My dad has told me this story about non-persons. A nonperson is someone who you work with for years. Late nights, long and difficult projects, tight deadlines. All these bring you closer, but go towards breeding the nonperson. One day someone shows up at their door with nonperson-creating-paperwork. Suddenly your coworker, who’s worked so stupidly hard trying to prove their worth ceases to exist. They disappear into the ether of the layoff, never to be seen again, their existence erased more credibly the the witness protection program could ever begin to contemplate. Pooof. Gone.

Why do we tolerate this? Mortgages, car payments, gas bills and the like. At least that’s my theory for the short term. Why have we tolerated this for the long term ? For the past 300 years or so ? Who knows.

Traveling last week brought something to my attention that had been off the radar for quite a while. Cable TV – specifically cable news.

I mostly read my news. I cross reference between multiple sites. If the New York Times reports something I usually pop over to the BBC to get their British take on the thing (they’re just so damn sensible). I pretty rarely get TV news because while we have a cable modem, we have no cable TV. Oh the irony.

Anyhow, trapped in hotel room for four days with no internet and unable to sleep due to the previously mentioned unfortunate placement of room 801, I got a fair dose of the way most Americans get their news. BE AFRAID! Due to my reading of multiple, non mainstream media sources, apparently I missed the memo that CNN, MSNBC and FOX NEWS have been blasting into the American psyche for the last few years – the world is ending, beginning at democratic party headquarters near you.

I’d actually love to write more but Wolfe Blitzer just told me I need to vote Republican and support unjustified wars in the Middle East in order be a true American. So I’m off to change my party affiliation (apparently I live in a red state) in order to prevent the downfall of the American way. I’ll let that pinko bastard Jon Stewart expound about what I’m trying to get at.

Click the giant play button and be enlightened.

Via: VideoSift

One of the reasons I love Texas – our skies are the most intresting mesh of colors and cloud shapes.

Ok some things I’ve learned from my first business trip:

The reason they put giant signs on your hotel (say the downtown Indianapolis Hilton)is so that when you go running and get really freaking lost, you can get back to your place of sleeping.

Never stay in room 801 at the aforementioned Hilton. It’s right next the elevator. This is apparently bad. (Note-to-self: find architect of said hilton and inform him of his ineptitude. Bring bludgeoning device.)

Announcements like “the CVS across the street not only sells beer and wine, but hard liquor…” means your on a good trip.

Apparently they refer to it as “The War for the Union” up here. Weird.

The Embraer 145 is by far the stupidest, most uncomfortable flying metal tube that you’ll ever find yourself stuffed into. Also, American Airlines pilots of this particular model of plane apparently suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and occasional feel the need to dodge flashback-induced phantom surface-to-air missiles launched from rural Arkansas. Much, I might add, to the dismay of most the passengers on board.

And finally, the food per diem. Who doesn’t want to eat steak every night ?

A Backhoe weighing 8 tons is on top of a flatbed trailer and heading east on Interstate 70 near Hays, Kansas. The extended shovel arm is made of hardened refined steel and the approaching overpass is made of commercial-grade concrete, reinforced with 1 1/2 inch steel rebar spaced at vertical 6 inch intervals in a criss-cross pattern layered at 1 foot spacing.

Solve: When the shovel arm hits the overpass, how fast do you have to be going to slice the bridge in half? Assume no effect for headwind and no braking by the driver.

Extra Credit: Solve for the time and distance required for the entire rig to come to a complete stop after hitting the overpass at the speed calculated above.? Yes, you can neglect friction.

UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies.

According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge.- UK Guardian

Wow.

The other blog I irregularly contribute on, the austinist, has a thing called the ist-list, a quick rundown of what’s happening in the city. Well this is a short list of a different sort – a few things that are really freaking me out for a variety of reasons.

Disney Mobile
Now with the advertised feature of being able to track your children. Wow. Please tell me this weirds somebody else out. Mickey Mouse meets the babysitter meets the CIA. With a little Agent-Smith thrown in for kicks. The really scary part is, as a hypothetical parent I’d probably use such a feature.

Jesus Camps
I don’t know what’s more alarming here – nine-year olds being told they should be willing to die for Christ, or David Byrne being featured on Boing-Boing comparing these things to what the western media has told him a Madrasah is. (I’m not explaining it well – just follow the links and feel disturbed/form your own opinon).

My Lack of Knowledge About Crepes
Ok, so we went for a late lunch at Enoteca Vespaio with Ali’s folks today. Why haven’t i been previously informed, that what basically amounts to a breakfast taco, in an italian food format, covered in mushroom gravy was available for me to purchase and consume ?

How Shocked Everyone is by how hot it is…
You mean that global warming stuff is for real ? Our shortsighted-consumerist-lifestyle impacts our surroundings ? Seriously ?

By midafternoon, the temperature in Chicago was 100, Baltimore reached 99 and Washington hit 97, though the humidity made it feel like 107. – Yahoo News

Clearly, the end is near. Nobody in their right mind could be expected to suffer through temperatures and heat indices of this magnitude.

Oh wait. This is like every summer in Texas. Where we not only survive, but actually go play outside on a regular basis. The heat index here hits 115 and maybe, just maybe Anne Richards and her compatriots add a little more hair spray to the national pastime of Texas (the maintenance and continuance of the trend of Big Hair).

But we certainly don’t publish an article every time we start to sweat a little (we’d not have much other news coverage if that was the case).

If nothing else this serves as hard evidence that we Texans are vastly superior to our fellow citizens in other areas of the country, having acclimatized to super-human levels of heat tolerance. We win (at least until it get’s into the 60’s and we have to break out the sweaters and long underwear).

It’s also ironic that this is published the same day as Psychology Today publishes an article about what wimps we are raising in this country.