shuttering

indulging my inner slacker ...

*blows dust off blog* whew. where have i been? where has this bloody summer gone? we're already a month into it and i. have. done. nothing.
that isn't entirely true. i survived girls state, though that was a close call, saw my baby sister all graduated from college and moved up to her first real job in whitefish, went home to see the folks for a few days ... and mark and i spent half a week up in augusta with tk and mhca shooting and writing a story ... keep an eye out for it over on new west ... should be up by the end of next week. that story is something i am immensely proud of, and i hope mark will be too once he gets back from alaska and sees what i did with it.
so yeah. will post something more coherent at a later date. will probably also be looking at doing a redesign shortly, and maybe even getting around to building that damn photoblog i've wanted to get up here too ... am just too tired tonight and need to go put something other than sugar in my stomach.

so it's snowed. it's not the bloody apocalypse.

dear immigrants from warmer climes who come to montana and expect to drive on our winter roads with either unsuitable vehicles, or worse, unsuitable skills.

please to take the frigging bus.

a million times thanks.

ok, so my inner: "i drive a truck, so get the hell out of my way" demon has been unleashed an eensy little bit. but if one more person gives me the finger for waiting in traffic behind a brave/crazy bicyclist who has to use the street as his bike lane has been filled with snow, or sits behind me in the parking lot waiting for my spot and cursing me for taking too long when i can't pull out of the damn spot anyways because they're in my way, my head will literally explode.

these people bitch about the gas mileage trucks like mine get, they make fun of the subarus that hippies or like-minded individuals drive, yet we're not the ones that cause accidents on winter roads.

i'm sorry, i'm just really really irritated. front wheel drive cars, one could probably argue, are even safer than bigger four-wheel drive vehicles when it comes to winter-in-the-city driving. but not when they are piloted by idiots.

sometimes i really wish montana would reconsider the whole "mandatory IQ test at the border" idea. gah.

thus endeth the rant.

color me appalled. and a shade skeptical.

dunno how many of you have been following reports of american use of chemical agents in the assault on the iraqi city of fallujah last fall, but as a past lincoln-douglas debator and someone who once considered a career as a virologist (i know, i'm just a little bit morbid), this story has completely snatched up my attention.  well, for the afternoon anyways.  (damn a.d.d. ... oh, look! a chicken!)

anyways, here's some of the latest:

from a uk online paper:

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.

from the above source, in a later edition:

The Pentagon has always admitted it used phosphorus during last year's assault on the city, which US commanders said was an insurgent stronghold. But they claimed they used the brightly burning shells "very sparingly" and only to illuminate combat areas.

things seem to have died down a bit today, which some more conspiracy-minded than myself would take as an indication that the spin patrol and ditto heads have been put on damage control and shoved this story out the headlines for today.  or maybe i just didn't dig hard enough.

what strikes me as oddest about this story (and there are many odd things, and disgusting things, too -- we went over there all hyped up and sanctimonious about saddam doing things like this to his own people, and then we don't scruple to use the same tactic in subduing those people ourselves.  shame on you, mr. bush), is that it's been relatively buried for almost an entire bloody year. 

which leads me to wonder: is this story about phosphorous gas and fallujah an accounting of actual fact that has just been hushed up really well, and those responsible for taking the story public should be lauded for having the courage to do so?  or is it just one more blow at america and the war in iraq, and the reason we heard so little about it prior to this point is because it never actually happened, or the pentagon's claims that the gas was only used as illumination are correct? 

deep thoughts for the day ... ;)

greetings! from podunk, montana

otherwise known as broadwater county (just south of helena). 

first off, i *heart* missoula.  i adore it.  it's the perfect blend of big city and small town to keep me sane.  but going home every other weekend or so is like a recharge.  i miss the mountains that i grew up with -- the elkhorns at my back, the big belts rising serene and lovely across the lake -- and the prairie my parents chose to build our house on.  i miss the wind, and the fact that we usually always have snow at home before we have a hint of it in missoula  (like this morning -- i woke up to snow on the ground and already coating the mountains).

and as somebody who is obsessed with memory and recall, and uses mnemnotic (did i spell that right?) and synesthetic elements in all her artwork, i love taking an evening and driving through the town i grew up in, went to church in, and graduated from high school in.  although it's a strange experience, too -- they tore down the old high school, businesses change hands and facades, the school sports teams start winning and new posters and "home of the state champions" signs festoon the marquees of businesses and the school.  so it feels like home at the same time as it doesn't quite feel like home ...

but enough random babbling.  just came into town to check my email and message boards and thought i'd see what sort of activity typepad was hosting for the evening.  hope you're all having a great first friday ....

this post brought to you by STRESS. and lack of sleep. yeah.

tomorrow at 1:55 i fly from missoula to indianapolis.  from friday night through sunday noon i play nice, possibly take out my lip ring, kill my feet in business-appropriate high heels and try my hardest to impress upon all the other lovely girls and boys state directors of the country that no, 23 is not too young to be the director of this fine program in this wonderful state of ours. oh, and also try to keep my 20-year-old co-director from completely freaking out on her first time out of the state of montana.

