I’d like to preface this entire rant by stating that I’ve watched a lot of political shows, debates, speeches, and political commentary in the last 18 months.  I think I may have had a "straw that broke the camel’s back" kind of moment, and that is all.  I’m feeling much better now and would like to assure David Broder and Chris Wallace that I intended them no personal insult, and come to think of it, that they’d make a heck of a cute couple.

The FOX News Obama watch has officially come to a close as of yesterday morning.  For any of you unfamiliar with FOX’s unique brand of "black" mail, FOX has been counting the years, days, hours, etc., since Obama allegedly told FOX News Sunday host, Chris Wallace, that he’d appear on the show.  When I saw that the first serious African American contender for the formerly highest office in the world was going to be appearing on FOX News I was elated, because frankly the Obama watch was pretty annoying and tantamount to FOX sitting in the corner an pouting because the more popular kid down the street doesn’t want to come over and play at their house. 

So, after 771 days the FOX clock stopped and the interview took place, and there I was on the edge of my couch ready for anything.  True to form, FOX spent the entire first segment with Obama (there were three segments total) asking about various "distractions", ranging from Reverend Wright to Tom Coburn, rather than actual issues.  As the commercials reeled by me I couldn’t believe FOX had shoe-horned somebody into appearing to answer such mindless pap, and that they waited 771 days for this.  However, things improved during segments 2-3.

Once the interview was over it was time for the weekly FOX round table, starring: Brit, Mara, Bill, and Juan.  I had to laugh when Bill Crystal commented regarding his surprise that Obama didn’t spend more time talking about actual issues during the interview.  All Bill’s cohorts were in resounding agreement, as was I.  Unfortunately I’m pretty sure that they failed to fully appreciate the interviewee’s role in this happenstance.

…and so the channel flipped to Meet The Press…

Hey, A round table!  And I’ve arrived just in time to hear David Broder chime in with insightful commentary!  Ol’ Dave is always interesting to watch, mostly because he exists as the perfect caricature of his generation: the Silent generation.  You know the Silent generation, right?  They came just after the Greatest generation and just before the Baby Boomers.  Funny thing about Silents, they are known for being notoriously wishy-washy and incredible indecisive.  So much so that we’ve not had a Silent president; they are the only generation in the history of America to have that distinction, or lack thereof.

Note: This could all change should John McCain get elected. 

But the fact that Silents have consistently lacked leadership ability and directed thinking is apparently no reason to exclude them from public commentary, in fact, given the quality of the commentary our networks produce they might be just what the doctor ordered.  Which brings us full circle to David Broder.  David’s blood was boiling yesterday because there is no scheduled debate during the two weeks leading up to the North Carolina/Indiana primaries.  As he put it, the American people don’t yet understand how the democratic candidates actually stand on the issues, and darn it, we need another debate so that they can understand the candidates positions!  Well, David, we’ve had 21 debates up to this point, if the voters don’t understand where the candidates stand on the issues by now another debate is not going to help things.  Does that make sense to anyone other than me?  Wouldn’t you expect that to be understood by a commentator who is paid to share relevant comments with the entire nation?

Can you imagine a network where the talking head turns to the host and says, "Gee, Tim, isn’t it interesting that after 21 debates the people still don’t fully understand the positions of the candidates?  Perhaps there is a better forum for the candidates to express their opinions than a debate?"  Ahhh, just breathe that in.  Don’t you just like when people think that way, I mean, using common sense and all? 

…and so the TV turned off…

It has been a long week of media/Clinton bashing for ol’ Barack, and you kind of have to feel sorry for the guy.  The controversial quotation was delivered at an April 6 San Francisco fundraiser.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

This whole debacle has been on my mind lately, and I always seem to end up at the some conclusion: words just aren’t that important.  I recognize the irony of employing such an argument in defense of the "words matter" candidate, but that’s just the way it’s going to be.  It isn’t that words are of no value - we all know this to be false - but words are best judged within the context of the macroscopic and not the microscopic.  Words cannot be more relevant that the ideas they are intended to convey, can they?  Such ideas are crafted over weeks, months, and years of articulation and communication.  A series of words, on the other hand, is here in one moment and gone in the next.  In the end it is the idea that matters, if we focus solely on the quality of the delivery we are missing the point, and frankly, we’re being elitist.

