so much for the solar

The city of Boston is going green. Well, greenish.

After putting in extra-large curbside trash cans with solar-powered trash compactors, the city added solar-powered parking meters. No more do you have to dig around under your seat for quarters. These machines take those dreaded dollar coins - you know, the bulky gold coins that roll out of the Charlie Card machine en masse after you buy one ride on the T with a $20. If you've only nickels and dimes to spare, too bad. It's a solar-powered parking meter, not a CoinStar machine or a wishing well. But these meters do take plastic.

And it seems by green, the city is more focused on getting the green than going green. Gone are the days of getting some free time from the previous parker - each of these meters serves half a block's worth of cars. Instead of the meters displaying the time remaining for each corresponding parking spot, these babies spit out a sticky note with the expiration time printed on it. Yep, a "green" machine that uses hundreds of sticky notes a day. Sticky notes that inevitably end up in the trash. Well, maybe if people are nice they go from car window to secret communal stash of extra meter time to different car window to solar-powered trash can. But it's still a bunch of rubbish in the end.

FURTHER THOUGHTS (21 NOV 2006 | 11:30 PM): Nevermind about the plastic. The Boston Globe reported today that you can't use credit for the meters in any increment of 15 minutes (or 25 cents) - you can only use credit to pay for two full hours (that's $2). But there's hope yet. The news hook was that mandatory minimum payments actually violate the terms of several credit card companies.

a series of unrelated events

These are old but kind of funny, and I haven't posted in forever. Theoretically I might have developed any one of a longer form, but I'm lazy and if it hasn't happened yet, it ain't gonna.

• Nothing says responsible employee like running into your boss on the train the morning after a night of drinking. Especially when you still smell like a combination of alcohol and cigarettes and are only on the train because you crashed at a friend's place and got up early so you could go home and make yourself presentable before you saw anyone from work. Also, it's even funnier when you only work two days a week, and you've clearly chosen to get blasted on one of the few work nights.

• Homeless guys panhandling will do remarkably better if they tailor their pitches to the types of people who are passing by. Therefore, asking for donations to assist with the research and development of alcohol consumption while in Downtown Crossing should yield good returns. Or at least smiles.

• Sometimes a trucker who wants to drive through a road that's blocked off with a sawhorse will stop his truck in the intersection, get out and move the barricade so he can pass through. What's better is when he drives ten feet further, stops again and moves the sawhorse back into the middle of the road behind his truck. This is especially funny when the sawhorse was put there as a joke in the first place.

• "Indoor voices" are underrated. You may learn this the hard way, when you hear someone laughing in the alley below your window after you blurt out something to the effect of, "Yeah, I'm annoyed. I'm horny and I've always fucked you everytime you wanted to be fucked." Of course, if you've said this at normal decibel levels, it makes you wonder what else people in the alley or neighboring apartments have heard. And you thought paying more in rent to have a studio provided some semblance of privacy.

• It's weird when someone wakes up angry at you because of something "you" did to him in his dream. Don't worry, he'll get over it, once he makes you promise not do in real life what you did in the dream (even though it is unlikely in real life that you would have a threesome with him and his roommate and then go fool around with just his roommate after he's fallen asleep).

• When a car full of strangers honks at you while you're crossing the street and then someone shouts something to you out the window, you'll be happy when instead of asking for directions the driver says, "You're beautiful, that's all," and the woman in the passenger seat next to him says, "You're sexy." Still, you will not have a threesome with these people, because the light turned green before you could say anything more than "thanks."

i feel safer already!

The woman across from me snapped her gum and tapped her foot impatiently. Two college students bitched about their upcoming class schedules. A curly haired hippie-looking guy rocked out to his iPod. Everyone avoided eye contact and looked generally unhappy to be there. Just a regular night riding the T, by all standards.

But then I noticed to my left, a man was highlighting passages in a magazine. Okay, so he highlighted an entire sidebar piece in bright yellow. And, wait - he was starting to highlight the entire article that surrounded it - line by line, every line. He must be a little crazy, I thought. That can't be helpful - how is he ever going to find anything if he highlights everything? Definitely crazy.

