Soul-Devouring Worry
¤ She's just being nice.

Life's Too Short For:
¤ Sleeping.

Curse of the Day:
¤ May your hours dwindle mysteriously.

So the back was hurting since I woke up, right on the spine, down low, just above the tail bone.  Feels compressed, like I fell on it yesterday, which I did not.  Stretching forwards relieves it, and I don't feel it standing up, just sitting. This obviously interferes with my sitting here and typing.

I've had the last Stephen King novel, From a Buick 8,  for a few days from the library, but hadn't had any desire to dig into it.  However Tuesday evening I felt like a back might help my bath, or possibly vice versa, so go the book and hopped into the tub and started reading.  And I read the whole thing.  In the tub.  One go.  Had to turn on hot water several times to heat it up again, and most of the time I had the water pretty shallow and all of my body but my back out of it, and sweat running down my face, trying to relax the muscles.  And my back felt find in the tub, since there wasn't weight compressing on my lower spine. But now that I'm back out it's hurting again.

Anyway, I got into the tub around 8 or 9 I believe, and was in there until almost midnight.  350 page book.  I was going to write a review/discussion today, but after I got out of the tub I finished the feedback for my last d2 column, worked a bit on the new one for Wednesday, and then got to chatting with Malaya (who will be home from overseas in just a few days, and possibly able to have me fly in for a visit sometime in March, which would be pretty interesting.) and bang, here it is coming up on 6am, and I'm about 2 hours past the bedtime I've been keeping lately. And since I've only been getting 5 or 6 hours of sleep, tops, I'm tired.

Plus I just had a quesadilla, which was the first food I'd had all day since a bowl of veggie soup about 14 hours ago, so while that's given me some blood sugar and energy, it's not helped my slightly dizzy and headachy head, or my concentration.  Which is why the first couple of paragraphs of this update probably sound very scattered, and why these here aren't all that much better.

So anyway, From a Buick 8 review tomorrow, and since I'm too tired now to do much more, I'll just quote from an email and my reply earlier today, and then paste in a few news items below.

This mail came from Tom, as a follow up to a question he asked in the past, one that I answered on the blog.  I missed his question in the "PS" though.

In my last email to you I expressed relief that you had the respect for the military that I hoped you did. I also included a question in the postscript. you never answered it, so I am left to wonder if you just got busy chatting with Malaya, you thought the question sucked or you were offended by it (though I am relatively sure that it is impossible to offend you). At any rate, I shall repeat my question: what was your major when you attended college? my prediction is philosophy but I shall wait and see.

Thanks for your time.

Here's my answer to him, from email, with a few small changes.  I wrote it Tuesday evening, when I was a lot more coherent than I am now so in theory it should be etc etc... (too tired to type)

I remember your philosophy question now. I took a couple of classes in philosophy and enjoyed it, but not enough to really adopt the thinking of any philosopher, and don't remember much of it, other than a few of the big quotes, like "The unexamined life is not worth living." I actually did sort of live by that one for a while, or tried to, but like most youthful idealism, it faded with use.

I did 4 years of college with no intention of earning a degree, just took classes of every sort that interested me. geography, 3 world mythology classes, physical anthropology, earth sciences, 2 astronomy, statistics, calculus, 5 creative writing classes, and some others I'm forgetting now. A very wide variety, and my GPA was 3.7 or something, but I didn't get a degree. I need something like a health and 2 PE classes to qualify for a general studies degree, though I have a lot more units than I need in total, and I've never seen the point in going back just for that.

Whether the couple of philosophy classes I took were of any long term benefit or changed my thinking, I dunno. I was always very open minded and tried to be objective about things, so it wasn't like I went from being a Fundie to what I am now (whatever that is) after reading some Sartre. I was more interested in philosophy before the class than I was during or after it, but that was largely since it was one of the few classes I took in the day time, which meant mostly dopey 18 and 19 y/o's there for the credit, who took no interest in thinking or having their thoughts challenged, or debating in class.

