Game Theory

Check out Iraq Invasion, a new text adventure game/post (well OK, it's just a post but it's funny as hell) at Defective Yeti:

> EAT PRETZEL.
I don't think the pretzel would agree with you.

If you are old as dirt, like me, and remember playing games like Zork and Trinity late at night when you were supposed to be studying for midterms, this will make you smile. And given what's going on these days in the administration of Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive, that is a very good thing.

(For more info on text adventure games-- or to satisfy your inner geek--go to Baf's Guide to the IF Archive.)

Hoiday Greetings

Angryblackbitch examines the legacy of Martin Luther King:

A bitch has been thinking about the Civil Rights Movement. With the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday approaching and Black History Month on the horizon the country has once again turned its gaze brownward. Now, a bitch is always frustrated by the language of these celebrations…love, unity, community, solidarity, dreams and so forth and so on. By mid-February the oration contests will be in full swing and a bitch will tune out.....

The Civil Rights Movement can best be understood by an examination of the citizens who participated in it. King, as a leader and a constant source of inspiration, is an amazing example of the power of one…but he should be evaluated as one of the whole. This bitch understands that folks admire King…a bitch admires him too…but part of my admiration is based on the fact that he is not deified in my mind. When viewed as a man, with all of the faults, insecurities, fears and obligations every human being holds, King’s accomplishments and courage are all the more inspiring.

This is a day to celebrate everyone who works for justice. Pick up your ass, your pen (or whatever), your credit card. Never give up.

The Quality of Mercy, Part II

An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer connects the dots:

Since the Bush administration took office in 2001, it has been more lenient than its predecessors toward mining companies facing serious safety violations, issuing fewer and smaller major fines and collecting less than half of the money that violators owed, a Knight Ridder investigation has found.

At one point last year, the Mine Safety and Health Administration fined a coal company $440 for a "significant and substantial" violation that ended in the death of a Kentucky man. The firm, International Coal Group Inc., is the same company that owns the Sago Mine in West Virginia, where 12 workers died last week.

The $440 fine remains unpaid.

The Quality of Mercy

Much still on the air about the Sago Mine disaster and how miners' families were so cruelly misinformed. It makes for the kind of human story you'd hope we can all relate to.

But at the same time there aren't many of us who know what it's like to walk down into a hole in the ground every day; to work at a job that is so dangerous that the thought that it might kill you is both too awful to grasp and too real to ignore. I sure don't.

And we don't really know what it's like to be the families of those miners. It makes me cringe to watch reporters asking them things like, How did you feel when you heard that your brother/husband/father had died in the mine? Were you angry? Were you devastated? How devastated were you?

Oh, we love tragedy. Shakespeare wasn't the first to figure that out. It makes us feel something, makes us feel alive after too much Dancing With the Stars, or too many hours spent in grinding commutes to our own (if you'll pardon the expression) dead-end jobs. That's not a bad thing. If it breaks through apathy and stirs our outrage at injustice, even better.

That's why I hope someone will ask the owners of the Sago Mine why they had over 270 safety violations in the last two years. Or why their injury rate was three times higher than the national rate. How did you feel when you heard that the miners had died? someone might ask. Did you feel guilty? How guilty did you feel?

Is a $24,000 fine an acceptable price for neglecting the safety of your workers? How about $50,000? How about a million? Give us a number. Then maybe we can figure out how to stop this from happening again. It's a business calculation, fine. Let's do the math.

Whatever it takes.

Maybe I like tragedy as much as the next person. But I like justice better.

Cow Escapes Meat Plant

We should all be so lucky.

Yin and Yang

I don't know what to think about an eight-year-old boy whose parents take him mountain climbing in the Himalayas. Is it really cool or just a projection of dad's (or mom's) ego? Don't kids need, like, oxygen? Says Aidan Gold:

"Boy, a morning at 17,000 feet is cold."

Yeah, I bet.

OTOH it is pretty cool that young Aidan can focus well for long periods on climbs because of Asperger Syndrome, a "high-functioning form of autism":

People with that trait tend to share an intensity of focus on specific goals or processes, and they typically don't do so well in social settings.

Nevertheless, Aidan is an accomplished storyteller and has also written stories and read them to audiences, even winning a story slam last winter at the Paramount Theatre.

He also has a passion for extremely complicated origami -- building moose, bald eagles and many other things.

In a time of loss, I think of unexpected gifts.

My New Years Resolutions

1. I will complain less about stupid things that go on in politics and spend more time trying to do something about it.

(OK, I'll still complain just as much--it's too much fun to give up--but I will take some of the time formerly devoted to complaining and spend it doing something constructive, like writing letters to the editor, attending meetings of the planning commission, registering voters etc.)

(I suppose that means that my complaining will have to be done in a more concentrated manner, in order to fit the same amount of bitching and moaning into a smaller amount of time.)

2. I will learn to bitch more efficiently. Prioritize targets, create bitching talking points to facilitate repetition more effective delivery.

3. I will at least start on the book I have been talking about writing for a year.

4. I will lose weight.

5. I will lose weight.

6. I will lose weight.

7. I will stop interrupting people, even if what they are saying is excruciatingly obvious and what I have to say is brilliant, but I'll forget it if I don't say it right now.

8. I will stay in better touch with the people I care about. I will call more and email less.

9. I will learn to do an eskimo roll (maybe).

10. I will not assume that people I disagree with are evil or idiots, but wait until I am sure.