Overheard on NPR: Galileo vs. GPS

Whilst driving through Coventry (Indiana, that is) today/this morning, I overheard on NPR that the Europeans have launched their own satellite to close the "global positioning gap" between them and the US. They call theirs "Galileo" while the Yanks have the "GPS" so we shall use those names forthwith, righty-o, eh wot!

As the article related, the Galileo can locate you within an accuracy of three feet, whereas the GPS has an accuracy of 16 feet. Apparently, since the GPS is owned and operated by the US military, it has better capacity but for "security reasons" they only offer the 16 feet to the civilian population.

Which, of course, leads us to the question of, why? Why would the military not want the civilians to have accuracy of the same as the military. Oh yeah, that's right - so Verble can't shoot his missles from his F-16 as accurately as they can from Fort Hood. Gotcha!!

Anyway, I think it was rather hilarious, the image of the Europeans offering the American public a more accurate product. I could just see all those American dollars flooding into Europe just so their dashboard computers can place them inside their cars instead of possibly at the nearest lamppost.

In all honesty, I really don't see why people would need anything more accurate than perhaps about 50 feet. Most mornings when I awake, I'm just thankful if someone can tell me which city I happen to be in!

TTFN!

VG

Such Beautiful Sadness

Sitting here at my computer and going through my daily routine and te indeterminate career of mine and I'm listening to a bittersweet song by some new singer whose name I don't even know and in some time signature (feels like 6/4, the way it floats along like ocean waves) and I don't knwo if it's the time of year (i.e. the time of the season for . . . you know the old song!) or that music that I'm listening to but suddenly I feel very melancholy.

That's better than the word "sadness" - "melancholy" . . . Such Beautiful Melancholy.

The type of melancholy in which you feel as though tears could well in your eyes and spill down your face and that would bring you some brilliant comfort, some sort of euphoria, to cry without shame, to cry with sheer abandon,

and it's a sadness that makes your heart beat a little faster and your face flush and your throat tightens ever so slightly. It's the same feeling you get when you FIRST realize that you like somebody a "little bit more than friends"

oh my goodness I can't put it in words . . . there must be words for it, but better poets than me have worked longer hours at finding those words.

I just wanted to post a little blog here in memorium of this feeling that I have at this moment - and at risk of sounding persnippient (which is a word I just now made up), I must tell you that this blog post is my beautiful tears, flush and hot and streaming down my cheeks, splayed out across my big wide grin.

Signs Pointing the Way to the Public Library

Around my town recently I noticed that all the signs that had just a month or so ago read "Public Library" have been changed. They have now been replaced with a pictogram: one which shows a round head on a rectangular body with another small rectangle (the arm) ending in a smaller circle (presumably a hand) holding two merged squares (a book).

OK - firstly, my wildly sarcastic mind (and I'm sure yours as well) was thinking, "OK, why did they take down a perfectly good READABLE sign?" I mean, the Library exemplifies the joy of

oh I dunno

READING, MAYBE??!!!!!

I mean, let's face it, if you can't read you probably aren't going to be at the library, and if you ARE going to the library then you're probably learning how to read and a good first two words to learn are of course PUBLIC LIBRARY.

Honestly, I'm not that much of a status quo prude but [expletive!] honestly!! to change a sign to a pictogram!! especially for the library!!!

OK OK there is a growing element of hispanohablantes in my little pueblito, and a growing number of Spanish-language reading materials on the shelves and that's perfectly OK with me so maybe that's why they made a "linguistically-indeterminate" sign, but I STILL think that the sort of hispanohablantes who frequent the library are the sort of people who want to use its resources to learn English, so it's STILL a good two words to learn.

PUBLIC

LIBRARY

: not that hard. My four year old knew the words. She knew that meant the place to go get books.

Honestly, people.

So I called the Mayor. I told her I didn't like the new signs. The person at the other end of the phone who claimed to be the Mayor asked me why I didn't like them and I replied, "It's because the sign has a person holding a book. I can't read. That's offensive to me. Your sign 'presupposes' that I know how to read and that is definitely NOT politically correct. Also, the person in the pictograph has HANDS. I myself have NO HANDS!!! Your sign is infringing on my sense of self-worth, because it implicitly implies that people who frequent the library must READ AND HAVE HANDS!!!!!!"

I don't know at what point of my spiel that the person hung up, but when I took a breath and wiped the foam from my lips, the line was dead.

And so, it seems, is this rant.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

VG