Obama’s quote seems bad, but what is most troubling is that it has been accepted as the final word on his beliefs, even though it stands in stark contrast to his previously expressed ideas.  Not just the ones he has made known throughout his years of public service, but the ones he has lived in his personal life as well.  If you take away his beliefs you’ve still got logic to contend with: no reasonable candidate would purposefully insult the very demographic that his primary hopes are dependent on; it was simply a poor choice of words.  Even so, people are all to eager to throw such history away and judge a candidate, be it Barack or someone else, by a single moment in a speech.  And with a seemingly endless stream of speeches there are a seemingly endless stream of opportunities to misstep, to be human.  Troubling if you happen to be a candidate who speaks in prose and not in sound-bytes.  Doubly troubling when you consider that the media sees the latest data point as the only data point that matters, typically disregarding the thousands that came before it.  Perhaps statistics isn’t a requirement for a journalism degree? 

Sadly, with each passing election the media looks more and more like a child during carnival season, standing in front of that stupid machine with the foam covered mallet and waiting for one of the gophers to pop its head up so they can smash it back down.  This is all well and good if the things that are being "smashed down" are blatant mistruths -  like saying you were under sniper-fire when actually weren’t, for instance - but to give the message that someone’s beliefs are other than their life’s work demonstrates because of 10 seconds of poorly chosen dialogue seems pretty irresponsible. 

How much can we really blame the media?  They have to fill the news-cycle, right?  And with 5 weeks between primaries can you fault them for employing the old ‘bump-set-spike’ routine?  They’ve been doing it for years: 1) blow something completely out of proportion 2) demand an apology for said offense, around the clock if possible 3) react incredulously when the apology comes, surprised that the target of your barbs sold out their beliefs so easily.   Without this kind of news coverage we’d never arrive at such relevant political happenings as ‘bittergate’.

America has been perfectly willing to rail against George W. Bush and his countrified ways of speaking for quite a while now, regaling one another at water coolers with his latest gaffs.  Many people I know wrote ‘W’ off immediately because of his apparent backwardness.  Sounds elitist, doesn’t it?  Judging George by such a shallow measure wasn’t something I was not willing to do.  In time his backwards speech gave way to backwards policies and I was "off like a prom dress", but was I wrong for giving a country boy a chance it the first place?  If so, maybe there is something to be said for elitism? 

I heard on the news recently that %29 of Hillary Clinton supporters have vowed to cross that fabled aisle and cast their votes for McCain should Obama receive the Democratic nod at the end of this primary process (this assumes that the primary process is actually going to end).  What gives?  Just a few weeks ago I was watching debates between the democratic candidates in which each would motion to the other and say something like "let’s be honest here…any one of us would make a good choice for president", and the last time I looked at the issues it seemed like Obama’s staff had sent their opinions over to the Hillary camp for photocopying. Sure, there are a few minor implementation details, but who wants to look that far into things during the primaries, after all, that’s where the devil lives, right?

As an independent who is looking at the Democratic primary from the outside in it seems to me that any dyed-in-the-wool party member would be glowing at either choice, but somehow this is just not the case.  The truth is that many Hillary Clinton lovers would rather support a republican who disagrees with them at every turn, than a charismatic black man who represents them point-for-point, or so they say.  This just seems odd. 

Were the statistics reversed and were it %29 of the Obama folks who preferred McCain to Clinton it’d make more sense to me.  After all, McCain appeals to independents very strongly, just as Obama does.  It stands to reason that a large number of Obama supporters would jump ship to the straight-talk express if the need arose, they were always free floaters, right?  You’d figure the hardcore Democrats would be the only ones not having second thoughts should Hillary secure the nomination.

Hillary’s supporters have no such excuses, they are the blue-blood Democrats, the kind of folks who have dues taken from their paychecks to support the candidate their union has endorsed (whether they like them or not).  It all looks very suspicious.  While Obama is clearly favored by the urban, progressive-minded, educated voters, Hillary has become a siren for the low-income, less educated, rural white vote.  And now we find that these people would rather vote for a white candidate from a different party than a black man from their own?  Flash! Hillary Clinton: the cracker candidate!  This truly is getting silly. 

Imagine my shock and chagrin as I stood in the locker room of my gym yesterday evening listening to Brit Hume telling tales of global cooling - not just minor global cooling mind you - a major temperature shift to the negative, or so they say. Now, I know they say a lot of things, but for the purposes of grinding this axe in my hand I’ve chosen to suspend my disbelief temporarily. They say that the temperature change recorded last year was the largest ever recorded, and the thermometer wasn’t rising.

Now there is word that all four major global temperature tracking outlets have released data showing that temperatures have dropped significantly over the last year…a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. It is reportedly the single fastest temperature change ever recorded — up or down.

