Noteworthy entries.

What is St. Louis like?

People from my town of St. Louis are going ape-shit thinking that the national spotlight will come to our city along with the All-Star Game. It's really sounding like mega-insecurity to me. If you're really proud of your city, then be proud. You shouldn't need some sports announcer to say a few nice things about one's tourist attractions between pitches in order to feel validated. And if that sports announcer's opinion is so important, let's make sure that he takes a tour of our decaying city schools before the baseball game so that he can give the national sports audience an informed opinion or two on that, between pitches. And, really, what's more important if you had to choose between having first rate tourist attractions and a first rate school system? But my ambivalence leads to an important question. What is St. Louis really like? I've lived here all my life, and there is much to like about our city (as well as many things that need much improvement). Rather than write my own lengthy description of St. Louis, I'm going to refer you to this well-written balanced account by Alan Soloman of the Philadelphia Inquirer. What should we be thinking about St. Louis as the All-Star Game approaches? Here's Soloman's ominous opening, although his article eventually veers to many of the positive aspects of my river city.

The Gateway Arch, symbol of the place, and the museum beneath it represent the nation at its swaggering best, symbols of a Western expansion that would define us in so many ways. That we're talking about St. Louis - a city that's seen its share of rough times and that, like the country, isn't exactly in swagger mode right now - in a way adds particular power and poignancy to this year's celebration.

For another angle on how St. Louis is doing, check out this article in The Riverfront Times, where the author asks whether the recent efforts to beautify St. Louis amount to "putting lipstick on a pig."

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Victimized Guitarist served up cold revenge to careless airline.

Guitarist Dave Carroll was distressed when United Airlines damaged his Taylor guitar, and wouldn't pay for the damage. Anyone who plays music seriously knows that this is an extremely serious matter. Musicians spend years getting comfortable with their instruments and they plan on using a good instruments for a lifetime. A good instrument becomes an extension of you. This story really hit a nerve, because I had a similar experience on American Airlines about 7 years ago. I was transporting a classical style Taylor guitar from Missouri to Maine to perform for a friend's wedding (BTW, Taylor makes great guitars, as Dave and I both know). Out of the airplane window I saw some moron slamming my guitar case onto the top of a luggage cart on the tarmac. It was totally needless and vicious. I was outraged. When I got the guitar back in Maine, the case was banged up, a latch had been ripped from the hard shell case and the internal microphone battery had been jolted out of the internal battery-holder. Why did I entrust my guitar to the airline? Because they had told me that checking it was the ONLY way to transport my guitar. On the way back to Missouri, I got my way and gate checked it. This episode left me with a bad feeling. Now I feel better, though, because Dave Carroll went to a lot of trouble to tell his story in detail. The song goes on for awhile (probably an indication of the intensity of his frustration), but you'll get the idea within a minute or two. Cute video to go with the music. Way to go, Dave!

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Fear of heights? Visit the new Sears tower balconies

If you want to confront your fear of heights, consider visiting one of the new Sears Tower Balconies, which allow you to step out onto a Plexiglas floor and look straight down. Here's the full AP story. I know that this will not be for everyone. I once told a buddy about seeing how close I could stand to the edge of a cliff at the Grand Canyon until he tersely asked me to stop talking about it because he was getting nauseated. Actually, a few years ago, my wife and I visited the CN Tower in Toronto, and had the opportunity to stand on Plexiglas balcony to look straight down. Here's a photo I took: Image from CN Tower by Erich Vieth

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Unnerving bus trips south of the border

I'm never forget my bus trip to Otavalo, two hours north of Quito Ecuador. I was traveling with my friend ("Susan") back in December, 1998. We decided to take the public bus from Quito. The trip only cost a couple dollars. All kinds of people, and several kinds of animals (e.g., chickens) piled onto the bus and off we went toward Otavalo, over some rather serious hills. It turned out to be a bus ride strong of heart. The bus driver took us around some rather serious mountain curves at high speeds that suggested that our high center of gravity would topple the bus over the edge of the road and it would then tumble down the mountain and burst into flames. This sort of accident never happened, but I was fairly certain it was going to happen. In fact, I was absolutely certain that it was going to happen on several occasions. Susan and I both agreed that we should not be alive today based upon that bus ride. Not only did the driver take the bus around sharp curves, but he passed other buses on the outside while going uphill around many of those same sharp blind curves. I will admit, the bus ride only cost us two dollars each, but we assumed that we would feel safe to our journey. Even before we got to the twisting mountain roads, the bus sped along since straight highway at about 60 miles an hour, even though there was a 3-foot shoulder on which tiny children were walking to school. Some of those children looked to be only four or five years old. I couldn't believe that the bus was actually shooting past these children, only two or three feet away. It made us all the more nervous to see flowers and crucifixes marking the highway deaths every few miles. Actually, I haven't come to the part of the story that made me the most nervous. While we were speeding around mountain curves, passing on the outside, the driver called to his assistant and told him to check out a mechanical problem with the bus. The driver did not pull over. Instead, the assistant opened up a panel on the floor of the bus (just to the right of the bus driver) and was reaching down into that big a hole with some tools while the bus was speeding around the mountain curves.

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God’s Ultimate Test

What if there IS a God? What if God is testing us? What if He is a cosmic prankster and has directed the creation of many differing religions to confuse us? What if God intentionally created the bible with its contradictions, inaccuracies, absurdities, mistakes, unbelievable occurrences and prejudices as a test? What if the test is to see if we fall for it? What if atheists are the ONLY ones going to heaven?

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