July 31, 2005

Hotel Pastel

Hotel Pastel


Originally uploaded by wintermute2_0.

I'm testing the blogging option on Flickr to see if I can remotely post photos without going through the hassle of uploading them via FTP. If this works, it will make photoblogging from Europe a lot easier.



By the way, can anyone point me to some good (preferably free, preferably at some nice little sidewalk cafe) WiFi hotspots in Paris and Berlin?

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2005

QED

To the guy who constructed a mathematical proof as to why you don't have a girlfriend: the reason you don't have a girlfriend is because you're spending all your time at the computer constructing proofs about why you don't have a girlfriend instead of dealing with the fact that you're kind of an ass. Now get away from the computer, put on a clean shirt, and go meet some people. And quit being an ass.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:22 PM | Comments (3)

July 29, 2005

Can You Hear Me Now?

I'm getting fed up with my telephone. I have a Panasonic cordless with a generic headset. People are always complaining about my voice sounding far away and sometimes I feel like I have to shout into the microphone to be heard. I have a Netcom headset at work, which is excellent, but they only work with corded phones and are rather expensive to boot. I've thought about going with VOIP (like Vonage) so I could use a USB headset, but I'm still leery of the service quality and potential outages. Anyone have suggestions for me on how to have a better phone experience?

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2005

Back To The Drawing Board

So, after two and a half years of redesign, they still can't prevent pieces of foam from falling off the fuel tank and dinging the shuttle. This might be one of those engineering problems that simply doesn't have a foolproof solution. The fact that we still blast people into space on top of a container full of millions of gallons of flammable fuel with some reasonable expectation of safety continues to blow my mind. If it was up to me, I'd ground the whole manned program and use those funds to research and build a reliable means of conveying people into space. We've proven we can put people in space; let's focus on finding a better way to do it.

One of my friends who was at the party works as a psychic. I'm a skeptic, of course, but I was curious and asked her if she can see auras and such. She nodded and said that I had a good aura with shades of yellow and green. Apparently, this mean I'm a laid-back thinker. Or it could say something about my allegiance to the Packers. I cannot say.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:57 PM | Comments (1)

July 27, 2005

Joseph Smith Would Be So Disappointed In Her

My friend Missy recently introduced me to Dooce, a riotously funny blog written by Heather, a recovering Mormon and new mother. This is what she had to say about this billboard, a combination publicity stunt/semi-desperate dating plea that a friend found along a Utah highway:

It’s as if he has, “I will fuck you so hard on our wedding night that you will bear four blonde children within the year,” written all over him, and believe me, that is every BYU coed’s ambition. To get them one of those.

She's hilarious. And she's married to a geek. Which gives me hope that someday I'll find a cute, sarcastic, foul-mouthed, recovering Mormon of my very own someday.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2005

Change Agents

Today, I attended a conference to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. John Hockenberry delivered the closing address and he made some interesting points. He implied that any hopes of advancing disability rights at the federal level, whether in Congress or the Supreme Court, are mostly dead for the moment. Instead, attitudes about disability and disability rights will be shaped at the local level. All of those kids coming home from Iraq with serious injuries will do more to shape their communities' views on disability than any court decision. He makes a good point. Most people seem to understand, at least in the abstract, that racism in wrong. But when it comes to issues of inclusion and accessibility, people don't quite "get it" unless they have some personal exposure to people with disabilities. In the context of civil rights, people with disabilities continue to be viewed as a group that must be "given" rights, rather than a group with inherent rights. People with disabilities still have to beg and plea for things that other people would deem mundane; the right to enter a restaurant, the right to live at home, the right to work. The federal legal and legislative structures don't have much interest in recognizing these inherent rights, but I have hope that it will be the towns and cities in every region of the country that will step into the gap and join us on the path to a more just and equitable future for everyone.

Remind me to refer back to this blog entry if I ever need ideas for a campaign speech.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2005

Ugly American

Last night, I watched Before Sunrise, a movie I've loved since my brother introduced me to it several years ago. Ethan Hawke's character, Jesse, is telling Celine about his attempt to speak French in Paris. He is waiting in line to buy a train ticket, mentally practicing the French word for "ticket" (un billet). But when he gets to the booth, his mind goes blank. "All I can manage to say is 'Yeah, hi, um, I need a ticket to get me from..."

