Blinding Headlights

I’ve lived in Tucson, Arizona for ten months now, and I have to tell you, it is no fun driving here at night. While it is a joy living in a city that for a change isn’t horribly overlit and that takes light pollution seriously (though that is starting to erode), it is often hard to see at night because of the many vehicles on the road with blinding headlights. In recent years, this has become a huge problem throughout the U.S., and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) needs to act quickly and decisively to deal with this dangerous nuisance.

Not only have headlights gotten brighter and bluer (which makes glare much worse), many vehicles have multiple sets of headlights, including “fog lights” that are anything but. High-profile vehicles such as pickup trucks and SUVs are especially bad when it comes to causing blinding glare for smaller, less extravagant vehicles. Jacked-up pickup trucks are the worst, and there are a lot of them here.

When one of these headlight-offensive vehicles is heading towards you, it makes it difficult to see the road ahead. It is especially hard to see pedestrians and bicyclists. Pavement markings are also harder to see because of the glare from the oncoming vehicle, especially when those lines are badly faded and in need of re-painting (as they often are here).

Tucson has far too many busy intersections without a protected left turn, and if you find yourself in a left-turn lane being stared down by a headlight-offensive vehicle in the opposite left-turn lane, the glare blinds you so much that it is difficult to see oncoming vehicles in the through-traffic lanes.

When a headlight-offensive vehicle comes up behind you and, as they often do, practically rides your bumper because driving at or near the speed limit isn’t fast enough for them, you’re hit with their intense glare in all three rear-view mirrors. This makes it harder to see the road ahead, and you have to slow down—which tends to aggravate them more than they already are. If you’re lucky, they can pass you—though sometimes they will illegally cross a double yellow line to do it.

Because of all these intense and unregulated vehicle headlights, I now avoid driving at night whenever possible.

Sure, headlights like these helps the perpetrator see better so they can drive down the road at night exceeding the speed limit (which is seldom enforced here, by the way), but everyone else—drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians—is blinded.

What are the specific problems with modern vehicle headlights that need to be addressed, and what are the solutions?

  • Problem: The average vehicle’s total headlight lumen output (and individual headlight luminance) has dramatically increased in recent years, causing a corresponding increase in discomfort and disability glare for everyone else.
  • Solution: Headlights would not have to be so bright if speed limits were lower at night on many city streets and thoroughfares, and if the posted speed limits were actually enforced.
  • Solution: Implement adaptive driving beam (ADB) technology that uses sensors to detect oncoming traffic and adjusts the projected beam pattern to allow plenty of light for the driver without blinding other motorists. (ADB is widely used in Europe, but is not yet legal in the United States.)
  • Problem: Light-emitting diode (LED) and High Intensity Discharge (HID) headlights emit more light at the blue end of the visible spectrum than traditional warm-white or yellowish halogen headlights do, and these bluer lights result in significantly greater visual discomfort and impairment for other drivers.
  • Solution: Limit the amount of blue light that headlights can produce.
  • Problem: Poor headlight aim leads to dangerous glare for others.
  • Solution: Require regular headlight aim inspections and adjustments. Anytime a vehicle’s suspension is lifted, require headlight aim to be adjusted downward accordingly.

Here’s a petition you might want to sign:

https://www.change.org/p/u-s-dot-ban-blinding-headlights-and-save-lives

I’d like to close this article by quoting one of the many insightful comments in the Comments section of the New York Times article listed under References below.

Like everything else, it is no longer about the collective good and the laws that protect it. Individualism now rules—individual freedom. Headlights have become a First Amendment issue—an element of free speech.

And they have become part of the conservative anti-government backlash. Laws regulating headlights are seen as government intrusion into personal freedoms. It is seen by many to be like the COVID mask issue. Too many people think personal freedom trumps everything else–even collective health and safety.

And there is a free-market aspect to this. Manufacturers are looking for ways to add features to cars that will make them more attractive to buyers. They know the lights are unsafe, yet they put them on their vehicles.

America has lost all common sense.

Michael
Evanston, IL | June 9, 2021

Mark my words, if we keep heading down this path of excessive individual freedom (read: selfishness) without significant responsibility for the common good (that means everybody, not just your tribe), it will be our undoing. The United States will become a miserable place to live for the majority of us for at least a generation. I’m not hopeful that we can turn this around in time. Too many of us are “asleep at the wheel” and too easily swayed by misinformation and propaganda.

