constant struggle

MCO: Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida, United States.

(no, i wasn't visiting the mouse.)

I feel as though i have quite a few thoughts on this, but my perpetually sleep-addled brain can't seem to express them in anything resembling coherency. Essentially, though, you have to believe either that a) vast numbers of Americans are somehow genetically incapable of completing college-level work or b) something is seriously wrong with our primary and secondary educational system: vast numbers of Americans receive compulsory education that is so shabby that by the time they get to college they have neither the skills nor the socialization to actually complete the work. Cue Bowles and Gintis.

HOU: William P. Hobby Airport, Houston, Texas, United States.

There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about "the working classes," and satisfy themselves that a day's hard intellectual work is very much harder than a day's hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they know all about the one, but haven't tried the other. But I know all about both; and so far as I am concerned, there isn't money enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pickaxe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near nothing as you can cipher it down—and I will be satisfied, too.

-Mark Twain

Karelis, a professor at George Washington University, has a simpler but far more radical argument to make: traditional economics just doesn't apply to the poor. When we're poor, Karelis argues, our economic worldview is shaped by deprivation, and we see the world around us not in terms of goods to be consumed but as problems to be alleviated. This is where the bee stings come in: A person with one bee sting is highly motivated to get it treated. But a person with multiple bee stings does not have much incentive to get one sting treated, because the others will still throb. The more of a painful or undesirable thing one has (i.e. the poorer one is) the less likely one is to do anything about any one problem. Poverty is less a matter of having few goods than having lots of problems.

1. NYT reports that:

Two widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs, Vytorin and Zetia, may not work and should be used only as a last resort, The New England Journal of Medicine said in an editorial published on Sunday.

Merck and Schering-Plough, the companies that make Vytorin and Zetia, said on Sunday that despite the results of the trial, they would continue to promote their medicines as first-line treatments for high cholesterol.

2. AP reports that:

[O]ut of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

VIE: Vienna International Airport, Vienna, Austria.

RDU: Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Wake County, North Carolina, United States.

IAD: Washington Dulles International Airport,Loudoun County and Fairfax County, Virginia, United States.

Handy.

1. It takes two Philly cops two hours to process one arrest for one ten dollar bag of weed.

2. The new police chief's Plan is to increase these types of arrests.

I preach to you today on the war in Vietnam because my conscience leaves me with no other choice. The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. "Ye shall know the truth," says Jesus, "and the truth shall set you free." Now, I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.

In the U.S., about 30 percent of ninth graders don't finish high school in four years. Link.

This guy lost his job, had to move in with his mom.. and then, the ultimate indignity: He had to sell his bike to a yuppie.

He had owned a Harley since he was 20, and weekend cruising with pals was his favorite recreation.

“The buyer said he wanted to take it away in the back of a trailer,” Mr. Evans recalled, “and I said, ‘That won’t happen.’ ”

“Instead I drove it to his house, threw him the keys, came home and got drunk.”

At the end of the trail a man who had killed fifty horses wanted to buy, but we looked at him and at our own,--mountain cayuses from eastern Oregon. Five thousand he offered, and we were broke, but we remembered the poison grass of the Summit and the passage in the Rocks, and the man who was my brother spoke no word, but divided the cayuses into two bunches,--his in the one and mine in the other,--and he looked at me and we understood each other. So he drove mine to the one side and I drove his to the other, and we took with us our rifles and shot them to the last one, while the man who had killed fifty horses cursed us till his throat cracked.

In 2000, there were 7,000 American households worth $100 million or more; in 2003, there were 10,000; and today, though the data isn’t yet in, Boston College estimates that the number will be 14,000 or 15,000, or double what it was at the beginning of the millennium.

Boston College has calculated that in 2004, the last time the Fed provided data, there were 649,000 American households worth $10 million or more, a nearly 300 percent jump since 1992.

"I know I will never take another photograph that's as good as this - not as long as I live."

Nick Ut, on his photo of Kim Phuc. Luckily (?), i've never thought anything like that - but i've never taken a photo anything like this one either. Link.

ZIH: Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo International Airport, Ixtapa, Mexico

MEX: Mexico City International Airport, Mexico City, Mexico

"The desert tribes say a house is a tomb for the living."

"There’s no telling what you’ll find once you start walking."

From here.

another year. what to say?

so much changed, so much the same. 40,000 miles in the air, 9 new airports, 1 new country. sczcecin. atlanta to san antonio on the bus. jazzfest. the gorge, how long have i wanted to see a show at the gorge? north cali, still one of my favorite spots on the planet.

all my friends and heroes: those who stand and say thus far you will go, but no further. those who aren't afraid to tell me i'm an asshole, and why. those who keep on caring, long after most give up. sg. cc, esq. at, mc and the whole nv crew. the three lauras. miss stone. miss giannone. nanna, the real street lawyer (in vancouver, in warsaw, in new orleans..one day i will make it to denmark). yes, the swu crew; ppp too. and of course ms. johnston, the best there is.

same city, new job. trying to be a better person. wondering what to do with my life. soon i will be 28. off to mexico, see you next year.

Pain caused by dental problems is a leading cause of missed school days in Kentucky, according to state health officials, and almost half of the state’s children ages 2 to 4 have untreated cavities. About 1 in 10 state residents are missing all their teeth, according to 2004 federal data. From the NYT.

"The Bottom Line" - Great photoessay from the Dallas Morning News highlighting some of the many problems with Tejas.

"It's the End of the World As We Know It," as sung by G-Dub.

Kids not raised in orphanages do much better than their counterparts who are; more evidence that early environment can have a great impact on juvenile development.

Harlan Ellison on the quaint notion that folks should get paid for the work they do.[Youtube]

I'm not sure if the best part of this story is how arresting black men for talking on the corner is the official policy, when the police chief talks about how awesome it is that his unconstitutional laws keep black men out of his town, or where he says he'd hire black police officers but, gosh darn it, he just can't find any darkies with the smarts to be a cop. Link.

BNA: Nashville International Airport, Nashville, TN USA