Look Out!

From Houston, comes this story about a wheel-chair using man who was struck by a "light rail" vehicle. The fault appears to be the man's, but there are other, "light rail"-related circumstances. This story comes after a much longer USA Today examination of the bad start the "light rail" system has had there.

I've been concerned about how our Madison Avenue trolleys would do in a crazy-driver city like Memphis. People here are rude, aggressive, thoughtless and inconsiderate behind the wheel. Throw in a large, slow, stop-filled trolley and it's a recipe for a Houston-style problem.

But so far, there have only been, as reported on television news, the expected difficulties with fitting in a new player on the streets of Memphis. I haven't noticed anything in the Commercial Appeal.

Which leads to a thought. Would the Commercial Appeal report problems with the trolley? Would they report accidents between trolleys and vehicles or pedestrians as trolley related, or simply as traffic accidents, eliding the trolley connection?

I ask because the Commercial Appeal was a big booster of the trolley. On opening day, they devoted a large number of splashy pages to it. Having invested in such civic boosterism does that leave them prone to not wanting to subsequently question it? Or would they, ala Amber's Army, just leave all that behind and adopt, Big Brother style, the new line?

Too bad there's nowhere to have that discussion.

Reading For Truth

The Sunday Commercial Appeal carries this story about an Army deserter running to Canada. (Link goes to another site. The story isn't on the CA site.) First and briefly, the headline choice is interesting. In other papers across the country (the story is a Cox wire feed), it's called: "US soldier seeks refuge in Canada," "Anti-war soldier defends choice to flee to Canada," "Deserter defends run into Canada," and "Deserter defends fleeing to Canada."

The CA chose "U.S. deserter finds niche in Canada." Niche? There was no place for him here and he found it in Canada? That's not really supported by the story. I have to wonder what the headline writer was thinking, to be so different from colleagues.

Which is really what I wanted to look at. The story tries hard to support sympathy for a man who admits to being a deserter in a time of war. Read the whole story before we go any further.

Hinzman says:

"I feel so strongly about the Iraqi war and not wanting to be a part of it that whatever the consequences, so be it," Hinzman said.

Those consequences?

Hinzman knows if he returns to the United States he will be arrested and sent to jail. If convicted at a military court-martial of deserting in a time of war, he could face lethal injection.

No soldier has been executed since WWII for deserting, but you can see the seriousness.

Unfortunately, rather than stay and face those consequences, he's high-tailed it to Canada. His actions belie his words. Even his words belie his words. In a part of the story you can read at the link, but didn't get into the CA version (due to space consideration, most likely; gotta run those ads), he says:

His decision to join the Army, he said, was an effort to provide some structure to his life and to get money to attend college. He admits now he was naive about what he would be doing. "I don't want to come off as having no idea as what the Army was about," he said. "I was just totally ignorant about what it takes to make a person a killer."

Although he had dabbled in meditation and Buddhism, Hinzman said his views about nonviolence did not crystallize until after he arrived at Fort Bragg in August 2001 and began attending meetings at the Quaker House in Fayetteville with his wife, Nga Nguyen, who was born in Laos to Vietnamese parents.

In August 2002, Hinzman applied for conscientious objector status. He was not interested in getting out of the Army, but in performing some noncombat role. In fact, he said, he enjoyed Army life.

"I've never felt as close to a group of people as I did when I was in the Army," he said.

When his unit, the 2nd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, received orders for Afghanistan several months later, Hinzman said he had no problem going.

"I just didn't want to go in a combat role," he said.

He was required to carry an M-4 rifle wherever he went, and admitted to his superiors that he would use it if his unit or the camp came under attack. In his mind there was a significant difference between offensive actions and defending his home and friends.

"It's premeditated murder as opposed to having your house broken into," he said.

I'm sure that every soldier who served in the European theater during World War Two will be happy to hear he was a "premeditated murderer."

