Much to my surprise (and, I think, many others’), Bloomington Transit rejected the ad, citing their ad policy which says that they may reject any ad they feel is ‘too controversial’.  Controversial?  It’s not like what the same campaign is now running in Chicago: “In the beginning, Man created God“.  Now THAT’s controversial… that’s getting in someone’s face and asking for a fight.  To disagree with “You can be good without God” is to assert that every non-Believer, now and throughout time (say, Marie Curie), is/was not good.  Now, I mean, maybe you just don’t believe that anyone can really be good, and in a purist sense, I wouldn’t argue with that.  I’m sure everyone who’s ever lived has done something unsavory.  But, somehow I don’t think that’s the “controversy” here.

Anyway, the ACLU filed suit in support of the campaign, and apparently Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan didn’t want the City’s legal department defending the case, so it was eventually dropped, and it looks like the ads will be showing up soon on a bus near me.  Cool.

Ok, so then yesterday I learn about a similar drama playing out in Des Moines, Iowa.  The Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers ran an ad on buses with this message: “Don’t believe in God?  You are not alone.”  Wow, now that’s really unoffensive.  I mean, that’s basically just saying “not everyone believes in God”, although admittedly with an added connotation of “it’s ok, and let’s support each other.”  I guess it’s that hint of “it’s ok” that led to an “overwhelming” number of complaints about the ads, which the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority (DART) cited when they took down the ads!  There’s already talk that the ads may be coming back, although aparently DART “has asked the atheist group to submit a new advertisement for consideration”.

So, the question is: how uncontroversial can you get?  What could the group possibly think of that’s LESS controversial than what was already running?  I honestly have trouble thinking of anything that might be more palatable to the presumptive complainers.  Maybe: “According to many passages in the Bible, non-Believers are all going to Hell.  But we still live in a country that allows us to speak freely and to peaceably assemble.  So, if you don’t believe in God, consider visiting iowaatheists.org”.  Any other ideas?

…and after they had walked a little way Christopher Robin said:

“What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?”

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best–” and then he had to stop and think. [For the purposes of this post, you can skip straight to the next paragraph, but you'd probably rather read what Pooh thinks...] Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called. And then he thought that being with Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have; and so, when he had thought it all out, he said, “What I like best in the whole world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying ‘What about a little something?’ and Me saying, ‘Well, I shouldn’t mind a little something, should you, Piglet,’ and it being a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing.”

“I like that too,” said Christopher Robin, “but what I like doing best is Nothing.”

“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say ‘Oh, nothing,’ and then you go and do it.”

“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.

I don’t actually agree with Christopher Robin, I don’t think that Nothing is what I like doing best.  But, it’s a very important thing to do sometimes, I think.

I always struggle to put my finger on this, and I’m not sure this is the right approach, but maybe.  I get a longing at times when I feel busy.  But I’m not that busy.  My work schedule is calm, especially recently.  I do plenty of fun things, I’m sure I have way more fun than the average person.  Pri and I took a week+ camping vacation early this month that did have the wonderful “mind flush” sensation that vacations can bring.  I even watch TV shows sometimes (via DVD, we don’t have TV in the house).  So, it always feels wrong to say that I’m “busy”.  But that’s what I’m always tempted to say.

What’s closer to the truth, but always sounds awkward when I try to say it, is that I’m not getting enough time where I just do whatever comes to mind.  I get enough sleep.  I get a fair amount of reading done.  I dance, I tell stories with friends, I catch up with faraway loved ones with fair regularity.

But so often I have things planned.  It’s part of the Myers Briggs J personality type that I share with everyone I’m related to, I believe… while I’m working, I think “Oh, this evening I could/should do such-and-such”.  This is assuming I don’t already have something scheduled, which I often do.  As thoughts like that pile up, I start to look longingly at the weekends “I won’t be able to do such-and-such in an evening, at least not this week, so maybe this weekend.”  Of course, I often have things scheduled in the weekends too.

Anyway, this evening Pri asked if I wanted to go to a concert, the famous Menahem Pressler (who is also one of our neighbors now) leading a group in chamber music.  I’m sure I would have enjoyed it.  But I stayed home, not even knowing what I’d do.

