JDBoston

The other side of that is that if it doesn't bother you at all that you're killing people, you might take less care/caution to make sure that you're killing the RIGHT people.... thus making people who don't give a shit about killing somewhat LESS effective than people who do.... Joe

Introspection is not the same as freezing in combat, or misjudging a threat, or failing to prevent someone from taking your weapon and using it on you. No disrespect to the officer intended - this is a general clarification of what I meant in my previous post. Introspection is something that occurs after the fact, when you sit down and think about what you did. Doesn't necessarily mean you don't still react "appropriately" when a life-threatening situation arises. That seems more like a matter of training to me. Joe

Unfortunately, if you can kill people without ever wondering about why you're doing it or whether it's a good thing, you probably also fit the clinical definition of a sociopath .... but I don't mean to get us off track here. Certainly no one should interpret that as an anti-armed forces comment. I just think introspection, even if it makes you slightly less effective/efficient at your job, isn't a bad thing. Although I've never personally been in a position where I had to kill someone as part of my job so I honestly don't know how I would deal with it myself. Joe

I would phrase it differently: POOR people are owed a decent education. Blacks have as much opportunity as whites or anyone else in any given school to take advantage of what's there. If parents want to augment the education their kids get at school, it's only a public library card away. But I agree that the quality of public schools in poorer areas is an extremely important issue, and we as a society neglect it at our extreme peril. Large numbers of uneducated people, especially uneducated people with voting rights, is a very bad thing for our country. Just look at the presidents we're electing these days. Joe

My feelings about reparations: Slavery was wrong. There's still a lot of racism today (in both directions between virtually all ethnic groups out there) and that's wrong too. Two wrongs do not make a right, and no matter where reparation funds would hypothetically go (to charities, public works, individuals, etc.), in my mind it's wrong to arbitrarily take money that could go to wider, more inclusive social programs and earmark it for one racial group based on things that happened 150+ years ago. I say arbitrarily because reparation is a symbolic issue, not a fact-based one (i.e. I don't see anyone creating spreadsheets that accurately lay out the exact economic impact of slavery on today's descendants of slaves), and as such, is NOT any kind of basis for any concrete action whatsoever. As a basis for discussion and debate, fine - it's always good for people to brush up on their history - but as a basis for action, it does not meet the test. Farrakhan is a fucking joke and a complete bigot himself, and there could not be a more wrong person to be a leader of the discussion if anyone in the black community wants this issue to be taken seriously. African Americans do not have a monopoly on suffering, and neither does any other ethnic group. Mexican, Chinese, even white European immigrants have all faced fierce, and often violent and deadly discrimination in different parts of the country at different times, and many continue to do so. Also, it's funny no one ever talks about discrimination against poor white people. But it exists too. Try going into an interview for, say, a software sales job with a beer belly and a mullet and talking about the trailer parkyou live in. Or try going into a nice store on Madison Avenue and getting someone to help you instead of following you around suspiciously. It may sound like I'm joking, but I'm not. People are discriminated against by employers and others because of their socioeconomic status, and the cultural group they're perceived to belong to, ALL THE TIME. This is not a trivial thing, and it also has a very serious impact on people's prospects for breaking out of the socioeconomic band they've been born into. We all have a very serious responsibility to expose and combat discrimination as it exists TODAY, but I can think of few things more un-American, and frankly more harmful to the spirit of self-determination that this country was founded on, than economically compensating people for things that were done to ancestors they neither knew nor can identify (how many people know their family tree back to before the Civil War???) by the ancestors of other unidentified people hundreds of years ago. To say nothing of the fact that a significant portion of whites in the US today are descended from people who immigrated (in many case, with no money, no connections, and minimal language skills) after slavery had already ended. Imagine what kind of a precedent this would set. Sure, there's a strong streak of white-black racism and discrimination in US history, and some of it certainly persists today. But this whole reparations thing is a band-aid at best and a political stunt at worst, and it is NOT the way to improve anyone's position in society or the amount of respect and fair treatment they receive from other people. Anyone who thinks otherwise is, in my very humble opinion, somewhat deluded. Please flame now. Joe

They should definitely give you more notice than a knock. If nothing else it's a courtesy to the person they're showing the place to, because what if they knock and you are in the middle of something and won't let them in? Then the broker or whoever looks like a real asshole and has to send the prospect on their way. Either way, I personally think that as a renter you do have an ethical obligation to give the landlord some means of showing your place while you're living there. I've had that done with my previous places plenty of times and it usually takes about 5 minutes each time and is really not a big deal at all. Leases and fine print aside, if you refuse to let this take place, you are basically screwing the landlord by making them eat the mortgage payment for at least a little while after you leave. Unless they've screwed you first in some way, that doesn't seem to me like the right way to do things. Joe

Glad you said it first, Bill, so I don't feel like I'm being disrespectful to your friend. The stunts, I liked. The girl, I liked. The rest of it, uhhhhhhhh, no. But what do you expect from the director of Fast and the Furious... Joe

Hah! I'll see all you folks on the chopper Saturday!! All I want to say is if they won't let people jump the balloon it shouldn't even show up. Who the hell is going to pay $75 or whatever for the privilege of a balloon ride at oh-dark-thirty. Hmm. Joe