and it is now 20 after 9. i have class tomorrow and a test to study for, clothes that need packing and washing (but not in that order. theoretically), a book that is calling to me in my nice warm nest of blankets downstairs, pamphlets that need re-designing and shipping to insty-prints before next week's regional g.s. conference, an art exhibit to finish pieces for that are due on tuesday ... there are, clearly, not enough hours in the day. although if there were more hours, i would just use them to get an extra, oh, 12 hours of sleep. bloody procrastination.

but, in better news. was digging through bloglines today to see that noah grey has started posting to his site (both journal and photoblog) after a bit of a hiatus. his current post is moving and lovely and makes me wish winter would bloody well hurry up. it also makes me long for my old habit of ending the day curled up in bed with pen and journal in hand. it's been nearly three years since i journaled regularly. and those three years have been filled with nothing but stress and the vague, unsettling feeling that i am forgetting something important.

the beginning of the era of internet monopolies?

*cross-posted to class blog*

i dunno about you guys, but reading this article kind of made me uneasy. for one thing, the reporter seems really shifty about the source, referring to them as: "this person, who did not want to be identified because this news was not supposed to be released yet..." etc.

and for another, it's about the possible merger of two really ginormous companies that i don't really trust (aol and comcast) with one that i still have quite a bit of respect for (google). but hey, maybe i'm being naive. i usually am. but read and tell me what you think ...

google+comcast+aol=love?

studies show: god is bad for society. heh.

i hope all of you have checked out my "about" page before reading this post, so i don't get swamped by a crapload of flames demanding that i explain my religious affiliation. or, ahem, lack thereof.

that said, thank you noah grey for posting the link to this intriguing article. it ran in the uk -- clearly a more enlightened society than our own. *snark* according to the article, societies that are governed by a religious body or that boast a population that is largely devout rather than secular are more likely to have "high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide."

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

pretty thought-provoking article, in my opinion. and definitely one that will piss a lot of people off. but i think the study makes sense: the united states is a predominately christian society. most of the christian faiths that i have studied gloss right over the idea of free will or personal determinism or actualization and instead put everything in an omnipotent, omnipresent god's hands -- "well, if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. i guess god didn't want me to get that job. i guess god intended me to get mugged." etc.

within such a belief system, the principle of accountability and being responsible for your own successes or failures disappears. is it any wonder that more murders, various crimes, sexually transmitted diseases and or pregnancies/abortions occur when people are never taught to be mindful of the consequences of their actions?

just my "guh." thought for the day

roll on, 18 wheeler

so my sister and i keep up with this blog on typepad (and we both get his feed through bloglines) that's called "just trucking around." the guy seems to be a pretty middle of the road, conservative american just trying to make a living in the best way he knows how. sometimes he says some things i don't agree with, but then so does my dad. it's almost like, as truck drivers, they know they have the disdain of most of the rest of the country, so they'll protect themselves and get their opinions out in the open first before anybody can make any erroneous assumptions about them.

anyways, he posted someting on monday that i wanted to throw out there and see what you all thought about it. there's been a heap of discussion about hurricanes katrina and rita and their impact on our oil refineries and ability to get oil to the gas station and into consumer gas tanks. well, there have also been a few articles out there about the impact of the hurricanes on the trucking industry.

as in, how many of you realize that without deisel to power the trucks that pick up the goods that wal-mart (among other stores) sells, the american economy would come to a screeching and almost immediate halt? read: no groceries. no out-of-town newspapers (or even supplies with which to print local newspapers). no new products coming into communities not located near the plants or factories responsible for the creation of those products (which, since the u.s. is a heavy importer of goods, means most of the u.s. communities).

the problem is that i don't think many americans realize how dependent we are on the trucking industry, how many trucks there actually are out there, and how much fuel they go through (my dad runs oil field equipment back and forth from edmonton, alberta down to various cities in texas and oklahoma -- he goes through $600 worth of fuel EVERY OTHER DAY). "just trucking around" thinks the solution lies in america becoming more self-sufficient in terms of fossil fuels.

We need more refineries and we need to put them someplace besides the Gulf! How about Alaska? Drill the heck out of ANWR and the North Slope, refine it right there and ship to Valdez through the pipeline that's already there. That way all the money we spend on energy will at stay in America and go to Americans (okay, Alaskans) and American companies.

what do you all think? yes, the u.s. (along with the rest of the world) ought to be weaned off its dependence on fossil fuels. or at least, in america's case, the fossil fuels in another part of the world for which we went to a bloody and pointless war. should anwr be plundered, as advocated above? should truckers just quit their bitching and make sure to get us our big macs and nikes on time, regardless of the cost? ;)

*smash*

that was the sound of the inaugural champagne bottle crashing open against a hull.  this ship has officially sailed.