I ended up in from of the computer, doing.. nothing.  Which took the form of some old-fashioned web surfing: “I wonder what’s online about such-and-such?  I wonder if Reason magazine did a book review of The Omnivoire’s Dilemma (which i just finished reading)?  oh, they did! back in November of 2006, and several other mentions of it since then.  oh look, this one links to a Mayo Clinic report on whether organic foods are better for you or not.”  etc.  That plus catching up on my friends’ blogs and such… but really, whatever came to mind.

I really think that’s the key… my mind is happy to be a worker, doing the thinking necessary to earn money, keep the house in decent shape, find fun things for me to do and take care of the logistics of doing them.  But without a bit of time to let my mind just run free, I start to feel a bit cramped.  I think I spent only an hour or so in this bit of nothingness I’m describing, but and the end of it I literally let out a loud sigh of comfort that I think I rarely find these days.

Then I went and emptied the dishwasher and otherwise tidied up the house for a bit.  I feel that if I’d done this earlier, my thoughts would have focused on things to do, etc.  Instead my mind continued wandering, thinking of things to do, but in a more abstract way, not trying to organize my time.  A different state of mind.  It felt good.

Eventually I started composing this very post in my mind while still cleaning.  It strikes me as one of the least “deep” and least focused things I’ve ever written here.  But, here’s a thought: “Blog” comes from “web-log” right?  Like you’re keeping a log like the Captain’s Log on Star Trek, describing everything that’s going on, but you’re saving it to the web.  That’s an interesting idea, and I think a lot of people treat it much more that way than I do.  For me, I like it best when it works as an outlet for thoughts that are stuck in my brain.  And ironically, the more things I’m doing, the less I feel that way, and the less I feel like I have to share.  In other words, the more that’s going on in my life, the less I feel like I have to write about.  Put another way, with less focus on the irony: it’s not just that being busy makes me have insufficient time to write in the blog, it’s at least as much that I like to write about things more “heady” than most of the stuff that makes me feel “busy”.

I don’t know.  It’s just a blog post about doing nothing.  Rather than wrap it all up, I think I’ll go do something else, because that’s what my mind feels like doing.

I heard about this at the Hemant “Friendly Atheist” Mehta’s talk, but they seem more organized than I’d realized.  Great!  I love the message!  I’m On The Bus!

It was a total accident that I happened to hear on the radio this morning about someone giving a lecture on campus this evening entitled “improving the atheist image”.  Wow, not only a talk about atheism, but about one aspect of atheism I really care about.  I was interested enough to look up the event and only then did I realize that it was the author of the Friendly Atheist blog, which I think is the only blog I read regularly that isn’t written by a friend of mine.  Woah!  I totally gotta go!

So, I went.  And I liked it. So much of what you hear from atheists is harsh, negative, religion-bashing, often mocking, scornful, and generally hateful.  I’ve been seeking a way to express pride in what I consider my religious beliefs in a way that doesn’t sound offensive to people, but rather just inspires their religious tolerance even if they suspect I’m a doomed heathen.

Mr. Mehta’s approach is not exactly what I’m seeking, but on reflection I have to wonder if it might be better than what I was hoping for.  Or, if not that, at least an added perspective that has its own merits.  And that is, basically, he just presents himself as an atheist, and otherwise just seeks to have fun and meaningful interactions with people.

His talk was largely about how he ascended to his current quasi-famous position, which was by conducting an eBay auction in which he promised to attend an hour of religious service for each $10 of the winning price, and the “buyer” got to decide which services he would attend.  In the end he wrote a book about the experience, which was published by a Christian publishing company (I hadn’t realized until tonight that the publisher had a religious bent). It’s a fun story.  It’s even kind of thought provoking.  But it’s nothing like a tretise on whether there’s a God or not, nor is it any kind of deep exploration of the spiritual, moral, or ethical issues that atheists tend to take so seriously.  It’s clear that he does take those things seriously, but he’s giving talks about his experiences, not about those things.

After sharing that story, he did start talking more generally about good things for atheists to do.  He clearly advocates for positive-spirited activities, such as the well-known “free hugs” stunt, or partnering with Christian organizations for charitable activities (a University of Illinois group apparently did some great post-Katrina clean-up in this way).  He spoke disparigingly of shock-jock-style approaches like insulting bibles, sometimes in disturbingly graphic ways.  And he spoke glowingly of this “Atheist Bus Campaign” which is paying to put the uncommonly playful denial of God’s existence pictured here on buses that feature advertising.  A lot of his blog is collecting things like this, and that’s a great service to readers like me who are way less hip to pop-culture than he is.

