Welcome to the Traveling Now

Welcome to The Traveling Now. Thanks for looking in.

Long Story Short

I was driving to work one day, listening to news on the radio, yelling at my dashboard. I don't recall what the news story was about but it was pissing me off something fierce. Its been two or three months since that day but I remember thinking that the entire world was populated by people determined to slap some short sighted "solution" on some problem that would likely please a group of equally short-sighted voters. No one seemed to understand the issue, that's what I remember being pissed off about.

I recalled that there was a time when I had a way of expressing my displeasure with this sort of thing. This sort of internal, existential displeasure. At one very happy time in my life I was the Viewpoints editor for my college paper. When I would hear about issues that were making me crazy, I would give them some thought, write an editorial about it, and see it in print a few days later. It helped. Writing it helped, seeing what I wrote in print helped.

Still driving, still listening to the radio, I thought about all the thousands of blogs that were out there right now. What if I started a blog? What if I wrote about all these things that pissed me off? I immediately felt better. Just the idea of starting my own blog helped me relax. Writing a blog was the Move.

Three months of agonizing over a title later, a title fell in my lap and I was ready to go. That was yesterday.

The Traveling Now?

Yep. The Traveling Now is a concept from a book I finished yesterday, I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett. In the book (which concerns, among other things, witches, loyalty, duty and the best way to liven up a funeral) certain witches have a way of communicating in which they use a bit of "friendly time" to have a kind of zero-duration conversation unhindered by the usual problems of time and space. The name of the communication space was The Traveling Now and the second I heard it I knew that was the name for my blog. This is a space for communication, a bit of friendly time where I can pass ideas around.

Speaking Of

I read yesterday where Terry Pratchett began the process of committing assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland. That makes me very sad. Of course, the fact that M. Pratchett suffers from early onset Alzheimer's disease makes me very sad indeed. Ultimately, while I have the right to be sad about one of my favorite author's misfortunes, they are his misfortunes and he has the right to deal with them however he sees fit. I respect whatever decision he makes.

I believe assisted suicide should be legal here in the United States. The main arguments against the legality of the procedure seem to be religious (which is a non-argument, ultimately) or procedural. Folks seem to fear a brave new world where heroic life saving measures are given up for the expedience of just letting borderline case individuals die, or where people are pressured into committing suicide by the uncaring machinations of some dystopic death panel.

If the US had a system of assisted suicide it would invariably be abused. Every system gets abused. Create a program to feed the poor in foreign countries and dictators will steal the food and hold their people hostage. Create a charity and some detestable bastard will find a way to scam it. Kind acts are turned around, honest people are duped, our legal system is vulnerable to greed, medicines developed to help the depressed and confused get taken for thrills. Take away every good thing that can be used for bad ends and you are left with nothing. Rather than surrendering to the possibility of corruption we should build the best institutions we can and remain ever vigilant against the actions of evil men.

Ultimately the argument has to be "Does a man's life belong to himself"? If the answer is yes - and the answer is yes in any world you would want to live in - it must be okay for him to choose to end it himself. This is not to say that life should be thrown away casually or thoughtlessly. But when someone comes to what must be the incredibly difficult decision that they don't have anything else to live for, that the pain is too great and the chance of recovery is nil, then we as a society should not only respect that decision, we should help find a way for him to implement it with dignity.

Liberal? Conservative?

A bit of pragmatism, please. Adopting a ready-made world view is simpleminded and, to my way of thinking, sad.

My liberal friends find me conservative. I believe in animal testing, genetically modified food, gun ownership, the NHL. I believe that two adults should have the right to have a mutually agreed upon fist fight without legal ramifications. I'm for raising the retirement age and making welfare and disability scams a felony.

My conservative friends find me very liberal. I'm for nationalized health care, mass transportation, forgiving third world debt, conservationism. I believe that any two consenting adults should be allowed to have a civil union with all the benefits and responsibilities of marriage. I'm for exponentially increasing what we spend on education and paying for it by leaving off of one or two of our less convenient wars.

Ultimately, I believe that the world is a very complicated place, that it has always been complicated, and that every generations dream of an earlier Golden Age where everyone was happy and life was uncomplicated and straightforward is a fiction. I believe that modern problems have to be approached with pragmatism and careful analysis. I believe we have to appreciate mankind - the good and the bad, and the very good and the very bad - in full.