Yearly Archives: 2006

Need the input of our traveling readers

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I travel for my job. A lot. I’ve had jobs that entail a fair amount of travel for about 10 years now, and my recent stay in Overland Park, KS, is quickly moving to the top of my list of Worst Ever Hotel Experiences.

I was browsing the hotel chain’s website tonight, making sure that all my points are registered there, and saw that I needed to submit a “missing points” request for last week’s stay (once that stay is registered, I’ll be “gold” status with this chain). One of the questions on the “missing points” form is the room rate (so they can figure out the correct number of points to give you).

As I was doublechecking my rate, I realized that while my confirmed reservation showed one rate, the rate I paid was $10 higher. I vaguely remember mentioning when I checked in that the rate they were having me initial seemed higher than the one I was expecting, but it was almost midnight, I was exhausted, and so I bought their response of “that rate’s not available” or some such.

Well, I’m not tired now. I’m angry. In ten years of business travel, I’ve never been charged a higher rate than the one on my confirmed reservation.

I will be back in Overland Park next week, and I will be making an appointment to see the GM of the hotel where I stayed last time. I’ll be taking with me a copy of the letter I left with the front desk when I checked out (since I’m confident they never gave it to him), and after speaking with him, I’ll be sending a copy of the letter to the corporate office of this particular chain.

I’ve gotta say… I’m easily irritated at things, but my irritations are quickly dispersed, and not long-lasting. It takes a lot to make me truly angry, and these folks have done it. I’ll also be sending a letter to my company’s travel department, expressing my extreme dissatisfaction with this particular hotel in this particular town.

My question for our more knowledgeable readers is this: Is it common for a hotel to charge a guest a different rate at check-in than what is on the confirmed reservation? A reservation, I might add, that’s being held by a credit card to ensure that the room and rate will be available upon check-in? Is it legal to do this? Did I lose any right to complain when I initialed the room rate upon check-in? I just want to have all my ducks in a row when I visit the GM next week.

Thanks for your input.

Here’s a different way to pass the time….

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I’d love to see what Julia could do with this one.

DIRECTIONS
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 — first sentence
3. Book #2 — last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 — second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 — next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 — final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.

My result:

In a sheepfarmer’s low stone house, high in the hills above Three Firs, two swords hang now above the mantelpiece.
“I want from you an alert, a query, transmitted to all your agents around the world, barring none.”
“Who decides what to do?” So did the alcohol: the sinners who drank it became more insolent; the prohibitionists who reviled it grew enraged at its proximity. He might as well have been singing.

The instructions seem a little vague, though… “Make the five sentences into a paragraph.” Does that mean simply copy the five in straight sequence, with no additions, as I’ve done above, or does it mean to be a little creative?

In a sheepfarmer’s low stone house, high in the hills above Three Firs, two swords hang now above the mantelpiece. “That’s irrelevant,” he snarled. “I want from you an alert, a query, transmitted to all your agents around the world, barring none.” He might as well have been singing, for all the attention his words received. The tension in the room increased. So did the alcohol: the sinners who drank it became more insolent; the prohibitionists who reviled it grew enraged at its proximity. But who decides what to do?

I’m thinking this would be a good writing exercise, or another tool for combating Writers’ Block.

Oh, and my five books were:

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon
A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman
Sporting Chance by Elizabeth Moon
Rising Tide:The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America by John M. Barry
The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey

These are just the five that were closest to my sofa, not requiring me to get up and search for books to use.

h/t: Joshilyn Jackson (who, it seems, has written a book titled after my favorite Georgia town name. Must. Get. Book.)

The Year of Living Dangerously

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If the personal stuff is anything to go by, then 2006 was the year of living dangerously. It’s the year when both my daughter and I cheerfully said “the hell” to what we had been doing for a while, and resolved to pursue what we really wanted. Blondie plunged into college (funded by the GI Bill, and a small VA disability payment), and I exited full-time employment in the pink-collar ghetto with a cheerful face and almost indecent haste. No, really, I think I was given a healthy shove just as I was nerving myself up to jump. Life is too short to spend it looking at the clock and wishing for the work day to end so you can get to the stuff you really want to be doing.

