I would thank you for your patience if you had any.

Saturday  12.27.03

Today, I visited my jailed neighbor/friend. I'd never been to a jail before (sheltered life I've led, huh). One gets the impression it was designed to be the kind of place you don't want to be in. I don't remember seeing any Christmas decorations (not that I like them anyway). My friend and I got about 20 minutes to talk--not the half hour I was told to expect--but I imagine there's not much benefit to be had by complaining to the staff. We sat on opposite sides of a thick piece of glass and spoke by intercom: a crummy sounding intercom, worse than a long distance phone connection. I hope whoever monitors the conversations at least gets better audio quality.

I wondered what it was like to work at the jail. I'm reminded me of a conversation I had at the Denver airport about 17 years ago, with an airline employee who'd told me my flight would be delayed a few hours:

Tommy:	I love sitting around in airports.
agent:	What do you think it's like to work in them!

Strange, to see a friend wearing striped prison clothes; to see someone awaiting a trial that will determine whether he walks free or goes to prison, potentially for a long time; to be of the opinion that he made some mistakes but to also feel that the punishment in this case is potentially out of proportion to the offense; to see a friend doing whatever it takes to fight for his freedom, including being very calculated about everything he says, even to those who he used to be straightforward with; and strange, that "justice" is often a function of how much money one can afford to spend on a lawyer.

At least my friend gets a public defender. He's not at Guantánamo Bay.

Being free to drive away from the jailhouse made an impression on me. It was a moment of seeing my life from a broader perpective.



Monday  12.22.03

Winter Solstice is behind us. Go sun...! The solstice is my New Year's. Eliminate the middleman (thousands of years of culture which left us with a calendar that fixes the holiday some 10 days later) and celebrate the real thing, I say.



I felt something go twang in the palm of my left hand yesterday (I think that's the scientific term for it <g>). I wasn't doing anything strenuous or abrupt; it just happened. It didn't hurt bad at the time, I thought it wouldn't amount to much and felt as much mystified by it as I was annoyed. But pain increased as the day went on; the flexor tendons for my left middle finger appear to be strained near where the finger joins the hand. I hurt that tendon system bad about 2.5 years ago while climbing, and I suspect that yesterday's twang was a little reprise of that incident. It's a sucky kind of injury; connective tissue doesn't get the blood supply that, say, muscles do, and can take a while to heal.

I say "tendon system" because that finger has two flexor tendons, one longer than the other. The longer tendon bifurcates at one point inside the finger; the two pieces rejoin a little farther out. The shorter tendon passes through the opening in the longer tendon. This fact is irrelevant to the injury at hand (pun intended); I mention it just because I think the body is way cool--or, as my doctor put it: it's fucking amazing.



No, I didn't feel the

It is stunning evidence of three things: the willingness of the administration to distort the truth to win popular support for a pointless war; the reluctance of the mainstream media to challenge the administration's prevarications; and the failure of the majority of Americans to accept the responsibilities of informed citizenship.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.  - Bertrand Russell

Madness is rare in individuals--but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.  - Friedrich Nietzsche

I know you are not too religious (spiritual yes). Nonetheless I hope you can make this.

It is our position that children and adolescents should not be indoctrinated into the assumptions and prescriptions of any suprarational system, whether it be our own philosophy or the faiths and superstitions of conventional religions. Rather their youthful years should be a time of exclusively rational training and education, giving them a sound and meaningful basis by which, as adults, they may consider and choose whatever philosophy or faith seems most meaningful to them.