Imparting my wisdom

Early this morning (much too early), I had the pleasure of making my first-ever trip to South Dakota State University. It wasn't too impressive, as far as public universities go. On the whole, I thought the buildings looked outdated and kind of run-down (no offense to any Jackrabbit graduates out there reading my blog). But it is much, much smaller than say, the University of Iowa, or even University of Northern Iowa.

But my purpose in going to Brookings wasn't to take a tour of the SDSU campus – I was asked to talk to a class about the joys of journalism. But, given that it was a 9 a.m. class, and that their semester ends in about a week, there was little joy to be found on the faces of the bleary-eyed students staring vacantly at me while I explained what I do every day.

It struck me that it's probably what I looked like about five years ago, when some young 20-somethings who work at Meredith came in to talk to one of my classes about the joys of working for Wood Magazine. While they were talking, all I remember thinking was, "Oh my God, I can't believe this is what I have to look forward to." Their jobs sounded so mind-numbingly dull, I was depressed for several days afterward.

So I guess I'll consider it a good sign that none of the students this morning were staring at me with fear and/or horror in their eyes as I talked about laying out pages, working on deadline, writing headlines and catching people's stupid mistakes. It was more like dazed indifference. I have new respect for all my college professors.

The show has reached a new low

Just when you thought there were certain standards of decency – and certain lines that should never be crossed, even in heated political debate, the extremists of the right wing prove otherwise.

The Virginia Tech massacre. An unbelievable tragedy that leaves us wanting answers to questions such as why did this happen? What caused the shooter to snap, and why were the warning signs ignored? Could this have been prevented?

And, in addition to these questions, the right-wing extremists have another one they'd like to add: Why were the victims such wusses? From National Review Online hack John Derbyshire, we have this gem. The money quote: "At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range."

And from Ann Coulter wannabe Michelle Malkin: Instead of teaching students to defend their beliefs, American educators shield them from vigorous intellectual debate. ... And as the erosion of intellectual self-defense goes, so goes the erosion of physical self-defense."

And my personal favorite, from conservative talk radio host Neal Boortz: "How the hell do 25 students allow themselves to be lined up against the wall in a classroom and picked off one by one?"

Maybe we should give some of these asshats a crack at writing an obituary for one of the 32 victims. Apparently, it would start off something like this: John Doe, 21, died Monday at the hands of murderous madman because he was too weak to defend himself. But, his weakness wasn't entirely his fault. Virginia Tech made him a weak wuss by squashing intellectual debate and self-defense – and by denying students the right to pack heat when they go to class. Not that that would have helped for Mr. Doe, because he was, after all, a huge pansy.

Finally.

After about two months of scouting out airfare to the Dominican Republic religiously – at least three or four times a day – we've finally booked a flight. Booking air travel is very stressful – I think it might be more stressful than the actual traveling part. And, the sad part is, I've become so obsessed with the whole process that I'm still looking at the travel Web sites 3 or 4 times a day because I want to make sure that we got a good deal – so if the prices drop, I'm going to be super ticked off.

On the upside, this is the villa that we'll be staying in. It sounds pretty nice – we'll have our own private pool and, apparently, there's a maid who shows up to cook you breakfast every morning. I wish I could have that in real life ... though of course, I never eat breakfast because I don't wake up until noon.

That's really all I've been doing for the past few weeks – obsessing about this big trip. Now that it's all booked and taken care of, I can move on to bigger and better things. And when I figure out what those things are, I'm sure I'll make an effort to blog about it.