If you say, "I told you so," I'll punch you in the nuts

So, Tom and I tried to go see The Strangers tonight. And by "tried," I mean, we were able to get tickets, but found the circumstances intolerable.

For starters, we went to a mildly suburban theater in a mall. Even though they supposedly advertise that no one under 18 is allowed in the theater after 7pm on Friday or Saturday nights, it's a rule that is either clearly not enforced, or the age should be upped to 25, and even then only open to people who don't pay $9 to sit and talk to their friends.

The theater was full, but not really as bad as you might think. The final straw, really, was the guy sitting next to me, who constantly said things (very out loud) like, "Oh no," "Oh, shit!" and "Damn, girl." That was directed at Liv Tyler.

Before that, however, about 15 minutes into the film, four adults enter with a child in tow, who was probably about 4 years old.

Naturally they sat right in front of us.

I wasted about 15 seconds before storming out to the concession stand and finding the manager. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Um, did you know there are people watching The Strangers with little kids? Like, very small children.

Manager: Are they making noise?

I wrinkle my brow at him.

Me: Um...well, there are very small children watching a rated-R horror film. That...doesn't concern you at all?

Manager: Well, are they talking?

Me: Well, yes, it's a small child, sitting right in front of me in a horror movie.

Manager: But is he disturbing you?

I get further confused.

Me: He's saying things like, "Mommy, Mommy," and talking. Out loud. Yes, he's disturbing me.

The manager looks at me blankly.

I stare back at him expectantly (story of my life).

Me: Can anything be done about this?

Manager: I'll go in in a few minutes.

Me: Okay, I'm sitting way up in the back, on the right side if you're-

Manager: I'll just look for you, and then the kid will be in front of you.

Now I stare at him blankly.

Me: Okay. Thank you.

I march back inside and inform Tom that we're giving it 10 more minutes.

After about 10 minutes (and I must say, I was enjoying the film, quite a lot), I stay true to my word and leave. (If you wanna know the truth, the crowd wasn't awful; it was the guy next to me that kept talking out loud that really pushed me over the edge.) I inform the girl at the box office that the crowd is "intolerable" and I want my money back, which is given back.

The End.

Even though I was very excited about this film, after sitting through an incredibly irritating 35 minutes of it, I'm a little less excited to go back and sit through that again, but I shall. It was just getting good when we left.

If we could survive another 4 years....

From an email written to Andrew Sullivan:

Isn’t it crazy how all the hope you’ve had for your country your whole life can be drained out of you in one primary election cycle? I’m 26 and if this thing takes the turn it looks like it’s going to take, this will be the very last time I submit myself to this. I’m not built for this sort of disappointment. After the last 8 years, I can’t believe we are still trapped in the same gutter of fear and deception.

Maybe everyone was right about Obama. Maybe I have been naïve. The Clintons knew all along it would come to this. Maybe they didn’t expect it now, but they knew they’d have to get the White House this way. They’re just breaking out their General Election game early. And it’s genius. They ARE monsters.

I have to say that I agree, but I also really liked Sullivan's response, which is that when it really comes down to it, Obama isn't any more liberal than Clinton, despite what people think, and that real change, true fundamental, grass-roots change takes a long time. It's an uphill battle, and it's frustrating and full of set-backs.

Maybe I can say this now because it's so doubtful that Clinton will actually get the nomination, but I've reverted back to my original position: if she's the nominee, I refuse to vote for her.

Will not. Can not. She's a narcissitic sociopath who would rather destroy the Democratic Party than lose. I know I'll get shit for this, but I cannot reward her behavior. In fact, I might even think about voting for John McCain just to spite her and teach her a lesson.

Am I completely incorrect and naive to think that if we could actually survive 4 more years of Republican rule that it would absolutely, without a doubt, kill the Republican party for the foreseeable future? In all honesty, I don't think there's any way McCain can win anyway. I think I could probably beat McCain in a general election.

But if it comes down to Clinton v. McCain? I just don't know if I can yet again stomach voting for the lesser of two enormous evils.

I haven't lost hope, it's not in my nature. But it all is extremely painful to me.