But that admission, he believes, led to the denial of his conscientious objector application. When his unit returned to Fort Bragg after eight months in Afghanistan, he knew it was only a matter of time before it would be sent to Iraq.

Those orders came on Dec. 20, 2003, and by Jan. 1 he had made up his mind to go to Canada.

He said he has no doubts now, and no regrets. He is not encouraging others to join him, but said of his decision: "I'm confident what I've done is the right thing for me."

I'm sure he does.

This guy was a mess. I'm happy he's found some convictions, but sorry he doesn't have the courage of them, to face his consequences rather than run from them, to spend his life knowing he ran and that some other soldier may die in his place now.

The article also goes on to look at numbers from the Vietnam era on desertion and draft-dodging, which was considerable. An estimated 90,000 went to Canada alone; total AWOL/desertion is estimated by the Pentagon at 1/5 million!

That was then, though, and this is now. What's the desertion rate to Canada today? If you don't skim the article too quickly you'll learn that it's...two. Including Hinzman. In a two-million strong armed force.

Read farther along and you'll see:

Hinzman and the others are a very small group ? one that isn't expected to grow significantly. In fact, Pentagon figures show that the desertion rates have dropped over the past three years.

"Most of our soldiers want to serve. They volunteered for this," Army spokeswoman Andrea Takash said.

Which is the whole point I want to make. Aside from issues of false sympathy, the article is comparing apples and oranges. The Vietnam era Army was a draft force. Today's Army is all-volunteeer, which changes things pretty dramatically. I don't have any sympathy for someone who signs up for the Army, goes through months of training, and is then surprised to find out they may have to kill someone! Or someone like Hinzman who claims his only duty is to the Constitution, forgetting he also has a duty to his superior and commanding officers, and the civilian politicians who set the policy and orders they must follow.

The article is a slight bit of deception and a lot of muddle that blurs fairly clear issues. He signed on to do a job, one that a lot of other folks depended on him to do, and then bailed. If Hinzman won't face the consequences of his actions, preferring to run from them, but proclaims otherwise, I have no room for him. If Canada wants that kind of man, they can have him.

Building Good For You

I am truthfully not sure how to feel about this:

Sprint built the car parks a 10-minute walk from the office buildings.

Inside, Sprint asked the architects to make the staircases airy and inviting.

The company wants people to use them, so by contrast it has made the lifts slow and small....

Sprint says this experiment shows that if you give employees a nudge, they will take more exercise and so lose weight.

It is good for company profits and for the health of the staff, of course.

Just listen to this company executive on the sound science they used as their basis:

"If you're overweight, you probably have a higher level of absenteeism or you get more fatigued during the day, perhaps you have a lower concentration span," says Ms Davis.

"We all know when we do exercise we have a higher energy level, we're more focused and we're not sick as often," she adds.

Catch the "you/we" usages there? They know what's best for you!

"Walking over from the parking garage sucks," said one disgruntled employee.

"It's not bad," says another, "unless it's 110 degrees outside or below freezing and raining and cold."

Architects design what clients want. Architects have philosophies behind their design processes. It's what distinguishes them from each other. But I fear about this kind of "social engineering" being so explicitly catered to. Especially when other human factors will be subordinated to technology needs, the geography of the site, cost management, etc. Some concerns are over-emphasised and others are blithely ignored.

(Good local example: the Pyramid. It was built with too-steep rises and too-narrow seating in an effort to increase total number of seats. The site and pyramidal design, and the profit concerns of the owners, were given undue emphasis over the comfort needs of the people who would fill it.)

It makes me nervous whenever someone does something "good for me."

Back in Kansas, Sprint's campus is surrounded by six-lane highways.

In a culture where the car is king architecture can only do so much.

The challenge nationwide is to get Americans back on their feet.

Yeah, that makes me feel better....

New Resource

Alright, probably everyone else has already found this web resource, but it's new to me and just what I was looking for. OnTheIssues.org is, to use their own words, "Every political leader on every issue." It's huge and detailed. I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Check it out.

