Fiat Lux

With a quiz and a paper due today, and a test tomorrow, I don't have much time to enjoy it though.

I hate accounting.

Yes, I recognize that it is the language of business and is extremely important. But I don't care. I hate it. I hate having to memorize all of the arcane terminology. I hate trying to remember when to apply the contra asset account and why you debit the cash account when you're acutally adding to it.

And of course, I have a quiz on the subject tonight, so I'm currently trying to get some of the above to stick in my thick skull.

Bleh.

Got a jury duty summons today. And oh how convenient -- it's scheduled to start the Monday of my Spring Break. So much for either resting up and/or working some extra shifts that week.

Another weekend day, another early morning shift. I came home around noon to a beautiful surprise -- Spring has snuck into San Francisco when I wasn't looking. It's sunny, there's a hint of warmth in the air, the tang of the sea is noticable, and the fog hasn't set in -- a perfect day. I got off MUNI a few blocks before my stop, it was such nice walking weather, and enjoyed it all. Living all the way out by the beach is often inconvenient, but today is the kind of day that makes it worthwhile.

I showered off the smell of coffee when I got home and sat down to realize that I either need to trim my blogroll or be more consistant about reading it, because the pileup of posts waiting for me on Bloglines is way too much to work through. It makes me feel frustrated; there's so many good bloggers out there, with so much to say, and I'm too tired to keep up with it all, much less try to find something interesting, original, and throughtful to say here on my own blog.

There's a lot of terrible things going on in the world. I know I ought to be saying and/or doing more about some of them. But today, I just want to enjoy the spring air and spend some quality time with Scott and the kitties.

I was going to blog about this yesterday but I didn't want to follow that upbeat post with something gloomy quite so quickly. Nathan Newman's Labor Blog raises a host of disturbing points about the one-step-forward-two-steps-back Santorum minimum wage bill currently in Congress.

Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum is leading the charge for a GOP bill that would ostensibly raise the minimum wage by $1.10 per hour, but in reality would cut wages for millions of American workers and expand unregulated sweatshops across the country.

As a minimum wage employee myself, I have some strong opinions about how fucked-up the minimum wage laws are. I see up-close and personal exactly how difficult it is for people to make ends meet even on San Francisco's generous $8.62/hr minimum wage.

In short, it's hard as hell to make ends meet when you work for the minimum wage. One of my co-workers has 6 roommates. Another lives in a neighborhood so bad that she's arranged to have her roommate meet her at the store to walk her home after dark. Another shares a one-room efficiency with his wife. That doesn't sound so bad, but in about 2 months' time they'll add a baby into that one room. He has been apartment hunting, but says they simply can't find something bigger that they can afford. Still another co-worker, a father with two young daughters, works 2 jobs and tells me that on a good night he gets 5 hours of sleep. Some of my colleagues are trying to go to school while they work but that presents its own set of challenges: the more classes you take, the less hours you can work, but the fewer classes you take, the longer it takes before you'll finish your degree.

I could go on but I'm getting too depressed. I know I'm lucky because I have a husband with a decent job and thus am not relying on my minimum-wage plus tips income to the same extent that the rest of my co-workers do. That could change at any time, of course. If the last several years have taught me nothing, they've taught me to not make any assumptions about the permamance of any job. Every day Scott and I still have our jobs, it feels like a small victory.

And in related depressing news, the LA Times has put their entire series of articles about why American families are so screwed into a non-registration required special section. It's also worth a read.

Gimli is almost a year old now. We rarely use his "full" name -- more often than not we call him either Gimi or Gimlet. Something similar happened with Tina (she was originally named Christine) so I'm not too surprised it has happened again.

Here he is, camped out on top of my stuff while I'm trying to do homework at my "second desk", aka the dining room table. I have way too many books and papers to try to get school stuff done on my 'real' desk.

Daniel Muntz takes a long time to get there, but he makes a really good point over at Ezra Klein's blog today.

In short:

It's not about whether we should be choosing big versus small government. It's about good government versus bad government.

And by that, I mean we should not be fixated on things like how many governemnt agencies there are, or whether Cato thinks we're doing a good job. Rather, we should consider whether the government is helping American citizens. If so, then it should keep on doing what it's doing. If not, then it's time for change.

Good stuff. I hope the meme spreads.

