Brain is melting, melting from ORCA

RantWoman concedes that it is still a skadillion degrees outside. Quite possibly RantWoman should just step away from all technological vexations. In fact, RantWoman might do well to order her household minion to peel her a grape and fetch her another damp rag for her overheated brow. Alas, new feline staff excels at making RantWoman feel like a kitten getting cleaned but is no good about peeled grapes and fetched cloths. More to the point, RantWoman is back to interacting with ORCA!!!!

RantWoman guesses she should be glad to have progressed from lines at the end of the month downtown to an actual ORCA account with a properly registered ORCA disabled pass. Now RantWoman can hide from the heat in the underdressed privacy of her own cave and have to think of some other way to get exercise. Arguably, RantWoman could have contented herself with installing next month's disabled pass, but no, even if RantWoman is still sitting on some other vexing questions she figures no one has time for yet, RantWoman would never want banal routine. While logged in to her ORCA account, RantWoman made two discoveries: a record of every occasion her ORCA card has been swiped and a fare conundrum that makes her head melt faster the more she pokes around trying to make sense of things.

RantWoman is both intrigued and on the verge of being appalled about the record of all her ORCA transactions. RantWoman notes that the transaction record shows both the bus route number and the coach number. RantWoman thinks this could be wonderful when she is seized with needs to complain, to offer commendations for example about calling the stops, to make observations related to security, to fly off the handle about a driver on a cellphone or MAYBE to track down urgently-needed lost items.

RantWoman is also enough of a data jockey to understand that there is gold in all that thar transaction info, service-planning gold, route management gold, marketing gold, and probably some way or another fool's gold too. On the other hand, RantWoman watches enough TV cop shows and has read enough dystopian fiction to be just a little bit creeped out. Mostly RantWoman wants to know that her individual personal-identifier tagged transaction data is managed very scrupulously. RantWoman wants to know this, but the weather is too hot and RantWoman has gotten too bogged down in fare headaches to think of obsessing about tackling more than one set of outrages at a time.

Fares, you ask? See RantWoman did not start out looking at all her transactions just for quaint historical interest. RantWoman was checking out her ORCA wallet and her ORCA wallet was missing quite a bit more money than RantWoman expected. On one hand this may make up for the wallet missing less money than expected at the time of last month's check. On the other hand, the missing funds relate to RantWoman's rides on Link Light Rail and there are several points to make RantWoman's brain melt with or without the heat wave.

During RantWoman's tenure on the SE Seattle Transit Connections Sounding Board, the subject of fares on Light Rail was hot and emotional. People, especially people who use disabled passes were outraged: previously on a Metro disabled pass with a sticker one could go all the way to the airport. With the opening of Link and the advent of ORCA, people quite resented the idea of having to pay more for the same service, say the ride from downtown to the airport especially if there is no cheaper alternative.

RantWoman also specifically remembers, at the time the Transit Connections Sounding Boards' recommendations were presented to a King County council committee that there was public recommendation--from a paid official source, not just some scruffy member of the public-- that people still be able to go the whole length of Link on one disabled pass. RantWoman took this to mean without additional payment, and took the info this way a second time when a different paid functionary mentioned the same fact. RantWoman also did not obsessively verify what exactly made it into legislation, regulations etc.

RantWoman is of two minds about this. "But they SAID...." On the other hand why would Light Rail be any different from the mystery of one zone in Sound Transit land? For RantWoman is sticking to the first option.

The more vexing problem comes back to RantWoman's disabled pass, the vagaries of ORCA, and the no man's land between Metro's administration of disabled fares and Sound Transit nightmarish tangle of fare zones.

In Metro logic, a person with a disabled pass who needs to travel regularly through more than one zone can get a Puget Pass with the face value needed for the two-zone or intercounty or ferry or whatever fare for half the price paid by non-disabled users for passes of the same value.

The Sound Transit page suggests quite clearly that this should be the case for Sound Transit travel too.

http://www.soundtransit.org/Riding-Sound-Transit/Fares-and-Passes/PugetPass-and-Others.xml

However, this policy does not appear to be implemented in ORCA. RantWoman was speaking with someone who has a disabled pass and wanted just to buy a pass for the number of Sound Transit zones she regularly travels in. RantWoman herself really loves passes for freeing her from worry about loose change or how long transfers are good.

If it turns out, for instance, that RantWoman really is supposed to pay every time she rides Light Rail, she will have to seriously consider getting a pass with the right face value. RantWoman can be predicted to whine and moan and howl about a percentagewise proportionately huge effective fare increase on some routes. However, RantWoman is in a position to consider buying the higher-value pass. Well, she is in a position to consider this if ORCA correctly implements the fare tables shown on Sound Transit's pages. Many other people RantWoman knows are not in a position to consider this, but they get to speak up on their own behalf.

RantWoman is likely to send this question off to ORCA customer service people. Then she will resume pursuit of something much simpler--like particle physics, quantum mechanics, or just rocket science.

Cool Disaster Preparedness Blog

Tidings of the
http://incaseofemergencyblog.com/ item just landed in RantWoman's inbox. RantWoman definitely recommends it.

In fact, the arrival of news about this blog item is causing RantWoman to think she might need to split her blog again. RantWoman is thinking about options to collect items from her Disaster Preparedness and Swine Flu threads and possibly others in an environment conducive to topical blog roll. RantWoman loves the hodgepodge of her main blog. RantWoman freely admits "hodgepodge" quite concisely characterizes many attributes of her thought processes.

However, although RantWoman thrives in this kind of stew, RantWoman herself cannot see practical ways to do good blogroll for all her pet causes at once. By good blogroll, RantWoman means the right level of screen real estate for both visual readers and people who take more time for whatever reason to absorb stuff off the screen.

This is all a long-winded way of saying, dear readers, do you have any strong opinions about presentation? Feel free to speak up or leave it to RantWoman.

Does RantWoman keep her cool

RantWoman is seizing a moment to do a post-mortem on Seattle's July heatwave. RantWoman wants simply to catalog survival strategies, beyond either crowing about one's past experiences surviving hotter climes sans AC or cackling hysterically about such public sector exhortations as she detected.

RantWoman spent her youth in MT in a house with a big attic fan. By closing key drapes until the sun went by and using lowkey room fans, the entire Rant family held out until evening. Then the drapes would open and the fan and pure convection would blow the heat out the attic and draw cooler air into the house. Okay, RantWoman admits spending some summers on ice in computer centers where the cooling needed to dissipate the heat given off by massive computer installations was , brrrr, more than adequate to cool RantWoman, but somehow this does not count.

More to the point, as with snow, RantWoman's severe weather coping skills have grown lax from disuse and RantWoman too resorted to such information as was provided locally.

The WORST day of the heatwave, RantWoman in fact rode a bus to her nicely air-conditioned medical provider. Her peculiar reward: "you want a mammogram with that?" Ummmmmm. "We can schedule it down the hall in 10 minutes." Ummmmm, a few more minutes in the AC in exchange for serious body mashing. Ummmmm. RantWoman GUESSES she is glad to have that done for another year. She is not sure whether the coincidence with the heatwave is a boon or a bane, but that left other days for other devices.

After the fact, RantWoman read the following warnings about Metro: guess what, even if you think you want to go somewhere, many buses are not air-conditioned either.
http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/hotweather.html Surprise.

RantWoman detected public health items in several languages http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/news/2008/BeatTheHeat.aspx about, basically, the symptoms for heatstroke and heat exhaustion and exhortations to get help if such symptoms are detected. RantWoman thinks she also recalls bits about drinking fluids but not necessarily about electrolytes, augmenting one's fluids with salt or fruit juice. Most strikingly, the wonderful effects of fans or damp cloths on one's face or neck were hardly mentioned. RantWoman found herself wishing the materials were a little heavier on ways to prevent heatstroke in the first place.

Instead, the public was vaguely exhorted to go--on the aforementioned buses?--to "cooling centers" defined as libraries or community centers. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha. In Seattle not every library branch or community center is air-conditioned.

But suppose one actually knows of a library, say the downtown branch that is air conditioned. Suppose one is tired and cranky from not sleeping. Suppose further that one actually totes along one's laptop, hoping to do work in the wi-fi even if one's concentration is shot, one is distracted by the sounds and smells of espresso in the lobby and one does not dare shut one's eyes for fear of falling afoul of proscriptions about sleeping. Napping in the library lobby, no matter how professionally dressed, is officially verboten.

The library lobby offered other sonic charms: two software geeks talking about cascading style sheets. Next, a conversation in unnecessarily bad Spanglish: the person with the Spanish accent spoke English better than Mr. Spanglish spoke Spanish. Add a guy reading a book who seemed to have bathed recently but smelled of beer so strongly that RantWoman wondered whether he had bathed in beer: these people too clearly needed to cool down.

After other even more piquant library moments, RantWoman decided just to go home. Conveniently RantWoman's email contained some newsletter from the Fire Dept about fire doors. RantWoman noted that some of her neighbors had propped open fire doors in the hallways for really obvious reasons: they needed crossdrafts. Remember that one's apartment door is also considered a fire door per fire regulations. What if one really needs a cross draft, needs a cross draft more than he or she needs an electrical fire from a strangely functioning fan? RantWoman discovered that her box fan which had been barely hanging on last time it was plugged in would only hum if upright and turn if left on its side, an accommodation RantWoman did not think it practical to rely on.

At this point, RantWoman decided that, although she is very grateful to live on the sheltered north side of her building, it was still time to get creative. RantWoman washed her hair on its weekly rotation then realized how cooling it is to have wet hair and kept her braid wetted down for the rest of the day. RantWoman also took note of several bus passengers with damp rags on their heads or along their necks.

