Long distance train travel? Why, yes, I'd love to!

A wonderful article in this week's WaPo travel section extolled the virtues of long distance train travel.   This particular article highlighted the writer's trip on the DC-Chicago line Capitol Limited, and then from Chicago to San Francisco on the California Zephyr, through the glorious Rockies!  There's also the Empire Builder that takes a northern route to Seattle across the Dakotas.  Wow.  I am enchanted.  Check out the breathtaking photo gallery.

I love train travel.  Even on my regular trip to NYC a few times a year, I just stare out the window mostly at industrial NJ along the I-95 corridor, but also across the Chesapeake and its tributaries as we race through Maryland.  It's a short-trip, about 3 hours, but I always feel relaxed after a train ride.

Last summer, I took Dear Daughter to NYC by train.  She was dying to see the "snack car," which i think she imagined like a DC-subway car filled with all the goldfish crackers and granola bars you could ever want.  I've been tempted to take her on a longer train trip to Burlington, Vermont or even Montreal, Canada.  It's still in my sights, though I haven't worked out all the details. On one of my trips, I sat next to a guy who had taken his teenage son on a train trip to Chicago to visit family.  Tempting.

And these long-distance more exotic trips across the country or down the west coast sound even more magical.  The Coast Starlight (Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles). The Lakeshore Limited (NYC, Boston, Albany, Chicago).   Amtrak Cascades (Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Salem). I'm blissed out by the routes alone.  Forty-hours on a train?  Perhaps it would lose its allure quicker than I think - for me, let alone a nearly-8 (!) year old.  But I imagine a panoramic window seat, lots of card games, a few books, an iPad, and a iPod Genius soundtrack would while away the time just fine.

What's holding me back? I haven't worked out the logistics, and silly as it may sound I can't figure out what we are doing when we get to our destination, or how we get back....Not rocket science, I know, but still puzzling me for the moment.

Book here.  All aboard!

Smoking is absolutely filthy!

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing new large-print, highly graphic warnings on cigarette packs, such as the one to the left.  There are 36 more being proposed, and nine will be chosen.  These warning will comprise 50% of the front and rear panels of each cigarette packet, and 20% of any cigarette ad.  The images are appropriately disgusting  and jarring.

I think smoking is revolting.  It smells bad. It looks bad.  It makes people sick - fatally so.  It irritates non-smoking bystanders.  The foul smell sticks to clothes, hair, furniture, carpets, window shades, and tableware.  It turns teeth yellow and brown.  Kissing a smoker feels like kissing an ashtray. Sooner or later the young , hipster smoker turns into a hacking, addicted, aged-beyond-their-true-age, old, sick person smoking in the rainy, cold under an awning.

If my own personal horror does not make it clear enough, here are some hard facts from the NYTimes article on the new FDA warnings:

Public health officials are hoping that the new labels will re-energize the nation’s anti-smoking efforts, which have stalled in recent years. About 20.6 percent of the nation’s adults, or 46.6 million people, and about 19.5 percent of high school students, or 3.4 million teenagers, are smokers. Every day, roughly 1,000 teenagers and children become regular smokers, and 4,000 try smoking for the first time. About 400,000 people die every year from smoking-related health problems, and the cost to treat such problems exceeds $96 billion a year.

Smoking is increasingly stigmatized these days - if I have friends or colleagues that do smoke they would likely not be "out" in their habit.  In all honestly, I have less respect for smokers. I was devastated when I learned that Obama is a smoker, albeit a reticent and humbled addict. I'd even go as far to say that I find them disgusting themselves.  But I can't go that far because in all honesty, I feel sorry for them and their addiction and our shared human frailty.

I hope my daughter never starts.  Admittedly, I have smoked cigarettes at various times in my life.  I tried my first cigarette at about 12 years old...

OMG! Here's an excellent quiz on world religion

From the Pew Research Center national survey on religious knowledge, we learned that Americans don't actually know an awful lot about it - not about their own self-professed religion, and certainly less about anyone else's.  Self-identified atheists scored highest.

