Tacos and Torches

Got to hang out and talk hydroponics, eat tacos, and enjoy the firelight. A coyote howled from an abandoned cemetery nearby. My life's GPS is set on story-finder.

The thesis draft continues to gel, and it feels like bringing something to life. I like it.

The North Carolina air has a crisp edge, but I haven't seen snow since leaving Meditation Center. Perhaps snow is something that will disappear altogether in the coming decades in the South.

I love the urban-industrial edge that my life is taking. There should be train songs to go with these tracks.

Writing Retreat

Thesis Rough Draft workshop retreat saw songs as much as stories.
Also sushi night, dryer-drum fire tacos, and dining hall shenanigans (including security guards and cashmere).
Life is good.

McPhee, Draft No. 4

McPhee's Draft No. 4 is delightful and entertaining, full of anecdote and instruction, turning one into the other and then back again in his classic deft handling of words on the page. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to improve their writing or just to enjoy a few reads about the wonder that is a writing life.

Brilliant. Evil. Criminal?

More than 1 million people are expected to flock to downtown Phoenix for Super Bowl festivities.

Yeah, that's going to work out great, I'm sure.

Some numbers on the anti-vaxxers: In parts of California, the vaccine exemption rate for young children is at least 13% — higher than in Ghana, where it’s 11%. This hip trend comes with a body count, one frequently borne by the community at large, the youngest, weakest and least enfranchised of us. That's not just wrong, it actually manages to fit the definition of evil:

An evil is harm that is (1) reasonably foreseeable (or appreciable) and (2) culpably inflicted (or tolerated, aggravated, or maintained), and that (3) deprives, or seriously risks depriving, others of the basics that are necessary to make a life possible and tolerable or decent (or to make a death decent)” (p. 16).

To that point, members of the anti-vaxx movement might find themselves on the business end of litigation for gross negligence.

A strong argument can be made that a prima facie case for civil liability exists under a theory of tortious negligence. There may also be the potential for criminal liability.

And don't go feeling safer just because you didn't go to Disneyland, or because you don't live in the West or Southwest. Anti-vaxxers are everywhere. And as Beth Kassab found,

The number of people who have found God in the past 10 years has risen dramatically.

Where we trust each other the least, and feel the highest sense of privilege, we are least inclined to care about the effect of vaccination exemptions.

And it's not just measles, though that is certainly the one I'm ranting about most this week. It's also mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, and other diseases that are easily preventable by inexpensive and effective vaccines. This interactive map shows the increasing foothold of these diseases in the U.S. Click through the years from 2008 to today and watch the spread of the diseases.

No more excuses

I don't do the whole New Year's Resolution thing, usually. Ash Wednesday and Lent always seemed more my time to be reflective, think about where i'm headed and how my steps are taking me there (or not). Since my teens, I've challenged myself not only to think of what i'm giving up, but what i can take on to be more the person I want to be. So, starting now I'm spending my time instead of my money: for an hour a day I'm thinking about finances. Don't groan: it has to be done, and in my case, what with having a career and assets and suchlike, it is high time i took this on. Thankfully, Simple Dollar has made this really straightforward. It's too early (Ash Wednesday isn't for a whole week), and the program is too short (Lent is 40 days, not 31). No more excuses: The time has come.