Calm to my Chaos |
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Friday, December 27, 2002
Q: Have you ever loved a friend the most for the simple fact that they are absolutely like no one else you know? A: Yes. Kisses, Hooch. Koo sweetie... whether it's cats or people, I don't believe that it's possible to love too much. And, making out with Yoda is completely acceptable in my book. But, most all things are acceptable in my book, so you might want to get a second opinion on the matter. Thanks for the call today ladies. It's the small things that make my days. And, Bubba... hope you're enjoying family and friends while staying warm in the North Texas cold. Miss you. Lots of love from your West coast folks. Recommended listening: Demolition, by Ryan Adams While I will admit his music is depressing at times, Ryan is absolutely amazing. His simple stripped-down voice is the capstone in the bridge he builds from his songs to your heart. Just listen, and trust me. Goodnight dear ones. "The truth is, I miss you." - Ryan Adams Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Merry Christmas. It must be the nostalgic effects of the holiday...as this is my first stream-of-consciousness style post. I make no claim that it represents any semblance of normal thought. Digging through some old e-mails tonight and found some I exchanged last year with old dorm-mates. They were some of the greatest people I will likely ever know. In 1996, I was lucky enough to find myself on the 8th floor of the East tower of Beauford H. Jester Center. The largest dormitory on the UT Austin campus. (It houses 2,912 students.) I met my roommate, Steven when I walked in the door on the first day. Directly across the hall were a couple of guys from the concrete grid of Plano, Texas. A tall red-head with thick five o'clock shadow, Chris Ruth, and a shorter guy with floppy brown hair, Marcus Schuster. They had been friends before college and were now roommates. Our hall on the co-ed eighth floor was a very "open concept" sort of area. Or, rather, Steven and I's room had a very open-door concept. If we were home, our door was open and we were usually engaged in some sort of activity or conversation with Chris, Marcus or one of the other personalities on our floor. (Ben, Morgan, Damnit John, Tracy, Jackie, Elisia and, of course, Robert). It was our little community and the area in and around our room was the hub. Room's were identified not by their numbers, but by their occupants. And, people were always referred to in pairs...Steven & Brian, Chris & Marcus, etc. And, the memories are not as much defined by the events that occurred, but by the people or "pairs" involved in them. (A hilariously vivid memory of Chris & Marcus being locked inside their room with no way of exit springs to mind at the moment. But, this is only one hilarous moment of many where those two were involved.) I don't know what has come of the lives of all those from our little home there on the 8th floor, but I hope the success of the few I know are merely an indicator of the success all are enjoying. My roommate of two years and friend of many, Steven Tonkin, will be graduating in the spring of next year after a long collegiate road with a degree in Anthropology. He currently works with a professor in the anthropology department on The eSkeletons Project, an interactive environment in which to examine and learn about skeletal anatomy. Chris, one of the most innately funny and creative people I've come to meet thus far, works on a popular Texas morning radio show. He goes by the handle, Steakboy. From our last e-mail exchange, Marcus spends his days as a Mechanical Design Engineer with Ventex Engineering in Austin, Texas and was to be married on May 18, 2002 to a "gorgeous" brunette named Corinne who shares his profession. To all those from the 8th floor, I send only my warmest thoughts and wishes. I should make it one of my New Year's resolutions to see how each of you is doing. So, on day where Lauren talks of the difficulties that come with the transition to adulthood, I urge everyone not to focus on where you feel you should be now or where you need to go, but rather to take a look back at all of the people who joined you in the process so far and take stock of those who are with you now going forward. Monday, December 23, 2002
It could be said that you do not fully understand a concept until you are able to understand its relationship with others. An excellent example as reported by Ryan Lizza in "The 2nd Annual Year in Ideas" issue of The New York Times Magazine. The Ambulance-Homicide Theory "...research published this year suggests that the most significant factor in keeping the homicide rate down is something much more practical: faster ambulances and better care in the emergency room. That, in any case, is the intellectual hand grenade that Anthony Harris, director of the Criminal Justice Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, has thrown into the polarized debate over crime prevention. Harris stumbled upon this simple idea after years of trying to figure out why the aggravated-assault rate skyrocketed by several hundred percent over the past four decades, while the murder rate has remained flat, never increasing or decreasing by more than 50 percent. In 'Murder and Medicine,' a paper published in May in the journal Homicide Studies, Harris and three other researchers determined that the murder rate is being artificially suppressed because thousands of potential homicide victims each year are now receiving swift medical attention and surviving. Americdans, in other words, aren't any less murderous - it's just getting harder for us to kill one another. Our modern 911 dispatchers, E.M.S. technicians, trauma-care units and emergency-room surgeons have been savings patients who were on the cust of becoming murder statistics and moving them into the aggravated-assault column. If he's right, the focus by ciminologists on the stable or declining murder rate is actually masking a radical increase of violence in America, a fact that has unexpected consequences. For example, communities without access to the most advanced emergency medical services may have higher homicide rates. ...And there are strange implications for the criminal-justice system. An attempted murderer carrying out his crime in an area with poor emergency services is more likely to succeed than one operating near a high-tech trauma center. The former may be executed, while the latter spends just a few years in prison, their punishments determined not by any disparity in lethal intent, but by the unequal levels of local medical care." 
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