Can 400 U.S. cities be wrong?

Ever since last summer, one of the biggest banes of my existence has been the shopping center next door, and specifically, the use of leaf blowers at the shopping center next door.

At 7am. For an hour.

Last summer and fall, this was happening 2 days a week, on Monday and Friday mornings. Lately, though, it's only been happening on Mondays. But only happening on Mondays is like saying someone comes into your room with a chainsaw and holds it over your bed for an hour, but only on Monday mornings.

It doesn't usually seem to bother my roommate Dylan too much, but more often than not, after angrily trying to get back to sleep for 30 minutes (ear plugs do nothing), I stumble into the kitchen only to find the other roommate, Garrett, already in there, fuming as much as I am.

So yesterday morning, after an already fitful night of sleep, and having absolutely no reason to get up early, I'd finally had enough. It took only 2 Google searches to figure out who owned the property next door. Turns out, Seton Hospital (another issue - I will never, ever, ever live within 40 miles of a hospital ever again, especially the busiest one in the city) owns the property. So I found 3 separate email addresses, addressed a new email to them all, and fired it off.

I was nice enough, but basically stated that it was ridiculously absurd to use leaf blowers in the first place, but to use them at 7am was not only thoughtless, it was downright cruel. And that frankly, it was creating a lot of ill will towards the shopping center in my neighborhood. Which is true.

I received a pretty immediate response from one of the recipients, informing me that Seton only owned the property, but didn't manage it. However, she gave me the name, phone number and email address of who I should talk to about it. Then was even kind enough to forward my email on to said person for me.

Shortly thereafter, I received an email from this person to whom it had been forwarded (Belva is her name) saying that she appreciated my concern and would speak to the landscaping company about trying to at least move the leaf-blowing hour up until 8. (By city law, you can use leaf blowers in Austin between the hours of 7am and 9pm.) She did, however, provide some pretty dubious evidence as to why leaf blowers were necessary on the property:

I can understand your confusion about why leaf blowers are even needed, but please understand that it is necessary to use them particularly at a center such as 26 Doors that has many trees that continually drop their leaves. Our landscapers blow the leaves into the parking lot and bag most of them. We then have sweepers that come through at night and vacuum up the rest. So, they are actually accomplishing something. Otherwise, we would not be able to walk through the center as the leaves would be gathered into tall piles.

I was pretty happy about all of this so I forwarded the email on to my roommate Garrett, because I thought he might be interested. He was overjoyed at my progress, all stemming from one polite email, so he thought he might push it a bit further if he could.

He emailed Belva himself, questioning her justification for the use of leaf blowers at all, which I also really wanted to do, but didn't think I should push my luck. I quote now from Garrett's email:

The neighborhood is dense and diverse. It is filled with students and people who have different work schedules that are
not the traditional 8 to 5. I understand the need for the property to be clean. However, may I suggest the use
of industrial sized push brooms instead of leaf blowers? To me, this would be a true compromise as the
neighbors get their silence in the morning and your property gets the job done that is needed at the time
that is most convenient to you and your workers. I would even buy the brooms necessary for this job because I feel
so strongly this compromise will make everyone the happiest as everyone gets what they want and there is no chance
any more animocity can be spurred on with the work being done in silence at any hour.

Apparently, (and I haven't read the actual email, but Garrett told me about it) this enraged Belva, who shot back that getting rid of leaf blowers would "exponentially" raise the cost of landscaping services and that Garrett had no business trying to dictate how she ran her property.

So, once again, Garrett responded back, genuinely questioning why it would "exponentially" raise landscaping costs, considering you wouldn't have to buy the blowers, you wouldn't have to buy gas for the blowers, you wouldn't have to pay for maintenance on the blowers, and the workers would probably prefer to do without the noise and weight of carrying them around.

No word yet if she responded to this.

I started doing some research though, and discovered that over 400 U.S. cities and towns have either banned, or placed serious restrictions on, leaf blowers, largely due to the noise disturbance they create, but also because they guzzle gas and pollute worse than cars. Arizona and New Jersey have even debated putting statewide bans on them.

