a remembered review

This little vignette came flush into my head while I was rereading an entry from last year that detailed my created superhero, Door Man. (I only reread entries when the sitemeter shows me that someone ended up googling a strange combination of words that led to some entry from long ago. I'm always interested in which entry busted down the door.) A few weeks ago I was heading back home from D.C. on the Orange Line (probably after a hockey game) and as the train pulled into East Falls Church the crowd readied for the mass departure. A few "excuse me's", light shoving, bag banging, and newspaper leaving behind, and everyone was safely onto the platfrom and heading off to their own cocoons. But then....just as the door closing ding-ding is heard, it is mirrored by calls coming from the distant innards of the seats - "Oh my! Someone left their Blackberry! It's hers, it's hers!" (the crowd is pointing feverishly through the window at Blackberry Lady; innocently walking toward the stairs.) The younger man at the door turns just in time to see the Blackberry flying through the air as the doors start to close behind him. With decisive action, he catches the Blackberry with his right hand and jams his left arm through the closing door. In the slow motion action that followed, he turned to the five inches of open door that was trying to eat his arm, yelled out "Hey lady! Your Blackberry!", crossed his right hand to the opening, and pitched/slid her device across the surface of the East Falls Church platform. To cheers from the commuter crowd he extracted his appendage and raised his arms in victory. Victory indeed!

What little Christmas shopping to be done will be done tonight. I venture out in hope that my return is assured.

Maybe you'll get more later, maybe not. I did find a Jolie Holland video that I'll add when I get home.

t

stay on target. stay on target

One area of neglect from my last post was the freaky nature of our timing during the Buffalo-to-D.C. return leg. We left the sleeping castle at 7am for an 8:30 Southwest flight – call us crazy (and horribly sleepy). After stopping to fill up the car and grab coffee we headed down the 198, over to the 33, and into the Buffalo-Niagara International Aerodrome. We pulled into the Hertz return area at 7:30, got the car checked in, walked to the Southwest desk to print our passes and drop-off luggage, moved through security, and were standing happily at our gate at precisely 7:41. New record.

When we arrived at BWI we had a planned 40-minute buffer to get from the plane, through baggage, onto a shuttle bus, and over to the MARC station in order to catch the train back into D.C. Since I’d made this run before I knew that neither the shuttles (every 10 minutes) nor the train would present a problem – baggage could have been the weak link. As we came through the glass doors and into the claim area we noted that our flight was unloading junk at the first merry-go-round claim about ten feet to our left. There were only a few folks milling about, and the metal-magic claim wheel is rotating clockwise as we approached from the 4 o’clock position. Without breaking stride, I attack the claim as our single bag rotates through 12 o’clock, 1 o’clock, about 2:30, and directly into my moving target of a hand. It was a thing of beauty. Our inertia took us out the door and deposited us at the MARC shuttle stop a few feet down the sidewalk. After a short wait we hopped aboard the big red bus and minutes later disembark at the train station. I peer at my watch as we walk to our track and notice it’s 10:05am. You might wonder when our train was due in, wouldn’t you? How does 10:13am sound? Shazam!

Everyone gets a two-fer today. First up are Gillian Welch and David Rawlings doing Revelator from the 2001 album Time. After that, if you’re still interested, is a solo acoustic version of The Picture by Jay Farrar.

push and pull

I remember reading about train stuffers in Japan; here they are.



I’m torn because I often think it’d be a great idea (I may even beg) to have pushers at the busiest DC Metro stations – primarily to stop tourists and lunatics from impeding my progress – but if it’s really this crowded then I think I’ll just back off. I guess you won’t be reading your newspaper on this line.

I got an e-mail from a friend who I knew well from my time in England and elsewhere. He was long ago been dubbed “Euro” by our good friend and has stayed to true to an idea he told me about years ago. I think he planned much better than I for his first foray after retirement:

"Hey man...I'm retired as well, as of 1 January. I'm married, living
in Omaha with my wife who is still in [the Air Force] for another 2 years. I'm in Cork, Ireland at week 5 of a 12-week cookery course...Ballymaloe Cookery School. I've decided to become a cook and work my way towards being a Head Chef, concentrating on local/seasonal products, etc...yeah, much different life than the one I left. What are you up to in D.C.? Well, I'm off to do some filing and ordering of work for tomorrow morning's cooking...take good care, Bryce."

Son of a bitch. He’s just the kind of character to pull this stunt on me, “Hey look, cooking school.” I’ve already looked my GI Bill to see if they’ll pay tuition – I’ll save for three years and maybe in the Summer of 2011 give it a go.