References

Mele, Christopher. “Blinded by Brighter Headlights? It’s Not Your Imagination.” New York Times, June 5, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/business/led-hid-headlights-blinding.html.

Non-Profit Mail Overload

I receive enough solicitations in the mail from non-profit organizations to fill a 10-ream paper box every couple of months. I don’t think I have ever seen it this bad. I know that needs are great and worthwhile causes many, but giving $25 to an organization supporting cause xyz should not result in a dozen other organizations supporting similar causes mailing me multiple times each year.

There has to be a better way. Catalog companies had to solve this problem decades ago because of the expense of printing and mailing catalogs to existing and prospective customers. You mail your best customers often, those who don’t spend much or purchase infrequently less often, and prospective customers maybe once in a great while.

If the U.S. Postal Service continues to have financial problems, one source of revenue would be to increase the non-profit postage rate, and that would force many non-profit organizations to use a more sophisticated approach for their mailings.

Why not start now? I’d like to see a non-profit organization established whose sole purpose is to help other non-profit organizations to mail donors and prospective donors efficiently. Let’s give it a placeholder name: Nonprofit Mailing Association (NMA). Each participating non-profit organization would confidentially provide their donor lists and contribution history for each donor to NMA, and NMA in turn would use the data received from your organization and other non-profit organizations to rank-order donors based on likelihood to contribute and amount likely to contribute.

In the marketing business, this process is called “modeling”. Each model needs to take into consideration the amount you give (are you a $25 or $500 donor?), the frequency you give (monthly, 2-3 times a year, annually, or every couple of years or so), and to which non-profits. Other behaviors need to be taken into account. Does the donor tend to support organizations that they seek out directly, or are they more likely to respond to prospect mailings?

This modeling will result in fewer mailings but a lower acquisition cost per donor. From a donor standpoint, hopefully this will stop frequent mailings to individuals who have never donated to an organization. Once a year is often enough. Anything more borders on harassment. Besides, is the average person more likely to look at a non-profit mailing if they receive one in the mail on average each day or ten?

This approach should also apply to political organizations.

Using a more sophisticated approach to non-profit mailings will result in lower mailing and printing costs for the non-profit, and less printed material ending up in the recycling stream or—more often—the landfill.

A Smarter TV

It seems to me that so-called “Smart TVs” just give you more of the same: corporately-curated, pay-to-subscribe, advertising-supported television.

I’d like to be able to create my own “channels” from websites and services that I choose. My channels would include:

  • PBS Passport
  • medici.tv
  • Curiosity Stream
  • NASA TV
  • C-SPAN, C-SPAN2, C-SPAN3

Currently, I access these (with the exception of the C-SPAN channels*) by selecting the content I want on a laptop computer which I’ve connected to my television.

It would be nice to have the web browser built into the television and a TV remote that includes a keyboard (real or virtual) and a touchpad (or arrow keys) to navigate website menus and enter text into search boxes. That way you could dispense with the connected laptop.

It would also be nice to be able to automatically and securely log in to each website by simply clicking on the channel icon. No apps to download, configure, or install.

Does such a television even exist?

*Access to C‑SPAN, C‑SPAN2 and C‑SPAN3 online and in the C‑SPAN Now app is currently limited to cable and satellite TV customers.

Interest Connect

Make a list of your interests, either mentally or on paper. Are you curious about who else living in your area shares an interest with you? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a safe online platform that would provide you with email addresses of others in your area who have a mutual interest so that you could exchange private emails? This might lead to a productive email exchange, meeting in person, forming an advocacy group, or working on a special project together. Two people or several. Your choice. And no advertising or marketing! I don’t think anything like this exists yet. Here’s my vision.

The name of the online platform will be Interest Connect.

A management organization (an independent non-profit entity or benefit corporation) will create and manage Interest Connect.

Each member will have a profile on the service that contains only the following basic information, viewable in its entirety only by the member and the management organization.

  • Your name (real name, no aliases)
  • Your email address
  • Your geographic region
  • Your interests

The list of geographic regions will be created and maintained by the management organization. The list will include the names of metro areas, subregions of metro areas, cities, towns, counties, and so on. Members can always ask for a new geographic region to be added. A member can only belong to one geographic region and will have no visibility into the other regions. There could, however, be visibility into levels of the same geographic region. For example: NW Tucson, Tucson, Pima County. Each member must provide proof of residency in their chosen geographic region by sharing their residential address with the management organization. That address will be independently verified, kept confidential, and will never be made public.