I shifted my gaze back, toward his face, then shoulders. Oh, dear. Is that a real TSA uniform? Yep, that looks like a genuine ID hanging from his neck.

I feel safer already with someone so attentive to details being in charge of aiport security.

future bizarroworld

BOSTON (08/27/06) - Mother's milk is now bad for your health.

Last night the Transportation Security Administration added breast milk to the growing list of items prohibited in airline carry-on luggage after authorities at Logan International Airport thwarted a terrorist bomb plot; breast milk was a key component in plans for a homemade explosive device.

Acting on an anonymous tip, security officials detained four people - two Middle Eastern men and their wives - just moments before they were to board an American Airlines flight bound for Milwaukee. TSA officials said the two couples were in posession of iPods, allegedly to be used as detonators, and that the plot also would have made use of in-flight magazines or other available paper. All four suspects were arrested and are being held without bail.

"This was a very sophisticated plan and operation," said Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff. "It was not a circle with a handful of people sitting around and dreaming."

According to the new TSA restrictions, pregnant women and nursing mothers will no longer be allowed on domestic or international flights. Chertoff said the restrictions will remain in place indefinitely, and all women will have to undergo special screening to ensure they are not currently capable of lactating. Women should allow an extra hour and a half of time to clear airport security. Breast pumps also have been added to the list of prohibited items.

"This is outrageous," said Jamie Smith, a mother of two who was turned away from her flight to Los Angeles. "This is bad for business. Can it even be legal to ban someone from flying because of their gender?"

Smith was unable to obtain a refund, and most airlines are not waiving rebooking fees for passengers who can not currently fly.

Still, most passengers agreed that the new regulations were necessary.

"Whatever we need to do for national security is fine by me," said Bob Jones, a financial analyst who travels frequently for work.

"Our freedom is important," said Jeb Stratford, whose pregnant wife was turned away at the security checkpoint at Logan. "Whatever the government needs to do to preserve our freedom I support 100 percent. These are really small sacrifices when you look at the whole picture. What are we giving up, really, other than some small conveniences? Our freedom is at least worth that much." © IHTFBS News Service

But seriously - just wait for it ... what else could be next?

bits and pieces

• There are next to no Boston Herald newspaper boxes in the city. Every few blocks there is a cluster that includes a Globe box, Weekly Dig and Phoenix boxes, various dispensers of free classifieds, and the obligatory Improper Bostonian and Stuff@Night boxes. The two Herald boxes I found during a stroll from Harvard Square to downtown Boston were empty, of course. What's up with that?

• There is graffiti on the side of a building on Mass. Ave. that reads: "owned by no one but still illegal." It would be a good point, except for the fact that someone inevitably owns those bricks.

• Commonwealth Books on Boylston Street downtown is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The sign in the window is priceless:

Our 10th Year*
*despite Emerson College

• I have perfected the fuck-off-and-die look such that MassPirg canvassers don't approach me. But I was happy to see several anti-MassPirg flyers along Mass. Ave. that direct people to NoMassPirg.com. It's nothing fancy, but you can buy an anti-MassPirg T-shirt if you haven't perfected your look of death.

are we there safe yet?

It's official: toothpaste is a threat to national security.

Count it among other frightening gel and liquid products such as soda, makeup, shampoo and sunscreen that are now prohibited in carry-on luggage. Nothing says security like a major inconvenience.

It all happened after a flight headed to Boston's Logan Airport was sent back to London's Heathrow Airport midflight on Monday, when it was discovered that a passenger on the ever-so-trusty "no-fly" list was on the plane. I was hoping that passenger would turn out to be a Kennedy, or maybe Cat Stevens again. But to maintain a good-old-fashioned culture of fear, you can't have too many of such embarrassments, so I knew it was unlikely.

So, a bomb plot was of course discovered and thwarted, many people with brown skin were arrested, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush enjoyed their vacations, and their respective governments were quick to create new restrictions on what's allowed in carry-on luggage.

The Brits have it worse than American airline passengers, as mobile phones and iPods are among the items banned. Actually, people in the U.K. basically can't take anything onboard except a few essential items, such as identification and those pesky boarding passes. How thoughtful of British officials to at least include tampons in that list.