That's going to be me, isn't it? I'll be all pumped to finally use my French in a café and I'll open my mouth and some mangled sentence will come out and the waiter will look at me like I just spoke Swahili. And then I'll get all embarrassed and speak nothing but English for the rest of the trip. I feel totally lame already.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:22 PM | Comments (1)

July 24, 2005

Bacchanal

It certainly was a nice gesture for the city of Minneapolis to have a massive fireworks display in honor of my birthday. Er, wait, it was Aquatennial, wasn't it? I guess I'll just have to keep writing letters to Congress about making July 23rd a national holiday.

Some pictures from yesterday's party:

My friends Adam (who wrote the article about me for Law & Politics), Libby (another Humphrey Fellow), and her husband Kevin.

My friend Jess, who made me a very cool mixtape, and her friend Janean.

I nearly singed my eyebrows here. That's my sister, Crystal, holding the cake.

From the right, Carrie, Nicole, Linda, and Traci. Nicole and Linda are both good friends and people well-known in the local disability community. Carrie and Traci are their respective personal care attendants.

The party was successful enough that I think I might try to make this an annual event. I saw friends I hadn't seen in forever and it was good to reconnect with them. And I managed not to get blindingly drunk, but only because my nurse stopped pouring. She said something about not embarrassing myself, but my memory is kinda fuzzy on the details.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 12:14 PM | Comments (3)

July 23, 2005

Happy Birthday To Me

Well, here comes another year. When people asked me how old I was going to be and I told them, I usually got, "You're still so young!" And I suppose I am. I feel like I'm just starting to learn how to lean into the curves as I ride through the twists of this life. I'm certainly grateful for all the people who joined my circle of friends over the last year. Thirty-two should hold its own pleasures, including my trip to Europe. As for the rest, we'll just have to wait and see.

Enough waxing philosophical. Time to make some mix CDs for the party.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:01 PM | Comments (4)

July 22, 2005

Brand Loyalty

Windows Vista? Is Microsoft trying to sell an operating system or a minivan? i suppose it's catchier than Windows XP, but it still sounds rather bland. At least Apple uses cool-sounding animal names like Tiger and Panther for its OS. Couldn't M$ come up with something similar. Like, I don't know, Windows Platypus. Or Windows Emu. At least people would remember the brand.

I just returned from the store with copious amounts of alcohol for tomorrow's party. Since Wisconsin blood still runs in my veins, I had to buy a case of Leinie's. You know, I still have never gotten property drunk. Do you think I'd be a mean drunk or a friendly-bordering-on-inappropriate drunk?

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:03 PM | Comments (2)

July 21, 2005

Past My Bedtime

Not much time to write tonight, as I didn't come home until 10:30 and I still have to tend to a couple things before heading to bed. But I was reminded tonight that I'm really glad I don't live in the suburbs. Sure, it's nice to have a big yard, but I would surely lose the will to live if it took me 45 minutes to drive into the city every day.

I have an all-day training that begins early tomorrow morning. Which I means I have to get up earlier than usual. Which means I should be in bed already. Which means I should stop writing.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2005

Beam Me Up

James Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek, is dead. Let us bow our heads as we remember episode #22, in which Scotty saved the Enterprise from certain destruction by reversing the warp engines' polarity through a clever diversion of power from the forward shield generator, all the while proclaiming "Captain, she canna take much more of this!" Or maybe it was episode #23. Godspeed, Mr. Doohan.

I have a feeling I bought way too much food for my party on Saturday. If you're looking for a free meal on Saturday, feel free to drop by. You can e-mail me at mcsiegel19@gmail.com for directions and other details. Because if there's lots of leftovers, I'm going to have to figure out a way to blend it all up so I can dump it down my g-tube. And that just sounds nasty.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

Never-ending Story

I feel like I'm finally starting to get back into a regular writing groove after about a month of having a various things interfere with my page-a-day rule (illness, family visits, extracurricular activities, etc.). As I'm closing in on page 400, I can see the faint glimmerings of an ending. The current plan, which almost will certainly change, is to have a first draft completed by the end of the year. I'm still not sure if this story will be of interest to anyone besides me, but I'll worry about that after the last page is written.