RantWoman also notes the following thoughts:

SOMETIMES when public resources are not adequate, requests go out for help from the private sector. For instance, RantWoman knows a fair number of air-conditioned bank lobbies. As much of our tax money as the banking industry has been soaking up lately, RantWoman could easily make a good case for the cooling imperatives of napping near our own money.

Who said malls are just for sneaker-clad seniors doing powerwalks? Window-shopping anyone? True, bus travel is required, but...

Go to the movies. RantWoman's finances did not line up to support this but she kind of got the next best thing paying a visit to Little Sister.
Little Sister's floor due to a glitch in her cleaning routine felt just like a movie theater floor without having to pay $9+ for the experience and Little Sister's fan and ice water did fine. Meet survival on a budget!

Who says curb cuts help?

Today during RantWoman's quest to cool herself, she reprised an absolutely gut-wrenching walk she did a couple weeks ago along 5th Avenue in downtown Seattle. The only difference: last time RantWoman and a buddy were travelling along the W side of Fifth. Today RantWoman was travelling on the east side of the street.

RantWoman's buddy on the first trip uses a large power wheelchair. RantWoman's buddy does not see any better than RantWoman and has a habit of regaling RantWoman with the thrills and spills of her commitment to independent living as defined by interaction with the built environment, civic infrastructure, etc. RantWoman finds some of these thrills and spills far to unenviable to repeat, but one journey will do nicely.

RantWoman and Travelling Buddy needed to go only a few blocks from City Hall to the library. RantWoman and TravellingBuddy, neither one of us can see across the street enough to evaluate without going there whether the curb cuts are any better on one side than on the other.

The point: our journey was only a few blocks. There were stoplights. Fifth Avenue is one way going opposite the direction we were headed. Every single intersection had two curb cuts oriented orthogonally. The problem is that in every single case, the curb cut oriented in our forward direction was set off-center, shortened, or otherwise misaligned so severely as to render the curb cuts useless for people in actual wheelchairs.

Instead, RantWoman and Travelling Buddy would arrive at each intersection. We would wait for the light to change in our forward direction. Then Travelling buddy would turn Right, use the perpendicular curb cut and then zip along again traffic nearly in the traffic lane. Think oncoming traffic. Think drivers probably cursing our very existence. Think stark raving terror. Think person with a hearing loss who cannot hear to change ourse in the fact of oncoming traffic. Alas, when we got across the street, Travelling buddy would again have to use the ramp facing perpendicular to the direction we wanted to go while traffic was whizzing by at her back.

To say the least, this was a hair-raising adventure, one that neither RantWoman nor Travelling Buddy want to repeat anytime soon. So today instead, RantWoman made the same walk along the East side of the street. This walk offered safe wide sidewalks through MOST of the walk--well, except for one weird hunk of some kind of giant electrical system switch protruding into a sidewalk already severely narrowed by the demands of a freeway onramp.

RantWoman and Travelling Buddy were out on a mission for the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing. For the time being RantWoman is just filing this experience in her things that need to be mapped file. At this point RantWoman soberly appreciates being alive to tell about it and will now be strategizing about Travelling Buddy's unique transportation issues. Sigh.

Women's Equality

RantWoman is unsure why she is fixated on the idea that July 26 is the anniversary of the 1848 Seneca Falls declaration which at least according to its authors was one of the first documents demanding that women in the US be granted the right to vote. Wikipedia is unhelpful in clarifying though the entry about the Seneca_Falls_Convention clearly sets the occasion July 1848.

Google confirms RantWoman's alternate suspicion that the date of Women's Rights Day is actually AUGUST 26, 1920, the date the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote was ratified. In any case RantWoman wants to move on to incisive commentary rather than do more RESEARCH.

RantWoman notes the ironic juxtaposition of her urge to celebrate women's struggle for equality with now-former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's departure from office. Say whatever else you (and most assuredly RantWoman) will about Sarah Palin, RantWoman does not know of a single male politician in the history of elected officialdom to so altruistically offer to shield the taxpayers from the costs of all those pesky ethics investigations. Most male politicians would just tough it out and deny and deny and deny and continue dealing with problems during their work hours when they are getting paid to do the state's business and only leave office regretfully when the piles of manure outside their office doors reach at least chest level. Only the pure ethical light of the female gender sees some kind of problem with this. Either that or Mrs. Palin has ethics problems undreamed of by other politicians! Can anyone think of ethically-challenged male politicians you might wish would follow her example?

RantWoman is certain this is not the last we will be hearing of or from Sarah Palin. RantWoman hopes that Tina Fey will be ever at the ready in case the public needs more insight into Mrs. Palin's antics.

In the spirit of women's equality, RantWoman is going to digress about one incident much of the world probably hopes already to have forgotten, David Letterman's famous comments about a Palin daughter and a famous baseball player. RantWoman heard an NPR interview she cannot at the moment find by current Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien's sidekick Andy Richter about this very topic. Richter goes on about how Letterman's original crack about the baseball player having his way with a Palin daughter was a little over the top but, well, it was funny and all in good fun and no harm meant, this despite the fact that an awful lot of women of many political persuasions would just cringe about the comment.

RantWoman wonders whether Richter would just say to his own daughter "well, men are slime and it's funny when we admit it." On the other hand RantWoman knows quite a few representatives of her own gender who excel at psychodrama and weird dating decisions. RantWoman is going to tread gingerly here but she thinks the whole bit would actually have been funnier if Letterman had said something about Bristol shopping for a new boyfriend now that Levi dumped her or the younger daughter shopping for a boyfriend so she can keep up with her big sister. Okay, ouch, but at least there is female agency involved here.

Speaking of female agency, RantWoman's body is certainly back in WA but apparently her mind has not quite returned from MT or at least from enjoyment of a few signs she saw on the campus of the University of MT.

RantWoman first misread the sign for Rankin Hall as Franklin Hall. RantWoman figured this must be some railroad magnate or mining industry eminence. Upon rereading though RantWoman realized that the building was named after Jeannette Rankin, the first woman ever elected to the US House of Representatives--and this before women in every state had the right to vote--and the only member of Congress to vote against US entry into both World Wars. Rankin, by the way, was a Republican!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannette_Rankin

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/congress/a/jeanette_rankin.htm

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=r000055

So take that every time Mrs. Palin chirps about wars!

RantWoman next noted the sign for the Mike and Maureen Mansfield library. Senator Mike Mansfield, D, MT had a long and distinguished career in the Senate. After leaving that office he was appointed US ambassador to Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mansfield

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000113

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/mhmansfield.htm

RantWoman notes that not every building named after a politician also mentions his / her spouse!

Finally, given RantWoman's weekly check-ins about matters pandemic, The sign at the memorial stand of 36 ponderosa pines dedicated to men and woman lost during World War I and the flu pandemic of 1919. RantWoman has decided that being on vacation means further pandemic news will have to wait a week.

Light Rail Tourism

RantWoman was only there for the air conditioning. Well, no. RantWoman quite appreciated the air conditioning but she figured it was darn well time she rode the whole Light Rail line.

And the verdict?

Much to like. A few things not so much.

For the first time in RantWoman's many rides, she met a human who asked for proof of payment. One of these days RantWoman will get herself a "Who would Jesus Bomb?" lanyard or some other way of dangling her card for all to see. Meanwhile, RantWoman had to mark her own ORCA card with something tactile so she can find it in her pouch when needed but out it came. End of questions.

RantWoman likes the airy slightly retro feel of the elevated stations. This is the 21st century. Link could have come with gleam and chrome and platinum and holograms everywhere. Both Mount Baker and International Boulevard have a little more the feel of what the 1962 World's Fair must have felt like: lots of structure visible. Wonderful open feel from the windows. Functional but not flashy elements in the elevators. RantWoman would not mind if the elevators beeped a little more loudly upon arriving and opening. RantWoman almost missed one elevator because her mind was wandering and she noticed the elevator had showed up just in time to keep it from running away.

RantWoman has hitherto experienced Tukwila mainly in the form of freeways, shopping malls, and industrial areas, with the only high point being the solar collector atop what RantWoman thinks might be Metro's South Base. It was striking to see how much lovely woods there is along the Light Rail Route. RantWoman definitely hopes the woods hang in there, hopes that the forces of development don't grind them all or even a very large percentage of them into industrial facilities or tract housing. RantWoman would especially be charmed to see more new and retrofitted buildings adopt green building / rooftop garden / natural thermal management principles such as the ones used in Seattle's First Station 10 downtown.

Except for the architecture, RantWoman found the whole International Boulevard station, well, disappointing. First of all, there is this mezzanine thingie. The mezzanine had long lines of people buying tickets from machines. RantWoman was very glad just to have her ORCA card., but RantWoman finds having to zigzag among people standing in lines tiresome under the best circumstances. RantWoman was also fatigued from the long ride (ha!) and the heat. If someone had been dispensing caffeine in any of several forms, RantWoman would happily have partaken.

One does not seem to have a reliable way of predicting which side one should ascend to get the departing train. RantWoman supposes this will be clearer when the route to the airport opens and trains are running both directions through Tukwila, but right now it feels like a dice roll.

Meanwhile, the Tukwila station is in the middle of a gynormous humungoid gigantic PARKING LOT. There is literally NOTHING RantWoman could see that she could walk to wthout getting on some other form of conveyance. RantWoman thinks this is SILLY, especially since the thing she is most likely to care about visiting in Tukwila is all the shopping around Southcenter Mall. RantWoman has no idea what arrangements there may eventually be to facilitate shopping, but having to make the transfer is a big minus in RantWoman's choice of shopping destinations.

