turkey day smackdown

so i woke up on monday afternoon in the ER with people stitching my face together. painfully. i didn't know how i got there, but when i asked they said i fell off my bike. i hit a pothole they said. the only thing i remember is going to bed sunday night. the next thing i know i'm in the ER. weird. i'm ok, minus the scars and swelling and concussion. if you have a strong stomach you can see what i looked like the day after here.

happy thanksgiving everyone.

i'm thankful i'm alive.

why density?

being raised in suburbia i sometimes long for the backyard to throw the frisbee around (or in the fall, a football). then i remember that i've read things and walk my ass down to the park.

from Better Dead than Red:

The population of New York City is larger than that of 39 states. But because dense apartment housing is more energy efficient, New York City uses less energy than any state. Conversely, suburban living--with its cars, highways, and single-family houses flanked by pesticide-soaked lawns--saps energy and devastates the ecosystem.

strangers on a train

if there was ever a time to support cheap, efficient forms of transportation, you'd think now is the time. Apparently, the administration doesn't think so. From the New York Times editorial today:

The sudden firing by the Amtrak board of David Gunn, the best president in years of the nation's only passenger railroad, was a body blow to anybody who cares about long-range passenger trains.

Mr. Gunn has done a masterly job in the last three years of holding down costs without dismantling the railroad. That, apparently, was his problem. Mr. Gunn was trying to save Amtrak, but the Bush administration wants to privatize it, bit by bit.

The battle between Mr. Gunn and Amtrak board members - all of them appointed by President Bush - intensified in recent weeks when the board took steps to break off the more profitable Northeast Corridor, putting it into its own division and sharing its control and costs with the states. Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, called it a "fire sale" intended to break up the nation's railroad system.

So last week Senator Lautenberg and Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, managed to get a 93-to-6 vote to authorize $11.6 billion for passenger rail service in the next six years - as close to an all-out endorsement of Amtrak as you can get.

But while senators were trying to help Amtrak move forward, its board took a step backward. It complained yesterday that Mr. Gunn - who has greatly increased ridership, improved management and upgraded equipment - was moving too slowly. After his firing, Mr. Gunn said, "Obviously what their goal is, and it's been their goal from the beginning, is to liquidate the company."

For Amtrak's 25 million passengers, this should be a call to arms. Amtrak should be a public transportation trust. It will never be self-sufficient, nor show a conventional profit, any more than the airline industry can fly without federal help. The Bush administration long ago threatened to disassemble Amtrak. Yesterday it began at the executive suite.

autumn

the weather is definitely changing here in portland, and so i thought i'd share something from the Neijing, the classical text of chinese medicine:

In the three months of autumn all things in nature reach their full maturity. The grains ripen and harvesting occurs. The heavenly energy cools, as does the weather. The wind begins to stir. This is the changing or pivoting point when the yang, or active, phase turns into its opposite, the yin, or passive, phase. One should retire with the sunset and arise with the dawn. Just as the weather of autumn turns harsh, so does the emotional climate. It is therefore important to remain calm and peaceful, refraining from depression so that one can make the transition to winter smoothly. this is the time to gather one's spirit and energy, be more focused, and not allow desires to run wild. One must keep the lung energy full, clean, and quiet. This means practicing breathing exercises to enhance lung qi*. Also, one should refrain from both smoking and grief, the emotion of the lung. This will prevent kidney or digestive problems in the winter. If this natural order is violated, damage will occur in the lungs, resulting in diarrhea with undigested food in the winter. This compromises the body to store in the winter.

*a simple and effective breathing exercise is to sit upright and breathing through the nose, imagining energy beginning at the perinium crawling up the back of the spine to the top of the head on an in-breath and on the out-breath tracing down the front midline of the body to the genitals. touch the tongue to the top of the palette to complete the loop. you will find that you generate saliva while doing this. this is the good stuff and should be swallowed in three tiny sips as it occurs.