This is bad news, in my corner of the world. One of my top two favorite XM channels is slated for removal when the merger goes through. The two channels that I listen to the most are XM 82, The System and XM 175, MLB Home Plate. On July 24, 2007, XM and Sirius filed their planned post-merger programming lineup (PDF) with the FCC. One of the XM channels that is absent from this lineup is XM82, The System. I e-mailed Jon Zellner (Senior Vice President/Music Programming of XM) to ask him about this, and register my complaint about the proposed lineup. He confirmed that the proposed lineup was correct insofar as it excluded XM82. There are other reasons why I was hoping this merger would be denied, but that is by far the biggest reason. It's possible that the FCC could still deny the merger, but with the DOJ approving the merger it is very unlikely that the FCC will deny it.The Justice Department on Monday approved Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s proposed $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers.
The deal was approved without conditions despite opposition from consumer groups and an intense lobbying campaign by the land-based radio industry.
The combination still requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which prohibited a merger when it granted satellite radio operating licenses in 1997.
Barack Obama / Jeremiah Wright
I have been aware of the recent controversy surrounding Barack Obama and his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I had not paid any attention to it until today. I had not watched any of the Jeremiah Wright videos or read any of his comments that were causing such an uproar. In other words, I had no idea what the controversy was about. I didn't watch Obama's speech about race the other day, nor did I read the transcript. The one thing I had done prior to today was read a few articles yesterday; articles that were about people's reactions to Obama's speech.
Today I pulled up a couple of articles that talked about Jeremiah Wright's comments, and watched a few video clips on YouTube. After that, I watched Obama's speech in its entirety. Finally, I read a few more articles about people's reactions to the speech.
1) I thought the speech was excellent.
2) I'm disgusted with the level of outrage at Wright's comments.
3) I'm disappointed at the way people have responded/are responding to Obama's speech. I don't have time to go into detail right now, but I'm particularly disappointed at the reactions of white Americans, or at least those that are being reported by the mainstream media. (FYI: I am a 27-year old white male.)
Iraq war; five-year anniversary
"Anniversary" is typically thought of as a positive word. Calling this an anniversary is technically correct, but it feels very wrong. This is not positive.
My oft-promised post about the Iraq war will have to wait a little longer. After getting myself up to speed on the Wright/Obama controversy, I've decided that I need to write about this first. I think I have a somewhat unique perspective on it, as a white male married to a woman of mixed descent. I don't know if anybody will read what I have to say, or even care what I have to say, but I feel compelled to write about it anyway.
Idiopathic hypersomnia/narcolepsy
I've been feeling very discouraged/depressed lately, because my idiopathic hypersomnia has been getting worse (or the meds have been helping less) and I've been wrestling with severe tiredness much more frequently. It's hard to stay positive when you're this tired all the time. Anyway, the past couple of days I've been trying to find positives about this. It hasn't been easy, but I think I've found a couple. More on this at a later time.
Fahrenheit 451
I've been reading Fahrenheit 451 the last few nights, a few pages at at time. I have to fight myself to put the book down and go to bed. I would have stayed up all night and read it in one sitting, had I been able to stay awake and not had to get up early for work the next day. It is an incredible book, and I highly recommend it. I'll probably be talking about it more in the coming days.
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Tags: Barack Obama, depression, government, idiopathic hypersomnia, Iraq, Jeremiah Wright, narcolepsy, reading
Tags: Barack Obama, depression, government, idiopathic hypersomnia, Iraq, Jeremiah Wright, narcolepsy, reading
President Bush declared today that the United States is on the cusp of victory in the five-year-old war in Iraq, arguing that the recent troop buildup has reduced violence there and "opened the door to a major strategic victory in the war on terror."Full text of the President's speech is available at WhiteHouse.gov.
I haven't had time yet to read through the entire speech, but I will be reading it at some point before the day is over. I'll probably use it as a springboard for my promised-but-not-yet-delivered personal thoughts about the Iraq war as it stands today. I'll try to have them up within the next 24 hours.
Follow a group of friends as they try to survive their 20's! Tune in to Bravo and check your local listings for more details.Is this what our society has come to? Surviving your 20's is something that requires effort? Where was I when this news was passed down? I'm three-quarters of the way through my 20's; I've survived this far without any substantial effort (the effects of my narcolepsy/idiopathic hypersomnia don't count for this discussion). I haven't exactly thrived during these years, but I most definitely have survived.
Granted, I have lived and do live in a world that is presumably rather different from that of the typical person in their 20's. I'm not extremely social, I don't go to parties all the time, I don't get drunk all the time, I don't do drugs; my life mostly consists of being at work, being at home, and being in the car between work and home. Yes, it's a pretty boring life. And no, I'm not saying that most people in their 20's are always hanging out at parties, getting drunk, doing drugs, etc. Most probably don't do all of those things, but it's the only type of lifestyle I can think of to explain the "try to survive their 20's" line.