I’ve been on the fence regarding the issue of global warming of late.  This may actually have been considered progress for me because man-made global warming is something that I’ve never really bought into.  But in the last few years there’s been such seemingly unanimous consensus on the issue that it has forced me to reconsider my stance somewhat and try to keep an open mind.  No matter how ‘open’ my mind became certain facts would always give me pause regarding man-made global warming, most pointedly the fact that other planets in our galaxy have also been warming (without the help of man, mind you!) Perhaps Hume’s report brings this galactic warming into focus.

Some scientists contend the cooling is the result of reduced solar activity — which they say is a larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases.

If this is true it certainly explains why Earth is not the only planet that has experienced warming, and why it is now cooling, as solar activity has declined of late.

As I mentioned, I’ve been hearing for years that Mars and other planets in our neighborhood were also warming, although it was always from some ‘alternative’ news source, not from CNN. But even in the light of these stories I found that something inside me wanted to believe in man-made global warming; a fact that has really been bothering me since I toweled off in the gym last night.

Part of my susceptibility to the whole global warming fiasco has certainly been an inner ‘spidey sense’ that has been tingling in the last few years, and has still got me on pins and needles. It is as if something is coming and my spirit feels its approach, but cannot identify what it is. I’ve talked to numerous friends about this weird vibe only to find that they’ve been getting it too. I don’t want to delve into such utter vagueries hear and now, but simply to explain that this strange foreboding within the core of my being created a safe place where global warming theories could gestate and thrive…like a tiny Al Gore lying in the fetal position somewhere deep within my intuitive womb.

(I’m back now…I had to run to the bathroom and vomit)

I’ve been considering why it is that the ‘experts’ in the field of climatology have been so willing to jump on the bandwagon and so quick to discount the solar aspects of the warming we’ve experienced, and I’ve come up with a theory: George W. Bush. Could it be because everyone, everywhere, dislikes George (with the exception of my Mother and Father and most of their home state of Texas)? Even George’s own party wants nothing to do with him! It makes me wonder if the world’s recent fervor over global warming was somehow fueled by Georges unwillingness to sign the Kyoto Protocol (an agreement made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change whose usefulness is even questioned by climatologists). I’m not saying that Kyoto is the largest failing of George’s presidency, only that is has become a symbol of his ‘my way or the highway’ approach to leadership. Arguably, Kyoto is first of many times George has snubbed the world at large. Now, George may have actually been right on Kyoto, perhaps Brit’s report will be the beginning of George’s vindication on this matter. But global warming has never really been the point of people’s discontent here, has it? From Kyoto forward the world saw George as a spoiled boy, silver spoon in mouth, who cared nothing for what anyone else wanted (except Dick Cheney) and would do as he pleased; incapable of owning up to his own failings.

My point is not to bash George here, but to illuminate a climate in which the world held its breath and waited for the opportunity to shake its collective finger in George’s face and say ‘We told you so!’ Like a splinter in the mind Kyoto lingered and, as the temperature began to rise - just like Al Gore on that stupid hydraulic lift thing – so did the worlds ire, wanting to believe so badly that George was wrong. Ahhh, the dream: smiling from ear to ear as they rained burning sulfur down on Georges head. Maybe they’ll never get the chance?

Is the temperature truly cooling? Did I really sit through An Inconvenient Truth for nothing? Time will tell I suppose, but as of this moment I’m officially worried. Not about the Earth, but about that fact that I may have endured years of gratuitous global warming alarmism. I get it. I know that there’s good that can come out this leap into the deep-end of the global warming worry pool. People are thinking more ‘green’ and trying to live more cleanly and, we’re all consider ways in which to alleviate our dependence on foreign fuel sources. I see that there is real progress to be made and I know it can all work for good, as things often do, but still I ask myself, did I really sit through Al Gore’s movie for nothing?

As my friend said to me years ago, “These people can’t even tell you what the temperature is going to be next Thursday, and you think they can tell what it’s going to be in 100 years? They’re nothing but a bunch of monkeys sitting around and throwing dirt in the air.” It reminds me of a line from Cameron Crowe’s movie, Almost Famous,”Isn’t it funny? The truth just sounds different.”

Winter has my soul clutched firmly within its icy fingers. It lingers on and on and, I can’t remember the last time I was completely warm. Sure, it gets pretty steamy in the shower each morning, but I can never truly enjoy those moments knowing that the other shoe will soon be dropping; that unavoidable moment when the curtain is pulled open and the frigid air encircles me, forming icicles on my dripping frame. This is how each winter day begins here in the mid-west: a cold journey from bed to shower, from shower to towel rack, and from towel rack to closet. Is goes on all day, from the house to the car, from the car to the office, from the office to a lunch place, etc. It’s at this time of year that my inner Forrest Gump recounts enthusiastically, “From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was freezing!!!”

