Brain prosthesis! Cool beans.

I love you, Lotte.

Apparently, although Lenny Kravitz is now voicing his opinion and has recorded the afore-mentioned antiwar song, he hasn't actually voted in years and years. Interesting link, Brian -- thanks. ;-)

Rock the Vote and Lenny Kravitz today announced a new song by Kravitz called "We Want Peace," which will be available exclusively at Rock the Vote's website. The song, which says, "There won't be peace if we don't try" is an urgent call from Lenny Kravitz for America to be a peaceful leader in the world. Kravitz wrote the song and performed it with Kazem Al Sahir, Iraq's #1 pop music artist, who is better known as the Iraqi Diplomatic Ambassador of the world and a true legend of Arabic Music. In addition, the song features Palestinian musician Simon Shaheen on strings and Lebanese artist Jamey Hadded on percussion.

Lenny Kravitz, teaming up with an Iraqi artist to create his own act of protest -- pretty cool. It causes me to have a bit more respect for the guy.

R.E.M, the Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow, Zach de la Rocha, and Greenday are also among those who have released anti-war songs. Good for them.

Because there are things I need to get done today, I spent much of my morning procrastinating and browsing the web. I like the NYTimes website, I've decided. It may be my favorite US news site at the moment.

NY Times articles of interest:

• More coverage of the US Supreme Court's Texas Sodomy Law case.


• Op-Ed: Casualties at Home. It's kind of scary what Congress is up to, and scary how it gets lost in the mass of war coverage.


• Another opinion piece on current Congressional activities...


• Washington Trying to Curb U.N. Role in a Postwar Iraq. Apparently, we're determined to continually snub the U.N. as best we can.

One more site that I was particularly impressed with:

• DigitalConsumer.org: Protecting fair-use rights in the digital world. These guys have got an impressive news section.

Today at the DMV, there was a group of people running surveys about travel on 520, gauging how we'd react if they were to make the 520 bridge into a toll bridge.

There was an age bracket question in the survey. I had to choose the 25-40 age bracket. I've moved up. Blah.

---

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That the citizens of the State of Washington do hereby proclaim that Tim Eyman is a Horse's Ass.

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They didn't ask me today whether or not I wanted to be an organ donor. I forgot to explicitly tell them so. Now I'm afraid it won't be marked on my licence -- ptooey.

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Texas Penal Code section 21.06, the "Homosexual Conduct Statute,"...criminalizes sexual acts between homosexuals, even if the acts are consensual. Texas is one of only four states to have such a law targeting homosexuals...

...The defendants then appealed to the US Supreme Court to have their convictions overturned and the law deemed unconstitutional...

...Oral arguments were heard on March 26, 2003, and a decision is expected by June. Initial reports suggest that the justices were split on the issue, with Rehnquist and Scalia in support of upholding the law, Souter and Breyer in support of overturning the law, with the position of the other five justices unclear.

The Texas Human Rights Foundation: Lawrence & Garner v. Texas

Side notes:

• As recently as 1960, every state had a sodomy law. In 37 states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts.


• Four states -- Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri -- ban "deviate sexual intercourse" just between same-sex couples. There are nine other states with sodomy laws on the books, but they apply to everyone, instead of being targeted solely at homosexuals.

Geez. I can't believe that, here we are in the 21st century, and the US Supreme Court vote on this issue could go either way. How can educated people be so closed-minded and intollerant?

I heard some of Rehnquist's and Scalia's oral arguments quoted on NPR today. Crazy. It scares me that these people have so much power over our freedoms and civil liberties.

---

TCPA - bad. Definitely not a fan.

I was telling my friend Chris the other day that my dog, on the rare occasion when he has an accident and dumps inside, will try to hide it. He'll cover it up with dirty clothes, papers, or whatever he can find.

Chris was amazed that a dog, whose world revolves around smell, would learn that sort of behavior. "Hiding" poo doesn't get rid of the smell -- to the dog, the presence of said poo is still quite obvious. The only reason to hide the poo is to confuse silly humans, who have a less acute sense of smell.

I was kind of amazed, too, once I thought about things in that light. My dog is so smart.

I'm now the proud owner of a WA State Driver's Licence. I ended up getting 100% on the test, which made me feel silly for having worried about it.

Happy birthday me.

Technically, I guess I'm not 25 for another 16 hours yet. But it's close enough.

The crew at Mike and Jared's place gave me a cake, lots of presents, and lots of wonderful cards tonight. I feel so loved. I'm sad that Kirsten and Kristen are moving to NYC this summer, that Tiff is moving to NV this fall, and that Mike and Jared are moving to AZ sometime next year. They're a wonderful group of people; I'll really miss them all.

Bummer.

Sigh.

On a semi-related note, I realized today that my driver's licence expires tomorrow. Gotta do something about that.

Another war, another burst of national idiocy

Depressed about all the hoopola going on right now with the Dixie Chicks (whatever happened to free speech?), I browsed around and finally on the above article. Good stuff. It echoes some of my sentiments, anyhow.

Here are a few bits from posts in my swing dance forum that got me thinking:

What are you going to study in grad school?

Do you hate your job because of the specific tasks you need to perform, or is it more the idea behind what you are doing (i.e., nobody reads it anyway and it's at grade school level; not an effective use of your training to be a writer)?

When I feel unmotivated to do the excruciatingly boring parts of my job (grading papers often comes to mind), I set mini-goals for myself and reward myself afterward. I also find that procrastinating until the very last minute creates enough tension to keep things interesting. :) With that extra fire under my butt, I am amazingly efficient.

...

If you are at the end of your procrastination rope and are inundated with projects, that may be also leading to lack of interest in your job, 'cause it's overwhelming right now.

Can you organize each project into stacks (or folders, if they are online) and stack the most pressing one on top and just start muscling through (with lots of treats standing by for each time you complete one)? That's what I try to do with my ocean of work (which you will note I am not doing right now). If the most pressing project is too overwhelming, I sometimes start with the easiest ones in order to just get some feeling of accomplishment going (checking things off the checklist feels good).

...

Anne

This is good stuff for me to keep in mind when I go back to work or school, and even now on a daily basis. I really suck at breaking things down. I'm not great at motivating myself.

Blah.

I was away this weekend. While I was gone, three men forced their way into an apartment here and robbed the owners at gunpoint. There was a rash of car break-ins. Several cars were stolen. The plates off of some cars were stolen and replaced with other stolen plates.

Crazy.

Happily, my car was sitting in Capitol Hill. Not the best place for a car, necessarily, but apparently much better these past few days than the lot at my apartment complex.