Congratulations...

...to the 44th president of the United States of America.

Graduation

As of May 9, 2008 at 3pm, I will be a college graduate. Done with school. My mother enrolled me in school when I was 3 years old. Which means I've been in school for the last 19 years. It's going to be odd come August when everyone is buying books and school supplies and my life remains exactly how it was for the past few months. But it's time for a change. I just hope it's a good one.

Writers' Strike, Yay!

While most people were pissed off at not having new TV for months during the writers' strike, I rather enjoyed the whole thing. Why, might you ask? Netflix. Thanks to the writers' strike, I have now started watching or caught up on the following shows:

Medium (caught up)
Bones (started and caught up)
Stargate: Atlantis (started)
Supernatural (started)
Psych (started)
The X-Files (started it, decided I didn't like it)
Third Watch (watched first season - started watching Third Watch during S3 so S1 was new to me)

So, thank you Writers' Strike, for not only getting writers the compensation they deserve for their work, but for giving me the time to find so many good shows to watch.

Miracles happen...

I cleaned my closet today. No idea why. I needed something from it and after emptying the contents of the closet into the hallway, I realized that shoving it all back in would actually be harder than just cleaning it. Now I have no before pictures, cuz, frankly, no one wants to see that. Let's just put it this way, I haven't used my closet in over a year. Cuz I couldn't. I have literally lived out of suitcases for the past year. I'd do my laundry, bring it back to my apartment, fold it, and store it in the three suitcases I had. When I'd have company spend the night, I'd shove the suitcases in the closet and then stand in front of the door and pull my clothes out of the suitcases to give the appearance of actually using the closet. Yeah, it was that bad. So behold the awesomeness of my usable closet:



















To give you further idea of how purely disasterous it was, I could only open the top drawer of the dresser, and I couldn't even see the bottom two. So let's see if I can get the rest of my apartment looking as fine as the closet now does.

A post for my nonexistant readers about my absence will be coming shortly.

Oh, I've apparently accumulated more clothing since I last used the closet. I'm in desperate need of hangers. And they must match the hangers I have. There is an Ikea trip in my future.

Fed Up

I received this in the mail today from the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority). They have been pressuring the state government to give them funding money. If they don't receive the bail out, they are threatening massive service cuts and fare hikes.

Dear Chicago Card and Chicago Card Plus Users:

I am writing to inform you that the fare and service changes scheduled for September 16th have been postponed. This means that the cost of your passes and fares will not increase on Sunday, and any routes scheduled for elimination will continue to operate.

However, the temporary loan of $24 million provided by the State postpones these changes for less than two months. On November 4th, if the Illinois General Assembly has not acted, we will be forced to increase fares and reduce service.

The bottom-line is we need a comprehensive plan to fund mass transit.

I know that you are frustrated about the potential service cuts and fare changes. So are we. That is why we are again asking you to join with us and tell our State leaders: "No More Doomsdays. Fix Mass Transit."

Please visit transitchicago.com, or call 1-888-YOUR-CTA, for information on how to contact your state legislators. Please make your voices heard as we fight to preserve and improve the mass transit system Chicago needs and deserves.

Thank you again for your support. We are committed to improving your experience on the CTA.

Sincerely,
Ron Huberman

No. I don't support you. I'm not frustrated with the state leaders refusing to give you money. I'm frustrated with the CTA using their riders as pawns in their power play with the state legislature. I'm frustrated with the "doomsday" scare tactics that pop up everytime the state budget is being worked on. I'm sick of the constant news stories about how the world is going to end if the CTA doesn't get their money. I'm sick of hearing how millions of riders use the CTA each day at $2.50 one way and yet you have no money.

I'm sick of being inconvienced by massive remodeling of CTA stations that DO NOT NEED IT. The Washington station downtown does not need to be remodeled. The Berwyn station needs to be weatherproofed. It floods everytime it rains. The Fullerton and Howard stations do not need the massive remodeling either.

The blue line needs to be repaired since the solution to the derailment last year was to "run trains slower". What the hell kind of solution is that?! FIX THE DAMN TRACK! A blue line train derails, causing the evacuation of the subway, several injuries, and the city initially believing terrorists had bombed the rail system and your solution is to run trains slower on that track? Wow. I now feel really safe riding the trains.

Also, $12 million a month? The CTA is working in a deficit of $12 million a month?! How is that possible? What on earth are you spending the money on? It can't be rail repairs and maintenence. The red, brown, blue, and purple lines are full of slow zones. It can't be rail car upkeep. I cannot count how many cars I've been in that have no air conditioning, no heat, no working intercom, hell, I've been in some with no LIGHTING. Can't be bus upkeep. Buses leaking oil, buses without air or heat, buses without working intercoms or marquees, buses with windows stuck open or closed. Buses where the driver has to restart the engine after each stop. Can't be faster service. It takes over 45 minutes to get from Loyola to the Loop. Before all your doomsday scenarios and all the construction, it took 18. Can't be sanitation. Train stops are filthy. They leak, some of them smell of urine, trash builds up, dead birds are stepped around for days. I would sooner die than EVER enter a CTA bathroom. Buses and trains are full of liter. Windows are never clean. It isn't unusual to step into a train car or a bus one or two stops after the end of the line to find vomit, urine, pop, or food all over the floor. Can't be employee salaries. Stations rarely have opperators on duty. Bus drivers are rude and late and randomly get out and leave their buses unattended. I'm not saying this is the norm, but it happens way more often than it should. So tell me. Where does the money go?