Remember not too long ago, I was ranting about a proposal to tax grocery bags 17 cents each to fund waste management in SF? Well, someone went that one better in Florida:

Florida's Legislature is flush with good ideas. Sen. Al Lawson's involves a 2 cent-per-roll tax on toilet paper to pay for wastewater treatment and help small towns upgrade their sewer systems.

It's actually a fairly clever idea. But not very likely to (ahem) pass.

I was tempted to start out this post with a string of curse words aimed at Justice Antonin Scalia this morning. I really don't want this blog finding its way into any nanny filters, so I'll skip the profanity and go to the causes thereof:

Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down the juvenile death penalty, calling it the latest example of politics on the court

and

In a 35-minute speech Monday, Scalia said unelected judges have no place deciding issues such as abortion and the death penalty. The court's 5-4 ruling March 1 to outlaw the juvenile death penalty based on "evolving notions of decency" was simply a mask for the personal policy preferences of the five-member majority, he said.

Why is it that people are perfectly willing to point to other people's personal feelings when they disagree with them, yet remain oblivious to the fact that they too are motivated by feelings? Obviously this is a subject the esteemed Justice feels strongly about, so much so that he's gone to the trouble of making a speech about it. I think it is fair to assume he actually has feelings on the subject. Why is it OK for him to be motivated by his feelings but not other people?

And what exactly is wrong with using an "evolving standard of decency" as part of the decision-making process, anyway? As much as Scalia would like to pretend that this is still the 1700s, times have changed since the Constitution was written. It was an evolving standard of decency which removed the odious practice of counting blacks as 3/5ths of a person, for example. It was an evolving standard of dececy which gave women the right to vote. True, it was also an evolving standard of decency which kicked off Prohibition, but that mistake was pretty quickly rectified.

In short, I think Scalia is full of crap.

I was too young during the Vietnam War to understand who Robert McNamara was. I've learned more about him over the past several years (with a little help from The Fog of War and a few other good sources on Vietnam).

But nominating Wolfowitz to head the World Bank? It's an insult to the World Bank and the world community. In other words, just what you would expect from BushCo.

Emboldened by his success as a paperweight for my school stuff, Gimli is now trying to cuddle up to my laptop.

I was rushing to get the shot, so it's not in perfect focus, but still worth sharing.

I've been trying to come to grips with my apathy lately. I found "trueblue illinois" over at dKos who said some things I really wish I had said, related to the cognitive dissonance it is to be an American these days. Here it is:

I've heard modern conservatism described as a "philosophy" of "Got mine. Get yours." It seems to be a mindset of radical self-interest. What is strange to me is how many people have jumped on that bandwagon. Or is that just how the election results were portrayed?

When Americans look into the mirror, they like to see the NYC firefighters of 9/11; the liberators of post WW II Europe; a generous people who open their wallets and hearts to people in need. I know that most of us are that, deep down.

But under the GOP, our image is increasingly that of an unapologetic Scrooge. There's a cravenness, a selfishness, an aggressiveness that just does not jibe with the way most people in this nation see themselves. Of all the people I know personally, of any political stripe, not one person would fit that definition. And yet that is what we as a nation are projecting.

It seems like it will take some huge shock, some giant international snub, for people to wake up and realize that the image in the mirror does not reflect who they are. One would have thought that 9/11 would have served that purpose. It could have. But Bush & Co. played on our fears and encouraged the worst aspects of our natures to come out. They've leveraged that to radically change the nature of our laws and our society into something most of us with any perspective would not recognize as "American."

At some point, the cognitive dissonance will have to kick in. When the scales fall from our eyes, we as a nation are in for the sort of anguished soul-searching that gripped Germany after WW II.

I have, in fact, met a few American who really are as aggressively selfish as the commenter describes above. And I'm sure many of the BushCo folks are that way as well. But overall she's got a point.

I worry what it will take for the rest of the country to wake up. How bad does it have to get?

In a way, I think I have kicked into my own selfishness mode. There are so many outrages going on in our country that I could literally spend all day every day doing nothing but trying to stay on top of all the bad things that are going on, much less trying to react to all of them. I can't do it. I can't be that person, constantly outraged, constantly active in the struggle. There's just so much to fight against I can't even decide where to start anymore.

And yes, I know, this is one of the ways "they" can win. We don't all have to be thrown into jail or leave the country. We just need to give up and stop caring.

15, or even 10 years ago, I might have done things differently. But I'm older, and sadder, and just plain tired. If America is screwed, at least I can have time with the people (and pets) most important to me as we all go down the tubes together. It's less aggressively selfish, but still a selfish decision I've made. So maybe trueblue illinois is more right than she knows.

