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The Virtual World

Poetry, the imagination, and the creative life.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Suicide by cellphone?

AUBURN -- A man talking on a cell phone while walking Wednesday on railroad tracks was hit by a train and killed. He was the second person in the area to be killed by a train while talking on a cell phone in the past two weeks.

Witnesses, including the train conductor, saw the man talking on the phone. The engineer sounded the horn, but the man apparently didn't hear it. The train was going about 80 mph and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting the man. The Amtrak Cascades train was heading north from Eugene, Ore., to Seattle.


So sad. People! Please hang up your phones and be *present* in the world.

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Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?
Sheeesh.
Posted by Peter at 7:45 AM
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2 comments:

newzoopoet said...

And if you absolutely can't, then at least give up walking on train tracks.

May 08, 2008 1:19 PM
Anonymous said...

And by ALL MEANS, turn off your choo-choo ringer before the reading starts!!!!

May 09, 2008 5:02 PM

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Poetry can communicate before it is understood. ~T. S. Eliot

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Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~ Plato

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A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. ~ Salman Rushdie

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Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~ Novalis

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Poetry is what maintains our capacity for contemplation and difficulty. — Carolyn Forche

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Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild. — Denis Diderot

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Sometimes something wants to be said, sometimes a way of saying wants to be used. — Paul ValĂ©ry

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