By the way, Robot Chicken is one of the funniest things on television. It's like when you were ten years old and your older, slightly stoned brother got a hold of your He-Man action figures and made you watch as he employed them in some twisted narrative of his own invention. Except I didn't have an older brother. But you know what I mean.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2005

The Forest Through The Trees

I've refrained from commenting on l'affaire de Rove because there are so many other bloggers following every twist in this story. But I think it's important to reiterate, as many have, that this story isn't really about who leaked a name to a reporter. In the final analysis, this is about the Administration's attempts to discredit anyone who questioned its rationale for going to war in Iraq. Whether or not a reasonable person could believe that Iraq possessed WMDs is a matter that will never be completely settled. What seems to be increasingly clear, however, is that Administration had no interest in allowing debate on the issue. It was determined to have this war and it was not going to tolerate any dissension that might lead to a further examination of the Administration's true agenda. This is what is so disheartening about Bush's leadership. He makes decisions that feel right to him on a gut level and then looks for the facts to support those decisions. That's fine if you're making draft picks for a football team, but not when you're sending people off to war.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2005

Low, Low Prices

Holy crap, when did CompactFlash memory become so cheap? I was looking on NewEgg for a larger capacity memory card for my camera and I couldn't believe it. $12 bucks for 128 MB! When I bought my camera two years ago, I think I paid $50 for a 64 MB card. It won't be long before you'll be able to store a gig of images on your camera. I continue to be amazed by how quickly storage has become so inexpensive.

I fear my air conditioner is going to sputter and die before too long. This is the eighth or ninth straight day of temperatures above 90 degrees with humidity levels of, like, 200%. But I'm not going to complain. In a few months, it's going to be cold and gray and I'll fondly remember being all hot and sweaty and gross.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:11 PM | Comments (1)

July 16, 2005

Trinity

Sixty years ago, a top secret experiment in the New Mexico desert ushered in the Atomic Age. Today, the Doomsday Clock stands at seven minutes to midnight. 16,000 nuclear warheads remain operationally deployed, most of them still targeted at the U.S. or Russia. More than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, our respective nuclear forces are still on alert. I don't quite get the strategic reasoning for continuing to aim our missiles at each other. I'm pretty sure the Russians aren't planning on invading anytime soon.

Speaking of, remember that movie Red Dawn? Remember when that dad imprisoned in a labor camp yells out "AVENGE ME!" to his sons from behind a chain link fence? Man, that was bad. I'm gonna add it to my Netflx queue right now.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2005

Child's Play

Organized sports brings out truly vile behavior in some people. In Pittsburgh, a T-ball coach paid one of the little tykes on his team $25 to bean another teammate in the head with a baseball. Motive: the coach didn't want this kid, who happens to have a cognitive disability, playing on his team. Mind you, we're talking about T-ball. Do they even keep score in T-ball? Was the coach worried his team would miss that last wild card spot in the T-ball playoffs? Fucking idiot.

I saw War of the Worlds last weekend. I liked it a lot. Seeing that tripod burst out of the street was one of the more frightening experiences I've had at a movie recently. WARNING: Quit reading if you don't want to see spoilers. I also thought Spielberg's decision not to show us the entire battle in the field by the farmhouse was brilliant. It could have been a massive CGI spectacle, but limiting our perspective somehow made it feel more authentic. But one thing about this story, in all its incarnations, bugs me. Here you have a supposedly advanced race of aliens with technology that can crush half of America's military before supper. Before invading, you would think the aliens would have thought to get their shots. I mean, didn't they do simulations and stuff to prepare? Did the sensors on their tripods fail to detect those pesky microbes? The ending makes the aliens seem more incompetent than menacing.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

Tropical Isle

I just received the coolest postcard from a friend who's spending the summer in Hawaii. Check it out:

It's like something from the Eisenhower era. A sort of Technicolor dream version of Hawaii.

A friendly word of advice to Access Press, the local newspaper for the disability community: hire a fact checker. Your current issue contains an article on MA-EPD, the Medicaid buy-in program administered by my division at DHS. The article contains several inaccuracies about the program that could have been easily avoided with one phone call to our staff. It's enough of a challenge to educate the public about this program without also having to dispel fears caused by someone else's sloppy journalism. No, I'm not angry. Just disappointed.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

Hush-Hush

PostSecret has to be one of the most compelling on-line art experiments I've seen. The underlying concept is simple enough. People send in anonymous postcards with secrets written on them. Some of them are funny. Others are sad. And some are disturbing. Scrolling through these postcards has a definite frisson of voyeurism, regardless of whether they're all genuine. It also makes me think about all the secrets we carry with us on a daily basis. Do we keep these secrets for our own selfish reasons or for the sakes of others? Perhaps the secrets we keep say as much about who we are as the things we choose to reveal.