Here's a pop quiz from NYTimes  columnist Nicholas Kristof.  Admittedly, I did not do so well - 3 or 4 correct answers out of 13. And I hardly count those because I was either guessing or trying to psych out the test objective.  The quiz focuses on more extremist views of social and moral values, and it illustrates that religious tenets are more complicated and nuanced than one might be led to believe from the geopolitical bent of media and crazy, uninformed religious and political extremists....(Grrrrr....don't get me started).  I like that several questions on the quiz have more than one correct response.  Well-researched and provocative, it makes one stop and think.  Too bad, so many people don't bother doing so.

La Nouvelle Observatrice - Sports Section: USA vs. Ghana

USA played Ghana over the weekend for a disappointing 2-1 loss for our stars and stripes.  It was a great game, and I will give some of my novice observations here, albeit likely sub-consciously lifted from the commentator, and subtly influenced and validated by JS.

Ghana played a very tight game for a well-deserved win.  Our guys in the US are strong, solid, experienced players, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for their level of performance.  Maybe they "woulda, coulda" won the match, but admittedly not "shoulda" won because there were no horrific faulty calls, their one goal was a penalty kick, and Ghana played them strong.

First, our guys....I'm impressed with Feilhaber, who while not a starter was subbed in after the first half and really played hard and well.  He really showed up for the World Cup, and given more of a chance might have had an impressive performance. He had some good time with the ball and worked for the team.  Dempsey was also strong; and sports some very cute facial scruff.  Altidore has what it takes, and played well; Jozy Altidore is a good soccer name.  Bornstein was solid, but I sensed under-performing.  Edu and Buddle registered on my not-very- finely-tuned screen.  Donavan is a superstar.  Clearly, he is the celebrity of the team.  Most of that is deserved - he is amazing, he carries the day, he is a Soccer God.  But more importantly, it's nice to see his confident humility off the field.  I don't know much about him before, but it seems his arrogance has mellowed, and his maturity bloomed since the last World Cup in 2006.  He's good, he's really good, and he knows it - but he seems to recognize his own (and more broadly, one's own) fallibility, and that nothing, not even a winning streak fueled by innate talent cultivated with tough training, is a given.  I really hope things work out with his wife from whom he is currently separated, but perhaps reconciling (See Bianca).  Nice sportsman, Donavan!  And perhaps a nice soccer Love Story to boot - my kind of World Cup!

Now, Ghana...It's nice to see Africa with a strong showing on the home continent.  Africa, it seems, has an uphill battle, with just about everything.  Every win for Africa is all the more meaningful, because it is not only what Africa has achieved, but also what it has overcome.  It is a sweeter victory.  As mentioned, Ghana played a beautiful game. As a casual fan, I was impressed with their control of the ball and of the game, their tight, accurate passing and plays, and very nice technical skills.  It was interesting to hear from the commentator that Ghana has the youngest team playing in the World Cup, with an average age of 25.  To use a virility metaphor, this may be indeed the key to their success.  Team Ghana, it seems has the power, the explosiveness and the stamina of a young 25 year-old stud; yet despite their youth, surprisingly also has the discipline, control, patience, form, and self-possession of a more seasoned and skilled lover a few decades older.  That lovely balance is hard to find both on and off the soccer field.

Less off-shore drilling; more off-shore wind farms

The BP oil leak that continues gushing unabated in the Gulf of Mexico is a horrific tragedy.

I have always found wind farms beautiful.

I'm hardly an expert.  I know it's more complicated than all that, but...

Imagine.  Clean, renewable energy.  Energy independence. Increased global security.  Just seems like it would be mo' better.

Our times

While I am totally for freedom of speech and the right to bear arms as stated in our Constitution (though I am for some "common sense" gun control laws to which some traditionalists would disagree),  this just gives me chills...Participants ready for tomorrow's open-carry rally outside D.C.

It is my belief that for this crowd, it is not about freedom of speech or the right to bear arms, but rather fear, anger, and perceived disenfranchisement.  The anger here is palpable and I wonder how they will direct it and enact it.