T.

ride a wave

To start, send out good wishes to little Ms. X who is right now, as I type, taking her last-ever Law School exam.

I should be better at putting together evidence when it’s sitting right before me. My story is this; with the move completed I’ve gathered a new mass transit lineup that includes buses, Metro, and some walking on either end. What I realized this morning while standing at the 401 bus stop shelter at Dunn Loring (something I won’t be doing so much of in the future) was that the reason for crowded buses over the last few months probably has something to do with gas prices. In my time at the club I’ve noted the usual number of commuters and those that come-and-go over weeks and months: folks with broken vehicles, new residents to the area, and those that mysteriously show for only a day or two and disappear - they’re a strange lot. Basically, my scheduled bus carries the same crew of malcontents on a daily basis. There are always days where some of the crew is AWOL but they’re usually back after a few days on the run. Over the last month there’ve been a lot of interlopers on both the AM and PM buses and, quite frankly, the space is getting more limited. While listening to the a debate on the gas tax holiday on the iPod this morning I finally realized that this surge in ridership isn’t purely based on cycles or weather – it’s gas prices. My analytical training sometimes takes a little longer to kick in when I’m listening to podcasts or rock n’ roll. I’m a genius. That’s the word from the man on the street.

Christopher Hitchens has another interesting commentary on the Obamas and Rev. Wright. The paragraph that struck me most was the following and I found it a bit too broad in assuming what happened at the time of the immediately before and after the Philadelphia speech.

“Nettled at last by the way in which this has upset his campaign, Sen. Obama last week cut the ties that bound him to his crackpot mentor. Well, high time. But those who profess relief at this should perhaps revisit what they thought (and wrote) about the earlier Philadelphia speech in which Obama was held to have achieved the same result with less trouble. If he was right last week, then the Philly speech was a failure on every level, and if it was a failure on every level, and thus left Obama hideously vulnerable to the very next speech made by his foaming pastor, then that must raise questions of eligibility for the highest office.”

I don’t think it’s a matter of whether the Philly speech completed the circle; I think Obama’s position as it related to both his reverend and race relations was spot on. What it represented was his interpretation of the issues that rage across race lines in our country and how those can be woven from some of the more inflammatory language of Rev. Wright. I didn’t see him supporting Wright’s assertions as made nor fully distancing himself from the narrative that led to Wright’s commentaries. The idea that certain words must be uttered by a candidate in order to make something go away is a horribly shallow desire by the public and press. It’s a no-win scenario for Obama yet what he’s done is to try to move through it in a manner that’s much more human than most expect from politicos. If he’d simply stated two months ago that Wright was “crackpot” and then chucked him on the slag heap he would have be blasted for simply brushing the bad news under the carpet and denying further explanation of his actions. He didn’t do that and now he’s still dealing with the fallout. What this shouldn’t be is an endless process that just resets and begins anew. Wright has decided to continue down his path of rage and Obama has now taken the final step and extinguished any hope of diplomacy between the two. His words and actions last week didn’t refute any of the injustice felt by African Americans but merely closed the door on someone he may have thought could change, or refocus, his anger. It was a decision necessitated by Wright, not Obama. What Hitchens does here is follow his tendency to latch onto a single thread and hold it incessantly without sometimes seeing the nuisance; the war and Obama’s reverend being two examples. He was for the war and against the reverend from the get-go and what generally follows are snippets that run support for either pillar on which he stands. There are some valid points and targets within the Hitchens commentary but I happen to think he’s reaching when attempting to sort some kind of math that aligns the Philly speech and what happened last week.

That’s my political pennies for the week. I’m hoping that today’s primaries bring us a little closer to the end of the Democratic nomination process. I can almost comprehend the frustration on both sides of the Democratic fight. I cannot possibly understand polls that say that up to 54% of Dems would either vote Republican or not vote at all if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination. I’m starting to believe they are the real problem in the party – petty, selfless, and mindless voters.

Hey to all.

T

stop now if you don't want my angst; transition

I almost let this one go but the news today from Southwest Airlines reinforces what X calls my moral judgment.

I’m going to edit the profanity that was laced throughout the initial entry; here’s what we get from yesterday.

