What is the EPA doing these days?

Quote of the week:

"It is a sad day in America when a coalition of states must go to federal court to defend the Clean Air Act against the misguided actions of the federal agency created to protect the environment," the New York attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said. "But in this matter, the E.P.A. is standing with polluters instead of with the people it is supposed to protect, and the states have no choice but to take this action."

The United States Environmental Protection Agency, thanks to the Bush Administration, has:
* announced that it was closing pending investigations into more than 100 power plants and factories for violating the Clean Air Act
* dropping 13 cases in which it had already made a determination that the law had been violated.

Got to love that envirnomental PROTECTION agency!

Being Present

The importance of being present is beyond belief for life is brief and a day can be spent so easily. Is it possible to be present with so much going on at once? The juggling of tasks, of events, of moments, of movements is an arduous undertaking. Can the every day be elevated higher so that every day is important? Is there meaning in the mundane, in the routine, in the rituals that we accept as annoyances and nothing more? Does a shared smile on a line in a store do anything more than improve a moment? Some days are long and boring while a few spark the soul. As the former greatly outweighs the latter are we just lurching across a desert from one oasis to the next?

Is it possible to stay in a heightened state of awareness for hours, for days, for months, for years, for decades, for a lifetime? Should life be a battle (for that is really the only time a person is truly hyperaware, when he or she is afraid that at any moment, the enemy will strike to take his or her life)?

The vigilance of a scout should be the model for the level of awareness that you should have when on the phone with family, during the day at work, while in class in school. To stay alert all day every day is tiring, so the question is then how do you gain enough stamina to fight the drowsiness, to remain alert?

I ask questions not to teach in the Socratic method - I ask because I wonder and do not know. Use the comments and post your view. Though only one person usually reads these posts, namely me, if there is someone else out there I'd like to hear what you have to say.

Books versus Movies

My fiance sits on the couch finishing Return of the King as I sit typing at the computer. Having just come from Stephen King's web site, having just watched a number of DT inspired short films and having made plans to watch The Two Towers on DVD tonight, I feel the need to reaffirm why I love books tremendously more than movies. Mr. King himself said it better than I can, at least right now, so I will lift what he wrote from the FAQ section of his site in response (it was in response to the question "Are you going to make a Dark Tower Movie?"):

"I've always resisted that idea because movies have a way of freezing characters and places in the audience's mind whereas in books everybody has their own different idea of, for instance, how Roland or Susannah looks but if you do it as a movie, immediately that kind of gets frozen in place and you say 'Oh, Billy Bob Thornton is what Roland Deschain looks like.' Or you say 'Brad Pitt, that's what Eddie Dean looks like.' You know what I'm saying, or you can say 'Calla Bryn Sturgis from Wolves of the Calla looks like maybe the Universal back lot', and I've always resisted that."

'Nuff said for now...