And yes, I have one or two secrets myself. But there's no way I'm writing any of them down on a postcard. The only way to pry my secrets out of me is through generous amounts of alcohol combined with explicit promises of carnal pleasures. I'd make a horrible spy. Get me drunk and start nibbling on my earlobe and I'd gladly reveal all kinds of national secrets. And when I ran out of actual secrets, I'd start inventing ones just to ensure the earlobe nibbling continued.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:12 PM | Comments (1)

July 12, 2005

Pet Sounds

Well, that was weird. I was working on a blog entry when the power cut out for a few seconds. So, where was I? My sister was just here. She got a couple kittens recently and can't stop declaring how cute they are. I've also learned that one cat has, and I quote, "a smelly butt." It's not that I don't like cats. I'm indifferent to cats. Whenever a cat and I exchange glances, I get the distinct feeling it's thinking, "The fuck you looking at?"

Dogs are a different matter. Dogs are the sycophants of the animal kingdom. Dogs aren't happy unless you're happy. I mean, when was the last time you saw a cat wearing a harness and opening doors for someone in a wheelchair? Yeah, me neither.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:34 PM | Comments (1)

July 11, 2005

Lake Views II

I finally figured out how to display the photos from the lake. Guess I had to upload them through MT. Here they are.:

It was hot that day, as you can probably tell from the hazy quality of the photos. I'll try to put up some pictures of the Mill Ruins in the next week or so.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:54 PM | Comments (1)

July 10, 2005

Lake Views

I don't feel like writing a lot today, so I thought I'd post some pictures that I took at Lake Calhoun yesterday. For those of you not familiar with Minneapolis, Lake Calhoun is the largest in the city and is part of a chain of lakes consisting of Lake Calhoun, Lake Harriet, and Lake of the Isles.

Ok, I can't get the images to load. I'll figure this out later.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)

July 09, 2005

Back To Work

My week of slackerdom is coming to an end. The Minnesota Legislature passed a lights-on bill after agreeing to a broad outline for a new budget. What's In: a 75-cent tax, oops, fee on cigarettes; a 4 percent increase in each of the two years for K-12 education; a repeal of the $5,000 cap on outpatient services for MinnesotaCare enrollees. What's Out: the racino, any income tax hike, tougher restrictions on corporate tax shelters. It also looks like the Twins will have to wait until next session for approval on a plan to build a new stadium. As for me, I'm out a couple vacation days and a couple days without pay. Nothing I shouldn't be able to handle, although others will be in a financial bind. I'm betting that workplace morale is going to be at a low ebb for a while.

I'm planning on seeing War of the Worlds tonight. I re-watched the 1953 George Pal version and I couldn't get over how unbelievably patronizing that film is towards women. If you're a woman in that movie, you serve the plot by either (a) screaming, (b) serving coffee and donuts to assorted soldiers and scientists, or (c) making googly eyes at the leading man. Not much opportunity for an actress to express her range. But those cobra-shaped death rays on the Martian ships are still way cool.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2005

Take This Down

Someone asked if I planned on blogging while in Europe. Tentatively, yes. I should have Internet access in my hotel room (in Paris, at least) and I'm sure WiFi hotspots are plentiful in both cities. I think I'll also create a Flickr account to post photos. But I probably won't write anything detailed until I return. Dictating to someone else simply doesn't feel natural to me. Before I could use the computer independently, I used to dictate all the time, even through college. I'm suddenly remembering all the term papers that I dictated, mostly to other friends in college who were looking for some easy money. How tedious that must have been for them. But in the last ten years or so, I've grown accustomed to doing all of my writing myself. To try and dictate now would be awkward for me, like having someone come into the bathroom while you're singing in the shower.