It’s called public transit for a reason, seriously. A few things that came up today on my usual northern Virginia / greater D.C. commute. The 401 was crowded this morning, lots of folks standing, yet we had some guy that I’ve dubbed Larry sitting in the outside seat of a two-seat bench. The window seat’s empty and Larry isn’t some guy going 399lbs. who needs two seats – Larry is a hateful person. Larry has direct descendants on Southwest flights: it’s always that couple sitting in the aisle and window seats during the boarding zone A cattle call. Even if you’re part of the A or B boarding they’ll sit there pretending they don’t know each other; as if two emptied-eyed, baseball cap wearing hucks from Kansas City simply ended up, by chance, in the same row. I hate them. Back to Larry. Larry apparently has a divine right to two seats even if some other rider doesn’t feel the need to tell him to either move over or stand up. You know what Larry? Even if you have two seats you’ve got a hundred people who think you’re an ass…and they think you suck. You can go through your simple life thinking you’ve pulled some kind of amazing feat…it’s a fine line between feat and jackassery.

Riding the Orange Line home this afternoon I noticed Larry’s cousin all laid back in my car. He had his headphones on while he kicked back and stretched his feet out on the elderly/handicapped seats in front of him. It doesn’t matter so much that the seats are reserved for anyone, it’s more a configuration I’m describing, but why is it that anyone thinks putting their crappy, stinky shoes up on a seat is okay? Why? If you want to rest your feet on your mother’s couch while you watch Dancing with the Stars, feel free. If you are somewhere that ain’t kin…knock it off. I can see Larry and his cousin, Larry, arguing over the last Miller Lite.

The city is full of doors that are triggered by pads that automatically open the door(s) for handicapped people. (I can’t get much deeper into peeves so I might as well continue.) If you aren’t handicapped, but simply too lazy to actually open a door, then stop with the auto-door function. Those things have a useful life and you’re burning up gears, oil, and maintenance time through your ease. Since I’m on this idea…if I’m ahead of you and between the auto-doors do not activate the doors from behind me and pitch the next door into me as I reach to open it. Look! I’m opening an effing door.

And finally, if someone is running for the train and you’ve decided that you can’t make it, or don’t care to make it, get out of the way. Even with the iPod playing you know full well there are people running for every Metro train in D.C. Without the iPod…you can hear them running. Move out of the way – it ain’t your world.

I quit.

That was a huge whine.

T.

a tale to grab

Here’s a little morality test in two parts that I pawned off on the WonderTwins while walking to the Metro this morning - they nattered about it away all the way to the station...monkeys. I heard it while listening to This American Life on the pod while commuting home yesterday. This portion of the show was actually borrowed from another NPR program called RadioLab. Anyway…

The only information you get is what you get; don’t ask any more questions.

1. You’re approaching a railroad track and see five railway workers working on said track. A train is approaching, they can’t hear it, can’t see it, and won’t react to its approach. You can’t yell or otherwise signal the workers. When the train gets to them it will run them down and kill all five. You also see that there's a lever that will switch the train to another track prior to running down the five workers. You notice that this other track has only one worker on it and he can neither hear nor see the train; he won’t move. Same same. Would you pull the lever or not?

2. Same setup to start with: five workers on the track, train coming, etc., except there isn’t another track, a switch, or the solo worker. This time you are standing on an overpass above the track with another person, a largish person. In order to stop the train you could maybe, possibly, just give old Big Bones a nudge off the overpass. He hits the track, gets flattened, and stops the train from moving on and hitting the five workers down the track. Would you push him?

Based on the segment these questions have been posed to hundreds of thousands of random people and the findings are eerie. For the first question nearly 90% say they would pull the lever and kill one in order to save five. For the second question, nearly 90% wouldn’t push anyone in order to save the five. I think X decided that fate was fate and she wouldn’t pull the lever in the first and clearly wouldn’t push in the second. I’m not so sure about Kt. She wanted to know things like how old were they, was her little boy Q. one of the workers, do they have children, are they cute, what’s the weather like, why can’t she scream at all of them, could she send a little dog over to warn them, how many people are on the train, did I have something for her to eat, and on and on. I don’t think she would make a timely decision in either case – five die in one, five die in the other.

There was a neuro-scientist/philosopher who took on the premise behind the answers by scanning brains just as people were posed the question and answered. For the first problem there were all types of synapses as the brain quickly processed the choice; the brain clearly believing there was a choice. For the second, the brain barely fired at all; it wasn’t actually a choice if it involved pushing someone, at least as far as the brain was concerned. His opinion is that our morality may not be based on what mom and dad told us, and probably aren’t as refined as we think. He puts forth the idea that maybe we learn the ethics and codes from our animal side and that the act of ‘pushing’ someone into harm’s way is something that no one, even an animal, would contemplate. X pooh-poohed that whole idea...she does that sometimes.

Have a mind stretch.

T