Another One Biting The Dust

News today that Jacques Chirac lost big in regional elections in France. But the story isn't good from the American viewpoint:

...[T]he opposition left took between 49 and 50 per cent of the vote and control of 21 of 23 regions.

Mr Chirac's right polled between 37 and 38 per cent, the interior ministry announced. It was the first test of the government’s public support since the 2002 election.

Turnout was high, with about two-thirds of the country's nearly 42 million voters casting ballots, the ministry said....

The leader of the triumphant Socialists, Francois Hollande, said a mere ministerial shuffle would not be enough, "no matter how big it is". Instead, he said the government must keep its hands off the public sector.

Aside from the left, Chirac's government faced pressure from the far-right National Front. It polled between 13 and 14 per cent of votes.

Yup, another slim Socialist victory in Europe. And an explicit call to spend more on the public sector. You can count on France to speak loudly and to assiduously avoid meaningful action on the terrorism front.

I still say America should let Federal Europe become the independent nation it so badly wants to become. We should rethink our participation in NATO and shift bases out of Europe as much as we can. (Actually that second part is already happening.) America should let Europe shoulder the burden of its own protection, as any nation should. Yugoslavia? A European problem we should let them handle.

Of course, in the real world this won't happen. Most European nations in the Community spend just a fraction of the money we do on defense. America picks up a lot of the load for them. It's how they can afford their welfare state. If they had to pay for defense on a par with us, it would cripple their economies and destroy their social net.

Europe can't have that! They're civilised people. It's up to us barbaric Americans to do the ugly work of making sure their asses don't get into trouble. That's our proper role: the help. We should know our place. Fools and internationalists like the Clintons think being allowed to sit at their fancy tables makes the second-class status worthwhile. They think Europeans are better people than we are and are happy to lick their boots and bask in their pats on the head.

Bush wasn't. He is playing real-politik with them. It's why they are so outraged. We've forgotten our place. We're threatening the civilised place they live in. We're bad.

Well, screw 'em. When they all speak Arabic in public and retreat from the Muslim masses swamping them to their enclaves of European civility to grouse in private, we'll see how "civilised" they still are.

Wouldn't Ya Know?

Today turned into the Day of Many Chores and my lower body is really worn out. (If you've seen the sack of cement I carry in my belly, you'll understand.) Two Allieve and shortly off to bed for me. The good news is I'll probably sleep great: in clean sheets, with a nice overnight temp. Mmmmm....

Today was also the Day of Surpising Good News. I picked up my last paycheck from the old job and it turned out to be somewhat more than I was expecting! Turns out the vacation pay I'd assumed I'd lost was paid out anyway. Yay!

So, I'll have some content over the weekend, for those of you first getting here on Friday. I usually post on Saturdays and Sundays, unlike many bloggers. Besides, there's tons of crap -- uhhhh...lots of stuff already posted.

Shower, clean bed, deep sleep. I am so boring.

Bourbon Is A Harsh Mistress

Say Uncle came this close and learns a sad lesson.

Slouching Toward 495 Union Avenue

Well, it seems my time has come 'round at last. Today's CA Eye feature in the Commercial Appeal mentions yours truly! Jon Sparks wrote:

Dedicated blogger Mike Hollihan understands what Web journaling is all about and practices it vigorously. He is, among other things, a self-appointed critic of local media and boy, does that make for some interesting reading. Be prepared to spend some time at his Halfbakered blog.

He's too nice by half. Thanks for the pointer.

And to you good Commercial Appeal readers stopping by, welcome! It's a different universe here at Half-Bakered. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave your thoughts, opinions and brickbats in the comments feature attached to each post. Or you can email me directly at the addy in the top left corner.

Have fun! Come back and see us again sometime.

