My first reaction was a reflexive appreciation of progress. I’m a fan of travel by train when I can afford it, and I can schedule my travel such that an Acela ticket does not cost much more than the regional lines. It’s worth it to me when I can swing that.

But, I also thought of this passage from Graham Greene’s Orient Express (aka Stamboul Train):

… In the train, however fast it travelled, the passengers were compulsorily at rest; useless between the walls of glass to feel emotion, useless to try to follow any activity except of the mind; and that activity could be followed without fear of interruption. The world was beating now on Eckman and Stein, telegrams were arriving, men were interrupting the threads of their thought with speech, women were holding dinner-parties. But in the rushing reverberating express, noise was so regular that it was the equivalent of silence, movement was so continuous that after a while the mind accepted it as stillness. Only outside the train was the violence of action possible, and the train would contain him  safely with his plans for three days; by the end of that time he would know quite clearly how to deal with Stein and Mr. Eckman.

There’s something in that passage that captures the essence of train travel for me. I’m hardly against the availability of wifi on trains (and one has long been able to tether their Blackberry or use their 3g modem already), on the contrary, I’m chomping at the bit for the most modern rail to be had being available where I live and want to go. It is just a reminder that we can drown out some experiences by tapping into the ever ubiquitous conduits that take us back to what we already know; possibly keeping us mired in something and than using an opportunity to think in relative solace or observe something new through the coincidence of strangers together on a vessel en route to a different place.

I’ve received an email blast from The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Apparently early this morning they were in contact with the sea-going activists for a brief period and they said that their various electronic systems (it is vague) are being scrambled, despite flying a friendly flag and still being in international waters.

Here’s the email:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Angela Godfrey-Goldstein <snipped />@icahd.org
Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 5:03 AM
Subject: FW: Statement from the SS Free Gaza & SS Liberty
To: <snipped />@icahd.org

***please forward freely***

10am, 23 August, 2008
A Statement from the International Human Rights Workers Aboard the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty, Sailing to Gaza

*At 10am this morning, the Cyprus team of the Free Gaza Movement was able to briefly speak with our people on board the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty. They are all fine, and they asked us to release the following statement:

“The electronic systems which guarantee our safety aboard the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty have been jammed and scrambled. Both ships are flying Greek flags, and are in international waters. We are the victims of electronic piracy. We are currently in GMS P area A2 and we are relying on our satellite communications equipment to make a distress call, if needed.

We are civilians from 17 nations and are on this project to break the siege of Gaza. We are not experienced sailors. As a result, there is concern about the health and safety of the people on board such an emergency develop.

We are currently experiencing rough sea conditions, and we call on the Greek government and the international community to meet their responsibilities and protect the civilians on board our two ships in international waters.”

Because they are not “experienced sailors,” perhaps there is room for some misdiagnosis of the problem — I have no reason to come to that conclusion and don’t have the knowledge required to vet. Perhaps the period in which they could clearly communicate was too brief to add detail.

This is unsettling news. One does think, for a moment, back to what the Israeli state did to another ship called Liberty.

I am not encouraged as the two hundred and thirty two years old litany of complaints echoes through my head and I compare them to the nature of the recent news an analysis (see the clippings at the side) relating to the same issues in this country today. From the latest uses of the police and the military and intelligence, to the further co-opting of corporations, to the short-sighted capitulation of politicians who have proclaimed solidarity with the principles of of this document and our Constitution, we seem to be going backwards.

Washington is so full of contrasts between principles and actions — that is, hypocrisy — that one becomes weary rather than more indignant. One feels foolish to get riled up sometimes. The culture encourages the belief that to repeatedly ask for such discrepancies — obvious to all who bother to look — to be reconciled is to be “biased” (like everyone else, and therefore hardly worth paying attention to) or merely to pedantic to be relevant.

But if today has any meaning at all, then it is to raise such things in even higher relief. Perhaps it is the inherent nature of the State?

I’m not sure how one can make a fair extrapolation of those states’ primary election results because of the conditions they were held under.

I’m not partial to either of these candidates, and I am not a Democrat. I am befuddled by what seems like a fanciful wish by more than just Hillary Clinton to extract a legitimate number from a process that was officially abandoned.