There is a furnace in my office building, just as in my home, but it only goes so far. They put forth a nearly ceaseless effort to rectify the situation, as evidenced by my $200 plus monthly heating bill, but true warmth eludes me nonetheless. Even as I sit here typing I can feel that the tip of my nose is still cold from the trip to work - and it’s nearly time to go to lunch - this is a losing battle.

Beyond the physical chill there is a deeper psychological paralysis occurring, as if my hypothermic brain has cut off blood flow to my emotional extremities in a desperate act of self-preservation. Perhaps it’s just “stir craziness” strangling my sensibilities? It is true, I have been indoors for the majority of 4 months, but that doesn’t quite capture the whole of it. It is like I’m being punished when I’m not indoors, like each time I set foot outside a timer starts and with each passing second of exposure it becomes exponentially more unpleasant to remain. What choice do I have but to retreat back into the comfort of some artificially temperate environment? Who knows, if I stay there long enough I may enough get a some of the feeling back in my nose and toes.

It is a subtle torture, winter, like the slow turning of thumb-screws over months and months. When that first snowfall hits it almost makes me feel young again. My house feels like a larger version of a fort I might have built in someone else’s front yard as a boy (It doesn’t much matter whose yard it is, just as long I’m not making the mortgage payments). The fort is cozy enough, protects me from the howling winds and, all in all, it is pretty enjoyable at first. But all too soon the fort transforms in prison of sorts. What at first acted as my shield against the snowy onslaught becomes a suburban penitentiary, complete with double-paned glass bars and sheet rock walls. After a while I even catch myself hoping that the warden will stop by, if only for a minute or two, and tell me that my patience and good behavior will surely play well at my upcoming parole hearing. “They’d better,” I’d quip to him, “because, frankly, the daily furloughs to the office just aren’t cutting it anymore.” Maybe I’d even let read him this self- indulgent, rambling essay, written as nothing more than an effort to maintain my own sanity in the face of endless winter. Sadly, the warden has yet to arrive. Most days I settle for the weatherman.

I was listening to some people talking about meditation in the break room the other day. As they discussed various classes claiming to teach meditation I couldn’t help but find it odd that this was something they felt someone else had to teach them; that they couldn’t figure it out for themselves.

It seems that a large number of folks out there think that the “mystical east” has a lock on knowledge and techniques regarding meditation (don’t even get me started on martial arts) and that eastern religions and mystical practices are somehow more legitimate or “traditional” than more mundane western practices. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with any particular method, but for god’s sake you can be creative about it people!

Do you really need to twist your legs into a pretzel or endlessly repeat Indian mantras that you don’t understand in order to gain enlightenment and inner peace or are there other ways to do it? I suppose that is one method of meditation, but is it any more valid than saying a rosary or listening to Gregorian chant for example? I think not. What about sweating and fasting your way into a mystic state in a Native American style sweat lodge? Why not try a good old fashioned Finnish sauna followed by a roll in the snow or a dip in an ice cold lake? Any method that works for you is just as “real” as dressing up in glorified pajamas, bowing and scraping and pretending you are suddenly Japanese, Indian, or Chinese. (If you are Japanese, Indian, or Chinese more power to you! I am just trying to make a point here)

My method of meditation is no better or worse than any other method, it just works really well for me. The strongest mystical/spiritual/meditative experiences I have had always seem to involve physical exertion. Nothing works for me like running (especially at night), but hiking for a long distance with a heavy pack on gets me to the same place.

The most vivid meditative experience I can recall having was while running very early in the morning one day last winter. It was bitterly cold outside and there was a thick coating of snow on the ground. From time to time a car would approach me and quickly pass, causing me to temporarily lose sight for a few moments as the glare of its headlights cut through the darkness. Each time this would happen I would lose all ability see where I was stepping; I might as well have been running in outer space. Somehow this feeling, when added to the cold, the sound and feel of the snow crunching rhythmically underfoot, the Doppler shift of cars hissing by, and the exertion of the run, combined to take me quite outside of myself. I was suddenly embroiled in an inner debate between the merits of predestination vs. free will. I finished the run in a trance-like state, only snapping out of it once I’d returned to my house and began to get ready for work. No, I don’t always have a powerful spiritual episode when I run, but I always seem to come out of a run with a clear and refreshed mind.