Then there is the airport. Like as not, if RantWoman were arriving at the airport and had a choice between shuttle bus + Link or the 194 bus, chances are RantWoman would opt for the single seat ride on the 194 bus. So the jury is still out on the airport option at least until that end of Link opens.

Coming back, RantWoman also noticed blocks of quite similar housing and, er, UGLY townhomes along some stretches of the routes. RantWoman wishes the residents every happiness and convenient commeute; RantWoman also encourages everyone to do anything they can to promote more green and less uniformity. Stay tuned on that front as well.

Will RantWoman be back? Of course!

Who is RantWoman; why was she in the 'hood?

RantWoman has been checking back every now and then to pages on the http://23rdandunion.org/think.htm site. RantWoman notes several new voices that have come and one interesting one that has gone. RantWoman finally figured out what the one that has gone was saying: it's MUCH more innocuous than how it first parses to the rap-impaired. RantWoman can understand if that one went away for privacy reasons; if it went away because of how it sounds to some of the rap-impaired, that would be sad.

On the other hand, RantWoman is going back and forth about 23rd and Union's history. All those craftsman homes build in the 1920's. Wonder what the place was like then, when the trees were young too. How did it go from that to the time in the 40's and 50's when it was the only place African-Americans could buy property? What happened later when prosperity and real estate marketing drew people out of the city where the trees and sidewalks and transit infrastructure are good.


RantWoman remembers introductions at the first session of the SouthEast Seattle Transit Connections Sounding Board last fall: a lot of the white people had traveled a lot and talked about how great Seattle's transit system is; more that one African-American mentioned growing up in the CD and then moving out to Renton and Skyway and those trendy suburbs where a car is practically mandatory partly because there is no transit and partly because other urban amenities are way underdeveloped?

What else contributed to the neighborhood's fearsome reputation by the 1990's? Remember, this was before it got so fashionable to blame all of the US's problems on poor brown people from south of the border, after some flunky in the National Security Advisor's office had been selling arms to one set of Latin American goons in exchange for another set of hostages. To say the least, RantWoman would understand why some people could also think the CIA was importing cocaine to undermine the African American core of the nation's cities.

RantWoman thinks, based on multiracial observation that the forces of addiction are invidious enough to do serious damage with or without the CIA's help. RantWoman still means to rant a bit elsewhere about "the drugs." None of this by itself fully explains why different groups of people come and go from the area around 23rd and Union.

Okay, RantWoman recognizes that these may be dissertation-sized questions and this ain't no dissertation, so let's just leave the questions hanging and move on to things RantWoman is better qualified to talk off-the-cuff about, such as herself.

RantWoman is a sort of terminally well-meaning Tavis Smiley listening white person and she tends to hang out with other people who like diversity, believe in listening, and also ask questions. RantWoman lived a spell in Washington DC and rode the bus as often as the metro. RantWoman has visited New York, Chicago, Newark, Trenton. RantWoman has read a good bit of bell hooks and Cherie Moraga. This means RantWoman both cringed at some of Hillary Clinton's weirder campaign moments and sometimes clutches her bag or moves away uneasily from certain people.

It was fashionable both when RantWoman was in college and when she was getting a master's degree to demand that one's educational institution should divest from companies doing business in South Africa. RantWoman is familiar with several threads of conversation about this topic and shares a friend's view that some from the US liked the S Africa issue because at least it was a country where people are bigger racists than in the US. RantWoman supposes there are as many dissertation-sized questions about gender and disease and resources connected with what South Africa has become since the end of apartheid as about the history of 23rd and Union. RantWoman is barely wondering there either.

At some point before graduate school RantWoman decided she should not just go to lectures where African American students hang out and think about African Americans getting active about some of her pet issues, she should get to know a bigger slice of African American life so she joined the local chapter of the NAACP. Such was the nature of such things even in a supposedly tolerant university town that one year RantWoman, a friend, and the mayor were the only 3 white people at the annual NAACP banquet. On the other hand, this connection got RantWoman her first and only gig so far at a major political party convention.

RantWoman was on the local ballot as a Jesse Jackson delegate and was elected an alternate. Jesse Jackson won so big in the precinct where RantWoman lived that there was no question of the party naming anyone else but a Jackson delegate when someone else could not go. RantWoman has little terribly interesting memory of the actual convention but does remember riding there with one of her NAACP colleagues and feeling quite honored to hear him recount some stories from earlier decades.

Maybe some of this is why RantWoman was less filled with terror than average when looking for apartments and finding the things she could best afford were in the CD. This does not necessarily make RantWoman any less in her own way part of the shock troops of gentrification either.

RantWoman moved into the 'hood in the mid 1990's. RantWoman lived in a wonderful old house that had been split up into 4 apartments. RantWoman had a front porch and a rose bush. RantWoman had huge bay windows that drew glorious light first thing in the morning. RantWoman loved the grassy lawn, the plentiful sidewalks and excellent transit connections, the fact that the Medgar Evers pool was 3 blocks away. RantWoman loved her big kitchen, her combined living/ dining room / office. RantWoman tolerated the walk around the corner to do laundry and the postal workers who drove in noisily at 4 am.

When RantWoman looked at the place and even when she was moving in, what turned out to be a drug house next door was on quite good behavior. RantWoman at least did not register anything from the people hanging out on the front porch that screamed "drug house." RantBrother on the other hand immediately picked up on that drug house and another one down the street. The thing is, the house liked to party sometimes on weekends but that was all that registered with RantWoman. Eventually there was a big bust while RantWoman was out of town. Everyone got evicted and more upgrading work was done on the house, part of a definable wave of new condos and further yuppification.

RantWoman must also have been somewhat protected by a massive cone of cluelessness or her own modest circumstances. One time, a police representative stopped by while RantWoman was at work. He left a business card and an invitation to sign a card authorizing the cops to investigate anyone who appeared to be trespassing. RantWoman sort of thought about calling for more info, but never got around to it.

RantWoman at the time had almost nothing really worth stealing: newspapers in a couple languages people might not even have been able to read, an old surplus computer, the RantWoman wardrobe which is hardly Chanel. Anyone dumb enough to try to carry off the old computer would have deserved to have to carry it around. Plus although RantWoman always added longterm residents to her lease, her one-bedroom apartment quickly housed two or even 3 people on whose behalf RantWoman had no inclination to speak.

Somewhere in here, ferrener husband came in to RantWoman's life. The RantBrother was vacillating about moving to Seattle for medical treatment or lingering in the cultural safety of the old hometown. RantWoman now thinks there are a few reasons she tolerated way too much lousy tenant behavior on RantBrother's part, but at the time RantWoman's job was holding steady. RantWoman was getting an itch to own property, make mortgage payments, be responsible for plumbing matters, and in a way put down roots. RantWoman's household also just needed more space.

RantWoman began making inquiries. Ferrener husband and RantWoman connected with a realtor who helped us identify many housing (and realtor) features we did not want. Memo to realtors everywhere: if no one in your clients' household owns a car, you will NOT make any money by offering to drive them to neighborhoods with peak hour only bus service. RantWoman was also just walking around her neighborhood regularly though she is not at this moment sure how she first found the house she fell in love with on 22nd avenue. True the house was small and less than optimal in some ways. However it had a lovely camelia bush out front, gorgeous fir floors and enough yard to grow both flowers and vegetables.

Perhaps the joys of home ownership deserve their own ramble. There would be the flooded basement, the double-pane window replacements needed when ferrener husband took a hammer to some window frames stuck open when the onset of fall rains swelled everything wooden. There would be the bank doing "drive-by appraisal" when RantWoman responded to their marketing flyer about refinances as the real estate bubble was expanding, but perhaps for now we will close with ferrener husband's move-in gesture.

Ferrener husband was not as charmed with house as RantWoman was. He was right about it being small, try the biggest we could afford. He ultimately liked fine the escalation in price, but the beginning was bumpy. Ferrener husband though is the sort of person who burns off stress with vigorous exercise. After we moved, RantWoman was still trying to get her tablecloths unpacked and ferrener husband was already outside digging up lawn in both the front and back yards, buying roses, indulging RantWoman's love of lilies and eventually tulips, daffodils, dahlias. The back yard slowly also took shape with beets, blueberries, lettuce, peas, exactly the sort of bounty that new supertight crammed in townhouses no longer have any space for, but that is another whole rant.

Sunday, Sunday

If 23rd and Union is an intercultural crossroads the rest of the week, Sundays deserve particular thought. In RantWoman's experience, Sundays reflect both the parallel universes of many different faiths and some amusing commonalities among people of different faiths.

One of the things RantWoman noticed upon moving into the area is all the different Churches of God in Christ, one around every corner, and not large buildings either. WHASSUP with that? RantWoman knows of sects with amazingly small total numbers of adherents who nevertheless manage to splinter over the tiniest questions of practice or doctrine. Is that that or just the vagaries of real estate and group decisionmaking? RantWoman does not even know who to ask?

Mount Zion Baptist Church is not strictly 23rd and Union, but since it's the kind of religious body in-the-know white people would pay attention to, RantWoman will offer comments about it too. RantWoman has been there a time or two for events or sometimes when service providers such as United Way tax help visit there.

On one of RantWoman's visits there she remembers noting that Mount Zion is a member both of the National Baptist Convention (African American congregations) and the American Baptist Convention. Who says segregation is no more? To be fair, when RantWoman lived in another city and belonged to the NAACP, that organization held meetings in another Baptist church that belonged to the National Baptist Convention.