I was quite disappointed with the question and answer session.  That is, I found the questions, in general, to be disappointing; I thought his responses were very good, never straying from the Friendly Atheist position he’s put himself in.  And, I think that comes entirely naturally to him.  It’s not that he’s an atheist who’s decided to be friendly, I really think he really is by nature both friendly and an atheist.  Clearly an extrovert, he obviously enjoys meeting with people all over and engaging with them.

In some sense, his approach seems insufficient to me.  I have a feeling like “what, he’s just a friendly guy, talking about whatever, but not making any qualms about his lack-of-belief in supernatural”.  It seems like the focus should be more on the actual… like… substance… or something.  I still think there must be ways for me to talk about my beliefs that are honest but non-confrontational.  Hemant kind of seems like he just doesn’t really focus on the beliefs that much, and just focuses on engaging with people.  But, on the other hand, I feel like I have a very firm understanding of his beliefs, so he’s obviously talking about them somewhat, right?

And meanwhile, he’s definitely got the whole friendly thing down pat.  I’m usually uninspired to try to meet people after presentations/performances, in part out of shyness and in part because I legitimately don’t usually feel like I get much out of such brief interactions.  But, at the end of this talk, there was no question that I wanted to approach him, compliment him, and shake his hand.  Probably this is in part because he’s not a huge celebrity, probably in part because he seems like someone roughly “my age”, but largely I think it’s because it just seems so much like he likes people that it would feel like a meaningful interaction just to say a simple thank you.  And, indeed, it was.

I left the hall with a palpable desire to be nice to people.  I held a door open for someone, I stopped on my bike and waited for a crowd of pedestrians to figure out which path they’d walk, things like that.  I think I’m pretty nice in general, so it’s not like these actions were so unusual for me.  What was unusual was how satisfying they were; I felt totally relaxed and patient, it felt like an excellent use of 5-10 seconds to wait for some people to pass without anyone having to worry about which way I’d be pedalling.  You have to respect anyone who can make you feel that way, and if a substantial number of people start associating atheism and that kind of kindness, the world will definitely be a better place.  So, thank you, Hemant.  And keep up the good work.

I know, you said you weren’t going to, but… go ahead, Veto that bill.

Sorry that I’m writing you so late, but what can I say, there wasn’t much time.  And there still isn’t, so I’ll be really quick:

• You ran against politics as usual, and the bill is totally politics as usual.  The party in power (it’s not just Dems, it’s whoever’s in power) throws in earmarks.  Nobody likes it.  You don’t like it.  So, just send it back, and say “pass me a bill without these earmarks”.
• The congressional Dems are not going to have a standoff over this.  They are not going to turn to their constituents and say “we crafted a great bill and the President vetoed it, but we know that something needs to pass, so we’re just going to keep sending it to him as is.”  They’ll follow your lead, and they’ll follow it quickly.  They’d get a much better bill back to you before the end of the week.
• Congressional Republicans will think “Wow, maybe Obama’s bipartisan rhetoric ISN’T just all talk.”  They’ll be thrilled, at least publicly.  In private, they might worry that you’re stealing a bit of their thunder, because it’ll be MUCH easier for them to pick up congressional seats in 2010 by pointing to a bloated “tax and spend” Democratic spending bill.
• Democratic citizens will be shocked, but who cares, they love you deeply, and once they get over the surprise that we don’t just have 100% Harmony amongst the powers in Washington, they’ll easily say “well, it’s not like I really *liked* all of those earmarks…
• Centrist and GOP citizens will cite the veto as a sign that you really are different, you’re not just a partisan, you are going to emphasize fiscal responsibility, Democrat does not just mean “spender”.
• The press will say things like “unlike his predecessor, President Obama today sent a clear message that he’s willing to Veto bills that are passed by his own party.”

In short, politically, you’ll spend a small bit of political captial with the people who love you the most, and in return you’ll score huge points with everyone else, including the people who are most skeptical of you.  And you don’t even have to look like you’re making deals or compromising your values to do it.  Indeed, by signing it you WOULD be compromising your stated values somewhat.  A clear winner.

