5 daily minutes

Suburban station, 8:33 AM. Passengers furthest from the door stand and gather to make their way out. Should remain seated until its their turn. We learned in elementary school to go two seater, three seater, two seater, three seater. They just clog up the aisle and make it more difficult for everyone.

March like cattle to slaughter up a flight of stairs from the platform to the open station lined with shops, benches, and dirty tiled walls. A stark contrast of business attire and thrift store tee shirts. Rich girls have Coach bags, poor girls have plastic shopping bags filled with all they own. Walk past the shoe shine man who sings his "shine your shoes" songs. Pretty witty, not bad. From my vantage point my shoes look plenty shiny so I proceed. Everyone looks in a hurry.

A homeless man had made a nest of newspaper in the vestibule of an abandoned store, had urinated himself and now a janitor mops it up. The hall is filled with the smell of stale piss. The crowd of people is diverted to the left and forced to dodge those going the other way. No one wants to bump into the walls. You can tell just from looking they are contaminated. Even the ceiling looks dirty. Wonder how that could happen.

I use my elbows to open doors and my foot to hold the doors open for those behind me. They, in turn, refuse to touch the handle with their bare skin which causes the door to shut abruptly, again causing a jam up. Crazies in corridors. The same lady sitting next to the newspaper stand constantly laughing. Her legs are spread apart, I wonder about her adductors. You can tell when people are going to approach you for money. The more desperate they are the less they ask for. Funny. I stopped carrying cash so I can honestly say I have nothing on me. Sorry. They are used to being denied, probably been denied their whole life. Seems to bother me more than it bothers them, and I am not hooked on smack. Disparaging.

Make my way back down a level to the subway. I notice the same people I have seen for months now. I know they notice me too but no acknowledgment has ever been given. The ceiling always leaks even when it hasn't rained in days and the sound of other transit cars can be heard above. Shakes the roof as small pieces of plaster fall. A man smokes a cigarette just beneath a no smoking sign with no sign of irony on his face. The smoke hangs in clouds around his head faded blue. The tracks are covered with trash which blows up onto the platform when the train comes. The subway doors open and people try to get off as others try to get on. Another hold up. I go on last and think "and as things fall apart no one pays much attention.

A good old fashion book buring

"There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing."

-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I have been keeping up with the news story about how a small church in Florida plans to have a "burn a Quran" day on September 11th. Not much scares me like a good old book burning. Yee haw! Burning a book is the strongest symbol of defying a different way of thinking that I can imagine. According to NPR the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, Fl will hold an open event in which church and community members can burn a Quran to promote anti-Islamic philosophy, despite pleas from General David Petraeus not to do this because it will put our military and Afgan civilians at risk of retaliation from extremist.

A patient of mine today told me the government needs to step in and intervene. I was not in a debatable mood today so I did not say anything, but this is what I think. No government interaction should take place. These nuts are protected by their first amendment right of free speech. I'm sure an attorney could tell me otherwise, but legally their is nothing that can be done. To allow a government to stop something like this would be like drawing a line in the sand and them telling us, "we will allow this, but you can't do this." After they set precedent that they can tell the public what is allowable, what is to stop them from gradually sliding that line to the right and slowly taking away our liberties.

What I wish would happen is that all the logical, good people of the region, Muslim and not, would show up at that church and protest the event. If enough people showed up, they could maybe clog up the roads or stand in their way, or at least show the people of the world that their are enough people left in the United States that aren't crazy radicals and dilute the response. Sadly I do not think this will happen because these type of people tend to be busy with their lives.

On a side point, and determining myself to be somewhat of an expert, Muslims in the city don't seem to care one way or another. Being a white middle class male I never really came into contact with Muslims until I started working in the city. My impression of them... they are half assed like most other people, myself included. Some of them eat when they are supposed to be fasting, some wear the headgear sometimes and not othertimes. They struggle through life just like the Christians I know and seem to have the exact same level of happiness.

"What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives."

-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451