OK enough about me, what gets you into an altered state? I am thinking of non-substance related methods here folks…

I’ve been ruminating of late on all the places within these glorious United States where I’d rather be living, which is pretty much any place other than here in the Midwest. OK. I’m overstating the weight of my middle-American displeasure, but not much. My desire to exit, stage west, ebbs and flows with the changing of the seasons like it is fastened at the hip to my bouts of S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder). It isn’t much of a surprise considering how harsh and unforgiving the Midwestern winters can be. Winter passes slowly here in great lakes country, unlike its impetuous cousin, summer. Throughout this frigid marathon people reacquaint themselves with the inside of their homes, stir craziness builds, skin becomes drier, lips crack, then heal, and then crack again. On top of all this, clothing gets tighter as the months pass, how is the body to know that it no longer needs to store fats away for a rainy day?  Suck factor: 9.

On the other hand, each time I consider a move to a warmer climate it feels that I’m always opening myself up to one form of disaster or another. The west coast has earthquakes and wildfires, the gulf coast has hurricanes and flooding, and the central United States is known as ‘tornado alley’. It’s as if comfortable living is always accompanied by increased risk?

This almost makes sense for those who believe in a universal state of balance, a yin and yang, so to speak. Suppose for arguments sake that as human beings we’re simply meant to deal with a certain amount of displeasure each year. Well, here in the Midwest we get our share of displeasure every winter as we skate down our own icy trail of tears. After winter comes the warm weather - we bask in the sunlight and smile a little more - and then it all starts again. Other than that nothing really happens here, just the same cycle of pleasure followed by pain.

In places like Florida and California there is no ‘balance’ for residents, they simply get the nice weather and the smiles - until it happens - Mother Nature lets her gavel fall and all that inequity is swept away by a wildfire that consumes hundreds of thousands of acres, or a hurricane that blows homes into the Gulf of Mexico.

I know this seems like a weak notion, and I guess it is, but off hand I just can’t think of a place (in the U.S.) that avoids S.A.D. and isn’t a natural disaster magnet. Granted, Arizona gets no earthquakes or mud-slides, but it is essentially Midwestern in that people are locked in their houses half the year because it is simply too hot to brave the outdoors. We run out to our cars to start them heating in the winter, and they run out to start them cooling in the summer. The Pacific Northwest is beautiful, but they are rained on mercilessly at certain times of the year.  Even Colorado (considered a paradise of sorts by many) has a solid winter/summer balance. Nothing news-worthy seems to happen in any of these places, just the slow burn of unpleasant weather. It’s as if the areas that don’t see unpleasant weather for months on end are bound to experience something even more unpleasant eventually.

Maybe this is just baseless, unfounded rambling (OK, I can pretty much promise that it is), but maybe there’s something to the notion that we all have to endure the bad to get to the good? Perhaps we each have to pay a little to keep things in balance?  Here in the Midwest we make installments as we go, while places like California and Florida seem to always get stuck making one big lump payment (with interest).

I’m an NPR listener.  I offer no apologies or explanations - something about their ‘we know better because we’ve never been invited to a party’ attitude is just endearing to me - it’s as if all the smart, awkward kids from my high school banded together to form a radio station.  I’m no junkie mind you, as the months pass I typically cycle from NPR to music, from music to sports radio, and then from sports radio back to NPR.  Admittedly the quality of sports callers is well below that of NPR callers, but hey, at least the sports callers have been to parties.

The morning is when you’ll most likely find me tuned into my local college’s NPR affiliate.  Day after day, week after week, NPR is a great coffee companion to be sure, that is, with the notable exception of pledge week.  Pledge week happens twice a year, and it is a time when your local NPR station turns into that clinging, nagging, overly talkative girlfriend that you had in the 12^th grade and couldn’t break up with fast enough.  At least with NPR you can change the station. 

Personally, I don’t contribute money to NPR.  I have heard numerous reasons cited for not giving to public radio, such as:

I pay my taxes and tax dollars support NPR so I’ve already given

True enough, tax dollars do support NPR, but not very much.  During the 1970s and early 1980s, the majority of NPR funding came from the federal government, but as the 1980s continued NPR was slowly weaned from federal support.  Nowadays NPR makes more than half of its money from the fees and dues it charges member stations for programming.

