(no subject)

I recently disabled my email rules that send journal table of contents emails to another folder, because I wasn't reading them. Now they come to my inbox. Which is good, because I read them, but distracting, because I generally have no self-control or attention span and MUST READ THEM NOW NOW NOW.

Not quite sure what to do about this.

Very happy reading about the Governor-General's investiture. She's so awesome.

Her speech

today's house update

( caused me to sporfle )

It's all about the little plastic condoms.

Incidentally, I am still puttering away at my packing. Up to 47 boxes as of this morning, plus some stuff that isn't numbered. Disassembled my stereo. Will detach the DVD and VCR tonight. Mostly all that's left is the office corner, which looks like it should occupy about a box and a half but will undoubtedly make for about five boxes. I don't know why this should be so, but it usually is.

Here's the thing: I have moved a LOT in my life, but I hate it and I'm not good at it. Some people float around the globe living out of two suitcases for years, and they love it. I am not one of them. I accumulate Stuff, and books and clothes and kitchen appliances. At the same time, I'm not good at settling in: at some level, I seem to expect that another move is just around the corner, so what's the point? I live surrounded by boxes, never quite happy with my furniture, but unprepared to buy stuff that really works because I'm just going to move again.

Jen, by contrast (for example), doesn't have any of this. Her parents have lived in the same house her entire life and show no signs of wanting to change that.

I'm really hoping that living in a house I own, in the place I want to live, where I can do basically whatever I want with the place, will allow me to settle down and be calm and free up all this emotional energy for better things.

I explained some of this to crankygrrl over coffees yesterday evening and she said "Maybe that's why you've been so difficult ever since I've known you! It was low-grade stress! I always thought you liked living out of boxes!" She seems to think that I'm annoyed about this, but I think it's an entirely reasonable theory.

Lunchtime.

Katrina and FE(Mis)MA

First-hand account from an extremely pissed-off doctor.

(Thursday)

We discussed a plan to set up a triage station on the opposite site of the current one. Now our "hospital" had swelled to encompass both the East and Westbound lanes of Interstate 10. Helicopters still landing. About 3000-5000 people still in our location. I received word that the FEMA official said that they were pulling out. Until this point, FEMA was providing no medical assistance, but they were helping to obtain transportation for these people. The transportation was inadequate to say the least, and now they were pulling out? I approached the official and asked him whether it was true that they were pulling out and if so why. I was told that yes they were leaving, and he was unsure why. His comment was that the decision had been made by "people above my pay grade" as he shrugs his shoulders. Rumor was that shootings in New Orleans had spurred someone higher up in FEMA to pull back. This was ridiculous. We were 1.5 miles outside of New Orleans proper. At that time, we had no security problem. We did not have a security problem until later that day when transportation slowed almost to a standstill. No more FEMA, very little transportation. No coordination. It is Thursday -- 3 days post storm! There was no gunfire at our location. Only people in dire need of medical assistance and transportation. The lack of transportation for the people caused more of them to become medical patients. Dehydration and exhaustion. The FEMA official walked away leaving our crew, the local EMS crew from Austin City, and a mass of people -- patients lying on the Interstate in their own urine and feces. Supplies were still minimal -- oxygen, albuterol, IV fluids. I was rationing 2 bottles of nitroglycerin.

Absolutely appalling. Worth reading the whole thing, although you'll probably have to register (try Bugmenot).

Jim MacDonald is now my guru in this area. He published this a couple weeks ago, but if you haven't seen it, do read it, if only for the comparison.

(no subject)

I thought this post by Mark Schmitt (via poorman_rss) was interesting: Pump and Dump Politics.

He's talking about Bill Frist's insider trading, and the culture that it seems to exemplify:

Investors as well as executives don't look at a company as something to build for the long term; they need to beat their numbers in the current quarter. And for the most part they assume that by the time things get tough, they'll be out. The insiders will bail out before the suckers; the CEO will move on to some other company. Or, if worst comes to worst, he'll retire with a nice package guaranteeing health care, use of the company plane for life, and a nice package of stock to sell when someone else turns the company around.

...

And what is our political culture except another version of pump and dump? Everything from war to tax policy to energy policy to the Medicare bill is a short-term effort to boost the president's political stock, with the long-term costs left to some bigger sucker.

I have nothing really to add to this, but it did spark some mildly connected thoughts: 1. Everyone should read or watch The Corporation. 2. It's an interesting corporate-governance issue. Recently in Canada, institutional investors like the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (which with $88 billion in assets is a force to be reckoned with) have been flexing their muscles and demanding better governance, better accountability, better citizenship etc. Is this going on in the States at all? 3. It occurs to me that this could be taken as yet another government-should-get-out-of-the-market notion, which it isn't at all. I'm always thrilled when institutional investors play the heavy, but that's just a nice complement to regulation and enforcement, not really a substitute for them.

Via gristmill_rss, linking for convenience because I haven't really had time to read it yet: Save energy, build more efficient cities.