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September 2005

Shut Up, Miles

The armchair quarterbacking on CNN’s coverage of the nightmare in New Orleans is getting to be a bit much…

It’s apparent that there have been significant planning and communication breakdowns and that the government response has been somewhat less than adequate, and I have no problem with the focus on victims who have some very pointed comments on the subject. These people are newsworthy and I care what they have to say…

However, this is neither the time nor the place for the sort of verbal abuse that CNN’s own reporters are heaping upon every politician they interview. It’s unprofessional and inappropriate; these people frankly have enough to do right now without having to subject themselves to constant browbeating and derision from reporters who seem to have missed neither meals nor hair care opportunities this week…

The first interviewee, regardless of party, who has the balls to tell Miles O’Brien to “shut the fuck up and let me finish my sentence” — or even better, who merely stops talking entirely or just walks away — gets a big campaign donation from me…

Sleep

I’d always heard that people need less sleep as they get older. I don’t find that to be the case for me. When I was 25 or so, I could function just fine on five or six hours sleep, although not for days at a time. I could even do so hung over, although it might have been a little less comfortable…

Nowadays, I feel like crap if I don’t get enough sleep. And “enough” means at least seven hours. And it’s not even a case of my aging body revolting against various abuses, since I don’t even drink or smoke anymore…

But the really sucky thing is that it’s also harder for me to GET that required sleep these days, since I can’t seem to keep my eyes closed past seven or eight in the morning anymore…

Yawn…

Career Fair

Just got home from the Charlotte Observer Cattle Call Career Fair downtown. For those of you who have never attended one of these shindigs, it’s an event where several thousand unemployed people wait in a long line to get into a big room where they then wait in multiple smaller lines so that prospective employers can tell them they need to apply online rather than there in person…

Which, of course, may make you wonder why thousands of people show up at these things when they could just as easily have stayed home in front of their computers rather than putting on suits and ties and paying two bucks for parking. Me too…

I did, however, land an interview with a pimp temp agency next week…

Shelby, Pictures, Etc.

My first (rather small) set of Charlotte photos is now online, should you be interested in seeing them…

I took one of my patented very long drives today and wound up in Shelby, after also passing through King’s Mountain and a fair chunk of Gaston County. I always liked the sort of dowdy mill towns around Gastonia when I lived here before, and I still do. While big cities in the south often look somewhat smaller and less urban than their counterparts in California, I’ve always found it interesting that the small towns read much bigger and more dense than similarly-sized towns in California. I’m not entirely sure why this is, but I’m guessing it has a lot to do with the fact that many small towns in North Carolina are somewhat more industrial than agricultural in character…

Shelby is nice. I hadn’t been there since about 1988, and it was nice to give it a more thorough once-over this time around. I have also developed a slight obsession with the broccoli casserole at Jackson’s Cafeteria (three inconvenient locations to serve you: Gastonia, Rock Hill, and Shelby) and I was able to have it for dinner again tonight…

I may have more musings later about small towns, cafeteria ladies, white teenagers, and other things. Right now, I’m gonna watch some TV, take a shower, and go to bed without my favorite cuddle toy again…

Sigh…

Ballot Initiatives

A lot of people who have never lived in California don’t quite understand the system of ballot initiatives used there, not to mention in numerous other western states. An important aspect of this system is the provision that laws passed through inititiatives (e.g. Proposition 22) cannot be rescinded by legislative action, and may be repealed only through a subsequent ballot initiative or a judicial ruling…

Thus, the Governator — of whom I am most decidedly not a fan — was absolutely correct in his assertion that the recent marriage bill passed in California is unconstitutional. ANY legislative action which would overturn a ballot initiative is, by definition, unconstitutional in California, even though the original initiative itself may ALSO be unconstitutional. It was not an arbitrary decision in this case, although it may seem ironic to some to have a conservative argue that “juducial activism” IS one of the only appropriate paths to same-sex marriage…

Granted, he might have pursued other alternatives, but his basic (stated) premise was sound. However, the courts have yet to rule on whether Proposition 22 itself is unconstitutional. I believe they will find that it is, which is the only way it will be legally overturned anytime soon…

Sorry. I’m as big a proponent of same-sex marriage as anyone, but it annoys me (and does “the cause” no good whatsoever) when uninformed people start making invalid and irrelevlant arguments about a process they don’t understand…