But I think my favorite example of how absurd and pointless these new restrictions are comes from an article in the San Jose Mercury News:

Julie Hayes of Armdore, scheduled to fly to Chicago, didn't want to check her carry-on, or dump cosmetics worth $100 or more, but got help from another waiting woman, who was flying to Kansas City.

That woman agreed to put Hayes' beauty aids - lotion, hair spray, makeup, shampoo and more - into the bag she planned to check in. Then after getting to K.C., she'd mail the products back to Hayes.

Security officials, it should be noted, often warn passengers never to carry items given to them by strangers.

Absolutely brilliant.

FURTHER THOUGHTS (2:45 PM): What of all the perfume, makeup and alcoholic beverages travelers might purchase at a duty-free shop in the airport or inflight? Does this render the duty-free industry dead? Either way, I'm still going to be angry when the airlines lose my luggage and I can't brush my teeth or call my mom.

no exit (or: observations on the mbta's handicaps)

Say you were in a wheelchair. You're riding the subway, get off at your stop and see a stick-figure-in-a-wheelchair sign posted by the sliding exit doors. Is your first thought, "This sign clearly means there's no elevator on the other side of these doors, so I should roll right through them so I have to turn around and pay to get back into the station to get to the actual handicapped-accessible exit"?

If not, the MBTA really needs to work on its communication skills.

As the T has moved from turnstiles to the sliding-door model for its entrances/exits, it seems to be making more of an effort to be accessible for the disabled. But not really.

I noticed today while riding the T that these handicapped-accessible doors are being installed at Central and Kendall Square exits that only have stairs. Oops.

It's no surprise, really. I've come to expect handicapped service from the T, certainly not adequate service for the handicapped. But the least the T could do is remove the misleading signage.

new and unfare service!

Now you citizens of Boston, Don't you think it's a scandal that the people have to pay and pay. ... Fight the fare increase! ... Get poor Charlie off the MTA. - from the song "Charlie on the MTA"

Poor Charlie's never getting off the train. Hell, with the MBTA's proposed fare increase, he'd be lucky if he could get on the the train in the first place.

You see, Charlie paid cash for his T ride. And if the T has its way, paying cash means you will pay a premium - 55 cents extra per subway ride and 40 cents extra per local bus ride, to be exact.

Here's the rub: Under the current proposal, if you buy a Charlie Card, the subway will cost $1.70 per ride and the bus will cost $1.25, with free transfers between the two. But if you come bearing cash or a Charlie Ticket, you'll pay $2.25 for the subway and $1.65 for the bus - and you get no free transfers between the two. That's $3.90 if you need to take the bus and the train somewhere - more than double the $1.70 you'd pay with a Charlie Card!

Of course, you won't be able to get a Charlie Card from the new self-serve machines that are being installed in every train station (though theoretically you will be able to refill the cards there). This means unsuspecting, unprepared locals will inevitably pay the higher fare, as will tourists. Granted, tourists already get ripped off with the Visitor's Pass (a seven-day Visitor's pass is $35, more than double the $16.50 it costs for a Weekly Combo Pass). And I'll be honest: I couldn't care less about the tourists.

But given the privacy concerns, why would you want to buy a Charlie Card? Right, you only want it because you don't want to fork over more money to a public transportation system that's more concerned with implementing a crappy new fare collection system rather than improving services people have been asking about for years.

Forget about the fact that everyone wants the trains to run as late as the nightlife. Forget that Roxbury residents wanted train service again - not a 10-years-later, too-little-too-late bus replacement. Forget that most everyone would simply love for the existing services to work well and run relatively on time. No, the T just had to figure out a way to get rid of the tokens that no one had a problem with - and do it in a way to penalize customers who would prefer to use good, old-fashioned cash or retain some bit of anonymity.

Charlie, it might be time to buy a bike. Or start making an RFID blocking wallet to hold that Charlie Card.

liberation through loss

I make lists. Lots of them. Lists of things I need to do someday. Lists of things I need to do today. Lists of things to get at the grocery store. Lists of books and films and music I want to check out. Lists of people to call. List of things I want to write about. Lists of lists of lists.

