The World

O Captain! My Captain!

If you’ve been having a good day so far and want to remember what soul crushing despair for humanity feels like, just read this Associated Press story from Ponce de Leon, Florida.  You’ll want to punch someone in the face and then probably take up drinking.

When a high school senior told her principal [David Davis] that students were taunting her for being a lesbian, he told her homosexuality is wrong, outed her to her parents, and ordered her to stay away from children.

He suspended some of her friends who expressed their outrage by wearing gay pride T-shirts and buttons at Ponce de Leon High School, according to court records. And he asked dozens of students whether they were gay or associated with gay students.

…

“Davis embarked on what can only be characterized as a witch hunt to identify students who were homosexual and their supporters, further adding fuel to the fire,” US District Judge Richard Smoak recounted in his ruling. “He went so far as to lift the shirts of female students to ensure the letters ‘GP’ or the words ‘Gay Pride’ were not written on their bodies.”

Even if we suspend all morality and humanity for a moment and suppose that a witch hunt for gay supporters were justified, how is it even then acceptable for a high school principle to start lifting up his female students’ shirts?  Perhaps they should have taken to writing it under their bras so we could more easily convinct the guy as a sexual predator.  More importantly, of course, school principals are not empowered to crusade against homosexuals.

Heather Gillman (in the article’s photograph) was one of the students who protested in defense of the anonymous gay student. Her mother, Ardena Gillman, got it exactly right:

“What happens when these kids get out in the real world after they leave Ponce de Leon and they have a black homosexual supervisor at their job?” she said.

Hold whatever views you want in private, but if you can’t teach tolerance to the children under your supervision in a public school, you should be kept at least a thousand meters away from any place where minors gather.

The district had to pay $325,000 to cover the ACLU’s attorney fees.  The students who were sensible enough to stand up and protest should get another $325,000 to invest in improving their school in any way they want – up to and including firing the idiot that runs it.

Benches! Glorious Benches!

JetBlue’s new Terminal 5 at JFK is about to get a test drive.  Over a thousand JetBlue frequent fliers were invited to come to the airport, get tickets, go through security, and wait at assigned gates for imaginary flights to nowhere.  It’s all the best parts of travel, without having to actually fly anywhere!  If they did that at Logan, I’d be in.

From the Boston Globe, 7 August 2008, describing the new terminal:

The security screening areas span a football-field-size space.  There are twice as many X-ray machines as metal detectors…. Rubber floors cover the security space – because it’s more comfortable for shoeless feet than tile or carpeting.  A blue wall nearby will hold a bench where travelers can sit to put their shoes back on.

It took four years and $743 million, but we’ll finally have benches to put our shoes back on.  It’s about smegging time.

That Which is Better than Wicked

One of the best musicians I’ve heard in a long time will be performing in Middleboro next week: Ms. Kayla Ringelheim.  Of course, that’s the weekend I’ll be confined nicely within the Boston city limits (for a change).  I of course already marked her October 17th appearance (with Antje Duvekot) on my calendar.

This is the music that finally got me to stop listening to Wicked incessantly – and if you know me, you know that’s saying a lot.  Of course, you should immediately buy both her albums on iTunes.

The Sighted Leading the Blind

I applaud the Washington Metro’s film Metro Madness: Riding the Metro through a Service Dog’s Perspective – a 3.5 minute film narrated by a service dog riding the Metro.

I particularly enjoy the closing scene where a courteous and enlightened traveler steps aside to let the visually impaired Barbara walk through a fare gate, making the universal “you go ahead” gesture.  Which she can’t see.  Because she’s blind.

(Okay, she’s not completely blind.  As the film points out at the opening, “Many people don’t know that you don’t need to be completely blind to use a leader dog.”)

Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told

This may be one of the most confusing headlines ever written:

Life bans reduced for shoplifting boxers

Go ahead, read it through a few times until you think you’ve got it.  Now, which meaning did you choose?

  1. After shoplifting some boxer shorts, two or more people have been banned from being alive
  2. After shoplifting some boxer shorts, two or more people had been banned from shopping for the rest of their lives, but now that ban is reduced to a shorter period of time
  3. Two or more people who fight in a boxing ring (boxers) have shoplifted something, and consequently were banned from boxing for the rest of their lives, but now that ban has been reduced to a shorter period of time

If you guessed #3, you’re right!

