So, my strategies seem to be working. I slept in until about noon today, which is better than 2pm...so don't go on the internet at night, and leave the door open so I get daytime sunlight (remember, no windows! And the sun resets your sleep cycle, basically telling your body to get its ass out of bed). I'll bet though that the workout from Wednesday had something to do with it; I was a lot more tired when I went to bed around 11:30 last night than I have been in a while.
Tooling around the internet via digg (great site, forgot how much I like it, and I really don't care that much that only 40 or so people are making most of the recommendations, cause they find interesting stuff), and I found a site you might want to look at, and something worth a minor quip. First, check this site out:
109th Congress | Congress votes database | washingtonpost.com
You go into either the House or the Senate, and you can look up a short bio and voting record of any member of Congress. More importantly, the Post summarizes the really important votes, and for all votes takes note of the party line. So you can discover, for instance, that the Honorable Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, occasionally deviates from the party line, which is commendable. Even better, there's an RSS feed available for every member of Congress that will tell you when they vote and how they voted. Pretty damn cool if you ask me (cause honestly, how many of us actually hold our representatives accountable for anything? How many of us watch C-Span? Like, ever? Do any of us have any real sense at all of what's going on in D.C.? I certainly don't.)
The minor quip comes from an article about Symantec, makers of Norton Internet Security among other things, whining that Microsoft's inclusion of a firewall and anti-spyware software in Vista (and XP SP2) "reduces consumer choice." Now, its not that I don't disagree with this statement, but it bothers me: why the hell does Microsoft get in hot water for this, while no one says a thing about it concerning Apple? Apple bundles EVERYTHING with OS X, and no one that I have ever heard has ever complained about this. Hell, bundling a firewall is part of OS X's marketing for crying out loud: "Mac OS X was designed with security in mind. Windows just wasn’t built to bear the onslaught of attacks it suffers every day. A Mac offers a built-in firewall, doesn’t advertise its existence on the Net, and isn’t compromised within an hour of being turned on." (From Apple's website) But when Microsoft tries to improve Windows' security features, it gets burned. Hmm...
You might notice that there are times that I deviate completely from anything even remotely related to running. Well, for now, I say, so what? This is a blog meant for family and friends to keep up with me, but 'me' is a lot more than a runner, hence, I'll go on tangents from time to time...if you know me at all, you also know I can be pretty opinionated, and its fun to put opinions out there (especially when they start conversations).
You might also notice that I used to have another blog out there that was only opinions. Well, if people ever reading this thing in large numbers, and I start getting complaints that I don't stick to talking about my training regimen, what I eat, how much I sleep, and what shoes I wear enough, perhaps then the opinions will be returned to the other blog (which I haven't written in since 2004 or so...). Until then...well, enjoy, I guess.
2 comments:
I think opinions (about anything) are always much more interesting than one's workout schedule. But, hey, that's just my opinion. How come you don't respond to my comments?
What's your opinion on this, btw: there were a bunch of pro-lifers at Evergreen the other day doing their thing (since, ya know, we perform so many abortions at Evergreen) and one of them was holding up a sign that read "Hitler was wrong for killing Jews and you're wrong for killing babies." Not only were the words themselves highly inflammatory, but the aesthetics of the sign were disturbing. "Hitler," "Killing", and "Jews" were in big bold lettering, as was a giant swastika. These images were the only ones visible from afar. I have to wonder just how much the sign-holder even agreed with the first statement, b/c he was, upon questioning, pro-war as well as pro-life. His partner in crime held up an even worse sign saying "God hates: Mormons, Homosexuals, Rebellious Women, Liberals" and the list went on. (I am shocked that "Jews" was not also on the list.) I think they might assume that, b/c there are a lot of "anti-Christians" at Evergreen, that it's ok for them to propagate anti-Mormon (and Catholic) sentiments, but unthinkable to show themselves to be anti-Semitic. But I guess my point is that I don't trust hateful people to be so (ironically) discriminately hateful.
Anyway, it's hard for me to decide how to conduct myself in those situations. It's my first instinct to think, "Fuck them." But I would never dream of forcing them to leave. Should I even pay attention to them (they seem to thrive on an attentive audience) or just ignore them and watch them squirm with the discomfort of being invisible? No se...
I'm not even really sure what to say. I was going to say people like that regrettably reduce a complex issue down to an overly simplistic, and in my opinion, inaccurate analogy (Hitler=Abortionists? Come on.), and as such, don't warrant too much serious attention. Then I realized that perhaps the issue is actually ridiculously simple: they believe abortion is murder, pro-choice people don't, and its just a difference of opinion. But that's not really the whole story either. So how to conduct yourself? How to respond? And about the situation in general? As I said, I'm not really sure what to say. I'd just let them do their thing, and leave it alone...cause if they're on the street with a sign equating Hitler and abortion docs, or claiming to know who God hates, then they probably won't be good for the intelligent, academic, or educated discussion that the issue deserves anyway.
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