Haven’t blogged in a while… haven’t had much to say… until I saw this video: WTF? This pisses me off, and I don’t even live in Texas!

It’s not often anyone can call me an idealist, but what ever happened to the sanctity of The Vote?

This is absolutely ridiculous. Why on Earth are people overreacting so badly toward the Cartoon Network’s choice of gorilla advertising in Boston? To assume that a box with lights on it is a bomb… that’s blind idiocy. To press charges because of it, is fucking idiotic and pig-headed with a purpose. To fire a corporate president over the incident is even more ridiculous. Please stop with the hand-wringing and panic before we start shooting people over a petty faux pas. Please.

Just read on the BBC that Giuliani is running for president in the next race! Finally I get a moderate Republican to vote for. As much as I think he’s unprepared for anything at that scale, I think he’d be far better than McCain, who just seems to be a little too fiscally liberal, and not socially/morally liberal enough (he supports teaching intelligent design in schools). I guess I’m looking for more of a centrist or libertarian president this go around. Giuliani fit’s that bill to a T. Besides, everyone loves him… it wouldn’t be a wasted vote like other candidates that I would favor.

I most certainly don’t want Hillary, Gore or Kerry. Gore is an idiot. Kerry and Hillary seem to have agendas — fricken’ boat rockers. So unless the Dems offer up something with more substance, and a little more centered beliefs, I’m going to go to the right again in two years.

Why do American politicians have to be so polarized? Doesn’t anybody walk the line in the middle? That would give us far more variety on the fine grained stuff… and would probably be better for the American public in the long run. Having two large warring political factions, scrambling to gather up everything they can, and leave the other with nothing doesn’t do any good for us.

I’m not going to get too into it tonight, I have more studying to do, and an early class in the morning.

I wouldn’t normally write about a subject so depressing as death twice in a row, but this one is worth the sacrifice as I have to share or burst. A couple of years ago I took a Spanish class with Michelle — as a matter of fact that was how we met, we were sitting next to each other — our instructor was great. You could tell just by looking at Professor Gigliotti she had a heart of gold. Gregarious, exuberant and absolutely loved what she was doing. She brought a certain energy to the class that I’ve never experienced from an instructor. It was always interesting to watch her bounce around at the front of class: round trips from the white-board to the desk and back within ten seconds weren’t uncommon. She always got the class participating heavily — whether or not they wanted to.

While digging around on the net for a review of a play that’s playing at Golden West College this week, I accidentally came across an article about her recent death following a car accident on Carson Blvd. in front of Long Beach City College a little over a month before her death — that’s a long painful death that she absolutely did not deserve. According to news articles all over the web she was hit by a motorcycle going nearly 80mph (the rider was killed instantly) while she was making a left into the LBCC’s faculty parking lot. More from the latest article as it’s hard for me to put delicately what they have already written:

“The impact caused the motorcycle’s gas tank to explode and set the car on fire, police said. Gigliotti was trapped in the car and while still burning was pulled out by two LBCC employees who were near the accident, police said.” — Grunion Gazzette

I don’t really know what else to say, other than she will be missed. I was hoping to take Spanish with her again this Spring, as it was most definitely a great experience the first time.

Todd Skinner, a great rock climber, died a few days ago in Yosemite while rappelling down Leaning Tower. According to his website he was with Jim Hewitt, and while descending, “Skinner went first and suddenly fell; his rappel device and locking carabiner remained on the rope.” From the sound of it, either his harness failed or he failed to properly clip his carabiner into his harness. More than likely it was the latter… which is quite sad. A man that spent most of his life dedicated to the art of free climbing (climbing sans ropes) dies during a procedure that put his life completely in the care of a single rope. I’ve had climbing partners that just couldn’t understand why I was more scared of rappelling than of any other part of the sport. Yeah, it’s easy, that’s what makes it scary — fear is what keeps us safe in climbing; if you have no fear, you make mistakes.