Con Ed in New York is taking a lot of 'heat' for the power outages there. One guy interviewed said 50% of his feelings were anger, he just wanted to kill somebody. Everybody is complaining, wondering what the electric company is doing that would fuck everything up so bad.

I always think about the Mexicans just across the border, and that story I read concerning the lack of running water and electricity to this and other neighborhoods in Mexico. These people live without electricity every day, with no hope that the 'outage' will soon be over, because there is no power to go out. There are places all over the world where people live without power, yet when Americans have to go without, the world is about to end.

I am convinced the literacy here is deteriorating. I just read a story about a woman that spent a year as a mediocre stripper, then wrote a book about her experiences. The book sold well at first printing, then the talk shows came, which generated more book sales. There is now a movie deal in the works.

This is what people want, as is evident in this and other stories like it; as with the book Running With Scissors, which is in the works to hit the theaters. I call it Jerry Springer in hardback. I often wonder if it's always been like this, or is it just that I've started paying attention.

Another story in the news, there is a city council legislating wages beyond minimum wage....

Defying Mayor Daley and challenging Wal-Mart and Target to follow through on their threats, a bitterly divided City Council voted Wednesday to require Chicago's big-box retailers to pay employees a "living wage" of at least $10 an hour and $3 in benefits by 2010.

The 35-14, veto-proof vote is an overwhelming victory for organized labor and the latest in a string of legislative defeats for a corruption-weakened Daley.

I think this is a mistake. Wal-Mart and Target, no matter how true the allegations that they don't pay workers enough to survive, are not going to operate in an area that legislates wages beyond minimum. They will simply leave, there are way too many other places to go they can earn the profits and still run things as they like. Things will not get better until people refuse to work and shop there, and for some people, most people I would venture to say, simply can't stay away from the low prices there. And if people are willing to work for the low wages they offer, no legislation is going to change that. It won't change until people refuse to work for the kind of money and benefits they offer.

Then there's the story of the apparently shoddy construction of that tunnel in Boston. A memo has surfaced, written by the safety officer directly involved with the section of the tunnel where the ceiling panel fell. He circulated a memo he says he sent to his supervisor way back when questioning the ability of the bolt system to hold the panels over time. A spokesman, I think for the construction company, had this to say....

Andrew Paven, a spokesman for Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, declined to comment Wednesday. A Modern Continental spokesman referred to an earlier statement in which the company said it was cooperating fully and was confident the work complied with plans and specifications.

In my opinion, the fact that the work complied with specifications doesn't address the question of whether the specifications were sound.

My wife is vacationing at the beach in SC. At the airport she tried to use the electronic kiosk to get a boarding pass.

She waited in line, and several times an agent behind the counter urged passengers to use the electronic kiosk if they already had tickets and just needed to check luggage and get a boarding pass. My wife waited till she got to the front of the line, but against her better judgment, because she doesn't like those things, she went to the kiosk. She stuck in the credit card she used to buy the tickets, the kiosk identified her and her flight, then told her she couldn't complete the transaction there, she had to get in line to talk to a ticket agent. This the same line she left, after waiting to get to the front to succumb to the counter agent's entreaties for passengers to use the kiosk.

The next available agent reprimanded her for stepping to the front of the line ahead of all the other passengers, and after explaining the situation to the agent, who wasn't paying her any attention and never was convinced she had a right to be there, gave her own explanation for the kiosk. Apparently, my wife can NEVER use those things, because her name has been flagged for some sort of 'watch list'. My wife never paid attention when traveling before, and now we know why she doesn't like those things, the kiosks, because they have been programmed not to like her! The agent explained that she had a common name, and that all people with her name had to have their credentials checked by a person at the ticket counter.

I've been thinking about it for days, and this watch list relies on an agent at the ticketing counter to have the ability to know if a shady person, I assume a terrorist, is trying to board their plane. First of all, the ticket agent I'm sure doesn't have the training required for this, and second, anyone trying to board a plane with fake ID is going to have impeccable papers that even an experienced person would have trouble recognizing as phony.