The management organization approves interest types and adds them to the list that members can select to add to their profile. There will be a large number of interests to choose from, and members can always ask for new ones to be added.

Some interests will be general, and others highly specialized.

Interest Connect is not a public discussion group, but a group to foster person-to-person private communication.  More than two members with the same interest could certainly arrange to communicate collectively amongst themselves via email.

As a member of Interest Connect, what would you see? You would see the names and email addresses of others in your geographic region that share the same interest as you.

Safety from predators is crucial, and the management organization will have complete authority to remove anyone from membership in Interest Connect that violates their terms and code of conduct.

Here’s a simplistic example showing four hypothetical individuals in the same geographic region. Interests A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are simply placeholders in our example for the actual interests that would be listed in Interest Connect.

Each member has a private profile that looks like this…

Marija Kelemen
mkeleme@gmail.com
Tucson, AZ
Interests: Interest A, Interest B, Interest C

Nikolaos Hubbard
nikhubb2@icloud.com
Tucson, AZ
Interests: Interest D, Interest E, Interest F

Slavica Brankovič
slavica2933@aol.com
Tucson, AZ
Interests: Interest B, Interest D

Aidan Storstrand
aidan.storstrand@outlook.com
Tucson, AZ
Interests: Interest B, Interest D, Interest G

Each member would have visibility into other members like this…

Marija would see the following:

Interest B
Slavica Brankovič: slavica2933@aol.com
Aidan Storstrand: aidan.storstrand@outlook.com


Nikolaos would see the following:

Interest D
Slavica Brankovič: slavica2933@aol.com
Aidan Storstrand: aidan.storstrand@outlook.com


Slavica would see the following:

Interest B
Marija Kelemen: mkeleme@gmail.com
Aidan Storstrand aidan.storstrand@outlook.com

Interest D
Nikolaos Hubbard: nikhubb2@icloud.com
Aidan Storstrand: aidan.storstrand@outlook.com


Aidan would see the following:

Interest B
Marija Kelemen: mkeleme@gmail.com
Slavica Brankovič: slavica2933@aol.com

Interest D
Nikolaos Hubbard: nikhubb2@icloud.com
Slavica Brankovič: slavica2933@aol.com


Each member’s interest lists will be dynamic, so that interests can be added or removed at any time. Perhaps notifications could be set up (optionally) so that if someone new adds one of your interests, you will automatically be notified.

How to fund this noble endeavor without resorting to hosting irritating advertising? Each member would pay a modest annual membership fee. No mandatory automatic renewals, please!

What do you think? Has something like Interest Connect already been done somewhere? Do you have suggestions or concerns? I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Feel free to post a comment here.

Broken Eyeglass Case – Again

I have yet to find a hard shell eyeglass case with a hinge that doesn’t fail in short order.

No matter how careful you are with opening and closing the case, with daily use the hinge of every hard shell eyeglass case I have ever used will suddenly fail after less than a year of use, and the eyeglass case will no longer stay closed.

Why doesn’t anyone make a spring-loaded eyeglass case hinge that lasts?

If it is impossible to manufacture a durable spring-loaded hinge, then perhaps a magnetic closure should also be added to the case.

Speed Warning Function

Why don’t all our cars have a speed warning function? On the highway, I usually try to maintain a speed between the speed limit and five miles per hour over (never more than that), and I’d like to have a button on my steering wheel that I can push (like cruise control) at any particular speed so that if that speed is exceeded, I get a soft audible “beep” every few seconds until my speed has fallen below the set point.

And, like cruise control (which I never use anymore for safety reasons), you would be able to change the set point as often as you like while driving.

Having this speed warning function would improve safety because you’d be less likely to inadvertently drive too fast, and you wouldn’t have to take your eyes off the road as often to look at the speedometer.

I can’t understand why this isn’t standard equipment on all motor vehicles.

Television à la carte

I don’t have much time for television. Seldom more than 2-3 hours per week, most or all of it on PBS Wisconsin. I usually watch Washington Week, Here and Now (Wisconsin news), and Amanpour & Company each Friday evening, and quite a few of the Nova episodes.

Once or twice most Friday and Saturday evenings, we’ll flip through the broadcast television channels we are able to receive from Madison some 39 miles to the east, and if we’re unusually lucky we’ll happen upon something worth watching. Usually not. And then there’s the damned commercials. I’m sure wherever you are you’ll find as I do that at any given moment, most of the television stations (except for PBS) are airing commercials. Ugh!