On the other hand, when Rev McKinney retired RantWoman followed the transition to Rev. Braxton with the same interest she devotes to the soap operas that sometimes accompany leadership transitions in other churches RantWoman is familiar with.

RantWoman's Sundays in public often began at the bus stop in front of Mt Calvary. RantWoman's usual travel time to her regular house of worship in the U district was, she thinks, between services at Mt. Calvary. Sometimes RantWoman heard pretty rocked-out full-voiced singing. Most of the time, RantWoman got to watch a succession of cars drive up, often from places like Renton. Nearly everyone was finely dressed, some with awesome African American church lady hats and big Bibles.

It's not like RantWoman easily strikes up conversations with anyone but she got used to who she saw regularly. One time when RantMom was still an occasional Seattle visitor not yet a full resident in her own capacity, she came with RantWoman on one of these journeys. RantMom was quite a bit less sure of herself in this environment than RantWoman was and RantWoman remembers one time getting on the bus and assuring RantMom that "those ones are fine; they're on their way to church. I see them every week." For the record: RantWoman is perfectly well aware that many people go to church because they really need it; nothing can automatically be assumed about churchgoers' benevolent intentions. In RantWoman's mind though, making the effort to show up, no matter what motivations or ulterior motives might be going on counts for something.

RantWoman often thinks of that run of the 48 as "the God run:" East African immigrants on their way to St. Demetrious on Boyer, a couple young white women with small children in tow on their way to the Mormon stake in the U-district invariably because their husbands are either already deployed somewhere or ready imminently to ship out.

Then there would be RantWoman on her way to Friends Meeting. RantWoman might not have been a Quaker in previous centuries for any number of reasons. For instance RantWoman likes a little more flash in her attire than previous centuries of plain-dressing Quakers would tolerate. (RantWoman also hopes she would be more outspoken and less self-congratulatory about some topics than Quakers who have gone before.) In the centuries RantWoman lives though, "plain dress" runs heavily toward denim and tennis shoes, biker tights and shoes with toe clips, or in rare cases chinos and T-shirts.

In contrast to the finely dressed folks at Mt Calvary, the flavor of Quakers RantWoman hangs with tends not to dress up for anything but weddings and memorials, sometimes not even then. RantWoman remembers one sweltering Sunday when she went to Meeting for Worship wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. At Meeting she realized there was a memorial after worship. Although RantWoman had barely ever spoken to the deceased, there was an ex oficio reason it was totally reasonable to expect RantWoman to show up for the memorial. RantWoman apologized sheepishly to a family member after the memorial, but the family member graciously pointed out that his father never wore anything but T-shirts either.

Considering the directions people move, RantWoman is struck by parallels between people who drive in from Renton and some she knows who drive to the U district from suburbs up north. RantWoman supposes there are curious intersections of faith and sentimentality and urban planning in these practices but that perhaps could get to be another whole post.

RantWoman does mention the topic though because Sunday trips to church are a very important social connection for many seniors. Lately RantWoman has been sitting in on some meetings related to neighborhood planning. The seniors getting to church on Sunday bus schedules keeps coming up!


But back to 23rd and Union as RantWoman knew and knows it. Miss Helen's Soul Food was at least a visual fixture. RantWoman knows how to eat grits and greens and might have tried the place at least once, RantWoman never managed to intersect with the place when it was actually open, but she definitely remembers the lace curtains in the window.

The back of the building where Miss Helen's was housed some kind of curious mosque. By the time RantWoman would get home on Sundays, the mosque was often teeming with families. Everything that might conceivably be considered parking was overflowing with cars, especially orange taxis. Most of these gatherings seemed quite amiable with nothing more objectionable than the same kind of parking concerns that surround one budding megachurch in the U-district except that to RantWoman's knowledge no one ever came along and coached the mosque-goers about how to manage their traffic a little.

RantWoman's ferrener sometime husband is from a country many people would not guess has a large muslim population. Even during Communist times though Islam was one of the officially recognized religions. Local practice had numbers of idiosyncrasies and when ferrener husband was first in the US he made inquiring forays both to the mosque on Union St. and to an Islamic school in the building where RantWoman used to go to vote.

RantWoman was perplexed, after ferrener husband visited the mosque in the falling-down brick building when he trotted home, not with some kind of religious text in an unusual script but with some kind of Green Beret manual, the kind of thing previously often on sale at surplus sales all over the country. This particular volume had more ammo on the cover than the average Rambo movie uses for a whole shoot. RantWoman would have been way more concerned had ferrener husband actually showed very much interest in the thing: he brought it home out of curiosity. RantWoman laughed a little and explained about surplus sales. Then ferrener husband basically forgot about it though it surfaced during some later move on top of a whole box of equally random printed material. RantWoman thinks ferrener husband like the school a little better though nothing in print ever came home from it.

RantWoman is the sort of person who sometimes goes to meetings of neighborhood activists, and the falling-down brick building was universally reviled in some quarters. This was partly though RantWoman suspects not solely because the building was in terrible shape. The buildings detractors probably considered the Nisqually earthquake an act of divine mercy: after the earthquake, safety inspections immediately red-tagged the building and all the tenants were forced to move. RantWoman has no idea what happened to Miss Helen's, but the taxi stand and mosque moved a few blocks east further down Union toward the lake.

Considering the Green Beret manual, RantWoman probably should not be surprised that the mosque also emerged later as a front in the Global War on Terrorism. There is no indication that the whole mosque had terrorist connections, and RantWoman remembers an awful lot of general hyperventilating in the aftermath of 9/11. This was connected with the mosque through the wonders of an alleged training camp in Oregon, some web presence and other activities that, RantWoman suspects fall somewhere between grounds for legal hyperventilating and serious threat.

Here RantWoman also has to acknowledge some contradictions in the dictates of her own faith tradition. RantWoman being a good Montana girl has no problem with well-managed hunting and use of shotguns for same. RantWoman does think fewer shotguns in wide circulation are generally preferable to more shotguns in circulation. However, when news of the alleged training camp in OR surfaced, RantWoman admits to thinking that if the people involved had just been white boys with shotguns wanting to blast away at targets out in the middle of nowhere, probably the NRA would be all over the issue in defense of people's God-given Second Amendment rights to blast away with shotguns at anything they want. All are supposed to be equal under the law, right? Suffice it to say that now this neighborhood has real problems with other forms of firepower; RantWoman may or may mot elaborate about that in a separate post.

RantWoman wishes to add one more note to her Sunday forays into multiculturalism, a church Little Sister has ties to called La Iglesia de Dios Pentecostes. Often in the summertime, huge "mixed status" families of Latino immigrants from this church headed out on the #2 bus to swim at Lake Washington and make carne asado on the beach. Diespite the mix of people who attended, definitely no assumptions should be made about these gatherings being paragons of interracial or intercultual concord either; they were fun on the beach, not an outbreak of world peace.

Happy Sundays to all.

Addicted to Light Rail!

Yes! This is how it is supposed to work. RantWoman was downtown. RantWoman debated about how to get home, how many hills to climb to a bus stop? Bus or light rail? Caffeine or ice cream first?

Turns out Cow Chip cookies in Pioneer Square no longer has a freezer or any ice cream sandwiches. Oops, well. Bypass the first caffeine outlet but give in by the second one: iced latte on a hot day.

Bus or light rail? Light Rail, no question! It was nearly commuting hour and the ridership was mostly commuterish. Riders still kind of clogged the doorways and RantWoman stood where she would not have gotten on a bus unless she were pretty sure she would get a seat. But RantWoman really enjoyed the fast ride!

RantWoman still definitely did not enjoy the pedestrian (cough, cough) amenities between the Mount Baker station and today's bus stop, but RantWoman would mostly survive them and in average cases be happy for the chance to do shopping on her way home. RantWoman could get to like this!

Summer vacation unplugged

RantWoman did it. All summer she has been getting lured toward Montana thanks to the Montana ads all over Metro buses. Well, the landscapes are seductive anyway, though one of the ads has this big purple thing in the middle. RantWoman is unsure whether the purple thing is someone's canoe, a satellite dish, or an alien landing, but RantWoman wound up mostly in Missoula, at the University of Montana. RantWoman is long familiar with the University of Montana. Whatever aliens land there tend not to land right in the city and Mount Sentinel is merely a vague approximation of the landscapes in the ads, but the visit was still a serious MT fix for RantWoman.

RantWoman scored a cheap and meaningful though idiosyncratic and blessedly low-budget reason to go to MT. There were even lots of people RantWoman could have ridden with, had she been able to leave town in a timely way. Instead, RantWoman opted for, drum roll please, GREYHOUND.

RantWoman admits to a certain minimum yearly rquirement of Greyhound, if only to keep her Greyhound nerves sharp for whatever comes along. RantWoman was running a Greyhound deficit and was clueless about current trends in ticketing, charging for luggage, and other delights. Unfortunately, RantWoman like many Greyhound passengers also has a schedule subject to, well, life. RantWoman looked once online for schedules and fares and the arrangements seemed tolerable but not ideal. RantWoman actually equivocated about her trip for a number of reasons and stupidly did not buy her ticket right away.

When RantWoman got ready to buy her ticket online, she rant into two problems. One is that stupid 3-character code on people's credit cards that online merchants frequently want as proof that the person filling in the data has the actual card in his or her hot little hand. Never mind that RantWoman qualifies as BLIND. That stuff wears off so badly that sighted people can never find it either.

(Memo to credit card cos: FIX THIS! RantWoman can think of a whole bunch of ways to defeat the current method. If you also want RantWoman to help think of ways to provide the desired verification in a durable way, RantWoman is happy to offer a consulting contract to consider options!)