But I look ahead to 2007 with a vague yet unshakeable feeling of dread. I have the feeling that things are happening faster and faster; and that they are well beyond anyone’s ability to control. There have been… is the word “portents” too heavy? Baleful, maybe; like one of those Technicolor Texas sunrises; all purple clouds edged with gold and the sun rising blood-red in smear of pink sky. One thinks of that kind of sunrise as a herald, a red sky as a warning of storms.

The execution of Saddam Hussein is just the most recent of these events; did it not seem to happen very suddenly? The various trials looked to be one of those continuing circuses that would drag on for decades. Saddam would grow fat and old, and his lawyers would quibble, delay and appeal for stays, and he would eventually die of something prosaic like a heart attack, long after anyone ceased to care, except for the last few toothless protest ‘tards waving signs in front of the last few McDonalds’ in Europe. Instead… short walk and a swift drop, thank you very much.

Iran with nukes, and a charismatic leader with apocalyptic visions… and a hard-on for Jew-killing. Not a reassuring combination, all things considered. Consider also that this doesn’t seem to bother the usual UN and Euro protest ‘tards who have a conniption every time an American administration sneezes. The possibility of a mushroom cloud blossoming over Tel Aviv, or Marsailles, or Rome doesn’t seem to keep much more than a handful of us awake at night… Eh, it won’t be a US nuke, so what? They’re the only ones that really matter, apparently.

Even more dispiriting than the possibility of Iran using nuclear materiel for un-peaceful purposes, (which admittedly is only a possibility) is the challenge which has already been conceded, yielded up and surrendered by our mainstream press and so-called intellectual elites. Contemplate how easily and how consistently the flow of AP and Reuters news releases, video and still photography from Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority were slanted by partisan interests. Now there is a dagger in the heart of any pretense at impartiality. Rathergate and See-BS 60 Minutes might have been a one-off, and I’ve been able to avoid watching TV news magazines for years, but AP and Reuters releases are at the heart of local newspapers everywhere, especially those who can’t afford to send a reporter much beyond city limits.

The affair of the Danish Mohammad Cartoons depresses me even more, every time I think on it. For me it is a toss-up which of these qualities is more essential, more central to western society: intellectual openness to discussion and freewheeling criticism of any particular orthodoxy, the separation of civil and religious authority, and the presence of a robust and independent press. The cravenness of most of our legacy media in not publishing or broadcasting the Dread Cartoons o’ Doom still takes my breath away.

They have preened themselves for years on how brave they are, courageous in smiting the dread McCarthy Beast, ending the Horrid Vietnam Quagmire and bringing down the Loathsome Nixon… but a dozen relatively tame cartoons. Oh, dear… we must be sensitive to the delicate religious sensibilities of Moslems. Never mind about all that bold and fearless smiting with the pen, and upholding the right of the people to know, we mustn’t hurt the feelings of people who might blow up the Press Club*. The alacrity with which basic principals were given up by the legacy press in the face of quite real threats does not inspire me with confidence that other institutions will be any more stalwart.

Interesting times, interesting times… as that Chinese curse has it. It would make a great book, though… assuming that we survive it all. A then-obscure poem quoted in a New Years Day broadcast, sixty-eight years ago has a an odd resonance for me this year:

“I said to a man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown,’ and he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.”

(M.L. Harkins, 1875-1957, quoted by King George VI, 1 January 1940)

(BTW, The new book is shaping up nicely, with practically operatic levels of drama, murder, vengeance, betrayal and stolen children. The proposal for the novel about the Stephens Party is going to be presented by a writer friend of mine to his publisher, so keep fingers crossed on that one!)