When we travel and stay at a motel, we often flip through the cable channels they offer, and once again seldom find anything worth watching (except, perhaps, for PBS and C-SPAN), even though there are dozens and dozens of channels. Here, too, at any given moment, most of the cable channels (except for PBS and C-SPAN) are airing commercials.

I have an aversion to advertising of any kind, and will go to great lengths to avoid watching anything that is interrupted by commercials during the program. Some of you might not be old enough to remember that when cable television first came out, a big selling point was that by abandoning free broadcast television and paying for cable TV, you could watch programs free of advertising. Well, we know how long that lasted. The number of commercials we have to endure has increased dramatically since the “golden age of television” in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

In my opinion, almost all of the television stations offered on both broadcast TV and cable are garbage. I have not subscribed to cable TV since the early 1980s, and have never been a satellite TV subscriber.

The only way I would ever subscribe to any kind of television service (cable, satellite, or internet) is if I they gave customers the ability to pick and pay for only the channels you want. Television à la carte, in other words. And the list to choose from should be huge, including multiple PBS channels, documentary film channels, reputable news channels, foreign English-language channels (or at least with English subtitles), classic movie channels, and, yes, NASA TV. And, please get rid of the advertising except—if need be—in between programs. I would pay extra for this option.

I am also frustrated by not being able to watch many newly-released documentaries (or documentary series) without subscribing to a service. Why should I subscribe to a service when all I want to do is watch one program? Why not charge $12 (or whatever) for each program a person wants to watch?

There is a case to be made for “flipping through the channels” and happening upon a documentary, movie, or television program of interest that you might not discover otherwise, but until some company offers television à la carte with a wide selection, my local PBS station is going to get all of my television dollars. I am delighted that—with the advent of digital television—we now have four PBS Wisconsin television stations to choose from!

I will never pay to watch programs, documentaries, or movies that are interrupted by commercials. Period.

Iowa Intercity Bus Service

Another pandemic casualty: intercity bus service. The Dubuque – Waterloo – Cedar Rapids – Marshalltown – Ames bus route shown on the 2015 map below is no more. When I called Burlington Trailways yesterday, they told me that this bus route will not be coming back after the pandemic. What a shame.

Not everyone who would like to ride a regional bus has no other transportation option, though that demographic is sizable and certainly needs to be served. Some of us like to ride a bus because we simply don’t want to drive long distances, especially alone. I lived in Ames, Iowa for nearly 30 years, and go back periodically to visit friends and family. I currently live in southwest Wisconsin, and prior to the pandemic, I was able to board a bus in Dubuque at 10:55 a.m. on any day, and would arrive in Ames on the same bus at 5:00 p.m., in time to pick up a rental car at Enterprise before they closed for the day. On the return trip, I could return the car in the morning, after Enterprise opened, board the bus in Ames at 9:45 a.m., and would arrive in Dubuque at 3:30 p.m. It was all very convenient.

Now, your only choice for using public transportation from Dubuque to Ames is the following:

  • Board the bus at Dubuque at 3:50 p.m.
  • Arrive at Davenport at 5:05 p.m.
  • Layover at the Davenport bus station until 6:55 p.m. (1h50m)
  • Transfer to a new bus and leave Davenport at 6:55 p.m.
  • Arrive in Des Moines at 11:10 p.m., with a 20 minutes layover
  • Transfer to a new bus and leave Des Moines at 11:30 p.m.
  • Arrive in Ames at 12:10 a.m. (no rental car companies open at that hour of the night)

The return trip is even worse.

  • Board the bus at Ames at 10:20 p.m.
  • Arrive in Des Moines at 11:05 p.m.
  • Transfer to a new bus at Des Moines
  • Arrive in Chicago at 5:35 a.m.
  • Transfer to a new bus in Chicago
  • Leave Chicago at 6:30 a.m.
  • Arrive in Davenport at 9:55 a.m.
  • Transfer to a new bus at Davenport
  • Leave Davenport at 10:10 a.m.
  • Arrive in Dubuque at 11:25 a.m.

A parenthetical note about this trip. The eastbound bus arrives at the Davenport Flying J’s Travel Shop, 8200 Northwest Boulevard at 1:55 a.m. Instead of going on to Chicago, you could take a 16-minute cab ride the 7 miles to the Burlington Trailways bus station in Davenport at 304 W River Dr. and then wait at the bus station for the 9:55 a.m. bus to arrive that will take you on to Dubuque. Or rent a motel room to sleep for a few hours first.