Flux

BlackChampagne.com

¤ Article about the ongoing investigation into the Space Shuttle disaster.  The article starts off talking about the recovered audio tape from the cockpit, which is totally useless since they were on mic to the ground at the time, and the tape is burned up so it ends four minutes before the explosion anyway.  However the article gets more interesting later, especially when it talks about a mysterious small object that was following along next to the ship for several days in space, and then during re-entry.  They think it's something that fell or broke loose from the shuttle, but have no idea what yet.

Earlier Tuesday, the accident investigators said they wanted to know more about a mysterious object that almost certainly fell off the shuttle and was flying alongside the spacecraft during its second day in orbit.

The object orbiting near Columbia was never noticed during the flight. After the shuttle's destruction over Texas, the Air Force Space Command began analyzing radar data that might shed light on the disaster and noticed the object.

Initially, NASA said it suspected the object might be frozen waste water dumped overboard or an orbiting piece of space junk that the shuttle happened to encounter.

Before you get any UFO theories, the object they are talking about is something like 1x1.3 feet, so like the size of a VCR.  Bit small for alien spacecraft.

¤ CBS is planning on doing some sort of real life Beverly Hillbillies reality show, and oddly enough, it's being protested.  Given the crap other reality shows do to humiliate their contestants, or reality show stars do to humiliate themselves (see: Ozzy Osbourne) it seems odd that this one, of all concepts, would prove controversial.

In a fiery speech on the Senate floor, Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller called on CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves, to cancel the program, which has already sparked protests in rural areas where casting is being done.

"What CBS and CEO Moonves propose to do with this cracker comedy is bigotry, pure and simple. Bigotry for big bucks," Miller said. "They know that the only minority left in this country that you can make fun of and demean and humiliate ... are hillbillies in particular and rural people in general."

Yes, that's "on the Senate floor".  Thank god there aren't any important issues for our elected representatives to grapple with, so that there's plenty of time to bitch about stupid TV shows.

Anyway, the show would take some white trash volunteers and set them up with a glamorous life style in Beverly Hills, and film the hilarity that ensues. First of all, that's The Osbournes with different accents.  Secondly, so what? Are people going to think less of white trash after viewing it? Have these people protesting never seen Cops?

I can't imagine a more insulting program to white trash and just low life types in general.  Every damn episode I've ever seen has some fat wife beater in a wife beater, usually with a can of Coors and several missing teeth, screaming at his ugly wife while the cops watch in dismay and some baby screams in the background.

I fail to see any fish out of water scenario CBS could dream up that would be 1/10th as humiliating as the reality in which poor trashy people live already.

¤ I've been ignoring this news item for a few days, since it's just so ridiculous.  But I have to comment at last.

Saddam Hussein has challenged George Bush to an internationally televised debate via satellite linkup. The Iraqi leader said he envisioned a live debate with Bush along the lines of those in a US presidential campaign.

This is absurd. The man is an undemocratically-elected, warmongering madman, hated around the world, insanely-bent on world domination, and the fact that he can barely speak English would ruin any potential debate before it even began.

But enough about Bush...

(Yeah, you saw that joke coming up Main Street, I know... but I couldn't resist.)

The whole concept of a debate is fascinating, since it would be for such high stakes.  You know it would get incredible ratings, and I'd love to see Bush do it, though you know he'd just ignore or refuse to address any of the cogent points Saddam would make. Bush would just throw up various bullshit about 9/11 connections and dying babies and nook-lur programs and ignore any questions that required him to deviate from the script.

What would Saddam do?  Would he come off charming and calm and reasonable, refuting Bush's allegations?  I suppose it would be too much to hope that he would be like the South Park version of himself, and every time Bush started to get worked up go, "Hey, you need to relax, buddy.  Take a load off.  Don't worry about a thing!"

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