* Meaning the MSM, legacy media, lamestream media… which as a national institution seems to be imploding of its’ own weight

Spirit of America still standing fast

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Today’s Opinion Journal online has an editorial by Daniel Henninger about Jim Hake’s Spirit of America.

I love his subtitle: “Cut and Run is Not in Their Vocabulary.”

It is ironic that despite the years of our daily engagement in these places, the “information age” has brought us so little knowledge about the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Psychologically, much of America has already cut and run from these two countries.

Some Americans, though, simply won’t.

In April 2004, this column told the story of Spirit of America, organized by Jim Hake, to provide citizen-supported aid to the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then in May 2005 this space was given over to an account of American businesswomen working to help women in post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Here in the U.S., the political new year will fill up fast enough with politicians and pundits offering ways to unwind and spindle the commitments America made to Iraq and Afghanistan. So this seemed a good moment to revisit the folks running Spirit of America and the Business Council for Peace. They’re not going to leave.

(snip)

With the SonoSite ultrasound company, SoA delivered handheld ultrasound machines to the primary hospital in Al Qaim, Iraq, near the Syrian border. “Before this,” said Mr. Hake, “they were using seashells to listen to the sounds of a pregnant mother and baby; the Marines couldn’t believe it.”

Jim Hake says Spirit of America’s contributions have fallen off since 2004 owing to general fatigue with Iraq, “but under the circumstances people continue to be quite generous.” An end-of-the-year funding request raised more than $150,000. “The emails we send to donors are not a good-news operation,” says Mr. Hake. “We don’t want to put a happy face on it. But the information is more encouraging than what they typically hear. The destroyed projects are hardly good news, but there are lots of guys and gals in the military there who are not just marking time, who want to see this work.”

If you’re looking for groups to support with your hard-earned dollars, after you’ve sent your share to Valour-IT, think about Spirit of America and the Business Council for Peace.

Women in Statuary Hall

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I don’t pay much attention to DC architecture, and was pretty much unaware that something called Statuary Hall existed in the Capitol Building. But I’m watching President Ford’s funeral, and as they were talking about taking his coffin to the Rotunda, they kept talking about Statuary Hall (apparently, his kids used to play there, when they were younger).

Barbara Walters said that among the 100 statues in Statuary Hall (2 from each state), only one was of a female. The male commentator said “Frances Willard,” and she was surprised he knew who it was. He said he went to Willard Elementary school, in Illinois.

So my curiosity was piqued, and I jumped online to learn about Frances Willard, to see who she was and what she had done. Then I got curious about Statuary Hall, and wondered who my home state had enshrined there.

As I was browsing the list, I found the name “Mother Joseph.” Now, I’ve been dense in my time, but it just seems to me that someone named “Mother” is most likely female. So I clicked on the name to learn more about that subject, and she was, indeed female. So that’s two women in Statuary Hall, not just one.

I continued perusing the list, noting with interest that Mississippi enshrined Jefferson Davis there, and Louisiana erected a statue of Huey Long, and then saw the name “Esther Hobart Morris” from Wyoming. Hmmm…. Three women in Statuary Hall.

Oh, my… only a few names further down the list is Montana’s Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives (1916). Four women, now.

And only five or so names further down I find Florence R. Sabin, of Colorado, the first woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She’s number five on the list of women in Statuary Hall.

Directly below her is Sakakawea, a name I’m used to seeing spelled Sacajawea. Number six.

Sakakawea is immediately followed by Maria L. Sanford of Minnesota. Number seven.

Continuing down the list, I eventually find Frances Willard, of Illinois. Number eight.

And two names below her, Sarah Winnemucca, a Paiute woman from Nevada, whose autobiography Life among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, was the first book written by a Native American woman. She’s the ninth woman in the list of statues.

