Ryan Thomas Goodenough

I understand the need to assign long papers in grad school. But why has every long paper I’ve had to write thus far needed to be 25 pages? It seems so arbitrary and long! Well, at least it will all be over within a month…until next semester.

After sitting through 15 hours of our Global Climate Change Conference this year at AIER (which was quite good, by the way), I came away with one thought: the scientific community needs to come together on the issue of global climate change. Regardless of whether Al Gore’s statements in “An Inconvenient Truth” were exaggerated or not, there seems to at least be some agreement that there are some discouraging trends that could lead to catastrophic outcomes. As Gore states in both his book and the movie, he doesn’t want to be right about his predictions. We need to change our habits.

And yet, the scientific community continues to debate the biggest cause of global warming and what outcomes it could possibly lead to. As was stated this weekend, there is no way to predict the possible outcomes of our actions today. But given some of the trends and some of our alarming consumerist habits, we should at least agree that we need to change what we’re doing. Good luck getting that agreement from the scientific community. They’re too busy arguing over what we should expect, instead of arguing over what we should be doing.

They should be sent to Mars where they will actually have to figure out a way to deliberately change the global climate.

Yes, I am a Red Sox fan by default. Growing up in Maine (or anywhere in New England for that matter), you don’t have much of a choice. Boston is our big city (no, believe it or not, Bangor does not count).

But now that the Red Sox are the 2007 World Champions, Red Sox fans are going to be completely obnoxious. They’re going to be walking around with their Sox caps backwards, wearing their ‘07 World Series t-shirts. They’re going to be talking their team up every chance that they get. Talking about how “clutch” Papelbon was or what a beast of a man Youkilis is (he is quite the Mountain Man).

Worst of all, Red Sox fans will be back up to their usual whining, complaining, and moaning about their team in a couple months. Hopefully the Pats will keep their spirits up until then (no, I don’t think Boston College will be at the top of the college football world much longer). Then again, if Red Sox fans weren’t complaining, they wouldn’t really be “Red Sox fans.”

Maybe we should send all of these fans to Mars, where they can annoy the Martians with their “‘07 World Series Champs”-chatter and, after a couple weeks have passed, have something to really complain about–Martian drivers.

I couldn’t hold it in: GO SOX! WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS! I’m such a hypocrite…

I’m sure that I’m overgeneralizing here. In fact, I’m 100% positive that all Wade Tours buses do not behave in the same way. And yet, given my experiences last weekend, I have no problem making an overly generalized statement about an entire group of people. In fact, that’s sort of a trend with these PWSSM Edition posts. Does that mean I’m a horrible person? Perhaps, but I digress. Wade Tour bus drivers drive too darn fast!

Both Emily and I, in separate cars and separate places and in separate times, noticed that a Wade Tours bus was driving insanely fast across I-90 last weekend. I’m not sure exactly what Emily’s experience was, but the bus nearly slammed into my bumper. I was watching it in my rear view mirror and as its headlights rapidly got larger, I felt like I was in some bad car-horror movie from the late 80’s (”Night of the Undead Bus” or “Busaphobia” or “Cindy”–Cindy would be the name of the bus when it came alive, duh!). The point of the story is that Wade Tours buses are out of control! They should be sent to Mars to compete with the throngs of bad drivers. It would be like demolition derby!

In yet another case of “things” instead of “people” who should be sent to Mars, I would like to put forth snow. We have far too much of it each year in the Northeast. We should send it to Mars to cool down the climate and make sure that all those annoying drivers have the four seasons.

Did I mention that snow was in the forecast last night? That’s just depressing. There are still leaves on the trees!!

Why should we send them to Mars? I don’t know, but this sign from 1901 thought it was necessary (courtesy of the Old Toad Pub in Rochester, NY). I love the choice of words…

One night, I was talking to my parents about Macs and I said, “Oh, I should check eBay to see how much my iMac G5 goes for nowadays.” I got on and found out that several had sold for 800 dollars or more. Wow! Considering that I paid about 1200 for it 2 years ago, that’s pretty good! Especially when you can get a new mac today that can run windows/linux and is about 4 times faster for just 400 dollars more.

So, needless to say, I put my iMac G5 up on eBay, so that I could afford a new Mac (I had been itching to get one, especially since I was now working on stuff at work where I could really use a PC). A week later, my iMac sold for 850, I packed it up, and shipped it out, with insurance. At the UPS Store, the sales rep/co-owner told me that “Oh, these “fragile” and “this side up” marks on the box will get ignored by all the workers”–great!! Well, good thing I packed it well.