This is crazy! Who would put up with this unless they were desperate and had no other travel option? Certainly not a good way to build demand for public transportation across a broader demographic, is it?

Public transportation has been underfunded for decades in the United States and it shows. We ought to be ashamed. We really do need a much better bus and passenger rail network, with good intermodal connections.

Sadly, there was not a single news article on the internet that announced or lamented the cancellation of the Burlington Trailways bus route from Dubuque to Ames (and beyond). I guess intercity bus service isn’t deemed newsworthy, as many bus passengers are considered to be second-class citizens at best.

Another sign of the times: neither the bus companies nor anyone else posts bus route timetables on the internet, and even the Amtrak ones are hard to find these days. They all want you to enter your origin and destination on their website, but what if you want a “big picture” timetable for the entire route? You’re usually out of luck.

Amtrak’s Sunset Limited and Las Cruces

Amtrak’s Sunset Limited currently runs just three days a week between New Orleans, LA and Los Angeles, CA. There continues to be a lot of interest in making this a daily train, and I hope that happens soon.

The Sunset Limited stops at 22 cities and towns. These are listed below, with stops having a station building and waiting room shown in bold.

New Orleans, LA
Schriever, LA
New Iberia, LA
Lafayette, LA
Lake Charles, LA

Beaumont, TX
Houston, TX
San Antonio, TX
Del Rio, TX
Sanderson, TX
Alpine, TX
El Paso, TX

Deming, NM
Lordsburg, NM

Benson, AZ
Tucson, AZ
Maricopa, AZ
Yuma, AZ

Palm Springs, CA
Ontario, CA
Pomona, CA
Los Angeles, CA

As you can see, the Sunset Limited makes only two stops in the great state of New Mexico, and both of them are small towns (Deming 14K, Lordsburg 2.4K) without a station building.

Las Cruces, home of New Mexico State University, is by far the largest city in southern New Mexico, with a population of 103K and a metro area of 218K. It is not served by passenger rail.

Currently, if you want to utilize the Sunset Limited from Las Cruces, you need to board a Greyhound bus in Las Cruces at 1:20 a.m., and after you arrive at the Greyhound station in El Paso at 2:30 a.m., you need to take a cab or walk 0.4 miles in the middle of the night to the Amtrak station where you’ll have to wait until 1:22 p.m. to catch the westbound train or 3:10 p.m. to catch the eastbound train. Or later, if the train is not on time.

Returning to Las Cruces from El Paso involves arriving by train westbound at 1:22 p.m. or eastbound at 3:10 p.m., taking a cab or walking the 0.4 miles to the Greyhound station, and then waiting for the 3:25 a.m. bus to Las Cruces, where you will arrive at 4:30 a.m.

How’s that for convenience?

Would it be possible for the Sunset Limited to make a stop at Las Cruces between El Paso and Deming? Yes, but…

In order for the Sunset Limited to make a stop in Las Cruces without building a new rail line, it would have have to leave Union Pacific track and take BNSF track to Las Cruces, then on to Rincon, where it would take Southwestern Railroad track through Hatch and down to Deming where it would rejoin the Union Pacific track, adding 41 miles and some additional time to the trip both eastbound and westbound.

Other option would be to connect Amtrak’s Southwest Chief to the Sunset Limited by adding a new passenger route between Albuquerque and El Paso, with stops in Socorro and Las Cruces along the way. The rail between Albuquerque and Belen is owned by NMRX, and between Belen and El Paso by BNSF. Alternatively, the new passenger route could run entirely on BNSP track if you took the Rail Runner Express from Albuquerque to Belen with the new passenger route running between Belen and El Paso.

Yet another option would be to add a short passenger route like Rail Runner between Las Cruces and El Paso along 42 miles of BNSF track.

The best non-rail option would be to have a dedicated Amtrak thruway bus between Las Cruces and El Paso that would be in sync with the Sunset Limited train schedule and take you directly to and from the Amtrak station in El Paso. (The wonderful Van Galder bus service that runs multiple times per day between Madison, Janesville, South Beloit, Rockford, and Chicago serves as an excellent model as to what can be done by a well-run bus company.)

Finally, a shuttle between Las Cruces and El Paso in sync with the Sunset Limited train schedule could be offered, similar to the RoadRunneR shuttle that runs between Lamy and Santa Fe for the Southwest Chief stop at Lamy.