A friend and I caught a bit of a concert in the courtyard of the Mill Ruins Plaza last night. The plaza is surrounded by the old stone walls of the flour mill that once stood there, which lend an echo-y, orchestra-hall quality to the acoustics of the place. We watched the concert from the upper balcony and to get there, my friend went ahead of me to clear a path through the crowd. As I followed, I'm pretty sure I struck her in the shins a couple times with my footrest. She didn't complain, but someone really needs to invent an anti-collision system for wheelchairs. Better yet, it should be able to distinguish between people I don't want to hit (friends, attractive women, small children, the elderly) and the expendable (drunken college kids, men in wife-beaters, tourists).

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:10 PM | Comments (2)

July 07, 2005

Hold Tight London

I was barely awake this morning when I heard news of the London bombings. My thoughts go out to my readers in the UK; I hope all is well with you and your loved ones. I suppose the only consolation we have is that the number of casualties could have been much, much worse. I'm beginning to wonder if this sort of thing is going to become a grim annual occurrence. A Western city is bombed, it's news for a couple weeks, and then people are slowly lulled into a sense of security until the next bombing. And how long will it be until another attack on American soil? I get the sense that most Americans still see 9/11 as a fluke event. We certainly don't have the same familiarity with terrorism that many European countries have acquired over past couple decades.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2005

Working On My Tan

The DFL made another budget offer this afternoon. Its key items include adding more poker tables at Canterbury Park and a provision that would link teacher pay to job performance, an idea which Pawlenty has been promoting for some time. If an agreement is reached, the earliest we would be back at work is Friday (the Legislature is adjourned until tomorrow). The last time I was unemployed for any significant stretch was the summer of 1999, so this has been an unusual experience for me. Just between you and me, I have kind of enjoyed the aimless quality of the last few days. There's a certain kind of pleasure in rolling out of bed and thinking, "Well, what should I do today?" But I'm sure that would quickly transform to anxiety if I had to start worrying about when my next paycheck would arrive.

I'm going to confirm my plane tickets for Europe as soon as I finish this blog entry. The trip is starting to cross that threshold between "Wouldn't it be fun..." to "This is gonna happen." There are still a few details to work out, but the plan is to spend six days in Paris and four in Berlin. I think I'll be staying at the Marriott on the Champs-Elysees while in Paris. It's a luxury, I suppose, but it's also a guarantee of an accessible room.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:56 PM | Comments (2)

July 05, 2005

Promises, Promises

Legislative leaders have established a self-imposed deadline of midnight Wednesday for brokering a budget deal, which means I could be back at work by Thursday. In the meantime, I've been taking advantage of the spectacular weather to do some exploring of the neighborhood. Today, I discovered that I can take the Stone Arch Bridge through the St. Anthony Main neighborhood to Nicolett Island. After living downtown for three years, you'd think I would have figured this out sooner. I forgot how lovely the view of downtown and the mill ruins is from Nicolett Island. I'll probably sound provincial for saying this, but Minneapolis really is a beautiful city and it especially shines in the summer. I need to take some initiative with my digital camera and show you exactly what I mean.

I'm digging the podcasting features in the new version of iTunes. But think about this. Podcasting went from obscure to corporate in, what, maybe six months? That's an incredibly fast maturation for a new medium. It took blogs at least two or three years to creep into the mass media vernacular. But it still feels like more hype than substance. The total number of listeners of all podcasts is still a tiny percentage of Internet users and it remains to be seen whether the audiences will grow for this kind of content. Still, it's impressive that podcasting has achieved such prominence in such a short time.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:14 PM | Comments (1)

July 04, 2005

Rocket's Red Glare

I hope everyone is having a pleasant 4th. The celebration began a little early here in downtown Minneapolis. Last night, someone was settling off some heavy duty fireworks near my building. I couldn't determine what their exact location was, but I could see the reflections of the fireworks' ascents and explosions in the glass windows of the IDS Tower and other office buildings. Kind of pretty, in an urban sort of way.

To distract myself from my uncertain employment status, here's a list of things i might get myself for a birthday present:

The Historian -- This seems to be the hot book of the summer. It's being described as a more literate, better-written version of The Da Vinci Code (which shouldn't be that difficult, considering the latter has the literary value of a cereal box). And it's got vampires. Vampires are cool.

Mysterious Skin -- Michael over at Bookslut has been raving about this book for a while. The subject matter is pretty grim, but I've learned to trust Michael's judgment in these things.

