Essay Ally

This is not a moment of self pity, but rather an exploration of reality. It has been months since I started my blog. I post on various pages and network sites where I have numerous “friends” and I have also IM’d it to potentially hundreds of people. Yet, nobody posts. I get compliments and laughs in response to the link but have yet to get anybody actually responding to what I say. So how is this like my life?

I know hundreds, if not thousands of people all over the US and the world. I can talk to a complete stranger and have their life story and their contact information in a matter of minutes, yet nobody ever thinks to contact me back. Am I so offensive that nobody wants to deal with me? Or am I just too intimidating for people to want to reach out to me? Or perhaps I am just plain unpleasant, even forgettable?

This is just a moment of curiosity. I have been told that I am mean, intimidating, abrasive, and hard to deal with at times, but yet I am complimented in the same breath. Being intellectual and brutally honest makes me regarded articulate, fascinating, amazing, evil, hateful, and unpleasant. I have also been told that certain moments of verbal outburst are acceptable in a man, but things that I say are just unappealing from a woman. So tell me, why does nobody post on this blog?

This is not a trick, you don’t have to sign up and post, just take my survey.

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March 5 would have been my father’s 59th birthday. But he never lived past 48.

On December 5, 1997 he dropped me off at school. I was in 10th grade. That morning was the last time I ever saw my father. Tragically, he had a stroke several hours later. While he was on life support for those few hours before they determined his brain was dead, I could have seen him. But I knew there were only two possible outcomes, he would survive or he wouldn’t. If he survived, I would see him again. If he didn’t, I wanted to remember him from that morning.

Now, looking back over ten years, I remember the living moments. And I try not to mourn him too much. Life is for the living, they say. But on Wednesday I remembered a story by Ray Bradbury called “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a house that continues living long past when all life is gone. Life does go on, with or without us. And from that title I also recalled this other poem, a rather morose and suicidal number, that gets to me sometimes. So I thought I would share it

I Shall Not Care

When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough;
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

-Sara Teasdale

Share your favorite poem, story, movie, etc.. with me.  What inspires you?  What moments in your life define you?  We could all use a little enrichment and academic indulgence.

Ralph Nader has once again announced his candidacy for presidency. As critics point out, he may well have been the spoiler in the Gore - Bush election, as he takes liberal votes that might otherwise go to the democratic party.

Huckabee and McCain welcome the announcement as Huckabee stated “I think it always would probably pull votes away from the Democrats and not the Republicans, so naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race.”

Now, Green Activists might argue that our country is in need or a revolution. And some liberals might say that it is in the spirit of the democratic process to allow for independent or outside party candidates to run for presidency. But lets be pragmatic, Nader is educated and intelligent and he knows, both based on previous runs, and polls, as well as other indicators, that he has a snowballs chance in hell of receiving a significant share of votes anywhere in this country. He also knows that the majority of his votes come from the more pro-environment party of democrats.

So why exactly is Nader running?

My conclusion is ego. This man enjoys the fame, attention, and the opportunity to speak to the press about his various issues. And he is a selfish son of a bitch for doing it this way. He could well make deals with the Democratic Party to rally his voters around a democratic candidate and have a more active role within our government to improve environmental legislation, but he won’t.

So my advice to Green Party members, don’t be selfish. Don’t vote for Nader to create some kind of message. You will end up putting McCain in office. Work with our system and try to slow and reverse the damage. And if you want to help more, think Global and act local. Try to lobby for local candidates that might help represent the environmental issues for your area.

Please help the environment and vote Democratic, let’s not give the Republicans another four years in office.

Ok, maybe that’s a bit melodramatic. But CERN scientists in Switzerland are getting ready to start using a newly built Large Hadron Collider (Hadron, not Hardon) to seek things like the Higgs particle, a god particle, quite possibly the unifying Star Wars like force, and create miniature Black Holes.

While this is interesting and you can probably find 100s of articles about both the Hadron Collider, and its porn counterpart the Hardon Collider, I am more interested in the safety message from CERN itself.

To summarize:

1. The Large Hadron Collider can reach energies that no other particle accelerator has reached before.

2. The cosmic collisions found in space are much more powerful than the ones being created in the accelerator.

3. The total energy in the beam is that of a 400 ton train traveling at 150km/h like the French TGV.

4. Supposedly, only a very small portion of this beam will actually be used in a single collision, less than that of a person swatting a swarm of mosquitos.

5. In theory “microscopic” black holes could be created in this process. They will be so fleeting that only their decay will be detectable.

6. Scientists may also create “strangelets” which repel normal matter and will decay on their own.

Okay, so for those of us that don’t really understand physics, this seems like a fair safety message. The scientists say they know what “could” happen and it is so small in energy it is not a threat. But since they don’t know for sure if Higg’s particles exist, and some of these conclusions are theoretical/hypothetical, will that safety message really help you sleep at night?

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

When my fiance’s mother first met me, she called me a “Gypsy.” In Europe, this is an insult, and I knew it to be such. Of course my fiance insisted she didn’t mean it that way. But in any case, Gypsies are essentially a band of dishonest, illegitimate immigrant travelers. They are the trailer trash of Europe. And they have a reputation for being criminals. But what she meant was I have done a lot of traveling. So I sat down and filled out one of those stupid travel maps.

Turns out she’s right, I do travel a lot.

• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Visit TripAdvisor.com

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