Retirement Challenges

I retired from my full-time position on May 21, and am now working three hours a day, Monday through Friday, for the same company, 100% remote. It is intense work, but at least it is only 15 hours per week now, and the pay is good.

There are a lot of potential projects that present themselves for an encore career, but I’m finding that I live in the wrong place to do any of them. Some are going to be impossible to do without substantial help from others.

One thing I’ve learned, especially during the pandemic, is that I need to be with people in the work that I do. A 100% remote interaction with others is unsatisfying, and I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing that.

The project I am most excited about is Mirador Astronomy Village. Nothing like it has ever been done in the United States before.

Mirador would be a residential community that is astronomy-friendly, and the majority of that residential community would be permanent residents (in other words, not vacation homes for the wealthier among us). Mirador would have no dusk-to-dawn lighting, and no one living there will ever have to worry about a neighbor putting up a light that trashes their view of the night sky or shines into their home. Mirador would have a public observatory and provide regular astronomy programs. Mirador would also have private observatories for research, astrophotography, and visual observing.

Ideally, Mirador would be located where it is clear most nights and winters are mild. New Mexico, Arizona, and West Texas immediately come to mind.

The challenges? Mirador is going to need a land donation and a group of people who can take some financial risk to build it without jeopardizing their personal economic stability. Astronomy is such an important part of my life that I am willing to move, even to a remote location, for the opportunity to live in an intentional community of astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts. What I don’t know is whether there are even 20 others in the entire United States who would make the move for such an opportunity. Running a classified ad in Sky & Telescope for a year accomplished nothing other than “great idea, let me know when you get it built.” Well, even though I have passion, knowledge, and leadership skills to make this project a success, I do not have financial resources beyond providing for myself and my family. I can’t personally fund a development.

Many other projects and activities interest me. None of them can I do in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

  • Provide astronomy programs at a public observatory
  • Volunteer at a classical music radio station, perhaps even hosting my own classical music program, or at least providing recordings and commentary
  • Volunteer for a symphony orchestra
  • Bring the best music of new and neglected classical composers to a wider audience
  • Passenger rail
  • Paved off-road bicycle path
  • Develop a comprehensive outdoor lighting code/ordinance that has support, will get enacted, and will be enforced

One current activity related to classical music is necessarily 100% virtual. Back in April, I created a groups.io discussion group called Classical Music Little-Known Favorites. I posted a note about it to the hundreds of people I am connected to on LinkedIn and Facebook, and that garnered only a single subscriber. Since then, I’ve been working diligently to find interesting and accessible classical music to feature. I am pleased with the results so far, only no one else is posting anything. Still only one subscriber besides myself. There must be at least 20 people in the entire world who have a passion to seek out and champion the best classical music that is not yet commercially available. How do I reach them?

Currently, my astronomical work is focused on stellar occultations by minor planets for IOTA. I spend about 20 hours per week running predictions, recording the events from my backyard observatory, analyzing the data, and reporting the results. My backyard observatory is wholly dedicated to this work. Wherever I end up living, I would like to continue these observations. This adds the complication that I will need access to a dedicated observatory for occultation work—either my own or one that I share with other occultation enthusiasts. That observatory should be within walking distance of where I live.

I would like to live closer to my daughter and her family in Alpine, TX. Even though I would prefer to live somewhere not too far from civilization (thinking quality health care, mostly) with a unpolluted night sky, I am beginning to consider moving to a larger city like Tucson or Las Cruces where I can better pursue my classical music interests in addition to astronomy. Tucson has direct Amtrak access to Alpine (a huge plus), but Las Cruces has no connection to Amtrak. The Sunset Limited needs to come to Las Cruces (between the El Paso and Deming stops), or at least there needs to be a bus that takes you directly to and from the train station in El Paso.

I am concerned about the direction this country is heading, and that is entering into my future plans, too. I am a non-religious progressive who believes that local, state, and federal government should be strong, competent, and efficient. There can be no higher calling than a life dedicated towards public service. I am pro-government, pro-tax, pro-education, pro-science, and anti-gun. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere where Trump got the majority of the vote in 2020. If the current Republican insanity continues (and they have most of the guns), we progressives may be forced to consider forming our own country. Or moving out of this one. Before things get any uglier. Living in an enlightened and compassionate society requires giving up some of your liberty and freedoms for the health and well being of everyone. That’s a given.