BTW, if Jon's CA Eye runs thrice weekly and has its own name, with Jon's handsome mug splattered right there for God and Memphis to see, why then is he not listed with the others on the CA columnist page, with his columns below his name? Seems an unnecessary omission, as you can't tell in the daily list of stories which is Jon's feature. It would help those who are looking for specific CA Eye bits to have them both labelled and gathered, don't you think? Just a thought....

Reminder Of My Evilness

Just a reminder, for those of you who haven't yet succumbed to the temptation, that I have a couple of pages of Kerry mockery up at the hollihan.net site. You can see them here and here. I had great fun making these, as I tapped my evil side in doing so. More undoubtedly to come.

I also found a whole lot more graphics lurking in odd corners of the hard drive today and mean to get them up Real Soon Now. These are all kinds of miscellaneous weirdness I wanted to share. Watch these pages.

Good Morning, Memphis

Whew! I just completed a massive overhaul of the links to the left. I finally added the Government section, though I still need to add some State-level sites and a few more locals. I also tweaked the template a bit and changed the color over there, and of the inline links, to a paler color than the former gold. It seems a bit easier on the eyes.

I've also decided to add a whole lot of LiveJournal Memphians to the "Folks" listing. It's something I've been going back and forth over, but all the ones listed are staying current and doing more than a minimum of discussion with some Memphis content. LiveJournalling tends to be much more confessional and diaristic than blogging, which tends to the rhetorical and educational. We'll see how this goes.

If you don't see your name or site over there in "Folks" and would like it added, either email me or leave a note in the comments. I'll review you and maybe add you. Memphis or Mid-South orientation is a must, obviously, and there are some other aesthetic concerns that are purely subjective. Sorry, but "my blog, my rules." Alternatively, if you want off the list, for whatever reason, let me know, too.

Frankly, I'm worried at how long those link-lists are getting, as the eye tends to glaze over after a certain length. Folks tend not to go browsing very long lists. If anyone has suggestions on how to fight that, let me know.

I hope the new look works. Let me know.

The Way You Do The Thing You Do

I thought I might share my process for blogging. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

During the day, when I'm away from my computer, if something comes to me I'll write it down on a piece of paper and shove it into my pocket. Or I'll grab a highlighter (pen if necessary) and mark up the paper's articles or passages I want to comment on. I might make notes in the margins. The whole time, stuff is percolating in the back of my mind, setting up thoughts and structures to be used later. My brain is like that, always working and never shutting off. It's a curse and part of the reason I used to drink too much.

When I get home, all that gets tossed on the desk. I'll fire up the computer and do my daily reading, bookmarking as I go. After a few hours, which is frequently what my daily reading takes, I'll go to Blogger and get to work.

I usually start with short "look at this" posts to warm up the will, muscles and brains. Longer posts will almost always get composed in Blogger, sometimes in Notepad and then copy/pasted in. I'll write straight from the mind, organising as I go, snatching and pasting in links the same way. I'll go back and scan over things to make sure links are all filled in and not fubar'ed, so as not to trigger "safe mode," which has given me headaches before.

Once the whole thing is written, I'll do a "Select All/Copy" function. This is crucial with Blogger, as I have lost many posts to the gods of the ethersphere not following this step. Then I post. Once the new post is in the published window, I'll wave the cursor over the links, to check them. Then I start reading. If I spot something, I'll hit "edit" to recall the post.

This pass I'll double-check for spelling, punctuation and grammar. My spelling is really good, but my typing less so. I rarely type government correctly on the first shot, usually getting "governemnt" instead. I also have a tendency to over-use commas, so I check for that. Another problem in my writing is starting too many sentences with "coughs," conjunctions like "and, now, but, though" or short phrases that don't serve as more than literary self-effacements before I express something strong. I went looking for some just now to illustrate and couldn't find any! Hah, good. It's a real problem for me, but I must be getting better at rooting them out.

Then comes checking for words reused too often or too close together. I make sure I make my points clearly enough. Sometimes, I assume a bit too much on the part of the reader and find I need to add a bit to clarify. I'm also bad about getting sentences into the wrong order, having the idea and then thinking up the setup, so that I have to cut'n'paste them into a better flow of thought.