I know nothing about this quarterlife show. I hadn't even heard of it prior to seeing this in the Pepsi Xtras e-mail. I have no idea what the show is about, but if it's setup in such a way as to suggest that the characters in the show have to try to survive their 20's, then I'm fairly certain I will have no interest in watching it. (Not that I would watch it even if I was interested; I watch TV way too little to actually watch all of the shows that interest me. That's beside the point though.)
On a side note: another reason I wouldn't watch the show is because it's "quarterlife".
1) quarterlife is not a word.
2) If you insist on naming a show with a made-up word, fine. Could you at least use proper capitalization? It's a proper noun. Capitalize it. Quarterlife. There. See, that wasn't hard.
On Monday, March 17, 2008, the Georgia Supreme Court decided 4-3 to deny a new trial for Troy Anthony Davis, despite significant concerns regarding his innocence. Today's stunning decision by the Georgia Supreme Court to let Mr. Davis' death sentence stand means that the state of Georgia might soon execute a man who well may be innocent. Please take action today by calling on the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to commute the death sentence for Troy Anthony Davis.
Learn more about Troy Davis and send a letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons & Paroles at www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis.
The first thing I noticed was how incredibly small it was. The last time I was in a library that small was when I was a child or teenager - more than ten years ago. The second thing I noticed was that they have a sizable audio book collection. Thirdly, while meandering through the fiction section my eyes cames to rest on the book Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. This wouldn't have been significant, except that Catch-22 is a book I've been wanting to read for several years, and my meager efforts to locate a copy had been unsuccessful. (Probably because the only place I'd tried to obtain a copy is at the college library, whose lone copy was subsequently classified as "Lost" when I reported that I was unable to locate it on the shelves, and my later ILL request apparently vanished into thin air as I never received a response to it.) I don't have a current public library card, but the city library partners with the college library in that they accept current student ID cards as library cards in the same way that the college library does. I decided to see if they would also accept my alumni college library card as well. They did not.
This led to me requesting a new library card from them. The application process was quick and relatively painless. During the course of my interaction with the librarian, she inquired what my major had been, as I had previously told her I had graduated from the college the year before. I told her my major had been Computer Information Systems, and her response was wholly insignificant.
After she handed me my new library card and inquired if I had any questions (I did not), she handed me a copy of some of the library's policies, and then shared one piece of data about the library with me - namely, that they have a decently-sized video and DVD collection, and it's "different stuff than what is at the video store." I found that statement to be mildly curious, but thanked her for this information and returned to the shelves to retrieve the book that I wanted to check out. I didn't really think any more about this part of the conversation until I was in my car driving home a few minutes later.
As I thought about her words some more, they became even more curious. "Does she offer that information to all new library card holders?", I wondered. "Is their video collection a bragging point of the library? If so, what does that say about the popularity of reading in today's society? Nothing very positive; that's for sure." But then I recalled her query about my major, and started to wonder if those words were based on some assumptions she had made about me based on my age and major. I'm not typical college-age, but I'm still relatively young at age 27. Did she perhaps assume that most young computer nerds have no interest in books, but have a huge interest in movies?
I'll probably never know her reasons for offering that lone piece of information about the library, because I'm not the type to seek her out and ask her at some later date (although the idea has certainly crossed my mind). Regardless of what her exact reasons were, though, I still find her words to be rather discouraging and depressing. There's nothing wrong with a library having a good video collection, and nothing wrong with being proud of a good video collection. But shouldn't the video collection play second fiddle to the book collection? I mean, it is a library, is it not? Isn't there some aspect of their book collection that she could be proud of? Is she in fact more proud of their book collection, but she's resorted to only telling people about the video collection because that seems to be primarily what the majority of patrons are interested in? Or perhaps it's only young patrons that she offers this information to, since they specifically show little interest in books? At any rate, I still think it is sad.
You could argue that I'm overthinking such a tiny portion of our brief conversation, and you'd probably be right. But, it bothered me enough to occupy my thoughts on the drive home and then subsequently a few more times throughout the rest of this weekend. So, I decided if it was consuming my thoughts that much I might as well write about it.
The worst part of the story? Upon arriving home I realized that Catch-22 is a book I have read in the past few years, and it is not the book that I had been trying to locate for the last few years. I had gotten it confused with Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the actual book that I had been wanting to read for several years. Explaining how and why I got the books confused is more than what I want to delve into right now, but the good news is that today I discovered that the college library apparently eventually located their copy of this book, and I picked it up tonight after they re-opened their doors.
More details later when I have more time.
