Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Friars Walkin’ 300 Miles

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I read an interesting article on The Washington Post web site this morning about a group of Franciscan Friars who walked 300 miles across Virginia from Roanoke to Washington, DC. Complete with the requisite photo gallery, the article is an interesting look at their journey and some of the lives they touched along the way.

I’ve heard many stories along these lines since becoming Catholic, though mostly in Catholic-oriented media and informal conversations. The men and women who choose the religious life in the Catholic Church are set apart in their vows (including the vow of celibacy) and lifestyle, but also—most obvious to a casual observer—in dress. People within and without the Church often seem to gravitate to identifiable religious leaders like Priests, Friars, Nuns, and others in their times of need.

Nobody would ever approach me on the street with their troubles, nor would they know to approach a non-Catholic Christian pastor out for a stroll with his wife and children (as he is indistinguishable in that context from me or anybody else). A Catholic Priest, on the other hand, is usually in-uniform, rarely off-duty, and equally identifiable to everybody from his own parishioners to anonymous strangers. Thus, he has nearly constant opportunity for ministry if he chooses to make himself available. Indeed, the Friars’ journey was filled with stories of hope and service.

While these positives are the center of the story, and the most important part, it’s worth mentioning that these poor Friars were also subjected to some middle fingers and yelled obscenities while on their journey. Three cheers for basic common courtesy and ‘tolerance’!

Mourning the Death of Handwriting

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Claire Suddath writes in Time about the effective death of handwriting. I have always been interested in the way that human beings capture their thoughts in writing. This has generally manifested itself in my love of typewriters and quality computer keyboards—I have a collection of both. There’s something about the translation from thought to fingers to keys to device to paper. The more archaic forms appeal to me most: manual typewriters. Your fingers move keys, which move levers, which move a striker into an ink ribbon leaving an imprint on paper. It’s direct and satisfying. Even today, in my high-tech office with all my computers and monitors, I have an old-style ‘clicky’ keyboard. I like it because it somewhat approximates the clack of a typewriter.

But before typewriters, thought were captured on paper using pen and ink. This has also had an appeal to me—I do love a good fountain pen—but my penmanship is not particularly good. Apparently this is common in my generation, where penmanship was not much of a concern in school and we were typing all our papers from middle school onward anyway. I’m not going to shed a tear for the bygone art of penmanship. Typewriters gained dominance because they were better, and then they lost their dominance to computers because computers are better. But I still found Suddath’s piece a fascinating read of how our education system has shifted focus over the years, and how the art of handwriting has changed with the times.

I, for one, will take the clickety-clack of a Smith-Corona typewriter over a pen and ink any day. And I’ll take my Unicomp Endurapro buckling-spring keyboard connected to my MacBook Pro over that old Smith-Corona too ;-).

Slow Day

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It’s been a slow day. First, it’s a slow news day. I’ve hardly found anything of interest today, which is out of the ordinary but not unheard of. Second, I took a sick day from work because I woke up with a brutal sore throat and congestion. I slept late, and really didn’t do much but drink fluids and watch 007 films all day. Thankfully I’m feeling a bit better now. Vitamin C, water, and Mucinex are my friends.

Despite being sick, which is no fun, it was nice to have a slow day. I’m sure it won’t last though. I’ll probably be up to work tomorrow—working from home, at least, but probably even going into the office. Tons of stuff to do this week, and then yet another busy weekend ahead. I’d love to have a nice, slow, do-nothing weekend.

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Posted in: Life

Common Sense: How I Missed Thee

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One of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, writes in the Wall Street Journal about how simple common sense might be sinking President Barack Obama’s (D) grandiose health care initiatives.

As dumb as the American voter can seem sometimes, we almost always come to our senses sooner or later. When Obama says he doesn’t believe in big government, his re-creation of the American health care system won’t increase the federal deficit, and government won’t make medical care worse . . . well, we see this for what it is. We’ve seen enough of these impressive-sounding federal initiatives designed to ‘make things better.’ We know they go horribly awry much more often than they work as-advertised. We know they always come with strings—not to mention taxes—attached.

The fact is that, despite all the blather to the contrary, most of us have seen government botch schools, retirement plans (‘social security’), financial bailouts, and more. Many of us don’t want to see what they would do to our health care, and don’t want to pay the inevitable tax increases to support such a boondoggle. The president and his cheerleaders in Congressional leadership (like Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA 8th]) can’t even get the more conservative wing of the Democratic Party on board, let alone more than one or two Republicans. Without major revisions to the proposed plans, there probably aren’t enough votes—even with a Democratic supermajority in Congress—to push this thing through.

Then again, it looked like the first 700 billion dollar bailout under President George W. Bush (R) would fail in the House . . . it ended up passing narrowly. I’ve learned never to assume Congress will stick to a common sense position.

Metro’s Bad Week Continues Apace

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The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) still can’t catch a break, though they won’t get much sympathy from me since their mess is of their own making.

After The Washington Post released a damning report earlier this week revealing that MetroRail’s track circuit problems are more widespread than Metro had previously admitted, Metro quickly went into damage control mode. Metro General Manager John Catoe declared that the system was safe, and that the report in The Post report was a “gross misrepresentation of the facts.” According to Catoe, Metro had made minor adjustments to only three track circuits since last month’s crash and had not found any serious problems anywhere in the system except with the circuit where the crash occurred. Metro also announced it had identified a vendor to implement a train detection backup system so that their ‘fail-safe’ ATP system will be . . . um . . . fail-safe.

But the facts still aren’t in Metro’s favor. The Post is reporting today that, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the track circuit at the center of last month’s crash has been intermittently malfunctioning since December 2007 and, despite claims that Metro performs monthly reviews of all circuit data for anomalies (this is now done daily), the problem had not been repaired. If this isn’t negligence, what is?

The NTSB also verified at least part of The Post’s earlier report that Catoe and Metro had denied . . . ’anomalies’ have been found on other track circuits, and are being investigated.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.