RantWoman actually wrote the code in fat pen on one of her cards, but for the bus ticket RantWoman was doing trial and error about the third digit from what she remembered for the other card. Alas, RantWoman was not getting any error message topical to that problem. RantWoman was getting an error message about wanting a credit card expiration date after the date of travel or within the same century or some dang thing that had nothing to do with the actual problem.

What was the actual problem? The actual problem was that the bus RantWoman wanted was SOLD OUT. It was already sold out when Rantwoman arrived at the bus station, but RantWoman did not see the sign or glean any chatter until after ferrener husband had dropped her and a ridiculous amount of luggage off!

When the news finally registered, RantWoman looked at the ticket agent really pathetically and he agreed that it was fine to wait until everyone boarded the bus and see whether there wound up being a seat. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Not only were there no seats, a whole bunch of transferring passengers did not get on either. The other passengers even had stories of more dire desparation than RantWoman's need for a vacation and there still were not seats. Finally RantWoman bought her ticket to ensure she had a seat on the next morning's bus and prevailed on the staff to let her leave the luggage. Other passengers got to sleep overnight in the bus station; RantWoman at least rode Metro home, slept in her own bed and got on the bus the next morning.

Here RantWoman could whine at length about the limitations of her barebones cellphone with minimal accessibility features. RantWoman supposes she could otherwise have written down a certain 800 number for Greyhound, but phone numbers written on otherpieces of paper is exactly one of the problems cellphone memory is supposed to ameliorate. RantWoman does not want a completely endless tirade about the costs of accessibility features, but feel free to replay ad nauseum.

Next, when the bus stopped for 45 minutes in Spokane, silly RantWoman thought maybe, just maybe she might be able to whip out her laptop and get an email fix. The earnest immigrant running the bus station cafe had no idea where the nearest Wi-fi was. It was also a skadillion degrees outside so RantWoman opted for air conditioning and caffeine rather than extensive foraging for connectivity in her visual fog.

At Spokane though RantWoman was joined by a travel companion with other desires akin to RantWoman's: RantWoman acquired a quite young seatmate who would have liked a way to recharge her iPod. RantWoman would have loved Wi-fi on the bus and a way to plug in: RantWoman's laptop is an embarrassing battery hog! So in addition to fixing the ticketing fiascoes, RantWoman would be thrilled if the buses added electrical outlets and Wi-Fi. RantWoman is pretty aware that especially the Wi-Fi is not what one would expect for much of the bus-riding demographic, but RantWoman also overheard at least one other passenger saying things that sounded like, if he were not gabbing away on his cellphone, he might use Wi-fi too. 2 passengers out of 50 per bus? Would RantWoman pay extra for this? MAYBE.

Finally, RantWoman arrived at the University of MT. RantWoman had consumed caffeine late enough in the afternoon to have trouble sleeping, but at least she resisted the urge to log in. For an account of what happened please see Wherein RantWoman has a pathetic meltdown and copes with unplugging anyway

Please pay particular attention to:

--attending conferences on college campuses.

--the perils of technical support for rarely-used functions such as an ADA terminal in a university library.

--the perils of passing, RantWoman's reward for successfully walking around mostly without bumping into people and making what looks to other people like appropriate eye contact even though RantWoman may or may not be seeing a darn thing.

--some spectacular moments of user error and user obtuseness on top of all the other potholes in the info superhighway.

--why maybe, just maybe all that technology is superfluous anyway.

Meanwhile, RantWoman is still churning through the overfull inbox, but at least she is more relaxed while doing it.

Total Pedestrian Nightmare

RantWoman would SO like to be wrong. RantWoman would not be the least bit heartbroken if her predictions about the scope of potential pedestrian nightmare at the MountBaker Link station were wrong. RantWoman is also wracking her brain for any visions of ways the concrete mess with pedestrians and buses having to cross paths multiple places at the new Forest St. bus facility will ever be nearly as inviting as the wide sidewalks, wonderful trees and clear separation between bus and pedestrian traffic at the current bus stop on McClellan, but that is another whole problem.

On the other hand, there is a print/web publication locally which pays its writers (yeah!) and where use of certain language frequently eschewed by more staid publications is practically mandatory in its stylebook. What RantWoman actually thinks is closer to the practically mandatory terms you may imagine above. However, RantWoman demands money before flinging such terms willy-nilly around the internet.

RantWoman's inaugural ride on light rail took her to the Mount Baker station. RantWoman was carrying bags of groceries and for various reasons not feeling her usual energetic self. RantWoman found the elevator and descended to the street. RantWoman's goal was to get to the nearest bus stop without having to walk halfway home. RantWoman has been checking regularly and had serious doubts about pedestrian pathways lining up in time for opening day. Again, RantWoman would not have minded being wrong.

RantWoman trundled out toward Rainier and, and, and: still orange traffic barriers all over the sidewalk to the north, on the way to the stop RantWoman needed N of McClellan. No way to walk from the platform over Rainier, say by connecting to the overpass at MLK to the south. RantWoman found herself staring across Rainier at a blue mass she realized must be her bank, definitely not a destination of the day.

At this point, inspiration struck: RantWoman can much more easily connect to buses that go where she needs at....the Columbia City station! There RantWoman has to walk along the platform and cross 1 and a half streets. Then there is a stop with frequent enough service to satisfy RantWoman. The bus goes to a stop where RantWoman is used to the pedestrian etc. scene; come September there will even be a bus that goes right by RantWoman's place! Back up RantWoman went.

The second train also had a passel of kids on it, but these were quieter than the earlier train. RantWoman found her desired bus stop. RantWoman even had a sort of reassuring thought about needing to cross the tracks: RantWoman heard one demo of the train last summer that she thought might be hard to hear over traffic. On the other hand, if one can hear that the traffic is also travelling in the direction one needs to go to cross the tracks, that at least means the train has not used its ability to override signals.

Speaking of noise: while RantWoman waited for her bus a couple more trains went by each way. RantWoman personally is really glad the train uses its bell liberally; however, if RantWoman lived next to the tracks and had to listen to the bell 19 hours a day, she would definitely be looking into a white noise machine or a really good indoor sound system.

Welcome to the neighborhood Light Rail.

The Big Ride

RantMom beat RantWoman in the "be the first in the family to ride the light rail" game! RantMom imparted this news to RantWoman via cellphone while RantWoman was in a car tooling west through MT and ID. RantWoman had taken to heart news of the hordes expected for opening weekend on Link Light Rail. RantWoman had found a nice easy excuse to be three states away during the entire festivity.

RantMom on the other hand is exactly the sort of party animal who, when her pastor asked after church whether RantMom would like to go with her on a Light Rail adventure said "of course." Apparently they timed things phenomenally well: they stood on one leg of a trip to Tukwila. Then they were able to get right back on (RantWoman is allowing herself to wonder whether the sight of RantMom tooling along with her cane was persuasive, though RantMom said they actually had seats back to Sodo. RantWoman is unclear about details of any line at Sodo to get back on going south. RantMom mentioned that by the time they got back to Rainier Beach there were definite lines forming. The point is their timing was great and RantMom was thrilled. Now she is also calendaring the promised expedition with Irrepressible Grandkid.
Yeah Link. Yeah opening weekend.

As for RantWoman...

RantWoman took her inaugural ride today. RantWoman intended to ride to the station nearest her home, Mount Baker, and to bus from there. RantWoman was carrying groceries which was one reason for this experiment. What RantWoman actually did is grist for another whole rant, but let us start from the beginning.

First RantWoman dutifully located an ORCA reader and touched her ORCA card to it. The reader beeped with the single tone RantWoman associates with reading correctly. RantWoman thinks the placement of both ORCA card readers and ticket vending at the ID station is weird but with that out of the way, RantWoman descended to the platform.

The train RantWoman got on at the ID was crammed full of boisterous children at one end chattering so loudly RantWoman was having trouble hearing the stops being called. RantWoman found herself wondering whether the loudspeaker system had been tested under anything like analogous conditions.

One of RantWoman's riding companions was a Metro employee. He speculated about how many people on the train actually paid. RantWoman had not inquired of others, but was definitely in a position to speak for herself. Mr. Metro driver was not forthcoming about whether he has an ORCA card, and RantWoman lost interest in probing further.

RantWoman got off at Mt. Baker and bumbled around a bit looking for the elevator. Then after a tirade worthy of its own post, RantWoman came back, went up to the platform, and rode to another stop! Party!

Fare curiosity

This week Rantwoman made two curious discoveries on the street level at the International District tunnel stop.

First, RantWoman discovered what she thinks must be the same kind of ORCA card reader on Metro's buses. RantWoman supposes this is one of the desired functions before the impending opening of Light Rail, but RantWoman still finds this placement going INTO the elevator curious. Arguably it makes sense for time periods outside of Free Ride Zone hours. What happens for people who do not use the elevator? Will these readers take as long to wake up and read as some of the ones on buses do?

RantWoman has observed that sometimes in the loading or unloading of people in wheelchairs, drivers and passengers forget to ask about or offer fares. RantWoman has no opinion about any vast revenues foregone in this oversight: Most people RantWoman knows who use a disabled pass pay their monthly pass fee. Most likely the time to deal with fare would just add to the time already needed to deal with the wheelchair lift. In other words, RantWoman is way more likely to get worked up about other problems, but she still does not understand the placement of the ORCA reader.