Speaking of t-shirts, I saw one at Square Three a while back that was like "mental disorders & skydiving" or something and on the back it had a top ten list of some sort with different mental disorders. Like: Depression: It doesn't matter if you pull, it probably won't open anyway. Multiple personality disorder: Have all of your personalities pull for you. Etc. etc. I really wish I could remember the other ones. Has anyone seen this one recently or know where I can get one?? If so PM me. I'm kicking myself for not buying it before. I mean, what's more amusing than debilitating mental problems? Too funny... Joe

My toggles are held on the risers with snaps, no velcro. I'd be shocked if one of them ever popped off prematurely. But I guess anything can happen. Joe

Virtuous circle actually, if you look at it from the contractor's point of view. Capitalism at its best. Joe

So what was the mal? Anything fun? Joe

If she still needs to be in the public eye, she should just lose about 1/2 her weight and go back to doing photo shoots. Fame seems to allow a lot of people who should be seen and not heard to get airtime for their self-indulgent babblings. Frankly, I don't even think she should be seen that much the way she looks these days. Sad. Joe

Viking, I think I know what your problem is. You've been trying to get "layed," whereas what you should be doing is trying to get "laid." Please change your strategy and report back. Joe

My favorite reserve is one that opens and flies. But coincidentally, I also have a PD Reserve. One ride so far, which was fine. Terminal opening at 0.85 wing loading was pretty uncomfortable, but not enough to cause any injuries beyond a sore back. Joe

If I'm going to pay $50-$70 for a jump, I'd rather do a balloon or a Stearman. Is there anything super special about a chopper? I'll definitely be at the boogie as I have a bunch of $$ on my account there that I need to use, and hell, the Casa's enough of a draw for me, but should I do the chopper too? Joe

My fiction favorites: anything by Milan Kundera, or James Joyce or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Lolita too, occasionally Thomas Pynchon. I think our present society is actually more like Brave New World than 1984. In Brave New World, humans try to control and plan and engineer everything in life, and everyone takes this drug "soma" (like video games, TV, or online message boards...) to keep from having to really think or engage with each other - like rats in a cage, they get through their days by self-stimulating and self-medicating and become inert and ineffective as citizens. But I do see the 1984 parallels starting to emerge... Orwell was a very sharp guy. I like most of the rest of the books he wrote too. Joe

Hahahaha..... the difference between theory and practice, I guess! Come to think of it, I don't think my parents ever trusted me with anything larger than a hamster. Joe

Oh, and Chris, my suggestion is don't get a dog. There are three of us taking care of this little bastard, including 1 full-time student and my roommate who works from home a lot. He gets walked about 6 times a day, sleeps in the bed with my roommate, and he still begs us for food and attention 24/7. To say nothing of when one or more of us want to go out of town for a weekend or longer, which is like planning for a military operation. They're worse than kids because they never get any more self-sufficient. It would be better if you also had kids, because then the kids can take care of the animal and everyone's happy. I have gotten kind of fond of him though. Joe

My roommate and his girlfriend went out and got us one of those. Why didn't someone ever tell me that's how they work?!! All this time I've been getting up early to walk the little fucker outside. And I didn't know I was supposed to be speaking Mexican to him either. That must be why he never listens to me. Damn language barriers... Joe

I don't think wearing seatbelts "dumbs down" drivers. It's just that there's no good reason NOT to wear one. Now, if I was driving around rear-ending people and stuff because I knew my seatbelt and airbags would probably save me, that's a different story. And I know I'm perfectly capable of driving around safely without a seatbelt if I want to. But I take at least as much pride in being smart as I do in being able to skydive, and I would feel like a real dumbass if I made a Joe-shaped crater somewhere simply because I chose not to jump with a proven piece of safety equipment, whose presence & functioning has absolutely no impact on what I can and can't do while skydiving, or how much fun I have. The Cypres isn't there so I can feel safer and pay less attention to doing things right. It's there for situations I can't always predict or control - like getting knocked out - where the difference between having one and not having one becomes somewhat more important than it may seem the rest of the time. Just my $0.02. Joe

Yeah, those damn Canadians... well, anyway, here's to staying normal and jumping out of planes again soon! Joe

Adam, I jump there too. Maybe I met you last weekend? I'm really bad with names and it usually takes a couple meetings for them to sink in. Anyway, I'll be there all day tomorrow (Sunday) so if you see a guy with a red and gold Racer with some tie-dye, come say hey. Joe

Hang in there Drew! You've got a lot of people pulling for you! Joe

I agree with Clay that most people are stupid and like to shift blame. However, I think someone selling canopies would be more to blame if they DIDN'T try to talk people out of what they know to be risky or even stupid decisions. The social fabric is pretty loose these days, and though skydivers are better than most in that area, I don't think people anywhere take it upon themselves often enough to tell other people when they think they're going to get hurt. I think canopy dealers have every right in the world to try and change someone's mind, and if that doesn't work, to say, "go get it somewhere else then." Maybe that will help get the message across to the occasional thick-skulled people out there. That's not regulation, it's capitalism at its best - the collective force of the canopy dealers' experience deciding that the legal and guilt-related risks of selling people more canopy than they can handle outweigh the potential profits. Joe