It's an endless parade of scraps of paper and tiny post-it notes that clutter my table, my calendar, my bookshelf, my pocket. Half of this compulsion is driven by a certain satisfaction in being able to cross things off, crumple a little sticky note and throw it in the recycling bin and feel like I've accomplished something. Of course, half of the lists are composed of such obvious, routine tasks it's silly. But I fear I might forget them, or neglect to do such obvious things as laundry or grocery shopping or even eating.

But when I reached in my pocket to pull out my well-worn, crumpled to-do list, it wasn't there. I was momentarily panic-stricken, until it hit me: I'd been liberated. If I couldn't remember what was on the list, then it must not be that bloody important in the first place. It just wouldn't get done.

I better go make a list of the things I remember.

none of my biz-ness

You should probably be worried about job security when your boss tells you the company can't afford to give you business cards.

Unless you work in my office. Then it's just standard operating procedure.

Instead of providing new employees with basic tools for communication, the company makes workers beg for such bare necessities as voicemail, email, and those all-important business cards. It's like the bosses think we're going to use these things for nefarious purposes.

So the trouble, of course, is that employees feel like they aren't valued or trusted. Nevermind that it doesn't reflect well on the company when employees have to scribble a Yahoo address on a napkin, explaining that the company is too cheap and bureaucratic to provide lowly workers with such simple things.

It took over six months to get my boss to sign the paperwork so I could have voicemail. It took over a year to get another boss to sign the paperwork so I could have a company email address. I'm still working on the business cards.

One of the biggest hurdles has been the condescending questioning, including this classic: "Well, why do you need that?"

Um, so other people can recognize me as a legitimate employee of this company? So I can represent the company in a positive and professional manner? Because I don't live in a bubble and I might actually meet people who, say, want to do business with the company?

Or at least they did before I scrawled my personal email address on the back of an ATM receipt for them.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Somehow, impending change is almost always worse than the change itself. It's the anticipation, speculation, the thinking too much about circumstances beyond your control. But life goes on. We roll with it. Out of sight, out of mind. Then it's easier to be open to the most outlandish possibilities. Hey, it never hurts to dream, and anything is possible when you're unconcious, uninhibited, unrestrained. Because when you wake up it's the work-sleep-eat-meetings-bullshit-work-work-work-burnout routine. You need the job to make the money to pursue the dreams. But to pursue the dreams you need the time and the energy that the job sucks away. And then you know: It's time for a change.

if only

There's something simultaneuously energizing and depressing about the hoards of people that filled my street after Italy won the World Cup semifinals. On the one hand, it's easy to get caught up in the excitement - the singing, the fireworks - and the sardine-can-like confines of Hanover Street. But damn, it's depressing that this many (and this set of) people wouldn't be out in the streets fighting the good fight. Granted, there's something vastly different about celebratory, spontaneous street gatherings and street protests. But still ... I wish people actively cared about their world and their rights as much as they care about a sports team.

which way the wind blows

While most of the sensible world agrees global warming = bad, Lonely Planet (the travel guidebook company) surprised me with its take on the subject matter. From the Iceland book:

There's an old saying: "If you don't like the weather now, wait five minutes - it will probably get worse."

But don't be put off. In recent years, Iceland has benefited from global climate changes, and summers have been relatively pleasant - the summer of 2003 was the warmest on record, and the previous winter was so mild that the ski season was a disaster.

And that's a benefit? Yes, when it gets so warm the gulf stream changes and Iceland is more like its name implies (whatever's still above sea level, anyway), that'll be just wonderful.

Then again, the book later blames a recent recession on fishing quotas, but it apparently didn't occur to the writers that had the overfishing (which is mentioned) continued, there would be no fishing industry left.

Capitalism, of course, isn't concerned with sustainability, and people tend to forget that both supply and demand are, in fact, finite. And I guess I momentarily forgot how Lonely Planet is a corporation trying to survive in a world run by capitalists, despite my perceptions that the company's writers were more in tune with those of ecotourists and travelers who vow to leave no trace behind.

ole!