But really, you should veto it because you actually *do* *care* about fiscal responsibility, and while I no very little about the details of the bill, the fact that it’s going by the name “Earmark-Laden” in all the press is certainly not an indicator that it has anything to do with fiscal responsibility.  The stimulus bill was where you had justification for big spending, and whether or not everyone agrees, everyone does know that that’s not going to happen every year.  This bill is different, this bill represents the long-term for Federal spending.  And it’s not the path you want us to head down.

So, in my humble opinion, sir, Veto that bill.

I work at home now, so forget about the “long way home”.  But the “after work”, roughly-one-hour route should still be part of my repertoire.  And since the new house is on the south east side, there’s new side-streets to explore!  And although we only moved in last May, I never got around to this kind of thing last year.  :(  I mean, I was busy, but of course I wasn’t busy every single hour.  It should have happened.

But today, it did!  After a nicely productive afternoon and whiltling my inbox down to an amazingly small FIVE messages, I felt like doing something different before I dug back into more hopefully productive stuff this evening.  Well, remarkably, after some rather scary rainstorms this afternoon, the sun came out and it wasn’t even very windy…  It was 6:44, as I recall, but it still seemed light out.  “Oh right!!  Daylight Saving Time!”  So, I decided to celebrate the extra hour of evening sunlight with a spontaneous bike ride.  Finally!

And so, I present my first draft of the first south-east-side “after work” loop.  Only 8.5 miles, so I’ll probably try to have a “longer option” to go for a full hour, especially once I get used to where I’m going.  Today there was a heavy exploration factor, but I was still home about an hour after I had the original idea and got out the GPS, and all the other bike gear…

… and the new Heart Monitor that Pri and I purchased (thanks for the recommendation, Fiona! We love it!). According to it, I burned 627 Calories on the ride.  Based on that and another recent experiment, I’m starting to use 70 Calories per mile as my estimated fuel efficiency. I don’t know how that compares with other bikers, nor do I have extreme confidence in the data that the heart monitor puts out… But still, I’m sure it’s not completely crazy, certainly in the right order of magnitude…  And yeah, I had to pause and thing that when I do serious bike rides like the Hilly Hundred or the big bike ride to Indy I did with Erik years ago, I’m burning multiple thousands of calories. Multiple days of normal eating.  Wow.  No wonder I feel tired.

Not too tired after today’s run.  I should finish this up though so that I can still feel like the whole experience took less than 2 hours.  :)

Well, when I read that Ralph Stanley was scheduled to play at downtown Bloomington’s Buskirk Chumley Theater, I felt pretty strongly that I should make sure I went.  Not that this would make up for it, but if it’s that easy to see a living legend of an art form you feel a connection to… come on.

I was a bit concerned that the show might really just be a ruse… get some random musicians to play and just set Ralph in front of them and watch the money pour in, just cashing in on a legendary name.  There may have even been a small number of people at the show who felt like that was what happened.  But, if so, I’d say to them that they’re missing the difference between a legendary name and an actual legend.

The band’s classic RV/Tour Bus was ostentatiously parked right in front of the theater on Kirkwood Avenue.  Some 20-something bluegrass musicians were playing on the sidewalk, a self-styled opening act, I guess.  It worked for me, got me in the mood for started me musing about this purely American music.

I cannot agree with the program notes’ claim that Ralph “..performs with the vigor and elan of a rock star” (I also cannot agree with the use of the word ‘elan’ in such a context… I can’t imagine Ralph saying anything like “an’ I’ll tell you right now, tho I wish it weren’t the case, after that 1973 show I never did hear Jimmy play with quite the same elan”).  But according to the program, he’s performing about 150 shows a year, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The hall was about 80% full, I didn’t see as many of my friends as I had expected, and really didn’t even recognize all that many people (rare for me whenever I’m at the BCT).  When the band took the stage, Ralph wasn’t even with them.  As they played a nice tune, I did wonder for a moment how much of the legend we’d actually get to see and/or hear. If I was feeling worried at all, though, I forgot about it when he took the stage, and started the classic bluegrass tradition of introducing the band.

Why do bluegrass musicians always introduce the members of the band individually?  Why do they always make a point of thanking the person who drives their tour bus (who may or may not be a member of the band)?  Why are some songs classic and never a surprise to hear at a Bluegrass performance?  Well, as is so often the case with questions like this, the real reason is because “that’s what everybody does.”  I mean, we can speculate about why people started doing that or why it stuck, but once it’s part of the culture you do it because it’s part of the culture, whether or not the original reason makes sense.