You want your money? Fine. I want an audit. Not one of those inside CTA audits where no one sees the results. I want a government funded and investigated audit. I want to know exactly where the money is going. Who is getting what? Cuz I'm guessing, maintenence and employee salaries/benefits are being shafted and the upper levels of CTA management are getting 5 and 6 digit salaries with big benefits and corporate accounts. I want promises that the money will go towards making the rider the top priority. I want more repair and less construction. I want no more "doomsday" scenarios. I want the CTA to take note of Pace and Metra and not use their riders as pawns in their demands for government funding. I want the CTA to grow up and operate like the business they are.

I thought the military was big on respect...

I haven't written in a while. Mostly because I didn't have much to say. I got bored with writing about myself and my stupid hobbies and I couldn't come up with anything else to write about. Then I saw this on a bulletin on MySpace. Sergeant Patrick Stewart was killed on deployment in Iraq. He is being denied a military marker in the VA cemetary because he was a Wiccan* and Wicca is not a recognized religion for a symbol to be placed on his marker.

I don't know what is worse, the fact that the military recognizes Wicca as a religion on dogtags but refuses to allow the symbol on a permanent marker, the fact that 38 other religions are allowed including some quite obscure ones, or the fact that I could serve and be killed in combat and get a marker on my headstone before he can.

That's right. Our government, our Christian government, allows athiest markers, but not Wiccan ones. (Not only am I athiest, but I'm a sucky athiest, I've never heard of the symbol they use for the athiest markers, I have to go look it up now.) What's happened to freedom of religion? If the military recognizes Wicca as a religion on dogtags, why is it so difficult to recognize it on a memorial marker? I sincerely doubt this is a political thing, which would make it *gasp* a religious thing. So let me drag out my worn soap box for a moment. *drags it out, gets up on it* SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE! SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE! The only possible reason I can come up with for the denial of Wicca as a religious symbol is its ties (whether real or perceived) to witchcraft, and the bible's strict deterrence against witchcraft. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Sound familiar? Are we really such a religiously backwards nation that the hostilities of the Salem Witch Trials are still hanging over politics? *puts soap box away*

The part of all of this that surprises me the most is that the military allows an athiest symbol. This entire country is mostly against athieism. There are news reports of people being driven out of schools and towns because of the perception that athieism is satanism.** But in all honesty, I was shocked that they offer an athiest symbol over a wicca one. That our military, under our mostly Christian government, would recognize the absence of belief over the belief in something different shocked me. That we can be so openly hostile towards a religion when this nation was founded by people who were escaping religious persecution by Britian is just...wow. What a bunch of hypocrites we are.

It seems to me that we are falling into Animal Farm territory here. "All religions are equal but some religions are more equal than others." According to the administration and the military of this country, we are fighting for freedom. We are fighting to protect the freedoms of this country and to bring them to Iraq and the middle east. Sgt. Stewart died fighting for these freedoms. And instead of honoring him and showing him the respect he has earned and deserved, the military has stripped his and his familiy's freedom of religion. So what is it? Do we really stand for freedom, or do we stand for allowing others to do what they please so long as it doesn't clash with the beliefs of those in power? Because it seems to me that the decision to deny Sgt. Stewart a Wiccan symbol on his memorial marker is one made by a Christian theocracy, not a free republic. This government is a republic. Freedom of religion is protected under federal law. To me, there seems to be no doubt nor question as to what should be done. The US military should approve a Wiccan symbol for memorial markers, and it should not only give Sgt. Stewart the first one, but there should be an apology issued to his family.

It isn't much, Sgt Stewart, but on this blog, you will be remembered as a Wiccan. I don't know what (or if) wiccans believe in terms of an afterlife, so I'm simply going to say that I hope you've found peace.

*I do not know much about the wiccan faith, nor do I usually use the word in everyday speech, so I apologize if I am using the wrong form of the name at any time during this post. If I have misused it, please correct me.

**Completely ignoring the logic that, if I don't believe in God, why the hell am I going to believe in Satan, a character in Christian doctrine that was created by God. If I don't believe in the creator, why would I believe in the created? Although I guess this supposed link between anything "anti-god" and satanism is what still fuels the persecution of Wicca and other witchcraft-based religions. Witchcraft is still tied in with satanism in a lot of religious minds.