The snap-pop-bang-pop-pop-pop of fireworks fills the apartment. From the fire escape, where I can usually see the double-parked cars on my street, all I can see are people packed into the street. I can't tell where the fireworks are coming from, because the people seem too dense to be able to have them right there, yet there's smoke rising from the center of the street. It's amazing how the pop-pop-pop continues without pause for ten minutes, and people sing-chant ole! ole, ole, ole! ole, o-le! and chatter in italian. i guess it's clear who won this game of the world cup, so here's to many more days of my neighborhood exploding as the games continue.

dream no. 5,768,542

It's the day of my birthday, and I'm cleaning up the yard of my mom's house. Of course, this is not the house that I grew up in, nor the house she lives in now. But here, it's perfectly clear to me that this is home. The yard is huge, sprawling, with shrubbery acting as a fence. I'm barefoot, zipping about the yard, trimming the shrubs, and brushing the snow off of them and clearing the snow out of the yard so there's space for people to hang out without having to stand in the snow. Wait, yes, I did say I was barefoot. And wearing a tank top. But for some reason I'm warm. Must be all the work. I'm expecting lots of friends over, hoping many people will show up. Despite the fact that this house clearly would be in Colorado, it seems perfectly logical for Boston people to be able to just stop by.

There's someone I've been missing, but who kind of disappeared, and I'm not expecting. [If you know me, this is probably not who you assume it is.] In the back of my mind there's a tiny bit of hope that I'll see him, but I've supressed it; I'm not even thinking about this in the dream. And then he rolls up in a car with a few other people. I drop whatever tools I'm carrying, walking up to him, hesitant at first, but then sort of give in to it and break into a sprint that sort of turns into a leap right into a wrap-myself-around-the-kid hug. There's an overwhelming sense of happiness and fulfillment in the dream, something I haven't necessarily felt in real life lately. I woke up, wanting to hang on to the feeling, sink back into the dream and not have to go to work. Or to just replicate the emotion in real life. Add that to my ever-increasing list of things to do.

nonmarital bliss

I was editing a profile of Sandra Bullock today (sorry, I know, I know), and there was this quote in which she was talking about how there's a real expectation that women get married at 22, start having babies, and that there's a lot of pressure from other people to sort of adhere to this "norm," and what bullshit that all is.

It occurred to me right then how happy I am to be surrounded by a supportive community of friends and family who would never even think to say something as stupid as, "So, when are you gonna get hitched?" Apart from my grandfather, no one's ever even suggested I need to get on with my life and start a family (as though there's no real direction or point to another type of existence).

Even my nonpolitical friends back home, most of them are single, and those who are paired off have done so in more nontraditional ways. None of my good friends there are married or have kids, but it seems like everyone else we went to high school with has had at least one kid, and half of them are single parents (a recent discovery when I found a whole slew of people on the voyeuristic time-suck that is MySpace).

So, I guess a big up to all the people in my community. Sometimes I'm kinda down on a lot of aspects of it, but then there's these reminders that snap me back into the reality of how much more it sucks out there in the larger world (some guy poked his head under my umbrella today and called me "baby." It caught me so off guard, all I could do to was just scream "fuck you" at him as he walked in the opposite direction. Ugh - do people ever actually respond positively to this sort of behavior?).

So here's to the never-gonna-get-married crowd and all the people who aren't interested in having kids and agree that the world is overpopulated as it is. Cheers!

sticker shock

You know you've lived in Boston too long when ...

You see a flyer for a condo open house. You read it. And when you see it's for a two-bedroom with a roof deck in the North End going for $459,000, your first thought is, "Damn, that's awfully cheap for a two-bedroom in the North End. I wonder what's wrong with it?"

trashed ideas

Today, while I was sitting in a coffee shop trying to be productive and do some writing (my apartment being too distracting a place at the moment), I was sad to see the art on the walls was the very photo project I've had in my mind for a long time but haven't gotten off my ass and done. Right there, on the walls of the cafe, someone beat me to it (and hanging in a place I would consider asking to display my work, nonetheless!). Sigh.

T-ed off

Dear MBTA,

Your proven ability to infuriate customers is commendable. From replacing rail service 10 years too late with a big, slow silver bus to providing our children with the lifelong gift of asthma, it's clear that the customers always come first.