And the thing is, if you’re one of the people who actually started doing those things, that’s what makes you a legend.  And, if after upwards on 10,000 times doing it, it’s still something you do with sincerity (and perhaps a bit of tension that you’ll forget a name) it’s not at all bothersome that it doesn’t seem entirely spontaneous.

And then, when you start singing, and out of your mouth comes a voice scratchy in completely different way from the scratchy recordings of your voice that most of your audience heard at unknown times in their youths and that they filed those sounds in their minds under “that’s what bluegrass singing sounds like”, then you can rest assured that the audience will not feel cheated that you don’t sing every song… they’ll just wait on the edge of their seats for the ones you do sing.

His voice is remarkable, really… kind of hollow sounding, and high-pitched in a way that doesn’t sound like someone trying to sing high in their range.  Like everyone around me, I ate it up.

The introductions continued, and it turns out that his band includes his son (Ralph II) and his grandson (who didn’t seem all that far apart in age, actually).  He also welcomed his roughly ten year old (great?) grandson onto the stage, and the kid had an impressive voice (including being quite in tune, not always a trait found in bluegrass vocalists or 10 year olds).  Two of the other band members have apparently been playing with Ralph for almost exactly 15 years (one of them, according to Ralph, is actually having his 15th anniversay with the band this weekend).  And the bass player was a fill-in for the regular man who is apparently in the hospital with pneumonia.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, not just because my descriptions can’t do justice to Ralph’s voice.  But, I had to marvel: how can a man in a red leisure suit and an oddly sculpted “cowboy” hat come off as authentic?  How can someone who’s spent 62 years recording for major record labels and performing at all manner of gigs still seem as much like a genuine “country boy” as a polished show man?

Because, I think, this is his life.  I think that to be a legend, you’ve got to have devoted your life so overwhelmingly to one thing that you are hardly ever associated with anything else.  But then the necessary next step is that people stop thinking of that thing without also thinking of you.  So, then, if you just get on stage and be yourself, it’s automatically what the audience wants.

So, when Ralph joked that he used to play banjo in the band, but got “shot out of the saddle” by the current banjo player, it doesn’t just sound like a tired old joke for the stage, but some better version of the kind of self-deprecating humor that is often expressed in the phrase “senior moment”.  And when he says “but I still do play in the old claw-hammer style” I think it is a subtle but clear admission that his octogenarian fingers just don’t have the coordination anymore to play the fast finger-picking banjo style that bears his name.  But of course, we all wanted to hear how well he could play the banjo just the same.  How’s Ralph doing?  Can he still play?

The answer?  He’s certainly doing more for bluegrass banjo by letting someone else in the band carry on the tradition, but it was great to hear him play.

And, one more entry in the “authenticity” category… he offered to sell the very banjo they were playing.  “Now, some people say, ‘I’m tempted to buy it, but I don’t know how to play.’ Well, let me tell you… one of these days, these banjos I had made for me are really gonna be worth something… and, I’m afraid I won’t be here to take advantage of it when they are.”  In other words, I am trying to cash in on my name, but you could do the same, and maybe better than I can.  Something’s always refreshing to me when people are willing to admit that, of course, they want to make money doing what they are doing.

But, that doesn’t mean it’s the only reason why they are doing it.  And who knows if it’s even the most important reason.  I’m sure it increases sales of their CDs that the band, including Dr. Stanley himself, rushes off the stage and sits behind tables in the lobby to hock the wares…  But I think it’s also an enjoyable part of the night for them.  Besides being heaped with praise, they really shake hands and chat with people, and I think they must enjoy that.  I personally applaud the Bluegrass tradition for keeping the separation between famous performers and average audience members very thin, I can’t think of another musical tradition that is like this.  And, it’s hard to imagine how someone could fail to be authentically moved by someone saying “I saw you play 40 years ago” or “I saw you play 60 years ago”, both of which he tells us that he hears pretty often, and loves to hear it.

He clearly loves it.  I’m sure he could retire comfortably and live out the rest of his days in the part of Virginia that he’s always called home.  But really, the tour bus has got to feel about as much like home as his house does, and it’s not clear to me that he could really enjoy a quiet life in one place.  So I won’t be surprised if he passes through town again.  If he does, I’ll make a point of encouraging my friends to see this Library of Congress certified Living Legend.

