My secret: I would talk about my icons *all the time* if I thought I could get away with it.

My LJ account expired a few days ago, and I didn't renew it - I wasn't comfortable giving Six Apart any money, and I've yet to actually look into LJ's new owners.

I'm finding the free account experience mostly the same, although I'm missing my icon selection - LJ left me with a mad scientist icon, two icons indicating detached disapproval, two icons which might be best classed as innuendo, and an icon that only makes sense in December.

Which, you know, okay! Excluding the 'pretty pictures' category I don't use so much, that is a reasonably fair representation of ALL my icons ever. But what happens if I need to make fun of Magneto someday? I will be *unprepared*.

(At least I get to keep my mood icons. I'd be way more distraught if I lost them, which is KIND OF APPROPRIATE I GUESS.)

IM Theatre

Deep, Important Discussion on whether my interpretation of the Legion cartoon is the only valid one...

greenygal: Who knows? It's an alien race of sentient superintelligent mindmelding transforming robots. Anything is possible!
odditycollector: That is what I want! *decides* ( To see Brainy turn into a truck! )

 

IM Theatre

Deep, Important Discussion on whether my interpretation of the Legion cartoon is the only valid one...

greenygal: Who knows? It's an alien race of sentient superintelligent mindmelding transforming robots. Anything is possible!
odditycollector: That is what I want! *decides* ( To see Brainy turn into a truck! )

 

Things which are not newsworthy.

 
A couple of days ago, someone on my flist linked to one of the most horrifying and maddening things I've read in a while. Basically, customs at a US airport took a sick baby on his way to the hospital and locked him in a room until he DIED.

I quote:

The [mother, baby and nurse] were the first passengers to leave the plane, but after about 30 minutes in the warm, locked room, Michael had trouble breathing, Fried said.

"We're way past the time now that this baby would have been in good hands at [the hospital]," he said.

Veavea checked the door, but found it locked, he said. She and Futi began to scream, but people outside the door told them to "stay calm, relax," he said.

About five minutes later, someone arrived to help perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and eight to 10 minutes after that the infant was taken to another hospital, Fried said.

Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department, said the child went into respiratory failure in the customs office, and airport paramedics failed to revive him.

How the fuck does this sort of thing happen. No, that is not rhetorical. It is very important that we know, so there can be serious consequences for everyone at fault. So that it doesn't happen again.

I followed up on it tonight, at which point I discovered that... there's no news about it.

Not, let me specify, no new developments, but hardly any coverage of the tragedy at *all*. There's a couple MSNBC stubs, a handful of articles from papers local to the airport, and a reporter pitching in from *New Zealand*.

Where the fuck is the national press? The US's Department of Homeland Security is directly responsible for the death of a child on US soil. A child, if I'm understanding the geography correctly, with *American citizenship*. [ETA: Apparently he was an American national, not citizen. That doesn't make anything better.] Yet I've seen more coverage about things like "airport security breaks luggage locks unnecessarily."

I've come up with two possibilities, and I hate them both.

1. The news media would have cared, except that they are really, really worried about pissing the DHS off.

2. The news media would have cared, if only the kid had been, you know. *White*.

 
(The blogging world seems to be doing a little better, though. Keep it up, guys.)

Things which are not newsworthy.

 
A couple of days ago, someone on my flist linked to one of the most horrifying and maddening things I've read in a while. Basically, customs at a US airport took a sick baby on his way to the hospital and locked him in a room until he DIED.

I quote:

The [mother, baby and nurse] were the first passengers to leave the plane, but after about 30 minutes in the warm, locked room, Michael had trouble breathing, Fried said.

"We're way past the time now that this baby would have been in good hands at [the hospital]," he said.

Veavea checked the door, but found it locked, he said. She and Futi began to scream, but people outside the door told them to "stay calm, relax," he said.

About five minutes later, someone arrived to help perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation and eight to 10 minutes after that the infant was taken to another hospital, Fried said.

Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department, said the child went into respiratory failure in the customs office, and airport paramedics failed to revive him.

How the fuck does this sort of thing happen. No, that is not rhetorical. It is very important that we know, so there can be serious consequences for everyone at fault. So that it doesn't happen again.

I followed up on it tonight, at which point I discovered that... there's no news about it.

Not, let me specify, no new developments, but hardly any coverage of the tragedy at *all*. There's a couple MSNBC stubs, a handful of articles from papers local to the airport, and a reporter pitching in from *New Zealand*.

Where the fuck is the national press? The US's Department of Homeland Security is directly responsible for the death of a child on US soil. A child, if I'm understanding the geography correctly, with *American citizenship*. [ETA: Apparently he was an American national, not citizen. That doesn't make anything better.] Yet I've seen more coverage about things like "airport security breaks luggage locks unnecessarily."

I've come up with two possibilities, and I hate them both.

1. The news media would have cared, except that they are really, really worried about pissing the DHS off.

2. The news media would have cared, if only the kid had been, you know. *White*.

 
(The blogging world seems to be doing a little better, though. Keep it up, guys.)