So it should have been no surprise the last two times I tried to board at Government Center and Park Street that you no longer saw fit to actually employ fare collectors to work in the booth and provide change for fresh-from-the-ATM $20s (which, by the way, are conveniently not accepted at the token machines in these stations). No, your fare collectors were dutifully positioned at the turnstiles, telling customers, "exact change only." A noble idea, if only it were feasible to expect customers at two major hubs of transportation to have exact change or be willing to sacrifice a $10 bill in exchange for eight tokens (which aren't even legal tender at area bars or half the other T stations).

I guess it would make too much sense to demand exact change only after you install those new CharlieTicket machines, which take $20s and allow you to actually decide the number of rides you get and amount of cash back (or $1 coins, anyway).

But perhaps this is a brilliant plan, this making customers walk to the next station in frustration and disbelief, hoping to find a real fare collector. Because if you start now, there will be less backlash from how much people hate the new fare collection system and resent the fact that their money is being spent not on service improvements but on crappy, unnecessary turnstile replacements.

Here's to those fare increases you announced - I can't wait. Keep up the amazing work!

Sincerely,
Sabine Strohem

you can't pee here!

File under: odd observations.

I've recently discovered that Boston's pay toilets aren't even open for half the day. That seems odd, given their proximity to bars and given every place shuts down at 2 a.m., leaving drunken revelers to flow out onto the streets and wander home. These are the type of people who might pay a quarter for a place to piss at 3:37 a.m.

But the diplay on the pay toilet at Government Center clearly states that it is closed from "1800PM to 700AM" (yes, indeed, complete with those superflous AM and PM labels). Seriously? What's the point of having pay toilets that shut down at the same time as nearby offices? It's not like you're going to pay a quarter for a toilet when there's one at work that doesn't cost a thing.

I hope somewhere there's a homeless person who's learned to time the toilet closing just right to have a semi-warm, dry place to sleep. Because someone should be able to make use of the thing during its 13 hours of downtime.

silence is sweeter

Note to Boston's street musicians who insist on playing "Sweet Caroline" every time I'm at Government Center or Park Street: If the people in the station aren't singing the "woah-oh-oh" part anymore, maybe it's because we've all been hearing "Sweet Caroline" a little too much lately. It's a popular number, but it's growing tiresome. Seriously, it's the only song I've heard the past five times I've taken the train. Share something original for a change.

spare me

I don't usually put effort toward buying things that are available for free. I can't imagine most people would.

So when I passed a man selling papers outside of the Whole Foods in Central Square, I felt more justified in my typical response, "Not today, thanks." Instead of the usual Spare Change News hawker, there was a man trying to sell copies of The Student Underground, which is widely available for free, on purpose.

But if he manages to get some cash from wealthy yuppies, and those yuppies actually read The Underground, I'm not going to complain.

big brother

As I was looking for tickets on the Paradise Rock Club site, I was prompted to accept a cookie. But not just any cookie. No, this seemed more obviously the big brother of cookies than most of the oddly names little treats that plant themselves on hard drive everywhere. But for such an ominous-sounding server, the cookie doesn't last very long. Peculiar indeed.

99 68 bottles of wine on the wall

If you're wondering what it takes to get on Massachusetts' Most Wanted list, the answer is not much.

I always assumed such lists were for murderers, rapists, people whose actions might fall under the category of violent crimes. But apparently all you have to do is steal fine wines - one bottle at a time.

Yes, that's right. According to an article in the Newton Tab, store owners are just catching on to a thief who went unnoticed for slowly depleting the wine racks of various liquor stores in this posh Boston suburb.

I'm just thrilled to hear that the Bay State's finest don't have better things to do. No, really, I mean it.

bitter morsels

Dis.gust.ing. That's pretty much all I have to say about Yahoo usurping del.icio.us.

But how did I not hear about this until just days ago? Have I been hiding under a rock? I mean, it happened not too long after the Flickr purchase, but I heard nary a word. With Flickr, it was obvious because of the login page change. But del.icio.us never stopped looking, well, delicious.

And users who bothered to read the del.icio.us blog (oops) are concerned about just that - Yahoo splattering ads everywhere and generally messing everything up. Can't say I'm not concerned about that myself. (And I guess I'm a dumbass for not ever reading the del.icio.us blog, because the news was right there. But why Yahoo decided not to disclose the terms of the agreement and kept it pretty quiet is a tad mysterious - not a peep on the press releases page.)