• Obama is smoothly referring to the deficit as something “we’ve inherited”.  I’ve long said that the Dems should take the GOP to task for spending so much for the 6 years they were in total power in Washington.  This isn’t exactly it.  And, since the Dems control congress, they can’t really blame it all on Bush. Indeed, I thought Bobby Jindal speech was actually more direct about calling the Republicans failures on fiscal discipline. (In general I found Jindal’s speech to be intelligent, but not very inspiring.)
• When he says he wants to cut the deficit in half, is he talking about the ~$400 Billion deficit of the budget or the +$trillion deficit of reality?  If it’s the latter, he could cut it in half and still have the second largest deficit in history after the current year.  That is, prior to this year, we never had a trillion dollar deficit, I believe the record was in the $400 billions… so if he cuts it down to $500 billion….?  I may have my numbers wrong, but it seems like there may be a rather unimpressive way to technically meet that goal.
• He sure is talking about a lot of spending, and even lowering a lot of people’s taxes.  But at the same time cutting the deficit.  How can it be?  Well, one thing is letting the “Bush tax cuts” expire, but that’s not going to make the difference.  What I’m hoping is that he really will go through the budget “line by line” and eliminate programs that aren’t working.  Take, for instance, the war on drugs.  Can anyone say that it’s working?  And it certainly costs a lot of money.
• I really like his focus on responsibility and accountability in government.  I hope he can carry through on that.  A lot of politicians talk about that kind of thing, but I do feel like he is really more serious about it than most.  I hope I’m right.
• I also like his focus on accountability and responsibility outside of government.  Republicans have got to love that too… except that they might think that he is stealing their lines… except that they might actually have some effect when he says them.
• I really don’t think it’s fair to say that the United States is the nation that invented the automobile.  He could have said that we were the nation to turn it from a rich person’s hobby to a near necessity for everyone.
• Energy, Health Care, and Education.  Democrats are definitely in charge.  I’m skeptical that they’ll be able to succeed at these goals.  But I hope they do.
• “dropping out of high school is no longer an option.  It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American.”  This is a great example of the kind of thing that I feel like Obama can say in a way that seems like it would actually resonate with an actual young person considering dropping out.  I hope I’m right.  If he could inspire our nation’s under-ambitious youth, he could transform our society in ways that no law ever could.
• A really dense section of quite specific and often remarkable claims about his upcoming budget:
  • “end education programs that don’t work.”  That could be a lot of programs
  • “end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them”. I had to cheer at hearing this.  I sure hope he accomplishes that, although I don’t know how he can given that the Farm Bill just passed with huge Democratic support.
  • “eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq”, more cheers!
  • “reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use”.  Talk about a place to save money!! Maybe he will be able to spend all that money and still cut the deficit in half.
  • “We will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier.” I don’t know much about this, but I can definitely imagine that there could be a lot of fat to trim there.
  • “we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.”  The Dems must love this, although I have to wonder if it’s more symbolic than anything.  Companies aren’t exporting jobs for tax breaks, and I doubt that the tax breaks add up to much.  It’ll still be cheaper to hire people in China or India than in the US, companies will keep doing it.  Having said all that, I do agree with the spirit of the statement that the companies shouldn’t get a tax break for doing it.  But… what exactly is this tax break?  anyone know?

Finally, you’ve got to be impressed by Ruth Bader Ginsberg showing up for work yesterday and staying up to attend tonight’s speech.  She looked kind of dazed to me, though.  I hope she’s doing well.

They didn’t.  Or at least, I don’t think they did.  I don’t really know.  But I did go ahead and create an account. There?  Happy?

So far, it’s overwhelming… which I guess it to expected.  Within an hour of signing up, my inbox had basically only facebook notifications visible in it.  Two full screens of messages, about 35 facebook notifications, and two normal legitimate emails.  Most of these are friend confirmations, so presumably those will die down soon once the initial rush is over.  Let’s hope…

Meanwhile, I find the facebook interface easy enough to use (very impressive how quickly it identified all of these “friends” for me) but… overwhelming.  Right now it feels like 30 of my friends are having a party in the room while I’m trying to work.  Not that I can’t see the attraction, but, at the risk of seeming a 21st century high-tech grumpy old man, I’m closing the window for now.

The walk from my bedroom to my office was far less harrowing.  I did have to walk to the mailbox to send in my estimated tax payments though – Due today, don’t forget all you self-employed people out there!