Once school is over I'm going to try to make it my mission to get those fuckers banned in Austin. The stupid-ass condos across the street from me use them too. Twice a week in the summer and fall (twice a week!!) they have a landscaping service come in and mow, edge, and leaf-blow for at least an hour and a half in the afternoons. It's so loud in my house when they do that, I can't concentrate on anything. I can't even watch TV. Seriously. That's how loud it all is. I can't read or do homework. Multiple times I've been working on papers or something and had to leave my own house and go somewhere else because their leaf blowers were too loud across the street.

Anybody have any advice as to the best way to approach this kind of stuff with City Council? I'm not fucking around.

I've run out of comments.

One more GOP leader bites the dust in Wisconsin, this time due to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and child enticement.

The Brown County Republican Party chair has been charged with performing sexual acts on a boy under 18 and giving marijuana to a minor, according to court documents.

Donald Fleischman faces felony counts of child enticement and exposing himself to a child along with two misdemeanor counts for contributing to the delinquency of a child and one misdemeanor for exposing himself to a child, according to the criminal complaint.

All I'll say is that I think the worst part is that the boys were from a home for troubled youth. They were runaways, and he exploited that.

The Wall

Salon today has an excellent article about the environmental devastation a border fence along Texas and Mexico would create, particularly to an endangered group of ocelots, that used to hunt through Eastern Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, but now number as few as 125. The hateful wall would cut right through the middle of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Nature Wildlife Refuge, and could threaten one of the largest wildlife refuges in the country.

In Texas, 225 miles of fencing will begin to be installed this fall. A large percentage of that fencing will be built in the valley along the unique river bank and habitat that follows the Rio Grande. It would cut across more than a dozen refuges and parks totaling more than 100,000 acres. Critics warn the fence and its accompanying patrol roads will sever critical wildlife corridors on the animals' natural territories. Animals depend on these corridors to reach mates, and seek food and water. If the fence is installed, says Martin Hagne, director of the nonprofit Valley Nature Center, "it will be a huge catastrophe." Hagne is a member of an unusual coalition of environmentalists, local farmers, ranchers and local business interests fighting the fence.

Border fences would also require high-speed patrol roads next to it, and to access it which would have a huge impact on local wildlife. In places, the swath of fence and roads could become 150 yards wide. "Building a 150-foot wide strip of fencing and two roads is going to have a major impact on wildlife," says Ernesto Reyes, an ecology services biologist for Fish and Wildlife in the valley. At the Southmost Preserve, where Najera pointed out the animal tracks, it's easy to recognize an established watering spot. Yet the earthen berm where the security fence would likely be built is just yards away. Animals might have to travel miles out of their way to find a new watering spot. And road kills on improved patrol roadways will increase, Reyes says.

In Arizona, Homeland Security worked closely with the Sierra Club and the local Wildlife Federation, but eventually invoked its power to bypass Federal requirements and upgraded the wall to be "impenetrable, with no consultation whatsoever. Not to mention the tourism dollars it will suck up for areas like McAllen, who take in over $34 million a year in wildlife tourism.

It's a depressing story, but I realize that people in support of this wall care about very little but their own homogenized cultures and personal comforts. I've always thought it was nothing but a hateful, mean-spirited and hostile symbol, not to mention that most experts deem it totally irrelevant.

Homeland Security argues the Rio Grande fence will deter illegal immigration. Yet the Border Patrol's Rio Grande sector itself has raised questions about whether it would make much of a difference. Its sector office told the Government Accountability Office in 2005 that the rugged geography of the area in the Rio Grande sector, which includes the Lower Valley river corridor and especially the rugged thorn brush country inland from the river, creates its own impenetrable fencing.

"The brush (inland from the river corridor) is so dense with sage, scrub brush and cacti that it has created an inhospitable environment for … smugglers or illegal aliens," the report states. Because there are only two highways leading north from the Lower Valley, the local Border Patrol stated that it could intercept illegal immigration within its existing checkpoints. In fact, from 2000 to 2005, the number of apprehensions reported by the local Border Patrol climbed from 108,000 to 134,000, according to a report by Syracuse University.

It kind of just makes me want to move to Mexico.