NPR is made up of liberals and they are completely slanted

It’s for this reason that my parents stopped contributing their money to public radio, and it’s pretty much true, but isn’t this what makes it kind of fun?  NPR’s stance on the issues doesn’t bother me that much; I feel the same way on many of those same issues.  Their slant doesn’t even bother me, it’s more the fact that they pretend they aren’t slanted that I find interesting. People complain about FOX News because they are slanted to the right, which is a fair assessment, but at least FOX News has the decency to admit it.  Granted, they call it being ‘balanced’, but if you understand that in their minds everyone else is leaning to the left, then their admission of balance is really just another way of saying they are to the right of the other news outlets.   Whenever I listen to NPR I get the distinct impression that they think they are getting away with something and that we just aren’t noticing.  Personally, I think it’s makes for entertaining radio.  I love watching them do their ‘balancing act’ and seeing them strike a centrist pose, if for no other reason than to see how long they can do it before they come crashing down.  They are so predictable in their left leaning that it’s somehow…comforting. 

So why don’t I give my money to NPR?  Simple.  In spite of themselves they look a lot like corporate America to me.  As usual, it’s all about empire building with them. I understand inflation and cost of living increases, but NPR always seems to be driving for a larger and larger footprint.  They recently opened ‘NPR West’, a new production facility in Culver City, CA. at a cost of $13 million.  Among their cited reasons in opening the new facility was to have a back-up production facility in case of a catastrophic event in Washington D.C.  Like the first thing we are going to do should Washington get hit by a meteor is tune into NPR?

The true reason for the NPR West opening was most likely programming, programming, and more programming.  This ceaseless expansion is my main beef with NPR, when will enough be enough?  My rough guessitmate upon browsing the NPR web-site is that they produce 93 shows at the moment.  93 shows. There aren’t that many listed at NBC.com!  The NPR programming list includes: StarDate, Zorba Paster On Your Health, Talking Plants, Says You!, The Annoying Music Show, Pipedreams, The Infinite Mind, Humankind, and Earth & Sky.  I’m not saying that these aren’t interesting titles, to the contrary, some sound like they might be right-up my alley and I may check out the podcasts when I’m finished here…but do they sound like the sorts of shows you’ll need should Washington D.C. get swallowed whole by an earthquake?  Perhaps if they offered a show called Lose That Annoying Ringing In Your Ears I’d be compelled to tune in after catastrophe strikes? 

Additionally, why did NPR choose Los Angeles? Why did it need to be in the most expensive place in North America? Couldn’t they have gotten up and running more economically in Phoenix or Denver? At least this way they have an excuse for the continued operation of the Washington D.C. facility, after all, they need somewhere to broadcast from should NPR West fall into the ocean, right?

I don’t give money to NPR because I know that it will only support their rampant and seemingly unfettered development of who knows what.  We have the internet now, there are thousands of quality podcasts being produced for free, and we don’t need NPR to tell us how plants talk or to provide us with annoying music.  I don’t give money to NPR because I know it will never be enough, no matter how much I give. I could donate my life savings to NPR and what would it get me? I’d sit back in my NPR T-shirt, sipping coffee from my NPR mug, clutching the NPR tote bag that I’d been living out of for the last 6 months, and with pride in my heart I’d reach for my radio to tune into my favorite affiliate…and it would be pledge week. When NPR tells me that enough is enough and that they are going to try to maintain the status quo, I’ll start giving.

Let’s call a spade a spade: NPR’s primary purpose is best characterized as academic snobs providing company and comfort to other academic snobs and pandering to the American intelligentsia.   I don’t have a problem with that, whatever gets you through the news-cycle. But could we at least split the difference and shorten the pledge drive by a day if we axed Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, the oddly informative news quiz?

Like many others I have had a growing feeling of ‘green guilt’ in the last year or so.  Perhaps it’s been brought on by the skyrocketing gas prices, or maybe it stems from the (allegedly) rising global thermostat, there’s even an off-chance that it’s simply unprocessed shame leftover from my viewing of Al Gore’s much ballyhooed (and much maligned) movie: An Inconvenient Truth. While many squabble about just how much truth is contained in Al’s movie, no one can argue with the fact that it has proven to be nothing if not inconvenient.  Ever since viewing this film I find myself thinking more about the things I’m doing and more carefully weighing my options and, believe it or not, the ramifications of my actions.

Sadly, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s little I can do at the present time to change my eco-sinning ways.  Sure, as my light bulbs burn out I’m replacing them, one-by-one, with those over-priced, eco-friendly, curly-Q’s.  But paying big money for a hybrid vehicle is out, solar paneling is a pipe dream, and fertilizing vegetables in the back yard with my own feces just seems unappetizing (not to mention unseemly). All defecation related matters aside, shirking fiscal responsibility in favor of environmental responsibility seems a little silly to me, although probably not to Mr. Gore.