The other wonderful but also perplexing discovery RantWoman made was the ATM-like dispenser of Sounder Tickets. This dispenser has several features RantWoman is highly impressed with: braille and raised lettering with various kinds of instructions about what to press for audio, where to insert bills or coins and most fun of all, sequences of raised arrows one can follow from one set of needed buttons to another. The only thing that perplexed RantWoman was a slot which RantWoman supposes would receive either an ORCA card or more likely a credit card. There were small visible directions that seemed to suggest inserting a credit card, but there was nothing tactile to help RantWoman figure out for sure.

RantWoman has an ORCA card. She had no intentions of going anywhere on the Sounder. RantWoman did not try this wonderful gizmo so maybe she missed an audio explanation of the mysterious slot. She is however, curious: what if she wanted to add money to her ORCA card? What if she wanted to buy someone else tickets with money out of her ORCA card wallet? RantWoman supposes that transit planners are busy just trying to get the darn light rail open this week, so RantWoman will file the questions and note the curiosity.

Twittering Swine Flu

Dear World

Yes, OF COURSE RantWoman has plenty else to do besides do periodic snapshots of swine flu across the interwebs. On the other hand, what is the point of a chronicle if there is not some timespan involved.

Today's link, fished via a saved search on Twitter:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/13/swine-flu-media-hype

wherein a Guardian (UK) writer gets swine flu, feels sicker than a dog, has misadventures with her healthcare system and slowly recovers enough to write about it.

Commenters still cannot agree that it's more than real flu, cannot agree about "no underlying health concerns" since the author has a history of viral meningitis. This case sounds wretched though aside from wanting some kind of data jockey to look at the histories of other "no underlying condition" cases and death, does not offer much guidance. Well, if you feel like crap, STAY HOME until you feel better. If one of your loved ones feels like crap and keeps sweating all over the bedding do what you can to keep them clean and comfortable. Not rocket science here.

For comparison WHO this week has items on health relief for Displaced Persons in Pakistan, an initiative on noncommunicable disease, oh and swine flu vaccine recommendations and other updates:

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_vaccine_20090713/en/index.html

http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_07_06/en/index.html

(comparatively a lot of newly discovered cases in Argentina, Chile: one could stage a swine flu bakeoff comparing different points of history from different Latin American countries. Well, SEOMEONE could but it won't be RantWoman.)

An item about quarantine issues in China, via a blog whose source RantWoman did not verify reporting State Department guidance:
http://pandemicinformationnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/travel-alert-china.html

Also a charming smattering of references to the Book of Revelation, mercury in vaccines, sardines, vacating the planet, and zombies. Ahhhhh, the internet at its best.

For the love of my sisters

http://fortheloveofmysisters.blogspot.com/

No, this is not some electronic lesbian sex rag. It's part fashion commentary, part media critique mainly about African American celebs and African American fashion. RantWoman enjoyed her fast skim enough to recommend it here, but makes no promises about how often she will visit.

RantWoman is the sort of eclectic devourer of diversity in the printed word who formerly would have at least occasionally picked up all kinds of stuff either in waiting rooms or to look over at the newsstand: Essence, Jet the Final Call, The Catholic Worker, The National Review, the American Spectator, The American Prospect, The Nation. The object of this eclecticism: intercultural adventure, recreational blood pressure elevation, funky ways to spend time.

RantWoman does not of course have any more time than previously, but she is so excited now to have enough tools to devour something approaching ways to satisfy her heterodox appetites. She is also excited for the vast electronic newstand out there for her to stumble over.

'Hood Vocabulary

Warning: this post contains material that is irreverent and laced with street jargon and terms which may be offensive for multiple reasons to some readers. Please consider yourself warned; if you would rather not risk being offended, there is a whole vast interweb of other material to choose instead. Please do not say RantWoman did not warn you.


RantWoman keeps thinking of calling up and recording one of her rants for the http://23rdandunion.org/index.htm project. One of the reasons this has not happened is vocabulary, both the vocabulary of the site and RantWoman's vocabulary.


Let us start with RantWoman who sometimes adopts a flexible grammar to fit into different situations. RantWoman also has a little bit of a reflex about using 5-syllable words when 3-syllable or even 2-syllable ones would do fine. RantWoman notes there are times when a 5-syllable word sums up a concept perfectly and RantWoman aims to provide correct spelling so people do not have to poke around dictionary.com with phonetic variants trying to nail the right concept. RantWoman also realizes that her 5-syllable words are as odd to others as is RantWoman's experience of some rap and hiphop or the voices of the immigrants, people from East Africa or Spanish-speaking countries who hopefully should be adding their accents to the audio tracks. Unfortunately 5-syllable words are also their own form of addiction, not so easy to banish even at times when they are not functional.

Then there is the usage of the area.

For instance, RantWoman's inner bard really likes some rap and slam poetry though she definitely recognizes the subculture's vocabulary as something hard for people new to the US. In other cases when the volume is cranked up to maximum and someone's car stereo is blasting, RantWoman has been known to grumble about noise violations and boys marking territory just like great big hound dogs. However in the same spirit of edification for other language professionals, RantWoman needs to add some specific neighborhood usage to her Lexicography thread.

Honky: historically used to refer to a white person, often a white person visiting an African American neighborhood to buy sex. Family vernacular: RantWoman to RantBrother "git yo' honky ass over here and be useful." As adults, RantWoman and RantBrother have historically done a fair amount of trash talking among ourselves. Usually an exclamation like this would shortly lead to gales of laughter. (RantWoman means to pen two entries relevant here: one about the 'hood being kind of a frontier for members of her birth family to encounter African Americans in large numbers and one about equal opportunity drug issues. Both of these heavily feature RantBrother. Stay tuned.)


Homey: home boy. 23rd and Union was the first time RantBrother lived among that level of social diversity and the experience was a little bumpy at times. RantWoman sometimes called RantBrother this when she was trying to make him feel at home in the 'hood but not calling him "honky."



"Ho." Hooker, sometimes just woman. Generally considered derogatory. Common rap usage. Also used in the phrase "nappy-headed 'ho's" to much hew and cry by a talkshow personality to refer to a whole team of very accomplished collegiate basketball players. Dang, if that's what "'ho" means, RantWoman who can seldom make all 4 limbs move in a coordinated fashion let alone do teamwork too, would take it in a heartbeat.


Alternate usage: one of the historical last names of China. RantWoman in those years had a lot of dealings outside the neighborhood with a Chinese woman whose last name was Ho. This Ho woman was voted "worst in category" by much more venerable persons than RantWoman. RantWoman knows many reasons she earned the title. RantWoman still fought others' tendency in conversation to refer to her as "the Ho." It's not that RantWoman thought very differently; RantWoman just did not trust herself not to slip inappropriately.

Weed and Seed: a program in the 1990's intended more or less to help neighborhoods root out drug houses and to promote desirable community activities. The program in Seattle was supposed to be a little more weighted toward social efforts than in some other cities, it was still pretty heavily weighted toward law enforcement. There was a good bit of Weed and Seed activity connected with the Central Area when RantWoman lived there. At that time Little Sister lived in another neighborhood with a lot of drug activity and devoted a lot of time to community efforts to clean up problems. Little Sister was pretty much equal opportunity in her scorn of behaviors related to the drug trade in her 'hood: she would bitch in clear and varied ethnic terms. Even so, the life of a community activist can take a great deal of time with many kinds of conflict over priorities.

Lieutenant Weed: the Weed and Seed program had a specific police lieutenant assigned to it. Little Sister had this officer's direct dial number and referred to him often in conversation in connection with neighborhood meetings. Somewhere in the churn of family conversation "the Weed Lieutenant" morphed into "Lieutenant Weed." RantBrother thought this was hilarious. RantWoman just thought no one needed to reinforce any temptation to misspeak at inopportune times.

"My you two do Favor each other." RantWoman and Little Sister learned this one from an African American woman one time on the bus. This means that although RantWoman and Little Sister were more easily distinguishable as kids, in adult form there is a pretty strong family resemblance. RantWoman mentions the phrase in connection with "Lieutenant Weed" not only because of lexicographic interest but also because of a possible misidentification issue: Weed and Seed as a program is "so last century;" now local law enforcement is trying to get a handle on youth violence and gangs and a bunch of misguided youth issues that need more than just law enforcement. So what's new? Lieutenant Weed is no longer a lieutenant but RantWoman has sometimes seen him in different contexts than Little Sister would. RantWoman has never been very good at either reading faces or performing socially lubricating small talk, but once in awhile it has occurred to RantWoman to wonder about possible confusion. As we learned on the bus, my, RantWoman and Little Sister do favor each other, but we think about problems from different perspectives.

Mistress Meow Biafra Baby

This item really, really will get to a feline emissary at 23rd and Union and to RantWoman's amazing non-powers of observation and to one of those funky neighborhood themes that makes one still feel woven into the neighborhood.


Mistress Meow is one of RantWoman's old kitty's internet names. This is to protect a measure of privacy and also to avoid copyright / trademark issues with another local media personality. That and to protect the internet from the stupic gushy nicknames that every pet owner RantWoman knows bestows on their pets.


Mistress Meow was born in MT at the home of RantWoman's old piano teacher. In her early kittenhood she probably had the run of the house, the greenhouse, a yard with a lot of grass, a fish pond, and as much cat bliss as could be mustered in that dusty burg. Mistress Meow seduced Little Sister on a visit, came west in a cat carrier. She lived a spell with Little Sister in a studio apartment until Little Sister realized that kittens who want to play all night do not combine well with 8-5 work schedules. Then Mistress M lived for a year with a friend of Little Sister's. Friend of Little Sister called Little Sister up about two weeks after RantWoman had said to Little Sister after a family funeral "Maybe I'll get a cat." Friend was headed off to grad school in NY and of course Mistress Meow could come live with RantWoman.