Maybe I mis-heard Barbara Walters, or whomever the commentator was, but I’m confident that I heard her correctly, because she made a big deal of her male counterpart knowing the name of the only woman in Statuary Hall. So I thought maybe it was that only Frances is actually *in* Statuary Hall, and the others are scattered throughout the building, and I re-sorted the list, by location.

Some statues are in the crypt, some in the Hall of Columns, others in the Connecting corridors, but there are three statues of women in the actual National Statuary Hall, if one counts the vestibule as part of the hall. So that’s not it.

When I clicked on Frances Willard’s name, I found where my confusion arose. Frances was the FIRST woman to be placed in Statuary Hall, not the only one. I’ll grant you, “only” sounds better than “first,” but it’s just not accurate. And while two of the statues were placed fairly recently (Sakakawea in 2003, and Sarah Winnemucca in 2005), the others have been in place for decades.

Barbara Walters’ mis-statement bothers me. It probably doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but to whomever was listening to her tonight, the message she imparted was that fifty states placed a total of 100 statues in a national gallery, and only one of those statues was of a female. How symbolic of the male-dominated society some believe America to be. But the truth is, almost ten percent of the statues are of women. And two of the nine are of Native Americans.

This did not require a huge amount of research on my part. But how many of the folks watching the funeral will bother to do the research? After all, if Barbara Walters said it, it must be true. *sigh*

When There’s Nothing On the Real Tube

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There was crap on TV last night. Not a thing worth watching. Beautiful Wife gave up in complete disgust and went to kill trolls on the Big PC. Boyo came up from his playroom to watch cartoons on the Big TV. I plugged in my headphones and spent about two hours just surfing around YouTube.

I was surprised. I knew there were TV clips and funny commercials there. In the back of my mind I sort of knew that people put their own videos in there, but I didn’t know the extent of the community. Many of the videos are simply of people talking or singing to their webcams. What sort of took me back was that there are some seriously talented people marketing themselves via YouTube.  I just thought it was like, “Our family vacation videos.” or “Teenage skateboarders trashing their nuts.”
I’m not going to run out and become a Hill88 Fanboy (Although, I think Second City needs to grab up this gal, get her on stage for a couple years and then ship her off to SNL for boot camp. It’s rare and wonderful to find someone who takes silly to that level.) or wait with baited breath for Esme`e’s latest rendition of Alicia Keys, but it’s nice to know that when there’s nothing on TV you can pick up the trusty laptop and kill an hour or two just checking out what’s there. Hell, I killed half an hour getting caught up on the Letterman interviews I’ve missed.

Don’t misunderstand…there’s as much crap on YouTube as there are video and web cams on the planet. I believe Paul refers to such things as, “teh suck.”  The further you drift away from the “most watched” and “favorites” etc. the more you get into things that Jerry Springer would disapprove of.  And though I’m as big a fan of boobies as the next guy…some of the younger gals kind of creep me out with the bumping and shaking etc..  It seems a bit desperate.

Glenn Beck. Exposed: The Extremist Agenda

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Exposed: The Extremist Agenda.

If you get a chance to see this, watch it. It’s both scary as hell and truly hopeful as it shows the worst in extremist propaganda, including what lil kids “sing” for “fun.” It’s hopeful because there are more and more Islamic leaders speaking out against the crazies.

My First Sergeant turned me on to Glenn Beck. I guess I’m a sick twisted freak. I think he’s great. But I’m also in recovery so I get that kind of humor.

