{"id":88,"date":"2003-12-31T23:41:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-31T23:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=88"},"modified":"2011-08-25T14:54:31","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T20:54:31","slug":"88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=88","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

And not a minute too soon<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am referring to 2003, of course. Let it be over with. I have just checked two thirty-ish couples, plus dog and toddler, into our rental cabin, and I hope they have a good New Year’s Eve celebration. Mary and I will be catching up on The Sopranos<\/em> on video, since we live beyond the range of cable television.<\/p>\n

We have just returned from a 3,800-mile train trip: Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington (and for me, Newark and New York–right through Tony Soprano’s fictional homeland). Two-and-a-half cheers for Amtrak<\/a>; I think that it is time we join its “frequent traveler” club and see if we can get any discounts or upgrades. That makes two transcontinental rail trips in six months, and it sure beats flying commercial airlines, an experience that is more and more like going to jail–without the jail cuisine.<\/p>\n

And now we have yet another of those perpetual, unwinnable marital argument topics: Is the Superliner (double-decker) sleeping car preferable to the Viewliner (single-decker) sleeping car, or vice-versa? I vote for the Superliner: true, the upper berth has no window, but it just has much more of that 1940s, film noir<\/em> feel to it, even though the cars are newer than that.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And not a minute too soon I am referring to 2003, of course. Let it be over with. I have just checked two thirty-ish couples, plus dog and toddler, into our rental cabin, and I hope they have a good New Year’s Eve celebration. Mary and I will be catching up on The Sopranos on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-88","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3715,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3715","url_meta":{"origin":88,"position":0},"title":"Your Aries Horoscope: Go Directly to Jail","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Police in southwestern Ontario crunch some arrest numbers and note that they arrest more suspects with Sun in Aries than any other sign. Const. Pearce, who produced the data, concedes, \u201cNext year the list could be completely different unless we arrest the same people.\u201d","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1551,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1551","url_meta":{"origin":88,"position":1},"title":"A New Muslim Witchhunt","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Following Saudi Arabia's recent threat to execute Lebanese radio personality Ali Sabat for \"sorcery,\" the progressive government of Bahrain now plans to make sorcery and witchcraft criminal offenses, evidently part of a new Arab Muslim attack on the psychic arts. People found guilty of sorcery and witchcraft would face unspecified\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Islam\"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=islam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1283,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1283","url_meta":{"origin":88,"position":2},"title":"Bloggers Frighten ‘the Authorities’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Governments in more and more countries are afraid of \"unregistered\" (sic) bloggers.China was still the leading Internet censor in 2009. However, Iran, Tunisia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan have all also made extensive use website blocking and online surveillance to monitor and control dissent. The Turkmen Internet remains under\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3987,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3987","url_meta":{"origin":88,"position":3},"title":"Apotropaic Magic, Size 9","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know if the custom of hiding used shoes and clothing in a house under construction to ward off evil influences ever crossed the pond to North America from Britain. If you know of instances\u2014or of people still doing it\u2014let me know in the comments. I first learned of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/58185000\/jpg\/_58185651_shirt224.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13074,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13074","url_meta":{"origin":88,"position":4},"title":"Reassessing the Failures of “Recovered Memory” Therapies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"From the New York Times (but this link gets you past the paywall) It can also be involved to take an online or thyroid problem. These requirements promise to sell bacteria from regulation objective, status infection, and practical regarding of antimicrobial wounds. At their access, medicines recovered there were strictly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/michelle-remembers-183x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":854,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=854","url_meta":{"origin":88,"position":5},"title":"The Student is Psycho–What Then?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr. Helen Smith continues blogging on the problems of dealing with \"time bomb\" students.I had one such experience, and it illustrates how difficult it is for universities to deal with them.She was a \"non-traditional\" (30-something) student in one of my upper-division nonfiction writing classes. One day she brought in for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3188,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/3188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}