Until it's cool to be be educated in this country, and not an aw-shucks good ol' boy, we're going to have problems with "those smart people are trying to bamboozle you! They're not like us!"

It's very saddening.

But Trudy's birthday is not saddening at all.

In infuriating non-election news ...

I think I've posted about my efforts to get the city to control, in some way, the Segway tours that are running wild on the sidewalks. I've been contacting people since JUNE 17. That was when I found out it was illegal for them to run on the sidewalks at all, much less forcing pedestrians off the walks and otherwise endangering them. I've had people from two separate agencies say they'd contacted the tour company managers ... but the tours run, just as dangerously, and when I've talked to the tour leaders they insist they're allowed to use the sidewalks.

Yesterday I got a PDF of amendments to the law that will require registering and licensing Segways, but still prohibits running them on the sidewalk in this section of town. Then I got a phone call from yet another person saying they'd be doing some education of the Segway tour companies to let them know what they can do. Today he copied me on an e-mail to the manager of one of the companies - he said he'd had one complaint of dangerous operation at one location ... and he got the location wrong.

I am ready to go on a rampage - at what point do they determine a law is worthy of being enforced? and what's the point of having a law if it's not enforced? It's probably going to take someone being either injured or killed for anything to happen.

f*ckers

at what point do they determine a law is worthy of being enforced

Is the money being made from the breaking of the law greater than the money lost by the breaking of the law? Is the city itself being sued?

Have you thought of publishing anything about your efforts to get the law enforced? Is there a politician you can embarrass publically?

In more amusing news, I am not qualified for this job, nor do I want a job in Philly, but how much do I want to work for these people??? [link]

Jesse, that looks cool! (come to Philly - we don't bite!)

Until it's cool to be be educated in this country, and not an aw-shucks good ol' boy, we're going to have problems with "those smart people are trying to bamboozle you! They're not like us!"

This is the thing. Every once in a while I feel like a Yankee ambassador in a foreign country here, and I'm trying my darnedest to be visibly Not Elitist and all in all Just Like Real People.

They actually stopped regularly attending the church they'd been going to for several years once he became President because they felt the security was disruptive to the congregation (I know someone who was in it at the time) and would rotate between several in the area.

Up in Maine, they go to St. Ann's Episcopal. [link] (Which I mostly link to for the "Lookit the pretty!" factor. You can't see it in those pictures, but right behind the church, where you see the break in the trees in the first picture, is a cliff overlooking the ocean. And the design of the inside of the church is just neat.)

OMG, Jesse, that job is awesome.

Jesse, that looks cool!

It's called OMG! OMG!!!

I mean, aside from the part where it is genuinely interesting.

OMG!

That is spiffy. I'd be tempted to apply (I'm not afraid of Philly!) if I were even remotely qualified.