*Sigh.* So many good little services on the web are gonna get swallowed up by the big guys. So long, anonymity (and probably many open-source projects).

However, if someone offered me enough cash-money to retire right here and now ... I would be tempted to take the money and run. So I can't say I blame them. But still ...

she blinded me with science

I'm one of those people who never goes to the doctor.

It's not due to any fear or anxieties people normally associate with the doctor's office. It's that I've come to realize doctors can't really do that much a lot of the time.

And I don't have health insurance.

But Massachusetts might soon require me to purchase health insurance. Just as drivers have to buy car insurance in order to cruise around, people would have to buy health insurance in order to live around here. Or, at least live around here without getting screwed on state income taxes and without having their driver's licenses rendered unrenewable.

This idea begs a lot of questions, but there's one that's been on my mind lately: Will scientologists be required to buy insurance policies if their bosses don't provide health care?

Seriously, think about it. Why in the world would people who generally reject the modern medical system shell out money for health insurance? It's not like scientologists are going to accept pretty much any treatments in a hospital or drugs that any physician might prescribe.

Not that I'm a defender of wacky religious nutbags. But, probably, the state would eventually cave to a religious objection and exempt scientologists from the mandatory health insurance.

And where does that leave me? Still screwed.

Religion can be played as a get-out-of-jail-free card (evidenced in everything from refusing vaccinations to receiving vegan meals in state-run institutions). But atheists and agnostics can't seem to get ahold of that card. Or, rather, we just don't have the money to buy our freedom back, whereas certain religious groups can afford a good old-fashioned lawsuit. Hell, I won't even be able to afford the insurance itself, despite whatever the government claims about my being over the so-called poverty level.

At least I still have an out-of-state driver's license.

the continental

Every now and then, I come across a gem of knowledge while editing. I trim down a syndicated TV Q&A column every week. One question, in particular, stood out:

Q: I am trying to remember an old TV program back around the early '70s where some lover-type guy dressed in a smoking jacket and a white silk scarf would come onscreen and just talk sexy to the ladies. All the females loved this guy, but I can’t remember the name of the show.

A: It goes back further than the '70s, bub. The show was "The Continental," and it ran on CBS in 1952 and then on ABC from 1952 to '53. Renzo Cesana played the guy, and he was the whole show. He spent the entire 15 minutes cooing sweet nothings to the camera. The show’s sponsor was a stocking company, which led to a funny incident one night (the show was live) when Cesana was telling the ladies that nice stockings were just as important as good makeup. He got mixed up, though, and ended up saying, "What the powder does for your legs, the stockings do for your face."

Holy fuck! I didn't know that Saturday Night Live sketch was based on a real show from the '50s. This one shouldn't have surprised me so much, given that SNL has always satirized shows and world events. But "The Continental"? The sketch always seemed too bizarre to be based on something real. A photo I found of the original romeo had a network-supplied caption warning men that if they came home from work and found their wives swooning or fainted on the couch, never fear for their health, it was probably just due to those 15 minutes of The Continental that just aired. And in the photo itself: Mr. Cesana was decked out in his best martini-swilling, silk paisley robe (with said martini in hand). Wow.

invisible insanity

A shriek echoes through downtown. Like a soprano's vibrato, only applied to a trilled R - a letter and sound on which you'd never hear a singer hold a note. It stops. And starts again. On and off, repeating at irregular but frequent intervals.

As I walk around the corner, I see a scattered crowd of business people, their gazes all pointing in the same direction. For a moment, I imagine the sound is an emergency whistle. Someone is in trouble, but all the passers-by stop to watch instead of help - cold "professionals" who can't be bothered to ease someone else's suffering. After all, it's not their job.

But as I cross the street, I see the whistle blower - a 30-something man, pressed slacks and dress shoes showing beneath his black peacoat. He repeats the shrill call again and again and again, his eyes fixed on the street, the whistle between his lips, both hands at his sides.

And all those business people? Their gazes are actually fixed in the opposite direction, as if they don't have to acknowledge the man's existence if they refuse to make eye contact with him. Or, as they say, out of sight, out of mind.