20 Years of the Best Science Fiction -- Because I simply don't have enough SF on my shelves.

Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 2 -- I have Volume 1 and love it. This set promises more tough guys and femmes fatales with shadowy pasts.

MST3K Volume 5 Collection -- I can't believe that I don't have any collections of one of the funniest things I ever saw on television. I'm more partial to the Mike Nelson years and this has some of my favorites from that era.

The Outer Limits Season 1 -- Man, there's a lot of geeky stuff on this list. I've never seen this series and I'm curious to see how it compares to The Twilight Zone.

Of course, I'm not going to object if anyone out there decides to get me something, but I'd never use this blog as a way to hit people up for presents. Some things are simply beneath me.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)

July 03, 2005

Get Over Yourselves

I TiVo'ed all eight hours of yesterday's Live8 concert and scanned the first couple hours last night. Some good performances. I liked the Coldplay/Richard Ashcroft version of "Bittersweet Symphony." But, goddamn, there was a lot of self-righteous pomposity. Does anyone really care what Brad Pitt has to say on debt relief for Africa? Yes, we all know you're banging Angelina Jolie, but just because she's told you about some of her UN aid trips doesn't make you a policy expert on international relations. And he wasn't even the worst example. What was up with Madonna parading that poor Ethiopian woman across the stage as she belted out "Like A Virgin?" This woman nearly died from starvation; the least concert promoters could have done was rescue her from Madonna's Hyde-Park-sized ego. Even U2 made me cringe when a bunch of white doves were released during "Beautiful Day." Warren Ellis wanted to call in an air strike on Hyde Park when he saw that. I would have settled for someone rushing on-stage and giving Bono a healthy bitch slap. Geldof should have told every artist in advance, "Look, anything you say will only trivialize what we're trying to do here. So just smile, sing your fucking set, and get off the bloody stage."

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:33 PM | Comments (1)

July 02, 2005

My Crystal Ball Is All Foggy

The Legislature went home for the rest of the holiday weekend, meaning that I probably won't be back to work on Tuesday. I can only imagine the anxiety that other state workers with no vacation time and families to support are feeling. The Governor mentioned that he might be willing to pay state workers for days of work missed because of the shutdown, a move which every state worker would welcome and which might also give Pawlenty a small political boost. I'm still not sure how this will play out in the long run. So many services have been determined essential that the scope of the shutdown may seem minimal to most Minnesotans. My nurses will still get paid, as will most health care providers. Road construction projects that began before the shutdown will continue. It's axiomatic that voters have short memories and all the parties involved may be able to sufficiently rehabilitate their public images to survive the 2006 election. But I also wonder if conditions might be ripe for an energetic and organized third party (certainly not the Greens or the Independents in their current state) to make inroads in the next election. I think there's a lot of hunger out there for a third way of doing things. Even I, a committed Democrat, am starting to feel like the current system is broken beyond repair. But for a third party to have any success, it would need a charismatic and visionary leader. And I don't see anyone on the Minnesota scene who fits that description.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:00 PM | Comments (1)

July 01, 2005

Summer Of Discontent

As I read news accounts of the collapse in last night's budget negotiations, I can't help but wonder if Senator Johnson and the DFL leadership might have overplayed their hand. The fact that the Senate abruptly adjourned two hours before the midnight deadline, and without trying to negotiate a lights-on deal with the House, simply does not look good in the eyes of the public. The DFL seems to be so determined not to look weak, as they did in 2003 when they caved to Republican budget demands, that they might have overreacted when they felt Republicans were beginning to negotiate in bad faith. The mood at the Capitol seems really toxic today, with a flurry of finger-pointing and heated personal attacks. Lots of anti-incumbent remarks in the papers, but mostly from furloughed state workers.

And I'm really tired of the media reminding everyone that the state parks are open.

I took advantage of my forced vacation and applied for a new passport. The photo requirements mandate that the background be completely white, which meant that none of my black seat insert could be visible. With the help of some city workers, we crammed some white cardboard and the blank side of a ward map behind my back to create a white background. After we were done, one of the workers thanked me and my nurse for being pleasant and not getting upset. That made me wonder whether her faith in humanity has been permanently shaken because of all the jerks she encounters on a daily basis.

Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:21 PM | Comments (1)