I may also miss some point I meant to make, so I have to shoe-horn in the additional stuff. Then I go back and reread the reposted whole, to make sure I like it. Usually that's the end of things, though I may also see mistakes I hadn't caught yet.

Then, I call up Half-Bakered in the browser to see how it looks. Sometimes, there will be formatting errors that require fixing. By this point, my eyes are tired, too, so seeing the posts in a new way helps to catch whatever I haven't caught up to this point.

Once in a while, I'll have second thoughts about something and will go back to edit those things I may have overstated. Because I sometimes express myself a bit strongly.

I'm always surprised how long some of these posts turn out to be. I've also noticed that my vocabulary has shrunk noticeably, most likely due to a lot of Internet and news media reading. I read fewer books, novels and short fiction than I used to, which I regret. Long, convoluted sentences filled with conjunctions and subjunctive clauses and asides are another concern. I've also noted that posts like this have a lot of sentences starting with "I."

That's my process. What's yours?

You See, I Told You

This week's Memphis Flyer editorial (not online yet, for some reason) echoes pretty much all I had to say about District Five City Councillor Carol Chumney, except in politer newspaper-speak. Me? Not so polite and days sooner. Either way, she needs to alter her behavior before she's marginalised into ineffectiveness.

Advantage: blogosphere!

Today's Time-wasters

A couple of fun links for you!

The Safety Sign Generator will construct an OSHA-approved warning sign of your design, with proper graphics and your choice of colors and text! Let your inner Bart Simpson have some fun. I made a bunch of these a while back but can't find them. When I rediscover 'em, I'll post 'em.

And, via Wil Wheaton Dot Net, comes the button maker from Kalsey Consulting Group. Make your own little "stickers" for your blog or website. Go to WWDN for examples.

Have fun!

Wave Of The Future

Mark over at Conservative Zone has a post on RFID tags and what that means for the future. RFID (radio frequency idenitification) tags are "smart" product tags that can be read by any scanner within distance. Mark illustrates some of the possibilities for mischief.

It's Not Fair

Some folks just get all the luck. Take Jon Sparks, for example. He got to go to the Playboy event and got his picture taken with Miram Gonzalez! Miriam freakin' Gonzalez!! (That's worth two exclamation marks.) He was within drool distance of a goddess.

I gotta get out more often. No question....

A Prank Gone Horribly Wrong

Some radio station did one of those prank calls, calling a woman to tell her that her husband had just been fired from his job. It didn't go as planned. Listen to her very last comment.

(The link goes to the MP3 file; 640Kb. Just right-click and save. Hat tip to ZGeek for this.)

Thought For Today

I just caught a caller to Rush Limbaugh who made a good point. If Richard Clarke really means his apology to the families of 9/11 for his failures and those of the administrations he's served, will he then be donating the profits from his book to a 9/11 fund? Or will he keep them? Why?

Shoo!

Why are you in front of your computer on such a spectacularly beautiful day? Log off and go outside. Right now. Go! Git.

I Am Sooooooo Evil

I worked up a really, really nasty graphic tonight, a really cheap shot at John Kerry. The two campaign posters I did were pretty sophisticated and subversive. I think the jokes may be a bit too obscure because they are pretty subtle. One hints at environmental terrorism as it implies Kerry is more worried about the world's opinion than he is about America; the other was my homage to 19th century campaign slogans. Though they are pretty funny.

This new one is very plain, very clear and very stark. A real cheap shot. Agit-prop of the worst variety. I'm quite proud of it!

I'll have it up, with some other graphics I've done recently, later on Thursday.

INSTANT UPDATE Already up! Go to this page.

Thought For Today

I read this in Ann Landers when I was in my early teens, more than three decades ago. It has stuck with me ever since and I've tried to live by it.

Intelligent people discuss ideas and concepts.
Average people discuss current events.
Ignorant people discuss each other.