I went to the mailbox the other day, and, as usual, the guilt began welling-up the moment the mailbox door swung open to reveal what seemed like acres of logged trees in envelope form.  This is the price we’re willing to pay, right? Trees are the fuel we need to continue the procession coupons, catalogs, and credit card offers.  I refer to these as the ‘three C’s’ of junk mail.  In the center of this equilateral triangle of crap is where I reside, no matter where I happen to be living at the time.

I once again found myself standing in front of the open mailbox door, slack jawed.  After the initial shock and awe had subsided I began to mentally prepare for the usual routine:  a giant pile of paper gets separated into a small pile and a large pile, the read pile and the toss pile.  Invariably the toss pile will contain %90 of the mail, and a good chunk of these items will be outfitted with a tiny plastic window so recycling will require special handling.  This handling, besides being annoying, will be time consuming and put me at increased risk of paper cuts, not to mention anthrax poisoning. 

To the best of my recollection I’ve never asked for any of the ‘C’ items that appear in my mailbox.  The last credit card I applied for was shortly after college (maybe 9 years ago); I don’t buy from catalogs, and don’t even like people who use coupons.  About the only mailed item I’ve ever willingly received is Men’s Health magazine - to which I’ve been a perennial subscriber - perhaps they sold me down the river? Whatever the reason, the checkbox next to my name that reads ‘Wants to get the three C’s and lots of ‘em’ always seems to be marked with a big red X. 

On this particular day, however, a thought occurred to me as I stood shivering in the snow with envelopes falling from my numb hands into the slush below.  I can’t say where this thought came from, maybe from a renewed sense of patriotism brought about by the candor and inspiring dialogue of the current presidential primary? Perhaps I was channeling of Al Gore himself, causing me, if only for a moment, to become a citizen of the world?  Whatever the cause, the notion had popped into my head clear as day: I would be willing to give up my junk mail privileges for the good of the environment.

The seeds of this idea breached the soil of my mind quietly at first, but with each second that passed thereafter I stood witness to an explosion of fauna akin to a high school dropout taking a smoke break in a fireworks factory. It was as if Jack himself had graced my cerebrum with the foundations of his magic beanstalk.  ‘Fee fi fo fum!  I think I just got a paper cut on my thumb!’  Yes, I am ready to forego my American birthright. I’m completely prepared to live without the three C’s for the good of Mother Earth.  My mind reeled at this notion: a solution that allows for less wasting of precious resources while simultaneously wasting less of my precious time. How had Al missed this one?  Why had he bypassed the middle-man and come straight for the little guy?   

The more I considered this notion the more I realized that my willingness to sacrifice did not end with the elimination of my junk mail privileges; I felt certain that I could do without my Yellow Book privileges as well.  Ahhh, the Yellow Book: the eco-abomination of a paper-weight that appears on my porch annually.  There it sits, sometimes for weeks - in its little white grocery bag - as if the phone company were now buying these things at Kroger.  I don’t know why I let the thing sit out on the porch, but I just don’t have the heart to approach it.  Perhaps I’m hoping that the phone company will stop back by and pick it up?  ‘Sorry, we thought you wanted this…you know…the checkbox.”  Eventually a friend comes for visit and brings it in with them. “You’re Yellow Book was sitting on your porch.”  Thanks, I must have missed that soaking 5-pound pile of rotting paper.  It is thrown in the trash shortly thereafter. And so the cycle continues.

Why do coffee house give me a paper cup when I’m clearly going to be drinking my beverage at one of their tables? Why do dealerships put those paper car mats in my vehicle? Why does the deli give out those ‘now serving’ tickets?  I understand that these things serve a purpose, but I’m willing to forego them all if someone can find a better way.  I see some real environmentally friendly kinetic energy here, and I can’t be the only one.  Maybe Al hasn’t fully grasped just how many paper products most of us hate? 

I’m not proclaiming myself to be blameless in this matter; we’ve all got newspaper ink on our hands (sometimes toner).  I just think that a top down approach would be more effective than brow-beating the little guy with a big green stick.  Corporations have proven themselves more than happy to do away with paper if it means they can fire a bank teller or perform a transaction more cheaply.  I’m simply asking them to carry this mentality over to their marketing departments as well.  C’mon Al, we need you!  That is what you really want, isn’t it, to be needed?

Recently, I’ve been considering the possibility that Earth has been, is being, or will sometime soon be visited by aliens. I am of course referring to the extra-terrestrial type and not the ones that keep flowing over the southern border of my home country.

This train of thought seems to have received its momentum from my viewing of Cosmos, a documentary written and narrated by scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan, which originally aired on PBS in 1980. Although my father gave me the Cosmos box set a couple years back, I’ve only recently gotten around to watching it. I may not have waited this long had I known how mind expanding the viewing experience would be (and all without the use of illegal substances).

