Teleportation

A thought occurred to me last night, somewhere between Deer Lodge and Drummond as the umpteenth pair of LED-blue headlights washed out the stretch of I-90 in front of me: the future inventor of teleportation will unquestionably be from the Midwest. The invention itself will be born out of a moment of frustration with the inadequecies of Amtrak, Greyhound, Rimrock Trailways and the DOT of the great state of Blank.

On a semi-related note, I've decided a tram system from Sula to Missoula would reduce or completely nullify the necessity for a Western Bypass. If Bitterroot Valley commuters could simply take a train in to the city to work, traffic on Highway 12 and Reserve would calm considerably. Tourists would go nuts for it in the spring, summer and fall, enviro-geeks could stop complaining about levels of carbon emissions during peak traffic hours, and the Mountain Line would be forced to seriously reexamine its efficiency. There is no doubt a considerable list of challenges and drawbacks to the idea, but it's been nagging at me all the same.

Finally, I've been reading an absolutely fascinating book the past week. "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Iraq," by Dahr Jamail. With a limited background in journalism, Jamail quit a job at Denali National Park in AK and paid his own way in to Baghdad. He had limited contacts, but documents everything. I'd always known wire stories and major news outlets were laced with Washington spin, I just never knew how "off" that spin was. Jamail documents not only the process by which he reported for alternative news outlets online and the interaction he had with fellow journalists, but creates a horrifying backdrop for the war and peppers it with the most realistic and earth-bound characters.

"I saw a small boy holding a huge stone, standing at the edge of the street. He glared at the Humvees and Bradleys as their treads rattled loudly across the pavement. A soldier riding atop another passing Bradley pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the boy's head, keeping him in his sights until his vehicle rolled away toward the bright sun. As we regrouped, one student asked us, "Who are the terrorists here now?"

Read it. Or don't.