Blog: Archive for February, 2004

Much ado.

M and I are looking for a house. Alas, houses are few and far between in this area, and tend to be snapped up very quickly. They're also obscenely priced—for what you'd pay here you could get four or five of the same where I grew up (and probably nicer, to boot).

Meanwhile, After talking about Black history, we had ourselves a genuine incident right where we work. Seems some young sports participants (from three of the colleges) thought it would be fun to dispose of some trash they'd found (stolen) that happened to be in the form of a fabric-wrapped, 11' x 7' cross. By burning it.

No one was around to see the fire itself (as most students were still away on break), but they left the scorched remains standing in a dorm courtyard where they were discovered the next day by staff, who freaked. The college went into cover-up mode, but when rumors started floating around, the administration decided to have a campus-wide discussion about the incident.

Stupidity and ignorance are hardly excuses, but they appear to be the main defense being offered by the students. Meanwhile, some of the colleges are marching in protest against the racist incident. Yeesh.

Article and student commentary.

I've relicensed the site under a Creative Commons license. Not that I had people clamoring to borrow my content, or evil folk stealing it left and right, but it's the right thing to do.

Crazy Junk Mail: Spam is one thing, but wacky paper mail is another. Yesterday I received a very plain business envelope, which I expected to be yet another in the endless series of “Dear Friend” letters I've been receiving since (a) registering as a Democrat and (b) giving the ACLU money. But no, this one started out with a more personal note:

My dear Claire Connelly,

And went on to say

Your astral configuration combined with your financial and family situation means that an event of great importance will occur in your life in the next three weeks.

It then goes on for seven pages of fake typewriter text. Yup, it's a letter from a “psychic” “White Magic” practitioner offering me an exclusive opportunity to have my greatest wish come true, for only $10 now and “an amount to be decided by myself based on the unexpected amounts of money that I receive” in three months. (Apparently all wishes involve large sums of cash.)

I guess that's what I get for buying Tarot cards. Still, it's more fun than the average “Dear Friend” letter....

So Howard Dean pissed me off totally by quitting. Meaning that we're pretty much stuck with Kerry, who never impressed me before, and doesn't impress me now. The Democrats prove once again that they're happy to choose a mediocre candidate over someone with passion and ideas, leaving those of us less than happy with the current administration to roll up our sleeves, pinch our noses, and plunge our arms into the bucket of scum to vote against the Republicans.

Or not. I've pretty much had it with the Democrats—they don't stand for what I believe in, and it's awfully difficult to tell the difference between them and the Republicans. If you squint, the differences are almost nonexistent. And, of course, some “Democrats”, like Joe Lieberman, really are Republicans who just won't admit it.

I've been voting for Greens for the last couple of years, and I guess I'll keep doing that. Too bad the Democrats refuse to learn any lessons from their losses in recent elections. And how scary for all of us that four years of Bush wasn't enough to help them grow spines, either.