At the risk of dating myself I’ll mention that I remember watching Cosmos on TV when it was originally broadcast. Although I was just a kid and, as such, didn’t understand even a fraction of what Carl Sagan was talking about, I remember being completely fascinated by the series.

Those of you who have not seen Cosmos should know that it is the grand daddy of all science documentaries: the production quality, music, and overall presentation put the Discovery Channel to shame. About the only outdated thing in the series is Carl Sagan’s wardrobe, and I must admit that as I watched I had a strange compulsion to rush out and buy some chocolate brown turtlenecks and a corduroy sport coat.

A fundamental underpinning of ‘space’ documentaries seems to be the use of unfathomable statistics; creating moments where the viewer is asked to process mind-boggling statistics in an effort to understand just how big the universe is (use of a TI-86 calculator is optional). Such episodes of statistical deluge are often a distraction to the viewer, who follows down this slippery slope like a complete sap, only to find that when they’ve finally snapped back to reality they’ve missed 30 seconds of dialogue. Still, one after the other documentaries this ilk trot out such statistics, much like The Lollypop Guild is trotted out with each viewing of The Wizard of Oz.

With such statistics existing as a near rite of passage for the space documentary, it is not surprising that Cosmos pulled out all the stops. Carl rattled off some ‘basic’ facts about this universe of ours that simply astound me. I’ll share one now, with more to follow:

There are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the whole world.

I don’t know how many grains of sand that is, but it is a bunch…

Carl (rest his soul) and I agree that with that there are quite likely planets orbiting many if not all of those stars. As such, the possibility of life on other planets begins to approach certainty.

Statistically speaking it is hard not to agree with this notion. I’d be happy to expound on this point if you’ll simply follow down this slippery slope: It stands to reason that with a nearly limitless amount of stars (trillions and trillions) there also exists a profusion of planets. Scientists contend that %50-%75 percent of stars have planets orbiting them (planets are a natural byproduct of a star’s evolution). Given the unimaginably vast number of planets it is safe to say that there is a vast subset of planets capable of supporting life (i.e. with conditions similar to ours). It stands to reason that life exists somewhere out there, some of it is likely intelligent and advanced.

Many balk at the notion that there could intelligent life anywhere but here, but this isn’t too surprising: we used to think the Sun revolved around the Earth, and although we now know this to be false, we still pretty much consider ourselves to be the center of the universe (c’mon, you know it’s true).

So there is life out there among the stars, does that mean that we have been visited by little green men? I am not ruling out the possibility - because I’m willing to believe almost anything - but it seems unlikely to me.  Space is really big and it takes a long time to travel around in it (at least by any method we know of).

Remember those statistics we were talking about?

The speed of light is 670,616,629.2 miles per hour. Our brightest minds believe this speed to be an upper limit when traveling through space. A light year is the distance traveled when moving at this upper limit for an entire year. From the center of our own Milky Way galaxy to the Earth is 30,000 light years. That means that the light we see in the sky tonight (if we are looking at the center of the galaxy) started traveling 30,000 years ago and is just getting to us now. From our galaxy to the nearest spiral galaxy (called M-31) it is over 2 million light years. When light from M-31 started traveling toward the Earth there weren’t even human beings around, just our primate ancestors.

If you could go almost as fast as the speed of light there would be a dilation effect and time would slow down for you. You could travel very far indeed and it would seem like you had not aged much, or, as I call it, the Joan Rivers Effect. The catch is that to everyone else (those at a ‘normal’ speed) time would keep ticking at the same steady pace it always does. This means that everyone you know would be dead and gone by the time you got back from a long trip. Although travel at such speed is certainly possible, it seems pretty impractical.

The fastest vehicles mankind has ever made are the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes. These craft were launched by NASA in the late 1970s. Even though they are traveling at the fastest speed of any man-made object in history they are still going 10,000 times slower than the speed of light. Assuming they were heading for the closest star to us (they are not) it would take 40,000 years to get there.

Even though there may be intelligent life out there among the stars, they would have to have very, very long life spans to make a trip here (assuming they are using technology similar to our own). If they actually want to return home and report on what they found that life span would need to double.

It seems highly unlikely that we have been visited by intelligent life from another world, as much as I would like to believe otherwise. I am a lifelong Star Trek and Star Wars fan and love the idea that aliens visit the Earth, make crop circles, helped built the pyramids etc. But unless the aliens know of a completely different technology for navigating the stars, I just can’t believe it. I can’t be certain, but if Carl Sagan was here right now, I think he’d agree with me.