RantWoman welcomed Mistress Meow and absorbed details of history: indoor only, a thing with another cat for unrolling the toilet paper all over the house, a great interactive personality. Mistress Meow coped with the transition by immediately going to a cupboard and dragging a potato out to play with but soon settled in. Well, Rantwoman supposes the toilet paper dragging must have mostly been the other cat because it only happened about once in a long, long, long time with just Mistress Meow around.



The rambunctious carousing at night was still a big theme though: RantWoman quaintly liked to sleep. Mistress Meow really liked to run from one end of the apartment to the other and back again, over and over for hours. She ran on the floor. She bounded over RantWoman trying to sleep on the futon. She turned around and ran back. She was by all accounts a healthy youthful exuberant cat; RantWoman on the other hand found all this enthusiasm really tiring.



Finally, one weekend when RantWoman especially needed her beauty sleep, she took stock of the situation: the postal workers arriving at 4:30 am across the street, the summer sun still clawing unspeakably early at front windows, the dubious neighbors on the other side, stories of urban rodents and other possible hazards of a city. (This was long before cat lovers in Madison Valley experienced carnage leading some to suspect a coyote might now be dining on housecats in those parts.) RantWoman took stock of all this. She took stock of Mistress Meow's enthusiasm and her country roots, the grass and trees in her vicinity at the yellow house. RantWoman resolved to take a chance that everyone in her household would be much happier if Mistress Meow could run off some of her enegy OUTSIDE.

Good call! At first, Mistress Meow did not go very far and came back right away but gradually she and RantWoman figured out each other's rhythms. Mistress Meow was very seldom allowed to stay out overnight: once when she did, she brought RantWoman home a live mouse. RantWoman was not really a good hunting student and finally there was a catch and release project. Another time, RantWoman was gone overnight. Mistress Meow got left out by accident and RantWoman arrived back home to find half a dead pigeon on the porch for her appreciation and delectation.


There are many stories of housecats bringing their humans either fresh kill to be shared or live animals so they can learn to hunt. RantWoman is honored and delighted that Mistress Meow thought to do this; RantWoman also hopes that effusive praise will compensate for less than gracious behaviors such as throwing the fresh kill in the trash, usually into an extra plastic bag and then immediately into the outside trash.


Over time, RantWoman noticed that Mistress Meow was starting to bring home....CHICKEN BONES. Finally one day while RantWoman was standing at a bus stop staring across the street, she got it. There is a barbecue place at 24th and Union and Mistress Meow clearly had charmed a lot of the regulars. Well charmed may be too mild a word: RantWoman watched one day as Mistress Meow paraded up the street to the barbecue place. Then commenced the most piteous wailings of starvation, allegations that she had not eaten in days, that she was wasting away and shortly to be no more--unless the diners at the barbecue place shared some of their precious meal. It was truly an Academy Award worthy performance. You would have thought she had just arrived from a photoshoot in Biafra, from one of those National Geographic spreads about starvation.

RantWoman assures the world this was not the case: Mistress Meow was pretty particular, a preference which at least made shopping for cat food easy. Mistress Meow ate well and regularly and got both dry food and from time to time samples of chicken or fish RantWoman would be cooking with. The funny thing is that RantWoman never really talked to the people she knows fed her cat. RantWoman would have preferred people not do that, but she got used to people asking her at the bus stop, is that your kitty I see around?" The thing is, RantWoman has no idea where some of these people hung out: on the porch at the dodgy drug house next door, at the barbecue place, somewhere else. RantWoman is also just not nearly as good as the RantBrother at elaborating conversations with strangers at bus stops, so she guesses it is appropriate thank thank Mistress Meow for emissary services.

The Crows: one of the audio links on the http://23rdandunion.org/index.htm page talks about the crows. RantWoman remembers the crows. She also remembers seeing Mistress Meow and a crow or two sometimes at the same time. RantWoman thinks Mistress Meow likely would not have taken on hunting a crow; RantWoman just remembers seeing the cat and the crow near each other, ignoring each other. On the other hand RantWoman does not remember seeing Mistress Meow near the barbecue place when a lot of crows were around. Moral?

The Philly Cheese Steak Place

RantWoman's Comedy Central meets banking transaction the other day wandered around a whole bunch of topics related to the 'hood. One that came up out of nowhere is the Philly Cheese Steak place that used to be at 23rd and Union. RantWoman remembers going in there once while she lived nearby. RantWoman remembers either being too broke or to impatient or possibly both to order something that time though RantWoman is glad the place thrived without her.

RantWoman like everyone else who knew of the place was horrified when one of the business partners was shot a few years ago in some act of presumed gang malevolence targeted at people trying to cut off the 'bangers' recruiting channels. RantWoman was not in the know enough to keep track of what happened to the restaurant after the shooting when it closed.

Imagine RantWoman's delight the other day while wandering around what will be her nearest light rail stop if they ever finish construction. RantWoman was poking around the W side of Rainier, a section where she very seldom goes and which she would not see speeding along in a bus or from the other side of the street. Lo and behold: there was a reincarnated Philly Cheese Steak place. The prices are fabulous. The portions are perfect for someone who wants grease and fried things but not too much. The menu has things you wouldn't find at fast food places. The soda is almost endless. RantWoman asked the guy who sold her food how long he'd been there. Four years! See what RantWoman has been missing.

Retirements

RantWoman is procrastinating frightfully and will shortly have to STOP.

Unfortunately, although RantWoman has to miss an upcoming high school reunion, she is feeling appallingly sentimental. It's not just the email mentioning a classmate who listened to Jimi Hendrix. RantWoman is not sure she knew in high school who Jimi Hendrix was. Nowadays, RantWoman only occasionally pays attention to the fact that she now lives in Hendrix's home town.


Today for absolutely no reason, RantWoman clicked on an old website and saw pictures and retirement notices from some of her teachers. RantWoman cannot explain why thinking of her teachers is somehow even more of a timewarp than thinking of her classmates. Well, RantWoman could swear they must all have used their own graduation photos on the website because RantWoman remembers that they seemed OLD. Now RantWoman and her classmates are of course at least that OLD, which may in fact be the problem.


Take a look at some retirement shots:

RantWoman's 10th grade English teacher's comments are less remarkable than others: parents, school comes first then extracurricular activities, then a job. This is not what one would expect from someone who talked sometimes about how Bob Dylan was a great poet but a lousy singer. On the other hand this teacher also plays golf and coached a lot of sports teams too.

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/lake/3026/teachers/schwarz3.jpg

RantWoman's 7th grade math teacher set RantWoman to reading Flatland to keep her out of trouble while the rest of the class did their lessons. Enough said.

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/lake/3026/teachers/cormier2.jpg

RantWoman's 8th grade history teacher.

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/lake/3026/teachers/corbett1.jpg


All these images will have to be OCR'd if you need the whole text via screen reader but the quality of the image appear decent to RantWoman. In the article he talks about the impact of the following national changes:


Brown vs Topeka (does he mean Brown vs Bd of Education?)


Tinker vs DesMoines (free speech, dress codes; coincidentally, RantWoman knows the plaintiff or knew her until her very recent untimely death)


the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18


increased federal funding for education (reference Sputnik and science)


The ADA


The communications revolution.


Okay, so RantWoman had influences!


RantWoman thinks this teacher's mention of the ADA is funny for one odd reason. RantWoman has always had eyesight bad enough to have trouble reading the blackboard from very far back in the room. Once in awhile this would be an issue and RantMom would march in, point out her kid's thick glasses and demand that the young RantWoman be seated near the front of the room. This ensured that RantWoman could see the board but it sometimes completely killed opportunities for passing notes and otherwise having a social life, er slacking off.


This teacher seated students alphabetically and for some reason RantWoman's class was especially large. RantWoman wound up at the back of the room with almost no prayer of seeing the blackboard. RantWoman asked the teacher to be reseated and for some reason he did not do it or he did it and still later moved RantWoman because he needed to keep an eye on someone else. RantWoman got to spend history class in the back of the room, sometimes with novels propped in her history book. RantWoman got to experience a little more of what sometimes goes on in the back of 8th grade classrooms. For better or worse, RantWoman's academic performance did not even suffer enough ever to get RantMom involved!

Ads for your Kindle

RantWoman notes a lawsuit recently filed by the ACB, the NFB and blind students at some of the institutions now demoing the Kindle DX as a way to distribute textbooks. The DX, you may remember has absolutely no audio interface unlike the Kindle 2. RantWoman is not necessarily ever happy to have to feed lawyers on the way to getting something necessary and appropriate done. This time though RantWoman is happy someone is suing.

RantWoman believes the Kindle 2 is now in limbo about what material is made available because of copyright disputes about "audio production." The Kindle 2, last RantWoman remembers does not have audio controls / keyboard controls either. This means text can be read aloud but a person might need sighted help to get things started. Boo!

http://blog.seattlepi.com/techchron/archives/173293.asp

Given the accessibility issues with all the current incarnations of Kindle, RantWoman finds herself deeply amused about the thought of underwriting retail Kindles with advertising. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. If advertisers want ways to get themselves to RantWoman's attention, they should concentrate on accessible devices; if they don't RantWoman will be delighted to continue ignoring their messages

West Madrona

RantWoman lived for 5+ years near 23rd and Union. First RantWoman lived at 24th and Spring; later RantWoman lived on 22nd between Union and Marion. RantWoman figures these circumstances darn well entitle her to some opinions and reflections. RantWoman likes the oral history of the 23rd and Union site. Maybe RantWoman will call in and produce some content in her own voice; maybe RantWoman will stick to her keyboard.