On Monday, I got an angry (deservedly so) email from my buyer, who informed me the computer had been damaged during shipping. So, I had to refund him his money (losing about $100 from eBay/PayPal fees and another $25 so that he could ship it back to me). I looked up the insurance policy on UPS and pretty much the only time they will give you anything is if you have them pack it. Otherwise, you’re SOL.

I got the computer back on Friday and brought it into the Apple Store in the afternoon. It clearly had been damaged by someone dropping the box. The actual stand had been bent and the power supply was damaged. Estimated cost of repair? $250 (so now I’m down $375, if that’s all it takes to fix the thing). Granted, the computer will be good as new and I will either send it back to the original buyer or put it back on eBay, at a loss of $375. So much for getting a new computer for only $400.

Moral of the story: If you send it by UPS, have UPS pack it. Otherwise, there isn’t any way you can prove to them that they damaged your parcel. Hopefully, on Mars, there isn’t any need to transport parcels and UPS Store employees will be stuck doing whatever it is that “UPS Stores” sell besides shipping materials. Good luck with those mailbox sales!

This is a special edition of the People Who Should Be Sent to Mars series, Things Who Should…blah blah.

What is up with bags that, as soon as you bend down to pick up something, fall off your shoulder?! I know that the ladies understand this issue–those big purses that for some unknown reason,* happen to fall off your shoulder at the worst possible moments.

My personal favorite is when I’m packing up for a trip and I’m carrying a couple bags, suitcases, etc. and there’s that one over-the-shoulder backpack that is resting on my shoulder. I bend down to grab that last plastic bag and the stupid thing starts sliding down. I swear at it, try to fling it back, and eventually decide to leave it at my elbow. Now, I’ve got this wicked heavy backpack resting awkwardly on my elbow as I try to bring everything out to the car. Thanks!

I’d like to send all of those stupid bags, purses, and other annoying shoulder thingies to Mars, where they will effortlessly annoy everyone I’ve sent up there.

*Yes, I know that the “unknown reason” is gravity. And yes, I understand how it works. That doesn’t mean that it’s not annoying as all heck!

This week’s personality profile is:

Mimickers

My car, Freddie, lacks cruise control in his current state (he might be getting an upgrade sometime within the year). As such, I occasionally fluctuate in my speed. On some of these long trips, I’ll look down at my speedometer to find that I’m down 5 MPH from the speed that I wanted to be going. Not surprisingly, a car is now behind me. I speed up and the car speeds up. Not really tailgating, but just following kind of close.

10 minutes later, I notice that I’ve slowed down again. This time, I’m going 7 or 8 MPH slower than ideal. The car is still behind me. It’s not like it’s a one-lane road here. There’s a passing lane and no real traffic problem. But the car is still there. I speed up and the car, once again, speeds up. By this point, I’m pretty sure I have a mimicker.

Now here’s the test: If you want to know how if you have a mimicker, go through a phase of slowly speeding up and down, covering a range of 15 or 20 MPH. This is what I usually do. A mimicker will stay close behind you, never passing you and occasionally getting too close.

Basically, these drivers are so lazy that they can only drive by following your bumper. I don’t even really need to send mimickers to mars. They’ll probably just follow some work zone speeder or smoker onto the rocket.

As some of you may know, I’m currently pursuing my media and public policy Master’s degree at Rockefeller College. In addition to focusing on how media can influence public policy, I am also interested in the ways it can influence environmental policy in particular. This weekend, I am working my way through “Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment.” As I’m reading the history of global reaction to environmental problems, I am struck by one recurring thought: what type of idiots place no importance on environmental concerns?

Clearly, anyone who doesn’t care what the world will be like beyond his immediate existence is stupid, foolish, and ignorant. And yet, the media constantly presents environmentalism as a liberally-biased viewpoint, not a fact of the world. We have debates over whether or not global warming is really happening instead of trying to find solutions (or at least countermeasures). At other times, we wonder whether we should be concerned at all with the extinction of entire species. All of this is due to those people who “don’t believe” in environmentalism.

Actually, I’m not sure if I really even want to send these people to Mars–they’ll probably destroy that planet too. However, given the ample history of who I’ve sent up there already, I guess that’s not a bad idea.