02009-08-27 | Photos
A day filled with mundane tasks, dealing with garbage and recycling, cleaning, doing dishes, putting fresh armor on my nails (((I gave my nails a rest after Jon and I returned from the private performance in New York and took a week off of guitar-playing))) and playing guitar… all the while thinking about Bella, my Tibetan Mastiff.
The old girl, born in 1997, has a nasty open tumor on her back and we will soon have to decide what’s best for her.
Maybe inspired by Bella’s fate, I have had great conversations with Roshi Joan and others about end-of-life. Surely death is as big a deal for any life as birth is, but we don’t seem to talk about it much and most people would rather forget about it.
Anyway, I won’t go into it because, well, you signed up for music, not for my writing about death, which you might find morbid.
Here is another happy-Bella-pic:
02009-01-13 | Phone
National Security Council calls for nationwide bans on cell phone use while driving
The National Security Council sent out a message on Monday that calls for all 50 States to implement bans on citizens using cell phones while driving. The group referred to a study done by the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis, which revealed that 6% of all automobile crashes in the U.S. are caused by cell phones.
And they mean any cellphone use: includes headsets… (((maybe even email and IM?)))
6% of all crashes, about 40,000 traffic deaths per year – does that mean that 2,400 people die every year because somebody had to be distracted by their mobile?
In 2006 I wrote:
I get the sense that in a few years either a chip in each car will prevent a phone from identifying itself to a cell-tower while the car is moving – thus the phone won’t work – or a person applying for a driver’s license will have to master a multi-tasking test in addition to the other tests…