It's virtually impossible to avoid the whole Schiavo mess right now. I'm with Brad Plumer:

Ugh, very much not interested in reading about the Schiavo case right now. It's "important", I know, and it's the big news of the moment, but… holy f***. This crap is completely debilitating, and at least now I know that when the apocalypse comes, via GOP diktat, I'll be here, slumped helplessly on my couch, rubbing my eyes in sheer defeat, unable to think of a single goddamn thing to say.

My favorite chocolate is actually good for you:

Investigators from the University of L'Aquila in Italy found that after eating only 100 grams, or 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate every day for 15 days, 15 healthy people had lower blood pressures and were more sensitive to insulin, an important factor in metabolizing sugar.

UPDATE: If I'd known Kevin Drum was going to link to this post, I'd have put some more thought into it and maybe even a few actual insights. So it goes. Welcome, all you visitors from Political Animal!

Brad Plumer has some policy-wonk posts up today about health care reform. Although this isn't a front burner issue for me most of the time, it got me thinking.

I'm generally supportive of converting America to a single-payer health care system like what most European countries and Canada have. And then it hit me -- what if my wish came true?

Would I trust my government to make decisions about things like who gets access to prescription birth control devices? Not if a Republican were in the White House. Given the SCOTUS precedent of Griswold v CT, I'm fairly sure they couldn't eliminate birth control entirely, but they could include things like 'conscience clause' that would allow doctors to not write prescriptions for birth control pills if they chose not to. As we've already seen with abortion services, if nobody chooses to provide something, you have an effective ban on service even if it is still legal.

That's a really scary scenario, and one that is making me rethink whether I support single-payer health care after all. Just one more thing to blame on the right wing nut jobs trying to run this country.

Been listening to a lot of random plays this week. Here's the current Next 10:

Letter Song - The Secret Garden
American Tune - Simon & Garfunkel, The Concert in Central Park
Pastoral Symphony - George Frideric Handel, Messiah
Love Me Tender - Amy Grant
Pump up the Jam - Technotronic
The Lion Sleeps Tonight - They Might Be Giants
Philadelphia Freedom - Elton John
Book Of Days - Enya
Fate & Finale, Act I - Kismet
Koyaanisqatsi - Philip Glass

One of the benefits to growing up in New York City -- I was actually at the above-mentioned concert in Central Park, with a bunch of friends from high school. We ate fried chicken and generally had a great time. My biggest regret was that I didn't have $15 on me to buy a concert t-shirt; for years afterward I stared with envy at the friend who did get the t-shirt every time he wore it.

Sorry for the lack of new posts. I have a midterm Tuesday and another one Wednesday.

I'm supposed to be studying for my Accounting midterm, but this song just cycled through my iMix and I just had to say it:

The Dave Matthews Band song "Grey Street" is a really good song. But it would be even better if Peter Gabriel covered it.

Midterms are over; time to focus on everything else that's been piling up. Like renewing my now-expired passport. The application has been sitting on my desk for months, but I really need to get off my butt & do it before I get RFID'ed.

I've posted previously on the problems with putting RFID chips into passports. As this recent article notes, DHS is "dealing" with the problem not by looking for a better solution, but by engaging in an Orwellian re-naming of the technology involved.

Conspiracy theorists and civil libertarians, fear not. The U.S. government will not use radio-frequency identification tags in the passports it issues to millions of Americans in the coming years.

Instead, the government will use "contactless chips."

The distinction is part of an effort by the Department of Homeland Security and one of its RFID suppliers, Philips Semiconductors, to brand RFID tags in identification documents as "proximity chips," "contactless chips" or "contactless integrated circuits" -- anything but "RFID."

The Homeland Security Department is playing word games to dodge the privacy debate raging over RFID tags.

So very typical of this administration.

But still, better than nothing I suppose.

U.S. intelligence on Iraq was "dead wrong," dealing a blow to American credibility that will take years to undo, and spymasters still know disturbingly little about nuclear programs in countries like Iran and North Korea, a presidential commission reported on Thursday.

The commission's bluntly written report, based on more than a year of investigations, offered a damning assessment of the intelligence that President Bush used to launch the Iraq war two years ago and warned that flaws are still all too common throughout spy agencies.

"We conclude that the intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its prewar judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," the commissioners wrote.