I understand the need for economy of language in newspaper headlines, but once in a while you just have to throw a verb or two in there.

It’s Zipcar! It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas!

Zipcar has always paid for all the gas members use – out of the money we pay to drive the cars, of course.  This way nobody gets caught with the “hot potato” of an empty gas tank.  Everybody pays the same amount for the car, and once in a while you have to take a few minutes to swing into a gas station.  Most of the cars I’ve reserved have had nearly full tanks.

This morning, Zipcar announced in an e-mail to Boston-area members (maybe all members) that they have a new procedure for pumping gas.  “There isn’t a whole lot we can do to make filling the tank more fun,” they wrote, “but we can make it easier.”  Here’s how it worked before:

In the driver’s visor was a gas card with a label on the front with the “Driver ID” number – the same number on every card in every car in the city.  You’d use this just like a credit card at the pump, but then you’d have to enter the odometer (which you would invariably have forgotten to check before getting out) and then the Driver ID number.

Here’s the new, “easier” system: There’s still a gas card.  You still enter the odometer.  You still enter a Driver ID number.  Now, though, the Driver ID is your own personal membership number – the number printed on the front of your Zipcard.

This is a horrible idea!  It’s certainly no easier than using the shared Driver ID, and it’s much more inconvenient.  There’s no other reason for me to know my Zipcard number.  It was assigned arbitrarily when I joined, and I haven’t used it since.  You don’t need it to reserve cars, and unless you call Zipcar on the phone (which you’d do only in unusual circumstances) nobody will ever ask you for it.  Until now.  Now, whenever I get gas I’ll have to pull the Zipcard out of my wallet.

Making this worse, the Zipcard is an RFID card, so it’s hidden in the deepest recesses of my wallet alongside my CharlieCard – two items I’ve never removed.  To use a car, I just hold my wallet up to the windshield.  Admittedly I can’t be sure how many Zipcar members know they can do this, but I can infer from how many T passengers do.  Watch a line of people boarding a train and you’ll see at least half of them (probably closer to 70%) hold their wallets or change purses directly up to the sensor.  The only people who regularly remove their CharlieCard and tap it directly are those with large purses where the card is buried somewhere inside.

(I did once see a pack of tourists standing at a fare gate trying to figure out which side of the card the sensor needs to “see,” but those are tourists.  They also think B and D trains go to Lechmere.  Ha!  Fools!)

I know, really this is at worst a minor inconvenience.  Surely Zipcar’s real motivation was that this scheme makes their administrative processing easier, and I support that.  My objection is that they announced they were making it “easier” for us, as though Zipcar members are so stupid we’d never notice the scheme they implemented is, if anything, harder.  You have a lot of good policies, Zipcar, but this one was poorly executed.

P.S.  Stop addressing me solely by my last name.  It makes me feel like I’m in a high school gym class.  “Hi Jones.  Jones, I want to see more hustle!”  If you don’t know my first name, “Dear Sir” would be preferable.

P.P.S.  Get some Civic hybrids around here, will ya?

How Did We Get Here Again?

It’s absolutely fascinating to watch Steve Jobs deliver the 2001 keynote speech introducing the iPod for the first time.

In structure it’s the same as the modern-day keynotes (and yes, we have to contrast 2001 with “modern day”) but the audience is smaller and more subdued, and even Jobs’ own enthusiasm is lower.  He’s reviewing a marketing analysis for shareholders, not announcing a new product to the world.

You can almost tell that even Apple itself had no idea how far the iPod would really take them.

The Waiter

From a 2004 post on Waiter Rant:

“Whadyya mean it’s not available?” the man practically screams

“The table has already been reserved. I’m sorry.”

“Well move them and give it to me.” the prick says huffily.

“I cannot do that sir. Perhaps you would like a reservation at ten o’clock. That’s the next available opening.”

“Put the owner on the phone right now.” the man yells.

…

“Listen I am a good friend of Flavio. Put him on the phone.”

The owner’s name is Fluvio. Some friend.

The author has a book coming out July 29th.