The Party punished those two states, fairly or unfairly, and secured pledges from its presidential candidates not to campaign there. Clinton had a higher profile by default, and did project an additional presence there more than Obama, although technically not campaigning there (she seemed to just hold fundraisers and getting more media attention for it, if Obama did the same he didn’t benefit the same).

Whether the rules are fair or not is moot at this point — they were put in place and agreed to. People made decisions and overt commitments based on these rules.

Obama, wishing to compete effectively and obeying the rules, spent his money and time elsewhere so as to not even get on the ballot in one case. If he had made an effort there, had the rules allowed, there almost certainly would have been a different outcome in those elections. He certainly would’ve succeeded in getting on the ballot.

Clinton doubled-back on her commitment to these rules after the fact and when the overall vote appeared closer and, presumably, her campaign became a little more desperate. She began to join the state parties in overtly agitating for retroactive representation, pleading in the language of democracy. While the disenfranchisement wasn’t so democrat, the re-enfranchisement she has pursued is not any more democratic.

A fair election that presented all the choices did not happen in these two states, and Clinton seems to have acted duplicitously.

I’d say that the party members in Michigan and Florida have valid reason to protest the tactics and rules of their national party, but I don’t see how the vote that happened under the circumstances it did could be considered fair and anything to base a delegation count on with any credibility. If the party decides to give the states representation at the convention, and assign delegates based on those primary votes, I would think it would only secure in many minds that this party is even more schizophrenic or a farce.

The capital-D Democrats seem to have little to do with democracy. (And this is hardly the first cause to inspire that observation.)

They plan another lap to disrupt rush hour later, I’m told.

Meanwhile, BoingBoing has a post citing the New York Sun’s reporting on some speculation that American gas prices will have to be more in line with Europe’s (approaching $10 a gallon) sooner rather than later.

It seems to me that the federal government has a motley and incoherent collection of economic policies given it’s so-called “free” trade stance: Inefficient and exploited subsidies, hypocritical tariffs, and taxes or tax policies that don’t make sense. The US is hardly the only country guilty of this, but it does seem to have the most significant amplitude of noise compared to the signal of its ostensible free trade goals.

The trucker’s seemed to mainly be campaigning for expanded exploration and exploitation of domestic fossil fuels, rather than increased fuel efficiency. At the same time, it seems like we’ll need to internalize more costs, that are currently ignored (although more and more acknowledged, most prominently, the ecological cost that also affects our productivity). Insofar as the state exists, surely it has some role in at least defining that.

It seems that in spite of the protest, all will have to get used to the idea of European-sized gas prices and the affect that will have on the price of other goods. Whatever’s left of the free market will answer with efficient vehicles and more coherent transportation planning, as well more tempered consumption in general.

Many things are intertwined with this issue and changing just one facet, whether you take it in a more free-market or in a more socialized direction, will not fix things with out other components changing in concert. The more unilaterally factors are changed, without conscious education about the ripple effect, the greater the disconnect and the greater the hurt for those of us who can’t afford the consequences in the short term.

I got a little abstract there, but I’m no economist so I can’t quickly dig into the specifics and it seems at a high level this is common sense, whichever ideological line you toe.

So CBS News did an investigation – asking all 50 states for their suicide data, based on death records, for veterans and non-veterans, dating back to 1995. Forty-five states sent what turned out to be a mountain of information.

And what it revealed was stunning.

In 2005, for example, in just those 45 states, there were at least 6,256 suicides among those who served in the armed forces. That’s 120 each and every week, in just one year.

This comes during the same weekend as the group Iraq Veterans Against the War hold their Winter Soldier summit just outside of DC. Veterans who have signed-up with the group are gathering together to share with each other, and the media, critical anecdotes from their experiences in the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Post story notes counter-demonstrators accuse the event of being too vague and unverified, but The Real News reports on IVAW’s verification process.

Meanwhile, a group called “Eagles Up!” brought a few hundred people to the National Mall in support of the wars. This coming week will bring anti-war demonstrators to the Capitol for a Wednesday rally on the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

15 Feb 2008 Update: And that’s been fixed. So let’s see if we can’t sort some stuff out in whatever spare time comes my way.

16 Feb 2008 Update: And yes, first thing I do is not integrate features that leverage XML::Parser, but rather just change live mark-up so that style sheet begins to break.

Hey, listen, this isn’t a high priority yet … any movement at all is a good thing here.