Just so RantWoman is clear: there is no such place as West Madrona. There is Madrona, a land of tony homes, large yards, and some beachfront options. There is the Central District or the CD, forever seared in many people's minds as a land of crime and grime, drug dealers, shootings, general scandal and whatnot, especially whatnot. One of RantWoman's colleagues on last fall's transit Sounding Board said he is from some new form of developer-speak called "Cherry Hill," not strictly 23rd and Union but definitely within spitting distance.

There is even something else called Squire Park, a concept that exists in the minds of Seattle Neighborhood designators. RantWoman learned the details of this once after she had just moved from east of 23rd to west of it. West of 23rd is Squire Park; it had a community council that met miles away, unlike the Garfield Community council which met two whole blocks away.

RantWoman is inventorying all these designations so readers have some kind of frame of reference. Here we also come to "West Madrona."

RantWoman at the time when she lived in the CD had a job in an office downtown. RantWoman worked with a lot of the sort of people who find a bus trip to Chinatown for lunch an exotic experience or otherwise just consider certain areas too scary for words. RantWoman remembers fielding several horrified looks and worried questions from different people when she would describe where she lived as "the CD," so after awhile when asked, RantWoman began just saying, when asked where she lived, "West Madrona."

Assistive Technology: Good for everyone

RantWoman will be happy to go on at length another time about how making social infrastructure work for disabled people makes it work better not only for the loved ones and caregivers of the disabled people but for a lot of other people who probably have no idea they are benefitting from something designed for disability. But for today, RantWoman simply refers readers to this great inventory of patents for which this is true. The site is full of patent geek speak but it a really fun read anyway.

http://ideal-group.org/ecc/

23rd and Union

RantWoman lived for quite a spell in the mid and late 1990's really close to 23rd and Union. 23rd and Union is a pretty eventful corner in lots of respects--besides the clatter of RantWoman's momentous events. In short, RantWoman is really intrigued by a local media / oral history / podcast / radio documentary project found at http://23rdandunion.org/index.htm

Warning: it is audio, photos, rap, yak. Not all the audio is completely audible and some that is audible will not sit easily. Be patient. Listen.

23rd and Union still exists in RantWoman's brain as a really important bus node. RantWoman once drew this map of places she goes that was way bigger than some of her other workshop participants. There are many reasons for that, but 23rd and Union was a big part of the motions reflected in that map, motions east and west between downtown, Capital Hill, "the 'hood," Madrona, and Lake Washington, motions north and south along that vast urban ethnography project call the route 48.

RantWoman has several stories, themes, comments she will possibly offer for the venture. RantWoman is also likely to use the site as practice banging on different accessibility issues, for the site and RantWoman's skills:

There is a bit of text overlaying photos that the screen reader does not read.

--RantWoman will have to pay attention to turning audio player on and off on web pages.

--RantWoman never minds if photos have some hint of descriptive tag.

--What the heck does RantWoman get if she subscribes to the podcast?

But the thing is, it's an interesting project anyway. Click. Subscribe or come back to it.

Robin Williams from before the '08 Election

RantWoman really loves to laugh and Robin Williams is nearly always a big help.

Here is tonight's chuckle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puMz1Q3E000

Blogs worth a look

RantWoman has not checked out everything here, but she is always interested in things that offer perspectives beyond the borders of the US.

To see samples of my work, please visit:Donna Jodhan! Advocating accessibility for all
http://www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com

weekly feature on important answers to consumers concerns http://www.sterlingcreations.com/businessdesk.htm

Weekly blogs for language professionals and accessibility consultants
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/blog/blog.html

a monthly editorial on business issues and concerns
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/magazine.html

weekly editorials on accessibility issues in Canada
http://www.accessibilitynews.ca/acnews/editorials/donna.php

Editorials: An International perspective on issues of accessibility and disability
http://www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com (under the editorials section, an international perspective)

A general perspective on issues of access and accessibility
http://numpadplus.com/blog/?page_id=7

Gender: not an essay question

RantWoman went to one of those colleges whose graduates are expected to take themselves terribly seriously. One really fun thing about this was that RantWoman met a lot of other people who are at least as geeky and intense as she is. Another good thing is that RantWoman took seriously the part in the propaganda about learning as much outside of class as in it. Some of RantWoman's classes also made surprisingly strong impressions, but that would probably be another post sometime.

Schools where the alumni are supposed to take themselves Very Seriously tend to do Major Reunions, every 5 years, on a scale far beyond the stiff cocktail and photo op moments of humbler halls of learning. For RantWoman a Major Reunion is coming up. At this point, this means two things: selection of the reunion costume and a class survey.

Historically, the reunion costumes run heavily toward suit jackets featuring the school colors in various plaids or stripes that should frighten almost anyone. The oldest classes are all male, and some of their alumni have the grace and dignity to wear almost anything with aplomb. This partly makes up for the weight of history sometimes impeding interest in getting better acquainted.

Younger classes involve both men and women. RantWoman remembers being downright grouchy about the option proposed for her last Major Reunion; then RantWoman just stayed away so it wasn't a problem. This time, RantWoman has the occasion on her calendar but has no idea yet whether attending will be possible. This does not prevent RantWoman from voting about preferred costume.

RantWoman was asked to choose from among three designs:

A splendid black tuxedo-style jacket with the school mascot cross the back and collar and cuffs in the school color. RantWoman thinks for day wear she might choose a smoky grey rather than heavy black but otherwise quite liked this option.


A white jacket with what look to RantWoman like blotches though RantWoman completely credits the description as representing various locations from the college experience. RantWoman expects that to her they might still look like blotches up close.

A striped thing in the very best Oh God No tradition of previous generations' golf-course-worthy garish plaids. The design is not actually plaid which almost makes the problem worse.

Guess which one RantWoman prefers.

Then RantWoman turned her attention to the class survey.

Things got off to a bad start: What is your gender?
Male
Female.
No option for other / undecided / in transition / unsure.

RantWoman had been talking to a friend about someone who had a sex change and one of the sex change person's cohorts had previously ranked him / her in the category of least likely to get a sex change. Plus RantWoman lives in Seattle and has learned on many occasions that she cannot assume that gender presentation matches either anatomy or legal documents and that RantWoman herself does not necessarily need to know when things are in discord. Similarly when someone speaks of having "been through some changes" sometimes it is perfectly fine to celebrate the present and not necessarily ask about the road to it. RantWoman admits to finding this sort of reality almost unfathomable which of course makes it all the more remarkable that the people who do live as they feel they were born are much happier as a result. More to the point, it makes simple binary assumptions on surveys inadequate.


Did you know (classmate) whose fame currently eclipses the fame of several other famous classmates? No, although judging by media accounts we probably breathed the same air at a couple events and RantWoman certainly solicited the place where she worked for money to bring a speaker or two to campus. Now there is a topic RantWoman is trying to figure out how to ask famous classmate about, but the survey provides no space for such inquiries.

Are your grandparents still alive?

No but some of their siblings are.

Do you practice the same religion you did in college? (This was not the exact phrasing, but that was the general idea.) Not exactly. Actually RantWoman might have tried out her current affiliation earlier, but the topical location was miles from campus in a direction with few transit connections. This is not the first place RantWoman has lived where this is true; that is something she takes up from time to time with those concerned. Life and RantWoman's curiosity brought her a number of fascinating experiences; the fact that they did not take is one reason RantWoman is where she is now. RantWoman would not necessarily mind being asked more about this topic, but this was also not an essay question.

Are you the same or different? Judging by RantWoman's continuing inclination to blow survey categories out of the water, a lot the same except that electronic surveys allow a lot less leeway to scribble comments all over and reframe the question.

Questions RantWoman wishes had been asked:

Name something you have done since graduation that your classmates would have voted you least likely to do: RantWoman's classmates might have voted her least likely to read the Wall Street Journal faithfully on the bus on the way to work for years. RantWoman got hooked during graduate school when reading the WSJ and using it for writing exercises was required in a course RantWoman took in the business school. RantWoman actually found that the WSJ hired good writers and often wrote of things RantWoman was interested in, sometimes from another point of view besides RantWoman's. RantWoman has not had much reading of the WSJ for a time and she has no idea how the writing standards have held up under Rupert Murdoch's ownership. If RantWoman ever gets her mitts on some kind of an accessible mobile device, she may go and look harder herself.

Don't worry, RantWoman's classmates would have declared RantWoman pretty unlikely to take a business course too, but RantWoman and several other people from her program were there in an intercultural, interdepartmental exchange effort. RantWoman is pretty sure we filled that role.

Are there any vitamins / supplements / other therapies you swear by? Which ones and Why?
RantWoman may write of that another time.

Are there any other questions you wish we had asked? Yeah sure, probably but RantWoman got into enough trouble with the ones you did ask.

Holiday Slice of Swine Flu

RantWoman was amused that The Capitol Steps Politics Takes a Holiday had a really funny bit about swine flu featuring both VP Biden's famous line about airplanes and "Miss Piggy Lee" with references to "putting lipstick on a pig." RantWoman easily supposes that one might want to be careful of airplanes; on the other hand, if things are that bad, maybe it's time to upgrade the average daily level of sanitation and scrutiny.



On a more serious note, an interesting article:

http://paw.princeton.edu/issues/2009/06/10/a-moment-with/

The latest WHO update
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_07_03/en/index.html

RantWoman supposes she could and should chase down the source of the estimate that there have already been 1 million people in the US sickened with swine flu. Maybe RantWoman will reflect on something to do with that for her next snapshot report.