Un-Civil War

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“…From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean…”

In hot pursuit of my next “book”, I continue to plough through a great stack of readings, all about the German migration into Texas in the mid-19th century. Yes there is a great story there, of which practically no one outside Texas has ever heard, and given any sort of encouragement I will bore you rigid with all sorts of trivia. Like, for instance, the aristocratic patrons of the Society for the Protection of German Emigrants to Texas fell, hook, line, sinker and obscene amounts of cash to two of the biggest land swindles ever known. Three words “Fisher-Miller Grant”. That little fiasco was right on par with the sale of Manhattan Island, by a tribe that didn’t even own it. Ah, but it came out all right in the end… if the aristocratic members of the Society had possessed business acumen on par with their ambitions… well, let’s just say if that had been so, the second language of the state of Texas would not be Spanish. And it might not have joined the Union at all, but continued as an independent entity or quasi-German colony, which would have pleased a whole constellation of German princes and nobles, but really have annoyed the Confederate States, and deprived a great many Southern generals in the “late unpleasantness” circa 1861-65 of a great portion of their fire-eating, romping-stomping cavalry.

Texas joined the secession, to the heartbreak of Sam Houston, and enthusiastically entered into the whole spirit of the Confederacy… to be expected, since the Anglo (read American) settlers were mostly from southern states, and of that Scots-Irish breed of whom it has been oft-acknowledged that they were “born fighting”; Indians, British, the French or each other, whichever were most convenient at the moment. To read of the enthusiasm with which Texans volunteered to fight for the Confederacy is to wonder if it was just that they were spoiling for a fight, and the issues which impelled the secession were a minor bagatelle.

But this was not true of the considerable district around the German-settled areas around Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, all through the rolling lime-stone hills between San Antonio and Austin. This was the high country, the less-good land of hard-working farmers and small cattle ranches, solidly opposed to chattel slavery and who had opposed secession from the very beginning. They may have settled in Texas relatively recently, but they were a cohesive block, had put down deep roots, knew their rights and were prepared as stubborn and stiff-necked Americans to insist on them. If the Hill Country had been geographically contiguous with the Union at any point, doing a “West Virginia” and seceeding from the Secession would have met with solid approval.

As it was, the Hill Country Germans pretty much stood apart from the fray until a year into the war, in the spring of 1862, when the tide began to subtly shift against the Confederacy, to those who had the strategic sense to see the long picture. New Orleans was taken by the Union, whose forces began a slow progression up the Mississippi, slicing the Confederacy into two portions. Those who had been opposed to the whole secession thing were confirmed in their judgment, and those who had wavered began to wobble in the direction of loosing confidence… while the die-hard Confederates began to see the skull-grimace of death and defeat grinning at them from the corners.

Texas was put under martial law, and the supreme military commander was a foppish and overbearing little martinet named Hebert, who did much to make himself detestable to even supporters of the Confederacy. But what ignited resistance in the Hill Country, and farther north, around present-day Dallas, was the institution of conscription. Texas had poured 25,000 volunteers into the Confederate Army during the first year of the war. But volunteers were not enough, and in the spring of 1862 legislation passed which authorized the drafting of every Anglo (white) male between the age of 18 and 34… shortly thereafter, it was changed to 17 through 50. Resistance was instant and furious among Unionists. A party of 65 Unionist men from the Hill Country attempted to flee across the Rio Grande; they were ridden down by Confederate troops along the Nueces River, and half were killed outright or executed out of hand. In following weeks, another fifty men in Gillespie County, around Fredericksburg, were executed… many of them by Confederate vigilante gangs. It was said bitterly for decades afterwards, that more were killed in the Hill Country by such gangs during the Civil War than were ever killed by Indians, during the war or after it. A footnote in the history books, if even noted to begin with.

The experience of the Civil War had, I think, the effect of drawing the Texas German colonies into themselves, and emphasizing their distinct character, rather than diffusing amongst their neighbors as similar German enclaves did in the northern states. For they were long in forgetting what had been done to them, by their neighbors, and fellow Texans.

More about the German settlers, here and here, from the archives.

Questions of the Day (061228)

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Does anyone else find it weird that it’s almost 2007?  I mean, I KNOW time has gone by but it just feels somehow wrong that we’re well more than half way to the teens.  Where did this decade go?

While I’m thinking about it, has anyone figured out what the hell we’re calling this decade?  The “Oughts?”  The “Zeros?”  The “Ohs?”